The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 16, 2498

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Olimpia had been working here for a few weeks now, and everything was going great. He had an assistant before her, but he was nothing special. She quickly learned to anticipate Mateo’s needs, and they had developed a nice rapport with each other. Being the Fleet Commander for the entire Central Midwest region meant that he had to do a lot of traveling. It wasn’t all over the country, of course, but it was a regular thing. He had just spent most of the last week in Cedar Rapids, which was horrible enough, but going it alone was just too much. Typically, the office assistant stayed in the office, so they could respond to driver issues from their desk, and take in any walk-ins. But with SRW headphones and a cell phone capable of accepting forwarded calls, she really could do her job from just about anywhere. Ramses always stayed next to his precious servers, so he could answer the door if anyone were to show up. Mateo really needed Olimpia there with him when he was on the road. “Are you interested in that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s not a monarchy,” he reminded her. “I didn’t hire you for travel, and that’s not in the job description. It would therefore come with a new job description, and a modest wage increase. You can say no, though.”

“I have no ties,” Olimpia replied with a shake of her head. “Before I found you, I was applying to jobs in most of the lower 48 states. I like to move around, and stay busy. Honestly—and I probably shouldn’t tell you this—I get bored with a job after a few years, and tend to start looking elsewhere. If I’m traveling, I’m sure it won’t get so tedious.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Mateo said. “I know I just got back, but I have to fly up to Minneapolis tomorrow, and I could really use your help.”

“I didn’t think Minnesota was in our region,” Olimpia said.

“It’s not, I’m meeting with my equivalent for the Northern Midwest. The guy from the Northern Mountain region will be there too. I’m not a hundred percent sure what it’s about. I think they want to have some kind of convention, or something. This has been on the books for a couple months.”

“Well, I’m in, I’ll change the plane tickets.”

“Great! And hey, why don’t you come for dinner tonight, meet the family? My daughter is cooking something. She’s gotten really good lately. It will be vegetarian though, so if you have a problem...”

“No, I can be there, that sounds great. I really appreciate it, sir.”

“You can just call me Mateo. We’re not formal here.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ramses said, appearing at the entrance to Mateo’s cubicle. He stretched, and pretended to take a drink from a flask.

“Don’t worry, it’s empty,” Mateo explained to Olimpia. “We got those as gifts at a company retreat last year. Ridiculous, if you ask me, but I like how they etched in the RideSauce logo.”

“Oh, yeah.” Olimpia was being polite, but she didn’t care.

“Well, I’ll see you at 17:30 for dinner? I’ll be sure to get you home early enough to pack for the trip. We’ll be gone for three days.”

“I’m already packed,” she said. “I haven’t unpacked since I came to Kansas City.”

“We’ll be traveling a lot,” Mateo reminded her, “but you should still try to dig in and put down some roots.”

“I’ll get right on that. Why don’t we ride to your house together?”

“Okay.”

That evening, after work, Mateo called a RideSauce Hot. He usually went with a Mild, because he didn’t want to feel like an elitist, but he wanted to impress Olimpia. Plus, Boyd liked to hang out in this area around the end of the work day specifically in hopes of answering a request from the boss. It was unclear what he was after, because he wasn’t really on track for a promotion. Maybe he was just a bit of a kiss-ass, and couldn’t help himself. He didn’t qualify for the request today, though, not with that jalopy he was driving. A bluish-purple Aevum Magnitude showed up instead. The driver stepped out, and came around to let them in the back like a real chauffeur. That was part of what you were paying for when you selected Hot.

“Thanks,” Mateo began before remembering that he didn’t notice the name on the app.

“Dave, sir,” the driver replied. He was dressed in the full get-up, all black with a sleek driving cap.

“Dave,” Mateo echoed. He slipped him a 20-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir.” Dave shut the door behind him, and went around to get back in the car. He received another 20-buck tip at the end of the ride.

Mateo laughed when his daughter answered the door. She was wearing 2450s housewife attire; a pink shirtwaist dress with darker pink flowers and a pleated skirt. Her hair was done up however you would think for that time period, though he didn’t know what to call it. She had deep red lipstick, and smiled in that fake, dying-on-the-inside, sort of way. “Welcome to our home? May I take your coat?”

“Why, that would be swell, ya see? Thanks, sweetheart, you’re a doll.”

“That’s the 2440s, dad,” Romana complained. She shook it off. “Hi, you must be Olimpia. I’m Romana.”

They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. I’m Olimpia. I mean—you just said that.” She was embarrassed.

Romana smiled kindly. “I really will take your coats. Come on in.”

They sipped tea and talked for about a half hour in the kitchen while Romana was finished preparing the food. Leona helped, but Romana was running the show. It was typically Mateo’s job to stay out of the way when they were in their teacher-student mode. He felt uncomfortable this time since he was expected to be in here while entertaining their guest. Fortunately, they had a rather large kitchen. This was the kind of thing you got when you lived in Mission Hills. Olimpia seemed a little uncomfortable too as she was looking up at the architecture, probably because she wasn’t used to all this fancy stuff that rich people had. Or he could have been completely misinterpreting everything. Maybe she just didn’t like him. Or she was starving, and this was taking too long. Or she was craving meat, and was just trying to get through this. That was enough of letting his neuroses take over. He could have been misinterpreting her facial expressions entirely. It was time to eat.

Dinner was lovely, Romana really was getting a lot better. It was probably time that she stepped out from under her mother’s wing, and started seriously thinking about culinary school. She was acting a little weird while they were eating, like she was keeping a secret. Maybe she was about to reveal to them that she knew exactly where she wanted to study, and Olimpia’s presence was overshadowing the announcement. “Lechuga, is there something you wanna tell us?”

“What? No.” she answered.

“Wait, why Lechuga?” Olimpia had to ask.

Mateo smirked. “Romana, romaine, lettuce, lechuga.”

