The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 13, 2399

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The first thing that Leona did after Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa departed for their mission was to look into the requirements for becoming a certified facilitatrix. She found a training program with good reviews, gathered all of the necessary literature, and spoke with a few professionals about starting the process. Leona is a very intelligent, experienced individual, who will have no problem completing the coursework, but in the midst of all this, she realized that even the limited training may be a waste of time. Can a Berarian mother name her child after a facilitatrix? This kind of information is not freely available online, so she has finally set up an appointment with a faith consultant.

Nearly every religion in this reality has them. They are usually members of the religion themselves, but not always. They do not serve as leaders within their respectives faiths, because it is only their responsibility to guide prospective converts. It’s part of the law that anyone wishing to convert should have all the facts they need to make an informed decision. A special subset of these faith experts specialize in children who have just reached the age of choice, and it is one of these that was the only one available at such short notice. They’ve met at a park, next to a lone bench. “Hello, I’m Rostam Gibson. You are Leona Delaney.”

“Umm...yes, I am.” She didn’t give a name when she called to set an appointment.

“Don’t worry, I heard about the bounty, but I have no interest in it. It’s not high lawful. And to let you know, everything we talk about here is completely confidential.”

“I appreciate that. What is high lawful?”

“High law refers to the moral and ethical standards to which we must all adhere, whether any given state, organization, or individual ascribes to them. Berarians believe that there is a right, and a wrong. We don’t think we know what that moral code is, or that anyone knows, but we’re certain that a just lifestyle exists, and is possible to attain in the future. That is what we are working towards.”

“I see.”

“You’re not a hopeful convert,” he deduces, “yet you came here for answers. Berar is one of the least complex faiths. We don’t ask weird things of our believers, like praying to a ghost once a week. A lot of what I do is helping people write school papers about us, but something tells me that you’re here for a different reason.”

“When you say this is confidential, does that extend to anything I tell you about someone else?”

“It doesn’t matter what, or who, you talk about, I can’t repeat it. It wouldn’t be high lawful.”

She smiles. “I have a friend. She’s pregnant.”

“I see where this is going. She doesn’t like her doctor’s name.”

“You’ve seen this before.”

He nods. “Yes. Some are...more devout than others. I told you that we don’t ask weird things of our believers, but the naming thing is kind of the one exception. I’m the only Rostam Gibson in the world, and it’s only because I’m Berarian, and my deliverer was from Iran. People ask me whether there is some kind of database, where they can search for a doctor with the name that they’re looking for. However, this goes against the spirit of the practice. You’re not supposed to choose the name. Fate is.”

“What does that have to do with high law?” Leona questions.

“It doesn’t, really. Our founder’s mother was on a sinking ship when she went into labor. She ended up on a lifeboat that was literally broken in half, and barely able to stay on the surface, with one man, and two coats. The water was freezing, and so was the air. He gave his own coat up to protect the baby that he had just delivered into this world. He died, and she named her son after him. This honor was just something that was important to our founder, so when he came up with his new religion, he chose to deliberately put it into the rules. It’s not entirely random and pointless, though. No, there is nothing immoral about not naming your child after its deliverer. What it does is serve as a small reminder that...some laws are immutable; the high laws. And some of them we just decide we’re going to follow, and that’s what makes a healthy society. Because the fact is, no law—high, or otherwise—matters if we don’t agree.”

“That’s...fascinating.”

“That’s why so many students write papers on us,” he begins. “They’re looking for answers, and not to speak ill of other faiths, but...our answers are better, because they make sense.”

“I bet they do. Even the baby naming one has a logic to it.”

He smiles mildly, and nods.

Leona takes a little bit of time to go back over the lie she made up to explain why Arcadia would feel compelled to name her baby Delaney. “We’re triplets; Arcadia, Nerakali, and me. We were separated at birth, and didn’t find each other until less than a year ago. I was raised by our birth parents, but Nerakali was raised by a now estranged uncle, and Arcadia by a family friend. That’s why she has a different last name. Our third sister died recently, and Arcadia wanted to honor her by naming her child Nerakali. Unfortunately, it’s a unique name, so when Arcadia learned that she had to give this honor to her baby’s deliverer—”

“Wait, when she found out?” Rostman echoes, confused. “Why would she not already know that?”

“I can’t explain why Berar is her religion of record, though not technically her religion.”

He’s suspicious, but it looks like he’s going to respect the confidentiality claim.

“When she found out this part, we made a plan to technically name the baby after my unmarried name, which is the same as Nerakali’s, but really be named after Nerakali herself. I was going to learn to become a facilitatrix, but...”

Now he’s smiling sadly.

“But that’s not going to work, is it? It doesn’t matter if I’m the one who facilitates the birth, it will always be a bad faith move.”

“Yes,” he says compassionately.

This sucks. Arcadia is going to be heartbroken, but she’ll be able to get through it. Trina McIver told them, Leona Delaney is alive. Or she was, anyway. Naming their child after her would have been a very nice gesture, but it’s not meant to be, and that’s okay. “Welp, just to be clear, if a masculine name has a feminine form, it’s okay to choose that one instead, right?”

“That’s all right, it doesn’t have to be exact,” he confirms. “If someone were to ask, she would just have to be able to explain that it’s a close linguistic variant.”

“I appreciate your guidance,” Leona says, standing up, “and your discretion.”

