The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 21, 2442

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Half a day into the trip that the Vellani Ambassador was programmed to go on, getaway driver Mateo returned to the timestream in 2441 to find the guard who recognized their charade awake, and sitting patiently in hock. “Report,” she said.

“We’ve been on a relativistic journey,” Mateo explained. “It’s been about twelve hours for us, but a whole year for everyone else.”

“Why?”

“It’s all part of the plan,” he answered cryptically.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Mateo nodded, and prepared himself for the role of a couple lifetimes. He was still wearing his disguise, and hoping that she wouldn’t recognize him as the famous Mateo Matic of Team Matic. Some of the intel that Vitalie!613 gathered was paramount to their mission, while some of it was just anecdotal. She wasn’t interrogating the people on the resort world. She was simply getting to know them, and secretly logging everything that they said in case the team needed it later. One vacationer had a story to tell about how lucky she felt to end up at the resort after everything that happened to the rest of her family. Mateo recalled this story, and reworked it for this lie, embellishing certain parts for dramatic effect. “When I was a very young child, my parents were taken by the Empire. They wore uniforms much like yours. I remember the smell. I think they had just been involved in a fire, because they were sort of woody and rusty. I don’t know how else to explain it. I still don’t know what my parents did to deserve that, because no one will tell me. No one cares.

“For a long time, it was just me and my brother. We took care of each other. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you which one of us was older. We didn’t really keep track of those kinds of things on my planet. Our cousin was around too, but he had all these responsibilities, so we rarely saw him. When my brother was still pretty young, he was killed in a factory accident. This could have been prevented if again, anyone cared about such petty worries as working conditions. If there’s one thing I’ve learned living under the loving Exin Empire it’s that life is profoundly undervalued. I grew angry. I stopped going to my own job, and started to steal what I needed; never from people who didn’t deserve it. I mean people like you. For years, they couldn’t catch me, until they did. I ended up 666, and that’s when my eyes were opened. I was a criminal. I broke society’s rules; the ones that ought to indeed be rules. For most people there, though, their only crime was disagreeing with the state. Your messiah, Bronach Oaksent, he’s a liar. Everything he’s ever said is just a misdirect. If he says he loves you, he hates you. If he says he wants to help people, he wants to hurt them. I don’t know what made him like this, but his reign of terror is over. Ex-666 has been freed...and we’re comin’ for him.”

The guard stood up from her bunk, and approached the bars. She wrapped her fingers around two of them, two at a time, like it was an intimidating dance. “How will you ever hope to defeat him, sir,” she began before a long pause for her own dramatic effect that ended with, “when you only exist for one day every year?”

Goddammit, that whole speech was a waste of time. Maybe he could save it? “What are you talking about?”

“Drop the act, Mister Delaney. I figured out who you were while I was knocked unconscious. Thanks for that, by the way. I was just telling my partner the other day how I wished for a little more brain damage.”

“There will be no permanent damage. We have medical treatment here.”

She stuck her face between the bars now, as far as she could go, stretching the skin on her face like a botched cosmetic surgery patient. “I’m going to be alone in here for the rest of my life. You’ve killed people, but you don’t execute them. You can’t let me go, because I know who you are, and I’ll tell anyone I meet that you have illusion powers now. A lifetime for me will be a couple of months for you.”

“If you knew that we might do that,” Mateo began, “why didn’t you lean into the lie? Why did you admit that you recognized me?”

“Because unlike you, I don’t like to lie. Maybe you and my messiah aren’t so different after all?”

Mateo wrapped his own hands around the same bars, just above hers, and placed his face a centimeter away from hers. “Maybe we’re not. The difference is that I only live for one day a year, and he’s been around for thousands of years. My ability to rule over you would be severely limited. So which is the lesser of two evils? And if immortality is possible, why are you so scared of death?”

She pulled her head back a little, so she could move her eyelids enough to narrow them at him. “What would society look like if no one ever died?”

“Why don’t you ask Earth? They figured it out, as did everyone in The Parallel.”

“Mateo, we’re gonna have to teleport!” Leona cried through comms. “Stop darklurking, and spark a flare! Don’t dock with the station! Just stay within range!”

He tilted his head away, and tapped his comms disc to indicate that he wasn’t talking to the guard anymore. “Understood.” He reached over to the button that would drop the blast door over the bars so no one else would know that he abducted a hostage.

“Wait,” she said. “The Oaksent isn’t the only one who can be immortal?”

A year later, after the whole team, and nearly everyone else, was rescued from the now completely vaporized Ex-467, the Vellani Ambassador was in the middle of another bottle episode. The next planet was within a light year away, but they were holding off on it so that Leona and Ramses could see if they could fix the reframe engine with something that they stole from the tech warehouse. “How come you don’t already have something like this?” Olimpia asked. She was twirling the topological modulating umbrella. “No offense.”

