Microstory 2494: Biolock

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When this planet was first discovered, it was a barren wasteland. It still technically is. It has not been terraformed. It’s been paraterraformed, which means that the only places where anything can survive are under the domes. You can’t just plant a seed in the dirt, and wait for it to grow, and start producing oxygen for you. The composition of the atmosphere at the moment is not suitable for life, and if we wanted to make it so, we would have to be extremely destructive. Terraformation is always a centuries-long project, which even today, we’ve only completed on one planet, and there are rumors of alien intervention with that one, because no one knows how it was possible. Besides, the whole point of Castlebourne is having these special themed domes. Even if we were to make the rest of the world habitable without destroying everything currently standing, we wouldn’t want to. For that, you can go to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, which was already habitable when we discovered it (though, I have my doubts about that too, because what are the chances?). I digress. What I’m saying is that, in order for us to have any life on this planet, it had to be transported. In some cases, that means digital DNA, but even that’s tricky, because you’re gonna need feedstock to actually develop the organism into something physical. In other cases, we transported live plants and animals, on something called an Arkship. While it took 108 years to get here, the ships were traveling at relativistic speeds, so the time as observed by the passengers was only about two months. It was during this time that the specimens were being monitored under their second quarantine. They experienced their first while still on Earth, which lasted four months. Six months isn’t bad, is it? You should be able to tell whether something has a disease or not in that time. Eh, probably. We’re probably always safe enough, but we don’t want the bare minimum. We want to be extra careful. Besides, the conditions on Castlebourne are different. The atmospheres in the domes are typically optimized, not natural. The surface gravity is different. In order to satisfy our requirements for safety, specimens are kept in special habitats in Biolock for an additional six months so that we may observe and study them, but also so they can acclimate to their new conditions. Once this time period is complete, they will be either transported to their new home under whatever dome they are destined for, or a parallel preserve for further acclimation efforts. Up until now, this was only a Logistical dome not fit for visitors. We have recently completed renovations, which will allow visitors to come through for tours. You will not be able to touch or interact with any of the specimens, but will be able to see them from the protection of a sealed corridor while your tour guide teaches you about our process in greater detail. My superiors asked me to write the first review just to get things started so that our prospectus is ready for it once the first tours go through, and reviews are unlocked for public contribution. Thank you for your time.

Microstory 2450: Stairway to Heaven

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Not to be confused with Heavendome. I’m callin’ it, this is the largest staircase in the entire universe. Some aliens eighteen billion light years away may have a large one of their own, but I doubt it beats this. The stairs go all along the perimeter of the dome, spiraling up from the surface until you reach the zenith, which I’ll talk about when we hit that point in the story. Let’s start with some stats. Each dome has an 83 kilometer diameter. Ignore topographical variations. A line from one end to the opposite end crossing through the exact center is 83 kilometers long. Since these domes are hemispheric, that means the distance from the surface to the top is 41.5 kilometers. Again, ignore varied topography, like mountains and valleys. If you were to climb a ladder from the bottom to the top, you would be climbing 41.5 kilometers. They’re considering including that as well for an even more extreme test of your mettle, but I can’t review eventualities. It’s important to note, though, because the spiral staircase is necessarily longer than the total vertical distance, due to the tread length of each staircase, and the length of the landings. There are 207,500 steps. Every 19th step is a landing, which gives you a little room to stand when you need a break. Some of these lead to pitstops, while others lead to full-on campgrounds for daily rest periods. If you can’t make it to the next campground, they’re not going to let you stay the night at a pitstop, so you best recognize your own physical abilities before you even take the first step. You will go on practice hikes before your trek—that’s what the surface is dedicated to—and this training program takes about as long as the climb, so expect to dedicate two months of your life to this adventure. There are no transhumanistic enhancements or cybernetic upgrades here. You’re given a traditional human body between 1.5 and 2.1 meters tall with average muscles. You do get to choose your height, and it can look like your residual self image, but don’t expect the superkidneys, or the unidirectional respiratory systems that you’re used to. I heard some complaints from people who didn’t understand the spirit of the hike. If you don’t want to work, take an elevator. But not here, the periodic exit elevators are only for people who had to quit in the middle. There’s no judgment from me, by the way. You make it more than 50 flights, and I’ll say you’ve accomplished something impressive. If you do make it the whole way, it probably took about a month, covering a few kilometers each day. That may not sound like much, but gravity hates you, and your fight with it will never end until you beat it...or it beats you. Some will do it faster, others slower. How you lived your life prior to this will impact your performance. When you get uploaded into the new substrate, you don’t just end up on equal footing with everyone else. If you were a mech before, you’re not gonna be used to the energy expenditure. If you were mostly biological, it should be easier to adapt to the new body. I met one climber who was born 24 years ago, and never received any meaningful upgrades. Guy did it in two weeks. He works out to stay fit, and pretty much always has. His experience was a major advantage. 10,922 flights for a total of 84.44 kilometers is a huge achievement whether it takes you that month, or double that, and it comes with a reward. It’s a party. Unlike other domes, there’s a nipple on the top, which is reached by your last flight. You stay as long as you want, talking to other climbers, comparing stories. Eat, drink, be merry. You’ve done something that few before you have, and few will probably try in the future. I think I’m gonna keep this body, keep working out, and see if I can do it faster next time. Good luck.

Microstory 2441: Power Crystal Factory (PCF)

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Not to be confused with scifi examples of power crystals, or examples in fantasy where crystals have magical properties. Disclaimer over. For the most part, ships and orbiting stations in the system fleet are manufactured in outer space. The only reason we ever did it on Earth was because we were not capable of space manufacturing in the early days. Once we built up some infrastructure, and bolstered the industry overall, we were able to free ourselves from the gravity well. We still needed ways to actually get up to these vessels, but that was easy after everything. There doesn’t seem to be a name for the host star, or the star system as a whole, so we’ll just call it a Castlebourne thing. They build their ships on a secret moon base, which is easier for them to take off from. I caught a peek from a telescope once, and saw the mass driver that they use for launching. That’s all I know about that, and the crystal regulators. Every ship, no matter how big or small, or what powers it, or what it’s used for, has a need to distribute its power. Our ancestors used to use various technologies, like adapters, to control the flow of electrical power. These were crude by today’s standards, but the principle remains vital to the safe and efficient operation of a moving vehicle. Crystals have a variety of uses in this regard. I won’t bore you with the details, but some of them serve as conditioners, which maintain the smooth transference of power, where it’s needed. It makes sure that everything, no matter how remote, is powered at all times. But sometimes it’s too much power, so you also need crystal capacitors, which can buffer the power temporarily, and release it more gradually. If it’s buffered too much, then they can also redistribute it safely, if only to a waste heat ventilation system. Crystals are also used as nodes, redirecting or splitting the power when powering multiple independent systems at once. I say all this so you understand why this dome has to exist. So now you know why the crystals themselves are important, but that doesn’t explain why they need to be manufactured here, instead of the moon, where nearly everything else is made. It has to do with gravity. Crystals aren’t made, they’re grown. They start small, and build themselves from there, almost like a plant. For some types, this process requires 1G surface gravity, or close to it. There’s some evidence that Castlebourne’s slightly lower gravity is beneficial to the process, but they’ve not completed enough studies on this phenomenon, and there are a lot of other variables to account for. What we do know is that Castlebourne-grown power crystals are at least as good as any others. You may be asking, why don’t you just grow them in a cylindrical habitat? And I’ll tell you, that’s not real gravity. It’s only simulating gravity. For everyday living, if the spin is programmed correctly, everything feels normal. But crystals are more finicky. They also need to be still, and they can tell when they’re in motion, which is presently the only way to fake gravity. So for now, they’re grown on the surface of a full-sized planet. That’s what we do here in this dome, and we do it well. Most of this is automated, as one would expect, but I still have an important job to do here. They still like to have humans inspect the merchandise. If you ever ride in a ship that uses my power crystals, you can rest, assured that it’s been created using the highest of standards, and you’re safe. At least from crystals. Any other components, I don’t know...that’s not my department.

