The Fifth Division: Rockhead (Part II)

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The people who work in the Garden Dimension are not pleased to learn that Briar de Vries pushed the prisoner down a well, but they let it go when they realize that A.F. is no ordinary man. He’s in a posthuman body, reluctantly gifted to him by the infamous Team Matic. He’s not immortal, but he’s harder to hurt, and quicker to heal. The walls of the well are smooth and wet. It was designed with an ancient aesthetic, but constructed using modern techniques, so it hasn’t experienced any wear and tear. He’s not getting out of there unless he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, or fly on his own power. He’ll survive, but not for long. Briar hasn’t clarified what he thinks his endgame is, but they’re letting him do what he thinks is best, for now.

It’s the next day now, and everyone appears to be up to speed. Hogarth Pudeyonavic’s artificial universe, Fort Underhill predominately houses people who used to be dead. Now Ingrid realizes why they didn’t call it Fort Hogarth, or something. She may have built it, but it was Ellie Underhill who used her immense powers to resurrect 120 billion people from the afterlife virtual simulation they were in, into new substrates in base reality. She evidently did it all at once. The thing about this situation, though, is that there was no longer anywhere for them to go when they died. Their bodies are no more invincible than A.F.’s. Some of them had spent thousands of years in the simulation, having died on Earth in ancient times. To them, coming back to a physical plane of existence wasn’t really a gift, even though the servers they were being stored on were about to be shut down.

Hogarth came up with a solution. It is she who has the power to demolecularize her body, and respawn elsewhere. Someone—it’s unclear who; perhaps Hogarth herself—replicated this ability in everyone. Now they all respawn. It’s relatively rare, because they’re kind of living in a utopia, so it’s not like people are dropping like flies, but it’s a nice contingency. Visitors from Salmonverse can still die in most places in Fort Underhill, but they too are protected as long as they remain in the Crest Hotel, as a safety feature for diplomatic reasons.

Ingrid is looking down the wall at the prisoner. A.F. seems very calm. She can’t fully make out his face this far away, and in this poor lighting, but it kind of looks like contentment from here. She needs to get him out of there. She needs to talk with him herself. This well-centric moral lesson was a stupid idea. There’s a rope here, but it doesn’t feel like it’s sturdy enough to hold a person. It’s just meant to pull up water in a bucket. This unique jail was meant to be relatively self-sufficient. When you water some of the ground on the bottom of the thorny walls, nutrient-rich mushrooms grow in a matter of hours, reportedly providing all the nourishment a prisoner needs.

Killjlir Pike—who Ingrid is convinced made up their own name—walks in from the corridor. Ingrid heard them coming a mile away. As a seasoned warrior, Ingrid knows how to be stealthy. She wasn’t arbitrarily handed the job of running the entire offensive branch of her civilization’s military. She earned it. She earned it in her enemies’ blood, and her own. She sometimes can’t help but sneak up to people, even when surprise is not her intention. Killjlir is the polar opposite. They have no personal experience with war, nor bloodshed of any kind. They were indeed handed their role as leader of their people. The Andromeda Consortium is an incredibly bizarre and dysfunctional web of alliances that always opposed the Detachments, over which Ingrid presided in the Fifth Division parallel reality. These alliances are based on an incomprehensible mess of so-called hierarchies. Two factions can war with each other, and they can recruit allied factions into that, even if there’s a conflict of interest. Literally, one faction will fight this war on both sides. It doesn’t make any sense.

Killjlir’s official title is First Among Us. The Andromedans might be fighting each other every which way, but they all answer to Killjlir. The way the Consortium apparently sees it, the First World is superior to all others. But this doesn’t make sense either. Not only is the First World not the planet where humans originally lived, because that was in the Milky Way, but it’s not even the first planet that was settled in the Andromeda Galaxy. They discovered it something like three hundred years later. They don’t dispute this fact in their history, they just don’t see the problem with using the term. Only a First Worldian can become First Among Us, but that’s the only requirement. Ingrid believes that the successor is chosen due to their attractiveness, but she’s never heard anyone admit that. They don’t have to have any diplomatic experience, or leadership skills, or even basic intelligence. That’s what leads Ingrid to believe that it’s only about superficial qualities, but again, she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that Killjlir is an idiot, and they don’t get along. The sentient tree forced them both to represent the interests of the Fifth Division collaboratively, but it was clear from the beginning that Ingrid was going to have to do all the work.

“What are you doing?” Killjlir asks?

“Getting some water,” Ingrid lies.

“You’re gonna drink water from where there’s a person?”

“What’s it to ya?”

“I can help. Do you want me to help?”

“You don’t know what I may need help with,” Ingrid reasons.

“I bet I do.” They glide over to look down the well. “How’re ya doing down there?”

“Oh, I’m great!” A.F. responds. “How ‘bout you?”

“Hang in there! We’re gonna rescue you!”

“We are?” Ingrid questions.

Killjlir closes their eyes, and shakes their head to silently respond to Ingrid. “Hold your breath!” they call down to A.F. They take a little bottle from their oversized sleeve, pop the cork, and drop the whole thing down the wall.

In an instant, the water shoots up like a geyser. A.F. is sent flying into the ceiling, where he’s impaled on a couple dozen thorns, which hold him in place while the water settles back down. Ingrid is speechless as she sloughs the chemicals off of her body. It’s not just water, but some kind of hyperreactive polymer. She’s never seen it before. “What. The. Fuck!”

Killjlir tilts their head as they’re looking up at A.F. Blood begins dripping down on their faces, which Ingrid is too upset to block, and Killjlir seems curious about it, as if they’ve never seen blood before at all. “That was more powerful than I realized.”

“Was that your first kill?” Ingrid asks them.

“No,” A.F. ekes out from the ceiling. “She’s not killed me, I’m fine.” He groans and struggles to move, millimeter by millimeter, until pulling himself back off of enough thorns to let gravity take over. He falls down, smashing his face on the well between them before crash landing on the ground.

