Microstory 2425: Industrial Farm Dome

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A bunch of domes are dedicated to farming. Some of them are designed for necessary food production, but others are just for the sake of it. Industrial farming describes the kind of farming that they did during and after the industrial revolution. They used machines to farm giant fields for massive numbers of people, and even used electricity, but they didn’t have computers. There was absolutely no hint of automation. Lots of farm hands still had to do all the work, and that’s how it goes here. Nothing gets done if there’s no one here to do it. If that means the crops die, then so be it. There’s actually plenty of waste, because the rest of the current population of the planet doesn’t really want to eat this stuff. Everything they could ever want is provided for them. They got their lab grown meat, meal bars, food printers, and dayfruit. They don’t really care how hard I worked out here in the hot sun, and the Castlebourne leadership isn’t incentivizing them to choose us over those other things. I think they really should have worked this out differently. Screw that other stuff. If you have the real thing—and people are willing to labor FOR FREE—why would you choose anything else? Those should be a last resort. If they want this planet to be self-sufficient, then we have what you’re looking for. I don’t blame the other visitors for doing this wrong. There is so little awareness about what we can do for them. I guess what you really need is cooks. Some domes have culinary components, or so I hear, but I can’t find a dome that’s dedicated to the culinary arts. If they did that, we could work closely with them to make the supply chain a real thing. See? I got ideas, and I’m just a dumb regular human. I came here on a ship with one of these new reframe engines. I can’t even upload or transfer my consciousness to a new body. This is the real me. These other people don’t always even need to eat, so they have no appreciation for any of this. Some changes need to be made around here, because I don’t want to go back to the stellar neighborhood. I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to find what I’m entitled to on this planet. People just need to do the right thing.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 11, 2493

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A web of technicolors appeared out of nowhere, and spat Team Matic out onto the floor. They rolled away from each other like marbles from a jar. It was not only the six of them, though. Romana was with them, as was some guy. “Who are you?” Leona demanded to know, prepared to fight, while Mateo was making sure that his daughter was okay.

The stranger stood up and cracked his neck. He held his arms out in front of him with his elbows bent a little. As he was clearing his throat, he adjusted his nanites, looking down at himself, making sure they were all in working order. It was only then that he acknowledged their presence, though not out of surprise. “My name is Amal,” he answered stoically.

“What are you doing here, Amal?” Leona questioned, almost as if she didn’t believe him.

“What year is it?” he posed.

She kept one eye on him while she consulted her watch. She tapped on it a few times with her fingernail. “No idea, this is broken.”

“Use your other one,” Amal suggested cryptically.

“My other what?” Leona asked, confused, and even more defensive now.

“Uh,” Ramses began, massaging his forehead. “I replicated that watch’s powers. We all have one now.” He receded the wrist of his emergent suit to show his bare skin. The time and date appeared on it, glowing a bright green. “Nanobotic tattoos, tied directly into the timestream.”

Leona looked at her own. Then removed her broken watch. “July 11, 2493. We jumped early from last year.”

“No, you went on a detour,” Amal contended. “You’ve been gone longer than you realize.”

“Where were we?” Marie asked, stepping forward. “When were we?”

“I cannot answer that,” Amal replied. “I honestly do not know.” Agent Smith. That was who he sounded like; Agent Smith from the Matrix franchise. “Our minds have been erased to protect the future. I could not even tell you why I’m here. We have not yet met.”

“It seems that we have,” Angela reasoned.

“Quite,” Amal agreed. “Something must have gone wrong after you were summoned to the future. I should not have come through with you.”

“Summoned by who?” Olimpia pressed.

“That I could answer, but I won’t. But I can promise that you trust them.” He laughed through his nose.

“It was us,” Leona figured. “We summoned ourselves.”

“I never said that.” Amal was worried, which probably meant that she was right.

“How do we proceed?” Mateo asked him. “What are we gonna do with you?”

“What you’re going to do is be patient,” Amal answered. “Until we meet again.” There was no stopping him. He slammed his fists together, crouched down, and stuck his knees between his elbows. Technicolors overwhelmed him, and he was gone.

“Hmm,” Ramses said. He looked around at his lab. “The sensors picked that up. Now I bet they know how to make a miniature slingdrive.”

“Careful, Rambo,” Leona said to him. “That’s what we call bootstrapping.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Roma,” Mateo said to his little girl. “How did you end up with us?”

“We were going on a mission,” Romana answered. “I stepped into my Dubra pod, just as we always do, so our temporal signatures don’t interfere with the operation of the slingdrive on the Vellani Ambassador. Then I woke up here.”

“You must have been summoned too. It could take years before we find out where we went, and even then, it may only be from an outsider’s perspective. Then again, I once closed my own loop, and my otherwise paradoxical memories of it finally came flooding back into my brain, like they were just waiting for me.”

Romana shook her head. “I’ve been gone for almost a year. I have to go report in.”

“I understand.” He gave her a hug, and then let her go.

A swarm of dark particles spun her around, and into oblivion.

Olimpia was playing with her new suit. She opened some sort of flap on the top of her wrists, which she pointed around the room with a menacing look on her face. “I have guns. I’m gonna shoot sum’im.”

“Those are not guns,” Ramses said with a laugh. “There are no onboard weapons.” He lifted his own flaps, then switched on the flashlight on his right arm.

“Oh,” Olimpia said, figuring out how to turn her own flashlight on, and looking down the barrel of it. She then did the same with her left arm. “What’s this other one?”

“Sensor suite,” Ramses explained as he was walking towards her, “for more detailed information about your environment. It has a medical array too. You should read up on it. He tapped the center of her chest, just under her neck, with three of his fingers. A holographic computer interface was projected from two emitters on her shoulders. “You should peruse the manual.”

“Why is it called the EmergentSuit?” she asked.

“Because the nanites emerge from the implants in your body,” Ramses said.

Olimpia read a little more of the text, which was probably pretty dry and uninteresting. “Boring, I’ll wait for the movie.”

He put an arm around her shoulders, and used his other hand to control her interface. A video popped up. “Hi. I’m a virtual avatar, presenting in the form of my creator, Ramses Abdulrashid. Let me show you how your new EmergentSuit works!” He muted it. “What a fox,” Real!Ramses mused.