Microstory 2392: Vacuus, December 26, 2179

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Dear Condor,

No, I don’t know which one of us is older than the other. We could have been born hours apart, for all I know. Well, that’s probably too long of a difference. You would think that Pascal would say something about it if that were the case. Unless, I guess, if he was out of town, or something. Was he even there? Has he never told you anything about what it was like when you were born? Probably not since his story would have been shaky from having no choice but to leave me out of it entirely. Let me get right into what happened. I’m glad that I talked to Elek sooner rather than later, because I might not have had another chance to tell you about it. Our scientists believe that the Valkyrie long-cycle is imminent. Unless something major happens to change their current projected trajectory, they’re coming for us, and they’ll be blocking transmissions for a really long time. Theoretically, the only thing that could affect them enough for them to change their path would be a gravitational body of significant mass-density. That would be even worse, because it would probably cross the Roche limit, and collide into Vacuus. I told you that I would be getting into what happened, then went off on a tangent. Sorry. Elek. When I approached him earlier today, he seemed very scared. I don’t think he read our messages, or anything, but I think he knew that this conversation would be coming at some point. We were bound to put the pieces together eventually. He actually seemed relieved when I demanded answers about the study. Attached is the full transcript of our conversation. Our laws say that I can record audio on the base with everyone’s permission,  but I can’t record video. It’s a little weird, but it would be a lot to compress anyway. Here are the highlights. The program had been going on for a hell of a lot longer than we realized. Madalena was only hired for its most recent iteration. They tried this with other missions prior to this, including lunar bases and Martian outposts. They have always wanted to know how one person would fare across contradictory realities, and twins are the closest thing they can come to gaining any insight on that. The thing about us being fraternal twins was the result of a series of concessions they had to make over the years. It started out as one would think, with the ideal conditions, and no legal qualms. They just kept changing it and changing it until it became all but pointless. Elek observed me as I grew up, and took some notes, which he showed me, and they’re all attached too. They weren’t very detailed, and his heart wasn’t in. It was just stupid from the beginning, but they sunk so much money into it, they didn’t want to let it go. They since have, disbanding entirely, and the various players no longer communicate with each other. He thought that Madalena was dead, but he’s pretty sure most of the others on Earth are indeed gone. After this I think it’s time we put this whole thing to rest. It sounds like it’s all over, and nothing really came of it. Now let’s just be. Let’s be twins who talk via weekly letters.

Until the Valkyries descend upon us,

Corinthia

Extremus: Year 87

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Day One. Officially, anyway. Up until now, Tinaya has been wearing full dress uniform, which is usually reserved for ceremonies, and other formal events, such as her Commissioning Ceremony last week. But she has not been allowed to take it off throughout the entire transitional period. Traditionally, this week has not been part of the program for shift changes, but this is what the council decided on some years ago, and it’s the first time they’ve had the opportunity to see it through. In a weird twist on these procedures, Tinaya even has to sleep in these damn things, which have not been very comfortable, and she doesn’t really understand why they forced it upon her. Lataran didn’t have to do that, though she has her own problems. They had her Advancement Ceremony yesterday, where she was awarded the rank of Admiral. She will now become Tinaya’s primary advisor, and she’s struggling with it in ways that she has yet to clarify for Tinaya. If Soto Tamm were still alive, and hadn’t been stripped of his rank, he would be serving in this capacity as well. One day. One day, when Tinaya advances as well, there will finally be two Admirals at once.

It’s different for her, though. She is not the same kind of captain as Halan Yenant, Kaiora Leithe, Soto Tamm, or Lataran Keen. She’s only here to act as a bridge between Lataran and whoever ends up getting the job next. They still don’t know who that’s going to be, but they have about ten years to find them. They will become a normal captain for the next twenty-four years, and all will be right with the world. Tinaya is just here to make sure that happens. She had to lobby for the title of Interim Captain, instead of a regular Captain. What does this do? Very little right now, but once her shift is over, she’ll be promoted to Vice Admiral, instead of Full Admiral, and that distinction is quite important. It’s not just symbolic, but even if it were, that would be enough. She doesn’t want this to be seen as a dynasty, as she explained to the council before accepting this position. The people need to know that she’s not a power-hungry monster; that she is only here to help. She’s humble; one of the people.

Everyone knows her already, of course. She’s been working alongside the crew since the beginning of the year, and she was famous before this anyway. But still, now that the transition period is over, she wants to address the crew. Literally the entire crew. Thistle—the not-so-artificial intelligence—is handling every single one of the ship’s systems. Obviously, he could always be doing this, even if he weren’t pretending to not be a real boy, but they’re not going to cancel hundreds of jobs just because of the logic. People want to work, they want to contribute. And one way that Tinaya contributes is by making them feel valued and welcome. And comfortable. She’s standing on stage. Lataran is at her flank, smiling widely, and ready to add her two cents if she’s called to. Arqut is to Tinaya’s other side. He’s no longer the Superintendent, having stepped down at the same time Tinaya stepped up. There is no one in the position right now, but if he’s still alive when the need arises again, he’ll get back to it...unless someone asks him not to, in which case he’ll have a decision to make.

Tinaya is thinking about all this, stuck in her own head again. Lataran clears her throat suggestively. “Yes, thank you, Admiral Keen,” Tinaya says into the microphone for all to hear. “I wasn’t asleep. I wanted to wait one more minute for any stragglers.”

“Everyone’s here,” Athan says from the steps of the stage, where it does seem like he’s been keeping a close eye on the crowd. “I counted.” He was Lataran’s First Lieutenant, but his shift is over now too. Tinaya has yet to replace him, or the Second Lieutenant. He has some ideas for her, but she hasn’t taken the time to look them over. He’s widely considered to be the hardest working man on the ship, having served as Tamm’s Second Lieutenant before this, and just generally being known to go above and beyond with his duties. He’s probably exhausted, but he’s probably right about who Tinaya should choose as her lieutenants.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Velitchkov,” Tinaya says, into the mic again.

