Microstory 2522: Patient Advocate

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I don’t work for the foundation. I am a professional Medical Advocate working for a medical outreach agency, which is commonly employed for patients who need a little extra help navigating the process. I’ve been doing this job since long before the Foundation was even the spark of an idea. Some patients get confused, or know their personalities and skillsets well enough to not trust themselves with being solely responsible for their own medical data. A healthy fraction of such patients have family members or friends who can help them through such difficult and complex processes, but there are others who aren’t so lucky. My agency has a long history of providing chaperoning service to patients who don’t want to be in the exam rooms alone with their medical providers. We help them ask questions, and understand the answers. We help them make their follow-up appointments, and fill their prescriptions. This is typically a paid service that you can find all over the world, but we can do it free of charge for Breath of Life patients through a special program where the Foundation pays for our services on behalf of their neediest patients. Again, I don’t work for Landis, but I’ve become particularly familiar with their practices and procedures, and can help each client get through the process safely and comfortably. Some of them are suffering from dementia, or related conditions, and require that one-on-one care. I tell ya, this is the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Before this, I did a lot of crying, because I was handling patients who were at their worst. They weren’t getting better, and many of them remained my clients until they died. I’ve been to a lot of funerals throughout the run of my career. Well, not anymore. All of my patients live now, which is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I watch as a client with Alzheimer’s becomes suddenly lucid, and in a way that is not going to be undone the next time she sneezes or closes her eyes. This is it. This is what people like me have been hoping for our entire lives. I absolutely love it when a client stops needing my services, not because they die or can’t afford it anymore, but because they’re healthy now. And it gets me every single time. I guess I’m still crying, but they’re tears of joy now. I feel for my colleagues in the industry who don’t work here, who are still going through what I was before. They wish they could have my job, but there are only so many positions. They’re excited about the panacea. Even though it will mean the end of their jobs, they can’t wait for it, because it’s the best outcome possible. I’m pretty excited about what the future holds too.

Microstory 2520: Guide

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Once you walk into the building, and get checked in with one of the greeters, you can ask me for help. There are a ton of us, patrolling and stationed strategically around the floor, ready to provide assistance. There’s at least one in every waiting room, one in the auditorium, several in the mainline. Outside, inside, topside. If you’re thirsty, we’ll get you water. If you don’t know where the nearest restroom is, we’ll escort you there. If you were in line when you had to step out, we’ll have a queuer keep track of where you were, and put you back in it at the right place. We can also answer questions about the history of the Foundation, and behind-the-scenes information. We know where you need to be, and where you’re going, and who you will be dealing with. Guides are friendly, knowledgeable, and always ready to take action. We get a ton of steps, so there’s one advantage. Since our job requires moving around so much more than others, we enjoy a very special exception. We’re entitled to injury healings. Hold for gasps. For the most part, Landis does not handle cuts and broken bones. They may hurt, and they may even be life-threatening, but because of the acute time constraint involved in the most severe cases, the responsibility falls squarely on traditional medicine. It will get your application immediately rejected, even before you upload your medical and financial records. Some applicants have actually gotten real upset about that, because they also had a chronic illness, and figured they should include the normal injury along with it to be the most accurate. Don’t do it. Anyway, that’s not really the point. I’ve kind of made it sound like guides and queuers are getting injured left and right, but really, it’s more like a benefit in our insurance package. It’s there if we need it, and while it has happened before, we rarely need it. Mostly, the only people who ever had to use it were either exhausted or dehydrated. I recall one guy who twisted his ankle, and another was straight up punched in the face by a patient companion who was trying to defend her mother against another patient. But those were extreme circumstances. If necessary, we are allowed to cut in line to get it completed, but that’s only when we can’t continue our shift without it. Since it almost never happens, it might seem like a small thing, but I think it speaks to the culture of our organization. The leaders understand that there are exceptions to every rule. It’s important to maintain order and fairness, but that doesn’t mean being overly strict and inflexible. It’s also just kind of cool being a little bit more special on a staff of a very special Foundation.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 8, 2521

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Leona was not happy when she found out that Miracle was going to stay in Romana’s original body. She argued that this naturally placed her on the team’s pattern, and gave her other temporal abilities that she was not really supposed to have. The problem was that it wasn’t really their choice. Body swap laws were complicated, but not too complicated. Basically, the only way they could force Miracle out of Romana’s body would be if Romana wanted it back. But even if Romana expressed such interest, she couldn’t then turn around and upgrade to her new substrate right away, just as a means to keep Miracle from the original. It would have to be a sincere wish. Since Miracle did not ask to be cast into the wrong body, her rights to that body were assumed unless someone else were to have a stronger claim to it, and a legitimate one at that. Since this was now simply where Miracle’s mind lived, it fell under my body, my choice laws, which predated even the most nascent consciousness transference technologies by decades.

After Ramses completed Romana’s upgrade, she immediately took herself off the pattern, so she could spend the next year helping Miracle control her own relationship to that pattern, and stay in real time semi-permanently. She could always decide to start time-skipping like the rest of them, but what would be the purpose of that? They didn’t know her; they weren’t friends. She didn’t seem to want to be part of the team, and they kind of had a full roster at this point. Ramses programmed his AI to look for ways to clear Miracle of her temporal manipulation properties altogether, but again, she would have to consent to any procedure that might make such changes.

