Microstory 2450: Stairway to Heaven

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Not to be confused with Heavendome. I’m callin’ it, this is the largest staircase in the entire universe. Some aliens eighteen billion light years away may have a large one of their own, but I doubt it beats this. The stairs go all along the perimeter of the dome, spiraling up from the surface until you reach the zenith, which I’ll talk about when we hit that point in the story. Let’s start with some stats. Each dome has an 83 kilometer diameter. Ignore topographical variations. A line from one end to the opposite end crossing through the exact center is 83 kilometers long. Since these domes are hemispheric, that means the distance from the surface to the top is 41.5 kilometers. Again, ignore varied topography, like mountains and valleys. If you were to climb a ladder from the bottom to the top, you would be climbing 41.5 kilometers. They’re considering including that as well for an even more extreme test of your mettle, but I can’t review eventualities. It’s important to note, though, because the spiral staircase is necessarily longer than the total vertical distance, due to the tread length of each staircase, and the length of the landings. There are 207,500 steps. Every 19th step is a landing, which gives you a little room to stand when you need a break. Some of these lead to pitstops, while others lead to full-on campgrounds for daily rest periods. If you can’t make it to the next campground, they’re not going to let you stay the night at a pitstop, so you best recognize your own physical abilities before you even take the first step. You will go on practice hikes before your trek—that’s what the surface is dedicated to—and this training program takes about as long as the climb, so expect to dedicate two months of your life to this adventure. There are no transhumanistic enhancements or cybernetic upgrades here. You’re given a traditional human body between 1.5 and 2.1 meters tall with average muscles. You do get to choose your height, and it can look like your residual self image, but don’t expect the superkidneys, or the unidirectional respiratory systems that you’re used to. I heard some complaints from people who didn’t understand the spirit of the hike. If you don’t want to work, take an elevator. But not here, the periodic exit elevators are only for people who had to quit in the middle. There’s no judgment from me, by the way. You make it more than 50 flights, and I’ll say you’ve accomplished something impressive. If you do make it the whole way, it probably took about a month, covering a few kilometers each day. That may not sound like much, but gravity hates you, and your fight with it will never end until you beat it...or it beats you. Some will do it faster, others slower. How you lived your life prior to this will impact your performance. When you get uploaded into the new substrate, you don’t just end up on equal footing with everyone else. If you were a mech before, you’re not gonna be used to the energy expenditure. If you were mostly biological, it should be easier to adapt to the new body. I met one climber who was born 24 years ago, and never received any meaningful upgrades. Guy did it in two weeks. He works out to stay fit, and pretty much always has. His experience was a major advantage. 10,922 flights for a total of 84.44 kilometers is a huge achievement whether it takes you that month, or double that, and it comes with a reward. It’s a party. Unlike other domes, there’s a nipple on the top, which is reached by your last flight. You stay as long as you want, talking to other climbers, comparing stories. Eat, drink, be merry. You’ve done something that few before you have, and few will probably try in the future. I think I’m gonna keep this body, keep working out, and see if I can do it faster next time. Good luck.

Microstory 2199: About Falling and Infections

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I’m in the hospital. I’m okay, I just had a little fall. I’ve been pretty tired lately, but that’s no surprise, because of how busy I am. Here’s the thing, though, I have been sleeping quite well. It’s traditionally been difficult for me to fall asleep, but when I get home at night, I’m ready to conk out, because my body can’t take any more. The trick is to push through the fatigue that comes up throughout the day, and then through the urge to nap before bed. I’ve actually done that in the past before, taken a nap in my recliner because I can’t bring myself to go to bed where I belong. It’s always been clear down the hallway, sometimes up to several meters. Who has the energy for that? I get my seven hours, which is pretty high for me. That’s my guess anyway, based on how long I remember lying in bed, and how often I had to get up to pee. You never invented fitness trackers, save for heartbeat chestbands, which is kind of interesting to me. It must be a fluke. Where I’m from, our watches can track sleep using a number of metrics. Anyway, I shouldn’t be so tired during the day, but it’s been problematic. I missed a step on the way down the stairs, and took a face-forward tumble. No, that’s not the right way to put it. It’s more like my foot forgot that I was on stairs at all. It hurt, but it’s nothing serious, and I don’t have a concussion, or anything. I wasn’t up to driving myself to the hospital, but I was conscious and responsive, so we didn’t call for an ambulance either. Jasmine drove me there, and has stayed with me all day. She’s such a great assistant and friend.

