The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 14, 2405

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Canva text-to-image AI software

Operating the Phoenix without an AI was difficult. It required the constant presence of a human intelligence, or it could be programmed to park somewhere, and wait until the team returned to the timestream a year later. They decided to leave it on an asteroid that used to orbit the planet of Violkomin as a minimoon. At one point, there was one universe, and everything in that universe belonged to its creator, Hogarth Pudeyonavic. She literally built her own brane, which was attached to Salmonverse. She designed it to her own specifications, making it apparently stronger and better than any universe that could form naturally. Unlike the natural ones, though, it was forever linked to their own, which allowed it to function on the same timeline. This made it easier to avoid paradoxes when traveling back and forth. That didn’t mean doing so would be simple or unregulated. That wasn’t what it was meant for. This was to be a sanctuary to protect against multiversal threats, like the Maramon, and the Ochivari. There was one way in, and one way out, and both sides of the border would need to be guarded to protect from these dangerous external forces.

After Dalton Hawke sent everyone away using his magic staff, Olimpia Sangster ended up in Hogarth’s universe, but not quite all the way in. She was trapped in an interstitial paradimensional space, which was barely large enough to accommodate her. Nanofissures allowed air molecules to pass freely from regular space, so that she didn’t suffocate while she was in there. Meanwhile, a few microfissures, which were smaller than a millimeter, allowed soundwaves to pass through one-way, which was just enough for her to communicate with Hogarth and Ramses. Either by Dalton’s intention, or some freak fluke of physics, Olimpia ended up tearing the whole universe in half, spreading the dimensional barrier out so that it ran through the middle, keeping the two halves separate from each other. One side was left with the physical laws that Hogarth had decided upon for her new haven. The other half was what they had been calling the Sixth Key this whole time, and was waiting for Kyra Torosia to transfer every inhabited celestial and subcelestial body in the main sequence, the Parallel, the Third Rail, the Fourth Quadrant, and the Fifth Division during the Reconvergence It wasn’t waiting very long, though. All of this happened on the same day.

Also on this day, Ellie Underhill downloaded every single consciousness in the afterlife simulation to new organic substrates in the new universe. They awoke in an absolutely gigantic lake on Violkomin that was about three times the size of the Caspian Sea. Upon arrival, the formerly dead experienced what was described as a unifying sense of profound calmness. Ellie was still coordinating new arrangements for her people, and the process would likely take decades, suggesting that she wouldn’t find herself at the Shortlist meeting regarding the Edge with Leona until her personal future. Or she left and returned in the blink of an eye. Lowell Benton was helping with this, but was also recently responsible for helping Hogarth liaise with representatives in the Sixth Key.

This was all very complicated and sounded incredibly overwhelming, but that sense of calmness that had washed over everyone in Lake Underhill had not completely dissipated, so they were not being uncooperative during this difficult period of transition. They also were not without help. The status levels from the simulation were impossible to maintain with no more prison, nor access limitations, but those in the higher ranks intuitively found themselves in leadership positions, especially the counselors class. They were helping keep everyone on track, and ready to begin their new lives on their new worlds.

Lowell was busy with his stuff for the last couple of years, but he promised to meet with the team again this year. He was going to try to authorize a return trip to the real main sequence, but Leona was working on a new plan in her head. For now, they were waiting in the hotel ballroom on the crest of Mount Hilde, which was currently the only point where the two halves of the universe met. If they were to open those doors on the other side of the room, they would cross the barrier. But they weren’t allowed.

“What are we gonna do when we get back?” Angela asked. “Any ideas?”

“That’s a good question,” Mateo noted.

Indeed. While it had come up often in the past, they never really had to answer it, because someone, or something, had always swooped in and forced their hands. Was that chapter in their lives finally over? Were they finally in control of their destiny? “We have to leave the Phoenix behind,” Leona decided.

“What?” Mateo questioned. “We just got it.”

Leona continued to stare straight forward. “Yeah, and now we have to give it away. Don’t worry, we won’t be completely out of luck.”

“But—” Marie tried to say before Lowell came in.

“Sorry about the wait, folks. Ellie’s coming too, but until then, how can I help?”

“We wanted to go home,” Mateo said. He caught his wife’s eye. She was giving him a look. “Or...no, we’re not. We’re...giving someone our ship?”

Leona stood up, and sighed. “We may want it back when you’re done with it. In the meantime, we can live in one of the three shuttles. It doesn’t have an FTL drive, but it has a reframe engine, and more than enough room for all of us.”

“Okay, but what do we need the big ship for?” Lowell questioned. “I don’t know how to fly.”

“Ellie does,” Leona revealed. “Right now, you have 120 billion people on your welcome planet, right? They all need homes, and the biggest hurdle to accomplishing that is transportation.” She stepped over toward the window, and regarded the docked Phoenix. “It doesn’t look it, but that thing can hold 10,000 people. That’s not enough to move everyone right away, but it should help. Unless Hogarth has helped with alternatives, such as her own fleet of ships, or perhaps a muster beacon?”

“I don’t know what that second thing is, but...no,” Lowell answered.

“I know it’s not much—”

“It’s more than we have now.” Ellie has walked into the room from the dimensional doors. “What brought this on?”

Leona looked back at her team, still sitting on the couches and chairs. “We prefer a smaller ship. I was excited when Ishida gave that to us, but it’s not practical.”

“The FTL engine, though,” Ellie pointed out. “Won’t you miss it? You haven’t even used it, have you?”

“We’ve lived through worse,” Leona replied.

They discussed some more ideas and details, and then everyone teleported to the bridge of the Phoenix, where a tour began. There was still a lot that the team didn’t know about it anyway, and they wanted to see it all too. She showed them the crew cabins above and behind the bridge, the engineering section below, and the transition space in the next section. Right behind that were the passenger access points, which opened to several dozen separate Ubiña pocket dimensions. That was how 10,000 people could live aboard at the same time, despite not having enough space in normal space. More than that could literally be on board simultaneously, but it would not be comfortable, and there would not be any privacy, because the majority of the vessel was taken up by the last two major components, which were the FTL engine, and the cargo hold. Though, thinking on it now, if the interstellar trips they were planning to take weren’t very long, keeping thousands of the passengers in cargo would probably be okay.

