Microstory 1948: Myka’s Debrief

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SI Eliot: Well, I think that’s it for me. You’ve been most helpful. I appreciate your patience. I know this has been a rough last several days.

Myka: That’s it? I’m free to go?

SI Eliot: Yep. I can arrange a car to transport you back to your home, if you need.

Myka: No, I...

SI Eliot: You what?

Myka: How long will I last out there before you find something to charge me with?

SI Eliot: Miss Tennison, if we wanted to arrest you, we would just do it. We wouldn’t have to come up with some new charge.

Myka: Wouldn’t you? Every law I’ve broken for this operation must be kept as a state secret. They can’t be listed in the records, so there’s nothing you can do right now.

SI Eliot: Even if that were true, you’re assuming that we have any interest in arresting you in the first place, which we don’t.

Myka: Forgive me if I’m having trouble believing that you’ll truly let me go with the knowledge that I have regarding the aliens. Guys like you don’t like leaving loose ends, and right now, I’m feelin’ pretty loose.

SI Eliot: You mean you intend to tell others what you know?

Myka: No, that’s not what I mean, but I’m worried that that is what you’re thinking, and you’re just not telling me about it, because you want me to feel comfortable.

SI Eliot: Again, we wouldn’t need to set you free if we wanted to stop you. I can think of six laws and policies off the top of my head that would give us more than enough reason to stuff you down a dark hole for the rest of your life. Letting you go back home in the hopes that you jaywalk, or accidentally open someone else’s mail, is a lot more work than is anywhere near necessary. The government is a lazy entity. That’s why we have buzzwords like rendition and national security, so everything falls into some sort of legal category that allows us to do whatever we want. So trust me when I say, you’re safe.

Myka: Well...I’ll believe it when I see it, which I guess may not happen until I’m on my deathbed for natural causes. Until then, I suppose I will take my leave.

SI Eliot: However...

Myka: Here it comes.

SI Eliot: If you would be willing to stay on with us in a more official capacity, we would be willing to discuss terms.

Myka: Are you trying to offer me a job?

SI Eliot: It’s like you said, you know about the aliens, and I’m not just talking about those wingèd insects downstairs. Your relationship with the human from another universe could prove invaluable.

Myka: I’m not going to be spying on Leonard for you.

SI Eliot: I’m not asking you to. I’ve had multiple similar conversations with him in regards to a job here. He has law enforcement experience, which you don’t, so I couldn’t promise you would be out in the field, but I’m sure we could find a place for you here.

Myka: Hmm... I’m not sure. I’ll need to think about it.

SI Eliot: I would be worried if you didn’t.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 16, 2398

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Ramses quit his job, having come to the conclusion that the extra income was not worth keeping. He hated it, and truthfully, probably wouldn’t have been able to steal very much before getting caught, and then that would just paint a target on their backs anyway. Fortunately, it isn’t customary to give notice in this country in this reality. He just told his boss it was over, and hung up the phone. Looking back, it was a bit of a silly plan, and he’s glad to be free to do things like this. He’s taking Leona out to the site of The Constant. It took Heath days to make contact with the rest of the team, but now they’re all caught up. Leona is nervous, but she’s coming anyway, because she knows more about time travel, and has to inspect the scene herself. She’s fairly confident that Mateo is alive. No, Heath didn’t look all over the facility to find him, but he probably looked enough. Mateo has a habit of surviving, even if he has to die first. There’s no reason to believe that this time will be any different. Still, Leona’s husband just disappeared. She can’t not go, and just wait for him in Kansas City.

That’s what Angela and Marie are doing, as the second reason that they’re just staying in the area. The number one reason, though, is that they still have to go through with the plan to have the former be able to successfully pretend to be the latter. Even if it never comes up in regards to the abortion, it’s a handy secret weapon to keep in their arsenal for any future use, and the logical thing to do. Not many people would be able to get away with it; not in this time period, anyway.

“We’re here,” Ramses announces.

“This is where The Olimpia is hidden,” Leona complains. “I wanna go to the Constant.”

“Heath sent us a text message while you were asleep. He wants to meet here.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.” Ramses drives into the shallow ditch, and up into the treeline, where he parks behind the Olimpia.

Heath is waiting for them outside, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.

“What’s wrong?” Leona asks him after getting out.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong,” Heath begins. “But first of all, I want to apologize for the part that I played in—”

“Get on with it, what’s wrong?” Leona interrupts.

“Okay, so...when the thing that happened happened, Mateo saved my life by pushing me out of the hole. I fell backwards, and hit a rock, suffering a latent concussion. I managed to get all the way down to—”

“I know all this,” Leona interrupts again. “Move on.”

