The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 302,398 Part 1

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One second. That’s how long Leona spends in the stasis pod that Danica forced her into. As soon as that door closes, she teleports out, and lands on the other side of it. To her left is Marie’s pod. She deactivates the stasis field, and opens it up.

“How long was I out?” Marie asks, fully aware that time inside is not the same as time outside.

“I don’t know,” Leona replies.

Marie takes a few looks around. “This isn’t where Danica put us.”

“No, you’re right, we’re in a different room. Our pods were moved in the last however long it’s been.” Leona starts fiddling with her pod’s interface. It’s surprisingly difficult to navigate. Opening Marie’s door wasn’t hard, but just getting a clock is near impossible. She’s tapped through several screens by now. There it is. “Ten thousand.”

“Seconds? Minutes?” Marie questions, knowing that neither of these is right.

Leona rolls her eyes. “I was in there for one observed second.” She starts to do the math in her head. “If one second equals ten thousand years, and we had four and a half billion years to go, then we would have had to stay in our pods for around five days, give or take a few minutes.”

“So, escaping was a mistake. We’re standing who knows where, ten thousand years after the solar system was created, and we would have been better off waiting.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Leona replies. “There’s no timer on this thing. It wasn’t scheduled to open up in the future. Someone would have had to let us out.” She jerks her head around like a bird looking for a worm. “I think I know where we are.”

“Where?”

“Phoenix 15-236P7 Marathon-Algae-Temple.”

“That’s the place in the Oort Cloud where we were supposed to find Mateo?”

“Yeah, maybe Aquila was telling the truth after all.”

“That’s not hard to believe,” Marie says. “There’s a reason that Curtis absorbed her mind into his own brain, to keep her from saying more than she already had.”

“So Danica didn’t want anyone to revive us?”

“Maybe not until she was ready. This is a great place to get a couple of irritants off your back. She has plans down there, and we’re getting in the way. Everything we’ve been through since I arrived could have been a distraction. Heath, my work with the government, even Vearden showing up when he did. We keep looking for answers in all the wrong places.”

Leona finds a viewport, and opens the cover to reveal the stars, which are moving quite quickly, suggesting that the celestial body that they’re on is spinning. It’s actually spinning too quickly, because there is no artificial gravity. A normal person can’t tell the difference between artificial and real gravity, but she can. She has had experience feeling it, and working on the technology. This is a planet. It feels a little like Mars. The viewport is a hologram—it’s fake—and only there to give them the impression that they are isolated from help. She takes Marie by both hands. “Do you trust me?”

“Implicitly.”

Leona teleports them away, landing them back by the large pool in The Constant. A mild alarm is going off. “Computer, please shut off that alarm.”

The alarm stops.

“How did you do that?”

“I don’t know, I shouldn’t be authorized. Computer, please disable all security precautions, and locate all other individuals in this facility.”

“Security disabled. All current inhabitants of The Constant are presently being stored in the executive stasis chamber.” The AI sounds just like Constance.

“Has the alarm not woken them up?”

“They have not been alerted. Would you like me to do that now?”

“No, thank you. Could you tell me, is there any room in this facility that blocks all teleportation and time travel?”

“There are two: the security room, and the master sitting room.”

“I’m not familiar with the master sitting room, but I’ve been to the security room. It has two doors,” Leona says to Marie.

“Aquila said that Mateo and Danica went into a room with only one entrance before he disappeared, leaving her with no memory,” Marie agrees.

Leona nods. “Hey computer, could you light the way for us, please?”

“You can call me Constance,” the AI offers as the navigation lights appear. Hmm. Apparently Ramses isn’t the one who came up with that name.

They walk down the passageways, and stop when they reach their destination. Leona has seen this before, but it didn’t seem particularly special at the time. She opens the door, and steps in. In it are shelves of books, reading lamps, end tables, and of course, plenty of chairs and couches. “Wow, look at all this seating!”

“What do you think?” Marie begins as she’s hopping over to the nearest books. “Does one of these open a secret passageway?”

“No, I still think that the Transit, or something, came to take him away. I’m looking for something else.” In addition to all those other things, there are also drawers and cabinets. She opens a couple. “Do you think you could fit in one of these?”

Marie shrugs, and curls herself up as she’s crawling in. “I’m thinking yes.”

“Okay, then that’s the hiding place you’ll be looking for.”

“Hiding place? Hiding from what?”

“From anyone who may have been here...ten thousand years ago.”

