Microstory 2490: Pyradome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2, with music by MusicFX text-to-audio AI software

Not gonna lie, this one is dumb. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to review it. People just don’t really understand what it is, and that’s because they think there’s some deeper meaning behind it to understand. The truth, a one-sentence explanation is all you need. These are residential dwellings in the shape of pyramids. There. As long as you can read, you got it. There’s nothing interesting about this place, except for maybe how it looks from above. If you go up far enough, it’s pretty cool to see how the pyramids tessellate. But that’s less of a city, and more of an art piece. I guess the best reason I can think of for them to make this is because Earth has a long history of building pyramids. Multiple ancient cultures did it independently of each other. Maybe I actually don’t get it, and there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Maybe it’s some complicated, philosophical statement on overconsumerism, or monotony, or some bullshit like that. I suppose, if you have your own interpretation for these pyramids, that’s fine. I’m not gonna tell you what to think. What I can tell you is that the population here is extremely low, and they do not fill it out with androids. It’s basically Underburg—which is also struggling to promote interest—except with pyramid houses. I mean, that’s really the only difference, except maybe there’s less emphasis on returning to a bygone era, and more of just a niche place to live. When the vonearthan population grows to the trillions, there might be enough people here to call it a real community, just because statistics support it. But if Earth moves forward with their plans to build the World Crescent Tower, or terraforming becomes exponentially faster, Pyradome might be experiencing its heyday right now, as sad as that sounds. If you wanna see a spiking world below your feet, sign up for a helicopter tour. If you want a great place to live, I can’t recommend this over other places, like Overdome or the Palacium Hotel, or hell, even somewhere in the Nordome Network.

Fluence: Mirage (Part III)

< > Entire Story

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Goswin wiped the rain from his eyes, and was able to see that this Irene de Vries woman was not alone. A very young child was huddled against her hip. All signs pointed to the fact that this was Briar, but it could also be his son, or his great grandfather, or his eleventh cousin, forty-two times removed. “What year are you from?” Goswin asked. “Oh wait, no. Sorry. I mean, uhh...report.”

Irene smiled. “Trinity used to say that to me all the time. Is that in the time traveler’s handbook, or something?”

“If there’s an actual handbook, I’ve not actually seen it. That’s just what I’ve heard others say. May I ask the boy’s name?”

“It’s Briar.” Confirmed. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar. Have you ever been to the 21st century?”

“Captain!” Behind him, Weaver was power walking up, followed by Eight Point Seven, and Harrison.

“Is Madam Sriav with you?” Goswin asked.

Weaver shook her head. “She didn’t come. We assume she’s still on Lorania.”

“That’s not good,” Goswin mused. “We’ll try to get back to her. Crew, I would like you to meet Irene de Vries, and her son...Briar.”

Eight Point Seven didn’t react, and of course, neither did Harrison. Weaver flinched, but kept it together. Briar was in very, very big trouble, but not yet. Warning Irene that her son would one day become a killer was not going to help. Things could conceivably get better, but they could also get worse. She may decide that the only way to stop this would be to murder her son, and that would not be an okay decision. It wouldn’t work anyway. Briar killed Mateo while he was wearing the hundemarke, which was a special temporal object that created fixed moments in time. No matter how you try to change the past, this will always happen, as will anything inherently necessary to lead up to it. “It’s nice to meet you.” She pulled Goswin towards her, and did her best to whisper in his ear while still being heard through the rain. “We need to get out of here.”

“I know,” he replied.

“If you have to go back to the Middle Way, or whatever it is you did to make this happen a fourth time, then do it again. I don’t care if we end up on the moon. Just get us out of this paradox.”

“Fourth?” Goswin questioned incredulously. “You think I’m the one who took us to Achernar in the first place? You think that this was just something I’ve always been able to do, but the first time I tried was when I was in my 80s?”

“The thought crossed my mind. Maybe you’re salmon.”

“Excuse me?” Irene interjected. “The rain’s starting to come down harder. I really could use some shelter. There’s a cave nearby that we can hide in temporarily.”

“Hey!” a voice shouted to them. “Get the hell away from my mother!” Briar was running towards Goswin as fast as he could, and unlikely preparing to come to a complete stop just to exchange a few choice words. He was in a tackle posture. Fortunately, he didn’t make it that far. Harrison reached out, and lifted him up by his underarms, holding him in the air effortlessly as Briar continued to paddle his feet to no avail. “Let me go!”

“Did he just say mother?” Irene asked, confused and scared.

Goswin waggled his finger at the still struggling Briar. “Stop. Stop! We’re not going to hurt anyone. If you want to protect her, then you will stop moving, and listen to me very carefully.”

Briar went limp, and started to pant.

“Everyone gather around. Not you, Madam de Vries. Please go protect your son.” Once everyone else was in a huddle, Goswin went on. “I have a theory. Briar, are you familiar with any landmark on Earth; anything at all?”

“No, nothing.” Yeah, he had only ever remembered living on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. “Well, except for this.” He held up a photo of Irene in her younger days, smiling in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. “It was her favorite place in the world.”

Goswin closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I’ve been there too. That’ll work. Think about that place. Think about trying to go there.”

“Why?”

“Would you just do it? The National Museum of Natural History. Think about the museum. Think about visiting there. Don’t think about anything else.”

“Okay, I guess.”

The rain suddenly stopped. They were now in the middle of a grassy park. To one side of them was a giant bosom, and to the other a giant phallus. Behind them stood a red castle, and before them was the target museum, which was the second bosom. This was Washington D.C. all right. They were soaking wet on a bright, sunny day. The tourists around them were confused, and a few of them looked really nervous.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Goswin admitted. “I just didn’t want us to go back to Bida, and Briar doesn’t have a frame of reference for much on Earth.”

“What is your hypothesis,” Weaver asked, “that he’s the one who brought us?”

“Well, it seems like the only possibility,” Goswin determined.

“We didn’t even see him at the other locations,” Weaver pointed out.

“Excuse me?” A man in overalls had approached Briar. “Could you please step closer to your friends?”

“They’re not my friends,” Briar spit at him.

“That is very much not my point, sir,” the stranger said. “Please step closer to them.” He waited, his patience thinning. “Please,” he repeated. “Thank you,” he added when Briar finally complied.

“What is it you need?” Goswin asked, ready for a fight, even though he was not much for violence.

