Microstory 2301: Green Burial

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The remains. I’ve not told you anything about the remains. No, they weren’t at the memorial service. We left them in Kansas City. I decided that I wanted to lay them to rest on a solo mission. In between all the other planning that I’ve done, with the memorial service, and the other memorial service locally, I contacted all the necessary people to do it the way he wanted. One of the first things he told me when we met earlier this year was that he wanted a green burial, which means no casket, no chemicals, no clothing. Your body returns to the Earth in the purest way imaginable, breaks down as fast as possible, and breathes new life into the soil. There are obviously rules about this, like where you can do it, and I got all the permits. I’m not going to tell you where I buried him, but I did it all by myself after signing it out of the funeral home. That part wasn’t by Nick’s request. It’s something that I felt I needed to do alone. Everything else involves other people, so I just made an executive decision that this was the time when I would say goodbye in my own way, and not be around anyone else. I dug the grave, I lowered him down, and I filled it in. I feel that I accomplished something, and now maybe I can move on...maybe. Goodbye, Nick. You meant more than I could ever say.

Microstory 2300: Millions of People

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The place was packed. In case you never found out, the event was catered, that was the surprise from the other day. A counter-serve vegetarian restaurant called Honeypea’s Harvest graciously donated tons of food and labor time for what’s certainly the largest reception I’ve ever been to. They actually started out in the Kansas City area, and their first location that wasn’t in the immediate region was Chicago, so they felt a kinship to us. Nick loved going there, I remember that, but I didn’t think to reach out to them. Our publicity firm did, and we’re very grateful for their assistance. We basically took over the entire Humankind Causeway Center, because we had the auditorium on one end, and then the ballroom for the reception on the other. You can see why I couldn’t tell you about it before, right? You say the word free, and people flock to you, whether they know what you’re giving away or not. There was a limited amount of space and food available, so we couldn’t let the whole world know. As for the service itself, it went pretty well. I told you that I was nervous, and having a full auditorium didn’t help with my nerves, but I pretended that they weren’t there, and that I was still practicing in front of the mirror. I got into a rhythm, and made it through to the other end. I want to thank all who attended, and everyone who logged in to watch the stream. Millions. Millions of people watched it live, and millions more have watched the recording since it ended. I can’t believe we ended up here. When I first met Dutch, he was just this cool guy without a care in the world. And when I met Nick, I honestly thought that he was a little nutty. He was shy, but not shy about telling us who he was, and where he came from. I grew to believe him, and it seems that a lot of you have too. I find it hard to imagine that this many people read his blog, especially now that he’s dead, when they just think it’s this dumb little fictional story. Dare I say most of you are believers? It’s crazy how far he’s come. Even though he’s gone, his legacy continues, through all of you, and through me. I’ll keep sending out posts as long as you keep reading them. I think he would appreciate that. In fact, I bet he would literally say, “I appreciate your support.”

Microstory 2129: Eat All the Things

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Today was a fun day for me, but will make for a pretty boring post for all of you. My new company gave me both a signing bonus, and an advance. I’m not a millionaire or anything, but I have enough money in my bank account to start taking care of myself. After the pre-onboarding paperwork and meetings that I had to go through—which I can’t talk to you about—I went shopping. I bought groceries, as well as other necessary new belongings, like a nightstand to put next to my bed. I got a lot of walking done today, because I don’t have a car, and I had to make separate trips, since I didn’t want to be carrying all of the bags around. For the larger furniture, like that nightstand, and a rug for the dining area, I had to make a whole separate trip each. Fortunately, I’m in a really convenient area, so it’s not like I had to travel for miles and miles to get to these places. I have this problem when I go grocery shopping, especially if I’m starting with very little, or in this case, almost nothing. I buy everything that I feel like eating that day, but that’s too much food, so I have to choose one for my next meal, and save the rest for later. Or I don’t wait, and eat all the things. That’s how I gained so much weight even after leaving college. The way it worked in the dorm cafeteria was that I could eat all the food I wanted every time I swiped my card, and I felt like I had to take advantage of the savings by eating extra, because my parents were paying for it. I thought that this sort of behavior would stop once I moved into an apartment during my last year, but by then, I was used to binging, and couldn’t help myself. That’s never really stopped, even when I’ve been able to lose weight, which is what happened when I became immortal, but it’s coming back now, so I have to be really careful. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t wanna hear any more about my eating disorder and weight issues.

Microstory 2128: Carve Out Some Real Time

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My therapist session went pretty well, though there’s really nothing interesting for me to tell you about. I told her that I was from another universe, but we didn’t get into it yet. We didn’t even get into my arrest. We basically pretended like I was a perfectly normal thirtysomething man who had a relatable childhood, and was starting a new job. We discussed my upbringing, my educational background, and my past work experience. She just wanted to get to know me before trying to give me any advice, or help me through my issues. We obviously didn’t have time to go over my entire life story, especially not since I first had to spend some time filling out paperwork, and setting up a payment arrangement, so I’m sure the next session will basically be the same thing. So nothing juicy to report yet, you’ll just have to wait. In the meantime, let me tell you about my new apartment, which I finalized today. It’s on the edge of the city, on the Kansas side, which makes it fairly close to the intermittent jail facility, as well as the parole offices. Sometimes Leonard will be visiting me at home, sometimes I’ll have to go to his office, and sometimes we’ll meet somewhere in the middle. This is a really great location, and I’m satisfied with my choice. The building has a ton of amenities, which I never used before, but which I’m sure I’ll start now. There’s a gym, and now that I’m no longer immortal, I’ll probably have to start worrying about my health a little more. It includes a lap pool, and that’s all it’s for. While it’s okay for children to live here, this place advertises mostly to busy working adults; single people, and childless couples. There’s a playroom that can cater to various ages, though there’s no dedicated supervisor on site, so parents can’t just drop off their young ones, and go out. The complex also has a communal area for eating, which is connected to a few popular restaurants, though these restaurants are not technically part of the complex; they just built them within its walls. They’re open to the public. My company doesn’t foresee me needing to meet clients in person, and even if I do, I’ll probably have to go to them, but if one of them happens to be in the area, the second floor also has offices that can be rented by the hour, so that’s pretty handy.