“Okay, well, the concussion caught up to me, and I passed out. I woke up in the med bay.”

“How did you get to the med bay?” she asks.

“A nice family of four orphaned children found the hole before I had the chance to cover it up better, and treated me. That’s why it took me so long to contact you. I was out for quite awhile.”

“Four orphaned children,” she echoes. “Where are they now?”

“They’re still down there,” Heath explains. “They’ve sort of...laid claim to it. It’s not completely ridiculous, because they own the land. Well, they own the land over most of the facility. The entrance, they believe, is on public land, because it’s so close to the road.”

“Are they not letting us down there?” Leona presses.

“No, they’re happy to host us, but they’ve decided that they are the hosts, and we are the visitors. They’re hoping to sell tickets to rich people who fear World War VII.”

“That’s not an option,” Ramses decides.

“I told them as much. They’re...willing to negotiate.”

“I don’t have time to deal with this right now,” Leona says. “I need to be there, and not be here. Let’s go.”

“Okay, I just wanted to warn you that things are complicated. They’re not going public until we tell them it’s okay, though, so don’t worry about that. Or, they won’t go public at all, I guess. They’re not going to advertise—”

“Let’s go!” she repeats, walking past him, and heading for her destination.

When they get down the elevator, preliminary negotiations begin. Ramses tries to explain to the eldest sister that the bunker was built long before the land above it was in their family’s name. When the girl argues that it’s been in the family for centuries, he tries to clarify that it’s far older than that, but she has a hard time believing it, because the technology down here is even more advanced than the rest of the world nowadays. In the middle of the argument, he introduces himself, and she returns in kind.

Leona wasn’t paying any attention, but she perks up now. “Alyssa? McIver?” She didn’t even have to hear a last name to make the connection. She’s just used to meeting people from her future, so a first name is often enough to spark an associated memory.

“Yeah. Do you know me? He acted like he knew me too.”

“Yes, but I won’t explain it unless you sign over the rights to a small plot of your land, plus everything lower than three kilometers under all of your land.”

Alyssa crosses her arms. “Whatever, I’m not stupid. This is the only thing we own that’s worth any money. You think I’m gonna let you keep it?”

“We don’t want money for the bunker. We just have to keep it a secret,” Leona tells her. “You see what this place is like. It’s much, much older than my friend here has even told you. It’s so old, no one owned this land. No one was living anywhere near here. No human was alive at all.” She looks around at the walls. “Except for the ones who built it, but they were just there to supervise the robots. That’s a taste of the explanation; the tip of the iceberg. You want the whole story, you sell us the above land for at least double the fair price, and you don’t tell a soul about it. You don’t utter a single. Damn. Syllable.”

Alyssa’s interest has been right piqued, but she still isn’t sure.

Leona throws in a bonus. “You can live down here, if you want, and use whatever technology you find that we don’t take out for our own purposes, or to protect you. Again, you can’t tell anyone, but it’s yours. Have you found the swimming pools?”

“Pools?” one of the young boys asks, emphasizing the last letter of the word.

Alyssa wants to counter, but looks like she’s worried about losing everything if she doesn’t accept what’s been offered. “Okay, deal.”

The six of the presently able-bodied people begin to clean up the mess from the explosion. Not only does it have to be done regardless, but they want to be absolutely sure that Mateo’s body isn’t lying in there somewhere. Ramses breaks up the rock with a sledgehammer. Alyssa and the boys collect the pieces, and the youngest girl operates an automated vacuum for the rest. They get it done in a day.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2398

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Heath Walton awakens in darkness again. His head feels better, and he’s comfortably lying down in a bed. He doesn’t know how he got here, though, or how long he’s been asleep. He has to regain his memory once more, but this time, he isn’t going to move around, and look for clues. He’s just going to lie here quietly and think about it.

“I know you’re awake,” comes a voice from the other side of the room.

“Who’s there?”

A light flips on, startling and blinding him for a moment. Once his vision returns, he sees a little girl sitting in the corner, holding a book. She turns off the tiny reading lamp she was using, and stands up. “He’s awake!” she calls out towards the hallway.

Heath looks around, realizing that he’s in the med bay of The Constant, where his wife, Marie is meant to have her abortion. Judging by the fact that at least two strangers are here, that’s probably not going to happen anymore. “What are you doing here?”

Three more people walk in, all of them children. The two boys are probably a few years older than the girl in the corner, and the last one might technically be an adult, though not likely their mother. She inspects Heath’s vitals on the monitor above him. “You have a concussion, but the computer thinks you’re gonna be okay.”

