Microstory 2446: Caverndome

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I have no idea how big this place is, or how many corridors and chambers this dome has, but it seems pretty complex and expansive to me. According to the literature, this was a natural cave system that survey satellites and drones discovered while they were mapping the topography of the planet during this project’s early days. Seeing the opportunity, they built one of the domes on top of it. I saw the satellite view myself, and there aren’t any other domes very close to the rocky formations to the northeast of Caverndome, which makes me wonder whether the caves extend far beyond its borders, so they just decided to cut it off, and call it good enough. It certainly is. You could probably spend a whole standard lifetime here, and not see everything. The prospectus hints at the possibility of there being secret passageways and hidden chambers, and given the scope of the network, that’s probably true. I wouldn’t know how to find or access one of them, though. It could be mechanical or electronic, where a wall will part after inputting some kind of code, or it’s a tight squeeze with a big payoff, or it’s just so hard to see through an optical illusion. Some of the walls may straight up be holographic. A lot of people were running their hands along them in case the apparent solid surface gave way to empty space instead. We’re not allowed to bring in our own surveying equipment, which makes sense, because unlocking all the secrets all at once would go against the spirit of the dome. At its heart, this is an ecological dome, which means there aren’t any planned activities. You’re only supposed to come here if you wanna explore and see some cool caves. There is opportunity for spelunking and cave diving, but through the lens of this goal of exploration, not so you can test your mettle, bump your heart rate up, or get your rocks off, so to speak. Don’t come here and be disruptive or annoying. There’s literally a chamber that is specifically designated for echoing. It’s called Olimpia Hall. I would have called it the Echo Chamber, but maybe there’s some significance in the name that I am not cognizant of. If you wanna do that, go there, don’t disturb or undermine other people’s experiences because you were freakin’ born yesterday, and you’ve never heard an echo before. Yeah, it’s cool because of how powerful Olimpia Hall’s echoes are, but it doesn’t have the same effect elsewhere, so stop looking for alternatives. Sorry, I’m complaining about other visitors, when I’m just here to review the dome, but staffing is an issue. I guess it’s not their fault, because like I said, the network is so deep and intricate that they can’t station bots everywhere, but people are taking advantage of that freedom, and it’s making it a frustrating experience, so maybe they can try to find a solution? I dunno, I’ll shut up now.

Microstory 2177: Dark About a Lot

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Wow. Just. Wow. These are some nice offices in the jail administrative section. We’re on the top floor of the building, and have a great view of the skyline, as well as some greenery. I prefer the latter, but some prefer the former, so it’s the best of both worlds. They’re giving us an entire conference room, which is big enough to accommodate our eighteen person team. I have my own office that comes right off of that room, and the facilities department has set aside four other workspaces for us. Each subdepartment will be able to separate themselves from the group, and focus on their own stuff. At the moment, the only thing that’s ready is the conference room, since it’s pretty much already configured the right way. It’s lined with bookshelves, so I’m thinking that it used to be a library, which they eventually started using for meetings, but I don’t know what has happened with all that since. It was reportedly pretty dusty in here. I said that I wanted to physically work on a lot of this myself, but I am not bummed out that they did all the cleaning for me. I’m more of a designer and arranger than a cleaner. I have really bad allergies, and I just don’t care for it. I’m weird that way. I’m truly grateful for everything that everyone has done in preparation for this new project, and I’m excited to get started. I spent all day yesterday slowly moving things around in my office, and the other four shared spaces. We need a few things that the jail doesn’t already have on hand for us, like computers, and other various things. I drew up a list so facilities and IT will be working on procuring new equipment and supplies this week. I still had plenty to do on that front today.

Tomorrow, I’m probably going to work exclusively on building out the staff. Back when I was looking for a job—or rather, when employers were looking for me—I was able to tell you about them, to some vague degree. I didn’t think that it was a problem to say this and that about a hypothetical position that I was probably not going to end up taking, as long as I didn’t specify which company was offering. Even if the name of the company ended up being publicized, it probably would have been all right. Now I’m on the other side of that, preparing to interview individual innocent people for my team. So I won’t be telling you anything about the candidates during this process. I won’t even say anything about the ones that I hire, unless they unambiguously tell me it’s okay, and probably not even then. They have a right to their privacy, and they shouldn’t feel uncomfortable applying because something may come out about them. Even if it’s good, it’s not my place to divulge it, whatever it may be. They have the ability to set up their own social media accounts, and build their own websites, should they choose to. Of course, confidentiality being a thing, there’s a lot more about my new job that I won’t be able to say. The jail is now my client, and while they’re fully aware of who I am, and what I do online, they’ve not given me permission to say absolutely anything and everything about what we’re doing here. So be prepared to be left in the dark about a lot. I’ll keep you up to date as much as I can, but my posts could get shorter if everything that I start to deal with is strictly privileged information. They could, therefore, get boring if all I can talk about is my private life. The work I’m getting ready to do here, I believe, is in the interest of the public good, so I’m all right letting my site suffer in service to that. Anyway, I’m tired, so I better grab some dinner, and call it a night.

Microstory 1967: Recognizing the Signs

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Reese: You two set up the computers. Sasho, follow me. I need you for something. Grab that bag. No, not that one. Yes, that one. Sachs, you know which case to grab. *leaves*

Ophelia: What do you think they’re talking about up there?

Micro: Leonard knows. Don’t ya, Leonard?

Leonard: Not sure, but that was obviously a rifle case, so my guess is that they’re going to start teaching Sasho how to spot through a scope.

Ophelia: That makes sense.

Micro: You ever shot anyone in your universe, Leo? Can I call you Leo?

Leonard: Leo is fine, yeah. And yes, I have had to fire my weapon before.

