Microstory 2358: Vacuus, July 16, 2179

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Dear Condor,

There was a short delay in my response to you because I read your letter, and decided that I wanted to implement your suggestion regarding my new noisy neighbor, then wait to see if it worked. It seems to have, at least for now. I kind of maybe got the feeling that I will eventually have to reset my connection to him after he forgets. I’m not saying that he’s dumb, but I noticed he would regularly lose his train of thought, and forget key aspects of the stories that he was telling. I came to find out that researchers here are aware of his issues. They’re still not certain if he would have developed this way had he been born on Earth, or if there’s something specific to this environment that led to his neurological shortcomings. Right now, they’re leaning towards the latter. All children are different, but others have shown similar signs of developmental problems that need to be addressed. At the moment, there are still some variables that they have to account for, so they can’t arrive at any conclusion on the cause. This is a relatively small population. There must have been something about the progenitors’ own psychology that made them want to come here at all, and they all had to pass certain tests to qualify. These factors, along with others, limit the gene pool, making it more difficult to test hypotheses when it comes to determining the effects that this world might have on humans as a rule. I have to say, I’m surprised I didn’t know anything about any of this before. I guess they’re trying to keep it hush-hush. It is funny, though, they might be missing out on valuable data by keeping the rest of us in the dark. I belong to a subset of the population: children who had no choice but to travel to this world; born on Earth, grown up on the ship, and working on the base. The criteria for our selection was different than it was for the adults, of course. Studying us may tell them something that they’re not seeing now. I’m not gonna let them know about this, because I’m already a test subject, and I don’t need to add to that pressure. I still can’t find anyone who will tell me what exactly they’ve learned from the whole twins separated at birth study. I don’t know which team might be responsible for that, and I can’t get the top brass to even admit that it’s a thing. In a way, my situation is not dissimilar to Bray’s. We’re both being studied against our will. I think that’s what really endeared him to me, and honestly, this street seems to go both ways. He has had a much harder life than I realized, and I think that he also sometimes wishes that he were on Earth. I’m not saying it was okay that he was playing music while I was trying to sleep, but I kind of understand this behavior better now. They weren’t watching him in secret. They were really in his face about it, and they probably just made everything worse. I do not envy him, and it really puts our situation into perspective, don’t you think?

Sleeping in the quiet once more,

Corinthia

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 25, 2446

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There was a small gap between the outer layer and the second layer down of the IMS. Tiny valves could form on their own, and suck in air from the environment to inflate this gap, turning the whole thing into a very thin lifejacket. They could form nearly anywhere on the suit, and heal themselves once the job was complete, or if they became submerged in water, and would replace each other accordingly until buoyancy was achieved. This function triggered in all four of their suits automatically, and sent them down river. They had to paddle with their hands and feet to avoid rocks and branches, but that wasn’t the problem. They didn’t know where they were, or how far they had gone. Ramses was not answering his comms, but maybe this was some kind of massive biodome inside Ex-42, which might be shielded in various ways. Their comms were supposed to break through anything, but for every solution, there was the potential for a counter-solution. After they rounded the bend, they found themselves coming up on a very large tree.

The current tried to take the team in different directions. This appeared to be some kind of confluence. They had to swim to stay together, and agreed that they should stop at the central tree to speak with the other people standing underneath it. As they drew nearer, they realized that they recognized about half of them. This was the crew of the X González; Goswin Montagne, Weaver, and Eight Point Seven, plus their prisoner, Briar de Vries. The last time they saw these people, they randomly popped up on the Vellani Ambassador, had a brief argument about Mateo’s supposed death, and then disappeared with Angela. There were five other people standing in the tiny conflux island, but Angela could not count herself amongst them.

 The team crawled onto the island, and approached the other nine, Leona taking the lead. “Report.”

One of the strangers stepped forward. My name is Storm Avakian, and I am the Ensemble Conductor of the Garden Dimension. That is where you are.”

“What year is it?” Leona asked.

“We don’t worry about time that much,” a man said. “Hi, I’m Pinesong Shadowskin, Dimensional Composer.”

Leona stared at them a moment. “We just came from the Goldilocks Corridor. It’s 16,000 light years from Earth. Have you heard of it?”

“We’ve not,” Storm answered.

Goswin’s crew shook their heads too.

Leona focused on the captain. “Where’s Angela?”

“That’s not her right there?” Goswin asked, pointing at Marie.

“That’s her twin sister,” Leona explained. “You took Angela from us, or you will anyway. But no, that had to have happened for you already, because that’s when Briar learned that Mateo survived his first death on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. He doesn’t seem surprised right now.”

“Ah,” Weaver realized, “you met a group of our shifted selves. They’re like alternates, but...different. We’ve absorbed their memories, but our respective brains are still consolidating the discrepancies. We’ve not really had any time to sleep, which will help us remember such things.”

“We know where she’ll be,” Eight Point Seven said. “We’ve experienced your reunion, and remember it just fine. We can send them there.”

“I thought you were the one who didn’t want to help any more people,” Briar reminded Eight Point Seven.

“Well, it’s Leona. We’re gonna help Leona,” Eight Point Seven contended.

“Of course we are,” Goswin agreed. He held his palm up towards Leona, but then he became confused. “Are we not syncing? What’s going on?”

“We all want the same thing,” Briar said. “I still feel you three, but...”

“But we don’t feel the cosmos anymore,” Weaver determined.

“Could someone please explain what’s happening?” Mateo requested. “Ya know, for the dumber people in this group. Not me, obviously, I’m a genius.”

“No, I don’t know what’s happening either,” Leona clarified.

“We were in the Nucleus,” Goswin began before stopping. “I mean...Weaver?”

Weaver nodded, and took over the story. “We were in the Nucleus, where our minds and bodies were split into an unknown number of what we called our shifted selves. We found ourselves with the ability to jump to any point in spacetime, as long as we did it together. We had to sync up our brains, and focus on a singular goal. We also realized that we could do this to others, which is what surely happened to your missing friend, but there was a learning curve. Recently, we used the power of this tree to merge all of our selves into a single body and brain each. As I said, our minds are still working through that. To protect the tree, we removed it from Bida, and transplanted it here. That literally just happened, and...our power is gone now?” She looked over at the Garden Dimension people. “I don’t suppose any of you can explain that. It couldn’t be the dimension itself. We shifted back and forth before, and it went just fine.”

