Microstory 2658: Full Roster

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Azad reaches down and scoops Jiminy’s gun up, so he now has both the fully operational model, and Reagan’s prototype, which isn’t as powerful. He looks down at Vanore, who is starting to do some breathing exercises. “Let me have her so I can take her to get medical attention.”

Mandica stands with Vanore in her arms. “No, take me and her both.”

He shakes his head. “You need to make sure this never happens again. That man has waged war on the living, and he’s prepared to overtake multiple domes in order to get it done. The Seagate Savior is rallying her people, and I need you to do the same for Ravensgate. I promise, she will receive the best care this side of Gatewood.”

“I brought her back to life,” Mandica explains, “with this stone.” She twists her shoulders demonstratively, but not enough to actually show the Philosopher’s Stone. “But probably only this one copy of her. Her backups are still likely dead, so don’t let anything else happen to her.” She hands her over to him. “What’s happening?”

“Underbelly is under attack,” Azad answers as he’s accepting Vanore. “Unlike in most cases, we can’t turn this off. They’re coming from other domes, since I don’t have time to explain how, let’s just say, they’re not using the door. You saw how I got here, and you’ll see me leave. There is more to this universe than you know, and whoever this person is, he has the same power. Real power.” He magically disappears with Vanore.

Mandica pulls her earpiece out of her pocket, and calls Elysia. “What’s going on over there? Are you being attacked?”

“Yes!” Elysia replies as she’s grunting. “Zombies!”

“Zombies?” Mandica questions. Zombies were played out centuries ago.

“Hordes of them! We think they’re coming from Zombiedome! There’s, like, a portal. A real portal. We don’t know how they’re doing it!”

“We need to get back to the vactrain,” Malika offers.

“That will take too long. Do you have any guns?” Mandica asks Reagan.

“Just this.” He holds his arm out. His own nanobots crawl out from his sleeve. They shape themselves into a simple tube, with a handle for him to grip, before exacting details and texture onto the cylinder as they bond together into a more solid shape.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” She just points, and lets him blast a hole in the tower wall.

“Don’t be mad, but I think we should go supersonic,” Mandica tells them both.

“We have definitely not tested that,” Reagan warns.

“Underbelly is, what, about 2,000 kilometers away? So if we just go—”

“No, no, it’s not happening. I won’t allow it,” Reagan insists.

Two minutes later, they have reached the opposite side of the Loegria dome. Malika is carrying Reagan by the waist. He blasts a hole in one of the dome’s panes so they can fly right through it. Now they’re flying over the real Castlebourne, no longer protected from the thin and unbreathable atmosphere. Fortunately, all three of them can survive this without even dying once. It’s not particularly comfortable at these speeds, but they only have to manage for half an hour, moving at roughly Mach 3. It’s actually better for them to go this fast now that they’re so exposed. They slow down to cruising speeds, and crash through the Ravensgate pane, but much lower this time since there’s a greater risk of diamond falling down on someone’s head.

They continue to fly at cruising speed until they’ve reached the heart of the city. It too has been overrun by zombies. Some of the other superheroes are fighting them off, along with some supervillains. Everyone else is running for their life. This is a black swan event for them. They were not programmed for this eventuality.

“Why would this Jiminy guy do this?” Mandica questions. “What’s the point? Everyone is either an NPC or using a temporary substrate. Yeah, it might hurt if you die, but they knew what they were signing up for. Does he just want to cause chaos?”

“It’s not just here,” Reagan is looking at his wrist device. “There are zombies in the residences too. Some people there are like you were before that stone. I have to go.”

“Wait!” Mandica urges when he tries to break away.

“I can’t wait! People are going to die!”

“We all saw what Azad did. He has real powers; ones that go against what we all learned about physics. Elysia said the zombie portal is real. But she’s in Seagate. They’re using two different portals, and if they’re all coming from the same place...”

Reagan nods. “Then that’s how they’re getting into the residences too. We have to get to that portal, but first, we need to make one stop.”

The three of them return to the lair.

Jaidia is there in a fresh new body. She’s naked, putting on her original wings since her upgraded ones are still back in Loegria. They have to go on before her costume.

“That was a quick turnaround,” Malika points out.

“Azad knows what’s at stake. I blew past reentry procedures,” Jaidia explains.

Reagan heads for his private lab. He has never let anyone into it before, but he leaves the door wide open this time while he makes a beeline for a raised black cabinet. He inputs his code and biometrics, opening the doors and extending a set of two stairs. Inside is an outfit that none of them has seen before. It’s mostly brown, embellished with some white and silver. It’s not simply a wing apparatus that attaches to the back, but an entire suit which he steps backwards into. The wings are feathered, the rest is piped and painted to be reminiscent of feathers. “Meet my new character...The Harrier.”

“And we’re married to that name?” Malika asks him awkwardly.

“Absolutely,” he replies. He steps out of the cabinet, and walks back down the steps. He’s a little off-balance, but at little risk of tipping over. “Let’s go join the circus.” His visor snaps shut, concealing his identity entirely. He leads the flock out of the lair.

