The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 28, 2398

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Most everybody is somewhere other than the third floor lofts. Leona and Ramses are in the lab. Alt!Leona and Andile are helping Angela with her new business on the first floor. Heath is giving the McIvers a guided tour of Kansas City. Kivi is off doing something on her own, and Leona Reaver is holed up in her apartment. Marie is alone in her and Heath’s unit, so Mateo takes this opportunity to knock on the door. “When did you last speak with your handler?”

Marie frowns, uncomfortable at having to have this conversation, but not angry at him for starting it. “I’ve been informed of the development. You’ve not told Leona?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to hear what you had to say about it.”

“You want me to justify my actions?” she figures.

“Some of them.”

Marie sighs. “I had nothing when I first came here. Heath makes it sound like this romantic story where he believed in me the whole time, and we fell in love at first sight. It wasn’t that easy, and it took much longer than that. I was homeless for a bit, sleeping in an empty lot before I ever felt safe telling him anything. I needed money, and I needed an identity. Winona had already set up her forgery operation by then, so that’s who I ended up with. Can you imagine how different my life would have been if I had just found a different forger? I can. I think about it all the time. She asked me a lot more questions than she did you, Mateo, and I didn’t have any good answers. She gave me what I asked for, free of charge, and I should have known right then that it wasn’t just pity, but I was on the hook. She started asking me to do things to pay her back. Little things at first, then more dangerous, and she came to realize that I was far more educated and skilled than any normal person could achieve within a single lifetime.

“I honestly don’t remember how we broached the subject, but I remember I gave her as little information about where I come from as possible. I didn’t just spill the beans about everything all at once. She’s been squeezing more and more out of me ever since. One day, she noticed a few extra people stepping into my condo, and she questioned me about you. It was her idea to have her forge your papers too. She had shut down by then, as it was an only temporary assignment years ago. She finished re-setting up her den just hours before we arrived for help, and you were her only recent clients. That’s what put her on the radar of legitimate law enforcement, because they noticed unusual activity in the system. She’s the daughter of a U.S. senator, but she’s not invisible. She decided she needed help, so she concocted this plan to get into bed with you by upgrading your credentials to SD6. To protect you, I...manipulated the situation to put a greater target on Leona, since she has actual training in the field.”

“This all checks out so far, but it doesn’t explain everything that’s happened to us.” He’s not judging her for what she did to get by. They’ve all done things. He’s only questioning her choice to keep it from them. The government has been weird with them from the start, which doesn’t make sense, given her position. Why wasn’t she honest? “They keep following us around the globe. Why is that?”

She’s seething just a bit. “They don’t trust me to report back on you, which they’re right not to. I’m trying to keep you out of it as much as possible. They’re following us because they hope you will eventually be more forthcoming about our origins and abilities.”

“What do they know about us already?”

“They know that we’re time travelers, and that we don’t have control over it. I’ve told them that you’re cognizant of certain special locations around the world that can give us temporary control. We are now looking for this special water in the hopes that it can somehow get us back home.”

“These claims are rather accurate,” Mateo points out.

“Yes, it’s very easy to omit information, but it’s not easy to lie to them outright. If I make a claim, it better be true, to some degree.”

Mateo nods. Now for the real question. “Why lie to us?”

Marie is reluctant to answer, or maybe she’s unsteady in her self-awareness. “This life; this...secret agent shit, it teaches you not to trust people. You get really comfortable hiding things from others, even when you love them. Heath knows absolutely nothing. I sold my intellectual property, that’s true, which mostly explains why we’re so rich, but it doesn’t account for all the money. I get paid for this work. I get paid very well. I just have to go in the field every once in a while.”

“Field work, doing what?”

“Various things, usually unrelated. At least that’s what I thought, but now we’ve found out that Senator Morton was involved, I’m starting to think there’s some kind of secret civil war in the government, and it’s all connected.”

“If there’s a secret war,” Mateo begins, “our team is at the center of it.”

“Yes. Unless...”

“Unless our arrival here is but a fraction of the story, and plenty of other travelers have made their way into this reality.”

“Yes, we may be only part of a statistic. I’ve been trying to find that out, but Winona doesn’t give without getting.”

“Then let’s give,” he suggests.

“What do you mean?”

“She wants answers, and you haven’t been able to give her very many, because you’ve had to protect us. But the thing is that we’re here, and we can protect each other, so let’s give her whatever we need to in order to get what we want. She may know where my cousin is, and not even realize it. She may know the location of a reality transition point, but not understand its nature.”

“You want to tell the rest what I did?” Marie asks, up to her eyeballs in anxiety.

“Well, only the core group. Andile, the alternates, and the McIvers don’t need to know anything about all that.”

“That’s how it starts,” Marie says, “the lying. You start justifying what you’re saying, and what you’re not. Then it just gets worse from there.”

“You’ve had to carry this burden on your own for four years, and I would love to share the load, but I am not smart enough to help. We need the others. Leona, Ramses, and Angela can tell us what to do. Truthfully, Kivi is literally unreliable, and Heath...”

“Heath is still an outsider to you.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“That’s okay, I get that. Either way, can we wait a little while longer?”

“Okay,” Mateo replies diplomatically. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 9, 2398

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As planned, the six of them spend the entire day together, though Leona and Angela each have to take a few minutes every once in a while to confer with their employers. The latter is doing well in her new position. She expected at least one person from the office to sense that something was up, but everybody treats her like Marie, which is to say that some of them are nice and respectful, while others are misogynistic and hateful jerks. Leona is doing okay. She’s delivering her work on time, and the people at the top are pleased with it. They’re not asking questions, which is in everyone’s best interests. She’s trying not to be too preoccupied with her secret suspicions of Heath. She has a plan to drop tidbits of information to him to see whether outsiders catch wind of it. Then she’ll know that he can’t be trusted. That’s for later, though. For now, she just wants to think about the travelers. This won’t be the longest she’s ever parted from Mateo, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.

