The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 13, 2495

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Ramses was doing a lot of things at the same time today. He deployed a sophisticated drone to fly around Dome 216, and try to figure out what was going on. There was inexplicable life support in there. Obviously simply sealing a dome up didn’t automatically make it habitable. Hrockas had a complex network of tubes piping in oxygen, nitrogen, and other gases. An AI managed all of this, making sure that compositions remained at optimal levels. Some of the oxygen came from the natural thin atmosphere native to Castlebourne while the rest was from various electrolytic processing plants placed strategically between the inhabited domes. Carbon scrubbers then recycled this air as needed. Ideally, they would just be growing plantlife to do this all for them free of charge, but that kind of infrastructure was a very long-term plan.

Dome 216 had no such gas pipelines. They were installed years ago, but ultimately removed and repurposed elsewhere. Nothing should be alive in here, yet as the drone surveyed the land in greater detail than its predecessor, it found not only breathable air, but also desert plants. Either someone was sneaking in, and making changes to this environment, or there was something fishy going on. In addition to preparing the team for their departure with their new tandem slingdrive array, Ramses was examining Romana to see how she was involved. There was a...dark particle monster lurking in the mysterious dome, and it theoretically came from her. But how?

“How indeed?”

 Ramses covered up his patient. She had to be undressed for him to scan her entire integumentary system properly. They still didn’t really know how her dark particles were released, or exactly where they lived when they weren’t swarming around. “Hrockas, this is highly inappropriate, you can’t just burst in whenever you want.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, this is my planet. All of this belongs to me.”

Ramses didn’t respond to this. Yes, Hrockas technically owned Castlebourne, but it was its namesake, Vendelin Blackbourne who initiated construction of the domes before he died and joined Team Keshida. A great deal of the work since then was completed by others, particularly Ramses himself, and Baudin Murdoch. Hrockas’ contribution was not nothing, but it wasn’t singular either.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“How did you get into this sub-lab? You shouldn’t even know about it.”

“I have particles of my own,” Hrockas replied. “Keeping watch...taking notes.”

Ramses nodded. “Smartdust. I should have had my countersurveillance protocols account for that. I guess I just trusted you too much. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Hrockas chuckled. “Intentional obsolescence has gotten me out of a lot of jams. Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to give me their secrets.”

Ramses looked around. “I was getting sick of this place anyway. It’s time to move on. What did you come in for anyway?”

“I was just checking on your progress. She tell you anything?”

“She can speak for herself,” Romana argued. “And no. I don’t know anything.”

“I meant, his little tests. Have they given you any insights?”

“Thank you. You can go now,” Ramses said to him pointedly. They would tell Hrockas what he deserved to know, when they were ready for him to know it.

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“You can take your smartdust with you,” Ramses added.

“Okay.” Hrockas patted himself on the hip, and spoke in a high-pitched tone, “come on! Let’s go, little motes. Come on! Come on!” He was smirking as he walked through the holographic door backwards.

“Hey, thistle,” Ramses said. “Purge the dust for me.”

“Certainly, sir.” The biohazard decontamination protocols rained hell over the little guys, destroying all forms of minuscule surveillance, as well as all other visual security measures.

“Did my body tell you anything?” Romana asked once the purge was over.

He rolled a cart around so she could see what was on the monitor. “You have an aura.” The screen was showing Romana in silhouette, as well as a hazy second shadow surrounding her. To the untrained eye, it would look like nothing more than a regular second shadow, created by an additional source of light. But when Romana moved around, this aura followed her nonuniformly. It was sometimes lagging behind, and sometimes clearly ahead, predicting her future movements perfectly.

“So it’s always there, just invisible.”

“It would appear so.”

“Could you take—I dunno—a biopsy, or something?”

“Not invisible as in, a trick of the light. They seem to exist in a parallel dimension, just as we always suspected. This is where they multiply.”

“Are they alive?” Romana pressed.

He threw up a hologram containing a list. It was the eight requirements for life. He pointed towards each one like a schoolteacher. “To be alive, an entity must have complex organization, metabolize chemically, maintain homeostasis, grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli, adapt or evolve, and contain coded information.” He swiped at the image. The list remained, but a couple of the items were crossed out, and a couple of them were highlighted, while others were left unchanged. “They don’t appear to be very complex, more like single-celled organisms. If they metabolize, they don’t necessarily do it chemically. Maybe they process...time, or other forms of energy? They do seem to be homeostatic. They hopefully don’t grow. They one hundred percent reproduce by some means. They definitely respond to stimuli. It’s too early to tell if they evolve. And I have no idea how to test for any equivalent to DNA.”

“Do they...get angry at you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you getting the sense that they don’t like when you run your tests on them?”

