The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 17, 2499

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Mateo and Olimpia were in St. Louis on one of their business trips. There was an issue with the booking, which was forcing them into a single room with a single bed. It was no coincidence that all of the hotels were booked up this week. They weren’t the only game in this town right now. Every ridesourcing company was hoping to strike a deal with St. Louis Metro Transit. They were looking to expand their service to multiple outlying areas, but found the project to be cost-prohibitive on their own. One of the bus drivers moonlighted as a driver for Tractus Rides, and suggested they form some sort of partnership. It was a last mile program, which could help thousands get to their destinations at lower cost than if they had to drive themselves, or use a ridesharing service alone. The executives actually thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t just want to close themselves up to options. Everyone was going to get a shot to pitch their idea. This would be a huge opportunity for RideSauce. While St. Louis fell under Mateo’s purview, he wasn’t in charge of the negotiations, because that was well above his paygrade. If they managed to secure something here, there was a chance that RideSauce would make similar deals in other cities.

Only the higher ups for RideSource were here, but Tractus went a different direction. They decided to secure rooms for their local drivers as well, reportedly to show their enthusiasm for the project, but clearly just to make themselves look stronger. They took all the hotel rooms just so they could walk around with their big swingin’ wieners, and that was annoying. There was nothing that the front desk agent could do, so Mateo was gonna have to swallow his pride, and speak to his archrival. “Pacey,” he greeted with an insincere nod.

“Matthew, what a pleasant surprise.” Pacey Henricksen was essentially Mateo’s equivalent for Tractus in the central midwest, though not exactly. Their organization was structured differently, so he managed more cities, and other divisions in those cities. RideSauce focused on ridesourcing, but Tractus was also in delivery and limousine services. And he knew that Mateo would be here, obviously.

“You took all the rooms.”

Pacey breathed in deeply through his nose and nodded. “We need them.”

“This is a stunt.”

“This is all a stunt,” Pacey argued. “That’s what we’re doing here. How we appear to the client is what matters most.”

“What we can provide to the client is what matters in our eyes,” Mateo countered. “They’ll see that.” He wasn’t really here to get in a fight, but he couldn’t help it.

“We’re bigger, and they need to know how much better we’ll be at scaling operations.”

“Your other divisions are irrelevant. The bus riders aren’t going to be getting in any limos.”

“They might if they pay a premium,” Pacey reasoned.

Mateo laughed. “They’re bus riders,” Mateo emphasized. “They don’t pay premiums. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“We’ll see. Did you need something?”

“We need one of your rooms. They overbooked, so now we’re stuck with one between the two of us.”

Pacey looked over Mateo’s shoulder, at Olimpia. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Put your tongue back in your mouth, you’re not her type.”

“What’s her type?”

“Decent people,” Mateo answered.

Pacey shrugged. “I’m sure she would make an exception.”

“She and I are professionals. You might look into it. Until then, what do I need to do to get one of your rooms?”

Pacey grimaced. “You see, if I give you a room, I’ll be taking it away from someone else, which means they’ll be pairing up instead. That doesn’t really solve the problem, it just shifts it to someone else. You have more experience with that than I do.”

Ugh. Of course he would bring that up again. He always found a way whenever they ran into each other. “For the last time, that driver was not in my area. Just because he was supposed to drive the rider from Sioux Falls to Sioux City doesn’t mean he worked for me. He was registered in South Dakota. I had nothing to do with the failed background check.”

“Well, it speaks to how flippant your company is with safety and security,” Pacey decided.

“The driver worked for you too, he passed your background check just as easily, so don’t give me that bullshit. And unlike me, South Dakota is in your jurisdiction.”

“Well, he wasn’t working for us that night, which is why the judge withheld it as evidence.”

Mateo had no retort, and it was a distraction anyway. “There are only two of us, and as her superior, it would be inappropriate for us to share a room. Pacey. Please. You must know of two people who can bunk up.”

Pacey looked away in thought. “Well...there’s this one driver that I’ve been seeing. I suppose that she and I could share. Your little assistant could sleep in her room instead. We wouldn’t even have to involve the hotel. We’ll just give her a keycard. But if she takes anything from the mini-bar, you’re paying for it.”

“She never would,” Mateo explained. “I’ll ask her if she’s okay with it.”

“Lovely,” Pacey said. “Always glad to assist a colleague.”

Mateo stepped over to talk to Olimpia, who was receptive to the idea. She wasn’t entirely convinced that the original situation was a problem that needed to be fixed, but she didn’t argue. She wouldn’t, though. He needed to get better at reading her, and recognizing that he’s her boss, and that she wouldn’t want to antagonize him. As long as Pacey’s companion stayed in his room, instead of going back to her own, Olimpia should be fine. That wasn’t what happened, though, and they should have known.

“They got in a big fight apparently,” Olimpia said at Mateo’s doorway.

“Come on in,” he said, stepping away.

She rolled her suitcase inside. “She was telling me about it, but I’ve become pretty good at tuning people out. I know what they want to hear when I’m pretending to listen actively, based on tone and pauses in their speech, so I don’t have to absorb the information. I’m sure it was very banal and meaningless. The fact is, she wanted her room back, and I didn’t want to stick around. She said she was fine sharing it with me, because I seemed cool, but I really don’t wanna do that.” She looked around this room. “I was hoping there was a couch, errr...”

“No, the company’s very frugal. I typically don’t care. It doesn’t need to be big, just clean. But you can sleep in the bed, and I’ll be in the tub.”

“I know you, Mateo, you shower at night. I can tell that you already have. The tub is wet.”

He shrugged. “I always bring a swimsuit. I’ll sleep in that.”

“That’s silly. We can share, it’ll be fine.”

Mateo looked down at the bed. “It’s a full, not even a queen. Pacey must have done that on purpose as further punishment.”

“Pacey?” she questioned. “How would he have any control over what room you were assigned?”