Mateo huffed. “You did not tell me that was there. I had to read pages and pages of that thing.”

“If that’s true, you would have seen the part where it tells you that there’s an interactive alternative.”

Mateo mocked Ramses playfully with his pursed lips as he bobbled his head. He pulled up his own interface, and searched the manual for the exact terms. “Interactive alternative; no results.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to put that blurb in your version of the manual, and you never received the updated edition. You do have the video, though.”

“Thanks, that’s great,” Mateo said sarcastically.

“This all sounds fun,” Leona said, “but we need to go check in with Hrockas.”

“Wait,” Angela interrupted. “Is that it? We were sent to the future, and brought back to our pattern, and we’re just gonna move on as if that’s normal and fine? We’re not gonna try to get our memories back, or investigate how this could have possibly happened, or anything? Someone summoned us, Ramses, using technology that you have apparently not invented yet. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Ramses was about to answer, but Leona stepped in, starting with, “I—” She took one moment to gather her thoughts. “Before you died, did you believe in God?”

“Excuse me?”

“It was very common at the time, to believe in a higher power.”

“Well, yeah, I did. I was raised to be a Christian,” Angela admitted.

“Did you ever question God?”

“All the time,” Angela replied, like she was winning the argument. My dad was a slaveowner.

“And did you ever get anything out of that? Did God ever...come down, and apologize?  Did he give you answers?”

Angela was not happy, but Marie was even more upset. “The people who took us are not gods.”

“By our standards,” Leona reasoned, “they may as well be. We know nothing. We don’t know for sure that it was Future!Us, though that is the assumption. We can’t go preoccupying ourselves with every little thing that happens to us. We’ll go crazy. The truth will reveal itself in time. Until then, Hrockas needs to know that we’re back. Because we returned later than expected, and we made a commitment to build him a relay network.”

“The relay network is done.” They had left Ramses’ lab, and were now in Hrockas’ office. “Well, it’s not done, but it’s on its way, and will be ready in time for the grand opening in seven years.”

“Team Kadiar agreed to help you with it?”

He shook his head. “No need. Some friends stepped up. They didn’t want us clogging up their own quantum terminals, but they agreed to build us dedicated machines. Most of them will be stored in the corner somewhere on their Lagrange-one stations.”

“I thought you couldn’t do that,” Leona reminded him. “I thought they were unwilling to help.”

“No, the core government was unwilling to help. But the neighborhood representatives finally secured a win for key legislation that gave them more latitude. They’re free to build whatever technology they want—as long as it follows certain criteria, like not being a weapon—and they don’t have to share it with any other world. This places each machine squarely in the local leadership’s control, and I’ve managed to negotiate with all of them, even some core worlds. So we’re good. Thanks for the offer.”

“This sounds risky,” Leona pointed out. “They could revoke the charter whenever they want, right?”

“Absolutely,” Hrockas admitted. “Maintaining strong diplomatic relations will be of the utmost importance to the continuity of my operation. That’s why I’ve hired a Minister of Foreign Affairs to be in charge of all the little ambassadors that I’ll need to liaise with our relay partners.”

“Could we meet this person?”

“She’s not here yet,” Hrockas explained. “I believe that she’s leaving in a few weeks, then it will take her a couple of months to arrive.”

“A couple months?” Ramses questioned. “The only way you can get out here in a couple months is if you use a reframe engine. I mean, that’s if you’re not just quantum casting which is within an hour.”

“Yeah, she has a reframe engine,” Hrockas said. “I guess Earth has done enough work to develop them on their own.”

“I guess,” Leona agreed. “I hope we did the right thing, letting them have that technology.” It had actually been a pretty long time since the Edge Meeting where they granted certain knowledge to certain parties in the main sequence regarding the manipulation of time. It was Hokusai Gimura’s responsibility to actually coordinate with Teagarden and Earth, and Leona didn’t exist most of the time, so she lost track of how that process was faring. It didn’t sound like it was going to be as easy as beaming them the specifications, and walking away. Still, it felt rushed, probably because to the team, this whole thing only started a few months ago. “Well, I’m glad you’re doing okay.”

“Yep,” Hrockas agreed. “So, if you wanted to move on to your next project, maybe fight the bad guy in that Goldilocks Corridor, I think that would be fine.”

“Yeah, we might do that,” Leona said with a nod.

The rest of the team was there, but besides Mateo and Ramses, they were all kind of busy reading up on their new suits. It was awkward, so Leona just disappeared. Mateo broke the others out of their trances, and pulled them out of the office too. “Hey. How are you feeling?” he asked his wife. They were in the replica of Kansas City now, standing in the parking lot where all time travelers were funneled to when they showed up in the Third Rail.

“We never...finish anything,” she mused. “We don’t accomplish our goals. We’re always pulled in some other direction, and all we can do is hope that we’ve done enough for whoever we had to leave behind. I got used to that. I got used to knowing that I did my best, but this new crowd needed me now, and it was time to refocus.” She finally looked up at him. “But do we even need to go back to the Corridor? Niobe’s army is taking the offensive. I even think fighters from Verdemus finally showed up in the Anatol Klugman. Team Kadiar is rescuing defectors left and right. I don’t know what’s going on with the Sixth Key, but the delegates were doing fine the last we saw them.”

Mateo nodded. “We’re aimless again, aren’t we? And we don’t do well when we’re aimless. Ramses needs to invent, you need to lead, the Waltons need to counsel.”

“And the two of us need to be dum-dums,” Olimpia added.

Mateo nodded again. “And the two of us need to be dum-dums,” he echoed.

“Dum-dums with cool flashlights,” Olimpia corrected. She shined it on the asphalt, thought it was daytime under this dome, so the light may as well have been off.

“We may be aimless,” Marie said in a soft voice, “but we’re not useless. We’ll find our place to be. Ramses just needs to get us there.”

“I can finish the mini-slingdrives,” Ramses confirmed, “but someone will need to decide where we go.”

“Are you sure?” Angela smiled. “We’ve used it before without plotting a destination. You could even say that we were aimless.”