Micro: One of your parolees?

Leonard: No, this was something else.

Ophelia: What did you mean, in your universe? Are you just referring to the world of law enforcement, or am I missing something?

Leonard: Uhh...

Micro: Oh, we’re not from this universe. Like, literally. I’m from Salmonverse, and I don’t think his has a name.

Ophelia: I was not aware of this.

Leonard: We didn’t tell anyone, Micro. We especially didn’t tell anyone about you, since the government already knows about me, and we can still protect you from them.

Micro: *shrugging* I don’t need to be protected. I can take care of myself. I don’t see what the big deal is. We came through Westfall, which is the least jarring way to travel. Now, if I were from Linseverse, then you would really have something to question, because then your hacker would be a talking dinosaur—

Ophelia: Is that real, or are you joking?

Leonard: She’s joking.

Micro: No, they’re real. Troodons evolved human-comparable intelligence after not being wiped out in an extinction level event, like what happened in our three respective versions of Earth. I’ve never been there, but it’s in the multiversal historical record.

Leonard: How much do you know about all this? Have you met the Superintendent?

Ophelia: Who’s the Superintendent?

Micro: *laughing* No. Ophelia, the Superintendent knows a lot about the bulkverse, because his spirit possesses psychic abilities that allow him to witness hyperdimensionally remote events, which he uses to write stories that no one reads. But he’s not the only one with such knowledge, Leonard. One day, you’ll meet others.

Leonard: You said that there was no hope that I would get back home.

Micro: I meant that there was no reason to fixate on the possibility. Don’t waste your time in pursuit of it. But once you fall into the secret underbelly of reality, it’s pretty much impossible to crawl out of it, and leave it behind. You’ll cross paths with someone new, and your conditions will change again. Ophelia will probably meet someone else too, if she hasn’t already, but she just won’t realize it. You’ll learn to recognize the signs.

Leonard: Hmm. Well, Ophelia, I hope you can keep a secret. This is sensitive stuff.

Ophelia: I promise to say nothing. As long as you teach me to recognize the signs too.

Microstory 1966: Safehouse School

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Reese: Sergeant?

Sachs: Sachs.

Reese: Sachs, right. You searched the safehouse?

Sachs: It’s secure. We can start setting up.

Reese: *into his radio* Bring the equipment on in, Sasho. *to Sachs* Sasho and Sachs. Those two names are uncomfortably close. Hey, what’s your middle name, Sasho?

Sasho: *lugging luggage down the hall* Risto.

Reese: Really?

Sachs: Reese and Risto. That’s better.

Micro: Oh, this room is fine, Sachs Reese—I mean Sasho Risto—you can just drop that stuff anywhere. I’ll sort it out.

Ophelia: What does all this stuff do?

Micro: Everythings. All the thing. Surveillance, tracking, ordering pizza.

Reese: You two set up the computers. Sasho, follow me. I need you for something. Grab that bag. No, not that one. Yes, that one. Sachs, you know which case to grab. *leads them up to the attic* Okay. There’s a lot of space up here, which is good, but you could technically do this in a bathroom. Sasho, if you’ll open that up, you’ll find a projector and screen. Go ahead and lay everything out on this table.

Sachs: Is that what I think it is?

Reese: State of the art.

Sasho: I don’t understand. What is all this stuff for?

Sachs: *picking up a small object* This goes on the trigger?

Reese: Yes. Sasho, this is a sniper training toolkit. It’s a highly advanced altered reality system, which simulates real-world conditions for targets in any environment, at a distance up to four kilometers. It’s basically a simulation game that teaches you how to shoot without firing any real bullets. We’re limited by resources and space here. We can’t teach you how to spot in the middle of downtown Memphis, Mississippi. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to learn everything in a few days, but you have to start somewhere. The training program is generally eight months, and if you would like to do that, we can discuss at a later date, but while others on the team are trying to locate our target, I figured you might as well get a taste.

Sasho: Yeah.

Reese: You did want this, right? You told me on the plane you wanted to branch out from your experience as a jailer.

Sasho: Yeah, I do. I just didn’t expect to start anything so soon. This all looks expensive. Is it all for me?

Sachs: It’s for me too. I’ve always wanted to learn with something like this. You can do it anywhere, anytime. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m out of practice, but I’ve not been in combat for a few years. This can reportedly simulate just about anything.

Reese: You wanna try it? The stakes are incredibly low. That’s why scientists and engineers designed it in the first place.

Sasho: Okay. Start at the beginning. What do I do?

Microstory 1935: Insurrection Detection

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Special Investigator: Are you sure?

Scientist: No, I’m not sure. We’ve never done anything like this before. We were just running a test on the new satellite software. We didn’t think we would get a ping. I mean, maybe it blows our whole hypothesis up, and it turns out the equipment just happened to detect a specific instance of something that happens all the time.

Special Investigator: It happened twice. Your equipment registered both arrivals.

Scientist: That’s proof of nothing. We still don’t understand this data. This was new technology when I installed it in Kansas City in the first place. Perhaps it’s good at detecting—I don’t know—long-distance nanoquakes. Sure, your alien arrivals cause them, but so does fluid moving through rocks. It’s a very common phenomenon.

Special Investigator: Okay, but your tech isn’t detecting other nanoquakes. It’s only picked up three events, and two of them were travelers from other universes.

Scientist: It’s allegedly picked up two alleged interdimensional visitors. And the nanoquake thing was just an example. It could have just as easily been caused by unusual temperature fluctuations. Again, we still don’t understand this data. It’s all very complicated. I see nothing here that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that anything special happened in the Wyoming desert.

Special Investigator: I don’t need undeniable proof. I need you to tell me whether it’s worth it for me to send a team.