“Oh.” Olimpia giggled.

“There’s something on your mind. You can tell us,” Leona encouraged her daughter. “You know we don’t tell lies in this house.”

Romana sighed, but it was more like a coo. “Okay. Well, you know that I wanted to go to culinary school.”

They nodded, even Olimpia, who just wanted to fit it.

“Well, Boyd said there’s a great one in Hawaii.”

“Boyd, who the hell is Boyd?” Mateo questioned.

“Boyd Maestri, your...driver.”

Mateo feigns ignorance. “Uh, I don’t have a driver named Boyd Maestri who is between 15 and 18 years old. I think you’re confused.” Mateo was never under the impression that his daughter wouldn’t eventually grow up and become sexually active, but there were still rules. The half your age plus seven rule may not have had any scientific basis, but it seemed sound to him. Boyd was way too old for her, and Mateo wouldn’t have it.

“Relax, dad, we’re not doing anything. We just talk sometimes.”

“Why would he be talking to you?” Mateo pressed.

“Calm down, Matt,” Leona urged.

“No. I’m going to be however I need to be,” Mateo insisted. “I get it, Romana. I want you to understand that you did nothing wrong. But he did. I don’t know what you two talk about in your secret little phone calls. It could be politics, or the weather, or cooking. It doesn’t matter. It’s about the reason that he’s talking to you. Even if you don’t see it, I do, because I was him. Your mother was a lot younger than me when we first met. But we didn’t really start talking until we were the same age.”

Romana winced, as did everyone else. “What do you mean, she was younger? How could she have aged while you stayed the same?”

Mateo uttered a single unintelligible sound before he became blocked and frozen. He could not explain what he had just said. Leona was younger? And then she got older, and now  they were the same age? That didn’t make any sense at all. He had to cover. He had to figure a way out of this. “You know what I mean, she was just a little too young for me, but as we both aged at the same time, the gap remained the same, but it became less pronounced.” That wasn’t right either. They were the same age!

“And how long would I have to wait before someone Boyd’s age would be appropriate for me?”

“Someone Boyd’s age? Maybe ten years. Boyd himself? Uh, after the sun goes supernova, I guess.”

“The sun’s not going to go supernova, it’s going to expand, cool off, and shrink,” Leona clarified.

Mateo narrowed his eyes at her wife. “Thanks.”

Romana scoffed. “For your information, I know what boys want from me. I mean...look at me. It’s irrelevant what Boyd thinks he’s gonna get in return for helping me, because if I don’t wanna give it, I won’t. He has a friend who works at the Hilo Culinary Arts Institute, so I’m using him however I must to get into that school. We can’t all have careers that fall into our laps just because we got a 100% on our first driving tests, and it inflated our egos.”

“It was 101%,” Mateo reminded her. “I corrected one of the questions for its ambiguity.”

“Oh, how could I forget?” Ramona said in a mocking tone, crossing her arms.

“You can get into whatever school you want, Lechuga—”

“You don’t call me that when we’re fighting,” she argued in a raised voice.

He closed his eyes. They did agree to that. It was a pet name, and those should not be associated with negative emotions or hostilities. “Romana. You’re extremely talented, and we are doing well for ourselves. You don’t have to go to a school nearby, though I would love to have you stay in the area. What I will not tolerate is you using someone for their connections. I’m not saying that you should give it up for him instead, but I didn’t raise you to exploit people any more than I raised you to be careless with your heart and body. You are to treat others with kindness and respect, and if that means losing out on an opportunity, then that’s what will happen. Your integrity is more important.”

This seemed to speak to her. “Yeah,” she said in a lowered voice. She let out an exasperated and disappointed sigh. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for starting a fight.” He turned his attention. “Olimpia, I’m sorry that you saw us fight.”

“It’s okay,” she replied sincerely.

There was an awkward silence, which Leona broke. “I didn’t want to be completely useless tonight, so I made the dessert all by myself. Who here likes sand cake?”

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Microstory 2081: Half a Surprise

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I didn’t have to go to work today. I worked eleven days straight, so it’s time for a break. I’ve not just been sitting around, though. I got out, and did stuff. First, I walked back to the bike shop, where they let you rent for the day. The first time is free as long as you sign up for their emailing list, and promise to seriously consider buying something at a later date. They have a few used ones, so instead of exploring my options online, I think I’ll just end up choosing one of these. I’ve gotten my first deposit, but I’m not exactly a millionaire yet. I would like to get a couple more before I start making any big purchases. I did spend a little cash on some food. I am not much of a cook, but I can get by if I plan it out, and I’m very careful. My landlord happened to have the day off too, so she planned something with a friend. She’ll be home for dinner, though, so I’m making something for her. I told her that I wanted to pick something up for the two of us to thank her for everything she’s done for me, so shh, it’s still half a surprise. She’s a vegetarian too, which is great. Do you know what the most important part of cooking is...? [...] Give up? It’s eating. Eating, of course; what else would be the point. The second most important thing, however, may be timing, and it’s one of the hardest things to learn. That’s what I’m struggling with now, but I think I’m gonna be okay. Something that really helps is having a bunch of little bowls ready with the individual ingredients. This is how they do it on all the cooking shows. My landlord doesn’t cook much herself, because she’s too busy at the clinic, but she inherited a lot of kitchen stuff from her grandmother, so there’s enough here for me to be ready to go. Wish me luck, I’m making a Mediterranean bowl, which shouldn’t be too terribly hard for an unskilled, perpetual novice like me. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Microstory 2080: It’s Frickin’ Perfect

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I’ve been writing kind of long posts recently, especially that one from Monday last week. I’m particularly tired today, though. I had so much to do. I had to work first shift, and then go to several appointments for my apartment search. My real estate agent was great. She doesn’t make as much money in her job as the kind that sell full family homes, but she was committed, and she understood what I was looking for. There was one particular unit that I am very interested in. You can see the entire thing from one spot. A single room quadruples as a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and office. One door leads to a closet, and the other to a bathroom. I think they said it was 27 square meters in area, which is about 290 square feet, if you like to use the WRONG measuring system. The way the building manager tells it when we met him, there was a bit of an error when calculating the number of units that could fit within the length of the complex. Every floor has this tiny little thing that they tacked on in the corner. It’s too big to be just a storage closet, or something, but not big enough for most people’s needs. I am not most people. It’s frickin’ perfect. I can already picture the layout. The building is a little farther from work than I would like, because I would prefer to walk, but I think I can invest in a bike, and still avoid buying a car. I don’t know what I will do in really bad weather, but it might be worth it.