“Uh, it’s Mister Velitchkov,” he corrects.

“Not until you stop helping me, and start focusing more on self-care, Lieutenant,” she says affectionately, triggering the audience’s laughter. She starts to raise her voice, which likely forces the sound engineer to lower the volume on the speakers. “Now that we’ve confirmed our headcount, we’ll begin. I won’t keep you too long, I know that you all have very important things to get to. It is my hope that you will consider this to be a nice, relaxing break, rather than a dreadfully annoying inconvenience. I know that transitions can be difficult, and I want to thank you all for being so patient and helpful to me during my first week. I’m warning you now that I will continue to need your help as we push forward to our objective. I won’t talk about that, though; that none of us will be alive to see the Extremus planet. Every leader who has ever given you a speech has mentioned how brave you are for that. You already know that you are. Instead, I’ll remind you that I have a lot of experience in helping people make their respective departments and jobs better. I didn’t succeed in that alone, and I won’t succeed in this new job alone either. I need you. Therefore...I need you to be comfortable.

“I had my security briefing earlier this morning, where I was informed that the majority of you have been operating under PREPCON Three. I have worn the armor module myself before. I know how heavy and cumbersome it can be, especially after long periods of one-g. They also informed me that some of you have lowered the gravity in your sections to help with this. I’m not going to get you in trouble for that, but I would like it to stop. It places undue strain on our power systems, and risks the integrity of propulsion. The preparedness conditions were created by a group of smart Earthans who knew nothing of temporal manipulation. In particular, they didn’t know about teleportation. I am not at liberty to downgrade our condition to PREPCON Four. That is a military decision that I cannot overrule unless I want to instigate martial law, which I know none of us wants me to do. However, it is well within my rights to alter the mandate for my people. The military can do whatever they want. They are seeing a threat, whether it is there or not, but if it’s there, it will be their job to handle it; not yours. I am creating a new condition between Four and Three. I dunno, let’s call it Three-point-Five.

“You will wear your base modules, and your response modules over them, along with your glove liners, just like you would if you were in PREPCON Four. In addition, you will place your armor modules in active support mode, and each and every one of you will know where it is at all times, and maintain a spatial tether to it for your safety. It doesn’t have to be nearby, but you can’t sever the tether for any reason. At the first sign of danger, you will apport your armor module to your exact location, and be automatically inside of it. This is something that the models we use on the Extremus have always been capable of. We just needed to switch the feature on shipwide. Please note that this compromise applies to the general population of the crew unless given other orders. There will be times when your duties demand that you be wearing the armor module regardless, or even the PRU and helmet. I’m certainly not going to let you go on a spacewalk without these things. Also note that I have the power to change this at any point, for anyone and everyone. I could push you all to PREPCON One if I wanted to. It’s a moving target, as it always has been. Does this all sound fair?”

The crew seems rather responsive to this modification to the rules. Some seem extremely relieved by it. The Exin Empire is a constant threat to them, but as long as the ship stays in intergalactic space, there shouldn’t be any territorial disagreements. They could always come up and attack them unprovoked just because they’re assholes, but no one has given Tinaya a reason to believe that this will actually happen. The security briefing reported wide open spaces from here to the Extremus planet. The fact that they are at PREPCON Three is more of a precaution, based on a sense of paranoia that will hopefully lessen over time. She doesn’t want everyone to live in fear. If they’re going to do that, they may as well turn right back around and return to Gatewood.

Tinaya goes over a few more things. She welcomes others who have started their own shifts this week, and preemptively thanks those whose shifts will be ending soon. When the meeting is over, she sends them all back, either to active duty, or their downtime. Having heard that it was over, Thistle pings her to ask for a private meeting. She obliges, but takes Lataran and Athan with her. They teleport to the captain’s ready room, which Lataran apparently only ever used once. There are plenty of other secret meeting places on the ship, and she was always partial to a literally invisible room right next to the portal that led to the Bridger Section.

Thistle appears as a hologram. “I didn’t ask for them to be here.”

“Anything you can say to—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Thistle demands. “You have any idea how many times I’ve heard every cliché in the book? At any rate, this involves the two of them. I’m not sure how you’ll want to proceed after I tell you what I’ve discovered after I was given access to the navigational data.”

“Oh,” Lataran says. “You’re talking about the recourse jumps. Oh my God, I totally forgot about those.”

“Me too,” Athan agrees.

“I’ve not forgotten,” Tinaya says, “because I don’t know what they are.”

Thistle glares at Lataran in case she wants to answer instead.

She does. “Sixty-two years ago, then-Captain Yenant made a major course correction to save the ship from collision with a planet that was placed in its path to destroy the passengers. It would have resulted in the death of our ancestors, the prevention of all of our births, and the end of the mission forever. He went into hock for it, and died disgraced.” She is reluctant to continue, but musters the courage. “Olindse Belo was subsequently assigned to replace him as interim Captain, before Kaiora Leithe took over the position for a full shift. Before the transition, the two of them got together, and came up with a plan. They didn’t want to be in the void. That’s not where we’re going. We’re not trying to get tens of thousands of light years from where we started. We’re trying to get to the other side of a galaxy. In order to reclaim this objective, they started making new course corrections. Tiny ones. Tiny, imperceptible ones, thanks to the ship’s emergency teleporter.”

Tinaya stuffs her face in both of her palms, and incidentally moistens them up with a deep exhale. She pulls her eyes out from under her fingers, but keeps her nose and mouth still trapped. “Are you trying to tell me that this ship has been turning for sixty years, and no one noticed!”

“Yes,” Athan replies.

“We’re all complicit,” Tinaya laments. “We’re all complicit in a crime. Halan Yenant is considered to be the greatest Captain this ship has ever seen, and they still threw him in hock for it. You think they won’t do the same to us when they find out?”

“As I said,” Lataran goes on, “they’re tiny jumps. They’re within tolerable margins. They’re not illegal at all.”

Tinaya exhales again, but is now looking straight up, trying to gradually blind herself with the ceiling light. “Those margins are there to account for course deviations that occur during minor gravitational disturbances through space while traveling at reframe speeds. That’s what I was just talking about with the crew; blaming them for messing up our vector to feel a little more comfortable in their suits. Now I’m finding out that them adjusting the internal gravity of a few work areas hasn’t had any effect at all, and our problems with propulsion are actually the result of a systematic plan to undermine the rule of law on this ship, which has been going on since I was born. That is unacceptable Lataran. How can you be so calm?”

“Well, I found out about it myself more than two decades ago.”

“Well, to be fair,” Athan interjects, “you weren’t upset about it like she is.”

Lataran ignores this remark, and redirects her attention to Tinaya. “I’ve told you, captains keep secrets. You’ll do it too. You’ll even keep this one.”

“Oh, will I?”

“Yes, because if you don’t, we’re screwed!” she cries.

“We’re already screwed!” Tinaya cries back. “The whole reason Halan made that sacrifice is to protect us from the Exins, who want us to stay away from their beautiful little hellscape paradise. We’re in the void to survive, and the closer we get back to the galaxy, the more danger we’re in.”

