Microstory 1930: Rights of the Accused

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Junior Special Investigator: Leonard Miazga?

Leonard: Yes, that’s me. Do you work at the Office of Special Investigations?

Jr. Investigator: That’s not for you to know. All you need to know is that you are under arrest under special extenuating circumstances. Under the Alsten Act, according to Provision 83 of Special Investigations Code One, I hereby detain you for the defense of national security. You are not entitled to representation, and must comply with all demands, and answer all questions. All crimes committed prior to this moment, including those seemingly unrelated to the current accusations, as well as any crimes committed following this moment, shall be taken under consideration when considering judgment, punishment, or any other outcome of your circumstances. Do you understand everything I’ve informed you of today?

Leonard: Not really.

Jr. Investigator: Sir.

Leonard: What’s the Alsten Act?

Jr. Investigator: Sir, please.

Leonard: Please tell me that you recited those words verbatim, and that you didn’t try to regurgitate it using your own words.

Jr. Investigator: We are required to recite your status and rights in the eyes of federal law in order to detain you properly, using the exact same words as they are written and approved by the Office of the National Commander.

Leonard: So when I say that the words were repetitive, nonsensical, and just overall ridiculous, you won’t take personal offense?

Jr. Investigator: No, sir.

Leonard: Are you required to address me as sir?

Jr. Investigator: No.

Leonard: Then just call me Leonard, or Leo.

Jr. Investigator: Sir...Leo, I require you to state in no uncertain terms that you understand your rights as I have listed them for you.

Leonard: You mean the rights that have been stripped from me? Yeah, I guess so.

Jr. Investigator: [...]

Leonard: I mean, yes, I unequivocally understand them perfectly, fully, and perfectly.

Jr. Investigator: I’m going to have to place these handcuffs on you, but you may retrieve a coat, and drape it over your arms to remain inconspicuous.

Leonard: I don’t have a coat. It was summer on my world when I came here, and it’s summer now. I don’t exactly have a credit card to recreate my wardrobe. Besides, I’ve seen that before as a bystander, and let me tell ya, the coat trick ain’t foolin’ no one.

Jr. Investigator: Very well, sir—Leonard. I’ll leave the cuffs rather loose, as long as you promise not to make any attempt at escape.

Leonard: I promise to not try to escape. I’ll get this all sorted out at OSI.

Jr. Investigator: Uh...one more thing.

Leonard: Yes?

Jr. Investigator: Once we get into the car, you’re gonna have to wear a hood.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 232,398

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It’s the Year of our Danica 172,398. That’s what Tamerlane always likes to call it. Bhulan went back in time to destroy the hundemarke, the Omega Gyroscope, and the Insulator of Life. She had a purpose. She always has purpose. She gets an objective in her head, and she can’t let go of it until she reaches it. Danica is under an immense amount of pressure. Even before any other guests arrived, she was worried about screwing up her job. That can consume her. They’re both so stressed. He was there to lighten the mood, and despite his own past—and all the very questionable things that his alternate selves did—they were glad he was on their side. Team Triple Threat, he called them jokingly. It had a nice ring to it. They only abandoned it entirely because Team Quadruple Threat didn’t have the same ring to it when Asier showed up.

“Why are you doing this?” Bhulan questions. “I mean, I know why, you’ve just told me, but what do you think it’s going to accomplish, in the long run? Do you not trust me to be a good possessor of the Gyroscope?”

“I do not. I trust no one with that power. Believe me I more than anyone know what power does to someone. It destroys you. It turns you into something you never wanted to be. I never wanted that for any of you.”

“This isn’t the way.”

He chuckles.

“You think what I said was funny?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I was laughing at myself. I was going to respond that you’ll thank me one day, but I know better. I know that this is going to ruin my relationships with you two. I’ve decided that I have to be okay with that. For the greater good. So instead I’ll just see your claim that this isn’t the way, and raise you a yes, it is.” He leads her into the time machine, and programs her cuffs to proximate the time chamber.

She doesn’t even try to leave, she knows how much it will hurt to break that proximity barrier. But she does take one step towards him for emphasis. “Please, don’t.”

“It’ll be fine,” he promises. “You won’t feel a thing, and barely any time will pass.”

“Danica will come for me. There is no way you get 50,000 years before she finds a way. She’ll trace my point in time, and retrieve me.”

Tamerlane chuckles again. “I’m sorry, but you two don’t understand this place like I do. For instance, this is not a time machine, at least not in the sense that you’re used to hearing. It’s a transtemporal relocator.”

“That just sounds like a fancy way of saying time machine.”

“To you. But to me, I see so much more. Enjoy your trip.” He flips the switch.

Bhulan feels herself being pulled away from her initial moment in time, but she doesn’t just jump to the future, or the past. She keeps moving. It’s more like she’s sliding along the timestream, just outside of it, and never landing. She can see all of time and space from here, but not like Lincoln Rutherford can, or Danica will one day, or even as herself. It’s a garbled mess of distant images that don’t look like anything at all. She’s gaining no insight into the timeline, and she can’t control what she sees, or where she goes. She’s just along for the ride. Then suddenly, something becomes clear. Amidst all the vague light and shapes, an image forms. With it comes familiarity. Thousands of people are witnessing something. It’s the Colosseum, and this is the day that Mateo Matic defeats Zeferino Preston, a.k.a. The Cleanser, and most powerful man in the universe. This is an important moment, but it’s not something that Bhulan has ever personally cared about. The scene comes closer and closer, faster and faster, until she’s right in the middle of it all, and collides with something.

She stops. Everything stops, and all she sees is darkness, plus the faceless silhouette of another person a few meters from her. They ran into each other, and have ended up here in this void. Can she even speak? “Hey, are you okay?” Apparently so.

“I’m all right,” the other person replies. The silhouette moves a little, then starts to stand up. It’s still too dark to see who it is.

“Bhulan Cargill.”

“I know who you are,” she says.

“Do you know where we are?”

The figure looks all around at the nothingness. “A psychic bridge...a very boring one, at that. You don’t have a very creative mind, do you?”

“Who are you? I’ve never heard of a psychic bridge, and I’ve been around the block.”

She giggles. “Which block?”

“What is your name, please?”

