Microstory 2032: Hawaii

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My papa was really good at his job. He was so good at it that in the year 2012, his bosses rewarded him with a really expensive trip to Hawaii. Hawaii is a chain of islands in the North Pacific Ocean. It used to be its own country, but now it’s in the U.S. Papa and his whole team went there together. It wasn’t a business trip, or a retreat so they could learn to work together better. It was just a cool vacation, where they could do whatever they wanted. That didn’t mean that they were just going to go without having any plans. The bosses also came up with a special itinerary, which sent the team to each of the major islands of Hawaii. There are over 100 islands in Hawaii, but there are only 8 main ones. They went to each one of them, spending one day on most of them. The whole trip lasted for 11 days, though, so they must have been on one or more for longer, probably wherever the airport was. Hawaii is a really beautiful state with lots of trees, mountains, and beaches all around. I would like to go there one day. You probably would too.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 13, 2399

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Labhrás moved Leona and Tarboda to a much nicer room, with cots to sleep on, clean running water, and control over the lights. They also allowed them to have a shower, and eat some real food, instead of this reality’s version of hard tack. The door was still locked, but he promised to let Tarboda go at the right time so as to avoid any run-ins with the authorities. The exchange was on, so they all had to get a good night’s rest. It was hard to tell when it was bedtime since Leona had yet to see a window, so they just turned in when they felt tired.

It’s the morning, and Tarboda is gone. Leona is at the exchange with her future grandfather, the two smelly brothers, and a few other goons. Or maybe they’re henchmen. There’s a difference, apparently, and they would probably be offended by being called the wrong one. Labhrás altered the conditions a little bit. Leona is in chains, and she is wearing a hood, but the shackles were bought at a magic shop, so they only appear to be locked, and the hood is see-through. They still want to make it look real while Leona finds out who’s really after her, and why. They’re standing on the docks, which is a truly unique locale for a ransom exchange. Really, no one has ever thought of that before. Why don’t criminals meet at the docks more often?

Leona still doesn’t know where she is. It’s cool, which implies they’re still in the northern hemisphere, and she can taste the salt in the air, so the body of water to her left is an ocean, rather than a lake. That tells her that she’s not in a landlocked region, which rules out places like Kansas. She never thought they were in Kansas, but it would have been nice. As far as she’s aware, her grandparents emigrated out of Ireland, and went straight to Topeka, so it wouldn’t have been the craziest of developments. Then again, they’re in a completely different reality now. Labhrás has probably never even heard of Topeka, and maybe not even Kansas City. None of that has happened yet, and all this timey-wimey stuff is weird and complicated, so maybe it never will. Maybe everything they’re doing now will negate her existence, kind of like what Mateo did to himself when he killed Adolf Hitler, but worse because it would happen in every timeline for her, and she wouldn’t even have the satisfaction of killing Hitler.

“Are ya still with us?” Labhrás asks.

Even with this hood on, he could tell that Leona was stuck in her head. “I’m fine. What time is it?”

“Half past they’re feckin’ late,” he answers. “Pardon my English, Madam.” Hm. What is England to him?

“Doesn’t bother me. That’s not even a real word,” she jokes.

The smellier brother waits for a solid minute before responding with, “yes, it is.”

We don’t wait much longer before a well-dressed man carrying a cane shows up. He’s kempt and confident, and does not seem embarrassed by his tardiness. Leona doesn’t recognize him. Now that doesn’t mean he’s not the one who put a price on her head, but she’s still getting the impression that the true force behind this mess is still living incognito. This guy’s just a lackey. “My name is Connell Arrington,” he announces. British accent; British name. Where are these people from? Happy cliché day, anyway.

“You don’t look like you’re carrying very much money on you?” Labhrás notes.

“Everything is electronic these days, my dear.”

“That’s not what we agreed on. We want untraceable bills.”

“Impossible. You’ll take what you can get, or you’ll get nothing.”

Labhrás just fumes.

Connell goes on, “you identified yourselves as the Bounty Hunters of the Old World. As a result, we are unaware of your specific designation. What is your name?”

“Labhrás Delaney.”

Connell’s eye twitches. He looks over at Leona. “You would give up your own kin for a bit of cash?”

Labhrás looks over at Leona as well. “We are not related.”

Connell twitches again. “You expect me to believe it to be a coincidence that you are both named Delaney?”

“Her name is Leona Matic,” Labhrás tries to clarify.

“Pull the hood off, please,” Connell requests.

Smelly Goon One does so without waiting for Labhrás’ go-ahead.

“Did you not tell him your unmarried name?” Connell asks Leona.

“Do we know each other?” Leona asks, undeftly changing the subject.

“You and I have never met,” Connell begins. “Neither have you and the man I work for. Yet you have wronged us both, and we are here to collect on your sins.”

Leona narrows her eyes at him. “Which sins?”

“All of them,” Connell replies.

“Who are you to make me answer for all of them?”

“We are...in a great position to do so. That is what gives us the right.”

“How are we related?” Labhrás questions, frustrated at the tangent.

She’s been avoiding eye contact, but that’s no longer viable. “It’s complicated.”

“Is it?” Connell asks. Then he has a realization. “Ah, I see. Who is he, then; your son? Great great great great great grandson?”

Labhrás is super confused now.

“You’re my grandfather,” Leona corrects while continuing to look at Labhrás.

“How is that possible? You may be older than me!”

“Time travel, old chap!” Connell says jovially. “She’s from the future.”

“I’m not from the future,” Leona contends. “You are. I don’t know why you go back in time, or how you do it, but it has to happen, or I never exist.”

