Microstory 2627: He That Would Eat the Fruit Must Climb the Tree

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September 1, 2526. Breanna, Cash, and Sorel are just coming up on the area where their friends would have landed on the north side of the chasm when the rover’s proximity alarm goes off. Breanna and Cash look out the windows, but don’t see anything. “It’s above us,” Sorel explains. “Thistle, open sunroof.” The partition slides away. An object is falling from the sky. If they were to stop right here, it would crash land on them. So Sorel keeps driving until they’re clear of it, whatever it is.

“It’s not an asteroid, is it?” Cash asks. “I don’t think we can survive a war on another front.”

“Nah, it’s manmade, and it’s not falling, but landing.” Sorel double checks the screen. “It’s a dropship, I think from a Teaguardian.” He drives onwards, but then stops once the computer indicates that they’re well within the safe zone, near the edge of the chasm. As they watch the descent, they also look outwards, back where they came from. The ground where they were once standing has turned to soup, just like it already had farther south. They see huge stones crashing into each other. Twisted pieces of a once standing dome and spine swim around violently. It looks almost beautiful from this far away, though, like a small pond in a storm...except for all the lava and fires.

Ten minutes later, they watch the ship descend upon the ground, firing its rockets to slow itself down. It still lands quite hard, though. There might not be any people inside of it. As they continue to watch, the structure begins to transform. The walls fold down and dig themselves into the regolith. A giant cylinder rises from the center before splitting apart. A dish unfolds itself like a paper fan, spinning until it finds the right spot, slanted towards the sky at a certain angle. Power systems ramp up with an electrifying sound. The spectators’ respective interfaces beep. “We just got global comms back,” Cash says with a smile. Their screens light up with activity, displaying all the chatter that’s suddenly jumping back and forth all across the planet.

Breanna rushes through the menus until she finds the group chat. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? This is Breanna Jeffries. Are you reading me?”

“Breanna?” Calypso’s voice comes on. “Breanna, is that you? You’re alive?”

Breanna smiles and laughs. “Yes, Cash and I both. How’s the group?”

“We’re all alive too,” Calypso replies. “We’re looking for safety, on foot. We’ve been walking for days. We thought we found a dome, but they didn’t want us there.”

“Yeah, that has turned out to be a good thing. It’s been flooded with lava.”

“I knew it!” Notus cries triumphantly.

“Listen,” Breanna goes on, “we have a rover again. There’s enough room for everyone. Drop us a pin, and we’ll pick you up.”

“Okay, how do I do that?” Calypso asks.

“I know how to do it,” Notus says.

Their location appears on Breanna’s interface. It’s not too far from here since they had to walk it, and the three of them will be able to catch up quickly on wheels. She flings the coordinates over to Sorel’s rover so it will be able to navigate to them. They all start heading back towards it, but he stops. “Wait. Lifesigns detector.”

The girls look back over to the satellite dish.

“No, it’s not from there,” he clarifies. He slowly turns until he’s facing the chasm again. He starts walking towards it.

“No,” Breanna says. “That’s impossible.”

“You don’t think...” Cash trails off.

“It’s impossible!” Breanna repeats. A hand appears from the edge, and finds purchase before being met with the other hand. Two more hands appear right next to them, and pull the human they’re attached to up. It’s Tertius and Aeterna, completely naked, dirty as hell, but otherwise entirely fine. They don’t look upset or tired. They just climb all the way up, and begin to brush ash and dust off of their bodies. They look just as surprised to see Breanna and Cash as Breanna and Cash are to see them. Tertius approaches, and waves with a smile. He holds his hand out like Oliver Twist.

Confused, but also rather nervous, Breanna removes her first stage air filter, just like she did when they first met these two, and hands it to him.

Tertius places it against his mouth. “Hey, you’ve been waiting for us this whole time? It’s been days. You should have moved on without us.”

“We weren’t waiting for you,” Breanna replies honestly. “It has taken us this long to make it across ourselves. It’s just coincidental timing.”

He nods. “Well, it’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you did make it.” He looks behind them. “I’m worried, though, that no one else did.”

“No, they’re all fine,” Breanna says. “They made it across much quicker, so they are ahead of us now. We were just about to go meet up with them.” She points at the dish. “We can finally communicate with the rest of the planet again. News will start pouring in, and we’ll have a better picture of the state of affairs. We’re not sure who up north will take us in, if anyone. But you maybe wanna put on some clothes to blend in.”

“We don’t have any extra suits,” Cash reminds her. “If we did, we would have used them to glide over the chasm with everyone else.”

“Oh, true.” Breanna shakes her head. The Valerians seem to have no problem being open about their impossible level of immortality, but it’s probably best that they keep the circle tight. It’s looking like she has to protect them, even from themselves.

“I saw a couple of suits in that gondola hab back there,” Sorel explains. “They’re not IMS units, so they won’t work in actual outer space, but they will look all right to outsiders. I won’t even ask how they’re standing here like this.”

Tertius looks at his daughter, who faces her palms upwards in ignorance, because she hasn’t heard the conversation. He drops the filter to communicate with her in sign language. Aeterna nods, and holds up the a-okay sign to the rest of the group.

They all climb into the rover, and send a quick message to the other seven survivors, asking them to sit tight while they make this detour. Notus is immensely relieved to learn that Tertius made it, as it will give him the opportunity that he’s been dying for to thank him privately. Now that they know exactly where to go, and have blazed a trail, the drive back to the canyon dome doesn’t take too long. They scoop up the mining suits, drive back to the chasm to get around the stone forest, then drive northwest. Finally, after days of being apart, they reunite with their friends, and together, the twelve of them—plus Heracles—make one final push northwards to find refuge. They’re not the only ones, and it has become a political nightmare, but now that Teagarden is back in play, the hope is that those who refuse to provide aid will start feeling the pressure. That doesn’t really happen.

