Microstory 2009: Ohio

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Both of my dads are really smart, and everyone in their families are smart too. While my papa was still in high school, his sister was older, and went off to college. She chose a place in Ohio. It was really fancy, and only for really smart people. There are probably really good colleges closer to where they lived, but she wanted to go there. I forgot to ask her what it was called, and she was too busy tonight, which will be last night by the time you see this. She had too much stuff that they couldn’t fly it all out there, so they drove the whole way from Idaho. They left early, so they could make it a road trip. It took them over three days to get all the way across the country, but they could have done it faster if they had really wanted to. They drove through five other states besides Idaho and Ohio. Remember, my papa had already been to Wyoming and Nebraska, but not Iowa, Illinois, or Indiana. Papa didn’t count that as going to those states, though, since they drove through them so quickly. He even thought that his family didn’t stop once the whole drive through Indiana, though dad thinks they probably had to stop for gas and a potty break at least once. Anyway, Aunt Cooper had to go back and forth from home to her school a few times every year in college, but papa never went back. This was the only time he was there, and he stayed one night in a motel before his parents drove the three of them back to Idaho, so Aunt Cooper could be alone and start learning. I’m still too young to be thinking too much about college, but I really hope to go to somewhere here in Massachusetts. Maybe even Harvard if my grades get a little better.

Microstory 1976: Nuts or Chips

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Leonard: Did anyone follow you?

Ophelia: Yes. The Mississippian Militia is right behind me, as are all of this guy’s friends, and my sixth grade math teacher.

Leonard: Okay, good.

Ophelia: I know how to lose a tail...which I didn’t have. Nobody is looking for us.

Leonard: Yeah, I’m not seeing anything on the news, but I don’t know enough about this territory to say if that’s typical. This feels a bit like a police state.

Ophelia: Not really. It’s just that, as far as anyone is concerned, nothing happened in that apartment hallway yesterday. There’s a hole in the brick, but I doubt anyone’s gonna notice. Our team may have even literally covered it up by now.

Leonard: We have to get the hell out of this place, and back to the U.S.

Vogel: I can get us all someplace safe, and smuggle us out of the city.

Leonard and Ophelia: *simultaneously* Shut up.

Vogel: Look, you’re gonna have to trust me at some point. I know Mississippi, and I know Memphis. You both are obviously highly capable, but still untrained. Let me help.

Leonard: We can’t trust you. We weren’t in that hallway accidentally. We’ve been looking for you for over a week.

Vogel: I’m not surprised, but you haven’t asked me any questions, except for who shot at us, and why, so whatever you think I did, you’re obviously not certain I’m guilty.

Leonard: We’re certain enough. *to Ophelia* What did you get?

Ophelia: Mostly nuts and chips. There wasn’t a great selection at the inconvenience store. All of the sandwiches looked bad.

Leonard: *tosses Vogel a bag* I prefer nuts. Eat your chips in the bathtub. Turn on the sink faucet. My partner and I need to have a private conversation.

Vogel: *reluctantly heads for the bathroom*

Ophelia: The window?

Leonard: Doesn’t exist. *turns on the TV, and raises the volume*

Ophelia: What the hell are we gonna do?

Leonard: I may have an idea, but it’s risky. I can find us a guy.

Ophelia: You know someone? Aren’t you from, like, another planet, or something?

Leonard: Agent Altimari has contacts here. *points to the bathroom* She found him when the rest of us couldn’t, which made Reese suspicious, so she had to explain where she got the information. I have the name of her supplier here. It’s no guarantee. The last we heard, he was trying to get out of the state himself, so he may already be gone.

Ophelia: Worth a shot, I guess. We don’t have a lot of options. Who is this supplier, and do you have his phone number, or something?

Leonard: I have a dead drop location. Someone is gonna have to stay with our detainee while the other goes out. You got the burner phones too, right?

Ophelia: *tosses him one of them* You sure we can’t reach out to anyone else on the team? Not even Agent Parsons?

Leonard: It’s not that we can’t trust him. We can’t be sure he hasn’t been compromised in some other way, like a tapped phone. Now, how do you work this thing?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 31, 2398

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Bridgette didn’t want to tell them who she was keeping alive in the back of her apartment with the Insulator of Life. That’s okay, it’s her business, but it was important they find out where she got it in the first place. She agreed to hand over the information, as long as they left, and left her alone. Mateo wanted to go find his alternate self, so Marie took the documents to deal with it herself. In the meantime, Mateo was able to convince Leona Delaney—the one who lost her version of Mateo after the kidney transplant—to accompany him on the trip to New Jersey. Never mind how he found out Alt!Mateo was there. He probably won’t respond well to anyone’s face but hers, and the other Leonas are busy at the moment.

Mateo looks through the map as Delaney is driving into the city. The internet calls Howell a township, but neither of them really knows what that means, especially not in this reality. No matter, the point is that Alt!Mateo was captured on camera on Aldrich Road, just off the highway. The file that Winona gave them indicates that he doesn’t have access to a vehicle, or at least didn’t have one in Kansas City, because he hitchhiked with truckers all the way there. So he most likely walked to the restaurant from his motel, and there’s only one in the area. That’s where they head first, hoping that someone will agree to help them.

