Microstory 2425: Industrial Farm Dome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

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

Microstory 2420: Nordome Network

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Unlike most other themed domes, this is actually a series of domes. I believe the creator wanted to truly make it feel large in scope. While the distance between the “continents” isn’t anywhere near as large as they are on Earth, it still takes some time in those antiquated boats to travel between them. I even think you pass by other, unrelated domes on your way, though you would never know it if you stick to the right heading, because the holographic sky is sensational. It just looks like you’re outside. If you get lost, and sail in the wrong direction, you’re gonna hit the sides. They even have a sprinkler system to simulate rain during your journey, and the sea below you is saltwater, so you get that real oceanic experience. This isn’t the only dome network that works like this. It’s just the one that’s set during the Viking Age. You don’t have to be a Viking yourself—you can choose a simpler life, as a farmer, or a merchant—but you’re at risk of being attacked. You have to protect your settlement as they would have during the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries. If you do choose to go on a journey, you have to build or commission your own ship. They aren’t just provided to you. Keep in mind that this is a lifestyle dome experience. You’re meant to stay here for years, and really live the way that these people historically lived. There are no rules, and no planned activities. There’s no anachronistic technology, and you can’t keep leaving and come back. If you have a serious need, they’ll let you go through an emergency exit, and once the issue is resolved, you can go back. So it’s not like a one and done sort of thing, but it’s also not a free-for-all. You can’t spend your days on the boat, then sleep in a nice comfy bed at night. There are no day trips, and they will enforce these rules. I never saw any sort of argument or disagreement, but they were clear. If you really want to get the full experience, it’s probably gonna take you about thirty years. But, I mean, come on, who doesn’t have that kind of time to spare these days? What are you worried about, that you’re gonna die soon? So take a break and learn something. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, if you haven’t heard.

Microstory 2361: Earth, August 1, 2179

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Corinthia,

It’s Pascal again. Thank you for being so patient with me. It is now August 1, and communication restrictions have finally been lifted. It was such horrible timing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and it’s very rewarding, but it does come with downsides. I hope it’s okay that I’m writing you now. I know that your connection to your brother has only gotten stronger since my first letter, which was my last one. So if you only want me to speak when spoken to, that’s totally fine. I want you to drive this relationship, or even decide whether it is a relationship, or not. I won’t take up too much of your time until you decide, but allow me to give you a few updates on what I’ve been up to. Our deal with the Australian dome has been a great success. Since we live on the ocean, we’ve gotten pretty good at using our resources sustainably, but we still have to trade with land-based regions more than they have to trade with each other. We have less space here for such infrastructure, and we’re not equipped to handle certain crops. Everyone has vertical farming now, but so many fruits and vegetables can’t be grown in these tight, efficient environments very well. We grow tomatoes and herbs just fine. Lettuce and green beans? We got those. But we have no way of planting trees, and even if we did, they have not had enough time to grow to maturity since we were established. So many others just don’t work with the techniques that we are limited to using in the confined spaces on this boat. We can’t exactly carry tons and tons of dirt over the sea. It is for these reasons that we lack fruits like apples and peaches, sprawling plants like pumpkins and cucumbers, and roots like potatoes and carrots. In exchange for some of their food, we agreed to take a number of immigrants on board. Since we’re so new, we still have plenty of space to grow as a human population. Others are running low. The funny thing is, as helpful as it is to the Australian dome for us to take those people, it’s actually good for us too, because that is what we need. We want to establish our own nation, and to do that, we need citizens. That’s probably why it’s gone so smoothly, because we’re all winners here. All right, I’ve taken enough of your time already. Just get back to me when you can. I understand that you’re busy.

With affection,

Pascal

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 4, 2486

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

After Mateo and Ramses returned to Castledome, the latter hopped into their ship to run diagnostics on the slingdrive. Following careful examination and thought, he decided that it was not a good idea for them to try to jump again today. The good news was that they didn’t have to wait an entire year to begin the sidequest. Mateo’s daughters were capable of operating it on their own. They were going to have to learn sometime, and obviously all the systems were automated. While Ramses was spending time showing them the ropes, Mateo and Leona put their heads together to draw up a list of everyone they wanted to live here on Castlebourne with them. Darko Matic was first on the list. According to Dalton Hawk’s claims a while back, Darko’s last known location was the top of Monte Albán step pyramid in Mexico. This was where Dalton was killed, leading him to ending up in the afterlife simulation. Assuming there was no delay between his final moment on Earth, and his arrival in the simulation, this occurred in the year 2400.

While the team was gone, Kivi, Dubravka, and Romana took the Vellani Ambassador 85 years in the past to retrieve Uncle Darko. It was he who came up with the collective term of Kadiar, as that was the spelled out form of their first name initials as an acronym. They seemed to like it. Team Kadiar. Tertius was a part of their team too, but didn’t seem to mind being left out of the name. He wasn’t the only one to not be included, though everyone else’s role in this new operation hadn’t yet been fully fleshed out. Some would join the away team for the refugee missions, while others would remain on Castlebourne to work those refugees through orientation, and make sure they had everything they needed, as well as maintain some level of order as hosts.