Extremus: Year 65

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The peacetime has persisted. First Chair Aleshire was anything but a lame duck during his final term. He left very little for Tinaya to have to accomplish, especially since she had her own—now completed—list of things she wanted to get done before she was even elected to the highest position. More meetings. That is what she spends her days dealing with. There is a committee for everything on this ship. There has to be, to keep people gainfully employed, so their contribution scores can stay high. There is only so much work that actually has to be done to keep people alive, so they contrive some jobs that aren’t absolutely necessary. And the First Chair is required to be at every meeting that doesn’t conflict with the time of a different one. In such a case, there is a priority list that dictates which one takes precedent. And yes, there have been meetings to make sure that the priority list itself is reasonable, and still makes sense. She has had to go to those ones too. They’re at the top of the list.

She needs a break, so she went to bed really early last night so she can have some time to herself, and of course, she’s going to do that in Attic Forest. It’s still a very popular hangout spot, but she wants to be alone. As First Chair, it’s hard to do that. Even when only a few people are around, they like to crowd her, so the best time to go upstairs is when everyone is asleep. They tried to institute visiting hours up here, because people kept sleeping in the grass, but they proved to be quite unfavorable. Instead, they made sleeping against policy at all hours of the day, and civilian security patrols the grounds to prevent it from happening. That’s something they never thought they would need, but natural forests have uneven soil, creepy critters, and bad weather. This is a highly controlled environment, making it a great place to sleep. But if they let anyone do that, they would have to let everyone, and it would fill up quick.

She steps through the entrance, and is surprised to see a number of people already out and about. A couple is walking by with their robot dog. A family is enjoying breakfast at a picnic table. If there are this many people this close to the entrance, who knows how many there are total? No, this won’t do. She’ll have to find somewhere else. Fortunately, there is still one perfect spot that nearly no one knows about yet. She quietly backs away before anyone sees her, and heads downstairs. It has been five years since she planted the Central Sequoia on the lowest level. It grows faster than a normal giant sequoia, so it now stands at five meters tall. There’s less room to move around, but she can sit on the floor, and lean up against it. Plus, there’s no policy against sleeping here—because the general public isn’t meant to know about it yet anyway—so if she falls under, it’ll be okay. But this chamber isn’t empty either. Senior Forest Guide Cainan Suárez is already here, but not for the same reason. He appears to have brought a girl.

“Since when has she been authorized?” is the first thing that Tinaya says.

“Madam Chair!” Cainan and his partner scramble to put their clothes back on.

Tinaya doesn’t mind the sex in an inappropriate location thing, but not in this particular location with whoever this young woman is. “Who are you?”

“This is Dominica. Dominica Bravo.”

“Can she not answer for herself?”

Cainan taps on the girl’s shoulder. When she looks back at him, he lifts both palms upwards, presses one palm towards her, and then taps his two first fingers together in the shape of an X.

Dominica faces Tinaya again. She sticks her index finger in the air, and holds her other three fingers against her thumb. She taps it upon her chest, then drops her hand down diagonally, and taps the opposite side of her torso.

“D-Lord; Dominica,” Cainan interprets. “That’s her sign name.”

Someone whose knowledge Tinaya absorbed when she and Lataran had that mishap with the mind sharing machine that Omega and Valencia built knew sign language. So she knows it too. She pops her index finger upwards out of her fist, and rubs her fist against her chest. “I understand. Sorry.”

Dominica opens her hand, and taps her thumb against her chest to say, it’s fine.

Tinaya signs everything she says from now on. “You two really should not be in here, especially not if you’re going to do that. Don’t you have your own cabin?”

“I wanted to take her someplace special,” Cainan explains, also translating everything into ASL.

Dominica signs, I’m sorry.

“It doesn’t sound like it’s your fault at all,” Tinaya replies, “but please tell no one of this tree. It is going to be a surprise in the future.”

I understand. I’m good at keeping secrets.

Tinaya looks up at the security camera. It’s showing a solid red indicator light, rather than a blinking one, which means it’s been tampered with. “What did you do?”

“It’s just a simple loop,” Cainan clarifies. “Three hours long, during a period where no one was here. No one will suspect a thing.”

Tinaya checks her watch. “The system is going to start watering the tree in an hour, and if the camera doesn’t see it happen, it will trigger an alarm.”

He smirks. “I factored that in. The loop perfectly matches the watering schedule.”

Dominica scoffs, and smacks Cainan in the shoulder.

“I mean Dominica scheduled it. She’s the computer genius. I’m just the tree guy.”

I’m not a genius. I run the graphics for most of the daytime game shows. Some of the most iconic game shows that Earth ever created have been replicated here on Extremus, like Jeopardy! and Password. Someone keeps requesting to make a version of Survivor in the Attic Forest, but it would require cutting down trees, and somehow digging a miniature ocean in the corner, so that’s not gonna happen. If they wanna do that, they can code it in virtual reality. That’s not technically beyond Tinaya’s jurisdiction, but she has no control over what people do with their own minds, and VR is considered predominantly an extension of personal thought.

“She’s just being modest,” Cainan counters. “Her job does not exemplify the limit of her skills.”

Dominica turns away bashfully.

Tinaya nods and sighs. “Go back to the residences.”

“Separately, errr...?” Cainan asks.

“I ain’t your mama. Just don’t break any more laws, okay?”

“Okay.”

Thank you, Madam First Chair.

