The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 26, 2508

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Romana was sitting on the floor, hovering over her father, when he woke up. He turned over to the side, and started to cough. The others were waking up at the same time, recovering in their own ways. Fortunately, no one was dead, not even Octavia. A robot was lifting her up, though, and carrying her away. “She’ll be all right,” Romana assured him. “There’s a medpod in that room.”

“You’ve been alone all year again?” Mateo asked her.

“I did it on purpose,” Romana explained. “Why would we waste time looking for this man one year at a time, when I could spend days and days on the search?”

“Did it work?” Mateo asked.

“It did,” she answered with a sigh. “He doesn’t wanna leave, so I’m hoping you’ll talk some sense into him. But...I don’t wanna lie to you. Something happened. I’m not especially proud of it, but even though I was pretending to be a sixteen-year-old in Underberg, I’m actually much older than that. I don’t know why Pacey aged me down, but you need to understand that I’m an adult, and I make my own choices.”

“You slept with him...” Mateo guessed. “With Buddy.”

“He’s very kind to me.”

“I bet he is.”

“That’s not fair. I just told you, I’m an adult. He didn’t trick me. Don’t take away my agency.”

“I’m not, but Romana, he’s not a good guy. Being nice to you doesn’t absolve him of his past sins.”

“And what sins are these?” Romana questioned. “How many people has he killed?”

“That’s not the point.”

How many have you killed?”

Mateo didn’t respond to this.

Romana went on, “you two don’t see eye to eye, and I know he hasn’t been particularly pleasant to be around, but if you add up all the bad things he’s done, they’re really not all that bad. In the end, you two are enemies because you don’t get along. I’m sure before you became a time traveler, you interacted with plenty of people like that, and it didn’t make you believe that they didn’t deserve love.”

“Is that true?” Mateo sat up. “Are you in love?”

“No, of course not. I’m just saying...”

“That you’re acting like a rebellious teen,” Mateo interrupted as if that was what she was gonna say. “Are you sure you’re older than sixteen?”

“You are not my father. You didn’t raise me. Silenus did.”

“That’s comforting.”

She ignored that rude comment. “You don’t get to tell me what to do with my life. You never have. I know it’s not your fault that you weren’t around, but you can’t honestly expect me to listen to everything you say as if you have some kind of control over my choices. I’m being honest with you, because I don’t want to lie to someone I respect and care about. But don’t you sit there and belittle me as if I’m nothing more than an extension of your own personality. I will take you to Boyd, but you are not to harm him. You are not even allowed to yell at him. I am insisting on that, and I will keep us on this rock forever if you defy me in this regard.”

“That’s enough!” Leona interjected. “You don’t talk to your father like that. I don’t care how old you are, or who raised you. Boyd probably has ten years on you, and that’s assuming he hasn’t used time magicks to reyoungify himself, or he could be much older.”

“You were fifteen when you met your now-husband!” Romana shouted back.

“And he didn’t have any feelings for me until much later. Don’t turn this around on us. Boyd—if that’s what we’re calling him—is not good for you, full stop. When we first encountered him, he insisted that we call him Buddha. That’s incredibly offensive, and tells you everything you need to know about him. Just because he may not be as bad as some of the other antagonists we’ve met, like Zeferino, Arcadia, or even Pacey, doesn’t mean you made the right choice.”

“You’re friends with Arcadia now. You made friends with nearly everyone you’ve gone up against. What are we even talking about here? All I’m asking is that you give him a chance to improve himself, and prove himself; not just give up on him outright. Forgiveness doesn’t have a quota!”

“All right!” Olimpia interjects this time. “Mateo, Leona, you’re not going to attack Boyd when we find him. Romana, you may be older than you look, but you have a long ways to go. This situation is incredibly weird, what with our experiences in Underberg, and other domes. We can’t trust our own memories. Some of them are entirely fake, and their associated feelings may be a little less genuine than they seem. So I think we all need to take a beat, and focus on what matters. We are not living in a soap opera. We’re dealing with real problems here, trying to escape some weird, alternate universe. We can’t do that until we get what we came here for. The interpersonal relationship drama can wait.”

Mateo, Leona, and Romana quietly conceded. Ramses, Angela, and Marie silently agreed, having successfully stayed out of the fight.

“Okay,” Olimpia continued, proud of herself, and relieved that her argument worked. “It won’t take long for Octavia to recover. In the meantime, where is Boyd? Did he get hurt in the explosion?”

“He’s fine, he wasn’t even here,” Romana answered. “He’s in the Fostean sector at this point, living on a simulated jarl world.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Mateo said.

“Single-occupancy planet,” Leona explained. “A one-percenter in that culture will have so much money that they can afford to own an entire celestial body. They will live there alone, or with their family, supported by a small army of slaves called Arkeizen. These supposed subhumans will be known as thralls so long as they are in service to the elite. It’s not a heartwarming story.”

“Why would he be there?”

“To be clear, the thralls aren’t real slaves,” Romana said. “As I said, which you obviously already know, it’s a simulation, so they’re just robots.”

“It’s still gross,” Olimpia said to her. “I gotta admit, that’s a point against him.”

Romana smirked. “Just wait until you see it, okay?”

“Fine,” Leona decided. “Let’s take a vactrain this time. I don’t want this happening again, so we’ll stay out of canon as much as possible.”

“It’s not gonna happen again,” Romana contended. “Like the flooding of Atlantis, the destruction of this planet was canonical. It happened during the Sixth Shell.”

“Either way, let’s keep it real.” Leona led the way down the corridor.

Octavia was stepping out of the medical bay. She had missed a lot, and didn’t know where they were going, but she followed them anyway.

They got on the train, and had it deliver them to Jarldome. There were 200 levels here, most of which were 200 meters high, but with the holographic skies above each one, they felt endless. Boyd was on the topmost level, with a bunch of slaves. The team expected to find him lounging on a mountain of pillows, being fawned over and doted upon by these Arkeizen. It didn’t seem to be that way. The robots made to look like a hominid cousin were milling about an impressive little town. When they walked through, the Arkeizen smiled and waved. They didn’t look oppressed or abused. They were working, however, so no valid conclusion. On the far end of the main street, they finally found Boyd. A group of people were evidently in the middle of building a house, and he was helping. He was physically helping carry a wooden beam, and set it in place.

