The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 31, 2513

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You can have it,” Boyd said sincerely.

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

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

“Boyd,” Mateo scolded.

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

“Oh, yeah, you did say that.”

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

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

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

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

“It’s not that bad.”

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

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

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

“Is that even a choice?” Leona asked.

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

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

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

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

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

No one raised their hand.

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

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

“Are you upset by that?” Marie pressed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bronach grinned. “There’s a catch.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course he is,” Mateo replied.

Ramses was hurt. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

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

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

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

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

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Microstory 2041: New Jersey

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My dad and teacher didn’t want me to put this information on the slide, and I bet she’s upset with me right now as I’m presenting it, but the way I see it, it’s my story, and I should be able to tell it. I was born in a country in Africa called Ethiopia. When I was still a baby, some men came into my village, and took me away. They were trying to sell me to some really bad people. We think that I would have grown up to be a slave for them. That’s right, slavery still happens. I was rescued, but not everyone is, and it’s going on all over the world. They found me and a bunch of other children on a big ship, and took me to New Jersey where I would be safe. But I still didn’t have a home. A group of women who worked for the state took care of us in an orphanage. Reporters talked about what happened to us on the news, so actually a lot of people wanted to adopt us, but they first had to see if they could send us back to our birth parents. It was really complicated. It usually took a really long time to find out where we belonged, because we didn’t all know our names, or who our parents were. I was there for three years before my papa and dad came in to take me to my forever home. I will always be grateful to them for that, because I love them, and I would never want to live anywhere else.

Extremus: Year 55

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The last two months have been hell. It turns out that the four-person mind blender machine did more than Tinaya first realized. She’s the only one who can function on her own. Lataran, Valencia, and Omega struggle with simple tasks, especially the latter, who can’t even feed himself. The entity formerly known as Lantaran does okay, which is why she helps him with things like that, but she makes mistakes, and can’t be seen in public. Tinaya can’t tell anyone what’s happened. Not only does their time in the Bridger section have to remain a secret, but either way, she doesn’t know who she can trust. Not her family, not the captain, and definitely not Avelino. Even Lataran herself doesn’t quite seem to understand that something strange is going on. To them, this all seems rather normal. So, really, she’s alone; forced to take care of all three of them all by herself. Which sucks, because it’s not like her life is perfect after all of this. She may have more knowledge than before, but practical application did not come with the package. She now knows everything that Omega, Valencia, Lataran, and probably other people knew and know, but she can’t organize the information properly. She’s learning, but it’s going to take time, and that’s been difficult, because again, no one is around to help.

There’s a knock at the door. Not a ping, or a cam notification. That’s quite troubling, because she’s relying heavily on a makeshift security system that she built herself. It’s entirely isolated from the ship, which is important, because of that trust issue. She and the others are staying in an isolated sector of the Extremus. It’s not totally hidden; she doesn’t have to climb through an air duct to get to it, but the population has not grown into this area yet, so no one comes down here, except occasionally on a walk/run to clear their heads, and get away from the madding crowd. She hears them pass by every once in a while, but they don’t knock on the door. Who is knocking in the door, and why the fuck?

It’s Rodari Stenger. She tries to shut it when she sees that, but he’s too strong. He’s desperate to get in, but the expression on his face is not what she would have expected. He doesn’t look menacing, or angry, or vile in any way. In fact, he looks rather kind. He looks...worried. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Tinaya grabs the nearest weapon, which is a tiny screwdriver that she’s been using to engineer a new skeleton keycard of her own design, patent pending. “What did you do to us? Why?”

“I didn’t do anything to you except get you out of there,” Rodari claims.

She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Really? You expect me to believe that?”

“Really, it’s true,” he answers, maybe sincerely. “I was trying to repair the memory absorptioner, but I ran out of time. I still don’t understand this stuff very well. Then Omega and Valencia ordered me to leave, and...this happened,” he says, gesturing towards her, and the other three behind her. They’re not as perturbed by this disturbance as she is. That’s probably for the best, or it would get real chaotic in here.

“What are you talking about? Please clarify.” The words are polite, the attitude is not.

Rodari sighs. “That thing was not going to do what you thought it was going to do, and not what it actually did.”

“Qué?”

“What Omega and Valencia told you was right. They would have been able to share their memories with you, and yours with them. But it could also delete all your memories, or it could turn you into a psychopathic killer, or it could make you think that you’re a grouse in Labrador.”