“And here are the shuttles,” Leona said near the end of the tour. “There’s enough seating for twenty-four people, however...” She ushered everyone into one of them, and closed the hatch behind them. Then she punched in a code, and reopened the hatch. “...each comes equipped with its own pocket dimension to give it even more room.” They were no longer looking at the shuttle bay, but an average-sized suburban yard with grass, but no other plant life yet, and no house.

“Hm. Yeah, I think we can work with this,” Olimpia determined. “I can see it now. What’s this one called?”

Leona smirked. “The Angela.”

The human Angela had not expected to hear her name. “What? Why?”

“It’s this whole thing. It’s not named after you, though. We can take one of the others, if you would prefer,” Leona promised. “There’s also the Dante, and the Bernice.”

“Dante would be great,” Angela replied. “Kind of better matches with the fire theme that I picture whenever anyone brings up the Phoenix proper.”

“There’s an issue,” Ellie began. “As of now, those doors in the Crest Hotel are the only way from the Sixth Key to the other universe, which has yet to be named. We can’t get the ship over there.”

“That’s the final stop,” Leona said with a smile. She reached out her hands. “If you’ll teleport us, I’ll navigate to the heart of the Phoenix.” They took hands, and jumped to the vault together, where Leona showed everyone the same thing that Ishida had shown her before.

Before Ellie finished closing up the case, they all put on vacuum suits, so they would be able to survive the unforgiving cold of outer space. Then they jumped back to the ballroom. Leona had already commanded the Dante to eject itself, so it wouldn’t be taken into the box along with everything else. It was currently piloting itself to one of the smaller spacedocks.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Ellie said appreciatively.

“Just help those people” Leona requested. “We would help too, but we’re only here for a day at a time anyway. We have to find a way to use that to our advantage.”

“You’ll need this.” It was Ramses again, carrying the kettlebell drive that he had taken from them a year ago. It turns out I didn’t need it, but I’m glad I had it.”

“Are you back?” Mateo asked.

“Sorry, not yet. That thing was just dead weight. Soon, though. Soon,” he repeated. “I think next year.”

“Should we stay in the area for you, errr...?” Marie trailed off.

“I’ll find ya.” Ramses disappeared for the upteenth time.

“All right. In that case...” Mateo said. “What now?”

Olimpia’s Cassidy cuff started to beep. “It’s a message.” She opened it.

“Hello? Is anyone there? This is Xerian Oyana of the Former Fifth Division. I’m looking for Team Matic. We need your help. I have your little ship. How does it work?”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 3, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Ramses removes the brain scanning bonnet from Mateo’s head. He places it on the table, and starts looking over the data. Everything looks good. No full consciousness has been uploaded, just the basics. The entity is capable of making decisions, and moving muscles. Or at least it would be, if it were attached to any muscles. For now it’s just a blob of digital synapses, waiting to fire. “All right, the upload went great.”

“Better than Leona’s?”

Ramses smirks. “Virtually indistinguishable. You two may as well share a brain.”

“Did you delete hers from the system?”

“She might ask to see it later. It’s best to just keep both programs around, maybe even after we use them.”

“When do we test it? How do we test it?”

Ramses is uncomfortable. “We test it on Rothko.”

“So you upload my partial mind into Alt!Mateo’s brain, which is currently being occupied by Rothko Ladhiffe. Then someone tries to kill him, at which point fate will intervene, and take him back to the place where that body is supposed to die in another reality. Meanwhile, the extraction mirror will be waiting to bring him back to this reality, but my mind will override any survival instinct that Rothko has, forcing him to stay where he is, so that an old version of Horace Reaver can murder him in a New Jersey Hospital.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds absolutely bonkers.”

“It is bonkers. It’s just...also necessary.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. Rothko is a person. We will be murdering him.”

“Reaver will be doing the murdering,” Mateo rationalizes.

“That is a pretty weak justification, Matt. If this were made public, we would be arrested for conspiracy and-or reckless endangerment, or something like that. Alt!Mateo was destined to die, not Rothko.”

“Someone in that hospital is supposedly wearing the hundemarke—”

“That’s not why his death can’t be changed,” Ramses claims.

“What? What else is there?”

“His murder is inevitable because it precipitates the creation of the next timeline, and the one after. It’s a major turning point in reality, as is Leona Reaver’s accidental death. They have to happen, or none of us comes into existence, not even you.”

“You’re telling me that if we don’t kill these two people’s bodies, whoever is using them at the time, we will all just blink out of existence.”

“It’s possible, yeah. I mean, it’s hard to be sure what the consequences would be.”

Mateo considers this. “Maybe that’s why someone created the extraction mirror loop. They’re trying to disrupt the continuum in some way, be it for good or bad, like what Erlendr and Jupiter were trying to do when the Parallel was created.” Fair guess.

“Yeah, that could be the case. Either way, this is why extraction mirrors are so dangerous. It’s best to never use them. Given that, how would you say we proceed?”

“Let’s hold off on the testing for now,” Mateo recommends. “I’m not convinced that it’s the right call anymore. Why don’t we run more tests on my hands? I’m fine with losing my teleportation ability, but I need to know when, and what my limits are.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 2, 2391

« < » > Table of Contents

The Technological Advancement Detachment. Obviously this was where all the scientists were kept, along with their scientific studies. It was impossible for a disc world to exist in nature, despite what flat-earthers would tell you. There were ways to accomplish the same thing using extravagant engineering, but since these people were capable of manipulating time and space, it was even easier for them. To avoid any annoyingly inconsistent gravitational problems, they just created gravity on their own using dimensional generators. To prevent from killing their inhabitants while in faster-than-light motion, they used inertial dampeners on a scale most couldn’t fathom. Why did they go through all this trouble for an unnecessary celestial shape? Simply because they could. When you live in a universe of endless possibilities, and nothing new to discover, most of your choices had little to do with achieving something important, and more about killing time.

The team used the same method to sneak onto the TAD as they did to get back to the SWD, letting the AOC hitch a ride over the course of their interim year, and then pilot fishing itself once the two giant objects were close enough to each other. Summit said that he knew there was at least one time machine here, and he had a good idea of where it was, but he didn’t know much about it. Traveling backwards in time was illegal. Of course the Fifth Division didn’t want anyone to be able to go back to a time period that could erase them from history. Since it was difficult to regulate every single corner of the vast supercluster, and beyond, it was easier to build a time machine for themselves, and only break the proverbial glass in the case of an emergency. Their machine was housed in a special section of the TAD, which was protected inside of a paradox containment field. It would theoretically survive the collapse of any given timeline, and push itself into the next. Even if nothing else survived, including the disc world itself, it would still be around, and a team would go back to undo whatever change the rogue travelers made. To no one’s surprise, the machine was very heavily guarded.