The portal is probably 40 or 50 meters wide, but only a couple of meters tall. Zombies are knocking each other over as they shamble in. The team won’t be able to slip through without encountering them. To protect their wings, they land as close as possible, and start fighting their way through, bashing zombies’ skulls in, and tearing off their heads. It’s a bloodbath, but necessary, and the point of Zombiedome. They were designed to be threatening and deadly, and to die for it so visitors can have their fun. Their teeth are sharp, but not enough to pierce their skin, which is good, because according to Malika, you actually can become a zombie yourself, and either exit the game, or have your brain dumbed down. They are not interested in that here. They keep punching, kicking, and tearing until they’ve reached the portal together, and then they have to keep fighting on the other side to break free. They take flight again to get some rest. They scan the immediate area to find the paths to Seagate and the Residences. It’s not going to be so easy. There aren’t only two more portals, but dozens of them.

Microstory 2646: Little Miss Incredible

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Mandica’s eyelids flip open. The harsh fluorescent lighting irritates her eyes for a second before they dim. Everything dims, as if she’s wearing sunglasses. It’s cold, and she knows that, but she doesn’t feel the familiar sting of her body heat evaporating from her skin. She is just arbitrarily aware of it. The man is scared, or the doctor, because he’s wearing a lab coat. Reagan is there. He’s surprised too, but not scared. Mandica sits up to see him take out his sonic weapon, and utterly destroy the doctor. Wait. This isn’t a hospital, or if it is, a specific sector in it; probably in the basement. She’s not in a medical bed, but a drawer, and two dozen other closed drawers line the wall next to her. This is a morgue. They thought she was dead, and she ought to be, because if they didn’t even bother treating her, she shouldn’t have healed. She is not like these people.

Reagan steps closer to the mortician with his weapon, and keeps blasting until he’s sure the NPC is dead. He looks back over to Mandy. She’s entirely naked, the sheet having dropped down when she sat up, but she doesn’t care. He’s breathing heavily. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but we can’t have him submitting his periodic report.”

“How am I still alive?” Mandica asks him.

“I don’t know. You weren’t,” Reagan answers. “I came here to claim your body so I could prevent them from finding you, under the pretense of being responsible for your funeral arrangements, which I absolutely would have done to cover your tracks.”

“There’s something in my back,” she says as she’s trying to reach behind her. “It’s, like, hard and pulling at my skin. It doesn’t really hurt, but there’s something there.”

Reagan walks over and checks it out. “It’s, uhh...well...” He gives her a funny look, and then checks her back again. “It’s...”

“If you’re distracted by my bare ass, I’ll let you see it better later, just tell me what’s there. Did a shard of glass get embedded in my skin?”

“I’m not looking at your ass, and it’s not a shard, but...it might be glass. It’s glowing, though.”

“Glowing? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here.” He takes out his handheld device, and snaps a photo of it, which he then shows to Mandica. It’s not glass. It appears to be the Philosopher’s Stone.

“What the fuh?” Mandica questions, having no words for this. It’s glowing all right, which she can tell even from it only being a still image.

“Do you... You don’t think it’s real, do you? The Philosopher’s Stone?”

“Well,” Mandica begins. “People die and come back to life all the time. It probably happens thousands of times each day on this planet alone. It’s not entirely out of bounds for someone to invent a stone that can somehow heal and resurrect. I doubt it’s anything that was made back in ancient times, but it can certainly exist now, can’t it?”

“Can I touch it? I really wanna touch it.”

“How deep is it in there?” The extent of the glow, and the lack of depth in the photo, make it hard to tell.

“It’s pretty deep. I don’t think touching it is going to knock it out.”

“Go ahead.” She sees him reach back there, and then she feels it. Oh, God, does she feel it. It is, quite frankly, orgasmic. That was not in the legends about alchemy. “Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. A little goes a long way with that thing. Jesus.”

Reagan looks down at the dead mortician. “Someone else might show up at some point, We need to sneak you out of here. I’ll try to scrub the records. I don’t know what they keep track of, though, since this is probably the first true death in history.”

“Except it wasn’t,” Mandica points out. She swings her legs out from under the sheet, and hits the floor with a thud. How embarrassing. Has she gained weight? She tries to see her own reflection in the metal drawers, but they’re not reflective enough.

“That’s true. Here.” He takes off the mortician’s lab coat, and hands it to her.

It’s big enough to cover her, she just looks like she’s wearing shorts or a short skirt now. “The others? Did any of them survive?” she asks.

“Jaidia is recovering, and should be able to keep her substrate. Malika’s dead. I’ve not spoken with her yet. Ravensgate Rescuer is dead too. I don’t have her contact information for the outside world, but I’m guessing she’s pretty upset about it.”

“At least she gets a second chance.” She tries to push down on the door handle, and ends up tearing the whole thing off. Maybe she gained muscle weight. “Okay, are these buildings designed to be that easy to break to better simulate mayhem, errr...?”

“They are not,” Reagan says, coming up to inspect the damage. “If you wanna break something, you gotta be strong enough to do it.”

Mandica regards Reagan for a moment, then sticks her fingers in the hole where the handle once was. She grips it tight, and pulls the whole door off of its hinges.

“I’m thinking that stone is real, and it does more than bring people back to life.”

Mandica very gently sets the door down on its side, and lets it lean against the wall. “I probably should not have tested my newfound strength in such a public place.”

Reagan looks over his shoulder at the dead NPC. “Actually, maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Maybe you should do a lot more damage around here, so it will look like some supervillain came by. It would explain him, and where your dead body went, so we don’t have to locate and erase the records.”

She sighs through her nose. “I’m new to this—whatever this is—I don’t know what I’m doing.” She walks further back into the room. “Plus, someone might be coming.”

“Well, I’ll handle that, if it comes up,” he decides. “You just practice a little.”

