The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 1, 2399

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Mangrove Rocket Three was placed on autopilot, and kept in orbit. Everyone went down to Mangrove One in a drop ship, including good guys, and not so good guys. From here they started going their separate ways. Aldona stayed to continue working on the defense program. A representative from the Naval Fleet flew in from Antarctica to take the Fifth Divisioner away. Tarboda flew everyone else back to Kansas City in his new sleek jet. Fairpoint is being returned to the government black site where he was locked up before. He’ll be joined by Erlendr Preston, Senator Morton, and Labhrás Delaney in a different capacity. The federal government actually has their own reintegration program for some cases, so he’ll stay there in a comfortable and unlocked room, with restricted movements, until he’s ready to rejoin into society. They’ll keep an eye on him even after that, especially Winona, who is overseeing the operation.

Morton declined Leona’s offer to get a hair transplant from Alyssa’s original body. It was kind of a silly idea, and might not have worked how they intended, or even at all. Bridget is staying close by, working with SD6 in some kind of non-field role, and has no intention of maintaining any significant relationship with the team. Speaking of the team, Vearden will be going back to the hospital suite he lives in with Arcadia, whose condition has remained unchanged since his death and resurrection. Everyone else, plus Tarboda, is going to the new lab that they haven’t used in a while.

Leona plans to continue to work with Aldona remotely, but Alyssa has agreed to let her transfer her consciousness to her old body, so she can at least move around on her own. Mateo stops short on their way across the parking lot. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Heath asks. They got him up to speed on everything, and he hasn’t missed a beat. This whole ordeal has made him miss his wife, though, and he does want to get back to her. He reportedly hopes that she feels the same, even after all this time.

“Leona is gone. It’s just me in here.”

“What happened to her?” Heath presses. “Could she just be, I dunno...asleep?”

“We sleep at the same time.” Mateo searches his mind, trying to find the imaginary line that divides his thoughts from hers, but it’s gone. He’s all alone again.

“That’s my fault,” Alyssa tells him with a sad look on her face.

“What do you mean?” Mateo asks.

“Try to teleport?” she suggests. “Try to teleport over there,” she rephrases.

“Okay.” Mateo tries, but doesn’t go anywhere. He’s puzzled. He tries again, but still nothing. “What’s stopping me?”

“I am,” Alyssa replies.

“How?”

“The Omega Gyroscope,” she clarifies. “I’m its caretaker now.”

“I didn’t think that worked, since it was really meant to be Leona.”

“No, it worked. I’m in charge of it now.”

“But we were able to teleport now, as long as we had access to temporal energy,” Mateo reasons.

“That’s changed,” she explains.

“Well...can you change it back?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t want to,” she claims.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anyone to have powers. Temporal, psychic, bioenhancements; I want it all to stop.”

“You’ve never expressed this desire before,” Mateo reminds her.

“I never felt it before. I do now.”

“Since when? When they brought you back? Does it have something to do with your new substrate?”

“No,” Alyssa insists. “It wasn’t until after I got back to Earth. I started feeling it on the launch pad, and it only grew stronger the more I stayed, or maybe the closer I got to Kansas City. I don’t know which.”

Mateo shuts his eyes, remembering something. “That little discrepancy they found in your brain. The thing that Ramses and Arcadia didn’t understand. They thought it was maybe Erlendr, or some other invader, but you’ve always had it. You had it when we met you.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking. It was a little dormant seed that sprouted just now, presumably because I’ve returned from the past.”

“And because you’re closer to the gyroscope itself. That means you can find it.”

“I don’t want you to find it.” Alyssa sounds almost angry.

“That’s just the psychic seed in you. What do you want?”

“I want you to back off!” She hops away from him like he was about to hit her.

Heath and Tarboda don’t want to be involved. They stay quiet, and stay back.

Mateo steps back too. “Now just think about this. Is that how you would have reacted to me a month ago? Would you be saying these things either?”

“I’m not saying them a month ago. I’m saying them now!”

“I understand that—” He tries to say in a soft voice.

“Don’t condescend to me!” She shouts.

Mateo shrinks, and averts his gaze. He doesn’t know how to handle this situation.

Alyssa sees that she’s overreacting. “I know that I’m different. I know that I shouldn’t feel the way that I do, but I don’t know how to go back to my old self, and I don’t know how to make myself want to.” She runs her hand through her hair anxiously.

Mateo can tell what’s about to happen next. He’s learned to recognize the acute stress response in anyone, and she’s about to run. Fighting didn’t work, so she’s going to switch to flight. If she teleports, which she can probably do as the only exception to the new no powers rule in the world, they may never find her again. He has to make her feel safe here, and remind her that no one is going to hurt her. The seed in her brain may get worse if they do nothing, but it’s certainly not going to get better if they keep pushing it, so for now, it’s worth the risk to just accept her decision, however misguided—and not truly hers—it may be. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

Alyssa looks at him with the expression someone would have if they were tearing up, but no tears are forming. She’s trying to express herself appropriately, but it’s not working. “The last time I tried to meditate, I ended up dying.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

“That’s what I’m suggesting,” she clarifies. “I’ll fix this. I’ll fix my brain, and then I’ll fix everything else. They’re not going to take away my agency, whoever they are.”