“Is that all it would take?” Connell asks. “I believe we’ve found our solution.” He twists the handgrip of his cane, and pulls out a gun, instead of the usual sword. He shoots Labhrás in the chest, and then ducks away to avoid gunfire from the henchmen.

Leona catches Labhrás as he’s falling to his back, already coughing up blood. She removes her shackles, and tries to apply pressure to the wound, but he’s not going to make it. “I’m sorry. I would have told you if I thought that this might happen.”

“I’m sorry,” he struggles to say. “Ta...Ta...”

“Thanks? Are you trying to say thanks?”

He shakes his head. “Tarboda. Tarboda is dead.”

Leona’s face falls. Tarboda was not a great friend, but he could have been one day, and he did nothing to deserve that. “You’re no grandfather of mine.” Connell is still in a firefight with the rest of Labhrás’ people. She stands up, and ignores the flying bullets. She walks across no man’s land, and approaches him.

“I thought you would disappear before our very eyes,” he says to her.

“That’s not how it works, you bleedin’ eejit. Now take me to your boss.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 12, 2399

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Leona tried to escape the boiler room two nights ago. Tarboda thought that she was going to remove the chain from her ankle with the wrench, but instead she started banging on the pipes with it, and making a whole ruckus. When the eejit goon came in to see what all the fuss was about, she hit him over the head with it, and stole his keys. She was about to free Tarboda too when she thought better of it. She was in uncharted territory here. The chances that she would actually succeed in escaping were extremely low. They were almost as low as the number of friends she has left. They may try to use Tarboda against her if they think she gives a crap about him, and they may not if they think she doesn’t. He cursed at her as she was running out of the room, but also gave her a wink at the last second, so he understood. Perhaps he can be added to that friend list.

As she suspected, she didn’t make it far at all. The boiler room was one section of a basement with seemingly only one way out. That door at the top of the stairs was locked, and the goon was never given that key. By the time she was able to pick it, his brother was upon her. She didn’t see much of the ground floor, but it looked like the start of a maze. Not a window in sight. But that was okay, because getting out was never the plan. She wanted them to place her in more danger, and activate the fear center of her brain, which would have alerted psychic Kivi to her location. It might have worked too, but only if she were a different person, and the people she was trying to escape were also different. She knew that she was never in any real danger, which is why she couldn’t have just created the fear on her own, and her abductors knew it too.

To her surprise, the goons made no attempt to scare her. They weren’t rough with her, they didn’t yell at her. They did nothing to generate the appropriate psychic signal. They calmly escorted her back to the boiler room and chained her up again. They didn’t even move her to a different pipe. They took the wrench away, and took a cursory glance around to make sure there weren’t any more weapons, but that’s it. It just wasn’t enough. Leona’s escape attempt wasn’t enough to concern them. They felt no compulsion to react, and even if they did, she probably wouldn’t react much worse either, because she has had too much combat training. So she has to be scared for real, which means that she can’t know when—or, really, even that—it’s coming, and when it does come, she can’t let herself decide that everything’s going to be okay since Kivi will rescue her as a result. That’s impossible! She thought she had it figured out, but she was being naïve.

The boss man walks into the room. “I heard we had a bit of trouble.” His accent is still there, but it’s toned down a little. Is he faking?

“That’s what you get with me. I’m trouble, with a capital T, which rhymes with P, and that stands for pool!”

He’s the kind of guy who’s smiling all the time, probably even when he’s pissed off, but he cracks it wider. “Stands for pool,” he echoes. “I like that. I’m gonna use it. The Chinese are movin’ in on some of our territories with drugs hidden in pool tables.”

“Have fun, I’ll probably be making my upteenth escape.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he says. “In fact, you’ll have one more opportunity. We were meant to move ya to the exchange, but something went wrong on the other end.”

“Don’t you hate it when the murderers who paid you to kidnap someone they want to murder can’t get their shit together?”

“You didn’t hear?” he asks. “The bounty’s changed. You’re no longer wanted dead or alive. They’ll only accept you alive.”

“What would be your guess as to why?” Leona questions.

“I would assume there’s somethin’ you can do or tell ‘em that only you can do or tell ‘em.”

Leona doesn’t know what to think of that. Her guess the whole time was that the bounty was only ever on her head because she was forced to kill that asshole TV pundit. But the bounty doesn’t actually say anything about motive. That’s just when it came about, so that’s the connection she made. As far as most people know, she doesn’t know anything that could help them. She’s just the jerk who took their precious demigod away. Maybe it never had anything to do with that. Maybe someone just recognized her on the screen, and knows who she is for other reasons. The talk show could have gone swimmingly, and she still would have ended up in this situation. Or maybe she’s still wrong, because she has no idea what’s going on, who wanted her dead, or why they don’t want that anymore.

“I can see yu have some tinkin’ to do. I’ll leave ya to it. Big day tomorra.” He turns to leave while she’s still lost in her head.

“I have a list,” she says, stopping him.

He’s curious. “A list of what?”

“Of friends, enemies, friends who’ve become enemies, enemies who’ve become friends.”

“Which column am I in?” he asks.

She waits to reply. “That’s for you to decide. I can’t do it for you.”

“What happens to the enemies who never become friends?” he presses.

“You can’t ask them. You can’t ask them anything. You think that guy I killed on TV was my first? Technically, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of billions. No, don’t look over at the pilot, he doesn’t know. He’s just in the fifth, neutral column of my list.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why do you think?”

“I think you remembered that I offered you a job. Are you finally ready to talk about it?”

“I’ll do whatever you need, as long as it doesn’t involve killin’ someone I don’t want killed, or causing harm to the poor, helpless, or disenfranchised.”

“In return, you want me to call off the exchange?”

Leona chuckles. “No, I want the meet to move forward, but I don’t want to be hooded and chained when it does.”