“What is a grouse? What’s Labrador”

“The point is that it was not programmed correctly. Someone tampered with it before I got into work that day last year. They were trying to dumbify Omega and Valencia, and almost completely incapacitate you two. Well, it was more about you. It’s all about you, Tinaya. They only programmed it to affect the two of them so they couldn’t fix the problem, and I think Lataran is just collateral damage.”

“You think?” she questions. “You seem to know a lot, but also kind of nothing?”

He sighs again, but this time out of frustration. “The point is, someone was trying to get you out of the way, and prevent anything from being able to get you back in the way eventually. I still don’t know who it was. I wasn’t supposed to be in that room that day, but I was curious to learn more, because I have a thirst for knowledge, and I noticed that it was reprogrammed. So I tried to fix it.”

“But you failed, and now this is us.”

“Yes, it didn’t even do what the bad guy wanted it to do. It made this tornado of synapses instead. I have been looking for you ever since, hoping that one of you was still smart enough to...help me figure this out. I guess it’s you.” He sounds quite apologetic.

“I don’t understand why you got us out. Why didn’t we all just stay in there to work through the problem?”

“I didn’t know what the endgame was. I still don’t. My thought was that the safest place for you was on the Extremus proper. I went back in to get supplies, and when I returned to the hallway, you were gone. You had shuffled them away. I had no idea where you had gone, and I couldn’t trust anyone enough to ask for help..”

Tinaya stares back at the poor saplings sitting at the table. “Is it possible that...?”

“Either Omega or Valencia, or both, are responsible for what happened with the machine. The thought crossed my mind.”

She turns back to him. “I don’t know if you’re lying,” she says as she’s shaking her head. She falls into a laugh, and not because it’s funny; ha-ha, but because it’s funny; goddammit. “I don’t know if you’re about to kill me. Or them. Or yourself. Or...a grouse! I don’t know anything anymore, which is ironic, because I know more right now than I ever thought I possibly could! I mean, did you know that all non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function lie in the critical line of the complex plane real part one-half? Because I do. I know that. I don’t know what it means, but it’s rattling around up here, along every line from a clearly very stupid movie called American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules, the number forty-two—for some reason—and how many dimples there are in a golf ball...which I assume is from a game?” She slaps her head demonstratively as she’s ranting. “There’s so much in my head right now, but I can’t do anything with it, because there’s no organization. It all just got randomly dumped in all at once, and mixed together like a blender. My brain is trying to sort it out, but it’s too much. It’s too much, Rodari! It’s too much!”

Something clicked in Rodari’s head when she said that. “That’s it! The Blender.”

“Are you making fun of me now?” she questions angrily. She has trouble tempering her anger these days, and it always frightens the little ones, setting any progress they’ve made back by at least half a day.” She takes a breath, and tries to calm herself down, if only to make the others feel safer.

“I’m sorry. I did this to you. It wasn’t intentional, but I’m still at fault. If I thought that I could trust that it wasn’t either of them who messed up the machine, then I would have alerted them to it. But I got scared, and I ran away. Let me make it up to. You’ve given me an idea, but in order to implement it, I’m going to need help. You know this vessel better than anyone. How do I get into the mirror room?”

“The mirror room?” she asks, not out of not knowing what that is, but not understanding how it’s going to help them. The mirror has the ability to summon and extract anyone from any point in space and time. It’s generally used to pull people out just before they’re about to die, but that’s not a requirement. It can’t extract whole past consciousnesses, though. The mirror room is unguarded, but heavily fortified. Almost no one has access to it, and not many more even know that it exists. Tinaya only does because she’s a nosy hacker. The question is who does Rodari want to summon with it?

Hoping against all hope that this is not all an elaborate trick, the five of them sneak up to the mirror room in the middle of the night. It’s nice to finally have someone to help wrangle the saplings. Truly, unambiguously, hopefully he’s not lying to them. She uses her still-not-quite-finished skeleton keycard to break in, and they shut the door behind them. “Do you really think she can help us...and will be willing to? According to my temporal history classes, she’s not always good people.”

