Extremus: Year 121

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Waldemar Kristiansen is going to whip this ship into tip-top shipshape, and that’s his private guarantee. The turn of phrase makes him giggle, but he doesn’t say it out loud to others. He doesn’t really say anything about it. He’s just going to make it happen, and people are going to accept his changes, whether they like them or not. Or they’ll die fighting it. He just needs to get out of this locked room first. Sure, he’s been in here for several months now, and he has not found any chance to escape yet, but he will. He’ll figure it out. He comes out on top. That’s his real job. That’s why he’s the captain, even though someone else has been masquerading as him since he won the competition for the chair.

Pronastus Kegrigia flashes back into the room after two weeks of no contact. “How’s tricks, my old friend?” he asks in that annoying speedvoice he uses. The guy doesn’t even try to slow his voice down so it sounds more normal to Waldemar.

“Let me out,” Waldemar says simply. It doesn’t feel like he’s talking slowly, but he knows that he is, and he can see how bored Pronastus gets while he’s waiting for him to finish what should be a quick and easy sentence. He recognizes that impatience. He has seen and felt it in himself. Pronastus is wearing his face, and he’s not using it right!

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Okay, that line was too fast. Waldemar could barely parse it. “Just be glad that I didn’t kill you.”

“You still need me,” Waldemar reasons. “You need me to tell you how to act like me. I’m not afraid of you.”

“I won’t need that for much longer,” Pronastus contends. “I only kept you alive to make a smooth transition to your new personality. I needed to start out with a familiar baseline, so people won’t detect a sudden shift in behavior, and grow suspicious, but I’m just about where I wanna be. Admiral Jennings is wary of me. I can’t tell whether that’s because he suspects that I’ve stolen your likeness, or he just knows that you’re a grade A asshole, and I’m stuck with your terrible reputation until I can slowly change people’s minds. That’s what the new personality is for.”

“I am not an asshole, I am the best this ship has to offer. I am not burdened by things like emotion or personal attachments. I only care about the success of the mission. If you will just let me have my life back, I will do a thousand times better than you ever could with my clone.”

“You’ll never get the chance,” Pronastus argues. “You won’t understand this, but I am doing everyone a favor by taking your place, including you. There are things I know about the future. You would have been absolutely miserable, and you would have made everyone else miserable trying to find happiness. Waldy, you can’t be happy. You’re neurologically incapable of it. I doubt you can even grasp the concept. Just stay in your slowmo world, and wait for the mercy of my bullet once I’m finally finished with you.”

“People will notice,” Waldemar tries to say. “Silveon knows me better than anyone. He knows what my brain struggles with. He’s the one who taught me how to act more like an emotional being. When he gets back, he won’t be fooled by you, no matter how gradually you change.” He intentionally didn’t mention his wife, Audrey, who also knows the real Waldemar, and won’t long be fooled by this impostor. Waldemar doesn’t love her, because he doesn’t understand what love is, but he is committed to her, and he genuinely doesn’t want harm to come to her. Pronastus better not be touching her.

Pronastus sighs, but sped up, it kind of sounds more like a cough, which Waldemar finds humorous. “I debated whether I would tell you, but now that I’m confident in the effectiveness of this timehock, I might as well be honest. Silveon doesn’t know anything anymore. Silveon is dead. He knew too much about me, so I had to kill him. He did not leave for an away mission on the Perran Thatch to get his mind off of his parents after they died. He’s been dead the whole time. It happened within minutes. They actually saw each other briefly in The Buffer. It really messed with their heads.”

Waldemar begins to seethe. He doesn’t love Silveon either, but he has been a good friend. He knew what Waldemar was. He knew that he was different, and didn’t feel things like the other kids. But he didn’t run away. He didn’t even just uncomfortably accept Waldemar’s differences. No, Silveon has been his greatest supporter since they were children, and actively put in the effort to make him a better man. It worked. Without Silvy, Waldemar would be an absolute piece of shit. He’s still not a hopeless romantic, but he recognizes the value in others, and that he should treat them with respect, because that’s what people expect out of him. Waldemar would not have become captain without Silveon’s personal sacrifices. He deserved so much better than this. In anger, Waldemar lunges for Pronastus, but as always, he misses. He’s too slow.

Pronastus smirks, and casually steps out of the line of fire. “Good job, buddy!” he jokes. “You almost got me this time, you’re getting faster.”

It’s true. Waldemar has been spending most of his time here improving his speed. If he can learn to move extremely fast, it might be enough to get him on the same level as this jerk.

Pronastus checks his watch. “I’ll have to get you another dose of the timesuck, and increase the potency so you’ll go even slower than before.”

“That will be even more frustrating for you,” Waldemar argues. “You grow impatient with how long it takes me to talk now. If you slow that down even more, our conversations will take forever. You’ll go mad.”

“I’ll live,” he defends. “You won’t.” He races towards the other door. He is annoyingly smart. The first time he came back, Waldemar tried to wait by the door to attack him and escape, but instead, Pronastus simply used the second entrance. He will always use the door farthest from Waldemar. There doesn’t seem to be any weakness to exploit. “Goodbye, Waldemar Kristiansen. I’ll be back at some later date.” He points to the food synthesizer, which he modified to only produce slop. “Better ration your meals from now on. As punishment for trying to hit me yet again, I’m not gonna refill the feedstock today. Good luck with that.” He leaves.

Waldemar sighs, defeated once more. Surprisingly, the first door begins to open again. Did Pronastus really just run down the hallway so he could come back? Waldemar happens to be standing next to it right now. That’s the whole point. He’s not that stupid, is he? No, he’s not, because it’s not Pronastus at all. It’s Silveon. “He told me you were dead. He took credit for your murder.”

“He deserves credit,” Silveon says. He sounds normal. His voice isn’t sped up at all. He’s really good at slowing down to match Waldemar’s slowmo mode. But why would he even think to do that? How did he find him?

“How did you find me?”