Mateo blinked. “I don’t know, how would he?”

Olimpia blinked back. “Can you sleep next to a woman without having sex with her?”

“Yeah, can you? Vice versa, that is?”

She hesitated to answer.

“Olimpia, it’s a simple—” Wait...

She still couldn’t answer, and she didn’t try to backpedal.

No, he couldn’t sleep in the bed with her. He couldn’t even sleep in the tub. He had to get out of here entirely. “You take the bed, I’m gonna hail a RideSauce Hot. They’re almost always SUVs, so I should be able to sleep in the back.”

“That’ll cost you a fortune.”

“Not if we don’t go anywhere,” he contended. “I’ll pay under the table.”

“That is not a service that our company offers.”

“No, but...I’m the boss. I’m sure whoever it is will say yes. That’s the difference between us and Tractus. The drivers know who I am. Nobody who works for Pacey could pick him out of a line up.”

“Mateo, it’ll be fine. I’m not saying that I won’t be able to handle it. I just want to be honest about my feelings.”

“I appreciate that. It would have been real easy for you to say nothing, and let it happen. But I have to nip this in the bud. You’re my employee, and I’m married.”

“Right, which is why I’ll get over it.”

“It’s too complicated. Things are different out there.” He pivoted, and started to gaze out the window at the stars. What did they have to do with anything?

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Mateo’s phone rang. It was Leona. “Hey, I’m about to go to bed.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. What would be wrong?”

“I just had this feeling that you’re upset about something. I can’t explain it.”

“Things have gotten a little bit awkward with the hotel rooms, but we’re working it out. I think you just get worried about me when I’m gone.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Oh, hold on. I’m getting another call.” He switched over without even bothering to see who it was. “Hello?”

“Mateo. This is Angela. Is everything okay?”

“Angela? My neighbor? Why would you think there’s something wrong?”

“Marie and I just started getting this weird feeling.”

A text came in. It was Ramses. Yu ight?

What the hell was going on?

They heard a series of beeps at the door just before it opened. Pacey walked in. He looked disappointed. “I thought you three had an understanding, but it looks like the feelings are a little more complicated, so this whole hotel room gambit isn’t gonna get you where you need to be.”

“What are you talking about?” Mateo demanded to know. “How do you even have a key to get in this room?”

Pacey looked back at the door, and then back to Mateo. “What room?”

“I’m so confused.” Mateo sat down on the edge of the bed, and buried his face in his hands.”

“I know,” Pacey said. “I messed up. I was trying to respect your privacy by only extracting the memories and knowledge that I needed to set up a plausible scenario, but it wasn’t enough. I’m afraid, in order to keep you here, I’m gonna have to go deeper.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Mateo argued.

“I know, and you won’t remember any of this anyway. You and Olimpia will have had sex tonight. That’s how you’ll remember it, and you will have already told Leona about it by the time you wake up. In fact, it will have been weeks ago. She will be fine, and the three of you will move forward with your relationship. Unfortunately, in order to make this work, you’re gonna have to lose the transit contract. I’ll become a weaker antagonist if you don’t.”

Actually, this was starting to make sense. Mateo’s memories were resurfacing. None of this was real. This wasn’t his life. This wasn’t any of their lives. “I know you. You met Leona before. She ran into you in the ka—”

Mateo was nervous. He had never been on a date with two women before. Well, there was that one time, but that was more of a double date where his girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend flaked out on her. He had never been interested in that other girl. He was interested in Olimpia, and as fate would have it, Leona was interested in her too. She seemed to like them both. This might even go okay. But a first date was a first date, and those were stressful no matter what.

“Are you ready?” Leona asked. “I just need to pick a pair of shoes.”

“Wow. You look beautiful in that.”

“It’ll look better on the floor,” she joked. “Ah, come on, I’m tryna lighten the mood.”

“Is this weird? This seems weird. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“It’s almost the 26th century,” Leona began. “Polyamory is in.”

“I know, but...”

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Two hot chicks are into you. Just let it happen. If things get messy in the future, we’ll clean it up. No one’s life is gonna get ruined.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“You and I have been through worse,” Leona claimed.

“We’ll see about that.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “But I trust in your judgment. And I love you.”

“Were I you,” she said as he was walking out of the room.

“Were you me what?”

She blinked. “Huh. I don’t know. It’s an idiom, though, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t.” But was it?

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Microstory 2202: Were Still Late

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I’m so embarrassed, I woke up late this morning. I guess my body (and my now broken alarm clock) thought it would be funny if today was the opposite of yesterday. Fortunately, Jasmine and I always go into work together, since we live in the same building. I usually meet her in the lobby, but when I didn’t show, she used her copy of my key to check in on me. She didn’t even wait very long, because she was worried that I was hurt again. I was just still in bed, none the wiser. I rushed to pull my clothes on, and brush my teeth, then we ran out of there. We normally take the bus, since I don’t drive anymore, but if we had waited for the next one to come by, we would have been really late. Jasmine, being the friendly neighbor she is with everyone, knows someone else in the building who has a car, so he gave us a ride. We were still late, but it wasn’t serious. Being the boss, I could just claim that I make the rules, so I can do whatever I want, but I don’t want to be like that. Everyone on my staff is dedicated to their jobs, so I need to be just as committed. I can’t really be fired for being a half hour late, but I still owed them an apology. They understood, of course, and didn’t give me any crap about it. I used to set multiple alarms when I was a kid for safety. I should probably look into that again, placing one in a different room to make sure that I actually get up and moving around. That’s it, bye! You don’t deserve more out of me right now.

