The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 14, 2405

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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?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 31, 2398

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It takes a second for them to realize that Treasure never actually said a word with her mouth. Instead, an invisible speaker in the tiara that she’s wearing outputs her voice. It does sound like what they would expect a woman of her looks to sound like, but they all independently decide to not ask her about it. Mateo steps back into the master sitting room to shake Treasure’s hand. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Thack Natalie Collins via Amber Fossward this whole time. Did you just get my message?”

“Miss Collins didn’t pass along any message,” Treasure says. “I heard a scream. I thought it was just the Time Shriek at first, but I felt compelled to investigate.”

“That’s weird that you would hear that from the bulk,” Leona says from still inside the neuro-tampering chamber. “What is this room?”

“What was the message?” Treasure asks Mateo.

“Can you help us get out of here?” Mateo recites the psychic signal he was trying to send across the bulkverse.

“I can, yeah,” Treasure says politely.

“Is it okay if you take two trips?” Leona asks. “There are four of us.”

“No, five,” Mateo says. “Alyssa needs to come too.”

“She can’t,” Leona tells him with a shake of her head. “We’ve already seen her in the future. She’s destined to wait in a time bubble. If we hadn’t found her, we never would have known to come back here to get you.”

Treasure chuckles. “Four, five; I don’t need two trips. I can take you all.”

“Two people is usually the limit,” Leona points out.

“It’s not my limit,” Treasure contends, literally rolling up her sleeves. “Where would you like to go? I hear Schurverse is nice this time of Bearimy.”

“We actually just need to get to the future,” Marie clarifies. “Preferably November 26, 2398, but at least no sooner.”

“That’s four and a half billion years from now,” Leona adds.

“I can’t technically travel through time,” Treasure explains. “But what I can do is take you out of this brane, then back in at a different point in time.”

“That works for us,” Mateo says. “But actually she needs to go to a different point, and a different reality.” He points to Abigail.

“Then I will make two trips.” Treasure steps into the neuro-tampering room, and offers her hand. “I can’t read your mind, but my ability can. You navigate, and I’ll drive. We’ll get to where you need to be. Just concentrate on your target destination.”

While Abigail is on her way home, Mateo and Marie carry a sleeping Danica over to the couch. Leona starts to take the neuro-tampering device apart. She rips out its guts, and throws it into a pile. She places the innocuous pieces, like the casing and hardware, into a separate pile. That can all stay, because it’s not enough to rebuild the whole thing. Mateo and Marie come over to help, following her direction.

Just as they’re finishing up, Treasure returns. “It turned out to be a rather long trip. Something I should have said to your friend is that we can’t really talk while we’re in the bubble, but you can breathe just fine. Don’t try to hold your breath, it will only make the pressure worse. You can try to use hand signals but it’s also a bit hard to move. Otherwise, just enjoy the ride.”

Once they seal up the secret bookcase entrance, Treasure gathers them together and screams. As the sound intensifies, they feel themselves being jerked into the protective bubble she mentioned before with the same force as the start of a roller coaster. They’re then pulled into the bulk. Treasure was telling the truth when she said that they would be able to breathe, but not speak. They could hear each other’s muffled voices, but not make out any words. The bubble wasn’t this hollow object that they were inside of, but a dense gel that formed around each of them tightly. There wasn’t any seating per se, but they could bend their knees, and adjust their weight as they would if sitting down upon something.

They float in darkness mostly, but occasionally detect the vague outline of gargantuan objects in the distance when some kind of light ripples by. They look like knives, and Mateo gets the sense that each one is its own universe. When it’s over, they find themselves standing in the middle of a dense forest at twilight. “This is my homeworld, but I don’t think they want you spending much time here,” Treasure says apologetically.

“That’s okay,” Mateo says sincerely. “Perhaps one day.”

She nods and screams again, sending them all on the journey back. This leg is much shorter, suggesting that their respective timelines are closer in modern days, but Mateo doesn’t really understand the hyperdimensional physics going on here, and he doesn’t believe Leona does either. Despite it being her field of study, this goes far beyond her education and experience. It’s like the difference between knowing that an apple will fall down to your head from the tree, and truly understanding why and what causes that. The scream is complete when they land at their destination. At least that’s where they think they are; it’s where they’ve stopped.

“This doesn’t look familiar,” Marie notes. “Leona, what time is it?”

She looks at her watch, which always knows the exact time and date for when and where she is, no matter how much time traveling she’s gone through. “December 31st, 2398 at 15:02. Hm.”

“Sorry, I’m off,” Treasure says.

“No, I was meant to be the navigator,” Leona laments.

“No, it was me. I thought I overshot it. I’m still pretty new at this, to be honest. I should have been upfront about that.”