“I followed Pronastus,” Silveon replies as he’s rolling up Waldemar’s sleeve, and cleaning the skin with an alcohol pad.

The smell sickens him. His mother drank. He hated her. He hated her so much. Hate is one emotion that he can get behind. He turns his nose away so he can breathe.

“For a pathfinder, he sure is bad at spotting a tail,” Silveon goes on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. I had to make preparations first.” He’s sliding a rubber band up Waldemar’s arm now, and tightening it above his elbow.

“Not that I mind, but what exactly are you doing?”

“Fixing you,” Silveon answers. He takes a syringe out of his pocket. Slips the cap off with his lips, which he spits out onto the floor, and injects Waldemar with something.

Months ago, after a doppelgänger abducted Waldemar, and injected him with the timesuck, the effects hit him immediately, but they didn’t affect his body evenly, and not even instantly permanently. His heart felt like it was racing while his arms felt like they were swinging through molasses. His legs felt okay for a moment, but then his heart slew down more than ever. The image on the news erratically changed speeds as his brain was trying to figure out whether it was supposed to be framejacking or framelagging. This is all happening again now, about the same as before, but hopefully to more favorable results.

Silveon shows him a handheld fan. “Focus on this.”

Like the broadcast before, the fan keeps changing speeds. It sometimes looks like it’s running in reverse, and sometimes moving in slow-motion. After a minute or so, it settles into a more reasonable speed. “Okay, I think I’m okay.” Waldemar takes a step back, and performs some deliberate movements. He shakes his arms, kicks his legs, and jumps up and down a little. To him, when he was on the timesuck, everything felt normal; at least that’s what he believed. But unlike how it would be if this were a timesuck room, there was a biological component to the drug. He didn’t realize he was so stiff and held down until this moment, now that he can finally move about at normal speed. “That feels a lot better.”

“So you feel all right?” Silveon presses.

“Yeah, it’s fine. What you said earlier, did Pronastus kill you, or not?”

“He killed me all right, and I recall being dead, but I don’t have any details. All I know is that someone had the power to send me back, and they agreed to do so. I don’t know who it was, or anything else about it. I just know that they had to give me a clone body.” He pulls his cheek down. “My scar’s gone. See?”

Waldemar looks, but then frowns and turns away. He’s the one who gave Silveon the scar in the first place. When Waldemar was still quite young, and Silveon was even younger, it was the latter’s birthday. Waldemar had seen videos from the grand repository of entertainment of pranks where people slammed their friends’ faces into birthday cakes. But he screwed up, and a candle ended up being lodged in Silveon’s eye. The doctor made the necessary repairs to the eyeball itself, but it was days before anyone noticed an untreated secondary wound on the skin that had to heal on its own. It left a permanent mark on Silveon’s face, which could typically only be seen when you looked closely, but also sometimes under the right lighting, at the right angle. Waldemar is particularly adept at clocking it since he was the one who made it.

“Hey,” Silveon says in an assuring voice. “It’s okay. And it’s fixed now. My original body is gone. Probably stuffed into an incinerator. It’s like it never happened.”

“Except it did.”

“That’s good,” Silveon encourages. “That’s called guilt. We talked about that, remember? And this...” He waves his hand around his face. “This is forgiveness.”

He knows. “I remember guilt,” Waldemar acknowledges, “and forgiveness. I don’t need the flash cards anymore. I remember gratitude too, though I still don’t know if my face is capable of showing it, so to clear any uncertainty, let me say...thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Silveon replies. A genuinely good guy. Waldemar sometimes wishes he could be him, but also likes his own efficiency and resilience.

“Now. Where is he?”

“He’s probably back on the bridge,” Silveon begins. “Now, I have a plan to put you back where you belong without anyone ever knowing that it happened. What we’ll do is—”

“No, don’t worry about that. The plan is simple, and I’ll take care of it. You’ve done your part. Thank you again.”

“Waldemar, you can’t kill him. We’ve been over this.”

“No, I’m not gonna kill him. Is that what you’re worried about? You should have more faith in me. You’ve taught me a lot over the years. But this right here is captain’s business, and you don’t have clearance. I’m not going to give you any details, but I assure you, I won’t be murdering anyone. The next time you see me, it will be me again. We’ll come up with trust passwords so you’ll know I’m legit, but I don’t want to do that here, because he might be watching.”

Waldemar and Silveon leave the room to create their shared password to avoid any identification failures. The former then uses his biometrics to enter the Captain’s Stateroom. He has never stepped foot in this unit before, and it has been a long time coming. Audrey is there. “Good morning, wife.”

“It’s the afternoon,” she says.

“Right.”

“Didn’t you have work to do in engineering today? thought it would take all day.”

“When was the last time we had sex?”

“What?”

“When was the last time we had sex, or did anything sexual, really?”

“It was this morning,” she replies. “Did you genuinely forget, or are you mad about something, and trying to pick a fight with me?”

“It’s nothing like that.” He takes both of her hands in his. “I will explain everything, but you have the right to know that you were violated. That was not me, but an impostor.”

Audrey gulps, and stiffens her upper lip. “I understand. I mean...I don’t understand, but I understand.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go take care of something, and then we’ll have dinner together.”

“Okay,” she agrees solemnly. He has said things like this before. She’s a good girl. She knows not to ask questions, argue, or get in his way.

It takes weeks to find him, but Waldemar employs his secret police, and Pronastus eventually runs out of paths where he eludes the might of the true Captain of Extremus. The two of them are back in timehock, but their roles are reversed.

Pronastus is now moving too slowly to get out of his predicament, or fight back. “I have an advantage, though. I see the way forward. I will legitimately find a way.”

“Good luck with that,” Waldemar snaps back. “Unlike you, I’m not without mercy. You kept me in here for six months, I’ll only keep you here for three.”

“And then what? You’ll kill me?”

Waldemar chuckles. “No. Then your real torture begins.”