During the interim year, an old frenemy reached out. Korali was aware of the team’s schedule, but timekeeping was different in the Goldilocks Corridor. It was hard to keep track of precisely when the team was available, and when they weren’t. So they spoke with Team Kadiar at first. “She wants a meeting?” Leona questioned.

“She and the other claimants, which is what they are calling each other, all want a meeting with us.”

“They haven’t killed each other yet?” Marie asked.

“They can’t really die,” Romana reasoned. “There have been a ton of loss on all sides, which the crew of the Vellani Ambassador have been trying to put a stop to, but...they don’t have any support.”

“They don’t have support from who?”

Dubravka stepped forward. “Let’s break this down. You got three claimants, which are the two versions of the Oaksent, and Korali. On the other side, you have the internal resistance, headed by the inhabitants of the penal colony, Ex-666, which they now call Revolumus. I know, not very clever, but they’re trying to tie themselves to the Extremus mission. That brings me to the fifth opposing faction, which is composed of allies from Verdemus, headed by the Anatol Klugman warship. The sixth and final faction are the refugees, and us on the Ambassador who try to rescue them. Revolumus and Verdemus don’t really support our efforts. They don’t exactly want war, but they don’t think there’s any choice.”

“That sounds like a lot,” Mateo admitted, “but what does it have to do with us? The whole reason I had you transport the old Bronach there was so he could deal with it, and we could wipe our hands clean. The situation is far too complicated for a small group of people who only exist one day out of the year to make any meaningful impact.”

“You are the only people they all like,” Kivi explained.

“Why would they like us?” Mateo questioned. “I mean, Korali, I guess. But we’ve grown apart. And the other guys? Sure, I saved one Oaksent from death, but he doesn’t seem like the grateful type. The other version of him definitely isn’t. He keeps trying to kill us, and we keep almost killing him.”

“He respects you,” Dubra clarified. “You never stop fighting to fix things, which speaks to him. Apparently, that’s how this whole thing started. That’s why he founded the Exin Empire in the first place, to fight for his rights.”

“We don’t fight for our rights,” Olimpia contended. “We fight for others. He doesn’t see the difference?”

“I don’t think he understands the concept of helping people,” Kivi replied.

“Look, if you don’t do this,” Dubra went on, “we’ll go back and let ‘em know to take care of their own shit. We’re just the messengers. Hrockas is already aware that the location of Castlebourne is out there, and is working on his own arrangements. Our refugees will be safe, and we will keep gathering more as long as there are more to gather. But. I would love it if the violence stopped. It would make my job easier.”

“Debatable,” Mirage interjected. She was noncorporeal, but visible to them via holographic projection. She was pretending to be sitting on the counter, one of her legs propped up on the backrest of an empty chair.

“What’s that?” Leona asked.

“Ignore her,” Dubra requested.

“Go on with what you were saying,” Leona encouraged Mirage.

“There’s no such thing as a peacetime refugee. They ask us to save them because there’s something to save them from. If you negotiate a ceasefire—which, let’s face it, is as close as you’re gonna get to peace—people won’t feel any impulse to escape anymore.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Dubra spat.

“Yes,” Mirage said, raising her voice a little, and hopping off the counter. “The Exin Empire is corrupt. The body can’t be saved. You can’t even save the limbs. The best you can do is save the individual cells, and bring them here.”

“That metaphor doesn’t make any sense,” Dubra argued. “Shut up.”

“What does Alt!Ramses say about this?” Mateo asked. “Is he still in control of what Old!Bronach does?”

“He goes by Tok’ra now,” Kivi divulges.

“Like as a first name? It’s a person’s name?” Mateo asked.

“It’s his only name. It’s a mononym.”

“He does love that franchise,” Leona admitted. “He said that he appreciated how much Egyptian culture and history played into it.”

“Where is the other Ramses?” Marie asked, looking around.

“He’s working on what he calls the Miracle Cure,” Leona answered cryptically. It wasn’t really their place to tell the crew of the VA about the Miracle Brighton issue.

There was a pause in the conversation.

“So, what do you say? Will you come back with us?” Dubra offered. Mirage was technically the captain of the ship, but Dubravka had full decision-making power over the missions, and she was apparently really adamant about that.

“Does it have to be today?” Leona asked her.

“If you go today, you’ll be waiting until tomorrow,” Mirage jumped back in. “They’ll all wanna make you sweat.”

Leona looked back to Dubra, who closed her eyes, nodded slightly, and shrugged even slightlier. “That tactic is not really gonna work on us. My problem is that we don’t have enough information. We’ve received piecemeal updates from you, but if we go back there, we need a more comprehensive report.”

“I can write one up for you in minutes,” Mirage volunteered.

“No, you won’t, Dubra insisted. “You’ll add too much bias. We already have reports,” she said to Leona. “The resistance fighters have their own form of central archives, and the AK tracks everything it does, and everything it sees. I can have an unbiased AI compile the information into something more digestible.”

“I can do that.” Ramses was standing in the doorway. “I’ve been listening this whole time. I trust Thistle. Feed him all your information, and he’ll take it from there.”

“So are you all coming today, or waiting?” Dubra asked again.

“We’ll catch up with you,” Ramses told her.