“Oh! I didn’t see you there. How long have you been watching us?”

“We just arrived,” Romana answered him.

“Well, welcome to Citrus City!” Boyd said. “Would you like the tour?”

“We’d like to get out of here,” Mateo responded.

Boyd frowned. “There’s so much work to do.”

“None of this is real,” Ramses told him. “It’s a simulation. You know that, right?”

“Of course I am,” Boyd said dismissively. “You think it’s that easy to erase my memories?”

“Either you’re delusional,” Mateo began. Romana gave him the stink eye, so he switched tactics. “I mean, if that’s true, then were you aware of our true histories while you were living in Underberg?”

“I guess not. But I broke out of it. I’m fine. I’m happy, living here, teaching these people how to fend for themselves.”

“They’re robots,” Ramses added.

“Shh!” Boyd whispered loudly. “They don’t know that.”

Mateo sighed angrily, and looked over at his daughter. “You did this. You told him to put on this show to make it look like he was freeing a whole peoples. You think that’s gonna work? You think I’m gonna start liking him now?”

“Sir,” Boyd jumped in. “Romana came to me two weeks ago. I’ve been working on this town for months. This isn’t just for show. I know that I have made mistakes in the past, but I don’t agree with slavery. Jesus. That’s the point of this dome, you know? It’s a test; will a visitor let their thralls do what they’ve been indoctrinated to do, or make changes that go against the history of the Fostean culture from the fictional stories? That’s the question, will you play into it, or do the right thing, even when it doesn’t matter? Because like you said, they’re robots.”

Mateo crossed his arms disapprovingly, but didn’t have anything more to say.

Leona pulled the magical technicolored crystal from her bag, and presented it to Boyd. She jerked it away when he reached for it. “This will place you on our pattern. Truthfully, Pacey did not reveal whether it was permanent or not. I believe that you will have less of a chance to get into trouble if you only exist for one day out of the year, though, so I’m hoping that you take the risk. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take for us to get back to where we belong, but I don’t want you running around on your own anymore.” She glanced over at Romana. “I certainly don’t want you to be doing that with my daughter. Frolicking on the jarl worlds, freeing slaves together.” She grimaced, and looked over at the Walton twins. She wasn’t trying to say that freeing slaves was bad. “You know what I mean.” She went on, “touching this crystal will go a long way to earning our trust, but it’s not a cure-all. And either way, it has to be your choice.”

Without hesitation, Boyd took hold of the crystal. The colors swirled around inside, presumably transferring Leona’s pattern into his qualium realm. “Thank you for the opportunity. I won’t let you down.”

Suddenly, they heard a noise in the sky. A flying craft of some kind was headed right for them, so far up in the air that it couldn’t be real. The holographic image grew larger and larger though until it was as large as it would be if it were right above the invisible ceiling. Something changed as the hologram gave way to a tangible object, presumably having been dropped down through a recess. This real, physical shuttle continued to fly towards them until it landed right in the street. A bunch of humans with guns filed out of it.

The leader of the newcomers looked around at the Arkeizen. It was unclear whether he could tell that they were free, and no longer enslaved thralls. He zeroed in on Boyd. “Sir, are you okay? Our sensors picked up unauthorized entry to your planet.”

“They’re friends,” Boyd said. “We need no help here.”

The leader stepped closer so he could lower his voice. “Listen, if you need help, you don’t have to be afraid of them anymore.”

“I’m not being coerced,” Boyd tried to say. “Everything’s fine. You can go.”

The leader nodded. He walked past Boyd, and as he was adjusting his pants, got a better look at the community. He turned back around to address Boyd again. “How are your thralls doin’? You’ve been here a while. Do you need a top-up?” A top-up of slaves?

“No. My numbers are steady.”

The guy was surprised. “Not one death?”

Boyd shook his head.

“Interesting. “Very interesting. Say, you wouldn’t be...treating them like people, would you?”

“And if I were, is that against the law?”

The man shrugged. “No, of course not. They’re your thralls, you can do whatever you want to them. It’s just a little unusual. I’d hate to think that they were influencing your behavior in some way. You know, we get a bad batch sometimes. One of them is sick in the head—starts thinkin’ that he’s special, or valuable—and that can infect the whole group. And sometimes...their owner gets infected too.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Marie said. “Suits on!”

Mateo took Octavia in a hug again, and commanded his nanites to wrap themselves around her. Angela and Marie, meanwhile, started taking out their anger for their father out on these robo-slavers. They stole their guns from them, and shot each in the head. The slavers shot back, careful not to hit Boyd, but not caring about anyone else’s life. The Arkeizen ran and hid behind various structures while Leona, Ramses, Olimpia, and Romana protected the stragglers. It was over quickly. All of the bad robots were dead and on the ground.

“What happens when we leave?” Leona asked after the dust had settled, and the suits were no longer necessary. “Is another shuttle gonna be triggered later to come down and try to put a stop to all this antislavery wokeness?”

Boyd chuckled. “This isn’t my first single-occupancy planet. They always show up as a sort of final test, to see how you’ll react. I’ve always just talked my way out of it, but I guess this works too.”

“Great,” Leona decided. “Then pack up your shit. It’s time to go.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Sixth Key: Kick Rocks (Part II)

« < » > Entire Story

Generated by Google VideoFX text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2

Clavia helps Echo learn how to use his parents’ guns. They’re energy weapons, which means they’ll be able to fire indefinitely as long as he doesn’t fire too much, and they have a source of charge, like the sun. Something called radio waves would charge it too, but there aren’t any of those around here. He doesn’t become an expert marksman in only a few short hours, but at least he has the basics down. Point and shoot, that much was immediately apparent, but the safety and handling was a little less intuitive.

