The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 1, 2545

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While Team Matic was living semipermanently on Castlebourne, Hrockas set up an annual meeting on their days in the timestream. He typically wanted them to be caught up on certain things, and maybe ask for their advice or help. Even though the team had since left, this meeting was still going on and going strong. It was a review of the prior year, and a general check-in for the planet’s administrative staff. Of course, they held meetings all the time, but this was the big one. Lycander left the meeting after the unauthorized teleportation alert because responding to such threats was part of his job. They were pressed about it because everyone who was given the ability to teleport was in the meeting, and none of them had left. He reported that all was quiet on the western front, and escorted them back so they could join the meeting too. But they weren’t necessarily going to participate as if it were business as usual.

Since Hrockas wasn’t expecting them, he didn’t simply continue with the agenda. He called a recess for an impromptu debrief. His trusty bodyguard, Azad leaned against the credenza behind him, and didn’t speak. “The last time I checked, you did not have the coordinates to Castlebourne’s new location. I’m not mad, but how did you find us?”

“Truthfully,” Leona began, “you can be found, but not by just anyone. First of all, we did not come here on purpose, and we did not go through the bulk. We were investigating a gravitational anomaly on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. We still don’t know how it works, but we found a key piece of technology. Due to our presence, it sent us away. It sent us...here. We have no idea how or why. Maybe it read our minds, and thought we considered it home. I don’t know. We’ll need to look into it more, but to answer the spirit of your question, Ramses created a map that sends signals through the membrane of the universe, and pinpoints technological establishments. It is precise enough to target a single-person habitat. So yes, we knew where you were. We were using it to look for someone else, and initially avoided this region, because we guessed that the signal was coming from you. That being said, if Ramses could do it, that means it can be done. It doesn’t mean that the Exin Empire can do it, but it’s not impossible. The bottom line is that you’re not safe here, but to put it in perspective, you’re not safe anywhere. Moving the star was still your smartest move.”

“You just answered all of my follow-up questions,” Hrockas said. “Thank you.” He looked over to Ramses now. “I hesitate to believe that it was a mind-reading machine. What is your hypothesis? I know you always have one.”

Ramses looked around at his friends as he hesitated. “Bida, and presumably Varkas Reflex, generate their gravity artificially. Basically, what they do is blanket a surface with an invisible portal that blocks the gravitational pull of the celestial body that you’re actually on, and just gives you gravity from somewhere else. That somewhere else part is critical. It has to come from somewhere.” He looked around again, but this time at the walls and ceiling. “My hypothesis, sir, is that it comes from here. To Trinity Turner and-or Hokusai Gimura, it might have been a random point in space. They might not have chosen it with any level of intentionality. The gravity regulator may have even chosen it for them, and it worked, so they left it as it was.”

Hrockas closed his eyes and nodded. “But then we moved a new solar system to this region, and screwed everything up.”

“Honest mistake,” Mateo assured him. “In fact, not even a mistake. You couldn’t have known that it was here.”

“Actually,” Hrockas said. “I think I did.” He stood up from his chair, and tapped the back of his ear. Ramses had given him his own set of communication discs, which operated on their own network. “Telman, could you come to my office?”

A man they didn’t know appeared. “Sir?”

“What did that—what was that thing you saw a few years ago when we first started decelerating the stellar engine?” Hrockas asked him.

“The blip?” Telman asked.

“Yes, the blip.”

Telman looked at the others in the room very briefly. “It was a blip. It messed with our quantum connections. People’s consciousnesses weren’t properly received for a few weeks. Fortunately, our safeguards worked, and their signals were rerouted to an off-site back-up facility on the outer edge of the system. But then for a few weeks after that, transmission to Castlebourne started working again, and it was the off-site facility that stopped working. We’ve had to shut it down permanently, and rely on a second outpost on an adjacent side of the system for emergency back-up streaming.”

“Teleportation stopped working too,” Azad added. “We all took the trains during that period of time.”

Hrockas nodded again. “We didn’t know what to make of it. We never found the source of the issue, but things are mostly back to normal.”

Leona paced clear to the other side of the room. “Your stellar engine, was it polar?”

Hrockas cleared his throat. “There are some things even you are not allowed to know, but...no. It wasn’t a traditional thruster. We used other means. We just call it that because there’s no other name for it, and it’s what people understand. We moved laterally, sometimes towards the planet, and sometimes away from it, depending on its place in orbit at the time. We didn’t have to worry about any sort of exhaust beam with the technique that we used, and that was the direction we wanted to go.”

“That’s okay,” Leona said. “I’m guessing that the first back-up site was on the trailing edge of the ecliptic plane, which means Castlebourne crossed a particular point first, and then it followed.”

“Yes, that’s what happened,” Telman confirmed.

“Which means we can plot where it is now,” Leona said. “If you give us the data we need, we’ll get your other outpost up and running again, and maybe save a few hundred million lives in the stellar neighborhood while we’re at it.”

Ramses holed up in his lab, and processed the data that Hrockas okayed Telman to provide for him. Telman even spent a little bit of time in there with him to discuss the issue. Ramses occupied himself all day with doing that, and designing some kind of new probe. He launched that probe before the team left the timestream, and reconnected with it after they returned on the first of September, 2545. “I found it. The probe found it. This region of the galaxy has its own gravitational anomaly. It’s kind of like a planetary-mass black hole, but it behaves unlike what the science predicts. I’m guessing the added mass of the solar system is interfering with its function.”

“Why use this?” Olimpia questioned. “Why get your gravity from a random point in space using an invisible black hole, when you can get it from a planet that already has the mass you need, say, Earth?”

“Because as we’ve seen,” Ramses continued, “that interferes with the equilibrium on both sides of the portal. You can’t share the gravity. You can only steal it. I’m starting to think that this area wasn’t the least bit random. Hokusai somehow managed to either find an Earth-mass black hole, or collapsed a comparable planet into a singularity to create one. I’m guessing that it was a rogue world, which made it inhospitable to life, and ripe for the taking according to ethical standards.”

