Microstory 2496: Spydome Network

< > Table of Contents

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

This is one of those long-term domes, where you can’t quite get the full experience unless you immerse yourself in the setting, and really forget about your old life. You have to shed your past, and become your character, or you’re playing someone else’s game. The premise is that you are a member of a spy agency in one of eleven nations. Your task is to complete missions for your agency, according to whatever your superiors demand of you. Like I said, this is long-term, so you won’t just instantly become a spy. You will start as a trainee, and work your way up. Or you won’t. There’s every chance that you’ll fail. You have to pass the physical and written exams. I’m pretty sure that they’re easier to take than the real ones on Earth, but I’ve never been a real spy before, so I don’t really know. How well you do is entirely up to your own, natural skills. There is no way to know how far any other player gets, because we’re not technically meant to out ourselves to each other, but my boss may be another visitor. I really don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. What you do is up to you as well. Even though you have superiors, you are not a robot, and you are capable of making your own decisions. If you just wanna lounge about your apartment all day everyday, you’ll probably get fired for that, but you won’t get killed. Unless you’ve done enough spying to put you in danger. You’ll probably only get killed if you go out in the field, or as I was saying, if you’re attacked at home by an enemy. Each nation exists under its own dome, and its backstory is as rich and complex as they are in real life. The relationships between these fictional countries are complicated, and ever-changing. If you were to leave and come back 100 years from now, I’m sure alliances will have shifted. One of them might have been blown up in a nuclear war; I dunno. I couldn’t tell you exactly how far the program will let you take this, but it seems like a pretty decent free-for-all. Each might be one of the eleven most heavily populated domes on the planet, as most don’t need to feel quite as lived in as somewhere in the network. But here, you can go anywhere within your bounds, and if you secure a passport to another country, you can go there too. It’s a really interesting experience, and I’ve only been doing it for about a year and a half at this point. Obviously, I’m writing this anonymously, because there’s no reason a competing agency couldn’t use this information against my own. The android intelligences might not understand where a visitor spy got their intel if it came from an out-of-universe source, but they might act on it anyway. There’s a lot you can learn about the countries, and international affairs, from the comfort of your tablet using the prospectus, but to really grasp what it’s like to live here, you’ll have to sign up, and integrate yourself into this new society. You choose your own adventure. I don’t know the psychological ramifications of starting a new life that could potentially be as long as a standard lifetime, but perhaps that’s part of what they’re studying here. I’m sure the results will be fascinating.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 22, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

If Marie and Heath didn’t work out their issues, they didn’t let the rest of the team know. They came out of Angela’s bedroom after an hour, and sort of pretended like nothing had happened. Their friends could occasionally hear muffled yelling from the other side of the door, so they obviously said something to each other, but it’s unclear where they were going to go from here. Instead of saying anything about it, they decided it was time for the other four to secure their own new IDs, because they could be in this reality for a while. Nothing came from screening the footage from the parking lot, so they planned a field trip for the next day.

In the main sequence, they could have gone to a man by the name of The Forger, who could create actual new identities for all of them. These weren’t just fake papers, backdated as far into the past as possible, but a rewritten history of their lives, using real documents from the real past. And they could rely on the Forger to not leak the truth about them anywhere else, because he’s one of them, and just as susceptible to exposure. The Third Rail is a different story, obviously. It took some doing for Heath to find a forger for Marie, and they are at constant risk of being discovered. If their forger is caught by the authorities, he could give up his clients. He says that he doesn’t maintain records—and in fact doesn’t even ask for people’s original identities—but he had to take their pictures, and pictures can be copied. It’s dangerous for them to go back to the same guy, but even more dangerous to try to find someone else. At least he’s lasted four years without confessing to the cops. Theoretically, he could last four more.

He’s not there, but this is clearly still a document forging operation. They can see all the equipment behind the counter. A very young woman has her legs propped up on it. She’s scowling in a this place was better before they put in a door sort of way, and apparently upset about having to put down her book. She has an abstract tattoo along her jawline, and a funky haircut with a purple streak. The only thing missing is a lollipop in her mouth, or maybe seventeen sticks of gum. “Yeah, he’s dead. I’m his replacement.”

“Replacement?” Marie questions, “like, you interviewed?”

“No, I was more like an apprentice. Now it’s all mine. Behold, old ones, my exquisite palace of shit.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic,” Ramses says.

