The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 12, 2556

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They found themselves an ice cave to hole up in to get out of the wind. They were not going to die anytime soon, but it still wasn’t comfortable. Ramses and Leona got to work, trying to figure out what was wrong with their suits, but really, there was nothing they could do. None of their technology was working. They couldn’t even activate sensors to find out why. Nothing in the natural universe was known to do this. There could be interference, which made certain technologies malfunction, but they wouldn’t simply not turn on, full stop. Marie and Angela volunteered to take a short hike to higher ground to search for any sort of artificial settlement. Their comms devices didn’t work, but they would signal trouble using their empathetic connections. Those were all organic, so they were functioning fine. They didn’t find anything, though.

When they were mere seconds from midnight, Mateo walked outside, threw a rock he found up into the air, and watched it go up. When midnight hit, the rock didn’t fall down. It simply disappeared. He found it near his feet, covered in a layer of snow, which told them that their patterns had not been suppressed. During the interim year, nothing had changed. They couldn’t turn anything on, or access anything from their pocket dimensions. If it required power, it was off limits. Ramses was at a loss, so they decided to go exploring to see if there were any resources here. Their advanced substrates would keep them alive for a while, but not indefinitely. They still needed to find food, as well as fuel to make a fire so they could melt some snow for the water. Except that was dangerous too, because there could have been contaminants, or it wasn’t purely water ice in the first place. No one was panicking, but they were all worried.

“Look!” Romana announced. The sun was setting, and they could see a little bit of the night sky. Flashes of light were appearing in an artificial sequence, proving that they couldn’t have simply been meteors, or some other natural phenomenon. So there were people here, but they were only in orbit, or maybe others were just a few miles out of view. As they were watching, they spotted a fiery object much larger than the others. While they faded into the atmosphere, this one continued to plummet towards them until a parachute burst out of it, and it slowly drifted down to the surface.

 “Wait!” Leona warned as they began to walk towards it. “It could be a trap. It could be an explosive device. It could be anything.” Even if it wasn’t, that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. It could be waiting for their approach so it could disperse a toxic gas, or some other creative way to kill them. All the way out here, they couldn’t rely on the afterlife simulation as backup. This could be it for them.

“We have to look at it, Lee,” Olimpia reasoned. “If they wanted to blow us up, they would have sent a missile that we couldn’t dodge. It’s not like there are any police to get them in trouble.” She led the group a few hundred meters away to see what it was.

It was a small capsule, still hot from the descent, but cooling rapidly. Mateo opened the little hatch on the side to find a rolled up piece of paper. There was also what looked like a compass, though of no familiar design. There were no electronics here either. He unrolled the paper, and examined it alone at first. “It looks like directions.” He looked up, trying to get his bearings. “Written in kilometers,” he added as he handed it over to Leona. “About eighty-three of them to the destination.”

“Still could be a trap,” Leona said. “Maybe they don’t want to kill us, but harvest our organs, or something. That’s why they didn’t send a missile.”

“Either way, we’re obviously going,” Olimpia reasoned. “We can escape a trap, but we can’t escape the nothingness. Yalla.”

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Microstory 2690: Forbidden Science

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Ronan Truett sits on the exam table, wearing what he calls a gasmask, but the doctor called it something else. It is quite literally freezing cold on his face, but he doesn’t mind it. It isn’t going to be the hardest thing he will ever do over the course of the next few decades. After the twenty minutes are up, the doctor comes back and removes it. “How does it look?” he asks.

“Good. How does it feel?” the doctor volleys.

Ronan rubs the new beard on his chin. “Like a thousand tiny cuts.”

The doctor dismisses it with his facial expression. “That’ll go away in a few minutes. Would you like me to hot press and discolor it? I can make it unkempt and wild, so you look more rough and tumble.”

“Actually, historical Norsemen were quite well-groomed. A long and well-styled beard was the sign of a masculine and respectable man back then. Pay no attention to the inaccurate old movies you may have seen. They didn’t wear horned helmets either, if that’s what you’re picturing.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“It’s not in your internal database? Can you access the central archives remotely?” Ronan presses.

The doctor chuckles. “My brain doesn’t do that. I’m not an android, but one of those virtually immortal organics. I change substrates when I need to, like you, but I don’t have cybernetic connections.”

Ronan is surprised and impressed.

The doctor seems to sense this. “I just like medicine, so they let me do the simpler procedures, like your hair follicle stimulation. I wouldn’t be allowed to conduct any major surgeries. Castlebourne follows the same laws that Earth does in that regard.”

“I see,” Ronan says as he’s admiring his new appearance in the mirror. He’s never been one for facial hair, but he’s about to become a Norseman, so he wanted to look the part, and really immerse himself in the simulation. He’s not the only one. “So that’s why you’re not doing the foetal consciousness transfer for my wife.”

This gives the doctor pause. “I’m sorry? Foetal?”

“Oh, she’s not going to transfer herself to a foetus. She’s going to carry the foetus, and have the baby in the simulation.”

The doctor is still confused by this, and also now speechless.

“I assure you, it’s perfectly legal. We’re well within the Charter Cloud—”

“I’m aware of how the law works on this planet, Mister Truett. I’ve probably lived here longer than you. I know that foetal transference is possible, and I’m not surprised it’s legal. I’m surprised anyone would actually ever do it. There’s a reason it is illegal in the Core Worlds. We don’t know what it would do to a person, regressing to a prenatal state, or even early developmental, with all that neuroplasticity. What impact does that have on a person’s psyche, when their brains rewire themselves so drastically? Can you even have a continuity of consciousness when you let that happen? Is it not just an elaborate form of death? Suicide, that is?”

“Well, we’ll see,” Ronan says as he’s putting his shirt back on. He needed a little chest hair too. That is designed to take longer, which is fine. “My friend has fully consented to it.”

“He’s your friend?” the doctor questions. “I’m not sure if it’s weirder that he’s not your wife’s biological son already, or if it would be more awkward if he were.”

“Pretty judgy for a medical professional. A bot doctor would never say that.”

He shrugs. “You could have designed a substrate to develop facial and body hair during the gestation process, but you chose to come to me. Most people like my blunt attitude, specifically because they can’t get it from a bot doctor, unless it’s their personal model. But you’re right, I’ll zip my mouth. There’s the door, have a good immersion.”

Ronan leaves the exam room, and heads down to the other floor where his wife and friend are sitting up next to each other in their respective gurneys.

“Oh, you look great,” Mayumi reaches up towards his face with a dumb look on her own. “Fluffy.” She actually looks and sounds intoxicated. Her gown is on backwards.

“She’s on drugs for the implantation procedure,” their friend and future son, Talus explains. “I am not. I have to be sharp before I become a baby again.”

