The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 5, 2487

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Alarms were blaring, internal inertial dampeners and artificial gravity generators were faltering, and sparks were flying. Everything was falling apart. They were suffering severe damage from the onslaught of weapons fire. The teleportation field was not designed to handle this much debris all at once. “Who the hell is shooting at us?” Leona shouted.

“No idea, Captain! Sensors are down!” Marie cried back.

“Twenty-eight percent of the objects are crossing the teleportation field!” Angela added. “Some of them are hitting uncomfortably close to the generators themselves!”

“Slingdrive!” Leona questioned.

“Overheated!” Angela replied.

“Reframe engine!”

“Offline!”

“Teleporter drive!”

“Where should we teleport?” Marie asked. “Our sensors are down. We could be jumping deeper into the battlefield.”

“We don’t even know if it’s a battlefield,” Angela noted.

“At least tell me we’re still in full stealth mode,” Leona asked.

“Yes,” Angela confirmed, “but we are taking hits, and whoever is firing might have a predictive algorithm that measures the trajectory of its projectiles, which could lead it to detecting a discrepancy in the final trajectory results.”

That was an insightful answer. The team was learning. Though, it would have been really nice to have Ramses here, or even Mateo with his idea to shoot people with solid holograms.

“Sir?” Marie prompted. “Do you want us to fire back?”

“We purged the hot pocket before we left,” Leona reasoned. “We have nothing to fire.”

“The hits were taking on are recharging it,” Marie explained. “We’re not at full capacity, but we have something.”

Leona shook her head. “Like you said, we don’t have sensors. We would be shooting blind.” She sighed. “Helmets on. I’m gonna shrink us down to model size...lower our surface area.”

“Can we survive that?” Angela asked.

“Ramses tested it in Stoutverse. Helmets on. Where the hell is Olimpia?” As if to answer, the hits suddenly stopped. “What just happened?” Leona asked.

“I did, Captain,” Olimpia replied through comms. “On screen.” The monitor turned itself on. It was fuzzy from the damage, but they could see enough. Olimpia was somewhere else, holding a knife to Bronach Oaksent’s throat. “We got eem.”

“You have nothing,” Bronach contended.

“If that were true,” Olimpia began, “why did you stop firing?”

Bronach didn’t answer.

“He’s got a teleportation block on now,” Olimpia said to Leona. “I don’t know why he didn’t have it activated before, but I can’t escape, and you can’t come get me.”

“What’s your, uhh...endgame here, Pia?” Leona asked.

“You kill me, they’ll kill you seconds later,” Bronach said to Olimpia, surely referring to the crowd of guardsmen standing at the ready behind them.

“I don’t understand,” Leona said, confused. “If you knew we would be here, why would you come yourself? Why not just send an army of redshirts?”

“I didn’t know you would be here,” Bronach clarified. “I was shooting at them.”

“Sensors back online,” Angela announced. The rest of the monitors switched on, giving them the panoramic view of their surroundings. They were indeed in the middle of a battlefield. A fleet of ships were at their port while another was at their starboard. It looked very neat and organized, like a battle formation that the Regulars liked to use during the Revolutionary War. Not very efficient, and too restrained. They were not in any star system, but apparently out in interstellar space somewhere.

“How do you suppose we’re gonna rectify this situation?” Leona asked Bronach.

“Well, I was thinking that your bitch here could put down her knife so I can pick it up, and slit her pretty little throat. Then you could stick your heads between your legs, and kiss your kitties goodbye—”

“That’s enough,” Leona said defiantly. She turned an imaginary dial in the air, which prompted the computer to genuinely mute Bronach’s words. She stood there for a while, staring at her enemy in the eyes. His lips weren’t moving anymore, but that didn’t mean he was finished expressing his vulgar thoughts. She turned to Angela for a private conversation. “Do you know where they are? Which ship, which part of it?”

“It’s the big one that looks like a compensator,” Angela answered. “Specifically, they are in the tip.”

“They have a real viewport to the outside?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Leona turned the dial back. “Are you done acting like a child?” she asked him.

“Are you done acting like a—?” he started to respond until Olimpia tightened her grip around his neck. “Yes, I’m done. I don’t know how to resolve this.”

“Olimpia,” Leona said with a raised voice.

“Sir!”

“Remember that show we watched together, with the guy in green tights?”

“Sir?” Olimpia asked, puzzled.

“I pointed out one of the characters, who’s a lot like you.”

Olimpia thought about it. “I think I remember that. Are you asking for me to put on a performance?”

Leona sighed. “Sing your heart out.”

Without letting go of Bronach, Olimpia pulled off the necklace that she used to suppress her echo powers. She screamed towards the screen as loud as she could. It didn’t take long before the feed was disrupted by the noise. The VA’s monitor automatically switched to the next interesting thing that the sensors were picking up. The window on the tip of the phalloship had shattered, and dozens of people were being expelled into the cold vacuum of space. The view narrowed in on Olimpia, who was still holding onto Bronach. They expected all the guardsmen to die, but they were still moving around; not convulsing, but reaching out towards their weapons. Some of them were too far away, but they had backups in their holsters. They weren’t human.

“Shit,” Leona muttered under her breath.

“She needs to let go,” Angela decided. “We don’t want him on our ship. She needs to let go of him, and teleport.”

“She can hear you,” Leona explained, tapping on her comms. “Olimpia. Let him go and teleport back in.”

The guards all had their guns trained on her. Olimpia seemingly managed to disappear just in time before the bullets started flying. They shot up Bronach’s body instead. He apparently was still human.

“Get us out of here,” Leona ordered the twins. She jumped to the infirmary, where Olimpia was already lying down in a medical pod, beginning to convalesce. “Report.”

Olimpia opened her mouth.

“Not you. Computer, report.”

“Patient is suffering from mild hypoxia and minor subcutaneous emphysema. There is also a single gunshot graze just over her left ear. Body temperature is low, but rising. Prognosis: the patient will recover within the hour.”

“You did a brave thing,” Leona said to Olimpia.

“Thanks—thanks—thanks,” Olimpia replied in an echo. She reached up with her necklace to try to put it back on.

