The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 25, 2399

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While Alyssa teleported rather randomly around the area, Mateo and Tarboda started hunting for the secrets of Daltomism the old fashioned way. They looked for hidden ruins, secret hatches, visible temporal anomalies, and anything else out of the ordinary. This is one of the remotest regions of Madagascar, known as Tsingy De Bemaraha National Park. The terrain is rough and unapologetic. It would be a great place to hide a real life god, and they’re pretty convinced that someone is here, or there wouldn’t be a tractor beam under that lake. They also don’t think that whatever they’re looking for is located too close to the lake. The tractor beam is trying to keep away from it. They’re focusing their efforts on the part of the jungle where Vearden first suggested they try. When they didn’t find anything by nightfall, they decided to make camp there. Alyssa offered to just take them back to civilization, but what if Dalton showed up overnight? What if his most devout followers build a ritualistic bonfire to worship the lunar demons, or whatever the hell else they believe in? They didn’t want to miss it.

The next morning, they go back to work. They’ve found it. It’s a half hut, but not the half you’re thinking of. The bed is part way on the wood floor, then hovers over the missing floor at the foot. The roof is over the missing part of the floor, and not over the actual floor. The window ought to have four quadrants, but the only two quadrants visible are diagonal to each other. The wall that it’s been placed on works the same way, but exists only by the missing quadrants. The nightstand is missing its legs, and the lamp is missing every other slice of its shade, as well as the entire bulb, though the light emanating from it shines as if it were there. A man steps in through a door, which only has a top half.  If this weren’t a transdimensional structure, or something else crazy and weird like that, they would have seen him walk up from the side. He came from another place. This...is a permanent portal.

The man starts to set his belongings down on the bed, and then finally notices Mateo and Tarboda. He stares at them and blinks like he’s never seen another human being before. “Crap.” He looks back at the door, likely weighing the pros and cons of running. He doesn’t budge, which suggests that anyone can walk right on through, without a key, or some time power form of it.

“It’s okay,” Mateo says, dropping his pack to the ground, and holding his hands up to show that he’s unarmed. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“I don’t suppose any of you are one of the keys,” he asks.

“No, but we know two of them. Are we allowed to mention their names, or is there some sort of compartmentalization rule against it?”

He narrows his eyes. “Which ones do you know?”

“Iris Blume and Summit Ebora.”

He perks up. “My wife and child.”

“Does that make you a key?”

“Hm. We’re called keyholders...the co-parents.”

“Do you know who the other keys are? We might know where they are.”

Cheyenne comes through the portal door, and places a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. It’s okay, Rino. They’re friends.”

“Are we?” Mateo questions.

“What my husband did was reckless, but necessary. And what I did was meant to protect him, and therefore also necessary.”

“We understand, we just...don’t know who you are.”

“I’m the Fifth Key.”

“What does that mean?” Tarboda presses. “What are the keys? “What do you do?”

Cheyenne ignores his question. “Did you find The Arc yet?”

“If you mean the weird building thing that’s actually a ship, then yes.”

“Good, you’re on schedule.”

“We’re using it to house refugees,” Tarboda explains. “If you have plans for some other group of—”

“No,” Cheyenne interrupts, “that’s who it’s for. Whoever needs it can live there.”

“What happens to those who don’t get on it? Does everyone on this world die?”

“Heavens, no. It’s a...bellwether. They built it for the Third Railers to show them what wonders are possible, to give them a technological boost.”

“Against the other realities in the war,” Mateo guesses.

“That’s Aldona’s job,” she says. “The Arc is a message of peace.”

“From who?”

Cheyenne smiles. “From you.”

Mateo sighs. “Don’t say anything else about my future, please.”

She keeps smiling, and nods in agreement.

Mateo takes a beat. “What about Dalton Hawk?”

She looks somewhat uncomfortable. “What about him?”

He eyes the magic door. “Is he in there somewhere?”

“I don’t know where he is now. He and we came to an understanding. We get to live here with no risk of running out of temporal energy, safe until it’s time to come back out. In exchange, we don’t interfere with his plans.”

“Are his plans...”

“Noble? Good?” Cheyenne thinks about it. “They’re not bad. They’re also irrelevant. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste your time with him. The Reconvergence is coming, the Keys will be turned, and the Reality Wars will begin. They can’t be stopped, and nothing he’s tried to do with his little religion is gonna make one goddamn bit of difference. Eight billion people live on this planet, and even less in the Fourth Quadrant. That is a rounding error compared to the vast populations of the other three parallel realities. People will one day know who he truly is, and they’ll stop following him, because others will show their own power, and they won’t be dicks about it. He only has so many followers because he’s the only one on stage right now.”

“You know a hell of a lot more about this than you let on before. When Danica and I first happened upon you—”

“That was not a coincidence. I was told to find my future there. I’ve learned a lot more about it since then, but the only lies I ever told were to protect everyone’s future.”

“Okay. Just tell me, who are the other keys?”

She frowns at the lost puppy. “Very well. Iris Blume of the Parallel, Summit Ebora of the Fifth Division, Kyra Torosia of the Fourth Quadrant, Cheyenne Duvall of the Third Rail.” She bows gracefully, then pauses. “Cedar Duvall of the Sixth Key.”

Cedar is not surprising. “Wait, you skipped one. Who’s from the main sequence?”

Cheyenne hesitates, but is preparing to answer. “Vearden Haywood.”

Microstory 1864: That’s It

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Here’s a story for ya. You can either choose to believe it or not, but I’m telling you, it happened, and it happened to me. My father and his father did not have a good relationship. According to what little my mother was able to relay to me, they fought all the time when he was young, and then they just stopped talking completely. I don’t know what they were so angry at each other over, but whatever it was, it’s the reason I never met my grandfather. When he died, he left no one to go to his funeral, let alone plan it. I decided to take up the responsibility of putting him to rest. Because hey, if my dad wouldn’t tell me what the guy did that was so wrong, he couldn’t expect me to hate him as much as he did. Four hundred bucks gets you a bag of your loved one’s ashes, and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t hold a service, and I didn’t buy a fancy urn. I just kept it in the cardboard box that the guy at the morgue went out of his way to tell me was included free of charge, and walked away with the rest of his personal effects. And when I say effects, I really just mean the one thing. Besides his pajamas—which he died in, and I didn’t want back—the only possession he had was a key around his neck. Per the paperwork, he lived only a few blocks from my childhood home, which makes the whole thing even sadder. I took that key, drove to my grandfather’s house, and unlocked the door. The place was immaculate. No dust, no dirt, no smudges on the windows. It looked like it had just been cleaned, but it couldn’t have, because it was missing the smell of cleaning chemicals. Oh, and everything else. Like the man himself, the only thing in the house was a key, hanging from the chain for the entryway light. I tried it on every interior door, but it didn’t work anywhere. It didn’t even fit. I had to investigate, which was harder back then, because my phone couldn’t magically spit out information about it just by taking a picture, like my grandson’s does. He showed me that once.

