Fluence: Amal (Part IX)

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Eight Point Seven took hold of Goswin, and laid him gently onto the floor. Blood leaked out of him like a popped water balloon. He screamed when Iolanta instinctively applied pressure to his wound, forgetting that her hands were covered in citrus juice. Airlock Karen drenched his abdomen with water. Eight Point Seven was not a doctor, but she had all necessary medical knowledge in her memory banks, because there was no reason not to. “Briar! Briar! I need a med kit.”

Briar was wrestling with A.F., trying to get the knife out of the man’s hands, but also maybe trying to kill him?

“I can get it,” Weaver replied.

“No!” Eight Point Seven argued. “He needs to be the one to do it! Briar, go find me some gauze! Now!”

Briar let go of the attacker, and ran off. Iolanta followed. “I know where the nearest infirmary is!” she explained.

One of the other Goswins, who had chosen to remain here, climbed up the ladder, and approached with no sense of urgency. “I know what to do.”

“I know what to do too,” Eight Point Seven spit.

“You can’t save him,” Goswin!Three explained. The numerical designations were largely arbitrary. This was the first shifted Goswin who needed one, but Weaver!Two’s Goswin was presumably Goswin!Two. “We shifted into the Fifth Division, which is where that guy is from. That blade is poisoned. If there’s a treatment, it’s not here.”

“Is that where we should go?” Eight Point Seven questioned. “The Fifth Division?” She looked behind him to see the rest of Goswin!Three’s crew appear up the stairs. They look disheveled and tired. Their experiences were apparently not nearly as safe and easy. Who knows what else they had been through?

“You wouldn’t know where to look, and neither would we,” Goswin!Three clarified. “Besides, all members of a crew must be conscious to shift.”

“So, what would you have me do?” Eight Point Seven was desperate. She had all this medical knowledge, but no tools, and she wasn’t a miracle worker. She at least needed to stop the bleeding, even if they still had a poison to worry about. Where the hell was Briar with that first aid kit?

“Let us take him,” Goswin!Three offered. “He needs to visit the Magnolia.”

“What would be the purpose of that?” Weaver questioned.

“You must not have had enough time to study it,” a shifted Weaver said. “It does more than you think. Trust us. He needs to go to Bida.”

“He doesn’t have much time,” the other Briar claimed.

“We should trust them,” Goswin!Prime struggled to say through the bubbles of blood popping out of his mouth.

“No,” Eight Point Seven tried to reason. “If you’re conscious, then let’s all focus on a medical professional in a medical facility. Somewhere in the Fifth Division, you say? We don’t need to know where to look. That’s what our power is for. It looks for us, we just have to concentrate on it. Gos? Gos!”

“He’s out again,” the other Goswin said. “We have to go now, but we won’t do it without consensus.”

Weaver!Prime took a half step forward. “You have it. I’m second in command. When he’s out, it falls to me. Eight Point Seven, let him go.”

“We’re obviously going with you,” Eight Point Seven insisted.

Everyone shifted to the location of the Memory Magnolia on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. This included the other shifted crews who chose to stay, as well as the warmonger crew. Even Briar!Prime and Iolanta were shifted with them, each cradling as much medical paraphernalia as they could carry. A version of either Weaver or Holly Blue was standing at the tree. She was wearing steampunk goggles, and inspecting the bark of the tree. It was much larger than the last time the Primes saw it.

“We need the sap,” Goswin!Three demanded.

Weaver!Four turned, but left her goggles on. “This kind of tree doesn’t have sap in the way that you’re thinking. If you just give me some time—”

“There’s no time, dipshit!” Weaver!Three argued. She pushed her other, other self out of the way as she approached the tree. She held her hand out by her hip, using her power to shift a spile out of some other time and place. She dropped her other hand, and shifted a drill into that one.

“No. I’ll do it,” the other Eight Point Seven insisted. She ignored the drill, and took the spile from her Weaver. She placed it against the bark of the tree, but didn’t jam it in immediately. She used her other hand to feel around the trunk until she found the right place well above her head, which she moved the spile too. She twisted it at first to begin making the dent before it was sufficiently deep. Then she forced it the rest of the way in. Once it was evidently ready, she placed her hands on either side of the trunk, and closed her eyes.

“No, I’ll do it,” Goswin!Three echoed her from earlier.

“You’ve already given too much,” the Weaver!Three reminded him.

“I’ll do it,” the Briar!Three volunteered instead.

“We’ll need a lot,” his version of Goswin warned him. “You’ll have to sacrifice a lot of memories, and that could kill you.”

“It’s for a Prime,” Briar reasoned.

“No,” Weaver!Prime jumped in. “Goswin wouldn’t want someone to die for him.”

Briar!Three smiled. “No one ever really dies. I am a wave returning to the ocean.” He placed his own hands around the tree like his Eight Point Seven did, and shut his eyes. He stood there for a few minutes, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning. Finally, he shifted away, perhaps into oblivion. An amber sap began to flow from the spile. Goswin!Three jumped up to it, simultaneously shifting a golden grail into his hand. Once he had collected enough, he held up his free hand as if merely asking a waiter to stop adding parmesan. The sap stopped flowing after it let out the last few drops.

“Is he gone?” Briar!Prime asked regarding his shifted self.

“Gone is a relative term,” Goswin!Three replied vaguely as he was slipping the sap between his shifted self’’s lips. “There’s a little bit of him in all of the other Briars now. We’re all only extensions of one person. That’s what makes us different from normal alternate selves. Identity is preserved, just...split.”

Tamerlane Pryce slowly began to climb the hill up towards the Magical Memory Magnolia. “What does that mean for those of us who don’t have any shifted selves?”

“Same thing it means for anyone,” Goswin!Three began. “You are just you.”

“But the tree,” Pryce tried to clarify. “What would happen if I were to...sacrifice a memory to it? Or all of my memories, which is presumably what caused your Briar to disappear.”