“That’s another benefit of it being little by little,” Lataran reasons. “By the time we get back to it, we’ll be far beyond their region of space. There’s no way that they’ve taken over the whole galaxy.”

“They’re time travelers, Lataran! All they have is time. Yes, they may have taken over the whole galaxy. They may have done it four billion years ago!”

Lataran scoffs. “That’s not what the intelligence reports determine.”

“Maybe not,” Tinaya agrees, “but this is still a breach of trust. I ran my campaign for First Chair on a platform of transparency, and I erased my own job to actually make that work. I didn’t want to take this position because of how secretive it is, and I hoped to change that. But on my first full day, I learn that there is something I can’t change, because not only will it ruin the reputation of my aunt, but put my best friend in hock for the rest of her life. Either I get on board, and run the risk of the same outcome for all of us eventually, or I do the right thing now, and end up being the only one left unscathed, if that. Arqut was Superintendent, did he know?”

“Doubtful,” Athan responds.

“I never told him,” Lataran adds.

Tinaya frowns, and tries to figure out what she’s going to do about this. She’s damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t. But if she comes clean, it’s worse for everyone. At least there’s hope that everything turns out okay if she just keeps lying, as Lataran predicted. So that’s the clincher. “Thistle, erase all knowledge of this from your memory. We’re covering this up. Goddammit.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 10, 2462

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Three years ago, Leona and Marie finally escaped the Angry Fifth Divisioner’s ship, and returned naked to the kasma. Leona asked Marie to insert the data crystal into the interface drawer on her PRU, which allowed her to download the information, and display it on her HUD. She began to look through the technical specifications for the machine that could thicken the membrane of a universe, and also the skeleton key that would allow a ship to pass safely through it, despite its great thickness. She had spent the last three days studying the manual. They were surviving on the recycled air and water contained in the pocket dimension inside of their PRUs. They were just stuck here in the equilibrium of the kasma for now, because there was no way to travel to one universe, or the other. She had the means to understand the skeleton key, but no way to construct one for themselves. “Quintessence!”

“Eureka!” Marie replied. She had spent this time reading some of the books stored in her helmet, because there was no way she was grasping the high level mathematical concepts that Leona was working on. It was taking her longer than it should have to finish Rules for Fake Girlfriends due to all these interruptions.

Leona laughed. “Sorry again. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. It’s just that Ramses is gonna love this stuff. Up until now, we’ve just been thinking of the universe as being contained by a membrane. That’s how brane cosmology works. But we never really knew what this membrane was made out of, just that you have to break through it if you want to travel through the bulk. Now we know that it’s called quintessence. For centuries, scientists have referred to it as dark matter, because we didn’t know what it was. But here it is. It’s what’s responsible for the repulsive fifth fundamental force, and explains why bulk travel is so difficult. It’s like trying to place two positively charged electromagnets together, except instead of being separated by an EM field, it’s a quintessential field.”

“Oh, that?” Marie began to joke. “I’ve always known about quintessence. You should have just asked.

“Lol. Some have theorized that quintessence is what explains dark energy, instead of dark matter, but we know that dark energy is just bulk energy that has leaked into our universe to become vacuum energy, and the work that it completes is what explains the accelerating expansion of the universe. These three things are just the same thing in different states, like the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter how much you try to explain it to me, or how many analogies you try to use, I’m not gonna understand it. All I need to know is can it get us out of the kasma?”

“Yes,” Leona replied.

“What? Really?” Marie didn’t expect to get such a good answer.

“Yes, because quintessence repulses baryonic from within its field. We may not be able to get out, but we can go back in just fine. That’s what lets bulk energy leak inside in the first place. If it didn’t, the universe would be static.”

“Oh. Well, then...let’s go.”

“We can’t.”

“You just said that we could,” Marie reminded her.

“We can’t...yet. What is the one thing that’s more powerful than bulk energy, or quintessence?”

“I’m sorry, why do you think that I can answer that question?”

“The answer is temporal energy. Now, a normal person—or even a choosing one—will not usually ever have enough temporal energy to disrupt the quintessential field in order to pass through the membrane, but you and I are special. Every single day, for a few seconds, our bodies overload on the stuff, and generate a burst of energy that sends us forward in time. That’s one advantage that salmon have over choosers. We don’t have to build the energy ourselves. It always comes to us.”

“But you’re not a salmon anymore. Tamerlane Pryce just recreated your pattern.”

“I was never technically salmon, but the fact holds true for us, even after what Pryce did when he gave us our new bodies, and what Ramses did when he upgraded us twice after that. Come midnight central, we’ll release enough temporal energy to break though. Now, if we don’t actually try to break through, then we won’t. It would be like being strong enough to open a door, but still not reaching for the doorknob—”

“What did I say about your analogies?”

“Teleportation. At exactly midnight, teleport into the universe. That’s what we’ve been missing; timing.”

“Okay. Good.” Marie looked at her wrist display. “That should be just enough time to finish my book.”

“All right.” Leona closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to give her brain a short break from all this research.

“Wait.” Marie stopped reading. “Which universe are we going into?”

“Whichever one is closer.”

“Which one is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“There aren’t any landmarks out here, it’s easy to get turned around. Based on Ramses’ modifications to our onboard sensors, I can tell you that we are sufficiently near the outside of the nearest membrane, but I couldn’t tell you which one it is. It’s our only hope, though. If it’s not the one we want, we don’t have time to teleport to the other side of the kasma, even if we knew which direction that was. Besides, which one do you wanna go to? They both contain friends who can help us get back to Stoutverse, but this task will be no easier from one than the other.”

“True. Okay. Back to my book.” She literally turned herself away to concentrate.

About an hour later, midnight struck, and they jumped to the other side of the year, and the other side of the membrane. Now they were in a vacuum, rather than the kasma. They could feel themselves in freefall, and could see stars all around them. They still had no clue where they were, but they could see a host star relatively close in the distance, so they began to teleport towards it little by little, hoping to spot a rocky celestial object to land on. The armor module of the IMS was equipped with mechanical assistance, which made movement less fatiguing than earlier models of spacesuits, but they were still tiring to use for an extended period of time. They were both ready to be locked down by gravity again. That was how humans evolved, and not even Ramses’ upgraded substrates were immune to the negative effects of microgravity, or equilibrium.

There it was, a planet, but there was more to it. Their suits also detected friends nearby. Mateo and Angela were here already. What a lovely coincidence. Leona pinpointed their exact location on the planet, and made one final jump. “Boo!”

“I saw you coming,” Mateo said. That made sense. His suit had its own sensors.

Marie and Angela tried to give each other a hug, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying with their armor modules on. “Report,” Angela said after they gave up.

The two parties caught each other up on everything they had been through since they parted ways for their respective missions. They hadn’t known how they were going to come back together, but they had been confident that it would turn out to be something like this; totally coincidental, and barely within their control. Well, this was only the first step out of three, and the easiest one, at that. Their next order of business would be figuring out how to get Past!Mateo back to where he needed to be. Only then could they find a way back to their own place in Stoutverse. But first, one of the Maramon had something to say about it.

