The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2515

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The team was sitting around their table. It was the end of the engagement party, and only a few people were still around. Darko was in the middle of a seemingly flirtatious conversation with one of the android waitresses whose self-awareness and agency were in question. Mateo was about to ask if there was any way of determining whether she could provide consent when a black hole suddenly appeared on the opposite wall. A woman stepped out who looked moderately familiar. The first words out of her mouth were, “okay, I’ll do it, but I want something in return.”

“What?” Leona questioned. “Were we in the middle of a conversation? You’ll do what for us? Who are you again?”

“I’m Magnolia Quintana?” she reminded them. “The Overseer?”

“Oh, right, yeah, we met,” Leona remembered. “Is there an operation here, or something? This is just Party Central.”

“Yes, if this is where you’re gonna have the wedding,” Magnolia said. She looked around the room. “Little small.”

Leona did her best impression of Mr. Spock’s eyebrows. “We’re gonna have it outdoors, and not tonight, and...this is only one room in an entire city of party venues.”

Magnolia pulled out an old fashioned pen and notepad set. She took notes out loud. “Okay. Outdoors. Party Central. At least one year to plan.”

“Are you offering to be our wedding planner?” Olimpia questioned.

“Not offering,” Magnolia said. “Got the job. Very excited. Already have some great ideas rolling around up here.” She tapped her head with her pen.

“Madam Quintana,” Mateo began. “We were just gonna plan this ourselves. It’s not gonna be as big as our last wedding. Only family and close friends.”

Magnolia dropped her hands in disappointment, and sighed. “I need your help.” She was very uncomfortable. “I obviously need you more than you need me.”

“Well, we might be able to just help you,” Leona offered. “You don’t have to do anything for us. What do you need?”

“I need you to find my son,” Magnolia requested, averting her gaze awkwardly. “I can find anyone in the world, but he shares the same gift, which makes him a blindspot. I know he’s in this time period, but I don’t know where. Honestly, because so many planets have become habitable now, the Great Pyramid Shimmer actually serves a meaningful purpose, so he might not even be on Earth anymore.”

“Is he in trouble?” Romana asked.

Magnolia hesitated to answer. “He’s...mad at me. I just want the chance to apologize. I think he’ll be receptive if I say the right thing, but I have to find him first.”

“Well we can’t really find people,” Leona tried to explain. “I’m sure you’re asking us because you have been made aware of our slingdrives, but they don’t operate on magic. We have to know where we’re going. We’re no better equipped than you with your, uhh...”

“Hither-thithers,” Magnolia finished for her. “That’s what our dark portals are called. And I didn’t come for your slingdrives. I can harness Shimmer myself, and go anywhere he might be. I need his dark particle power to track his location.”

“Not that I won’t agree to that,” Mateo started, “but you just used a special word. Have you not reached out to a genuine Tracker, like Vidar Wolfe?”

“They have the same limitation as me. We can conceal ourselves from such people. I believe that you are the only person in the universe who can see through the shroud.”

“All right.” Mateo wiped his lips with his napkin, then dropped it down on the table. “I’ll see what I can find.” He leaned over and kissed his wife, then leaned over the other direction to kiss his bride.”

“Wait, we have your bachelor party after this,” Ramses reminded him. They decided to get all the traditions out of the way, so the separate celebratory events are falling on the same day as the engagement party, instead of being spread out across 12 to 18 months. Leona will have her doe party, and Olimpia will have a separate bachelorette party. They’ll then reconvene for a bridal shower. A bit out of order, but who cares? “Or no, we’re calling it a bull party.”

“Come with us,” Mateo suggested. “Hey, Darko!” This was Mateo’s chance to not worry about what an encounter with the android would mean, ethically speaking. “Time traveling bull party!”

“I’m in!” his once-brother exclaimed. He turned back to the waitress. “Catch you later, gorgeous.”

“I shouldn’t go with you,” Magnolia decided. “I have some initial work to do to plan your wedding, and Garland may still want me to stay away. I don’t wanna ambush him, so if you could, please tell him that I’m sorry, and ask him if he wants to see me. If he doesn’t, I’ll understand, and I’ll trust that you did find him, and are telling me the truth either way.”

Mateo nodded. “Don’t break your back planning, though. It’s gonna be intimate and low-key. Thanks!”

“No. Thank you.” She was a little too mousy and contrite for someone called The Overseer. This whole thing with her son must really be messing her up. And that wasn’t how she came across a few minutes ago when she first arrived. Maybe she didn’t realize how receptive to her request they would be, and decided to rein in her energy after the deal was done.

The three men stood next to each other in a vague line, and regarded the women still sitting at the table. “Three to beam up.” Dark particles swarmed around them, and sent them away to unknown lands.

As the darkness faded away, the nature of their destination twisted into focus. “Oh, not again,” Ramses groaned. They appeared to be in the middle of a tundra. It wasn’t Tundradome, though. It couldn’t have been. They were standing in what must have been a park, or a town square. There were buildings on all sides of them in the middle distance. This was some kind of city. People were milling about, enjoying the day. No one seemed to have noticed their arrival until they turned all the way around to see a young man sitting on a bench.

He did not have a look of shock on his face, but minor annoyance. “I put a time block on this world,” he said. Still nettled, he closed the cover over his e-reader, and set it down next to him. “No one else should be able to come through. Now I have to check the wards.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mateo tried to explain. “My power is a bit of an exception. I doubt anyone else can come here if you did anything to prevent them.”

“Who would want to?” Ramses jabbed.

“For that.” The young man looked up towards the sky with his eyes as he pointed with a finger.

It took them a moment to possibly figure out what was going on. Scale was a bit hard to determine with this out-of-context problem. It looked like a ceiling of ice that stretched all the way across in every direction, down to the horizon. The fractures and imperfections glimmered in the light from the ground, and maybe even from above as well? Vaguely-shaped circular blobs were hanging in the background, perhaps pulsating, or perhaps they were only illusions. This whole thing might have been a hologram, but it was a good one; reminiscent of something they might find on Castlebourne. Had this frustrated stranger not claimed to be somehow preventing others from traveling here, they might have guessed that it was indeed one of the domes on Castlebourne, which they just so happened to have never heard of before.

“Wait, wait,” Darko began. “I think I’ve heard of this. Epsi...Epson...”

“Epsilon Eridani,” Ramses said. “Roughly eleven light years from Earth. No habitable planet, but a gas giant like Juputer, and a couple of ice giants, similar to Neptune.”

“We’re orbiting the gas giant, AEgir,” the stranger added. “This moon is called Kólga. The surface is inhospitable, so they built a giant hanging city-structure, attached to the ice. What you’re seeing up there is several hundred meters of ice, followed by the daytime sky, in which we can currently see both AEgir and E-E.”

“Where are our manners?” Mateo extended his hand. “Mateo Matic, Darko Matic, and Ramses Abdulrashid.”

“Married or related?”

