Microstory 2480: Archidome

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I recently read a review on the prospectus for another dome. They were talking about how a lot of culture has faded from vonearthan society because of how standardized everything has become. And I must say that I agree. I understand why it happened. The basic design of the arcologies on Earth are perfect for what they’re intended to be. Each unit is a small and efficient living space, and they’re connected in such a way that allows modularization for shifting needs. You can open a door to grant a neighbor’s access to your units, or close them when you’re a teenager who needs to exert more independence. Everyone has a window, yet the structure is sound, because the spokes distribute the weight evenly, and over a sufficiently wide area. They’re nice, but they’re best for people who don’t care about what their homes look like, probably because they spend most of their time in simulations, or at least on the network. What your dwelling looked like, and how it was arranged, used to be profoundly important. I cannot stress to you enough how crucial it was for people to get to decide what their homes were like. That is what made it a home in the first place. There were multiple channels on linear television with dozens of programs about people finding, building, remodeling, or selling homes. And that’s before you include all the innumerable web content. It was a subculture of our society, and it went away due to a number of factors, which I’ve already touched upon. But the biggest moves happened in tandem with the shift to a post-scarcity economy. The government couldn’t put effort into building something to your specifications, or with any sort of flair or whimsy. Even before megastructures, they came up with a few models, and everyone got the same thing, because it was the most fair. Castlebourne gives us the opportunity to go back to the creativity of yesterday, in many respects, and in this respect, Archidome is the place for original architecture. It was empty at first—I really wish I had been here to see that. If you come here, you’re supposed to design your own building. It doesn’t have to be a single-family home. It can be an apartment complex, or a museum, or even a cathedral. The only restriction, really, is that you have to hold the rights to the intellectual property. I’ve heard a number of stories about visitors hoping to recreate some structure from their favorite movie, and that’s just not what this is for. Again, you get to decide what you build, and what it’s used for. It may never be used for its intended purpose, or anything at all. It’s up to you to promote it, and try to get visitors. I’m sure, over time, as the population of this planet in general increases, the chances that someone comes to see what you’ve created will go up. Until then, you might just have to be satisfied with the completion of the project itself. I’m proud of my columbarium, even though people don’t really die anymore. I’m proud of it because its mine, and it’s real. What will you create?

Microstory 2439: Dome for Pioneers

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Ha! Dome for Pioneers. That’s so on the nose. That’s really what it is. You’re almost starting from scratch here. You don’t go all the way back to the beginning, like Paleodome, but you’re not provided with much. Like other lifestyle domes, you’re expected to stay here for an extended period of time, like years; not days, not even months. You’re here to get an idea of what life was like for people in 19th century New World. Everything you need is here, but you have to process it yourself. There’s wooded areas, arid desert, prairies, some small lakes (maybe ponds?) and rocks. They dress you in very simple clothes that look like they’re handmade, but I’m guessing they weren’t really. They give you a metal bucket, a few basic tools, and one wagon per ten or eleven people I think? I don’t remember what they said. If you have too few people, you don’t even get a wagon. There are some cows of some kind wandering around nearby, so if you do get one of the wagons, you have to put those two things together yourself. Good luck, dude, I actually think they’re real cows. While they’re not aggressive, they don’t want you tying ropes to them, and do you even know how to put a cow before a wagon? Didn’t think so. It’s the year 2500, we don’t have to do stuff like that anymore. That’s what’s so interesting about this place. If you wanted to know how the real pioneers survived with what little they had, and while enduring everything they had to, you had to have done your research ahead of time. There is no education here. I understand what they were going for, but that was probably a mistake. There should be a museum where they give you such education, not so you’re better equipped, but so you have a real appreciation for what you’ll experience in the simulation. What were their goals? What mistakes did they make? What kind of class divide was there, if any? I mean, you could turn your lot into a mountain man survivalist situation, and stay there for just as long, but that’s not what the pioneers were trying to do. They were digging in, founding towns, making a legacy for themselves. If people start using it right, given enough time, it’s possible that Dome for Pioneers might have to change its name to Dome for an Extremely Advanced Civilization. All the tools are there, it will just take time for us to relearn how to use them, just like our ancestors did. I think that it’s a really interesting social experiment. I just think it might not accomplish the right goals if management doesn’t guide the narrative in a proper direction. But don’t listen to me, I’m nobody.

Microstory 2043: West Virginia

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After we got back from Ethiopia, my fathers started talking about all of the other places that they had been too. They ended up getting out an old map that papa’s mom used to hang in her home office. They hung it in the basement, and each of them picked a color of stickers, and started marking where they had been to. My dad has been to several states, but my papa’s stickers were all over that map. They realized that there were not many states left that he hadn’t been to yet. The closest one was Pennsylvania, but he decided to make a trip to West Virginia instead. He and my dad wanted to go down there for their anniversary, because it was really close to that museum in Virginia where they had first gotten to know each other. I went on the trip to West Virginia too, but I was 8 years old already, so I could take care of myself a little without too much help. I let them spend some time together without me. I even went to a puppet show next door to the bed and breakfast alone. We only spent one night there, and then we went back home, because I had to go to school on Monday.

Microstory 2034: Virginia

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In April 1861, most of the western part of Virginia separated itself from Virginia to become a free state at the very beginning of the Civil War. Virginia was a slave state, and the people who lived on that side didn’t like that. They became the state of West Virginia. In 1864, people in Roanoke, Virginia decided that they wanted to belong to West Virginia too, even though there were parts of Virginia between it and the border. What historians now call the War Within the War was fought there. We learned a little bit about this last month, but I’ll summarize it for you. Roanoke won a temporary independence, which allowed them to act as a sanctuary to escaped slaves who were fleeing from the southern states. Cities are usually kind of roundish, because they start in one place, and spread out from there, but it was different here. Roanoke used to have something called the Roanoke Tail, with land that went all the way to the West Virginia border twenty miles away. They stayed that way until the war ended, and all states became free. Roanoke was never actually part of West Virginia. They ended up sticking with Virginia, but the history can never be changed. You can learn even about this if you go to the Free Roanoke Civil War History Museum, which my papa went to once he and his family were able to get back on a train to there from their unwanted stop in Kentucky. My dad, Santana didn’t have anything else to do, so he decided to see the museum with them so they could get to know each other better. When they were done with it, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins all took the train back to Indiana, but papa stayed behind. He still had some vacation time, so he spent some time in my dad’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. This is where the two of them fell in love, which I’m grateful for.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 20, 2398

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They asked the McIver family to keep what they learned about the true nature of reality a secret. The kids don’t know everything, and it looked like all the evidence was destroyed in the implosion that created an entire lake out of practically nowhere. It was going to be tough to explain to all the people who lived around there, and knew there was no such body of water, so they decided to go stay with their aunt and uncle in Utah for a bit until things cooled down. They always wanted to sell the land anyway. It’s not like they can manage to farm themselves, and they never really wanted to anyway.