Scientist: To Wyoming? How much would a mission like that cost?

Special Investigator: An elite recon trio runs about $15,000 a day, though that can easily double for special necessities.

Scientist: So, like, nothing? I say go for it. Just don’t cite my science as a reason for greenlighting the operation. Like I said, we picked it up during a test.

Special Investigator: Don’t worry, I won’t blame you if it turns out to be a false positive. And I wouldn’t call 30-grand nothing. Maybe I’ll just send one, and maybe he doesn’t have to be elite...

Scientist: That’s not my department.

Special Investigator: Thank you, Scientist. I appreciate the insight. *leaves*

Agent Reese Parsons: Sir, I know you said it wasn’t time yet, but I would really like to see Parole Officer Miazga.

Special Investigator: This isn’t about that, son. I need you for a mission.

Reese: Sir, this is the mission. I’ve been trying—

Special Investigator: Don’t worry about the P.O. There has been a new development. I need you in Wyoming as soon as possible. We got a ping.

Reese: A ping, sir? I really would like to revisit—

Special Investigator: We’re not going to discuss you talking to the prisoner again, Agent Parsons. You can either do your job, or lose it. We think more intruders arrived in the Red Desert. I need you to go look into it for me. You’ll have limited resources—

Reese: Then I want to take a confidential informant as backup. We’ll split the cost.

Special Investigator: *shakes his head* No, I know what you’re thinking, but we—

Reese: Let Leonard Miazga out of his stupid cell right now, or I walk.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 23, 2399

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Vearden has done his best to stay out of all the time travel stuff, just like Arcadia wanted. It’s triggering for her, and he doesn’t like it all that much anymore either. He has occasionally done the team a favor, though, because they’re still friends, and he wants them to be okay. It’s mostly been research, but there have been requests that were a little more involved. He’s not asked for anything from them in return, though, so maybe they owe him. Hopefully they won’t make him resort to pointing that out. Hopefully Leona just does as he asks.

“You want me to make her look like herself?” Leona echoes.

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah, an illusion is an illusion, whether it’s superimposed over me, or someone else. Just give me a second.” Leona thinks back to how she remembers Arcadia. It’s been a long time since she’s seen that face, but she can still picture it pretty well. And anyway, Alyssa’s ability is so powerful that she doesn’t have to recall every single detail. It’s in her brain somewhere, and Arcadia herself is somewhere in time and space, and that’s really all that matters. She’s not magically generating a hologram that looks like someone else. She’s stealing light from somewhere else. “There.” She opens her eyes to see her success. There Arcadia is, lying on the bed before her. She’s still in a coma, but she looks like her old self again.

“Great, thanks,” Vearden says, admiring the real look of the love of his life. “You can go now.”

“Don’t you want to look upon her a little longer?”

“What do you mean? Are you saying this is gonna wear off?”

“It’s going to disappear as soon as I leave,” Leona explains. “I’m sorry, I thought you realized that.”

He stares blankly into space, and sits down. “No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I would hold it here permanently if I could, but I can’t figure it out. I know that other illusionists have that power, but if Alyssa’s old body did, I’ve yet to learn it. We never asked her to try it when she was using it.”

“What about her new body?” Vearden goes on. “Would she be able to do it now?”

“She may,” Leona answers as she’s taking out her phone. “There’s still a lot she doesn’t tell us, and she may have just not thought to mention it.” She waits for the phone. “Aly? Can you teleport here? I need to...”

Alyssa appears before Leona can even finish her sentence. “Is everything okay?” She’s looking at Arcadia anxiously.

“It’s all right,” Vearden answers, realizing that she thinks this is a medical issue. “I was just hoping that you could make that permanent.”

“Yeah, of course, I can. Leona, could you...”

“Oh, okay.” Leona drops her illusion so Alyssa can make her own. She does it a lot faster, and doesn’t struggle with it at all.

“When you leave, she’s going to stay like that, right?” Vearden asks.

“Absolutely. I’m the only one who can get rid of it. If she wakes up, and wants to look like the other Leona again, she’ll need me. And if I die before she can do that, she’ll be stuck like this forever. So if you want to see what it’s like to be married to a human-sized mouse, or a monster truck, now’s your chance.”

“Why? Are you going to die?” Leona asks her.

“I...don’t want to be married to a mouse in a monster truck,” Vearden says as he’s admiring his love some more.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Whatever.” He stands there for another minute before looking up at them. “Thank you. Now you can go.”

“Come on, I’ll take you back to New York.” Alyssa offers a hand.

“I have a rental car. The reason I’m in Kansas City is because I had business to attend to in the lab, and I wanted to visit my friends.”

“That’s okay,” Vearden counters. “She can’t talk, and I don’t want to anymore.”

The two of them nod and respectfully leave through the door. Vearden sits down next to Arcadia. He doesn’t want to be married to a mouse, but he would like the chance to marry her. If she would just wake up, maybe he would be able to ask. They actually did discuss it before this happened. These were just preliminary talks; nothing concrete, but he’s confident that it would have ended up in a proposal. Now who knows how she’ll feel when she finally awakens? She may be in a weird sort of limbo dimension between life and death right now, having adventures with a stranger, and falling love with them instead. Vearden falls asleep thinking of a future that may never come to pass.

He doesn’t wake back up until it’s dark so when he tries to stand, and slips on the floor, he can’t see what it is. He tries to make his eyes adjust to the moonlight, but it’s not enough. “Hey, thistle, turn on the lights.” His eyes don’t even have to readjust completely before he can see what it is. Blood. Arcadia is bleeding. He reaches over and slams on the big mauve button. The alarm goes off. An army of nurses rush into the room. “She’s bleeding all over the floor! Something’s wrong.”

