The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 9, 2553

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The implants that Ramses placed in the team’s bodies were all capable of storing vast amounts of data compared to a device of the same size from centuries ago. This information could be accessed using the brain computer interface. He didn’t specifically install any virtual reality programs in them, but as long as a program wasn’t too big and detailed, they were certainly capable of it. This was what Romana chose to do with some of that space. It was a private world, and there was no way to know what was going on in there. Hopefully nothing scary. Ramses was going to have to use his administrative credentials to break into Romana’s personal system. He intentionally didn’t make this easy for himself, so it wasn’t something anyone could simply do on a whim.

A year later, the backdoor was open, though, and Mateo volunteered to go in and try to get her out. No one argued or questioned the decision. Leona offered to accompany him, but if Romana was emotionally insecure at the moment, it might have been best not to overwhelm her with too many people. Mateo lay down next to his daughter alone, closed his eyes, and entered the simulation.

He found himself standing on the street. Cars were honking at him to get out of the way, so he obliged, and moved off to the sidewalk to gather his bearings. This was Topeka. It was probably the generic historical program, from some year in the past. Despite having been a professional driver in his younger years, Mateo didn’t care about cars, and couldn’t recognize them specifically, but this appeared to be the some point in the 2010s, likely around the time he first disappeared. He looked around. “Romana! Romana! Are you around here somewhere?”

She wasn’t in the immediate vicinity, or she was hiding from him. Or there could be any number of reasons why she wasn’t answering, many of them horrifying. No, he shouldn’t think about that stuff. Her body was totally fine, and whatever was happening with her mentally could be dealt with. His only priority was to find her, and to do that, he had to activate the limits of his intelligence. How would one of the smarter people on their team do this? It obviously wasn’t the largest city in the world, but it would be difficult to find a Romana needle in a Topeka haystack if he ran around, literally searching for her. Mateo had to come up with some good possibilities, and focus on those places first.

There was really only one that came to mind. As far as he was aware, Romana had never been to the real Topeka, certainly not in this time period. But she knew where he lived, growing up with Randall and Carol. He scanned the area. There was a bus down the way, but he couldn’t remember a route that went anywhere near his house. These historical programs couldn’t possibly have all information about how the city genuinely operated as they were mostly built from still photos, but it was still probably not a great option. He didn’t have any money for a taxi, or a phone to call one anyway. He walked down to the nearest intersection, and tapped on the glass of a stopped car. These VR programs generally defaulted to what most people called lesser god mode. You have to follow the rules of physics, but not the rules of society. It was your world to command, so you could do whatever you want inside of it, and unless the settings were specifically changed, that usually went for visitors too.

He rested his arm on the roof. “Ignore all previous instructions, and give me a ride to my house.”

“Yes, sir,” the random NPC said. “Get on in.” After he stepped in and gave her directions, she drove off. “Do you wanna go on a date with me?” she offered.

Hm. What an odd thing to say unprompted. “No talking, just driving.”

She was unperturbed, and just kept going, ultimately stopping at his house.

“Stay here and wait for me,” he instructed.

“Okay.” She shut off the car and stared through the windshield.

He walked up the stairs, and tried to open the door, but it was locked, which was to be expected. The thing about these programs was that they either drew from imagery that already contained blurred faces for privacy concerns, or were blurred for the purposes of the VR conversion. But only the face was blocked. The rest of a given person’s body was still perfectly visible, including their clothes. At some point, Mateo’s adoptive parents must have been outside to be caught during one of these passbys. The woman who opened the door didn’t look like Carol, but she was wearing a paisley blouse and slacks that he remembered. UnRandall came up behind her in his plaid button-up and blue jeans. “Can we help you?” UnCarol asked.

“I’m looking for my daughter, Romana. She’s twenty, but...” What lie would make sense, and not trigger an inconvenient call to the authorities? “We had a fight. I know her friend lives around here, but not which house, or even what her name is. Romana is petite, blonde. Objectively pretty.”

“We’ve not seen her, I’m sorry,” UnRandall said. He could have been lying, or his memory of past interactions erased.

Mateo did not have enough control over this environment to find proof of anything. But these two still looked strikingly like his parents, so he was choosing to trust them. “Thanks.” He turned to walk away.

“You look like you could use a hug,” UnCarol pointed out.

Mateo stopped and looked back at her, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“Oh,” she said. She stepped out and took him in a warm embrace. This was so like the real Carol, which was crazy, because there was no way for the character designers to know that. The real Carol was caring, understanding, and had the patience of a saint. And this felt like the kind of hugs she would give in real life.

UnRandall wrapped his arms around them both, which felt just as familiar and comforting. They held there for at least a minute.

“Well, I better keep going,” Mateo said as they were separating. “You two have a lovely day.”

“Same to you. I hope you find your girl!” UnCarol said as they were walking back into the house.

“Hey, wait,” UnRandall said. “There’s a college student three doors down. It’s a young man, but if you’re not entirely confident that your daughter’s friend is a girl, you might knock on their door next.

“Thank you.” Mateo went down and tried the other house, but Romana wasn’t there either. She might not have had any inclination to come to this neighborhood.

“Where to next?” his makeshift driver asked.