The stranger held up his hands like he was trying to block the sun from his eyes. He jerked them a centimeter away from each other, which served to freeze everyone around them in place. Time was stopped, or at least moving very slowly. He gradually pushed his right hand forward, and in front of his left hand, which pulled back, and moved in the opposite direction. As he did so, time began to reverse outside of the bubble he had erected for them. They watched as the tourists walked backwards. A child’s scoop of ice cream flew back up to his cone from the ground. Once the scene was back to where he wanted it, he closed his hands into fists, and snapped them against each other, pinky to thumb. The five of them felt a lurch, as if the roller coaster ride were just beginning. The man carefully placed his left fist against his nose, and looked over his hands like a sniper. His arms were shaking, but not like he was struggling, more like it was integral to the process. As he slowly moved his fists away from his face, the scene around them began to blur and fade into blackness. They flew forward, also like a roller coaster. Finally, he opened his hands back up, and separated them, stopping the ride.

They were standing in a desert, the three main pyramids of Giza rippling above a mirage a few kilometers away. The slight distortion from the bubble dissolved, and the warm wind began to blow sand into their eyes and noses. “All right. It’s done.”

“What’s done?” Eight Point Seven questioned.

“You’ve been erased from the timeline. No one who witnessed your arrival in the National Mall remembers that it ever happened, because it didn’t. They’re all going about their day, still clueless about time travelers, and the like.”

“Thank you, Repairman,” Weaver said to him as if they were old friends. Maybe they were.

“When you say, we were erased from time...” Goswin trailed off intentionally.

“You just never showed up there,” the Repairman clarified. “Instead, you transported yourselves to this random spot in the Necropolis. You’ve been here the whole time, and if anyone were to ask a lizard or cactus around here what they saw, that’s what they would say.

“I don’t see any cactuses,” Briar noted.

“Then maybe you don’t have to worry about any witnesses,” the Repairman joked. He paused a moment. “Well, bye.”

“Wait!” Goswin stopped him. “Could you help us again...maybe by telling us what’s happening to us?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I heard you blame everything on this guy,” the Repairman said. “What I’ll tell you is that the ability to transport people from a distance is rather rare. It’s not impossible but...in my experience, when multiple individuals travel together without any of them realizing how or why, it’s not because one of them is doing it on purpose, but because there’s some kind of glue that binds them together.” He made a quarter turn, reached out, and opened an invisible panel in the air. They couldn’t see anything, but they could hear the familiar creak of metal scraping against metal. He reached into it, and took hold of an equally invisible handle, which he pulled down. His figure turned into a black silhouette for a split second before disappearing completely.

They stood there in silence for a few moments. “I have another idea,” Goswin finally said, worried how they would take it.

“A new experiment?” Weaver asked him, intrigued.

“Are you up for it? We have to get a handle on this. I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life randomly jumping from point to point.”

“Let’s hear it,” Eight Point Seven encouraged.

“You can’t,” Goswin replied. “I’m going to write four places down, and keep them compartmentalized. You will each think about your own place, and only that place. If he’s right, and there’s some kind of glue between us, it won’t work, because it will be contradictory.” He pulled out his handheld device, and started writing the locations down. He showed Briar the first one.

“Really?” Briar asked incredulously.

“Don’t. Give it away,” Goswin warned. “It’s a magic trick.”

Briar sighed, upset. He was being expected to think about the cliff where he killed Mateo Matic. It was simultaneously the worst and best place for him. What happened there was probably the worst thing he had ever done, so that meant, now that he had been triggered, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, even if he wanted to.

The other three, on the other hand, were going to be thinking about the the west entrance to the primary research facility on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. No one ever went back there, so they shouldn’t have to worry about being seen. Goswin was the only one who knew that he, Weaver, and Eight Point Seven had the same spot in mind. If Briar were the one in charge, it didn’t matter what the others thought of, because they would always end up where he wanted to go instead. “Everyone ready?” Goswin asked. “I guess time travel works on psychic powers, so...everyone think about your respective locations, please, and really, truly, desperately try to actually go there. Don’t think about anything else. It may take a while, I really don’t know.”

They stood there in their huddle for a minute or so without anything happening, the humans struggling with the dust storm that was starting up around them. It did work, though. The sand and sun disappeared to be replaced by a dense forest at twilight. Alien bugs crawled around on a tree next to them, as wingèd ones swarmed in their faces. This was definitely Bida. But it wasn’t the cliff where Briar committed murder, and it wasn’t anywhere near the research facility.

“Whose spot was this?” Eight Point Seven asked.

“No one’s,” Goswin revealed. I don’t know that we’re right about this.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Weaver said, taking out her own handheld. “I can connect to the satellite now.”

Goswin was worried again about how they would take it. “Briar had the...the cliff. You know the one I mean. The rest of us had the west entrance to Pryce’s lab.”

Weaver peered at him over her device. “Only two places.”

“Yes, it was like a blind study.”

Weaver nodded, and tapped on the screen. She held it in front of his face. “We’re right in the middle.”

“What?” Goswin took it from her, to see what she was talking about.

“Exactly equidistant from the cliff and the building.”

“We split the difference,” Eight Point Seven noted. “The Repairman was right. It’s all of us. Whatever each of us wants, this...force between us tries to come up with something that matches our criteria combined. If you wanted Italian food, and she wanted Chinese, and I wanted French, and he wanted Ethiopian, we would end up at a fusion restaurant.” She started pointing at the members of the group accordingly. “If we wanted to go to the years 1776, 1912, 2024, and 2100, we would show up in 1953.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Goswin said. “Briar wasn’t with us on that void planet, or on Dardius.”

“Wasn’t he?” Weaver prodded.

Briar frowned. “I was hiding. I wasn’t planning on showing myself at all, but then you attacked my mother...”

“No one was attacking her,” Goswin defended. He grunted. “We have to figure out how to get rid of this. It could cause us serious problems. If one of us wants to go to Teagarden, and the rest want to go to Glisnia, are we gonna end up somewhere in the middle of empty space?”

“We can’t do that yet. We have to go back to return Harrison and Madam Sriav to where they belong.”

“That’s true,” Goswin agreed. “Can we all come to a consensus long enough to make that work?”

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 17, 2399

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Canva text-to-image AI software

Of all the least stable regions in the world, one particular small so-called nation located in Central Africa may be the worst. On the borders of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad lies a terrorist-controlled area that was once split between those four original nations. The historical events that led to this secession are too complicated to spell out in a few paragraphs, but the bottom line is that the terrorists operating there were building out their offensive strategies, and worsening a war that they would ultimately lose, but not before thousands—if not millions—died in the ensuing conflict. The only way the four countries saw to end the bloodshed was to simply let them take formal control over the land and lakes. Their only significant condition was that the terrorists allow anyone living within the new borders to migrate out if they wished.