Team Matic can’t be sure that they can trust these strangers, but when have they ever? At some point, concerning themselves with what might happen is just going to make living life even harder. If the government comes to E.T. all their asses, well...then they’ll deal with it then. For now, they’re going to stay at home, and try not to worry about anything at all. It’s a day of rest, and likely the last joint day off for a while. Leona postponed her return to work until next week, Ramses is newly unemployed, Mateo is still unemployed, Heath is already on sabbatical, and Marie and Angela are taking a personal day. They’re not just going to relax, though. They’re going to see the sites.

Moreso than the differences, it’s the similarities that this version of Kansas City shares with its main sequence counterpart that they find interesting, especially Angela. Marie felt the same way when she first arrived, but she’s grown used to it by now. The Fourth Quadrant was borne of the original, while the Parallel had a region that they called KC, but which did not resemble anything they had seen before. The Fifth Division seemed to not have anything on Earth at all, except for a small oasis in the middle of nowhere, at least part of which was holographic. It’s inexplicable and bizarre that this version should have the same World War I Museum and Memorial. It looks the exact same, and is in the same place, and this does not make any sense. WWI happened in the 1910s over there, but in the mid-19th century here; closer to the period of the United States Internal Conflict that the five aliens recall. Even just having the same city and state names is ridiculous. The countries, the oceans; none of it can be explained.

Something has to be driving these similarities, or let’s face it...someone. One or more of the Prestons are the most logical culprits, since they’re definitely capable of such things, but they’re not the only ones. Anyone they’ve met with such power has the potential to spawn alternate versions of themselves, if only through the help of others. Cassidy Long, the Repairman, or any one of the countless Jupiters, could also be behind this. They might be doing it for nefarious reasons, good reasons, or even with more of a neutral stance. Mateo realizes  now that he needs to make a special list of candidates. That doesn’t mean that it will help them get any answers, because it will be a shock to run into anyone they already know. Hell, even say, Vearden Haywood’s sister, Allison would be a noteworthy surprise. But it still makes sense to make a list.

Right now they’re standing in front of the Love Kansas City mural. “You didn’t tell us about this,” Leona almost accuses Marie.

“I didn’t know that the main sequence had one too. I died in 1816.”

“You’ve seen this before, though,” Mateo reminds her. “We came here.”

“I guess I forgot. What do we do with this information?”

Leona considers it for a long time. “What we do is all go on that trip together.”

Microstory 1695: A Whole New Meaning to Omega Male

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Most of the time, The Omega Gyroscope makes big changes to reality. It causes the global population to go back in time, or alters their perception of it. Or it instantly switches everything to a new timeline. Some of the time, however, it makes small changes, and it all has to do with the person wielding it. The Gyroscope is basically a wish fulfillment device, which reads its user’s mind, and makes changes to the universe in whatever way it’s capable of, getting as close to the user’s desires as possible. It’s not really trying to do that. It’s not really trying to do anything. Some people are just better at forming a psychic connection with it, and it accepts this input like a computer. That’s all it is, a very fancy and advanced computer with no buttons or monitor. The results of a user’s desires are often not what they truly wanted, but not because of a be careful what you wish for aphorism. It’s more that the Gyroscope has its limitations, and can’t just do whatever you want. Before the little powerful device ended up in the museum, where it would later be used by a number of people, it was discovered in an attic by three adult children who were cleaning out their father’s house after he passed. Since the Omega Gyroscope is so small and seemingly innocuous, the three of them thought little of it. They just threw it in a shoebox, and focused on the rest of his effects. It was only later when one of them, bored at the estate sale, idly spun it. At the time, she was thinking about her father, and how she wished he had never died. Apparently, the Gyroscope interpreted that to also mean that he wouldn’t ever die, even in the future.

The daughter stayed in her seat for the next hour or so before realizing that something had changed. The sale was still on, and she was still in charge of handling the money, but it was no longer an estate sale. It was just a regular garage sale. Evidently, in this new reality, the four of them decided to clean out the father’s house anyway, and sell what they could before donating the rest. He was still very much alive, and just as she was noticing that the sign by the street was different, he was returning from having helped transport his kayak to its new owner. Only she seemed to remember that he had died in the other reality, but by then, there was no way for her to make the connection that the Gyroscope had had anything to do with it. She didn’t even consider it as a possibility. She also didn’t try to explain what she could remember to the others. She kept her mouth shut, and decided to be grateful for the gift, no matter what had actually caused it, be it her magical powers, or simply a welcome relief to a bad dream. Since she didn’t know that the Omega Gyroscope was responsible for the gift, she let the thing be donated to an antique store, where it would one day be found by the curator of a museum. For the next ten years, the daughter watched her and her siblings continue to age while their father stayed the same. No one could explain it, and it was eventually decided it was best that they keep him a secret. Other people would start asking questions. What would happen in the next ten years, or the next hundred? They didn’t know if there was a limit to it, so they all moved, and started a new semi-anonymous life in a new city. Their intention was to move again, and start referring to him as their brother. Before this was necessary, the Omega Gyroscope precipitated a major global phenomenon, which saw the entire human population sent back in time to their younger bodies, and father and daughter would find themselves at the center of the action.

Sic Transit...Res Historia (Part VI)

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They pierced the membrane, and landed in the new universe. It already looked a lot different than the first one, but that could have just been more about where they happened to come through. There was no city before them, but trees and other wildlife. They were in the middle of a great field, and there was no sign of intelligent life. “The reason I didn’t pick this universe first,” Azura began, “was because of payment. The people of Whrweh will be a lot more welcoming, but they will expect something in return for their help. It’s interesting how their society developed. They never came up with a form of currency that was accepted by all. They understand the concept, but just chose not to do it. They relied heavily on a robust bartering system all the way into their pre-singularity era. Now that they live in post-scarcity, they have everything they need, but in order to deal with alien cultures—which do exist here, for reasons I won’t get into—they continue to exchange favors. If we want power systems, we’ll have to genetically engineer a dog with two heads, or teach some random group of people how to sing.

“These favors don’t mean anything to them, they just want us to have to work for it, because they don’t think it’s fair to give away something for free. The problem is that they accept no substitutes. The council will decide what they expect of us, and that could take up to a month. We can either take it or leave it, but we can’t offer them something else. Seriously don’t even try, that is incredibly rude in their eyes, as they consider it a form of negotiating. We just have to hope it’s something that we can give. I don’t know how to genetically engineer dogs, or teach people to sing, so cross your fingers.”

