Microstory 2459: Savanna Land

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Right now, this is one of the least impressive domes on the planet. I guess I can’t say that. It’s not like I’ve seen every single other one. Then again, people have been making these kinds of statements forever, like when a food blog would rate the best restaurants in the country, as if they have any semblance of a comprehensive authority regarding anything close to what they’re claiming. All I mean is that there aren’t any animals here yet. For this one, I don’t think that they want to get by with lifelike robots. I think they want it to be really authentic, and that’s going to take some time. Still, it’s not called Savanna Animal Kingdom. They opened it, because it currently already exemplifies exactly what it says on the tin. There’s a ton of grass, patches of barren dirt, and very few trees. I didn’t see many other people while I was there, and the ones who did show up didn’t stay very long either, because we all saw the same thing. Potential. But not completion. The vehicles are ready, which is an interesting thing, but the real interesting part about that is how big they are. Back on Earth (before we stopped having to drive) roads had to be sort of standardized. It would have been ridiculous if French roads were 10 meters wide and Spanish roads were 50 meters wide. They developed organically, initially based on the size of people, then of horses, then horse-drawn carriages, and so on, and so forth. They got bigger, but you could still still see the natural origins. Even when they broke new ground, like I was saying, the cars were the size they were, and they weren’t going to make special cars for some hip, new region. I’m talking a lot about vehicles, because I can’t talk about the lions or the elephants yet. The point is, we’re starting from scratch here, and not limiting ourselves to tradition. Some of the vehicles are big, with giant observation bubbles which allow for 360 degree viewing all around. Man, it’ll be great in 15 or 20 years when this place is populated, and there are actually some cool things to see, but until then, we can literally only imagine.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 16, 2468

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Mateo Matic came back into the world, and screamed. He screamed for a good two minutes while his memories of the past that were taken from him flooded back into his brain at once. They weren’t bad, per se, but the journey that his past self took with Carlin and Aclima was anything but pleasant. Once he arrived in Ferdiz, the locals welcomed him in, but were upset by his insistence on exiting immediately. He had come for the wrong reasons. They were there for enlightenment, and peace with one’s own past. He was there for his future, and that was not the point of the Pilgrimage. Still, he was apparently entitled to do whatever he wished with his life, as was Aclima, who chose to leave as well. Though she did not allow the timonite extracted from the ground to transport her elsewhere. She began the long walk back to the border of the desert. This, they were far more accepting of.

Obviously, Mateo did make it back to Earth in the Third Rail, memories not intact. He continued on with his life, trying to help his friends, and save the worlds. He had many more adventures, traveling to other realities, and other universes, eventually making his way all the way back here to close his loop. The timonite was what erased his memories in the first place to prevent a paradox, and now that such a thing was no longer a concern, he could have them back. He recounted his experiences with the group, as did Aclima, who had her own perspective, and was the only one who could tell them about her experiences alone.

Carlin chose to stay behind in Ferdiz. He understood the assignment, and Mateo and Aclima believed that finding peace in paradise was always his intention. The war efforts to which he contributed in Stoutverse were affecting him more than he let others realize. He spoke a little about it during the Pilgrimage, but Mateo and Aclima did not relate this information during their recap. Apparently, this was bound to happen one way or another. Members of Carlin’s family had an incidental history of leaving the group, and never seeing each other again. First Trina, then Alyssa, and now it was his turn. Moray would be all right without them. He had his own path to walk.

The Waycar was still here, and as he promised, Ramses stayed behind for a year to keep an eye on Cassius and the crew. They spent most of their days training for a war that would hopefully never come. Theirs was not a job of violence, but of protection, yet they wanted to be prepared in case they encountered opposition out there in the bulk. None of them knew for sure how the Ochivari would react to their interference in their plans. They didn’t cause trouble for the Verdemusians, so Ramses mostly worked in his lab on the Vellani Ambassador. It was here that he fabricated their own version of the quintessence consolidator and skeleton key, but he said it was even better. Now they no longer needed the Waycar’s help for anything. He wasn’t truly alone there, though. Over time, factions went their separate ways on this planet. They weren’t hostile towards each other, but trade negotiations were as tricky as they were necessary. Each micronation had control over at least one resource that the others needed. The Ambassador was a good, neutral location to hold these discussions. Ramses stayed out of it, though. He didn’t even serve as host. Everything was their responsibility.

Since he and the rest of the team would eventually have to leave, he built and deployed small reframe automators to the next star system over to gather raw materials to build them a new permanent diplomacy orbiting station. This way, everything they had for these purposes came from outside help, and no one could argue greater rights to any of it. Maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe their conflicts would strengthen over time, and slowly erode the peace that they still enjoyed. But at least Ramses had done everything he could to help them. And that was kind of what they were out here doing, wasn’t it?

It was decided that both Team Matic and the Waycar would depart today, so in celebration of this, the locals proposed a joint dinner for all executive members in their new space station. The Alpha and Beta were there, as were the respective leaders of the nations. Cassius represented the Waycar along with Kineret and Hadron. Aclima had yet to officially accept the position of his Deputy Sentry, though she was here in that capacity. Also present were the four Staff Sergeants. They were eating and talking, and having a good time. Mateo was particularly interested in learning more about the timonite deposits, and how they came to be there. He was afraid to ask, though, so Leona did it for him during a break in the discourse.

“Well, we don’t actually know how it happened,” Focus Janda Wilden answered. He was the leader of one of the smallest micronations called Extrema. They were a group of scientists and researchers who were dedicating their lives to reestablishing a connection to Extremus. They were apparently cut off from it decades ago. Everyone in Extrema had their own title, which were all just terms that exemplified what a good scientist needed, like Reflection, Tenacity, and Curiosity. “This planet had to have unusual temporal properties from the very beginning, or what happened here would be happening everywhere. But at some point, presumably due to all the temporal manipulation that was going on during the early days of settlement, a grass evolved called timogramen. It was a precursor to the timonite that you are already familiar with. At first, the settlers used it for their own needs, to power some of their technologies. Understanding the conditions of it, among other factors, was actually required for using the Nexus that once stood here, as well as other time travel technologies and powers. 