Ramses lifted his chin in curiosity, and peered at her. “Do you feel an anger around you? Do you think they’re angry?”

“When I get mad, even at someone I love, like my sisters, I feel...a power. I feel stronger. Maybe there’s more of them in those instances. Maybe that’s how they reproduce, by feeding off of the emotion.”

“I don’t know how one would go about feeding on emotion,” Ramses said, shaking his head as he was struggling to find any evidence to contradict his hypothesis, and support hers.

She looked down and to the side, but didn’t say anything.

“Have you talked to anyone about this before? Mateo, or your sisters?”

She didn’t look up. “I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what, that they would start to fear you?”

She waited to respond, but then she looked up. “Afraid of being encouraged, to embrace it. To use it.” She looked down again, and breathed out. “To exploit it.”

“Shit,” Ramses said, exasperated. “You’re afraid of becoming Buddy. Why weren’t we worried about this before? Of course you would feel some connection to him, however dark.”

“I don’t think he did this to me on purpose. I don’t think he understood what he was getting himself into, how it would affect someone with my biology, and what was it—my qualia?”

“I don’t think so either. Guy’s a dick, but I think he would have said something, or hinted at it.”

Romana looked over at the holographic wall. “What if that thing out there is... I don’t even wanna say it.”

“I think I know where you were going. Do you want me to say it?”

“No, but...someone should.”

“Our child.” Buddy was suddenly here. His swarm of dark particles were just finishing up retreating into their home dimension.

Ramses stepped between Buddy and Romana. “Do you spy on us?”

“Cocktail party effect,” Buddy said cryptically. “I know when people are talking about me. I tend to ignore it, but there was something different about this. I’ve been sensing your dark particles since you left. I thought it was just residual energy, but now I know better.” He started to step closer.

Ramses tensed up. “Whoa there, buckaroo billy.”

Buddy stopped. He was stoic, and maybe even respectful? “What I did to you was wrong; a violation. I didn’t see it that way at the time, but it’s my greatest regret. I recognize that I am seen as the villain; an antagonist. That was never my intention. I started out normal, just a little ambitious. But those ambitions grew, and took over. They became obsessions. I know it’s crazy to force people to go get me a fruit. Intellectually, that’s just dumb. I can’t think about anything else, though. It feels like my purpose in life, and if I ever manage to get it, I’m worried that my next obsession will be bad. What if I start fixating on vaporizing a whole planet, or turning everything into paperclips?”

“Why are you telling us this?” Romana questioned.

“Because it could happen to you, and you don’t deserve that. I didn’t. I was innocent...until I wasn’t. These things are toxic, and while it’s too late for me, I believe that you still have time.” He straightened up, and cleared his throat, giving himself a surge in self-assuredness. “I wanna help. I wanna fix this. It’s my mess, and my responsibility to clean it up.”

“We obviously can’t trust you,” Ramses reasoned. “The first time we encountered you was because you abducted our friends. And then the next time, you abducted her.”

“I know, and as I said, that was wrong. Don’t let her become the next me. Don’t let her do something like that to innocent people.”

“If what you’re saying is true,” Romana began, “then you’re just trading one obsession with another. Let’s say you fix what’s wrong with me, what happens to you then? Do you just go back to the way you were, coercing people into doing your bidding?”

“Like I was saying, I’m a lost cause,” Buddy reiterated.

“Well, what if you become obsessed with self-improvement?” she suggested.

“Well, that’s self-defeating, Romana, it would never work,” Ramses determined.

“No, I want to hear her out. You really think that I can choose my own obsession?”

Romana smiled. “I think that you’re choosing it right now, asking for me to let you help me.”

“I believe that he was asking me,” Ramses said, like an idiot.

She glared at him for a moment before returning her attention to Buddy. “Might as well give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He vaporizes the world with paperclips,” Ramses gibed.

“Thank you, you can go now,” Romana said to Ramses. He was being mean-spirited with Buddy, albeit plausibly justified. She was just joking, though, because she couldn’t do this without him. If anyone was going to figure out how to save her from her own dark particles, it was the one person in the timeline who both was smart enough, and cared for her. Buddy’s knowledge and experience were equally invaluable, and since he was offering it, they had little choice but to accept.

“All right,” Ramses relented. “If you want to help, I will set aside my reservations, and remain professional. But in the end, I still don’t trust you, and I will go to any lengths to protect my people from you.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Buddy acknowledged.

There was a pause in the conversation, which Ramses volunteered to break. “Do you have any ideas off the top of your head, errr...?”

“Yeah, I think it’s time for me to meet my child,” Buddy figured.