They leave the master sitting room. Leona leads the way down the passageways this time, to the deepest, darkest area of the Constant. She found it when they first came down here after the whole place was stripped and cleared out. There was always something interesting about it, and now she thinks she knows what it was originally used for. She opens the double doors. There before them is exactly what they need. It’s a time machine, and it’s what’s going to get them back to when they need to be.

“Won’t they notice us when we show up in the past?” Marie figures.

“They’ll notice me, but not you.”

Marie closes her eyes. “You want me to complete the secret plan to teleport to the energy generation room, and hide out.”

“Yes, please. I still think it can work.”

“It won’t. Think about it, you’re the one who got us out of the stasis room. You’re the one who controls the AI. Let them catch me while you hide, and save your husband.”

That’s logical, but it doesn’t sound like something a captain should do. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Now let’s go before they catch us.”

“Before who catches you?” It’s Tamerlane Pryce. Isn’t it always?

Microstory 1020: Ruth

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My time is very valuable, so I hope we can keep this interview short and efficient. A little bit of background. For the record, my name is Ruth. I’m class secretary, and hope to one day become a real secretary. Not as in, assistant, but a cabinet member. That may sound like too lofty a goal for a small town girl born to a middle class family, but I know what I’m doing, and I’m right on track. I have high aspirations for my life, and I don’t need this scandal getting in the way of that. For the record, I had nothing to do with what happened by the river that day, and was not at all involved in Viola’s death. For the most part, she was a diplomatic person. She loved to be loved, and she was willing to change her entire personality to fit in with whoever she happened to be around at the time. My God, I’m so sorry. Whomever. Get it together, Ruth. Anyway, my point is that I may have been the only person in the whole town that she didn’t like. We were quite similar—she and I—except that I have more trouble connecting with people, since I’m so mindful of order. We weren’t friends, but we were very close. This is our story. She was a lot more fun and relaxed, and people liked being around her, but I too care about the people around me, which is why I want to serve my country. We competed in everything, from grades, to sports, to the position of class president. We both lost out to that ineffectual, feckless cad, Riley, because he promised the school he would put brawndo in the water fountains. It’s not a real drink! Even he meant it as a joke! Whew, sorry about that. Calm and centered, you are worth it, Ruth. Well, no one ran for class secretary, so our apathetic principal decided to let Viola and I fight for the position once Riley took the top spot. She would have told you that she gave it to me to be nice, but I negotiated my way into it. She didn’t realize what she had really lost until later, so she’s never forgiven me for it. Our rivalry would have gone beyond the walls of this school had she survived through graduation. On a personal level, I am most upset with her murderer for taking that motivation away. Her tailgating me pushed me to be my best, and drove me to reach my goals. Oh dear, was that a terrible thing to say? Of course her death is sad on its own, and requires no selfish feeling of loss, or particular qualification. For the record, I did not dislike her as she me. I felt nothing but admiration for her. While she lacked the discipline to realize her own potential, I lack the social grace that she possessed in spades. The truth is that I miss her as much as anybody else, even though we were frenemies. I can only hope that she carried even half the amount of respect for me as I do her.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 16, 2101

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After a good night’s rest all the way through the morning of 2101 in the Kansas City safehouse, Mateo used Baudin’s headquarters as a bridge back to Tribulation Island. “I have this Nexus that can easily transport me to anywhere on Earth, but how do I get back once I’ve done that? This is something we should have discussed before.”

“I’ll give you a key when I can. There have been some complications with transferring ownership. Once the process is complete, you’ll have a way to return home as needed. You’re basically in escrow right now.”

He moved on to what he was eerily comfortable calling his home. Baudin had expanded Leona’s one-stop movie shop to include more than one auditorium. At the same time, he had greatly reduced the size of the Mission Hills mansion, removing entire sections of the building, to something that better fit a modest couple. Choosing ones and salmon alike slowly began to frequent the island to satisfy their needs. Téa was responsible for providing clothing and other accessories appropriate for literally any given era in history. This allowed travelers to blend in immediately upon arriving so as to not arouse suspicion.

