Microstory 2447: Terminator Track

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This isn’t a dome. It might be, in fact, the only thing that you can do on this rock that isn’t. It’s basically this big wide train that goes around and around the circumference at a certain latitude. They told me exactly how far from the North Pole and equator we were, but I can’t remember. The point is that the time never changes when you’re on the terminator track. It might be sunrise, sunset, magic hour, or twilight, and as long as you stay put, it will remain as such until the solar system collapses, or the track goes out of commission....whichever comes first. I’ve only seen sunrise and sunset, but I heard that magic hour isn’t that great since the atmosphere is so thin. I think they’re planning on adding more trains in between these, so it can always be night, or always be day. I’m not sure why you would want that exactly, but to each their own, right? This is a cool concept that they’ve tried on a few other planets. Varkas Reflex has something very similar, but the train is of a very different layout, and I think the capacity is a lot smaller, because it’s an older design, and the megastructural engineering capabilities weren’t quite there yet. Or the size of the one here on Castlebourne is the result of natural advancement. They made it bigger very deliberately because they wanted it to be bigger. If the Varkas one had been built to this scale, this one would be even bigger. Anyway, you get the gist. You sit on the train, and watch the sunrise. And watch it. And watch it. The show never ends. Again, it’s a cool concept, but if you stare at it long enough—even though you’re going, like, a thousand kilometers per hour—it starts to look like a painting. Well, I can go look at a painting of a sunset whenever I want. Do you have any idea how many paintings there are of sunsets? I couldn’t tell you, but look it up, and then multiply it by several times, because some people will paint a sunset, and then not show it to anyone else, so whatever’s in the records is probably an underestimation. As you can see, I’m a bit of a tangentist. There’s just not much I can say about Terminator Track. I don’t think it’s any better than just setting your smartwindow to show a hologram of a sunset at will. Actually, it’s worse, because again, Castlebourne has such a thin, dusty atmosphere, so just remember that before you board. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense, even if they thickened the atmosphere, and created some of that Rayleigh scattering. Part of the beauty of a sunrise or sunset is watching it change from one state to the other. Yeah, they’re pretty colors, but seeing them appear and disappear is part of what made humans like them in the first place. This is just static...like a painting. That’s the way I see it anyway. I’m not gonna tell you not to come here. I’ve not gotten into any specifics, but they have a restaurant, and several lounges. You can watch the domes fly by too if you go to the side viewports, so that’s another thing. I see this spot as a one-time destination, not something you frequent, except maybe if you’re on a romantic date, or something. Or, like I said, you could just tell your nearest smartwindow to show whatever you want. In fact, I bet the trains have cameras, which you can tap into, allowing you to watch it remotely anyway.

The Seventh Stage: Painting Rocks (Part V)

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Echo is standing in front of the blue wall, painting wispy white clouds on it, paying close attention to details. It would look complete to anyone else, but to him, the work is never done. He can always add one more curve...one final flourish.

Clavia walks up to him. “There you are. What are you doing?”

“Painting this wall. It ain’t gonna paint itself,” Echo replies, still watching what he’s doing.

“It’s literally going to paint itself,” she counters.

He smiles. “I know. Sometimes I just need a break to unwind. Like you with your little headplays.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“What’s the count?”

“Three thousand, seven hundred and four.”

He drops his elbow, and looks over at her. “Technically at quota. We’re ready for move-in.”

“Like you said, in the technical sense. We still need to figure out how to convince a supermajority to do it, or it’s not really helpful.”

“We also need to figure out how to do it without loading everyone onto a proverbial bus, and driving them here.”

“It’s time to talk to Cedar,” Echo realizes. They have been dreading this day for a long time. They like him, but they don’t know how he’s going to react or respond to this news. There are whispers that the Cloudbearer twins are building something, but no one knows what, and all of their guesses are wrong; though off by varying degrees. Cedar ran his campaign for power on a foundation of intercivilizational unity. He believes that the only way to keep the Reality Wars at bay is if there’s no one to fight against, because everyone is on the same side. The amount of space between people in this universe could tear them apart. It’s the distribution. Cedar is probably gonna have trouble with the distribution.

“Yeah, we have no choice. Do you think he’ll be mad we didn’t read him into the situation earlier?”

“He’s serving as Head Advisor to our parents,” Echo replies. “He was too preoccupied to worry about this. That can be our excuse for keeping it a secret from him.”

“Good idea.” Clavia takes her brother’s hand, and transports them both to what essentially amounts to a holodeck, though on a much grander scale. They’re standing on an island floating in the air. At least, that’s what it looks like to them. It’s just an illusion. The “air” around them is clear purplish water. They can still breathe, of course, and talk just fine. The sky above is much more unambiguously an ocean. It’s upside down. Waves jut down, and spray a sweet misty rain down towards them. Some of it tastes like chocolate, other drops like honey. Their feet are planted firmly on the ground, though they feel like they could float away at any second. All around them are crystalline structures, also purple, since that is the theme. A stream gives way to a waterfall that slips over the edge, and disappears into the oblivion below, though again, it’s just invisible floor. Between them and the sky are giant turtles, swimming around. One of them nods and winked before moving on.

They aren’t alone on this floating island. They summoned Cedar, and are currently patiently waiting for him to get his bearings in this new world. “This breaks the laws of physics,” he notes. “I’m assuming it’s not real?”

“No,” Echo replies. “Our powers do have some limits.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly a month,” Cedar points out.

Clavia smirks. “We’ve been gone longer than that.”

“Framejacking, or temporal acceleration?”

“Both,” Echo answers. Time is moving faster in this universe, so more gets done in a shorter amount of time in comparison to the Sixth Key, but their own minds are also operating at much higher speeds, allowing them to think and act more quickly.

“This is what you’ve been working on?”

Echo laughs. “This took only a few seconds to construct. We got the idea from Castlebourne. Most of the domes on that world are physical, except for the holographic sky. One of them is nearly all holography. You can make it look like anything. We chose this today. Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” Cedar agrees. “What am I doing here, though?”

Echo clears his throat. “What is the number one cause of tension and conflict in the Sixth Key?”

Cedar dismisses his words with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pitch me. Just tell me what you’ve done, and what you want. You’re gonna need to learn this for when you take over in a more meaningful sense. We’re in charge of undecillions of people back home. No one has time to beat around the bush or be polite about it.”

“Very well,” Echo decides. He reaches up and pantomimes pulling a stage curtain open. As he does so, a tear in the hologram appears in the far, far distance. Behind it, they see what looks like regular outerspace, but as the curtains separate even farther, a figure appears. It looks like a big metal statue of a humanoid, or perhaps just a big robot. It’s hard to tell what scale they’re working with here, so Echo has to explain. “Have you ever heard of the matrioshka body?”

“I have,” Cedar confirms. “I went to a sort of school like you did. That’s where the afterlife simulation was housed, before it collapsed, and everyone was transported into Fort Underhill. The Sixth Key shares interdimensional space with them now. I never knew what happened to matrioshka body, though. That it?”