Mayumi smiles over at Talus. “You’re gonna love my uterus. We play hip-hop on Tuesdays.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” Ronan points out. “It’s all lyres and flutes for us for the next thirty years. We’ll play the lyre for you while you’re baking in there, son.”

“You don’t know how.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to learn.”

“When you’re not off a-viking,” Talus reminds him.

“Maybe even then.” Ronan cracks his knuckles. “I’m sure I could break heads and carry a tune at the same time.”

“I don’t think I have a head anymore,” Mayumi says.

A new doctor walks in—a proper bot this time. He hands Talus a tablet. “Okay, the mother has already finished her consent forms, but here’s the last one for you, Mister Sauter. This one personally absolves Hrockas Steward from any liability in the event that the results of this procedure render you neurologically damaged, physically defective in your new substrate, or philosophically deceased and replaced. It is the same waiver you signed before, but the owner wanted you to sign a separate one for him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Talus agrees. He signs without hesitating. He has thought about this for a very long time. They did not do this on a whim.

Ronan must admit, this is a crazy idea, and yes, there is a reason it has never been done before. What comes out of Mayumi nine months from now may not be Talus at all. It may be an entirely different person; new memories, new personality, new everything. It could mean that this Talus right here is dead. He deliberately didn’t make a copy of his mind as backup, since that wouldn’t really be him either, since it would already have been outdated by hours at best. This might very well mark the end of Talus Sauter, and they won’t really have an idea for another ten years maybe? But it’s what he wants, it’s what Mayumi wants, and while his opinion doesn’t technically matter here, it’s what Ronan wants too. He is going to raise his best friend in a simulation of Scandinavia in the first millennium, and he couldn’t be more excited. He kisses them both, then leaves for the waiting room so they can move forward.

An hour later, Mayumi wheels out alone. She smiles at him. “Great news, husband. I am no longer light.”

“Okay,” Ronan says, clapping his hands. “Let’s go to Danmörk.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 11, 2555

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Ramses had something else to show them, which he had evidently been working on at the same time as Operation Starframe. That was on the moon. This was down on the planet, in their main, branch-themed, dome. It felt like he invented something new every day, so while he wanted to show them, it wasn’t done with any fanfare. He just summoned them all to one his labs, and showed him the new thing. “It’s a slingdrive pad. Or a slingpad. Or something like that. Instead of you taking the whole thing with you, it just sends you to the destination alone. Since it’s ground-based, it doesn’t need a coherence gauge. It always has as much power as it needs. We will still need our arrays to come back, or go somewhere else, but this will let us do that instantly, instead of waiting for our own gauges to recharge. They stay topped up for the first trip.” It was pretty big, much larger than they would need for just the seven of them, even if they each had to return with two guests.

Perfect, they had themselves a real operation. Now they only needed to figure out how they would determine where they were needed. The galaxy hadn’t gotten any harder. Their top candidate was the Goldilocks Corridor, but that was a delicate situation. They had that treaty, and while individual interference didn’t technically go against it, they didn’t want to complicate matters too much. They could leave that all to Team Kadiar. “Great,” Mateo said. “Thank you. We’ll be able to breathe easier, knowing we have a full tank of gas every time we go out. The question is, where are we going?”

Romana separated herself from the audience, and stood next to Ramses. “I took the liberty of compiling a list of candidates.” She flung the data to their devices. “There aren’t any specific needs that we know about, but it’s time we ignore the stellar neighborhood for the most part, especially the Core Worlds. They’re mostly doing fine on their own as they have plenty of infrastructure and systems in place. It’s the 26th century. Colonists have made a lot of claims in the Charter Cloud, but many don’t have very useful charters. They benefit from almost no protection or emergency services. They’re also pretty deep into the Extended Bubble, which were given no resources, except for what they could afford from Gatewood. We don’t know who is out there, or what they’re lacking, but if anyone could use our help, it’s them. I know I’m the navigator, but I’m asking for your input. Should we throw a dart and pick one?”

Leona stopped looking at the spreadsheet. “I don’t care how you do it. You choose one, and send us there. I’ll even let you select the team. It could be all of us, or only three. You can put yourself on it, or not. It’s all up to you today. We’re all ready, right?”

They all nodded in agreement. They were itching to be productive.

Romana was pleased. “All right.” She swiped through her lower arm interface. “Okay. This colony is called Tartarus, which I find both interesting, but also worrisome enough to maybe investigate in case there’s something weird going on? It’s 290 light years from Earth so they don’t have to follow any rules. The colonists were set to arrive a few days ago.” She turned to Ramses. “Do you need to stay to monitor the equipment?”

“Nope,” he answered. “I’ve already tested it with a bunch of probes. “It’s ready.”

“Lovely,” Romana said. “Then we’ll all go. Boot ‘n’ rally.”

They arrived to find that it was either named ironically, or something got lost in translation. It was incredibly cold, snowy, and windy. And for some reason their suits wouldn’t work, so they didn’t have access to their slingdrives either. They were stuck here. No one else was around.

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Microstory 2684: Whoops

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Resi is walking across the jagged rock at the bottom of the caldera now, dodging these scary vents in the ground. He did not pay attention in school when they discussed this stuff. Again, it wasn’t important for his future, and the teachers didn’t think so either, so they didn’t get mad when students didn’t do great on science assignments. It is freezing cold, though, except for those gases. They make him cough, and gave him a huge headache. The center. He has to reach the absolute center. It’s poetic, right? That makes the most sense. So he just keeps moving forward. He kind of has to. Whenever he tries to stop, the rubber soles of his shoes begin to melt. It doesn’t feel too hot here, except when he touches the ground with his hand. God, it’s so weird. This place is weird.

Being this close, it certainly feels like the thing could explode at any moment. The air is still, but there’s a vibration all around. To be fair, he could be imagining it. If all these gases are toxic, it would explain the headaches, and the little bit of giggling that he thinks he’s doing. He can’t remember. He just keeps walking, heading for that big dream vision in the sky. Maybe he should walk faster, lest he die before he gets there.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” a voice asks from behind him.

“The time gods?” Resi asks, looking up. “Is that you?”

“It’s Kartica, you idiot!” she scolds, catching up to him. She is hard to hear with that banana over her face. Banana? Bandana. It’s either really smart, or totally useless.

“What’s the big deal? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” she fires back at him. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You don’t have any protection whatsoever.”

“Yeah, I do. I have a coat on.” He tries to show her. “Oh. Well, it was on a minute ago.” Oh, that’s right. It was too green, so he took it off. “And anyway, I’m still on the hunt for that vision. This is the one place we’ve not yet tried.”

“How did you expect to get back if it kills you first?” Kartica presses.

“I was going to call you guys and tell you what I saw. I had it all planned out. I was going to detail my vision to you, and then at the very last second, with my dying breath, I would start my final sentence, and then not be able to finish it.”

