Microstory 2203: Supported by Fans

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Okay, I’ve seen some weird stuff in my day, and I actually do believe in coincidence, because I’ve witnessed more variables than most people have, but this is so weird. It was extremely hot in my apartment when I woke up this morning. I was sweating through the sheets, and having trouble breathing. My air conditioning must have gone out pretty early for my thermostat to have been reading 26 degrees. The power seems to be okay. I placed a call with the super, so she’s been working through the problem. I didn’t think that it was too terribly urgent, because I was going to have to spend most of the day at work anyway. But guess what? The AC is out there too. It’s out across the entire jail. Fortunately, everyone in my team has been issued a laptop. When we’re at our respective workstations, we dock it so we can use the external IOs, but we can also carry them around if we would prefer to work elsewhere. The interesting thing about your world is that you’ve championed retractable power cables for your mobile devices. It makes the machine a little thicker, but this cable unit can be pretty easily removed if need be. If not, it makes for a quick getaway. Anyway, that’s not what’s important, because we would have made it work either way. The point of the story was that we were able to go to our Jail Counselor’s house to work there. It was a bit cramped with all of us together, but we’re very grateful for the option. The guests in the jail had no such choice. They spent extra time in communal areas, supported by fans, but all those people so close together made it so that it was more like two steps forward, one step back, at best. Now, I’m not here to discuss prison reform as a whole. Our mandate is to understand group dynamics, and nothing more. But it just goes to show how important it is to treat our incarcerated with respect and care. These people had nowhere to go. The county had plans in place to address it, but unlike you, who can just go to the movie theatre when things get rough, it’s vital to remember that some people have it rougher.

Microstory 2181: Occupy the Same Space

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I’m pretty much caught up on everything. All of the job postings have gone out to the career boards, and I can’t start in on any of them until human resources filters through them first. I didn’t even go into the office. I just stayed home, and remoted in using my personal computer. I think the warden doesn’t really want me doing that; believing that personal devices should only be used for personal business. So my boss is currently requisitioning a work laptop for home use, which they’ll ship to me this week. It will just serve as a portal, connecting me to my employer’s and clients’ respective servers. I’ve rearranged my apartment a bit, which I should have done before. For tax reasons, it’s important that I designate a particular area as my home office. That doesn’t mean I can’t use it for other things, but it needs to primarily be for this purpose. My new assistant, Jasmine helped me move furniture around, and we went out to buy an extra desk, so she can work across from me. Yeah, she could work in her own apartment, since she would just be right down the hall, but we both feel like it makes sense to occupy the same space. We did the same for my private office in the jail administrative section. I think that’s pretty much all I have to tell you today. I now give you permission to return to your regular lives, but be back here tomorrow morning at 8:15 sharp for my social post.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 2, 2454

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Ramses’ new bulk portal detection device was not ready by the time the team’s day ran out. He was able to program his AI to do some things during their interim year, but there was still some work left when they returned in 2454. While he was focused on that, the Primus asked Leona to exercise her diplomacy muscles for them.

“I don’t have any significant diplomacy experience,” Leona tried to explain.

“Is that not what your ship is for? It’s called the Ambassador,” Primus Mihajlović pointed out.

“That was how it was designed,” Leona went on, “and that’s how it was used recently, but my team and I aren’t on it because that’s our job. We just sort of lucked into possession of it. Whoever you’ve been using for your diplomacy with the Ochivari prisoners of war are better equipped than I.”

“We would be grateful,” Kineret began, “if you would at least try. We’re getting nowhere with the prisoners. We’ve passed laws in recent years that forbid us from detaining extraterrestrial POWs for longer than four months. We actually watched a lot of Ochivari die after we placed them in a communal area of the facility to let them attempt to return home on their own. Fortunately, Carlin has been here to prevent the bloodshed, but we’re running out of time. We’ve not been able to capture anyone recently, so this could be our last chance to get answers for  a while.”

Leona nodded respectfully. “I’ll have Angela or Marie see what they can do.” She turned around to look for the Walton sisters when she saw her husband. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I’m just standing here,” he replied.

“I know all your faces, Matt. You’re yearning for something. Do you think you should run this interrogation instead?”

“Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with that. We’ll talk later, in private.”

“If there’s something I need to know...” the Primus said.

“It really has nothing to do with it,” he assured her. “It’s personal. My mind is distracted. Go do your thing,” he said to Leona. “I’ll see ya tonight.”

They shared a couple pecks on the cheek, then went their separate ways. Leona and Angela teleported a few thousand kilometers away to a particularly cold region of the planet, which they would have referred to as the Northwest Territories. There was no name for it here. It was just the Subarctic North. This was where all of the Ochivari prisoners were being held, as far from civilization as possible, to protect the humans from them. They also discovered that Ochivari didn’t like the cold. They didn’t wither and die from it like a movie monster, but they were very uncomfortable anywhere outside of their climate controlled cells, so there was less danger of them trying to escape. Of course, they had to keep each prisoner separately, or they would be able to transport each other to a different universe. This would always result in some fraction of the travelers dying, but this was a risk that they were used to taking, so the humans had to take measures to stop it. Unless the time limit was reached. They had passed similar laws when it was just themselves on this Earth over the centuries, and as angry as they were about the alien invasion, the populace felt obligated to maintain some sense of their own integrity, and to treat their prisoners of war with care and dignity. The Ochivari still had rights, even if they would not extend the same courtesy to the humans.

Primus Mihajlović, who asked the team to call her Naraschone in person, but her title in the company of others, called ahead to let the prison know that two consultants would be arriving to speak with the prisoners. The guards let them in, and directed them to the underground cells. This place was powered by a thermonuclear generator, so it was self-sustainable, and mostly cut off from the rest of the world, for security purposes. The people who worked here lived in a nearby once-abandoned, but now revitalized, formerly indigenous village. For the most part, the only travel that occurred to this location was to drop off new prisoners, or to fly away from having just dropped off prisoners. They even grew their own food in aquaponic towers, further cementing themselves as a stable isolate. So they were very excited to see the new faces. Some of them were a little too excited, but Angela and Leona didn’t let it bother them, because it was understandable given their circumstances.

“I’ll just be right outside,” the guard said, closing the door behind them.

A polycarbonate window was installed in the middle of the room. On the other side was an Ochivar who was already sitting at his table up against the window, ready to talk. He was reportedly just as closed off about their motivations, and other details regarding their culture, but he was less nasty to the humans than his compatriots were. “Who the hell are you?”

“You don’t already know who we are?” Leona asked, pulling Angela’s seat out, and then sitting down next to her.

“No. Should I?”

They were famous in some circles, but not his, unless he was just playing it close to the vest. “We are not from this world. We hail from Salmonverse.”

