Microstory 2428: Escape Dome

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I’m a little bit biased here, because I’m obsessed with escape rooms. I’m old enough to remember when that was a fitting name for them, because they were mostly only one room. Some of them had different sections, but you didn’t unlock a door, go through it, and start on an entirely different set of puzzles. I watched as they grew and grew, both in popularity, and in scope. Escape rooms became escape buildings, which became escape districts, which have now become escape cities. I always loved puzzles, even as a kid, so this became my thing. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and that was on me, but I still wanted to do this. I remember regularly going in alone, and them having to group me with strangers. They were sometimes annoyed by this, but for the most part, they were welcoming, and they quickly realized either way that I was more of an asset than a burden, even though we didn’t have a preexisting rapport. Eventually, I wasn’t going in alone anymore. I finally found my community. The most passionate of us started a little club. The reason I’m giving you all this background is that every single member of this club is still alive, and still together. I don’t know how rare that is, to have eleven friends stay connected after all this time. None of us wanted to move to another planet without the others. No one’s marriages and families broke us apart—though, the rest of us would have understood if they had, and been happy for them. The point is that we’ve been doing escape zones for nearly 500 years, so we know what we’re talking about. I doubt we managed to try them all, but we certainly did the majority. It’s our passion, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon. Escape Dome is the largest adventure we’ve ever played. Of course, it’s not just one game that goes across the entire area, but each game is still immersive and impressive. I think I saw that they did have the traditional kinds, which were just the one little room each, and we might do that when three or four of us have an hour to kill. I should clarify, we started out with a club of eleven people, but over time, it’s nearly doubled, thanks to those marriages and families. Not everyone wants to be a part of it, which is fine, but the cool thing about some of these games under the dome is that all twenty-four members can play at the same time. We’ve never been able to do that before, even with the escape districts. Twenty has always been the absolute max until now. Our first two adventures were extraordinary. We kind of thought we had seen everything, but even beyond the larger scale, there were puzzles that blew our mind. The great thing about this concept is that anyone can have fun with it. I’ve heard people say, “oh, I’m just not a puzzle person” but we put them in one of those rooms, and they have a blast. Don’t count yourself out until you give it a try. If you end up not enjoying it at all, hey, you don’t have to do it again. Some of the adventures are designed to potentially take weeks, so don’t start with one of those. Be smart about your choice—which the staff will gladly help you make—and I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Microstory 2355: Earth, June 23, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Yeah, it sounds like Nature Wars is pretty much out of the question. I don’t want to put you out of commission for that long, and I did a little more research. It doesn’t sound like something I would be very interested in, especially not all the way across 2,352 episodes! The premise of being in the pure air isn’t what bothers me, though, lol. I mean, I suppose if all they talk about is how clean the atmosphere is, it would get annoying, but I’m guessing that would have been true a hundred years ago when it was last on. I do think that I have a different idea, though, which could work depending on how familiar you are with the franchise. The best part about it is that it would feed two birds with one worm. If you’re lookin’ for a story about a regular person who has to beat the odds despite having no clue what he’s doing, then you’ll probably like The Winfield Files. It’s a series of twelve books, and there’s even a TV adaptation with twelve seasons. It’s about a guy who works in a small town grocery store with a girl who turns out to be part of a witness relocation program. One of her new friends posts a photo of her online against her wishes, which leads the bad guys to finding her location. He happens to be in the background of the photo, and gets embroiled in the intrigue and adventure. So I was thinking that maybe we could read each book, talk about it, then watch the season of the show that’s based on it, and talk about that too. Or we could read a chapter, or watch an episode, at a time, if you would rather break it up more. I’ve never read them myself, because I’m more into the classics, but it sounds like a great place to meet in the middle. Let me know what you think. It would be nice to have something to talk about that we’ve both actually experienced. The “joint” parties were great, but they were still separate parties. But people have remote book clubs all the time, and it seems to work out for them. The delay is still there—but it always will be, so we may as well work within its boundaries since that’s our only choice.

Looking for two birds to feed,

Condor

Microstory 2354: Vacuus, June 15, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Well, Nature Wars started out in 2006. It was a fairly cheap show to produce with no writers, inherently minimal sets, and an adaptable format that saw the hosting duties change hands five times (though, one host only lasted three seasons before basically being forced to turn it back over to Leyton Parkins after his legal issues were positively resolved). They were usually able to shoot two entire seasons per year, resulting in 147 seasons over the course of 75 years (a few random production issues led to only one season in each of a few years). Let’s continue on with the math. I’m currently in the middle of the 83rd season. Every season, without fail, has had 16 hour-long (minus some ads) episodes total, but the finale is always twice as long. So that’s about...15.5 hours per season. Multiply that by 83, and you’re looking at 1,286 hours of television that you would have to watch just to catch up to where I am. Then we have about a thousand more hours left. That would take a lot of dedication on your part, and we don’t even know if you would like it. You might be annoyed to see those people taken to those beautiful remote locations where the air is pure, and clean enough even where they normally live. You may be annoyed at me just for talking about it right now. That all being said, I’m willing to wait if you think you have the time for it, but I don’t want to die without seeing the final season finale. I’ve been watching this stuff since I was a wee little girl on the interplanetary ship. Let’s try to think of some more options. I know you don’t watch a lot of stuff, but when you do, what kind of things do you like? Are they still making more movies and shows? Are there domes over studio lots that are dedicated to keeping the visual arts alive? Surely we can find something that we’ll both enjoy. We can do it with literature too. Perhaps you could recommend books to me, and we could also share in that. Once we get to know each other’s tastes, we could select a book to read at the same time, and then exchange thoughts, like a penpal book club. I tend to gravitate towards stories that involve regular people in extraordinary circumstances. They don’t have the experience or training, but they have to make it through to solve the problem, and the usually do, even if it kills them. Let me know what you think.