“Call me anytime.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 6, 2398

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Ramses tries to deliver The Bridgette back to the park in New York, but it seems that Winona has managed to lock him out of all systems. That’s impressive. These Third Railers are more resourceful than he thought. He’ll have to remember that moving forward. He doesn’t like being surprised, or the one beholden to someone else. He’s always meant to be in control, and once he clears the override feature that Winona installed on this craft, he’ll get back to that. For now, he has to do what she says. They need their starship back, and this is the way they’re getting it. It’s not the first time their plans didn’t go as planned. They always figure out a workaround to the obstacles.

Winona sets her tablet on the console, and lets it sync with the Bridgette. “Constance, please navigate us to these coordinates in realspace.”

“Prepare for liftoff,” the AI replies.

“I’m sorry I had to do that,” Winona says to Ramses. “I like Leona; I consider her one of my own. But I had to make a call. We will get her up into space, I promise you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Ramses says, “but I can. I can also promise you that getting on my team’s bad side never works out for people. You live in your own little reality, but we always win. You apologized with words, now do it through action.”

Winona nods. The computer beeps. She looks down at the console. “We’re here.” She activates the radio. “Amberjack, this is Pelican. Come in, Amberjack.”

“Amberjack Actual here, go ahead.”

“Permission to land and come aboard. Three visitors total, limited equipment.”

“Permission granted.”

“Constance, please land. Once we’re aboard the Amberjack, dive to a depth of thirty meters, and travel three hundred kilometers to the Northeast, avoiding detection along the way. Once there, resurface, launch, and return to base.”

“Understood,” Constance replies.

She regards Ramses’ expression. “The Bridgette will be fully yours after today.”

“Clearly.”

They land the Bridgette, and board the sub. They’re surprised to see what must be a full crew waiting for them. It’s hard to walk through, there are so many people. They were to understand that there would only be a few left around, while the rest rested and relaxed in Bermuda. Winona and Executor Ongaro go into his office to have a chat about it. When they come out ten minutes later, Winona explains to Ramses and Alyssa that rumor spread about what kind of mission they were going on, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. She questioned why he didn’t just order them to go on shore leave, being the Executor and all. He claimed that his own curiosity made him feel like he couldn’t rob others of the opportunity. Bad leadership, if you ask Ramses, but nothing can be done about it now. They have already begun the dive.

By the time they reach the bottom, Ramses has started to receive a signal from the AOC. So not only is it close, but it’s on and operational. That’s good, it strongly suggests that life support is still active. Even if it’s not, it shouldn’t be too hard to re-engage it. Once they’re close enough, the sub’s lights shine upon the vessel. It’s sitting neatly on the ocean floor, right between two little rocky cliffs. Either it was damn lucky to have fallen right in the perfect spot, or the AI is still on, and navigated it well enough to protect hull integrity.

“Wow. This is yours?” one of the crewmen asks.

“Yes,” Ramses replies, not super happy about having all these eyes on his ship.

“It can fly to the stars?” another asks.

Ramses looks over to Winona. “You have some leaks to plug up.” He’s not referring to the sub, or the ship.

“A lot of people had to be read in for this, Winona defends.

“How do we dock with it?” Executor Ongaro asks them.

“We don’t.” And now for the hard part. There are more people here than Ramses was led to believe. Keeping the secret amongst a smaller group would have been easier, but they probably know enough already anyway. He’s just gonna teleport in, now that he has a target. “You have a torpedo room, right?”

Executor Ongaro laughs. “Yeah, but you’re not going to be able to fire one from there, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s just where they’re loaded.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I just need privacy. Can you give me that, or are we gonna have a problem?”

Ongaro sizes him up, but decides to agree. “That will be fine.” He doesn’t think there’s anything he can do in that room that they won’t be able to find out about.

The torpedo room offers them a plausible way off of the sub, and onto the AOC. It’s ridiculously impossible at this depth, but they will probably assume that Ramses used some kind of crazy supersoldier serum that allowed him to traverse the distance safely. What he won’t guess is that he can inject himself with a magical formula that will allow him to teleport over there without getting a single drop of water on him. Ongaro leads him down to the other side of the vessel, and shows him into the room, ordering the crew manning their stations to leave. He makes a mistake, though, when he accidentally looks up to the security camera in the corner. That’s fine, disabling basic surveillance is incredibly easy for Ramses with his trusty mission kit.

Winona closes the door behind them. “They’ll still be watching.”

“They’ll try.” Ramses presses the button on his signal scrambler, and shuts off the cameras and microphones. Then he places a magnetic lock on the door, in case going blind pisses them off enough to try to get back in here.

“You’re not going to try to stop me from coming with you?” Winona asks.

“I can’t leave you here with these warmongers,” Ramses tells her. “I’m mad at you right now, but we’ll get through this. That’s what it means to be on our team. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes.”

Ramses injects himself with the Existence Water. “Then hold onto me tightly.”

Both Alyssa and Winona take him in a bear hug, and let him transport them into the AOC. He was right, life support is fine. A cursory glance at the diagnostics screen shows that everything is fine. The hull did suffer a few scrapes on the way down, but it repaired itself without any prompting. Ramses takes out the data drive where he keeps the base code for the AI that he got from The Constant. He plugs it into a dataport, and uploads it as an upgrade. “Constance, can you hear me?”

“Five by five,” Constance replies.

“Run full diagnostics on yourself, please.”

Once the perfect diagnostic finishes, Ramses says, “okay, then. Please teleport to the last New York coordinates where the Bridgette was.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 5, 2398

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Ramses left New York, and came back to Kansas City. The best way to help Leona is to get himself down to the bottom of the ocean, where he can recover the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mateo had the idea to just go to the surface of the Bermuda Triangle, and utilize the temporal energy there to teleport down, but that’s too risky. They don’t know exactly where it is, and they don’t know if the interior is habitable. It may have all been crushed under the pressure of the ocean, for all they know. The best and safest way to do it would be to take a submarine down there, and enter manually. He is procuring temporal energy injections to be used in an emergency, but hopefully it won’t come to that. The only problem is that they do not have access to a submarine capable of reaching such depths.

