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.

Extremus: Year 74

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A year later, and Tinaya is still made of glass, but she’s doing okay, and adjusting to her new life. Solid walls no longer faze her. She’s gotten used to walking right through them whenever she needs to. She’s not technically phasing through them though, as one would conventionally picture a superhero’s atoms curving around the object’s atoms without interacting. It’s more like she makes the atoms disappear, even while they appear to still be present. There is a time when the house that Belahkay built for him and Spirit is standing there by the river. And there is a time when that house isn’t there at all; it doesn’t exist yet. What Tinaya does when she’s passing through the wall is steal little bits of spacetime from the past, specifically the mostly empty air that was once occupying the area that is now occupied by the wall. While it may look like Tinaya and the wall exist in the same point simultaneously, a clever bit of time travel allows her to become the only solid object in that moment. There has only ever been one recorded case of someone with this temporal ability. It was reported in the early 23rd century, on a ship called the Sharice Davids, but this was never confirmed.

While Tinaya was learning to accept her new physiological situation, she also needed to accept her new life in general. She is on a planet in the middle of nowhere with almost no hope of reconnecting with her friends and family back on Extremus. They considered manufacturing a long-range communications device of some kind, but ultimately decided against it. The True Extremists who now live somewhere kind of close to this area are under the impression that Verdemus was destroyed. There could be spies from this civilization amongst the people of the ship. They were there before; there could be more who have as of yet not been found. Even if they’re all eventually rooted out, the nature of time travel places all intel at risk at any other point in time. It simply isn’t safe to return, if the people on the ship could even find a way to backtrack. This is their home now, and they are better off acknowledging that. Tinaya has finally managed to do that today. She’s in a good place, and ready to move forward. Today is also the first day that she’s going to speak with the prisoner.

Everyone had a job to do on this planet in the beginning, but thanks to Belahkay’s extensive understanding of automated engineering, they don’t have to do a single thing at all anymore. Agricultural robots tend the fields. Kitchen robots make the food. Construction robots build the structures. This is like a permanent vacation. Of course, automation is the name of the game back in the stellar neighborhood too, but people still pursue goals. There’s no way to advance the human race here, though, so the simple life is the only rational pursuit. There is still plenty that they’re missing. The boy’s mother, Lilac was assigned to be Hock Watcher for their one prisoner, who was not fit to serve his time on Extremus, where he might be discovered by someone who was not aware of the persistent human presence on this world. Since her job was mostly incredibly boring, she was allowed to bring the majority of central archives, including the grand repository and the core compendium, with her. She was not, however, given copies of any of the virtual stacks. She wouldn’t be very good at watching if she were spending time in a simulation. Niobe was living too simple of a life in Exin territory where she was a slave-in-training, so she’s been eager to learn computers now, hoping to one day build the Verdemusians virtual worlds to explore. Tinaya isn’t worried about that right now, not only because there’s still plenty they don’t know about this world, but also because all she can think about is Ilias Tamm.

“First Chair Leithe, you’ve finally come.”

“I’m not First Chair anymore,” Tinaya volleys.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“You better. My chances of going back to that ship aren’t much higher than yours.” She looks around at his four walls.

“I’m holding out hope,” Ilias says cryptically.

She sighs. “Why did you ask to see me?”

“That explosion killed most of the people who were living here.”

“The explosion that you caused,” she reminds him.

He shuts his eyelids. “I’m not arguing that. I’m stating a fact to lead to a point.”

“Well, get on with it.”

“The Hock Watcher is the only survivor, besides the children, who know nothing. Many secrets died with the rest of the victims. Why do you think I was here?”

“You wanted a pardon for your father.”

He smirks. “It was more than that. I wanted you on these lands, so you could uncover those secrets. Yes, I wanted to restore my father’s name, but it will do him no good, since he’s already dead.”

“What are you saying, there’s a conspiracy of some kind?”

“Well, we’re talking about Extremus; of course there’s a conspiracy. You’re part of at least two of them. How’s Thistle doing, last you spoke with him? Still one hundred percent sentient?”

“No comment.” He isn’t supposed to know about that.

He doesn’t mind her stonewalling him. “Tell me, what is the purpose of the Extremus mission? What are we trying to do?”

“We’re trying to find a home in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”

Ilias flinches as if that’s a bad answer. “Why? What’s the point of that?”

“It has its intrinsic value. The mission is the mission.”

This makes him laugh. “That’s a nice tautology, but it’s bullshit. Everyone who started this is dead now, and they mostly did not pass their motivations onto the latter generations. My bloodline is an exception. And I’ll explain it to you, if you want.”

“Only if you’re not lying...”

He nods slightly. “Operation Starseed is a secret subprogram under Project Stargate, designed to seed human-based life all over the galaxy, starting from the stellar neighborhood, and propagating outwards. The galaxy is a couple hundred thousand light years wide, which means it will take about that long to reach the whole thing. The point of Extremus is quite simply...to beat ‘em to the punch. It’s a race, and Extremus is trying to win it.”

“Okay. Well, that’s a pretty cynical way to put it. What does that have to do with Verdemus anyway?”

