The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 7, 2398

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Mateo, Angela, and Ramses can’t wait any longer. Angela had the bright idea to crack open the LIR Map, and see if it could give them any answers. They were all shocked that they hadn’t thought of it before, and not just for this situation. It could have been really helpful before they got into this mess, and might even help them find Danica Matic, or other answers. As Leona described it, the map worked like a comic book strip. Future or present events could be seen illustrated on the page, allowing the viewer to make certain decisions with an advantage. That’s not what is happening here. Each of them sees something different when they look at it.

Angela is seeing moving compasses with numbers on them. Some of these numbers are going down, and some are going up. As she turns her body around, the compasses rotate, and are not always pointing North. Interim deadlines, she presupposes. These are the places that she’ll be going, and when she’s going to get to each one, or maybe how long she has before time runs out. It’s annoyingly cryptic with the details.

When Ramses is in charge of the map, he sees an actual map. There is no legend, so it takes him a minute to decipher, but he realizes that some of the points of interest are places that he’s been, and some of them are probably places that he has yet to go. A couple of them have both kinds of markings, suggesting that he’ll return to those places. A few really important places that they frequent, such as the loft, the lab, and the tasty taco restaurant down the street have their own special markers.

Mateo doesn’t see anything at all when he tries to look at it, which he’s choosing to believe is because he just so happened to try it last, and the other two have the plan covered, so he would have only seen what’s already been seen anyway. Yeah, that’s probably it. “Why do you think it stops here, though?” he asks. Somehow, Ramses and Angela managed to take possession of the LIR Map at the same time, which combined what they were seeing into one image, which Mateo actually can see, and so could likely anyone else in the room.

“What do you mean? That’s our goal,” Ramses decides.

“No, our goal is to get our friends back, and come home safely. This stops at the Dead Sea. What do we do after that?”

“Maybe the map doesn’t know what happens after that,” Angela suggests.

“The map knows literally everything,” Mateo argues. “I once saw Lincoln flip out when he went to another universe, because he was suddenly seeing an entirely different timestream than the one he normally does.”

“What are you saying?” Ramses questions.

“The map doesn’t show us what it knows. It shows us what we’re allowed to know. It’s psychic.”

Angela stands up straighter, and looks away from the console of The Olimpia. “Or it shows us decisions.” She pauses, but the other two don’t bother asking for more information, because they know she’ll go on. “We know to go to the Dead Sea, instead of the colony blocks, because our friends have already chosen to go there. Yeah, they’ll arrive in the future, but it’ll be part of the plan. They’ve not come up with a plan beyond that, and neither have we, so we can’t see it. It’s like The Oracle in The Matrix films.”

“That’s not how Lincoln’s power worked,” Mateo contends. “He could see everything, including alternate paths. He saw all timelines, even ones that hadn’t been created yet.”

“Well, it’s like you said,” Angela continues, “we’re not allowed to see all that. It’s restricted. I don’t know why, but I can make an educated guess.” It seems unlikely that the limitation would be built into the document when it was created. It probably has more to do with it presently being in this reality, which they know handles time and time travel in weird ways. Still, this should help enough. They know where they need to go at this very moment, and that’s more than most people get.

“So it can never tell us the future unless someone has already decided upon it,” Ramses laments. “Who has to decide? Obviously not just the map user, because we didn’t know we needed to go to Birket until today.”

“Didn’t we?” Mateo poses. “We all wanted to go to Birket. The map didn’t tell us that, it just proved that we got some follow-through. This reality; it’s different. Nothing and no one is all-knowing...or someone is, and they always squash their competitors.”

“It doesn’t matter what we don’t know,” Angela determines. “We have to go to Birket, we’re going to Birket. We spend most of our time understanding the future, but not knowing too many details. I’m sure we’ll get through this too, even with the limitations.”

Angela was right, but barely. They make it all the way to the Dead Sea, just in time to find Leona, Marie, Kivi, and Heath by water’s edge, along with another guy. As soon as they land, sirens go off, and a squadron of fighter jets starts heading their way. Leona throws a jug of Energy Water through the hatchway, but she doesn’t step in herself. She orders them to take off vertically, and teleport under the cover of clouds. Mateo frowns at her, but she doesn’t explain any further. Ramses reluctantly agrees, and takes off again, leaving the team on the ground. Angela monitors the computers so Ramses can inject the temporal hydroxide into the engine. After they successfully escape without the air force firing a single shot, they find a stranger in their midst.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 29, 2398

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Heath is pacing around the living room, talking to his wife on the phone. The other four are watching him, worried. It’s hard to tell how the conversation is going, but it’s clear by now that she and Kivi are at least not dead or hurt. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah,” he repeats. “Okay.” He nods, unhappy, but trying to be patient with her. “No, they’ll understand.” He continues immediately, “even Mateo.” He pauses. “All right, we’ll see you when you get back. Be safe.” He pauses one last time. “Love you.” He hangs up, but doesn’t say anything right away.

“Are they okay?” Leona asks him.

“They’re fine.”

“Are they on their way back?” Mateo asks.

“They’re not. They’re in Florida.”

“What? How did they get there?”

“Apparently, Marie wanted to see the plot of land where she grew up,” Heath begins. “In this reality, in these days, it’s an airport. It doesn’t go to very many places, but one of the destinations just so happens to be Orlando, Florida.”

“Okay...does she have a thing for Orlando, errr...?”

“It’s near something called the Fountain of Youth?” He answers in the form of a question.

Oh, that makes sense, sort of. “Well, it’s not,” Leona contends. “They founded the city of Orlando relatively close to the location of a spring that no longer exists.” She goes on, “my namesake, Juan Ponce de León once looked for it in 1513, and found it to already be dried up. He did find the Compass of Disturbance, though.”

“That sounds bad. Marie never mentioned it, what is it?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she assures him. “It just detects temporal anomalies; rifts in the spacetime continuum, invisible portals, the spot where a teleporter disappeared from, etcetera. The spring is hard to find, and even more so now. Juan once described the terrain for me, but his info is almost 900 years out of date. Even then, to get Youth water, you probably have to be there centuries prior.”

“So, what is the point of them going there?” Heath asks.

“They’re probably just doing their best to check it off the list,” Mateo figures.