According to the sensors on board the shuttle, as fed into Echo’s new suit, a ship appeared out of nowhere, and began to orbit the planet. It scanned the surface in some way, but hasn’t done anything else since. Clavia taught him how to set up an alarm to wake him when anything changes, so he can go to bed, and get some rest. The next morning, he checks the sensors to find that the alarm hasn’t failed. The orbiting ship up there still isn’t doing anything. They’ve not fired any weapons at the tree, or come down in a shuttle of their own, or anything. What are they waiting for?

“My mind is clouded,” Clavia explains. “I cannot see detail. I can sense that people are walking around inside the vessel, but I can’t tell what they’re doing. Unfortunately, I need to focus my strength on other pursuits.”

“I understand.” He doesn’t, but she should do whatever she needs to. “Do you think they know that we’re here?”

“It depends on how sophisticated their sensors are, and on the nature of the planet we’re on. This appears to be a lush garden centered on a desert. If the rest of the world is just as barren, this will stick out like a sore thumb. But it may be one of many oases, in which case they would need to pick up on you as an individual. I also don’t know whether your suit and shuttle are sufficiently shielded, or what.”

Echo nods, and decides to go back to practicing. The great thing about guns like these is that he can shoot blanks as much as he wants while barely dipping into the power reserves. Indeed, while the sun is shining, solar power will keep it running even if he never stops squeezing the trigger for the duration of daylight hours. He’s not doing any damage, as he’s just sending beams of light towards the rocks and the flowers, but it gives him a good idea of what it will be like if he ever has to do it for real.

Either as a coincidence, or because the visitors detected his weapons fire, they finally send a landing party in a shuttle. They don’t land too close to the garden, which is respectful of them, or maybe it’s also a coincidence. Echo doesn’t walk over to greet them halfway. He just stands under the Clavia tree, holding one of the guns at what Clavia called high ready. The second one is leaning against the trunk. He has extra cartridges attached to his hips too, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be needing them. One of these things would be able to take out the entire crew of the shuttle. It appears to only be four people, though obviously there are more still up on the ship. Clavia doesn’t know what kind of weaponry they have, up there, or down here. The four who are walking towards them now don’t appear to be armed at all.

“Can they hear you, or is your voice in my head?” he mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“They can hear me if I want them too, and not if I don’t.”

“Let me do the talking. They may not know that you can talk, and I would like to keep that as an advantage until we have no choice.”

“Agreed,” Clavia says.

“Hello, kind soldier,” the leader guy says once they’re within earshot of each other. He’s keeping a safe distance, showing a healthy fear of Echo’s gun. The other three strangers are scattered next to and behind him. “My name is Klavis Zakan Scrivenor. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to today?”

“Klavis?” Echo echoes.

“No relation,” Clavia replies simply.

“It’s my rank?” Zakan answers like it’s a question. “I command a single flotilla of ships...four to be exact.”

“What is your business here?” Echo asks.

Zakan is confused. “Um, do you have a name too?”

“Oh.” Echo feels like he’s just lost the upperhand, especially since he just said oh. He should have just been steadfast, and refused to answer. But now it’s too late, he has to just go ahead and respond appropriately. “Echo Cloudbearer.”

“Do you own this world, Echo Cloudbearer?”

“I do.” I mean, he might as well. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else to claim the title, and if making such a claim grants him the legal powers to protect this tree, then he’s comfortable making it.

“What is it called?”

This is where it gets tricky. His parents could never agree on a name for it. They kept coming up with new ideas before Echo was even born, but eventually narrowed it down to Supercloud or Echo. About half the time, they would joke that their son was named after the planet, and the other half, that the planet was named after their son. He never knew which was true, or if Supercloud was the superior choice anyway. “Echo”.

“Hm,” Zakan says. “I like it. We are representatives of the Temporal Energy Management Project of Relative Associated Logistics. Basically, we’re in charge of making sure that there’s enough temporal energy to go around, and that no one is abusing the power that they have, or exploiting the substructure of the universe to their own gain, or to the destruction of reality.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Echo admits.

“Well, we’re relative, because the power is not evenly distributed, which some people believe sounds unfair—though, it isn’t—and it’s associated, because every time someone is allotted power, it has an impact on everyone else. That’s why it needs to be managed. It’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, defining it isn’t going to help me understand it. It sounds like you just really wanted your acronym to spell out TEMPORAL.”

Zakan just clears his throat.

“Why are you here? I keep to myself. I don’t have any power.”

Zakan gestures to Clavia. “That tree behind you would seem to contradict your words.”

Echo decides to play dumb. “This is just a tree. It can’t contradict anything. It can’t even walk.”

Zakan smiles and sighs. He looks around the vast empty flatlands surrounding them. “We detected the energy spike that was prompted by some kind of temporal event right at this location. I don’t know if it teleported here, or if it was here all along, and suddenly absorbed a whole lot of power, but my guess is that you were around to see whatever it was. After all, you’re standing in front of it right now. You were up there when we showed up. You must think it’s meaningful too. If you thought you needed to protect your garden as a whole, you’d be standing right here.” He points to his feet where the grass of the garden gives way to the dirt of the desert.

Okay, maybe he needs to switch tactics. “Does it matter? If it’s here, it’s mine. And since this is all mine, so are you. So you four have two choices. You can fly back up to your little ship, and tell your captain to leave, or you can stay here and do my bidding. The atterberries are about ready to be harvested.”

“What did you say?”

“The atterberries,” Echo repeated. “Those pink things over there. You could pick them, or you could leave. You have no jurisdiction on this world, though. My word is law. My word is the only law.”

“What’s—what’s this stuff here?” He slid the sole of his shoe along a rock.

“That’s amanda moss. It’s not edible. I use it for...other things.” Wiping.

“And that?”

“It’s, uh, vearden hay. I use it as a ground cover. Why all the sudden interest in my garden? I thought you only cared about some tree.”

“Just curious.” Zakan steps forward. “What do you call this creature warming itself on this boulder?”

Echo can’t see from this far away, but he knows what the man’s talking about. “It’s probably a clemens newt.”