She turns to look at him. “The way I see it, if I’m too eager to do my job, I might be too eager to remember anything about my clients. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you need this. I only care if you have the money. Once you walk out of this room, you’re gone. I don’t wanna see you again. And if I do, it won’t matter, because I have a superpower.”

The team looks amongst each other.

“Not literally, they actually call it a disorder. I cannot detect or recall faces. Like, all I see are six people standing in front of me. I can’t tell you apart. When I hand you your packets, you’ll have to figure out whose is whose. That’s why I’m so good at this, and why Ramos chose me in the first place to carry on his dumb Kansas City secret legacy. Now. Do you want your IDs, or not?”

“Can we pick our own names?” Angela asks.

The forger shrugs.

Angela turns to Marie and Heath. “There’s no reason we can’t use our normal ones, right? I mean, we just need to be able to drive, and stuff. We don’t need to hide.”

“That’s how we saw it,” Heath replies.

“In fact,” Mateo says. “If anyone out there recognizes one of our names, we probably do want them to approach us. Even if they’re dangerous, we need answers.”

“I can explain,” Marie says to the forger, trying to think of a believable lie.

“Like I said, I don’t care. I need three things: your money, your chosen names, and for each of you to sit in that chair over there, and pose for a few photos. I have multiple backdrops for different IDs, along with some shirts you can borrow. I always do birth certificate, passport, and driver’s license. Those are included, but you can pay more for student IDs, certain employee badges, and even bank cards. I’m currently running a deal where if you buy one of the extras, I’ll throw in a library card for free. If you cough up enough money for a military ID of some kind, we go into the backroom, and I’ll let you do whatever you want for twelve minutes.”

“Uh, that’s okay,” Leona tells her. “We don’t need that.”

“You all can get whatever else you want,” Heath promises them. “Don’t worry about the money.” He jiggles his duffel bag of cash.

“We might could use a military ID,” Mateo declares.

“Excuse me?” his wife questions.

“But instead of twelve minutes in the backroom, I want to stay here and watch you work, for however long that takes.”

The forger narrows her eyes at him, and thinks about it. “It’s $10,000.”

Mateo looks to Marie.

“Okay, you can get it, but you’re eating all of your vegetables tonight,” she agrees. “And no dessert.”

“Oh, he can have dessert. I may not recognize his face, but I can see dat body,” the forger explains.

He grimaces, but of course, nothing happens between them that night. He just wanted to make sure she would do the job as they asked, and he was also curious how it would all come together. They may never need the military ID, but it could prove useful. Stolen valor is no joke, but Mateo can conceive of a situation where it’s their only way to solve a problem, or get out of a predicament.

He’s not the only one who opted for upgrades. Both Leona and Ramses ask for employee badges; her to an astrophysics lab, and him to an electronics corporation. It’s not the largest, nor the best, but it’s the only one the forger has access to. Now they can take all the equipment they might need, and also have some means of studying this reality. Angela takes one of the library cards for herself, and Mateo takes another. She wants to learn more about their new world, and he wants to finally learn something. All told, this ends up costing them $28,000, but neither Marie nor Heath are fazed, and it could one day save their lives.

“How was your night?” Leona asks when he returns the next morning.

“It was fascinating,” Mateo answers. “You probably would have liked it.”

“That’s great. One thing, though.”

“Okay?”

“You’re sleeping in the living room with Ramses tonight. You can come back to bed tomorrow.”

Microstory 1629: Legend Has It

< > Table of Contents

Let’s get away from the depressing Darning War stories, and talk about something unrelated. I don’t want to say that this universe has nothing to do with the war—because sooner or later, the Ochivari find everyone—but the story itself will be about something else. This version of Earth only encountered one instance of time travel. One day, an underemployed twentysomething man living in his recently deceased grandmother’s house heard an explosion downstairs. His name was Legend, but he was anything but. He didn’t have any passions, or goals. He just went to work every day, and came home to his cat in the evening. It was his once grandmother’s cat, and it came with the house as a packaged deal. He was convinced it would outlive them all. When Legend went down to investigate the ruckus, the cat was just sitting in a chair on the back deck, having barely acknowledged the explosion in the kitchen. He didn’t expect her to run to his rescue, but it should have freaked her out. That thing could not be flapped. He crept around the corner, and looked in to find a naked woman about his age, brushing the dust off her skin. “Axel Quincy?” she presumed.