Mandica decides to not do that. The door and the dead mortician are enough. Reagan isn’t convinced, so he stays behind, and creates a bigger mess using his gun. He then goes into the security room, and destroys the footage before meeting up with Mandica outside. He was going to drive her back home, but she does want to practice, so she asks him to take her out to the middle of nowhere. He knows of an abandoned train yard about thirty kilometers outside of town that was placed there for this very thing. She is not the only person there testing her own limits. It’s an unspoken rule that you don’t fight at The Depot. It’s for newbies who want to figure out how well they designed their substrates in a more practical environment.

When they add it all up, Mandica’s abilities match with what Elysia had when she was the Rescuer. Superstrength, speed, stamina, heightened senses, spring-action legs for jumping. A lot of people have these things, but Elysia was remarkably more powerful, and now Mandica has somehow taken her place, thanks to this weird red piece of glass. Elysia herself shows up in the middle of Mandica’s self tests after Malika called her, after Reagan called her. Elysia is presumably in her normal body now, which is still likely pretty formidable, and doesn’t seem upset. “Okay. Show me what you got.”

Microstory 2455: Flumendome

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If you don’t know what a flume is, it’s a waterslide. I mean, it’s a certain type of waterslide, but who am I to get bogged down in the intricacies of linguistics? Oh, that’s right, I’m a linguist. I suppose this rolls off the tongue better than Waterslidedome. Or Waterslidome. Well, hmm. Waterslidome. Yeah, it should be that, but pronounce it like slid. Whatever, it doesn’t matter what the name is, people! Waterslides is the name of the game. I don’t even know how many there are, because I did not read the prospectus. I saw that word, then saw the main picture, and I was hooked. I’ve loved waterslides ever since I was a kid. I remember going to the waterpark every summer, but just once per year. Oh, I would beg my parents to take us more than once, but they wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t about the money, it was about keeping it special, and learning delayed gratification. Parenting is a crapshoot; when I had kids, I learned that myself. I don’t fault them for their line of reasoning. I still wish I could have gone more, but we’re all immortal now, so yay, I have all the time in the universe! Back to Flumendome, this is the best park I’ve ever seen by far. Since it’s contained in this dome, its engineering limitations are a lot farther away from the ground than its Earthan equivalents. So are the slides themselves. The best one starts at the zenith, and goes all the way down to the surface. Again, I didn’t read the prospectus, so I don’t know how long it is, but I know it’s more than 41.5 kilometers. It could be double that, or more. I don’t have any friends so I shared a raft with some lovely, kind strangers. They calculated that it was probably close to 120 kilometers, which is insane to me. I grew up in the 2080s and ’90s; we didn’t have anything anywhere near this scale. It takes just an hour to get all the way down, and there is no escape. You’re moving too fast, and trying to fish you out of there would just be unsafe, for you, and anyone you’re with, or behind you. If you don’t think you can handle it, then absolutely don’t try. Fortunately, you can start small, with some regular waterslides, and work your way up. I told you, we’re immortal, baby, don’t be strict about your time. There is another that starts at the top, and goes all the way down, but it’s not as steep, and not as fast. It takes about four hours to get to the bottom, and if it’s a desperate emergency, a rescue drone can reportedly extract you, but only during lulls, so again, proceed with caution. I don’t think they’ve had to do it before, but I did hear about someone needing to get off this next one, which sounds like that wasn’t hard at all. The slide is the craziest one of all in some respects. It also starts way up there, but it’s even longer. We can’t even begin to estimate its length. It takes a full 24 hours to get down. They can extract you because you’re moving so slowly. It’s like being on a river, except if you climbed over the edge, you would fall off and die. Fortunately, that’s probably impossible, because the sides are so steep and wet, you’d have to be a tree frog, or something. And why would you? I’ve been talking a lot about extremes, but this place has a slide for everyone. Its prospectus is one of the most comprehensive (which is why I didn’t read it), but if you’re unsure, I suggest you take a look at it, and find what you’re looking for. It’s a lot of fun, for people of all ages.

Microstory 2056: Good Word For Me

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My mother always told me that the best way to succeed is to know people. I never put much stock into that, because I didn’t want to believe it. I remember watching some movie or TV show a couple of years ago. A guy was trying to get out of a speeding ticket, or something, so he promised the cop to help his son get into college. I think he was lying about knowing the Dean, or whatever. It was a ridiculous scenario. The speeder didn’t know this kid, or whether he belonged at that college, but the cop was willing to overlook that, because he was desperate. I guess he expected the speeder to make a phone call, and just randomly drop the name of an applicant who should go to the top of the pile. I can’t remember how all that turned out, but the fact is that networking is real. Only twice have I applied to a job, secured an interview, and then gotten that job. When I was still a kid, my dad signed me up for my lifeguarding certification. A friend from church owned a maintenance contractor. A friend of a friend knew about a warehouse who was hiring a lot of seasonal employees. That’s mostly how I’ve conducted business, and I find it incredibly annoying. Don’t put out a want ad online for employees if you’re just going to hire your old roommate’s slacker nephew, okay? But despite my “principles” I’ve played along with the game. I’ve taken my opportunities. I jumped at the chance to sleep in this finished attic from the nurse at the free clinic, and when she had a lead on a job, I jumped at that too. I have an interview for an entry-level gardening position tomorrow, but my landlord is pretty confident that I’ll get it, because no one else seems to be applying, and because she put in a good word for me. That’s all it takes sometimes. I don’t like it, but I’ll benefit from it, because if I tried to go through this life without any help, it would turn out to be a rather short one, I’ll tell ya that much. So anyway, wish me luck, and all that. Or don’t, if it goes against your principles.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 18, 2409

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No one came for them. Constance detected an unusual energy draw that came from the Dante, to their mysterious captors, which occurred at exactly midnight central, but other than that, nothing happened. They didn’t even lose much power as a result of whatever that was. Perhaps it was just a strange way of scanning them, because a few minutes later, the cargo hold opened up again, and spit them out unharmed. The ship accelerated to higher speeds, and then disappeared with a reframe engine.

