Microstory 2029: Michigan

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Papa’s bosses must have heard me from the past, lol, because they ended up taking one of their submarines on a trip. They took a ferry to get to that island in Connecticut, but they didn’t do it like that when they all went to Michigan. They worked in Chicago, which is on the southern part of Lake Michigan. I don’t know if it was a new sub, or what, but in 2011, they all crammed into it, and took it all the way up north, to the other side of the giant lake. They ended up in a city in Michigan called Mackinaw City. It was the first time anyone had done anything like that. That wasn’t the point of the trip, though. They actually wanted to get to the city. Well, they were outside of the city. It was for something called a corporate retreat. It was summertime, so once they landed at the docks, they took cars into the woods. That’s where they played games, and learned how to work with each other. At that point, the company was over ten years old. A lot of people wanted to work there, so there were new workers who weren’t there before. Most of the people at the retreat didn’t know each other very well. A company built the camp to help other companies’ teams work together better. My papa was in charge of it for his team, but he also participated in the games and exercises. When it was over, most of them just flew back home, but papa got to go back in the submarine again. He stopped at other cities in Michigan along the way, because he had always wanted to see them. Then he took it back to the submarine base, and went home.

Microstory 2007: Oregon

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In summer of 1987, papa was 14 years old, and about to start high school for the first time. But remember, this would be at the same school he was before, but it was still going to be different. His mother was a teacher, so she knew how important schooling was. She knew that it was going to be a lot harder for papa than it was in the lower grades. She wanted him to have one more experience as a kid, where he could have fun, and not worry about grades yet. She also wanted him to be away from his family, because she knew that he was going to have to go off to college when he got older, so he had to learn. She found a summer camp that went for a whole two months! I went to summer camp once, but it was only for two weeks. Papa only saw his parents twice while he was there, and his sister once. I remember him telling me that he had a lot of fun, but he was sad to be away from his family and friends for so very long. He made friends there, though, that he stayed friends with. They did a whole lot of things there, like swimming, horseback riding, and even archery. The camp was in Oregon, so it took them 9 hours to get there, which is why his family didn’t get to visit him very often. The place was called Antelope Reservoir Camp, and it doesn’t exist anymore, because the people who owned it ran out of money. I would have liked to see where my papa spent so much time, but maybe when I’m older, my dad will let me go to a place that’s like it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 25, 2399

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While Alyssa teleported rather randomly around the area, Mateo and Tarboda started hunting for the secrets of Daltomism the old fashioned way. They looked for hidden ruins, secret hatches, visible temporal anomalies, and anything else out of the ordinary. This is one of the remotest regions of Madagascar, known as Tsingy De Bemaraha National Park. The terrain is rough and unapologetic. It would be a great place to hide a real life god, and they’re pretty convinced that someone is here, or there wouldn’t be a tractor beam under that lake. They also don’t think that whatever they’re looking for is located too close to the lake. The tractor beam is trying to keep away from it. They’re focusing their efforts on the part of the jungle where Vearden first suggested they try. When they didn’t find anything by nightfall, they decided to make camp there. Alyssa offered to just take them back to civilization, but what if Dalton showed up overnight? What if his most devout followers build a ritualistic bonfire to worship the lunar demons, or whatever the hell else they believe in? They didn’t want to miss it.

The next morning, they go back to work. They’ve found it. It’s a half hut, but not the half you’re thinking of. The bed is part way on the wood floor, then hovers over the missing floor at the foot. The roof is over the missing part of the floor, and not over the actual floor. The window ought to have four quadrants, but the only two quadrants visible are diagonal to each other. The wall that it’s been placed on works the same way, but exists only by the missing quadrants. The nightstand is missing its legs, and the lamp is missing every other slice of its shade, as well as the entire bulb, though the light emanating from it shines as if it were there. A man steps in through a door, which only has a top half.  If this weren’t a transdimensional structure, or something else crazy and weird like that, they would have seen him walk up from the side. He came from another place. This...is a permanent portal.

The man starts to set his belongings down on the bed, and then finally notices Mateo and Tarboda. He stares at them and blinks like he’s never seen another human being before. “Crap.” He looks back at the door, likely weighing the pros and cons of running. He doesn’t budge, which suggests that anyone can walk right on through, without a key, or some time power form of it.

“It’s okay,” Mateo says, dropping his pack to the ground, and holding his hands up to show that he’s unarmed. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“I don’t suppose any of you are one of the keys,” he asks.

“No, but we know two of them. Are we allowed to mention their names, or is there some sort of compartmentalization rule against it?”

He narrows his eyes. “Which ones do you know?”

“Iris Blume and Summit Ebora.”

He perks up. “My wife and child.”

“Does that make you a key?”

“Hm. We’re called keyholders...the co-parents.”

“Do you know who the other keys are? We might know where they are.”

Cheyenne comes through the portal door, and places a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. It’s okay, Rino. They’re friends.”

“Are we?” Mateo questions.

“What my husband did was reckless, but necessary. And what I did was meant to protect him, and therefore also necessary.”

“We understand, we just...don’t know who you are.”

“I’m the Fifth Key.”

“What does that mean?” Tarboda presses. “What are the keys? “What do you do?”

Cheyenne ignores his question. “Did you find The Arc yet?”

“If you mean the weird building thing that’s actually a ship, then yes.”

“Good, you’re on schedule.”

“We’re using it to house refugees,” Tarboda explains. “If you have plans for some other group of—”

“No,” Cheyenne interrupts, “that’s who it’s for. Whoever needs it can live there.”

“What happens to those who don’t get on it? Does everyone on this world die?”

“Heavens, no. It’s a...bellwether. They built it for the Third Railers to show them what wonders are possible, to give them a technological boost.”

“Against the other realities in the war,” Mateo guesses.

“That’s Aldona’s job,” she says. “The Arc is a message of peace.”

“From who?”

Cheyenne smiles. “From you.”

Mateo sighs. “Don’t say anything else about my future, please.”

She keeps smiling, and nods in agreement.

Mateo takes a beat. “What about Dalton Hawk?”

