Microstory 2486: Estuaridome

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There is a mountain under this dome, which is nearly all natural, and a river flowing from it. It’s not a particularly long river, but it’s necessary to support the star of the show, which is of course, the estuary. Like Nordome Network, this is not only one dome. It’s connected to the one next to it, but it’s unique in that it connects to a non-standard-sized dome. An estuary doesn’t just mark the end of a river. It serves as the transition between a river and the ocean, so in order for this to work, they needed an ocean. Sure, they could have dug a mini-ocean inside this dome just to get the point across, but why do that when you can simply choose a spot that’s next to a full-sized ocean, which they were doing anyway? Estuaridome butts right up against Aquilonian Deep. They share an atmosphere, and you can travel between them freely, either by boat, or along the bank / shore. There’s nothing to do here, really. You can’t camp overnight. You can’t have parties, or participate in water sports. You can have a nice picnic, and obviously, you can go on a hike. You can climb the mountain, or just sit and enjoy the peace. But you can’t do anything disruptive, destructive, or annoying. There is a tour you can take, if you don’t want to be self-guided. I took that one day, then came back to just be alone the next. The tour guide was very knowledgeable, and you could tell that he was a human who studied all this stuff on purpose, rather than a superintelligence who simply downloaded the data. He will tell you all about this estuary, and what kind of life lives there, but he can also answer questions about other estuaries on Earth. But just Earth. He has not studied other habitable planets in the galaxy, nor even other water-based domes on Castlebourne. That’s not a complaint, just a warning to direct your questions appropriately. That’s all I’ll say about this. It’s nice and enjoyable, but it isn’t revolutionary, and it’s not any better than a natural geographic fixture.

Microstory 2457: Horseback Mountain

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I love horses, and if you don’t, then we can’t be friends, so don’t @ me. Horseback Mountain is a pretty simple concept. It’s all about horses, and horseback riding. It’s not one mountain, though, which I think is a little weird, but I don’t really care, because I love horses. The first thing I did when I heard about Castlebourne was access the prospectus, and look for a place like this, and it was the first thing to come up. There’s another dome that has ranchland, and a few other horse-inclusive environments, but this is the one where that’s all there is. You can ride horses on a mountain (of course), but there are other areas too. There are plains and prairies, muddy trails, dirt roads, and even beaches. The ocean next to it isn’t real. Curious, a member of one of my riding parties got off, jumped into the water, and started swimming. He was still within yelling distance when he reached the dome’s walls. A hologram makes it look much bigger than it is. This isn’t a complaint, by the way; I really don’t care. The point is to have a place for the horses to run, and the can’t run in deep water anyway. If you want the ocean, go to one of the big ones on the poles. Now for the big question. Are the horses real? The answer is...it’s your choice! There are many real horses available, though they are in limited supply. It takes a long time to grow an animal this large, and they have to be introduced to their environment—and to people—using safe and ethical methods. I much prefer a real horse, but the same can’t be said for everyone, which is why there are other options. There’s more variety, though, than simply organic versus automaton. Your horse can be programmed with whatever temperament or personality you chose. We passed by a group of kids whose horses were fully intelligent. There was only one adult with them. From what we could gather, the horses were the children’s chaperones. They were keeping them in line when they got too rowdy, and teaching them about nature, particularly horses, as you can imagine. I believe the human adult was there in case there was an emergency that required adult hands. I don’t know what kind of intelligence she was, because she didn’t speak while we were passing by. I just think that’s a cool little feature that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. Before you ask, all kinds of equines are here, including donkeys and mules,  zebras, and a few other things. Yes, there are unicorns and pegasuses. You cannot ride either of these things, because if they existed in the real world, they wouldn’t let you, at least according to the Castlebournian interpretation of the mythology. The pegasuses can’t fly. I don’t know how they would without breaking any law of physics, but they have wings, so they look cool. They’re supposed to be rare, but you can go on a particular tour where you’re guaranteed to see what you’re looking for, because they’re either programmed or trained to be in sight. I honestly don’t know if they were mechanical or organic. I didn’t ask, because I don’t care about mythological creatures. I’m a horse girl, and a purist. That’s why I never want to leave. This isn’t a residential dome, but I’ve requested that they make an exception, and build me a home to live in, so I don’t have to take the vactrain here every day. I’m waiting for their response. Wish me luck.

Microstory 2449: Windbourne

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Holy crap, it’s windy here! It’s almost like that’s the point! I’m yelling, because it’s hard to hear with all this wind! Did I mention that it was very windy? Why did they make a dome that’s just super windy? Well, I don’t know, why the hell not? What would you do instead? I’m asking a lot of questions, and I’m not a prolific reviewer on the network, so no one’s going to answer them. The staff certainly didn’t. It’s windy here, because that’s the way they wanted it, and they were technologically capable of it. Before you read on (if you do manage to find this review) you should know that I’m one of the uneducated. By early 21st century standards, I would have been an average student. By today’s standards, with perfections in educational tools, and individualized lesson planning, I’m well-below average. I did this on purpose. I don’t find value in learning beyond a certain point. I’m happy, and I’m content with who I am. So if you’re looking for a scientifically dense explanation for how the wind generation works here, tap on, buddy...tap on. Windbourne. It’s windy. The topography has been moulded to create the perfect conditions for wind, where they want it, when they want it. Air is heated and cooled in very precise configurations to create the wind patterns as planned. Temperature usually flows spontaneously from hot to cold, I remember that. I’m not sure how they’re heated, but I think the process is solar-powered, perhaps by use of mirrors, rather than just solar panels to convert into electricity. They also use gargantuan fans to control the airflow, but I didn’t see them, so the must have cleverly hidden them behind geographic features, or maybe holographic illusions. Some regions are windier than others, of course, and they tell you where these are. The map color-codes the zones by the speed of the wind, so if you just want a light breeze, you can stay there. If you want near tornado-like conditions, baby, you’re gonna wanna go to Gale City. Winds in this area reach up to 400 kilometers per hour. That sounded like a lot to me, but I didn’t have much of a frame of reference until I tried it myself. What you do is enter a tunnel where you can walk through, or stand on people movers. Once you’re on the other side of the Arnett Mountains, you climb up to these towers. There are robot staff here, so they’ll tell you where to go, and how to get there. You get to your platform, which is fully protected by walls, and situate yourself in the waiting station. You have a few options here. You can strap yourself in, hold onto the straps, hold onto a bar, or freehand it. Once you’re ready, they’ll open the flap behind you. At this point, you can hear the wind roaring at your sides, and above you, but you’re still protected. This only lasts for a few moments before the wall opposite you opens up. The wind rushes in, as I said, at 400 km/h. What happens to you next is entirely dependent upon your choices, both leading up to it, and once you hit the point of no return. Did you grab on to something? Can you keep holding onto it? Are you gonna fly over the edge? If you do, will you activate a parachute, or a wingsuit? If not, will you manage to land in one of the scattered foam pits, or plummet to your death? Please note that, due to the obvious dangers, there are certain criteria that you must meet before they let you go to Gale City, such as, do you have a heart condition, and do you have mind-transference on, or are you a suicidal moron? I’ve already gone on the ride several times, and I’m gonna end this here, so I can go back to see if I can beat my own record for the farthest fall without wings. Wild ride, friends, wild ride. Catch the wind, and fly out of control!