Ochivari looked different, so their microexpressions would be hard to read without more exposure, yet it was apparent that he recognized the name. He tried not to let this on. “Okay.”

Angela met Leona’s eyes, and nodded. She would begin to lead the conversation. “What’s your name?”

“Nilstedd,” he answered courteously.

“What was the name of the man you killed when crossing over into this world?”

He hesitated with this one, likely surprised that she would show interest in such information. “Kuhsakego.”

“Were you two close?”

He hesitated here too, but less so, wanting to maintain what little power he had left here. “We trained up together. We always knew that we would be wing-locked one day. They discouraged us from becoming friendly for this reason.”

“Were you in love?” Angela asked.

“It wasn’t like that,” Nilstedd answered.

She believed him. “But you did care for him, and you regret his passing.”

“It is our way.” He averted his gaze, suggesting that he did not agree with his own statement. “It is the only way.”

That wasn’t true, but Angela wasn’t there yet. “We’ve noticed something. Well, others have noticed it, and relayed it to us. We have not met enough Ochivari to have any impression in this regard, but it’s become known that you are all men. Are you a single sex species?”

“Of course not. Our mating rituals are more complex than you could ever understand.”

“Where are all the women?”

He scoffed.

“They must be weak,” Angela said dismissively, trying to get a rise out of him.

“They are not weak. They are just too important!” he argued.

“So it’s just about propagating the species,” Angela guessed. “They stay out of the fight, so they can make more fighters.”

“I shall say nothing more of it.” He turned away even more.

“Have you heard of the Krekel?” she asked him.

He appeared determined to stop revealing information to them, but he couldn’t help but react to this. He spit on the far end of his table, as close to Angela’s as he could without phase-shifting it through the barrier.

“They’re like the Tok’ra, who are technically also Goa’uld, but not evil. That’s all they are; those who made different choices.” She shrugged. “You’re Krekel.”

“No, I am not.”

“You can be,” she reasoned. “You can escape your cell whenever you want. Krekel can travel alone.”

Nilstedd crossed his arms defiantly. “They’re lying.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you ever see them do it?” he questioned.

“My father was a slaveowner,” Angela suddenly said. “I grew up with massive trust issues. I had to work really hard to get over them. The Krekel told me that they can wingsing their way through portals. It’s not a trick, it’s not a lie. It’s true. I’ve been sent here to tease information from you, but if you escaped right here, right now, I wouldn’t stop you. I encourage it.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Music. Music is a language of love. For you to do what you do, and survive, you have to develop contempt from your partner, not because of its inherent value, but because of what you were saying. To lose someone you love; for him to die by your hands—or wings, as it were—would be a burden that you could not bear if you let yourself care about him. So you suppress all love, to protect yourself from disappointment, loss, and loneliness. Music brings us together. The way the Krekel I met described it, you can open a portal by focusing your energy on breaking free from the world that you’re on, while they open one by focusing on where they want to go. They seek connection, while you seek escape. That’s why it kills you.”

“I would sure like to read the scientific paper where you’re getting all this brilliant insight,” he volleyed.

She smiled. “I can’t. I briefly looked over the laws relevant to this war. The locals aren’t allowed to study how you operate. It’s illegal, because it’s unethical. They can’t encourage you to kill each other. So no, I don’t know that much about how your wing battle thing works, but I know that it’s not pleasant. If it were, Kuhsakego would be in the cell next to you.”

“What are you trying to do here,” Nilstedd demanded to know, “get me to turn on my own people?”

“No,” Angela answered sincerely. “I’m just trying to get you to tell me why you’re here at all. What’s so special about this world? It’s just another Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to sterilize everyone, but why haven’t you yet? Why are you fighting in the first place?”

He appeared to laugh. “Look around, human. Do you know what the global temperature is? Do you see how much pollution there is in the air? The oceans? Do you know how many unevolved species have gone extinct? Does it have a stable ozone layer? Are these people barreling down a path towards their own self-destruction?”

“No,” Leona answered in Angela’s stead. “They’re fine. The environment is fine. So why are you here?”

Nilstedd was watching Angela during Leona’s response, but he turned his head now. “We’re not here to end the human race in this universe. We’re here to train.”

“To train for what?”

“For you,” he answered simply.

“Me specifically, errr...?”

“People like you, who travel the bulk, causing trouble for us. You can’t combat sterilization in kind. You fight us with guns, and other weapons. We need to know how to fight back, to protect our interests. So we found a universe that’s just advanced enough to give us a real challenge while being primitive enough to not absolutely decimate our forces.”

“These are field tests?” Leona questioned, horrified. “You don’t actually have anything against these people? By your own definition, they’re innocent, and you’re killing them anyway?”

He shrugged. “Orders are orders. Some were sent in ships, others were sent to test out various infiltration and subterfuge techniques. That’s why some of the people we dispatched are human.”

Leona had to actively hold Angela in place when she stood up to teleport away. “No. We can’t tell anyone what he just said.”

“Why not?”

“Come with me,” Leona ordered. She took Angela by the hand, and transported them both to the Gobi Desert.

“They have a right to know that some of the people they’re looking for will look human, and not Ochivari,” Angela argued.

“The right people have a right to know, but we have to be careful about this. Think about it, Ange. Right now, their enemy is obvious; unmistakable. If they have to be on the lookout for enemies who look just like them, they’ll find ‘em, whether they’re real or not. Neighbors will turn on neighbors. People will become suspicious of their children’s teachers. Constituents will lose trust in their leadership, and the entire civilization will crumble to dust. In my day, some conspiracy theorists believed that the government was run by lizard people. They once tried to attack a military base, convinced that aliens were being housed there. Imagine how bad it would get if this kind of stuff were true!”

Angela sighed. “You’re right. This situation requires finesse and tact. I don’t know if we’re up for the job. It puts us in an awkward situation too. We’re invaders, from another universe. What makes our team different? Why should they trust us?”

“There’s another option, but it will be neither safe nor easy. I got the idea just as Olimpia was rescuing us from the kasma. Perhaps the only way to protect this Earth is to seal it up tight. Now more than ever, we would have to return to where we came from.” If the answer was in Salmonverse or Fort Underhill, then they needed to get back to find it, not only because that was their home. Their enemy would want something in return—probably their deaths—but there was no reason to fret over it now. Priorities.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 1, 2453

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The team transported the Sixth Key delegates, the Primus, and her assistant to the Executive Bunker on the other side of the world. From there, they watched the battle that the Transit and the Cormanu were fighting against the onslaught of Ochivari ships. The local squadrons watched from orbit, but did not participate. The public watched as well through minimal satellite feeds, though most of the cameras that were pointed  away from Earth were limited to military and governmental use. After only about fifteen minutes of the shooting, they all disappeared through a technicolor portal. No friend or foe was left on the battlefield. The theory was that the Transit was trying to spare the locals by moving the fighting to another universe, but it could have just as easily been more like the other way around. No one sent them a message, and when the team returned a year later, they still hadn’t heard from anyone, but a lot had changed. Carlin was now a folk hero.