The nurses stop and stare.

“It’s her. This is what she’s supposed to look like.”

Two of the nurses start examining her while another checks the equipment. The fourth doesn’t move. “How did you make her look like that?” she asks him.

“It didn’t cause this,” he promises. “It’s a sophisticated hologram...just light.”

“Are you sure?”

“I guess not.”

“Who do you need to call?” she questions.

Vearden fumbles around, looking for his phone. It’s almost dead, but it has enough power for one call. “Leona? Get back here. Now.”

Five seconds later, Leona and Alyssa appear in the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“Take down the illusion,” Vearden demands. “It’s hurting her.”

“Impossible,” Alyssa insists, but still, she waves her arm, and drops the illusion. She looks like Leona again.

The real Leona takes Vearden by the upper arms. “Come on. Let them work.”

“Where’s the doctor?” he asks the head nurse.

“He’s coming,” she replies.

“I can bring him here faster,” Alyssa volunteers. “Where is he?”

“He’s coming,” the nurse repeats.

Dr. Cenric Best comes in right after that, and begins his own examination. He’s being frustratingly quiet about it. He looks very concerned, though. He’s moving his stethoscope around Arcadia’s belly. He’s moving it too much.

“What is it? Can you not find a heartbeat?” Vearden is on the verge of tears.

Now Dr. is just feeling around on Arcadia’s belly. “Nurse, get the echouterograph.”

“What is it? What’s wrong!”

Dr. Best pivots to face Vearden. “I don’t want you to worry. We don’t know what this is yet. I need to do one more test, and then I’ll try to explain it, okay? At this point, I’ll admit that I’m worried about the baby, but I’m not worried about Miss Preston. She’s exhibiting no signs of distress. The blood and amniotic fluid leakage is alarming, but there could be any number of benign causes that I’m not ruling out just yet.” He washes his hands, and then begins the ultrasound.

While that’s going on, Leona makes Vearden sit down, and try to relax. His agitation isn’t helping the situation. These people know what they’re doing. At least they do to an extent. Dr. Best keeps looking over at Vearden and the other three time travelers. He seems rather confused by what he’s seeing on the screen.

“I need an update, Doctor,” Vearden urges.

“Nurse, can you hold the wand in place?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Dr. Best stands up, and removes his gloves. He stands in front of the travelers like a PhD candidate at the beginning of his presentation for the dissertation committee. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to answer them in order, so I can get an idea of what’s going on here. Is that okay?”

“Go ahead,” Vearden replies, trying to be patient.

He points to Leona. “She’s not your twin sister, correct?”

“Correct. She’s in the body of my alternate self. The other Leona went through a traumatic experience in her twenties. Someone went back in time and changed it for her. Normally that would erase her from the timestream, and I would replace her, but she was somehow rescued by your world. Then Arcadia’s mind was placed in her body.”

“Okay, that tracks with what I’ve learned of you people. And what, uh...what powers do you have?”

“Well, right now I can create illusions by stealing photons of light from elsewhere in time and space.”

“And can she do that too?” Dr. Best points over at Arcadia.

“No. She doesn’t have any powers.”

He’s confused.

“But she had a pattern,” Leona amends. “She would jump forward in time. At the end of every day, at midnight, she would skip over a whole year. I was like that too.”

“That might explain it,” Dr. Best thinks.

“Explain what?”

“Your baby is gone. It wasn’t born, it wasn’t taken out by a laparysterotomy.” He tries to show them what he’s talking about on the monitor. “It’s just disappeared. Could it have...gone into the future?”

Leona looks nervously at Vearden, but he doesn’t look back. He doesn’t speak.

“Vearden?” Alyssa asks, waving his hand in front of his face.

Dr. Best checks his pupils with a pen light. “I think it’s psychological shock.”

Psychological shock. Sounds about right. His mind probably just can’t figure out what it’s supposed to feel about this. Obviously it feels bad, but it’s feeling all of the bad feelings all at once, and people aren’t built for that. He’s certainly not. “Fuck you all.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 28, 2399

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It’s true that Leona has stolen control over Mangrove Zero, but that doesn’t mean they’re not at risk. Going up to orbit didn’t automatically protect them. Aldona could always launch a second rocket, or even a missile, at them. As soon as they arrived, she and Ramses went to work. He had already been studying the bridge systems whenever he took a break from rebuilding his satellite. It wasn’t long before they figured out how to break orbit, and head for the moon. They weren’t necessarily safe there either, but maybe safer. Theoretically, Aldona wouldn’t try to harm them while there were children on board, but she died centuries ago, and lived the rest of the time in the afterlife simulation. It’s unclear whether Tamerlane ever conducted any case studies to determine how that impacts an individual or group’s outlook on life and death.

Orbiting the Earth is no small feat, but orbiting the moon is even harder. It’s lumpy, and gravitationally unstable. Mangrove Zero was apparently designed just to show the primitives down on the planet how easy it was for Aldona to build and launch it. She didn’t equip it with an AI, or any other significant means of maintaining stability. Someone has to be at the controls the whole time to keep it from crashing on the surface, and of course, Leona and Ramses are the only ones with the skills to do that. They taught Mateo the basics, so he would be able to take over in an emergency, but even that is probably not enough to actually save their lives. They would land if they could, but they’re going to have to spend a little more time reading the manual.

Good news is they’re now sufficiently far from Earth to give Leona and Ramses their powers back. Bad news is Carlin and Moray have no powers to speak of, so the mission is still in just as much danger of cataclysmic failure. That’s the constant threat looming over them. The more general issue is that they can’t launch Ramses’ satellite from here, and even if they could, any world superpower would have the technology capable of blowing it out of the sky. As it stands there’s no way to make it invisible. None of them has the power to do that, and there is no traditional technological path towards it. Not even the Parallel can do it. It’s a fundamental rule of physics. If an object does work, it produces heat, and if it produces heat, it can be detected. Fortunately, there may be a workaround. Leona holds the bottle in the palm of her hand.