She looks somewhat uncomfortable. “What about him?”

He eyes the magic door. “Is he in there somewhere?”

“I don’t know where he is now. He and we came to an understanding. We get to live here with no risk of running out of temporal energy, safe until it’s time to come back out. In exchange, we don’t interfere with his plans.”

“Are his plans...”

“Noble? Good?” Cheyenne thinks about it. “They’re not bad. They’re also irrelevant. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste your time with him. The Reconvergence is coming, the Keys will be turned, and the Reality Wars will begin. They can’t be stopped, and nothing he’s tried to do with his little religion is gonna make one goddamn bit of difference. Eight billion people live on this planet, and even less in the Fourth Quadrant. That is a rounding error compared to the vast populations of the other three parallel realities. People will one day know who he truly is, and they’ll stop following him, because others will show their own power, and they won’t be dicks about it. He only has so many followers because he’s the only one on stage right now.”

“You know a hell of a lot more about this than you let on before. When Danica and I first happened upon you—”

“That was not a coincidence. I was told to find my future there. I’ve learned a lot more about it since then, but the only lies I ever told were to protect everyone’s future.”

“Okay. Just tell me, who are the other keys?”

She frowns at the lost puppy. “Very well. Iris Blume of the Parallel, Summit Ebora of the Fifth Division, Kyra Torosia of the Fourth Quadrant, Cheyenne Duvall of the Third Rail.” She bows gracefully, then pauses. “Cedar Duvall of the Sixth Key.”

Cedar is not surprising. “Wait, you skipped one. Who’s from the main sequence?”

Cheyenne hesitates, but is preparing to answer. “Vearden Haywood.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 24, 2399

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During World War VI, Captain Tarboda Hobson was an active member of the air force, serving by dropping supplies into quarantine camps so no one would actually have to go inside. When a new vaccine was released, he would drop that in too. Of course, a new strain—or an entirely new pathogen—was coming into power seemingly every day back then, so he never took any time off. Even that seems like nothing compared to what he’s doing now. He’s taking advantage of his new chance on life, and trying to help as many people as possible. What he’s been doing is technically against global law, but it’s a gray area when it comes to Leona’s nation. Of course, he’s utilizing resources from the U.S. government, but he’s just pretending that that’s not really happening. It’s not his job to be concerned with the politics anyway. He and his new team have one objective, which is to rescue people who are being trafficked all over the world, and to relocate them to Leona’s magical new building. He forgot how much he loved doing this, not worrying about making the decisions. He flies, that’s what he does. It’s all he does. Well, he sometimes pilots in boat mode.

Today is different. He’s being temporarily reassigned to a new mission. While Leona does whatever it is she’es doing stateside, he’s on his way to the Island of Madagascar. The religion of Daltomism supposedly originated here. According to Mateo, who’s here with him, this might not be completely random. If you drew a line from Kansas straight through the center of the Earth, and came out the other side, Madagascar would be the nearest landmass. These are called antipodes, though the place where they’re going is not the exact opposite point. The exact opposite would be in the middle of the ocean, as it usually is, since the Earth is mostly water. This was close enough, and it is Leona’s belief that Dalton chose this region because it was the farthest from The Constant in what is now Kansas. That’s where all the mysterious immortal people live that Tarboda hasn’t dealt with directly yet.

“Don’t we think this is all happening a little too quick? Word around the government water cooler is that Leona’s about to announce something big.”

“It has to happen fast,” Mateo explains. “The Reality Wars are starting early next month. Dalton Hawke is the last piece of the puzzle. If this is where he founded his religion, we have to know about it.”

“How did you find this place specifically?”

“Our new friend, Imani gave us a copy of Word of Dalton, Book II, which she can evidently get in a lot of trouble for. Vearden was researching it for us before his...” Mateo trails off. “He thinks it describes this part of the jungle.”

“What do we think, there’s a hidden temple somewhere around here?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, we may find out soon.” Tarboda slows down, and shifts into hover mode. “We’re at the coordinates you gave me.”

“Is there, like, a camera on the bottom of this thing?” Mateo asks, looking at the floor. “I would like to see what’s directly below us.”

“Is there a camera?” Tarboda echoes with a laugh. “Ha!” He engages erasure mode, removing the floor entirely, showing them what it would look like if it didn’t exist, and they could just float in the air.

“Whoa. I’ve seen stuff like this before. I have an idea of how it works, but it’s still trippy to stand here. Can you scan for structures, or whatever?”

“Uhhh...” Tarboda taps through the manual on the built-in screen. “Scan. Here we go.” He presses the button. Nothing happens that they can see, but the computer says that it’s scanning. “It didn’t find anything. No ruins.”

“That’s not surprising, or someone would have found it a long time ago. I’ve always wanted to do that thing where we—”

“Wait.” He looks at the screen. It’s detecting radiation from that body of water.”

“Bad radiation?”

“Slight radiation.”

Mateo has to duck his head down to see the lake through the floor. “Does that mean we can’t do the thing?”

“What thing?”

“Sliding down to the ground on ropes hanging from the helicopter.”

“No, we definitely can’t do that.”

Mateo hangs his head.

Tarboda smirks. “Because this is not a helicopter. I’ll get the gear. That button over there will open the center floor hatch.”

Mateo goes over to open it. The floor reappears, but only in that spot. The hatch drops a little, then slides under like a pocket door. Tarboda drops the lines, and starts to get himself fitted with the climbing gear. He looks over the edge to see that the lake is closer than it was before. “What the hell? The jet has been moving on its own.”

“It has? You didn’t move it?”

Tarboda drops the gear, and runs back over to the cockpit and looks at the screen. The scanner didn’t find much before, but it’s found something now. All sorts of debris and wreckage is down in that water. It’s much deeper than it looks from a distance. “Close the hatch!”

Mateo slams on the button again. The floor starts closing back up. Just as it does, the jet tips over, sending him slamming against the back wall.

“You okay?” He asks.

“I’m all right!”

“I’m tryin’ to get us out of here!”

“Something’s pulling us down?”