“That’s a complication,” Dubra began. “You’re not allowed to come. Well, you are allowed to be nearby, but they won’t talk to anyone on Team Matic if you’re involved. They see it as an unfair advantage, since an alternate version of you is on Old!Bronach’s side.”

“I don’t talk to that guy,” Ramses explained. “Tok’ra, you say?”

“It doesn’t matter what the truth is,” Mirage said. “It’s what they think.”

“How’s your work coming along?” Leona asked Ramses.

“It can wait,” Ramses claimed.

“Why don’t you stay and keep working on it?” Leona suggested. It was probably the smart move anyway, to keep someone on the outside, protected. They couldn’t do it all the time, since they were supposed to be a team, but they would still have him there, just in a different form. They wondered what he was like now. Tok’ra had been without them for years now, but he surely wouldn’t have changed too terribly much.

“I’ll stay here too,” Olimpia proposed. “I don’t care to be around any version of the Oaksent. I tried to kill him once, so...”

“So did Ram,” Mateo reminded them. “This is the right call. ‘Kay, buddy?”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Ramses didn’t like being sidelined, but he understood.

Marie hung back too. It was prudent to not leave one or two people stranded somewhere without a full tandem sling drive array. The rest of them accepted the Vellani Ambassador’s invitation to transport them to the Corridor, since it left their tandem slingdrives at full capacity. The VA had to go back there anyway.

They were now orbiting an Earth-like planet. From this viewpoint, there appeared to be more land and less water on the surface, but that was otherwise unremarkable. What they focused mostly on was the atmosphere, which shone brighter. An aurora wrapped itself all around the world, dancing with brilliant shades of turquoise and magenta.

“Don’t try to teleport down there,” Dubra warned. “This world is a fortress, which is why it’s a perfect neutral planet. Argon is extremely rich in the crust, and makes up about 60% of the atmosphere. It’s safe to breathe, especially you with your advanced substrates. The locals use breathing apparatuses to pull in oxygen, and raise the pitch of their voice to normal standards, but they don’t require them, so you will meet people who move slowly, and talk deeply.

“I don’t understand,” Mateo said.

“Argon is what we use in plasma shields,” Leona said. “They got domes down there?”

“They got domes,” Dubra confirmed. “Transparent ones, though, unlike Castlebourne. They have a real sky, so they never felt the need to fake it with holograms.”

“As it turns out, they’ve been in revolt and independent for a long time,” Kivi went on. “They never fought back, or tried to recruit. They just said, leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone. Let us develop and advance however we see fit, and we’ll continue to ship refined plasma to you, but at our discretion. Since the war began, they stopped shipping anything at all, but they did agree to not provide plasma to their enemies either, so there’s that.”

Leona chuckles quietly. “Argon is not a rare element. Sure, I bet it was convenient to have a single, highly concentrated source of the stuff, but they never needed this particular planet to satisfy their needs. I bet they harvest it from lots of other worlds, and that they weren’t too butthurt to let this one go.”

“How do we get down there?” Mateo asked.

“We’ll take The Puff!” Kivi replied excitedly. She ran off.

Dubra ran after her. “You’re not flying it!”

“Oh, yes, I am!” Kivi insisted.

The team followed them to the shuttle bay. They obviously knew this was here the whole time, but as teleporters, never had any use for it. The Puff looked mostly like a smaller version of the Vellani Ambassador. It was purple, sleek, and pretty. “Wait, where’s The Tammy?” Leona asked when she noticed the empty second docking bay.

“It’s...being borrowed,” Dubra replied, uncomfortably like it was a lie. Had it been stolen, or something?

Leona decided not to press for more answers. They climbed into the shuttle, and flew off down to the surface while Mirage stayed alone in orbit. Where was Tertius? They also decided to ask probing questions about that either. After receiving permission, they flew through the entry barrier of the visitor dome, and landed on the pad. The welcome party consisted of only one person. It was presumably this planet’s variation of Vitalie Crawville.

“She’s why they revolted,” Dubra explained without prompting. “They found her stasis pod, managed to break her out, and kind of elected her as their leader. Some may even worship her. I forgot to tell you,” she added in a more hushed voice, “they call this planet Vitalemus.”

“Will she see us as friends?” Angela asked. “I’m getting the impression that this secession happened quite a long time ago.”

“Oh, yes, it was centuries ago,” Dubra responded. “She is a little bit different than the other World Caretakers. A little bit more jaded, maybe? Serious. Hard to read. You should be fine, though.”

They stepped out of the shuttle, and approached Vitalie. She did look quite serious. Her face wasn’t sporting a frown, but it was still a little jarring when it suddenly turned into a smile. She reached out and took Leona in an embrace. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, old friend. Come quick, come quick.” She turned, and started walking away. “Let’s fuck some shit up.”