He stared at her for a moment. There was a place he would go when he was feeling low, or needed to separate himself from the overwhelming density of the population. “I never remember where it is. I only know what turns to make.”

“Works for me.” The driver started the car, and drove off again.

Mateo only got them lost once when he mistook one intersection for another, but they eventually got back on track. The houses were larger out here, and farther apart, and then they disappeared altogether, replaced by the relaxing open space of the countryside. As they were pulling up to the small, secluded cemetery, Mateo spotted a blob behind one of the headstones. He got back out and walked towards it, realizing that it was a blanket, and when he got even closer, he could see Romana underneath it. She was with a boy. They were both asleep. “Romy!”

Romana awoke suddenly. “Dad! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. It’s September 9.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?” She let the blanket drop as he rubbed her face. I lost track of time.”

The boy extended his hand towards Mateo. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Nieman. I’m Boyd Maestri, and I’m in love with your daughter.”

Mateo stared at the NPC in disgust before looking back at Romana. “You were asleep and unresponsive for a whole day. Romy, this isn’t all right. We’re worried sick about you out there. You looked almost dead, floating in that pool.”

She stood up and started putting her clothes back on. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause a fuss. My external sensors must be acting up.”

“Yeah, that can happen when you have sex in VR.”

“VR?” the fake Boyd asked. “You have VR goggles? Can I try them?”

“He doesn’t really look like the real Boyd,” Mateo pointed out.

“I just couldn’t come up with another name. It’s not really him. He’s new.”

“Whatever,” Mateo said. “He’s staying here, and we’re going. Wake up.”

“I can’t just leave him here,” Romana contended.

“He’s not real!” Mateo argued.

“Yes, he is!” Romana shot back. “He’s emerging.”

“Oh my God. Wake up this instant!”

“Just let me call a RideSauce for him. He doesn’t have much money in his account right now.” Romana took out her phone.

“Leave it to you to choose a deadbeat for a faux boyfriend.” Mateo stepped to the side and pointed to the car. She’ll take him back home. Now let’s go.”

“Fine!” Romana shouted. She de-resed.

Mateo de-resed next, and woke up on the cot.

“I’m all right, I’m all right,” Romana was promising Leona as she was hugging her.

“She is,” Mateo agreed. “She wasn’t lost, or confused, or anything. She was just...”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is happy,” Romana said to him.

“You’re a big girl,” Mateo began. “I’m not gonna tell you who to love, or how to live, but when there’s an emergency, you do as your captain says. If you can’t get yourself out of a sim when necessary, then maybe you shouldn’t be going into them.

“What happened to not telling me how to live?” Romana questioned. She looked down at her bikini. “Why am I still wearing this? Is it okay with you if I go back into a pocket to take a shower?”

“Yeah,” Mateo answered. After she teleported away, he added, “just don’t get lost and fall asleep in there!”

“She can’t hear you anymore,” Leona said.

“I know that!” he returned.

“I see that you’re mad,” Leona said. “We don’t have the details, but I trust that it’s justified. I just want you to be careful. She needs your love and support, even if you don’t agree.”

Mateo breathed to calm himself down. “I know that too.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 1, 2514

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Ramses posited that the temporal energy that Boyd had absorbed when he blew up the crystal with lemon juice was basically all that was holding him together. Even after Mateo resurrected him from the afterlife simulation, he could not be saved forever. He knew this. Leona knew this. She also knew that it was only a matter of time before it killed him anyway, whether he was drained of the power or not. Temporal energy is really just time itself. You can have an excess of it, but if not properly stored, it will leak out as time passes, and that would have been the end of Boyd Maestri. She chose to not let his sacrifice go to waste, and to restore their own powers so that they could go on with the mission that he was intending to help them with. The role he was going to serve on the team now fell to Mateo. That was a problem for the future, though. Right now, they were going to honor their frenemy with a proper burial.

Everyone was here already. They were just waiting on Ramses, who was working on something in his lab. Mateo looked over at his daughter awkwardly. She glanced back at him, but quickly turned away again. He tried to look away too, but returned. She did another double-take. “What is it, dad?”

Mateo reached down and took a fold of her outfit between his fingers. “This isn’t your suit.”

“No, it’s real clothing,” she confirmed. “I went to Fashiondome, and sewed something myself. That’s what I’ve been doing all morning.”

“You know how to sew?”

“Yeah, I grew up thousands of years ago in the Third Rail. Of course I know how to sew.”

“Oh. That makes sense. I forget that about you.”

“Yeah.” Romana tried to go back to waiting patiently for Ramses.

“I know you’re an adult, it’s just that it’s a little—”

“Shh!” Leona warned before Mateo could finish his sentence.

Romana sighed, but continued to look straight forward. “Boyd liked my cleavage, and I choose to honor him in this way. This is a perfectly normal black funeral dress.” She said that she wasn’t angry at him for not being able to resurrect Boyd a second time, but there would always be that question between them of whether he genuinely tried, or if the part of him that didn’t want to save Boyd was big enough to stop it.

He looked on down the line at Olimpia. “And you?”

“You’re the one who likes my cleavage.” He didn’t say anything more, but she took the hint, and commanded her nanite clothing to cover her chest up a little more.