While Ramses ran simulations, Leona was scanning the nanofractures in the reframe engine, making sure that she had them all cataloged, so they didn’t miss a one. She didn’t want to apply the sealant until she knew exactly where it needed to go. The machine was built out of a metal-metamaterial composite that was practically indestructible. Obviously it wasn’t actually indestructible, though, or they wouldn’t be in this mess. This was always a possibility, however unlikely. And this antintropic nanosealant was going to help them fix it, as long as every spot was addressed. Missing even one could spell disaster for them. She didn’t pry her eyes from her work. “We never anticipated it, and until now, I had never heard of a solution to a problem such as this. The nanosealant, as long as it’s not a hoax, shouldn’t just fill in the fractures. A regular nanosealant would mimic the molecular structure of the target material to fill in the gaps that formed, but that would come with risk, because of possible imperfections that develop during the process, as well as impurities. The original molecules have since been lost when the structure was first damaged. What this sealant apparently does is summon those molecules from wherever they are in spacetime, and place them back where they belong. A normal human scientist would call that impossible, but of course we know better.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you at least have had the regular sealant?” Olimpia pressed.

“I don’t know. It’s not my ship, we took it from someone else. We had something useful in the AOC, but we ran out of it a long time ago. The reframe engine is one of the strongest objects out there so it can survive the stress of full operation. It was obviously well ahead of time when Hokusai designed it. It can also be protected by the overlying structure of its vessel, because it’s not a propulsive drive, so it requires minimal contact with the exterior. What this all means is that if the reframe engine is damaged, so is probably everything else, rendering repairs essentially pointless to attempt. It’s also important to note that I’m not in love with the design of this ship. It’s not as protected as it should be, which we might be able to fix given enough time. I think that Mirage just wanted to create more living space for its passengers, which is not a problem for us, since we prefer to live in pocket dimensions anyway.”

“You think that you can actually rebuild this thing with a new design?”

“Maybe,” Leona said. This was when she took a break, and looked at her conversation partner. “Are you playing with that?”

“It’s fine, it’s not even open,” Olimpia defended.

“Are you sure that that’s how it works, it has to be open? Rather, are you sure that it doesn’t do anything while it’s closed?”

Olimpia cautiously set the umbrella on the table. “Yeah, you’re right. Ram should study it first. I don’t even know what I’m still doing with it.”

“Well, it’s yours,” Leona reasoned.

“How do you figure? I stole it from the vault.”

“Yeah, that makes it yours,” Leona insisted. “We’re certainly not going to try to give it back any more than I’m gonna give this sealant back.”

“I know we weren’t going to do that, but...mine? Really?”

“Absolutely! We’ll even name it after you. Let me think on that.”

Ramses walked into the room. “I already have. It’s the Sangster Canopy.”

“You can’t name it after me,” Olimpia contended. “Like I said, I just stole it. You’re acting like it’s the HG Goggles, or the Rothko Torch.”

“Not all temporal objects are named after the people who created them,” Ramses explained. “Jayde Novak stole the Jayde Spyglass too.”

Olimpia frowned just a little, embarrassed at the thought of being happy that her name and reputation may one day precede her. She didn’t want to seem so egotistical. “I dunno...”

Ramses shrugged. “I’m thinking about calling the thing that I stole the Motherbox.”

“No,” Leona and Olimpia rejected in unison, as did Marie who happened to be passing by in the hallway.

He smirked, having hoped to get a rise out of them for that. “I came in here for a reason. Take a break, there’s something you should see.

Leona followed him to the security room, and then went to find Mateo, who just so happened to be exactly where she needed to talk to him. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Um. Your hair looks nice. Did you go to the salon this morning?”

“Matty.”

“You were right, I was wrong, I’m sorry,” he recited.

“Matt. Say it.”

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

She pursed her lips, deciding that she was going to have to drive the conversation. “Why are the hock blast doors down?” She looked over at them.

“These are doors? Huh, interesting. And we have a hock?”

“This is a diplomatic detachment, originally designed to serve the needs of two competing parties. Yes, there’s a hock. You know that, and you put someone in there. And you thought I wouldn’t find out, because of the blast doors, and because I don’t have much reason to come back here. But you forgot one thing...do you know what it is, Mateo?”

“Did Ramses figure out how to make us psychic?”

“The security cameras still run.”

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s been a year, and we weren’t traveling at relativistic speeds. I hope you programmed a stasis pod for her, or she’s gonna be dead when we open it. I didn’t watch enough of the footage to find out.”

“I’m not a total idiot,” Mateo replied. “Yes, she was in stasis for the year.”

“Why did you put her in there?” Leona questioned.

“Well, I couldn’t hide her on the station, could I?” Mateo argued. “She would be found by the time we finished the heist, and the whole plan would fall apart.”

“It wouldn’t have,” she contended. “They could have spent months looking for us, and would never find anything, because we weren’t in the timestream anymore. A year later, we would have come back, but they would not have expected anything. Their guard would be lowered.”

“Not true. She knows who we are. She knows that we are Team Matic. She’s really smart, you’d like her.”

“Well, I didn’t know that she would figure that part out.”

“I think you meant to say, thank you, husband. You made the right call.”