I went to three locksmiths until one happened to recognize it. It belonged to a storage facility on the edge of town. Most facilities require that the renter use their own lock, but this particular location prided itself in excellent security. Their keys couldn’t be copied, and you couldn’t use it unless you were already on the list of people allowed to access the unit. Still, I figured I might as well go check it out in case they made an exception. They didn’t have to. Their records showed that I was on the list, as was my grandfather, and nobody else. He left this all for me. Whatever was in there, it must have been pretty special. Was it a pristine collection of rare figurines worth millions? Did he just leave me a chest of actual millions? Could it be a creepy, ominous freezer, inside of which was the dead body of his archnemesis? I just kept thinking of all the amazing things that could be waiting for me, and nothing was even close to what I ended up finding when I opened that roll up door. Was this it? I was about to run back to the office to ask for a flashlight, but the guy who signed me in had followed me, and had one at the ready. I switched it on, and shined it all over the unit. “Any secret entrances?” I asked. No, this was it. Both of the neighboring units were recently emptied, in between renters. This. Was. It. On the floor in the center of the unit was a key, like someone had dropped it without noticing. But it wasn’t just any key. It was the key to my parents’ house. It looked exactly like the one on my keychain. All that anticipation just to learn that my mom had given him access to our house in case of emergency, and he had never used it. That’s it.

Microstory 1703: Apus

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I’m going to tell you my story once, and then never mention it again. Every time I look down at my legs, I relive the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t need to keep rehashing that on purpose. Three years ago, I had just pulled into my garage after working late, and was trying to close the door behind me when I heard a grating screeching sound. At the time, the door was very old, because I had just moved in to a quiet town where the regulations were lax, and I hadn’t had time to modernize it. So it had a remote, but the door itself didn’t have any sensors that would automatically lift it back up if it encountered an obstacle. I took my hand off the keys, and looked in my passenger side view mirror to see a figure dressed in all black, holding onto the bottom of that door, preventing it from going down. The strain from this eventually damaged the system, and I guess the motor gave up. I look back on this day often, and wish I had just reversed the car into him. I could have escaped, and none of this would have happened. Of course, I’m not a violent woman. I didn’t know what the masked stranger was going to do to me, but I knew what I was going to do to him, which was nothing. I could only hope that he didn’t hurt me. As you can see, he did. He climbed into my car, smoothly, like he did this sort of thing every day. I slowly tried to reach over to my key again, hoping to push the alarm button, but he reached over just as slowly, and held my hand back. He shook his head, but didn’t speak. He tilted his head down a little, and pointed behind us with his left thumb, indicating that I should back out.

As I was complying with his demand, I scraped the side of my car against the frame of the garage, hoping to alert my neighbors. Choked up, I apologized, and claimed that I was nervous, which he believed, because it was not a lie. I overcompensated, and ran right into my metal trash cans on the other side of the driveway, making even more noise. Still, he believed I was doing my best, and he did not become angry. In the fastest I had ever seen him move, he quickly waved his index finger towards me, which I took to mean that he wanted me to start driving that direction down my street. As I was doing so, he casually reached over, and punched a set of GPS coordinates in my satnav. He didn’t have to search for a place, or even use an address; he knew the numbers by heart. We went far past the edge of town, and onto a gravel road in the woods. We didn’t speak a single word on the way. As far as I could tell, he was mute. We arrived exactly where you would expect someone like him to live; in a dilapidated and unpainted cabin. He pointed to my door, as he was stepping out of the car himself. He never touched me, though. He knew that I knew that I was in deeply unfamiliar territory, and there was nothing I could do to escape. He followed me into the cabin, and pointed to the chair where I was meant to sit, which I found to be bolted to the floor. He had me bind my stomach with rope, as well as a zip tie for my left wrist, before handling my other wrist for me. He dragged a bucket of burning hot coals out of the fire, and towards me. When it got to close, I lifted my legs, but he forced them back down, keeping them there while the coals seared my skin. When they were good and burned, he carried me to the trunk of my own car, and drove me back home. So that is why every wall in my apartment is filled with paintings of birds-of-paradise. Their Latin nickname is Apus, because people once believed that, like me, these magnificent creatures did not have feet.

Big Papa: Keys to the Castle (Part III)

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Two days later, Lowell and I are sitting on one side of a table, like this is mediation for a divorce, and one of us is the other’s attorney. No one else is in the room yet except for a robot assistant with limited cognitive capabilities. I check my watch. “Are the other parties in a different part of the matrioshka body?” I question the bot. “How wide is the time discrepancy?”

“Oh, we are no longer as close as we were to Sagittarius A-star,” it explains. “The entire hyperstructure is presently operating at roughly the same relativistic time as your average planet in one of the outer galactic arms.”

“We left the black hole?” I ask rhetorically. “What year is it, by Earth time?”

“Twelve-thousand three hundred, and thirty-seven,” the bot answers. It means 2337, but it’s using the human era calendar, which arbitrarily adds ten thousand years.

“We’ve still not yet caught up to the creation of the matrioshka body,” I point out.

“They will not reenter the stellar neighborhood until the time loop is complete. There will be no interference with the past,” the bot says. “Research into the effects of high gravity on time has been exhausted. That is all I know about it.”

“Thank you,’ I say to it.

Gacar enters the room from one door, while Tamerlane Pryce comes in from another, as if they rehearsed their grand entrance. Lowell and I stand up respectfully, then sit down with the other two. “Thank you three for coming. This is a relatively informal meeting to see if this issue can resolve itself. We understand that your species demands a sort of...long-winded approach to everything you do. My people would rather stay out of it, if at all possible. I’m here to facilitate discussion, but intend to make no judgments. If you cannot come to an agreement, we will step in, but not before that. Understand this, the afterlife simulation exists as a favor to whoever wants it. As long as it does not disrupt anyone else’s processing power, we will let it be. We don’t care who’s running it, or even what they’re doing with it. We will shut it down, however, if that is the only way to end this. Am I understood?”

“Yes,” we all say in unison.

“Then we’ll begin,” Gacar says. “Ellie, you may speak first, but after that, I expect the three of you to police yourselves, and stay civil without intervention.”

“Thank you, Gacar,” I say. I turn my attention to Pryce. He regards me politely, but like he has a magic bullet in his arsenal—and knows that his argument wins, regardless of what I say. He’s just waiting for his moment to drop the mic and pwn me, so to speak. I must preempt him. “I do not demand control of the simulation. I only ask what you did with my friends, and why they are not here to control it, if only alongside you?”

He tilts his head to the other side. “I killed Trinity. Thor and my daughter were conscripted into some kind of train war. I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Why did you kill Trinity?” I ask. I’m keeping my cool, because if she truly died, her consciousness should still have survived in the simulation. Technically, the simulation always existed if he went back in time to collect everyone’s consciousness from history. The bot even called it a time loop.