“The timeline doesn’t make sense to me,” Angela said. “Castlebourne and the star both have deeper gravity wells than the outpost asteroid that it says the black hole is next to right now. Why have things been getting progressively worse on Bida? It seems like they would have been so much worse before.”

“That’s why it was so hard to find,” Ramses started to explain. The black hole didn’t pass through Castlebourne, or the star. They just got close to it. They got the ball rolling, so to speak. Now that the solar system has settled where it is, the issue has been worsening because it’s been persistent. The current competing gravity hasn’t been enough to destroy it all at once, but it’s been throwing things off. Before you ask, it’s actually not just compounding gravity here that is raising the gravity on the other planets. It’s simply disturbing the optimal operation of the regulators on the other side of the portals. Indeed, they were well-engineered to compensate for this disturbance, but are constantly fighting against it, and it’s taken a toll.”

“So, what can you do?” Hrockas asked him. “Can you move the black hole, or...should we try to move? I’m gonna tell ya, that’s not gonna be so easy, and definitely not fast. I can’t reach out to my contact whenever I want. We had a deal. Getting us here was the deal. I said nothing about a second move.”

“Relax,” Leona said with a laugh. “We have another solution. For the permanent one, we’ll need a reframe engine, but for the temporary one...a slingdrive.” She glanced at Rames. “A bigger one than we have. Incidentally, we must enact both plans, even if the permanent one sounds easier. It’s not easier at all. I couldn’t help but notice that none of the crew of the Vellani Ambassador was at the meeting. We really need them, and preferably yesterday.”

“They don’t come back here much anymore,” Hrockas revealed. “Their days of regularly transporting refugees are behind them. Anyone who wanted to escape pretty much has already. They mostly go on diplomatic missions on an as-needed basis. There’s still a lot of internal conflict that needs to be managed so it doesn’t explode into all-out war.”

“I assume you know about the armada that is on its way to where Castlebourne used to be,” Marie said to him.

“We do. We’ve been monitoring their progress. So far, they’re still headed in the wrong direction, but we will be prepared to fight if we absolutely have to,” Hrockas said.

“Do you happen to know where the VA is at this moment?” Leona asked.

“They don’t keep me updated,” Hrockas answered, “they don’t have to.” He paused for a second. “I can call them, if this is an emergency. Is it an emergency?”

“Not for you,” Romana said, “but for the Bidans and Varkas, uh...Reflexers...”

“Varkans,” Leona corrected.

“All right.”

Hrockas stood up, but Azad placed a hand upon his shoulder. “I’ll take care of it. It’s still glass, and you’re not armored.” He opened a cabinet on the wall and removed a few objects, like a stack of tablets and what appeared to be a king’s crown. Behind them was a second cabinet, made of glass. He punched through it with the side of his fist, letting the shards scatter in the main cabinet. He reached deep into a dark hole that they couldn’t see into, then quickly jerked backwards.

“It might be a few hours,” Hrockas told the group, “and it might not happen. Our needs do not take precedence over absolutely anything else going on. They might not be able to get away quickly, but they will eventually show up, and definitely within the year. Once they do, I’ll speak with them, and I’m sure they’ll work around your schedule so they’re here next year. I wish I could do better. I wish I had realized what we had done.”

“It’s not your fault,” Angela insisted. “Black holes are invisible.”

Mirage suddenly appeared, standing upon Hrockas’ desk. She was wearing an extremely loud rainbow outfit, and presenting in a hero stance, with her hands on her hips. “Have no fear! Mirage Matic shall be the tip of your spear!” She looked down to see the team. “Oh, hey, guys.”

“Why do you still use my name?” Mateo questioned.

Mirage teleported off the desk, and onto the floor, right behind Mateo. “Because I can see the future...husband,” she whispered into his ear. Then she nibbled on his earlobe, and slapped him on the ass before starting to walk towards the center of the room. “What can I do for you all? Your words; my deeds.”

Ramses stepped forward, and evidently decided to lean into it. “My queen, we ask for access to your great vessel. A marble-sized singularity must be moved out of this solar system. It will take a great deal of quintessence to perform such a feat, but we have no time to waste. Will you help us?”

Mirage frowned at him, but only still playacting. “This marble of yours, it wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with what’s going on with Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, Varkas Reflex, and Muñecai?”

The group looked amongst each other. “We didn’t know it was happening on Muñecai, but yes,” Leona answered.

Mirage nodded. “I’m quite familiar with interstellar filter portals. That is how we ended up in the Goldilocks Corridor in the first place.”

“So, is that a yes?” Mateo pressed.

Mirage pursed her lips, and turned her chin to the side. “You son of a bitch, I’m in!” she exclaimed with a smile.

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Tangent Point: Consensus (Part V)

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Reed was in a virtual simulation again, along with Delegator Chariot, as everyone was allowed to come as a duo. They were in a much more comfortable environment than the one that they had been using separately. Now was the meeting where they were all coming together to hammer this out. As the Tangent approached Proxima Doma, they had to come to an agreement. There was only one elevator platform, and it couldn’t be in two places at once. Both poles were going to be evacuated, but each one would take months, so who had the honor of going first?

They were all sitting around a table. It was a purple theme, evidently based on a known diplomatic ship called the Vellani Ambassador. Portraits of the crew were even on the walls, suggesting that this simulation took real imagery from base reality. The meeting was small. Two representatives from the northern pole, two from the southern pole, and two from Teagarden. Most star systems were afforded a couple of Teaguardian ships to watch over them in case something happened. Obviously, that had already proved insufficient, but they were still here, and would be able to help with the evacuation procedures. The platform was going to hover over each pole, and expend massive amounts of fuel to do it. They needed resupply to make that work, and for constant transport off the platform. Every body weighed it down, so evacuees weren’t going to be staying there for long. Climbing up the tethers was only the first step.