At the end of the day, they retire to their respective rooms, the other four knowing full well that the Matics are about to spend one last night together. “What’s up?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me what’s going on with you. What are you feeling?”

She looks at him, but doesn’t say anything. “Give me your phone.” She takes it from him, and places it in the EMB bag, along with her own. Then she pulls out a bug scanner, and begins to wave it around the room.

Mateo sits on the bed, and waits patiently for her to finish. Once she does, he steps into the bathroom, and begins to fill the tub. He turns the water on high enough to make a lot of noise, but low enough to make it last. They sit on the edge of the tub to talk, and he drops into a whisper. “You can’t speak freely around the others?”

“Not around Heath,” she answers in an even lower whisper, “and by extension, not Marie either.”

“Yeah, I’m sensing a pattern. All the people we’ve met who have been given some information about us either aren’t too surprised by what they learn, or they have a connection to Heath. He’s even the one who first met Alyssa McIver. I mean, you and I both know that she’ll be a friend of ours in the future, but it’s still odd.”

“Yeah,” Leona agrees. “Plus, how did that forger know what I was planning? She was all ready with my new secret agent paraphernalia; it was just too perfect. I don’t know. He’s been so good to Marie, but maybe he’s been playing the long game.”

“I assume you have a plan?” Mateo figures.

“I have...the notion of the plan.”

“A baby plan. That’s what my father, Randall used to call it when we had something big to do, but didn’t really know how we were gonna do it. Sometimes we would plan something to the last minute, and sometimes we just sort of winged it. That worked out for us about half the time, I’d say.”

She smiles. “You don’t talk about your parents anymore.”

“You don’t either.”

She nods. “I guess it’s complicated. I have five parents, you share two of them with me, and then you have two more. Can anyone else relate to our bonkers family tree?”

“Yeah, but not in the same way, sis.”

“Oh, gross!” She’s laughing, though.

Mateo looks behind them at the rising water, which is about to start spilling into the drain. “I know we started this for the white noise, but we might as well take advantage. Wadya say?”

“We can’t do that, though,” she says in a cutesy voice. “You’re my adopted brother.”

He double palms his forehead, and tries to stifle the laughter. “Jesus! Now I see how weird it is, being on the other side of the joke.”

She pulls him into the water with her, clothes and all, like a romcom couple in the second act. “You don’t wanna roleplay?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 8, 2398

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In general, the afterlife simulation was cut off from base reality. Pryce made this decision with good reason, it wasn’t just to keep control over the residents. As great as the virtual construct was, it wasn’t real by most people’s standards, and having a link back to the people they left behind could be psychologically detrimental. There were eleven status levels that one could earn or lose, though the bottom level was true death, and the top was incredibly rare resurrection. So really there were nine; each level up affording the resident more privileges. Level Seven Pink Elite was the best for the majority of people. The upper levels demanded a level of responsibility that not everyone valued. But within this level were sublevels. Just because you reached it, didn’t mean you had everything. Only a select few were given insight into the events down on Earth, and in later years, outward to the stars. Angela was one of these people, having proven herself worthy of the honor.

Near the beginning of the 21st century, a certain television series premiered, featuring a shady intelligence agency known as SD-6. She described it to the team, but Heath shook his head, not thinking the two had anything to do with each other. No such show existed in the Third Rail. The version of SD6 to which Leona apparently now belonged was probably as secretive, but not as nefarious. It wasn’t really one organization, but six—hence the name. The National Intelligence, Domestic Affairs, National Police, National Military, Court Agent, and Transportation Regulatory Authorities came together for a joint task force that kind of had carte blanche for any mission necessary to protect the country’s interests. For the longest time, the existence of this task force remained only rumor for the general public, but it now features an overt director, which holds press conferences, and the occasional accessible budget or ethics hearing. Still, this is a big deal. Leona is a big deal. More to the point, if her credentials are as good as they seem, this forger’s powers are greater than they thought to consider until now.

“Oh, I got a little six-thing in the corner too,” Mateo says. He hadn’t really looked at his own new badge until this morning.

The others hadn’t checked it either. Marie takes it from him, and inspects it carefully. “Commandant in the National Military Authority. Mateo, this is, like, five ranks higher than you were before.”

He shrugs. “You know me, I excel at everything I do.”

“What does she want from you?” Marie asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“What does she want from us?” Angela corrects.

“She never asked anything of the two of us when we first got Marie her new identity four years ago,” Heath explains. “What’s so special about you? No offense, because I know you’re special, but how does she know that?”

“Maybe it doesn’t really have anything to do with us,” Mateo suggests. “Maybe she has a gambling problem, and lost all her money the day before we walked in her door. Maybe her brother’s been locked up in a federal prison, and she wants us to get them out. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

Leona is grateful that her husband came up with an alternative to her theory that Heath is a mole. “That’s really creative, honey, but we don’t have the luxury of believing in coincidences. I haven’t seen a coincidence since 2028.”

“Trying to figure out what she’s up to isn’t going to do any good unless we can speak with her directly,” Angela believes. “For now, we have to plan tomorrow’s events.”

“Tomorrow’s events?” Marie questions, confused. “We’re not leaving until Wednesday.”

“Yes,” Heath begins, “so we’re going to spend the whole day together, just the six of us. We’ll have a special breakfast, a special lunch, and a special dinner, along with a few other surprises.”