“It has everything to do with Verdemus, as well as the Goldilocks Corridor and the True Extremists-slash Exins. The goal of the farthest reaches of the galaxy has always been vaguely defined. Who wins this race has therefore always been determined by your definition of that goal. Bronach Oaksent decided that the goal was in the past. He won the race thousands of years before any of us were born. He didn’t just beat Extremus, he beat modern Earth. Verdemus is just another off-shoot of that idea. The people who were meant to live here would have been just as much Extremusians as our descendants will be, who will exit the ship together on a hypothetical world out there.”

“No, that’s not true. The goal was a factor of the time that we were going to spend on the journey. That’s why there were nine captains planned, because it was going to last 216 years. This is not Planet Extremus, and not only because we didn’t literally call it that. We’re not even halfway across the galaxy yet.”

Ilias nods again, but more substantially. He removes a piece of paper from under his pillow, and sticks his arm through the bars. “Go to these coordinates. You’ll see what I mean. I’m right about this.”

Tinaya reluctantly accepts the sheet. “What the hell is this? What are coordinates? Is this based on the Earthan system? We’re not on Earth.”

“Turn it over,” he urges. “I stashed a satnav there that’s coded to Verdemus’ coordinate system,” he goes on when she flips it to the back where there’s a map to a second location using the settlement as the origin, and various large landmarks as points of reference.

“Why didn’t you just draw a map to the coordinates?” she asks.

“That’s about a quarter way around the world,” he explains. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to walk there.”

“The satellite up there is new,” she begins to argue. “It doesn’t have a coordinate system, because it’s just a warning station. The original ones, which would have been programmed with such a system, were destroyed by the crew of the Iman Vellani, because they might be detected by the Exin invaders.”

He shakes his head dismissively. “The data is in my satnav. It will send the program to the new satellite once you establish the link. It will take some doing, but the way I hear it, you know your way around a microchip.”

Tinaya reluctantly follows the map, and digs up the lockbox. She punches his code in, and retrieves the device that he was talking about. It does indeed take a little work to find a way to interface it with the orbiting satellite. Once she manages to do it, her window to actually use it closes up. In order for it to be able to warn them of external threats, it can’t remain in geostationary orbit, which would place it above them at all times. It’s constantly moving around the world, so she enjoys a limited amount of time before it disappears over the horizon, forcing her to wait. The good thing about this is that it can effectively map the coordinate system that it has just learned to the actual geography. A geostationary satellite would not be good enough to help her get to where she needs to be. About an hour and a half later, the coordinates are locked in, and the device receives an accurate set of directions. The easy part is over.

Tinaya walks over to Belahkay’s workshop where he’s building them something, or rather working on something that a robot will build when the plans are ready. “Hey, Tiny,” he says. That’s what he calls her.

“I need the jet.”

“The jet?” he questions, surprised. “Wadya need that for?”

“Fishing,” she lies.

“I hear the..bass is good on the..third continent.”

He slowly smiles, and twists his chin. “All right, I’ll let you have the jet, but I’m going with you.”

“No, I would like to be alone. That’s part of what I enjoy about fishing.”

“Tiny, I’ve never synthesized any fishing gear for you, and you’ve never mentioned it before. You’re obviously lying, which is fine, but I’m not letting you go off alone; you’re literally made of glass.”

“Ugh, everyone’s always saying that. It’s magic glass, I can’t break.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe you just haven’t got hitten hard enough.”

“Hitten?”

“It’s a word, don’t look it up. So how’s about it? I’m goin’, or no one’s goin’...? Or I’m goin’...?”

“Okay, fine. But don’t ask questions, I don’t have the answers. And you have to promise to not tell anyone what we find unless I tell you it’s okay.”

“Very well. Just let me run a preflight check, and we’ll go.”

They came up with a quick lie about the two of them wanting to feel like free birds, far, far away. The rest of the group bought it because they had no reason to believe that they were being deceived. The six of them spent time together, and they spent time apart. Aristotle went on a hike alone for a week a couple of months ago, and no one tried to stop him. He stayed in contact the whole time, and agreed to let an aerial sentinel drone fly over his head at all times. As mentioned before, this is basically all one big, long vacation.

The jet that Belahkay engineered is sleek and modern, but it’s not hypersonic. It will be some time before they mine the necessary raw materials to build anything like that, and it might not be necessary anyway. The point of getting halfway around the world in a few hours would be to connect people to each other. There’s no one else where they’re going. At least there shouldn’t be anyway. Perhaps that’s where Ilias is leading her. It could be a trap too, but it’s unlikely that he ever had enough power here to set anything like that up so far from the settlement. They didn’t find any preexisting jets over the course of the last two years, nor any place that they would have been manufactured. What could possibly be all the way out here?

A building, that’s what. A series of nested buildings, in fact. Belahkay lands the jet in an open field, and then they get out to walk back there. They’ve already seen it from the air, but they want to get a more detailed picture. Tinaya remembers learning about these in class. In the late 21st century, most people lived in arcological megastructures that towered over the landscape kilometers high, and could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. But they didn’t go straight from modest highrises to this hypercondensed style of living. They gradually worked up to them. They built superblocks first, which housed hundreds of people, and later thousands. Then they upgraded to megablocks, which housed tens of thousands. What they’re seeing here is a megablock. A giant complex several stories high surrounds a courtyard, and on the inside of this courtyard is another building, shorter than the first. They just keep going like that, each layer being smaller in two dimensions than the one outside of it. In the very center is a 10,000 square meter park.