“How did they advance to a post-scarcity society without ever having money?” Treasure asked, using her tiara. This was just how she was gonna talk now. Her true voice would be reserved exclusively for travel.

“Very slowly,” Azura explained, “but steadily. They remained in small and somewhat isolated pockets. Each pocket developed on its own, for if they attempted to reach out to others too much, it would make things too complicated, and they probably would have needed to devise a banking system. One thing this did was pretty much prevent all war. I mean, there has been almost no violence in their history, because people lived where they could find the resources, and operated independently. They still shared information with each other, but they didn’t collaborate directly. Their impact on their environment has been incredibly low, impressing even the Ochivari, and insulating them from attacks. They don’t live on the surface anymore. They live on the orbital ring.”

Just then, a shuttle dropped down from the sky, and landed on the grass in front of them. Azura led the crew out. “Greetings, friends,” she said. “We come on a peaceful mission, seeking power systems to repair our vessel.”

The man stepped closer to them, and sized up The Transit. “Peaceful,” he echoed. “We know what you are, this is not a peaceful mission.” It was starting to look like what happened in the last universe would happen here, or something similar.

“We discovered this ship, and are only trying to use it to return home to Universum Originalis. While this is destined for war, we are not its warriors.” Azura wasn’t technically lying, as she wasn’t part of the war yet, but she had every intention of joining, so it wasn’t the whole truth either.

“We do not interfere with the Darning Wars,” the man said, “but do not mistake that for endorsement. We do not interfere...on either side.”

“Hmm,” Azura said, only loud enough for the crew to hear. “Our database is incomplete. Obviously they’re peaceful, but I believed they would help us.”

Treasure decided to speak up, “please take our request to the council. Let them decide our fate.”

Azura looked over at her approvingly. This was the right thing to say.

“I am obligated to relay your message,” he agreed. “Payment is never guaranteed, but...I do not look favorably upon your chances. Come. You will stay with us while you await your answer.”

“Stay with the Transit,” Azura ordered Siphon and Spectra, and was met with no protest. The rest of them stepped into the shuttle, and went up to see what this orbital ring thing was all about. Treasure had never heard of it before.

It was exactly what it sounded like, a massive ring suspended in space that went all around the planet. People did not go down to the surface very often, instead deciding to leave it to the plants and animals. They mostly lived in large structures that were hanging from the bottom, down towards the atmosphere, like gargantuan stalactites. How interesting. The Transit crew stayed there for about a week, learning about their culture and history in the museum, and enjoying some of their entertainment. People didn’t seem to know anything about other universes, it was really just the representative who came down to investigate. The locals just figured they were from some other planet, if they even asked where they were from at all. They blended right in quite easily, because they were just nine out of tens of billions of people. Once the council was ready with their decision, they summoned the crew to council chambers.

“Thank you for coming,” Council Leader Ignatius said. She sat up there with her own crew, high above the floor, forcing all who seek help from them to literally look up to them. “We understand that you would like some advanced power system to integrate with your...space train.”

“That’s right,” Azura answered. “We would be eternally grateful, and eagerly await your charges.”

Ignatius nodded. “In exchange for our technology, we ask that the first thing you do with it is to travel back to our past, and extract an important figure before his death.”

“What’s that now?” Azura questioned. It was okay to ask for clarification, just not to argue or propose conditions.

“Mizakh Bordalajner is one of the most influential leaders of our history. It was he who first predicted that we would one day live as we are living today. He came up with the idea of the orbital ring, and he fiercely argued in favor of ecological mindfulness, so our species would survive long enough to realize his dreams. He, of course, died long before singular immortality, and we would like to reward him for his efforts by bringing him up to our present, and saving him. Have no fear, time travel is impossible in this universe without the aid of a machine such as yours. We do not wish for you to alter the past. Simply remove him from his deathbed, and bring him back here, so our advanced science can keep him alive forever.”

Azura looked at the four people to her left, and the four people to her right, just to gauge their reception of the request. No one seemed to have any objections. It was fair, within their power, and unlikely to cause problems for this world, or come with unforeseen consequences. Even if it did have consequences, that wasn’t really the crew’s problem. “We accept. Provide us with the pertinent information, and we’ll go retrieve your man.”

“That will not be necessary,” Ignatius said. “One of our top historians will be accompanying you, to make sure the mission moves forward smoothly.”

Azura nodded deeply, and cordially.

The anti-negotiation stance was a two-way street. The council failed to request that their own people would be the ones to install the new power systems on the Transit. Once the council meeting closed, they could no longer amend the request any more than the Transit crew could have. It would have been unfair, and unjust. They were a consistent and thoughtful people. So the crew was able to insist that they be the ones to interface human technology with Maramon technology, and get the whole thing up and running. It took longer, but they didn’t want anyone else getting their hands on bulk travel knowledge. Causality was grateful for the limited number of parties capable of risking paradoxes for all of reality.

The historian was a woman in her late twenties named Rosalinda. Treasure’s first impression was that she was nice and talkative. She loved to tell anecdotes from history, and she probably taught them more than they could ever learn from the museums. She also knew everything there was to know about this Mizakh Bordalajner. He was exactly where he was meant to be, exactly when he was meant to be there. They even knew when he would be alone, so that no one would try to stop them from abducting their loved one. The mission was so boring that only Siphon and Spectra were sent into the field. They returned with no problems, Bordalajner was hooked up to life support, and the Transit went back to the future. The problem was that this was not the correct future. Whrweh was still there, and perfectly intact, but the Whrwehs were gone. They had died out centuries ago, and the only explanation was the absence of this one historical figure. Even though he died anyway, he must have had a significant impact on the outcome of events.

“All right,” Azura said, quickly getting over the shock. “This isn’t a problem. All we have to do is go put him back. The Transit can mask its signature from itself, our past selves won’t even know we were there. We’ll put him back in bed right after the Young!Siphon and Young!Spectra first took him. Everything will go back to normal. We’ll figure out an alternative payment later. Rosalinda here can vouch for us, and explain why it didn’t work.”

“I don’t know why it didn’t work,” Rosalinda revealed. “He died. In fact, and I didn’t want to say this before, but he went missing. This was all destined to happen. At least I thought it was. I thought we were just closing a timeloop.”

“We are,” Treasure said. “We’re closing it now. Quino and I will put him back in bed. It’s best not to run into your alternate selves.”

“I’ll go too,” Rosalinda insisted. “It’s my world.”

“Very well,” Azura decided. “Let’s go.”