Microstory 2073: Heck of a Lot Worse

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Woke up to a gift from my landlord this morning. No, I should say gifts. She knows that I’m starting my job at the plant nursery tomorrow, and she wanted to give me some stuff that I’ll need. I’m sure that some of this will be supplied by my employer, but it was really nice and thoughtful. She got me zip-off cargo pants, a zip-off shirt, which I had never seen before, a water reservoir to go over my shoulders, sunscreen, insect repellent, gardening gloves, a cool hat, boots, and a jacket. I’m so grateful to her for taking me in, and being so patient and understanding with me. I can’t tell her enough how much I appreciate it. I give this universe a lot of crap, but I know that it could be a heck of a lot worse. Boring is good, boring is safe. I could just as easily have ended up in a world without my immortality, and danger lurking around every corner. So this post is for you, residents of Boreverse. I’m not gonna change your name, but I’m not gonna criticize you for it anymore. Cheers, mates. I would tip my glass to you, but I don’t drink alcohol, and neither do you, which I’m really glad about. So I really shouldn’t give you a hard time. Welp, I’m off to bed much earlier tonight. I’m expected to be at work by 06:00, and I have to take the bus, which means getting up at 4:15. I don’t mind, I’ve had early jobs before, but I should have better prepared for it by starting the new schedule sooner, so my body would be used to it by now. That’s some free advice for you, kids. Social jet lag can be a real problem. Don’t let it happen to you if you can avoid it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 27, 2398

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Mateo didn’t think to put Las Vegas, New Mexico or Las Vegas, Nevada on his list of places to investigate. It didn’t occur to him to include every single place that he’s ever been. For many people, that’s a costly and time-consuming endeavor, but for him, he’s been to surprisingly few places around the world. He’s probably been to more worlds than particular locations on any given world, and they’re all inaccessible for him anyway. His list would be a lot longer with faster-than-light intergalactic, or even just interstellar, travel. Anyway, there is probably more to learn about New Mexico, but Leona declared that they were going to leave for Kansas City, so that’s what they did. The bus took the two of them, plus Winona, across two more state borders, and dropped them off at the condo. From there, the latter separated from the group, and made her way back to whatever secret government lair she lives in.

The condo was a mess. It was designed for a family of four, but there were now fifteen people, it’s absolutely ridiculous. They made it work like a slumber party, but if anyone wants any privacy going forward, something is going to have to change. Ramses woke up really early the next morning, and tiptoed over the sleeping bags, very careful so as to not wake anyone. He only had one final thing to do at the lab before it was ready for primetime, but it was going to take the next several hours, and he didn’t want to go one more night without the third floor.

Leona and Angela join him there at a more reasonable hour to work on some things on the other two floors, and then everyone meets there before dinner. It’s going to be a mini-twin convention. At least that’s what they’ll tell anyone who notices the duplicates in the private room of the restaurant. They’re asked to wait at the bottom floor while Ramses runs up alone to prepare for the big reveal. He actually locks the elevator down so that no one can get a sneak peek. Rolling his eyes, Mateo takes the stairs, but everyone else continues to wait in the lobby.

Ramses is trying to carry two nightstands down the hallway. “Oh, it’s just you. Could you help me?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfectly finished,” Mateo points out to him as he takes one of them. “It just needs to be livable for now; electricity, plumbing...”

“And that’s all I’ve done. There’s still a lot to do to make any of this look like a home...or homes, that is.”

After Mateo finishes placing the nightstand by the bed, he starts to look around on his own, ignoring protests from Ramses who wants to give everybody the tour all at once. This is where they’re going to move to, the lot of them. They’ll be safe here. Well, at least as safe as possible. No place on Earth is safe from their enemies, but this is still the better choice. They have outgrown the Ponce de Leon, especially with the newcomers, who may or may not be staying. It’s in need of decor, but it will do nicely. Ramses done did good. “How many units? Nine?”

“Eight,” Ramses corrects. “That door at the end is not a unit. It’s a common area for all of us. The others are studio-size, according to this world’s current standards. The two on either side of the common area are each a little bigger, but they’re all fit for one or two people. Ah, but I’m saying too much. Come back during the official tour!”

Mateo laughs. “Open the elevator, Rambo.”

Ramses presses a button on his device, and sends the elevator down for the others. They spill out of it like sardines, thirteen people in a space for ten or eleven. “Welcome, welcome, all, to The Lofts at Matic Labs!”

“That’s not what the lab is called,” Leona says in a way that sounds like she’s had to tell him that many times.

Ramses insists on showing everybody each apartment, even though six of them are pretty much identical, and the other two are identical to each other. Each one has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette. Most of the cooking is meant to be done in that common area, which resembles an office break room. Its kitchen is fully loaded, and is accompanied by couches, computers, other screens, and its own bathroom. He may have called these lofts, but in reality, they combine to form a single house that happens to be sitting on top of a small office building.

“Which one is ours?” little Trina asks.

“Oh, we can’t stay here,” Alyssa says to her sadly.

“Why not?” Ramses asks her.

“Well, this is yours. We’re not really part of all this.”

“Nonsense,” Ramses says. “You have a destiny with us, you may just not know it yet. I built this for our friends, and you qualify.” He addresses the whole room, “you all qualify, duplicates included.”

Alyssa is unsure. She looks to Leona and Mateo, whose facial expressions echo the sentiment. This should be their home now, and not because they can’t take care of themselves, but because they’re family. The only question would be the other Mateo, the other Leonas, and Andile. It’s unclear what they want out of life, and whether their objectives align with everyone else’s. Well, that’s not the only question. If they too want to return to the main sequence—and not just to die—they might want to stay close. Whenever the team figures out how to accomplish their task, it could be time sensitive, and space might even be limited. They don’t know yet. They just don’t know.

“Okay, we’ll stay, and we’ll take whatever unit no one else wants,” Alyssa decides.

“The two on either side of us have more square meterage, but an odd configuration, because this room butts into them,” Ramses begins. “For a family of four, I would recommend units B, C, F, or G. A and H are smaller because of the elevator, so I’ll take one of those.”