“It’s really fine,” Mateo tells her. This isn’t that long. I mean, it’s pretty long for me, but November 26 would have been a gap too.”

“Look at that architecture,” Marie says as she steps towards the skyline, towering up into the twilight sky. “We can’t be in the Third Rail. No where on Earth is like this; not yet, anyway.”

Leona looks down at her watch again. “Unless this thing is broken, it’s right. Maybe we’re in the wrong reality. I worked really hard to think about the right one, though. I purged all other thoughts from my brain.”

“Could your watch be broken? Did leaving the universe mess it up?” Mateo asks.

“I’ve done it before,” Leona notes. “It’s never been an issue.”

“This is definitely salmonverse,” Treasure assures them.

“Can we ask that person?” Mateo suggests. “Would it be weird?”

Leona shrugs her shoulders. “If he looks at us funny for asking what year it is, what’s the worst that could happen?” She leads the way towards the man who is walking his dog along the treeline. “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” He’s not perturbed that they’re interrupting him in the first place, which is a good start.

“Could you tell me...?” She can’t even say it.

“The date?” he just somehow assumes. “It’s New Year’s Eve, 2398.”

“Which calendar?” Mateo furthers.

“Clavical,” the man replies. He reads their expressions. “Are you from before the Clavical? I’ve never met travelers from that far in the past. Could I get a photo?” He raises a hand, fingers separated, thumb placed on the band of the ring on his index.

“Sorry,” Leona tells him. “Better not.”

“I understand, you wanna keep a low profile. I’ll always remember this, though.” He and the dog casually walk away.

“They do this in the main sequence,” Mateo says. “They get rid of the old calendar, and start a new one. It’s 2398, but not our 2398. This is where Cheyenne is from, but she wouldn’t say how far in the future.”

“That tracks with everything we know of her so far,” Leona determines.

“I saw something when I was here briefly with Danica,” Mateo reveals. “There was a sign. It was six keys, each had its own symbol on it.”

“That’s where the word clavicle comes from,” Marie says. “Key.”

“What were the symbols?” Leona asks her husband.

“It’s hard to remember. Like I said, it was so brief. We accidentally took Cheyenne with us, which is why she needed the Insulator of Life; to get back to her future. One of them was, like, two vertical lines next to each other, complete with the arrows at each end. Another was three lines, but no arrows. Oh, there was one that was squarish...two lines intersecting each other. The bottom right was filled in.”

“Oh my God, that’s a quadrant, Mateo.”

“Let me guess, the fourth quadrant,” Marie figures.

“The Parallel, the Third Rail, and the Fourth Quadrant,” Leona lists. “Did you see the Fifth Division symbol? It had arches, we saw it while we were there.”

“I think so, yeah, and that would make sense. The symbol on one of the other two keys was a circle, and then several crescents to the above it.”

“The main sequence,” Leona realizes. “We’ve been moving through time with bad information. Everyone has only ever talked about there being five parallel realities in total, but they’re wrong. There are six.”

“That’s why we call it The Sixth Key.” They were so deep in discussion, they didn’t even notice someone approaching them. As he steps into the dying light, they get a better look at his face. It’s Ramses. Well, it’s a Ramses.

“Report,” Leona requests.

“The report is that you’re not where you’re supposed to be. You gotta go.”

“Wait, just answer one question,” Leona begs.

“No.” Alt!Ramses holds his palm towards them, and gently pushes air forward. They can feel themselves being flung backwards in time, but just the three of them. Treasure doesn’t come with. When the streaks of speeding light around them give way to discernible form, they realize that they’ve landed in the Crown Center parking lot. But then time has to move the opposite direction for a little bit. The cars drive off, and a large tent is erected. Soldiers are aiming guns on them. “Hold!” one of them orders. The leader steps forward. “It’s them! Welcome back, Agent Matic.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 32,398

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Asier doesn’t come to retrieve Mateo after the next break from realtime. The stasis pod hatch opens on its own ten thousand years later, so Mateo steps out to head for the master sitting room. It’s empty, which he takes as an opportunity. Looking around to make sure that no one is spying on him, he creeps over to the globe, and opens it up. It’s empty too; the Omega Gyroscope has been removed from it.

“She knew she couldn’t trust you,” Bhulan reveals.

Mateo closes it back up without looking at her. “I just wanted to see it again.”

“Uhuh,” she says, not believing him. “It’s hers, you know. As long as the Gyroscope is in use, the user can do whatever they want with it, and no one can take it from them until the current objective has been fulfilled, or they give it freely.”

“It can’t be stolen, got it.” He steps away from it and sighs.

“I can be convinced not to tell her you came straight here to steal it.”

“I wasn’t stealing it, I was just going to borrow it.”