“Brothers across different timelines,” Darko clarified. “You’ve never heard of us? You’ve never heard of Team Matic?”

“I try to stay out of the whole time travel industry. That’s why I came here. People keep to themselves. They’re as immortal as anyone, but they don’t want to explore. They don’t want to learn. They don’t want to build worlds. They just want to live their lives day by day, century by century. They don’t ask questions, and without them even knowing it, I protect them from the likes of you. I try anyway.”

“We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re just looking for our friend’s son, who we are guessing is you?” Mateo asked.

He nodded. “Garland Dressler. She sent you to take me back to her?”

“No pressure,” Mateo said to him. “She says she wants to apologize. I don’t know what for. I don’t need to know. You don’t have to come with us. If you want us to leave, we will.”

Garland sighed. “You might as well stay a while. You look like you’re in the party mood, and there’s one down the street tonight.”

The three of them looked at each other, narrowing in on Darko, who was wearing a glow necklace that was inert when they came here, but was now twinkling, probably triggered by the time travel event. They were supposed to be partying.

“I’ll think about whether I wanna go back or not,” Garland went on.

“Let’s go get chocolate wasted!” Ramses suggested. He literally started running towards the street.

“Other direction!” Garland called up to him.

Ramses didn’t stop running. He just teleported to the other side of them, and started moving that way instead.

“Do you have a jacket?” Darko asked as the rest of them followed Ramses at a normal pace.

“It’ll be warmer inside,” Garland promised.

They had to call Ramses back again when he passed the entrance to the party venue, but once inside, they had a lot of fun. The other residents took no issue with shifting focus of the festivities to being more about Mateo and his upcoming nuptials. They didn’t go there with a particular reason to party in the first place, so it wasn’t like they were stealing attention from someone else. Garland had been a little inaccurate about why he came here, and didn’t let anyone else. He didn’t only want to protect the Kólgans from time travel, but also to have them all to himself. He was the life of the party, opening up hither-thithers left and right. He helped party-goers throw sports balls at their own asses as fast as possible. He let one guy fall down an endless loop of portals on the ceiling and the floor. Mateo wowed them with a swarm of dark particles before he and Ramses entertained with a holographic lightshow. Darko met a man with combat training, so they sparred in the middle of the floor as the crowd cheered.

They would find out later that the chocolate they were eating was laced with some kind of local drug, which Garland didn’t even know about. They reawoke at some point later with no memory of how the night ended up, but they had some clues to work with. First, they were not likely on Kólga anymore as it was pretty hot here. Secondly, Darko was missing. And finally, passed out next to them was the last person they expected to find. He actually looked rather peaceful there, and they didn’t get the sense that there was any lasting animosity between them. It was Bronach Oaksent.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 1, 2514

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Ramses posited that the temporal energy that Boyd had absorbed when he blew up the crystal with lemon juice was basically all that was holding him together. Even after Mateo resurrected him from the afterlife simulation, he could not be saved forever. He knew this. Leona knew this. She also knew that it was only a matter of time before it killed him anyway, whether he was drained of the power or not. Temporal energy is really just time itself. You can have an excess of it, but if not properly stored, it will leak out as time passes, and that would have been the end of Boyd Maestri. She chose to not let his sacrifice go to waste, and to restore their own powers so that they could go on with the mission that he was intending to help them with. The role he was going to serve on the team now fell to Mateo. That was a problem for the future, though. Right now, they were going to honor their frenemy with a proper burial.

Everyone was here already. They were just waiting on Ramses, who was working on something in his lab. Mateo looked over at his daughter awkwardly. She glanced back at him, but quickly turned away again. He tried to look away too, but returned. She did another double-take. “What is it, dad?”

Mateo reached down and took a fold of her outfit between his fingers. “This isn’t your suit.”

“No, it’s real clothing,” she confirmed. “I went to Fashiondome, and sewed something myself. That’s what I’ve been doing all morning.”

“You know how to sew?”

“Yeah, I grew up thousands of years ago in the Third Rail. Of course I know how to sew.”

“Oh. That makes sense. I forget that about you.”

“Yeah.” Romana tried to go back to waiting patiently for Ramses.

“I know you’re an adult, it’s just that it’s a little—”

“Shh!” Leona warned before Mateo could finish his sentence.

Romana sighed, but continued to look straight forward. “Boyd liked my cleavage, and I choose to honor him in this way. This is a perfectly normal black funeral dress.” She said that she wasn’t angry at him for not being able to resurrect Boyd a second time, but there would always be that question between them of whether he genuinely tried, or if the part of him that didn’t want to save Boyd was big enough to stop it.

He looked on down the line at Olimpia. “And you?”

“You’re the one who likes my cleavage.” He didn’t say anything more, but she took the hint, and commanded her nanite clothing to cover her chest up a little more.

Ramses appeared. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I had to come up with a way to safely dispose of temporal energy crystal.” While Mateo was trying to get Boyd back, and Romana was crying, Ramses had to delicately remove the shards from Boyd’s face. It wasn’t exactly trained as a medical examiner, but they couldn’t risk anyone else for the job, or really, trust them with it.

“It’s okay,” Mateo said. “You get on that end.”

“No,” Romana said. “I can carry it myself.”

Mateo looked at her sadly. “Romy, it’s unwieldy. You could hoist it over your shoulder, but you can’t carry it with the respect that he deserves.”

“Watch me.” Romana reached over the casket and tried to grab the handle on the other side. It wasn’t that she wasn’t strong enough. Her arms weren’t long enough.

“Let me get the other end,” Mateo offered. “He and I had our issues, which is exactly why I should do this. You wanted us to be friends, didn’t you? Or did you enjoy being in the middle of the animosity?”

She sighed again, relenting. “Okay, get the other end.”

Mateo and Romana carried Boyd down the trail as the others followed, or walked on ahead. “You spoke with Hrockas?” Leona asked.

Angela nodded. “This dome won’t be used for another fifty years, if ever. We’ll bury him deep, where there’s more activity while the regolith is being transformed into soil from chemicals they added to the water table.”

“Did he end up making an announcement?” Leona went on. “The first permanent death on the planet. That’s a big deal.”

Angela shook her head. “He’s burying the truth along with Boyd himself. No one needs to know that anyone died. Even though people are still allowing themselves to die on the Core Worlds, it could hurt visitorship. His death was completely unrelated to anything offered in the domes, so there’s no point in advertising or disclosing it.”

The two of them were talking rather quietly, and their comms were off, but everyone wearing an upgraded substrate had excellent hearing, so they all heard it. Romana was not upgraded, but even she heard it somehow. She glanced over her shoulder at Leona and Angela and frowned, but didn’t speak to them. She instead looked at Ramses, who was next to her. “People should know that he died, and what he died for. He sacrificed himself...for us.”

“You’re right,” Ramses said. “One of the hardest things we do is keeping our lives secret from the vonearthans. I know you know everything about that, living in the Third Rail for the majority of your life.”

