The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 15, 2467

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Putting their heads together, Leona and Ramses were able to fix the issue with the quintessence consolidator. The second test missile they deployed was no different than the first. It was just as intelligent and adaptive as the first, but it failed to penetrate the thick layer of dark matter that was now protecting Stoutverse. After a third test, they piloted the Waycar back through the barrier. The skeleton key allowed them to pass through, which satisfied both of their goals for this mission. They were now done with this brane, and could leave it behind to return to Salmonverse.

It wasn’t very far away, hyperdimensionally speaking, though calculating an entry point close to their exact destination was a different matter. Fortunately, they had Aclima on their side. She understood Maramon technology better than most due to the fact that she was genetically engineered for it, instead of just being born as a normal person. They broke through the membrane, and found themselves in cislunar space, almost running into a shuttle that was parked at the apparent Lagrange point one. After the near-miss, they entered a high orbit, and began to scan the surface. Before they had surveyed the whole thing, a voice made contact with them, and sent them the coordinates for a landing site. Cassius ordered the pilot to make the landing, and told her that she was in charge until he got back. He and Team Matic then exited the ship, and approached the Welcoming Committee.

“My name is Sentry Cassius Hoffman of the Interversal Defensive Ship Waycar, name subject to change. Are we on Verdemus?”

A man broke free from the line of locals. “This is indeed Verdemus. I’m Alpha Leif Merchant. This is Beta Uaiya Merchant. Yes, we’re married. No, there’s nothing in the Charter that says we can’t be.”

“Wasn’t gonna ask,” Cassius said.

Leona stepped forward. “I’m Captain Leona Matic of the Stateless Private Vessel Vellani Ambassador. Apologies for cutting the introductions short, but we came here on a mission of grave temporal importance. We’re searching for something called timonite, and have reason to believe that it’s here. From our perspective, we have already succeeded in procuring a piece. We need to close the loop.”

The Alpha and the Beta exchanged a look. “We know what you’re talking about, and we know where you may find it. Our ancestors accidentally created it, and the garden on top of it, over a century ago.”

“We’ll show you,” Uaiya said, “but you must promise to follow all of our rules and customs. You cannot merely take the timonite. It must be earned.”

“We agree,” Leona promised. “Sentry, why don’t you...go back to the ship?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Cassius argued.

“We appreciate the ride,” Leona told him. “You may go on to fulfill your mandate to the bulkverse. Thank you.”

“You can’t make me leave,” Cassius contended.

“But we can,” Leif said. “We study the Ambassador and Team Matic in school here. I don’t even know you.”

“You’re welcome,” Cassius said to Leona with an attitude. Everyone else was on Leona’s side but they all recognized that Cassius was an okay guy, and that he wasn’t the enemy. He just kind of rubbed people the wrong way, and he kind of did it immediately.

“Aclima, you’re not going back?”

“I will later,” Aclima replied. “He’s obviously not leaving yet. He knows that you’ll be gone at the end of the day, so he’ll have plenty of time to make his exit.”

Leona nodded in agreement. “Tell us about this garden,” she politely requested of Leif. “Was it man-made?”

“Yes, in the middle of the largest desert on the planet,” Leif started to say.

“Won’t be a problem for us,” Future!Mateo assured him.

“It will,” Leif insisted. “We asked you to follow our rules, and our rules say that you cannot teleport there, or even take a vehicle.”

“How do you get there then?” Past!Mateo asked.

“You walk.”

“How far is it?”

“Roughly 6,000 kilometers.

“That’s impossible,” Olimpia figured.

“It’s not. It just takes a long time,” Uaiya countered. “We call it the Pilgrimage. You may not enter Ferdiz unless you walk there from the desert border. To take any shortcut would be incredibly offensive to us, and more so to the ones who did it.”

“I see,” Leona said.

“No. But you can.” He offered her his hand as Uaiya offered hers to Future!Mateo.

All four of them teleported away to be followed by the rest of the team, including Aclima and Carlin. They were standing on the ridge of a mountain. Below them, in the center of the desolate basin, sat a lush patch of fertile ground. It looked so out of place from up here; a paradise surrounded by desert, like an artist’s interpretation of the Garden of Eden. If they didn’t know better, though, they could believe it was natural. This was a reasonable spot to expect an oasis to form. Between them and the garden, they could also see an ant-sized person making their way towards it. They were moving very slowly before falling to their knees, and then to their face.

Angela lurched.

“No,” Leif urged her. “He is close enough to Ferdiz. Others will come for him. He will just not have quite made it all the way. But it is not up to us to help.”

“I thought we couldn’t teleport here at all,” Ramses reminded him.

“Just to show you,” Leif explained, “it’s fine. But if you want that timonite, you have to make the Pilgrimage, following the rules literally every step of the way, and you have to hope the other Pilgrims let you take it. They do not fall under our jurisdiction, so I can promise you nothing.”

“How many people take the Pilgrimage per year?” Marie asked. “How many die?”

“These days, maybe fifty people attempt it? I couldn’t tell you how many die. Taking the first step breaks you free from your duties to society, and also its protections. We don’t retrieve the bodies, and we don’t communicate with Ferdiz.”

“So it could be a deathtrap?” Future!Mateo suggested. “A group of cannibals could be living there, waiting for their weekly meal?”

Leif fell into a very soft smile, and waited to respond as he turned his head to look at Future!Mateo. “Yes. They could be. There are currently around 60,000 people in the world, and there’s a reason we don’t all try it.”

“No one comes back?” Leona asked.

“I believe some have, over the years, and they’ve been welcomed. But they stay quiet, and if their experiences were recorded, I’m not cognizant of the details. Like I said, I’m only the current Alpha; not an expert in this. You’ll have to speak with the right scholars for more information.”

“This planet was populated by Extremusians. Did they abandon their mission?” Olimpia pressed.

