Microstory 2768: Next Time on Lost

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Elise thinks that she only passes out for a few seconds. Arms carefully wrap around her body, but she keeps falling. She looks up and sees Azad. He’s looking as cool as ever. It doesn’t last long. The wind somehow causes Elise to accidentally reopen her wings. Before he can save her, Azad loses his grip, and they tumble apart from each other. He teleports again, but doesn’t aim right. Now he’s below her. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to lose these memories. She doesn’t want to go back to not having wings. Her surviving self will not know what she’s missing. She won’t seek to improve herself.

She fights to get back to Azad, but she doesn’t know how to do that. In moves, they tighten themselves up like missiles, but her wings aren’t cooperating. She’s afraid they’re gonna snap off. The ground is coming up fast now. If this doesn’t happen soon, it will be too late. Suddenly, the ground disappears. It transforms into sky. She’s still falling, but now towards the clouds, and slowing down. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. No, she’s “falling” upwards, and not from flying. Her wings are still out of control. She comes to a complete stop, but only for a second before she reverses. She hasn’t stopped herself from crashing; she has only delayed it. She has to try to recreate whatever just happened. Before she can fall much farther, she concentrates on one word: teleportation. The next moment, she’s standing on the ground, safe and sound.

Azad appears next to her. “How did you just do that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I could,” Elise says truthfully.

“It’s the chrysalis bioprinter,” Miracle determines. “You saw me and Azad teleport, and at least a part of you wanted to try it. It’s the same reason you’re now part moth. Your subconscious mind knows what it wants. This is dangerous stuff, Rocky.”

“Don’t call me that,” Hrockas requests. “And you’re right. It’s why we restrict it.”

“Are you going to take it away now?” Elise asks, trying to display puppy dog eyes.

“We may be struggling to figure out what our laws should be,” Hrockas begins, “all the way out here in the Charter Cloud, but one thing we and the stellar neighborhood can agree upon is that bodily autonomy is non-negotiable. That substrate is yours now. But there is no fundamental difference between teleportation and time travel. And if you’ve seen any movie about time travel, you’ll know the risks. If you find yourself with the ability to go back in time, I urge you to exercise caution. It’s not illegal here, as it is in other cultures, but I’m considering it. It’s only not written into the laws because the general population doesn’t know about it in the first place.”

“And because you would have to draw a line somewhere to allow your boy, Azy here to teleport as needed,” Miracle points out. “Among others,” she adds

“Yes, that’s true,” Hrockas admits. “Now Miss Perkins is in the same boat. Speaking of which...” He looks over at Azad expectingly.

Azad begins to tap on his wrist interface. He then raises his arm and bathes everyone in a rainbowish light. It’s not the kind of rainbow that you would spot from a rainstorm. It’s more like what you would see in an oil puddle. It actually looks a lot like oil, and even feels like it too. After a flash of light, they’re transported to a desert.

Without another word, Hrockas and Telman converge upon Azad. All three of them teleport away, leaving the hunters to figure out the next challenge on their own.

Jolanda stretches her neck up as high as possible and rotates like a periscope. “I don’t see anything. Elise, do you think you could fly up and scout the area?”

“She should not do that,” Miracle argues quickly. “Elise, we don’t know enough about how your wings work. Mine were always specifically designed to be strong and resilient. They only appeared to be delicate, because that was the aesthetic I was going for. For a real moth, this environment would be a death sentence. You have to assume you’re on the brink right now. In fact, how are you feeling? Dehydrated?”

“I’m hot, but okay,” Elise explains. “Maybe I could teleport around instead, unless that’s also sensitive to temperature or other environmental factors.”

“It’s not usually,” Miracle says, “but I could conceive of a salmon with arbitrary limitations. I knew a guy who could only travel in the rain, and once he did, if he wanted to go again, he would have to dry off entirely, and potentially wait for another storm.”

“All right. Whether we’re moths or not, our bodies are gonna die here if we don’t find water and shelter.” Rage inhales and exhales. “Let’s hold off on teleporting for now. There are seven of us. One needs to stay exactly right here. If you want to dig for clues, that wouldn’t be the worst idea, but you could also conserve energy. The other six will pair off, and begin a concentric circle search. One pair should be at 50 meters, one at 100 and one at 150. Once you complete your circle, move out 150 meters, and complete another circle. Does that make sense?”

“Who is going to stay here?” Colley asks. “Elise if her body is more fragile?”

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Miracle warns, “even if it means walking.”

“I agree,” Rage says. “El, you’re with me. Mir and Zelda, Jolanda and Colley. Minotaur, you okay staying alone to be our Touchstone? We don’t have compasses.”

“Fine with me.” Minotaur gets on their knees and starts digging like a dog, shoveling sand between their legs. They’re gonna get tired going that hard for too long.

“Okay,” Rage goes on. “There are dunes, so visibility will be difficult. That’s why Mino is staying. If you think you’re lost, get up high, and look for their racing jacket.

“Here, take mine,” Jolanda offers. “It’s pink and black, so it will be easier to spot.”

“We’ll only do this for three hours,” Rage continues. “At that point, finish your circle, then come back to our Touchstone. When you’re searching, look down, and both ways. Look up every once in a while, in case there’s a drone, or something. Questions? Comments? Concerns?” She claps her hands in the silence. “All right, then let’s get at it.”

Elise and Rage walk for the agreed upon three hours. It’s grueling work. None of them is dressed for this, especially not Elise, who is still mostly naked from having recently been born. The sand is coarse and uncomfortable between her toes, and even hotter than the sun, so there’s no point in her trying to sit down and rest. She doesn’t want to be more of a burden than she already feels. They had to put the hunt on pause just because she died and came back to life. She has already taken so much, she just wants to be helpful, and not ask for anything, like a layer of Rage’s clothing.

