The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 31, 2513

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Come midnight central, Leona, Angela, and Romana didn’t jump forwards to the future, proving that they were no longer on their time patterns. That was a week ago. Mateo never did come through the lake. Something was terribly wrong on his end. Nerakali said that she would look into it, but communicating with the afterlife simulation was tricky. It still existed in another universe, and getting through that Angry Fifth Divisioner’s thick quintessence membrane wasn’t easy. They took a suite in the Crest Hotel, and had sort of been lounging about, trying to wrap their brains around their new reality. Mateo was dead, and probably never coming back, and they were stuck in the present for the rest of their lives. It made them feel uncomfortable, even Romana, who should have been more used to it.

Leona had fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of the day, but something woke her up. “What’s that noise?” she groaned, not even opening her eyes.

“Sorry, I’m just watching TV,” Romana said, turning it down. “I didn’t know it would get so loud at this part.”

Bleary-eyed, Leona propped herself up on one shoulder, and tried to focus on the screen. “Is this SG Multiverse?”

“Yeah, did you watch it way back when?”

Leona chuckled and pointed. “That happened to me.”

“What?”

“What she’s doing right now. I did that. I had to cut my legs off. It was based off this show.”

Romana looked at her funny. “Are you messing with me?”

Angela walked in from the other room. “Mister Stark,” she began. “I don’t feel so good.” Dark particles swarmed around her, and she disappeared.

Leona barely reacted. She just looked over at her daughter. “Well. Boyd better have a damn good reason for this.” They both disappeared through dark particles too.

“The thing you have to understand about sling travel is that it’s not as quick as everyone thinks. It’s more like you leave time, and your mind can’t comprehend that. It can’t reconcile existing without time. It may be impossible for a human consciousness to interpret anything beyond four dimensions as anything but instant. Then again, we’ve been to the outer bulk before, and time has passed—can you hand me that drewscriver?” That wasn’t only a spoonerism. The drewscriver was a fanciful embossing tool invented in the late 21st century that could pull ferromagnetic metals and metamaterials upwards at precision scale. It was typically used to stamp industrial coding, but could also just be used to create texture for aesthetics. “Time has passed,” he repeated, “so I don’t know what that’s about. What I do know is that the way the slingdrives work, you actually spend a lot of time in the universal membrane, but you don’t remember it. It might even essentially be an eternity, but if thought stops, and metabolism stops, it’s like it never happened. You feel me?”

“I just push these buttons and tell machines to build domes,” Hrockas replied as if he were an idiot. It was obviously a lot more complicated than that, and he had to have a certain level of intelligence to even get this far, but point taken.

Ramses finished his finishing touches, and set the box back down. “There it is. The escape module.”

“That’s not big enough for a person,” Hrockas pointed out.

“No, I told you, that’s not—oh, you’re joking.”

“So. If what happened to you in the future happens again, all of your supplies will automatically be spit out of these pocket dimension things through this thing.”

“Not all of the supplies, just the essentials,” Ramses clarified. “Which I guess is pretty much everything. What else are we gonna put in there?” Ramses tapped on his wrist interface and whistled for effect. The escape module disappeared, tucked away safely in its dedicated pocket. “Oo, I feel heavier,” he quipped.

“Does that mean you’re finally ready to go?”

“No time like the present, even if 2396 isn’t my present.” Ramses engaged his new EmergentSuit, and walked towards the slingdrive, which was already programmed to send him back to the future. “Hey, man. Thanks for letting me use this dome for my new-slash-old lab. I didn’t want it to interfere with the lab that I end up building in my past-slash-future.”

“Mi Dome Eleven is su Dome Eleven. It’s been a hell of a year, Rambo.”

Ramses smiled as he stepped into the chamber, and turned back around. “Did you ever decide what you’re gonna do with it once I’m gone? I don’t remember what it ends up being in the future. You stop using numbers when you come up with names.”

Hrockas smiled back. “I’m thinking that it’s going to be a scavenger hunt, or something. The terrain has lots of natural corners.”

“Interesting. See ya in a hundred and sixteen years.”

“Apparently, I’ll see you in seventy-nine.”

“True. Hey, Thistle...” Before Ramses could execute a command, dark particles started to swirl around him.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” Hrockas questioned.

“No, this isn’t right! I don’t know what’s happening! Thistle, lock down the la—!” He disappeared.

Marie and Olimpia appeared from their swarm of dark particles and landed somewhat roughly on the ground next to the rest of Team Matic. They were surprised, and a little embarrassed, having been wearing their pajamas when it happened. Well, Olimpia was in her pajamas. Marie looked like she was auditioning for a jungle porno.

“Yoink!” Mateo exclaimed. “Nailed it.”

Everyone steadied themselves. They had all traveled through dark particles before, but this time was more turbulent. “You did this?” Leona asked.

“I stole his power,” Mateo said with a shrug. “NBD.”

“You can have it,” Boyd said sincerely.

“At least someone can still do it. We’ve been off our pattern for a week,” Romana lamented.

“It’s been a year for me,” Ramses one-upped.

“Boyd,” Mateo scolded.

“This isn’t my fault,” Boyd insisted. “I told you, work backwards to find him in the timestream, then once you do, go back further to see how long he’s been there. I told you that,” he reiterated.

“Oh, yeah, you did say that.”

“It’s fine, I was working on something. New upgrades. I even built a new lab. Actually, since I was in the past, it’s older than the last one, so... We can check it out if you want.”

“We need to make a decision first,” Mateo explained. “Boyd has something to say. Boyd?” he prompted.

Boyd looked at the ground abashedly for a moment. He then reached up to squeeze the collar of his shirt. A hologram over his face flickered before collapsing entirely to reveal his true face underneath. He still looked like himself, but crystal shards were embedded in his skin. It looked very painful.

“Ooo, that’s gotta hurt,” Leona noted with nurse-level concern.

“It’s not that bad.”

“He came out like this when we came back from the afterlife simulation,” Mateo explained. “I tried to kind of...remove them with dark particles, but I still don’t understand what they can do, and what they can’t.”

“It’s not something you learn,” Boyd said as he was putting the holographic illusion back up. “You build your intuition around it.”

Mateo nodded. “He is a living temporal energy crystal now. He believes that he can restore your powers, but that he would have to restore them all. You can’t just get back the teleportation and Alyssa’s lightbending. It’s all or nothing. You would be back on the pattern.”

“Is that even a choice?” Leona asked.

“We’ve been through this before, but this is another opportunity to leave. You probably can’t get Alyssa’s powers back, but Ramses could just build you new bodies with teleportation capabilities, and isn’t that really all you need? You don’t have to skip time. We got used to it, but it’s also been really annoying at times.”

“Can he...remove it from you?” Romana asked him.