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Microstory 2569: Second Voldisil

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I was the first Voldisil to step forward after Landis Tipton started the trend. Some of us have tried to reach out to him since, but he doesn’t seem interested. Or at least his people don’t, because they keep saying no. First of all, you have to understand that we are not superheroes. No one is flying around in the sky, or turning invisible, or shooting fire out of their hands. I know one young Voldisil who has access to certain information regarding what I’ll simplify and call the multiverse. Out there, on other worlds, there actually are people with some obvious and overt powers. They are usually the mutants, because the things that they can do are sourced from their bodies. There are also witches, who control their abilities via their minds, because something is special about their neurology. Their abilities can also be quite apparent, but still not as conspicuous as mutants. Voldisil belong to the third class, known as spirits. We’re not the only spirits in the multiverse, we’re just the ones who live here. Our gifts come from our souls. Yes, can confirm, souls are real. It’s not just an abstract synonym for the mind—it’s a separate thing, which completes the trinity that is a living being. Your soul is responsible for your emotions, and grants access to the fabric of the universe as it pertains to other living creatures. We’re all connected, and we make these connections through what essentially boils down to another dimension. And that brings me to what my Voldisil gift is. I can sense the spirit dimension. To put it another way, I can feel your soul, and I can tell how you’re linked to everyone else.

For the most part, Voldisil stick to themselves, unless they happen to meet someone who they feel they can trust with their truth, or someone who is also a Voldisil who feels a sufficient level of trust. As I’ve said, our gifts are not clear. They are abstract, ethereal, unreliable, and even vague. You can’t just film someone using their Voldisil gift, and send that footage to a news outlet. It would have been tough for any of us to prove what we could do. Landis found a way, but he only did it by using his gift—specifically, his healing ability—over and over again. If he had only done it once, most of you would have brushed it off as a stunt. If he had sprouted blue wings, and flown over a sports stadium, well, that would have been a different story. The rest of us couldn’t demonstrate in the way that he did. As a soul-searcher, I have been able to find other Voldisil, and have consensually built a sort of support network, which is unprecedented in history, to my knowledge. I don’t know how long Voldisil have been around, but I know where we come from, and I happily explained it in my book, which you can find for free in the link below. You should know that we are out there, but not all of us want to be in the public eye. Some that I have found didn’t even want to be part of the network, and we should all respect their wishes. We’ve been working to try to make the world a better place in our own small ways, and inspired by Landis, I hope we can ramp up our efforts to make far more substantive changes. But we can’t do it without your help. You have to want things to change. So let’s start a dialogue. We can’t knock a train over that’s about to hit a child stuck on the tracks, but we can help. We’re sorry to have kept you in the dark for so long, but we’re ready now. We’re listening now. What do you need?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 17, 2530

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Séarlas and Franka were not Mateo and Leona’s children, but Mateo and Leona were their once-parents, and no one knew how to feel about that. A version of the two of them had twins in another timeline, but neither of them had memories of that. This Leona lost her babies in a terrible tragedy on an interplanetary ship that was breaking apart. They didn’t talk about it anymore, and she never said it out loud, but those were her kids, and the only way for her to get through the sadness was to believe that. The living Séarlas and Franka were some of the first people they saw when they started traveling through time, and had anticipated their births for years, only to have that dream pulled away from them. Them being here right now wasn’t some way of getting it back. It was just confusing and uncomfortable. That was why Mateo never pushed for a relationship with Aura or Mario. Neither of them raised him, nor even conceived him. To them, it had never happened, and trying to force a connection was worse than pretending there was nothing there at all, and just trying to be decent friends. The question was, what did these two think? Did they see it the same way?

“We don’t expect hugs from you,” Franka went on after letting the shock of the development run its course for a few moments.

“Hold on.” Ramses materialized some kind of little tool in his hand. “Do you mind?” he asked vaguely, holding it between him and the twins.

“Do what you must,” Franka agreed, pulling up her sleeve, and nodding for her brother to do the same.

Ramses used the tool to extract small samples from them. “I already have your DNA on file,” he said to Mateo and Leona while they waited for about fifteen seconds. It beeped. “I’m seeing a 92% familial match. That would be low confidence for today’s technology, but substrate variance would account for the difference. You two still have the core DNA that you were born with, but I spliced in some extra code.”

“So, they are our genetic children,” Mateo asked to confirm.

“Their bodies are,” Ramses clarified. “I have no idea about their minds. I never did figure out how to build a simpatico detector, not that that’s exactly what we’re after.”

“I see that our tactics have bred distrust between us,” Franka acknowledged.

“Ya think?” Olimpia asked. If these two could be categorized as Mateo and Leona’s kids, she would be their stepmother.

“Why do you think we took so long to introduce ourselves to you?” Pacey—no, Séarlas prompted.

“I’m guessing that you tried to do it earlier in other timelines, but it always went poorly,” Leona figured.

Franka smirked. “Yeah, you definitely get your intelligence from her.”

Mateo looked at Franka. “And you? You got my stupidity?”

Séarlas shook his head disapprovingly. “Your instincts. She got your instincts and intuition. You may not be as educated, and you may not have much interest in improving that, but you are the one who steers the team; not as a leader, but as a compass. Not only can you see a threat a mile away, but you can gauge how much of a threat it will be, and can adjust accordingly. You treated me and Boyd differently than you did Zeferino and Erlendr. You saw goodness in Arcadia when no one else did. Mateo, after Horace Reaver captured you and Leona, and kept you separate, he finally explained why he hated you so much. Do you remember how you reacted?”

“That was so long ago,” Mateo replied.

“You’re being modest,” Séarlas judged, “of course you remember. He told you that an alternate version of you in another timeline made a mistake, which got his wife killed. You have no recollection of that, because you didn’t do it. Yet after his story was over, you apologized. Do you know how few people would respond like that? So no, father, she didn’t get your stupidity. She got your heart.”

“Yes, so much love,” Olimpia jumped in again. “This is a living Rockwell painting.”

“We know things that you don’t,” Franka volleyed. “We’ve seen things.”

“I’ve seen a lot too,” Olimpia defended.