Leona rolled her eyes, and walked past him to punch in the code for the blast doors. The guard was sitting on her bunk, leaning against the wall behind her, and staring at the one in front of her. “Report.”

“May 21, 2442,” Leona answered. How are you feeling?”

“Physically fine, socially unstimulated, emotionally scattered, and psychologically disturbed. How are you?”

Leona took a couple beats. “I’m fine.”

“Great,” the guard sarcasticated.

“I’m sorry this happened to you. This was not our intention. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t think I’ll ever convince you that Oaksent is not the savior that you’ve been indoctrinated to believe him to be. I could try to tell you my side of the story, like how he destroyed a gas giant from light years away just so he could kill everyone living on the moon orbiting it, but I’m sure you would just argue that they were heathens who deserved it. I could show you footage from the world that kept people as slaves, or the one whose only purpose it is to suffer countless attacks from the military outpost. I could show you the numbers from Ex-811, where all food is grown and raised, which proves that resources are being distributed unfairly, and according to Bronach’s own personal whims. He starves people on purpose to keep them dependent on him. But none of this is going to resonate with you, because he’s taught you that he knows the way, and there is no other. There are, of course; many other ways, but you’ll never see them, because they don’t match your impression of reality as he has forced you to trust without question.”

“Prove it,” the guard spit.

“I’ll try,” Leona agreed. “I’ll get you a tablet with a copy of the central archives, so you can start learning what he’s been lying to you about. But first, what’s your name?”

“Korali.”

“It was nice to meet you, Korali.”

“Was it?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 20, 2441

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While Mateo was taking a trip away from the station, the rest of the remaining team was trying not to get caught. When they first entered this station in 2440, they didn’t want to rely solely on Marie’s excellent impersonation skills. At some point, someone may realize that she couldn’t be who she said she was. Not everyone who worked here was in the hangar bay. As word spread, the chances of somebody catching on increased. The first guard who realized it could have just been the tip of the iceberg. Besides, they didn’t know anything about what objects were being stored here, or how vast the collection was. They needed time to download the manifest, analyze it, and make a plan. Still invisible, Olimpia walked straight to the primary security room too upload a computer worm that would take control of all management systems, but lay in wait during the interim year, so that no one would know that it was even here. Leona, Ramses, and Marie snuck into the main office to find the information that they were looking for. There they uploaded their own worm to gather all data on the warehouse, which they would redownload once they came back.

All of the personnel were so busy trying to find the fake missing item that no one came to bother them, and as midnight was approaching, they held their breaths, hoping that they would jump to the future without anyone realizing it. The staff would be very confused about what happened to their messiah, the godking Oaksent, but they would have no reason to believe that it was really Team Matic in disguise, right? They opened the door to a storage closet so they wouldn’t suddenly appear next year in front of other people when someone actually did show up. “I think I found it.”

“What?” Leona questioned. That should be impossible. They told these people that they deliberately misplaced a warehouse item at an earlier date, and that whoever discovered it would be rewarded. But nothing was actually misplaced. It was just to keep everyone busy while they executed the heist. They didn’t consider the possibility that an artifact was genuinely misplaced without their intervention, probably accidentally. A flaw in their plan.

The young man, whose job in the station was not immediately clear, held his palms out before them. On top of them was a lighter, and it was one that they recognized. This was the Muster Lighter, which could be used to summon people from distant places as a mass teleportation object. It was lost centuries ago, but it wasn’t entirely out of left field that it should end up here. This region of the galaxy was seeded with life by someone who once lived on the generational ship, Extremus, which launched from the Gatewood Collective, where the lighter was last used and seen. They didn’t think that Bronach was alive at the time, but perhaps a relative stole it, and he ended up with it. Or it was someone else on Extremus, and he procured it later. “This wasn’t in the Time Vault, where it belongs. It was hidden behind a box of scissors by the door to an auxiliary maintenance airlock that doesn’t get use.” When Ramses reached towards it, the young man pulled away. “No. I shall hand it directly to the Emperor.”

Marie nodded appreciatively, and accepted the lighter as ceremoniously as she could while so pressed for time. “Thank you, my child.”

“It’s legit,” Leona said to Marie before turning towards the young man, “but, uhh...this isn’t it. We hid a different item. Someone else must have left this where you found it. They probably just use it to smoke in the airlock, because then they can easily vent it all into space when they’re done.”

He frowned, and hung his head low.

Leona’s watch beeped, as did the other two. “Shit, we gotta go.”

The three of them slipped into the closet, and hoped that the boy would give up, and leave. He didn’t. He opened the door behind them. “Wait, can I still be sent to—”

They didn’t hear the end of his sentence before midnight central hit, and sent them into the future. But they heard it once they came back, “...the resort planet.”

Leona looked at her watch to confirm that they had indeed jumped forward. It was May 20, 2441. She looked over at Marie and Ramses, who now appeared as themselves. They were unable to hold illusions across the time jump. Good to know. “You’ve been waiting for us this whole time?”

“Yes,” the young man answered. “People underestimate me, but I am smart. I had a whole year to work out who you really were, Leona Reaver.” Odd choice for a surname that she technically remembered having, but never actually used in this timeline.