Mateo’s mother, Aura became a counselor of sorts. She mentored recently activated travelers, especially salmon, providing them with healthy ways of coping with their new lives. Similarly, Samsonite’s job was to teach the more literal facets of time travel. Not only had he always been a history buff, but he was also found to be extremely good at finding and comprehending timeline changes. He was somehow given the tools to look at time itself in a strikingly similar way that the powers that be evidently could. Only he was allowed to use whatever it was he used, though, and he was charged to not talk about it with anyone. Leona was rather bored and unfulfilled in her job to just entertain people. She was great at picking the perfect film for them to watch and forget about their dangerous responsibilities, but this also seemed trivial to her. Since she only worked one day out of the year, it was an awkward appointment either way. The Rogue was probably reaching when he engineered that position for her.

Speaking of Gilbert Boyce, he and the brand spanking new Horace Reaver had become unlikely good friends since Mateo had last seen them. Leona called their last couple years the Three Men and a Baby Tribulation since they and Darko had been working together to raise and protect, Xearea Voss. When she and Mateo returned to the timeline in 2102, Xearea will have been activated, and would have been working as the new Savior for three months. Horace’s other pseudo-daughter, Paige Turner treated Xearea as a younger sister, in that she ignored her and focused on her own life.

Just weeks ago, Paige began working at the newly constructed Museum of Alternate History. It was run by The Historian who did her best to keep track of adjustments to the timeline that choosers and salmon...um, have would will going to be make. Mateo was told that it was confusing and unsettling in there, so most people stayed away from it. While Paige contributed pictures of important historical events from before photographic technology, a man known as The Archivist kept records of every single salmon and chooser, along with every human involved in time travel in any way. Mateo was about to enter the building so he could get his hands on The Cleanser’s files, but was stopped by someone he did not recognize.

“Hey, you’re Mateo Matic, right?”

“It’s pronounced Muh-teek since I’m not a retro infomercial product, but yes.”

“Oh, sorry.” She presented her hand. “My name is Kivi Bristol. I’m not an infomercial product either.”

“That’s funny. I once knew a Bristol.”

“You own this place, right?”

“So they say. I’m not a king, or anything, though.”

“Okay, well I’ve been here for about a month.” She pointed to the former mansion. “I live in that house, they tell me it’s yours, but what no one has told me is what the hell I’m doing here.”

“How did you get here?”

She shrugged. “I woke up in the master bed.”

“Hmm. You’ve never time traveled before? Or teleported? What year was it for you?”

“2245. I grew up in this sort of...anti-technology community? It’s hard to explain, we live in circles? Never mind, anyway. When I woke up here, I was actually kind of relieved. I’ve never been offworld, and I was excited to explore life outside of my circle. But I feel like there’s more to it, and I’ve now only ever seen this island.” She took a beat. “And my circle.”

“What’s a circle?”

“Don’t worry about it. Do you think you could, I dunno, talk to your boss? Do you have a boss? Am I meant to be going somewhere? I feel like I’ve just been hired and everyone in my department is too busy to train me.”

“Honestly, Kivi—”

“It’s Kivi. Its more like a quicker v-b sound, uh...never mind. Sorry, go on.”

He did his best to pronounce it correctly. “Kivi. This planet was given to me as an inheritance following the death of a very powerful man. I don’t actually do anything here. In fact, I only exist one day out of the year—

“Like Brigadoon!?”

That was jarring. “A bit. Um...my point is that I have no clue what you’re doing here. They call it my planet, but it isn’t really. I don’t even know where the bathrooms are, because since I got this place, I’ve spent more time away from it.”

“So you can’t help me?”

“Have you spoken with Samsonite Bellamy?”

“He says something about The Delegator; that he brings people to him, and that I wouldn’t be able to find him.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Mateo nodded. “How about this? I’m about to go speak with someone they call The Archivist. I need him to pull a file for me. While we’re there, we’ll pull your file and get to the bottom of this. Does that make sense?”

“Like a dog on Pluto.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Because of how they put transdogs on Pluto. Mostly for a joke. Do they not have that reference yet?”

“No.”

“Oh. It’ll be funny when you get there.”

“You’re kind of a weird one, aren’t ya?” They started to step into the building.

“I am but a product of my circle.”

“Again, what’s a circle?”

They followed the directions and ended up at the Archivist’s office. Mateo knocked on the door, and it did that thing where it turns out it’s already open, so it swings in a little bit. “Hello?”

They could see a man on the couch fidget at the sound of someone’s voice. “Did you just curtsy?” he cried, supposedly due to a dream.

“Are you the Archivist?” Kivi asked.

The man squinted and pretended to put on a pair of glasses. “Is that Kivi Bristol?”

“You already know me?”