The fact that they’ve found this thing is shocking enough. It shows that the people who first came to this world weren’t just curious about the flora and fauna. They were planning to settle it with a significant human population who would never see the Extremus again, and would start a new civilization. Ilias was right, different people were making up their own definitions for the end state of the Extremus project. But that isn’t the only thing they find here. In the park is what looks like a downed jet. It seems to have crashed here many years ago. There was one apparent survivor, or maybe he had nothing to do with it. He comes out of a handcrafted structure next to the pond, and approaches to shake their hands. “Hi. Welcome to Sycamore Highfields.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 21, 2412

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Finding the Nexus, and getting the hell out of this galaxy, while dangerous and full of many unknowns, was their best and safest course of action. The angry Fifth Divisioner was one of apparently many who wanted to see the whole team dead, probably for not completely unreasonable reasons. They always had pretty good luck on Dardius, at least when it came to civilization. Of course, that was the location of Tribulation Island, which was arguably the source of every problem that still haunted them today, but other than that, it’s been great.

“What’s your idea, Constance?” Leona asked.

“Well, the three-word coordinate system is an interesting thing,” Constance began. “They’re meant to be random, but then I started thinking about how time travelers affect history in tiny little ways that a normal person wouldn’t notice. There are phrases that I’ve heard two people utter independently of each other, centuries apart, without them having ever crossed paths. Now, maybe that can be explained by a long chain of meetings, like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but based on other things I know about how time works...not necessarily. The Nexa are incredibly advanced, complex machines that can do a whole hell of a lot more than just send you from Point A to Point B. The people who came up with them cross the multiversal void like it’s nothing more than a tiny stream they can hop over with a modicum of momentum. They’re sometimes called gods. If anyone is capable of secretly impacting the algorithm of a natural language global coordinate system, it’s them.”

“Where are you going with this?” Mateo pressed, not impatiently.

Constance nodded, and turned a screen that hung down from the ceiling between the passenger section and the helm. She zoomed into the ocean. “Nexus.space.machine,” she said dramatically. “Middle of the Pacific Ocean, just as we suspected.

Leona peered at it. “Could it really be that...on the nose?”

“Might as well see what’s up,” Constance determined. “The nearest major land mass is three thousand kilometers away. There’s little risk in checking it out. I mean, except, of course, that guy who’s trying to kill you. But he could be anywhere.” She shrugged. “I doubt he’s there. If he is, it’s because I’m right.”

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. She looked back up at the screen, and took a breath. “Dante. Activate the cloak, plot a course back to Earth, and once we’re within teleportation range, jump us straight to—”

“Wait,” Olimpia piped up. “If there’s something there, we don’t wanna land right on top of it, or inside of it.”

“Good point.” Leona tapped on a different square on the map. “Jump to arise.until.converges instead.”

“Understood. Cloak activated. Jumping now.”

They were floating in the middle of the ocean. Around them was more ocean. There was no land in sight, no aircraft in the skies; they were totally alone. And there was no Nexus space machine to transport them to Dardius. But of course, it was never going to be that easy, or a satellite would have picked it up in the late 19th century. Angela started removing her clothes.

“Whaaat are you doing?” Ramses asked

“Don’t question her,” Olimpia scolded playfully, enjoying the show.

“I’m going for a swim. My guess is that it’s at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t know how deep it is here, but—”

“Three thousand, six hundred, and eighty-three meters,” Dante answered, unprompted.

“You can’t go down that far,” Ramses explained, “but...” He widened his eyes, and lifted his hand towards the ceiling.

“I can,” Dante volunteered.

“Let’s do it,” Leona said. “Run a grid sweep, centering on Nexus.space.machine.”

They didn’t have to do much of a sweep. As soon as they dove right under the surface, and pointed the headlights where they wanted to go, the Nexus building appeared within view. It wasn’t giving off any energy readings to speak of, and was undetectable via sonar, but it was visible to the naked eye. It was just under the water, and maintaining neutral buoyancy. The waves went up, it went up. The waves went down, it went down. It was possible to stand on top of it, and not get wet above the ankles, if not for the splashes. They dove the Dante deeper, and magnetically attached it to the exterior wall. Then they all seven teleported into the Nexus building.

“Venus, are you there?”

“I’m here, Leona.”

“I’m always worried that you won’t respond.”

“I can’t promise that I always will.”

“Thanks for being honest. We were hoping to be transported to Dardius?”

“Certainly.” The machine began to power up.

“Wait, let’s think about this,” Mateo said. Despite the fact that Mateo did not have anywhere near the relationship with this Venus Opsocor, the machine actually started to power down a little bit, apparently in response to his hesitation. “I’m a little tired. Aren’t you a little tired?”

“I guess,” Leona replied.

“I’m not,” Ramses said. “But if you worked half as hard as I imagine you would have had to in the stairwell, your bodies could be spent right now. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a rest.”

“If we wait one more day,” Leona began to reason, “everyone else is waiting a year. They’re expecting us.”

“They knew what they were getting into when they sent for us,” Marie reasoned right back. “They are under no illusions that our lives are quick and easy. You should sleep. It could be that they would rather us be late and energized than early and useless.”

Leona thought about it some more. All right. Venus, we’re going back to the Dante to sleep. Is it okay if we postpone this for a year?”

“Why go back when you have everything you need right here?” The Nexus went back to powering up. A light flashed, and when it receded, they found an undecagonal bed that fit perfectly within the undecagonal Nexus cavity. Someone designed it to be used for such an occasion, and it was just sitting on another world, waiting to be transported here when needed. Did they need it, though? Did anyone need a bed that was larger than most bedrooms?