“For what purpose?”

“To get back to my family.”

Bhulan chuckles. “That thing can’t do that for you. I mean, technically it can, but not on its own. People seem to think that its power is limitless, but it’s not. It can alter the physical laws of the world that it is in. It can’t turn you into a bird, and it can’t send you forward in time. At best, it would give you the option of jumping through time, but you would have to figure out how to actually accomplish that on your own.”

“What if I asked it to alter the world so that psychically-powered wormholes capable of time travel open up when conceived up by someone who wants one?”

She smiles. “That’s creative, but you’re not psychic enough. It doesn’t alter people, I mean, not really. Like I said, it can’t turn you into a bird.”

“No birds, no psychics. Understood.”

“Anyway, we’re having a pool party today, if you wanna come. We can print you a swimsuit. I bet you’ve never worn one that fits perfectly.”

It seems weird to have a pool party with five people, three of which are related, but he follows her anyway. They’re in the short course pool today, instead of the Olympic-size one, and it is packed full of party-goers. Who the hell are these people? “Are they holograms, androids...?”

“Oh no, they’re real,” she claims. “Have you ever heard of Westfall?”

“So, they don’t even know where they are?”

“They think that this is a rich community’s disaster bunker.”

“Isn’t that what it actually is anyway?” Mateo suggests.

She just rolls her eyes. The three of them aren’t rich in the traditional sense, but they command all of this real estate, and all power is concentrated in them. They’re rich.

“Did you ask for them to come here?” he asks. “Spit it out,” he encourages when she hesitates to respond.

“It’s the Gyroscope. This is a glitch. Tamerlane thinks it has something to do with its user. He was actually the first Westfall victim to show up, and he just never left. Without them, there would be nothing to do here. Most of the time, when we’re not in stasis, it’s because alarms have reported that someone is here who shouldn’t be. One of us is then tasked with leaving the stasis chamber, and containing the intruder.”

“That’s why Danica is so freaked out, because the whole point is to prevent all this scifi stuff from being able to happen in this reality.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“But intruders like this don’t happen in the other realities, right?”

“Not to this annoying degree, no.” She gestures towards the kids laughing and screaming in the water, thinking they’re pulling one over on a wealthy snob.

“Maybe it’s wrong to think of it as a glitch. Maybe it’s more of a consequence. The Gyroscope is like a vacuum, sucking up all temporal energy, and pushing it away from the world, but that opens tears in whatever separates this universe from others. Things are supposed to go out only, but occasionally, something comes the wrong direction through these tears. I mean, maybe it’s even the temporal energy itself that’s doing it. If you were trying to suck out all the carbon, it would be fine, but what you’re doing is taking power away from us, and giving it to them, which they then use to sneak in.”

Bhulan slowly turns her face away from him in thought. “Hmm.”

“I don’t sound like an idiot?”

“Usually, yes, but that was surprisingly...not entirely ridiculous. What we need to do is move the temporal energy out of the world, and put it somewhere where we can contain it, where it can’t affect anyone. Like a...pocket dimension?”

“Or how about Durus?” Mateo offers. He’s not doing it to be nice. Durus is a rogue planet that is not very far away from Earth in celestial terms, and if he and his friends can get back to the AOC, it won’t take them long to make the journey. From there, the smart team members will surely be able to come up with a way out of the Third Rail, with virtually limitless power at their disposal.

“No, there are too many people there. Well, not in this reality, of course, but in others, and that would put them at risk of accidentally crossing over. One errant portal, and the system breaks down.”

That’s okay, it doesn’t have to be Durus. As long as Mateo knows where it is, they can get to it four and a half billion years from now. By then, these people will have tossed it to the back of their minds so they can focus on other issues. Once this new plan works, they’ll stop worrying about it, which will allow Mateo’s team to exploit it. “I suppose Dardius is out.” He doesn’t want them choosing it, because it’s too far away from here. The AOC can’t make it in a reasonable amount of time.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t wanna do that.” She looks over at him. “In fact, we wouldn’t want it to be anywhere where there are people. That includes you. You’re trying to trick me into telling you where we’ll end up sending the temporal energy.”

“I don’t understand the problem,” Mateo argues. “You want us to leave the Third Rail, we want to leave the Third Rail. To me, that sounds like our objectives are aligned, but you keep acting like I’m the frickin’ enemy.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Yeah, it’s way complicated, and I’m just a big ol’ dum-dum who couldn’t find his arms with his hands. Well, if I’m no longer needed, I think I’ll go take a nap. I haven’t slept in a long time, because the time jumps give me a huge case of FOMO.”

“Mateo...”