Microstory 2416: Mountain Mountain

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Mountain Mountain. So nice, they named it twice. You ever heard that saying before? I actually think they named it that specifically so it would fit that phrase. Before you ask, there aren’t only two mountains here, and there is no mountain that’s literally just called Mountain. Someone in my orientation group thought that was the thing, so they were asking which one was Mountain Mountain, presuming it to be the largest one near the center. Everyone laughed, but I think it’s an honest mistake. Anyway, I’m not here to review that woman. There is nothing particularly astonishing about this dome. There are eleven distinct major mountain peaks here. You can find a list of them in the prospectus. The biggest one is called Mount Vendelin, by the way, if you were curious. For those of you who aren’t knowledgeable on the history of this world, it was first colonized by a man named Vendelin Blackbourne. So he lent his name both to the whole planet, and now this mountain. If you like mountains, I suggest you come here, and if you don’t, well then, whatever. There is a lot you can do on this mountain, but there’s something a little bit different about this dome. It’s not “state run” which means that there aren’t any robots or human staff members providing you with any assistance, except as part of orientation. That is, no one is in charge of activities. There aren’t any activities to sign up for at all. If you wanna do something, just print your supplies, and go do it. They will execute rescue operations, if it becomes necessary, but there aren’t drones flying around constantly, or satellite imagery. It’s basically the wilderness out here. My guess is that they want to see if anyone develops their own institutions, but they didn’t actually say that. Need to learn how to mountain climb? Right now, there’s no one around to do that, unless you happen to run into an expert who’s willing to help. I believe, at some point, as fans begin to show up, people will naturally take on leadership roles, and basically start little businesses. Who knows? We’re still in the early days, so we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe it’ll be you!

Microstory 2412: Gulliver’s World

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Have you ever read this book? If you have, you’ll understand what this place is like, and if you haven’t, you’ll have no frame of reference for what I’m talking about. So I won’t get into specifics, but it’s a pretty simple concept. Imagine all the locations from the source material, and what they’re like. That’s how it is in the dome. Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Glubbdubdrib. These are all recreated here, including water in between them to simulate the ocean. It’s not as big as the ocean should be, because it has to be compact, but the land is all there, as it should be. Brobdingnag was clearly the most difficult part. It would be impossible to fit the entire continent in one of the domes, but they were able to build a representative region, just to give you the sense of scale. What would it be like to be a tiny person in a land of giants? That’s the question they’re trying to answer for you. There’s a short mountain range on one side of the fake ocean, so people on the other islands can’t see anything going on on Brobdingnag, so it’s not exactly as it’s described in the book, but it still does its job. It takes up the majority of the space, since the other regions are so much smaller. If you try to come here without being already familiar with the story, you probably won’t be too confused, because you’re not stupid, but it won’t mean anything to you. I suggest you take a few days to get up to speed, and then come for a visit. You can try to spend the night in each place, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth spending any significant amount of time here. It’s cool to see, but not the kind of place that you live. Everything interesting about it gets old pretty quick. I’m glad that made it, because it made sense; it’s just not as engaging as some of the other domes. I mean Fillory? If you get a chance, go to Fillory, that won’t disappoint. This one is better as a short trip.

Microstory 2404: Winterbourne Park

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I understand that there are plenty of mountains, and plenty of snow, on Earth. I understand that you can go on the most dangerous terrain in one of those places, and program your consciousness to jump to a new substrate if something goes wrong. But there’s something really special about being under a dome that’s designed to be the largest ski resort anyone has ever seen outside of a simulation. That’s another thing, you can do all of this more in a virtual construct, if that’s you’re thing, but there’s nothing quite like knowing that this is all happening in base reality. This place is huge. Hundreds of hills, dozens of mountains. Sledding, skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, ice luging. Is that how you spell it? You know what I’m talking about. They also have fat biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice skating, climbing, sled rides. I think the animals are animatronics, but who knows? I didn’t ask. There’s a train that goes all around one of the mountains. You can jump over it on your skis or snowboard, or you can ride the train instead, and watch people do that. It’s funny when they fall, because you know they’re gonna be okay. There’s one mountain, and it’s a toughy, where they intentionally trigger an avalanche, and you have to ski or board away from it. That one’s a little scary. I didn’t do it, and plus, you have to wait for it to be reset. They have to shovel the snow back up to the top, and collect all the dead bodies. It’s not like you can just go up there whenever you feel like it. The indoor areas are just as good. The various resorts have everything you could want, like saunas and spa treatments, hot cocoa, tons of fireplaces to read next to. There are remote cabins for you to sleep in, or you can stay in the main town. They have igloo hotels, which I think I’m gonna go back to try. Didn’t have time to do it all, but everyone who was doing the things that I never got around to seemed to be having a lot of fun.

Microstory 2352: Vacuus, June 1, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Oh no! I’m sorry that you’re going through all that! There must be some way to make new friends without just having to meet them organically. That doesn’t really work when you’re as old as we are. It’s more of a kid thing, but even then, it really only happens if you belong to the same class, or are in the same football team. We...don’t have sports teams here, of course, but I’ve read about them in books. Since you should have more space under the dome, I’m guessing sports are still a thing for you? Maybe you don’t do them yourself, but do you have any other interests, like knitting or stamp collecting? Sorry, I just searched our database for hobbies, and I’m listing the first ones that catch my eye. I don’t have any myself, unless you count watching TV. There’s so much content from the before-fore times, and it’s the easiest thing to do while I’m at work. There’s no collecting up here, and there aren’t many opportunities to make things either. It takes resources, and I would rather pay my friend to make something for me than do it myself. Not that I would like it at any rate. I’m just saying that our past times are really limited on the base. Anything that requires the use of a computer or something is the easiest because I’m paying monthly for access anyway, and power is sort of worth whatever it takes, because again, there’s not much else. I’m sure you have limitations too. Man, I really wish they hadn’t poisoned the Earth. I mean, obviously I hate that because it’s bad, but also because you otherwise could have regaled me with stories of how amazing and different life is in the clean air. I could have actually known someone who has been skiing or whitewater rafting. Ugh, that’s probably enough fantasizing about the perfect world. I’m just going to go watch another episode of Nature Wars. Have you heard of it? It’s a reality competition that’s all about going out into nature, and leaving pollution behind. Back then, that was possible, and you didn’t even have to do it on top of a freezing cold mountain.