Rodari starts to slowly step around the mirror in the middle of the room, admiring its craftsmanship, and again, hopefully not planning something evil and twisted with it. It could be that all of this was to get Tinaya to let him into this room. “Nerakali Preston is a good person at heart. We will make sure to extract her later in her timeline, after she’s become friends with Team Matic. This will work; she can do this. It’s her whole thing.” He shrugs excitedly. “She’s The Blender.”

“Okay,” Tinaya agrees, still unsure. “But I’ll do it myself.” Rodari could hypothetically suddenly call upon Adolf Hitler or Elon Musk instead, and by the time the sound of his words hit her ears, it would be too late to stop him. She positions herself before the mirror and clears her throat. “I stand at the gate of life and death. Come forward, spirit, come forward. Here is life. Smell blood, smell life; I summon thee, Nerakali Preston of The Gallery Prestons,” she rattles off. The words are in her head because someone whose knowledge she absorbed knew them. Nothing happens, though.

“Once more with feeling,” Rodari encourages.

She repeats the words, but puts more umph into them, using dramatic pauses whenever necessary, and exclamation points where not necessarily necessary. Now it works. The glass shimmers, and shifts to a different place and time. A woman is standing on the other side, hovering over the body of another, who appears to be in a simulation of some kind. The supposed caretaker looks over when she realizes the mirror there. “Oh, hey. What’s up?”

“Are you Nerakali Preston?”

“I am,” she replies. She doesn’t seem evil, so it would appear that they have indeed summoned her at the right point in time.

“My name is Tinaya Leithe of the VMS Extremus. We have some people here whose brains would sure be better if you could blend them with their proper memories.”

Nerakali frowns. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I died. I don’t have my powers anymore.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 7, 2398

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Leona Reaver never woke up, while the other three did. Or rather, if anyone took over her corporeal shell, like a hermit crab on the beach, they never woke up. Mateo was right to be worried about what kind of people might show up. Erlendr’s daughter, Arcadia Preston woke up in Leona Delaney’s body, much to her mixed feelings. Serkan, Ace, and Paige’s once-enemy, Rothko Ladhiffe stole Alt!Mateo’s, while some guy named Meredarchos took Andile’s. He made people uncomfortable immediately, but they don’t know what his deal is yet. They didn’t have a safe way to lock these people up until they could get to the bottom of this, so their only choice was to ask Winona Honeycutt for help. Since Mateo was as of yet the only one cognizant of Marie’s strong working relationship with her, it was Leona Matic who made contact.

Apparently, it is SD6 policy to hold all prisoners for at least a day before questioning unless a clear and present threat is posed to life. They find that people are more willing to talk once they have tasted what it might be like for the rest of their lives if they don’t. Unfortunately for them all, Winona and SD6 don’t know who they’re dealing with. The Prestons are immortal, and interpret a single day as less than a second. They don’t know much about Rothko, and they’ve never even heard of Meredarchos, but as they’re the company of the other two, they’re probably not so easily broken either.

Mateo and Lenoa have to start the interrogations on their own the next morning. The prisoners are more likely to respond well to them than to anyone. They’re going to start with Arcadia, because she’s been the most open, and they know her the best. The guard escorts them into the blacksite, and down the stairs. The cells are clean, well-lit, and furnished. Since the team has no idea whether the Livewire transfer to the past worked at all, they can’t do anything to harm these substrates yet. Their friends, the original owners, may need to reclaim them later.

The guard asks what kind of safety measures they would like to make, but they say it’s fine to just be in the room with her. She’s quite powerless now, or else she would have escaped by now. She may be playing the long game, but that still doesn’t place them in any more danger than they are already in. If she wants to hurt them, she will find a way. “You’re looking quite beautiful today,” Mateo says to her, hoping that she finds it funny since she looks exactly like his wife right now, instead of offensive since he’s not saying it about the real her.

Arcadia nods. “Does that mean you can love me now? Was my face the only thing keeping you away?”

Mateo takes her right hand in both of his. “You have always had a beautiful face. And I believe you have a beautiful soul too, if you just...tried to use it more often.”

She pulls away. “Don’t say stuff like that if you don’t mean it.”

“He means it,” Leona says. “You have not always made the right choices, but you’re not evil. None of you is evil.”

“Except for your father,” Mateo adds.

“He’s not evil,” Arcadia protested, “he just—”

“He raped your mother,” Mateo interrupts.

Arcadia blinks. “Why would you say such a terrible thing? He did not. They were married, I grew up with them.”

