The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2515

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The team was sitting around their table. It was the end of the engagement party, and only a few people were still around. Darko was in the middle of a seemingly flirtatious conversation with one of the android waitresses whose self-awareness and agency were in question. Mateo was about to ask if there was any way of determining whether she could provide consent when a black hole suddenly appeared on the opposite wall. A woman stepped out who looked moderately familiar. The first words out of her mouth were, “okay, I’ll do it, but I want something in return.”

“What?” Leona questioned. “Were we in the middle of a conversation? You’ll do what for us? Who are you again?”

“I’m Magnolia Quintana?” she reminded them. “The Overseer?”

“Oh, right, yeah, we met,” Leona remembered. “Is there an operation here, or something? This is just Party Central.”

“Yes, if this is where you’re gonna have the wedding,” Magnolia said. She looked around the room. “Little small.”

Leona did her best impression of Mr. Spock’s eyebrows. “We’re gonna have it outdoors, and not tonight, and...this is only one room in an entire city of party venues.”

Magnolia pulled out an old fashioned pen and notepad set. She took notes out loud. “Okay. Outdoors. Party Central. At least one year to plan.”

“Are you offering to be our wedding planner?” Olimpia questioned.

“Not offering,” Magnolia said. “Got the job. Very excited. Already have some great ideas rolling around up here.” She tapped her head with her pen.

“Madam Quintana,” Mateo began. “We were just gonna plan this ourselves. It’s not gonna be as big as our last wedding. Only family and close friends.”

Magnolia dropped her hands in disappointment, and sighed. “I need your help.” She was very uncomfortable. “I obviously need you more than you need me.”

“Well, we might be able to just help you,” Leona offered. “You don’t have to do anything for us. What do you need?”

“I need you to find my son,” Magnolia requested, averting her gaze awkwardly. “I can find anyone in the world, but he shares the same gift, which makes him a blindspot. I know he’s in this time period, but I don’t know where. Honestly, because so many planets have become habitable now, the Great Pyramid Shimmer actually serves a meaningful purpose, so he might not even be on Earth anymore.”

“Is he in trouble?” Romana asked.

Magnolia hesitated to answer. “He’s...mad at me. I just want the chance to apologize. I think he’ll be receptive if I say the right thing, but I have to find him first.”

“Well we can’t really find people,” Leona tried to explain. “I’m sure you’re asking us because you have been made aware of our slingdrives, but they don’t operate on magic. We have to know where we’re going. We’re no better equipped than you with your, uhh...”

“Hither-thithers,” Magnolia finished for her. “That’s what our dark portals are called. And I didn’t come for your slingdrives. I can harness Shimmer myself, and go anywhere he might be. I need his dark particle power to track his location.”

“Not that I won’t agree to that,” Mateo started, “but you just used a special word. Have you not reached out to a genuine Tracker, like Vidar Wolfe?”

“They have the same limitation as me. We can conceal ourselves from such people. I believe that you are the only person in the universe who can see through the shroud.”

“All right.” Mateo wiped his lips with his napkin, then dropped it down on the table. “I’ll see what I can find.” He leaned over and kissed his wife, then leaned over the other direction to kiss his bride.”

“Wait, we have your bachelor party after this,” Ramses reminded him. They decided to get all the traditions out of the way, so the separate celebratory events are falling on the same day as the engagement party, instead of being spread out across 12 to 18 months. Leona will have her doe party, and Olimpia will have a separate bachelorette party. They’ll then reconvene for a bridal shower. A bit out of order, but who cares? “Or no, we’re calling it a bull party.”

“Come with us,” Mateo suggested. “Hey, Darko!” This was Mateo’s chance to not worry about what an encounter with the android would mean, ethically speaking. “Time traveling bull party!”

“I’m in!” his once-brother exclaimed. He turned back to the waitress. “Catch you later, gorgeous.”