“Yeah,” Tarboda calls back. “Hold on, we’re gonna start pullin’ some Gs!” He engages the thrusters, but whatever invisible force is tugging at them is reacting in kind. It won’t let them go, and it’s stronger than his beautiful new plane is. They gave this to him to please the team. They’re not going to give him a second one. “Try to climb back up here! I can’t get us out!”

“No! Jump, Tarboda!”

“What!”

“Jump down here! Trust me!”

These people brought him back to life; he has to do whatever they say. He undoes his belt, hangs between the seats, then lets go. They’re not perfectly vertical, so he slides on the floor, heading right for Mateo, who has his wrist up to his face. Suddenly, the jet is gone, and he’s tumbling on the ground. He gets himself to his feet and looks up to see the jet being sucked into the water, but not before it implodes.

Alyssa’s here with them. “Crushed it.”

Microstory 1754: Under the Microscope

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I slam the microscope down against his head. He doesn’t even apologize now, but smiles at me, and tells me that she belongs to him, and he’ll never let her go. I hold it over him, waiting for him to give me a reason to set it back down carefully. I pick it up. I look around the room for anything to use as a weapon, but only find a microscope. Now that I have the upperhand, I take my opportunity to place my heel against his, and force him to the ground by the chest. He gets one more good shot in, but it seems to wear him out, at least for a moment. We struggle with each other, neither one strong enough to gain some kind of advantage. He thinks that will be the end of it, but he just sent me into fight or flight mode, and I always choose fight. Deciding that he would rather make the first move, he punches me in the stomach with both fists, knocking the wind out of me. Both of us realize that this argument is going nowhere, and that it’s about to get violent. We continue to argue. He doesn’t care. He won’t even admit that what he did was wrong. He won’t apologize for what he’s done. We begin to argue. I accuse him of sexual assault, and he doesn’t seem concerned. I approach him with obvious aggression, but he just sits there calmly, confident that all will turn out okay. I walk up to his lab, and open the door without asking, glad that it’s Saturday and the place is empty except for him. I step out, and try to remember why I’m here, what I’m hoping to accomplish, and how I can avoid this all getting out of hand. I stay in the car for a few minutes, afraid to actually go up there, but knowing that it’s unavoidable. I arrive at the science building.

I know that if I don’t, no one else will. I take the scenic route back, because I’m still not sure that I want to do this. Not really, but it feels like I could. I almost tear the car door off its hinges, I’m so mad. I walk out of the police station, having just been proven that justice isn’t simply blind, but actively hides from the truth. That would be ironic. I turn away in a huff, worried that I’ll be the one behind bars if I say what I really want to say to them. They say that can’t compel her. They keep their voices low, explaining that she’s old enough to answer for herself. I’m nearly at a scream now, begging them to see that she’s too young to make her own decisions. They tell me they’ll look into it if anything changes, but until then, this is how it has to be. They ignore the conjecture, and tell me that there’s nothing they can do. I tell them it shouldn’t matter; that she’s obviously just too scared of him. They tell me she’s changed her statement, and that she had every right to do so. I relay what she said to me, but they’ve already heard it. I walk in and ask to speak to someone important. I walk out of the dorm, and drive to the police station, feeling useless to do anything else. I respect her wishes, and leave her room. She asks me to leave, and I realize it’s because I’m a man, and she doesn’t need that kind of energy right now. I assure her it is, and she did the right thing. She says she wasn’t even going to tell anybody, because she isn’t certain it’s illegal. She says he didn’t touch her once. She says it was over quickly. She says she didn’t feel safe trying to get away. She says he made her watch. She says he touched himself. She says her much older ex-boyfriend came by yesterday, and locked the door behind him. She breaks down crying, not wanting to tell me, but needing to unburden herself. She doesn’t seem okay. She says she’s okay. I ask her if she’s okay. Something seems off. I drive out to visit my seventeen-year-old cousin, who is at a weeklong music camp at the college.

Microstory 1590: Isolated

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Prompt

I have the ability to feel other people’s pain, but I can’t do anything about it, so I’ve moved out to the middle of nowhere, and plan to avoid people as much as possible.

Botner

Not just to protect myself, but also to help the curse on my life disappear as soon as I can. I’m stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, by my lonesome. No one knows where I am. And that scares me more than I can explain, as it means that they’re all waiting for me to turn up again, and either find me or confront me. I’m not good at hiding things. I have a very bad conscience. It feels as if my chest would burst from the weight of what I’ve been through. But I’m not alone in the house, or in the hills. I have a loving cousin who understands my curse, and who has promised to hide me and help me as much as he can. I have friends, too, who believe in me and who I can talk to about anything. I feel my power is growing, too. I’m seeing power in objects around me that wasn’t there before, and my curse is helping it happen. It’s getting harder to hide. I’m only hiding myself because it’s safer than talking to my neighbors, who think I’m a dangerous psychopath. Even though I’m not. With...

Conclusion

...everything going on in the world right now, I should look quite normal as a hermit, but you know people, they talk. For the last week, my satellite internet has been down, and I don’t know how to fix it myself. I keep trying to force myself to go into town to get some help, but I just can’t do it. It hurts too much. Now that I know how much easier life is when there’s no one around to mess with my feelings and senses, I can’t go back to how it was. I don’t want to spend another minute around another person. My cousin hasn’t attempted to come help me, even though I missed our weekly video chat check-in. He’s given up, as have my friends. I look around the cabin for something to do, but I didn’t bring a whole lot of entertainment with me, because I was intending to stay connected to the world virtually. Another week goes by, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to seek help. I have, however, given the simple life a real shot. My garden is blooming, and I am loving the long walks I take through the woods. Maybe I don’t need the internet at all. Even without my curse forcing me into it, maybe this is the best life I could have asked for. Right now, I’m farther from my home than I ever have been before, and it turns out I’m pretty close to some campgrounds. I hear music in the distance, but there’s only one tent within my pain-sensing range. It must be empty, though, because I’m not feeling any pain, emotional or physical. I turn back, glad that I didn’t run into anyone else, when a woman appears from around the bend, holding a stack of firewood. It’s amazing, I don’t feel anything but serenity, love, and joy from her. I don’t know if that means she isn’t feeling any pain, or there’s just something different about her. I wonder what my life could be life if we were together, just me and her. I would no longer have to be alone, and my curse wouldn’t matter anymore. She smiles at me politely, completely unaware of how incredibly magnificent she is, and how great it feels just to be around her. I can’t tell her, either. She wouldn’t understand, and it would just make her uncomfortable. All I can do is tip my hat, walk past her, and move on with my life without ever seeing her again.