They finish their circle and head back. Rage has an excellent sense of direction despite everything looking the same around here. She grows frustrated when she can’t find Mino. Elise tried to keep an eye on them, but they ended up so far down a dune that it became unreasonable to keep backtracking. This has to be where they began, though. They can see the claw marks from where Mino was digging. The other two groups show up after only about twenty minutes, and agree that this has to be it. They’re not lost; Mino is. They’re missing. They spread out once more, but don’t go too far this time, only about ten meters in every direction. Elise finds a pink and black racing jacket.

Microstory 2301: Green Burial

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The remains. I’ve not told you anything about the remains. No, they weren’t at the memorial service. We left them in Kansas City. I decided that I wanted to lay them to rest on a solo mission. In between all the other planning that I’ve done, with the memorial service, and the other memorial service locally, I contacted all the necessary people to do it the way he wanted. One of the first things he told me when we met earlier this year was that he wanted a green burial, which means no casket, no chemicals, no clothing. Your body returns to the Earth in the purest way imaginable, breaks down as fast as possible, and breathes new life into the soil. There are obviously rules about this, like where you can do it, and I got all the permits. I’m not going to tell you where I buried him, but I did it all by myself after signing it out of the funeral home. That part wasn’t by Nick’s request. It’s something that I felt I needed to do alone. Everything else involves other people, so I just made an executive decision that this was the time when I would say goodbye in my own way, and not be around anyone else. I dug the grave, I lowered him down, and I filled it in. I feel that I accomplished something, and now maybe I can move on...maybe. Goodbye, Nick. You meant more than I could ever say.

Orthogradient: Quino and Rosalinda (Part III)

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Quino and Rosalinda covered their ears as Treasure screamed her way into a portal, and disappeared, hopefully back home. They held their hands in place, because the plan was for her to return to this very moment. If she had listened to Quino’s pleadings, she would be a few years older, and a little more age appropriate for him. Something must have gone wrong, though, because they waited for a couple minutes, and nothing. He dropped his arms in defeat. Rosalinda smiled at him sadly, and patted him on the back. They didn’t speak. They could only hope that Treasure moved on with her life, and forgot about them, not that she had gotten hurt, or worse, and couldn’t come back. They were going to be stuck here forever, but it wasn’t going to be that bad. There weren’t any dangerous people or aliens, and the Strongbox was stocked with enough supplies to get them through the next few weeks. They both stepped forward to admire the view. They were on a grassy cliff, overlooking the beautiful scenery below, and in the distance.

“Wait!” a masculine voice shouted to them from down the hill behind them, and through the trees. “Don’t leave without me!” He came out of the forest, running as fast as he could, and struggling with it.

“It’s okay!” Quino shouted back. “Catch your breath!”

The man stopped, grateful. He rested his hands on his knees, and panted. He squinted at the sun, and held up one finger.

“We won’t leave without you,” Quino added, “...and also can’t.”

“What?” When Quino tried to explain that they were just as trapped there as him, he dismissed them. “Hold on.” He mustered a second wind, and started running again, but quickly fell into a jog.

They might have gone down to meet them halfway, but even though Quino wasn’t a real soldier, one thing he learned from the ones he worked with was that the first rule of warfare was to always maintain the higher ground. The other first rule of warfare was to force your enemy to come to you. They didn’t know if this man was an enemy, or not, but they had to assume as much for the time being.

The stranger finally made it up to them. “What did you say?”

“We can’t leave,” Rosalinda clarified.

“That thing behind you can’t do it? I guess I assumed that that’s how you got here yourselves. There’s no one else on this planet.”

“It only works with a particular pilot,” Quino said, obviously not about to mention Treasure by name, and hoping that even this wasn’t too much information.

“Well, shit.” He set his hands on his hips, and looked out at the view as he finished the last of his panting.

“How did you get here, friend?” Rosalinda asked. “We were to understand that this world was not populated by any intelligent species.”

He looked back where he had come from. “I sure hope not. I was trying to figure out how to make a campsite when I saw your ship fly overhead. I dropped the sticks, and started running right for it. Then I heard someone scream? Was that your pilot? What happened to her?”

“She had to go somewhere else,” Quino said.

“My name is Rosalinda James. This is Quino Velsteran.”

“Adalwin Tillens. Welp, if I have to live here for the rest of my life, at least I won’t be  here alone.”

“We’re not staying,” Quino assured him without offering him a way out of here, which should come eventually.

“Neither am I...hopefully.”

“How did you get here in the first place?” Rosalinda asked him.

Adalwin sighed. “There’s this group of people who can do what your friend can. They...leak portals out of their skin, and fall into them. They can bring people with them, and I was in need of escaping a dangerous situation, so I asked for help. I was with them for a little bit before I failed to get back to them in time, and they left without me.”

“They didn’t wait for you?” Rosalinda questioned.

“Yeah, there must be something wrong with you,” Quino added, thinking that he and Rosalinda were on the same page.

“I meant,” Rosalinda began, “if there is nothing dangerous on this world, what was the rush?”

“Oh, they don’t have control over it,” Adalwin clarified. “It just happens. They have to stay close to one another if they want to go to the same place. They’ve become separated from friends that way. I don’t know what it’s like when you do it, but for them, it’s like this psychedelic waterslide, which branches off into different directions, so you have to hold on and be careful. Stay with your sliding buddy, they would always say.” He sighed again. “I should have listened.” He perked up. “But you’re here now, and everything is going to be okay again...right?”

Rosalinda was hoping that Quino would agree, since she was obviously on board with helping this man. “Right,” she said herself, giving up. “We’ll get you out of here, one way or another. Come on, Qui-qui, let’s see if we can figure out whether this thing stores bulk energy, or what.”

“Yeah, come on, Qui-qui,” Adalwin encouraged jovially.

“You don’t call me that,” Quino warned as they were walking up to the Strongbox.