“Okay.” Ramses was immediately regretting his decision to be civil. “We don’t know if we should frame it that way. The dark particles that you gave her are hers now, and if she made a particle baby, that doesn’t mean it’s yours. Okay?”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ramses knew that Buddy was being sarcastic, but that didn’t make his statement untrue. “I’m choosing to believe that you didn’t father a child with a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“She’s not fifteen anymore.”

“She was when you...impregnated her,” he shouted with airquotes. He threw up a little in his mouth.

“Okay, okay!” Romana cried, trying to shut down the argument. “Ramses is right. We’re not calling it anyone’s child. We’re not calling it a child. It’s a...fuck!”

Ramses calmed down. “We’ll just call it the particle entity. It doesn’t have to be an extension of you in any way for most discussions.”

“Great.” Buddy clapped his hands. “Let’s go meet—not my—but a particle entity.”

“That’s not the next step in this process,” Ramses told him.

“It is for me.” Buddy spun around, and disappeared into his dark particles.

“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Romana warned.

“No, wait!” Ramses knew what she was about to do. He growled after she called upon her own dark particles, and disappeared too. He teleported the regular way, grateful that he could always pinpoint her location.

They were now standing in a desert. A swarm of dark particles were flying around in the distance. Another swarm was farther down the hill in the opposite direction. According to the drone’s readings, they were multiplying faster than ever, and showing no signs of stopping. The particle entity, however, was nowhere to be seen. They still had time to get out of here before it spotted them. “It might kill us,” Romana contended.

“Then you should leave, so if it kills, it only kills me,” Buddy calculated.

“What if it kills you because it’s made up of my anger, and I’m angry at you?” Romana proposed.

While they were looking at him, Buddy was scanning the horizon, searching for the entity. “Then Team Matic will finally have defeated me, just as they once promised.”

“We should go,” Ramses said. “This is not the way. You start small, and work your way up to the more dangerous experiments. We do it like that for a reason.”

“That’s too cautious, not how I operate, and my efforts are about to pay off.” He was looking down at the ground a few meters away. Dark particles wafted up from the sand, forming themselves into a blob, which assembled into a humanoid figure. It developed approximations of human facial features, but only as creases and pits. It was a great example of body-horror. Its mouth moved. It was trying to speak, though no sound was coming out, probably because it didn’t have vocal cords, or anything else that a normal person would need to function as a living organism. Buddy gave it a Vulcan salute. “We are of peace...always.”

The entity jerked its head to focus on Buddy, reinforcing Ramses’ assertion that the particles were responsive to stimuli.

“I am your father,” Buddy said to it, much to everyone’s chagrin, including the entity’s.

It reached out, and took Buddy by the neck. It was trying to strangle the life out of him.

“I told you!” Romana yelled. She took the entity by its arm, and attempted to pull it off of Buddy, but it was superhumanly strong, and barely paying her any mind. She continued to pull while Ramses urged her to let go. “No! I am your mother, and you will do as I say!”

The entity released Buddy from its grasp, and stared at Romana. It was impossible to tell what it was thinking, or even if it was capable of thinking at all. Without any warning, the particles that it was made up of blew up like a balloon, and enwrapped her. They both disappeared.

“Do you know where she went?” Buddy asked Ramses after they were gone.

Ramses tried to focus on their bond to one another, but he wasn’t getting anything. Dark particles were evidently the one thing that could block the signal. “No.”

“I do.” Buddy walked towards him, almost menacingly, and transported them both away.

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Microstory 2158: No Such Thing as Extra

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I did more volunteer work today. After the storm, a bunch of people came together to help with the cleanup effort. This isn’t any sort of official organization. There’s a special social media app that they’re all on, where people can stay connected to each other based on proximity, rather than other reasons, like mutual interests. I only heard about it from my next door neighbor, because I’m not on the app, so I wasn’t a part of it from the beginning. They’ve done this sort of thing before, when there have been other issues. I picked up and broke down a lot of fallen limbs, which was not fun, but I did feel like I was getting a lot of important work done for people who were unable to do it for themselves. Working from home makes it a lot easier for me to just do stuff like this, and not everyone’s life is like that. Like I said, it wasn’t a real charitable organization, so I didn’t think that anyone could sign my community service log. So I just wasn’t going to bother, because I only did it for the one day, and I figured that it was just more of a rounding error. Apparently, that doesn’t matter for people in my position. When you’ve been sentenced to CS, there is no such thing as “extra” until that sentence has been completed, and then you’re free to choose whatever service work you choose, just like you can as a normal person. Don’t worry, though. I didn’t get in any trouble, or anything, but my parole officer is certain that he told me this before, and he’s probably right. That’s the thing about me. If someone claims that I should have known something, or that something happened in the past, I often kind of just have to believe them, because I can’t trust my own memory. Anyway, it’s fine; no harm done. I could never understand the legal ramifications, but essentially, I’m required to record it every time I volunteer my time or effort for anything more than holding the door open for someone. That’s okay. A thousand hours is the minimum, not the maximum. I think that this is all meant to get people used to the practice of giving back to the community, not just to punish them. But far be it for me to explain the judge’s intentions. That’s why they sit in that raised chair, and I’m over here. Ugh, I’m getting too philosophical. All I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t have to have a reason to help other people. You don’t have to be a convicted criminal, or a juvenile delinquent. This world is better for all of us when we all try to be better for it. That’s all I have for you today. Stay frosty, and keep shakin’ that bush.