“It couldn’t be helped. “Thor destroyed the body I was using before her, so I jumped into Trinity’s.”

I think a moment. “That’s when you were masquerading as me,” I posit.

“Yes. I intended to ingratiate myself into your group, and become one of the big four in your stead. There’s a reason I haven’t done that before, though. I’m not a good actor. I’m...not a great person either, but I’m nothing if not honest. I couldn’t pretend to be you. Didn’t last a couple minutes. So I let Thor kill me, and switched tactics.”

“Wait. That doesn’t make any sense. You say you weren’t capable of pretending to be me, but you were good enough of an actor to pretend to be Trinity?”

“I wasn’t her at first,” Pryce answers. “I was a passenger. I couldn’t control the things she did or said. I would later realize that I was influencing her the entire time, which is why they abandoned you so decisively, but Trinity was still there back then. Over time, my consciousness overtook hers...until there was nothing left. I was not aware that this would happen. By the time I had the chance to make myself a new clone, Trinity was essentially brain dead.”

“But she’s still alive,” I put forth. “She’s somewhere in the sim.”

He looks saddened. The guy actually looks saddened, it’s unbelievable. “Contrary to popular belief, not everyone goes to the sim after they die.”

“What?” Lowell finally jumps in. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Pryce sighs, and runs his finger through his hair. “Little bits in the brain. They act like insulation, but they’re what transfer neural data. An entire backup of the brain is located inside every brain. When someone dies, that generally survives long enough to complete a transfer to an external server, which is on Earth—and most other planets before they’re needed. From there, it can be transferred to the sim. There are exceptions to this. I spent a lot of time perfecting the timing. I needed to be able to rescue people even if they were blown up by a bomb. I needed people who were stabbed in the head with a sword. I am damn good too. Almost everyone makes it. Almost.”

“What are the exceptions?” I press. “What made Trinity one of these exceptions?”

“Technological advancements come with some pretty crazy ways to die. The twentieth century gave us vaporization. The people who die within the blast radius of a nuclear bomb do so too quickly for my systems to save. Your buddy, Lucius Deschamp can basically do this with his mind. I can’t save those people either. It doesn’t matter how fast I made my program, it was never fast enough. Thor didn’t want any time travel, other than the first one that sent us to the beginning of the endeavor. I respected that, but it means that some people can’t be saved. To answer your question, there are other exceptions, which go the other way. They’re too slow. Some people’s minds don’t die all at once. Alzheimer’s, dementia; these involve microdeaths that essentially destroy the person’s identity little by little. How do you quantify that? It’s hard enough to map and transfer a single flash image of someone’s mind, but over time, as it changes? That’s...not impossible, but it was hard, and still leaves us with exceptions.”

“You still haven’t explained Trinity yet,” I remind him.

“But I have, haven’t I? I told you my mind took over her body...slowly. Dementia patients slowly lose their minds, but those minds aren’t being replaced, they’re just losing connections. And that revision history still exists, so all I have to do is backup those people long before their deaths, uploading them as slowly as their disease destroys them. Before you ask, I can’t back up everyone using this technique, like they do on Altered Carbon, because that much server space would alert people to our existence, but I’ve been able to reserve a little extra space for those few who need it. That didn’t work with Trinity, and some other people who suffer too much psychic trauma, like Volpsidia Raske.”

I sit quietly for a moment, and everyone just lets me. “This sounds like manslaughter to me. Where do manslaughterers go when they die? What level are they?”

“Level Three, Hock, just as they would be on Earth.”

I sit quietly for another moment. “Did you put yourself in there? You killed someone? Did you do your time? Or have you been sitting one your throne since this all started?”

“Is that what you want from me?” Pryce asks. “You want me to serve time in prison?”

“Yes,” I answer plainly.

He snaps his fingers, but keeps his eyes on me. A little wheel appears before us.

“What was that?” Lowell questions, looking around. “Are we in the sim?”

“As we have always been,” Pryce replies.

“I was concerned that one of you would resort to violence,” Gacar jumps back in. “We are in a part of the simulation that I control. I delegated the responsibility of making sure you understood this to someone else.” Gacar gives the assistant bot the stink eye, but he just keeps smiling back. He’s not programmed to feel shame, embarrassment, or guilt. Must be nice.

“Running the simulation is not easy,” Pryce says to me. “I wouldn’t think you would think it was, but I just want you to know that I did my best, and I hope you recognize and remember that when I’m up for parole.” There are twelve wedges on the wheel, of varying sizes. The smallest is obviously the hardest to land on, but if you get it, you’ll be resurrected. It’s only happened twice. When I, Lowell, and our other friends were brought back to life, he didn’t make us spin the wheel, because he had already made the decision. It has no power on its own, it’s just a way for him to turn life and death into a game. The fourth largest wedge is orange, and will send the spinner to a virtually inescapable prison section of the simulation. This is the wedge that Pryce deliberately chooses for himself, rather than spinning and hoping. He just adjusts the hand, so it goes where he wants it. His clothes automatically turn orange, but he doesn’t disappear right away. “You’ll see. You’ll understand the choices I made, and when you realize that the changes you make to the system are creating nothing but chaos...you’ll know where to find me.”

As soon as Pryce disappears, a heavy metal gear a little larger than a normal human hand appears on the table, spinning like a top. It never loses momentum, due to us being in a simulation. It just keeps going, until I pick it up. “Does anyone know what this is?”

“A symbol,” Gacar explains. “The possessor of that gear controls the simulation. Don’t fear it, though. If someone were to physically steal it from you, they wouldn’t simply take your place. There’s a real world analog, but as far as I know, it doesn’t really do anything. He’s just telling you that you won.”

We’re silent for a second. “Congratulations,” Lowell says to me, not in monotone or shock, but genuinely and softly. “What is your first act as God of this world?”

I inhale deeply, then let it out. “I’m going to prove him wrong, and show that I can indeed save everyone, including dementia patients, and vaporized victims. We’re ignoring Thor’s mandate, and going back in time, so that everyone makes it to the simulation, especially Trinity.”

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Microstory 1562: Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust

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Prompt

I have sensitive teeth, but I love the taste of fruit, so my own personal hell would be a room full of apples with no applesauce.

Botner

And I am not picky about the flavor, the texture, or even the actual taste of applesauce. I have no idea what sets one applesauce apart from another. I can’t tell the difference between Frosty Paws and the pricier Thompson brands, and I never understood those Velveeta Light Blend applesauces until I realized that they don’t even contain applesauce. The frozen bagged applesauce I bought specifically for ease of quick prepackaging was also made by Thompson’s, and as I did my research, that seemed to be the only one. The last bag I bought had a different look on the box. I asked the clerk about it, and she said, “oh, I can’t remember offhand which brand it is.” Which makes me wonder: which brand should a customer trust? The customer who works in the store, the customer who is savvy and research-savvy enough to see a difference on the box, or the one at the cash register? This is one reason I stopped purchasing “wet” applesauce and started buying the squeezy variety. Before, I had to use a spatula to even break the seal, and then to scrape the spoonful out, which was a Herculean chore. The “seal” that the bag placed over the applesauce as it cooked was just as gross.