“But we have a way around that,” Marie said. “Our temporal technology is incompatible with theirs.”

“Yeah, why is that?” Angela remembered. “Don’t we all source from the same parent reality? Aren’t we all in the same universe?”

“I think it has more to do with how they developed the technology over time,” Leona figured. “Pribadium Delgado is said to have invented time tech of her own. Even though she had already been exposed to our variant, she was able to figure out some other way. I think after having been so isolated from us for so long, this reality drifted from us.”

“The Parallel didn’t seem to do the same,” Mateo pointed out, “and they are arguably just as advanced and isolated.”

“We never really saw that come into play,” Leona reminded him. “I don’t know, but it kind of brings up a good point. We can’t rely on our supposed advantage for everything. We can’t assume we’ll be able to just teleport into the time machine, enter our destination into the keypad, and disappear without a hitch. Mr. Ebora, any intel you can give us about it would be quite welcome.”

Summit seemed surprised to be called upon. “I don’t even know what you guys are talking about? Parent realities? Incompatible time travel? Like, what?”

Leona shut her eyes and exhaled. She was about to kick him out of the group when she thought better of it. He would surely just run off to warn someone of their presence, and then their mission would be lost. “Do you know what to do when you don’t have a plan?”

The group looked around at each other, each shaking their heads upon seeing the others shaking their heads.

“You go in without a plan,” Leona answered herself. “The more time we spend trying to worry about everything that could go wrong, the less time we have to just get it done. So here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna teleport in there, and wing it. If we find an obstacle, we’ll overcome it. Elite squad of assassins, massive military contingency, a giant space monster guarding the entrance. We could go on with the list, and come up with a solution to each, or just go. Raise your hands, are we ready to go?”

Everyone raised their hand, except for Summit, but his vote didn’t matter anyway.

Leona nodded. “Here are the coordinates. Let’s use the empathy link Ramses built us with to sync, and head out.”

They synced and jumped. Before them was an actual field of energy that they could feel. It buzzed into their skin, causing tiny ripples throughout their bodies. The closer they approached, the stronger it became, but it didn’t hurt. The doors were left wide open, or maybe didn’t exist at all.

A woman was sitting on the other side of it, chin resting in her hand. She unenthusiastically looked over at them as they tested out the energy barrier. “Welcome to the time travel section,” she recited apathetically. “We are protected by a paradox containment field. Only those who are not destined to disrupt the creation of the time machine on a quantum level are free to enter. Whether you intend to harm the timeline according to the doctrines set forth by the founders of the Fifth Division, or not, the field will not let you pass unless you are fated to do no harm. Again, this is on the quantum level, your macro decisions are irrelevant to the sanctity of the timeline.” She blinked slowly a few times. “Good luck.”

“Okay.” Mateo unceremoniously crossed the threshold, finding no difficulty in passing through the field.

The guard was shocked by this.

Olimpia followed, as did Angela, Ramses, Marie, and finally Leona. When Summit tried, he found it impossible. The field just bounced him right back. The harder he tried, the harder it resisted, and the more it hurt.

“Sorry, dude,” Mateo said, genuinely, but not too butthurt about it personally.

“No!” Summit cried. “I’m not gonna disrupt the timeline. I’m gonna do whatever you say! Why is it stopping me!”

“I don’t know,” Leona said. “But...how hard would it have been for you to transfer to the TAD from where you were stationed?”

“Virtually impossible,” Summit answered.

“Great,” she said. “Now you’re here, so go find your glorious purpose.”

“It doesn’t have to be glorious,” Summit admitted.

“Even better. Thanks for leading us here. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Summit stared at them a moment. “Yeah, whatever.”

“I have never seen anyone make it through,” the guard said in awe. “I’ve been working here for seventy years. Probably over a million have tried since my shift began. It hasn’t happened once. You have to work here, and vow to never use the machine except in an emergency. What business does a small group of children have here?”

“The business of leaving,” Ramses explained. “We do not belong in your world. Our quarks are different.”

“Are you...them? Are you the true Fifth Division? The founders?”

“God, no,” Angela said. “Are we free to use the machine?”

The guard pointed her hand down the hallway. “Evidently.”

Others who worked there watched them in wonderment as they walked towards the machine. Nor had they ever seen anything like it. And like the guard, they too were looking at them like they were gods. Of course Ramses and Leona, and a little bit the others, knew that it was just because they were part of a stable time loop. They were a part of the past, and it was time to close the loop. They would leave the universe on the Transit, come back to the main sequence, and never see this reality again. They weren’t special, just on a track.

The technician was frightened, but determined to do his job. “Uhh, umm...destination?” Olimpia handed him a small piece of e-paper. He looked at it and nodded. “Of course, sir. Sirs. Your Honors...Highnesses. Uh...I don’t know what to call you.”

“Call us...” Mateo began, trying to think of a good name for them. Team Matic was always a weird placeholder that he didn’t care for. Even though Leona was also a Matic now, it always felt very self-serving. There had to be something better. Anyway, he wasn’t going to come up with it in the next couple of seconds, so he just contrived a new placeholder. “The Fifth Column.”

He nodded respectfully again, and motioned for them to enter the machine.

They did, and a minute later, they were back in the past, but not in the machine. They were on a planet. No, the ground was curving up towards the sky, so they were inside of a rotating habitat, which was unusual, because they didn’t need centrifugal force to simulate gravity. It was unlikely that a reality that always had time tech ever came up with the idea of constructing rotating space habitats at all. Whatever, if this was where they were meant to be—which Leona appeared to believe was the case after consulting her watch—then this was where they would stay.

Olimpia looked at her notes. “That building there, that’s where he’ll be.”

“When?” Marie asked.

“In the next fifteen minutes, according to the logs.”

“We better go. We want to be ahead of him, not behind.”

They walked across the grass, and into the building, noting how eerie it was that they didn’t see any sign of life. Though that was par for the course, wasn’t it? These people engineered such large space objects that there was too much room, and not enough people to fill it. It was ridiculous, really, but if there was one thing they learned in this reality, it was that nobody knew anything, or saw the big picture. Everyone just focused on their tiny patch of paradise, and that was probably how it always would be, war or no war.