“No, please don’t go,” he pleads.

“It’s okay, Mateo. I just need to be alone.” She disappears.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 9, 2398

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Arcadia has her own life, so she hasn’t had time to learn how to use the equipment in the lab. She and Ramses came up with a code phrase in case he ever suspected himself of being psychically compromised again, but that’s about as far as they got with the protocols. She and Vearden drove there from their house yesterday, and they’ve been here ever since, reading the manual that Ramses prepared in case he was ever indisposed. He didn’t write all of himself. He got a lot of help from their new AI, Constance. Actually, it was more like him helping her. The text is well organized, and easy to understand for the less educated, like Arcadia, but it’s still a lot, so she didn’t want to rush this. “Okay, I’ve found Alyssa’s most recent scan.”

“Okay,” Ramses replies, still inside the containment chamber with Alyssa. It was awkward after their conversation, but they took turns on the cot, and made it work. He might install multiple cots after all this, but on the other hand, he doesn’t want to plan for another crisis.

“And I see her history. It’s definitely changed.”

“Good, can you look at my history?”

“Yeah, I see it right here.”

“Okay, run a scan on both of us, it’s fine, just make sure you tell the scanner that it should be expecting two consciousnesses, instead of one.”

“No, I think I know how to scan you and you alone.”

“All right.” Ramses grimaces. That’s not a very high level function, but it’s not completely obvious either.

“Just please go to your separate corners,” Arcadia requests.

Ramses stays near the front while Alyssa goes behind him, thinking she’s getting out of the way.

“No, um, different corners.” The chamber is more circular than it is round, but Alyssa figures it out, and ends up catty-corner to him. Now that the two subjects aren’t too close to each other, the machine scans Ramses’ brain. Arcadia watches the data come in. She’s seen enough already by comparing the new scan with his scan history. “Constance, sequestration wall.”

A wall comes down from the ceiling, physically separating Ramses from Alyssa. “What? Why did you do that?” Alyssa questions.

Ramses sighs. “I’m not infected. She’s trying to protect me from you.”

“I still need to keep you contained,” Arcadia says. “I’ve only run one test, so you can’t leave, but I don’t want to risk further cross-contamination.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ramses says to Alyssa.

“Get it out. Get it out of my brain,” she begs.

“It’s not that bad,” Ramses assures her. “Erlendr can’t control your actions. It’s more like he extracted a piece of his consciousness, and implanted it in you, so everything you’ve experienced since then can be his. But don’t worry, you only uploaded yourself into the Insulator once to see if he would respond better to you asking for help with Leona’s bounty. You haven’t been back, which means he can’t have downloaded anything from you yet.”

“How do you know he didn’t download anything from me from my life before?”

“We would have seen that,” Ramses tells her. “We would have seen him doing that as it was happening. He hasn’t gotten anything from you, and we’re gonna figure out how to get the infection out before it can do any harm, right?” He turns to face Arcadia at the last few words.

“Yeah, I can do this,” Arcadia replies confidently. “With my new knowledge of this tech, combined with my naturally psychic abilities, this will be easy. I just need to know more about what we’re dealing with. I have to analyze Alyssa’s scan history.”

“Synthesize,” Ramses corrects. “You need to synthesize it. It’s far more complicated than just pointing to an area of the brain, and saying, that’s been taken over by Erlendr.”

“I know, I just...don’t know all the lingo yet,” Arcadia says. Yikes, she thinks. Is she going to be able to do this?

After Arcadia completes one more scan for good measure on Alyssa’s brain, Alyssa sighs, and plops herself down on the cot to wait. Arcadia works on the problem for the next few hours. She scans her own brain with an external unit to figure out why it is that her mental defenses weren’t able to protect Alyssa from this intrusion. She asks Ramses for a little guidance throughout, but doesn’t want to involve him too much as she’s not one hundred percent sure that he’s not also secretly infected. Vearden, unable to do anything, becomes the errand boy for all three of them. He goes out to get them food, and other amenities. He also dotes on Arcadia, and tries to make sure she has everything she needs to be comfortable, like a lumbar pillow, and ice chips. She’s fourteen weeks pregnant, not in hospice, but if he can’t stop her from working, he’s at least going to make sure she doesn’t overexert herself. She accepts the support, because arguing would make it worse, and it is helping her focus on Alyssa.

Finally, Arcadia is certain that there is nothing wrong with Ramses, which is probably what she should have been most worried about the entire time. With him back in commission, she doesn’t need to be responsible for Alyssa’s psychic restoration. She lets him out of the containment chamber, and steps aside so he can take over. She doesn’t want to leave while he’s working, though, because now she’s invested.

“Hold on,” Ramses says. He pulls up Alyssa’s scan history again, and puts them all in a row. “Constance, loop these images in rapid succession, chronologically.”

The AI performs the request.

“What is it?” Alyssa asks.

