The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 30, 2543

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When the team first came out of the woods on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, they found a lone homestead. There were several bags of produce sitting on the grass several meters away from the entrance. A young woman was begrudgingly starting to carry them inside. They offered to help, which she accepted, explaining that the delivery drone kept using the wrong precise coordinates, but she couldn’t get it changed so that it always dropped them off right on her porch instead. After they were finished, Romana declared that she had officially become the team’s navigator, having won the bet with her mother. When Leona questioned it, Romana pointed out that they never specified the threshold for being at the right place at the right time, or helping the right person. That could have meant anything, from saving the world, to carrying groceries. She decided that it meant the latter, and since Leona never argued about it before their little tiny baby mission, she didn’t have any room to argue now. Romana was the navigator, and probably deserved it for successfully executing her foxy trick.

“Well, then, where are we going?” Ramses asked. They had spent all day at the homestead, completing chores, and enjoying the beauty of nature. Now it was a year later, and they were back in the timestream.

“Oh, uh...” Romana acted like she hadn’t even thought about it yet. She knew that she wanted the job, but now she was the dog that caught the car. She stood there awkwardly for so long that everyone just sort of faded away and moved on to other things for a while.

Mateo approached her later when everyone else was out of the room. “I thought you were doing this for your mother. I thought the whole reason you made yourself navigator was to get us back to her.”

“Ramses isn’t ready,” Romana replied. “I’m not ready,” she added in admission. She sat down on one end of the couch.

“I get it. That was a very mature choice.” He sat down on the other end, but more in the corner, so he was facing her.

“Yeah, but I still should have made some choice today,” she argued. “That wasn’t very mature of me. I looked like an idiot.”

“This is a beautiful planet,” Mateo pointed out. “There’s no reason why we can’t stay here for a bit. In fact, I think I’ll go for a swim in that lake.”

“After what happened to Proxima Doma as soon as we left, I’m not so sure that that will be true for much longer. Castlebourne practically went to war too. Maybe we’re cursed.”

“Those two problems were inevitable, and far beyond our control. Proxima Centauri is more unstable than anyone thought, and if you hadn’t helped all those refugees find safety on Castlebourne, maybe they wouldn’t be at war, but they would be oppressed. They carried their problems with them. That’s not on any of us.”

“I just don’t want something to happen here, that’s all,” Romana said.

“Is that why you couldn’t come up with an answer?” Leona asked as she was coming back into the common area.

“We left Doma just as things were falling apart,” Romana pointed out. “Had we stayed, we could have helped.”

Leona shook her head. “Centauri’s poles flipped, sending a massive coronal mass ejection towards the planet. The cataclysm was over in a matter of days. Everyone who died did so within that period. If we had returned a year later, there would have been nothing for us to do.”

“I don’t have to wait a year,” Romana contended.

“You still couldn’t have fixed it,” her father tried to explain. “The fact is, we’re on the other side of The Edge. We don’t have much information on what happens in this time period. We’re kind of flying blind here, and I think we’re all feeling that. It’s perfectly reasonable to see this as the calm before the storm. It’s unsettling. But I say, let’s just enjoy it. Let’s not leave Bida until we come across a reason to. That’s how it’s always been.”

“That’s not why I asked to be the navigator,” Romana said. “I was trying to put us in the driver’s seat for once.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think it works like that. Even without the powers that be forcing our hands, I don’t think it works like that.”

“I’m not sure I’m worried about the storm. I might be worried that there is no storm. I’m worried about purposelessness. I guess I’m not suggesting we caused all those issues on Doma and Castlebourne, and wherever. But I’ve read about your past exploits. You used to be busy every single day. You didn’t have breaks. You didn’t have vacations. Doesn’t it feel like things have slowed down? And don’t you think that’s weird?”

“It’s not weird, it’s by design.” Now Marie had come back. She walked over and turned on her fireplace, presumably for ambiance. It wasn’t like they got cold anymore. She sat down in an armchair. “When our ancestors were banging rocks together to make fire, every day was interesting for them too. Everything they saw was new, and they had to constantly solve problems. Sometimes, their solutions led to more problems. For millions of years, this didn’t stop. Those ancestors didn’t concern themselves with yearly taxes. They wouldn’t even understand the concept. Taxes were a solution to the problem of regulating the exchange of goods and services. The exchange of goods and services was the solution to the problem of high population and limited individual skill. The human race kept progressing, adding complexity, increasing the complications. In some ways, advancement made life easier, but it certainly didn’t make it simpler. We think of the Edge as some division between the common time traveler era, and the unknown ever after, but the truth is this has been in the works for a while. What the Edge really did was become the final move in a fundamental shift in how we advance.”

“What are you saying?” Not even Leona seemed to understand.

“I have been looking into it,” Marie went on. “That is what I’ve been spending my time on. The reason we’re no longer so busy is because almost no one is. Even new colonists don’t have to work hard. They send their automators ahead of time, they usually arrive via quantum terminals, they don’t start with low tech. We’re not advancing into complexity anymore, but for the first time in history, we’re advancing into simplicity. We’re trimming all the fat, and thriving with fewer things. An IMS unit has everything you need to survive except for gravity. A centrifugal cylinder or coin can get you that, or even just a hammer hab. Even the seven of us stopped needing a ship. So you have that, a synthesizer for replacement parts, maybe a virtual environment or two, and some means of generating power. That’s it. That gets you everything you need. You don’t even need a community anymore, as we see here on Bida.”

“How  do you explain Castlebourne then?” Ah, it was Angela’s turn now.

“Castlebourne is contrived complexity,” her sister argued. “No one has to live the way they do there, under those domes, having those adventures. That’s actually why they’re doing it, because real life has become too boring. There’s no struggle anymore. I admit, I can’t explain why they prefer those simulations to virtual constructs, but they still serve the same purpose. They’re there to keep you occupied, and from going insane. And the best part about them is that they’re relatively safe. Since they are designed, they’re controlled. No one in Zombiedome is in any real existential danger. The largest remaining population of undigitized humans was on Doma, and now that’s done with, either via death, or the holdouts giving in and finally digitizing their minds.