Leona gently took it from her. “Just rest. We’ll reattach it once you’re fully recovered.” She felt that Olimpia was distressed and confused. “The scream. It took a lot out of you. That’s why you’re not recovering as fast as you would have. Hopefully you’ll never have to do that again.”

Olimpia nodded, then looked back up towards the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

Leona almost jumped out of her shoes when she saw Tertius walk into the room out of the corner of her eye. “I forgot you were still aboard.”

“I stayed off the bridge,” he began to explain. “I don’t have much experience with this kind of technology. I would just be in the way.”

“It would have been fine had you been there,” Leona said. “But you can stay with her now, let me go back.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Leona returned to the bridge. They were currently traveling at reframe speeds, zigging and zagging to confuse anyone trying to track them, as well as occasionally teleporting to random vectors. “Good strategy. I appreciate you taking over.”

“How’s our girl look?” Marie asked.

Leona tapped her comms off, so Olimpia couldn’t hear. “Not great, but she’ll get through it.”

“We intercepted a transmission,” Angela said. “Bronach’s not dead. I don’t know how he survived, they didn’t give any details, but they’re confident.”

“I’m not surprised,” Leona responded. “I shouldn’t expect it to be that easy. Maybe he has an upgraded body too, or persistent consciousness backup, or some other wacky contingency. Right now, we have to focus on finding Mirage.”

“I made contact, but I think we should hold off on a rendezvous,” Marie explained. “I suggest we intentionally destabilize attitude control for half an hour, and vacillate the power conduits to appear derelict. If we’ve been tracked, I don’t want us to lead them to Mirage’s location.”

“Another good idea,” Leona said. “I don’t think y’all need a captain anymore. Computer, can you do as she said?”

“Randomizing maneuvering thruster activations, and power distribution systems now.”

While they were waiting, Olimpia continued to recover, and Leona looked over the diagnostics for the slingdrive to make sure that it was recharging, and going through the proper automated maintenance procedures. Ramses had installed a coherence gauge, which measured the drive’s readiness factors, boiling them down to a color-coded scale. Red meant that it was too early to make another safe jump. Violet meant that it was fully charged, stable, and ready to go. He warned against using it again until it was at least in Green. Right now, it was still on Orange, so it was likely at least a couple of hours from being ready. Leona also finally realized that it was July 5, 2487. They had jumped a year into the future. The navigation system was not calibrating correctly, so Ramses would have to look at it again. They had to get back to Castlebourne first, though, which might be a bit of an issue. A ship was on approach.

Leona jumped back from the engineering section. “Have they announced themselves?”

“No, sir,” Angela replied. “Should we open a channel?”

Leona watched the main monitor. The VA was spinning—supposedly out of control—but the computer was compensating for this, and keeping the image of the other ship straight. “No. If they think we’re derelict, we want them to keep thinking that. We’ll only react if they send a message, or launch a salvage team. I’m not sure if the people in the Goldilocks Corridor do that.”

“They might shoot us out of the sky,” Angela said. “They’re powering weapons.”

“Ready the hot pocket, but keep all available power queued to plasma shields.”

“We have plasma shields now?” Marie asked. “That wasn’t in the lessons.”

“They’re untested, and a huge power drain,” Leona said to her. “But they’ll stop pretty much anything. The EM deflector array isn’t as effective, and the teleporter field only works with projectiles. But yes, we technically have all three now.”

“Why aren’t they firing?” Marie questioned.

“The  guns aren’t pointed towards us,” Angela said as she was looking at the screen. “They’re pointed at nothing. Maybe they need to occasionally purge too, like our hot pocket?”

“Wouldn’t explain why they don’t just kill two birds with one stone, and use it against us,” Marie offered.

“They’re firing,” Angela said.

They were indeed projectiles; missiles, to be exact. Two of them flew off in the same general direction for no apparent reason. Suddenly, though, another ship appeared, right in their path. They had no time to react before the missiles struck the hull simultaneously, and all but vaporized them.

“Vellani Ambassador, this is Captain Mirage Matic of the Enlister. We know you’re playing opossum. Please respond.”

Leona just nodded at Marie, who opened the channel for her. “Mirage, it’s good to hear from you. This is Leona.”

“Welcome back, stepmom,” Mirage said with humor in her voice.

“Restore normal operations,” Leona ordered the twins. “Mirage, we would like to negotiate a new conflict tactic, if you’re up for it,” she said into the mic.

“Allow me on board, and I’ll teleport right quick.”

Leona nodded again. “Direct her jump to Delegation Hall, please.” She jumped over there herself, just before Mirage showed up. They shook hands. “Where’s Niobe?”

“Still on the Enlister,” Mirage answered. She looked around. “I’ve been scanning your systems. You’ve made some upgrades.”

“I hope that’s okay.”

“This here ship is yourn now. I heard about the Rock Meetings. Nice to know you’re using it for diplomacy, as was its original premise.”

“Yes, and we would like to keep using it for nonviolent purposes, though not necessarily diplomatic discussions. Before we talk about that, I have a more pressing question. We killed Bronach Oaksent, but he survived. Do you have intel on that? Is he posthuman?”

Mirage laughed. “No. He has the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Leona tilted her chin. “As in...Nicholas Flammel?”

“As in the dome of the Insulator of Life.”

“That’s where that is,” Leona whispered. “It’s powerful enough on its own?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone is more powerful on its own. There are four main components of the Insulator: the actual insulator, the revitalizer, the primary memory chamber, and the regulator. The first one is the exterior of the glass itself, so the dome contains part of it—enough of it to maintain someone’s life under certain circumstances. The rest of the dome is the revitalizer, as well as temporary memory storage. When all four components are combined, the regulator prevents the revitalizer from generating a new substrate for someone in storage. That’s why you have to transfer someone’s consciousness into a clone, or an android, or whatever.”

“So without the regulator, the stone can just make a new body.”

“It’s not that it can, it’s that it will. There’s no way to control it. It’s like a computer without I/Os. I think it takes a few days, but it will do it whether you want it to or not.”

“So he’s effectively immortal, as long as he has the stone in his possession.”