After the younger ones are gone, Tinaya stares at the spot where they had spread out the picnic blanket. It didn’t look like they had, uhh...finished, but it still no longer felt like an acceptable place to sit and relax, which was the whole point of coming down here. Perhaps it won’t seem as strange after enough time has passed, but now she’ll have to find yet another place to be alone, besides her own stateroom. That’s not a good choice, though. There’s a reason she doesn’t do that. That’s where she experiences stress dreams about all of those meetings, and she sometimes takes work calls there. It’s not particularly calming for her anymore. Her best hope is going to the spa. It’s not open 24/7 for most people, but it is for people like her. She tries not to take that kind of thing for granted, but desperate times...

A man is chuckling from behind the tree, which is just wide enough to obscure her vision of him. He quickly steps out from it, though. It’s Arqut Grieves. “Kids, right? They are unruly in any culture.”

“They’re both in their twenties, as am I for the next few months. They’re not kids anymore. How did you know they were here?”

Arqut reaches up as high as he can on the wall, and taps what at first appears to be nothing but air, but a secret invisible camera appears for half a second each time it’s touched. “Redundancy. They’ve been coming here for weeks.”

“You’ve been...watching them?”

“Heavens no, I’m not a creeper,” Arqut defends. “The AI watches them, alerting me to when they arrive, and when they leave. Then it erases its own memory. It’s not just them either. It watches for any visits. You come here about once a month. Lataran and her guy have been here a few times, just talking. That’s it, though. The four of them loop the regular camera. You’re the only one who just turns it off.”

“I need access to that camera,” Tinaya contends, pointing towards where the invisible one is. “Along with any others. And I need to know any other secrets that you’ve been keeping from me.”

“Consider it done,” he promises. He looks at her funny.

“What is it now?” she questions.

“You always come here alone.”

“So you do watch me.”

“No, but I notice your arrivals. You never come with your security detail, which you’re not supposed to do. I’m very protective of you, and it was hard to not do the math, and recognize that you’re the only one who doesn’t use it as a makeout spot.”

“Is this about the marriage you want me to go through with to boost my approval ratings?” She nixed that suggestion from Cleader last year, yet he keeps pushing for it. He’s actually planned a lot, even though she doesn’t even have a partner. It’s very weird and awkward, and it makes her uncomfortable. Obviously, she doesn’t want to have to do this. She doesn’t want to get married, and even if she did, she would want to fall in love first. Not only that, but she doesn’t want to worry so much about reëlection. That is not what civil service is about. “I keep having to tell you that I am not interested. If I get the vote next year, that’s great, but if not, that’s okay too. All I care about is trying—”

“I love you.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I know that sounds like I’m suggesting that I be the one who you marry but I’m just confessing. I love you. I always have. This place is...it has a magical power. I couldn’t help myself but to tell you. I’ve been keeping it to myself, but I felt...compelled.”

“Arqut...”

He suddenly looks like a deer in the headlights. “Never mind! I’m just joking! Ha ha ha!” He teleports away.

What the hell was that?

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 31, 2399

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There should be no one on the moon but the three of them. How the man outside is surviving the vacuum of space is a nonissue. Leona can think of a number of ways for him to accomplish such a feat. The problem is that there is nothing out here. They scanned the entire surface several times while they were still in orbit. They found no structures, no power signatures, no nothin’. They’ve also not detected any new arrivals since they’ve come. Best guess, he’s an android who lay dormant in a hole somewhere, and woke up when Mangrove Zero showed up. That wouldn’t explain who he is, or exactly what he wants, but either he’s crazy, and he thinks he’s asking someone who isn’t here, or Cedar is a thing that Leona should know. Here for Cedar. What does that mean? Is it a band? A place? A tree? Does he think Cedar is on this ship, or is Cedar the person who asked him to come here, and he is the one who actually wants something?

Regardless of what’s going on here, the guy is a creepy moonwalker, so no way in hell is he getting in. She’ll fight him to the death to protect the children. She’s chosen not to say anything to Mateo and Ramses, as they have enough on their minds, and their mission is more important than ever. If this is a sign of a conspiracy, their leechcraft array could be the thing that saves them. Instead, she has tried to contact Aldona, who is not answering. One would think she would want to keep apprised of the situation up here, but who knows what she’s dealing with at the moment?

Leona checked on the boys once to make sure they were okay, but has not returned to reclamation since. She has to stay out here, so she can keep an eye on the would-be intruder, and look out for any accomplices. He or they may just be waiting for enough alone time to break through. Aldona built this thing to be a stronghold, but it is not impenetrable. Nothing is impenetrable. If brute force isn’t working, you’re just not using enough of it. It’s been a day, and this is all she’s been doing. They have spent the last hour literally staring at each other through a viewport, as if in a contest. If he really is an android, there’s no reason for him to blink. She’s all right for now, but she’s no longer wearing the upgraded body that Ramses built for her, so she’s going to need to sleep at some point. That’s most likely what he’s waiting for.

Carlin comes up to her.

“I told you to stay put,” Leona scolds.

“Can he hear us?”

Leona glares at the stranger. “Possibly.” He can probably read lips, and he may be able to eavesdrop in more creative ways, like measuring vibrations, or even reading minds. Though, if it’s that second one, there’s nothing they can do to stop it anyway.

“Let’s go somewhere where he can’t.”

“I have to keep an eye on him.”

“Use the cameras. We have to talk.”

Leona exhales through her nose, then leads Carlin to the nearest bathroom, which is away from any exterior wall, but close enough to get back on the defensive if need be. “What is it?”

“We met someone.”

“What do you mean, you met someone?”