“No, it’s okay, I understand. Good luck with your little power vacuum.” Holy crap, power vacuum? Is it really that obvious? Did he just help himself realize where they end up dumping the temporal energy?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 20, 2398

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Andile didn’t want to say much else after dropping that bomb on them about the alternate version of Leona. She said that it wasn’t her place to explain. The other Leona’s flight would come in the next day, and they could ask their questions then. So that’s what they did. They went back to the condo to fill in the rest of the team, and waited. The others wanted to come too, but the other Leona apparently didn’t know them at all, so it would probably just be overwhelming. The next morning Alt!Leona answered the door, not surprised, but yes, unnerved at the sight.

“Thank you for coming again,” Andile says once they’re seated.

“Thank you for having us,” Mateo says.

It becomes evident that Alt!Leona wants to talk first, but she needs them to be patient with her. Lips closed, almost pursed, she stares at the space between Mateo and her alternate. “I trust you’re doing well?” she asks Mateo.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Mateo answers.

“It’s nice to know there’s at least one Mateo out there who didn’t die.”

“Actually, he did die,” Mateo’s wife, Leona clarifies. “A few times.”

Now Alt!Leona purses her lips fully. “Well, at least he came back.”

“Leona, what happened?” Leona asks her self.

“I’m going to tell you my story,” Alt!Leona begins, assuming nothing about what you’ve been through. I may tell you things that you already know, and you’re just going to have to accept that, and be patient. I also don’t want any commentary about how things played out for you, or anything like that.”

“Understood,” Leona says.

Alt!Leona begins. “When I was nearing my sixteenth birthday, a friend of mine suggested I try alcohol, because drinking alcohol is the type of thing that normal teenagers do. So I did, and it went poorly. It made me sick—not enough to have to get my stomach pumped, but I had to go to urgent care just the same. I was sitting across from a man in the waiting area, trying to retch into a bag, when I ended up getting some on him. Long story short, I figured out who he was, and went to his house to apologize. That’s when everything changed. I learned that he was a time traveler, but not in control of his own life. I don’t know who was in control, if anyone, but I, admittedly, fell in love. He and his situation were fascinating, and I couldn’t just let that go.

“I probably would have become a film student in college if not for him. Instead, I pursued a physics degree. I wanted to understand what was going on with him. We met another; a teleporter, and she led us to believe that there were others. There was this one other guy too, but we weren’t really sure what his deal was. Anyway, I learned that an organ transplant might allow a normal person to take on the temporal characteristics of a traveler. Lucky for me, I was suffering from some kidney problems, which I might have been able to deal with, but I didn’t want to, so I started to not take very good care of myself. I needed a kidney transplant, and as luck would have it, Mateo was a match.

“Obviously, this process normally takes a long time, but we couldn’t wait for the bureaucracy. Mateo only existed one day out of the year. Through my connections, I was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform the surgeries under unusual circumstances. Let’s just say that he had lost his license for a similar infraction years prior. This was the biggest mistake of my life, and seeing a version of Mateo sitting here hasn’t helped, like I hoped it would after Andile called to tell me that he was alive. The surgery went bad, and Mateo died. After a year of mourning, I discovered that his death didn’t prevent me from becoming like him. I guess it just delayed it. I only made one jump before I was approached by a stranger with an offer.

“She told me that it was her job to rescue people from the timeline. She said that I was in a different reality completely, and I could stay here, and not be on my pattern anymore. I only did it to be with Mateo, so that seemed like a good deal. Before she disappeared, she reintroduced me to Andile, and I never saw her again, so I never got the chance to ask her why it didn’t work. Instead of freeing me of my pattern, I just ended up taking Andile with me. I didn’t mean to. It’s not like I gave her my kidney too. At most, I touched her during a hug. Maybe you have an explanation for it.”

Leona and Mateo nod reverently, as they have been during the story.

“Do you?” Alt!Leona asks.

“Oh, sorry, we didn’t want to comment.”

“It was more about not being interrupted,” Alt!Leona straightens out.

It was hard for Leona to hear that story. She has met other versions of people before; even of herself, but this one is a lot different. This Leona didn’t spend hardly any time with Mateo, and never built a team. She and Andile have pretty much been alone this whole time. That changes a person. “Everything happened to me just as it did for you, until the surgery. A time traveling doctor did it for us, probably following what went wrong in your reality. Someone must have wanted things to play out differently, so they altered history. Normally, you would cease to exist as the result of that, but when you’re dealing with parallel realities, that all gets more complicated. Who was this stranger who told you this would free you of the pattern?”

“Her name was Olaya,” Alt!Leona answers. “I don’t know if it was a first or last name, but she didn’t give me any other.”

“Never heard of her,” Mateo says.

“Nerakali did say that there were other teams, but I don’t remember if Jupiter did. That was back during his era,” Leona says.