Microstory 2077: A Break of Such Length

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I don’t want this blog to only be about my job at the nursery, but that’s really all I have going on. I don’t have any hobbies or interests, not on this world, anyway. I suppose I’ll start to get more into gardening, won’t I? It might be weird if I do the same thing in my free time that I do for work, but that may be all I really have. Someday soon, though, I’ll be able to afford my own place, and with it, my own computer. Then I can get back into writing. Until then, I can only work with what I have. Speaking of work, today I was there for only a single shift, from 06:00 to 12:00, instead of all the way to closing at 19:00. That’s the normal duration of a workday around here. People tend to work six hours a day, five days a week. That adds up to only thirty hours per week, instead of the forty where I’m from. Plus, every business in this country—no matter how small—is required to pay for a half hour lunch. A break of such length is required to avoid mistreatment of employees, so it only made sense to the legislators to make that part of the wages. Some businesses are allowed to do it differently by paying half a person’s wage for a full hour lunch break, because it makes the timekeeping easier, but others have you clock back in after your official lunch is done, but then stay on break. That sounds more annoying, and doesn’t allow you to go anywhere for the whole time. The nursery is right on the edge of town, so there aren’t a whole lot of places nearby, but one restaurant serves a particularly eclectic set of dishes, so it’s easy to go there more than once without feeling like you’re eating the same thing every time. It’s a little expensive, but I always get the cheapest thing on the menu. Once I get my own place, I won’t have to worry about borrowing my landlord’s kitchen, so I’ll really try to start making my own lunch. We’ll see how that goes. I’m lazy, so I get tired of that sort of thing.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 22, 2399

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Labhrás Delaney steps into the apartment behind Winona, and looks around with a frown on his face. It’s small, and it could do with some cleaning, but he’s lived in worse. He did not exactly grow up rich. That’s why he did what he used to do, because he had to. He’s trying to do better now, but he certainly wouldn’t say that he regrets his past transgressions. That’s not true; he literally said that he regrets everything, but he didn’t really mean it. He just knew that the only way he was ever going to get back to the surface of the planet was to tell these people what they wanted to hear. Luckily, lying is his specialty. He steps a little farther into the unit. “What’s this?”

“It’s your new place,” she tells him.

“I thought we were just stopping by to run an errand. You bought this for me?”

“Well, the government did; not me personally, and they rented it. Surprise!”

He shakes his head, looking at the mold on the wall, and incessant leaky faucet.

“Mateo taught me a phrase from his reality. He said that beggars can’t be choosers. This is what’s available. The government’s not going to spring for a penthouse apartment overlooking the water.”

“No, it’s not like that. I thought I would be living closer to my granddaughter.”

“She’s not your granddaughter yet, and I don’t think she thinks of you that way. And anyway, she lives in New York now, and I don’t think that she’ll be coming back anytime soon. There’s something there that cannot be moved.”

“Oh, you gave me access to the news down in the prison. I heard all about it. Which is why I was hoping that you would relocate me there.”

“That’s not a thing,” Winona says apologetically. “We don’t move people around. You began your rehabilitation in KC, because that’s where the person who was in charge of it—i.e. me—needed to be. We only relocate through the witness protection program.”

“I witnessed a murder,” Labhrás discloses.

“Are you talking about your own murder?”

“Would that not count? Hold on, I can think of another crime...”

“I’m sorry, Mister Delaney, but if you don’t want to go back to the black site, this place is your only option. You’ll also need to fulfill the requirements we spoke of. You need to check in regularly, stay sober, earn gainful employment by the end of April—”

“You don’t think this is going to last another month, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Word has spread, Miss Honeycutt. The world is ending.”

“Who did you overhear discussing that?” she questions.

“The guards never told me their names.”

“So it was a guard.”

“Don’t get anyone in trouble on my account.”

She sighs. “Leona is going to reveal herself to the Daltomists, and therefore the whole world, on Friday. The last thing she needs is a presumably dead future relative of hers showing up to make things even more complicated.”

He seems to get it now. He throws his knapsack onto the counter. “Thank you.”

“Try to find some joy here. This is the kind of second chance that no one else has ever received. I’ll come by to take you shopping tomorrow.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 30, 2398

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Vearden pulls up to the house, and turtles his head to look through the windshield. Arcadia fell asleep, even on this short drive. The internet says that it’s not necessarily a symptom of pregnancy, especially not this early. She’s probably just stressed, which is a symptom of pregnancy. “We’re here,” he whispers.

Arcadia opens her eyes. “Did I miss it?”

“No,” he laughs. “I think the agent is just pulling up behind us.”

As the SUV is parking behind them, Vearden gets out, and opens the door for his...his whatever—they’ve not come up with a word for it yet. “Hello, you must be Radha.” He offers his hand.

Radha shakes it. “And you’re...Varden?”

“Vearden,” he corrects.

“Nice to meet you. And you...Leona Matic?”

“I’m not Leona,” Arcadia says. “I’m her twin sister, Arcadia.”

“Forgive me,” Radha says politely.

“I need a new body,” Arcadia says to Vearden out of the corner of her mouth as they’re heading for the doorway.”

“I don’t see how the baby would transfer,” Vearden replies in the same way.