They entered the building, and spread out to look around. Their empathy link would keep them connected to each other, and their teleportation abilities would allow them to jump into protective action should any one for them come up against a problem. Unlike in the movies, they didn’t see any reason to stick together in the physical sense.

“Holy shit, wait!” Angela spoke into her communicator. “We left the AOC behind.”

“We were always going to have to do that,” Leona said sadly. “Sure, it would fit in the Transit, but how would we get it into this building? No, the historical records would have said something about it. We probably have a matter of seconds to hop on before the building blows up, it was never gonna happen. Sadly, you can’t just pack up a spaceship, and bring it with you wherever you go.”

“You can’t?” Ramses asked.

“Ramses, what did you do?” Leona asked.

“Guys, I found something,” Marie interrupted. “Come here.”

They transported to her location. She was standing before a human-sized metal machine. They couldn’t say for sure what it was, but there was a timer on the front of it, and to everyone, it screamed bomb. “I guess we know how it blows up,” Olimpia said.

“There’s nothing else here, though,” Ramses said. “Why does what’s-his-toes come in here in the first place?”

“I came here to rescue you.” They turned around to find a man in the doorway.

“Medavorken Alon?” Olimpia asked, excited and hopeful.

“I am,” he said. “What’s a bunch of children doing in here? This place is about to explode.”

“Wait, you know?” Olimpia pressed.

“Why do you think there’s no one else here?” Medavorken questioned.

Just then, a horn blared, but it didn’t sound like the one they could remember hearing during the few times the Transit showed up. “What was that?”

“That was the siren,” Medavorken began, “reminding everyone that the cylinder is about to explode, and they need to evacuate. It’s been going off every ten minutes.”

“Oh, shit,” Mateo said.

“No,” Olimpia said sadly.

“Shit,” Mateo repeated, more earnestly this time.

No, this wasn’t right. It could not have all just been a mistake. There had to be something here. Olimpia looked so embarrassed and ashamed. Seeing this, Ramses took her into a hug. It was going to be all right. They would find another way. Together.

“You should go,” Angela told the apparently unremarkable man.

“Not without you,” Medavorken promised. “Come on, we have just enough time to clear the blast zone.”

“We’ll be fine,” Mateo assured him. “We can teleport.”

“The records,” Olimpia lamented. “They didn’t say anything about people knowing there would be an explosion. They just said it exploded. There was a horn, and it exploded!”

Ramses tightened his grip around her. “I know.”

Leona placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe it’s still coming. We can wait until the last second, and then jump to the nearest vessel. These substrates have that feature, right, Ramses?”

“Yes, they’ll default to the nearest safety zone if you jump blindly. You can’t just kill yourself by jumping into outer space, or something.”

“Why is this here?” Olimpia complained.

“We’re in a war,” Medavorken explained. “It’s a vacuum bomb. We can’t disable, and we can’t jettison it. All we could do was get everybody out. You’re the last of the survivors.”

Mateo stepped forward and smiled at him, darting his eyes over one last time to check the clock. Thirty seconds. “You’re a brave man, coming in here alone. You deserve to be in the Transit Army.”

“O...kay?”

Mateo wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t hold your breath.” He programmed his body to jump at the very last second, in case something magically showed up to stop time and saved them, be it the Transit, or something else. Something might have, because while he did begin to teleport, and it felt like it had since they transferred themselves to their new bodies, there was something different about it too. Some force was pulling them away from where they were trying to go. It lasted a lot longer too. The point of teleportation was to be instantaneous. Otherwise, a teleporter could just walk. But they spent minutes in a blinding void of technicolors, unable to move or speak. They could still feel each other’s emotions, so they knew that they were all at least together.

Finally they landed, but their vision was a bit blurry. Before them were three men struggling in front of what looked like an airlock. Two of them were together, while the third was alone, opposite them. “Hello. I’m Captain Leona Matic.”

“I know who you are, young one,” one of the men said. “It’s me, Lucius.”

“Ahh, perfect,” Mateo said. “A friend. It’s about time.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 1677: Structural Integrity

< > Table of Contents

The Whrwehs discovered pretty easily that time travel was impossible. It wasn’t something they wanted to do, but they needed to research it, in case there was anything they needed to do to prepare for someone else using it against them. They were pleased to know that the timeline would remain intact, and that they did not have anything to worry about. Unfortunately, this rule only applied to their universe’s proper physics. Anything that can interfere with them from the outside can do so at any point in time, which is a sort of loophole to any time travel limitation. It’s kind of why bulk travel wasn’t ever part of nature’s plan. People were never meant to crossover, for any reason. Anyway, one of the ways to travel the bulkverse once came upon this universe to ask the Whrwehs for help. The Transit lacked sufficient power sources, and needed to purchase some from a world they knew was advanced enough to spare some extras. Luckily for them, the Whrwehs agreed to help. All they needed in return was a quick little trip to the past to retrieve a historical figure. He predicted the way that they would one day live, but it was more like he made it happen by showing people how much more efficient and peaceful it would be. They didn’t want to change anything about their history, but they felt that this man deserved to see the fruits of his labor. He deserved to live forever, in a healthier world, which he was instrumental in creating. The mission did not go well, and it appeared that the only way to fix the issue was to return him to his rightful place in the past. He apparently would not be able to live in the future. It’s a perfect example of how bulk travel can cause more problems than it solves...by avoiding paradoxes.

Let’s use Salmonverse as an example. When a time traveler goes back to the past, and makes some change to the timeline, it alters the course of future history. The universe compensates for this by adding a new layer on top of the old one. If it’s a parallel reality, then they will coexist, but if the universe can’t support them both simultaneously, then the old reality will collapse, and it only have to worry about the new one moving forward. The universe we’re talking about today does not work like that. It can’t support new realities at all, not even by collapsing the old timeline. Any alteration that someone makes using bulk travel technology will have an impact on the entire universe: future, present, and past. The physical structure of the brane actually transforms to account for the change. So while other forms of time travel only begin to take effect at the point of divergence, bulk-based time travel can have an effect in both directions of time. But if the past has been changed, then the future that caused the change doesn’t exist, and technically never did. So when the crew of The Transit went back to remove Mizakh Bordalajner from his deathbed, they weren’t just removing them from his future, but all of time. This disrupted everything. It made it so that Bordalajner never existed at all, and since he was such an important figure in history, this ended up having massive repercussions for all of reality. You might call this a hole in the fabric of spacetime, but it was more like pulling a thread, and never letting go. A domino effect took hold, and humanity essentially fell apart under the constant threat of a paradox. The only way to undo this was for the crew to return Bordalajner to his deathbed, and let him die. Then the question remained, if they were unable to fulfill their promise to the natives, how would they pay for the power systems that were already on board their vessel?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, December 7, 2275

« < » > Table of Contents

This wasn’t the first time that Mateo and Leona returned to the timestream to find their environment having changed dramatically. Mateo once broke his leg when the train he was on at midnight was no longer under his feet. Later, he and Leona woke up in a forest that experienced a devastating fire sometime during the year. Now on this planetesimal, in this hangar, their instinct was to venture out, and just figure out what was going on. Olimpia didn’t think that was such a great idea. “Computer, whisper mode.”