People fled in all directions, and were accepted as refugees or preexisting citizens in the four countries. They were also accepted in a few farther countries, like Libya, and even Egypt. Hostilities from Fadi have not ceased since the borders were redrawn, but the violence has subsided, and fewer civilians are caught in the crossfire than before. One issue is that only these four countries acknowledge Fadi as an independent state, stifling its voice and influence on the international stage. They also experience extreme sanctions, which limits the resources that they can import. For this reason, they will take payment from anyone for literally any reason. As long as the price is right, they’re willing to agree to any deal. They’ll commit acts of violence against their own people if the result is the persistence of the state as a whole. One resource they have to export are fossil fuels, which some aircraft can use to fly. They don’t require filing flight plans, so many criminals use it as a layover. Fadi will usually ask them to transport goods back and forth for them as part of the deal.

It was hard for SD6 to find the plane that left Dublin Island after it made a stop in the completely inaccessible Fadi, but they think they’ve done it. A plane matching its characteristics was tracked leaving the area, and landing in North Sudan, right on the border with Egypt. Once there, Kivi began to feel a draw even farther northward, suggesting that they are finally on a hot trail to Leona. They still don’t know who took her, why, or what condition she’s in, but she has to be alive, or Kivi wouldn’t be feeling anything. As they drew nearer to Cairo, Kivi realized where they must be headed, and it makes a lot of sense. She and the team were in Egypt once after the whole Birket issue, but were unable to stay and investigate one of the most important locations in the world when it comes to temporal anomalies. From what she recalls, they were going to go back at some point to check out the pyramid, but there were political issues with that, so they placed it on the backburner. Then when they became teleportation-capable, they had sort of forgotten about it. There were other things to worry about by that point.

“There’s someone here,” she says, holding up the portable temporal error detector.”

“Here where?” Alserda asks. She looks around at the crowd enjoying their tours.

“Inside,” Kivi says, nodding towards the pyramid.

“You can’t go inside,” their tactician, Hartwin points out.

“No,” Kivi says. “You’re not allowed to go inside. That doesn’t mean you can’t. Team Matic doesn’t do well with rules.”

“Can you...” They’re in mixed company, so he just mouths the word teleport.

“No.”

“Then when we use the word you, we’re not just talking in generalizations, are we? SD6 has no official jurisdiction on these lands.”

“Perhaps I can help?” Most tack teams have seven members, but this one often travels with a rotating list of eight member consultants. Their guide while in country is a man by the name of Nakia Mounir.

“Do you have that kind of pull?” Alserda asks him.

“Unofficially, no,” Nakia begins, “but my sister’s husband’s brother runs a tourism company for the Nile. I’m sure he has ties to the Great Pyramid.”

“That’s a lot of degrees of separation,” Alserda says.

“Let me try. It can’t hurt to make some calls. Worst that happens, they say no.”

“Go ahead and make your calls.” Alserda turns to admire the craftsmanship. “I’ve always wanted to see inside anyway,” she says, mostly to herself, but loud enough for others to hear.

A few hours later, they have permission to enter the pyramid, but not the entire group. Only two people will be allowed in, and one of them has to be of Egyptian citizenship, so obviously that’s Nakia. “Can you do this?” Alserda asks.

“Me?” Kivi questions. “You or Klein should go in. I don’t have any diplomatic training. Besides, you said you wanted to.”

“You know her best,” the leader reasons. “She needs to see a face that she trusts, not just one she recognizes.”

Kivi holds up the error detector. “Alserda, this thing detects...” She trails off, looking over at Nakia, who has not been read into everything. “Ugh. Time travelers. That’s all it can see. It doesn’t show me how many other people are in there. It doesn’t even tell me that it’s Leona. It could be anybody.”

“They’re only letting in one of us,” Alserda states the obvious. “You’ve had enough training. Stay on radio, and if it goes bad, we’ll breach. I would rather deal with the socio-political fallout of an unsanctioned tactical action than go in there without you. It’s your job to be the Spotter, so enter the pyramid and spot.”

Kivi sighs. “Well, if it’s an order...”

“It definitely is. This is not a voluntary mission.”

Kivi and Nakia make their preparations, then step through the entrance a half hour later. The guard lets them in without seeing any credentials, confident that no one who hasn’t been authorized would so much as attempt it. They’re not wearing full tactical gear, but they’re not dressed in their civies anymore either.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” Nakia whispers as they’re walking through the darkened maze.

“What I said about time travelers?”

“Are we hunting them?”

“No, this is a rescue mission. We didn’t lie about that, we just didn’t tell you everything.”

“Good.”

“Why is that good? You don’t even know who we’re here for.”

“I would always rather be on a rescue mission than a hunt,” Nakia explains.

“Fair enough.” Kivi checks her detector again. They can’t just go straight for the ping. They have to find their way there, and the corridors will probably lead them in the wrong direction many times. They were not provided with the floor plans.

“Please tell me that time travel does not explain how the pyramids were built.”

She waits a beat to answer. “The way I understand it, time travel doesn’t explain how they were built, but it does have something to do with why. It’s a special place, which helps facilitate space travel. I don’t know; they didn’t tell me that much about it.”

“How did you meet them?”

Kivi decides to answer honestly. “I’m one of them. Technically, I’ve never actually done any traveling personally, but my alternates have.”

“So you’re a traveler in other timelines.”

“Other realities, but that’s not why I have alternates. I just do. It’s called spontaneous reemergence. Different versions of me have been, and will be, born in different moments in time. We have different origins and different lives.”

“How did that happen to you?”

She chuckles a little. “That’s how this works. Things just happen. There’s not always a reason to it. Why were you born with dark hair?”

“Genetics.”

“That’s the cause, not the reason.”

“I understand,” he says in a way that suggests he doesn’t. But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? No one truly understands it. It just is. That’s her whole point.

“We’re closer,” she says. “I think she’s right on the other side of this wall. If we just go that way, I’m sure we’ll find a way in.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Kivi turns around to find Ramses having appeared out of nowhere wearing shorts and a t-shirt. “We’ve been trying to call you.”

“I didn’t wanna be called,” Ramses replies.

“That’s not really your right to decide that.”

“It is.”

“Leona is missing.”

“What?”

“She was taken. We don’t know by who, but she was brought here.”

“I’m the only one here,” Ramses insists.

Kivi isn’t sure that she believes him. She looks down at her detector. The dot that was once on the other side of the wall is now on the other side of them. “Oh my God. We’re been on your trail?”

“I guess. I’m sorry. I thought I successfully shielded myself, but I guess it was only good enough for satellite distances. The portable detector is able to get through.”

“That’s not how I found where you were. It’s just how I pinpointed your exact location. We used detective work to track you from Ireland to Fadi to here, and then my psychic ability to find you in the Cairo area.”

“Uhh...I was never in Ireland, nor Fadi. I teleported straight here after Mateo died. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“So it was Leona,” Kivi figures, “but then our intel went bad, and we followed the wrong third flight.”

“I apologize for pulling you off mission for nothing, but now you know I’m here. I’m never leaving, so if your ability ever takes you this direction again, you’ll know that it’s wrong, so just ignore it, and try again.”