“Sorry,” Killjlir says, like their only crime was forgetting a friend’s middle name.

“You’re lucky he’s hard to kill,” Ingrid scolds. “We would have been screwed. And I need to talk to him.”

A.F. laughs as he’s still lying facedown on the dirt. “It’s too late.”

“I knew it,” Ingrid says angrily. “You wanted to be down that damn well. Or at least you didn’t care.”

He rolls himself over, revealing a bloody smile. “Did you really think we didn’t know about respawning? Do you really think that the First Explorer didn’t tell us everything? She’s omniscient!”

“She’s called the First Explorer?” Killjlir asks, with an air of seriousness that Ingrid has never seen in them before. “Tell me, is she called the First Explorer?”

He laughs again. “Yeah.”

Killjlir pulls a dagger out of their other sleeve. Their newfound stoicism has not subsided. They kneel by A.F., and unceremoniously drive the dagger into his neck, through his brain, and out the top of his head.

Ingrid doesn’t know whether she should be impressed, or horrified. Probably both. “Was...that your first kill?”

Killjlir hastily removes most of their elaborate dress, and tosses it down the well. They’re now wearing a sleek and stylish uniform. “Help me.” They bend back down, and lift A.F.’s dead body’s shoulders up.

Still shocked, but following her instincts, Ingrid reaches down and grabs the legs. Together, they bend him at the waist, and throw him back down the well, rear end first. “What are we doing here? What the hell is going on?”

Killjlir takes off their gemstone necklace, sets it down on the edge of the well, and hovers the water bucket over it. “Get ready to run. If you get cut by a thorn, don’t stop. Just keep going. I’ll heal you.” Without another word, they smash the gem with the bucket, and scrape it all down the well with everything else. There’s an immediate boom, and the ground trembles. The top stones begin to break apart, and crumble into the hole. Killjlir takes Ingrid by the arm, and ushers her out into the corridor. They then quickly let go, and run in front.

Ingrid does get cut as she’s racing down the tunnel behind a person she thought she knew well enough. They have seemingly been faking their entire personality this whole time? Is the same true for the rest of the Andromedans? Are they not as dumb as they come off? Is there a method to their madness that goes beyond anyone’s comprehension? They keep running until they get to the exit, not looking back, but knowing that the bower is collapsing behind them, and getting sucked into the well.

Once they’re free, Killjlir stops suddenly, spins around, and wraps their arms around Ingrid. The wood and thorns continue to be pulled away, as do some leaves, blades of grass, and other plants which happen to be nearby. It tries to pull them down with the debris, but Killjlir is steadfast, digging their heels into the ground more and more the stronger the implosive force becomes. When it’s all over, they’re standing in a barren patch about the size of the thorn barrow that once stood there.

“Can you tell me what happened now?” Ingrid requests as the dust settles.

“That’s what I would like to know.” Leader of this dimension, Storm Avakian is standing next to them, just removing her hand from Briar de Vries’ shoulder, who presumably teleported her here from wherever.

Before anyone else can speak, a thunderous roar screams down at them from the sky. The comfortable minimal sunshine that once blanketed these lands during the day brightens more than it ever has since Ingrid arrived. It’s blinding. The dimensional barrier that Onyx was talking about is flickering as bolts of lightning shoot along the surface. “We’re too late,” Killjlir says. They sigh and look at Storm. “Prepare for war.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 22, 2199

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The first thing that Leona Matic could remember was being killed by one of the mercenaries that she had commissioned to break Ulinthra out of her prison cube. She could recall the sting of the bullet, and the flow of blood spilling out of her wound. She could feel the light of her life dim little by little until there was nothing but a single pixel left. She never actually experienced that pixel being destroyed in her very, very final moment, but it still made her feel small. Though, through the magic of alternate timelines, she knew she had died before, no one had ever shown her what it truly felt like before. But she had apparently asked for it, and she had to trust her own past. The memories began to return to her backwards from there. Interrogating Ulinthra to find the ardusite dagger, retrieving an alternate Horace Reaver from the extraction mirror, watching Brooke Prieto die in a darkburster explosion. They just kept coming at an accelerated rate, until everything she had done before had finally returned, added to the ever-growing pile of parallel memories. The Warrior removed his hands from hovering at the side of her temples.

“I’m not screaming,” she noted. “Why am I not screaming? The others screamed. It always makes you scream.”

“Not always,” the Warrior explained. “You’ve had your brain blended before. It gets easier each time, and your brain is particularly...magnificent. Plus, the way you changed realities has never been done before, as far as I know. That dagger seems to have come from a completely different universe, so there’s no telling what other side effects it brought with it.”

“Where’s Horace?” Leona asked.

“He was never here,” Vitalie told her. “He and I followed Ulinthra to where she hid the ardusite dagger. Despite the fact that cops have been playing that trick on criminals throughout all procedural drama history, Ulinthra fell for it. She couldn’t help but check to see if we were bluffing about already knowing where it was.”

“Who did it?”

“He did, of course,” Vitalie continued. “He tried to tell you; that he knew it would mean his own demise. Ulinthra never existed. We are the only few people who have ever heard of her. Unfortunately, if she never existed, then we had no reason to go get Horace from the alternate reality either. As soon as he stabbed her with it, reality changed around everyone, leaving us with this, and without him.”

Leona shook her head. “We needed Horace to erase Ulinthra from history, which meant we didn’t need Horace, but if we didn’t have Horace, then Ulinthra couldn’t have been erased from history. It’s a vicious circle. A paradox.”

“I can’t tell you why it’s not a paradox,” Vitalie said. “Let’s just let it go, and be grateful that everything worked.”

“Yes,” Brooke finally spoke. Let’s.”

“It appears to be unanimous,” Ecrin pointed out.