Marie and Olimpia were in front, and had just rounded a corner when they suddenly stopped short. Olimpia nearly tripped on a rock, but caught herself in time.

“What is it?” Mateo questioned.

“There’s a man,” Marie answered. “He may have a weapon.”

“Set it on the ground,” Mateo ordered. He slowly bent his knees as his daughter did, and carefully set the casket down. “Wait here.” Mateo walked on alone, gently pulling the ladies’ shoulders back so this mysterious stranger wouldn’t be able to see them anymore. He did see a man, standing in the distance, resting both of his wrists on what appeared to be a shovel. Mateo used his telescopic vision to zoom in. “It’s Halifax.”

“Really?” Leona asked. She walked forward to get a look for herself.

“I recognize that name from the list,” Olimpia said.

“He’s The Gravedigger,” Mateo replied. “We’ve not seen him in a long time.” He looked back at Romana. “Not since the Third Rail.” He grabbed the casket again. “Let’s go. He’s no threat.”

They continued on their way. Halifax waited patiently where they first saw him. He was chewing on sunflower seeds, and spitting the shells off to the side. “I expected you sooner! Why didn’t you teleport here?”

“It’s a funeral procession,” Mateo explained. “You can’t teleport through a funeral procession.”

“No, s’pose not.”

“What are you doing here?” Mateo asked him.

“I’m here for him.” Halifax nodded at the body.

“Not many work orders from this time period, I would guess,” Mateo mused.

“Nope,” Halifax replied matter-of-factly.

“So he’s never coming back?” Leona asked.

Halifax took a beat. “No,” he answered solemnly. “He’ll be in good company,” he added after Mateo exchanged a look with Romana. The Cemetery magically appeared behind him, including a new open grave right behind him, and a second one a few meters away, which was alarming.

“Can we still do a green burial?” Romana asked, stepping forward. “It’s what he wanted.

“Is there any other kind?” Halifax responded.

Romana knelt down and started to unlock the casket. Mateo reached down, and covered her hand with his. “You don’t have to do this yourself. You don’t have to...see him like this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, father.” She unlocked the other latch. “I do.” She lifted the lid, and stared at Boyd’s dead body for a few moments. Then she slipped her arms underneath his, and began to drag him out, across the ground, and over to the edge of the grave. She let go only to hop in, then took hold of Boyd again to pull him down on top of her. She lay there for another few moments, staring blankly into empty space. They gathered ‘round and watched her in reverence. Finally, she freed herself from him, stood up, and just teleported to the surface.

“Your dress,” Mateo pointed out.

“That’s why I wore something real,” Romana explained, “so it wouldn’t have a self-cleaning function.”

“Would you like to say a few words?” Halifax offered.

She stepped over, and looked into the grave with everyone else. “Boyd Maestri was not a perfect man. Like many of our kind, he took his power for granted. He made life harder for some people, like Dave Seidel and June St. Martin. But he never really hurt anyone. He wasn’t anywhere close to being evil. He was actually really sweet. And I wish that you had all been able to see more than just glimpses of that. But I’m at least glad that you got to see a little. I know you weren’t happy with our age gap. The truth is, it was wider than you even know. But he never pushed me, or pressured me. What he felt for me was love. I can’t say that I felt the same. Growing up the way that I did—skipping all that time—I couldn’t have real relationships. If I met someone, they would be dead in the blink of an eye. So yeah, when the first man who I could be honest with took an interest, I fell for him. As I said, he took his powers for granted, but he didn’t treat me the same. He was respectful, and kind, and he recognized my boundaries. I—” she stammered. “That’s it.” She stepped backwards, away from the grave.

“Anyone else?” Halifax asked.

Mateo was already pretty close to the grave, but he stepped closer, letting the toes of his shoes hover over the edge. “I forgive you.”

Romana hadn’t cried this whole time, but now she snapped her eyes shut, and scrunched her cheeks up, trying to hold the tears back, even though she knew that no one expected that of her. She buried her face in the safety of Olimpia’s bosom. Suddenly. Ellie Underhill climbed out of the second open grave. She tried to clap the dirt off of her hands, and wiped them on her skirt. Without saying anything first, she began to sing, “I just found a lemon tree. It’s a bad day for my enemies. Yes, there’s sugar water in the breeze, and I’m ready, I’m ready. So someone play guitar for me. I’m ready to leave my body.”

It was at this point that Olimpia pulled off her necklace, and joined in. “And oh, this could be rage. We’re flying to the space between the lies we told, and find the good in every soul is all connected energy, or how would I know you were thinking of me in the tree?” Only two of them were singing, but with Olimpia’s echo powers, it sounded more like a small chorus. They went on with the song, but skipped the instrumental break, since they were singing a capella. When they ended with the final two lines, “when all of the lights remain, this is all that our time contains,” Olimpia belted it out. Her voice roared up into the sky, and apparently tore a hole in spacetime. The Time Shriek answered back, echoing in its own way, just as Olimpia could.

Romana smiled as she wiped more tears from her eyes. “Boyd loved that scream. He thought it was so cool that so many people from so far away could hear the same thing.”

“You got to know him better than I realized,” Mateo said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it easy on you.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I understand. Or rather I don’t understand what it’s like to be a parent. But I will soon.” She smiled, and placed her palm on her belly.”

“No,” Mateo said, struck with dread, trying his best not to faint, or shout in rage.

“No, I’m kidding!” Romana said apologetically.

“Oh, god...dammit! Don’t do that to me!”

“Or me,” Ramses agreed surprisingly. “We would have to uninstall your EmergentSuit.” He looked around at the rest of the ladies. “That goes for all of you. I wouldn’t otherwise have the right to know if you’re pregnant, but...”

“We get it,” Marie said to him. “We’ll let ya know.”

“Thanks for coming, Ellie,” Leona said. “That was a very thoughtful and beautiful gift.”

“That wasn’t your gift,” Ellie said. “I just like to make an entrance.” She reached into her pocket. “This is your gift.” She pulled out a smooth red stone. Or was it made of glass? It looked familiar, but no one could place it right away. “The angry Russian I took it from wasn’t happy, but he and his daughter will be fine. I moved them somewhere safe.”

“The cap of the Insulator of Life,” Ramses exclaimed. “We’ve been wondering how those two got separated, and where this has been.”

“St. Petersburg, I guess.” Ellie looked from one to another, to another, but only with her eyes. “Is anyone gonna take this from my hand, errr...?”

Angela happened to be the closest, so she accepted it.

“Forgive me, but...this was a funeral gift?” Leona questioned. “Do they have those in Fort Underhill? I didn’t even think you had death.”

“No, it’s a wedding gift,” Ellie contended. She looked around at them again, but with her head this time. “Wait, what year is this?” She reached out and grabbed Leona’s wrist so she could look at her watch. “Whoops! Better go! Forget I said anything!” She ran off and hopped back into the portal grave.