“Some call me Frida, but I don’t think I like that anymore. A few know me as Aquila Bellamy, but I’m still not used to that either. Most just think of me as—”

“The Mass,” Bhulan realizes. The Artist, Athanaric Fury once lived in the Gallery Dimension, where he and hundreds others helped protect the timeline from time travelers. They didn’t stop them from traveling, but if any of their actions caused damage to their arbitrary idea of what the timeline should be, they corrected it. One day, they all went on strike, and quit. Due to the nature of the dimension, it was impossible to return them to work, so Athanaric used his powers to build the Preston children to compensate. They too failed eventually, and he decided to entrust all that power into a single individual, which he called The Mass. Zeferino Preston stole the body before it could be activated, and in the scuffle, Aquila found herself forced into the responsibility of protecting that timeline instead. Funny enough, she’s Mateo’s half sister.

“Yeah,” Aquila says after Bhulan’s summary. “That’s me, that’s what happened.”

“What is the purpose of this...bridge thing, Aquila?”

“I died, and my consciousness was on its way to wherever we go after we die. Not even I know that, but it would appear that you intercepted the signal, and now we’re sharing a body. This place is like the lobby of your mind. Theoretically, you have a choice to make. You can either let me stay, or force me out.”

“That would be a dick move.”

Aquila shrugs. “You’re the boss, it’s your body.”

No, she’s not going to do that. They won’t need to share for long. When she figures out how to get them back to the Third Rail, Aquila can be transferred to Tamerlane’s body, and it doesn’t really matter what happens to his consciousness. Not anymore. He’s lost the right to autonomy. As she’s preparing to say yes, she feels the energy build up again. This is just a pitstop, and she’s about to be sent back down the timestream.

“You better choose fast, or fate might choose for you, and you could be stuck with me until we find a replacement, if that’s even a viable option where you’re going.”

“You can stay,” Bhulan says quickly, and just in time. The river of time grabs hold of them both, and pulls them away. Even though there’s no up or down in this dimension, or whatever, she gets the sense that they’re going in the opposite direction now. Perhaps she’s on her way back, 50,000 years too late, no doubt. Tamerlane is going to get what he wants, and due to their moratorium on time travel, there’s nothing that she and Danica can do to reverse the damage. This will have to become the Sacred Timeline; the world according to Tamerlane Pryce. Something has to be done about that, but it can wait.

The ride ends, and she finds herself back in the machine. Nice place, Aquila notes, not saying anything out loud.

“Let me do the talking,” Bhulan whispers to her.

I was going to, she whispers back.

“I just mean, I don’t know if we should tell people about you yet.”

Okay.

“Constance, report.”

“Day 216 of Year 232,398.” Sixty-thousand years, okay.

“Please list all current residents of the Constant.”

“Danica Matic, Bhulan Cargill, Tamerlane Pryce, Asier Mendoza, Mateo Matic, Abigail Siskin, Cheyenne [last name unknown], Curtis Duvall, and Aquila Bellamy,” Constance answers.

“What the hell, you can tell that Aquila is in my head?’

“Affirmative.”

Do I still have to let you do the talking? Aquila asks.

Bhulan sighs. “Is anyone awake?”

“Everyone but Tamerlane.”

“Please wake him up. Convene a meeting in the master sitting room. Don’t tell anyone why.”

“Understood.” Bhulan has always had the better relationship with the AI, even though Danica is technically meant to be in charge around here.

While the group is gathering, Bhulan heads for the nearest bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. She feels physically dirty after having gone through all that, but she looks exactly as she did before. She doesn’t need a shower, or anything. She just needs to go out there and not waste time.

You’ll do great, Aquila encourages.

“Thanks.” Bhulan leaves the room and heads to the main area. She can hear the people talking to each other as she approaches the door. None of them knows who called this meeting or why. It’s not that she wants to make a grand entrance, but she wants to go over what happened, and what Tamerlane did, and she only wants to have to do it once. It’s best if they’re all here together. She clears her throat quietly, and walks inside.

Danica smiles at her sadly. She stands, and gives her a hug. “Glad you’re back.”

Bhulan hugs Asier as well, but none of the others, because she doesn’t know most of them, except by reputation, and she doesn’t have that kind of relationship with Mateo. She walks over to Tamerlane, sitting in the corner. He looks upset, but not guilty. He’s gone through some stuff too, she can tell. He kind of looks like he’s been tortured.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I hope you know that.”

She breathes deep, and opens her arms. “I forgive you.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 222,398

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Danica prepares herself, and opens the hatch to let Mateo out. He looks at her, then glances over to Curtis and Cheyenne. “I have a job for you,” she tells him. She hands him a tactical bag with the clothes and other gear that he may need. “Get dressed and meet us in the time machine room.”

“I don’t know where the new time machine room is,” Mateo says.

“I put it back where it was,” Danica replies. She takes Curtis’ left arm while Cheyenne takes his right. They all three teleport away.

Five minutes later, Mateo shows up, ready to go. “What’s the play?”

“After exhausting all other possibilities,” Danica begins, “I have decided to authorize a mission to the future to retrieve Bhulan Cargill.”

“Did Pryce tell you the exact date?”

“He did not,” Danica says, “but I was able to figure out how to trace it. He sent an object of roughly Bhulan’s mass to the temporal coordinates that I have already input in the machine for your mission. All you have to do is get her back into the chamber, and bring her home. If, for some reason, you cannot return to the future version of the machine, I’ve programmed it to slingshot you back after half an hour. As long as one of you is holding onto her, she’ll be pulled back with you.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Mateo questions.

“We’ve been planning this for three years, accounting for every possible obstacle, and coming up with every contingency. Curtis knows what to do. Follow his lead.”

“Okay, but she can’t go,” Mateo says, pointing to Cheyenne.

“Why the hell not?” Cheyenne and Danica question simultaneously.

“It’s no secret that I already knew Cheyenne when we first met,” Mateo says. “Just trust me that she is better off not being involved in this. I’m not saying she’s not capable, just that she ought to stay out of it.”

Curtis is ticked off, but he gets it.

Cheyenne is confused, but doesn’t feel comfortable advocating for herself, or maybe she just didn’t want to go anyway.

Danica has no choice but to trust Mateo’s words, and hope he’s not lying. Cheyenne volunteered for this job, but it only demands two people. Well, it really only needs one person, but Mateo is being sent to teach him a lesson, so he knows who’s boss, and obviously he can’t go alone, or he might just go off mission. “All right, Chey, sorry, you’re benched.”

“That’s totally fine.”

