| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3 |
Come midnight central, Leona, Angela, and Romana didn’t jump forwards to the
future, proving that they were no longer on their time patterns. That was a
week ago. Mateo never did come through the lake. Something was terribly
wrong on his end. Nerakali said that she would look into it, but
communicating with the afterlife simulation was tricky. It still existed in
another universe, and getting through that Angry Fifth Divisioner’s thick
quintessence membrane wasn’t easy. They took a suite in the Crest Hotel, and
had sort of been lounging about, trying to wrap their brains around their
new reality. Mateo was dead, and probably never coming back, and they were
stuck in the present for the rest of their lives. It made them feel
uncomfortable, even Romana, who should have been more used to it.
Leona had fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of the day, but something
woke her up. “What’s that noise?” she groaned, not even opening her eyes.
“Sorry, I’m just watching TV,” Romana said, turning it down. “I didn’t know
it would get so loud at this part.”
Bleary-eyed, Leona propped herself up on one shoulder, and tried to focus on
the screen. “Is this SG Multiverse?”
“Yeah, did you watch it way back when?”
Leona chuckled and pointed. “That happened to me.”
“What?”
“What she’s doing right now. I did that. I had to cut my legs off. It was
based off this show.”
Romana looked at her funny. “Are you messing with me?”
Angela walked in from the other room. “Mister Stark,” she began. “I don’t
feel so good.” Dark particles swarmed around her, and she disappeared.
Leona barely reacted. She just looked over at her daughter. “Well. Boyd
better have a damn good reason for this.” They both disappeared through dark
particles too.
“The thing you have to understand about sling travel is that it’s not as
quick as everyone thinks. It’s more like you leave time, and your mind can’t
comprehend that. It can’t reconcile existing without time. It may be
impossible for a human consciousness to interpret anything beyond four
dimensions as anything but instant. Then again, we’ve been to the outer bulk
before, and time has passed—can you hand me that drewscriver?” That
wasn’t only a spoonerism. The drewscriver was a fanciful embossing tool
invented in the late 21st century that could pull ferromagnetic metals and
metamaterials upwards at precision scale. It was typically used to stamp
industrial coding, but could also just be used to create texture for
aesthetics. “Time has passed,” he repeated, “so I don’t know what
that’s about. What I do know is that the way the slingdrives work, you
actually spend a lot of time in the universal membrane, but you don’t
remember it. It might even essentially be an eternity, but if thought stops,
and metabolism stops, it’s like it never happened. You feel me?”
“I just push these buttons and tell machines to build domes,” Hrockas
replied as if he were an idiot. It was obviously a lot more complicated than
that, and he had to have a certain level of intelligence to even get this
far, but point taken.
Ramses finished his finishing touches, and set the box back down. “There it
is. The escape module.”
“That’s not big enough for a person,” Hrockas pointed out.
“No, I told you, that’s not—oh, you’re joking.”
“So. If what happened to you in the future happens again, all of your
supplies will automatically be spit out of these pocket dimension things
through this thing.”
“Not all of the supplies, just the essentials,” Ramses clarified. “Which I
guess is pretty much everything. What else are we gonna put in there?”
Ramses tapped on his wrist interface and whistled for effect. The escape
module disappeared, tucked away safely in its dedicated pocket. “Oo, I feel
heavier,” he quipped.
“Does that mean you’re finally ready to go?”
“No time like the present, even if 2396 isn’t my present.” Ramses
engaged his new EmergentSuit, and walked towards the slingdrive, which was
already programmed to send him back to the future. “Hey, man. Thanks for
letting me use this dome for my new-slash-old lab. I didn’t want it to
interfere with the lab that I end up building in my past-slash-future.”
“Mi Dome Eleven is su Dome Eleven. It’s been a hell of a year, Rambo.”
Ramses smiled as he stepped into the chamber, and turned back around. “Did
you ever decide what you’re gonna do with it once I’m gone? I don’t remember
what it ends up being in the future. You stop using numbers when you come up
with names.”
Hrockas smiled back. “I’m thinking that it’s going to be a scavenger hunt,
or something. The terrain has lots of natural corners.”
“Interesting. See ya in a hundred and sixteen years.”
“Apparently, I’ll see you in seventy-nine.”
“True. Hey, Thistle...” Before Ramses could execute a command, dark
particles started to swirl around him.
“Is it supposed to look like that?” Hrockas questioned.
“No, this isn’t right! I don’t know what’s happening! Thistle, lock down the
la—!” He disappeared.
Marie and Olimpia appeared from their swarm of dark particles and landed
somewhat roughly on the ground next to the rest of Team Matic. They were
surprised, and a little embarrassed, having been wearing their pajamas when
it happened. Well, Olimpia was in her pajamas. Marie looked like she was
auditioning for a jungle porno.
“Yoink!” Mateo exclaimed. “Nailed it.”
Everyone steadied themselves. They had all traveled through dark particles
before, but this time was more turbulent. “You did this?” Leona asked.
“I stole his power,” Mateo said with a shrug. “NBD.”
“You can have it,” Boyd said sincerely.
“At least someone can still do it. We’ve been off our pattern for a week,”
Romana lamented.
“It’s been a year for me,” Ramses one-upped.
“Boyd,” Mateo scolded.
“This isn’t my fault,” Boyd insisted. “I told you, work backwards to find
him in the timestream, then once you do, go back further to see how long
he’s been there. I told you that,” he reiterated.
“Oh, yeah, you did say that.”
“It’s fine, I was working on something. New upgrades. I even built a new
lab. Actually, since I was in the past, it’s older than the last one, so...
We can check it out if you want.”
“We need to make a decision first,” Mateo explained. “Boyd has something to
say. Boyd?” he prompted.