“Over the years, the timogramen spread to become an invasive species. The more timogramen there was, the harder it was to do the simplest of things here, like teleporting. It was threatening to take over the whole world. So our ancestors gathered every last blade, and every last seed, and flew it to the Alhadabara Desert. They burned it. They burned it all up, thinking that they would be rid of it forever. But the ash seeped into the soil, and mineralized as it sunk deeper into the crust. At the same time, life sprung where once there was none. Thus, the Ferdiz, and the timonite veins below it.”

“Fascinating,” Mateo said. “And the timonite, do you use it in your research?”

“None of us has been able to make the journey across the Alhadabara,” Janda replied. “It sounds too hard. We’re intellectuals, so we’re not exactly built for it.”

“We would love a sample,” his right-hand man added, though they couldn’t recall his name. “It wouldn’t guarantee results, but studying it would certainly provide us some much-needed insight. Before Omega disappeared, he apparently cleared most of the central archives that were stored in various places in this system.”

Aclima reached into her bag that was hanging on her chair, and removed a fist-sized timonite stone. She set it on the table, and used her index finger to scoot it towards the Extremans.

“Where did you get that?” Leona questioned.

“The Ferdizites gave me one too,” Aclima answered. “I didn’t ask for it, but I think maybe they knew that someone here would need it. I’m guessing that they use the timonite at their disposal to see the future, or just to keep tabs on the rest of the world, and maybe beyond.”

“Hold on,” Alpha Merchant said, hovering his hand over the crystalline stone when Janda reached for it. “There are procedures here for this sort of thing. You can’t just take power, even when an external force gives it to you. We did not come here for diplomacy, so a discussion will have to be scheduled.”

“It’s a gift to us,” Janda contended. “There. Discussion over.”

“That is not how this works.”

“We are no threat to you,” Janda argued. “We are only a handful of self-sufficient people, and we do not rely on trade from others. We have not asked for anything since we asked to secede. We are entitled to this.”

“I will not have it,” Leif insisted. “We talk first. That is our way. If you disagree with my decision, you are welcome to challenge my position as Alpha.”

Janda shrunk into himself, implying that a challenge was as physical as it would be for a fictional werewolf pack, or something dumb like that.

Aclima picked the timonite back up. “I’m not giving it to Verdemus. I’m giving it to Janda. He may do with it as he wishes.”

“Please respect our customs, visitor.”

“You will show respect,” Alpha Vernon demanded, standing up. While Alpha Leif Merchant was in charge of the population of the whole planet besides Ferdiz, his claim to this right was in perpetual challenge by the leader of the second-largest nation of Vaskovia. This was why the leader of that nation also called himself an Alpha, and it led to a lot of tension between them on a personal level, as well as a diplomatic one. “Aclima of Ferdiz has made the Pilgrimage...twice. She is superior to all of us.”

“Not everyone sees it that way,” Alpha Merchant spits. “You may sit back down,” he said, as if it had been his decision for Vernon to stand in the first place.

Either way, Vernon was the loser of this argument. If he sat back down, he would be admitting his own subservience to Leif. But if he remained standing, he would stand out like a fool. He chose the latter.

Leif smirked. “He is wrong,” he said to Aclima. “You may take back the rock, if you like, but I cannot authorize a gift to an individual, or a single nation, of this magnitude. My rule over all is the only thing keeping us from the brink of war. You must understand that. And you must respect it...Aclima of Ferdiz.”

“She is not Aclima of Ferdiz,” Cassius said, also standing now. “She is Deputy Sentry for the Bulkverse Traveler Waycar. You will show respect to us, and our ways, or you will find yourself on the wrong end of an Ochivar wing. The stone goes to Mister Wilden. I have spoken.”

Leif seethed. “That rock is not going back down to my planet. I will not have it!”

“Fine,” Janda said. “Then we’ll move permanently to the moon of Jaunemus. That’s where the Nexus was. We were considering doing that anyway. But know this, Alpha...when we make contact with Extremus, we will be laying out the truth of what’s become of our government. We will not show you loyalty.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Leif responded, digging into his position.

Aclima handed Janda the stone.

“Wonderful!” Ramses exclaimed. “That’s done. Let’s get back to the meal. I believe it’s time for dessert? Who wants sand cake?”

They continued to eat, and enjoy each other’s company, albeit with a few more awkward silences than before. The benefit of there being more than one micronation was that they could serve as buffers. It wasn’t just two polar opposites who had to get along with each other. They had things in common with a few others, who had things in common with each other, who had things in common with the other end of the spectrum. After it was over, and people started leaving, Aclima pulled Leona to the side. When Mateo started to follow, she didn’t ask him not to.

“What is it?” Leona asked.

“I’ve spent more time with Matt than anyone else here,” Aclima began. She looked over at him. “I told you and Carlin things that I’ve never told anyone. I don’t...feel anything for the Waycar.”

“I can see that,” Mateo acknowledged.

“Well, I was wondering...” Aclima started to say.

Leona smiled, which was enough to get Aclima to trail off. “You would be alone a lot of the time. There’s a reason that the six of us have stayed together for so long, and haven’t really added anyone else in the long-term. We bring people on sometimes, but they always leave, because they have to.”

“I can go into stasis during your interim periods,” Aclima offered. “It’ll be like I’m one of the gang.”

“We’ve tried that,” Mateo told her. “It’s not a good long-term solution either. Besides, I need you on the Waycar. With Carlin out of the running, we need someone there that we trust. Because we all know that we can’t trust Cassius. He’s not evil, but...”

“You can trust me? I’m a hybrid.”

“You’re a person,” Mateo clarified. “And like you were saying, we’ve been through a lot together. I remember it now. I know it’s gonna be tough, so what you should do is find someone else there; someone you can confide in. You’ll be able to see it in their eyes. They won’t be enamored with Cassius either, and you can bond from that.”

Leona opened one of her arm compartments, and took out a communication disc. “These don’t have unlimited range, but if you’re ever in the neighborhood again, you can talk to us. There are others on the network who aren’t on our pattern, so you can talk to them too. I’ll get you a directory.”

Aclima looked honored as she was accepting the disc. “Thank you.”

Mateo nodded, and then just decided to go in for the hug. Leona did not partake.

They said their goodbyes, and then joined in on all the other goodbyes. They made sure to stick around to watch the Waycar disappear before they launched the Vellani Ambassador into orbit. They didn’t know where they were going to go now but they would discuss it on their own, probably next year.