“Who did you tell?” Ramses questioned.

“No one. Something that you probably don’t know about the Corridor is that most don’t give much thought to who the Emperor is, or how the Empire is run. We just deal with our own lives. I have no strong feelings about him. I just wanna get out of here.”

“You want us to take you with us so you don’t have to work anymore?” Leona guessed.

“I think I deserve it. I kept your secret, and lured everyone away for a party that I’ve been planning for months. I don’t know why you’re here, but I know that you won’t stay here forever. You don’t have to keep me, or even take me to Ex-613. You can just drop me off on an uninhabited world where I can live the rest of my life in peace.”

“What do you think?” Leona asked the other two.

“I’m fine with it,” Marie replied. “We’re here to help people, right?”

“Rambo?” Leona pressed.

He was busy studying his tablet. “Oh, I don’t care. The worm has delivered the data. The algorithm found what we were looking for. We were kind of misled. This warehouse is predominantly for banned and restricted tech. As he said, there’s a Time Vault, and that is the only place that stores temporal objects.”

“All right, let’s go there. You’re coming with us,” she said to the refugee.

They made their way along the corridors, up the elevator, and down the people movers. The Time Vault was heavily guarded, as they expected it would be, though their new friend whispered that it was usually worse. The party was a banger. Marie took the initiative to speed up, and approach first. “I see that you are all dedicated to your work, and I would like to thank you for your loyalty and devotion. The winner of last year’s contest has finally found the missing object. That is why we have returned. She would like to attend the party now. Please proceed to the mess hall to offer your joint protection. You will be rewarded for your efforts as well.”

“Sir!” one of them said with intense respect. And then they all left.

“I could get used to this,” Marie mused.

They entered the vault, and started to look around, each of them being drawn to something different. Most of the objects were generic, like teleporter guns, spatial tethers, and wall breachers. These were all lining the walls. Unique and rarer objects were on pedestals in the center of the room, a few of which they didn’t recognize. The Muster Lighter pedestal was empty, which made sense, but so was one labeled for HG Goggles. It was never clear how many pairs of those existed, but like the lighter, these were probably being unlawfully used by some rando who worked here.

“Hey kid, what are ya doing?” Ramses asked as he was inspecting a teleporter rifle.

The refugee was standing before a pedestal near the back, blocking the others from seeing what was sitting upon it. He turned around, holding what resembled a Fabergé egg, though not so intricate and pretty. “They never would have let me in here, but I know that when the Oaksent learns of my heroism, he’ll reward my family with riches beyond imagining. I killed Team Matic.” He turned two sections of the egg away from each other, then another two sections, and then he pressed the plunger that popped up on the top. The egg began to disintegrate, followed quickly by the boy.

“It’s a Lucius bomb!” Leona shouted. “Get out!” As she ran for the hatch, she grabbed a tube of concentrated antintropic nanosealant while Ramses was swiping a clear box. “Olimpia, where are you!” She screamed into her comms.

Olimpia came into view next to her as they were running. “Right here, buddy!”

“Mateo, we’re gonna have to teleport!” Leona cried. “Stop darklurking, and spark a flare! Don’t dock with the station! Just stay within range!”

“We can’t just leave!” Marie yelled, still running. “These people are innocent enough! We have to save them!”

“We can’t!” Leona argued. “There’s too many, and the bomb is too fast!”

“Yeah, we can!” Ramses and Olimpia replied in unison. “I took something!”

“Okay, we’ll try, but I make no guarantees. Ram, where’s the party?”

“A few life signs are scattered throughout the station, but most are right here!” He showed her the dots on the floor plan.

“Tap into the public address system!”

“Go ahead.” Ramses handed her his tablet.

Marie ripped the tablet out of her hands. “This is your emperor, Bronach Oaksent! The station is suffering from a cataclysm! If you are not already at the party, go there now! That is the only safe location! Go! Go!”

“Whatever you two stole,” Leona began, taking the tablet back to keep an eye on the dots, “get ready to use them!” The live sensors were actually pretty smart, and well-distributed. She could watch the dots running for the party, and unfortunately, she could also see dots disappear from the screen, along with the wall boundaries that they were between, indicating that the bomb had already reached that section of the station. All sensors that had yet to be destroyed remained in operation throughout.

They made it to the mess hall, and started funneling people inside until they could do so no longer. The blast was approaching them quickly, and they had to get inside. Leona still didn’t understand how they were going to stop it, though. A Lucius bomb didn’t start working until it reached sufficiently dense matter, and once it did, it didn’t stop until all reachable matter was consumed. It didn’t really matter how thick the walls were. Olimpia had that covered, though. She was the last inside. She immediately turned around, and opened and umbrella, tensely holding it up against the wave of energy trying to kill them. The wall continued to disintegrate, but slower now, and then slower still. They watched as the last remnants of the station disappeared, ripped apart molecule by molecule, until everything but this room was gone, and the tumult ceased. They were now floating alone in outer space. This weird umbrella that none of them had ever heard of before was keeping the atmosphere from escaping into the vacuum.

