Microstory 2375: Vacuus, October 13, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I trust that you’ve been getting my daily health updates. I think that’s all I’m going to do, just forward my morning vital stats. It’s a lot easier, and the system is already set up for it. Of course, the feature is typically meant for patients to update their doctors, but if it makes you feel better, then I can do it. Yes, I do have other people to help me when I’m having trouble, be it with my health, or anything else. Like I was saying, it takes a village, and we’re a tight-knit group here. Some are closer than others. Some have more friends than me, but overall, I feel like I could count on just about anyone on this base. I’ve been reading about it, and other colonies are facing similar issues, living in these controlled environments. People don’t ever get just a little sick, so when something happens, it runs rampant. No one knows what the solution might be, though I’m guessing that your domes make things a little safer. If you have plant life growing in them, you have bacteria growing on them. All those variables are making illness a real concern, but hopefully, a manageable one. I have been taking vitamins my whole life, which include more than one immunity booster, so that’s always helped me. It’s probably part of what staved the disease off for as long as it had been. Anyway, I’m okay now. Bray has been great, and if you don’t know how to interpret vital sign trends, I’m back to the way I used to be before all this. It was a scare, but I think I can safely say that I’m out of the woods now. You’re right, testing twins for this sort of thing could be a good idea if it weren’t horrific, and we probably weren’t the first to think of it. I’m sure our observers did too. I bet they were indeed studying the physiological differences between us, living in vastly  different environments, or at least they were trying to. We’ve mentioned that it makes little sense, trying to study anything in fraternal twins, but whatever. It’s over now, and we don’t have to worry about those people anymore. I hope you took my advice, and sent a message to Velia. I know that she’s looking forward to it.

Ta-ta for now,

Corinthia

Microstory 2374: Earth, October 7, 2179

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Dear Velia,

My twin sister, Corinthia gave me your contact card. She’s talked about you a little. You’re the one who made the matching outfits that we all wore to our interplanetary birthday party, right? I know you read my open letter to the base, but if you want to talk and get to know each other personally, here’s how you can reach me. Tell me about yourself. I don’t have that much experience with what you do, and have never met anyone with your job. Things are a little different here on Earth these days, but I think they’re becoming more like they are on Vacuus, now that society is coming back. We have garment fabricators like you here, but it was a change for me, wearing new clothes. In the past, when we needed replacements, we had to trade for them at whatever market we came across, or even scavenge them from the ruins of the old world. It’s not really something I thought about a whole lot growing up. We were just trying to survive, and as long as you were protected from the elements, that would have to be good enough. If you were in the midst of the toxic fumes, it really didn’t matter what you were wearing unless it was a hazmat suit, because you weren’t going to make it out there for long. Also, when we were busy traveling the world, we were limited to how much we could carry, which was par for the course for a lot of people at the time, certainly everyone we were dealing with. In some instances, it was a rule based on who you were with, and in others, it was a practical necessity to stay light and unburdened by too many belongings. I’ve only recently begun to collect personal possessions. It just wasn’t worth it before, when I was on the road, and in the air. Before we came to this platform, I only had a few shirts and a couple of pairs of pants. Socks and undergarments were the most precious due to their heavy impact on hygiene. I’m sure there’s more to you than your job. You may not even like clothes. Not everyone gets to work in their preferred field. In case you are into fashion, though, here’s a picture of what I’m wearing today. What do you think?

It’s nice to kind of meet you,

Condor

Microstory 2310: Whole World

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Welp, pretty much everything is out of this place. I’ve stuck all of Nick and Dutch’s possessions in temporary storage, along with a lot of my own stuff. I packed up the other rooms too, like the kitchen, to give the majority of it away. I’m only keeping a little bit for myself, like a couple of plates, a few forks, etc. Like I’ve said, I don’t need much, and I don’t need much space. The three of us actually struggled to furnish this oversized house when we first moved in. Now that I’m re-downsizing, I can go back to a simpler way of doing things. It’s surreal to be in this place now. It’s so empty and creepy; even worse than it was just last week. I’m going to snag a few nights at a hotel until my new place is ready for me to move in. Both the seller and I are highly motivated to expedite the process. We could finalize it by Monday. I told you yesterday that I won’t have a whole lot to say for these last few posts, and it would seem that I was totally right about that. I’ll try to come up with some memorable final words to say, but I am not a wordsmith, like Nick was, so don’t get your hopes up. Until next week, I would just like to thank you all for joining us on this journey. Every blog starts out with zero followers, but now you number in the hundreds of millions. That’s amazing. Thank you so much. It’s sad, how it ended, but at least we had a little time together, and I wouldn’t trade that in for the world. Nope, I’m not supposed to say that. Nick taught me to never say that. He put it in perspective for me. It’s the whole world. I would give up just about anything for it if I didn’t already own it anyway. Ha, I’m not sure I agree with that, but I can appreciate the sentiment. Have a good weekend.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 112,398

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Abigail Genifer Siskin Pryce. Daughter of Tamerlane Pryce and Genifer Siskin. In at least one timeline in the main sequence, Tamerlane found Genifer by some means—be it by people database, or somehow by happenstance—and procreated with her. Theirs was an unusual arrangement, the particulars of which are known only to them. She wanted a child. He wanted a child who he could nickname Abiogenesis. Genifer raised Abigail throughout most of her childhood, but was forced to leave her one day to protect the universe from Tamerlane’s megalomania. She abandoned her. She sacrificed her. It was for the greater good, and at least one version of Abigail turned out all right, but it was no less tragic.

Abigail has a destiny beyond the boundaries of this universe, so it’s unclear where in the timeline this one originates. Bhulan didn’t want to ask for fear of disrupting the proper order of events, so she helps Abigail out of the time machine, provides her with clothing, and shows her where she can sleep. Bhulan wakes up Asier so she’s not the only well-adjusted and vetted resident of the Constant. Danica and Mateo still have not returned. Tamerlane is wary of Abigail, for she is not his daughter, and she is smart enough to understand that. This is not helping his recovery from his mental breakdown, though, as he sees her as the representation of yet another mistake that his alternate self made. After two weeks, Abigail agrees to go into stasis herself, so that her once-father can pull himself together. He manages to do so, and after a few months, they all end up back in their own separate pods. Bhulan, Tamerlane, and Asier come out every once in a while, but they leave Abigail in for ten thousand years, under a similar arrangement to the one they had with Mateo.