“Who are you?” Heath asks. “Do you live down here?”

“No,” the young woman replies. “We were driving into town to secure a booth for the farmer’s market when we noticed a hole in the ground by the side of the road.”

“A giant-ass hole!” one of the boys exclaims proudly.

“Language, Carlin,” the leader scolds.

“Sorry,” he says with a frown.

“You saw a hole, so instead of calling the cops, you decided to climb down a five-kilometer deep elevator shaft using the emergency ladder?” Heath questions.

“We didn’t climb down the ladder,” the woman denies. “We took the elevator.”

“There is no elevator,” Heath argues.

She nods. “There was a little hole in the side of the big hole. We dug into it deeper, and found a door, which leads to an elevator. It lets off at the bottom at what appears to be a hidden entrance down here too. Did you fall in the big one? How could you have possibly survived that height?”

“I didn’t,” Heath begins. “I fell next to the hole, and hit a rock, which knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I climbed down the ladder, looking for my friend, and I guess I lost consciousness again.”

“You’re lucky we found you. You were asleep all day yesterday, and into this morning. It’s May 15 now.”

“You’ve been down here this whole time? Did you touch anything?”

“Of course we did,” the woman responds. “We didn’t do anything dangerous. This is a nice place. It kind of looks like an underground hotel, but clearly no one actually lives here. Did rich people build it centuries ago to survive one of the older wars?” 

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

She can tell he’s lying, but appears to recognize his claim to this facility is much stronger than hers, and she’s not entitled to answers. “Anyway, you’ve already met little Trina, and foul-mouthed Carlin. This is Moray, and I’m Alyssa. We’re the McIvers.”

Heath perks up, and can’t help but ask, “Alyssa McIver?”

“Yeah. Have we met?” she asks him.

“No, of course not.” And it’s true, they haven’t, but he has heard the name before. Or rather, he’s read it. Mateo keeps a list of every person he’s met, even those he knew before becoming a time traveler. Anyone from his past or future could return, and he finds it hard to keep all that in his head. Heath has no such memory problems—at least, not unless he has a concussion—so he became pretty familiar with that list just by reading over it once. Alyssa McIver is on it. He knows she is, but what does that mean? Was that an alternate version of her? Does this one standing before him end up traveling to the main sequence at some point? Has she already been to the main sequence, and now she’s trying to keep it a secret? That wouldn’t be an outrage. What was that code Marie told him about, the one they sometimes use to find out if a stranger is like them, or oblivious to time travel? Oh, yeah. “Do you like salmon?”

“Huh?” she asks.

Oh, wait. He has to emphasize that word. “I mean, do you like...salmon?”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“I’m not!” Carlin announces.

Well. They could still be lying, but it’s not his job to decide what to do about them either way. He starts to get out of bed. “I have to call my friends.”

Alyssa steps over and gently presses his shoulders down. “Whoa, you are in no shape to go anywhere. There is no service down here, and there’s not enough room for a hospital bed in the elevator, and this bed doesn’t move anyway, and the computer says that you need more rest.”

“You have to leave, and pretend you never saw any of this,” he orders.

“Go back to sleep,” Alyssa orders right back. “We’ll talk about it later.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 14, 2398

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Heath Walton awakens in the darkness with no memory of recent events. The last thing he remembers is preparing to blow a hole at the top of the empty elevator shaft with Mateo. The storm just started, and they were running out to take advantage of the noise it would create. It must not have gone well. Sure, there’s a hole in the ground, but there’s also a huge lump on his head that hurts like hell, and Mateo is nowhere to be found. “Mateo! Mateo!” he calls out, but nothing. He begins to meander around the area with his flashlight, looking for clues, and continuing to call out his friend’s name. There’s an obvious place where he would be, but he doesn’t want to think about it. That is not an option. There is no way they went through all this—taking the easy way out—and Mateo is just dead, lying at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

As he keeps going with his search for answers, memories begin to return to his mind, first as contextless fragments, which gradually transform into coherent recollections. They hid behind the trees as the fuse shortened. No, Heath was hiding alone. Mateo had to light the fuse himself, and then teleport away at the very last second. But he did make it out, Heath remembers that quite clearly now. They...they high fived to their success, and went out to see it for themselves. But it was too early. Yeah, that was the problem. The hole wasn’t finished forming yet, so when they peeked over the edge, their weight caused it to widen more. They could not have fallen through, though, because Heath woke up on the surface. Think. What happened?