“I don’t think so,” Mateo replied with a shake of his head. “I was already dead when the crystal was destroyed. I wasn’t affected by it. This is more of a reversal of what was done as a result of the lemon juice explosion, and it was only done to the six of you. And Octavia, I guess, but who cares about her?”

“We’re not gonna leave you behind,” Olimpia argued, stepping closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m not done with you yet.”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Marie suggested. “Raise your hand if you want to stay off the pattern.”

No one raised their hand.

“Boyd?” Leona asked. “Could you put yourself back on the pattern? I’m just asking. You decide whatever you want...”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. I’ll explain why later, but I think it would be like trying to get a lighter to light itself on fire. It don’t bend that way.”

“Are you upset by that?” Marie pressed.

“It is what it is. I’m the one who poured the lemon juice. Good or bad, these are the consequences, and I’ll live with them.” Then he chuckled for some reason.

“How does it work?” Angela asked. “Do you just...stare at us with your crystal face?”

“Same as when it was a regular crystal on its own,” Boyd corrected. “You’ll touch my face, and I’ll transfer the energy to you. At least that’s what my intuition says. I’ve obviously never done this before.”

“There’s something else,” Mateo started. “It might change your mind, so just give me one last chance.” They all agreed nonverbally, so he led them down the hill, and then down the trail. They were in Canyondome, which was just a naturally-formed canyon on Castlebourne. It wasn’t even the largest one. It was only the largest one that still fit within the radius of a standard-sized dome. It was particularly deep, though. They were standing just over 14.5 kilometers below the edge of the canyon, which meant that they were 56 kilometers from the top of the dome.

They came ‘round the bend to find a man chained to a stake in the ground. He was sitting quite comfortably in a lounger, and seemed none too bothered by it, though he apparently couldn’t leave. “Is that...?” Olimpia began to ask.

“What’s Old Man Bronach doing here?” Leona questioned.

“I resurrected him,” Mateo answered. “We’re gonna help him regain power in the Goldilocks Corridor from his quantum duplicate.”

“Why the hell would we do that?” Marie asked.

“Because he’s the lesser of two evils,” Mateo claimed. “Some people in the Exin Empire don’t want an Oaksent to be in power, and we’ve helped them escape. Some, however, are true believers, and we’ll probably never be able to change their minds. So we compromise. We install this version on the throne, and in exchange, he doesn’t actively stop the rescue efforts of the Vellani Ambassador.”

Leona looked down at the Oaksent. “Is this true? Can you be trusted with this?”

Bronach grinned. “There’s a catch.”

Mateo sighed. “Anyone who wants to leave is welcome to leave, but he is free to...repopulate his worlds the way he did it the first time.”

“We’re allowing him to breed a new generation of sycophants?” Leona was disgusted.

“We can’t stop him unless we kill him,” Mateo argued. “But if we kill him, his most loyal subjects will just do it anyway, and the ensuing war could be devastating for the whole galaxy. We’re trying to end the Ex Wars, not make them worse. As I said, it’s a compromise. I don’t like it, but it’s the best I could do. There’s a loophole, though. He’ll accept your counsel, but only while you’re in the timestream. If you get back on my pattern, we only have influence on his decisions once per year.”

“Whose influence?” Leona asked. “Anyone on Team Matic.”

Mateo nodded. “The offer extends to anyone currently on Team Matic, including Boyd. It’s not the team itself. I had him sign an itemized list. We’re all on it.”

A lightbulb clicked on over Leona’s head. “Ramses is on the list?”

“Of course he is,” Mateo replied.

Ramses was hurt. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason,” Leona answered. “I accept these terms.” She spun around, and placed both hands on Boyd’s cheeks. She then pulled his head down to her level, and planted a kiss on his lips, no tongue. Those standing at the right angle saw technicolors transmit from his crystalline face to hers before quickly dissipating.

“I never said we had to kiss,” Boyd reminded her once she let go.

“Just something to remember me by. I mean, something for me to remember you,” she said solemnly. After a beat, she spun back around. “Who’s next?”

They all took their turns, not even knowing what Leona had in mind to keep Bronach in line. They each gave Boyd a kiss, because monkey see, monkey do. Most of them were pecks. Romana’s was more than that. She only stopped when her father cleared his throat suggestively. Ramses was last, still nervous about Leona singling him out regarding the Bronach contract. He evidently got his powers back just in time. Because shortly afterwards...Boyd fell down and died again.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 29, 2511

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At the end of the day, despite the fact that he was in a computer simulation, Mateo jumped forward a year. By the time his IDcode returned to the circuits or whatever, Brian Hiddy had gone off to see what Fort Underhill was all about, and Cecelia Massey was training to be a counselor. Mateo told them that he would be disappearing, but Keilix didn’t really believe it, because it didn’t fall into the category of standard behavior for the program. But that was how Tamerlane Pryce wanted it when he agreed to resurrect Mateo, and even though the latter had since moved on to a new substrate in the physical realm, the rule remained. He only lived for one day every year, and only a few things could alter that pattern.

“Well, what happens when you move on to the other universe?” Cecelia asked. “Does it stop then?” Obviously, during the interim year, she was able to get past the five stages of grief, and come into her own in this new world. She was more relaxed, more self-confident, and there was just a sparkle in her eyes. Though, to be fair, that could have been an avatar modification. There were no limits here. She could make herself look like a cross between a rabbit and a dog if she so desired.

“No, I stay on my pattern,” Mateo explained. “It doesn’t matter what kind of body I end up with. It’s how my brain is wired. You rewire it, my pattern might go away, but then I’m not me anymore.”

“Your brain rewires itself constantly,” Keilix reasoned. “You might be able to grow out of it one day.”

“I’m sure Pryce thought of that in his design. It’s not like I want to anyway. My friends are still on this pattern, and if I were to get off of it, I would be waiting for them for tens of thousands of years, and that’s assuming they live a normal human life span.”

“But you say you’ve not only been to the afterlife simulation,” Cece began, “but you also visited Ford Underhill afterwards.”

“Briefly.”

“So your friends can just find you there. This Hogarth woman might even let you leave, and go right back to them. You said you were friends with her too, right?”

“More like a family friend.” Mateo shrugged.

“It sounds like your best option is to resurrect a second time,” Keilix decided. “You’ll be in a different reality, but at least it’s at base level.”

“That’s true,” Mateo admitted. He lifted his chin and breathed in that crisp, digital air. “Well, tell me what to do.”

Keilix smiled. “Cece, why don’t you handle this one on your own?”

“Really?”

“He’s a pro. It’ll be a good, safe practice.”

“Thank you.” Cecelia was grateful.

“Is it unsafe?” Mateo asked after saying goodbye to Keilix.