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Microstory 2504: Regret Seer

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I can see your regrets, and show you your potential. Before Landis Tipton received the gifts of The Ten Vulnerabilities, I was responsible for two of them. There were five of us in total, and we chose to use our abilities very differently. We were nomads, traveling all over the world—mostly the North American continent—helping people one at a time. We searched for those who were at their lowest, who needed the most help. I was on the frontlines of this mission. Regret is one of the strongest emotions that a person can have, and sight is one of the strongest senses. It was easier for me to pick our targets out of a crowd without having to wait for them to do something to draw attention to themselves. I could just see it. Once I found a candidate, the five of us would explore this person’s life further. We could strategize about what we could do to help this person live a better life. The way we saw it, our tasks were helping the whole world exponentially. Everyone we supported would go out, and pay it forward. With a brand new lease on life, they would find it in their hearts to help others in their own ways. Honestly, we didn’t think to focus on only one of the Vulnerabilities, like Landis has. We were drawn to one another, and it felt like we absolutely had to work together in order to fulfill our destinies. Had we only let the Health Smeller do her thing, what work would have been left for the rest of us? We just had a different perspective. And fittingly enough, I regret nothing. And you know that’s true, because if I did, I would be able to tell, and I’m comfortable enough with my own vulnerabilities that I would be honest about it. I can’t bring my own regrets to the surface, but I’m very good at recognizing them. We did our own thing our own way, and I still think we improved the world. We didn’t always hit it out of the park. There is a reason why we don’t have the gifts anymore, and why we had to transfer them to Landis. But I don’t like to talk about it, because that is something that I regret. Maybe I’m not as brave as I believe. I should be able to talk about what happened. Unfortunately, while I helped countless others see their potential, I could never see my own. But again, the gifts belong to Landis now, and while it saddens me a little that my Vulnerability senses aren’t being used, I’m proud of the work that he’s been doing. That’s why I chose him in the first place. I didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but I knew that he was on his way to reaching greatness.

Microstory 2501: Mother of the Healer

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You can call me Mrs. Tipton. I always knew that my boy was special. He wasn’t born premature, but he was a very tiny little thing. They had to keep him in that box for so long, it was horrible. But he came out, and he fought for his life. This was long before his literal special abilities. Once I heard about what Landis could do, I was not surprised at what he did with it. He hasn’t always had his life together, but he’s always been a caring and kind person. I think it’s because he had to overcome so much so early on. It wasn’t only that, though. There is so much darkness and sadness in the world, and he hated to see it. I could tell that he felt powerless against all the heartache, so he kind of retreated into his shell. To some, this made it seem like he didn’t care, but it was the exact opposite. He cared too much, and it was so overwhelming. You know he has a lot more abilities, right? He can tell when people are lying, and can kind of persuade people to do things. He can’t outright force them, like mind control, but there’s a lot more that he could do, and for selfish reasons. He could have become quite rich, working for the government or a corporation. They would have paid good money to have him investigate for them, or spy. I’m so proud of him for doing the right thing with these gifts. I can’t tell you where they come from. He wasn’t born with them. Lord knows, his father and I didn’t give them to him. But I know that he’s not the only one, and I know that as soon as he got them, he started doing something with them. Of course now, we’ve started to hear about other people with their own gifts, but I don’t think they would have announced themselves publicly were it not for my son’s singular bravery. How long have they walked among us without saying anything or helping? His father suggests that maybe they have been helping all along, but they’ve had to remain a secret. Maybe that’s true. I just wonder if they could be doing more by stepping out of the shadows. That’s what my son did. He jumped right into the light, and made sure everyone knew that he could help them. He bought himself some real estate, and started churning out cures. It makes you wonder, would anyone else do the same? Was this foundation inevitable? Or is Landis the only one who could have pulled this off? Just something to think about when you’re waiting in line to have your life changed for the better forever.

Microstory 2423: Oz

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My assumption is that the guy who made this planet was a huge fan of L. Frank Baum, and his works. If you haven’t read the books, you really should. You can see the movies, particularly the first one, but everything here is drawn from the source material. Oz is only one dome, complete with the Emerald City in the center, and the four countries around it. There’s a so-called Impassable Desert along the perimeter, but there’s not much to it before you just hit the wall. Which is fine. I mean, that qualifies as impassable, doesn’t it? Unless you go through a door. I’m overthinking it. The point is that Oz is only one dome, but the world of the Baum books includes many other regions on the planet, and each of them has their own dome too. They’re all on my list, because my father used to read me the books when I was a kid, multiple times. And when I grew up, I read them myself. On my way here, I read them yet again to refresh my memory. Yeah, I could have installed the data into my cybernetic mind, but there’s nothing like reading the words in realtime, is there? The bottom line is that this place is perfect for me. It’s as accurate as it can be given the lack of specifications from the books (which no one could expect from any writer). It exemplifies the spirit of the original story, I should say. They had to make their own decisions, and take some liberties, but they totally nailed it. This. Is. The Land of Oz. Are there some things that I would change if I could? Sure. Do I wish that they would ask me to help them make such changes? Yeah, I do. Could I offer my services? Yeah, I guess I could. I might just do that. They have people work here, right? It’s not all automated. I might wait just a little bit, though. I should take notes, and go through the entire thing. I should also wait until I’ve had time to do the same in the other Baum domes. I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, but you really should check it out. It is great and good.