“You’re living...in here?” Nakia asks.

“There’s a modern apartment hidden in here. It took me some time to find the secret entrance, but it’s just as Leona described how it looked in the main sequence.”

Kivi shakes her head. “No, you’re still a part of this. I don’t care if you’re having a midlife crisis, or whatever. I need you to teleport to Leona using your superempathy.”

“I don’t have either of those things,” Ramses counters. “I ran out of juice.”

“Then I’ll get you some more temporal energy,” she argues. “Let’s go!”

“I really want to keep myself out of it now. I’ll just make things worse.”

“I don’t care what you—oh, hold on.” She answers her phone. “Hello?”

“I have Leona on the line for you,” Winona says.

“What? You found her?”

“Kivi?” Leona asks. “Stand down, I’m fine.”

Microstory 1777: Cosmic Sextant

< > Table of Contents

The Cosmic Sextant, like many other special temporal objects in the universe, was not made, but born. It’s possible to create a piece of technology that exhibits reality-bending properties. You can engineer a spaceship that is capable of traveling faster than light. You can make a pair of binoculars that shows you what the area you’re in will look like at some given point in the future. Many of these technologies were created by a particular person, and her alternates. Her name is Holly Blue, but in some realities, she goes by the nickname The Weaver. Her time power is to make objects with their own time powers. It’s easier for her to do if she’s seen the power in action, and even easier if she has long-term access to the subject for study, but she’s been known to intuit her inventions on occasion. She’s not the only temporal engineer in the timeline, but she’s perhaps most famous for it, at least across multiple circles. Holly Blue did not invent the Cosmic Sextant, nor did anyone else. It didn’t happen for no reason at all, but it wasn’t done by anyone’s intentions either. These special special objects are rare, and demand a particular set of circumstances to coincide. It’s not always obvious which is which, but there is a way to make a good guess. Typically, the simpler an object, the more likely it is that it was imbued with its power, and not an invention. You don’t design a stone that can send people back to the moment they first experienced time travel. Such a form would be too capricious. Instead, what most likely occurred was that a person with the ability to return others to the beginning of their respective temporal journeys was holding a rock while they were in the middle of working, and enough temporal energy flowed into it, and stuck. Home stones are very old, so no one knows who this person could be, but it’s probable that a time travel event erased them from the future, but left the stones they once created intact. Again, no one knows.

Maqsud Al-Amin is a choosing one with the ability to transport himself, and others, across the largest distance ever covered by a teleporter. He can make the trip to the nearest galaxies in a matter of seconds. Anyone with access to Shimmer, which is channeled by The Great Pyramid of Giza, can do the same, but not as quickly, and not as far. Maqsud is an explorer, who enjoys going to other worlds, and learning about new cultures. When he was first starting out, he did so before a telescope with sufficient range was invented, so it was actually better for him to use a sextant, and measure his destination manually. He happened to do this in what would come to be known as Bryce Canyon, in what would come to be known as Utah. The temporal energy from him passed through the sextant, and flew off to collide with one of the hoodoos, where it bounced off, and collided with another. This energy just kept bouncing all around the geological formation, until it all landed back into the sextant, where it remained for future use. Maqsud was long gone by then, having dropped the sextant in the initial energy release, and ending up in the wrong star system, where he would have to make his way back on his own. He didn’t find out what the sextant could do until later, and felt no ownership over it, so it began to trade hands from there. For whatever reason, travelers can’t take it with them when they use it, so they always have to find some other means of departing from the destination planet, if they so wish. This has necessarily limited its use. It’s powerful, but risky, because it was not made on purpose.

Exemption Act: The Ends Justify the Means (Part III)

< > Entire Story

Carbrey spent about a month studying this universe’s technology, so he would understand how it worked before he even thought about engineering something real. He picked it up pretty quickly seeing as the tech wasn’t too dissimilar to what he was used to, but he said he would rather be safe than sorry. The laws of physics, he claimed, were exactly the same, so that was nice. The facility they were staying in was mostly a gigantic underground hangar, with a few other rooms attached to it. They each had their own place to sleep, but it was nothing fancy. This place was obviously not designed for boarding. Freya wondered what they once kept in here, and why it was abandoned. While they were relatively close to the nearest population center in Kansas City, Khuweka assured them that no regular human would show up. A few temporal manipulators were aware of it, but none had much reason to use it in this particular time period. There appeared to be at least one, though. They were eating lunch together in the middle of the hangar when a ceiling suddenly appeared above their heads, starting from a single point, and then extending outwards. Of course, there already was a ceiling, but it was many stories above them. This one was only a few stories up, and while that was more than enough room to clear their heads, the force of its abrupt arrival knocked them all to the floor.

“What the hell just happened?” Limerick asked as he was sitting up and massaging his head.

“I don’t know,” Khuweka said honestly. She had been thrown down as well, but Maramon were physically superior to humans, so she wasn’t hurt at all.

Andraste, on the other hand, was very hurt. Blood was seeping out of the back of her head, and spreading out on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. When Landis saw this, he started crawling towards her. His wing appeared to be hurt as well, perhaps broken, but he knew that Andraste was priority. He took a deep breath, and exhaled over Andraste’s body. “Injuries heal faster than terminal diseases,” he explained, “but it will still be a few minutes.”

“What if she’s dead already?” Zektene asked. “I don’t mean to be negative, but can you cure death?”

“Death is a process,” Landis answered. “It doesn’t happen in one moment. I can’t go digging up graves, but if she died, it was quite recent, so it should be fine. She will not have even experienced permanent brain damage, which is the one thing I cannot repair.”

“Khuweka,” Carbrey began, “what is that thing?”

“I think it’s a ship,” Limerick assumed right.

“Zek,” Khuweka said, “could you take Mister Genovese to investigate? Jump back here at the first sign of trouble.”

“Okay,” Zek replied. She took Carbrey by the hand, and teleported away.

A minute later, Andraste sat up, and checked the back of her head, not out of pain, but because it was still wet with her blood. “What happened?”

They told her.

“Do you feel okay?” Freya asked.

“I feel great,” she answered. She started opening and closing her hands. “I think my arthritis is gone.”

“Yes,” Landis said. “I’m a holistic healer. I couldn’t cure only one disease or injury if I wanted. It’s all or nothing.”

“We should all get treated,” Limerick suggested excitedly. “I know my liver could use a little TLC. You guys know what that acronym means?”

“Yes,” they replied in unison.

Five minutes later, Zek and Carbrey reappeared before them. “It’s an interplanetary warship called The Sharice Davids.”

They all looked to Freya. “I’ve never heard of it. Sorry.”

“Is there anyone in it?” Khuweka asked.

“Totally empty,” Zek said.