“His name is Cedar. He’s in a secret room behind the place where Moray and I were sleeping on the floor. He let us in.”

Now everything makes more sense. Mateo must have found out about him when he first came here, and he was trying to protect him by not saying anything. He hopefully didn’t know about this stranger, though, or it would have been irresponsible to leave, and leave her in the dark. “I see. Is he nice?”

“Yeah, he’s very nice. He’s Aldona’s nephew.”

“I see,” she repeats.

“What do we do?”

Leona looks at the camera feed on her handheld device. The stranger is still where he was when they left, staring into that viewport. Maybe he’s on standby mode. Goddamn, if Leona only had her real body, she would just teleport him to the South Pole, and build a new propulsion system with the nanites, scheduled to be completed before he had the time to get back. “If he’s Aldona’s nephew, he must have a way to contact her.”

“He did. She told him to stay inside, and go radio silent,” Carlin explains. “That’s literally all she said apparently.”

“Yeah, that thing out there might be able to intercept the signal.” She looks away to think. “Go back and follow those directions. Stay there, and stay radio silent.”

“What are you gonna do?” he asks.

“I’m gonna try to talk to him,” she replies.

“Is that safe?”

“Nope.”

Carlin goes back to reclamation, and Leona heads for the airlock. The stranger is still standing on the other side of the building, biding his time, no doubt. She puts her vacuum suit back on, and prepares to exit. She grabs the golf club at the last second for a modicum of protection. She seals the hatch with a code known only to her, then walks around to meet the man. She stands to the side of him for a while, waiting for him to react in any way. When he finally does, he acts like he’s just realized that she was there. He really was in standby mode, wasn’t he? She taps her helmet where her ear would be if the helmet were her head. Then she points to herself, and then to him with an inquisitive face. “Can you hear me?” she asks at the same time.

He taps his thumb with his index and middle finger at her. He then holds his head out, palm forward and down, and slowly moves towards her helmet. He’s sporting an inquisitive face too. He seems to be asking whether he can touch her helmet.

She cautiously makes a fist, and taps the air twice to indicate a yes.

He raises his hand up, and places it upon her helmet. “I can hear you now,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” He’s sending intelligible vibrations down his arm, and then into her helmet space, which is atmospheric, and can propagate sound, unlike the space outside. “Are you an android?”

He tilts his head. “I’m using an android body. Saying that I am an android is a bit...how do I put this? Opprobrious.”

Opprobrious. What a douche.

He may or may not be reacting to her thoughts.

If you don’t remove your hand from my helmet, I’m going to rip both of your arms off, and set you on fire, she thinks.

No reaction. So either he can’t read her thoughts, or he’s pretending not to.

“State your business.”

“I’ve told you. I’m here for Cedar.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Say I did. Why should I help you?”

“Because I’ll kill your sons in front of you if you don’t.”

Hmm. If he thinks that Carlin and Moray are her sons, then he doesn’t know who she is. That’s good. “What do you want with this Cedar?”

“That’s not your problem.”

“You threatened my kids. It is indeed my problem.”

“That’s only if you don’t comply.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve said it, which means you’ve established yourself as an enemy. I don’t like having enemies. I always get rid of them.”

“How do you usually do that?”

“If they refuse to become my friend, I either kill them...or I erase their entire existence, past and future.” She’s not lying.

“You’re more than someone who was simply hired to protect the boy.”

“What has the boy done that makes you hate him so?”

“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he will do.”

“This reality has no time travel. You can’t know the future.”

“We obviously both know that it’s more complicated than that.”

“What is your issue? What does he do? Why shouldn’t he do it?”

He looks away for a second, seemingly not wanting to clarify. “This is not what I intended when I founded Operation Free Will. This universe is too messy now. These parallel realities, and these people who are capable of reaching backwards to collapsed timelines; they’re too much. I was just trying to give people choice. I didn’t know that the elite few would use their choices to control everyone else. That is not free will.”

“What is Operation Free Will?” She doesn’t get the chance to hear the response. Something behind Leona catches his eye. She turns around to see what it is. An object is falling towards them rapidly from space. It’s this close to them when she realizes that it’s a missile. It’s heading for them; not the rocket, but the two of them, specifically. It’s very precise. At the last millisecond, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders, and spirit her away.

She’s in the hallway now of the flightworthy part of the rocket, looking into the control room. Ramses is at the radio. “Mangrove One, this is Mangrove Zero. All lives accounted for. I repeat, all of our people have been rescued.”

“Thank you, Mangrove Zero,” Aldona’s voice replies.

Leona turns around to find her husband. “Cut it a little close, don’t you think?”

“You were unwittingly distracting him,” Mateo replies.

“Who is he? Or was he, rather?”

He sighs. Aldona didn’t say much when we asked for help, but he is a bit of an inaccurate pronoun. It’s more of an it. There’s more than one parallel reality, which means there’s more than one Constant...”

Leona nods, finally getting it. “Which means there’s more than one version of Constance. Constance!Five was just the beginning.”

“We were so wrong. The AI doesn’t work for Danica. Danica works for the AI. This is who Tamerlane kept calling the boss.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 16, 2398

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Mateo is finally getting out of the hospital today. The detective asked him all sorts of questions about who stabbed him on the street, but Mateo was prepared for this. He came up with a lie about how he didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted. She seemed pleasant enough at first, but when he tried to explain that he didn’t speak German, she grew irritated and impatient. Her anger with him continued until she just took out a knife, and shoved it in his stomach. She must have been wearing gloves, which would explain why only his fingerprints are on the weapon. It was a ridiculous story, but nothing that the authorities could disprove. He obviously wasn’t at fault here. Bystanders they managed to reach out to didn’t say anything that might corroborate his statement, but they didn’t say anything damning either. After all, he’s the one who got injured here, they’re all on his side.