“Well,” Olimpia said with a sigh. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” She reached into her own pockets, and pulled out two diamond rings. She held them in front of her. “Mateo and Leona Matic...will you marry me?”

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The Fourth Quadrant: Flying Like a Rock (Part IV)

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Mount Hilde does not only grant access to the Sixth Key from Fort Underhill Proper. It also serves as the frontlines. In the parent universe, Salmonverse, direction and location are all about one’s frame of reference, but not here. There is a hard limit to the scope of Fort Underhill. Move far enough in any direction, and you’ll reach the physical boundaries that hold the cosmos together. You would not be able to break free through that wall, however. It’s reportedly fifty times thicker than the walls of a normal universe—whatever that means, and whatever these walls are made out of. Only something called the Aperture leads to the kasma, where you can potentially escape into the multiverse, but even that would not be guaranteed. Team Gatekeeper has come to find out why this is known as a fort at all. It’s meant to be a haven for any and all peacelovers, so the entrance is the only way in or out. The world they’re standing on right now is at that entrance. The peak of Mount Hilde is apparently pointed right at it. If someone wants to come here, looking for trouble, this is what’s gonna be in their way. It’s thusly unclear why the team is even here in the first place. This whole place was designed to keep out intruders. Security is what they supposedly do best, so why do they need a small team of individuals who only recently came together?

“You’re not here to secure Mount Hilde,” Hogarth explains. “You’re here to protect the diplomatic team that I’ve assembled. This is just the means by which we reach the plane of existence that we’re headed for.”

“You let me secure the perimeter,” Selma reminds her. “The perimeter to this facility, on this mountain.”

“You were on a roll, barking orders. I didn’t want to slow you down. Plus, it’s always good to get a second opinion on our security measures.”

Selma sighs.

“Miss Eriksen,” Hogarth continues, “you were not assigned the leadership role of your team, yet here you are, taking charge.”

“Atticus wasn’t saying anything.”

“Hey, I agree. Every military is defined by how orderly and organized it is, as is any well-run private organization. But the reality is that true leaders aren’t hired, or designated. They step up. Those are the ones that people are better off following, because they earn their place every day. If they fail, they lose it. Someone who serves as leader in any official capacity will often just be allowed to stay there, even if they don’t deserve it. I think Atticus is recognizing the same thing that I am, and is allowing you to do what you need to do. It’s what we all need right now. You are what we need. So do your thing. I’ll let you know when you’re messing something up.”

Selma is skeptical to stay the least. She taps her earwig. “Fall back to the lobby. It’s time to go.” She looks up at the foggy second story. “I’m guessing that’s our entrance?”

“You guess right.”

“It’s a portal, or something?”

“Or something.”

“That’s vague, and unsettling. Is it dangerous?”

“Everything is dangerous,” Hogarth says, likely having fun being cryptic and unhelpful.

“Please clarify.”

Hogarth sighs. “I didn’t make that. That is supposed to lead to the observation platform, where you can spot the Aperture with the naked eye. The fog was placed there by a...friend of mine. I can’t tell you how it works, because he didn’t tell me.”

“Please clarify,” an unsatisfied Selma repeats.

“He’s a god. He’s literally an energy god. He doesn’t intervene as much as I would like, but he agreed to facilitate diplomatic discussions with our apparent enemy by building us some kind of bridge. I don’t know where it goes, and I don’t know what we’ll find when we get there. That’s why I need you. I certainly can’t fit my whole robot army up those stairs. I wish that I could prepare you better, but I don’t have all the answers.”

The two of them are standing on a small mezzanine level, between the main floor, and the fog. Climbing up the rest of the stairwell would seemingly take them up to the real top of the building. Selma looks up in that direction. “No one ever does.” She watches as everyone down below begins filing back into the lobby from various doorways. Once everyone is back, she begins to walk back down the steps, but stops. “Wait. Is that the diplomatic team? Do they have any experience?”

“Those are my people,” Hogarth says. “I’m the only representative from Fort Underhill who will be going on the mission. The diplomats should be arriving shortly.”

She was right. Just as Selma is stepping down to join the group, five more people enter from the fog. Hogarth looks just as surprised as Selma and the Fort Underhillers. Four of the newcomers begin to descend the curved staircase while one of them stays at the top. “People of Fort Underhill, allow me to introduce you to...the Diplomats.” The way he pauses before the last two words makes it sound like they’re part of a club. “Flux Do-4 of Vaidy, Major Regolith Hagedus of Gavismet, Major Allomer Franks of Fanter, and Awilda Zewflux of Vaidy. Chief Truncative Kanani Kekoa could not be here today.”

“That’s him,” Hogarth whispers. “That’s the energy god. He’s not the one I talked to about the diplomats. He had nothing to do with that. At least, I didn’t think so.”

Major Franks looks back up at the god. “You’re not coming with us?”

“It’s not my place,” the god replies.

“We don’t even know what we’re doing,” Major Hagedus complains. “Where have you brought us?”

The god smiles. “To a pit stop. Come back up here whenever you’re ready.” He doesn’t move a muscle. The fog billows out a little more, and overwhelms him. When it recedes, he’s gone.

“I don’t think that was really Dyne Dyne,” Major Franks says to Flux Do-4. These are all very interesting names.

“I would have to agree,” his friend, Flux Do-4 says stoically.

Hogarth walks over to meet the Diplomats at the bottom of the stairs. “Thank you for coming. We face a great unseen enemy, and would like to resolve things amicably, if at all possible.”

Major Hagedus nods. “We’ve learned to accept any job that has been given to us, whether we asked for it, or not. Give us the details.”

Atticus is still technically the leader of Team Gatekeeper so it is he who joins Hogarth and the Diplomats in the briefing room while Selma and everyone else wait out here by the fountain. They’re in there for about forty-five minutes before they come back out. Hogarth says her personal goodbyes to her friends, then takes a few steps upstairs before turning around to address the crowd. She pulls in a deep breath, and exhales with zen-like vigor. After building sufficient anticipation, she finally speaks, “forward now, unto the breach!” She spins back around, and starts to run up the stairs.

For a second, no one knows what to do, but if Hogarth needs protecting, then Selma is going to be the one to do it. She slips through the crowd, and begin to follow her up. Neither of them make it into the portal fog, though. A blast of some kind shoots out from it, and throws them both over the railing, back towards the floor. Selma doesn’t make it there, though. The central fountain contains statues of people, standing in a circle, and reaching their hands outwards, interpretively in friendship to all. Above them, a young girl is crouching on a platform, pointing outwards as well. Slightly higher, a boy is hanging onto the central column, holding on with one hand and two feet like a monkey. His other hand shields his eyes from the sun. He’s searching for something in the opposite direction of who Selma imagines to be his sister. Just above him is another flat platform where the water splashes onto, so it can rain down below in random patterns, unlike the symmetrical nozzles near the top, which fling jets in neat, predictable arches. Selma crashes onto her back on this empty platform, head turned to the side so she can watch Hogarth’s neck slam into the edge of the pool. The rest of her body is now sprawled out on the floor, motionless.

