The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 10, 2399

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Leona sent a message to Alyssa yesterday, but she hasn’t responded. She could be busy running around with her brainwashed brain, or just chilling on a beach in Tahiti. What would one of the only two people in the whole world with time powers do with their day? Does she have an agenda? It sure seems like she’s reached her goal by now. Rather, she’s reached Dalton Hawk’s apparent goal. Or maybe this was just the beginning. Maybe temporal energy was getting in the way of some other objective, and now the real work starts. If only he would come talk to them, they would know whether they should try to stop him, or help. He presumably sent them here accidentally, and then arrived himself in an attempt to remedy the issue. How that ended up leading him to creating a religion with multiple branches thousands of years ago is anyone’s guess, but they have met him a few times, and he didn’t seem evil before. They’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt until he gives them a solid reason not to.

The team had completely forgotten that the only reason they sent Angela on a relativistic journey in the first place is because her alternate self, Marie was terminally ill. As Angela had already taken some of the immortality waters, they figured it was their only shot to retroactively save her sister. It appeared to have worked, but time is a fickle thing, and their success in this pursuit is not necessarily inevitable. They have to actually find the rest of the waters, and give them to her in the right order. The hardest to get will be Activator, which can be found anywhere on Earth, but only at the end of its life. That won’t happen for billions of years. They should have been focused on this for the last few months. Now it may be too late. It may be pointless while they’re still under the rule of the Omega Gyroscope, which is suppressing temporal energy. If the restrictions are even tighter than before, then none of the waters will do what they’re meant to do anyway. To get this done, they’re going to need more exceptions, and barring finding Dalton, there’s only one person they can talk to about that. Why isn’t she answering?

“Argh!” Leona huffs. “How hard is it to reply to a text? It takes two seconds to say, get back to you soon. Love ya!”

“Maybe she doesn’t have cell service,” Mateo offers, trying to stay positive. “It hasn’t really been that long, when you really think about it.”

“Nowhere in the world does not have cell service. The Global Council made it illegal to manufacture a phone without satellite capabilities for emergencies. Every satellite data provider agrees to eat the cost of such calls.”

“If she’s not responding...” He decides not to finish that sentence.

“Yes, Mateo, go on.”

Okay, he’ll say it. “If she doesn’t respond, then we have to find Dalton. We were probably always going to do that anyway. He is the last piece of the puzzle that we’ve been trying to put together for the last year. He’s at least a piece.”

“Great,” Leona says sarcastically. “Where do you suggest we start looking? Do you want to try to find the Constant again? That always works out so well for us.”

Mateo sighs, and holds up a pamphlet for Daltomism. “If you wanna climb to the top, you gotta start at the bottom.”

Leona looks at her husband with a look of repulsion. “It looks like we’re going to church. Can’t wait, I love those kinds of people. They’re always so rational.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 7, 2399

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About a week ago, a building in the middle of Manhattan, New York City, New York appeared out of nowhere that the people are calling The Superscraper. It was national news, but no one on the team—nor anyone affiliated with them—was paying attention to anything going on in the world. Their own concerns overshadowed anything in the public view. Not even Winona was apprised of the situation, though her father has been closely monitoring this development. The government is not allowed to go in, though, because while the building is located within the borders of the United States, it’s not technically a part of it. It is a Microsovereignty. It is Leona’s Microsovereignty.

The building is unlike any other in the world. It’s more like something one might find in the main sequence, or the Parallel. The Fifth Division doesn’t really do planetary structure as most everyone lives in space, but they would be capable of such an architectural feat. It’s a thousand meters high, and 180 meters wide, which is about half the size of a standard main sequence arcology. Depending on how high the floors are, you could serve hundreds of thousands of people here, or more. Who built this, and why? Leona had the idea to do something like it at some point, but a whole lot of other stuff got in the way, particularly all of her death threats, so she abandoned the idea, and the Microsovereignty itself.

Mateo and Leona only know now that anything happened to this place because it’s where Alyssa wants to meet. The whole area has been cordoned off by the International Relations Bureau, which normally wouldn’t be responsible for such matters, but it’s one of few exceptions. The two of them were placed on a list, because Leona no longer looks like herself. If she had access to temporal energy, she might be able to create the illusion of her real face, but as it stands, Alyssa appears to be the only one with such power. That’s why she didn’t need to put herself on the list, because she’s made herself look like Leona.

The outside is incredibly impressive, and the inside is just as, though still barebones, unfurnished. Alyssa, who still looks like Leona, greets them in the lobby. “Thank you for coming.”

“Hm.” Leona has interacted with people who look exactly like her before. One of them, Arcadia isn’t even an alternate version of her. She’s not sure why she’s so unsettled by it, but she would prefer it if Alyssa turned it off.

Alyssa seems to sense this. “Oh, sorry about that.” She drops the illusion, and goes back to her own face, which is weird too, what with Leona also looking like that. Everything and everyone needs to go back to the way they were.

“Are you feeling any better, or are you still against us?” Mateo asks her.

“I was never against you,” Alyssa tries to argue. “I’m brainwashed. Now, I know what you’re gonna say, if I’m aware of that, why can’t I just counteract it?”

“Neither of us thinks it should be so easy,” Leona tells her. “The mind is complicated, and space and time travel adds an extra dimension to it, because who knows where the technology that did this to you comes from?”

“I certainly don’t,” Alyssa promises.