The clerk—or maybe the owner—doesn’t seem pleased about seeing Mateo when they walk up to the counter. “Have you seen a man who looks like me?” Mateo asks.

“You mean you’re not the one in Room Eleven?” he asks.

“No, that would be my brother.”

The guy looks between the two of them. “He in some kind of trouble?”

“Only with the family. It’s important that we find him, though.”

“Could you maybe let us in his room?” Delaney asks.

“I can’t do that. You probably shoulda told me you were him, and lost your key.”

Mateo smirks, and nods over to a notice taped on the glass. “Then I would have had to pay the thousand dollar lost key fee.”

The man shrugs.

“Is he in there right now?” Delaney asks.

“Haven’t seen him all day, ‘cept when he left this morning. I have a great view of all those rooms. I’da seen him if he had come back. He wasn’t carryin’ nothin’ and he didn’t check out, so do what you will with that information.”

“Okay.”

“I can get you the room next door,” the guy says.

“Thanks,” Delaney says, “but we’ll just wait for him in our car.”

Mateo isn’t sure that he agrees. Since his stuff is still here, he’s probably coming back, and if he doesn't, there is nothing more they can do to find him unless they get more updated intel. The only thing to do now is stake the place out. It could take days, they better get a room. “Hold on. Is Room One vacant?”

“Sure is.”

“Book us for the night.” Mateo catches Delaney’s look. “It’s an L-shape. We have a better view of him through the window, and it’s too hot to sit in a car.”

Delaney is nervous, but she appreciates the logic. “Okay.”

The man chuckles at all this, but takes their money, just the same.

It’s an incredibly gross room, but if all goes well, they won’t be sleeping here, or anything. They crack the shades, and position the chair in a good place. Mateo takes first watch while Delaney sits on the bed. They wait for hours, switching places when one of them gets tired of it, but boredom is the real killer. Everything here costs, including so much as turning on the television. They could probably expense it to the government, but then they get audited, and it would be this whole thing.

“Hey, uhh…Mateo?”

He’s in the chair again now. “Yeah?”

“It’s getting late,” she states.

“I know,” he replies.

“What are we gonna do about sleeping? There’s only one bed.”

“He may return in the middle of the night. We have to take shifts anyway.”

“Oh, right.”

“Why? Do you want to book a room in a nicer place?”

“No, it’s…it’s not that.”

“What is it? I know you don’t know me that well, but you can tell me anything.”

Delaney hesitates, but then she really decides to just go for it. “Can we have sex?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I never got that far with my Mateo, and I was just thinking—”

“Well, stop doing that, I guess.”

“Stop doing what, thinking?”

“If those are the kinds of thoughts you have, then just quit while you’re ahead.”

“If it’s a problem of fidelity, I already asked your wife about it, and she said—”

“You didn’t ask her anything. Why are you lying to me?”

“Will you stop interrupting?”

“Probably not, not if you’re gonna say things like that. I don’t know how much you’ve been told, but I got a lap dance once, and it nearly destroyed my marriage. I’m not going there, and I would ask you to respect that.”

“Your wife sounds like a bitch.”

“What exactly is your problem?”

“My problem?” She’s getting angry. “My problem is that the life of my life died to save my life, and I end up in this reality, only to find—not one, but two—men who look exactly like him. One of them has now asked me to help him find the other, and it’s giving me all these emotions that I’m not allowed to talk to anyone about!”

“I know a good therapist.”

“You know what I mean!”

“No, I obviously don’t. If you need help, you need to find someone who can do that for you, and I’m not that guy. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through, because I’ve lost the love of my life too, but I keep getting her back.”

Something clicks in her brain. “Yeah. You did. But I remember your Leona telling us that you were from two different realities. So how did you make that work?”

“Her brain was blended,” Mateo answers, hoping that the fight is over.

Leona tries to guess the meaning by the context. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s when someone pulls memories from an alternate—”

“Stop. Hold very still,” Leona interrupts him to say.

“What is it?”

Leona carefully lifts her hands up. “The sun set while we were talking.” She claps, signaling the lights to turn off. She gasps at the sight outside the window.

Mateo pivots to see what she’s so afraid of. It’s Alt!Mateo, and he is not happy. He’s so not happy that he runs away into the night.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2398

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They’re not sure why there was a time limit to literally get through the door to get processed out of Birket, but it turned out fine. They all made it through, and walked across the desert to the Israeli border. It was there that they waited for almost the entire day before transport to Cairo came for them. People obviously weren’t in any hurry to help them. They weren’t on the road for long before darkness fell, and their driver had to stop and check into a motel for the night. He didn’t secure any rooms for them, of course, and clearly didn’t care, so they were forced to sleep under the stars on the beach in a coastal town called Taba, Egypt. Fortunately, it was pretty nice weather, and they were all glad to be free at least. So far, there was no indication of how exactly they were going to get back to the states. Their devices were confiscated from them, and never returned—wiped clean upon any attempt at unauthorized access—and no one in Taba was willing to let them use a phone.