They stepped inside, and started looking through the computer. There actually was a little bit of bulk energy in the reserves, but none of them knew enough about how this stuff worked to know whether it was enough. Besides, Treasure wasn’t only essential to the operation of the machine because she could power it, but she also navigated it. According to Treasure’s teacher back in her homeworld, Thack Natalie Collins, traveling the bulk either required extremely precise mathematical calculations and-or foreknowledge, or psychic capacity. Anyone could figure out how to go where they wanted, as long as they had the right tools at their disposal, but people like Treasure had this gift naturally as an extension of their ability to utilize bulk energy. Quino and Rosalinda were not practiced enough to be comfortable navigating on their own, even if they could figure out how to get this thing running. Or maybe it wasn’t practice at all, but mental zen, or whatever. See? They didn’t even know.

“I’ve done it a few times myself,” Adalwin said. “Perhaps I can be your navigator.”

“Navigate us where?” Quino pressed. “Back home, or to one of the worlds you were on before? We’re not trying to go to any of those places. We’re trying to go to...” Quino trailed off before he said something too specific about Treasure.

“Salmonverse,” Rosalinda said. “That’s where we should go. Only there will we find someone who can help. They have all sorts of time travelers there. Someone will know something. If we try to go where...our friend is...” She gave him a look.

Quino understood. She wasn’t an idiot. This man was a stranger, and he couldn’t be trusted. Voldisilaverse was vulnerable to attack. Treasure’s mother’s home brane, however, was equipped with people who could combat a threat, including an unknown one. “Yeah, you’re right.” He kind of kicked at the console, but not angrily. “We still have no way to get this moving, though, if there’s even enough of that stuff.”

“I may have some on hand,” Adalwin volunteered.

“Bulk energy?” Rosalinda questioned. “Why would you have any of that?”

“As I said, we’re watersliders,” Adalwin started to explain. “And water is sticky. It stays with you. That’s why the originals can’t stop falling into their portals, because their bodies just keep producing it against their will. They think they could be free if they drained themselves of literally all water, and replaced their blood from donors, but I don’t think that’s medically possible. Anyway, I’m not like them, but just by accompanying them a few times, I have some liquid bulk on my body. It’s not enough to turn me into a full slider, but it may be enough to add to what you already have.”

“How would you go about doing that?” Quino asked, even more suspicious of him. “You gonna pee into the engine?”

Adalwin laughed. “No, it’s nothing crazy like that.” He kept laughing for a moment before dropping into his serious face. “No, I would bleed into it.”

“We’re not going to let you do that,” Rosalinda contended. “Neither of us is a doctor, and I’m sure that Tr—our friend is on their way.”

“It’s okay.” Adalwin slipped a knife out of his pocket, flung it open with a flick of his wrist, and chuckled when they tensed up into defensive positions. “It will all leak from one cut. All I’ll need is a bandage. Surely this Strongbox has a medkit.”

Quino tensed up even more. “I never told you what this was called.”

“What?” Adalwin asked.

“The Strongbox. I literally just named it. I only told two people.”

Adalwin dismissed it as a concern. “Heh. Time, right? I’ve heard of it before.”

“Funny, five minutes ago, you were just guessing that it was a means of escape,” Rosalinda pointed out. “Which is it, you’ve heard of it before, or you were only hoping that it would save you?”

Adalwin dropped the act, and tossed the knife from one hand to the other.

Quino took out his sidearm, and trained it at Adalwin.

“The blade really is for me,” Adalwin insisted. He turned the tip downwards, and sliced his own forearm open. It was small, as he promised, but that wasn’t the point.

It was not worth the risk. Quino would rather die here than put Treasure in danger. This man lied about who he was, and that alone was enough to make Quino wary of him, even though they would never learn the truth. He had to protect his love, whether she would want him to or not. She may never look at him the same again, but she’ll be alive. He would always shield her from danger. He squeezed the trigger, and let the bullet strike right into Adalwin’s lying throat.

Adalwin—or whatever his real name was—reached up and tried to push the blood back into his body as he was choking on it. A lot of it spilled out anyway, and dropped to the floor, as did the blood from the cut on his arm. The lighting in the Strongbox intensified slightly, and the engine revved up. He was right about one thing, his body had some bulk energy in it. And apparently this machine was designed to absorb it no matter where it came from, or where it landed. Adalwin backed himself against the wall, and slouched down towards the floor before he died.

Quino breathed heavily through his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“I can’t blame you,” Rosalinda replied. “I couldn’t have done it myself, but—but, hey.” She turned his chin towards her when he tried to look away in shame. “But I wanted to. Like he said, time has little meaning for our lives anymore. We’ve already met people who knew who we and Treasure were before we showed up. He could have done the same thing, but he played dumb. He was hiding something, and something tells me it wasn’t that he once called his neighbor a dirty word. He was hiding something big. Big and bad.”

Quino nodded, but still wouldn’t look her in the eye. “I’ll bury the body and clean up the mess.”

“You can bury the body,” Rosalinda agreed, “but I’ll clean up. We’re in this together.” She eyed the bulk reserves, which had gone up slightly. “Actually, you go ahead and go out to dig the grave. I have to do something first.”

“Okay.” He didn’t see what she was looking at, or guess what she was thinking. He grabbed a power shovel from the storage locker, grateful that someone thought to pack tools. He probably wouldn’t have thought of it since he had never once set foot on real soil until he met Treasure. He was going to dig a shallow grave to make it easier, but this dirt was soft, and not too difficult to cut through, so he decided that it was better to go the normal depth. The shovel’s motor did a lot of the work. When he was finished, he went back to drag the body down the hill. It was waiting for him outside the Strongbox, propped up against the exterior hull. It was a lot lighter than he expected. There was something unusual about the skin, and as he inspected it, Quino realized that the hole in the neck was bigger than it should have been. “What did you do?”

Rosalinda was still scrubbing the blood from the floor, and she didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“His blood. It’s been drained. It’s all gone.”