Microstory 2022: Illinois

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After he was done with the Navy, papa needed a place to live. He thought about just staying in Arkansas, or even going all the way over to Montana. He said it would have been a full circle, since that’s where he first grew up. He narrowed his decision down to two choices, which was to move back closer to his parents in Idaho, or to Indiana, where his sister lived with her family. The two of them had grown even closer over the last few years, and he loved his nephews. They had just had their second son, so he decided to choose Indiana. He needed a job, though. Most people who need jobs have to go out and look for them. These days, they will go on the internet, and search for anyone who is hiring, but this was back in 2002, so people weren’t doing that very much yet. And anyway, my papa didn’t need to look himself. Companies were actually calling him to offer him a job. He had a really good education, and his time in the military made bosses know that he would be loyal and trustworthy. He ended up reconnecting with a guy who he knew who once worked for the Coast Guard. They also work on the water, but have different jobs. This former Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander had started his own business that wanted to build new kinds of submarines, and he would be testing them in Lake Michigan. My papa was perfect for the job, because that’s exactly what he learned in school, and in the Navy. He ended up living in Chicago on the Illinois side of the border, but he was still less than a half hour away from my Aunt Cooper. We’re still a Chicago family. I’ve gone there myself many times, even though I live in Massachusetts.

Microstory 2021: Tennessee

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Papa was only an active member of the Navy for four years. He thought about staying in, but ended up not. It’s all because of something he did as his required time was ending. He was still in the reserves after this, but he wasn’t working on the sub anymore. While he was trying to make a decision, friends of his from college called him up, and asked him if he wanted to work with them on a mission trip in Tennessee. They were Mormons, and they were doing it for their church, but that wasn’t going to be what the trip was about. There was an old folks home in a small town outside of Memphis. He was in Arkansas at the time, so he wasn’t very far away. That’s probably why they called him. He took a bus to the home, and got to work. The people who owned it didn’t have very much money, and they were having trouble keeping their residents comfortable. Don’t worry, they all always had their medicine and stuff, but there were other issues. They couldn’t afford plants, or nice paintings for the walls. The biggest issue was the courtyard, which is a space that is outside, but it has walls around it. Residents can go and sit down and enjoy being outside, but it wasn’t very pretty at this place. I don’t think my papa spent much time on that, though. He basically became a volunteer handyman. While the others were planting trees, he fixed things around the building, because he was an engineer. What he said was that this was an eye-opening experience. He wanted to spend more time doing things like that. Of course he was helping people when he was serving this country, but he decided that there were things that he should do outside of it. That’s what led him to leaving the Navy, as an active officer at least.

Microstory 1926: Humanity Laws

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Leonard: I’m not okay with this.

Agent Parsons: You don’t like the idea of tricking someone. I get it. But you have to weigh the pros and cons, and we need this information.

Leonard: I don’t have that much of a problem with tricking the Ochivar. Based on what little I’ve heard, some are good, and some are not so good, and this one has to be the second kind, because a good one would be doing everything it could to convince us of as much. I take issue with amputating its wings.

Special Investigator: That is vital to the mission, agent.

Leonard: Not an agent.

Special Investigator: You are now. *tosses a badge onto the table* One benefit working for the Office of Special Investigations, we have nearly zero hiring requirements. I could deputize a sixteen-year-old mental patient if I wanted to. I wouldn’t of course; we have underlying standards. The laws are for cases such as this, when I don’t have time to wait for you to finish the requisite schooling and training that other agencies demand.

Agent Parsons: That’s the special part.

Leonard: You said nearly zero requirements. I assume, in this case, the one requirement is that I go ahead with this mission, which I don’t feel comfortable doing. What we have here, at worst, is a prisoner of war. Where I come from, we treat such enemy combatants with a level of respect that they may not reciprocate. But that is no reason to stoop to their level. It’s not even that, though, because on this front, we are presently in peacetime. Plus, as far as I’ve been informed, the Ochivar hasn’t committed any crime, so he’s not a suspect either, is he? No, he’s only a person of interest.