“Is that your name, errr...?”

“I thought you were Axel Quincy,” she said.

“Nope. Sorry. Wrong house. Never heard of him.” As it turned out, the woman was from the future, and desperately needed to find an engineering prodigy whose designs were this close to saving the world decades from now. He was destined to die sometime within the next two weeks, and only he could prevent disaster. He was unable to finish the plans for many of his inventions, and while the time traveler’s people were able to reverse engineer what they needed once the initial plans were discovered, they weren’t able to do so in time. They could have really benefited from having them already exist by the time any of them were even born. She had to find him, and save his life, so he could complete his work on his own, and be prepared to defend the planet against a terrible future. After a little sleuthing, they realized that the time machine had accidentally sent her to the wrong place. It wasn’t even the right country. She didn’t have any money, or a present-day identity, and she didn’t know how to drive, and she wasn’t familiar with the national borders, which were erased from the map when catastrophe struck the first time. Legend was her only hope now, even though he was nobody, and didn’t know anything about how to find some Canadian stranger who wasn’t going to be famously important until after his death. Still, he agreed to help, because it was the right thing to do. So the two of them set off on an adventure, along with the cat, and hijinks ensued. She tried to drive once, because he was too slow, so they had to wait for it to be repaired. Getting across the border was tough, because neither of them had a passport. The people they met along the way either tried to help and failed, or actively tried to stop them. They were running from the law, and a CEO who thought Legend was someone else; evidently someone who was a far greater threat to his freedom and wealth. They bickered and struggled, and of course became friends, and I won’t tell you how it ends. You’ll just have to see it for yourself, if you get a chance.

Microstory 877: Man Planes, God Laughs

< > Table of Contents

When I was seventeen years old, I found myself at a farm party. I don’t really know how I ended up there, because parties aren’t my scene, but I must have known someone who knew someone. Since we were coming from pretty far away, we arrived really early. Some guy there owned a plane that, I guess he used for spreading seed, or something? He spontaneously offered to take anyone up who wanted it. For some reason, I was the only one who did. The plane was small, and partially opened, so I could feel the rush of wind pass us as we soared through the air. I had flown in a lot of planes by then, some of which were rather small, but this was the most exhilarating experience of my life. I’ve always been afraid of heights and roller coasters, so I have no idea what possessed me to agree to this, but I fell in love that day. I held that with me for years as I moved on with my life. And that life was quite a struggle. I’m an artist by trade, but there’s little money in that if you’re still alive, so I became a barber. Most people don’t suddenly decide to get into the hairstyling business, but I had heard it was one of the least stressful jobs out there, and I just needed something to get me by that wasn’t shoveling french fries. I had all but forgotten my dream of becoming a pilot, but every once in awhile, I’d see a small aircraft, and I would be reminded. And so with nothing else interesting to do with my money, I decided to start setting a little to the side to actually make my dream a reality. It might have taken me longer than the average student, but I did eventually earn my license. That was great, but I still didn’t have a plane. I could keep flying if I became an instructor too, but there weren’t any open positions at the moment, so I spent the next few months just sitting on my license. Then my parents showed up to my apartment one day with a surprise. They made sure I was sitting down, then dad took out the little portable projector he would use for work. The image of an airplane appeared on my wall, with my parents claiming that it was mine. Unfortunately, it was in Mexico, because that was where they could find the best deal, but fortunately, that meant a nice family trip to Mexico.

We all went down together, and it was like falling in love all over again. She was a 1972 Delgado Crescendo; single-engine turboprop; just a hair over 500 miles on her engine; and exactly as many seats as we needed. She was perfect, she was everything. My sister joked that she wouldn’t let me fly it until she got to try it first. Overall it was a great little vacation, with the best gift I could have ever gotten. We were halfway home when my mother discovered that we had all left our passports in the hotel, and so we had to fly all the way back. I was going to miss work for another day, but I wasn’t worried. Not so shockingly, the hotel hadn’t seen our passports at all, but had probably stolen them, no doubt. Due to some weird political maneuvering going on in our government at the time, we wouldn’t be issued any emergency passports, and were going to have to wait for up to a week to return home. Like I said, that was fine with me; I had everything I ever needed, but the three of them had important jobs to get back to—that they would lose if they didn’t. We made the decision to sneak back over the border, which was very easy when you had your own private plane. It wasn’t at all legal, but I got us home safely, securely, and secretly. I knew where we could land where we didn’t have to go through customs. Of course, that meant when our new passports finally did come in, they would be sent to the address we gave the embassy in Mexico. My boss told me I would be fired if I didn’t get back to work right away, but this was more important. I took one last trip over that border, picked up the passports, mailed them to my family, and then I just kept flying. I haven’t been back to the United States since.