“So, do you know the answer?” Alt!Leona asks again.

Leona shakes her head. “Olaya should have been right. This place doesn’t have time travel, or at least not much of it. We don’t think it ever did. My theory is that that’s why it was created in the first place.”

“You did eventually lose it, though,” Mateo says. “When did that happen?”

“It was about three months ago,” Alt!Leona replies.

“Three months and twelve days.”

Mateo and Leona exchange a look. “That’s when we arrived. We did this to you.”

“You helped us,” Andile corrects. “We don’t want to time travel. We just want to stay put. I mean, we could do without the shady government people chasing us all over the country, but that could have happened either way. People crave power.”

“Do they know about you?” Leona asks. “If anyone would recognize you, then they probably know that there are two of us. And they know that there are two Angelas, so all in all, they know too much.”

“I don’t think they know about me,” Alt!Leona tells her.

“They only caught me,” Andile says apologetically.

“And you’re one of a kind.” Alt!Leona reaches over to take Andile by the hand.

“Look,” Leona begins, “I know you don’t want to have anything to do with this stuff, so we’re prepared to leave, and never mention you again, but I don’t feel like that’s enough. If you want to be somewhere safe, it’s not in this city. I don’t know where it is, though. I don’t know how to help you.”

“We don’t need your help,” Alt!Leona claims, “but we may be able to help you.”

“How might you do that?”

“I heard them talking while I was being transported to the fishbowl,” Andile says. “They’re looking for someone more valuable than any of us. And I know where he is.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 24, 2398

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Angela walks back into the library. She’s only been gone for the last sixteen hours, but it feels like too long. She could learn all she needs to know from the internet, from the comfort of her alternate self’s home, but there’s something about being able to literally walk through the data that makes this place feel like her home.

The head librarian smiles at her. “Back so soon?”

“Not soon enough,” Angela notes. “Why are you only open 10:00 to 18:00?”

Madam MacDougas frowns just a little. “Hm. Seems normal to me.”

Angela nods, but still doesn’t agree.

“What would you like to study today?” Madam MacDougas goes on.

“I’m still working on history.”

“Are you just going to go from the beginning of recorded history, and continue chronologically?”

“I imagine that’s going to make the most sense in context.”

“All right, dear.”

Angela walks past the counter, and into the stacks, heading for the history section. She passes by the sciences, where she notices someone she recognizes. “Mateo?”

“Oh, hey,” he responds, looking up from his book on quantum mechanics.

“How long have you been here?”

“Twelve years,” he answers. “I’m from the future.”

She chuckles.

“Thirty minutes,” he answers truthfully.

“It just opened,” she points out.

“I didn’t know that when I walked down here this morning. The librarian let me in early.”

“I see.” She drops her gaze down to his book. “Little...uh...little advanced, don’t you think?”

He tips the book towards him to check the title from above, even though he obviously already knows what he picked out. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that idea. I don’t understand most of these words, but I don’t know where to begin.” Or whether to begin.

Angela slips back into the stacks, and isn’t gone long before she returns with a thin white book with lots of pictures. “At the beginning. This is for children, but I assume you could use a refresher since it’s been so long since you were in school. Not judging, by the way.”

He’s embarrassed, but she’s right, and he sees that. “Thank you.” He sets the big book down, and cracks the new one open.

“Can I make another suggestion?” Angela asks after watching him for another few seconds.

“Okay.”

“Don’t study that if you don’t care about it. Couples don’t have to be interested in the same things, or even be at the same level of intelligence.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“Does Leona ever make you feel dumb?”

“Sometimes,” he replies. “She doesn’t do it on purpose, but I see how annoyed you people are when I can’t follow what you’re talking about.”

“I can’t speak for the others, but for my part in that, I apologize.”

“It’s okay, Angela. I’ve been this way my entire life. It’s not like I thought I was a genius. I just assumed I would end up marrying a retail clerk, or maybe another driver.”

“Well, I didn’t know you back then, but I’ve already seen improvement. Honestly, it’s a lot faster than most people I watched develop in the afterlife simulation. Granted, most of them weren’t trying, because they saw it as their end state reward, but they had a lot more time than you, and essentially infinite resources. I saw the value in enriching myself while I was there, but that was a personal decision. I never considered it some kind of universal maxim. It’s okay that you can’t pilot a spaceship, or build a computer from scratch with a toothpick and some twine. You’re still part of the team, and no one thinks less of you. I can make sure they don’t make you feel like that again.”

“Please don’t say anything.”

“Okay, I won’t. But again, don’t study that if you don’t want to.” She looks around the library. “There’s a topic in here somewhere that you genuinely do want to learn more about. Let’s try to find that instead. Let’s find your niche. We already have a physicist.”