“I know e’erbody,” he answered. “Everybody. I mean. Sorry, I haven’t had my coffee.”

“It looks like you’ve had some other things to drink,” Mateo said, gently nudging a tipped over but not quite empty bottle of vodka with his foot.

“Mateo Matic? Is it Thursday already?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you.” He stood up and tried to rub the sand out of his eyes. “I would shake your hand, but I think I’ve had it down my pants.”

“You’ve had my hand down your pants!”

“Lovely.”

“I need Zeferino Preston’s file.” Gilbert had given him the Cleanser’s full real name earlier in the day.

“And I need my own.” She turned to Mateo. “Who’s Zeferino Preston.”

“Don’t say his name a third time or he might show up and kill us all.”

“Bloody Mary. Beetlejuice. Biggie Smalls.”

“Why would you still know those reference?” The Archivist was just staring at them. Or rather he was staring at the space between them. Mateo leaned in a bit to examine his eyes. “Did you fall asleep again?”

The Archivist blinked once. “What? No.” He waited a long time before continuing with, “you’re asleep.”

“The files? Zeferino Preston? Kivi Bristol?”

“Kivi,” The Archivist corrected in unison. She was impressed that he could do it without being taught.

The Archivist yawned. “I can get you hers, but his, I cannot.”

“Oh my God,” Mateo said, exasperated. “Don’t tell me you too have some kind of contract with the Cleanser.”

“I don’t,” he assured him. “But he did steal some of my files. He took his and those of several other people.”

“Who?”

“Well, Darko Matic’s, yours, Nerakali Wilson’s—I mean Preston’s.”

So the Cleanser and the Blender were related. That wasn’t all that surprising, but it was useful information. “Let me guess, he also pulled Arcadia Preston’s file.”

“That’s right,” the Archivist confirmed.

“Well, I would be disappointed, but it was a longshot anyway. No way was a man like that going to let anyone get ahold of anything that could be used against him.”

Kivi nodded in agreeance even though she didn’t know who he was talking about.

“Well, let’s go ahead and take a look at hers. At least we’ll get something out of this visit.”

“Yes, quite,” the Archivist said as he was standing up and hobbling towards his filing cabinet. “Kivi Bristol. Kivi Bristol, Kivi Bristol, Kivi Bristol. Kivi Bristol!” he cried once he finally found what he was looking for. “Just let me make sure I have this right,” he said as he was scanning the pages.

She looked anxious. “That’s fine, take your time.”

The Archivist’s eyes narrowed as he focused on one part of a page. He then looked back and forth between it and Kivi’s face. His eyes one time darted over to Mateo.

“What? What is it?”

“You’re not supposed to be here. You’re waaaaaay too early.”

“We’re time travelers,” Mateo said. “Who cares?”

“Everyone cares!” he argued. “All the cares. Total care. You shouldn’t be here, it messed with everything.” He went back to studying the file, making the two of them nervous. “But if you think you’re...and you remember...? But that can’t be, because Nerakali...” He shook the chaotic thoughts out of his head. “It doesn’t matter. I have to fix this. I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to force a hard reset.”

“What the hell is a hard reset?” Mateo asked.

The Archivist closed his closet door and hastily pulled down the coats and hats that were hung on some hooks behind it. Doing this revealed a red emergency button on the wall.”

“Don’t push the button.”

The Archivist adjusted a few knobs under the button.

“Don’t you push the button until you tell me what it does! This is my..planet!”

The Archivist took in and released a deep breath. “You weren’t even in the timestream during the corrupted month. None of it would matter to you anyway.” Before anyone could stop him, the Archivist hit the big red button.

After a good night’s rest all the way through the morning of 2101 in the Kansas City safehouse, Mateo used Baudin’s headquarters as a bridge back to Tribulation Island. “I have this Nexus that can take me anywhere, but how do I get back? I can’t believe I’ve never asked you this before.”

“I’ll give you a key when I can. There are complications with completing the ownership transfer process. I promise that you will soon have a way to return home whenever you need to. You’re in escrow right now.”

Mateo spent the rest of the day catching up with his family and friends. He was especially happy to be reunited with Leona. Later that afternoon, he went up to the new Museum of Rotating History, hoping to get some information on The Cleanser from a man named The Archivist. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there, and it would have to wait.