“Yeah, they were married, but—”

“Matt, stop,” Leona interrupts. “We’re not simpatico with her.”

Arcadia looks between the two of them. “Tell me what happened.”

“We can’t talk about it, I wasn’t thinking,” Mateo says apologetically. “The last thing you experienced was me overwriting you with Aldona’s mind. What I don’t understand is how you, your dad, Rothko Ladhiffe, and this Meredarchos fellow ended up here.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Arcadia straightens up.

Leona lists the names again.

Arcadia stands, freaked out. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that he said his name was Meredarchos?”

“Yes, we are,” Leona says. “Why? What precautions should we take?”

Arcadia begins to pace. “Holly Blue. She built a psychic containment chamber. That’s the only thing with any hope of, well...containing him.”

“She’s not here,” Mateo explains.

“Make any call you need to. Dig a grave, flip a penny, tame a pigeon. Do whatever you must to make contact with her or The Weaver. We cannot let that thing spread.”

“We can’t do any of those things,” Leona insists. “We’re in The Third Rail.”

Arcadia eyes them both, waiting for elaboration. “I don’t know what that is.”

“The Prestons are supposed to know everything,” Mateo complains. “It’s a parallel reality. It doesn’t have time travel. Holly Blue isn’t here. She isn’t ever here...probably.”

“No time travel, or no time powers?” Arcadia questions.

“Both,” Leona says. “We should be enhanced humans, but even that was taken from us when we arrived. We’re trying to figure out what and how.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re upgraded.”

“Yes,” Mateo replies.

Arcadia shakes her head slightly. “Nothing in this universe can dampen biological upgrades. How would that even work?”

“That’s what we were hoping to understand,” Leona tells her.

“If he hasn’t spread yet,” Arcadia begins, “that may be why. He may be trapped in whatever body he’s in right now. I know we have trust issues, but he is one of the greatest existential threats to the bulkverse, so you have to open up to me. He’s the reason I stopped doing what I was trying to do with the LIR Map. The only way to protect yourself from him is to hope he never finds you. So please, tell me what you know. How did me and my father get here? How did he?”

“We have the LIR Map,” Mateo says. “It doesn’t usually do anything, since powers aren’t common. We have our best luck with the immortality waters.”

“Go on.”

“Not here,” Leona decides. She stands up, and bangs on the door. When the guard opens it up, she says, “we’re letting this one go. Either move the man and the little girl to different cells, or the woman to her own cell. Either way, she needs to be extremely isolated.”

“Understood, agent,” the guard says as he’s unlocking Arcadia’s ankle shackle.

Mateo, Leona, and Arcadia go back to the lab to continue the conversation. For her to get a clear picture of what’s happened here, everybody needs to pitch in.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 6, 2398

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Power went out in the whole building, and it took a few minutes to come back on. Once it did, Leona and Ramses were pretty sure that the deed was done, and it was safe to go back down to the basement. The first thing they saw there was little Trina, lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs. The four adults who were trying to send their consciousnesses to the past were also on the floor, and not moving, which was to be expected. Mateo tried to scoop Trina up in his arms, but Leona stopped him. If she had a broken neck, they shouldn’t move her. She ordered Marie to call emergency services. While they were waiting for the paramedics, she told Mateo, Vearden, and Heath to carry the other four bodies into The Olimpia. They didn’t have an idea of what they were going to do with them, but that wasn’t important now. They just couldn’t let people see them, and start asking questions. The story was that Trina was exploring alone when she fell down the stairs, and no one else had anything to do with it.

As it turned out, Trina had a few broken bones, but her neck and head were fine. She didn’t require any major surgeries, and is presently in her hospital bed, still unconscious. She does read as asleep, though, instead of dead, or a coma. The instruments are detecting a clear heart rate, and even brain activity. She’s still in there, apparently having been knocked over by the blast of the transfer, but not taken by it. The other three McIvers are sitting bedside, with Carlin now passed out in his chair, head and arms on the bed at Trina’s feet. One hand is affectionately wrapped around her uninjured ankle.

Only family is allowed to stay with her at these hours, but Mateo has been permitted to come in every hour to check on the lot of them. He sits in the waiting room otherwise. It’s just past 2:30 when young Moray sends him a text message, alerting him to Trina’s greatly anticipated reawakening. He explains the situation to the nurse sitting at the desk, who allows him to go back off schedule. When he reaches the doorway, the doctor is just finishing her examination.

