Mateo instinctively opened up to hug his daughter, Dubravka, but quickly
took a half-step back. Like Romana and Kivi, he never got the chance to
raise her. Perhaps it would be inappropriate. It was certainly presumptuous.
Unfortunately, he failed to think of this beforehand, leading to an awkward
moment for all. Even so, she took it in stride, and stepped up to initiate
the hug herself. He was still her father, and she knew that it was neither
his intention nor choice to miss so much of her life.
“Gang’s all here.” It was Kivi. She managed to appear out of nowhere just at
the right time, as she was known to do.
“Kivi,” Leona said, surprised. “Which one are you?”
“The all-of-me one. I remember everything. I held a gun on an uninhabitable
planet once.”
Mateo hugged his eldest as well, then followed up with one for Romana. He
looked around, wondering if his children from an old timeline would show up
as well, but it didn’t look like it was in the cards. “Argh. Argh!” He
suddenly felt a hot sensation on his hip. Something appeared to be possibly
literally burning a hole in his pocket. He hopped around, and struggled to
reach in to pull it out. It was his silver rendezvous card. It was even more
difficult to hold it between his fingers, but after letting go, he realized
that this might activate it, so he reached out with both hands, nearly
catching it several times before finally failing, and ending up on Snake
Island.
Dr. Hammer was waiting for him in the vestibule. “We need your help.”
“Me?”
“Not necessarily you, per se, but you’re the one I had access to. You
were talking about how you have illusion powers now, but yours weren’t as
good as the others, so...”
“What do you need illusioned?” he asked.
“This whole place.” She indicated the building, and then pointed behind
Mateo. “Look through the telescope. Don’t touch it, it’s already pointed in
the right direction.”
Mateo approached the coin-operated binocular telescope, and peered into the
eyepieces, careful not to move it in the slightest. He saw a wooden boat,
but had no idea how far out it was.
As if reading his mind, Dr. Hammer answered his question, “I looked up the
flag they’re flying. They’re Carthaginians, and they’re currently six
kilometers out, but drawing nearer. Much closer, and they may be able to see
us.”
“You don’t have active camouflage for this facility?”
“Never thought we would need it. No one should be on this side of the island
in this time period.”
“Woof,” Mateo said. “You’re right, I’m not good enough at illusions to
protect you. We’ll need someone else. Olimpia is best at invisibility, but
Angela can make holograms that last even when she walks away.”
“We’re both here,” either Angela or Marie said over comms, but
probably the former.
“So are we,” Romana added.
“I’m sending down Angela to see if she can work a job that big,”
Leona interrupted before anyone else could join the conversation. “Ambassador out.”
Angela appeared in the vestibule, and started to look around, but she didn’t
have much to see. “I really need to get a better view. I’m going outside.”
“I cannot allow that,” Dr. Hammer said apologetically.
Angela scoffed. “I’m wearing a spacesuit. The snakes can’t get me.”
Dr. Hammer shook her head. “There are no doors. I did that for a reason.”
“I’ll be fine. We do this sort of thing all the time.” Angela took a small
device from her chest compartment, and tossed it to the doctor. “This is
tapped into our comms, but only has global range. We’ll need it back.” She
took Mateo’s hand, and teleported them both out of there.
They stood on the beach, letting the waves crash in, and kiss their knees,
though they could not feel it. Angela examined the building. It was up
against the mountain, and painted natural colors, like green and brown, but
it definitely stood out as an artificial structure. She would have to smooth
out the right angles, and hide all the windows. She could use the mountain
itself as a sort of mental template to know what it should look like. She
tilted her head, and electric slid down a little to see what she was working
with from slightly different perspectives. She even made a rectangle with
her index fingers and thumbs, and looked through it like a movie director.
“Okay, yeah.”
“Yeah, you can do it?” Mateo asked. He was some ways away now, wandering
around out of boredom.
“Oh, sorry, you weren’t there for our brief discussion on the ship after
Leona cut off comms. No, I mean, yeah, it’s impossible.”
“Are you sure? You’ve not even tried to do anything.”
“It’s too big,” Angela contended. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“Is there anything you can do?” Dr. Hammer asked through comms. “Can you...combine your powers, or something?”
“No,” Ramses said, “but I have another idea. If you’ll allow me to meet you on the
ground...”
“Please,” Dr. Hammer asked.
Mateo was about to jump back there when he looked down at himself. “There’s
a snake wrapped around my leg.”
“Is it venomous?” Dr. Hammer questioned.
“How am I meant to know? It’s yellow, and menacing, though.”
“Okay, that’s probably the Golden Lancehead. Put your helmet on.”
“I got this,” Leona declared. She appeared before Mateo, but she
wasn’t alone for long. Dozens of birds materialized on the ground around
her, pecking at the sand, and hopping around, presumably looking for worms.
They were mostly a bold red, with black wings, and black tails. Their beaks
were black on top, and white on bottom.
Mateo couldn’t help but notice how badass the birds were, and whatever they
were called, would probably make a great inspiration for a superhero
persona. The snake had a very different impression of them. It immediately
unwrapped itself from Mateo’s leg, and went for the flock of holograms. It
was probably pretty upset that none of them seemed to be real, but no one
stuck around to see its full reaction. All three of them were gone in
seconds.
“...that’s for you to decide. I think it should be close, but you know these
lands better than me.” Ramses was in the middle of explaining something to
Dr. Hammer. He had come down with Romana.
“What are we talking about?” Leona asked.
Dr. Hammer crossed her arms. “He wants to teleport that whole Carthaginian
boat away from here.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Leona determined.