Now it has been 50,000 years since Danica disappeared, which marks the end of the waiting period. When Team Triple Threat—as Tamerlane liked to call them—were first starting out over a 100,000 years ago, they divvied up responsibilities, and agreed upon a hierarchy. Danica was at the top, with Bhulan as her number two. Anyone who came after Tamerlane would be ordered according to how trustworthy they seemed to the originals. So far, they’ve shown up in a reasonable order, making Danica’s father, Asier number four, and her cousin, Mateo number five. But none of them is allowed control over the most important object in the Constant, which is the Omega Gyroscope.

Danica placed a timer on it, like a dead man’s switch. If she ever lost contact with it for a duration of 50,000 years, possession over it would automatically switch to the next in the line, which is currently Bhulan. The responsibility falls to her now, to protect it, and curate the timeline. This should not be a problem; they all agreed to the parameters a very long time ago, and they were incredibly detailed, so she is not worried about making any bad decisions. She’s worried about what happens if she ever disappears for too long, because she’s not sure if she can trust Tamerlane anymore, and she’s honestly unclear as to what happens if something should happen to him. She doesn’t know if Asier was ever formally placed into the line of succession.

“No,” Asier answers, having evidently already discussed this with his daughter. “If Dani ever disappeared, and you disappeared, and Tamerlane disappeared, the Gyroscope would go on autopilot until the true number four showed up, which could be soon thereafter, or in billions of years.”

“Who is it?”

“That I can’t answer. I believe, now that the Gyroscope belongs to you, that you can find out who it is destined to be.”

Bhulan sighs, and looks at the thing. Then she looks at her watch. “If it’s been programmed to make the switch down to the minute, then we have about a minute to go, based on when Danica disappeared through the time machine.”

Asier nods. “Are you ready? Is something going to happen, or do you know?”

“Danica felt a power when she laid in the initial psychic instructions, and she believed I would feel the same, though to be fair, she didn’t think this would ever happen. I mean, 50,000 freaking years. Who would have thought that any of us would be gone for that long? It’s unsafe to be in stasis all that time, and there’s nowhere else to go in the universe! Plus, she’s immortal...” Bhulan shuddered as she felt a chill crawling all over her body. The Omega Gyroscope always glows, but now it’s especially bright. “Oh my God.” It feels like the glow is inside of her. Power is an understatement.

Asier grimaces. He and Bhulan aren’t related, but they’ve known each other for thousands of years, this certainly seems wrong, and makes him uncomfortable. It looks too pleasurable. “Should I leave.”

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s over. Now I’m back to being myself, except it’s like I have this extra body part. I can feel it, always there. Not pressure, nor pain, but a weight. It hangs from my whole body, like an extra layer of skin.”

“Is it...talking to you?”

“No, it’s not conscious. It’s my new skin, and I’m its new brain. I have to tell it what to do.”

“Surely there’s information encoded in it,” Asier figures.

“Yeah, I think I can interface with it.”

“Maybe you should lie down first.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks.”

He helps her onto the couch, and then steps back, ready to break her out of her trance, or mop up a psychic nosebleed, or help with whatever is about to go down.

Bhulan closes her eyes, and focuses on the Gyroscope; on listening to what it has to say, if anything. After around twenty seconds, she feels herself slipping off of the couch, and into a pool of water. She floats around a little before landing at the bottom. Only now does she open her eyes. Glowing curved beams are flying over her head, and underneath the transparent floor. They look familiar until she realizes that, d’uh, she’s in a giant gyroscope, and those moving curves are the gimbals. A silhouette forms before her, out of the glow. It’s not long before she recognizes the figure as Danica, but it’s not really her, it’s just a 3D recording, but not even that, because all of this is just in Bhulan’s head.

“Yay, Bhulan!” Danica cries, hanging onto the spin axis like it’s a stripper pole. Okay, so she may be more of an uploaded consciousness, and less of a recording.

“Are you real?”

“I’m as close as you’re gonna get, because if you’re here, the real me is probably dead. Ask me anything.”

“What is the airspeed velocity of the unladen swallow?”

“That’s an easy one. Eleven meters per second. What do you really wanna know?”

“Who is fourth in line for succession of the Omega Gyroscope, after Pryce?”

“That’s even easier,” Ghost!Danica says with a wide smile. “It’s Leona Matic.”

Microstory 1844: Extra

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People often ask me what made me want to be an actor, but I can’t point to anything. There wasn’t a moment when I was enthralled with a character on screen. There wasn’t an emotion I had never felt before. I don’t remember the first three years of my life, but it was that version of me who made the decision for the both of us. As far as I know, I have always been an actor, and I never could have been anything else. I begged my parents to move to Los Angeles, but they refused. I honestly believe they would have agreed to it if we had lived in, I dunno, Tennessee, or something. They were so supportive of my dreams, but we were in New York, so I guess they looked at it as a lateral move. “If you want to act, you can do it here,” my mom would tell me. I didn’t want to do stagework, though. I wanted to be on the screen. I wanted to shoot something once, and have anybody in the world be able to see it again forever and ever. As the years went by, I didn’t let my living situation get in my way. I went to auditions for things that were shooting in the area, and while I didn’t get any roles, I think I gained a lot of great experience. That’s how I saw it. Every failure was just a step towards success. Then I got the audition that changed my life. I can’t remember what the role was exactly. I think I was a little too old for it, but the casting director was handing out little flyers calling for extras. There were going to be huge crowds in the movie, so they were trying to fill out the streets. It was an alien invasion, so we had to run from spaceships flying down to kill us. I thought, all right, it’s just more experience, right? It was so great, being on set around all those people. We were all there for the same thing; to support the main cast, and we all understood our jobs.