“I shouldn’t go with you,” Magnolia decided. “I have some initial work to do to plan your wedding, and Garland may still want me to stay away. I don’t wanna ambush him, so if you could, please tell him that I’m sorry, and ask him if he wants to see me. If he doesn’t, I’ll understand, and I’ll trust that you did find him, and are telling me the truth either way.”

Mateo nodded. “Don’t break your back planning, though. It’s gonna be intimate and low-key. Thanks!”

“No. Thank you.” She was a little too mousy and contrite for someone called The Overseer. This whole thing with her son must really be messing her up. And that wasn’t how she came across a few minutes ago when she first arrived. Maybe she didn’t realize how receptive to her request they would be, and decided to rein in her energy after the deal was done.

The three men stood next to each other in a vague line, and regarded the women still sitting at the table. “Three to beam up.” Dark particles swarmed around them, and sent them away to unknown lands.

As the darkness faded away, the nature of their destination twisted into focus. “Oh, not again,” Ramses groaned. They appeared to be in the middle of a tundra. It wasn’t Tundradome, though. It couldn’t have been. They were standing in what must have been a park, or a town square. There were buildings on all sides of them in the middle distance. This was some kind of city. People were milling about, enjoying the day. No one seemed to have noticed their arrival until they turned all the way around to see a young man sitting on a bench.

He did not have a look of shock on his face, but minor annoyance. “I put a time block on this world,” he said. Still nettled, he closed the cover over his e-reader, and set it down next to him. “No one else should be able to come through. Now I have to check the wards.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mateo tried to explain. “My power is a bit of an exception. I doubt anyone else can come here if you did anything to prevent them.”

“Who would want to?” Ramses jabbed.

“For that.” The young man looked up towards the sky with his eyes as he pointed with a finger.

It took them a moment to possibly figure out what was going on. Scale was a bit hard to determine with this out-of-context problem. It looked like a ceiling of ice that stretched all the way across in every direction, down to the horizon. The fractures and imperfections glimmered in the light from the ground, and maybe even from above as well? Vaguely-shaped circular blobs were hanging in the background, perhaps pulsating, or perhaps they were only illusions. This whole thing might have been a hologram, but it was a good one; reminiscent of something they might find on Castlebourne. Had this frustrated stranger not claimed to be somehow preventing others from traveling here, they might have guessed that it was indeed one of the domes on Castlebourne, which they just so happened to have never heard of before.

“Wait, wait,” Darko began. “I think I’ve heard of this. Epsi...Epson...”

“Epsilon Eridani,” Ramses said. “Roughly eleven light years from Earth. No habitable planet, but a gas giant like Juputer, and a couple of ice giants, similar to Neptune.”

“We’re orbiting the gas giant, AEgir,” the stranger added. “This moon is called Kólga. The surface is inhospitable, so they built a giant hanging city-structure, attached to the ice. What you’re seeing up there is several hundred meters of ice, followed by the daytime sky, in which we can currently see both AEgir and E-E.”

“Where are our manners?” Mateo extended his hand. “Mateo Matic, Darko Matic, and Ramses Abdulrashid.”

“Married or related?”

“Brothers across different timelines,” Darko clarified. “You’ve never heard of us? You’ve never heard of Team Matic?”

“I try to stay out of the whole time travel industry. That’s why I came here. People keep to themselves. They’re as immortal as anyone, but they don’t want to explore. They don’t want to learn. They don’t want to build worlds. They just want to live their lives day by day, century by century. They don’t ask questions, and without them even knowing it, I protect them from the likes of you. I try anyway.”

“We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re just looking for our friend’s son, who we are guessing is you?” Mateo asked.

He nodded. “Garland Dressler. She sent you to take me back to her?”

“No pressure,” Mateo said to him. “She says she wants to apologize. I don’t know what for. I don’t need to know. You don’t have to come with us. If you want us to leave, we will.”

Garland sighed. “You might as well stay a while. You look like you’re in the party mood, and there’s one down the street tonight.”

The three of them looked at each other, narrowing in on Darko, who was wearing a glow necklace that was inert when they came here, but was now twinkling, probably triggered by the time travel event. They were supposed to be partying.