“It can’t be.” Ramses peers at the screen, and watches the loop a few more times while Arcadia watches it over his shoulder, not sure what she’s seeing. He stops, and looks inquisitively up at Alyssa. “This is going to be an odd question, but I need you to really think hard about it. Before you met this team, did you have any other interaction with someone who may have been a time traveler, or a psychic, or something? Thinking back, was there someone who you now realize may have been a little...different?”

“Not that I can think of,” she answers. “Why? Have my scans always been weird?”

“Well, I first scanned your mind a long time ago, when we were figuring out how to do your illusion powers, and I always took the data as what we in the business call baseline, but maybe they never were. I don’t think this is Erlendr. I think someone else put something in your head, and it could have been a long time ago.”

“What do we do about that?” Arcadia questions.

Ramses takes a breath. “More tests.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 8, 2398

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Ramses and Mateo decided to not talk to each other too much for fear of disturbing the timeline, which feels more fragile than the ones in other realities. Ramses is grateful to know that his best friend is safe...for now, but worried more than ever for Leona. He can’t help either of them right now. He has his own problems to deal with. Erlendr initially declined his offer to loan him Leona Reaver’s body so they can fake Leona Matic’s death to get the bounty off her head. As promised, Ramses let him stay in Bhulan’s field of daisies simulation in the Insulator of Life anyway. The next day, Erlendr called to say that he had changed his mind, and he would help them with their ruse. The next day after that, he called again to change his mind again. He’s been flip-flopping ever since, and it’s only now that Ramses has realized that it doesn’t matter what they do now. They can never trust the man to follow the script. Team Matic has turned a number of people to the light side over the ages, but Erlendr Preston will never be one of them. Some people are just broken, and they can’t be fixed, because too many pieces are missing. In his case, it’s any concept of selflessness.

“I’ll do it,” Alyssa says.

“You’ll do what?” Ramses questions.

“Transfer my mind to Reaver’s body. I’ll play the part that Erlendr was going to.”

Ramses brushes the idea away from himself. “You can’t do that, it’s too dangerous.”

“Are you saying I’m not capable? You were gonna trust that man, but not me? I’ve heard the stories.”

“It’s not that we trust him,” Ramses explains, “it’s that we don’t care what happens to him. If it doesn’t work, and that Reaver body is on its last life, it would be no great loss to the world. That’s not something I’m prepared to risk when it comes to someone I actually care about.”

“You care about Leona more,” Alyssa forthputs.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve known her a lot longer.”

Ramses winces. “Love isn’t measured on a sliding scale. You’re one of us, I thought we had already convinced you of this.”

“The danger she’s in is real. Someone is going to kill her, or Arcadia. It’s just a matter of time, in my opinion. I only might die if I do this. I’ll take those odds.”

“Like I said, I love you, but I’m the one who understands the odds. We still don’t know who placed the extraction mirror underneath Alt!Mateo and Leona Reaver. They may have always been trying to kill you, and have been waiting for you to do what you’re proposing the whole time. You’re still not accustomed to envisaging motivations that don’t exist yet...of people who may not even exist yet.”

“Everyone else has risked their lives to help each other. If you truly think of me as part of the group...” She places a hand on his thigh, “and you truly love me, you’ll let me help.” She slides her hand a couple of centimeters up, extinguishing all ambiguity.

He’s never going to agree to this. They’ll just have to find another way. This whole plan was never foolproof, nor inherently necessary. There’s every chance that, even if it goes off without a hitch, Leona and Arcadia will still be in danger. No need to put Alyssa in the same position. Ramses gently removes her hand from his leg. “It’s hard to calculate how much older I am than you.”

She leans in. “I’m sorry, I stopped listening after you said that you were hard.”

“Not what I meant, just like I didn’t mean it that way when I said I love you.”

“I’m almost twenty-two. Where I’m from, when you turn nineteen, there’s no maximum age for your chosen partner.”

“Where I’m from, there is. I think of you as a little sister.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Look—”

“Perfect,” Alyssa interrupts. “Now you’re gonna condescend to me.”

“Look around, Lyss. We’re the only two people left. Angela’s on a spaceship with your brothers, Leona and Marie are missing, Mateo is in another reality. Arcadia and Vearden are...ya know, not really part of this anyway. I don’t even wanna talk about Cheyenne. We’re both feeling lonely, I’m sure, but I’ve seen this happen before, in another life. These sorts of relationships that are just about boredom and escapism don’t just not work out; they turn sour. If we were normal people, I might not think it’s that big of a deal, but we’re going to leave the Third Rail one day, and we could be stuck on a tiny spaceship together. Trust me, it’s not a good idea, age gap notwithstanding.”

“I’m not asking for a boyfriend,” Alyssa spits. “Jesus, get over yourself.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said get over yourself.”

“No, who’s Jesus?”

“It’s just an expression.”

“No, it’s not, he’s a real person from history, but as far as I know, not your history. Why would that be an expression in this timeline?”

“I dunno, man, I’m not a linguist. Stop trying to change the subject. This isn’t one of your crazy time travel mysteries. If you’re not going to let me help you protect Leona, then we need to focus on coming up with a new plan.”