In all this time, they never got a chance to find out what his time powers were, which appeared to run in the family. Apparently, he was kind of like a walking homestone, but with fewer limitations. He could send anyone back to any point in their life just after they departed from that moment using teleportation or time travel; not only the first instance. He was able to return all of the delegates to where they were when the Tree of Life first pulled them to the nucleus. Leona respectfully asked why he didn’t do that before, and he said that he wasn’t certain of the extent of his abilities. He didn’t know that he could relapse across universes, but Thack was able to check to make sure that everyone was back to where they belonged as if they had never left.

“Are you sure you want to use that word?” Mateo asked.

“I like it,” Carlin insisted.

“Well, it’s just that it has negative—”

“I understand. I like it,” he repeated.

“Okay.”

“I could relapse you too,” Carlin offered, “now that I know that I can even do it from all the way out here.”

“Can you do it to yourself?” Mateo asked him.

“No.”

“Then it’s a no for me too. We’re not gonna leave you behind. Though, perhaps Thack would like to go home?”

“She says that she must remain here for a certain amount of time,” Carlin explained. “I offer a way out to her every day.”

“Does it drain you of energy, doing what you do?” Mateo went on.

“It’s invigorating,” Carlin revealed. Even though the orbital battle last year was fought against an armada of ships, it wasn’t like they were the only Ochivari in the universe. More kept coming through smaller breaches on the surface of this planet. Whenever a new arrival was detected, the government would fly Carlin to that location to have him dispatch of the threat. They actually gave him a special hypersonic jet to accomplish this. He might need to travel anywhere in the world to complete his missions, and he was beloved by all for his efforts. Many were coming out of the bunkers, and trying to return to their normal lives as a result. Though, the government wasn’t sure whether that was the right call. One thing that helped them know when an Ochivar had snuck in was because there were fewer humans around for them to blend in with. They had yet to figure out how to detect the portals themselves, and were hoping that the team could help them. “I love all the sudden travel, though I know that the natives are hoping that you can make that simpler.”

“Are you up for that?” Leona asked Ramses.

“What, me? Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you almost died from equilibrium exposure,” she reminded him.

“Well, I had to test what it was like to be exposed in the equilibrium,” Ramses explained. “And now I know...it’s worse than a vacuum.”

“Next time, wear a helmet,” Leona suggested.

“Aye aye, Captain.” He was trying to keep it light, but Leona wanted to be a little more serious, so he nodded, and added, “I really will. I need to get the Ambassador back up to the surface, and re-embigify it, so I can start working on the detector in my lab.”

“Go ahead,” she allowed.

“I’ll go with you,” Angela offered. They both jumped away.

Soon after they were gone, Thack Natalie Collins entered the room. They were in the executive bunker situation room, where the military usually planned and led the war efforts. It was originally designed to support the continuity of government in the event of a total collapse of civilization, which hadn’t happened yet. However, they were always on the cusp of complete failure, which was why most of Primus Mihajlović’s supporters kept begging recently for her to begin operating out of here fulltime. The second major tactical  assault was all the reason they needed to basically force her to finally accept that, so she and Kineret had been down here for the last year, as was Thack, who was presently serving as a cultural advisor. “Welcome back to reality.”

“We weren’t sure that we would jump at all,” Leona told her. “Being in other universes makes it complicated.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Thack claimed.

“Would you know about the Transit, and the Cormanu?” Mateo pressed. “Where did they go when they left here?”

Thack smiled in a way that made it seem like she was about to school them on the subject. “Psychic abilities are interesting. For the most part, we’re not talking about knowing things without learning them, though that’s definitely part of it. The majority of psychics are limited by their connection to others. That’s what it is; the links that bind us together. Now, you would think that this means I should be able to find our friends wherever they are, especially since I have formed close personal relationships with the Hawthornes, however, I believe that they have traveled beyond my scope. They have gone to a universe where no one else lives. Yes, I’m connected to the people that I already know, but not to anyone else there, because they don’t exist. You’ve been to a handful of branes yourselves, and you’ve always found people to already be living there, such as the one we’re in right now. But most aren’t like that. Most are dead, or lifeless anyway. In the infinity, I think most can’t even harbor life at all, meaning that you can’t go to them, or you’ll just straight up die. I can tell you for a fact that our friends did not end up in one of those extreme scenarios, because I see their futures. But there are plenty of others out there where life is safe, but never evolved. And again, I can’t see them. If you were in the middle of a fight with the Ochivari, you would probably try to go to one of these places, so the conflict did not endanger the lives of innocents.”

“I would if I could, yes,” Mateo agreed. “But just to clarify, you can’t watch them remotely, even when you concentrate, and you can’t guess when they’ll return, if ever?”

Thack shook her head. “I’m saying that I don’t know where they went when they left,” she explained, quite careful with her language. It probably wasn’t safe for them to know too much about the future. She faced Carlin. “Mister McIver, I will be leaving today. Please prepare to relapse me back to Voldisilaverse.”

“I’m ready, we can go right now,” Carlin replied.

“No, no. Mister Abdulrashid needs time to build his little device. When we’ll go, he’ll take measurements of the bulk energy that you’ll be tapping into. That data will be vital for the goal of detecting arrivals as they happen.”

The Primus walked into the room with Kineret, having heard enough from the hallway. “Will we ever be able to predict them, so we can dispatch a team ahead of time? We’re always worried that some remain...somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Thack repeated herself from earlier.

Naraschone seemed to be used to having to allow Thack her secrets. “Anyway, the military requires this room for a battle exercise for one of their new fighter jets.”

This was where the team happened to be last year when their proverbial hourglass ran out, and they were sent forward in time a year. They weren’t entirely sure when it would happen, since their original pattern was tied to midnight central in Salmonverse. This was a version of Earth, and the bunker was located in Colorado, so their best guess was that it would be the same, using the local time zone borders, but it happened at 22:00 instead, when it was only 23:00 in Kansas. They did not know why.

“We were just leaving,” Thack said respectfully.

As they were exiting, Mateo pulled Thack aside since this was evidently his last time to talk to her. “When I was being possessed by Amber and Sanaa, two others managed to sneak into my mind. One was Meredarchos, I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

“I have,” Thack said, nodding.

“The other; they were crying for help. Would you have any idea who that could be, or would you not know anything about that?” Hopefully that didn’t come off as harsh.