Echo shakes his head. “That. Is MB-3704.”

Cedar laughs. “You made your own? That’s impressive.”

Echo and Clavia exchange a look. “He said it was three-seven-zero-four.”

Cedar is confused, but only for half a second. Then his face drops into a frown. “You made 3700 of these things?”

“Yeah,” Echo says.

Cedar starts to pace around and shake his head, almost in disappointment. “Why? What do they do?”

“Well, they...have people live in them.”

“Who lives in them?”

“No one yet, that’s what we’re asking you for.”

“Asking me for what?” Cedar questions. “I told you, get to the point. Stop trying to be dramatic.”

“We need you to transport everyone from the Sixth Key who wants to live here. Send them all to their new homes...all at once.”

“I can’t do that!” he cries.

“We’re gonna let them consent,” Clavia defends. “We’re not gonna make anyone move, but this will be better, and I think there will be a ton of interest.”

“Think about it,” Echo begins before Cedar can make another argument. “There are hundreds of billions of stars, but we don’t have enough resources for everyone. How is that possible? Because stars radiate a ton of their energy away, even with dyson swarms. Matrioshka brains are more comprehensive, and more efficient. And matrioshka bodies are just stylish and cool.” Honestly, I don’t know why no one ever thought of it before. I thought that was the point of the original matrioshka body, and its successor, Big Papa.” There ought to be far more than two of these in existence. The Parallel was more than capable of doing it, but they chose not to. They still orbited stars. Even the interstellar settlements were quite literally few and far between. Why? Why keep the stars? Aesthetics? Safety? Ethics? Probably all of the above. Or. Echo and Clavia are just that clever.

“That’s not my point. I literally can’t do it. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Echo and Clavia are both confused. “What are you talking about? You already did it. You moved them all from their original realities, to the Sixth Key.”

“No, I didn’t.” He starts to look around on the ground. Guessing at his needs, Echo manifests a chair for him to sit in. Cedar hunches over and stuffs his face in his palms. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What? It had to have happened,” Clavia argues. “Everyone’s there.”

“I’m not saying that it never happened,” Cedar tries to explain. “I’m telling you that I didn’t do it. I have powers, but not like that. That’s insane.”

“Then who did?” Echo asks him.

Cedar looks up to meet Echo’s gaze. “I have no idea. They didn’t tell me. They have to keep it a secret, even from me and my family, even now that it’s done. We were...a misdirect. It’s like sleight of hand. We were the left hand that distracted everyone so no one would see what the right hand was doing. I don’t know if anyone knows who saved everyone during Reconvergence. All I know is that it wasn’t me.” He pauses before adding, “I just took credit, per my instructions.”

Echo and Clavia manifest their own chairs to sit in. They sit there in silence for a good five minutes before Echo decides to speak again. “Time is not linear. If something exists at any moment, it exists in all moments. If you know something about the past, you can change it. Keeping it a secret was smart. Even if someone were to go back and kill you as a child, it wouldn’t stop the creation of the Sixth Key. You’re like a bodyguard, there to take a bullet if one ever comes flying through. That’s how I would have done it if I were there.”

“Maybe you were,” Cedar reasons. “Maybe you two are the ones who created the Sixth Key; you just haven’t done it yet from your own perspectives.”

They exchange another look. Clavia decides to explain. “There’s a small group of people on a planet in the Sixth Key who are aware of what we’ve been up to. Just a few billion people. They were our test group. We’ve already tried to transport them to our new universe. We don’t have that kind of juice either. Stars are easy. Giant metal statues are easy. Moving people? That requires a level of precision that we do not possess; not with hordes anyway. We could probably move them a couple thousand at a time, but that’s all but useless for our needs. That’s a meaningless rounding error compared to the total population.”

“What about Ellie Underhill?” Echo asks after another bout of silence. “I don’t remember how many she transported into Fort Underhill.”

“It was only 120 billion,” Cedar replies. “Not quite a rounding error, but still not good enough. Besides, she gave them all new bodies; it was a whole different animal.”

“So what we’re saying is that we need to find the person who actually did move everyone from the five realities to the Sixth Key. We need them to do it again.” Clavia starts to pace. Finding someone out there in the abstract is not something that she’s ever done before. She always knows who she’s targeting, or roundabouts where they are. This is a mystery individual, who might be in either of two universes—or, hell, maybe neither of them. They could have also done it subconsciously, like how Echo lived before he became self-aware and realized his true potential. Maybe it’s not just one person. Maybe it was a group, or somehow everyone. Maybe through the spirit of survival every single living organism consolidated their untapped collective power into one brilliant miracle. Ugh, Clavia doesn’t know, but you know who would?

“Hey, boys!”

Echo nearly falls out of his chair, but catches himself by spreading his feet apart. He stumbles away from her. “Debra. How did you get out?” She still looks like his sister. She’s still occupying that body, and nothing about it has changed. But Echo knows. He would always know. “What did you do to Clavia?”

“Relax, she’s still in here; on the first stage. She gave me control of the body, because you need me.”

“I need you for what?”

“I can find your mysterious god-being,” Debra spits back like he’s an insignificant little ant on the ground. “I found you, didn’t I? You were alone on a nothing planet in the middle of the universe. I knew exactly where you were. I intuited that you existed in the first place.”

“We can’t trust you,” Echo contends.

“Believe it or not, I’ve changed. Living with those people, doing those plays...it’s changed me. I’m no hero, but I’m not a villain anymore either. Clavia maintains full veto power. She can come back whenever she wants.”

“Prove it. Let me talk to my sister again. And don’t try to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I know.” Debra actually does what is asked of her, and temporarily returns control of the body to Clavia.

“She’s not exactly right,” Clavia says. “She doesn’t need my body, she needs my brain.”

“Can’t you just do it? You have all her power, don’t you?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You would understand if you could be inside my head. You would get it if you could see the construct that I’ve constructed.”

Echo steps forward, and places a hand on each of Clavia’s shoulders. “I bet I can. Show me. I think it’s about time that I meet your little brain buds.”

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Microstory 2021: Tennessee

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Papa was only an active member of the Navy for four years. He thought about staying in, but ended up not. It’s all because of something he did as his required time was ending. He was still in the reserves after this, but he wasn’t working on the sub anymore. While he was trying to make a decision, friends of his from college called him up, and asked him if he wanted to work with them on a mission trip in Tennessee. They were Mormons, and they were doing it for their church, but that wasn’t going to be what the trip was about. There was an old folks home in a small town outside of Memphis. He was in Arkansas at the time, so he wasn’t very far away. That’s probably why they called him. He took a bus to the home, and got to work. The people who owned it didn’t have very much money, and they were having trouble keeping their residents comfortable. Don’t worry, they all always had their medicine and stuff, but there were other issues. They couldn’t afford plants, or nice paintings for the walls. The biggest issue was the courtyard, which is a space that is outside, but it has walls around it. Residents can go and sit down and enjoy being outside, but it wasn’t very pretty at this place. I don’t think my papa spent much time on that, though. He basically became a volunteer handyman. While the others were planting trees, he fixed things around the building, because he was an engineer. What he said was that this was an eye-opening experience. He wanted to spend more time doing things like that. Of course he was helping people when he was serving this country, but he decided that there were things that he should do outside of it. That’s what led him to leaving the Navy, as an active officer at least.