I pretty much had to get this process fast-tracked, because I needed to move in today. I’m spending all day tomorrow going through some pre-onboarding procedures for my new job, including a formal background check, even though I don’t have much of a verifiable background. I really wanted to finish this all up by the end of the week, so I can let the FBI off the hook for my expenses. I also didn’t want to schedule anything for Friday. That’s the day that I go back into jail, and even though I don’t report until the evening, I really don’t want to start making any commitments that could potentially turn into conflicts. I may feel more comfortable in the future, or I may just always leave that day available for safety. The beauty of my new job is that I can set my own hours, which means Mondays could be their own buffer too, if need be. Fortunately, in terms of the apartment, I don’t have any belongings, so once they handed me the key, I just walked right in. The FBI is continuing to let me use their laptop for now, but depending on how long the pre-onboarding takes tomorrow, I may go shopping at some point. If I have to do that on Friday instead, that will probably be okay, because I could always leave the store early if I lose track of time. It probably won’t be until Tuesday until I can carve out some real time to go shopping, for lamps, and groceries, and whatnot. I spent my whole life waiting for the weekend to do extra things like all this. It’s going to take some time before I’m used to reversing that, and not forgetting absent-mindedly that my weekends are no longer free, and won’t be for several months.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 21, 2398

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Alyssa comes out of her room, and looks around at the empty communal area of their hotel suite. It’s been empty for days. Mateo and Ramses are stuck is some sort of something or other. Leona and Winona are off doing whatever, they won’t talk about it, but it kind of sounds more personal than operational. Arcadia and Vearden are dealing with family issues. Kivi never lived here anyway. Marie was the last to leave, and she hasn’t called in since. Seems mighty weird, Alyssa living here all alone. Not only is it too much space for one person, but she has the least amount of experience with any of this. She’s just a farm girl from Central Kansas. That’s the problem, isn’t it? They don’t trust her with anything, so they don’t ask anything of her. At least not anymore. They asked her for a lot in the past. The temporal energy has dwindled, though, so she’s of no use to them as an illusionist. Still, a quick call would be nice.

She has to do something. Living it up in this fancy place is making her feel terrible. Maybe Marie needs her help tracking the other time travelers, but she doesn’t know how to ask. Let’s find out where she is. Alyssa pulls out her device, and looks for Marie’s location. Her device hasn’t moved in a long time, and it’s not where she had her surveillance nest set up. She zooms into the satellite view of the friend finder app, but she can’t tell what this building is. She has to cross-reference it with the regular map. It’s showing those coordinates to be a mental hospital, which doesn’t sound good. No one else’s device is on, or they’ve switched off location tracking. Either way, they’re not picking up. She can sit here alone and be useless, or she can try to help.

Seeing no better option, Alyssa looks up the number to the hospital, and dials. “Hello, English?” she confirms. “Yes, I’m looking for a friend. We share our location history, and she’s been there since yesterday afternoon.” She waits for a response. “Her name is Sydney Bristow?” It’s the alias that Marie has been using, and apparently the name of an agent on a TV show from her reality called Alias. “Oh, really? Well, does she have outside communication privileges?” She does, but Marie will have to call her if she’s feeling up to it. “My name is Alyssa, she’ll know me.” She hangs up, and waits.

Ten minutes later, her phone rings. “Sydney, are you okay?” The phone may be tapped, she doesn’t know what kind of laws they have over there, so stick with the alias. “Yeah, I can see where that might get you into trouble, if you weren’t talking to the right person. Well, how can I get you out of there?” Marie doesn’t want to leave. “You’re happy there? What, are ya gonna stay there forever?” Not forever, just a few days to clear her head. “Your friends need you. I need you, I don’t know what to do.” Marie has one idea. “You think I’m ready for something like that on my own?” Yes, it’s just reconnaissance. “That’s the problem, we don’t know what—or who—I might run into.”

They keep discussing it for a little bit, Alyssa asking to fly to Manila herself, and be there for her. Marie doesn’t want that, and she’s the one controlling the purse strings. The trip would cost about ten thousand dollars, and still, no one else is available to help. Marie has to go, so she leaves the choice up to her, and hangs up. Alyssa thinks about it for a few minutes. This is her moment to prove that she deserves to be part of the team, and she doesn’t always need help from other people. She grabs her coat, and heads downstairs. If she’s gonna do this, she’s gonna do it right. She needs to shop for supplies. Who knows what she’ll find in Springfield, Kansas?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 3, 2398

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When Alyssa McIver was fully brought into the fold last week, she decided that she wouldn’t feel comfortable here if she wasn’t contributing in some way. Some of these people have jobs, and some go on missions, and who knows what’s going on that she and her family don’t even see? There had to be something she could do. Perhaps they wanted a roof garden. She could certainly help with that, but someone would have to pay for it, so that seemed like an odd request, since it could sound like she was being too greedy and needy. There was a way, though. On the first floor of the building, they had set up the security room. They didn’t have any security guards to work out of there, but they had plenty of cameras. They even had ones installed in a parking lot less than a mile away. She didn’t understand at first, but then they explained that that’s where everybody seems to end up when they come to this reality from elsewhere. It’s an easy job, but not one that can be ignored. Someone has to watch the footage, or at least review it fast forwarded later.

So that’s what she’s been doing for the last week. She keeps an eye on all of the cameras, some of which are just pointing at lava lamps, for reasons that she’s not expected to care about. Again, it’s not particularly difficult, but it keeps it off of other people’s plates, freeing them to conduct more important business. She’s sitting here right now, and has just realized that the building’s been nearly all cleared out. She doesn’t have audio, so she doesn’t know why, but it seems everyone left for different reasons, rather than as part of some conspiracy. Leona Matic had to go inspect a manufacturing plant, Angela and Kivi had to have a business lunch; who knows? As she’s rechecking the monitors, just in case she spots someone somewhere, she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. It’s one of the parking lot cameras. That’s not that weird. People drive in and out of it all the time. It’s an overflow lot, so it’s not extremely packed, but it sees traffic every day. Still, when that happens, she’s been asked to run it back to see if the persons there walked or drove like normal, or appeared out of nowhere. She jumps back ten seconds. Holy crap, he appeared out of nowhere. Wait, go back again, and keep an eye on the timestamp. Yep, it happened. It’s a time traveler.