“I assumed we were returning to the Goldilocks Corridor,” Ramses said, confused. “We’re pretty close to it now. We’ll be there by tomorrow, even if we only use the reframe engine.”

“What would we use if not the reframe engine?” Leona questioned.

“What do you think I’ve been doing all year? And what do you think quintessence is? It’s a doorway to the whole universe. I can get us anywhere in spacetime near instantaneously now.”

“You can?” Leona was shocked.

Ramses smiled brightly. “Yeah. Wanna test it out?”

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Extremus: Year 83

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It only took Omega and Valencia a couple of weeks to figure out what went wrong with the Nexus, and solve it. Apparently, Vitalie’s use of the network while traveling through time did screw things up, but she wasn’t the only one responsible. A Mark II Nexus, being one that was constructed by the people who invented them in the first place, could handle this complication. It would have been able to compensate for the temporal interference, and sort of reboot itself. The one that Omega built is just as good as these in most respects, but there are some notable differences; differences which the average person would not be able to detect. After careful examination of all the parts and systems, they were able to correct the issue, but only for this particular machine. They’re trying to get to the one on Extremus, which never received the correction. If they could just establish contact with someone on board, the current temporal engineer could probably get it done if they walked them through it, but even their communications are down. They need a creative solution. In three months, they’ve yet to come up with one.

“We can go to Earth first. From there, we can make contact with someone who can help us,” Spirit suggests.

“Do you know of anyone in particular in this day and age?” Tinaya questions.

“No,” Spirit admits. “The historical records don’t go this far.”

“What about Team Keshida?” Belahkay offers.

“Gatewood isn’t in the directory,” Omega explains as he’s pointing to the screen. “I don’t know why not. Maybe they cloaked themselves, or...they moved. A few of these Nexa are in weird places in the galaxy, which could be controlled by friends; maybe even Keshida, but maybe not. I wouldn’t feel comfortable reaching out to them. The Exins think that Verdemus was destroyed. We cannot disabuse them of this misconception, so we cannot risk connecting with any mysteries.”

“I can do it,” Aristotle volunteers for the umpteenth time.

“Remember what happened the last time you tried?” Lilac asks.

Aristotle nods. “I was young, and ignorant.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Niobe reminds him.

“I have the tools that I need now,” Aristotle insists.

“The timogramen,” Tinaya realizes. “You’ve learned something about it.”

“Not me,” Aristotle clarifies. “Vaska never stopped studying it. She understands how it works now. It interferes with temporal manipulation when not accounted for, so all you have to do is account for it. You have to know how much timogramen radiation is in your system, how much there is nearby, the temperature and barometric pressure,  the position of the sun and celestial bodies, the precise distance of the destination, and a few other minor factors. But she thinks she can do it. She’s been building something.”

“She’s been building what, a timogramen detector?” Valencia asks him.

Aristotle bobs his head. “She calls it a temporal radiation compensator, but like I said, it has to include a whole lot more in the calculations. Plus, it has to be calibrated for what you’re actually trying to accomplish. If you’re just trying to teleport, it’s one thing, but where I’m going, it’s a whole different thing.”

“Wait, but that’s true,” Tinaya begins. “We teleport on this planet without issue.”

Valencia sighs. “It’s not without issue. The relays just seem to work okay, because most of the time, people are only making short, simple jumps. But we’re doing a lot of maintenance on them. The old relays, before the explosion, were no better.”

“What do you mean, did something happen?” Tinaya asks.

“The Captain. I don’t have the whole story, because I’m not in the loop anymore, but just before the mirror exploded, she tried to hustle the kids through. They evidently didn’t make it to where they were going. I’m not sure how Lataran eventually made her way back, but she was gone for a year. The Ship Superintendent has to step in.”

Tinaya looks over at her husband. “Arqut, is this true?”

“I guess I forgot to tell you about that. The second lieutenant assured me that it was only temporary. She seemed to know something, and it seemed better not to press it. A year later, she showed up.”

“Without the kids,” Tinaya figures. She looks at Aristotle and Niobe now, who are also hiding the truth. “Why does it feel like I’m the only one in the dark here?”

“I am too,” Spirit assures her.

“As am I,” Belahkay agrees.

She’s kind of used to it at this point. There were a ton of things that Lataran didn’t tell her about while she was First Chair, even though she initially expected to be privy to everything upon being elected. Their persistent link to this planet was one of those secrets. Full transparency has never been assumed on the ship, and in fact, would be a dangerous goal to seek. Ignorance Tolerance is a subject that students study nearly every year. When it comes to time travel, no one is entitled to know everything, and children have to learn to deal with it maturely. This is where they memorize Leona’s Rules for Time Travel. She decides to let it go. “Where’s Vaska?”

“Her lab is in the megablock,” Lilac replies. “She likes to work near a lot of other people, like she did on Gatewood.”

Tinaya grabs Aristotle by the hand, and teleports him back down to Verdemus without a word. She sends a quick message to Vaska, who drops a pin. The two of them walk across the courtyard, and enter the lab.

“Miss Leithe, it’s been a while. How have you been?”

“I’ve been all right. Just trying to get home.”

Vaska’s gaze darts over to Aristotle.

“I told her about what you’ve been working on,” he divulges.

“Well, it’s ready. I mean...it’s ready to be tested.”

“Show me,” Tinaya requests.

Vaska opens up a cabinet behind her, and takes out a fairly large box. “It’s just a prototype, so it doesn’t look pretty, but I’m confident in its functionality.” She sets the box down, and removes the lid to reveal a plethora of gadgets, gizmos, and innerworkings. In addition to the expected wires and antenna, there are gears turning each other around, like a timepiece. Tubes are ready to transport fluids between an exposed logic board, and some other apparatus. Two buttons that kind of look like they were originally from a mechanical computer keyboard are rhythmically going up and down in an alternating pattern. LEDs are blinking, and a small display is showing status data. Vaska extends a tiny spyglass to have it standing straight up towards the ceiling. She lifts up what kind of looks like a tiny microphone, but Tinaya recognizes it to be a portable radiometer, probably full-spectrum, in this case. The familiar crackling sound that a radiometer makes when it’s picking up radiation begins to overwhelm the soft buzzing sound that’s been coming from somewhere inside.