Selma’s vision is blurring, but she can still make out what’s happening. Four silhouettes have emerged from the fog. They stand on the landing together in a line. The fog recedes up through the opening in the ceiling as if all the air has been sucked out of the room. As it does so, the silhouettes become clearer. One of them appears to be Tamerlane Pryce, though not the avatar of the magical Magnolia tree. It seems to be a real version of the original man. “Who did we get?” he asks, looking down at Selma and Hogarth. “Only two? Hm. That’s disappointing.”

Selma struggles to lift her shoulders up from the stone platform to lean against the column. It’s incredibly painful. She probably broke her back.

“Not even. Well, I guess we’ll have to get the rest some other way,” Tamerlane laments.

“Look,” the other man in the attacking group says. “What’s happening with the dead one?”

Selma struggles again to turn her head, and look back down at Hogarth who appears to be disintegrating? Her body is literally falling apart into a million tiny pieces, flaking off and fading into oblivion. It’s reminiscent of something Selma once saw in a superhero movie they made in the main sequence. During the Rock negotiations, representatives from the different realities would be asked to share art and culture from their native lands to promote unity and camaraderie. The ending to this one was particularly sad and depressing, even though it was the 21st film in the series, and they hadn’t watched the ones leading up to it. In a matter of moments, Hogarth’s body has completely disappeared into nothingness.

“Well,” Tamerlane says with one clap of his hands. “One down, however many to go. Iolanta? Make sure they stay here.”

“Done,” Iolanta replies.

“A.F., I suppose you’re the more...violent of us. Just try to make it efficient, and painless. Our only objective is to protect The First Explorer.”

The other guy cracks his own neck, and psychs himself up, bouncing around like a boxer preparing for a fight. He reaches behind his hip, and swings a rifle down and around into killing position, fancying himself some kind of action hero. Lowell Benton of Fort Underhill doesn’t hesitate before running up the stairs to meet his enemy. He anticipates being shot at, and dodges the first bullet. But the second one hits him square in the chest. He bursts into a million pieces, just as Hogarth had, though much faster. The dust he leaves behind eventually vanishes. A.F. is shocked at this. He rolls his gun a little to his left, and examines it for answers.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Tamerlane questions.

“I shouldn’t think so,” the killer responds.

“I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so keep going, A.F.”

Andrei and Ayata spring into action. They play a little gun fu with A.F. His weapon is long, heavy, and unwieldy. He can’t move it around as fast as they can sprint and hop, and it’s no good in close quarters. He gives up, and starts fighting them in hand to hand combat. He’s getting tired, though, and knows that he’s no match for them with this tactic. He manages to keep them away from him long enough to pull out his sidearm, and shoot them in the stomachs. They too instantly dust apart.

“Okay, now this is getting ridiculous!” Tamerlane cries. “That’s just a nine mil! What the hell is happening?”

“I don’t care,” A.F. growls back. “It’s working.” He gets his rifle back into position, and starts spraying bullets every which way. He’s not aiming at all, just trying to let the auto fire paint the walls with his enemies’ blood. Except there is no blood, only disappearing dust. He’s letting out a primal scream, probably believing himself to be a real life Rambo, or something. That’s another gem of a movie that the main sequence showed them on their breaks.

By some miracle, none of these stray bullets hits Selma. She’s partially covered by the stone column, but not entirely. At least one of them should have slipped through. She has to watch as all of her new friends are slaughtered senselessly. Once he’s done, he drops the end of his gun to turn it into a walking cane to hold himself up while he catches his breath. Selma looks around at the fountain, and sees that it has suffered no damage at all. It must be protected by a force field. She doesn’t know why they would bother designing it this way. She should count herself lucky, but that’s not how it feels. She’s alone now, and they’ll figure out how to kill her eventually.

A.F. seems to have come to the same conclusion when he notices that she’s still alive. He slowly and deliberately picks his gun back up, cowboy walks over there, and attempts to shoot her at point blank range.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tamerlane shouts. “Watch where you’re pointin’ that thing, asshole!”

“There’s a plasma barrier,” A.F. figures.

“Yeah, I see that. It could have ricocheted.”

A.F. steps a little closer, and lifts his hand, trying to find the barrier manually, but there’s nothing there. It passes right through, unimpeded. With a chuckle, he steps into the pool to no resistance. He chuckles again. “Loophole,” he delightedly declares. He trains his weapon for the last time, right at Selma’s head. “Any last words?”

She stares at him blankly, still in an immense amount of pain. “They keep calling you A.F. What does that stand for? Ammo fucker?” She pulls out her own sidearm, and shoots him right in the forehead. In a surprising twist, he dusts away like everyone else. That’s evidently just what happens to people when they die in this room. Her own life is hanging on by a thread, so she’s about to find out first hand if that’s true. The darkness enshrouds her eyes, and she slips away peacefully.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 3, 2455

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When Mateo and Leona finally had the time to meet back up in their bunker room together, they both said, “I need to leave,” at the same time. They were surprised by the other’s declaration, and certain that it couldn’t have been for the same reason. They were right. They spent all evening talking about their respective missions until the end of their day when they jumped forward to the future. They then went to sleep to get their full five hours before waking up to have breakfast with their friends, Carlin included. He was vital to both operations, so he needed to know what was going on too.

The tension in the air was undeniable. Even though they didn’t know that they were coming together for a meeting, everyone seemed to feel that that was part of the reason they were here, not just to eat. Leona sat up straight to speak. “Olimpia saved our lives a few days ago when she used the Sangster Canopy to break through the dimensional membrane that separated Salmonverse from Fort Underhill. This was especially impressive since that membrane was particularly thick. Hogarth Pudeyonavic designed her artificial universe this way on purpose, in order to protect it from intruders. The way I understand it, that’s what makes it a fort. Someone evidently figured out how to replicate that technology, and-or extend it to our home universe as well, which was why we couldn’t just turn our ship around to escape.

“We must do the same, for this universe. What Angela and I learned from the Ochivar we interrogated was that they are not going to stop coming. This is a playground for them. They’re testing their infiltration methods, but it could worsen. They might later test weapons of mass destruction, or ultimately their sterilization pathogen. Time in this brane does not match up with time in theirs, which means that they could come here from any moment in their history. We believe that these invaders are coming from relatively early on in that history. The ones that the locals have detained as prisoners of war would therefore not be armed with the same knowledge that the future Ochivari we and our friends have encountered had. They’re young, and dumb, and people like that are reckless, and unpredictable. Shutting them out completely may be this world’s only hope. So I have to go back to where we came from, approach the Angry Fifth Divisioner who keeps trying to kill us, and get him to lead me to whatever actually intelligent person or group that he’s working with. Carlin, I would ask you to...relapse me there.”

“Me as well,” Marie offered.