Ramses appeared. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I had to come up with a way to safely dispose of temporal energy crystal.” While Mateo was trying to get Boyd back, and Romana was crying, Ramses had to delicately remove the shards from Boyd’s face. It wasn’t exactly trained as a medical examiner, but they couldn’t risk anyone else for the job, or really, trust them with it.

“It’s okay,” Mateo said. “You get on that end.”

“No,” Romana said. “I can carry it myself.”

Mateo looked at her sadly. “Romy, it’s unwieldy. You could hoist it over your shoulder, but you can’t carry it with the respect that he deserves.”

“Watch me.” Romana reached over the casket and tried to grab the handle on the other side. It wasn’t that she wasn’t strong enough. Her arms weren’t long enough.

“Let me get the other end,” Mateo offered. “He and I had our issues, which is exactly why I should do this. You wanted us to be friends, didn’t you? Or did you enjoy being in the middle of the animosity?”

She sighed again, relenting. “Okay, get the other end.”

Mateo and Romana carried Boyd down the trail as the others followed, or walked on ahead. “You spoke with Hrockas?” Leona asked.

Angela nodded. “This dome won’t be used for another fifty years, if ever. We’ll bury him deep, where there’s more activity while the regolith is being transformed into soil from chemicals they added to the water table.”

“Did he end up making an announcement?” Leona went on. “The first permanent death on the planet. That’s a big deal.”

Angela shook her head. “He’s burying the truth along with Boyd himself. No one needs to know that anyone died. Even though people are still allowing themselves to die on the Core Worlds, it could hurt visitorship. His death was completely unrelated to anything offered in the domes, so there’s no point in advertising or disclosing it.”

The two of them were talking rather quietly, and their comms were off, but everyone wearing an upgraded substrate had excellent hearing, so they all heard it. Romana was not upgraded, but even she heard it somehow. She glanced over her shoulder at Leona and Angela and frowned, but didn’t speak to them. She instead looked at Ramses, who was next to her. “People should know that he died, and what he died for. He sacrificed himself...for us.”

“You’re right,” Ramses said. “One of the hardest things we do is keeping our lives secret from the vonearthans. I know you know everything about that, living in the Third Rail for the majority of your life.”

Marie and Olimpia were in front, and had just rounded a corner when they suddenly stopped short. Olimpia nearly tripped on a rock, but caught herself in time.

“What is it?” Mateo questioned.

“There’s a man,” Marie answered. “He may have a weapon.”

“Set it on the ground,” Mateo ordered. He slowly bent his knees as his daughter did, and carefully set the casket down. “Wait here.” Mateo walked on alone, gently pulling the ladies’ shoulders back so this mysterious stranger wouldn’t be able to see them anymore. He did see a man, standing in the distance, resting both of his wrists on what appeared to be a shovel. Mateo used his telescopic vision to zoom in. “It’s Halifax.”

“Really?” Leona asked. She walked forward to get a look for herself.

“I recognize that name from the list,” Olimpia said.

“He’s The Gravedigger,” Mateo replied. “We’ve not seen him in a long time.” He looked back at Romana. “Not since the Third Rail.” He grabbed the casket again. “Let’s go. He’s no threat.”

They continued on their way. Halifax waited patiently where they first saw him. He was chewing on sunflower seeds, and spitting the shells off to the side. “I expected you sooner! Why didn’t you teleport here?”

“It’s a funeral procession,” Mateo explained. “You can’t teleport through a funeral procession.”

“No, s’pose not.”

“What are you doing here?” Mateo asked him.

“I’m here for him.” Halifax nodded at the body.

“Not many work orders from this time period, I would guess,” Mateo mused.

“Nope,” Halifax replied matter-of-factly.

“So he’s never coming back?” Leona asked.

Halifax took a beat. “No,” he answered solemnly. “He’ll be in good company,” he added after Mateo exchanged a look with Romana. The Cemetery magically appeared behind him, including a new open grave right behind him, and a second one a few meters away, which was alarming.

“Can we still do a green burial?” Romana asked, stepping forward. “It’s what he wanted.

“Is there any other kind?” Halifax responded.

Romana knelt down and started to unlock the casket. Mateo reached down, and covered her hand with his. “You don’t have to do this yourself. You don’t have to...see him like this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, father.” She unlocked the other latch. “I do.” She lifted the lid, and stared at Boyd’s dead body for a few moments. Then she slipped her arms underneath his, and began to drag him out, across the ground, and over to the edge of the grave. She let go only to hop in, then took hold of Boyd again to pull him down on top of her. She lay there for another few moments, staring blankly into empty space. They gathered ‘round and watched her in reverence. Finally, she freed herself from him, stood up, and just teleported to the surface.

“Your dress,” Mateo pointed out.

“That’s why I wore something real,” Romana explained, “so it wouldn’t have a self-cleaning function.”

“Would you like to say a few words?” Halifax offered.