Team Kadiar’s first stop after Darko was Baudin Murdoch’s architectural firm. His power would be invaluable on this world, speeding up construction on every dome by orders of magnitude. He agreed to the job with very little convincing. Over the course of the next year, more people were recruited to live on this world. This included Mateo’s once-mother Aura, and her husband, Samsonite, along with family friend, Téa. Ace and Paige came with a non-dead version of Serkan Demir. Kivi asked to bring in a version of Lincoln who didn’t literally know everything about everything. Next came Mateo’s once-father, Mario, and his wife, Angelita Prieto. They hoped to reunite with their daughter, Brooke, but she was off doing her own thing. She might show up later, once things were settled with the Exin Empire and the Ex Wars. Several other people agreed to live here too, like Kallias Bran and Aeolia Sarai. Lastly, they found a few less likely allies in Ida Reyer, Jericho Hagen, and Jesimula Utkin. Team Kadiar reportedly spoke with many others who didn’t have any interest in joining, or had too much work to do elsewhere, like Quivira Boyce and her team of time fixers, and the members of the Interagency Alliance Commission, which operated primarily around the turn of the 21st century. At some point during this, too, Dubra intentionally crossed her own timeline, and stole some DNA for a new clone body. It didn’t sound like that big of a deal.

There was one more major recruit on the list, and now that Team Matic was back, it was up to them to complete the mission, as the Matic girls were still too untrained to handle it on their own. Mirage was still presumably in enemy territory in the Goldilocks Corridor with Niobe Schur. Everyone was getting ready to go. They were checking their IMS and PRU systems. They were running a preflight check on the Ambassador. The hot pocket didn’t have much trapped heat, but it was purged anyway, so it could be as empty as possible. Mateo was looking for leaks in his helmet. Onboard diagnostics were capable of detecting such things, but as a point of redundancy, it was prudent to also have an external means of confirming the safety of the suit using an unsynced tester.

“You’re not going,” Leona told him.

“What?”

“You’re staying here.”

“You think you need to protect me?” Mateo question.

“No, of course not. Your daughters get one day a year with you. You can’t waste that time.”

“I’m on a different team,” he began. “I encouraged her to form her team, but I still need to stay with you.”

“I appreciate how you feel, but whether she says it or not, she needs you.” He had three daughters, but Leona was referring specifically to Romana, who was the youngest, and perhaps most vulnerable right now. “Ramses is staying too, for his work.”

“Have you talked to her about this?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good. I need to show you something.” He held out a hand, and when she took it, teleported them both to a farming dome. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary when vertical farming had long ago replaced traditional methods, but Hrockas put a lot of effort into transporting live organisms on an arkship, and he didn’t want to waste it. Arkships were very rare vessels designed to store tons of organic material, such as seeds, and flora and fauna DNA. They were meant to seed life on other worlds, but the government didn’t just hand them out to anyone who bothered to fill out an application. It wasn’t even clear whether a single other one had ever been launched as the ethics of them proved to be the most complex and divisive of all. It was pretty insane that Hrockas managed to get one. He must have been able to prove that this rock was otherwise completely inorganic.

“This is nice. Come here often?” Leona asked in half sincerity.

They were standing by a tall fence, which was an even funnier thing to have here since there was no such thing as trespassers, or animals that needed to be kept penned in. Mateo had strung a bunch of different types of fruits from the top rail. A couple of them had apparently burst open, and there was fruit splattered on the wood and ground. “I was just practicing, and wanted my new abilities to be a surprise, but I guess you’re gonna need an early demonstration.”

“What new abilities?”

“Not really new, we just haven’t really been talking about it.” Mateo put his hands together in front of his chest in an unusual configuration. He then split them apart, leaving his left hand out where it was while pulling his right back towards him. A holographic arrow materialized between them, clarifying that he had been pretending to string it on a bow. He looked over at his wife, and winked. Then he let go of the imaginary arrow, and sent it flying towards the fruit. It struck a passion fruit, which burst open, and splattered all over.

She was shocked. “How did you do that?”

“I think I have that figured out.” He sauntered towards the fence, and pulled what remained of the passion fruit from its string. He tossed it over to her, so she could feel that it was real. “It took me a while, but then I remembered. The timonite.”

“You still have timonite in your system?”

“I don’t know, but it was definitely on my hands, which is why a lemon would explode if I ever tried to pick it up.”

“Yeah, I remember you doing that for fun in the Third Rail. We got that fixed.”

“Exactly,” Mateo agreed. “A god gave me telekinesis. I haven’t touched a single thing with my bare hands in months.”

“Oh, right. That was telekinesis.” She shook her head. “Wait, no, those were different hands. We transferred your consciousness to a new substrate. That body is gone. You shouldn’t have that anymore.”

He shrugged. “I guess it transferred too. I don’t know how telekinesis works. Do you?”

“No,” she admitted. “It’s not a time power as far as I can figure.”

He started talking with his hands. “I think it...integrated with my illusion powers, and created something new. We were wondering what my specialty was. Olimpia is better at invisibility. Marie is better at impersonation. This is my thing. I can make solid holograms.”

She shook her head again. “The god guy said that it was just really close to your hands. You weren’t meant to do anything at that great of a distance.”

“It mutated,” Mateo decided. “Again, we don’t know how it works. But it’s the best explanation. I’m not that strong right now, but with more practice, I might be able to create a giant fist, and smash into that fence. I’m Ms. Marvel!”

“Maybe in the movies, not the comics.”

“Well, our ship is named after the movie version, so...”

“Why are you showing me this? I mean, I’m glad I know now, and I wish you had told me sooner, but what does this have to do with the mission?”

“Leona, I can make an impenetrable force field for the VA out of light. I have an endless supply of missiles that I could send to an enemy.”