“Well,” Tinaya says. “I don’t know what I’m looking at. I don’t know why I thought coming here would be helpful.”

“I can take a look at it.” Valencia turns out to have been behind them. “I’ll make sure it works, and if it doesn’t, make it so it does, or maybe just improve upon it.”

“It’s certainly big enough,” Vaska acknowledges. “I would love to streamline it. What if Mister Al-Amin could wear it on his wrist at all times?” She proposes.

“Does he need that?” Tinaya wonders. “I thought the only issue is when he’s coming from Verdemus. If he’s anything like his father, he’ll be doing a lot of traveling.”

“He is standing right here,” Aristotle states the obvious. “And he considers this to be his home, so he’ll probably frequently return.”

“You’ll need this at any rate,” Vaska explains. “As you said, it’s your home. The temporal radiation that our respective bodies have been exposed to would eventually dissipate given enough time away. But you’re both a choosing one, and you were born here. “It’s a part of you, and it always has been. You probably can’t survive without it. I imagine you’ll have to return here whether you want to or not, or grow the timogramen elsewhere. I hesitate to suggest the latter.”

“Why is that?” Valencia questions.

Vaska is reluctant. “It’s not harmful. It’s time. Temporal energy and radiation are properties of time, and time isn’t harmful. Except that it is. Time leads to entropy. It’s what kills us, and destroys what’s not alive. The timogramen is dangerous. It could be weaponized, and abused...misused. It would probably serve as an invasive species if allowed to spread to other worlds.”

“How did it evolve in the first place?” Valencia presses. “Is it just a coincidence that it grows here?”

“That I don’t know yet, but I’m pretty sure that you did this. You may have created it when you came here. All the teleportation, and the parallel dimensions...Tinaya’s glass skin thing. Plus, the way I understand it, this planet was annihilated years ago, and then someone went back in time to prevent it. That may have had unforeseen consequences, I really don’t know. Fittingly, I need more time for my research. One thing I know for sure is that it’s not perfectly natural, but there has to be something here, or we would already find the stuff on Earth, and anywhere else that time travelers have visited.”

“This is all fascinating,” Aristotle interjects, “but what does it have to do with me, and the job that I need to get done? I have to travel to Extremus, and get that Nexus working, so we can reconnect. Does this do that; that’s all I need to know.”

“That’s not all that I need to know,” Valencia contends. “You will be taking me back, and I need to feel comfortable and safe with that. The questions that I’m asking now are directly related to me reaching that level of trust in your abilities.”

“Fair enough,” Aristotle relents.

“Can that thing make him more precise and reliable?” Valencia goes on, pointing to the contraption.

“On a planetary level, yes,” Vaska answers. “What happened to him before, when he went back in time, and landed way off course, that shouldn’t happen again.”

What does that mean, on a planetary level?”

Vaska clears her throat, and starts touching things on the compensator, and moving some things around as she’s explaining. “The spyglass is a modified form of the Jayde Spyglass, which is why it has any hope of seeing thousands of light years away. But relative to other stars, planets don’t really move. Of course they do—everything moves—but compared to the reframe speeds of the Extremus? It’s nothing. These tubes here feed clarified timogramen juice into the contaminant filter to capture and counteract the temporal radiation that’s bombarding the compensator while it’s in this environment. There’s a limit to that, which is dependent upon its size. The pure timogramen juice can’t absorb enough background radiation to protect the other instruments for the precise targeting that you’re looking for. Therefore, we can shoot for a planet, but not a ship.”

“What if you built a bigger one?” Tinaya decides to suggest. “You could be more precise then, couldn’t you?”

Vaska winces. “With the bigger one, you can specify a more precise target on the planet, but still not a ship traveling at reframe speeds away from us. At a certain point, size doesn’t matter. A larger surface area means more radiation, which means more clarified timogramen juice is necessary, and you end up with diminishing returns.”

“You didn’t say a bigger one,” Aristotle points out. “You said the bigger one. Did you already build it?”

“That’s what I built first,” Vaska answers. “This one is the prototype portable model. I didn’t think that you would want to use the other one, because it’s a power hog, and for my part, I don’t know why it would be necessary.”

“It still needs his temporal ability, right?” Valencia poses. “It just helps people do what they already do?”

Vaska shakes her head. “No, this one only works with him. The bigger model too. It would be useless for anyone else’s power. But yeah, he still gotta do what he does.”

Valencia nods. “We need the precision. Aristotle has to aim for a mining site in one of the star systems where the Extremus deploys a fleet of resource automators. We’ve been getting a lot of data from Project Topdown, so I know where those are going to be.” She consults her watch. “But if we’re gonna intercept them, we have to leave today. The next proverbial gas station isn’t for another proverbial hundred miles.”

“It’s ready when you are,” Vaska promises. “It’s in my garage, and it’s on wheels.”

“Do you wanna say goodbye to your husband first?” Tinaya asks Valencia.

Valencia taps on her neck. “Omega?” She waits for a few seconds. “Bye.”

Vaska leads them into the garage. Aristotle uses his manly strength to pretend to pull the giant temporal radiation compensator out, and onto the sidewalk while the electric motor does the actual heavy lifting. The pallet jack drops the machine onto the grass. A few of Omega’s clones approach out of curiosity. Vaska and Valencia hook it up to the grid, run through a diagnostic, and a form of a preflight check. She and Aristotle agree to take the risk, knowing that it could kill them, and then they unceremoniously turn on the machine, gather the necessary data, and have Aristotle interface with it. Once it’s at full power, he receives the literal green light, and they both disappear.

“I hope it worked.”

“Let’s go find out.” She takes Vaska by the hand, and teleports up to the moon base. They walk into the Nexus lab to find Valencia and Aristotle waiting for them.

“Welp,” Valencia begins. “It technically worked, but we were off schedule by about four hundred years, and needed to build a couple stasis pods.”

Vaska frowns. “I must have missed something. I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite all right, right?” Lataran says as she’s coming out of the control room, eying Valencia. “Now. I’ve been cooped up on that ship forever, and I haven’t been here in a long time. Who here is gonna give me a tour?”