Radha unlocks the door. “Four bedrooms, two and a half baths. The master suite has a jacuzzi, and a walk-in closet, plus this cute little reading nook that I think you’re going to adore. The kitchen has recently been remodeled, as the previous owners were both professional caterers. They’re moving because their business got too big for it, but it should be perfect for a growing family. I assume you’re not far along.”

“Do I already have a bump?” Arcadia questions.

“Oh, heavens, no,” Radha says apologetically. “Your husband asked me to look for a good school district.”

“Oh, we’re not married.”

“Forgive me,” she repeats. “I was under the impression that you were Kalialists.” That must be a religion that doesn’t allow extramarital sex, or maybe just not pregnancy.

Arcadia has already looked into this. “We are Berarians.” As far as she can tell, it’s the least involved religion of them all. It’s not atheism, but they don’t really care about the nature of the almighty, or what the meaning of life is. It respects the rule of law more than some faiths. It recommends its members try not to bother others.

“I see. Well, here’s the open concept living room, breakfast dining area, and the kitchen that I was telling you about. That door in the corner by the bookcases leads to what I believe the original owners intended to use as a panic room. But then they moved, and the caterers came in, who never had it finished either. You can use it as a storage space, I suppose.”

Or they could use it as a panic room. “Oh, I would like to see that,” Vearden says.

Radha continues to show them through the house. It’s a nice place. On the outside, it doesn’t really look like something they would want, but that panic room almost sounds like fate. They’re trying to stay out of trouble, but it seems to find them, and that would be a nice thing to fall back on since Arcadia doesn’t have any powers, and because of the baby. They’ll consider making an offer.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 27, 2398

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Mateo didn’t think to put Las Vegas, New Mexico or Las Vegas, Nevada on his list of places to investigate. It didn’t occur to him to include every single place that he’s ever been. For many people, that’s a costly and time-consuming endeavor, but for him, he’s been to surprisingly few places around the world. He’s probably been to more worlds than particular locations on any given world, and they’re all inaccessible for him anyway. His list would be a lot longer with faster-than-light intergalactic, or even just interstellar, travel. Anyway, there is probably more to learn about New Mexico, but Leona declared that they were going to leave for Kansas City, so that’s what they did. The bus took the two of them, plus Winona, across two more state borders, and dropped them off at the condo. From there, the latter separated from the group, and made her way back to whatever secret government lair she lives in.

The condo was a mess. It was designed for a family of four, but there were now fifteen people, it’s absolutely ridiculous. They made it work like a slumber party, but if anyone wants any privacy going forward, something is going to have to change. Ramses woke up really early the next morning, and tiptoed over the sleeping bags, very careful so as to not wake anyone. He only had one final thing to do at the lab before it was ready for primetime, but it was going to take the next several hours, and he didn’t want to go one more night without the third floor.

Leona and Angela join him there at a more reasonable hour to work on some things on the other two floors, and then everyone meets there before dinner. It’s going to be a mini-twin convention. At least that’s what they’ll tell anyone who notices the duplicates in the private room of the restaurant. They’re asked to wait at the bottom floor while Ramses runs up alone to prepare for the big reveal. He actually locks the elevator down so that no one can get a sneak peek. Rolling his eyes, Mateo takes the stairs, but everyone else continues to wait in the lobby.

Ramses is trying to carry two nightstands down the hallway. “Oh, it’s just you. Could you help me?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfectly finished,” Mateo points out to him as he takes one of them. “It just needs to be livable for now; electricity, plumbing...”

“And that’s all I’ve done. There’s still a lot to do to make any of this look like a home...or homes, that is.”

After Mateo finishes placing the nightstand by the bed, he starts to look around on his own, ignoring protests from Ramses who wants to give everybody the tour all at once. This is where they’re going to move to, the lot of them. They’ll be safe here. Well, at least as safe as possible. No place on Earth is safe from their enemies, but this is still the better choice. They have outgrown the Ponce de Leon, especially with the newcomers, who may or may not be staying. It’s in need of decor, but it will do nicely. Ramses done did good. “How many units? Nine?”

“Eight,” Ramses corrects. “That door at the end is not a unit. It’s a common area for all of us. The others are studio-size, according to this world’s current standards. The two on either side of the common area are each a little bigger, but they’re all fit for one or two people. Ah, but I’m saying too much. Come back during the official tour!”

Mateo laughs. “Open the elevator, Rambo.”

Ramses presses a button on his device, and sends the elevator down for the others. They spill out of it like sardines, thirteen people in a space for ten or eleven. “Welcome, welcome, all, to The Lofts at Matic Labs!”

“That’s not what the lab is called,” Leona says in a way that sounds like she’s had to tell him that many times.

Ramses insists on showing everybody each apartment, even though six of them are pretty much identical, and the other two are identical to each other. Each one has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette. Most of the cooking is meant to be done in that common area, which resembles an office break room. Its kitchen is fully loaded, and is accompanied by couches, computers, other screens, and its own bathroom. He may have called these lofts, but in reality, they combine to form a single house that happens to be sitting on top of a small office building.

“Which one is ours?” little Trina asks.

“Oh, we can’t stay here,” Alyssa says to her sadly.

“Why not?” Ramses asks her.

“Well, this is yours. We’re not really part of all this.”

“Nonsense,” Ramses says. “You have a destiny with us, you may just not know it yet. I built this for our friends, and you qualify.” He addresses the whole room, “you all qualify, duplicates included.”

Alyssa is unsure. She looks to Leona and Mateo, whose facial expressions echo the sentiment. This should be their home now, and not because they can’t take care of themselves, but because they’re family. The only question would be the other Mateo, the other Leonas, and Andile. It’s unclear what they want out of life, and whether their objectives align with everyone else’s. Well, that’s not the only question. If they too want to return to the main sequence—and not just to die—they might want to stay close. Whenever the team figures out how to accomplish their task, it could be time sensitive, and space might even be limited. They don’t know yet. They just don’t know.