“I was about to volunteer,” Angela argued with her sister.

“Like she said,” Marie began, “she’ll be confronting a dangerous man, who is probably working with a more dangerous group of people. She needs a fighter.”

“I am a fighter,” Leona reminded them. “I can go alone.”

“Oh, yeah?” Marie asked. “What happens when you need to defuse a bomb while keeping an angry horde of crazed zombies at bay? Can you do both at the same time?”

Leona gave her a look, and held there for a moment. “I’ll give you a million dollars if I find myself in a situation where there’s a bomb, and a bunch of zombies.”

“How will you pay?” Marie questioned. “You’ll be dead. I’m going with you. We don’t separate; not completely, not anymore. After what happened to me in the Third Rail, and Olimpia in her kasma, I won’t allow it. Carlin, you remember that. I’m telling you to never relapse only one of us somewhere. If she tries, you come to me immediately afterwards, and send me exactly where she went. Leona, you can’t prevent that.”

“She’s right,” Carlin agreed. “I don’t like people being alone either. You could order me to stand down, and I’ll just ignore that.”

Leona sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry, Angela, but she’s right. She’s better suited for this mission. You’re both smart and capable, but she was a spy, and we may need to spy.”

Angela folded her arms. “She wasn’t a spy, she was an asset. Totally different.”

“You can come with me,” Mateo suggested.

“Where are you going?” Ramses asked.

“I have my own mission,” Mateo began. “Speaking of the Third Rail, I once disappeared from that mine in Russia. Carlin can show me what happened; how I ended up with a solid block of timonite in my stomach. I don’t think that I just skipped over time. I think I went somewhere, and spent time there. It’s been long enough. I have to recover those memories. I am getting the feeling that it is of vital importance. I don’t know why, but now is the time.”

Angela took Mateo by the hand. “I would be honored to accompany you.”

“You’ll likely run into your past self,” Ramses pointed out.

“That’s probably why you lost your memories in the first place,” Olimpia conjectured. “You did it on purpose to prevent a paradox.”

“That’s the reigning theory,” Mateo concurred.

Ramses looked over at Olimpia. “I suppose the C-team will stay here to man the fort, huh?”

Leona scoffed. “Ramses, we’re on the front lines. Don’t downplay that. These people need you. Now that the breach detector is done, you need to start working on the breach predictor.”

“Good point.” He bobbled his head. “Some might even say that we’re on the most important mission out of the three groups.”

“Carlin?” Mateo started. “You’ve not actually agreed to relapse us yet.”

“You’re right, I’ve not,” he replied. “That’s probably because I wouldn’t know how to get you back. I’m not a boomerang thrower.”

“We discussed that last year,” Leona said. “I can always go to the nearest Nexus, and plead my case to Venus Opsocor. Mateo has a psychic bond with a woman named Amber Fossward, who can link him up to a bulk traveler. We’ll find a way back.”

“Those sound like very unreliable and vague strategies,” Carlin determined.

“I will admit to that,” Leona replied. “We always find a way, though. I’ve decided to stop worrying about it. Remember, someone wants us here. They set in place a series of events that led us to this planet on a day that, according to the local calendar, matches our pattern back home. It couldn’t be a coincidence; the odds are too low. If we had never left, it would be June 3, 2455.”

“That’s even more vague,” Carlin pressed. “You’re putting your faith in a higher power, like some dumb Santien trying to cleanse the population.”

“I hardly think it’s that,” Leona insisted, “but it’s not your concern. You only need to help us get out of here. Please?”

For some reason, Carlin looked to Olimpia for guidance. She nodded her head slightly. “Okay. I’ll send the four of you to your two missions. But I take no responsibility for what happens after that.”

“We would never blame you for it,” Mateo assured him. “You should know us better than that.”

“You knew me when I was a child, and children don’t have very good memories.” That was a decent point. They had missed so many years of his life. He was practically a stranger to them now. But he was a McIver, and that was good enough for them to trust him with this. “Are you going to tell the Primus where you’re going?”

“We won’t get into specifics,” Leona answered. “She doesn’t need to know, in case it doesn’t work out. We’ll just tell her that we’re going off to find help.”

“Okay.” Carlin stood up. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Leona said. “Oli, could we talk?”

“Sure,” Olimpia replied.

“Leona?” Ramses asked. “Could we talk?”

She laughed. “Sure. Just give us a minute.”

Leona transported Olimpia to the same place in the Gobi desert where she and Angela discussed the ramifications of the Ochivar’s claim that some of the exo-universe infiltrators were human, and would be more difficult to detect. If neither Leona nor Angela ever managed to come back, someone else needed to carry the burden of that information. She was free to dispense it as she felt was prudent, but Leona gave her some advice in this matter. It was a very delicate and sociopolitically charged situation. Once they were done with that, she met with Ramses in his lab on the Vellani Ambassador.

He presented her with a PRU, which stood for Portable Resource Unit. It was a special backpack that could be affixed to, or detached from, their integrated multipurpose suit. There were four components: oxygen, water, food, and other supplies. One side was flexible, capable of conforming to the body of the user as they moved around, while the other sides were more rigid and durable. They were not wearing them when they were spirited away to the Garden Dimension, but stored on the Ambassador. He had been lobbying for them to keep them on at all times, as well as the helmet, which could magnetically attach to the outside for a real turtle look.

“Okay,” she relented. “I will take them with us. But you’re the one who designed our bodies to be able to survive in the vacuum of outer space.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t design them to help you survive the equilibrium of interuniversal space apparently, though. And anyway, that’s not the reason I brought you here, or why I’m so excited.” He was smiling widely. “These are special. I modified them myself with miniature dimensional generators. They now come with three months’ worth of water and the liquefied dayfruit that comes through your feeding tube.” He flicked the food tube that was presently collapsed into Leona’s IMS collar.

“Dayfruit smoothie, my favorite,” Leona said sarcastically. This variety of the versatile food took a lot of the taste out of the daily nutritionally-complete food, and drinking it from the tube made it impossible to switch to other flavors, since it logistically had to come from one storage container.

“It beats dyin’,” he reasoned. “The oxygen tank is a lot larger too, which places less strain on the carbon scrubber, though that has also been upgraded, as have the surface ramscoop nodes.” Theoretically, a regular person could survive for weeks in outer space with nothing more than their suits, and a resource unit. There were minute amounts of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon atoms in the interstellar medium, which the PRU’s ramscoop could suck up, and process for power, air, and even food. To Leona’s knowledge, no one had ever tested this, though, because that would be insane.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she acknowledged. “Did you modify the other three that we need for the two away missions?”

“Of course. I modified them all.” He reached over his shoulder, and tapped twice on his own PRU. “I need you to convince the other three to wear them now. I’ll take care of Olimpia. I’m sure we’ll all need them at some point, and I would feel better if you had them at any rate.”