Paige sighed. “The motion has passed.” She mimed banging a gavel.

“If that is all,” The Warrior said, “I will be going.”

“Yes,” Leona said, almost thinking they ought to give him a tip, as if he were a helpful bellhop. “Thank you so much, Anatol..for everything.”

The Warrior nodded respectfully, and disappeared.

“Well, he’s right that this feels different. Before, I got blended memories of different times. But this just went back through the last two weeks of my life, with only a little extra from having encountered Ulinthra at Stonehenge before we left for Durus.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s interesting to me,” Brooke said. “There are minor differences in what happened to us between the first time we saw Ulinthra in this time period, and when we saw her again in Panama, but nothing big. I have conflicting memories of recharging my systems on the ship one day, instead of going over navigational calculations; or of Dar’cy and Missy arguing over something trivial, when that actually never happened. But no one died who should have survived. No one was born that shouldn’t have, or anything like that.”

“I guess, in the end,” Ecrin began, “despite all the havoc she wreaked on the world, she wasn’t really all that important. It makes you wonder, do any of us matter? How different would the universe be if any one of us just disappeared?”

“Yes, about that,” a man said as he stepped through an invisible door in the middle of the room. In the timeline that had since been erased, they spent most of their time in Panama, but in the real timeline, Leona only got one day there before everyone went back to Kansas City. A couple years ago, they decided to move to one of the outer Northwest Forest circles, which was where they were now.

Ecrin tilted her head in friendly, mild surprise. “Ennis, how nice to see you again.”

Ennis looked like a mailman, complete with shorts, a cap, and a large satchel. He also had terrible burn scars on his face. “Miss Cabral, hello.” He tipped the cap.

“What do you have for us?” Ecrin asked him. “Anything good.”

“I guess,” he said.

“What did you mean, about that?” Leona asked. “About what?”

“Oh, you were talking about people disappearing, and I have something for you that is relevant to that.” He pulled a thick folder out of his bag, but did not hand it to anyone. “I was meant to come to you earlier, but I’m not allowed on Durus, and I don’t do moving vehicles. I could have given it to you after that, but I was told to leave you alone during the Ulinthra corruption. So I’m here now, at my earliest convenience, to give you this.” He handed the heavy folder to Leona.

Leona didn’t open it, but looked to Ecrin for guidance. She trusted her judgment.

Ecrin nodded. “If The Courier hands you something, it belongs to you. He’s legit.”

“Mrs. Matic,” Ennis began.

“Miss,” Leona corrected.

This confused him a bit. “I’m sorry, but aren’t you pregnant?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Leona asked, appalled and offended.

“Well, it’s just, I was told...who’s the father?”

Now Leona was getting really offended. “That is none of your business.”

Ennis scratched at his chin, then took a notepad out of his bag, and started looking them over. “Oh, you’re only starting to remember. Hmm.”

“What? Are you? Talking about?”

“Okay.” Ennis clapped his hands together to begin his explanation. “There was a man. This man..was named Mateo. A...bunch of stuff happened, and then a really powerful asshole took him out time. Kind of like what you did with Ulinthra. And also kind of like Ulinthra, he owned a planet, but in this case, it was legitimate, and the people who lived on it actually liked him. Since he’s no longer here, however, the rights to that planet fall to his next of kin, which is you.”

“You’re telling me I have some relative that I don’t know about, because someone erased his history?” Leona had seen a lot as a salmon, and knew there were entire timelines she had no recollection of, but this was sounding fishy.

“I’m telling you that you had a husband you don’t remember. He’s the father of your child, which means that child is proof that Mateo Matic did indeed exist. His history wasn’t erased. He was erased. You don’t remember everything he did, nor do most people, but he still had an impact on the way things are today. And the days before, since we’re time travelers.”

Leona once again looked to Ecrin, who clearly had no memory of this either. “Again,” she said, “this man doesn’t lie. If he says this dude existed, then he existed.”

“The more the baby grows inside of you,” Ennis went on, “the more it will have an effect on you. You will start remembering. The Superintendent can do a lot, but he can’t stop that. I didn’t mean to suggest you had to be married to have a child, I just thought you were far enough along to start getting your memories back.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Leona said, trying to wrap her head around having a husband she couldn’t remember. “I’m not saying I believe it, but I’m not saying I don’t. Assuming it’s true, is there any way to prove it? Can you..show me something? Can we get the Warrior back here?”

Ennis shook his head. “The Warrior and The Blender can give you quantum memories from an alternate timeline. But this isn’t an alternate timeline. It’s a corrupted timeline, but still the same timeline. Same same, but different.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, I got blended memories from the Ulinthra corruption, which is what you called it.”

“That shouldn’t have worked either,” Ennis began, “but you made arrangements so that it would. You spoke with The Warrior before Horace used that dagger thing, and prepared him to help you today. That’s not gonna work here. I want to make it clear—and Ecrin can attest to this—I am quite literally the messenger, so don’t shoot me. I didn’t erase Mateo, I can’t put him back, I can’t prove that I’m not lying, and lastly—this is an important one—I can’t put you in touch with the Superintendent. He’s the one who did this, and like a witch’s spell, only he can undo it.” He pointed at the folder, which Leona had yet to open. “That is, if you even wanted him to undo it. Dardius is pretty nice this time of millennium.”

She didn’t know the answer to that. Surely if her memories had been removed against her will, she would want to get them back. Yet this was her life now, and though no sane person would call it a good one, it was one she understood. While she would likely never see Serif again, Leona would never want to lose the memory of her. If they only got together because Mateo wasn’t there instead, then what would happen to her? Could she give up one love for another? “What would that mean for Serif? Was what we had even real?”

“Oof,” Ennis said lightly, “that’s a loaded question. Was Serif real? Technically, no. She was fabricated, but she was fabricated...before Mateo was removed from time.”

“But she was, what? Just some friend?”