“Orgy, party of seven!” Olimpia joked. She jumped into the bed, and started logrolling around.

“That’s my sister,” Angela argued, pointing to Marie.

Olimpia just shrugged.

“You definitely need some sleep, which is all that’s going to be happening in this bed. Thank you, Venus,” Leona said.

“I live to serve.”

Everyone slept through the night, including the four of them who didn’t expend a ton of energy in an underground monkey bar prison. Constance found it to be an eye-opening experience, because while she had obviously placed herself in dormant mode before, she had never slept as an organic being. It made her appreciate the human struggle more in several hours than she had accrued in the prior four and a half billion years of her life. That was probably a tiny exaggeration, though. Once everyone was up and ready, Venus made the gargantuan bed disappear. She then loaded the coordinates to the Nexus on Tribulation Island, and sent them all away.

“You have arrived,” she announced at their destination. Because she was everywhere all at once.

The two Nexus technicians greeted them, of course knowing exactly who they were, and having been expecting their visit. They made no indication that the team was late. They contacted someone to come and explain why they were asked to come here, and told them that they were free to wait inside, or get some fresh air. This planet never had any air pollution, which was something that all Vonearthan colonies shared, but this one held a population of billions, so it was particularly astonishing.

When they stepped outside, they found the Dante sitting on the sand next to the Nexus building. “Venus. How did you bring it here?” Leona asked her.

“The cavity is more of what you would call a guideline than an actual rule. I am the Nexus. I am the network.” Hm. Interesting.

They wandered around, and did enjoy the fresh air until a woman arrived an hour later from an airshuttle. She stepped out, and looked directly at Mateo, rather than the group as a whole. “Mateo Matic. My name is Tyra Nieman, Generation Ten. I am here to take you to my daughter, Karla Nieman, Generation Eleven.”

“Do we have business with her?” Mateo asked. “I don’t believe we’ve met, though I do recognize the surname. I think it’s in my notebook.”

“It ought to be,” Tyra said. “You had sex with our ancestor nearly three hundred years ago.” She turned to head back towards the shuttle. “Come. Your daughter will be born soon.”

They followed her into the shuttle, and rode with her to the mainland. Mateo started flipping through his notes, but he already remembered what Tyra was referring to. Two hundred and seventy-nine years ago, Mateo and Leona found themselves on the rogue planet of Durus. A settlement called Ladytown was attacked by the government, which resulted in all of the males living there contracting a deadly disease. They asked Mateo to donate sperm so they could repopulate and rebuild. They did not have the technology to do this medically, so he had to perform the old fashioned way. He paired with several women, but after returning to the timestream a year later, he learned that none of the pregnancies took. According to this woman, that was apparently untrue, or the truth was at least complicated. In their world, complicated was the resting state. Their best guess was that Saffira Nieman was placed in stasis, or jumped forward in time, and it was just that no one mentioned it. But if Saffira was finally about to have the baby, what did her descendent, Karla have to do with anything?

Tyra declined to clarify the situation, insisting that, as the current mother—which she said as if the word were more of a title than a relationship—Karla was responsible for speaking for herself. So they waited until they were in the house in Sutvindr, where the Niemans lived. There they were taken into a bedroom, where a pregnant woman was lying in bed. Mateo wasn’t the best with faces, but this was definitely not Saffira.

A man was sitting on a chair next to the bed. “It’s all right, father. I would like to speak with him alone.”

“What if you need something?” her father asks.

“Then I am sure that Mister Matic is more than capable of helping. If his reputation is accurate, he will be more than willing as well.”

“Of course,” Mateo concurred. “She is safe with me.”

The father grunted, and left the room. Leona had stepped in as well, and was reluctant to leave.

“It’s okay, Madam Delaney. You may stay as well,” the woman said with a smile, though it appeared to be difficult for her to change the expression on her face. With all due respect, she looked very tired. “I’m sure you have lots of questions,” she began as she was trying to sit up. She accepted Mateo’s help with the pillows. “Or maybe you just have the one: what the fuck is going on? Bear with me, and I promise, everything will make sense.” She cleared her throat, and reached over for some water. “My name is Karla Nieman, Generation Eleven: the final mother. Now, what does that mean? Well, hundreds of years ago, you impregnated Saffira Nieman. She lived and died with no idea that she was pregnant for years on end. She actually had her own kid—two kids, I believe; a girl and a boy. The girl, when she came of age, became pregnant as well. She lived and died also without knowing the truth. It was actually not until the fourth generation that people started to suspect that something was weird.”

“Oh my God.”

“Leona’s getting it,” Karla said with a bigger smile, and a laugh. “That’s when she started to feel symptoms, because for the baby, the pregnancy has been going on for the last several weeks.”

Mateo lost his breath. He turned away to get it back. He was hyperventilating. Leona tried to place her hands upon his shoulders to comfort him, but it only made it worse. After a couple of minutes, he composed himself, and turned back around. “I’m terribly sorry about that. I just...now I understand that... I’m sorry.”

“Yes, it’s a lot to take in. We can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Generations Four and Five. They had to figure it out with limited medical technology, and a cursory understanding of time travel studies. You’re famous, Mateo, and the Nieman bloodline knows more about you than anyone else in the universe, but that’s only because we made a point to know. We had to. But the early mothers had no reason to research your life yet.”