Olimpia held fast, and smirked at the team. “Topological modulator umbrella. I can’t hold this forever.”

“You won’t have to.” Ramses spun around, and stepped onto the nearest table to address the crowd. “Workers of Ex-467, I know that you’re all scared and confused right now, but we are here to help you! The four of us have the ability to teleport out of here!” He pointed to the Vellani Ambassador, which was hovering over them now. “We could save ourselves alone, or we could save all of you as well! If you would like to die today, stand over by that far wall! If you wanna live, stand on this side, and wait to get into this tiny little box!”

Everyone stood still for a moment before all moving over to the rescue side.

“What the hell is that?” Leona asked him.

“Subdimensional Crucible. It should be able to shrink people.”

“Should?” Leona echoed.

“Hey, I’m just goin’ by the name.” Ramses removed the teleporter rifle from his pants, and began to program it.  “I can get everyone in. All you have to do is wait patiently, and maybe give Olimpia a break.”

“I’ll give her a break,” Marie volunteered. She now looked like herself as well. She took hold of the umbrella, and they shared the burden for a minute before Olimpia felt comfortable letting it go.

Ramses used his tablet to interface with the box, and also the rifle. There was enough charge in it to pocket all of these people away. The problem was figuring out how the box worked. If he didn’t understand the mechanism well enough, all he would do was send the first person as a mangled mess of blood and viscera into the box. Everyone else would die when the umbrella stopped working. The survivors eventually started to sit down to wait, trying not too look up at the rippling force field above them, which threatened to fail every few minutes when the current holder of the umbrella got a little tired. It shifted hands periodically amongst the three ladies. A few members of the personnel volunteered to help, but it wasn’t safe. Even if Leona chose to trust them, they did not necessarily metabolize temporal energy. This thing might not work without it. Ramses needed time to investigate it, which of course, he couldn’t do right now.

After half an hour, Ramses was finished with his work. One of the section leads agreed to go first, and report back if anything went wrong. Ramses shot him in the chest, and then Leona used the box’s built-in microscope to check on him. He was standing in a miniature furnished living room in the middle of the box, and waving up at them in all directions. He was so small that he couldn’t even discern the shadows, shapes, and colors above him as people. “All right, he’s fine,” she announced. Who’s next?”

Ramses continued to shoot people with the rifle. It took longer than they would have liked, because the remainders always wanted to be sure that that last person also survived. They were apparently worried that each time was a fluke, and the next one after that may have resulted in disaster. The girls had to keep holding onto the umbrella the entire time, but eventually, everyone was shot and safe in the box, and they could drop it. The atmosphere vented around them as they teleported up to the ship together.

“Long day?” Mateo asked them, perhaps with a little too little sensitivity.

“Let’s just go. I don’t know what the hell we’re gonna do with these people.”

“Did you bring me a present?” Mateo asked.

Leona showed him the nanosealant. “Yes. I think I can fix the reframe engine.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 19, 2440

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The team was split, but since there were only five of them now, it was not even. Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia all wanted to reroute the ship, and return to Ex-666, where they might be able to find some allies, specifically Mirage and Niobe. They had to get back to Angela, and since they had no idea where or when she was, seeking out help seemed like the only logical response to this situation. Ramses and Marie, on the other hand, wanted to continue on to Ex-467, where a time tech warehouse was waiting for them to break and enter. The rationale for this was that there had to be something there that could help them instead. Leona didn’t agree. Mirage and Niobe were known variables, while the warehouse could turn out to be completely empty for all they knew, or even just pretty much impregnable. One might think that the result would be obvious, but Marie’s vote held more power, as it was her sister who they were trying to locate. In the end, they kept on course, especially since Angela herself seemed rather excited for this mission, and even though she would like to be here with them, she would be more upset if they skipped it altogether on her account. Marie knew how her mind worked.

When they returned to the timestream in 2440, they immediately learned something about their destination that they could not have guessed before. So far, every Ex- designation referred to either a planet, or a person, with the planetary designations being significantly shorter, and the personal designations including the number of their planet of origin. Ex-467 was either a space station, or a ship. Its design included main thrusters that suggested it could be navigated away from the host star that it was orbiting, but the shape itself implied that it was meant to remain a stationary hub at all times. There were tons of ports on it, but none of them was in use at the moment, at least not the exterior ones. There could be large bays somewhere they couldn’t see. It was difficult for their scans to penetrate the extremely thick hull.

Ramses was able to detect teleportation suppressor field generators, however, they were turned off. Mateo and Olimpia were relieved by this until Leona pointed out that they were probably not there to keep people out, but to trap any thieves inside in the event of a breach. If they were going to break in, teleporting was likely the worst way to do it. “Why wouldn’t we break in?” Marie questioned. “Why did we just travel all this way if not to go in and shake some shit up?”

“Poor choice of words,” Leona said apologetically. “All I’m saying is that no one teleports, okay? Not even internally. It’s too dangerous. We are going in...as long as everyone still wants that.”