She stepped over, and looked into the grave with everyone else. “Boyd Maestri was not a perfect man. Like many of our kind, he took his power for granted. He made life harder for some people, like Dave Seidel and June St. Martin. But he never really hurt anyone. He wasn’t anywhere close to being evil. He was actually really sweet. And I wish that you had all been able to see more than just glimpses of that. But I’m at least glad that you got to see a little. I know you weren’t happy with our age gap. The truth is, it was wider than you even know. But he never pushed me, or pressured me. What he felt for me was love. I can’t say that I felt the same. Growing up the way that I did—skipping all that time—I couldn’t have real relationships. If I met someone, they would be dead in the blink of an eye. So yeah, when the first man who I could be honest with took an interest, I fell for him. As I said, he took his powers for granted, but he didn’t treat me the same. He was respectful, and kind, and he recognized my boundaries. I—” she stammered. “That’s it.” She stepped backwards, away from the grave.

“Anyone else?” Halifax asked.

Mateo was already pretty close to the grave, but he stepped closer, letting the toes of his shoes hover over the edge. “I forgive you.”

Romana hadn’t cried this whole time, but now she snapped her eyes shut, and scrunched her cheeks up, trying to hold the tears back, even though she knew that no one expected that of her. She buried her face in the safety of Olimpia’s bosom. Suddenly. Ellie Underhill climbed out of the second open grave. She tried to clap the dirt off of her hands, and wiped them on her skirt. Without saying anything first, she began to sing, “I just found a lemon tree. It’s a bad day for my enemies. Yes, there’s sugar water in the breeze, and I’m ready, I’m ready. So someone play guitar for me. I’m ready to leave my body.”

It was at this point that Olimpia pulled off her necklace, and joined in. “And oh, this could be rage. We’re flying to the space between the lies we told, and find the good in every soul is all connected energy, or how would I know you were thinking of me in the tree?” Only two of them were singing, but with Olimpia’s echo powers, it sounded more like a small chorus. They went on with the song, but skipped the instrumental break, since they were singing a capella. When they ended with the final two lines, “when all of the lights remain, this is all that our time contains,” Olimpia belted it out. Her voice roared up into the sky, and apparently tore a hole in spacetime. The Time Shriek answered back, echoing in its own way, just as Olimpia could.

Romana smiled as she wiped more tears from her eyes. “Boyd loved that scream. He thought it was so cool that so many people from so far away could hear the same thing.”

“You got to know him better than I realized,” Mateo said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it easy on you.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I understand. Or rather I don’t understand what it’s like to be a parent. But I will soon.” She smiled, and placed her palm on her belly.”

“No,” Mateo said, struck with dread, trying his best not to faint, or shout in rage.

“No, I’m kidding!” Romana said apologetically.

“Oh, god...dammit! Don’t do that to me!”

“Or me,” Ramses agreed surprisingly. “We would have to uninstall your EmergentSuit.” He looked around at the rest of the ladies. “That goes for all of you. I wouldn’t otherwise have the right to know if you’re pregnant, but...”

“We get it,” Marie said to him. “We’ll let ya know.”

“Thanks for coming, Ellie,” Leona said. “That was a very thoughtful and beautiful gift.”

“That wasn’t your gift,” Ellie said. “I just like to make an entrance.” She reached into her pocket. “This is your gift.” She pulled out a smooth red stone. Or was it made of glass? It looked familiar, but no one could place it right away. “The angry Russian I took it from wasn’t happy, but he and his daughter will be fine. I moved them somewhere safe.”

“The cap of the Insulator of Life,” Ramses exclaimed. “We’ve been wondering how those two got separated, and where this has been.”

“St. Petersburg, I guess.” Ellie looked from one to another, to another, but only with her eyes. “Is anyone gonna take this from my hand, errr...?”

Angela happened to be the closest, so she accepted it.

“Forgive me, but...this was a funeral gift?” Leona questioned. “Do they have those in Fort Underhill? I didn’t even think you had death.”

“No, it’s a wedding gift,” Ellie contended. She looked around at them again, but with her head this time. “Wait, what year is this?” She reached out and grabbed Leona’s wrist so she could look at her watch. “Whoops! Better go! Forget I said anything!” She ran off and hopped back into the portal grave.

“Well,” Olimpia said with a sigh. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” She reached into her own pockets, and pulled out two diamond rings. She held them in front of her. “Mateo and Leona Matic...will you marry me?”

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Microstory 2301: Green Burial

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The remains. I’ve not told you anything about the remains. No, they weren’t at the memorial service. We left them in Kansas City. I decided that I wanted to lay them to rest on a solo mission. In between all the other planning that I’ve done, with the memorial service, and the other memorial service locally, I contacted all the necessary people to do it the way he wanted. One of the first things he told me when we met earlier this year was that he wanted a green burial, which means no casket, no chemicals, no clothing. Your body returns to the Earth in the purest way imaginable, breaks down as fast as possible, and breathes new life into the soil. There are obviously rules about this, like where you can do it, and I got all the permits. I’m not going to tell you where I buried him, but I did it all by myself after signing it out of the funeral home. That part wasn’t by Nick’s request. It’s something that I felt I needed to do alone. Everything else involves other people, so I just made an executive decision that this was the time when I would say goodbye in my own way, and not be around anyone else. I dug the grave, I lowered him down, and I filled it in. I feel that I accomplished something, and now maybe I can move on...maybe. Goodbye, Nick. You meant more than I could ever say.