When the doctor steps aside, Trina see’s Mateo’s face. “My, my, my,” she begins in an unfamiliar tone. “Mateo Matic, how long has it been for you?”

“A few hours,” he underestimates.

Trina narrows her eyes. “You only lasted a few hours before you regretted overwriting me?”

Mateo gasps. “Doctor, are you able to give us some privacy?” he asks.

She looks over at Trina. “Five minutes. Then I need to run some tests.”

“Very well.” Once she’s gone, he addresses the McIvers, “step away from her.”

“Her?” Trina questions.

“This is our sister,” Alyssa protests.

“She’s sick, so get your other siblings away from her right now.”

Trina looks at them, confused. She lifts her hands up, and regards them curiously. “Do you happen to have a mirror?”

Mateo takes out his phone, and opens the camera app. He holds it in front of Trina’s face. She lightly touches her own cheek, just to make sure that it’s actually hers. “This is...disgusting.”

“What?” Alyssa questions, scared.

“This is a person whose body you’ve stolen.”

“Hey, I didn’t steal anything. I don’t know how I got here.”

Mateo turns his lizard brain. That almost sounded sincere. “What is the last thing you remember? Be honest.”

“You were deleting my consciousness, and replacing it with someone else.”

“Then you just woke up here.”

“Yes.”

“What is going on, Mateo?” Alyssa demands to know. “Why are you talking to her like that? Why is she talking like that? Is this some kind of time disease?”

“This isn’t your sister,” Mateo explains. “This is the mind of a very bad man. Though, I suppose man is a bit of an overstatement. He’s more of a monster.”

“Assuming I believe you,” Alyssa begins, “how do we get her back?”

“With help,” Mateo answers, realizing something. “He dials the phone, and puts it to his ear. “Leona? Have the bodies awakened?” He waits for a response. “Lock them up,” he says when she reports that they haven’t. “Where? Well, that’s a good question.” They should have thought to prepare for this eventuality. A jail. Why didn’t they think of that? It would have been quite easy to lay the concrete blocks, fabritate the bars, and install the locks. They have so many enemies in this reality, and every right to hold them against their will. It’s so obvious now. Life has gotten so ridiculous. “I don’t know—just, they may wake up, and they may not be friendly. Erlendr Preston is here.” He shakes his head. “No, I can handle him. Watch out for the others.”

Erlendr is making Trina’s face grin. “You can lock me up, but you can’t hurt me. You care about this person too much.”

“You need to help me figure out how to get your consciousness out of her body,” Mateo insists.

“Why would I help you?” Erlendr asks him. “You just tried to kill me. I don’t know how long ago that was for you, but it was only minutes for me.”

“You’re going to help me, because I saw your face when you realized where you were. This is a little girl, and as evil as you, you don’t relish the idea of staying here any longer than you have to. What happens when she has to go to the bathroom? Are you comfortable with that?”

He scowls. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2398.”

“Perfect,” Erlendr decides. “Just transfer me to a clone.”

“It’s 2398...in the Third Rail,” Mateo clarifies.

“I don’t know what that is,” Erlendr claims.

“It’s what you wanted The Parallel to be. There’s very little time travel here. We kind of have to make our own.”

“Okay...I don’t need time travel, I need mind uploading.”

Mateo rolls his eyes, knowing that this is what smart people feel like when they talk to him. “Without help from time travelers, society progressed at a slower rate. It’s more like the 2050s here. There’s no mind uploading.”

Erlendr frowns, and struggles to get out of bed. “You always manage to screw things up, don’t you?”

“Don’t move,” Alyssa instructs.

“I’m fine,” Erlendr argues.

“I said. Don’t. Move!”

Extremus: Year 43

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Finally finished with her regular duties for the day, Kaiora leaves the bridge, and heads for a secret section of the ship that almost no one has access to. It’s not technically part of the Bridger Section, but it’s close, and just as hidden. Temporal engineers, Kumara and Greenley are already there, along with Kumara’s husband, and the current Head of Security, Errol. This is the braintrust at the moment. No one else knows what they’re doing, and no one else has been in here for the last six months. They rebuilt their time machine from scratch, believing that to be the better choice than to try to figure out how the first one was sabotaged. The secondary mission is to investigate the origins of Fake!Rita Suárez, but the primary is to rescue the people who were sent to the reverse time dimension without their consent or foreknowledge. They will starve to death unless someone enters the dimension now, and goes back with supplies. Everyone has their fingers crossed, hoping that nothing goes wrong this time, because if it does, all will probably be lost, and whoever was responsible for the sabotage in the first place will likely destroy everything.