“There’s a downside,” Mirage goes on. “Once it resurrects you, you’re bonded to it. You’re the only one who can use it until this bond subsides. If someone else uses it, you will experience their damage. So in this case, it’s bonded to the Oaksent. If, say, his lieutenant takes possession, and gets a cut on his arm, a cut will appear on Oaksent’s arm. If he breaks his leg, he breaks Oaksent’s leg.”

“And if he dies?” Leona proposed.

“If the lieutenant dies, he basically steals Oaksent’s life. Oaksent will die for good, the lieutenant will live again. But then he has to keep it protected until his own bond fades.”

“How long does that take?”

“I’ve never seen it firsthand, but I believe months; maybe a year. I think the time gets extended when you keep using it. So if you cut your own arm every day, the bond will never dissipate. I’m not sure why you would want that as I consider it a bug, not a feature, but I dunno.”

Leona stared into space, and nodded. “I don’t wanna kill anyone, but...”

“I know. Is that why you’re here?” Mirage asked. “Is this a reluctant assassination attempt?”

“What?” She came out of her trance. “Oh, no. It’s a rescue mission. Rather, a rescue operation. I’d like to see you captain this ship once more...for a new crew.”

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Orthogradient: The Cormanu Crew (Part IV)

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Carbrey Genovese woke up. A quick look around told him that he was in the infirmary. No one else was there at first until Landis Tipton walked in. After he turned the lights on, he thought better, and dimmed them back down. He checked Carbrey’s pupillary response, and his vitals. “You have taken a long time to recover. I’m ashamed to say that I was unable to heal you myself. The theory is that my ability works on atmospheric medical conditions. You suffered complications due to temporary exposure to the vacuum of outer space, which I’ve never had to heal before, therefore my ability did not know how. Still, that doesn’t explain why I can’t repair the nerve damage you suffered due to likely traumatic injury.” He shook his head in shame. “I’ll keep trying.”

“What happened?” Carbrey asked.

“It’s not my place to say.” Landis paused before going on, “I mean, it’s not that I’m not authorized. I’m not qualified to understand it. Khuweka, could you get in here please?” he asked through his comms device.

She appeared out of nowhere. “Mister Genovese, I’m glad to see that you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Confused,” Carbrey answered.

“That’s understandable, given your recent medical issues.”

“He asked for the story,” Landis relayed.

“Right.” Khuweka cleared her throat. “For reasons we still haven’t been able to piece together entirely, the Project Stargate probe was flying in the wrong direction. We successfully teleported around it, but instead of matching its vector, it just tore right through the back of the ship.”

“Casualties?” Cabrey asked.

She took a moment to respond. “Freya and Limerick didn’t make it. They shouldn’t have been standing so close.”

“You’re blaming them? This was my fault.”

“We do not believe that it was,” she said.

“It was my job to calculate the vector. I must have made a figure negative when it should have been positive, or something. Going the wrong way? Who does that?”

“We recorded three temporal energy signatures,” Khuweka began to explain. “It’s impossible to assign them to any particular temporal manipulation event, but we were only expecting one. Diamond Zek teleporting us to the probe was the only thing that we were going for, so what could the other two have been? My guess is that the probe was also altered, by some other party. We did detect that we were being followed. That was always a risk. If the Ochivari ever found out what we were trying to do, they could have gone to any extreme to stop it.”

“It wasn’t the Ochivari.” Another woman was in the room, who Carbrey did not recognize. Judging by the expression on Landis and Khuweka’s faces, neither did they.

“Who the hell are you?” Khuweka questioned, all tensed up.

“Sanaa Karimi. Who the hell are you?” she snapped back.

Khuweka relaxed. “Oh, you’re fine. How long have you been here, though?”

“Longer than you.” Sanaa had a bit of an attitude.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.”

“She was in stasis.” Eliana walked in as well. “Diamond Zek finally picked her up when the primary power source on her pod faltered from the crash, and it reverted to the secondary. That split second power distribution anomaly tipped us off. Otherwise, we never would have found her.”

“Actually, it is I who found you,” Sanaa claimed. “Where do you think the ship came from in the first place? It was randomly shifting through time and space to escape the clutches of an evil trio from the future. They were tracking it the entire time, and it was running out of power. Its only hope was for me to fake its destruction, and command it to make one final jump. Unfortunately, the only jump that I was able to trigger was back to its underground hangar of origin, where you happened to be. Everything was fine there until you decided to take it out for a joyride, putting it back on the trio’s radar, allowing them to catch up to it. To you. To us.”

“I’ve never heard of an evil trio from the future,” Khuweka contended.

“You’ve not heard of everything,” Sanaa reasoned.

“What can we do now?” Eliana asked. “I assume they’re still after us.”

“They don’t care about you,” Sanaa explained. “They want this ship. It’s important to them, and they won’t stop looking for it. There’s only one place where it can survive, but if you take it there, there’s no coming back.”

“Unacceptable,” Khuweka determined, shaking her head, not even bothering to ask for specifics. “We have to stop the Ochivari. That is the only mission that matters.”

Sanaa sighed. “I’ve been reading your ethicist’s mind. She knows more about this than you believe. You expected to be able to pose any problem to her, and have her vomit a response, but you didn’t think she would do her due diligence? She’s been studying just as hard as Freya has with her engineering courses.”

“How long have you been out of stasis?” Khuweka questioned.

“You can read minds?” Carbrey asked, still lying back in his recovery bed.

Sanaa ignored them both. “The Ochivari are bulk travelers, and as you know, each brane operates on its own timestream. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You can leave 2337, and when you end up in the neighboring brane, it might be 2024. You didn’t travel back in time, you simply pierced the membrane at the spot where 2024 exists, because for the membrane, time is a spatial dimension.”

“Yes, I know all this,” Khuweka asserted.

“Then why were you under the impression that you could stop the Ochivari? They’re bulk travelers!” she reiterated. “Once you leave the universe you were born in, your existence becomes inherently locked in. You cannot be erased from the past. The best anyone could hope for would be to erase the timeline where you were from, but at worst, if you ever go back to your home universe, you’ll just end up in the new timeline. It’s irrelevant that you were never born there, because you were born there at one point. That cannot be undone anymore.”