“Okay, we’ll stay, and we’ll take whatever unit no one else wants,” Alyssa decides.

“The two on either side of us have more square meterage, but an odd configuration, because this room butts into them,” Ramses begins. “For a family of four, I would recommend units B, C, F, or G. A and H are smaller because of the elevator, so I’ll take one of those.”

“We’ll take the other,” Mateo volunteers for himself and Leona.

Ramses points at people’s heads, and counts in his own. “If the McIvers are together, and couples are together, four of us will have to pair up to make it work.”

“My Leona and I can be in one unit,” Andile says.

“Are you sure?” Alt!Leona asks. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m tired of running. Let’s stay with people who care about us.”

“That still leaves two roommates. Alt!Mateo, I’m okay bunking with you.”

“No, we can do that, can’t we?” Kivi asks, indicating herself and Angela.

“No,” Alt!Mateo says. “I don’t know what made you think I would be interested in joining your little cult, but I’m not going to do that.”

“What will you do instead?” Alt!Leona asks. It’s very awkward between them since he was, and will be responsible, for her death in Reality One.

“I don’t have to go home, but I can’t..stay..here.” He starts to leave.

“You will always have a home here, just the same!” Ramses calls to him.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 18, 2398

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Once they received a message from Leona, telling them that she had managed to get on board The Olimpia all the way in Russian waters, Marie asked the others to not say anything about what happened to them. The whole ordeal with being locked up in a fishbowl for three days was a fluke, and it would just cause needless concern. They were rescued, and all back safe and sound. There was no need to bring it up again.

The rest of the team has returned now. Leona figured it was possible to duplicate anything almost indefinitely as long as they didn’t completely destroy the original object. He shouldn’t need to cut a hole in the center of the lantern. If he just poked the base of it, a new one would be born, and they would both retain their powers. As it turned out, this wasn’t one hundred percent true. Possibly as some kind of inherent function of the quantum duplication knife, each lantern stabbed loses its special ability to illuminate system flaws. What it doesn’t lose, however, is its temporal energy. It’s still stored in there, just unusable, like tearing out the processor in a cell phone, but keeping the battery intact. Temporal energy is amazing and insane, and capable of teleporting them to the other side of the world, but it’s also just a really great power source. The teleporter that Ramses designed only works on immortality water, and it’s not capable of processing raw energy. So they had to take the long way around, but they were able to do it in the air, and that was better than driving up into Russia, and making their way over the land to Finland.

They walk into the condo, happy to be seeing each other again. Marie, Heath, and Kivi are sitting at the kitchen counter. Leona starts to get a weird feeling about it. They all look fine; too perfect, really. Sitting there like this, they’re reminding her of the kids in a teen comedy about a rager they threw before having to clean everything up in preparation for their parents’ return. “What did you do?” she asks them.

“What are you talking about?” Marie asks.

“Something happened,” Leona presses. “What was it?”

“Everything’s fine, we’re glad you’re back,” Marie insists.

Kivi is about to explode. “We were captured by some black ops guys, and taken to this glass prison cell in the middle of a warehouse, where they left us for days—probably to die of starvation, or perhaps even boredom—until Winona Honeycutt came in with, like, an entire army, and took out all the bad guys, and rescued us from being electrocuted by a menacing scowling man, who I guess just wanted to cut his losses, because I’m sure he knew that Senator Honeycutt would want to have us back.”

Leona stares at Kivi for a minute, then turns her attention to Marie. “Why are you keeping things from me?”

“I just wanted our family back. I was afraid that you would go back to the Capital, and we would end up being separated again. I know I’m the cause of the latest issue, with the Fountain of Youth. I just wanted to fix it. I didn’t think it through.”

“Oh, and we met a new friend,” Kivi keeps going. “Her name is Andile, and she—”

“Andile Mhlangu?” Leona interrupts.

“Yeah,” Heath confirms, “do you know her?”

Despite his low intelligence, and poor memory, Mateo actually recognizes and remembers the name. “She was Leona’s college roommate...like, a dozen timelines ago.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 2, 2398

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Leona and Mateo are having a date night, so they’ll be out of the condo for a few hours. Ramses doesn’t have anywhere to be, but he starts getting the sense that Heath and Marie need him to be away too, so he goes for a walk around the plaza, looking to find something interesting or new to do. Now it’s just the Waltons, and they have something important to talk about. Angela knows the other two want to discuss something, but she doesn’t know what. The truth is, no one out of the three of them knows how this is going to go.

“I think I’ll start,” Marie says solemnly. “First of all, I want to thank you for all the support you two have shown me during this difficult time. It’s been really helpful to know that I have a loving family who are willing to go to great lengths to protect me, and my future. This has not been an easy decision, and while we’ve had our issues, I believe that we’re ready to move forward. Can we all at least agree with that much?”

“Yes,” Heath answers. Now he’s worried. He thought they were on the same page.

“Of course,” Angela concurs.

Marie goes on, “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and...” She sighs, not wanting to say what she needs to say.

“Go ahead,” her husband encourages.

“I believe,” she continues, drawing as much strength as she can find, “that you can’t come with me to Croatia.” She’s not looking at either of them, which makes her statement a little confusing.

“Obviously, I can’t go...” Angela says.

“No, not you.” She finally looks back over. “You. Heath, you can’t come with me, not if we want this to work. Before you argue, Angela has to become me, and that includes everything. She has to become a coder, and a volunteer at the community kitchen twice a week, and she has to become your wife. This isn’t going to matter if even one person beyond the team begins to get the idea that there’s any distance between the two of you.”

“Well, how far do you want this to go?” Heath questions.

“What do you mean?”

“How far should I go? Should we start sharing a bed? Should we start having sex? How committed do you want me to be to the lie?”