Living in that pure air (but for a different reason),

Corinthia

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 17, 2398

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Technically, this next error that they’re investigating is a lot closer than Wyoming. It’s right in the heart of the Plaza in Kansas City, but Ramses chose to put it off, because he was pretty sure that Erlendr was on Brooks Lake, and that seemed more urgent. Interestingly, they’re in the shopping block where they first searched for the Salmon Civic Center, which doesn’t exist in this reality. Alyssa has been spending her free time monitoring the cameras that they have set up in the parking lot where everyone seems to appear, and no one has come through since Vearden several weeks ago. If someone is looking for the Civic Center, they’ve been looking for a real long time. Mateo has made up a story in his headcanon to explain that as they’re wandering around the block. He thinks that maybe a traveler showed up for the predictable reason, inadvertently drawing attention to themselves. Someone who runs one of these businesses noticed him, and they got to chatting, which eventually led to a job. The traveler is still around, because they work somewhere close now.

“That would be a decent story, and it may yet prove true, but there’s something different about this one.” Ramses is wielding a portable brain scanner, and is waving it around, hoping to detect their target.

“What’s that?” Mateo asks.

“The satellite orbited two dozen times before it stopped—or disappeared, as it were. In that time, ten brains produced ten errors two dozen times. One brain, however, produced an error only once.”

“Where was it during all the other scans?” Mateo questions, pretty sure that Ramses doesn’t know for sure.

“I can’t say for sure,” Ramses answers, “but funny enough, the orbital pass where it appeared happened at exactly midnight central Saturday night.”

“The club,” Mateo realizes. “The Salmonday Club only exists in an extra temporal dimension. I can’t remember what it’s called.”

“The Facsimile,” Ramses replies. “If my calculations are correct, it should be right around...here.” He stops at a dirty off-white wall.”

“That’s why we’re here so late.”

Ramses checks his watch. “We’re here just in time.” He pulls out a syringe, and prepares to inject himself with it.

“You’re going to teleport us in?”

“If our target is in there, they may not be able to get out, which implies the door that’s supposed to be in this spot doesn’t magically appear at 23:59:30. Ours may be the only way in or out.”

Mateo nods.

Ramses injects himself with the temporal energy-infused water. He lets it run through his bloodstream, then checks his watch again. “Are you ready?”

“You warned Leona where we might go, right?”’

“Of course.” Ramses winks, and takes Mateo by the shoulders. Once his watch beeps, he teleports them both through the temporal window.

They end up in the club, or what used to be the club. Now it’s a dirty and abandoned empty space with light trickling in from a collapsed roof, and mold growing on the walls. Ramses holds up his scanner, and tries to find the signal. Once he catches it, they exit the building, and head down the street. It too has been abandoned. Entire buildings have collapsed, vines have taken over. Cars have been burnt up. This is a post-apocalypse world. If anyone is living here, it’s not easy for them, and it’s not fun. Ramses continues to follow the signal only a short distance to the Ponce de Leon. It’s the only thing left standing in all its former glory. Someone is performing maintenance for it, and they likely live in this dimension’s version of the Bran safehouse.

They walk up the stairs, and knock on the door. They hear shuffling on the other side. A  very old man answers, and peers at them. He stares for quite a while, barely able to hold his own weight up. “I’m afraid there’s no way out.” He turns, and begins to walk towards the kitchen. “But there’s still tea, if you want it.” He sets a pot on a gas burner, and lights it. There’s no electricity, so he’s living like a camper in many ways. The unit is clean, though, and tidy. He takes pride in his space, even if no one else could ever have seen it until today.

“My name is Ramses Abdulrashid, and this is my associate, Mateo Matic. How long have you been trapped in this dimension?”

He looks up and to the left as he checks his memory archives. “Since Christmas Eve, 2022. The Cleanser trapped me here. He didn’t take too kindly to me helping one of his victims get her life back. Maybe you know her, Siria Webb?”

“We do,” Mateo answers.

“How was she doing?” the old man asks.

“She was all right when we left her,” Ramses replies, “but she never mentioned you, so you may have seen her more recently than we.”

The man nods. “Well, I’m Mackenzie Dodge, former proprietor of the Salmonday Club, and current sole occupier of this world. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

“We think we can get you out,” Mateo tells him. “We came here intentionally, strongly suspecting that someone was trapped. I can’t imagine being alone for over 370 years. It must have been hard.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Mackenzie says with a laugh as he’s preparing the tea bags. “This place only exists on the eighth day of the week.”

“Right.” Mateo looks over to Ramses.

He does the math in his head. “More than fifty-three years.”

“That’s still a lot, sir,” Mateo says.

Mackenzie smiles. “It is, but—” He suddenly grasps his head, and hisses in pain.

“Oh, no,” Mateo laments.

Before they can do anything, the patch of timonite on Mackenzie’s head spreads throughout his body, and spirits him away to the Sargan Forest. The two of them just stare at the kitchen counter in horror.

“Come on,” Ramses says. “I have to get back to my lab.”

“Are we not going to talk about what just happened?”

“Only so that I can say that it’s not your fault.

“Yes, it is.” Once is an occurrence, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is a pattern. From Mateo’s perspective, twice is evidence enough. Even if he’s not the cause of this issue, he’s certainly not helping. This investigation is going to have to move on without him. His connection to timonite and the bulkverse is too strong to let him just run around free, ruining people’s lives.