Leona nodded. “Marie and I will operate at PREPCON three, I promise.” This preparedness condition required the user to be wearing the suit in its near entirety, as well as the PRU, with the helmet attached to its dock. The higher levels didn’t demand quite this much readiness, and for the lower levels, the helmet was on the user’s head. A member of the crew of a ship who was on duty was expected to be ready to be shot out of an airlock, or a hull breach, at all times, but that wasn’t necessary while they were simply walking around a planet with an atmosphere. This was the space travel equivalent to the DEFCON system.

“Thank you.”

Leona ordered the rest of the members of the away teams to report to Ramses for a short training session regarding the new PRUs. Meanwhile, she met with Naraschone and Kineret about what they were doing. She told them that they needed to investigate ways to stop the Ochivari from being able to come here at all, but that she couldn’t explain more than that. They planned on relapsing after everyone was finished packing up, but Ramses’ bulk portal detector went off. Mateo teleported Carlin right to the location in a rare opportunity for him to get to the scene within moments of an alert. The teleportation should have made it a quick detour, but Carlin was required to report to an after-action debrief. Fortunately, Mateo was able to jump them to the Defense Bunker too. He was asked to participate anyway, but it only took them about an hour, after which they were able to return to the Executive Bunker.

“Will it hurt?” Olimpia asked.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Carlin said to her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. There was something going on between them, but it seemed rather nascent.

“Yeah, but I don’t want it to hurt my friends.”

He smiled. “People report that it’s jarring, but not painful.”

“We’ll be all right,” Marie promised.

“Have you thought about exactly where you wanna go?” Carlin asked the group.

Mateo handed him a piece of paper. “These are the coordinates to the Russian mine. I don’t know for sure that I traveled through time on that day, but it’s likely.”

“I don’t need this. You’re the navigator, as my teachers would call it. I’m just the engine. Concentrate on your destination. Mrs. Matic?”

“I have a few options in my head. I too am unsure, but I’m hoping that crossing into a bulk aperture sufficiently qualifies as a time travel event. We have to locate that angry Fifth Divisioner who trapped us in the kasma. He must be somewhere close. If not, there are other, less than ideal options where we’ll have to go the long way around.”

“Okay. Say your final goodbyes,” Carlin advised.

They hugged and kissed each other, then separated into their pairs to either make their way back to their own pasts, or stay exactly where they were. Ramses and Olimpia watched, fearing the worst for their loved ones, but hopeful that everything was going to work out. “Okay,” Olimpia said after they were gone. “It may all be up to us now.”

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Microstory 2181: Occupy the Same Space

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I’m pretty much caught up on everything. All of the job postings have gone out to the career boards, and I can’t start in on any of them until human resources filters through them first. I didn’t even go into the office. I just stayed home, and remoted in using my personal computer. I think the warden doesn’t really want me doing that; believing that personal devices should only be used for personal business. So my boss is currently requisitioning a work laptop for home use, which they’ll ship to me this week. It will just serve as a portal, connecting me to my employer’s and clients’ respective servers. I’ve rearranged my apartment a bit, which I should have done before. For tax reasons, it’s important that I designate a particular area as my home office. That doesn’t mean I can’t use it for other things, but it needs to primarily be for this purpose. My new assistant, Jasmine helped me move furniture around, and we went out to buy an extra desk, so she can work across from me. Yeah, she could work in her own apartment, since she would just be right down the hall, but we both feel like it makes sense to occupy the same space. We did the same for my private office in the jail administrative section. I think that’s pretty much all I have to tell you today. I now give you permission to return to your regular lives, but be back here tomorrow morning at 8:15 sharp for my social post.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 2, 2454

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Ramses’ new bulk portal detection device was not ready by the time the team’s day ran out. He was able to program his AI to do some things during their interim year, but there was still some work left when they returned in 2454. While he was focused on that, the Primus asked Leona to exercise her diplomacy muscles for them.

“I don’t have any significant diplomacy experience,” Leona tried to explain.

“Is that not what your ship is for? It’s called the Ambassador,” Primus Mihajlović pointed out.

“That was how it was designed,” Leona went on, “and that’s how it was used recently, but my team and I aren’t on it because that’s our job. We just sort of lucked into possession of it. Whoever you’ve been using for your diplomacy with the Ochivari prisoners of war are better equipped than I.”

“We would be grateful,” Kineret began, “if you would at least try. We’re getting nowhere with the prisoners. We’ve passed laws in recent years that forbid us from detaining extraterrestrial POWs for longer than four months. We actually watched a lot of Ochivari die after we placed them in a communal area of the facility to let them attempt to return home on their own. Fortunately, Carlin has been here to prevent the bloodshed, but we’re running out of time. We’ve not been able to capture anyone recently, so this could be our last chance to get answers for  a while.”

Leona nodded respectfully. “I’ll have Angela or Marie see what they can do.” She turned around to look for the Walton sisters when she saw her husband. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I’m just standing here,” he replied.

“I know all your faces, Matt. You’re yearning for something. Do you think you should run this interrogation instead?”

“Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with that. We’ll talk later, in private.”

“If there’s something I need to know...” the Primus said.

“It really has nothing to do with it,” he assured her. “It’s personal. My mind is distracted. Go do your thing,” he said to Leona. “I’ll see ya tonight.”

They shared a couple pecks on the cheek, then went their separate ways. Leona and Angela teleported a few thousand kilometers away to a particularly cold region of the planet, which they would have referred to as the Northwest Territories. There was no name for it here. It was just the Subarctic North. This was where all of the Ochivari prisoners were being held, as far from civilization as possible, to protect the humans from them. They also discovered that Ochivari didn’t like the cold. They didn’t wither and die from it like a movie monster, but they were very uncomfortable anywhere outside of their climate controlled cells, so there was less danger of them trying to escape. Of course, they had to keep each prisoner separately, or they would be able to transport each other to a different universe. This would always result in some fraction of the travelers dying, but this was a risk that they were used to taking, so the humans had to take measures to stop it. Unless the time limit was reached. They had passed similar laws when it was just themselves on this Earth over the centuries, and as angry as they were about the alien invasion, the populace felt obligated to maintain some sense of their own integrity, and to treat their prisoners of war with care and dignity. The Ochivari still had rights, even if they would not extend the same courtesy to the humans.

Primus Mihajlović, who asked the team to call her Naraschone in person, but her title in the company of others, called ahead to let the prison know that two consultants would be arriving to speak with the prisoners. The guards let them in, and directed them to the underground cells. This place was powered by a thermonuclear generator, so it was self-sustainable, and mostly cut off from the rest of the world, for security purposes. The people who worked here lived in a nearby once-abandoned, but now revitalized, formerly indigenous village. For the most part, the only travel that occurred to this location was to drop off new prisoners, or to fly away from having just dropped off prisoners. They even grew their own food in aquaponic towers, further cementing themselves as a stable isolate. So they were very excited to see the new faces. Some of them were a little too excited, but Angela and Leona didn’t let it bother them, because it was understandable given their circumstances.