I had to join a talent agency to get more parts like that, and I found myself preferring it. I suddenly realized that I no longer wanted to be an actor. Yeah, that’s how I got started, but I ended up enjoying staying in the background. I wasn’t getting noticed, but I met a lot of really cool people, including celebrities, and it was always fun. It was pretty steady work too. Film crews always needed people like me to make it look like their story took place in the real world, instead of a snowglobe, like Waiting For Godot. Then my career changed again. I was in a movie about a demon who could possess recently deceased bodies. In one scene, he was having a menacing conversation with the hero on the battlefield, so there were plenty of fresh bodies to possess. Several of the extras were elevated a little bit to actually say a few lines before crumpling to the ground, and making way for the next possession. Luck of the draw, mine was the last body used before the protagonist realized how to kill the demon permanently. So instead of just falling down like the others, I had to pretend to die. I was given no direction for this, I had to figure it out myself. Everyone on set was extremely pleased with my performance. We nailed that thing in one take, and the audience received it well. People were talking about it online, trying to figure out who I was, because I wasn’t credited for it. This was my big break, and I didn’t even see it coming. Talent agencies started reaching out to me, hoping to book me auditions for speaking parts, and I ended up choosing one out of L.A. By then, I had enough money to get out there on my own, and get back to what I originally wanted. I die today with 56 titles on my résumé, the last of which will have to be released posthumously. My agent says she’ll get me a dedication credit.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 29, 2144

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Shortly after they woke up in 2144, their cuffs beeped, indicating that they had a transition window to get to. It was weird, getting back to this kind of mission. This was what they were meant to be doing, but they had just spent so much time on tangents that they had almost forgotten about it. The map was directing them back to Tribulation Island, so they requested Nexus transport, and headed off.

At the resort, they only found one person. The rest had been returned to the main sequence for Mateo and Leona’s wedding. “Mom!” Mateo shouted. He knew this version of her was not exactly his mother, but he didn’t care. He had to hug her. It had been so long since he had seen her. She was surprised at his shock, and not quite as shocked herself, for she had no memory of him as her son, and had only not seen him for a few years. That was nothing in time traveler time.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, graciously hugging him back.

The window opens up over there in a half hour,” Leona said, pointing. “It’s outgoing.”

Mateo looked at Leona, and then the direction of the window, then at his once-mother, and finally back to Leona. “Nerakali is letting her go to our wedding.”

“You’re getting married?” Aura was shocked at this.

“We already did,” Mateo answered. “This is the past for us. We didn’t know you were there, but...you must have been disguised the whole time.”

Bran stepped forward. “Or invisible.”

“We’ve never tried to borrow your...power?” Leona wasn’t sure whether it was a power, or a time affliction.

“We call it a condition,” Aeolia clarified. “It depends on how you look at it, and how you use it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Aura questioned.

Leona reached into her bag, and retrieved one of the extra Cassidy cuffs. She handed it to her never-mother-in-law. If this works, you could be standing right in front of someone, and they will not be able to see you. Or rather, they will, but they’ll forget you so fast, that it will be like you’re not there at all.”

“Oh, interesting.” Aura put the cuff on without need for further discussion.

“They have to teach us how to do it,” Angela pointed out. “We have about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Bran said. “Shouldn’t be too hard since...it happens for us automatically, and we have no control over it, and we’ve never learned anything about it.”

They asked for help from the Nexus technician who greeted them here. They needed someone who wasn’t wearing the cuffs, so they would know when their borrowing of Bran and Aeolia’s condition was working. It took them nearly the whole time they had to get it right, but just in time, the technician stopped acknowledging their presence, and walked off to get back to work, having forgotten why he had left his post in the first place. They each tried to get his attention, but nothing. Jeremy commanded him to walk the rest of the way on all fours, which he complied with, though he didn’t know why. Now that they were right invisible, for all intents and purposes, they ran back to where the map was leading them, and jumped through the transition window together.

They were standing exactly where they were before on the island, but now in the main sequence of realities. To their right, people were walking into the head of the trail that would lead them to the Colosseum replica, where the ceremony would be held. To their left, things were weird. People were waiting in line for their turn at a booth, where someone was handing out hooded robes, but that wasn’t the weird part. They were already obscured, as if they were paintings, and someone had carelessly wiped their faces off with the charcoal. When the person at the front of the line received their robe, and started putting it on, their face was briefly visible until the hood was all the way over their head.

“Don’t look at them,” Leona ordered. “There’s a reason we’re not meant to see who they are, and that reason is probably similar to ours.”

“Well, you don’t need that,” Aeolia said, glad to be contributing to the group.

“We should get them anyway,” Jeremy determined. “What if a cuff runs out of battery, or someone can break through, and takes it off of us. It’s not worth the risk. Better to be redundant than sorry.”

“Good idea, let’s get our own,” Leona said.

They waited in line for a fairly long time. Whenever someone else got in it, they weren’t able to even detect that the seven of them were standing there, so they cut in every time. That was fine, and probably for the best, as this was just for extra protection, and if there weren’t enough robes for everyone, they should wait to be last anyway. As it turned out, they were totally right about that. Only one robe was left after everyone had gone through it, and the booth operator was preparing to close up.

“You take it,” Mateo said to Aura. “If Arcadia catches you, she’ll be pissed, and possibly violent. The rest of us are okay, even Leona.”

“No,” the man at the booth said. “This is for Leona.”

“Wait, you can see us?” Bran asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. “Though not for long. I too flipped the retgone coin, but mine landed on tails. I remember no past, and have no future. All I know right now is that I flipped a coin...and that I’m supposed to hand these things out to those who need them.” He lifted up the last robe, and presented it to Leona. “And that this one belongs to you. I don’t know why I know this, I just know it. Please take it before I forget why I’m here.”

Leona took the robe, and started putting it on. The man with no memory blinked, and looked confused. He didn’t seem to be able to see them anymore. He just left the booth, and wandered off.

“That’s why you don’t flip the coin,” Bran warned. “You might think it sounds awful not being able to be seen by others, but it’s so much worse being alive with no ability to form memories.”

“Come on,” Mateo said. “Let’s go to our wedding for the third time.”

They followed the trail to the Colosseum replica. Pretty much everyone else had found their seats. Most of them were dropped off closer than the beach. Jeremy noticed someone in the crowd. It was the man who saved him as a baby, Lowell Benton. “I would much like to talk to him, if I could. We didn’t get a chance before. I guess I should say, we didn’t take our chance.”

“He looks very confused,” Leona said. “I’ll drop my invisibility for him, and lead him away from the crowd. I don’t actually need to see the ceremony again.”

“I need to,” Aura said.

“Yes,” Mateo said. “You, Bran, Aeolia, and Angela can go find seats. The rest of us will talk to Lowell. We’ll meet back up later.”

“I love you, Mateo,” Aura said. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”

“I love you too, mom.”

They hugged again, then went their separate ways. Leona figured out how to make Lowell remember her, but kept her robe on, so no one would recognize her. Bran and Aeolia’s condition was an all or nothing kind of thing. They couldn’t control who remembered them, and when. Leona had some control over it because it wasn’t really her condition at all. This was probably why she had to wear the robe, instead of Aura, who had never met Lowell before. She took him aside, and found an isolated part underneath the Colosseum. Mateo recognized it from way back in 2079, when he was forced to watch a bunch of strangers kill each other. This was the room where The Cleanser kept them before the slaughter. That was in an alternate reality, though, and never technically happened, so all those people lived to eventually become his friends. There were surely around her somewhere.