“No.” Leif took a breath, and admired the view one last time. We’re all clones, or descended from the clones.” He turned away. “Stay as long as you like, but don’t take one step closer, or you’ll be killed. That much I do know about them.” Leif and Uaiya took each other by the hand, and disappeared.

“How are we going to do this?” Future!Mateo asked. “I don’t know how long it takes to walk 6,000 kilometers, but I know it’s longer than a day.”

Leona nodded. “Yeah, it could take 200 years of realtime, depending on the terrain, and the fitness level of the Pilgrim.”

“I could go,” Aclima volunteered.

“As could I,” Carlin piped up. “Neither of us is on your pattern.”

“I’m also superhuman,” Aclima added, trying to distance herself from Carlin, even physically. “So it should be me.”

“I don’t think there’s a maximum, since the Alpha couldn’t even give us an exact number of Pilgrims, and he didn’t say you had to go alone. But anyway,” Leona continued, shaking her head, “we can’t ask you to do that. It’s not your problem.”

“It’s mine,” Past!Mateo said. “It’s mine, and mine alone.”

“If you die, it’ll create a paradox,” Future!Mateo argued with himself. “And anyway, you’re on the pattern, just like the rest of us.”

“We need more information,” Olimpia determined. “We need the entire set of rules. What can you take with you, what can’t you? Is there a dress code?”

Leona noticed that Angela was still staring at the fallen Pilgrim. “Angie. This is their way. Whoever that is, he knew the risks, I’m sure of it.”

“There’s nothing to eat or drink around here!” Angela cried. “How does anyone survive this, without an IMS, or anything?”

“We’ve seen very little of the route,” Leona answered calmly.

“Well, Pia’s right,” Angela responded. “I have more questions.” She teleported back to the landing site. Everyone else followed.

They sat down with the Alpha, Beta, and the Gamma in the Delegation Hall of the Ambassador. They didn’t only discuss the Pilgrimage. There was a reason for their leadership titles, and it had nothing to do with alpha-male mentality. Omega Strong was a clone of Saxon Parker. He gave himself that name after the number that he was assigned left him with a mental complex. He abandoned his calling, and struck out on his own, eventually winding up on the transgalactic ship known as the Extremus. To remedy his regrets, he cloned himself more than a hundred years ago to build an army to fight against the Exin Empire. This planet was located relatively close to the Goldilocks Corridor, though it was not considered part of it. The Extremusians choosing it as an outpost placed the two factions more at odds than they already were.

Some of the clones rejected their responsibilities, which should have come as no surprise, since they were all created from the original, defiant Omega. They weren’t exact copies at any rate. Each one was actually based on the one prior, and genetically altered ever so slightly each time, always drifting further and further away in every respect. It was for this reason that the clones who chose to dig in on Verdemus instead of going to war had felt comfortable procreating with each other, even though they all technically had the same progenitor. There were anti-incest laws, though. It was illegal to form any sort of romantic bond with someone within one thousand degrees of separation. As it turned out, Leif and Uaiya were exactly a thousand degrees apart, which was why they were so defensive about their relationship. Different people had different ideas on what was considered acceptable, and many felt that even this amount of genetic drift was too close. Over time, as the population aged, these restrictions would probably relax, especially since the descendants made it more difficult to make the calculation in the first place, but for now, it was a topic of intense debate.

As for the Pilgrimage, they were right that they didn’t have all the rules. Whoever went could not go with an IMS, nor any electronic, or temporal advantage. They were allowed minimal supplies, including shelter, limited clothing, a knife, rope, a fire-starting kit, and initial rations. They obviously had to carry all of this on their backs, though Leona guessed correctly that they could travel in a group. Aclima was clearly the perfect candidate for this since survival was so much easier for her, and the Merchants didn’t see any issues with it. The rules didn’t say anything about what species you had to be. For Carlin, the more they talked about it, the more excited he became. This would be a personal journey for him—as it was meant to be when it was first designed—but he could not articulate his exact reasons. Regardless, there was nothing they could do to stop him. But Past!Mateo was very perturbed. People had already done so much to help him, and he felt like a helpless baby bird. He had to do something too.

“We can help with that as well,” Uaiya claimed. She stood up and disappeared briefly, returning with what reminded some of them of an ankle monitor. “This fits around your ankle. It has a little bit of the timonite you seek, though my guess is that it’s not enough for you to just take. It doesn’t suppress all forms of temporal manipulation, but it does tie you to realtime. It should stop you from jumping to the future. It will use the timonite up, though, just as it would any other power source. And if I’m being honest, if that happens in the middle of the year, it might throw you back on your regular pattern instantly. I don’t know enough about how salmon work.”

Past!Mateo smiled, and graciously accepted the gift. “That settles it, I’m going. It doesn’t matter if anyone else does.”

“You don’t need to be alone,” Aclima said to him, patting him on the back.

“I’ll be doing this for myself as much as for you,” Carlin promised.

“Are you two sure?” Past!Mateo looked to Leif for guidance. “I don’t think there’s any going back.”

“It’s true,” Leif began, “when you begin the Pilgrimage, you forfeit your rights. But...you’re not citizens, you’re visitors, so it’s a bit of a gray area.”

Past!Mateo looked at his friends. “If we can’t wear our suits, then we need time to prepare. You won’t be able to see us off.”

“That’s okay,” Leona “We’ll say our goodbyes now.” She leaned in, and planted a passionate kiss on his lips.

“Hey, that’s my wife,” Future!Mateo joked. It was strange to see it, but he was fine. It had been a long time since his past self had seen his own version of her.

“That ankle thing,” Ramses said as he was eyeing it. “Do you happen to have another one of those?”

“Do you wanna go on the journey too?” Marie asked, confused.

“No. But I think someone should stay and keep an eye on the Sentry.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 14, 2466

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According to a more thorough sweep of The Waycar, it was designed to accommodate a crew of precisely 89 people. They were assuming that the three larger sleeping compartments were meant for the captain—or whatever the leader was called—and their two most executive associates. The other sleeping quarters varied in size. A few others had their own bathrooms, but they mostly shared. Four of them were just pods in a hallway behind main engineering, which was probably for the engineers, who were likely expected to be ready to work at all hours of the day. This was more than enough space for the special squadron that the Stoutversians had now filled it with, but Ramses being the generous type, he had other ideas.