Microstory 1765: Easel

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I’ve never been good with emotion. I have them, sure, but they don’t ever move far from the middle. When someone does something that I don’t like, I get upset, but I don’t get mad. As the date of an event that I’m interested in attending approaches, I feel enthusiastic, but not excited. I never lash out, or cry, or squee, or anything like that. I don’t have a problem with other people doing all such things; their emotional reactions don’t annoy me, but I bother them with my lack thereof. My first girlfriend deliberately let herself get caught cheating on me with another guy. I wasn’t happy that she did it, but I easily let it go, and didn’t break up with her. Of course, she broke up with me, because I wasn’t passionate enough, and that’s when I realized that I needed to find someone who didn’t need too much attention. I was never able to, and I eventually decided that it wasn’t fair for me to lead my partners on, and make them feel like there was hope for the two of us. It’s mostly been fine, but unfortunately, it became a problem when my last ex-girlfriend reached out, and revealed that I had a nine-year-old daughter. She was with another man shortly after we were together, and the two of them had always assumed that he was the father. The girl even looked a little like him, so it didn’t occur to them to get a DNA test. They only did it recently when there was a medical issue that required some background information that didn’t match up right. So it was no one’s fault, and the mother felt comfortable breaking the news to me, because she knew that I would not take it poorly. The problem was I couldn’t ignore this new child, but I also couldn’t be a good father to her either. More than math and language skills, kids learn emotional intelligence from their caregivers. Even I know that. I decided to seek professional help. It went a little too well. It would even say it broke me.

I tried a few therapists, each one of them deciding that I needed to be referred to someone else. Again, it wasn’t anybody’s fault, but they had to dig a little deeper to find out what my problem was, and the next layer always fell beyond their expertise. I ended up with a world-renowned hypnotist, known for managing to get through even the most steadfast of skeptics. As far as the technique went in general, I wasn’t a skeptic, but hypnotism often involves latching onto some kind of emotional trigger, and as you know by now, there’s not much of that there with me. At least, I didn’t think that there was. It’s like there was a switch in my brain that accidentally got turned off when I was young, and never got turned back on. I saw a TV show about that once—three of them, actually—where it makes vampires worse than they usually are. I didn’t go on a killing spree, but I did go a bit crazy. I destroyed my hypnotist’s office. All of my emotions from the last 29 years of my life came flooding into my mind all at once. Everything I might have felt got locked away without me even realizing it, and now they were unleashed. After the initial shock wore off, and I paid for the damages, the hypnotist referred me to yet another psychologist, who could help me deal with my newfound feelings. She suggested I channel them into art, even though I’ve never been much into it, because I wasn’t capable of seeing the beauty. As it turns out, I’m not half-bad as a painter. I put everything I’m feeling onto the canvas, but it’s not about the fabric, the paint, or even the images. What I’m doing is unloading my burdens onto the easel...to ease my pain. It’s been working well, and I think I have a decent relationship with my daughter now.

Microstory 1703: Apus

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I’m going to tell you my story once, and then never mention it again. Every time I look down at my legs, I relive the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t need to keep rehashing that on purpose. Three years ago, I had just pulled into my garage after working late, and was trying to close the door behind me when I heard a grating screeching sound. At the time, the door was very old, because I had just moved in to a quiet town where the regulations were lax, and I hadn’t had time to modernize it. So it had a remote, but the door itself didn’t have any sensors that would automatically lift it back up if it encountered an obstacle. I took my hand off the keys, and looked in my passenger side view mirror to see a figure dressed in all black, holding onto the bottom of that door, preventing it from going down. The strain from this eventually damaged the system, and I guess the motor gave up. I look back on this day often, and wish I had just reversed the car into him. I could have escaped, and none of this would have happened. Of course, I’m not a violent woman. I didn’t know what the masked stranger was going to do to me, but I knew what I was going to do to him, which was nothing. I could only hope that he didn’t hurt me. As you can see, he did. He climbed into my car, smoothly, like he did this sort of thing every day. I slowly tried to reach over to my key again, hoping to push the alarm button, but he reached over just as slowly, and held my hand back. He shook his head, but didn’t speak. He tilted his head down a little, and pointed behind us with his left thumb, indicating that I should back out.

As I was complying with his demand, I scraped the side of my car against the frame of the garage, hoping to alert my neighbors. Choked up, I apologized, and claimed that I was nervous, which he believed, because it was not a lie. I overcompensated, and ran right into my metal trash cans on the other side of the driveway, making even more noise. Still, he believed I was doing my best, and he did not become angry. In the fastest I had ever seen him move, he quickly waved his index finger towards me, which I took to mean that he wanted me to start driving that direction down my street. As I was doing so, he casually reached over, and punched a set of GPS coordinates in my satnav. He didn’t have to search for a place, or even use an address; he knew the numbers by heart. We went far past the edge of town, and onto a gravel road in the woods. We didn’t speak a single word on the way. As far as I could tell, he was mute. We arrived exactly where you would expect someone like him to live; in a dilapidated and unpainted cabin. He pointed to my door, as he was stepping out of the car himself. He never touched me, though. He knew that I knew that I was in deeply unfamiliar territory, and there was nothing I could do to escape. He followed me into the cabin, and pointed to the chair where I was meant to sit, which I found to be bolted to the floor. He had me bind my stomach with rope, as well as a zip tie for my left wrist, before handling my other wrist for me. He dragged a bucket of burning hot coals out of the fire, and towards me. When it got to close, I lifted my legs, but he forced them back down, keeping them there while the coals seared my skin. When they were good and burned, he carried me to the trunk of my own car, and drove me back home. So that is why every wall in my apartment is filled with paintings of birds-of-paradise. Their Latin nickname is Apus, because people once believed that, like me, these magnificent creatures did not have feet.

Microstory 1688: Unstable Universes

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Perhaps now is a good time to talk about brane stability. Not all universes are created equal. Some are naturally occurring, while c-branes are created in someone’s dreams. Most dreams last for only minutes before they end, and unless something else steps in to maintain the dreamworld, the universe that was born out of it will collapse as well. Even if the dream is strong enough to survive, that doesn’t mean it will last forever. It is only as strong as the people who are responsible for it. What does this mean? Well, if the dreamer continues to deliberately explore the new world, it can last longer. If they create something semipermanent from it, like a written story, or even a painting, that can make it last even longer. If this art reaches some kind of audience, that can make it last indefinitely. The most popular stories make for the most stable universes. They have room to expand, and become more detailed, and most importantly, interesting. They might also be able to survive on their own merits, by the force of will of their inhabitants, but this is fairly rare. I was expecting to give you another story about the universe where zombies take over the world only briefly before dying out, but like Vacuumverse, there is nothing more I can say. The events that occurred here did not follow any level of logic, and the inhabitants weren’t strong enough to hold up their story on their own. History began the moment zombies were first created, and ended centuries later when civilization was all but rebuilt. Little happened in the meantime, and nothing happened afterwards. The whole universe collapsed under its own unstable insignificance, and that’s all you need to know.