They woke up this morning, all reporting having slept well enough, and made their way back to the motel. Neither the driver nor his bus could be found. Amir asked the front desk about it in Arabic, and learned that he checked out early, and took off. That’s very weird. It’s his job to get them to a special final processing center in Cairo, not just to help them make it all the way home. They’re expected to exit the region according to policy, which entails either meeting their sponsor, or an approved representative, in country. Now it’s going to be much more difficult to do that, and might even get them sent back to Birket. Maybe that’s what someone has wanted all along, and is driving these obstacles. Still, no one lends them a phone.

“How long will it take us to walk?” Kivi asks.

Amir laughs. “At least a week. That’s if we walk for several hours each day, which we won’t be able to do, especially not without any water.”

“Why won’t anyone help us? Do they not have any taksis, or anything around here?” Leona asks.

“I tried asking,” Amir begins, “but just because we speak the same language, doesn’t mean they like me. They know what we are, and while Egyptians don’t have any particular distaste for colonists—or freed colonists, like ourselves—there is some local annoyance that they’re being used as a waypoint for us. Their government struck a deal to make it happen after Israel and Jordan both refused, but regular citizens don’t like it. It’s not the only deal that Egypt has regarding refugees. It’s a huge political issue.”

“Is that why the driver abandoned us?” Marie asks him.

“Probably, yes, but it doesn’t make much sense. He could still get in trouble for it, because now it’s worse. The only thing Egyptians hate more than processing refugees is wayward refugees who are stuck here, and can’t be processed out.”

“What about Saudi Arabia?” Kivi presses. “How do they feel about us?”

Amir looks to the south. “You’re not getting across the Red Sea, and you’re not getting through the two borders between you and Saudi Arabia on land.”

“It was just a thought,” Kivi says, shrugging.

“Keeves, maybe you could find someone to help us?” Leona asks her.

“I’ve already asked,” Amir protests.

“Keeve?” Leona urges, not wanting to explain what makes her method different.

“I can try,” Kivi replies, uncertain of her own skills. She steps away from the group, as before, trying to seek an ally. Her stride is wider than normal, reminiscent of a wedding party gracefully drifting down the aisle. She periodically alters direction, hoping to catch a scent, for lack of a better term.

“What is she doing?” Amir asks Heath in a whisper.

“Honestly, I don’t really know,” Heath answers him, probably not lying.

It feels like she walks all over town, encountering each one of the 10,000 people who live here. She doesn’t get the sense that any of them would tell them the time, let alone help get them out of the country. Amir talks to a few more people himself, and receives the same cold welcome. They’re starting to think that they really should get themselves out of the area as fast as possible. If they tried to walk to the next town over, it might only take them two days. Of course, water and food is still a problem. If only Birket gave them small samples of Energy water as parting gifts, they would be able to survive just a little bit longer. As it stands, they may die here like a flower in drought.

They don’t end up walking anywhere. They just go back to the beach, and sit to watch the waves come in. Marie suggests that they fish for food, which she surely learned how to do at the master level in the afterlife simulation. Amir informs them that he saw a sign back there, forbidding all shore fishing. Hours later, a fleet of helicopters roar towards them from the horizon. “Those are American,” Amir exclaims.

“We better go,” Leona determines.

Once more, they head for downtown, where they find a bunch of soldiers spread out, trying to take control of the populace. People are scared, but cooperating, and it doesn’t look like things are going to escalate to true violence. A woman who looks in charge spots them coming towards the crowd. She orders a group of her soldiers to escort us over. “Agent Matic?” she asks when they meet her halfway.

“That’s me,” Leona responds reluctantly. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s a secret agent, and only partially because she isn’t really.

“Miller Dennard. Why didn’t you call?” she demands to know.

 “We don’t have phones,” Leona explains. “No one would let us borrow theirs.”

She’s fuming, but not at them. She’s staring daggers at all the locals. “Follow me. We’re taking you straight to Frankfurt, where you’ll board your connection, like you were always supposed to.”

Leona nods to the others that they should accept the ride. “What prompted you to come for us?” she asks the Miller.

The Miller puts on her sunglasses. “Orders from high.”

“How high?”

Miller Dennard turns away to head for the helicopters herself. “All the way up!”

Leona sighs, recognizing that while this looks life a gift, it only makes things more comfortable. Every person who knows that they’re special makes their lives that much more complicated. Still, they have to get back home if they have any chance of getting back to their real home, so she runs over, and gets in the aircraft too.

Miller Dennard places her headset on as their launching, and turns towards one of the other helicopters. “Put an A-bomb in that water!” she orders.

Horrified, they watch as an object slides out of the other helicopter, and drops into the Gulf of Aqaba. Stillness until the water shudders and ripples all at once, as if a powerful electrical charge had been sent through it. They fly away.