He did make one mistake, though. Most victims of violent attack are known to seek justice after what happened to them. Mateo failed to hound the detective with calls regarding the progress of his investigation, probably because actually finding the forger from Kansas City would make this worse for him. He wanted to get away from her, and get out of whatever mission she had planned for him. He doesn’t want her in jail. She clearly has friends in high places, and they would not take kindly to that development. The self-stabbing wasn’t great for them either, but hardly enough to trigger some kind of retaliation. Even so, it’s not like the detective can arrest him for being too patient.

As it turns out, Ramses screwed everything up. They weren’t able to communicate with each other too much, and only had the opportunity to exchange a few ASL signs. Mateo wanted Ramses to keep an eye on the forger using the tracking device he planted on her, in case she tried to come to the hospital. He didn’t mean for Ramses to go off and infiltrate her little gang of mercenaries, or whatever they are. When Ramses asked the question of stay?, Mateo thought he was offering to stay nearby. Ramses apparently meant to ask whether Mateo wanted to stay. Which, of course he did, he was stabbed! Due to this misunderstanding, Ramses has been missing for the last few days, though according to a recent interaction Leona had with a higher up at her company, he’s not really being held against his will. He’s just Mateo’s substitute, which defeats the whole purpose of the stabbing, but hopefully it will all work out in the end. Time will tell.

For now, Mateo just has to leave before someone else finds out that there’s something unusual about him. He healed from the wound incredibly quickly. It wasn’t superhero before-your-eyes rapid healing, but it was much faster than a normal person should take to recover. He’s only waited this long to skidaddle so that people don’t ask questions. He had an ally in this endeavor. The nurse who was responsible for him most of the time saw how quickly he healed, and protected him so that no one else would see that there was something different about him. Something different indeed, though still not quite up to standards, and perhaps they’ll soon have to do some self testing to expand on what they know so far. So Ramses’ bodies are still working for them, but in a limited capacity. He was so fortunate to have gotten her as a nurse, because someone else probably would have alerted the hierarchy. It’s also a good thing doctors are just as hands-off as anywhere. She wheels him out to the back of the building, where Marie is waiting with a less flashy rental car. But they don’t part ways before sharing contact info.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 15, 2398

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Leona is about to leave after a long day at work when the internal investigator from a couple weeks ago steps into her office. He exhales, lowers her head, and pinches the bridge of her nose, wishing that she had just made her way to the elevator when she had the chance.

“I’m not here to take up your time,” he claims. “In fact, I’m here because I want to give you a heads-up about something that will be happening in the future.”

“What is your authority here again?” Leona asks, not expecting a direct answer.

“Authority Zero.”

“That is a band where I come from.”

“Where I’m from, it’s the freedom to do whatever I want,” he replies.

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I have a team in Munich as we speak, who have been charged with acquiring a certain object under...shall we say, special circumstances.”

“They’re stealing it.”

“Well, yes...”

“They’re stealing it violently.”

“I can neither confirm, nor deny, the nature of the operation.”

She clears her throat, not wanting to give away the fact that three members of her team are presently in Munich, and they may or may not be involved in all that.”

“There are no more secrets between us,” the Authority Zero Internal Investigator lies. “We know your husband is there. We tapped him for this assignment, but he declined...also violently. We had to come up with an alternative.”

That’s why Ramses isn’t answering his phone. Mateo doesn’t know where he is, but he expressed his theories. “If they get hurt...”

“I take care of my team. I can’t guarantee their safety. We would have to put them in a padded room for that, and even then, nothing is perfect. The point is, Mister Abdulrashid—”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Why can no one in the world pronounce that man’s name?”

“It’s because people in this country are...less enthusiastic about Arabs—”

She interrupts again, “he’s not an Arab, he’s from Egypt.”

“The point is that people around here do not generally associate with people from that part of the world. Pronouncing their words is just not something we find necessary to learn.”

“Ramses hasn’t experienced any racism in this country,” Leona notes.

“There’s a political reason for that. It’s a lot to explain, but people most likely assume he was relocated from the slums as a child. There was a huge push for that a few decades ago. Tens of thousands of children—mostly infants—were rescued from their parents, brought to civilized regions, and assimilated into the culture. Your friend is the right age to have been part of that. It’s interesting he seems to have kept his name, though. That’s not common. Or did he adopt it later out of reallocated loyalty?”

“I knew there were religious issues, but I guess I didn’t realize how widespread the racism was.”

“It’s not racism,” he defends. “It had nothing to do with race. Now, I’m not saying what they did was right, per se, but those kids were living in utter squalor. Their lives are better now. They’re better here. Our culture—across all religions—teaches scientifically proven idealistic life values, which they were lacking in their home country. Again, I didn’t participate in that, but you can’t argue with the results.”

Leona blinks. Racism. What he just described is racism, and he can’t see it. It’s xenophobia too. Because of Marie and Heath, the team was mostly prepared to just live here forever, but every day comes with at least one more reason to get the hell out. “Oh, I certainly can. You give me enough information, I’ll argue until the cows come home.”

“What cows?”

“It’s obviously just an expression. Is that all?”

“Ah, right,” he says. “The object that Mister—uh...what your friend will be securing for us will need to be reverse engineered when it gets here. That’s what you’ll be doing, probably at the start of next week.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t need to know that just yet.”

“Does it pertain to my work, or will it just be a distraction?”

“We hope it will help, actually,” he decides.