“Oh, hold on. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You literally just said that you need more practice, and if the arrow is the best you can do right now, I believe it. I’m not sending you out with this. I have half a mind to try to figure out how to suppress your pattern, so you can spend the next 365 days training with Prince Darko.”

“We need Mirage back,” Mateo reasoned. “I’m your best chance of getting her back safely. You need me.”

“This is a stealth mission,” she contended. “We’re going to be invisible. No one from the Exin Empire should know that we were ever there. I don’t even want our allies to know that we were there, save for Mirage herself. We are not ready for an assault. You’re not just unpracticed, you’re a liability. I was willing to discuss you coming along, and even bringing your daughters, but you just made the decision for me. You’re grounded until further notice.”

“You’re grounding me?” he questioned. “Like a child?”

“No, like a sky jockey.” She sighed. “Show this to Dubra. She has experience with lots of powers. We don’t have time to argue, and I’m not interested in your complaints. We’re going to get Mirage without you. I have spoken.”

He didn’t want to get into a real fight either, especially since he would definitely lose. She was the Captain, and her face certainly showed that she was giving him an order in that capacity, instead of as his wife and partner. He nodded respectfully. “We can maintain contact with the quantum messenger on the Ambassador, right?”

“We’ll be technically reachable, yes, but I want you to stay busy. They just opened a new scenic train in one of the domes. Right now, the landscapes are all computer-generated holograms, but I still hear it’s nice. It goes around the entire circumference of the dome, from a few kilometers above. So it takes about four hours to go from start to finish. Why don’t you get to know the girls there? You could have a nice lunch, talk about your hopes and dreams...”

“You can’t force this, Leona.”

“You can’t get anywhere with them if you don’t try.”

“So your suggestion is for us to ride around in a circle?”

“Very funny.” She paused. “It has slanted windows. You can look right down at the geographic features.”

“The fake features,” he pointed out.

“The topography is already there. That’s why Hrockas chose that spot on this planet, because it’s more textured than other regions. They just need to paraterraform it, which will take some time. The holograms are a stopgap.”

“You’re a stopgap,” he muttered under his breath, actually like a child.

“What was that?”

“I said were I you,” he lied.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” she lied back. She lowered him down by the shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead. “Qapla’!” She disappeared.

Mateo took only one moment to look back at his hanging fruit, and contemplate what he might do to accelerate his own training. By the time he teleported back to Castledome, the Vellani Ambassador was gone. It would never return.

He tried to call them on their comms disc, which were synced through a quantum connection to increase the range, but no one responded. They were probably too busy to deal with his incessant nagging. He reached out to Romana instead, who said that she was in Dojodome. It wasn’t just one big dome with thousands of dojos. It was modeled on Japanese architecture in general, so there were also ponds, gardens, and empty spaces. This was one of the big problems with the whole one dome per theme concept. A lot of themes just weren’t grand enough in scope to take up the whole 1.3 million acre area. Your only choices at that point, really, would be copying and pasting the same structures over and over again, or just leaving some of it as unused desert.

“Are you guys training?” he asked once he had teleported to Dojodome.

“Yeah, it’s scheduled as a solo day,” Romana answered, “so we each do our own thing. It’s how Uncle Prince Darko gets his breaks.”

“Do you really call him that?” he laughed.

“L-O-L, sometimes, he doesn’t like it. Hey, I thought you were going off to the Goldilocks Corridor. We said our good lucks at breakfast.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Mateo said, “but Leona kicked me out. She was right, they don’t need me out there. I want to spend it with you three, if you’re not too busy.”

“No, this is a perfect time. I was just gonna go for an extra run.” She fiddled with her armband. “It looks like Dubra’s at the South Pole at the moment, probably for a swim. And Kivi’s in...where is that? She’s on the move. Oh, that’s probably the Terminator Track. Ooo, I bet she’s on a date with Lincoln. I don’t have his location ID, but I’m sure he’s there too.”

“What’s the Terminator Track?” he asked.

“The pod’s speed is based on the rotation of Castlebourne in order to maintain a fixed position relative to the sun at that latitude. I think there are four pods. One is in perpetual sunset, and another at sunrise. The other two are in daylight, and nighttime...or is it twilight? Maybe there are five. I can’t remember, but they follow each other on the track.”

“Hrockas really thought of everything, huh?”

“I’ve helped,” Romana bragged, “but yeah, he pretty much had the big picture painted before I got here.”

Mateo took Romana’s arm to look at the little dots that indicated where all of Romana’s friends were currently located on the satnav, paying special attention to Kivi’s and Dubra’s. “I’ll let you do what you were planning on doing, and let the others do the same. But can we agree to meet one year and one day from now?”

Romana thought about it for half a moment, debating in her head whether she would try to make her sisters accommodate a daddy-daughters date this year. Having come to a decision, she nodded once, and said, “okay. What are you gonna do today instead?”