Microstory 1584: Courage

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Prompt

I wake up in a bathtub, covered in ice, and in an immense amount of pain. There is a huge sewn-up incision on my stomach.

Botner

I look at the tiled walls, look at the floor, look at the woman, whose voice I remember but whose face I don’t recognize. “So you’re the doctor, right?” I feel like a fraud.

“Doctor?”

“Doctor.”

“Yes. You won’t help me.”

I’m confused. “How is that even possible?”

“You saved my life.”

“I didn’t know you were still in here.”

She laughs. “You will help me. You have to.”

At the beginning, I was confused by the entire experience. I felt both privileged and like a fraud to be part of it. Then I remembered my PhD and the structure of the experiment that I had been part of. After a while, I came to accept the role that I was being asked to play. This person had incredible amounts of courage, strength and resourcefulness. I knew that I had to do whatever I could to help this person, regardless of whether she could do the same for me. I can remember every second of that night. Everything that transpired is still like a slow-motion film in my head. I remember my partner, Sam calling...

Conclusion

...me up, and saying that I needed to meet her at this motel. She wouldn’t tell me why, and when I got to the room, she wasn’t even here. The last thing I remember, something sharp pierced my neck, and now I’m here. I never thought my life would end like this, but at least I’m doing something good. This doctor may not have taken my organs in the most ethical way, but with them, she can do a lot more good than I ever hoped. There’s something about me—my biology—that makes my organs special. They’ve made great advances in cloning human tissue by studying me, and the time has come for me to die, so they can leap over that last medical science hurdle. I should be mad, but I guess all this was inevitable. They could only do so much without taking me apart. She says she’s going to take the heart next, but that she wanted to thank me for my sacrifice first. Now that I’m too weak to fight it is what she probably really had in mind. For my last few minutes I call Sam, and thank her for setting this all up. I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it myself, so I’m glad someone was there to force my hand. I don’t call my family to tell them I love them. They know, and hearing their voices again would just make it harder. The light dims, and I disappear, but will live on in everyone whose life this technique saves.

Microstory 823: Bear to Cross

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Something you might not have known is that not all bears like to swim, or are very good at it. Years ago, I was trekking through the wilderness in Siberia when I came across this very small kamchatka brown here. He was trying to fish in the river as I was passing by. We waved to each other, but neither one of us was there to make friends, so we didn’t stop to talk, or anything. So I just kept walking down the trail, enjoying the quiet solitude, eventually turning away from the river. Later on, though, the trail meets back up with the same river, and even crosses it. As I was drawing nearer, I started to hear this splashing and growling upriver. At first, I assumed the same bear came down, and was having a hard time with the hunt. Or it was some other bear. Honestly, I can’t really tell bears apart. I’m not racist, though, I just want to make that clear. I have bear friends. Anyway, he’s not having trouble fishing, but with swimming. He had fallen in, and even though bears are meant to be excellent swimmers, this one never seemed to figure it out. I imagine he was the runt of the family, and wasn’t cared for, or taught by his mother, the way a bear should.

He was gasping for air, trying to get out, looking to grab onto anything in his path. He found it in a branch, and thought he was safe, but he wasn’t. Something about the way that branch is hanging, it’s like it was trying to pull him all the way under. If he lost air for just a few more seconds, I was afraid he wouldn’t make it. So I rushed up to him, and after fighting against the current, and making sure the panicky bear didn’t take me down with him, I got him out. We caught our respective breaths on the bank, but didn’t speak right away. I gave up my life in finance so I wouldn’t have to talk to people anymore, and he didn’t appear too interested in getting to know anyone any more than I was. Still, we exchanged a few pleasantries, and I handed him my old business card, which still has my cell phone number on it. I told him to look me up if he ever found himself stateside, which was exactly what happened a year ago. He didn’t know anyone in North America, and needed a place to crash, so he decided to bite the bullet, and ask me for the favor. Unfortunately, since I gave up my job, I didn’t exactly have a place to live either. I was crashing at someone else’s place already at the time. He tried to be affectionate, hoping we could go halfsies on a cheap motel room, but he was clearly agitated that he came all this way, and had no place to stay. To keep the peace, I agreed to the deal, and ended up just paying for the room myself. We’ve been roommates ever since. It turns out we have a lot in common. We both hate Trump and Putin.

Overwritten: Lima (Part V)

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A year after the whole train debacle, Reaver asked me to do the same thing again. He said that the program ran perfectly, and that I should only have this one more mysterious assignment. I knew that he was trying to kill Mateo by knocking a train into him upon his return to the timeline, but I didn’t know how to fix it. Brian had a brilliant idea for it, though. He—oh my God, it’s so crazy—he strung up bed sheets across the tracks after the last stop before the bridge. He tied them loosely enough to safely be pulled right off by the oncoming train, but bright and colorful enough to be noticed so that the train would be delayed long enough for the conductor to get out and try to figure out what the hell was going on. And it almost worked. Brian watched from the trees as a good samaritan removed the sheets not long before the train’s arrival. If he had tried to tie them back up, he would have probably been caught. Instead, he hopped in his car and sped off towards the bridge, hoping to possibly save Mateo in the nick of time. He ended up not having to. Apparently someone time traveled onto the tracks just before the train collided with him and spirited both him and Leona away. We weren’t the only ones looking out. And just how widespread was this time travel thing?