Yeah, Danica doesn’t think she was ever interested in this. It’s possible Mateo picked up on this as well, and that’s his entire reasoning. That’s the kind of thing he would do, if given the data. She really does need to cut him some slack. Until this, he hadn’t truly done anything wrong intentionally, and even this wasn’t an unreasonable choice. Besides, he didn’t technically do anything but teleport an empty stasis pod to the middle of outer space. Tamerlane is at fault here. He’s responsible for everything. “All right. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll pull the switch.”

Mateo and Curtis step into the chamber. “Go ahead,” Mateo says.

Danica pulls the switch, and they disappear. Ten seconds later, they return. “Report,” she orders as they’re stepping out, sans Bhulan.

“She wasn’t there,” Mateo answers.

Danica looks for confirmation from Curtis.

“She wasn’t there,” he concurs. “You’re the one who—”

“Don’t tell me anything about what I may or may not have done in the future,” Danica warns. He was obviously going to say that Future!Her will admit that Bhulan really doesn’t show up, suggesting that Tamerlane used a lie to cover up another lie.

“Sorry,” Curtis says.

“Thank you for trying. I have to go.” She starts to walk away.

“What are you going to do?” Cheyenne asks.

Danica turns around. “I’m resorting to Plan Z.” She leaves the room, but not before she shouts, “everyone out!”

Tamerlane has already been placed in a special hock of her own design, which the builders of this facility apparently did not foresee as being necessary. It has three levels. There’s a regular cell that operates in realtime. A stasis chamber moves faster, and the prisoner is free to choose when and when not to use it. The stasis pod, however, is mandatory when not activated. He can’t get out, and he can’t control the differential. He’s been in that level almost the whole time since she found out that he sent Bhulan to the future. He’s only been allowed out for interrogations, which have not gone well so far. He has given away nothing. He’s never going to be honest with her again. Bhulan will lose her control over the Omega Gyroscope, and until Danica can find a solution to the line of succession problem, there’s only one thing left to do.

He’s in the stasis chamber right now, so she switches off the differential, and opens the hatch remotely. “Come on out,” Danica demands.

Tamerlane does as asked. He is not showing any remorse whatsoever. “You tried to go to the future, didn’t you?”

“You lied to me. Again.”

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“I can tell you, but you have to let me use the machine for myself...when the time comes. I must set the Gyroscope free.”

“I’m giving you one more chance to tell me where she is. If you don’t speak up now, you’ll regret it, I promise you that.”

“Not until power shifts. This is going to happen, and you can’t stop it. I don’t care how butthurt you are about it.”

Danica opens the gate, and doesn’t close it again. It doesn’t matter, it’s more for show. He’s wearing spatial cuffs, which means he can’t leave the immediate area, or get within two meters of someone else. “You made me do this.” She removes the Gyroscope from her bag as she steps into the chamber, and approaches the pod. She unlocks a secret shelf above the head, places the object inside, and locks it back up. “The minipod is special. It is simultaneously attached to the time inside, and the time outside, so we can keep using it, but you can’t ever be away from it, no matter how fast your differential is. Someone will always be in control. I control you, and you control it.” She once thought she would have to do something like this one day, but after the first few decades of realtime without him giving them any problems, she stopped worrying. She’s so disappointed. Perhaps spending a few decades in here will sober him up. Or maybe she’ll leave him there forever. She forces him into the pod. “Welcome to your new life.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 121 RSS

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Leona turned out to have packed a lot more in her emergency bag than a teleporter gun. It’s all tricked out with a vacuum tent, an oxygen tank, a carbon scrubber, food, hydroponic tubes, basic survival supplies, and even a miniature meat bioreactor, along with a fusion reactor to power everything. She designed it to promote the survival of one to three people in an environment with no atmosphere, and no organic resources. It can recycle water for a time, but this is not a permanent solution. For that, she wants to include starter nanites, as well as a few other amenities, but the tools that she had at her disposal in the Third Rail were limited. It’s impressive what she came up with already, and it’s more than they need in this place. All combined, it’s far lighter than it sounds, and could be carried by an average-sized adult with little issue.

When the team first landed in the Third Rail, their bags of holding stopped working, leaving only a few random items available to them, possibly forever. They do not have the Compass of Disturbance, or the HG Goggles, but Leona had built something pretty similar. It was mostly designed to test for the temporal origin of a given object or individual, but she thinks she can rework it to find out how long the lost objects in this forest have been sitting there. Erlendr was already trying to do that himself, but he could only estimate it, and he was way off on a lot of things, because it’s not like he has any experience dating aged and weathered objects.

Mateo didn’t help with the mapping project that Leona performed to find the location of the next roving bulk portal. It was his sole job to keep an eye on Erlendr, and since he would be an incredible annoyance on the road, the two of them just stayed at camp. Leona taught Alyssa how to work her gizmo, while she kept a lookout for threats. There are other people on this planet. They can hear them in the distance, in their little village by the river. They never come this deep into the woods, though.

The planet is not naturally habitable in salmonverse, so calling it a duplicate of Proxima Doma isn’t really all that fair. Leona’s current hypothesis is that this universe developed about the same way as it did for their brane, but experienced an impact—or series of impacts—which resulted in this huge mountain range in the Terminator Zone. This region receives warmth from the host star, Proxima Centauri, while being protected from its wrathful magnetic flare-ups. It probably gets warmer at those times, but not detrimentally so. Free from these solar storms, which would otherwise blow the atmosphere away, a pocket of civilization has been able to develop here without artificial superstructures. They couldn’t have evolved here, though. They came from Earth. They’re human.

“I believe we have enough data,” Alyssa declares, having just finished analyzing a heavily bedraggled forest couch.

Leona thinks she heard something, so she scans the trees a little more while Alyssa is waiting. Once she feels comfortable, she takes the tablet, and looks at the readings. “It probably is, but I think I saw some right angles between those trees. If there’s one more lost object deposit, then I would like to check it, and then we’ll see if our map does us any good.”

“Is there a chance that there is no pattern at all?”

“There’s more than a chance. If this phenomenon has anything to do with the flares from Proxima Centauri, it may be hopeless. We may be stuck here forever.”

Alyssa frowns.

“Trina is safe,” Leona goes on. “So are Carlin and Moray. I know what it’s like to leave people behind, unsure of their fate. All you can do is be strong, and keep trying.”

“Okay.” Alyssa sets her anxiety aside for now. “Let’s go investigate these right angles.”