“I’ll just be right outside,” the guard said, closing the door behind them.

A polycarbonate window was installed in the middle of the room. On the other side was an Ochivar who was already sitting at his table up against the window, ready to talk. He was reportedly just as closed off about their motivations, and other details regarding their culture, but he was less nasty to the humans than his compatriots were. “Who the hell are you?”

“You don’t already know who we are?” Leona asked, pulling Angela’s seat out, and then sitting down next to her.

“No. Should I?”

They were famous in some circles, but not his, unless he was just playing it close to the vest. “We are not from this world. We hail from Salmonverse.”

Ochivari looked different, so their microexpressions would be hard to read without more exposure, yet it was apparent that he recognized the name. He tried not to let this on. “Okay.”

Angela met Leona’s eyes, and nodded. She would begin to lead the conversation. “What’s your name?”

“Nilstedd,” he answered courteously.

“What was the name of the man you killed when crossing over into this world?”

He hesitated with this one, likely surprised that she would show interest in such information. “Kuhsakego.”

“Were you two close?”

He hesitated here too, but less so, wanting to maintain what little power he had left here. “We trained up together. We always knew that we would be wing-locked one day. They discouraged us from becoming friendly for this reason.”

“Were you in love?” Angela asked.

“It wasn’t like that,” Nilstedd answered.

She believed him. “But you did care for him, and you regret his passing.”

“It is our way.” He averted his gaze, suggesting that he did not agree with his own statement. “It is the only way.”

That wasn’t true, but Angela wasn’t there yet. “We’ve noticed something. Well, others have noticed it, and relayed it to us. We have not met enough Ochivari to have any impression in this regard, but it’s become known that you are all men. Are you a single sex species?”

“Of course not. Our mating rituals are more complex than you could ever understand.”

“Where are all the women?”

He scoffed.

“They must be weak,” Angela said dismissively, trying to get a rise out of him.

“They are not weak. They are just too important!” he argued.

“So it’s just about propagating the species,” Angela guessed. “They stay out of the fight, so they can make more fighters.”

“I shall say nothing more of it.” He turned away even more.

“Have you heard of the Krekel?” she asked him.

He appeared determined to stop revealing information to them, but he couldn’t help but react to this. He spit on the far end of his table, as close to Angela’s as he could without phase-shifting it through the barrier.

“They’re like the Tok’ra, who are technically also Goa’uld, but not evil. That’s all they are; those who made different choices.” She shrugged. “You’re Krekel.”

“No, I am not.”

“You can be,” she reasoned. “You can escape your cell whenever you want. Krekel can travel alone.”

Nilstedd crossed his arms defiantly. “They’re lying.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you ever see them do it?” he questioned.

“My father was a slaveowner,” Angela suddenly said. “I grew up with massive trust issues. I had to work really hard to get over them. The Krekel told me that they can wingsing their way through portals. It’s not a trick, it’s not a lie. It’s true. I’ve been sent here to tease information from you, but if you escaped right here, right now, I wouldn’t stop you. I encourage it.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Music. Music is a language of love. For you to do what you do, and survive, you have to develop contempt from your partner, not because of its inherent value, but because of what you were saying. To lose someone you love; for him to die by your hands—or wings, as it were—would be a burden that you could not bear if you let yourself care about him. So you suppress all love, to protect yourself from disappointment, loss, and loneliness. Music brings us together. The way the Krekel I met described it, you can open a portal by focusing your energy on breaking free from the world that you’re on, while they open one by focusing on where they want to go. They seek connection, while you seek escape. That’s why it kills you.”

“I would sure like to read the scientific paper where you’re getting all this brilliant insight,” he volleyed.

She smiled. “I can’t. I briefly looked over the laws relevant to this war. The locals aren’t allowed to study how you operate. It’s illegal, because it’s unethical. They can’t encourage you to kill each other. So no, I don’t know that much about how your wing battle thing works, but I know that it’s not pleasant. If it were, Kuhsakego would be in the cell next to you.”

“What are you trying to do here,” Nilstedd demanded to know, “get me to turn on my own people?”

“No,” Angela answered sincerely. “I’m just trying to get you to tell me why you’re here at all. What’s so special about this world? It’s just another Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to sterilize everyone, but why haven’t you yet? Why are you fighting in the first place?”

He appeared to laugh. “Look around, human. Do you know what the global temperature is? Do you see how much pollution there is in the air? The oceans? Do you know how many unevolved species have gone extinct? Does it have a stable ozone layer? Are these people barreling down a path towards their own self-destruction?”

“No,” Leona answered in Angela’s stead. “They’re fine. The environment is fine. So why are you here?”

Nilstedd was watching Angela during Leona’s response, but he turned his head now. “We’re not here to end the human race in this universe. We’re here to train.”

“To train for what?”

“For you,” he answered simply.

“Me specifically, errr...?”

“People like you, who travel the bulk, causing trouble for us. You can’t combat sterilization in kind. You fight us with guns, and other weapons. We need to know how to fight back, to protect our interests. So we found a universe that’s just advanced enough to give us a real challenge while being primitive enough to not absolutely decimate our forces.”

“These are field tests?” Leona questioned, horrified. “You don’t actually have anything against these people? By your own definition, they’re innocent, and you’re killing them anyway?”

He shrugged. “Orders are orders. Some were sent in ships, others were sent to test out various infiltration and subterfuge techniques. That’s why some of the people we dispatched are human.”

Leona had to actively hold Angela in place when she stood up to teleport away. “No. We can’t tell anyone what he just said.”

“Why not?”

“Come with me,” Leona ordered. She took Angela by the hand, and transported them both to the Gobi Desert.

“They have a right to know that some of the people they’re looking for will look human, and not Ochivari,” Angela argued.

“The right people have a right to know, but we have to be careful about this. Think about it, Ange. Right now, their enemy is obvious; unmistakable. If they have to be on the lookout for enemies who look just like them, they’ll find ‘em, whether they’re real or not. Neighbors will turn on neighbors. People will become suspicious of their children’s teachers. Constituents will lose trust in their leadership, and the entire civilization will crumble to dust. In my day, some conspiracy theorists believed that the government was run by lizard people. They once tried to attack a military base, convinced that aliens were being housed there. Imagine how bad it would get if this kind of stuff were true!”

Angela sighed. “You’re right. This situation requires finesse and tact. I don’t know if we’re up for the job. It puts us in an awkward situation too. We’re invaders, from another universe. What makes our team different? Why should they trust us?”

“There’s another option, but it will be neither safe nor easy. I got the idea just as Olimpia was rescuing us from the kasma. Perhaps the only way to protect this Earth is to seal it up tight. Now more than ever, we would have to return to where we came from.” If the answer was in Salmonverse or Fort Underhill, then they needed to get back to find it, not only because that was their home. Their enemy would want something in return—probably their deaths—but there was no reason to fret over it now. Priorities.

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