“You planned on failing?”

“It was gonna bring you three together, and together, you would figure out what the last few words were gonna be, and save the day at the very last second.”

“Quite a few very last seconds you have there, Res. And, um, tell me. How were you going to call us without a phone?” She holds up Caprice’s satellite phone.

He pats his chest and hips. “Oh. Whoops.”

“Whoops?” she echoes. “Just the fate of our island on the line, and whoops? Resi, you’re already sick on top of the toxic fumes this place has to offer. And that’s on top of you just not being that bright of a person in the first place. You are the worst person to do this job, you’re just all we got. So please, lean on your friends.”

“Are you my friend?” Resi asks. “Because I seem to recall you infiltrating my House, trying to make us look bad, and then trying to frame me for your murder.”

“That was the old me,” she insists.

“Wait, shut up!”

“What?”

“Shut up, shut up!” he urges. “I’m getting a vision.” He falls to the ground.

Microstory 2598: Renata Lies Back in the Exam Pod, Fully Undressed

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Renata lies back on the exam table, fully undressed. She’s never done this before. Even in her implanted memories, she never had to have a full physical examination like this. She has always just walked into the doctor’s office, and talked until they cleared her. She’s not uncomfortable, though. It’s unclear if the woman here is a doctor or a mechanic, though, which is just a little unsettling. Again, why is she internalizing it? She should just ask. “Are you a doctor, or a mechanic?”

“Both!” Evica replies confidently. She’s wearing what basically looks like a hazmat suit, but it’s fairly thin, and her face is exposed. She’s wearing a respirator mask and protective glasses, but Renata still feels safe here. “As a biocyberneticist, I specialize in cyborg healthcare. Now that I’ve performed the visual exam, we’re going to have to move on to the tactile portion. Is it okay if I touch you?”

“Go ahead, I’m not shy,” Renata replies sincerely.

Evica lays her hands on Renata’s body. She pats and rubs all over, quite systematically and carefully. She sometimes tilts her head away, not in shame, but to let her fingers do the understanding, and not cloud her interpretations with sight. “Standard humanoid shaping. No protrusions, tears, or injuries.” She taps on the side of her glasses twice, implying that they’re showing her an augmented reality. “Preliminary scans indicate a carbon-fiber endoskeleton and polymer muscles. The skin is wholly artificial, but still organic. I’ll need a deeper scan to see your brain—wait.” She reaches for her glasses again, with her thumb and index finger. She slowly rubs them together. Maybe she’s zooming in? Evica reaches over with her other hand, and starts tapping on the medical pod screen.

“What? What is it? Is something wrong?”

Evica makes another tap. Red scanning lights appear from the foot of the pod, and sweep across Renata’s body back and forth a couple of times. “Can you turn off your sensitivity to cold?”

“What? Why would I need to be able to do that?”

“To save my life,” Evica explains cryptically. “Can you turn it off?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried before.”

“Try it now,” Evica urges. “Don’t just lower the sensitivity. Turn it all the way off.”

“Tell me what’s going on.” Renata demands as she’s trying to comply, using her intuition alone, and maybe the clear sense of urgency as motivation.

“I’m gonna take it out, but I can’t do that unless I cool you down to extreme temperatures first.”

“Okay, I think I can’t feel cold anymore, but even if I can, just do it. I don’t care.”

Evica hits the button. Nozzles lining the inside walls open and begin to flood the pod with some kind of fluid. She can’t feel the cold. It just feels wet. She breathes a sigh of relief, but she’s still anxious. “Have you ever heard of an ATP bomb?”

“No, but it sounds real bad.”

“It’s not bad for you. You don’t have any mitochondria, but I do. If that thing goes off, and I’m still in here, the agent will get into my system, and basically disconnect my mitochondria from their partner cells. It doesn’t stop the mitochondria from producing power, it just prevents them from channeling it into energy. All of it becomes waste heat. So not only will I not be able to move, breathe, or do anything anymore, but I’ll burn up with a fever that kills me within minutes.” She watches the screen for a moment. “Okay. We’re safe, for now. And I don’t need to call in any help, so we’re going into lockdown.” She moves over and lifts the lid from a button on the wall. She then pulls it. Metal shutters slide down in front of the windows, locking them in.

“If that’s good enough,” Renata says, “then just leave and leave me in here. That’s what bomb experts sometimes do. They activate it from a safe distance, so the energy is wasted.”

“Sounds good in theory,” Evica agrees, “but we’re talking about a biological weapon. We inspect it first. She takes a breath. “I’m going to cut you open, okay?”

“I can’t feel pain anymore either. Do what you gotta do.”

Evica sterilizes her instruments, and herself, then begins the procedure. She cuts into Renata’s abdomen very slowly and carefully. “It’s located where your gall bladder would be if you needed one. Your artificial liver is a little bit smaller to make room for the device too.” She pulls the skin apart, creating a giant gaping cavity.

“Why do I need a liver at all?”

“Your liver processes all liquids, so they can be purged safely. Except for water, you don’t need to consume anything, but you think you do, so you do. And that has to be filtered out.” Evica takes some kind of wand and slips it into the cavity. She suddenly steps back in fear, dropping the wand on the floor. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“Worse than something called a freaking ATP bomb! What could be worse!” Renata questions.

“I thought it would be an aerosol. Everyone in the vicinity would absorb it into their pores, and they would die from it, and I wish that were the case. You just close the door, and it’s fine. But this...this has a gamma pulse delivery system. Much more sophisticated, and orders of magnitude more dangerous. I couldn’t detect the intensity, but it would pass through the walls, and surely everyone in this building would die. Probably the dome too. Maybe not further than that since the dome walls are hardened against radiation, but they’re designed that way to protect us from space. I don’t know if they work in the reverse. That’s not my department.”

“What can you do? Throw me into a volcano?” Renata suggests.

“That would be unethical, and unwise. I don’t think the bomb is designed to trigger via heat, but enough heat would likely break the seal anyway.”

“Then jettison me into space.”

“Same deal,” Evica reasons. “Gamma ray bursts happen all the time in space. They can’t be stopped.”

“Not by the domes?”

“Actually, you’re right. This bomb is powerful, but it’s not a quasar. Still, we’re not entertaining this. I don’t have to send you into space. I just need to extract this thing from you.”

“That won’t work. My mother did this to me, and she is no fool. Her contingencies have contingencies. I’m gonna have to talk to her about it. Only she knows how to fix this, and she’ll only tell me. I know her well enough to know that too.”

“That’s not my department either.”

“Then get Hrockas Steward on the phone.”