The leader of the Teagarden’s contingency held the rank of president. It was one rank above captain, and the president assigned to the Proxima Centauri system was indeed here in this construct, but in a secondary capacity since he was not the highest ranking member. No, more Teaguardians were dispatched from neighboring systems, including Bungula. There were presently eleven of these ships in the system. But still, not even the coronel of those eleven Teaguardians was in charge. This went all the way to the tippy-top. Matar Galo was only called in for really big issues. Reed would have thought that she was too busy with other things, but apparently, this took precedence. None of this was real, but she was nearby in base reality, in one of those Teaguardians. Reed really wanted to know how they traveled faster than light.

Matar Galo cleared her throat. “Welcome to the evacuation dispute between the northern and southern poles of Proxima Doma, Proxima Centauri, as it relates to the emergency rescue efforts provided by the Bungulan Space Elevator Platform known as The Tangent. I am your host, Matar Tiare Galo of the Teagarden Stellar Neighborhood Aid Service, and I would like to remind you that these evacuation procedures happen at the pleasure of Teagarden. The Tangent is a stolen vessel, and while we have tentatively agreed to the continuation of this mission for the sake of hostages, we do so under heavy duress. This is not a question of whether Executor Reed Ellis has the authority to maintain his command over the Tangent, nor what rights the Bungulan government has over it. That is a separate issue, which is why no Bungulan representatives are present. It is important to note, however, that decisions are subject to change, and what we decide here may be rendered irrelevant before certain actions can be completed, or indeed even begin. Furthermore, Executor Ellis, while we recognize your leadership for the time being, it is not up to you which pole receives aid first. It is up to them to come to the decision between themselves. You are here predominantly as a guest, and will listen respectfully, speaking only when appropriate. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” Reed replied.

“Delegator Chariot?”

“Agreed,” Jodene replied.

“Very well,” the Matar continued. “This is not a structured debate. I am here to facilitate discussion, but I am not an official moderator. The representatives from the poles are free to proceed as they see fit. I will only step in if talks devolve into unproductive or unrelated speech, or escalate towards violence.” She paused for a moment before prompting, “go ahead.”

Reed had already heard all of their arguments, and was prepared to hear them all rehashed here. There were more people in the north, so they needed to be cleared out more quickly. The south argued that that was a failure in leadership. The reason things were better for them was because they made a concerted effort to rescue those who lived in the lower latitudes. They built a four-kilometer bridge in a matter of hours after the ring faults broke apart. They figured they ought to be rewarded for their hard work, not punished for being too good. And besides, there were fewer people because a giant mountain range made the southeast arc of the Terminator Line too treacherous to colonize. The northerners were going to contend that there was a brand new dome in the south pole, which was more than enough to sustain the refugees for a while. The north was maxed out, they needed help the most. The south could be rescued faster due to their lower population, but that didn’t really matter. The number of people who could be transported—and more importantly, the number of people who were waiting for transport—would be the same, regardless of which side got to go first.

“We’ve already worked it out,” Delegator Sarkozi began with a weird smile. “The southern polar region concedes its bid, and congratulates the northern pole on its win.”

They swung their chins towards Xaovi Rue, who nodded. “The northern polar region accepts the southern pole’s concession, and happily welcomes the Tangent to begin evacuation procedures as soon as they are in place.”

“What happened here?” Matar Galo questioned.

“You said you wouldn’t get involved unless you had to,” Delegator Sarkozi reminded her. “Things are fine, we came to a decision amongst ourselves beforehand.”

“Yeah, well, that sounds suspicious,” Matar Galo says. “It sounds like we could be dealing with blackmail, or something worse, like an abduction.”

“Your mind goes to 21st century b-movie intrigue,” Xaovi argued. “It’s nothing like that. We’ve decided to snag the quickest win first. It will take a little bit longer to evacuate the south as it will the north, so the math just makes sense to us now.”

“That’s not true,” Delegator Chariot insisted. “The northern polar region has a much higher population, even though the northern hemisphere suffered more deaths during the initial evacuation.”

“Delegator Chariot, you were not asked to weigh in,” Matar Galo scolded. “That being said, I too would like an explanation.”

“We’re not leaving,” Xaovi replied. “Most of us aren’t, anyway. This is our home, and we’re going to make it work. The ground is stable, and anything we’ve lost, we will rebuild. Make no mistake, we will not prevent anyone from evacuating from the north. In fact, we encourage it. It will just give us more room, which we need. The new carbon scrubbers we added are great, but we don’t want it to last forever.”

Reed shook his head, but kept his mouth shut. He wanted to argue that they were being foolish. Researchers still didn’t understand the long-term effects of living on that planet. The cataclysm appeared to end months ago, but they didn’t know for sure that nothing further was going to happen. Lava could be trickling in through natural underground tunnels. They just didn’t know. The whole reason he and his people stole the Tangent was to execute this rescue. They were only here for these people. Colonizing this world had turned out to be a mistake. It was unsafe. They couldn’t go back in time to fix that, but that certainly didn’t mean they had to stay. They were being stubborn and stupid. The only logical response to this mess was to get the fuck out.

“Executor Ellis,” Matar Galo began, “I appreciate you biting your tongue.

“Call him Captain Ellis,” Delegator Chariot all but demanded. “Even if you don’t agree with how he came to power, he does have that power now. He commands a full channel of crewmembers.” The two of them had grown closer over these last few months. Jodene had a hard time rectifying this in her head. The mutiny was immoral, that much she believed, but she had come to believe in the mission too. She was quite conflicted about it, and he tried not to push her. They held their philosophical discussions when they weren’t putting out fires together, but they never argued. She had come to see things in a new light due to the success of their work. They suspected that the Teaguardians felt about the same way. Their attempts at stopping them midflight were laughably weak...almost unbelievably ineffective.