They returned to the past, overlapping with their own timeline, and preparing to make the exchange. If everything went according to plan, not five minutes would pass from the time Siphon and Spectra first took him, and the time Treasure, Quino, and Rosalinda put him back. No one would ever know they were there, not even their Past!Selves. It did not go according to plan. They avoided being seen by the other two crew members just fine, and got him back to bed, no problem. It was getting out that messed things up. Mizakh’s husband came back in time to see them trying to sneak out of their house. He shouted for help, causing a number of neighbors to flood the streets. They were trapped. He was an important man even while still alive, so they were all very protective of him. They formed a circle, so that there was nowhere for the three of them to go. There was nowhere for them to go...except through another dimension. Seeing no other choice, Treasure took a deep breath, and then she screamed.

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Microstory 1645: Omegaverse

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The Omegaverse Earth was totally normal and boring in the beginning. It didn’t even have its own name until a particular object from another universe randomly appeared, and started making changes. It’s called the Omega Gyroscope, and it has the power to do just about anything. It can’t alter multiversal physics, but it can change the proper physics of whatever universe it happens to be in at the time, but only while using the original proper physics as a foundation. Needless to say, it’s incredibly dangerous, and probably best left unused. A not so great person was in pursuit of the Omega Gyroscope, and in order to protect it, this person’s opponent threw it into a portal, hoping to pass it off to someone he knew he could trust. Unfortunately, the portal closed just as the gyroscope was crossing the threshold, which trapped it in the outer bulkverse. It floated around aimlessly for an infinite amount of time, before making its way to the brane that would come to be named for it. Of course, you wouldn’t know how powerful or dangerous the thing was if you looked at it. It’s just this dinky little thing that was never designed to do what it does. It was a regular toy that became imbued with its power afterwards. So it’s not like a cabal of scientists had to get together to study the thing once it was discovered. A random underemployed man on an urban hike after his four hour shift stumbled upon it, and sold it at a pawn shop for a few bucks. It changed hands several times over the years; other pawn shops, attics, storage compartments, an antiques store, and finally a museum. The curator still didn’t know that it had magical powers, but she felt compelled to put it on display, and make up a story about its history. The museum was struggling, you see, and she just needed to get people back in the doors for the real artifacts.

Her plan did not work for the majority of the population, but the Omega Gyroscope has a passive power that only certain people can detect. Some people are just more in tune with their universe. They are not full witches, and probably never will be, but they do have a greater sense of the interconnectedness of reality. When they encounter something as profound as the Omega Gyroscope, they know it. They don’t necessarily know why they feel what they feel, or what it means, but it will most likely leave them with the urge to take ownership over it. The curator’s lie was so good that the gyroscope was heavily secured in its display case, so they couldn’t just steal it, and run away. They conscripted a would-be cop to steal it for them. He had a reputation for doing anything short of murder for the right price, for not asking questions, and for getting the job done quickly and efficiently. This job went south when his former best friend, and current rival, went after him, and foiled the plot. He didn’t get the chance to haul the criminal off to jail, though. The Omega Gyroscope—after all this time—finally reactivated. It turned back time, and changed everything about how the world would develop from there. What followed was a series of adventures, precipitated by persistent use of the gyroscope. Different people kept getting their hands on it, figuring out how it worked, and rewriting reality to their whims, if only subconsciously. One of these alterations resulted in the worst damage to a planet in any local group universe. This forced the Ochivari to forgo the sterility virus, and engage in total warfare. These humans had to die, and in the most violent way possible. But they underestimated their enemy.

The Advancement of Serif: Tuesday, September 1, 2178

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Serif stood there next to the central table, staring at grave chamber four, but she didn’t know why. She felt like something important had just happened, but nothing was coming to mind. She popped off her back foot, and prepared to make a step towards it, but then she heard a cough at her flank. She stumbled a bit, and looked back. A one-legged Angela was on the floor, breathing heavily, and massaging her slowly-forming stump as the wound was sealing up.

“What the actual fork just happened?” Jeremy asked, climbing onto the platform.

“Angela’s hurt,” Serif answered, still distracted by the mysterious mystery of grave chamber four.

“I can see that,” Jeremy said, kneeling down, and hovering his hands over the healing leg, hoping to figure out some way of helping her. “She’s missing a leg! How?”

“I don’t know,” Serif replied, not letting up on her fixation. She tried heading for it once more.

“Serif!” Jeremy scolded. “Come down here and help her!”

She didn’t bother looking back this time. “I obviously already did.”

“No, it would help if you built her a new leg. All you’ve done is close up the one she has left.

“I can’t regrow limbs,” Serif apologized. “My abilities have limits. I don’t know who cut it off, or how, or where they went, or what they did with our memories, but I’ve done all I can for her.” She took another step.

“If you do not get down here right now, and try it,” Jeremy began, “so help me, Michael—I will end your life. You won’t die, you’ll just go somewhere else.”

“The afterlife simulation is only in the main sequence,” Serif reminded him, finally starting to be able to divide her attention.

“Right, but the Parallel has death subversion redundancies of its own; better ones, actually.”

“Well, I don’t,” Serif explained. “Her leg is gone. I’m sure it can be replaced, but not by my breath.”

“In that case, get down here, and help me help her up, so we can transport her to the nearest medical facility.”

“Where’s Olimpia?”

“I don’t know, stop coming up with excuses not to help. Let’s go!”

Serif sighed, and relented, but thought better of it immediately. She hopped over right quick to take a look inside grave chamber four, which she found to be nothing more than a space for sleeping. There was no stowaway hiding in there, or some kind of magical MacGuffin. It was just a hole, like it was supposed to be. “Okay, sorry, don’t yell at me again. I’m coming.” They lifted her off of the floor, and carefully lowered her down into grave chamber two. “I thought we were taking her to a facility,” Serif questioned.

“Yes, we’ll teleport her from here. Didn’t you read the specifications update?”

“What update?” Serif asked.

“Never mind,” Jeremy said. “You can stay here all you want, but I’m taking her to get help.” One arm around Angela’s shoulders, he used the other to open the panel, and activate the emergency teleporter.

The next day, still alone, Serif decided to explore her surroundings. She knew everything she needed to know about this ship, but none of it felt familiar. It was like someone once told her all about it using pictures, but she hadn’t been here until now. She climbed down the steps to the engineering section. She didn’t know how to work any of this stuff. They always just used an AI. She went back up, and then up again, to the next level, where microponics, hygiene, and the airlock were. It all made her feel very strange and uncomfortable. She shivered, because she hadn’t been alone here before. Or maybe she had never been here at all, and these were all fake memories. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, especially since they already knew their memories were indeed tampered with.