“What the hell is this?” Angela questioned as they were carefully sliding down the ramp. The topmost level overlooked the level below it, which stopped before reaching the back wall at about the same distance. It then dropped off to a slant, all the way down to the same height as the next level. No, that wasn’t quite how Past!Mateo described it. He called it a weird-ass slant, which was pretty fitting. Directly under the floor was the armory, so there was no explanation for why it was designed like this, except maybe to make it harder to reach the stasis perch where Cassius was found? The more they looked at that, though, the more they started to think that that perch didn’t belong there at all, and was an after-market retrofit. Cassius wasn’t sure. He wasn’t always Nereus Jolourvedin’s second most trusted advisor. And he wasn’t that anymore either, but he was the only original member of the crew still standing, so in everyone’s mind, it was his birthright. The central computer’s records appeared to support this.

“I believe it’s the hock,” Ramses suggested.

“There’s no door,” Future!Mateo argued. “If it’s dark, or you’re not careful, you just fall down the slide.”

“It’ll be harder to climb back up,” Ramses explained. “Check out these eye bolts. I think they’re for shackles.” He tugged on a large metal ring bolted to the wall, which didn’t budge one bit.

“Jesus,” Cassius said. “We never used  them.” They had to remind themselves that this thing was designed by and for Maramon. That was why the doors were wider and taller, and explained at least kind of why anyone thought that an open slope hock made any sense.

“Well, you’ll use this area now,” Ramses claimed. One thing about it, which they weren’t able to see when it was so dark, was that there was a door at the bottom of the slope. It was rather far from all the eye bolts, and was probably expected to be kept locked at all times, and the Waycar was designed to spend a lot of time in the outer bulk or outer space, but in any case, it was a security flaw. That was how they felt about it anyway. They couldn’t match alien idiosyncrasies to human logic. Ramses reached over the door with a stick, since he wasn’t tall enough, and flipped on the light to illuminate the door. It wasn’t just a light, though. It was mainly a pocket dimension generator. It wouldn’t have to be an exit anymore. Then again, this open-dungeon concept could be ignored no matter what. They could store bags of rice down here instead. How about that; doing something socially responsible with the space.

“Do you just, like, have a box of those lying around in your lab?” Angela asked.

“I build them in my spare time, for occasions such as this.” Ramses opened the door to reveal the bare, but capacious, magical extra space they had access to now, well beyond the confines of the Waycar’s hull.

“Oh, wow. Why did you do this for us?” Cassius asked. “I mean, thank you. And also, what did you have in mind...specifically?”

Ramses stepped halfway over the threshold of the portal. “I didn’t have anything in mind. I just figured that you would rather have it than not.” He dropped a fob into Cassius’ hand. He admired his work for a few silent seconds. “But what would I do with it? I would build a garden.”

“Not a lab?” Future!Mateo questioned.

“I got plenty of those,” Ramses replied dismissively.

Cassius lifted the fob, and pressed a button. The pocket disappeared, revealing instead the outer door, which would lead them to the deadly equilibrium of the bulk. “I appreciate the gesture.”

Ramses nodded, and looked back up towards the slope. “It is up to you to decide who you wanna tell about it, and who you don’t. That’s why I brought you here while the squadron was asleep.”

“I’m not calling it a squadron. I prefer the term bastion.”

“The Waycar Bastion,” Future!Mateo articulated fully. “I think I like it too.”

“Plus, The Squadron’s taken.” Aclima was standing at the top of the slope.

“Aclima. We were just making sure that the emergency exit was secure,” Angela lied, “Wouldn’t want it falling open accidentally.”

“Save it,” Aclima called down to them from over eight meters away. “I know about the pocket dimension. I saw Rambo installing it. It’s fine. I won’t tell anyone.”

Angela took Cassius by the hand, and teleported them both to the top of the slope. Everyone else followed. “Is this your home now? Are you joining the new mission?”

“A mission is what I’ve been looking for. What could be greater than literally insulating the multiverse from the cancer that is the Ochivari?” That was the Waycar’s mandate. Their job was not to fight against invaders, but to hop from brane to brane, activating the quintessence consolidator to thicken the membrane that protected each one. This was how they contributed to the Darning Wars. Cassius was their leader. He chose the title Sentry for its connotations of protecting others, rather than killing.

“Aclima, I’m glad you’re still awake,” Cassius said.

“Hybrids don’t need as much sleep as humans,” she explained.

“That’s a good thing. I was hoping to talk to you about being my second-in-command. Now that you’ve just declared your intentions to stay after we drop off Team Matic, hopefully it won’t be too hard to convince you.”

“Would you not want someone with more experience,” Aclima questioned, “like Hadron?”

“I already asked him what he wanted to do, since he was already familiar with this technology. He’s going to be my Communications Officer, since he has a knack for languages.”

“And Kineret McArthur?” Aclima pressed.

“Head of Intelligence. She’ll be sifting through the database of known universes, determining which ones to go to first.”

“Carlin McIver?” Aclima suggested the next one down the line.

Cassius chuckled. “I don’t think he’ll be staying with us for long. I believe he wants to see his family again.”

“What about Velter?” Aclima either really didn’t want the job, or she didn’t want to sound too desperate. Velter must have been some random member of the bastion.

Cassius looked down at his tablet. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”

“My mistake, I’m thinking of something else,” Aclima said dismissively. “If you...really believe that I could do it, then I would be honored. I mean, I know where you came from, and I’m sure you’re not too fond of Maramon, so I just wouldn’t think—”

“I don’t hold anything the Maramon have done against you. I’ll only hold your own actions to account. That’s one thing Nereus and I could agree on.”

Aclima smiled softly. “Very well, I accept.”