He sighs, and continues, but comes up short. This isn’t helping. He has to stop and concentrate on the last moment he experienced before falling down and getting bonked in the head. Let’s see, his watch is still fine. It’s been seven hours since dinner. That’s a long time to be unconscious. Maybe Mateo woke up first, and wandered off? Heath goes back to the spot where he woke up and shines his light on the ground. There. There’s the blood stain on the rock. He feels the back of his head. His hand comes back red. Yeah, that tracks. There’s only one blood stain, though. Remember. The ground fell out from under them, and they fell backwards. But... But Mateo fell in the opposite direction. There’s no doubt about it now. He still can’t recall the exact moment, but it is the only reasonable explanation. In fact, he has the feeling that the last thing Mateo did was save Heath’s life.

He points his light into the hole, knowing full well there’s no way he’s going to see the bottom of the five kilometer high elevator shaft. He should be able to see all the stuff they constructed near the entrance, though. The rope, the ladder, the little platform. One of those things might have saved Mateo’s life, but none of them have been left standing. The explosion took them all out, which isn’t all that surprising. The concrete ceiling was almost half a meter thick. If it didn’t break apart all the way, it would have taken out any obstacle in its path on the way down. And then Mateo would have fallen right upon that rubble a minute later.

There’s still some hope, though. Like the rest of the original team, Mateo has the ability to teleport, as long as he stays within some certain radius of this facility. He could have transported himself out before crashing to the bottom. That doesn’t explain why he never returned to make sure that Heath was okay, but there could be any explanation for that. Perhaps Mateo accidentally jumped to the other side of the world. Or maybe he finally figured out how to get back to his home reality. He can’t assume anything yet. This can all be proven wrong if Heath can find a body. The only thing he can do now is climb down there using the emergency ladder, and hope to find nothing but dust, dirt, concrete, and metal.

He’s about to rush down there, but realizes that there is absolutely no way someone survives that fall. If Mateo’s down there, it’s just his body. There’s no hurry to go down and see that, and he has to be smart about this. The sun is going to rise shortly, and anyone could just show up and see this weird sight. It’s probably going to be someone who lives around here, and knows that there’s not meant to be a gigantic hole by the side of the road. It’s okay, they planned for this. They ripped some bushes out of the ground from farther away, and set them off to the side. All he has to do is place them in between the roads and the hole. He doesn’t even have to plant them for real for now. He just has to make it look like they belong there. When they have more time, they’ll complete the transplanting, and cover this whole thing up better than any government agency could.

Once it looks good, he ties a rope to a tree, repels down to the emergency ladder, which is fortunately intact, but still doesn’t go all the way up to the very top. As tired as he is by now, he doesn’t stop. The journey takes him around an hour. He sets up the battery-powered work lamp, and starts to sift through the wreckage. He spends several minutes on it, and doesn’t find a damn thing, which is a good sign. He hasn’t gotten anywhere near the real bottom, but he shouldn’t have to go that deep. Memory issues notwithstanding, Mateo had to have been standing on top of the ground when the shaft caved in. Sure, some debris may have fallen down after him, but not this much. Heath should be able to find him here somewhere, or perhaps...parts of him. That is, he would find him if he were here. But he’s not, it’s all but impossible. He keeps pushing things around for another half hour anyway, but still doesn’t find anything; not even blood. Mateo is alive, wherever he is. Then he has a thought. Maybe the question isn’t so much where, but when. The other team members would know better. It’s time to call them and explain. This is going to be a terrible conversation, but it has to happen. He just needs to take a rest for a second first.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 13, 2398

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It’s too much work. They tied a mess of rope to the ladder, and across the shaft to the metal beam things that were once used to transport the elevator car, back when there was an elevator in here. They still can’t figure out what happened to it, but it’s looking like they’re going to have to somehow build their own. Should teleportation stop being available to them at some point, they don’t want to have to climb up and down a ladder five kilometers at a time. Perhaps a slide? Or a staircase? No, none of this is at all reasonable. It’s just too much work, and neither of them is equipped to take on such an endeavor.

They still have plenty of work that has to be done either way, so they try not to worry about it while they’re digging. The soil level could be piled several meters thick, and they can’t dig straight down, instead opting for a ramp that people can actually walk down. After waking up the next day, having barely made a dent in the job, they decide it’s time to rethink this whole thing.

“Hasting,” Heath suggests without elaborating.

“Hastings...Nebraska?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Stay with me here. Why doesn’t the ground over the elevator shaft just fall down into the hole?”

Mateo points over their heads. “Because of this ceiling,” he says, knowing that Heath is only asking to support his argument, not because he doesn’t know. They’re standing on a little platform that they installed to give them more room. It was the easiest part of yesterday’s work, drilling holes in cement while hanging over the abyss.