“That’s not our problem right now,” Eight Point Seven!Prime exclaimed. “How long is this miracle sap supposed to take? He’s not waking up.”

Goswin!Three checked Goswin!Prime’s pulse. “He may be too far gone. His heart is still beating, but barely. It should have worked by now.”

“You said gone isn’t really gone,” Briar!Prime pointed out.

“It’s complicated, okay?”

Everyone kept arguing while Pryce only stared longingly at the tree, and Iolanta warned him off of it. It was too dangerous, but he had to know. He would soon get his chance to find out, but not quite yet. Goswin!Prime was indeed gone, but not in the way that anyone here was imagining it. He found himself standing on an asteroid in the middle of outerspace. There was no atmosphere, but he felt no need to breathe. Only a few faint stars were in the sky, but they were moving as the asteroid rotated on its axis. From behind the hill, the Earth came into view. Except it wasn’t Earth. It was a warped abomination of many Earths, twisted around, and melded into, each other. It looked like how someone would draw the Earth if they kept messing up, and instead of finding a new piece of paper, just drew the next attempt on top of the old one. No one could have survived whatever happened to it, yet he wasn’t alone.

Some version of Briar walked up to him, and watched the Earth amalgam continue to rise in the sky over their head. “This is the result.”

“The result of what?” Goswin asked him.

“Of us,” Briar answered. “Us and our shifted selves. We just keep shifting, and these are the consequences. We start out with the best of intentions, obviously. We shift Hitler out of history to prevent the Holocaust. It works, but the war still happens, and people keep dying. So we keep shifting, a person here, a building there to avoid a tsunami. Shift this, shift that, shift who we believe to be an anachronistic visionary to another point in time. Shift entire groups of people. We try to remake the world in our image, and eventually, we just move the Earth itself. To compound the issue, we’ve already been shifted, so competing crews are running around, making their own adjustments to the timeline. The conflicts arose exponentially, and we couldn’t stop it. That’s what’s happened with that.” The amalgamation disappeared beyond the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before it was back.

“We break time,” Goswin acknowledged. “Time travel is always bad, no matter what you’re trying to do with it. We think it’s better, but it’s just movement...unless you’re a shifted one, that we end up with an amalgamated Earth.”

“That would seem to be the case, despite the fact that some of our best friends are time travelers. What’s to be done about it?”

Briar shrugged. “Some tried to go back in time to stop it from ever happening, but guess what?”

“It just backfired,” Goswin realized. “That’s the whole point.”

“That’s the whole point,” Briar echoed. “But you,” he went on. “You’re here to catch a glimpse of your future.” He put the last word in airquotes. “Perhaps you really can fix it before it starts.”

“How could that be possible?”

“How is any of this possible? Use your imagination. That’s what our power really is. We manifest what we imagine into reality, not by conjuring new constructs out of nowhere, but by shifting what already exists from one point to another.”

“Thanks for being so cryptic.”

“I’m not telling you how to fix it, not as some life lesson so you’ll come to the right answer on your own, but because I don’t know it. I was one of the ones who tried to fix it before, and it obviously didn’t work. That’s how we got the Amal.” He pointed at the Earth as it was coming into view once more.

“Amal,” Goswin whispered, getting an idea from his imagination.

“Yeah,” Briar agreed, though he did not understand what he was agreeing with.

Goswin shifted a goblet of Arthurian sap into his hand, but kept looking at his enemy-turned-friend. “I figured out your problem. You were trying to fix it on your own.” He held the goblet up to his face to prepare to drink. “It’s going to take us all.” He poured it down his gullet, and suddenly woke up in his originally body, back on the ground in the middle of the forest on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida.

“Tammy, no!” Iolanta was shouting.

Pryce reached out towards the Miracle Magical Memory Magnolia, and placed a hand upon its bark. He disappeared much quicker than Briar did. Iolanta was holding onto his free hand, and disappeared along with him.

Goswin!Prime got himself to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. It will all be over soon.”

“Something happened to you,” Goswin!Three guessed. “You went somewhere...saw something.”

Goswin!Prime smiled at his shifted self, and placed a hand upon his shoulder. Then, without warning, he shifted him back into his own mind and body.

“What did you just do?” Eight Point Seven!Three asked.

Goswin!Prime shut his eyes, and shifted her into Eight Point Seven!Prime. Then he did the same for the other Weavers, and A.F. He took hold of the hands of each of his compatriots, and synchronized their neural signals. They reached out into the cosmos, to every shifted self, in every point in time, in every timeline, in every reality, and even some who managed to escape this universe, and enter another. He summoned them all to this small clearing in the forest, a hundred of them at a time. They were only here for a second before he absorbed them, even the copies that were not alternates of the core four, like Ellie and Paige. They absorbed them all, back to where they belonged in their respective bodies. One body each.

Now that that was over, and all was right with the world, they still had one more issue. The four of them turned to face the Mysterious Miracle Magical Memory Magnolia. Colors were flowing around the trunk and branches, radiating with energy. The space around it was distorted as it pulsated with power. It almost looked like it was getting ready to explode, and they couldn’t say what that would mean for anyone standing near it, or on the planet at the time, or hell, all of time. The crew was back together, but the rules of reality were still broken, and floating down a river of chaos.

“Something has to be done about that,” Goswin decided.

“The bark receives memories, the leaves store it, and the sap heals. What do the roots do? What do the fruits do?” Briar questioned.

“I see no fruits,” Eight Point Seven pointed out.

“It’s probably only a matter of time,” Weaver figured. “Some plants take years to mature enough to bear fruit.

“Something has to be done about it,” Goswin repeated himself.

“I have an idea,” Weaver said. “But it’s going to require more shifting, and I can’t predict the consequences. Have any of you ever heard of the Garden Dimension?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 28, 2398

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There’s a knock at the door. No one has the chance to even go over to answer it before it opens. A large and looming man comes down the hallway. His facial expression keeps changing from happy to irritated, like he can’t decide which one he feels. Vearden jumps up, and places himself between the man and his friends. Seeing this, the man forces himself to hold a smile. “I’m glad that my daughter found someone like you.”