“Well, they don’t have to do it alone,” Heath decides as he’s looking at the map on his phone. “We can be there in three hours.”

“I don’t think that’s what she wants,” Angela says in a warning tone.

“It could be dangerous,” he argues.

“She can’t get hurt,” Ramses reminds him.

“Kivi can! I know you four don’t remember her, but I’ve known her as long as I’ve known you.”

“We’ve known her longer than that,” Leona volleys. “Both of them are capable and cautious women who have been through more than your wife has had time to tell you. She’s been around the block. The farm where she grew up is an airport. I’m sure the location of the former Youth Spring is a baseball diamond, or something.”

“What the hell is a baseball?”

“Out of all the dumb sports,” Angela replies, “it’s the least dumb.”

Heath has grown weary of being away from his wife so much. He’s noticed that she’s the one who keeps doing the leaving, even though at one point, he was meant to go off on these adventures with Mateo. Once they get past this, things are going to change. Ramses, Leona, and Angela have their new business to think about, which will hopefully resupply the funds that dwindled quite a bit when the majority of the team showed up. The only dangerous outsiders who might care about that both Marie and Angela exist already know about them, and the back-up twin thing they have going on. There is no reason why Marie and Heath can’t now begin the real mission of studying time travel in the Third Rail. Mateo should come too, and Kivi, if she isn’t interested in anything else.

“Are you doing okay?” Angela asks after he takes too long to react.

“I’m fine. I’m just going to go take a bath, and clear my head.”

“Okay.”

If Marie were here, she would be able to stop him from taking the bath, because that’s usually when he takes the time to locate and purchase something that costs them far too much.

Microstory 1723: Pair of Compasses

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Pamela. You are my compass. When you found me, I was nothing. I was going nowhere in my life. My father, may his soul rest in peace, did everything he could to point me in the right direction, but when I lost him, I lost myself. Instead of honoring his memory, I continued on a pointless path, and made nothing of myself. Then you came along; my light in the dense forest. You showed me that it wasn’t too late, and that there was still hope for me. I will forever be grateful for where we have gone together, and how far we’ve come. Now, I know that I strayed from the path a little, and for that, I will forever be ashamed. But you forgave me my transgressions, and that just proves how perfect we are as a team. You knew that, even then—even after all I did—with my ex...and her ex, and your sister...and your sister’s ex—you knew—you knew that I was still redeemable. I will never be able to make up for what I did, but I believe together, we can walk towards a beautiful future. I will no longer attempt to walk alone, or find my own way. I will surrender to your wisdom. Your needle always points North, and knowing that, we can make our way to any way that we wish. Um. I think this metaphor is getting to be a little too much. Just give me a second. Notecards, I know, but...just hold on. (Let’s see, don’t want to bring this up—I’ve rethought this whole part of the  speech—my brother said that was an inappropriate—hold for laught—oh, never mind). Okay. Pamela. Poetry aside, I would just like to promise you that I have successfully changed my ways. You changed me, and you won’t have to worry about me ever again. As long as you’re by my side, I’m certain that we can get through anything. I vow to be faithful and fearless, interesting and inspiring, mesmerizing and motivating, and successful and satisfying. I can’t wait to begin the next leg of our journey together. Thank you.

Chaz. I think you’re right, I’m a compass. But you are a compass as well. You could even say that we are a pair of compasses. I don’t mean that we’re just two mariner’s compasses. We are the drafting instrument that architects and engineers use to make their designs accurate. I don’t mean to say that we are building something great, or that our home is perfect. The truth is that nothing has been remotely perfect about our lives together. Yes, you cheated on me, and I’m not sure why we needed a rundown of your offenses. Well...I think we all know that those were only about half of your offenses, and that it only includes the ones I actually know about. Who knows how many more there are? Which children here today are yours? Do we even know? I joke, I joke. You’re right, I forgave you for what you did. And that brings us back to my metaphor. (I admit, I took a peek at your vows, which is why I’m prepared to say what I’m saying now). When I took you back, my friends pointed out what we mean to each other, and what our potential is. I didn’t listen to them, but now I know that we truly are a pair of compasses. You see, the compass drawing tool involves two legs. One is steady. It stays in place, while the other makes the drawing. You are the steady leg. You plant yourself in one spot, and I revolve around you. That is our pattern. All we do is make circles. Sure, we can make smaller circles, and sometimes even larger ones, but we can never escape the pattern. We just go ‘round, and around, and around. The only way to break the cycle is for me to break the compass, and set myself free. So I’m leaving you, Chaz. You can sleep with whomever it is you want. It’s not my problem anymore. Goodbye.

Microstory 1216: Ladonna Buhle

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Ladonna Buhle was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on October 21, 1981. Her parents were not in a financial position to get her help when she started talking about seeing angels floating in the air all over the place. They couldn’t stop her from claiming that these things were real, but with any luck, they could stop her from telling everyone in town about them. As it turned out, her ability was similar to Vidar Wolfe’s. She could detect temporal anomalies, which included objects with unusual properties, and also people with powers of their own, or salmon patterns. She couldn’t inherently take advantage of these things, but that didn’t mean they weren’t useful to her. She was strong and formidable, and crossing her was generally a bad idea, especially not when she was grown, and figured out the truth about what she was seeing. She kept in touch with her family as best she could, but like so many others, she pretty much shed her old life, and started traveling the world. Ladonna could go to any time and place of her choosing, as long as she found the right anomaly to cross through, but she chose to stay in the present day. She wasn’t worried about the act of altering the past itself, but she didn’t like the idea of there being multiple versions of her with the potential to interact with each other. It shook her religious core, and caused her existential anxiety. So she essentially became a teleporter, except she could only go to and from certain places. Anomalies were difficult to use properly, but with enough time and patience, she could figure anything out. But her power wasn’t what made her special. Others could detect—or even utilize—natural spacetime anomalies, and temporal objects. Her greatest contribution came because she studied them, and understood how they worked on a fundamental level. She created the first map of nonlinear spacetime, and it was her research that became the foundation for The Weaver’s invention of the Compass of Disturbance. Like Ladonna, the compass could detect and access anomalies, among other things, but any human could operate it. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this development. Theoretically, it was a dangerous thing to exist, but the only people who ever used it proved themselves to be noble and trustworthy, so she made her peace with the consequences of her choices. After some years of travel, it started to get a little dull for her. Sure, there were lots of places she hadn’t seen yet, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see them. She wasn’t the type of person who could experience more awe or joy while standing in an impressively constructed building than she could just by using the right tools on the internet. She found landscapes to be beautiful and calming, but this sense of tranquility was interrupted every time she tried to go somewhere new, so she eventually decided to settle down in just one beautiful place. She chose to make her home at Brooks Lake. It was the aquatic hub of Earth, naturally connecting every significantly large body of water to this one, relatively small, body. The transition from it to another place was so smooth that she even considered the trip itself to be a relaxing experience. It was here that she lived out the rest of her days, until she was killed for trying to get others to see things her way, and carrying out her beliefs in a way that contradicted her own values.