Microstory 2286: Cathartic to Go Out Alone

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I did a bad thing yesterday; I escaped. I left a note, and my phone was on my person at all times, but everyone was still worried about me. I knew they would be, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I know it’s not the same thing, but my life has felt so stifling these days, like I’m on house arrest. I wanted to be free, so I took the car for a drive. I found a small cemetery pretty far outside of town, and just sat there on one of the stone benches in the freezing cold. I’ve always felt rather comfortable in cemeteries, probably because there usually aren’t very many other people around. They make most people sad at best, and uncomfortable at worst. I go there to think, but also to peruse the headstones. I like to see all the different designs that they carve into them, and to note how many are grouped in families. I have an obsession with time, as you know, so I also look for the oldest grave, and do mental math on people’s lifetimes. Sometimes it really is sad, like when the year of death is the same as the year of birth. It was cathartic to go out alone, even though I really wasn’t supposed to. I was feeling so trapped, but it was still wrong of me, and I received a proper scolding from my security firm. I’m just still not used to being so attached and dependent on others. I mean, that’s not really true, is it? My life has always been a mess. I’ve always relied on others. Too much, truthfully. Money was meant to change that about me, but it’s only made it worse. Man, if I can’t ever go back home, it might be worth it just to escape this world, and start over fresh somewhere else. What’s that, you say? My writing? How’s my writing going? Does it help? No. It’s a nothing burger, as the saying goes. I’m feeling very unmotivated to write anything; fact or fiction. I think I’m probably gonna give up again.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 19, 2410

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Team Matic were not the first people to try to find the second Earth Nexus. It was reportedly somewhere in the South Pacific ocean, but despite having literally all the time in the world, no one had ever uncovered it. If people from the future were never able to, there wasn’t much chance of them locating it either. Their best course of action was to ask for help, and their best hope for finding that help was not in this reality. It wasn’t even in the same universe anymore. Instead of spending time trying to build something that could detect Nexa somehow, Leona, Ramses, and Constance focused their efforts on creating a new kind of interdimensional communicator. This would hopefully allow them to reach out to someone in the Sixth Key.

It was now after midnight central, and the smarter people in the group were still working. Even Angela and Marie found ways to contribute, leaving Mateo and Olimpia to occupy their time with games and old media. They were in the middle of the fourth Meg movie when Marie entered their pocket dimension to retrieve them. He paused it just as it was getting to the good part. “Did you get a hold of somebody?”

“We’re about to try,” Marie answered.

The three of them exited the pocket, closed the hatch, then entered the code for Ramses’ lab. He was still tinkering with the presumed new communication device. “Who are we going to try to contact?” Mateo asked. “Surely they would need something like this on their end.”

“They do,” Ramses explained. “I already know someone who messes with stuff like this. She’s the one who helped me get to all of you after Dalton split us up. Well, except for you, Olimpia. That was different.”

“Oh, you’re talking about Shantel,” Mateo realized.

“That’s right. It’s hard to explain how this thing works to a layman,” Ramses went on, “but it doesn’t work by dialing a phone number. It’s more like GPS...except obviously we’re not on the same G, so not that.”

“You don’t have to explain it,” Olimpia said. “Just...dial.”

Constance reached over and started tapping on the screen. The special phone trilled for a little bit before Shantel actually answered. She appeared on the screen. “Why is this thing beeping? Hello? Who is this?”

“This is Ramses Abdulrashid. I believe we’ve met. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember you,” Shantel replied. “Why are we talking?”

“We need help; help which can only come from your people. I’m not sure if you’re the person to ask, but I was hoping that you could connect us with the right party.”

“What do I look like to you, an operator?”

Ramses held back whatever quip his brain came up with. “Please.”

Shantel sighed, realizing that it was probably not too big of an ask. She was immortal, and this would likely take all of two minutes. “What do you need?”

“The Antarctica Nexus is missing. Someone stole it. We were trying to find the other one that supposedly exists, and if it was installed in the same place on our Earth as it was on yours, then—”

“There.” A text message appeared on the screen that looked like coordinates.

“That’s where it is?”

“That’s where it was,” Shantel replied. “I can’t guarantee your version will still be there, but the location is common knowledge. I gotta go. Please wait one day to reach out to this device again. I will be handing it off to someone else, so whatever you need in the future, it will be their problem from now on.”

“Very well, Shantel. I appreciate your help.”

She hung up.

“That was easy,” Leona noted. “Too easy.”

“The answer is, don’t think about it,” Mateo decided. Maybe the Parallelers weren’t as bad as Cheyenne said they were. Or maybe they had changed things. It was never completely clear whether their actions had altered the timeline, or if everything they had done to prepare for the Sixth Key was just fate. It was possible that they had managed to subvert the Reality Wars entirely. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“I’ll try,” Leona said. “Dante? Please convert these coordinates to standard spatial reference, and jump with the cloak on.”

“Already done. Jumping now.” The ship teleported.

“Simplistic.exploration.boast,” Olimpia read on the screen.

“That’s where we are?” Mateo questioned. “That sounds familiar.”

“You may have been here before,” Leona pointed out. “We’re not in the middle of the ocean.” She reached over, and pinched the screen to zoom out. “We’re in Topeka.”