“We solved death, we solved boredom, and the only reason we are bored right now is because we don’t think we’re worthy of the free time. Mateo, you’re the first of us to have this pattern, and while you didn’t always know why, it was clear to you that there had to be some kind of reason. You don’t know any other way to live, because you’re still holding on to that higher calling. But it doesn’t exist anymore. Things do change, but they happen over longer time scales now. The days of the one day mission are simply over. The most interesting thing happening right now are the Ex Wars, and the reason we regretfully bowed out was because we all realized how useless we were. We can’t do anything, and that might be scary, but we need to stop trying.”

“So, this is it?” Olimpia asked from the doorway to her unit. “We have reached the end? There is just nothing left for us to do? We’ll just hole up in these belts, and have fun in simulations?”

“No, no, this can’t be true,” Mateo reasoned. “There are still some things we know about the future. That Everest Conway guy. We met him out of order. We haven’t met him for the first time yet,” he said with airquotes. “And we went on that unremembered mission with that guy named Amal. What was that? When was that?”

“Maybe that will never happen,” Marie offered. “Maybe we undid the futures they came from by meeting them out of order, and stepping on a butterfly together.”

“Or maybe we’re just in a lull,” Mateo decided. “Let’s go with that instead. I don’t really want bad things to happen, but I don’t want to be aimless either. If we were to be like that, why are we bothering to skip time anymore? I’m sure Ramses could find a way to suppress our patterns permanently.”

They all looked over at Ramses’ door, half expecting him to waltz back in too, but he was likely working on something important. When he didn’t show, the rest of the team seemed to agree that they didn’t want to talk about this anymore. It was pretty depressing, and while Marie’s thesis was interesting, they fittingly wished that it was more complicated than that. As Mateo said, they didn’t want bad things to happen so they could swoop in and fix them, but it would be weird if they just did what the general population was doing, and just had fun all day. They were decidedly different than the masses. They were special. There weren’t many time travelers around here, so it kind of fell on them to represent. They did decide on one thing, though. If by the end of the day, nothing happened that specifically kept them on this planet, they would leave, even if Romana couldn’t think of anywhere better to go.

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Microstory 2504: Regret Seer

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I can see your regrets, and show you your potential. Before Landis Tipton received the gifts of The Ten Vulnerabilities, I was responsible for two of them. There were five of us in total, and we chose to use our abilities very differently. We were nomads, traveling all over the world—mostly the North American continent—helping people one at a time. We searched for those who were at their lowest, who needed the most help. I was on the frontlines of this mission. Regret is one of the strongest emotions that a person can have, and sight is one of the strongest senses. It was easier for me to pick our targets out of a crowd without having to wait for them to do something to draw attention to themselves. I could just see it. Once I found a candidate, the five of us would explore this person’s life further. We could strategize about what we could do to help this person live a better life. The way we saw it, our tasks were helping the whole world exponentially. Everyone we supported would go out, and pay it forward. With a brand new lease on life, they would find it in their hearts to help others in their own ways. Honestly, we didn’t think to focus on only one of the Vulnerabilities, like Landis has. We were drawn to one another, and it felt like we absolutely had to work together in order to fulfill our destinies. Had we only let the Health Smeller do her thing, what work would have been left for the rest of us? We just had a different perspective. And fittingly enough, I regret nothing. And you know that’s true, because if I did, I would be able to tell, and I’m comfortable enough with my own vulnerabilities that I would be honest about it. I can’t bring my own regrets to the surface, but I’m very good at recognizing them. We did our own thing our own way, and I still think we improved the world. We didn’t always hit it out of the park. There is a reason why we don’t have the gifts anymore, and why we had to transfer them to Landis. But I don’t like to talk about it, because that is something that I regret. Maybe I’m not as brave as I believe. I should be able to talk about what happened. Unfortunately, while I helped countless others see their potential, I could never see my own. But again, the gifts belong to Landis now, and while it saddens me a little that my Vulnerability senses aren’t being used, I’m proud of the work that he’s been doing. That’s why I chose him in the first place. I didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but I knew that he was on his way to reaching greatness.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 19, 2501

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Leona, Olimpia, and Romana were on a trip together in Portland. They checked into a hotel for one night, but then they left to rough it in a cabin in the woods far outside of town. This was a bonding experience meant to strengthen Leona’s relationship with Olimpia, and create a relationship between Olimpia and Romana. The former seemed to be okay with the three-person arrangement that her parents had, but she hadn’t spent much time with their third. They weren’t intending on her becoming a second mother—especially not since Romana was approaching adulthood—but it was important for them to get to know each other better.

“Do you still know where you’re going?” Olimpia asked. They were on a hike now, straight away from their cabin.

Leona checked the satnav on her watch. “Absolutely, I do. Not far now.”

“I hear the highway,” Romana said. “We’re not in the middle of nowhere anymore. If we need to stop and ask for directions, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That you can hear the highway is a good sign,” Leona said. “The surprise isn’t remote.”

“What is it?” Olimpia asked for the umpteenth time, knowing that she would not receive an answer this time either.

“Just be patient.” We’re really close. She wasn’t wrong. Ten minutes later, they were passing through the trees, and onto the edges of some town. “Welcome...to Kansas City.”

“We walked all the way back to Kansas City?” Olimpia questioned. “What did we do, teleport?” She laughed.

“Kansas City...Oregon,” Leona clarified.

“Is that even a thing?” Romana asked.

“Clearly. You may now look at your phones.”

They both pulled them out, but Romana was faster. “There’s, like, fifteen people here.”

“I know. Cool, though, right?” Leona said with her hands on her hips.

“This was the surprise? A few people moved here from Missouri, and were too unoriginal to come up with a new name.”

“Well, I thought it was interesting.”

Olimpia turned around. “I’m headed back.”

“Oh come on, there’s a pool hall,” Leona whined.

“There is a pool hall,” Romana confirmed, still looking at her phone. “It’s pretty much all there is at this point. There isn’t even a restaurant.” She dropped her hand, and stood there with a blank face.

“There’s a school too.”

“No, it closed down.”

“Since when?”

Romana lifted her phone again. “Today.”

“Oh.”

“They had to finish up some summer schooling, but now it’s over.”