“Based on what little of the system I saw,” Carbrey started to say, “an emergency escape maneuver recently completed its sequence. It was traveling all throughout time and space, spending only seconds at any one point, evidently so no one would have time to board it. It had to stop eventually, though. This last jump depleted it of all its power, except for what little was able to eke out in order for me to get this information, but then it died completely.”

Limerick was staring up at the bottom of the vessel admiringly. “We should keep it.”

“It isn’t ours,” Khuweka argued.

“Why did you choose this hangar?”

“Because no one else was using it.”

“No one else is using this ship either.”

“You don’t know when they’ll be coming back,” she contended. She turned to face Freya. “It is your job on this team to know these things, or find out. Please make some inquiries for us. Meanwhile, Carbrey, power up some of the internal systems, just to gather more information. We’ll only refuel if we all decide we’re allowed to.”

“How do I...?” Freya began to ask, but thought better of it. She was right, this was her job. She had to figure this out herself, or she should just quit. Out of everyone here, she was the most dedicated to the cause. Not even Zek totally wanted to be here. She mostly joined the mission in the first place because she didn’t want Freya to be alone. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I’ll go with you,” Zek offered for the upteenth time.

“Good, because I need a ride to Giza.”

They teleported to the benbenet of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was invisible to all who did not know it was still there. A man was standing before them. “Stargazer,” Freya began, “you once told me that you owed me a favor, even though I had done nothing for you.”

“Not you, per se,” Stargazer corrected. “I consider alternates to be equals. Another version of Saga helped, and I honor that.”

“But if you do me a favor, am I not taking it from her?”

“You are not. What can I help you with?”

“We need to find someone familiar with advanced temporal technology, specifically in regards to a spaceship,” Zek said.

“This is my friend, Zektene Cormanu,” Freya explained. Stargazer was polite and accommodating, but wary of strangers. “She’s cool.”

He nodded with his eyes closed, then turned to Zek. “What time period?”

“This one, I think,” Zek answered. “It’s called The Sharice Davids.”

Stargazer was taken aback. “That should not be here in this moment. You must take it away. It is too dangerous. The future depends on no one else ever finding out it survived. I didn’t even know, and must now have my memories erased once you leave to protect it.”

“We’re sorry,” Freya said with a frown.

“No, it’s quite all right. It’s good that you came to me, since I know what to do with this information.”

“It’s only an interplanetary ship,” Zek pointed out. “Where could we possibly hide it?”

He shook his head. “It was designed to protect against external threats to the solar system, but it eventually became outdated, and time travelers later retrofitted it with interstellar capabilities. It was destroyed before reaching its first exoplanet, so if it was put back together, it means some very powerful people came back to reclaim it for themselves. You cannot let that happen, so you cannot trust anyone.”

Freya looked for answers in the layer of sand on the floor. “There might be a way to get rid of it.”

“Tell me nothing,” Stargazer warned before she could continue. “I’m happy to erase my memories, but the less I ever knew, the safer the information will be.”

“Understood,” Zek said. “But just to be clear, there is no one in this timeline who deserves this? Does it not belong to someone else?”

“It does,” Stargazer confirmed, “but it is best that they also believe it was destroyed. The knowledge should not go further than you two.”

They winced.

“You’re not the only two, are you?”

Freya straightened up, and put on her poker face. “I will tell you nothing. No comment.”

He smiled. “Good. Carry on.”

They returned to the hangar, but no one was there. A hatch was open on the bottom of the Sharice, suggesting that everyone made their way into it while they were gone. Zek transported Freya up to the bridge, and then began sweeping the corridors using a series of rapid jumps. A minute later, she returned to ferry Freya to the group. They were in an auxiliary control room, which Carbrey said was where the emergency temporal displacement drive was housed. Based on its remoteness and lack of signage, he guessed that very few people were made aware that this TDD existed. Freya and Zek relayed what they had learned from Stargazer, and it seemed to mesh well with what Carbrey was able to learn from the computers.

“So, not only can we take it, but we actually should?” Limerick was happy to hear this.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Khuweka disagreed. “Stargazer wants us to get this thing out of the timeline, and the safest way to do that is by sending it to some other universe. That’s not something we can do, and even if we could, we need a ship to get to Worlon first, and this can’t do that if it’s supposed to remain a secret.”

“Aren’t we going to Worlon before anyone else arrives?” Andraste reminded her. “We should be able to keep it secret until the mission is over. Perhaps this is fate. It certainly came at the opportune time. Mr. Genovese was just about to start building us a new one, and now he doesn’t have to.”

“It’s not that simple,” Carbrey said, pulling himself away from the screen. “I was working on a minimalist design. It would incorporate the reframe engine, but it was otherwise only large enough to accommodate the seven of us. This thing is far more than we need, and I don’t think it has a reframe engine.”

“We don’t need it if we can travel through time,” Limerick noted.

Carbrey shook his head. “The TDD is gone. It was only ever meant to be activated once, and as it was sending the ship to this last location, it evidently self-destructed somewhere else in time. The logs called it a...” he squirted at the screen, and rediscovered what he read before, “Lucius last resort. Whatever that means.”

Something was distracting Freya from the conversation. “Landis, are you still hurt? Can’t you heal yourself.”

“I can’t,” Landis answered. “I cannot heal myself. After I got my foundation going, my security detail was composed of hundreds of people.”

“Anyway. I think we’re destined to use it.” Limerick was so sure of himself. “Build the reframe engine thing, put it in here, and let’s get on with it. I know it’s not easy, but you still have two years.”

“That doesn’t help us with the real problem,” Khuweka reminded him. “Once we destroy the Ochivari, someone would have to take the ship to the Triangulum galaxy, or something. I’m not sure anywhere is safe, not when considering time travelers.”

“I thought you said I could travel to other universes,” Limerick said.

“Yeah, you can, and other people can follow you through. You can’t create a shatter portal large enough for a spaceship, and even if you could, you can’t breathe in outer space. You would have to be outside the ship to make it happen. Look, the Sharice came back here for a reason. It believes this is the safest place for it. I say Carbrey builds us what he was going to all along, and we just leave it alone.”

“I can’t accept that,” Limerick fought. This is a warship, and we’re in a war. And who knows, maybe our mission will change enough about the future to stop these evil future people from even existing? I say the ends justify the means.”

“I agree with him,” Freya finally said. They looked at her, a little shocked, but not completely surprised. They knew she was all gung ho about killing the Ochivari, but she was also quite protective of her universe, and if keeping this ship around put it in danger, was that worth the risk? As they were arguing, she was working through that conundrum in her head, and ultimately decided that yes, it was. “We don’t know what we’re going to encounter out there, and this is our best shot at surviving. If we don’t succeed, we can use this in the war, and we’ll always keep it far enough away from whoever is trying to steal it. I don’t know how we’ll actually get the damn thing to another universe, but that’s not our problem at the moment. Let’s stop the Ochivari, then worry about that later. Hell, we might even find a solution on Worlon. We still don’t know how it is they were born with the ability to bulkverse travel. Perhaps it has something to do with their home planet. We can take whatever that is for ourselves.”