Marie stepped forward authoritatively. “Yes, everyone wants that.” She glared at Mateo, who was incidentally the most vocal against this route, since they still had no idea what they would be up against.

Mateo regretted being so adamant in his position, but this development only proved his point. Everything they knew about this world came from people who Vitalie!613 had spoken to on the resort world. But they conveniently left out that it wasn’t a planet at all, which placed all intelligence they had regarding the Goldilocks Corridor in question, especially when it came to this place. “Yes, we do,” Mateo said, hoping to earn back some points with Marie.

Ramses nodded. “All right, the computer calculated the safest, most distant point of ingress that’s still large enough for the Vellani Ambassador to dock. We don’t want it to be too big, or our arrival might be noticed. It still might be. We don’t know a whole lot about their security measures.”

“Right,” Leona jumped in. “That’s why we stick together, no matter what. People say that in movies all the time, and it never works out. We can’t afford to get separated, though. If teleportation is our only escape, we absolutely must do it at the same time. That’s the contingency, and we only get one shot.”

“What are we waiting for?” Marie asked impatiently. “Let’s get on with it. It may take us a while to find an alternate self locator, or whatever might help.”

“Hold on,” Mateo urged. “Maybe we shouldn’t get on with it. I think I have a plan that necessitates us waiting. We’ve done something like it before, Leona and I.”

He explained his idea to them, and then they reformulated it together. It immediately called for a reversal of Leona’s order for them to stay together. It was all about misdirection. The Ambassador’s holographic generators were making them look like one of the ships they saw in guardian orbit over Ex-908, which was the planet that was constantly being attacked to test the Empire’s defensive technology. If they ran into other people, Marie was making herself up to look like someone who could not be denied. She was quickly becoming the best at impersonations. Olimpia would remain quiet and invisible the whole time unless they ran into trouble. Ramses and Leona made themselves look like random people that they knew from their pasts, who were not likely to be in any Exin historical records. Mateo was still particularly bad at all the powers, so he was just wearing a physical disguise of a beard and glasses. He was also going to keep his head down, and look like he was the lowest man on the totem pole here. He essentially was, so it wasn’t that great of a stretch. Then again, he was the one who was noticing everyone else’s strengths, and came up with this division of labor in the first place, so he wasn’t totally useless.

A group of guards filed into the room, pointing weapons at them as Leona, stepped out of the ship, alone at first. “State your business, strangers,” the leader demanded of them.

Leona stood tall, and inspected the guards with a cold look on her face. It was the face of a girl she knew in elementary school, aged up to her twenties. “Lower your weapons for the Oaksent,” she commanded.

Ramses appeared from the darkness first, followed closely by Marie to his left, but she no longer looked like herself. She was Bronach Oaksent now, Jacobson-Cline Father of the Goldilocks Corridor, Despot of the Exin Empire, Douchebag of the Milky Way Galaxy. She was their enemy. Mateo followed at her flank in rags as Oaksent’s own personal slave. They didn’t know whether he actually had slaves, but it was a decent educated guess. Plus, they figured that they didn’t have to specify Mateo’s role.

“Oh my God,” the leader uttered. He and the rest of the guards knelt down, but in the worst way they had ever seen. They placed the butt of their respective guns against the floor, and rested their foreheads against the muzzle. They weren’t about to pull the triggers, but it was a horrific sign of deference to an evil leader. Was this what everyone did in the presence of their god-king?

The rest of the team could feel Marie’s reluctance to let them treat her this way, but that wasn’t what the real Oaksent would do. They sent her feelings of support and encouragement, so she composed herself, and pretended like this was all perfectly normal, and not profoundly disturbing at all. She cleared her throat. “Not long ago, I sent a team here to extract an object for me as a test. You failed that test when you failed to report the item missing. Do not feel bad, these were the elites, trained personally by me. And lucky for you, I am now giving you the chance to redeem yourselves. My team did not remove the object from the station. They hid it somewhere else. Search the warehouse now, and bring it to me. The first person to come to me with the correct answer will be rewarded with a permanent life on Ex-613.”

“Sir, if I may,” one of the guards near the back asked, carefully letting his head up. “Many of us have families. Will they be allowed to join the winner on Ex-613?”

Marie waited to respond, trying to decide what Oaksent would say. The most obvious answer was yes. That would only incentivize them even more in this snipe hunt. But that didn’t sound like something the real man would agree to. Remember, he was a ruthless dick. She came up with a compromise. “They will be given their own opportunities to join you. Their place on that world is not guaranteed, but I won’t deny it outright either..”

“Thank you, sir. You are most magnanimous,” the inquisitive one replied.

“Go. Go now. Spread the word to everyone else here!” she ordered as they were running out of the room. “Find me that missing object!” They waited until everyone was gone. “Oh my God, I can’t believe that worked.”

“Ya did good, kid,” Mateo said, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

Just then, a guard came back into the room with a smirk on her face. “I was just transferred here from Ex-42,” she said. “I met you while I was there, sir. Do you remember that?”