“We’ll take the other,” Mateo volunteers for himself and Leona.

Ramses points at people’s heads, and counts in his own. “If the McIvers are together, and couples are together, four of us will have to pair up to make it work.”

“My Leona and I can be in one unit,” Andile says.

“Are you sure?” Alt!Leona asks. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m tired of running. Let’s stay with people who care about us.”

“That still leaves two roommates. Alt!Mateo, I’m okay bunking with you.”

“No, we can do that, can’t we?” Kivi asks, indicating herself and Angela.

“No,” Alt!Mateo says. “I don’t know what made you think I would be interested in joining your little cult, but I’m not going to do that.”

“What will you do instead?” Alt!Leona asks. It’s very awkward between them since he was, and will be responsible, for her death in Reality One.

“I don’t have to go home, but I can’t..stay..here.” He starts to leave.

“You will always have a home here, just the same!” Ramses calls to him.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 26, 2398

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The process of freeing the unconscious prisoners is not easy. It wasn’t legal for them to be kept there like that in the first place, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal to just let them out, and drive away. Certain people should be notified about all of this so a proper investigation can take place. The Matics didn’t have time for this, and they didn’t want all that heat on them anyway, so their only choice was to sneak them out themselves. Most people working at the facility didn’t know about the secret prisoners, but enough of them did to avoid having to actually break out, like Mateo and Leona have had to do so many times in the past. Still, they had to wait for the cover of night, and the few guards who could help them had to dress differently. The prisoners would have been spooked to see a guard’s uniform. It had to look like a legit covert mission by a third party, which it essentially was. They loaded them into a school bus, and drove off without a hitch. Winona had to go back to finish one last thing first, which Leona assumed was code for killing the doctor who kept them locked up there, but she can’t prove that.

It’s morning now, on a Sunday. They can’t take the strangers to the secret McIver cabin, because there must be a reason they were in the prison in the first place. The question is what was that reason, or those reasons? It wouldn’t be any of their business what they allegedly did to get themselves into a special isolated section of the prison under normal circumstances, but since the team broke them out, it doesn’t seem crazy to ask. But are they entitled to an answer? Maybe, but food and shelter first, and Winona claims to have a little place to take them just outside of Las Vegas. Leona tried to call it a safehouse, but Winona was hesitant to agree with that guess. Both she and Mateo slept most of the way, the Energy water they injected themselves with having worn off, and caused them to crash

“Where are we?” a groggy Mateo asks Winona, who is sitting behind him.

“A few miles past Santa Fe,” Winona answers.

“Santa Fe...New Mexico?” he questions.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the wrong direction? I thought we were going to Las Vegas.”

“Yes,” Winona confirmed. “There’s also a Las Vegas in N-M.”

Mateo relaxes his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve been there.”

“You have?” Leona asks. It’s funny that she should forget such a thing. How many other memories managed to escape her steel trap?

“Yeah, my parents and I were stranded there once, back in, uh...” That was 378 years ago, in an old timeline.

“Right, I remember now. I was in school at the time.”

“Do you have something against the town?” Winona asks, worried about pissing them off.

“As long as it helps these people, it’s fine,” Leona brushes off.

“Anyway, we’re not technically going to be in Vegas. We’ll pass it in a half hour or so, and end up closer to a one-horse town called Arriba.”

Leona nods, unperturbed. She doesn’t know about Marie yet. Mateo doesn’t know how to tell her, or any of them, for that matter. He should talk to her first, to get her side of the story. She’s obviously not evil, but the Honeycutts have caused them all a lot of problems since they came here, and that’s not something they should have to just forgive and forget without an explanation.

The bus exits onto Highway 104, and heads away from civilization. Before too long, it turns again, and takes them to a place in the middle of nowhere called Jimenez Cemetery. “Ominous,” one of the prisoners muses. “You are saving us, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Winona replies believably.

The driver stops, and opens the door. Everyone begins to climb out, looking for any sign that this is the right place to be. It might be a poetic location, fit to kill a bunch of ne’er-do-wells that society doesn’t want to deal with anymore. She’s probably going to force them to dig their own graves.

There’s a little shack on the other side of the graves. A man comes out of it in response to their arrival, polishing something in his hands. As he approaches, Mateo starts to think that he must recognize him. Even Leona seems to be having trouble matching a name to the face. “Mr. Halifax,” Winona greets him respectfully.

How could they not spot him immediately? It’s The Gravedigger. Though, to be fair, it’s been a pretty long time since they’ve seen him, and he looks a few years older. If anyone can get them back home, it’s this guy. He lives in another universe, and is on a first name basis with the powers that be. Or maybe they should be referred to as the powers that were. Nah, they’re still in control of other people’s lives.

“Is this all of them?” Halifax asks.

“Yes,” Winona says. “Can you take them all at once?”

Halifax narrows his eyes at the crowd, particularly at Mateo and Leona. “That depends. Do any of them not want to come with me?”

Leona crosses her arms. “That depends. Where are you taking them?”

“That depends...on where they belong,” Halifax says cryptically.

“Where might they belong?” Mateo asks him.

“Various places,” Halifax begins. “Kind of like how I belong elsewhere.”

“They’re bulk travelers,” Leona realizes.

“What does that mean?” Winona asks.

“It’s above your paygrade,” Halfiax says to her.

Winona looks over at Mateo. “This is why I need to debrief you, despite what you think I’ve already been told.”

“You’ve been told enough for us to want to debrief you.

“How did they end up here?” Leona asks Halifax, ignoring the short exchange between her husband and Winona.

“Westfall,” Halifax answers, surprisingly forthcoming.

“So, they don’t even know,” Leona notes.

“Unclear,” Halifax says. Westfall is a section of The Crossover which instigates travel between universes while preventing travelers from even realizing that anything happened. Instead, they believe that everything they see is just a part of their own world.