“I think it’s too dangerous,” Khuweka said, shaking her head slowly. “But I am nothing if not a fair leader. I will concede to whatever the group decides.”

They continued discussing, letting Andraste moderate the debate. In the end, they decided to use the Sharice Davids towards their own goals. At least if they always had it with them, they could control other people’s cognizance of it. They figured it was better than just leaving it here, and hoping that no one happened to show up.

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, May 27, 2081

« < » > Table of Contents

Mateo and J.B. were placed in highly advanced medical pods. In a matter of minutes, the minimally invasive nanobots had repaired all of their bodily injuries, and restored them to perfect health. In fact, Mateo hadn’t realized he hadn’t been feeling great for the last week or so, but all that was gone too. He was feeling better than ever before. Unlike Leona, he was easily able to forgive Sanaa for what she had done, though he could tell that all his wife needed was time. Jericho, on the other hand, was not so merciful. He was pissed, and while the two of them were recovering, he had caused so much of a stir, that Parallel natives had to step in, and place him in a holding cell, so he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. It was here that he spent the rest of the day, and when the next time jump came, he made the trip with them to May 27, 2081.

By then, the AOC had been returned to them, so they could continue their mission, which was apparently taking them to Egypt. Shortly after they arrived, their next target did as well. Ariadna Traversa, also known as The Escapologist, had been living in the Great Pyramid of Giza on May 27, 2081. She wasn’t alone there. Others were staying there with her, along with an alternate version of Leona. Though Aridna was the only one who was sent through the transition window.

“Jeremy,” Ariadna acknowledged.

“Do we know each other?” J.B. asked her.

Ariadna looked around. Her pyramid was gone. They were standing in a rainforest. Some deserts did exist on this planet, because certain living organisms thrived there, but there was a lot more greenery on this version of Earth than their homeworld. The humans put a great deal of effort into insulating and seeding life on the worlds they conquered. They considered protecting the environment their sacred duty, even though their whole deal was being able to go wherever they wanted in the observable universe, and not worrying about the habitability of any one place. Ariadna didn’t know where she found herself now, but J.B. not knowing her was still not a surprise. She breathed in and enjoyed the particularly clean air. “Report.”

“Have you ever heard of The Parallel?” Leona asked.

“No, what is that?”

“It’s an alternate reality that runs concurrently to our own,” Mateo answered.

“It’s halfway between a different timeline, and a different universe,” Leona started to clarify. “Each can be changed by time travelers, but neither led to the other, and any changes to one have no impact on the other.”

Ariadna nodded her head. “I understand the concept. What am I doing here?”

“Jupiter Fury,” Sanaa said.

Ariadna rolled her eyes. “You guys are mixed up with the Springfield Nine?”

“Really just the one,” J.B. said.

She was still nodding. “How do I get back?”

Mateo consulted his cuff. “You can go back in an hour, right where you came through. Sometimes we have to get people to different places, but you can just stay here and wait.”

“Then I can go through too,” Jericho suggested. He had long ago calmed down, but they were still controlling his movements through proximity settings. He couldn’t be more than ten meters away from at least one of the others, and he couldn’t stand within one meter of any of them. “It’s only been three years, I can still go back to my life. I won’t tell anyone about this place, I promise.”

“We’re not worried about you exposing us,” Leona assured him.

Sanaa continued, “the prison will lock you up if you try.”

“You can’t go through the window either way,” Leona finished.

“Why not?” Jericho demanded to know.

“Yeah, why not?” J.B. questioned. “Is it because he still has a chance to stop the changes to the judicial system?”

“It’s not that,” Leona replied. “Ariadna, when did Adolf Hitler die?”

“I don’t know,” Ariadna answered, “like 1949, or something.”

“You sure it wasn’t 1945?”

She thought about it a moment. “Yeah, because he had that scandal involving the Argentinian ambassador that definitely happened after the war ended. Why?”

“That’s why you can’t go through, Jericho,” Leona said to him.

She was right. It wasn’t going to work. If they tried to send Jericho back with The Escapologist, he would end up in the wrong version of 2081. In fact, she shouldn’t return either. This was the last day of reality before it collapsed to make way for a new timeline. Since Mateo was the one who killed Hitler, and created the new timeline in the main sequence, he chose to be the one to explain this to both of them.

“Well, fine,” Jericho said, still frustrated. “Then I’ll go back in 2084. Will that work?”

They looked to Leona, who shook her head. “The next window won’t be until 2100. I’m sorry.”

“This is bullshit!” Jericho cried. “I didn’t ask to be here!”

“Yeah, that’s the deal,” Mateo volleyed. “Sanaa is the only one who came here on purpose. The rest of us are salmon, and aren’t given a choice of how we experience time. Except for Ariadna, who’s basically been kidnapped, just like you.”

“Well.” Jericho didn’t understand. “Can’t you just make the window go back to the other, other 2081?”

“Can you?” Sanaa asked of him.

“That guy,” Jericho pleaded. “That guy I saw you talking with. He’s the one in charge, right? He can do it. He’s in total control of these window things anyway, isn’t he?”

Now everyone looked to Sanaa, who had spent the most time exploring her Cassidy cuffs. She probably knew more about them than Leona did. “There’s a Help feature, just like you would find on a regular computer.” She started to tap on her cuff. “When I select it, it shows me the options for Call, Chat, and Summon. But they’re all grayed out, as if we need to wait until business hours. I’m sure that’s how we would contact Jupiter, but he would have to clock in to work. I’m glad he’s not there, though.” She addressed Jericho alone, “I wouldn’t want you to go back to the main sequence. Hell, I don’t even want you going back there in 2100. Don’t worry, I won’t stop you guys, but I won’t help you either. I vote we find a way to strand him here.”

Leona sighed. “We’re not doing that. We will send you back on June 15, 2100. Until then, you will both have to stay here. Miss Traversa, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to return to a reality we know is about to collapse.”

“Of course not,” Ariadna said. “I’m glad you have a choice, and Jupiter isn’t forcing you to do it.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. J.B. broke the silence, first by casually sucking his teeth as if it were a music instrument, and then with words. “So...do you want a tour of the ship?”

“Sure, why not?” Ariadna asked rhetorically.

“Perhaps you can tell me about this other version of me you evidently met.”

“Yeah, all right.”