He has her by the balls, as Mateo once said. He knows about the team, and he knows about their connection to timey-wimey stuff. Or at least, he knows that they have a connection to something weird. The forger is aware of all this too, and God knows who else. Their only option now is to play ball. It’s the only way to protect Marie. She just has to hope they don’t know about that aspect of their lives. “What’s your name, if not Shady Corporate Authority Zero Interrogator?”

“Honeycutt. Senator Melville Honeycutt.”

Crap, that can’t be good. “It’s nice to formally meet you.” Now she really is going to have to fake being polite to him.

“I assume Leona Matic isn’t your real name?”

She adds more belongings to her bag. “No, it is. We didn’t think there would be anyone we would need to hide from.”

“Why did you need forged papers, then?”

“We required identities, not names.”

“I see.”

“What’s her name, the forger?” she presses, even though she really just wants to leave. “The one who is endangering my friends overseas?”

“Winona. Winona Honeycutt. I call her Winnie.”

Double crap. What is the wife or daughter of a senator doing as a forger in the seedy part of Kansas City? And what is a senator doing interrogating a suspect in what’s meant to be a semi-academic, semi-private laboratory? And how did they find out anything about them in the first place? “If you’re related, then you must know that I’m now pretending to work for SD6, and also that I’m apparently in charge of investigating her forging den?”

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “We set it up so that you would become the de facto lead investigator. They won’t find anything at the alleged crime scene, and you won’t implicate my daughter at any rate, will you?”

“No, sir. She’s safe. I just don’t know what to tell the agent and detective. I reached out once to tell them that my lead evaporated, and they have been calling me ever since.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of somethin’. Try to keep them out of it. They’re not part of the inner circle; you are.”

“Very well, sir.” She’s becoming more respectful by the minute. But of course, she still doesn’t trust them, so when she finally makes it home that night, after updating the group chat, she asks Angela to begin running some countermeasures.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 14, 2398

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Upon learning that this reality does not have the same sign language inventory as the main sequence, Marie thought it might be a good idea to teach it to Heath in case they ever needed to communicate with each other on the down low. It was a perfect idea, because under normal circumstances, such a language might not be viable. You either come up with a new language on your own, or somehow find one so dead, no one but you and your people know it. Drawing from a history completely removed from the current timeline is a pretty good workaround. The more the team learns about this world, the stranger it becomes. It makes no sense that the majority of the North Atlantic Isles don’t exist, yet English does. Yet American Sign Language doesn’t. Yet something called North American Sign Language does. Someone has to be making these decisions; mixing and matching parts of reality that they like, and leaving out the ones that they don’t. That begs the question, what the hell do these people have against the United Kingdom? And also, how does everyone in the U.S. explain the fact that the language they use is called English? Where does that word come from?

Anyway, Marie taught the rest of the team a few basic signs once they were sure that their superhuman group empathy was no longer a thing. They all now know the alphabet, even Mateo, and a few other words, like yes, no, and pasteurized milk. That last one is even better, because Louis Pasteur was never born, so these people just call it thermal sterilization. They also don’t have the Global Positioning System, instead opting to call it SatNav, which is ironically, the British term for it! So even if this detective figures out that Mateo is using some form of sign language to communicate with Ramses in the hospital hallway, and even if he somehow recognizes the letters to be G-P-S, he will have no appreciation for their combined meaning, nor be able to follow it as a lead.

Ramses flicks his finger in the air to let Mateo know that he understands, but he does it just as the detective is turning around, because he actually does notice something strange about Mateo’s finger movements, and his gaze. Ramses covers by itching his temple, and looking away coolly. Once he’s confident that the exchange has remained sufficiently secret, he takes out his phone, and logs onto the tracking system. Yes, one tracker is unaccounted for. It’s one of the microdots, and it’s presently on the move, which suggests that it has not fallen off onto the sidewalk. That is the problem with them being so tiny. To be hard to find, they have to be easy to lose.

Ramses makes two fists, but keeps his thumbs and pinkies out. He holds them in front of his stomach, and drops them down. Then he holds his palms upwards to make it a question. Stay?

Mateo makes a gesture, almost like he’s knocking on a door to reply with yes.

The detective sees this motion too, but by the time he turns around once more, Ramses is already walking away to track the location of the microdot. He doesn’t know who has it, or why, so he’s going to have to make a few educated guesses—and he’s going to have to do it all alone, so he doesn’t place Marie in danger—but he’s sure that it will all work out in the end.

By the time he catches up with the dot, it has pretty much stopped for the last ten minutes, suggesting that the target has made it to a destination, and is now moving about minimally. He looks around. This particular building appears abandoned, though none of the ones surrounding it are. It’s a relatively busy part of town. He feels all right just opening the door, and walking inside to do a little recon. He sneaks around slowly and quietly. Just because the dot is still a ways away, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else closer. This place could have been packed with ne’er do wells, for all he knew. As he draws near, he starts to hear voices talking to each other. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but he can tell that at least one of them is upset. The rest are staying calm, so they’re not arguing against each other, per se. He will have to get closer to hear the conversation. Fortunately, he can make out a few words, so it’s not in German. Mission, contingency, and night shift stick out to him. Unfortunately, that’s all he gets.

He feels a blunt object pressing against the back of his head. He built these new bodies with a sort of spidey-sense, so it’s really annoying how this reality didn’t let him keep it. “Go forward,” the voice behind him demands in a transatlantic accent.

“Move ahead,” Ramses responds, still not complying. “Try to detect it, it’s not too late.”

“Huh?” she questions.