“Yes, can I help you?” the AI offered, but in a much quieter voice than she generally did.

“How did you get into this hangar? Is it where you landed?” Olimpia asked.

“I was transported here after landing,” the computer replied. “The outpost on this planetesimal was established five years ago.”

“Has anyone made any attempt to breach the hull of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” Olimpia continued.

“They have made attempts, but all have failed. They wanted to get in carefully, and without damaging anything.”

“Do you know what their hypothesis is regarding the nature of this ship?”

“I am not cognizant of that.”

“No one has been in here,” Olimpia stated to the group. “No one knows that this thing has been empty for the last five years, let alone that last nineteen, and that people have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They probably think it’s from an alien race, but they’re afraid to do anything to upset some kind of cosmic balance.”

“So, what should we do?” Leona asked. She was happy with not being the one to have to come up with all the solutions for a change.

Olimpia considered it for a moment. “Let’s just bail. Why go out there and introduce ourselves? We’re not here to meet them. They’re not supposed to be here at all. Our business is on Earth. Let’s teleport to maximum distance, and continue doing that until we reach our destination.”

“Leona, can you plot a course that avoids detection until we reach Earth?” Angela questions.

“I can’t, but the AOC herself can.”

“I don’t wanna, like, try to force anyone to agree with me,” Olimpia said, a little defensively. “This is just what I think we should do. Anyone else have any ideas? I mean, it’s entirely possible that the hangar was built for us, and the people out there have been waiting for our return, because they’ve known who we were the entire time.”

“If we were meant to go talk to them,” Mateo began, “then something would force us to do so. Like you said, let’s just bail.”

Everyone else seemed to agree as well, much to Olimpia’s relief. Though they had been friends for the last three years, she still felt a little bit like an outsider...like her opinion mattered less than the rest of the group. Of course that wasn’t true. Hopefully they would be able to convince her otherwise in time. For now, they needed to get out of here. Leona and the computer synthesized the present-day solar system. They accessed a detailed map, which told them where every outpost, every ship, every beacon was right now. Knowing this was going to allow them to teleport to blindspots, where no one would be able to detect their presence. They wouldn’t go full burst mode, because that endangered the integrity of the hull, but if they teleported fast enough, even if they accidentally got too close to a sensor, they would be gone before it could verify what it was seeing, and maybe mark it down as a technical error.

It took them most of the day, since the best route didn’t max out their teleporter range, and they couldn’t go through the manifold highway, so it wasn’t the fastest, but they made it back. They were now in the hangar where the Sharice Davids was once kept. At first, it didn’t seem like anyone was using it. Then four people came out of the shadows. No, they weren’t in the shadows, they were behind them. They appeared out of an illusion of a wall, but behind it was the past version of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ramses, Tracker, The Stitcher, and Flex. These were the four people Leona found to help them with their fight against Erlendr Preston. That was in an old reality, though, if they weren’t mistaken. Why were they here now?

“You’re not supposed to arrive until next year,” Leona said, looking at her watch. “We thought this place would be empty.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” a past version of Ramses said. “We’ve come here to meet you, and it seems we’re right on time.”

Leona shook her head. “We are future versions of your friends. If Past!Us are gonna show up today, then we have to get the hell out of here.”

“It’s okay,” Mateo tried to assure her. “I think I have this figured out. It’s a different reality. We don’t have to worry about a paradox. In fact, we should save them some trouble, if we can.”

“That’s dangerous, Mateo,” Leona warned.

Nerakali suddenly appeared with past versions of Mateo, Leona, and Jeremy.

“I think it’s kind of too late,” Future!Mateo said.

Nerakali took a step forward. She was surprised, but not shocked. “Report.”

Future!Mateo smiled, and looked over at his crew to make sure no one wanted to say anything for themselves. He decided to take charge of this situation. “First, let’s do introductions. Future!Jeremy Bearimy, Future!Leona Matic, Angela Walton, and Olimpia Sangster. Over on this side, we have my good friend, Ramses Abdulrashid. Next to him is Vidar Wolfe, Tonya Keyes, and Yadira Cordosa. Lastly, we have a younger version of Nerakali Preston. She is still alive, and it looks good on her.”

Nerakali rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her own smile. “Anything else?”

“We’re not just from the future,” Future!Mateo went on. “We’re from an alternate reality. Nothing you do will impact what has happened to us. What’s done is done. Fortunately for you, we went through the heartache for you. We can fix your Erlendr problem. Then once we do...” He hesitated.

“Once you do...” Past!Mateo pressed, “what?”

Future!Mateo sort of started focusing on his alternate self more. “This timeline ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

“You’re suggesting we assimilate with each other?” Past!Mateo presumed.

Future!Mateo shook his head. “We’ve made a lot of friends since 2275. I don’t know what you’ve been through, who you’ve met. I don’t even know when you and I diverged. But at some point, someone suggested to me that they could get me and Leona out of here. They could take us to a place where the powers that be, and the choosing ones, couldn’t get to us. They called it Havenverse.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“That dream is dead for us,” Future!Mateo revealed. “Leona, you agree?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona said, completely sincerely. She hadn’t thought about the prospect in a long time.

Future!Mateo continued, “I’ll get you there. I’ll reach out to someone I know who knows someone else, and we will find you a ride. Would you like that?”

“What are you gonna do?” Past!Mateo asked.

Future!Mateo chuckled once, and looked lovingly over at his wife. “This is our life now. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not anymore.”

She smiled back.

Past!Mateo and Past!Leona did the same with each other. “Can we do that?” the former questioned. “Can we just...bail?”

“I think we deserve that, don’t you?”

“I guess, I just...”