“Not just anywhere in Topeka,” Mateo realized. “This is the little graveyard where I used to go to be alone. That is, it’s where I found the graveyard. It was a little rest stop where The Gravedigger, Mr. Halifax buried all the dead time travelers, and I guess it wasn’t in our dimension?”

Marie was looking at the exterior camera feeds. “There’s no cemetery here.”

“How did you find this place?” Leona asked Mateo. “It’s not that close to where you used to live.”

Mateo shook his head. “I was drawn here. As soon as I got my license, I felt compelled to come to this spot. I finally gave into it, and found my little grassy clearing sanctuary. Surrounded by trees, one way in, one way out. No one ever comes here, and now I’m sure they definitely don’t. The weird thing is...” He opened the hatch to the outside, and breathed in the fresh air. “The trees all look the same. It’s been nearly 400 years since I set foot here, and nothing has changed.” He turned back towards the group. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you?” He stepped onto the grass, and knelt down to run his fingers through the blades.

Leona stepped out of the Dante too, and deeper into the clearing. “The answer is, don’t think about it,” she joked. “Hey, Opsocor. Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Venus replied. Her voice was coming out of the aether; from everywhere and nowhere.

Leona smiled, and looked back at the group. “We need to get to Dardius. Is that something you can help us with?”

“Come on down. I’m only two kilometers below the surface.”

“Is there a way to take our shuttle with us?” Can we link them up?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ramses said as he was closing the hatch. “You two go on down. We’ll meet you soon.”

Leona sidled over to Mateo, and reached down.

“This doesn’t feel right,” he noted with a slight shiver.

“It seems fitting to me,” Leona mused. “This is where it all began for you. You were drawn here because you always knew it was a special place. You just didn’t know how special.” She jazzed her fingers at him. “Come on.”

He took her hand and stood up. Together, they jumped down two kilometers, expecting to find themselves in the Nexus building. They were immediately aware that that was not what this was. “It’s a trap.” Now he was really feeling bad.

“Jump back up.” Leona shut her eyes, and tried to teleport again, but was unable to. They were locked in. The trap was either set for them, or people like them. Whoever did this knew about Venus Opsocor, what she sounded like, and how she would talk to Leona, even from two kilometers away from where she was supposed to be in a Nexus.

“What do we do?”

“We can’t let the others come down here.” Leona lifted up her watch, but before she could try to talk into it, she saw that it was off. She tapped on the screen several times, but nothing happened. “It’s not operational. We can’t get them a message.”

“But we can send them a feeling.” Their shared empathic bond was even stronger than it was with their old new substrates. Mateo took a breath, and said, “claustrophobia,” as he was exhaling the air.

“Claustrophobia,” Leona echoed with her own breath.

They both continued to think as hard as they could about feeling trapped, but not in a way that suggested they needed their friends’ help; in a way to suggest that they stay away. Love and concern is what the others returned to them, so Mateo and Leona replied with patience and wisdom. They still couldn’t express anything complex, but it seemed to be working. Or maybe it wasn’t. Olimpia suddenly appeared in front of them.

“We were trying to get you to stay away,” Leona argued.

“We understood, and the others are leaving to prepare the next move,” Olimpia told her. “I volunteered to come down.”

“Why?” Mateo asked her.

“So you two wouldn’t be alone.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” came a voice in the darkness. His silhouette approached, and grew sharper with each step, until he was fully in the light. It was, of course, that dude from the Fifth Division who could not let go of his grudge against them.

“Did you build this place all for us? Did you lure us here with that outpost manager from Dardius?” Leona questioned.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Fifth Divisioner replied. “You called a patriot who did her duty, and reported it to us. We didn’t expect you to fall into our trap so soon. We’re not really ready for you, but...” He looked around at the ceiling and walls. “The power suppressors appear to be working, and that’s what matters.”

“My God,” Mateo said, shaking his head. “Can’t you just let this go? So much has happened since we killed your friend. I’m so sorry,” he mocked.

“Oh, it’s not about that,” he said with a heavy laugh. “You’re wanted. You’re all wanted. Some very powerful people in the Sixth Key would like to talk to you. I joined them because I don’t think they’ll have very nice things to say.” He started to pretend to be polite. “Anyway, sit tight, and once your cells are ready, we’ll get you fully settled.” He checked his watch. “Should take less than a year. In the meantime, you think about how you’re gonna get the rest of your team to fall into our trap too. You don’t want us finding them first. Trust me on that.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 9, 2398

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The four of them start to test the bubble, knowing that there is no way in. As they pound on the surface, rippling colors emanate from the center—looking like an oil puddle rainbow—and fade away. “Do you see anybody?” Alyssa asks, placing her face against it, hoping to get a better look. She cups her hands over her eyes to block out the light, but it doesn’t change the image.

“What does that look like to you?” Leona asks.

“A cemetery,” Mateo says what everyone is thinking.

Alyssa takes a half step away, and looks at the ground under their feet. She bends down, and brushes some debris away. There’s a gravestone on this side of the bubble. The name reads INFANT DAU. They were born May 8, and died May 9, 1917. They were only hours old. It was rather common in those days. The strip of land between the bubble and the edge of the ocean is only a couple of meters wide, cut in a perfect circle, but they can see two more gravestones next to the baby for three Holts. Dau Holt. The period suggests it to be a diminutive, but maybe they’re interpreting that wrong.