“I mean, our abilities allow us to try out timelines, and choose the best one,” Franka began. “This is not regular time travel where we have to go back to the point of divergence and try again. Time is a crossroads, and we have binoculars.”

“You’re seers?” Angela questioned. Seers were fairly common in their world, but none of them had actually met one in person, or even heard a name. People will just show up unexpectedly and it will be because a seer told them to be there.

Séarlas shook his head again. “Seers typically see one possible future, and if they don’t like it, they find a better one. We can see them all at once, but only from wherever we are when we’re looking. It’s not perfect, before you ask why we’re not all living in a utopia. The metaphorical binoculars only show us so much before things get fuzzy. We can walk down a given road to see further in the future, but once we do, we can’t walk backwards and try a different road. We have to pick the best choice from our perspective, and hope things don’t get worse. Then we end up at a new crossroads, and it starts all over.”

They were all just staring at him. “It’s not a perfect metaphor either,” Franka contended. “None of them really is. Time is a road, time is a river. Time is just all the things that happen.”

“This is a great lesson on temporal mechanics,” Leona said sarcastically, “but I have more questions. When were you gonna introduce yourselves to us, and honestly so, instead of with aliases. Franka, why didn’t you show up pretending to be someone else?”

“It’s like my brother said,” Franka replied, “I’m not intelligent, I’m intuitive. In this day and age, when you meet someone new, you expect them to be smart, and have something to give you. He gave you the slingdrive. I have nothing like that to offer. My job was to tell him what to do, and truthfully, to cultivate our assets.”

“Octavia and Miracle,” Mateo said, nodding. “Anyone else? You got Bhulan in your back pocket? What about my third grade teacher? She on your payroll too?”

“Well...The Overseers,” Séarlas admitted. “That’s thanks to you. We didn’t know where either of them was before.”

“Yeah, we guessed that they were with you,” Marie said, “and the Arborist.”

“It’s not like how Arcadia did it, though,” Franka insisted. “We don’t force or trick people. We don’t...tell them everything either, but they make their own choices.”

“My little intelligence officers,” Leona snarked.

Séarlas tensed up, so Franka placed a hand on his shoulder, and spoke before he could say something that he regretted. “We knew there would be hostility. This is the tough part, and it was always going to be like that because of one mistake we made long ago. I told you about the crossroads. At a real crossroads, you could walk back, and take a different path, but for us, we can’t. We had one single good opportunity to show ourselves to you. It was after our alternate versions died, and some of the initial sting from that had worn off, but before you went off to...be king of Dardius.”

“I wasn’t king.”

Franka went on without responding to that, because it wasn’t the point. “We didn’t know that the babies were going to die. Space is more difficult to see into. It’s hard to explain, but it’s easier with an atmosphere. The point is, it was a tight window, and we missed it. We wanted to know when you were going to come back to the stellar neighborhood from Dardius, and unfortunately, by the time we saw that happen, we had passed our turn. From there, too much was going on, and showing up would have only made things worse. Gatewood, Varkas Reflex, Mateo dies, the rest of the team dies, you disappear into the past, you jump to the Fifth Division, and the Third Rail. I don’t know if you can believe us, but we kept looking for opportunities, and each one was worse than the last. Eventually, we decided that the only way we could have a relationship with our parents was to...”

“Be antagonists,” Leona finished for her.

“We don’t like that word,” Franka said, “but we appreciate your perspective on that. We prefer to see ourselves as tough-love mentors.”

“You’ve been trying to get us to murder someone!” Leona shouted.

“The Oaksent’s future is profoundly clear to us,” Séarlas maintained. “With him, we don’t have binoculars, we have a planet-sized telescope. He has..to die. That’s the only solution. If you’re worried about him becoming a martyr, don’t. His loyalists see him as a god-king. His death alone will shift allegiances for millions. Gods can’t die.”

“Neither can Bronach,” Ramses reasoned, “so what does that make him?”

“The man behind the curtain,” Franka suggested.

“Learning who you are has not changed our position one iota,” Mateo tried to tell his once-children. “If you find a team who is willing and able to do it, we won’t get in your way, but we won’t help either.”

“What if it’s Team Kadiar?” Franka put forth.

It was not a good idea to say that. The twins had hardly looked at Romana since she showed up. It was between them and the parents. She had to respond to this, though. “It won’t be. I don’t care what my mom and dad say, we will interfere if you approach my sisters.” She all but growled.

“Okay, okay,” Marie stepped in. She hadn’t talked much either, but she and her sister were the diplomats. “Romana is right. Team Kadiar is also off limits. They literally crew a diplomacy ship. I won’t have you corrupting them, or even trying to. This has been a tough day. One thing I’ve learned as a counselor is that the breaks are just as important as the talks. We would like a place to retire, and will reconvene in a year. I understand that the anticipation might be difficult for you, but we will only experience less than a day. That time apart will make things easier. I promise you. We have learned a lot—maybe too much already. The human brain, even one designed by Mister Abdulrashid here, needs time to consolidate new information. Does this sound okay to everyone?”

They all agreed to take a break. Mateo had to reframe his thoughts on all this. He hadn’t raised any of his other kids, and in fact, Kivi was born in an entirely different reality, so he didn’t really even conceive her. He still saw her as his child, though admittedly, in a different way than he saw Romana, or even Dubravka. Franka and Séarlas weren’t nothing to him. He didn’t know what they were, but he already knew that they weren’t going to be strangers who he didn’t care about. A good night’s sleep would hopefully help with this. Thank God Marie was here.

There was an Alaskan king bed for Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia to share. The others each had their own rooms with regular king beds. When they woke up the next day, the twins had reportedly skipped over the interim year as well. It could have been a lie to endear them to the team, but even if it was true, it wasn’t exceptionally impactful. It didn’t solve their problems. Probably only one thing could do that, and that was a common enemy. Annoyingly enough, he was right on time. The angry Fifth Divisioner, also known as A.F. had finally found the location of this secret base, having evidently been searching for it since he discovered that Séarlas-slash-Pacey-slash-his nameless engineer had betrayed him. He had a fleet at his fingertips now, and had the space station surrounded. He remotely managed to shut down all systems besides life support and artificial gravity. It was more than that, though, the team’s slingdrive array wasn’t working either. Mateo might have been able to get them out with his dark particles, but he still needed more time to recuperate.