“It could be a number of people,” Thack answered. “It could be me. It could be one of the people on any of the bulk traveling machines that were here last year, or of the people who travel using other means. It could be you, from your future.” She looked away from him as if her own words had given her an idea. “Or from your past.”

“No, I would remember that,” Mateo insisted.

“Aren’t you missing some personal time? Think back.”

Mateo winced, not knowing what she was talking about, but then he realized that she might be onto something. He did disappear once, from the Third Rail, in the Russian mine where they were looking for timonite to rescue Trina. When he came back, they thought that he had only jumped forward in time a couple of days, but he had always secretly had the feeling that he had actually been detoured somewhere in the meantime, and had since lost his memories of it. He never really talked about that with the others, but it was super weird that he just happened to swallow the one rock that they had been searching for. “Maybe you’re right. You really think that it was just me?”

“Oh, it’s only an idea. You have an opportunity to investigate that you didn’t have before, though. If you don’t have anything else going on, you could talk to Carlin.”

That was an interesting recommendation, one which he should probably take.

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Microstory 2058: Off Another Cliff

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My worst fears have come to life. Fiction is as bad here as I was worried it would be. That goes for print media as well as film and television. You make up stories, of course, but there’s no beauty in it, no thrill. When I was first starting out as a writer, I was accused of always getting right to the point. The tales themselves were interesting, but I wasn’t telling them in interesting ways. I wasn’t keeping the audience engaged. That’s how it is here, but with everything. I started to read a book that was narratively similar to The Grapes of Wrath, but it played more like a list of things that happened. John drove himself and his daughter to the abandoned shack in the middle of woods where he recalled hiding when he was a young boy. It was dirty, but still standing, so they cleaned it up, and stayed the night. They ate blueberries for dinner, and also for breakfast the next morning. In my world, that excerpt would be expanded across two or more pages. What were they feeling during the drive? What were they thinking? They were running from the anti-authorities, so were they scared? The book made me feel nothing. I don’t know, I just can’t get into anything. Everything I’ve tried has been so boring, it makes me want to jump off another cliff on the off-chance that it sends me to another universe. That’s not exactly how I ended up here in the first place, but it was what ultimately led me here. My landlord doesn’t own a computer, and since I don’t have a job yet, I can’t afford one of my own. I’ve been using an old phone of hers that still works with DataWave. For any possible readers from any other universe, that is what they call WiFi here. Anyway, writing these little posts is hard enough on the little screen, I wouldn’t be able to create an entire story with it. Maybe when I get a job, I’ll buy a real machine, and start making up my own stories. I’ve not been a writer since I lived on my Earth, but maybe it’s time. I think y’all need to understand what true creativity looks like.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 6, 2400

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Leona undoes her safety straps, and tries to stand up. She falls right to the floor, having not realized how dizzy she was until it was too late. Cedar struggles to get out of his own seat to help, but he’s no better off. “Everyone hold still for a few minutes,” Danica orders. “Just breathe in...breathe out. It wasn’t supposed to be that rough, but we were pressed for time, so I had to improvise.”

Leona rolls to her back, and pads her hips, looking for the communicator she used to reach out to Kyra, but she must have dropped it. “I need to get to Egypt.”

“I’ll transport you there once we’re back to a hundred percent,” Danica promises. “Constance, show me the outside.”

The walls and floor turn invisible, showing them what it looks like outside of the Constant. “Oh, crap,” Leona says. It just looks like she’s a dozen or so stories up in the air, and it’s making the dizziness worse.

“Constance, this house is glass.”

The floor returns, but is still very transparent, so they can still easily see what’s what out there. A car is parked in the middle of the field where the Constant landed, the occupants sizing up the building that appeared out of nowhere In the opposite direction, they can see Danica Lake. Danica aimed extremely well for it being such an emergency. More cars are coming. “The Dark Citadel has arrived, Leona muses, standing herself up.

“What does that mean?” Angela asks.

“It’s from a passage in the Word of Dalton,” Carlin explains. “Leona recited it earlier. I think it predicts our arrival.”

Leona watches as even more cars appear from over the horizon. “It’s over. This chapter in my life is ended. I don’t have to worry about this stuff anymore. Navigating what’s happened today, and how it may or may not alter the religious landscape on this planet, is no longer my problem.” She breathes in. “I have spoken.”

Angela steps up to Leona’s side, and takes her hand. “It’s okay to move on.”

Marie steps up to Leona’s other side, and takes her other hand. “As long as you don’t move on from us.” She smiles and holds up a little fob. She presses the button, and sends all three of them to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

They’re standing at the very top of it, which gives them an area smaller than a single-family home to walk around. Kyra, Ansel, and Allison are already here, admiring the view. Constance!Three left the roof when she generated the hologram of the exterior of the Constant, and Leona was focused on the ground, so she didn’t notice the sky before. It’s like the Auroras Borealis and Australis, but with technicolors. “Does it always look like this?” Leona asks.

“No, never,” Kyra replies. She nods at the beauty. “This is new.”

“Where are we exactly?” Leona asks her. “I mean, where is the Earth situated, in relation to other star systems and their orbitals?”

“We’re on the other side of the sun. “The Fourth Quadrant probably didn’t even notice us since they’re not all that advanced.”

“Kure, Japan, and Panama both have major astronomical monitoring equipment. It has not necessarily been long enough for them to notice yet, but it will be soon. Our arrival would have had a profound impact on the solar system. It’s not instantaneous, since gravity travels at the speed of light, but it’s fast. How are you station-keeping?”

“I’m not,” Kyra answers. “We’re orbiting a tiny bit farther from the sun than the Earth that belongs here does.”

“That’s Lagrange point three,” Leona notes. “That’s highly unstable. We’ll start drifting in a matter of weeks, depending on the orbit of Venus.” Leona was so preoccupied with the attack from the Parallelers that she couldn’t focus on anything but that. She didn’t stop to think about the fact that you can’t just move a new planet to a new solar system. The gravitational forces could destroy all celestial bodies, including the new one. Either Kyra doesn’t know that, or she knows something Leona doesn’t.

“Weeks is enough time. When the Reconvergence finishes, everything will be okay, at least in the celestial sense. Politically, it’s going to be a nightmare. But that’s not our problem to worry about. Our only job is to save lives.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” Kyra promises. “I’ve seen the Sixth Key.”

“No one who knows what the Sixth Key is like in the future seemed to know anything about this,” Leona points out.

Kyra only now turns her head to face Leona. “We did not tell you everything. We’ve still not.”

“What does that mean?”

“Go to the main sequence, Leona.”

“What? Why?”

“Go to the main sequence,” Kyra repeats.