Microstory 2358: Vacuus, July 16, 2179

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Dear Condor,

There was a short delay in my response to you because I read your letter, and decided that I wanted to implement your suggestion regarding my new noisy neighbor, then wait to see if it worked. It seems to have, at least for now. I kind of maybe got the feeling that I will eventually have to reset my connection to him after he forgets. I’m not saying that he’s dumb, but I noticed he would regularly lose his train of thought, and forget key aspects of the stories that he was telling. I came to find out that researchers here are aware of his issues. They’re still not certain if he would have developed this way had he been born on Earth, or if there’s something specific to this environment that led to his neurological shortcomings. Right now, they’re leaning towards the latter. All children are different, but others have shown similar signs of developmental problems that need to be addressed. At the moment, there are still some variables that they have to account for, so they can’t arrive at any conclusion on the cause. This is a relatively small population. There must have been something about the progenitors’ own psychology that made them want to come here at all, and they all had to pass certain tests to qualify. These factors, along with others, limit the gene pool, making it more difficult to test hypotheses when it comes to determining the effects that this world might have on humans as a rule. I have to say, I’m surprised I didn’t know anything about any of this before. I guess they’re trying to keep it hush-hush. It is funny, though, they might be missing out on valuable data by keeping the rest of us in the dark. I belong to a subset of the population: children who had no choice but to travel to this world; born on Earth, grown up on the ship, and working on the base. The criteria for our selection was different than it was for the adults, of course. Studying us may tell them something that they’re not seeing now. I’m not gonna let them know about this, because I’m already a test subject, and I don’t need to add to that pressure. I still can’t find anyone who will tell me what exactly they’ve learned from the whole twins separated at birth study. I don’t know which team might be responsible for that, and I can’t get the top brass to even admit that it’s a thing. In a way, my situation is not dissimilar to Bray’s. We’re both being studied against our will. I think that’s what really endeared him to me, and honestly, this street seems to go both ways. He has had a much harder life than I realized, and I think that he also sometimes wishes that he were on Earth. I’m not saying it was okay that he was playing music while I was trying to sleep, but I kind of understand this behavior better now. They weren’t watching him in secret. They were really in his face about it, and they probably just made everything worse. I do not envy him, and it really puts our situation into perspective, don’t you think?

Sleeping in the quiet once more,

Corinthia

Microstory 2357: Earth, July 7, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

You should have received my custom read receipt that confirmed the plan for The Winfield Files, but in case you didn’t, we’re a go. They’re not the longest books in the world, but they’re not super short either. Still, I think we could each get the next one done within a couple weeks. I agree that our thoughts should be in the form of attachments. Yeah, we might have to wait for each other’s responses before moving on, so it may not be as neat as one installment per pair of letters, but I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. To answer your question, our relationship with the dome remains strong. Generally speaking, the immigrants aren’t having significant issues, though it’s a culture shock for many of them. In some ways, we’re different, but in others, we’re the same. It’s true that we’re mobile, but this thing is so large, and the engines are running so slowly, that you can’t really tell. The view is really the biggest difference. Still, they’ve designed it to simulate a normal dome as much as possible. We have dirt and sand and grass. Dad and I live in the platform section, instead of the dome proper, but all of the newcomers have been assigned housing outside, which I think they prefer, since it’s more like what they’re used to. Speaking of new friends, I have an idea about your neighbor. What your problem seems to be is that he doesn’t care how his actions affect others. You have to show him that you exist, and give him some reason to consider that in the future. Don’t complain about the noise, don’t yell at him. Endear yourself to him. First step is to ask him for help with something. How tall are you? If you have some artwork high up on the wall that needs to be adjusted, or a nut under your sink that needs to be tightened, ask him to do it. This especially works if he’s a man, because he wants to feel big and strong, but you can execute this trick with just about anyone. Just make sure it’s a simple task. People want to feel needed, not exploited. Once he’s done, thank him for taking the time, then invite him over for lunch, or a board game. Invite a couple other people if you feel uncomfortable being alone with him, but don’t make it a full-on party. You want him to see you as an individual, and to be reminded of his connection to you when he’s in the area, not the gathering over all. I don’t like the phrase kill them with kindness, but that’s what you’re doing here. This doesn’t work every time; some people are clueless, but my childhood bully stopped harassing me after I tried this. Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes.

Ready to start Book One,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 30, 2482

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The technicolor web encompassed them as it did every time they used the quintessence drive. They faded into blackness before the stars and other celestial bodies reappeared. It didn’t look like anything had changed, though. They seemed to still be orbiting Dardius. Had something gone wrong? “Has something gone wrong?” Marie asked. “It looks the same.”

“Not exactly the same.” Her sister pointed through the window, at the terminator line that separated night from day. “We should see lights from the cities.”

“Lee-Lee?” Mateo asked.

She looked at her watch, knowing what he wasn’t saying. She stared at it for a moment before dropping her wrist, and regarding the group. “It’s June 30...2082.”

“I’ve never been to this year before.” Mateo shut his eyes, and concentrated. “I can feel her. She’s nearby. But...it’s weird. She’s still...”

“In flux?” Ramses guessed. “I feel that too.”

“What was this world like in this time period?” Olimpia asked.

“It wasn’t populated yet,” Leona began to explain. “I think these are the beginnings of something known as The Sanctuary. I suppose the whole planet ends up being thought of as a sanctuary, but back then, it was just one hotel. There could be no one down there besides Romana, or only a handful of people. If Meliora’s around already, she’ll be able to help us figure this out.”

“I can figure it out,” Mateo decided. “I’m just going to teleport down to her.”

“Don’t be reckless,” Leona warned.