“I’ll think about whether I wanna go back or not,” Garland went on.

“Let’s go get chocolate wasted!” Ramses suggested. He literally started running towards the street.

“Other direction!” Garland called up to him.

Ramses didn’t stop running. He just teleported to the other side of them, and started moving that way instead.

“Do you have a jacket?” Darko asked as the rest of them followed Ramses at a normal pace.

“It’ll be warmer inside,” Garland promised.

They had to call Ramses back again when he passed the entrance to the party venue, but once inside, they had a lot of fun. The other residents took no issue with shifting focus of the festivities to being more about Mateo and his upcoming nuptials. They didn’t go there with a particular reason to party in the first place, so it wasn’t like they were stealing attention from someone else. Garland had been a little inaccurate about why he came here, and didn’t let anyone else. He didn’t only want to protect the Kólgans from time travel, but also to have them all to himself. He was the life of the party, opening up hither-thithers left and right. He helped party-goers throw sports balls at their own asses as fast as possible. He let one guy fall down an endless loop of portals on the ceiling and the floor. Mateo wowed them with a swarm of dark particles before he and Ramses entertained with a holographic lightshow. Darko met a man with combat training, so they sparred in the middle of the floor as the crowd cheered.

They would find out later that the chocolate they were eating was laced with some kind of local drug, which Garland didn’t even know about. They reawoke at some point later with no memory of how the night ended up, but they had some clues to work with. First, they were not likely on Kólga anymore as it was pretty hot here. Secondly, Darko was missing. And finally, passed out next to them was the last person they expected to find. He actually looked rather peaceful there, and they didn’t get the sense that there was any lasting animosity between them. It was Bronach Oaksent.

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Microstory 1917: Not a Date

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Fugitive Agent: But this isn’t a date.

Freewoman: No, it’s not a date. It’s a bond engagement.

Fugitive Agent: You know what people call it when they agree to marry each other?

Freewoman: An engagement, I know, but that’s not what this is either. The word, in this case, means an event or gathering of two or more participant parties.

Fugitive Agent: You had that one in the chamber. Have you gone on many of these?

Freewoman: Not a one. I never thought I would be couple bonded. Honestly, I don’t generally get along well with other ex-cons.

Fugitive Agent: Yet you’re the leader of the female bond group.

Freewoman: You don’t ask to be the leader. They choose you. I’ve had to learn to accept it, as you will one day.

Fugitive Agent: Why would I ever be the leader? I’m still a lawman.

Freewoman: You’re the first to succeed in a couple bond in a long time. They’ll love that. The current leader will probably step down for you. His couple bond was dissolved.

Fugitive Agent: Really? Well, I don’t want it. I’m just doing this—

Freewoman: To find your special fugitive, I know. Like I said, I didn’t want it either.

Fugitive Agent: I see. [...] This is good salad, yeah?

Freewoman: Speaking of being a lawman, I’ve noticed how open-minded and nonjudgmental you are to us criminals. That seems...

Fugitive Agent: Out of character for someone in my position? Yes, well, the truth is that I wanted to be a parole officer, which is probably why I’m so invested in this particular assignment. The man I’m looking for is supposedly a P.O. himself—I don’t know if I told you that.

Freewoman: You didn’t. So, what happened? Why do you work for Fugitive Services?

Fugitive Agent: I’m a legacy. If you met my father, he would list all of our family’s exploits going back centuries of all the fugitives we’ve collectively caught. You wouldn’t even have to ask him about it. He’ll find a way to work it into the conversation, and then the conversation will be effectively over. The rest will be a monologue.

Freewoman: I see. [...] You’re right, this salad is good.

Fugitive Agent: Full honesty is a pillar of the freeman bond. Does the couple bond share this value?

Freewoman: It does...but we’re not bonded yet, and certain lies are grandfathered in as long as they don’t negatively impact the relationship, or our respective freedom, so don’t think you have to divulge all your secrets for it to work out.

Fugitive Agent: This isn’t about the past; it’s about the present. If we go through with this, then you should know that I...