Microstory 1546: Waiting

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I have been ________ in this waiting room for an ________. I don’t have anything else to do ________, but that doesn’t mean I want to ________ it here. I’m not usually that kind of ________ who will get up and demand to be ________, but this is getting ridiculous. Most of the ________ were here before me, but they don’t seem fazed. They just keep ________ backwards through their magazines, and fidgeting with their ________ forms. Maybe I should get up, not just for me, but for ________ too. They haven’t called ________ back this whole ________, so something is holding the entire process up, and if no one ________ is going to try to find out what that is, I suppose it will have to be ________. I nonaggressively stand up from my ________, and walk over to the counter at a reasonable ________. I politely ask the ________ for an estimated wait ________. He just looks at me like he doesn’t speak ________. No, it’s more like he thinks I’m speaking a ________ language. He reaches over, and closes the ________, not aggressively either, but it’s still rude. It’s ________ enough to upset me, so I reach over ________, and just open it back up. He’s gone. It hasn’t even been one ________, there’s no way he could have gotten up, and walked ________. I have too wide of a view of his ________, and the hallway behind him. Plus, he has all these ________ piled up on the floor, it would have been too much to navigate. I ask if anyone else saw that as I’m turning ________, but they too are gone. The noises they were making—flipping through book ________, coughing, sipping ________—it lingers for a while, but dies ________, like they were able to disappear faster than the sound ________. I suppose that makes sense as ________ moves faster than sound. No, that doesn’t mean this makes any ________. They shouldn’t have ________ at all! What the heck is going on here? I turn back to the reception ________. The folders are still there, but they’re knocked over, and ________ dust. The ________ are out, and there’s a draft in here that wasn’t there before. I turn my ________ yet again. The paintings have fallen to the ________, and the wall____ is peeling. Chairs are turned ________, and a few are broken. I have either just ________ to the future, or ________ to some kind of eerie upside down silent ghost dimension. I have to find help, and ________. That’s what’s important right ________. I leave the waiting ________, and then exit the ________. The rest of the ________is as dreary and dead as it was ________, there’s probably nothing useful to ________. I have to try at least, though, so I keep ________. I start out by walking on the ________, but without any ________ around, I wonder why I’m wasting my time. The ________is less damaging to my ________ and knees. I wander down the ________, only headed in one particular ________, because the fading painted lines tell me so. I hear a rushing ________ around me, and then squealing. Then I hear some honking ________, and as the traffic is coming back into ________, a pair of ________ take me forcefully by the shoulders. “Let’s get you back to your ________. How do you keep escaping? I swear to ________, this time you literally disappeared before my eyes.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, May 24, 2078

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Sanaa was looking around the area with her Cassidy cuff. “Love Kansas City.”

“You do?” Leona questioned? “I didn’t think you had ever been there.”

“No, that’s just what the painting says. I mean, I don’t hate Kansas City. I don’t have any strong feelings about it.”

Leona lifted her own cuff. “Oh, the mural. Yeah, this is downtown KC. I’m kind of surprised this building survived the decades.”

“I don’t think it did.” Mateo was down the sidewalk a little, looking through AR mode. “They just left the wall up. The rest of the building is gone. Who painted it?”

“I dunno,” Leona answered, like it was a dumb question.

“At-scribeswalk.” J.B. was pointing his cuff on the corner of the building.

“I don’t think this reality has Twitter,” Mateo presumed.

Leona sighed. “Anyway, the transition is happening over there, at that construction site.”

Everyone turned around to see, and then followed her to get closer to their destination. People in the main sequence were walking down the street, going about their lives. The window was scheduled to open in under a minute, but nothing looked dangerous. No one was standing on top of a roof, or chained to train tracks. This was just a normal day, except that one of these people was going to spontaneously disappear from the world. Mateo tried to find someone he recognized, because so far, they hadn’t encountered a stranger during one of these challenges. Who did he know in 2078? That was back when he thought the Makarion he knew was his own person, and not being possessed by the spirit of Gilbert Boyce. It wouldn’t be long before Mateo would watch inmates from Beaver Haven Correctional fight in the Colosseum replica, and shortly after that, he would go backwards in time to 1945, and then skip a few years on his pattern as a result of the choice he made back then.

The flickering began, revealing their target. Yes, it was just some guy. He looked upset and frazzled, but not like his life was in danger, more like he was just having a bad day. Once he was fully integrated in this reality, and saw that his environment had changed, he was stunned. Natives of the Parallel were well aware of the Bearimy-Matic joint pattern. They were expected to clear the area of every transition window, which they did immediately after the four of them arrived, as if being directed by a film director. So now it was just them, and the refugee.

He looked over at them. “What just happened?”

“It’s okay,” Leona assured him. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

“Where exactly is here?” the man asked.

“This is...you have...”

“It’s Kansas City in a parallel reality,” Sanaa jumped in. “You’ve been transitioned to our world by a powerful frenemy of ours, whose motives are hazy. It’s okay. We just have to get you to your exit window, and you’ll be back home before the day is through.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” the man was getting mad.

J.B. took his shot. “Time travel is real. We don’t know why you were chosen, but it’s completely reversible. You may just miss a few hours of your life.” He consulted his cuff. “We just need to get you to Washington D.C. in...oh, only twenty minutes. You won’t miss much at all.”

“That’s exactly where I wanted to be. I couldn’t get a flight out yesterday, or today. The meeting is in an hour. There is no way we make it.”

Sanaa smirked. “We would have time for a quick breakfast, if we wanted.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, and presented him with the AOC. “That’s our spaceship. It can also teleport.”

“Teleport.” The man narrowed his eyes. “Are you people crazy?”

“Nah, man. We’re just from the future.”

He wasn’t convinced.

“What’s your name?” Leona asked him.

“Jericho Hagen, Esquire.”

“What do you need to do in Washington D.C.?” she continued.

“They’re working on a proposal. They want to completely blow up our judicial system, and replace it with something entirely different. Of course, they’re going to start out slow, but I know their future plans. You won’t recognize the court system twenty-five years from now.”

“Oh my God,” Leona began, “this is the start.”

“What is the proposal?”

Jericho was hesitant to keep talking to them, but if there was even a chance they would be able to get him to where he belonged, he probably figured it was best to be nice. “They want to add, like, a professional jury member. Every jury will have someone who studied law, so they can evidently keep the others on track. That will taint the entire system. Our courts are founded on a jury of peers. If we start contaminating the pool with people who have that kind of education, the process will no longer be fair. It would be like having a lawyer serve on the jury. That’s not technically illegal, but I’ve never heard of an attorney selecting one of their own kind for a jury. We just don’t do it. This is even worse, because they’ll be making it a requirement. And like I said, it’s only the beginning. They’re gonna start making juries smaller by default, and limiting the defending attorney’s ability to vigorously defend their client. I cannot let this pass.”