He can feel the gun drift from his head slightly, indicating that she’s loosened a little tension in her hand. He spins around, and pins her wrist to the wall. She tries to punch him in the face, but he blocks it, and kicks her in the chest. As she’s falling to her back, her arm slides out from under his hand, and he manages to snag the gun from her. He doesn’t point it at her on the floor, though, because he knows the ruckus has alerted the others. Instead, he backs up to get himself into a defensible position. The group runs in with their own weapons drawn, preparing to fire, but waiting for the go-ahead from someone.

The forger from Kansas City comes in from behind, not holding a gun. “Mister Abdulrashid.”

“It’s Abdulrashid,” he corrects.

“What did I say?”

“Something stupid.”

She sighs. “Lower your weapons,” she orders her team, all of whom comply immediately, without question. “It looks like we have the substitute we’ve been looking for. Thank you for coming, Mister...”

“Abdulrashid,” one of the men pronounces for her in a perfect accent. It’s nice to hear, even coming from a presumed enemy.

The forger smiles. “This operation is back on,” she announces to her people. She redirects her attention to Ramses. “You’re lucky we don’t need an NMA agent for this one, or we would have had to take Mateo out of the hospital while he was still trying to recover. This one does require skill, though. How are you with a sniper?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 3, 2241

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It took some doing, but Sanaa did manage to warm up, and open up, a little to Leona. Leona did the same to her as well. They had more in common than they realized. Their hostilities towards each other, especially on Sanaa’s part, didn’t make a whole lot of sense to begin with. As it turned out, she struggled with meeting people who genuinely wanted to be her friend, and didn’t just want to use her powers. Lots of choosers were called upon to do jobs for others, but that was different, at least in her mind. For someone else, it was more of a skill that others valued. For Sanaa, she was really just the middlewoman, who people only spoke to so they could connect with those they actually liked. It was unclear whether people were turned off by her because of her attitude, or if she developed a bad attitude because she felt underappreciated. Regardless, she wasn’t an unpleasant person on the other side of her protective emotional walls, and Leona was getting to know that.

She spent the rest of 2240 in the waters. The great thing about the technology was that the most skeptical and reluctant individual will still adapt surprisingly quickly. And they required no body modification in order to thrive in it. Some random guy from the nineteenth century would be able to dive into one of these tanks, and spend an indefinite amount of time there with no problem breathing. It was quite peaceful in the water, except when she was being bombarded with questions. The colonists somehow got wind that she was partially responsible for the construction of their habitats just before they arrived. Of course Eight Point Seven did most of the work, while she wasn’t in the timestream, but they still considered her to be a worthy celebrity. Unfortunately, they wanted to communicate with her using the sign language they developed, which was designed to be used inside heavier water resistance, and slight visual impairment. That was really the only thing that would hinder the hypothetical nineteenth century man from thriving. His eyes would never truly adjust to the way light bent in the underwater.

Leona was a highly intelligent person, with knowledge from three separate timelines, but even she wasn’t capable of learning the sign language within a day. Despite her seeming misanthropy, Sanaa had picked it up already, and was able to interpret for her when the colonists wanted to talk. This solidified their bond, because now Sanaa didn’t feel so alone and overlooked. They were having so much fun getting to know each other that Leona didn’t realize midnight central was approaching. Even if she had, she probably wouldn’t have thought to break the surface for her time jump. There was no reason to believe anything strange would happen to the environment as a result of her sudden disappearance, or her sudden reappearance a year later. When she tried to exit the tank at that point, the waters followed her out. Her gravity regulator was malfunctioning, which acted to envelop her in her own little aquatic atmosphere that she couldn’t shake. It was kind of cool, but a little annoying.

“Can you modify my gravity field remotely?” Leona asked.

Hokusai was fiddling with her tablet, trying to solve the problem. “It’s having trouble connecting. Like, it will connect, but it won’t let me do anything.”

“And you’re sure you can’t open up the panel on my leg?”

“The water has already damaged your systems enough. It’ll make it even worse if we open the floodgates. That could render your legs completely inoperable, and because of your pattern, it could be virtually impossible to build new ones for you. You weren’t on your pattern when you got these ones here, right?”

“Yeah,” Leona answered sadly.

“Your body needs time to adjust, and time is something  you have far less of than most people.”

Leona tried to use her hand to scrape the water from her face again, and from her legs, even knowing it wouldn’t work. Despite the fact that the planet itself should have been exerting a greater amount of attraction than her artificial gravity legs, it was like trying to scoop the water from a bucket with strainer. “What if I got back in the tank, and then got out some other way? What if I got dressed, or I dunno, started to dance?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna find a home remedy for this. Just give me a minute. If I can only connect for one second, that will be enough to deactivate your regulator.”

Loa came in and walked up. “How do you feel. Can you breathe?”

“Well, I’m not technically breathing, since that’s what my lungs are for, but yes, I feel fine. I just don’t want to feel like this forever.” She redirected her attention back to Hokusai. “Heat?”

“No.”

“Cold. Maybe we could freeze it, and chip it off?”

“That would kill you. Just let me figure this out.”

“It’s not going to connect,” Leona tried to tell her. “It’s broken. You’re going to have to open up the panel, and switch it off manually.”

“No, I told you I can’t do that.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Leona decided. She knelt down to access the panel.

“Stop right there, young lady!”

She complied, secretly relieved that Hokusai stopped her. “If I wait until my next time jump, will that fix it?”

“It’s possible, though not likely. If I’m to understand your history correctly, you and Mateo once made a time jump while you were in a tent?”

“Yeah, it was weird. If we’re standing in a room, we don’t take it with us through time, but I guess the powers that be interpret tents like they do clothing.”

“How would they interpret a magical water blanket?”