Microstory 581: World Leaders Debate Universal Identity

< > Table of Contents

Every sovereign nation in the world has some way to manage and track their citizenry. In the past, we’ve used ledgers, and other analog means, but now all of this information is kept in a central location. Some nations even share this information amongst each other, for ease of transportation. Others, however, do not. Travel between two countries can become problematic depending on the relationship between those two countries. Who hasn’t experienced a delay at the airport due to customs procedures. And it can get even more complicated if the traveler in question needs to first stop in a third country. One young man born and bred in Bellevue, Kansas believes that he has the solution to this problem, but it’s going to require a lot of cooperation between a lot of countries. “The variables are nearly incalculable for an endeavor like this. There are so many moving parts that no one person could accomplish this, which is why I need so much help. Unicards (working name) can help increase the efficiency of every nation, but it works best if everyone accepts it,” says Ikodo Murdoch, inventor of the new technology. Unicards would be a singular form of universal identity, with room for no competitor. Murdoch envisions a world where literally every person on the planet either carries one of these, or agrees on a subcutaneous implant. It would be used for identity verification, seamless purchasing transactions, and perhaps even tax purposes. Instead of carrying around credit cards, cash, and passports, one would need only this one thing. Murdoch believes that this would make everyday life much easier. Instead of worrying about having enough money, or whether a particular location accepts particular kind of card, everything would just be in one place. World leaders from seventy-three countries are currently debating such a program. Murdoch acknowledges that if only a fraction of countries agree to use the unicards, it might be worth it, but still hopes for growth beyond this. “It’s not an all or nothing thing,” Murdoch says, “but the technology serves the populace better if there’s only one. Now it doesn’t have to be my unicards, it could be something else. But I truly feel that this is the future. We must become one peoples...of one world. Most of our issues can be ultimately traced back to our own fragmentation.” The seventy-three countries that belong to the Wesmandian Alliance will be assembling in Iceland for the annual Northery Summit. The question of universal identity, in whatever form, is expected to be the primary topic of discussion.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 7, 2031

« < » > Table of Contents

Aura (formerly known as Lauren) Gardner dove across the car and tackled her son. “Matty!”

He hugged her tightly back.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t have a choice. They took me. They took me away from  you, and I’ve been trying to get back ever since. I never thought I would, but I guess they’re done with me. I’m here. You’re here. Everything is going to be fine.” She backed up a bit. “Let me get a look at you. My, it’s been, what? Fifteen years, maybe twenty? Oh, you have so much to tell me, I’m sure. But first, I need to explain where I’ve been.”

“I know where you’ve been,” Mateo admitted.

“How would you know that? Did you find Edward’s records?”

“Better,” Theo jumped in. “He found Edward. I go by Theo now.”

Aura stared at Theo like he was a ghost and fell back to her seat.

“You were reincarnated too?” the other man asked.

“Indeed...what name has been chosen for you this time?”

“Samsonite,” the man said. “Aura and I felt our new assignments before we left. That’s how we knew that we were jumping soon. But we figured we would land in the eleventh century. What year is this?”

They exchanged as much information as possible, but there wasn’t nearly enough time. Mateo thought that all five of them would be sent to the future, based on what Danica had said about them being a whole party.

Unfortunately, Mateo was wrong. Midnight came and sent both Mateo and Leona to April 7, 2031. They were alone in the clearing. They waited for signs of life but nothing came. They remained there alone for a half hour, hoping to see Leona’s brother, Mateo’s mother, and her significant other. “Leona. We should call them. Danica gave us those phones, remember?”

“I have the phones,” Leona replied in a huff. “I have all of the phones. I forgot to pass them out.”

“Okay,” Mateo said gently. “That’s okay. We’ll find them.”

“Where?” Leona asked angrily. “We’re in the middle of nowhere Canada! Your mother was only familiar with this area back in God-knows-when. Other than that, we have no connection to this town. We don’t know anyone, and we don’t have money! It’s pretty cold here for April, so that’s not great! Our only chance is to get back to Kansas, wishin’ and hopin’ that your family thinks to check there every year, just in case, but that’s practically impossible!”