Arcadia reaches behind the couch cushion and pulls out the emergency knife. Without any warning, she flings it at the body that her father is now wearing. It lands right in his heart, where it belongs.

Erlendr looks down at it. “This body will die soon, but we will find another.” He reaches both arms out like a stereotypical Frankenstein monster.

Arcadia feels a pulsing energy in her head. He’s trying to break into her brain, which would normally be fine, because she can hold the door closed, but her friends are not like her. She’s particularly worried about her beau, Vearden. She’s always struggled with empathizing with other people. She’s always had her own feelings—she’s not a sociopath—but she’s only recently figured out how to care about others. Well, she’s learned how to truly care about them, instead of just convincing herself that she does. If she doesn’t help combat the psychic intrusion for the other people in this room, though, it will prove that she didn’t learn anything. She really is trying to be a better person. Vearden is helping her with it. He’s not directly teaching her what it takes; she’s smart enough to understand academically. She just needs to be reminded everyday that it is possible for someone to love her. But that love is not what’s going to save them now. It’s her love for them that will. She concentrates on putting up barriers to protect them.

Erlendr smirks. “You may protect one or two, but you can’t keep me out of all of their minds.” He tips backwards, and falls over. He’s not dead yet, just unable to withstand his own weight.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t protect all of them, like he said. Vearden appears to be safe, she created a psychic barrier to keep Erlendr—as well as Meredarchos, most likely, judging by the fact that he used the word we to describe himself—out of him. Bridgette and Heath, on the other hand, are not necessarily safe. What did they do to them, though? The stranger’s body is dying anyway, which means that the psychic stowaways can’t maintain control over them, so did they just want information, or what?

Heath suddenly breaks out of a stupor, and gathers his bearings. He looks around, quickly settling on the dying man on the floor. “Master, no!” He runs over, and dives down to inspect the wound. “No, it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Just hold on. He takes off his own shirt to wrap around the knife, and keep pressure on the wound.”

“What are you doing?” Vearden questions.

“Somebody help!” Heath cries. “We can’t let him die!”

“Not only can we let him die,” Bridgette contends, “but we have to make sure it happens. Every possible vessel for his twisted soul is a threat.” She runs over too, but not to help. She jerks the knife out of the man’s chest, and then drives it into his chin, all the way through to his brain.

“No!” Heath elbows her in the face, knocking her to her back.

Vearden runs over and tries to break them apart, but they just keep fighting each other. They’re relentless. “Stop! Just stop!” It’s useless. Bridgette is as dedicated to destroying all of Meredarchos’ followers as Heath is to protecting his master. “Little help here?” Vearden asks Arcadia.

“I’m trying to help,” Arcadia explains. “I’m trying to clean their minds of whatever he infected them with.” It’s not working. He created his own barrier to prevent that very thing. He’s a strong psychic, that’s for sure...leagues beyond better than Erlendr. Combined, they’re the greatest threat she’s ever encountered. They have to be stopped, and saving these two people isn’t going to help. They can’t be saved anyway, and if it’s between preserving their lives, or killing the infection before it can spread, that’s what she’s going to do. They can at least die with a little dignity, though. The knife is too messy and slow. One shot to the head is the only good option.

“Is it working?” Vearden asks, doing his damned best to hold the fighters apart.

“No,” Arcadia replies plainly. She goes to retrieve the gun from the safe.

“Arcadia!” Vearden shouts at her. “Arcadia! What are you doing! No, no, no, no no! Ow! NO! Arcadia, come back! They just stabbed each other!”

Arcadia runs back into the common area to find both Heath and Bridgette on the floor, bleeding. “What happened?”

“Heath remembered the knife. He took it out, and sliced my arm. Then he stabbed Bridgette in the heart, so she took it out and tried to do the same. He dodged, so it landed in his stomach. I think he’s still alive.”

Arcadia checks them both for pulses. “They’re both alive, but barely.”

“We have to help them,” Vearden pleads.

“If we do, they’ll just go back to killing each other, and anyone else who gets in their way.”

“So we just let them die?”

“They’re like zombies, V; They can’t be cured.”

Vearden seethes. “I refuse to accept that.” He takes out his phone, and calls Mateo. “Matt? I need a doctor at the condo right now. They’re gonna die.”

Fifteen seconds later, Mateo appears in the room, holding onto a woman that Arcadia presumes to be a doctor. “What just happened?” she asks, confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vearden tells her. “Just save them.”

She kneels down to get to work. “We’re going to have to triage,” she says after seeing how far gone Bridgette is.

“Matt?” Vearden asks.

Mateo disappears and returns with a second doctor so he can focus on Heath. While they’re doing that, Mateo feels like the right thing to do is to bring Marie here. They’re struggling, but they’re still married, and still in love. She’s seen a lot of death in her day, so she’s crying and pleading, but she doesn’t interfere with the medical professionals’ work.

The doctor who was trying to save Bridgette sighs. “I’m sorry, she’s gone. Time of death thirteen-oh-nine.”

Marie can see that Heath is on his way out too. He’s not going to last much longer unless they take drastic measures. She starts thinking about her options. Arcadia can’t quite read her thoughts, but she can sense what’s happening in there. Finally, she thinks she has it. “Mateo, where is your knife?”

“What knife?” Mateo asks.

“The one that can duplicate things,” Marie clarifies.

“If the doctor needs any more equipment, I’ll be happy to retrieve it for them.”

“I’m not talking about equipment,” Marie says. “I’m talking about Heath. Duplicate him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vearden questions.

“It doesn’t work on people, Marie,” Mateo claims.

“Have you ever tried?”

“Have I ever stabbed someone to see if they die while a duplicate of them appears next to them? No, I guess I haven’t, but that’s crazy!”

“Doctor, what are the chances that he lives?” Marie asks him.