Whatever Leona saw, it must have been an optical illusion. This area seems to be beyond the range of the portal. Or maybe it sometimes shows up, but doesn’t deposit anything. It may go all over the planet, and this only looks like a place of higher concentration. They have caught glimpses of the village, which doesn’t look technologically advanced at all. Whether that was originally done on purpose or not, it suggests that the people have yet to discover the lost objects. There are a lot of cell phones here, like a shocking number of them. One might think that they would eventually reverse-engineer them, or at least become inspired to aspire to it. Who knows? They don’t even know if the bulk portal is two-way. This could all be a massive waste of time. “Okay, I guess that’s it. Let me see if the map has good news.”

They turn to head back for camp when they see a young boy staring at them a few meters away. He looks scared. “Well, hello there,” Alyssa says to him kindly.

“Are you a wraith?”

“A what?” Alyssa asks.

The boy looks down at Leona’s device when it beeps to indicate that the map is finished rendering. “Forbidden. Forbidden object!” He runs back towards his village screaming, “forest wraiths! Forest wraiths! Alert the king!”

“We should go,” Alyssa decides.

“Yeah,” Leona agrees. She starts heading towards camp, but stops when her tablet beeps again.

“What is it?”

“It’s already detected a pattern.” Leona’s eyes widen.

“What is it?” Alyssa repeats.

“We need to run.”

They bolt, and make it back to camp out of breath.

“What is it?” Mateo asks. “Is everything okay?” He looks at Erlendr, in case he had something to do with this.

“Se...” Leona continues to try to breathe. “Seven.”

“Seven what?” Mateo urges.

“Seven years.” Another breath. “Eighty-three days.”

“Seven years, and eighty-three days. That’s how long we’ll have to wait?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“It’s okay, be patient with yourself.”

“I can’t. Erlendr was right, but he didn’t have the whole story. This planet makes one orbit every eleven days, and Proxima Centauri rotates on its own axis on an eighty-three day cycle. That means that the portal opens up every eleven days, but it only does it seven times before the poles reverse.”

“The poles?”

“The poles,” Leona confirms. “The AI from The Constant, it detected a pattern. Every seven Earthan years, the sun’s magnetic poles reverse, and begin dumping random objects from the bulk roughly every eleven days for eighty-three days.”

“How many times has it done it during this cycle?” Erlendr asks. “At least three.”

“There’s no way to know. If we miss the next one, we may only have to wait for eleven more days, or seven more years. My system detected some objects that were recent, some that were seven years old, others that were fourteen years old, and so on. Nothing shows up during the interim periods. That’s how I realized that they matched this solar system’s behavior.”

“So where’s the next portal going to open up?” Alyssa asks.

Leona frowns, and delays her response. “There is no pattern to that, at least not one that the AI can detect. I know that it’s going to happen today, but I don’t know where. It may have popped up already. That’s why I ran. That’s why I’m so earnest. Mateo, are you...sensing anything?”

Confused, Mateo switches his gaze among everyone, as if he’s not the only one who could answer that question. “No, not really. Little hungry.”

“Are your hands, uhh...being blocked right now?”

He pulls at his shirt, which would have disappeared if he wasn’t letting the layer of telekinesis magic protect it from the timonite layer on his skin. “Yes, you want me to unblock them?”

“You could try,” Leona suggests. Just try not to touch anything.”

Mateo clears his throat, and turns around. They see him start to undo his pants as he heads for the trees alone. He doesn’t go very far, so they can hear what he’s doing, as if they needed any more proof. “Okay,” he says once he returns. He takes his shirt off completely. He’s not had anything else to wear for eleven days, so it’s pretty dirty and uncomfortable—they couldn’t bathe or wash in the river without being seen—and he doesn’t want to waste the timonite on needless banishments. It may be a finite resource.

“Do you feel anything now?” Erlendr asks him.

“Shut up,” Leona orders.

Mateo holds his arms out, not only hoping to catch a scent of some kind, but also to keep from touching anything he doesn’t want to get rid of. He starts to wander around the area. Meanwhile, Alyssa and Leona begin to break camp, and Erlendr stews. His hands are still cuffed, though now in front of his body. He’s getting off easy. “I feel something!” Mateo announces.

“Where?” Leona lets go of the vacuum tent, which expands automatically from the outside of the bag, and has to be collapsed back in manually. Alyssa takes the job over, since it still has to be done.

“It’s close. It’s very close. I think it already dumped something, and it’s just hanging around. I think we could have gone back in where we came last year, had we been able to see it.”

“Can you see it now?” Leona presses.

“No, but I can tell where it is. Come on.” While Alyssa throws the pack over her shoulders, Leona and Erlendr begin to follow Mateo through the trees. He’s moving slow enough, so she’s able to catch up. “It’s here,” he finally says. “Are we ready?”

“How do we get through?” Alyssa asks.

“Everyone take a hand,” Mateo figures. Once they do, technicolor bulk energy begins to cover their bodies. They slip through the portal, and land on some rocks by the river. They’re not alone. “Medavorken?”

“Mateo?” Medavorken asks right back.

“Hi, I’m Cricket!” a young woman says excitedly.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 120 RSS

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Mateo zips Erlendr’s wrists together behind his back. He’s not real aggressive with it, because the man is currently using his best friend’s body, and Ramses is going to need it back one day. Still, it should hold, especially since he also pats him down for blades, and other weapons, even though Leona didn’t specifically order him to.

“Where are we going?” Alyssa asks as soon as they start on their walk.

“I need to get out of this forest. I have an idea of where we are, but I have to confirm it with a better view of the sky.”

“I know where we are,” Erlendr claims.

“You’ll forgive me for not trusting you,” Leona spits.

“How about I tell you where we are, and if it’s what you suspect, you can be pretty sure I’m not lying?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s Proxima Doma, except the people here call it Spectrevale. Well, that’s what they call the terminator zone, but since it’s the only habitable region of the planet, they’ve become the same thing.”

Mateo looks over at Leona, who sighs. “That’s what I thought. How long have you been here?”

“Three years,” he answers.

“Three years, as in three Earthan years, or as in thirty-three days?”

“Thirty-three days,” Erlendr clarifies. Proxima Doma—or Spectrevale, as it were—orbits its sun about every eleven days. Back when they were on their brane’s version of the planet, though, this was mostly useless fun fact that the residents mostly ignored. They lived inside of domes to protect themselves from the solar flares, and paid very little attention to the orbital period.

“How did you get here?” Mateo asks.