It’s been almost a minute now, and every second that passes gives the visitor more time to leave. He may not even be trying to escape, but just not know to stick around and wait for the welcome party. There are so many people that Alyssa could call, but she doesn’t know who among them is closest to the lot, or whether they’re in a position to get there anyway. The Lofts aren’t that far from it, though. It’s within walking distance. More appropriately, it’s within running distance. She doesn’t have time to think this through. She’ll ask for forgiveness later. This is her best opportunity to demonstrate her value, and she considers it part of her job here. They didn’t specifically say that it was, but they didn’t tell her what else to do, probably because they didn’t truly believe that it would ever come up.

Carlin is in the hallway when Alyssa bursts out of the security room. “Lock up for me!” she yells back. “Moray is in charge!”

“Where are you going?” he questions.

“To the lot!” Someone ought to know where she’s run off to.

She races down Main Street as fast as she can, then steers to the left at Grand. She doesn’t stop, even when her shins begin to scream angrily at her. She just has to make it there, and then she can rest. The visitor needs to know that he’s not alone. Even if he runs off after that, at least he would have gotten that message. Or maybe he won’t get any message at all. Even at top speed, it still takes her five minutes to cover the distance, and the guy is no longer around when she reaches his last known location. He may be meters from her, but if he turned the corner of a nearby building, she wouldn’t be able to see him, and she has no idea which direction to try. What would someone who has just experienced this do? Where would they go? That depends on who they are, and what they know of all this. It’s an impossible question to answer.

Alyssa’s phone rings, and she picks it up instinctively, but keeps looking around for clues, all the while trying to catch her breath. “Carlin, I’m kind of busy right now.”

“He went south on Warwick,” Carlin replies.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The guy you’re trying to find. He’s heading south, probably intending to cut through that park.”

“How do you know this?” Alyssa asks him.

“You left the room open. I took a look at the cameras, and watched him walk away. He’s out of range now, but if you hurry, you’ll catch up. He doesn’t seem to be in any sort of rush. Once he got his bearings, it looked like he kind of knew where he wanted to go.”

“Thanks,” Alyssa says. “I assume you’re watching me right now. Which way is Warwick?”

After she gets the info, Alyssa hangs up and heads off. She drops to a jog, because she no longer needs to break the land speed record, she only needs to close the gap. Before too long, she sees the back of the head of the target. He’s wearing the same clothes, so it’s got to be him. She drops pace so it doesn’t look like she’s coming for an attack, but maintains an advance.

He notices that someone is behind him, so he looks over his shoulder, but since they’re in a park of all places, it doesn’t concern him. He must assume she’s just out to get some exercise. She decides not to wave. He may freak out yet, and if he does, she ought to be closer. He turns back, and keeps going, but then he stops. He turns around completely, and steps forward to meet her in the middle. “Alyssa? I thought that was you,” he says like they went to high school together.

She stops, worried. Maybe she’s the one who’s going to have to run away.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone else,” the man backtracks.

She’s not buying it. “My name is Alyssa, so you really do know me. How?”

The man looks around. “Is it a coincidence that you’re in this park, or did you know that I arrived?”

She doesn’t speak, but it’s written all over her face.

He nods. “If you knew that you would find me here, you must know at least a little bit about time travel. You are from my past, but I must be from your future. That explains why you look a little younger than when I last saw you.”

“When was this?” she asks him.

“That’s too much information. We are not what the kids call simpatico, which means that I know things about your personal future. Best not to tamper with that.”

“Can you at least tell me your name?” she asks.

“Of course. I’m Vearden Haywood.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2398

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One of the first things that Bridgette learned about her father was that he was after two interrelated things. He wanted to collect unusual people, and special objects with unusual properties. Based on what she was able to gather from a distance, he didn’t accidentally see something he wasn’t supposed to, or get read into an organization already involved in this stuff. He was obsessed with the occult his entire life, and it took him half of it to get anywhere with his investigations. Aliens, vampires, cryptids, superheroes, and time travelers. He didn’t know for a fact whether any of these things existed, but he was convinced that one of them had to, or one of the many others in a long list of fictional possibilities. Was there a secret society of five people who ran the whole world from the shadows? Did immortals travel the world with swords, cutting each other’s heads off? It had to be something, and he had to find it, and find it he did.

Once Leona realized that Winona’s father, Senator Honeycutt had figured out the secret of reality, she called it The Masquerade. But this suggested that there was some kind of organized system to all this, like the Archipelago from Sense8, or the chaotic network of salmon and choosing ones from the main sequence. It doesn’t seem to be like that here. Leona Reaver, Delaney and Andile; even Alt!Mateo; none of them has ever found anyone like them. If there are other time travelers here, they’re scattered throughout the world. They may even be separated by time, up to billions of years. There is no network, no I know a guy thing going on here. At least that’s what they have believed this whole time. Even Marie, in all her dealings as a covert agent with the U.S. government, hasn’t found evidence of such a thing. Until perhaps now.

They call him The Dealer, and the only thing Bridgette had about him in her notes is that he moves around a lot, and if you want to do business with him, you’re going to need a referral. It took three days of calling and texting for Marie to procure one from Bridgette’s initial contact, but here she is in Mount Zeil in the Northern Territory. Like Lebanon, Kansas in the main reality—or Gothenburg in this one—for the United States, it’s the center of Australia. It also happens to be around 270 kilometers from Uluru, which is on Mateo’s list of important temporal locations to check out.

Marie ducks down to clear the top of the entrance. All kinds of knick knacks, tchotchkes, trinkets, and baubles sit on the shelves along the wall. What she would guess to be a massive aboriginal mask sits in the corner. The man behind it probably thinks that she doesn’t see him, and expects her to look around on her own while he watches to get an idea of what kind of person she is. She examines a few items, but there is nothing of interest to her, except for one thing. “Nothing in this shack is of any real value,” she begins, taking the black hat from its shelf, and raising it up. “...save for this.” She places it upon her head, faces the mask in the corner, and extends her arms to the side to present the new her. She’s transformed herself to look like a famous actor that anyone in the world would recognize.

The Dealer knocks the mask away from himself, and stands up. “You got it to work. How did you do that?”

“Let’s just say...I keep hydrated.” The Health-slash-Death waters are still technically in her system, and can allow her to tap into the temporal energy necessary to make the McIver hat work. It’s not enough to teleport, but this thing has its own power. Marie studies his face for a few seconds, and then transforms herself again, now to become a mirror image of him.

He slowly slinks towards her to get a better look. “Brilliant.”