Khuweka grimaced. Or she was horny. It was really hard to tell what a Maramon’s facial expressions meant. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

“This mission was never about stopping the Ochivari,” Sanaa said.

“What was it about?”

“It was about how great I am at timing big reveals,” Sanaa said cryptically. She stepped over to the smartwall, and masterfully transitioned it into a hull camera feed, making it appear as though it simply turned into a large viewport. A tiny ship appeared out of nowhere. “It was about making her.”

Khuweka went over to the wall, and opened a channel. “Unidentified vessel, please identify yourself.”

“Cormanu, this is the Strongbox. Please open an airlock for boarding. We come in peace. We have some mutual friends.”

Khuweka looked over at Sanaa, who nodded approvingly. Khuweka hesitated. “Zek, mauve alert. I don’t know if we should be trusting whoever the hell that is.”

They all teleported to the airlock, even Carbrey, who was placed in the future’s version of a wheelchair, though it had no wheels. It was electromagnetic, which allowed it to hover around thirty centimeters from the floor. He could steer it with a simple and intuitive joystick. The seat was soft and comfortable, and the cushions could conform to suit his needs as they changed. He was still in a lot of pain, and he couldn’t move his lower body, though he could still feel down there, particularly the pain. The autodoctor’s initial diagnosis was an incomplete spinal cord injury. He was immobilized, but not fully paralyzed. The prognosis was not yet available, but he may never walk again.

The mysterious little ship entered its side of the airlock, and waited for it to be pressurized. Once that was done, three people stepped out of it, and patiently waited for the hatch to open, which Khuweka was still reluctant to do. Sanaa rolled her eyes, and just opened it instead. “How did you know the co—oh, right; psychic.”

The three new strangers stepped through. One of them was a teenage girl. “My name is Treasure Hawthorne.” She didn’t say it with her mouth. A voice came out of a tiara-looking thing on her head. “I am Freya and Limerick Hawthorne’s daughter. This is my friend Rosalinda James, and my lover, Quina Velsteran.” She was horrified at herself. “I shouldn’t’ve said it like that. I’m sorry,” she said to him.

“It’s fine,” he replied.

“It’s just that we never really defined the relationship.”

“Really, Treasure, it’s fine. Let’s get back to business.”

“Right. Here’s the thing. I have my father’s ability, and each time I use it, I end up somewhere that has recently experienced its own bulk traveling event. At least that’s our theory. I think my body is seeking sources of bulk energy. I can’t figure out how to get home, even though I know for a fact that the Transit recently showed up there—”

“The Transit?” Khuweka asked, hope and excitement in her eyes. Or she was bored. Again, it was hard to tell. “Who’s piloting the Transit?”

“Azura.”

Khuweka’s eyes widened now. That had to be surprise. “She survived. Ho-ho-oh my God.” She stepped away to pace. “Azura is the founder of the Transit Army.”

“Uh, no, my mother is,” Treasure clarified.

“Right,” Khuweka accepted. “Because she’s alive. What happened to her?”

“I don’t have time for the full story,” Treasure said. “I need to get back to Voldisilaverse, and I think you can help, and I think that my power sent me here for a reason, because maybe there’s some sort of separate sentience to it. I’m rambling again, but the point is that I need to link up to your power-boosting platform.”

“Uh, power is limited,” Eliana chimed in. “This thing can barely hold life support online. We’re dead in the water, so nobody’s using the platform right now.”

“I can make it work,” Carbrey informed them.

“You are in no condition to do anything,” Landis countered.

“My brain is fine,” Carbrey argued. “I just need to be sitting while I do it.”

“I’m good with my hands,” Quino said. “You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it in your stead. Will that work?”

They all looked to Khuweka. “I am not a doctor,” she began, “nor Carbey himself. If you’re feeling up to it, you can go ahead, but Landis is in charge of your health, and he can override any decision you try to make in regards to the work that you perform. He has the power to bench you, which may mean getting some rest back in the infirmary. We’re time travelers, people. There is no such thing as urgency. Doctor Spellmeyer, please accompany them, and make sure that everyone is happy and safe. Treasure, Sanaa...you’re with me.” She walked off.

Diamond Zek teleported everyone to their stations. The three ladies were in Captain Kadrioza’s Strategy Room, which was just a fancy thing to call her office. She sat at her desk while the other two sat in the two opposing chairs. Eliana teleported in soon thereafter. “You are not needed here,” Khuweka told her.

“Yes...I am,” Eliana insisted. She stood by the door like a bodyguard. Back in her home universe, she underwent the same basic combat training that everyone in her agency received, but was never on the operative’s track, so there was only so much she would be able to do in the event of some kind of attack or altercation. Though with Limerick gone—and besides Khuweka herself, who was a nigh invincible alien—Eliana was the probably best fit for ad hoc ship security.

“Very well.” Khuweka cleared her throat. “I know you by reputation, Miss Karimi. Treasure, if you are who you say you are, I’m sure you’ll do great things. But trust is not something that I can just give away freely. This is a very delicate situation, and—”

“Captain, an unidentified ship approaches,” Kivi’s voice came in through the intercom. “It’s not responding to calls. We’ve begun evasive maneuvers.”

“That would be the trio,” Sanaa said confidently.

“Is that bad? That sounds bad,” Treasure guessed.

“Yes, it does, but as I was saying, you two arrived here unexpectedly. Maybe they too are friends, not foes.”

“They’re def foes,” Sanaa insisted. “You have to get out of here fast.”

“Zektene, do you have the power you need?” she asked, but the response was not vocal. They only enjoyed a psychic connection to Diamond Zek.

The two who had not yet formed a bond with her sat in silence, Treasure having no clue what was going on, since she could only recall so much of what her mother taught her about this ship, and her long-lost friends.

“No,” Khuweka shouted with her voice, but it was too late.

Zek transported Treasure next to the booster platform.

“Uhh, it’s only been a minute,” Quino told her. “Mister Genovese here hasn’t even finished explaining to me what it is exactly. We need to divert power first—”

“There’s no time for that.” She stepped onto the platform just as everyone else was appearing in the room.