Special Investigator: We don’t do things the same way here. All of our laws apply to humans, or the other living creatures native to this planet. 

Leonard: You don’t have property laws?

Special Investigator: It’s not a human. Despite how you just described him, he’s not even a person. There are no laws dictating how we must treat him. We are well within our rights to perform this procedure. We’re doing it so you can get your answer.

Leonard: Let’s get one thing straight, I would be getting you answers. I left family behind back home, but I know what I signed up for when I started learning about all this crazy stuff. I’m prepared to never see them again.

Agent Parsons: Let’s not be so hostile. If you don’t agree to do this, they’ll have no reason to amputate, correct? Because the only point is to make it easier for it to blend in.

Leonard: Tell me, Special Investigator. Your scientists discover new species in the depths of the ocean, right? Do these specimens not enjoy any rights, just because you haven’t had time to make any laws? That seems...irrational. And perhaps even evil.

Special Investigator: *clearing his throat* These orders come directly from the National Commander. We can’t make you do it, but I can’t guarantee your continued freedom otherwise. They may consider you an enemy threat too, and put you in the room next to it.

Leonard: So be it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Friday, July 5, 2120

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Mateo and Leona argued yesterday. The latter demanded to go with the former and Ellie to The Fourth Quadrant, and Mateo wasn’t having it. In the end, she had too many cards to play, what with him constantly abandoning her, and his indiscretion with Cassidy. She also had a point that she knew more about the cuffs than he or Ellie did. But then Sanaa caught wind of their plans, and argued that she was actually more proficient with them. They never did figure out how to co-opt Jupiter’s power, or so much as contact him, but she knew everything else about them. The next year, Ariadna asked where they were going, and there was even more arguing, because she didn’t understand how they were going to get into this new reality.

“Oh, that’s just this thing,” Ellie assured her.

“You’re not gonna dismiss me,” Ariadna said. “You know, don’t you? You know what I can do. How? I’ve worked really hard to curate a timeline where no one knows who I am, and what I’ve been through.”

“I’ve been doing the same,” Ellie explained. “Lots of people have told me lots of things without remembering it, because it never happened.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sanaa jumped in. “You’ve been able to cross back to the main sequence this whole time?”

“What?” Ariadna asked. “No. I mean...I don’t think so. Dimensions and realities aren’t the same thing. Right?”

They all looked to Leona, who was surprisingly unsure of herself. “I don’t know everything about physics. Asking me that question is like asking me whether black holes exist. No one knows.”

“Black holes don’t exist?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Let’s get off of whatever this is,” Ellie said. “Madam Traversa, I’m sorry I wasn’t honest about why I was here, but as I understand it, my ability to adopt your ability does not affect you. It doesn’t drain you of your energy, or force you to be a part of it. These cuffs just copy and paste your code, so I can borrow it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us then?” Sanaa questioned.

“I wanted to do this alone, so no one else would be in danger.”

“How very noble of you,” came a voice from outside the circle. It was Jupiter.

“Thank you for coming, Your Grace,” Sanaa said to him jokingly.

“I’ve been listening to your conversations—”

“You have?” Mateo asked. “How?”

“There’s a microphone in each cuff, obviously,” Sanaa explained.

“Obviously,” Jupiter agreed.

“Are you gonna try to stop me?” Ellie asked Jupiter.

“Nope, but I have some conditions, one for each of you. Ariadna, after this mission, you must relinquish your cuffs, and give them to Mr. Bearimy.”

“No, I’m the one wearing J.B.’s cuffs,” Ellie reminded him.

“That doesn’t matter,” Jupiter contended. “I was not aware of the extent of The Escapologists’s time powers. I can’t have you people slipping back and forth at will. So Aria, you have to leave, and you can’t involve yourself with this team ever again. Ellie, if you do this, you have to remain on the Bearimy-Matic pattern. While she has to leave, you have to stay. You wanted the cuffs, you got ‘em.”

“I can do that,” Ellie promised.

Leona frowned. “El, are you sure? He hasn’t said how long we’re doing this.”

Ellie shrugged. “I ain’t got nothin’ but time. I’ll get back to my other friends later, and it’ll be fine.”

“Leona,” Jupiter went on, “you can’t go.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked, perturbed.

“If the others do this, you have to stay behind with J.B., so if something goes wrong, the two of you can rebuild the team.”

“That’s bullshi—”

“Leelee,” Sanaa stopped her. “Rule Number Fifteen.” It was a relatively new entry into Leona’s Rules of Time Travel. Don’t antagonize the antagonist. Mateo didn’t consider Jupiter an antagonist anymore, but the others could be forgiven for continuing to believe as much.

Leona bit her lip, and didn’t say anything else.