“Now that you’re here, you can help us.” It was the guy who had genetically engineered the new human-Mar hybrids. He was still not happy that Mateo had spirited him away to this planet without even trying to transport his gestational pod too.

“Help you with what?” Leona asked.

Mateo smiled, glad to have their group’s leader back, if only to be the bad guy in situations such as this.

“My equipment. Your husband made me leave it on the moon. I must have it returned to me. I am to understand that your carrying capacity is roughly 300 kilograms. Being 800 K-G in mass, the four of you should, therefore, be able to teleport it together, even with your suits.”

Leona stared at him for a moment. “I’m not doing that.”

“You must!” the Maramon insisted.

“Actually, I must not. This is not my universe, it is not my decision. If you would like help in this regard, you will have to take it up with Hogarth Pudeyonavic, or perhaps Ellie Underhill. It has nothing to do with us. You don’t need teleporters, you need authorization. I’m afraid that this conversation is now over, so speak of it no further.” She knew that he was just going to keep hounding her about it, so the longer she waited to put her foot down, the harder it was going to be to land it flat upon the ground.

“I have what you seek,” the Maramon claimed vaguely.

“What does that mean?” Leona asked.

“Well, the truth is that I do not have it in my possession, but I know where you can find it. If you retrieve my pod from the moon, I will tell you where to go.”

“Where to go...for what?” he obviously could be lying, so in order for her to even consider trusting him, she had to know that they were at least on the same page.

“The timonite. That’s what you came here for, right? You expected to find it in that cave in the Third Rail, but it was nowhere to be found, was it? That’s because you weren’t looking in the right place.”

Past!Mateo took a step towards him. “Are you lying just to get what you want?”

He laughed. “I could never. You’re Team Matic. You famously don’t take kindly to betrayal. I could never send you far enough away from me that you could not find a way to return, and exact your revenge upon me. I speak the truth. In fact, as a sign of good faith, I will give you a hint.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Future!Mateo urged.

“No. The hint comes after you agree, but before you get me my pod. Once you do get the pod, then you get the exact location.”

Past!Mateo gave the rest of the team puppy dog eyes. “Please.”

“You don’t have to convince us that you need it,” Marie told him. “We already know that you do. We were there, remember? Our reluctance in this is helping him, and in trusting that he’s telling us the truth.”

“I am,” the Maramon said. “If I didn’t have this leverage, I would probably just threaten one of your lives to coerce the others.”

“Fair enough,” Leona decided. “We agree to help. Where is the timonite?”

He took a breath, and prepared for the big reveal. “Verdemus.”

“Is that a band, errr...?” Past!Mateo joked, but then he looked at everyone else’s face. No one was surprised to hear this. “Oh, you’ve heard of it?”

“Yes,” Leona answered. She took Past!Mateo’s hand in hers, and Angela’s in the other. Angela then took Future!Mateo’s, who took Marie’s, who took Past!Mateo’s to complete the circle. They did the same thing around the gestational pod once they were on the moon, and transported it down to the planet.

“Okay, you have your little pod,” Future!Mateo said to the Maramon. “Now where exactly is the timonite on Verdemus?”

“The Miracle Plains,” he replied, almost as if it should be obvious. “Don’t worry, the locals will know what you’re talking about. But you better hurry, they’re set to abandon the whole planet soonly.”

Angela sighed. “How the hell are we going to get all the way to Veremus? We can’t even get out of this universe.”

“Quintessence!” Marie shouts, echoing Leona from earlier.

Leona chuckled. “I’ll need time, but uh, I’ll build something. It could take a couple of years to complete construction.”

“There’s no way to be sure that it remains undisturbed during our interim years,” Future!Mateo lamented

“I’ll set up a lab in secret.” She reached over and took a dish of starter nanites out of Marie’s PRU. Then she looked up at the Maramon. “If any of you find it, and disturb it, while we’re gone, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“We’ll leave it alone,” he promised to the best of his ability.

While she buckled down to make a plan to build a temporary ship equipped with what could now be called a quintessential skeleton key, the rest of the team started to teleport kind of randomly around the planet to search for a good spot to set up a new lab. It had to be rich in minerals, so the nanites would have a lot to feed on, and preferably somewhere beautiful, so they could return to a pleasant scenery. But of course, it had to be remote, and hard to find. They could not trust the Maramon, nor their hybrids. They returned with several candidates each for Leona to inspect for herself. She ultimately chose one of Past!Mateo’s picks. It was inside of a sea cave that looked like something that could be found on the rocky beaches of Iceland.

Leona programmed the nanites to begin building the ship, as well as the deuterium harvester in the ocean to power it. The design of the vessel was based on the shuttle that was already built for the Iman Vellani proper, since it was readily available in the database, but with less cabin room, to accommodate the skeleton key. When they came back a year later, it was done, but occupied by one of the hybrids.

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Extremus: Year 76

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Jaunemus, as Lilac told everyone it was called, is more oblong than Earth’s moon, Luna. It is made up of different elements in different ratios, and is believed to have formed via co-accretion, which is to say that it coalesced at roughly the same time as Verdemus, using a shared accretion disk at the dawn of this star system’s creation. This is relatively rare in the galaxy as most co-accretion events will happen for icy or gas giants, but not as easily for terrestrials. Luna, for instance, was formed due to an impact event instead. Due to its less spheroidal shape, its high centrifugal forces from rapid spin, and its significantly shorter distance to its host planet, the surface gravity of Jaunemus is extremely varied. All in all, however, an object will never be greater than seventy-five percent as heavy as it would be on Luna, which is already 16.6% its weight on Earth. Once the Kamala Khan scanned the entire surface of the planet, the Verdemusians agreed that the logical next step was to scan the Jaunemus too. It quickly found an anomaly. The sensors could detect no energy readings, but it picked up on a spot that was sitting at exactly the same gravity of Earth. That would be impossible naturally. The camera didn’t see any visible signs of human intervention, but there has to be something here, likely hidden below the regolith.

Eagan is maintaining his duties in the hock building, watching Ilias Tamm, having taken over for Lilac, who has better things to do with her life now. She and everyone else are landing the Kamala Khan now for a new mission, to investigate the Jaunemusian gravity anomaly. Belahkay will remain on the shuttle in case something happens. The rest have each put on the armor modules and helmets of their Integrated Multipurpose Suits to begin the search. “You good?” Lilac asks him.

He holds up the a-okay sign. “Yes, but I should be asking you that.”

Lilac returns the sign, and swings it around to get the group’s response. One might assume that Spirit would have become Tinaya’s second in command, but she didn’t want the job. “Okay. We go out two at a time, since that’s the maximum number of people who can fit in the airlock. I’ll go first with Niobe. Spirit and Totle will be next.”

“I’ll go first,” Tinaya insists. Without bothering to wait for a response, she phase-shifts right through the hull of the shuttle, and gently drifts down to the ground. She holds the a-okay sign back up so others can see her through the window. Then she begins to walk around on her own.