She climbed back down to the main level, and went over to sit at the table, but something stopped her. A cloud of insects spontaneously appeared before her, though there was no buzzing sound. She watched as the insects flew into each other, and grew larger. And larger, and larger, and larger. She realized they were coming into the form of a person. The process only took about a minute before the image was clear. It was Olimpia Sangster, after having been transported at the molecular level.

She too shivered. “That..was...actually kind of amazing. I would have never thought, but I guess it’s like a roller coaster.”

“Where were you?”

“Nowhere,” Olimpia answered. “I just skipped time.” She glanced around. “I don’t know how long, though. Where are Jeremy, Angela, and Leona?”

“Angela’s hurt, so Jeremy took her to hospital. I don’t know who Leona is.”

“She’s your girlfriend, or something, I think.”

“No, she’s not.”

Olimpia narrowed her eyes. “Your memories have been deleted.”

“I know, but...there’s no way I had a girlfriend, and just don’t remember her at all.”

“Well, you did,” Olimpia said both condescendingly, and matter-of-factly. “But I’ll drop it, because I can’t restore memories, and I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

Their Cassidy cuffs beeped. They had a new transition mission, this one apparently on the moon. “This thing can teleport there, can’t it?”

“I dunno, I haven’t been here that long.”

“Me neither.”

“I know.” Olimpia looked up into the aether. “Hey, hey, ship? Hey, ship computer?”

“Yes?” the computer offered.

“Could you take us to the moon?”

“Would you like me to transport you to the coordinates on your wristbands?”

“Yes, please and thank you.”

The engines revved up, and eventually delivered them to their destination. Serif and Olimpia climbed up, and headed for the airlock. They started to try to figure out how to put the vacuum suits on, when the AI stopped them. “The artificial atmosphere is pressurized, and breathable. You are in a lava tube.”

“Oh,” Olimpia said, dropping the helmet back in its cubby. “I don’t know what that is, but cool.” They stood before the outer doors. “You’re sure about that, right?”

“Quite certain,” the AI responded. Then it opened the doors, and let them out.

A man was approaching from a building down the way. He held out his hand and greeted them. “Welcome to Raivoe Tube. Do you have a transition window nearby?”

They were famous. “Yeah, it appears to be about thirty meters that way,” Serif answered, pointing.

He nodded understandingly. “Great. Well, I’m here if you need anything. You picked the best tube on the moon. We’re minimalistic and laid back, but we still have plenty to see. Please enjoy our Main Sequence Lunar Museum, if you have time. Did you know that the first human to set foot on the moon in the main reality did so only two hundred and nine years ago?”

“Thank you,” Olimpia said. “And yeah, I think I did know that.”

He laughed. “Wild. Their lives must have been so boring until then.”

“We had a lot of war to keep us busy,” Serif pointed out.

“Yes, of course. I keep forgetting about that.” He was still laughing. War must have been such a ridiculous and foreign concept to him.

“Well, we better go,” Olimpia said to him awkwardly. “The next transition is only in...” she took a peek at her cuff, “four hours.” Now it was really awkward.

A little bit of a frown, but he hid it fairly well, and they hid their recognition of it even better. “Of course, go do your thang. I’ll just...be in my office. Alone. As per uzhe. Nah, I’m kidding, it’s fine. I am lonely, though.” He stood there for a moment. “Sorry to leave you so abruptly, but it seems I need to do the daily test of my emergency teleporter.” He reached up, and pressed the button on his chest, which spirited him away.

They found a pit not too far away, which they could sit in, and have something to lean against. And there they sat for the next three hours until Jeremy and Angela found them. Serif jumped up. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I was just so distracted. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Our memories have been erased,” Angela acknowledged. “The doctors discovered at least that much. We still don’t know what we forgot, but it probably happened immediately after my leg disappeared. It was a trying time for all of us.”

Serif looked down. “It looks good as new. Is it a prosthetic?”

Angela shook her head, and then shook her leg. “Full regrowth. It’s mine. A doctor in the 21st century wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Pardon our manners,” Olimpia said. “Come on into our pit. There’s plenty of room, and we’ll give you the comfortable spot.”

“That’s okay,” Jeremy said. “We have a better solution.” He removed what looked like a toy gun from his bag, and started tapping on its little touchscreen. “One of the human medical practitioners snuck us one of these, so Angela always has a place to rest. She called it a gun-of-holding.” He found what he was looking for, so he pointed it to the ground, and squeezed the trigger. A couch appeared out of thin air, and beckoned to them. Once they were all seated, he squeezed the trigger again, and summoned a television in front of them. They had enough time to watch one episode of Teen Wolf before the window opened.

The augmented reality on their cuffs showed them that some kind of meteor crashed through the window above them, and was heading towards one of the buildings in the main sequence. Dozens of people appeared, narrowly escaping the small celestial’s wrath. Some of them were luckier than the others, though. Some were on the upper level, and once the floor disappeared beneath them, they fell, often on top of those below. No one died, and they would all be fine with medical treatment, but it wasn’t the most elegant transition that had happened.

The four of them ran over to help the people up. “We have three minutes to get to the next window!” Jeremy announced. “Why so soon?” Olimpia asked.

Angela was holding up someone with a broken leg. She started leading him towards the window coordinates. “They don’t know about time travel. They have to survive the meteorite without anyone wondering how.”

Serif started to breathe on people, but it was going to take too long, they just had to go. “If you can walk, grab someone who can’t, and help them over to the next spot. It’s only a hundred meters away. We have to get you back to your time!”

At normal pace, a normal walker could cross the distance in about two minutes. With all these limping people, though, they had to book it, and they still barely made it before the window appeared. As they were moving, Serif came up with a somewhat believable lie. All of them happened to decide to take a walk when the meteor came down. They also happened to be far enough away from the impact to avoid being crushed by it, but not far enough away to avoid superficial injuries. She would have rather they gotten more time to explain how important it was for them to lie, but perhaps that would have just spelled more time for the ignorant main sequencers to start questioning how it was they were being rescued. Their confusion and sense of urgency was hopefully going to muddy a lot of their memories, and any claims of time travel would be received under the assumption that it was the result of minor brain damage.

Once it was over, they breathed a sigh of relief. This mission came with a lot of hurrying up and waiting, and then it just had a bunch of hurrying. But they made it, and everything was fine. Sure, maybe one or two of them were fully in their right minds, and starting to think more deeply about the nature of reality, but hopefully it wasn’t enough to land them a spot in Beaver Haven, or risk exposing all time travelers to the general public.