“Okay, I’ve secured you a submarine capable of reaching those depths,” Winona says as she’s entering the team’s new laboratory, not looking up from her tablet.

“Really?” Alyssa asks. She stayed in the area, and has been handling the transition for Ramses. No one asked her to do that, but she didn’t want them to have to worry about that. He’s on the roof right now, upgrading the satellite dish, so they can communicate with the AOC once it’s up there.

“Oh,” I thought you were him. “Where is he?”

“Roof satellite,” Alyssa answers.

“Ah.” Winona nods awkwardly. “I’m Winona Honeycutt.”

“I know that. We’ve met. Many times.”

“Right, but we were never really introduced; not formally.”

Alyssa smirks in a confused-but-whatever sort of way. “Alyssa McIver.”

Winona nods awkwardly again.

“Do you want me to go get him, errr...?”

“Yeah, if you could, I think that would be okay.”

Alyssa could just ping his handheld, but Winona is clearly uncomfortable being alone with her. She must have her reasons, which may be as simple as the fact that she mainly deals with the core team, instead of ancillary members like her. So she leaves.

She comes back quickly with Ramses. “I hear you got a sub for me?”

“My superiors are very interested in the prospect of activating a ship designed to travel the stars. The Marine Corps has a deep sea sub capable of reaching the bottom of the ocean. It’s obviously usually busy with other things, but as luck would have it, the majority of the crew is being given shore leave in Bermuda. The skeleton crew remaining has agreed to take a detour to the coordinates that you provided, but we gotta go now if we want to rendezvous with them. They won’t wait for us forever.”

“Us” Ramses questions.

“I’m the liaison. I’m going.”

Ramses looks in the general direction of New York, where most of the rest of the team is. They don’t all have to join them on this mission, but one of them certainly does. “We have to pick up Leona first.”

Winona checks her watch. “We don’t have time for that.”

“The whole point of getting the AOC back is to heal her.”

“It is only one reason,” Winona contends.

“It’s the only one that matters. I don’t know what you’ve sold your superiors on, but your scientists aren’t getting their hands on my ship, and neither is your military.”

Winona sighs, and looks at her watch again. It’s been fifteen seconds. “Some of your magic water is in the Bermuda Triangle, right?” She goes on without waiting for a response, “let’s take your new vehicle there, fill up on whatever you need, quickly jump up to New York, and finally jump back. You did say that the engine you built for it can store enough power for two or more jumps?”

“Yes,” Ramses confirms. “The concentrator filters regular water, so that only—”

“Great, let’s go,” Winona says, urging them on with a wave of her hand.

“I want to go too,” Alyssa announces.

“Fine, whatever.” Winona waves more. “Let’s all go. But we gotta do it now.”

Ramses and Alyssa grab their go-bags, and head for the garage. “Constance,” Ramses speaks into his watch, “run a pre-flight check on The Bridgette.”

“Acknowledged,” the AI replies.

“Working title,” Ramses explains when Alyssa gives him a look.

“I mean the name of your AI,” Alyssa clarifies her expression.

“I got it from the Constant,” he says with a shrug.

“By the time they board the craft, the pre-flight check is complete.”

“Constance,” Ramses speaks into aether this time. “Please fly us to Site W-5.”

“Proceeding to the center of the Bermuda Triangle,” Constance responds.

During the flight, Ramses contacts Mateo to ask him to pick a secluded area upstate where the Bridgette can teleport to. He should transport Leona there, so they can get her all the way to the Triangle, down to the bottom of the ocean, and up into orbit. It’s nearly midnight central when Ramses, Aylssa, and Winona reach the very center of the Triangle. He lands the vehicle in ship mode, and collects enough water to fill his special engine’s storage tanks. Once it’s ready to go, he teleports the whole thing to Harriman State Park. It’s off-season, so there shouldn’t be anyone in the area to witness their arrival and departure. To be honest, he was afraid that it wouldn’t work at all, but they make it to the clearing, and land on the ground to wait for their friends.

Mateo and Leona are nowhere to be found, so Ramses tries to call them, but they don’t answer. Winona keeps urging them to get back to the Triangle. The sub is on a very tight schedule, and there is only a short window to make this detour dive happen. If they miss this window, the sub will move on to its next mission, and she can’t guarantee when they’ll ever have such an opportunity again.

“They’ll be here,” Ramses promises for the upteenth time.

“We can find a way to get her into it later, but right now, we just need to recover it,” Winona insists.

“It doesn’t work like that. Leona is in a fragile state. I can’t just teleport her up there naked. She needs to be in the vessel when it launches.”

“I’m sorry, we can’t wait any longer.”

“Well, there’s not really anything you can do about it, so...” Ramses claims.

“Yes, there is.” Winona pulls a key from inside her shirt as she’s stepping down into the bridge. She removes a hidden panel compartment under the controls, which reveals the keyhole. She sticks her key in, and turns the light from red to green.

“What the hell is that?” Ramses questions.

“My failsafe,” Winona answers. “Constance, jump to W-5.” They jump.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 14, 2398

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Marie is back in Kansas City. Arcadia, of all people, is driving her and Vearden from Chicago in a rental, since The Olimpia has finally been destroyed, and a copy of the AOC sank in the ocean. The hospital was stunned by her sudden and miraculous recovery. They couldn’t explain it, but they wanted to. They held her for the better part of three more days, under the guise of needing to keep her under observation. Instead, they were running as many tests as possible, worried that the word would get out to the public. It was Winona who finally freed her using her political wiles.

