Microstory 2475: Fashiondome

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If you’ve ever been to Bot Farm, you know how much work goes into creating all the androids that populate the domes to make them feel real and lived in, even when there aren’t very many visitors. Eventually, I believe the droid population will begin to decrease as more and more people move here, but for now, production does nothing but ramp up. That’s not about the bots themselves, though. It’s about their clothes! It’s also about your clothes. Every garment worn anywhere on the planet—unless you brought it with you—has been manufactured here. We’re talkin’ IMS units. We’re talkin’ themewear. We’re talkin’ bathing suits. If you go to Wild Wild Dome, you’re gonna see a lot of cowboy outfits, won’t you? Well, they made those here, and shipped them off when they were ready. You get it, I don’t need to list any more examples. You know what clothes are. In one sector, there are just rows and rows of industrial printers, fiber class. In another sector, there are rows and rows of racks where the finished products are stored. It’s precisely what you would expect out of a place like this. They don’t only make 3D printed clothes. It’s not even just about the products that need to go out to other domes. You can actually come here to design and fabricate your own clothes, at whatever level of technological advancement you prefer. They have electrical sewing machines, mechanical machines, and even just needle and thread. You can knit a scarf or crochet a hat. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just has to be fun. They also have fashion shows. Some of them are recreations of real shows from the past, while others are entirely original. They’re all produced by visitors like you. Nothing is made by a superintelligence, because that wouldn’t be very interesting, would it? If anything you can think of is even remotely tied to the fashion industry, both past and present, it’s here somewhere. Come here, and find your bliss. Funnily enough, however...clothing optional, just as it is anywhere.

Microstory 2429: Capital

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This is the Capital City of Castlebourne. It doesn’t have any other name besides that, which is unusual, since they seem to have an appreciation for word puns in their other names. I suppose they just wanted to be real serious here, which is probably a good thing. Where I’m from in the Goldilocks Corridor, our planet didn’t have a capital. It was just a village where we made soap. That’s really it. Several years back, we were visited by the resistance to the Exin Empire. They wanted to know if any of us were willing to join the movement, and fight alongside them. We didn’t understand why we would even consider that, because for the most part, the empire left us alone. They asked us for soap, we gave them the soap, and they left. They never abused us, or attacked us, or anything. The resistance started educating us, though. They taught us about the other worlds, which were being forced to do other things to serve the Emperor. They showed us images of these other places, involving big machines that could produce their own wares in a fraction of the time. We were stunned. Some of us didn’t believe it. Some of us still don’t, and presumably still live on our home planet. We were making soap by hand. It was hard work, and the only reason we didn’t complain before was because we literally didn’t know that there was any better way. We were intentionally kept in the dark. Well, anyway, no, none of us joined the resistance. We were soap makers, we didn’t know how to fight! But then a few years later, another new ship showed up, and promised to take us somewhere where we wouldn’t have to make soap anymore. We asked them what work we would be doing, and they kind of laughed. No work, they said; we wouldn’t have to work at all. This was another concept that we didn’t have any frame of reference for. You work, it’s what you do. Not even the war-fighting people said anything about a life where we wouldn’t have to work. After some further education, most of us agreed to go with these other people. We flew away, and landed on Castlebourne. They didn’t lie to us, we don’t have to work. It’s taken some adjusting, but we’ve gotten used to just being alive and happy. I still wanna work, though. It still feels like the right thing to do. So I came to Capital to see how I could contribute to the governing body of our new society. I don’t have much experience, but they were all so welcoming to me. I’ve not been assigned anything yet, but they’re working on finding a place. I’m sure it’s difficult since I don’t have any skills. As for the dome itself, it’s gorgeous. Our village was dull and lifeless. I didn’t realize how much of a struggle it was for us just to survive. In contrast, this place has trees and other plant life. Tall buildings with hundreds of people work to make the world a better place for us refugees. For whatever reason, we were allowed to know how to read, but not everyone here had that luxury, yet the government is helping, and they’re doing it in style. I can’t wait to get my new job, and get to come to this beautiful dome every single day for the rest of my life.

Microstory 2426: Waterworld

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There is an ancient movie called Waterworld, and this has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only connection is the abundance of water. I kind of feel like they did that intentionally. It was one of the first domes ever to come into commission, obviously because water is so important. It makes me think that they knew about the movie, and deliberately used it as the name for this place so they wouldn’t have to adopt the franchise for a themed dome. Do you think that’s possible? Maybe I’m just being stupid and paranoid. I didn’t come to this planet specifically for it, but I got excited when I saw the dome on my brochure, and then my heart sank when I quickly learned that it’s only a Utility dome. I guess I really am dumb, because I was in the wrong section of the catalog. All the fun ones are listed completely separately. So. What is this? It’s a water processing plant. Not so exciting now, is it? They send a ship out into the outer solar system, where water can’t exist in liquid form (for the most part). They drag the ice that they harvest from the smaller celestial bodies, and transport it back to us. I went to Waterworld because it was already in my brain, and when I make plans, I tend to stick to them. Then I stayed to learn about it anyway. They don’t just lasso the ice chunks in a net, and pull it along behind them. They encapsulate it in a highly regulated tank, which is only partially insulated. They adjust this insulation and pressure accordingly as they’re on their way back. This allows the ice to melt into a liquid, and drain into a second tank without sublimating into gaseous form, which is what it would typically do in a vacuum. It’s the sun that accomplishes this for them, allowing them to get a little bit of free energy. Obviously, it still takes power, but it sounds like a pretty cool system at any rate. Pun intended. By the time they get back, the ice should theoretically be fully liquified, so they can dump it into Waterworld. The dome itself is basically a giant fish tank...without any fish. I’m oversimplifying it, because that’s what it looks like from the outside, but the truth is that the water is divided into compartments, which protects the system from total and utter cross-contamination. If there’s an issue with one compartment, at least it doesn’t ruin the entire thing. All told, we’re talking a volume of 145 billion megalitres. I mean, just picture that. You can’t, can you? Well, just take the vactrain to Waterworld, and they’ll show you. It’s evidently never filled to the brim, but it still looks interesting. You’re not gonna want to spend a lot of time here. It’s not closed to the public, but they clearly haven’t set it up for visitors. Don’t get me wrong, they’re ready for you, but I don’t think they could handle it if it suddenly became super popular. If you’re only mildly intrigued, I think reading about it on their prospectus is probably good enough, but if you really want to, you can come take a little tour. It won’t take much time out of your stay on Castlebourne, and might be a nice reprieve from the exhilarating activities. I’m still mad about that name, though.

