Microstory 1790: Mateo Daily

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First off, I probably could have figured out how to squeeze in one more constellation to round out the year, but I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about my plans for next year. I’m going to be doing something wildly different with my macroseries, The Advancement of Mateo Matic. So far, I’ve mostly been writing one installment per week. The first one didn’t come out until the middle of March in my first year, so it only has 42 installments. In fact, I actually doubled up on one day, because I hate the number 41. The next year was pretty normal, but the third year, while there were 53 Sundays, I still only did 52 installments, because I skipped a week for narrative reasons. Ever since then, though, I’ve been able to keep to a steady routine of 52 installments per year. That is all about to change, but not permanently. Everything will hold to convention for the first 24 weeks. Mateo’s story will continue as you would expect, year by year. So too will my current Saturday mezzofiction series, Extremus. I have two microfiction series lined up as well. The first is a return to my Vantage Points multiseries, which will give way to 14 original sonnets. I’m scared about that last one, but hopefully I’ll come up with some good stuff by then. The last sonnet will post on June 10. The last entry in the second volume of Extremus will post on June 11. A new installment for TAMM will be on June 12, but I’m not yet sure how long it’s going to be, or whether the official changeover will happen the following day, where you will find...another installment of The Advancement of Mateo Matic. The next day, there will be another, and then another, and so on.

Throughout the rest of the year, I’ll only be posting TAMM stories. No mezzofiction, and no microfiction. Though, because expecting myself to write 2,000 words—give or take—every day is unreasonable, they will be shorter than usual. I’ll probably do at least 600 words, but I’m not sure yet. I’m not holding myself to anything that restrictive. Each one will take place a day after the last, as we follow Mateo and the team through their latest adventures. They’ll probably be more subdued, and less intense. They’ll probably be family-oriented, with less action. They might read like diary entries. Again, I don’t know yet. I have to get to that point before I really know where the story is going. I serve the story, not the other way around. There is a reason why the team will fall off their pattern, and a reason why it will last them a full year, but I’ve decided to not give that away just yet. If I had chosen to start this in January, I might have said something, but since it’s so far out, I call that a spoiler. This new posting method will continue until the middle of July 2023 when I start a new microfiction series called Conversations, and begin volume 3 of Extremus. I will also get back to the weekly installments of TAMM, and while the story will continue to evolve, I presently have no intentions of altering the posting schedule further. I think I messed up the math, so we’ll see what it looks like when I finish working on the calendar, but I’m sure it will be fine. Speaking of math, I came up with this in my first year, before I had tampered with Mateo’s pattern, so this felt like a much more dramatic change. Since then, he and Leona haven’t always jumped forwards each day anyway. Still, I’m excited, and I hope you are too. This started as a working title, but it’s the best I’ve come up with. I’m obviously calling it...Mateo Daily.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 7, 2214

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Mateo was devastated at the news. Just like his father—who was, ironically, not really his father, as Mateo erased himself from history long before he was erased from time—he tore the place apart. He flipped up the bed, and ripped into the mattress. He knocked over the nightstand, and kicked the door off the wardrobe off. He threw a chair at the viewport, which was strong enough to handle it. He pulled at his hair, and snarled like a wild animal. He got this close to bashing his head against the wall. All the while, Leona watched him patiently. It didn’t upset her more, and she didn’t see the need to stop him. She had her own way of dealing with grief, and this was his. He stomped out of the room in a huff, and took refuge in a closet. Still, Leona left him alone. By the time he returned to the bedroom not a half hour later, everything was exactly as it had been before. Not a single thing was broken.

He was still breathing heavily. “What the hell is this?”

“Étude’s womb-mother was a builder, like Baudin,” Leona explained. She was sitting on the bed, and it was clear that she had been crying. “She reset the room, in case you wanted to...destroy it again.”

He took a couple of deep breaths, and dragged the chair over to face her. “No, I don’t need to do that again. I shouldn’t have done it once, and I’m sorry for that.”

“No, it’s okay,” she assured him. “I know what you’re going through.”

He shuffled the chair closer, and leaned in. “But I don’t understand what you’re going through. I can’t. I’m—my perspective is inadequate. I will never know what it’s like to carry a child, and I will certainly never know what it’s like to lose one. I feel so angry that we never got to meet them, but also that I’m so hopeless to help you. I...I don’t know what to say.”

“These were your children, Mateo. Unlike anyone else, there is nothing you should or should not say. Your feelings are legitimate, and you have just as much right to express them as I do. It’s not your job to make me feel better. We need to work together. I appreciate that you recognize the difference between us, but that doesn’t diminish your position.”

“We have lost so many people; you more since I was away. But we always lost them to time. My versions of the Gelens, your versions, your biological parents, our friends. We met them, and we knew them, and we loved them. Sometimes we even hated them,” he said, referring to Gilbert Boyce. “But we never got to meet our children, and that’s the worst.”

“The worst is that they probably still exist in this timeline. Like you said, they’re powerful. I think they can travel to timelines they weren’t born to.”

“What are you saying?”

“Remember that show, Highlander.”

“There can be only one? Leona, are you saying our alternate children killed our babies?”

Leona shook her head. “No. I don’t think they would ever, but the powers that be have rules that go beyond the handful I came up with myself. They don’t like duplicates.”

Now Mateo shook his head. “No, I won’t accept that. I can’t work for someone who would do that. And since I can’t quit, I have to believe they had nothing to do with this. Who was this cargomaster guy?”

“Nobody, just some pathetic capitalist whose life never amounted to anything.”

“But he’s dead?”

“He had no way off the ship when he sabotaged it. I don’t know why he went that far. He died with everyone else.”

“Good,” Mateo said. “It’s best I have no reasonable path to trying to kill him myself.”

Leona had no response to this. Instead, she glanced at her watch. “It’s almost midnight.” No, it wasn’t. “We should get a full night’s rest. We’ll try to find a way to Bungula next year.”

That night, Mateo dreamt of reality. He was watching the world through Leona’s eyes. He saw himself disappear by the extraction mirror, and his friends move on with their lives without him. Leona and Serif returned to Earth with the aid of choosing one who could jump across galaxies. They were contracted for a mission to retrieve the Last Savior of Earth, who was destined to be born out of her jurisdiction, on Durus. On their way back, they investigated a murder, and Serif was lost to another universe. Once on Earth, Étude left for her job. Some friends disappeared, while new relationships grew stronger. One by one, these died off in a years-long battle against an alternate Ulinthra. Then they were all brought back to life at once when the OG Horace Reaver killed their enemy with a dagger made of human ash.  Leona’s memories of Mateo were returned to him, and she went on a quest for several special temporal objects. Upon full assembly, they would bring him back into existence. Then he woke up.