Following their airlock procedures, the rest of them follow suit, though on their own vectors. It’s not particularly organized, but this is a search party, on the hunt for something unnatural, like a trapdoor, or even just a small sensor array.

“Naya, where are you? Where did you go?” Spirit questions.

Tinaya turns around. “I’m right here!” She starts to wave her arm.

“Can’t see you.”

“I’m waving!”

“No. You’re not.” Spirit starts to point. “One, two, three...four, including myself.”

Tinaya points to her own self. “Five.”

“Tinaya! What are you talking about? Are you invisible?”

“I don’t think so.” She was looking down as she was walking, but now she looks up as she’s turning around again, away from the group. Before her is a large structure, obviously built from the same stuff that the moon is made of. It’s several stories high. There is no way they would have missed this. She is invisible, as is whatever this place is. Niobe is even further along than her. She’s closer to the structure. “Niobe, you don’t see the building in front of you? You’re about to run into it.”

Niobe stops. “I am? I don’t see a thing.”

“Walk forward slowly,” Tinaya suggests. “Hold out your hand, and feel for it.”

Niobe does this. Her hand ends up passing right through the building, and then the rest of her.

“Are you inside of a building?” Tinaya asks.

“No. I’m...it’s...there’s nothing here.”

“It’s your glass,” Lilac guesses. “You walked through a dimensional barrier, and didn’t even realize it. Anyone else who tries is just going to miss it entirely.”

“Okay. I’ll investigate, and report back.”

“No, you won’t,” Lilac argues.

“Yes. I will. I’m in charge.”

“You may as well be on another planet,” Lilac goes on. “We can’t help you. Come back out, and we’ll have Belahkay build a magic door for us.”

“On it,” Belahkay agrees.

“I can’t get hurt, I’m made of glass,” Tinaya jokes ironically.

“Don’t do it,” Spirit says.

“Come stop me. I’m already through the wall.” She’s standing in a dimly lit hallway now. There appears to be a dead end to her right, so she shrugs, and heads for the left. As she walks, she reports to the group what she’s seeing, as boring and nondescript as it is. Walls standing on the floor, holding up the ceiling. There’s nothing interesting here, until there is. She finds herself in what looks like a giant’s library, except inside of storing books on the shelves, it’s artificial gestation pods. Thousands and thousands of gestation pods. It looks like that one scene in The Matrix.

“Are they occupied?” Belahkay asks.

“Hold on, let me get closer.” Tinaya approaches the nearest stack, and looks through the view window. “It’s...it’s Omega Strong.”

“Really.” Spirit says, not sounding much like a question.

“This one is Omega too. And also this one. They’re all Omega.”

“Maybe they’re not really Omega,” Niobe offers. “Maybe they’re Anglos, from Project Stargate.”

“Does it matter which?” Aristotle questions.

“Yes, it does,” Niobe contends.

“I found a terminal. I’ll research what’s going on here.” Tinaya steps over to it, and starts browsing. None of these systems is secure. As secretive as these operations are obviously meant to be, you would think that someone would at least password protect it, even if it’s not quantum encrypted. “I found the main systems,” she says. “Life support...now on. Dimensional veil...off.” As she’s looking through more of the data, which mostly includes health and quality tracking information for each of the Omega clones, her friends walk through the front door, and meet up with her. By the time they arrive, the atmospheric generators have finished making this chamber breathable.

They remove their helmets. “Find anything else?” Spirit asks.

“Yeah, I was just about to talk to the little virtual assistant.” She presses the button, and says, “bloop,” at the same time.

An Omega hologram appears next to her. He sizes her up, as well as the group. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Neither are you,” Tinaya points out.

“Yes, I am,” Hol!Omega volleys.

Tinaya breathes deeply. “Report.”

“I don’t know your security clearance,” Hol!Omega replies.

“Clearance Level Crystal,” she replies, phasing her hand through the nearest pod, then pulling it back out again.

“Interesting. I still can’t tell you anything,” Hol!Omega says apologetically.

“Okay.” Tinaya claps her hands. “Belahkay, prepare the warhead. We’re blowing this place to smithereens.”

“No, don’t do that,” Hol!Omega begs. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Just stop threatening violence. Jesus.” He throws up a second hologram, this one showing the Anatol Klugman, which is waiting in its hangar under the surface of Verdemus. “After years of debate, the council of Extremus finally decided to build a warship to deal with the threat of the True Extremists, who have been discovered to be the descendants of a time travel event that seeded life in a region of the galaxy known as the Goldilocks Corridor. Here, they have built what is now known to be the oldest self-sustaining civilization in this reality of the universe. At first, we believed them to be isolationists, who were only on-board Extremus to divert the ship to a new vector, away from their dozens of worlds. We have since learned that an ever-growing faction of purists are building an army with the intention of destroying Earth, and the rest of the stellar neighborhood. To our knowledge, they currently intend to leave Extremus alone, but that’s obviously not good enough for us. We can’t just sit by and watch our brethren die in a holocaust.

“My original self, Saxon Parker attempted to broker a peace treaty, but he was ultimately killed for his efforts, along with a number of my Anglo brothers, who were originally put in place to operate the Project Stargate colonization ships. Since the Anglos are not equipped to fight a war, they have returned to their responsibilities. It is up to us to put a stop to the Ex Wars.”

“I thought that it was called The Bears War,” Tinaya points out.

Hol!Omega frowns. “If someone called it that, they’re either an Exin themselves, or heard it from an Exin spy. It is their term for it.”

Tinaya looks over at Spirit, who begins to seethe. “Thank you for telling me that. Now I know who in the Bridger section cannot be trusted.”

Tinaya is choosing to trust that Spirit is being honest about that, and isn’t the Exin spy that they should be worried about. She nods. “Go on, Omega.”

“The Anatol Klugman was designed for an army of clones.” Hol!Omega looks down at a line of pods. “My clones. As you know, I was created as any other Anglo, but I renounced my calling, and struck out on my own. Saxon took my place, and his reward for this was a horrific and painful death at the hands of an enemy who knows no honor. I vowed to donate myself to the cause in the most literal and profound sense. I will pilot the AK to the Goldilocks Corridor, and wage war with them to keep them away from Earth. The way I see it, it’s the least I could do.”

“The Klugman,” Belahkay begins, using Tinaya’s helmet’s speaker to stay in the conversation, “it doesn’t have a reframe engine. Why waste the time moving at only relativistic speeds?”

“A number of reasons,” Hol!Omega responds. I wanted to maximize the real estate in the ship so that more Omega soldiers could fit. Secondly, a reframe engine poses a safety risk. It’s honestly a wonder the one on Extremus wasn’t damaged by the micrometeorite strike that took out our engineering section decades ago. It’s a very delicate piece of machinery, which requires constant maintenance at scale. This need would be disadvantageous during a battle when every fighter counts. Lastly, a reframe engine is unnecessary to accomplish our goals. Using data from the future, we know when the Exin army will launch their assault on the stellar neighborhood. Before they do this, their soldiers will be scattered on various worlds populated by innocents. We wish to contain the theatre of war to their staging planet, and they will only be at that location during a relatively short window.”