Conclusion

I know, I’m getting a little off topic, but it’s important to understand what I’ve gone through if you’re going to follow the story. The other day, I bought applesauce, like I do. It’s a really easy side piece for my breakfast, because it doesn’t take any time to make, and coupled with cereal, I’m full until lunch. It was a different brand this time, because I couldn’t find what I really wanted, but I figured I would try it. It actually tasted really good, but I only had time for one bite before I had to leave the house. My cat retched on the carpet, and I freaked out. I called in sick to work, and just left all my food on the table while we went to the vet. Don’t worry, everything was fine with him, but the weird thing is, when I got home, the applesauce was gone, and inside the bowl was a fully-formed apple. I live alone, and don’t have any family. I don’t even give my neighbors a key for safety, because I don’t know them, and don’t care to. It’s obviously a prank, but I can’t think of who. I toss the apple in the fridge, and move on. The next day, though, I’m curious to see who’s coming into my house. I keep a camera in my cat’s favorite room, to keep an eye on him, but nowhere else. I have to move it from there, and point it at a second bowl of uneaten applesauce. There are too many possible entrances for me to cover all of them, but the dining area is in a central location. I have two computer monitors at work, but only technically need one, so I just keep the second on my camera stream the whole time, and look over every once in a while. I’m surprised to see a new apple in the bowl during one of these glances. I quickly rewind the feed, and am even more shocked to see that no one replaced my applesauce. It just happened. On its own. I watch it transform itself, like it’s somehow reversing entropy. That’s not all that happens, though. When I switch back to live, I find that the bowl itself turns into a mound of clay, and the rug I have rolled up in the corner because it needs to be cleaned turns into a leopard. I was told that it was not made of real leopard fur, which is annoying and terrible, but at least its alive now? It continues. All the walls in my house suddenly become trees, ultimately destroying the camera, so I can’t see what happens next. I bolt out of work without telling my boss, and race back home. Or rather, I race back to the forest that was once my home. It’s spreading, swallowing everything in its path. Frightened of what happens when it hits me, I turn around, and now try to drive away from the onslaught. I don’t make it far before my car literally breaks down, and becomes a hunk of minerals and oil. I climb out of the wreckage, and try to go on foot. This unseen force takes over me too, though. Beams of light shoot out of my skin as I sublimate into a dusty gas, and become a nanostar.

Microstory 1318: Self-Representation

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Accommodating Judge: Mr. Self-Representing Defendant, I feel compelled to remind you that you did not finish law school, nor did you pass the bar exam. You probably know—though you may not—that you have the right to waive your opportunity at a closing argument.

Self-Representing Defendant: I understand, and I shall proceed as planned.

Accommodating Judge: If you choose to waive it, I will strongly encourage the prosecution to waive theirs as well.

Accommodating Prosecutor: We are prepared to waive it, Your Honor.

Self-Representing Defendant: I’m fine to go ahead.

Accommodating Judge: All right, then.

Self-Representing Defendant: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client—which is me, of course; I will be referring to myself as my client. My client has done no wrong here, and I believe the trial I conducted adequately demonstrated this fact. As you already know, though I came close, I am no lawyer. I dropped out of law school for personal reasons; not academic issues, but I do recognize what I am lacking. I chose to represent myself, because I’m confident that the evidence speaks for itself. Do not fault the prosecution for the conclusion it came to. They have every reason to believe that I am guilty, but that does not mean that I am. It is true that I knew the victim, and I will admit that I became a little obsessed with her. I wouldn’t lie to you, even if I were not under oath. But there is one bit of evidence I wish to reiterate now. Miss Stalking Victim’s house was broken into. Anyone could have done that; my client is but one in a billion. Well...one in eight billion, more like it. There is one thing that my client had that no one else did, and though the prosecution used this fact against me, I consider it contradictory when taking the break-in into account. I—my client had a key. I know I shouldn’t have made a secret copy, but I did, and the past cannot be changed. Now, why would I—dammit—my client need to shatter a window to get into Miss Victim’s house if he had a perfectly good way of getting in without causing a stir? And why is she not here today? It’s because she did not press charges. Even she isn’t convinced that my client is guilty. Whose word are you going to take? If not mine, then at least respect hers. I certainly trust her; I always have.

Accommodating Judge: Mr. Defendant...

Self-Representing Defendant: Apologies, Your Honor. My point is that my client is not a perfect man, but that does not, on its own, lends itself to such grotesque violence. Yes, I had access to the lab where they keep the acid, but it was locked up in a chemical cabinet to which I did not have access. My client missed her deeply, but that is not enough to prove his involvement. If we were in the real world, I might have sided with the prosecution. But we’re talking about a college campus, where security is lax, at best. You cannot just limit your suspect pool to a handful of people. It’s too easy to frame somebody.

Accommodating Judge: Careful, Defendant...

Self-Representing Defendant: Apologies, apologies. I will say nothing more about it, but I urge you, good people of the jury...to wonder why it is that the police only questioned one other person regarding the horrible incident. It’s always the jealous ex, they say. Well, I say that’s a dangerous sentiment. Everyone is an ex.

Microstory 1097: Homer

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This is Alma, one last time. As a reader, you’ve hopefully been able to tease out some of the more recent events, just by the clues from the interviews. I didn’t solve the mystery of Viola’s murder because I reported the facts. I solved it, because those responsible grew paranoid, and revealed themselves to me before I had the chance to find them. As you could probably gather, Ralph and I were captured by the cult, and prepared for a ritualistic sacrifice, the purpose of which remains ambiguous. Fortunately, though Viola Woods is gone, she did not leave us without a legacy...or rather, nine legacies. They have assumed the mantle, and their first mission together was to rescue the two of us. In place of the interview with Homer that I will never get, I will recount those events in a more narrative form.