“Finally,” Mateo could hear Étude say. “He’s back!” she called out.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Can you walk?”

Mateo got out of bed. He was covered in sweat, and hooked up to an IV. “Of course I can. I already recovered.”

“We weren’t sure,” Étude said.

Leona and Vitalie clamored into the room. The former took Mateo into a great, big hug. “Thank God. We were so worried. We thought the insulator took you away from us, but nothing helped.”

“I was just asleep,” Mateo said. “Wasn’t I? I remember my dreams.”

“Yes,” Leona said to him, “but you were asleep for nineteen hours.”

“I was?”

“Yes,” Étude confirmed, “and we couldn’t wake you up. You were showing signs of being in a coma.”

“I’m sorry, but I think I know why. I mean, I don’t know why, but I know what happened while I was out. I remember everything, Leona.”

“Everything what?”

“Your life, without me. I experienced it, as if I were you. It was like getting my brain blended, except it was slower, and it doesn’t hurt.”

“They were also not your memories,” Vitalie pointed out. “Can brain blenders do that?”

Étude stepped forward. “Technically, they’re always doing it. Alternate selves are, at their core, approximations. Identity only refers to a single entity. It can’t be copied or replaced. You are always unique; always. Vitalie, for instance, if you went to The Warrior, and asked him to blend your brain, he would hunt for someone in an alternate timeline who is not quite you, but is almost you. The other Vitalie lived under different conditions. Therefore, she is not truly you. If the point of divergence took place before your birth, the other individual is even further away from you, because now you were conceived and born under different conditions. All this means is that there is a negligible difference between someone and their alternate, and two entirely separate people. So yes, it would be easy for a blender to give someone the memories of someone else, because that’s actually how they do it every time.”

Leona and Vitalie stared at her for a moment. “I just can’t get used to you talking out loud.”

“No, I can’t either,” Étude agreed. “I can see how that would be more difficult for you, though, because even though I never said them out loud, I always had words in my head.”

“Are we thinking Anatol or Nerakali snuck into this room undetected, and blended my brain, then just left without saying anything?” Mateo asked the group.

“That wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened in our lives.”

“No, and Anatol might be able to turn invisible, for all we know,” Vitalie said. “If Vito had that power, then someone else does, or did, or is going to.”

“Well, either way, I’m sorry to scare you. I really feel fine. I just hope we didn’t miss our window to go to Jungula.”

“Bungula,” Leona corrected.

“I’m never going to call it that,” Mateo said. “It’s Jungula. Ya know, like a jungle.”

“There’s no jungle there.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“You should get up and move around,” Étude said to Mateo. “You can check on Ram’s progress while you’re at it. You may be able to leave today yet.”

“You won’t be able to leave tonight, goddammit!” Ramses shouted after Leona and Mateo went to his lab, and asked him how he was doing. He was hovered over his table, soldering a logic board together.

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “We’ve no reason to believe Brooke and Sharice can’t survive in there indefinitely. Mateo, are you still hearing them?”

“I’m not hearing them,” Mateo clarified, “but I feel them. They’re still there.”

“I promised you would be able to lift off this year, so you arrive by the time the exodus ships arrive.” Rames was pissed off.

“Exodus ships?” Mateo asked Leona quietly.

“They’re carrying the passengers who are intending to settle on the planet.”

“What use would it be us getting there before anyone else does. Won’t it be empty?”

“It was hard enough explaining our presence to the people living here, though a vessel that was ahead of its time wasn’t the most implausible thing ever, we don’t think anyone believed us. We want to get in, erase all evidence that we were ever there, and get out. And we can do that, because the planet is not empty. Automated ships were dispatched before the passengers, to get ready for them. All initial habitats and other structures are already in place, including the tech we need to bring Brooke and Sharice back.”

Rames threw his tool on the table so hard that it bounced off. Then he split the logic board in half. “Son of a bitch!”

“I’m sorry we broke your concentration,” Leona said to him.

“Oh no, it isn’t you,” Ram promised. “I’m just having trouble working through this. My capitalistic upbringing really overshadowed my education. My parents struggled reconciling letting me go to school for free when they didn’t believe in it. I have the knowledge, but I’m always second guessing myself. I can’t believe I ever believed in that shit. If I were half the engineer Holly Blue was, I would have been done with this six months ago!”

“Holly Blue had magical powers that created things for her without her having to think about it,” Leona responded.

Ramses stopped short, then looked at Leona over his magnifying specs. “She did?”

“Yeah, did you not know that?”

“No. And Hogarth?”

Leona thought this over a bit, but Mateo decided to answer in her place. “Eh, it’s unclear whether her powers helped her with her work, but she definitely had them.”

Leona was dumbfounded.

“What? I told you I have your memories.”

“All of them?”

“No, just the ones you made while I wasn’t there.”

“Good. There are some things a lady does she doesn’t need anyone else knowing.”

“Oh.” Mateo cleared his throat. “I saw plenty of those things.”

“Really?” Ramses asked. “Tell me more about that.”

Leona ignored the intrusion. “Will our ship be ready by this time next year?”

“Yes,” Ramses said as he was pulling parts to replace the logic board he broke. “One year wasn’t enough, but two years is too much. I’ll have it done in another month or two. I just need to figure out this switching mechanism. I can get the ship to connect to your time jumps, so it disappears while you’re gone. We don’t want it sitting in a harsh environment for months on end, completely out of use. But I’m still working on allowing you to turn that off. It would take you decades of realtime if you used that feature while you were en route.”

“Okay, Ram.” She patted him on the back, and started walking away. “I believe in you!”

“I appreciate your support!” Ramses called back to them.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 6, 2213

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And like Jon Snow before him, Mateo Matic was suddenly returned from the dead. He could only move his neck a little as he gasped for air, and he could feel a tingling in his fingers. He had no recollection of where he had been, if anywhere, but he had an acute awareness of the passage of time. For him, it had been fifty-five days. For everyone else, fifty-five years.

A warm hand comforted him by the shoulder and chest. “Don’t try to move,” Leona said to him.

He tried to speak, but his throat was scratchy, and nothing came out. It wasn’t complete silence, but it wasn’t intelligible. He looked around the room. There were two other women there. He didn’t recognize either of them, but one looked a little like Saga Einarsson. Mateo managed to lift his head some more, and saw another man in the corner, but didn’t recognize him either. A lot of time passed since he left, so it wasn’t super surprising Leona had found a new gang of friends. He had a few questions. He took Leona by the arm, a little too aggressively, and tried to speak again, mouthing his words deliberately.