“Princess Honeypea,” Storm said simply.

A young woman hopped over to the tree. It was a giant magnolia with blue flowers and blue fruits. The bark had a sort of indescribable glow about it, and the roots reached into the waters. In fact, some of the roots seemed to be growing before their very eyes, searching for nutrients in the conflux. Princess Honeypea was inspecting the tree now. She gave it as big of a hug as she could, though it was a stretch to use that word when her arms were just about flat with her whole body pressed against the trunk. She sniffed at the branches, and licked the base before pulling one of the leaves off, stuffing it in her mouth, and chewing thoughtfully. She nodded, and went over to Briar, taking him by the hand, and causing his to blush. She led him over to the tree, and placed his hand upon it. “All three of you, come on and do the same thing,” she instructed.

The other three members of the crew went over to touch the tree.

Honeypea nodded again. “Just as I suspected. Their power is not gone, it’s just been moved into Riverbell.”

“Riverbell?” Goswin questioned.

“Riverbell Hallowheart,” Honeypea went on. “That’s her name.”

“Well, I like it,” Briar decided.

Goswin laughed mildly. “No one said we didn’t like it.” He took a breath. “So, it’s over. We can’t help them.”

Honeypea plucked a fruit pod down. “Maybe you can’t help anymore, but Riverbell here could take over for you. She would be honored.”

“Does it have a consciousness?” Weaver asked, like that wasn’t one of the craziest things one could say about a tree.

“Not in the way you would think,” Honeypea began to explain. She walked over, and handed Leona the fruit pod. “But I’m assuming that you do...have a consciousness?”

“I do,” Leona confirmed. “You want me to eat this?”

“One fruit, one trip. These are immature, though, so each one won’t last long before it pulls you back to origin. You’ll have to keep eating them if you don’t finish what you’re trying to do, and need to go back. If you’re looking for your friend, but you don’t know exactly where she is, it might take the whole pod.”

“What happens when I finish the pod?” Leona asked. “Can’t I just...eat another?”

“You could try, but that might kill you,” Honeypea said. She was no longer her usual bubbly self. “They’re not poisonous, per se, but too much of a good thing is still bad for you. You can even drink too much water. Your body might eventually learn to metabolize it, allowing you to start eating again, but that would take time. In fact, I’m not sure that it would even be safe for you to finish the pod. Fewer is recommended.”

“My body’s pretty strong,” Leona explained. “I’m not like regular people.”

“I can see that,” Honeypea said, “but you’re not invincible. Like any plant, Riverbell wants to propagate, but unlike normal plants, it doesn’t do it by replicating itself. It’s more complex than I can say with words, but basically, when it sends you somewhere, you’ll be taking seeds with you. Seeds of time. You’ll be changing history just by being in the timeline with the fruit in your system. That’s what the four of them did before they came here, and that will continue with you, and anyone else who partakes. This is why we must protect it, because that can’t be allowed to get out of hand. The most beautiful of organisms can become an invasive species, and an ecosystem—even one as extensive as all of space and time—demands balance, not homogeny.”

“I need one too,” Mateo said. “Ramses is missing now. You can protect the fruit all you want after that.”

Honeypea nodded. “I understand, and accept your terms.”

“Now, hold on,” Weaver jumped in. “That private detective we met. He was looking for the fruit. He thought that it would make his client young again.”

“He was wrong,” Honeypea said. “The fruit doesn’t do that at all. I can see why his client believed that, though. The source of the Fountain of Youth is right there.” She pointed at the ground.”

Everyone looked down. “What?” Weaver asked.

“The Fountain of Youth? In Florida?” Honeypea continued. “It’s there. This conflux marks the crisscrossing of five rivers, which branch off in ten directions. The eleventh branch goes down.” She shrugged, her eyebrows, as well as her shoulders. “And then up again. It flows into a spring in mithgarther.”

“When did this happen?” Weaver was still shocked.

Honeypea looked at her bare wrist. “Like, ten minutes ago.”

“This was inevitable,” Leona realized. “The Fountain of Youth has existed in every timeline I’ve ever heard of. It dried up many centuries ago. It’s one of the immortality waters. Do all of the other waters come from here?”

“No.” Honeypea was certain of this.

Storm stepped closer to Honeypea. “Are you sure about the properties of this new tree? The fruits, the roots, the leaves; everything.”

“I’ll need a little more time to finish the full synthesis of data, but I’m quite confident,” Honeypea replied.

“Okay, coordinate with Onyx for his catalog.” Storm turned to Leona and Mateo. “He’s our Botanical Orchestrator. We don’t do anything with the plants, including eating them, until he’s done his due diligence. You’ll have to wait, I don’t know how long.”

“I suppose we can hold off for another year,” Leona decided. “Will that be sufficient, Madam Avakian?”

Storm bowed her head respectfully. “More than enough. For now, allow me to show you to our guest quarters. I hope they are to your satisfaction.”

An airboat came up to them automatically, and after they climbed into it, sped off down one of the rivers. It stopped and dropped them off at Citrus Inn. It was a small and simple building, but it came with a beautiful view, and the air smelled of lemons and oranges.

“You have citrus here? How does that work?”

Storm smirked. “Trade secret. I can’t tell.” She left it at that, and left them there, assuring them that everything they might need would be in the rooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms, or the closets. They were allowed to pick anything from the orchard, but could not touch any of the other plants.

There was no electricity here, which meant no TV or music. There was a small library down the hall for entertainment, but beyond that, they were limited to whatever they had managed to download to their handheld devices. They first sat down in the sitting room together, but were thinking of just going to bed soon. That wasn’t Mateo’s plan, though. “Ramses is all alone. We don’t know whether the Oaksent died in the explosion, or if he had his own plasma shield...”