“Don’t do this,” Khuweka ordered. “Zek, listen to me. Get her out of here.”

“I’m gonna get us all out of here,” Treasure contended. She placed her hands upon the handles, and closed her eyes tightly. She let the ship’s remaining power surge through her body, mixing with the bulk energy that was already metabolizing in there. Then she screamed the whole vessel into a different universe, hopefully leaving their pursuers behind.

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Orthogradient: Quino and Rosalinda (Part III)

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Quino and Rosalinda covered their ears as Treasure screamed her way into a portal, and disappeared, hopefully back home. They held their hands in place, because the plan was for her to return to this very moment. If she had listened to Quino’s pleadings, she would be a few years older, and a little more age appropriate for him. Something must have gone wrong, though, because they waited for a couple minutes, and nothing. He dropped his arms in defeat. Rosalinda smiled at him sadly, and patted him on the back. They didn’t speak. They could only hope that Treasure moved on with her life, and forgot about them, not that she had gotten hurt, or worse, and couldn’t come back. They were going to be stuck here forever, but it wasn’t going to be that bad. There weren’t any dangerous people or aliens, and the Strongbox was stocked with enough supplies to get them through the next few weeks. They both stepped forward to admire the view. They were on a grassy cliff, overlooking the beautiful scenery below, and in the distance.

“Wait!” a masculine voice shouted to them from down the hill behind them, and through the trees. “Don’t leave without me!” He came out of the forest, running as fast as he could, and struggling with it.

“It’s okay!” Quino shouted back. “Catch your breath!”

The man stopped, grateful. He rested his hands on his knees, and panted. He squinted at the sun, and held up one finger.

“We won’t leave without you,” Quino added, “...and also can’t.”

“What?” When Quino tried to explain that they were just as trapped there as him, he dismissed them. “Hold on.” He mustered a second wind, and started running again, but quickly fell into a jog.

They might have gone down to meet them halfway, but even though Quino wasn’t a real soldier, one thing he learned from the ones he worked with was that the first rule of warfare was to always maintain the higher ground. The other first rule of warfare was to force your enemy to come to you. They didn’t know if this man was an enemy, or not, but they had to assume as much for the time being.

The stranger finally made it up to them. “What did you say?”

“We can’t leave,” Rosalinda clarified.

“That thing behind you can’t do it? I guess I assumed that that’s how you got here yourselves. There’s no one else on this planet.”

“It only works with a particular pilot,” Quino said, obviously not about to mention Treasure by name, and hoping that even this wasn’t too much information.

“Well, shit.” He set his hands on his hips, and looked out at the view as he finished the last of his panting.

“How did you get here, friend?” Rosalinda asked. “We were to understand that this world was not populated by any intelligent species.”

He looked back where he had come from. “I sure hope not. I was trying to figure out how to make a campsite when I saw your ship fly overhead. I dropped the sticks, and started running right for it. Then I heard someone scream? Was that your pilot? What happened to her?”

“She had to go somewhere else,” Quino said.

“My name is Rosalinda James. This is Quino Velsteran.”

“Adalwin Tillens. Welp, if I have to live here for the rest of my life, at least I won’t be  here alone.”

“We’re not staying,” Quino assured him without offering him a way out of here, which should come eventually.

“Neither am I...hopefully.”

“How did you get here in the first place?” Rosalinda asked him.

Adalwin sighed. “There’s this group of people who can do what your friend can. They...leak portals out of their skin, and fall into them. They can bring people with them, and I was in need of escaping a dangerous situation, so I asked for help. I was with them for a little bit before I failed to get back to them in time, and they left without me.”

“They didn’t wait for you?” Rosalinda questioned.

“Yeah, there must be something wrong with you,” Quino added, thinking that he and Rosalinda were on the same page.

“I meant,” Rosalinda began, “if there is nothing dangerous on this world, what was the rush?”

“Oh, they don’t have control over it,” Adalwin clarified. “It just happens. They have to stay close to one another if they want to go to the same place. They’ve become separated from friends that way. I don’t know what it’s like when you do it, but for them, it’s like this psychedelic waterslide, which branches off into different directions, so you have to hold on and be careful. Stay with your sliding buddy, they would always say.” He sighed again. “I should have listened.” He perked up. “But you’re here now, and everything is going to be okay again...right?”

Rosalinda was hoping that Quino would agree, since she was obviously on board with helping this man. “Right,” she said herself, giving up. “We’ll get you out of here, one way or another. Come on, Qui-qui, let’s see if we can figure out whether this thing stores bulk energy, or what.”

“Yeah, come on, Qui-qui,” Adalwin encouraged jovially.

“You don’t call me that,” Quino warned as they were walking up to the Strongbox.

They stepped inside, and started looking through the computer. There actually was a little bit of bulk energy in the reserves, but none of them knew enough about how this stuff worked to know whether it was enough. Besides, Treasure wasn’t only essential to the operation of the machine because she could power it, but she also navigated it. According to Treasure’s teacher back in her homeworld, Thack Natalie Collins, traveling the bulk either required extremely precise mathematical calculations and-or foreknowledge, or psychic capacity. Anyone could figure out how to go where they wanted, as long as they had the right tools at their disposal, but people like Treasure had this gift naturally as an extension of their ability to utilize bulk energy. Quino and Rosalinda were not practiced enough to be comfortable navigating on their own, even if they could figure out how to get this thing running. Or maybe it wasn’t practice at all, but mental zen, or whatever. See? They didn’t even know.

“I’ve done it a few times myself,” Adalwin said. “Perhaps I can be your navigator.”

“Navigate us where?” Quino pressed. “Back home, or to one of the worlds you were on before? We’re not trying to go to any of those places. We’re trying to go to...” Quino trailed off before he said something too specific about Treasure.

“Salmonverse,” Rosalinda said. “That’s where we should go. Only there will we find someone who can help. They have all sorts of time travelers there. Someone will know something. If we try to go where...our friend is...” She gave him a look.