“Give me one of the phones.”

“I told you. I have all of them. There’s no one to call!”

“Would you just trust me?” She was not happy, but handed one of the phones over anyway. While she walked away to kick the dirt around, Mateo discovered that they had access to the present-day internet. It was a little tough to navigate. Not only was the phone probably from deep in the future, but the internet had changed in the last 17 years. “I found it. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a hotel not twenty minutes from here by foot.”

“Do you remember me telling you the part about not having any money?”

“At the very least, we can get out of the cold. Hopefully we can work something out. If not, we’ll figure something else out.”

“Great plan, Mateo.”

“If we don’t try something, we’re going to die out here.”

The moonlight was hardly enough to see her face, but she was very obviously fuming. “Good point.” She began to walk away. “What are you waiting for?”

“It’s this way,” Mateo told her.

“Well why didn’t you say that?”

They walked out of the field, along some kind of body of water, past the high school, and through town. They ran a little bit of the way, not only to warm up, but because they were in a hurry to find a way out of their predicament. As soon as they walked into the inn, the man at the counter greeted them. “Welcome to Canada. Here is your itinerary.”

“Pardon?” Mateo asked, slightly out of breath.

“The jet leaves in one hour. A car is being brought around to automatically drive you to the base. From there, a state of the art aircraft will take you all the way to your final destination in San Diego. Shouldn’t take more than two hours.”

Leona took the itinerary. “What’s in San Diego?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have that information. But Mr. Reaver personally came out to ensure that you were taken care of. He said that you would be able to find the rest of your party there.”

Mateo looked up from the packet. “Our family must be down there. But why?”

“Let’s go outside,” Leona suggested.

“Wait, I have a few more questions.”

“Mateo. Outside. Now,” she insisted. She turned to the innkeeper. “Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Reaver will be very pleased with your service.” The innkeeper smiled as they walked out. Once they were out of earshot, Leona pulled him to the side. “We cannot get on that jet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t find this a little weird?”

“Nothing in my life has been normal for the last couple of weeks...decades.”

“Do you recognize the name Reaver?”

“I’ve heard it before. I can’t place it. We know him?”

“His company is the one who bought up the warehouse district where we had our surgeries. He’s been under a lot of suspicion. The authorities haven’t been able to find any evidence, but his business practices are shady at best. He’s responsible for a lot of unemployment, gentrification, and even a standard increase in the business day. He’s basically the anti-Google, and he’s just as powerful, if not more.”

“Why the hell would a guy like that have anything to do with us?” He started to look up Reaver Enterprises on his phone. “Theo is a pretty interesting kid, but I have a hard time believing he’s already networked this much. He’s not yet a teen—oh my God,” he interrupted himself

“What is it?”

He was looking at a picture of Horace Reaver. “This is him. This is the guy who tried to kill me when I jumped to the future.”

“He’s a salmon. That actually makes sense. It explains how he’s advanced technology so much.”

“What are we going to do? He probably has our family. We have to get them back, but you’re right, we cannot get on that jet.”

“This packet has the address of where we’re supposed to go once in San Diego. We have to find a way to get there on our own.” A car pulled up in front of them. The door opened, revealing the inside to be empty. “Run,” Leona ordered.

As they ran away from the inn, Leona looked through her phone for the nearest airport. The directions said that it was going to take almost an hour to walk to Lake Vernon, but they were able to wade through a stream and cross a highway to cut that down. They were exhausted when they arrived. Just as they were deciding whether they should try and figure out how to steal a plane, a woman approached them on the dock. “Can I help you?”

They froze, unsure of what they should say. They had already established that they had no money, but they also had no other form of compensation. They didn’t have a fancy watch to sell, or any special skills to trade. No one in their right mind would help two freaky people looking for a trip to San Diego at two in the morning. They say that honesty is the best policy, but Mateo decided to fudge the truth a little. “An evil business magnate kidnapped our family and is holding them hostage in San Diego. He says only he can get us there in time before he kills them at midnight since he stole our passports. We were going to steal your plane, because we’re desperate.”

“Are you talking about Horace Reaver?”

“We are,” Leona answered.

“Get in,” the woman said. “My brother died of cancer after working for Evil Enterprises.”