Now that they were safely alone, Leona lifted her hood. “Don’t worry, I’m an alternate version. The Leona who’s supposed to get married has no idea I’m here, and won’t become me for a while. You and I have already met.”

“Right,” Lowell said, but he didn’t look like he believed it.

“We have already met, right?” Leona asked. “I mean, you shouldn’t have received an invitation unless we knew each other. No one here is a stranger, even if we haven’t met them according to our respective personal timelines.”

“Yeah, of course, we know each other. Lona.”

“Who the hell are you?” Leona questioned. “You’re not Lowell.”

The person pretending to be Lowell exhaled sharply. “No, I’m not. Sorry. My name is Dalton Hawk. I am salmon, and I am not possessing your friend on purpose.”

“Okay...” Leona started to say. “So you don’t recognize any of us?”

“Any of who?”

Mateo and Jeremy temporarily deactivated their Cassidy cuffs, placing them on a timer for thirty minutes.

“Uh, no. Sorry, don’t know you. Can you turn invisible?”

“Sort of. We don’t know a Dalton either,” Mateo said. He looked over at Jeremy, who was disappointed about not being able to meet the real Lowell.

“I do.” Arcadia was walking down the ramp. She placed one hand on her hip, and the other on her forehead. “Once I ran into you after the ceremony, which is about to start, I decided to go back in time, and find out if there are any more of you. It turns out, there are. There are four versions of Mateo here, and five of Leona!” She side-eyed Jeremy. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve only seen one of you, so congratulations on that, I guess. Why do you keep coming back to your own goddamn wedding! You’re only supposed to do it once!”

“Wait, did you say there are five of me?” The version of Leona here was only the third one. And why was Mateo not with her for one of the other two times?

“I don’t care which version of you you are! I just need you to get the fuck out here!” She made one step back towards the ramp, and pointed up to it. “Are you all the people in hoods? I haven’t checked them, because I respect their temporal privacy, but maybe I should!”

“I don’t know who the people in hoods are. Yeah, they could be other versions of us, but either way, you should continue to respect that privacy, because you, of all people, understands what happens when you mess with the timeline!” If there were going to be multiple versions of her, they could call this one Bold!Leona. “Your sister brought us here, and she’s more powerful than you! So you’re gonna let us be, and not make us do some extra challenge, or something, and you’re gonna get the fuck out of here! A lot has changed since we last saw each other, and we are not simpatico.” Presumably by summoning Nerakali’s abilities, Leona suddenly teleported a few meters forward, and promptly pushed Arcadia to her ass. “I’ve changed.”

A seething Arcadia got back up to her feet, and pressed her fist against her mouth. She blew into her palm, and disappeared, but not all at once. An afterimage of her middle finger lingered for a few seconds before fading away.

“Wow,” Jeremy said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

“Am I on the same side?” Dalton asked.

“You are now,” Leona said, taking him by the hand. “Turn your invisibility back on, and teleport to our team’s location. I’ll stay visible, and act as a link to the homines memorias.”

They landed in their seats just as the ceremony was starting. They watched it all yet again, and then afterwards, during the reception, they danced.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 23, 2138

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Leona started shaking Mateo, but he did not stir. He wasn’t dead, though, that much was for sure. Nerakali evidently sensed that something had happened, and teleported in to investigate. “What was he doing just before he fell unconscious?”

“We were just standing here, talking,” Jeremy explained. “It looked like his neck hurt.”

“Yeah,” Angela corroborated. “Those alien bugs stuck something in the back of his neck to stop him from jumping to the future. They got it out in the other universe, but who knows what kind of lingering effect it might have on him?”

“Nerakali,” Leona began. “You can tell when someone has a consciousness, right? I mean, if their mind was transferred to another body, and there was just nothing there, you would know.”

“I would. It’s necessary for my brain blending power to work.” She knelt down and placed her hands on either side of his head. She stopped, and pulled back, not frightened or surprised, just curious.

“What is it?”

Nerakali placed her hands back on Mateo’s head to get another reading. “It’s...very similar to how people feel when they’re asleep. Not just asleep, but dreaming. You’re not always dreaming when you’re asleep, but he definitely is, and...”

“And what!” Leona was growing impatient and nervous. Being asleep didn’t sound so bad, but it was troubling that they couldn’t wake him up.

“Oh, I remember. He’s lucid. Lucid dreaming. It reads a little bit differently, and I don’t blend people who aren’t awake, so I had to remind myself what it felt like. Yeah, so he’s fine.”

“Why won’t he wake up?” Obvious question, Leona figured.

“I have no idea,” Nerakali answered apologetically. “But he is neither dead, nor dying. Nor is he in a coma, or some kind of fugue state. He’s just...dreamin’. I hope it’s a good one. Perhaps the jump to 2139 will wake him up. Until then, I can stay and monitor him if it’ll make you feel better.”

“It would,” Leona said. She was sick of shit happening to her and her family.

Mateo could feel himself coming together, like a billion beams of light converging on a single point, and building upon one another to form a solid object. He found himself standing-floating in a technicolor void, like something out of a Dr. Strange movie. The lights spread out from him, and wrapped themselves around his body, and danced in the distance. He was alone for an eternal second, and then more figures came into view. Dozens of people were float-standing around him, enjoying their own personal color show, until the beams let them go. They all drifted in one direction, but it wasn’t down, because down didn’t exist in this crazy world-between-worlds. They smiled and waved at each other, like they were all arriving at a family reunion. It was then that Mateo noticed one man was separated from the others, shrouded in a haze. He was crouched, and probably would have been up in a corner if corners existed here.

The reunion continued without this mysterious other man. They were doing their best to ignore him, but would every once in a while look over and scowl. It took them a surprisingly long time to notice Mateo, but once they did, they realized that he too did not belong. One of them came over and scrutinized his face. “Who are you?” He looked back to the crowd. “Who is this guy? He’s not part of the family.”

A woman came up, and Mateo realized he knew her. He just couldn’t remember her name. “It’s cool, Tiago. He’s...an exception.”

Mateo finally remembered. “Sandy Clausen.”

She smiled. “That’s right.”

“What is this place?” he asked. “This is your family?”