“I guess, maybe...

“Go on,” she encourages.

“I could look into philosophy?”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll go find you some starter books.”

Microstory 1781: Triangle Water

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There was originally nothing special about the Bermuda Triangle. There are many explanations for why there seem to be more lost aircraft and oceancraft in the area, and not all of them are supernatural. Yes, some believe it leads to another dimension, while others think that there’s some kind of glitch in the magnetosphere over this spot. Even the more logical explanations aren’t necessary, because the truth is that it mostly comes down to math. Why are there more disappearances in this one region of the sea, as opposed to, say, the middle of the South Pacific Ocean? Simply because there is more travel happening in this area. It’s like asking why there are more deaths in cars that are driving on the road, as opposed to cars that are parked in people’s garages. Well, they’re not moving, so there’s not as much opportunity to suffer an injury. It’s not impossible, but not as common, and not reported as a traffic accident. In the 1950s, sensationalist media began to suggest that there was something different about the Bermuda Triangle, and people began to contrive their conspiracy theories. Once this happened, the Triangle began to distinguish itself. Just the suggestion that it was special was what made it special, and that was what gave it the temporal properties that it otherwise would not have had. To be clear, supernatural disappearances did not start to occur in the 50s. It was still perfectly safe to sail or fly over these waters, and expect no more problems than you might encounter elsewhere. Neither activity is without risk, but that’s true of anywhere. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to be prepared, and again, this is true of anything. At any rate, you won’t have to worry about an undersea demon rising up to eat you. It’s more that becoming so important to the global consciousness has allowed the natural laws of temporal sciences to exploit it for other purposes.

Time travel is real, and so is immortality, but reaching true immortality is a pretty big chore. It requires obtaining eleven sources of water. Catalyst primes the body to accept them, and Activator binds them together. Each of the sources in between imbues you with a different flavor of non-mortality. Bermuda Triangle water is called Existence. Most of the waters are fairly obvious in regards to their purpose, while Existence is a little more vague—though not quite as vague as Death—at least if all you’ve heard is its name. Youth keeps you young, or even youngifies you, if necessary. Longevity lets you keep going throughout the years. Health cures you of disease, and immunizes you against all future disease. The others are just as apparent when you first hear of them. You can take any of the waters you want, and exclude any you don’t, but once you drink Activator, it’s over. You are permanently at least one kind of immortal, and you can never benefit from any of the ones you missed. Heck, you could theoretically not drink any of the middle nine, and become permanently immune to them. Some choose to ignore Existence, but it is the absolute most important. Time water keeps a time travel event from preventing you from ever reaching your goal of immortality in an alternate reality. Existence is similar, but instead it prevents a time travel event from preventing you from being born in the first place. If you never existed, you can’t become immortal, can you, even if you drank Time in your first timeline? The closer to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, the better, and it only counts for the water found after 1950, but if you did manage to drink it, and then Activate, no one can take it away, even in the past.

Microstory 1699: Separate and Actually Equal

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When the small universe of Ansutah was created, a woman named Serif found herself trapped inside. She was trying to get out, so she could rejoin her crew on The Elizabeth Warren, but in the attempt to save an innocent little boy, she couldn’t make it in time. She was not a salmon, but she was not a choosing one either. Her form was forged from stone, and her life sparked by a very powerful chooser. She was created to share a salmon’s temporal pattern. At the end of every day, they would jump forwards in time one year. If this salmon had been left in Ansutah, his pattern would have ceased, as the powers that be would no longer have any control over him. Serif was never being controlled by them, however. Her ability to jump through time was simply part of who she was, and it followed her over the threshold. So she continued to do this, as did her child, once she was born. The Maramon who dominated the landscape were aware of her, and they left her alone. To them, there were three types of humans: the primary gods, who were responsible for their creation, and the creation of the world itself; the secondary gods, who were around when it happened; and tertiary gods, which included everyone else. Serif was secondary, and that afforded her some reverence. If any tertiary god were to be found in their presence, they would probably ultimately be killed. As time went on, the Maramon progressed, but Serif only aged a few years. They were heartbroken and angry to learn that their universe was so small, and they would have no way of supporting their ever-growing population. The Crossover missions had failed, and they were going to run out of usable space on the surface of the planet if they didn’t do something. A group of scientists realized that Serif could actually help.