Séarlas sighed. “Goddamn, I wish I hadn’t given that man quintessence technology.”

“Why did you?” Mateo asked.

“You asked us to move on to Plan B for the assassination of Bronach Oaksent? You are Plan B.” He scoffed and shook his head. “A.F. was Plan A.”

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Microstory 2507: Pain Feeler

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I can feel your pain, and kindle your ecstasy. Isn’t that such an interesting way to put it? You know, these gifts we had; they didn’t come with instruction manuals. We had to figure out how they worked, and develop ways to explain them. Other people’s gifts might be a little vague and profound, but mine was simple. If you were in physical and/or emotional pain, I could feel that. Fortunately, I could choose not to feel it. Not everyone on the team could exercise so much control, and switch it off when they didn’t want it. I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if I couldn’t so I’m grateful for that, and I’m sure Landis is too. Basically, what I did was make people feel better. It was only a temporary solution, and a very complicated and delicate process to navigate. Sure, I could have run around the world alone, essentially as a walking-talking recreational drug, but that’s not going to help anyone in the long-term. And honestly, if they wanted to feel better in the way that I could help them, they could just do it themselves. What I did was only one step of the program. When it was the right time, I eased their suffering, so they could think clearly, and figure out how they were going to improve their lives. It wouldn’t work if I did it too early, because then they would have kind of forgotten what was so upsetting to them in the first place. They would basically treat my gift as the only useful solution, and not worry about what would happen when it wore off. I couldn’t do it too late either, or they would get frustrated that they did all this work, and I could have just solved their problems right away. I had to find a balance, which was the hardest part of the job. These days, I’m pretty happy. I loved what I used to do, and I think about it sometimes, but it’s kind of nice to just have a regular job, and live a regular life. Things were so complex, and I was always having to think about how I was going to kindle someone’s ecstasy. Now I move boxes from a truck to a shelf, or a shelf to a truck. There’s an answer for everything, and you know when you’ve done it wrong. And the burden of responsibility was a weight on my shoulders that I didn’t know I was carrying until it was gone. Basically, all I’m trying to say is that I’m glad that it happened, and I’m happy with what I have now. I don’t think I could say the same if my life were just one or the other. Landis is going to cure everyone one day, and while it won’t necessarily alleviate pain, I know that it will help, and it’s more than I could have ever done on my own.

Microstory 2506: Desire Hearer

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I can hear your desires, and sing your fears. I am not like the others. Their passive gifts are all negative, while their active gifts are positive. I can’t tell you why I’m the opposite, but truthfully, it has always made me feel a little left out of the group. To be clear, they never made me feel like that; it was just the nature of my condition. It’s kind of hard to explain what I could do. Landis might have better wording, though I think he actively ignores this side of him. It’s not that I could hear your thoughts. It’s not even that I could see the images in your mind. It’s more like I could hear the music of your soul, if that makes any sense. When I would listen to people’s aura—for lack of a better term—I could hear where it was pointing, be it another person, or an object, or even the future. The tone of their aura music was key to understanding and interpreting their desires. I would say that mine was the toughest job, because they had to be open with me to clarify exactly what they wanted out of their life. It was just so...abstract and intangible a lot of the time. Sure, if they were staring at the person they were secretly in love with, their desire song for them would be obvious. And to be fair, anyone who is just naturally good at reading others could probably see it all over their face without any special gift. The key was getting them to come out of their shells, and be honest about what they wanted. It felt like cheating, just straight up asking them to vocalize their feelings. No one else in the group had to do that. They were just able to sense what they were meant to sense. That’s kind of why I had to step up as the leader; not because I was particularly suited for it, but because I had to drive the progress for us to get anywhere with people. The client’s own goals were paramount in helping them. It didn’t matter how they felt, or whether they were lying. If they didn’t have an objective, what were we gonna do for them? How were their lives gonna turn out? I didn’t always have to use my active Vulnerability gift, but there were many times when it was necessary. They sometimes even asked for it. To get what they wanted, and get past what was holding them back, it was necessary for them to face their fears. It was easier for them to do that if they were confronted with them directly using the fear songs, rather than having to conjure them up in their own mindbrains. It usually went all right. The client and I were both always in control, and I could clear the sounds if they became too much to bear. Obviously, it went wrong one terrible time, and that’s why we’re here, but I can’t help but think that all of that happened for a reason, because now we have Landis. I do miss having the gifts, but I’m glad that someone else has them, even if he never uses them. At least they’re not gone forever. And the sweet song of life on Earth continues.

Microstory 2504: Regret Seer

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I can see your regrets, and show you your potential. Before Landis Tipton received the gifts of The Ten Vulnerabilities, I was responsible for two of them. There were five of us in total, and we chose to use our abilities very differently. We were nomads, traveling all over the world—mostly the North American continent—helping people one at a time. We searched for those who were at their lowest, who needed the most help. I was on the frontlines of this mission. Regret is one of the strongest emotions that a person can have, and sight is one of the strongest senses. It was easier for me to pick our targets out of a crowd without having to wait for them to do something to draw attention to themselves. I could just see it. Once I found a candidate, the five of us would explore this person’s life further. We could strategize about what we could do to help this person live a better life. The way we saw it, our tasks were helping the whole world exponentially. Everyone we supported would go out, and pay it forward. With a brand new lease on life, they would find it in their hearts to help others in their own ways. Honestly, we didn’t think to focus on only one of the Vulnerabilities, like Landis has. We were drawn to one another, and it felt like we absolutely had to work together in order to fulfill our destinies. Had we only let the Health Smeller do her thing, what work would have been left for the rest of us? We just had a different perspective. And fittingly enough, I regret nothing. And you know that’s true, because if I did, I would be able to tell, and I’m comfortable enough with my own vulnerabilities that I would be honest about it. I can’t bring my own regrets to the surface, but I’m very good at recognizing them. We did our own thing our own way, and I still think we improved the world. We didn’t always hit it out of the park. There is a reason why we don’t have the gifts anymore, and why we had to transfer them to Landis. But I don’t like to talk about it, because that is something that I regret. Maybe I’m not as brave as I believe. I should be able to talk about what happened. Unfortunately, while I helped countless others see their potential, I could never see my own. But again, the gifts belong to Landis now, and while it saddens me a little that my Vulnerability senses aren’t being used, I’m proud of the work that he’s been doing. That’s why I chose him in the first place. I didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but I knew that he was on his way to reaching greatness.