The doctor looks up. “They’re very low.”’

“There.” Marie starts talking with her hands. “You can stab him, a second one will appear next to him, and the first one will die anyway. The second one, however, will be good as new, right; that’s how it works? Now we have nothing to lose.”

“I’ll direct you to my earlier comment about that being crazy.”

“I would do it myself,” Marie argues, “but evidently you’re the only one with the literal magic touch, so would you please just try?”

“There’s a low chance of him surviving,” Vearden reasons, having basically caught up with what they’re talking about. “That’s not zero. But if you’re method of saving him requires stabbing him again, those chances drop much lower, I’m sure.”

Marie ignores him. “Please,” she begs Mateo.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” the doctor begins, “but if you plan on stabbing our patient, then we’re out.” They both clearly work for the government, but they haven’t been told everything.

Mateo frowns. “I can’t be blamed for the consequences.” He disappears and returns thirty seconds later, holding the knife.

“Maybe you should test it on her first,” Vearden suggests.

“Or maybe he shouldn’t do it at all,” Arcadia warns. “They’re both infected. They pose a risk to us all, especially anyone here without the slightest psychic ability.”

“Noted,” Mateo says, but it’s hard to tell how genuine he’s being. He pauses to think about it, but has to make a decision quickly, because if it doesn’t work for Bridgette, it definitely won’t work for Heath if he waits too long. He closes his eyes, and stabs her. Nothing happens. “I really don’t think this is gonna work, Marie.”

Marie grabs the television remote, and hands it to him. “Let’s see if it’s you or the knife, or just because she’s too far gone.”

Mateo sets the remote on the floor and stabs it with no hesitation. It breaks apart, but a second one pops out of the aether, and lands right next to it. “She’s either too dead, or too a human being.”

“If you stab him,” the other doctor warns, “we’re gone.”

“The door is that way.” Once they’ve left, Mateo crosses his fingers, and stabs Heath as well. Heath lurches and gasps, and his muscles relax more than they already were. For a few seconds, nothing else happens. Then a light appears out of nowhere and grows until it’s in the vague shape of a person. It recedes quickly, leaving a naked Heath lying next to his former self.

“Oh my God, it actually worked,” Vearden muses. Physically, yes, it did. Mentally, it didn’t work at all.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 16, 2398

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

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

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

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

Microstory 1710: Everything But the Chisel

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My chisel is all that’s left. Ever since I moved into this house I’ve had a hard time remembering to close the garage. Everywhere I lived before, I would walk straight into the house, but this one is unattached. It’s right up against the house, mind you, and it’s even connected to the grid, but I have to walk outside to actually get into my home. It’s annoying, but I can deal. I just need to learn to make closing that door a habit by using the keypad, or maybe by buying an extra clicker to hang on the key hook. I guess it doesn’t matter much now. Everything is gone. Everything except my chisel. I don’t even have any use for a chisel. Just about everything I own I inherited from my family; in the case of the tools, my dad. He somewhat recently bought all new supplies, but the old ones were fine, and they were just sitting in his father’s father’s toolbox for years until it was time for me to move out. Now I’ve lost it all, except for the chisel. They took my car, naturally. I don’t know why I didn’t hear it start up, since the walls are so thin. They must have been professionals, who knew how to get in and out quickly and quietly. They didn’t want any chisels, though. Fortunately, the door to the inside of my house is always locked. I never forget to do that. In my old age, I can’t take off my shoes without holding onto something to steady myself, and the doorknob is pretty good for that. I suppose I could use a chair, but who has the time to remember that? Anyway, my hand’s already there, so before I grab all the way onto it, I turn the lock, and I’m safe. Or maybe they never wanted inside at all as there’s nothing of value in here, except for my life, and maybe not even that. My laptop is obsolete, my TV is a square. They would probably still want it anyway. After all, they took the trash can I keep in the garage for junk mail. They crave that 49 cents off a bag of carrots, but not a chisel, I guess.

I stand there staring at it, feeling like there must be some kind of message in this. If it were on the floor, I would assume they just dropped it on their way out. But it’s still up on this pegboard, right where I’m pretty sure I left. Well, I didn’t leave it there. My mom set this up for me secretly while I was at work one day. She likes to do things for me, because she knows how irresponsible I can be. Remember that I’m the one who never remembers to close his garage door. In all this time, I’ve probably only used a couple of these tools. The deck is old, so I have to smash down the screws and nails with a hammer so my dog doesn’t step on them. I would use the pocket knife to open packages. Those are really the only things here that I ever needed. I wonder if it’s possible to use the chisel for both of those tasks. I could hit the screws and nails with the handle, and stab into the boxes and bags. That would probably risk damaging the contents, but I believe I deserve it. Yeah, this must be a message, and it has nothing to do with online orders or hardware. The burglars are telling me that I’m not only a tool, but a useless one. Chisels are great when you’re the kind of person who uses chisels, but they’re not an everyday thing for most people. I’m not an everyday person. I’m only good under certain conditions, like when you want someone to steal all of your stuff without breaking a sweat, or if you need a mediocre file clerk who’s always making mistakes. This chisel represents me: alone, and not especially valuable. As I’m contemplating my sad life, one of the burglars returns and explains that he forgot something. He’s about to reach for the chisel, but I grab it first. And I stab him in the throat with it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Saturday, July 15, 2130

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They were standing at the top of a very steep set of basement stairs. The lights weren’t on, and Mateo felt a great chill. There was something evil down in that basement, and it was just waiting for the horror movie to enter its second act. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re waiting,” Missy didn’t explain.

“Waiting for what?” Lowell asked.

“You don’t need to be here,” Missy answered. “As for you, Mateo, you want to find Trinity, I know the man for the job.”

Mateo thought about it for a second, running through all the usual suspects. “Vidar Wolfe,” he soon realized. “He’s here?”

“Not yet,” she clarified. Then she consulted her watch once more. “Twenty-four seconds.”