He sighs. “I think that can be arranged. Anything else?”

“Let him go.” She nods over to Tarboda.

“Can’t be done. He’ll tell someone where we are.”

“Then let’s don’t be here when he does,” she reasons.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds to think. “Very well, bonnie.”

“Before you go again, what’s your name?”

“Labhrás Delaney. May our business be fruitful and prosperous.” He tips his hat and leaves.

Tarboda looks over at her once he’s gone. “Are you two related?”

She’s still in shock. “He’s my grandfather.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 10, 2399

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Leona wakes up with the worst headache she’s ever had, and she’s had a lot of pretty terrible headaches. This one time, someone blended her brain with the memories of two of her alternate selves. The most painful memories were the most severe, overwhelming all the happy ones by orders of magnitude. This is worse than that, and she doesn’t know why. The last thing she remembers, she was leaving the city government building near Vulcan Point, on her way back to the jet. She wasn’t alone either. The pilot was with her. “Tarboda?”

“Present,” he replies in a gravelly voice.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Negative.”

“Do you know what happened to us?”

“Got kidnapped.”

“Hm.” She searches for those memories. They sound familiar, but she still can’t recall what led up to them, or what she was doing. She’s chained to the wall, though, so that tracks. “Did you see them?”

“They came out of nowhere. Couldn’t pick a single one of ‘em out of a line-up.”

“Wait, do you mean that literally? Were they just really quick, or—?”

“Shh! They’re probably listening.”

“Good point.”

“I think they were just really quick.”

“Have you found a light switch anywhere?”

“Can’t see a damned thing. Chained to the wall.”

“Kind of afraid to turn the lights on anyway, lest I find myself chained to a pipe in a moldy bathroom, across from a guy who’s drowning in a bathtub, and a third guy between us with an apparent suicidal gunshot wound to the head, but—spoiler alert—he’s not really dead; he’s the bad guy, and he’s been listening the whole time.”

“That is incredibly specific,” Tarboda replies.

“Yeah.”

“Is anybody else here?” she asks with a raised voice. “We’re awake now!”

A door thunders opening, flooding the room with a light so bright, Leona and Tarboda can’t actually see anything. The door closes just as quickly, and they hear a single clap of the hands. A much more manageable reddish light begins to shine. Leona blinks as the scent begins to hit her too. The man approaching her—and while she still cannot see, let’s face it, it is a man—reeks of expired cologne, butter garlic vapor, and a diaper. He doesn’t smell of a dirty diaper, mind you, but clean diapers have a certain repulsive odor all on their own. It’s like he’s trying to torture them just by being around, and maybe it’s not like it, but that’s precisely his intention.

“What do you want with us?” Tarboda demands to know.

“We want nothing from you.”

Funny, Leona was expecting either a Filipino accent, or North American, but he sounds like he’s from Ireland. If true, it would be interesting to hear him explain where he thinks he’s from since the North Atlantic Isles literally disappeared to another reality, leaving no one with any memories of it. She obviously can’t ask that, though. “Okay, what do you want with me?”

“Yur Leona Matic.”

“I am.”

“Tere’s a bounty on yur head.”

She kind of forgot about that. Kivi Bristol and her team have been working really hard to take down anyone with any serious plans to collect the prize, but they cannot figure out who declared it in the first place. If they could stop them from being able to pay it out, and prove to the world that the bounty was voided, the problem would be solved. Kivi’s special psychic powers have yet to lead her to that ultimate goal. Meanwhile, Leona has been mostly living on the fringes of society, trusting in the discretion and loyalty of the relatively few government employees who have ever been aware of her and Arcadia’s whereabouts. She has not spent much time out in the world. She let her guard down, and this was stupid of her. “Ah, this is about the reward, eh?” She starts talking like a stereotypical caveman. “I primacean. I like stuff. You give me stuff, or I bonk you on a head.”

“What?”

“Idiotsayshuh?”

The abductor pauses. “Huh?” She knew he’d fall for it.

“How do you collect this bounty?”

“We were tinkin’ we could shoot ya, and take a photo.”

“Nah, nah, nah. You can’t do that,” Leona reasons. “Photos can be faked. They’ll never believe you.”

“What would yu do?”

That’s a good question. “For starters, I would take a photo of me holding today’s newspaper.”

“You said photos can be faked.”

She sighs. “Yes, but you’re just getting your foot in the door for now. You send them the photo, and demand payment. When they say it’s not good enough, tell them you want to meet. Bring me to that meeting, and I’ll be the living proof.”

He looks confused. “Then we shoot yu?”

How did she get caught by these people? She can’t help but sigh again. “No. Then you ask to see the money.”

“Hey, I’m not stupid.”

The door opens again, and someone else enters the room. “Get back to your post soldier,” he orders.

“I was just—”

“Get back to your post!” he repeats.

The first guy hangs his head low, and leaves.

“A tousand apologies, Miss Matic. He and his bruda are absolute eejits.”

“Well, you hired them, didn’t you?

“It’s true.”

“And it’s Missus Matic,” she corrects.

“Another tousand apologies.” His eyes dart over to Tarboda.

“No, not him. He’s my pilot. My husband died. He died saving your world. You’re welcome.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he says.

“And you never will. You’re welcome again.”

“Listen, Mrs. Matic. Oi got nothin’ against ya, but we need tat money. Yu shouldn’ta gon’ out in public.”

“You should just get a job.”

“Dis is my job. Yur lucky I’m da one doing it, ‘stead of someone else.”

“And why is that?”