Microstory 2590: Quidel Tears Through the Sac and Crawls Out Like a Monotreme

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Quidel tears through the sac and crawls out like a monotreme. He’s all alone, but he’s been through this many times before, and will be able to acclimate to his new body just fine. Of course, in most of those instances, he has had an institution to fall back on if he needed it, but it’s better than the alternative. A few months ago, he saved the “world” from a terrorist attack, almost single-handedly. As reward for his heroism, he was given an egg-shaped crystal trophy. In-universe, this was only symbolic; something to place upon his mantel, and lie about when in the presence of someone who didn’t know that he was a spy. In reality, it was an extra life. Spydome has a bunch of these little rewards scattered throughout the environment. You can’t just find them, though. You have to earn them, and most of the people operating inside of the storyline don’t understand their value. It just looks like a tchotchke.

After solving the secret puzzle by refracting light through the trophy in just the right way, a holographic message appeared on the base, telling him what he now had in his arsenal. It also gave him instructions for how to use it. He emptied the organic starter nanites into a sterile pee sample cup, and mixed it with the other ingredients, which included his own blood. What formed was an actual egg. A human egg. Of course, as a spy, he had safehouses and storage lockers all over the dome, so he chose a remote one to store his egg in a freezer, where it grew on its own from there. It has been sitting here ever since, preserved in its own self-contained stasis field, and kept cool by the freezer, which gathered dust in his absence.

Quidel flicks the interior safety mechanism, and climbs out. “Ugh, gross. I should have stored a shower in here too. This is basically amniotic fluid.” This locker isn’t heated, because that would just make it easier to find, and it wouldn’t help preserve the clone sac. It’s freezing outside, and probably windy. The device. The device is giving off waste heat as the RTG transmits power. He punches in the code to the cabinet, takes out the case, and starts hugging it. It would be better if he had the code unlock the case as well, but that’s probably not super safe anyway. Okay, he’s gathered a little bit of warmth. He only has two sets of clothes here. One of them is a tuxedo, and the other is jeans and a t-shirt. It’s unfortunate, but he’s got to clean himself off, so he uses the tux like a rag. Then he puts on the regular clothes, and hugs the case for a little bit longer.

Okay, he has to leave now. He didn’t store a phone, not because it wasn’t safe, but because he didn’t think he could trust anyone with this location, especially not given its rare contents. And when he came here to stash the device yesterday, he just didn’t think about it. He went into this experience with plans to be a lone wolf, and so far, that has played out as expected. He opens the door, and sticks his head through. The coast is clear. The storage lot is closed right now, because consciousness transference takes so long due to all the safeguards, so they’re not expecting anyone to be in here right now. He didn’t check in, with his alias, or anything. He’s going to have to sneak out, avoiding the cameras, and any guards who might be lurking about. This is what he trained for, though. This kind of thing is precisely why he signed up for Spydome in the first place. It was only his second choice.

He came here in the year 2500, which was when the planet opened up for non-beta exploration. Before this, he spent nearly twenty years in Empty Planet, and then another few months just relaxing in Polar Tropica. He likes adventure, and he likes to relax. After this is done, he still isn’t sure if he wants to switch to Underbelly or the Nordome Network. Maybe Baumrealm. That’s so many years away, though, unless this latest mission ends up cutting his spy life short. Not only does he have no more extra lives, but all of this has become super meta, which the Custodians may not like. This little ragtag team might be making huge problems for the entire system. They might shut them down at any moment.

Holding out hope, he calls upon his lessons, and sneaks over the fence, sticking to the shadows, and making no sound. He’s clutching the device case, still for the warmth, but also because it’s clearly quite valuable. While Quidel didn’t have the foresight to store a burner phone in his locker, he is aware of his surroundings, which means he knows that there is a no-tell motel just down this hill. He walks inside and slaps a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “I need your phone...and your discretion.”

The night manager lifts up the receiver of the corded phone, and punches in a code; one that Quidel recognizes from his training. “Carrier call log has been switched off, but you only have five minutes.”

“I only need one,” Quidel says back in a gravelly voice. God, that’s so cheesy, but back in the 1990s, that’s exactly the kind of thing the hero would say in a spy movie. As the manager is putting on his noise-cancelling headphones, Quidel dials, using his own code to prevent any local tapping. It adds an extremely annoying background screech to the call, but the voice will come through well enough, and it’s better than risking an eavesdropper. When the human Marshal answers, Quidel says, “I’m alive. Meet me at the northern border.” The country in this dome is called Usona, but it’s an analog of more than just the 21st century United States. There are four distinct regions, which also include a series of dome layers that are more like Canada, one series like Australia, and one like New Zealand, which is a bunch of islands. To get to one of these other regions, it doesn’t matter if you take a plane, train, or automobile. You’re gonna end up in an elevator. He really is standing by a border. He doesn’t actually need to get to the Canada-analog, though. Right next to the elevator is a maintenance tunnel that will lead them to Osman, which is this mythology’s analog for Pakistan.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 11, 2524

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It wasn’t until the next year when Mateo, Leona, and Angela could safely reactivate their tandem slingdrives. They technically could have left shortly before midnight, but they decided it was for the best. They left a message with the Vitalie who lived on Vitalemus, to relay to the Vellani Ambassador if she ever heard from again. She hadn’t, but had kept apprised of Goldilocks Corridor news, and no one had reported seeing them lately, so no one knew where they were at this point. With nothing left for them here, they made the jump, and returned to the beacon floating around in the space where Castlebourne once was. They weren’t alone. They quickly picked up comms from Ramses, Marie, Olimpia, and Romana. They only had to make a few jumps to rendezvous with each other.

“Gang’s all here,” Mateo mused.

“How did you get back here?” Angela asked the other half of their team.

“You were taking too long,” Ramses began to explain. “We decided to come back here to see if you were stranded after failing to track Castlebourne’s new location. The rest is obvious. We were just about to come find you on Vitalemus.”

“Did you put a pocket dimension in the buoy thinking Romana would be able to use it?” Leona asked.

“No, that didn’t occur to me,” Ramses replied. “It was just a failsafe if something went wrong. With no other habitable structure around here, there needed to be some way to survive, like if you had a stranger in tow with a less advanced vacuum suit, or no suit at all. As it turns out,” he went on while tapping a piece of the buoy that he had separated from the rest, “it was necessary.”

“Is someone in there?” Leona questioned.

“You’ll see.” That was a weird way to put it.

“Can we all go back to Castlebourne together now?” Mateo asked.

Ramses shook his head. “I’m afraid this was a one-way trip. Hrockas scrambled the tracker from his end. Where they are by now is a mystery. I could probably write an algorithm that could predict their movements using their last known location. The choosing one he’s using to push the host star around is powerful, but she has her limits. They can’t be all the way to the outer arm of the Milky Way, or something. But we would have to leave something behind to keep trying to track them...”

“Or I could do it again,” Romana volunteered.

“No,” Mateo countered decisively. “I don’t want you breaking your pattern ever again.”