“No, you were with her; you and Mateo both. Don’t ask me to give you details on how your relationships worked, I just met you today. Some things I know, some things I don’t.” His watch beeped, as did Leona’s, though she didn’t know why. “Oh, look at that, it’s time. Are you guys going to the show? Do you have tickets?”

“Tickets to what?” Brooke asked.

“The Last Savior’s Last Save? It’s today, in just a few minutes.”

“You mean, she retires after this?”

“Yep, it’s over. The Age of Saviors is kaput. I can hook you up, if you want. I’m pretty good friends with Sanela. Hey Leona, she’s your, uhh...great-something-grandmother...in-law. Umm. Twice removed? I don’t know how it works, your family tree is crazy.”

This was getting to be too much.

Ennis kept going, “so do you guys want to go, err...?” He trailed off an awful lot.

“That would be lovely,” Paige said.

“Yeah, sure,” Leona agreed. She was the last to step through Ennis’ invisible portal. It would be nice to see Étude again, but honestly, all she could think about was what she was going to do about this Mateo guy.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 21, 2198

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In one of the other timelines, a bad Horace Reaver formulated a plan to capture Mateo Matic, whom he considered to be his archrival, once and for all. After years of trying to track his movements, he was finally sure of where Mateo would reappear in the timestream after an interim year, within a couple dozen meters. He was also in the right position to purchase the entire chunk of land, so when Mateo did come back, he would do so right in a trap. While his plan ultimately failed, due to a number of unforeseen traitors, Horace was confident he would be able to employ the same strategy again, but make it work this time. This he explained to Leona Matic, who was meant to be in a relationship with Mateo. But this was a new timeline, and something had happened that had somehow prevented Leona from remembering him. The name sounded familiar, like that of an actor you know you’ve seen in a number of films and series, but cannot identify a single one at the moment. His name elicited a response of love and connection that Leona could not explain. Someone had messed with reality, and her memories of it. Unfortunately, this was not the time to deal with it. Right now, they needed to put Ulinthra and her plans to rest, and Horace’s idea was exactly what she was hoping for. It had even worked.

Horace let Leona sleep after she came back in 2198, because there wasn’t anything they needed from her. Once she was awake, he proudly marched her into the interrogation room he had commissioned two months ago after he and the whole world had finally located Ulinthra’s whereabouts. Ulinthra came back a week before Leona did, showing that the time-skipping pattern was wearing off. “Don’t worry,” Horace said. “This is Round Two of today, and you did not speak with her the first time around. Everything you say to her now will be just as unpredictable for her as any normal human conversation.” He looked towards the glass, and flipped on the lights inside, which illuminated Ulinthra on the other side. She was not only in a different room, but also locked in another confinement chamber, as if Hannibal Lecter. “She has lost all of her leverage.”

“So you didn’t find what I described?” Leona asked him.

“They’re still looking. No one else knows what it can do.” His eyeballs fluttered to Ulinthra, then back to Leona. “Not even her, I presume.”

Leona took a breath. “I never told her. At least I have no memory of telling her.”

Horace nodded in understanding.

“I’m kind of surprised she’s still alive, though. Lots of people have it out for her, not the least of which is you.”

“It wasn’t hard to keep the radicals at bay. Capital punishment was outlawed everywhere decades ago, which surprises me, but it did make it easier to keep Ulinthra safe. I don’t want her dead. She’s the only one of my kind.”

“Yet, you..” Leona trailed off.

“...would do anything for you,” Horace completed her sentence for her. “I’m not like this Ace you told me about. “While I’m no longer the antagonist, I’m still a villain. If I weren’t going to die anyway, it would probably be in your best interests to kill me after her.”

“Why would you die at all? We have this figured out. Everything in the other time branch happened just as it did before. The Arborist was wrong; we didn’t create a paradox. You don’t have to go back.”

Horace smiled kindly. “That’s not it.” He was going to continue, but was accidentally interrupted.

“Is anyone going to come talk to me, or what?” Ulinthra asked from her cell. “Let’s get this enhanced interrogation party started!”

Horace scoff-laughed. “It’s nice to be on this side of a prison cube.”

“Yeah,” Leona smiled coyly. “I see you used a similar design. Maybe you need to talk to a professional about your hang-ups.” She gave him a wink.

“I love you,” Leona thought Horace whispered, but she couldn’t be certain. She decided to not embarrass him by pushing the issue. “I mean, I’ll be right here.”

Leona nodded. “Horace, if everything goes according to our absolutely insane plan, I’m going to need you more than ever. I won’t be able to help tomorrow.”

“I won’t let you down,” Horace said to her, wiping a tear from his cheek. “Not this time.”

“Thank you,” Leona said solemnly. Then she opened the door and went into the other room.

“Ah,”  Ulinthra said. “I thought it might be your day, but I lose track of time in here. They’ve got some system going. I know that my days are resetting, just like always, but they make it hard to see it. That’s a form of torture. Guiltless Leona of yesterday would not approve.”

“I wasn’t here yesterday,” Leona said, knowing full well that Ulinthra was using the term in a more general sense.

Ulinthra tried to hide a smile. “Funny. I do want to extend my congratulations. Clever recruiting Horace Reaver. I would have thought of that, but I wouldn’t think you would have thought of it. I’m impressed.”

“I appreciate your support. You know why I’m here?”

“For the first time in my life, I do not,” Ulinthra answered.

“You stole something from me, years ago. I want it back.”

Ulinthra tilted her head to think. “I stole many things. I stole a planet from its peoples. I stole the lives of people you loved. I stole the hearts of my loyalists. But I don’t think I stole anything that I could ever give back.”

“This was literal.”

Ulinthra thought some more. It didn’t seem like a game. She genuinely might not have known what Leona was talking about. “I’m afraid I legit don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My family heirloom.”

“Oh, that sword thing? The glass sword?”

“It’s a dagger, and it means a great deal to me.”