“Oi’m gonna give you a fair chance. If you can come up with a quarter of the money yurself, I won’t turn you in. You come up with half, I’ll take you anywhere in the world. You come up with all da money, I’ll protect ya for life. We take care of our own, and yu can be oneovus.”

“First of all, no thanks. Secondly, I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Yu could also do a job or two for us, start payin’ it off.”

“No. Not interested. I don’t know what kind of jobs a group of people like you would do, but they can’t be good.”

“Oi understand. You’ll have two days to change yur moind. It will take as long to coordinate and negotiate with the bounty-setter.”

“In the meantime, I appreciate your hospitality,” Leona replies sarcastically.

The boss looks around the dirty boiler room. “I’ll see about getting you some better accommodations.”

He nods politely as if she’s just agreed to fill in for him for his shift at the grocery store while he goes to his cousin’s wedding. Then he leaves the room.

“You seem unconcerned,” Tarboda points out.

“I’m in trouble here,” Leona replies. “This means that my friend can find me. She can find anybody.”

“Yeah, I know her. I’ve flown her and her team around a bit.” He takes a beat. “But the way she explained it, she does this through some kind of psychic power, not because she simply guesses where or someone is.”

“That’s right.”

“Which means that not only do you have to be in trouble, but you have to feel like you’re in trouble.”

“What’s your point?”

“Well, if you’re confident that she’ll find you, you won’t be sending her a psychic distress signal, so she won’t be able to find you.”

“You’re right. So I need to feel real fear.”

“How would we go about triggering that? Pardon the awful suggestion, but would it work if I threatened your life? Perhaps I could strangle you with my chains? I mean, I wouldn’t hurt you, but...”

“No, that wouldn’t work. I don’t know where she is, but to prompt her to come this direction, it would have to be a continuous fear, otherwise the signal would just dissipate. I think, at least. I don’t really know how it works, but it makes sense.”

“What can we do?”

Leona stands up, and assesses the area. “We have to get them to do it.”

“How?”

“This would not be the first prison I’ve broken out of. If it works, I get free, and if it doesn’t, I piss them off so much, they put the fear of God in me. Either way, we win.”

“Tell me what to do?”

“Can you reach that wrench?”

Microstory 1592: Literally Can’t Get Out of Bed

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Prompt

I fell asleep in my own bed last night, and I’ve woken up in a stranger’s.

Botner

As I blink and slowly adjust my eyes to the ceiling of the attic room of my new home, I see the bed I’ve been sleeping in isn’t just the bed of my past, but the bed of my future. And I can see that in the corner of the room I’ve been sleeping on for the last two days. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you dirty rat?”

I open my eyes and recognize the voice coming from my left. I look to the floor, then quickly look up. Shocked, I sit up straight, my jaw gaping. Standing at the edge of the bed is a man in a blood-stained white suit, his black shoes stomping the wood floors of the room, his hands stuffed in his pockets. His black hair hung loose, partially covering his dark eyes, his rough and scuffed shoes seemingly out of place on the soft floors. “I thought you were my husband,” I try to scream, but my mouth has gone dry. My head is dizzy. I can barely see the man standing over me. “Who are you?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he stares back. I jump to my feet, realizing the...

Conclusion

...immense danger that I’m in. I’m not supposed to be here. He knows it, I know it, and now he knows I know it, and now he knows I’m going to have to do everything I can to get the hell out of here. But first, I must break free. My ankles are chained to the bed post, and since I’m no Houdini, my only hope is to talk my way out of it. I don’t know what this guy wants with me—I never wronged him, as far as I remember, and that’s going to make it much harder. He might not want an apology, but he sure as hell will be pissed off if I can’t acknowledge his pain. Think, I think to myself. Think about the last time you saw him, and try to remember what went down. It was my dog. She pooped on his lawn, and even though I cleaned it up right away, he wasn’t happy. This can’t be what caused him to abduct me, though, is it? That’s an insane overreaction, even if I hadn’t picked it up. No, it has to be something else. That was probably just the proverbial back-breaking straw. What happened before? What is he so upset about? Oh, you know what, maybe he knows. Maybe he’s finally figured out that I’m the one who called the cops on him for having a huge party with strangers in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Furor: Dude Thinks He Invented It (Part V)

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The prison guard held the door open so Ace could call Serkan and Paige, and tell them where he was going to be. Slipstream needed to get her affairs in order with the tracer gang as well, though she wasn’t as honest with them about what she was doing. The reality was that neither of them really knew where it was they were going, though. They could be traveling to the other side of the world, to another world, to the future, or the past. Perhaps the prison existed in another dimension, or maybe somehow all of these possibilities all at once. Susan and Ennis seemed to think it was safe for them to travel there, but Ace didn’t exactly know them that well.

“No cameras,” the guard informed them at the doorway. He took their phones from them, and slipped them into his pocket. Then he started leading them down a passageway. “Who is it you need to speak with?”

“Anyone who can tell us about Rothko Ladhiffe,” Ace answered.

The guard flinched, almost imperceptibly. “He got out on my watch. I can tell you as much as anyone else here can, outside of his friends.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other a look. “We should talk to his friends.”

“They are not allowed visitors,” the guard explained.

“We’re not here to visit.”

“Good point,” he admitted. He turned a corner that Ace didn’t even know was there. Some walls weren’t really walls. “Susan has instructed me to give you everything you ask for, but she is not my boss.”

“Who is?”

“The Warden, of course.” He ushered them into an office, where a woman was sitting at a desk, and just staring at the wood, like a powered-down robot.

Ace cleared his throat, but the warden lady didn’t react.

“Excuse me?” Slipstream piped up.

The Warden held up one finger, and didn’t drop it for a minute. Then she used it to point at what appeared to be some random point on the desk. “There. See it?” she asked the empty space right next to her chair.