“Do we really need to find Castlebourne at all?” Marie asked the group. “We were trying to leave it at one point.”

“That’s true, I remember that now,” Mateo affirms. It was the closest thing to home they had ever had, but it was always going to end eventually. It was supposed to end a long time ago, but they got sidetracked with all that Pacey-Underburg stuff, which kept them tied to Castlebourne for a bit longer.

“Do you want to try another aimless jump?” Romana offered.

“And end up back in that hellhole?” Leona added. “No, thanks.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Romana reminded them. “I liked the outfits.”

“You could always wear that kind of outfit, whenever you want,” Leona said.

“True,” Romana replied. She shed her suit, and shifted her nanites to a 1950s-esque dress, not exactly like the kind she wore when they were oblivious and trapped in Underburg, but similar.

“Put your suit back on,” Mateo shouted.

Romana couldn’t reply in the vacuum, but she could still hear via conduction, yet she pushed the back of her ear forward as if she couldn’t even do that. After her father pointed at her with stern determination, she switched her suit back on. “Geeze, Papa Bear,” she joked. “Rambo’s got me covered. That man knows his way around a woman’s body.”

“Goddammit!” Mateo complained. “Don’t say things like that!”

“Okay, okay,” Leona jumped in, as she usually had to do when those two were at it. Romana knew how to push her dad’s buttons, and Leona knew how to put a stop to it, which was to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Let’s just go back to Earth. I’m feeling a little homesick. And it was home for all of us at some point, though not technically the same version of it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Marie concluded.

Ramses looked at his forearm readout. “My coherence gauge is in the Orange, where are you?”

“We just arrived, so it’s still Red,” Leona answered. “We won’t be ready to jump until nearly the end of the day, probably.”

“I’m doin’ a bottle episode!” Olimpia suddenly shouted.

“I was just thinking about that,” Angela said. “Not the bottle episode thing, that’s nonsense. “We should call it slinging. Why are we calling it jumping?”

“Seconded,” Romana agreed.

“All in favor,” Mateo posed. They raised their hands. “Motion passes. New lingo established.” He paused for a moment. “Great, that entertained us for all of ten seconds. What do we do in the meantime? And don’t say RPS-101 Plus. I don’t like playing in my suit. I can’t control my objects right.”

“You just say that because you consistently lose!” Olimpia teased.

“Mah-ri?” Angela began, “why are you looking around?”

“Oh, we just made a decision to go to Earth,” Marie replied. “That’s usually when God laughs and intervenes.

That was true. Everyone started to look around too, but found only space. The sudden intervention she was talking about didn’t usually happen when they were actively looking for it...kind of a watched pot never boils sort of thing, but it was still prudent to check.

“Do you guys realize there are three wars?” Angela offered. She opened the floor up to anyone, but no one responded. “The Exin Empire, the Sixth Key conflict, and those dragonfly aliens. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but we’ve been switching between them. Once we close one chapter of one book, we start the next chapter of one of the other two books.”

Ramses glanced down at the piece of the buoy he attached to his chest. Only Mateo noticed, and he chose not to address it.

“Yeah, you’re right about that, aren’t you?” Leona asked rhetorically. “We just closed one of the books, but we don’t know which one we’re about to open, if either of the others.”

“I am curious about what’s going on with the Sixth Key,” Marie admitted. “It’s been a long time. I spent some years in one of those worlds.”

“So did I,” Romana said, referring to having grown up in ancient Third Rail.

“But the Ochivari are so fascinating,” Angela insisted. “We could end up in any universe, dealing with any new, unfamiliar culture.”

“Well, we might be able to trigger the Transit to show up if one of us makes a declaration that we want to fight in a cosmic war, or join the military,” Marie suggested.

“Let’s not do that,” Leona volleyed.

“Then the Sixth Key it is,” Angela responded. “Raise the sails! Navigate us to the aperture!” She pointed in a random direction. It was a little funny, but nobody laughed. They just fell silent for a time.

“That lasted us another five minutes. How’s everybody’s coherence? Mine’s still in the Red. Do we all have to be Green, or...”

“Maybe not,” Ramses explained. “I would feel safer if we were, though. I would feel even safer with Violet.”

“If you’re bored, we could just go into stasis for a few hours. It’s not bad in here. I found it easy to wake back up when they found me.”

“Well, yeah, Rambo knows his way around a woman’s body,” Olimpia echoed Romana from earlier.

“I want a divorce,” Mateo said, joking, but...clearly not happy for real.

The seven of them continued to hang out there while they waited for their coherence gauges to rise up to acceptable levels. They mostly held onto the buoy to stay close to one another, but occasionally, one of them would push off and float around. They could always return by utilizing their maneuvering thrusters, or just teleporting back. That was what gave Romana the idea to play hide-and-seek. It was a dangerous version of the game, which not everyone in the galaxy would be able to play. Because space was empty and black, the chances of finding someone just by the naked eye were incredibly low. They could use their heat signatures instead, but then detection would be incredibly easy. The only way to do it was for each hider to shut off their own life support systems, and stay in one place for long enough for the seeker to find everyone else first. They could still use their comms, but they would be untraceable. Some of them could withstand the cold for longer, and were better at hiding. Others were caught when they just couldn’t take it anymore. At this point, they could try to teleport away, but the seeker could always jump right to them wherever they ended up.

They played the game for a couple of hours before noticing that the same people were winning each time. It was always either Mateo or Ramses, which made this whole thing feel very unfeministic. Even though Ramses supposedly built their superstrates equally, it seemed as though the women got colder faster, just as they would if they were simply wearing business clothes in an office. The coherence gauges still weren’t Green for everybody, but they were sick of playing around, so most of them just took naps. They floated aimlessly there in the black, mostly apart, though Mateo and Olimpia held together like the two lovers they were. Leona was working on the self-destruct sequence for the buoy. Instead of bringing it with them, they were just gonna blow it up, so no one could have any hope of finding any information on it. It took a lot of time and work to engage the explosives. This was by design, so it couldn’t be switched on incidentally, or when the user wasn’t thinking rationally.

Finally, the last of them turned Green, and it was time to leave. Ramses woke everyone up with a calm, but crescendoing, song. They teleported back into a group, and magnetized their suits so they could watch the explosion together. It was a bit anticlimactic because of how fast and efficient it was, but still something worth seeing. They synced up their slingdrives, and with one final goodbye to the Castlebourne that was no longer there, they slung away.

They landed on the surface of what they assumed was Earth. They quickly detected a breathable atmosphere, and were able to recede their nanites into regular clothes. This did look like Earth, but perhaps one from long ago. Earth didn’t really have any cities anymore. They just lived in arcological megastructures, and some seasteads, if they weren’t just orbiting from space. They were on a street, though. The buildings were sleek and advanced, but just too dense for Earth in this time period. People were staring at them, including parents trying to hold their children close. A man approached them cautiously. “Do you mean us harm?” he asked.