“So you’ve been pregnant your whole life? The baby just keeps going down the generations?” Mateo asked.

“No,” Karla responded with a shake of her head. “It doesn’t happen until after puberty. Until then, the previous mother holds onto it. But remember, it’s a once a year thing. It’s just like your life—” She interrupted herself to stare into space with a look of immense pain. Her sigh turned into a whimper, which turned into a scream, though it wasn’t too loud. Mateo just let her squeeze his hand until the contraction was over two minutes later. She breathed heavily, and drank some more water. “Forgive me.”

“That is nothing that needs to be forgiven,” Leona insisted.

“Thank you. As I was saying, the way it worked is that once the next mother in line goes through puberty, the baby will transport itself to her. The doctors called it Spontaneous Uterine Transplantation. Actually, they originally called it Spontaneous Matrilineal Uterine Transplantation, but someone pointed out that it spelled out Smut, so they changed it. But it’s still matrilineal. To my knowledge, a daughter was never a guarantee. I only have three brothers, but previous mothers have had many more, because they needed to make sure that there was an impregnable person to carry the torch. Ha! That’s not the right word, is it? It seems like it should be. If you can be impregnated, you’re impregnable! Right? Am I right? I’m right!” She laughed heartily.

They laughed with her.

“Anyway, as we’ve said, there have been eleven generations of this for the last three hundred years. The baby exists for one day out of the year, just like you. It jumps forward in time at the end of that day, but the funny thing is, every fun component of pregnancy sticks around. Bloating, cramps, wonky hormones: I’ve had them since I was a teen. And now...”

“Now you’ve been in labor for, what, a week?” Leona guessed.

“A month,” Karla corrected. “I’ve been having contractions for a month. And unless this baby comes today, I’m going to be having them for a whole other year. The final mother has always been a revered figure in our family history. But they never thought about the downsides. And I’m the only one who has to go through them.” She leaned over to the side, and glanced at the door as if she could see through it. “Between you and me, my mom has always resented me. My grandmother—God bless her—she was scared to death that she would birth a premature baby. But her husband was always, like, Telma—her name was Telma—he was like, Telma, this is Mateo Matic’s child. It magically disappears every year, and then comes back to the same womb. Then it moves to a different womb! It’s not gonna be premature! It’s gonna come out perfect! My grandfather, he was a laugh riot. But my mom! My mom. She thought she was the one. Lots of babies are born at thirty weeks, she’d say. She never let me forget it. But she was wrong. It’s me. I’m the birth mother. And she doesn’t resent me anymore.” She indicated herself in the bed. “Not after seeing me like this, and being pretty sure that the baby’s birthdate is April 22, 2413. Ain’t nobody wants to be me no more, I’ll tell ya that much. Sorry, I got a bit of an accent that comes out when I’m riled up. I know I’m in trouble, but you’re here now, and I can’t help but be excited.”

“We understand,” Leona said. “But you really should get some rest. We will indeed get you anything you need. We can try to...” she started to say uncomfortably.

“Induce?” Karla assumed. “I’m not allowed to. It’s this whole spiritual thing. I gotta go through it all the way. We’re on the baby’s timetable. We always have been. Everybody’s afraid that something’ll go wrong if we interfere in any way.”

Leona frowned at her, as did Mateo.

“It’ll be all right, Sugar,” Karla said. “I’m a tough chick. I’ll get through this, and then I’ll be the only mother that matters. And my mother will hate me for it.” She seemed quite pleased with this eventuality.

They stayed with her for the rest of the day, learning more of the family history, and of Karla’s personal life. She hadn’t come up with a name for the baby yet, but the past mothers always thought that it would be a good idea to choose a Croatian name. A year later, Romana Saffira Nieman took her first breath in the fresh Dardieti air.

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Microstory 1938: Alien Genitalia

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Leonard: Is this it? Are we here?

Reese: Just about. I don’t wanna damage my truck, so I’m pulling over. We’ll have to walk a little ways, towards that hill.

Myka: There’s something over there, I can already see it. I can’t tell what it is; just that it breaks up the uniformity of the ground. It could just be a rock.

Reese: Where did you get those binoculars?

Myka: I always have them. Birdwatching is a positive outlook that keeps me out of jail.

Reese: What was that? Why did you two just give each other a look?

Myka: What look? There’s no look. Let’s go. We’re burnin’ daylight.

Reese: Hey, man. Take this.

Leonard: You’re giving me a gun?

Reese: I don’t know what we’re gonna find. I would give one to her—

Myka: No, thank you.

Reese: I just can’t be the only one armed. You have had training, right?

Leonard: Of course I do. *checks the gun, then continues forwards*

Myka: *as they’re drawing nearer to the coordinates* Oh, I see what it is now.

Reese: What?

Myka: It’s a body.

Reese: Stay behind us. Leo, keep your head on a swivel for me.

Myka: No pulse. Cold, stiff. He’s been dead for a day at least.

Leonard: I see tracks over here! At least that’s what I think they are. They’re not human, and from no animal that I’ve ever seen, but who knows what kind of fauna you have on this world? You would know better.

Reese: I can track anything on planet Earth...this version of Earth, anyway. No animal I know of makes prints like these. I never got a good look at the Ochivar’s feet, but this is how I would imagine them. They don’t wear shoes?