“Yes,” came the voice of some invisible entity, right where the Warden was talking to.

“I want him moved to the other side.”

“I’m on it.” The side door opened and closed on its own.

The Warden finally looked up to the two of them. “What, you’ve never seen an invisible person before?”

“Well, no,” Ace said, “but that’s not it. We’re just not sure what you two were looking at on your desk.”

She smiled and reached under that desk. After a click, a holographic image appeared on the surface; apparent footage of the prison. “This is a live feed. We were looking at something that hasn’t happened yet, so you can’t see it unless you have a trained eye.”

Ace nodded. He didn’t fully understand what she had said, but he long ago learned when someone with more experience in the world of time manipulators said something is a thing that’s real, he was better of just accepting it and moving on.

“What can I do for you?” Who are you?”

“You just let us walk into your office without knowing us?” Ace questioned.

“Don’t you know the future?” Slip added.

“Not the whole future.”

“Well, I’m a salmon...sort of,” Ace began. “That’s what everyone calls me, but the powers that be have never asked me to do anything.”

“That you know of,” the Warden corrected.

“That I know of,” he agreed. “This is Slipstream. She’s, uhh...” Yeah, he still wasn’t clear how different people were going to react to a regular ol’ human.

“Bozhena Horvatinčić?” the Warden asked, with a proper fangirl squee. She stood up, and walked around the desk to shake her idol’s hand. “It is such an honor. What you did for Kansas City...”

“Was a group effort,” Slipstream said with flawless modesty.

“That’s my girl. We should do lunch. Are you hungry?”

“We’re...anxious,” Slipstream replied. “As I’m sure you know, our fair city is in danger.”

The Warden fell into seriousness. “Right, the ninth and last City Frenzy event.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other another look. Neither of them knew anything about this being the last Frenzy.

“Whoopsie-doodles, I’ve said too much. I would hit the redo button, but I don’t wanna do that to you. You’re here looking for answers about Mister Ladhiffe. I can put you in a room with Keanu ‘Ōpūnui and Jesimula Utkin, but I’m not sure that’s safe.”

“You have ways of suppressing people’s powers, don’t you?”

“That’s not the problem,” the Warden said. “The Springfield Nine aren’t just dangerous because of their abilities. They’re also all insane. Well, Kallias isn’t, but that’s because he was immune to side effects of the...”

“What?”

“Well, I mean he’s not pristinely ungifted, like Brooke Prieto, but he can control how nonlinear time effects him, if at all.”

“Kallias Bran is one of the Springfield Nine?” Ace asked. “He babysat my child.”

“Yes, but like I said, he’s different.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. I read about those children,” Slipstream said. “I read about all nine. He wasn’t in there.”

The Warden nodded. “You’re probably thinking of Kayetan Glaston. No, he’s tight with them, but he’s just a regular choosing one. He was born that way. The Nine were made.”

“Are you gonna lock him up too?”

“Kayetan?”

“No. Kallias.”

“I don’t lock up anybody. I’m a warden, not a judge. But to make you feel better, I doubt it. Your child was safe with him.”

After a reverent pause, Slipstream continued, “what did we decide about the interview with Rothko’s friends?”

“Please.” She opened her hand, and pointed to their knees. “Have a seat.”

As soon as they sat down, they discovered themselves to be sitting in an entirely different room. Keanu was on the other side of a cold, metal table that was an awkward few meters long. At the far corner was a young woman Ace didn’t know, but guessed to be Jesimula Utkin. They were both chained to their respective corners. The prison guard from before was performing a beautiful impression of a statue in the corner.

“I don’t think she teleported us,” Ace said. “I think we lost time.”

“You’re getting smarter,” Keanu said to him with a grimace.

“It’s been so long,” Jesi said to Slipstream.

“Is that a joke, or has it been longer for you?”

“Just a year, but I do miss the time we spent together. What’s the deal with this table?”

“No touching,” the guard clarified.

Ace took a moment to pretend he was alone with Slipstream. “As a feminist, I grapple with this idea that hitting a woman is worse than hitting a man, but I know if I punch this guy in the face right now, everyone who heard the story would shrug it off. But if I did the same to—”

“I catch your drift,” Slipstream interrupted. She stood up, and punched Jesi in the face for terrorizing Ace’s daughter.

The prison guard immediately opened a cabinet on the wall, and pulled out a med kit. He removed a piece of cloth from a container, and placed it on Jesi’s face. “Sixty seconds,” he said to her before going right back to his corner, and freezing.

Jesi leaned her head back and sighed while she waited to heal.

“What is it with you people and hitting?” Keanu asked.

“What is it with you people and harming others on a grander scale?”

“Hey, I stand by my winter wonderland!” he shouted jovially.

“They let you stand in here?”

It was a silly retort, but offensive enough to the prisoner. “What is it you want?”

“Rothko.”

Keanu scowled. “That bastard promised to take us with him.”

“So, you’ll help us catch him?” Slipstream imagined.

“Hell no! Springfield code!”

“Oh God,” Jesi said as she was finally removing what was obviously a healing mask. “Enough with that bullshit! We owe him nothing.”

“We owe him everything,” Keanu argued. “He got us out of the pocket dimension.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“It’s a fact, Jesi. You can’t just ignore it because—” Keanu stopped short. “Oh, I see what you did there. Pitting us against each other, making us give you information about the pocket dimension. You’re a couple of sneaky snakes. I see you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ace said honestly. “You started fighting all on your own. If you don’t want to tell us what we need to know, then you are free to go.”

“They’re not free to go,” the guard said.

“Oh, my bad,” Ace said. “Looks like you’ve been compelled to help us.”