“That’s interesting,” Leona said. “Just give us one moment to talk.” She started leading the group away. “Just...don’t touch anything.”

“This sounds familiar,” Mateo pointed out.

“This really is the beginning. That bill is a historic moment. The first step should happen in two years, and changes everything about how we handle criminal and civil court. More changes will come later. Instead of having one jury, they’ll have two arbitration panels, who deliberate separately, and aren’t allowed to talk to each other. Attorneys start losing incentives to win at all costs, as priority shifts to finding the truth, and not letting the guilty get away with it. Judges become a completely separate profession. The arbitrator procedures he’s talking about only become stronger as time goes on. What he’s describing lasts for decades, at least, and that’s only because I don’t know what the future looks like beyond 2278.”

“So, he fails to stop it,” J.B. guessed.

“Or maybe he fails to get to the meeting,” Sanaa suggested. She pulled her head from the huddle, and looked back over to Jericho. “Maybe we’re here to stop him.”

“That’s your choice.” Jupiter Fury was standing behind Mateo’s back.

“Where have you been?” Mateo asked him.

“I’ve been working on your pattern, making sure the right people get here, so you can improve their lives.”

“Are we supposed to get him to Washington D.C., or not?” Leona questioned.

Jupiter pursed his lips, and shrugged his shoulders. “That’s up to you. I can tell you that if you send him through the egress transition window, when you return to the main sequence—and I promise, you will one day—the timeline you end up in will be wildly different than the one you left. That man has power. He’ll fight against progress, the jury system will remain, and inequality will reign. His people’s drive to win every case possible will send our country into a downwards spiral, until the very idea that the United States of America was ever a superpower will be laughable for students learning history two hundred years from now. They won’t believe it.”

“That’s bullshit,” Leona argued. “Our system has stayed pretty much the same for centuries already, and our status as a superpower hasn’t been questioned since it became one in 1898.”

“True,” Jupiter agreed, “but nothing lasts forever...unless it changes. He doesn’t know it yet, because he fancies himself a moderate libertarian, but Jericho Hagen becomes synonymous with a major paleoconservative movement that emphasizes maintaining the status quo above all else. He believes the Constitution is perfect, and amendments should be kept to a minimum, and that speaks to a lot of people. I’ve seen this future, and I don’t think you want it. To be honest, I don’t really care. My friends and I thrive in all realities; we just have to adjust our plans accordingly.”

“We have about ten minutes to make a decision,” J.B. alerted them.

Leona shook her head. “We’re not gods. Just because we have the power to change reality, doesn’t mean we should. It was one thing to save my mother from death, or let Elder Caverness go off to fight a war he wanted to fight. It’s another thing to keep this man from his life.”

“Would you do the same for Hitler?” J.B. asked. “If he came through a transition window in, say, 1910, wouldn’t we be obligated to keep him from getting back until after 1945? Or, I dunno, hold him forever?”

The other three looked over at Mateo, who had first hand experience with this scenario, several times. He rolled his eyes. “This is not the same thing. Jericho Hagen is not Adolf Hitler. Believe me, I know. We have to get him back. That’s the job. Like my wife said, it’s different when they don’t want to go back. He does, so we should accommodate that. It’s what we do. I’ve always been against messing with time, and if we come from a reality where Hagen never makes it to D.C., then I imagine that’s the result of time travel, and we would just be undoing that by teleporting him there.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Sanaa contended.

“Ripples; not waves,” Mateo retorted.

“Ugh.” Now Leona rolled her eyes. “That’s a dumb line. But he’s right. He wants to go back, so let’s take him back. We better hurry. Sanaa and I will go set the coordinates, and prep for a jump. Go get him, and make sure he boards the AOC.”

“Very well.” Jupiter really didn’t seem to care either way. “I gotta go get Ariadna. I’ll see ya when I see ya.” He winked at Sanaa, then disappeared.

“My God, it’s real,” Jericho acknowledged when Mateo and J.B. went back over to retrieve him. “He just blinked away.”

“That’s time travel for you,” J.B. replied. “Or teleportation? Or reality jumping. I’m not sure how his power works. How does he do all this? Doesn’t he make copies of himself? Why does that allow him to switch timelines?”

“We’ll ask Leona later,” Mateo said to him. “I’m sure she knows why it makes sense. Anyway, you wanna get to Washington, we gotta go now.”

“Yes, definitely.” Jericho was all in now. He apparently totally believed that they were there to help him, and he seemed grateful for the opportunity to get back to his mission. Mateo might have even called him giddy. Hopefully this meant they were doing the right thing.

They walked up to the ship, climbed the ladder, and crawled inside. Leona was climbing back up from engineering. “We’re all here, and ready to go. Hey, Thistle! Make the jump.”

The ship powered up, and disappeared, just as it was meant to. Unfortunately, none of the passengers went with it. They were all left behind, and now falling through the air, towards the hard surface below. Leona thought quick, and caught Jericho in the air, so she could land him safely on the ground. Mateo and J.B., on the other hand, fell hard, and suffered painful injuries. Sanaa happened to have stayed down in engineering, so she hadn’t had as high of a fall.

Mateo could feel the pool of blood form underneath his body. “What the hell was that?”

Leona let go of Jericho, and dove down to tend to her husband. “I have no idea. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“I’m sorry.” Sanaa was now standing next to Jericho. She reached up, and slapped Holly Blue’s former Cassidy cuffs on his wrists. “Fortunately, the people in this reality have magical powers. They’ll fix you up, so it’s like you never got hurt at all. In the meantime, this will help with the pain.” She shot J.B. with a jet injector, then went over to do the same for Mateo.

“What did you do?” Leona asked.

“I know more about how spaceships work than you might think,” Sanaa began to explain. “Hokusai taught me a lot during your interim years. I’ve also been experimenting with our cuffs. We’re stuck on this pattern, but these things have other features Jupiter never restricted our access to. All I did was quantum lock them to this position temporarily, so the ship could jump away without us. It’s safe and sound in the Capital, waiting for us.”

“Why?” Mateo asked, wiping the blood from his lips.

“I come from a bloodline of telepaths. Not all of us kept their powers a secret, or kept it well. My family has a long history of being screwed over by small-minded white people who thought we were witches, or demons. The only thing that saved us was a more fair adjudicative system, which this man wants to dismantle before humanity even has a chance to start it. I can’t let that happen. If I had had more time, I could have done something else, but the window before the transition window was just too short. This was my only solution.” She checked her watch. “And now the moment’s pretty much passed.”

They could hear sirens in the distance, drawing nearer.

“The next window is in three years,” Leona nearly shouted at her. “We could have gotten him back then. You didn’t have to slap the cuffs on him. Now our job is really complicated, besides having to make sure these wounds heal.”

The ambulance approached.

Sanaa shook her head. “You were wrong. Jericho Hagen is Hitler. He just doesn’t know it yet. Well...now he never does. When he finally gets back to the main sequence, he’ll see the world he almost destroyed, and he’ll thank us for it.”