“Well, I’m sorry I wasted our time. I thought we could take a picture in front of the town sign. Ya know, like what people do when they go to a small town that shares its name with their surname?” She looked out, and blocked the sun with her hand. “It should be somewhere on that other road over there.”

“No, they took the sign down too,” Romana explained to her. The county stepped in, because it’s an unincorporated community, instead of a real town. So they weren’t allowed to have a sign anymore.”

“Fine,” Leona lamented.

“It’s all right, I still got my steps in today.” Olimpia looked at her own watch. “Eleven kilometers, not bad.” She patted Leona on the back. “That’s reason enough to come here.”

“Can we just take some pictures at least?” Leona begged.

“Sure. Let’s walk closer and get some more steps.”

They took a few photos of each other near one of the few buildings, which must have been a barn, or something. They went to check out the pool hall, but it was very smoky, and gross, so they didn’t even play one round. They just left, and started hiking back to the cabin. Leona was more upset than any of them at how anticlimactic this was. She kept walking with a frowny face, which the other two kept trying to pull back up at the corners. Eventually, she was able to forget about the whole thing, and get back to normal. It was only one day, and the hike was still lovely, so it wasn’t like it was a total waste of time. Besides, they would be able to laugh about it later, and tell a decent story at parties. Or so they thought, until Olimpia fell.

They were on a narrow trail on a ridge, switching their order organically and unintentionally. Each new leader would warn those behind of obstacles or dangers awaiting them. Unfortunately, this meant that one of them would not enjoy any given warning. Before Olimpia had the chance to inform the other two of a loose rock in the soft dirt, she became the victim of it. At first, she believed that she was okay. She caught herself on a whip tree, and even had enough time to say, “I’m good” before the pole trunk snapped under her weight, and dropped her over the edge. She fell so far, Leona and Romana couldn’t even tell how far it was. She kept tumbling and tumbling down the hill, ultimately disappearing through the forest, but they could hear the sounds of her knocking against things as she kept going, and her screams.

“Stay here,” Leona ordered her daughter.

“You’re not going after her.”

“Of course I’m going after her.”

“You’ll die too! You think it’s gonna be easier for you to get down than her?”

“She started on her back, and gained too much momentum,” Leona reasoned as she was dropping her pack. She took out her trekking poles, which she so far hadn’t bothered using. “I have the luxury of being more careful. We can’t just leave her.”

“I’m not saying that. We need to call for help.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Leona said as she was starting down the hill. “We don’t know how long that’s gonna take, though. I need to go assess the situation. That’s why we brought radio transceivers in addition to the sat phone. I’ll stay in contact from down there. Call S&R.”

“Be careful,” Romana warned, as if that could ever help.

“Yeah.” Leona cautiously walked down the hill with her four appendages, but it was taking too long. If she were going up, she could just keep climbing and climbing, but facing forwards, she had to be mindful of where she placed the tip of her pole. It could sink into mud, or slide on a thick leaf, and then it would literally be downhill from here. Momentum was Olimpia’s problem, but it was going to be Leona’s solution. Now that Romana probably couldn’t see her anymore, she started to slide—not uncontrollably, but more like she was on a snowboard. She went as fast as she could, leaning back to keep herself from tipping over. She still used the poles to slow herself down a little, and occasionally catch herself on a tree. As she got the hang of it, it actually started to be less like snowboarding, and more like skiing. She could just about glide down like a pro, like this hill was designed for it. Then she hit an invisible root, which reminded her why boot skiing wasn’t a real thing. She did tip over, and fell right on her face. Her ass flew up over her, and sent her rolling farther down, and just like Olimpia before, she couldn’t stop herself. She kept going and going until she felt a sharp crack in the back of her neck, and the lights went out.

“Mama! Mama!” Leona could hear. It was Romana.

Leona fluttered her eyes open to see that pretty face looking down at her. “Roma,” she whispered.

“She’s awake,” Romana said to someone out of view.

Olimpia’s equally pretty face appeared above her. “How is that possible? Her neck was broken. I swear, it was broken.”

“Clearly not,” Romana argued.

“Help me up, daughter.” With Romana’s aid, Leona got into a seated position. She leaned back against a boulder on the edge of a creek, and looked up at Olimpia, who was absolutely covered in blood; not quite like Carrie White, but not entirely unlike her either. “How are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” Olimpia replied. “I guess we’re both lucky.”

“Where’s the rescue team?” Leona asked.

“They’re not here yet,” Romana answered. “They said that it would be a couple of hours.”

“That’s funny,” Leona began. “They would be your only way down here since I explicitly ordered you to stay up there.”

“I’m younger than you two,” Romana reasoned. “I have better balance. Even with these things.”

Leona scoffed. Ever since Romana’s boobs came in, she was always talking about them...like Leona ought to be jealous. “You’ll get sick of ‘em.” She struggled to stand up all the way. “I’m all right, I can do it,” she insisted when Romana tried to help again. She looked up at the sky as if she would see a helicopter on its way. “You need to wash yourself off. You survived something that you probably shouldn’t have, and we don’t need people asking questions.”

“What are we?” Olimpia asked. “Superheroes, or something?”

“I’ve never saved anyone in my life,” Leona replied.

“Yes, you have, you’ve saved trillions,” Romana said.

“What?”

Romana flinched, and took a beat. “What?”

That wasn’t true, yet it did sound right somehow. Leona turned back to Olimpia. “Get in the water.”

“I don’t wanna get dysentery.”

“Just don’t get any in your mouth, you’ll be fine,” Leona assured her.

“You could also use these,” Romana countered. She removed a pack of wet wipes from the side pocket on her pack, which she managed to keep on her person.

“Thank you,” Olimpia said, graciously accepting them from her. “I’m gonna need them all, I think,” she decided, looking down at the mess. “And a change of clothes?”

“I can afford it,” Romana told her, “and certainly. How do you feel about pink crop tops?”

Olimpia stripped down and cleaned herself up. In the meantime, Romana tried to cancel search and rescue, but that went against protocol. They said that they couldn’t just turn around and erase the mission from their logs. She could be under duress, or suffering from a concussion that made her confused. They received a distress call, and were obligated to go out and investigate. Welp, they would have to lie and say that it wasn’t as serious as they thought. Romana wasn’t lying about the crop top, though. For Olimpia’s larger frame, however, it was extra croppy; more like a bra. They opted to climb back up the ridge. It wasn’t safe, but they seemed to be some kind of invincible, and they were hoping to find Olimpia’s bag along the way. They did, which allowed her to change into her own extra set of clothes instead.