Serif was responsible for their predicament, as it was she who kidnapped their primary god, and sent her to the Warren, where she could no longer increase the size of the universe. They had always been aware of this, and also of the fact that there was no way she could have known what would happen. Once the world was large enough to include outer space, they lost track of its breadth, and couldn’t tell how small it still was. Plus, as their universe became larger, her home universe grew more unstable, and they understood something had to be done. Either way, that was then, and this is now. Now she could help alleviate the strain. She let scientists study her for decades, which for her, was only weeks. They were able to synthesize her pattern, and graft it onto a living host. It was years before they could garner enough socio-political support, but they were able to institute new policies to make the process mandatory for nearly everyone. At any one time, no more than half the population would exist. The other half would be out of the timestream, and would only return later in the day, after the first half had disappeared. In between was a transitional period, when almost no one existed. Only a few constants were left to provide some level of continuity for the rest of the people. Once everyone realized how dire their overpopulation problem was, war broke out, but Serif’s pattern brought the violence down to negligible levels, and for a time, there was peace. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they could hope to achieve under these conditions. They still wanted out of their universe, and they kept trying to reach that goal, but then the situation changed. Their missing primary god was finally returned to them, and she was able to restart the expansion. Suddenly, space exploration was back on the table, as was interstellar colonization, and they owed it all to Serif’s war-ending gift.

Microstory 1698: Benedict’s Purpose

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Benedict Stewart was an odd duck, and though no one would argue he was the best person in the world, he wasn’t evil. He was a high school science teacher, who was forced to leave for engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship. She was not one of his students, but she was pretty young, and his behavior reflected poorly on the school. She was a college student, who was there as a pre-service teacher, so she could gather enough supervised experience to become a certified instructor once her own schooling was complete. As her supervisor, he was considered to be in a position of power, even though he assured the district that he did not take it into account when evaluating her performance. The student teacher stuck up for him, and declared it to be a fully consensual relationship, which probably prevented the situation from becoming a news story, and also kept him from being fired. He would have been free to apply for work elsewhere, and while no job was guaranteed, he likely would have eventually found some place fitting. Instead, he chose to work at the soda bottling plant on the edge of town. It wasn’t as rewarding, and it was below his education and experience, but it was a decent living. His girlfriend, meanwhile, stayed with him for years, eventually becoming his wife. A week after the wedding, she was the victim of a drunk driver, and ended up in a coma. Benedict was distraught, and could no longer function. He became careless in his duties, and his boss had to let him go. The money wasn’t that much of a problem, as the drunk driver was the son of a wealthy businessman, who agreed to a hefty settlement in exchange for keeping this quiet. But Benedict was still alone, and he was still sad.

His boss was a good guy, who understood how traumatic this whole experience was. He hired him in the first place, fully aware of his past transgressions. He couldn’t let him keep his job for the time being, but he intended to kind of leave it open until Benedict got the help he needed. He recommended a support group, so he could work through his grief, and find some way to move on. Benedict got a lot of help from them, but he didn’t realize until later that this support group had a bizarre secret. It turned out to be the source of recruitment for a budding superhero organization, and they wanted him on the team. Him? Really? Why? Well, he wasn’t just any ol’ chemistry teacher. He was known for creating little gadgets to illustrate scientific concepts for the kids. He helped bridge the gap between all the sciences, including physics and biology, and even other subjects, to facilitate a more well-rounded education. So the leaders of the superhero group suggested he come up with some non-lethal weapons, and use them to protect the city. It would give him purpose, and help relieve the depression, and some of the suicidal thoughts he was suffering. So that was what he did. He wore a magnetic suit that could steal guns from an aggressor, a taser, striking gloves, a sonic eardrum burster, chemical explosives, a heat ray, blinding laser lights, and a slingshot. The idea was for each weapon to demonstrate one of the ten types of energy, excluding nuclear and gravitational, because he didn’t actually have any powers, and he didn’t have genius-level intellect. As time went on, and Benedict pursued missions for his team, he shed some of the excess from his persona, and focused on the more important features. He also learned that maybe the people who recruited him had been lying about being heroes all along. And now Benedict...would have to choose a side.

Microstory 1689: Connections

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In the early days of a universe called Universum Originalis, a civilization formed in a galaxy called Vertea. It wasn’t just a galaxy, but the entirety of the cosmos, according to its inhabitants. A bizarre phenomenon known as The Verge forced all interstellar travel to first converge in the center of what, again, the people thought must be the center of the universe as a whole. From there, they could travel outwards to where they wanted, but they weren’t able to move laterally. And they weren’t able to move beyond the galaxy, because they weren’t even able to detect that other galaxies existed at all. Once they did progress enough to figure this out, some of them decided to explore. They built ships that were bigger and more impressive than anything they ever had before, and they went out in search of new cultures. While these ships could reach incredible speeds, they still took time, and they figured that not everyone would be so patient. If it took them a hundred years to finally find some alien friends, it would take a hundred years to get back. They decided to construct something known as the Nexus Network. Machines were placed on key planets, which would allow near instantaneous travel between the stars, and even between galaxies. They could automate these network builders to go all over the place, so if one of them ever did encounter intelligent lifeforms, anyone could get to them in a matter of seconds, or maybe minutes. Well, they didn’t find anyone. They didn’t realize how few and far between civilizations were. Natural branes are designed to support life in one galaxy at a time, and most likely crumble by the time a new one rises billions of years later. Fortunately, this was just the one universe, and there were infinite places to go once they came up with sufficiently advanced technology.