Leonard: Aliens don’t wear shoes or clothes, because filmmakers don’t usually bother designing genitalia for the puppets or makeup and suits that the actors wear.

Reese: Good point.

Myka: I count four sets of prints. You both get the same?

Leonard: Yeah, but three of ‘em go off in that direction, and the other one doesn’t.

Reese: The fourth couldn’t possibly be this guy, right? Ochivar can’t camouflage themselves as human, right?

Leonard: Not that I’m aware. Plus, he is wearing clothes and shoes. That seems like a weird way to throw us off the scent.

Reese: *looking into the distance, and then the car* All right, we need supplies if we’re gonna walk deeper into the desert. I can go back to my car alone, or you can join me if you would rather not wait here, but no one’s following those tracks until I get back.

Myka: We stick together. Can we all three decide on that now? No matter what happens, we don’t get separated.

Leonard: Yeah, I can agree to that.

Reese: Okay. Then let’s go. Water, food, first aid, more ammo...and a tent.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 242,398

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Danica checks her watch. They should be here by now. There must be something wrong with this damn thing. Or maybe she just doesn’t know how to use it. Tamerlane was right about that. She wasn’t chosen for this job because of her technology skills. She was chosen by fate. Or destiny, or just arbitrarily. Who knows? As she’s shaking her head out of frustration, the machine turns itself on. In a flash, Mateo and Curtis appear from the past. “I’m sending you back. Bhulan isn’t here,” she lies to them. Technically, she is here, but not because this is where Tamerlane sent her. It’s because she returned 10,000 years ago, and now she’s still here, currently hanging out with Abigail, Cheyenne, and Curtis in one of the stasis chambers.

“So we’ve already lost,” Past!Curtis questions.

“Not yet. I have another trick up my sleeve.” Danica double checks the temporal coordinates on the time machine, set to send them back to ten seconds after they left 20,000 years ago.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Past!Mateo asks.

“You’ve done more than enough,” Present!Mateo replies.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Past!Mateo argues with his future self.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” Danica assures him. “Just say you didn’t find her here, because that’s the truth. Safe travels.” She pulls the switch, and sends them home.

“The loop is closed,” Present!Mateo declares with an exhalation that sounds like he’s been holding it in the whole time.

“The issue remains.” Danica starts tapping on her watch, remotely unlocking Tamerlane’s special stasis pod, the hatch to his private stasis chamber, and the gate to his cell. “I need you to get something for me.”

“What?”

“Tamerlane Pryce. I don’t feel like walking all the way down there, and all the way back. We may as well get some use out of your teleportation powers.”

“What are you gonna do to him?” Mateo darts his gaze over to the machine. “Or rather, when and where will you send him?”

“I’m going to send him where he wants to go,” Danica answers. Keeping him locked up was the wrong play, and crueler than she ever wanted to be. It’s messing him up, and it will only get worse. There’s one option left to fix this, but he’s not gonna like it, and she definitely won’t. Mateo will probably be displeased too. If Tamerlane wants to disappear, then she’ll help, but to different ends. After Mateo zips away, she starts to set new temporal coordinates, this time 60,000 years from now. He thinks that this will set the Omega Gyroscope free, but there’s something about it that not even he knows.

Mateo returns with the prisoner in hand. “I need to know that you’re not going to hurt him. I can’t be party to that.”

Danica takes Tamerlane by the shoulder, and escorts him into the time chamber. “He’ll be back in the year 302,398, just as he wanted.”

“Why are you doing this?” Tamerlane asks, a little worried about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but too curious to keep quiet.

“It’s clear that I can’t control you,” she explains as she’s stepping out of the blast zone. She frowns at Mateo. “But I think I can control Leona.” She pulls the switch again.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 11, 2398

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Eleven hours later, the away team was over eight thousand kilometers away. Ramses performed a water landing, then kept The Olimpia in boat mode so they could dock at the marina. A taksi took them over to Bishopsworth Resort, where they spent the night. The concierge was insistent on knowing what time they would be fully awake and dressed in the morning. They were already feeling jet lagged, so they chose 10:00, and when the clock chimed ten times, a crew of waiters burst into their room unannounced, and began to serve them their welcome breakfast. It was shocking, and annoying that no one thought to tell them what would be happening. Perhaps they just assumed everyone would know. They failed to do their research, or rather, Heath did. No matter, the food was good, and they needed to fuel up before the mission. When it was over, they opted to walk back to the marina, where they climbed into their boat, and headed Southeast.

Three hours later, they have made it to reform.belief.paint. They can see all around them forever, but there’s nothing but water, water, and more water. “Does anybody feel anything?” Marie asks. “Do we get the sense that we can teleport again?”

“Not in the least,” Ramses answers.

Apparently the one with the strongest connection to any source of temporal energy, Mateo shuts his eyes and tries to jump all the way back to the entrance to the boat, but he doesn’t move. “Nothing.”

“Hm,” Ramses says. “If anywhere in the world would have it, I would have thought here.”

“Why is that?” Mateo asks. “It’s not really any more special than the pyramids, or Easter Island.”

“Because most of the British Isles are just gone?” Marie says. “That’s weird. It sure as hell sounds like some kind of temporal anomaly. The Great Pyramid of Giza is just sitting there, where it’s supposed to be. We’re not even really sure why it’s special in the first place. But the fact that most of Great Britain doesn’t exist, but some parts of it do...that doesn’t make much sense.”