They found Leona’s bag back up on the ridge trail. After taking a stop to drink water, they simply continued on their way. Oddly enough, the rescue team didn’t show up, and never called back. Concerned, Leona called them again an hour later, but the line was dead. “The phone number you are trying to reach is unavailable, or has been disconnected. Please check the number, and try your call again.” They tried a few more times, and still got nothing. That was super bizarre, but not their problem anymore. They just returned to the cabin, and collapsed on their respective bunks.

The next day, they got back in touch with the boys back in the regular Kansas City area. They immediately confessed what happened to them on that ridge, which prompted Mateo to admit that something similar happened to them, though less accidentally. There was something going on between the four of them, and their neighbors, the Walton twins. Even though they had no clue what was happening, their instincts were telling them that Romana was a lot more fragile, and her durability should not be tested with stabbings, falls, or surge protector strikes. Still, she was one of them, and other than Boyd, and maybe Pacey, no one else was. The more they thought on it, the more convinced they were that they were in a simulation. They had customers and clients and employees, but none of them could relate any specific story about one of them. They couldn’t remember the last time they were at the dentist, or a conversation they had with a classmate. There was something wrong with their memories. That was what it all came down to. And Pacey. He knew something. They could feel it.

The girls boarded their plane, and went back home, or at least that was what they believed. They didn’t have any memory of that either. Not clearly. They returned with the impression that a sufficient amount of time had passed between Portland and Mission Hills, and it seemed like they were at the airport, and then on a plane, but they had no recollection of it. They needed answers, and they needed to find a way to get those answers without their memories being messed with again, if that was really what was happening at all. They didn’t know. They didn’t know anything. Maybe confronting Pacey wasn’t the right call. Maybe all they could do was go out and push the boundaries. If none of this was real, there would be clues. There would be little rendering mistakes, and coding copies. Ramses called this geometry instancing. If they were in a virtual environment, each blade of grass would probably just be a copy, repeated from a single block of code. Through enough examination, they should be able to detect this, even though they obviously couldn’t read the code directly. Hopefully, whoever was watching over them—if anyone—wouldn’t catch them in the act. Perhaps a distraction was in order?

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Microstory 2190: Ready to Hit the Ground

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If you want to know what we did today, just read my posts from the last few days, because it was pretty much the same. So far, we’ve not scheduled any interviews for next week, but we anticipate doing so. Jasmine and I might have to make a few calls over the weekend to coordinate that, but we won’t be working full time by any means. It’s going to start getting interesting on Tuesday. I’m intending to spend a lot of time on Monday going over the top candidates’ résumés, and my notes about them. We’ll be beginning to extend offers throughout the week while we continue to conduct the remaining interview sessions. We’re hoping to have a full roster by this time next Friday. Of course, no plan survives contact with the real world, to paraphrase the first rule of warfare. Some will not accept the offers, either because they changed their minds—because something changed in their lives, because their idea of the job was altered by speaking with me, or just because—or because they received a better offer, or are hoping to. That’s okay, they have every right to reject us. This is a business relationship, and I’m not going to get mad if they decide that they want something else out of life. We planned around all of these little complications and hiccups, and are confident that we will still be able to start our work with a complete team by the first of August. If we were to assume that we would send out all offers by EOD Friday, that would give the typical two-week waiting period until people could start. Some may be able to come in early, and some may need more time, so there’s a three day grace period to help with that. If we’re not ready to hit the ground running by our goal date, that’s okay too. We’ll work with what we have until the rest are ready to start. Onboarding will be easier if it’s not happening for everyone all on the same day anyway. I’m excited. It’s exciting. Are you excited? Get excited.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 14, 2435

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If Vitalie went back in time, presumably to Ex-741, why didn’t she prevent the planet from being destroyed? Well, there was a logical answer to that, though there was no way of knowing whether it was the right answer. The world suffered a massive matter-antimatter reaction, worse than the one that decimated the refugee world that the team tried to stay on in the Fifth Division. This one was catastrophic enough to tear the whole thing apart, so there was no reason to believe that anyone survived it, and since the chain reaction was obviously triggered by their arrival, they had every reason to suspect that their deaths was the ultimate goal. Perhaps any vessel that tried to land would have triggered the reaction, but since the Exins would have proverbially gotten away with their oppressive ways if it weren’t for the meddling kids, the team decided to assume that they were the specific targets. So they were almost certainly dead, their means of survival being so outrageous that the Exins would not have even considered it as a possible outcome, and the best thing that Team Matic could do was to stay dead. To make that happen without just running away, or pointlessly orbiting a star for years on end would be to start hiding in plain sight.

The old ship that Vitalie apparently programmed to meet them on the asteroid was rather small. Perhaps old wasn’t the word for it...certified preowned, maybe? They didn’t find any auto history report in it, though, so they couldn’t tell what it had been through. Ramses found a database of information in the central computer, but it didn’t say anything about how the vessel was used in the past. It just provided him with the technical specifications, and the implication that it was very, very old. Oh, and they also knew that it was called The Dorsch. It was not a rustbucket, but as mentioned, it was small; smaller than the Dante, though still larger than the little unnamed thing they were using that was just destroyed a few years ago. Ram spent the rest of the day affixing the pocket dimension generator to one of the doors, as well as making some other retrofits. The rest of the team had school.

While the Dorsch was going to shapeshift using exterior holographics, the rest of the team needed to do the same. Fortunately, they were all capable of changing their appearances. The power was replicated from Alyssa McIver, though none of them had used it much. Leona was the most experienced, but the rest had only tried a few times, so she spent most of the day teaching them how to hold convincing and sustained false images. They couldn’t lose focus for a split second, or it would totally undermine the ruse. The next day, only Marie and Angela were excelling at the new skill, so it was decided that the others would not yet face any of the locals at their next destination. So only the three of them would be part of the outreach program.