“What the hell was that?” Olimpia questioned.

“No idea,” Leona answered, “but it’s April 18 2409.” She took a pause. “Constance, run a level three diagnostic on all systems.”

“There’s no such thing as a level three diagnostic,” Constance replied. “You made that up.”

“Actually, I can’t take credit.”

“Right away, sir,” Constance said with a slight smile. She went off to complete the task as requested. No sooner was she finished with it, having turned up nothing of interest or concern, did another ship appear out of nowhere. This one was much smaller—and less foreboding—and it responded to their calls.

“Hello, this is the Dardieti Outpost Boyce Shuttle One. Do I have a Mateo Matic on the line?”

“This is Mateo. Go ahead.”

“I’ve been rerouted to find you. It’s taken me a long time, but we received the message you sent out last year. Your presence has been requested on Dardius proper.”

“For what purpose?” Leona asked.

“It has something to do with the future, and your family, or the future of your family,” Boyce One replied. “That’s all I know. I’ve given the message, and confirmed that you’ve received it. Now I really must return to my work. This has been a really...” He mumbled and trailed off a little before remembering to switch off the mic.

“Thank you, Boyce One. If it is required of you, you can let them know that we are on our way, and that we’ll be there as soon as possible. We’re on our pattern.”

He didn’t say anything further, but he surely heard the last message. His little ship flew off in the same direction as the other one, though not at reframe speeds. Dardieti Outpost. How many of those were there, and where? All the way out here, they were nearly three million light years from home. This meant that that was how far Team Matic was going to have to travel to reach it themselves. The Dante wasn’t any more capable of crossing that distance in any reasonable span of time than the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was. With only the reframe engine, it would take them four thousand years. They either needed to reach out to their friends with true faster-than-light capabilities, or a Nexus. Though, the Dante could not fit inside of a Nexus transport cavity, so if they used that method, it would have to be jury-rigged, and they only ever got that to work in the Parallel.

“Does anyone live near the Nexus in Antarctica?” Angela asked.

“No, they abandoned the continent entirely,” Leona explained. “There was a time when people were able to live there because climate breakdown made it more hospitable to humans, but then they started to solve those problems, and made it colder again. They could still survive there if they wanted to, of course, but the population eventually dwindled into nothing. Either way, they weren’t in that region, no.”

“He asked about me,” Mateo pointed out. “Not the rest of you. He didn’t say anything about the rest of the team. I can go alone.”

“We’re not headed to enemy territory, Matty,” Ramses said with a laugh. “We can go. Might as well. I hear it sports some nice vacation spots. I was too busy to partake when I was living there before. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we won’t be there to solve some kind of crisis.”

“It clearly took years for us to get the message,” Leona reasoned, “and could take us years of real time to arrive. I detected no sense of urgency in the messenger’s voice.”

“Maybe that had more to do with the messenger himself,” Marie reasoned right back. “Just because he wasn’t in a hurry doesn’t mean there is no hurry.”

“True. Dante?” Leona started tapping on the main console. “Teleport to these coordinates please.”

“Teleporting now.”

The darkness of space they could see through the viewscreens was replaced by the brightness of the snow. They opened the hatch, and let in the cold. It was a surreal feeling, knowing that it was profoundly frigid out here, but being basically unfazed by it. Ramses’ 3.0 model substrates were working well for them, and they were already clearly better than the previous model. “Hey, Dante, what’s the exact temperature?”

“It’s negative forty degrees,” Dante responded.

“Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?” Olimpia asked.

Leona and Constance laughed. “Yes.”

“Why is that so funny?” Mateo questioned.

“They’re the same,” Leona explained.

The two of them stared at her.

“They’re the same at that degree,” Constance clarified. “They converge.”

“Got it. Thanks. Now it’s funny.” Not really.

“It’s underground, right?” Marie moves on from the subject. “How do we find it?”

“Hey, Opsocor!” Leona shouted into the wind aimlessly.

They heard the sound of metal against metal behind the Dante. They turned the corner to find a hidden trap door opening for them several meters away. They walked over to it and hopped inside.

“Opsocor, please teleport us to the main floor.”

Nothing happened.

“Wait, we can’t just teleport ourselves?” Angela asked.

“Can you?” Leona asked. “We’re not authorized to do so. The system is quite sophisticated.”

“Maybe it will work for you since you’re the one who got this giant hatch open,” Mateo suggested. “Leona, Queen of the Nexus.”

“That’s not the real problem. If Opsocor can’t do it, maybe she can’t do anything.” Still, she jumped herself away. Ten minutes later, she was knocking on the next hidden trapdoor, which they had to open from this side. They  jumped down to the second level, and then did it again to get to the control room below that.

“Is everything okay?” Ramses asked.

“No,” Leona answered with a sigh. “She’s not responding to me. I don’t know why not. But nothing is turning on either, except for this emergency lighting.”