“Starter nanites?” Ramses asks. Nanobots are usually designed to serve a single purpose. Some repair a specific organ in the body. Others will maintain an inorganic system, like a quantum computer. Starter nanites have not yet specialized. Think of them as the stem cells of industry. There aren’t very many in the bottle, but that’s the beauty of it. If you even have one of these microscopic things, and the right raw material, you can build anything. It may take a long time, but it is possible. Any good emergency kit will have one of these, or something similar. “What are we building?”

Leona swings her other arm around, In her hand is a mostly black object about the size of a phablet or large phone, but much more narrow. It has little protrusions, and maybe a button or two. “I call it...leechcraft.”

“Isn’t that what ancient physicians used to use to heal,” he asks with airquotes.

“This is not that,” Leona begins. “This will find a preexisting satellite, and leech its power. In turn, the other satellite will mask its power signature. It can even latch onto space junk. Why have one satellite when you could have tens of thousands?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 27, 2399

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When Leona was in college, in the second reality that her brain has been blended to remember—the one where she studied astrophysics, rather than film—she was always taking a lot of classes at once. For four semesters straight, she had at least a full load, if not more. The first semester of her sophomore year, she had to get special permission to take more than the maximum number of hours allowed. It was extremely taxing, but worth it. She had to learn a lot of ancillary subjects if she wanted to succeed. If she didn’t understand computers, she wouldn’t know how to model star systems. If she didn’t study geology, she wouldn’t know the difference between a volcanic rock, and a meteorite. She took the summers off to relax, justifying that she deserved a little time to herself, but it was a lie, as it’s not like she wasn’t working at all. That’s when she took extra classes, at the community college, and a few at the learning annex.

These were mostly designed to teach her how to learn better, and prepare her for the upcoming regular school year. It was in these classes that she learned things like basic library sciences, speed reading, hacking, and the skill that she’s using a lot of today, multitasking. Aldona has asked her to help revamp the entire global defense strategy, and she’s doing that. She’s fulfilling her commitment. But she’s also doing other things. Winona gave her access to the security systems on the base, so she would know how to incorporate the government’s preexisting protocols into the new orbital defense grid. She used the security feeds to keep an eye on her husband and Ramses, as they were secretly teleporting the latter’s new satellite up to Mangrove Zero. She knew what they were doing the whole time, but she didn’t say anything, because she needed to keep these people happy long enough to get what she needed out of them.

The security cameras do not allow audio recording, for legal privacy reasons, but as a loophole, they do stream audio. You have to be watching a live feed of any given camera in order to pick up sound, but you won’t be able to return to it later. This is where Leona’s multitasking skills failed her. While she was consolidating the command codes into a master code known only to her, she was also shoring up the orbital station-keeping fuel reserve calculations, locating the room where the starter nanites were being stored, and downloading the complete list of everyone involved in the Mangrove Program. She had been keeping an eye on Mateo and Ramses’ progress all the while, but stopped paying so much attention to it when it looked like they were just about done with their little mission. She didn’t notice when Aldona ran up to them with a teleporter gun, because she had lowered the volume to concentrate on those very precise fuel measurements. By the time she turned the volume up, Ramses was already gone, and she was only able to catch the tail end of the conversation before the audio was lost forever.

For whatever reason, Aldona doesn’t want Mateo to go back up to the ship, and she’s willing to let Ramses wither and die up there alone to stop it. She shot him with the gun, transporting him to hock, no doubt. So before Aldona came back, Leona had to add yet another task to her then-current caseload. She had to find out where Mateo was, and how to get him out. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to do that right away, because she was still not done with her other stuff.

“Have you seen my husband?”

“Not since the meeting yesterday,” Aldona lies.

“I’ve been so busy, I worked through the night, and never went back to our quarters,” Leona says. It’s not a lie, but not the whole truth either, of course. “I went to take a quick shower a couple hours ago, and he’s not there.”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

She’s not going to accuse Aldona of anything. “The kids are okay, though, in case you were wondering. Carlin is old enough to take care of them both now.”

“Right,” Aldona agrees, though she’s not spent any time with them.

“Anyway, here are the plans.” She hands her a tablet. “You have a thousand rockets already, I suggest a thousand satellites to start. You can always add more.”

Aldona peruses the data. “This is perfect. I wish I had thought of it.”

“Yeah.”

“I appreciate this. I’ll get the nanofactories back online with their new directive.”

“Cool. I’m gonna go to bed. Hopefully Mateo comes back by the time I wake up.”

“I’ll let him know you’re looking for him if I run into him first.”

“Thanks.” Leona leaves.

Mateo has been awake in his cell for hours. He’ll sit on his bunk for a few minutes before getting sick of it, and lie down. Then he’ll stand up, and maybe pace a little bit. Standard bored prisoner behavior. An action movie would put his movements on a loop to make it look like he’s still there while the heroes sneak in and rescue him. But Leona has something they don’t. She has deepfake technology. She can generate new footage that’s based on his patterns. While she’s walking down the hallway, she initiates the program she wrote during her last multitasking session, and heads downstairs.

“Miss me?” Mateo asks, standing up to greet her.

She goes right up to the bars, and pulls him in for a passionate kiss. “I knew where you were all along.”

“I figured. It took us a long time to get that satellite up there. I thought it was weird that we were never caught.”

“There are things I needed to do here. They’re done; we can go. I had to prioritize though, and decided not to access the layout for Mangrove Zero, which is different than the newer models. Is it an okay place to keep children?”