“We’ll go with you,” Leona begins “as long as our friends can come with us, and as long as we get certain biochemical characteristics back.”

“I can’t give you either,” Halifax says apologetically. “I wish I could.”

“Come on, Honeycutt,” Leona says as she turns away. “It was nice to see you!” she yells back to Halifax.

“Likewise,” he returns.

Microstory 1719: The Centaurs

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My people have been cursed to wander the continent forever. We may stop to rest for the night, and gather resources, but then we must continue. Legend says that anyone who spends too long in one place will be turned to stone. This is not entirely true, but it is not completely false either. A body cannot transform into stone, but it can become stone-like. Their skin will harden, and their feet will root into the ground. The enemy who cursed us decided that we would have a choice, and treated this choice as a great gift. We can either keep moving, or we can never move again. Of course, that is no choice at all. Some say the stonemen are kept alive where they are forever, but there is no way for us to know that. If we ever see someone become stonelike, the only course of action is to get moving again, and we are always long gone before the stonemen can die... or not, if that is the case. No one here was alive when the curse fell upon us. We were all born into this way of living, and most of us accept that there is nothing we can do about it. I am not so sure. I know that there is a way out of this, and it’s all because of something I once saw when I separated myself from the group for a brief period of time. Going off is a fine thing to do. In fact, our tribe has been split a few times over the decades. Some groups would prefer to go another direction, while a few individuals have determined that they would survive better on their own. Many of us just like to walk alone for a while, but then we rejoin later. One day, when alone, I encountered something I had never seen before. We have come across many other tribes, but we try to steer clear, worried that the curse will befall them as well if they spend too much time with us. We would wish this on no one. The few individuals I saw that day were different. They were sitting upon great beasts, which evidently walked for them. They called these creatures horses, and referred to themselves as The Centaurs. I was in awe, and hopeful that there was some way for my tribe to rest and walk at the same time.

I begged these Centaurs to follow me, so I could show my people what they have discovered, but they were worried. To begin, they did not want to incur the wrath of the demons who cursed us in the first place. I have never seen one of these demons myself, but I have seen stonemen, so I know that someone must have done this to us, and that it is not some kind of elaborate lie to control us. Still, the demons could be watching us in secret, and if so, would be capable of punishing us further for attempting to find a way out of our predicament. The Centaurs were also worried that we would steal their horses for ourselves. We are noble and just, and would never do such a thing, but I understand the concern. All I want to know is where they found their animals, and whether we could find more for ourselves. In the end, they did not agree, and I was forced to return to the group with only my word. Many believed what I told them of the Centaurs, but not everyone, and of those who did, some did not believe it would be a good option. As far as I knew, only eleven horses existed in the entire world. That would not be enough to sustain our entire population. I urged them to reconsider, assuming there to be greater number of the animals somewhere, but also pointed out that eleven would be enough for us to take turns. It did not matter, they believed. We didn’t know where any of these horses were, and there was every chance we would happen upon them as we continued to wander. Looking for them on purpose would not increase the odds. It would, I explained, if we spread out more, but still, they refused to hear me. Frustrated with their skepticism, I have now separated myself once more, and I am not sure if I will ever rejoin. I keep walking in a lateral direction, always hoping to randomly come across more Centaurs, or better yet, unused horses. Instead, I have found something else. It is a massive object that I can barely describe. It’s yellow, but covered in black rectangles. There are four black circles on the bottom near each corner, which rest upon the ground. I step inside to find dozens of seats that would make quite comfortable beds, but one looks special. It’s in the front, and there are tons of objects along with it, like little dots, and another black circle. I see something shiny underneath it, and feel a compulsion not to take it out, but to turn it. The yellow object roars and shakes, and for a moment, I’m worried that it’s going to eat me. I cannot let it, so I sit down in the seat, and start tinkering with everything I find that moves. A couple of things are at my feet. When I step on one, the entire thing lurches just a little bit. I keep moving things around, trying to figure out how this thing works, and eventually realize that the entire yellow object is some kind of motion machine. After some trial and error, I manage to make it go for an extended period of time, all the way back to the group. I am the Centaur now.

Microstory 1702: Air Pump

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I cannot find my bicycle pump. My Aunt Leah is going to kill me if I’m late, but that’s not the worst part. She bought me all this nice equipment so I could go green, and sell my car for some extra cash. If I don’t show up to her office with the bike, it’s going to break her heart. It doesn’t matter that the flat tire isn’t my fault, or that her son has been staying with me for the last couple weeks, and he keeps moving my crap around. She can’t even be allowed to see a hint of the possibility that I ever go anywhere without it. Of course, I take public transportation all the time. The movie theatre is too far away, and I like to buy all of the groceries I’ll need for a month. She cannot know this. She is too unreasonable and frantic about everything that happens to her. The more time I spend looking for the air pump, the less time I have to resort to the alternative solution. And I do have another solution. It’s just not particularly ethical, and could come back to bite me in the ass later. It’s better than having Aunt Leah ice me out. She controls a lot about the family, and even though she won’t have much inheritance to give me when she croaks, she holds a lot of sway with the grandparents. That’s it, it’s already taken me too long. I’m going to have to do the other thing. My neighbor isn’t going to like it, but I can deal with her later, and she can’t threaten me with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, my family is quite rich. I’m not, but they are, and if I wanna become like them when I grow up, I have to play ball. I may sound selfish or materialistic, but I hate working, and I don’t have very many marketable skills. I was made for the simple life.