“Good point.”

“How about you try sending an electrical pulse through the water; disrupt its tension?”

“Where did you get your degree?”

“In two thousand and twenty-four,” Leona replied.

“Now, that’s a good point.”

While it was true that Leona’s education and experience as a physicist and a science fiction buff combined allowed her to understand future technology to a higher degree than most, it only took her so far. She tried to keep up on modern advancements, but there were only so many hours in the day, and she just didn’t know how everything worked. She either understood the creative concepts based on her breadth of film knowledge, or the mechanics from her master’s degree, but if Hokusai tried to ask her for help with the new reframe engine, she would be all but useless.

“Where did Sanaa swim off to?” Loa asked. Perhaps she was merely trying to get Leona’s mind off her predicament.

“I dunno,” Leona answered. “Probably living her best life.”

“I’m right here,” Sanaa called up from the other side of Hokusai’s lab.

“What are you doing out of the water?” Loa asked her with deep concern. She ran over to help her carry this giant machine. It had wheels, but it sounded like they needed some lubricant. Tubing was dragging behind it.

“I’m fine,” Sanaa answered, though she was grateful for the help. “The gravity in this room is at one-point-four-g, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hokusai confirmed. “I need it higher than Earth gravity for some of my experiments, “but you had to walk clear across the dome, and it’s much higher out there.”

“Hashtag worth it,” Sanaa said. Once she was right in front of Leona, she lifted one of the tubes, and pointed it directly at her. Then she switched on the machine, and everybody watched as it sucked all the water from Leona’s skin.

“A wet-vac?” Hokusai asked after the deed was done.

“Yes,” Sanaa said. “I have demonstrated their weakness may be found from a less sophisticated approach. You are no longer capable of such thinking.” This was a near direct quote from an episode of the ancient series, Stargate SG-1. She was a good person.

“Thank you so much,” Leona said. “You’re right, we did not think of that.”

Hokusai sat Leona down in the nearest chair, and examined her leg. “Remaining droplets are continuing to stick to your skin. This is fascinating. You’re like a little planet, with your own gravity.”

“Are you calling me fat?” Leona joked.

“She’s not a planet,” Sanaa said. “She’s a star.”

Leona smiled. They were friends now. Who knew?

“I have a mini-tank over there.” Hokusai jerked her head in its general direction, but kept her eyes on Leona’s leg as she opened the access panel. “Get yourself right, and we’ll talk. I took a break from my reframe engine to build you something. It’s not a perfect solution, and you may hate it, but it’s an option for anytime you want to get out of the water.”

“What is it?” Sanaa asked, though her own weight was already getting to her. It was a miracle she managed to walk across the dome on land, lugging that huge thing behind her. Even though gravity here was a significant improvement, her time in the tank had lessened her ability to withstand even this high of gravity. It wasn’t the weight so much as it was the distribution.

“You’ll see,” Hokusai said, still working. “Loa can you help her?”

Shortly after Loa helped Sanaa into her tank to rest, Hokusai was finished repairing Leona’s gravity regulator. “Okay. You’ll be able to get back into the water, if you need to, or want to. Prolonged exposure, however, is not ideal. Obviously these are meant to be waterproof, but it’s not worth the possibility of a recurrence. We seem to have learned a little bit about your time jumps, which may make you feel worse about them.”

“I’m the kind of person who wants to know, even if it’s terrible.”

“I would need to study it more, but based on yours and Eight Point Seven’s accounts of earlier attempts, I doubt it would be safe to do so. It would appear that time doesn’t so much as open up for you as it opens you. My hypothesis is that microfissures form all over your body at midnight, allowing temporal energy itself to flood your system. In this case, it’s how the water seeped in as well. How these heal afterwards, I can’t say, but seeing as you’ve never heard any of this before, they don’t seem to be hurting you. Now, if you felt pain every time it happened—”

“I don’t technically feel pain, but Mateo and I both get real tired. We’ve gotten used to it, and the more sleep we’ve had, the better, but I still feel it every time.”

Hokusai tilted her head in thought. “Hmm. When your skin cracks open, perhaps you suffer a temporary oxygen loss, which drastically diminishes your energy. This could bad, incidental, or quite necessary. We’ve always framed your pattern as jumping forwards in time, but maybe time jumps aren’t possible, or aren’t possible for you. You could be placed in suspended animation in another dimension that doesn’t support diatomic oxygen. These are all just guesses, of course. I have no real idea what happens to you or Mateo when you disappear. I don’t even know if you and Mateo experience the same thing, or if your body relies on a workaround, since you weren’t born this way; you were made. Hogarth Pudeyonavic would understand it better. I’m more of a space girl.”

“Oh, you know Hogarth? Did I know that you knew her?”

“I don’t know.”

Loa walked back up. “She’s sleeping. Let’s wait to give it to her until tomorrow.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Hokusai agreed. “I wouldn’t hate taking one last look at the power source.”

“No, I’m up!” Sanaa exclaimed through her mouthpiece.

“Why do you keep hearing us from so far away!” Hokusai shouted.

“Hello!” Sanaa shouted back. “Psychic?”

Hokusai went over to a half-door next to Sanaa’s tank, and pulled out something that looked like a fancy wheelchair. “I don’t know if you would prefer swimming to lying down, but if you ever wanna be dry, this will help. It’s a gravity regulator, but like I said, it’s not perfect. You have to be at a pretty steep incline to distribute your weight effectively, but one thing it has going for it is that it doesn’t require a medical procedure, so it shouldn’t interfere with your powers.”

Sanaa pressed both palms, and her face against the glass—I mean, polycarbonate window. “I love it.”

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