Quino understood. She wasn’t an idiot. This man was a stranger, and he couldn’t be trusted. Voldisilaverse was vulnerable to attack. Treasure’s mother’s home brane, however, was equipped with people who could combat a threat, including an unknown one. “Yeah, you’re right.” He kind of kicked at the console, but not angrily. “We still have no way to get this moving, though, if there’s even enough of that stuff.”

“I may have some on hand,” Adalwin volunteered.

“Bulk energy?” Rosalinda questioned. “Why would you have any of that?”

“As I said, we’re watersliders,” Adalwin started to explain. “And water is sticky. It stays with you. That’s why the originals can’t stop falling into their portals, because their bodies just keep producing it against their will. They think they could be free if they drained themselves of literally all water, and replaced their blood from donors, but I don’t think that’s medically possible. Anyway, I’m not like them, but just by accompanying them a few times, I have some liquid bulk on my body. It’s not enough to turn me into a full slider, but it may be enough to add to what you already have.”

“How would you go about doing that?” Quino asked, even more suspicious of him. “You gonna pee into the engine?”

Adalwin laughed. “No, it’s nothing crazy like that.” He kept laughing for a moment before dropping into his serious face. “No, I would bleed into it.”

“We’re not going to let you do that,” Rosalinda contended. “Neither of us is a doctor, and I’m sure that Tr—our friend is on their way.”

“It’s okay.” Adalwin slipped a knife out of his pocket, flung it open with a flick of his wrist, and chuckled when they tensed up into defensive positions. “It will all leak from one cut. All I’ll need is a bandage. Surely this Strongbox has a medkit.”

Quino tensed up even more. “I never told you what this was called.”

“What?” Adalwin asked.

“The Strongbox. I literally just named it. I only told two people.”

Adalwin dismissed it as a concern. “Heh. Time, right? I’ve heard of it before.”

“Funny, five minutes ago, you were just guessing that it was a means of escape,” Rosalinda pointed out. “Which is it, you’ve heard of it before, or you were only hoping that it would save you?”

Adalwin dropped the act, and tossed the knife from one hand to the other.

Quino took out his sidearm, and trained it at Adalwin.

“The blade really is for me,” Adalwin insisted. He turned the tip downwards, and sliced his own forearm open. It was small, as he promised, but that wasn’t the point.

It was not worth the risk. Quino would rather die here than put Treasure in danger. This man lied about who he was, and that alone was enough to make Quino wary of him, even though they would never learn the truth. He had to protect his love, whether she would want him to or not. She may never look at him the same again, but she’ll be alive. He would always shield her from danger. He squeezed the trigger, and let the bullet strike right into Adalwin’s lying throat.

Adalwin—or whatever his real name was—reached up and tried to push the blood back into his body as he was choking on it. A lot of it spilled out anyway, and dropped to the floor, as did the blood from the cut on his arm. The lighting in the Strongbox intensified slightly, and the engine revved up. He was right about one thing, his body had some bulk energy in it. And apparently this machine was designed to absorb it no matter where it came from, or where it landed. Adalwin backed himself against the wall, and slouched down towards the floor before he died.

Quino breathed heavily through his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“I can’t blame you,” Rosalinda replied. “I couldn’t have done it myself, but—but, hey.” She turned his chin towards her when he tried to look away in shame. “But I wanted to. Like he said, time has little meaning for our lives anymore. We’ve already met people who knew who we and Treasure were before we showed up. He could have done the same thing, but he played dumb. He was hiding something, and something tells me it wasn’t that he once called his neighbor a dirty word. He was hiding something big. Big and bad.”

Quino nodded, but still wouldn’t look her in the eye. “I’ll bury the body and clean up the mess.”

“You can bury the body,” Rosalinda agreed, “but I’ll clean up. We’re in this together.” She eyed the bulk reserves, which had gone up slightly. “Actually, you go ahead and go out to dig the grave. I have to do something first.”

“Okay.” He didn’t see what she was looking at, or guess what she was thinking. He grabbed a power shovel from the storage locker, grateful that someone thought to pack tools. He probably wouldn’t have thought of it since he had never once set foot on real soil until he met Treasure. He was going to dig a shallow grave to make it easier, but this dirt was soft, and not too difficult to cut through, so he decided that it was better to go the normal depth. The shovel’s motor did a lot of the work. When he was finished, he went back to drag the body down the hill. It was waiting for him outside the Strongbox, propped up against the exterior hull. It was a lot lighter than he expected. There was something unusual about the skin, and as he inspected it, Quino realized that the hole in the neck was bigger than it should have been. “What did you do?”

Rosalinda was still scrubbing the blood from the floor, and she didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“His blood. It’s been drained. It’s all gone.”

Rosalinda stopped scrubbing, but still didn’t look up. “I did what I had to to get us out of here. Treasure is a time traveler. If she were ever coming back, she would have done so already. It doesn’t matter how long she spent out there, she would be here now. I’m sorry, but we both know that.”

He looked up at the bulk reserves, which were now full. “We still don’t know how to navigate this thing.”

She went back to her work. “We’ll figure it out. I don’t care where we go, but we’re not staying here.”

Quino stepped back through the hatch, but stopped for a second. “There are worse worlds than this. If we do manage to leave, I’m sure we’ll become acutely aware of that.” He left again, and carried Adalwin’s body to the grave. He gently placed it down on the bottom, and then climbed back up to fill it up. He scattered the excess around, so no one would suspect that anything was here, and even planted a few grass seeds to cover up the evidence eventually. He didn’t say a few words, and Rosalinda never came down to visit the unmarked grave. Once they were both showered, they quietly went back to the controls to see if they could do something productive with them.

They found Treasure Hawthorne standing at the entrance. “I’m back. Sorry if you were waiting and worried. Thack told me to return eight hours late. She wouldn’t say why.” She smiled as she was taking a trinket out of her pocket, then extended her arms towards Quino. “Here. I made you something.”