I continued to be a good little security officer for Horace Reaver for the better part of a decade before he asked me to do anything else untoward. He never seemed to suspect that I was against him. I got the distinct impression that he now thought focusing on the success of his conglomerate was what was going to get Leona to fall in love with him again. It obviously wasn’t working, and then the unthinkable happened, from Reaver’s perspective. Leona disappeared one day, never to be seen again by anyone but me and my surveillance equipment. She began to return to the timeline only once a year, at the same time as Mateo Matic. I’m not sure why she became one of us, but Brian assumed it was an indication that some mysterious entity was controlling all of this. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to contact these theoretical people, or if I should avoid them at all costs.

In the year 2031, Reaver asks me to keep watch over a trio of people he’s kidnapped. Leona becoming a time traveler really set him off, and he was no longer even pretending to be a good person. He was turning into the man I remembered from the other timeline. I was changing history, but I wasn’t making it better. We were in a warehouse on the edge of San Diego. It was abandoned and falling apart. Most of the letters for the climate control company sign had fallen off, leaving only LIMA remaining. I take a look around when I arrive, first trying my best to ignore the hostages. I inspect every nook and cranny, as it were, for any hidden cameras or spies. Nothing and no one. We’re alone. I move over to the captives and attempt to unlock their chains, but no such luck. Reaver didn’t leave any keys.

I do not recognize the other two, but the boy is Leona’s brother. “What are you doing?” little Theo asks me.

“I’m trying to free you,” I say. Isn’t it obvious?

“Why would you do that?” the man asks.

“I’m not interested in what Horace Reaver wants,” I answer. “I’ve been trying to stop him for decades.”

“What do you know of him?”

I take a risk. “He’s a time traveler, just like Mateo and Leona. In an alternate timeline, he killed a lot of people. I’m trying to stop him from doing that again.”

“How do you know about Mateo and Leona?” the woman asks defensively.

“He’s been sending me out to spy on them. He didn’t tell me why, but it wasn’t hard to put the facts together.” I quit trying to force the chains off of them. “To what end did he kidnap you three?”

“Just to get us out of the way,” the man says. “Mateo is his real target.”

“He’s holding you ransom?” I ask, giving them a bottle of water from my pack.

“I heard him talking on the phone,” Theo says. “He has no intention of helping our family find us. It’s just a trap. We would have been left to die here if not for you.”

I look at my watch. It’s nearly midnight. “The two of them will be back soon. Where are they going to appear?”

They hesitate.

“Look, my guess is that Reaver already knows, but I don’t. So you can either trust me, or you can let them die. I can help. Please.”

Theo breaks down. “They’ll jump into the timestream in Huntsville, Ontario. There’s a motel not far from there where Reaver left instructions for him to get to us. But like I said, it’s a trap. Reaver is using that just to kidnap them next.”

I take some time to process the information. I could try to warn them through the motel, but who knows what they know? Does Reaver own them? Are they evil spies? There’s no way to know, but it’s possible, and this time, I’m not just being paranoid. I can trust no one. I need to find a way to protect Mateo and Leona without Reaver knowing about it. “How exactly is Mateo getting these instructions?”

“Reaver emailed information to the concierge, or whatever. I think they’re just supposed to hand it off to them.”

“It was his mistake doing all this in front of you.” I pull out my phone and start typing up a new document before looking up the email address of the motel.

“What are you going to do?” The woman is not convinced that I’m on their side.

“Leona Delaney is an incredibly intelligent woman. I’m betting if I leave her a clue, she’ll follow it and do the right thing. All we need to do is make it look like they ignored Reaver’s instructions because they don’t believe him.”

“What does that mean?” Theo asks.

“I’m amending whatever information Reaver emailed the motel with the directions to this warehouse. If I’m right about Leona, they’ll find their way here on their own. It’s the quickest way to alter the timeline without Reaver knowing why, because I can’t straight up tell them that you’re safe. We don’t know who Reaver has posted at the motel. We just have to hope they believe he’s changed his mind slightly.”

“What?”

“Just...trust me,” I say. “I know it’s confusing.” I send off the email so that the motel can add it to the packet left for Mateo, then turn back to the other three. “You look hungry. I’ll go get you some food if you promise me one thing.”

The man eyes me suspiciously. “Promise you what?”

“You cannot tell Mateo or Leona that I was here. I have to stay in character. When they get here, I’ll be out of sight. Just let them free you and leave me out of it.”

“They’ll wonder why Horace Reaver gave them this address.”

“And they’ll never know the truth. You got that? I cannot continue helping them if they know I’m there. I can’t risk Reaver finding out about me, and the fewer people that know I’m a mole, the more effective I am.”

“Okay,” the woman says authentically. “We understand.”