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Second Stage of Something Started: Wind (Part XI)

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Vearden discovered after watching him disappear in a literal flash that Sargent’s first name was Adolphe. It was rather ironic, but almost certainly done on purpose by the powers that be. Even more strange was the fact that, upon joining the salmon battalion, he was arbitrarily assigned the rank of Sergeant. Shaking it off, Vearden instinctively stepped into a tent and ushered Saga in. After letting the flap close behind them, they walked back through it to find themselves in a different camp altogether. Everyone on the campgrounds was running around, somehow both chaotically and systematically. Saga recognized a few of them as salmon, and the others held themselves in a similar fashion. This was another major time travel undertaking. A woman was standing under a canopy behind a folding table, barking orders to the others in a sexy Louisiana accent. They were all wearing what looked like Canadian military uniforms.

The two new-comers approached her with haste, knowing that they needed to start there. “Who are you?” she asked of them.

“Saga and Vearden.”

“What do you do?”

“We’re the door-walkers. We travel through portals, assisting others on an as-needed basis.”

She jerked her head around, upset about not having been given all the information. “Are you salmon or choosers.”

“Oh, sorry,” Saga apologized. “We’re just salmon.”

She slid her fingers down a list that was taped to the table. There was a second list to its left, probably containing the names of choosers who were helping them. “Saga and Vearden...I don’t have you on my list. Who told you to come here?”

“We are rarely told anything,” Vearden said. “We walk through openings, and appear somewhere new. We don’t always know when, and we never know where.”

She nodded as he was talking, still perturbed by how long the two of them would take to explain things. “If you’re—Glaston!” she screamed, interrupting herself.

They looked over to see a man on the boundary point between two locations. A section of the ocean had been pulled into the area. He had his arms out to balance himself between solid ground on his right and the deep, cold water on his left.

The leader woman continued to scream, “quit screwin’ around! I need you to merge southern Saigon with New Brunswick!”

Glaston just stared at her like a kindergarten refusing to participate in naptime.

“Now, Glaston! You have your orders!”

He just flipped her off.

She dropped her volume down so that only those in the canopy could hear her. “I guess we know why you two were brought here. You’ll be replacing him.” She turned her chin partially towards the man on her right, but didn’t look directly at him. “Mister Kolby, please send The Merger to Beaver Haven.”

Kolby lifted a very odd looking gun towards the dissident, and pressed it against the side of his stomach. He quickly pulled the trigger, hitting his mark expertly. Glaston slammed his palms on his chest where the bullet had hit. As small amounts of electricity surged throughout his body, he started to yell, “Yippee ki-yay, mother fffffuuuuuuuuuuu...!” Before he was able to finish his expletive, he shuddered and disappeared. Saga and Vearden widened their eyes and looked back towards the leader woman.

“Don’t worry,” she assured them, “he’s not dead. Kolby’s gun just expels people to a special prison. I’m not here to babysit.” She took a deep breath and released it. “This is Operation Second Wind. Starting today—April 30, 1975, by the way—the United States will execute a contingency plan to evacuate soldiers and civilians from the city now known as Saigon, South Vietnam. Due to extenuating circumstances, fixed-wing aircraft cannot be used, so dozens of helicopters will be flying back and forth between the embassy and an armada of ships in the South China Sea.”

“Yes,” Vearden said. “I remember this from history class.”

Yeah, they should definitely not interrupt this woman. “Yes, well unfortunately, not everyone makes it out. Not everyone can. If we evacuate the entirety of Saigon—which we’re fully capable of—we’ll be too exposed. 1975 is just too close to the invention of the internet for us to brush it off and bury it to history. But we are going to take who we can and sprinkle them throughout the world twenty minutes into the future, primarily in Canada.”

“So, we’re going to southern Saigon.”

She ignored them for a second. “Kingmaker! Kingmaker! What are you doing here?”

The Kingmaker threw up his arms. “Trang wasn’t there!” He drew nearer.

She started itching all over her face from the stress. “Okay, we must have the dates mixed up. But we gotta get that kid and his family to Indonesia. Tai Trang is too important to the future!”

“If the powers that be don’t take me there, I can’t get there,” he said, in full agreeance with her.

She continued to itch herself, but seemed to be getting better. “Okay, okay, okay.” She pointed over to another canopy where an elderly man was consulting one out of hundreds of books sprawled out around him. “Go speak with The Historian again.” As the Kingmaker was walking away, she yelled up to crowd, “and somebody find me The fucking Emissary! I’m sick of being jerked around by the powers!” She pushed the air away from her face, “okay, who are you people again?”