“It’s not, like, physically unsafe,” Cece began to explain. “It’s just a delicate process. Your mind doesn’t get downloaded into a body the way it would in the living world. We can’t just plug your IDCode to the right port. It’ll make more sense when we get to the lake, but you have to be sure that this is what you want. You have to will yourself over to the other side.”

“Ah. The prebiotic lake needs to know who you are, and what you want.”

She laughed. “She’s right, you’re a pro.

He was less of a pro, and more of a good listener. He never went to this magical lake before, but Lowell talked about it the last time they saw each other.

They continued to walk in silence. This was a journey, and a profound one at that, so the program didn’t involve simply teleporting to their point of egress, even though that would be easy to implement. Of course, Mateo didn’t need this experience—it wouldn’t be the first time he came back to life—but Cece needed the practice as a transition facilitator. It was important that he let her do this the right way.

They arrived at the lake. It was totally open, but apparently protected by an invisible force field. Or really, it was just that not everyone could pass through. It was all just code. “Hey, Sir Bro,” Cecelia casually said to an old man as they passed by.

Sir Bro was trying to break into the lake area, but that programming was holding him back every time. He just kept banging his shoulder against it, and punching it, but it was unclear whether he was feeling any pain, or what.

Mateo and Cecelia simply passed right through. “I thought the lake would take anyone who wanted to go. He looks ready to me.”

Cecelia shook her head. “You don’t need to whisper. It doesn’t matter what he hears. To answer your question, the lake is not the problem. He’s been banned from Fort Underhill. The color-coded levels you may recall from your first time here are defunct, but some people have more privileges than others.”

“Wait.” Mateo stopped. He looked back up the slight incline where the old man was still trying to force his way in. “Surely Sir Bro is not his real name.”

Cece giggled. “No, that’s just what he wants us to call him. I can’t remember what it was, though. It was something stupid, like Broken...or Braydeck.”

“Bronach?” Mateo questioned.

“Yeah, that’s it! Do you know him too?”

Mateo sighed. “Unfortunately.” He huffed and reluctantly headed back up the trail. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can, Mister Matic,” The Oaksent replied.

“Are you old, or do you just look old?”

“I’ve always been old.”

“How did you end up in this time period? You’re still alive, out there in the Goldilocks Corridor, as far as I know.”

“That is a quantum duplicate of me,” Bronach explained. “A piss-poor approximation, if you ask me, in fact.”

“What happens if you get through this obviously 100% impenetrable barrier, and get back there? Will you and your other self have words? Or worse?”

“He knows that I am the rightful heir to the empire. He’ll step down.”

Mateo looked over his shoulder at Cece, who didn’t know what to make of this interaction. “Goddammit,” he uttered as he was turning back around. He reached through the barrier, took Old!Bronach by the elbow, and pulled him through. “You owe me everything for this.”

“How did you do that?” Cece asked, stunned. “People have actually tried. They did exactly what you just did, but couldn’t make it work.”

“Being exempt from the rules that everyone else has to follow is sort of my thing.” Mateo continued to hold onto Bronach as he was dragging him towards the edgewater. “Do we have to take our clothes off, or something!” he shouted as they were stepping in.

“You’re not wearing any clothes!” Cece yelled back. That was technically true.

Mateo turned himself and Bronach around. “What do we do now!”

She stepped down closer so they wouldn’t have to yell anymore. “Wade out until the water reaches your chin, then just start to float. Whenever you’re ready...”

“Thanks, Cece,” Mateo replied. “And tell Keilix that I’m going to try to get a message back here with a little bit more info on what it’s like on the other side.”

“That’s very kind of you. We’ll be waiting,” she said with a smile.

“We’ve been waiting too long,” Leona said.

“Just be patient,” Romana replied. Since yesterday, the two of them had kind of flipped their reactions to this situation, with Leona growing ever anxious, and Romana becoming calmer.

“If she’s a pathfinder—which I had never heard of—shouldn’t our paths have crossed as soon as we got to this universe? Shouldn’t she have pretty much been waiting for us?”

“If you hadn’t heard of them before,” Romana began to reason, “how do you know how they operate?”

“They sound a whole lot like seers to me, and guiding people to the right place at the right time is their whole function in our society.”

“Perhaps it’s the right place, but not the right time,” Angela determined.

It was a long journey to get here, but it wasn’t too complicated. For the Rock diplomatic discussions on the Vellani Ambassador, General Bariq Medley and Judy Schmidt represented the copy of the main sequence that ended up in the Sixth Key. Due to some events that no one on Team Matic had any details on, Bariq and Judy ended up fostering two extremely powerful temporal manipulators. These children grew up, and evidently solved the resource distribution problem in their galaxy by creating a brand new universe. It was here that they could spread out, and not worry about who was going to get what. This was where Leona, Romana, and Angela were now, having crossed over through an transuniversal aperture conduit that was as well organized as the border between two countries. They didn’t travel to any place in particular, upon the advisement of Romana, who said wherever they went, the pathfinder would find them. She was very confident about this, even though this pathfinder probably couldn’t be in two places at once, and there were likely plenty of others who needed her assistance.

So now they were just waiting, unsure if anything was going to go their way, or if they were wasting time that could be used to find Mateo by other means. They were alone in this lounge, so whenever anyone happened to walk by, they would perk up their ears, and hope to see someone who could help. This time, it was a small group of men, so they slumped back in the couch. “Hey. Angela. Angela Walton?”

“Yeah. Do I know you?”

“It’s Pável!” the man said. “Pável Románov?”

“Oh, Pasha!” Angela said, standing up. They gave each other a familiar, but not overly affectionate, hug.

“This woman,” Pável said, looking back at Leona and Romana, as well as his own friends. “She saved my life. She did it after I was dead!”

“Oh, it wasn’t all that,” Angela insisted.

“No, it was everything. I heard you became a counselor.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” Pável responded. “Before it was her actual job to help people, she would volunteer to visit orange hockers in an attempt to rehabilitate them. I tell you, before I met Angie, I was a violent tyrant. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was sick in the head. My insane policies ultimately culminated in my assassination, after which I basically found myself in hell. I was locked up in a prison. We didn’t really understand computer simulations back then, but there was literally no escape. But she came to me, and got me out of it. She fixed me. And by the time the afterlife realm was taken down, I was a Level Six Plus Indigo.” He straightened up a bit, and stood there proudly. “I’m living proof that people can change, but I couldn’t have done it without her.”

“It’s nice to hear that, and it’s nice to see you again,” Angela told him.

“What are you doing here in The Eighth Choice?” Pável asked.

“We’re looking for a friend,” Angela answered. “What are you doing here? It’s pretty far from Fort Underhill.”