“Very well,” Matar Galo said. “Captain Ellis, I think we all know your position here, and in this case, I must admit to agreeing with you. Premier Rue, I urge you to reconsider. You and your people can always return, but if you don’t leave now, there will be no second chances. After evacuation is complete, I will be demanding the Tangent move on from here. Whether you’re first or second, once the platform leaves, it’s gone. You won’t be able to change your minds.”

“Actually, I won’t bite my tongue,” Reed jumped in. “If you do end up changing your minds after we’ve left, I will not be returning. Matar Galo and the Bungulan government will not need to convince me to leave permanently. The hostage crisis will be over at that point, and I will relinquish my leverage. Xaovi, don’t do this. Clarita, persuade it not to do this.”

“As I was saying,” Xaovi went on, not letting Clarita speak, “I will force no one to stay, but I won’t force them to leave either. If you would like to try your hand at convincing them to get in those pods, go ahead. I’ll give you the broadcast codes freely. We’ve been listening to our people. They want to stay. I will be staying with them.”

Matar Galo breathed. “Captain Ellis, Delegator Chariot, I assume you have a plan in place. You know the logistics of how you’re going to get people up the tethers?”

“We do,” Reed responded.

“Then do it,” the Matar ordered. “Maneuver the Tangent into position over the north pole, drop the lines, and start pulling people up. No more decisions need be made, this meeting is over.” She stood up. “Thank you all for coming. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get to a quantum meeting with the Altaren ambassador.” She de-resed. There was something different about it, though. It didn’t look like it did from most simulations. It was more like the flickering of a hologram. Maybe this wasn’t so virtual after all.

Reed and Jodene de-resed as well, waking up in the former’s office. He was leaning back in his chair while she was lying on the couch. Shasta was still in the guest chair, doing something on her handheld. “How did it go?” she asked them.

“We’re going north first,” Reed answered.

Shasta started to leave. “I’ll inform the pilot, and prep the ground crew.”

“I wanna be on that,” Jodene said to her.

“We’re meeting in Drop Bay One in twenty minutes to go over safety procedures,” Shasta told her without turning around.

Jodene turned back to Reed after the door reclosed. “Don’t think I didn’t catch the way you worded your little speech in there. You said you would be giving up the hostages, but you never said you would be giving the Tangent back to Bungula.”

Reed only cleared his throat.

“You’ve said you would before. It was one of your main arguments, that this was temporary. What’s changed?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She smirked. “You think you can escape. With four torches, you think you can escape? Reed, the Teaguardians have FTL.”

“Not all of them,” he reasoned.

“The ones who do will catch up. They could be clear on the other side of the neighborhood, and they will still eventually catch up to us.”

“Us?” he echoed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she echoed him right back. She stood up. “You said you would go to jail willingly. Obviously, you don’t actually—”

“I don’t care about me,” he explained. “I care about them.” He gestured towards the door. “Even the original crew has been helping us, and some without much convincing. I’m worried about two things here. I’m worried about Teagarden’s superior firepower, and I’m worried about Bungula’s grudge, and plans for revenge. Neither party has what the other does, so we either need to take away Teagarden’s advantage, or Bungula’s motivation...not both. And I do mean we. I want you with me...all in.”

She nodded. “Let’s see how the evacuation goes. I won’t place my chips on a square until I see where the ball is gonna land.”

“Well, you can’t wait, the casino would kick you out. It would be an illegal move.”

“This all started because of your illegal move.”

“Touché.”

Sixty-nine days later, the northern polar region was evacuated to the extent of their inclinations. Matar Galo stayed in the star system to spearhead a campaign to change people’s minds, but it was impossible to know for sure if her words made any impact. On an individual level, they didn’t know what anyone was planning to do before she started speaking on it. The numbers did seem to go up in her favor, but that could have been the result of poor polling methods. It was now time to move on to the southern pole. The very last elevator pod was just coming up the tethers. It was mostly only carrying the Bungulan ground workers, but also a few Proxima Domanians who agreed to stay down there for over two months to help coordinate.

“Wait, they’re already here?” Reed questioned. “As of thirty minutes ago, they hadn’t even left yet.”

“They made it an express trip,” Shasta explained. “A quarter hour total.”

“I didn’t approve that.”

“They were anxious to get back up here.”

“Were the Domanians with them even trained for the high-g acceleration?”

“The report didn’t say, but they were on it, plus one single final straggler.”

“I would like to meet them,” Reed ordered, “the Domanians, and whoever decided that it would be an express trip.”

Shortly thereafter, they arrived. He first spoke alone with the two crewmembers who claimed responsibility over the decision to pull the elevator up at extremely high speeds. Express trips were not uncommon, but they did not have time to install inertial dampeners in every single pod, and the stress it placed on tethers outweighed the benefits of it anyway. That was why they hadn’t been doing it like that the whole time. Now those tethers would have to be thoroughly examined, and potentially repaired or replaced entirely. They were sent to hock—probably while covering for other responsible parties—for twenty-four hours, and would be assigned tether testing duty. They accepted their fairly light punishment without any argument, and would not be a problem moving forward.

He was now standing before the five Domanian volunteers, looking over the report. “What’s this thing with you?”

One of them peeked over the edge of his tablet to see what he was seeing. “That’s Heracles, our beetloid. He saved Calypso’s life, and has been all-around helpful.”

“A beetloid,” Reed thought out loud.

“You don’t have those on Bungula?” the apparent leader asked.

“We do not. Something like that might come in handy on the Tangent. Would you be willing to provide us with its specifications?”

“We don’t have them,” a man said. “He’s a survivor, like us. None of us designed him, though.”

Reed nodded. “Forgive me. I should have started with introductions. I’m Captain Reed Ellis. And you are?” he asked, holding his hand out to the leader.

“Breanna Jeffries,” she answered, shaking his hand. He shook the hand of the rest as she listed them off. “This is Cashmere Hartland, Notus Konn, Calypso Rotola, and Sorel Arts.”