Microstory 1889: No Way to Fail

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The first thing I did when I became an adult was visit what you might call an adult entertainment club. I struggled with getting dates, and I had never done anything beyond kissing. Even that wasn’t all that great, but I still wanted more. I was mostly just lonely, and if I had to pay to pretend for a few minutes a week that I wasn’t, then that was what I would do. It became a habit. I knew all the girls there, and they all knew me. They knew they could trust me, and for a little bit extra cash, some of them decided that it was okay if we took things to the next level. I was grateful and happy, but then it all ended. The club installed security cameras in even what were meant to be private areas, and suddenly, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. The girls had to be really careful and distant, as did I. I stopped going to that place. I was still pretty young, but I managed to get over my urges, and lead a normal life without all that stuff. What I realized was that all those conversations I had that I treated as superficial and fake were preparing me for real relationships that were not transaction-based. I jumped into the dating scene, and started looking for something real and lasting. I had a few good girlfriends, but we always grew apart, at least in such a way. I stayed friends with most of them, which a lot of people say can’t be done, but I beg to differ. Even when we parted ways forever, I knew their names, and I could have reconnected with them in some capacity later on. The girls at the club, not so much. Some of them gave me their real names, but I didn’t exactly check their papers, so even those could have been fake too. One night, my buddy was getting married, so he needed a bachelor party. His best friend ended up choosing my old club to go to, which I didn’t think too much on, because it had been so long, and those places have a lot of turnover, you know. I did recognize one girl there, though.

I bought a dance with her for old time’s sake, but I was with someone at the time, so I wasn’t interested in an actual dance. I just wanted to catch up. She seemed stunned the whole time, which was odd. I wouldn’t have thought she would remember me. She quit before the cameras, so it had been a particularly long time. I tried to ask her questions about her life, but she was being really cagey. That was odd too, because those girls are normally good at lying just to keep the conversation going without giving any personal details away. Eventually, however, I was able to get it out of her that she had an eleven year old daughter, and there was a possibility that I was the father. She would have contacted me sooner, but I stopped going to the club by the time she took a test, and she couldn’t investigate further, or her old bosses would have learned that we broke the rules. Due to her religious beliefs—and because of the high expense back then—she couldn’t get a DNA test for her daughter, but she showed me a picture of her. She looked quite a bit like me, I mean, she had to be mine, right? DNA test or no, she had to be my kid, and I had to do right by her. After some deeper discussions, the mother let me meet our daughter, and we got to know each other better. I took care of the both of them for years. My girlfriend broke up with me because of it, so they ultimately just moved in. Once our daughter became an adult herself, she decided she finally wanted that DNA test. To our surprise, the result was negative. She was not my biological daughter, and she was heartbroken. But I wasn’t. She is my daughter, and nothing can change that. It’s actually a blessing, because the disease that’s killing me today is hereditary.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 5, 2394

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Skylar led the team into the building, and up the elevators, which was a tight squeeze with her bodyguards. As the sister of the apparent leader of the entire metropolis, it was understandable that she needed to be protected. The only weird part was that they made no attempt to pat the team down, or assess them as a threat in any way. Perhaps they just knew enough about the future.

They spilled out at the top floor, and headed to the left for the Night President’s Office. This should be interesting, learning why there was a different president for each half of the day. Skylar nodded to her guards as they entered the Night Vice President’s Office. They stayed outside by the door, and gave them some privacy. Instead of sitting at her desk, she chose a chair in the center of the room, and had everyone choose a spot on one of the two couches. “I don’t normally work here. By design, we’re usually kept separate to insulate against a discontinuity of government. We knew you would head here for help first, though, and at the moment, my brother has to sleep, so I’m the only one available.”

“This sounds like a fascinating form of government,” Ramses pointed out. “Night and day?”

Skylar laughed. “It’s by necessity. One of us wanted to run for office, and the others sort of had to follow suit. We never thought we would win, because of our unusual situation, but the people seem cool with it, and we’re making it work.”

“You’re making what work?” Marie asked. “What’s your situation?”

“We’re gargoyles,” she answered. They had seen a lot over the years, but a stone monster person would be a first. She giggled again. “A specific kind of gargoyle. Oliver and I are the originals. We were born this way. It’s what the powers that be chose for us. Due to a series of unlikely events, we transferred our patterns to Kostya and Lucy, except diametrically. We only exist between sundown and sunrise. They only exist between sunrise and sundown.”

“So you can’t cooperate?” Leona noted.

“We leave each other messages. That’s not the issue.”

Olimpia tilted her head, and twitched an eye. “Love,” she guessed.

Skylar nodded. “Oliver loves Lucy, and she him. They haven’t seen each other in person in a very long time. There’s one way that we could do it, but...there’s an obstacle. That’s what we were hoping you would be able to help us with.” She checked her watch. “It’ll have to be next year, but...would you be willing?”

“Depends on what it is,” Mateo said cautiously.

“Of course,” Skylar said understandingly. “You’ve heard of the Salmonday Club?”

“Yeah,” they answered, except for Angela and Marie.

“It adds an extra day between Saturday and Sunday,” Leona explained to them. “It exists within a pocket dimension of extra temporal energy. Clubgoers spend one minute inside, but it feels like twenty-four hours.”

“People run in when the timer starts,” Ramses continued, “and rush back out before time runs out at the end.”

“Wait,” Angela said. “What happens if they don’t get out in time?”

“They jump to the end of the next week,” Leona answered. “If you never left the club, it would always be Salmonday for you, and you would basically live for fifty-two days a year. Their pattern would be not unlike ours.” She turned back to Vice President Spout. “Is that why you think we can help, because of our pattern?”