“True,” Mateo agrees.

“Well, we can’t have come all this way,” Marie begins, “and not at least try to find some clues. There’s only one logical next step.”

Ramses nods, and takes them down as far as this thing can go, but still don’t reach the bottom. If there’s any temporal energy tied to the location of Stonehenge, it’s under too much pressure. It looks like this little side mission is just a dead end. Leona drew a border on the virtual map, so they can maintain their proximity to their target. Mateo keeps trying to jump every once in a while, but nothing happens, not even a hint. The trio keeps thinking that maybe something will surprise them just before they give up, but they continue to sporadically utter defeatist phrases at each other—like “there’s nothing here” or “this is dumb”—yet still nothing changes.

It doesn’t even necessarily have to be time-related. They could resurface to find a band of pirates who want to take them hostage, or a shady government helicopter who has been following them around since the parking lot. But when they break the surface, they find it just as it was before. Water, water, and more water. “I think I’m gonna call it,” Marie declares. “This was a waste of time.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Ramses contends. “We had to come here. If we hadn’t, we would have wondered about it. Now we can check it off the list. That’s the whole point of these little missions. We only have to find one thing that helps us get home.”

Marie nods, appreciating the sentiment. “Let’s go back to the island. We might as well be able to tell Heath that we did the bike tour. He was pretty excited about the prospect of us doing some real vacationy stuff”

Mateo heads towards the stern as Ramses is turning the Olimpia around. Recessed in the walls of the two back cubbies are footholds that lead up to an emergency exit in the ceiling. He opens up the hatch, and climbs outside. He stands on the roof, and continues to look around, hoping to see an ominous dark shadow of a giant creature as it swims underneath them, or a brilliant green whirlpool, or maybe a beacon in the distance. That would be satisfying enough, to rescue a random castaway. But as before, he finds that there is nothing special about this place. It’s just the middle of the ocean on the most boring version of Earth yet. He’s not yet lost hope, because they still have many other locations to test, but it’s sure not a good start. Though, to be fair, it’s not really a start. Magic exists here; The Constant proves it. As Ramses was saying, they have to keep trying, and keep checking things off the list.

After they’re sufficiently far from awaited.passively.landings, he climbs back inside, and hangs out with the other two until they get back to the resort. There they stay for two more nights to finish out their reservation. Island culture is a little bizarre and confusing at times, but overall a lovely experience. Next stop, Munich.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 10, 2398

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Today’s the day. Half of the current team roster is going off on a long-term mission across Europe while the other half stays home to take care of things here. Ramses is in the driver’s seat of The Olimpia, while Heath’s regular car follows them down the road. Cars aren’t fully automated, but they can be programmed to stay on the exact same route as the vehicle ahead of them. It’s really just a fancy way of hitching it to the back. Flying cars such as this one are not commonplace, but they still need laws and regulations to operate safely. A driver can take it on any standard road, and float it in any publicly-accessible body of water, but flying is a lot more difficult. They’ll have to launch from an unpopulated area, and fly at a certain altitude, though very specific routes called market corridors. The more rural the area is under the vessel, the wider the corridor. Early versions had to take off from airstrips, but the more advanced ones are built with vertical take-off engines. So that wouldn’t be a problem, they mainly need to get far enough away from the city.

“Don’t we need to play rock, paper scissors?” Marie asks.

Heath stops midway up the steps. “Uh...no.”

“Ramses says he wants to sleep in the control area,” Mateo says, “and I can just use one of these little cubbies. You take the real bed, this isn’t a negotiation.”

“I don’t really like it up there,” Marie claims.

Heath just keeps carrying her bags up to the loft as Mateo chuckles. “Yeah, right.” He approaches her when he sees her frowning at him. “It’s okay for people to take care of you. I know that that was your job in the afterlife simulation, but surely you had your own counselor when you first died.”

“Yes, we did,” Angela confirms. “His name was Þorgeir.”

“I know that name,” Leona says, perking up. “Thor Thompson was named after him.”

“He’s in good company,” Angela decides. She returns her attention to her alternate self. “Take the loft. You know how much we hate to argue.”

Heath is already hanging her expandable shelf bag on the hook against the outside of the shower room wall. “Thank you,” she says to the group.

“We’re here!” Ramses shouts all the way from the front. They’re in the middle of nowhere outside Independence, facing the Missouri River. “It’s a beautiful day, and this is a beautiful area! Let’s all say our goodbyes before we lose the daylight!” He comes to a stop, turns the hazards on, and comes to the back.

“How long is the first leg?” Mateo asks him.

“That depends on exactly where we’re going,” Ramses answers.

Leona projects a map of their itinerary onto the lav door. The first stop on their fake vacation is Foggy Londontown. It occurs to Mateo that he still doesn’t really understand how the U.S. works in this reality, but he really doesn't know how other countries work. What might be waiting for them when they land? The entire island of the United Kingdom does not exist, for reasons they still don’t yet know. They’ll be investigating that in the coming few days. What they discovered is that a few small islands do indeed exist in the area where Great Britain should be, and they may hold answers. “Okay, the coordinate system is a little different here, which means it took some doing to draw from my own memory of main sequence geography, but I believe I’ve found the approximate location of Stonehenge, or rather the analog. Perhaps fittingly, if the mysterious rock formation existed here, it would be found at awaited.passively.landings. That’s my best guess.”