“No, this is the only thing that matters right now. If you really wanna help, I need you to get into that containment chamber, and stand in the center.”

“Are you going to hurt me?” she asks.

“Only if you refuse. Alyssa would not refuse.”

“I am Alyssa.”

“Great!” He nods at her, because she already has her orders.

Confused, she steps up into the chamber, and waits as he closes the door, then goes over to fiddle with his gizmos. “Are you seeing anything?”

“Don’t move, please,” he requests. He engages the scan, and watches the data. She looks mostly like herself, but not entirely. There’s something wrong with her brain, and in all likelihood, his own as well. He grabs his phone, and dials Arcadia. When she answers, he utters the emergency code, “media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages, and online magazine racks.”

“Get in the chamber,” Arcadia demands. “I’m on my way.”

“What the hell is wrong?” Alyssa asks Ramses after he steps into the chamber with her, and commands the lab to go into lockdown.

“Your mind is infected with psychic energy, most likely Erlendr’s. I’ve been in the Insulator more than you; I must assume I’m infected too. Don’t worry, help is coming.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 29, 2398

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That proves it. Meredarchos and Erlendr are sharing a body, they can transfer themselves to anyone they choose, and the whole thing with taking Trina’s body was just a ruse to get them to look for the wrong face. The danger here is that, regardless of what body they’re possessing at the moment, they can psychically infect others. Either their victims become so loyal to them that they’re willing to kill their own friends, or the process instills such hatred in them that they’re willing to kill their own friends. Either result ends the same, and they don’t know how to stop it. Arcadia was able to keep them out of her head, as well as Vearden’s, but she may not be able to scale that to the entire team, let alone everyone in the world. Right now, the evil duo feels like an unstoppable force, and while nowhere is safe, some places may be safer than others.

“Are you sure?” Leona asks. She came back early from her business trip at the factory in Oberlin, Ohio to deal with all this.

“Positive,” Arcadia answers. “He’s...a shell.”

Heath is kind of like a baby, except that he doesn’t cry, and he has the motor functions of an adult with absolutely no motivation. If someone turns his head to the left, he just leaves it there. If they stick his hands up in the air, he leaves them there too. He can be physically manipulated like a puppet with invisible strings. He can’t talk, or express needs and wants. He can’t feed himself, and he soils his pants when the opportunity comes up. Fortunately, he’s showing signs of being able to relearn all of these things. He’s mimicked basic sounds, and Marie is hopeful that he will one day speak again. He won’t really be Heath, though. He’s just a doll who looks exactly like her husband did, who is now dead. Any emotional attachment she holds for this individual is irrational and human. He can’t reciprocate, at least not yet.

“We don’t have the resources to protect him,” Leona points out, “nor the qualifications.”

“What about our joint therapist?” Marie asks. She’s always teary-eyed now, but keeping it together.

“She’s not qualified to help someone like this with something like this,” Leona explains.

“But surely she knows someone. He doesn’t need neurological help, the tools are all there in his head. He just needs...a parent. I can help partially, but I really need the guidance of someone who understands development.”

“Okay, I can try to speak with Magnus Sharpe,” Leona agrees.

“No, I know her the best,” Marie says. “I’ll speak with her. I just need someone to help Heath get into bed for a nap.”

“I can do that,” Arcadia volunteers. She frowns when Marie gives her a look. “Forget what you remember of me, or what you’ve been told. I’m not that person anymore. I want to help. He and I grew close while we were living together at the condo. Let me do this.”

Marie is hesitant, but gives in. Heath needs constant supervision, and since she can’t be with him all the time, she’ll have to learn to trust others to pitch in. She steps away to make the call, expecting to have to speak to a number of people regarding her husband’s unique condition.

Mateo nods at her respectfully as he’s entering the apartment. He sees Arcadia ushering Heath into the bedroom. “What can I do?” he asks his wife.

Leona has been thinking about that. “You developed rapport with the founder of Palmeria, correct?”

“Keaton Palmer, yes, I did. He’s quite friendly. He’s going to help us leave this reality when his ride shows up in five months.”

“Even if it overrides that favor, I need you to ask him for a new one.”

“What’s that?”

Leona releases a hologram from her watch, showing a satellite view of the islands. “I had Ramses look into why you weren’t able to teleport within the borders of the island. Preliminary data suggests a powerful barrier protecting the area. I wondered how he was able to prevent invasion without any security to speak of. Why, even a couple of kids wanting to pull a prank might try to boat up there and teepee the woods. They can’t. Ramses found stories of people trying. They all wake up on this side of the border, feeling terribly sick, and with no memory of what happened to them. Barely any time has passed. This may be our best defense against Meredarchos, and his future legions. I think he has to be in proximity to get into your head.”

“You want me to ask Palmer how he built his barrier?”

“More than that, I want you to ask if he would be willing to accept some refugees. We need to protect our family. We need to protect Heath and Marie, and the kids. Ram and I can construct our own barrier of some kind if we need to, but this would still be a warzone. Palmeria is small, remote, and inconsequential.”

“You don’t need to sell me on it, love. I got you.” Mateo disappears.