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Microstory 188: Fiona Mill

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When Fiona Mill’s parents were driving their little baby girl home from the hospital for the first time, they were involved in a vehicular collision. Little Fiona was thrown from the car and suffered an irreparable spinal injury. Fortunately, she survived, but was left a paraplegic, and was forced to remain in a wheelchair. Having grown up in this condition, and not knowing any other way, Fiona was a primarily positive and agreeable person. After her parents entered an assisted living facility, she took over operations of their little eleven-room motel on the edge of Gallup, Ashiwa. Business was not great during her tenure due to a new highway, but overhead was minimal and she employed only one worker. They were able to keep the business afloat with little struggle. As a little girl, her parents would often underestimate her strength, and never noticed when she would sneak over and listen to their discussions. They would regularly discuss something referred to as the Firefly Program, but always danced around the details. One night, she witnessed a mysterious yellow light emanating from her mother’s hands. Simply seeing this with her own eyes allowed her to understand how to make this light happen herself. It started with a violet light, but gradually slid up through indigo, blue, green, yellow, and orange. She was never able to generate any other colors, and she did not understand exactly what was happening, or why she was able to perform this magic. She decided to never reveal to her parents that, not only did she know her mother’s secret, but that she shared her gifts. Fiona was placed on the special list of anomalies, and approached by Bellevue without prompt. Being so agreeable, and really having nothing better to do, she closed down the motel and and moved to Kansas, under the condition that her one employee could accompany her. He ended up seamlessly continuing his maintenance duties at the Bellevue Hotel. After some investigation, it was discovered that Fiona’s ability was not just glowing. The lights were only precursors to astral travel. When she steadied her mind and focused her light, Fiona could actually open up windows to other dimensions called astral nodes. Each color gave access to its own specific dimension, and each successive dimension could facilitate faster-than-light travel to a greater distance.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 8, 2032

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Mateo spent a few minutes just staring at Leona sleeping next to him. He felt responsible for turning her into a salmon; for forcing her into this life. But he was also grateful to always have someone with him. If they hadn’t fallen in love, it would have still been nice to have a partner.

She woke up quickly, possibly sensing his gaze. They looked at each other for a good long while, not saying a word. “I’ve been waiting to wake up next to you for a very long time.”

Mateo looked away. “Nothing happened between us last night.”

“I know that.” She sat up and leaned against the headboard. “This is gonna get awkward.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you and I are together now. But our family is always going to be around, at least for a long time. We won’t be left alone very much. Even though our life will be saturated, they will have waited months to see us again. Doesn’t seem fair to take a break from them for sex when they don’t get to see us very often.”

“We’re alone now.”

“We’re not doing it this year. This is just the first conversation on the matter.”

“I just mean...I think they know that. They’ve been alive long enough to understand. They’re probably not here at the moment so that we would have some privacy. What we do with that time is up to us.”

Leona bit her lower lip in thought. “I think we should use that time to eat.”

“I agree.” Fittingly, there was a knock on the door and the sound of Theo on the other side. Mateo pulled on a shirt someone had laid out for him and opened the door. “Hey, kid. You look older.”

“I’m getting there.” He sported an evil smile. “Did we give you two enough time?”

Mateo looked back to Leona with a smirk. “What did I tell you?”

She ignored him. “Theo, have you been missing for two years?”

“Of course not, I’ve been back home. I spend the year there. I told them where you are. They kind of already knew what was going on, what with the fact that your older boyfriend only came ‘round once a year, if that. They’re not happy, but they get that you wanted to make a clean break.” He walked all the way inside and sat down on the table. “They just need a call from you every year.”

“I can do that, now that things have settled down.”

Theo looked up to Mateo. “Leona is going to take me to lunch since I’m too old to drive. Your mother wants to get to know you.”

“Go ahead,” Leona urged. “We have all of time and space.”

Mateo laughed. “Is that a reference?”

He met his mother outside by the pool where she suggested they go for a walk. There was still much to learn of each other, and the healing process was just beginning. “Where is your husband?”

“A couple of our friends dropped in, so they’re catching up, just like we are.”

“How do you know anyone?”

“They’re salmon. I believe you know one of them. He healed you once?”

“Ah, yes. Vearden, right?”

“That’s right. They both lived with us in in the 1740s, but we knew his partner, Saga from the jump before.”

“Speaking of non sequiturs, what am I supposed to call you?”

She smiled kindly. “You can call me whatever you want, but if you prefer a name, then it’s Aura.”

“And why is that? You used to be Lauren.”

“It changes each time we jump. Intellectually, I know that I used to go by that, but it’s very hard for me to answer to it. It would be like me trying to call you John Smith and expecting you to accept it. I don’t know why the powers that be did that to us. I’ve not heard of any other salmon who is forced to change their name.”

Mateo took a few beats. “It’s one thing to force us through time. It’s an entirely different invasion to alter our minds. What else have they done to our brains? When I was young, I skinned my knee while staying with you and you were so scared about being in trouble with Randall and Carol. Do you even remember that? Or did these assholes take that away from you, or make you think that you had a daughter. Did you have a daughter? Do I have a sister I don’t remember? We would never freaking know!” But he didn’t say freaking.