Jesi pursed her lips and regarded them with exaggerated disdain, like a lady thug. “Yo, watchu wanna know?”

Slipstream took this one, stooping herself to a way of talking that Jesi was already pretending to have. “Yo, like...what does he want? What beef he got with the City Frenzy?”

“That ol’ thang?” Jesi went on. “That dude thinks he invented it.”

“He did,” Keanu argued.

“Puh-lease, ain’t nobody remember him talkin’ about it when we was kids.”

“Well, he did. To. The. Letter.”

Jesi sucked her teeth, and brushed that dirt off her shoulder. “Yeah, right. And I introduced the word fleek.”

“You did,” Keanu reminded her. “That wasn’t meant to be part of English vernacular until 2049.”

“Oh, for reals? Schway.”

Slipstream reached towards Jesi’s face. “No. No. Use whatever accent you want, but no one is uttering that word in my presence.”

“What, schway?”

Slipstream stood up so fast, her chair fell back. Ace picked it up for her while Jesi assured them she wouldn’t use it again.

“Getting serious, guys, Rothko is not all there.” Jesi gestured to Keanu as her voice got quieter. “These kids love him, but he is not okay. He had this thing with this girl, on this other planet. But then there was this other guy, and I don’t know what happened to him, but no one’s ever seen him again. He don’t talk about it, but I think Rothko killed him.”

“Allegedly,” Keanu interjected.

Ace decided it was time to get to the point. “What’s his weakness? How do we stop him.”

Jesi laughed. “How do you stop gravity?”

“Lift?” Slipstream offered.

Jesi thought that was a pretty good answer. “Tell ya what, you get me furlough, I’ll bring him in...dead or alive.”

“You’re not getting furlough,” the guard said abruptly.

Ace looked back at the guard, and then back to the prisoners. “Can you do it.”

“They’re not getting out of here,” the guard said, growing angrier.

“Yes,” Jesi answered.

Steam was coming out of the guard’s ears. “I won’t let two more people get past me.”

“Not two,” Jesi said. “Just me.”

“Traitor!” Keanu cried.

“I need backup,” the guard called into his radio.

“We have to go now,” Jesi urged. “You’re untouchable. They can’t hurt you. Either of you.”

“Okay,” Ace decided.

The guard tried to make a move, but Slipstream was too fast. She took him down without breaking a sweat. But then his jackbooted backup arrived. She pushed back on the door to keep them out, but they were too strong. Keanu jumped up and helped her. “You have a plan to get us out of here?” he questioned.

A pigeon suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and landed gracefully on the table. It started cooing, and looking around for food. The backup was now banging on the door harder, and it looked like someone was coming with a breaching bar to knock it down.

“Now would be nice,” Slipstream said.

“Read the note!” Keanu ordered.

Ace carefully removed the little note wrapped around the bird’s leg. “Take a picture,” he read. “I don’t have my phone with me.”

“They’re in his pocket,” Slipstream reminded him. She and Keanu were starting to lose the match against the guards.

Ace dove down and grabbed his phone. He flicked up the camera app, and snapped a photo of the floor. An older version of Paige wearing glasses suddenly appeared. She took Ace in one arm, and Jesi in the other.

“Wait. Slip!” Ace yelled.

“Everyone who wants a ride has to be touching me,” Glasses!Paige said.

The door was too far away from Jesi. “Go!” Keanu said to her. “I’ll hold them off, just go!”

“I won’t forget this,” Ace said to him.

As soon as Slipstream’s fingers were at Paige’s shoulders, the latter spirited the four of them away.

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Microstory 882: This is Your Rifle

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I’m not trying to keep anything from you, officer, but you have to understand that, after what happened to me, I’m not so keen on the police. I understand that not all of you are like him, but since law enforcement in general tends to turn the other way, and pretend things like this don’t happen, you can’t expect me to be eager to tell you anything. But if you want me to start at the beginning...again, and relive the worst experience of my life, then I will. So, I was on my daily walk, and before you ask that same dumb question, yes, I take walks. It’s good exercise that a lot of people do, so it wasn’t suspicious that I was out there without a dog. I looked over to the other side of the street, and I noticed a man hovering over the trunk of his car. No big deal, right? He’s probably just getting groceries, but then I saw the barrel of a gun, or whatever you call the long metal part where the bullets come out. Now, just because I’m not entirely confident on the vocabulary doesn’t mean I couldn’t be sure it was a gun. And besides, it doesn’t matter, does it? Because when he shoved it in my face later, there was no doubt it was a gun, so there’s no issue with probable cause, or whatever. So it looks like he’s putting it together, and I don’t see him wearing a vest, or a badge, and I definitely don’t see any other cops. He’s either coming back from hunting in a freaking Geo Spectrum, or he’s about to hurt someone. Naturally, I assume the latter, because if not true, then no harm done. On the other hand, if it is true, then it’s best to be cautious.

Anyway, I notice there’s some kind of party going on in the backyard of the house he’s parked in front of, and as he’s gathering his murder supplies, he’s eyeing the gate. So again, I assumed he was headed that way. I couldn’t call nine-one-one, because I don’t take my phone with me. I may look young, but I spent a lot of years without a cell phone every second of the day, and I’m usually fine without it now. Since I was the only one around, I was the only one who could do anything about this danger, so I snuck around to the party, hoping to warn them. Fortunately, the first person I came across was a dedicated lifeguard, so she didn’t question me, or just think it was a prank. She sprung into action, and started ushering the guests through the back gate, to the neighbor’s yard. I stayed back to distract the gunman. No, sir, I don’t have a death wish, and I never thought of myself as a hero. What I am is in service to others. Ya see, I’m always the one who suffers to make other people happy, because I can take it. I accept the crappy jobs at work, and I stand up on the bus. I don’t do this to punish myself, or because of my power. I do it because other people’s happiness is more important to them than mine is to me. So when I stayed back, I didn’t think I could actually take this guy on—I’m not bulletproof—but if I could keep him from catching up with the crowd for even thirty seconds, I’d’ve done my part. I don’t want to die, but if I do, the world is at no big loss. But there was kids at that party, and one of them might one day cure cancer, so they deserved it more.