“One last thing, this one here?”

“A savi tree.”

Zakan exchanges a look with his people. “Which reality is your family from?”

“Um, this one?”

“No, I mean originally.”

“I have no clue where you’re going with this.”

“I don’t recognize that kind of gun. Do you?” he asks the woman standing at his flank.

She shakes her head quietly.

“My guess is Parallel or Fifth Division,” Zakan goes on cryptically, “but the main sequence had some nice stuff before they were copied here.”

“Can I help you?” Echo interrupts the internal conversation they’re having down there. He’s done playing nice. He wants them gone. He doesn’t want to have to hurt anyone to do it, but he will if they give him no choice.

“I’m afraid we can’t leave until we run our tests. We need to know what sort of impact this tree is having on the rest of the galaxy. It’s for the safety of everyone in the universe.”

Echo tenses up. “Get closer.”

Zakan himself doesn’t move, but his people reach their arms out to magically materialize their own guns. “We don’t need to get very close.”

“That’s enough!” It’s Clavia’s voice, but there’s something a little different about it. It sounds like it’s coming from a specific location, instead of just around him in general. Someone appears from behind the tree. It’s the dead woman who he buried here. She lives. It wasn’t just a magical seed, but it had something to do with who was holding it.

“Who are you?” Zakan asks.

“Who you seek, in humanoid form.”

Zakan holds his hand up by his shoulder. The other three lower their guns in response. Two of them make them disappear again, but his lieutenant keeps hers. “You are the tree.”

“We are,” she replies. “You may call us Clavia.”

“We’ll have to confirm that,” Zakan insists.

“Do that, and only that,” Clavia replies. “Do more, and you’ll regret it.”

Now Zakan lifts his other hand, and shakes it twice towards the hill. The now unarmed pair of visitors cross the boundary of the garden, and walk up to Clavia. She holds her own hand towards to stop Echo from reacting further when he tenses up again. The strangers begin to run their tests. They hover little devices over Clavia’s human body, and over the tree. They look at the little screens to interpret the readings, whatever they may be. Echo wouldn’t know the first thing about what they’re looking for, but Clavia seems calm, so he’s just gonna follow her lead.

One of the testers nods over at Zakan. “It’s her. She’s the tree.”

“Okay. Pack it up, kids. We’re leaving.”

“Wait,” Echo says. “Not that I’m complaining, but what just happened? What did you do? What did you discover? Why is it making you leave?”

“The source of the temporal energy is sentient,” Zakan begins to explain. “It’s natural and unregulated. As you said, we have no jurisdiction. It would be like me telling you that you’re not allowed to use that moss to wipe your ass. That’s someone else’s department.”

“Well...” Echo paused. “Thank you and goodbye.”

“You’ll be filing a report, though, won’t you?” Clavia guesses as most of the team is walking back towards their shuttle.

“I have no choice,” Zakan says apologetically.

“So the right department might show up too,” Echo calculates.

“Undoubtedly,” Zakan confirms. “She’s an interesting find.”

The shuttle takes off. About fifteen minutes later, the ship breaks orbit, and flies away into the black. Echo’s shuttle’s sensors stop picking any signals, and the world falls silent once more.

“You’re a person,” he points out.

“It’s complicated.”

Echo smiles. “I don’t have anything else going on. Tell me your story.”

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 2376: Vacuus, October 14, 2179

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Condor,

It’s nice to hear from you. I know that you weren’t writing that open letter directly to me, but it felt very personal, even though I’ve never experienced anything like what you did. I’ve heard more about you from Corinthia. I’ve known about your whole situation almost as long as she has. You and I have a lot in common. My grandfather was the Chief Helmsman of the ship that brought us to this planet, and before that, he was a space shuttle pilot, and before that, an airline pilot. I spent a lot of time on the bridge with him at the helm as we were on our way out here. He would tell me stories about all the places that he used to travel to back on Earth. I’m younger than you, so I have never set foot on your world before. I guess that’s what fascinates me so much, because I feel like I have all these somewhat similar personal experiences. I know that they’re not my own, though. I dunno, I suppose I just felt a connection with you that I’m probably making up in my own head. As for clothes, I do like them, but not necessarily any more than anyone else. I gravitated towards this job partially because there was an opening, and partially because I probably have even less of an interest in going outside than Corinthia does. I just want to stay in my little room where it’s safe. My work area doesn’t even have a window, because some of the rooms have to be on the interior sections, and they can’t all be lavatories and closets. My job is really not that hard. It may be more involved than your sister’s on a day-to-day basis, but there’s a whole lot less pressure. If I mess something up, I can usually fix it before anyone else sees it. The truth is that anyone could do this, because the fabricators do most of the work. I don’t even know how to sew by hand all that well. I did learn, but I don’t use those skills at work. I’m mostly there in a supervisory role. The machines aren’t hard to operate, but rather than training everyone who needs clothes, they only worry about making sure that I know them, and I make sure that nothing gets screwed up. It’s pretty low-key. I have some free time, which I typically spend making up new designs. I’m not exceptional at it, but there are no deadlines, so I eventually figure out what it needs to look like. Corinthia has actually tested out a lot of my own clothes for me. She says she likes them, but you never really know, right? She could just be being polite. I did design the outfit that I’m wearing in the attached photo, so you can tell me what you think. Be honest. Cori thinks there’s too much cleavage, but maybe you have a different opinion?

Hugs and kisses,

Velia

PS: I like your outfit too. It fits you well, though I would imagine just about anything does with a body like that. Trust me, I'm a professional.