“What’s changed then? Why are we here?”

“I would like to make a proposal,” Alyssa begins. “If you agree to cease all attempts at bringing temporal energy back to this world, I will bestow one of you access to your bodily alterations so that you may use them at your discretion. I don’t care which, though I know which one of you I would choose.”

“We weren’t trying to bring back temporal energy,” Mateo contends. I had to get out of range so I could bring my wife back.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Alyssa says. “I sensed your escape, and I sensed the bubble rushing out to keep up with you. Before you get mad, I did not personally make that happen. I am the Gyroscope’s caretaker, not its master. It works as long as I don’t leave for 50,000 years. No, I’m not talking about that, you were poking at the bubble before, and you still are. It has nothing to do with your little space excursion.”

Mateo and Leona exchange a look to see if the other has any idea. “We have no clue what you’re talking about. All we’re doing is observing it.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Alyssa requests.

“We’re not lying. We came to this world without powers. Our only concerns are Angela and Marie, and what happens to them when they get back.”

“They will be afforded exceptions as well,” Alyssa says. “I want them both to live as much as you do.”

“If you can make an exception for them—” Mateo begins before Leona hushes him up with a short shake of her head.

“So you are poking the bubble?” Alyssa presses.

“No, we are not,” Leona explains. “He just likes to poke holes in people’s arguments. If you’ll make an exception for Angela and Marie, and do whatever you could to help Arcadia, we would be grateful.”

“What’s wrong with Arcadia has nothing to do with me,” Alyssa reveals. “I’m afraid I can’t help her, though I would. You’re all my friends. I still want to be part of the team. I just have other loyalties now.”

“We understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, we do. We’ve been doing this a lot longer.”

Alyssa nods, agreeing to disagree. “Have you decided which of you will get their abilities back?”

“You’re still going to give that to us, even though we’re not...poking the bubble?”

Alyssa laughs. “I promised a gift, I’ll give you a gift. I suppose I should ask you to not poke the bubble, whether you have been doing it already or not.”

“Give it to her,” Mateo says of his wife. “She needs to look like herself.”

Alyssa regards Leona. “Is this amenable to you? You won’t be able to teleport.”

“I want this building,” Leona clarifies. Powers are great, but something tells her that this tiny little nation will soon be far more valuable than being able to jump around the globe a few hours faster. “Give me back my face.”

“Very well.” Alyssa reaches behind her back, and pulls out a cane with a giant-ass diamond at the top. It’s the Dilara Cane.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Leona questions.

“Dalton Hawke let me borrow it.”

“That is what sent us to this reality, did you know that?” Mateo asks.

“Hmm.” Alyssa examines the object. “He taught me how to make exceptions with it, and to maintain myself as an exception. He didn’t say anything about other realities.” She points it at Mateo. “Do you want I should send you back?”

Microstory 1658: Exceptions to the Rules

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The excelschians in Excelschiaverse are all pretty much the same. They’re like AI assistants, except that they can only be seen by the person to which they are assigned. The form spontaneously, to about half the population of Earth, and there appears to be no common link amongst the people who are chosen. No evidence has suggested that some kind of higher being is responsible for this in any way. Some see it as proof of a God, but it’s all just circumstantial. Those who study them have not come to any definitive conclusions. All they have found is that if someone were to hypothetically exchange their excelschian with someone else’s, nothing would change. It would still be able to transform itself into whatever shape the human wanted, it would still look human, and it would still not be able to interact with the real world. There are a couple exceptions to the rules. In one case, an excelschian appeared to develop some kind of personality, and personal agency. It started considering itself to be an independent being, and believed that it had the same rights as any corporeal individual would have. Unfortunately for it, and its physical human, there was no way to prove this either way. Only the human could see his excelschian, and while he made every attempt to fight for her rights, it was impossible. The human could have been lying, and no one would know. And even if the right authorities agreed to grant the excelschian her natural rights, what would that mean? How would that play out? She still wouldn’t be able to communicate with other people, and she couldn’t get a job, or contribute to society. All she could do was ask her human to let her make her own choices, which he did happily, and that’s as good as it ever got for the both of them. They even later fell in love.

There was another exceptional case, where the excelschian did not have trouble with people seeing him. Quite the opposite. Overtime, people around the human to which he was assigned started being able to see him, but only those who did not have their own excelschians. He didn’t develop his own personality, but he did end up with the compulsion to help everyone who was able to see him. He wasn’t exposed to just anyone who happened to pass by, but it was still a lot of people. So he began to serve as a sort of community excelschian, but this started causing problems. Who deserved him the most? Who decided what questions he answered, and when. It became so confusing that the original human had to run off to the other side of the country, and never come out of her apartment. The last major exception involves a human who found herself capable of seeing any and every excelschian. The world became a crowded place as she watched others ask their questions, and heard the answers. They didn’t answer her questions, which she tried as an experiment, but that was fine. The real problem was that it was difficult for her to move around in the world, because though she still couldn’t touch the excelschians, she never lost her instinct to give them space, and walk around, as she would do for anybody. She too had to run away from civilization, though not quite to the same degree. She just had to make sure she wasn’t around too many people who had excelschians. She actually tried to join a community of non-excelschianed humans on the edge of town, but those were pretty exclusive, and always at least a little racist, so they rejected her applications. These exceptions were not heralds of the future, or changes to the status quo. They were just different, and the chances of them happening were never zero.