Microstory 2425: Industrial Farm Dome

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A bunch of domes are dedicated to farming. Some of them are designed for necessary food production, but others are just for the sake of it. Industrial farming describes the kind of farming that they did during and after the industrial revolution. They used machines to farm giant fields for massive numbers of people, and even used electricity, but they didn’t have computers. There was absolutely no hint of automation. Lots of farm hands still had to do all the work, and that’s how it goes here. Nothing gets done if there’s no one here to do it. If that means the crops die, then so be it. There’s actually plenty of waste, because the rest of the current population of the planet doesn’t really want to eat this stuff. Everything they could ever want is provided for them. They got their lab grown meat, meal bars, food printers, and dayfruit. They don’t really care how hard I worked out here in the hot sun, and the Castlebourne leadership isn’t incentivizing them to choose us over those other things. I think they really should have worked this out differently. Screw that other stuff. If you have the real thing—and people are willing to labor FOR FREE—why would you choose anything else? Those should be a last resort. If they want this planet to be self-sufficient, then we have what you’re looking for. I don’t blame the other visitors for doing this wrong. There is so little awareness about what we can do for them. I guess what you really need is cooks. Some domes have culinary components, or so I hear, but I can’t find a dome that’s dedicated to the culinary arts. If they did that, we could work closely with them to make the supply chain a real thing. See? I got ideas, and I’m just a dumb regular human. I came here on a ship with one of these new reframe engines. I can’t even upload or transfer my consciousness to a new body. This is the real me. These other people don’t always even need to eat, so they have no appreciation for any of this. Some changes need to be made around here, because I don’t want to go back to the stellar neighborhood. I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to find what I’m entitled to on this planet. People just need to do the right thing.

Microstory 2401: The Terminal

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You know what? This place is big. They call it the Terminal because everyone who quantum casts their consciousness to this planet runs through here. It’s mind-boggling how large it is. I think I heard someone say that every cast-capable individual could upload their mind to a new substrate here at pretty much the same time, and there would be enough room for everyone. I don’t know about that, but I saw this thing from the outside, and I think I believe it. But in the end, the principle remains the same. You get in an egress pod wherever you’re coming from, hook yourself up to the machine, and zip across the interstellar void. You wake up about an hour later, and start moving around in your new body. You’re a little shaky at first, because I admit, it was a new experience. The technology they use to transfer your consciousness is a little different. They have to worry more about things like interference and signal degradation. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t afraid, and I don’t regret it. I just mean, the end result may be a bit different than what you’re used to. It’s just a little harder to acclimate, even if you’re a seasoned caster. Fortunately, they were prepared. They have nearby acclimation rooms that are designed to help you figure things out. They have bars to hold onto and treadmills; basically everything you would find in a physical therapy gym. I was told that they do offer mech subs, if you want that instead of an organic. I’ve never personally used one of those kinds of bodies, so I can’t speak to that experience, but if you choose that route, you may be able to move around just fine right away. Anyway, I didn’t need to use any of the equipment. It was helpful just to have a place to sit and relax. They also had an orientation theatre. Some of it was in person, surely from an android of some kind, while other parts were on the holo-screen. There are way too many domes for them to go through them all, but they do teach you how to search through the catalog, so you can find the exact experience that you’re looking for. But I won’t get into specifics here. I’m sure once I start going to the domes, I’ll review those too. This is just about The Terminal. You should know, they do have medical facilities here, and hygiene stations. I didn’t use any of those, but they’re there if you need them, and they looked nice. I set my trip up ahead of time, so I pretty much received my orientation packet, and bounced. It looked like some people were hanging out there for a little while, though there are plenty of domes that offer relaxation options.

Microstory 2376: Vacuus, October 14, 2179

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Dear Condor,

It’s nice to hear from you. I know that you weren’t writing that open letter directly to me, but it felt very personal, even though I’ve never experienced anything like what you did. I’ve heard more about you from Corinthia. I’ve known about your whole situation almost as long as she has. You and I have a lot in common. My grandfather was the Chief Helmsman of the ship that brought us to this planet, and before that, he was a space shuttle pilot, and before that, an airline pilot. I spent a lot of time on the bridge with him at the helm as we were on our way out here. He would tell me stories about all the places that he used to travel to back on Earth. I’m younger than you, so I have never set foot on your world before. I guess that’s what fascinates me so much, because I feel like I have all these somewhat similar personal experiences. I know that they’re not my own, though. I dunno, I suppose I just felt a connection with you that I’m probably making up in my own head. As for clothes, I do like them, but not necessarily any more than anyone else. I gravitated towards this job partially because there was an opening, and partially because I probably have even less of an interest in going outside than Corinthia does. I just want to stay in my little room where it’s safe. My work area doesn’t even have a window, because some of the rooms have to be on the interior sections, and they can’t all be lavatories and closets. My job is really not that hard. It may be more involved than your sister’s on a day-to-day basis, but there’s a whole lot less pressure. If I mess something up, I can usually fix it before anyone else sees it. The truth is that anyone could do this, because the fabricators do most of the work. I don’t even know how to sew by hand all that well. I did learn, but I don’t use those skills at work. I’m mostly there in a supervisory role. The machines aren’t hard to operate, but rather than training everyone who needs clothes, they only worry about making sure that I know them, and I make sure that nothing gets screwed up. It’s pretty low-key. I have some free time, which I typically spend making up new designs. I’m not exceptional at it, but there are no deadlines, so I eventually figure out what it needs to look like. Corinthia has actually tested out a lot of my own clothes for me. She says she likes them, but you never really know, right? She could just be being polite. I did design the outfit that I’m wearing in the attached photo, so you can tell me what you think. Be honest. Cori thinks there’s too much cleavage, but maybe you have a different opinion?