“I wanted to wait until everyone was here,” Opsocor’s voice came in through the speakers. “I am a prerecorded facsimile of the one you know as Venus Opsocor. I have access control over the system, which allows me to let in anyone for safety concerns, or in your case, to explain what’s happened. This Nexus building has been taken offline. It has been too significantly altered, and therefore automatically removed from the network. It is incapable of transporting anyone anywhere. Do not attempt to—no. Yes, sorry. Shifting response path. You are indeed authorized to make attempts at repair. I am unable to run diagnostic tests, or provide you with any technical specifications, or troubleshooting assistance. Again, this is a prerecorded facsimile with limited response paths. I was not made aware of what has been broken within the system. I am here as a result of whatever those changes were, which you will have to correct yourself if you want to bring the station back to operational standards. Do not attempt to converse with me. I will not respond to any calls. This message will not be repeated. Thank you, and have a nice rest of your life.”

“So essentially,” Marie began, “it’s broken, but the AI doesn’t know how it’s broken, because that message was recorded just in case something like this happened.”

“It’s not an AI, it’s a real person,” Ramses corrected.

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. She got on her hands and knees, and started to get to work on the main computer.

Meanwhile, Mateo was shining his watch light through the observation window, and trying to use his arms to block ambient light from his eyes. “I think I know what’s wrong with it,” he declares.

Leona got up. “You do?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Can you get the lights on in the Nexus chamber? The drum is missing.”

“The drum?” Leona asked, confused.

“I don’t know what it’s called. It’s the giant thing that hangs over the cavity.”

“Uhh...I don’t know how to get the lights on manually.” She opened the door from the control room, and walked down the steps as everyone else followed. She used her light illusion ability to conjure a nano-sun on the ceiling, which illuminated the whole chamber. Mateo was right, it was totally missing. “That’s not a drum, Mateo. That is the Nexus. Everything else is either just the interface to it, or lets you control the rest of the building, like the lights. It’s really the only thing you need, and somebody took it. They took the whole thing out. What’s left doesn’t even look damaged.”

“What should we do?” Constance asked. “I don’t have the data on this thing; I wasn’t allowed, but I’m still smart, so I could help.”

“There’s no way to fix it. It’s like a car without an engine, or a boat without water. There’s nothing to repair. We would have to get it back, or replace it. I wouldn’t know how to build one. She told us that we won’t be able to read the manual, and I’ve seen the guts inside before, but not enough to recreate it from nothing. At this point, our only hope is to call the Jameela Jamil.”

“Okay, we’ll do that,” Mateo decided.

“There’s another option, if we don’t want to bother Team Keshida with this,” Ramses said.

“What would that be?”

“We could try to find the second Nexus on Earth.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 9, 2399

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The AOC came this close to catching up with the Constant, and whatever is propelling it through space. It was moving away from its original coordinates at subfractional speeds, probably under the assumption that it would be able to hide itself away without using up too much power. Then, as soon as they detected Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa’s pursuit it switched the engines on to maximum, and started to stay ahead of them. This is where they have remained since yesterday, with pretty much no hope for the team to overtake them. There’s no way for them to gain an advantage. The reframe engine moves the ship faster than light, but it’s still inextricably linked to the light speed barrier. The Constant apparently has access to this technology, thanks to Pryce himself, no doubt. What they really need is a true faster-than-light drive, though to be fair, if they had that, so would likely the Constant. It’s kind of weird that they don’t, to be honest. Team Keshida figured it out, which means it’s possible, so why didn’t the builders of the facility from deep into the future include a propulsion drive in the original design? They supposedly had multiple contingencies for everything else.

“Is there anything we can do?” Alyssa asks.

“Not unless they falter,” Rames replies. He’s on edge, like a real spaceship captain, even though there’s nothing for him to do. Constance is handling everything.

“Well, if they’re going—as you said—ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine percent the speed of light, can we just tack on a seventh nine? Or hell, even a one would get us there eventually, right?”

“That’s not how it works,” Ramses tries to explain. There are no more decimal places. Adding even a one at the end would be close enough to the speed of light to break the laws of physics.”

“Don’t you break the laws of physics every day with your powers?”

“It’s my theory that all time travel is powered by vacuum energy, which—to simplify it greatly—operates at a level higher than the bounds of the universe, which means it does move faster than light. Our problem is that we don’t have the resources to truly harness its might. We have friends in the main sequence who cracked it, but their ship is gargantuan compared to ours, and I would need more time to study the technology if I wanted to replicate it.”

“Maybe there’s some other loophole?” Alyssa offers.

“There’s one,” Ramses says, “but it won’t work for us. We could theoretically teleport forwards while we’re still moving at reframe speeds, which will cover a little extra ground. Unfortunately, we’re too far from them. It would only have worked if we had caught up to within teleporter range before the max reframe chase began.”

Alyssa frowns, and looks down at the floor, hoping that her uneducated brain can come up with a solution that a super intelligent person wouldn’t think to try, because it’s just too simple. “When’s the last time you tried to call them?” she asks Mateo.

“Twenty minutes ago. They have their heart set on staying away from us.”

“Did you tell them that Leona isn’t here, so they don’t have to worry about her being able to take over?”

“They’re aware. My messages got through, they just aren’t responding anymore.”

Alyssa paces. “Why are they so afraid of us catching up? What did we do so wrong? I mean, I know you’ve had your issues, but from the sound of it, they’re using a lot of energy to keep us at bay.”

“Does seem irrational,” Ramses agrees. “We’re little threat to them.”