Fortunately, my neighbor gave me her garage code in case of emergencies, or when she gets packages during her time away. Also fortunately, she has a very similar bike. It’s not exactly the same, but I’ve gotten quite good at amateur bike repair, so I should be able to make it work. I think I can do it. I enter the code, and slip under the door before it’s all the way open, as if my other neighbors somehow won’t notice if I’m quick enough. I turn her bike over, and start to remove the wheel carefully, but as quickly as possible. It’s off in minutes, and I’m halfway there. Well...I’m halfway there to being halfway there. I close her garage behind me, and walk back over to mine. I still have to take my bad wheel off so I can replace it, but that goes a lot faster, because I’m so much more familiar with it. I get the new wheel on, and I’m surprised at how nicely it fits. Hmm. It almost looks like it actually belongs. An enthusiast could tell the difference, but it should pass Leah’s inspection. After all, she has no reason to believe I had to cannibalize someone else’s property to get it in working order. She might not even see it in the bike rack from her third story office. This was always a precaution. I take a few laps around my driveway, just to make sure, but I can’t waste too much time on it, because now I’m really running late. I can still make it, but I’m going to have to haul ass. I close my own garage, and race out into the street. There’s a lot more traffic than I would like, and drivers are getting pissy with me, but they can suck it. I’m more important to them in this moment; not in general, but right now. They would understand if they knew what’s at stake. Finally the streets clear up. I’m also at the top of the hill, so if I just let it ride without being careful, I can make up time. I pedal as hard as I can to give myself even more of an edge. I smile as I check my watch. Yeah, I’m gonna make it. Except I don’t. A bus makes a right turn in front of me, and I’m moving too fast to brake. I die instantly.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 1, 2116

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Mateo met with Camden Voss of the IAC, who agreed to send him up to the year 2114. That was about as close as he could get to his people. Other time travelers would have been able to get him closer, but he knew Camden would do it without asking for anything in return, and he just wanted to get as close as possible. If he had to wait two years until the next transition window, then so be it. In fact, maybe this was best, because he had no way of knowing where exactly the window would show up, so he needed time to figure that out. That could be left as a problem for tomorrow, though, or maybe next week. For now, he just wanted to relax, and take in the sights. The powers that be couldn’t get to him, even though he was in the main sequence, because this new clone body didn’t have his original pattern. He was finally free—away from Leona, but still free, and if it could be done for him, it could be done for her too.

In 2030, workers finished the construction of a highly advanced intentional community called Hexagon City. They broke ground on former farmland just outside the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Starting from scratch so late in human history allowed them to build with a better understanding of the future in mind. Living spaces were predominantly vertical; not nearly as large as the megastructures people were erecting all over the world right now, but taller than most skyscrapers of 2030, and designed for maximum efficiency. A railway loop, two-way buses, elevators, and people movers connected the residents to one another, and they were all connected, so traffic jams were a thing of the past. It was completely self-sustainable, growing its produce in vertical farm cylinders, and producing its own renewable energy. It wasn’t a prison; people could come and go as they pleased, but no cars were allowed within its borders, so if you wanted in on this, you had to get with the program.

Following the Kansas model, several more like it were built over the decades, in various locations that were inspired by the original designers, but not a whole hell of a lot. Engineers and futurists knew it was only a matter of time before the extremely consolidated arcologies would be possible, so it never really caught on. Their heyday was short, like the one car phones enjoyed before cell phones overtook them in popularity. The hexagons would one day be bulldozed, but for now, they remained, and just as many people still lived there, even though there were better options. Mateo and Leona had heard of this place back when they were first jumping through this time period, but never managed to see it before it faded away. She probably never would. That reminded him of how sad it was—

“Mateo.”

“Yes? Oh, it’s you.”

“I finally found you,” Jupiter said. “It was not easy. I had to contact a lot of your friends, and they all thought they knew where you were, because there are two versions of you in this reality.”

“Ah, yes,” Mateo remembered. “I’m on Tribulation Island right now, though. I wouldn’t go back there. Too many people would recognize me.”

“I figured,” he said. “I didn’t bother checking.”

“How did you even know that I existed at all?” Mateo asked. “Didn’t I die in the Parallel?”

“You did,” Jupiter confirmed. “You’re completely dead. There’s a body, and everything. Which doesn’t make any sense, because you’re fated to die on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. The universe should have automagically transported you there to avoid a temporal paradox. So it was suspicious.”

“Yeah, I can’t explain that,” Mateo said.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“You’re right, I won’t.”

“Let’s sit.”

“Okay, but I’ll lead.”

“What?”

“I’ll ask the questions here!” Mateo said jokingly. “Seriously, though, I will. When we’re done, you’ll agree that I legit can’t explain myself to you, even though I technically could indeed tell you my truth. Let us begin. Are you my enemy?”

This question made Jupiter squirm. “No, sir.”

“Why did you pretend to be?”

“Would you have helped, if my brother and I had asked?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

Jupiter bobbed his head, like he was weighing his options. “We toyed with the idea, but we decided that there was no way for us to explain our motivations to you. You help people all the time, of course, but only people who seem to need it. We didn’t need it; we just wanted it. Perhaps we chose the wrong path, but we determined the best way of recruiting you was to make you think you had no choice. You always make the right call when someone tries to get you to be bad. You’re used to having an enemy to fight, or an obstacle to overcome, so we gave you that.”

Mateo nodded his head. “I still don’t get your motivations, though. You’re pushing people through transition windows to the Parallel, but then letting us send them back? Why? Surely there would be easier ways to save their lives, if that’s really all you’re going for. It feels like there’s some master plan that we can’t see, because we’re too close to it.”

“There’s no grand plan. I mean, obviously we’re rescuing people we think can help the future. Jericho Hagen, for instance, is better for the timeline when he embraces the future of the adjudicative system than he is when he operates against it. The best way to do that was to stop him from being around while the new system was forming. Fourteen years ago, Jericho returned to this reality, pretended to be his own son—to avoid having to explain where he had been for the last twenty-two years—and started a new life; a better life. But that’s a personal situation. We’re not grooming him to have some profound impact on the people he meets. We mainly wanted to help him, just like we wanted to save your once-mother from the 2025 pathogen, and The Escapologist from the collapse of her reality.”