The woman who looked like Saga moved her arms around. The other woman nodded. “He asked where he’s been.” That was exactly right. She could read lips.

“You were taken out of existence,” Leona answered.

He remembered that. Arcadia could erase people from reality, but she wasn’t the one who did this to him. It was someone called The Superintendent. What a dick. He directed his attention at the lip reader, and asked another question.

She signed his question, and the other woman translated again, “how did you get me back?”

Leona smiled. It had been forever since he had seen that. “It wasn’t easy.”

“How did you even remember me at all?” the interpreter translated.

“It doesn’t matter,” Leona answered. “You’re back now, and no one will ever take you from me again.”

“Introduce me,” she translated.

“Mateo Matic, this is Vitalie Crawville. She’s an astral projector who was born on on Durus. You remember Horace telling us about that? It’s a rogue planet that’s been through a lot.” She presented the lip reader. “Étude was born there as well, but she’s the daughter of Saga Einarsson, and Camden Voss. I’m not sure you ever heard his name. He was Xearea’s brother.”

Mateo nodded in understanding, then tipped his chin as much as possible to greet his new friends. Then he looked over at the man in the corner.

“Oh,” Leona said. “I don’t know who that is.”

The man stood up and reached out to shake Mateo’s hand. “Ramses Abdulrashid. Former Freemarketeer, and engineer-extraordinaire.”

Leona awkwardly twisted her arm and shook his hand instead. “Nice to meet you.”

“What’s this thing on my chest?” Vitalie translated for Mateo again.

“Can I remove it?” Leona asked the group. “Does he have to keep it with him the whole time? Is this not permanent?”

“I don’t know,” Vitalie said.

Étude shook her head to indicate she didn’t know either.

Mateo lifted his head more than ever to see. It looked like one of those old glass things they used to put on top of powerline poles. That wasn’t all, though. He could feel something coming off of the object. It was a feeling, packed with information that he couldn’t interpret. He only recognized one word. Who the hell is Sharice? he mouthed.

Étude was shocked by this. She put both her hands into fists, with one pinky up in the air. She then bumped then together three times.

“Sharice?” Vitalie questioned. “Did he know Sharice?”

“Impossible,” Leona said. “Mateo, how do you know that name?”

He focused on the glass thing on his chest more. Another word came to his mind, which he asked Étude about. Four fingers up, with her thumb over her palm. She tapped her cheek, then waved her hands in front of her, almost like a river. No, not a river, but a brook.

“Brooke?” Leona asked. She looked down at the object. “They’re alive. They’re alive in there.”

Étude was frantically signing to Vitalie.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s why we couldn’t find their consciousnesses in the ship’s blackbox. Your seer didn’t tell you it would happen like this?”

No, Étude replied. That was probably the one and only sign that Mateo knew.

“How could we possibly get them out?” Leona asked.

“We would need somewhere to put them,” Vitalie pointed out.

“Okay, great. Let’s mock up some android bodies, and get this done.”

“Uh,” Ramses hesitated, “it’s not quite that easy.”

“I’m not saying it will be easy,” Leona acknowledged. “And we’ll have to convince these people to help, but surely they’ll want to.”

Ramses shook his head. “They would love to help, but they wouldn’t be able to. Two types of entities came here to Proxima Doma. It’s meant to be a haven for organic humans. They figured it was their birthright, since people have been dreaming of coming here longer than anywhere else, though I’m not sure that’s true. It’s possibly the least hostile environment, and definitely the best candidate for terraforming.”

“The point, Ram,” Vitalie pushed.

“The point is that they have helper bots, but no consciousness transference technology. They don’t even have Theseus tech. This is supposed to be our second home, not a transhuman establishment.”

“Well, we’re going back to Earth as soon as we can,” Leona said. “We’ll take the Insulator of Life with us, and transfer them to new substrates when we get back.”

Ramses shook his head again. “There aren’t any interstellar ferries right now. The whole system wants to operate on their own. New colony ships will be coming in a few years, but nobody is leaving.”

“Well, how far are we from civilization, goddammit?” Leona shouted.

Mateo took her by the hand to calm her down.

“Bungula,” Ramses answered.

“Okay, that’s actually better,” Leona said. “That is, if we can get there.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Ramses said.

“There’s one problem, though,” Vitalie said.

Leona understood. “They would have to leave on a day where Mateo and I actually exist.”

“You don’t have to come,” Vitalie said. “Étude and I can handle it.”

“No,” Leona said. “Brooke is family, and by extension, so is Sharice. Now that I have all my memories, I realize that they’re Mateo’s half-sister, and his niece, respectively.”

Well, we can’t do anything about it today, Étude signed. My patient needs rest. It’s been an eventful day for him. Leona, when was the last time you slept too? You better get on it. I will call you if anything changes. Apparently, she was a medical professional, just like her mother.

Mateo tried to sleep after everyone left, but he was wide awake. It felt like he had been asleep the entire time he was missing, so now he had tons of energy. Of course, he couldn’t do much with this energy, as his body was no longer used to moving. He channeled his inner Beatrix Kiddo, and commanded his muscles to move, starting from his big toe, and upwards until he was fully standing at the side of his bed. Étude came back into the room shortly thereafter and smiled, as if this was her plan all along.

“Can you speak?” she asked him.

This was a shock. “I...I can. I thought you couldn’t. Are you not deaf?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just mute.”

He turned his lizard brain, but instead of responding, he simply waited for her to elaborate.

“I’m what we in the business would call a late bloomer. I wasn’t set to talk until  I was well into my second year of life. As crazy as it sounds, I recall the moment I decided to start speaking. My mother, Saga was in the middle of a conversation with a family friend of ours. We were in danger on Durus, you see, or at least that’s what Saga perceived. This woman created a haven for her in a parallel spatial dimension, so they were the only two people I knew for years, until Leona and her friends found us. They were discussing my womb-mother, and Saga’s wife, Andromeda. More specifically, they were discussing her tragic death. I know I didn’t understand everything they were saying, but I could certainly feel my mom’s pain. It wasn’t so much that I made a conscious decision to stay silent; it’s more like her heartache silenced me. I was going to start talking once I was older, but ended up not doing that either. Several years ago, I resolved to say my first word at the age of forty-five, which was how old my womb-mother was when she died.”

“If that’s today, why is it that the others still think you’re mute? Did you not, like, announce it, or anything?”