“I didn’t see much of it.”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Leona decides. “When Aldona realizes you’re gone, our bridge to this place will have been burned, possibly the one to the government as a whole.” She punches in the code to unlock the gate.

They casually walk back up to the residential section, where Carlin and Moray are staring out their viewport like the rolling waves are a TV show. They pack up their belongings, then Mateo teleports the two of them up to the ship. When he returns to the room, Aldona is there. She always knows how to show up at the last minute. “Why?”

“You shot my husband,” Leona says. “That’s reason enough.”

“No, you were planning this for a long time,” Aldona assumes.

“Not that long,” Leona says. “I’m just that good. You should have agreed to help us find Alyssa. She’s part of our team. You’re not. That’s never a good position to be in.”

“I have full control over Mangrove Zero,” Aldona claims.

“Not anymore,” Leona replies coolly. She holds out her hand.

Mateo takes it, and teleports them away.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 26, 2399

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“Why would I be here to kill you?” Mateo asks, taking a step back to look as nonthreatening as possible. “Is someone trying to kill you?”

“That’s what Aunt Aldona told me,” he replies. “She said I have to stay up here, because it’s not safe down on the planet.”

“When you say Aunt Aldona...?”

“She’s a family friend; not a real relative.”

“I see.” So the connection is nebulous, and may not help them understand exactly where Aldona came from. She was in the afterlife simulation, but how—and why—was she resurrected, and where did she go from there? How did she meet this kid, and his family? “Well, I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t even know you were here. My name is Mateo. Mateo Matic. What’s yours?”

“Cedar. Cedar Duvall.”

Mateo perks up. “Your parents are Curtis and Cheyenne.”

“Yes, do you know them?”

“Yes, I know them pretty well. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume that you’ve heard of time travel? I mean, real time travel; not just as a concept?”

“Of course,” Cedar says.

“Mateo, what’s the hold up?” Ramses asks through the radio.

The son of Curtis and Cheyenne Duvall is living—possibly totally alone—on a spaceship orbiting Earth. He was brought here by a dead and resurrected woman from another reality. It’s bad enough that Mateo now knows about it. He trusts Ramses, but Aldona doesn’t, and Cedar doesn’t even know him. Their team is having trouble with Aldona, and her choices, but she’s not evil, and he has no reason to believe that she’s not genuinely trying to help. The only way to protect this kid is to tighten the circle as much as possible, which means not so much as telling his wife about it. It’s the only respectful thing to do. The problem is, Mateo is a teleporter. What’s a good reason to not have returned to the hangar to retrieve Ramses in a matter of seconds? “Uhh. I’m, uhh...trapped under this octagon thing. I was just rearranging the equipment a little to make it more organized.”

“Well, I...can’t help you,” Ramses returns.

“No, it’s okay, I’m getting it off. I’m just doing it a centimeter at a time. Give me a minute or two.”

“Why are you lying?” Cedar asks.

“Your aunt is trying to keep you safe. I’m not going to interfere with that, but we have work to do up here, so is there any place that you think would be a good hiding spot? Just so you know, Ramses will need to access this cargo bay, the bridge, engineering, and maybe a common area for food and rest.”

“There’s a safe room behind reclamation. I could survive there for a week or two.”

“That’s perfect, he won’t need that. Go there, and don’t come out unless you hear two knocks, a pause, and then three more knocks. Does this all make sense?”

Cedar starts to leave, but stops. “Why are you helping me?”

“It’s what we do.” Mateo lifts the heavy satellite part that he mentioned to Ramses. He finds the business end of an uncovered screw, and drags it along his leg to draw some blood. “Now go.”

“Thanks.” Cedar runs off.

Mateo gives it another minute, to make sure he can no longer hear footsteps from here. Then he sets the part down carefully, and returns to the surface.

“Are you okay?” Ramses asks.

“I’m fine,” Mateo says. “I’ll heal.”

“Next time, just wait for me. I know how all this stuff goes.”

“Good point. My bad, sorry.”

“It’ll be fine. Now let’s go.”

“Wait! You’re not going anywhere!” Aldona is running towards them with a gun, looking like some kind of federal agent.

“You’re gonna shoot us?” Ramses questions. “Really!”

“It’s a teleporter gun,” Aldona explains. “It’s programmed to send you to hock in the bottom level of the base.”

“You think you can shoot us faster than I can teleport out of here?” Mateo poses.

“I only need to shoot one of you,” Aldona reasons. “You’re standing far enough apart. He can’t teleport without you, and you don’t have anywhere to go without him.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mateo volleys. He jumps to right behind her. “Behind ya.”

Aldona spins around, and fires the gun, but that was just a distraction. Mateo immediately jumps to Ramses, and takes him up to the ship. She can be forgiven for not thinking this through. She’s desperate to protect her nephew. She doesn’t know that she doesn’t have anything to worry about.

After getting Ramses to where he needs to be, Mateo jumps right back to the hangar again. Her arms are hanging down, and she’s about to hyperventilate. “Cedar seems like a good kid,” he says to her.

“So it’s too late,” she laments.

“Too late to keep him a complete secret, but not too late to keep him safe,” Mateo says. “I didn’t tell anyone else about him. I didn’t even tell Ramses.”

“He didn’t see him yet?”

“No, and he won’t. I told Cedar to hide in the safe room. I don’t think Ramses will need more than a week up there. Once the satellite is deployed, he should be able to work it remotely, like any other satellite.”

For a second, she looks hopeful, but it fades. “No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of time before someone else finds out about him.”

“I don’t know what about your past—or future—interactions with us have made you think that we can’t be trusted, but I assure you that Cedar is safe. We would never hurt him, and we would never let anyone else hurt him either. People from all over the multiverse know that that shit doesn’t fly with us.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand what he’s up against.”