“It’s nice to meet you all. According to this report, you did a fine job on the ground when you could have done the bare minimum to satisfy the Delegator’s impromptu enlistment. If it were me, I would have just let you up here with a tight nod, but she was in charge down there. I am wondering what the plan is next. Have you thought about where you might want to go? Teagarden is facilitating ferry trips to the interstellar cyclers. Some are going to Earth, others to Bungula, but that’s proving...politically challenging in this situation.”

“Are you asking us to stay?” Breanna questioned.

“There’s plenty of room for a bunch of go-getters like you,” Reed explained. “We could sure use your help with the southern evacuees. It’s going to be a much bigger job, and you already know what you’re doing.”

“I wasn’t a part of that,” Sorel said. “I was transferring people off-world digitally, mostly to Castlebourne, and would like to continue doing that, if you’ll allow me to take a pod back down to the surface.”

“That can be arranged,” Reed determined. “The uploading option makes it easier on us, so we’re in favor of it. And the rest of you?”

They exchanged looks and came to an unspoken consensus. “Yes, I think we can keep going. We never made any plans for the future.”

“Great,” Reed said. “One more thing. What can you tell me about these two?” He showed them a picture of this group from Elevator Ingress months ago, standing next to a man and a woman who looked like they could be related. He had seen the man before, in a portrait at the meeting on the Vellani Ambassador.

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Microstory 2629: Last One in, First One Up, Like a Skeptic

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January 24, 2527. When the survivors submitted a reapplication to the dome because of Aeterna’s pregnancy, they informed the leaders that there were eleven people, one beetloid, and one optional rover. When the dome agreed to that application, they agreed to those numbers, and they were firm on them. So when they showed up at the back door as a group of fifteen, it was a problem. It’s not like four extra people were going to choke out the carbon scrubbers or broil the residents out of existence, but it was a principle that they weren’t willing to let go of. Eleven people could walk in, or fewer, but not more. It would have been very easy to force the four who weren’t in their group to stay on the outside if not for the fact that they were a family with young children. It was the little boy who spotted one of them, and the mother who decided to stop and investigate. Shimizu’s camouflage was working fine, but he had tied a shiny purple scarf tied to his ankle in remembrance of a loved one, and that stood out amidst the dull colors of the rocky world. So it would have been easy to kick Shimizu out too, but that would have only solved one of their four problems anyway.

Obviously, as they always felt like these people were their responsibility, Breanna and Cash chose to pull themselves out of the running, which only left two extra bodies to get rid of. Notus, still feeling guilty about what he did to get into this group, was one of them. The other was Calypso, who may have feelings for him, or is simply a nice person. They said their goodbyes to their friends once again, and made the walk back out into the wilderness. Cash recalled the rover to pick them up. Silver lining, there was a lot more room in the vehicle now that most of the people were gone. That was over three months ago, and their journey may be nearly complete.

Everyone in the rover is napping when the alarm begins. It’s not too urgent, but it’s enough to wake them up. Before too long, a man appears on screen. “People of Proxima Doma. My name is Captain Reed Ellis of the BSE Tangent. We are a space elevator from your neighbor, Bungula, Rigil Kentaurus. You may have heard stories of how I came to power, and how this platform ended up en route to you. I say, if you take issue with how we came to be here, you do not have to participate in the evacuation. You may stay on the surface if you wish. We will not force you to leave. But if you do step on that elevator pod, we have some rules for you to follow, which will be presented to you in time. At the moment, we are hovering directly over the northern pole of your planet. Our fleet of pods are making their way down to you, and the first evacuees will board shortly. If you are currently in the southern polar region, do not fret. We have been negotiating with your leadership, and have been told that you will be fine without us until we finish with your northern friends. We promise, we will get to you as soon as possible.

“My crew has been scanning the ground, and gathering information on the distribution of the population. A plan has already been made to determine the order of departure. You will receive word from your local representatives of your individual and group assignments. Disorder will not be tolerated. Violence will be met with swift action, and a potential refusal from my ground-based coordinators, who are presently descending in the first pod, along with a heavy security contingency, which is prepared for any eventuality. I would like to apologize for the delay in our arrival, but we are here now, and ready to bring you on board in a safe and organized fashion. Stand by for further instructions.” The broadcast ends.

“What a handsome man,” Cash noted.

“Are you leaving me for him?” Breanna asks.

“In a heartbeat.”

Reed Ellis suddenly reappears on screen. “This message is for all extra-domal survivors. It is clear that the situation on the ground is dire, but we expected a greater level of respect and compassion than we have seen. As reward for your patience, and survival outside of the community, we would like to extend an offer to be part of the first wave of evacuees. Anyone outside of any dome, navigate to the attached coordinates for early boarding procedures. You may be tempted to spread the word about this gift, but it is not for anyone else to know. This is for you and you alone, because you have been living without support for months, and deserve the first chance at stability. Please contact this inbox for questions, or ask your boarding coordinators on site. Thank you.”

They all exchange a look. Breanna gets on the horn. “Tertius? You were right. They’re letting us go up first. Get everyone, including your daughter and granddaughter, and meet us at the back door. Keep quiet about it. They don’t want us doing this.”

“Ten-sixty-nine, message received,” Tertius replies.

They carefully and slowly drive back to the dome. They’ve stayed in the shadows since the whole race into the dome a few months ago, so luckily, no one is trying to follow them this time. Their friends aren’t alone when they arrive at the door. A guy who seemingly works there is holding it open for them. “Are you coming too?” Breanna asks.

“My responsibility is to the people of Skylight Kingdom. I will remain at my post until I have no more charges to protect. Until then, I bid you all good luck.” He closes the door once everyone has gotten back into the rover, for the last time.

“We—we’re missing one,” Cash points out.

“Yeah, we lost touch with Shimizu,” Tertius says as he’s helping his daughter get situated. Her baby, Dilara was born in the dome, and is safe in a vacuum carry-cot.

“Oh, no, I hope he’s okay.” Notus with the unmistakably feigned concern.