Microstory 1174: Juan Ponce de León

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Famous explorer, Juan Ponce de León lived in the late fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries. But he also lived in an incalculably high number of other time periods. When he arrived on the Florida coast, he was surprised to find another apparent westerner waiting for him there. The woman spoke of the Fountain of Youth, which up until that point, Juan had never heard of. Still, he was curious, so he broke from his crew, and set about on a journey through the wilderness. Upon reaching what was supposedly his destination, he discovered what appeared to be a dried up river bed. At first he was discouraged, not in disappointment for having missed out on a magical elixir that could make him immortal, but because he felt a fool for having believed it existed in the first place. Just to be safe, however, he decided to dig, but did not intend to go very deep. Perhaps the water was deep underground. He just kept thinking that he only need scoop out one more handful, and water would spring forth. It never did, but he did eventually come across a compass. It must have been buried there for a long time, but it was in pristine condition. Curious, he started fiddling with the device, and after awhile, a rectangular light appeared before him, as if he had created it. Curiouser still, he pushed forward, and stepped into the light, where he found himself face to face with a bus. The bus was not moving, so he was in no danger, but he had no clue what this magnificent structure was. He looked around, and discovered there to be dozens of other buses like it, all in a row. He walked a little farther, until he came upon the road, where similar vehicles were ferrying their passengers to various destinations. He continued to do what he does best, and explored this strange new world, quickly learning this to be hundreds of years in the future. He only stopped when he finally encountered a library, where he could learn almost everything he wanted to know about what had happened to the world after he’d left it.

When he wasn’t studying the books, Juan was studying his new compass. Over time, he learned to navigate this special time object, and moved all across time and space, meeting all sorts of interesting people. Other time travelers started calling him The Navigator, which he had to admit, he quite liked. He learned several languages, beheld beautiful things, and witnessed terrible tragedies. He kept fairly detailed journals of his experiences, but even he didn’t quite know how long he had been gone from home. The possibility of a Fountain of Youth continued to nag at him, and he felt compelled to learn more about it. Certain other travelers believed it to be real, in some form, but even they thought the immortality water was just too difficult to procure. Yet he persisted in his search. Many times, some of the ingredient waters were in his grasp, but he had to give it up, to help others, or because he wouldn’t be able to find all of the ingredients in time. Each one was in a different place and time, and would go bad if they weren’t all found before the timer ran out. Following what must have been years from his perspective, Juan decided to create a map. He sought out each ingredient independently, but did not take any. Instead, he simply confirmed its authenticity, and then moved onto the next, until he had a clear picture of everything he would need. Then, he got a good night’s rest, tied his sweet kicks, and set about on his journey. He literally ran through the continuum, opening portals like a pro, and never stopping until he had checked off the entire list. His efforts proved fruitful, when he drank the waters, and became truly immortal. So now, Juan Ponce de León could never be killed, but that still left him with a terrible conundrum. He hadn’t seen his family in many years, and once he returned to them, would have to watch them die. This he could not have. He got his hands on something called a homestone, which delivers its user directly to when and where they first were when they first started traveling through time. He went back to his family, and his life. Then he frequently ushered everyone he cared about through his compass portals, and along the route towards the immortality waters. His whole family, sooner or later, became just like him. Now the only question that remained was, where in the world could they possibly live?

Microstory 1161: Ida Reyer

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After the death of her husband, Ida Laura Pfeiffer decided to fulfill her dream of becoming an explorer. She went all over the world, from Brazil to Persia; Australia to Oregon. She also jumped through time. In 1851, she found herself in Kansas City when it was still in its very early infancy, and there she met a woman named Holly Blue. Holly Blue was from the future, and after a weeks-long relationship, sort of accidentally admitted to Ida who she really was. Ida asked her to take her with her on trips throughout spacetime, but Holly Blue refused. At this point in her own personal history, she hadn’t yet discovered a way for nontravelers to safely travel through time. Certain people were capable of it, while others would experience terrible medical issues. She later overturned this decision, but it was long after Ida had left Kansas City, and returned to her life. Holly Blue went back to eleven years before they were meant to meet, and rewrote her own history—and Ida’s. She bequested Ida one of her newest, and most valuable inventions, which she called The Compass of Disturbance. Holly Blue disappeared without giving any explanation for why she chose Ida for this give, presumably not wanting to repeat their unfortunate breakup. The compass turned out to be a powerful tool. Its main purpose was to seek out, and stabilize, natural tears in the continuum, which would allow a user to travel through them, even if they wouldn’t otherwise be able to survive the trip unharmed. It had other functions as well, but it took months of trial and error to understand them all. And so Ida began to lead a double life. She spent part of her time exploring the world in her own time period, but part of it elsewhere. She particularly enjoyed going into the far, far future, because life there was just so fundamentally different. In her travels, she encountered others, but they were born to manipulate time, and did not require technology to do so. She learned of special places with unusual temporal properties, and of other objects that regular humans would be able to utilize. She even discovered that there was a way to live forever, given the right ingredients. Unlike her successor, Juan Ponce de León, Ida had no interest in finding immortality water, or in living forever. She wanted to live a full life, partially in the future, and partially in her own time, and she wanted to write about her travels. The reason she kept exploring her own world was so that she could publish her adventures, and build a legacy. That was her way of living forever. She knew it wouldn’t be safe to author her time travel stories, but she kept a fairly detailed diary in the internal memory of the Compass of Disturbance itself. A few years in, she met someone who recommended she go ahead and publish those works, so they could be distributed to people who had the permission to see them. She took her up on that advice, and eventually ended up with a full series on her life that most people in the world would never see, yet it made her more famous than would have been without the books. The woman who suggested she do that was known as The Historian, and anyone wishing to read her work, or those of others like her, could find copies in the library section of her museum on Tribulation Island.