“Do you want to have sex with her?” Marie asks.

“No! That’s what I’m saying!”

“You promised to not raise your voice anymore,” Marie reminds him.

“I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated, because I also promised to see you through this whole thing, and now you don’t even want me to be within eight thousand kilometers of you. That’s just hard to hear.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you with me, it’s just not smart. Think about it logically. Angela’s gonna run into into our downstairs neighbor, and they’re going to invite the two of us to dinner Friday night, and she’s going to have to come up with some excuse, and then suddenly the period during which you were reportedly gone perfectly lines up with the period during which I was actually gone, and then maybe people start to ask questions, and maybe they end up asking too many.”

“I know, it’s the right thing to do. I just didn’t want to let you go alone.”

“I won’t be alone. Mateo will be there.”

“Mateo? Just Mateo?” Angela asks, now confused about that.

“The two of us don’t have professional lives to think about,” Marie begins to explain. “It makes sense that he could up and leave. No one will be wondering where he went off to.”

“Ramses doesn’t really have anything going on either,” Heath points out.

“Yes, he does. He’s extremely busy, trying to get us out of this reality.”

“Oh, he’s still on that?” Heath can’t help but be disgusted by the prospect. Everyone else he cares about, including Marie, is a visitor to this world. But he grew up here. This is his home. It’s not perfect. It’s downright cruel in some ways. But it’s familiar, and as random as all the laws, customs, and religious practices seem to be, they’re rooted in a history that he grew up learning. They make perfect sense to him. The others have experience being strangers in a strange land. This is all he knows. He can’t just leave, and he can’t let Marie go.

“It’s how he’s helping,” Angela tells him. “We don’t have to make any decisions yet, but it’s why you agreed to go on the mission with Mateo later this month, isn’t it?”

“How can I go on that?” Heath puts forth. “If I can’t ever be away from Marie, then that’s impossible.”

“Mateo’s been talking to me about that,” Angela says. “You can’t go on that either. You have a life here, and abortion or no, you have to keep living it. This isn’t your problem, you don’t even want to find anything.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, and don’t want,” Heath argues.

“Honey, you’re getting close.”

“Sorry,” he whispers. He does his counting exercise. “You’re right. It was a stupid idea. I got so excited to have an adventure, I stopped thinking rationally. I think we all did. It doesn’t make sense for me to disappear, not unless all six of us just go off the grid together.”

“Well, that’s one thought,” Marie admits.

“Are you seriously considering that?” Angela questions, shocked. “You’ve built a life for yourself here.”

“Well, I’m about to lose it anyway, aren’t I?”

“No, that can’t be true,” Angela believes. “I’m just a temporary placeholder. You’ll be back eventually. No one’s expecting you to have an abortion.”

“Except for Fairpoint,” Heath reminds her.

“Oh, yeah. What are we gonna do about Fairpoint?” Marie asks. Now her stomach is getting upset. He’s the only other non medical professional who knows she’s pregnant.

They hear the sound of the front door opening, and sort of a huff from down the hallway. Mateo rounds the corner alone. He’s not happy, but not extremely distressed either. “Sorry to intrude. I can leave and come back, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” Marie assures him. “Where’s Leona?”

His eyes widen, as he looks around, even though he’s confident she isn’t hiding in a corner. “She took the car,” Mateo says. “I walked back. She should have returned long before now.”

“Why did you walk?” Heath consults his watch. “You weren’t gone all that long.”

“We had another fight. She was in the wrong this time, before you make any assumptions. But now I need your help to find her.”

Microstory 1881: Eyes Out on Stalks

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Before all this social media, if you wanted to get to know a celebrity, your only hope was to catch them in an interview on TV, or maybe see them at an awards show. You could read an interview, yes, or some other kind of article, but they always put their best foot forward, so unless it was a takedown piece, the writer would show them in the best light. That was okay, in general, but it did once place me in danger. When I had a crush on a particular leading man from decades long past—and I certainly wasn’t the only one—it was based on very little information. He was so great in his movies. He didn’t appear in many projects, mind you; he was a choosy talent, but they were all amazing, and he was amazing in all of them. I was young and naive, and I thought I was in love. Of course, I never thought I would get the opportunity to meet the man, and looking back, if only one minor thing had changed about that fateful day, I never would have. I can’t even say his name, it hurts so much to think back on it. I guess you could call it my unfinished business, even though there is nothing I can do about it now, so here it is. My local radio station was offering a promotion. Be caller number 96, and win a date with the hunk himself. They couldn’t call it a date on the official rules as it suggested some sort of romantic slant, but the crude radio personalities sure had their fun with their guesses as to what would go down. I called in, and actually won, and I was so incredibly excited. This was it, I was finally going to meet the man of my dreams. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was under no illusions about the upcoming night. I did not think he would fall in love with me, and ask me to marry him right then and there. But I didn’t care, because I felt honored enough just to be in his presence. I was so wrong.

He didn’t get down on one knee and propose to me on the night of, but he did seem to like me a lot. My mother warned me that he would probably expect sex. That was all right, I was ready, so I sat through the talk so she could make sure I understood that I could always change my mind. I did change my mind and it wasn’t really due to anything specific about him. He had a bit of a weird smell that I imagine he would call his musk, but I could have looked past that. It was just that we didn’t have any chemistry, and I guess he always wore makeup on screen, so I wasn’t all that attracted to him, so after the meet and greet, I just wanted to leave. It was a nice time, and I don’t think I would have regretted it if it had all ended, but he was not interested in ending things. He appeared totally fine that I wasn’t into have sex, but it was all an act. He was determined to get me in bed, whether I wanted it or not. He didn’t just break into my house, and attack me, though. No, that would have been too obvious. It would have been scary too, but at least I could have called the authorities if he had done that. Instead, he was what everyone around me thought was oh so romantic. They never let me call it what it was, which was stalking. He would send me flowers, and show up at my work. I found him in my kitchen once, waiting for my mother to make him some breakfast, like he was her son-in-law. It was so creepy, and I kept having to reject his advances, but he wouldn’t have it. I think he only stopped coming by because he found some new girl to fixate on. I never summed any of this up before, because as bad as it was, his actions were not reportable. I just wish people had listened to me back then, because a couple of years ago, we learned that some other girls ended up being not so lucky.