From there, they drive onwards to the coordinates that the Captain sent them and the other outside rovers. Surely the dome people would have noticed by now, but it sounds like the Tangent people are prepared to handle it. The first pod has landed, from the descent tethers, and is being transported over to the ascent tethers. They can see more pods dropping down from the sky. The survivors are directed to enter an inflatable habitat, where they are free to remove their helmets, and get in the queue. It’s already pretty long, but not as long as it will be soon enough. A regal woman who seems to be in charge around here climbs down the steps, and approaches Breanna’s group. “My name is Jodene Chariot. I welcome you to Elevator Ingress, but you should know that we tagged every vehicle, and traced its route. You didn’t follow instructions.”

“We’re sorry,” Breanna says. “We had to get our friends...and the baby.”

Delegator Chariot smiles. “It’s okay. Children are our future. we’re still gonna let all of you up,but not all right away. Your actions will come at a price.”

“I’ll pay it,” Breanna insists. “They were following my orders.”

“I appreciate it,” Chariot responds, “but I’ll need six of you total. You see, we’re not as equipped to handle this as we would like. We could use some volunteer workers.”

Cash unsurprisingly volunteers. Notus and Calypso exchange a glance before the former looks back at the Delegator. “How about four and a beetloid?”

Microstory 2627: He That Would Eat the Fruit Must Climb the Tree

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September 1, 2526. Breanna, Cash, and Sorel are just coming up on the area where their friends would have landed on the north side of the chasm when the rover’s proximity alarm goes off. Breanna and Cash look out the windows, but don’t see anything. “It’s above us,” Sorel explains. “Thistle, open sunroof.” The partition slides away. An object is falling from the sky. If they were to stop right here, it would crash land on them. So Sorel keeps driving until they’re clear of it, whatever it is.

“It’s not an asteroid, is it?” Cash asks. “I don’t think we can survive a war on another front.”

“Nah, it’s manmade, and it’s not falling, but landing.” Sorel double checks the screen. “It’s a dropship, I think from a Teaguardian.” He drives onwards, but then stops once the computer indicates that they’re well within the safe zone, near the edge of the chasm. As they watch the descent, they also look outwards, back where they came from. The ground where they were once standing has turned to soup, just like it already had farther south. They see huge stones crashing into each other. Twisted pieces of a once standing dome and spine swim around violently. It looks almost beautiful from this far away, though, like a small pond in a storm...except for all the lava and fires.

Ten minutes later, they watch the ship descend upon the ground, firing its rockets to slow itself down. It still lands quite hard, though. There might not be any people inside of it. As they continue to watch, the structure begins to transform. The walls fold down and dig themselves into the regolith. A giant cylinder rises from the center before splitting apart. A dish unfolds itself like a paper fan, spinning until it finds the right spot, slanted towards the sky at a certain angle. Power systems ramp up with an electrifying sound. The spectators’ respective interfaces beep. “We just got global comms back,” Cash says with a smile. Their screens light up with activity, displaying all the chatter that’s suddenly jumping back and forth all across the planet.

Breanna rushes through the menus until she finds the group chat. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? This is Breanna Jeffries. Are you reading me?”

“Breanna?” Calypso’s voice comes on. “Breanna, is that you? You’re alive?”

Breanna smiles and laughs. “Yes, Cash and I both. How’s the group?”

“We’re all alive too,” Calypso replies. “We’re looking for safety, on foot. We’ve been walking for days. We thought we found a dome, but they didn’t want us there.”

“Yeah, that has turned out to be a good thing. It’s been flooded with lava.”

“I knew it!” Notus cries triumphantly.

“Listen,” Breanna goes on, “we have a rover again. There’s enough room for everyone. Drop us a pin, and we’ll pick you up.”

“Okay, how do I do that?” Calypso asks.

“I know how to do it,” Notus says.

Their location appears on Breanna’s interface. It’s not too far from here since they had to walk it, and the three of them will be able to catch up quickly on wheels. She flings the coordinates over to Sorel’s rover so it will be able to navigate to them. They all start heading back towards it, but he stops. “Wait. Lifesigns detector.”

The girls look back over to the satellite dish.

“No, it’s not from there,” he clarifies. He slowly turns until he’s facing the chasm again. He starts walking towards it.

“No,” Breanna says. “That’s impossible.”

“You don’t think...” Cash trails off.

“It’s impossible!” Breanna repeats. A hand appears from the edge, and finds purchase before being met with the other hand. Two more hands appear right next to them, and pull the human they’re attached to up. It’s Tertius and Aeterna, completely naked, dirty as hell, but otherwise entirely fine. They don’t look upset or tired. They just climb all the way up, and begin to brush ash and dust off of their bodies. They look just as surprised to see Breanna and Cash as Breanna and Cash are to see them. Tertius approaches, and waves with a smile. He holds his hand out like Oliver Twist.

Confused, but also rather nervous, Breanna removes her first stage air filter, just like she did when they first met these two, and hands it to him.

Tertius places it against his mouth. “Hey, you’ve been waiting for us this whole time? It’s been days. You should have moved on without us.”

“We weren’t waiting for you,” Breanna replies honestly. “It has taken us this long to make it across ourselves. It’s just coincidental timing.”

He nods. “Well, it’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you did make it.” He looks behind them. “I’m worried, though, that no one else did.”

“No, they’re all fine,” Breanna says. “They made it across much quicker, so they are ahead of us now. We were just about to go meet up with them.” She points at the dish. “We can finally communicate with the rest of the planet again. News will start pouring in, and we’ll have a better picture of the state of affairs. We’re not sure who up north will take us in, if anyone. But you maybe wanna put on some clothes to blend in.”

“We don’t have any extra suits,” Cash reminds her. “If we did, we would have used them to glide over the chasm with everyone else.”

“Oh, true.” Breanna shakes her head. The Valerians seem to have no problem being open about their impossible level of immortality, but it’s probably best that they keep the circle tight. It’s looking like she has to protect them, even from themselves.