Microstory 2341: Earth, March 11, 2179

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Corinthia,

Ultra-capacitors, really? That was you? We use those here for everything. It was a breakthrough in technology, which has allowed us to harness the power of lightning, just like you do, but has had numerous other applications through advancements in miniaturization. Back in the olden days, it would take minutes, or even hours, to charge a small device. Now it takes seconds. I just place my phone on the charging pad, and it’s at 100% by the time I can take my watch off to charge it next. Some people even have these gun-like chargers where you simply point and shoot at what you want charged. They’re developing persistent charge technology as well, but that’s a few years away, and would take a lot of retrofitting for preexisting infrastructure. It’s mostly the backend that’s slowing us down on that, though. We need a constant, reliable source of energy generation, which lightning strikes do not provide. It’s particularly hard to develop such things on a moving platform on the water. They never told us that these inventions ultimately came from off-world. I hope that it’s in the literature somewhere—and I’m just ignorant as an individual—not that they’re intentionally hiding the truth from us to allow someone else to take credit. To answer your sort of question, we’re not back out to sea just yet, but definitely by the time you read my letter, we will be. All of our new friends are now safely inside the dome, but we’re still docked because they’re still making sure that everyone who came won’t change their mind, and everyone who chose not to come hasn’t changed theirs. We have the luxury of being able to go wherever we want most of the time, but that’s not going to be the case for the near future. Part of the negotiations involve us staying close to the Australian coast for at least the next six months. We can still move around, which we do to maintain safety and security, but we can’t stray too far. I believe that that’s what slowed the talks down overall. We also move around to trade and interact with other land partners, but that won’t be possible until our time is up. I personally don’t see us staying a minute past our negotiated duration, because we want to maintain positive relations with other regions, though many are projecting that we’ll be here for a full year. We’ll have to wait and see. Speaking of the future, we’re probably a couple months out from reaching Bowen Orbital Spaceport. You and I will be the closest we’ve ever been since we started talking. After a quick car ride, I could be stepping onto a shuttle, headed your way, haha.

Thanks for the electricity,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 10, 2462

« < » > Table of Contents

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

Three years ago, Leona and Marie finally escaped the Angry Fifth Divisioner’s ship, and returned naked to the kasma. Leona asked Marie to insert the data crystal into the interface drawer on her PRU, which allowed her to download the information, and display it on her HUD. She began to look through the technical specifications for the machine that could thicken the membrane of a universe, and also the skeleton key that would allow a ship to pass safely through it, despite its great thickness. She had spent the last three days studying the manual. They were surviving on the recycled air and water contained in the pocket dimension inside of their PRUs. They were just stuck here in the equilibrium of the kasma for now, because there was no way to travel to one universe, or the other. She had the means to understand the skeleton key, but no way to construct one for themselves. “Quintessence!”

“Eureka!” Marie replied. She had spent this time reading some of the books stored in her helmet, because there was no way she was grasping the high level mathematical concepts that Leona was working on. It was taking her longer than it should have to finish Rules for Fake Girlfriends due to all these interruptions.

Leona laughed. “Sorry again. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. It’s just that Ramses is gonna love this stuff. Up until now, we’ve just been thinking of the universe as being contained by a membrane. That’s how brane cosmology works. But we never really knew what this membrane was made out of, just that you have to break through it if you want to travel through the bulk. Now we know that it’s called quintessence. For centuries, scientists have referred to it as dark matter, because we didn’t know what it was. But here it is. It’s what’s responsible for the repulsive fifth fundamental force, and explains why bulk travel is so difficult. It’s like trying to place two positively charged electromagnets together, except instead of being separated by an EM field, it’s a quintessential field.”

“Oh, that?” Marie began to joke. “I’ve always known about quintessence. You should have just asked.

“Lol. Some have theorized that quintessence is what explains dark energy, instead of dark matter, but we know that dark energy is just bulk energy that has leaked into our universe to become vacuum energy, and the work that it completes is what explains the accelerating expansion of the universe. These three things are just the same thing in different states, like the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter how much you try to explain it to me, or how many analogies you try to use, I’m not gonna understand it. All I need to know is can it get us out of the kasma?”

“Yes,” Leona replied.

“What? Really?” Marie didn’t expect to get such a good answer.

“Yes, because quintessence repulses baryonic from within its field. We may not be able to get out, but we can go back in just fine. That’s what lets bulk energy leak inside in the first place. If it didn’t, the universe would be static.”

“Oh. Well, then...let’s go.”

“We can’t.”

“You just said that we could,” Marie reminded her.

“We can’t...yet. What is the one thing that’s more powerful than bulk energy, or quintessence?”

“I’m sorry, why do you think that I can answer that question?”

“The answer is temporal energy. Now, a normal person—or even a choosing one—will not usually ever have enough temporal energy to disrupt the quintessential field in order to pass through the membrane, but you and I are special. Every single day, for a few seconds, our bodies overload on the stuff, and generate a burst of energy that sends us forward in time. That’s one advantage that salmon have over choosers. We don’t have to build the energy ourselves. It always comes to us.”

“But you’re not a salmon anymore. Tamerlane Pryce just recreated your pattern.”

“I was never technically salmon, but the fact holds true for us, even after what Pryce did when he gave us our new bodies, and what Ramses did when he upgraded us twice after that. Come midnight central, we’ll release enough temporal energy to break though. Now, if we don’t actually try to break through, then we won’t. It would be like being strong enough to open a door, but still not reaching for the doorknob—”

“What did I say about your analogies?”

“Teleportation. At exactly midnight, teleport into the universe. That’s what we’ve been missing; timing.”

“Okay. Good.” Marie looked at her wrist display. “That should be just enough time to finish my book.”

“All right.” Leona closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to give her brain a short break from all this research.

“Wait.” Marie stopped reading. “Which universe are we going into?”

“Whichever one is closer.”

“Which one is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“There aren’t any landmarks out here, it’s easy to get turned around. Based on Ramses’ modifications to our onboard sensors, I can tell you that we are sufficiently near the outside of the nearest membrane, but I couldn’t tell you which one it is. It’s our only hope, though. If it’s not the one we want, we don’t have time to teleport to the other side of the kasma, even if we knew which direction that was. Besides, which one do you wanna go to? They both contain friends who can help us get back to Stoutverse, but this task will be no easier from one than the other.”

“True. Okay. Back to my book.” She literally turned herself away to concentrate.