“No, it’s because we don’t have any teleporters left,” Skylar clarified. “The obstacle is pretty simple, you should be able to jump past it, and once inside, you can shut it down. If you can do this for us, we can get you back to the main sequence.”

“You say obstacle like you don’t wanna talk about what it really is,” Olimpia realized.

“It’s an abyss,” Skylar said. “Some of that temporal energy escaped, and formed a cloud around the entrances to the club. Fortunately it has never spread farther, because that would be bad. We don’t know how slow time moves inside, but it’s very slow. We can see people just stuck there in place. There’s a way to purge it, but again, it’s inside the club, and we can’t reach it. You wouldn’t just be helping my brother and the love of his life touch each other once more. You would be freeing all the innocent curious people, and the volunteers, who have been trapped for decades.”

“Why do we have to wait until next year?” Angela asked. “We still have a few hours left before midnight central.”

“All four leaders have to sign off on it,” Skylar began, “and the other three refuse to do so until they meet you. If we had known exactly where you were going to show up, we could have planned it better, but unfortunately, our seer wasn’t that specific. So here’s what will happen—if you agree to even entertain the idea—”

“We’ll do it,” Leona answered plainly. There was no doubt about it. This was right in their wheelhouse, especially now that they were full-fledged teleporters.

“That would be great. Just so you understand, I’ve met you, I sign off. I’m easy. I trust our seers, and the historical records that have recounted your dealings with the Fourth Quadrant, and other points in spacetime. Next year, when you come back, it will be nighttime again, and you can meet Oliver. Come sunrise, you can meet with Lucy and Kostya. Does that sound fair?”

“What are the chances they won’t sign off?” Mateo asked her.

Skylar sighed. “Nearly zero. I think this is more of a CYA operation. We need the citizens—the voters—to know that we didn’t just send a team of strangers to a hazardous temporal anomaly, on a potentially dangerous mission, without so much as shaking your hands.”

“Okay, we’ll do it,” Leona repeated.

“You don’t need to discuss it?” Skylar pressed.

“We can feel each other’s emotions,” Mateo divulged. “We’re all in. We would know if there was any reluctance amongst us.”

“Very well,” Skylar said, standing back up. “I’m just now realizing, though, that we did not factor in any rest time for you. You can wait to meet my brother until later. It just can’t be after 6:56. Well, it needs to be reasonably before that. I suppose we could—”

“We’re fine,” Leona interrupted again. “We don’t need very much sleep anymore either.”

“Brilliant,” Skylar said. “I wish I had that luxury. I only exist an average of twelve hours a day, but I still need to sleep at least seven.”

The team looked around at each other, particularly Ramses and Leona.

“What? What is it?”

“The way we understand it,” Ramses started to say, “the powers that be have no control over salmon once they cross into other realities, like this one.”

“I assure you, we are still bound to our pattern.”

“Yes, you are,” Leona presumed, “but there might be a way around that. Our pattern, for instance, was encoded into our neurology. Take it away from us, and we’re no longer us. This is tantamount to murder or suicide. But that was done to us by a man...a very powerful man. We’ve not been beholden to the PTB for years. The fact that our current pattern matches the original one was deliberate and arbitrary. He could just as easily have chosen some other random pattern.”

“What are you saying?” Skylar sat back down, curious. “This man could do the same for us, but change our pattern?”

“Oh, no,” Mateo said. “We wouldn’t have you deal with him. It would be us. Well, it would be Ramses and Leona.”

Ramses reached into his bag, and retrieved an object that resembled an ancient wireless cellphone charging stand. He set it on Skylar’s coffee table. It looked wholly unremarkable, but it was incredibly advanced. “This is called a nanoforge, specifically a lab creator. I might need to tweak it a little bit, but the last time I used it, it was for the same thing you’ll need. It’s mostly automated, but you’ll have to provide it with raw materials, and it’ll let you know what those are. It can build a cloning laboratory, based on the number of gestational pods you require, and the speed of development you wish to wait for. You can then transfer your respective consciousnesses to your new bodies, and if all goes well, you’ll leave your patterns behind. You’ll be a salmonfree you.”

Skylar was shocked. “You would do this for us? You would grant us this technology?”

“It comes with an expiration date,” Leona clarified. “You won’t be able to keep it. The lab will literally implode, as well as the forge. We’re not in the habit of interfering with the development of a given culture. We don’t know what you would do with cloning tech if you don’t already have it. If you would like to invent it yourself afterwards, we won’t stop you, but we’re not going to let you just jump into it...except to help the four of you this once.”

“Of course we’ll still shut off your weird time cloud,” Olimpia reminded her. “It’s not an either-or thing.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Ramses took out his tablet, and paired it with the nanoforge. “I’ll stay here to program it. The rest of you should scout the location.”

“Yes,” Leona agreed.

“Why don’t you...?” Skylar began, but trailed off out of seeming embarrassment.

“Go ahead and say it,” Mateo encouraged.

“Would you consider just staying here? We do have a way to get you back to the main reality, but I think you six could do quite well here, and you’re always welcome.”

It was certainly a thought to think on, but they had already considered it as an option while they were still in the Fifth Division. They didn’t leave because of any particular danger they were in. They were always in danger. They wanted to return home. Leona was about to say as much when a feeling she received from Mateo changed her approach. “We’ll talk about it. Thanks for the offer.”

They teleported away, except for Ramses, who was working on the nanoforge, and Marie, who felt like sticking around.”