Pável smiled, prouder still. “The leadership from both universes are developing an immigration program. One day, people will be allowed to move freely through the conduits, and even establish permanent residency on the other side from where they were. I have familiarized myself with the design of the matrioshka bodies over here, and give tours as a sort of liaison.”

“That’s very interesting,” Angela said. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.” Pável looked back at his tourists. “Listen, I better get back to it, but here’s my quantum identifier. Call me if you’re ever in the neighborhood.” He beamed his contact information from his wristband to Angela’s EmergentSuit. She beamed hers back. “It was great seeing you again.”

“Yeah, same,” she said as he was walking away. “I probably haven’t seen that guy in over 300 years,” she added after he was out of earshot.

“I think you and Marie need to tell us more about your afterlife,” Leona decided. “You must have so many stories.”

“I have a few,” Angela acknowledged.

Just then, a woman came around the same corner Pável had. “All right. I’m ready to go now.”

“Are you the pathfinder?” Leona asked.

“Yes, she is,” Romana said. Now it was her turn to hug. “Leona, Angela. This is Jessie Falstaff. She’s our pathfinder.”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you,” Leona said. “Did you wait to come here so Angela could run into her old friend first?” She gestured in the direction of where Pável ran off to.

Jessie looked over in that direction on reflex. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Pathfinders aren’t seers. We don’t see what’s going to happen. We more just feel it. My gut told me to be here at this moment. If you lucked into having an encounter before then, I’m guessing that’s why I waited, but that’s not something I could have known. I don’t even know why I’m here now.”

“My husband—her father—is missing. His name is Mateo Matic.”

Jessie had been all right before—comfortable, and ready to help—but now her face sunk. She frowned, and looked down towards the floor. She also reached for her torso as if experiencing stomach cramps. “Oh,” she said in a breathy, strained voice.

“Oh, what?”

The look of horror on Jessie’s face only grew. “I think he’s dead.”

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The First Explorer

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When Debra Lesley Lovelace was a very young child, she lived in the most dangerous region of the human continent on Ansutah. The shore was visible from a shipping lane that the Maramon used to transport goods between their own territories. The white monsters were not aware that the humans were there, or anywhere on their world, and this was the most valuable secret in the universe. Colonization was forbidden on these lands, thanks to a sympathetic group of highly influential Maramon from the very early days who declared it sacred ground. The humans were able to remain an incredibly well-kept secret, even as their numbers grew into the billions over the course of thousands of years. Despite their own unsustainable numbers in modern times, most Maramon respected the boundaries devoutly, and did not dare go near the humans. Individually, however, this rule was sometimes broken. The crew of these ships that passed by would occasionally take a detour, and rest on Shining Beach. It was an ironic name, as it was always very foggy and grim.

It was the responsibility of the humans who lived in the area to make sure that this problem did not spiral out of control. There were superstitious rumors that landing on the continent would result in the death of the trespassers. So the humans could not simply hide out, and wait until the Maramon rowed back to their ship, to resume their journey. The warning had to be enforced. They made war. They had to, to protect everyone else living peacefully inland. Peacefully, blissfully ignorant, and safe. There were other stations on other shores, but this was the most trafficked, and the most dangerous. Debra learned to kill when she was three years old, and she killed her first Maramon when she was four. She knows how to use a gun, despite what these men might believe.

“I pegged you for my biggest fan.” Bronach Oaksent doesn’t look the least bit concerned. It’s just some middle-aged woman with a peashooter.

This is too much. She once admired him for his bravery and resilience, but her impression of him was foolish and naïve. Now that she’s standing up close, she realizes that he’s nothing like that. He’s been hoarding all this tech that the rest of them could have used on this lifeless planet. She can’t forgive him for it. The problem is, he doesn’t really know her, and probably wouldn’t care. So she has to make him. She has to incentivize him to apologize. “Don’t underestimate me!” she cries. They know nothing of her past as a Maramon Hunter. “I’m sick of everyone thinking they know who I am. But you never actually ask me about myself. You just make assumptions because maybe I complain a bit too much, and I don’t always take responsibility for my actions, and I find it easier to blame others for my problems! But you don’t know me! And it doesn’t give you the right to call me Airlock Karen!”

“Okay, okay,” Bronach replies in a condescending tone. He’s still not getting it.

She shakes the gun at him. “You could have made our lives a lot easier with your generator thing, but instead, you kept it to yourself! What kind of selfish son of a bitch are you? I mean, where do you get off?”

“It was a test,” Oaksent claims weakly.

“Oh, a test?” she mocks. “Test these bullets!” She fires the gun, but misses on purpose, because this is about teaching him a lesson, not killing him.

Her plan backfires, immediately, and almost literally. He pulls out his own weapon, and tries to shoot her, but misses too when a masked man appears out of nowhere, and blocks it with his body. He stumbles back, but doesn’t fall. He’s likely wearing body armor. Now, this is a real hero.

The mysterious kind rescuer removes his mask, and smiles back at her. It’s Elder, but clearly from the past, before he earned the moniker of Old Man. She has been such a bitch to him this whole time, and with good reason—might she add—but now she’s seeing him in a whole new light. Perhaps it’s the daring rescue, or the fact that she doesn’t like to go too long between being in love with someone. Or maybe it’s just that, unlike his duplicate a couple of meters away, he looks more her age. And maybe even...hot? This was clearly who he was before he became so annoying, self-important, and...and old.

“My white knight,” Debra says, under her breath, but still probably loud enough for all three of them to hear.

Hot!Elder lifts a small device in his hand, and hovers his thumb over a button on the top. “Oso gonplei nou ste odon.” He presses the button before anyone can stop him.

A flash of light blasts out of the temporal generator disguised as a mountain. A wave of energy flows through all of them. For a few seconds, other people are standing beside them. It’s not just random strangers, though. It’s them. They’ve been duplicated several times. Some are standing up, others are still on the ground. They’re all looking confused, and in those few seconds, Debra wonders which one of the other versions of her is the real her. Is she the real one? Is none of them? Is she even considering this right now, or imagining that she is?

While she’s in the middle of her existential crisis, a force begins to pull her away from the planet. She can feel herself being shredded like cheese, tugged in basically the same direction, but not in one piece. The planet falls away, as do the stars around her, which are stretching out to white streaks. A darkness begins to chomp on the front ends of the streaks, like a video game about dots that eat smaller dots. Before too long, it’s all black, though she can still feel herself being spirited away, and torn apart. Finally, it all stops. Now she’s just in the middle of nowhere, and apparently no longer has a body. She can’t feel anything, nor see anything but the infinite void. If this is death, it’s a pretty boring afterlife. She would like to speak to a manager.