“Sanaa, that brings me to you,” Jupiter began. “The people living in the Fourth Quadrant have created a new society. They wouldn’t belong anywhere else. If you try to bring them into the main sequence, Beaver Haven will just find a way to lock them all up again, so the two realities don’t interfere with each other.”

“Cool,” Sanaa sassed. “What does that have to do with me? This is Ellie’s mission.”

“You’ll still be able to save them, but you’re going to solve the problem in a different way. In order to do this, you’ll need to extract someone else from the main sequence. Kismet has it that today is perfect for the side mission. This individual doesn’t need to be rescued, but you need their time power.”

“Again, cool,” Sanaa repeated, “and again, what does that have to do with me?”

“You specifically don’t like this person, but you’re going to have to ignore that, and extract them anyway.”

“Who?” Mateo asked, more curious than anything.

“Finally, Mateo.”

“Oh, no.”

Jupiter smirked. “You have the power to cancel this whole mission, and if you do, you’ll be able to get back to the Vearden mission instead.”

“You won’t let me save him if I do this?” Mateo guessed.

“No, you’ll still be able to try,” Jupiter swore, “but there is a new limitation. You can’t transfer his mind to a clone.”

“What?” Leona shouted. “That’s the whole point! We can’t get him out without changing the timeline unless we do it this way. A clone is the only option.”

“You can’t transfer his mind,” Jupiter said again. “I have no particular reason for this, but I’m trying to disincentivize you from going against my brother. You said it, Rule Number Fifteen; I’ll let you risk it, if you really want to, but it’s gonna cost you. Ariadna, you can save this whole group by overriding my power to force you to stay in this reality. Ellie, you have to put yourself in danger. I know you think it doesn’t matter, since you’re a time traveler, but the more you live in one time period, the greater the chances are that you’ll die. That’s just how life works: older people have had more time to die, so be thinking about whether you want to risk never getting back to Trinity. Leona, you hate feeling useless, so you’re sitting this one out. Sanaa, you hate people, so...that’s it, that’s how I’m discouraging you. And Mateo, you either fail to save the Fourth Quadrant, or you fail to save Vearden. Choose.”

“I choose to save both,” Mateo said.

“Mateo,” Leona almost scolded, “there’s no other way. We all watched him die. We have to transfer his consciousness, or what happened, happened.”

“Trust me,” Mateo asked of her. This was something he had been thinking about for a while now. While he didn’t think of Jupiter as an antagonist, that didn’t mean he wasn’t an obstacle. He worded the new proviso in a specific way, and it wasn’t clear if he did it on purpose, or if Mateo was just the smarter one here, who came up with a loophole all on his own. If the latter was true, then he had to keep it all a secret. From everyone. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Jupiter seemed almost impressed, even though Mateo hadn’t done anything yet. “Very well. If no one objects, please ask the transporter tech to return the four of you to Earth. Once you arrive, the map will direct you to your next transition window. Good luck.” That being said, Jupiter disappeared through his own window.

They bid their farewells to Leona, then went back to Earth, where their Cassidy cuffs directed them to the Kansas City area. They ate a meal, and played a couple rounds of RPS-101 Plus on their tablets while they waited for the window. About three hours later, the field around them flickered, revealing the terraces of Crown Center. It quickly ended, and deposited one Missy Atterberry into this reality. She wasn’t scared, but curious about what had happened. She didn’t have much time to make some guesses, though. Sanaa stood up, and stared at her with a passionate hatred. This was her? This was the person Sanaa hated so much? Mateo didn’t know her all that well. She died quickly after they met in the pre-Hitler assassination timeline, and every memory he had of her since was from Leona’s perspective, because he didn’t exist for that period of time. She appeared just after he left, and was gone before he came back to life.

“You,” Sanaa growled.

“Oh, crap,” was all Missy could say.

Like a bull in a stadium, Sanaa leaned forward, and literally charged at her opponent. Were they actually going to get themselves into a fist fight? Surely not. And no, they didn’t. Missy raised her hand instinctually, and pushed Sanaa into a time bubble. She hovered there, nearly frozen in place, but still technically moving.

“Report,” Mateo said to Missy.

“I agreed to stay out of her personal timeline,” Missy defended. “She was born in 2203, and I promised to never go back to the 24th century, so if I’m here, it’s not my fault. Someone else brought me here.”

“It’s 2120,” Ariadna clarified.

“That’s impossible,” Missy argued. “She’s not supposed to travel through time. That’s why it’s been this easy to avoid her.”

“She broke that rule,” Mateo explained. “Why does she hate you so much?”