Boyd looked at the ground abashedly for a moment. He then reached up to
squeeze the collar of his shirt. A hologram over his face flickered before
collapsing entirely to reveal his true face underneath. He still looked like
himself, but crystal shards were embedded in his skin. It looked very
painful.
“Ooo, that’s gotta hurt,” Leona noted with nurse-level concern.
“It’s not that bad.”
“He came out like this when we came back from the afterlife simulation,”
Mateo explained. “I tried to kind of...remove them with dark particles, but
I still don’t understand what they can do, and what they can’t.”
“It’s not something you learn,” Boyd said as he was putting the holographic
illusion back up. “You build your intuition around it.”
Mateo nodded. “He is a living temporal energy crystal now. He believes that
he can restore your powers, but that he would have to restore them all. You
can’t just get back the teleportation and Alyssa’s lightbending. It’s all or
nothing. You would be back on the pattern.”
“Is that even a choice?” Leona asked.
“We’ve been through this before, but this is another opportunity to leave.
You probably can’t get Alyssa’s powers back, but Ramses could just build you
new bodies with teleportation capabilities, and isn’t that really all you
need? You don’t have to skip time. We got used to it, but it’s also
been really annoying at times.”
“Can he...remove it from you?” Romana asked him.
“I don’t think so,” Mateo replied with a shake of his head. “I was already
dead when the crystal was destroyed. I wasn’t affected by it. This is more
of a reversal of what was done as a result of the lemon juice explosion, and
it was only done to the six of you. And Octavia, I guess, but who cares
about her?”
“We’re not gonna leave you behind,” Olimpia argued, stepping closer to him.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Marie suggested. “Raise your hand if you want to
stay off the pattern.”
No one raised their hand.
“Boyd?” Leona asked. “Could you put yourself back on the pattern? I’m just
asking. You decide whatever you want...”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. I’ll explain why later, but I think it would
be like trying to get a lighter to light itself on fire. It don’t bend that
way.”
“Are you upset by that?” Marie pressed.
“It is what it is. I’m the one who poured the lemon juice. Good or bad,
these are the consequences, and I’ll live with them.” Then he chuckled for
some reason.
“How does it work?” Angela asked. “Do you just...stare at us with your
crystal face?”
“Same as when it was a regular crystal on its own,” Boyd corrected. “You’ll
touch my face, and I’ll transfer the energy to you. At least that’s what my
intuition says. I’ve obviously never done this before.”
“There’s something else,” Mateo started. “It might change your mind, so just
give me one last chance.” They all agreed nonverbally, so he led them down
the hill, and then down the trail. They were in Canyondome, which was just a
naturally-formed canyon on Castlebourne. It wasn’t even the largest one. It
was only the largest one that still fit within the radius of a
standard-sized dome. It was particularly deep, though. They were
standing just over 14.5 kilometers below the edge of the canyon, which meant
that they were 56 kilometers from the top of the dome.
They came ‘round the bend to find a man chained to a stake in the ground. He
was sitting quite comfortably in a lounger, and seemed none too bothered by
it, though he apparently couldn’t leave. “Is that...?” Olimpia began to ask.
“What’s Old Man Bronach doing here?” Leona questioned.
“I resurrected him,” Mateo answered. “We’re gonna help him regain power in
the Goldilocks Corridor from his quantum duplicate.”
“Why the hell would we do that?” Marie asked.
“Because he’s the lesser of two evils,” Mateo claimed. “Some people in the
Exin Empire don’t want an Oaksent to be in power, and we’ve helped them
escape. Some, however, are true believers, and we’ll probably never be able
to change their minds. So we compromise. We install this version on the
throne, and in exchange, he doesn’t actively stop the rescue efforts of the
Vellani Ambassador.”
Leona looked down at the Oaksent. “Is this true? Can you be trusted with
this?”
Bronach grinned. “There’s a catch.”
Mateo sighed. “Anyone who wants to leave is welcome to leave, but he is free
to...repopulate his worlds the way he did it the first time.”
“We’re allowing him to breed a new generation of sycophants?” Leona was
disgusted.
“We can’t stop him unless we kill him,” Mateo argued. “But if we kill him,
his most loyal subjects will just do it anyway, and the ensuing war could be
devastating for the whole galaxy. We’re trying to end the Ex Wars,
not make them worse. As I said, it’s a compromise. I don’t like it, but it’s
the best I could do. There’s a loophole, though. He’ll accept your counsel,
but only while you’re in the timestream. If you get back on my pattern, we
only have influence on his decisions once per year.”
“Whose influence?” Leona asked. “Anyone on Team Matic.”
Mateo nodded. “The offer extends to anyone currently on Team Matic,
including Boyd. It’s not the team itself. I had him sign an itemized list.
We’re all on it.”
A lightbulb clicked on over Leona’s head. “Ramses is on the list?”
“Of course he is,” Mateo replied.
Ramses was hurt. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason,” Leona answered. “I accept these terms.” She spun around, and
placed both hands on Boyd’s cheeks. She then pulled his head down to her
level, and planted a kiss on his lips, no tongue. Those standing at the
right angle saw technicolors transmit from his crystalline face to hers
before quickly dissipating.
“I never said we had to kiss,” Boyd reminded her once she let go.
“Just something to remember me by. I mean, something for me to
remember you,” she said solemnly. After a beat, she spun back around.
“Who’s next?”
They all took their turns, not even knowing what Leona had in mind to keep
Bronach in line. They each gave Boyd a kiss, because monkey see, monkey do.
Most of them were pecks. Romana’s was more than that. She only stopped when
her father cleared his throat suggestively. Ramses was last, still nervous
about Leona singling him out regarding the Bronach contract. He evidently
got his powers back just in time. Because shortly afterwards...Boyd fell
down and died again.