It would seem that Ada really was chosen to be Viola’s replacement, but she’s decided to not do it alone. When Homer shows up in the cave to get started on the ritual sacrifice, Ada’s there, along with seven other seniors. He doesn’t seem to realize that they were following him in until we do, like they were somehow invisible to him until the right moment. The abilities Viola gave her must have worked, and allowed her to get some idea of what was going on with Homer and his crew of evil minions. The four psychics—Martin, Margaret, Mae, and Mattie—are there as well, along with self-proclaimed witch, Alice, and her apparent student, Joan. They’re joined by Harry, who was evidently originally chosen as Viola’s replacement, but failed to meet her requirements. In what capacity he was working for them, I couldn’t tell you. I also couldn’t tell you exactly what the seven people with abilities did in their fight against the seven psychopaths who were trying to kill me and Ralph. They mostly stand there, staring at each other. Occasionally, blood would leak from one of their arms, or a bruise would form on their face. They appear to be locked in a psychic battle; a battle which the good guys are clearly winning. While they’re preoccupied, Harry steals the keys from Nannie’s belt loop, and breaks me and Ralph free from our chains. He tries to usher us away, but we both want to see what’s going to happen. It’s then that things start to change. Joan steps forward, and utters Oshwrlé to their opponents. All six minions fall, leaving Homer to take on the team by himself. The four psychics take this opportunity to surround him, and I see a nearly transparent bubble of energy that appears to be preventing him from moving forward. Ada tells him to give up, but he won’t. He pulls a knife out of the back of his pants, and starts moving it around without touching it. He sends it flying through the air, letting it slit the throats of his own people.

An inexplicable energy seeps out of the wounds, and flows into Homer’s body, seemingly giving him a boost in power. He grunts like a caveman, and breaks the psychic bubble, sending its creators falling to their backs. He takes Ada by the throat, and holds her up in the air. Alice and Joan rush up to help her, but he sends them flying towards the rocks. They don’t reach the wall, though, as Ada calls upon the strength to stop them midair before a potentially deadly collision. Then Dolly shows up, and looks to be alone, but we eventually see that she’s not. I hesitate to use the word, but it’s the only one that works. The ghost of Viola appears from Dolly’s body, and approaches Homer. He’s more scared than he’s probably ever been in his life. She doesn’t speak. She simply taps his arm, and he unwillingly lets Ada go. Viola then smiles at Ada, and gives her what looks like the go ahead. Ada uses her telekinesis to force Homer to his knees, then she places her hand at his temples. After only a few seconds, his eyes roll to the back of his head, and he falls down to his side. Viola then fades away, and Dolly leaves. Alice stands back up and takes roll call. Everyone seems to be okay, except for Homer, and his people. She announces that she’s going to heal them, but by the time she’s finished with Della, all of her energy is depleted. The other five are gone, and Homer’s in what we now know to be a coma. It’s finally over. I do not yet know what sort of truth the authorities are going to recognize, but I know this, we are going to get Maud out of jail. Someone who is actually responsible for Viola’s death is going to accept that responsibility.

Brooke’s Battles: Buffer (Part XI)

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The thing about time is that it never stops. Even the most powerful of temporal manipulators cannot stop time completely. They may be able to slow it down to a snail’s pace, but it never stops. It’s been hypothesized by some of the more studious time travelers that stopping time—since this would halt all atomic movement—would effectively destroy the universe. Even if someone attempted to create a local bubble of absolute zero, all photons heading in the direction of the bubble would also have to be frozen, thus the bubble of nothingness would expand until consuming literally everything. On a more social level, the fact that time never stops has led to a level of uncertainty that even time travelers must respect. No matter what you know about the future, or even the past, anything can change; sometimes for the better, sometimes not, and sometimes it’s a bit of a gray area. After more and more discussions, the solar system’s leadership reneged on their deal to provide the Freemarketeers with resources. Since they didn’t technically own The Sharice Davids, they couldn’t stop its crew from transporting them to Bungula, but they weren’t going to give them anything else.

Like most planets, Bungula was a nasty, inhospitable environment. Most of the people who were looking forward to migrating to exoplanets were fitted with transhumanistic upgrades that would help them survive. The Freemarketeers did not have these luxuries, because they were free, and most rejected them on principle. The ones who were fine with the contradiction would be looked down upon by their peers, so they too were just normal people. Without protective habitats, no natural human would be able to survive on Bungula’s surface for longer than a few minutes. The conundrum here was that the Freemarketeers were still a cancerous tumor that needed to be excised from the otherwise healthy body. Ecrin, Sharice, and both versions of Holly Blue held a meeting to discuss other options. They thought about calling upon the aid of people with time powers, perhaps the Trotter, or the doorwalkers, but ultimately decided against this. What little the majority of the system knew about temporal manipulation, they chalked up to some fancy molecular teleportation, which was a perfectly normal human advancement. Basically, they still didn’t know about salmon and choosers, and just thought scientists had invented stable teleportation. The most likely outcome of the Freemarketeer exodus was their self-destruction, but there was a chance they would survive, and then thousands of people had all this knowledge they weren’t meant to have.

So the crew went back to their plan to get rid of them on Bungula, but to prevent themselves from becoming mass murderers, they would need to gather life-saving resources on their own. The older Holly Blue, from the alternate timeline, who was usually just called Weaver, had an idea. “It’s called the Insulator of Life.”

“Let me guess,” the younger Holly Blue from this timeline said, “it insulates life?”

“That’s right,” Weaver answered. The two of them had just spent the last year constructing a massive machine called a cylicone, but were still only about halfway done. Not even Weaver herself seemed to know how it worked, but she had come up with it in a dream. At its most basic level, it was a cone with its tip cut off—which was referred to as a frustum—inside of a cylinder. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of embellishments and flourishes inside and out that made it far more complex, and gave it the ability to be something more than just a funny shape. They were also what was making the process take so long. Though not the only shape capable of operating as a positive feedback loop, it was the most stable form of something called an echo chamber. Alone, it possessed no power, but it would reverberate and intensify someone else’s time power for an infinite duration. Though more complicated than this, The Weaver had essentially invented a perpetual motion engine.

“How exactly does it insulate life?” Brooke asked.

“However it needs to,” Weaver replied. “It senses life around it, and provides whatever is necessary to keep it going.”

“I am centuries old,” Ecrin said, “and I have never heard of this.”

“It was a pretty well-kept secret in my reality, I imagine it’s the same here.”

“Where did it come from?” Holly Blue asked.

The Weaver said nothing.

Holly Blue squinted at her. “Where did it come from? Did you invent it?”

The Weaver still said nothing.

“What’s got you scared?” Brooke pressed. “Why wouldn’t you want to answer that.”

“I’m sorry,” Weaver stammered, “I...uhh.”

“What is it?”

Weaver took a breath and found her voice. “Sorry, no, we did not invent it. I hesitate to answer because I don’t have an answer. I should. I should know where it’s from, because I’ve studied it, but I know nothing. I asked Darko Matic to thread it to its origin, and it nearly killed him. It doesn’t have a past or a future, which doesn’t make any sense, because it’s a physical object you can hold in your hands, but it behaves like something that doesn’t exist.”

“This sounds dangerous,” Ecrin said. “Should we even be considering it?”

“It’s not dangerous,” Weaver clarified. “It’s just...mysterious. I’ve postulated that it comes from another reality, one that was earlier than mine. Or maybe it’s from a different universe entirely, I don’t know. It’s my white whale, really, even though I’ve been in possession of it.”