The next day was as breezy as Skylar made it sound. They met with her brother, Oliver soon after returning to the timestream. They then waited several hours, when the two of them were stuck in impenetrable time bubbles, and the other two were free of theirs. Apparently, each one lasted a few seconds, but spanned roughly half a day. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, or where they were. Their pattern was coded to this region, according to the rotation of the Earth. Sunrise and sunset times changed every day, and their patterns changed with them. Winters were better for the night team, but summers were better for the day team. One day, they would be free of all that, and that day was going to come sooner than they could have imagined. The cloning process was going to take years to complete the safest way, but there was a workaround in the meantime. In fact, it could be a permanent solution if that was what they chose.

Fixing the Salmonday Club temporal issue was easy too. The emergency shutoff button was exactly where everyone said it would be, in the manager office. Mateo and Marie teleported in alone, pressed it, and the nightmare was over. It was no longer a club for Salmonday. They could start it back up again, but would probably just demolish the place. The intention was to repurpose it as a neutral zone for the two disparate leadership factions to reunite periodically, but they shouldn’t need it anymore.

Shortly before sunset, and after ensuring that the leak was repaired, they flipped the dimension back on, and let Kostya and Lucy inside. Once the Spouts were back, Olimpia and Leona transported them there too. After witnessing the heartfelt reunion between them, Leona presented them with four Cassidy cuffs. “Unlike the laboratory, these will not self-destruct. They can also not be reprogrammed according to your whims. They’ll work with your DNA only. You can’t even swap them among each other.” She handed each one to the salmon, careful to make sure she didn’t get them mixed up. “All you’ll be able to do is suppress your pattern. They’re not communicators, they’re not teleporters. I left the clock on there, but that’s it. They’re all juiced up, and should last you centuries. You’ll probably have to transfer your consciousnesses to other substrates to survive that long anyway.

“Thank you,” Lucy said graciously.

“Thanks to all of you,” Kostya added.

“The seer did not predict any of this,” Oliver said.

“I’m sure they saw it coming,” Leona figured. “They just didn’t tell you about it. They like to withhold.”

Skylar frowned, and hastily attached her cuff to her wrist. “Put them on,” she ordered the other three. Put them on now.”

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “There’s no rush. I mean, it’s fine, but...”

“It’s not fine,” Skylar said in an apologetic tone. “We’ve been withholding as well. We can’t get you back to the main sequence. That’s never been something we could do. We probably would have had migration with those kinds of capabilities. Our technology has grown, since we sped up time to match that of true Earth, but we didn’t advance as fast as them, I’m sure. I’m sorry, we lied.”

The team smiled. “We know.”

“You do?” Oliver asked.

“We’re good at reading microexpressions,” Marie told them.

“You’re not mad?” Lucy asked.

“Don’t inspire anger in them,” Kostya advised.

“Really, it’s all right,” Leona assured them. “We’ll find a way eventually.”

“Eventually has come!” came a voice from across the room.

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Firestorm: Orson Olsen (Part V)

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Two years ago, I witnessed a miracle. Well, there were actually three miracles in one day. I watched a girl appear out of nowhere, standing on a stump in my yard. Her arms were stretched wide, and a halo shined from above her head. Hours later, I ran into that girl again, though she did not seem to know who I was. I watched her disappear again, and realized she was a time traveler, who needed my help to save her friends. I saw my angel a third time later that day, and before she disappeared one last time, she gave me a mandate. I am to worship time. That is the one true God, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t realize it before. I used to follow an imaginary flying spaghetti monster, because I was indoctrinated into it from birth. But now I see the truth. Time is real; it’s abstract, and impossible to hold in your hand, which makes it magnificent, but it undeniably exists. If that’s not God, then God cannot exist.

I realized I had to spread the word. Most of my brothers and sisters in the church would not be swayed. They did not witness the Trinity Miracle, like I did. There were others, however, that I knew I would be able to convince. My mother was always worried people would leave the church, and she taught me to spot these people, so I could help bring them back from the brink of damnation. No matter what I did, though, they retained their doubts; they just learned to hide it better. Fortunately, my memory is totally fine, so I had this excellent list of people who would be willing to hear the true word. I started out slowly—very slowly. I knew that my best friend would believe me without question. It was he who discovered a magician in the area who might be what we were looking for. He was right. This guy had real powers to move things from one hand to the other. They weren’t very impressive, but they were enough to convince my church’s doubters. I brought them to the shows one by one, never giving away that we knew each other. They saw for themselves that time travel was real, and our movement grew. This was not the magician’s only purpose. I knew he would know others like him, so we watched him for weeks, like secret agents. He ate at the same restaurant almost every single day, and every time he showed up, he was surprised, as if the restaurant was attracting him against his will.

My friend and I realized the restaurant was more special than the man, so we switched gears, and started to investigate them instead. Through a complex series of timing the employees, and watching certain customers being led through the kitchen, we determined there was a whole world in the back we couldn’t see from here. We started watching the whole building, and could tell that there were some strange goingson that people like us weren’t allowed to see. We have to see the miracles, though. My people deserve the truth, and I am the only one who can show it to them. I’ve been coming here ever since, waiting for someone in there to notice, and here he comes. My plan has worked. I’m about to be read in.

“Detective Bran,” the man says, showing me his badge. It’s not the first FBI agent I’ve met, but that’s a different story. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, have I been loitering?”

“What are you writing in there, your manifesto?” he asks me.

My notebook. “Oh, heavens no. This is the good book.”

“You’re rewriting the bible?”

“I’m writing the real bible.”

“Hmm,” is all he can say.

“What are your abilities?” I’m pretty good at playing it cool, but I can tell there’s something different about this guy. Security has been coming by nearly every day to get me to leave, but they’re just regular people. I can smell the power coming off of him. Perhaps I’m one of them. Perhaps my ability is to sense other abilities.

“Well, I’m a good marksman, and a halfway decent investigator. My true strength lies in getting people to leave.”