Living vicariously through our ancestors,

Corinthia

Microstory 2348: Vacuus, April 30, 2179

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Dear Condor,

These outfits look great. I’ve selected the one that I think will look right on me, and sent the specs off to the garment fabricator. She says that she’s a little busy right now, and one of her machines is down. It will take a few hours to print since the design is pretty intricate, and she probably won’t get around to it until tomorrow, so thanks for sending them early. I don’t have my own aug mirror, which would allow me to see what it will look like on my person before she fabricates it. They don’t make them anymore, because they’re considered a waste of resources, and the people who still have theirs are pretty protective of them. Fortunately, it’s a pretty small fee if I have to return it, since an alternate would use all the same materials, and like I said, I have plenty of time. I’ve run the conversions, and it looks like the best time for me to use the local observatory without getting in anyone’s way is about 20:15 Australian Eastern Time. I’m assuming that you’re somewhere along Queensland, and will be on May 17, but if you’ve already started heading west around the continent, you may have to adjust accordingly. I hope that’s okay for you, I really can’t change it unless we’re willing to schedule the parties for a different day. I’m still fascinated by the idea of mountaintop living. We don’t really have shifting weather here, or significant geographical changes without heading towards the equator, or something. We’re close to the north pole, because that’s how we maintain contact with you. That might change with our new relay system, but we’ll see. I doubt it will affect me, since I’m just monitoring the sun. I’m curious about other alternatives for your world. It sounds like most people live under land domes, but you’re on a floating platform, which takes some level of creative thinking. Has anyone ever thought of living in an aerostat? It might not be better—per se—but it could give people more options. It’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s why we have multiple bases, not because we don’t like each other, but for safety. If you don’t use those specifically, are there other types of habitats that you’ve not mentioned before?

Wearing something chic,

Corinthia

Microstory 2347: Earth, April 23, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Yes, some people live above the toxin line, on top of mountains, but it’s not like every sufficiently tall mountain is inhabited, because not every one is habitable. The really tall ones are too high and too steep. I mean, you might find a cavern to survive in with your family somewhere lower down on a given mountain, but you couldn’t build a civilization there. I should clarify too that the air on top of Mauna Kea isn’t great either, it’s just not fogged enough to stop them from using the telescopes. They don’t have domes, since that would interfere with the views from the telescopes, so they built compartmentalized vestibules to keep the fumes from getting inside the buildings, always keep the doors closed, and only go outside in hazmat suits. All told, I think there are about forty mountain top safe zones, which take varying degrees of precautions. Some of them still require that people wear filtered masks, and on some of the higher ones, they wear oxygen masks because it would be hard to breathe whether the apocalypse had happened or not. Yes, we had a number of jobs that took us to these mountaintops. In fact, earlier ones involved us transporting people to ones at lower elevations, then later having to evacuate those same people, because the toxins started rising. No one really knew how the gases would settle, since the poisoning of our air was a gradual development, not a sudden burst. There was a lot of chaos in those days. I’m sorry to say that we lost people because there wasn’t enough room, nor enough time. Or we just weren’t there, because we were busy somewhere else. I would say that we settled into some stability about five years ago? It’s not perfect, and obviously things are always changing—as we’ve talked about, we just picked up some new friends from Australia—but it wasn’t an urgent need. We’re now in a place where we’ve mostly accepted how things are, and are doing our best with the cards that we’ve been dealt. Observatory access is one aspect of that. Earlier this decade, there was no registering for viewing. No one was concerned with granting people access to information. It was only about survival. That’s all anyone had the bandwidth for. I wouldn’t say that things are great nowadays, but they have certainly been worse. Anyway, I don’t want to get too depressing here. Attached is the file for the outfit that we could wear for our imaginary joint birthday party. Well, it’s a collection with a few options. We can keep talking about it, but we don’t have much time before the date rolls around. Let me know when you’ll have access to your telescope so we know when to schedule our own festivities.

Trying to find Vacuus through the smog,

Condor

Microstory 2346: Vacuus, April 16, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I think it’s a lovely idea for us to celebrate “together” and to be looking at the same stars at the same time. From where I’m standing, Libra is as good of a selection as any. I don’t otherwise have any favorite stars or constellations, and it sounds like you don’t either. I do like to look at them, and didn’t even think about the fact that you can’t unless someone gives you access. So I guess the toxic gases in your atmosphere sit low enough that there are pockets of clean air above it. According to my research that I just did ten minutes ago, Mauna Kea isn’t even the highest peak in the world, so there must be a decent number of these undomed safe zones. Did you and your father transport people to and from these places too, or just the domes? To answer your question, we do have our own observatory that I can access through a tunnel. If we time it right, I won’t have to worry about registering for remote viewing, or anything. There will be a sliver of time where no one’s using it, and I’m sure I could ask for permission. It was one of the first things they built, so they could track the Valkyries, but it’s not as good as the one you’ll be seeing through, and isn’t all that important anymore. I never said, but our settlement is not the ideal location for a large telescope, so our main one was built at an outpost several kilometers away. A small team operates there in person while researchers use the data as needed, and allowed, remotely. Since our local observatory doesn’t serve that much purpose, I doubt I would have much resistance if I just ask to set up my little one-person birthday party there. As far as the clothing goes, send me the design for the outfit, and I’ll have it made. I’m in need of some new clothes anyway, so it won’t break my budget to buy something. In fact, I usually get myself something special around my birthday anyway. I obviously get a discount if I return material for recycling, and I’m done with some of my old stuff.

Searching for Australia through the telescope,

Corinthia

Microstory 2292: Laws of Life and Death

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I still can’t let my emotions get the best of me. I have to plan Nick’s memorial service. I know it sounds like something that can wait, and maybe it can, but I’ve got it in my head that we have to do something special for him. Weeks ago, I remember him telling me about his stories. He had all sorts of aliens and “supernatural” creatures (who weren’t really supernatural, just higher level science). You know his fascination with immortality, right? Well, the pseudomortals were his very first attempt at that kind of plot device. Or no, it might have been his second, because Gavix may predate them. Anyway, pseudomortals could die, but after four days, they would come back to life in new bodies. The exact mechanics of this would not be apparent when you start reading, but over the pages, you would learn more about why this is. It isn’t random. Evidently, while the pseudomortals were a relatively short-lived subspecies of humans, they sort of opened the world up to the idea of the four day gap. It became a key tenet of multiple fictional religions—which we now know actually weren’t fictional at all, but his Earth believed them to be. The pseudomortals merely tapped into the laws of life and death; they didn’t create them. The basic idea is that after you die, you stay in a parallel dimension for four days before moving on to the true afterlife, and these religions formed rituals and conventions based on this concept. So even though Nick never lived in a world that had these religions, or even had the four day rule, I thought it would be nice to honor him by laying him to rest on the fourth day after his death. The problem is, none of his writings came with him on his multiversal adventures. Everything he was ever able to tell us had to come from his memory. So even if I’m remembering everything he said correctly, he might not have been remembering it exactly how he wrote it years ago. He admitted that he couldn’t recall what the religious rituals were like, but he knew that they were more involved than just having a funeral after four days, and then going home. There’s a part where you’re supposed to enjoy the deceased’s favorite activity? And he thought that the memorial and burial were on different days?