By the time they came to understand how rare life was, the small group of scientists and their friends had figured out how to travel between universes. At this point, they themselves were billions of years old, so actually interacting with these others didn’t seem as interesting as it once did. They began to feel like the wisest people in all of reality, and while they weren’t pretentious about it, they didn’t think it was a good idea to interfere with the children too directly. That didn’t mean they didn’t want to help. They could remember being so disappointed about how alone they were in their home universe. They figured that the best way to help was to create connections, so no one else would experience the same feelings of isolation. They built more Nexus networks. They didn’t build them in every universe that they encountered, and not only because the proper physics in some didn’t support the technology, but because they didn’t all need such a thing. Sapioplantaverse needed a network, but only one that reached throughout their home galaxy. They were ecstatic when they discovered the Nexus on their planet, which  was deliberately hidden to avoid extremely primitive species from being sociologically harmed by the technology. The artificial intelligence that runs each Nexus is just that; it’s intelligent. The engineers who built the system programmed it to assess someone’s technological status, to decide what they’re allowed to do with the machine, and what they’re not ready for. Some are allowed to go to any world they want, while others can only go to one. Some immediately have access to advanced features, like evacuation mode, while others have to earn that right, if they ever do. The intelligent plant-based were given easy access to the control room of the machine, but weren’t able to do anything right away. This forced them to study what they had uncovered, and figure things out on their own. It took them years, but once they did, they sent an exploration team to the only other planet seen to have a Nexus of their own. It was this universe’s version of Earth, and from here, an alliance formed. Because what they discovered was that they weren’t the only two cultures in the Milky Way. The Ochivari chose this brane to reconsider their options.

Microstory 1683: Death Introduced

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The battle was over, and the majority of the crew of The Crossover left Providenciaverse to get back to their mission of cataloging the bulkverse. Only 148 Maramon were left to settle on the planet, one of which was the original captain, who was mostly there out of a sense of obligation to them. Still, he did not complain. He continued to lead his people, so that they could thrive on their new world. His last order as captain was to erase all navigational data, so that no one else could return to this place. He didn’t want the leadership back on Ansutah to decide that the deserters needed to be punished in some way. If they ever, ever figured out where Providence was, then they would be able to arrive for extraction immediately. Hell, they could even come at some point earlier in the timeline if they wanted. So the settlers didn’t hold their breaths for long. After a week of no retaliation, they were confident that their location would forever remain a secret. They began to get to work, building infrastructure to make their lives easier, and forming a radical propagation plan to increase their numbers as quickly as possible. In ancient times on Ansutah, Maramon felt compelled to have many children. This powerful instinct had to be quelled once the people realized that their universe was not vast enough to accommodate infinite expansion. Such population control was no longer necessary—not here—and they had no intention of taking that for granted. Despite being left there with no advanced technology, the settlers developed fairly rapidly. However, their choice to stay was not without cost. They were born and bred to be immortal, but those rules did not apply in every universe. Here, they would age. Here, they would die.

It was a pretty hard thing to digest, the fact that a universe was capable of not only having different proper physics, but that it could somehow transform a lifeform on an organic level. Their ancient texts spoke of death in the early days of their homeworld, but for most of history, the idea was more academic. Only recently was it reintroduced to them in full force when they discovered the limited scope of their universe. Even then, they remained ageless, and really only died due to the resource wars. It broke their hearts to learn that this was just the way they would live from now on, just like the way humans evolved naturally. And if they were no better than humans, as they had been taught their entire lives, what other lies did they believe about life, the bulkverse, and everything? Fortunately, their new state of being did not cause them to resort to something irreversible, like war. Not long afterwards, the original settlers all died out anyway, leaving their descendants to move on without them, having never experienced the immortal lifestyles of their forebears. They continued to progress, just as any moderately peaceful civilization will, while always keeping the environment in mind. The settlers had dedicated themselves to not teaching their young ones too much about where they ultimately came from. If the species was going to survive, they would have to think that the way things were was the way things had always been. Some stories held on better than others, but overall, the society that formed over the centuries was normal. Some people were bad, some were good. They tried to do the right thing, and made mistakes. They explored the solar system, and sent probes and colonists to the nearest stars in the neighborhood. Their Maramon brethren never did come back, for any reason, but the Ochivari did come, and that’s when things got interesting.