Hugs and kisses,

Velia

PS: I like your outfit too. It fits you well, though I would imagine just about anything does with a body like that. Trust me, I'm a professional.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 8, 2490

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Everything had changed about Castlebourne when the team came back to the timeline in 2490, and it was pretty much what Mateo had predicted years ago. Team Kadiar started going on their rescue missions about three weeks after Team Matic disappeared. They started out slowly and strategically. They spoke with the people of New Welrios to see if they would be interested in relocating yet again. While most of them didn’t want to leave as their new home had since been established, they weren’t combative, and understood what the crew of the Vellani Ambassador was trying to do. Some of them did ask to leave, particularly the older ones who were more used to not getting attached. A few asked to join the operation, and some of them were even taken up on their offers, following some training that Darko, Mirage, and others devised. The core five that made up the executive crew were still running the show, but the new people had their own responsibilities. If nothing else, being able to give their next prospects real evidence that rescue was possible was more valuable than nothing.

Things started out slow as they struggled to convince enough people that this was the right thing to do. One reason for this was that they didn’t know if there was anything to fix. People living in the Goldilocks were oppressed, but that didn’t mean they were unhappy. They were indoctrinated from birth to believe that this was as good as life could get. The Exin Empire didn’t even have to use force to gaslight them into thinking this way. It was how their parents lived, and how their parents’ parents lived, and so on. The whole of society, on each world, and across the worlds, was built around Bronach Oaksent’s vision. Showing them a better way was no easy feat. The pitch was by far the hardest part of each job. Loading them into the ship wasn’t easy either, nor was Tertius’ work controlling everyone’s memories, but they were simple and easy compared to the social aspect. The new pocket dimension that Ramses designed could fit almost 500 without untenable power drain, but they were only ever able to get about 300 to 400 people each time they tried to reach out to a new population. That still added up to around 130,000 people over the course of the last year, accounting for much-needed breaks, and other delays, but they wanted to do more. They wanted to save more.

The pitch speeches and videos were constantly being refined and reworked, however, and the data showed that these changes improved effectiveness. The most recent missions returned with higher capacity than the first ones. By the end of the 25th century, the total population of Castlebourne could number in the millions, even before visitors from the stellar neighborhood were brought in to enjoy the domes. Mateo was so very proud of his daughters, and wished that he could see them in action. Unfortunately, he was still a liability. His solid holograms were not yet powerful, nor reliable, nor understood well enough. And the new emergent suit that Ramses injected into his body added a new variable that Leona surely wouldn’t be pleased with...once they were ready to tell her about it.

As far as those domes went, Hrockas seemed pleased when he walked into the yearly briefing that he always had with Team Matic. “Is it safe to say that gamma testing is going well?” Leona asked.

“Not as well as I had hoped, but I can’t make them do it, even if I wanted to,” Hrockas replied.

“They’re not going to the recreational domes?” Leona pressed.

“They are, but a lot of domes remain untested. The South Pole is the most popular attraction. Apparently, the despot who runs the empire didn’t make oceans on very many of the worlds that he created. Honestly, I can’t blame him for that; it was not easy for me. Still, I would like them to try out some of the other domes, so I get some feedback on them too. I know what the problem is, though. They don’t really have any sense of pop culture, so the scenarios don’t mean much to them.” Hrockas dismissed his own remarks. “But that’s my problem; not yours, and certainly not theirs. I didn’t agree to host them for that. I just thought it would be a nice bonus. They’re all welcome to stay, even if they never leave the residences. I didn’t start this project a hundred years ago thinking that any of this would be easy.”

Before Hrockas could continue on—if that was what he was planning on doing—Aeolia placed a hand on his thigh. She leaned over, and whispered something in his ear. After he nodded, she stood up, and left the room. Before Aeolia’s past and future were erased from the timeline, she did office work for a number of employers. She was using the skills she picked up in those roles now as Hrockas’ personal assistant. Most of what he needed done could be automated, because this was the late 25th century, but he still liked to have another person there to bounce ideas off of. He couldn’t be in two places at once, so she also often served as his eyes and ears.

“What about the central archives?” Mateo suggested. “Have they been granted access to the vonearthan databases, particularly the grand repository of entertainment?”

“They absolutely have,” Lita answered. She was placed in charge of helping the refugees figure out how to live outside of the Exin Empire, which was all they had ever known up until this point. It was her husband, Mario who came up with her title, Director of Transition, acting as head of the Department for Cultural Transition Assistance. “I’m not—” She paused, looking for the right words. “I’m not discouraging them from browsing the repository, but I generally nudge them towards the aggregate records. They’ve never heard of Earth, and I want them to know where they ultimately come from, even if we don’t technically consider them vonearthans. I want them to see that oppressive governments are wrong, and that they all fall...eventually.”

“That’s understandable,” Leona said. “You know what they say about those who cannot remember the past. They’ve been deliberately shielded from theirs as a means of control. They need to see the truth, or they’ll never really be free.”

They moved onto other business, discussing the general state of the planet. The numbers had shifted since they were last here, as they always did. At this point, roughly 30% of the domes were completely unused. They were sealed up, but still nothing but desert. About 45% of the domes were themed to some degree, but still working through alpha testing, which robots performed due to the potential danger. Around 15% were in the beta testing phase. Some of the more enthusiastic refugees signed all the necessary paperwork, and were helping by exploring these recreational and leisure spots. The remaining 10% of domes were currently being gamma tested by the rest of the refugees, some of which were probably ready for delta testing by the early adopters during and after the grand opening.

Aeolia came back in, and whispered something to Hrockas while Samsonite was pitching his idea of a formal educational institution. “Sorry, Mr. Bellamy, I’m gonna have to pause you for a moment. I’m afraid that Team Matic will have to leave us.” He looked up at Aeolia. “You can handle it, right?”