“Great! Now we need to come up with a title for you,” Cassius decided.

“Cassius,” Leona said through comms. They decided to give him a disc for himself, in case they ever needed to make contact with him sometime after they parted ways.

He tapped his neck. “Go ahead.”

“It’s done. We’re about to fire the test missile.”

“I’m on my way.”

Angela took Cassius’ hand again, and teleported him down to the engineering section. Future!Mateo did the same for Aclima. It was odd, though. Why didn’t the Maramon give the hybrids such powers of their own?

Leona had been working down here since they left Stoutverse. Sealing it up with an overabundance of quintessence was the test, to see if the technology was even viable. “I thought you might want to be the one to push the button,” she said to Cassius. There were only a couple of other people here. They were the most trusted members of what was now called the bastion. They weren’t necessarily the most trusted by the government, but by Cassius and the team. They couldn’t have just anyone understanding how to thicken membranes, nor knowing how to break through them. It had to remain a well-kept secret.

Cassius smiled at the thought. “I’m not sentimental. Go ahead and do it to it.”

“Why are we firing a missile at the universe again?” Angela asked.

“To make sure the consolidator worked,” Future!Mateo answered. “The missile is specifically designed to harness bulk energy, and travel through the membrane, but also trigger an explosion that could not propagate back out. It’s the ultimate shield. You could be meters from your target, but not suffer the same damage, because the universal membrane of quintessence—also known as dark matter—will protect you, but not the target. The missile still has its limits, though. If the consolidator worked as desired, it should not be able to pierce it.”

Everyone looked at Mateo, except for Leona. “Oh, don’t look so impressed. He just rote memorized the speech that I wrote when we were pitching the full plan to the Primus. He has no idea what he said.”

“Yes, I do,” Future!Mateo contended.

“Firing missile,” Leona announced. She pressed the button. The Waycar came with some great advanced sensors. Despite there being no real viewports in this room, it was able to generate a realistic depiction of what was happening in the bulk right now. They could see a missile leave the weapons array, and fly towards the membrane of Stoutverse. If all went according to plan, it would be deflected by the quintessence, and explode before it got anywhere near inside. If they had failed in using the consolidator correctly, the missile would get through, but it would find itself at least two light years from Earth, or any interplanetary outpost, so no one should be in danger. Hopefully that didn’t happen, though.

“It’s off course,” one of the technicians told them.

“It’s fine, it’s still fine,” Leona assured him.

Finally, the missile struck the wall, but was not deflected. It lodged itself inside, and tried to wiggle its way through, like a sperm to an egg.

“Trigger the explosion now!” Cassius ordered.

“No, it will give up, and self-detonate,” Leona insisted. “Just give it time.”

“Look at the angle. It’s not off course by accident. It knows that we plotted a vector towards an unpopulated region. It’s seeking out Earth. It’s more intelligent than we realized. If it doesn’t work, and it gets all the way through the brane, people will die.”

“We don’t know that it’s headed for Earth,” Leona argued. “You’re thinking in three dimensions. What you’re seeing on the screen right now is only an approximation, translated from hyperdimensional space to something that our brains can comprehend. It isn’t real.”

“It’s real enough. Blow it up..now!” Cassius repeated.

“I’m in charge of this mission,” Leona reminded him. “You don’t officially take over until my team and I leave for Verdemus.”

“And if you want to continue to have a positive relationship with the crew of the Waycar, you will heed my advice,” Cassius urged. “Abort mission immediately.”

“Detonation confirmed,” the other technician said.

“So it did work,” Leona assumed.

“No.” The tech shook her head. “I followed his orders.”

Leona breathed deliberately through her nose. “I see.” She stood up passive-aggressively. “Captain Hoffman, it looks like you have command.”

“It’s Sentry Hoffman,” he corrected.

“Whatever.” Leona disappeared.

Cassius turned back to the tech. “Go back to the specs. Find out why the consolidator didn’t work, or whether it’s as simple as leaving it on for three point five seconds longer.”

“The specs that my wife risked her life to get for you...while you were fast asleep in your little pod,” Future!Mateo reminded him.

“Thank you, Mister Matic. That will be all.”

Future!Mateo teleported to one of the executive crew compartments, which was where they were staying while the Vellani Ambassador was still miniaturized. “I saw the English screen. The missile was only 31% through. There’s a chance that it would have detonated itself before making it all the way.”

“No, he was right, I fucked up.” Leona contended. “It’s smarter than we knew. It recognized that it was dealing with a harder target, and it adapted to compensate.”

“Then you can program a dumber missile,” Future!Mateo reasoned.

“An enemy would have no reason to do that,” Leona reasoned right back. “The whole point is to test its strength against all-comers. Let’s face it, I failed.”

“Okay, let’s say you did,” Future!Mateo began. “Are you gonna sit here and sulk, or are you gonna go downstairs, and fix it?”

She breathed deeply, and waited to respond. “Good point.” She disappeared.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 12, 2433

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Leona peered at the viewscreen. “A shipyard, you say?”

“A shipyard, and a ship graveyard. A sizable portion of the surface is riddled with old ships, new ships,” Ramses explained. He looked more excited than a child on Christmas day. “All shapes and sizes.”

“You wanna take one?” she asked.

“Noooo,” he insisted. “I mean, if the shoe fits, I guess... But it has everything we need to build our own. The place looks abandoned.”

“You don’t have a life signs detector, though, so you don’t know that. All we can do is search for radio waves.”

“Yeah, but look at it down there, there’s no activity.”

“They could be lying in wait,” Mateo suggested. “This feels like a trap. We’re going in a straight line. They’ll always know where we’ll end up next.”

“They couldn’t have set all this up in just a few years,” Ramses contended. “Trust me, it’s fine. But...”

“But what?” Leona questioned.

“But we’ll need to land this little vessel down there to get to them. We can’t teleport to the surface without it.”

Leona was suspicious now. “Why not?”