“No, it’s not. You’ll disrupt the continuum,” Dr. Hammer argued.
“Oh.” Leona dismissed it by waving her hand in the general direction of the
boat. “Those people believe in gods, and crap like that. They’ll just think
that Poseidon was messing with them. Or saving them.”
“Uh, Neptune,” Angela corrected.
“I’ve heard it both ways,” Leona said, again dismissively.
“It’s neither,” Dr. Hammer asserted.
Leona checked her watch. “Look, Angela can’t hide your building today.
Perhaps she can work through it, and cover you up in time, but not before
that boat gets close enough to see it. This is our best option. We can jump
the Ambassador to just underneath the boat in secret. Then we’ll make a very
short jump, say, a few hundred klicks, and leave them somewhere safe. We’ll
find an island of comparable characteristics, and I’m sure they’ll attribute
any changes to topography to whatever god they do think would have the power
to move them, or tricks of the light. Do they have a sun god?”
Dr. Hammer was shaking her head. “It’s too risky. How can you get right
under them without tearing their boat apart?”
Defghij the Robot came out of the building. “Pardon the interruption,
Doctor, but I’m receiving a radio message.”
“From the Vellani Ambassador?” Leona questioned.
“No,” he answered.
“Uh. Put it through,” Dr. Hammer ordered.
“Certainly.” Defghij dropped his jaw, and let the sound come out. “Hello? Hello? Can anyone here me? This is Tertius Valerius. I’m on the
boat. I can see your building. I know there are time travelers here.
Please respond.”
“Tertius, this is Leona Matic of the Castlebourne Sanctuary Ship Vellani
Ambassador. We read you, five by five.”
“Oh, Leona, great. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Let’s talk in person,” he clarified. “Could someone please come pick me up?”
“Depends,” Leona went on. “How much influence do you have over that boat
you’re on.”
“Total control,” Tertius replied.
“Tell ‘em to turn around. This island is full of deadly snakes.”
“Give me a minute.” They waited for about four minutes before he got
back on the radio. “Okay, they’re turning.”
“Okay,” Leona began, preparing to execute the new, new plan. “If you
can...jump into the water without any of the locals seeing you, and tread
for about five minutes. Someone will come get you in secret.”
Tertius didn’t reply, but then they heard a splash. Dude was nothing if not
reliable.
Mateo dropped his visor, and didn’t bother to wait the full five minutes. He
let his HUD connect to the VA in orbit, which was serving as a temporary
satellite. This piggy-backed on the signal that Tertius was sending, and
told Mateo exactly where his target was. He teleported to the location—a
couple meters under the surface—grabbed Tertius by the legs, and transported
him out of there.
“Whoo!” Tertius cried, exhilarated. “Again!”
“Go get a towel,” Dr. Hammer ordered her robot before looking back at
Tertius. “How did you get here?”
“Well, it should come as no surprise that I’ve made an enemy or two in the
future. For the most part, what do I care? I can just erase anyone’s memory
of their hatred of me. But occasionally, that doesn’t work. Some people are
just resistant. This one guy, I won’t even bother to tell you his name, got
on my bad side, as I got on his. I refused to work for him, and erase his
enemies’ memories.” Tertius looked away. “Hm. That sounds like a band name.
Enemies’ Memories,” he repeated. “Oh, thank you,” he said to Defghij for the
towel. “Anyway, just as punishment, he banished me. He said that he was
zoicizing me, which is totally not the right word to use in this context,
because he was actually trying to send me back to my own time period. But he
even screwed that up, and threw me over two hundred years off course! I
anticipated this sort of thing happening at one time or another, so I hid
this temporal phone in a cave near my home in Carthage.” He took it out of
his pocket, and shook some of the water droplets off of it. “Sadly, by now,
it’s out of power, but I knew that you built this Center all the way out
here, so I talked my way onto a boat, and convinced them to come way, way
south. At best, you could get me back to civilized times, when people used
toilet paper. At worst, I could maybe charge this thing in an outlet? You
use temporal energy, right?”
“How did you have power for a radio, but not the phone?” Romana asked.
“This uses lions,” Tertius explained, dropping the now redundant
walkie-talkie on the ground. The temporal phone uses a small temporal
battery, and lions are incompatible with it. I don’t know why it ran out
when it was off the whole time.”
“It was probably leaking,” Ramses diagnosed.
“That was my thought,” Tertius agreed.
Mateo cleared his throat, cupped his hands together, and leaned in. “Did
this man happen to be named...I dunno...Buddha?”
“That was it!” Tertius cried. “You’ve heard of him.”
“Unfortunately.”
Dr. Hammer took a breath. “Well, I’m glad it all worked out. Team Matic, if
you could remain here for the day to make sure the boat does indeed head in
a different direction—”
“They will,” Tertius insisted. “I literally made them think that it was
their choice.”
“Just the same, I would like to take precautions. And in case it ever
happens again, I would ask Angela to see if she can indeed eventually make
this whole building permanently invisible for us.”
“I would be happy to,” Angela said with a polite nod.
“Uh, under one condition,” Leona said quickly before anyone tried to sign on
any dotted line.
“And what might that be?” Dr. Hammer asked.
Leona stepped over, and took Romana by the shoulders, gently nudging her
forward until she was front and center. “Help my stepdaughter. She’s fallen
off of our pattern, and we don’t know what other consequences that’s having
for her, besides the emotional distress.”
Dr. Hammer gave the girl a cursory examination. “Consider it done.”