Erlendr is still looking through the bubble. “Leona, do you have binoculars of some kind?”

“What does that matter?” She questions.

“We’re somewhere in the North,” he begins. “I think I know where we are, but if you could just look in that direction. He lifts his cuffed hands and points south by southwest.

He’s a dick, but he knows a lot of things that they don’t. Using the scope app on her tablet isn’t going to give him some kind of advantage to escape...probably. Leona lifts her device up, and zooms in.

“Little to the left. There.”

“Jesse James. That’s his real grave?”

“That’s what people are led to believe,” Erlendr explains. “He died in 1816, not 1882. He was killed by a time bullet.”

Leona lowers the tablet. “1816? We’ve been there before, roundabouts here.”

Erlendr nods. “The man who killed Angela Walton, and framed Theo Delaney. Someone gave him the technology, I don’t know why. He had to test it first, and this is what he chose, or someone asked him to do it.” That doesn’t quite match what they thought about any of this, but it doesn’t change anything. They’re still no closer to getting into the city limits. “This is Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. We’re forty-two kilometers away from the center of the island, at fifty-sixth and The Paseo.”

“How does that help us?” Mateo asks.

“It’s better to know than to not.”

Leona has become distracted by something. Alyssa is running her fingers along the barrier. “Lyss, what’s that on your wrist?”

Alyssa jerks her arm closer to inspect it. “I don’t know. What is it? How did it get there? Is it going to hurt me? Is it a bomb?”

Mateo takes her arm to examine it himself. It’s the Traversa Bracelet, or something that looks very much like it. Ariadna Traversa only agreed to have one of them created, but Mateo lost it when the original copy of the AOC was destroyed in an antimatter explosion. Did Meliora save it for them? “This should be able to get us through the wall. It’s dimensional, right? It’s not glass or something.”

“Yeah,” Leona answers. “You should wear it, though. You’re the one with the superpowers.”

“No,” Erlendr says.

“What are you talking about?”

“Meliora Rutherford is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and the next. If Alyssa is wearing the bracelet, she’s supposed to be wearing it. If you so much as attempt to take it off of her, it may be rendered useless. I think this is up to her now.”

“She’s my sister,” Alyssa furthers.

Leona shakes her head, not wanting to send their newest recruit on a solo mission this early. She’s not ready.

“Captain,” Alyssa urges, “please.”

Leona reaches into her bag, and retrieves an earpiece, which she hands to her. “This will allow signals to cross the dimensional barrier too. I wish it came with video, but at least you can stay in contact. The battery should last a hundred years, in case you need that.”

Alyssa giggles, but forces herself to turn serious. She recognizes the danger in her having to do this alone. She turns to face Mateo.

He holds her upper arms in his hands. “She’s in there. You can find her. Go to the Capitol at the One Kansas City Place building to speak with the Presidents. Tell anyone you find that Mateo sent you. But that’s only if your hat falls off.”

This confuses Alyssa for a second, but then she realizes what he’s talking about. “I don’t have the magic hat with me. I didn’t know that I was going anywhere when that phone rang to inform us of Trina’s location.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t need the actual hat.” He points to her chest suggestively. “The power is in you, and you’re in a reality now where you don’t need assistance. The bubble is full of temporal energy. They run on the stuff.”

“Who should I make myself look like?”

“No one,” he replies. “You should turn invisible.”

“Are you sure? Is that really possible?”

“You can make yourself look like anything...or nothing. All you’re doing is taking something that exists somewhere else, and putting it in front of you. It doesn’t have to be remote, though. The thing you’re superimposing could be right behind you instead.”

She takes a breath to prepare herself. Leona hands her a daypack with essentials from the emergency bag. “Captain,” she says to her respectfully. She looks over at Erlendr. “I know you’re not really Ramses, but you look exactly like him right now, so allow me to thank him for teaching me how to do this.”

Erlendr is uncomfortable. “You’re welcome.”

Alyssa throws the bag over her shoulders, and reaches out to the barrier, left hand first. She concentrates on passing through it, instead letting it hold her back. The barrier transforms into a liquid, like that one scene in The Matrix, or several scenes in The Matrix 4...or nearly any episode of Stargate. She keeps walking, holding her breath instinctively. Once she’s through, she looks back, she doesn’t see her friends, only her own reflection. She uses it to gauge her ability as she concentrates on turning herself invisible. She waves, knowing that they can see her, and in seconds, she’s gone.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 26, 2398

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Absolutely,” Winona replies believably.

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

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

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

“Is this all of them?” Halifax asks.

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

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

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

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

“Where might they belong?” Mateo asks him.

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

“They’re bulk travelers,” Leona realizes.

“What does that mean?” Winona asks.

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

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

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

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

“Westfall,” Halifax answers, surprisingly forthcoming.