“Don’t worry,” Angela continues, “we’re not gonna parade down the streets. We’ll just secretly see you off. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Marie replies with a smile. “That’ll be great.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 7, 2398

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Leona opens the door without knocking, a little surprised to find it unlocked, but not showing it. The forger has security cameras around the outside, so she always knows when someone is coming. That’s not what it is this time, though. She’s not here at all. The whole place has been completely cleaned out, and cleaned up. Leona rubs her index finger on the counter. Not a single mote of dust, grease, or anything else has been left behind. It smells of bleach, implying that the one who once called this her office has left, whether it be because she was getting too involved with their team, or for other reasons. Perhaps the authorities are on to her, or she’s paranoid about the possibility. Or maybe this is just something she does every now and then. Either way, it suggests that she’s out of their lives forever, and Mateo won’t have to pretend to be a federal agent, or find a way out of it. Leona is about to leave when something catches her eye.

A gray something or other is peeking out from around the corner on one of the lockers towards the back. More curious than anything, she goes over to check it out. It’s a pantsuit, fit for a woman of her measurements. Developing the sickening feeling that she’s going to regret it, she opens the locker to find six more like it, of various designs. On the little shelf above is a badge and gun. Cardinal Agent Miriam Salinas of the National Intelligence Authority. There’s an oddly intimidating logo in the corner that looks like a numeral six, with a line against the right side, and a curve flowing the opposite direction on the bottom.

Leona stares at her picture on the left side of the ID. She glances to the sidearm occasionally, and also the wardrobe. This is what she wanted. She wanted to keep Mateo out of it, and take on the burden. The problem is, how did the forger know that? As she’s staring, she thinks about all the people they have been in contact with since they came to this reality. She hasn’t found herself with the ability to trust even one of them. Even Heath is suspect. He just happened to catch wind of Marie’s supernatural arrival, and chose to keep it secret, and now they’re married? She hasn’t said anything, because they seem happy, but who is this guy, and why is he so cool about all this? If anyone’s a mole, it has to be him, because no one knew that Leona was planning to take Mateo’s place except for him, and the team. Ramses hasn’t stopped checking the condo for bugs since he first freaked out about the possibility.

This is okay. It’s going to be okay. While three of them are off on their special mission, Leona can keep an eye on this Heath Walton fellow, and decide whether he could have some kind of ulterior motive. She sticks the badge in her pocket, hooks the holster to her belt, conceals it with a blazer, and gathers the rest of the suits. In her first timeline, she would play secret agent with a neighbor kid. This experience is evidently about to become useful.

What she didn’t know as she was having that last thought is just how right she was. As she’s walking back to Heath’s car, another car pulls up. She catches the glint of red and blue in the grill, which tells her that it’s an unmarked law enforcement vehicle of some kind. She has enough time to pop the trunk, and toss the wad of clothes in, but if she tries to do the same for the gun, they’ll just see it. It’s much better if she leaves it hidden, and hopes that they don’t find a reason to search her person. A woman gets out of the driver’s side, and a man gets out of the passenger seat. They’re both wearing suits, and approaching like cops who aren’t presently afraid of their situation.

“Agent Collar. This is my local police liaison, Detective Horton. Mind telling me what division you’re with?”

Now, Leona knows what division she’s with. Her badge says so. The problem is, she doesn’t know how a real agent would say that, or really what she would say in this situation, full stop. Would a real agent say the whole thing, or would she just say NIA? Would she throw around a proverbial ruler, or be all nice about it? Maybe she ought to just let the badge itself do the talking. She pulls it out, which reveals the gun on her belt, which is probably not secured according to regulations.

The agent’s eyes widen in—is that horror, or deference? “Oh, SD6. Sorry, sir. I had no idea. We got a tip about this spot. What would you like us to do?” Deference.

Recalling the mumbo jumbo she’s heard on TV, and hoping this reality uses the same nomenclature, Leona nods once. “Get forensics down here. It’s been scrubbed, but maybe there’s something here that they missed.”

“Right away, sir.” She clears her throat suggestively to her liaison.

He’s a little slow, but gets the idea, and goes back to the car to radio the station.

“Any leads?” Agent Collar asks.

When Leona first put on this blazer, she noticed something rather light tap against her chest. She kind of ignored it, because it didn’t seem too important. Now she realizes that it’s just a pair of sunglasses in the inside pocket. Still thinking about how someone in her position might act given the circumstances—as seen through the lens of a highly stylized and melodramatic police procedural—she suavely places them on her face, and jerks her lapels down in a commanding sort of way. “I’ll run them down myself. Just secure the scene. I’ll call you if I need backup.”

Agent Collar nods respectfully, and lets Leona get in her car, but then realizes something. “Oh, wait. Let me give you my card.”

“I can find your number if I want it,” Leona tells her coolly just before slamming the door shut. She drives off under the speed limit. Shit, did that just work?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 4, 2398

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Mateo is on foot again, this time with his cell phone tucked neatly in his pocket, still over 90% charged. He stormed out of the car so quickly the other night that he didn’t notice it fall out of his pocket, and then he was mostly worried about himself—perhaps he might get lost in the big city—because he didn’t know that Ramses was in trouble. They all need to stay in contact all the time. Even if three of them are in the middle of a serious conversation, and want to turn off their ringers, the six of them are always exceptions.

As Mateo continues down the sidewalk, he dwells on the events before the abduction. That’s a whole weird conversation they need to have, because it’s just getting unbelievable that they’ve nearly all been taken and held against their will at some point. Only Marie has made it out of this so far, and she’s about to travel to a potentially hostile environment in Croatia, so it could only be a matter of time. That’s not what he’s upset about right now, though. After Leona’s hostage situation, she came out of it perfectly fine. According to her report, two men broke into the lab due the perceived wrongful termination of one of them. On their way to dinner on Tuesday, Leona let a little bit of information about that debacle slip, which snowballed into the truth that not only did that guy end up with temporal tech, but also that a shady organization is now probably watching their every move.