Before Missy could answer, Sanaa disappeared from inside the bubble, and reappeared just outside of it. The now empty bubble remained, however. “You can’t slow me down! I can escape any dimension now!” She tried to attack Missy, but didn’t get far before something caused her to collapse, and reach for her ears.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mateo could see Ellie’s lips wrapped around a whistle. No sound was coming out of it, so she must have been teleporting the waves directly into Sanaa’s ears. She opened her mouth, and let the whistle fall down to her chest. Then she spoke for all to hear. “You’re gonna talk first. You try anything like that again, and I’ll make you go deaf. You’ll wish you were still psychic, so at least you could talk to people again.”

Sanaa stood up, her face still contorted, but she nodded once to agree to Ellie’s demands.

“Now,” Mateo started to say, kind of sounding like he was trying to take charge. “I’m outnumbered here. I’m gonna sit on the sidelines, and let you ladies work it out. I’ll be nearby if you need anything, though.”

Ariadna stuck her index finger up, like she was trying to delicately summon the waiter. “I’ll come with.”

“Do you know what happened between those two?” he asked once they were away from the other three.

“I make a point of staying out of people’s business.”

“Yeah, why is that? You’re such a nice and even-tempered person, yet you seem just as isolated as Sanaa is. Do you not like people?”

“People think that about me. I mean, I live in a frickin’ pyramid, so I can’t blame them. The truth is that I...it’s hard to explain.”

“I’m patient, and understanding.”

“I know that about you. I’m just...better at observing than I am interacting with others. I don’t like to...” She sighed. “I don’t like to do things.”

“Things?”

“Anything. I don’t have any hobbies, and I don’t care for social situations. I don’t dislike people, but I don’t get anything out of conversing with them most of the time. I just wanna sit in my little corner of the world, listen to classical music, read trashy romance novels, and maybe watch a little TV. I’ve never had any interest in going out to restaurants, or seeing a rock concert, or visiting a museum.”

“Well, that’s not that weird,” Mateo said. “Extroverts think that sounds like a really sad life, but I get it. Not everyone’s days are filled with mystery and intrigue.”

Ariadna went on, “I remember when I was a kid, my mom tried to sign me up for some sports team. I don’t even recall which sport, but it wasn’t attached to my school, it was the county, or something. Either way, I told her I didn’t like to play sports, but she said that wasn’t the point. She said it was a great way to meet people. So I’m like, so what? What’s so great about meeting people? She shook her head, like I was nothing more than an insolent child, but that wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really wanted to know what intrinsic value there was in meeting new people.

“Well, she didn’t have an answer for me, because there isn’t a good one. Two full days later, she came back to me and claimed it was about building a network. I may be stranded at a movie theatre in a blizzard one night, and I’ll wish I had someone to call who liked me enough to give me a ride. I pointed out that this was a selfish reason to try to meet people, so the conversation ended there, and we never talked about it again. I was an adult before I realized on my own that I should have been looking at it the opposite way, and she should have framed it that way instead.”

“How’s that?” Mateo prompted.

She sighed again. “I should have made friends, so I could be available when someone else needed help in a blizzard.”

Mateo nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, by then I was too used to being alone, and well...you can make friends as an adult unless, that is, you never did it as a kid. New adult friends expect you to already have friends, because they want to meet them! I just couldn’t make any connections. So I gave up, and went back to the way I’ve always liked it, sitting comfortably in my pyramid.”

“Are you going to go back when the Fourth Quadrant is over? The pyramids don’t exist in the Parallel, but I suppose that doesn’t matter to you anymore. You’re free to travel wherever you want.”

“Well, I don’t use my powers, because they feel just as pointless as skydiving or having sex with people. But I’m not sure if—”

“Okay,” Ellie interrupted them. “Sanaa and Missy have signed a temporary ceasefire, and Missy has agreed to help us with the Fourth Quadrant. I guess all that Jupiter will let us do is adjust their speed of time. That’s kind of besides the point, but...it’s what we got. Get some rest. Busy day tomorrow. Could be our last.”