The team walked back slowly, knowing that there was nothing left for them to do. When they arrived back at the couch, they found it occupied. A young man was sitting on it comfortably. He was smiling, and watching the second episode of the show that they were all trying to catch up on. There was no way he didn’t notice them standing there, but he was purposefully ignoring them, like a pickup artist trying to get the upper hand on his prey. “Hey,” he finally said, still not bothering to stand up. “I am a young Tamerlane Pryce. I have just been waiting for an opportunity to come here, and find out what you’re all about.” He nodded like he thought they were receiving him well. “Do you have any turkey jerky?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Monday, July 22, 2137

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Amaranti went through the shatter portal first, along with their bug alien prisoner of war. Angela went through next, followed by Mateo. The punching guy took up the rear, in case the portal closed on them, and he had to create another one. They all apparently made it through just in time. The five of them were now standing on a moon in another universe. A ship was destined to come retrieve them at some point, but scheduling anything at a certain time was difficult when accounting for multiverse travel, since different universes ran on different timestreams. This rock wasn’t uninhabitable, but the atmosphere was a little thin, and not suitable for long-term survival. They got themselves into an outpost, where they found a little jail cell, enough supplies to last months, and breathing apparatuses, which just helped them get enough oxygen to be more comfortable. They reiterated that they would get them to July 22, 2137, but that Mateo’s best chance of getting this thing out of his neck was here.

Amaranti was hesitant to explain who it was they were, and what their mission was. Mateo didn’t care for any specifics, but they were evidently fighting an enemy that was well aware of the world of salmon and choosers, and he needed to know more about that. The other guy, Limerick pointed out that Mateo was clearly not completely oblivious to how the bulkverse worked, and their contact protocols did not bar them from reading him into the situation. Those secrets were mostly there to protect people who had only ever seen a little corner of their own universe. Mateo, on the other hand, had been to many other universes, perhaps even more than these two had. When he told them that, they were quite surprised, and flatteringly impressed. Their excitement grew when he added that his mission involved assassinating eight alternate versions of Adolf Hitler. There was clearly no issue when it came to telling Mateo about the war.

“They’re called the Ochivari,” Amaranti began. “They’re the basic bitch race of the bulkverse. Different factions have different exact motivations, but one thing they all have in common is that they want to destroy all evolved life, everywhere.

“It’s more than that,” Limerick continued. “They want to kill anything that impacts their environment too much. On my world, we have a species called beavers. They build these things called dams—”

“We know what beavers are,” Mateo interrupted.

“Well, that’s apparently enough to make the Ochivari try to wipe them out. They think they’re protecting the plantlife, and little critters that keep more to themselves. Birds build nests, that seems to be okay, and bees actually spread plants, so that’s great. Ants are fine, as are snakes. Humans, beavers, meerkats; they all just do too much to the planets they live on. We’re obviously the worst offenders, which is why they focus so heavily on us.”

“Beavers are a keynote species,” Angela pointed out. “They actually help the environment.”

“We don’t know if the Ochivari don’t realize that, or if they simply don’t see it that way. They just go in and try to kill anything that alters the ecosystem to a high enough degree.”

“Why have I not heard of them before?” Mateo asked.

“Beavers are never going to change,” Amaranti said. “They’ll keep building dams until evolution tells them not to. There are, however, based on what little evidence we’ve been able to find, some human cultures that have abandoned their old ways, or otherwise improved. They eventually develop technology that allows them to restore their planet’s wildlife, and stay out of its way. The Ochivari leave these worlds alone.”

Mateo recognized what they were talking about. People were already living in megastructures that avoided damaging large swathes of land by going more vertical. There were plans to take this further, and start hanging all of their structures from orbit, so they never had to touch the ground at all. “We do that on our version of Earth.”

“Exactly,” Amaranti agreed. “That’s why those two were there. They were surveying your Earth, and tracking your development. They have a large presence in your universe, because of your multiple timelines. Normally, they can just jump to the future, and find out how the people there end up progressing. It’s a lot different for you, they’re not sure how to handle it.”

“We were sent to capture one, and kill all others,” Limerick said.

“Like them,” Angela noted.

“How’s that?” Limerick questioned.

“You kill the Ochivari like they kill us,” Angela went on.

“That’s what war is, buddy.”

“Has anyone tried talking to them?” Angela suggested.

Limerick was shockingly offended by this. “You want us to do what!”

“Calm down,” Amaranti told him. She turned back to Angela. “It wouldn’t matter. If we went back to the Ochivari’s homeworld of Worlon—back to before they did any of this—we could conceivably convince them not to attack us. We could stop them before they decided to become what they become. It might work. However, it would create a new timeline, and as great as that sounds, the old timeline still existed. As we said before, different universes have completely different timestreams. When you left your Earth, it was July 21, 2136, but that’s only by your calendar. It’s the sixteenth century on this moon, according to a different calendar. And it’s not time travel. When you cross the boundary of one universe, you may enter another at any point in time, in any reality. Because metatime, which is time that exists outside of any universe, is not a temporal dimension, but a spatial dimension. There has been at least one reality where the Ochivari left their universe, and that can’t be undone, because as soon as they stepped out, they started experiencing metatime, and were no longer beholden to the logic of serial causality.”

Angela looked at the floor and nodded. “How do the Ochivari come to the ability to travel this bulkverse, as you call it? They build a ship, or something?”

“They’re born with the ability to do it,” Limerick explained. “It’s...it’s hard on them, though. Their method is extremely unpleasant, which I find quite satisfying.”

“They’re kind of like him,” Amaranti added.

“No, not like me!” he fought.

Amaranti pursed her lips, and nodded, actively avoiding making eye contact with Limerick.

Angela was still nodding, theoretically on to a great idea. “So they’ll become bulk travelers no matter what.”

“Yes,” Amaranti said, not seeing the purpose of this line of questioning.

Angela smiled. “Then why don’t you create an alternate reality where the Ochivari are good...and ask them to fight with you?”

Amaranti and Limerick didn’t know what to think of this suggestion. They had clearly never thought of it themselves. Before they could agree with her, or not, the door swung open. A man came through with a comforting smile on his face. “Y’all need transport? Oh, looks like we have a couple new recruits here.”

“We rescued them,” Amaranti replied. “They’re not recruits. One of them requires medical attention, and then we have to get them to their version of July 22, 2137.”

“Not yet,” the man said. “They’re not recruits yet. Hi, my name is Chase Palmer. Let’s get you home.” He offered his hand. Angela took it.

Chase led them out of the outpost, and about a kilometer away to a clearing, where a spaceship was waiting for them. They embarked, and strapped themselves in. “Take us up, Cassie. Head for Torosia.”

“Sure thing,” the pilot, Cassie said. She flew the craft up out of the atmosphere, but they didn’t go far before something changed. Mateo’s heart sank quickly, before springing back up to its place in his chest. Through the viewports, they could see an ocean of beautiful colors, but all of them shades of orange. Mateo guessed it to be some form of faster-than-light travel.