She removes the hat to return to her true visage, and sets it back down. “Where did you get it, and where did you get the Insulator of Life?”

He gingerly sets the hat upon his own head, and frowns when he looks in a nearby beauty mirror to find that it still doesn’t work for him. It is unclear how he knew beforehand what it was supposed to do, or that it was supposed to do anything at all. Now he studies her face. “How well do you know history?”

“Not as well as someone my age should. Why?”

“I was born in 1991, right smack dab in the middle of the bloodiest battle of World War II. My mother was a soldier, who’s unit leader didn’t give a crap that she was nine months pregnant with me. She still had hands, which meant that she could still hold a gun. He was pissed when she went into labor, partially because of her, but also because the rest of her unit came together to protect her, instead of pushing forward with whatever mission they were on. When my cries rang out to the sky, it is said that everyone on both sides stopped shooting simultaneously...and they wept. The war ended that day, because of me. My first act in this world was potentially saving millions.”

“That’s...a haunting story.”

The Dealer smiles. “This isn’t about me, or my mother. It’s about the unit leader. You see, he wasn’t from around here, and when I say around here, I mean—”

“He was from another reality.”

This surprises him, but then he remembers just a minute ago when she activated the McIver hat without giving it a second thought. “That’s what he told me on his deathbed, and also that he was my real father, though I guessed as much when I heard we shared a first name. I don’t know why he didn’t raise me, or why he didn’t have the instinct to protect his baby mama during the war. I know that she wasn’t raped, though. They were in love at one time, to a certain degree. Anyway, he died right in front of me before he could say much more, but just before his last breath, he gave me a key to a safe deposit box. I found the glass insulator thing in there, and a few clues to other objects. Do you wanna know how old he was?” It was rhetorical. “I couldn’t get the exact date he was born, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of over 500 years ago. It’s all because of that little green object that doesn’t even give off any energy readings. As far as I can tell, it’s nothing but glass.”

“You’re being surprisingly forthcoming with all this,” Marie notes.

“I have to be. Someone needs to keep going. Someone needs to find the truth about this world, and I won’t be able to do it for very much longer.” He reaches up to his hair, and pulls it all off. He’s completely bald underneath. “Shortly after he passed, World War III began, which I believe to have been the worst. Biological weapons gave an estimated three million people cancer. I only survived because of the insulator.”

“Why did you give it away? You know you have to stay close for it to work.”

“I’m tired,” he explains. “I’m done. That’s why he gave it away, and I’m sure whoever Bridgette gave it to will also only last a few centuries.”

She nods, respecting his position. “I’m Marie. What’s your name?”

“Lawson Junior. I was apparently named after my father, and he was named after his mother, Laura Gardner.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 2, 2398

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Heath is pacing around again, this time in the main seating area of The Olimpia. He hasn’t spoken to his wife in four days, and hasn’t seen her in five. Neither she nor Kivi has been responding to their messages, but their devices are still on and active, in Middle of Nowhere, Florida. In fact, they haven’t moved a centimeter since June 30, which suggests all kinds of possible explanations. They could be dead, or stuck in a timeloop or time bubble. They could have lost their belongings, and moved on, or someone might have stolen them, and left them somewhere. Heath is presently considering all of these possibilities, plus some more outlandish ones. He keeps asking Leona and Ramses questions about how time and time travel work so he can add more to the growing list, and enhance his own sense of dread. It’s not healthy, but nothing they say appears to be helping him out of the grim hole that he’s digging for himself.

Leona is operating the controls, hunting for a landing site as close to the unmoving phones as possible. Ramses gets on the intercom to begin an announcement as they approach their destination. “Welcome to the location of Youth Water. It comes from a natural spring in the middle of inland Florida, which dried up centuries before it was permanently settled by Europeans. In the main sequence, this area was well-developed by the time the culture advanced to this point in its history. It boasts one of the first regions to undergo the massive rewilding effort that sought to revitalize the world’s wildlife, and consolidate human populations into ever smaller artificial habitations. But still, the spring was dry, only to be accessed long ago in the past. It is one of the most popular of the immortality waters, because it can help promote life extension in the deveiled humans of history without interfering in later endeavors to assemble the other waters, and possibly achieve complete and total immortality.

“According to the correspondence map, Marie and Kivi’s devices are currently located at the approximate location of this spring, implying that there is something quite interesting there. And I’ve just been informed by my co-pilot that the nearest open area for vertical landing is about four kilometers from this site. We apologize for the hike that will soon be demanded of you, but barring teleportation, or aerial vehicle fast rope, this is the best we can do. Mateo and I will be staying with the Olimpia in case it’s needed at a moment’s notice. The rest of you will make the trek to the target location. Thank you, and please be patient while we execute this latest, delicate maneuver to the ground.”

Mateo and Ramses wait in the clearing while the others go out and attempt to make sense of all of this. A couple of hours later, Angela returns alone. “They’re gone.”

“What do you mean, they’re gone? They’ve gone where?”

Angela catches her breath. “While Leona was looking through the phones they found by the edge of the water, Heath dove in, believing the spring to be the ultimate answer to his question. She went in after him, and they both disappeared. I was feeling a strong pull to follow them. It took everything I had to not get in the water too, because I knew I shouldn’t. They did have their devices on them. Ramses, can you track them?”

He loads up his own device. It takes him longer than they would think. It should be a quick friend location ping. “Umm...it’s complicated.”

“How so?” Mateo asks.

“They’re in the future.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 16, 2398

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It was annoying to spend a whole other day just sitting around, waiting to do anything to fix this problem. If even one of them had an identity in this reality, they could have gone to check on their friends, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Marie actually wasn’t sure if the authorities would ask for identification or anything, but they most likely would, so there was nothing they could do. They watched the news, which wasn’t reporting the incident. It was a minor infraction, all things considered, so they wouldn’t expect anything to be up there, but there was a small chance, so it was nice to see this was all being kept fairly quiet. The downside was they weren’t entirely certain where Heath and Angela were being held. Based on the location of the arrest, they could guess, but that wasn’t a sure thing either. It should all be resolved in the next couple of days, but they’re finding it hard to wait.

Marie is sitting at the kitchenette table, chin resting on the palm of her hand. “What do you think Olimpia is doing right now?” The two of them had a thing back when there was only one version of Angela. Mateo is unaware how serious it was, or if they had time to attempt to navigate the duplication that complicated matters. She has Heath now, but obviously still feels something.