“When you eat that fruit,” Leona reasoned, “you’ll concentrate on trying to find him seconds after he purged the hot pocket. You don’t have to worry about what he’s been up to since. He’ll have been up to nothing, for he’ll just jump forward in time with you. I know you’re worried, but it’s going to be okay. Angela is going to have gone through the same thing. I’ll find her moments after those alternates of the crew took her away from us. They’ve not been waiting for us to rescue them; it’s already happened.”

Mateo shook his head. “What if it doesn’t work like that? We may have less control over what that fruit does than that princess would have us believe. What if Angela has been gone for days? Don’t you want to not waste any more time?”

“I know what you’re thinking, and I forbid you, Mister Matic.”

She never calls him that, like he’s just a member of her team, and not her husband. “Oh, you forbid me? You think you can stop me?”

“I can punish you,” Leona volleyed.

“With what?”

“No sex.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

Mateo glared at her, and she glared back. Ramses was important. He couldn’t let this be too personal. “Worth it.” He teleported away.

Marie teleported away immediately after, and came back with him. She shoved him back into his chair. “She’s my sister.”

“I was going for Ramses.”

“I know,” Marie said. “I love him too, so I’ll get him back too.” She looked over at Leona. “You and I aren’t having sex anyway.” She disappeared again.

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The Edge: Éminence Grises (Part III)

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Leona reluctantly returned to Lylla Hall. The audience looked back at her as she was trying to slink down the aisle. She recognized a lot of these looky-loos, but not everyone. The group sitting with Divina and General Medley were probably all from Teagarden. Coronel Zararias from the Third Rail was in his own section with part of the Mozambican Naval Fleet, which was an interesting development. As she scanned the rest, she started to get the sense that everyone was in their special section, according to reality, and then more precisely to world. They were in assigned seats. Her place was up on stage, where the rest of the Shortlist was waiting. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re right on time,” Hokusai Gimura explained. “The rest of us were early.”

Leona walked up the stairs and sat down between Kestral and Weaver, though there was still an empty seat between her and Weaver that was meant for Ramses.

“Welcome,” Ishida whispered over Kestral’s lap.

“Thanks,” she whispered back. She turned to eye Weaver and her alternate self, Holly Blue, who was last seen on her way to another universe to reunite with her son.

Holly Blue smiled, and pointed at the front row. Declan was there with a handful of other kids. “I found him.”

“I’m happy for you,” Leona replied.

“All right,” Hokusai projected, standing up.

“Oh, hold up.” Ellie Underhill trotted in from sidestage, and cupped her hands over Hokusai’s mouth. “Okay, there you go.” It begged the question, if everyone else could be here, why was Leona’s team not allowed to come? It was starting to feel like they were deliberately excluded, but for what reason?

“Thanks, El,” Hokusai said in a normal voice, but the sound replicated around the auditorium for all to hear perfectly. “Hello, all. My name is Hokusai Gimura. I was born in 1985, in the main sequence. I’m a scientist. I’ve made a number of breakthroughs in temporal technology, and I did so without the benefit of time powers of my own. I had to figure it out, and that was dangerous. My friends and I formed this group, not to hoard such technology, but to protect it, and to protect the general population from it, and its risks. We are standing in the year 2400, during what my people refer to as...The Edge. Its properties are hazy, this despite the fact that we’re time travelers, and our ability to know anything is a matter of finding the right moment.

“I can’t tell you how many temporal manipulators there are in the timeline, or even how many of us are not members of the subspecies, but are heavily involved in their affairs. Yes, that’s right; they’re a subspecies, but it’s really complicated. It has more to do with their neurology than their genetics. Most of you know most of this already, but none of you knows everything. None of us knows everything. That’s what this meeting is about. We’re here to get on the same page, with each other, and with you, and to decide the fate of the universe, or at least this particular reality. The meeting will not begin today. It will, in fact, be in two days. We are here in this room to meet, and to greet. Everyone up here...and a couple of others...will introduce themselves. In addition, you have been placed in groups of your own, and we’ll ask you to introduce yourselves as well. No pressure. We’ve never done it like this before; it’s going to be very informal. We all just need to, like I said, get on the same page. I’ll stop here in case anyone has any questions at this time, but only about the schedule?”

A man in the back cleared his throat. Whoever was in charge of lighting shone a spotlight on him. It was Senator Morton. “I was to understand there were eleven of you.”

“Yes, there were. One of us has been...detoured. We all have very busy lives.”

“But you’re time travelers, so that shouldn’t matter,” Morton reasoned.

“Right.”

Leona hung her head. This was her fault. It feels wrong, doing this without Ramses. He made the choice that she wanted to make herself, and she could never thank him enough for it. Even so, there is little reason for him to not be here. Unless his mission went bad. Oh no...the mission went bad.

Hokusai went on, “we will not be discussing any individual lifepaths here. We’re not here to talk about any salmon or choosing one’s specific rules, constraints, patterns, behaviors, choices, or missions. Ramses Abdulrashid cannot be here, and he will never be able to be here. That’s okay, because we never needed a plenum to move forward. We just would have preferred it. But fear not, because there actually are eleven of us. Our final member is simply late...it happens, even in our line of business.” She leaned her head down and whispered something to Pribadium. Not even Leona could hear it, but Pribadium stood and left. Hokusai sighed. “Anything else?”

Someone they didn’t recognize stood up. “Yeah, hi. Captain Waldemar Kristiansen, Eighth of Eight here. I need to get back to my ship. I was told that the amount of time I’m wasting here will be the same amount of time I’ll be missing there. That is unacceptable.”

“I assure you, Captain, the Extremus will be fine without you for a few days.”

“Yeah, but see, you’re not starting the meeting for two days. I don’t understand—”

“Thank you, Captain Kristiansen,” Hokusai said quite dismissively.

He continued to try to speak out, but no one seemed to be able to hear him. That must be Ellie’s doing.

Hokusai went on. “Ah, here we go.” She was looking sidestage.

Pribadium had just come back, and was trying to urge someone else to come forward who was still shrouded in shadow. “Come on. Come on,” she insisted.

Finally, Aldona Calligaris stepped forth, and approached the table. “What am I doing here?” she questioned through gritted teeth.

“You have been invited,” Hokusai said to her, not using Ellie’s projection ability.