“Hold on to my shoulders,” Leona says to Angela and Marie, now very worried about Mateo. She removes the tip from the center, and places it on the spoke for the Third Rail. Then she tries to turn it to the main sequence. Nothing happens. “Oh wait, we’re in the Fourth Quadrant now.” She removes the tip, then puts it on the Fourth Quadrant, and then turns it to the main sequence. “No, that didn’t work either. Maybe I need to...” She reverses everything she just did, and tries to start over, unsure how this device really works. They still don’t go anywhere. “No, it’s...it won’t do it.”

“What?” Kyra takes the device, and fiddles with it. There aren’t a whole lot of different things to try, so she runs into the same issue in that nothing happens at all. Her eyes glaze over, and she looks into the distance. “The time jump.”

“The what?”

“The time jump?” Kyra repeats. “It threw off the calibration.” She shakes the Helm of Reality demonstratively. “This is like an app, and the universe is a phone. We upgraded the OS, but now this app is no longer compatible with it.”

“What..time jump?” Leona repeats herself as well.

“We went into the future. It’s April 6, 2400.”

“Excuse me? You never said that you were going to do that,” Leona argues.

“It’s fine. Mateo is here too. Well, he’s not here; he’s still in the main sequence, but he jumped forward too. That’s not the issue. The issue is that this thing doesn’t work, and we’re gonna need it. We need all Helms on deck.”

Leona sighs, upset about being lied to. “What needs to be done to fix it?”

“You’ll have to go back to the now uninhabitable Third Rail, though I don’t know how. It would be like changing a setting on the app, which you can’t even open.”

“Enough with the metaphor.” Leona snatches the device back. “I’ll figure it out! Like always!” She and the Walton twins teleport away.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 5, 2399

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Mateo’s eyelids feel as heavy as an elephant. They tug themselves down so hard, they take the rest of his head with them. He barely keeps himself from falling flat on his face. It’s a symptom of his pattern, which he has had since he was first starting out, and it even continued on through his multiple deaths, and body transferences. It hasn’t happened since shortly after his arrival in the Third Rail, and only then when he happened to be close to a point of strong temporal energy, such as the parking lot in Crown Center where they first came through.

“Whoa, what was that?” Labhrás asks. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, something’s different. What year is it?”

“It’s 2399, I would assume. Should it not be?”

Mateo takes out his communicator and tries to contact Leona in the Third Rail, but no one answers. The line’s completely dead on their end, which is not a good sign. Tarboda answers when he calls the Parallel, and Winona when he reaches out to the Fifth Division. Aldona in the Fourth Quadrant confirms what the first two said, which is that it’s April 5, 2399 for everyone. Whatever he felt, it was limited to him, which isn’t surprising. He’s the only remaining member of the OG team still accounted for. Marie and Angela are still traveling at relativistic speeds, and they still don’t know where Olmpia went. Ramses is dead, and now Leona is missing. He’s all alone.

The time zones are a little weird, but the Key Protectors generally try to stay on the same schedule as each other, so everyone goes to sleep afterwards. Mateo can’t do it, though. He’s too worried about Leona, and everyone else in the Third Rail. What happened? Why can’t he reach them? And why has she not shown up to tell him that everything is okay? She checks in with everybody physically at least once a day, and comes to the main sequence a few times, because this is where her husband is.

Things begin to happen late the next morning. Winona calls back first to announce that she, Hamilton, and Mithridates are no longer alone. Summit Ebora and Trina McIver suddenly showed up. They’ve been preparing to protect the Key all this time, and now it’s their chance to prove that they can do it.

“No, you’re not protecting the Keys.” Trina has forced herself into frame.

“Hi, Trina. You’re older now,” Mateo says.

“It happens. There seems to be some confusion. You’re protecting the Keyholders. The Keys won’t be anywhere near these realities. That’s the whole point.”

“Who’s protecting the Keys, then?” Mateo asks.

“Don’t you worry about that. It’s not your issue.”

“I’m not worried about it, just curious,” Mateo admits. “What I’m worried about is my wife. Do you know where she is?”

Trina sighs. “Yes. She’s fine. She’ll be back.” She’s reluctant to elaborate when he asks her to. “She’s...in the future.”

“How far in the future?” Mateo presses.

“I’m sorry, I can’t say any more than that. Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Mateo tries to stop her, but she’s gone. If she heard him, she doesn’t care. She hangs up, and doesn’t answer when he tries to call her back. She may be ignoring him deliberately, or she’s in the middle of another call. Aldona didn’t seem to include call-waiting or voicemail on these things.

One by one, the other parallel realities call in to let everyone know that the Keys and Keyholders are here. At some point, the Keys will leave, but they won’t say how they’re going to accomplish that. If Leona won’t be back in the timestream until later, they must have some other way of traveling to the Sixth Key. Trina was the one who gave Leona The Helm of Reality, so they could easily have another one just like it. Once everyone’s spoken their piece, Mateo waits a good hour, and then tries to call Trina back, but she won’t come to the phone. Hopefully she’s trying to respect Leona’s Rules for Time Travel, and is not just being an asshole.

Nothing else interesting happens for the rest of the day. No one shows up for them, which is a bad sign. If the whole Third Rail is missing, they could be in really big trouble. A part of him hopes that he’ll jump to the future come midnight central. No, that could be bad. If Leona comes back after, say, two months, they’ll end up on different patterns. He doesn’t know what to do but stress about it. Labhrás tries to take his mind off of it with a new game of RPS-101 Plus, but it’s not working. Is this what it feels like for Leona every time he’s died or disappeared, and she’s the one who doesn’t know whether she’ll ever see him again? He must say, he does not care for this.

Fifteen minutes before midnight, he starts to get a weird vibe, like maybe he will actually jump to the future, as if the whole Omega Gyroscope thing were over. It couldn’t be, could it? Two people suddenly appear before them, one of them being Summit Ebora, and based on context clues, Mateo guesses the other to be his mother, Iris Blume. “I was not told that you would be here,” Mateo says as Summit is checking the perimeter for threats. “It’s nice to meet you, though.”

Iris shakes his hand. “Likewise.”

“The plan was kept secret intentionally, to prevent interference. We need your help, and you’re the only person in five realities who can do it.”

“Shoot,” Mateo offers.

“Can we borrow your communicator?” she goes on.

“We’re clear,” Summit informs his mother.

Iris takes the device, and selects a recipient. “Bring the rest over,” she instructs.

“Got it, boss.” That sounded like Alyssa. “Red rover, red rover, send the Helm of Reality on over.” Yeah, it’s definitely Alyssa.

Iris widens her arms, the communicator in one hand, and the second Helm of Reality in the other. She smashes them together. A flash of light shoots out from the small blast, and when she’s done, only the communicator is left.

“Neat trick,” Mateo says.