Leona is concerned about these people, but she was evidently not going to tell anyone about it. Instead, she had this elaborate plant to methodically sneak every team member out of the country, and seek anonymous refuge elsewhere. She hoped that, now that Mateo knew what was going on, he would side with her, and help her make this actually work. Now the reality is out in the open, though, no one else agrees with her either. Something has to be done about their exposure, but running is not the answer. They’ll just be looking over their shoulders forever, and any hope they might have of returning home will be lost. Mateo can’t go look for answers around the world, and Ramses can’t build whatever it is he thinks they need, if people are tracking them. The only option is to fight back, and it starts with what Mateo is doing on his own today. He shakes off the fight, because he has to switch gears to another problem. These military credentials were a bad idea from the start, and he can’t believe the rest of the team let him go through with it. Hopefully the forger doesn’t give him any crap.

He’s about to knock on the door when the lock buzzes, and it opens a crack. He steps in to find her waiting for him at the end of the hallway, instead of behind the counter. She looks...excited? “Oh no,” he says. “You’re scaring me. What are you planning to sell me today?”

“No, nothing. No extra costs.” She said she didn’t want any repeat business, but she sure doesn’t exhibit such misanthropy in real life. “I was just about to call you, which is a cool coincidence. I think you’re really gonna like it.”

“I don’t want anything more. In fact, I would like to return something.”

“No refunds.”

“No refund necessary. I just want you to remove me from any and all databases featuring me as an individual with military credentials.”

“Ooo, I don’t know that I can do that.”

“You’re going to have to figure it out. It’s already gotten me in trouble once.”

“Yeah, I heard about your little adventure on the high seas.”

“How could you have heard about that? We didn’t tell anyone.”

Let’s just say that I’m more than just a local forger.”

He points at her face. “See, that. That’s what makes me nervous about you.”

“No, don’t be nervous. That’s ignorant.”

“What are you?”

“I’m somebody that can get you into any government agency building in the country, or any U.S. outpost in the world.”

“I never asked for that!” he shouts.

“I got it for you anyway. It’s not crazy. Lots of veterans transition to agency work after their service commitment ends.”

“I just told you that I want to be erased from the system,” he reminds her. “I don’t want to do anything with that. Only a few men found out about me, but the longer I stay in there, the greater the chances that my position within the military will be scrutinized. So just get rid of it. Wipe it clean.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’ve already initiated the upgrade package. This one is airtight. You come from a profoundly secretive branch of the intelligence department. Anyone who tries to verify your history will hit a brick wall. Those people can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an agent of any given name. You could ask them if Daranda The Drama Dragon was an agent, and they would give you reason to believe that maybe she actually is.”

“Who is Daranda The Drama Dragon?”

“See, that. That’s what makes me nervous about you,” she echoes him from earlier, with the same accusatory finger-pointing. “Every kid grew up watching Dragon Drama on Sunday mornings. The fact that it doesn’t even trigger a familiar reaction from you makes no sense. So where are you really from?”

“Nowhere special, we just needed new identities. I thought you didn’t ask questions.”

“I don’t know that I said that.” She sighs, and presents him with a silver authority badge, and a sidearm. “You’ll need these later.”

“I don’t..want them!”

“You don’t..have a choice!”

“Erase me from the military system, or I’ll expose your little operation to whatever agency might be interested in you, as well as any other interested third party. You somehow got it in your head that I can be pushed around, and manipulated, but my friends and I don’t like to be told what to do. It never ends well for the people doing the telling.” He ignores the badge and gun, and tries to walk away

“How would you handle someone like me?” she asks, which doesn’t prompt him to turn back. “Would you teleport into my house at night, and slit my throat?”

Now he stops, wishing he hadn’t. If he had just kept walking, maybe whatever it is she knows could just be brushed off as a ridiculous figment of her imagination. Just by pausing, he’s given her cause to think he has anything to do with teleportation. “Who are you, and why do you want me to become a federal agent? What can I do that you can’t do yourself, or have done for you by someone you know you can trust?”

“I’m the only one in this world who’s on your side. The war is coming, Mr. Matic. You can either support the war effort, or put a stop to it. You’ll need a badge either way.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 25, 2398

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It wasn’t easy, getting on a commercial flight to Bermuda at such short notice. It’s a popular destination, so lots of flights go out there, but this is the beginning of vacation season, so most of them were pretty full. Heath and Ramses deplane, and head for the exit. Ramses gets on the phone. “We’re here, where are you?”

“I’m about an hour and forty-five minutes away,” Leona replies.

“What?” Ramses questions. “You were meant to wait for us.”

“I was worried I would lose the signal. I’m still worried. I need to come back and scoop you up, but what if he gets out of range. I already feel our psychic connection wearing off.”

Heath takes the phone. “Leona, have you been going in the same direction the whole time?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“Then we have a good idea where they’re headed by now,” Heath reasons. “Come back and get us. “You probably need to refuel anyway. We’ll leave as soon as we can, and get back on the trail.”

“Okay,” Leona concedes. “I’m coming back.”

Mateo is about 600 kilometers from Bermuda right now, traveling on the same bearing since departure. There’s nothing on the map out here, so either the men who took him are trying to get to Cuba, or they’re going to rendezvous with some other ocean vessel. All she knows is that they’re on a boat, and she’s on a plane. She can catch back up to him, even after flying all the way back to the island, but it’s going to break her heart if it turns out she can’t find that trail again.