Rosalinda stopped scrubbing, but still didn’t look up. “I did what I had to to get us out of here. Treasure is a time traveler. If she were ever coming back, she would have done so already. It doesn’t matter how long she spent out there, she would be here now. I’m sorry, but we both know that.”

He looked up at the bulk reserves, which were now full. “We still don’t know how to navigate this thing.”

She went back to her work. “We’ll figure it out. I don’t care where we go, but we’re not staying here.”

Quino stepped back through the hatch, but stopped for a second. “There are worse worlds than this. If we do manage to leave, I’m sure we’ll become acutely aware of that.” He left again, and carried Adalwin’s body to the grave. He gently placed it down on the bottom, and then climbed back up to fill it up. He scattered the excess around, so no one would suspect that anything was here, and even planted a few grass seeds to cover up the evidence eventually. He didn’t say a few words, and Rosalinda never came down to visit the unmarked grave. Once they were both showered, they quietly went back to the controls to see if they could do something productive with them.

They found Treasure Hawthorne standing at the entrance. “I’m back. Sorry if you were waiting and worried. Thack told me to return eight hours late. She wouldn’t say why.” She smiled as she was taking a trinket out of her pocket, then extended her arms towards Quino. “Here. I made you something.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 14, 2398

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Ramses is back in his own body. That’s the first thing Mateo wanted done when they returned to Kansas City from their nearly three week-long ordeal into the bulkverse, and between the realities. They didn’t switch bodies, though. Ramses took his place where he belongs, but Erlendr was left in the Insulator of Life. He’ll be trapped there until he can be delivered to his fate in the afterlife simulation, where Past!Leona murders him with a zeroblade. Now no one is in Leona Reaver’s body. It’s destined to return to its native reality as well, so it can die for real—fortunately without the consciousness that once inhabited it, however. They have to figure out how they’re going to make that happen, just to be safe. They don’t want a doomed substrate floating around that someone might end up in without a chance to escape before fate intervenes, and destroys it forever.

Trina’s body is currently not being used either. Its original consciousness found itself in a new home in the main sequence, and lived a complete life from then on, choosing not to undergo any significant life extension treatments or enhancements. So that’s done, and will likely not be undone. Unlike Reaver’s body, Trina’s isn’t destined for anything. If they wanted to, they would be able to keep it indefinitely, but they’re not going to do that, because it’s unnecessary and macabre. Maybe if they were discussing an adult substrate, it would be one thing, but they don’t want to leave themselves open to the option of transferring someone into the body of a child. That’s just creepy. They might regret not having the alternative later, but they will burn that bridge when they come to it. Trina deserves to be put to rest in all her forms. They’re on their way to a memorial service, one that her brothers, Carlin and Moray can attend, since they could not be present for the first one.

In this region in the main sequence, normal people are not allowed to dig the graves for their family and friends. It’s a liability issue that requires paid employees to take part in the work. For religious reasons, the law can’t really stop it from being a thing, so that’s what they’ve chosen to do. They’ve selected a non-denominational cemetery, since Trina wasn’t old enough to come to her own decision about what faith she would follow. This is a sacred space where any interreligious squabbles people might have with one another are put aside. Everyone has the right to bid farewell to their loved ones. Carlin and Moray are young, but they’re both old enough to wield a shovel. They’re mainly responsible for the digging, but Mateo and Ramses are helping as well.

Now the youngest, little Moray has grown tired of the work, and they’re not even halfway through. He climbs out of the grave, embarrassed and ashamed. “It’s okay.” Heath has shown up without anyone realizing. “I got you.” He gently takes the shovel from the boy, and hops in to continue the digging.

“Thank you for coming,” Marie says to him.

“I’m not here for you.”

That’s when they notice that he did not come alone. Vearden and Arcadia are here too, arms locked together. Are they together, together? “We’re here for you, even though we don’t know you very well,” Vearden says.

“Have you two been living in the condo the whole time?” Kivi questions.

“Yeah, it’s an unfilmed updated reboot of Three’s Company,” Arcadia jokes softly.

Marie doesn’t know what to think of all this.

“We assumed that you ran off to a far corner of the Earth,” Leona tells them. “We never thought to look this close.”

“That’s what we were planning to do,” Arcadia says. “Starting at the Bran safehouse seemed like the most logical first step.”

“We didn’t know that someone would be coming back to it, especially not so soon,” Vearden adds. “We talked, and agreed to share the space as outcasts.”

“No one cast anyone out,” Marie argues.

“Let’s not fight today,” Heath requests.

Marie looks at her bare wrist. “Well, I’m free tomorrow, and everyday after that.”

“I’ll come back when I’m ready. Today is just about Trina and the McIvers.”

“How did you even find out about the service?” Mateo asks.

Heath can’t help but glance over at Angela, not sure if she wants to keep their link secret or not. They all look over at her. “Someone had to maintain contact. It’s a safety thing. Rule Number Thirteen, never get separated from the people you love. Please don’t ask me to pick sides.”

“Thank you,” Marie says to her alternate self, taking her by the hand affectionately. They smile mildly at each other.

Heath takes note of the tender moment, and then gets back to work.

Twenty minutes later, the job is done. The gravediggers move off to shower at the facilities, returning with the formal clothes they had brought. Heath didn’t have any extra clothes, because he didn’t come knowing that he would help, so the sexton provided him with a spare set of ceremonial robes to keep the dirt and grime covered. Leona was never officialized as a ship captain. She was chosen by the crew at a time when a leader was needed, and accepted by all who have joined the group since. The state would not usually acknowledge such a distinction, but it made an exception after a conversation with a certain U.S. senator. She performs the ceremony in this capacity, so the whole memorial can be kept in the family.