Seconds later, Alyssa appears with Vearden and Arcadia, holding little baby Cheyenne in her arms. Neither of them are surprised to be there. Alyssa disappears, and returns quickly with someone who looks a little bit like Vearden, so it must be his father, Ansel. She leaves again to retrieve Trina, and then another man that Mateo doesn’t recognize. He gives Iris a kiss, so it must be her husband, Rino. None of the protectors is here, except for Mateo and Labhrás—or maybe not. Where’s Labhrás?

“Where’s Labhrás?” Mateo asks.

“He’s not a part of this,” Iris answers. “Now give me your arm.” She takes blood from him to fill several vials. Once one is full, her son takes it, and begins to inject it in one of the others, even little Chey-Chey. When midnight central hits, they all jump to the future together, except for Alyssa. It’s now the year 2400, a.k.a. The Edge.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 2, 2398

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Heath is pacing around again, this time in the main seating area of The Olimpia. He hasn’t spoken to his wife in four days, and hasn’t seen her in five. Neither she nor Kivi has been responding to their messages, but their devices are still on and active, in Middle of Nowhere, Florida. In fact, they haven’t moved a centimeter since June 30, which suggests all kinds of possible explanations. They could be dead, or stuck in a timeloop or time bubble. They could have lost their belongings, and moved on, or someone might have stolen them, and left them somewhere. Heath is presently considering all of these possibilities, plus some more outlandish ones. He keeps asking Leona and Ramses questions about how time and time travel work so he can add more to the growing list, and enhance his own sense of dread. It’s not healthy, but nothing they say appears to be helping him out of the grim hole that he’s digging for himself.

Leona is operating the controls, hunting for a landing site as close to the unmoving phones as possible. Ramses gets on the intercom to begin an announcement as they approach their destination. “Welcome to the location of Youth Water. It comes from a natural spring in the middle of inland Florida, which dried up centuries before it was permanently settled by Europeans. In the main sequence, this area was well-developed by the time the culture advanced to this point in its history. It boasts one of the first regions to undergo the massive rewilding effort that sought to revitalize the world’s wildlife, and consolidate human populations into ever smaller artificial habitations. But still, the spring was dry, only to be accessed long ago in the past. It is one of the most popular of the immortality waters, because it can help promote life extension in the deveiled humans of history without interfering in later endeavors to assemble the other waters, and possibly achieve complete and total immortality.

“According to the correspondence map, Marie and Kivi’s devices are currently located at the approximate location of this spring, implying that there is something quite interesting there. And I’ve just been informed by my co-pilot that the nearest open area for vertical landing is about four kilometers from this site. We apologize for the hike that will soon be demanded of you, but barring teleportation, or aerial vehicle fast rope, this is the best we can do. Mateo and I will be staying with the Olimpia in case it’s needed at a moment’s notice. The rest of you will make the trek to the target location. Thank you, and please be patient while we execute this latest, delicate maneuver to the ground.”

Mateo and Ramses wait in the clearing while the others go out and attempt to make sense of all of this. A couple of hours later, Angela returns alone. “They’re gone.”

“What do you mean, they’re gone? They’ve gone where?”

Angela catches her breath. “While Leona was looking through the phones they found by the edge of the water, Heath dove in, believing the spring to be the ultimate answer to his question. She went in after him, and they both disappeared. I was feeling a strong pull to follow them. It took everything I had to not get in the water too, because I knew I shouldn’t. They did have their devices on them. Ramses, can you track them?”

He loads up his own device. It takes him longer than they would think. It should be a quick friend location ping. “Umm...it’s complicated.”

“How so?” Mateo asks.

“They’re in the future.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 31, 2398

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The team sits around the table, prepared to have dinner together, but not yet ready. Ramses is methodically walking around the condo, waving his wand at every wall, every floor, every object; sometimes more than once for good measure. They believe that they’ve been pretty sensitive to his needs, but there is a limit to their capacity to indulge him. “Rambo,” Marie says, but has to stop when her own grumbling stomach interrupts her. “This is the third time you’ve done that today. We’re all here to eat. Come to the table.”

“Yeah, it’s the third time, and I’m not with it yet. You think I’m gonna stop at two and a half? I just need a little more time.”

“You ain’t got more time,” Marie pushes. “Now we’re all here to celebrate Angela’s pending graduation, and you’re going to be a part of it.”

“Just one more room,” Ramses begs.

“No, it’s fine. No one snuck in here in the last three hours, and planted bugs. They would have to contend with our bugs!”

“I’m just trying to protect you in the only way I’m capable. I was once the only engineer, but now that everybody’s constantly studying, where does that leave me?”

“With any luck, at the dinner table,” Marie responds to his question, instead of trying to console him.

“Honey, he’s going through something right now,” Heath says, hoping to help.

“We’re all going through something,” Marie dismisses. “Angela has to steal my identity, Leona was just taken hostage, Mateo was...also just taken hostage, you recently quit your job, and I have to have an abortion.”

Ramses stops scanning for listening devices, and drops his arms depressively.

“You promised never to play that card,” Angela scolds.

“Why is everyone attacking me now?” Marie questions loudly.

“No one’s attacking anybody,” Leona contends. She stands up. “Ship or no, I’m still the captain of this crew. Ramses, come let us eat. Marie, be a little nicer. Mateo?”

“Huh, what?” Mateo wasn’t really paying attention. He’s too hungry.

“Pay attention,” Leona orders. “And Angela?” They hold their breath, not sure what criticism she could possibly have of Angela. “Congratulations,” she finishes.

“I’m not graduating anything,” Angela argues. “I’m just decent enough at my doppelgänger’s job to fake my way through a shift from here on out.”

“Pretty impressive, if you ask me,” Mateo says, hoping it’s enough to make it seem as if he’s been listening this whole time. He knew a kid like that in grade school. He would always answer one question, ask one question, or make one comment, per day. Sometimes it was very small and inconsequential, but that way, the teacher couldn’t claim that he never participated in class. He had some anxiety problems which otherwise made him the furthest anyone could be from the class clown, so that sort of thing was always a struggle for him.

“Well, the real test is tomorrow in the meeting.”

“I thought you had dealt with a meeting by now,” Heath says, digging into his potatoes, now that Ramses has surrendered.

“I’ve been to a meeting, yes,” Angela explains, “but I’m running this one.”

“It’s a big deal,” Marie says, trying to sound supportive, but realizing immediately that it also makes it sound like a lot of pressure. “You’ll do great.” Saved it.

“Thanks, but...”

“But nothing. You’re me, and I rock in those meetings, so you will too.”

“Who was that guy we met in the simulation?” Angela asks. “Somehow, we ended up teaching him how to play horseshoes? You remember?”

“Oh. Uh, Cyrano. What about him?”