“I respectfully decline,” Aldona said.

“Not possible. You’ve proven yourself worthy, so you’re here.”

“All of my work was done in the future in the Sixth Key. It is not relevant—”

“It’s relevant to us. Sit down, please. Ramses’ seat is right there.”

Aldona sighed and plopped down with attitude. Leona took her hand, and squeezed. “Let’s stick together.”

“Okay,” Aldona agreed.

“If there is nothing else, we’ll bring out our guest of honor; our mediator. This is something that the majority of you probably don’t know, our mediator is never a member of the group. We do this intentionally, in order to keep the proceedings fair, and as unbiased as possible, as well as provide us with some insight we may not be able to find in this group of mostly like-minded scientists and researchers. Friends and allies, please welcome this meeting’s mediator, Winona Honeycutt of the Third Rail.”

The audience clapped as Winona came from backstage, and approached her seat in the center of the table. She stood and watched the audience, not smiling, but not frowning, waiting patiently for them to finish paying their respects. “Thank you, Madam Gimura, for the opportunity. And thank you, esteemed guests, for the warm welcome. I am a relative newcomer to the underground. A little bit about me, My father is a lifelong civil servant, who is still in my reality of origin, dealing with our many crises. I’ve worked in the federal government for most of my adult life as well. To be specific, I run—I mean, I ran—a covert operations joint task force that brings together the six major branches of law enforcement for my version of the United States. When temporal manipulation was discovered, I found myself as a...handler of sorts, liaising the time travelers with our corner of the government. I think that’s all I’ll say. Who’s next?”

“I’ll go next,” Hogarth volunteered.

Winona nodded at her, and started to sit down as Hogarth was standing. She then nodded at Leona. She was told that she was an important contributor to the grand mission of the Six Keys and their Keyholders to pull every world in every reality into a new universe, and save them from some mysterious force that would see them destroyed. As it turned out, Winona and the others were merely decoys, so any dissenters would not know the true plan, which was still so secretive, not even Leona knew the truth about it. Apparently, the main sequence was free from having to worry about the Reconvergence, though, which was why this meeting will go on as planned.

The rest of the members of the Shortlist introduced themselves in their own way. Brooke Prieto explained that her temporal specialty was not being able to be manipulated by temporal manipulation. Sharice Prieto talked about her origins as an Unregulated Artificial Intelligence, and Brooke’s daughter. They then continued down the line, letting everyone speak before Leona. It was like they knew that she would not want to say anything, and would rather make it brief. This way, they could argue that they were low on time, and needed to move past introductions anyway once her turn came around, so it wouldn’t be Leona’s fault. At least that was how she reasoned it, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than it being because of her spite and anger. Though her anger should really have been focused on Pribadium alone, or honestly probably not even exist at all. She was being irrational and emotional.

No, she wasn’t last. That honor would go to Aldona. Leona stood up, and swallowed nervously. Ellie stepped over, and gave her the sonic projection ability. It only took a second, but the audience didn’t know how it worked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Go on. It’s okay.”

Ellie nodded, and walked back out of the limelight.

Leona scanned the audience again, not for any particular reason, but because she couldn’t think of anything to say. She wanted to participate, as Pribadium had asked. This was her duty. She was a member of this group, and she needed to help figure this all out. But she didn’t want to. Not anymore. She just didn’t care. They could claim all day that they weren’t elitist; that they were necessary...vital, even. But in the end, they were technology hoarders, and she didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, even if that was supposedly ending. “My name is Leona Matic, and I’m outta here.” She grabbed Aldona’s hand again, and pulled her up. Together, they walked off stage.

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The Edge: From Entrance to Exit (Part II)

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Pribadium directed Leona to a room where she and Ramses could have a private conversation, and also told them where they could find their bedrooms. The meeting wasn’t going to start until tomorrow, after formal introductions, and a fuller explanation of why there was to be an audience. “I figured, if you showed up, you would be from some time in the past.”

“I didn’t even wanna come now, but Pribadium forced me and Hogarth. I got the impression that she knows what’s going to happen to Olimpia, and either wants it to, or doesn’t think that it can be prevented.”

“Where is she?”

“The Sixth Key.”

“That’s what we guessed.

“But it’s complicated,” Ramses explained. “I think she’s the only one there. Let me start at the beginning. I didn’t find her by happenstance. I went there on purpose. Just before Phoenix Station blew up, I commanded the magic mirror to send me to Olimpia’s location after Dalton sent her away using his weird cane thing.”

“Oh! I should have thought of doing that. I keep forgetting that the mirror isn’t just for dead people. It can go to any point, any time, as long as someone is already there. I’m such an idiot. So, what happened after you found her? Is she okay?”

“Well, I didn’t find her right away. It was dark, but I came across two dudes who were working on the planet. I mean that literally. They were building the planet itself, or at least checking their work; I don’t know. They hadn’t seen her, but they agreed to help me look. We searched all night, kind of in concentric circles. The mirror was supposed to take me right to her,  so she couldn’t have been too far. Come morning, I felt something tap me on the shoulder. It freaked me out, but I was too curious to run away from the scary invisible monster. Of course, it was her. We decided that she was trapped in another dimension, because that’s what made the most sense. She was able to breathe, but there was nothing to eat. She could hear me if I yelled, but I couldn’t hear her at all. She can see through the dimensional just fine when she’s trying too, but if she loses focus, it sort of turns opaque. She was always able to get it back, she finds it claustrophobic. Because no matter how far she walks, the walls follow her. It’s like she was between two worlds, each one pressing up against her at all times.”

“You keep switching tense. Is she, or isn’t she, okay...the last time you saw her?”

“Kind of both. The dudes knew Hogarth Pudeyonavic, so they went off to ask her for help. She was the one who figured out where Olimpia truly was. She used Hokusai Gimura’s goggles to look through to the other side, and to communicate better with her. But then Pribadium showed up, and spirited us away. Hogarth said that the Sixth Key isn’t really there yet. It’s like this primordial reality that’s waiting for the Keys to do whatever it is they’re gonna do to make it exist. That’s as much as she was able to explain before Hokusai took her away to discuss this meeting we’re apparently gonna have. I know that the Keys are people, and they’re going to make a new reality, where all the people in the other realities are gonna live together.”