Mateo looked around the dojo, eventually zeroing in on a wooden dummy on the other side of the room. Drawing inspiration from his own comment from earlier, he reached his arm back, and shoved it in the air towards the dummy. A hologram of his fist flew away from him, as the arrow had before. It crashed into the training apparatus, bursting it apart. He smiled and admired his own work. “I have some training of my own to do.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2256: Keep My Mouth Shut

< > Table of Contents

Last we spoke, I told you that pretty much the only way the authorities would swoop in to clear the crowd off our lawn would be if that crowd got to be too big. They were invasive and annoying, but they weren’t doing anything illegal, and they weren’t technically placing anyone in danger. I was venting to my readers, but some of you took it as a call to action. You flooded the neighborhood for the sole purpose of forcing the cops to shut the whole thing down. They didn’t just remove you from the premises, but everyone, because it otherwise would have been some form of discrimination. I didn’t know that you were going to do that. I didn’t tell you the “loophole” even thinking that that might be a possibility. And it’s not the first time that’s happened. I have to be really careful about what I say to people. They will do things for me without me explicitly asking for it, or having any clue how they’re interpreting my words. Sometimes I just say things about how I’m suffering, or lacking, and they’ll want to fix it. And I never see it coming. When I was fifteen, a few weeks from my birthday, my parents asked me to go on a road trip with them. My aunt was out of the country, but she needed a car when she got back, and she liked a particular make and model. This is something that I knew about her, so I wasn’t the least bit suspicious that something else was up. They asked me to help them make the drive up to, and back from, Minnesota, so I obliged without question. We spent one night in a hotel, and when we woke up, we drove out to a farm where the car was supposedly waiting for us. We saw dogs in big pens, screaming at us for attention. So a farmer was selling their car, and they had a bunch of dogs? Didn’t seem like that big of a deal. We got out, and I was watchings those hounds bark their heads off when the owner came out carrying a little puppy. My parents admired it, and asked me if I would like to hold her too. I loved dogs, so I jumped at the chance. I had that wee furbaby in my arms before they told me that she was mine. She was my early birthday gift. It didn’t occur to me that the trip had anything to do with me, nor that it was weird for there to be a car being sold at a farm that also had dogs.

The point is, Sophie was a total surprise to me. I stopped asking for a dog when I was young, but I would still talk about how much I loved them, and all animals. I never asked for a bunk bed, but I got one around fifth grade, because my parents knew that about me. Again, I have to be so careful about what I say, but being autistic, I don’t ever think that my random musings will have any real impact on the world. It’s caused other problems too. Since I don’t think that way, it makes me less of an attentive person. When someone else talks about how much they would like it if things were a certain way, I hear them, I listen, but I don’t think to help them. The way my brain works, if you want me to know something, then you should say it. You should say it clearly and unambiguously. I sort of have a different idea of rudeness. Well, it’s not different, it’s just not as broad. I don’t notice subtext, and I don’t accept innuendo. Be honest and straightforward. Or don’t. Just be the way that you are, and hope that I take the hint. I probably won’t, but you can hope just the same. And me? I’ll try to keep my mouth shut in case I say something that accidentally prompts a response. We’re just talkin’ here. It’s only a blog. I appreciate what you did for us with the lawn, but don’t worry too much about my needs. I’ll figure it out. And if I ever do need your help, I’ll just ask.

Microstory 2248: Deliberately

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Hey, everyone, this is Kelly again. Things are not going well. As you may have realized, Nick is not well. We thought that we were totally past this, but we were wrong. He proved that he was once immortal by being cured of the prion disease, and now he’s incidentally proving that he’s no longer immortal by suffering from something else. We didn’t know what we were dealing with at first, but we were very worried for him. He’s been very fatigued and weak lately, which he attributed to a lack of consistent and comfortable sleeping situations. But that just didn’t seem to be enough to explain how dramatically he was declining. And then that last post. It was written so poorly, and wasn’t like him at all. We knew that something else had gone wrong; something specific that could be tested for, and not just remedied homeopathically. Everyone’s first thought was yet another pathogen of some kind, since he seems to have become a magnet for them. I’m sure that a lot of you were all thinking the same thing, as his posts were reminiscent of the kind that he wrote during other infections. That’s not what it is, though, and not because he’s run out of those. Some of you seem to feel like he can’t get another infection, because he’s already had every kind, but that’s not how it works. He’s had every classification. He could get a thousand different ones over the course of the next half century, and he will still not have contracted everything that the world has to offer. And you can become reinfected with the same exact disease anyway; we’ve never cured any of them. But no, that has nothing to do with it anyway. It’s poison. He has been poisoned. The hospital ran a battery of tests, and came to the conclusion that it’s an organophosphate. Don’t ask me to say that out loud. They are commonly found in pesticides, which is why the majority of patients live or work on farms, or in facilities would use these pesticides, or which take part in the manufacturing of them. But those are not the only ways to encounter it. You can eat contaminated food, or even be exposed to it from a chemical explosion. None of these apply to Nick. Well, he’s eaten food, of course, but we’ve all eaten the same things, and have not tested positive for the stuff. The most likely answer is that someone poisoned him deliberately. I don’t know if they were trying to kill him, or only wrongly trying to prove that he’s still immortal, or what, but we will not tolerate that. We’ve spoken with the proper authorities, and a major investigation is underway. Since these chemicals are sometimes used in terroristic plots, the FBI is on the case, not just for Nick, but because such a bad actor places the whole country at risk. So be warned, they’re going to find you, and you will pay. As for Nick himself, he is receiving the treatment that he needs, and the medical professionals expect a full recovery eventually. If you did this to him, you better hope for a positive outcome, or you will be in even bigger trouble than you already are.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 14, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Marie teleported down later yesterday to take over the brain scan error investigations. She’s going to prep her own small SD6 team. This isn’t a tactical team, like the one Kivi works with. One of them is an operative who specializes in combat and weaponry, yes, but another one is an agent, like Marie, with investigative experience. The third is an officer with diplomatic skills that she uses to turn foreigners and other civilians into government assets. They have all been read into the whole thing about time travel and alternate realities, so they’re ready to go on these missions. Alyssa doesn’t need to be involved in that anymore, and Mateo can’t, because whenever he approaches one of these people, they’re accidentally banished to another universe. While that’s happening, there is something that he always thought they should do, but weren’t able to.