All three siblings speak to their relationship with Trina, but no one else speaks, because they did not know her well enough for that to be appropriate. At the end of the ritual, each attendee tosses a handful of dirt over Trina’s casket. To make up for having to quit earlier, Moray insists on finishing the burial all by himself, determined to stick to it no matter how long it takes. While the others return to the Lofts for the reception, Mateo hangs back so he can drive Moray home later. He gets it done quickly, then Mateo waits for him to take another shower. The reception is nice, and bigger than they thought it was going to be. Heath, Vearden, and Arcadia came with a bunch of food of their own. It’s considered a celebration, but a rather subdued one. They don’t drink and laugh and tell stories, or dance. They mostly listen to the siblings who knew her best, particularly Alyssa, who is able to relate stories she heard during Trina’s final moments. At the end of the day, the outcasts go back to the condo, and everyone else retires to their apartments.

That night, Ramses gets out of bed, and sneaks out of the building. He takes one of the cars, and drives back to the cemetery. He digs up Trina’s grave, steals the body, and then fills it back up exactly as it was, so that no one will notice. He takes Trina’s corpse to their building, and leaves her in a secret refrigerated room in the basement that he never told anyone about, in case he needed to store hazardous materials. When he wakes up the next morning, he has forgotten all about it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 16, 2398

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The checkpoint has evidently been abandoned by the time they get to it the next morning. From the looks of it, there’s a pretty decent operation here that’s designed to prevent unwanted crossings. There is no reason to not station someone here at all times, even if this weren’t the most popular place to transit, which it is, because it’s the closest to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. Mateo thinks he sees someone move over yonder, but it’s just some plastic sheeting flapping in the wind. This feels like the start of a monster movie. “Timofey, what do you make of this?”

“We should turn back,” he advises. “Something has happened here.”

“What, were they attacked, or something?” Alyssa asks. She already looks like the dvoryanin, Vissarion Chaykovsky.

“We would see signs of struggle,” Timofey explains. “The men were ordered to leave. They knew we were coming.”

“No, I meant that maybe someone else was attacked elsewhere, and the border guards went off to help.”

“It’s possible guards from one side were called off, but what of guards on other side? We should turn back,” Timofey repeats.

“You can,” Mateo says. “This is too important to stop now.”

“I tell you, it’s trap,” Timofey insists.

“Getting out of traps is sort of our thing,” Marie says. “Why do you think Winona keeps trying to recruit my people?”

“Very well,” Timofey submits. “We proceed...with caution.”

Mateo gently depresses the pedal, going only a kilometer an hour at first. He gradually accelerates every several seconds, until he’s finally back up to normal speed five minutes later. They don’t run into any trouble all the way up the highway. Timofey keeps his eyes on the windows for suspicious activity while Marie keeps her ear on the signals. No one seems to be tracking or chasing them. It goes smoothly...too smoothly.

It isn’t until they get to the site that they encounter a problem, and it’s a big one. Marie peers through the windshield. “Alyssa, Plan B.”

Alyssa transforms herself into the image of an agent that she passed in the hallway of Winona’s SD6 field office. He’s big and imposing, so while Alyssa hopes not to have to fight, she will be able if it comes down to it. Mateo sees what Marie does at the same time. Vissarion Chaykovsky is already here. He’s standing on the edge of the empty lot, clearly waiting for them. A construction crew is behind them, beginning to dig exactly where they expect the diamonds and timonite to be. One thing’s for sure, there’s a leak in the organization. He looks back at Timofey.

“I know how this looks,” Timofey says in an immediately defensive tone. “I swear upon my God’s heart that I had nothing to do with this.”

Mateo looks over to Marie sitting shotgun for guidance. She reaches under her seat and takes out an actual shotgun. It’s really short, which he believes would be called a sawed-off? Yeah, that sounds right. “Follow my lead.” She opens the door, and steps towards the men with action hero confidence.

“There is no need for violence,” Vissarion says with calm supervillain confidence.

She points her weapon at his head as she draws nearer. “We’re taking over this operation. Tell your men to shut off their machines, and surrender.”

“In our country,” Timofey whispers, “on local level, you want something, you take it. Strongest wins.”

Vissarion smiles. “You are not Russian. You have no rights here.”

“What are you digging here for?” Marie asks, unrelenting with the shotgun.

Vissarion waits to answer, milking this moment for all it’s worth. “Diamonds.” Yeah, definitely a leak.

Mateo checks Timofey’s expression again, but there’s still no way to tell if he’s truly defected, or if he’s been playing them the whole time. When it comes to double agents, you never really know.

Vissarion goes on, “we are prepared to make a deal. The diamonds, and all their worth, are ours, but we promise never to use any weapons we engineer from the funds against the United States. Also, we would like fusion, and this would be how we pay.”

“I’m not at liberty to make any deal such as this,” Marie admits. “And I don’t know what fusion is.”

“Don’t play coy, Mrs. Walton,” Vissarion grins. “It’s unbecoming of a lady.”

Marie thrusts her weapon forward, fast but only a little, to send the menacing message that she’s ready to use it.

“The deal is to get you to lower your gun,” Vissarion goes on. “We don’t need permission to mine these lands. They are well within Russian borders. You have no authority here. All I ask is that you give us your fusion reactor specifications. We will manufacture ours ourselves. In fact, we insist upon it to support our own economy.” This is a terrible deal, but it may be the only decent choice they have. They need that stone, whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter that Trina wouldn’t want them to risk a war on her behalf, because she doesn’t have a say in it. She’s the one who’s lost, and this might be the only way to get her back. They’ll worry later. “Or we could just hold you all for espionage until your government gives us what we want. We know you’re valuable.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Now Mateo can’t work with them at all, and has no choice but to resort to what he and Ramses decided to call Plan Z. It’s going to be demanding of his acting chops. “Okay,” Mateo answers.

“What are you doing?” Marie doesn’t know about Plan Z.

“I’m assuming control.” Mateo directs his attention back to Vissarion. “We agree to your deal, but we have to make sure that there are actually diamonds down there.”