“I saw a couple of suits in that gondola hab back there,” Sorel explains. “They’re not IMS units, so they won’t work in actual outer space, but they will look all right to outsiders. I won’t even ask how they’re standing here like this.”

Tertius looks at his daughter, who faces her palms upwards in ignorance, because she hasn’t heard the conversation. He drops the filter to communicate with her in sign language. Aeterna nods, and holds up the a-okay sign to the rest of the group.

They all climb into the rover, and send a quick message to the other seven survivors, asking them to sit tight while they make this detour. Notus is immensely relieved to learn that Tertius made it, as it will give him the opportunity that he’s been dying for to thank him privately. Now that they know exactly where to go, and have blazed a trail, the drive back to the canyon dome doesn’t take too long. They scoop up the mining suits, drive back to the chasm to get around the stone forest, then drive northwest. Finally, after days of being apart, they reunite with their friends, and together, the twelve of them—plus Heracles—make one final push northwards to find refuge. They’re not the only ones, and it has become a political nightmare, but now that Teagarden is back in play, the hope is that those who refuse to provide aid will start feeling the pressure. That doesn’t really happen.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 24, 2537

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The team came out of the technicolor sling web, and found themselves near another ship. It wasn’t looming over them this time but underneath their feet. Had they failed? This far out in the galaxy, no one should have reached by now. Sure, Extremus was traveling this far, but the chances of happening upon them were literally astronomical. Leona sighed. “Magnetize to the hull. They will sense us, and send a probe to investigate.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Mateo pointed out.

“I’m not,” Leona replied. “Rambo?”

Ramses was desperately tapping on his wrist interface, looking for what could have happened, no doubt. “It worked. We’re 152,000 light years and change from Barnard’s Star. We should be alone. I don’t understand. Is this Extremus?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Leona confirmed, looking at her own data.

As she predicted, they felt the vibrations of something moving several meters away. A giant metal ball flew up from an opening, and rolled towards them, hovering against a local magnetic field. It stopped before the team, and began to scan them.

“Place your hand upon it if you want to hear the conversation,” Leona said.

They all did it.

“Report,” came a voice.

“Leona Matic. This is my team. We are of peace...always.”

“Pirate got jokes,” the voice said.

“We’re not pirates. Look in the central archives. We were there when your ancestors were preparing for this mission. We helped come up with it.”

“We lost the central archives.” The voice paused. “We’ve lost a lot since launch. But we still have our oral stories. I know who you are, Madam Matic.” A graphic appeared on the probe’s screen. “This is the basic schematic of the ship. I will shut down the teleportation regulator for exactly five seconds. You better come in before then.” A red circle in the corner of the screen suddenly turned green.

“Now,” Leona ordered.

They teleported inside, landing on the bridge, inside of the horseshoe pit. It was just like when Pribadium’s ship showed up. “Déjà vu,” Olimpia noted after they had all receded their nanites into more comfortable clothing.

One woman was the only other person here. She took hold of a control console, and pulled it towards her. It swung on a hinge, giving her room to step down into the center of the horseshoe. “Welcome to the TGS Extremus Prime, Team Matic. My name is Watchstander Actilitca. The captain is in stasis, and I would like to keep her that way, unless you have some reason we should wake her up?”

“There’s no issue here,” Leona began to explain. “We came on accident.”

“I don’t know why,” Ramses said apologetically. “Did you change vectors, or are we off the mark? I deliberately chose a destination away from where I knew you were supposed to end up.”

“We’ve changed course before,” the Watchstander, “but by reputation, I know you would have aimed for something sufficiently far away. We’ve ended up just about where our ancestors planned to.”

Ramses shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I know what happened,” Leona said to him. “I don’t know the why, but I know the what. The slingdrive doesn’t necessarily go where you want it to. It can’t go absolutely anywhere in the universe. It can only go where there is already an established presence. I don’t know whether it’s looking for some level of technology, or organic life, or what, but we can’t ever be alone.”

Ramses stared at her blankly as he went back through his memory, trying to retrieve even one instance which might point to her being mistaken. There were times when they certainly might have been alone, but there wasn’t proof one way or another. Her hypothesis didn’t sound too far-fetched. That wasn’t so far necessarily a bad thing as they weren’t in the business of being remote and isolated from others, but that was Linwood’s goal. They thought they could help him, but it was going to be much harder than they thought. They needed a ship. Specifically, they needed one with reframe technology. They needed to get somewhere far from here; far from everything. They promised him extreme solitude. “Oh my God,” he said in disappointment.

“I’m sorry to have gotten in your way,” Actilitca said.

“No,” Leona countered. “We couldn’t have come this far out at all if not for you. I suspected that this was a limitation of the technology—”

“No,” Ramses interrupted. “It’s a limitation of my implementation of the technology. I doubt your...um, the others have the same issue.” He evidently didn’t want this stranger knowing anything about Leona and Mateo’s children. That was logical.

Angela wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “It hasn’t caused us problems. You’re always so down on yourself about this, but we have always ended up exactly where we belong.” She looked up to the ceiling. “Maybe these old powers that be have still been with us the whole time, and understand that we’re no good to the universe if no one else is around who needs us.”

“Someone needs us now,” Leona said to Actilitca. “He requires total isolation and privacy. We promised it to him. But wherever we try to go, there’s always going to be someone else there.”

Actilitca stepped back up out of the pit, and started working on one of the standing workstations. “We sent hundreds of unmanned scouts in all directions, in search of our new home. We no longer have reframe technology, which means at most, they are 52 light years away. Now, if that’s not far enough for you, keep in mind that we are only drifting here for the moment. Once one of our scouts finds a suitable candidate, we will be heading that way, which in all likelihood, will take us even farther from whichever scout I give you the coordinates to.”

“You would do that?” Ramses asked. “You would give us coordinates to one of your scouts?”