“Right. So what would happen if we took out the ceiling first?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo says, nodding his head. “I get where you’re going with this, but I’m not a civil engineer, or whoever would understand how this all works. Maybe the ground would fall in, or maybe not.”

“We have to break through this anyway. Might as well start from below. All we would have to do is extend this platform.”

“Uhuh,” Mateo begins. “And if there’s a platform, where does all the concrete and dirt fall as we break through it? And if it doesn’t work, and we still need to start digging from above, what happens to us when we destabilize it enough to actually cave in?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath frowns. “This is impossible!”

They’re silent for a few moments, before Mateo remembers something. “Why did you bring up Hastings, Nebraska?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath repeats himself, then shrugs. “It’s only thirty minutes away the way you drive, but we could rent a power chisel without anybody asking any questions.”

“Yeah, that’s one option.”

“What’s another one? Everything seems too slow.”

Mateo nods. “It’s gonna storm tonight.”

“Yeah...?”

He rifles through his bag until he finds their salvation. He holds it between his fingers like it’s the most important find ever.

“It’s a bullet.”

“It’s a telebullet,” Mateo corrects. “It may just be all we need.” He smiles, dreaming of Shawshank.

“What does it do?” Heath asks.

“Usually, you shoot it at someone, and it instantly transports them to wherever you want.”

“Isn’t that something that you can do yourself?”

“Yes, but I can’t move a concrete ceiling and hundreds of cubic meters of soil and rock.”

“But that little bullet can?”

“Well, it can be more destructive, which should be enough to destabilize the ground, and cause a cave-in. Or, uh, not should, but could. Hopefully.”

“I guess we might as well try,” Heath figures, “as long as you don’t need that bullet for something else.”

“It’s like you said, I can teleport myself, but only at this special location. It has no other use in this reality. If we ever get back to the main sequence, I could always find myself some more, I’m sure.”

“All right, I’m in. I assume you mentioned the storm, because there could be thunder?”

“Yes, but the sound is not the only problem we have.”

“How does the bullet explode?”

“Right.”

“Well, I can make a little bomb. I assume it doesn’t have to be powerful enough to blast through a mountain.”

“I assume as much as well.”

Fortunately, Heath already owns a six-meter long ladder, stored in his flying carboat. They’re going to stop calling it that, as they’ve come up with a proper name. It will now be known as The Olimpia. Mateo carefully extends the ladder so that it’s resting on the ledge on the other side of the shaft, and ties everything up. He runs planks across it so he has somewhere to stand while he’s working. It’s absolutely not the safest thing in the world, but he has himself tied to the structurally sound emergency ladder with mountain climbing equipment, so it should be fine. It’s his job to drill a hole in the concrete ceiling while Heath rigs up a small explosive to catalyze the temporal bullet. This may not work at all, and it might be a waste of their time, but the way they see it, they either spend a couple hours on a lark before resorting to digging a hole by hand, or they skip it. Either way, the digging will cost them days, not hours, so this is hardly a digression.

While Mateo is constructing his safety platform, Heath goes out and buys a special long drill, and the ten-centimeter bit that they’re going to need, along with his own supplies. The hole doesn’t have to be pretty or clean. It just has to be deep enough to get to the dirt. According to their research, a normal ceiling should only be about twenty centimeters thick, but this one is twice that, presumably to support the weight of the ground above. That’s going to make it harder, but not impossible. That’s why he requested a super narrow drill. Once the hole gets started, it goes surprisingly quickly. Now all they can do is wait until the thunderstorm begins. They’re not sure how loud the explosion is going to be, so it’s best to muffle it as much as possible.

They’re in the middle of dinner when Thor’s battle against the God Butcher begins. They leave their dishes on the table, and run back to the would-be center of the country. Using radio transceivers, Mateo waits for a signal from Heath, who is counting thunder strikes. Once it’s time, Mateo lights the fuse, and tries to teleport out. For a split second, he’s stuck, and doesn’t go anywhere, so he’s afraid the temporal energy already ran out, but then the glitch disappears, and so does he. He meets Heath back on the surface just in time for the temporal explosion. Heath timed it perfectly with the storm, so Mateo feels compelled to give him a high five. At first, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. It definitely shook the earth, but nothing has changed from above. But then it does. The ground begins to sink. More, then even more, until it all caves in. It worked. Holy crap, it actually worked. They high five again.