“We’ve not had time to take samples and conduct studies,” Vissarion tells him. “We’re operating on your government’s intel, which is presumably why you’re here in the first place?”

“My scientists have developed a means of detecting subsurface minerals from the surface,” Mateo says as he’s heading for the back of the SUV. He hopes the sciency words he’s using make sense. “Don’t ask me how it works, but they assure me it does. Tim, help me with this.”

“What are you doing?” Marie asks again after Timofey hesitates to help.

“I’m doing what must be done. Put down the gun. Trust me.”

“I did not realize this was back here,” Timofey says as they’re both struggling to carry the machine from the truck to the bottom of the pit that has just been dug.

“It’s mostly water,” Mateo reveals in a hushed voice. “Once you and the girls are in the car, drive as fast as you can back to Mongolia. Stop for nothing, you hear me?”

“I can do it, but what will make us go to the car? It will be suspicious.”

Mateo catches his breath for a second once they set the machine down. Then he speaks for all to hear. “This is going to be really loud! I suggest you get in your cars, and shut the doors!”

The men laugh, but that’s okay. Only his people need to be safe. Once he hears the SUV start up, Mateo turns to boot the machine up. The Russians are scrambling, trying to figure out what’s happening. Some run off, but Vissarion and others run down to stop Mateo from doing what he’s trying to do. They’re too late. The teleporter engages, and sends them all to Lebanon, Kansas, along with 530 meters of soil, a crapton of diamonds, and time gods willing, the timonite.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 10, 2398

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Mateo knocks on the door, but can’t hear the muffled response from the other side, so he knocks again. The response is still muffled, but it sounds angrier this time, so either Alyssa wants him to just come on in, or she very much wants him to leave. He decides to open it carefully, and prepare an exit strategy. “Hey, sorry, I couldn’t hear you out there.”

She’s rushing from one side of the apartment to the other. She’s wearing a towel around her body, and one on top of her head. She’s trying to put away some dishes in the kitchenette, and haphazardly fold the clothes on the couch at the same time. “I said to come in. I can’t talk, though. I just came back to shower, because my brothers complained about the smell, but I’m going right back to the blacksite.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Look, Matty, I know you all say that Trina isn’t in there, but what if she is? What if this Erlendr asshole is just suppressing her consciousness, and she’s been trying to escape this whole time? She may be watching through his eyes, I have to control for that. When we get her back, what should I say to her, that I just stayed home, and left her there in the prison?”

“No, I suggest you tell her that you did everything you could to get her back, and sitting in that room doesn’t accomplish that,” Mateo replies. They’ve been to a number of places on Mateo’s list already, usually for other reasons, and now it’s time to start considering making a point of finishing off that list with a real world tour. He does not yet know, however, who will be accompanying him. A good start could be to ask for help for something very specific.

She unwraps the towel from her head, and furiously dries her hair as much as possible. “What else can I do? I’m not a physicist, like Ramses.”

“He’s not a physicist, he’s an engineer.”

“Whatever.”

“Speaking of Ramses, he needs something from somewhere, I need help getting it for him. Marie is considering going with, but whether she does or not, I could do with a translator.”

“You’re going back to Russia?” They learned that Alyssa’s mother’s family originates from Russia, and that her grandmother taught Alyssa the language before her death. The younger children don’t know it, and of course, wouldn’t be suitable for this mission anyway.

“Technically, I wouldn’t say that we were ever in Russia before since we never got off the boat. I’ve never been at all, even in my home reality.”

“What do you need in Russia, and how will it help Trina?” When he takes a little too long to answer, she winces. “Is it dangerous? Spit it out.”

“It’s politically very dangerous, they could brand us traitors by asking to excavate in the area, because we would have to give the Russians the mineral rights, but I don’t see that we have any choice given what else is down there.”

“What else is down there?” Alyssa questions, annoyed. “What is down where? You’re explaining this all out of order, you realize that, right?”

Mateo takes a breath. “You’re right. There’s a mine in Russia that contains a ton of diamonds, worth hundreds of billions of dollars—maybe even over a trillion—but the thing is that this mine was never discovered in the Third Rail. We know exactly where it is, and we don’t care about the diamonds. According to lore, there’s a gemstone down there that’s worth more than everything else combined.”

“Lore?” Alyssa asks skeptically.

“Marie’s friend from Australia who collected stuff like this, and things that Leona Delaney read in her book about time travel; they corroborated each other’s stories regarding the thing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called timonite, and it’s rumored to grant the user control over all of time and space.”

“That sounds like a fantasy,” Alyssa reasons. She steps behind her bedroom door so she can finish changing. She starts to raise her voice a little to compensate, but it makes her seem irritable. “I don’t much care for fantasy. Talk to Moray about that stuff, he’ll go on, and on, and on.”

“It might not be real, but isn’t it worth the risk?”

“If it starts a war with Russia, which Russia will win because of their sudden influx in capital, then no. Trina is a child, so she doesn’t understand the politics, but if she did, I know she wouldn’t want that. She hates violence. She doesn’t even like to watch cartoon characters fighting each other, even though they’re all immortal.”

“You’re right. Again.”

“There has to be a way to dig where we need to dig without starting an international incident,” Alyssa figures. “You’re time traveling teleporters, for God’s sake; get creative.”

A lightbulb comes on over Mateo’s head. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. We need you more than ever.”

“I could interpret for you, but you’ll have to figure out who you want to talk to. It can’t lead to violence, that’s my one rule.”

“We require the most powerful person in Russia. He’s the only man who can get us what we need.”

“Well, yeah, but you’ll still be branded as a traitor.”

“Not if we have help from the U.S. government, because we don’t need to talk to the actual Russian President. We just need someone who looks like him, and we need him to talk to other Russians on our behalf.”

She stares at him. “Am I supposed to know where you’re going with this?”