Aeolia nodded.

“All right, go on,” he requested of Samsonite as most of the members of the meeting were exiting.

“What’s goin’ on?” Leona asked.

“An unauthorized visitor appeared in one of the pods,” Aeolia began to explain. “We don’t know how she broke through our firewalls, but she’s asking to speak to you. Specifically, the...uh...”

“The smart ones?” Mateo suggested.

“Great,” Angela said. “I need to get back in there. This presentation is important.” Without waiting for someone to give her permission, or argue, she stepped back into the conference room, followed by her sister and Olimpia.

Mateo shrugged when Aeolia looked at him. “I’m curious. I’m sure I’ll follow the conversation well enough.”

Leona took Aeolia’s hand, and they all teleported to the only operational acclimation room of The Terminal. Hogarth Pudeyonavic was sitting in an armchair. Leona walked over to her. “Madam Pudeyonavic, it’s nice to see you again.” They shook hands after Hogarth stood up.

“You got my message?” Ramses asked.

“I did, but I was not planning on answering. I’m only here now to get some distance from my own problems before I tackle them.”

“What problems are these?” Leona asked with concern.

“Not yours,” Hogarth answered with kindness in her voice, not dismissiveness.

Leona nodded respectfully, then looked back at her engineer. “You asked her about our interference with the slingdrive?”

“I did,” he confirmed. “I can’t crack it. I know The Vellani Ambassador is not our ship anymore. Another team has been using it for longer than we ever did. But I still think it’s something that we should understand. It’s a unique form of space travel, and I want to remain the foremost expert on it, if possible.”

“Take me to it,” Hogarth asked.

They teleported again, right into the engineering section.

“Welcome,” Mirage’s voice said through the intercom.

Hogarth took a brief look around, narrowing in one component in particular. She reached for the coherence gauge, and unscrewed it. After looking into the data port, she said, “give me an hour. But I’ll need a couple of guinea pigs.”

“That’s my job,” Mateo volunteered proudly.

“It would help if you could procure a human too,” Hogarth clarified.

“Jericho?” Ramses suggested.

“His body doesn’t metabolize temporal energy, but he was once exposed to dark particles. Does that matter?” Leona asked.

“Shouldn’t,” Hogarth replied. “Those don’t travel through the qualium realm. Bring him to me.”

“What’s the qualium realm?” Ramses questioned.

“I’ll explain in an hour.” Hogarth was frustrated with having to repeat herself all of one time.

An hour on the dot after Jericho was brought here reluctantly, Hogarth was ready to give her answer. She had extracted a little bit of blood from them, but otherwise left the guinea pigs to just stand around and wait. She spent most of the time taking the slingdrive apart, and putting it back together, as if the task alone was enough to provide her with answers. She didn’t even really seem to examine the parts, or anything. She only needed to go through the motions. They were sitting around the table in Delegation Hall now. Hogarth was twirling some kind of plastic tube between her fingers.

“Is that the issue?” Ramses asked.

“Oh, this? Nah, this is just an erroneous part. I cut it out, because it was slowing down the quintessence transmission function, and making the drive less efficient. It didn’t have to be this long.”

“That was there to prevent bottlenecking,” Ramses tried to explain.

“You already have two redundant regulators in each intake valve. Trust me, you don’t need this.” She carelessly dropped it on the table.

“Is that valuable?” Mateo asked.

“It’s only tubing,” Ramses assured him. “The containment comes from the specialized pocket dimension, which can be housed in just about anything. But it must be housed in something,” he reiterated to Hogarth, “not nothing.”

Hogarth brushed off his claims. “I’m here to tell you that you were right.”

“About us being the problem?” Leona figured.

“There’s a workaround, but it comes with a limitation,” Hogarth went on. “Earlier, you asked about the qualium realm. I’m honestly astonished you’ve never heard of it, because based on the specifications of this ship, and the upgraded substrates you built for yourself and your friends, you’ve been working with it for years.”

“I know what qualia are,” Ramses said, “and I’ve heard of the quantum realm, but I’ve never combined them.”

“You have. You just didn’t know it.” Hogarth threw a hologram into the space over the table. It was a silhouette of a human being. There appeared to be some kind of aura pulsating from it. Animations utilizing this diagram changed by her narration. “Humans are composed of three major components: mind, body, and soul. The body is the physical material that interacts with reality in four dimensions. We’re all looking at each other’s right now. Information is interpreted through the brain, which is of course, also a physical entity, but that’s not where data is processed. That happens in the quantum realm. This was part of a number of related, but competing, hypotheses, regarding the nature of consciousness. It was only after we figured it out that we were able to manipulate the properties of the quantum mind, and allow for technologies such as mind uploading, and memory retrieval. What present-day researchers still don’t understand is that there is a third aspect. The soul, if you will, exists within the qualium realm. It is how we process personal thoughts, emotions. It’s where we come up with original ideas, and our worldviews. More to the point, it’s also how time travelers metabolize temporal energy.

“We are connected to the universe in a way that normal people, like my new friend, Jericho here, aren’t. This is how different flavors of time travelers come about. The nature of an individual’s qualium realm—their connection to the cosmos—dictates what they can do, and what they can’t. You, Ramses, were not born with a qualium realm sufficient for time travel. You replicated it using someone else’s connection. None of you could teleport until you figured out how to adjust your qualia accordingly. I could go on and on about the study of qualium realms, and how to change your perceptions of time by accessing this special dimension, but that’s not what this meeting is about. The issue is that your connection to the qualium realm is indeed interacting with your slingdrive, which necessarily also has access to this realm in order to function. There are two options here; you can manipulate your own connection, and alter how this interdimensional interaction occurs, or you can modify the machine to block it.”

“What’s the downside to the second one?” Leona asked her.

“No more time travel,” Hogarth answered. “The machine is shockingly versatile, but it has its quirks. As it stands, it accesses all four dimensions, and it is the fourth dimension that is getting screwy. You’re interfering with it because of your inherent connection to time, which is nonlinear. You can’t program it to travel through the fourth dimension, but somehow ignore you, because people like us are an extension of time, not simply living in it. You would still be able to go anywhere you want in the universe, but you would have to stay in the present.”