Arcadia steps out of the bedroom and shuts the door quietly. “I think he understood me when I told him to sleep. He closed his eyelids on his own upon hearing the words. He’s picking up skills quickly.”

“Good. I know that Marie appreciates the help, and I appreciate you wanting to help us at all. And I think we both know that playing capacity nurse doesn’t exactly make use of your own skills, does it?”

Arcadia frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“Kivi is leaving us. She’s leaving the business, and staying in the field. She may not know yet, but she’s taking her team leader up on an offer to work full time for SD6.”

“Okay...” Arcadia isn’t sure why she needs to know any of this.

“I have a lot of pull there, so while I haven’t actually spoken to anyone about it, I’m certain that I can get you assigned to the team as well.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Kivi can find Meredarchos and Erlendr. You can combat their psychic power.”

Arcadia wants to argue, but she knows she’s in no position to do so. “Okay.”

“Before you leave for that, however, I need you to do something else,” Leona begins, “if you’re even capable of it.”

“I’ll try, whatever it is.”

“What you did for Vearden, when you blocked psychic energy from getting into his head, or whatever it is. Is that permanent, or has his mental wall fallen since then?”

“I made it permanent once I realized the full extent of the threat. I suppose you want me to do the same for everyone else?”

“I like the way you think,” Leona says.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 28, 2398

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There’s a knock at the door. No one has the chance to even go over to answer it before it opens. A large and looming man comes down the hallway. His facial expression keeps changing from happy to irritated, like he can’t decide which one he feels. Vearden jumps up, and places himself between the man and his friends. Seeing this, the man forces himself to hold a smile. “I’m glad that my daughter found someone like you.”

Arcadia reaches behind the couch cushion and pulls out the emergency knife. Without any warning, she flings it at the body that her father is now wearing. It lands right in his heart, where it belongs.

Erlendr looks down at it. “This body will die soon, but we will find another.” He reaches both arms out like a stereotypical Frankenstein monster.

Arcadia feels a pulsing energy in her head. He’s trying to break into her brain, which would normally be fine, because she can hold the door closed, but her friends are not like her. She’s particularly worried about her beau, Vearden. She’s always struggled with empathizing with other people. She’s always had her own feelings—she’s not a sociopath—but she’s only recently figured out how to care about others. Well, she’s learned how to truly care about them, instead of just convincing herself that she does. If she doesn’t help combat the psychic intrusion for the other people in this room, though, it will prove that she didn’t learn anything. She really is trying to be a better person. Vearden is helping her with it. He’s not directly teaching her what it takes; she’s smart enough to understand academically. She just needs to be reminded everyday that it is possible for someone to love her. But that love is not what’s going to save them now. It’s her love for them that will. She concentrates on putting up barriers to protect them.

Erlendr smirks. “You may protect one or two, but you can’t keep me out of all of their minds.” He tips backwards, and falls over. He’s not dead yet, just unable to withstand his own weight.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t protect all of them, like he said. Vearden appears to be safe, she created a psychic barrier to keep Erlendr—as well as Meredarchos, most likely, judging by the fact that he used the word we to describe himself—out of him. Bridgette and Heath, on the other hand, are not necessarily safe. What did they do to them, though? The stranger’s body is dying anyway, which means that the psychic stowaways can’t maintain control over them, so did they just want information, or what?

Heath suddenly breaks out of a stupor, and gathers his bearings. He looks around, quickly settling on the dying man on the floor. “Master, no!” He runs over, and dives down to inspect the wound. “No, it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Just hold on. He takes off his own shirt to wrap around the knife, and keep pressure on the wound.”

“What are you doing?” Vearden questions.

“Somebody help!” Heath cries. “We can’t let him die!”

“Not only can we let him die,” Bridgette contends, “but we have to make sure it happens. Every possible vessel for his twisted soul is a threat.” She runs over too, but not to help. She jerks the knife out of the man’s chest, and then drives it into his chin, all the way through to his brain.

“No!” Heath elbows her in the face, knocking her to her back.

Vearden runs over and tries to break them apart, but they just keep fighting each other. They’re relentless. “Stop! Just stop!” It’s useless. Bridgette is as dedicated to destroying all of Meredarchos’ followers as Heath is to protecting his master. “Little help here?” Vearden asks Arcadia.

“I’m trying to help,” Arcadia explains. “I’m trying to clean their minds of whatever he infected them with.” It’s not working. He created his own barrier to prevent that very thing. He’s a strong psychic, that’s for sure...leagues beyond better than Erlendr. Combined, they’re the greatest threat she’s ever encountered. They have to be stopped, and saving these two people isn’t going to help. They can’t be saved anyway, and if it’s between preserving their lives, or killing the infection before it can spread, that’s what she’s going to do. They can at least die with a little dignity, though. The knife is too messy and slow. One shot to the head is the only good option.

“Is it working?” Vearden asks, doing his damned best to hold the fighters apart.

“No,” Arcadia replies plainly. She goes to retrieve the gun from the safe.

“Arcadia!” Vearden shouts at her. “Arcadia! What are you doing! No, no, no, no no! Ow! NO! Arcadia, come back! They just stabbed each other!”