“Okay...sorry? I don’t know what you want me to say. I tossed it a long time ago, I think in a swamp. I don’t really remember, it meant nothing to me.”

Leona studied Ulinthra’s face for a moment. “Nah, you didn’t throw it out. It intrigued you, and you could tell that it was special.”

“It is—I mean was? What does it do?”

Leona needed a lie that was believably interesting. Ulinthra needed to feel like it allowed her to maintain leverage over Leona, but still consider giving it up for the right price. It was a good thing that Leona and Vitalie had spent last night thinking of a good one. “It removes your time powers...or pattern, depending on what subspecies you are.”

It was working. Ulinthra leaned back to see if she believed it. “A stabby thing that takes away powers?”

“Think of it as...a prototype for The Warrior’s Sword of Assimilation,” Leona explained. “It can’t transfer powers, but it can take take ‘em out.”

“It does look old, like it could have been one of The Weaver’s early inventions.”

Leona nodded slightly, and consistently.

“But no, I’m not buyin’ it.”

Leona closed her eyes in exasperation. “I am tired. You may enjoy rewinding your days, but I can’t do that. I was blessed with suck, and I want it gone.”

“Why didn’t you use it before?” Ulinthra questioned. “It’s unlikely I stole it just after you received it.”

“Actually it wasn’t all that long after, but that wasn’t why I hadn’t tried it yet. First of all, it doesn’t work alone. It’s one of two ingredients,” Leona continued to lie. “The other is easy to come by, but I just hadn’t gotten a chance yet. I have what I need now.”

“And second of all?” Ulinthra waited.

“Secondly, it’s a dagger. I wasn’t relishing the idea of stabbing myself with it. It requires something bigger than a wee papercut, but not so damaging that I can’t heal. If I just wanted to kill myself to end it all, I would have used any other dagger.”

“I see.” Ulinthra definitely believed the lie now. “What’s the second ingredient; the thing that makes the dagger work?”

“I’m withholding that. You need to tell me where it is.”

“No,” Ulinthra said firmly. “I don’t need my powers gone, I don’t care what happens to yours, and as long as I’m stuck in here, I can’t use it to control my enemies.”

“This feels like a classic impasse,” Leona said. “I can’t let you go until you give me the dagger, and you can’t use the dagger unless I give the other ingredient. The difference between you and me, however, is this barrier between us, and who’s on which side of it. I also have time. You’ll rot in here for years before I get the hankering for Chinese food again. I can wait.”

Ulinthra laughed abruptly, and loudly. “You don’t even know why that’s funny, because you don’t remember—”

“Mateo Matic?” Leona took a guess.

“So you do remember.”

“I remember...” Leona paused for effect, “that I know people with powers. Your problem is that you relied too heavily on yourself. You didn’t make any friends. I don’t have that problem, so when I asked my mind-reader buddy for a favor, he just did it. I don’t even owe him one.” She looked over at the glass, on the other side of which no one was standing, but Horace Reaver. “He’s just standing over there, getting ready to tell me where the dagger is. All I needed was for you to think about it in your brain.” Leona tapped on her own temple, again for effect.

“What? No, you’re lying.”

Leona shrugged. “Maybe I am, but you’ll die in here, never knowing for sure.”

Suddenly, there was gunfire on the other side of the door. Leona jumped out of her chair, and slinked back in fear. Ulinthra was noticeably frightened as well, because she didn’t yet know if this was a good thing or not. The firefight stopped, replaced with a grinding sound as someone was cutting through the wall with a laser. Once they were all the way through, people with guns slipped inside. One of them raised his weapon, and shot Leona right in the stomach.

“Oh my God!” Ulinthra cried as she watched Leona fall to the floor.

Leona had experienced a lot of pain in her life. She had lost everyone she had ever cared about, and despite being a time traveler, she rarely ever saw them again. But this. This was pain unlike any other. She did not expect it to feel like this.

“Is it a trick?” Ulinthra asked. “It’s a trick.”

“Lord Arianrhod,” the man who shot Leona said. “We’ve come for you.”

“You shot her!” Ulinthra shouted at him.

“Ma’am,” he affirmed.

“I wasn’t done with her yet!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. What can I do?”

“You can shoot yourself in the head.”

Without hesitation, the man lifted his pistol, and did exactly as he was told. His dead body fell right next to Leona’s dying one. Their blood started intermingling as someone managed to unlock the prison cube. The last thing Leona felt before she died was Ulinthra’s warm fingers on her neck, checking for a pulse that would soon be gone.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 15, 2192

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As instructed, they didn’t approach any of the people giving each other butterfly signals in 2191. First of all, they didn’t know what it meant. It seemed shady, but it could also be some strange new form of greeting that they weren’t privy to since they only existed one day out of the year. They couldn’t even be sure if the people were trying to say butterfly at all. To communicate the word in sign language, one was meant to wave their hands, as the flapping of wings, which none of them was doing. Vitalie, of course, was entirely convinced that this was some underground resistance movement, presently working against the Arianrhod occupation. They should have done better at keeping themselves informed about the events they missed during their interim years, on the arc, and elsewhere. If any rebels attempted to fight back sometime in the past, they definitely lost, and Ulinthra would have buried it. Now they had too little intelligence to go on. That night, they got together to discuss how they were going to proceed, ultimately deciding to wait until the next year, so they could have a fresh start.

“All right,” Leona began near the end of their latest breakfast meetings. “Brooke, you’re sure these heart trackers aren’t also listening devices.”

“I’m certain,” Brooke answered with a formal nod.

“Then on to Vitalie.”

“On to me?”

“I know your power doesn’t work with Ulinthra, and we think she has some time power blocker, but we’ve not until now had reason to use it elsewhere.”

“We should have tested it at some point,” Ecrin said.