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Microstory 2136: Try the Punching Thing

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While I’m feeling all right, I still have the fungal infection, so I still can’t leave my apartment. I’m really super extremely very hoping that this is all over by this weekend, so I can get back to doing my time, and finish my current sentence before I die of old age. This is one of those days where I have little to tell you, because not much interesting happened to me. The nurse came last night to take my blood, and I got my results this morning. She’ll come three more times this week, on Wednesday, and on Friday. After that, if I’m still having trouble, I may be ordered to go to the hospital. I mean the real hospital, not the prison medical ward. That would be really bad, for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that it might ultimately mean my death. If I were given such a terrible prognosis, I would probably start punching the air, and screaming at the top of my lungs. That might seem random to you, but I have two characters who can travel the bulkverse using those methods. It would be my last hope. I mean, I could always try them now. Well, I can try the punching thing. The screaming thing is different, because I would have to be away from other people, but that’s not a bad idea. It may be cathartic to let out some primal cries anyway, and hey, maybe it’ll work. A part of me doesn’t want it to. Back when I first became immortal, I was also learning that using people’s powers meant stealing it from them temporarily, and I also knew that once I stopped using it, I would lose it, and I really want that immortality back. I’m sick of being sick. But also, get me out of this universe, and tell me where Cricket and Claire are! *screams primally*

Fluence: Elder (Part VIII)

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They were time travelers, so there was probably no need to hurry away, but there might be. It was unclear how connected they were to their shifted selves. Perhaps every second they spent at one point in spacetime had an impact on the events in another that they couldn’t understand, or determined precisely when they could return to a given place. They watched the butterflies for a few more minutes, but had to focus on the task at hand, which was what exactly? They didn’t know yet. They were just going to go back to Po, and see what was going on there. The four of them came together as twilight was falling, and reached for each other’s hands, but then Goswin stopped, and massaged his chin while he looked upon Briar. In response to this, Briar flinched and leaned back. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“You know what...” Goswin began cryptically, pausing to everyone’s discomfort. “I don’t think that there is. You grew up under extraordinary circumstances, and you’ve improved in a very short amount of time. Do you regret killing Mateo?”

“Of course I do,” Briar said. “What does that mean? Why do you ask now, when we’re about to leave?”

“It means that I think we’ve officially become a real crew—all four of us together—even though I couldn’t point to a moment when it happened. We’ve been worried about shifting to competing realities apart from each other, but I don’t think that’s been happening. Eight Point Seven, you are our Eight Point Seven, just in a new body. Weaver, thank you for letting us into your home. And Briar? I think you’re gonna be okay. You’re one of us now, and I’m going to rely on you just as much as them to help us solve whatever problem we’re barreling towards. Whatever happens, we stick together, okay? Our powers operate on a psychic level. I’m not worried about the abstract concept of identity tomorrow. If we wanna stay together, we will. We can call ourselves The Primes.”

“Others shifted versions of us are probably coming to the same decision,” Weaver!“Prime” pointed out.

“Yes, but it will be true of none of them but us,” Goswin said, knowing that it didn’t make a lot of temporal logical sense.

“I hope you’re right, Captain,” Weaver said.

Eight Point Seven only nodded.

“Thank you,” Briar said to him graciously.

“What was that thing you said to Leona Matic that one time?” Goswin asked Eight Point Seven rhetorically. “You better make like a jock and strap in. Shit’s about to get real.”

They shifted themselves back to The Nucleus, which for all intents and purposes, was the center of the universe. They were not the only ones there; not by a long shot. The place was chock full of their shifted alternates, some running around, others wandering, and some just standing there, some in fear, and some in determination. There were several other people scattered about who weren’t the same as the core four, including Ellie Underhill, as well as her friend, Trinity Turner. They saw a few instances of Cassidy Long, her mother Étude Einarsson, and her mother, Saga Einarsson. They were all about the same age. At least one version of Leona was here, and she was either teleporting around, or different versions were popping in and out of existence like virtual particles. She was stopping only long enough to whisper something to someone, and hear a response before moving on. They didn’t recognize everyone, though. The place was utter mayhem. No one knew what they were really doing, and no one was in charge. Or maybe that wasn’t true.

A catwalk extended from a balcony two stories above the crowd. Four people walked along as it grew longer and longer. They were not alternates of the core four, but entirely different people, and they did appear to be in charge. They didn’t appear evil, but they didn’t seem particularly friendly either. One of them was Tamerlane Pryce, but none of the other three looked familiar. A cursory glance around the room gave the impression that they did not have any shifted selves here, but were each one of a kind. It wasn’t totally out of left field that Pryce should be here. He was present on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida when the crew of the X González departed. He was there for a reason, but there must be a reality out there where he finished his work on the planet early, or was perhaps fired for sometimes being an insufferable tool. Where did these other three come from, though?

Pryce held up both of his arms, and slowly lowered them to quiet the rabbling crowd. They did not comply. He jerked his arms back up, and tried again, but still it didn’t work. He looked to one of the women to his flank, and held out his hand. She gave him an object that resembled a bullhorn, and that was exactly what it was, but not a regular one. The Time Shriek was a mysterious scream that randomly echoed across the lands at various points in space time. There was no predicting its appearance, nor anything to do about it. If it interrupted you while you were in the middle of something, you just had to stand there and wait until it was over. This device was evidently capable of summoning the Shriek at will, and even amplifying it. It scattered across the hall, pounding into everyone’s eardrums, causing them to grasp at their heads in pain, and forcing some down to their knees. “Thank you! It’s so kind of you to give me your attention with no incentive.”

“Why can’t we leave?” a version of Briar demanded to know from the floor.

“That’s a good question, random citizen,” Pryce replied, pointing down to him. “It’s because of my good friend here.” He placed a hand on the shoulder of the woman who didn’t give him the Time Shriek Horn. Iolanta Koval is a very powerful metachooser. None of you is in control anymore.”

Iolanta glared at the audience. She reached into her fanny pack, and pulled out some kind of fruit, which she bit right into, rind and all.

“Ha! She’s got an affinity for citrus. It’s a time traveler thing. You all get it. I’m sure you know me,” he went on, “but just in case one of you shifty mother fuckers is from a reality where I don’t exist, my name is Tamerlane Pryce, but to distinguish me from my Afterlife Simulation and Third Rail selves, please just call me The Elder.”

“There’s already a guy named Elder!” one of the Weavers called up to him.