Before either of them could produce a definitive answer, a horn echoed throughout the facility. The Transit came flying across the room out of one portal, and into another. Just as before, it stopped. But that was 2276. What was it doing here a year early? Why was everyone a year early in this timeline? Saga didn’t come out this time. It was a man that no one recognized. That was another thing, no one was frozen in place this time around. Everyone was seeing this happen. The man cleared his throat while he was consulting his handheld device. “My name is Wyatt Bradley. I have been asked to come out here, and inform you that we are looking for Evaluator Nerakali Wilson.”

“Scroll up, buddy,” Nerakali said.

Wyatt swipes up on his device. “Oh, you’re right. Nerakali Preston. Sorry about that. I think Wilson’s already on the train.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet her,” the real Nerakali said excitedly.

“Can you even go?” Future!Mateo asked. “I mean...because...”

“I’m sure the universe will figure it out. I have been summoned.” She started to head for the ramp.

“Wait,” Future!Mateo said, prompting his friend to stop. “Can you take two more? Can you take them to a different universe, somewhere that’s outside of the war?” This would be easier than trying to communicate through Amber.

Another man appeared from the train car. “We do not rescue refugees. Are they fleeing oppression?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona claimed. The truth was too complicated to say whether she was lying or not.

“I’ll send word to The Strongbox. If they accept your application, then they’ll be here immediately after we leave. If not...then you’re out of luck. I don’t make those decisions. That’s for Thack to worry about.”

Nerakali tried to leave again, but Yadira said, “wait,” as well. “I was told to get on the train by someone who knows the future.”

“You’re already on it,” the unnamed man said.

“Oh.”

The man sighed. “I suppose you can’t have too many Flexes, can you? Come on.”

Yadira looked back to make sure everyone was cool with her decision, and their facial expressions showed that they were. Now both she and Nerakali started trying to make it up the ramp.

“Wait, I have to know what this is,” Vidar said.

“If you come, you have to fight. This is a war transport vessel, not a ferry.”

“I...have to know,” Vidar explained.

“Very well. Does anybody else want to come, besides the refugees?”

No one else seemed to want to, so finally, the three conscripts were able to start leaving. But there were two more delays. Before Vidar could make it past the threshold, he disappeared. He then started jogging up from behind the group. “Sorry, sorry. I just kind of had to...die first. But I’m resurrected, and back!” Having returned from the afterlife simulation, his loop was now closed, and his destiny was his own to do with it as he pleased. The same thing happened to Nerakali, whose death was also predetermined.

Once the doors were closed, the Transit left through its portal. A much, much smaller vessel appeared from its incoming portal, and stopped in the same place. A woman came out from it. “I hear we got some refugees?”

“Are we sure about this?” Past!Mateo asked. “This isn’t going to cause any problems for the timeline.”

“We’ll handle it,” Future!Mateo said honestly.

“Thank you,” the two of them said simultaneously. As they were boarding, the woman introduced herself as Rosalinda. They heard a scream, and the ship disappeared.

Mateo clapped his hands. “Gang’s all here. Let’s go take care of The Warrior.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 1657: Portrait of a Universe

< > Table of Contents

Most versions of Earth advance technologically at about the same rate. This is due to the fact that the majority of them are only c-branes, but I won’t get into the specifics of how that works. The reality is that this can be altered moderately by changing a few key conditions, or more dramatically by something insane, like time travel. In Muxleyverse, an alien descended from a group of Ansutahan who were expelled when The Crossover exploded, came to Earth to decide whether it was worthy of being brought into the galactic community. He brought with him highly advanced technology, which ended up being sent backwards in time. This changed everything about human history. This one little bit of tech transformed Earth from the youngest and weakest civilization to the strongest, and most powerful. This was where the mess began, and why most bulk travelers tend to avoid Muxleyverse, even the Ochivari. Now the dominant race in the Milky Way galaxy, the humans went around exerting their will upon all other worlds. They didn’t enslave anyone, and they didn’t kill unless provoked by a resistance, but they weren’t exactly pleasant either. They knew where they came from, and how it happened. They knew that the aliens would do the same to them, if given a chance. They felt that their only hope was to keep control of the situation at all costs. Unfortunately, one you introduce time travel into the mix, control becomes a laughable concept. Eventually, a rebel group of aliens managed to steal time travel technology. They used it to go back to their early days, and become the dominant race over all others. They were especially ruthless against the Earthans, for obvious reasons. But it did not stop there. An alliance of humans, and a different planet of subjugated aliens, stole time travel technology, and went back so they could become the dominant species. Can you guess where I’m going with this?

As you know, I have the ability to witness events in other universes, but that gift gets complicated when alternate realities are in the mix. You see, since each universe operates on a completely separate timeline, I’m actually watching these other events having happened, not as they’re happening. The past, present, and future don’t just happen all at once; they don’t even exist from my perspective. It’s all just one giant picture to me, which allows me to piece together stories. Alternate realities of all kinds make piecing those stories together more complicated. Concurrent realites are all but impossible for me to see through, because they add extra layers that block each other from sight, but sequential timelines aren’t easy either. The metaphorical picture of the universe is larger than a normal one when that happens, but my perspective hasn’t changed, so every detail is smaller. The point is that I don’t know how many loops these people went through. I only know that it was bad. They just kept going, always trying to gain an advantage over each other, until things got to be so messy that it all fell apart. For the most part, unlike what you might hear in time travel movies, the universe can’t be destroyed, even by a paradox. The paradox simply won’t take place, and everything will be fine. You can overstrain the fabric of spacetime, however, especially for a brane that was never meant to have temporal manipulation in the first place. Everything that those people did, it still happened. The end of the universe didn’t negate the past, also like what you might see in movies. But it did end prematurely, and it’s a shame.