She smiled wider. “When we met, I told you that I come from a bloodline of dreamwalkers. Once in a generation, a child will be born with the ability to transmit thoughts to other universes.” She breathed in deeply, and gazed upon her domain. “A friend built us this place so we could all be together in the same moment. We’ll be here once, and then never again. We’re calling it The Last Dream.”

“How did I get here?” Mateo questioned.

“I’m not sure,” Sandy replied, unperturbed. “You were possessed by him once, but that can’t be it. He possessed a lot of people.” She gestured towards the lonely man.

“Wait, him? That’s the guy who possessed me, and had sex with someone using my body?”

“Well, we don’t know the details, but...yeah. He is...you don’t need to know his name. He’s just the...bad egg, I guess. To be honest, I’m surprised there is but one. Look at this crowd. Fifty-six of us, and only one black sheep.”

“There are only fifty-six people in your bloodline? The power disappears?”

“We disappear,” she answered. “Bloodline ends. It’s fine. Most of us aren’t there to see it, and it’s not like this big battle, or anything. We just stop makin’ babies.”

Mateo nodded, and watched the other family members enjoying getting to know each other. “I won’t keep you.”

“I’m all right,” Sandy assured him sincerely. “I’ve actually met most of them. We’re all dreamwalkers, but they’re more into creating new worlds, and I like to travel to  the ones others created.”

He nodded, and waited a moment. “Have you ever heard of the Ochivari?”

“I didn’t technically fight in the Darning Wars, but my team and I worked against them in our own way.”

Mateo reached to the back of his neck, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t in his body anymore anyway, and this was about as real as any dream. The patch was gone, as was the pain, but he still felt some connection to it. Perhaps he always would. “Two of them put this implant thing in my neck. It suppressed my time-jumping pattern. A surgeon got it out pretty quickly, but could that have something to do with how I’m here?”

Sandy thought about it. “Hm. I suppose they could have given you some of their blood, be it by accident, or on purpose. With your history of brane possession, it’s the start of an explanation at least.”

“If this has given me some kind of universe-hopping ability, I don’t want it.”

She laughed. “I doubt it’s that powerful. I mean, there’s not enough Ochivari blood in the bulkverse to give someone the power to travel on their own. It takes one of them to open a portal long enough for just two others to pass.”

He understood what she was talking about as much as his little baby brain could.

“That wasn’t very nice, Superintendent,” Sandy scolded.

“It’s fine,” Mateo said honestly. “That asshole can say whatever he wants about me. What other god lets you get away with calling him an asshole?”

“That’s an enlightened way of looking at it.”

“I’m quite used to other people being in control of my life.” He decided that he wanted to change the subject. “How long does the reunion last?”

“Forever.” She waited a good moment before shaking her head. “No, people will start fading away pretty soon. It lasts as long as we stay alive.”

“Wait, you’re all dying?”

“Yeah, I called it the Last Dream, remember? These are our collective dying moments. We wanted to be together once, but...no more than that. We led our own lives, across centuries, and throughout the bulkverse. Most bloodlines don’t even get this.”

She was right. They started disappearing little by little. Those remaining did not frown, but let tears roll down to their smiles. And then they too disappeared, along with all the rest, until Sandy was the only one left. Oh, and that other guy.

“I hope you find your way out of here,” she said. “If you’re not dying, I really don’t know.” She did kind of frown, and then she disappeared.

Only now did the possessor stand up. He looked around, and while Mateo could still not see a face, he was somehow exuding a deep sadness. Mateo approached cautiously, growing worried he would recognize the guy from somewhere else, and it would shake him to his core. Or maybe the darkness in his soul was hiding everything about him except for the sadness, and the form of his face didn’t really matter. Mateo took a calculated breath, and let some time pass. They just stared at each other for another eternal second. “I forgive you.” The man said nothing, and then he died.

Mateo woke up in a bed, having spent an unknown amount of time in the void. The lights didn’t just blink away. They faded over time, as if also dying, until he was left alone in the remote darkness. His return to the world was a welcome relief.

Leona was beside him. It was nice to know that whatever his body looked like while he was gone, that it didn’t worry her. She sensed his alertness. “You’re back. Oh my God, what happened?”

He told her the story.

“But you’re okay?”

“I’m all right. It was hard, watching all those people die, but I’m fine. Let’s not tell anyone else about this. It was kind of a dark and personal experience. I’m not traumatized, but I need to carry it with me, and I don’t want help.”

“They’ll understand,” Leona agreed.

“These Ochivari,” Mateo began. “They’re going to become a problem in the future.”

“Angela said that our universe was safe, that we stop negatively impacting our environment, and they choose to leave us alone.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

“When I was in the void, I had a sort of special connection to the Superintendent. I couldn’t read his thoughts, or hear his narration, but I did kind of get a sense of the oncoming story. I can still kind of feel him. We have a lot of work to do in our universe, that much was clear, but...there was something else.”

“Something, like what?”

Mateo was trying to recall the feeling that the Superintendent was likely attempting to hide from him. “The Ochivari might not come back to destroy our universe, but I think we’re gonna fight in the war anyway. It won’t be tomorrow, but that train that keeps showing up and recruiting people? One day, I think we’re gonna get on that train. I think it’s just not our time yet. They conscript fighters, and we’re not that now, but we might become that over time. Hell, the Superintendent may even be preparing us for it.”

Leona nodded solemnly. “Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Little did they know how right she was about that bridge.

“What was that you said?”

Don’t worry about it.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 23, 1871

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It wasn’t easy, but Arcadia was able to work her replicated body in a matter of minutes. She was still too weak to do very much on her own, but it was nothing that a good meal, and some peaceful rest, wouldn’t be able to solve. Someone so powerful couldn’t be kept down too long. She did have to sleep all day, though, and by the time they saw her again, it was March 23, 2017. She had just spent the entire year living a somewhat normal life, staying with Declan and Ramses in Fletcher House. Nerakali, on the other hand, had grown used to being on Mateo and Leona’s pattern, so she asked them to replace their Cassidy cuffs, and kind of go back to the way things were. They were fine with it, because it gave them a little extra power they didn’t otherwise have.

As it turned out, the replacement body that The Artist built for Arcadia wasn’t exactly like the first one. It didn’t have any powers at all. Well, it might have let her retain her immortality, but there was no healthy way to test that. Either he didn’t want her to be as threatening as she had been before, or it was some kind of mistake. Either way, she almost seemed relieved by it. People in her position would relish the idea of being normal, at least for a little bit, Mateo imagined. He, at least, would kill to shed his pattern, and live the rest of his life right here. It probably wasn’t going to happen. His pattern was his, and though powers could evidently be added, there didn’t seem to be any way of changing it.