“We don’t really want to travel through time,” Leona determined. “But it’s not our ship anymore. How hard would it be to adjust our qualia, for those situations where we may need to use the ship?”

“Very hard,” Hogarth replied, “and unpredictable. There would be a lot of trial and error, and you would probably end up as regular humans. I don’t know if that’s what you want, or...”

“You mean we could control our own pattern?” Olimpia asked. “We would stop jumping forwards every day?

“I guess,” Hogarth said. “I would have to study you more, and invasively, but technically anything is impossible. With enough time and energy, I could turn anyone into a traveler, or take it away.”

“Thank you, Madam P,” Leona said, standing up. “We will need to discuss our options amongst ourselves. Can you stay a year?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Hogarth said, also standing up, “At the very least, I’ll be back in a year.”

She ended up staying the year.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 29, 2481

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It took Leona a hot minute, but she came to realize that they were no stranger to the ship looming over them. Well, they were still strangers, but they had seen it before. Seventy-two years ago, it appeared to them near Earth while they were still getting around on the Phoenix shuttle, Dante. It pulled them into its cargo hold, and either held them in place for a whole year, or attached itself to their pattern, and only had to keep them for a day. They were never entirely sure of the truth, but all evidence suggested the latter. How did it get all the way out here, and what did it want now? Its cargo hold opened up again, apparently beckoning them inside.

Leona reached over to the console, tapped a few buttons, then typed in a message that read NO THANKS.

“How are you sending that?” Mateo asked.

“Hologram,” she answered. “They didn’t respond to our calls before, but as long as they can read English, they’ll see this, plastered on the hull of our ship.”

The mysterious other ship used its maneuvering thrusters to draw nearer.

“Ram, do you detect any lifesigns in that hold?” Leona asked.

“Negative.”

“Then fire a warning shot right down its throat.”

“We don’t have weapons, sir.”

“The hot pocket,” Leona reminded him. “Purge it.”

Ramses sighed. “There’s not much energy in there.”

“Good, I don’t wanna kill them.”

“Purging hot pocket.” Ramses expunged the heat from the dimensional reservoir, and lit the potential enemies up.

“What the hell was that for?” a voice asked through the speakers.

“Oh, so it speaks!” Leona exclaimed with an attitude.

“We figured you were derelict, and in need of assistance.”

“Last time we met, you kidnapped us, and then spit us out without a word.”

There was a pause. “We have never encountered your vessel before.”

“We were in a different one back then,” Leona clarified. “April 18, 2409 Earthan Common Era.”

Another pause. “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “You’re Team Matic.”

“What do you want?” Leona questioned.

“Nothing. We only attached ourselves to your pattern back then to outwit our pursuers. They’re long gone. Now we’re back on mission.”

“Which is...?”

“Classified.”

Olimpia’s voice suddenly took over to say, “Captain, there are only a handful of people on this thing, and I think you should come over to see it.” She was apparently on the ship right now.

“Who the hell is that?” the stranger asked. “Where are you?”

“Stay on board, Rambo. Anyone else is welcome to come.” Leona disappeared, to be followed by Mateo and Angela.

“You’ve never heard of invisibility before?” Olimpia brought herself back into view. “You’re not as informed as we guessed.”

A man was sitting at the communications console, still shocked and nervous. “That’s not my department.” He pointed timidly. “I just push the button and talk.”

“I am Captain Leona Matic of the Castlebourne Sanctuary Ship Vellani Ambassador.” Wow, they were no longer a stateless private vessel. “Who is in charge?”

“That would be me.” A thin, busty woman in a tank top and tight pants came in from the hallway. There were numerous tattoos and scars on her body. Her hair was too short to reach her shoulders, and buzzed to a fade on the sides. “Captain Lusine Cross of the Astral Military Force Fireship Lusine.”

“You named your ship after yourself?” Mateo questioned.

Lusine laughed. “Every fireship is named after the person who is to die on it.”

“Fireship,” Angela began. “Historically, these were obsolete vessels that were literally set on fire, and steered into the enemy fleet to cause disorganized destruction. No one was supposed to die on them, though. A skeleton crew always escaped on a smaller vessel.”

“That’s not how we did it where I’m from,” Lusine said. “Any one hundred percent unmanned vessel could be deflected or outmaneuvered by the enemy one way or another. I was sent off to keep my foot on the gas until the very last second.”

“How are you standing here?” Leona asked. “How is this ship intact?”

“Our enemies ran,” Lusine recounted. “We pursued. They opened one of their little portals, and we found ourselves falling through it. That’s how we ended up here.”

That was enough for Leona to figure out what she was talking about. “The Ochivari. You’re from another universe.”

“I didn’t know you would understand the concept,” Lusine said with a nod. “We’ve been trying to get back ever since, and those damn bugs keep trying to stop us, because we have vital information that the Stalwart Porter needs to know to defeat them. We have to strike the enemy where it lives, but we can’t do it alone.”

Leona nodded, understanding more that Mateo couldn’t catch. “You think this brane is their base of operations.”

“It is,” Lusine said with a laugh. “We’ve been to Worlon. That’s where they retreated to.”

“That’s the homeworld. They don’t operate out of there. However many you discovered living in that system is a rounding error compared to their numbers in their new universe.”

Lusine frowned. “You’re lying. You’re lying because you think your own worlds will be destroyed if we bring our war here to your front.”

“Nah,” Leona began, “we can protect our people from that. There’s a reason the Ochivari don’t come after our version of Earth. We’re time travelers, they know they’d lose. They’d lose in any time period, in any reality. So will you if you threaten the safety and security of our most vulnerable and innocent. I suggest you go home. The Transit Army will handle the Ochivari from here on out.”

“I don’t know what the Transit Army is,” Lusine argued. “But it’s meaningless. We’ll protect our people as fiercely as you. I signed up for a suicide mission. You think I’m worried about what you’ll do to me?”