Ramses breathed out through his nose, worried about how he’ll be received. “Okay, you know how most ships in our little underworld of time travelers have a teleportation field, right? Instead of just letting micrometeoroids hit the hull, we teleport the objects away as they pass through the field.”

“Right...” Leona encouraged.

“Well, the Exins apparently use that technology too, and...all of those ships down there are...passively active.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She shook her head, getting kind of annoyed with him. “Passively active?”

“The fields are in standby mode. They’re not constantly using power, but if you try to make a jump anywhere down there, sufficiently close to the materials I need to build us a real ship, the generators will react, just as they would to any other celestial object. They’ll activate briefly, and then close back up again.”

“How do you know this?” Leona asked incredulously. “Have you seen this phenomenon before, a giant collection of ships with teleportation field generators?”

“No,” Ramses assured her, “I tested it with a probe.”

“What probe? We never talked about any probes.”

Ramses acted almost offended. “I built a probe. I thought it made sense to start using them to scout ahead. It’s designed to search for Vitalie too, so no one will ever need to go on that mission again. At least, not at first. As soon as it finds the pod, someone can jump there to wake her up, and greet her. And that will continue to work, just not here.”

Leona sighed. “Ramses, what happened to the probe? Was it sent back like a slingshot?”

He seemed afraid to answer, but he did. “There’s a game that you people used to play in the before-fore times? There’s a metal ball, and you hit it with these little things, and it bounces around...”

“Pinball,” Mateo realized.

“Yeah, it was like that.” Ramses nodded. He started pointing at the screen. “The probe was here, and then here, and then here, and then somewhere over there, and then I lost contact, because I think it was ripped apart by the tidal forces of overlapping teleportation fields.”

“Sounds like a wild ride,” Leona said sarcastically. “We could sell tickets.”

“Well, that’s why I want to land the ship, so that doesn’t happen!” Ramses argued.

Leona’s eyes widened in frustration. “The field isn’t teleporting teleporting objects, Ramses. It’s teleporting anything that falls into the field. Why would our ship survive that where the probe didn’t?”

Now he smiled. “Because our ship also has a teleportation field, which we can use to counteract the effects. We can force them to cancel each other out, and make it all the way through. I’m sure of it.”

“I assume we don’t have these fields ourselves?” Olimpia asked.

“No,” Ramses answered. “That’s not a bad idea—we would basically be bulletproof and punch-proof—but no.”

“I say we leave,” Leona voted. “It looks great down there. A real smorgasbord of amazing technology that we could salvage, but it’s not worth risking being ripped apart inside the Roche limit of two conflicting teleportation fields.”

“It’s usually more than two,” Ramses corrected.

“Oh, well, in that case...”

“Leona, I can do this. I’ve done the math already.”

“When did you do the math? We just freakin’ got here.”

Ramses put on a pompous face. “I’m fast, because I’m just that smart.” He reverted back to normal. “You can check it yourself, if you want. We have a little time, but I do want to get started. I’m sick of these cramped quarters. Pocket dimensions just don’t feel real to me. The AOC was designed to get you and your friends to the next planet over. It was never meant to house a full crew for the long-term. We made-do, but technology has progressed since then, and I want to create something better now. This world gives me that chance, and I don’t want to pass it up. We’ll survive, because we always do. That’s our job.”

Leona sighed again, but more patiently this time. “Okay, I’ll trust you, and won’t check the math. But I’m not making the decision for everyone. We vote, and it has to be unanimous.” She looked over at the rest of the team. “You all understand what’s at stake here if we do this?”

Everyone nodded, including the dummies, Mateo and Olimpia, because they were indeed able to follow the conversation. When Captain Matic called for an official vote, they all raised their hands, except for Vitalie, who seemed distracted by her thoughts.

“What is it?” Ramses asked.

“If she’s voting no, I won’t let you bully her,” Leona argued.

“You didn’t ask for nays yet,” Ramses reasoned. She’s not voted at all. She could be abstaining.”

“I’m not—” Vitalie was stammering. “It has nothing to with—” She huffed, and raised her hand. “Never mind, let’s go. I vote yea, or aye, or whatever.”

“Vitalie, you’re a part of us now,” Leona told her. “You have every right to express your opinion. We should have made this a blind vote,” she added when Vitalie didn’t respond.

“No, it’s not that,” Vitalie continued to stammer. “I agree, we should risk it. It’s just that I’ve realized that there is no hope for us finding Vitalie!741 down there. The only way we’ve ever done it is by triangulating it with your makeshift stasis pod communicator. If we can’t even teleport.”

“It’s not impossible,” Ramses began to explain to her. It would just take longer. When you get close enough to the pod with the locator, it will detect that there’s a pod somewhere nearby. When you jump again, if you get another ping, that tells you that you’re going in the right direction, or at least that you’re not farther from it. With enough jumps, you can eventually determine its position. But you don’t have to jump. You could take a car. You could even walk.”

“Then I’ll do that,” Vitalie decided. “I’ll walk.”

Ramses chuckled, a bit rudely. “I meant that you could technically, possibly do it. But not in practical terms. You could potentially have to walk across the entire surface. We can’t stay here that long.”

“You don’t have to stay here,” Vitalie said. “Just leave me with a locator, and I’ll work on it as long as it takes. Just promise me you’ll build another locator, and keep using it on the other planets, assuming this teleportation field mess doesn’t continue.”

“I already have multiple locators. That’s not the problem.”

“The problem is we can’t leave you here alone,” Leona said to her.

“And also that you still can’t be expected to walk the entire surface,” Marie added.

“Well, I could build her a car,” Ramses declared. “Hell, I’m sure one of those ships down there works well enough.”

“We’re not leaving her alone!” Leona insisted.

“It’s my choice,” Vitalie fought. “We voted on going down to the surface. But all of the sudden, you want to make an executive decision?”

“We could vote,” Leona began, “but it’s never gonna be unanimous, because I’ll always be a nay.”