The Olimpia was a submarine, but it had limited depth capabilities. The Bridgette has its own limits, but it can dive far deeper, which they’ll need in order to get to the bottom of Danica Lake. It’s located on the McIver farm outside of Lebanon, Kansas, and the McIver’s still technically own that land, but they still don’t need anyone seeing them go down there. As the saying goes, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and though that’s wholly inaccurate, that’s about when they arrive in the area. That way, they’ll still benefit from some of the daylight filtering through the water. There may be nothing down here, but then again, it may be everything,

This vehicle is far more automated than their last one as it’s equipped with the AI that Ramses rescued from The Constant before it was flooded and destroyed. Mateo is capable of operating it himself without the help of one of the team’s smart people. They dip into the water, and hang out near the surface for a little bit, shining the giant lights on the exterior around in case they see anything interesting right off the bat. They do. There are tons of fish down here. “Were you aware of people stocking this lake with life?” Mateo asks.

Alyssa shakes her head. “If they did, it would have been illegal. Not only would they have needed permission from the owner, which is me, but they would have had to negotiate a lot of bureaucratic red tape. A team of scientists would have needed to come out and test the area for pH, salinity, and other environmental variables. You can’t just randomly introduce a species to an ecosystem. Not enough time has passed for all of that, and we still have friends in the area. I’m sure I would have heard something.”

“Hmm. You seem to know a lot about how it works.”

“We considered doing it,” she explains. “We could have charged people to fish. I decided not to, because all this stuff was going on, and I didn’t want to deal with that red tape. I doubt it would have been worth it, especially since we would have either had to move back, or employ someone to manage the licenses.”

Mateo nods. “So this may be a clue. These fish here came from somewhere. I guess we don’t know where the water itself came from. I saw a movie where an isolated species of carnivorous fish were living in an underground lake until something broke, and they ended up in the regular lake, where they started eating people.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It was.” They continue to dive down as the sun rises. The natural light is never bright enough to do them much good, but it does make it seem less scary, being able to look up and see that they’re not trapped in a watery grave. They continue to see fish, though the population is not as dense down here, which they guess is typical of any body of water. They don’t see any other things, like frogs or octopodes. Mateo had a thought that they might, and that they were about to be transported to somewhere else in the world. These sorts of missions usually end up like that, but it doesn’t happen. No coral, no sharks. It’s looking like someone really did just drive up here with a tank of unauthorized fish, and dump them in here, for whatever reason.

Just as they’re reaching the limits of the sub’s capabilities, they also reach the lakebed. They expected to see the twisted ruins of the Constant, but there’s nothing. It’s just dirt and particulates, and a few adventurous fish. They go back up a little bit, because this water did have to come from somewhere, but they don’t see the pipes. “They must have been designed to disintegrate after use. The Constant must have been designed to do the same.”

“Surely the walls will have gotten wet at some point,” Alyssa reasons.

“Yeah, so water wouldn’t have caused them to fall apart. There must have been something in the water, like a...enzyme, or whatever, I don’t know.”

“Ha, are you just using fancy words you’ve heard before?”

“Pretty much.”

“Let’s call it an enzyme, which destroyed all evidence that there was once an underground complex down here. The question is where was that enzyme stored before it was needed, and why don’t we see evidence of that?”

Mateo sighs. “Neither of us is smart enough to make any real guesses in this matter. This was a nice idea, but we’re not qualified for this work.”

“Yeah.” Alyssa leans forward, and looks up through the viewscreen, where she sees nothing remarkable. “Let’s call it a day.”

“If we surface now, someone may see us.”

“I don’t really care anymore,” Alyssa decides. “This is still my land, I can do whatever I want with it.”

“Fair enough. Hey Constance, please surface.”

“Surfacing,” the computer responds.

They keep looking through the viewscreen as they go higher and higher. It’s going pretty fast, which Mateo would think would be dangerous, but Constance knows best. Something weird happens when they’re almost at the surface. The water becomes clearer, and light comes in through the glass. It almost looks like there’s a wall in front of them. An alarm starts going off outside, but it’s not too loud, and not too obnoxious. “Constance, report!”

“Status normal,” she replies simply. She doesn’t see anything wrong with this. The Bridgette breaks the surface, and starts to just float there. Now they can really see the walls. It looks like they’re in an Olympic-size pool.

“What happened?”

“I’m pretty sure we just went back in time.” Mateo reaches up to the emergency ceiling hatch, and pulls himself through it. He then helps Alyssa up as well.

They stand on the roof, and get a look around. It’s definitely a swimming pool, and it looks familiar. The double doors open, and Mateo’s cousin, Danica power walks in. She looks surprised to see him, but more annoyed than anything. “What the hell are you doing back here?” she questions.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 29, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Heath is pacing around the living room, talking to his wife on the phone. The other four are watching him, worried. It’s hard to tell how the conversation is going, but it’s clear by now that she and Kivi are at least not dead or hurt. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah,” he repeats. “Okay.” He nods, unhappy, but trying to be patient with her. “No, they’ll understand.” He continues immediately, “even Mateo.” He pauses. “All right, we’ll see you when you get back. Be safe.” He pauses one last time. “Love you.” He hangs up, but doesn’t say anything right away.

“Are they okay?” Leona asks him.

“They’re fine.”