Heath may be wrong. Mateo’s abductors could turn to a different direction at any moment. One thing that gives her comfort is that her husband feels okay right now. He was not doing well yesterday, but he seems to have recovered. He’s not happy, per se, but he’s not scared or sick anymore, so at least there’s that. Like she was saying, though, they might lose their empathic connection, either by moving too far away from each other, or just because the temporal energy that they’re working off of is used up. One good choice Leona made is to call up some help. She doesn’t know who they’re going to be up against, and she shouldn’t try to fight them on her own. Angela and Marie are still in Kansas City, moving forward with Operation Backup Twin, as one of them decided to start calling it.

As calculated, Leona lands back on the road within two hours. They take a little bit of time to replace the fuel cells, so they can be at optimal operational capacity. Leona never does lose the psychic link, but she can still feel Mateo getting farther away from her until the three rescuers get back in the air. Before they get too close to the enemy, they drop out of the sky, and transform into a boat. This is when they start putting on their tactical gear, and checking their weapons. “So, the reason we stopped flying is to be stealthy, correct?” Heath asks the group.

“Right,” Leona agrees.

“Why don’t we just go sub?”

Leona stops adjusting her thigh holster. “What? This is a sub?”

“Yeah, did I not tell you that?”

“Uhh, no.”

“Oh, yeah. This is a sub.”

“Put us down,” Leona demands.

Heath stops what he was doing, and engages the controls. They dive deeper until The Olimpia is fully submerged. Blast shutters slide down over the windows automatically, but Heath reverses them, under the assumption that they won’t be going very deep.

“No, put them back down,” Leona says. “I wanna kiss the bottom of the ocean. The closer we are, the more difficult it will be for the enemies to detect us, if they’re expecting anyone at all.”

“Very well,” Heath agrees. He does as he’s told, and sinks deeper and deeper and deeper, but then he stops.

“What’s going on?”

“This is as deep as we can go,” he warns. “It can only handle a couple hundred meters. That’s pretty good for a vessel this size in the 24th century.”

Leona sighs heavily. “Fine. Keep going.” She points towards the front. “That way.”

They maintain their pursuit, hoping that the boat doesn’t see them coming. Even if they do, though, what are they going to do about it? They probably don’t have torpedoes, or anything. The element of surprise would be great, but just being able to rise up to the bilge would be helpful on its own, as Ramses suggests. They don’t get that chance, which disappoints him a little.

Mateo gets on the radio, and makes contact. “Olimpia, Olimpia, come in.”

“This is the Olimpia. Go ahead,” Leona prompts.

“I wanna show you somethin’.”

“Okay...”

“I’ll be with you in a second. I just need to get something from my cabin.” A minute later, Mateo teleports himself into the Olimpia. “I don’t have much time. I obviously didn’t tell them what I can do, so they can’t walk in to find me missing. Surface so we can talk in person. And put away those guns. I’ll explain everything.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 24, 2398

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Mateo wakes up woozy, tied up and rocking on the metal floor. It was the heat that woke him, frying him from above, and scorching him from below. It’s probably the hottest part of the day, and he can’t move to find shelter. He immediately finds that he’s tied up, his hands together, and tightly bound to a railing of some kind. A salty breeze slips in between the bars, enough to burn his eyes, but not enough to cool him down. He’s on a boat. He pulls himself into a sitting position, but he can’t hold it for long. Whoever did this didn’t care how hard it would be for him to get comfortable, didn’t realize, or did it on purpose.

Two feet approach him, which are presumably attached to a body, but he can barely see above the ankle. He just can’t turn his head enough to get a good look, and even so, the sun would probably blind him. He hears two claps, and then the feet walk away, only to be replaced with two new feet. A voice he recognizes says, “afternoon, soldier.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Mateo groans back. It’s hard to talk, he’s so thirsty.

“Oh, we know,” Ebraim replies.

“Are you gonna kill me?” Mateo asks him. “It’s okay if you are. It wouldn’t be the first time I died. I always manage to come back, I’m sure I’ll figure it out again.”

Ebraim gets on his hands and knees to cut the zip ties. He clears his throat authoritatively as he’s pulling Mateo up and over into a more tenable sitting position. “The way you say that, you almost sound like one of us.” He nods and breathes loudly through his nose, looking over toward the other side of the boat. “Every man here has died at least once.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Mateo begins, “but I am a fighter.”

He coughs involuntarily. “I believe you. That’s why you’re here.”

Mateo looks around. “It’s why I’m where, and doing what?”

“We’re presently in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, traveling at eleven knots, bearing Southeast deeper into the middle of nowhere, and you’re with us, because our mission happens to be a six man operation, and until you came along, we only numbered five.”

“But you know that I’m not one of you.” Mateo is still struggling to enunciate.

“We don’t need you to have any experience,” Ebraim explains. “We just need another warm body.”

“You mean you need a human sacrifice,” Mateo guesses.

Ebraim chuckles. “You’re so smart, why are you lying about who you are?”

He adjusts his position a little, and smacks his lips. “Water.”

Ebraim doesn’t break eye contact as he lifts his left hand, and snaps his fingers twice. A man Mateo doesn’t know yet places a bottle in it, which he transfers to Mateo.

“I just needed a new life.” When in doubt, be honest, but maybe not too honest. He does not intend to throw the forger under the bus, or say one word about his own team. It just needs to be believable, and only moderately close to the truth. He also shouldn’t add too many details. “I needed a new identity. The forger asked me if I wanted military credentials. I was in a pretty bad way at the time, and it seemed like an all right idea. I didn’t really think through the consequences. He gave me this little card that said I’m blah, blah, blah. I tucked it away, and didn’t worry about it. I didn’t think it would actually come up, because what I didn’t realize is that he also put my name in the system. It actually looks like I bear rank, and have a record. It’s only recently come back to bite me in the ass, I’m really sorry.”