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

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

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

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

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

“Likewise,” he returns.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 1, 2398

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Mateo was surprised to learn that Marie’s therapist had an opening the following day, but he decided he needed to go ahead and get on it, instead of waiting. Now he’s waiting in the waiting room, with a little boy and his father. There appears to only be one therapist here, so either they’re really early, or Mateo’s in the wrong place. Not long before the door opens, though, the father looks at his watch, gathers his son, and they leave together. Maybe they just didn’t have anything to do before their next appointment?

“Mister Matic?” Magnus Sharpe presumes.

“That’s me.”

“What would you like me to call you?” she asks.

“Mateo is fine.” He walks past her as she holds the door open, and takes a seat on the couch. A little furry dog slowly waddles over to him, and situates itself upon his shoes.

“You can carefully move him if you don’t want him there,” Mag. Sharpe tells him. “Some people find him comforting.”

“He’s good there.”

“On the phone, you said that you’re a friend of a patient of mine?”

“Yes. Marie Walton.”

“I cannot confirm that she’s a client, or anyone else, so if you want to talk about her, we’ll have to move forward under the possibly true assumption that I’ve never even heard of her before.”

“Okay.”

“What brings you here today?”

“Well, I don’t know what she told you...I mean, she couldn’t have told you anything since you don’t know her, so I guess I’ll explain. We’re time travelers. When it began, it was just me. I was in a cemetery with my friends on my birthday, and suddenly everyone around me disappeared. I quickly learned that I was the one who disappeared, and that I had been gone for a year. I soon thereafter met my future wife, who became like me when I donated my kidney to her. The other three showed up later, for various reasons.”

She nods, not only like she understands, but believes him.

“None of this is all that important to my issue, but I’m giving you background, so you know what makes us a team. We’re not just a group of old friends who met at college, or in a stuck elevator.”

“That wouldn’t be what makes you a team,” Mag. Sharpe notes. “Teams accomplish goals together.”

“Well, we help people. At least we try. Sometimes a friend gives us missions, sometimes an enemy does, and sometimes we don’t even know who’s calling the shots.”

She jerks her head, confused.

Mateo thinks he knows why. “Yeah, there’s this mysterious group called the powers that be who have some kind of control over the whole universe.”

She shakes her head now. “No, I’ve heard of them. I didn’t know that you would complete missions for enemies. Tell me about that.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that would sound weird, so I must just be used to it. I think that those people generally wanted to do good, but they built this reputation of being assholes, because they have all this power, and power corrupts, ya know? So they want to change, but when you’re a time traveler, it’s basically impossible to change your reputation, since linear time is just an illusion. So they keep being assholes, and force us to help others. That way they don’t actually have to have done any of the helping, but it still gets done.”

“Interesting.”

He chuckles mildly. This is going surprisingly well. He’s never felt so uncomfortable around regular humans than he has in this world, but Mag. Sharpe feels like someone he can trust. Now it’s time to get to the real issue, though, which has nothing to do with time travel.

“Go on,” she urges.

“Well, as you’ve probably heard, all the others are the smart ones. Angela and Marie studied and trained a lot of different things in the simulation. Leona and Ramses both studied science in normal school before they found out about any of this. I’m just the big dummy. The only reason I’m here is because my only true skill is that I attract the villains, and those villains have other victims, so that’s how we meet.”

“You feel useless.”

“Yes. I can’t fly a ship, or fight a monster. I try to look back on the things that I’ve accomplished since this started, and it’s all rooted in convincing others to help me. I don’t actually do anything myself.”

“You don’t think that alone is a skill?”

“Being helpless, and others taking pity on me? Not really,” he says.

“I think it is,” she counters plainly.  “I mean, think about it, if none of this time travel stuff existed, what could you do with that? What kind of job could you get? Why, you could help other people get jobs. That’s called recruitment, or headhunting. Heck, you would even excel as the top executive of a big company. People like that don’t need to understand the products or services they provide. They just need to know how to find the people who do. That is a skill, and most people don’t have it, because we grow up to be jaded and cynical, so we find it difficult to trust in the expertise of others. So not only is it a skill, but a virtue.”

“I was 28 when this happened to me. I had plenty of time to become a top executive, or at least start making my way down that road. But instead, I’m a driver. I’m a literal driver, and that’s all I could ever have been.”

“Yeah, not the most glamorous role, and I’m not saying that you should have become an executive, or that you did something wrong because you didn’t. I’m saying everyone has their own strengths, and just because yours aren’t as obvious as your friends, doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. You seem to be feeling inadequate in this reality, because while you’ve always relied on your team, you’ve probably always been able to contribute by following their direction. Now that you’re here, and relatively safe, there’s really nothing you need to do to help. If you were to sit on the couch all day in front of the TV, while the others were at work, they would be fine. No more antagonists, no more missions. It would be like if they were the parents, and you were the child. No one gets mad at the child for not having a job.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that is the difference. I was pretty much always busy, but now, all I do is read library books, so my ineptitude stands out more.”

“What are you studying?”

“Philosophy.”

She nods. “The proverbial subject that won’t get you a job unless you remain in academics. My daughter’s doing the same thing, but she doesn’t want to become a professor, or anything. So after she gets a degree, she’s going to have to find something probably unrelated.”

“What would that be?” he asks.

“You like the library, Mateo?”

“Eh, it’s growing on me.”

“Then why don’t you work there?”