Microstory 1115: Aquila Bellamy

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Most choosing ones are born of two parents without time powers. There appears to be some possible genetic/hereditary component, but this proves that it is not required. A chooser is a person with an innate connection to the fabric of reality, in some way. Their brains are wired just so, and that has more to do with (very) early development than it does conception. Samson Bellamy and Lauren Gardner were not choosers. They were salmon, which meant a hidden group of people called the powers that be were controlling them. Since this control was virtually inescapable, they only procreated because they were allowed to. It would appear that two salmon always produce a child who will turn out to be a choosing one. They are not necessarily any different than any other chooser; nor more powerful, nor rarer on their own. They are, however, treated much differently. They will be removed from their parents’ care at the age of three, and raised by another. This is the only time the powers that be will directly interfere with a choosing one’s affairs. Aquila Bellamy was this kind of choosing one. She was adopted by a couple who had no idea who she was. They weren’t even given her real name, and decided to call her Frida. She spent most of her life oblivious to her origins, and in fact, died before ever discovering what her powers were. When she was in her thirties, she came across a compass she would later be told was the Compass of Disturbance. She followed its needle all the way to the woods in the middle of nowhere, where two strangers were fighting over what she thought to be a simple tool. But it was not simple at all. The Artist’s chisel was capable of altering people on a temporal level, even going so far as to imbue them with powers they did not have before. An accident caused Frida to be struck by this tool, and she suffered for near-eternity because of it. She started jumping aimlessly throughout time and space, never staying in one spot for long enough to utter but one thought to anyone who happened to be close enough to hear it. She saw her family and friends at different points in their lives, and in different realities. She gained huge perspective, but could not help, but in a very limited capacity. Finally, the man responsible for her affliction was killed, and she was able to transfer that affliction to the body he had been occupying. This immediately killed her, but at least she was free from the endless torture.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: Prototype

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Leona looked behind her to make sure that Khuweka wasn’t gesturing towards someone else. There was no one else there, so she must have been gesturing towards her. Everyone was waiting for her to get this machine going, but she had no idea. “Why would I know how to work this thing? Just because I’m smart and educated, doesn’t mean I’m qualified to operate a machine that travels to other universes.”

“Well, not you specifically,” Khuweka said, “but that compass should do the trick.”

Leona looked down at her tattoo. It wasn’t moving or glowing, like it usually did when it wanted to tell her something. “How would I interface this thing with the controls?”

A gentle alarm began ringing from one of the terminals. Khuweka leaned forward and peered at the screen. “I can’t say for sure. All I know is you’re meant to get us out of here, which you should do quickly, because they’re coming.”

Leona started to wave her arm over the console, even pressing her skin against the smoother parts, but nothing worked. “Maybe you need to rethink your source, because I don’t think my compass can do what you say.”

“I was told you would have everything you needed,” Khuweka said cryptically. “They’re getting uncomfortably close.”

“Oh wait,” Vitalie said excitedly. “Hogarth needed a flashlight to check under the panels, and we noticed something strange.” She took out the Rothko Torch and shined it on Leona’s tattoo. The compass began spinning around and swirling. The light reflected off her arm, and scattered about the command center in all sorts of colors. More of the system awakened, and an engine of some kind started powering up.

“What are we looking for next?” Hogarth asked loudly through the noise. “Think about that, and if Khuweka is right, the compass will tell the machine! Even though that sounds insane!”

Leona did as she was told, and started thinking about the HG Goggles. She didn’t know exactly what they looked like, but their original owner, Hokusai Gimura once described them as steampunk. The engine noises subsided into a steadier and more tolerable volume, but never ceased.

A man walked in from the other room, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He was scratching his mussed up hair on the back of his head, yawning, and blinking at the lights. “What’s going on here?” He looked around at them after his eyes were finished adjusting. “Most of you are human.”

“Hi, I’m Kivi. Who are you?”

“Vito.”

“Bulgari?” Leona asked.

“Yeah, heard of me?”

“Yes,” Vitalie said. “You died in pocket four. You were trying to help Serif and little Adamina get back to the ship.”

Vito yawned some more and walked over to a corner. “You were terribly misinformed. I can turn invisible.” He pushed some buttons and revealed what looked suspiciously like a coffee pot. “Anybody want anything? It kind of tastes like tea and urine, but it wakes ya up.”

“I think we’re good,” said the other man, whose name Leona still hadn’t learned.

“I would love some,” Khuweka said graciously. “It doesn’t taste like that to me.”

“Have you been here the whole time?” Vitalie questioned.

“Not the whole time. Missy, Dar’cy, and the rest of the people who wanted to have their powers removed went back in time, and showed up not long after the universe was created. We lived in secret for awhile. Or I should say that they lived in secret. I lived in super secret, because I was invisible.”

“So it doesn’t work?” Leona asked. “They keep their powers.”

“No, it worked,” he replied as he was pouring Khuweka a cup of the Maramon tea. “A few of them wanted their powers back, though. The rumor was Eden Island would allow them to do it, so that’s where they went. I followed them in secret, as per usual.”

“That’s impossible,” Khuweka said. “I was on the island when that group showed up. You were not there, and you could not have been invisible, because the thing that took people’s powers was inescapable. It affected everyone in the whole world, except for Serif, because she wasn’t there.”

“It affected me too,” Vito said, taking a sip. “It was different for me, though. I was in a state of invisibility at the time, and it was in that state that I remained. I needed my powers back if I wanted people to see me, which is why I went with them.”

“Where are they now, the ones who wanted their powers back?” Leona asked him.

He lifted his cup towards Khuweka. “She can fill in the rest.”

Khuweka hesitated, but knew she needed to explain herself. “Like I said, I was there, because Serif asked me to be. She gave me a sample of her healing nanites, which I was intending to supply to your friends. Something went wrong, and everyone there, including me, ended up with all of the powers. I can teleport like Curtis, disintegrate like Lucius, thread objects like Dar’cy, diagnose powers like Avidan, create time bubbles like Missy, and slip time like...uhh...never mind.” She was referring to the older Dubravka, who little Dubra here had yet to become, so it was best to leave her out of the story. “They’re also immortal, like I always was.” She glared at Vito. “As far as I know, though, I can’t turn invisible.”