Mateo and Olimpia went off to find Vitalie!613, but that didn’t take long at all, so they zipped back up to the Dorsch, where Ramses was working. The holographic projectors were not yet ready, but that was all right, because the idea was to always show up to each new planet looking different, and they had never been anywhere else looking like this, so it was fine to use for this trial run. They still didn’t know if their new modus operandi was going to work in the short-term, let alone the long-run. “How long are you gonna wait?” He was tweaking something on some device.

“I’ll wait several months,” Vitalie!613 decided. If she started butting into lives of the Ex-613 natives right after this mysterious trio of women showed up, they might make a connection between them, and if they did that, they may start to suspect some connection to Team Matic, which would invalidate this whole revised plan.

“What are you gonna do in the meantime?” Ramses pressed.

“I’ll just find an island somewhere, and have a nice vacation. That is, unless you can give me your little illusion power, so I can blend in with them.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said apologetically. The truth was that he didn’t want this power spreading like a virus. Eventually, everyone would be able to look like anyone, and then the entire concept of trust could be vanquished from the universe. Was it selfish to hoard the ability, and keep it just within the group? Probably, but he wasn’t going to apologize for it. He would only apologize for the other reasons. “I couldn’t just give it to you as you are. I would need to clone you, and transfer your consciousness, and I don’t know enough about your current powers to replicate those as well. It’s a delicate balance. You can’t just copy and paste powers. You would end up being more than the sum of your parts, and the consequences of that condition are too unpredictable.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Vitalie!613 said. “I don’t just have Andromeda’s, Saga’s, Camen’s, and Étude’s powers separately. They’re all mixed in with each other. Étude wasn’t born with the ability to teleport. She was given the ability to be teleported, by the powers that be. The fact that she retained any level of it always felt like a mistake to her. She thought that the PTB forgot to take it away, because they would normally pass it on to someone else, but she was last, so it slipped their minds. I bet if we compared notes, we would find that the way I teleport is different than your way.”

Ramses was working this whole time, but he stopped now to look up. Then he turned to face her as he was lifting the lenses of his magnifying specs. “That’s a good idea. Let’s compare notes.”

“That sounds time-intensive, and it doesn’t look like you have time. I’m not leaving this planet, and you’re not staying.”

Ramses flicked the lenses back down. “Well, we’ll see. Leona may determine that this world is a two-dayer.”

Meanwhile, down on the planet, Leona, Angela, and Marie were pretending to be three survivors from the north. They found two major settlements on the surface, which were on the same continent, but thousands of kilometers from each other. They were not connected by any roads, and the level of technology that they exhibited did not suggest that air transport was a thing here. In addition, multiple mountain ranges separated them, making foot-traffic unlikely, albeit not impossible, which would explain how these three strangers made it all the way here. The northern settlement was in ruins. They found bones, but no evidence of an attack. They probably died out in an epidemic of some sort. All of this gave them a hopefully believable reason why the southern settlement had never seen them before.

“So, you don’t want a parade?” the Director asked them.

“Why would we get a parade?” Leona asked him.

“We always put on a parade for new arrivals,” the Director explained. “The only person who never got a parade was the first one here. She’s the one who planned the parade for the second person. But I guess if you’ve been living here, you already got your parade...unless they don’t do them up north.”

“Uh, we’re not sure,” Marie responded. “We never arrived here,” she lied. “We were born on this world. Our parents might have had parades, though.”

He narrowed his eyes. “We were sterilized. We’re not supposed to have children.”

“It must not have worked for them,” Angela reasoned. “The two of us are twins. She’s our younger sister.”

“Really? She looks older.”

“I’ve had a harder life,” Leona said. They couldn’t make themselves look like one of their friends from the stellar neighborhood, because any of them could be just as famous as the members of the team. But they each knew plenty of people from their pasts that had no connection to salmon and choosers. The easiest way to form a skintight hologram of someone like that was to let your subconsciousness do it for you. Leona didn’t even remember who this person was that she looked like now. She could have been a fifth grade art teacher, or a mother she stood behind in line in the grocery store once. If she looked older than the inspirations that Angela and Marie’s subconsciousnesses chose, it was nothing more than a coincidence.

Marie sighed. “Here’s what happened. She and I were born, and we lived up north. Before we were old enough to keep memories, our parents had to leave. The theory is that everyone else died. We don’t know how. Along the way, she was born, which meant that she was always on the move, and never benefited from the stability of a true home. That could be why she’s aged a little faster. We have been heading this direction our entire lives. Our parents died along the way, and now here we are.”

“Did you see any other resorts?” the Director asked them all.

“Resort?”

“Yeah, that’s what this is. It’s a resort. I am the Resort Director.”

“Oh.” Marie faced Leona. “It was a resort. If it was anything like this place, our parents lived in a resort.”

Leona nodded. “They were so cagey. They refused to tell us much about where we came from. That’s why we’re so confused and uninformed. Please forgive us.”

“What is the purpose of this resort?” Angela asked, doubling down on their excuse to be ignorant.

“It is a reward for a job well-done. We all came from different planets. Every year, the Empire evaluates the merits of every planet under the domain. One planet is selected which has exemplified the values and spirit of the Exin Way of Life. At the same time, a potential winner on each planet is found after its own rigorous evaluations. If the planet wins that year’s round of evaluations, the planet’s winner is transported here from there. On the planet where I’m from, the local winner receives consolation prizes if that planet is not chosen as the above-all winner. On some planets, if the planet doesn’t win that year, the individual winner wins nothing. They just go on with their lives.”

“I see. So you’re all just living here together. All of your needs are provided?” Leona asked him.

“Absolutely,” the Resort Director replied. “We always suspected that there were other resorts, but we have no communication with them. This is big news.”

“Do you have any problems? Any crime?”

“No. Like I said, we’re all chosen after rigorous evaluations. No one with poor psychology, or proven bad behavior, is allowed in. Everything’s perfect. I see no reason why you can’t join us. No one can be here if they don’t belong, so you must belong.”

“Thanks. We’ll, uh...can we talk in private?” Leona asked.

“You may have the room,” he offered before leaving.

“I think we just got our Vitalie back,” Marie determined.

“Why?” Angela asked.

“They don’t need a Caretaker,” Leona figured. “This place is...inconsequential. No one needs to be saved. They don’t need to be stopped from doing anything bad.”