Speaking of which, Kaiora’s been quite busy with other things. The executive civilian government package had to be replaced, but as Captain, she had to decide not to tell anyone exactly what happened. This proved to be a very unpopular decision, but there was nothing she could do. The saboteurs placed her in such an awkward position. Either she was honest, and caused a shipwide panic, or she kept quiet, and risked losing their confidence. There was every chance that her shift would end prematurely because of this, just like Halan before her. Maybe no captain would be destined to serve as long as they were supposed to. Maybe this whole experiment was a failure, and it was only a matter of time before the consequences reached critical mass. It seemed like such an easy concept. Take a generation ship to the other side of the galaxy. Everyone here volunteered to come, even the children. Why have there been so many obstacles? Why have they accumulated so many enemies?

“We’re ready, sir,” Greenley says.

Kaiora sighs, and stares at the new machine. She looks around, in the direction the observation room would be if they were doing this in the same lab as before. There’s nothing there. That doesn’t mean that nothing can go wrong, though, and she’s been fending off her paranoia since August; perhaps even longer. “Are you two ready?”

“Operation Tenet is a go,” Kumara confirms. It wasn’t until after the first attempt at this that someone pointed out that the reverse time dimension is very similar to a plot point in an ancient movie from Earth Apparently, the idea of moving backwards in time isn’t the main point of the story, but rather what would happen if you were shot with a bullet going in the wrong direction. Obviously the real answer is, just like a regular bullet if you happened to be facing the other direction yourself, but whatever.

“Don’t call it that,” Kaiora orders.

“Sir.”

“Proceed when ready,” Kaiora says. “Take your time.”

“We know you have other places to be,” Errol says as he’s checking his inventory one last time, and stepping into the chamber.

“I appreciate that.”

Kumara shuts the door behind them, and returns the a-okay gesture when Greenley queries him with it. Greenley then looks over at the Captain.

“I’m fine,” Kaiora assures her. “If it’s sabotaged a second time, then nothing matters. Just do it.”

Greenley casually salutes her boss, then presses the button. The two rescuers disappear. And they don’t come back.

“Shouldn’t they have returned by now?” Kaiora questions. “I mean, it’s time travel. Nothing should be able to hold them up, except for death.

“That is the most likely explanation,” Greenley agrees.

“So, they are dead?”

“Probably.”

“Corinna, and the rest of them; they’re dead too?”

“Probably,” Greenley repeats.

The Captain sighs again, and pinches her nose. “Congratulations, Greenley Atkinson. You are now Head Temporal Engineer for the failed interstellar mission known as Project Extremus.”

“Thank you, sir,” she answers just as unenthusiastically. “I’ll try to hold it all together for as long as I can before the walls come crumbling down around us.”

Kaiora starts to walk out. “Yeah, unless you find something better to do, in which case, I say go follow your bliss. I have to see if we can detect impostor clones...for all that that’s worth at this point.” She exits, and heads for another secret room.

Dr. Malone has clearly been waiting at the interior entrance impatiently. “Captain, please, I need to talk to you.”

“You’re not why I’m here today,” Kaiora warns him. “Don’t linger by the door either. It’s not protocol.” She keeps walking down the hallway.

“I’m sorry, and I understand that, but it’s really important.”

“Has one of the subjects come to you with some specific issue?”

“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean they’re doing okay.”

“Of course not, but it’s not your job to break them out of here. It’s your job to make them comfortable during their stay on a psycho-emotional level. I have given you more than enough resources to help them. What could you possibly need beyond that?”

“I think if they just got a few minutes on the outside, it—”

Kaiora stops shortly. “No. The point is to keep you inside, and isolated. You take one step out that door, and you’re compromised. I can’t be sure that the person who walks back through is the same one that left. Now. Is this about the other guests, or is this about you?”

“We’re all in this together.”

“No, Dr. Malone. I’m in this alone. You’re all here to help me get through it. Where’s Miss Seabrooke?”