Leona stepped forward. “Absolutely not. We’re travelers, attempting to return to Earth.”

The man looked over his shoulder at the crowd, and then back at Leona. “Never heard of it. How did you do that thing with your clothes?”

“Have you heard of other...” Leona trailed off. She slowly darted her eyes side to side, looking for the right way to word this. Unfortunately, the beginning of her sentence might have painted her into a corner. No, she could figure this out. The Prime Directive applied here until she determined otherwise. “...other cities.”

“You mean on the other side of the tunnels?” the man guessed. “Yes. We don’t interact with them, except to exchange some technologies sometimes.”

Tunnels. Leona looked up at the sky, or what appeared to be a sky anyway. She pulled a small swarm of nanites over her eyes, and used them as sensors. “Yeah, that was definitely a hologram, and they were under a dome. Goddammit, they were back on Castlebourne, and in some kind of simulation. Wait.

The man looked up at the sky too, trying to figure out what she was so baffled by.

The dimensions were off. This wasn’t one of the Castlebourne domes. It was too small. Not by much, but other than the ocean caps, and a few rare exceptions, all Castlebourne domes were pretty much the exact same skeletal design. Where would they be where people would be living under a dome, but alarmed by their use of nanite technology. She looked back at the stranger and breathed. “Have you heard of Proxima Doma?”

“Yes,” he replied. “We don’t know what it means.”

Leona looked back at the rest of the team. She just regarded them for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action. There was really only one. They couldn’t teleport, and they couldn’t explain their odd behavior. The locals wouldn’t understand, and it would break their worldview. “Run.”

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Microstory 2479: Glaciadome

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Brr, chicken! That’s what my dad used to say. Brr, chicken! It’s cold up here. There is not much dihydrogen monoxide on Castlebourne—compared to say, Earth or Europa, but there is some. Some of it is in the form of water ice, and some of that in the form of glaciers. The largest of these is called Sanaa Glacier. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but I’m guessing this Sanaa woman isn’t too happy about it. The Sanaa Glacier is up there in the northern hemisphere, not too far from Aquilonian Deep. It’s about 2.16 million square kilometers in area, which makes it the largest region on the planet that is not covered by domes. That is for an obvious reason, which is that glaciers, by definition, are always on the move. They move very, very slowly, but they are not still. They’re never still. You can imagine that erecting a dome on top of one is difficult at best, and quite risky. Yet they did it. Glaciadome sits right in the middle of Sanaa, which is the most stable part of it. It’s not immune to the glacier’s movements, but it’s your safest bet. It’s unlike any other dome on the planet. It’s totally unique. Instead of being made out of the usual graphene composite, its frame is instead composed of carbon nanotubes, which can be made to be more flexible. That’s why we use them for space elevator tethers. Instead of diamonds, the panels are made out of a more flexible polycarbonate. This allows the dome to shudder and shake as the glacier flows, and against the extremely heavy winds outside. There’s an old saying, if it doesn’t bend, it’ll break, and that’s true. Glaciadome will survive over time because it’s designed to withstand the stress of movement without buckling. It’s not completely impenetrable, and it’s not nearly as strong as the other domes, but it does its job, and it does it well. You can tell that it works too, because while you can’t physically feel the glacier’s flow unless you’re an advanced lifeform with the right onboard sensors, you can certainly hear it. It’s always screamin’ at ya while the ice breaks and slides. Why do this? Why build a dome on top of something so unstable, in such a hostile environment? Well, what the hell are we doing here if we’re not engineering megastructures for the sake of the challenge. Do you need any other reason? I surely don’t. Researchers live here to be closer to what they’re studying, such as the geologic history of this planet, the composition of the water and ice, and of course, the glacier itself. There are also some winter sports here, like dog sledding, and cross-country skiing, but it’s not as comprehensive as Winterbourne Park. A lot of it has to do with the novelty of the experience. You can live in an igloo, or an ice palace. You can go cold-weather camping, or just make snow angels. It may not be as exciting as one of the adventure domes, but it gives you what it promises. And for me, that’s enough.

Microstory 2449: Windbourne

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Holy crap, it’s windy here! It’s almost like that’s the point! I’m yelling, because it’s hard to hear with all this wind! Did I mention that it was very windy? Why did they make a dome that’s just super windy? Well, I don’t know, why the hell not? What would you do instead? I’m asking a lot of questions, and I’m not a prolific reviewer on the network, so no one’s going to answer them. The staff certainly didn’t. It’s windy here, because that’s the way they wanted it, and they were technologically capable of it. Before you read on (if you do manage to find this review) you should know that I’m one of the uneducated. By early 21st century standards, I would have been an average student. By today’s standards, with perfections in educational tools, and individualized lesson planning, I’m well-below average. I did this on purpose. I don’t find value in learning beyond a certain point. I’m happy, and I’m content with who I am. So if you’re looking for a scientifically dense explanation for how the wind generation works here, tap on, buddy...tap on. Windbourne. It’s windy. The topography has been moulded to create the perfect conditions for wind, where they want it, when they want it. Air is heated and cooled in very precise configurations to create the wind patterns as planned. Temperature usually flows spontaneously from hot to cold, I remember that. I’m not sure how they’re heated, but I think the process is solar-powered, perhaps by use of mirrors, rather than just solar panels to convert into electricity. They also use gargantuan fans to control the airflow, but I didn’t see them, so the must have cleverly hidden them behind geographic features, or maybe holographic illusions. Some regions are windier than others, of course, and they tell you where these are. The map color-codes the zones by the speed of the wind, so if you just want a light breeze, you can stay there. If you want near tornado-like conditions, baby, you’re gonna wanna go to Gale City. Winds in this area reach up to 400 kilometers per hour. That sounded like a lot to me, but I didn’t have much of a frame of reference until I tried it myself. What you do is enter a tunnel where you can walk through, or stand on people movers. Once you’re on the other side of the Arnett Mountains, you climb up to these towers. There are robot staff here, so they’ll tell you where to go, and how to get there. You get to your platform, which is fully protected by walls, and situate yourself in the waiting station. You have a few options here. You can strap yourself in, hold onto the straps, hold onto a bar, or freehand it. Once you’re ready, they’ll open the flap behind you. At this point, you can hear the wind roaring at your sides, and above you, but you’re still protected. This only lasts for a few moments before the wall opposite you opens up. The wind rushes in, as I said, at 400 km/h. What happens to you next is entirely dependent upon your choices, both leading up to it, and once you hit the point of no return. Did you grab on to something? Can you keep holding onto it? Are you gonna fly over the edge? If you do, will you activate a parachute, or a wingsuit? If not, will you manage to land in one of the scattered foam pits, or plummet to your death? Please note that, due to the obvious dangers, there are certain criteria that you must meet before they let you go to Gale City, such as, do you have a heart condition, and do you have mind-transference on, or are you a suicidal moron? I’ve already gone on the ride several times, and I’m gonna end this here, so I can go back to see if I can beat my own record for the farthest fall without wings. Wild ride, friends, wild ride. Catch the wind, and fly out of control!