“I’ve tested it,” Vitalie said, as if it were obvious. “I can go anywhere on Earth. It’s not easy, because I think that blocker she uses has minimal effect on me no matter what, but like you said, there was nothing to see.”

“In that case, you think you could stomach a trip to one of the common areas, like a shopping mall, or restaurant?” Leona asked.

“I could,” Vitalie said.

“Do you think you could take one of us with you?”

“I could take both,” Vitalie answered. She looked at Brooke with guilt. “Sorry, I don’t think I could take you.”

“I’m used to it,” Brooke said, not feeling left out.

“Then let’s go back,” Leona said, “and find someone giving what we think is a butterfly sign—”

They were suddenly in the marketplace.

“I didn’t mean right away,” Leona said.

Vitalie shrugged. “No use in waiting.” She took off her shirt, and started swinging it around like a lasso. “We’re invisible, by the way!” she shouted.

“Are our bodies just slumped in our chairs, back at the unit?” Ecrin questioned.

Vitalie pointed at her. “Uh, you fell to the floor. Don’t worry, you’re not hurt, and Brooke is carrying you to the couch.”

“Do you maintain a presence in both locations simultaneously?” Leona asked out of scientific curiosity.

“It’s like I’m wearing bifocals. I just adjust my focus to one or the other. It takes less than a second, and I can always kind of see both at the same time. I don’t think you can do that, though.”

Leona nodded understandingly. “Let’s walk around while we’re invisible. Keep your shirts on, though.”

“They’re not real shirts, Leona,” Vitalie needlessly reminded her.

“Look for a butterfly,” Leona continued. “Call out when you see it.”

It was a half hour before Ecrin saw two people give each other the secret sign. They seemed to be doing it a lot less than they did yesterday. A lot can happen in a year, and there was no way of knowing what these people had been through. Vitalie allowed the man and woman to see them, but no one else, so they could have a secret conversation.

“What does it mean when you do that?” Leona asked of them, trying to be careful about broaching the subject.

“When I do what?” the man asked.

Leona mimicked the movement. “When you interlock your thumbs like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to leave, but Vitalie teleported Ecrin’s image right in front of them. “How did you do that?”

“You first,” Ecrin said.

He looked around in paranoia. “Not here.”

Ecrin swept her hand downwards, like a model at a game show. “Lead the way.”

“What are you?” the man asked after leading them to an empty storage room.

“We can’t be here physically,” Vitalie explained. “Ulinthra planted tracking devices on our hearts, so we have astrally project to have this conversation.”

Someone in the early 21st century would have needed that term explained to them, but enough science fiction had become science fact since then. While astral projection was not something other people could do, it was a concept that audiences these days would find easier to grasp. “Who is Ulinthra?”

“That’s Arianrhod’s real name,” Leona said.

His and the woman’s eyes widened as they looked at each other. “How do you know this? Do you use your...ghost powers to spy on her?”

“We go way back,” Leona replied. She looked to the other two, hesitating. But the cat was out of the bag, and they needed allies. “We’re time travelers, and so is she. If you’ve ever tried to do something against her, there’s a reason she always wins. She’s already been through it.”

He lifted his chin to think this over, not sure if he believed it, but wanting to entertain the possibility. “Then we have to be unpredictable.”

Vitalie shook her head. “She’s already lived through this day. Every time you try to be unpredictable, you could just be making the same unpredictable choice you did in the first timeline.” She surrounded the word in airquotes.

“I assume you don’t use real names,” Ecrin said, briefly changing the subject, and recalling her time in the IAC, where everyone had a callsign. “What are your designations?”

“I’m Gatekeeper,” the man said.

“Holly Blue,” the woman finally spoke.

“Are those butterflies?” Vitalie asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We always suspected Arianrhod to be a fake name,” the woman now said enough for it to be clear she had an Irish accent. “It’s the name of a Celtic goddess, and means silver wheel. Who breaks the butterfly upon the wheel?”

“No one,” Leona understood. “Not if the butterflies fight back.”

“Assuming we believe you about the time travel thing,” Gatekeeper tried to begin, but was stopped when Vitalie walked right through the wall, and soon thereafter appeared through the other wall. “Okay, that’s pretty convincing, unless we’re having the same delusion.” He looked to Holly Blue, who indicated that she had seen it too. “You mean to tell me Arianrhod can go back in time, but only one day?”

“It’s not that she can do it,” Leona explained. “It’s that she has to. She experiences every day twice. And only twice. She can’t control it.”

“Well, what hope would we have?”

Vitalie then started in on the explanation of what they were doing with the penny; how their only hope of changing the timeline was by using Ulinthra.

The two revolutionaries understood the logic, and recognized the flaws. “What did you flip today?” they asked.

“We didn’t flip today,” Leona replied. “Our biggest problem now is that we don’t know what we can do against her. And we’re afraid of what she’ll do in retaliation. Whatever move we make, it has to be a final blow, because the consequences last time were too great.”

“But you said that was reversed?”

“They’re not gonna reverse the next one,” Ecrin said.

“We may be able to get something done,” Vitalie started, “if we work together. Now that we know about you, we stand a chance. How many are there in your group?”

Holly Blue and Gatekeeper looked at each other again. “Three,” he finally said.

The two of us, and one other,” Holly Blue added.

“How is that possible?” Leona asked. “Only three of you signed up?”

“Lots signed up,” Gatekeeper said. “They’re all dead now.”

“You act like you already know each other. Why the hand signal?”

“It’s not just to prove we’re rebels. We also use it to indicate that we need to talk, and that the coast is clear to do so.”

“Where’s the last one right now?”

“Monarch is our designated survivor,” Gatekeeper explained. “No one knows who they are. He or she stays out of sight until something goes wrong. If we all die, it’s up to them to start it back up again, which they’ll probably soon have to do. You seem like lovely people, but you’re still just three recruits.

“Barely recruits,” Holly Blue noted.