Carefully, the two of them step over to the hole so they can get a look inside, every once in a while looking up to see if police cruisers are coming down the highway to investigate. They stomp on the ground to make sure it’s still stable, and it seems perfectly safe...until it doesn’t. The ground right under Mateo sinks. A normal person would probably reach out for help, but he has the opposite reaction. He’s died—or come so close to death that he would not have survived without time power intervention—so many times, it feels more natural to let it happen. Instead, he pushes Heath away with as much force as he can muster, which serves to pull him downwards even faster. He slips off the grass, and tumbles down the hole. He spreads his arms out, hoping to catch hold of the emergency ladder, the portable ladder, the little platform, the ledge, the rope web, or some other structure, but nothing meets his hands but dirt and other debris.

Finally, as he’s falling, he attempts to teleport himself to safety, but it would seem that the explosion used up all the temporal energy left in this place. There’s no way out. He’s going to actually die this time, and it’s so incredibly unlikely that someone created an afterlife simulation in this reality. It’s the end. As he’s falling towards his demise, he almost regrets no longer having his faith, but he appreciates that it wouldn’t change anything. Death is death, whether you believe in it or not.

Thirty seconds later, he reaches the floor, but it doesn’t hurt like it should. Did he get his invincibility back somehow? He thought they decided that was a separate phenomenon from the time power blocker. No, that’s not what happened. He didn’t fall hard on the floor, and just not feel the pain from it. He didn’t crash into it at all. It’s more like a magical force sucked out all his momentum, and materialized the floor millimeters under him. He’s landed safely as if he was never moving at all. He turns over, and sees a ceiling above him. This isn’t just the elevator shaft. It’s the elevator. It’s back. Or more accurately, he’s back. He’s obviously traveled to an indeterminate moment in the past. He sits up, and is about to stand up, when he notices people watching him from the main floor. One of them is Danica Matic. The other is Bhulan Cargill. And the third...is Tamerlane Pryce.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 12, 2398

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This is going to be a lot of work. It was hard to tell back when they were using the elevator to get down here in the main sequence, but it’s incredibly far below the surface. According to Ramses—who stuck around long enough to find Mateo and Heath a blueprint—the main floor is five kilometers under the surface, so the first time the two of them climb the emergency ladder, it takes them just over an hour. Subsequent climbs in either direction are going to take significantly longer. This is not a good alternative, but the computer didn’t tell them where the elevator car was stopped, so they had to do the whole thing to find it. Once they reached an obstacle, it took some sleuthing and math for them to realize that said obstacle was not the elevator. It was a ceiling of concrete, or some other strong material, which was constructed in order to prevent the soil above from falling down.

“Well,” Heath begins as he’s digging through his bag, grateful that there is a ledge here for them to sit and rest.

“Well...?” Mateo prompts after a period of silence.

“Oh. Well, we have all the tools we thought we might need to break into the elevator car, but I guess it was removed...?”

Another bit of silence. “Go on”

“Since it’s not here, we’re going to need something else; a heavy duty power tool of some kind.”

“You wanna take out this ceiling?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t see any other way,” Heath says, “not unless you’re sure that your ability to teleport at this specific location won’t ever go away.”

“Nah, it probably will. It would be foolish for us to rely on that.”

“That’s what I figured, which is why I suggested we do what we’re doing right now. I just didn’t know it would entail this much climbing, or that we would run into this damn thing.” He clumsily pounds on the ceiling with the outside of his fist. “Ow, why is it so hard?”

“Well,” Mateo decides, “I can still feel the energy right now. I can jump up to the surface, dig down with the shovel, and then jackhammer this block.”

“You want to what the block.”

“Jackhammer?” Mateo repeats. He pantomimes with sound effects. “Jackhammer.”

“Oh, a powered demo chisel.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, I don’t have one of those.”

“I should think not.”

“You jump us both up there, I’ll start digging, you go rent one—a hardware store in town surely has one available—and then I’ll operate it.”

“Are you asking me to let you do all the work?”

“How do you mean? I don’t know how else we would do it.”

Mateo laughs. “This is my cousin’s house. If anyone was gonna do it all by himself, it would be me. But no, we’ll do it together. We’ll both go rent the chisel thing, we’ll both dig a hole, and we’ll both break through this ceiling. Let’s hope it’s not made of adamantium, or naquadah, or something.”

“I don’t know what those are,” Heath admits.

“I should think not.” They sit there to rest a little more until Mateo speaks again. “I don’t suppose it’s legal to blast our way through with an explosive.”

“It would be if we owned this land, or secured a permit to conduct such work. Otherwise, they would ask us why we need the explosives. They may even ask us if we try to rent the demo chisel. That’s why I think one will be available, because it’s not exactly something the average household ever needs. It’s a risk too.”