Étude shook her head. “I’m not forty-five yet. Your return from the dead galvanized me. I didn’t plan for it, it just feels like it’s time.”

“I don’t know whether I should apologize, or say you’re welcome.”

“I don’t know either.”

Mateo sat back down on the bed, and stared at the Insulator of Life, which he had set on the nightstand. “Where are we?”

“Proxima Doma, Proxima Centauri,” Étude answered.

“I do not understand that designation.”

“The star is called Proxima Centauri. The planet is Proxima Doma. It’s a pseudo-habitable rocky world where vonerthans have chosen to migrate.”

“Vonerthans?”

“It’s a collective term for any entity originally sourced from humans of Earth. The only intelligent creatures that the greater vonerthan population has encountered are from Earth. As salmon and choosers, we’re privy to information about aliens, but most people aren’t, so at the moment, it’s a hypothetical distinction. A lot of people here are artificial intelligences, so we can’t identify them as human. Transhumans and transgenics sometimes don’t consider themselves humans anymore either.”

He waved towards the insulator. “What are they?”

“You knew Brooke Prieto-Matic. As a transhuman, she was able to interface with a regulated artificial intelligence. A set of particular conditions resulted in the awakening of her daughter, Sharice. Right now, their consciousnesses are trapped in there, as per your claims.”

“Can they hear us?”

“Probably.”

And we have to take them to...?” Mateo couldn’t remember what they had said.

“Bungula. It’s a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A. It isn’t that far.”

Mateo nodded as he swung his legs forwards and backwards in an alternating pattern. He was warming his legs up before he tried walking.

“Does it bother you to be so far from Earth?”

“I’ve been farther.”

“I know, so maybe you’re ready to go back home.”

He stood up and gazed out the viewport. The sky looked about as it did in the Earthan night sky, though maybe it was always night here. Was there any atmosphere at all?  Perhaps it never turned blue. “I have no home.”

Leona walked in. “What about me?”

“Yes.” Mateo smiled at her. “You are my home.”

Leona didn’t say anything, but she was holding her stomach in one hand. He had seen that move before.

He looked around, possibly looking for a calendar, or a clock. “What year is it again?”

“2213,” Leona answered.

“Are you showing yet?”

Leona’s face so swiftly turned sad that Mateo almost couldn’t remember what it was like to see her smile, though it was just seconds ago. “How did you know about them? I didn’t find out until...” she trailed off.

“I’ve met them before. It took some time to put it together, but they appear to be a couple of quite powerful choosing ones.”

“Those are not our children,” Leona said cryptically. “This is a new reality.”

“Leona, what does that mean?”

She paused, frightened and nervous. “We need to talk.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: October 5, 2212

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Leona found herself floating around the exit bay of The Vosa. She could feel a deep tingling throughout her whole body, and the saliva on her tongue boiling away. Other debris was floating around her, and she could hear nothing. Life was tearing itself away from Leona’s body, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was about to lose consciousness when a gust of what felt like wind forced her against the back wall. Then the wind receded, and pulled her through the exit.

A person was helping her up, and catching her own breath. Leona was still in pretty bad shape, so it sounded like this other person said something like, “he aft two bet who adopter.”

Then she finally passed out.

Later, Leona woke up in a hospital bed, but it didn’t look like she was in a hospital room, or at least not one she recognized. This looked more like a fancy executive suite that rich people demanded when they needed medical treatment. A woman rushed into the room to check on her condition. It took Leona a moment to wake all the way up, but then realized it was Danica Matic. She was Mateo’s cousin, who had been working in a special location underground in Kansas called The Constant for billions of years. “What happened?” Leona asked. “How did I get here?”

“I can answer the second question, but I was hoping you would fill me in on the first,” Danica said. “Saga opened a door, and found you dying in what she assumed was a spaceship. The pressure change sucked you into a broom closet, and when she opened it to get back to your friends, she came out here. She went to get you some towels, but never came back. My assumption is that she opened another portal.”

“How long have I been out? What year is it?”

“October 5, 2212. You’ve only been out a couple of hours. We have pretty good medicine down here.”

“We?”

“The royal we. I still live here alone.”

Leona struggled to sit up. “I suppose you’ll need me to leave, since I wasn’t really invited.”

“Nonsense,” Danica said. “You’re family. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the wedding. I’m not allowed to leave.”

“You remember that? You remember Mateo?”

“I remember everything. Literally. My mind cannot be corrupted.”

Leona looked around the room, paranoid. “My stuff. Did my stuff come through? I had very important objects with me!”

“It’s okay, they did. Your bag was over your back.” She handed Leona the page from the Book of Hogarth that had the instructions for how to put the ingredients together. “I made this for you.”

“You made...” Leona was confused. “You mean you assembled all the objects?”

Danica smiled triumphantly. “Yep. I don’t have a lot of things to do. Again, always alone.”

“Did it work? Is he back?”

“I didn’t turn it on,” Danica said, almost offended. “The instructions don’t say what it does, so that’s your job.”

“I thought you knew everything.”

“Not everything, everything.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll do it now.” She tried to get out of bed, but Danica stopped her.

“Hold on, I need you to stay for now. I called a specialist, who should be arriving shortly. I could treat your vacuum exposure, but I need her..to...”

“To what?”

“I will explain myself.” Dr. Mallory Hammer was standing in the doorway. “After the examination.”

“What’s going on?” Leona asked. “Why the hell is she here?”

“You should go,” Mallory solemnly said to Danica.

“I’ll be in my office,” Danica promised. “Shout if you need anything.”

Mallory sanitized her hands, and fitted herself with sterile gloves. Then she started out by feeling Leona’s lymph nodes and thyroid.

“What aren’t you two telling me?” Leona asked.

“Patience,” Mallory answered calmly. “Trust the process.”

Leona kept quiet while Mallory continued. She ran vitals, took some samples, and used futuristic equipment to test for whatever. Finally, she pulled her stethoscope out of her ears, and draped it over her shoulders. “You have been through a significant trauma.”

“Right...”

“You survived.”

“I see that...”

“Unfortunately, you were the only one. Everyone else on that ship was killed. It was sabotaged by someone named...” She consulted her notes. “Hargesen.”

“The cargomaster.”

“We still don’t know why he did it.”

“Holly Blue is dead?”

“She wasn’t on the ship. We’ve no clue where, or when, she is.”

“Why did Danica need you to be the one to tell me this.”

Mallory took a deep breath, trying to remain gentle. “Leona, you were the only survivor.”

“You’ve said that.”

“Including your children.”

“What?”