Leona stood up, so the medics could start treating Mateo and J.B. “Will I? Will I thank you?”

Sanaa took a half step towards her friend. “I hope so.”

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Microstory 1205: Marcy Calligaris

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Universally belovèd artist, Marcy Calligaris worked really hard at making the people around her feel at ease, no matter who those people were. The only exception to her rule of accommodation was when someone she truly cared about was in danger, then she could go into mama bear mode. Born of an antimatter rocket engineer mother, and a health translator father, Marcy loved to create beautiful things, be that paintings, sculptures, or even sand castles. She was known by those closest to her as someone who could be trusted, and whose temper was always steady. She wasn’t one of those people who had huge anger issues as a child, and had to learn to move to the other extreme. She was, however—throughout her entire life—capable of getting angry, and when that happened, it usually freaked people out. Fortunately, she could always find peace in her creations, and knew this about herself, so she did not take that for granted. She was born at a time beyond money, where every positive member of society was given everything they needed to live contently. As there was more time to pursue so-called unproductive dreams, this new dynamic ultimately led to the genesis of an explosion of artists. Not all of them were good, but they were okay with this, because it gave them joy. Many worked in virtual constructs, building vast and impressive worlds where people’s minds could go and appreciate the intricacies. Marcy was a true artist, and also preferred to work almost exclusively in the physical world. Her pieces could be seen all over the world. She never grew to become famous, but she did have the urge to spread her beauty far and wide. She ended up with a small following of fans, who encouraged each other to go on Marcy Calligaris Visitation Journeys. They would travel to the random locations of Marcy’s art, and visit other sites in the area. These were dentist offices, and elevators, and some museums, so the locations themselves weren’t always all that remarkable, but they loved the adventure. Marcy was appreciative of her fans, but made a point to never meet them in person. She wanted her art to speak for itself, and didn’t want to answer any questions about inspiration, or deeper meaning. Marcy’s modest fame disappeared when she was spirited away from her life, and removed from time itself. During this period, in the corrupted timeline, her fans had no recollection of her existence at all, nor her art. But the art itself was not removed from time. Each piece remained where it was, and no one really wondered where it had come from, or who had created it. When she was finally returned to the timestream, and everyone’s memories came back, enough time had passed that her following had moved on from her. While they could now remember all the fun they had visiting her work, that was a long time ago for them, and fame in the modern world had a short shelf life, because there were just too many people who were doing too many great things, that any market was necessarily saturated. She lived on after this ordeal, and went right back to doing what she did best, though now with a little less notoriety, but of course, it was better than not existing at all.

Microstory 1147: Freeley

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The first of the New Gangs of Kansas City, starting around the year 2020, were the Gunbenders, and the Tracers. These two were inextricably linked to one another, ultimately sourcing from the same team, which arose to combat gang violence in the area. They were sick of all the death and danger, and they were tired of their elected officials not doing much to stop it. It was only later that they separated, but this was not due to ideological differences, or infighting. They felt it necessary to become two separate gangs, because one needed to focus more on exacting social change through public opinion, and legislation. The other were the boots on the ground; an enforcement branch, whose primary objective was to physically monitor the implementation of new policy. Their actions were generally illegal in the beginning, though the police did temporarily cede control to them, making their actions...still pretty illegal, since the cops did not have the authority to do this. Either way, the consequence of this was the emergence of new gangs. Most were merely extensions of completely lawful preexisting clubs, which were now adding a more criminal element to their activities. The two most prominent—the kind that were pretty much already gangs to begin with—were the Grammers, and the Taggers. The former were grayhat hackers, who originally provided technical support to the proto-gunbender-tracer alliance. The latter were just graffiti artists, who sought to fill the void left when the system of street gangs were gradually being dismantled. They largely operated alone, but when they realized law enforcement would rather let people tag a few buildings than deal with all the guns and drugs of yesteryear, they started organizing. Eileifr Blomgren was the one who saw this future. He was not the founder of the tagger gang, however. Just because he knew what the city was going to look like in a few years, didn’t mean he wanted to be part of it. He tagged for himself, and he liked to be alone while he was doing it. At the time, Eileifr was using an anglicized interpretation of his name, and drawing a unique design of a leaf to sign his artwork. Once the initial taggers started asking him to join, he decided to rebrand himself as Freilei, which was an anagram of his real name, hoping they would get the message that he was not a joiner. They continued pestering, though, mostly because they didn’t know how it was meant to be pronounced, so he anglicized again, and finally became Freeley. Still, he was proving himself to be one of the bravest taggers in the metro, and his signature piece came when he painted all over the front of a mayor’s private residence...while she was home. The leader of the taggers was on her way out, to attend an art cliché in Paris, so Freeley was the obvious choice to replace her. He soon discovered that maybe he was indeed a joiner after all.

Microstory 1053: Addie

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I was never a singer. I joined Random Spans under the assumption that I would not have to sing. But all that changed when Pearl started being able to come to rehearsal less and less, and it started looking like I was going to have to fill in for her. I wouldn’t have even considered it, but Chester and Bert—God love ‘em—are even worse than I am. Of course, the obvious solution is to just find a replacement, but those two were really dragging their feet. Pearl didn’t really feel like she could be honest with them about how her lifestyle was going to have to change because of the baby. Guys have trouble wrapping their brains around what goes into carrying, delivering, and caring for a child. That’s not to say a father’s life doesn’t change too, but it’s different for mothers. Pretty much your whole life revolves around this living creature, and any moment you’re not with them, you’re comparing whatever it is you’re doing to being with them. Everything you see will remind you of your child, or remind you that you would rather be with your child, or that you’re glad to have a break from your child. So Pearl left, leaving me to pick up the pieces of our band, even though I was not equipped for it. Fortunately, I had a great friend named Viola, who was able to help me out with it. Had she not died, I probably never would have heard whispers of other crazy stories about her, so I’m only telling you this, because I know it’s not going to shock you any more. She definitely had powers, and I have tangible proof of it. When I was a kid, my older sister used to make us put on plays and musicals for our family during the holidays. She wrote, starred in, and directed all of our productions, but the rest of the grandkids were expected to participate. So I actually have a lot of experience singing; more than enough to know that I had a terrible voice. You can hear for yourself how bad I was. The videos are unlisted online, but I can get you the links, if you want to risk your ear drums. The point is that this all changed as Pearl’s tenure in our band was winding down. Viola started giving me vocal lessons a few times a week. I don’t know how she found the time to help me, and help all those other people, but I’m grateful for it. I don’t really know what she was meant to be teaching me, but it was all nonsense. Nothing she said during our lessons was at all logical, but I realized later that it didn’t matter. She wasn’t actually teaching me to sing, but instead imbuing me with the power to sing, and using the lessons as cover. To be sure, I don’t know how she did that either, but I know that’s what she did, because she wasn’t the first vocal coach I’ve had, and nobody improves that quickly without supernatural assistance. This whole frontwoman thing might just work out after all.