“How do you have that accurate of an arrival time?” Téa asked, impressed.

“I have my wily ways,” Missy said.

A few more seconds passed before Vidar appeared from a spacetime breach a few steps down. He wasn’t expecting to be on stairs, so he immediately started falling backwards, and it was unclear whether he was going to tumble down those steps, or back into his own portal. Missy reached out her hand, and caught him in a time bubble, which she gently laid down on the landing below.

Vidar stood up, and nodded, as if she had done nothing more for him but hold open a door. “Thank you. I appreciate your support.”

“You can pay us back with a tracking spell,” Missy said with a single nod of her own.

“I suppose I am honor-bound. Who are you looking for?”

“Trinity Turner,” Mateo replied.

“Does it have to be Trinity, or can it be Quinn, or what?” Vidar asked. “I think I just know where Quinn is.”

“It has to be Trinity,” Mateo confirmed. “Besides, I’ve never met Quinn.”

“All right,” Vidar agreed. “Where did you last see her?”

“We haven’t,” Téa said. “We need to know where she is today, regardless of where that places her in her personal timeline.”

“Okay.” Vidar yawned deeply. “This shouldn’t be too hard, and then I can take a nap, right?”

“Fine with us,” Lowell answered.

Vidar cracked his knuckles. “Gimme a minute.”

Meanwhile, over 25,000 light years away, Leona was being fitted for a new avatar. This one looked like Nerakali—even at its core code—so when she went out into the main simulation world, Pryce wouldn’t know that it was her who caused the prison break.

“Just give me a minute, and you’ll be good to go,” Gilbert said. “Maybe ten.”

“Is this going to work?” Jeremy asked.

“Wait, Jeremy?” Leona questioned.

“Yes, what?”

“I thought you went by J.B.”

“I don’t think so,” Jeremy said, confused.

Gilbert and the real Nerakali were giving each other a look.

“What?” Leona asked them.

“I’ll try to explain,” Nerakali volunteered. “The simulations are run on quantum computers. They’re a little...unpredictable when it comes to time travel. I mean, if someone were to go back in time, and stop you from dying on whatever day you died on, that doesn’t mean the simulation keeps this version of you here, outside of time, or something. It will still save your life, and this reality will be erased. But it’s capable of processing some of the more minor discrepancies. Somebody went back, and changed something about the past, which caused your friend to end up using a different name, and you’re aware of it, because the afterlife simulation is capable of recognizing both quantum states. Jeremy; J.B. They’re from slightly different realities, and your memories are muddled, because the simulation isn’t sure which one is standing before us right now.”

“Did you follow any of that?” Jeremy asked Sanaa softly.

“I wasn’t listening,” she replied to him dismissively. She probably was, and she probably understood it, but she had a reputation of being a rascal, and she had to protect it.

“Don’t worry about it...Jeremy,” Leona said. It wouldn’t be that hard to get used to the new name. This was just how life worked.

“To answer your original question,” Gilbert began, “yes, this is going to work.”

“How will she get Angela out of prison?” Jeremy pressed.

“I cannot make someone else Level 10,” Gilbert explained. “That’s like using one of your three wishes to ask for more wishes. That’s how Pryce put it during my orientation, anyway. I can make her Level 9, though, and she should only need to be an Eight to get out of prison. She can come up with her own plan, but she could construct a bunch of holes in the prison walls, for instance, and just run right in. Or, she could do something more elaborate, and less noticeable, and sneak her out of there. Again, she can do it however she wants.”

“I think I should go with her,” Jeremy offered.

“That’s very kind of you,” Leona said, “but let’s try to minimize the damage here. I’m already not sold on the idea of throwing Nerakali under the bus.”

“It was out of an airlock,” Nerakali corrected, “if you will recall.”

“That might have happened a long enough time ago that it’s funny to you, but for me, it feels like yesterday,” Leona scolded apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nerakali echoed, then she gasped. “Ah. You look so beautiful.”

Unable to contain herself after the surprising humor, Leona burst out laughing. Gilbert had just put the final touches on his work, and now Leona looked exactly like Nerakali.

“What happens to you when you get her out of the prison?” Jeremy continued. “Her clothes are still orange, aren’t they. Even if she gets out of the building, that doesn’t fix her level.”

Sanaa reached behind her head, and pulled out a giant duffle bag that wouldn’t have been able to hide back there in the real world. “That’s why she’s got this.” She dropped the bag on the table, and pulled out this long plastic-lookin’ thing with a button on one end. “It’s a portable recodifier. This will turn Angela into a Level 1, but before you freak out, it’s only temporary. Pryce is capable of monitoring the actions of anyone in the simulation, except in a few cases, like this little virtual subworld of Gilbert’s that we’re in right now. Level 1s are not in the simulation, though. It’s like tucking your flash drive away in a drawer, and expecting to be able to pull files from it on your computer. You gotta plug it in first. Level 1s still exist, but they’re unplugged.” She waved the recodifier around. “The cool thing about this is that you can unplug her in the prison, and plug her back in once you get back to VioletSpace. Pryce will be able to see you, but he won’t know that you have an Angela in your pocket.”

Leona took it from Sanaa’s hand. “When did you have time to become in charge of supplies?”

“I have my wily ways. Gilbert built them during or interim year, but I came up with the ideas last year, and told him what to do.”

“There are some other goodies in here too,” Gilbert said as he pulled the bag’s opening towards himself with his middle finger. “You might need all of them, or none of them; it depends.”

Gilbert showed her his creations, all of which Sanaa had come up with herself. They accounted for contingency after contingency, and a lot of them were pretty dangerous, even in a virtual world. Full, the bag was impossibly light, and folded in on itself until it was small enough to fit in her back pocket. When she ready ready to go, they realized Jeremy was nowhere to be found, theoretically because he didn’t think this was going to go as well as they planned. They couldn’t blame him for it, but this was kind of how she and Mateo operated. They made half a plan, and then let fate fill in the rest. It always seemed to work out for them. Then again, the powers that be, though highly restrictive, were on their side, and were never looking for them to fail. Pryce was an antagonist, and though he hadn’t zeroed anyone yet—which was a term in here that referred to permanent death—it was likely only a matter of time before their opposition pushed him far enough over that line.