“Hopefully she doesn’t exist,” Leona decides. “If Dalton accidentally created a shortlived pattern, then we were each delivered to our respective realities a year and a day apart. That would put Olimpia on April 9, 2398.”

“That was a week ago,” Marie laments.

“Yeah, but she should have only been alone for a day,” Leona figures. “We can try to retrieve her in 2399. That gives Ramses and me a lot of time to solve the issue. I think our main obstacle is a lack of accessible temporal energy. But we are still living in salmonverse, and salmoverse still has time travel. If somebody has a way of suppressing it, then they have to be using it for themselves.”

“What does that mean for us?” Mateo asks.

“It means that there is a source of temporal energy, be it a person, a special object, or even a location. If we find it, we can just take the energy we need for ourselves. We’ll have to rebuild the devices that Ramses got from the Parallel, but like I said, we have a year. We will probably want to try it on April 10, 2399.”

“How do we know that Olimpia isn’t on our same non-pattern, wherever she is?” Marie complains. “Maybe she’s been alone for as long as you’ve been here, or as long as I’ve been here.”

“We just can’t think like that,” Mateo tries to say in a comforting voice. “Let’s try to be positive.”

“Well, I’m A-negative,” Marie argues. She stands up, and tries to climb up the narrow steps, but Ramses happens to be coming back down.

When he gets to the bottom, he doesn’t realize right away that she’s trying to get past, so he just stands there for a moment, looking amongst the others to gauge the tone of the room.

“Please!” she says plainly in a raised—but not yelling—voice.

“Sorry.” He steps to the side, and watches her leave in a huff. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” Leona answers, “but...she just needs some time alone.”

“It is safe up there, right?” Mateo asks him.

“I didn’t see any activity. They chose this site well.”

Ramses sits down where Marie was, bored after his forest walk. “What are we gonna do now? We can’t even play RPS-101 Plus.”

“No,” Mateo agrees with a smirk, “but we can play regular RPS-101.” He pulls the wheel from his bag, unfolds it, and presents it to the two of them.

“Where did you get that?” Leona questions.

Mateo shrugs. “I had the industrial synthesizer print it out forever ago. That’s why it’s made of metal instead of paper.”

“How would one even go about playing?” Ramses asked.

“You search the wheel for the gesture you want. Then we pound and shoot just as we would for Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then we consult the outcome list to find out who won. It’s etched on the back.”

Leona stares at the wheel. “I can’t believe you’ve been lugging that thing around this whole time.”

“It’s made of graphene, so it’s light,” Mateo contends.

“That’s not metal.”

“Whatever. Do you wanna play a game?” Mateo offers.

She stares at it some more. “Whatever. Just be careful of choosing Sponge every time, like you usually do.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 15, 2398

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Finding out where Heath and Marie live would be a trivial task for the authorities of the Kansas City Police Department. The rest of the team can’t go back there, and if they manage to break Heath and Angela out of the holding cells—or even if they fail in the attempt—they never will again. Fortunately, while Marie never had any intention of breaking the law before, she devised ways of protecting her assets. The two of them are basically survivalists, and they own a small patch of land on the outskirts of town where they buried a secret bunker. Once the other four reunited at the rendezvous point, they traveled there together to discuss recent events, and formulate a plan. Marie asked Mateo not to mention anything about feeling the pull of their pattern until they could solve this first problem, and he agreed to that with no controversy.

The laws in this reality are very different. It’s been a long and deadly road that got civilization to this point, and they’re paranoid about going backwards. Many separate religions have similar ideas. In fact, a cursory glance at each one might lead an outsider to believe that they all originated from the same few ancient events, and branched out from there. This may be true, but it’s caused hostility either way. One might think that these cross-denominational similarities would help people find common ground, but historically, they’ve only stirred up resentment. It would be unthinkable and impossible to combine their faiths into one, so the fact that they all think they’re right, and they’re right about the same thing, just means that this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. Because one of the major things they have in common is that a select few elite should be in charge of all others, and the crux of the competing religions is that everyone thinks they’re that elite.

While Heath works in information technology, religious studies is a passion of his on the side, and he dedicates his free time to finding a way out of these conflicts. WWVII is perpetually around the corner. Each peacetime is met with another war, and a lot of people want to put a stop to it. Even significant instigators of war don’t really want to do it anymore, they always just feel compelled to compete against the others, who they think aren’t as enlightened and peaceful as them. Scholars came up with a term to describe it, which is Radical Defensivism, noting that it leads to some form of offensivism if left unchecked. But don’t let anyone hear you say that, because suggesting to an individual or group that they’re morally wrong for wanting to protect themselves is considered, on its own, an act of offensive aggression, and will only give them the excuse they were looking for to retaliate.

According to current religious laws, freedom of religious pursuits is protected above all else, but there are limits. Religious practice cannot involve speaking ill of someone else’s beliefs, nor overly promoting one’s own beliefs. That’s what Heath did that has got him in so much trouble. And because he is known in certain circles as someone who attempts to solve the antagonism from a practical and academic standpoint, it’s going to be so much worse for him. And it could put his scholarly peaceful movement in danger, so if his colleagues don’t denounce him and his actions as ironic, they risk destroying their own reputation. They can’t allow one of their own to be labeled a hypocrite, so they have to excise him from all association. Whether he is freed or not, his dream of being a meaningful force for good in this way is over. But there is some hope, because there’s a way to get him out, and it has to do with that first class of religious laws.

By arresting him in the first place, the authorities also risk their reputation. They are not meant to be above the laws, so if they deliberately antagonize someone for their beliefs, they enter a gray area. In fact, the entire thing is a gray area. It might be one’s belief that they ought to be able to demean and argue against other people’s beliefs. There is no way to satisfy some kind of moral imperative when it comes to something like this. The concept itself is self-contradictory. You can’t be intolerant of religiously intolerant people that claim their intolerance is a tenet of their religion. The team could make the case that the cops were being the hypocrites. Heath was shouting his intolerance in the middle of the night in an industrial area where no one else was around. Only the authorities heard his words, so they would have to testify against him in a personal capacity in order to make the arrest stick. If they choose not to—which would be in their best political interests—he should be free to go. He’ll still have to be shunned by his community, but he’ll be able to go home. Angela should be able to go home too, as long as she can successfully convince them that she’s actually Marie.