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 24, 2506

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The door was still open, but Octavia was now on the other side. She looked pretty upset and scared. “Come in! Come in!” she screamed. Mateo heard something behind him too, so he looked over his shoulder. Goddammit, another goddamn monster horde was coming after him. Was this ever going to end? Yeah, right now. He shuffled in through the door, and helped Octavia close it. They could hear the booms as the monsters pounded on it, trying to get through. “I thought they couldn’t cross the perimeter.”

“Rules have changed,” Octavia explained. “I think seeing me walk through this door last year broke something in them. Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you were in a simulation.”

“That literally happened to me, like, a few days ago.”

“Oh. So you know.”

“You’ve been here for the whole year?”

“Yeah,” she answered. They weren’t outside of the dome, per se, but now inside of an antechamber. The border wasn’t a single two dimensional wall, but a complete ring. If they were on the real Castlebourne, this plaza would be used for intake, maintenance, and other meta-purposes. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen, and I’ve been using this time to find your friends.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah, it hasn’t been easy,” Octavia went on as she was leading him down the corridor. “Obviously, they disappeared last year when you did, so they weren’t anywhere. I couldn’t just command drones to fly around and search for them. Optical cameras aren’t actually all that common. Security and logging systems rely predominantly on other sensors. I had to sift through this past data, looking for anomalies. I believe that I’ve pinpointed them to six domes. Now that you’re all back, we can find out for sure through those few optical cameras on scouting drones. I wanna show you something else first. One of the domes is different. It flagged something that I don’t recognize, and unlike the others, this anomaly appears to have been there during the whole interim year.”

“Oh, no.” Mateo knew what this was. Still, he followed her into a room full of monitors. She pulled up the feed that she was talking about, and confirmed his suspicions. It was Boyd Maestri, a.k.a. Buddha Maestri, a.k.a. Buddy. “Yeah, he’s...I know him.”

“Are you gonna break him out too?”

“I don’t see why I would. Where is this? Is that water, or is there something wrong with the feed?”

“Apparently, it’s Atlantis, so yes, it’s underwater. But it’s not consumed by water; it’s under a dome. But a smooth dome, rather than a geodesic one like they usually are.”

He sighed. “He looks like he’s doing fine, and doesn’t need to be rescued. He’s another bad guy...sort of.”

“Okay, well, he’s alone, so either one of these other domes is doubled up, or I missed one.”

Mateo nodded. “Pacey did say that not all of us would be alone. I thought he was referring to me, which was confirmed when you showed up, but hopefully there are others.”

They sat there for a few minutes, watching the drones hunt for the anomalies in realtime, instead of just old data. They found them. Ramses was in a snowy hell. Leona was in a museum, Angela on a river, and Marie in an old timey settlement of some kind. Oh, Dome for Pioneers, it said that right there at the bottom. Olimpia and Romana were thankfully together, and Pacey couldn’t have picked a better place than a cloud paradise. It was called Heavendome.

“I assume you wanna start with Leona?”

“She looks fine,” Mateo noted. “She’s just looking at the artifacts. Let’s get Ramses out first. It’s literally called Tundradome.”

“I postulate that the vactrain network is just like that door in that you have administrative access to it. I have not been able to leave, not that I had anywhere to go anyway.”

“You could have gone to The Bowl, and commandeered a ship.”

“I don’t know that that exists here. Like I said, this isn’t the real Castlebourne. We may not be in regular space.”

“Still, I appreciate you sticking around. You’re a good friend.” They hugged.

They took the circle line first to get to the vactrain station. It was a series of sealed tubes almost fully underground, which could take passengers anywhere in the world. There were hubs scattered around the globe, where these vactrains switched tracks when necessary, but some tracks had direct routes to each other, just based on proximity. The one between Bloodbourne and Tundradome was one of these connections. Ten minutes later, they were at their destination. According to the drone keeping watch over Ramses, he wasn’t too far from the station, but it was still going to be a little bit of a walk. Mateo and Octavia grabbed parkas from the locker room, and started to put them on, as well as the boots, scarved, and caps.

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird, that Pacey hasn’t done anything to try to stop us?” Paige asked.

“He told us that he didn’t want to mess with our memories too much, or make every choice for us. My theory is that he believes in some level of freewill, and freedom in general. We used our ingenuity to break out of our prison, and break into others, and he likely respects that. He doesn’t have to be our enemy, and he knows that. Or, his purview is limited, and he straight up doesn’t know that we’re here. In case that’s the explanation, let’s be careful and quick.”

They also found snowmobiles near the entrance to the tundra environment, so they drove right out to Ramses’ location, got him on board without a single word, and drove back. That really was easy. “Do you remember who you are?” Mateo asked once they were back inside.

“I remember everything,” Ramses answered.

“Me too.”

“I don’t have any powers, though, which is why I almost died out there.”

“You would be surprised. I materialized a solid knife made out of light in my hand.”

“Good for you,” Ramses murmured.

Mateo laughed. “Let’s get you warmed up. They had hot chocolate in the Bloodbourne intake plaza. I’m guessing that this one does too. It must.”

“Let’s just go,” Ramses requested. “I assume you know where the others are.”

“Leona’s closest,” Octavia answered, “but we will have to go through a conjunction.”

It took longer to get to her than it did to get to Ramses, but they still had plenty of time before next year stole them. She was less than enthusiastic about leaving. She owed her resistance to the fact that she had no clue who they were.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” she demanded to know.

“Leona, it’s me!”

“I don’t know you, I don’t know Leona.”

“Claudia’s in trouble,” Octavia said, randomly maybe?

“What?”

“She’s hurt, and you know, if she dies, this place dies.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s, umm...on a river,” Ramses improvised.

“Yeah, she was looking for the Rod of Moses.” Octavia cleared her throat, hoping that would work. “The snake bit her.”

“Why is she out in the field?” Leona lamented. “She’s always doing that, still thinks she’s an agent. Wait, the Staff of Moses should be in the religious power aisle.”

“Yeah, it was stolen,” Mateo said, hoping that she would find this believable.”

Leona growled. “Walter’s son.”

“Yeah, we think it was him.” Even Octavia didn’t know enough about whatever this place was all about, but this was working.

“Okay, let’s go.” Leona started to move, but then stopped. “Wait. I still don’t know who you people are.”

“We’re from...Warehouse 14,” Octavia lied. “So...better not ask any questions.”