Seeing his plan foiled, only then does he take out his badge, and make this claim that some terrorist was there, and I had ruined his sting operation. Like I said, I don’t know much about how you people do things, but I know you don’t take down a terrorist with one cop, so I immediately knew he was lying, and didn’t regret what I had done. For some reason, this guy takes me down to the station, telling me he’ll throw me in jail for obstruction, or some other such nonsense. The man actually chains me up like those serial killers who eat people. Well, what he didn’t know was that I have superhuman strength. I don’t like to use it in front of others, because they’ll start asking me to help them move, or threaten their abusive boyfriends, but this was a desperate situation. We pull into the driveway of a house right next to the station. I guess he lives there, I dunno. I tear those chains right off my body like they’re made of paper, and inform this self-proclaimed officer of the law that I will be walking into the station alone to report him. This freaks him out, and we get into it. He starts whaling on me with the butt of his rifle. Man, he’s just goin’ to town. Now, I do feel pain, mind you, but as I’ve explained, I’m okay with a little discomfort. Still, I get tired of it, so I start fighting back. Seeing no other option, he takes this stone out of his pocket and tells me it’ll let him control the concrete. The driveway starts liquifying and boiling, basically turning into quicksand right under my feet. I wade through the sludge and catch up with the guy, then I take the stone from him. I didn’t mean to drown him in the water from the now-liquid concrete. I just didn’t know how the stone worked. If defending myself is a crime, though, then I guess you oughta lock me up. Either way, I’m not saying another word without a lawyer.

Microstory 765: Nickel

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In the realms beyond this one, there exists a hierarchy of demons. Of course Adversary is the highest of these, and it is he who rules over all others. His top twenty-three advisors are known as the Apostates, and are all but completely autonomous in their dealings against hopeless humans. Most other demons under them must follow the chain of command, and submit to their superiors. The lowest of the lows, however, are the nickels. They’re considered to be so insignificant that the Apostates don’t even bother giving them responsibilities. While mid-level demons are busy concocting new and interesting ways of torturing people in Hell, and beguiling those in heaven, nickels are just sort of always around. Hell is an open place. People aren’t most of the time locked in cages, or chained to great boulders. Instead, they travel freely, hoping to carve out some small shred of safety somewhere. Nickels find joy in being nuisances to the people they come across. They often cause physical harm, but spend most of their time just being incredibly annoying, preventing residents from finding any level of peace. If a nickel finds you, it might sing the same lyric over and over again in your ear, sometimes for days on end, until it gets bored and moves on. It might throw track ballast at you when you’re trying to sleep, or drench you in itching powder. If a group of nickels incidentally comes together, they’ll form something called a licking party, which humans will find difficult to escape. This all may not seem like that big of a deal, but nickels number in the hundreds of millions, and never sleep. When The Words predicted that hell would reign on Earth, they primarily meant that nickels would break free from their realm, and come into ours. And when the armies of evil are finally vanquished, it will be the scattering of nickels that remain, possibly for years to come.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 3, 2118

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Over the course of the next couple of hours, the first immortal remained motionless on the ground. Mateo felt bad about hoping he was dead, but was also sort of over that kind of guilt. It wasn’t really helpful to strive for what he was before becoming a salmon. He needed to move forward, and sometimes, in a world like this, certain deaths can produce benefits. While he was waiting for confirmation, Mateo fought against his chains, little by little wearing them down. They were crudely bolted into the wall of the sorry excuse for a cave, and he was actually having some luck, but then the first immortal woke up, and it was over. Without even looking up, the immortal crawled over to a stake in the ground, pulled the chain attached to it towards his chest, and eventually managed to lock it around Mateo’s leg. Mateo didn’t really know what the point of that was. He wasn’t making that much progress with his current chains, and either way, he would be free of whatever the immortal used after the jump into next year. Well, he was wrong about that last part.

The immortal released him from his wall chains, and let him roam in a few meter radius, presumably because it would be easier to construct five sides of Mateo’s new prison, rather than having to contend with a rock face. Following the jump to 2118, Mateo found himself in yet another cell, this one made of wood and lashings. It wasn’t as roomy as the one Reaver threw him in a long time ago in an alternate reality Australia, and it wasn’t as hospitable as the government sanctioned Topeka jail cell his cousin, Danica kept him in. It was, however, sturdy and impenetrable. The immortal had been provided an entire year to perfect it, so he had taken advantage. It actually wasn’t technically just the one cell. The cube he was in was probably nine foot by nine foot, with a shallow pit dug into the center. It was surrounded by another cube about eleven by eleven foot. The third was likely thirteen by thirteen. They weren’t completely hollow either. Each cube had a narrow passageway that wrapped all the way around until reaching the door to the next one.

“Redundancy,” the immortal said while sipping something out of a coconut-like fruit. “You might get out of one cube, but then what are you gonna do? How much time do you think it’ll take you, and how much time do you think I spend hunting away from camp?”

“I get it,” Mateo responded. “You’re a clever boy.”

“That I am. I have been around for...quite awhile.”

“How old are you?”

“All the old. Every old.”

“Cute.” He did his best to look apathetic, when in reality, it was nice to have some conversation. “Got a name?”

“Ambrosios.”