“You’re right, I don’t, and I don’t need to. Because anyone who’s after him doesn’t know what they’re up against. We don’t lose. Besides, I can guess why he’s at risk. No one will tell us what the Sixth Key really is, but one thing we have figured out is that Cheyenne is very special. The Officiant jumped at the chance to take a favor from her. If Cedar is half as important, it’s no wonder you’re working so hard to keep him a secret.”

She shakes her head again, but not lamentably this time. “If you have learned and surmised all that, you’re already too much of a danger to him. I’m sorry, I can’t let you go up there again, or bring Ramses back.” She shoots him in the chest.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 31, 2398

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They’re moving. They’re moving out of the lofts, and not just for their residential needs, but also for Ramses and Leona’s lab. This building was built to last, but it doesn’t belong to them anymore. They’re giving the whole thing to the new owners of Angela’s company to do with it what they will. Maybe they’ll expand, or rent out the upper floors. Or perhaps they’ll demolish the whole thing and replace it with a mini waterpark. Whatever they choose, it will have nothing to do with Team Matic. They should have known that something like this was going to happen. Their whole thing is an ephemeral, nomadic lifestyle. They don’t stay anywhere for too long. Best to not get attached.

A moving company is allowed to handle some of the generic equipment, like tables and beakers. The sensitive materials, however, must be done in house. Ramses is here today, directing Mateo and Alyssa on this task. They’re not in any sort of rush, though. The government-run lab where this will all be moving to is not quite ready for them. Well, the space itself is reportedly totally ready. Winona claims that they keep such future-use places primed in the event of an pandemic, or some other emergency need. That’s what’s holding up the opening process. They have to secure approval from about seven different departments to use one of them, because another emergency venue will have to be developed to replace it.

Mateo holds up a computer monitor stand. “This?”

“Green box, storage” Ramses responds.

“And this?”

“Also green box.”

“Should we really be trusting these people?” Alyssa questions. “I mean, consider everything that you did to make sure this place was yours, and not even the agency that gave it to you had access to it. All these lava lamps and security cameras. Now you’re just going to work in a place built by them, for them?”

“Yeah, I can see how strange that seems,” Ramses admits. “Past!Me probably wouldn’t understand, but things have changed. Our relationship with the government has changed.” They have already given them tons of data and technology so far that they never would have dreamed to do for any government in the main sequence. Trying to keep whatever’s left a secret seems futile at this point. A better facility is more important. “I would rather have unfettered access to an advanced mass spectrometer, and an MRI machine, than my own place. It’s time to grow the operation. I have a lot of things I want to do, and this new place gets me all that. Plus, I think it makes them happy, and we need to keep them on our side.”

Alyssa rubs a lava lamp like a genie might come out of it. “But I love these. I’ve grown accustomed to staring at them during my parking lot surveillance shifts.”

“Blue box,” Ramses says. “We’re taking them with us, not just for storage.”

“You will have some privacy, though, won’t you?” Mateo asks.

“Yes, that is the very first project on my list. They may think they’ll have free and full access to my work, but with the right resources, I can protect anything that we feel they don’t need to know about.”

“What resources will you need for that, and how will you be accomplishing it?”

“I need a submarine. We’re retrieving the AOC from the bottom of the ocean.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 4, 2398

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It’s impossible to estimate how long Mateo has until he can no longer teleport, or how many times he can do it, or even how far he can travel altogether. Ramses ran every test he could come up with multiple times, and couldn’t come to a solid conclusion. Mateo is not losing the ability little by little. It’s fluctuating unpredictably, and will likely only become more unreliable with time. He may start to have trouble aiming at his destination, or lose a lot of time in a given attempt. Where he is when he’s not at Point A or Point B is unclear, but the answer could be incredibly dangerous, whether he knows what it is, or not.

“What about the timonite that’s stuck to my hands? Is that dripping off, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Ramses admits. “I don’t know enough to figure out how to detect it. I’ve scanned your hands, and it can’t tell whether there’s any timonite there at all. It can’t even detect the weird telekinetic outer layer that the god dude gave you.”

“I guess I’m more worried that I’m going to lose that, and go back to midasing everything I touch, dispatching it to an innocent, unsuspecting universe.”

“The guy who gave that to you was wildly powerful, based on Leona’s descriptions, and what I’ve witnessed for myself. I doubt that it has a time limit, and if it does, it’s surely based on the integrity of the timonite that it’s there to contain.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Mateo says.

“I’m sorry that I can’t do anything about the other thing.”

That’s okay. Having that power back felt nice, but it’s not like he was used to it. He spent most of his life without the ability to teleport, or do anything like that. He was born to be a salmon—he’s not supposed to make his own choices—so anytime he has is gravy. “Don’t sweat it. We’ll get out of this reality, and go back to the way things were.”

“You’re mighty confident these days,” Ramses notes.

“I’m trying not to be so stressed out and worried. Everyone else is having a really hard time right now, and the best thing I can do is stay calm, and help where I can.”

“That’s a very mature thing for you to say.”

“Well, I am hundreds of years old, or thousands, or just a regular adult, depending on how you’re measuring time,” Mateo muses.

“I measure it with this.” He takes a wand from his cabinet, and waves it around.

“What is that?”

“It’s a temporal...a temponeural, umm...”

Mateo laughs “What? What are you trying to say, guy?”

“I’m not sure what to call it yet. A neurotemporal something something detector.”

“What exactly does it do?”

Ramses hovers it over Mateo’s forehead. It makes a noise. Once it’s finished, he inspects the readout. “Hmm. It says that your consciousness is a few seconds old.”