“Are they on their way back?” Mateo asks.

“They’re not. They’re in Florida.”

“What? How did they get there?”

“Apparently, Marie wanted to see the plot of land where she grew up,” Heath begins. “In this reality, in these days, it’s an airport. It doesn’t go to very many places, but one of the destinations just so happens to be Orlando, Florida.”

“Okay...does she have a thing for Orlando, errr...?”

“It’s near something called the Fountain of Youth?” He answers in the form of a question.

Oh, that makes sense, sort of. “Well, it’s not,” Leona contends. “They founded the city of Orlando relatively close to the location of a spring that no longer exists.” She goes on, “my namesake, Juan Ponce de León once looked for it in 1513, and found it to already be dried up. He did find the Compass of Disturbance, though.”

“That sounds bad. Marie never mentioned it, what is it?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she assures him. “It just detects temporal anomalies; rifts in the spacetime continuum, invisible portals, the spot where a teleporter disappeared from, etcetera. The spring is hard to find, and even more so now. Juan once described the terrain for me, but his info is almost 900 years out of date. Even then, to get Youth water, you probably have to be there centuries prior.”

“So, what is the point of them going there?” Heath asks.

“They’re probably just doing their best to check it off the list,” Mateo figures.

“Well, they don’t have to do it alone,” Heath decides as he’s looking at the map on his phone. “We can be there in three hours.”

“I don’t think that’s what she wants,” Angela says in a warning tone.

“It could be dangerous,” he argues.

“She can’t get hurt,” Ramses reminds him.

“Kivi can! I know you four don’t remember her, but I’ve known her as long as I’ve known you.”

“We’ve known her longer than that,” Leona volleys. “Both of them are capable and cautious women who have been through more than your wife has had time to tell you. She’s been around the block. The farm where she grew up is an airport. I’m sure the location of the former Youth Spring is a baseball diamond, or something.”

“What the hell is a baseball?”

“Out of all the dumb sports,” Angela replies, “it’s the least dumb.”

Heath has grown weary of being away from his wife so much. He’s noticed that she’s the one who keeps doing the leaving, even though at one point, he was meant to go off on these adventures with Mateo. Once they get past this, things are going to change. Ramses, Leona, and Angela have their new business to think about, which will hopefully resupply the funds that dwindled quite a bit when the majority of the team showed up. The only dangerous outsiders who might care about that both Marie and Angela exist already know about them, and the back-up twin thing they have going on. There is no reason why Marie and Heath can’t now begin the real mission of studying time travel in the Third Rail. Mateo should come too, and Kivi, if she isn’t interested in anything else.

“Are you doing okay?” Angela asks after he takes too long to react.

“I’m fine. I’m just going to go take a bath, and clear my head.”

“Okay.”

If Marie were here, she would be able to stop him from taking the bath, because that’s usually when he takes the time to locate and purchase something that costs them far too much.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 28, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Kivi has been looking out at the scenery as the car drives down the highway, going the conventional speed, instead of as fast as possible, like Heath likes to drive. Her eyes are wandering now, occasionally looking over at Marie for a split second. Marie notices. “If you have something to say, go ahead,” she says, not aggressively.

“This trip has gotten pretty long,” Kivi points out.

“I can turn up the music, or change it.”

“I’m not bored.”

“There’s a rest stop soon, we can take a break.”

“We’re just...going a lot farther...than you implied when you asked me to accompany you.”

“Oh. We’re going to Springfield.”

Kivi winces. “Now, I don’t know everything that my alternate selves would know, but I know Springfield, and it’s the one that just disappeared one day, and ended up on another planet.”

“It wasn’t one day,” Marie corrects. “It happened over the course of decades, getting smaller and smaller all the time.”

“Oh.”

“And that’s Springfield, Kansas. We’re going to Springfield, Missouri.”

“Why?”

Marie takes a beat. “It’s where I grew up.”

“Oh,” Kivi repeats. “I thought you were a Kansas City girl.”

“I went to a fake finishing school in Kansas City, but my family owned a farm outside of Springfield. That’s where the slaves worked.”

Kivi doesn’t really wanna talk about the fact that Angela-slash-Marie grew up owning human beings. Fortunately, she has a different line of questioning to go down. “What is a fake finishing school?”

“Do you know what a finishing school is?”

“No, I guess I don’t know what that is either.”

“It’s where young ladies would go to learn how to be proper women. Ya know, cleaning, finding a good husband, doing whatever the hell he tells you.”

“What made yours fake?”

“It was a real school,” Marie explains. “They taught us math, science, history; everything the boys were learning. In fact, once historians realized what had really been going on there, they also discovered that it was actually better than most traditional educational institutions in the area at the time.”

“Fascinating.”

“My father sent me there on purpose. He was one of the few men who knew it to be fake, and he wanted me to have an education. Of course, there were ways for me to do that. It’s not like there were no women in regular schools. He needed to maintain the family reputation, though, so this was perfect, since it had to be kept secret.”

Kivi nods, and stays silent for the next minute or so. “Are we going to the farm to see if you can teleport in the area?”

“Oh, God no. It’s not special at all. In fact, maps were different back then, and it was in a different reality, but I do believe that the location of our farm is now the nearest airport.”

“I see. This is just for nostalgia.”

“I don’t know what this is for,” Marie answers honestly. “I just felt compelled to get in the car, and go this direction.”

“And I’m here, because...”

“Because if I go alone, the others are gonna freak out, and try to come save me.”

“You want to be alone, so I’m the next best thing?”