“I don’t know that I should tell you,” Erlendr responds. He’s probably right about that. They’re in dangerous territory now. That was the silver lining to being in a reality where temporal manipulation didn’t generally work. They were no longer worried about encountering—or worse, creating—a paradox. Time travel made it a constant threat, and bulk travel compounds the risk. Anything he says about what he did since he stole Ramses’ body, and fled the lab, could cause real problems for a lot of people.

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” Leona says. “You’re from our future. We have you now, and when we get you back to the Third Rail salmonverse, we’ll Livewire you out of that body, and move on from this. That was the plan, and it will remain the plan, except for one minor change.”

“What might that be?” he questions.

“You won’t be placed in my alternate self’s body. You’ll just be put into the Insulator of Life, where you can’t move, or do anything to harm anyone. It was going to happen anyway. It’s fate, if you will. But I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get out of it. I always find a way. There’s something that even you don’t know about what death really means.”

Oh, you mean Pryce’s afterlife simulation? That doesn’t work out for you either, Mateo wishes he could say out loud, but he knows that he can’t give that much away.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Pryce says after a bit of silence.

“I still need to see for myself,” Leona explains. “We’re going to climb a little bit.”

“Where you were, where you came through. There’s a portal there. It’s roving, but it doesn’t move too much. The only way out is to jump through it the next time it comes around.”

“And when will that be?” Alyssa asks him.

“In eleven days.”

“There is nothing particularly special about the orbital period of a celestial body,” Leona begins. “There is no starting point, nor ending point. These moments are arbitrary human constructs, designed to help people manage the events of their lives.”

“Okay, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, I understand that that’s how it seems to work where you’re from, but there’s a sunspot on Proxima Centauri that triggers a bulk dumping event once a year, right here in Sargan Forest. I’ve seen it happen twice now, plus the time I came here. That’s a pattern. The locals call it The New Year Nose, because it somewhat resembles a nose.”

“Sunspots move more than portals do,” Leona argues.

“I’m just telling you how it is. This is a different universe, with a different set of proper physics. You can’t necessarily rely on the old rules.”

Leona knows that this is true, she just hates when someone like Erlendr Preston knows something that she doesn’t. She doesn’t want anyone to be a rapist, but if he’s already a rapist, at least make him wrong about literally everything. “I’m going to check the sky, and that’s final! If what you say is true, we have eleven days anyway, so what’s it to ya?”

“I just want to make sure we get a good spot to sleep. I found a lost mattress a couple of kilometers away that we can share. It hasn’t been here long. That’s what I’ve been doing, examining the lost objects, and estimating their arrival times, so I can figure out a pattern to the roving portal.”

Leona stops walking, and pushes Erlendr in the shoulders. She immediately regrets it, since she too doesn’t want to harm the body, but she’s just so angry. “If you think we’re going to sleep anywhere near you, then you seriously missed my point of view on rape.”

“For the last goddamn time, I did not rape anybody!” Erlendr screams, still on his back. “She was my wife!”

“She still has to consent!”

“She did!”

“Bullshit!”

Erlendr shouts unintelligibly. He swings his legs to trip Mateo onto his own back. Then he rolls over enough to make it to the hill, and keeps on rolling, hoping to escape. “Screw you!” he yells, dropping the volume of his voice deliberately, because he’s not slipping away fast enough for the sound to grow all that fainter naturally.

Leona drops her emergency pack as Alyssa is helping Mateo off the ground. She casually removes a teleporter gun from the bag, quickly calibrates it, and shoots Erlendr before he can impale Ramses’ head on a tree branch. He appears a few meters away, and maintains his momentum, ending up right at Leona’s feet. “Are you done yet?”

“Yes,” Erlendr replies, face in the dirt.

“Then come on. That was a good idea, tracking the movement of the portal. But you lack the tools necessary to come to a valid conclusion. I don’t.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Friday, July 5, 2120

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Mateo and Leona argued yesterday. The latter demanded to go with the former and Ellie to The Fourth Quadrant, and Mateo wasn’t having it. In the end, she had too many cards to play, what with him constantly abandoning her, and his indiscretion with Cassidy. She also had a point that she knew more about the cuffs than he or Ellie did. But then Sanaa caught wind of their plans, and argued that she was actually more proficient with them. They never did figure out how to co-opt Jupiter’s power, or so much as contact him, but she knew everything else about them. The next year, Ariadna asked where they were going, and there was even more arguing, because she didn’t understand how they were going to get into this new reality.

“Oh, that’s just this thing,” Ellie assured her.

“You’re not gonna dismiss me,” Ariadna said. “You know, don’t you? You know what I can do. How? I’ve worked really hard to curate a timeline where no one knows who I am, and what I’ve been through.”

“I’ve been doing the same,” Ellie explained. “Lots of people have told me lots of things without remembering it, because it never happened.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sanaa jumped in. “You’ve been able to cross back to the main sequence this whole time?”

“What?” Ariadna asked. “No. I mean...I don’t think so. Dimensions and realities aren’t the same thing. Right?”

They all looked to Leona, who was surprisingly unsure of herself. “I don’t know everything about physics. Asking me that question is like asking me whether black holes exist. No one knows.”

“Black holes don’t exist?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Let’s get off of whatever this is,” Ellie said. “Madam Traversa, I’m sorry I wasn’t honest about why I was here, but as I understand it, my ability to adopt your ability does not affect you. It doesn’t drain you of your energy, or force you to be a part of it. These cuffs just copy and paste your code, so I can borrow it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us then?” Sanaa questioned.

“I wanted to do this alone, so no one else would be in danger.”

“How very noble of you,” came a voice from outside the circle. It was Jupiter.

“Thank you for coming, Your Grace,” Sanaa said to him jokingly.

“I’ve been listening to your conversations—”

“You have?” Mateo asked. “How?”

“There’s a microphone in each cuff, obviously,” Sanaa explained.

“Obviously,” Jupiter agreed.

“Are you gonna try to stop me?” Ellie asked Jupiter.

“Nope, but I have some conditions, one for each of you. Ariadna, after this mission, you must relinquish your cuffs, and give them to Mr. Bearimy.”

“No, I’m the one wearing J.B.’s cuffs,” Ellie reminded him.

“That doesn’t matter,” Jupiter contended. “I was not aware of the extent of The Escapologists’s time powers. I can’t have you people slipping back and forth at will. So Aria, you have to leave, and you can’t involve yourself with this team ever again. Ellie, if you do this, you have to remain on the Bearimy-Matic pattern. While she has to leave, you have to stay. You wanted the cuffs, you got ‘em.”