Microstory 1478: Bicentennial

< > Table of Contents

The first known human to set foot on Durus was a little girl named Savitri. In 1980, she fell into some kind portal, and ended up here alone. She had to figure things out, and fend for herself for ten years before anyone else appeared. Even though the Deathfall wouldn’t happen until 2016, many believed that 1980 should be considered the dawn of man on Durus. They wanted to honor and respect Savitri, for all she had been through. Sure, technically the Bicentennial should mark the beginning of a city, or some other form of civilization, but this was their own planet, and they felt entitled to make up whatever rules they wanted. They could celebrate the start of the new Springfield later, if they even really wanted to do that at all, since life was pretty crappy back then. In the 2175 elections, people voted for the Savitri Act, and preparations were able to begin for a massive worldwide celebration, and it would indeed be massive. Their population had always been in flux, as most populations are, but in general, their numbers increased predictably. It was estimated that there would be 500,000 people living on Durus by the time 2180 ended. The celebration would mark this occasion, as well as the Bicentennial, hopefully appeasing those few who disagreed that it had been 200 years since the beginning. The party was huge, spread out across the surface, in Aljabara, and the other towns. They had rides, dinners, time power games, music, and other entertainment. They also had quiet, reflective events, mourning those they had lost, and remembering the heroes of yesterday. There was something for everyone, and everything for a precious few. A paramount with time traveling abilities offered his services to a select group of people. Many entered, but only ten people won tickets in the lottery. If you wanted to enjoy every single event that the week-long Bicentennial celebrations had available, even the ones that conflicted with each other on the schedule, you had to be one of these eleven people. The paramount took the group back in time as many times as it was necessary in order for them to participate or watch everything. For the most part, time travel was illegal on Durus. It was dangerous, and possibly paradoxical, and the government agreed that no one should change history, even the bad things that happened. But for this one time, one paramount was given the freedom to use his powers. He had to stay within the loop, however, and take all necessary precautions against messing something up with the timeline. It was a success, however, as was the Bicentennial in general, and it had people already starting to think about what they might want to do for the Tricentennial.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, March 26, 2019

« < » > Table of Contents

It was unclear whether Arcadia overshot their destination by two years, or if she fully intended to arrive back in Fletcher House in 2019. Fortunately, Declan was still living there, and currently attempting to help Nerakali and Serkan remove their Cassidy cuffs.

“Okay, this is the last time you people can do this,” he said when all the others showed up in the bunker. “I mean it. Adelaide Fletcher is going to buy this place with her reparations in a couple months, so we gotta be out of here. I was trying to strike my lab, and move on.”

“I’m glad you haven’t taken it down yet,” Mateo told him as he was helping a weak Zeferino into the isolation chamber. “We need this to contain and kill a psychic. We don’t have the Insulator of Life anymore.”

Declan stood up, and walked over to make sure the chamber was secure. “I told you that I’m not killing anybody.”

“You don’t have to,” Mateo said. “This is just the safest place for everyone until he can kill himself.

“What are you goin’ on about?” Zeferino questioned.

“How old are you right now?” Mateo asked him.

“Ballpark?” Zeferino asked rhetorically. “Three or four thousand years.”

“That’s like...” Mateo began. He turned his head to elicit Leona’s help.

“Thirty,” she helped.

“Thirty or forty times longer than the average human lives. You’ve traveled up and down the timeline, seeing an unknowable number of things more than most people do, and throughout it all, you were a stone-cold killer.” Mateo stepped back to address both him and Declan. “We have one chance to get Erlendr Preston out of our lives before he does something wildly dangerous. I’m not very smart, but if there’s one thing I learned from all those time travel stories I used for research, it’s that paradoxes are bad. Avoid the paradoxes. I’m sick of all this bloody time travel. I can’t stop it, but I sure as hell can alleviate it. So if you’re not on board, then get out of this basement!”

“This is my basement,” Declan argued.

“No, it’s a community basement,” Mateo insisted. “Several disparate groups use it for their needs over the years. Your mother moved you here after we made her feel unsafe at the old place; you used it to train to become a vigilante; Gunbender, Armbreaker, and Fairware use it for their base of operations; two separate groups use it to help put right what once went wrong. Do you know who built it? It was a man by the name of Baudin Murdoch, who designed it specifically with all these different future people in mind. He’ll even be the one to install the bank vault door when it’s time for that. I need it for a special purpose right now, so I’ll ask you again, to get out! Go climb up a salmon ladder, or something. This has to be done.”

The group was silent, like they knew Mateo wasn’t quite finished yet.

He looked back to Zeferino. “This is called a sacrifice. I was prepared to make it myself, but I am beholden to the powers that be. This is your last chance to do something good. I don’t know what you know, but the man inside your head raped your mother. He probably felt entitled to it since they were married. You may be evil, but you would never do something that bad, and we all know it. I don’t think you would be happy knowing your body might be used to hurt someone like that. You’re dying either way, so at least try to go out a hero. I’ll personally see to it that The Historian writes favorably of you.”

Wow. It almost looked like Zeferino was actually considering letting himself be killed. Then it happened; the biggest shock of them all. “Just so we’re clear,” he begins, “this doesn’t undo anything I’ve already done to you, and I don’t regret a single choice I’ve ever made, including this one. I always win...Flash.” After his one last pop culture reference, his pulled a knife from his boot, and stuck it through his neck, all the way into his brain. “You were right. Turns out, I’m a hero after all. That’s not what I wanted to be.” Then he died.

“That was very noble,” Jupiter said. “Unfortunately for you, if you were trying to prevent the creation of The Parallel, then you didn’t kill enough people.” It was only then that Mateo realized Jupiter had secretly placed Erlendr’s primary cuff on his own wrist. He was now in control of all of them.

“What are you doing?” Arcadia questioned, anger building.

Jupiter tapped on his cuff screen. “I’m saving our sister.” He executed a program, sending the cuffs that were on Nerakali and Serkan flying through the air. They landed around both of Declan’s wrists. “And also Mr. Demir, even though he gives my friends huge headaches.”

“Why am I cuffed now?” Declan asked.

“Wait, did they both just transport themselves to you? I didn’t do that on purpose. Weird, I guess I don’t know how this works. What does this button do?” He selected another program. Three cuffs appeared out of the aether, and wrapped themselves around Ramses, Leona, and Mateo’s formerly free wrists. “No, that’s not what I meant either.” Jupiter was just screwing with them now. “Hm. Ah, here it is.” He pressed one last button, which summoned J.B. to them. He was also wearing two Cassidy cuffs of his own. Now all eleven were accounted for.

Before Jupiter had the chance to say anything else, Daria Matic appeared in the room.

“Why did you have to bring her into this!” Mateo cried.

“I didn’t do that,” Jupiter replied defensively. “I certainly wouldn’t have brought her here with what I assume is vomit on her shirt.”

“I just came from Vegas,” Daria explained. “I’m not sure what I’m meant to do here.”

“Him,” Leona said, pointing to Serkan. “Get him to safety.”

“You got it.” Daria slipped her arms underneath Serkan’s, and spirited him away.

“Noooooooooo!” Jupiter screamed, arm outstretched towards the emptiness where Serkan just was. “Just kidding, I don’t need him.”