Microstory 2320: Earth, September 19, 2178

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Dear Corinthia,

That actually sounds like a great job to have. It may not be as glamorous as field work, but you’re gonna outlive all your peers, which is good for me, because now we have more time to get to know each other. I’m in a bit of a different situation. My work is boring, but not because there’s nothing to do; it’s just really terrible. I am our father’s assistant, but only when he’s here. When he’s not, I report to his boss. He’s not a bad guy, but he gives me these tedious tasks that don’t really need to get done. I swear, he asked me to file a batch of documents last year that I just refiled last week according to case number instead of tracking number. For an explanation, while these two numbers are different, they only ever refer to the same thing. One case will always have one tracking tag, and one tag will only have one case attached to it. It doesn’t matter anyway, because everything is electronic, and these are just for backup! That is merely one example, and I won’t bore you with any more. Suffice to say that I would take your job over mine any day. You may never have encountered an issue yet, but it’s quite important, and if something does come up, you could be instrumental in saving lives. Mine is pointless, and utterly redundant. As far as the pictures go, you don’t have to do anything you can’t afford, or don’t want to spend money on. I really mean that. I’ll send you one photo of my place, but you don’t have to send anything back at all. I’m happy just to read your words. I don’t know if I really thanked you for reaching out. A lesser person would have suppressed their emotions about it, or at least waited until they could wrap their minds around it. I want you to know how brave you are for speaking up, and giving us this opportunity. Attached is an image of my quarters, from as far back as I could step, so it would get as much in frame as possible. What you’re not seeing is the shared lav around the corner, and the closet that isn’t deep enough for a coat. I don’t want to complain, though. As I’ve said, I know how fortunate I am to have any of this.

Wishing you were here,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 27, 2479

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The thing about these magical tethers was that there would be no more sneaking off alone; to protect the others, to escape from them, or for any other reason. Mateo was famous for this, breaking free from the group, and that was no longer an option, for they would always be able to find him. It was funny how one of the first things that happened to him was that he came into possession of a metal business card that could whisk him away whenever he needed it to, but he couldn’t do that without telling anyone. Either way, it was really important that he give this support group therapy thing a chance. So he decided to tell them about it. He didn’t tell them everything, though.

“Do you even know where it takes you?” Leona asked.

“Dr. Hammer seems to be more comfortable in the 21st century, so I’m guessing sometime around then,” Mateo answered.

“Who gave this to you?” Ramses had his arm outstretched, waiting to receive the rendezvous card for examination.

“I’m not at liberty to say...and I’m not giving it to you. It doesn’t need to be studied, I know what it is.”

“No, you don’t,” Leona argued. “It could deliver you to a special prison where we couldn’t track you, and wouldn’t be able to teleport into if we ever did manage to find it.”

“It’s not that. I trust the person who gave it to me,” Mateo explained. “And if it is, we’ll deal with it. We always come out on top.”

“Yeah, because we’re cautious, thoughtful, and prepared,” Angela said. “You’re being neither of those things right now.”

“I’m wearing my suit, aren’t I?” Mateo defended.

She rolled her eyes.

“If you trust it, I trust it too,” Olimpia decided. She gave him a kiss on the lips. Besides, you need a range test, don’t you, Ram?”

“Well, I guess, but I wasn’t gonna—”

“Asked and answered!” Olimpia declared. “No further questions.”

“I need this,” Mateo said to the whole team, but mostly to Leona. “I’m losing my mind. I’m willing to take the risk that it’s a trap, especially since I really don’t think that it is. The way it was given to me...it would have been easier just to abduct me right then and there. I wouldn’t have had time to say goodbye.”

Ramses sighed. “Hold it up, balancing it between your fingers on the edges.”

Mateo did so.

“Turn it around,” Ramses added. “All right, I have at least some data. Proceed.”

Mateo gave Leona a kiss, and then gave another to Olimpia. As he turned around to give himself some space, she slapped him on the ass. He was going to say one more thing, but the slap made him drop the card, which activated it, and spirited him away.

He found himself standing on a gently sloping rock floor, inside of a glass tunnel. He was facing the ocean, which made him feel centered and calm. He stared at it through the window, noticing how there was no door leading to the outside. After a few moments, he turned around, and headed for the door to the building.

A vaguely humanoid, but still very mechanical, robot was sitting at what resembled a reception desk. “Hello, and welcome to the Center for Temporal Health on Ilha da Queimada Grande. My name is Defghij. Please present your rendezvous card, so that I may check you in.”

Mateo padded his suit, even though he knew it couldn’t be there. “Oh, crap. Where does it go when you use it?”

“Usually the ground.”

“Lookin’ for this?” It was Leona, holding up his card. What was she doing here?

He carefully took it, maintaining eye contact with her as he handed it to the robot. “How are you here? Why? Who?”

“I’m not your Leona,” she replied. “I’m from an old timeline.”

“Our twins,” Mateo realized. That was why she needed the therapy.

“My twins,” she corrected. “You had nothing to do with it.”

He dropped his gaze, and deepened his frown. “We can’t be in the same session.” He looked back up to her to see how she felt about that.