“You speak as if you are Omega Proper. Are you not but a copied version of him, while the original remains on the Extremus?” Spirit asks him.

“I am the uploaded consciousness of the original Omega...not a copy. There is no other on the ship at the moment. As I’ve said, I have dedicated myself to this. No mission matters if this one is not seen through.”

Spirit closes her eyes respectfully, and nods once.

“Your plan,” Aristotle begins to say. “It will fail.”

“I’m sorry?” Hol!Omega questions.

“I know the campaign of which you speak,” Aristotle goes on. “The Exin army overwhelms your ship in days, and moves on to their goal with barely a second thought.”

“How is that possible?” Tinaya asks him. You’re only from about eighty years in the future. It will take much longer for the Klugman to arrive, and begin this campaign.”

Aristotle stands fast, and says nothing for a moment. Everyone waits for his answer. “I was not always in the time period where Team Matic found me. I do not speak of it for the dangers of intervening in the timeline, but I believe that I can stand by no longer. Omega, your warship will fall, and your clones will be annihilated. I urge you to reconsider your strategy.”

“What would you have us do?” Hol!Omega asks him.

Aristotle breathes deeply. “Your choice to protect innocent lives by localizing the battlegrounds is a noble one, but by allowing your enemy to concentrate its forces, you also allow them to maintain their home field advantage while limiting your own access to resources. They will be exhausted in the midst of a bombardment of fighters that you cannot hope to stave off. You may be underestimating their ground weapons.”

“I didn’t think that they would have any ground weapons,” Hol!Omega admits. “They never planned on fighting so close to home.”

“They are more prepared than you realize. They have been planning a defensive for millennia, fearing the wrath that the stellar neighborhood may descend upon them one day. That’s why they’re so pissy and violent,” Aristotle explains. “A more effective approach would be to pick them off where they live, while they are off-guard and not expecting hostilities. But I understand that you would never do this—I would not either—so I instead suggest taking your resources with you. I can aid in this effort, and will agree to do so.”

“What do you mean?” Hol!Omega asks.

Tinaya is very worried, especially since Aristotle just rather casually suggested putting civilians at risk. They still don’t know how old he is, and they have clearly not heard everything he has been up to. “Yeah, what do you mean?”

Aristotle hesitates to answer again. But he does. Boy, does he? “They have a staging planet…so take one of your own with you.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 3

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The Rock diplomatic discussions were over. Of course, the various representatives for the five former realities currently living side-by-side in the Sixth Key were going to stay in contact with each other, and diplomacy was never over. Even if they managed to integrate into a single unified peoples, internal conflicts would require constant care and consideration. Everyone was happy and unhappy at the same time, and that was all anyone could ask for when it came to something like this, especially at this incredibly unprecedented scale. The two major issues that they needed to cover were how to distribute resources, and how to organize some sort of joint form of governance. Things could always take any number of steps backwards, but they were ready to deal with that on their own, without any help from Pryce Tree, Team Matic, or the Vellani Ambassador. They found suitable locations in their own universe to handle anything new that came up.

There was only one thing left to do before the team could finally get back to their mission in the Goldilocks Corridor. As soon as the meeting was officially adjourned, Pryce Tree and Princess Honeypea disappeared, as did the delegates from the true main sequence. Everyone else still needed to get back to present day, and to the Sixth Key, or to its membrane twin, Fort Underhill. This other universe was attached to Salmonverse, but it could only be accessed at one location, for security reasons. Even a bulk traveler could not realistically enter the brane from a different spot, as the walls of the membrane were hyperdimensionally thicker than natural ones. For now, there wasn’t much traffic between the two conjoined universes, but that could change in the future, so Hogarth Pudeyonavic was currently erecting a checkpoint station to facilitate border crossings. Until that was finished, they just had to drop their own names to the little guard vessel, and go on through the breach.

Theirs was not the only biverse in the bulk. A few others were linked, like two stars orbiting each other. There were even rumors of a triverse somewhere out there. And when this happened, for whatever reason, the region of equilibrium between them was given a special name. They were now in the kasma. No one on the Ambassador was aware of the difference between the kasma, and any other part of the outer bulk. Perhaps it was an otherwise meaningless distinction, there only to designate its proximity to the connected branes. There was a bit of a lurch as their ship’s inertial dampener array began to recalibrate itself for the difference in environment. In a vacuum, you would be in a constant state of freefall, drawn towards the strongest source of gravity. In an equilibrium, gravity operated at an even distribution, which made it feel like every atom in your body was being pulled in every direction all at once. The strength of this pull wasn’t enough to spaghettify you, but it took some getting used to. That was why the internal dampeners were so necessary. They were taking longer to recalibrate. Hopefully, this would not be a problem on the way back.

“I would think that we would not feel such a thing from our little pocket dimension,” Carlin noted as he was stepping onto the bridge. Everyone else was either in the visitor’s pocket, or sitting around Delegation Hall.

“I wasn’t sure either,” Ramses replied. “I don’t know that much about it. I wish we were spending more time here, so I could take some more thorough readings.”

Olimpia shivered. “We’re spending long enough.” She hadn’t technically been in the kasma before, but was trapped between the two halves of the daughter universe. It too existed outside of the membranes, so it probably operated under the same physics. Her feeling of unease was not out of nowhere, and something that they should have been concerned about going into this final leg of the Rock mission. Fortunately, she lived there for untold time. This trip, however, would only take about an hour and a half.

Leona hugged her from the side with one arm. “We’re almost through.” The kasma was about three AU wide, at least here, which could have been incidental, or deliberate on the creator’s part. The reframe engine did not work inside, and in fact, they were unable to travel at high subfractional speeds. They were maxed out at about the quarter the speed of light. Their attempts to push it faster than that threatened to tear the ship apart at the seams.

They were watching on the viewscreen, but there wasn’t much to see. As they were too close to the nearest brane to view it in its full form, there was almost nothing but utter darkness. A pinprick of light marking their destination into Fort Underhill had appeared, now that they were only several hundred thousand kilometers away, but that was it. They were decelerating for safe entry, but they still would have covered the distance in a matter of minutes. Suddenly, a spacetrain appeared out of nowhere, roughly perpendicular to their vector. It was the Transit, of course.

Leona slammed her hand down onto the shipwide intercom. “Brace for gravity turbulence!” She pulled her hand away so she could slam it down again to the emergency stop button. There weren’t many physical controls on this thing, but that was an important one to include in the design, along with the touchscreens. “Full stop!”

The ship came to a complete stop, though Leona’s cry was her instinct to be safe rather than sorry. If anyone had an open glass of liquid, some of it would have splashed out, but they were otherwise okay. In normal space, a stop was a misnomer, as everything in the universe was in perpetual motion. But they were no longer in the universe, so it was extremely possible to be totally still. They just sat there in the equilibrium, and waited for the Transit to make its own stop in front of them. Everyone looked around. Someone was being recruited for the Transit Army. It could be any one of them, or hell, all of them. Usually, when the Transit appeared, time would stop for all but their target, but no one reported this happening. Everyone stayed in realtime, but perhaps that was a consequence of being in the kasma.