Microstory 1757: Norma’s Kitchen in a Box

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Marjorie Norma did not invent 3D printing, but she was instrumental in standardizing it. And when her competitors came for blood, she ended up on top, because she still had the best product, and brand loyalty. The science of additive manufacturing was still in its infancy when she started working on it as a pet project. She knew that speed and sophistication were going to progress on their own, and that all she had to do was keep up with it. She was focused on how people would begin using such things in their home. This meant that industrial synthesizers, and biomedical synthesizers would be less useful to most customers than food synthesizers. For the most part, she found that the current machines were either very large, or very small. Many of them were designed with a specific result in mind, or had unfortunate limitations. If people were going to place these things in their homes, they needed to be versatile, and be capable of making more than just a single pastry at a time. It was never going to transition from a novelty item for people with a disposable income to a ubiquitous household appliance, unless anyone could download any program, and print anything. She got her idea when she walked into her kitchen one day, and looked around. By the entrance was the refrigerator. It took up the most space, and it wasn’t always full. She also had a stove/oven combo, above which her husband had installed a microwave oven. Then there was a sink, and a dishwasher. She owned a fairly small kitchen, and she made pretty good use of the space, but she wasn’t much of a cook, and neither was anyone else in the house. What if she could put everything together, or almost everything? She kept looking back at that fridge. Yes, it was the largest, but it was also the most important. A lot of foods don’t require any cooking, but they all require storage, unless you want to go to the store every day. Some people do that, but it’s not very efficient, and that lifestyle isn’t marketable. There was a solution, and she could find it.

She used that refrigerator as the basis for her new design, knowing that most living spaces were capable of accommodating it. Some units were only large enough for a mini-fridge, but people who lived in such places already knew how to make sacrifices. The top of her design was a water tank. It didn’t necessarily fit in every space, but it would be optional, and customers could connect a waterline either way, just like they would for that refrigerator. Under that would be where the cartridges went. Here she took inspiration from the toner bottles in the copy room down the hall from her office. For the synthesization cavity, she found herself limited by the dimensions of everything else, but it was still larger than the capacity of any standard oven, so that was more than enough. Since the cavity is where her users would be retrieving their food, they couldn’t put this on the floor, but at a reasonable height, which meant everything below it could be dedicated to storage. She chose to include a utensil drawer, and then an extra cartridge cabinet. All told, she figured that a fully stocked synthesizer could feed one person for about six months. Her original model did not include a dishwasher, but later ones did, allowing customers to keep almost an entire kitchen in the space of a refrigerator. It could be programmed to make just about anything, cool food, heat food, and supply water. What more could a normal person need? Well, they needed tools, and they needed organ and tissue replacements. She started to work on those machines next.

Microstory 1728: Jim Crow

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Your Honor, my name is Jim Crow. My first name is not James or Jacob, or anything like that. It’s actually Jim. My parents were named Beckett Crowley, and Geraldine Devlin. When they got married, instead of my mother taking my father’s last name, they decided to shorten it to Crow. When they had me in 1984, they named me Jim. Believe me when I tell you that this was no accident, nor coincidence. My parents are two of the most racist people I know, and they knew exactly what they were doing. They believe in white supremacy, and they believe in segregation. They may even believe that all black people should be exterminated. They’ve hinted at such evil thoughts on more than one occasion. I literally witnessed them spitting on a young black girl just because her family wasn’t around, and no one could stop them. When I was a child, my mother told me a story she made up, about how the people of Africa so displeased the Lord that he glued dirt to their skin, and forced them to live in filth from then on. Their skin isn’t black, it’s that there is actual grime all over their bodies. I never bought into it, obviously. Had I grown up during the actual time of segregation, I might have seen no other choice, but I developed my sense of right and wrong during the 1980s. My relatively small city in Maryland was not at all without its racism, but I had something that some people in the past did not. I had Star Trek. I remember seeing Whoopi Goldberg on The Next Generation. Here was this black woman who had standing on the ship...who people trusted, listened to, and cared about. That very night, as young as I was, I thought long and hard about who my parents are, and what they were trying to teach me. I made a conscious decision to reject their hatred, and come to my own conclusions. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of informing my parents of my intentions.

They started to punish me. They withheld dessert, and when that didn’t work, they took away my dinner, and when that wasn’t enough, they stopped letting me have water. They eventually realized I was going to die if they didn’t do something, so they changed tactics. They developed their own Jim Crow laws. I was allowed to eat, but I had to make it myself, and I had to find somewhere else to do it. An old lady lived next door, so she let me use her kitchen. I did try to explain to her what was happening, but she was senile, so she barely understood, and never remembered. She introduced herself to me every day. She wasn’t abusive, but about as racist as my parents, so I didn’t want to spend much time over there. Still, she had a bathroom I could use too, which was nice, because I wasn’t allowed to use mine anymore. Basically what my parents did was show me what it was like to experience segregation. I can imagine the non-racist parents of a racist child doing the same thing to teach them a lesson, but my parents didn’t see it that way. They figured I would grow tired of the restrictions, and finally admit that it was both easier, and better, to be white. Of course, their methods only enforced my conviction that they were completely wrong about everything. When I was seventeen, they started to see that they were losing me, so they maneuvered the legal system, and had me declared unfit for independence. I was a ward of the state for the last twenty years under false pretenses, and it has taken me this long to get out. That, Your Honor, is why I’m only now getting around—as you put it—to changing my name. I haven’t been allowed to until now. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to grant me this.