“Leona, Angela, Marie,” Olimpia began through the comms. “Get back up here.”

They all teleported back up to the ship.

“We’ve been listening,” Olimpia went on. “What were you gonna say, Vita?”

“I think I should stay,” Vitalie!613 believed.

“What would you do here?” Leona asked her.

“I would gather information. That’s what you need, right?”

“Well, yeah, but...”

“You have a star chart. You know the numeral designation of every planet you go to, but you don’t know anything about it, do you? They might need your help. They might be trying to destroy the galaxy. You just don’t know. Let me find out for you, so you can prepare for the mission. There could be one person from every single planet in the Empire here. I’ll talk to them, gain their trust, and then relay information to you. Just give me one of those little communication discs.”

“That’s not your mission, though; your self-appointed purpose. You replicated yourself to take care. You’re the Caretaker.”

“Eh, things change,” Vitalie!613 mused. “Have you noticed when you’ve met other versions of me that we all act a little bit differently? Because of stasis, it hasn’t necessarily been very long since we diverged. Before the OG Vitalie started replicating herself through time travel, she prepared herself psycho-emotionally. She essentially trained herself to be flexible, adaptable. Every one of me that you meet is different because the situation is different, because you’re coming at me with different attitudes, based on your own background, which shifts with every new experience that you have. Yes, I came here to be a caretaker, but now as you’ve pointed out, Ex-613 doesn’t need that. It needs a spy.”

“I dunno,” Leona said. “You’re not invincible. People train in spycraft for years. You don’t just wake up one day and start doing it. Infiltrating one person’s life is difficult enough, but you want to infiltrate—and gain the trust of—an entire population. That is a tall order for anyone. Forgive me, but on Dardius, you operated primarily on brute force, because no one could stop you. Subtlety is not something that you needed before.”

“Okay, so let’s start small. I’ll insert myself into the life of one person. What’s the designation for the next planet you’re going to?”

“I have the list,” Olimpia announced. She pulled up her tablet. “The next one over is Ex-666. Hm. Does that have the same connotation for you as it did in my time?”

“Yes,” Angela and Marie answered simultaneously.

“I’ll find someone who lived on Ex-666, and tell you about it,” Vitalie!613 continued. “I’ll have months to get the information out of them gradually before you come back into the timestream. Give me a chance. I can take care of myself. Pun very intended.”

Leona thought about it, and eventually agreed. “But don’t forget that we can come back for you. Not at any moment, but...”

“Thanks.”

The next year, they learned that no one on Ex-613 originally came from Ex-666, and later that it was not given that number randomly. It was a penal colony. Maybe the numbers did mean something.

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Microstory 2085: Passing a Hat Around

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We’re all pretty bummed at work today. Like I told you, I have a co-worker who has gone missing. I actually never had the pleasure of meeting him. He wasn’t on the schedule on my first day. He was on it for my second day, but he never showed up, which is why it was so crazy and hectic for me. You never wanna be short-staffed when you’re trying to train someone new. For the last couple of weeks, the police have been investigating his disappearance, though investigate is probably a bit of a strong word. The way I hear it, he wasn’t the most responsible dude, but he wasn’t the type to just skip town, and not tell anyone. My boss believes that he might—might—be the type to skip town, but make contact afterwards to apologize, but even that’s a stretch. He reportedly loved working at the nursery. They think he may have had some debt issues, though, which is why they’ve decided to drop the case. Their current theory is that he just decided to leave at the beginning of the month, and start a new life somewhere else. He doesn’t appear to have any family; in the area, or otherwise, so he would have found it easy to leave everything behind. The rest of us aren’t so sure. It’s not just that he wasn’t showing signs of wanting to run. He was looking forward to a party last weekend, and he was a month away from finally paying off his car. His friends don’t think that he would miss out on the satisfaction. It doesn’t add up. I’m pretty upset about it myself. I don’t exactly know why. It could be that I have a general disdain for injustice and unfairness, or because I had to call the man a million times to try to get him to come into work. Even though I had no way of knowing, I feel bad about the whole thing. Knowing what I know now, it seems so petty to have been so anxious about his absence. I’m thinking about passing a hat around to collect money for a private investigator, but I do not want to overstep. I’m still so new, to the company, and to the world itself.

Microstory 2075: Her Last Period

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Guys, it was a rough day today. It was even harder than yesterday, but it’s no one’s fault. My boss had a family emergency, and had to leave in the middle of the day. On top of that, the other two people who were meant to work the first shift didn’t show up. One of them was sick, so she called in yesterday evening, which we expected to be fine, because even though I’m the newbie, I’m still an extra hand to keep the ship afloat. The other guy just straight up never came in, and we don’t know why. My boss asked me to keep calling him, but he never picked up. She was worried about him, of course, but she also wasn’t super surprised by his absence, so I think he’s just not all that reliable. I also called everyone else who worked there, which isn’t very many people, but none of them could come except for one girl. She’s still in high school, so she couldn’t be there until after her last period. Well, I actually think she skipped it for me. There was a good four hours where I was the only worker in the whole nursery. Fortunately, for a couple of those hours, one of the regular customers helped me out. She didn’t know how the cash register worked, or any of that behind-the-scenes stuff, but she’s an expert in plants and flowers, so she assisted customers for me, which was absolutely amazing. Such a crazy second day. Not boring at all, I’ll tell you that much. As you can imagine, I’m pretty wiped tonight, so I’m going to sign off now, and get back to you on Monday. I suspect that my next post will be pretty long, since I’ll have to recap four days, including this wild one.

Microstory 2067: Something Less Monogamous

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Another one answered my ad in the paper, even though I only bought space on the one day. I left my new email address, though, so strangers could be emailing me over the course of the next few centuries if they wanted. Since I’m not a real person, I’ve not built up enough history to be getting many other emails, so I’m not worried about being inundated, or anything. It’s not like it will clog up my inbox, and make it harder to keep up with interesting news articles. Since, ya know, you don’t really have those here. Moving on, the woman I spoke to on the phone isn’t an alien, and doesn’t think she is. She’s just kind of an alien groupie. This was an apparent truth from the start, that she wants to meet me in person because of who I claim to be, but I kept talking to her, because what if I’m not the first? If she’s already done the work of finding people like me, I might as well nurture this relationship. I don’t want to lead her on, though. Cricket is in another universe right now—hopefully a very safe one, but cheating is cheating, and I am no cheater. The way I see it, if you’re committed to someone monogamously, and you want to connect with someone else, either turn your current partnership into something less monogamous, or leave them. It’s not fair that you get to have whatever you want at anyone else’s expense. Your happiness is not all that matters. I don’t want to be with anyone but him, in any capacity, and even if I did, I couldn’t do anything about it, because I’m not capable of having a conversation with him about it first. And anyway, I don’t know who this woman has met, or if they’re the real deal. Will stay in contact with her just the same, just like with the guy before.