Arcadia runs back into the common area to find both Heath and Bridgette on the floor, bleeding. “What happened?”

“Heath remembered the knife. He took it out, and sliced my arm. Then he stabbed Bridgette in the heart, so she took it out and tried to do the same. He dodged, so it landed in his stomach. I think he’s still alive.”

Arcadia checks them both for pulses. “They’re both alive, but barely.”

“We have to help them,” Vearden pleads.

“If we do, they’ll just go back to killing each other, and anyone else who gets in their way.”

“So we just let them die?”

“They’re like zombies, V; They can’t be cured.”

Vearden seethes. “I refuse to accept that.” He takes out his phone, and calls Mateo. “Matt? I need a doctor at the condo right now. They’re gonna die.”

Fifteen seconds later, Mateo appears in the room, holding onto a woman that Arcadia presumes to be a doctor. “What just happened?” she asks, confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vearden tells her. “Just save them.”

She kneels down to get to work. “We’re going to have to triage,” she says after seeing how far gone Bridgette is.

“Matt?” Vearden asks.

Mateo disappears and returns with a second doctor so he can focus on Heath. While they’re doing that, Mateo feels like the right thing to do is to bring Marie here. They’re struggling, but they’re still married, and still in love. She’s seen a lot of death in her day, so she’s crying and pleading, but she doesn’t interfere with the medical professionals’ work.

The doctor who was trying to save Bridgette sighs. “I’m sorry, she’s gone. Time of death thirteen-oh-nine.”

Marie can see that Heath is on his way out too. He’s not going to last much longer unless they take drastic measures. She starts thinking about her options. Arcadia can’t quite read her thoughts, but she can sense what’s happening in there. Finally, she thinks she has it. “Mateo, where is your knife?”

“What knife?” Mateo asks.

“The one that can duplicate things,” Marie clarifies.

“If the doctor needs any more equipment, I’ll be happy to retrieve it for them.”

“I’m not talking about equipment,” Marie says. “I’m talking about Heath. Duplicate him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vearden questions.

“It doesn’t work on people, Marie,” Mateo claims.

“Have you ever tried?”

“Have I ever stabbed someone to see if they die while a duplicate of them appears next to them? No, I guess I haven’t, but that’s crazy!”

“Doctor, what are the chances that he lives?” Marie asks him.

The doctor looks up. “They’re very low.”’

“There.” Marie starts talking with her hands. “You can stab him, a second one will appear next to him, and the first one will die anyway. The second one, however, will be good as new, right; that’s how it works? Now we have nothing to lose.”

“I’ll direct you to my earlier comment about that being crazy.”

“I would do it myself,” Marie argues, “but evidently you’re the only one with the literal magic touch, so would you please just try?”

“There’s a low chance of him surviving,” Vearden reasons, having basically caught up with what they’re talking about. “That’s not zero. But if you’re method of saving him requires stabbing him again, those chances drop much lower, I’m sure.”

Marie ignores him. “Please,” she begs Mateo.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” the doctor begins, “but if you plan on stabbing our patient, then we’re out.” They both clearly work for the government, but they haven’t been told everything.

Mateo frowns. “I can’t be blamed for the consequences.” He disappears and returns thirty seconds later, holding the knife.

“Maybe you should test it on her first,” Vearden suggests.

“Or maybe he shouldn’t do it at all,” Arcadia warns. “They’re both infected. They pose a risk to us all, especially anyone here without the slightest psychic ability.”

“Noted,” Mateo says, but it’s hard to tell how genuine he’s being. He pauses to think about it, but has to make a decision quickly, because if it doesn’t work for Bridgette, it definitely won’t work for Heath if he waits too long. He closes his eyes, and stabs her. Nothing happens. “I really don’t think this is gonna work, Marie.”

Marie grabs the television remote, and hands it to him. “Let’s see if it’s you or the knife, or just because she’s too far gone.”

Mateo sets the remote on the floor and stabs it with no hesitation. It breaks apart, but a second one pops out of the aether, and lands right next to it. “She’s either too dead, or too a human being.”

“If you stab him,” the other doctor warns, “we’re gone.”

“The door is that way.” Once they’ve left, Mateo crosses his fingers, and stabs Heath as well. Heath lurches and gasps, and his muscles relax more than they already were. For a few seconds, nothing else happens. Then a light appears out of nowhere and grows until it’s in the vague shape of a person. It recedes quickly, leaving a naked Heath lying next to his former self.

“Oh my God, it actually worked,” Vearden muses. Physically, yes, it did. Mentally, it didn’t work at all.

Extremus: Year 48

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Former Captain and Admiral Halan died shortly after his conversation with Captain Leithe. Funny enough, the last person on the vessel still alive who could remember living in Ansutah also died that very same day. There were probably many others back on Gatewood, but this felt like a somber milestone. It was overshadowed by Halan, and everyone’s reaction to losing him. There’s a saying on Earth, don’t speak ill of the dead. This sentiment has held strong here. Even some of his most vehement opponents now have nothing but nice things to say about him. That should be a good thing, but his loyalists, like Kaiora, can’t help but feel bitter about it. He died in hock, unfitting for a man of his greatness, and those who truly loved him will never forgive these fair-weather friends for that. At least his persistent detractors hold to their own convictions. At least Kaiora can respect them for that. What she can’t respect is what has happened recently. It was all planned out, but now it’s all ruined.