Microstory 1570: Vatutotew

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Prompt

Some tiny little creature has been living in my utility room, and I know it’s not a mouse. I got a good look at it once, and I saw intelligence behind its eyes.

Botner

I think I’m scared to look at it again, because I don’t want to see just another grisly rat corpse on my kitchen floor. Or to know what it is that has been chewing up my animal crackers. The rats in the basement have been a constant thing. I’ve bought things that deter rodents, and I put small amounts of poison in the walls and floors. It’s always the same: for three weeks, they are gone. Three weeks. Then they come back. The wads of mouse poop in the utility room? I’ve never seen that before. I know I haven't been in the basement for a while. There are doors in the walls leading into the house, I think to keep me from getting killed. I think I should have all of my meals in the kitchen. Not so much for convenience’s sake, but because there are mice. I can’t find my glasses. I have one set, and one set that I am pretty sure they aren’t in. I’m pretty sure that they are in the damn utility room. And, you know what? I know my husband bought another pair of glasses, and I...

Conclusion

...have to wait until my birthday before he’ll give them to me. He probably hid them in the utility room too, which means, if I want to get a better look at the weird creature living in there, I’ll have to go in there first to retrieve the glasses. Even though I won’t be able to see very well, I can still protect myself, with a long-sleeve shirt, and elbow and knee pads. I look like an idiot, but I’m not taking any chances. If it turns out to be a mouse, then fine. If it’s a rat, then not as fine, but I’ll still probably survive. If it’s an evil alien bent on the destruction of the human race, then...then I don’t know, but I’m not going in there unprepared. I have a bat. I slowly crack the door, but then throw it open. It’s easier to see tiny animals when they move, so I would rather it scurry away fast than sneak behind me so I can’t even tell it’s there. Nothing. I see no movement. I lift the laundry basket, nothing moves. I open all of the cabinets, and shine a flashlight in them. Not there either. I open the dryer, but it’s insane to think something that small would exert enough force to get inside. I bend down to check the washer too, confident in the same assessment. It’s in there, staring at me, not like it’s scared, but confused as to why I’m in what it must think is its territory. It looks like a little furry human, gray, with a tail. It turns its head slightly, and looks at me more with one eye, which is something a person would do when sizing somebody up. It is as smart as I thought, or maybe even smarter. Finally, it extends an arm. “My name is Vatutotew,” it says politely. “Have I misidentified this room as abandoned?”

Microstory 1355: Division (Part 2)

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Magnate Representative: Thank you all for coming back in after lunch. Well, not all, I suppose. I see that Magnate Customer 5 is no longer with us. That should be okay. So, I think we have the Smart Solutions thing squared away. Of course, nothing has been decided, but you have all been such a big help to us so far. We greatly appreciate your contribution. We’re not done with you yet, though. I want to talk to you about Robotics. This part is the reason you signed nondisclosure agreements. We haven’t so much as hinted that we’re planning to jump into this field, because it won’t be officially happening for another two years, but we do want to hear some initial thoughts, because our main goal is supporting the average consumer. Plenty of robotics companies are going after disaster relief, and manufacturing, and of course, the military. We’re interested in the kind of automation that makes life easier for the individual. Does that all sound exciting?

Magnate Customers: [in unison] Yes.

Magnate Customer 6: Sort of.

Magnate Representative: All right, good enough. First off, if you were to own a personal robot assistant—let’s say that money is no object for you—what kinds of things would you want it to be able to do for you?

Magnate Customer 2: Cook me dinner.

Magnate Representative: Okay, cooking. Before we hear from anyone else, would you be more interested in a free-standing robot, or would you rather purchase a smart kitchen, where the appliances work together to build something for you.

Magnate Customer 2: I’m not sure I understand the difference.

Magnate Representative: A free-standing robot would, ignoring any dexterity limitations, be able to do anything you would. It would open the fridge door, take out the ingredients, open the containers, etcetera. A smart kitchen requires you to set some ingredients up, and then machines carry it down the line, as needed, sometimes going back and forth. The latter is less intelligent, but the technology is more readily available. As of yet, no one has built a robot that could theoretically move around the world wherever it wants, and fulfill natural-language requests.

Magnate Customer 4: I would sure rather have the proper robot. If money doesn’t matter in this scenario, why wouldn’t you?

Magnate Customer 6: I’m not certain I would like this humanoid thing in my house, wandering around, listening to everything I do.

Magnate Representative: Okay, so privacy is a concern of yours. You don’t want it to be too available. You would want it to be there when you ask for it, but out of the way when it’s not needed.

Magnate Customer 6: No, I don’t think I want a robot at all. I would much prefer the smart kitchen idea, and a smart bathroom, and a smart garage. I still want to be the one in charge, who has to make everything run. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this android who can make its own decisions, and also climb stairs. You know what I mean?

Magnate Representative: I understand. Does anyone else share his sentiment?

Magnate Customer 3: I do a little.

Magnate Customer 1: Yeah, me too, but I think I could get used to a little robot friend. This is two years from now at the earliest, right? We already have smart speakers that help us manage information. I imagine the tech will become gradually more and more—shall we say—intrusive? By the time a proper robot rolls around, it probably won’t seem like much of a leap.

Magnate Representative: Ah, that’s a good segue into my next question, which is about robot companionship. Technology will one day allow us to program robot personalities, which mimic human behavior. Would you want that, or would it freak you out too much? Would you rather the machine just do what you ask, and nothing more.

Magnate Customer 6: You all know where I stand on this matter?

Magnate Customer 5: When you say robot companion, do you mean...?

Magnate Representative: We’re not talking about sex robots. I didn’t think you came back after lunch, Magnate Customer 5.

Magnate Customer 5: I’m everywhere.

Magnate Representative: Well, again, this is a family friendly company. Let’s only talk about helpful, privacy-conscious, and platonic robot assistants and/or friends.