“Helping or hurting, honey. Helping or hurting.” With that, he disappeared.

He was standing inside of a construction site. By the looks of the architecture, it appeared to be a hotel, but it was nowhere near ready for people to move in. This probably was indeed Sanctuary, just in its very early days. There could be enemies nearby, or not. There was no way to know, and the only rational reaction was to be cautious and quiet. He was standing in front of a door, which was where the tethering signal was coming from. He reached for the knob when one footstep gave him pause.

“What are you doing here?” Holy shit, that was a face he hadn’t seen in a good long while. It was Dave, a.k.a. The Chauffeur.

“Where should I be, if not here?” Mateo questioned.

Dave sized him up and down. “You hold yourself differently. You seem more comfortable. You’re not the same man you were when we last saw each other.” He was right. It had been centuries.

“You didn’t notice the spacesuit I’m now wearing?”

“That too.” Dave looked around for other threats. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but if you have plans for that young woman in there, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to take a step back.”

This surprised Mateo. “You’re protective of her?”

“She needs protection.”

Mateo flicked the door open. Romana was standing in a lit reading nook of the hotel suite. She was surrounded by a swirling swarm of dark particles. They made her disappear for a couple of seconds, only to return her for a couple more before sending her away again. It was unending. Her eyes were closed, as if trapped in some form of stasis. “That’s my daughter. I’ve been looking for her.”

“Are you lying?” Dave asked.

“Don’t you know me well enough?” Mateo asked him. “I’m the good guy. No, I’m not lying. Her name is Romana Nieman.” He watched as she disappeared and reappeared over and over and over again. This was Buddy’s doing, just as he suspected.

“I’ve been trying to get her out of there for years,” Dave explained. “Every time I get close, those black fly things attack me, and send me somewhere else. Sometimes it’s just to the other side of the room, but I have had to claw my way back from decades in the past. I’m afraid they will one day zoicize me.”

“This is my fault. The man who has her captive and I did not part ways well.”

Dave lifted his chin in realization. “That sounds about right. Can you help her?”

“Tell me where Buddy is.”

“I’ve never even heard of him.”

“Yeah, he’s new, for whatever that’s worth in our world.”

“There’s been no one at the construction site, besides me, The Builder, and Meliora Reaver.”

“Rutherford,” Mateo corrected. “Her name is Meliora Rutherford.”

“Indeed.”

“Give me a second,” he said with a finger up. “Why has no one come down here with me?” he asked through comms. “To stop me, or help?”

“We don’t see Dave Seidel as a threat,” Leona responded. “Do you need help?”

“I may. I’m going to try to take her by the hand. Come find me if I end up back in dinosaur times.”

Leona appeared from the other end of the hallway. “I’m here. We’ll battle the dinosaurs together.”

“A lot of changes with you too.”

All three of them stepped into the room. The dark particles menacingly expanded from Romana’s body, like bees protecting the hive, but they weren’t attacking yet. “I keep forgetting the rule, don’t antagonize the antagonist.”

“Not everything is about you,” a voice came from nowhere. A second swarm of dark particles appeared in a corner from which Buddy materialized. “The truth is, I didn’t even know you knew this woman. I took her to test Dave’s resolve.”

“My resolve?” Dave asked. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re special,” Buddy claimed. “Your powers are special. And I need them.”

“He wants you to get him a fruit,” Mateo said, jumping right to the end of this dumb spiel. “A citrus, to be exact.”

“Oh,” Dave said, knowing the limitations of time travel. “I can’t do that.”

Buddy laughed. “Temporal Citrus Explosion Syndrome is just another time illness, except instead of a person getting sick, it’s a fruit. You can protect organisms traveling through time. That’s your whole deal.”

“I’ve already tried,” Dave contended. “That was, like, the first thing Meliora had me attempt after she turned me into this. She too thought I was a loophole. And she didn’t have to kidnap anyone for it. She just asked, asshole.”

“As I said, it was a test. You failed to free her from her prison, and so here she shall remain forever. Sorry, Mr. Matic. I harbor no ill will against you, or her. I am aware that you had nothing to do with Superintendent Grieves’ betrayal a few years back. You weren’t even there!”

“Wait,” Dave said. He really needed to save the girl. “Perhaps there’s something else I can do for you. Let the girl go, and I’ll try my best. I can make no promises, but I may come up with an alternate solution that you haven’t thought of. My powers are not all that define me. I’m pretty clever.”

Buddy considered the offer. “You’ll have to do everything I say, no arguments. You have to make a genuine offer to get me that citron, even if it’s not exactly pleasant.”

“Okay,” Dave conceded.

“Thank you, Dave,” Mateo said sincerely.

“Just take care of her.” The way Dave said that, as if it was personal for him. He had never met Romana, but perhaps she reminded him of someone else.

Buddy reached out, and shook a reluctant Dave’s hand. “We got a deal.” He moved his hand over towards Romana. The dark particles broke orbit, and sped towards their master.

After he had reabsorbed them all from her, Romana’s knees buckled, but Mateo made a short jump, and caught her in time. “It’s okay, I got you.” She was still unconscious. He lifted her up in his arms, and looked over at Buddy. “If she doesn’t recover, you’ve become a real enemy, and that is not something you wanna be.”