“You are not the first person to feel that way, and you will not succeed where the others lost,” Leona reasoned. “Turn around. Go home.”

“Not until we know where the Ochivari come from. If you’re right, and it’s not this universe, then tell us where it is.”

“I don’t have the coordinates. All I was able to learn from the interrogation logs in Stoutverse was that they call it Efilverse. Trust me, the only thing capable of doing real damage there is the Transit. It’s best you leave it to them.”

Lusine was frustrated, but appeared to be processing what Leona was saying. “We can’t go back anyway. We need the bugs to open another portal.”

“Let me see your Nexus. You may have to leave your ship behind, but I know someone who can return you to your world.”

“We don’t have a Nexus,” Lusine claimed.

“I know how to detect them. It’s here.”

“Part of it is,” Lusine confirmed. “We use it for power.”

Now Leona was frustrated. “Vacuum generator. You’re the one who stole it from Antarctica. Why would you do that?”

“We needed it.” Lusine was not apologetic about their thievery.

Leona’s watch beeped. “Crap, we must be too close to a black hole.”

“Yes,” Lusine said. “We’re hiding out here on purpose, again to avoid detection.”

We only have half an hour until we make another jump. Will you be here in a year?”

“We don’t stop moving,” Lusine explained. “If you’ll allow it, we should like to absorb your energy again, and jump with you. But you’ll have to come inside again, so we can sync up.”’

Leona weighed her options. “Vote.”

Everyone said aye—in person, or through comms—except for Ramses. He didn’t want to get involved. According to him, this one Fireship posed no significant threat to either galaxy, and could only waste their time when they should be trying to find Romana. He felt so bad for losing her. He had to get her back, and as quickly as possible, to make up for that mistake.

Mateo jumped back to the Ambassador, even though the vote didn’t have to be unanimous. “Do you have the data you need?”

“I’ve not had any time to look over it,” Ramses replied. “We’ve been dealing with this since we arrived ten minutes ago.”

“Then do it,” Mateo encouraged. “We’ll deal with this other thing, and meet back up on the other side.”

“I’ll need an assistant,” Ramses said just as Mateo was trying to walk away. “Who in the group can you spare?”

Mateo turned back around. “Who we can always spare...me.”

Shortly thereafter, they jumped to the future, their pattern having been interfered with by the black hole they were orbiting. To free themselves from the gravity well, Leona piloted the VA into the cargo hold of the Lusine, and allowed their new friends to fly them out of the singularity’s relativistic grasp. They used a weird engine, which wasn’t surprising seeing as they were from another universe, but it reportedly didn’t operate the same as it did back where they came from. The laws of physics were different here. Leona was surprised that it still functioned at all. They didn’t have a name for their brane, or of course, the path back. Hopefully Venus Opsocor, Keeper of the Nexus Network, would know what to do.

Once they were sufficiently free from the black hole, they decided they needed to wait for Ramses to study the results from their last jump. Jumping again could throw off his conclusions if he was still in the middle of formulating his hypotheses. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait too terribly long. Unluckily, he turned out to have been wrong before. He could still not find Romana with what he had here. One final, highly directed, jump to a new location could do it, though. Luckily again, they needed to go somewhere anyway. They synced the Vellani Ambassador up to the Lusine’s systems, just as the latter had done before with the Dante. Then the Ambassador took over, and initiated the slingdrive. They made it, all the way to Dardius in the Beorht system.

The planet owners were busy with affairs of the state, but Vearden was available. He saw nothing wrong with granting them access to the Nexus building, as long as they didn’t make any attempt to address the public, or engage with anyone besides the Nexus technicians. They also needed to limit their numbers, so Leona and Lusine teleported to Tribulation Island alone, leaving most everyone else up in orbit. While they were waiting for that, Mateo continued to be Ramses’ guinea pig. As instructed, he teleported to various points on the surface of the planet, and through space. He carried sensors with him sometimes, but not always, which apparently generated some sort of map of the region of space where they appeared.

“Come back in,” Ramses said.

Mateo was currently on Lohsigli. While Dardius remained as the seat of power in this solar system, Lohsigli currently boasted a population of tens of thousands of people. Many had emigrated here over the last several decades, following an enemy invasion that the team didn’t have time to learn about right now. It seemed to match up with what Romana told them about her own past. They accepted a data drive as a gift, so they could update their central archives. They would read about what happened when they had more time. Mateo finally returned, tired from all the jumping, and needing some water.

“I’ve figured it out,” Ramses said, quite pleased and relieved.

“Did I help?” Mateo asked, trying to lean back in his chair, though unable to with his armor module still on.

“Immensely,” Ramses answered. “So did the, uhh...alien people. The Ambassador has been stealing information from their computers, giving it insight into a realm of physics that I never knew existed. They use quintessence where they’re from too, though only as a raw power source, not as a shortcut from Point A to Point B. That’s what I was missing; perspective. I can’t go into detail about what I learned, because you wouldn’t understand it, but to simplify, we have all the tools we need; we just have to put them all together, like ingredients. First, we need Romana’s biometric data, which the ship absorbed passively the first time she stepped on board. Second, we need her quantum signature. Every object, or living thing, vibrates at a certain quantum frequency. The ship doesn’t automatically log that for everyone who comes here, but my machine picked it up from her specifically when we linked to each other through the Livewire tethers. Third, we need a way to measure her signature across vast distances. It would be easy if we knew she was on the same planet as us, but she could be anywhere in the universe, which is why the slingdrive is so important. Now, there’s a bit of an issue, which is that a person’s quantum signature shifts over time, but I should be able to write an algorithm that predicts what it’s become since we lost her.”

“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t find her before. We’ve had all those ingredients the whole time, even before her signature had time to shift. What exactly has changed?”