Mateo placed a hand on her arm. “Lee-Lee. You’re the Captain; not the King.”

“Well, she—”

Mateo stopped her from continuing to argue with a simple jerk of his head. “Captain,” he whispered.

Leona looked back over at Vitalie with puppy dog eyes, hoping that she would change her mind, or maybe just show some sign of reluctance, but Vitalie was steadfast. Leona hung her head. “Okay. But we’re staying here for two days at least. Right, Ramses? You need that long to build something good?”

“It’s true,” Ramses confirmed. “I didn’t mention that before, but the construction will last beyond today. Vitalie, you’ll probably want to go into stasis, since we won’t be traveling at maximum fractional speeds. You don’t have to be awake for the locator to start trying to triangulate Vitalie!741’s pod. I can program it to wake you up if it finds her during that time. If it does, you’ll both be able to leave with us, no problem.”

They discussed the details a little more, and then made the jump. Instead of leaving their ship in orbit like they usually would, the whole thing dropped down. It was impossible for Ramses to predict what would happen with certainty, but they did survive the ordeal. They were sent teleporting all over the place before they found and island of stability, but once they did, everything was fine, and they were all in one piece, which was what they were really worried about. Their own teleportation field protected them without issue, or excessive power drain. They climbed out of their little ship manually one at a time, which made them feel like animals, but it worked. The industrial atmosphere wasn’t pleasant, but it was breathable. Vitalie wore a filter mask for added safety, but the rest of their substrates handled the task on their own. 

“All right,” Leona said, “get what you need. We’ll help with whatever, I guess.”

Ramses pulled out his tablet. “I have a list.”

“Do you guys hear that?” Angela asked. Their hearing was heightened, but they couldn’t hear everything on the entire planet, so they all tilted their respective heads to get a better angle on the soundwaves. Something was definitely sounding off in the distance, and it seemed to be getting closer. It was a sort of screaming noise. Angela took a couple steps forward. “What is that?”

Leona reached into her bag, and pulled out a pair of digital binoculars. She started to scan the sky. “Run.” She dropped her arms down, but kept looking in that direction. “Run!” she cried louder. She took off, and so did everyone else.

“Remember, you can’t teleport!” Ramses reminded them. “The field generators actually do react to each other! That’s why they’re kind of evenly spaced!”

They ran as fast as they could, the ones in front looking over their shoulders to make sure the ones in back were still coming. They could move pretty fast, but they were still within range of the blast when the missile crashed down, and exploded on impact. Mateo could see a piece of shrapnel flying towards him, but didn’t know what to do. Before he could try to escape, someone’s arms were wrapping themselves around his body. They teleported away, but they didn’t just make one jump. The teleportation field generators all around them started pinballing them every which way several times, until one of them managed to throw them clear of any other vessel. They fell from several meters up, and crashed onto the ground, just like the missile, but with no explosion.

Only then did Mateo see that it was Vitalie who had rescued him. “I’m sorry. I know we weren’t supposed to do that.”

“No, no, no, thank you. Leona, can you hear me?” Mateo half-expected the trauma to have fried his communicator, but it was still working.

“Yeah,” she replied. “We’re all fine. You and Vita?”

“We’re okay. I don’t know how far away we are.”

“We have locators, remember? You’re only a few kilometers away. You see that giant blue crane?”

“Yes.”

“Jog towards that. We’ll meet in the middle.”

“The ship? Our ship, that is?”

“Gone. You were right. It was a trap.”

Just as they were starting to run towards each other, the ground began to shake. It shook, and it shook, and it didn’t stop shaking. Gargantuan explosions began to rage in the distance. The blue crane that Mateo and Vitalie were using as a reference point suddenly sank below the horizon. Cracks were forming in the ground.

“A really good trap!” Marie shouted into the comms.

“Leona, everyone, jump.”

“We can’t!” Ramses complained.

“You can! Just come to our location. There’s a reason we finally stopped moving in this spot. This spot is safe!”

The group appeared in scattered formation around them. Mateo and Leona hugged and kissed each other. They all began to huddle together instinctively as the tremors and explosions intensified. “If there’s any antimatter in those ships, it will be devastating. Ramses, do you remember where the biggest open area was?”

“That might not be good enough either.” Ramses slipped Angela’s bag off of her shoulders. “Thanks for carrying this for me.” He reached in, and pulled out a dimensional generator, but it wasn’t the same one they used in the ship. That one would still have been in there when the missile struck. That one was destroyed. “This one is smaller, barely enough room to walk past each other, but it’s stocked with supplies, and it’s all we got.”

“Then what?” Marie asked.

“Once all of you are inside, I’ll jump into space, and join you,” Ramses explained.

“I’m the Captain, I’ll do it,” Leona volunteered.

“That’s why you shouldn’t.” Mateo stole the generator for himself. He pointed it at Vitalie first, because she was the only one not equipped to survive in space, so she absolutely had to be inside. Then he started to shoot everyone else as well. 

No one argued, except for the last one, Leona. “Stop!” She breathed deeply, and looked around at the planet as it was being ripped apart. She laid hands on the generator. “We’ll go together.”

“Were I you.”

“Were I you.”

They jumped.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 20, 2399

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“Thank you, Tom. I’m sure those squirrels appreciated all those pillows, even though they can’t speak any human languages, and generally don’t care. Well, bizarre and frightening news out of Germany today. The shell of a High-Orbit Ballistic Missile, also known as an HOBM, landed in the middle of the Obstgarten in front of the capitol building in Berlin last night. The Obstgarten was closed for the day at the time, so no one was injured in the incident. Sources close to Festung Privatsphäre have revealed that the HOBM is of Germany’s own design, sparking conspiracy theories regarding the government’s plans to bomb their own people. However, the missile was not carrying an explosive payload, and was not capable of causing any mass destruction in the area. It is almost as if it was placed there intentionally to send some kind of statement, rather than any physical harm. As of yet, no individual or organization is taking responsibility for the possible attack, and authorities are actively investigating the matter.