About an hour later, midnight struck, and they jumped to the other side of the year, and the other side of the membrane. Now they were in a vacuum, rather than the kasma. They could feel themselves in freefall, and could see stars all around them. They still had no clue where they were, but they could see a host star relatively close in the distance, so they began to teleport towards it little by little, hoping to spot a rocky celestial object to land on. The armor module of the IMS was equipped with mechanical assistance, which made movement less fatiguing than earlier models of spacesuits, but they were still tiring to use for an extended period of time. They were both ready to be locked down by gravity again. That was how humans evolved, and not even Ramses’ upgraded substrates were immune to the negative effects of microgravity, or equilibrium.

There it was, a planet, but there was more to it. Their suits also detected friends nearby. Mateo and Angela were here already. What a lovely coincidence. Leona pinpointed their exact location on the planet, and made one final jump. “Boo!”

“I saw you coming,” Mateo said. That made sense. His suit had its own sensors.

Marie and Angela tried to give each other a hug, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying with their armor modules on. “Report,” Angela said after they gave up.

The two parties caught each other up on everything they had been through since they parted ways for their respective missions. They hadn’t known how they were going to come back together, but they had been confident that it would turn out to be something like this; totally coincidental, and barely within their control. Well, this was only the first step out of three, and the easiest one, at that. Their next order of business would be figuring out how to get Past!Mateo back to where he needed to be. Only then could they find a way back to their own place in Stoutverse. But first, one of the Maramon had something to say about it.

“Now that you’re here, you can help us.” It was the guy who had genetically engineered the new human-Mar hybrids. He was still not happy that Mateo had spirited him away to this planet without even trying to transport his gestational pod too.

“Help you with what?” Leona asked.

Mateo smiled, glad to have their group’s leader back, if only to be the bad guy in situations such as this.

“My equipment. Your husband made me leave it on the moon. I must have it returned to me. I am to understand that your carrying capacity is roughly 300 kilograms. Being 800 K-G in mass, the four of you should, therefore, be able to teleport it together, even with your suits.”

Leona stared at him for a moment. “I’m not doing that.”

“You must!” the Maramon insisted.

“Actually, I must not. This is not my universe, it is not my decision. If you would like help in this regard, you will have to take it up with Hogarth Pudeyonavic, or perhaps Ellie Underhill. It has nothing to do with us. You don’t need teleporters, you need authorization. I’m afraid that this conversation is now over, so speak of it no further.” She knew that he was just going to keep hounding her about it, so the longer she waited to put her foot down, the harder it was going to be to land it flat upon the ground.

“I have what you seek,” the Maramon claimed vaguely.

“What does that mean?” Leona asked.

“Well, the truth is that I do not have it in my possession, but I know where you can find it. If you retrieve my pod from the moon, I will tell you where to go.”

“Where to go...for what?” he obviously could be lying, so in order for her to even consider trusting him, she had to know that they were at least on the same page.

“The timonite. That’s what you came here for, right? You expected to find it in that cave in the Third Rail, but it was nowhere to be found, was it? That’s because you weren’t looking in the right place.”

Past!Mateo took a step towards him. “Are you lying just to get what you want?”

He laughed. “I could never. You’re Team Matic. You famously don’t take kindly to betrayal. I could never send you far enough away from me that you could not find a way to return, and exact your revenge upon me. I speak the truth. In fact, as a sign of good faith, I will give you a hint.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Future!Mateo urged.

“No. The hint comes after you agree, but before you get me my pod. Once you do get the pod, then you get the exact location.”

Past!Mateo gave the rest of the team puppy dog eyes. “Please.”

“You don’t have to convince us that you need it,” Marie told him. “We already know that you do. We were there, remember? Our reluctance in this is helping him, and in trusting that he’s telling us the truth.”

“I am,” the Maramon said. “If I didn’t have this leverage, I would probably just threaten one of your lives to coerce the others.”

“Fair enough,” Leona decided. “We agree to help. Where is the timonite?”

He took a breath, and prepared for the big reveal. “Verdemus.”

“Is that a band, errr...?” Past!Mateo joked, but then he looked at everyone else’s face. No one was surprised to hear this. “Oh, you’ve heard of it?”

“Yes,” Leona answered. She took Past!Mateo’s hand in hers, and Angela’s in the other. Angela then took Future!Mateo’s, who took Marie’s, who took Past!Mateo’s to complete the circle. They did the same thing around the gestational pod once they were on the moon, and transported it down to the planet.

“Okay, you have your little pod,” Future!Mateo said to the Maramon. “Now where exactly is the timonite on Verdemus?”

“The Miracle Plains,” he replied, almost as if it should be obvious. “Don’t worry, the locals will know what you’re talking about. But you better hurry, they’re set to abandon the whole planet soonly.”

Angela sighed. “How the hell are we going to get all the way to Veremus? We can’t even get out of this universe.”

“Quintessence!” Marie shouts, echoing Leona from earlier.

Leona chuckled. “I’ll need time, but uh, I’ll build something. It could take a couple of years to complete construction.”

“There’s no way to be sure that it remains undisturbed during our interim years,” Future!Mateo lamented

“I’ll set up a lab in secret.” She reached over and took a dish of starter nanites out of Marie’s PRU. Then she looked up at the Maramon. “If any of you find it, and disturb it, while we’re gone, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“We’ll leave it alone,” he promised to the best of his ability.

While she buckled down to make a plan to build a temporary ship equipped with what could now be called a quintessential skeleton key, the rest of the team started to teleport kind of randomly around the planet to search for a good spot to set up a new lab. It had to be rich in minerals, so the nanites would have a lot to feed on, and preferably somewhere beautiful, so they could return to a pleasant scenery. But of course, it had to be remote, and hard to find. They could not trust the Maramon, nor their hybrids. They returned with several candidates each for Leona to inspect for herself. She ultimately chose one of Past!Mateo’s picks. It was inside of a sea cave that looked like something that could be found on the rocky beaches of Iceland.

Leona programmed the nanites to begin building the ship, as well as the deuterium harvester in the ocean to power it. The design of the vessel was based on the shuttle that was already built for the Iman Vellani proper, since it was readily available in the database, but with less cabin room, to accommodate the skeleton key. When they came back a year later, it was done, but occupied by one of the hybrids.