Alyssa narrows her eyes at Mateo. “Do you know who all is out there?”

“Besides everyone on the government rocket, Tamerlane, and Danica, anyone else could be there. The facility fits thousands, and could accommodate hundreds at least if they needed to spend the night.”

“Right.” She pauses. “Ramses, how many people have we still not yet found from your little brain scanner; the errors, I mean?”

“According to the last scan, there were three remaining errors. We just haven’t taken the time to look into them. Why?”

“These grave chambers,” she begins, “they can be jettisoned?”

“Umm...yeah. What are you getting at here?”

“She thinks there’s someone in the Constant who has been marked with the timonite,” Mateo finally realizes. “Danica doesn’t want me there, because I would make them disappear.”

“How would they have gotten up there?”

“I don’t know, but think about the math. There were eleven errors in total, including the guy from that other dimension, who didn’t always show up on the scans. Add him to Erlendr, Meredarchos-slash-Erlendr, the woman from Manila whose name I can’t remember, because we let her go...”

“Everest, Curtis, and Aquila-slash-Bhulan,” Ramses finishes. “There’s one missing. How could I have not noticed that?”

“You’ve been pretty busy,” Mateo comforts.

“Wait, did you ask about the grave chamber, because you want to jettison Mateo?” Ramses questions.

“Park him somewhere safe, and retrieve him later,” Alyssa suggests.

“That’s so dangerous,” Ramses argues. “We could get to the Constant, and then find ourselves being locked up in stasis for 10,000 years. The suspended animation tech we have in the grave chambers can’t last that long.”

“Leave him with your little remote thing,” Alyssa puts forth. “If we don’t return in X amount of time, he can replicate himself a new ship.”

“There’s not enough ambient temporal energy out here. The teleporter eats more than the reframe engine, but the reframe engine also requires antimatter, which is even more precious to us at the moment.”

“All the more reason we should stop fighting from behind, and try diplomacy again. It can’t hurt to ask,” Alyssa assumes.

“It can. Trust me, it can.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo volunteers.

“Matthew, you don’t have—”

“I said I’ll do it.” He slides the door to grave chamber four open. “Now show me how to jettison myself.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Ramses warns. “That may not be the issue, and even if it is, they may not accept the solution. Constance?”

“Attempting to contact the Constant...again.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 28, 2398

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Kivi has been looking out at the scenery as the car drives down the highway, going the conventional speed, instead of as fast as possible, like Heath likes to drive. Her eyes are wandering now, occasionally looking over at Marie for a split second. Marie notices. “If you have something to say, go ahead,” she says, not aggressively.

“This trip has gotten pretty long,” Kivi points out.

“I can turn up the music, or change it.”

“I’m not bored.”

“There’s a rest stop soon, we can take a break.”

“We’re just...going a lot farther...than you implied when you asked me to accompany you.”

“Oh. We’re going to Springfield.”

Kivi winces. “Now, I don’t know everything that my alternate selves would know, but I know Springfield, and it’s the one that just disappeared one day, and ended up on another planet.”

“It wasn’t one day,” Marie corrects. “It happened over the course of decades, getting smaller and smaller all the time.”

“Oh.”

“And that’s Springfield, Kansas. We’re going to Springfield, Missouri.”

“Why?”

Marie takes a beat. “It’s where I grew up.”

“Oh,” Kivi repeats. “I thought you were a Kansas City girl.”

“I went to a fake finishing school in Kansas City, but my family owned a farm outside of Springfield. That’s where the slaves worked.”

Kivi doesn’t really wanna talk about the fact that Angela-slash-Marie grew up owning human beings. Fortunately, she has a different line of questioning to go down. “What is a fake finishing school?”

“Do you know what a finishing school is?”

“No, I guess I don’t know what that is either.”

“It’s where young ladies would go to learn how to be proper women. Ya know, cleaning, finding a good husband, doing whatever the hell he tells you.”

“What made yours fake?”

“It was a real school,” Marie explains. “They taught us math, science, history; everything the boys were learning. In fact, once historians realized what had really been going on there, they also discovered that it was actually better than most traditional educational institutions in the area at the time.”

“Fascinating.”

“My father sent me there on purpose. He was one of the few men who knew it to be fake, and he wanted me to have an education. Of course, there were ways for me to do that. It’s not like there were no women in regular schools. He needed to maintain the family reputation, though, so this was perfect, since it had to be kept secret.”

Kivi nods, and stays silent for the next minute or so. “Are we going to the farm to see if you can teleport in the area?”

“Oh, God no. It’s not special at all. In fact, maps were different back then, and it was in a different reality, but I do believe that the location of our farm is now the nearest airport.”

“I see. This is just for nostalgia.”

“I don’t know what this is for,” Marie answers honestly. “I just felt compelled to get in the car, and go this direction.”

“And I’m here, because...”

“Because if I go alone, the others are gonna freak out, and try to come save me.”

“You want to be alone, so I’m the next best thing?”

Marie throws the car into autolaning mode. It’s not full autonomy, but it can stay between two lane markings, and not run into the car ahead. If it does notice itself approaching another car too quickly, it will come off the gas, and beep at the driver. Now she can look directly at Kivi without drifting into the ditch. “Not at all. I brought you, because I trust you. You know what it’s like to suddenly come into existence, and learn that you’re a copy of someone else.”

“No one knows who the original Kivi is.”

“Your father wasn’t born to the Third Rail. Do you think you’re the original?”