Ebraim laughs again. “Ah, hell, we don’t give a shit about that. Way I see it, if the military doesn’t kill you, it screws up your life. The only way out is to lie, steal, and cheat. I’d be a hypocrite if I thought only people like me deserved to break the rules. I’m not a good man, but I’m not a hypocrite.”

“This isn’t a sanctioned mission?”

He helps Mateo to his feat, and starts to lead him into the inside part of the boat, whatever it’s called. “It’s sanctioned by the five of us. I suppose that’ll hafta be good enough. You don’t mind, do ya?”

“Why are you talking differently now?”

“My mama’s southern side comes out every now and then,” Ebraim replies. “I don’t work as hard to suppress it among friends.”

Now Mateo laughs. “I reckon we ain’t friends.”

Ebraim smiles. “Well, we’ll see. Let’s start small. Allow me to introduce you to the rest of the team.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 23, 2398

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When Mateo and Leona Matic first arrived on the island on Thursday, they wanted to treat it like a real honeymoon, which means that they consummated their relationship like bright eyed twentysomethings who hadn’t lived and died a number of times together. Huge mistake that was Mateo’s stolen valor notwithstanding, they were having fun, and it took them a bit of time to realize why they were so in sync. Their faux wedding night was the first time they slept together since Mateo returned from the past. The reigning theory is that Mateo spent so much time in The Constant that he was able to absorb a certain amount of temporal energy. It was evidently not enough to give him even temporary teleportation powers, but his empathetic connection with the team is back. Well, at least he feels Leona’s emotions. She seemingly feels his because he was able to unwittingly share it with her. It probably won’t last, but they have it now, so they’re going to enjoy it.

They have also been enjoying all that Bermuda has to offer, including horseback riding, boating, and other water activities. They’ve done a lot already in only a few days, so right now, they’re just sitting on the beach, watching the calm of the waveless water. They’re just minding their own business when two men approach them from the side. One of them takes off his sunglasses, and the other does not.

The first one is obviously in charge. “Dominus Matic?”

Mateo clears his throat. The excitement surrounding his presence at the resort has died down, but anyway, they’re on Clearwater Beach, which is about 30 kilometers from the Sutton. No one should be looking for him here. “I am,” he answers regretfully.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.” He reaches his hand out, forcing Mateo to stand up respectfully. “I’m Executor Ebraim Hardashev. This here is Premier Goran Peck.”

Mateo looks down at Leona in his periphery. She covertly and briefly drops her thumb down, indicating that those ranks fall below Dominus. “Happy to meet you two.”

“Listen, we were wondering if we could buy you a drink.”

“Umm...I’m here with my wife, and we have a day planned, so...”

“Oh, I understand,” Ebraim says with a nod. “But hey, if you change your mind, you’ll find us at this little nice place by the runway they call The Short Cut, not a click and a half from here. I’m sure you’ll love it. Lots of vets call it their second home away from home, as compared to this whole island, of course. Anyway, we’ll probably be there all night.”

“That’s a nice offer. I’ll consider it.”

Ebraim bows with his head, waves a short goodbye, and walks away. Goran, meanwhile, remains for a moment before turning away stoically without a word.

“You know you can’t go,” Leona says.

“Obviously.” That doesn’t mean this isn’t still a problem. If people all the way out here know who he’s lied about being, nowhere is safe. Who knew that traveling a thousand kilometers from the states would cause him more trouble than the exact center of it would? Maybe it will be okay. They’re going to leave tomorrow early afternoon, and then he’ll go speak with that forger himself about getting this all resolved. Military credentials are not worth the danger. Unfortunately, he may never get the chance to fix his mistake at all. He’s abducted from his bed in the middle of the night by four men.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 22, 2398

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Word spread throughout the resort that a military officer had arrived, placing Mateo in an awkward position. Now when he walks into a room, people applaud his valor, unaware that it was stolen. They’re not sure how the resort found out that he had military credentials, because he certainly didn’t advertise it when they requested a room, but it doesn’t matter now. The imaginary cat is out of the bag, and of course, being imaginary, it’s much more difficult to put it back in. The honeymooners are determined to stay out of the spotlight, which means signing up for activities on the other side of the island. They just hope the fake news hasn’t somehow circulated beyond the grounds.

“Why is this such a big deal? I mean, I know it can be a big deal, but they don’t know anything about me. They don’t know what I supposedly did.”

“It’s your rank,” Leona explains, still looking at the computer. “Dominus is a fairly high title. You’re theoretically responsible for about two thousand people.”

“Jesus. Why did that forger do that? I just thought we might need to steal some weapons from a military base. I don’t need to have this huge, complicated backstory.”

Leona spins her chair around. “You know why she did that. She probably thought she was doing you a favor, making you look like a big hero.”

“Am I a hero?” Mateo questions.

“Looks like it. Your specific exploits are as classified as you would expect, but you have a few pretty major medals.”

“Two thousand people,” he echoes. “If even one of them comes forward...”

Leona turns back at the screen. “It doesn’t say which regiment you ran. But yeah, people here might expect you to tell them. I’m surprised, but glad, that no one has yet.” She shakes her head, trying to figure out how they’re going to get out of this. “Look, people like you’re pretending to be are often expected to look and act a certain way. That can cause us problems, but it can also work out in our favor. You can be the strong, silent type. Say few words. Don’t react too strongly to stimuli.”

“I shouldn’t pretend to be triggered by PTSD?”

“Absolutely not, Mateo, that would make it worse. You’re already far over the line. Just don’t give people any opportunity to ask too many questions. Now here’s the hard part; it’s really hot, but I can’t seem to find any evidence one way or another for what kind of tattoos you’re expected to bear. You’re going to have to cover up, just in case a savvy person walks by and wonders why you don’t have your district emblem on your shoulder, or whatever it may be.”