“Do you know where it is now?” Brooke asked of her.

“Last I saw it, I was giving it to The Horticulturalists, so they could procure samples of the earliest plants, but that was in my timeline. I’ve no clue where it is here and now.”

They all had defeatist looks on their faces.

“I may know someone, though,” Weaver added. “Darko’s mother, Catania Porter can’t thread objects like her son and granddaughter. She can, however, sense every object in the entire universe. Normally she can apport them to her location, if she wants, but the Insulator of Life is special. Hopefully she can still tell you where it is, but you’ll have to get it yourself.”

“We’re fine with that,” Ecrin said. “I just want to make sure this mission gets completed before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Brooke asked her.

Ecrin didn’t answer.

Weaver cleared her throat, and blushed. “I’m going to need to do something weird to summon The Porter, so just don’t laugh.”

“Why would we laugh?”

Weaver stood up and started stumbling around the cargo bay like a drunkard. She would approach something vaguely shaped like a human, and recite a special phrase, then when she didn’t receive a response, she would move onto something else. “I am the keymaster, are you the gatekeeper?” She did this over and over again until she finally reached a door. She opened it to reveal a woman on the other side.

“Are you the keymaster?” the woman asked. “I am the gatekeeper.” Then the two of them smiled at each other and hugged.

“I hate that you make people do that,” Weaver complained. “I looked so foolish.”

“I think it’s fun. You don’t mind, do you?” she asked the rest of the group.

They were still smirking, trying to stifle laughs. “Nope, not at all.”

“I like sex jokes,” Holly Blue noted, but no one knew what she was talking about.

After exchanging pleasantries, Porter agreed to get to work. She tilted her head deeply, like she was looking through a keyhole, or knocking water out of her ear. She closed her eyes and moved her head around, trying to find a good signal. “How far are we from Earth?”

“It’s on Earth?” Brooke was excited. “We’re only a week out.”

“No, I don’t think it’s there. It’s just that I’m used to seeking out objects on Earth. It’s like the internet. I don’t just go straight to the source; I jump from node to node, until I reach my destination. Out here in space, objects are too far apart.”

“But you don’t think it’s on Earth?” Weaver asked.

Porter continued to search the cosmos with her mind. “It’s almost certainly not. No, I’m not sensing it there. It’s the opposite direction. Part of my problem is my lack of understanding of the solar system. I need a map, to get my bearings.” A holographic map of solar system appeared over the table. Sharice had been listening. Porter studied the map for a few minutes, intuitively turning it around with her hands as necessary. “This can’t be all there is,” Porter said. “I can feel it beyond what we see here.”

“Sharice,” Brooke said simply.

The map expanded to show the entire heliosphere.

“There!” Porter shouted, pointing at a spot near the edge. “Where is that?”

“That’s the Oort Cloud,” Holly Blue replied. “It will take us a year at current speeds. Fortunately I just upgraded Sharice’s drives, but it would be a whole lot faster if we had that cylicone finished.”

“By the time we finish working on it,” Weaver reminded the group, we will have made it to where Porter pointed.”

“The system leadership wants the Freemarketeers out of the system yesterday,” Ecrin said. She expanded the map manually, and drew a line from the cloud to Alpha Centauri. “It’s not exactly on our way there, but it’s not too far out of the way. You will leave within the week, pick the insulator up on your way out, and then go FTL.”

“What do you mean by that?” Brooke questioned. “Are you not coming?”

Ecrin took a deep breath. “I am relieving myself of command, and leaving the Sharice.”

“Why? I thought you said you wanted to finish this mission.”

“I wanted to see you go off on the mission, but I’m afraid I can’t be there,” Ecrin explained, still cryptically. “I have been tapped for something else.”

Holly Blue frowned. “For what?”

“I can show you,” Ecrin began, “but you have to promise to not freak out.”

“We can’t promise that,” Brooke interrupted Holly Blue, who was about to agree to something before understanding it. “We can promise to be open-minded, though.”

Ecrin considered this. “Sharice, disarm the teleporter shields. Let our guest on board.”

Ecrin surely knew lots of people who could teleport, but who would the crew not want her to be involved with? They got their answer when a white monster appeared before them. It was the same one who had kidnapped her a few years ago. Brooke stood up defensively, and pulled out a weapon.

“Guns always fall out when you open your mind!” Ecrin said to her as she was stepping between the Maramon, and Brooke’s firearm.

Brooke kept her gun trained as close to her target as possible with a friendly blocking the way. “Not if you know how to use it.”

“Crew, this is Relehir, also known as The Repudiator. He’s on our side.”

Brooke still didn’t budge. “He’s the one who was trapped on The Warren when his universe separated from ours.”

“Yes,” Ecrin confirmed. “He’s been living amongst humans all this time, and he’s more like us than them. In fact, he’s a warrior...against the Maramon.”

“And he’s indoctrinated you to his cause?” Brooke supposed.

“I would use the word recruit,” Ecrin argued.

“He’s the only Maramon I know of in this universe. Who exactly will you be fighting?”

“We’ll be leaving the universe,” Ecrin said. “There’s a machine called the Prototype—”

“I don’t need the details,” Brooke interrupted. “I just need to know you’re of sound mind and body.”

“I am,” Ecrin tried to assure her. “I’ve been thinking over his offer since he first gave it to me. We haven’t even been in contact, so it’s not like he wore me down. I’m a lifelong protector; no matter how many times I try to retire. He’s giving me an opportunity to help, and I have to take it, because I think I’ve done all I can here.”

A stranger suddenly walked up behind Brooke, and pushed her arm down to lower the weapon. “It’s okay, mother. I’ve been looking into this Maramon. He’s legit.”

“Sharice?” Brooke asked, stunned. “You’re wearing a humanoid substrate.”

“Yes. I based it on what a child born of you and Goswin would look like. Do you like it? Weaver built it for me.”