In about an hour, they were at their destination, so Cassie dropped them out of FTL, and landed on a planet that was presumably called Torosia. There, Mateo went under surgery to have the pattern suppression patch removed from the back of his neck. It was reportedly fairly easy to do, but wasn’t something he could have handled on his own. He was given the greenlight to travel after a few hours of rest, just to make sure nothing went wrong. Limerick had to go off on some other mission, so he wasn’t able to transport them back to their home universe. But that was okay, because he wasn’t the only person capable of doing it. A young woman in a fancy futuristic vacuum suit showed up wielding a knife. She introduced herself as Zoey Attar, which was a name Mateo immediately recognized. She was present at his wedding with Leona, and had helped flower girl and ring bear, little Dar’cy Matigaris find the rings after the latter accidentally mixed them up with the flower petals.

Zoey used her knife to tear a hole in the spacetime continuum, which they crawled through to get back to their universe. She did not follow them through, though, evidently confident that they were in the right place at the right time. They were standing at the top of a hill, and since they didn’t have any clue where they were meant to go, they just sat down and waited, spending the time tearing apart blades of grass, and talking about their lives. A few hours later, the world around them blinked away, leaving them seemingly at the same place, but in a different reality. Leona, Sanaa, Jeremy, Kallias, and Aeolia were trekking up the hill, headed right for them.

“Oh, thank God,” Leona said. “I was hoping it would be you.”

“We were all hoping that,” Sanaa corrected.

“Where have you been?” Kallias asked.

“We’ll tell you all about it. But first, how did the transition go last year?”

“It was fine,” Jeremy answered. “It’s probably good you weren’t there. That lunar hermit did not like being around people. Fortunately, he couldn’t see Bran or Aeolia, because the three of us were stressful enough.”

“The lunar hermit?” Angela questioned. If the transition was on the moon, why did the map send us to the Mariana trench?”

“The trench was two days ago,” Leona explained.

“It’s not Monday, July 22, 2137?” Mateo asked for clarification. “We were told very specifically that we would be delivered right to you.”

“Whoever you’re talking about overshot their target,” Aeolia said. “It’s 2138 now.”

“Ah. I guess that’s not that bad.” But then Mateo instinctually reached up to massage his neck, having felt a sharp pain back there.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” He saw the world around him change colors, like two dozen lamp filters flashing in front of his eyes, which started feeling heavy. Then he fell down and passed out.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Saturday, July 21, 2136

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Nerakali opened up a two-way transition window, and held it open for an extended period of time, so Aeolia could go and find her partner, Kallias Bran. They made quick work of it, as he was waiting at their rendezvous location, just as he said he would be. He was relieved and grateful to find a group of people who were actually capable of remembering his past. As it turned out, Aeolia had maybe been a little less than forthcoming about their use of their power. They had actually used their ability to influence people from the shadows on many occasions, and were secretly responsible for a number of reality-defining moments in the timeline. She had been honest about their intentions however, in that they only ever controlled people benevolently. They were never greedy, nor megalomaniacal. There appeared to be no cure for their condition, which matched up with everything they had heard about the retgone coins, so they just felt like they needed to contribute positively to society, and this was the only way.

After jumping to July 21, 2136, Mateo and Leona learned about one time when Aeolia and Bran interfered in the timeline that was particularly relevant to them. On August 12, 2158, Mateo was ripped out of the timestream by The Superintendent, and simultaneously removed from the collective consciousness. Leona went on for the next six weeks of her life, having no idea that she ever had a husband. Once she learned he existed, she spent the next however long doing everything she could to get him back, even going so far as to travel to other universes. She found him, of course, and brought him back from the dead, so they could start living their lives together again. Mateo had missed a lot, however, and Leona logically assumed she would have to fill him in, just like any two people separated from each other for any length of time. This proved unnecessary, however, when Mateo found himself being flooded with Leona’s memories, as if they were his own.

They asked people who could manipulate memories whether they had anything to do with what happened to Mateo, including Nerakali, but no one had any clue what they were talking about. The mystery of the shared memories was something they never figured out, and the two of them eventually just let it go, and decided to be grateful for it. Now, though, Bran was able to vocalize the truth, and he revealed finally that he was the one responsible for the brain blending. “I trusted you, Leona,” Bran began. “You accepted me as part of your team, and I think we became friends. Obviously you didn’t remember any of that, but it happened, and I remember it distinctly. If anyone could help us figure out how to restore other people’s memories of me, I knew it would be you. And I knew you would want to. So I conscripted Nerakali Preston’s help, intending to use her abilities on you. I wanted to test it out first, though, since commanding Nerakali proved to be wildly more difficult than most people. All the Prestons are notably resistant to our influence. So I just told her to give Mateo your memories, the ones he would have had himself had he been around. It worked, as you can see, but that was it. Nerakali felt my presence, and locked me out because of it. We were never able to control her again.”

“Ever since that attempt,” Aeolia continued the story, “we’ve been running around the timeline, helping people in any way we could. We abandoned our hopes of returning to the fray, because if Nerakali couldn’t do it, no one could. Had we known about these Cassidy cuffs, we probably would have tried something again, but this is the first we’re hearing of it.”

Mateo placed his hand on Bran’s. “Thank you. I’m sorry you wasted your one chance to ask for Leona’s help on me. I’m grateful, though.”

Kallias shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. Leona would have been able to remember her past interactions with me, maybe, but still wouldn’t have been able to see me in realtime. She probably wouldn’t have even remembered that she once couldn’t remember. Nerakali would have still driven us from her psyche, and nothing would have changed. At least we made your lives together a little easier. Or did it? We don’t really know.”

“It did,” Leona confirmed. “I thank you as well.”

They enjoyed some unawkward silence until their cuffs beeped, indicating that they had a mission to get to.

“It’s the middle of the ocean,” Jeremy pointed out, looking at the two-dimensional map.

“It’s under the ocean,” Sanaa corrected.

“All the way under,” Leona added. “It’s at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”

“Can we even go that deep?” Angela asked. She gestured towards their mobile home in general. “Can this thing survive down there?”

“Computer?” Leona asked simply.

“Yes, I can,” the computer voice replied.

“Sorry to call you a thing,” Angela apologized.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“That sounds like Mirage,” Mateo noted.

“I already looked into it,” Leona said. “It’s the same voice, but isn’t actually Mirage. Every timeline ends up coming up with it, because of how it can sound innocently comforting, or sexy, just depending on your mood.”

“You can call me Imzadi.”

“Is that a reference?” Jeremy asked.

“It is.”