“You’re back,” Arcadia said. “I have been spending this whole time rebuilding my support network.”

“What?” Nerakali looked nervous.

Leona seemed concerned too, but Mateo didn’t really know what this meant.

“Yeah, well, it was a lot harder than before. I don’t have anything to offer, and I can’t threaten to annihilate anyone who doesn’t agree to help me, but I guess I just used my wiles. It isn’t what it used to be, but I can get by.”

“I’m not certain what’s happening,” Mateo said. “Who did you threaten?”

“I’ve told you this,” Arcadia began. “I don’t have many powers myself. I have to ask people to help me, and usually they do it in the background. I plan it out so carefully that you don’t actually see it happening, so it looks like I really can travel through time on my own, or merge two points in spacetime, or whatever.”

“Yeah, you did say that. It’s your support network. Why did you rebuild it? What do you want?”

“I just want it to be over,” Arcadia said cryptically.

“What does that mean?” her sister asked.

Arcadia flipped her bag over, and dumped a bunch of broken glass onto the table. “Here lies Erlendr Preston. He was a terrible father, and a terrible person. He made me who I am, though. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have killed him. This is on you, dad.”

“You can’t destroy the Insulator of Life,” Nerakali argued. “By its very nature, it protects itself from death.”

“Oh, this is just a prop. I gave the Insulator to Bhulan. She destroyed the hundemarke, just like we wanted her too, as a backup plan. Unfortunately, for our father, I had a backup plan of my own. Don’t freak out, Mateo; I am better. I’m doing this for you. I’m creating a safe reality where you’re free from the powers that be. I did not mean for all that to rhyme. Jesus. Anyway, Erlendr killed all those people with the hundemarke, and his plan was to paradox those deaths by saving the victim’s lives. Something that...dramatic, though, can’t just be undone. The paradoxes can only hold if they simply create a parallel reality.”

“We know all this,” Leona argued.

“Yes, but what Erlendr didn’t understand is that he never had to go back, and just save everybody’s life. The idiot was going to steal Jupiter Rosa’s power, quantum replicate himself, and send each copy to their own points in time, so he could essentially create the paradoxes at once. That’s too much work, and completely pointless. The only reason he would need to do that is if he wanted the hundemarke to exist at all. I don’t need that.”

Nerakali stepped forward. “Sister, I’ve been through the timeline. The creation of the hundemarke first occurred in one the oldest timelines ever. It predates the timeline where you and I were created in The Gallery. If the hundemarke doesn’t exist, neither do we. Arcadia, you would be erasing yourself from history.”

Arcadia smiled. “That’s the part that proves I’m a better person. We were indoctrinated into believing the Gallery was  vital to protecting the timeline, but we’re just erroneous. Left to their own devices, the choosing ones police themselves. The Stitcher and The Repairman do everything we can, The Warden imprisons any who would dare expose them, and others help out in their own ways. So many of them have jobs and responsibilities that no one asked them to do, and they often don’t even get paid. They don’t need us. We just made things worse. I’m proof of that. I can fix it, though. All I need to do is go back to one date.” She opened a small pocket on the front of her bag, and removed the hundemarke, so she could place it around her neck. She opened a third pocket, and took out the primary Cassidy cuff. People can only be redeemed if that’s what they want for themselves.

“Don’t do this, Arcadia,” Nerakali pleaded. “You’ll be erasing me from time as well.”

“You’ll be fine,” Arcadia promised. “You’ll continue on in this reality. I’m just trying to make a paradise, not so that I can live in it...just so that it exists.” She tapped on her cuff screen. “You’re the only one who can stop me, so I gave one of the cuffs to Serkan Demir in 2019; the power-blocking chosen one version of him. I just need to switch links, and you’ll be stuck there with him, and you won’t be able to follow us.”

“Please,” Nerakali said.

“You’re welcome,” Arcadia responded. She pressed a button, and forced Nerakali to disappear.

“I can’t tell if what you’re doing is evil, or good,” Mateo said honestly.

“Yeah,” Arcadia replied with a nod. “Me neither. Let’s go. You have to be with me when I go back to prevent the hundemarke from ever existing. Rama Lama Ding Dong, you’re coming too.”

“Where are we?” Leona asked. They were in the middle of the woods. Gunfire, and cannons rang out in the distance.

“Obernai, Germany. Well, it’s in France, but...this is May of 1871, so right now it belongs to Germany. We are on the edges of the battlefield for the Battle of Obernai during the Franco-Prussian War.”

“You brought us to a war!” Mateo cried.

“Well, this is where the hundemarke was born. The moment was so powerful, it created itself. The hundemarke stretched backwards in time, and actually kept the war going for longer than it was meant to, just so it would last long enough for the circumstances to be ripe for its creation. On its own, the hundemarke is already a paradox.”

“If it’s already a paradox, then why are we trying to force another paradox?” Ramses wondered out loud.

They heard a rustling in the leaves. Jesimula Utkin approached them, wearing some kind of cuff. “I made it, guys. Funny prank, trying to leave me behind.”

“Jesi, what is your business here?” Mateo asked her.

She laughed. “That is not my name. Volpsidia got a better body for herself, so she let me have this one. I’ve always identified as male, but I can make this work temporarily.”

“Dad?” Arcadia asked.

“Sho’nuff. Am I allowed to say that?”

“No,” Leona scolded.

“Well, whatever.”

“I destroyed you,” Arcadia accused. “How are you here? Are you from the past?”

“Well, that has to do with Bhulan Cargill,” Erlendr began, seemingly holding back a true-to-form maniacal laugh. “When she threw herself into the fire with the hundemarke, she—” He stopped short. Blood spilled out of Jesi’s mouth. He tried to turn his new body around to see who had stabbed him, but he wasn’t strong enough. He mouthed some kind of curse, but no sound came out. He just fell to the ground, and kept dying.

“Boom!” said the man with the murder weapon. “How ya like me now, dad!” He let out a legit maniacal laugh of his own.

“Zeferino?” Arcadia questioned. “What are you doing in Jupiter Rosa’s body?”

He giggled. “Nah, sis. I ain’t Zef. I’m actually Jupiter. I’m Erlendr’s only real kid. Y’all were made out of clay, but our parents did the nasty, and made me with their bodies.” He was a little too into talking about his own parents’ sex life.