“Await-a-what?” Angela asks.

“The traditional numerical coordinate system was abandoned centuries ago, in favor of a lexical geocoding algorithm.”

“A-lexa-what?” Angela presses.

“A unique series of three random words are designated for a given square on the map, which can be shared and pinpointed using proprietary mapping software,” she says, which is just about as confusing. “For instance, where the Olimpia happens to be parked right now, we’re located at clashing.thrill.ultra.”

Ramses shows a nonchalant sort of pouty face. “I did that on purpose,” he jokes.

Leona rolls her eyes “Well, each square is three meters wide, and the vehicle is sixteen meters long, so where you were sitting up there is closer to yawned.nephew.custard.”

“Yeah,” Ramses insists, “I love custard.”

“Where am I?” Mateo asks, stepping towards the seats.

“You’re at telegrams.patch.card.”

“Where’s that tree?” Angela offers, pointing out the window.

“Uh, I believe culprit.triads.enrolling.”

“Where is I.love.you?” Mateo asks, trying to be cute.

Leona tries it. She even substitutes the word eye for I. “Doesn’t exist; not all word permutations do.”

“Oh,” Mateo is sad. “Well, what about—”

“You heard Ramses,” Heath interrupts. “You three better get going so you’re not flying too late at night. No more time for games.”

“Well,” Leona goes on, “based on this system, my calculations, and your most fuel-efficient cruising speed, you should arrive in about eleven hours.”

“Are we landing on an island?” Marie asks her.

“Well, awaited.passively.landings is in the middle of the water, but that’s probably for the best, and there’s a resort not too far from there, where Heath has two rooms booked for you. In fact, it will be past sunset by the time you get there, so you might just wanna check in, and head for the coordinates in the morning. It’s only a few hours away in boat mode. I believe that the island is where the city of Bristol should be.”

“Did the island sink?” Heath guesses. “Is your Bristol at a particularly high elevation?”

“Not that I can remember,” Angela answers. “The higher elevations were in Scotland. They called them the highlands.”

“Why do we need a resort if we have this?” Ramses asks, indicating the whole of the Olimpia.

“You’re on vacation,” Heath reminds him. “Try not to stand out. Do normal things, like hiking, and museuming. I didn’t make reservations for you, but there’s also a bike tour that goes all around that island, if you’re interested.”

They discuss a few more details, but it really is time for them to leave, so they make their farewells, and break in half. The away team uses the road as a runway, instead of doing a true VTO, to save on fuel, and disappears into the horizon.

Microstory 1703: Apus

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I’m going to tell you my story once, and then never mention it again. Every time I look down at my legs, I relive the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t need to keep rehashing that on purpose. Three years ago, I had just pulled into my garage after working late, and was trying to close the door behind me when I heard a grating screeching sound. At the time, the door was very old, because I had just moved in to a quiet town where the regulations were lax, and I hadn’t had time to modernize it. So it had a remote, but the door itself didn’t have any sensors that would automatically lift it back up if it encountered an obstacle. I took my hand off the keys, and looked in my passenger side view mirror to see a figure dressed in all black, holding onto the bottom of that door, preventing it from going down. The strain from this eventually damaged the system, and I guess the motor gave up. I look back on this day often, and wish I had just reversed the car into him. I could have escaped, and none of this would have happened. Of course, I’m not a violent woman. I didn’t know what the masked stranger was going to do to me, but I knew what I was going to do to him, which was nothing. I could only hope that he didn’t hurt me. As you can see, he did. He climbed into my car, smoothly, like he did this sort of thing every day. I slowly tried to reach over to my key again, hoping to push the alarm button, but he reached over just as slowly, and held my hand back. He shook his head, but didn’t speak. He tilted his head down a little, and pointed behind us with his left thumb, indicating that I should back out.

As I was complying with his demand, I scraped the side of my car against the frame of the garage, hoping to alert my neighbors. Choked up, I apologized, and claimed that I was nervous, which he believed, because it was not a lie. I overcompensated, and ran right into my metal trash cans on the other side of the driveway, making even more noise. Still, he believed I was doing my best, and he did not become angry. In the fastest I had ever seen him move, he quickly waved his index finger towards me, which I took to mean that he wanted me to start driving that direction down my street. As I was doing so, he casually reached over, and punched a set of GPS coordinates in my satnav. He didn’t have to search for a place, or even use an address; he knew the numbers by heart. We went far past the edge of town, and onto a gravel road in the woods. We didn’t speak a single word on the way. As far as I could tell, he was mute. We arrived exactly where you would expect someone like him to live; in a dilapidated and unpainted cabin. He pointed to my door, as he was stepping out of the car himself. He never touched me, though. He knew that I knew that I was in deeply unfamiliar territory, and there was nothing I could do to escape. He followed me into the cabin, and pointed to the chair where I was meant to sit, which I found to be bolted to the floor. He had me bind my stomach with rope, as well as a zip tie for my left wrist, before handling my other wrist for me. He dragged a bucket of burning hot coals out of the fire, and towards me. When it got to close, I lifted my legs, but he forced them back down, keeping them there while the coals seared my skin. When they were good and burned, he carried me to the trunk of my own car, and drove me back home. So that is why every wall in my apartment is filled with paintings of birds-of-paradise. Their Latin nickname is Apus, because people once believed that, like me, these magnificent creatures did not have feet.