Leona smiled too.

“Orders sir,” Ramses requested from the Captain.

Leona took a breath to center herself. “Engineer, build me my new engine. Counselors, find out what you can about this Minister of Foreign Affairs. I don’t want to leave our friends hanging if there’s only one last thing to do. Mister Matic, go see if you can spend some time with your daughters before we leave. And Miss Sangster?”

“Yeah...?”

“I believe we owe each other date.”

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Microstory 2357: Earth, July 7, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

You should have received my custom read receipt that confirmed the plan for The Winfield Files, but in case you didn’t, we’re a go. They’re not the longest books in the world, but they’re not super short either. Still, I think we could each get the next one done within a couple weeks. I agree that our thoughts should be in the form of attachments. Yeah, we might have to wait for each other’s responses before moving on, so it may not be as neat as one installment per pair of letters, but I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. To answer your question, our relationship with the dome remains strong. Generally speaking, the immigrants aren’t having significant issues, though it’s a culture shock for many of them. In some ways, we’re different, but in others, we’re the same. It’s true that we’re mobile, but this thing is so large, and the engines are running so slowly, that you can’t really tell. The view is really the biggest difference. Still, they’ve designed it to simulate a normal dome as much as possible. We have dirt and sand and grass. Dad and I live in the platform section, instead of the dome proper, but all of the newcomers have been assigned housing outside, which I think they prefer, since it’s more like what they’re used to. Speaking of new friends, I have an idea about your neighbor. What your problem seems to be is that he doesn’t care how his actions affect others. You have to show him that you exist, and give him some reason to consider that in the future. Don’t complain about the noise, don’t yell at him. Endear yourself to him. First step is to ask him for help with something. How tall are you? If you have some artwork high up on the wall that needs to be adjusted, or a nut under your sink that needs to be tightened, ask him to do it. This especially works if he’s a man, because he wants to feel big and strong, but you can execute this trick with just about anyone. Just make sure it’s a simple task. People want to feel needed, not exploited. Once he’s done, thank him for taking the time, then invite him over for lunch, or a board game. Invite a couple other people if you feel uncomfortable being alone with him, but don’t make it a full-on party. You want him to see you as an individual, and to be reminded of his connection to you when he’s in the area, not the gathering over all. I don’t like the phrase kill them with kindness, but that’s what you’re doing here. This doesn’t work every time; some people are clueless, but my childhood bully stopped harassing me after I tried this. Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes.

Ready to start Book One,

Condor

Microstory 2261: Call Her My Baby

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My license situation in this country, on this planet, has been complicated, to say the least. I do have an identity, though officially, I am not considered an alien from outer space. It doesn’t matter how many people believe me, or even if all the world leaders do, bureaucratic documentation simply does not have a box for that on any of the forms. So anyway, while I was technically certified as a driver here, I was only rated for a normal combustion engine. It required learning a lot more maintenance than I cared to know. I would much rather take it in to a professional, and have them deal with it. Mechanics has never been a strength for me, and more importantly, not an interest. Of course, electric vehicles being what they are, require a different kind of maintenance. It wasn’t easier or harder; just different. I had to go into the dealership, and take a little class, which included a written portion, and practical instruction. Then I had to take a test immediately afterwards. It was a sort of all-day affair, but they conduct these all the time, so there were about two dozen people with me. Most people were bored, because they were a lot more prepared than me, and they were more used to driving over all. I needed a refresher on operating motor vehicles anyway, since it’s been quite a while for me I think. I know I did it a little bit in Havenverse, but we mostly tried to walk or bike, since electric cars weren’t as prevalent there as we would have liked. We couldn’t afford one anyway. So that being done, I was able to finish the paperwork for my purchase, and take my new car home. You’ll notice that I did not refer to it as a she, or call her my baby. This is a machine that I need to get myself around, not a living member of the family. And it’s not just for fun. It’s a tool, to make our lives more convenient in a medium-sized city with some metropolitan sprawl. After Kelly and Dutch take their own classes, they’ll be able to use it too.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 0 EXT

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Leona looked over the new control console that Ramses had installed on the bridge of the Vellani Ambassador. He had revamped the whole thing, instead of simply integrating this new engine that he had fabricated into the old system. He was calling it the quintessence drive. It worked by pushing against the fabric of the universe, which was composed of what was once known as dark matter. Instead of fully piercing the membrane, it only reached through it enough to adjust the temporal properties of the ship. Outside of any universe, time was a spatial dimension, instead of a temporal one, which essentially meant that time didn’t really pass in any humanly fathomable sense. One could travel untold distances in the blink of an eye by stealing energy from the highest dimension possible. Machines like the Crossover and the Transit did this all the time, but they usually did it to travel from one brane to another. All the quintessence drive did was skip over the realspace in one brane, and end up somewhere else much faster than any other vessel in histories. Not even The Globetrotter, Maqsud Al-Amin was as fast. At least that was the idea. They had yet to test it.

“Show of hands, who is willing to risk it?” Ramses asked, now that he had clearly explained the deal.

“That’s not your call,” Leona reminded him. She took a beat before repeating the question herself verbatim.

Everyone raised their hand.

“All right,” Leona decided. “Rambo, this is your thing, so if you say you’ve done the necessary preflight check, I’ll believe you.”

“I’ve done it,” Ramses said. “Navigation is the hardest component, as it always is. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be right on target, but we’ll be close, and we’re not going to be liquified, or turned back into babies, or something.”

“Why would you even bring that up?” Mateo questioned.

“Because it’s not going to happen, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He slammed his hand on the physical button that he had incorporated into the console, and declared, “yalla!” That was usually Leona’s line, but it was his language.

A web of technicolor threads appeared on the viewscreens. The bridge offered them a 360 degree view of the outside using exterior cameras. The web continued to spread out, and encompass the whole ship. It closed in on them tightly, like a silkworm forming its cocoon. It didn’t remain in this state for long before it stretched back out into infinity, pulling all of spacetime along with it. The stretching decelerated as the colors faded into oblivion, and for a moment, they saw nothing in the absolute black. Not a single photon of light was making its way towards them. And then the stars blinked into existence as if God had switched them back on. They were there. Well, they were somewhere anyway.