Microstory 2066: Just Backpedal a Little

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Had a good meeting with my social worker today. I was coughing a lot, but we were both wearing masks, and he apparently always walks around with this foldable clear plastic partition. I’m not the only client of his who has health issues. I just hope I get over mine soon, and adapt better to this world. I didn’t tell him any of this, but I’m just now realizing that I told him that I’ve been keeping a blog, and gave him a link, so he’ll be able to read all of this. I’ve already talked a lot about how I believe I’m from a different universe. Maybe I could just backpedal a little, and tell him that it’s fiction, and this is all nothing more than a creative outlet. But he would be able to read this installment too, which apparently negates that explanation. Maybe I’ll just schedule this to post near the end of the evening. I don’t expect he’ll read this far anyway. It’s not like this is brilliant writing. Then again, the newest post will always be at the top, and I’ve spoken to people back when I was writing my fictional stories who just read that most recent one, and then stopped. So the newest one always has to be the best. But even then, it’s often taken completely out of context. I am trying to paint you a picture here. You can’t start in the middle, and expect to form a reasonable opinion on my skill, can you? No, that would be unfair. Start at the beginning, or don’t start at all. No, don’t do that. That’s what most people do. Five billion people in the world, and the number of people who actually read my ish adds up to a rounding error. Just kidding, it’s zero, with a margin of error of zero also. Yay, me! Whatever. Anyway, I got a second hit on my ad. She doesn’t claim to be an alien, but she hasn’t said she isn’t yet. I’m calling her tonight. Audio only.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 3, 2399

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Winona is in charge of so many things now. When she first got into this business, her father had maneuvered her into a position within the government. She by no means started out in the mail room, but she wasn’t top dog yet either. She proved herself over time, and did everything she could to move up the ranks on her own merit, rather than because of her dad’s political power. No one could have foreseen the sudden introduction of time travelers to this world. She’s been trying to juggle all of the new responsibilities with her regular duties, but it’s recently become too much. She was gradually passing work off to trusted subordinates, and it’s time to pass the torch totally. But even that is too much for her to worry about right now, because on top of the three and a half men that she has locked away at this black site, she’s just brought in a tactical team who are exhibiting unusual and erratic behavior. They all act like one of their members just died. There’s no record of that happening, but funny enough—not funny, haha; more like funny, oh God—there are meant to be seven people on a tack team.

“Who is your Spotter?” she asks.

“That’s it,” Team Leader Alserda says, having an epiphany. “That’s who we’re missing. Who is our Spotter?” she echoes to Winona.

Winona looks down to the floor and sighs. “It’s not Hurst?” she says, half as a question, and half as a statement.

“It was. He became our Technician.”

“And your Technician, Strand became your Engineer. And your Engineer, Klein became your Lieutenant.”

“Because my Lieutenant, McGuinness retired,” Alserda finishes. “Who is our Spotter!” she asks the whole universe.

“What was your mission?” Winona asks, fully knowing the answer, like a school teacher.

“We were looking for people who were going to hurt Leona Matic. That has been our primary mission for weeks.”

“We should have pulled you from that,” Winona notes. “We caught the people who set the bounty, so we were dispatching pub teams to spread the news, and infil teams to confirm it to the underground.”

“I dunno,” Alserda says sadly. “We were in Romania. We were definitely working, not on vacation. I don’t—I have memories from before, but something feels missing.” She’s mostly been staring into space, but now she makes eye contact. “Was it our Spotter? Did something happen to them? What could do that?”

Then it dawns on her. “A time traveler.”

“Madam?” she questions simply.

“I need to make a call.” Winona starts to leave the room. That’s not a fitting word for it. It’s one of those nice locked chambers that the likes of Labhrás Delaney live in. “Try to get some rest. I’ll see about getting you com privileges with your team.” She dials her phone as she’s walking down the hallway. “Mateo? I have kind of a weird question. Are you still in transitional quarantine?” She waits for a response. “Okay, then we’ll talk later. But while you’re in the middle of that, maybe you could think about what could make an entire person disappear, both from the world, and people’s memories.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 10, 2399

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Ramses tethers the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to a small asteroid. It’s just within teleporter range of the Constant. It’s not the perfect quick getaway plan, but it’s better than letting himself and Alyssa be trapped in there with no hope. They don’t know who they’re going to find, or what their intentions will be. Once the ship is locked up and secure, they make the jump.

“Mr. Abdulrashid, it’s nice to meet you. Miss McIver, nice to see you again.” Danica holds out her hand as if greeting a couple of guests that she respects.

“We’ve never met,” Alyssa says.

“Oh, but we have.”

“You erased my memories, which means that—for all intents and purposes—it never happened. Your accounting of events is irrelevant to me.”

“I see my reputation has spread.”

“My mother would always say, your reputation starts with you.”

“Wise woman.”

“Dead woman; thanks to you, no doubt.”

“Why would you say that?”

“The causality chain is profoundly long, but everything that has ever happened in this reality started with you.”

“Is this the kind of stuff you’re teaching her?” Danica asks Ramses.

“She’s an independent human being. I taught her how to teleport, that’s it.”

“And how to use my illusion powers,” Alyssa reminds him.

“Right.”

“But that was in my old body,” Alyssa adds. “Perhaps you can shed some light on that too? Who is trying to murder my friend, Leona?”

“Contrary to what you’ve been...” Danica trails off, not wanting to repeat the word taught since it seems to be a sensitive subject for them. “...what you may have heard,” she amends, “I am not the god of this world. I don’t control everything.”

“You control enough,” Ramses contends.