“Maybe we should just go.”

“That would make things worse too,” Leona warns. “Then people will wonder why you only stayed one night, and maybe they mention it on social media...”

“They could say something on social media now!”

“You’re right, which is why I’m calling Ramses, and asking him to make a visit to that forger. She put you in this mess, and she’s going to get you out of it, by whatever means necessary. If that means forging more documentation, or scrubbing the internet of your presence, then so be it. We’re going to have fun on this vacation, fraud or not.”

“Okay. In that case, which do you want to do first; snorkeling, or ziplining?”

“Neither. I’ve always wanted to go horseback riding.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 4, 2398

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“Hey, Ada...um, Abdoor—uh...”

“You’re close, sir. It’s Abdulrashid.”

“I knew that.”

“You can just call me Ramses.”

“No, I need to learn.”

“Okay.”

His boss doesn’t say anything more.

“Is that all you wanted to do; learn my name?”

“Oh, no. Umm. Look, here’s the thing. I know you’ve already been working for us for a bunch of years, or whatever, but corporate has this new policy where everybody who starts at a new location—be it their first day with us, or a transfer—has to be run through another background check.”

“Okay...”

“Most of it is easy, I literally just copied and pasted your living, work, and education histories from your transfer papers. But there’s one thing you’re gonna hafta do yourself.”

Ramses thinks about it for a moment. “The drug test.”

Oswald nods, and echoes, “the drug test.”

“That’s fine.” Ramses may no longer have his superpowers anymore, but he knows how to eat and live healthily, so his system is likely cleaner than anyone else’s in this joint. It definitely doesn’t have any drugs in it. “I can pee in a cup.”

Oswald contorts his face. “Pee in a cup? Why the hell would you do that? I’m talking about a blood test to make sure you don’t have any illegal substances in your body. I’m not sure what pee and cups have to do with anything.”

Oh, this world is different.

Oswald takes another sip from his fountain drink, but no longer has the taste for it after Ramses’ remark. “Ugh. Pee in a cup,” he says again, muttering under his breath. “You’re one crazy dude, Abdul-Jabbar.” There is no way, in a reality where people give blood samples instead of urine samples for drug screenings, that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also exists. The point of divergence was far too long ago.

Stockboy sneaks up to Rames by the side. “Have you even ever had a drug screening before?” he asks, sipping at his own drink, unfazed by the conversation that he obviously heard.

No, he’s never taken one before. In his time, using recreational drugs was rare, so people just assumed you weren’t on them. If you were, and it didn’t negatively impact your productivity, then probably no one would notice. But if they did catch you...

“You’re taking too long to answer,” Stockboy muses.

That’s right, he spends too much time in his head. It’s a habit he picked up from Mateo. “Of course I’ve had one. I spent some time in Croatia. The complex where I wanted to live had a strict drug policy, which required multiple forms of testing. You can test for drugs in urine, we just don’t normally do it.”

“Weird. And gross.”

Ramses sighs, and looks over at him. “Get back to that smart speaker that’s stuck on a triple echo.”

“Sir, yes sir!” he mocks with an equally disrespectful salute.

Now that the coast is clear, Leona feels comfortable approaching Ramses to discuss something sensitive. “You remember that our background information is fake, right?”

“Right,” Ramses agrees.

“So when they run a real check on you, that’s what they’ll find...nothing. The forger didn’t fake a background check, she faked the results.”

“Oh, shit. We’re exactly the kind of people those things are meant to look out for.”

“Not exactly,” Leona corrects.

“Wait, you just had your own check, when you first started here. How did you handle it?”

“I had to go pay the forger again. She was not happy. She said she never wanted to see our faces once we left the first time.”

“I have to work late today, and fill in for Bruno tomorrow.” He looks at her with his deep set Persian puppy dog eyes.

“You want me to go back a third time?”

“Pleeeeeeeaaaase? I just don’t know how much time we need.”

“I guess I don’t really wanna go to work, so...all right.” She takes off her apron. “But you’re finishing my shift here.” She hangs it on his neck.

“Great,” Ramses decides. “I’ll call it cross-training. Thank you so much for this.”

“Sure, Rambo.”

Leona calls Mateo to pick her up, and drop her off at the forger’s secret hideout. He asks to go in with her, but she won’t allow it. The forger will be even unhappier than she was the last time, and they don’t need to compound that problem with extra people. Leona is confident that she can handle it on her own, and it’s true that she doesn’t feel like going back to the lab anyway.

“You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad,” the forger asks.

“You were mad last time.”

“You silly Egyptian water lily, I was kidding!”

“What’s with you?” Leona questions. “You don’t smile.”

“You don’t know me that well.”

“It’s exceedingly obvious that you don’t smile. You don’t give off the right vibe.”

“Oh, it’s—relax, we’re all friends here.”

“I feel like you’re about to tell me that...” Leona trails off. She takes a receipt out of her purse, and scribbles down a note that reads, Is this place bugged?

“No, we’re not bugged. I’m not trying to trick you, I’m just being friendly.”

“To what end?”

“To...” Her demeanor drops with each following word as she struggles to maintain the charade. “I don’t know what a normal person would say in this scenario.”

“They would tell the truth,” Leona explains.

The forger scoffs. “No, they wouldn’t.”

“Do you need something from me?”

“Do you need something from me?” she returns annoyingly.

“Yes, I need an emergency background check interception.”

“Easy.”

“And in return, you want,” Leona prompts.

“Oh, I don’t want anything,” the forger begins. “However, maybe in the future there could be something that you could get me?”