“Yeah, that’s all done. I mean, it’s not complete yet, but they’re doing it. I thought we weren’t going to have to deal with it anymore, but Olimpia’s situation changes everything. We can’t just leave her there. Ramses, they have someone who can literally move planets. She can transport them to other universes. She moved the Third Rail version of Earth to the Fourth Quadrant reality already, and she’s gonna do it with the countless other worlds. What’s that going to do to Olimpia? That much energy, that much gravity. That’s not a safe place to be. It’s dangerous to be in a falling elevator, but it’s even more dangerous to be standing at the bottom of the shaft while it’s falling. We have to go help her. We have to get the hell out of there.”

“Is that possible? We don’t seem to wield any power here. I feel like a space whale in a nebula around these people.”

“Huh?”

“Little fish, big ocean.”

“Oh.” Leona sighed, and thought over their options. “You’re right, we’re the lowest men on the totem pole, which isn’t surprising. I barely belong here.  Where did Hokusai take Hogarth? Did you see?”

“If we get back to the portal, I can head in the right direction, but I can’t tell you where they went after that.”

She shook her head. “No, and they could have taken a teleporter to the other side of the planet for all we know. I do wanna look at that portal, though. There must be something special about it if everyone is coming through there, instead of just random spots in the area.”

Ramses took her by the hand, and tried to teleport them both away. “No, it’s no use. They’re blocking my power.”

“That’s okay. I remember where it is.”

They walked back through Town Square, and down to where they first came through from their respective locations. In front of the portal was someone they knew from back in the day. “Hello, you two.”

“Mirage. It’s been a long time for us.”

“Longer for me, I’m sure.”

“It’s been about four and a half billion years for me.”

Mirage laughed. “I stand, corrected.”

“You stand...in our way.”

“I can’t let you try to leave.”

“Just the fact that you’re on guard tells me that there is a way through,” Leona calculated, “and that means I’m going to take it, because that’s what I want.”

“Not here. You don’t get what you want while you’re here. I’ve been asked to keep anyone out using whatever means necessary, short of murder, of course. But then, you would just go to the afterlife simulation anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“You know about that?” Ramses asked.

“I’ve been briefed.”

Leona nodded. “I think you’re confused. It doesn’t matter where I am, or who I’m with. I get what I want because I take it. I’m taking that portal. You can use all the brute force you want, I will figure this out. It’s what I do.”

Mirage emulated a human sigh. “Pribadium Delgado built this portal herself. It is incompatible with conventional time tech and time powers. It operates on her own special protocols. If you try to step through, you could end up lost in time forever. There’s a reason why she’s the one who retrieved everyone from wherever they were.”

“I’ve seen Pribadium’s technology. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I noticed similarities between it, and other tech I’ve encountered. It may not be as original as you think. She may not even realize that she didn’t come up with it herself.”

“I don’t know why that matters,” Mirage said.

“Hey, Opsocor? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Leona,” came the voice of the Nexus network from the aether.

Mirage was stunned. “Who’s that? Where are you?” She stepped into a defensive position, and narrowed her eyes, probably activating all of her sensors to find the source of the supposed intruder.

“I am everywhere.”

“She’s a god,” Leona explained.

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ve heard it both ways,” Leona responded. “Opsocor, can you help me navigate using this portal?”

“I can, if that’s really what you want.”

“Why would I not want that?” Leona questioned.

“It sounds like these people would like to have a full roster.”

“Without me and Ramses, they’ll still have a quorum. They don’t need us,” Leona explained. “They probably won’t take our opinions into account. They usually don’t.”

“Very well. Please step aside, child,” Opsocor requested.

Mirage was super offended. “Who are you calling a child?” There was nothing she could do about it. Her feet started to slide along the floor, all the way to the wall, which she found herself pressed up against, hopelessly unable to move. “I’m not even magnetic,” she complained.

“Don’t hurt her, please,” Leona asked.

“Of course not,” Opsocor replied.

“You understand where I want to go?”

“Yes. Go ahead, I have your destination queued up. But just you.”

“Thanks.” Leona reached forward and opened the door. “Wait, why just me?”

“Leona Bluebell Matic, do not step through that door!” Pribadium shouted from down the hallway.

“That is not anywhere close to my middle name. Where are you getting that?”

“Goddamn bug,” Pribadium muttered as she walked towards them, tapping on a handheld device.

“I am not a bug,” Opsocor insisted. “I keep telling you, this is my people’s tech. Your brain picked up on the persistent psychic signals that bounce around—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Pribadium made one final tap, and released Mirage from the wall. “Please stop her from leaving.”

Mirage took Leona by the shoulders, and held her in place. “Sorry.”

“Ram, go, please!” Leona pleaded

“No!” all three of the others shouted, but it was too late. He jumped through the portal without a second of hesitation.

Pribadium shook her head. “I think you just killed him. Isn’t that right, bug?”

Opsocor took a long time to answer, but she did answer. “It’s possible.”

Leona woke up in her room the next day feeling like shit. Before Pribadium suppressed Opsocor’s presence in the system for what sounded like the upteenth time, Opsocor explained that the portal was tailored to her neurology, and her genetics. That was why only she was allowed to go through. She was intending to reinitiate the portal for him once she was through, but they weren’t meant to go at the same time, or out of order. There was a chance that he was vaporized or spaghettified so quickly that he didn’t even feel it, but he also could have appeared inside of a star, somewhere in outer space, somewhere in the outer bulk, or in something that she called the kasma, which was basically a particular region of the outer bulk. The chances that he landed anywhere safely were not zero, but they were close. She still had faith, though. They thought he died on Phoenix Station, and all of their lives were in danger tons of other times. The guy was pretty resilient. If anyone was going to find Olimpia again, it would be him.

Leona was startled when she saw that Pribadium was sitting at the table on the other side of her bedroom. “Christ!”

“Sorry to scare you.”

“I don’t need a guard. You’ve sealed up that whole section. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. Opsocor isn’t answering me.”