Microstory 1551: Color of the Sky

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Prompt

I run outside and find the sky has turned green.

Botner

Not a good sign. I call my mom, who is in town, and she says she’ll come get me. I grab my waders and run for the truck, just as a huge thunderclap sounds and the sky begins pouring rain. My phone dies after two tries. It is super annoying because I am outside with no coverage, but I can’t tell my mom that because she’s not answering her phone. I go to leave the house, and as I open the door, it occurs to me that I do not have a hat. The moment I leave, the sky clears up, and it is a gorgeous day. I spend the day wandering around town, shooting the scenery. In the evening, I camp on one of my favorite places on the lake. I have to walk about a mile to get to my campsite, and I run into a nice guy who is also setting up his tent. We talk for a bit, then he says, “I’ve got a campsite right across the street. Are you hungry?” I get to camp and make my dinner. I’m lying on the ground trying to figure out what to do for my tomorrow when a couple of guys appear out of nowhere. They take me on a two mile hike, then we sit around a campfire and they share their beers with me. It was a pretty sweet experience, even though I couldn't understand a word they were saying. I wake up bright and early, and it is sunny and gorgeous. I have decided that after finishing this section, I will be going home and taking some time off. After a day of riding, I hit the road, and it is amazing. I’ve come a long way in the past week, and I’m feeling strong and confident. My plan is to climb the entire thirteen miles of a paved highway to meet my first Expert level rest stop, and then drop down to town and restock, which will get me a little bit closer to the summit. This is a difficult section, but my body is feeling good and I’m getting plenty of rest. As I ride, I fall into a rhythm. I push a little bit, and then I ease up a bit. I don’t need to save my legs for the big climbs. I know from experience that I can handle anything from the present moment, and it is much less stressful that way. I finish the day and it is amazing. I’ve caught up to Tim, and we ride together through the night, chatting about climbing, life, motorcycles, everything. It feels so good to share this experience with someone else. It helps break up the monotony, but I don’t have to be the one to carry the conversation. We ride together through the night and camp at the second highest rest stop. It is freezing cold. We...

Conclusion

...look up at the sky, and find that it has now turned purple. It is no longer a gorgeous day, and I realize how much I dislike Tim. It’s nice to have someone else around sometimes, when I don’t have anyone else, but as I’m watching the orangish clouds roll overhead, I realize that I can do better than this. Without saying a word, I stand up, take off all of my clothes, and ride out of the campsite. I imagine Tim watching me go with total apathy, but only because he does nothing to stop me from going. It feels amazing, being out here, knowing how close I am to frostbite or death. My life is pretty boring, and you have to find ways to push yourself to your limits, or you’ll never amount to anything. The harder I pedal, the warmer I get, proving to me that I can do just about anything if I ignore the risks, and press on. I’m wrong, though. As the sky falls into a deep red, and the sun melts away, I look down at my blue fingers and toes. I was dying the whole time, but it’s not like I could have stopped it. The sun continues to disappear, taking everyone on the planet with it.

Microstory 1543: The Escape

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Since before I can ________, I have been obsessed with being ________, and being capable of ________ autonomy. I watch all the survivalist ________, multiple times each, and I love getting ________ for the apocalypse. Do I think the ________ will actually end? No, probably ________, but there’s a greater than ________ percent chance, so I would rather ________ how to get through it than be sorry. I’ve also considered what I would do to escape a bad ________ on a more personal ________. What if the ________ doesn’t end, but my world does? I have no intention of becoming a ________, but I can conceive of a ________ where I’m wrongfully accused, or I’m in the wrong ________ at the ________ time. I store tons of ________ and other resources in and around my ________, and of course, I have a tricked out bug-out ________, which I can take to an off-the-grid bug-out ________. But I did more than that, because I’m ________ I’ll get caught up in ________, and not have any way out. I built ________ tunnels. One leads from my ________ to the ________ about a ________ away, and the ________ is only half as long, but it goes from my ________, which is already ________ deeply in the ________. I realize that my ________ goal is to disappear, not just sur____. Over time, I decide it doesn’t ________ if I truly need to or not. That’s only the first ________, and I may not even need that one. The real ________ is whether I can become a ghost in a more general ________. I have to wipe ________ from the world, so that no one can track me, or ________ me. I’m obviously going to live in the ________, but not the ones near my places. No, I have to travel far, ________ away, and I have to do it on ________, so that people don’t see me. If even one eye lands on me as I’m making my way towards my new ________ life, it will be a total waste of ________, because that one person can identify me. Even if they don’t see my ________, the authorities will be able to work out that it’s me through deductive ____ning.

Stealth, initial resources, and full independence. Wherever I end up, I want to be as far from ________ as possible, and I don’t want to have to go into ________ for supplies. Everything I need should be at my campsite, and that ________ should be nearly impossible to detect, or stumble ________. I’ll live up in a ________ in a ghillie suit if that’s what I have to do. I spend ________ working on my plan, making sure every detail is ________, and there aren’t any ________. I sell all my property by the New ________, and start living minimalistically for the first ________ after that, so no one will be looking for my ________ return come next year. I want to stop being a real ________, and start being on my own, and taxes are the most ________ part of that process, but they are not impossible to avoid. I just can’t take in any income for the start of the ________, I can’t make any ________ but with cash, and I can’t be worrying about utilities, and the like. The day is finally here when it’s time to leave my ________ life behind, and become the new me. I break my outskirt campsite when the night is at its dark____, stuff everything into my ________, and head into the ________. This is amazing already. I keep my eye on the map, and away from roads, and even trails as much as ________. When I do have to walk close to inhabited ________, I do so only at ________, so no one can see me. It takes me six ________ to get all the way up to a random spot in ________, Canada, which is over four thousand ________ away. I have fresh ________, plenty of game, and a tent that’s rated for the coldest of cold. This is all I need, and I’m ________. For the first year, I’m still para____, though, that people have figured out where I ________. I’m still not certain I avoided any tax ________, so it’s pretty stressful throughout the next year too. But then I relax, and realize that nothing’s going to ________ to me. I don’t owe the world anything, and they have ________ about me. Then it hits me. They didn’t have to ________ about me, because before I left, I wasn’t anybody anyway. No one ________, and they don’t care now. I didn’t escape ________. I’m just as alone as I have always been.