“The pressure change was just too much for their little developing bodies. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Leona said in denial. “They can’t be dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Mallory repeated. “I should have...” She hesitated. “I kept trying to get back to you, but no one would take me. And anyone willing was blocked by something. Somebody didn’t want me examining you. I don’t know if that was related to this.”

“You don’t understand, they can’t be dead.”

“I know this is hard to hear, but—”

“You’re not getting it, I remember him.”

“Remember who?”

“Mateo. My husband. I only remember him, because these are his babies.” She rubbed her belly. “If they’re gone, my memory of him should too.”

Mallory shook her head. “Maybe the memories can’t be undone. Maybe it takes awhile to fade. I wouldn’t mind discussing this more with you, over the course of—”

“I’m not one of your case studies!” Leona argued.

“No, of course not. I apologize.”

“Even if my memories aren’t proof enough, my kids have to be born. They have a future; a destiny. They’ve already impacted the timeline, because they’re time travelers!”

Danica ran back into the room. “That’s enough, Hammer.”

“I would like to stay. I need to be here a year from now, so I can see how the time jump effects her body.”

“Go home, Hammer,” Danica ordered, “before I make you.”

An understanding Mallory stood back up, and left the room. By the time Danica made her way back over to the bed, Leona was already bawling her eyes out. She took her cousin into a hug, and held her there forever.

She must have cried herself to sleep, because she woke up again hours later. Danica was sitting in a chair next to her. “I’m fine,” Leona told her when she tried to help. “I need to get up and move around.”

“I’ll make you something. You need energy.”

“That would be lovely.”

She followed Danica out of the room at a much slower pace. Danica was already rounding the corner to another room when Leona made it to the main living area. A crazy contraption was erected on top of a table. Every ingredient that Leona spent the last two years gathering was there in some fashion. They were held together by auxiliary parts, ending at a wall where Danica had taped the LIR map.

Leona went over to the beginning of what ultimately looked like a Rube Goldberg machine. The first object was the Incorruptible Astrolabe. Though it was designed to correct corruptions to reality, it was evidently not strong enough to do it on its own. Leona reached up and instinctively spun it with her finger. It started spinning, and didn’t stop, even after it should have lost momentum. The Rothko Torch attached to it flickered as they spun faster and faster, until the light was at full power. It shone though the Jayde Spyglass, and out towards the open cosmic sextant, which magically split the light into two beams. Each beam passed through one of the eyepieces from the HG Goggles, which bent the beams back together. The energy passed through the flame of  the Muster Lighter, and shot straight to the LIR Map on the wall. After a moment, a circle had been burnt on the map. The object machine then stopped on its own, letting the astrolabe and flashlight slow naturally.

The Escher Knob, sitting loosely at the end of the table, began to vibrate and glow. Leona tapped it with one finger to make sure it wasn’t hot, which it wasn’t. When she picked it up, it tried to reach the wall, like a magnet. Leona reached over, and let the knob attach itself to the map right at the burn mark, which was the exact same size.

“Did it work?” Danica was standing in the doorway again, holding a sandwich plate, and a glass of chocolate milk.

“I don’t know,” Leona said. Frightened and nervous, she slowly reached up to the knob again, and took hold of it. She pulled it away from the wall. The map came all the way out, at the end of what turned out to be a large drawer. Leona peeked over, and found a body resting inside of it. It looked like a morgue drawer, but deep inside, the walls looked more like a the padding of a casket. “Mateo!”

Danica set the food down, and ran over to help. Together, they pulled him out of the drawer, and laid him on the couch. Leona checked for a pulse, but found nothing. His skin was cold, and very dirty. She tried to perform CPR while Danica ran off to get the defibrillator, but nothing worked. Mateo was back, but he was dead.

“Did I not set it up correctly? Are we missing a piece?”

“I don’t think so.” Leona got the feeling that, if she didn’t find a way to bring him back to life quickly, he would be gone forever. She pulled Hogarth’s instructions out of her gown, and looked them over. No, Danica assembled them all exactly according to specifications. Then she remembered one of the last things Hogarth said to her. She flipped the page over. It was still blank at first, but then ink spontaneously started appearing. Place Insulator of Life on chest. “Oh my God, you’re right. We didn’t get everything. The Insulator of Life wasn’t on our original list.”

“I know where that is; Alpha Centauri C.”

“Proxima?” Leona questioned. “Brooke and Sharice were headed that direction. Of course! Bungula is inhospitable to life. Something called the Insulator of Life could, well...insulate their lives!” She panicked. “He’ll probably start decomposing. I’ll never get there in time.”

“Yes, you will.” Danica went back over to the contraption, and pulled the cosmic sextant off of it. “Hey Thistle, show me the southern hemisphere sky.” The floor disappeared, and revealed the night sky below them. Danica adjusted the sextant where she wanted it, and found the right place on the floor screen. “Come on.”

Leona got up, and gladly accepted the sextant from her cousin.

“Wait here. I’ll give you a care package.” She ran out, and came back a few minutes later with Leona’s bag, and a gurney. She placed a small black object against Leona’s chest, and it stayed there on its own. The two of them pulled Mateo up onto the gurney. “Point the sextant at that point of light right there.”

Leona did as instructed, and waited.

“Safe travels. I love you.”

The map of the sky suddenly zoomed in at a very fast rate, all the way until she could see the ground below her. When Leona looked up, she realized she was on the ground, and The Constant was gone, as was the sextant. This was Proxima Doma, the primary planet in the Proxima Centauri system. The black objects on their chests were emanating a forcefield to protect them from the vacuum, which was something she could have used to prevent her miscarriage. She had lost them, but she wasn’t going to lose her husband. She took the Compass of Disturbance out of her bag, and found her bearing. Then she took hold of Mateo’s gurney, and started running. Then she kept running, until it was 2213.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: October 4, 2211

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The Prototype powered down. The lights flipped off, and new ones came on, almost like the house lights at a theatre. All of the instruments and monitors were blank, suggesting that this was the end of their journey. They did apparently only need one more item on the list. Leona lifted her arm to check her tattoo, but it was completely gone. The regular Compass of Disturbance was sitting on the floor by her feet. Hopefully the Cosmic Sextant was nearby, because they probably wouldn’t find it otherwise. Vito walked over with confidence and opened the door. Hogarth and Leona followed him through. Vitalie took up the rear. A man was staring at them with wonder, in what looked like a cargo hold for a spaceship.

“Can I, uhh, help you?”

“We’re looking for the cosmic sextant,” Hogarth told him honestly.