Microstory 1052: Pearl

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I’m having a [redacted]. Oops, I shouldn’t have said that. Vester never wanted to know the sex of the baby, but he’ll understand, so you can go ahead and print this. I respect the integrity of being on the record. Anyway, it was just one of many things we disagreed on that we ended up finding a compromise for. I found out the truth, while he remains oblivious, like he wants it. He says the sex doesn’t matter to him, but I say the fact that he’s so adamant against knowing means that he actually places more emphasis on it than I do. My knowing doesn’t mean I’m going to love [redacted] any less than I would a [redacted]. It doesn’t mean I’ll paint the nursery [redacted], or buy [redacted] for [redacted], or do any of the other heteronormative things people are expected to adhere to. He has this list written up of possible names, but I already have one picked out. I think you can probably guess what it is. You know, there actually is a masculine form of the name, so I could use it either way. Viola Woods was a wonderful and selfless person, so if there’s even a small chance a name can have any impact on how a child turns out, I want to be as safe as possible. A producer from one of those documentary series about pregnant teens showed up a couple months ago, wanting to do a piece on me, and my life. I kept telling them that it wouldn’t make for very good television. Yes, I’m pregnant, and yes I’m still in high school, but that doesn’t mean it turned my life upside down. At least not any more than it does for anyone else. Children are a lot of work; I recognize that, but I have an incredible support system, which includes my boyfriend, Sylvester.

That argument I told you about, where we disagreed on whether we should know what the sex is? That’s not an example of how different we are; it’s an example of how we work together, and get past our issues. I wouldn’t be going through with this if I didn’t think he could handle it. It was always going to be a team effort, and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less. He underwent a series of tests while I was still in my first trimester; some of which he knew as they were happening, and some came out of my own personal observations. I had to know if he was going to be a good father, would stick by me, and most importantly, would respect what our family needed. I went through these tests too. In fact, I probably tested myself harder than I did him, because I needed to know whether this was the right decision, and simply reflecting on my feelings wasn’t going to cut it. I had to know for sure, because whatever I decided, there would come a point when it could not be reversed, and I didn’t want to have any regrets. Fortunately, we had an unbiased third party to devise these tests. That’s right. Viola came up with them. She basically wrote an entire self-help book on pregnancy within, like, two weeks. I’m currently in communication with Viola’s parents, to see if there’s anyway we can expand on, and publish, what she came up with. If we decide to go ahead with it, we might even reach out to Herman, so he can help make it into a real book. I think Viola would like that. You could be part of it too, if you wanted. All talent welcome. I want to commemorate her in some way that lasts, rather than just a few social media posts you’ll never see again, or a shrine they take down in four years. My parents are trying to talk me out of it, because they think I have a full plate, but I still need to live my life. I want to teach baby [redacted] that you can have your cake, and eat it too. After all, that’s what the OG Viola taught me.

Microstory 1039: Charlotte

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Hello, my name is Charlotte, presently known as An Artist, presently known as Charlotte. I do all kinds of art; painting of all styles, sculpting, performance. I work a lot with blue. Pretty much the only thing I don’t know is music, so I guess I don’t ever have to worry about going for an EGOT. I tried my hand at the flute, and then the guitar, and then the saxophone, but it’s just not for me. Anyway, I’m that girl who always has paint in her hair, and cares more about a book’s cover than the content inside. Don’t feel bad for me, though. I know that it’s almost impossible to make money as an artist. The game is rigged, and if you do manage to succeed, you’ll have sold your soul to do it. I never planned on making money on my work. I’m working hard in school, and while I’m still not certain what kind of career I ultimately want to have, I’ve never had any delusions about the art. I just enjoy the feeling of joy from creating something, and that of accomplishment once I arbitrarily declare that a piece is done. Viola suggested that I get the best of both worlds. I could potentially make a little extra cash, while going around all the people in the industry who’ve traded true beauty for money. She helped me build a website, where I can passively sell my work. It doesn’t cost me a thing, so if I never find any customers, no harm done. It doesn’t take much time to keep posting photos of my creation, so I can still focus on the more practical aspects of my life. I would have been happy just signing up for a service that has everything set up for me, but Viola thought it was important I carve out my own space on the internet. That girl can write code, which I bet most people don’t know about her. She did it right in front of me, literally writing up the little sideways carrots, and dollar signs. It all goes over my head, but man, was she fast. I know transcriptionists who can’t type regular words as quick she can type something she called PHP. That’s not just an analogy, I know a shocking number of transcriptionist personally. It’s this family connection that you don’t care about. I’m sure my classmates are telling you how she had such a huge impact on their lives, but what they might not be saying is how easy all of it was for her. When she was done coding, she just stood up, said goodbye, and walked away to help someone else. For me, it was one of the most important days of my life, but for her, it was Tuesday.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 4, 2150

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Fancy Dardieti doctors were able to fix Mateo’s fist up in no time, completely removing the pain within minutes, and healing the bones within hours. He called it an accident, which Leona didn’t believe, but she also got the feeling that she ought to let it go. She knew that he had been having secret conversations with Arcadia all this time, and worried it would make things worse to bring it up. Arcadia was a loose cannon, so they wouldn’t get through this if they upset Arcadia too much. There was just no telling what might set her off. Punching the table could have ruined everything. Technically, it still could. Yet he forced himself into higher spirits, reinforced by a convincing Lincoln Rutherford, who had taken acting lessons in a literal other life. He decided to spend the rest of the day with his wife, and the third wheel of their tadpole tricycle. He didn’t want to say anything about the dreaded 2151. He knew he would have to this year, though, because he didn’t want them disappearing without having heard his final words. No, he wasn’t supposed to think like that. In every movie, they always claim the dying person can tell their loved ones this themselves when it’s all over, but this isn’t a movie, it’s real life. Sometimes you don’t survive, and sometimes you don’t win. He may fail at their expiation, or he may die in the trying. Or both.

The next morning, they continued to spend the day together, but were scheduled to have dinner on the other side of the continent. It would take about an hour to get there by train, so he pulled the other two into a private car.

“This doesn’t look good,” Leona said, somewhat jokingly.

“No, it doesn’t,” Serif agreed. The two of them had grown closer over the last several days, which was good. He still didn’t quite understand what it meant to tear people out of time, but always imagined that they were somewhere, like maybe a train station with no escape. If this were the case, at least Leona and Serif would have each other. If.

“I need to talk to you about tomorrow,” Mateo said to them soberly.

“What’s tomorrow?”

“You will both be taken out of time. Taken from me.”

“You know this?”

He started massaging his hand, which no longer hurt, but he could still feel that something had happened to it. “Arcadia informed me yesterday. We...had words.”

“Did you strike her, Mateo?”

“No, of course not. I would never.”

“I mean, I’d be fine if you did. Chivalry really only applies to humans, not monsters.”

“I hit the table, but you seem to be missing the point.”

“No, no, we heard you. We just...does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” he said. “How could it not? I know you don’t remember the details of everyone we’ve lost so far, but I would let them all go just to keep you two.”