“Of course not,” Marie responded. “Why would I recall someone like you?”

She smirked. “Well, you were on your way back to Ex-420. There’s no way you could be here now. You were heading in the wrong direction.”

Marie did her best to look like an offended ruler. “I ordered a change in course. I don’t have to explain it to the likes of you.”

“It’s true, the real Bronach Oaksent would owe me nothing, but you’re not him. There are other issues with your ruse here. For one, Oaksent likes the ladies. He doesn’t own male servants, because he can’t impregnate them with the next generation of servants. So I don’t know who that guy’s supposed to be.” She nodded towards Mateo. “And who’s that crouched on the hull of your ship?” They all fell for it. They spun around to see who the hell she was talking about, only to find that no one was there. When they looked back, the smart guard had her weapon trained on them. “Put your guns down.” They heard a short pounding sound as she lurched, and widened her eyelids. Then her eyeballs rolled out of view, and she fell to the floor, unconscious, but very much alive.

Olimpia briefly made herself visible to the team as she was still holding the gun over her victim, which she had used as a blunt instrument. “Good plan, Matty.”

“Except it’s hard to see how beautiful you are when we can’t see you at all,” Mateo acknowledged. He placed a hand softly upon her cheek as she disappeared again. “Y’all go look for the central database,” he told the other three. “Olimpia, you think you can find the security room on your own? I need to secure this one in a closet, or something.”

“Yes, sir,” her voice replied out of the aether.

They broke into their groups, and went off on their separate missions. What Mateo didn’t tell them was that he wasn’t hiding the guard somewhere on the station. He stuck her in hock on the Vellani Ambassador. A half hour later, midnight central hit, giving the station an entire year to cool down, and relax their defenses.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 28, 2398

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There’s a knock at the door. No one has the chance to even go over to answer it before it opens. A large and looming man comes down the hallway. His facial expression keeps changing from happy to irritated, like he can’t decide which one he feels. Vearden jumps up, and places himself between the man and his friends. Seeing this, the man forces himself to hold a smile. “I’m glad that my daughter found someone like you.”

Arcadia reaches behind the couch cushion and pulls out the emergency knife. Without any warning, she flings it at the body that her father is now wearing. It lands right in his heart, where it belongs.

Erlendr looks down at it. “This body will die soon, but we will find another.” He reaches both arms out like a stereotypical Frankenstein monster.

Arcadia feels a pulsing energy in her head. He’s trying to break into her brain, which would normally be fine, because she can hold the door closed, but her friends are not like her. She’s particularly worried about her beau, Vearden. She’s always struggled with empathizing with other people. She’s always had her own feelings—she’s not a sociopath—but she’s only recently figured out how to care about others. Well, she’s learned how to truly care about them, instead of just convincing herself that she does. If she doesn’t help combat the psychic intrusion for the other people in this room, though, it will prove that she didn’t learn anything. She really is trying to be a better person. Vearden is helping her with it. He’s not directly teaching her what it takes; she’s smart enough to understand academically. She just needs to be reminded everyday that it is possible for someone to love her. But that love is not what’s going to save them now. It’s her love for them that will. She concentrates on putting up barriers to protect them.

Erlendr smirks. “You may protect one or two, but you can’t keep me out of all of their minds.” He tips backwards, and falls over. He’s not dead yet, just unable to withstand his own weight.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t protect all of them, like he said. Vearden appears to be safe, she created a psychic barrier to keep Erlendr—as well as Meredarchos, most likely, judging by the fact that he used the word we to describe himself—out of him. Bridgette and Heath, on the other hand, are not necessarily safe. What did they do to them, though? The stranger’s body is dying anyway, which means that the psychic stowaways can’t maintain control over them, so did they just want information, or what?

Heath suddenly breaks out of a stupor, and gathers his bearings. He looks around, quickly settling on the dying man on the floor. “Master, no!” He runs over, and dives down to inspect the wound. “No, it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Just hold on. He takes off his own shirt to wrap around the knife, and keep pressure on the wound.”

“What are you doing?” Vearden questions.

“Somebody help!” Heath cries. “We can’t let him die!”

“Not only can we let him die,” Bridgette contends, “but we have to make sure it happens. Every possible vessel for his twisted soul is a threat.” She runs over too, but not to help. She jerks the knife out of the man’s chest, and then drives it into his chin, all the way through to his brain.

“No!” Heath elbows her in the face, knocking her to her back.

Vearden runs over and tries to break them apart, but they just keep fighting each other. They’re relentless. “Stop! Just stop!” It’s useless. Bridgette is as dedicated to destroying all of Meredarchos’ followers as Heath is to protecting his master. “Little help here?” Vearden asks Arcadia.

“I’m trying to help,” Arcadia explains. “I’m trying to clean their minds of whatever he infected them with.” It’s not working. He created his own barrier to prevent that very thing. He’s a strong psychic, that’s for sure...leagues beyond better than Erlendr. Combined, they’re the greatest threat she’s ever encountered. They have to be stopped, and saving these two people isn’t going to help. They can’t be saved anyway, and if it’s between preserving their lives, or killing the infection before it can spread, that’s what she’s going to do. They can at least die with a little dignity, though. The knife is too messy and slow. One shot to the head is the only good option.