“You don’t need J.B. either,” Ramses suggested.

“Oh, him? He’s vital to the plan. You, on the other hand, are just a hangeron. I could take you, or leave you, but then I would have to give someone else your handcuffs. I don’t want them in this reality anymore, so I’m trying to get rid of them all at once.”

“What’s your plan...brother?” Arcadia asked.

“It’s the same as Erlendr’s, for the most part. The main difference is I’m going to be the one in charge. The other main difference is that I know what the hell I’m doing. He may understand the flow of time, but I know people.”

“Why do you care about any of this?” Nerakali interrogated. “You have your own life going with the Springfield Nine.”

“Can someone get her up to speed, please?” Jupiter requested. “Sherwood, go ahead and set it up whenever you’re ready.”

The half-brother, Sherwood stepped into the isolation chamber with his duffel bag. The first thing he did was drag Zeferino’s dead body out, and leave him carelessly in the corner. He pulled out a little tripod table, and a huge canister of what looked like paintballs, but of dozens of different colors. He then removed what looked like a bomb. But no, it couldn’t be a bomb. Could it?

Jupiter carried on explaining himself as Sherwood was working on setting up his apparatus. “I didn’t always know everything about our species’ history. Athanaric kept us very sheltered, and then when I joined up with the other Springfielders, my focus was...well, too focused. It wasn’t until recently—which I recognize is a relative term—that I started branching out, and learning about what everyone else has been doing. I discovered this obsession the other Prestons had with the Matics. Why was it? What is it about the two of you that draws people in; gets them to sacrifice themselves for you, and give you everything? Well, I never figured it out, but in my trying, I realized that I too was obsessing over you. I was just becoming another twisted stalker. I was stanning you, Mateo. I wasn’t happy with doing this from afar, though. To free myself from this, I realized the only thing I could do was echo my estranged siblings. They toyed with you, forced you into harrowing challenges. Then I learned what our illustrious father was planning, and that helped me come up with my own plan.

“I’m going to challenge you too. Don’t worry, though. Most of the time, it probably won’t be deadly. You’ll probably even want to do the work; you’ll just wish it wasn’t necessary. If you fail any one of these challenges, the consequences will be whatever they are. I won’t actually be controlling anything you do. I’ll be transplanting people from this reality, to the Parallel; one at a time. Your mission will be to get them back home. You could always go back with them, but then you would be sacrificing however many people in the timeline you haven’t gotten to yet. Oh, and you’ll be on a brand new pattern, courtesy of those Cassidy cuffs. It’s a perfect blending of Mateo’s and J.B.’s. I’ll let the smart one explain what that means. Are we ready?”

“It’s ready,” Sherwood said as he was standing back up from a crouch. “I’ve set the timer for fifteen seconds.”

“I thought I asked you for a trigger,” Jupiter asked in an audible whisper. “I wanted to push a button.”

Sherwood stepped out of the chamber, and sealed the door behind him. “I don’t work for you. A timer is fine.”

A few seconds later, the bomb went off, spreading the paint all around the glass. It was actually quite beautiful.

“That was cool,” Jupiter said with a genuine smile. “I’m gonna need this, dear,” he said to Arcadia. He lifted the hundemarke from her neck, and placed it around his own. “I need to be the one who makes sure it’s actually activated. I’m not clear on your loyalties.”

Arcadia appeared too shocked to go against him, which was unlike her.

He continued, “sisters, you can watch from outside. The rest of you, get on in. It’s a tight fit, but there’s enough room for eight, and there are only six of us.”

No one moved.

Jupiter sighed. “Very well. I’ll do it myself.” He tapped on his cuff, and transported all of his prisoners into the chamber. It was even more beautiful from the inside. Jupiter was in there with them, but Sherwood was not. “Boot it up, brother!”

The pain swirled around, and reformed itself. Where once it was chaotic and random, colors began to organize into deliberate shapes. Shapes sharpened into discernable images, and the images began to move. They were watching dozens of movies at once. Mateo had heard about some of them before, others he had been there to see, and some were completely unfamiliar. The one thing they had in common was the hundemarke. These were all moments when it was used to create a fixed moment in time.

“My God,” Declan said. “All these people are gonna die.”

“Not if I can help it. All right!” Jupiter said happily. He took a gun from the back of his pants, and held it up like one of Charlie’s Angels. “Everybody ready? Only shoot the red-shaded moments. The blue moments are meant to stay put. We want those to happen in both realities.” He looked around at the rest of the group. He relaxed his arms in feigned frustration. “Ugh. Where are your guns? Did you not bring the guns? I’m sorry, I thought this was America. Okay, fine. I’ll shoot ‘em all myself. Here..we..go!” He started shooting at the images. Each time a bullet went through, and planted itself in the head of a future killer. He was killing real people all throughout time and space, but treating it like a video game. Mateo was just surprised he wasn’t literally keeping score.

Mateo watched him a little, but his eyes wandered to a very specific moment. This one was shaded purple, unlike any of the others. Also unique to it was that it kept playing over and over again in the same spot, while the other moments had to come back in the next cycle, because the chamber walls weren’t large enough to fit all of them at the same time. They only turned black and disappeared for good once Jupiter had paradoxed his target successfully. He had an idea to fix all of this. There was a reason the Prestons were obsessed with him and Leona. They would always ultimately lose, and they were never happy with that. It really was a game to them, and they absolutely despised losing. Perhaps Arcadia had the right idea, even if she was coming from the wrong place. Anyway, it was the only way Mateo could think of to stop all this. Even if it was a bad thing on its own, it at least went against their enemy, and sometimes, that just had to be enough.

Before Jupiter could finish shooting all the hundemarke killers, Mateo body slammed him. That was one good thing about close quarters. Jupiter had no room to fight back fast enough. Knowing he didn’t have long, though, Mateo grabbed the gun for himself, rolled back to the other side of the chamber, and aimed the best he could.

“Hey,” Jupiter said jovially. “You want in on this? Oh wait, no; not that one. That is the worst one you could pick.”

Damn, his target was gone. The GIF started back at the beginning, but he didn’t have a clear shot at Anatol Klugman. He didn’t really want to kill the guy, but it was his only move, and The Warrior was the one man he could trust to understand and appreciate the dilemma. Jupiter got up and tried to attack Mateo, but Leona and Ramses held him back. Just a few more seconds. Three..two..one..fire.

« < » > Table of Contents