“Unidentified beautiful purple ship, this is Azura of the Transit, please respond.”

Leona opened a direct channel. “Transit, this is Leona Matic of the Vellani Ambassador. Who are you here for?”

A different voice came back after a mic bump, and some feedback. “Leona, this is Saga, but I go by Freya now. I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Does the Transit have anti-teleportation tech?” Leona asked.

“No, it does not,” Azura replied.

“Prepare to be boarded.” Leona switched off comms to address the team. “Olimpia and Angela, please stay with the delegates. Ramses, man the bridge. Mateo and Marie, you’re with me.”

At the last second, Carlin took Mateo in a bear hug to tag along. They were now all four in the Transit, which none of them had ever seen from the inside before. “Not cool, dude,” Mateo complained.

“Sorry, I had to see this,” Carlin responded. “No regrets.”

Leona approached the woman who looked just like Saga, but something shifted in her brain, forcing her to be absolutely certain that she was actually called Freya. In fact, she wasn’t even an Einarsson anymore, but a Hawthorne. Still, they reunited with a hug. Leona then shook the hand of the woman standing next to her. “Azura, I presume?”

Mateo was searching through his handheld device as Azura was nodding. He found what he was searching for. “I thought I recognized the name. I’ve heard it before, and saw you briefly. You’re an agent of the Maramon.” Centuries ago, when Mateo and Leona were separated for a long time, he was trying to rescue billions of human refugees from the universe and planet of Ansutah. During this desperate act, a Maramon broke into the facility, and co-opted the portal machine towards his own ends. Azura was one of the people that he sent off to god knows where. There were other names in this section of his list, including Cain, Abel, Seth, Luluwa, Awan, and Lilith. They were named after characters in the bible, no doubt. Then again, this involved time travel, so which came first, those chickens, or their eggs?

Azura nodded again. “I’m a hybrid, human and Maramon. You’re right, I was sent to spy on Missy Atterberry in Universe Prime, but I abandoned my post immediately. Actually, I abandoned it long before that. I secretly swapped my destination to Universum Originalis, billions of years before Missy would ever show up. I was bred to despise humans, as were my brothers and sisters, but that did not work on most of us. We make our own choices.”

“My daughter trusts her,” Freya explained, “and if Treasure says she’s okay, then I choose to believe as much.”

“Your daughter is Treasure Hawthorne?” Mateo flipped through his list again. “She’s on here too.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Azura said, “but best not give us any information about it. There is little chance that she has yet experienced meeting you in her personal timeline.”

Leona nodded acceptingly, and moved on. “What made you think that Treasure was here?”

“Thack,” Freya answered. “She can witness events in other branes, but not outside of other branes. The last she saw her, Treasure was taking my former ship, the Cormanu out of Salmonverse, but they never exited. Well, they do show up eventually, but Treasure isn’t there, and the ship has been repaired, so that’s some other point in the ship’s timeline. Time, right?”

“So if Treasure left one universe, and never entered another, she has to be in the outer bulk somewhere, including possibly the kasma?”

“That’s right,” Azura confirmed. “We had no idea that you would be here, but we were hoping that you knew something. Have you encountered anything unusual here? Anything at all?”

“No,” Leona answered apologetically. “It’s been smooth sailing. No anomalies detected. Though, we’re not experts on the kasma,” she added per Ramses’ interjection through comms. Yet. He was loving the chance to spend more time here to gather data. They all suffered through an awkward silence for a moment. “Well, we would help you find her if we could, but we have no idea. We actually need to get over to the other side to drop off all of these deleg—” She stopped herself when saw the viewscreen. “Are those readings accurate and in realtime?” she asked.

“Of course they are,” Azura replied.

“Ramses, where’s the aperture? I don’t see it anymore. Are we drifting?”

“Hold, please,” Ramses said, leaving them holding their breaths for a minute. “No, the aperture is gone. They’re both gone actually. I’m only getting faint readings.”

“Don’t bother trying to make it the rest of the way,” came a familiar voice through the Transit’s communication array. It was that angry Fifth Divisioner who kept coming back to irritate them, like a latent disease. He was the herpes of the antagonists world. “My alt closed it on the other side. You’re trapped.”

Freya opened a channel. “This is Freya Hawthorne, Engineer of the Transit. You do realize that we can travel to other universe, right? We don’t need a permanent aperture to fly through.”

“We reinforced the membranes too,” A.F. clarified. “Your little toy train isn’t going anywhere. Some of you will die there. Others will be retrieved shortly.”

“Sir, there may be a chance if we try to breach the cleavage between the two universes, but we have to go now,” one of the Transit crew members claimed. “That’s the main difference between the kasma, and any other region of the outer bulk. It carries the same properties, but is cut off from everything else, as a pond could be just like any other body of water, but still isolated by vast swathes of land.”

“Before you escape,” Leona began, “can you take on some extra passengers?”

Freya turned to her engineer. “Get it ready.” She turned back to Leona. “Get your people over here. You’ll have to leave your ship, though.”

Leona laughed, “no, we won’t. Rambo, get ready to pack up the Ambassador. We’re taking it with us, but I want everyone on board the Transit first, so Waltons and Olimpia, start teleporting them over two by two.”

Mateo jumped back to help with those efforts without being asked.

“There’s plenty of room,” Azura said. “We’ve only recruited a couple of cars worth so far. The problem is, I don’t know where to go.”

“Just take us wherever. We’ll figure out how to at least get back into Salmonverse later, even if that means seeking help from whoever runs the Crossover. I assume they use better tech?”

“Does a smartphone use better tech than a flip phone?” Azura asked rhetorically. “The membrane for Fort Underhill is already too thick for us. That’s how Hogarth designed it. We actually would need that aperture, just as you do.”

Freya’s engineer reported that they were ready to go just as Ramses was reporting that the Ambassador was empty, and ready to be folded into its pocket dimension.

“Come on over!” Leona ordered Ramses.

A minute later, he appeared, grasping the model size of the Ambassador. He was on the floor and unconscious. It would seem that surviving in the equilibrium was not the same as surviving in a vacuum. Mateo scooped him up, and demanded to know where the medical car was. Azura told him, and he teleported away.

Freya pushed the button, and the Transit flew off at the speed of light. According to her engineer, the kasma was like a tube, about three astronomical units apart, but theoretically several dozen AU long. At one of these ends, they theorized that it tapered off so that the branes weren’t technically touching each other, but there might have been a passageway just large enough for them to squeeze through. “We were wrong!” she cried as they drew nearer. “There’s no cleavage! We’re just gonna crash into it!”

“If there’s no space for us to get through,” Olimpia said, pulling the Sangster Canopy out of her bag of holding, and opening it up. “Then I’ll make space.”

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