“I can do that,” Ellie promised.

Leona frowned. “El, are you sure? He hasn’t said how long we’re doing this.”

Ellie shrugged. “I ain’t got nothin’ but time. I’ll get back to my other friends later, and it’ll be fine.”

“Leona,” Jupiter went on, “you can’t go.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked, perturbed.

“If the others do this, you have to stay behind with J.B., so if something goes wrong, the two of you can rebuild the team.”

“That’s bullshi—”

“Leelee,” Sanaa stopped her. “Rule Number Fifteen.” It was a relatively new entry into Leona’s Rules of Time Travel. Don’t antagonize the antagonist. Mateo didn’t consider Jupiter an antagonist anymore, but the others could be forgiven for continuing to believe as much.

Leona bit her lip, and didn’t say anything else.

“Sanaa, that brings me to you,” Jupiter began. “The people living in the Fourth Quadrant have created a new society. They wouldn’t belong anywhere else. If you try to bring them into the main sequence, Beaver Haven will just find a way to lock them all up again, so the two realities don’t interfere with each other.”

“Cool,” Sanaa sassed. “What does that have to do with me? This is Ellie’s mission.”

“You’ll still be able to save them, but you’re going to solve the problem in a different way. In order to do this, you’ll need to extract someone else from the main sequence. Kismet has it that today is perfect for the side mission. This individual doesn’t need to be rescued, but you need their time power.”

“Again, cool,” Sanaa repeated, “and again, what does that have to do with me?”

“You specifically don’t like this person, but you’re going to have to ignore that, and extract them anyway.”

“Who?” Mateo asked, more curious than anything.

“Finally, Mateo.”

“Oh, no.”

Jupiter smirked. “You have the power to cancel this whole mission, and if you do, you’ll be able to get back to the Vearden mission instead.”

“You won’t let me save him if I do this?” Mateo guessed.

“No, you’ll still be able to try,” Jupiter swore, “but there is a new limitation. You can’t transfer his mind to a clone.”

“What?” Leona shouted. “That’s the whole point! We can’t get him out without changing the timeline unless we do it this way. A clone is the only option.”

“You can’t transfer his mind,” Jupiter said again. “I have no particular reason for this, but I’m trying to disincentivize you from going against my brother. You said it, Rule Number Fifteen; I’ll let you risk it, if you really want to, but it’s gonna cost you. Ariadna, you can save this whole group by overriding my power to force you to stay in this reality. Ellie, you have to put yourself in danger. I know you think it doesn’t matter, since you’re a time traveler, but the more you live in one time period, the greater the chances are that you’ll die. That’s just how life works: older people have had more time to die, so be thinking about whether you want to risk never getting back to Trinity. Leona, you hate feeling useless, so you’re sitting this one out. Sanaa, you hate people, so...that’s it, that’s how I’m discouraging you. And Mateo, you either fail to save the Fourth Quadrant, or you fail to save Vearden. Choose.”

“I choose to save both,” Mateo said.

“Mateo,” Leona almost scolded, “there’s no other way. We all watched him die. We have to transfer his consciousness, or what happened, happened.”

“Trust me,” Mateo asked of her. This was something he had been thinking about for a while now. While he didn’t think of Jupiter as an antagonist, that didn’t mean he wasn’t an obstacle. He worded the new proviso in a specific way, and it wasn’t clear if he did it on purpose, or if Mateo was just the smarter one here, who came up with a loophole all on his own. If the latter was true, then he had to keep it all a secret. From everyone. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Jupiter seemed almost impressed, even though Mateo hadn’t done anything yet. “Very well. If no one objects, please ask the transporter tech to return the four of you to Earth. Once you arrive, the map will direct you to your next transition window. Good luck.” That being said, Jupiter disappeared through his own window.

They bid their farewells to Leona, then went back to Earth, where their Cassidy cuffs directed them to the Kansas City area. They ate a meal, and played a couple rounds of RPS-101 Plus on their tablets while they waited for the window. About three hours later, the field around them flickered, revealing the terraces of Crown Center. It quickly ended, and deposited one Missy Atterberry into this reality. She wasn’t scared, but curious about what had happened. She didn’t have much time to make some guesses, though. Sanaa stood up, and stared at her with a passionate hatred. This was her? This was the person Sanaa hated so much? Mateo didn’t know her all that well. She died quickly after they met in the pre-Hitler assassination timeline, and every memory he had of her since was from Leona’s perspective, because he didn’t exist for that period of time. She appeared just after he left, and was gone before he came back to life.

“You,” Sanaa growled.

“Oh, crap,” was all Missy could say.

Like a bull in a stadium, Sanaa leaned forward, and literally charged at her opponent. Were they actually going to get themselves into a fist fight? Surely not. And no, they didn’t. Missy raised her hand instinctually, and pushed Sanaa into a time bubble. She hovered there, nearly frozen in place, but still technically moving.

“Report,” Mateo said to Missy.

“I agreed to stay out of her personal timeline,” Missy defended. “She was born in 2203, and I promised to never go back to the 24th century, so if I’m here, it’s not my fault. Someone else brought me here.”

“It’s 2120,” Ariadna clarified.

“That’s impossible,” Missy argued. “She’s not supposed to travel through time. That’s why it’s been this easy to avoid her.”

“She broke that rule,” Mateo explained. “Why does she hate you so much?”

Before Missy could answer, Sanaa disappeared from inside the bubble, and reappeared just outside of it. The now empty bubble remained, however. “You can’t slow me down! I can escape any dimension now!” She tried to attack Missy, but didn’t get far before something caused her to collapse, and reach for her ears.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mateo could see Ellie’s lips wrapped around a whistle. No sound was coming out of it, so she must have been teleporting the waves directly into Sanaa’s ears. She opened her mouth, and let the whistle fall down to her chest. Then she spoke for all to hear. “You’re gonna talk first. You try anything like that again, and I’ll make you go deaf. You’ll wish you were still psychic, so at least you could talk to people again.”

Sanaa stood up, her face still contorted, but she nodded once to agree to Ellie’s demands.

“Now,” Mateo started to say, kind of sounding like he was trying to take charge. “I’m outnumbered here. I’m gonna sit on the sidelines, and let you ladies work it out. I’ll be nearby if you need anything, though.”