“Where she always is,” Dr. Malone answers. “I still wanna talk,” he adds as she’s leaving him behind.

She ignores him, and enters the Seabrooke Lab. It’s an absolute mess. Meal bar wrappers all over the place, cans of civilian grade soft drinks at varying degrees of crushedness piled in the corner. There’s a smell. “How’s it coming?”

“Slow,” Elodie Seabrooke replies. She doesn’t turn away from her screen.

“That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I’m doing my best, it’s just not good enough.”

Kaiora sits down in the other chair, and turns Elodie by the shoulders. She has to wave her gaze forwards to make eye contact too. “I didn’t want to say this before, because I didn’t want to make any of you feel bad, but judging by the looks of this place, it may be time for the last resort.”

“What last resort?” Elodie tries to look back at her computer, but accepts it when her Captain pulls her back into the conversation by the chin.

“Do you know why I selected this team? The researchers, the second level research subjects?”

“No, I’ve been wondering why. None of us isssssssssss...particular good.”

Kaiora lets out an unfortunate sigh, like she always does. She once caught a crew member calling her Captain Sighmaster. “That’s why I chose you. The imposters are taking on the forms of people at high levels. They want to be captain, and first chair, famous scientists, engineers with high clearance. You’re not unimportant, Elodie, but you’re not the best computer engineer this ship has, and that’s what makes you perfect for the job. I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to figure this out, but I’m patient, because if I chose a colleague of yours who graduated top of their class, they may already be compromised. Again, I didn’t want to say this, but look at it this way; there are advantages to living under the radar. If this team solves this problem, your mediocrity will drain away, and no one will ever forget the name Elodie Seabrooke.”

Elodie holds her breath, then spits it all out at once. “Oh, that is such a relief. Oh my God, it’s like the anxiety squeezing me has finally let go. I thought you had just made a terrible, terrible mistake, and I was desperately trying not to disappoint you.”

“I don’t want you to worry.”

Elodie leans the back of her leg against her chair, and stares up at the ceiling. “Now it all makes sense. Have you met Malone? Man, he’s terrible. He never makes us feel at ease. He’s the most maladjusted, neurotic, disquieting therapist I’ve ever met.”

“You’re gonna have to cut him some slack. He has a job to do here too.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

They sit in silence for some time.

“What do you have for me so far?”

“Well, the facial recognition software is fine,” Elodie begins. “I mean, it’s as good as I can get without access to the real cameras. It successfully flags our two sets of twins, even when we dress them up differently. I’m still struggling with matching across time. If it captures one twin at 19:00, and then another at 19:05 on the other side of the section, it thinks that’s all right, because it’s entirely plausible that the same person simply walked over there. I haven’t even begun to think about how we might incorporate teleportation.”

“Don’t factor that in,” Kaiora says. “I’m going to ban teleportation for the next several years.”

Elodie is surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah, for this very reason. It’s just...there’s just too much data.”

“It shouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world. The impostor would probably be wearing the same clothes as the person they’re impersonating.”

“But they might, because they might have that data. We still don’t know who they are, or where they came from. Hell, they could be some kind of pure energy-based alien race who are just trying to study us.”

“Still haven’t captured one yet?” Elodie asks.

“Not a live one, no. The genetics team can’t move forward without them, so our control group has nothing to do. I need to find a way to draw them out.”

“I may have your solution to that problem.” They turn to find Daley McKee in the doorway. He’s a nurse in charge of caring for the genetic subjects in that capacity. Or rather, he would be doing that if they had any impostor subjects to compare to the control group. “I volunteer as tribute.”

“You what?”

“We’re looking for impostors, right? We’re looking for people who are so convincing that the alien contaminant detectors on this ship can’t...detect them. We think they’re clones, using DNA stolen from their victims in various ways. So why don’t we play their game.”

Kaiora finds herself looking back over to Elodie, who says, “don’t let him make you think he came up with this plan on his own. We talk about this over lunch all the time. If we were to create our own impostor, and then fabricate a situation where that impostor is outed, it might draw out one of the evil impostors.”

“Yeah,” Daley continues, “the evil impostor may try to help our plant—a.k.a. me—or they may be like, why the hell are you pretending to be the Captain? We never assigned you that role. Who are you really?”

“You want to impersonate me?” Kaiora questions.