Freewoman: You what?

Fugitive Agent: I am not...unattracted to you.

Freewoman: *smirks* I’m not unattracted to you either.

Fugitive Agent: Is that going to be a problem?

Freewoman: Only if we make it a problem.

Fugitive Agent: Good to know. *smiles*

Microstory 1066: Alice

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How convenient it is that you are speaking with me right after Joan. I felt it the moment Viola turned her into a witch. Well, you can’t actually be turned. It’s more like your mind is finally opened to the opportunities the universe has to offer. Craft is not a religion, nor does it involve magic. The spells we cast are called engagements, and they follow an extremely strict set of rules. They don’t require drawing energy from nature, or ancestors, or blood, or some manifestation of evil. Craft is more like computer hacking, except the computer is the cosmos, and keyboard is your own brain. You see, we are all connected to one another, and everything else. An unseen force pervades reality, allowing one with significant ability to reach out, and manipulate the environment. If what I felt the other day was correct, Joan used what’s called the Oshwrlé technique, which can calm anyone within a blast radius. The stronger the witch, the larger the radius can be, though there are still limits. There are always limits. Everything a witch is capable of adheres to the natural laws that govern the universe; the only difference being that there are certain laws the average person is not aware of. For instance, there are random tears in the spacetime continuum, which would allow you to transport yourself nearly instantaneously anywhere else. Witches simply know how to access these tears, though sufficiently advanced technology could do the same. Witches can conceal themselves from others, or enter a pocket dimension, or heal the injured. Learning the trade takes time more than anything. I could give you a list of the commands that we recite to engage these exploits, but if you’re not connected to the cosmic energy, it won’t do you any good. It would be like if you typed a novel into a keyboard, but it wasn’t plugged into a machine. You have to learn how to plug in.

I became a witch all on my own. I didn’t do it by researching on the internet, or studying under a master, and it definitely had nothing to do with Viola. We were and are similar creatures, but not the same. She was born with a more biological connection, while mine was simply cerebral. I intuited Craft. That doesn’t make me a better person, or even smarter. Some people just have it, while others don’t. Though anyone can technically be taught, only a few of us will develop abilities on our own. Either way, the magnitude of your power is never guaranteed, and you can lose connections if you don’t nurture them properly. Two years ago, Viola and I had a meeting of minds. As the only known two of our kind in the area, we wanted to get together, and make sure we understood where each other was coming from. Both she and I predicted the moment of her death, and I needed to know whether she was interested in preventing it. You may have heard, or you gathered, that she wanted her path to end as it did, and as a fellow witch, I decided to respect that. I most certainly could have saved her, and some today may feel I should have, but they could never understand what was going through her head, or why she made the choices she did. All I know is that her power lives on, and cannot die, so long as the changes she made, for the betterment of mankind, continue. I will go on myself, practicing Craft as I see fit, and I will interact with Joan only if the need arises. I’ve been trying to communicate with Viola since she died, but have had no luck. She was the best of us, and I mean that in a human species sense, because for all the knowledge and abilities she possessed, she was still predominantly like everyone else.