“Well, we saw him at that restaurant something like fifty years later. He had won a ghosting mod in a raffle, and was using it to—”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Marie recalls. “He was, like, hypnotizing people to make them say weird things to their dinner dates? I don’t remember how he did that part, or why we were able to see him. But yeah, I remember him. Why?”

“You could basically do that,” Angela suggests. “I could wear an earpiece and video glasses, and you could just tell me what to say, and how to act in the meeting. That way, I wouldn’t be able to screw it up.”

“Oh, right, that’s a great idea!” Marie says, giving Angela some hope. “Oh, but no, there’s a problem with that plan.”

“What?”

“The problem is I’m not going to do that.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 8, 2397

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Leona was frustrated to have to leave the blue dwarf, but one of their friends was out there, and they may really need their help right now. Besides, it would seem that traveling across realities could be easier than they thought before, so perhaps one day, they could return for her to study it. The truth was that she didn’t really need to study anything. Information on it was probably in a database somewhere, having been discovered long ago. She just wanted to live around it because of how crazy it was. The time to dwell on it was past, though. They were about to jump to another reality.

“We’re all synced up,” Ramses said, checking his Cassidy cuff. “Everybody ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Good to go.”

They jumped. It was as jolting as the last two times, but they knew what to expect this time, so they all landed on their feet. They were in a dark room. Men with suits immediately took them by the arms. “Sir, there’s more,” one of them said.

A man who was trying to walk out of the room turned around and sneered at them. “Bring ‘em too,” he instructed in a graveled voice.

“By order of Captain Waldemar Kristiansen, Eighth of Eight, you are being detained for questioning. You will be escorted to primary hock, where you will await further direction. Resistance will be met with fatal violence. Please, please...” he begged, “resist.”

While the members of the team were not capable of psychic communication, they could feel each other’s emotions, and there were other practical applications to this. When one of them began to teleport, the rest could feel that too. Ramses did this, not to escape, but to see everyone else’s reactions. Leona’s emotions indicated that they should not try to jump. They were presumably on a moving vessel, and they were unfamiliar with its layout. These substrates were designed to survive, so even if they ended up in the vacuum of space, it wouldn’t kill them. But unless they retained momentum, they would quickly fall out of range, and wouldn’t be able to return, so just for now, they would do as they were asked. The good news was that they could feel Angela. When the men dragged them out into the hallway, they could see her too, also being dragged towards hock.

The men carelessly pushed them into the cell. “Sorry for the poor accommodations,” one of them said after the others had walked away without a second thought. He used a sarcastic tone at first, but then he made sure his compatriots were out of earshot. “We’re just...kind of full right now. The ship wasn’t designed to hold so many political prisoners. Whoever you are, you have to find out how to get out of here. If even one more person gets arrested, they’re going to kill them. Or maybe they’ll kill the oldest prisoner, I don’t know. We just don’t have the space anymore, and no one wants to spend the resources keeping people like you alive. So tell them what they want to know, and be good. It will probably take them a week to get to your interrogation, so hopefully no one else will screw up.”

“Thank you,” Mateo said to the boy.

“Our cuffs,” Leona said simply.

The boy shook his head. “You’re not getting your devices back. Teleportation is illegal, and they’re going to assume that they contain subversive media.” He closed the door and left without another word.

“He may sound nice,” came the voice of a stranger in the cell with them, “but...he still works for him, and that was his choice.”

Leona stepped forward. “Captain Leona Matic of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

“I know who you are. Those morons would have recognized you too if they spent a little more time in history class. My name is Kaison Summerling.”

“What are ya in for?” Ramses asked.

“Possession of subversive media,” Kaison explained. “I was once Captain. I stepped down due to accusations of nepotism, but now I wish I hadn’t, because I would not have selected Kristiansen as my successor. And he’s aware of that, so I’m public enemy number one.”

“This is Extremus, isn’t it?” Leona asked.

“It is,” Kaison confirmed.

“That ship from Gatewood that Omega created?” Mateo asked.

“He didn’t create it, but yes,” Leona said, “we were there when he showed up at the lounge to plant the seed of this idea. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Kaison agreed. “Things are only going to get worse. Did they call the current captain Eighth of Eight in front of you?”

“They did,” Angela answered, not thinking much of it.

By the end of this mission, there are supposed to be eleven total—rest in peace, mother. Kristiansen doesn’t ever plan on stepping down. Of course, nobody knows that, or they would get rid of him. There’s only one reason they let you hear that that’s the plan.”

“They’re going to kill us anyway,” Mateo figured, having seen a movie in his life.

Kaison nodded. “This isn’t a hock; it’s a morgue.”

Leona began to pace. She pushed her feelings to the other three. They were just as unsure as her. “We might be able to help.”

Kaison sighed. “Oh, you definitely can. You could teleport us right out of here since it’s part of your biology, and not something that can be switched off by central control. Then you could rescue all the other prisoners, and help begin our revolution.”

“But you’re not going to let us do that,” Angela realized.

“It would only fuel their hate. A revolution is nothing without the people in revolt. If we all break out of here, he’ll argue that that’s all the more reason he should just kill every seditious actor. You’ll give him the best excuse ever to wipe us out.”

“We have to escape either way,” Mateo pointed out.

Kaison understood. “The four of you do, yep. I don’t know what you got going on, but I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that your roster isn’t complete.”

“How do we leave without causing you problems?” Leona asked.

Kaison crossed his arms, and thought about it. “How strong are you?”

“Pretty strong.”

“Strong enough to break down that door?” Kaison questioned.

They all looked to Ramses, the engineer of their bodies. He stepped over to the door, and tested out its integrity. “Yeah, with a little time. I mean, no one here is as strong as Superman, but it could be done. Why would we, though, if we can teleport?”

“That would cause us problems,” Kaison said. “I’m brewing a plan, but...”

“But we’re not gonna like it?” Mateo guessed.

“I don’t know you well enough to answer that, but I wouldn’t call it foolproof, and I sure wouldn’t say it’s safe.”

They waited until it was closer to midnight central before making their move, using the time to get a little rest, and fill Angela in on what she missed. Mateo and Angela started punching and kicking the door, occasionally looking out the little food opening to make sure no one was coming to stop them. As much as these security guys loved to arrest people, they weren’t very careful with them once it was done.

Leona was regarding Kaison as he watched them slowly break down the door. “You’re coming with, right?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“If you tell us where on this ship is safe, we’ll get you there.”

“No. I either die a martyr, or I live long enough to help the cause. Running isn’t going to save my people. The former would be better than anything, but my guess is Kristiansen would keep my death quiet, as he’ll keep what happens today quiet. It’ll be too much of an embarrassment. The upside for us is he can’t use it as a justification to round up every dissenting voice.”

“Okay,” Leona said, knowing there was no point in trying to convince him.