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Extremus: Year 80

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Tinaya and Aristotle are stuck in the past, but they are not in a new timeline. Their other selves are still in their midst, but they’re unable to interact with them. It’s like a parallel dimension, but with some bizarre rules. Fruits and vegetables are available here, as if they straddle the dimensional border. But people and animals are practically invisible. They can still detect them under certain conditions, and they’ve pieced the puzzle together enough to determine that the strongest appearances come during moments of temporal energy use. When Past!Tinaya passes through a wall using her mirror powers, Future!Tinaya and everyone else can see her shadow, as well as that of the wall. When Past!Aristotle trots to another celestial body in the solar system, the people in the parallel can witness his disappearance, as well as the surge of power that emanates from the event.

The two of them are not alone here. Vaska made it through, as did a bunch of survivors of the settlement explosion seven years ago. Future!Tinaya saved them with her weird mirror abilities. How exactly that worked, though, she’ll never know. Her glass skin is gone, having apparently been transferred all the way into the big showdown with the explosion. It still happened, just in the main dimension. Now their only concern is finding a way to get there themselves, but they’ve not had any ideas in the last seven years. None of the people on the settlement is an expert in a pertinent field. Not all of them even feel that they should be worried about it at all.

“This is our home now.” Bartel Ateren was assigned the Verdemus mission in the capacity of a botanist. His job was not originally meant to require that he do any actual work on the ship on a regular basis. The people who first set foot on Extremus were never going to be the ones to land on the destination planet. In fact, most of the people who lived there would never see the future world at all. Or so they have always been led to believe. Tinaya knows better, but she’s not supposed to, and she’s not allowed to talk about it. Most people are not aware of the truth, yet they continue to study fields of research that will only be particularly useful on the new homeworld.

Theoretically, the information that their descendants will need to survive and thrive can just be pulled from the central archives, which exist as many copies on multiple servers. Still, it only seemed right that the knowledge be passed down through teachers instead. Again, the majority of students will never get any opportunity to use what they learned, but they do it anyway. Bartel, on the other hand, was not actually a teacher. He was more like an emergency teacher, there to be available should anything happen to the regular teacher before they could pass the knowledge on to the next generation. He was able to move to Verdemus in secret, because he had no living relatives, nor many friends, and the next generation has successfully grasped the necessary concepts, meaning his original job is done. He has since become a reliable leader for the survivors.

“But we’re not really here,” Tinaya argues. “On the other side of the planet, they built a megablock to house the soldiers that are being deployed in the Ex Wars. We have no way of getting there, and even if we did, we probably couldn’t live there, even though there would be plenty of room. It’s inaccessible from this dimension.”

“I don’t need the megablock,” Bartel reasons. “The huts we’ve built here are more than enough for us to be happy.”

“What about your children, and your children’s children? You don’t want more for them? You want them to live their lives with no hope of even contacting the rest of the galaxy, or the ship? If you’re digging in, then you ought to do it right.”

“That’s exactly why I wouldn’t want us to try to live in the megablock. I want them to make their own way, to build a new society from the ground up...literally. This is what they had in mind for the Extremus mission in the first place. Well, not exactly this, but you know what I mean. The self-reliance, and the journey of development. That’s the point. We’re just doing it here and now, instead of out there, and in the future. And anyway, who cares which version of Verdemus we’re on? We can’t leave the planet either way. Sorry, I know Totle’s your friend, but he’s not had any success with his powers.”

That’s fair, they never expected to be able to leave Verdemus in the first place. So they’re stuck on a different Verdemus, so what? What’s the difference, in the end? Well, family; that’s the difference. So maybe this isn’t that great of an argument. “He deserves to go back to his mother and Niobe, and I want to see Spirit again. And Belahkay, and even Omega. Ilias, I could do without, and Eagan is whatever.”

“I can understand that,” Bartel concedes. “But I’m worried that if we succeed in crossing back over to the main dimension, they actually will find a way to return us to Extremus. I was never the kind of person who was angry to be born on a ship that I would never leave, but I didn’t know what I was missing. This place is paradise. The people still on that hunk of metal...they should be so lucky.”

Tinaya smiles at him, and nods. “That’s exactly why we have an obligation to go back; back to the real Verdemus, and then to Extremus. If you feel so strongly about it, you should try to tell others about it who may feel the same. I can’t guarantee that the council will give you the chance. They may decide to shut you up so you don’t ruin their plans. But one thing’s for sure, if we stay here, trapped in this parallel on this planet, there’s no hope at all of spreading the message.”

He tries to take a breath, but a yawn comes over instead, and he finds himself opening and closing his eyes one at a time. “Sorry. Yes. I, uhh...yeah. You’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea how to get back.”

“Vaska has a theory about that.”

“Yes, she mentioned that.” The two of them work closely together, studying the ecosystem to figure out exactly where they are, cosmically speaking, and how they can touch the plants, but not the people or the artificial structures. “It had something to do with a particular plant we discovered, and the other you?”

“She can explain it better,” Tinaya decides. “She’ll be here any minute.” When the bomb went off, besides the people who she saved, only the mess hall remained standing, and only in this parallel dimension. It’s not a very cozy place to live, which is why they’ve built new structures on this side, but they still use this as a communal area. On its own, it’s a temporal anomaly, which is why it’s the only place on the whole planet where other-siders are perfectly visible. When one happens to wander within its walls, which are invisible to them, they can see them. It doesn’t occur often, though.

“I’m here! I’m here,” Vaska says. “Whoops.” She instinctively avoids running into Eagan, who just so happens to be in her path. He’s here a lot. Since they’re in different dimensions, they would simply pass through each other without feeling a thing, but she’s forgotten that for a second. “I can’t remember, how many people are with us?”

“There are thirty-one,” Tinaya reminds her. “Twenty-eight survivors, plus you, me, and Aristotle.”

Vaska nods as she’s inspecting the walls of the mess hall. “I believe that will work.” She peeks through one of the windows. “That corner is slightly closer.”

“You said something about the two Tinayas making contact with each other?” Bartel says. “What does this building have to do with anything?”

Vaska faces Tinaya. “When you told me where you and Aristotle were standing when he tried to trot you off the planet, and you ended up in the Gatewood Collective, were you accurate? I mean, were you precise?”

“Yeah,” Tinaya confirms. It was right over there. Or it will be, rather, later today.” This is the day that they accidentally travel through time. She’s about to close her loop.