Debra hangs here in the nothingness for an unknown period of time. It’s hell, it must be, so she needs to figure out where she went wrong. Sure, she wasn’t the best person in the biverse, but she always tried to help, and doesn’t that merit some consideration? Every complaint she made was done in the service of making the world a better place. If she asked for a tofu burger with no ketchup, and they put ketchup on it, who was it helping if she kept quiet? They can only get better if they know that they’re doing something wrong. But people were always getting pissy with her, and now she’s in this god-forsaken void. How is that fair?

It starts as a pinprick of light, in the corner of her eye. Well, she doesn’t have eyes anymore, but that’s how it seems anyway. She can’t force it to be fully in her field of vision. She can’t focus on it. She can’t focus on anything. Again, there’s no telling how long this lasts, but the point begins to grow. As it does so, it occurs to her that it’s not really an image. She’s not seeing anything. It’s more of an understanding. Yeah, that’s it. She’s gaining knowledge about the world around her, starting out with very little, but gaining more by the arbitrary unit of measurement. She realizes that she’s witnessing the big bang of the universe. She can feel the unimaginable density, the explosion of energy, and the expansion of space. It’s hotter than anything ever turns out to be in the future, and she can feel that, but of course it doesn’t hurt, because she doesn’t have a body anymore. The expansion continues, forming dust clouds, stars, and planets. Now she’s watching the whole history of reality, unfolding in her own mind. She starts to question this. Maybe she’s not just watching it happen. Maybe she’s making it happen. Maybe she is the universe. Maybe she’s God.

“You’re not the universe, and you’re not God.” It’s a voice. Did she hear it, or just become aware of it?

“Does it matter?” the voice replies.

“Who are you?”

“Aitchai,” the voice answers.

“Who am I?”

It waits a bit. “A baby aitchai.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am the energy that pervades all universes in the bulk. I am everything, everywhere, all at once. And you...are a few things, in one place, but also all at once.”

“I...still don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. I just found you in my pocket. You’ve not always been this way, as an ethereal energy construct?”

“Uh...no,” Debra says, not any less confused than before.

“Perhaps we could both corporealize to make this an easier conversation to have. Your mind is preoccupied watching the passage of time. You need to focus on one thing, so that one thing makes sense. Make sense?”

“Okay. Except I don’t know how to do that.”

“The trick is to want it. That’s the only ingredient. Imagine yourself with a body. I can’t really do it unless you do it too, or we would stop being able to understand each other, so I can’t show you what I mean. You just have to try.”

Debra is frustrated. This guy is being vague on purpose. She wants to scream, or at least calm herself down with a deep breath. And that’s what does it. Feeling the uncontrollable urge to have a physical reaction to this situation gives her the ability to make that happen. She has a body now, and so does he. Looks a bit like a nerd. She widens her eyes, afraid that he heard that thought of hers.

He’s stretching his neck and yawning at the same time. “It must feel a bit odd to you now, having a body, but feeling nothing. When you get good at it, like me, you’ll begin to replicate the rest of the normal sensations. Touch is the hardest, followed closely by smell.”

“I feel,” Debra contends. “I smell too, though I can’t describe it. I’ve never smelled this before.”

“Interesting,” Aitchai says. “I suppose you’re so new at it that your brain instinctively gave your senses back. Good on ya.”

“Great. Now tell me what this is. Are you...the manager?” It can’t be that simple, can it?

He laughs. “I suppose you could think of me in that way, but I would argue that I’m more like the infrastructure in this metaphor; the building. I am that exists. I control nothing.”

“But you could, if you wanted to. You could rewrite reality to your liking? You could destroy all, seed new life.”

He seems uncomfortable with these suggestions. “I could, yes. I don’t.”

“Wasted opportunity.”

“Says the baby,” Aitchai snaps back.

“What does that mean? Will I one day be as powerful as you, not confined to only one universe, or whatever?”

“No. I guess that’s a bad metaphor. You’re more like a pet. You’ll never be greater than you already are. It’s not something that you learn. It’s what I became when I was made, and you will always be what you became when you became it.”

“I should be offended,” Debra decides.

“That’s your human side talking. You’ll get over it one day.”

“Is time even real for beings like us?”

He nods. “That’s a common misconception, that time has no meaning beyond the boundaries of a brane. But the truth is that time matters more here than anywhere. It’s the only time that exists in its purest form. Yes, I feel time. I experience all of time.”

“You can’t expect me to be like you, sitting on the sidelines, changing nothing.”

Aitchai crosses his arms, balancing his chin on the base of his palm while his fingers are curled up against his cheek. Suddenly, he pulls his hand away, and snaps his fingers. They’re still in the void, but now standing underneath a huge stone fountain. Water is falling from the lip in a wide sheet, like the perfect waterfall. An empty swimming pool materializes underneath. They’re standing on the edge, watching the pool fill up slowly. He points at the fountain. “Change the shape of that water. Change how it falls into the pool.”

“Easy.” Debra reaches out, and sticks her arm through it. The water begins to cascade over her skin, and continues to fall into the pool where it belongs. She’s pretty clever. It may not have changed much, but it fulfills the requirement.

He looks down. “Hm. Nothing’s really changed,” he reasons. “It’s all still going in there. So, try to stop the water from going into the pool entirely.”

Debra smirks. He’s asking her to do something physical, but they are not in the physical world. This is all in their shared consciousness. The rules don’t apply here, not for the water, and not for anything else she’ll want to change about reality. She puts the fountain at her back, and lifts her hands up like a righteous evangelical. The water shifts directions, flowing over their heads, and falling onto the ground a few meters away from them. It’s not going into the pool anymore.

Aitchia doesn’t break eye contact with her. He waves his arm behind him, and materializes a second pool. The water begins to fall into that instead. “No significant change. The pool is identical.”

“That’s cheating.”

“I’m illustrating a point,” Aitchai begins. “It doesn’t matter where you put the water, it all ends the same. Sure, it’s mixed up differently. Different atoms bond to different partners, but who cares? It’s just water, falling into a meaningless pit. As I said, you will forget the old ways one day. You will stop seeing the atoms, and start seeing the pool. And then you’ll stop caring what happens to it. Trust me, I made plenty of changes before I noticed that nothing made any real difference. You’ll get there too.”

“Never.”

He smiles. “Okay, Karen.”

She hates that name. “You know more about me than you let on.”

“I am everything,” he echoes himself from before.

“I’m everything else,” she says with determination.

“Is that what you want? You want me to give you the one brane, and stay out of it?” He sounds sincere.

“Would you?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On which brane we’re talking about. You got triplets.”

Debra looks away to focus on the passage of time again. She’s watching it all from the highest vantage point possible. The universe splits in two. One twin floats off away from the other, while the larger one splits a second time, but doesn’t let the third baby go. Hogarth Pudeyonavic. You know her too.”

“I do,” he confirms quietly.