Microstory 1477: Reconstruction

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For the 2175 elections, the people of Durus were not only voting for the people they wanted to lead them. There were certains laws and projects the current administration wanted everyone to decide on. One of these projects proposed that the city start rebuilding all of the towns that they lost during the final battles of the war against the monsters, and afterwards, when the remaining structures were all pulled together into the city of Aljabara. By this time, there were already several outposts built away from the city. Before powerful builder Andromeda retired, and later died, she agreed to help people spread out into new communities. There was nothing wrong with these towns, but some thought it might be nice if they went back to their roots, and honored their history. They weren’t intending to break Aljabara apart, but construct new buildings where they were once standing. It wasn’t necessary, but it could be kind of cool. This would be yet another symbolic gesture, to signify the rejection of the former Republic, and a return to the glory of the Mage Protectorate, though with more democracy. Polls suggested that it would be a tight race, because not everyone was convinced. Sure, these towns were part of their history, but their downfall was no less part of that, and some were worried people would forget that. If they just ignored the last eighty plus years of their past, and made it look like it would if it had not happened, were they doomed to repeat their mistakes? No one was really worried about who their next elected leaders would be. The incumbents were fine, and their competition was fine. They weren’t going to end up in some kind of fascist state because of them, so the 2175 elections were more about debating the reconstruction issue. People from both sides made arguments in the streets, and in more organized forums. The news was dominated by the topic, and everybody had their own opinion. The more people talked about it, the more they realized that this was far more complex than just a single yes or no response. Some of the original town sites were already being used for other things. Ladytown was already built on top of Hidden Depths, and even though that had a history of its own, it was still standing and still going. The original Springfield was already being revitalized, the Earthan refugee camp that came up after the Deathspring was built right next to where Shieldon used to be, and they were already starting construction near Watershed. In reaction to these arguments, the vote was scrapped, in favor of a more long-term approach. They would still consider doing this, but they weren’t going to be able to figure it all out by the time election day rolled around, so the next administration would be in charge of solidifying whatever plans they were going to go through with. One thing was for sure, they weren’t going to remain exactly as they were. They were absolutely going to build new outposts, so it was just a matter of what and where, and whether they would have anything to do with the old towns. This didn’t mean they wouldn’t make any decisions at all when it came to the reconstruction effort. Everyone agreed that they wanted to move forward with the completion of Town Sixteen, which was famously unfinished by the time the war ravaged the lands. They just needed to know what to call it. The people chose Gimura.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, April 1, 2025

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Declan was going to be vital to their survival in a world with no people, and therefore no civilization. None of the others knew how to build a shelter, or even start a fire without any tools. Darko Matic was evidently Declan’s trainer for years, and while their primary focus was the martial arts, they also developed a well-rounded education, including survival skills. He struck a fire with wood and rocks, no problem, and instructed them how to build sufficient single-person shelters for themselves. Still, once camp was complete, there was no competition when it came to whose shelter was superior. Being told how to do it ad hoc, and having the experience to build it right, were two different things. They were good enough to keep the elements out, however, and they all reportedly slept pretty well that night. It was April 1, 2025 when they woke up, according to the Cassidy cuffs.

“Anybody else have a countdown,” Mateo asked as he was watching his screen, “as well as what I can only guess to be a tracking beacon?”

“Yeah,” Leona said. “Jupiter said we would have us complete tasks for him, rescuing people from this reality. The beacon must be leading us to our first challenge.”

Ramses stretched, and rubbed his eyes like a cliché. “I would say getting through yesterday was the first challenge.”

“He didn’t want this world to be as it is,” Declan reminded him. “He wants people to rule over, and I don’t think he has it here.”

“If he wants to rule,” Mateo began to reason, “and he has the ability to travel between each reality at will, why wouldn’t he just take a bunch of people, instead of one or two at a time, which I presume is how the challenges are going to work?”

“His abilities are surely limited,” Leona presumed. “He’s probably traveling through time, looking for a workaround.”

“Don’t give him any ideas anyway,” J.B. warned.

Leona was working on her cuff screen. “Okay, so without satellites, it’s hard to tell how long it’s going to take us to get to our challenge, but based on the countdown, and the distance, I imagine we have about an hour and a half to eat before we have to head out.”

“Eat what?” Ramses questioned.

Declan lifted his teleporter cuff. “You leave that to me.”

He returned twenty minutes later with a shirt full of fruits and roots, plus a dead rabbit over his shoulder. Predicting this would be the result of his efforts, Leona had built a spit over the fire. An hour later, with full bellies, they started walking towards the beacon. There were a lot of obstacles in the way, namely trees, but there was also a deep ravine they had to walk around. Being the man they were learning he was, Declan estimated that they walked a little under five kilometers to their destination. When they arrived, eleven minutes were left on the countdown, so they sat down for a rest.

Before the timer reached zero, things around them started to change. Streets and buildings flickered in and out around them. Leona recognized it after a few times. “This is Country Club Plaza.”

“That checks out,” Declan confirmed. “It’s about as far from Mission Hills as it should be, in the direction it should be, based on our walk.”

“Guys,” Ramses said, holding his arm up like he was trying to block the sunlight. “These devices are AR. There’s someone up there, right under the beacon marker.”

The rest of them lifted their arms to see what he was. Sometimes a building would appear in a flicker, blocking their view, and sometimes just the person standing on top of it was visible.

“She’s gonna fall!” J.B. cried.

