Mateo was the one to donate his blood to Karla, so she could start skipping
time, and remain on the same pattern as their daughter. This was
intentionally a temporary fix, just in case she changed her mind later. It
made sense on paper to stay this way forever, but she may decide that it
would be best for her to always be waiting for little Romana to return to
the timestream. She had about a week to decide, and if she still wasn’t
sure, they could always give her a second dose of the temporary
pattern-sharing serum, instead of the permanent one. Perhaps they would just
keep doing it like that. Neither Cassidy nor Mateo had a problem with this
eventuality.
She was a very special little baby. Generally speaking, the first time a
person travels through time—and usually to a lesser degree for every
subsequent trip—it’s a jarring experience. It can come with sometimes very
nasty side effects, such as nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach,
or diarrhea, among other possibilities. These symptoms can come on in the
moments leading up to the jump, and last for minutes or hours afterwards.
For Romana, she seemed to have no issue at all. As midnight central
approached, she giggled, as if it were a pleasurable experience for her. It
probably was. It wasn’t the first time she did it; just the first time after
she was born. The truth was that it had happened to her about 270 times
before this. It was part of who she was, in a deeper sense than most time
travelers, including her own father. Meliora Rutherford, the daughter of
this building’s namescape, was likely the only person with some
understanding of what Romana’s is going through right now. They couldn’t
wait until she was verbal.
It was April 23, 2414 on Dardius right now. The Dardieti toyed with their
own calendar for a while before deciding to conform to that of Earth’s. A
dying man was sent back in time about two millennia to let his final act
alive be setting the flag of Dardius in the North Pole. His remains were
discovered beside the now-buried remnants of that flag in recent days. His
fusion-powered solar watch was still ticking, allowing them to accept the
calendar as real. Of course, this was but a symbolic gesture. There was no
real reason why they couldn’t simply deliberately have declared what year it
was without technically starting at zero, but it made it a little easier to
believe in.
Leona was sitting on the huge penthouse balcony, watching the sun rise. The
arch that the Isaac Skybridge created was facing north and south, so the sun
came up over Lincoln Tower, and set over Rutherford Tower. It was beautiful
up here. There was no rule that LIR Towers had to be the tallest structure
in the city, but it was. In fact, it remained the tallest one in the world.
They were pretty lucky to live here now, and hopefully it would last. Leona
being the cynic of the group, was not so convinced, but she wasn’t about to
let that on to anyone else. It wasn’t helpful. So she was regarding the sky,
and appreciating the time that they did have in this wondrous place. As she
sat there, she started to feel a pull behind her. It was Ramses, calling to
her from the Dante using their empathetic bond. She stood up, and teleported
to the shuttle.
Ramses was in his laboratory pocket dimension, hunched over his table,
studying something with his ocular loupes. “I’m hoping not to have disturbed
you. It did not feel as if you were asleep.”
“I did not sleep,” Leona clarified. “None of us but Mateo did. Did you see
the bed they designed for him and Karla?”
Ramses looks up from his work. “No? This sounds juicy.”
She laughed. “It’s a giant king-plus sized bed with a bassinet installed in
the center, so co-parents can sleep on either side of the baby.”
He chuckled. “Cute.”
“I should say, I don’t think the concept was inspired by them. I believe
it’s a normal product that anyone can order, but this one was custom-made as
a gift from a friend of the family, or maybe just a fan.”
“Who knows, this planet is weird.”
“What are you working on there?”
“The rosary.” He lifted it up with a pair of tweezers. “I’ve been trying to
get it to work. So far, I’ve been able to guess at its function, but not
actually trigger its power.”
She looked upon it. “I forgot about this thing. It definitely works. I’ve
seen it used. You, or someone who looks very much like you, used it at The
Edge meeting. And someone who looked very much like you popped in and out of
the timeline while I was gone to take things from the team.” It could be
that the real version of him was never destined to use it. Ramses was in
possession of it now, and Future!Leona will have it at some point later. It
pretty much had to be in that order, because Ramses took it directly from
Arcadia in another brane, but that was the extent of their understanding of
the thing. It didn’t mean he would ever figure out how to operate it. “What
does it do?”
“I think...it counteracts time.”
“In what way?”