They’re pulling into the basement garage now to avoid being seen by the new employees on the first floor, who don’t know a single thing about any of this. They’ve been informed that Angela is dead. It seemed easier to put it that way, rather than making up some excuse for why she bolted without so much as a goodbye. Ramses has been on the premises the entire time, and Alyssa has made herself moderately available for questions. Syntyche and Derina haven’t asked for much, and honestly, it’s hard for the team to care all that much about it, given everything that they’re dealing with. Even Angela wouldn’t have wanted to sacrifice her friends’ safety for the sake of the company. Perhaps the chapter is prematurely over. It may be best for them to distance themselves from it, and from society in general.

“I want my ship back.”

“Are you talking about the Olimpia, or the AOC?”

“The AOC,” Marie clarifies. “I know it sank, but did it survive?”

Ramses sighs. “I’ve been thinking about that, if it had tipped over in the water, it probably would have floated. The only reason it sank is because of the reframe engine, which I did not include in my initial designs. It sort of sucked the rest of the vessel under, so I don’t think there was a leak. It should be able to withstand at least fifteen hundred bars, and at an estimated depth of 10,000 meters...” He trails off when Marie, Arcadia, and Vearden look at him funny. “Yes, it probably survived, but getting down there would be a challenge. You could even call it...a deep challenge?”

They don’t get the joke. “I would ask you kindly to do some research on the matter,” Marie requests. I know that the Olimpia could not dive that deep, but maybe there’s a submarine out there somewhere that can, and if the government has any access to it, I will probably ask them, even if it’s the last favor they ever owe me.”

“Hold on,” Vearden begins, “your spaceship is at the bottom of the ocean. Can you just swim up through the water, and then fly into the sky?”

“I won’t know until I get down there,” Ramses replies. “Under ideal conditions, yeah, it could do it. I didn’t design it for a subaqueous launch, but in a pinch, I believe that it could get airborne. I just need to get inside first.”

“Is that where you wanna live?” Vearden asks Marie. “Not here, or the condo?”

“That’s where Heath died,” Marie says. “I don’t ever wanna see that place again.”

“That’s okay,” Ramses tells her.

“I don’t want to live here either. Every corner reminds me of him.”

“We could find somewhere else,” Arcadia suggests. “Living inside of a small spacecraft is going to be conspicuous no matter where we put it.”

“I don’t just wanna live in the ship,” Marie contends. “I wanna live in space.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 10, 2398

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Ramses injected the AI he took from the abandoned Constant into the Olimpia, and programmed it to fly itself to the Kerguelen Islands so that it could pick Mateo up, and bring him home. He didn’t have time to do anything else, and now he’s glad that he did that. Marie was poisoned last night, and there so far appears to be no cure. The doctors don’t know what exactly is wrong with her, but the disease is incredibly aggressive, and her body is already starting to shut down. She might not last more than a day or two unless something drastic is done. He has one idea, but he can’t do it on his own. He needs their vehicle back, and fortunately, it’s forgoing aerial and noise regulations, and landing right now.

Mateo jumps out of the door before the wheels make contact with the ground. “Do we have enough Existence water to make it to the triangle?”

“It’s hard to calculate,” Ramses says as he’s wheeling the tank towards him. “It will get us closer, and that’s the best we can do. Then we’ll have more than enough to conjure the copy of the AOC.”

Mateo reaches out to help carry it up and down into the engineering section.

“No! Don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything.”

Mateo frowns, but nods. “I’m coming anyway. You may need me.”

“I know.”

As Ramses is loading the temporal energy-infused water into the special engine, Mateo sees Angela running towards them from the basement garage. “Where is he?”

“He’s inside,” Mateo answers.

“He didn’t tell me that you were on your way. He was going to leave with me.”

“I’m sure he was just distracted,” Mateo says to her, unsure if it’s really true.

“I’m coming!” she cries down to Ramses.

“I was trying to protect you!” he yells back.

“I’m trying to protect my sister!” she snaps.

“Okay,” Mateo tries to mediate. “We’re all here. Let’s take off and go.”

“No time for take off,” Ramses says as he’s drying off his hands on a rag.

“That’s dangerous,” Mateo reminds him. “It could damage the pavement, and the transporter.”

“No time!” Ramses contends. “If you hadn’t gotten lost, we wouldn’t be in this mess! Olimpia, teleport to the center of the Bermuda Triangle!”

“Preparing to teleport.”

“Hold onto something,” Angela warns.

A lot of good that does them. Half of the Olimpia survives the jump with them, and not the half that you think. It’s split down the middle hotdog-wise. All three passengers managed to be on the right side, but they’re in trouble. They fall out of the sky, kind of like how they did over the Arctic circle. Luckily, they’re not more than ten meters high. The seat cushions are floating devices, like one might find in a regular airplane. They each find one to cling onto, and try to catch their breaths.

“Please tell me that you at least still have the remote,” Angela asked.

“These pockets have zippers,” Ramses says. He takes it out. “Don’t worry, it’s waterproof too.”

Angela takes out her phone. “Do you see where we are? It looks pretty close to the center to me.” The closer they are to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, the stronger the temporal energy is.

“These aren’t the coordinates that I was hoping for, but it’s not like we can fly or boat our way the rest of the way. I’ll just have to try it here.” He gets himself better situated on his cushion, then brushes the droplets off of his face, and spits out the salt. Then he dips the remote into the water.