“I can get her,” Declan said, fingers hoving over his teleporter cuff.

“What are you waiting for?” Mateo asked desperately.

“She’s not really here yet,” Declan replied. “I have to time it just right. Count me down, Lee.”

Leona waited a moment before beginning. “Six, five, four, three, two, one!”

Declan pressed the button. The flickering stopped, and the figure standing in the middle of the air began to fall downwards. He caught her before she got too far, and they both started to fall together. Before they hit the ground, they disappeared again, and reappeared a few meters away, but upside down, so momentum was propelling them upwards. Once they were at equilibrium, Declan teleported them once more, safely to the ground.

The woman turned around to get her bearings, and catch her breath. Both Mateo and Leona recognized her immediately, of course, and simultaneously said, “mom?” It was Carol Gelen, and this was the day she was fated to start her ten day walk towards death.

“Leona!” Carol said inquisitively, but not as if it had been long since they had seen each other. “Where are we?”

Leona waited to respond. It was a little too late—and there was no reasonable way—to cover this up. She just didn’t know exactly what to say at first. “Mom. I’m a time traveler, and we’re standing in an alternate reality. We’re not sure what changed, or when it changed, but there don’t seem to be other people here.”

Carol studied her daughter’s face for a moment and a half. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Leona questioned. “That’s it?”

“I trust you, Leona. If you say this is another world, then okay.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“You seem to know what you’re doing. You look a little older; maybe a few years? I assume you’ve been doing this for awhile.”

Leona looked over to her husband, who was Carol’s son in yet another timeline. “You could say that.”

Carol smirked. “And who is this?”

“This is my husband, Mateo Matic.”

Carol lifted her hand, and shook that of her once-son’s. “It’s nice to meet you. I guess it really has been awhile.”

“Guys?” Ramses was looking at his Cassidy cuff again. “There’s another countdown. It says the window’s closing.”

“We have forty-two minutes to get her back to her own reality, before she’s stuck here,” Leona posited.

“How do we get her back?” J.B. asked. “Do the cuffs explain? I’m not super experienced with technology.”

“Yes,” Ramses confirmed. “I can see the steps we need to take to send her home. Just tap the right arrow.”

“Now, hold on,” Mateo said. “Who said we’re sending her back? Jupiter said we have a choice.”

“She can’t stay here,” J.B. argued lightly, looking around at the wilderness.

“She can’t go back either!” Leona fought back.

“Leona,” Carol scolded. “Relax.”

“You don’t understand, mom. It’s dangerous.”

“That’s no reason to forget your manners.”

Mateo looked at his once-mother sadly. She had no idea who he really was. Their situation was like something out of a comic book TV show. It was even worse than when he ran into them at the Pentagon in 2005, because now he was married to what the multiverse could theoretically consider to be his own adoptive sister. Time demanded that Carol Gelen be on that plaza rooftop in forty minutes, so that Paige Turner could unwillingly return from the future with a pathogen that will apparently only be deadly to the second individual infected by it. Mateo didn’t want that to happen, obviously, and neither did Leona. They didn’t even really have reason to believe Jupiter himself had any interest in her dying. Perhaps that was why he extracted her from the main timeline in the first place. They just need to figure out what to do about it. There was no question that they needed to save her life, but this world wasn’t much safer. She wouldn’t survive here alone. There had to be some kind of loophole. There had to be a way to get her back home without also sending her to an inevitable death.

“Do we wanna talk about this over here?” Ramses asked.

“No,” Carol disagreed. “Unless telling me about my future is going to destroy the universe, I wanna hear whatever it is you’re discussing.”

Leona looked at her sadly as well. She had no right to keep the truth from her, and she knew her mother well enough to know that when she said she wanted to understand, she meant it. “Have you met a young woman named Paige Turner?” she asked.

“No.”

“You didn’t see anyone in the parking lot up there?”

“I saw a few people,” Carol answered, “but I didn’t meet anybody.”

Leona consulted the countdown. “In less than an hour, time itself is expecting you to be back on that rooftop, presumably after you pick up your lunch from your favorite restaurant in this part of town?”

Carol checked her own watch. “That sounds about right. I’m a little early. I thought I would enjoy the day before pick-up.”

“Destiny says that a friend of ours is going to appear on that rooftop. She’ll be carrying with her a disease that a frenemy of ours forced her to bring back to this time period. The idea is to infect everyone now, so that when the disease shows up later, the population is already immune to it.”

“Okay, I guess I get that,” Carol said, “but how many people will have to die from it before herd immunity takes care of it?”

“Just one,” Leona replied, tearing up.

Carol lifted her head, absorbing the information that wasn’t being said. “Oh. But this will ultimately save lives?”

“Not really.” Leona fought back full tears. “It sterilizes people in the future, but they’re immortal by then anyway, so our species doesn’t actually die out; they just stop having biological children.”

“But if I don’t go back, the...immunity process doesn’t happen.”

“No, it still does,” Mateo jumped in. “Paige doesn’t have to infect you at all. You die, because you’re too close to her when she shows up. It’ll still spread on its own, and there will be zero deaths from it.”

“So, this Jupiter guy rescued me?” Carol guessed.

Everyone looked amongst each other. “We don’t really know,” Ramses chose to answer. “He brought you here, but his motivations aren’t a hundred percent clear. It could be a Sophie’s choice type of thing. We either choose to leave you alone in this world, which isn’t exactly full of supermarkets and houses, or send you back.”

“She doesn’t have to be alone.” Holly Blue was walking up to them. “My son and I will protect her.” As she drew nearer, she presented a device in her hand that kind of looked like an electric shaver, but instead of a regular blade on the top, it resembled the one specifically designed to cut nose hairs. She placed the tip against one of Declan’s Cassidy cuffs, and began to hack into it. “When the next window opens three years from now, we’ll slip back with whoever it is Jupiter brings in. All she needs to do is hop over her death moment.”

“Why don’t we save everybody?” Declan asked his mother.