Leona narrows her eyes. “Something, like what?”

“Well, you work at that lab.”

“You got me in there. You could send anyone you wanted.”

“Honest hour? I didn’t think your fake university transfer would work.” She grimaces. “I’m glad to know it did, though.”

Leona ponders the offer. It would be dangerous, but that’s not the problem. The problem is she doesn’t know what it is yet. So here’s hoping that it’s worth it. “Fine.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 22, 2398

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If Marie and Heath didn’t work out their issues, they didn’t let the rest of the team know. They came out of Angela’s bedroom after an hour, and sort of pretended like nothing had happened. Their friends could occasionally hear muffled yelling from the other side of the door, so they obviously said something to each other, but it’s unclear where they were going to go from here. Instead of saying anything about it, they decided it was time for the other four to secure their own new IDs, because they could be in this reality for a while. Nothing came from screening the footage from the parking lot, so they planned a field trip for the next day.

In the main sequence, they could have gone to a man by the name of The Forger, who could create actual new identities for all of them. These weren’t just fake papers, backdated as far into the past as possible, but a rewritten history of their lives, using real documents from the real past. And they could rely on the Forger to not leak the truth about them anywhere else, because he’s one of them, and just as susceptible to exposure. The Third Rail is a different story, obviously. It took some doing for Heath to find a forger for Marie, and they are at constant risk of being discovered. If their forger is caught by the authorities, he could give up his clients. He says that he doesn’t maintain records—and in fact doesn’t even ask for people’s original identities—but he had to take their pictures, and pictures can be copied. It’s dangerous for them to go back to the same guy, but even more dangerous to try to find someone else. At least he’s lasted four years without confessing to the cops. Theoretically, he could last four more.

He’s not there, but this is clearly still a document forging operation. They can see all the equipment behind the counter. A very young woman has her legs propped up on it. She’s scowling in a this place was better before they put in a door sort of way, and apparently upset about having to put down her book. She has an abstract tattoo along her jawline, and a funky haircut with a purple streak. The only thing missing is a lollipop in her mouth, or maybe seventeen sticks of gum. “Yeah, he’s dead. I’m his replacement.”

“Replacement?” Marie questions, “like, you interviewed?”

“No, I was more like an apprentice. Now it’s all mine. Behold, old ones, my exquisite palace of shit.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic,” Ramses says.

She turns to look at him. “The way I see it, if I’m too eager to do my job, I might be too eager to remember anything about my clients. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you need this. I only care if you have the money. Once you walk out of this room, you’re gone. I don’t wanna see you again. And if I do, it won’t matter, because I have a superpower.”

The team looks amongst each other.

“Not literally, they actually call it a disorder. I cannot detect or recall faces. Like, all I see are six people standing in front of me. I can’t tell you apart. When I hand you your packets, you’ll have to figure out whose is whose. That’s why I’m so good at this, and why Ramos chose me in the first place to carry on his dumb Kansas City secret legacy. Now. Do you want your IDs, or not?”

“Can we pick our own names?” Angela asks.

The forger shrugs.

Angela turns to Marie and Heath. “There’s no reason we can’t use our normal ones, right? I mean, we just need to be able to drive, and stuff. We don’t need to hide.”

“That’s how we saw it,” Heath replies.

“In fact,” Mateo says. “If anyone out there recognizes one of our names, we probably do want them to approach us. Even if they’re dangerous, we need answers.”

“I can explain,” Marie says to the forger, trying to think of a believable lie.

“Like I said, I don’t care. I need three things: your money, your chosen names, and for each of you to sit in that chair over there, and pose for a few photos. I have multiple backdrops for different IDs, along with some shirts you can borrow. I always do birth certificate, passport, and driver’s license. Those are included, but you can pay more for student IDs, certain employee badges, and even bank cards. I’m currently running a deal where if you buy one of the extras, I’ll throw in a library card for free. If you cough up enough money for a military ID of some kind, we go into the backroom, and I’ll let you do whatever you want for twelve minutes.”

“Uh, that’s okay,” Leona tells her. “We don’t need that.”

“You all can get whatever else you want,” Heath promises them. “Don’t worry about the money.” He jiggles his duffel bag of cash.

“We might could use a military ID,” Mateo declares.

“Excuse me?” his wife questions.

“But instead of twelve minutes in the backroom, I want to stay here and watch you work, for however long that takes.”

The forger narrows her eyes at him, and thinks about it. “It’s $10,000.”

Mateo looks to Marie.

“Okay, you can get it, but you’re eating all of your vegetables tonight,” she agrees. “And no dessert.”

“Oh, he can have dessert. I may not recognize his face, but I can see dat body,” the forger explains.

He grimaces, but of course, nothing happens between them that night. He just wanted to make sure she would do the job as they asked, and he was also curious how it would all come together. They may never need the military ID, but it could prove useful. Stolen valor is no joke, but Mateo can conceive of a situation where it’s their only way to solve a problem, or get out of a predicament.

He’s not the only one who opted for upgrades. Both Leona and Ramses ask for employee badges; her to an astrophysics lab, and him to an electronics corporation. It’s not the largest, nor the best, but it’s the only one the forger has access to. Now they can take all the equipment they might need, and also have some means of studying this reality. Angela takes one of the library cards for herself, and Mateo takes another. She wants to learn more about their new world, and he wants to finally learn something. All told, this ends up costing them $28,000, but neither Marie nor Heath are fazed, and it could one day save their lives.

“How was your night?” Leona asks when he returns the next morning.

“It was fascinating,” Mateo answers. “You probably would have liked it.”

“That’s great. One thing, though.”

“Okay?”

“You’re sleeping in the living room with Ramses tonight. You can come back to bed tomorrow.”