I feel so foolish, it really should not have happened. It’s not the first time either. Stairs and I have a pretty contentious relationship. I got stuck in an elevator once, but I’ve been stuck in staircases two and a half times. The two full times were because I was authorized to open the door into the stairwell, but I couldn’t get back into the building, or outside. They were in the same building, and I absolutely despise that company. Security refused to come help me. I probably would have died if no one had heard me knocking. The other time, I just got too weak on my way up to the 21st floor, and couldn’t stop part way though, because my badge didn’t go to the lower floors. That was no one’s fault but my own. I’ve actually fallen down a flight of stairs before, but that was definitely not my fault. Condensation from pipes over the stairs dripped down, and made them wet. I busted my elbow open, and ended up with a staph infection. Ah, see that? It has come full circle. My whole life is all about falling and infections, lol. My parents contacted a lawyer, and I got a couple thousand dollars for damages and lost wages, as well as my medical bills paid in full. I’m not going to blame the jail for this, so let’s just get that on record now. I’m going to be spending the night here for observation, but I’ll get back tomorrow. My medical team is recommending that I work from home, which should be okay as long as it’s just for the one day. I need to get back to normal soon. We got a world to change, don’t we, people? Nothing can hold us back from that.

Microstory 1973: Team Prime

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Sachs: This one?

Sasho: Magazine latch...

Sachs: And this one?

Sasho: Band axle pin...trigger rod...pusher spring.

Sachs: Ehh...?

Sasho: No! Return spring.

Sachs: There you go. You’re getting better, faster.

Sasho: God, I haven’t used flashcards since the ninth grade. *chuckles* I probably should have used them in college. Maybe then I wouldn’t have flunked out. Hey, you don’t need a degree to be a spotter, do you?

Sachs: Not where we work. If you were to join the military as an officer, then yes, but not just to be a spotter. That’s just a requirement for everybody. I suppose you could be a member of the enlisted forces, but I wouldn’t recommend it. That’s how I started it, and it took a lot of hard work for me to become a sergeant.

Sasho: I’m not seriously thinking about it. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, I’m too old to join the military, right?

Sachs: You have a knack for this. Look, a spotter in the military isn’t the same as it is on a tack team. You’ll have a lot more responsibilities out here. In the army, my spotter just spotted. This is an elite squad, and you gotta be able to make up your own rules. You’ll always have a leader, of course, but it’s a far cry from the chain of command.

Sasho: I dunno. Maybe I should just go back to the jail.

Sachs: I can’t tell you what to do, but if I were you, I would pursue this.

Sasho: *nodding* Hey, so I was wondering...

Sachs: You can’t ask me that.

Sasho: No, okay. Sorry.

Ophelia: *through the radio* Team Lead, this is Team One. We have eyes on the target. He’s heading upstairs.

Reese: *through the radio* Team One, this is Team Lead. Hold fast. [...] Team Prime, do you have a visual?

Sachs: No. We can see into the apartment, but not the storefront, or the stairs.

Sasho: *into the radio* Negative, Team Lead. We can’t see the front.

Reese: *through the radio* Okay, Team Alpha, go, go, go. Take him down at his door.

Sasho: What do we do?

Sachs: *closing the bipod* Follow me. We need to get a better vantage point. They’re not gonna make it into the apartment. *leads him down the roof* Wait. You stay here. You’ll see them through that window in five seconds.

Sasho: Team One will be blocking the shot. We have to get across to the other roof.

Sachs: That’s where I’m going. Spot from there.

Sasho: I don’t know how to do that!