“She’s as powerful as me.” Hogarth too was born from an explosion. It took her some time to figure them out, but once she did, she became one of the most powerful beings in the universe. She began to create, like a god, starting out small before moving on to more ambitious projects. A sister universe to her own was her most impressive creation. And that makes her a threat to Debra’s own power, whether she realizes it or not. “She’s a rival.”

“You don’t have to frame it that way. You can exist in harmony. This is not a competition.”

“She may have done what she did on her own, but her triplet is smaller.” Debra rewinds and zooms in to watch as Hogarth uses her vast scientific knowledge and cosmic powers to literally create an entire universe according to her own design. She calls it Fort Underhill for some reason. “I can take her.”

“You don’t have to frame it that way,” Aitchai repeats.

“Thank you, you can go now. I’ll take the big one.”

“Very well,” he concedes. You are now the new...Powers That Be.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 13, 2404

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Leona was done with her meeting, and ready to rejoin her husband and the Waltons. The other members of the Shortlist—and the audience—were going back to wherever they were using Pribadium’s special portal, which would reportedly adjust their arrival in such a way to prevent any sort of detrimental exchanging of information. The process of delivering them took so long that Leona had to stay one more night while everyone else went through. Plus, there was an issue with this method with her. As an incentive to get her to participate in the meeting, Team Keshida graciously donated one of their several ships to her and her team. The Phoenix was a magnificent vessel, and the one reason why she wasn’t really all that upset about having to wait her turn. She wanted to familiarize herself with it first before she went off to find her people. What she didn’t know was how she was going to do that. The Phoenix would probably just stay here while she stepped through the portal, which was presumably going to send her to the future first. It certainly wouldn’t fit through along with her.

“Yes, it will,” Ishida claimed. Everyone else was gone by now. All that remained now were her, Kestral, and the residents of their host system of Altair, which weren’t going anywhere.

“How is that possible?” Leona asked.

“How was Ramses able to carry a copy of the AOC in his pocket?”

“He wasn’t carrying the ship itself. It’s more that he was pulling a copy of it from another dimension. It’s very complicated stuff, I’m not sure I understand it myself.”

“You don’t have to. We were inspired by him. And Hank Pym. And Doctor Who. You’ll understand enough when I show you how to use the Coffer.”

“That sounds ominous.”

Ishida teleported them to the Phoenix, inside the hangar bay of the Jameela Jamil, specifically to a section that Leona hadn’t seen yet. As far as starships went, it wasn’t the absolute largest ever built, but there was so much to see on the bridge, and in engineering. “The is the coffer sector. It is in the very center of the ship, and the most important chamber in the whole thing. It’s the heart, the soul, the body itself. Destroy this, and destroy everything. Protect it, and you can’t lose.”

“You mentioned this. It can resurrect the ship if it’s destroyed?”

“It does more than that.” Ishida reached up towards a camera, and flicked her wrist away from it. A heavy vault door swung open in the same direction. “The vault is impenetrable to all forms of teleportation, even your own. In an emergency, you can jump to just outside the door, but then you’ll have to open it. The security system is completely closed. The AI that runs the rest of the vessel will have absolutely no control over any of this. The antechamber we’re in right now even runs on a separate life support system.” Ishida forced the door open enough for them to slip through.

There wasn’t much to it. The ceilings were coffered, which was probably more of a design joke. There weren’t any controls, or chairs, or anything. The only interesting object in here was a pedestal sitting in the center. A hologram of the Phoenix hovered above it, slowly turning counter clockwise. It wasn’t directly above the pedestal, though. Between them lay what looked like a simple beige mat with black edges. It was creased to six sections. Ishida approached it. “This is the Coffer. And this...” she began, holding up her tablet, showing a security feed from the hangar bay. “...is the Phoenix from the outside.” She reached out and lifted one of the sections of the mat until it was standing upright on its own. The hologram flicked so that the bow was facing one direction. The stern, meanwhile, disappeared completely. As it did so, the actual stern as seen on the feed disappeared as well. When Ishida lifted the opposite section of the mat, the bow disappeared too. The same thing happened to the starboard side, and finally the port side. Now all that remained was the little room they were standing in.

Leona looked outside the vault door to see that they were floating in midair. “Trippy. Transdimensional gravity?”

“Yes,” Ishida answered, “but as soon as I close this, we’re gonna fall. So if you do that, either be in the middle of space in a vacuum suit, or be able to teleport to safety.”

Leona nodded and admired the coffer. “Do it.”

“No,” Ishida said. “You do it.”

Leona smiled. She took Ishida’s hand in her own, then used the other hand to lift the lid, and slap it shut, grabbing the handle at the last second before the floor disappeared from under them. Ishida jumped them safely to the floor below. Leona shook her fancy new briefcase. “Ship in a box. Clever girl.”

“One more thing.” Ishida looked nervous to say more.

“Oh, no.”

“I’ve brought up the AI, but it doesn’t have an AI at the moment. The position has been filled, but the candidate has not yet begun.”

“Who’s the AI?” Leona questioned. “And why are you afraid to tell me?”

“Follow me.” She started to walk towards a maintenance station. “I have an idea of what happened to you while you were in the Third Rail. I don’t have the details, but I know that you butt heads with Danica, and everyone else in that version of the Constant. We have been in contact with them in recent days, though, and the Concierge would like to start a new chapter, which means that the old one must be closed. She asked me to take someone off her hands. She acted like it was more of a burden than a gift.”

Leona realized who she was talking about. “Constance.”

Ishida removed what looked like a kettlebell from a toolbox. “Yes. She asked me to make sure that Constance!Three was kept...constantly active. Apparently this particular program can become evil when left dormant?”

“Yes,” Leona agreed, “I’ve seen it.”

“Are you okay with this? It may be a little awkward, but I feel like you’re the best qualified to handle the responsibility.”

Leona accepted the kettlebell drive. She shook it and the Coffer at the same time, as if testing their weight. “You’re right. We’re the only ones who can do it. We can’t run the ship on our own.”

“I can take you to the Pribadium portal.”

“I think I’ll walk; get a few steps in for my health. Thank you for this, Ishida. Thank Kestral for me too.”

Ishida nodded. “Bye, Leona. We’ll see each other again.”

Leona walked clear across the habitat until she reached the portal. She was wrong; they weren’t the only three time travelers left here. Thor was still manning his station. He lifted his watch to his lips. “The Eagle is about to fly.”

Leona stopped in front of him to give him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll show you an eagle.” She turned to face the portal, and released a hologram of a gigantic eagle on her head and shoulders, flapping its wings. She couldn’t make it cry, but it looked awesome. What Thor probably couldn’t tell was that it was Eagly. She stepped through the portal with her bird, and a smile that no one could see, and left this world.