“Please. You don’t have to lie to me. I don’t know exactly what you are, but I know that you’re special. I’m not going to hurt you. Just...read me in. Show me the light. I am..open.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Agent Bran says. “This is private property, and it is time for you to leave.”

“I’ll leave, if you let me in...just once. Let me see what’s really in there—no illusions—and I’ll never bother you again.”

“Sir, this is a secure facility. I cannot let you in.”

“You think I’m going to believe that this is nothing more than a CIA blacksite? I’m not stupid. I saw through the windows. Dozens of people ran into that unit, right there.” I point to some kind of club. I never got a good look at the sign, so that’s the only word I could make out. “A minute later, they all came out. They looked different. I have a really good memory, and an eye for faces. People were wearing different clothes, and none of them looked like they had just ran inside, and came back out. Something happened in there, and I demand to know what it was.”

“It’s all right, Agent.” She’s come. She’s come to show me the light again.

“Paige, get back inside,” Agent Bran orders. “Who is he to talk to an angel like that?”

“Angel Paige,” I utter. “You’ve returned.”

“I have,” she says to me. “You wanna see the light. Then let’s go take a look. Let’s go back to the beginning, or near it, anyway.” She takes out her phone. “You ever been to New York?”

“Paige, don’t do this,” Bran pleads.

“The cat’s out of the bag,” she explains to him. “We can’t put it back, but we can domesticate it.” She shows me a picture of a house on a hill. It’s black and white and yellow, but I think the yellow is probably just because it’s really old. The edges are damaged, as if melted, but again, that’s probably due to the ravages of time. This is a very old photograph. “How about New York 1848?”

“Paige, no!” cries another voice, but I never get a chance to see who it is.

She takes me by the arm, and whisks me away. In seconds, we’re standing at the bottom of the hill in the photograph. For a second, a part of me wonders why it’s not still in black and white, but of course, that would be stupid. We’ve just traveled into the past. The angel has given me such an amazing gift. “Let’s take a walk.”

We walk along the fence for a few minutes as I patiently wait for her to say something else. I am in the presence of divinity, but I know she will be turned off if I act too enthusiastic about it. I just keep thinking about how incredible it is to be here, and how much she must trust me to show me this.

“Orson—can I call you Orson?”

“You can call me whatever you want, Angel Paige.”

“I’ll call you Orson, and you can just call me Paige, because I’m not an angel, and I think you know that.”

“Anything you want...Paige.”

“When we met, I was young, and still getting a handle on my abilities. I was desperate to help my friends, and that made me reckless. I showed you something that you were never meant to see. There are people in this world, and other worlds, with time powers. It’s not illegal for us to tell one or two people what we can do. We have to be able to trust our families, and our closest friends. It is a problem, however, if word spreads. So my question to you is, who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you need me to repeat myself? You’re just some random mormon who got a peek at something that wasn’t for him. What gives you the right to run around, showing a bunch of people magic tricks, and telling them what to worship? Do you think we want that? Do you think we want you exposing us? Do you think, maybe, there are consequences to this sort of thing? Do you think it’s possible that somebody built a prison, stuffed my best friend in it, and left her there to rot for a year? You can’t just go upending everything we’ve done to protect ourselves from the general public. Because you don’t matter, and it isn’t fair for you to assume all this responsibility.”

“I’m sorry, I meant no disrespect. You told me to worship time.”

“That was an off-handed comment. It wasn’t a real command. Jesus Christ.”

I don’t know what to say.

She takes a deep breath before continuing. “This prison isn’t designed for criminals. It’s only there to house those who risk outting us to the world. If you don’t stop what you’re doing, we’ll all go there, including you. You’re human, which affords you some special consideration, but that will only take you so far. If your cult gets any bigger, they’re gonna step in. I’m surprised they let it get this big.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” I say to her honestly. “It’s grown beyond my control. People saw the truth. They saw that magician.”

“People see magicians all the time, they don’t start worshiping them.”

“We don’t worship Delmar Dupont. He’s a lesser god, at best.”

“You need to explain to your flock that you were wrong. You need to get them to believe that...they shouldn’t believe.”

“That sounds impossible. I mean, I already pulled them from a church. Now you want me to tell them to go back? They would see right through that.”

“You’re the only one who saw what I could do, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the only one who saw people run into Salmonday Club too.”

“Is that what it’s called? Yes, I was the only one there at the time. Like I was saying, though, the magician was enough. They watched carefully, and they listen to me.”

“They listen to you?”

“That’s not really what I mean,” I start to clarify. “They listened in the beginning, because they saw proof, and they needed an excuse to leave the church. That’s not gonna work a second time. I can reinforce what I’ve already told them, and they’ll still listen, but I can’t contradict myself.”

We keep walking as she thinks this over. “Why do they listen to you? Why did they agree to go to the magic show?”

“Magic doesn’t go against the church, because most of it is just sleight of hand and misdirection. They only started believing after what they saw, and because I told them it was real. We can’t undo that.”

“That’s the key, though. You told them it was real. They could have just as easily happened upon the venue, watched it on their own, and assumed it was an illusion, just like most people do.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I’m not sure where she’s going with this.

“If they stop believing in you, then they’ll stop believing in him, and if they don’t believe in him, then they don’t believe in time magic at all.”

“How would they stop believing in me?” I question.

“We have to discredit you.”

“What are you gonna do, like, doctor photos of me in bed with a man, or something? It’s 2027, they won’t like that, but it’s not enough anymore. I mean, it would be one thing if I preached sexual purity, but I don’t even mention that in my sermons. Their hang-ups would all be carryovers from their old lives.”

“No, I wouldn’t wanna do that anyway.”