Microstory 747: Hex

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The Hex were a coven of witches at their prime in the early 20th century with malevolent intentions. At this point in the galaxy’s history, there were few regulations regarding craft. Some used their knowledge for good, while most used it simply to make their lives easier. A few, of course, saw craft as something to be used to its greatest potential, exploiting loopholes to further their agenda to control the worlds. At any one time, there were only six witches in this coven. As one member died, another would be called to replace them. No one fully understood how many times this cycle continued, since the coven would stealthily move across the stars before authorities could catch them. The oldest surviving member was a man name Epihui Ronson, who was the sickest of them all. Though he did not openly lead the group, he was its founder, and wielded the most control over them, by literally controlling their minds. He let his mouthpieces go on believing that everything the coven did was their idea. They were directed to make claims to new members that, upon their death, they would find themselves in an afterlife of paradise. In truth, the engagements they worked on mostly only served to increase Ronson’s own power. The engagements, however, did not always work as they were meant to. One such of these led the near-death of a woman named Heldika Marlian. Ronson took pity on her, and against his better judgment, chose not to finish her off, thinking she would die soon anyway. Having learned the truth about who Ronson was, and what the coven was for, Heldika pulled herself out of the ditch that was meant to be her grave, returned to the First World, and began to study everything she could about death. After years of practice, she learned how to bring people back from the brink. She then formed her own rival coven to follow Hex around, and revive Ronson’s sacrifices. With these, she was able to secure even greater numbers for the Doladerstun coven, eventually succeeding in creating the largest coven in galaxy history up to that point. One day, they combined their power, and operated as one. They defeated Ronson, ultimately having no choice but to kill his current five covenmates. Following their success, the Doladerstun coven broke apart into many distinct covens, each one named after a letter in the original. And that is how we came to have the Eleven Great Covens of Wiktea.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 29, 2144

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Come morning, Mateo and Leona met with a woman named The Officiant. She operated at a level of law that goes beyond humanity, and real time. As it turned out, she was the officiant at Horace and Serkan’s wedding. They had no idea at the time, assuming she was just a regular human. But the Officiant is always there for this purpose. She would later be revealed to have married Aura and Samsonite, as well as Horace and Leona in the other reality, though in male form for the latter.

She sat across her desk from them. They were in a Justice of the Peace-like office that could travel with her across time and space. Like Mr. Halifax’s graveyard, it apparently didn’t quite exist in this dimension. She regarded them curiously and sadly. “Normally, this the part where I start asking you questions about your choices. It’s my job to make sure you’re not rushing into this, and that you fully understand what this means for your future. Of course, these questions are extremely tough to answer when you’re a time traveler, especially if you’re salmon. Maybe you already do know what happens in the future.” She leaned forward and set her fingers in the snapping ready position, but didn’t snap them. “Or maybe tomorrow, you just won’t exist anymore. That’s why normal officiants don’t do what I do. I have a particular set of skills that are not easily replicated. They do not, however, cover the idea of forced marriage. That is not a concept that was in my personal linguistic inventory until today. I do not condone, and believe you me, Arcadia spent a lot of time and energy convincing me to even hold this meeting.”

“How did she do it...” Leona asked, “in the end?”

“Well, it didn’t hurt that the proposal has already been asked and answered. On the surface, it may seem like nothing more than a save-the-date issue. As you know, possibly only subconsciously, it’s more nuanced than that. The time between engagement, however long...however short, always allows a level of freedom. The point of no return does not come until the very end of the engagement. Up until then, you can always change your mind. That’s why making you do this is wrong, even while you’re already engaged. You should still have a choice to back out. Hell, you could do it at the altar, if you needed to. What she’s doing is removing your consent. Your full consent.”

“We understand that,” Mateo said.

“Then understand me. I’m powerful. I don’t have powers, per se, that I could use against Arcadia. But I’m revered. I have dominion over people’s souls, and that is a class of control that The Prestons could only dream of. If you want to put an end to this, I will back you. The full force of the covenant I made with time itself will act to protect you. I have never married anyone who doesn’t want to get married, so if we do this, you best be damn sure...because I will not sully my reputation. Not for Arcadia. Not for you. You have to want this, just as any other couple.”

Mateo tried to answer, but she shushed him.

“Write it down. Like a vote, as pedestrian as that sounds. I don’t want either of you responding according to the response of the other. You’ll write it down separately, hand your slips to me privately, and accept whatever the other one says, with no room for argument.” She removed two sticky notes from her dispenser. “Consider these banknotes, worth your life.”

Mateo and Leona took their respective sticky notes.

She leaned back in her chair, gently pressing the tips of her fingers together, exuding a quality of easy peace.

They left her office together, each turning to write their answers down separately. But before they could pivot all the way away from each other, they locked eyes. They stared at each other for fifteen seconds, then they walked back in to the office and simultaneously told her, “yes.”