“Or whatever.” Daley shrugs. “Probably not, actually, because then we risk the mob deciding that you might be the impostor instead. We should choose someone important, who you don’t like all that much, so if both the impostor, and the real person, are killed, no big deal.”

“In this scenario, are you still the good impostor?”

“Yes, but don’t you worry none about me. It’s like you were telling her, we’re not important.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Okay...but we’re not.” Daley crosses his arms. “Look, Cap...”

“Don’t call me that.”

Daley goes on without missing a beat, “...I would be honored to die for my ship...for the mission. Then I really would be important. We have to figure out who these people are, and if I don’t survive, at least I’ll know I did everything I could. It’s a good plan.”

“It’s not a plan,” Kaiora contends. “It’s an idea.”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

Kaiora looks at Elodie again, who widens into a very fake and unconvincing smile.

“All right, I’ll authorize preliminary discussions into this potential plan. I make no further promises, though.”

“Great!” Daley says, legitimately excited. “I’ll go talk to the Clone and Consciousness Transference teams.”

“Preliminary!” Kaiora shouts to him as he’s running away.

“Are you really gonna do this?” Elodie asks.

“I think we both know that it’s gonna happen, and that it’s gonna end up being me, because I can’t risk anyone else’s life.”

“You would still be risking Daley’s,” Elodie points out.

Kaiora shakes her head. “No, I won’t. Nobody’s going to be transferring their mind into a clone of me. I’m going to be duplicating myself.”

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Microstory 1878: Devoted to Self

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I dedicated my life to the attainment of absolute goodness and purity. I believe in evil. I believe in the Devil. And of course, I believe in God. I was born into a family of hedonistic atheists, who cared for nothing but earthly pursuits. They did not study the bible, and they had no faith. For the ones who died before me, I know that they are now in hell. They have to be, for they did not heed the word of our Lord and Savior. I heed it, and it’s all thanks to an amazing little girl I met on the school bus. She went real dark for our first discussion, talking about God’s wrath, and the punishment man has faced due to his sins. I was so scared, I went straight to church immediately after school, and had to walk all the way back home afterwards. My parents were so upset and worried, but they should have been worried for themselves. For I had just begun the long walk on a road of righteousness, and they were filled to the brim with sin. It was not easy, learning everything I needed to be a good Christian, but I never gave up, and I never compromised. Here’s what I believe. I believe that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her own body...unless that choice affects the life of another. I can’t understand how it could be any other way. Yes, you have personal autonomy, but so does the child. You cannot take that away from it. I mean, it’s not okay to kill people after they’re born, is it? I mean, I guess you have to if you’re in a war. And I suppose some criminals need to be dealt with to a level of irreversibility. This world must be cleansed from sin, and sometimes death is the only way to achieve that goal. But that baby is not evil, is it? I mean, I guess it is, because of original sin. But still, leave it alone!

The point is that there is only one path to Heaven, and I’ve finally reached the end of it, so my reward is near. All those people, dedicating their time to worthless endeavors, like the accumulation of wealth. I earned my money the right way, by raising and slaughtering cattle to nourish the world by my man’s side. I do not value material possessions. I constructed a large house to shelter my family, because God says to be fruitful and multiply. I own a nice car, so I don’t have to buy a new one every year. I make it last at least five years, or it gets too old, it’s not worth it anymore. I shop at boutique shops, because they always have the best stuff. And of course, I eat gourmet food, because that is the healthiest kind. But other than that, my entire self is devoted to God, and his teachings. Everything I do is to serve him, and his will. I haven’t even counted the number of people that I’ve converted to the side of light using The Good Word. Though I’m sure they number in the thousands; maybe even tens of thousands. But you don’t hear me bragging about that, because pride is a deadly sin. I am a sinful woman, just like anyone, but I make up for it, unlike all those other people who insist on spitting in the face of truth. I can’t wait to see what the eternal paradise looks like. Oh, it will be so grand. Every need will be provided for me, and I shall sit under the throne of our Creator. This is it; it’s everything that I’ve been working for. All those backbreaking hours at the charity galas and church bake sales will finally be worth it. I hope they serve rosé. Oh, tee-hee-hee, I’m just kidding, but really, I’m not. Because I deserve it. I’m a good person. No, I’m a great person. Nay, I’m the best. Feel free to take me now, Jesus. I’m ready.