“Report,” Leona ordered.

“PMS is recalibrating,” Ramses replied. Back when researchers were first really contemplating using the galaxy’s pulsars to determine a ship’s relative position in space, they devised the Pulsar Mapping System. By the time people pointed out the unfortunate acronym, it was kind of too late. They did officially change it to the PPS, a.k.a. the Pulsar Positioning System, but a lot of developers preferred the original term specifically for its humor value, and it wasn’t illegal to call it that.

“Just call it the PPS, dude,” Leona suggested.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Ramses watched the screen, gradually falling into a blank face.

Leona could have read it the whole time herself, but it was his job, so she hadn’t bothered. Now she turned her head to check as well, and saw what he was seeing. “Insufficient data. Position indeterminable,” she read.

“What does that mean, we’re too far for it to know?” Marie asked.

“We could be too far from the extent of the pulsar map in three dimensions,” Leona began, “or in four.”

“We may have traveled through time too?” Angela surmised.

“Lee-Lee, your watch,” Mateo pointed out.

“Right, of course.” Her watch could tell her the time no matter where or when she went. It would either default to standard human culture, or reach out to the nearest civilization that was advanced enough to have their own timekeeping standards. If none of these was available, it would display the relative temporal distance from its last known position. “Two thousand, eight hundred and fifteen years.”

“That’s the year, or the...” Olimpia prodded.

“That’s how far back we went,” Leona clarified. “We’re about 350 years before the start of the common era.”

“Can you...plug that into the PMS?” Angela asked, gesturing towards the console. “Or the PPS. Do we know where these pulsar things were back then?”

“We do not,” Ramses answered, shaking his head. “The map doesn’t account for such big time differences. Perhaps a time traveler could make such a map, just for people like us. Because without it, there’s no way to know where we are. There’s no decent way to even measure regular stellar drift in this period. Everything is different. And until we figure it out, we’re not going anywhere. Trying to make another jump would be even more dangerous. I seem to have sorely overestimated my abilities.”

“It’s all right, bro.” Mateo slapped him on the back. “We’re still here in seven pieces, that’s all the matters.”

“I need to run a diagnostic on the rest of the ship’s systems,” Leona said. “If we’re stranded, we need to know if anything’s damaged. Waltons, could you take stock of our inventory?” She placed her hand on Ramses’ shoulder. “Keep working at it. Find Sagittarius A* and at least two neighboring galaxies. Those will not have moved much. It won’t give us our exact location, but we’ll get a better frame of reference.”

“That’s a good idea. Thanks.”

Leona went off to check the other systems, like the reframe engine, and hull integrity. Verdemus was nowhere to be seen, so the new drive had taken them somewhere else, and they needed to understand whether there were any consequences or limitations to that. Angela and Marie went off to see what kind of supplies they had with them. This left the dummies with nothing to do once again.

For the most part, the six of them preferred to be rather close to each other. Their private rooms in the main pocket dimension were small; no one was more than several meters away at any time while they were on the ship. There were times when that was just a little too much. Fortunately, Ramses had built this second pocket altogether, which was used by the delegators during The Rock meetings. Though Ramses was considering upgrading his lab to the entirety of this space, it was presently still completely vacant. There was a bicycle in here, which someone must have requested from the industrial synthesizer in the engineering section. He didn’t think that any of the delegators were allowed to use that without supervision, so maybe they had had it, and someone else on the team had decided that it was okay.

“Got one for me?” Olimpia asked, having followed him inside.

“I don’t think so,” Mateo replied. “We could take turns.” He tilted the bike away from his body, balancing the end of the left handlebar on the tip of his index finger.

She brushed it away with a wave of her hand. “It’s all you, buddy. I don’t even know how to ride.”

Mateo smiled. “Neither did my daughter. I taught her while we were in the Sixth Key. It was a touching moment. Shoulda caught it on camera.”

Olimpia nodded. She was alone in the void during that time. Well, it was technically the future, but they didn’t reunite with her until she had spent some time there, fighting for freedom, and also for what little hope she had left.

He sighed, and looked around. “There’s not really much room. I don’t know how they used it. I guess there’s this hallway that wraps all around. But when you’re learning, you kind of need wide open spaces.”

“It’s fine,” Olimpia replied, sincerely confused. “I wasn’t asking for you to teach me. I don’t need to know how to ride. It’s...” She consulted her forearm interface screen. “...the fucking future.”

He thought about it for a moment, then he leaned the bike back against the wall, and started to leave the pocket. “Come on.” He led her across Delegation Hall, and into their usual pocket. He opened Olimpia’s door, and ushered her inside. “Lie down.”

“For..for what?” she stammered.

He tapped two fingers against the corner of the VR drawer to open it. He took out the headband, and waited patiently. “We can have as much space as we need.” All in all,  they didn’t use the virtual environments that much. They just didn’t really have the time, what with all the running around, fighting bad guys, and saving universes. They were always there, though, and the Ambassador came equipped with a decent number of virtual stacks.

She smiled without showing teeth, and lay down on her back.

“Scooch over.” After she was closer to the wall, he gently placed the band over her head, like a nurse preparing her for a medical procedure. He then reached back into the drawer to retrieve the second band. He lay down next to her, and slipped his on.

They appeared next to each other on the street that ran by Mateo’s childhood home in Topeka. Thanks to satellite imagery, stitched panoramas, and supplemental photographs, the majority of civilization since the late two thousand aughts was available for visiting through the stacks. People were dreaming up virtual worlds every single day. It was pretty much impossible to have a copy of every single one of them, especially since most of the point was for people to come together on a joint server. But these mapping images, which could be scaled to any point since 2007, depending on where you want to go, had become standard issue in every copy of the central archives. This included the street images, ocean views, and sky maps. The idea was to simulate the real world, using a real world physics engine. Anything beyond that was user’s choice. This was what they needed today. Olimpia needed to feel what it would be like if she were sitting on a real bicycle.