“So, we’re not breaking them out?” Leona asks.

“We should do this the right way,” Marie replies.

“There’s a problem,” Ramses points out. “None of us has an identity. That’s why Angela took your place, instead of claiming to be herself. You can’t argue on behalf of either of them, because one of you isn’t supposed to exist.”

Marie nods, “that’s why I’m not going to be the one going down there to argue on their behalf. We’re going to need outside help, from someone I hope we can trust.”

“Hope?” Mateo questions.

“Nothing in life is certain, Mateo, not even death or taxes. We should have all learned that by now. I will say that this guy is our best chance, and he has a...”

“A what?” Leona presses.

“He and Heath have history.”

“What kind of history?”

Marie takes a breath. “They were married before us. He believes that I stole Heath from him, and he’s been trying to steal him back ever since. He won’t want to help me, but he’ll want to help Heath. I just hope that side of him overpowers the other.”

“Great,” Leona declares, “let’s go now.”

“He travels during the week for work,” Marie explains. “I don’t usually know where, but I know he won’t be back until Friday.”

“What happens to our friends in the meantime?”

“The holding cells are actually rather comfortable; it’s a religious thing, so they’re not being tortured in there, or anything. This reality does not guarantee speedy due process. I doubt the pigs will do anything with them until next week. You take the good with the bad.”

“One day it will all be the good,” Mateo muses. He didn’t mean to say it, it just came out, and no one has the heart to dispute it. Though many strange things have happened over the years. It could happen again.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 14, 2398

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He felt it. He felt that pull he was so used to, and even the nausea he eventually got over. He had almost forgotten it was even a thing, but yeah, back when Mateo first became an unwilling time traveler, he could sense it coming when his stomach felt a little upset. It was always brief, and of course, not usually useful because of a little invention they call a clock, but it was specific to him, and later Leona. He stops running, but doesn’t let go of Marie’s hand. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” she asks.

“Ah, you didn’t.”

“No, I felt something, but you need to tell me what you’re talking about, so we can compare.”

“I felt like I was about to jump to the future. I was a little queasy, and—”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I felt that too,” she elaborates. “I figured it has something to do with how shitty I feel about leaving my husband with those pigs.”

“You call them pigs here?”

“Not the point, Mateo!”

“Sorry. I don’t think you ever felt the nausea, though, once you became one of us?”

“No, is it because I had a resurrected body before this, and now Ramses’ upgrade? I think I kind of remember Leona mention in passing how it once felt in the beginning.”

He slowly turns back towards that empty parking lot. “There is something about this place. If we come back here, I think we’ll jump. I think it’ll happen. I just think we have to be closer. It is midnight, right?”

“Yeah.” Marie double checks her watch. “Yeah.”

“We have to come back. We have to get the other two, break Angela and Heath out of jail, and then return to that lot just before the following midnight that comes. I did that once. I broke out of a holding cell, and—well, I tried to run into the treeline so they would never catch me, but then my cousin caught up to me; it was this whole thing.”

“Mateo, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Heath isn’t one of us.”

“Crap. Oh, no. You’re stuck here forever. This...this is the only world where you can be happy now.”

“I think so, yeah. It was uncomfortable at first, but now it’s a gift. I’m not a time traveler anymore, and I don’t wanna be.”

Mateo breathes deeply, and sits up against a mostly fallen tree.

“We have to get to the rendezvous point. You can still do what you want. You can still get out of here, if that’s even what’s happening. Maybe it’s just a glitch, so don’t get your hopes up. But I’ll be fine. You’ll still have Angie.”

“No, we’re a team. We keep having to promise you that you’re part of that, and so is your husband, and so is that baby...”

Marie reacts to this reminder in a way that shows she doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“I’m sorry that’s...that’s a private matter. I can’t speak to it.”

She sits down next to him. “It’s okay. I found out right before you showed up, and I was going to tell him, but then we were dealing with all of this, and...”

Mateo sighs again, but more contently this time. “We’ve been looking for a home. We keep saying that that’s what the main sequence is, but who cares? I mean, I have people that I love back there, but I haven’t seen most of them in ages anyway. My own mother doesn’t remember me. Most of the people that I love are right here, and that can be enough. We always wanted to be free, which is why we sent our alternate selves to Havenverse. Why can’t we just make this our own haven?”

She stands back up, brushes the dirt off her hands, and extends one back down to him. “We can, but we have to get out of here before they find us, or we won’t be able to tell Ramses and Leona what happened. We’ll need them to put the team back together.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 11, 2398

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Anxious, and needing to feel useful, Mateo took time in the morning alone, coming up with plans. He reorganized his list of all the places he had visited at some point, in some timeline, into a list by proximity to the team’s current location. Some of the more distant places would be more difficult, but surely doable. Then again, he didn’t know that much about this reality, so maybe they would turn out to be impossible. Now that it’s complete, he’s presenting it to Leona.

“Well, Antarctica is going to have to wait.”

“Why?” Mateo asks.

She stares at him in that face she displays when she wants him to figure it out on his own.

“Because it’s cold.”

“Because it’s cold,” she confirms. “You really can’t go until the summer, which for the southern hemisphere...”

“Is winter for us.”

“That’s right. That being said, maybe there are different rules here. It doesn’t turn into the moon, it’s just more treacherous. As for Easter Island, I dunno. For these people, it may just be another random island in the middle of the ocean, or a nature preserve. These are all special temporal locations for us, but who knows what things are like here? Think about what your life was like before you became a time traveler. These were mounds of dirt, and grass, and flora. There were animals, and roads, and precipitation, and bodies of water. It really feels like this is the manifestation of that original assumption about the world. Nobody here knows that time travel exists, partially because...it doesn’t.”

“Somebody knows something,” Mateo reasons. “Obviously what we need to do first is go to Lebanon.”

“I think you should go back to the parking lot.” Heath has entered the room, holding a tray of assorted breakfast beverages. “At first, it seemed random that Marie should show up there, but your arrival at the same place changes the math. Maybe it’s special. Maybe it is for your reality too, but you never knew it.”

“Maybe,” Leona concedes. “It’s certainly closer than the Center of the U.S.”

“The center of the U.S. isn’t in Lebanon,” Heath declares as if it should be obvious.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Gothenburg.”