“Isn’t there something else you can do?” Gatekeeper asked. “Someone you can talk to? You said there are other time travelers. Can they help? Can you contact them?”

Leona knew a few people with potential. Unfortunately, Ulinthra never let her touch land, so she couldn’t dig a grave for Mr. Halifax. The Forger might be willing to help? Ecrin probably knew many choosers, so this was a good question for her to answer. She looked at her inquisitively, completely forgetting that Ecrin hadn’t been involved in her own personal thought process.

“What?” Ecrin asked.

“Do you know someone? Maybe you know someone that we don’t? Maybe someone that Ulinthra doesn’t know?”

“Ulinthra has the memory of countless versions of herself, from indefinite timelines. I don’t know who she knows. There may be someone, though. You’re not gonna like it, but he may be our best chance. There’s one thing we’ve not yet discussed, but I think we all know it needs to be on the table.”

“You’re talking about killing her,” Vitalie realized.

“I’m not killing anyone,” Leona said. “Not again.”

“That’s what I’m saying. You wouldn’t have to. When I was working for the coalition, there was a team we came across. They were deadly travelers, and we spent a lot of resources trying to catch them. I stepped into the field myself to work on it, even though I was mostly in administration.”

“Who is it?” Vitalie was intrigued.

“The leader is called The Maverick; his team, The Mavericks. Not very original.”

Leona nodded her head solemnly. “I met one of them once. Darrell, or something. He helped Gilbert go back into the extraction mirror, for his death.”

“Darrow,” Ecrin corrected. “We would probably want to deal with him only, since he can be reasoned with. The other two can be rather..insufferable. But we all have to agree to it, including Viceroy.”

“Viceroy?” Leona didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yeah, the other one in our group...since we’re using butterfly codenames?”

She meant Brooke. “Right. Viceroy, yes. We’ll ask her, but I don’t see her taking issue with it. I suppose I always knew it would have to end like this. If the powers that be don’t step in, we may have no way of getting her to Beaver Haven.”

Vitalie was totally on board, as were Holly Blue and Gatekeeper, who assumed that was what everyone was going for anyway. After going over some secret protocols with their two new allies, the three of them jumped back into their own bodies. They needed a couple of things to reach the Maverick, though, so Ecrin went out in physical form to shop. She came back with a cloak, and a dagger. She hung the cloak up on the door, and used the dagger to cut a symbol into it twice. They looked like bird tracks. Once she was finished, she jabbed the dagger into the cloak, sticking it into the door.

Within seconds, the cloak started billowing out, until the figure of a man appeared inside of it. He reached behind him and pulled the dagger from his back before turning around. He smiled and shook his head when he saw it was Ecrin. “I bet you just loooved doing that.”

“I don’t love that you’re here,” Ecrin said. “But we need your help. We just don’t know when.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 7, 2184

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In the 20th century, scientists began researching global climate change, partially in order to understand mankind’s impact on their environment. They discovered that industrialization, while a boon to the economy, was significantly detrimental to life on Earth. Research persisted for decades, with a correlation of consensus from legitimate experts, who increasingly urged the public to recognize the problem. Denial of these issues continued simultaneously, as the average citizen limited their beliefs to whatever echo chamber supported their suppositions. The truth was replaced with alternative facts, and inequality reigned. Things began to change as the middle of the 21st century approached, however. New generations of activists and voters demanded change on scales never before seen. Rich rulers of the old world finally died so they could no longer make things worse. A great deal of damage had been done to the planet by then, but despite many claims, it could be reversed. It would be a massive undertaking, but it was possible, and it was what happened.

As technology progressed, our ancestors’ ways of doing things no longer made any sense. Clean meat, harmlessly grown from cells extracted from a still living specimen seriously lowered the amount of farmland required to sustain the entire human population of the world. Likewise, vertical indoor farming allowed for controlled environments to support fruits and vegetables without the need for pesticides, or wasteful irrigation. Food scarcity had become a thing of the past, easily being grown in practically any location. Nanotechnology, and advances in material sciences allowed gargantuan structures to be built in a matter of days, aided by the direction of artificial intelligence, which was in charge of supporting nearly all other technologies as well. Additive manufacturing and drone delivery provided everything the average consumer would need to live healthy and happy lives, and universal basic income kept most people from needing to work. Immersive virtual reality enabled escape to literally anywhere they wanted to go. It was suddenly no longer chic to live in the largest and most luxurious houses. All most individuals needed was a bed, a bathroom, a closet, and a couple of 3-D printers.

This minimalist mentality gave rise to an entirely new way of living. No more would we live in sprawling cities, which destroyed the wilderness. Megastructures were constructed in strategic former population centers around the world. Tens of millions of people could live in a space of only fifteen square kilometers, raised above the ground to allow wildlife to thrive once again, as it was always meant to. Some were larger than others, each one falling into a logical class, according to standard populations. China and India housed Class A arcities, since their respective populations were so great. The first one of these kinds of habitats was built in Kansas City, leaving it to be in a class of its own. The rest of the United States and Indonesia belonged to Class C, along with more than fifty other nations. The more of these that were built, though, the less important archaic borders mattered. The only reason they were built on an international baseline was to serve preexisting geographic population clusters.

When Ulinthra was thrown unwillingly to the future, she found herself in a world she didn’t understand. She had no reasonable objection to the way things had turned out. She just saw her unique perspective as an opportunity to amass the power that she always dreamt of having. The smallest nations needed the least amount of housing, with many island countries being relegated to Class H, which meant if they wanted to change the way they lived, they would have to do it themselves. She decided to prey on the people still living in these places, using their own insecurities against them. Once they were on her side, she formed a union, predicated on preserving the cultures she convinced the smaller classes were being threatened by the larger states. The greater governments ignored her at first, thinking her power would die out when her constituents wised up to how much she was lying to them. But it never did. It only increased. She systematically gathered more and more support, and she was soon taking over the Class G nations as well, which only held tens of thousands of people.