Now I’m scared. I wouldn’t love that idea, but I would do it for her, even though I’m not gay. I’m afraid she’s about to suggest something really bad. “So...”

“It’s really bad, you’re not gonna like it.”

I suck it up in my own head, and say, “I’ll do anything for you.”

“That’s the problem, it can’t be you. At least, I don’t think it can. How long were you a member of that church in Independence?”

“I was part of Independence Temple my whole life, until you. Why?”

“That’s what I was worried about. I need the name of the newest member of your church who is also now a member of your...cult?”

“We don’t like that word, but...”

“But who?”

“But there’s no one. There’s no one like that.”

“Damn. If we had someone like that, we could discredit them instead. Bran could barge into your worshiphouse, and arrest him for fraud in three states, or something like that. Then we could convince them that he was the one in control of everything.”

“That’s terrible, Paige.” I guess she really isn’t an angel.

“I know. It was just my first idea.”

I sigh. “Well, you’re a time traveler, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s undo it. Take me back to 2025. Change the past. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“I’ve seen it done, yes.”

“Okay. I’m ready.”

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Firestorm: Kallias Bran (Part IV)

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I’m not in hiding, but I have been laying low for a while. Back in the year 1990, I started investigating a child’s disappearance. It was my first case as a detective, and the weirdest thing I had ever seen up until that point. Things like it would eventually become commonplace for me, but back then, I couldn’t explain it. Escher Bradley was missing according to his supposed father, but according to the mother, he never existed. I spent years trying to figure what the hell was going on. More children disappeared over the next decade, and I was the one assigned to them all. Other strange things happened in Springfield, Kansas until it all just ended when the entire town itself disappeared. I continued to investigate, though. I traveled to other planets, other points in time, and even other universes. My life was non-stop adventure, so when I was given the opportunity to go back to where it all began, and lead a more normal life, I took it. Sort of.

The first moment I experienced nonlinear time was, as I said, way back in 1990. But since then, I’ve seen all kinds of technological advancements. Living in a time before I could look up literally anything in an online encyclopedia, or navigate to a new location on a little computer phone, was something I didn’t think I could do. I hitched a ride back to the future—the 2020s, to be exact—and I’ve been generally avoiding other time travelers ever since. There are some good people in this underworld, though, and I should have left myself available to them if they ever needed me. I don’t know how he did it, but one of them did finally manage to find me, and he apparently needs my help.

“Where’s your family, Ace?” I ask him.

“They’re still looking for you,” he says. “We got separated, and I found you first.”

“Can’t you call them?”

He pats his pants. “I don’t have a phone.”

“How did you know where I was, but they didn’t? Why were you separated?”

“I was in prison,” he explains. “Don’t worry, I didn’t belong there, and The Warden let me go. I came into possession of some intel while I was on the inside, which led me to you. If you don’t help us with our mission, you’ll still need to bug out. Not everyone who knows your location is on your side.”

“Am I, like, wanted?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “My cell neighbor seemed particularly interested in you, though. You could better understand what it is that makes you special. I just consider you a friend.”

“Okay, I appreciate the warning. And I’ll definitely help with whatever mission you’re talking about. I’m sorry I haven’t reached out lately. I’ve been kind of staying out of the game, but I think I’m ready to be involved again.”

“We appreciate that. Come on. We’re based out of your safehouse.”

The condo I bought a long time ago has been used for many different things by many different people. I probably lived there for the shortest amount of time, but I still technically own it. I’m glad it’s been there to help so many people. It is a joy.

Serkan Demir runs over and tackles his boyfriend when we arrive at the condo. “How did you get out? Did we win? I don’t remember winning.”

“It had nothing to do with this,” Ace explains as he was peeling Serkan off so he could hug their adopted daughter too. “A friend I won’t have until the future broke me out.”

“They broke you out?” Slipstream asks. I’ve never met her, but she’s famous in all of Kansas City, and beyond. It’s an honor just to be in her presence. “So they’re coming for you.”

“Well,” Ace begins, “when I say he broke me out, I mean he literally broke the bars on my cell. I don’t understand who he is, or what our relationship will be in the future, but the Warden basically said he can do whatever the hell he wants, and she has no right to go against him. I’m in the clear.”

“So, is that it?” Paige asks. “Do we not have to do what it is the Warden charged us to do?”

“I still need to,” Alexina McGregor says. She’s one of the Springfield Nine, like me. She got her time powers from another dimension, and while most of them are amoral, at best, she’s recently tried to redeem herself. I hope she makes it. “I still have to get the rabbit dog from the FBI. I can’t ask you to continue if you don’t have to.”

“Of course we will,” Ace assures her. “Now we have some real firepower to back us.”

Is he referring to me? “Are you referring to me?”

“Slipstream has some clout,” Serkan says. “She’s still a civilian, though. We could use a real law enforcement officer on our side. Ace, how did you find him?”

Ace looks like he doesn’t want to explain how it is he found me. He told me it had something to do with other people in the prison, but maybe it’s a lot more complicated than that, or it’s something bad. There’s a phrase I’ve heard before, which serves as what I guess you could call the time traveler’s way of saying shut up. To avoid paradoxes, and other timeline problems, all you have to do is say, “eh. Time, right?”

Serkan still wants answers, but he’s letting it go for now. “Right.”

“What exactly do you need from the FBI?” I ask them.

And so they go about telling me what they’re hunting for. There’s some kind of psychic hybrid creature, and a temporal object that’s so powerful, no one seems to know what it does. They’re both being protected by a federal agent who probably has special time powers, and he may be in possession of other things they don’t know about. What his motivation is, or what his ultimate plan is, they don’t know, but they know they have to get these things back, because he can’t be trusted.