They could smell the fresh autumn air, and hear the dogs and leaf blowers in the distance. There was no pollution, or bits of trash on the street, though, so it wasn’t exactly like it was in the real world, but it was an idyllic version of it. This is what things looked like in 2013, not long before Mateo first disappeared.

“Why am I wearing a helmet?” Olimpia questioned.

“For safety,” he answered.

“I can’t die in here,” she reasoned.

“It’s a simulation,” he argued. “We’re simulating it. No, you can’t actually die. Even if we really traveled to Earth, and you fell down, you would barely be hurt in this all but perfect body of yours. But I want you to feel like it was like back when I was learning. Well, I mean, twenty years later, but we don’t have data from 1992.”

“Who taught you?”

Mateo smiled, and looked up at the house. The imagery didn’t contain people unless the user programmed them in. Even then, likeness was difficult to acquire. He couldn’t just conjure up his family out of nothing, and there was no getting the rights to them from here. “My mother. My birth mother. She couldn’t take care of me on her own, but she still wanted to be there for the milestones. She disappeared in ninety-four.”

“I didn’t have much in the way of parents myself,” Olimpia said. “I couldn’t be around people with my voice the way it was before this—” She cut herself off when she looked at her arm, and realized that she had no need for the Cassidy cuff in here. “Well, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah.” He placed one hand underneath the seat, and the other on the handlebar. “Put both feet on the pedals. Don’t worry, I won’t let go.”

“It would be fine if you did, remember?” Olimpia turned her head, and realized how close their faces were. “But please don’t anyway.”

They could smell each other’s breaths. Regardless of what they ate today, they both smelled good in this world. Scientists did studies centuries ago, and while there was no accounting for taste, citrus seemed like a pretty universally appreciated scent, so that was the default in VR. In fact, pink grapefruit was the most common default in most systems. She looked up at him with those eyes.

Scared of whatever the hell was happening, Mateo jumped back, accidentally pushing the bike over in the process. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry.”

Olimpia stood back up, leaving the bike where it was. “I’m fine, my pain sensors are at a very low setting.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that...Leona...”

“I know. I’m not trying to get between you two. But you were just talking about my perfect body, and you have to admit, we’re more alike than you two are.”

“Yeah, because we’re both morons. We could be the progenitors of Idiocracy!”

“I don’t think a moron would know the word progenitor.”

Their comm discs buzzed in the real world. It was from Ramses. “Team, I found something. It’s a planet, and there’s an energy signature coming from it.”

“How far?” Leona asked.

“One hop, one skip, and one jump.”

“Plot a course. Everyone get back to the bridge. I’m pretty sure it’s the Exins.”

Mateo and Olimpia looked at each other awkwardly. “We need to talk, the three of us,” he decided.

“I know.”

They removed their bands, and got out of bed.

« < » > Table of Contents

Fluence: Aura (Part II)

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Briar was gone. Once Goswin felt like he knew enough about the Parallel justice system to trust that it was fair and, well...just, he returned to the X González to explain things to the suspect. Briar was not in his cabin, nor did it look like anyone had ever stayed there. The bedsheets were perfectly aligned, and the surfaces were dusty from disuse. Goswin stepped back into the hallway to see if he was just turned around, but this had to be the right cabin. Still, he checked all of the others, and Briar wasn’t anywhere else either. It wasn’t a huge ship. Eight Point Seven’s sensors were damaged, in addition to her memory, so she was unable to find his location. The researchers on this asteroid had their own security system, which could not find him either, nor detect that anyone besides Goswin and Weaver had ever stepped out of the González. It was a mystery, the answer to which almost certainly had something to do with time travel.

“There’s a database,” Pontus began to explain. “It stores the records of every single person in every reality, throughout all of time, in every timeline. It could trace Briar’s steps as long as he showed up somewhere that records such data. While it does have an unspeakable amount of data, it’s not magic. If someone went off somewhere alone, they could hide from it, just like you could slink through the blindspots of a security camera.”

“Might as well try it,” Goswin decided.

“It’s not that easy,” Pontus replied. “It’s not here. It’s hard to reach, and reportedly harder to access. Almost no one in the universe is granted permission, and even when they are, their activity is heavily monitored to prevent abuse. The Tanadama, which are sort of like our god-leaders, would be prone to letting someone like you use it, but you would still have to go there first, and there is no guarantee.”

“Can we just...call them?” Goswin asked. “I don’t need to look at this database myself. He’s a dangerous and unstable man. He was an adult before he met anyone besides his mother, and he found himself trusting the wrong person. I don’t know what he’s gonna do...and if he’s dead, I need to know that too.”

Pontus shook his head. “We can’t just call. Part of the point is making the journey to Sriav.” He looked towards the back entrance of the hollowed-out asteroid. “It’s out there, in the void, away from all others, in this tiny pocket of civilization. I couldn’t even give you the exact coordinates. I think you’re expected to intuit your vector somehow. They call it our sister outpost, but we’ve never interacted with them, and I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Well, this has to happen. Whatever you need from us, it will have to wait. Briar de Vries is our priority.” He turned away as he tapped on his comms disc to make it clear that he was starting a separate conversation. “Eight Point Seven, Weaver, we’re going to a world called Sriav.”

When he turned back to ask for permission to leave the asteroid, Pontus was gone. Beside him were Weaver and Eight Point Seven in her humanoid form. “How did you do that? Did you have that body ready and waiting?”

She was just as surprised as he was. She patted herself. “Are we all corporeal?”

“No way to test that,” Weaver acknowledged. “We could all be in a simulation.”

“Not a simulation,” came a voice behind them. “It’s Sriav.”

They turned to see a grand entrance to an expansive room. It was so wide and deep that they couldn’t see how big the room was. The walls and ceiling were ornately decorated, but it appeared to be completely unfurnished, like a shell waiting to be filled and used. “I’m sorry, I got the impression that this planet was located in the intergalactic void.”

“It is,” the woman confirmed. “It’s roughly a million light years from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.”

“We were just on an asteroid in the Achernar system,” Weaver said.

“Well,” the woman began, “if you were going to be in one place one second, and another the next, it would be Po.”

“Po?”

“That’s the primary planet orbiting Alpha Eridani. Hi. I’m Madam Sriav. You came here for a reason, I presume?”