“But why these people?” Mateo questioned. “Sometimes we skip, like twenty years worth of people who can be saved. It seems a little unbelievable that the only ones you care about are the ones we’re around to help.”

Jupiter giggled. “These are the people that you’re helping, because you’re around to do so. You’re not my only team. You just never see the others.”

“Oh.”

He smiled. “I know you know you’re not special. You’re part of something great, and that’s good enough for you.”

“Yes, of course. I guess I still just don’t understand why you felt the need to create the Parallel in the first place? Why don’t you just teleport in and pull people to safety?”

“I can’t teleport, Mateo, just like you can’t jump backwards in time on your own, or see the future. The Saviors, like Daria and Xearea, are responsible for doing what you describe. They break into hotel rooms to stop men from beating their sex workers. They appear behind someone sitting on a park bench, choking on their sandwich. That’s what they can do. The Kingmaker goes all throughout time, doing similar things, for a particular breed of person. I’m different. I can access alternate realities, but only for a specific reason. I have the power to copy myself, and I do this by reaching into a different reality, and extracting my alternate self from it. But I can’t actually go explore his reality, because it doesn’t really exist. He’s from an unstable, collapsing timeline. The difference between our two worlds has only happened on the quantum level. The Arborist can go to truly separate timelines, because she’s reaching backwards in meta-time. Maybe I’m not explaining this right. When you go back in time and change something—take note of the airquotes—you’re not really going back at all. What you’re doing is staying in place, and pulling the past to the present, so that you can branch into a new timeline. Again, I don’t have the ability to do this, but the Parallel is a loophole. It’s an alternate reality that is not also an alternate timeline, which means I can access it physically. I created it so I can help people in my way, because that’s all I got.”

“I understand,” Mateo told him. “You’re doing what you can. What can I do? How do I get back to my friends?”

Jupiter removed a pair of Cassidy cuffs from his bag. “I repossessed these from your other body. There’s a proximity feature that will transport you to one of the others, should you choose to go that route.”

“What other route would I go?” Mateo was confused.

“I told you about those other teams. You could join one of them, and do the same thing, but with a different pattern. You might wanna consider it. Leona has mourned your passing twice now. It could be traumatic to make her go through that again. This really is a choice, which you have to make. I’m not trying to coerce you, or even persuade you to go either way. I’m just giving you the option, which I probably should have done in the first place.”

Mateo had to seriously consider this offer. For a while now, Mateo had felt like a burden for Leona. It kind of started from the very beginning. When they met, his situation was so intriguing to her that trying to move on from him would have seemed like a wasted opportunity to learn something interesting about the universe. Then he gave her his kidney, and brought her onto the pattern. Even after creating the new timeline, which changed all of that, he couldn’t do anything to stop her from reentering his world. Then he disappeared from existence, and she had to go through a lot to get him back. Then they got separated by the intergalactic void, and then he had his indiscretion with Cassidy Long, and then he died. He had put her through too much, and if he let himself go back to her, he would probably do it again. He had two patterns; uncontrollably jumping forwards in time, and also making his wife’s life more difficult. But that was the caveat, wasn’t it? She was his wife, and suggesting that everything was his fault was actually also taking away her agency as an independent human being. She made a lot of her own choices, and it wasn’t fair for him to dismiss those because of his guilt. Her being his wife also meant that he had to do everything he could to put them back together, because that was what marriage was.

“Get me to 2116.” Mateo extended his arms, like a bank robber who knew he had been caught.

“As you wish.” Jupiter snapped the cuffs onto his wrists, while simultaneously pulling them both through a transition window. Then he tapped on one of the cuff’s interfaces to activate the proximity feature.

Mateo jumped two years and three months into the future.

“I knew it,” Leona said, taking him into a neck hug. “I knew you couldn’t be dead. There’s something fishy with the extraction mirror they used to bring you back. What do you know? Where have you been?”

While he was talking to Jupiter, Mateo was working through an explanation for his absence in the back of his mind. He wanted to get as close to the truth as possible. There was no reason his friends weren’t allowed to know about 2014, or Camden, or even his discussion with Jupiter Fury. He just couldn’t say anything about Bida, the clone tank, the people who brought him back to life, or how they did it. That was a secret that deserved to remain hidden. “Do you remember walking through Holly Blue’s homeportal? Do you remember what it felt like?”

“Yeah,” Leona said. “It was kind of slimy, but it didn’t leave behind residue. Still, I felt pretty warm for a long time afterwards. My theory is that the de-aging process is a form of reversing entropy, so heat concentrates into you.”

“Well, that’s what I felt, just after I died.” Mateo used airquotes. “One second, I was heading for the ground, and the next, I was walking through the cemetery, and I felt very warm. It’s like the homeportal did leave a residue, which saved me from death, I guess by making a new copy of me, or something. Anyway, I made my way to the IAC, asked Camden to send me to 2114, where Jupiter found me, and gave me back my cuffs.” There, that was it. That was a good version of the truth. “I don’t want you thinking you’re invincible, though, Leona. It might have been a one-time deal, or it’s just now worn off for you, I don’t know. Don’t tempt fate.”

“I don’t intend to let myself almost die,” she assured him.

Mateo was glad to hear it. “So, what did I miss with you guys? I assume Jericho went back to the main sequence through Xearea’s window? Did Ariadna go with them?”

“I’m here.” Ariadna popped her head out of the AOC’s airlock. “I was thinking about leaving this year, but there doesn’t seem to be an upcoming window for me to stowaway.”

“Well,” J.B. began, “you only got one more year. We’re in July now, so the Bearimy-Matic pattern is exactly like the original Matic pattern was, and will stay this way for thirty more days.”

“Let’s not waste our day off,” Sanaa said. “I, for one, could use a break. Who’s up for a game or RPS-101 Plus?”