Future Captain is not just something people call who they think the next captain will be. It is an official title that comes with responsibility and even a tiny bit of power, mostly involving new access to certain sensitive data. Trudie Haynes was already in this position, and had been there for two years when the council pulled the rug out from under the both of them. They have apparently decided that they need to drain the swamp. Halan picked Kaiora, then committed a crime. While Kaiora has given them no reason to not trust her judgment over the course of the next two and a half decades, they think it’s best that they handle this one. It’s not just about the captain’s seat either. Almost everyone on the crew will be dismissed at the end of this year, whether their shifts should be over at that time, or not. They agreed to a few exceptions, such as Hock Watcher Giordano, and thankfully, Chief Medical Officer Holmes. The council and civilian government justify these decisions by the new policies they devised a few years ago, which resulted in Calixte Salmon being appointed the first—and maybe only ever—Superintendent. The fact that he turned out to be a treasonous murderer is clearly lost on them.

Kaiora has been investigating this development as a possible coup, but has seen no evidence of that so far. She’s beginning to think that this is simply annoying bureaucracy at work. Besides, her medical condition is declining. She is finding it harder and harder to put as much effort into the job as she used to. First Lieutenant Lars Callaghan has been handling many of her normal duties, and he has really stepped up. Kaiora can’t help but feel proud of him. She knew there was a reason Halan and Olindse picked him to be on the team in the first place. His original position was never backfilled after Corinna disappeared, but the new crew will reportedly include a Second L-T. They say they like that it’s a thing now, and honestly, it’s one of the few things they and Kaiora can agree on. While Halan initially instituted it to control Ovan Teleres’ power, having an extra hand has served the ship nicely since then.

It’s May 19, 2317. The Captain is sitting in her office, pretending to do work, even though there’s no one else in the room to perform for. She’s just bored, which is something that happens from time to time. There are days when nothing goes wrong on the ship, and there aren’t any fires to put out. Mostly she feels like a lame duck. The transition is still months away, but it already feels over. She releases an exaggerated version of her signature sigh, but before it’s over, First Lieutenant Corinna Seelen appears out of nowhere, and takes a step towards her. “Cori! You’re alive.”

“No shit. Let’s go.” Corinna takes her captain by the arm, and transports them to Council Chambers. The council is a loosely defined collective of crewmembers and government officials who make sure everyone is doing their jobs correctly. They have been slowly accumulating power, even though their original mandate was to appoint the first crew members of the mission, and then do pretty much nothing else. Is this them? Are they the traitors? Corinna is sure staring at them with contempt. But no, Kaiora ruled them out years ago. They were the obvious suspects—especially since most of the council disappeared alongside Corinna, and had to be replaced—but they’re all clean. Kaiora’s secret investigative team has been watching them particularly closely, and has found nothing.

De facto leader of the council before the incident in the time lab, Esmee Newport is already in the room, having apparently transitioned back from wherever they were separate from Corinna. She clears her throat authoritatively. “Esteemed members of the council, after years of transdimensional investigation, we have finally figured out who has been sabotaging Extremus in multiple facets of the mission.” She steps aside, and presents the empty space behind her.

Another member of the older council teleports in, holding none other than Ovan Teleres by the chains.

Esmee continues, “Ovan Teleres, you have been charged with high treason. What say you in this matter?”

Ovan is sneering jovially. “You’re all under my spell.”

Yitro comes out of a shadow, presumably having teleported there as well at some point. “Not anymore.” He’s holding a...machete? What the hell is he doing with a machete? Ovan’s head rolls off in one quick swing. Oh, that’s why.

The current de facto leader of the council stands up angrily. “Explain!”

“Hock prisoner, Mr. Teleres,” Yitro begins, “has been infecting people’s minds with an illegal breed of nanites, which manipulate the victim’s thoughts, movements, and emotions. He controls—controlled these little buggers from inside his cell, and he was doing it for years. That’s why Rita seemed to go crazy. That’s why the Superintendent switched sides. They were all infected. They were all innocent.”

“So, wait. There are no clones?” one of the other council members asks.

“There had to have been,” Kaiora argues. “I saw the other me in the timelab. She tried to kill Greenley Atkinson.”

Corinna places a hand on Kaiora’s shoulder. “That was not a clone either. That was the real Kaiora Leithe. We think that she was the first victim.”

“No, but I’m...” Kaiora starts to say, but then she remembers. “I’m the clone. The original went back in time.”

Corinna closes her eyes solemnly, and nods slightly. “That’s right.”

“I did this. I caused all of this.”