She didn’t ask him to calm down or stop cursing. She let him vent, and not just because she was his mother and understood what he needed at the moment, but also since she appeared to share his sentiments. A child is supposed to end up losing their parents, but to remove a child from a parents’ life; that was sacrilege.

“One day,” Mateo assured her, “they will pay for what they’ve done, not only to me, but to all the others. I don’t care what their motives are. If they’re powerful enough to push us around like this, surely there’s another way to accomplish their goals.”

“One might imagine,” Aura agreed.

They walked in silence for a few blocks.

“I would like to go back to Kansas. Leona says she wants to keep her family out of this, but I want them to be close enough if she ever changes her mind. You used to live in Kansas City. Do you think you would be interested in going back?”

“I would love that. I was wondering how to ask you.”

“It’s going to take us an entire day to get there. I’m sure you two have had time to establish fake identities in this time period, but it’s probably going to be impossible for us to purchase a plane ticket.”

“Oh, we are extremely rich,” Aura told him with quite a bit of pride. “The powers that be didn’t seem to have a problem with us investing in companies we knew would be successful in the future. We discovered that we had already opened an account at a bank, which we later had to actually do once we went back in time. We mostly did it to have some money while we were there; we never expected to end up in the 21st century. But now that we have,” she paused for effect, “we’re millionaire’s, Mateo.”

“If you didn’t know what your name was going to be until your jump, how do you still have control of that account?”

“That took some maneuvering, but we figured it out.” They had arrived back at their starting point. “Our family owns this motel, which is why we had no problem getting back to this room for your arrival. We also own an entire apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri. We have been living there while we build our dream home in Mission Hills. It’s ready for you now, though. We’ll get back there by the end of the day.”

Mateo was more excited than he felt he should have been. He was raised by all three of his parents to be modest and humble. Nonetheless, he figured it would be pretty nice to have an entire mansion so that they could travel through time in peace.

That evening, they were back in Kansas and walking into their new home that was already fully furnished. Mateo and Leona were tired again, though, so they fell asleep once more. They really needed to find a way to get on some kind of legitimate schedule.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 7, 2031

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Aura (formerly known as Lauren) Gardner dove across the car and tackled her son. “Matty!”

He hugged her tightly back.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t have a choice. They took me. They took me away from  you, and I’ve been trying to get back ever since. I never thought I would, but I guess they’re done with me. I’m here. You’re here. Everything is going to be fine.” She backed up a bit. “Let me get a look at you. My, it’s been, what? Fifteen years, maybe twenty? Oh, you have so much to tell me, I’m sure. But first, I need to explain where I’ve been.”

“I know where you’ve been,” Mateo admitted.

“How would you know that? Did you find Edward’s records?”

“Better,” Theo jumped in. “He found Edward. I go by Theo now.”

Aura stared at Theo like he was a ghost and fell back to her seat.

“You were reincarnated too?” the other man asked.

“Indeed...what name has been chosen for you this time?”

“Samsonite,” the man said. “Aura and I felt our new assignments before we left. That’s how we knew that we were jumping soon. But we figured we would land in the eleventh century. What year is this?”

They exchanged as much information as possible, but there wasn’t nearly enough time. Mateo thought that all five of them would be sent to the future, based on what Danica had said about them being a whole party.

Unfortunately, Mateo was wrong. Midnight came and sent both Mateo and Leona to April 7, 2031. They were alone in the clearing. They waited for signs of life but nothing came. They remained there alone for a half hour, hoping to see Leona’s brother, Mateo’s mother, and her significant other. “Leona. We should call them. Danica gave us those phones, remember?”

“I have the phones,” Leona replied in a huff. “I have all of the phones. I forgot to pass them out.”

“Okay,” Mateo said gently. “That’s okay. We’ll find them.”

“Where?” Leona asked angrily. “We’re in the middle of nowhere Canada! Your mother was only familiar with this area back in God-knows-when. Other than that, we have no connection to this town. We don’t know anyone, and we don’t have money! It’s pretty cold here for April, so that’s not great! Our only chance is to get back to Kansas, wishin’ and hopin’ that your family thinks to check there every year, just in case, but that’s practically impossible!”

“Give me one of the phones.”

“I told you. I have all of them. There’s no one to call!”

“Would you just trust me?” She was not happy, but handed one of the phones over anyway. While she walked away to kick the dirt around, Mateo discovered that they had access to the present-day internet. It was a little tough to navigate. Not only was the phone probably from deep in the future, but the internet had changed in the last 17 years. “I found it. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a hotel not twenty minutes from here by foot.”

“Do you remember me telling you the part about not having any money?”

“At the very least, we can get out of the cold. Hopefully we can work something out. If not, we’ll figure something else out.”

“Great plan, Mateo.”

“If we don’t try something, we’re going to die out here.”

The moonlight was hardly enough to see her face, but she was very obviously fuming. “Good point.” She began to walk away. “What are you waiting for?”