Marie throws the car into autolaning mode. It’s not full autonomy, but it can stay between two lane markings, and not run into the car ahead. If it does notice itself approaching another car too quickly, it will come off the gas, and beep at the driver. Now she can look directly at Kivi without drifting into the ditch. “Not at all. I brought you, because I trust you. You know what it’s like to suddenly come into existence, and learn that you’re a copy of someone else.”

“No one knows who the original Kivi is.”

“Your father wasn’t born to the Third Rail. Do you think you’re the original?”

“No, of course not.” That was a little mean, but Kivi’s fine. “I can see the connection between us.”

“Like I said, I don’t know why I decided to go this way. I just woke up today, and felt like it was the most logical next step. I asked you to come, because I didn’t want to be alone. I just didn’t want to have to explain myself to the others. I think you’re better at understanding that I can’t quite explain it.”

“That’s probably true. My whole life is a question mark.”

“I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what we’ll to find, or how close we’ll be able to get without plane tickets, but either way, it’s an experience that will always be just between the too of us.”

“I like that.”

Marie returns to the steering wheel. She could let the car drive itself until it’s time to exit, but right now she feels the need to exercise control over everything possible.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 20, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

They asked the McIver family to keep what they learned about the true nature of reality a secret. The kids don’t know everything, and it looked like all the evidence was destroyed in the implosion that created an entire lake out of practically nowhere. It was going to be tough to explain to all the people who lived around there, and knew there was no such body of water, so they decided to go stay with their aunt and uncle in Utah for a bit until things cooled down. They always wanted to sell the land anyway. It’s not like they can manage to farm themselves, and they never really wanted to anyway.

Team Matic can’t be sure that they can trust these strangers, but when have they ever? At some point, concerning themselves with what might happen is just going to make living life even harder. If the government comes to E.T. all their asses, well...then they’ll deal with it then. For now, they’re going to stay at home, and try not to worry about anything at all. It’s a day of rest, and likely the last joint day off for a while. Leona postponed her return to work until next week, Ramses is newly unemployed, Mateo is still unemployed, Heath is already on sabbatical, and Marie and Angela are taking a personal day. They’re not just going to relax, though. They’re going to see the sites.

Moreso than the differences, it’s the similarities that this version of Kansas City shares with its main sequence counterpart that they find interesting, especially Angela. Marie felt the same way when she first arrived, but she’s grown used to it by now. The Fourth Quadrant was borne of the original, while the Parallel had a region that they called KC, but which did not resemble anything they had seen before. The Fifth Division seemed to not have anything on Earth at all, except for a small oasis in the middle of nowhere, at least part of which was holographic. It’s inexplicable and bizarre that this version should have the same World War I Museum and Memorial. It looks the exact same, and is in the same place, and this does not make any sense. WWI happened in the 1910s over there, but in the mid-19th century here; closer to the period of the United States Internal Conflict that the five aliens recall. Even just having the same city and state names is ridiculous. The countries, the oceans; none of it can be explained.

Something has to be driving these similarities, or let’s face it...someone. One or more of the Prestons are the most logical culprits, since they’re definitely capable of such things, but they’re not the only ones. Anyone they’ve met with such power has the potential to spawn alternate versions of themselves, if only through the help of others. Cassidy Long, the Repairman, or any one of the countless Jupiters, could also be behind this. They might be doing it for nefarious reasons, good reasons, or even with more of a neutral stance. Mateo realizes  now that he needs to make a special list of candidates. That doesn’t mean that it will help them get any answers, because it will be a shock to run into anyone they already know. Hell, even say, Vearden Haywood’s sister, Allison would be a noteworthy surprise. But it still makes sense to make a list.

Right now they’re standing in front of the Love Kansas City mural. “You didn’t tell us about this,” Leona almost accuses Marie.

“I didn’t know that the main sequence had one too. I died in 1816.”

“You’ve seen this before, though,” Mateo reminds her. “We came here.”

“I guess I forgot. What do we do with this information?”

Leona considers it for a long time. “What we do is all go on that trip together.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Heath Walton awakens in darkness again. His head feels better, and he’s comfortably lying down in a bed. He doesn’t know how he got here, though, or how long he’s been asleep. He has to regain his memory once more, but this time, he isn’t going to move around, and look for clues. He’s just going to lie here quietly and think about it.

“I know you’re awake,” comes a voice from the other side of the room.

“Who’s there?”

A light flips on, startling and blinding him for a moment. Once his vision returns, he sees a little girl sitting in the corner, holding a book. She turns off the tiny reading lamp she was using, and stands up. “He’s awake!” she calls out towards the hallway.

Heath looks around, realizing that he’s in the med bay of The Constant, where his wife, Marie is meant to have her abortion. Judging by the fact that at least two strangers are here, that’s probably not going to happen anymore. “What are you doing here?”

Three more people walk in, all of them children. The two boys are probably a few years older than the girl in the corner, and the last one might technically be an adult, though not likely their mother. She inspects Heath’s vitals on the monitor above him. “You have a concussion, but the computer thinks you’re gonna be okay.”

“Who are you?” Heath asks. “Do you live down here?”

“No,” the young woman replies. “We were driving into town to secure a booth for the farmer’s market when we noticed a hole in the ground by the side of the road.”

“A giant-ass hole!” one of the boys exclaims proudly.

“Language, Carlin,” the leader scolds.

“Sorry,” he says with a frown.