“I can’t let what happened to Ramses happen to you.”

Leona got out of bed, and looked at her body in the mirror like Buffalo Bill. “I wonder what you look like naked?”

“What?”

She transformed herself into a likeness of Pribadium.

“I...didn’t know that you could do that.”

“I think I’ll walk around the planet like this, making you look like a fool.”

“This is the future, Leona. No one cares.”

“Well, I have to do something to get back at you. Everything would have been fine if you had just let me go. I don’t blame myself. I blame you.

“Well, I know that—”

“And I don’t care about The Edge,” she said in a mocking tone. “All I’ll do at the meeting is oppose you. You could say that we should give the public time powers, and I’ll disagree. You could say that we should prevent all the children from dying, and I’ll say that we should kill them. Now, you can try to use reverse psychology to your advantage, but we will never come to a consensus, because you and I will always be at odds.”

“Don’t be so petty.”

“Oh, you’ve not seen petty, Pribadium Delgado. Like you said, this is the future. Everyone’s cool. Everyone’s woke. Nobody’s angry. I’m angry!” On that word, she turned herself into a particularly large zombie that she recalled from an episode of Z Nation named Sarge. He was portrayed by a man in makeup, rather than via CGI, which was why Leona was able to steal his light for the illusion.

Pribadium jumped up, and backed away from the monster, but she quickly composed herself, and decided that it wasn’t real. “Be in Lylla Hall in two hours for introductions. This is bigger than you or me, or Ramses. Please recognize that, and do your job. You may not have come up with the idea of The Shortlist—neither did I—but you’ve participated in the past. I hope you can remember why.” She walked out.

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 13, 2398

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The tack team, as it turns out, was on Meredarchos and Erlendr’s trail the entire time. It’s just that Kivi just picked up other people’s scents along the way. It was the original spotter, and newly appointed technician, Manuel Hurst who figured it out. All he did was draw a line from Kansas City to Los Angeles. He then added blue dots that designated places they had gone to, and red dots for reported activity that fit the modus operandi of their target. The dots matched. The rest of the team feels like this validated Kivi’s participation, but she sees it a different way. If they had just gone straight to these places, and looked for the bad guys using traditional means, they may have caught them sooner. She kept distracting the team from the real mission, wasting precious time.

“I know it bothers you now,” Arcadia says, “but you’ll forget about it eventually.”

“How?” Kivi asks.

“You’ll save so many missing persons, and catch so many bad guys, that you’ll remember your trial period as exactly that; a trial. Now that you know that other scents can distract you from the one that you’re going for, you can figure out how to focus.”

“Can you teach me?”

“I don’t know about that. I never had to learn how to use my powers. They were always just...there. I was all but a sociopath, which meant I never had to worry about things like distractions. And then when I was thrown out of The Gallery, I did whatever I wanted. I didn’t have any goals, so there was no way to fail.”

Kivi frowns.

“Bottom line, you just need practice. I think this is a great place for you. This isn’t me, but you belong on this team. I don’t recommend going back to Team Matic, or that software company you were helping with. That’s just my opinion, what do I know?”

“I should think you know a lot,” Kivi muses.

Arcadia chuckles, and then heaves.

“Are you okay?”

She runs into the bathroom, and retches for the second time today as Kivi holds her hair for her. “Ugh,” Arcadia says as she’s wiping her lips. “This new body is irritating. How do you humans live like this?”

Kivi gets a thought. “Umm...women have been living like this for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“Well, it’s annoying.” Arcadia isn’t picking up what she’s putting down.

“I said women have been living like this.”

“What do you mean, that men don’t get sick?”

“Of course they do, but I’m talking about morning sickness.”

Arcadia glances at her watch. “It’s 12:45.”

Kivi rolls her eyes. “I guess your endocrine system doesn’t keep good time.”

“Honest hour, I don’t know what the endocrine system is, except that it’s the thing that Gary Busey is going to pull out of my body if I put that straitjacket on him. Remember, I was literally made out of clay.”

“Well, you’re not made out of clay anymore, you’re living in Leona Delaney’s body. That must be different for you.”

“Don’t remind me, my morning sickness is the least annoying thing that’s—wait. Morning sickness? Are you trying to tell me...?”

I’ll go buy you a home test,” Kivi volunteers.

“It’s not possible,” Arcadia says.

“I assure you, it is.”

When she returns twenty minutes later, Arcadia takes the test into the bathroom, and carefully follows the instructions. Near as she can tell, they’re just like they are in the main sequence. You pee on a stick, and look for a symbol after a minute or two. Not that she’s ever concerned herself with such pedestrian matters. Like she mentioned, her original body was made out of clay. She had all working outward parts, but her internal organs were a different matter. They weren’t nonexistent exactly, but they weren’t the same either. They had minimal function, and were mostly there for show. Honest hour again, she had never even had sex before she came here, and met Vearden Hayward. She was told, and believed, that she could never get pregnant, no matter which body she was in. It wasn’t just her womb or hormones, but her mind. It wasn’t fit for motherhood, so it could never be. She was supposedly designed that way.

It was the same for all the Preston clay children. Zeferino had a way with the ladies. As far as she knows, he never abused his power, but he did enjoy the occasional recreational...event. Nerakali would be a better comparison, but she seemed to have no interest. There is no precedent for this situation. A pregnant Preston? That’s absurd.

Kivi nods as they’re waiting for the results. “That may be true in the main sequence. If you jumped into someone else’s body, maybe you really couldn’t have children, even if that person normally would. But this is the Third Rail. The rules are different here. Why did you not use protection?”

“I guess when you spend thousands of years without so much as considering something as a possibility, you don’t let go of it, even when the variables change.” She buries her face in her hands. “I can’t do this. When Athanaric told me that I couldn’t have children, he was discussing it on a neuroglandular level. When my father said the same thing...he was talking about it psychologically. I’m a garbage person. Vearden and you guys have made me better, but I’ll never really get that stink off of me.”

“I don’t believe that,” Kivi says sincerely.

The alarm goes off.

“You read it.”