“You can’t have kids in the Gallery,” Arcadia contended. “The original workers tried for centuries. The population never grew even once.”

“Heh. Try telling that to my brother. I never said I was born in the Gallery dimension, but he was. Why do you think Savannah disappeared for nine months?”

“You just said you were Erlendr’s only natural offspring, yet you have a brother?” Ramses noted.

“He’s my half-brother, but we were raised together. Erlendr found out his wife cheated on him, so he locked her up in an abandoned section of the Gallery. He kept her there in secret until the rest of his family fell to Earth. Then he dragged both her and the child down with him, and made me.”

Yet another man appeared from the trees. “He didn’t make you. He raped our mother to reassert his dominance.”

“He what?” Arcadia didn’t seem extremely shocked by everything this Jupiter guy had told her. Even though this was clearly all news to her, she was hundreds of years old, if not thousands, so these kinds of things rolled off of her. The rape thing was just too much, though. “He raped her?”

“I didn’t want to be that dramatic,” Jupiter said.

“The Screener showed us what happened!” his brother shouted. “She didn’t just say no a few times, then finally give in. It was violent, and horrific! I only wish I could have killed him as well.”

Arcadia stepped forward, and spit on Jesi’s dead body. “Same.” There was some silence for a bit before Arcadia continued, “why am I just now hearing about all this? Why have we not met before? I would have reached out if I had known you were my brother. I just wrote you off, because you were some random Springfield Nine I didn’t care about.”

Jupiter chortled. “I’m not really a Springfield Nine. Baby, I was born this way.”

“My father,” the brother answered, “Athanaric Fury didn’t want us involved with all you people. I’ve kept my distance pretty well, and of course Jupiter here has his own group of friends. You’re right, though. I should have reached out.”

“Oooooohhh,” Leona realized. “You’re the other artist. You built the Rushmore extensions.”

“And Serif,” Mateo added.

“I was young,” Fury said to Mateo, “and I treated people as commodities. I’m not like that anymore.”

More rustling. This battlefield edge was a surprisingly busy place. Zeferino Preston struggled up to them. He looked drunk. “Ya gotta help me. He’s in my head. I can’t stop him. I can’t fight him anymore.” He did look like he was trying his damndest to keep it together.

“Erlendr?” Arcadia asked, helping her brother get back to a standing position.

“He’s a lot stronger than me, you know that. I can barely send a psychic email. You have to get him out. Please. I know we haven’t always been close, but I need you right now. Mateo! Mateo, we’re friends now. K—kind of. You’ll do the right thing.”

“Why the hell are you asking me? I don’t know how to get rid of a psychic invader!” Then he stopped to think about it. “I know someone who does, though.”

Leona nodded. “We have to go back to the future.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 3, 2028

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After Leona exited the homeportal, the first thing she did was look around for Mateo. He was nowhere to be found, so the second thing she did was consult her watch. May 3, 2028. This was the day she disappeared from her old life, and became a time traveler, at least in one reality. Her mind possessed memories from different realities, so the portal must have just chosen the most recent one. It likely did the same thing for Mateo. She should have realized they wouldn’t end up in the same place either way. His special moment was on a different date. Now all she needed to do was find a time traveler who could get her back to him. Hopefully someone in this restaurant would let her borrow a phone. She walked over to the counter to ask, but stopped when she realized she recognized the guy on the other side. “Allen?”

He slid his finger underneath his nametag. “Funny, my mom used to say that all the time. I never figured out why.”

She chuckled. “Is Richard here?”

Allen’s eyes narrowed. “My husband is in the back.”

This was Richard and Allen’s place. She had heard about that once. It was at Mateo’s memorial. They owned a restaurant together, which was fitting for them, but this building was much more than that. “When you say he’s in the back, do you mean he’s in the other restaurant?”

Allen’s eyes narrowed further. “He’s cooking up some salmon.”

“Ah, yes. So you know already. Good.” They heard the bell ring from the door opening. Leona turned her head to find her own younger self walking in with a friend. Fortunately, she wasn’t paying enough attention to see Future!Leona. This was the day she became a time traveler, and that was going to be stressful enough for her. “Let’s just say, she’s not my twin. It would be nice if she didn’t see me at all. Could you get me out of here?”

He smiled. “Come on back.” He opened the counter, and led her through the kitchen, to the other side, where the second half of the restaurant was. This was a secret dining area, designated only for time travelers, or time traveler-adjacent people.”

“What can I get ya?” he asked.

Richard stopped wiping down one of the tables, and stepped over to join his husband.

“I actually just ate breakfast.”

Richard looked at his watch. It was late afternoon.

“It was morning when I stepped through the portal. Anyway, I didn’t really mean to come to this time period. I could use some helping getting back to my husband. Who else set up shop in this little mall?”

“Salmonday Club is next door. Post office is down that way, across from The Switcher’s office. The Forger works in that one over there. Might try him if you’re not just lookin’ to send a message.”

“Hey, thanks!”

“No problem,” one of them said after she turned away. She couldn’t tell which one.

She opened the door to the Forger’s den, though this new location wasn’t a den at all. It looked more like a DMV. It was larger, and more professional. Duane was sitting in one of the waiting area chairs, carrying on a conversation with... “Julius?”

Duane smirked. “Oh, please, call him that again.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot. Saxon.”

“Yes,” Saxon said, “how may I help you?”

“I actually came in here to see the Forger. I need a ride.”

Duane stood up. “Sure, when and where do you need to go?”

“I don’t know,” Leona replied. “I ultimately need to get to March 21, 2014, but I need to find something first.”

“What are you looking for?”

“The Insulator of Life. Do you know of a moment in its history when I could take it without interfering in anyone else’s need for it?”

“Hmm. Have you tried the bank?”

“What bank?”

“Gregorios.” He leaned forward, and pointed in the general direction of the hallway. “It’s that way. It used to just be a regular bank for humans, but they shuttered the entire business, and the woman who owned it switched the whole thing over to a special vault where time travelers can keep their valuables, and access them from the future, or the past.”

“Well, who owns the Insulator?”

“No one can own something like that, but anyone who has used it before, according to their own personal timeline, can requisition it.”

“I’m one of those people.”

“Perfect. You do still have to be approved, so there’s no guarantee.”

“Okay, cool. Thanks for your help.”

“Wait. You come back with what you need, I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go...for a price.”

“What’s the price?”

“I need you to get me a ret-gone coin from the bank.”