Vito smirked. “Are you sure? Have ever tried?”

She didn’t answer.

He continued, “you knew what the other people’s powers were, so it was easy for you to replicate them. You didn’t know about me, so it never occurred to you.”

“I guess I could try now.”

“Stop,” Leona nearly shouted. “You were telling us what happened to our friends.”

“Right,” Khuweka said innocently. “Sorry. From what we gathered, hey were sent to other universes.”

“From what you gathered? What does that mean?”

“You know that big circle of Maramon you found yourself in when you first arrived in Ansutah?” Khuweka prompted.

“Yeah...?”

“They were attempting to travel to your universe, through a portal created by a woman named Ezqava Eodurus. You may know her as Effigy.”

“Yes,” Hogarth recalled. “I do know her.”

Khuweka continued, “Some good people, including Hogarth here, corrupted that portal. That’s what created those monsters on Durus. Whenever any of my people tried to cross over, they came out wrong on the other side. But it was their only hope, because very few of us knew that the prototype Crossover was still somewhere in Ansutah, and even few knew where exactly. Apparently Vito’s been sleeping in it.”

“Guilty,” Vito confirmed.

“How did Vearden, and all those other humans get their hands on the real Crossover?” Leona asked.

“There was a technical error when we all accidentally slipped time to the future, to a time when Maramon still had control of the machine. What we believe happened was it expelled everyone inside of it throughout the bulkverse, seemingly randomly, before the machine itself was lost in one of them. Effigy presumably landed in your universe, and was trying to call for reinforcements. And now we’re here, in the prototype, trying to travel to one of these universes.”

“Are we going to run into one of our friends then?” Leona asked her.

“I assume they’re as immortal as me, so it’s possible, but we would have to land sometime after they did, and the chances of us happening upon one of those universes are pretty slim. We just don’t have the data.”

Leona sighed. This was a lot of information, and she didn’t feel like much of it was useful. It was better when they could hope Missy and Dar’cy had completed their mission, but now there was so much more to worry about.

“This is all amazing to know,” the other man said. “I do have some business back in my home universe, so how long will it be until we get there?”

Khuweka pressed some buttons, and looked at the monitor again. “There’s no telling how long it will be until we get back, because I don’t know what these kids are trying to find. It will be another eight months or so until we arrive at our destination.”

“That won’t work,” Leona complained. “I’m going to disappear in a few hours. Where will I return?”

Khuweka tilted her chin. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere. You’re one of those salmon, right?”

“Yeah...?”

The white monster almost laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think the gods who control you can reach you here. You should be good.”

She turned out to be right about that. The eight of them spent as many months in the Crossover prototype together. It was equipped with a quantum food replicator, and just enough living quarters for each of them. Leona asked why her baby was apparently not growing the whole time, but Khuweka had no certain answer for this. Though metabolism persisted throughout the journey, the bulkverse itself didn’t follow the same rules of time, so maybe all aging was halted. The Prototype also had tons of original entertainment, but all of it was from Ansutah, and thusly all in the Maramon language, which ultimately led them to learning it in a conversational capacity. Khuweka learned how to turn things invisible, while Dubra learned everything she would have in a school setting had she not been sheltered by her mother for her whole life. They learned all about each other too. The other man’s name was Kallias Bran. He seemed to not be salmon, nor choosing one, nor chosen one, nor spawn, yet he had a lot of experience with this life. When it was all over, Khuweka led them out of the machine, and breathed in the fresh air over a cemetery. It was chillingly quiet. “Welcome to whatever it is they call this universe.”

A voice came from above, “most people don’t name their universes, because they think theirs is the only one.” The woman gracefully hopped off the roof of the prototype, and landed on the ground with no problem. “People here are different. We call it the Composite Universe. You came to this world at a bad time, though.”

“Why is that, Savitri?” Khuweka asked, apparently having already met this mysterious young woman.

“Everyone’s dead.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: Ansutah

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The humans were being carted out the portal crater in chains by Maramon guardsmen. Missy and Dar’cy were being escorted separately in a different direction, and the crowd was quickly dispersing. A white monster hopped over to the five of them, and took Leona forcefully by the shoulders. “Jiva paol dafa laidi kesto!” he shouted to his friends.

“Jida gar pepaol!” another shouted back, before addressing someone next to him. “Dwesi jilarl.”

The one who already had Leona checked something that looked suspiciously like a watch on his wrist. “Kret!”

The third Maramon jogged over, and prepared to take Leona off the first one’s hands, who appeared to be in a hurry to get somewhere else. Suddenly, this other random Maramon teleported between them. She held her hand up, and tore the jogger into millions of pieces, just like a certain choosing one named Lucius could do. Everyone who had witnessed this was too much in shock to do anything about it, except for the one who had captured Leona. He let go, and went over to attack the molecular teleporter. Before he could reach her, she disappeared again, and reappeared right behind him. She kicked him in the back of the head, and let him fall to the ground. The rest of her people dropped out of their trance, and prepared their own attack. The good Maramon lifted both hands, and trapped them in a temporal bubble, before turning to face the humans. “Which one of you is the engineer?” she asked.

They all couldn’t help but turn their heads toward Hogarth.

“You need to get to the prototype,” the Maramon ordered, handing her a slip of paper. “Here are the directions. It should have plenty of power, but it may require some repairs, and we need all the time we can spare. You’ll need one assistant at least, but you can’t take Leona or Dubravka. I need them both.”

“Not that we’re not grateful for whatever it is you just did for us,” Leona began, “but who exactly are you?”

The Maramon looked from one to another, to another. “It was my understanding you would know of me. I’m Khuweka. Khuweka Kadrioza? Also known as Keynote? I thought you came looking for me.”

“We came looking for someone else,” Vitalie corrected.

“Well, yeah,” Khuweka said. “I meant that I’m the one who can take you to Serif. I thought you knew that. Okay, that makes things more complicated. I would really love it if you just trusted me.”

“Why would we do that?” Dubra asked.