Sachs: I believe in you. Just tell me what you see, and where you see it. These rounds can break through the brick. *Hops over the alleyway*

Sasho: He’s gonna shoot through the wall?

Microstory 1969: Out of the Loop

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SI Eliot: Director? I need to talk to you.

Director Washington: What is it, Hisham? I’m very busy.

SI Eliot: I just tried to call Agent Parsons, and Myka Tennison responded instead.

Director Washington: Okay. That’s normal. She works at DExA as well.

SI Eliot: Yes, but evidently she’s been left in charge, which I did not clear her for. She hasn’t gone through the proper training.

Director Washington: The other agents haven’t even started yet. She’s perfectly capable of holding down the fort during these early days.

SI Eliot: Ah, but why would she need to do that? If Parsons were just on some small errand, I wouldn’t care, but that’s not where he is, is he?

Director Washington: You make it sound, Eliot, that you already know where he is.

SI Eliot: What business do we have in Mississippi?

Director Washington: *finally turning away from her computer* I don’t know how you found out that he was there, but it is no concern of yours.

SI Eliot: It’s not, huh? When we were first conceiving the Department for Exogenic Affairs, it was understood that the staff would report to Parsons, Miazga, and Tennison, and that they would report to me. Then I would report to you, and you to NatCo.

Director Washington: That’s right, Special Investigator. You report to me. And so does everyone else. I don’t have to ask you for permission to do anything.

SI Eliot: I’m not asking to give you my permission, but I can’t do my job if I’m constantly kept out of the loop.

Director Washington: This is one time. How is that constant?

SI Eliot: It’s setting a tone, sir. Like you said, nothing should really be happening in those offices right now, so I hardly understand why anyone would have to leave it for a field operation. If I’m not authorized to know about it, then I deserve to know why.

Director Washington: *standing up* No, you don’t. You are entitled to nothing. Agent Parsons is following my orders, and if there is any reason to read you into the situation, I’ll make the decision, and act accordingly. And we didn’t conceive of anything. DExA is a pet project for the National Commander, and something that he’s been thinking about for longer than he’s been in command. It’s just that we’ve finally given him an excuse to budget for it. If I were you, I would stop asking questions. You have plenty of work to do, so I suggest you go back to your floor, and do it.

SI Eliot: *frowning and thinking* There’s a mole, isn’t there? Or at least there may be.

Director Washington: Goodbye, Mister Eliot.

SI Eliot: You only call me mister when I’m getting too close to the edge of my privilege. Okay. Well, that makes sense. When you’re dealing with this many people, internal investigations are bound to happen. I want you to know that you can count on me, sir. I have nothing to hide, and will be fully cooperative.

Director Washington: If you really mean that, you’ll go back downstairs and drop it.

SI Eliot: Of course. Let me know if you need anything. Remember the skills that put me in this job in the first place. I’m good at getting information out of people.

Director Washington: Thank you, SI Eliot, goodbye.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 20, 2411

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After their nemesis left them, probably trying to instill mysterious fear in their hearts, identityless stormtroopers kept guard over them for the entire day. If they were on the right side of things, they would be wearing red shirts. The fact that there were so many of them, and they were all armed, implied that there was some way to escape. At first, Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia let the bad guys hold onto their advantage. They had the numbers, this could not be denied, and they may have all been true believers in whatever cause this was, but they didn’t love each other like the three prisoners did. They seemed to be from different realities, and weren’t too terribly organized. Who was in charge was a big question, because while it seemed like the angry dude from the Fifth Division, the troopers didn’t give them the impression that they even knew anything about the guy. In fact, it was possible that no one was in charge, but this was a random collection of everyone who fought for the cause, and happened to be on main sequence Earth at the time.