“Captain?” Eight Point Seven urged.

“We’re looking for a man by the name of Briar de Vries,” Goswin started to explain. “He disappeared from our ship. We don’t know exactly when, or how, and we certainly don’t know where we went. Our arrival here is the second time today we’ve jumped through spacetime inexplicably quick. I was told that you have a database?”

Madam Sriav smiled. “This world is quite remote, as I’ve said. We have true faster-than-light travel, of course, but you can’t use it to get here. If you try, you’ll slow down for no apparent reason. It’s a security feature. No, if you wanna come here, you have to do it the old fashioned way, with a simple reframe engine. That could take you upwards of 1400 years. Most barely try, and most of the rest quit. The few who have dedicated their lives to such a pursuit have ended up staying here. There is no better place to live, I believe.”

“Okay, but the database?” Goswin pressed.

She smiled again. “A mechanical rabbit lure, just to give people a reason to head in this direction.”

“So it doesn’t exist,” Weaver surmised.

“A computer that tracks everyone in every reality? What horrors could that lead to? I wouldn’t want to live in a universe that had something like that.”

Weaver faced Goswin. “There must be some reason we’re here. There’s a reason we were thrown to Achernar, and now this place. I think you’re doing it.”

Goswin shook his head with the confidence of a math professor. “No, I’m not.”

“There are only three reasons to slip timespace the way we’ve been doing it; incidentally, by one’s own hand...or by someone else’s,” Weaver went over.

“What is here?” Goswin asked Madam Sriav. “What is the purpose of this world?”

“If you have to ask, you don’t belong,” she answered.

“It would help us understand how we ended up here,” Eight Point Seven reasoned. “Perhaps Briar is already here.”

Madam Sriav sighed. “It would not be my place to say, but...”

“But what?” Goswin waved his loose hand in circles. “Go on.”

“You could always look for a tracker...assuming you can make it back to civilization.” Madam Sriav didn’t think that would ever happen. “There are people who specialize in it. Some have learned and trained, others are born with the gift. Some were imbued with power by the Tanadama themselves.”

“A tracker?” Goswin questioned. “Is there a real database of such people, like a...um...”

“The word you’re looking for is a phonebook,” Weaver helped. “Madam, I know you don’t use money for transactions, but if these people help people like businesses, there must be some central location to find them.”

Madam Sriav shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I was born on this world. I don’t have much of a practical understanding of the way they do things out there.”

Now Goswin sighed as he looked up at the high ceiling. “Well, do you have any ships? We forgot to bring ours.” Something weird happened. Did the ceiling change? Yeah, the ceiling appeared to change. It was sort of gradual, but also abrupt? He kept staring at it, and trying different angles. It looked more like a sky at dawn now.

“Captain. It happened again,” Eight Point Seven explained.

Goswin nodded, still checking different angles of the sky-ceiling. “Yeah, I know. I’m just afraid to look. Everytime I wanna go somewhere, we go.”

“It’s worse than that this time,” Weaver said.

Goswin dropped his chin. Madam Sriav was still here with them, and they were no longer in the frighteningly large room. They were outside, in the center of some kind of meadow nearish the top of a mountain. “I do apologize for...whatever is going on. With me, or with us. I just don’t know.”

“You need to get me back,” Madam Sriav insisted. “So please, figure it out.” She seemed like the kind of person who was not used to getting upset, and was desperately trying to keep her emotions in check, even though she had ever reason to be cross.

“Hey! Who are you?” A man was walking towards them from the slope.

“We are the crew of the X González,” Goswin replied, hoping that Madam Sriav would rather be lumped in with them than stand out in the presence of yet another stranger. “Can you tell us where we are?”

“You’re on Lorania, on the side of Mount Aura.”

“Lorania?” Eight Point Seven echoed, “as in, the island on Dardius?”

“That’s right,” the man said.

“Dardius only exists in the main sequence,” Madam Sriav revealed. “You brought us across realities. How are you doing this?”

“I still don’t know, but I’m worried that he’s accidentally joined us, and if I start thinking about going somewhere else, I’ll only make matters worse.”

“No,” Madam Sriav began to calculate. “Think about Sriav, and that’s where we’ll go. I don’t really care where anyone else goes. I welcomed you to my planet, because that is my job, and I can’t do it if I’m here, so I’m done humoring you.”

Wow, this situation escalated quickly. “Are you a tracker?” Goswin asked the new guy. “If you’re a tracker, that’s why I’m here.”

“No. I’m Harrison. Tracker Four is up there.”

“Great. Maybe they can help everyone get home,” Goswin hoped.

“She’s with another client,” Harrison said, stopping them from stepping forward with an imposing stance.

“You can come back for her later,” Sriav said to Goswin. “You take me back first.”

“I can’t control it,” Goswin argued. “I’m not even sure I am doing it. I don’t feel anything when it happens. Do either of you feel anything?”

Weaver and Eight Point Seven shook their heads.

“Yeah,” Goswin went on, “so let’s say it’s me. What if I accidentally send us to the inside of a volcano, or hell, just the vacuum of outer space?”

“Don’t even suggest things like that!” Sriav was raising her voice now. “Don’t put those thoughts in your own head!”

Goswin made prayer hands, with his index fingers wrapped around his nose, his middle fingers pressed up against his forehead, and his thumbs pushing up the corners of his lips. This is what he did when he was frustrated, and trying to solve a problem. “Harrison, is this region dangerous in any way.”

Harrison didn’t expect the question. “Uh, there’s a natural merge point a few kilometers that way, which will take you to prehistoric times. As long as you stay away from that, you should be good.”

“I’m not gonna try to do anything yet. Madam Sriav, I know that your life and your job are important to you, but you have a few hours to just wait, so I can get this right. I’m going to go meditate. When I get back, if you happen to have photos of where you live, there’s a chance that helps. I really couldn’t say for sure. I’m sorry if I did this to you, but this is uncharted territory, so your patience would be greatly appreciated.”

Still annoyed, Madam Sriav raised her eyebrows, and gestured for him to get on with it. Then she turned around, and started kicking at some nearby flowers.