“Because I pledged my loyalty to your mother years ago. Don’t you already know this? Something’s wrong, your memory isn’t intact.”

“Who’s your mother?” Kivi asked Dubra.

Dubravka ignored Kivi, and spoke to Khuweka, “if you’re telling the truth, then you know what to say to prove it to me.”

“Yes,” Khuweka said. She cleared her throat. “Your father was a great man...but now he’s nothing.”

Dubra sighed. “She’s telling the truth. Do whatever she says.”

“What?” Hogarth questioned.

“Just do it,” Leona told her, trust Dubra’s judgment.

“Both of you go too,” Dubra said to Vitalie and Kivi. “If we’re headed where I think we are, Leona and I should go alone.”

“Where is it that we’re going?” Leona asked after the other three went off to find this prototype Khuweka mentioned.

“You need to be there with the other humans,” Khuweka replied. “Serif should already be on her way.”

“What will you be doing?” Dubra asked her.

“I’ll be helping Missy, Dar’cy, and Kallias.”

Leona pointed behind them. “They were taken that way.”

“I know,” Khuweka said, nodding. “But before I go, you need to understand something. Not everything is going to work out as you wanted, but it will turn out okay.”

“What does that mean?”

Khuweka stopped walking, but ushered them onwards. “The guards in there are gonna underestimate the humans, because they don’t know any better. The best way to get out...is to get in first.” She teleported away.

“What did she mean by that?” Dubra asked Leona.

“It means we have to get caught,” Leona said with a slight growl. “How many times am I going to be locked up?”

“Is that the setup to a joke?”

“Who is your mother?” Leona asked her. “Who is your father? Who is that Maramon, and how do you know we can trust her? Why did you come with us?”

“A long time ago, a clever girl came up with a list of rules for time travel,” Dubra began. “Until the reality where she did that, time travel was chaotic. Choosers jumped around, doing whatever they wanted, making any changes they saw fit, sometimes at the expense of their own kind. Leona, your rules marked a dramatic shift in the way people like us live our lives, and I’m not sure you’ve seen enough to appreciate the impact you’ve made.”

“What does that have to do with anything? I didn’t come up with the rules on my own. I’ve read and seen a lot of time travel stories, and their problems always come about when they don’t respect these rules.”

“It has to do with everything,” Dubra said as they were nearing what was an apparent white monster police station. “I knew more about you than I let on when we first met, because that was not the first time I met you. I’ve already met Khuweka as well, and the only reason I questioned her was because I’m racist, and I can’t tell these creatures apart. But now I know it’s her, and I know what we have to do. The rules you devised matter, because everything you’ve done—everything I’ve done—has led us to this moment, and later, it will lead us to the next moment.” Some Maramon guards noticed their arrival, and were taking defensive positions. “I promise this will all make sense, starting in a few minutes.”

The guards aggressively dragged them through the building, and into the holding cells. Hundreds of other humans were there, confused but still hopeful. They were there to be rid of their special time powers, for various reasons, but none of them had any idea how that would actually happen. Leona wished them well, and hoped whatever it was they were looking for, it wouldn’t affect her and her friends, at least not until she found Mateo.

They sat in the cell for a little while before a ruckus erupted, and started coming closer to the cells. Lucius, the one most famous for the ability to teleport objects and people on the molecular level, appeared from around the corner. He used his power to destroy the cell bars. Curtis came up from behind him to help usher people out, but he wasn’t doing it alone.

“Missy,” Leona said.

“Whoa, what are you doing here?”

“I came to get Serif back,” Leona said.

“What happened?”

“She was in Ansutah when it separated from the Warren.”

“Dowhatnow?”

“Not here.” She didn’t need all the other people to hear what they were talking about. They stepped into one of the cells. She proceeded to tell Missy the story of their return trip on the Warren; how two people in the fourth pocket dimension caused it to grow large enough to be its own universe, which was where they were right now. She didn’t tell her everything, though. She didn’t bother talking about the corrupted reality with Ulinthra, because it wasn’t relevant. “Oh forgive me. This is Dubravka...uhh. I don’t know your last name,” Leona realized.

“It’s Matic.”

Leona laughed. “Wait, really? Are we related?”

“Leona, your name isn’t really Matic. I don’t understand why you went by it, even when you couldn’t remember Mateo.”

“Ya know, I don’t really know either.” It was an interesting question, which Leona never thought to try to answer. “So you’re related to him?”

“He’s my father,” Dubra said.

“What? I’m not your mother, am I? Are you from a different reality?”

“I’m her mother,” came a voice from around the corner. Serif appeared, holding the hand of a young girl. “Yes. Adult!Dubra, meet Young!Dubra. Young!Dubra, this is what you grow up to be.”

“I suppose I could do worse,” a sassy Young!Dubra said.

“Mom, I thought I was coming here to change the past,” Adult!Dubra said to Serif. “But I’m just closing my loop!”

“I don’t want you to change the past,” Serif said. She was many years older than before, having aged across thousands of real-time years since Leona saw her.

“I do!” Adult!Dubra cried.

“This is your home,” Serif argued.

“My home sucks,” both versions of Dubravka screamed simultaneously.

Missy leaned towards Leona. “If these two get too close to each other, is this building gonna blow up, and turn the leaves red?”

“What? No,” Leona replied, but it was a fair question.

Serif handed her younger daughter’s hand to Leona. “You need to go with Mother Leona now. She’ll take you to our universe...eventually. Miss Atterberry, you need to get out there to the meeting with all the other people who want their powers to be removed. Dubravka, go with her,” she said to her adult daughter.

“Why would I do that?” Adult!Dubra asked.

“Stick with her, and you’ll end up exactly where you’re meant to be. I promise you won’t spend much more time in this universe. Don’t get separated from Missy and Dar’cy, though. Remember to pull Adamina back into the timestream before you leave.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Adult!Dubra said. Then she started tearing up, and hugging her mother tightly.

Missy and the older Dubravka left to continue on their own paths.

“I guess that means you remember Mateo,” Serif asked Leona.

“I remember everything.”

“You weren’t quite in love with me until Mateo was erased from the timeline.”

“Like I said, I remember everything, including my real relationship with you, and I still love you. Now that you’re here, we can get him back together.”