« < » > Table of Contents

Extremus: Year 77

« < » > Table of Contents

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

The Verdemusians are split. Aristotle and Belahkay have decided to stay with Omega as he prepares to send his clones off to fight a war against the Exin Empire. It’s not even just that everyone else wants to make love, not war. They also want to keep Verdemus off of the empire’s radar. They went to great lengths to give them the impression that the planet was destroyed, with the solar system left soaked in exotic radiation. If the Exins get the slightest hint that it might still be intact, it could have disastrous ramifications for Extremus. Aristotle wants to use the power that he inherited from his father to transport the entire moon from its orbit to the Goldilocks Corridor. But even if that works, it might lead the enemy to decide to launch another attack against them, and that would not be good.

Over the course of the last several months, the two factions have lived separately from each other, with the warriors working on Jaunemus while everyone else stays on Verdemus. In addition to maintaining the gestational stasis pods for the clones, they’re developing a lot more infrastructure on the moon, including weapons manufacturing plants, ground-based artillery, and who knows what else? Tinaya has separated herself from it both physically and mentally, as have Spirit and Niobe. Lilac travels back and forth using the shuttle. Aristotle is her son, and even though she doesn’t agree with his choices, she’s not going to abandon him. She knows his father more than anyone here; probably more than anyone in histories. She is, therefore, the only one qualified to help him succeed in his mission to transport an entire moon hundreds of light years into the galaxy. If he’s going to do this—and he is going to do it—he needs to practice with smaller objects, and shorter distances, first. It’s going to be years before he’s ready for the big show, and even then, they can’t leave right away. If he’s anything like Maqsud, the trip will be all but instantaneous. Their window will not be for another couple of centuries. They’ll need to make use of those stasis pods for themselves.

Niobe has been pretty depressed lately. Aristotle is like a brother to her, but she feels that she has to distance herself from him. She’s the least accepting of his choices out of all of them, and she’s holding that over his head by cutting him off entirely. Either he comes back into the family, or he never gets to see his little sister again. He can’t have it both ways. Tinaya has been trying to be there for her without straying down the path of trying to get her to change her mind. Lots of people will say that family is family, and you’re required to love them unconditionally. But this is neither healthy nor practical. She has to protect her own mental wellbeing, and if that means breaking ties with someone she feels to be detrimental to that, then she has to do it. You may be on her side, or you may be on his, but either way, she has the right to make her demands of him, just as he has the right to do that for her, should he come up with anything. For the moment, he appears to be bothered by it too, but he’s committed to his decision, and has not tried too hard to reach out.

Niobe has mostly been focusing her efforts on the megablock. The way she sees it, the Omega clones have no choice but to fight this war if they have nowhere else to live anyway. She wants to make this place as inviting as possible, so that any would-be deserters actually have the option to live out their lives in peace on a beautiful planet. She’s been fabricating beds and other furniture, as well as other synthesizers for a sustainable lifestyle. None of the clones is even awake at the moment, but once she receives word from Lilac that this has begun to happen, she’ll be ready to make her case to them. She doesn’t know what they’re going to say. The clones are an unpredictable bunch. They aren’t all perfect copies of Omega. They’re more bred than grown. Each one was programmed to come out slightly genetically different than the one before, eventually cascading into a rainbow of diversity that Omega himself could not have predicted. Around 31% of them are female. The first ones that were found in the pods were the earliest of models, which was why they were indistinguishable, but the latter ones look like completely different people. They have names too, but these were computer generated, because it was too many for Omega to come up with himself. Niobe is thinking about asking them to choose their own once they are finally awakened.

“Have you sent the message for me?” Niobe asks as she’s checking the pH level of the outdoor swimming pool while it’s filling up. The neighborhood is going to be really nice, so that can’t be anyone’s argument against making use of it.

“I relayed it. I’ve not yet received a response.” Tinaya requested permission to begin releasing the clones so they can make their choice about what they’re going to do with their lives. As the time lag to and from the moon is only 1.21 seconds, she could have had a somewhat realtime conversation with them without superluminal communication equipment. The response delay would have been annoying, but bearable. Still, she chose to send an email instead in case Omega and Aristotle grew angry at the suggestion. She doesn’t need that kind of anxiety right now. They can reply when they’re ready, and hopefully after they calm down from their first reactions.

“Can’t you just order them to do it?” Niobe asked.

No, she can’t. “Sorry. You know that that would only cause more problems.” Since no one else was willing to say it, Tinaya had to remind herself that she is only the ad hoc leader, not a real one. She stepped up when no one else wanted the job, but they can stop listening to her at any time, and she can’t punish them for it. Some of them have indeed stopped listening, and fighting them on it isn’t going to help anything. It will only lead to deeper hostilities.

Niobe nods. “I know.”

Tinaya’s armband vibrates. She had to switch to this form factor because her watch’s wristband was irritating her glass skin at the ulnar styloid. After years of this, she’s still not used to the increased surface area of the notifications. She flinches, then looks at it. “Speak of the devil.”

“What’s it say?”

Tinaya sighs. “They’re open to discussion, but they have one condition...”

“Lemme guess, I have to be there in person.”

“Yes.”

“This is just an excuse to get me to forgive him. They won’t agree to anything.”

“You don’t know that,” Tinaya tells her.

“Think about it, what if every clone switches to my side? Even if they let that happen, they’ll just have to make more clones to replace them. And if those clones also defect? Where does it end? They need that army, and they’re not going to let a little thing like me get in the way of it.”

“So why are you taking this position if you think it’s not going to do any good?”

“Because if I die on this hill, Aristotle will have to come back to bury me on it.”

“That’s a really cynical viewpoint, Oboe.”

Niobe shrugs her shoulders, her lips, and her eyebrows. Tinaya has also had a hard time wrapping her brain around Niobe’s mature mannerisms. Her body is only twelve years old, but she’s actually lived about seventeen years at this point. She’s practically an adult, and everyone has to work hard to remember to treat her as such.