It looked like Sanaa wanted to say something as they were sending Leona off on her mission. She waited patiently until Sanaa reached over, and gave her a hug. “Don’t go getting yourself killed, you asshole.”

“I love you too,” Leona said back.

She stepped out of the secret world, and into the main one. While time travelers weren’t the only ones with Level 10 privileges, they were incredibly rare, and everyone noticed when one walked by. Way the real Nerakali understood it, Trinity and the original designers wanted there to be a way to reward good behavior, and restrict those who misbehaved. The prison definitely existed in their concept, but there were fewer levels above that, and they didn’t agree with each other whether it was ethical to zero anybody, for any reason. Pryce was the one who came up with the color schemes, so people could distinguish themselves from others, and the elites could avoid the dregs. So when Leona started walking through the city center, dressed in royal purple, everyone turned to watch. She ignored them, not so as to keep her head down, but to give off an air of superiority to them. They expected her to be proud of her station, and acting like her regular, humble self would have caused even more of a stir.

She still didn’t really have much of a plan as she was walking, but Jeremy’s disappearance made her realize something about him, and changed everything about what she had already come up with. She quickly took the magic bag out of her pocket, retrieved only one item from it, and attached a quick note to the outside. She then  walked right into the prison, and started opening every door and gate in her path. She didn’t need authorization, or prior notice, or even to sign a check-in sheet. She could go anywhere she wanted. Now, this didn’t mean she was invisible, but that was totally okay. The guards, both NPC and career correctional officers, noticed her just as much as everyone else, and every single one of them felt compelled to alert Tamerlane Pryce to her presence. This was exactly what she wanted. Now a stir was a good thing, because it was just a distraction. Her plan hinged on something she had no control over, but she could mark that down in the half of the plan she didn’t know, and that wasn’t going to stop her from carrying it out. Finally, she had her first target in her sights. It was the NPC guard from when she was here to visit Angela, and case the joint. She had freed him from the prison of his own mind by giving him consciousness, and it was time for him to pay her back.

She covertly slipped the bag out of her pocket, and slipped it into his hand. He would know what to do with it, and the great thing about it was that she didn’t need him to do anything beyond it. His job would be quick and easy, and then the contents of the bag would take care of the rest. Hopefully he wouldn’t squeal later, but even if he did, they would probably be long gone by the time the consequences rained down on them. She continued on, and headed for her final destination. Guards kept their eye on her as she passed, and grew more earnest the deeper she went. She was in a more restricted area now, where the worst of the worst lived that Pryce still didn’t consider despicable enough to zero. Leona would beg to differ on at least one count, but his decision was going to allow her to feed two birds with one worm, or since it involved violence, maybe it should be kill two birds with one stone. No, because she only wanted to kill one of the birds. So she would kill one bird with one stone, so the other could have the one worm all to herself. Did that metaphor make sense?

She was here, but before she entered the room, she dropped the façade, and returned to the avatar that resembled her true self. She decided she wasn’t willing to let her friend get punished for her actions. She opened the door.

“Did you come here to get closure?” he snarked.

Leona stood there and stared at him menacingly. “You’re a rapist.”

He let out an irritated sigh. “She was my wife! You can’t rape your own wife!”

“Yes! You can! And you did! And you’re gonna die for it!”

Maniacal laugh. “Haven’t you heard, Sugar Tits? We’re all dead here.”

Leona took the knife out of her other pocket. “Some more than others.”

“What do you expect to do with that thing? I don’t need pain dampeners. I have complete control over what my mind perceives. I’ve been standing in a field of poppies since you came in.”

Leona spun the handle in her grip. “Then upon poppies you shall die.”

Either she was really committed to the bluff, or the knife wasn’t as harmless as he thought. The truth was that it was a zeroblade. If they got stabbed with this, it wouldn’t matter what level someone was, their consciousness would be extinguished, and there was no coming back from that. Dead is dead..is dead is dead. Erlendr Preston was about to become the first person whose death Leona was directly responsible for, and if it couldn’t be Hitler, at least it was a rapist like this piece of shit.

“You don’t wanna do that.”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“No, I studied your timeline, and I’ve seen your mind. You can’t do this.”

“In a different timeline, a man named Ed was reincarnated as my brother, and started going by the name Theo. He said something to me once that was powerful enough to cross the dimensions. He said, anyone who is physically capable of something is psychologically capable of it. We are all violent. Some are just better at restraining themselves.” She took a deep breath through her nose. “I’m tired of the restraints.” She pulled her elbow back as she stepped towards him, and then she buried the knife in his gut, forcing him to gasp. She creepily placed her mouth at his ear, and whispered, “that’s for Savannah.” She twisted the blade, releasing a whimper from his throat. “That’s for Nerakali.” She gracelessly pulled the knife back out, letting out a scream, and a geyser of blood. “And that’s for Arcadia.” She watched his body begin to blacken and char. “You’ll never hurt anyone ever again.”

He died...for good this time.

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Microstory 1388: Bullies

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School Counselor: Middle Schooler 1, do you have any idea why you two were brought in to see me today?

Middle Schooler 1: Because he’s bullying me.

School Counselor: No, because you’re bullying him.

Middle Schooler 1: He started it!

Middle Schooler 2: No, I didn’t!

School Counselor: What did Middle Schooler 2 do to you, Middle Schooler 1?

Middle Schooler 1: He stabbed me with a candy cane.

School Counselor: He what?

Middle Schooler 2: Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Middle Schooler 1: He sucked on it until one end was sharp, and then he stabbed me in the arm.

School Counselor: Is this true, Middle Schooler 2?

Middle Schooler 2: Wull...I guess.