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Microstory 950: Time and Eternity

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Time is one of the most abstract concepts in the universe, but also the very most important. Then again, I suppose it’s tied for the number one spot with the four fundamental forces, none of which really gets the credit it deserves. Time allows us to get things done, remember our past, plan for the future, and to experience the glory of life. If you’ve even read just a little bit of my website, you know that time travel is my biggest trope. That’s ironic, because when I was just getting started as a writer, I had a rule against time travel. And I had that rule because I firmly believe that time travel is completely impossible. There are no parallel timelines, no alternate realities, no temporal paradoxes; there’s only the now. Whatever happened, happened, and could not have happened any other way, because it’s what happened, and that’s that. Sorry if that’s not good enough. Though my fictional stories do not always effectively reflect my beliefs about cause, effect, and the indeterminacy of the future, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a bit of wriggle room. What really matters to us, in practical terms, is how we perceive that time. There are definitely those who experience time differently than others. Professional baseball players, for instance, must have the ability to slow the passage of time in their own minds, or they would not be able to hit those fast-moving pitches. I mean, seriously, if that’s not a superpower, than I don’t know what is. I’ve always been fascinated with this concept; the possibility that, though it’s impossible to add more time to our dimension, maybe it’s possible to be more productive by operating at a higher rate. Try this experiment. Sit at your computer, and type on the keyboard as quickly as you can. Don’t try to type any sentences, or words; just type. Wow, that was fast, right? You’re moving at least twice as fast—or more—as you do when you need to be comprehensible. So there’s not a very strong physical limitation to typing, unless that is, you have a diagnosable limitation. Otherwise, what really stops us is the speed at which we process information. Excellent typists, like office administrators, also have superhuman powers, because they’re capable of processing information much faster than the rest of us. That’s right, humble CEO, your secretary is literally a genius. So maybe we can exploit this skill, and reapply it to a more general understanding of the world around us. There is never enough time in a day, or in a lifetime, so we have to make the absolute most out of it before it’s over. Fortunately, time itself is showing no real signs of stopping, yet we are showing signs of extending our lives within it. I can’t wait.

Microstory 930: Writing

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As you can read in my bio, I started writing when I was thirteen years old. Before then, though, I had the sneaking suspicion that I was a good writer, and figured I would write science textbooks. In fifth grade, I half-assed a short paper about why I would never do drugs, and ended up winning a class-wide competition. Sidenote: I don’t do drugs, while it seems everyone else does, so maybe it worked. I had to read my paper aloud to an audience of other students and parents, and then they gave me a bunch of D.A.R.E swag. Then there was the fact that I rarely worked hard on my papers, and almost always received good grades for them. A couple years after I decided to switch to writing, I started thinking about my canon. I didn’t know to call it that back then, but up until that point, I had been focusing on fanfiction, in order to hone my craft. I wrote some Quantum Leap and Harry Potter stories, which have thankfully been lost by now, but it was time to try something original. I had recently returned from a trip to the Florida Keys with my Boy Scout troop, and my father. We spent a week on an island where I experienced no problems; no injuries, no fights, just fun. The beach smelled of rotten eggs, which is why I now like the smell of rotten eggs. That’s all it took to condition me. I struggled a lot with this first book, and it’s gone through a great deal of changes since then. It began as original, but I couldn’t help but find some way of connecting it to the Lord of the Rings universe. So I had to scrap it, and try again. It still wasn’t working out, so I scrapped the second draft too, and tried it a third time. I didn’t like that one either, even after ten years of this, so I buckled down, and started working on version number four, which is the one I have today. I’m looking for a literary agent to represent me, if you happen to know anyone.

While I’m glad I didn’t stick to my Lord of the Rings plan, it did make me realize that I would never be satisfied with individual stories that were completely separate from each other. I wanted to create a whole new world—or six worlds, as it were—and I wanted them to connect to each other in complicated, and sometimes subtle, ways. This too went through a number of changes, but at some point, I had a sturdy foundation, from which every story must originate. Later on, if I came up with a story that would not be internally consistent with the narrative, or even physical, laws set forth by other stories, I would have to create a new universe for it. But even that bothered me, so I invented a machine called The Crossover, which has the ability to travel between these universe, so in the end, I really do only have a single canon. Some stories are more connected than others, though. For instance, Magnate exists within a universe that allows none of the more—shall we say...unrealistic science fiction elements. People will start using it as a refuge from the craziness of time travel, ghosts, and whatnot. Anyway, I’m starting to talk about the planning of my stories, which is not what this post is about. This is about the writing itself, which I actually don’t love all that much. My fingers are in a permanent state of pain, so I can never type too long. I believe my strengths lie more with storytelling than with the narrative itself, or maybe I just feel that way because an artist’s work is never done. I would much rather come up with ideas, and micromanage every small detail of a story, then have someone else write it up for me. I believe they call people who do that producers. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it at all. I still appreciate the feeling of typing out paragraphs, and seeing the finished product of my accomplishments. Hopefully the readers who are hopefully reading this in the future feel the same way.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 9, 2155

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Before the strike of midnight central, Mateo helped Lincoln escort Zeferino down to the dungeon, and install him in the cell he would have to call home for the next year. He didn’t seem too bothered by this. After thousands of years of living, a single year being trapped in one room probably wasn’t that big of a deal. It was Lincoln that Mateo was worried about. He would have to be alone for all this time, with only a psychotic prisoner for company. A lot could happen in the interim. What if that psycho escaped, or Lincoln started going through Lima Syndrome, which he had a history of in an alternate reality?

As it turned out, Mateo’s fear was misplaced. Lincoln was not alone. He used the extraction mirror to summon a friend of his from the past that had died. Mateo had never had the chance to meet Asier Mendoza, but he recalled people talking about him at his engagement party. For personal reasons, Lincoln returned him to the moment of his death before August 9, 2155, robbing Mateo of ever having the pleasure.

“Has it been a year already?” Zeferino said with a smile upon seeing them walk down the steps. “I don’t remember blinking.”

“Have you thought more about what I asked?” Mateo swung the cell door keyring around his finger.

“I’ve already agreed to help,” Zeferino replied, confused.

“Yes, you said the words, but did you mean them?”

“Why, of course? I would never lie.”

“Everything you say is a lie. I don’t think there’s anything you’ve ever said to me that was the God’s honest truth.”

Zeferino thought about. “That can’t be true. Anyway. Yes, I’m happy to help. In fact, I’m extremely excited to meet The Superintendent.”

Mateo dropped the key to the ground and made one step closer to the bars. “What do you mean? You’ve never met? But you know he’ll help us?”

“Now, hold on. Before you start accusing me of lying again, you’ll remember in our conversation, that I said he could help. I can’t speak to whether he will. He’s the most powerful force for our universe, who knows what he’ll do? Lots of people know how to contact him, but we don’t, because he can tear us out of time like that.” He snapped his fingers illustratively.

“Your sister can do that.”

“Ah, parlour tricks. The Superintendent can delete the whole story. He can cancel the universe itself. He can make new ones. Technically you can too, but...you can’t interact with your godlings.”

“The hell is he talkin’ ‘bout?” Mateo asked Lincoln.

“My sight does not extend beyond the limits of this c-brane,” Lincoln explained. “Whoever the Superintendent is—and I have heard of him—I have no data on him. And I don’t know what this joker’s talking about.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that it’s a risk. He doesn’t talk to people who can’t help him. If we manage to get to him, it’s ‘cause he wants us to. You need to be prepared for whatever he asks of you. He doesn’t give you a choice, like I and Arcadia did.”

“Since when have I had a choice?”

“I mean literally. You’re his slave. I don’t mean you’ll suffer consequences. You simply cannot refuse.”

“He sounds just as bad as you,” Lincoln noted.