“It’s this way,” Mateo told her.

“Well why didn’t you say that?”

They walked out of the field, along some kind of body of water, past the high school, and through town. They ran a little bit of the way, not only to warm up, but because they were in a hurry to find a way out of their predicament. As soon as they walked into the inn, the man at the counter greeted them. “Welcome to Canada. Here is your itinerary.”

“Pardon?” Mateo asked, slightly out of breath.

“The jet leaves in one hour. A car is being brought around to automatically drive you to the base. From there, a state of the art aircraft will take you all the way to your final destination in San Diego. Shouldn’t take more than two hours.”

Leona took the itinerary. “What’s in San Diego?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have that information. But Mr. Reaver personally came out to ensure that you were taken care of. He said that you would be able to find the rest of your party there.”

Mateo looked up from the packet. “Our family must be down there. But why?”

“Let’s go outside,” Leona suggested.

“Wait, I have a few more questions.”

“Mateo. Outside. Now,” she insisted. She turned to the innkeeper. “Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Reaver will be very pleased with your service.” The innkeeper smiled as they walked out. Once they were out of earshot, Leona pulled him to the side. “We cannot get on that jet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t find this a little weird?”

“Nothing in my life has been normal for the last couple of weeks...decades.”

“Do you recognize the name Reaver?”

“I’ve heard it before. I can’t place it. We know him?”

“His company is the one who bought up the warehouse district where we had our surgeries. He’s been under a lot of suspicion. The authorities haven’t been able to find any evidence, but his business practices are shady at best. He’s responsible for a lot of unemployment, gentrification, and even a standard increase in the business day. He’s basically the anti-Google, and he’s just as powerful, if not more.”

“Why the hell would a guy like that have anything to do with us?” He started to look up Reaver Enterprises on his phone. “Theo is a pretty interesting kid, but I have a hard time believing he’s already networked this much. He’s not yet a teen—oh my God,” he interrupted himself

“What is it?”

He was looking at a picture of Horace Reaver. “This is him. This is the guy who tried to kill me when I jumped to the future.”

“He’s a salmon. That actually makes sense. It explains how he’s advanced technology so much.”

“What are we going to do? He probably has our family. We have to get them back, but you’re right, we cannot get on that jet.”

“This packet has the address of where we’re supposed to go once in San Diego. We have to find a way to get there on our own.” A car pulled up in front of them. The door opened, revealing the inside to be empty. “Run,” Leona ordered.

As they ran away from the inn, Leona looked through her phone for the nearest airport. The directions said that it was going to take almost an hour to walk to Lake Vernon, but they were able to wade through a stream and cross a highway to cut that down. They were exhausted when they arrived. Just as they were deciding whether they should try and figure out how to steal a plane, a woman approached them on the dock. “Can I help you?”

They froze, unsure of what they should say. They had already established that they had no money, but they also had no other form of compensation. They didn’t have a fancy watch to sell, or any special skills to trade. No one in their right mind would help two freaky people looking for a trip to San Diego at two in the morning. They say that honesty is the best policy, but Mateo decided to fudge the truth a little. “An evil business magnate kidnapped our family and is holding them hostage in San Diego. He says only he can get us there in time before he kills them at midnight since he stole our passports. We were going to steal your plane, because we’re desperate.”

“Are you talking about Horace Reaver?”

“We are,” Leona answered.

“Get in,” the woman said. “My brother died of cancer after working for Evil Enterprises.”

They got lucky. True to her word the woman, who refused to exchange names, flew them all the way to California. They were there many hours later than Reaver would have expected them, which could either be very good because he would have no idea where they were, or very bad because he may have decided to kill their family. The woman couldn’t be any more involved than she already was, so she immediately started getting ready to leave after dropping them off on Lower Otay Lake, having not filed a flight plan. The last thing she did was give Leona a few hundred dollars and a gun, saying that they might need it. Leona later said that it seemed very un-Canadian of her.

Mateo and Leona made their way towards the address written at the end of the packet, hoping that it wasn’t a diversion. It took quite a long time to get across town, especially since they were not quite in San Diego from the start. They had to find a cab that was not only driven by a human, but who would also accept Canadian bills. He appeared to be sympathetic to their troubles after they mentioned Reaver again. It would appear that everyone hated him, but no one was capable of defeating him. Mateo couldn’t help but feel like doing just that was exactly the reason he was turned into a time traveler, despite the Delegator’s claim that he had no official job.

They found Aura, Samsonite, and little Theo chained up in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, drained of energy and literally starving. They weren’t even under guard. After getting some food and freshening up, they posited that Reaver was only ever interested in killing Mateo and Leona, and that the jet was engineered to blow up or crash. The only reason he was keeping the other three hostage was so that they wouldn’t be able to make contact. Why he bothered giving them the address was the only thing that truly could not be explained.

Mateo wanted to finally catch up with his long-lost mother, but he fell asleep while they were talking. By the time he woke up next to Leona in the motel bed, it was noon of the following year.

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