Vaska holds up a grassy plant. There’s nothing special about it in appearance. It really just looks like prairie grass, or something else equally mundane. “We can touch the plantlife, but this? This is different. This is special. When we take hold of any other plant, we pull it into our dimension, stealing it from theirs. For some reason, this stuff maintains its connection to the others. I’ve tickled Ilias’ nose with it. He couldn’t see it anymore, and he didn’t know what was going on, but it happened.”

“What does that mean for us?” Bartel asks her.

“This building is a temporal anomaly. The moment Tinaya and Aristotle go back in time is also a temporal anomaly. We need to connect them to each other.” Vaska cups her hands together. “We do that with this plant. I propose we build a chain with our own bodies, linking the corner of the mess hall to Past!Tinaya. She’ll anchor us to the main dimension, and unwittingly pull us through whatever barrier separates us.”

Future!Tinaya and Bartel just stare at her. “That’s...a contrivance.”

“No, it’s not. It’ll work.”

“How do you know? You just made it up.”

“I’ve been studying this plant. It’s a keystone species. Scratch that; it’s the keystone species. The other plants; they can’t communicate with each other without it. It’s like a telephone wire.”

“What’s a telephone wire?” Bartel questions.

“I’m telling you, this will work. We need a chain. But to reach all the way over there, which I’ve calculated to be forty-two meters away, it will require all thirty-one of us. We got a lot of shorties.”

Tinaya looks at her sadly. “Vaska, I know you want this to work, but Bartel’s right. You’re just guessing.”

Vaska huffs a bit, and shakes her head. “The explosion that destroyed the settlement was larger than it should have been. The explosion that destroyed the time mirror, and imbued you with its glass power, was more focused than it should have been. Aristotle’s jumps; Tinaya, your creation of this parallel dimension in the first place—all of these things have been affected by this. It’s all about the grass!” She urgently shakes the sample she has in her hand. “I’m gonna call it timogramen,” she says matter-of-factly, like anyone has any interest in arguing against it. “It explains everything. The way you tell it, dumbasses wasted their time finding suitable trees to make paper, when they really should have been studying this instead. It is unlike anything I have ever heard of before. I don’t know how it evolved, or what else it can do, but I do know that it can send us back to where we need to be. And besides, what’s the worst that can happen if it doesn’t work?”

Both Tinaya and Bartel think it over. It does sound rather random and silly, but she’s right, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. It’s not like they have some other option which this could interfere with. “Okay,” Tinaya finally says. “We’ll bring it to the group. Hopefully they all agree. Like you said, we need everybody.”

“I’ll help too,” Eagan says. “I believe that you are overestimating the arm span of everyone here.”

The three of them are flabbergasted. “Y—you can see and hear us?” Bartel asks.

“Yes,” Eagan replies.

Tinaya throws her hands up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You’re from the future; I didn’t want to disrupt the timeline,” Eagan answers. Oh, that’s actually good logic.

“Well, I suppose that makes sense,” Tinaya admits. “Still, you could have communicated with us.”

“I was gathering information. Why did you think that I was always standing over here? The mess hall doesn’t exist on my side. It’s just ash and ruins.”

“You’re just weird, Eagan; you’re weird,” Tinaya reiterates.

“Fair enough,” he says.

“Are we gonna do this thing, or what?” Vaska asks impatiently. “Time is running out. Past!Aristotle and Past!Tinaya are about to disappear.”

“Wait, can’t we just have them get closer to the building?” Bartel suggests. “Or even in the building? We don’t need a human chain if Eagan helps.”

“No, he’s right,” Tinaya contends. “That would disrupt the timeline, which places all of your lives at risk. If Totle and I never end up on Gatewood, we never find any help getting back here, let alone with Vaska, who we needed to study the—what did you call it?—timogramen? Things have to play out exactly as they did until I finally close my loop. The human chain it is.”

They take Vaska’s proposal to the rest of the group. They have some questions, and they’re just as skeptical about the efficacy of the plan, but they too recognize that the downsides are minimal. One of the biggest issues is just convincing them that they should indeed return to the main dimension. Some of them were brought into this project specifically because their absence from Extremus would not be noticed, like Bartel. Others left families on board, who signed confidentiality agreements. They want to get back to them, which they were promised would be done regularly with the time mirror. So their side of the argument eventually won out.

Vaska takes a team out to harvest more of the timogramen. They crush the grass up, and lather everyone’s arms with it. It’s apparently meant to act as some sort of natural conduit of temporal energy, which will pass from Past!Tinaya and Past!Aristotle, all the way to the mess hall. Eagan was right. After they all line up, Future!Aristotle on one end, and Future!Tinaya on the other, they do find themselves short. Eagan adds himself as an extra link between Aristotle and Chef Webster. They complete the chain just in time for the special event. Tinaya places her hand on the shadow of her younger self just as she and Aristotle make the jump, which will ultimately send them to Gatewood. The power surges through her, and then down the line of survivors until it reaches the mess hall. Then it passes back again. It goes back and forth a few times before bursting out in a blinding light. When it recedes, the chain has been broken as most of them have fallen to the ground, but it is not yet clear whether it worked.

“Tinaya?” Spirit asks. “That was fast. Did it work? Hold on, did you end up going to Extremus after all? Are all these people from there?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 19, 2410

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Team Matic were not the first people to try to find the second Earth Nexus. It was reportedly somewhere in the South Pacific ocean, but despite having literally all the time in the world, no one had ever uncovered it. If people from the future were never able to, there wasn’t much chance of them locating it either. Their best course of action was to ask for help, and their best hope for finding that help was not in this reality. It wasn’t even in the same universe anymore. Instead of spending time trying to build something that could detect Nexa somehow, Leona, Ramses, and Constance focused their efforts on creating a new kind of interdimensional communicator. This would hopefully allow them to reach out to someone in the Sixth Key.

It was now after midnight central, and the smarter people in the group were still working. Even Angela and Marie found ways to contribute, leaving Mateo and Olimpia to occupy their time with games and old media. They were in the middle of the fourth Meg movie when Marie entered their pocket dimension to retrieve them. He paused it just as it was getting to the good part. “Did you get a hold of somebody?”

“We’re about to try,” Marie answered.

The three of them exited the pocket, closed the hatch, then entered the code for Ramses’ lab. He was still tinkering with the presumed new communication device. “Who are we going to try to contact?” Mateo asked. “Surely they would need something like this on their end.”