“Wait, that’s all you have to do,” Angela questions, “dip it in?”

“It’s designed to absorb temporal energy, in any form. If this doesn’t work then we are not getting the AOC back, and we’re not going to be able to put Marie in a stasis pod, and she’s going to die. So do you want to ask more questions, or do you want to try to save her?”

“Go ahead.”

Ramses presses the button.

The magnificent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears out of nowhere, right on top of the surface of the water. It’s really nice to have it back, if only a copy. Then again, it’s not the first copy they’ve used. Time, right? Their relief is short-lived when the bottom of the ship begins to disappear.

“Ram,” Angela says.

“I know.” Ramses gets on his stomach and starts to furiously paddle himself towards it.

“Ram, it’s sinking,” Angela furthers.

“I know!” he repeats.

“Ram!” Mateo cries.

“I said I know!”

“Stop swimming, it’s just gonna suck you under!”

The thing goes down fast. Before they know it, it’s gone. Ramses slaps the water angrily. I didn’t design it to float, but it still may have. Why didn’t I design it to float?”

Mateo notices something out of the corner of his eye. “That thing is floating.”

Ramses looks over at it. “That’s the satellite. Well, it’s part of a satellite. It can theoretically scan every consciousness in the world, and determine an approximate age by estimating the number of memories that the individual has developed through the accumulation of neural connections. It’s even programmed to attach itself to a preexisting satellite, I just have no way of getting it into space.”

“That’s how you’re trying to find Meredarchos,” Angela acknowledges.

“No,” Mateo says. “That’s how we find the Insulator of Life.” He gets on his stomach too, and starts to paddle towards the debris.

“Mateo, what are you doing?” Ramses asks. “Mateo, you’re not seriously thinking of trying to go up there, are you?”

“Mateo, don’t! You’ll die!”

He reaches the device, and fishes it out. It’s lighter than he would have thought. “Listen, there’s something that I never knew if I should mention, but I think we all know that those Vertegens gave you immortality water, and they obviously did it in the right order, but they didn’t give you all of them. You don’t have time to find the rest right now, but if you can’t get Marie into the Insulator, getting yourself into it may work. That is the whole point of Time water. I love you all.” He disappears.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 15, 2398

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Marie is sitting on the cot, face pressed up against the glass, not in a longing sort of way, but just because she’s bored. This isn’t the first time she’s been locked up, and if she survives, it won’t be the last. The other three are doing their own thing, but they seem just as bored.

“How long have we been here?” Kivi asks.

“At least a day,” Heath answers, just guessing.

“Are they gonna torture us, or something, or is this the torture?” There is nothing in this glass cell but eight cots, one toilet, partially covered, a sink with an extension to approximate a shower, and holes for ventilation. Under the sink is a stack of these dense granola squares for them to eat at their leisure.

They haven’t seen a single soul since they woke up here yesterday. The light is dim, and they can’t see the outside. They get the sense that this thing was built in the center of a warehouse, but it’s so dark that they can’t be certain of the scope. Surely someone is watching them on monitors somewhere, but they don’t actually see the cameras. There is no sound. Not even the light fixtures give off that familiar hum you normally wouldn’t be able to get out of your head when everything else is this silent. For now, the only noises they hear are the ones they make.

“Don’t give them any ideas,” Marie tells her, pulling her face from the wall for a minute. “They’re always listening,” she whispers.

“You don’t know that,” Heath says. “Look around. I don’t see anywhere for anybody to slip food to us. Hell, one of these bars holding the glass together is probably a door, but we don’t know which. All we have may be all we ever will. This may not be a jail cell at all, but a coffin.”

“Don’t be so morbid,” Marie urges. “They brought us here for a reason.”

“What reason?” Kivi questions.

“If I knew that...” Marie begins, going back to the glass. She stops in the middle of the sentence when she realizes that there is no way to finish it. It doesn’t matter what she knows, and doesn’t. There are no actions to take in here besides sleeping, eating, cleaning, and wasting. Her guess is as good as Kivi’s

“Does this have anything to do with A—”

Marie quickly turns from the glass again. “Shh!” Kivi was about to drop Amir’s name, which she shouldn’t, in case he has nothing to do with it. Or they, rather since there are two Amir Hussains. Swapping them, and freeing them both to different places, was their only choice. They knew it would cause problems, but they didn’t think these people would take it this far. The second Amir was so interested in getting out of Birket that he gleefully accepted the risk. Marie is glad that Leona isn’t here, but she could have helped. For one, she probably would have already figured out who these people truly are, and how to get out of here, and in two weeks, she would be running the joint.

“Sorry,” Kivi says. “I’m just hungry.”

“Go ahead, and have another square,” Marie suggests.

“I can’t, we have to ration it.”

“No, we don’t,” Heath insists. “It’s fine. I was just being dramatic.”

“Yes, we do, and no, it’s not, and no, you weren’t,” the fourth prisoner says.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 10, 2398

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Today’s the day. Half of the current team roster is going off on a long-term mission across Europe while the other half stays home to take care of things here. Ramses is in the driver’s seat of The Olimpia, while Heath’s regular car follows them down the road. Cars aren’t fully automated, but they can be programmed to stay on the exact same route as the vehicle ahead of them. It’s really just a fancy way of hitching it to the back. Flying cars such as this one are not commonplace, but they still need laws and regulations to operate safely. A driver can take it on any standard road, and float it in any publicly-accessible body of water, but flying is a lot more difficult. They’ll have to launch from an unpopulated area, and fly at a certain altitude, though very specific routes called market corridors. The more rural the area is under the vessel, the wider the corridor. Early versions had to take off from airstrips, but the more advanced ones are built with vertical take-off engines. So that wouldn’t be a problem, they mainly need to get far enough away from the city.