Serif sighed. “I’m afraid I will not fit on the prototype.”

“We’ll make room,” Leona said, now suspecting this prototype was a machine capable of taking them back home, like The Crossover.

“I don’t mean that literally. I’m vital to this universe, and I can’t leave until they can start traveling to other planets.”

“How’s that?”

“Half the population exists for part of the day, and the other half exists during another part. What you see here is just a skeleton crew in the middle. I’m the one who keeps that powered. If I don’t show up every year to charge the magical batteries, overpopulation will restart the war.”

“I can do that too. I can charge the batteries.”

“That’s not better, Leona. That’s just different. I’m staying. You’re going. And you’re taking my daughter with you. Promise me you’ll keep her safe.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Careful.” Khuweka walked into the cell with a kind smile. “Spoilers.” She addressed Serif, “I shall take care of them both.”

“All of them,” Serif said.

Khuweka bowed her head. “Of course.” She pulled a metal object out of her back pocket. “I found the Jayde Spyglass in the museum.”

Leona pulled her sleeve back, and checked her compass tattoo. “Oh, that’s what I’m here for. I totally forgot about that.”

Khuweka opened her arms like she was getting ready for a big hug. “Come on. I’ll transport us right into the Crossover prototype.”

“Let’s just have a few minutes to say goodbye,” Leona requested.

Serif shook her head. “Just because most of the Maramon don’t exist right now, doesn’t mean it’s safe. You need to go. I love you.”

“I love you.”

After Young!Dubra gave her mother one last hug, she and Leona went over to Khuweka, who wrapped them in her arms, and teleported them away.

They were inside what looked like a spaceship bridge. Hogarth was there, along with Kivi and Vitalie. A man she didn’t recognize was with them.

“Is it ready?” the good white monster asked.

Hogarth nodded. “It is. I don’t know how to navigate this thing, though.”

“That’s okay,” Khuweka said, looking at Leona. “She does.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 27, 2204

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Something told Leona that they would want to get an early start next year, so she went to bed with enough to wake up by midnight. She dreamed again, but this time much more vividly. It started in the first timeline; the one where she was married to Horace Reaver, and working with a team to save lives day after day. Mateo Matic showed up, having been skipping each year on his own for awhile, having long left his family to go on without him. The reality ended when Mateo accidentally caused her death in a car accident. The timeline began again. She was meeting Mateo for the first time in a hospital, after drinking alcohol for the first and last time shortly before her sixteenth birthday. The years continued as Mateo tried to figure out his place in life, and Leona tried to help him through it. Years later, she fell onto his pattern, and they pressed on together. They fought Ulinthra, Reaver, The Rogue, and the Cleanser. Then Mateo went back in time to kill Adolf Hitler, and the second timeline collapsed.

She was now in the third timeline, meeting Mateo for the first time on a Texan battlefield. The Rogue was hurt, but slowly transforming back into a better person, thanks to Mateo’s help. She struggled against her fate, having been told of the other realities, but not wanting to suffer similar fates. Yet they caught up with her when Nerakali Preston forced her way into Meliora’s Sanctuary, and returned the conflicting memories to her mind. Armed with this knowledge, she and Mateo took her down, along with her brother. But their sister, Arcadia was not happy with this. She marooned them on an island on a planet millions of lightyears away from Earth. They worked to overcome further challenges, with friends at their side, until one by one they were erased from the timestream. In the end, they won, though not everyone had survived. In one final cruel twist, Mateo Matic himself was erased, leaving Leona to move on with her life having never known him.

She woke up at a minute to midnight, and ran out of the room. The others were sitting around, working or reading. “I remember him!” she shouted. “I remember everything! The astrolabe must have fixed my memories.”

“That’s great,” Vitalie encouraged. “What can you tell—”

“—us about him?” she finished one year later, without skipping a beat.

“He. Is the life of my life,” Leona said. “And Ennis was right, I was also in love with Serif. It was the three of us, but not for as long as I believed. Now I know what I have to do.” She pulled back her sleeve to show a glowing compass tattoo. “We’re going back to Durus to get them both.”

Of the four of them, only Kivi had never been to Durus, though there was every reason to believe some entirely separate version of her lived a whole life there. Getting to the rogue planet was set to be easier than the last time, when they had to fly through hazardous space. Still, it wasn’t the easiest thing ever, because the Compass of Disturbance didn’t just take a traveler right to where they wanted to go. It only exploited natural breaches in spacetime that were usually invisible, but even when accessed, only went to a second specific point. They didn’t always know when and where they were, but they rarely had to walk too far before the compass showed them an exit point. There were evidently a lot more breaches all around that no one ever even noticed. Or perhaps they impacted normal people’s lives on a regular basis, but since they had never been observed, no one attributed their feelings of behavior to them.

One of the first locations took them right to the door of someone Leona and Vitalie already knew. It was Dubravka, the woman with the ability to skip time at will. She was basically just like Leona and Serif, except she could control it. “What are you doing here?”

Leona looked down at her tattoo to double check the readings. “There is a tear in the spacetime continuum that will get us back to Durus.”

“Why in hell would you want to go back there?” Dubra questioned.

“We’re on a quest for several magical objects,” Kivi replied enthusiastically.

“I’m also hoping to get Serif back,” Leona added.

“You are? From the fourth pocket?”

“Yes, I believe we’ve found a way.”

“Then what are we waiting for? I’m sick of 2204 anyway.”

“It’s 2204?” Vitalie asked. “But you’re still so young.”

Dubra smirked. “I wasn’t always around; tried to skip over the boring parts. Let me pack a few things, then we can go. Come on in.”

Once Dubra was ready to go with them, they continued on with the mission, sometimes still around the turn of the 23rd century, but not always. They even once found themselves stepping out of the three main dimensions. They were walking through some kind of extradimensional tunnel. The only undarkened spot besides the exit looked like a window, through which they were witnessing a man keeping a woman chained up in a cabin. They tried to climb through the window, but were unable to. There was no way in. The woman managed to get her hands on her captor’s knife, and was attempting to cut him with it. He finally gave up trying to stop her, and just ran out of the cabin. In a final desperate move, she threw the knife towards him, a second too late, burying it not just in the door, but also in the trench coat hanging on it. From inside of the coat appeared The Maverick. The woman had stumbled upon Darrow’s cloak and dagger summoning protocol. “I should have rethought this,” he said as he was removing the knife from his back, and suspiciously looking in the direction of the magic window from which the travelers were watching. “Anyway, ‘tis all right, ladies. I will get her out of this. You may proceed to your next rift.”