“Are you going to meet with them, or not? I’ll moderate if you agree.”

Niobe thinks about it, but she has little choice in the matter. This is what she’s been preparing for for a year. “Set it up, please.”

They choose to use the Kamala Khan as neutral ground, orbiting the Lagrange point one. It makes sense to use the shuttle for this as it originally came from the Iman Vellani, half of which was designed as a diplomatic vessel for talks like this one. Fortunately, they don’t need such grand accommodations, nor some kind of seasoned professional to mediate the negotiations here. They’re on opposing sides, but they still care about each other. Omega is speaking on behalf of his side, since it’s his project. Aristotle is there for support, but he does not have much say in the matter. Spirit is serving in the same capacity for Niobe. Tinaya is facilitating healthy and productive communication while Lilac has stepped away from this for fear of exhibiting a conflict of interest. She has instead returned to her Hock Watcher duties while Eagan is on board the shuttle to be available to provide snacks, or whathaveyou. Who knows where Belahkay is right now?

The talks have been going okay, but they’re at a stalemate at the moment. Omega recognized just as easily as Niobe the slippery slope that could result in giving the clones a choice. It is also not lost on him that the entire reason he’s here, and not fast asleep on a Project Stargate colonization module, is because he made a choice for his own life decades ago. Yes, he’s trying to make up for it now, but he’s never claimed to regret this decision. He feels that he’s done a lot of good while he was working with Team Keshida in the Gatewood Collective, and since coming on board Extremus. All Niobe asks is that he give the same chance to his own people. If they all choose not to fight, then it was probably a bad idea in the first place. Forced conscription is not the hallmark of a democratic or fair society in the least.

They’re in a short recess for now. Aristotle has asked to speak with Niobe alone on a personal matter, so they have sealed off the control section, which is the only private part of the craft besides the lavatory-slash-airlock. Tinaya is leaning back in her chair, watching Eagan like a nature photographer waiting for her subject to pounce on its prey. He’s not going to do anything of the sort. He always stands perfectly still unless someone calls upon him for something.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Spirit asks, guessing at why Tinaya is so distracted by the robot.

“What? Oh, no. I mean, yeah, but...whatever. I was just thinking...”

“Are you feeling...urgeful?” Spirit asks. “Because there’s a subroutine...”

“Jesus, Spirit, no! I’m happily married. I was thinking about a robot army. They wouldn’t be carbon copies of Eagan, but they also wouldn’t be self-aware. They could mount an offensive without the risk of any loss of life.”

“I considered that.” Omega was taking his alone time in the airlock, but has since returned. “You didn’t think I considered that? I didn’t start making clones out of some sense of poetic symmetry. I ruled out a robot army during the initial planning for this operation due to many reasons, but there was one big, irrefutable one, which is all I needed to decide against it.”

“What might that be?” Spirit questioned.

“The Exins are...well, they’re confused, and they have been indoctrinated. They’re easily swayed by their leader’s outrageous claims, because he’s literally the one who created them. They other people,” he says, using the word as a verb. “All foreigners are bad, and unrelatable. To make their enemies nothing more than walking machines would only exacerbate this issue. It may seem like all I want to do is kill, kill, kill, but I would much rather end the war with only the one battle. I want them to see their enemies as real people, just like them, who deserve to empathized with, and understood. It’s much harder to kill a sentient being than to destroy a toaster. They’ll still do it, but I’m hoping that every time they do, it gives them pause, and that those pauses eventually add up to them questioning whether they’re even doing the right thing by fighting at all. That’s why I don’t want to sacrifice my army to the megablock. If we lose them, we’ve already lost the war, and in that regard, we’ve lost Earth and the stellar neighborhood too. I can’t let that happen”

“I can’t speak on that,” Tinaya admits. “I’m the impartial moderator.”

Omega chuckles. “You’re not, and I never expected you to be. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tattle on you to the Multicultural Interstellar Association of Space Mediators Association.”

“My asthma?” Spirit quips.

Omega breathes deeply as he’s taking a cup of iced tea from Eagan’s tray, and looking at the bulkhead to the control room as if he can see right through the door. “I relent. I’ll start waking them up in groups of 147, and asking them what they would like to do. But I warn you, I’ll strongly advocate for them to stay on course. I’ll allow Niobe to be there, but she will not be allowed to speak unless the fraction of them who choose her ask to hear from her. If they do—if they exist, and they do, they’ll go off alone while the rest are returned to their pods to await their training periods. That is my offer.”

“Don’t tell me,” Tinaya says. “Tell her.”

Omega takes a sip of his tea before spitting it out. “Ugh. What did you put in that? Ginger?” He sets the cup back down on Eagan’s tray. Anyway, yes, I’ll tell her when she gets back out. You were right to place us on a break. I needed time to think.”

When Niobe does come back, they see that she’s been crying, but her body language doesn’t imply that she’s trying to protect herself from Aristotle. They seem to have worked out their differences. They return to the table, and start hashing out the details. The next phase of the project is planned to take over a year. Every three days, 147 more clones will be awakened from their gestational pods. The situation will be explained to them, as will their options. Niobe will be present for each of these meetings, along with Tinaya, who will be there to make sure that everything remains fair and honest. They’re not sure how many of them will take them up on the offer, so they will have to figure out how to adapt as those numbers start to become apparent. All those who choose to go to war will go back to their stasis pods until such time as they are revived again to train for their respective responsibilities. The real question is if any of them on either side will later change their minds, and what they’ll do about that.

In the meantime, Aristotle is not allowed to set foot on Jaunemus anymore. He’s allowed to continue to practice his time power, but he’s not to have anything to do with the war. When the time comes, he can transport the moon to the Goldilocks Corridor, but must then leave the theatre of war right away. Niobe will have been in stasis during that time as well so they don’t lose time together. On the same day that the last group of 147 are awakened, Aristotle sends a message that he’s ready to begin his final test yet. He wants to send everyone else back to the Extremus.

« < » > Table of Contents