“Don’t we need to play rock, paper scissors?” Marie asks.

Heath stops midway up the steps. “Uh...no.”

“Ramses says he wants to sleep in the control area,” Mateo says, “and I can just use one of these little cubbies. You take the real bed, this isn’t a negotiation.”

“I don’t really like it up there,” Marie claims.

Heath just keeps carrying her bags up to the loft as Mateo chuckles. “Yeah, right.” He approaches her when he sees her frowning at him. “It’s okay for people to take care of you. I know that that was your job in the afterlife simulation, but surely you had your own counselor when you first died.”

“Yes, we did,” Angela confirms. “His name was Þorgeir.”

“I know that name,” Leona says, perking up. “Thor Thompson was named after him.”

“He’s in good company,” Angela decides. She returns her attention to her alternate self. “Take the loft. You know how much we hate to argue.”

Heath is already hanging her expandable shelf bag on the hook against the outside of the shower room wall. “Thank you,” she says to the group.

“We’re here!” Ramses shouts all the way from the front. They’re in the middle of nowhere outside Independence, facing the Missouri River. “It’s a beautiful day, and this is a beautiful area! Let’s all say our goodbyes before we lose the daylight!” He comes to a stop, turns the hazards on, and comes to the back.

“How long is the first leg?” Mateo asks him.

“That depends on exactly where we’re going,” Ramses answers.

Leona projects a map of their itinerary onto the lav door. The first stop on their fake vacation is Foggy Londontown. It occurs to Mateo that he still doesn’t really understand how the U.S. works in this reality, but he really doesn't know how other countries work. What might be waiting for them when they land? The entire island of the United Kingdom does not exist, for reasons they still don’t yet know. They’ll be investigating that in the coming few days. What they discovered is that a few small islands do indeed exist in the area where Great Britain should be, and they may hold answers. “Okay, the coordinate system is a little different here, which means it took some doing to draw from my own memory of main sequence geography, but I believe I’ve found the approximate location of Stonehenge, or rather the analog. Perhaps fittingly, if the mysterious rock formation existed here, it would be found at awaited.passively.landings. That’s my best guess.”

“Await-a-what?” Angela asks.

“The traditional numerical coordinate system was abandoned centuries ago, in favor of a lexical geocoding algorithm.”

“A-lexa-what?” Angela presses.

“A unique series of three random words are designated for a given square on the map, which can be shared and pinpointed using proprietary mapping software,” she says, which is just about as confusing. “For instance, where the Olimpia happens to be parked right now, we’re located at clashing.thrill.ultra.”

Ramses shows a nonchalant sort of pouty face. “I did that on purpose,” he jokes.

Leona rolls her eyes “Well, each square is three meters wide, and the vehicle is sixteen meters long, so where you were sitting up there is closer to yawned.nephew.custard.”

“Yeah,” Ramses insists, “I love custard.”

“Where am I?” Mateo asks, stepping towards the seats.

“You’re at telegrams.patch.card.”

“Where’s that tree?” Angela offers, pointing out the window.

“Uh, I believe culprit.triads.enrolling.”

“Where is I.love.you?” Mateo asks, trying to be cute.

Leona tries it. She even substitutes the word eye for I. “Doesn’t exist; not all word permutations do.”

“Oh,” Mateo is sad. “Well, what about—”

“You heard Ramses,” Heath interrupts. “You three better get going so you’re not flying too late at night. No more time for games.”

“Well,” Leona goes on, “based on this system, my calculations, and your most fuel-efficient cruising speed, you should arrive in about eleven hours.”

“Are we landing on an island?” Marie asks her.

“Well, awaited.passively.landings is in the middle of the water, but that’s probably for the best, and there’s a resort not too far from there, where Heath has two rooms booked for you. In fact, it will be past sunset by the time you get there, so you might just wanna check in, and head for the coordinates in the morning. It’s only a few hours away in boat mode. I believe that the island is where the city of Bristol should be.”

“Did the island sink?” Heath guesses. “Is your Bristol at a particularly high elevation?”

“Not that I can remember,” Angela answers. “The higher elevations were in Scotland. They called them the highlands.”

“Why do we need a resort if we have this?” Ramses asks, indicating the whole of the Olimpia.

“You’re on vacation,” Heath reminds him. “Try not to stand out. Do normal things, like hiking, and museuming. I didn’t make reservations for you, but there’s also a bike tour that goes all around that island, if you’re interested.”

They discuss a few more details, but it really is time for them to leave, so they make their farewells, and break in half. The away team uses the road as a runway, instead of doing a true VTO, to save on fuel, and disappears into the horizon.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 25, 2398

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It wasn’t easy, getting on a commercial flight to Bermuda at such short notice. It’s a popular destination, so lots of flights go out there, but this is the beginning of vacation season, so most of them were pretty full. Heath and Ramses deplane, and head for the exit. Ramses gets on the phone. “We’re here, where are you?”

“I’m about an hour and forty-five minutes away,” Leona replies.

“What?” Ramses questions. “You were meant to wait for us.”

“I was worried I would lose the signal. I’m still worried. I need to come back and scoop you up, but what if he gets out of range. I already feel our psychic connection wearing off.”

Heath takes the phone. “Leona, have you been going in the same direction the whole time?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“Then we have a good idea where they’re headed by now,” Heath reasons. “Come back and get us. “You probably need to refuel anyway. We’ll leave as soon as we can, and get back on the trail.”