She sported this strange smile-frown hybrid, and stood up. “Very well. I believe the venue is ready for the ceremony. Your remaining friends have been working on it all week, and then some. From what I understand, your next step is being fitted for your garments. I’ll start working on the plan. We’ll discuss what you want to do, but we won’t be rehearsing. You may wish to write your own vows as well.”

They had already decided to go with something known as a parity wedding. The ceremony drops a lot of practices that were denigrating to women. The father does not “give away” her daughter, since she’s not property to be transferred. The bride does not necessarily wear white, because sexual abstinence is a subjective moral principle, and a primarily religious construct. Sexuality is something to be treasured, and shared with love; not hoarded and stigmatized. People who’ve not had sex yet are not more pure than those who have. There is no way to compare the two, because there is nothing that classifies one but not the other. There are as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people in the world. While Mateo has remained Catholic throughout this ordeal, religion would be absent from the proceedings. His faith in God, and hers in science and people, were not relevant to the celebration of their love and family. One thing his mother, Carol once told him was ringing in his ears today. “My marriage to your father is just that, a covenant between me and him. If God wanted to be involved, then he should have proposed to me first.”

Another aspect of the parity wedding is the equality of behavior. The man does not wait for the woman to come to him down the aisle, as if their life together cannot begin until she does. The concordants, as they are referred to in a parity wedding, walk down the aisle together, followed by their two chief attendants, and any honor attendants. This had to wait a little bit when little Dar’cy, who was growing up so fast, accidentally threw the rings onto the ground along with the flower petals. Her mother and a woman from another universe named Zoey, who had arrived late, and accidentally on the Colosseum battlegrounds, helped her find them so the ceremony could continue.

The concordants had to walk the whole way between the banquet tables in the Colosseum replica. The place looked beautiful, with the nicest table cloths, and padded chairs. Tasteful and elegant paper lanterns were hanging down in midair. Evidently a good version of Kayetan Glaston was merging them individually from different times and places all over the world. He would have to thank him for that later. Each and every centerpiece was unique, and handcrafted by their friends on Tribulation Island, primarily Darko and Marcy. They had apparently worked on them all throughout the interim year. It was too much, they shouldn’t have done all this for them. The audience of over 48,000 was overwhelming, and they all looked happy to be there. Why was this so important to everyone? Was it just a novelty? Afterall, there probably weren’t a whole lot of weddings in the real Colosseum, and this was giving a bunch of time travelers the chance to come together, and maybe forget about their problems. If this could do that for them, then Mateo was glad to help them, if only for a little bit.

Waiting for them on the stage was the Officiant. Behind them came Leona’s chief attendant, Horace, and Mateo’s, Serif. Her honor attendants were Lincoln and Marcy. Mateo’s were his once-father and once-brother, Mario and Darko. Paige was zipping around, taking photos of them. Someone he didn’t recognize was controlling the video drones overhead.

“I dig the outfits,” Darko whispered to him. “You’re owning it.” They were both dressed in salmon-colored wedding clothes. She was wearing a sleeved dress with a skirt that dropped just below her knees, and he was wearing a tuxedo, but no tie. They figured the powers that be would either get a kick out of it, or be made uncomfortable by it.

Ellie, who Mateo remembered from the Uluru tribulation, climbed the stairs from the back of the stage and smiled at them. “It’s pretty easy,” she told them. “When you want to project your voice, think about projecting your voice. When you want to speak just to the people in realtime earshot, think that instead. I am going to have to...invade your personal bubbles, though. It won’t hurt.” She reached up and placed the palm of her soft and cold hand over Mateo’s mouth. She smelled of cedar and milk. After a few seconds, she slid her hand away, and did the same to Leona.