Buddy titled his head and shrugged, apparently accepting the possibility.

“Dave,” Mateo went on. “Don’t lose yourself.” He exchanged a look with Leona, then they both disappeared.

“Get us out of here as fast as you can,” Leona ordered.

Ramses was hovering over the console, ready for this, having been listening to the brief but charged conversation. He engaged the machine again, and sent them away. It was a rocky trip this time. The technicolor web engulfed them on all sides, as usual, but it was uneven. The whole ship shook like it was experiencing turbulence. When it spit them out at the destination, they were sent tumbling through space, and were still feeling it here on the inside. Ramses first made sure that there weren’t any objects nearby that they might collide with. Then he shut off the viewscreens, so they wouldn’t be so dizzy anymore. The internal inertial dampeners were still shuttering a little bit, but holding together.

“The watch is having trouble calibrating,” Leona announced, bracing her hip against the wall. “Something went wrong.”

“All that matters is we’re together,” Mateo said. “I’m taking her to the realspace infirmary.” There were three infirmaries on this vessel. Two of them were in pocket dimensions, but one was just built on the ship itself.

“Good idea,” Leona replied to him before addressing the group. “No teleporting, and stay out of the pockets. They may be compromised.”

Ramses worked on the console to stabilize the ship. After a minute, it was still having attitude problems, but the shaking stopped. While he was trying to fix the rest, Leona sat down, and fiddled with the watch. She tapped on her comm disc. “June 30, 2182. We only jumped a hundred years.”

“That’s not where I was trying to take us!” Ramses complained.

“We’ll figure it out,” Leona assured him.

They did figure it out, and it didn’t take them very long either. The slingdrive was very sensitive, and could only make one jump before it needed some time to rest. It was all too technical for Mateo to understand, and he didn’t care to learn the details anyway. It needed a break in between uses. Whatever. That changed nothing about Romana’s condition. She was okay, though, and he needed Olimpia’s comfort to remember that. According to the medical pod’s diagnosis, she was only sleeping. Her EEG suggested that she would wake up on her own, and it was safer to just wait for that to happen than to try to wake her up some other way.

There was a little bit of news while Mateo sat by his daughter’s side. While seemingly random at first, their arrival at this particular point in spacetime led them to a discovery. The Insulator of Life was just floating in the middle of space. There was no telling what it had been through, but Ramses seemed to think that someone’s consciousness was being stored inside of it. He was forced to put the investigation on the backburner while he sorted through the slingdrive issues. They must have solved the issue one way or another, because by the end of the day, they were able to make another jump. Leona announced that they were where they wanted to be, orbiting Castlebourne on June 30, 2482.

He never left the infirmary, and neither did Olimpia. He ran through the past couple of weeks in his head, replaying the events that led him here. What could he have done differently? Could he have handled the Buddy situation differently? Could he have urged Ramses to exercise caution, and wait on trying to tether the group. It seemed like a good idea at the time, to prevent any of them from getting lost, but their plan backfired, and this may have lasting consequences. One of those consequences was staring him in the face. Rather, she would have been if her eyes were open. “Have you noticed?” he asked after a long time in the silence. “She looks older.”

Olimpia cleared her throat. “I believe she is. If she’s been off of the pattern since she disappeared, it’s been five years for her.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Leona said, stepping into the room to check on them. “I didn’t stop to make precise calculations, but just working from memory, I would say that she existed in the timestream for about four seconds at a time before jumping forward two seconds. I don’t know if it was exactly that, or what, but I did notice her being present for around twice as long as she was gone. I think Buddy knew more than he admitted. He obviously did this to disable our tether’s ability to track her location. She never had to jump forward very far in the future; just enough to clear the last ping before it reset.”

“So, how old is she?” Mateo pressed.

“At a two to one ratio, that’s about three and a third years.”

He looked back down at her. “She’s eighteen.”

“Her body is,” Leona clarified. “I don’t know how it subsisted this long in the dark particle temporal bubble, but we don’t know what happened to her mind in there. Age isn’t about how long you’ve been alive. It’s about how much time you’ve experienced.”

“I wish I could look at it that way, but all I see is five more years that I could have spent getting to know my daughter.”

They wanted to keep talking it through, but he just wanted to return to the silence. A couple of hours later, while Mateo and Olimpia were eating their feelings out of a dayfruit that was programmed to taste like chocolate cake, Romana finally woke up. It seemed, however, to be a double-edged sword. He was relieved for a moment when the EEG alerted them that her brain activity was increasing, then very concerned when she opened her eyes, and several dark particles wafted out of them before fading into nothingness.

