Microstory 2533: Patient Relative

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

My father has been battling cancer for years now. It’s been so hard to watch him struggle. I’ve sometimes thought that the treatment was worse than the disease. I’m still not entirely convinced that that’s not true. It always seemed crazy to me that the only way to fight it off is to make it sick. It’s like shooting the hostage. One of the bullets might hit the hostage-taker too, but is the price worth it? Well, now we don’t have to worry about it anymore. No more tests, no more chemo. No more sleeping half the day away, no more spending the rest of the day worshiping the porcelain god. He’s going to be cured. Our application was just accepted. Now we’re just biding our time until the appointment. Per sound advice, he has continued his conventional treatments, not because we think the appointment will fall through, but because we don’t want to take any chances. He’ll stop a week before, because that will be the end of another round, and so he can feel better for the trip down to Kansas City, but no sooner than that. This is going to be such a relief. I’m excited to have my dad back, but all he’s been talking about is my education. I dropped out of college when he was diagnosed so I could go back home to take care of him. He’s always thought I resented him for that, but I didn’t care for school anyway. It’s not like I was training to be an engineer, or a lawyer. I was getting an undergraduate degree in underwater basket-weaving. It might have helped me get a job, but it wouldn’t help me make better money. That’s one thing you have to remember when you’re trying to decide whether you’ll go or not. It helps you get in the door, but it doesn’t keep you in the room. Your boss and your hiring manager may like to see it on your résumé, but if you suck at the job, they’re not going to say, “oh, but she’s a graduate. Better give her a second chance. We would fire her right away if she only had a high school diploma.” No, that’s not a thing. I’m happy where I am now, and I love living at home. I love my dad, and I like spending time with him, regardless of what brought me back here in the first place. He wants me to go back to school, but I think it’s mostly about the symmetry of it. For him, he doesn’t like to start something without finishing it. Things like that are just always hanging over his head, and he can feel them. It makes his condition worse, worrying about something undone, even if it doesn’t need to be done. He once finished a bowl of soup that was making him nauseated just because when you have a meal, you eat until it’s gone. He immediately threw it up, but guess what? He threw it all up. I hope getting the cure will help alleviate the stress from all that. I can’t wait. I’m probably more excited than he is.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 14, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

He felt it. He felt that pull he was so used to, and even the nausea he eventually got over. He had almost forgotten it was even a thing, but yeah, back when Mateo first became an unwilling time traveler, he could sense it coming when his stomach felt a little upset. It was always brief, and of course, not usually useful because of a little invention they call a clock, but it was specific to him, and later Leona. He stops running, but doesn’t let go of Marie’s hand. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” she asks.

“Ah, you didn’t.”

“No, I felt something, but you need to tell me what you’re talking about, so we can compare.”

“I felt like I was about to jump to the future. I was a little queasy, and—”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I felt that too,” she elaborates. “I figured it has something to do with how shitty I feel about leaving my husband with those pigs.”

“You call them pigs here?”

“Not the point, Mateo!”

“Sorry. I don’t think you ever felt the nausea, though, once you became one of us?”

“No, is it because I had a resurrected body before this, and now Ramses’ upgrade? I think I kind of remember Leona mention in passing how it once felt in the beginning.”

He slowly turns back towards that empty parking lot. “There is something about this place. If we come back here, I think we’ll jump. I think it’ll happen. I just think we have to be closer. It is midnight, right?”

“Yeah.” Marie double checks her watch. “Yeah.”

“We have to come back. We have to get the other two, break Angela and Heath out of jail, and then return to that lot just before the following midnight that comes. I did that once. I broke out of a holding cell, and—well, I tried to run into the treeline so they would never catch me, but then my cousin caught up to me; it was this whole thing.”

“Mateo, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Heath isn’t one of us.”

“Crap. Oh, no. You’re stuck here forever. This...this is the only world where you can be happy now.”

“I think so, yeah. It was uncomfortable at first, but now it’s a gift. I’m not a time traveler anymore, and I don’t wanna be.”

Mateo breathes deeply, and sits up against a mostly fallen tree.

“We have to get to the rendezvous point. You can still do what you want. You can still get out of here, if that’s even what’s happening. Maybe it’s just a glitch, so don’t get your hopes up. But I’ll be fine. You’ll still have Angie.”

“No, we’re a team. We keep having to promise you that you’re part of that, and so is your husband, and so is that baby...”

Marie reacts to this reminder in a way that shows she doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“I’m sorry that’s...that’s a private matter. I can’t speak to it.”

She sits down next to him. “It’s okay. I found out right before you showed up, and I was going to tell him, but then we were dealing with all of this, and...”

Mateo sighs again, but more contently this time. “We’ve been looking for a home. We keep saying that that’s what the main sequence is, but who cares? I mean, I have people that I love back there, but I haven’t seen most of them in ages anyway. My own mother doesn’t remember me. Most of the people that I love are right here, and that can be enough. We always wanted to be free, which is why we sent our alternate selves to Havenverse. Why can’t we just make this our own haven?”

She stands back up, brushes the dirt off her hands, and extends one back down to him. “We can, but we have to get out of here before they find us, or we won’t be able to tell Ramses and Leona what happened. We’ll need them to put the team back together.”

Microstory 123: Hosanna Katz

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Little baby Hosanna Katz was a very fussy child, and there was nothing his parents or his doctors could do about it. He would show no symptoms of illness, he was well fed, and was kept clean, but would still continue to cry. As he grew older, he began to understand his ability, but still not control it. Hosanna’s empathy level sat at an extreme. He could sense what others were feeling to such a high degree that he could feel their physical pain, and not just emotions. The problem with this was that each individual has their own mood at any given time. Hosanna was being regularly bombarded with conflicting emotions coming from multiple people simultaneously, and this generally manifested as nausea. He would always feel more comfortable being around a single person at any one time, because being alone left him feeling empty. His parents were able to convince themselves that they tried everything they could to help him, but in the end, they were forced to place him in foster care. He remained in the system for a few years until he was discovered by two other anomalies. They took him in as their grandson and little brother. Both Don and Valary had been using meditation and other calming techniques to channel their abilities so that they could use them on command. They taught Hosanna to do the same, and soon his power increased. He could not only sense other people’s emotions, but control them; ease their pain. He possessed powerful mirror neurons that allowed him to mimic the complex movements of others in real-time, even without seeing them with his eyes. His new family’s love for him allowed him to let go of his anger regarding his old family so that he could use his gift for good. He had a wide range of interests, and could be found floating between the departments of Bellevue, helping wherever he could. He considered his time on the medical team, providing the most natural form of anesthesia in the world, to be the most rewarding. He even had to do that for himself once. Unfortunately, he died before managing to settle into a regular position.