“What about a sledgehammer? Would they question that?”

“A what?”

Mateo growls, though he knows that it’s no one’s fault that they sometimes have different words for the same, or similar, thing. “It’s a hammer you use for demolition, rather than nails.” That’s how he thinks to describe it, but it may be inaccurate.

“Oh, no, that would be fine, though...I imagine it would take a long time. Do you really wanna try?”

Mateo shakes his head. “No one can know what we’re doing here, or that this place exists. We should even move our car to a different location.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heath agrees. “Jump us to the surface, so we can drive to Mankato. There’s a greater population, so we should be able to blend in. I don’t have my own block striker either. Then we’ll park a ways away from here, hide the car behind some trees, and walk.”

“Sounds like a plan, but we may need to get back to the top of the ladder at some point, and I do not want to climb it again, or have to aim at this ledge, so hand me that rope, if you please.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna build myself a web.”

Microstory 1730: The Crux

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No one is old enough to remember what happened. It’s always just sort of been this way; a hill in the center of our little doughnut-shaped town where four roads meet. I don’t mean that it’s two roads crossing each other. Each of the four has its own name, and while it’s not impossible to get from one to the other by driving over what we unofficially call The Crux, it’s not recommended for regular cars. The hill is deceptively steep, and for some reason, it’s always rather muddy halfway up, on all sides. It’s a bit of a pain, but it’s much more reasonable to go around it on one of the other roads. It’s not a problem for people who live here. We know the hill is there, and we know heading towards it is going to get us nowhere...unless we’re trying to get to the hill itself, of course. Tourism is already hard to come by for us, and this just makes it harder. None of the internet maps knows it’s there, and don’t know it’s a bit of an impediment, so they direct folks right through it. We keep trying to get them to remove it from their system as a traversable road, but we’ve had no luck so far. Again, with the right vehicle, it’s possible to drive over it, but we’ve had some issues with people who don’t know what they’re doing. We actually have four ways of getting out of such a mess if it happens to you. The auto repair shop is on South Avenue, the county’s largest tow truck company is on Backbone Road, the dealership is on Krouka, and there’s a gas station on Heap Lane. It’s not all that necessary—problems don’t occur all that often—but it’s nice to know that people will have options, so they’ll think twice about saying bad things about us. Crux notwithstanding, ours is a fine town, with good, progressive people, who like to lead the simple life, but understand how the city operates, and why others would prefer it.

Anyway, today I’m sitting on top of the Crux with a bunch of friends. It’s got a good vantage point of the surrounding area, so we hang out there all the time. Flat Kansas being what it is, it’s nice to be above it all sometimes, ya know? So we’re sitting there, watching a small car we don’t recognize come down Krouka. They probably drove in from Great Bend, looking to fish in our world famous pond, where it’s pretty much guaranteed you’ll catch something. As the car approaches, we realize just how tiny it is. I bet only two people could fit in that thing, and maybe one bag each. There is no way it’s gonna make it up the Crux. We don’t even bother picking up our chairs to get out of the way this time. That little thing comes up there, from this perspective, lookin’ like a ground squirrel wondering if the mailbox poll drops nuts. It slows down, but doesn’t stop. Most people get out, and take a look around when they don’t know what the hell is going on here. They’re holding their phones, and spinning around to see if they’re facing the wrong direction. These people don’t even do that. They stop for five seconds, back up about fifty meters, and then gun it. They go towards this hill as fast as they possibly can, and they make it up pretty far. My best friend inches over to the side, afraid we’re all wrong, and they’ll actually go all the way. It doesn’t. It stops midway, and rolls back down, smoothly, though, like they saw it was gonna happen, and put it in neutral to be safe. Some of us laugh, but most are relieved, because we know how bad it can get. We’re about to go down to tell them about the dealership when their car transforms. This...laser gun—I guess you would call it—comes out from under the hood, and blasts a tunnel into the hill. We later see it’s large enough to fit a semi-truck. They even laser the other two roads, before driving off without so much as a you’re welcome.