“I agree, which is why we’re not. You still need to go through orientation.”

“She’s right,” Defghif confirmed, presenting his card back for him. “Down the hall, to the left, through the door that leads to Dr. Hammer’s office.”

He couldn’t stop staring at the alternate version of his wife. “You don’t think we should talk, about what happened?”

“About how your wife lost the children that I had,” Alt!Leona asked. “No.” She handed Defghij her own card for check-in. It was black, rather than silver. She noticed that he noticed. “It’s like a mood ring, except it actually works. Once yours is tethered to you, it will change colors accordingly.” Another goddamn tether. Great.

Mateo finally took his card back. “I’m sorry. I’m guessing black isn’t good.”

She watched it in her own hand as she flipped it around between her fingers like a magician preparing to make it disappear. “It doesn’t mean sad, it means...empty.”

He couldn’t help himself. He took her hands in his, and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. “Even though you’re not my Leona, you can always count on me. Whether we’re in the same group session, or not, I can be here for you. You don’t have to feel empty.”

Her card was still mostly black, but specks of blue began to shine through like stars on the firmament. He noticed that she noticed, and he saw her tuck it away up her sleeve. “I have to go. Good luck.” She walked past him, down the hall, and to the right.

Mateo looked back over at Defghij. “Your name is part of the alphabet.”

“My creator wasn’t particularly creative.”

“Have a nice day,” he said as he was walking towards Dr. Hammer’s office.

“Hey, that’s my line!”

Mateo knocked on the door. After a few seconds, it opened on its own.

Dr. Hammer wasn’t at her desk, but someone shorter was filing something in the cabinet, facing away from him. “Have a seat, Mister Matic.” She finished what she was doing while he sat down. When she turned around, he saw that he knew her.

“Siria Webb. It’s been a long time for me.”

“As well as for me,” Siria said. She sat down on the other side of the desk.

“Could you tell me what year it is?”

“It’s the year 216 of the common era,” she replied.

“That’s early.”

“That’s the point.”

“What’s this place? Where are we?”

“Snake Island,” Siria began. “As you can imagine, there are a ton of snakes here. There are no doors to the outside, so if you were a teleporter, we would caution you to not even try.”

“I am a teleporter,” Mateo corrected.

“Oh. You are? I think we need to update your records.”

He nodded. It didn’t matter to him either way. “What are the next steps?”

“First, we must link you to your card. This will prevent anyone else from using it, and allow you to access all of its features.” She walked over to the side wall, and opened what Mateo thought was just a cabinet. She pulled a sort of morgue drawer from it, having to move the second visitor’s chair out of the way. “I promise, it won’t hurt.”

“What other features does it have?”

Meditation apps, coping skills, and other lessons. It can hold photos of your loved ones, even if you don’t have any to upload, as it can pull the images from your memory. There’s also a, uhh...”

“A what?” Why was she nervous to answer?

“It’s an orgasm button.” She was still rather uncomfortable to be explaining this, but was holding it together. “Sometimes a sexual release is all you need to get through the day, and this is quicker and easier. I should warn you, though, that it keeps track of when you use it, and Dr. Hammer can see the logs, so she may bring it up if that’s, like, all you do all day. It also tracks your vitals, which she’ll use to tailor your treatment.”

“I was to understand that this was more of a support group, and Dr. Hammer would be less involved than all this.”

“I don’t know how you ended up with that card, and it’s none of my business, but they may have been misinformed, or withheld information on purpose. I couldn’t tell ya. This is all about consent, which you may revoke at any time. You can turn around and leave right now, and even keep the card, though some features may not work.”

“No, it’s fine. I want to talk to people who aren’t my friends. They’re supportive, but...”

“They’re too close?” Siria guessed.

“Yeah.” Mateo removed the armor and response modules of his IMS.

“You don’t need to strip down completely,” she informed him. Once he was on his back, she went back over to the computer to begin the procedure. She slammed on the keys with purpose, stopping to click through menus as needed. Shortly after announcing that she was starting, the dull hum of the machine stopped. “Something’s wrong.” She removed the card from its dock, spun around in her chair, and stuck it in some other device. “Card seems fine to me, unless I’m reading this wrong, so it must be you.”

“What’s the error?” he asked.

“It can’t get a clear reading.” She turned to look down at him. “Do you have multiple consciousnesses in your brain, or has it been recently blended?”

“Oh. No, but I am spatio-temporally tethered to six other people. And I have a neuro-emotional bond with five of them.”

“That must be it. One or the other would probably be fine, but if you’re permanently linked to them, then the machine can’t calibrate to your emotions, and yours alone.”

“So I’m SOL?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but I’m neither authorized nor trained to proceed. It would be up to Dr. Hammer to decide what she’s willing to do, because my guess is, if we move forward, all six of the bonded people will be able to use this card. You may be okay with that, but she may not. I really couldn’t say for sure.”

“Can I bring my team here, so she can speak with all of us at once?” he offered.

She chuckled a little. “The card is designed to transport only one person at a time. It’s not an inherent limitation, but an arbitrary one which Dr. Hammer imposed to prevent someone from abusing its power.”

Mateo chuckled back. “We don’t need the card. They just need to know where I am.” He took a breath, and prepared himself. Then he removed the microinjector from a compartment hidden in the back of the armor module.

“What the hell is that?” Siria questioned.

“A break-glass-in-case-of-emergency serum.” Before she could stop him, he jammed it into his own neck. He was overwhelmed with an intense feeling of fear. It wasn’t that it gave him images of things that he would be afraid of. It was more like he became acutely afraid of the terrible danger that the whole world around him posed. This machine he was in, the office furniture, the window, the walls. Everything felt like such a profound threat to his safety, and he knew for a fact that it would never end. He would feel this sense of loneliness and dread for the rest of his life. Nothing could stop it, no one could help him. He was lost, alone, and would soon die of the panic in his twisted and tattered heart. He began to hyperventilate. Siria tried to help, but there was nothing she could do, except make it worse. She was the scariest threat of all. This was his life now. It was always going to end like this.