“Well, our jumps have given me a clearer picture of how to navigate; that’s one. Also, perhaps I’m downplaying how much the Lusine contributed. I still don’t understand it, but based on what I was able to glean, it comes from a galaxy where you can’t just fly in any direction you want. You’re limited by these sorts of...shipping lanes, which control their routes, even through the ocean of outer space. Again, I don’t really know why it’s like that, but the Lusine is different. It can subvert that limitation. It can go wherever it wants. My impression is that it’s illegal. Anyway, I turned their exploit into my exploit. Obviously, we don’t have those crazy cosmic shipping lanes here, but I was going about the search all wrong. Now I know how to head straight towards Romana, and find precisely where she is. Give me just a tiny bit more time, and I’ll be able to isolate her signature from the cacophony of noise vibrating between us and her.”

They gave Ramses more time, which Leona spent dealing with a rather difficult Venus Opsocor. She did agree to help, though, when Leona reasoned that the crew of the Lusine didn’t belong in this universe. It was logical to help them return home to maintain a kind of multiversal balance. Hopefully this gambit didn’t come back to bite them in the ass, such as when they found themselves in need of traveling to a different brane. But for now, it was necessary. The Dardieti agreed to hook the ship up to their Nexus for a peripheral transport, allowing Team Matic to check this tangent mission off the list, hopefully for good.

“Are you sure?” Leona asked in regards to the search for Romana.

“Certainty is one of those abstract concepts that doesn’t exist, but which we can draw nearer. Am I sure? No. Am I as confident as I can get? Yes.” Ramses nodded, satisfied with his own CYA response.

Leona looked over at Mateo, who nodded too, but for a different reason. “Very well,” she said before a pause to make sure there weren’t any objections. “Yalla.”

Ramses pushed all the buttons, and sent the slingdrive soaring through the quintessential firmament.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 28, 2480

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A couple of hours later, Dr. Hammer was finished with her other work for the time being, and was available to speak with the team. She stepped into her own office, and didn’t seem shocked to see them. Siria must have warned her through a text message, or something. She smiled at her assistant, and nodded, but didn’t say anything, yet Siria knew that she could leave, and tend to other things. “Could I see the card?” Dr. Mallory asked once Siria was gone.

Mateo handed it over.

Dr. Hammer inspected it carefully with her eyes, then inserted it back into the reader for more information. “Miss Webb does not have my access code. Neither should you. Please look away.” Her hands hovered over the keyboard, ready to type it in.

“We should leave real quick,” Ramses suggested. “Our brains can process keystrokes, and determine which keys are being pressed, based on the sound each one makes, unique to its position on the board, and its distance from our ears.”

Dr. Hammer narrowed her eyes at him, regarding him with fascination. “I should like to study you.”

“Maybe one day,” Ramses tentatively agreed.

Dr. Hammer typed in her code without worrying too much about it, and read the screen in silence for a moment. “Where did you get this?”

“A friend,” Mateo replied.

“A friend...who?”

“Who...I trust,” Mateo said, still playing it close to the vest.

“Should I trust them?”

“Indeed.”

“Well,” Dr. Hammer began. “When I stick it into that device, and stick you into that machine, I can tether you together, but in order for it to work, it must first be logged into the system. Otherwise, someone could simply steal one from the manufacturing room, and use it without authorization. Whoever gave it to you, that’s what they did. This is stolen property, I didn’t issue it.”

“I’m sorry,” Mateo said sincerely.

“Mister Matic, there is a reason I have not offered you a place at this facility. Well, there are a number of reasons, the main one being your significant connection to the Superintendent. For anyone else, I can prevent him from seeing what’s discussed in these meetings, but you’re more difficult to tease from his prying eyes. I don’t know what to do about that. We can’t let him go spouting off about confidential information. It wouldn’t be fair to the other members. He already knows too much.”

“I understand,” Mateo replied, just as sincerely as before.

I’ll skip the sessions. I’ll just say that he’s gone off to one, but I won’t follow him there. I respect doctor-patient privilege.

“Hold on, I’m getting a message,” Dr. Hammer said as she was clicking the mouse. She read the Superintendent’s claim. “The fact that you’re watching us at this very moment does not instill confidence in me that you would honor the boundaries. Even one peek could have devastating consequences for my patients that I cannot allow.”

The team wasn’t fazed by her apparent conversation with the Superintendent. They sat there patiently and quietly.

“Another one.” She took a second to read it, then paraphrased it for the whole class. “He promises to stay away, and says that there’s plenty of story to be told that has nothing to do with this place.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to do about this emotional bond. I can find a workaround on the calibration, but you’ll all be able to use it, which is not the purpose of the card.”

“We don’t need the card,” Leona explained. “We go wherever we want, whenever we want. We promise to stay out of it, just as the Superintendent did. Mateo will be the only one to use that card.”

“And if anyone breaks this rule, you may revoke it,” Mateo added.

“We don’t really do that,” Dr. Hammer explained.

Mateo shrugged. “Do it anyway, if it ever comes up.”

Dr. Hammer thought over her options. “Is this the whole team?”

“My sister, Angela’s still on the ship,” Marie said.

“The two of them were once one and the same,” Leona clarified, “in case that matters when calibrating the machine for Mateo, or whatever.”

“It doesn’t. But she does need to be here. You’re like limbs of the same person, so you all need to be a part of it.”

Angela teleported down to the office, which alarmed Dr. Hammer, who believed there to be a barrier around the building that prevented anyone from showing up anywhere besides the vestibule. She wrote a note to herself to reinforce the security system, even though she obviously wasn’t worried about the six of them. She went on with the procedure. Mateo alone lay down in the card tethering machine, but they could all feel the procedure in their minds, and their bodies. A connection was created, between them and the card, and also to the facility. Their bond with each other felt like it was reinforced as well, though that might have been in their imaginations. The whole process only took a couple minutes. Mateo sat up, and left the room to go through orientation with Siria. As the Superintendent, I’m not allowed to divulge what he learned on his tour. I know only that it happened.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, the rest of the team was hanging out in Delegation Hall. Leona was reading a book, the other girls were chatting about nothing, and Ramses was looking through data on his tablet. After doing this for a bit, he looked away with a sort of concentrative frown, and shut his eyes. Finally, he said, “one more jump.”

“What was that?” Leona asked, though she didn’t take her eyes off the page.