Finally seeing the Arianation as a significant threat, the Class F arcities prepared for an attack. Knowing they would assume this to be her next move, Ulinthra started war with the Class Es instead, catching the whole world off guard. She used more advanced technology than anyone knew she had. Since a grand peace had resulted from all this progress, the majority of the population was not at all prepared for war, with even many adults not having seen so much as a minor skirmish in their entire lifetimes. Only the Arianation had pursued more and more deadly weaponry, since they were the only ones who felt they needed it. They began a monumental attack on all Class Es at the exact same time, which included Panama. When the leadership of these arcities tried to defend themselves, it was like their new enemies knew exactly what they were going to do. No one but Ulinthra’s most loyal followers knew that she lived through every single day twice, allowing her to learn from mistakes that would be irreversible for most, and change strategies during the second time around. She was practically unstoppable, and in less than a week, she and her people were in charge of over two hundred arcities. This was the hardest part. Now she could make demands. Now the world would have to answer to her. Soon she would have everything. But first, she needed to reunite with a few old friends.

While Ulinthra had people to deal with each individual arcity on her behalf, The Panama Report was given to her directly so she could hear about the prisoner of war who was placed in confinement, then disappeared at the strike of midnight. She immediately moved her base of operations to that location, and waited patiently for a year, so she could be ready to see Leona Matic once more.

“Cool story, bro,” Leona said dismissively after Ulinthra was finished explaining this all to her. “Tell me, have you never seen a movie in your life? When the evil megalomaniac tells the protagonist about their dastardly plans, it always comes back to bite them in the ass.”

“I told you nothing of my plans,” Ulinthra countered. “I spoke only of what I’ve done.”

“You told me how this was all part of the plan; that you tricked all those Class H countries.”

Ulinthra shrugged. “I didn’t need to tell you that, you already know who I really am, including my real name, so you would be able to use it against me either way.”

“That’s true,” Leona had to admit.

“What is this thing?” Ulinthra held up the ardusite dagger.

“Family heirloom.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s just a work of art. A friend gave it to me a few days ago,” Leona lied.

“You mean a few years?”

“Yes.”

“What does it do?” Ulinthra asked.

“It’s decoration. It doesn’t do anything.”

Ulinthra pursed her lips and studied Leona’s face. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I break it?”

“No, I would mind, because it has sentimental value. Like you said, it was years ago. My friend is dead now. You can keep it while I’m locked up here, but I would like it back when I get out.”

“What makes you think you’ll get out?” Ulinthra laughed.

Leona waited to answer to foster the anticipation. “I always get out.”

She smiled. “I believe that.” She paused as well. “Harrison,” she called over her shoulder. “Would you come in here?”

“Harrison?” Leona asked. Harrison was an android with artificial intelligence who worked for a different version of Ulinthra in an alternate timeline. He never really liked it, and ended up getting out from under her thumb when he had the opportunity. If an android named Harrison existed in this reality, then it couldn’t be the same one. There was no way an AI shared any similarity to an alternate counterpart. The differences in programming between the two of them would be so much larger than the personality of an organic lifeform under the same circumstances. Right?

A man walked into the room that Leona didn’t recognize. That didn’t mean anything, as it could just be a different model he was using. Ulinthra handed him the dagger. “Break this, please.”

“No, don’t,” Leona begged.

Harrison took the the dagger in both hands, and slammed it against his robot knee. It didn’t break.

“You still tryna tell me this thing doesn’t do anything?” Ulinthra asked.

Shit. The fact that a superstrong android couldn’t break it meant that it couldn’t just be some random artifact. On the other hand, at least it wasn’t destroyed. Leona exercised her right to remain silent.

“I know Paige and Brooke,” Ulinthra said, switching gears. “Who is that other woman with you?”

“It’s been a year, you didn’t just ask her yourself?”

“I felt like it would be better to speak with you before doing anything. I’ve not said a word to them. Far as I know, they don’t know I’m involved.”

“Brooke and Paige are superintelligences. They know.”

Ulinthra seemed to agree to this. “Who is she?”

“Just a friend.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s your daughter.”

“Leona.”

“Okay, fine, she’s your mother.”

“Leona!”

“My mother?”

“Goddammit, Leelee.”

“She’s from another planet!” Leona finally admitted, not thinking Ulinthra knowing this would have any impact on their situation. “That’s where we’ve been since we last saw you. We had pick up a passenger from a rogue planet, and bring her back here. We met Ecrin there, and she came with us. There’s no big conspiracy. I had no clue what had come of you until a half hour ago.”

“I was just wondering,” Ulinthra said, feigning offense, “gahh.”

Leona sighed.

Ulinthra sighed.

“I’m just wondering what you think you’re accomplishing by taking over the world.”

“You just answered your own question. I’m taking over the world. What more could one want?”

“World peace?”

“War is necessary. For now,” Ulinthra opined.

“I heard the guards talking before you arrived,” Leona said. “Israel is fighting back.”

She shrugged. “Israel always fights back. It’s just one battle, and sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ, Ulinthra, a fucking Nazi first said that quote.”

“What can I say? He was my favorite president.”

What the hell did that mean? “What are you talking about? Trump wasn’t president in this timeline. He didn’t even run.”

Ulinthra acted coy, and didn’t say anything.

“You had your brain blended,” Leona hypothesized.

“The Warrior owed me a favor.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Ulinthra made a grimace. “Yes, this is going to be a lot harder for you, isn’t it? You thought you had an advantage having known my alternates. Well, I know them too, and I know the other yous.” She stood up and opened the door. Harrison left, but Ulinthra waited there for a moment. “You’re free to go. You can meet your friends back on the beach where we found you.”

Leona was, of course, reticent about the offer. “Why? What’s your angle?”

She snickered. “I love games.” She took a beat. “Catch me if you can.”

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