Ariadna stuck her index finger up, like she was trying to delicately summon the waiter. “I’ll come with.”

“Do you know what happened between those two?” he asked once they were away from the other three.

“I make a point of staying out of people’s business.”

“Yeah, why is that? You’re such a nice and even-tempered person, yet you seem just as isolated as Sanaa is. Do you not like people?”

“People think that about me. I mean, I live in a frickin’ pyramid, so I can’t blame them. The truth is that I...it’s hard to explain.”

“I’m patient, and understanding.”

“I know that about you. I’m just...better at observing than I am interacting with others. I don’t like to...” She sighed. “I don’t like to do things.”

“Things?”

“Anything. I don’t have any hobbies, and I don’t care for social situations. I don’t dislike people, but I don’t get anything out of conversing with them most of the time. I just wanna sit in my little corner of the world, listen to classical music, read trashy romance novels, and maybe watch a little TV. I’ve never had any interest in going out to restaurants, or seeing a rock concert, or visiting a museum.”

“Well, that’s not that weird,” Mateo said. “Extroverts think that sounds like a really sad life, but I get it. Not everyone’s days are filled with mystery and intrigue.”

Ariadna went on, “I remember when I was a kid, my mom tried to sign me up for some sports team. I don’t even recall which sport, but it wasn’t attached to my school, it was the county, or something. Either way, I told her I didn’t like to play sports, but she said that wasn’t the point. She said it was a great way to meet people. So I’m like, so what? What’s so great about meeting people? She shook her head, like I was nothing more than an insolent child, but that wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really wanted to know what intrinsic value there was in meeting new people.

“Well, she didn’t have an answer for me, because there isn’t a good one. Two full days later, she came back to me and claimed it was about building a network. I may be stranded at a movie theatre in a blizzard one night, and I’ll wish I had someone to call who liked me enough to give me a ride. I pointed out that this was a selfish reason to try to meet people, so the conversation ended there, and we never talked about it again. I was an adult before I realized on my own that I should have been looking at it the opposite way, and she should have framed it that way instead.”

“How’s that?” Mateo prompted.

She sighed again. “I should have made friends, so I could be available when someone else needed help in a blizzard.”

Mateo nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, by then I was too used to being alone, and well...you can make friends as an adult unless, that is, you never did it as a kid. New adult friends expect you to already have friends, because they want to meet them! I just couldn’t make any connections. So I gave up, and went back to the way I’ve always liked it, sitting comfortably in my pyramid.”

“Are you going to go back when the Fourth Quadrant is over? The pyramids don’t exist in the Parallel, but I suppose that doesn’t matter to you anymore. You’re free to travel wherever you want.”

“Well, I don’t use my powers, because they feel just as pointless as skydiving or having sex with people. But I’m not sure if—”

“Okay,” Ellie interrupted them. “Sanaa and Missy have signed a temporary ceasefire, and Missy has agreed to help us with the Fourth Quadrant. I guess all that Jupiter will let us do is adjust their speed of time. That’s kind of besides the point, but...it’s what we got. Get some rest. Busy day tomorrow. Could be our last.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, July 4, 2119

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As they were on their way back to Tribulation Island, Mateo and Ellie came up with a lie. Conventionally, seers were heard, but not seen, so to speak. They gave people advice, and as long as they had proven themselves trustworthy, most time travelers believed them. Furthermore, other time travelers would usually believe someone who claimed to have been guided by a seer, towards some action. There was a lot of potential for abuse, and of course, there was no way to know how often this happened, but the two of them needed it right now. They were going to exploit this phenomenon, and claim that a seer told Ellie to take J.B.’s place in the circle of Cassidy cuffers.

First, they needed to come up with a riddle. Seers never gave perfect instructions. One would never say, take the Cassidy cuffs from J.B., and place them on your own wrists on July 3, 2118. Keep them on for precisely this amount of time. They had to be real vague about it, so their words could be misinterpreted once heard, but unmistakable when the moment came. That is, the premonition would fail if simply hearing it prompted immediate—and therefore premature—action. It had to come with a temporal marker that still prevented the listener from seeking it out, but once the signal appeared, there could be no denying its validity. Mateo felt pretty proud of himself for devising a reasonably plausible fake prophecy. Ellie was supposedly told by someone she trusted that she needed to free the ursine on the beach. Ursine meant bear, which was part of Jeremy Bearimy’s full name. It wasn’t likely that she would ever encounter a real bear, or some other kind of bear-like something or other on a beach at any other juncture. So it was something she couldn’t have understood when she first reportedly heard it, but also something that could not be ignored, now that she knew J.B. was on Tribulation Island, and in a way, chained up.

Leona’s level of suspicion fluctuated, but ultimately remained unchanged. The fact that Ellie had this prophecy to fulfill, and that Mateo was in on it, explained why he was acting shady earlier. But then her suspicions rose back to where they were, because now she wondered why he was involved, and what else he wasn’t telling her. This was ludicrous, he was supposed to be able to tell her anything. He was just so caught up in it now, though. Telling her the truth late, not telling her until she found out on her own; which was better? If only he legit knew an actual seer himself, who could tell him what to do, his life would be a lot easier. Why was it that everyone seemed to have their own personal fortune-teller, but he had seemingly never even met one before? Did they even exist? Anyway, J.B. was happy to give up his cuffs, because the FOMO was real, but he would need them back eventually, because the FOMO was just as real on this side. Ariadna never even suspected it had anything to do with her, and Ellie still didn’t tell Mateo why it did. She didn’t seem to be doing anything with her power yet.

The next day, Mateo decided to finally tell the group what Jupiter asked of them. They didn’t act upset about not having been told before, so that was a big relief. It sure didn’t hurt that he came to them with a solution in hand. The details weren’t all there, and they didn’t necessarily have everything they needed, but it was a great start. The strange thing was that Trinity, Thor, and Abigail were nowhere to be found. They never came back to Tribulation Island themselves, and when J.B. and Gilbert went out looking for them, they found no one on Lorania either. They weren’t instrumental to the Vearden plan, but they were still meant to stick around and help.

Sanaa decided to sum up their conversation thus far. “Okay, so we need a fully mature clone body of Vearden Haywood, so that Ellie can transfer the real Vearden’s consciousness into it. And we need it by the time of his predestined death in six days.”

“That’s right,” Ellie said. “I thought my friends were going to work on that while we were gone, but their own plans have apparently changed. I don’t know where they are.”