“Okay,” Leona concedes. “I’m coming back.”

Mateo is about 600 kilometers from Bermuda right now, traveling on the same bearing since departure. There’s nothing on the map out here, so either the men who took him are trying to get to Cuba, or they’re going to rendezvous with some other ocean vessel. All she knows is that they’re on a boat, and she’s on a plane. She can catch back up to him, even after flying all the way back to the island, but it’s going to break her heart if it turns out she can’t find that trail again.

Heath may be wrong. Mateo’s abductors could turn to a different direction at any moment. One thing that gives her comfort is that her husband feels okay right now. He was not doing well yesterday, but he seems to have recovered. He’s not happy, per se, but he’s not scared or sick anymore, so at least there’s that. Like she was saying, though, they might lose their empathic connection, either by moving too far away from each other, or just because the temporal energy that they’re working off of is used up. One good choice Leona made is to call up some help. She doesn’t know who they’re going to be up against, and she shouldn’t try to fight them on her own. Angela and Marie are still in Kansas City, moving forward with Operation Backup Twin, as one of them decided to start calling it.

As calculated, Leona lands back on the road within two hours. They take a little bit of time to replace the fuel cells, so they can be at optimal operational capacity. Leona never does lose the psychic link, but she can still feel Mateo getting farther away from her until the three rescuers get back in the air. Before they get too close to the enemy, they drop out of the sky, and transform into a boat. This is when they start putting on their tactical gear, and checking their weapons. “So, the reason we stopped flying is to be stealthy, correct?” Heath asks the group.

“Right,” Leona agrees.

“Why don’t we just go sub?”

Leona stops adjusting her thigh holster. “What? This is a sub?”

“Yeah, did I not tell you that?”

“Uhh, no.”

“Oh, yeah. This is a sub.”

“Put us down,” Leona demands.

Heath stops what he was doing, and engages the controls. They dive deeper until The Olimpia is fully submerged. Blast shutters slide down over the windows automatically, but Heath reverses them, under the assumption that they won’t be going very deep.

“No, put them back down,” Leona says. “I wanna kiss the bottom of the ocean. The closer we are, the more difficult it will be for the enemies to detect us, if they’re expecting anyone at all.”

“Very well,” Heath agrees. He does as he’s told, and sinks deeper and deeper and deeper, but then he stops.

“What’s going on?”

“This is as deep as we can go,” he warns. “It can only handle a couple hundred meters. That’s pretty good for a vessel this size in the 24th century.”

Leona sighs heavily. “Fine. Keep going.” She points towards the front. “That way.”

They maintain their pursuit, hoping that the boat doesn’t see them coming. Even if they do, though, what are they going to do about it? They probably don’t have torpedoes, or anything. The element of surprise would be great, but just being able to rise up to the bilge would be helpful on its own, as Ramses suggests. They don’t get that chance, which disappoints him a little.

Mateo gets on the radio, and makes contact. “Olimpia, Olimpia, come in.”

“This is the Olimpia. Go ahead,” Leona prompts.

“I wanna show you somethin’.”

“Okay...”

“I’ll be with you in a second. I just need to get something from my cabin.” A minute later, Mateo teleports himself into the Olimpia. “I don’t have much time. I obviously didn’t tell them what I can do, so they can’t walk in to find me missing. Surface so we can talk in person. And put away those guns. I’ll explain everything.”

Microstory 1663: Origin of Atlantis

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Universe Prime is vast, both in space, and across time. I could tell you any number of stories from this universe, and most of them don’t even take place on Earth. Why don’t I stick with what you’re a little more familiar with, though? More specifically, I think I’ll discuss Atlantis, since that is where all the interesting things happen. You’ve probably heard of the sunken island from one story, or another. Different storytellers have different interpretations of it, but there are a few key commonalities. It was an advanced island that sank into the ocean. Sometimes its residents survived, and sometimes not. The truth is that the island did indeed sink, and not only did the people survive, but they sank it on purpose. It all started when a group of scientists from the Composite Universe found themselves stranded in a strange new world. An experiment of theirs didn’t go wrong; it went too right. It was too powerful, and the range was too wide. They made a new home here, but did not want to live a primitive lifestyle, like all the native inhabitants. They still wanted to use their technology, and explore science, so they decided to colonize an island that was surprisingly equidistant from the land masses that would come to be known as Greenland, Iceland, and Ireland—around 690 miles, in your terms. In the beginning, things were fine, as they were far enough away from civilization to avoid interfering with their development, but it didn’t last. Visitors started to come from the mainlands. It was on accident at first, but then when they returned home with stories of the wonders of Atlantis, more came, hoping to see the truth. The Atlantians attempted to prevent any further problems. They distorted the celestial sphere from nearby waters, so it was difficult to navigate, but people still happened upon them. The tried to hide their technology underneath a façade of primitivism. But that was tiresome. They needed a permanent solution. Thus the sinking.

The Atlantians figured that, if any of the natives witnessed their island sinking, they would have been amazed, but they wouldn’t have attempted to investigate it. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to dive down that deep. It legitimately looked like the island was destroyed, so it all should have ended there. Of course, it prompted superstitions, but in the end, the world’s development was not too dramatically altered. They already had plenty of stories about magic, and that would not change for centuries. Meanwhile, the Atlantians kept a watchful eye on the surface of the planet. People were still occasionally finding themselves there from elsewhere, be it the other universe, or just some other planet in Prime. If you were stranded, Atlantis was your best hope of finding a way home. They eventually discovered a way to reach out to their world of origin, but they were now mostly the descendants of those original scientists, so they considered Atlantis their home. Only a few ever chose to leave, including newcomers, many of whom saw Atlantis as a great place to start over. Those that stayed continued to advance technologically, but never ventured outside of their bubble, except to bring in someone new. The island fell completely into the realm of myth, which was their intention all along. It was a pretty diverse crowd of witches, transhumans, regular humans, vampires, aliens, and even a few androids. Since their population was relatively small, even over time, they were able to maintain a fair democracy, and managed to avoid many of the hardships that other civilizations experience from their infancy.