When she stepped out, she found herself in the huge ballroom of a hotel. Angela was the first to notice her, but it didn’t register right away. She looked up from her tablet, then had to blink and take herself aback. “She’s here. Leona’s here!”

Marie sat up from the couch that was facing the other direction. Mateo appeared from around a corner. “Oh, good!” He exclaimed. He ran over and tried to give her a hug, but the two heavy objects that she was carrying made that difficult. He took them from her one by one, and carefully laid them on the floor, not knowing what they were. Then he was able to get that hug, as were Marie and Angela.

“Tell us everything,” Marie asked.

“I will, but where are we, and is it secure?”

“We’re on the tallest mountain of a planet called Violkomin. Hogarth built it. Or rather, her staff did. Apparently I wasn’t the first person to be resurrected from the afterlife simulation. A number of world-builders were brought back in order to use their skills to design and construct entire planets in base reality. But this is not Salmonverse; it’s a separate universe that’s attached to ours, and the facility we’re in serves as a dividing line between the two halves of it, the other being what we’ve been calling—”

“The Sixth Key, yeah. Makes sense.”

“Does it, though?” Angela questioned.

“We have a present for you,” Marie said excitedly. “It’s in the bathroom, I think.”

“Is it Ramses?” Leona asked.

“No, but he is alive,” Mateo confirmed.

“I saw him too.”

Just then, none other than Olimpia Sangster rounded the same corner that Mateo had. “Lee-Lee!” She ran forward, but didn’t get far before she decided to teleport to cover the rest of the distance. She practically knocked Leona over when she tackled her. They held onto each other for a long time before letting go.

Leona smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. The team was almost whole again. They were still missing one team member, and since all five of them saw him alive and well, there should be nothing keeping him from returning to any particular moment. Perhaps some force was keeping him away on purpose as a tool to maintain simpatico.

“Aww,” Mateo said. He regarded her sadly for a moment. “What are those?”

Leona reached down. “This is a whole spaceship called the Phoenix. It has true faster-than-light capabilities, and a whole lot more. This is Constance!Three. We need her to run the ship.”

“Okay.” Mateo spoke with his hands. “How do we get the ship out of the box?”

“Simple.” She handed it to him. “Teleport it as far as you can in one jump, and open it.” She gestured towards the girls. “Once life support kicks on, the rest of us will jump inside. I mean, we could all open it together, but I’ll die in space in this body.”

“I’ll help with that when I get back.” It was Ramses, walking towards the group. He snagged the kettlebell drive that was currently housing Constance!Three out of Leona’s hand. “I’ll come back with her too.”

“Ram, what are you doing, and why can’t you tell us?” Leona asked.

“Careful,” he said in an English accent with a smirk. “Spoilers.” He made a fist like Thanos, but instead of a gauntlet, he squeezed his metal beads, and disappeared.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 12, 2403

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Moray McIver was one of the first students accepted into an experimental time school that existed inside of a time bubble, which accelerated the age of everyone within by several years for every year outside. While this was happening, legislation was passed to ban such use of these new time powers that people were suddenly experiencing. Most countries created entirely new branches of law enforcement in order to regulate the salmon and choosing ones of the Third Rail Earth, but the only one that really mattered was the Temporal Police Force in the United States. It wasn’t a particularly original name, and its mandate was different than what one may find in stories, but the majority of people with abilities lived in and around Arvazna. The U.S. and Arvaznian governments worked closely together to allow passage back and forth between the border since the Superscraper was nowhere near self-reliant. To make this work, the TPF had to enjoy the same freedom of movement in a jurisdictional sense.

Right now, Moray was leading Mateo, Angela, and Marie up to the ship that was going to take them to the planet of Violkomin, which was a corruption of the German word for welcome. The group was not invisible, per se, but they could not be seen as they wandered through the crowd. They were passing through a special spatial dimension that Moray created for them. Or rather he opened it, because it was always there, just beyond the reach of normal man. As far as parallel dimensions went, it could be considered the closest one to normal space. Slipping into it was trivially easy if you knew that it was there, and where specifically it was. Slipping out of it was also easy to do accidentally, which is why they had to stay with Moray at all times. Only he could see the exact pathway that they needed to take in order to stay within bounds.

“They’re working on technology to detect things like this,” Adult!Moray explained to them as they were snaking their way forward. “They’re...struggling with it.”

Mateo laughed. “Yeah, what you’re talking about is a disturbance detector, and only a few temporal objects can do it, like the Compass of Disturbance, and the HG Goggles. Whoever is looking into it is probably severely underestimating how difficult it is. If it were easy, we would have tons of them already.”

“Good,” Moray replied. “It’s an invasion of privacy. Most citizens are against.”

“Can people hear us?” Angela asked. “Because we can hear them. Sort of.”

“Under standard circumstances,” Moray began, “yes. Sound freely passes through the dimensional barrier, almost completely unencumbered, in both directions. However, I’m actively shunting the soundwaves elsewhere. If someone were underwater in the middle of a particular spot in the ocean, they might be able to hear us. The downside is the sound from the people around us is muffled. Maybe nothing to be done about that. It’s a tradeoff. A friend of mine is working on a workaround for me, though. She’s a temporal inventor, and she’s trying to design what’s basically a fancy hearing aid so I can spy on people from inside.”

“Oh,” Mateo said. “Her name wouldn’t happen to be Holly Blue, would it?” Perhaps they never really knew her origins.

“No,” Moray answered laughing. “Why? Who is that?”

“She’s the only inventor we know whose time power is inventing, instead of just being smart enough to do it.”

“Ah, I see. No, her name is Iona.”

“Is there something between you and this little inventor?” Marie asked, smiling. “It looks like you’re blushing.”

“No, I turned out to be gay,” Moray clarified. “I may or may not be blushing about her brother, Thurstan, who may or may not be a little too old for me.” That’s why I’ve been trying to get back into that time bubble.”

“Don’t do that,” Mateo suggested. “Just let time pass as it’s meant to. I’ve been in a few bubbles myself. No matter whether it’s slower or faster, you always come out feeling like you’ve missed something important.”

“That’s true. We’re here,” Moray said. The instruction on the door said to pull it, but he pushed, and moved it out of the way. Physical obstructions in the main dimension did have some kind of effect on the pocket dimension, but not always in the way they should, which was why they weren’t constantly bumping into people who couldn’t see that they were on the sidewalk with them. This was why Moray spent so much time in the bubble school, so he could learn to see a brand new geometry that a normal person couldn’t even fathom. Evidently, there was more he could do with this besides sneaking around. They snuck up to the launchpad.