I’m freaking out about this, and I keep forgetting for a fraction of second that he’s gone, so for those brief moments, I think that I can just ask him to try to remember, because he’s the expert, but of course, that won’t work, because the whole reason we’re doing this is because he’s the one who’s gone, and I’ll never see him again, and I’ll never find out if Dimitri Orion ever gets his job back, or how the crew of the Atom Ship escapes the supervoid. And I know none of this means anything to you, but I think my emotions are breaking free, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get them back in the bottle. They’re still searching for Dutch, but I can tell that their hearts aren’t in it anymore. At this point, they’re looking for a body, not a person. So actually, I have two memorials to plan, but I don’t have any clue what Dutch would have wanted. We didn’t talk about this stuff, because we’re all so young, so why would that have come up? Because our lives have been in danger all year, that’s why. We were so naïve. We thought it would be some psycho who wanted to test their immortality or portal opening powers, not just an icy road. The edge of a mountain switchback? After all this, how is that what finally took him out? He would be so disappointed if he were here to find out about his death. Okay, I’m getting too morbid. I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow. Or not. I promise you nothing.

Microstory 2291: Went Over the Edge

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This is a hard post to write, for obvious reasons. If you read Nick’s blog, then you must already know that he’s dead, and Dutch is missing. To throw you off the trail, and preserve some privacy, he told you that we had gone to Florida, and that we left Thursday evening. In reality, we left mid-afternoon, and went to San Francisco, California to enjoy one of the amusement parks out there. You know the one. We decided to drive all the way there in order to avoid all the airport hustle and bustle, and the fan scrutiny. We never stopped, except to use the facilities, or fill up the vehicles. That’s the benefit of having a security team. They could share the driving responsibilities, and we were able to sleep whenever we needed to. We had a great time on Friday, Saturday, and a little on Sunday morning. I’m grateful that he at least went out on a high note. On our way back, we were driving through the mountains of Colorado when Nick and Dutch’s SUV slipped on some dark ice, and went over the edge. I was in the other car at the time, so I could sprawl out to sleep. I believe that Nick and Dutch were both asleep at the time as well. At approximately 4:00 in the morning today, rescuers discovered Nick Fisherman IV’s body. They were actually working for our security firm, who has an office in Glenwood Springs, which wasn’t too far away. Both drivers were found dead as well, and the search for Dutch continues, but in this freezing cold winter weather, it’s not looking good. You may have noticed that this post is very straightforward, and unemotional. I can’t let my emotions out, or I’ll explode. I just needed to give you the information. I’m sure I’ll be a wreck once the truth really sets in.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 21, 2473

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Last year, this ragtag group of random time travelers who didn’t care to have anything to do with each other humored Utari Kiswana, and took a tour of the artificial island that they were on. It was a really interesting place, and they all probably would have enjoyed themselves had they come here on their own, and weren’t being held at this point in spacetime against their wills. There were a ton of activities to do here, like mountain climbing, sailing, and paragliding. There was even a train that just rolled around on a set of circular tracks, where some people apparently lived permanently. After it was over, they were all exhausted. Most of them were asking to just be sent back to where they belonged, which poor Buddy must have actually obliged, but Utari seemed to be in charge now.

A funny thing happened on the way back from dinner. Utari and Buddy wanted to get rooms in one of the main beach hotels for everyone, so they could stay the night, and wake up refreshed in the morning. As Buddy described earlier, dozens of beaches radiated from the island, allowing a lot of residents to have beachfront property. The main part of the island, however, was still surrounded by water, and there were a ton of hotels and housing units there too. They just weren’t quite as immersed in it. It seemed like a nice place to stay, but by the time they got checked in, two of the abductees mysteriously disappeared. Buddy apparently made the attempt to bring them back, but was unable to.

“You were transported to my domain in the future,” he guessed. “You’re here now, and so am I. Basically, my past self was unable to retrieve you, because he would be stealing you from me, and that would not have been okay.”

Mateo looked over at Bhulan and Arqut. “You have been here for a year?”

“It hasn’t been that bad,” Bhulan replied.

“It’s actually been kind of nice to get a break from the ship,” Arqut added. “Though, I would like to see my wife again, so could we be quite quick?”

“Quite quick with what?” Olimpia questioned. “Have the rest of you figured out how to do anything that this asshole is asking of us?”

“Hey, there’s no need for language,” Buddy argued.

“Then how’s anyone gonna understand me?” Olimpia asked combatively.

“We have an idea,” Tauno jumped in. “We’ve been waiting for you two to return before we try to implement it.”

“It’s this.” Utari set her briefcase carefully on the ground, and opened it to retrieve a cable.

“The Livewire?” Mateo questioned.

“You’ve heard of it?” Buddy asked.

“I’ve used it,” he explained. “It caused some problems in the Third Rail, but it also saved lives. That’s what it does, transfers consciousness. Why would we want that?”

“That’s not all it can do,” Utari began. “It can transmit any form of energy, including temporal. We think we can wrap this around our respective wrists, and channel our power into a focal object. That thing might end up with enough power to accomplish what we’re trying.”

Mateo took the Livewire from Utari’s hands, and started wrapping it around his own palms for no particular reason. “I’ve seen a lot of wondrous things. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what some of you have seen, but I’ve picked up a few things here and there. My best friend, Ramses may be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to temporal energy. Sure, you got your Hokusais and Hogarths...your Team Keshidas and Holly Blues, and even my wife. They’ve made some great things, but I still don’t think they compare to Rambo. He really gets into it. He has worked hard to figure out the fundamentals of time, and the manipulation of it.” He carelessly dropped the wire to the ground. “What you’re suggesting is stupid. Your lemon issue is not there for lack of power. There’s plenty of energy to go around. People with more power than all of us combined have not been able to transport citrus. You’re not gonna get it done with more temporal energy. If anything, you want less. Lemons don’t like time. They tolerate it at a one-to-one ratio, which is why they don’t explode in every grocery store in the world. They only become overloaded when you mess with the balance.”

“So, what’s your suggestion?” Buddy planted his hands on his hip.

Mateo shook his head. “Why did the Buddha’s hand citron go extinct?”

“A lot of things happened,” Buddy said. “Highlights include climate breakdown, wayward pesticides, pests themselves, a lack of customer demand during the rise of genetically modified organisms; particularly dayfruit. In fact, a lot of fruits have become extinct by now when we stopped growing them in favor of more efficient alternatives, not just citrus. Those I could rescue, if I were so inclined.”