“There are hundreds of people that share your name too, jackass!” Pryce snapped back.” He huffed. “Anyway, as I was saying, this here is Airlock Karen. That’s obviously not her real name, but everyone she thought she could trust on her ship started calling her that, so she’s decided to own it. Similarly, A.F. here adopted his name from his enemies, who never bothered to learn his real name either. He hopes to vanquish them one day, but for my part, I hope he fails, ‘cause they’re good people, but I’m not gonna get in his way. We’re a team, just like the four of you...and you...and you, and you.” He pointed at random groups. Was everyone here always in a group of four exactly, even when they weren’t the core defaults?

“What are we doing here?” a Goswin questioned.

Pryce looked down at him. “I want to join forces.”

“Yes? Go on,” the same Goswin urged.

“Yesterday, I moved a mountain,” Pryce said bizarrely. “I mean that literally. The four of us stood before it, and we made it disappear, only to make it reappear by the end of the episode—I mean, a few hours later. But we didn’t put it back where it belonged. It’s now two meters farther north. It wasn’t easy, but we got it done. Different crews have developed their powers differently, and some of you may have done something similar, or even more impressive. We can alter time and space on a level that no one in histories has ever enjoyed, and I believe that together, we can do even more. We can remake the future to our desires. Notice that I didn’t say whims. They’re not going to be pointless and silly. The mountain was just practice. There is a war brewing in the Sixth Key, I’m sure you’ve all at least heard about it. They call it the Reality Wars because five parallel realities have been forced together into one. Their respective habitats remain intact, but the stars have been consolidated, cutting their available resources by 80%. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a friend sending you an uncompressed video on your phone, which suddenly dropped your charge from full to 20%? You’d be pissed. Everyone is pissed, and they don’t have a true culprit to blame, so they’re blaming each other. We can help them.” He paused for effect. “We can move them.”

Leona appeared next to Goswin!Prime. “Are you the ones who took Angela?” she whispered to him.

“Who?”

“That’s a no.” She was about to teleport away again.

“Wait. What does she look like?” Goswin asked.

Leona held up her palm. A small holographic photo appeared of a woman that he had never seen before. “A core crew was on our ship, and when they left, she disappeared along with them. She’s not here, so they left her somewhere else in spacetime, but if you don’t recognize her, then it wasn’t you.”

Goswin looked to the other three Primes. “Let’s find her. Just like Misha.”

They nodded. And just like that, Angela was standing next to them. “Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, taking Leona into an embrace.

“Excuse me!” Tamerlane asked from his balcony. “What’s going on down there?”

“Sorry, sir!” Goswin!Prime answered. “She was just looking for a friend!”

Pryce looked over at Iolanta, and snapped his fingers at the primes. She peeked over the edge at them, and a second later, the whole crew was standing on the platform with the Elder, and the other self-proclaimed leaders. “You just summoned someone here, even with the Time Lid shut?”

“The what?” Briar asked.

“Is that a band, errr...?” Weaver asked sarcastically.

Pryce looked at Iolanta again. “Why are they able to do that?”

She took another bite of her citrus. “They shouldn’t be able to. Not here. Not now.” She shrugged, and tried to take another bite.

Pryce slapped the fruit out of her hand. “That’s your only job!” He pointed at the primes. “Focus on them. Stop them specifically from using their powers!” He faced the primes. “Bring me...a dancing monkey in a hat.”

“No,” Goswin decided.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Pryce admitted. “There’s ethical concern with that. Instead, just bring me a birthday cake.”

“No,” Goswin repeated.

“All right, you don’t want to steal from a kid, I get it. Just summon anything that isn’t already in this asteroid. Dealer’s choice.” He looked back at Iolanta. “Are you blocking them?” he reiterated.

“Absolutely. I can feel it,” she assured him.

Goswin sighed. He hovered his hand over the floor, and summoned Portrait of a Young Man, which was famously stolen by Nazis during the war, and never recovered. He held onto the frame to keep it from tipping over.

Pryce noticeably gasped. “How did you do that? You four didn’t even talk about it? That is the biggest issue within the crews. No one can agree on anything.”

“We’re in sync, I guess,” Goswin figured.

Pryce took the painting, and held it up for all to see. “Witness power! These four have accomplished the impossible: true neural synchronization! This painting has been missing for four hundred and fifty years, and now here it is. They barely gave it a thought. It was probably destroyed in the original timeline.” He gazed upon the Primes. “These versions will be our foundation. They—not I—will lead us into the future, and the past. They’ll stop the Reality Wars, and save all of mankind in the Sixth Key.” He figured that this choice would endear everyone to him.

“How ‘bout no, Scott..okay?” Goswin!Prime snapped back.

“What?”

“You seem to like references,” Goswin continued, “so no. Scotty, don’t.”

“I don’t think I saw that one,” Pryce admitted.

Goswin rolled his eyes, and looked back at his crew. “Don’t tell Scotty, Scotty doesn’t know.”

“Enough,” Pryce declared. “I know that I’ve been cracking a few jokes of my own, but I’m being serious. “We need you. Your powers may be limitless. And you don’t really have a choice.”

“I actually think we do,” Goswin suggested. “I believe that that is exactly what you’re trying to tell us, wouldn’t you say, kids?”

“Yeah, I agree,” Weaver!Prime said.

“That’s what it sounds like,” Eight Point Seven!Prime concurred.

Briar!Prime nodded. “Yep.”

Goswin stepped up to the railing, and looked out over the audience. “Do you all wanna be here? Raise your hand if you do?”

A few people raised their hands.

“Then be free.” Goswin!Prime swept his hands forward from his chest, and all but the ones with their hands raised disappeared. Goswin turned, and swept only one hand this time, causing the famous painting to disappear. “It belongs in a museum.”

“We’ll get them back,” Pryce promised.

“No. You won’t.” Goswin held his hand up again to facilitate his own departure, along with the other Primes, but this A.F. guy took it as a threat. He reached over with a huge compensation knife, and jammed it into Goswin’s stomach.

“What the hell did you just do?” Pryce questioned. “Iolanta, stop blocking powers. We need to get a medic here stat!”

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