They got lucky. True to her word the woman, who refused to exchange names, flew them all the way to California. They were there many hours later than Reaver would have expected them, which could either be very good because he would have no idea where they were, or very bad because he may have decided to kill their family. The woman couldn’t be any more involved than she already was, so she immediately started getting ready to leave after dropping them off on Lower Otay Lake, having not filed a flight plan. The last thing she did was give Leona a few hundred dollars and a gun, saying that they might need it. Leona later said that it seemed very un-Canadian of her.

Mateo and Leona made their way towards the address written at the end of the packet, hoping that it wasn’t a diversion. It took quite a long time to get across town, especially since they were not quite in San Diego from the start. They had to find a cab that was not only driven by a human, but who would also accept Canadian bills. He appeared to be sympathetic to their troubles after they mentioned Reaver again. It would appear that everyone hated him, but no one was capable of defeating him. Mateo couldn’t help but feel like doing just that was exactly the reason he was turned into a time traveler, despite the Delegator’s claim that he had no official job.

They found Aura, Samsonite, and little Theo chained up in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, drained of energy and literally starving. They weren’t even under guard. After getting some food and freshening up, they posited that Reaver was only ever interested in killing Mateo and Leona, and that the jet was engineered to blow up or crash. The only reason he was keeping the other three hostage was so that they wouldn’t be able to make contact. Why he bothered giving them the address was the only thing that truly could not be explained.

Mateo wanted to finally catch up with his long-lost mother, but he fell asleep while they were talking. By the time he woke up next to Leona in the motel bed, it was noon of the following year.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 6, 2030

« < » > Table of Contents

Mateo slept all the way across midnight. The sun was still not out when he found Leona sitting on the other side of the lawn, watching birds argue with each other in a nearby tree. He approached her carefully. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said back. “Now I know why you left on the train. I don’t want my family to go through this. I’ve disappeared, and that’s tough, but they’ll get through it and move on.” She looked up at him. “We need to keep them out of this.”

“I agree.”

“But I refuse to go to Utah.”

He laughed and sat down next to her. “You won’t hear me trying to force you.”

“I do wish that I could have said goodbye to my little brother, but it’s for the best. I can’t touch him now that I’ve been activated. I don’t want him to become one of us.”

Oh boy. “There’s something you should know.”

She patiently waited while a car pulled up behind them that they ignored.

“He already is one of us.”

He could feel her surprise, but she did a pretty good job of hiding it. “Since when?”

“Since before he was born. Apparently, we can sometimes be reincarnated. The way I understand it, he died at quite an old age.”

She turned her head towards Mateo, but kept her eyes to the grass. “Then maybe it’s hereditary.”

“How do you mean?”

“Think about it. Out of all the salmon we’ve met, most of them have been related to one of us. Your birth parents, your aunt, your cousin, and my brother. Hell, that doctor and the Delegator might be our children from the future, for all we know.”

“There was a guy who healed me with his blood when I had an allergic reaction after the surgery. He walked through a portal in the wall.”

She looked at Mateo. “Grandson?”

He shook his head with uncertainty. “I don’t know that what you’re saying is how it works.”

She went back to watching the birds. “Yeah, it doesn’t matter either way. I still need to stay away from Theo. Maybe he would need to be reinitialized, and I still don’t want that for him if I can stop it. He may be an old man, but to me he’s just my baby brother.”

“I hate when you call be a baby,” said Theo behind them.

They turned around. “Theo!” Leona cried.

Mateo chuckled uncomfortably. “What are you doing here?”

“I came here to find you. Did you already go in?”

“The chapel? I’m not sure I’m even Christian anymore.”

Theo snorted. “Neither is that place.” Leona pulled herself away when Theo tried to help her up. “You can’t hurt me, sestra.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t have time for this crap.” And with that, he deliberately placed his hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “There, it’s too late. Now is it asking too much for my big sister to give me a hug.”

She looked like she was about to cry, but she jumped up and hugged him, both despite and because of her feelings.

Mateo led the way towards the chapel. “Why are we going in there?”

“Didn’t you just speak with the Delegator?”

“We did.”

“And he sent you here.”

“Right.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“We don’t have a car.”

“No, that’s not it. In the daylight, you can see Lebanon from here. You knew you were supposed to be here. He still should have told you. He’s not doing his job right.” He opened the door and stepped in like he was showing them their new house. “This chapel hasn’t always been here. In fact, it was destroyed once twenty-two years ago. But they can’t destroy what’s underneath.”