Mateo nodded, and approached the man. “You’re a time traveler. Go back in time, and protect the Buddha’s hand. Build a greenhouse, keep it protected. Hire people to maintain it for the last few centuries. Do this the right way; you don’t need magic. Did you ever think of that?”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Buddy decided after a long beat.

“It is,” Mateo agreed. “Preserving life is work.”

“No.” Tauno picked the Livewire back up, and wrapped it around his wrist before moving on to do the same to Bhulan. “I built the Fourth Quadrant out of raw power that I store in my dick. I can do this. I just need a boost.”

As offended as Bhulan was by Tauno’s crude remark, she didn’t stop him from pulling her into this power-sharing gambit. Arqut let him wrap it around his wrist too, as did Utari and Buddy. They stood there, like the worst basketball team in the league. No one tried to force Mateo and Olimpia to join them, but what else were they gonna do? Buddy and Bhulan were the only people here who could send them home. They might as well humor them again, and give it a shot. He was right, it wasn’t going to work, and hopefully, it wouldn’t instead make things worse either. The two of them huddled up with the group, and closed the Livewire loop. Arqut gave Mateo a wink, which was weird, but okay.

“We connected this room directly to the mountain’s primary fusion chamber,” Utari revealed. “We should not be lacking in electricity.” She took the first end of the wire from Tauno, and shoved it into the wall socket.

They could feel the pulsing energy surge around their wrists. It kept circling the loop, over and over and over again, building as it was continuously fed by the underground fusion reactor. Buddy was smirking as was happening. That was when Mateo realized that they never selected an object to focus the power into. That must have been because it was Buddy. He had chosen himself to be the vessel. He was clearly a megalomaniac, so this should have come as no surprise to them. The real question was whether he would stop at this mission, or move onto the next one after this. What would he do with all this power? The dude wanted some lemons. He was being a jerk about it, but evil was not the word that either of them would use. Utari, however, appeared to have let her hand show. She could turn out to be the real threat. She could be the next Cleanser, or Oaksent. She was smirking even more sinisterly, like she knew something that Buddy didn’t.

That was when Arqut breathed deeply in and out, and flexed his arm muscle. He reached over with his free hand, and cupped his fingers over the wire on his other wrist. The energy stopped circling the group, and instead began to redirect into Arqut. He was taking it. He was taking all of it.

“What are you doing?” Buddy questioned angrily. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Yeah, how are you taking it from us?” Utari pressed.

“It’s all about the entropy, baby,” Arqut answered vaguely, pleased with himself. “Energy tends to flow from a higher concentration to a less ordered state. I’m the least ordered state in the room, dumbasses. I’m not a time traveler. I’m only human.”

Buddy and Utari tried to remove themselves from the circle, but were literally tied up. Bhulan and Tauno were smiling, and it was becoming clear that this was the true plan all along. Had Mateo and Olimpia been here during their interim year, they likely would have been in on it too. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Utari kicked the wire out of the socket, but that wasn’t where the energy was coming from anymore. If anything, it helped, because now the temporal energy was free to slide along the wire on its own without competing for space. Only a few seconds later, the other four were noticeably drowsy and dizzy. They couldn’t keep their eyes open. Meanwhile, Arqut was stronger than ever, and the two members of Team Matic were doing fine.

The energy slowed down on its own, and once it was used up, most of the group fell towards their backs. Olimpia managed to catch Bhulan in her arms, but she was still passed out. “How are you two standing?” Arqut asked.

“We’re salmon,” Mateo told him. “We don’t live off of temporal energy. It really only comes to us once a day.”

“Yeah, we need sunlight!” Olimpia agreed cheerfully as she was carrying Bulan to one of the beds. “We’re plants!”

Arqut smiled, and walked over to open the shades as a nice gesture. He then went over to untangle the Livewire from everyone’s arms. “Most temporal objects are illegal on the Extremus. Tauno is a jackass, and we all know we can’t trust these two yahoos. Bhulan already told me that she has a knack for trying to destroy these things. So I think the only logical answer is to give it to you.”

“What happens to them?” Mateo nodded his head towards the people on the floor.

“I don’t care what happens to Utari. There is a way for me to tether myself to the ship when I get back home, and Bhulan will find a similar solution in the Constant, where she belongs. Tauno has all sorts of friends, I’m sure he can ask one of them for protection from Buddy. That’s why you need this. It could be your version of a solution.” Arqut handed the wire to Mateo. “I hope your friend, Ramses is as resourceful as you make him sound.”

“How do we get home?” Olimpia asked. “Do you have all their powers now?”

“I have their power,” Arqut clarified. “Not their powers. Bhulan’s will replenish itself eventually, and she’s already agreed to send me back to the past. As for you, I just gave you what you need. You take care.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 20, 2472

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Olimpia was so excited and intrigued by Mateo’s apparent ability to make physical contact with a hologram. Did it only work on people, or could he do it with anything? Maybe this power was limited to holographic communication, and not for computer generated images. Centuries ago, scientists in the real world were inspired by the three-dimensional simulations from the Star Trek franchise, The Orville, and other similar scifi stories. They tried to design a real version of it using a combination of magnetic fields, wind, nanobots, and even direct cerebral mind alteration to simply make the user believe that they were touching the hologram. There was actually some promise in the technology, but as fun as it was, it was nothing compared to the kinds of worlds that people were building in immersive virtual simulations. The laws of physics could be broken in such environments, and they demanded a hell of a lot less power to make it work. Real life holodecks continued to exist, but were only as available as demand allowed them to be. Maybe the Vellani Ambassador secretly employed the technology, and Mateo managed to figure out how to access it within the last few minutes? Eh, that seemed unlikely. No, this was something else.

“Guys, something’s happening to me.” Olimpia suddenly felt so dizzy. Everyone peeled their eyes off of Mateo and Oakset to watch her stumble back. Ramses tried to help, but she pushed him away, and tottered away from everyone. Her instincts were telling her to make room for herself.

“She’ll be fine,” Mateo assured them, clearly knowing something important.

Olimpia’s instincts started to make her spin around, erratically at first, but then momentum magically increased, and pushed her around without her having to move her feet anymore. What little she could make out of the room around her faded away behind little dots of darkness, only to be replaced by bright blue sky. She blinked, and teetered around some more, eventually realizing that she was not alone. A few others were around her, wobbling just as badly. She focused her eyes forward at one of them in particular. Was that Mateo? Yes, it was. “Matt!”

“Olimpia?” Mateo questioned, trying to clarify his own eyesight too. “Are we down on the planet?”

“We’re on a mountain.” A man had managed to stagger a few meters away, and was looking over the edge. This did look like a mountain. Below them was the ground, and beyond that, the open ocean.