“Now, we begin!” the Officiant said. Her voice boomed in the sky so that all could hear. “We meet at this time, at this place, to witness the marriage of two souls. This ceremony might seem strange to some of you. You may be from a time when weddings were done behind a barn, with little fanfare. You may be from a land where marriage simply is not common. Whenever, wherever, you live, you are here now. You are with Mateo and Leona on their special day. They met each other one-hundred and twenty-eight years ago. They’ve known each other for an indeterminate amount of time, due to special relativity, pocket dimensionality, and alternate timelines. They have seen the future, they have seen the past, and they are always in the present. Not all of their family is here with them today, but they will soon return to us. When they do, they’re going to come home to a stronger couple. I believe they would like to say a few words.” She nodded to Mateo so he could begin.

He cleared his throat, desperately hoping Ellie’s brief lesson on spacetime projecting was enough for him to understand. She was off to the side, still smiling, but now nodding to indicate that he was doing well. Finally, after an awkward silence, Mateo felt like it was time to just get going. “Leona Gelen Delaney-Reaver. When we first met, you threw up on me. You were just a kid, and I was waaay to old for you. But I was just starting this difficult part of my life. I was skipping time, and leaving everyone I loved behind. Or rather, they were living their lives, and I was the one who was left out. In less than two weeks from my perspective, you and I were the same age. And at that moment, you joined me. I did not want this for you, but clearly it was meant to be, because I could not have gotten through this without you. When we’re not together, you’re in my head...and my heart. You get me through my worst times. I want to thank you for all you’ve done, and I hope that someday, I’ll be able to repay you.” He wrote his vows down earlier in the day, but ended up changing a lot in the heat of the moment. He really shouldn’t have, though, because that felt awful. What was that about him not wanting this for her? God, that was bad. Maybe he screwed up further, and no one had even heard it, but Ellie was nodding still, so apparently he really had just humiliated himself in front of tens of thousands of people. And who knows who will end up seeing the drone footage...or already has.

“Mateo Gelen Matic,” Leona began, showing no hint that she felt the same way about his speech as he did. “I did want this. I didn’t fall in love with you when we first met, but it wasn’t long after that. I pulled myself onto this path, because upon learning that there was more to life than just college classes and movies, I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. This life isn’t easy, but we’re partners, and I would do it all again, if given the chance. We’ve been through so much together.” She paused. “We’ve been through a lot separately too, and those are the most difficult times. I don’t ever want us to be like that again. I don’t know what I would do without you. If we get married, promise neither of us will leave again.”

“I promise.”

Leona was silent, but the Officiant gave it some time before moving on, just to be sure. “Then through the power of time, I declare you bound in marriage.” Finally.

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Microstory 13: The Direct Line

In the Earthan year of 1984, a witch on the planet Persephone named Indira Felrey was discovered to be using Craft to commit crimes. Witchcraft itself was not illegal, however, certain practices resulted in outcomes that were necessarily against Martian Law. Unfit for general prison sentence, she was instead exiled to Earth where Craft was fundamentally impossible. The hidden structure of the universe prevented the exploits of Craft from ever being an issue within the Sol System.

Contrary to common lore, witchcraft does not rely on magic. Magic does not exist. Witches are in tune with an ancient infrastructure built billions of years ago. The maintainers of the structure spent hundreds of years connecting every living and non-living entity in the universe in order to study them and keep records.

No one is born a witch. Anyone can learn Craft. Some are able to learn the secrets quicker than others, but this is true of any skill. Witches exploit unavoidable functions of the structure in order to complete tasks and gain insight into the cosmos. This inherently limits their spells to a finite number of physically possible Engagements. In reality, they are voice commands, as one would use on a smartphone.

In 1987, the witch Indira Felrey discovered an authentication bypass that allowed her access to the structure while still on Earth. She opened a portal that she programmed to map the entirety of the surface of the planet. Only after it was finished could Craft be used on Earth, though still with some restrictions, due to different cosmological procedures. During a metaphysical crisis within the structure, The Supervisor and a rogue archief discovered the witch's glitch as it began. They could have shut it down, but they decided to let it play out and see what came of it. Indira died of natural causes before the mapping program could be completed in 1991, but the Archief and The Supervisor soon realized that they would be able to use the exploit for their own purposes.

And thus began one of the most important endeavors in the history of the universe, The Direct Line.