“Is it working?” Vearden asks, doing his damned best to hold the fighters apart.

“No,” Arcadia replies plainly. She goes to retrieve the gun from the safe.

“Arcadia!” Vearden shouts at her. “Arcadia! What are you doing! No, no, no, no no! Ow! NO! Arcadia, come back! They just stabbed each other!”

Arcadia runs back into the common area to find both Heath and Bridgette on the floor, bleeding. “What happened?”

“Heath remembered the knife. He took it out, and sliced my arm. Then he stabbed Bridgette in the heart, so she took it out and tried to do the same. He dodged, so it landed in his stomach. I think he’s still alive.”

Arcadia checks them both for pulses. “They’re both alive, but barely.”

“We have to help them,” Vearden pleads.

“If we do, they’ll just go back to killing each other, and anyone else who gets in their way.”

“So we just let them die?”

“They’re like zombies, V; They can’t be cured.”

Vearden seethes. “I refuse to accept that.” He takes out his phone, and calls Mateo. “Matt? I need a doctor at the condo right now. They’re gonna die.”

Fifteen seconds later, Mateo appears in the room, holding onto a woman that Arcadia presumes to be a doctor. “What just happened?” she asks, confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vearden tells her. “Just save them.”

She kneels down to get to work. “We’re going to have to triage,” she says after seeing how far gone Bridgette is.

“Matt?” Vearden asks.

Mateo disappears and returns with a second doctor so he can focus on Heath. While they’re doing that, Mateo feels like the right thing to do is to bring Marie here. They’re struggling, but they’re still married, and still in love. She’s seen a lot of death in her day, so she’s crying and pleading, but she doesn’t interfere with the medical professionals’ work.

The doctor who was trying to save Bridgette sighs. “I’m sorry, she’s gone. Time of death thirteen-oh-nine.”

Marie can see that Heath is on his way out too. He’s not going to last much longer unless they take drastic measures. She starts thinking about her options. Arcadia can’t quite read her thoughts, but she can sense what’s happening in there. Finally, she thinks she has it. “Mateo, where is your knife?”

“What knife?” Mateo asks.

“The one that can duplicate things,” Marie clarifies.

“If the doctor needs any more equipment, I’ll be happy to retrieve it for them.”

“I’m not talking about equipment,” Marie says. “I’m talking about Heath. Duplicate him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vearden questions.

“It doesn’t work on people, Marie,” Mateo claims.

“Have you ever tried?”

“Have I ever stabbed someone to see if they die while a duplicate of them appears next to them? No, I guess I haven’t, but that’s crazy!”

“Doctor, what are the chances that he lives?” Marie asks him.

The doctor looks up. “They’re very low.”’

“There.” Marie starts talking with her hands. “You can stab him, a second one will appear next to him, and the first one will die anyway. The second one, however, will be good as new, right; that’s how it works? Now we have nothing to lose.”

“I’ll direct you to my earlier comment about that being crazy.”

“I would do it myself,” Marie argues, “but evidently you’re the only one with the literal magic touch, so would you please just try?”

“There’s a low chance of him surviving,” Vearden reasons, having basically caught up with what they’re talking about. “That’s not zero. But if you’re method of saving him requires stabbing him again, those chances drop much lower, I’m sure.”

Marie ignores him. “Please,” she begs Mateo.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” the doctor begins, “but if you plan on stabbing our patient, then we’re out.” They both clearly work for the government, but they haven’t been told everything.

Mateo frowns. “I can’t be blamed for the consequences.” He disappears and returns thirty seconds later, holding the knife.

“Maybe you should test it on her first,” Vearden suggests.

“Or maybe he shouldn’t do it at all,” Arcadia warns. “They’re both infected. They pose a risk to us all, especially anyone here without the slightest psychic ability.”

“Noted,” Mateo says, but it’s hard to tell how genuine he’s being. He pauses to think about it, but has to make a decision quickly, because if it doesn’t work for Bridgette, it definitely won’t work for Heath if he waits too long. He closes his eyes, and stabs her. Nothing happens. “I really don’t think this is gonna work, Marie.”

Marie grabs the television remote, and hands it to him. “Let’s see if it’s you or the knife, or just because she’s too far gone.”

Mateo sets the remote on the floor and stabs it with no hesitation. It breaks apart, but a second one pops out of the aether, and lands right next to it. “She’s either too dead, or too a human being.”

“If you stab him,” the other doctor warns, “we’re gone.”

“The door is that way.” Once they’ve left, Mateo crosses his fingers, and stabs Heath as well. Heath lurches and gasps, and his muscles relax more than they already were. For a few seconds, nothing else happens. Then a light appears out of nowhere and grows until it’s in the vague shape of a person. It recedes quickly, leaving a naked Heath lying next to his former self.

“Oh my God, it actually worked,” Vearden muses. Physically, yes, it did. Mentally, it didn’t work at all.