“Careful, dude,” another guy said. “Wouldn’t want you tumblin’ over.”

“Wouldn’t you?” a woman asked accusatorily.

“Bhulan?”

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“It’s Mateo. Mateo Matic?”

“We haven’t met yet.”

“Well, maybe this is why you hate me in your future.”

“Maybe,” Bhulan acknowledged coldly.

“Do you remember me?” the other guy who Bhulan didn’t seem to like asked.

Mateo took a few deep breaths, and studied his face. “Tau-something. You tried to kill my friends.”

“Bingo. Tauno Nyland...at your service.” He extended his arms, and took a bow.

“Arqut Grieves,” the man who realized where they were announced, “in case anyone wanted to know.”

“Utari Kiswana,” a woman introduced herself.

“Olimpia Sangster.”

A man appeared from the trailing leading down the side of the mountain. “And I am Buddha Maestri!” He walked up to them with a big smile on his face.

“You look like you’re in charge,” Tauno assumed.

“Did you say Buddha?”

“Yes, I did, and I don’t want any complaints about it. The original Buddha was enlightened and powerful; I’m enlightened and powerful. I don’t see the problem, and I don’t care if it offends you. Ya know, that wasn’t his real name either, right? He gave it to himself so everyone would instantly know how important he was.”

“That is..not how that happened,” Olimpia argued.

“I’ve seen you before,” Bhulan said to him. “Not directly, but I’ve seen your effect on the timeline. Honestly, I thought I had negated your existence with a few moves.”

“Uh, uh, life...finds a way,” Buddha replied in the worst impression of Jeff Goldblum anyone had ever heard.

She could not bring herself to accept Buddha as his name. They would probably never learn what his real name was, but it was likely something embarrassing, like Drumpf. She would just have to come up with an alternative herself. She thought about it for entirely too long before it hit her. “Whatever, Buddy.”

“Buddha,” he corrected in an unplaceable accent that was just as offensive as the name he had co-opted.

“Why are we here?” Arqut asked impatiently.

“You don’t know this place?” Buddy asked, gesturing all around. “This is Moku Hoku...Star Island.”

“I know this one,” Tauno jumped in. “Artificial paradise island. Yeah, they pulled magma up from an underwater volcano, and built the whole thing on top of it from scratch. Those narrow beach spokes down there give thousands of people ocean views from their little minimalistic bungalows. Plus they have apartments, resorts, and mountainside homes. It has all sorts of activities, like rock climbing, surfing, hiking. Life’s good here, I hear. Not my style. Not my time.”

“Thanks, Tauno,” Bhulan said sarcastically, even though it was pretty helpful to know that. “Why are we here, Buddy?” Yay, the name was catching on!

Buddy seethed at hearing it once more, but knew that his anger was what the bullies were going for. “You’re here because I call you...The Reality Makers.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Mateo admitted.

“You don’t? Think about it,” Buddy continued. “You killed a man, and a new reality sprouted from it. They called it The Parallel?”

“Yeah, I remember, but I wouldn’t say that—wait,” Mateo interrupted himself. He had never really thought of himself as having made a reality. It was just a consequence of him trying to stop an event in the past that could not be changed without causing a paradox. To prevent it, time generated a parallel reality to sit next to the main sequence. “Well, okay, but...” He trailed off, and looked around. “But that would mean...”

Bhulan exhaled dramatically. “I made the Third Rail. When I tried to destroy the hundemarke, it created a world without time travel.”

“Exactly,” Buddy confirmed.

“Tauno, what did you do?” Mateo asked.

“I made the Fourth Quadrant. I did it on purpose. It remains my greatest accomplishment to this day.”

Mateo looked over at Olimpia. “You made the Sixth Key.”

Olimpia shrunk into herself. She too had never thought of it like that. She was there when it was created, but she didn’t realize that she had actually created it herself. Was that true? It couldn’t be. She didn’t have that kind of power. Right?

“You’ve been quiet. Uhh...Utari, was it?”

“I made the Fifth Division,” she acknowledged. “I wasn’t really trying to. I was trying to fix the past, but it would have meant preventing The Gallery Dimension from existing, and apparently, that wasn’t possible.”

Now everyone directed their attention to Arqut, who was the most confused of all. “Unless something crazy happens in my future, and you took me from the wrong point in time, I have never come close to ever creating anything even somewhat resembling an entire reality. I’m just a guy on a ship.”

“You’re the Superintendent, aren’t you?” Buddy suggested. “You created the main sequence. You’re ultimately responsible for all of the realities.”

Arqut slapped himself in the face, and slid his hand down, almost pulling his eyes, nose, and mouth off. “I’m not The Superintendent. I served as a superintendent for the Void Migration Ship Extremus. It was my job to manage the personnel for both the crew, and the civilian government. I don’t have time magic.”

Buddy was taken aback, but not upset. “Oh. I guess my intel’s a bit off. Even gods are wrong sometimes, aren’t they, eh?” He gently elbowed Bhulan in the arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Even if Mr. Grieves were one of us in this regard,” Mateo began, “why would we all be here now? What do you want?”

Buddy started to pace around them with his hands behind his back to try to give off this air of intelligence and self-confidence. “You six...” He glared over at Arqut. “I mean, you five broke the rules. You forced time itself to flow in a new direction. You challenged the status quo, and you won!” he exclaimed in a breathy voice, like an overzealous sports team coach. “I need your juice! So I can get the juice!” He stuck his hand up in the air, activating a holographic image. It appeared to be a fruit, but it was nothing like they had seen before. It was as if an octopus had made a baby with a lemon.

Bhulan’s gaze darted back and forth between the hologram and Buddy’s face. “Are we supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

“It’s called the Buddha’s hand citron. It went extinct over 300 years ago, and I would like to restore it to its glory. It is a symbol of my power—of my divine right. I must have it back!”

“You’re obviously a time traveler of some kind,” Olimpia pointed out. “Couldn’t you just go back and get it?”

“Citrus doesn’t travel through time, you idiot!”

“Watch your mouth when you’re talking to my girlfriend,” Mateo warned. “I will hit you so hard, juicing will be the only way you’ll ever be able to eat.”

“Girlfriend?” Olimpia asked, shocked.

“Yeah, hasn’t that happened to you yet?” Mateo asked in an awkward mutter. “I guess I don’t know when exactly you came here...”

“No, it has, but we never defined the relationship—” she muttered back.

“Enough!” Buddy cried. “Let me explain. Yes, I could travel back in time, and I could eat all the native citrus I want. But that’s not what I’m asking of you. I’m asking for you to use your power to change the rules.” He pointed at the ground. “I want it here. I want it now.”

“You seem like the kind of guy who wants everything, and is too impotent to do anything about it himself.”

“What did you just say, bitch?” He bull-charged her, and no one else was close enough to stop him.