“We shouldn’t need them,” Ariadna put forth. “If Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida can do something in 2400, then someone in The Parallel can do it right now. This place is still millennia ahead in terms of technology.”

“There’s an issue with that,” Leona reminded them. “They’re not allowed to help us when it comes to what we do with the main sequence. They’re not allowed to do anything.” She was right. There was no guarantee that the Parallel natives would agree to help, and they did need their help to pull it off. If it was a violation of their non-interference laws, there wasn’t likely anything they could do to convince them to make an exception. As soon as they asked whoever it was they asked, they would receive the only answer they would ever get.

“Sanaa,” Ariadna said, “you figured out how to make a transition window go both ways, and extend the time it’s open.”

“For ten minutes, yeah. Like you were saying, though, I only held the window open longer. These things aren’t capable of opening a window that isn’t already there, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“They have to be,” Mateo argued. “I mean, the reason we’re all on this new pattern is because J.B. and I and Leona are now sharing our respective patterns. Jupiter may only have one cuff on, but we still have to have access to his power. We’re expected to not try to use it, but Sanaa and Leona proved they can be hacked. There must be a way to steal it from him, and transition whenever we want to.”

“The question I have,” J.B. began, “is why do we want to do that? Why do we need to transition before Vearden’s day?”

“Yeah, I was on my way to explaining that” Ariadna continued. “I assume you need a sample of his blood ahead of time, in order to make the clone?”

“That’s right,” Ellie confirmed. “That’s a good idea. If you guys can figure out how to get me back to the other reality, we can sneak a sample, and come back. We can’t do anything without his DNA.”

“Okay.” Leona nodded her head, and paced a little bit. “Sanaa and I will work on the cuffs. Hopefully we’ll have a way soon. If not, maybe we can just ask Jupiter for help. If he really wants this done, nothing should stop him from getting involved.”

“You have over two days,” Mateo advised them. The way I remember it, our past selves are in the middle of the Xearea expiation. No one is even on the island in the main sequence right now, because they’re all scattered throughout the timeline, filling in for the Savior.”

“Okay, great,” Sanaa said. “I do know how to interface with the cuffs using a separate screen. I find it easier to work on something larger.”

“Agreed.”

While they went off to work their magic, Mateo took Ellie aside to get a few answers. “What powers does Ariadna have, and why do you need them?”

“Don’t you trust me, Matty?” Ellie asked, batting her eyes at him.

“I do, but I still wanna know. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before, but I’ve never known what she was capable of. They call her The Escapologist, but she doesn’t say where she escaped from.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Ellie replied. I mean, it’s not completely unrelated, but it’s not super relevant either.”

“So, how ‘bout it?”

Ellie tipped her forehead down respectfully. “Very well. She’s a dimensional hacker.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Some people can create and inhabit parallel spatial and temporal dimensions. They use these to hide away from the world, watch people in secret, give themselves a little extra time, imprison people, or do any number of other things. Only certain people can access certain dimensions, each for unique reasons. Ariadna, on the other hand, can access any and all of them, no matter what. You can’t keep her out.”

“So, you’re trying to break into one of these things?”

“I am, yes. It sounds malicious, but it’s not.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“There are people trapped in one of these. It’s called The Fourth Quadrant. Now that I know about the Parallel, I’m starting to see why they called it that. A very long time ago, even from this point in time, a man created a copy of the Kansas City Metropolitan area.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Mateo recalled. “Ace and Serkan got mixed up in all that back in the day.”

“Yes,” Ellie said. “They managed to escape from that world, along with K-Boy. No one else did, though. Jupiter Rosa has a jacket that can get there, but it only can only transport two people at a time. I’m trying to get everybody out.”

“So, you’re going to go back to, what, 2024, and free them?”

Ellie shook her head. “I was just hoping to do it today or tomorrow. If my calculations are correct, it’s been less than seven years for the people in there. Time moves differently for them.”

“Is there a reason you’re keeping your intentions a secret from your friends, or Ariadna herself, for that matter?”

“I don’t want to put anyone else at risk. Tauno Nyland didn’t trap those people in there because of any particular disdain he has for them. He’s just a sadist who likes toying with people. He allowed a few people to escape, because he found it entertaining, but he’s not going to stand by and let me cancel his favorite transdimensional TV show.”

“If Ariadna can access this Fourth Quadrant world, can she not get us back to the main sequence without Jupiter’s help?”

“As I understand it, the Escapologist doesn’t use her powers, for reasons she won’t fully explain, but I think it has something to do with whatever inspired her nickname. If she can get to the main sequence, she either doesn’t know it, or doesn’t want to do it. The only way to get this done is if I just borrow her powers, and put myself—and myself alone—at risk. I didn’t think I would ever get the opportunity to do this, but then I ended up here, and realized that opportunity has been waiting for me. It won’t last forever, though.”

“Let me help you,” Mateo requested. “I get you to the Fourth Quadrant, you get me to Vearden.”

“I don’t need your help getting there, I already have the power. I just need time to practice. That’s what I was doing all last night while everyone else was asleep.”

“You do need my help,” Mateo contended. “I imagine you have to travel back to Earth, because that’s where the barrier between the worlds is. The intergalactic transporter technician said they’ll take me anywhere I want to go. I can’t promise that offer extends to you, since you weren’t with us at the time.” That wasn’t entirely truthful. People here were very relaxed and accommodating. They would probably help Ellie without knowing anything about her, because they would see no reason not to.

“Mateo, I just told you that I’m doing this to keep everyone else safe. If Tauno goes after me, he won’t go after anyone else. He’s a terrible person, but he doesn’t retaliate against people who’ve not gone against him.”

“Did the entirety of the KC Metro piss him off?”

“Those are just quantum duplicates,” Ellie clarified. “He doesn’t see that as hurting them. To him, the copies aren’t real people.”

“Well, I can’t imagine he’ll deign to interfere with whatever Jupiter Fury has planned for me and mine. If anything, my being there will protect you.”

“I dunno...”

“No one should do anything alone. You might run into an obstacle that requires you to be in two places at once. What will you do then?”

She sighed.

“Miss Underhill...”

“Okay, fine. You can come. But just you. I don’t want anyone else involved, despite what you may think about what Tauno would or wouldn’t do in regards to Jupiter’s plans.”

“I’m telling Leona the truth, however. I won’t tell Ariadna, or anyone else, but I can’t keep lying to my wife.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go keep practicing.”

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