“What is this thing?”

“The Prototype.”

“Oh.” He was in too much awe to fully process a machine suddenly just appearing out of nowhere. He tapped his comms badge. “Cargomaster Hargesen to Captain Prieto. Come in, Captain.” Prieto? As in, Brooke? Was this The Sharice?

“Go ahead,” an unfamiliar voice responded.

“There’s a, uhh...ship here. I guess that’s what it is. It just appeared in the cargo bay. They’re looking for a tent.”

“A tent?” the voice questioned.

“Yeah, for sex, apparently.”

“A sex tent?” the voice asked him after a pause.

“Yeah, look if you could just come down here, that would be great. I’m not equipped to handle this.”

“Why not, you don’t have genitals?” Okay, that one was definitely Brooke’s voice.

“Sorry about that,” the other voice said. “I’m on my way.”

A woman appeared in the form of a hologram. At the same time, Étude teleported in, holding Brooke Prieto, and a Maramon. “Brooke, is this your family?”

Brooke went over and gave Leona a great big hug. “She is, at least.” She nodded to Hogarth. “It’s nice to see you again, after all this time.”

“Likewise,” Hogarth replied.

“I recognize you two from The Warren,” Brooke said, looking at Vitalie and Vito.

“Brooke Prieto, this is Vitalie and Vito. Vitalie and Vito, this is Brooke, and our friend, Étude. Is this the famous Sharice Davids?”

“Please,” the hologram said. “Sharice Davids is my namesake, and my ship. I go by Prieto.” She and Leona pretended to shake hands.

“In another reality,” Hogarth interrupted the pleasantries, “you took our sextant before we could arrive, and it ruined our mission.” She immediately regretted saying that. “Sorry, I just went through a lot creating this timeline. From extending that game of Go, to hacking into your liveware. I’m exhausted.” This was all news to Leona.

“That was you?” Brooke asked her. “You hacked my brain.”

“I’m sorry, I had to.”

“That’s okay,” Brooke said. “I understand why you did it. I can take you to the sextant.”

Ecrin walked into the room and greeted the newcomers as well. “Is this it?” she asked the Maramon after she was finished.

“Yep,” he answered. “The Prototype.” Was Ecrin and this guy part of the team that fought against the Maramon all over the bulkverse? Did they work with Smith and Vito? Or rather were they going to?

“She’s all yours,” Leona said. “It doesn’t seem to be responding to me anymore.”

“I’ll give you the tour,” Vito said in delight.

“Go on, Relehir,” Ecrin said. “I’ll catch up.”

Vito and the Maramon went into the Prototype, while the cargomaster was asked to go about his business in one of the airlocks. Ecrin tapped her badge. “Holly Blue, Weaver. Please come down to the cargo hold.”

“Holly Blue and The Weaver?” Leona questioned. “You know, I always suspected that—”

“They’re one and the same?” Ecrin guessed. “It’s been confirmed.

Two different versions of the one person showed up, and the greetings had to start again. Evidently, this Weaver was the one from the alternate timeline where Leona and Mateo met all the way back in 2016. That was before the latter went back in time, killed Hitler, and erased himself from history via the butterfly effect. They weren’t fully vocal about how they had gotten her to this timeline, or why.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for everything you’ve done. Over the years, I’ve—”

She was interrupted by a portal that randomly opened a few meters from them. Leona could see a younger version of herself on the other side. Little Paige was there too, as was Ida Reyer, Slipstream, Hilde, and another Hogarth.

Young!Hogarth hopped to it, and headed for the portal. “Bye, Felicia!” she jokingly said to the other Hogarth.

Future!Hogarth scrunched up her face with just as much fake disdain. “You said my line! Bye, Vicki!”

“See you in the red for—” Young!Hogarth tried to say.

“The moment has passed, it’s over.” The portal closed, leaving them with this older version of Hogarth, who was missing an ear. She jerked her head up at Leona, like a thug greeting another thug. “Yo, you got something for me?” she asked, also like a thug.

“What would I have?”

“Looks like a watch.”

Leona looked down at her watch. “This thing?”

“Nah, man. That just tells time. I’m talkin’ about the Paradox Ticker.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You mean from the lockbox?” Vitalie asked. “There’s a watch in there.”

“That’s the one,” Future!Hogarth nodded.

Vitalie ran back into the Prototype, then came out holding one of the special temporal objects they found with the hoarder, who also had the home stone and Escher Knob. “This?”

Future!Hogarth was ecstatic. “Perfect!” She turned the crown carefully, then held it up to her temple, and pressed the button down. Seemingly painfully, her ear reconstituted itself completely. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad to be done with that chapter. You have my book too?”

Leona reached into her bag, and retrieved the Book of Hogarth.

“Great.” Future!Hogarth took the book graciously, opened it up, tore out a page, and handed it to Leona. “Here are the instructions for assembly. Remember, there’s a back side.”

The instructions were short, but to the point on how to put all the ingredients together to get Mateo back. Leona flipped it over. “There’s nothing on the back.”

Future!Hogarth tossed the Paradox Ticker in her bag, but carefully laid the book inside. “There will be. Now. It’s been real.” She threw her bag over her shoulder, and gave them all a salute. “Tell that demon in there to go fork himself. Don’t worry, he’s not evil, but we have personal beef.” She took a few steps back, shut her eyes tightly, and sent herself into a temporal displacement explosion on purpose.

“Wow, that was weird,” Sharice noted after a long silence.

“What was I saying?” Ecrin asked.

“Goodbye,” Sharice answered bluntly.

“Yes, that’s it.” She composed herself after that crazy timey-wimey stuff. “It has been an honor serving with you all. I wish good luck to you in your endeavors. Leona, I hope you get your husband back. Vitalie, I wish we had more time to catch up. Sharice, you will one day learn to play Go without cheating. Holly Blue, remember that you are responsible for what you invent. Weaver, remember how influential you are to your alternate and younger self. Brooke, I love you. You and your daughter take care of my ship. No explosions, please. And finally, Étude.” She deliberately faced the former Last Savior of Earth, and stared at her intently. “There are no words.”

Étude rolled her eyes.

Ready now, Ecrin fought back tears, and walked into the Prototype. With no warning, the door closed behind her, powered up its engines, and disappeared.

Vitalie squinted and frowned at the space the machine once occupied. “I left all my shit in there.”

They heard a loud clap behind them. Sharice had her hands clasped together, and looked different than before. She was no longer a hologram, but a physical individual standing before them. “With Ecrin gone, I am officially the only captain of this ship. Now that we have what we need, as do the Vespiarians, we will be departing in a half hour. Anyone wishing to remain here should disembark now.”