Mateo instinctively reached out his hands, and something did happen. Buddy’s fruit hologram stopped hovering over his hand, and bonked him right in the face. He was too shocked to react with anything but paralysis and silence.

“Yeah, boiiiiiiiiiiiii!” Olimpia shouted. “I love it when you do that!”

“You’ve seen that before?” Mateo asked her. “What the hell just happened?”

“I’m from a few minutes in your future, depending on how long it takes you to get back to the Ambassador. I still don’t know how it works, though.”

Buddy managed to break out of his trance. He started to stare Mateo down. “You can throw as many holo-fruits at me you want. You will do what I asked.” He started to charge again, but this time for Mateo.

“I don’t think so.” Tauno Nyland waved his arms, transporting them all to some other dimension, or whatever.

They could still see Buddy there on the mountain, but based on how he was looking around, he couldn’t see them. The normal humans were also having a little trouble breathing. It wasn’t life threatening, but this realm wasn’t perfectly suited for life. Mateo and Olimpia pulled their breathing straws out of their suits, and started to share them between Arqut, Bhulan, and Utari. Tauno would have to fend for himself. He could evidently take them anywhere else whenever he wanted.

Meanwhile, back in the main dimension, they could see and hear Buddy cackling like an evil witch. He raised both hands, and started revolving them like he was holding invisible lassos. Dark particles danced away from his skin. At the same time, they overcame the six of them just like they had before, spun them around, and returned them to the mountain. “I’m sorry, did you think that you could leave?”

Utari of the Fifth Division had been rather quiet this whole time, but now she was ready to speak. She menacingly approached Buddy, who laughed at her dismissively. “I don’t know what these people can do, but I assure you that you don’t know what I can do. I am a metachooser. However your time power works, I will turn it on you. You will spin for hours with no respite, or if I so choose, for days until you succumb to thirst. What the history books probably don’t tell you is that I didn’t technically send anyone through time to create the Fifth Division. Someone else was trying to go back home to the Gallery, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I pushed back, and they didn’t survive the battle. If you want your special little citron, we can discuss options, but you won’t be hurting anyone, and you’ll be doing it on my terms. I’m in charge now. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Buddy was terrified.

“Oh, and by the way, Buddha’s hand contains no juice or pulp...you moron.”

He just nodded respectfully.

“Great!” Utari immediately flipped on a fake smile. “With the unpleasantries over, I’m interested in a tour of this island, and maybe a meal. Is anyone else hungry?”

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Fluence: Aura (Part II)

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Briar was gone. Once Goswin felt like he knew enough about the Parallel justice system to trust that it was fair and, well...just, he returned to the X González to explain things to the suspect. Briar was not in his cabin, nor did it look like anyone had ever stayed there. The bedsheets were perfectly aligned, and the surfaces were dusty from disuse. Goswin stepped back into the hallway to see if he was just turned around, but this had to be the right cabin. Still, he checked all of the others, and Briar wasn’t anywhere else either. It wasn’t a huge ship. Eight Point Seven’s sensors were damaged, in addition to her memory, so she was unable to find his location. The researchers on this asteroid had their own security system, which could not find him either, nor detect that anyone besides Goswin and Weaver had ever stepped out of the González. It was a mystery, the answer to which almost certainly had something to do with time travel.

“There’s a database,” Pontus began to explain. “It stores the records of every single person in every reality, throughout all of time, in every timeline. It could trace Briar’s steps as long as he showed up somewhere that records such data. While it does have an unspeakable amount of data, it’s not magic. If someone went off somewhere alone, they could hide from it, just like you could slink through the blindspots of a security camera.”

“Might as well try it,” Goswin decided.

“It’s not that easy,” Pontus replied. “It’s not here. It’s hard to reach, and reportedly harder to access. Almost no one in the universe is granted permission, and even when they are, their activity is heavily monitored to prevent abuse. The Tanadama, which are sort of like our god-leaders, would be prone to letting someone like you use it, but you would still have to go there first, and there is no guarantee.”

“Can we just...call them?” Goswin asked. “I don’t need to look at this database myself. He’s a dangerous and unstable man. He was an adult before he met anyone besides his mother, and he found himself trusting the wrong person. I don’t know what he’s gonna do...and if he’s dead, I need to know that too.”

Pontus shook his head. “We can’t just call. Part of the point is making the journey to Sriav.” He looked towards the back entrance of the hollowed-out asteroid. “It’s out there, in the void, away from all others, in this tiny pocket of civilization. I couldn’t even give you the exact coordinates. I think you’re expected to intuit your vector somehow. They call it our sister outpost, but we’ve never interacted with them, and I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Well, this has to happen. Whatever you need from us, it will have to wait. Briar de Vries is our priority.” He turned away as he tapped on his comms disc to make it clear that he was starting a separate conversation. “Eight Point Seven, Weaver, we’re going to a world called Sriav.”

When he turned back to ask for permission to leave the asteroid, Pontus was gone. Beside him were Weaver and Eight Point Seven in her humanoid form. “How did you do that? Did you have that body ready and waiting?”

She was just as surprised as he was. She patted herself. “Are we all corporeal?”

“No way to test that,” Weaver acknowledged. “We could all be in a simulation.”

“Not a simulation,” came a voice behind them. “It’s Sriav.”

They turned to see a grand entrance to an expansive room. It was so wide and deep that they couldn’t see how big the room was. The walls and ceiling were ornately decorated, but it appeared to be completely unfurnished, like a shell waiting to be filled and used. “I’m sorry, I got the impression that this planet was located in the intergalactic void.”

“It is,” the woman confirmed. “It’s roughly a million light years from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.”

“We were just on an asteroid in the Achernar system,” Weaver said.

“Well,” the woman began, “if you were going to be in one place one second, and another the next, it would be Po.”

“Po?”

“That’s the primary planet orbiting Alpha Eridani. Hi. I’m Madam Sriav. You came here for a reason, I presume?”

“Captain?” Eight Point Seven urged.

“We’re looking for a man by the name of Briar de Vries,” Goswin started to explain. “He disappeared from our ship. We don’t know exactly when, or how, and we certainly don’t know where we went. Our arrival here is the second time today we’ve jumped through spacetime inexplicably quick. I was told that you have a database?”

Madam Sriav smiled. “This world is quite remote, as I’ve said. We have true faster-than-light travel, of course, but you can’t use it to get here. If you try, you’ll slow down for no apparent reason. It’s a security feature. No, if you wanna come here, you have to do it the old fashioned way, with a simple reframe engine. That could take you upwards of 1400 years. Most barely try, and most of the rest quit. The few who have dedicated their lives to such a pursuit have ended up staying here. There is no better place to live, I believe.”

“Okay, but the database?” Goswin pressed.

She smiled again. “A mechanical rabbit lure, just to give people a reason to head in this direction.”

“So it doesn’t exist,” Weaver surmised.