“As I said, it’s unmanned,” Actilitca replied. “We never intended to scoop them all back up later. Not only will I find one for you that you can transport to—using whatever faster-than-light technology you have access to—but you can have it. It has life support, it just needs to be turned on. In fact...” She went back to her screen to look through the data. “A few of them were sent up towards the top of the galactic plane, which is quite sparse. And yes!” She flung the image on her screen to a hologram in the center of the horseshoe. The team stepped back to get a better look at it. They were orbital images of what appeared to be a barren, lifeless planet. “This one has reached a particularly isolated region of the galaxy. It has chosen to halt there, rather than moving on to find other candidates. It must have calculated that the chances of finding anything useful beyond it were too low to waste the energy and time on. You can absolutely have that, unless...you’re looking for paradise too.”

“No,” Leona contended. “He just needs raw material. That looks perfect. Not the planet. The gravity well is too deep, but I assume there are other celestial bodies there?”

“It hasn’t surveyed them,” Actilitca explained, “but it has spotted them.”

“We would be grateful for it,” Leona said.

“Wait, should we wake him up and ask?” Romana suggested regarding Linwood, who was still asleep in his own stasis pod on the floor.

“We already did ask him,” Marie reasoned. “He wants to be alone on the edge of the galaxy. We’re giving him that, we’re just going to be a bit delayed. He shouldn’t know anything about the Extremus.”

“We’ll have to strip out all mention of it from all the systems on the scout, if we provide it for him,” Mateo decided.

“Yeah,” Leona said. She looked back up at Actilitca. “Does this all sound acceptable?”

“Sounds like a fine idea to me.” Actilitca tapped on her screen.

Their interfaces beeped, having received the message. “It won’t take long for me to incorporate the coordinates into the slingdrive.” Ramses stepped over to the corner to focus on the work.

“While we’re here,” Leona began, “is there anything we can do to help?”

Actilitca seemed to think about it for a moment. “No, I believe that we have everything well in hand.”

“Are you certain?” Leona pressed. Hint, hint.

“No, we’ve been doing this a long time. The scouts are out, the crew and passengers are asleep. The skeleton crew schedule is working.”

“You said that you lost your copy of the central archives.”

Actilitca bobbled her head. “Yes, there was...a disagreement in our past.”

“I can give you a copy of it,” Leona offered. “Our tech is compatible with yours. You should be able to plug and play.”

Actilitca looked over at a door as if something on the other side might sway her decision. “The disagreement is...ongoing.”

“Which side are you on?”

“I’m on the fence,” Actilitca admitted. “Look, we came here for a fresh start. Some believe that holding onto our past holds us back. There are some things we kept, like...how to grow plants. But the reframe engine is sort of a no-go. It only took us 216 years to get here, and now that we have a stasis pod for every Extremusian, any trip back would feel instantaneous. We have had issues with people quitting on us, and we don’t want that to happen again. We’re stuck out here, and that’s the way we like it. Most of us, anyway. Technology threatens that stability. It threatens to undermine the entire mission, negating everything our ancestors worked for.”

“That’s a very Amish position to have,” Leona reasoned. “You don’t shun all technology. You shun tech that can take your people away from the community.” She contemplated it. “Is there any knowledge you lost that you regret? Perhaps it just got filed into the wrong category, or someone destroyed the wrong data drives?”

“That happened a lot,” Actilitca confirmed. “We lost all of Earthan history and entertainment. We lost most of our virtual stacks too, but a lot of that had to do with how much space they took up.”

“It’s done,” Ramses announced. “We can go.”

Leona didn’t move. She was studying Actilitca’s face. “You and Matt should go. Ladies, one or two of you have to go with them, but no less than two of you need to stay behind to keep my slingdrive company.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Actilitca claimed.

“I don’t know much about what happened to you in the last 216 years,” Leona said to her, “but we were last here in 2397, and things didn’t look great, so I know you’ve been through some things.”

Actilitca brushed it off. “That was in another timeline. You were never here, not for us. You don’t know anything about what has happened.”

“Fair enough,” Leona acknowledged.

“We’re ready.” Mateo and Ramses were holding Linwood’s pod again.

Romana was sitting on it wearing a sexy red dress, holding a microphone, or rather a holographic microphone. “Fly me to the moon! Let me play among the stars!”

“Bye,” Mateo said.

“Let me see what spring is like on...” Romana’s voice trailed off and echoed from the aether as they slung away.

“Hey, that’s my thing,” Olimpia complained.

“Yes, it is, dear,” Leona agreed. She turned back to the Watchstander. “We have all day, but depending on how your skeleton crew shift works, maybe no longer than that. Let’s develop a list of what you need. I can write an algorithm that will copy admissible material, and ignore forbidden knowledge.”

“Okay,” Actilitca said. “I accept those terms. But we must quarantine the data so it can be purged all at once if we vote against it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Leona replied.

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Microstory 2296: To Be a Gathering

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I had a meeting today with the Mayor of Kansas City. She regrets that we’re doing the memorial service in Chicago, but she understands, especially since our two cities have such a great relationship with each other. Still, she would like to do something in honor of Nick, and I think that would be fine. We had a lot of trouble figuring out what that might be. He didn’t like parades, and a vigil seems too depressing. We spent most of the day discussing it, taking breaks here and there so she could manage other needs of the city. In the end, we decided that it’s just going to be a gathering where people can come up to the microphone on stage, and talk about whatever they want. It doesn’t even have to have anything to do with the deceased, if they have something else to say. It’s unconventional, and a little strange, and I think Nick would have liked it. Dutch would have, that’s for sure. That guy danced to the beat of his own drum. Don’t worry, we’re going to be screening people throughout, to make sure they’re not offensive or otherwise problematic. It’s going to be a lot to coordinate, but we think that we can be ready by Saturday of next week. There’s a reason we chose that date. This is kind of going to be a Kansas City thing, so if you’re coming from elsewhere, and have made travel arrangements to Chicago, we don’t want it to be too easy to add an extra thing. You are welcome to come, if you want, but it’s mostly just for us. Thanks for your understanding.