“Yeah, uhh...” the cargomaster struggled to fit back through the airlock hatch, which wasn’t open all the way. He tripped, and fell to his hands. “Oh, shit.” He got himself back up. “Yeah, sorry, yeah. I’ve decided to stay. Magic doorways to Earth, disappearing ships; if that’s the kind of stuff the communists have access to, I want no part of Bungula.”

“We don’t call ourselves communists,” Holly Blue explained to him.

“Right, sorry,” he apologized. “Who is going to Earth?”

“No one,” Brooke said to him. “The Sharice is going to Bungula. The Vespiarians are staying here on Vespiary.”

“Are we sure about that?” Leona was looking more carefully at the instructions that Hogarth passed off to her. “If there’s a way to get me back to Earth, that would be wonderful. I didn’t think it mattered, but it says here I have to assemble these in The Constant.”

“We can take them back.” A woman was walking towards them. “We’ve discussed things with our Plutonian team, and have decided to go back home. This experiment is over. Besides, I was told someone really was interested in this sextant.” She held it up in her hands.

“Yes, that’s what I came here for. Oh my God, I have everything I need.” Leona went over to take a look at the last object.

Brooke frowned at the woman. “Farhana, did we contaminate the experiment?”

“Technically, I suppose you did, but that’s not why we’re leaving. We’ve received word on new rogue planet detection technology. We’re starting a new project in true interstellar space.”

“Would you be able to leave in a year?” Leona asked them. “For reasons I can’t quite explain, I have to leave either today, or a year from now.”

“We’re leaving an automated contingency to gather data on the Oort cloud,” Farhana replied. “Which means we don’t have to strike the base. My team can be ready to go within the hour.”

Leona was grateful for the circumstances. “That would be amazing.”

“I would like to go as well,” Holly Blue said. “I have family I would like to see again on Earth.”

“You do?” Weaver asked her. Something was apparently different about their respective personal timelines.

“Yes,” Holly Blue confirmed simply.

“Where is this ship going?” Vitalie asked.

“Bungula,” Brooke answered.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, one of the closest stars to ours.”

Vitalie looked at Leona sadly.

“It’s okay if you want to go, love,” Leona said sincerely. “I’m thankful for everything you’ve done, but like I keep saying, you owe me nothing.”

“I think I’m just ready for the next chapter of my life,” Vitalie added.

Leona smiled and nodded. “I agree.”

Sharice clapped her hands loudly again. “Great. Sounds like everyone has their assignments. You have ten minutes to get your affairs in order before we start the preflight checklist.”

Ten minutes was not nearly long enough, especially since both Holly Blue and the cargomaster needed time to clear out their rooms, and move over to the other ship. Sharice ended up extending the deadline by twenty minutes for them. The Vosa was smaller than The Sharice, but was now just as fast, excluding any temporal manipulation add-ons. The trip back to Earth would take them the better part of a year, which meant Leona would only be on it for the rest of the day. When she returned to the timeline, it should already be on Earth, or be very close to it. For some reason, though, it wasn’t.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: May 19, 2161

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The group said their goodbyes to Khuweka, and also to Avidan, who only Vitalie really knew. Then they went back to The Prototype, and plotted a course for their home universe. It took them about another year to travel the distance across the bulkverse. Leona stepped out and looked at the magical watch Mario Matic had given her. It was showing that present day was May 19, 2161.

Vitalie was just stepping out as well when she heard Leona announce where they were. She scrambled back inside, colliding with Kallias in her attempt.

He hugged her, and ushered her behind him before getting into a defensive position. “What? What is it?”

Leona looked around too, but didn’t see anything. They were just standing on the outskirts of some arcology somewhere. Nothing else was around.

“I’m not going out there,” Vitalie said. “May 19, 2161. I know that date. This is the day that hundreds of innocent people are forcibly pulled up to Durus as it gets this close to crashing into Earth.”

“She’s right,” Leona realized. “I skipped over it because of my pattern, but this is the Deathspring.”

“What’s going on up there?” Vito questioned. He teleported out of the machine, and landed next to Leona. “You said something about death.”

“The Deathspring,” Leona explained. “It’s what caused a second influx of unwilling people to move to Durus.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. What time is it, though? It doesn’t happen until 10:01 PM UTC.”

Kivi came to the entrance. “We’re in Kansas City.”

Leona looked back at her watch. “If Vito’s right about when the Deathspring occurs—”

“Which I am.”

Leona continued, “...then we only have a few hours to find the Escher Knob, and get the hell out of this time period.”

“I am not leaving this thing,” Vitalie said firmly. “I don’t know if it’ll protect me, but I know what happened to my fathers will happen to me if I get stuck out there.”

“That’s okay,” Leona assured her. “Someone has to stay and look after Dubravka. In fact, no one has to go but me.”

“I’m going with you,” Dubra argued.

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re my mother, and you’re meant to take care of me.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Vitalie is right, this is the safest place in the world right now.”

“I’m older than I look, by two years!” Dubra cried.

“You most certainly are,” but I made your mom a promise, and I’m keeping it. We have exposed you to far too much danger already, and that stops now.”

“You can’t hold me here!” Dubra kept yelling.

“I can,” Vito said to her, then turned to Leona. “Vitalie and I will keep her safe.”

“Thank you,” Leona said to him. She pulled her sleeve back to consult her Compass of Disturbance tattoo. “I’m heading this direction.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kallias said.

“I would love the company.” She knelt down and addressed little Dubra. “I need you to stay here and be good. Do what Uncle Vito and Aunt Vitalie tell you.”

Dubra was still upset, but couldn’t fight anymore. “Fine.”

“Where did Kivi go?” Kallias asked.

“Who?”

“Kivi,” Kallias repeated.

“She’s not here. She’s never been here. How do you even know Kivi? Wait, was Kivi just here?”

“Uhh, yeah. She’s been with you this whole time.” Kallias was confused.

Leona looked around. “Kivi? Kivi! Keep shakin’ that bush!” She waited for a moment in the silence. “Hm, she’s gone now.” She looked back down at her tattoo, and started following it forwards.

“That’s it?” Kallias questioned. “She randomly disappears, and you just shrug it off? That’s cold.”

“Nobody shrugged,” Leona replied. “Disappearing is her thing. She spends more of her time gone than she does in existence. Nobody freaks out anymore when I disappear for an entire year. She’ll be back later.”

“When?”

Now Leona shrugged. “No way of knowing.”