“Ambrosios what?”

“Just Ambrosios. We didn’t have last names when I was born.”

Mateo nodded. “I see. Well, it doesn’t seem that we were properly introduced. My name is Mateo Matic. They did have last names when I was born.”

He didn’t say anything.

“What do you want with me?”

“I’ve not yet figured that out. All I know is that this is my island, I want to leave it, and you may be able to help me with that.”

“I am salmon. I cannot go anywhere. We're stuck on this island, and this planet…together. Like a cross between Hell in the Pacific, and Enemy Mine. You may as well let me go. I neither can, nor would, hurt you. Besides, if I’m free from here, I’ll be able to feed myself.”

“Who said I’ll be feeding you?”

He thought about this for a cool minute. Obviously that was entirely up to Ambrosios. He could let Mateo starve, and probably wouldn’t even be bothered by it. But it was possible he would, with a little encouragement. “Your heart told me.”

This made Ambrosios legitimately smile, which was probably something he rarely did in a place like this.

“Please,” Mateo continued. “I’m only here for one day every year. You’ll only have to worry about me during those days. For the rest of your time, you’ll be completely safe.”

“I won’t be safe, not from the rhinos.”

“There are rhinos on this planet?”

“They’re not actual rhinos, that’s just what I call them, because they have no name of their own.”

“Well...you’ll be completely safe from me. In fact, you’re safe even while I’m around. I am not a violent man. Xearea can attest to that.”

“Who?”

“Just a friend. You never knew her.”

Ambrosios didn’t speak for some time as he was chowing down on what could have been alien rhino meat. “I worked really hard on that cell,” he spoke with his mouth full.

“And it’s very impressive. We could use it for something else, like a cage for your livestock, or bait for the rhinos.”

“You really want out of there, don’t you? It’s been, what, five minutes? Wuss.”

“I have this thing about being locked up. It is not my first time.”

Ambrosios set down his food and approached, still chewing. “My immortality is wearing off.” He paused. “But it has not worn off yet. You will not be able to kill me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I really wouldn’t.”

“Get in the fetal position in the pit. Close your eyes.”

Mateo did as he was told and waited as Ambrosios slowly unlocked the series of redundant openings. He didn’t unlock the last one, though. Instead, he threw the key into the pit with Mateo. “You can do the rest.”

As Mateo was standing back up, he could see Ambrosio make his way out of the cage maze. Mateo unlocked the final padlock, and started following him, but was careful to not make any sudden movements, or appear at all threatening.

Ambrosios grabbed his bow, and some arrows. “I’m going hunting. When I get back, all of my belongings better still be here...and you better not be. If I ever see you again, I’m shooting you on the spot.”

“Fair enough.” Once Ambrosios was gone, he stole a few pieces of fruit that he couldn’t see growing in the nearby area, and ran off in the opposite direction.

Shelter. He need to find shelter. He didn’t need it to be that great, but it needed to stand up for years, and it needed to already exist, because he didn’t have much time on his hands. It was growing dark, and Mateo was starving, having long ago finished the last of what he decided to call lionfruit. He came across a few signs of life; wooden cups, broken handcrafted chairs, an empty lighter. Either Ambrosia had come here with a few things, or others had been here at some point. He started thinking about what else would be on this planet. Leona said it would have to be about the size of Earth in order to have the same gravity and temporal durations. Xearea had said something earlier about the mainland. Was it inhabited? Was this just a regular planet with natives, going about their days with no clue that humans were in a few disparate places? What kind of technology did they possess. Were they aware of time travel? Were these thoughts at all useful to him? They did at least protect him from dwelling too much on his hunger, so that was something.

As twilight was nearing its end, he found a short tree with more lionfruit. He grabbed a few and started carrying them in his shirt before continuing on. Shelter was still number one priority. He couldn’t build a fire until he knew where it should go. As he was savoring every moment of one lionfruit, he nearly ran into something. No, it wasn’t something, it was someone. The newcomer had presumably been focusing on the Compass of Disturbance, but it wasn’t The Navigator. No, it was Mateo Matic himself. He had run into his own doppelgänger. The two Matics stared at each other for a few seconds. The true Mateo cleared his throat and wiped some juice from his chin. Navigator Mateo looked back at his compass and walked past without saying a word. Mateo found his breath again, and then moved on as well. Leona’s fourth rule for time travel, avoid alternate versions of yourself. He would try to forget about the encounter as best he could, paranoid that anything short of total obliviousness could result in the collapse of the spacetime continuum.

Just before it was too dark to really see where he was going, he noticed a glint of light. After clearing some reddish-green brush and other debris, he could see that it was coming from the metallic surface of a vehicle. The car was just sitting here on the edge of the woods, possibly from having been left for decades. Rust had formed on the all around, and the engine wouldn’t start, even with the key in the ignition. According to the gauge, there did appear to be gas in the tank, but the battery must have died. Welp, there was no way to charge it here, and it wasn’t like the gas could still be potent after all this time? Could it? No, probably not. It was, however, a good enough shelter. He also found a few supplies in the trunk; a first aid kit, jump starter cables, a blanket, a case of bottled water, and a few miscellaneous items. Someone must have been driving around one day when they accidentally fell into a temporal rift, ending up here. This 1985 Toyota Camry could have been new at the time of arrival, but right now, it was just going to be where Mateo slept.

He built a fire on the beach and sat there for a few minutes before realizing that it was kind of pointless. There was nothing to boil the water in, because what did plastic do when heated again? Heh, science, right? He just drank it plain, and hoped he wouldn’t get sick. Or he could get sick, whatever. Did it really matter at this point in his life? He put the fire out, grabbed the blanket, and crawled into the backseat.

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