“What’s underneath?”

Theo smiled menacingly and spoke the magic words. Literally. “Open sesame seed bun! Fresh meat! The coast is clear!” A few seconds later, the entire floor began to descend. It started off slowly until settling into a second set of walls which closed above them to form a new roof. “Hold onto something.” The elevator dropped dramatically, faster than any before, but thankfully slowed down again after a while. “The base is 144 stories under the ground. Engineers and construction workers were sent back in time to build it. We don’t know exactly when, but we think it’s been here for millions of years. We call it The Constant.”

“What is it for?”

“It’s a resupply station. Down here you’ll find meds, food, appropriate clothing for your new time period, etcetera. There are some other creature comforts if you want to take a break from your mission, but they won’t let you stay too long. There’s only one person who stays down here, and she’s always here. Like I said, this is a constant. It doesn’t move through time like our graveyard. It was built in one place, at one time, and then left alone, which means that The Concierge isn’t like other salmon. She’s very special, though.” The elevator stopped.

“She’s special in what way?”

The doors opened. “I’m immortal.” It was Salinger.

“Danica!”

“It’s very nice to see you again, Mateo.”

“How long has it been for you?”

“No one knows how long I’ve been here. They compare notes and have their guesses, but I’ve never told a soul. I won’t make an exception for you, even though you’re my cousin.”

Mateo couldn’t help but embrace her. They hardly knew each other, but she was family, and that counted for something. Leona joined in the hug, followed by little Theo. “Do you regret your choice? To go through the other door at Stonehenge?”

“For the most part, I do not,” Danica replied. “But there are many more minutes than there are salmon. It can get lonely, but I have a television.”

They laughed.

Danica looked at her watch and began to frown. “Unfortunately, you don’t have long here. I’ve been authorized to give you these.” She presented to them five futuristic mobile phones. We’ve put you on a family plan. They won’t run out of battery, and the network will never go down, however they’ll usually only connect to each other. I don’t know for sure, but you probably cannot be separated from them. Time should always tether you to them.”

“Why are there five?” Leona asked.

“That’s why you need to leave. You’re scheduled to meet up with the other two people in your party.”

“You can’t come with us, just for the day?”

“I’m part of the Constant. I haven’t left in—ohohoho! Almost had me there! Let’s just say that I haven’t left in forever.”

“Who else are we picking up?” Leona asked.

Danica shrugged. “I haven’t been given that information.” She looked something up on her device. “I only know that you’re supposed to be in a city called Huntsville, Ontario in less than nineteen hours. Which means you’ll have to speed. I promise not to pull you over.” She winked.

“Will I ever see you again? Will they ever let me back down here?”

“I imagine so. However, I promise you nothing. This is here for when you need it. The basic premise of this whole time travel thing is that you’re put where you don’t belong and have to find a way to survive and do some good. It’s not a vacation; it’s a calling. This place is for furloughs.” With that, they said their goodbyes and left.

The car automatically drove them halfway across the country, and into Canada where they presented fake passports that Theo had drawn up. Presumably, they would know what they were looking for when they found it. They later discovered that they wouldn’t have to look very far. Near the end of whatever it was they were doing, Theo motioned them over. “You should sit over here.”

“What? Why?”

“Just come sit over here with me. That seat needs to be empty. I just know it.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see. Would you two just do it? Have we not yet learned trust?”

Mateo and Leona reluctantly crawled over and sat on either side of Theo. It was awkward. “This is awkward.”

Theo looked at his watch. “It should be happening any minute.”

Leona shifted, trying to get more comfortable. “Are we gonna get hit by a meteorite or something?”

“Just wait,” Theo insisted. “You’ll like this surprise.”

After a few moments of waiting, a formless blob faded into view on the other seat where they had been sitting. Detail by detail, the image focused and became clear. The blob turned into two blobs, then two people, then two people with features. They were kissing each other, but stopped after the transition was completely finished. They looked up and around, but not directly at the other three. “Are we in a motor vehicle?” the man asked.

“We jumped to the future,” the woman continued. “Why is that?”

Mateo recognized the woman. He would know that face and voice anywhere, even though he hadn’t seen her in twenty years. “Mom?”

« < » > Table of Contents