Goswin wasn’t super into meditation, but he had done it a few times, and it was a great excuse to get away from everyone. If he really was responsible for all of this, standing around and being berated about it wasn’t going to help. He found a nice, soft patch of grass a couple hundred meters away from them. He sat down cross-legged, and closed his eyes, hoping to free his mind from all distractions. The birds were starting to chirp, but they were very consistent and melodic, so it actually helped. There was a slight breeze that cooled his face just enough to be comfortable in this tropical weather. He breathed in deeply, held it in for a few seconds, and exhaled through his mouth. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. He didn’t have powers, or a pattern. He was just a normal guy who met a bunch of time travelers one day. That was why he jumped at the chance to board the X González. He wanted to know more, to meet other people. He wanted to have an adventure. He didn’t want to ruin people’s lives.

He was sitting there for several minutes when it began to rain. It was only a sprinkle at first, but then the drops began to fall harder. It didn’t stop him, though. He stayed where he was, trying to find his center. This was just another distraction that he had to let go of and ignore. Before too long, though, the rain was pouring. The grass under him was pushed away to be replaced by mud. He didn’t know how long he could stand it. It wasn’t the most discomfort he had ever experienced, but he certainly didn’t want it to worsen.

“Ēalā! Eart þu hāl!” an unfamiliar voice shouted to him.

He felt like he had no choice but to open his eyes. This was definitely not Lorania anymore. “What? Sorry, I slipped, but I’m okay.” He started to stand up. “Where am I?”

She seemed quite confused at his words. “It’s England.”

“Forgive me, but...what year?”

“Oh. You must have come through the cave.”

“What cave?”

“On Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. It’s the year 1133, on Earth. My name is Irene. Irene de Vries.”

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 9, 2399

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The AOC came this close to catching up with the Constant, and whatever is propelling it through space. It was moving away from its original coordinates at subfractional speeds, probably under the assumption that it would be able to hide itself away without using up too much power. Then, as soon as they detected Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa’s pursuit it switched the engines on to maximum, and started to stay ahead of them. This is where they have remained since yesterday, with pretty much no hope for the team to overtake them. There’s no way for them to gain an advantage. The reframe engine moves the ship faster than light, but it’s still inextricably linked to the light speed barrier. The Constant apparently has access to this technology, thanks to Pryce himself, no doubt. What they really need is a true faster-than-light drive, though to be fair, if they had that, so would likely the Constant. It’s kind of weird that they don’t, to be honest. Team Keshida figured it out, which means it’s possible, so why didn’t the builders of the facility from deep into the future include a propulsion drive in the original design? They supposedly had multiple contingencies for everything else.

“Is there anything we can do?” Alyssa asks.

“Not unless they falter,” Rames replies. He’s on edge, like a real spaceship captain, even though there’s nothing for him to do. Constance is handling everything.

“Well, if they’re going—as you said—ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine percent the speed of light, can we just tack on a seventh nine? Or hell, even a one would get us there eventually, right?”

“That’s not how it works,” Ramses tries to explain. There are no more decimal places. Adding even a one at the end would be close enough to the speed of light to break the laws of physics.”

“Don’t you break the laws of physics every day with your powers?”

“It’s my theory that all time travel is powered by vacuum energy, which—to simplify it greatly—operates at a level higher than the bounds of the universe, which means it does move faster than light. Our problem is that we don’t have the resources to truly harness its might. We have friends in the main sequence who cracked it, but their ship is gargantuan compared to ours, and I would need more time to study the technology if I wanted to replicate it.”

“Maybe there’s some other loophole?” Alyssa offers.

“There’s one,” Ramses says, “but it won’t work for us. We could theoretically teleport forwards while we’re still moving at reframe speeds, which will cover a little extra ground. Unfortunately, we’re too far from them. It would only have worked if we had caught up to within teleporter range before the max reframe chase began.”

Alyssa frowns, and looks down at the floor, hoping that her uneducated brain can come up with a solution that a super intelligent person wouldn’t think to try, because it’s just too simple. “When’s the last time you tried to call them?” she asks Mateo.

“Twenty minutes ago. They have their heart set on staying away from us.”

“Did you tell them that Leona isn’t here, so they don’t have to worry about her being able to take over?”

“They’re aware. My messages got through, they just aren’t responding anymore.”

Alyssa paces. “Why are they so afraid of us catching up? What did we do so wrong? I mean, I know you’ve had your issues, but from the sound of it, they’re using a lot of energy to keep us at bay.”

“Does seem irrational,” Ramses agrees. “We’re little threat to them.”

Alyssa narrows her eyes at Mateo. “Do you know who all is out there?”

“Besides everyone on the government rocket, Tamerlane, and Danica, anyone else could be there. The facility fits thousands, and could accommodate hundreds at least if they needed to spend the night.”

“Right.” She pauses. “Ramses, how many people have we still not yet found from your little brain scanner; the errors, I mean?”

“According to the last scan, there were three remaining errors. We just haven’t taken the time to look into them. Why?”

“These grave chambers,” she begins, “they can be jettisoned?”

“Umm...yeah. What are you getting at here?”

“She thinks there’s someone in the Constant who has been marked with the timonite,” Mateo finally realizes. “Danica doesn’t want me there, because I would make them disappear.”

“How would they have gotten up there?”

“I don’t know, but think about the math. There were eleven errors in total, including the guy from that other dimension, who didn’t always show up on the scans. Add him to Erlendr, Meredarchos-slash-Erlendr, the woman from Manila whose name I can’t remember, because we let her go...”

“Everest, Curtis, and Aquila-slash-Bhulan,” Ramses finishes. “There’s one missing. How could I have not noticed that?”

“You’ve been pretty busy,” Mateo comforts.

“Wait, did you ask about the grave chamber, because you want to jettison Mateo?” Ramses questions.

“Park him somewhere safe, and retrieve him later,” Alyssa suggests.

“That’s so dangerous,” Ramses argues. “We could get to the Constant, and then find ourselves being locked up in stasis for 10,000 years. The suspended animation tech we have in the grave chambers can’t last that long.”