“Well, you said that this other Ramses—maybe Future!Me, maybe always
Future!Leona—would squeeze it and disappear. That sounds like your average
time travel or teleportation. But if that’s the case, why is it so coveted?
Why does it matter? Plenty of people can do that on their own, there’s no
real reason for anyone else to want it, especially not Future!Leona. She can
do a ton of things. My best guess is that when someone uses it, they
separate themselves from whatever time is doing to them in that moment. If
they’re moving forward in time at typical speed, maybe they move backwards,
or maybe just slower. If true, it could be reapplied to other temporal
manipulations, such as breaking out of a time bubble, or undoing illusions,
like invisibility.”
Leona looked away to think. “Or time jump patterns.”
He nodded solemnly. “It could...cure us. That is, if you look at it as a
disease, which I personally don’t. After all, I did this to myself on
purpose.”
She nodded back, just as solemnly. “But it could cure Romana. She could be a
normal little girl.”
“That’s not my call, and like I said, I can’t turn it on.” He stood up, and
walked over to a locker. “But that’s not all I wanted to show you this
morning. Unlike the rosary, Dante 2.0 is complete.”
“Two-point-oh?” Leona questioned.
He smiled as he took what looked like a parachute pack out, and held it
open. “Well, come on and put it on.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“What, you don’t trust me?”
“Not as far as I can throw you.”
He shook the pack, and then started helping her arms through the straps.
“We’re five hundred meters up in the air, my dear. You could throw me quite
far.” He came around and closed the waist buckle and chest buckle for her.
“Looks good on ya.
“A parachute’s not gonna fit in here.”
He laughed. “It’s not a parachute.” He turned around so they were facing the
same direction, and shook his hands accordingly. “Left is open, right is
closed. I’m working on a special function that happens when you pull them at
the same time, but that’s not ready yet. For now, that will just do
nothing.”
“You’ve still not yet said what either one of the other cords does.”
He smiled knowingly, and pulled the right cord for her. Everything around
them started to collapse in on itself, and become sucked into the pack as it
shrank. In seconds, the whole Dante was gone, and they were standing in the
open air on the top of the Isaac Skybridge.
“Oh. That makes sense. It’s just like the Phoenix.”
“It was already designed to potentially be collapsed into an uninhabitable
pocket dimension of its own. All I had to do was reprogram it to collapse
into this thing, instead of the suitcase that the rest of the capital ship
goes into. The only thing is, if this shuttle were ever to be reunited with
the Phoenix, I’m not sure whether it would function correctly or safely. It
may go ahead and fall into the suitcase along with everything else, or it’ll
be vaporized.” He grimaced at the thought.
She shook her head. “We’re never getting the Phoenix back. The people from
the afterlife simulation need it more than we ever could.”
Suddenly, guardsmen from both towers rushed onto the bridge, and pointed
their weapons in strategic directions. “Is everything okay, sirs?” one of
them asked. “Your shuttle disappeared!”
“Everything’s fine!” Leona assured them. I just...put it in my bag!”
They were still on high alert. “Are you quite certain? We can protect you
from anything!” the leader from Rutherford Tower added.
“Really, it’s fine! We didn’t mean to alarm you. Um...” She switched to
false bravado. “Return to your posts, please. I think I’m going to..take it
out of the bag again!”
The guardsmen retreated into their respective towers, except for one. He was
just a kid, surely no older than nineteen. He held his gun at the low ready
position. He was trying to avoid eye contact like he was really trying to
avoid being noticed.
“You may go, soldier!” Ramses encouraged.
“I was actually hoping to, um...see it?”
“From outside, or in?” Ramses asked him.
The young man thought about it. “Both!”
Leona removed the Dante pack, and handed it to Ramses. She approached the
soldier. “What’s your name, son?”
“Mercari, sir. Officer Mercari. This is my first week.”
“Are you related to Andromeda Mercari?”
“Distantly, sir. I...I can’t remember the family tree.”
“You don’t have to call me sir. I’m just a person. Why don’t you set that
gun down? I don’t like weapons.”
Officer Mercari switched the safety on, and set the rifle down against the
wall.
“We’ll start out here. Go ahead and do it!” she called over to Ramses.