“At least two people have to continue the pattern, so they can save everyone else,” Holly Blue explained. “J.B. has to be one of those people, and a Matic has to be another.” She continued working her hacking device. “There.” She pulled the trigger, which served to release both Declan’s cuffs at the same time. Unfortunately, there appeared to be some kind of failsafe. The cuffs fell from his wrist simultaneously, but before they hit the ground, they flew back up through the air, and secured themselves around Holly Blue’s wrists instead. “Also, there’s that.”

“Did you, or did you not, know that was going to happen?” Ramses asked. He took the hacking device from her, so he could examine it himself.

“I was worried he had programmed a contingency. Jupiter was a little not quite upset enough with me when he learned I was planning to rescue Declan. I should have known it was too easy.”

“Okay,” Declan said, “give it to me. I’ll put them back on myself, so you can be free.”

“No,” Holly Blue argued with her son. “I’m not letting you go back to this. You have too much potential to be wasting your time on this mission. No offense,” she said to everyone else.

None taken, really.

Declan looked sadly at his own mother, who could all but read his mind. She smiled back. “Someone has to protect Carol, and I wasn’t able to bring a lot of resources with me, so you’re far more equipped to handle that. It’s just three years, then you can both go back to the main timeline, and you can finally do what you’ve been wanting to all along.”

“Darko never said I was ready.”

“There’s no way he would say you’re not ready once this is all over,” Holly Blue assured him. “Let’s consider this your final lesson.”

Declan didn’t want to trap his mother on the Bearimy-Matic pattern, but this was the best of all terrible outcomes. Carol really did need someone to stay with her for the next three years, and he was the best for the job—not just out of everyone who happened to be here—but the best overall. The time window closed a half hour later, leaving everyone with no choice but to stay in their current predicaments. At the end of the day, Mateo, Leona, Ramses, J.B., and now Holly Blue jumped forward in time, leaving Declan and Carol to fend for themselves. They returned to a shelter complex impressive enough to drive Robinson Crusoe to tears. There was a third person with them who had been there for about a year, whose name was, for whatever reason, Hello Doctor.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, March 29, 2022

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As soon as the final bullet landed in its target, everyone stopped. Two sides of the battle dropped their weapons, and watched Anatol Klugman as he was dying. People were dying all around them, but it was as if they knew this death was different. Were they somehow aware that Mateo had pulled the trigger, with a weapon that wouldn’t exist for nearly a century and a half? Anatol fell to the ground, and exhaled his last breath. And then, just like that, everyone else disappeared. Arcadia had said that this battle wasn’t even meant to be part of the Franco-Prussian War. The hundemarke had created the battle that would create the hundemarke. But if the hundemarke were never allowed to exist at all, the war wouldn’t exist in this time period either. It was ended months ago in this new timeline. It didn’t make any sense, but then again, when it came to the hundemarke, nothing really made sense anyway.

Anatol’s body lied there alone. The screen slowly turned black. And then, so did all the others. Some of them had been shaded red, which meant Jupiter wanted to paradox them by killing killers before they could kill with the hundemarke. The screens shaded blue, however, were ones he wanted to persist, even in this new reality. None of them was safe, though. They were all turning black, because none of them ever happened.

Jupiter watched the whole chamber turn, and with it, his apparent plans for world domination. “What did you do? What? Did? You? Do?”

“Leona?” Mateo said in the form of a question, but he didn’t really know what he was asking of her.

“I think you did the right thing,” Leona said. “I know it doesn’t sound like me, but...”

“I agree,” Ramses added. “Hard reset. The hundemarke is responsible for so much death. The world is a better place without it.”

“Are freaking kidding me?” Jupiter was seething. “The moment that you destroyed was everything. It occurred in the first reality ever.” It was like he was experiencing true grief. “Three temporal objects were created on May 23, 1871. First, the hundemarke. It creates fixed moments in time. The second, was the Sword of Assimilation. It can transfer time powers. Well, actually, I think it can transfer any special property from one individual to another, but in terms of our world, time powers are the only things that matter. The third...” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“What is it, Jupiter Preston?” Declan prompted.

“Don’t call me that!” Jupiter cried. “My name is Fury.”

“I thought it was Rosa,” J.B. said.

“My alternate goes by that name, but I’m Fury.”

“Keep explaining,” Leona coaxed.

Jupiter composed himself. The third object that was created on May 23 was the Omega Gyroscope. It was...kind of a toy that one of the soldiers was carrying with him. I guess he planned on giving it to his son, or something? It can manipulate reality in any way imaginable, and any way unimaginable. It can do literally anything.”

“Well, that sounds dangerous,” Mateo figured. “I’m not sure it’s a bad thing it doesn’t exist in this timeline.”

“You don’t get it.” Jupiter was shaking his head profusely. “The Omega Gyroscope is responsible for time travel.” He waited for a reaction before continuing, “it led to everything! It led to everyone you’ve ever known existing. It led to the Saviors of Earth, to the salmon, to the Gallery. This world is nothing without it. It’s..nothing!”

Mateo approached Jupiter, and placed his hand on his shoulders. “It’s not nothing. It’s what the world should be. It’s what nearly everyone believes the world is...until someone like us shows up, and reveals the truth.”

“You still don’t understand, Matic. You erased time travel from history. We may not be in what we were calling The Parallel, because it might not be running parallel at all. You might have just destroyed the timeline you come from. We could be stuck here forever. You know how many trillions of people you just killed?”

“I know how many people I killed,” Mateo defended. “I killed one person here today. At least in terms of traveling through time, I only killed one person. Every time you go back, even just one second, you’re collapsing the timeline you came from, right? So I’m not any more of a killer than any of you. Don’t try to guilt me. I stand by what I did, even if it means this is just where we live now.”

“Yeah,” his friends backed him up in relative unison.

“And I’m not so sure we can’t call this the Parallel,” Mateo went on. “I just carried out Arcadia’s plan, and I hardly think she would have wanted to undo the creation of this gyroscope thing, if it’s so important to you people.”

“She wasn’t going to do that,” Jupiter argued. “She was only going to erase the hundemarke. There is a moment that we mapped that could have prevented the one, but not the other two, from existing. She was going to act on that moment, but you preempted it. You stopped the whole thing. You essentially went back too far.”