School Counselor: Middle Schooler 1, why didn’t you report him to the principal?

Middle Schooler 1: Because I’m not a whiny little baby like him!

School Counselor: Now, you know we don’t call people names at this institution.

Middle Schooler 1: Whatever.

School Counselor: Did he break the skin? Do you need to go to the nurse?

Middle Schooler 1: No, I’m fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

School Counselor: Of course it’s not. Middle Schooler 2? You know what you have to do.

Middle Schooler 2: I’m sorry, Middle Schooler 1. Ugh.

School Counselor: That didn’t sound like a very sincere apology.

Middle Schooler 2: Well, he hasn’t apologized to me either!

School Counselor: That’s true. Why don’t you two apologize to each other at the exact same time. Okay? One...two...three.

Middle Schooler 1 and Middle Schooler 2: I’m sorry.

School Counselor: That was very good. Now. Let’s talk about why you two are so upset with each other.

Middle Schooler 2: He cheated off me on our homework. I know I shouldn’t have stabbed him, but it was annoying.

Middle Schooler 1: I wasn’t cheating. We were doing homework together.

Middle Schooler 2: Yes, but you weren’t supposed to just copy what I wrote. You were supposed to come up with the answers yourself.

Middle Schooler 1: No, we were working together.

Middle Schooler 2: You said you wanted to work together, but then you just had me do it myself, and copy it later. I didn’t even realize I did all the work until it was all finished. You tricked me.

Middle Schooler 1: I didn’t trick you. You’re smarter, so you finished it faster.

Middle Schooler 2: Don’t try to say nice things to me to get out of being in trouble. He’s still in trouble, right?

School Counselor: Neither of you is in trouble. You’re here to work this out, and I think you two are doing a pretty good job on your own, so I’m going to sit here with a game of sudoku, and let you keep going. I don’t want you to stop talking until you’re friends again, okay?

Middle Schooler 1 and Middle Schooler 2: Okay.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 15, 2192

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As instructed, they didn’t approach any of the people giving each other butterfly signals in 2191. First of all, they didn’t know what it meant. It seemed shady, but it could also be some strange new form of greeting that they weren’t privy to since they only existed one day out of the year. They couldn’t even be sure if the people were trying to say butterfly at all. To communicate the word in sign language, one was meant to wave their hands, as the flapping of wings, which none of them was doing. Vitalie, of course, was entirely convinced that this was some underground resistance movement, presently working against the Arianrhod occupation. They should have done better at keeping themselves informed about the events they missed during their interim years, on the arc, and elsewhere. If any rebels attempted to fight back sometime in the past, they definitely lost, and Ulinthra would have buried it. Now they had too little intelligence to go on. That night, they got together to discuss how they were going to proceed, ultimately deciding to wait until the next year, so they could have a fresh start.

“All right,” Leona began near the end of their latest breakfast meetings. “Brooke, you’re sure these heart trackers aren’t also listening devices.”

“I’m certain,” Brooke answered with a formal nod.

“Then on to Vitalie.”

“On to me?”

“I know your power doesn’t work with Ulinthra, and we think she has some time power blocker, but we’ve not until now had reason to use it elsewhere.”

“We should have tested it at some point,” Ecrin said.

“I’ve tested it,” Vitalie said, as if it were obvious. “I can go anywhere on Earth. It’s not easy, because I think that blocker she uses has minimal effect on me no matter what, but like you said, there was nothing to see.”

“In that case, you think you could stomach a trip to one of the common areas, like a shopping mall, or restaurant?” Leona asked.

“I could,” Vitalie said.

“Do you think you could take one of us with you?”

“I could take both,” Vitalie answered. She looked at Brooke with guilt. “Sorry, I don’t think I could take you.”

“I’m used to it,” Brooke said, not feeling left out.

“Then let’s go back,” Leona said, “and find someone giving what we think is a butterfly sign—”

They were suddenly in the marketplace.

“I didn’t mean right away,” Leona said.

Vitalie shrugged. “No use in waiting.” She took off her shirt, and started swinging it around like a lasso. “We’re invisible, by the way!” she shouted.

“Are our bodies just slumped in our chairs, back at the unit?” Ecrin questioned.

Vitalie pointed at her. “Uh, you fell to the floor. Don’t worry, you’re not hurt, and Brooke is carrying you to the couch.”

“Do you maintain a presence in both locations simultaneously?” Leona asked out of scientific curiosity.

“It’s like I’m wearing bifocals. I just adjust my focus to one or the other. It takes less than a second, and I can always kind of see both at the same time. I don’t think you can do that, though.”

Leona nodded understandingly. “Let’s walk around while we’re invisible. Keep your shirts on, though.”

“They’re not real shirts, Leona,” Vitalie needlessly reminded her.

“Look for a butterfly,” Leona continued. “Call out when you see it.”

It was a half hour before Ecrin saw two people give each other the secret sign. They seemed to be doing it a lot less than they did yesterday. A lot can happen in a year, and there was no way of knowing what these people had been through. Vitalie allowed the man and woman to see them, but no one else, so they could have a secret conversation.

“What does it mean when you do that?” Leona asked of them, trying to be careful about broaching the subject.

“When I do what?” the man asked.

Leona mimicked the movement. “When you interlock your thumbs like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to leave, but Vitalie teleported Ecrin’s image right in front of them. “How did you do that?”

“You first,” Ecrin said.

He looked around in paranoia. “Not here.”

Ecrin swept her hand downwards, like a model at a game show. “Lead the way.”

“What are you?” the man asked after leading them to an empty storage room.

“We can’t be here physically,” Vitalie explained. “Ulinthra planted tracking devices on our hearts, so we have astrally project to have this conversation.”

Someone in the early 21st century would have needed that term explained to them, but enough science fiction had become science fact since then. While astral projection was not something other people could do, it was a concept that audiences these days would find easier to grasp. “Who is Ulinthra?”

“That’s Arianrhod’s real name,” Leona said.