Without being asked, Imzadi teleported them to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where they found themselves floating in the middle of an extensive underwater city. The Parallel natives saw everywhere as a place to live. Seemed too dangerous to Mateo. That was probably why they were here, because people in the main sequence would have constructed their own base down here, and something was destined to go wrong today.

“We don’t need to be here for another several hours,” Sanaa explained to the artificial intelligence.

“I thought you might like to visit,” Imzadi explained right back to her. “Forgive me for thinking you had any interest in Parallel culture.” She was a feisty one. Every AI had a different personality, which helped remind humans that they were real people too.

“Okay, okay, you’re right,” Sanaa said sincerely. “Is there a main entrance, or something?”

“We’re docking right now,” Imzadi said.

Once they were docked, they were directed to watch an orientation video, which laid out all of the exhibits and other attractions. Angela is the only other one who wanted to go see the ancient submarine exhibit, which was about the first vehicles they used to explore this part of the ocean. Or perhaps she didn’t want to see it at all, but didn’t want Mateo to have to go off alone. It was nice either way, because it would give them a chance to get to know each other. The museum was in a pretty remote section of the complex, though when accounting for teleportation, that didn’t mean a whole lot. What made it truly remote was that it was fairly boring, and there weren’t a whole lot of people there. They could tell how excited the other visitors were to see each other. It validated their passions, and reminded them that they weren’t alone.

After the two of them were finished going through, they were about to leave when Angela noticed a door that was blocked off with yellow tape.

“Not a big deal,” Mateo said. “They’re just doing construction.”

Angela approached the door, and wiped the knob with her finger. “It’s dusty.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I’ve not been here long, but do you get the feeling that these Parallel people ever procrastinate their projects? I haven’t seen a single construction site anywhere. According to Leona, they can do just about anything in the span of a day.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ve not—what are you doing?”

“I have to see what’s on the other side. I’m curious.” She ducked under the tape, and walked through the door.

“Oh, God,” Mateo said in a breathy but nonjudgmental voice. The natives probably wouldn’t get mad at them about this, since they didn’t seem to ever get mad about anything, but that didn’t mean they should push their luck. Still, he had to admit he was kind of curious too. The tape blocking off the door alone looked very out of place in this reality.

Mateo followed her down the dark winding hallways for a bit until they started hearing noises up ahead, and felt compelled to walk in front of her instead. She was not offended about this. They kept walking towards the noises. They sounded more like computer cooling fans, and less like buzzsaws, but neither of them really knew what construction looked like in a world with this kind of technology. What was strange, however, was what they found when they finally made it to the room with all the computer servers. A giant insectoid was sitting at a terminal. It seemed to sense their presence, and turned around to see. It looked even buggier from this angle. Before they could introduce themselves to them, something struck Mateo in the back of the head.

He woke to a terrible headache, as one might expect, but his neck hurt a lot too. Angela was in the chair next to him, not yet awake. The bug man was standing in front of them, or not, it could have been some other bug man. It was probably difficult for a human to tell them apart.

“Why aren’t we just killing them?” the bug asked.

Another bug approached from the server stacks. “I have some questions. About these.” He was holding up Mateo and Angela’s Cassidy cuffs. They should have been coded to their respective DNA, but who knows what kind of hacking technology these creatures possessed?

“What do you wanna know?” Mateo asked.

“Where did they come from?”

“A friend built them for us.” He decided to be as polite as possible, and answer all their questions, but as vaguely as possible, to avoid these people from being able to exploit this knowledge. He still didn’t know what they wanted, or if they were friend of foe.

“For what purpose?”

“We use them for communication.” It wasn’t a lie, but it was not the whole story. If the bugs ever found out the truth, hopefully they wouldn’t use it against them since he wasn’t technically being dishonest.

“So others know where you are.”

“Yes,” Mateo confirmed. He actually didn’t know. It was possible to track someone wearing a cuff, but he couldn’t know whether anyone was doing that since he didn’t know how long the two of them had been down here, and whether anyone would be looking for them yet.

The bugs seemed to recognize that he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming, but it was hard to read their facial expressions, since Mateo wasn’t familiar with their species’ nuances. The one in charge nodded, though. Before he could ask any more questions, they all heard a pounding sound that was coming from over there. They waited a few seconds, only to hear another pounding, but they could also see the air ripple a little bit, as if being distorted by heat. Another pound, and the air rippled more. The space was being warped, presumably by something trying to get through some kind of portal that was—for whatever reason—not very easy to open.

“The Progenitor,” the subordinate bug said. “They’ve found us.”

“Hold your ground,” his superior ordered him.

More pounding, enough to wake up Angela. “What’s goin’ on?”

“These fine folk are worried about that portal,” Mateo explained to the best of his ability.

“You shut up!” the leader bug shouted. “He’s not coming to save you.”

“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Mateo said.

“Who are they talking about?”

More pounding, and faster now. The portal barrier was nearly broken.

“I dunno,” Mateo answered her.

After even faster poundings, the portal shattered open, releasing a wave of color, and letting a man crawl through, followed by a woman who was dressed up like a superhero. The subordinate was hyperventilating. He tried to run away, but the man chased after him. “Come here, you little snake doctor!” the man shouted. He tackled the bug, and started punching him in the face. Meanwhile, the superhero woman went after the leader bug. She used more finesse, and instead of striking her opponent, chose to use his own weight and momentum against himself. She kept knocking him to the floor, and letting him tire himself out. The man was a brawler, and she was an artist, but they would occasionally switch opponents without missing a beat, as if having rehearsed it. In the end, the leader bug was apparently dead, and the subordinate was bound in zip cuffs.

The man tried to leave back through the portal, but the woman started to help Mateo out of his own bindings. “Amaranti, we gotta go. I’m too tired to punch a new thinny.”

“We help them, that’s what we do,” she said to the man. “If you have to punch a new portal, then that’s what you’ll do, because it’s your job.”

The guy sucked his teeth, and looked away dismissively.

“Thank you,” Mateo said. As Amaranti was freeing Angela, he went over to retrieve their Cassidy cuffs. “Oh, no. Is that the date?”

“We don’t know what date it is,” Amaranti replied. “We’re not exactly from around here.”

“Yeah, you’re from another universe. I’m just sending the question into the aether, because I already know the answer.”

“Did we miss the jump?” Angela asked. “How is that possible? Wouldn’t you have just jumped without me?”

The bug alien snickered. “He was messing with you. He didn’t need to ask those questions. We know who you are, and what you do. We suppressed your powers.”

Mateo reached to the back of his neck, and felt a patch that was clearly attached to something that went deeper into his spine.

Amaranti sighed. “Come with us. We’ll get you to a doctor, and then deliver you back to wherever it is you belong.”

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