“No, of course not.” That was a little mean, but Kivi’s fine. “I can see the connection between us.”

“Like I said, I don’t know why I decided to go this way. I just woke up today, and felt like it was the most logical next step. I asked you to come, because I didn’t want to be alone. I just didn’t want to have to explain myself to the others. I think you’re better at understanding that I can’t quite explain it.”

“That’s probably true. My whole life is a question mark.”

“I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what we’ll to find, or how close we’ll be able to get without plane tickets, but either way, it’s an experience that will always be just between the too of us.”

“I like that.”

Marie returns to the steering wheel. She could let the car drive itself until it’s time to exit, but right now she feels the need to exercise control over everything possible.

Extremus: Year 31

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It took a shockingly long time for Omega to realize who the photographer, September was, and what her weird cryptic messages meant. Her name was no random coincidence. There is a woman from Earth with the ability to travel through time—fittingly, through pictures. Sometimes when she does this, she will just be completing a loop of destiny. She hasn’t changed anything about the timeline; she stayed in one reality, and did everything she was destined to do. Other times, however, she’s able to change the past, and when that happens, it will generate a brand new timeline. The problem is, now there were two versions of her in this reality. It’s unclear how it occurs, but there are a few options to deal with this situation. Her method is for all the alternates to coexist in the same timeline. They usually avoid any confusion or complications by going off in different directions, and the traveler will give herself a different name to distinguish themselves. The original was and is named Paige. The second one is Dyad, the third Trinity, and so on. September is the seventh incarnation. How and why she ended up on Extremus, and how involved she is in its goingson, is something that Omega isn’t cognizant of. That’s not his concern right now, though. He’s on a mission of great importance, and the key to completing it lies in the comments that September made just before the detachment team left.

Omega was a clone. The original, Saxon Parker, was given his own mission, along with a few others. They were tasked with installing an outpost in every single star system in the galaxy. His superiors decided that they wanted a human touch to the automated ships. Thusly, the clones were grown. They were each given a number, Omega’s being the last, which inspired him to name himself accordingly. Omega also didn’t want to go through with the mission, so Saxon was forced to fill in for him. But this isn’t about Omega’s number. It’s about number 83. That’s what September offered them, so to the location of number 83 is where they’re going.

The team doesn’t want to travel through time, and Captain Leithe strongly suggested that they not anyway. Still, they needed to cover over 20,000 light years, and they needed to figure out how to do it in a matter of years. So instead of sending their whole ship back in time, they sent the original time shuttle on its own. Once there, it would take the long way around to finally reach the location of Anglo 83, which shouldn’t be too far from the border of what was deemed Earth’s stellar neighborhood. This neighborhood spans a radius of fifty light years in all directions, and the True Extremists have decided—without telling anyone, naturally—that everything beyond it belonged to them.

Surely they would claim that they were protecting fragile Earthans from the existence of their distant cousins by not actually telling them about the border, but this is a ridiculous stance. Sure, it’s fine for when the people of Earth were young and naïve, but when they began to try to spread out to the stars, the True Extremists should have made themselves known. As explained by famous futurist Isaac Arthur, if you don’t want people to come to your backyard, you don’t hide from them. You warn them that you’re there, and you do it loudly. No civilization capable of galactic colonization would ever dare trespass against a neighbor who has proven themselves strong enough to be seen for as long in years as they are far away in light years. That is, if the Earthans could witness the might of the True Extremists, they would know how powerful the aliens were based on their ability to be witnessed from 50 light years away at least 50 years ago. It’s even in the freakin’ handbook. According to protocols developed by Earthan scientists before they so much as passed the heliosphere, first contact with a superior alien force is to be made at those aliens’ discretion; not the other way around.

“Is it finally ready?” Captain Moralez asks.

“Yes, it’s arrived at the destination, currently pilot fishing Voussoir Splitter Seven,” Valencia answers.

“Any explanation for why it cut it so close? We have been ready to cast for over four years.”

Valencia shakes her head as she’s looking over the data. “Best guess, it went slow. It wasn’t traveling at maximum reframe. I’m not really seeing that in the logs, though.”

“Did you do this?” Yitro questions Omega.

“Why would I do that?”

“Your little riddle that the photographer had for you. She must have given you the impression that we shouldn’t arrive until now. So you programmed the shuttle to go just a little bit slower than it could have.”

“September told us to find clone 83. She didn’t say when. This had nothing to do with me, I don’t know what went wrong.”

The Captain isn’t convinced.

“He’s telling the truth,” Valencia argues. “Stop looking at him like that.”

“I’m still not convinced he should be here,” Yitro says to her. “It’s his brother out there on that ship. That could be a conflict of interest.”

Omega can’t help but laugh.

“What?”

“We don’t have the split schedule,” Omega tries to explain, “but we know that Anglo 83’s module hasn’t had time to split apart that much yet. There could be as many as 1100 people on that thing right now. They should all be asleep, but...we don’t know that.”

“Even more cause to be concerned about you going on this mission,” Yitro reasons.

“No offense to you, honey,” Omega says to the mother of his child before switching his attention back to the Captain, “but I’m the smartest person on this detachment. You need me.”

“Someone has to stay here anyway,” Yitro contends, knowing it to be a weak argument.

“Yes,” Omega says with a condescending nod, “the navigator, and the casting engineer, as well as the medic, and our amazing auxiliary crewmember. The rest of us are on the away team. This was decided long ago, why are you fighting it now?”