“So it needs work.”

“Yes.”

Mateo thinks that he might possibly have a halfway decent idea, which he hopes won’t sound stupid. “Could you scale that up?”

“How big?” Ramses asks.

“Big enough to scan the whole world?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 23, 2398

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Meredarchos’ plan presumably hinges on this idea that the team is not meant to know that he has transferred to Trina’s body. While the authorities were looking for Andile, he would apparently be free to move about the world unnoticed. Except that he would be noticed, because we’re talking about an unaccompanied six-year-old girl. His plan just doesn’t make any sense, especially considering the fact that Ramses knew about the secret refrigerated room, and would discover it eventually, if not immediately, which he did. Of course, little Trina was not capable of carrying Andile out of the building, so he couldn’t take the body with him after the transfer, but then why didn’t he just take Trina’s body, and make the transfer somewhere else. This is all sloppy work, and Ramses believes that he has an answer for why.

“Erlendr is in there.”

“They’re sharing a body,” Leona understands. “That’s always been a theory, but it doesn’t explain why they would use Trina’s instead of Andile’s, and risk us finding out.”

“I think it does explain it. They’re both alpha males, trying to control the outcome of whatever it is they’re doing together. They have their own objectives, and their own ways of accomplishing them. It’s sloppy because they can’t agree on anything, and neither of them will concede to the other, which means that nothing gets done right.”

“The problem with this possibility,” Mateo begins, “is that we have a short window to take advantage of their disarray. Eventually, one of two things will happen: either they’ll learn to work together—though this is less likely—or one will win out over the other. It depends on who is the stronger psychic, I would guess.”

“There’s at least one other option,” Leona says. “They may be able to split their minds to a second body.”

“Whose?” Mateo asks. “The only other vacant body we know of is Leona Reaver, who is being protected by layers and layers of agency security.”

“Who says it has to be vacant?” Ramses poses.

Mateo shakes his head. “If they can share the body of someone who doesn’t want to share it, why take Trina at all? Why not go straight to the guy who owns the pizza place down the block, or any other random stranger?”

“Erlendr may not be able to resist the poetry,” Rames suggests. “The pizza guy means nothing to us, but he doesn’t think we can hurt Trina. Again, sloppy.”

“Well, that’s another problem,” Leona says before a pause. “Can we? Can we hurt Trina’s body? Can we hurt any child?” That is the classic question issued in philosophy classes the world over. Would you be able to kill Hitler as a child, knowing what he would turn out to be? Except they don’t know what Meredarchos is, or will be, and Erlendr has already done his worst.

They’re silent for a moment before Mateo speaks again. “We still have the Livewire, right?”

“Yeah,” Ramses answers. “Meredarchos apparently doesn’t need it to control the Insulator of Life, so he didn’t steal it too.”

Mateo looks at his wife. “I would hate to kill someone who looks like you, but...”

“But it would be easier than someone who looks like little Trina, and honestly, we would probably ask Arcadia to actually do it for us.”

“If you place someone in Leona Reaver’s body, they’re not going to die,” Ramses reminds them. “They’ll fall back to her original timeline, and then be dropped right back here in that parking lot.”

Leona nods. “I’ve been thinking about that. I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay. What might that be?” Ramses is worried now.

“I need you to build me a prefrontal cortical scanner, unless they exist in this reality already, in which case, you would just need to procure one.”

“Lee-lee, what is that?” Mateo asks.

“Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo keep subverting death because an extraction mirror keeps saving them. They thought that they couldn’t get out of the loop, but I believe that they’re not trying hard enough. It’s true that it is difficult to let yourself die when you see a way out, even when you’re suffering from suicidal thoughts. That’s why people who genuinely want to die can’t just strangle themselves with their bare hands. These decisions are made in the frontal lobe, and with enough science, you can manipulate which decisions an individual makes.”

“Are you talking about inventing a suicide inducer?” Mateo questions.

“They already exist in the main sequence, and probably the other advanced realities,” Leona reasons. “Or rather, they could. Whether anyone has ever actually used such technology is irrelevant. It’s possible regardless. I’m not talking about using it on all my enemies, but I think it might be worth the risk.”

Ramses is torn between the two of them. “I’ll investigate the possibilities, but I make no guarantees.”

Leona tilts her head as she’s standing up to leave. Sometimes she wishes this were a dictatorship. Sometimes.

“I know my wife,” Mateo says after she’s left. “You may also know her well enough to know what she’s really planning.”

“I do. She’s not interested in making Meredarchos and Erlendr suicidal. She’s going to copy her own brain, and upload all three consciousnesses into her alternate self’s head. She’ll kill herself, and the other two will just be along for the ride.”

“How do we suppose we stop her from doing that?”

“Not how you’re thinking,” Ramses warns. “Don’t forget, I know you too.”

“It’s the only play that makes sense.”

“Sacrificing yourself to prevent her from doing it isn’t a fair trade.”

“It won’t really be me. It’ll be a different me. But it won’t even be that, right? It’ll be a lesser me. No memories, no real thoughts...just the impulse to get out of the extraction mirror loop, and end it once and for all.”

“You can get semantic on me all you want, Mateo. This is a murder-suicide pact. Whatever happens, you both need to appreciate that truth.”

Mateo stands up as well. “It won’t be the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. And hey, won’t they end up in the afterlife simulation anyway?”

Ramses shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s an old timeline. We don’t believe it existed back then.” He watches Mateo leave the lab too. Then he unlocks his Completed equipment locker, and takes out his neural scanner. It’s funny that the two of them are under the impression that she’s the one who came up with the idea to copy consciousness. He was working on this for weeks, and now he knows how he’s going to use it. He’ll scan his own brain, and end this once and for all.