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Microstory 1427: Hardtland

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By the year 2048, there were over 4,000 people living on Durus. Some were in Springfield, some were in Splitsville, and some were in the still new town of Parade. There were pretty evenly divided too, which seemed to suggest to people that there was some kind of population standard for a town. Maybe there ought to be about a thousand to twelve hundred people together, and no more. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily true. Everyone could have easily lived in the same area, and any further space they needed, they could have found simply by expanding outwards. Still, a lot of people alive in the middle of the century remembered what it was like to be on Earth. The Springfield they could remember was a small town, and most of them chose to move, or stay, there for that reason. By building more towns, they were better simulating what life should be like for them. They wanted to be able to live in one place, but visit another, instead of just having everyone and everything within reach at all times. It just made sense. So they founded a fourth town, which they called Hardtland, in honor of their late leader, Councilwoman Hardt. Calling it a town, however, was a bit of a misnomer. It was more of a rural sprawl, as buildings were spread out, and only placed inside natural clearings in the wooded area where it was located. This was a major operation, which required the cooperation of a lot of people who were not even planning to move there once it was finished, which they hoped would be within a year. They chose not to expedite the process with temporal powers, like they did with Parade, instead relying on dozens of independent construction crews. They now had plenty of mages to protect them while they worked, and planning was so detailed that they easily managed to complete the project according to schedule. The first families officially moved into their new homes in the summer of 2049, and town mages were temporarily assigned to keep guard. Now that there was an entirely new border to protect, plans would have to be adapted, so that enough mages were selected in the next Mage Games, but some realized that it couldn’t stop there. This development also prompted an overhaul of the whole system. Experts did some math, and realized they even needed to be thinking further in the future than that. The next competition would be held in a year, and the next one after that wouldn’t be for another twenty. By the time that rolled around, the number of towns would likely double. This was a truth they confirmed with two separate seers, who knew a little about the future of the Durune population. If more people were going to be selected as mages than ever before, the source mages would have to reexamine their criteria for acceptance. More importantly, they decided they needed to help people prepare for this time, so they weren’t only depending on natural talent. They quickly threw together a training regimen, so hopefuls would already have an idea of what would be expected of them when the contest was held. Worried it wouldn’t be enough, this contest was also pushed back three months. People would later say that it probably should have been delayed a year, though, because of what happened.

Microstory 1422: Proto-Protectorate

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Now that the source mage children looked nearly twice as old as they really were, they decided it was time to assume full control over Springfield, and possibly Splitsville. The Adhocracy was nice while it lasted, but it had come to an end, and times needed to change. People had spent their whole lives since the Deathfall hoping that it would all lead them back to Earth, but the source mages knew this was not possible. The last time they were there was nearly thirteen years ago, and as the members of the Triumvirate had explained to them, no one there could even remember that they existed. Durus was their home now, and they needed to make sure everyone knew that. They weren’t just going to survive, and hope the monster never took them out eventually. They were going to make this place safe and prosperous, so that if the Earthans did learn of their existence, some might even want to move. They thought they had their plans all figured out, but when Orabela showed them they were capable of gifting other people with special temporal powers, nothing they first thought of made any sense. So they started over, and spent months working on a brand new system. They called it the Mage Protectorate. They would give other people powers, so they could shoulder the burden, and protect the towns collectively. With more people, what was formerly called the Baby Barrier would be able to grow, and give the Durune people more space. The only question then was how to choose who received these gifts, and who didn’t. They couldn’t just let anyone run around with powers, doing whatever they wanted. Sure, they could regulate them with laws, but what if insurgents banded together, and rose up against their leaders? No, it was too dangerous to make the job available to just anyone. This required some way of weeding out potential bad eggs. This sparked the idea of the Mage Games.

Anyone could apply to be a town mage, but that didn’t guarantee they would be selected. The new leaders called upon their best statistician, and other experts, to gauge how many people would want in on this, and how many winners they needed to keep things running smoothly. This was a very involved process, which demanded help from lots of other people. This was perfect, though, because by including non-source mages in the decision-making processes, they only made themselves look better. This was going to be a fair government, where everyone’s voice was heard. They were going to call it a protectorate, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t also be democratic. The initial assumption was that the Mage Games would be held every year. Maybe there would actually only be one winner each time, and that one person would go on to join the ranks of the many veterans before them. This didn’t sound so unreasonable, but it came with risks. First of all, the source mages didn’t really want to have to go through this every single year. And, if the competition was annual, they worried it would be too accessible, easily corrupted by inequality, and fraught with logistical issues. A vicennial competition, however, would make turnover slow, and hopefully discourage mages from trying to quit early. Plus, most people would end up too old to compete a second time if they failed once; though neither impossible, nor against their rules. This fostered a group composed of committed competitors, who were not taking this lightly. If they didn’t manage to get in, they might not get another chance, and if they did get in, trying to get out of it would put the whole population in danger, so it was important that they understood what it was they were signing up for, and what it would mean for their lives. This was not a car dealership, though. The standards were flexible, and sensible. If they determined, for instance, that every town mage had to be able to do a hundred pushups, and their strongest competitor could only do ninety-nine, then they would just end up with no mages, and that wasn’t helpful at all. They wanted everyone who was worthy, and if that meant everyone who applied was ultimately accepted, then so be it. The point was to prevent the wrong people from having too much power, but if those people didn’t exist, or didn’t even try—and there was enough offensive work to justify the numbers—then fine. Armed with this wisdom, it was finally time to decide what the Mage Games entailed.