“Is that why you came all the way out here?” she questions. “You just wanted to tilt at windmills?”

“You’re not imaginary; you are clearly very real.” Ramses takes a beat. “But no, we’re looking for answers, and for help.” He takes out his handheld device, and clears his throat. “Number one, how do we safely get Leona out of Leona Reaver’s body, and back into—?”

“How many questions do you have on your list?”

“At the moment, two hundred and sixteen.”

“Ye, my child, I will answer but one question per member of your party,” Danica teases in bad faith.

“Does my dick count as a separate member?” The look on Alyssa’s face, he can barely see it out of the corner of his eye. They did not rehearse that line.

Danica sighs like a teacher who hasn’t reached her tipping point yet. “You must be hungry and tired from your journey. Please follow me to the master sitting room.”

“We ate and slept on our ship,” Ramses explains.

“Surely you’re sick of Third Rail Earth food. When was the last time you were able to order literally anything you wanted from a molecular synthesizer?” Danica asks.

“Tantalizing us with food,” Ramses muses mockingly. “You know us so well, we’re eating like pandas down there.”

“What’s a panda?” Alyssa asks.

“I’ll tell you later,” he replies, still staring at Danica. “I’m winning a battle of wits right now.”

Danica smiles on the edge of a laugh. “You think you’re winning?”

“Show us who’s here,” Ramses demands.

“Is that the first of your two official questions?”

“I didn’t raise my inflection at the end of that sentence. Did it sound like a question? Do you want me to write it down for you?”

“Which of those two questions is your official question?”

Now Ramses is growing frustrated. “Show us who is here. Show us why Mateo is risking his life in a stasis pod in the middle of interplanetary space.”

Danica purses her lips. “Follow me.”

“Wait, we need to check on Angela first,” Alyssa realizes as they’re walking down the hallway.

“They’re both in the infirmary,” Danica tells them. She leads them away.

A man in a white lab coat is sitting next to one of the stasis pods. He stands up when he sees them come in. He’s nervous, and seemingly a little protective. When they get closer, they can see that he’s watching over Angela. “How is she?”

“Couldn’t tell ya,” the doctor says in a frustrated voice. “I don’t know how these machines work. She hasn’t moved a centimeter.”

“She’s frozen in time,” Danica has to explain for probably the upteenth time. “You’ll be staring at her for a long time if you want to see her move even a millimeter. Even then, I gave her a sedative, so she’s probably not even active within her own temporal reference frame.”

The doctor looks to Ramses, even though they don’t know each other. Ramses takes a look at Angela’s readings. “She looks fine.” He places a hand on the doctor’s back, and leans them both towards it. “Watch this number here. It’s the differential. Alert someone if it changes even a decimal point, as that could mean her time is starting to catch up with ours.”

He nods. “Okay.”

And see this soft pulsing light,” Ramses goes on. “It should stay green. If it starts to turn red, it means that the containment field is failing. Red, right?” he asks Danica.

“Is that your official question?” she asks again. That joke is getting old.

“Danica.”

“Mauve,” she corrects. “Mauve is a broken field. Watch for a blue or purple light.”

“Got it,” the doctor says gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Did you want to see my other patient, or what?” Danica asks.

“Ramses Abdulrashid.” He shakes the doctor’s hand. Then he jogs over to Danica while Alyssa introduces herself as well, having to take a moment to explain why she looks like Leona right now.

“Who is it?” Ramses asks. He’s looking at a very old stranger in his own pod, though it’s not stasis. He’s hooked up to advanced life support.

“Lucius Carlise.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s dying. He’s dying of old age. He made his way here too many decades ago.”

“Can’t you save him?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Danica responds. “I wasn’t given the kind of resources that I would like. The medicine and medical equipment, in particular, are severely lacking. I guess the builders of this place decided that it wasn’t my job to save people’s lives. That’s the responsibility of people like Doctors Sarka and Hammer.”

“He looks...old enough to pass away. Does he want you to save him?”

“I didn’t ask. He’s been unresponsive for weeks.”

“What’s so important about keeping him alive?” Ramses asks.

She bites her lower lip. “Is that your official—”

“Just answer the goddamn question, and stop it with the arbitrary rules,” Ramses interrupts, fed up with this bullshit.

“He’s a molecular teleporter.”

“I know that. He can tear you apart, sending individual molecules to different points in space and time. That doesn’t explain why you need him alive.”

“There are things that you don’t know,” she says, “about the future.”

“Then tell me. That wasn’t a question either.” He needs to be careful about those.

She really doesn’t want to answer, but she’s kind of giving him the impression that she needs him, or someone else on the team. “There’s a war coming. I tried to stop it, but I failed. I failed one hundred percent of the missions I ordered. Now the only way to save lives is...”

“Is to win this war?” Ramses figures.

“I don’t want to fight anyone.”

“Danica, this guy doesn’t fight. I mean, for a dude with such massive muscles, he sure doesn’t need them. How powerful is he? Could he destroy a planet without lifting a finger? A star system?”

“He could destroy a star system. It would have to be one celestial body at a time, but yeah. I don’t plan on using him.”

“He’s a deterrent, I get it. I’m from the main sequence too, remember? Our wars came with real risk of precipitating a nuclear holocaust. We didn’t have any religions telling us not to. But we moved past mutually assured destruction, and rose to a higher level of understanding. You were born in a more enlightened age, and you had the opportunity and power to make an even better world here. I was told that that’s exactly what you were trying to do, but now you tell me that you’re just gonna throw it away?”

“Like I said, I don’t want to kill anyone, but the Parallel is too powerful. We have no other defenses against them, because I’m not in control of the Omega Gyroscope. No one is. It’s been on autopilot for billions of years. He may be our only hope.”

“Wait, the Parallel? This is a war between realities?”

“Yes. That is what I witnessed.”

He looks back down at the half-dead Lucius. Ramses doesn’t know any version of him all that well, but there is no way he wants this. If her story is true, then he must have come here on purpose, and it was not to commit genocide. Nothing about how Mateo described him suggests he’s that violent. He probably came here knowing that his powers wouldn’t work. He looks back at a frowning Alyssa. “Do it.”

She nods, and lifts her watch up to her mouth. “Mateo...burst mode.”