Has anyone ever told you why we were immediately comfortable being around you? Didn’t it seem like we recognized your name, or something?”

“It seemed a little weird, but I had other things on my mind, and later I thought we knew too much anyway, so you either had to bring us in, or kill us.”

“It is we who knew too much,” Mateo corrects. “We already knew you. Or we knew of you. Vearden knows you personally, he met you centuries from now, or something.”

“You mean that I’m going to go with you to your alternate reality, and meet people I’ve already met before?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. What does that have to do with the Russian President?”

He smirks. “What are your thoughts on hats?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 13, 2398

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It’s too much work. They tied a mess of rope to the ladder, and across the shaft to the metal beam things that were once used to transport the elevator car, back when there was an elevator in here. They still can’t figure out what happened to it, but it’s looking like they’re going to have to somehow build their own. Should teleportation stop being available to them at some point, they don’t want to have to climb up and down a ladder five kilometers at a time. Perhaps a slide? Or a staircase? No, none of this is at all reasonable. It’s just too much work, and neither of them is equipped to take on such an endeavor.

They still have plenty of work that has to be done either way, so they try not to worry about it while they’re digging. The soil level could be piled several meters thick, and they can’t dig straight down, instead opting for a ramp that people can actually walk down. After waking up the next day, having barely made a dent in the job, they decide it’s time to rethink this whole thing.

“Hasting,” Heath suggests without elaborating.

“Hastings...Nebraska?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Stay with me here. Why doesn’t the ground over the elevator shaft just fall down into the hole?”

Mateo points over their heads. “Because of this ceiling,” he says, knowing that Heath is only asking to support his argument, not because he doesn’t know. They’re standing on a little platform that they installed to give them more room. It was the easiest part of yesterday’s work, drilling holes in cement while hanging over the abyss.

“Right. So what would happen if we took out the ceiling first?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo says, nodding his head. “I get where you’re going with this, but I’m not a civil engineer, or whoever would understand how this all works. Maybe the ground would fall in, or maybe not.”

“We have to break through this anyway. Might as well start from below. All we would have to do is extend this platform.”

“Uhuh,” Mateo begins. “And if there’s a platform, where does all the concrete and dirt fall as we break through it? And if it doesn’t work, and we still need to start digging from above, what happens to us when we destabilize it enough to actually cave in?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath frowns. “This is impossible!”

They’re silent for a few moments, before Mateo remembers something. “Why did you bring up Hastings, Nebraska?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath repeats himself, then shrugs. “It’s only thirty minutes away the way you drive, but we could rent a power chisel without anybody asking any questions.”

“Yeah, that’s one option.”

“What’s another one? Everything seems too slow.”

Mateo nods. “It’s gonna storm tonight.”

“Yeah...?”

He rifles through his bag until he finds their salvation. He holds it between his fingers like it’s the most important find ever.

“It’s a bullet.”

“It’s a telebullet,” Mateo corrects. “It may just be all we need.” He smiles, dreaming of Shawshank.

“What does it do?” Heath asks.

“Usually, you shoot it at someone, and it instantly transports them to wherever you want.”

“Isn’t that something that you can do yourself?”

“Yes, but I can’t move a concrete ceiling and hundreds of cubic meters of soil and rock.”

“But that little bullet can?”

“Well, it can be more destructive, which should be enough to destabilize the ground, and cause a cave-in. Or, uh, not should, but could. Hopefully.”

“I guess we might as well try,” Heath figures, “as long as you don’t need that bullet for something else.”

“It’s like you said, I can teleport myself, but only at this special location. It has no other use in this reality. If we ever get back to the main sequence, I could always find myself some more, I’m sure.”

“All right, I’m in. I assume you mentioned the storm, because there could be thunder?”

“Yes, but the sound is not the only problem we have.”

“How does the bullet explode?”

“Right.”

“Well, I can make a little bomb. I assume it doesn’t have to be powerful enough to blast through a mountain.”

“I assume as much as well.”

Fortunately, Heath already owns a six-meter long ladder, stored in his flying carboat. They’re going to stop calling it that, as they’ve come up with a proper name. It will now be known as The Olimpia. Mateo carefully extends the ladder so that it’s resting on the ledge on the other side of the shaft, and ties everything up. He runs planks across it so he has somewhere to stand while he’s working. It’s absolutely not the safest thing in the world, but he has himself tied to the structurally sound emergency ladder with mountain climbing equipment, so it should be fine. It’s his job to drill a hole in the concrete ceiling while Heath rigs up a small explosive to catalyze the temporal bullet. This may not work at all, and it might be a waste of their time, but the way they see it, they either spend a couple hours on a lark before resorting to digging a hole by hand, or they skip it. Either way, the digging will cost them days, not hours, so this is hardly a digression.

While Mateo is constructing his safety platform, Heath goes out and buys a special long drill, and the ten-centimeter bit that they’re going to need, along with his own supplies. The hole doesn’t have to be pretty or clean. It just has to be deep enough to get to the dirt. According to their research, a normal ceiling should only be about twenty centimeters thick, but this one is twice that, presumably to support the weight of the ground above. That’s going to make it harder, but not impossible. That’s why he requested a super narrow drill. Once the hole gets started, it goes surprisingly quickly. Now all they can do is wait until the thunderstorm begins. They’re not sure how loud the explosion is going to be, so it’s best to muffle it as much as possible.

They’re in the middle of dinner when Thor’s battle against the God Butcher begins. They leave their dishes on the table, and run back to the would-be center of the country. Using radio transceivers, Mateo waits for a signal from Heath, who is counting thunder strikes. Once it’s time, Mateo lights the fuse, and tries to teleport out. For a split second, he’s stuck, and doesn’t go anywhere, so he’s afraid the temporal energy already ran out, but then the glitch disappears, and so does he. He meets Heath back on the surface just in time for the temporal explosion. Heath timed it perfectly with the storm, so Mateo feels compelled to give him a high five. At first, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. It definitely shook the earth, but nothing has changed from above. But then it does. The ground begins to sink. More, then even more, until it all caves in. It worked. Holy crap, it actually worked. They high five again.