“If we make one more uncertain jump, I believe that I will at last have the navigational abilities to find Romana.”

She turned her ereader away, and looked down at the floor between the two of them. “How certain are you of that?” Now she looked him in the eye.

“Fifty-fifty,” he answered.

She nodded, and considered it. “This sounds like one of those situations where we should vote on it.”

“We’ll do it when he gets back,” Olimpia said, referring to Mateo.

“We know how he would vote,” Leona replied. “We may as well do it now. You can call me his proxy, so I get two votes.”

Marie scoffed. “Raise your hand if you don’t think we should go.”

No one raised their hand.

“Motion passes,” Marie decided.

Leona took a breath, and yawned unwillingly. “Ange, run a pre-flight check, just how we taught ya. Rambo, you handle the quintessence drive, of course.”

While they were in the middle of their checks, Mateo returned, and listened to the update. “Wait, is it going to take us to her, or just help us find her eventually?”

“The latter,” Ramses answered.

“If it turns out to be enough,” Leona added.

“Where are we going? Anywhere?”

“A random jump would give us better data than a target one. I think that’s my problem. I think I’m trying to exert too much control, when I should really be letting the slingshot guide my trajectory.”

“That’s not how slingshots work,” Mateo argued.

“We thought you would want this,” Leona told her husband.

“We could end up anywhere,” Mateo went on. “That means inside of a star, or at the beginning of the big bang, or hell, a different universe.”

“I wrote safeguards into the program to prevent us appearing inside of a solid object,” Ramses began to explain. “Or a liquid or plasma, for that matter. Those are basic protocols, even the teleporter has them. The big bang was so dense that it would be tantamount to being in a sun, so the protocols would cover that too. As for another universe, the slingdrive can’t do that. We can pierce the membrane from the outside, but not from inside. We can only slide along it.”

“My position holds,” Mateo stood firm. “It’s too dangerous of a proposition.”

“What did you talk about down there after we left?” Leona asked.

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“Can you tell me if you’re an impostor?”

He waited to respond. “Not applicable.”

“We thought for sure you’d vote to go,” Olimpia said, stepping into the room.

“I would,” Mateo agreed. “I am. It just didn’t sound like any of you discussed the dangers that this poses. You only made it here because I took a fear pill. We don’t have that luxury this time. Wherever we go, it may take us on a wild adventure that lasts for years. As we’ve tethered our personal timelines together, that would mean Romana stays alone until we’re finished fighting Cthulhu, or whatever it ends up being.”

“She’s alone if we do nothing,” Leona reasoned. “We need this data.”

Mateo twirled his rendezvous card between his fingers, just as the other Leona had earlier. He was probably thinking about what he talked about in group at the Center for Temporal Health, but I was not there, so I don’t know anything that anyone said. He chuckled, perhaps getting the feeling that someone was leaning on the fourth wall from the outside. “I should stay. Whatever happens, wherever you end up going, you can always end up back here at least. Let me be your anchor. Something goes wrong, jump right back.”

“Dr. Hammer doesn’t want us doing that sort of thing,” Leona reminded him. “That’s not what this card is for. It’s not what that place is for.”

“I’ve just...we’ve been here before...so many times. We’ve been on a mission, and then we end up on a tangent. We have to break that cycle. We have to stick with something until it’s done. Our team has grown, yet remains incomplete. I’m afraid.”

“Give us the room, please,” Ramses said mysteriously.

Leona and Olimpia were a little surprised, but they left without arguing.

“What is it?” Mateo questioned.

“I analyzed that card,” Ramses said. “I couldn’t get much from it, but I bounced tiny ablation lasers off of the surface, which were absorbed by our sensors. They detected two DNA signatures from the sample. One was yours, and the other was Romana’s. She’s the one who gave it to you.”

Mateo didn’t want to say anything, even though he had obviously been caught. “She was wearing gloves.”

Ramses smiled. “She probably wasn’t wearing them the whole time. Lemme guess, she was from the future?”

“Maybe.”

He smiled wider. “I’ll keep your secret, as long as you vote yes, and come with us. We will find her again, so she can go back to see you in the past, and close her loop. I don’t think you should be this worried. Studying that slingdrive, and improving it, has been my sole focus for days. Please trust me, Mateo. You’ve done it before.”

Mateo sighed. “All right. Fire it up.”

They returned to the group, and confirmed that everyone understood what they were getting themselves into. They may find themselves back on Earth centuries ago, or on the other side of the universe. No result was more likely than another, however, regardless of where they ended up, they should be able to initiate a second jump, and go back to where they belonged. This should give them the data they needed to understand how the drive worked, so that they were not flying blind for that second time.

Ramses stood there like he was waiting for someone else, but he was the only one qualified to operate this thing. Even Leona hadn’t spent much time on it.

“What?” Leona asked.

“Say the thing. Say that word I like.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “Yalla.”

They jumped, and for a moment, they were disoriented, as was the ship, though the computers recalibrated themselves, unlike the first time they tried to use this thing. “I can tell you where we are, but not when,” Ramses announced. “I have enough positional data to know that we’re in the Miridir Galaxy.”

“It’s June 28, 2480. Present day, for lack of a better term in our line of business,” Leona elucidated them while consulting her special time watch.

“We’re not in the Beorht system, though,” Ramses continued. “Dardius is about two thousand light years from here, give or take a couple hundred.”

“All I care about is the new navigational data,” Mateo said to him. “Can we pinpoint a destination now?”

“I’ll need time,” Ramses said in an apologetic tone. “I can’t even tell you if the new data looks promising. I’m sorry.”

“Well, if we’re this far from civilization, finding the peace you need to conduct your work shouldn’t be a problem,” Angela figured.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Olimpia contended. She was looking through a viewport that wasn’t big enough for them all to see.

Leona threw the image onto the screen. There was another ship out there. Her armband pinged, so she looked at it. “External sensors are detecting a Nexus nearby. It’s probably on the ship.”

“What does that mean?” Marie asked.

“We can’t possibly know yet.” Mateo reached back for his helmet, and put it over his head. “Prepare for another tangent.”

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