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Microstory 2258: Loyal and Protective

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So the reporters are gone, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped coming to our house. We’re still getting harassers, but not because they want to know our story. What they want is money. Kelly, despite being so young, has known a lot of people throughout her life. She took a wide array of classes in high school, and participated in a ton of extracurricular activities. She’s easy to get along with, and is well-liked by her peers. But she only had a small group of real friends. They know who they are, and they’ve supported her during this crazy ordeal. Others just want a payday, and they’re contriving deeper relationships with her in their respective headcanons in order to leverage them for personal gain. I’m rich now, and so are Dutch and Kelly. Many of the latter’s former contacts have been showing up, suddenly showing interest in her life, and they could not be more transparent. Their motives are obvious, to me, to Kelly, and most importantly, to our security team. These people aren’t camping out on the lawn, fortunately, but they do keep ringing that bell. They wouldn’t be able to do that, of course, without the reporters having doxxed us, but I don’t want to get into another rant about that. I just need to clear the air. The money that we now have is not for fun. It’s not so we can buy a private jet, and a megayacht. It’s not so we can start adding caviar to every meal. We have a job to do, and this capital allows us to do it. Our house is as big as it is because there are three of us, we’re not romantically linked, and we need room for live-in security, as well as some home office space. We see it as an investment in our well-being and responsibilities, not as a status symbol. We’re giving money away to charities, and social programs, not to just random individuals, no matter how big of a crush they purportedly had on one of us in ninth grade history class. I hope that all makes sense, because I’m loyal and protective, and if you start making one of my people feel uncomfortable and unsafe, then you’ll find yourself feeling the same things. Understood? Okay, then I don’t think we need to talk about it again.

Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Microstory 2256: Keep My Mouth Shut

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

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

Microstory 2241: Me as a Weapon

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Yo, what up, kids? My name is Dutch Haines, and I won’t take up too much of your time. People have just been asking where I came from, and I thought it might make sense to clear the air. I won’t go into too many details, to protect the innocent, and even the not so innocent. Months ago, I woke up just as I normally do, and tried to leave the house to head for work. I never made it, though. I ended up in this underground bunker, apparently on another Earth. That’s what people told me anyway. It was also centuries in the future, so maybe it was our planet the whole time. Wouldn’t that be a great twist for a movie? Anyway, there’s this weird phenomenon called Westfall, which sends people to different worlds all the time. You’re not supposed to know it’s happened, but sometimes it glitches, I guess. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is that I was sick, kind of like Nick. I was the carrier of a disease that’s harmless to humans, but deadly to an evil race of aliens who are trying to sterilize people they don’t like all over the multiverse. The natives asked to study me and my blood so they could use me as a weapon, and sadly, I believe they got their wish. I just wanted to come clean about my part in this. It’s not like I really had a choice. Maybe the Westfall thing wasn’t a glitch. Maybe I was destined to go there for that. I dunno, but I’m hoping to make up for it, so I would like to dedicate my life to service, if you’ll have me. I’ve never been one for social media, but I’ve signed up now, so maybe y’all can follow me too, and help me figure out what I can do to help the world. I’ll hand this website back over to Nick for now, though.

Microstory 2237: Good Number of Zeros

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Okay, I’ll make this brief. People did not like what I wrote in my last social post. I told you yesterday that I wasn’t going to be making any book deals, or anything, but I think most of you know that that’s not really what I meant. I was saying that I’m working on my own timeline, and contemplating my future privately. Dutch came back to this world through an interdimensional doorway while I was starting to wonder whether it even existed. For the first time in months, there is hope for me to see my friends again, and maybe even my family if I’m lucky. So no, some of you misunderstood me. I did not reject the concept of making money, and I am not being a hypocrite. I told you that I would be doing this on my own terms, which means not accepting just any offer that comes with a good number of zeros. Let’s do it right, not just quickly. This is all happening so fast, I don’t know what tomorrow holds, let alone the next year, so just be patient. For now, I’ll ask you to read my site if you want, and not try to give me any ideas. I appreciate the thought, and I’m not mad, but this is all I need for now. One thing I will tell you is that the internet is the only place where I share my thoughts. I don’t see any reason to write an autobiography that you have to buy. That ain’t me.

Microstory 2236: Stop Sending Me Messages

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We’re running into the same problem with the FBI that we had with the jail. No one has my contact information, so they’re reaching out to the only entity that they know is already in contact with me. They had to hire a temp to sift through all the letters and emails. It may actually be a team, I don’t really know. But I’m sure it’s a stressful job, because it includes death threats. Well, in truth, I don’t know that there are any death threats, because if true, part of the temp’s job would be to filter them out, so I don’t have to see them. But let’s face it, there are. No one should be sending anything like that, but I don’t really want anything anyway; good or bad. I don’t want your love letters, propositions, or proposals. I don’t want you to publish a book about my life, or cast me in a romcom. I won’t go on a date with you, or father your child, or give you my blood. It’s not a healing elixir; we know as much. Just stop. Not too long ago, Kelly suggested that we might consider hiring a publicist to handle all this stuff. They have the infrastructure and hiring practices to handle this sort of thing, not that I want anyone to have to deal with this stuff. I would rather it just stop altogether. Back in my younger days, I wished that I would be famous, and I guess I always knew that it came with drawbacks, but knowing about them, and experiencing them, are two different things. So please just calm down. As I’ve tried to explain, my blood cannot heal you. Doctors have been studying it for weeks—even longer than that when you consider the fact that I was a former immortal before I even came to your world. That’s the thing about your universe, it dampens my abilities, which is of course, what opens me up to all those death threats. God, I just can’t get away from the strife. Please just stop sending me messages. I’m sorry, but I’m not reading most of them. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, but I can tell you that it will be on my terms. The more you beg me to follow your lead, or listen to your ideas, the more I’m going to pull away. That’s just who I am. If you really wanna stay in the loop, simply read my website and socials. Personal connection isn’t a thing; not with me. I have all the friends I need.