“He’s our God. What do you expect?”

“You’re telling me we’re going to talk to God? Nah, I don’t believe it.”

“I think deep down you know that Catholicism is bullshit, Mateo. The Bible says nothing of time travel. You’d think it would come up once.”

“It does,” Mateo countered. “There are tons of prophets. The Book of Revelation is all about the future.”

“And do you think that future is ever coming?”

Mateo smiled and drew even closer. “Maybe it did...in another reality.”

For this, he had no argument. Mateo hadn’t often proved someone wrong with his faith, because there’s little proof of its validity...which is what faith is. But the wonder of time manipulation actually reinforces the idea that the miraculous events in the Bible happened for real. After a pause, Zeferino moved on. “This is all irrelevant. If you want to go through with this, then we better get on it. That starts with you letting me out of this cage.”

Without breaking eye contact, Mateo reached back, to be met immediately by Lincoln’s hand, transferring to him the keys he had retrieved from the floor. They were in sync. He let Zeferino out and waited for something to happen. “Okay...what now?”

“Oh, we just wait. Be patient.”

“I thought you were going to contact him for us. That’s why we let you out.”

“Oh, no I just wanted out. That’s a jail cell. He knows we seek audience.”

“How?”

He closed his eyes. “Your stupidity astounds me every time. Talk about a miracle. I’ll speak slowly, so you can understand.” He did begin talking slower, “the Superintendent...is...G-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-d. He created...the whole universe. He’s not just listening right now...he’s controlling what we say. He’s writing them down right now, and is probably worried...that people will misinterpret the number of ‘o’s in the word ‘God’ as an elongation of the word ‘good’.”

Mateo just looked back at Zeferino like he was the dumb one. “It’s official. You’re crazy nutso cuckoo.”

“No, no, he’s right,” came a voice from behind.

Mateo turned around quickly, only to discover he and Lincoln were now standing in a bedroom. Clothes were lazily draped over the banister that protected people from falling down the stairs. Overall, the place was a slight mess. Zeferino had not traveled with them, though, so thank God for small miracles.

A man was sitting in a bed, listening to music. He reached over and clicked a pen. Dredg. That was the name of the band playing on his computer, which he suddenly now knew. A slideshow of photos of what might have been a beagle—after another click of the pen, he now realized it to be a foxhound—was playing on the television. He continued, “Crazy nutso cuckoo is one of my catchphrases. And the only reason you said it is because I have it written down right here, see?” He turned his laptop so they could see. Their entire conversation was laid out before them on the page.

Lincoln started freaking out. He blinked and keeled over, grasping his head in pain. “Argh, not again!”

“What’s happening to him? What did you do?”

“Oh, sorry,” the Superintendent said. “Here we go.” He reached over and clicked the pen once more, which somehow magically took Lincoln’s pain away.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Lincoln said with a sigh of relief. This happened when I first went to that other c-brane. I can only see my universe, but apparently when I go to other ones, I start seeing their proverbial spacetime paintings. It’s rather overwhelming.”

“Yeah, you’re not gonna have that power anymore,” the Superintendent said. “I’m over it.”

“What?” Mateo protested.

“Hey, this is a compromise. Did you think Arcadia was gonna let you get away with not killing Lincoln just because you get Darko back by some other means? She’s not a fan of loopholes, but she’ll use one herself if she has to. Lincoln’s inability to compete with her possession of the LIR Map should suffice.”

“If you’re God then you can just end all of this right now.”

“I could, but that’s not an interesting story. Who would read that? Once upon a time, there was a man named Mateo Matic, and everything was fine in his life. The End. You hear how stupid you sound? I almost regret making you this dumb. Now I see why everyone hates you.”

No words.

“Oh, precious little Christian got his fee-fees hurt. I definitely regret making you Catholic, and I’m so gonna take that away from you without any explanation to my readers why.”

“Do you have any?”

“Do I have any what?”

“Readers?”

“Straight to the heart. I musta accidentally turned down your empathy, and turned up your sass.”

“Why do you have, like, four TV trays in here? Isn’t this a bedroom?” Lincoln questioned with his own sass.

“Why are you named after two presidents and a werewolf?”

“Apparently because you arbitrarily deci—oh, okay, that’s the answer. Fine.”

“Are you gonna give Darko back, or not?” Mateo wanted to return to the subject at hand. “I was told you would want something from me?”

The Superintendent went back to his—“you can call me Gaius, by the way. People don’t really understand that calling myself the Superintendent isn’t quite as egocentric as it sounds. Think less manager of an organization, and more broken pipes in an apartment”—computer. “I’ve already written one thousand four hundred seventy...three words, so we don’t really have time for you to do anything for me, but I’m sure I’ll think of something by the time I get back to this story next Sunday. It might even have something to do with Effigy.”

Mateo just sighed.

“Though, I kind of like the idea of you two having zero effect on each other’s story.”

“Ya know, this whole thing where you write yourself into the story is like Adapta—” Mateo blinked. “What was I saying? Oh yeah, you stole the idea of writing yourself into the story from a movie called Stranger Than—why can’t I think of the name of that mov—what was I saying?” Mateo finally noticed Gaius’ hand hovering over his magic pen that could alter reality. “Would you stop doing that? God!”

“Now you’re gettin’ it! But really, don’t call me that, it’s gross.”

“Believe me, I will never consider you my God.”

He shrugged. “Whatever. You don’t have long left in this story anyway.”

“Huh?!”

“What? But seriously, folks, I do worry about writing myself into these stories. I don’t technically have to do it, but I’ve already established the quantum interconnectivity of all these universes, and sometimes I get carried away with the crossovers. A side effect of that is you sometimes cross over into my universe. I’m gonna try to tone that down next year. Until then, you have a full week until 2156 arrives.”

“Are you one the powers that be?” Mateo asked, trying to get more answers.

“Heavens no. That I promise you.”

He seemed sincere, and Mateo wanted to believe him, so he did. “Do I truly want to believe you, or do you just want the conversation to end befo—” He blinked and nearly fainted. “Please stop doing that.”

“I’m about to take that pen from you,” Lincoln said, feeling extra protective of Mateo.

“You know, this season has been all about you two. I came this close to developing a romantic relationship between you.”

Mateo was just horrified at the through of Leona being erased from time for good to make room for someone else.

Gaius just smiled. “Don’t worry. Leona wears more plot armor than you do.”

“You better go. It’s 2:03 in the morning and I have a long day of rewatching the Netflix Marvel series. You’re welcome, by the way. In my universe, we have a show called Iron Fist, but I chose to spare you that horror. Plus, I gave you ten extra seasons of Bunheads, so a little gratitude would be nice.”

“Where will we go?” Lincoln asked.

Gaius was all but ignoring them, having returned to his laptop. “You can borrow that green car in my garage. The key’s right there. I don’t care where you go. Be back in a week.”

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