“In other news, the number of sightings of unexplained seasteads in various locations around the world’s oceans has grown to nearly four thousand reports in the last two weeks. No confirmation of the existence of any of these mysterious structures has been made, and assorted national governments have denied the validity of these wild claims.”

Vearden mutes the TV, and turns his head towards Arcadia. “How much you wanna bet Team Matic is neck-deep involved in both of those things?” He acts like he’s waiting for an answer. “Yeah, I wouldn’t bet against it either.” He sighs when his phone rings. “I just saw the news,” he says after answering. “About the missile and those ocean bases, or whatever.” He waits for a fairly long response. “You want me to what?” He waits some more. “Can’t you teleport or something?” He sighs again. “I kind of have to stay here, and it’s not really my job. It’s—” She interrupts him. “I know, but—” She interrupts him again. “No. Just.” He has to interrupt her now. “No, just say it. Just say that she’s never gonna wake up. It’s fine, you don’t have to tiptoe around me.” He sits through her rebuttal. “Well, the next time you wanna ask someone for help, try to be a little nicer, okay?” He hangs up the phone.

Arcadia is still in the coma, and unable to speak, but that alone says enough.

“Argh!” He picks up the phone again. “Leona? I’ll do it. Give me twenty minutes to get down there.” She thanks him. “You’re welcome.” He kisses Arcadia on the forehead. “I have to go do a thing, but I’ll be back soon, I promise. I’ll have Nurse Chenda come in to sit with you, okay?”

When he leaves the room, Chenda is sitting at the nurse’s station on her computer. “Going out for supplies?”

“No, they gave me a mission.”

Chenda nods. “I understand. I need to finish this class assignment, then I’ll be right in, okay?”

“Class assignment? Are you...not a real nurse yet?”

She laughs. “No, I am. This is part of my continuing education. Medicine is always changing, and this course is required for me to maintain my license. I’m almost done, I’m just not allowed to work on it in a patient’s room.”

“Okay, thanks.” He heads out, worried about how he’s being received lately. He’s never been this acerbic, but what happened to Arcadia has changed him. He was going to ask her to marry him soon, but he never got the chance. Now he may never will. He gets out of his head, and into the car that’s waiting for him.

“Good morning, sir,” the driver greets.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Vearden asks.

“Absolutely, Mr. Haywood.”

They leave the hospital, and drive to that parking lot in Crown Center where time travelers come through. That’s why he’s being sent there. Someone new has arrived, and he’s the only one still in Kansas City. He doesn’t even consider himself part of Team Matic, but he’s the closest they have, and the government wants someone who’s actually traveled through time to be a liaison in this matter. It hasn’t happened in a while. They erected a gigantic white tent that covers the entire lot. He can’t remember what cover story they told the public, but for the longest time, the soldiers and agents assigned to guard it have had nothing to do. They’re probably pretty excited today.

The driver parks across the street, and insists on opening the door for him. Vearden walks over alone, and tries to present his badge, but the entrance guard waves him through without looking at it. Time travelers are famous now, at least in certain circles. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He takes his coat off, and hands it to the clerk at the front table, because the heat from the space heaters hits him fast, and it hits him hard. If he were in charge, he would turn them down.

The clerk notices him tugging at his collar. “We can turn the temperature down, if you would prefer.”

Vearden is looking around to find whoever has just arrived. “How does the visitor want it?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I’ll find out. This may be too cold. We don’t know who they are, or where they came from. Their comfort is most important right now.”

“Of course, sir. Right over there is the quarantine section. You’ll need one of these.” She hands him a respirator mask.

He takes it, and puts it on. It’s not comfortable, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. He walks over to the back corner, where a clear plastic room has been set up to contain the visitor-slash-refugee-slash-invader-slash-whatever. A middle-aged man is sitting on his cot. He’s wearing all white, and doesn’t look outwardly perturbed, suggesting that he’s been cooperating, and the government hasn’t been driven to force him to follow the new rules. This could have been Vearden. He came through this temporal anomaly months ago, and things could have looked very much like this for him. So he’s going to try to be as empathetic as possible.

The man stands up, and approaches. “You look like you’re the man in charge.”

“Not even close,” Vearden replies. “I’m the liaison. I happen to be the only time traveler still living in the area. Far more qualified people are busy with other things.”

“I’m hurt,” he jokes.

“They also live far away.”

“I see.”

“Have you given them your name?”

“They didn’t ask.”

“I’m asking now. What’s your name?”

“Humbert Messer.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Vearden Haywood.”

“Hm. I’ve heard of you. Didn’t know what you looked like.”

“Now you do.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Your people think I’m dangerous.” He gestures to the two soldiers chatting with each other with their arms resting on the guns that are hanging from their shoulders.

“No, I mean why you’re in this reality. This is a new reality, by the way. It’s called the Third Rail. Where are you from?”

He doesn’t answer right away. “Lawyer.”

“This isn’t an interrogation. We just need some information.”

“That’s what an interrogation is for. Lawyer.”

All right, if he wants to play it that way... “Main sequence, Parallel, Fourth Quadrant, Fifth Division.”

No reaction.

“Sixth Key.”

There’s a reaction.

“So you’re from the future.”

“It’s more complicated than that, but yeah.”

“In our experience, people from the Sixth Key come here on purpose, unlike people like me.”

Humbert keeps quiet.

“Were you traveling alone?” Vearden continues.

“Technically.”

“What does that mean?”

He pauses again. “More are coming.”

“How many more?”

He pauses yet again. “Millions.”

“Are they coming here?” He points to the ground. “Specifically here?”

“Specifically yes.”

“Are you running from the war?”

Humbert smiles. “You know more than I was told you would.”

“We cannot accommodate millions.”

“That is why I came here as vanguard, to clear a path.”

“You mean you’re going to attack us? How are ya gonna do that alone?”

“I already have. You think that mask will save you?” He looks at the plastic wall between them. “You think this...crude polymer can hold me?”