“Leave him with your little remote thing,” Alyssa puts forth. “If we don’t return in X amount of time, he can replicate himself a new ship.”

“There’s not enough ambient temporal energy out here. The teleporter eats more than the reframe engine, but the reframe engine also requires antimatter, which is even more precious to us at the moment.”

“All the more reason we should stop fighting from behind, and try diplomacy again. It can’t hurt to ask,” Alyssa assumes.

“It can. Trust me, it can.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo volunteers.

“Matthew, you don’t have—”

“I said I’ll do it.” He slides the door to grave chamber four open. “Now show me how to jettison myself.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Ramses warns. “That may not be the issue, and even if it is, they may not accept the solution. Constance?”

“Attempting to contact the Constant...again.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 20, 2398

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Everything worked perfectly yesterday. Leona injected herself with a boost of temporal energy, which allowed her to transport herself and Alyssa out of the Mariana Trench, and back to the lab. There, Ramses provided her with a can of Bermuda Triangle water, which she poured into the engine of the Bridgette. She then commanded the whole vessel to make a jump to the surface of the ocean, and from there, she was able to fly back to Kansas City. It was a circuitous way of getting the job done, but it worked, and now she’s here, so she can focus on getting her husband back yet again. After all of this, she was exhausted, and she knows her body and mind well enough to know their limits. She went to sleep, and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

Leona generates a map over the holotable. This facility was originally equipped with a 3D scanner that would allow medical professionals to examine a patient infected with whatever disease they’re studying. That scanner is still in the infirmary they set aside for themselves, and this one is the backup, which the government team who retrofitted this place modified to be a regular computer display. “Vulcan Point. It’s an island inside of a crater lake on an island in a lake on an island in the ocean. It’s not the only land mass that’s like this, but where we’re from, it’s the most famous. It’s very small, you could maybe build two houses next to each other there, or a single home of decent size. No one has, it’s completely undeveloped, and protected as a wildlife refuge.”

Curtis walks into the room. “Oh, hey, Leona, you’re awake. Can we talk?”

“I’m in the middle of something right now,” she replies.

“Just...do you remember me? Do you remember us?”

“Yes. You and a version of me were partners in more ways than one for three years before she met Horace Reaver in a very old timeline, but I try not to think too much about that reality, because I didn’t ask for those memories to be blended into my brain, and I feel very distant from them.”

“Okay.” Curtis seems to be in a very vulnerable place right now, but taking care of his mental state is not their priority at the moment. It’s certainly not hers.

“Anyway. These are the most recent satellite images of Vulcan Point Island. Like I said, it’s a refuge, so they don’t allow tours, which is why there’s no activity. No boats, no planes, no hiking trails. If we want to go there, we’ll have to teleport, and probably at night, because it may be monitored. If it’s as important as I believe, it may even have some high level deterrence, like Palmeria does.”

“Didn’t Alyssa say that we’re supposed to go there last, like after all the other errors have been found?” Ramses asks.

“That’s what Danica told her, which means that’s what she wants us to do, and I’m not inclined to follow her rules. If she truly wants me to do that, then she can show her face, and tell us in person.”

Ramses stares at her, and doesn’t speak, but Leona can tell that he has more.

“What, Ram?”

“In any movie, when the bad guy gives the good guy a choice of doing it the way he normally would, or going against his instincts, and following the bad guy’s directions, the good guy chooses his instincts, and it always backfires. Leona, it backfires every time. Danica may be expecting you to skip straight to Vulcan Point, knowing full well that one of the errors we find elsewhere would have been helpful in our pursuit of that final destination.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Leona reasons.

“Well, with the Superintendent in the mix, it kind of is. Our lives follow TV tropes, and the most genre savvy amongst us are the ones who do well. That’s why you keep winning, Leona, because you understand how your opponent thinks. Don’t forget that now. Don’t get emotional.”

Leona wants to get mad at Ramses for calling her emotional, like he’s a 1950s boss who can’t recognize the potential in his secretary, but that would be frustratingly ironic. She can’t give in. She just sighs, and looks away.

“I don’t remember saying what I said,” Alyssa begins to break the silence. “But you relayed it to me. I was clearly about to say that Vulcan Point was not going to lead us to Mateo, and I evidently had already said that he would never be coming back. Something must have convinced me of that.”

Leona nods, acknowledging Alyssa’s words, but not quite agreeing with them. “I think Vulcan Point leads us to Danica, and Danica knows when and where Mateo is.” She swipes the map away, and replaces it with the map that’s showing the last known location of the errors as plotted by the brain scanner on the AOC. “She is in this reality. She’s one of these dots. And if she doesn’t want us to go to Vulcan Point, then that’s exactly where we should go.”

“She may not be one of the dots,” Ramses points out. “Alyssa is not a dot, because my scanner doesn’t detect people with powers, just people who have a weird relationship with time, which she hasn’t really experienced yet.”

“Danica definitely has a weird relationship with time,” Leona argues. “She’s billions of years old.”

“I know, but Alyssa was the only person on the Bridgette, wasn’t she? This means that my scanner wasn’t picking up a real error. It just thought there was an error, because of the tech that was installed on the bridge. Surely Danica has a way to shield herself from being seen.”

“Then build another scanner,” Leona suggests. “Build one that detects temporal energy instead, or something like that.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Ramses tells her. “That’s why I’ve been studying Curtis’ active abilities. It’s...not going well. So far,” he adds, not wanting to plunge her deeper into depression. What he doesn’t do is reiterate the fact that Danica may still be able to shield herself from that. Enemy or no, she’s one of the most powerful people they have faced, if only due to her age. No one else comes close, not even all the Prestons combined.

“I’m fine,” Curtis says, jumping back into the conversation. “I’ve rested enough, so I can get back into the machine.”

“Are you sure?” Ramses asks.

“Put me in, coach.”

Ramses starts running more tests on Curtis’ presumed unique ability to maintain his powers in this reality. Leona, meanwhile, goes back to her room. It was a quarantine cell, so there’s not much here, but it’s good enough. She doesn’t spend much time there before she gets an idea. She has combat experience, and she isn’t doing much good in the lab. They would all probably be better off if she left, and joined Marie out in the field.