His and the woman’s eyes widened as they looked at each other. “How do you know this? Do you use your...ghost powers to spy on her?”

“We go way back,” Leona replied. She looked to the other two, hesitating. But the cat was out of the bag, and they needed allies. “We’re time travelers, and so is she. If you’ve ever tried to do something against her, there’s a reason she always wins. She’s already been through it.”

He lifted his chin to think this over, not sure if he believed it, but wanting to entertain the possibility. “Then we have to be unpredictable.”

Vitalie shook her head. “She’s already lived through this day. Every time you try to be unpredictable, you could just be making the same unpredictable choice you did in the first timeline.” She surrounded the word in airquotes.

“I assume you don’t use real names,” Ecrin said, briefly changing the subject, and recalling her time in the IAC, where everyone had a callsign. “What are your designations?”

“I’m Gatekeeper,” the man said.

“Holly Blue,” the woman finally spoke.

“Are those butterflies?” Vitalie asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We always suspected Arianrhod to be a fake name,” the woman now said enough for it to be clear she had an Irish accent. “It’s the name of a Celtic goddess, and means silver wheel. Who breaks the butterfly upon the wheel?”

“No one,” Leona understood. “Not if the butterflies fight back.”

“Assuming we believe you about the time travel thing,” Gatekeeper tried to begin, but was stopped when Vitalie walked right through the wall, and soon thereafter appeared through the other wall. “Okay, that’s pretty convincing, unless we’re having the same delusion.” He looked to Holly Blue, who indicated that she had seen it too. “You mean to tell me Arianrhod can go back in time, but only one day?”

“It’s not that she can do it,” Leona explained. “It’s that she has to. She experiences every day twice. And only twice. She can’t control it.”

“Well, what hope would we have?”

Vitalie then started in on the explanation of what they were doing with the penny; how their only hope of changing the timeline was by using Ulinthra.

The two revolutionaries understood the logic, and recognized the flaws. “What did you flip today?” they asked.

“We didn’t flip today,” Leona replied. “Our biggest problem now is that we don’t know what we can do against her. And we’re afraid of what she’ll do in retaliation. Whatever move we make, it has to be a final blow, because the consequences last time were too great.”

“But you said that was reversed?”

“They’re not gonna reverse the next one,” Ecrin said.

“We may be able to get something done,” Vitalie started, “if we work together. Now that we know about you, we stand a chance. How many are there in your group?”

Holly Blue and Gatekeeper looked at each other again. “Three,” he finally said.

The two of us, and one other,” Holly Blue added.

“How is that possible?” Leona asked. “Only three of you signed up?”

“Lots signed up,” Gatekeeper said. “They’re all dead now.”

“You act like you already know each other. Why the hand signal?”

“It’s not just to prove we’re rebels. We also use it to indicate that we need to talk, and that the coast is clear to do so.”

“Where’s the last one right now?”

“Monarch is our designated survivor,” Gatekeeper explained. “No one knows who they are. He or she stays out of sight until something goes wrong. If we all die, it’s up to them to start it back up again, which they’ll probably soon have to do. You seem like lovely people, but you’re still just three recruits.

“Barely recruits,” Holly Blue noted.

“Isn’t there something else you can do?” Gatekeeper asked. “Someone you can talk to? You said there are other time travelers. Can they help? Can you contact them?”

Leona knew a few people with potential. Unfortunately, Ulinthra never let her touch land, so she couldn’t dig a grave for Mr. Halifax. The Forger might be willing to help? Ecrin probably knew many choosers, so this was a good question for her to answer. She looked at her inquisitively, completely forgetting that Ecrin hadn’t been involved in her own personal thought process.

“What?” Ecrin asked.

“Do you know someone? Maybe you know someone that we don’t? Maybe someone that Ulinthra doesn’t know?”

“Ulinthra has the memory of countless versions of herself, from indefinite timelines. I don’t know who she knows. There may be someone, though. You’re not gonna like it, but he may be our best chance. There’s one thing we’ve not yet discussed, but I think we all know it needs to be on the table.”

“You’re talking about killing her,” Vitalie realized.

“I’m not killing anyone,” Leona said. “Not again.”

“That’s what I’m saying. You wouldn’t have to. When I was working for the coalition, there was a team we came across. They were deadly travelers, and we spent a lot of resources trying to catch them. I stepped into the field myself to work on it, even though I was mostly in administration.”

“Who is it?” Vitalie was intrigued.

“The leader is called The Maverick; his team, The Mavericks. Not very original.”

Leona nodded her head solemnly. “I met one of them once. Darrell, or something. He helped Gilbert go back into the extraction mirror, for his death.”

“Darrow,” Ecrin corrected. “We would probably want to deal with him only, since he can be reasoned with. The other two can be rather..insufferable. But we all have to agree to it, including Viceroy.”

“Viceroy?” Leona didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yeah, the other one in our group...since we’re using butterfly codenames?”

She meant Brooke. “Right. Viceroy, yes. We’ll ask her, but I don’t see her taking issue with it. I suppose I always knew it would have to end like this. If the powers that be don’t step in, we may have no way of getting her to Beaver Haven.”

Vitalie was totally on board, as were Holly Blue and Gatekeeper, who assumed that was what everyone was going for anyway. After going over some secret protocols with their two new allies, the three of them jumped back into their own bodies. They needed a couple of things to reach the Maverick, though, so Ecrin went out in physical form to shop. She came back with a cloak, and a dagger. She hung the cloak up on the door, and used the dagger to cut a symbol into it twice. They looked like bird tracks. Once she was finished, she jabbed the dagger into the cloak, sticking it into the door.

Within seconds, the cloak started billowing out, until the figure of a man appeared inside of it. He reached behind him and pulled the dagger from his back before turning around. He smiled and shook his head when he saw it was Ecrin. “I bet you just loooved doing that.”

“I don’t love that you’re here,” Ecrin said. “But we need your help. We just don’t know when.”

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