“Well, that’s not something a girl wants to here. May sound romantic, but it isn’t.”

“I don’t think you two fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation. You’ll be gone.”

“Somehow I don’t think we’ll be upset under those conditions.”

“Is this a joke to you?”

“Love, you need to understand this. Those people are gone, poof. They don’t exist. That’s hard to fathom, I know, but in physics, that shit happens all the time. Sometimes particles just pop out of existence, and we don’t know where they go. Sometimes they pop back in, and we don’t know why, or what prompts that. Let me ask you this, how did you feel before you were born?”

“What?”

“Before you were born, when you didn’t exist, did you feel bad? Did you not like it? Did you wish you existed.”

“Okay, well no, of course not. Because...”

“Because you had no feelings,” she finished. “You couldn’t feel anything. That’s basically what she does. She just unborns you.”

“All right, fine. But I’m gonna remember. Lincoln’s gonna remember.”

“He will?”

“Yeah, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. He remembers everybody—better than I do.”

“Well.” She hesitated. “At least you have someone you can talk to.”

“I don’t. We’re not allowed to talk.” He breathed deeply, trying desperately to stop from hyperventilating. “I’m not even allowed to tell you. My God, what is she gonna do?”

Arcadia teleported into the car. “Don’t say anything about it,” she ordered Leona and Serif. “Keep your mouth shut about Lincoln for the rest of the day, and there won’t be any consequences.” She was gone before any of them could respond, but not before she gave Mateo a look, as if she’d just done him a favor.

“I’m gonna be alone with this,” he continued. “Lincoln...sees this kind of thing all the time. To him, we are particles. But I’ll feel the pain, and I’ll have to push it down so I can work on your expiation. Let me tell you, I’ve never been more afraid of anything in my life, and I once jumped off a cliff.” He looked down where the wall met the floor, going through his memory archives. “Shit, I drove off of a cliff too. Do I have a death wish?”

His loves waited patiently as he pulled himself out of the tangential existential crisis.

“I don’t know what I thought this conversation was meant to accomplish here,” he admitted. “I feel like you’re going away, but you’re right, I don’t understand that. I get that everyone else’s memory is gonna be wiped. I get that I’m going to have to do something really difficult to get you back. But I can’t help but picture you getting on a bus. Just a regular bus that will eventually turn around and come back. Which means it’s important we have this talk so you can do something with it wherever you are when you’re not here. But a part of me does know that that’s not how it works. You’ll be stuck in time, and it’s the rest of us who will be going on without you, sliding down that timestream, at our respective speed. I guess that’s sort of how our loved ones feel when we jump into the future. Those interim years don’t exist to me, because I don’t experience them, but to everyone else, they’re very real.” He fell silent.

They remained patient.

This wasn’t fair. Through all this, Leona was always there. If Arcadia took her away from him, he would fall apart. Maybe that was part of her plan, but on the off-chance it wasn’t, he had to get through to her. He had to appeal to her better angels. “Arcadia Preston,” he prayed. “We need to talk. Please.” He waited. “Please, this is important.”

“Mateo, what do you think you’ll get from her? What are you going to ask?”

He was going to ask for more power. She was so strong that he could never hope to defeat her. Not alone. He needed allies, and if Leona and Serif couldn’t be that for him anymore, then he would need to find them elsewhere. By asking this from her, he asserts himself as a free-thinking individual, and an opposing force not so willing to roll over to her whims. It also might be so crazy that it intrigues her. If there’s one thing all Prestons have in common, it’s that they like surprises. His prayers weren’t getting through, so he decided to change tactics. He stood up and headed for the back.

“Mateo? Honey? What are you doing?”

“I need help?”

“Okay, we can get you help. You should sit down, though.”

“No, this is the only way,” he said, staring out the window.

“What’s the only way?”

He opened the train door.

“Mateo, stop!”

He didn’t look back, because either of their faces could stop him from following through with what he was utterly convinced had to be done. “Were I you,” he said to them quietly, harkening back to their code for I love you. Then he held his hands behind his back, closed his eyes, and dropped out of the moving vehicle, towards the train tracks.

“Uncle Tommy,” was the first thing Arcadia said.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a dark room. Or...just darkness, because he couldn’t actually see anything. “What?”

“Ya know...because you killed yourself..knowing I would have to save you from it..but you did it to save someone from being ripped out of time.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ve never seen The 4400?”

“Zeferino must have forgotten to make me watch that one.”

“Yeah, well, there’s an episode that’s exactly like what you just did. Freakin’ weirdo.”

“I’m guessing no one called the character a freakin’ weirdo.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to make a deal.”

“I’m listening.”

“Leona and Serif are two different people. That the former didn’t always exist is irrelevant to that fact.”

“Do you mean latter?”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean when you claim a guy like you is married to one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”

“Do you wanna hear my pitch, or not?”

“Shoot.”

“They’re two people. So are Horace and Paige. You never said you would ever take two people out at the same time, but you’ve already done it once, and you’re preparing to do it again.”

“Okay...”

“I don’t think that’s fair.”

“I don’t think I care.”

“You owe me two people.”

“How do you figure?”

“You do the math.”

“No, you do the math. It doesn’t matter that I took them at the same time. I was gonna take them either way. Your argument is weak.”

“Still, I think you owe me. I’m firm on this.”

“What, you want me to create a person for you?”

“No, just give two of them back.”

“I’m not returning two people to you, Mateo. That’s not how this works, which I explained at the beginning, and who’s the one trying to change the rules now?”

“I’ve already beaten every expiation, so just give a couple back early. What’s the harm?”

“Okay, I appreciate your logic, and your audacity. I will say, though, that I did you favor when I brought Paige back the first time, which I never had the obligation to do, so that’s no longer an issue. Serif...she’s a bit different. So I will agree to a deal on her behalf.”

“I choose Gilbert.”

“Yes, that’s a beautiful sentiment, but no.”

He didn’t think that would work, but your first ask always need to be high so they don’t negotiate you down too far. “Okay, counteroffer.”

She purposely sported an evil smile. “You’re gonna love it. Oh, you’re gonna love it so much.”

Oh, no. “What? Who?” The Cleanser was her obvious choice, or maybe their sister, The Blender. They were his two worst enemies. No one else would fit with the level of dastardly excitement she was exhibiting.

“Do you remember when Reaver was telling you why he was trying to kill you in your pre-Hitler’s murder reality?”

“Yeah...? You’re gonna give me that version of Horace?”

“No. Better. There was another reality before that; the one where he was married to Leona. You knew both of them. Rather, a version of you knew them. You weren’t particularly close, but you were responsible for her death. Had you survived Horace’s rage, this mistake would have haunted you for the rest of your life.”

“What are you saying?”

“Extracting people from realities that don’t exist anymore is generally beyond even my abilities. I can call in a favor, though.”

“Arcadia, this is not what I had in mind.”

“That’s what makes it taste so good.” She snapped her fingers. A silhouette appeared on the other side of the room, only partially illuminated by a light. “Mateo Matic, meet...Alt!Mateo Matic.”

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