She stood back up to run for help when Leona appeared out of nowhere in front of her. “What did you do to him?” she demanded to know.

“Nothing! He did it to himself!” Siria insisted.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Leona warned. She jammed a second microinjector into her husband’s neck.

Mateo immediately felt a sudden sense of relief. This room was the best, safest place in all of histories. The furniture was soft and comfortable. The walls were welcoming and warm. The window was showing them the coolest island that ever rose out of the sea. The machine was exactly what he needed today. Never again would he feel the cold emptiness of a life alone. Everything in the whole world was perfect, and he felt so much love in his bright, shining heart. His happiness could know no end, and he would never die.

“Don’t blame her, it’s not her fault,” Mateo assured Leona. “I’m fine, I just needed you here, and this was the fastest way to do it.”

“Matt, the fear serum was only to be used in emergencies.”

“This was an emergency,” he decided. “We were worried about the range of our tether. Now we know that we can find each other across a hundred and twenty light years, and well over two thousand regular years.”

Leona gave it some thought. “I guess that’s true. So, you’re okay? You’re really okay? You can be honest.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Mateo reiterated. “Call off the dogs of war.”

“Okay.” Leona took a look around. “Where’s Dr. Hammer?”

“She’s in a session,” Siria replied. “They’ll be done in about ninety minutes.”

“We can wait,” Mateo determined. “Ramses needs time to look through the data from this last jump, I’m sure.”

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Microstory 2299: Panic Attack

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We’re putting the finishing touches on the arrangements for the memorial service tomorrow. It’s going to be a lovely, mostly somber event. But it won’t just be all wails and cursing at the gods. We’ll be playing both of their favorite music; moreso Dutch, since he had more time to develop a taste for what this planet has to offer. I’ll be giving the eulogy, of course, and I’m really nervous about it. I’ve never spoken in front of this many people before. The publicist keeps reminding me that I already have a huge audience, because Nick managed to build one for this blog, and I’ve been posting on it exclusively for days. That’s an interesting way to frame it, and I’m trying to hold onto that. You’ve been listening to me talk for a while now, even before Nick died; it’s just that it’s been through the written word, and now you’re going to hear my real voice, and see my real face. Oh God, I think I’m having a panic attack.

All right, I’m back. That white space between paragraphs is where that panic attack happened, but I’m okay. As a medical professional, I know all the tricks, but it’s one thing to give advice to someone else, and another to follow through when you need it yourself. I closed the lid of my laptop, shut the shades, and turned off all the lights. I sat upright in the hotel bed, and focused on my breathing. Despite the darkness, I could make out enough objects in the room. I could see the television on the opposite wall; the painting hanging over the refrigerator, depicting a frozen ice skating pond with scratches on the surface, but no skaters; the faint outline of the DO NOT DISTURB sign; the luggage I had sprawled out on the other bed; and the half empty glass of water on the nightstand. No, it wasn’t half empty, but half full. I could touch the soft sheets I was sitting upon; my overheated phone that I’ve been meaning to upgrade; the highlighter that I was using while researching eulogy commonalities; and the brass gooseneck reading lamp coming from the wall above the headboard. I could hear the sound of children running in the halls while their mother tried to shush them up; the hum of the furnace; and the ticking of the analog clock by the door to the bathroom. I could smell the half eaten box of cheese crackers on the table in the corner; and something dank that I couldn’t place wafting in through the vents. I could taste the toothpaste in my mouth that I should have more thoroughly rinsed out before I sat down to write this post.

I had to take another break, which is why I’m posting this later than usual. Everything is okay, and I think I’m gonna be okay, but as the memorial approaches, it’s like it’s all happening again. I never talked about it before, and I will probably never publicly go into too much detail, but obviously, I was there when they died. I remember the lurch of the vehicle as we slid on the ice, and finally came to a stop. I remember running out of the car, and one of the security guards holding me back so I couldn’t see the wreckage. I remember seeing the wreckage anyway, and feeling the heat from the flames on my face, which felt like they were going to burn me, yet somehow still could not protect my toes from freezing under the tyranny of the snow as it seeped into my socks. I remember thinking that no one could have survived that fall, even though I was still bleary eyed, and confused. There was no hope, and now these memories are coming back, which will only make the eulogy harder to write, and even harder to give. I need a third break.

Microstory 2293: Hits Some Harder

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New plan. Dutch has been presumed dead as well, so I’m planning a single memorial service for the both of them. They were good friends, I think they would have liked that. People have been commenting on social that it’s some sort of money-saving scheme. Trust me, we don’t need to save money. We’re millionaires, remember? Well, I am, anyway. I’ve not spoken with the lawyers yet, but I believe all the money goes to me. Yay, I’m rich! I’ve always wanted to lose my best friends so I can live alone in a big empty house. In case you can’t tell from the written word, that’s sarcasm. I hate this. This was never the plan after Dutch opened that door, and cured Nick with space magic. Nothing will be changing. Nick decided where he wanted to regularly make donations, and I have no reason to alter that plan. We invested some of it, to make it grow, so we can keep donating beyond what we already have. That’s why we didn’t just disperse the lump sum, and walk away. All right, I better get back to work. It takes me a long time to get anything done, because I often have to stop and cry. I can’t provide you with details about the memorial service right now, but I’ll make an announcement shortly on my own social media account. We need to gauge how many people will want to come. He wasn’t the kind of person who needed a lot of people to attend, but he told me that it’s not about him. If a large crowd shows up, then whatever, so I have to make sure the venue can accommodate them. We all have a different relationship with death. Most people obviously don’t like it, but it hits some harder than others. They can feel grief for those they’ve never met. Some even feel it when they learn of a person’s death who they had never even heard of before. Who are we to judge their reactions? I’m getting a lot of messages from people who are interested in being there, so I think we’re gonna have quite a large audience. I’ll let you know when I can. I’ll probably have to get our publicity firm involved since I’m sure they have experience with this stuff.