“Mr. Hagen, I know that you are angry. What my associate did to you is unforgivable. I hope you will one day understand why it is she made her choice, as dangerous as it was. I believe that you would benefit from a little history lesson. Our ship possesses the repository of human knowledge within its memory storage. I can show you what the world goes through up until 2100, especially in adjudicative related topics. I can even show you beyond that, though it may be best you don’t learn anything about the future. Would you be interested in that? It might help change your mind.”

“I don’t want to change my mind,” Jericho argued.

Leona nodded. “A lot of people have held the same conviction. I’m not saying you’re evil, but it’s unquestionably the reason we had the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition, and the Witch Trials, and the Great Wars, and all the other wars, and McCarthyism, and all the other bad things that our world has experienced!” She didn’t yell too loudly, but she was impassioned. “The inability to surrender to the possibility that one is wrong has led to so much death and heartache that it is quite literally impossible to quantify. If you’re not open to learning more information, and becoming a better person, then you’re not a real lawyer...you’re just a walking law book. And a book is no better than a paperweight if the lessons inside it aren’t used to make the world a better place.

“So you can sulk until you go back, and you can plan your revenge against time travelers, which puts you at risk of being placed in a prison no human could escape. Or. You can come with me back to the AOC, and find out how to practice law in the new system.”

Jericho took a moment to reply, but it was clear he was about to, so no one interrupted him. “Very well.”

Mateo and Sanaa watched them head for the ship as well. “Wow, she said. Remember what I told you about us never having a threesome? I’m actually considering it now.”

“Keep it in your pants, Karimi.”

Nothing interesting happened for the rest of the day. J.B. and Ariadna proved to be fast friends, which wasn’t that weird, since the latter already knew some other version of the former. Jericho studied what was originally meant to be his past, and while no one would have said he had some kind of revelation, he was a little more flexible about the law by the end of the day. They let the transition window come and go, once again without having anyone actually use it to go back to the main sequence. From now on, people would only be coming from the reality that existed after Mateo assassinated Hitler. That was what most of them thought, anyway. Leona explained that it was more complicated than that.

People were regularly going back in time and changing history, and since the main sequence was less a separate reality, and more of a series of realities, it was entirely possible someone would come through the window with a slightly different recollection of events than they had. These differences would most likely be imperceptible, like what color shirt they wore when they first met, or whatever. It could theoretically cause problems with causality, however. So Leona recommended they really do try to send people back through the windows, if at all possible. Keeping the main sequence separate from the Parallel was something they ought to be striving for. Hopefully that would start to feel as easy to do as said.

« < » > Table of Contents

Furor: The Other Side of an Expanding Universe (Part VII)

« < » > Entire Story

Neither Slipstream nor Jesi seemed bothered by the fact that their driver just referred to himself as The Chauffeur. A few years ago, it would have been a funny anecdote to tell his friends, but everybody Ace met these days with a nickname was probably bad news.

“Sup, Davey,” Jesi said to him.

“Call me Dave, Miss Utkin,” the driver said.

“Sounds good, Davey.”

“How do you know him?” Slipstream asked.

Dave went on before Jesi could answer. “I hear you’re out looking for a Beaver Haven fugitive.”

“We are,” I admit, planning mine and Slipstreams’ escape.

“I also hear you’ve become fugitives yourself, because you recruited an unlikely ally.”

“I don’t think I’m that unlikely,” Jesi protested. “I’m very likable.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Ace asked him.

“Do to you?” Dave echoed. “I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m here to provide you with resources.”

“You work for the prison?” Slipstream guessed.

Both Dave and Jesi laughed. “I work for The Sanctuary,” Dave answered.

Jesi clarified, “your daughter built a special place to protect humans when they’re in danger from time travelers.”

“Isn’t everyone’s life in danger from time travelers?” Slipstream pointed out.

“That’s a fair assessment,” Jesi said.

Ace was still hung up on the comment she made about this sanctuary having been built by his daughter. Again, a few years ago, that would have sounded completely crazy. But he understood that just because the Paige he was raising hadn’t done something yet, didn’t mean that it hadn’t already happened. Thinking on it, he was not really surprised she would grow up to help people in this capacity. It made him smile.

Jesi noticed it. “Oh, I’m not talking about Paige.”

Okay, that was stranger news, but not completely out of left field. He didn’t want to know too much about this daughter he hadn’t even met yet, though, so he continued to stay silent.

“Her name is Meli—”

“I don’t want to know too much about my future,” Ace stopped her.

Jesi laughed again. “Meliora is not in your future. She’s from an alternate reality. I think two major reality shifts ago, yeah?” she asked Dave.

“There’s no such thing as a major or minor reality shift, since time is fluid,” Dave contended, “but you could say that.”

“So, I had a child with someone, then that child grew up, went back in time, and changed so much that I never even had her in the first place?”

“Essentially, yes,” Jesi said. “It would have been worse if her actions hadn’t erased herself from history, though. Then there would have been two of them, battling for the timeline. Nobody wants that.”

“Oh my God, I forgot about her,” Paige apologized.

We were back at the house. Ace had left Jesi and Dave in his car, so he could have a private conversation with his family, and Slipstream first.

“Paige, you knew about this Meliora?” Serkan asked her.

“Yeah, I met her just before you two came back to the real world,” Paige said. “I mean literally just before. I got so caught up processing where you had been, and trying to take care of you, that it slipped my mind.”

“You met her too?” Ace was getting too worked up. Paige had done nothing wrong.

“She’s the one who undid Jesi’s aging thing,” Paige explained.

“Jesi did imply Meliora was a very powerful person,” Slipstream reminded Ace.

“If she’s anything like your current daughter,” Serkan began, “she genuinely wants to help with our Rothko problem.”

“That’s assuming the driver even works for her,” Slipstream cautioned.

“I think we should speak with her directly,” Ace decided. “Dave says he has resources to help us bring Rothko in. I’m inclined to take any advantage we can get, but you three and Kolby are the only people I know I can trust, and maybe not even Kolby.”

“You can,” Slipstream promised. She stepped out of the door, and waved the other two to come on in.

Dave and Jesi walked in, the latter with a coat draped over her arms, in front of her stomach.

“Little hot for that, isn’t it?” Paige pointed out.

Dave removed the coat from Jesi’s arms, to reveal them to be bound together via handcuffs. “Our first gift to you.” He handed Ace a small device. “The cuffs suppress powers, but they can keep her immobile in a more traditional sense. Press that button right there.”

Ace pressed the button. The cuffs separated from each other, but each half remained on Jesi’s wrists, respectively.

Dave went on, “her powers are still being suppressed. If you push that button right there, you can restore them, and easily turn them back off when you want. There’s also a recall function, in case she travels to a different time without your permission.”

Paige took the controller from Ace’s hand, and looked it over like a curious cat. “Will these cuffs work on anybody?”