“And what do you need me for?” I go on. “I’m not a detective in this timeline. I don’t have a badge, or even a gun.”

“We can make you a detective again,” Paige says. “We need it to be you, because you know what questions to ask; how to get into people’s heads.”

“Are you planning on taking me to The Forger to get my badge back?”

“That was the idea, yes,” Paige acknowledges. “Do you not think that’s gonna work?”

I sigh. “It probably will, as long as we give his bouncer a thousand dollars. I’m willing to do just about whatever it takes to help you, but I don’t know if I want to go back to that life. I gave up the force a long time ago.”

Paige comes over, and takes my arm in her hand. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We weren’t going to contact you, but Dupont dropped your name, and it made us realize we could do with a little more help.”

“Delmar Dupont? The magician guy? Hm. Weird.” I sigh again, and watch them watching me, wondering what I’m going to do. “Okay. Let’s go make me a cop again.” I start heading towards the other side of the condo, while everyone else heads for the exit. “Where are you going?”

“Where are you going?” I ask them. The Forger is this way.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ace questions. “He’s downtown.”

I study them a moment, to see if they’re joking. “You’ve been living here the whole time, and you didn’t realize he and The Communicators moved here last year?”

Slipstream and Serkan tilt their lizard brains.

“Yeah,” I go on, “they’re in the closet. Come on.”

I lead them to the closet, which gives us access to another dimension. We step through it to find ourselves in a much nicer facility than the one these people were working out of before. It’s cleaner, brighter, and modern. I was in here once recently, since I’m the one who gave them the money to upgrade, but I haven’t been here since they finished fixing it all up.

“This used to be a clothing warehouse,” Paige notes.

“Yeah, they moved that to The Hub,” I explain, but it’s clear they don’t know what that is yet. That’s okay, I’m sure they’ll see it later in the timeline.

The same bouncer is standing at the entrance. He seems to recognize everyone, except for Alexina. “She’s cool,” I tell him.

The bouncer nods his head towards Ace. “He owes me a thousand dollars.”

I pull two thousand bucks from my back pocket. “I got it covered.” Ace doesn’t look happy, but I shake my head. “I’m rich, and I didn’t even work for it. I don’t want you to bother paying me back. Money isn’t gonna matter much in the future.”

We keep walking down the great hall. A wide-smiling Ennis waves to us through the glass of his new post office. Susan’s office is darkened, with a red light above the door, which indicates that she’s currently napping. Allen and Richard’s restaurant is open to the public on the other side of the kitchen, and it sounds like a lot of people are dining right now. The time traveler side, however, is almost empty. Only one young woman is eating right now, and she looks a little worried about this group of people walking by her. The Salmonday Club isn’t open at all right now, but we see somebody cleaning the entrance. Finally we’re at the Forger’s new den. I open the door, which knocks into a little bell hanging from the ceiling.

The man himself, Duane Blackwood, comes in from the back, and lifts his arms in a welcoming fashion. “All of you together in one place. My heart is warmed. Mr. Reaver, I heard about your jailbreak. How do you know Mateo Matic?”

“I don’t yet,” Ace answers.

“Ain’t that how it always goes?” Duane asks rhetorically. “How can I help you fine folk? I’ve expanded my business. I can now offer direct transport to another time and place, and discount prices on certain living places. I would just generate the cash myself, but that can screw with the local economy too much, so you’ll still need to pay a little yourself. We even house a Nexus replica on the premises, so if you need to get to Tribulation Island, that can be arranged.”

“That’ll be all right,” I say to him. “I just need...I need you to make me a detective again.”

Duane frowns, but not too sadly. “I thought you were done with all that.”

“My friends evidently require access to the FBI building,” I say. “I’m the only one they know with enough experience to help them.”

“You need access to the fed building, then you need to become a fed, not a detective,” Duane suggests.

“You can do that?” Paige asks.

“Hell yeah, I can,” Duane says. “With my new digs, I can make authentic badges, and appropriate firearms, as well as necessary identification papers.”

“I don’t know much about what it takes to be FBI,” I say honestly. “They’re very different professions.”

“You just need to get through security, right?” Duane asks. “That’ll be easy. I do...umm...ask for payment these days? Not money, of course. Like I was saying, I have my own bottomless ATM, but I do need a favor.”

I was worried something like this would happen, but I’m not gonna freak out until I hear what it is he wants from us.

“There’s a guy at the front door,” Duane begins. “He comes every single day. He knows there’s something here. I’m not a hundred percent sure what he wants, but he’s just human. The Salmonday Club has had to let people in the side entrance, so he doesn’t notice them.”

“What’s the Salmonday Club?” Paige asks.

“You know how there are only seven days a week?” I pose to her.

“Yeah.”

“There are eight, as long as you enter the club thirty seconds to midnight at the very end of the week.”

“Everyone rushes in all at once,” Duane continues for me. “This place is a madhouse on Saturday nights. This dude saw the clubgoers coming into this building one time, and I guess he’s been obsessed with us ever since. The power/pattern detector filtered him out, and just showed him a regular abandoned building, but he knows something’s up. Security can’t get him to leave.”

“Is he there right now?” I ask him.

“Yeah.” Duane walks up to the counter, and reaches over to swing the computer monitor around. It’s showing security camera footage from the main entrance of this building. A guy in a button-up shirt and skinny tie is leaning up against a pillar, hastily writing in a journal, or something.

“Oh my God,” Paige says with a bit of disgust. “That’s him. That’s Orson Olsen, the mormon I accidentally inspired to start a religion.”

I sigh one last time. “You make me FBI credentials, and I’ll get him out of here.”

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