“Okay.” Kivi takes the stick, and compares the readout to the chart imprinted next to it. Rip it off like an adhesive bandage. “Arcadia, you’re pregnant.”

Arcadia grabs the stick, and looks at it herself. Then she pulls the second stick out of the box, and goes back into the bathroom. Guessing that Arcadia may be in denial, she bought three more boxes of three different brands, which Arcadia proceeds to pee on until she runs out. That’s eight tests in total, the girl is pregnant.

“Are you going to tell Vearden?”

“Of course I will, what kind of person do you think I am? Oh, wait...”

“In my—albeit limited—experience, sooner is better than later.”

Arcadia looks down at the pile of tests and boxes. “Would you mind disposing of all this in such a way so as to prevent anyone else at this blacksite from seeing them?”

“Consider it done. What are you going to do?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Last I heard, he was still with Marie at the hospital in Chicago.”

“Then I’m going to Chicago.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 1, 2398

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Nearly everyone is gone. Olimpia either doesn’t exist at the moment, or is trapped in a different reality. Trina lived in one alternate reality, and died in another. Alt!Mateo, the other Leonas, and Andille ended up who knows where, doing who knows what? Both Bridgette and Cheyenne are dead, as is Heath, though a duplicate doll of him remains. Marie is helping him learn how to function in Palmeria, using the expertise of a clinical neuropsychologist who specializes in rehabilitating patients with severe brain damage. He has never met someone with such an extreme case of cognitive incapacity, and was more than willing to move to a different country just for opportunity. Marie has agreed to let him write and publish a paper on his subject in exchange for anonymity and discretion. Vearden is on the island too, so the McIver boys, Carlin and Moray, aren’t alone. The eldest can take care of himself, and for the most part, his younger brother, but they need a trusted adult around, and Marie is pretty busy most of the time.

With Kivi and Arcadia—who is still in Leona Delaney’s body—now working with the tactical SD6 team in pursuit of Meredarchos, and other bad actors and missing persons, that only leaves five left in the Lofts. Mateo, Leona, Ramses, Angela, and Alyssa now attempt to fill the void once occupied by their friends. They’re finding it quite difficult. Angela’s apartment, which she used to share with Kivi, is clear on the other end of the floor, so she moved in with Alyssa right away. They tried to all eat together in the huge common area, but it’s so awkward with so few people. They’re probably going to start doing it in one of their unit’s from now on. Mateo had a thought to choose Ramses’ place, because he’s more likely to try to get out of meals to work downstairs, so always having to host might force him to take at least three breaks every day.

It’s almost midnight, and they’re still in Bridgette and Cheyenne’s old apartment. Everyone pitched in throughout the day, but Mateo and Alyssa led the effort to clean it out so it no longer reminds them of their failures. Now they’re sitting on the floor together, tossing garbage into an empty box, dwelling on those failures anyway. “We’re gonna have to do this for the condo too,” Alyssa points out. “We should sell it. Or you should sell it. Whoever owns it should sell it.”

“That’s up to Marie,” Leona says, “but yeah, it needs to be cleaned, at the very least. If Heath...or rather, if the new Heath ever learns how to function on his own, they may want to move back, and still stay out of all this stuff. Or since he died in there, she may never want to see it again. We don’t have to worry about that right now, though.”

“This was so stupid, I’m sorry,” Ramses says.

No one knows what he’s talking about. “You’re sorry? About what?” Mateo asks.

“This whole building. This was a dumb idea. There weren’t even that many people with us when we agreed to it. The McIvers were still in Utah, we hadn’t even heard of Bridgette and Cheyenne. Arcadia, Vearden, the other Leonas, Alt!Mateo, Andile? It’s like I knew these people would show up, but I didn’t know that they would leave us.”

“Honestly? I miss the AOC,” Angela adds. “It was small, but it had everything we needed. I took comfort in its efficiency.”

“This was your ship that you’re talking about?” Alyssa asks.

“Yeah, it was great,” Leona explains. “It only had three levels. The top was for facilities and microponics, and the bottom was engineering. The middle was for living. Instead of rooms, we slept in these things we called grave chambers in the floor. You couldn’t even stand up in them, but you could fit two people if you needed or wanted to.”

Ramses bites his upper lip. “We may be able to get it back,” Ramses claims.

“How?” Mateo questions. “We left it in the Fifth Division.”

“We left a copy of it there,” Ramses reveals. “I have another one in my pocket. I mean, I don’t have it right now. It was in my pocket, now it’s locked up in the lab.”

“I thought you couldn’t copy the ship,” Angela begins. “I thought you could only bring it back from a save state at a specific point in space where it once was. That’s why come Marie exists at all.”

“That was a bug, I figured it out,” Ramses says dismissively. I figured out how to save the ship in a pocket dimension on a device...in my pocket.”

“Why haven’t you brought this up before?” Leona asks in a captainly sort of way.

Ramses shrugs. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Reconstituting it in this reality would take a shit-ton of temporal energy. The tanks on the Olimpia can’t even fit the volume of Existence water we would need to take from the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Couldn’t you reconstitute it at the Bermuda Triangle?” Mateo offers.

“I guess so, if I thought it would help, but I also don’t know what the point would be,” Ramses laments. “The reframe engine requires a constant supply of temporal energy, as does the teleporter, and even if they didn’t, where would we go?”

“That’s true,” Leona agrees, nodding.

They sit in silence for a while.

“Well, what about the Olimpia?” Alyssa suggests.

“What about it?” Mateo presses.

“We could live there instead, if it’s cozier and efficient.”

“Yeah, I guess that could work,” Angela determines.

Leona and Ramses too think it’s a good idea.

“Wait, are we seriously talking about this?” Mateo questions. We have perfectly good apartments. Who cares if the other units aren’t occupied? When you rent your own apartment in a normal complex, do you think that much about how many neighbors you have? This place is great, we don’t need an alternative.”

“We do need a contingency, though,” Leona decides. “When we had all those people, there was nowhere to escape to, but now we can.”

“You can escape through me, because I’m a teleporter,” Mateo reminds her.

Leona bites her lower lip. “Did you happen to look at your watch the last time you teleported? I rode with you to take Vearden to Palmeria after your first two roundtrips.”