They walked for about a kilometer before it started feeling like this was going to take too long, so they stashed their bags under a bush, and went into a light jog, picking up the pace over time. The tattoo wasn’t telling them how far it was, but it never navigated the Prototype too far away, teleportation possibilities included. As a cop, Kallias was well in shape for this, but Leona had more motivation, so she fought through the pain. They would need to call Vito for help soon, though, since the Deathspring was nearly upon them.

Finally they came across the only structure in the whole wilderness. It was fairly small, so Leona was able to walk the perimeter, which confirmed for her that this was their destination. Once she had come back around, Kallias knocked on the door. A man poked his head out and scowled at them. “You will not have them!” Then he violently slammed the door shut behind him.

“Rude,” Leona said.

“Hold my purse,” Kallias said jokingly. He took the HG Goggles out of his back pocket, and held them against his face, which was disgusting, since they had just spent years embedded in the face of a rotting corpse. He leaned down, and stared at the door handle for a few minutes, then he leaned back, and kicked the door in with his foot.

“How did you know the goggles could do that?” Leona asked him.

“When you want something to do something, you just have to try it. If it hadn’t worked, I still would have kicked in the door; it just would have hurt more.”

“Who are you?” the man inside the building spat. “What do you want from me?” He was clutching a lockbox tightly to his chest. “These are mine!”

“We only want one thing,” Leona told him.

He hissed. The man actually hissed, like some kind of mall worker.

Kallias added, “it’s about yea big, goes on a door. Opens any door.”

He hissed louder. “Don’t come any closer!”

Leona tried to step forwards, but the man held up his hand, and she was suddenly back outside of the building, looking at herself stepping forwards, and disappearing. She also saw Kallias fall back to his cop instincts, and immediately shoot at the man. But he was sent back out of the building as well, where he promptly fell to his back, and clutched his shoulder. Blood was leaking out between his fingers. Leona dove down to him. “You shot him!” she screamed back at the man.

“He shot himself!” the man hissed.

“You teleported him, and the bullet, so it’s your fault!” Leona volleyed.

“Semantics.” He opened the box as he stepped closer to the exit. “If you want me to shoot you, I will. It’s programmed to banish you outside of a several kilometer radius.”

“Is that a teleporter gun?” Leona asked him.

“You can’t have it! This is going to protect me from the Deathspring!”

“Unlikely,” Kallias said as he was struggling to get to his feet. “I’m fine,” he said to Leona. “If those are temporal objects, they are putting you in more danger. They’re going to be drawn to Durus. We have to get them out of here before that happens. You can come with us.”

Tremors started shaking the building. “It’s happening!” He scrambled to get the teleporter gun back into his box, while pulling out a rock. “Luckily, I have the Stone of Gravity.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Leona said.

“Well, now you have.” He pointed to her body. “You can tell Durus all about it.”

She looked down at herself. She was waving and swirling, like the air above a flame. She looked back at the man, who was doing the same thing. It would seem the Stone of Gravity wasn’t working.

“What?” the man shouted. “No! He lied to me! He lied!” He started flying up towards a massive bulge in the sky, as did Leona.

She was several meters above the Earth when Kallias jumped, and caught up to her. “Save yourself!” she ordered him.

“Shut up!” Blood was still dropping out of his shoulder wound, but Kallias ignored it and took his gun back out of its holster. He straddled Leona by the stomach to free both his hands, so he could aim right above them. He fired the gun.

Leona looked up to see the lockbox fall right down to them. She lifted her own arms, and caught it. Then she rested it on her chest so she could get it open and take out the teleporter gun. She quickly programmed it to take them back down to the surface, and shot Kallias point blank.

“Mom!” Leona could hear Dubravka’s young voice scream to her.

Leona found her bearings, and looked over to the Prototype, which was only a dozen meters away. “No! Don’t!”

Dubra was already running out of the prototype, Vitalie at her tail. They were both pulled into the air. Kallias sprang into action, grabbing the teleporter gun from Leona’s hands, and aiming it towards the girls. It was clear that his wound was making it harder than normal. He fired the gun, and hit Vitalie. She appeared back at the ground. He tried to shoot Dubra as well, but nothing come out.

“It needs to charge!” Leona yelled, but it didn’t matter. It would take at least a few minutes to charge, and could take hours, depending on how efficient this particular model was.

Vito ran out out of the Prototype. “I’ll get her!” but he couldn’t do it either. Something fell right on top of his head, and started tearing at his face. It was the same kind of monster that attacked Leona and Serif when they returned to the timeline months from now. Kallias, who was now barely standing up, walked forward and empty his gun into the creature, which was more than enough to kill it. The monster was strong enough to cause quite a bit of damage to Vito. Though he was able to heal himself using the Serif-nanites that swam throughout his body, by the time he had recovered enough to try and get Dubra back, it was too late. Durus and Earth’s near-miss was over, and the former was on its way out of the solar system forever.

The group sat on the ground against the Prototype in a stupor. “I don’t know why we tried so hard to save her,” Leona said. “This was all predestined. If she didn’t go to Durus now, she couldn’t be one of the passengers on The Warren years from now, which means she couldn’t save my life. So much happened because of today. We couldn’t change it, and if we had, what would our world look like? What would theirs?”

Vito crawled over and breathed on Kallias’ shoulder to heal it. “That doesn’t mean you could have just smiled and let her go. The real question is, what would the world look like if we never tried to fight against impossible odds to protect our children?”

Hogarth suddenly appeared from one of her explosions, crashing hard into the wall of the Prototype, and falling to the ground next to Vitalie. She caught her breath, and took the Rothko Torch out of her bag. “You better keep this instead.” She tossed it over to Leona, then something in the lockbox caught her eye. “Oo, you have a home stone.”

“What?” Kallias asked. He lifted the rock from the hissing man’s box. “This thing? The guy said it was a Stone of Gravity.”

“What the hell is a Stone of Gravity? No, supposedly that will take you back to when and where you were before you started traveling through time, like a one-time reset button, except it doesn’t undo everything you changed. So, that’s not the right analogy. I do think it reverses aging, though...” She started getting lost in her own thoughts.

“You should take it,” Leona said to him.

Kallias checked for everyone else’s approval with glances.

“Don’t look at me,” Vitalie said. “I just barely escaped going back to where I was born. I belong here.”

The others smiled at him kindly. He set the box down on the ground, and placed the goggles inside. “Here’s the Escher Knob, and the HG Goggles, and some other things that should be interesting.”

They said their goodbyes to yet another compatriot, then watched him squeeze the stone, and go back home.

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