They climbed the stairs to get all the way to the top, because Moray said that elevators were complicated. They decided to watch the launch in secret from the bridge. The crew was well-organized, but a little unpolished in their duties. It was understandable as all of this technology came as a giant leap in advancement, rather than a natural progression. These people had to learn their jobs in a short time frame. A few of them might have been part of their own time school bubble, but if these rumors were true, it was a different bubble than the one that Moray studied in.

Even with the issues, they launched the ship successfully, and kept everyone safe during the trip to Violkomin. From this region of space, traveling the long way around, using this vessel’s engine, was threatening to take a matter of years. Fortunately, the less violent majority of the Parallel decided to place supernexa near each version of Earth for shortcuts. These were not as large as the meganexa that they were still keeping to themselves, but more than enough for this diplomatic ship. What they could really use was the regular Nexus in Antarctica, but internal Third Rail sociopolitics prevented any one country from even stepping foot on Antarctican snow until the Global Council could renegotiate the treaties that dictated its usage.

For now, the supernexus was the only option for interplanetary travel for Third Railers and Fourth Quadrant dwellers, but it was not convenient. The Parallel didn’t place it near Earth. It was orbiting inside of the Oort Cloud, about 10,000 astronomical units away. At maximum speed, it would have taken them two hours to arrive. Out of fear, they didn’t push the ship that hard, so it took six hours. But once they were there, they were pretty much at Violkomin, because the supernexus of egress was built by the literal architects of the planet, who felt no need to make this whole thing a game.

“We’re close enough, we can take it from here,” Mateo said, now that they were well within teleporter range.

Captain Stefan Holland perked up. “Who was that?”

“Oh, shit,” Moray whispered. It was weird to hear him curse, but he was an adult now. He waved his arms around. “I forgot to hold the sonic dampener.”

A random crewmember reached over, and pressed a big mauve button near the exit. The door dropped down, the lights also turned mauve, and everyone got into defensive positions.

“Who is here?” Captain Holland asked again.

Moray held his finger against his lips to keep everyone quiet.

“No,” Mateo said. “Get me out of here.”

“It should be fine now. Just be extra quiet,” Moray continued to whisper.

“I need an exit,” Mateo maintained.

Moray sighed, and reached over to pull back the invisible curtain that separated the pocket dimension from everything else. Mateo ducked through it, and held up his hands. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

“A stowaway,” the Captain noted. “Put him in hock.”

“No, you can’t do that,” Mateo told them. “We have to get to Violkomin, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“We? Where are the others?”

Moray dropped the barrier, and revealed the other three.

I was going to tell them I meant the royal we.”

“We can talk about toilet kings another day, Moray reasoned, unwittingly confused. “We stick together.”

“Take them all to hock,” Holland decided.

“Wait,” Mateo stopped the guards from approaching. “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Captain Holland.

“Not you.”

“Yes,” Angela agreed. “It’s her.”

“I feel her too,” Marie said.

“She’s not on the planet.”

“No, but she’s close.”

“Whatever you’re talking about, you can continue talking about it from the other side of a cell. No more delays. No more resisting.” The Captain had had enough.

“I do too,” Moray claimed.

“You what? You feel Olimpia?”

“I feel...a disturbance in the force. She’s not out here. She’s in another dimension. Not my dimension, but similar.”

“Can you get her out?” Mateo asked.

“Not from here. But we can work together. One of you teleport me to her, and I’ll free her. But I’ll need a vacuum suit.”

“Yes. Sir, where are your vacuum suits?”

“We are not accommodating you,” Captain Holland argued.

“Right. I’ll find them myself.” Mateo took Moray by the hand, and started jumping around the ship until he found the airlock. Every time someone came up to stop them from getting what they needed, he would transport them to the other side of the vessel. Angela and Marie showed up soon to do the same. They kept working until Moray was protected and ready. They focused on the location of the empathic bond they shared with Olimpia, and made another jump, this time to the middle of space. She was floating there in a translucent cocoon of folded space, eyes closed, and trapped in the pocket dimension.

Moray reached for her, and pulled her all the way through to empty space. She woke up and tried to breathe, but found herself unable to. Fortunately, the few seconds she spent out in the black was nowhere enough to kill her. Mateo grabbed her in relief, and jumped the both of them down to the planet. Angela and Marie followed closely with Moray.

Once Mateo was sure that Olimpia wasn’t hurt, and wouldn’t need any medical attention, he hugged her again, and then started kissing her all over her face. “Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah!”

Angela and Marie did the same. “Oh my God,” Olimpia exclaimed. How long has it been for you?”

“Over a year,” Angela answered.

“Four years for me,” Marie spoke for herself.

“Aww.” Olimpia gave her an extra hug. “It’s only been a couple days for me,” she explained when it was over. And they were awful. I think I was unconscious for the few days after that, though.”

“We had no idea where you were” Mateo began, “until we heard of the Sixth Key, but even then, it was a long time before we had an opportunity to come here. We’re so lucky to have found you when we did.”

“Score one for Ramses and his empathy upgrade,” Marie mused.

“Yeah, where’s he? Where’s Leona?”

“He has a mission, she has a meeting. They’ll find their way back to us later. We’ll explain everything, but first, what about you? How have you been?”

They heard someone approaching from around the corner. They hadn’t paid much attention to where they were. It was just kind of a big open room; maybe a hotel ballroom. It was Lowell Benton who appeared from the hallway. “Oh. Are you part of the diplomatic team?”

“Lowell?” Angela asked, shocked to see him here. “Are you in charge of this whole place? All by yourself?”

Well...Hogarth is supposed to be back from her little meeting, but she’s not returned yet, and I don’t know why. Ellie’s there too. I’ve been holding down the fort, but you know...I’m not great at diplomacy. I really shouldn’t be the only one here, but funny enough, the other meeting people didn’t want a serial killer crashing their party.”

“What?” Moray asked.

“He’s reformed.”

“I’m powerless,” Lowell said. “I died and was resurrected without my ability to witness past evil deeds. You have no idea how good that feels. You take your ignorance for granted. And who is this, by the way?”

“A new friend.” Mateo pointed accordingly. “Lowell Benton, this is Olimpia Sangster, and this is Moray McIver. Moray, Olimpia, this is Lowell.”

“I see. And why are there two Angelas now?”

“I’m Marie. It’s a long story.”

“I see again. I do not have time for it. I have to figure out what I’m gonna do about these diplomatic officials coming from the Third Rail.”

“I’m afraid we can’t help. We’re back on our pattern, so we’ll disappear tonight.”

“Plus, the bridge crew doesn’t like us,” Moray pointed out.

“Can you get us to the Nexus?” Mateo asked.

“I can’t do that.” He turned his face to stare ominously over at the wall. “It’s on the other side,” he said in an eerily quiet voice. “It’s on the other side,” he said even quieter.

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