“Is that a band, errr...?” Mateo jokes.

“It’s a small town in Nebraska,” Heath tells them.

“Lee-Lee, how is this possible?” Mateo questions.

She thinks about it for a moment, then faces Heath. “Could you show me a map of the United States?”

“Yeah, here.” He takes a phablet out of the pocket of his cargo shorts, and pulls up a map service neither of them are familiar with.

“Whoa,” Mateo notes, staring at it. “What the hell am I looking at here?”

“It’s just a south-up map,” Leona explains.

“But why? It’s freaking me out.”

“Why would north have to be up?”

“Because most of the world is in the northern hemisphere,” Mateo reasons, thinking he’s so clever.

“Eh, whatever. Besides, that’s not even the point here. Look at that. Most of Texas belongs to Mexico. Some of Canada is in the United States. Geography is a human construct, not an inherent one. These incongruent borders are more than enough to change the location of the center of an arbitrary geographic mass.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mateo says. “My cousin lives in The Constant, which is underneath Lebanon. They didn’t move it two centuries ago, or whenever the borders were created. It’s been there for billions of years. That’s still where we need to go.”

“I would check both places,” Heath suggests. “Might as well. You’re gonna be here for a while. Money’s not an issue, if that’s what you’re worried about. We can support everyone here, in whatever venture you need.”

“Thanks,” Leona says. “I do have one question, but I’ll probably have more.”

“Shoot,” Heath allows.

“Ya know what, I have two questions actually,” she amends.

Heath nods

“What is this drink?”

“Hagadesfām juice. It’s a fruit from the Arabian Garden.”

“I’ve never heard of it. Have you ever heard of The Beatles?”

“Is that a band, errr...?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 1, 2269

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It  was still 2268 when Mateo woke up from having been knocked out. He asked what had happened, but no one answered. As he was massaging his head, he struggled to get to his knees, and looked around. All three of the others were lying on the floor as well. He crawled over to Leona, and checked for a pulse. She was alive, but unconscious. He checked Nerakali too, and she was the same way. He might have checked on Arcadia, but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough about her. Besides, it wasn’t long before they all started to wake up as well. The first thing Nerakali did was slither over to the now dead body of the man they were talking to. She felt around his neck, but came up short. “Where the hell did it go?”

“The hundemarke isn’t there?” Arcadia questioned, turning herself over to her back.

“It’s gone,” her sister confirmed. “It can’t just disappear, though. Someone has to physically move it from place to place.”

“Maybe our mother placed a temporal enchantment on it. Maybe it will always go back to her after each time it’s used.”

“No,” Leona said. “Though she was the last to reawaken, she was the strongest of them, and was recovering fastest. She was up on her feet, and looking around. “Someone was here. Someone slipped in while we were unconscious, and stole it. It probably wasn’t your mother. I imagine she would have stayed, if only to figure out what you were doing here.”

“What happened to us?” Mateo was finally able to ask.

“The hundemarke, when activated, won’t allow its own history to be altered,” Arcadia began to explain. “It does this by whatever means necessary. Sometimes that means redirecting your teleportation destination. Sometimes it just means creating a spatial barrier between it, and anyone who would interfere. Mateo, when you tried to stop this dude from killing himself, the dog tag reacted, and literally kept you from reaching him.”

“That doesn’t explain what happened to all of you,” he said. “Did you all try the same thing, even knowing it wouldn’t work?”

“We’re connected, remember?” Nerakali asked. “You hit the barrier, so we did too.”

“Wait, so if I run into a door frame, you’ll feel the pain?”

“No,” Leona answered. “It’s not a magic spell. Door frames are just regular things, but the barrier was beyond three-dimensional space.”

“That’s comforting,” Arcadia noted, “since he obviously intends to throw himself into a bunch of door frames.”

“That was just an example,” Mateo tried to defend himself. After a few moments of silence, while they reoriented themselves, he spoke again. “Does anyone have any clue who he was?”

“No idea,” Nerakali said. “He was apparently from the future, though.”

Leona was clearly working things out in her head, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the mysterious suicidal man’s identity. “I thought this was meant to be the first step.”

“Huh?”

“You suggested we were playing the long game here, and that this was just going to give us a clue to the hundemarke’s location.”

“Yeah...”

“We almost had it, though,” Leona pointed out. “If one of you had stopped Mateo from trying to stop the suicide, we wouldn’t have struck the barrier, and we would have been able to take the hundemarke after he was done using it.”

“Well, that’s not what happened,” Arcadia said.

“Yes, but you couldn’t have known that.” Leona rethought what she said. “I mean, of course you could have known, but if that’s the case, then why didn’t you tell us what was going to happen, and why didn’t you warn us someone was going to sneak in and steal it out from under us, and why didn’t you try to stop that?”

Nerakali yawned. “Those are a lot of questions, so I’ll skip them all, and just try to explain myself. I’m not trying to find the hundemarke as much as I’m trying to find my mother. This is the last known location where the dog tag was used. I didn’t know how it was going to be used, but I knew it would lead us to Savannah, which is the real mission here. It’s still going to do that. All we need to do is jump to two more years, and find our next clue. Nothing here went wrong. It wasn’t pleasant, but it couldn’t have happened any other way. I wouldn’t have been able to stop Mateo from trying to stop this guy’s death. Nor would either of you have been happy with me if I had. To preserve our relationship, I made a call. The good news is that this is obviously not the last time we see him. The bad news is we can’t change today. We all know that; it’s why we’re here.”

Leona might not have wanted to admit it, but Mateo understood. The hundemarke was a terrible and dangerous thing. There was no way they were going to complete this mission without seeing at least one person die permanently from it. “We’re all hungry, and tired,” he mediated. “I assume there is nothing we can do today, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Then let’s move on from this, and try to make things better next year.”

A year later, they found themselves in a very different place, but also the exact same place. In the interim, someone must have come in here, and repaired everything. They somehow restored it to its former glory. It looked like a very large basement now, mooded with purple lights, like maybe it was always meant to be underground. Who would do this, though, and why? “How is it like this now?”

“Do not be alarmed,” came the distinctive voice of the man they just watched die. He rounded the corner, and came into view. “This place is suffering from a temporal anomaly. Sometimes it’s whole; sometimes it’s ramshackle. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to it.”

“You know us,” Leona said, rather than asked.