“We’re the—”

She cut Saga off, “the door-walkers, right. Southern Saigon. Kolby, please find me Glaston’s mission files. Hopefully he didn’t throw them to Jupiter or some nonsense like that.”

Kolby pulled them to the side so that the leader woman could move on with her very important work. “I’m not going to hunt for those files, that is not my job. He very likely could have left them on Jupiter.” He pointed to a tent next to the Historian’s. “The Archivist lives there. Tell him that you’ve been given the Merger’s assignment.”

“Understood,” Vearden said.

“Hey, how are Mateo and Leona?”

Saga shook her head. “We’ve not seen Leona lately, but we left Mateo over a hundred years from now. They’re not great.”

He nodded. “Give them my best if you ever see them again. I believe they refer to me as Guard Number Two.” He smiled warmly, but briefly.

“We will.”

They walked briskly over to the Archivist, dodging fake soldiers running through their path. They hesitated at the tent, not wanting to just walk in without first warning him. But there was no way to knock. “Umm...Mister Archivist, sir?”

They heard the sound of glass dropping, but not breaking. “What?” He did not sound well.

“We’re looking for, uh...the..the Merger’s mission files.”

“What do you want with that?”

“We’re replacing him. We, uh...we’re the door-walkers?”

“The Freelancers,” Vearden added in a quiet voice.

“The Freelancers,” Saga repeated so that the Archivist could hear.

They could hear him cough and scramble up, sticking his head through the opening. “Saga and Vearden, as I poorly keep track of records and breathe.” He tried to worm his hand through the opening as well, presumably to greet them. “Uhh...I need pants. Half a moment.” He pulled his head back in too quickly. The flaps separated just enough to reveal his member as he was turning around to look for clothes. He awkwardly laughed from inside. “If I managed my pants the way I manage my files then...well, then nothing would be different. I’m not very good at my job. I’m the fourth one, and this isn’t even my time period.” He reopened the flaps so that they could walk in. He hurriedly tried to clean up the bottles of cliché all over the place, but there was really nothing that could be done. “Sorry for the mess. I’m just the Historian’s red-headed stepchild, so no one visits me.” He took a swig of mouthwash but swallowed it quickly.

“It’s quite all right,” Saga lied.

He spoke rapidly. “Now, you’re looking for Glaston’s files—hold on, do you want something to drink? No, of course you don’t. You’re on duty. I have water, though. No, I don’t, I don’t know why I said that. I can find water. No, you don’t need water, you’re in a hurry. Of course, Glaston’s files.” He turned towards a metal filing cabinet. “You wanna see something cool? You’ve probably seen it on TV, but this one is real.” He smirked and released the catch on the top drawer. It started rolling open at a medium rate. The drawer was much longer than could fit in the cabinet. Had they no experience with spacetime manipulation, they would have looked behind the cabinet to find out what was going on.

The drawer continued through the flaps, and apparently hit someone walking outside. “Ow!” she yelled.

The Archivist warped his face, only playfully concerned about the woman’s safety. “Whoopsidoodles.” He clapped his hands together in preparation, and then started to run his fingers through the folders. “Chooser Kayetan Glaston, also known as the Merger, born June 25, 1982. Keeps mostly to the 20th and 21st centuries on Earth. He’s a total dick, and nobody likes him. And he...” he trailed off while looking through one of the folders.

“What is it?” Vearden asked.

The Archivist looked up at them then clumsily put the file away. In a clear attempt to downplay whatever it was that he had read, he said, “that’s from an alternate timeline, don’t worry about it. What you need is the mission file from today.” Without looking, he smugly reached over and pulled a fairly full accordion folder. “Here ya go. Don’t spend it all in one place.” He winked.

“Thanks,” Saga replied with almost a curtsy that she hoped she managed to hide well enough.

“Did you just curtsy?” Vearden asked after they left the tent through a portal to southern Saigon.

“Shut up.”

They spent the rest of the day, and part of the next, extracting South Vietnamese and third country nationals from Saigon, some to their respective homes, others to nearby ports, and yet others to random points in Canada. They had to give these refugees specific instructions to, of course, never mention to anyone exactly how they survived. Glaston’s mission files included packets of false stories that the refugees were asked to memorize so that they would have a credible explanation for getting out of the war zone. It seemed to work, because no one in the future suspected that anything unnatural had happened during Operation Frequent Wind. The question they had now was who wrote all those falsified documents, and how many other historical events had happened differently than the world knew?

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