“They do,” Ramses explained. “I already know someone who messes with stuff like this. She’s the one who helped me get to all of you after Dalton split us up. Well, except for you, Olimpia. That was different.”

“Oh, you’re talking about Shantel,” Mateo realized.

“That’s right. It’s hard to explain how this thing works to a layman,” Ramses went on, “but it doesn’t work by dialing a phone number. It’s more like GPS...except obviously we’re not on the same G, so not that.”

“You don’t have to explain it,” Olimpia said. “Just...dial.”

Constance reached over and started tapping on the screen. The special phone trilled for a little bit before Shantel actually answered. She appeared on the screen. “Why is this thing beeping? Hello? Who is this?”

“This is Ramses Abdulrashid. I believe we’ve met. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember you,” Shantel replied. “Why are we talking?”

“We need help; help which can only come from your people. I’m not sure if you’re the person to ask, but I was hoping that you could connect us with the right party.”

“What do I look like to you, an operator?”

Ramses held back whatever quip his brain came up with. “Please.”

Shantel sighed, realizing that it was probably not too big of an ask. She was immortal, and this would likely take all of two minutes. “What do you need?”

“The Antarctica Nexus is missing. Someone stole it. We were trying to find the other one that supposedly exists, and if it was installed in the same place on our Earth as it was on yours, then—”

“There.” A text message appeared on the screen that looked like coordinates.

“That’s where it is?”

“That’s where it was,” Shantel replied. “I can’t guarantee your version will still be there, but the location is common knowledge. I gotta go. Please wait one day to reach out to this device again. I will be handing it off to someone else, so whatever you need in the future, it will be their problem from now on.”

“Very well, Shantel. I appreciate your help.”

She hung up.

“That was easy,” Leona noted. “Too easy.”

“The answer is, don’t think about it,” Mateo decided. Maybe the Parallelers weren’t as bad as Cheyenne said they were. Or maybe they had changed things. It was never completely clear whether their actions had altered the timeline, or if everything they had done to prepare for the Sixth Key was just fate. It was possible that they had managed to subvert the Reality Wars entirely. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“I’ll try,” Leona said. “Dante? Please convert these coordinates to standard spatial reference, and jump with the cloak on.”

“Already done. Jumping now.” The ship teleported.

“Simplistic.exploration.boast,” Olimpia read on the screen.

“That’s where we are?” Mateo questioned. “That sounds familiar.”

“You may have been here before,” Leona pointed out. “We’re not in the middle of the ocean.” She reached over, and pinched the screen to zoom out. “We’re in Topeka.”

“Not just anywhere in Topeka,” Mateo realized. “This is the little graveyard where I used to go to be alone. That is, it’s where I found the graveyard. It was a little rest stop where The Gravedigger, Mr. Halifax buried all the dead time travelers, and I guess it wasn’t in our dimension?”

Marie was looking at the exterior camera feeds. “There’s no cemetery here.”

“How did you find this place?” Leona asked Mateo. “It’s not that close to where you used to live.”

Mateo shook his head. “I was drawn here. As soon as I got my license, I felt compelled to come to this spot. I finally gave into it, and found my little grassy clearing sanctuary. Surrounded by trees, one way in, one way out. No one ever comes here, and now I’m sure they definitely don’t. The weird thing is...” He opened the hatch to the outside, and breathed in the fresh air. “The trees all look the same. It’s been nearly 400 years since I set foot here, and nothing has changed.” He turned back towards the group. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you?” He stepped onto the grass, and knelt down to run his fingers through the blades.

Leona stepped out of the Dante too, and deeper into the clearing. “The answer is, don’t think about it,” she joked. “Hey, Opsocor. Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Venus replied. Her voice was coming out of the aether; from everywhere and nowhere.

Leona smiled, and looked back at the group. “We need to get to Dardius. Is that something you can help us with?”

“Come on down. I’m only two kilometers below the surface.”

“Is there a way to take our shuttle with us?” Can we link them up?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ramses said as he was closing the hatch. “You two go on down. We’ll meet you soon.”

Leona sidled over to Mateo, and reached down.

“This doesn’t feel right,” he noted with a slight shiver.

“It seems fitting to me,” Leona mused. “This is where it all began for you. You were drawn here because you always knew it was a special place. You just didn’t know how special.” She jazzed her fingers at him. “Come on.”

He took her hand and stood up. Together, they jumped down two kilometers, expecting to find themselves in the Nexus building. They were immediately aware that that was not what this was. “It’s a trap.” Now he was really feeling bad.

“Jump back up.” Leona shut her eyes, and tried to teleport again, but was unable to. They were locked in. The trap was either set for them, or people like them. Whoever did this knew about Venus Opsocor, what she sounded like, and how she would talk to Leona, even from two kilometers away from where she was supposed to be in a Nexus.

“What do we do?”

“We can’t let the others come down here.” Leona lifted up her watch, but before she could try to talk into it, she saw that it was off. She tapped on the screen several times, but nothing happened. “It’s not operational. We can’t get them a message.”

“But we can send them a feeling.” Their shared empathic bond was even stronger than it was with their old new substrates. Mateo took a breath, and said, “claustrophobia,” as he was exhaling the air.

“Claustrophobia,” Leona echoed with her own breath.

They both continued to think as hard as they could about feeling trapped, but not in a way that suggested they needed their friends’ help; in a way to suggest that they stay away. Love and concern is what the others returned to them, so Mateo and Leona replied with patience and wisdom. They still couldn’t express anything complex, but it seemed to be working. Or maybe it wasn’t. Olimpia suddenly appeared in front of them.

“We were trying to get you to stay away,” Leona argued.

“We understood, and the others are leaving to prepare the next move,” Olimpia told her. “I volunteered to come down.”

“Why?” Mateo asked her.

“So you two wouldn’t be alone.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” came a voice in the darkness. His silhouette approached, and grew sharper with each step, until he was fully in the light. It was, of course, that dude from the Fifth Division who could not let go of his grudge against them.

“Did you build this place all for us? Did you lure us here with that outpost manager from Dardius?” Leona questioned.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Fifth Divisioner replied. “You called a patriot who did her duty, and reported it to us. We didn’t expect you to fall into our trap so soon. We’re not really ready for you, but...” He looked around at the ceiling and walls. “The power suppressors appear to be working, and that’s what matters.”