Microstory 1729: Crater

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I have not been able to get very much sleep for the last few weeks. Really, when I think about it, it’s been a lifelong problem. I have too much stress. At first it was because of my parents’ hostile divorce, then my schoolwork was too hard, then I was trying to get into a good college, then I was looking for a job, then I had to deal with a terrible job. It just never ends with me. I keep thinking that things will get better if I can just solve this one major problem. Then I do, and I find that the grass actually isn’t greener on the other side. It’s mostly more dirt and I have to cross yet another void to get to something better. My therapist says that things actually have gotten better, and that just because some people at my high school reunion are CEOs and city council members, doesn’t mean I’m a failure. She suggests I stay positive. But I was born optimism-blind, and I don’t think there’s a cure. I finally get to sleep when the ground shakes, and the loudest sound that has ever pounded on my eardrums attacks me from all sides. It’s a crash, but there’s also this sizzling electrical sound. I order my smartspeaker to turn on my lights, and watch as my glass figurine collection threatens to topple over, but never does. I swear to God, some of them actually do tip before straightening back up, like some kind of ghost is there to protect them for me. The ground continues to tremble, and a deeper darkness overwhelms my windows. I switch the lights back off as I get out of bed, and move over to look outside. All I see is the black. I stand there for hours, watching it ever so slowly dissipate. It’s dust and debris, and it takes a long time to settle. No one answers the phone, not even the police. The sun comes out, and I can see a crater.

I check every window in my little house. The crater wraps all around me. It doesn’t look like a bunch of different craters, but a single one, of which I rest in the middle. A massive doughnut must have fallen from the sky, and left me unscathed. If there really was a big space doughnut, though, it still shouldn’t have spared me. I mean, the tremors alone should have sent me to hell with everyone else in my neighborhood. The hole is so large than I can’t even make out the houses that weren’t crushed by it. I see the edge in the distance, but everything left above is too far away to discern. I cautiously step outside, and crawl to the edge of my little protected patch of land. I realize, though, that if I were capable of dying, it probably would have happened already. The thing that protected my figures wasn’t likely a ghost, but a guardian angel. I don’t think I have to be careful anymore. I peek over the edge of my patch, and look for the bottom of the crater, but I can’t tell if I see it, for the light does not reach as far down. I check the GPS on my phone. No, I’m not in La Brea, so I doubt there’s a portal below me that will send me to prehistoric times where CGI monsters still roam the lands. I check all around my—I don’t know whether to call this a butte, or a mesa, or a plateau, because it’s as tall as all hell, but narrower than my now-dead neighbor’s political beliefs—patch. I see nothing that would explain what saved me, or whether the theoretical angel is still here. Just then, two helicopters fly over from different directions. One appears to be military, and the other from a news station. As they’re inspecting me, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, their rotors just stop, and they fall out of the sky, into the crater. Others come, hoping to understand, including an AirEvac, but they all suffer the same fate. I was wrong. An angel has not saved me. A demon has doomed me.

Microstory 1433: Peak Valley

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Before there was even a spark of an idea to build the eighth town of Astau, construction began on a new town called Peak Valley. It may seem like an oxymoron, but there really was a smallish mountain to the south of Springfield and Splitsville, on top of which was a sort of bowl that looked like any other valley. Experts believed it once housed a glacier, but they couldn’t explain what would have happened to all the water on the surface. In fact, it was a question they never answered about the whole world. There were signs of water erosion all over the place, but no liquid or solid water anywhere. The planet must have ventured close enough to its star to evaporate it all away before that star expelled it from its system, but there really wasn’t any proof of that either. Regardless, the real magic of the Peak Valley was that there was an extra seed portal from Earth there. For the most part, seeds only showed up on Durus in a certain region, and any plants that grew beyond it did so due to the normal spread of vegetation. They appeared from small flashes of light, like fireflies. It wasn’t particularly safe, because of the monsters, but teenagers liked to go there on quick romantic getaways, and watch the seeds appear. The Peak Valley was the only other place where this happened. It would have been a nice place to live all along. While monsters definitely had the ability to climb up the side of the mountain, or simply fly, it was still a well-fortified area. It was easy to see them coming from pretty much anywhere in the valley, which would give mages enough time to prepare for an attack. As always, the main reason they never settled there before was because of resources. It was difficult to pump water up from Watershed, but as time went on, both technology and time powers promoted progress. By the 2070s, it was a sufficiently viable option. The filter portaler would remain in Distante Remoto, where she belonged—even though they could have used her—because there were other ways of getting what they needed, which they didn’t always have. Laying pipe in the ground was a fairly easy endeavor when dirt could be teleported out of a hole, the pipe could be teleported into the hole, and then the dirt could be teleported back on top of it. The new town was initially planned for a 2075 completion date, but in 2072, a new member of Mad Dog’s Army was sourced who could make quantum replications of objects. A single pipe could be manufactured once, and then copied thousands of times. This process was not instantaneous, but it started moving a lot quicker once the quantum replicator joined the project. Peak Valley was finished in 2073, and prospered for seventeen years.