Microstory 1538: Lost at Sea

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I’m lost at ________, and I don’t know how I got ________. The last thing I ________, I was trying to wake ________, only able to catch ________ of a ceiling passing by. ________ must have been wheeling me down the ________ on a gurney. Before that, I was just ________ my own business at the ________ shop across the street from my ________ building. I don’t know if I was ________, or rescued, but whatever these people’s reasons, something seems to have gone ________. I saw fire on the ________, and dark shapes in the darkness. It was hard to tell where the ship ended, and the sky began, if it was a ________ I was seeing at all. I’m sure it was, but what do I ________? I’m dehydrated and starving, but at least I’m not ________, presumably because I slept pretty much all the ________ here. I look ________, and scan the horizon, hoping to catch ________ of land, or some other survivor, if only so we don’t have to ________ out here alone. Even if it’s one of my captors, it would be ________; they might be ________ to give me some answers. There is nothing, and no one. I mean, all I see is ________; not even one piece of debris. It all sank or ____ed away by the time the ________ came up. The ocean is so still, and so ________, I feel like I can see the curvature of ________. I lie ________ and watch the clouds go by ________, like ceiling tiles in a strange ________. I am acutely aware of the passage of ________. My ________ and hunger grow worse with each passing ________. An hour, another hour, two more. Several more after that, and then half a ________. The sun does not disappear. It does not even ________. It’s stuck in the ________ as much as I’m trapped on this ________. I think at any ________ that I should ________ up and discover this is nothing ________ than a ________, but that never happens. Perhaps a ____ulation? The ceiling ________ belonged to a virtual ________ company. Yeah, that must be the ________, right? I call out to the simulation ________, begging them to let me out. I don’t want to ________ anymore, or they’ve made their ________, or they’ve learned something about how people react to their ________. I don’t know, I’m just ________. Desperate for anything that ends this ________. My skin is ________ and peeling, and may even be bubbling. This all feels pretty ________ to me, and the virtual reality angle seems a little unlikely, even though being ________ abducted for no clear reason, and then ________ surviving a sinking ________, also seems unlikely. After another two ________ come and go, with no end to the sun’s harsh death rays, I start to ________ slipping off this ________, and letting the water fill my ________. I recall ________with similar premises. The hero always survives—or at least one of them does, if there’s ________ than one—and they move on with their ________. This is not a ________, and I am not a ________. I don’t die, though. The sun keeps ________ me, and I keep ________ here, and the ________ barely ever moves. After a few weeks of this, I realize that the reason I can’t ________ is because I already have. And I can’t ________ through the water either, because my ________ just won’t go that way. This is just my own ________ hell, and it will never end.

Microstory 1307: Metal Thief

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Property Crimes Detective: All right, Metal Thief. Tell me what you know about the Twin Hillside Burglary.

Metal Thief: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Property Crimes Detective: You expect me to believe that? It was all over the news.

Metal Thief: I’m not really into the news. I like history.

Property Crimes Detective: And money.

Metal Thief: Doesn’t everybody?

Property Crimes Detective: And metal.

Metal Thief: Metal makes money.

Property Crimes Detective: What did you do with everything you stole from that house?

Metal Thief: I told you, I didn’t do it.

Property Crimes Detective: Then who did?

Metal Thief: How the hell should I know?

Property Crimes Detective: Well, you must have contacts, what with everything we know that you’ve stolen.

Metal Thief: What did they take?

Property Crimes Detective: Everything.

Metal Thief: Everything?

Property Crimes Detective: Everything but the kitchen sink. They did take the workshop sink that was in the garage, though.

Metal Thief: They literally cleaned it all out? But just the one house?

Property Crimes Detective: Yes.

Metal Thief: You didn’t call me in because you think I did it. You called me in for help.

Property Crimes Detective: [sighs] Where would someone go to unload all that? I’m talkin’ bookshelves, couches, televisions, frickin’ photo albums. They took a lot of junk that was personal; I honestly don’t get it.

Metal Thief: They took photo albums?

Property Crimes Detective: Yeah. What does that mean to you?

Metal Thief: There’s always someone willing to take the valuable stuff. You don’t even need to go to the black market. All you would need to do is haul that stuff to your own house, and sell it on your lawn.

Property Crimes Detective: A garage sale?

Metal Thief: As I understand it, confidential informants get paid.

Property Crimes Detective: You give me something I can use, we’ll talk.

Metal Thief: [...] Detective, this crime is personal. Like you said, they took junk. Anyone willing to go to that much trouble is doing it for one of two reasons. A, it’s a prank, in which case it’s gone too far by now. Or B, the victim just went through a bad break up, or fired a disgruntled employee, or something. Find someone your victim has wronged recently, and see if they have a garage sale goin’. Or see if they’ve just purchased storage space somewhere in the city. They may not want, or need, to sell it at all, and it’s really just about hurting the victim.

Property Crimes Detective: That was actually kind of helpful.

Metal Thief: Next time you want a favor, don’t drag me into an interrogation room. Just ask.

Property Crimes Detective: Oh, it’s a favor? I guess we don’t need to pay you then.