“My God,” Mateo said, shaking his head. “Can’t you just let this go? So much has happened since we killed your friend. I’m so sorry,” he mocked.

“Oh, it’s not about that,” he said with a heavy laugh. “You’re wanted. You’re all wanted. Some very powerful people in the Sixth Key would like to talk to you. I joined them because I don’t think they’ll have very nice things to say.” He started to pretend to be polite. “Anyway, sit tight, and once your cells are ready, we’ll get you fully settled.” He checked his watch. “Should take less than a year. In the meantime, you think about how you’re gonna get the rest of your team to fall into our trap too. You don’t want us finding them first. Trust me on that.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 22, 2398

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Mateo, Winona, and Tarboda arrived on Rapa Nui yesterday, but they were required to wait in a facility during a 24-hour quarantine period. They came out with a clean bill of health, and are presently arriving at the volcano on the southern end of Easter Island, Ranu Kao. The last time Mateo was here, it was in the main sequence, and things were a lot different. For him, this island is famous for the mysterious humanoid sculptures that are located in a different region. For the people of The Third Rail, this is a nice resort with a rich history that the people who visit here don’t care all that much about. The island has beautiful landscapes, unique flora, and tame fauna, and is considered one of the best places to go if you want to get away from civilization, since it’s so far from the mainland. The statues Mateo remembers were never built here, though. He can’t recall exactly what they’re called, and since they don’t exist, no one can tell him. Perhaps this island doesn’t have any special temporal properties here. It would explain why the crater lake that’s meant to be here is completely dry.

“Is that bad?” Winona asks. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” Mateo answers. “Leona should be here.”

“She’s quite busy.”

“Because your father is trying to take over the world with fusion power!” he argues, but he knows that he shouldn’t be too mad about it. Of course the government would want to mass produce the greatest breakthrough in energy production thus far. Leona knew it would happen, she just didn’t realize how little they cared about the rocket they built, which started it all.

“You said there was a secret passageway under the water,” Winona says, taking no offense to his words. “Maybe it’s still down there.”

He just frowns and kicks at the dirt.

“Come on. Let’s go on down. Tarboda, stay up here and keep a lookout.” The pilot nods respectfully. He’s been pretty cool about all this. He doesn’t seem to have ever belonged in that amoral group of mercenaries they met in Bermuda.

They carefully climb down the steep sides of the crater, and head for the bottom. As it was indeed underwater, and pretty dark, Mateo can’t remember exactly where the cave was, but it was somewhere on the opposite side as the ocean. His instinct is that it’s precisely the opposite, so that’s where they start looking. At a quick glance, there is no opening, which makes sense, or someone would have found it forever ago. Still, it can’t require a key, or a map, or an incantation. He also won’t accept the possibility that, like the moai—oh yeah, that’s what they’re called—it just doesn’t exist at all. It has to be here somewhere. All of the other significant places they’ve been to have been at least a little significant in this reality too. He starts running his hands along the walls, looking for anything unusual. “Go that way, please,” he asks her.

She does as he asks, but her heart’s not in it. Neither is his, but even so, they keep working at it. She has one little collapsible shovel, and one machete. She gives him the former to look for unstable spots. There’s so much ground to cover, and they don’t know where it might be on the z-axis, so Tarboda drops ropes down, and manages them from the top of the crater. No one comes to find them doing this. It’s apparently not that popular of a tourist destination, probably because it’s dried up, and they’re approaching the off-season. They work at this for hours. Ramses sent a bottle of Existence water in case he needed to do an emergency teleport, but it’s probably not going to come up, so he just drinks it once his regular canteen runs out. Once that container runs out, he decides that there is no point in going on. “Stop, just stop. There’s nothing here.”

“I know,” Winona agrees. “I’m sorry that this was such a disappointing trip.”

“What’s that you say!” Tarboda asks from above.

“We’re calling it quits!” Mateo explains.

“Oh, okay! I’ll pull you up!”

“No! I’m gonna do one more thing!” He removes his harness, and drops a meter down to the ground. Then he runs over to as close to the center of the crater as he can find. Here, while flipping off the world beyond, he pees. “Now who’s too dry?” he asks the island. Once he’s finished, he turns around, and gives the other two a thumbs up.

“Real classy!” Winona shouts at him.

He pumps his fist in the air. “Yeah!” Yeah, is right, assuming the question is if he’s tired, hungry, and closer to dehydration than he probably should be for as much as he drank. He tries to start walking back towards his rope when the ground trembles; just a little, but enough to throw him off balance.

“You better come on back!” Winona advises.

“I’ll get right on it!” Mateo replies. He starts again, but the ground shakes again, this time much harder. Each time he stops, the shaking stops, and each time he tries to move again, it moves too. Either it’s a coincidence, or some wibbly-wobbly shit is going on down here.

“Run!” Winona yells at him.

He takes her advice, but doesn’t get very far. The ground caves in under him, starting from the center, and expanding out, but not uniformly. It becomes impossible for him to stay ahead of it when the ground between him and Winona disappears early. Before he can see if enough of the Existence water is still in his system for him to teleport, he falls, and loses consciousness.

He awakens in the tall grass, wet from the morning dew. He’s not aching anywhere, but he’s dizzy and confused, and he can’t see well. His short term memory is gone at first, and has to come back to him in waves as he’s looking around and blinking, trying to fix his vision. The fuzziness subsides, and reveals an open grassy area, and some nearby trees. Winona and Tarboda are both lying there too. He crawls over to confirm their pulses and steady breaths. This is enough to wake them up, and they seem to be experiencing the same symptoms as they work to wake themselves up more.

“Where are we?” Tarboda asks.

“Unknown,” Mateo answers. We fell down into a cave, though, and now we’re back on the surface. Either someone moved us, or...”

“Or what?”

“Or we traveled. Can you both walk?” Mateo asks.

“Yes,” they answer simultaneously.

The three of them struggle to their feet, then struggle some more, like a newborn calf. Once they feel comfortable enough, they pick a random direction, and begin walking. It’s not long before they come upon something that Mateo recognizes. “Whoa.”

“What the hell is that?” Winona asks.

“That is Stonehenge, and these...are the missing British Isles.”

“The whatnow?”