Carefully, the two of them step over to the hole so they can get a look inside, every once in a while looking up to see if police cruisers are coming down the highway to investigate. They stomp on the ground to make sure it’s still stable, and it seems perfectly safe...until it doesn’t. The ground right under Mateo sinks. A normal person would probably reach out for help, but he has the opposite reaction. He’s died—or come so close to death that he would not have survived without time power intervention—so many times, it feels more natural to let it happen. Instead, he pushes Heath away with as much force as he can muster, which serves to pull him downwards even faster. He slips off the grass, and tumbles down the hole. He spreads his arms out, hoping to catch hold of the emergency ladder, the portable ladder, the little platform, the ledge, the rope web, or some other structure, but nothing meets his hands but dirt and other debris.

Finally, as he’s falling, he attempts to teleport himself to safety, but it would seem that the explosion used up all the temporal energy left in this place. There’s no way out. He’s going to actually die this time, and it’s so incredibly unlikely that someone created an afterlife simulation in this reality. It’s the end. As he’s falling towards his demise, he almost regrets no longer having his faith, but he appreciates that it wouldn’t change anything. Death is death, whether you believe in it or not.

Thirty seconds later, he reaches the floor, but it doesn’t hurt like it should. Did he get his invincibility back somehow? He thought they decided that was a separate phenomenon from the time power blocker. No, that’s not what happened. He didn’t fall hard on the floor, and just not feel the pain from it. He didn’t crash into it at all. It’s more like a magical force sucked out all his momentum, and materialized the floor millimeters under him. He’s landed safely as if he was never moving at all. He turns over, and sees a ceiling above him. This isn’t just the elevator shaft. It’s the elevator. It’s back. Or more accurately, he’s back. He’s obviously traveled to an indeterminate moment in the past. He sits up, and is about to stand up, when he notices people watching him from the main floor. One of them is Danica Matic. The other is Bhulan Cargill. And the third...is Tamerlane Pryce.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 12, 2398

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This is going to be a lot of work. It was hard to tell back when they were using the elevator to get down here in the main sequence, but it’s incredibly far below the surface. According to Ramses—who stuck around long enough to find Mateo and Heath a blueprint—the main floor is five kilometers under the surface, so the first time the two of them climb the emergency ladder, it takes them just over an hour. Subsequent climbs in either direction are going to take significantly longer. This is not a good alternative, but the computer didn’t tell them where the elevator car was stopped, so they had to do the whole thing to find it. Once they reached an obstacle, it took some sleuthing and math for them to realize that said obstacle was not the elevator. It was a ceiling of concrete, or some other strong material, which was constructed in order to prevent the soil above from falling down.

“Well,” Heath begins as he’s digging through his bag, grateful that there is a ledge here for them to sit and rest.

“Well...?” Mateo prompts after a period of silence.

“Oh. Well, we have all the tools we thought we might need to break into the elevator car, but I guess it was removed...?”

Another bit of silence. “Go on”

“Since it’s not here, we’re going to need something else; a heavy duty power tool of some kind.”

“You wanna take out this ceiling?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t see any other way,” Heath says, “not unless you’re sure that your ability to teleport at this specific location won’t ever go away.”

“Nah, it probably will. It would be foolish for us to rely on that.”

“That’s what I figured, which is why I suggested we do what we’re doing right now. I just didn’t know it would entail this much climbing, or that we would run into this damn thing.” He clumsily pounds on the ceiling with the outside of his fist. “Ow, why is it so hard?”

“Well,” Mateo decides, “I can still feel the energy right now. I can jump up to the surface, dig down with the shovel, and then jackhammer this block.”

“You want to what the block.”

“Jackhammer?” Mateo repeats. He pantomimes with sound effects. “Jackhammer.”

“Oh, a powered demo chisel.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, I don’t have one of those.”

“I should think not.”

“You jump us both up there, I’ll start digging, you go rent one—a hardware store in town surely has one available—and then I’ll operate it.”

“Are you asking me to let you do all the work?”

“How do you mean? I don’t know how else we would do it.”

Mateo laughs. “This is my cousin’s house. If anyone was gonna do it all by himself, it would be me. But no, we’ll do it together. We’ll both go rent the chisel thing, we’ll both dig a hole, and we’ll both break through this ceiling. Let’s hope it’s not made of adamantium, or naquadah, or something.”

“I don’t know what those are,” Heath admits.

“I should think not.” They sit there to rest a little more until Mateo speaks again. “I don’t suppose it’s legal to blast our way through with an explosive.”

“It would be if we owned this land, or secured a permit to conduct such work. Otherwise, they would ask us why we need the explosives. They may even ask us if we try to rent the demo chisel. That’s why I think one will be available, because it’s not exactly something the average household ever needs. It’s a risk too.”

“What about a sledgehammer? Would they question that?”

“A what?”

Mateo growls, though he knows that it’s no one’s fault that they sometimes have different words for the same, or similar, thing. “It’s a hammer you use for demolition, rather than nails.” That’s how he thinks to describe it, but it may be inaccurate.

“Oh, no, that would be fine, though...I imagine it would take a long time. Do you really wanna try?”

Mateo shakes his head. “No one can know what we’re doing here, or that this place exists. We should even move our car to a different location.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heath agrees. “Jump us to the surface, so we can drive to Mankato. There’s a greater population, so we should be able to blend in. I don’t have my own block striker either. Then we’ll park a ways away from here, hide the car behind some trees, and walk.”

“Sounds like a plan, but we may need to get back to the top of the ladder at some point, and I do not want to climb it again, or have to aim at this ledge, so hand me that rope, if you please.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna build myself a web.”