“In fact, if you could knock me out cold, that would be great. I’ll make something up about trying to stop you. He won’t let me go, of course, but it could earn me a few brownie points. They might even let me have an e-reader.”

“Thank you...Captain Summerling.”

He laughed. “Not a captain. Maybe I’ll start going by General.”

“We’re out,” Mateo announced. They were one kick from breaking the latch.

Leona turned her head, and frowned. “Good luck with your revolution.” She reached back, and punched him in the jaw. Then she strode over to the door, and gave it the final kick before leading her team towards freedom.

According to Kaison, the hock was equipped with an airlock in the floor. It wasn’t a very good escape option for normal people, because there weren’t any spacesuits anywhere around here, but that was fine with them. They just needed to make it look good. He didn’t have anything to write with, so he did his best to describe the layout of Extremus, and told them where they could go.

They weren’t going to have much time. At reframe speeds, jumping out of an airlock was indeed going to do what they feared before. They would pretty much stay put while the ship continued on its journey faster than light. They weren’t exactly in hyperspace, but it did kind of operate like that. The warp bubble was wrapped tightly around the vessel. Leaving it meant losing momentum. Since they weren’t wearing their Cassidy cuffs anymore, they couldn’t sync up as they normally would. Leona was going to be in charge. She would control the teleportation, and the others would surrender to her mind’s decision, using their empathy to link their simultaneous jumps.

When the outer doors of the airlock opened, the air disappeared, but it didn’t suck them out. They were still standing above the opening, preparing themselves. Their nanites automatically placed themselves at action stations to keep their hosts alive. When Leona was ready, she pulled them all downwards, and out into the cold. Mateo smiled and waved at the camera recording them from the corner. Just as space was trying to sweep them away, Leona engaged teleportation, and delivered them to the safehouse.

It wasn’t so much a house as another darkened room. There wasn’t anything in it except for a bench along the wall, and an extraction mirror in the middle of the room. “Did he tell you this was in here?” Angela asked as she was admiring it.

“He said it was an extra bridge that they used to use to pilot the ship,” Leona answered. “I don’t think this is that. Like I said, teleportation is hard to navigate in an unfamiliar place. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Mateo said. “There’s no one else here, we’re fine.”

“We still need to get our devices back,” Ramses pointed out, “but...I like this as our exit strategy.”

“Okay,” Mateo said. “You all stay here. I’m going to retrieve them for us.”

“No, we go together,” Leona demanded. “We promised each other.”

“It’s irrational for us all to get caught,” Mateo reasoned. “If anyone tries to get through that door, you go through that mirror. Can you do that for me? Can you save yourselves? Can you...not argue with me about it?”

Leona stared at her husband. “You heard where the evidence room is?”

“Yes.”

“Hurry back. And be quiet.”

“Stealthy is my favorite of the eight dwarves,” Mateo revealed.

He jumped, and to his surprise, he was exactly where he wanted to be. He was in the narrow aisle between two shelves. They were filled with tons of stuff, but mostly personal teleporters. He looked around for some semblance of organization, but could find nothing of the sort. Nothing was labeled, nothing was grouped. Everytime they confiscated something, they obviously just threw it wherever they found space. So he just started walking up and down. Nothing. He passed by another door, where he could see a woman sitting at a table. The dimensional traverser was sitting open on the table, and she was preparing to do the same thing to the friend detector. He opened the door. “Stop! What are you doing?”

“They asked me to figure out how these things work,” the woman answered.

Mateo picked up the lasso device. Wires and other parts were hanging out of it, and he knew he could never fix it himself. He shook it in her face. “I need to make sure every single miniscule part is here, whether it’s attached where it’s meant to be, or what.”

“It’s all there. Just...sorry.”

He peered over, and saw a chain around her ankle. “You’re a prisoner too.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know that I’m a survivor, and I can get you out.”

She stared at him a moment. She grabbed a toolbag, dumped out the tools, and swept all the parts of their devices into it. She reached out to him. “Let’s go.”

“You’re not leaving anyone you love behind?”

“No, he...he’s gone.”

Mateo reached down, and yanked the chain away from the table leg. Then he accepted the woman’s hand, and transported back to the extraction room.

“What the hell is this?” Ramses asked after Mateo handed him the bag.

“Can you fix it?” Mateo asked.

“In the next few minutes? No. Everything’s fine, it just...”

“It just what?” Angela asked.

“I could send a message across the dimensional barriers, but we won’t be able to cross over,” Ramses replied.

“What happens if we just wait a year?” Angela suggested.

“They’ll be waiting,” the woman contended. “They’ll have plenty of time to realize who you were, track your movements, and just be waiting for your return.”

“Besides,” Leona began, “we don’t have a cuff for her. Do you know where those are, by the way?”

“I didn’t see any cuffs,” the woman said apologetically. “I work on what they give me.”

“Don’t we have to wait until the next window opens up anyway?” Angela thought.

“Not technically,” Ramses said. “Before being taken apart, this thing could go whenever we wanted it to. We just wouldn’t necessarily be heading for a friend. It has to connect with the detector to accomplish that objective.”

“There’s a workaround,” Leona decided, looking at the mangled remnants of their device over Ramses’ shoulder. “Link it to the mirror. All you need is a portal, and that’s got one. Then you’ll have time to fix it permanently. Then we’ll go get the other two.”

“You can’t promise that,” Ramses said. “This ship has resources. We don’t know what we would be walking into.”

“We have to risk it.” Mateo placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Ramses exhaled. “Okay, I’ll need your help, Lee-Lee.”

Mateo and Angela stood by while the other three got to work. The woman was just as smart and experienced as they were, and she noticed something. “Is this supposed to look like this?”

“Crap, that’s what I was afraid of. We’re running out of power.”

“By how much?” Mateo asked.

“We have one more jump,” Ramses determined. That was unacceptable. They had two friends missing. One more jump was not going to be enough. They had to find some kind of power source here, because there was no way to know whether they would be able to find one tomorrow. There had to be something on this ship...somewhere. Before anyone could come up with a solution, they were surrounded by a team of teleporting security officers.

“Uhhh...we don’t have time,” Mateo warned them. “Let’s just go through the mirror to any old place.”

“We don’t have time for that either,” Leona said.

“We can hear you.” It was the leader security guard from before; the one who sounded like he smoked. “You’re not going anywhere, except back to hock.”

They stood there frozen, not wanting to comply. The others could feel Ramses’ feelings, implying to them that they only needed to wait for midnight. It was all ready to go. They couldn’t just walk through the portal, though. These guys would shoot them as soon as they moved an inch. Except they never got the chance. One turned against the others, and shot them all dead before they could react. Then he took off his mask.

“Omega!” the woman cried, relieved.

“Come on, Valencia. Let’s let the nice people go home.”

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