Leona was still not convinced, so Mateo decided to take a gamble. He held his hand up between them. A holographic daisy sprouted from his palm, and then bloomed to full glory.

She regarded it with all-consuming interest. She didn’t think of anything else but this one light-based flower. She slowly lifted her gaze up to her husband’s face. “Mateo?”

“Are you starting to remember?”

“Yeah.” She looked away to consider it. “Yeah, I remember everything.”

“Triggers,” Ramses realized. “We all need triggers.”

“What was yours?” Mateo asked him.

“The cold,” he said. “My fictional persona was programmed to like the cold. I do not. And that became quite apparent within about three microseconds of being there.”

“Oh, Mateo, I almost lost you.” Leona wrapped her arms around Mateo’s neck to hug, and then kiss, him. She hugged Ramses too. “Paige! You’re here!”

“Octavia.”

Leona held up an index finger. “Got it.” There was a brief pause. “Where are the others? On a river, or was that just a lie to get me to go with you?”

“Angela is the one on the river,” Ramses replied. “It’s on the other side of the planet. The others are more over there too, but in different domes.”

“Which ones?” Leona pressed.

“Dome for Pioneers and Heavendome. Olimpia and Romana are sharing that one.”

“Let’s go to Dome for Pioneers first,” Leona suggested, “even if it’s farther away. It sounds terrible.”

“Hasn’t Marie done that kind of work before?” Olimpia asked as they were starting to leave the warehouse. “She lived in the 1800s.”

“Her father was quite wealthy,” Leona explained. “He literally had slaves do that work instead.”

“Oh.”

They went to Dome for Pioneers first. Marie was even more resistant to leave. They kept trying, but could not figure out her trigger. Nothing they said about her past—her real life—made her remember anything true about herself. As far as she was concerned, she had been born in a cabin twenty miles from here, walked with her family on the Oregon Trail when she was three and four years old, and had lived in this settlement ever since. She wouldn’t budge, and they didn’t want to force her. Not only was she becoming more and more frightened of them the more they insisted, the androids who were programmed to believe that they were other settlers were getting upset too, and very protective of her. Okay, at least they weren’t going to hurt her. The humans switched back to the original plan, and went to see Angela.

Angela was much more open to the idea that none of this was her real life, though she still didn’t want to leave. The way this dome worked was that an upper lake was the source of water to a river, which fed into a lower lake before being evaporated up, and rained back down. It might not have been as conventionally coveted as the Christo-centric interpretation of the afterlife, but it was still gorgeous and pleasant. Still, she said that she felt she could trust them, so she walked through the exit, and got on the vactrain. They then went back to Dome for Pioneers, where the Walton twins served as each other’s trigger. Now they only had one more place to go to collect the whole set. If Angela’s reluctance was any indication, it could be the hardest. Who in their right mind would ever want to leave heaven?

“Oh my God, this place is so boring!” Olimpia complained.

“You have a way out?” Romana asked. “Let’s go!”

“Do you remember us?” Mateo asked them.

“No. What? Why would we remember you? I don’t care who you are. If you have an exit, then point me to it. ¡Ándale!” Olimpia exclaimed.

“Seconded!” Romana agreed.

“Okay, great,” Ramses determined.

They started to walk back towards the elevator, but then Marie stopped them. “Wait, where are we going? Which dome is safe and preferable, or somehow beneficial?”

“Oh,” Mateo said, realizing that they hadn’t actually thought that far ahead yet. “Octavia, how did you get here in the first place?”

The group all looked at her, so she started to recoil a little. “It was a train. I found a line that looked like it didn’t go anywhere. Unlike the others, I think it was interdimensional. I ended up back where I was, but everything was different.”

“Where is this line?” Leona asked her. “You can’t access it from just anywhere?”

Octavia was still nervous. She shifted her focus from person to person. “Castledome. You have to go to Castledome.”

“Which is probably where Pacey is,” Romana lamented.

“It’s where he was,” Octavia agreed. He found me right quick, and took me to Bloodbourne.”

Mateo placed a hand on her shoulder. “Remember what I said with the car, that you had me to help you. That’s still true, but you now you also have them.” He indicated the group. “Castledome won’t be a problem.”

“No,” Leona concurred. “Let’s go.”

They took the vactrain back to the other side of the world, not speaking too much during the ride, but catching each other up a little. Mateo was able to trigger his daughter by recounting the story of when they first met, and Olimpia with a passionate kiss. They now all had a lot of memories that they didn’t have before, including their true pasts, their fabricated lives in Underburg, and the new ones from their respective domes since being separated. Something went wrong with navigation, which sent them on a detour away from Castledome. They ended up in Power Crystal Factor. Leona and Ramses tried to reroute them, but the controls were locked out. Someone wanted them here, almost certainly Pacey. With no other reasonable choice, they stepped off the train, crossed the ring, and walked through the main doors.

Pacey was waiting for them on the main floor. The name was fitting. He was surrounded by crystals of all shapes and colors, forming in their little growth chambers. They were sparkly, beautiful, and a little mesmerizing. Pacey still stole focus, though. He didn’t look mad, and definitely not surprised. He spoke first. “I’ll allow you to leave, but under one condition.”

“What’s that?” Leona asked, stepping forward, and resuming her role as their leader.

Pacey smirked. “All members of your party must be present at the reservation time. We do not seat partial parties.”

“Ah, shit,” Mateo said. “You’re gonna make us go get ‘im.”

“I’m gonna make you go get ‘im,” Pacey confirmed.

Mateo sighed. “And then we can go?”

“And then you can try to figure out how to leave,” Pacey corrected. “Whether you can actually do so is entirely up to you.”

“So that’s a no, you won’t let us.”

“I won’t actively stop you,” Pacey said. “But I won’t help you.”

“Well, at least we know he’s in Atlantis,” Octavia said encouragingly.

“He’s not necessarily there anymore,” Pacey countered. “The Recursiverse Immersive Experience takes the immersive part very seriously. It’s the largest dome network on the planet. It may take you a while, and you won’t have access to any tracking systems, or navigational data. But you might wanna take this.” He pulled one of the nearby crystals out of its slot, and offered it to them.

“What’s this?” Leona asked. It was totally clear while Pacey was holding it, but then it started to change to multiple colors once Leona took hold of it.

“You don’t know?” Pacey asked. “Ramses?”

“Never seen one like it,” Ramses said. “It’s technicolored, though, which is interesting.

Pacey nodded once with the corner of his lips turned down, but not in frown. “You’ll figure it out.” He ushered them back out to the train station.

“We’ll go to Atlantis first, and start on his trail from there,” Mateo suggested. “We’ll get it done faster than you think.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Pacey said as Team Matic was filing into the train car. “Good luck,” he added just before the doors closed.

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