“I think I can guess, but what exactly does one of those things do?”

“It’s incredibly dangerous, but I need it for a client, who’s willing to take the risk. You flip it. Heads, no one remembers who you are. It erases your entire timeline, past and future. You can do whatever you want, and no one will remember it long enough to do anything about it. You won’t be able to maintain a single relationship, but you can’t be stopped either. You’ll also be immortal. You hit tails, though, it is your memory that will be wiped; both retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Like the Insulator, no one owns the coins, and no one knows how many there are, but rumor is that Alexina is in possession of all of them. It’s impossible to know whether anyone has ever used one, and they’re each single-use.”

“What will I have to give her for it?” Leona asked.

Duane shook his head. “I don’t know. Obviously, you can decline. You’ll just have to catch a ride with someone else.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Thanks again.”

She walked down the hallway once more, and entered Gregorios Bank. Alexina was standing behind a pedestal deliberately, as if she had been waiting for her. “Hello,” Leona began. “I know you from the future.”

“Are we friends?”

“We have a mutual friend, but we didn’t talk much.”

“Oh, okay. How can I help you today?”

“I need two things, and you might not want to give them up. The Insulator of Life, I believe, is the only thing that can save my husband from two psychics who have hijacked his mind. I was told I would be allowed to take it as long as I’ve used it before, which I have.” Alexina seemed inclined to accept her plea. “This is the thing that I really need. Once I have it, I’ll then need to go find my husband, before the psychics make him do something else against his will. The Forger has agreed to provide transport...if I get him a ret-gone coin.”

“Do you know what a ret-gone coin is?” Alexina asked, noticeably upset about being asked something so despicable.

“He filled me in, yes.”

“There’s a reason I spent twenty years of my personal timeline hunting them down,” Alexina explained. “I didn’t want to use them myself, or have control over them. I wanted to keep people from using them. I’ve been trying to figure out how to destroy them ever since.”

“I have no personal interest in them either,” Leona told her. “The only question you have to ask yourself is whether you trust Duane Blackwood with one.”

“No, I have to decide whether I trust whoever it is he wants to give it to. I know he doesn’t want to flip it himself.”

“That’s a fair perspective. I can get by without his aid. I can find another time traveler. I can’t survive without the Insulator, though. In fact, the whole timeline can’t. The people who took over Mateo’s body are not going to do good things with it.”

“Your husband is Mateo Matic?” Alexina asked.

“Yes. What do you know of him?”

“I know he rescued one of my best friends from a prison he didn’t belong in with his bare hands.”

Leona didn’t say anything as Alexina was thinking hard about what she was going to do. After a full two minutes of this, she removed one of her earrings, and held out her hand. “Give me yours.”

“I’m not wearing an earring.”

“Your hand. Give me your hand.”

Leona did as she was asked.

Alexina used the sharp end of the earring to prick Leona’s finger, letting only two drops fall onto the pedestal. She then pricked her own finger, and dropped some of her blood. She looked back to watch the vault door behind her swing open on its own. Finally, she removed a key from around her neck, and handed it to Leona. “I took two drops of blood, which means you are entitled to two withdrawals. You are not entitled to any specific item, however. What you are seeking, you will only be able to find using your intuition. Walk into the vault, and pick a safe deposit box. Open it with this universal key, and see what’s inside. It might be the Insulator, or the coin, or something else, or nothing. A lot of the time, it’s nothing. Your blood donation only gives you access to the vault, not your desire. That’s up to you, and the covenant you’ve made with time.”

“I understand.” Leona walked into the vault, and took a deep breath. She didn’t waste too much time trying to look for the best deposit box. This was about her intuition, so the only way she was going to find the right one was if she just let it happen without thinking too much. She was right. The Insulator of Life was waiting for her inside the safe. She closed it back up, then quickly went over to the next box. Inside was not a coin, however. It was the HG Goggles. She had once used both of these objects in tandem, along with several other things, to bring Mateo back from nonexistence.

Alexina regarded the withdrawal as Leona was walking out. “Hm. Interesting choice.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

Curious, Leona placed the goggles on her face, and looked around. The room now appeared in an indigo tint. She could see lights dancing along the edges of the safe deposit boxes as the vault door was closing back up. The whole bank was a little more lit up than the rest of the building that she could see from in here. There was one particular spot over by the hallway that led to the bathrooms that was particularly bright. “Do you see that over there?” she asked.

“I’m not wearing the goggles,” Alexina said.

Leona crept towards it carefully, then stopped just centimeters in front of it. It was like a silent miniature lightning storm. She pushed her hand towards it, but nothing happened. This made a bit of sense, because spacetime anomalies were reportedly all over the place, but most people didn’t just accidentally fall through them. You had to have some means of opening them up. The goggles seemed to only be good for illuminating them. There were points of light among the lightning that looked like rescaling buttons in a photo editing program. They moved as well, but at their own pace, which was much slower than the rest of the lights. She took two of them with her index fingers, and deliberately pulled them apart. Yes, this was it. This was opening the tear. She stepped through, and found herself in the foyer of Fletcher House.

“Madam Matic,” a man said to her. He executed a manual flourish as he bowed to her reverently. “My name is Old!Declan Aberdeen. Your husband is waiting for you downstairs. I have contained him so that his psychic invaders can do no one any harm.”

“Thank you very much, Old!Declan,” Leona said to him. She walked down to the basement to find Mateo wasn’t alone. Arcadia was there as well, though she was glowing, so she must have been a psychic manifestation, rather than a physical presence. They were standing in some kind of glass chamber.

“Why did you go back to him?” Mateo was asking her. “Why are you working with your father?”

“I could say it was because he promised to undo my siblings’ deaths,” Arcadia responded after a beat. “I could claim I just want to make a better reality. The honest answer, though, is that I would do anything for a family member. If Zeferino showed up tomorrow with some conflicting plan, I would go along with that instead, because he was the last one who asked. I’m just no good on my own.”

Mateo stepped closer, and gave Arcadia a hug, even though she was theoretically not really there. “You don’t need to be with a Preston to not be alone.”

“That’s touching,” Leona finally spoke up.

They separated from each other. Can you see me?” Arcadia asked her.

Leona pointed to her goggles. “These let me see things like you, yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Leona.”

“I am too,” Mateo added.

“I understand what’s wrong with you now.” She reached into her bag and showed them the Insulator of Life. “So let’s fix it.”

Ramses Abdulrashid surprisingly walked into the room. “Can I help?”

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