“Did I—no, why? Did you?”

Leona hesitates to explain, but she knows that she has to. “Yes, it took us five seconds to get from Kansas City to the island, and eight seconds to get back.”

“Okay...is that bad?”

“It’s teleportation, Mateo, it’s meant to be pretty much instantaneous.”

Mateo’s face drops. “Right. What does that mean? Am I losing my power?”

Ramses perks up. “You’re probably losing energy,” he postulates. “You’re losing temporal energy. That’s what happens in this reality, it just gets sucked away.”

“Well, how long do I have?”

“We need to run some tests on you.” Ramses replies. “I guess I know what my next project is now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 23, 2398

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Meredarchos’ plan presumably hinges on this idea that the team is not meant to know that he has transferred to Trina’s body. While the authorities were looking for Andile, he would apparently be free to move about the world unnoticed. Except that he would be noticed, because we’re talking about an unaccompanied six-year-old girl. His plan just doesn’t make any sense, especially considering the fact that Ramses knew about the secret refrigerated room, and would discover it eventually, if not immediately, which he did. Of course, little Trina was not capable of carrying Andile out of the building, so he couldn’t take the body with him after the transfer, but then why didn’t he just take Trina’s body, and make the transfer somewhere else. This is all sloppy work, and Ramses believes that he has an answer for why.

“Erlendr is in there.”

“They’re sharing a body,” Leona understands. “That’s always been a theory, but it doesn’t explain why they would use Trina’s instead of Andile’s, and risk us finding out.”

“I think it does explain it. They’re both alpha males, trying to control the outcome of whatever it is they’re doing together. They have their own objectives, and their own ways of accomplishing them. It’s sloppy because they can’t agree on anything, and neither of them will concede to the other, which means that nothing gets done right.”

“The problem with this possibility,” Mateo begins, “is that we have a short window to take advantage of their disarray. Eventually, one of two things will happen: either they’ll learn to work together—though this is less likely—or one will win out over the other. It depends on who is the stronger psychic, I would guess.”

“There’s at least one other option,” Leona says. “They may be able to split their minds to a second body.”

“Whose?” Mateo asks. “The only other vacant body we know of is Leona Reaver, who is being protected by layers and layers of agency security.”

“Who says it has to be vacant?” Ramses poses.

Mateo shakes his head. “If they can share the body of someone who doesn’t want to share it, why take Trina at all? Why not go straight to the guy who owns the pizza place down the block, or any other random stranger?”

“Erlendr may not be able to resist the poetry,” Rames suggests. “The pizza guy means nothing to us, but he doesn’t think we can hurt Trina. Again, sloppy.”

“Well, that’s another problem,” Leona says before a pause. “Can we? Can we hurt Trina’s body? Can we hurt any child?” That is the classic question issued in philosophy classes the world over. Would you be able to kill Hitler as a child, knowing what he would turn out to be? Except they don’t know what Meredarchos is, or will be, and Erlendr has already done his worst.

They’re silent for a moment before Mateo speaks again. “We still have the Livewire, right?”

“Yeah,” Ramses answers. “Meredarchos apparently doesn’t need it to control the Insulator of Life, so he didn’t steal it too.”

Mateo looks at his wife. “I would hate to kill someone who looks like you, but...”

“But it would be easier than someone who looks like little Trina, and honestly, we would probably ask Arcadia to actually do it for us.”

“If you place someone in Leona Reaver’s body, they’re not going to die,” Ramses reminds them. “They’ll fall back to her original timeline, and then be dropped right back here in that parking lot.”

Leona nods. “I’ve been thinking about that. I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay. What might that be?” Ramses is worried now.

“I need you to build me a prefrontal cortical scanner, unless they exist in this reality already, in which case, you would just need to procure one.”

“Lee-lee, what is that?” Mateo asks.

“Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo keep subverting death because an extraction mirror keeps saving them. They thought that they couldn’t get out of the loop, but I believe that they’re not trying hard enough. It’s true that it is difficult to let yourself die when you see a way out, even when you’re suffering from suicidal thoughts. That’s why people who genuinely want to die can’t just strangle themselves with their bare hands. These decisions are made in the frontal lobe, and with enough science, you can manipulate which decisions an individual makes.”

“Are you talking about inventing a suicide inducer?” Mateo questions.

“They already exist in the main sequence, and probably the other advanced realities,” Leona reasons. “Or rather, they could. Whether anyone has ever actually used such technology is irrelevant. It’s possible regardless. I’m not talking about using it on all my enemies, but I think it might be worth the risk.”

Ramses is torn between the two of them. “I’ll investigate the possibilities, but I make no guarantees.”

Leona tilts her head as she’s standing up to leave. Sometimes she wishes this were a dictatorship. Sometimes.

“I know my wife,” Mateo says after she’s left. “You may also know her well enough to know what she’s really planning.”

“I do. She’s not interested in making Meredarchos and Erlendr suicidal. She’s going to copy her own brain, and upload all three consciousnesses into her alternate self’s head. She’ll kill herself, and the other two will just be along for the ride.”

“How do we suppose we stop her from doing that?”

“Not how you’re thinking,” Ramses warns. “Don’t forget, I know you too.”

“It’s the only play that makes sense.”

“Sacrificing yourself to prevent her from doing it isn’t a fair trade.”

“It won’t really be me. It’ll be a different me. But it won’t even be that, right? It’ll be a lesser me. No memories, no real thoughts...just the impulse to get out of the extraction mirror loop, and end it once and for all.”

“You can get semantic on me all you want, Mateo. This is a murder-suicide pact. Whatever happens, you both need to appreciate that truth.”

Mateo stands up as well. “It won’t be the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. And hey, won’t they end up in the afterlife simulation anyway?”

Ramses shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s an old timeline. We don’t believe it existed back then.” He watches Mateo leave the lab too. Then he unlocks his Completed equipment locker, and takes out his neural scanner. It’s funny that the two of them are under the impression that she’s the one who came up with the idea to copy consciousness. He was working on this for weeks, and now he knows how he’s going to use it. He’ll scan his own brain, and end this once and for all.