They waited, unsure if he was for real.

“Who are you talking to?” the frightened woman asked.

“Go on,” Darrow urged. “I have no intention of harming her, I promise. I’ll help her find whoever did this to her.”

“Let’s go,” Hogarth said. “I believe him.”

“I don’t,” Vitalie disagreed, but she walked through the exit just the same.

“Do you know that guy?” Dubra asked them.

They faced the ground and blinked their eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the abrupt bright light. Once Leona could see again, she looked up to get her bearings, thinking at first they were just somewhere on Earth, but it couldn’t be, because there were two suns.

Kivi was having the most trouble adjusting. “Are we here?”

Leona looked at her compass tattoo. “It’s dark. This is our final destination.”

“What year is it?” Hogarth asked.

“No idea.”

“It’s—” Hogarth gave up trying to explain it before she even started. She went over and looked at Leona’s arm. “September 27, 2204. Same day it’s supposed to be, that’s interesting.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll show you how to tell time on the compass later. We’re looking for the Rothko Torch, right? Well...where do we go?”

“You’re lookin’ for the Rothko Torch, eh?” A man was walking up to them.

Leona squinted. “Ludvig? Is that you?”

He tilted his head, and pointed at her. “Yeah, I remember you too. Leon, right?”

“Close enough.” She turned to the others. “You know Hokusai and Loa? Well this guy and Loa were—”

“We never labeled it,” Ludvig interrupted.

“How are you still so young?” Leona questioned.

Ludvig raised his arms to indicate the whole world. “This is paradise. Nobody dies here, not anymore. We fixed that whole established misogyny thing, both politically, and socially. Thank you for your part in that. The Warren was instrumental in showing us how foolish we were.”

“Why did you program two suns?” Leona asked.

Ludvig looked up. “Those aren’t temporal tricks. Those are our suns. We were picked up by a binary system last week. Well...to be honest, scientists realized we were headed in this direction, so a group of powerful paramounts got excited, and sped us up. Earthan scientists call it Ophiuchi Seventy, or something. If you’re looking for the flashlight, you don’t have much time. It’s located smack dab in the middle of The Abyss, which the aforementioned suns are gradually destroying. If you’re here to get your time powers removed, you better hurry up.”

“We’re not,” Hogarth said. “We need the flashlight for something else.”

“Either way,” Ludvig said, turning around, “we better get going.” He started walking away.

“We?” Leona asked.

“You don’t have time to find it yourself! Chop-chop, young ones!” he called back.

They followed Ludvig across the thicket, and over the plains, finally coming upon a hazy quiet storm a few hours later. A holographic guardsman appeared. “Travelers. You’ve reached The Abyss. By God’s two eyes in the sky, the darkness will soon be defeated. If you would like to pass, we urge you to wait a good week before proceeding.” He smiled warmly, but admonitorily.

“Ignore him, obviously,” Ludvig said as he walked forward. “It was a lot denser, even just yesterday. We should run, and no matter what you see, do not stop moving. I mean this. Don’t. Stop. For anything, or anybody, not even each other. Got it?”

“Understood,” Dubravka said while everyone else just nodded.

They started racing through the hazy odorless smoke. As they ran, they passed dozens of Vitalies, all astral projections. But there were also several Kivis, all of whom were solid, which Leona learned after accidentally shoulder-checking one. Hogarth was not able to run at all. Every time she took a step, she disappeared in a small explosion, and appeared in some random other spot. Leona also saw other people wandering the haze, recognizing a few of them. Lucius kept spontaneously disintegrating, and reintegrating, yet he kept moving. Curtis teleported around, seemingly uncontrollably. Missy Atterberry appeared frozen in one of her own time bubbles. Before too long, she could see a dilapidated farmhouse in the center. It was literally crumbling before her eyes, like a sandcastle, and would soon be gone. Dubravka had disappeared as soon as she stepped foot in the haze, and only now returned on the inner edge. It would seem that only Leona was getting through completely unharmed, except for that time she was clotheslined by a rope Missy and Dar’cy had tied around their waists, a mishap which severed it.

The six of them made it out of the haze at about the same time. Leona looked back to see it was already thinning even further. “Why didn’t it affect me?” Leona asked. “All those people, and nothing happened to me.”

“There weren’t any other people,” Ludvig explained. “If you saw others, it’s because you jumped back into the past. The haze reflects and refracts your powers.”

“Oh.” So it had affected her.

Ludvig jogged over to the farmhouse, and quickly lifted one of the vinyl panels to retrieve the flashlight just before that section of the house fell apart. He jogged back over to them. “Okay, we can go now.”

“That’s it?” Dubravka asked. “What about my—Serif? What about Serif?”

“If she’s where I think she is,” Ludvig said, “this flashlight will get you there, but there is no coming back. No one ever comes back.”

“We’ll risk it,” Dubra cried. “Just tell me what to do.”

He handed her the Rothko Torch, and pointed back towards the haze. “Shine it in that direction. Meanwhile, I’ma get the eff out.” He ran away as fast as he could.

Dubra switched on the light, and pointed it where the man said. Three people appeared, like translucent ghosts, fading in and out as Dubra moved the light around. This was clearly just a vision of the past since they totally ignored the witnesses. One of the women was dragging the other towards the house, as the victim seemed to beg the man for help, but he was not giving it. The flashlight didn’t have sound, though, so Leona couldn’t be sure what they were saying. The attacker passed energy into her victim, who ultimately succumbed to it, and died. The survivor took hold of her head, and appeared to be screaming in pain. She frantically gestured away from the house, prompting the man to flee in that direction. The power she had consumed was apparently too much. A wave exploded from her, and spread out in a large radius, before snapping back towards the center.

Leona could see Dubra struggling to keep the flashlight in hand as it attempted to fly back to its place in the wall, which no longer existed. As the energy around them intensified, there was a burst of light, and then it all stopped. Leona was on her hands and knees in the middle of a crowd. A few were human, but most...were Maramon.

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