“I don’t know,” Yitro admits. “I’m just worried about what’s waiting for us on the other side of that quantum casting pod. I don’t like that we’re four years behind. But you’re right. Intelligence aside, having a clone on the team is an asset. Let’s go.”

“Not quite yet.” Kaiora wanted to send a doctor with them, but Extremus couldn’t afford to lose anyone right now. The crew was having a surprisingly hard time backfilling medical positions. Dechen Karma was the best medic currently licensed, so that was the compromise. “You need a fitness approval from me.”

“And I need to finish running diagnostics on these pods,” engineer Hardy Gibson adds.

“Oh, good,” Yitro says sarcastically. “Anyone else? Navigator Trimble?  Yeoman?”

They shake their heads, a little in fear.

“Great, then I think we’ll just be going. It’s been four months, there’s nothing wrong with the pods, or our bodies.” Yitro starts taking off his uniform.

“You don’t need to do that,” Gibson assures him. “It just hooks up to your brain.”

“I knew that, I’m just...getting comfortable.”

“Is he okay?” Omega whispers to Valencia.

“A lot can change about a person in four years,” she replies. “This is a small detachment ship. Cabin fever, if I had to guess.”

“Maybe he should be staying behind.”

The three of them climb into their respective pods. Gibson and Karma link them to the computer, and prepare to cast them thousands of light years away. “It’s just like playing Quantum Colony,” Gibson says, “except we’ll be sending your consciousness there intact, rather than having you pilot a surrogate.”

“Very well,” Yitro replies. “Do it.”

Omega tries to give Valencia another knowing look, but they can’t see each other from inside their pods. So he just closes his eyes, and lets himself go.”

Omega awakens in the destination pod, but it’s not what he expected. His new body ought to be tilted at a 135 degree angle, just like his real one. Instead, he’s fully flat, and fully encased. This looks less like a casting pod, and more like a stasis chamber. No, this doesn’t make sense at all. He slides the hatch above him open, and pulls himself up to look around. This doesn’t look like the time shuttle either, but it does look familiar. He tries to speak, but it’s always a little difficult at first, so he clears his throat profusely. “Computer, report.”

“It is February 12, 2300 at closest estimate to realtime. Cruising at point-nine-nine—”

“I get it,” Omega interrupts. “We shouldn’t be time dilating yet. We should still be at reframe speeds.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand,” the computer says.

“Hey, computer! I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Okay, well I’m sorry to have bothered you. Sorry, Anglo Eighty-Three. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

“What did you just call me?”

“I was programmed to recognize your designation as Anglo Eighty-Three. Would you like to provide me with a different name?”

“Where are we?”

“This is Voussoir Splitter Seven of the Project Stargate Quantum Seeder Program for the Milky Way Galaxy Colonization Initiative.”

That’s not right. He’s not supposed to be on the modular ship yet. He was just supposed to be cast to their time shuttle, where they would investigate from the outside, only intending to board the splitter if necessary. Omega has to work through this logic with the computer. “Why am I awake?”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“Anglos are not meant to wake up unless something is wrong with the ship, so why am I awake?”

The computer took a moment to respond. “Unknown. Revival process triggered from inside the stasis chamber.”

“Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you, since I was asleep, and couldn’t have prompted said revival process myself?”

“Hmm.” That’s an interesting response.

“Computer, did you detect a quantum casting event prior to my awakening?”

“Checking logs. Yes, recent casting event detected.”

“Okay...”

“You’re not Anglo Eighty-Three, are you?”

“No, I’m a different Anglo.”

“This...is a problem.”

“Yeah. Do you detect any other vessels in this region of space?”

“One, traveling at incongruent relativistic speeds. Communication impossible.”

“Not impossible, just a shorter time frame. I’m gonna teach you how to reframe your communication protocols. I absolutely must connect with my Captain, and my...Valencia.” They never really did fully define this relationship. They have the same last name now, but never married.

Valencia sits before the computer, staring at the camera. “Engineer’s log, February 14, 2300. It has been two days since I arrived alone on the time shuttle. Still no word from the Captain, or Omega. I cannot reach the Perran Thatch. I have been monitoring the progress of Voussoir Splitter Seven, which is traveling at maximum relativistic speeds. So far, nothing has gone wrong. I am detecting no other vessels in the vicinity, nor any reason to believe that the True Extremists are anywhere near here. I have been able to make short jumps to confirm this. If they’re planning to come here at all, they’ve not arrived yet, though I can’t rule out the possibility that the casting problem is the result of some kind of sabotage. I may end up becoming the victim of survivor’s guilt, with my two crewmembers lost to the quantum void.” She sighs.

A message pops up on the screen, reading turn off the reframe engine, love.

“Computer, turn off reframe. Match relativistic speed with the voussoir splitter.”

After the computer complies, another message arrives, but video this time. “Valencia, you made it.”

“You’re on the splitter. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“It’s only been a few minutes.”

“It’s been a couple days for me.”

He shrugs. “I’ve heard it both ways. Where’s Captain Moralez.”

She sighs again. “Shit. I was hoping he was with you.”

“No. Hopefully he’s just back on the Thatch.”

“Are we ever that lucky?”

“We found the source of the meteor chain.”

“That took us twenty years.”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“We need to find him.”

“We will.”

Not too far away, but still out of sensor range, Yitro wakes up to find two weapons trained on him. They wait as he coughs profusely. “Oh, man, pardon me. Good day, I’m Captain Moralez of the Perran Thatch Detachment Ship. Got any water?”

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