“A computer that tracks everyone in every reality? What horrors could that lead to? I wouldn’t want to live in a universe that had something like that.”

Weaver faced Goswin. “There must be some reason we’re here. There’s a reason we were thrown to Achernar, and now this place. I think you’re doing it.”

Goswin shook his head with the confidence of a math professor. “No, I’m not.”

“There are only three reasons to slip timespace the way we’ve been doing it; incidentally, by one’s own hand...or by someone else’s,” Weaver went over.

“What is here?” Goswin asked Madam Sriav. “What is the purpose of this world?”

“If you have to ask, you don’t belong,” she answered.

“It would help us understand how we ended up here,” Eight Point Seven reasoned. “Perhaps Briar is already here.”

Madam Sriav sighed. “It would not be my place to say, but...”

“But what?” Goswin waved his loose hand in circles. “Go on.”

“You could always look for a tracker...assuming you can make it back to civilization.” Madam Sriav didn’t think that would ever happen. “There are people who specialize in it. Some have learned and trained, others are born with the gift. Some were imbued with power by the Tanadama themselves.”

“A tracker?” Goswin questioned. “Is there a real database of such people, like a...um...”

“The word you’re looking for is a phonebook,” Weaver helped. “Madam, I know you don’t use money for transactions, but if these people help people like businesses, there must be some central location to find them.”

Madam Sriav shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I was born on this world. I don’t have much of a practical understanding of the way they do things out there.”

Now Goswin sighed as he looked up at the high ceiling. “Well, do you have any ships? We forgot to bring ours.” Something weird happened. Did the ceiling change? Yeah, the ceiling appeared to change. It was sort of gradual, but also abrupt? He kept staring at it, and trying different angles. It looked more like a sky at dawn now.

“Captain. It happened again,” Eight Point Seven explained.

Goswin nodded, still checking different angles of the sky-ceiling. “Yeah, I know. I’m just afraid to look. Everytime I wanna go somewhere, we go.”

“It’s worse than that this time,” Weaver said.

Goswin dropped his chin. Madam Sriav was still here with them, and they were no longer in the frighteningly large room. They were outside, in the center of some kind of meadow nearish the top of a mountain. “I do apologize for...whatever is going on. With me, or with us. I just don’t know.”

“You need to get me back,” Madam Sriav insisted. “So please, figure it out.” She seemed like the kind of person who was not used to getting upset, and was desperately trying to keep her emotions in check, even though she had ever reason to be cross.

“Hey! Who are you?” A man was walking towards them from the slope.

“We are the crew of the X González,” Goswin replied, hoping that Madam Sriav would rather be lumped in with them than stand out in the presence of yet another stranger. “Can you tell us where we are?”

“You’re on Lorania, on the side of Mount Aura.”

“Lorania?” Eight Point Seven echoed, “as in, the island on Dardius?”

“That’s right,” the man said.

“Dardius only exists in the main sequence,” Madam Sriav revealed. “You brought us across realities. How are you doing this?”

“I still don’t know, but I’m worried that he’s accidentally joined us, and if I start thinking about going somewhere else, I’ll only make matters worse.”

“No,” Madam Sriav began to calculate. “Think about Sriav, and that’s where we’ll go. I don’t really care where anyone else goes. I welcomed you to my planet, because that is my job, and I can’t do it if I’m here, so I’m done humoring you.”

Wow, this situation escalated quickly. “Are you a tracker?” Goswin asked the new guy. “If you’re a tracker, that’s why I’m here.”

“No. I’m Harrison. Tracker Four is up there.”

“Great. Maybe they can help everyone get home,” Goswin hoped.

“She’s with another client,” Harrison said, stopping them from stepping forward with an imposing stance.

“You can come back for her later,” Sriav said to Goswin. “You take me back first.”

“I can’t control it,” Goswin argued. “I’m not even sure I am doing it. I don’t feel anything when it happens. Do either of you feel anything?”

Weaver and Eight Point Seven shook their heads.

“Yeah,” Goswin went on, “so let’s say it’s me. What if I accidentally send us to the inside of a volcano, or hell, just the vacuum of outer space?”

“Don’t even suggest things like that!” Sriav was raising her voice now. “Don’t put those thoughts in your own head!”

Goswin made prayer hands, with his index fingers wrapped around his nose, his middle fingers pressed up against his forehead, and his thumbs pushing up the corners of his lips. This is what he did when he was frustrated, and trying to solve a problem. “Harrison, is this region dangerous in any way.”

Harrison didn’t expect the question. “Uh, there’s a natural merge point a few kilometers that way, which will take you to prehistoric times. As long as you stay away from that, you should be good.”

“I’m not gonna try to do anything yet. Madam Sriav, I know that your life and your job are important to you, but you have a few hours to just wait, so I can get this right. I’m going to go meditate. When I get back, if you happen to have photos of where you live, there’s a chance that helps. I really couldn’t say for sure. I’m sorry if I did this to you, but this is uncharted territory, so your patience would be greatly appreciated.”

Still annoyed, Madam Sriav raised her eyebrows, and gestured for him to get on with it. Then she turned around, and started kicking at some nearby flowers.

Goswin wasn’t super into meditation, but he had done it a few times, and it was a great excuse to get away from everyone. If he really was responsible for all of this, standing around and being berated about it wasn’t going to help. He found a nice, soft patch of grass a couple hundred meters away from them. He sat down cross-legged, and closed his eyes, hoping to free his mind from all distractions. The birds were starting to chirp, but they were very consistent and melodic, so it actually helped. There was a slight breeze that cooled his face just enough to be comfortable in this tropical weather. He breathed in deeply, held it in for a few seconds, and exhaled through his mouth. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. He didn’t have powers, or a pattern. He was just a normal guy who met a bunch of time travelers one day. That was why he jumped at the chance to board the X González. He wanted to know more, to meet other people. He wanted to have an adventure. He didn’t want to ruin people’s lives.

He was sitting there for several minutes when it began to rain. It was only a sprinkle at first, but then the drops began to fall harder. It didn’t stop him, though. He stayed where he was, trying to find his center. This was just another distraction that he had to let go of and ignore. Before too long, though, the rain was pouring. The grass under him was pushed away to be replaced by mud. He didn’t know how long he could stand it. It wasn’t the most discomfort he had ever experienced, but he certainly didn’t want it to worsen.

“Ēalā! Eart þu hāl!” an unfamiliar voice shouted to him.

He felt like he had no choice but to open his eyes. This was definitely not Lorania anymore. “What? Sorry, I slipped, but I’m okay.” He started to stand up. “Where am I?”

She seemed quite confused at his words. “It’s England.”

“Forgive me, but...what year?”

“Oh. You must have come through the cave.”

“What cave?”

“On Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. It’s the year 1133, on Earth. My name is Irene. Irene de Vries.”

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