“I’m sorry you lost,” Mateo said. “I guess, if time travel doesn’t exist, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“Oh, to be sure, time travel doesn’t exist in this timeline, because we’re still in the miniature Gallery chamber. But when we step out, we’ll integrate ourselves fully into the timestream.” He held up his primary Cassidy cuff. “We’re just the only six people with time travel capabilities right now.” He reached out to the keypad, input the code, and opened the door. The basement was a total mess. Furniture was strewn about the floors. Leaky pipes were hanging from the ceiling. Exposed wires were sparking. A little fire was burning in the corner that probably wasn’t going to get much bigger. The walls were blown out.

“I’ve seen this before,” Leona said as she was stepping out. “This is what it looks like in our timeline...sometimes. It spontaneously switches back and forth between perfectly pristine, and destroyed.”

“I guess now we know where that temporal anomaly comes from,” Mateo said with a smile. “I think that’s pretty good evidence that this really is the Parallel, and not all there is.”

“Maybe,” Jupiter was forced to admit the possibility. He started tapping on his cuff screen.

There was a sharp gust of wind, and the fire disappeared, but other than that, things looked about the same. “What did you do?” Declan asked.

“I wanted to test the new pattern,” Jupiter answered. “Nailed it too. This is March 29, 2022.”

“What is the significance of this date?” Leona asked.

“I just said it. It’s your new pattern. It combines yours with Jeremy’s. You were designed to jump forward one year at the end of every day. He only lives on Tuesdays and July. There are certain instances where these dates intersect, and now that is all you will ever know.”

“What is the point of that?” Mateo questioned. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Well, I did have plans for you, which is why I chose all five of you to come with me to the Parallel. Those have since changed, but I see no reason to change everything. You’ll still remain on this new pattern until I decide otherwise. I guess we’ll find out if you were right about the old timeline staying intact.” Without another word, he teleported away. Not that it mattered. They would eventually figure out how to break their connection to him and his primary Cassidy cuff, and when they did, they would be free of all control. The powers that be had no jurisdiction here, and as the man said, there weren’t any other time travelers either. This could have been everything Mateo had been searching for since this all began.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ramses decided. “We need to find out what the rest of the world looks like in this reality.”

They struggled to climb up the stairs of the basement. Even though they were made of concrete, and remained mostly structurally sound, they were covered in debris. Large chunks were torn off as if bitten into by a dinosaur, and the whole thing could come crashing down eventually. The steps didn’t lead them to the first floor of Fletcher House. They had to pull themselves up a wall of dirt and dead grass, and push other vegetation out of the way. When they finally emerged from underground, they saw little else but a meadow at the edge of a forest. They should have been standing in the middle of the suburbs, but it was all gone. They didn’t know what to think.

Declan pulled one of his pant legs up, and removed a cuff from his shin. He started fiddling with the screen.

“You hid that from Jupiter?” Leona asked.

“It’s just my backup teleporter cuff,” Declan started to explain. “I keep it there in case my primary one is damaged, not if an evil clone steals it from me.”

“That could come in handy,” Ramses noted.

“No, it won’t.” Declan wrapped it back around his leg. “Well, I could use it to transport us from here to over there. He shut one eye, and pointed to the distance. “If we wanted to travel the globe, we would need at least one satellite to do it. There aren’t any satellites, though.”

“There aren’t?” Leona was the most shocked by this, but obviously everyone understood how strange this was.

Declan went on, “my mother dispatched a very small and undetectable constellation so I could navigate the world. If those failed me, however, I should still be able to hack into any number of other artificial satellites up there. It’s like when you go hiking, and can’t find a single WiFi signal. There’s nothin’ up there. At all. This world is not space-capable.”

“Thoughts, Leona?” Mateo prompted.

She started to pace around, and work through the problem. The others gave her time to come up with a theory. “One thing I wondered when I first learned about time travel, is whether it explains some of the more wondrous things that humankind has accomplished. Were they responsible for the world’s pyramids? Stonehenge? The moai on Rapa Nui? When I was on Tribulation Island, I spoke with The Historian, and it turns out...no. Humans built those magnificent structures, and they did it with their present-day technology, and that technology was as advanced as it should have been given the constraints of logical progression.

“Still, time travelers do exist, and they do make an impact on the past. They spread future diseases, and save lives, and open people’s eyes. Perhaps they make subtle changes to our species’ development that not even the Historian has noticed, because there are too many variables. If time travel doesn’t exist here, maybe that was enough to slow progress. I mean, Horace Reaver went back in time and made a lot of inevitable technology happen just a few years earlier than in his original timeline. That sort of thing may be happening constantly. Of course, we still need more information.” She looked around. “We’ve yet to see anyone here. That could indeed mean the human race died out centuries ago, and all that’s left is this basement. Or it just means they live on the other side of that hill, and everywhere else on the map, but they haven’t gotten into orbit yet.”

Mateo smiled, and looked over at Declan. “You can’t teleport to China, but you can see over that hill. Why don’t you scout around, and see what else is in the area? It’s not an order, I wanna be clear. I recognize you don’t owe us anything.”

“I want answers too,” Declan said. He removed the teleporter cuff once more from his leg, and placed it on his arm, higher than it normally would be, because of the Cassidy cuff that he was unable to remove. “Well, that’s gonna be annoying.” With a smile of his own, he aimed his special device down West, where the golf course used to be. He appeared on top of the hill, though he was far enough away to be barely visible. Fortunately, Jupiter didn’t disable the feature that let them communicate with each other through the Cassidy cuffs. “Nothing here. I’m gonna keep going. Go ahead and search for shelter, and make camp. I don’t think we should go back down to the basement.”

“Roger that,” J.B. replied.

They watched Declan’s silhouette disappear. He fell out of comms range after an hour of running a circular grid search, and didn’t return until long after nightfall.

“Did you find anything?” Leona asked.

“Nothing. We’re alone for miles and miles.”

“I’m sure Jupiter’s pissed,” Ramses figured.

“Good,” Mateo said.

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