“What’s RPS-101 Plus?”

“Oh...you’ll see. I just hope I don’t get fenced again.”

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Microstory 1358: Inside Jobs

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Journalist: First of all, I want to apologize, on behalf of the American people, for what you went through for six years. That is a long time to be kept in chains.

Free Man: It was five and a half, and I wasn’t in chains, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Journalist: What is it like, being out? Have you found it hard to acclimate?

Free Man: It was the first day. I sat on a bus stop bench for probably two hours, just because it had been so long since I could sit outside alone. Since then, though it hasn’t been as hard as you might think, at least not in the way I assume you’re asking. Of course my life is hard now. My lawyer is currently working on getting me some compensation for my wrongful imprisonment, but until that goes through—if it does—I need to look for work. I can tell employers all I want that I was exonerated, but they still don’t hire me. It’s not any easier for me than anyone else with a record, however unfair that record is. If you’re just talking about whether the world itself is a scary or unfamiliar place, not really. I mean, it would be one thing if I went in before cell phone ubiquity, and out after it. Or if I went in now, and didn’t come out until everyone had flying cars. The world hasn’t changed so much that I can’t keep up, though.

Journalist: So, you think you’ll be all right?

Free Man: Prison gave me a lot of perspective. Everyone has asked me if I’m angry, but I became an optimist in there. Yes, I believe I’m going to be all right. I’m not saying the system isn’t broken, or that the police and court didn’t do anything wrong, but I’ll be able to move past it, now that I’m free.

Journalist: What do you have to say to your critics?

Free Man: Well, what are they saying about me?

Journalist: They’ve expressed concern—and, understand that I’m just relaying this to you; not making any judgements myself—that you’re unfit to return to society. They site reports that you committed crimes while you were in prison, and that your overturned conviction does nothing to alleviate their fears of what else you might do. Again, this is just what people have said.

Free Man: I understand where they’re coming from. I can’t say that I’m proud of some of the things I did in prison. I can say that I did those things to survive. I never killed, and I never dealt in weapons. People who say that have probably never been to jail before, and they don’t know what it’s like. If you don’t play ball, other inmates will kill you. It’s terribly unregulated, and dangerous. Even on top of my wrongful imprisonment, I did my time for those crimes that I actually committed. The prison had plenty of creative punishments for getting out of line. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to persuade people that I have no interest in doing anything wrong now that I’m back in society, except...ya know, not do anything wrong. It’s just gonna take time. This is all about time.

Journalist: I see. Now, let’s discuss the book. Can you confirm that there is a book?

Free Man: There is, and there isn’t. Let me explain.

Microstory 1174: Juan Ponce de León

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Famous explorer, Juan Ponce de León lived in the late fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries. But he also lived in an incalculably high number of other time periods. When he arrived on the Florida coast, he was surprised to find another apparent westerner waiting for him there. The woman spoke of the Fountain of Youth, which up until that point, Juan had never heard of. Still, he was curious, so he broke from his crew, and set about on a journey through the wilderness. Upon reaching what was supposedly his destination, he discovered what appeared to be a dried up river bed. At first he was discouraged, not in disappointment for having missed out on a magical elixir that could make him immortal, but because he felt a fool for having believed it existed in the first place. Just to be safe, however, he decided to dig, but did not intend to go very deep. Perhaps the water was deep underground. He just kept thinking that he only need scoop out one more handful, and water would spring forth. It never did, but he did eventually come across a compass. It must have been buried there for a long time, but it was in pristine condition. Curious, he started fiddling with the device, and after awhile, a rectangular light appeared before him, as if he had created it. Curiouser still, he pushed forward, and stepped into the light, where he found himself face to face with a bus. The bus was not moving, so he was in no danger, but he had no clue what this magnificent structure was. He looked around, and discovered there to be dozens of other buses like it, all in a row. He walked a little farther, until he came upon the road, where similar vehicles were ferrying their passengers to various destinations. He continued to do what he does best, and explored this strange new world, quickly learning this to be hundreds of years in the future. He only stopped when he finally encountered a library, where he could learn almost everything he wanted to know about what had happened to the world after he’d left it.

When he wasn’t studying the books, Juan was studying his new compass. Over time, he learned to navigate this special time object, and moved all across time and space, meeting all sorts of interesting people. Other time travelers started calling him The Navigator, which he had to admit, he quite liked. He learned several languages, beheld beautiful things, and witnessed terrible tragedies. He kept fairly detailed journals of his experiences, but even he didn’t quite know how long he had been gone from home. The possibility of a Fountain of Youth continued to nag at him, and he felt compelled to learn more about it. Certain other travelers believed it to be real, in some form, but even they thought the immortality water was just too difficult to procure. Yet he persisted in his search. Many times, some of the ingredient waters were in his grasp, but he had to give it up, to help others, or because he wouldn’t be able to find all of the ingredients in time. Each one was in a different place and time, and would go bad if they weren’t all found before the timer ran out. Following what must have been years from his perspective, Juan decided to create a map. He sought out each ingredient independently, but did not take any. Instead, he simply confirmed its authenticity, and then moved onto the next, until he had a clear picture of everything he would need. Then, he got a good night’s rest, tied his sweet kicks, and set about on his journey. He literally ran through the continuum, opening portals like a pro, and never stopping until he had checked off the entire list. His efforts proved fruitful, when he drank the waters, and became truly immortal. So now, Juan Ponce de León could never be killed, but that still left him with a terrible conundrum. He hadn’t seen his family in many years, and once he returned to them, would have to watch them die. This he could not have. He got his hands on something called a homestone, which delivers its user directly to when and where they first were when they first started traveling through time. He went back to his family, and his life. Then he frequently ushered everyone he cared about through his compass portals, and along the route towards the immortality waters. His whole family, sooner or later, became just like him. Now the only question that remained was, where in the world could they possibly live?