“No,” Esmee contradicts. “Victim is not just a word we’re throwing around. It’s what your alternate self was. It’s what all of them were. Nanites are invisible to the naked eye, and undetectable when dormant. Anyone could have been infected. We still don’t know how many were, in fact. Every single civilian and crewmember will now have to get tested, even though the master is now dead.” She grimaces at Ovan’s head on the floor.

“Forgive me for the brutal violence,” Yitro says. “It was the safest way to sever his connection to all of his victims at once. Like she said, we don’t know who’s been infected. I couldn’t risk the possibility that one of you might have stopped me.”

The council leader sits back down calmly, and composes herself. “Until your story can be verified, you will all be placed in hock, including the captain.”

Yitro laughs. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“You have no authority here, Captain Moralez of the Admiral Perran Thatch Detachment Timeship. You shouldn’t even be on Extremus Proper right now.”

That’s when Omega and Valencia appear behind the council’s backs. “Neither should we,” Omega declares. One by one, they tap on the council member’s heads as if playing Duck, Duck, Goose. As they do, the lot of them disappear, probably to hock themselves.

Kaiora slowly backs away. “Now I can’t trust anyone.”

“Captain, you can trust me,” Corinna insists.

Desperate, Kaiora snatches Ovan’s head up from the floor. “We’ll see about that.” She teleports away, but not all the way to her secret section, worried that someone might be able to track her there. As quietly as possible, she runs the rest of the way, and slips inside, checking to make sure no one is watching her. “Daley!” she cries out once she’s fully inside the section.

Nurse Daley McKee jumps into the hallway in front of her, ready to help.

She hands him Ovan’s head. “You’ve been looking for a subject to test. Here ya go. Tell me what you find.” She passes him, and heads for the office she keeps down here, and doesn’t use much.

“Where’s the rest of him?” Daley asks.

“The rest was too heavy to carry!” she shouts back.

“So you hacked it apart!”

“Uhuh!” she lies.

“What am I looking for!”

“I’m not tellin’! You should find something, and if you don’t...either you’re lying, or the person who served him up on a silver platter is! Just do what you’ve been waiting for years to do!”

About thirty minutes later, hacker Elodie Seabrooke knocks on Kaiora’s open door. “Captain?”

“Have they found anything?”

“I don’t know. I came to let you know that I watched the footage. I know how you got that head. And I also want you to know that I’m not going to tell anybody. I understand why you don’t want to contaminate the results with preconceptions.”

“Thank you. Is that all?”

“Also, I’ve been doing a little math.”

“Your specialty.”

“There’s a reason the transdimensional investigators showed up on this day.”

“And that would be?”

“If they went back in time in the reverse dimension as far as they were planning to, they were gone for as long as it took them to get there.”

“Huh?”

“When the machine turned on, you were expecting the other investigators to use it to travel back about six years.”

“Okay...”

“That was about six years ago.”

“So...once they exited the dimension, they had to wait twelve years to return?”

“I think they went to another dimension first; another observation dimension, that is, which parallels ours in direction. And yes, I think they were stuck there for twice as long, for whatever reason. It’s the most logical explanation for why they showed up today, and not anytime earlier.”

“That sounds stupid,” Kaiora spits. “Who designed that?”

“God?” Elodie proposes.

She nods. “Anything else?”

“If this is true, then...”

“Then it’s not over. If Kumara and Errol eventually caught up with the rest in the past, they’ll have to be there for even longer, and won’t return until...”

“Around November 9 of this year. But that’s assuming they all entered the second observation dimension at the same time. They might have gone back further in the timeline, or they came out sooner. Or they died...”

“How would any of this explain how my original self went back, and somehow got out of the reverse time dimension without having to go to this second observation dimension?”

“That I can’t explain,” Elodie answers. “Maybe she escaped completely.”

They hear someone else coming down the hallway. Elodie steps inside to let Corinna in the room. “How did you get in here?” Kaiora demands to know.”

“We were in an observation dimension,” she confirms, apropos of the conversation. “It was my job to watch over you. It was a sick assignment, really, since I couldn’t do anything to help.”

“Is it true, you were stuck in there for eighteen years?”

“Don’t I look it?” Corinna asks.

Indeed. She looks like she’s in her fifties, when she should be in her forties. “Yes,” Kaiora answers truthfully.

“It was rough,” Corinna agreed, “but we survived, and we learned so much.”

“You being here does not change the fact that I still can’t trust anyone,” Kaiora acknowledges. “In fact, it probably makes it worse.”

“I’m going to the lab now, so they can test me too.”

“What would they look for?”

“Anomalies. There shouldn’t be any, but...there might.”

“Assuming you are who you say you are, and you’re still on my side,” Kaiora begins, “then you must know if I can trust them.”

“You can,” Corinna replies. “You did well. You picked a good team. The whole ship has been compromised, including the Bridger Section, but excluding this tiny little isolated area. I was in charge of watching over you, but Esmee took responsibility for these people even while you weren’t here. She knew that Dr. Malone was working for the Bridgers, and I think she only told me.”

“I see.”

“This is all gonna work out, Captain. You’ll see that too.”

“Thank you. You’re both dismissed.”

Once they’re gone, Captain Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten goes down for a nap, and she never stands up on her own again.

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