Vearden glowers at him. “You’re diseased.”

“The portal moves. It doesn’t move much, but I knew that I wouldn’t appear already inside of quarantine unless I got very unlucky. You shoulda built a bigger tent.”

Vearden gets the attention of the soldiers. “Shoot him. Now.”

“It’s too late,” are Humbert’s final words before a dozen bullets hit him in the chest, killing him in seconds.

Vearden didn’t want to do that, but the love of his life is in this reality. She’s in this very city. If one man has to die to save her, he’ll accept that sacrifice. If everyone else in here has to die, including himself, he’ll accept that too. “Seal the place up,” he orders. “No one in or out. This whole tent is under quarantine now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 19, 2399

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Ramses was given a new lab to work in on Mangrove One. There’s nothing wrong with the emergency pandemic facility back in Kansas City, but nearly everyone has moved here at this point, because this is where everything else is. Vearden and Arcadia are still in the hospital, but the former checks in via text, sometimes audio, and the occasional video to update the team on the latter’s progress, or lack thereof. She’s still in a coma, and her child is still growing rapidly in her body, but mama and baby are otherwise both very healthy and stable.

Leona enters the lab. “How is it going?”

“It’s not,” Vearden replies. “It can’t be done. There’s a reason that darkbursting and darklurking exist. If you’re invisible, then everything else is invisible to you.”

“Can you siphon the radiation to another dimension?” Leona suggests.

“Yeah, in the Parallel, maybe the main sequence. But we don’t have other dimensions in this reality. Our only advantage before was a lack of technological advancement on this culture’s part. That is quickly changing as Aldona provides them with something new each day to maintain her value on the global stage.”

Leona nods as she scans the room for no particular reason. “Then bring it online. If they attack again, we’ll respond again. We’ll remain vigilant, and update the defense software regularly. I’ll deploy a second satellite to watch for imminent threats if I have to. I’m going to find Alyssa, and I’m going to find the volcano where my husband died.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t know where it is,” Ramses apologizes again. “He navigated. And when I left, my subconscious just sent me to Egypt.”

“I know. We’ll figure it out, we always do.”

“What about the Nexus? I never really heard why you left, but that would be a great resource, right?”

“Um.” She scratches at her ear awkwardly. “I can do anything I want with the Nexus, and its computer. It will respond to any request I make for a task that it is capable of performing. I appear to have full administrative privileges.”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

“It’s too good,” she replies. “They didn’t want me there, I’m too powerful. My comrad in The Highest Order, Iris Blume made me leave.”

“Well, by your own admission, you probably could have let yourself stay by locking up the Nexus computer, or something.”

“These are our allies, not my subjects. The Nexus may help us return home one day, but I don’t see much use for it at this point. I would rather focus on relationships than technology.”

“Except for right now,” he muses. He’s hovering his hand over the execute button.

“Except for now. Do it.”

Ramses reawakens the satellite, and watches the data pour in. “All systems online, and operating at optimal efficiency. No hyperadvanced alien technology detected. Apparently Aldona’s tech doesn’t qualify under my parameters. I’ll tweak that so we always know what she’s up to as well. Let’s see, brain scanner operational, no errors yet. Temporal anomalies, zero. Temporal energy, zero, even though we all know it shouldn’t be.”

“Vanguard scope?” Leona asks.

“On the lookout for incoming vessels. We won’t have much warning; I couldn’t make it too big, or we wouldn’t have been able to launch. Oh, there. There’s an error. No, two actually.”

“São Paulo, Brasil. That’s in the top ten densest cities in the world by population.”

“Oh.”

“Wait, how long before you can scan the Philippines?”

“Maybe a half hour, thought it may not find any errors until it gets straight overhead, which will be closer to forty minutes.”

She shakes her head as she’s staring at the map. “It has to be them. Other than Antarctica right now, the only travelers we’ve found have been loners. Roeland and his daughter,” she says with airquotes, “are the only pair we’ve met.” Their original plan was to hide out in a remote spot where no one would think to look, but that obviously backfired when Leona showed up. He probably believes that no one will find them in the new city, not with such a dense population for them to blend in with. He doesn’t know that the brain scanner ignores all those other people. He doesn’t even know about the scanner in the first place. He’s probably going to be so pissed when she shows up again, but she still doesn’t know who this other person he’s with is. If it’s not Alyssa, then she’ll leave them alone, but if it is, she’s going to bring her home. Then again, could it really be her? She would look like Leona herself, and he didn’t bat an eye when she answered the door at that quarantine hotel. It doesn’t matter, nothing is certain. She has no choice but to try to find them again, and this time, not let any bureaucratic bullshit get in her way.

“You think they moved?” Ramses assumes.

“I think Tarboda and I spooked them, so yeah, it would stand to reason.”

“We won’t have to wait that long to confirm. Let’s give it the full ninety minutes before you rush off to get answers.”

“I won’t be rushing off anywhere. Not without you, anyway. You’re the only one of us who can teleport, remember?”

“As long as that shipment of Existence water comes in,” he points out.

“I’ll go check on that now.”

“Thanks.

Leona heads out, and goes straight to Winona, who is in charge of supplies. “Honeycutt, I have a question.”

“Let me guess, you’re a little thirsty,” she guesses suggestively.

“Is it on its way?”

“I just got off the phone with the Navy. There’s a major delay. Evidently the local governments have noticed that we’ve found something special in the Bermuda Triangle, and they would like to get in on the action.”

“It means nothing to them, it’s just water.”

“That’s not something that we can explain,” Winona reasons.

Leona sighs, annoyed. “Yeah, I know.” Her watch beeps. “Motherf—.”

“What is it?” Winona asks worriedly.

“They’re firing another goddamn missile.”

“What are ya gonna do, teleport it away again?”

Leona scowls, and considers her options. “No, they’ll just send another.” She thinks some more. “I’m gonna steal it, and drop it in their backyard. Let’s see how they like it.” She races out of the room.