“Anybody,” Dave said. “Even you. You’re immune to the ones Beaver Haven uses, but not these. They’re one of a kind, so be careful with them.”

Having gotten used to modern technology by now, Paige expertly pressed a new button. The cuffs fell off of Jesi’s wrists, and headed for the floor, but before they could reach it, they stopped in mid-air, and docked themselves to the end of the remote. They obviously belonged there when they weren’t in use.

“What are you doing?” Slipstream questioned.

“We’ll need these for Rothko,” Paige replied. She handed the full set back to Ace, and stepped closer to Jesi. She was the one who had been most slighted by the prisoner, so even though she wasn’t an adult, this was her prerogative. “Jesi isn’t going to screw us over, are you?”

Jesi frowned at the girl. “If I had a team like you guys to help me when I was trying to stop the pathogen that destroys organic humans in the future, I could have figured out how to do it without killing anybody, or violating your body’s age. I am sorry, and I legitimately want to help now. I didn’t start out evil; none of us did, not even Rothko. We got our powers from a pocket dimension that had terrible psychological consequences that we didn’t see until it was too late. I don’t know how Kallias Bran has survived so long.”

“Are you saying Rothko can be saved?” Serkan asked her.

Jesi stood up straighter to consider the notion. “No. He’s lived through more trauma than any of us could imagine. His happiness is on the other side of an expanding universe. He’ll never see it again.”

“I have more treats,” Dave said after a brief pause in the conversation.

“I want to meet my daughter,” Ace said.

Dave looked perturbed. “Jesi shouldn’t have told you that. Meliora is not your daughter. Everyone thinks there’s such thing as an alternate version of yourself, but that’s impossible. Why, you’re not even the same person as you were seven years ago.” He gestured towards Ace. “The fact that you’re not running around, killing people, is proof of that in a multidimensional sense. The other Horace Reaver is you in name only. He wasn’t a good father, and he wasn’t a good person, and he’s not you. You are no more related to my employer than I am.”

“Your employer,” Paige began to argue, “called herself my sister. She used the word.”

Dave was mildly surprised by this. “She did? She said that?”

“Indeed,” Paige confirmed.

Dave cleared his throat, and shook his arms for no known reason. He took a freaking flip phone from his pocket, and opened it up. He didn’t dial a number, though. “Request sent.—Request received.—Processing.—Pending response.—Acknowledged.” He closed the phone. “Accepted. But only you two.”

Ace looked over to Serkan, who smiled understandingly. “That’s okay. Slip and I will debrief Miss Utkin while you’re gone.”

“Very well,” Dave said. With no warning, he lifted his arm, and snapped.

The three travelers were suddenly standing on dusty stone floor. A man was smiling at them cordially. “Welcome to the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

“We’re just passing through, Stargazer,” Dave said.

“Headed back to Dardius?”

“We are.”

“Have a nice trip.”

Dave closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. He faced the window showing the night sky above them. “Hold onto my waist.”

Paige and Ace grabbed hold of the teleporter, and held on tight. Dave lifted one arm towards the window, then pulled them off the ground like some kind of Asgardian god. They couldn’t really see anything, but they could feel themselves rushing through time and space; outer space. Within minutes, they were standing in the lobby of a hotel.

“Good afternoon,” a bellhop said from the other side of the counter. “Checking in two guests?”

“They’re not staying,” Dodeka,” Dave said to her. “Where’s the boss?”

“Right here,” came a voice from behind them.

“Here they are,” Dave said. “Call me when they need a ride back to Earth. I’m going to check on our defenses.”

“You don’t need to do that every time you show up,” the woman who was apparently Ace’s Alt!Daughter, Meliora said. “You’re not breaking through them, you’re unlocking them.”

“Yeah, and I need to make sure they’re locking behind me. I hope you or Doty are doing the same when I leave.”

“Yes, sir,” the bellhop said.

“Thank you, Dave,” Meliora said, both warmly and dismissively.

“Thank you, Dave,” Paige said to him as well, but he was gone before she was finished her sentence.

“Mister Reaver, Miss Turner,” Meliora began. “I was not planning on us meeting until much later. You haven’t even had your brain blended yet.”

“What does that mean?” Paige asked. “It sounds painful.”

“The pain is temporary.” She paused for a moment. “Are you here on business, or did you just want to meet me?”

“Both,” Ace said honestly.

Meliora had a sad expression on her face, exposing her superior intelligence to them, like a mother trying to avoid teaching her child about death. “He’s explained that I’m not really your daughter, right?” She grimaced under emotional discomfort.

“That’s not what you indicated when you saved my other daughter’s life,” Ace volleyed. “You wanted to be sisters.”

“I feel a closeness to people that they can’t reciprocate. I built this place, because everyone feels like a sister or brother to me.”

“That’s bullshit,” Ace argued. “If a lab tests our blood, what are they gonna find? Are they gonna conclude that we’re genetically related?”

“Well, they would, but—”

“But that’s all I need to know. There are three kind of parents in the world: those who are related to their kids, but don’t raise them; those who raise their kids, but aren’t related to them; and those who are both. I don’t know you, but I love you, and nothing you say will stop me from feeling that.”

“I’m a distraction,” Meliora said to him. “You have work to do. Rothko is just the latest in a long line of challenges you and your family are going to have to face. I can’t have you trying to include me in that, because I have my own work to do.”

“If that’s true, why did you send Dave to us?” Paige asked. “Why did you reyoungify me? If you wanted to stay out of it, then you should have.”

“I should have,” Meliora agreed. “Merton could have handled that, and I could have simply given The Courier your gifts.”

“If that’s how you feel,” Paige said, “I guess we have nothing more to discuss.”

Meliora looked to the bellhop, Dodeka. “Please retrieve that little brownish lockbox from the back. They’ll be taking the downgraded package. I can see they don’t need as much help as I had originally instructed Dave to provide them with.”

“Sir,” Dodeka said obediently as she was leaving.

Meliora turned back to her fake family. “You can stay in the hotel as long as you would like. She can provide you with any amenities, and will be sending you of with everything you need to defeat Mister Ladhiffe. We’ll see each other again, under better circumstances, and with less...hostility.”

“We do appreciate the assist,” Ace said as Meliora was walking away.

Dodeka returned with a whitish lockbox. Meliora must have been mistaken about the color. It also didn’t look that little. The bellhop set it on the counter, then lifted a brochure from its holder, and opened it up to show them. We currently have three swimming pools—”

“We won’t be staying,” Ace said, taking the lockbox from the counter. “Please call the Chauffeur back for us.”

“Very well, sir.” She reached into her back pocket, and returned with a lighter. Dave appeared as soon as she ignited it, and wasn’t happy about being interrupted, but he agreed to take Ace and Paige back to Earth.

« < » > Entire Story