“I do, yes.”

“We still need an introduction,” Nerakali told him.

“Forgive me. I’ve still not gotten used to you not knowing me very well.” He stretched out his hand, towards no one in particular. “I’m Matt Cameo.”

“Matt Cameo?” Leona asked in disbelief. “That sounds made up.”

“Don’t be rude, love.”

“No, she’s right, Matt said. “They started calling me Cameo, because of how infrequently I show up. My real last name is Caimeo.”

“You expect us to believe that’s a coincidence?” Leona asked, still suspicious.

“It’s absolutely not a coincidence.” Matt tapped on a device that was wrapped around his arm, and let a hologram of the name MATT CAIMEO appear above it. He then used his other hand to rearrange the letters in the air.

Well before he was finished, Leona gasped. “Holy shit.”

She ended up being right about the holy shit. His name was a perfect anagram for Mateo’s. The hologram now read MATEO MATIC. No letters needed to be removed, or added. “That’s your real name?”

“Afraid so,” Matt claimed. “My parents didn’t even name me Matthew. Matt is what’s on my birth certificate.”

Nerakali chuckled. “Lemme guess, you only live for one day every year. At the end of every day, you jump backwards in time three hundred and sixty-six days?”

“That’s exactly right,” Matt said. He looked back over to Leona. “No, it’s not a coincidence at all. The powers that be specifically chose me to be his opposite.”

“They do like their games and poetry,” Nerakali rationalized.

They continued to talk to their new...friend? He explained that he preferred to go by Cameo now, but would say little about his life. He refused to reveal what year he started this, or how long he had been doing it. Mateo had met lots of time travelers before, but no one quite like this. He wasn’t just generally going in the opposite direction, but very precisely so, and it had repercussions. This meant that every time they encountered him, they would know him a little bit more, and he would know them a little bit less, so Mateo couldn’t help but feel that that was just a little bit sad. No one else seemed to have strong feelings about it. It didn’t seem to bother them at all. While they were still trying to get something out of them, Arcadia suddenly blurted out, “Deana Noelle!”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know someone named Deana Noelle?” Arcadia pressed.

“Oh,” Leona said. “That name is missing the y.”

“Your name’s not Leona Delane?”

Leona rolled her eyes.

“I do this alone,” Cameo explained.

“You don’t do it with us?” Mateo asked.

Now Cameo got all sad. “Our paths do not intertwine as much as you would think. We do not become close.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mateo said. “Perhaps that can be changed?”

“Please don’t try,” Cameo requested.

“Could we..possibly...have a sidebar?” Leona asked as she was gently tugging at Mateo’s sleeve.

“Not a problem,” Cameo said. “I’ll be in the jail.” When they widened their eyes, he realized that he needed to clarify. “This place has a tiny little jail. Do you not know where we are?”

“It looks like the Arrow bunker,” Mateo said, looking up at the televisions hanging from the ceiling. “One of them, anyway.”

“Not a bad guess, but wrong franchise. It’s probably for the best if I don’t say anything more.”

When he was hopefully out of earshot, Leona started to vocalize her concerns. “This guy is hiding something.”

“Everyone is always doing that all the time,” Arcadia mused.

“How optimistic of you.”

“I’m serious,” Leona continued. “Does he look like he’s about to kill himself?”

“Are you saying that didn’t happen?” Nerakali questioned.

“No,” Leona replied, “I’m saying he must be lying about his temporal pattern. I mean, something really bad would have to happen today to make him want to end his own life tomorrow. The only logical explanation is that it’s not really going to happen tomorrow for him.”

“That’s not the only explanation,” Mateo argued. “You don’t know what’s happening in his head, or what he’s gone through. I mean, he just implied that he lives in a jail, and I find it hard to believe he has to. Lots of suicidal people keep their feelings locked away deep inside, and don’t show any signs that anything’s wrong. What you see on TV, with the loner wearing the beanie, and drawing disturbing pictures of his classmates—those are the ones who are asking for help. People who end up actually going through with it often don’t let anyone know what they’re planning, because they truly want it to end; not to just get better.”

“The only question is what we should do with him now,” Nerakali determined. “How do we interact with him, knowing what we know?”

“Well, surely he knows that we know,” Leona reasoned, “because he knows, and he knows when we’re from.”

“He may not,” Mateo said. “Or it may not matter. Or he may not be planning to do it tomorrow, but that’s what becomes inevitable over the course of the next thirty-six hours for him. It’s like Nerakali said, we can’t change the past. All we can do is move forward, and maybe make him feel a little less alone during his final days.”

“Jesus.” Arcadia rests her shoulder against a pillar, and places her forehead in her hand. “This is rough, even for me. I mean, I’m sadistic, but I don’t like knowing this much about his future. How can we not warn him, or try to stop him? Hundemarke or no, how can we just go on like everything’s fine?”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Nerakali said, a bit cryptically.

It took them a minute to realize what she meant, and as always, Mateo was the last to figure it out. He did manage to get there on his own, though. Nerakali was suggesting that she manipulate their memories, so that they no longer remembered Cameo’s future. It was entirely possible; definitely for Mateo and Leona, presumably for Arcadia too, but maybe not so easy for Nerakali herself.

“I can make you recall meeting him yesterday, since that’s what he likely assumes happened. I can make you forget what he did, though.”

“What about you?” Arcadia asked. The fact that she was asking implied that Mateo was right, and her sister was incapable of screwing with her own mind.

“I can get through it,” Nerakali answered. “I can carry the burden. It’s the only way, anyway.”

“No, it’s not,” Mateo said. He lifted his arm. “These connect us. You said we have your brain blending powers. You don’t have to be the one to do this.”

“Not technically,” Nerakali agreed, “but I still do.”

“No, you don’t, sister,” Arcadia said. “I can do it.”

“Or we can draw straws,” Leona suggested.

“No,” Mateo said. “It’s just been decided, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. I’m sorry.”

“What is that, love?”

He didn’t bother answering her. Before they could stop him, he figured out on his own how to use Nerakali’s brain blending time powers, and erase everyone’s foreknowledge of Cameo’s ultimate fate. Only he would remember, and that was a weight he would never be free of. That was okay, though, because it probably wouldn’t be very long before he had to go back in time, and greet his own fate at the bottom of that cliff on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. After it was done, they freed Cameo from jail, and tried to get to know him a little better.

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