“You saw a hole, so instead of calling the cops, you decided to climb down a five-kilometer deep elevator shaft using the emergency ladder?” Heath questions.

“We didn’t climb down the ladder,” the woman denies. “We took the elevator.”

“There is no elevator,” Heath argues.

She nods. “There was a little hole in the side of the big hole. We dug into it deeper, and found a door, which leads to an elevator. It lets off at the bottom at what appears to be a hidden entrance down here too. Did you fall in the big one? How could you have possibly survived that height?”

“I didn’t,” Heath begins. “I fell next to the hole, and hit a rock, which knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I climbed down the ladder, looking for my friend, and I guess I lost consciousness again.”

“You’re lucky we found you. You were asleep all day yesterday, and into this morning. It’s May 15 now.”

“You’ve been down here this whole time? Did you touch anything?”

“Of course we did,” the woman responds. “We didn’t do anything dangerous. This is a nice place. It kind of looks like an underground hotel, but clearly no one actually lives here. Did rich people build it centuries ago to survive one of the older wars?” 

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

She can tell he’s lying, but appears to recognize his claim to this facility is much stronger than hers, and she’s not entitled to answers. “Anyway, you’ve already met little Trina, and foul-mouthed Carlin. This is Moray, and I’m Alyssa. We’re the McIvers.”

Heath perks up, and can’t help but ask, “Alyssa McIver?”

“Yeah. Have we met?” she asks him.

“No, of course not.” And it’s true, they haven’t, but he has heard the name before. Or rather, he’s read it. Mateo keeps a list of every person he’s met, even those he knew before becoming a time traveler. Anyone from his past or future could return, and he finds it hard to keep all that in his head. Heath has no such memory problems—at least, not unless he has a concussion—so he became pretty familiar with that list just by reading over it once. Alyssa McIver is on it. He knows she is, but what does that mean? Was that an alternate version of her? Does this one standing before him end up traveling to the main sequence at some point? Has she already been to the main sequence, and now she’s trying to keep it a secret? That wouldn’t be an outrage. What was that code Marie told him about, the one they sometimes use to find out if a stranger is like them, or oblivious to time travel? Oh, yeah. “Do you like salmon?”

“Huh?” she asks.

Oh, wait. He has to emphasize that word. “I mean, do you like...salmon?”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“I’m not!” Carlin announces.

Well. They could still be lying, but it’s not his job to decide what to do about them either way. He starts to get out of bed. “I have to call my friends.”

Alyssa steps over and gently presses his shoulders down. “Whoa, you are in no shape to go anywhere. There is no service down here, and there’s not enough room for a hospital bed in the elevator, and this bed doesn’t move anyway, and the computer says that you need more rest.”

“You have to leave, and pretend you never saw any of this,” he orders.

“Go back to sleep,” Alyssa orders right back. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Microstory 1807: Flight Connections

< > Table of Contents

When I was a child, I dreamed of traveling to far away places. I grew up in a poor village in Algeria, where education was hard to find, and farming was the only way to survive. I was lucky, as my father went to school when he was young, so he had relationships with people in the town. We still only had our little farm, but it was just a tiny bit easier to sell our crops than it was for some of our neighbors. He taught me everything he knew, and would sometimes return from town with books so we could learn new things together. When I was a teenager, I got an opportunity to go to school myself. One of his friends had two older children, who were both out of the house, and he was lonely. He needed someone to help do the chores, and play games with him. It was hard leaving my family behind, but I visited as often as I could, and they sometimes visited me. I didn’t realize until then how much there was about the world that I did not know. The books I had been reading until then were old and outdated. I’m laughing because so were the books at school, but at least they were a little bit more recent. I listened to my teachers, and worked very hard. During the breaks, I traveled to the city, where they had a big library. These books were amazing. I just kept reading, and kept learning. I wanted to go to college in Europe, and the only way I was going to do that is if I proved myself worthy. As lucky as I was to be in this position, we still had no money. Somebody else was going to have to pay for it. Fortunately, I knew someone who could help. The old man I was taking care of met a soldier from Spain during the war. The soldier returned to see how much Algeria had changed. He had money now, and he gave some of it to me.

He helped me get into college in Spain, and paid for most of it. He didn’t have any children of his own, so he felt joy to be able to help someone in that way. I got a job too, so I could help with tuition as much as possible. It was my education, and it was important that I be responsible for it, even though I was getting help from someone else. Let me tell you, I thought I had seen a library before, but nothing compares to the one at the university. I could get lost in those stacks, there were so many books, and there was not enough time to read them. It was there that I discovered my passion for flying. I took a boat to get there from Algeria, because it was cheaper, so I had never flown before, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to know what it felt like to be so high above the mountains. I still could not afford it, but one of my professors saw a book that I was reading on the subject, and told me that her brother was a farmer, like me. His was larger, and the best way to spread fertilizer was to drop it from a plane. He agreed to take me up with him to try it out, and that confirmed it: I loved to fly. Now I knew I had to do it. I still had no money for lessons, so I returned home, and worked on our farm, because my family needed me. I stayed there for years, helping build up my community with my knowledge of irrigation, and access to connections in town. I still wanted to fly, though, and I wouldn’t be happy until I could take lessons. It wasn’t an easy goal to reach, growing up how I did. Everyone in my village thought that I was trying to get away from them, but actually air travel connects us more than anything, before the internet anyway. I wanted to bring the world to my people. By then, there was an airstrip nearby, where I could practice for not very much money. I’m happy to say that I earned my license in under a year. And five years later, I was flying over the ocean.