After a while of sitting around, Mateo decided to take a risk. He and the girls didn’t ever speak out loud. They communicated with their feelings, doing their best to convey their intentions and thoughts through startling shifts in emotion, as well as a few sly macroexpressions. He teleported himself out of the room, directly on the other side of the guards standing in the entryway. They flipped out, but he was too fast for them. He teleported again, and again, and a few more times. Each time he landed, he took note of more information regarding the layout of this underground lair. It didn’t appear to be too large but he only stuck to one level. He was looking for an elevator, or even the stairs, but he didn’t really want to let on that all he was doing was building a map in his head. He wanted it to look like a genuine escape attempt. He mostly just wanted to be sure that he could teleport at all. The power suppressors were preventing them from leaving the lair, but they could evidently jump wherever they wanted within its walls. Before anyone caught him, he was back in the first chamber.

That was when the nemesis came back. “What exactly did that accomplish?”

“I may or may not have been counting your numbers,” Mateo lied. “And I may or may not have been checking to see how responsive they were to a threat. No comment.”

“You can’t say no comment after you make a comment, you idiot.”

“That’s why you’re over there, and I’m stuck in here.” Mateo has found that, even when someone thinks that they’re not susceptible to flattery, they are. Even when they know someone else is trying to stroke their ego, they’ll fall for it. They’ll fall for it every time. That doesn’t mean the manipulator will be able to turn their target into an obedient zombie, but it always moves the needle. It’s always worth a shot.

He scoffed. “We’ll double it—no, we’ll triple it.” He looked down at his wrist. “You’ll be gone in a few hours, and you won’t come back for a year. We’ll have that entire time to increase our numbers, and build the craziest prison you’ve ever seen. This entire place will be covered in monkey bars.”

“Monkey bars?” Leona questioned.

He chuckled. “Monkey bars. That is my design. Even if you teleport out of this chamber, you’ll be caught in a metal net, somewhere in the hallway. Sure, maybe you can start slithering your way through them like the snakes that you are, but you won’t get far before someone with a gun finds you. You could try to teleport again, but how confident are you that you won’t twist your ankle between two bars, or even rematerialize with one going through your neck?”

“Sounds like you have this all figured out,” Olimpia mused.

“I think of everything. You can’t get past me.” He sighed, and walked away. “Guns up at all times. If they disappear, and it’s not midnight...?” He looked back over his shoulder for dramatic effect. “Find them again, and shoot them in the kneecaps.”

“Sure,” one of the guards said. He didn’t say, yes sir. Yeah, he wasn’t really their boss. They were humoring more than anything. But the monkey bars. Those will be real.

Once he was gone, the prisoners stepped deeper into the room, and started exchanging emotions. Mateo slowly lifted his chin, and looked up. At the same time, he forced himself to express the feelings of being high, and elevated in the sense of euphoria. Then he shifted to boredom and fatigue while bouncing his head from side to side, like one might do while walking up the stairs. To the guards, these gestures meant nothing, but to the three of them, they were the first vocabulary of a new language.

Leona took a moment to interpret his meaning, then nodded slightly with her eyes shut. She echoed the boredom and fatigue with her own bounces. They would take the stairs. She added the feeling of falling, followed immediately by shock. They weren’t going to walk two kilometers up the stairs. They would teleport all the way up, using line of sight to better see where they were going, which wasn’t something they would be able to do in an elevator. Even in the shaft, they wouldn’t know where they could land.

The two of them looked to Olimpia, who nodded back. She understood the plan. There wasn’t really any to translate monkey bars into an emotion, so she carefully pantomimed grabbing onto objects one hand at a time, and also itched at her armpit.

Mateo nodded as he was tapping on his wrist. He held up five fingers, then dropped them one by one. After zero, he suddenly opened his hand again, and nodded more deliberately. This was a timing issue. The guards took their watches, and started lying about what time it was, hoping to stop them from using their jump to the future as an advantage, like they did with a past prison break. But it was futile. These bodies always knew how far midnight was. Now that the plan was set, they stepped farther from each other to wait out the day. As midnight approached, the guards became more agitated, checking their own watches more and more frequently, so if the team didn’t already know exactly when it was time to execute the plan, they could gauge by that.

Seconds before go-time, the guards tensed up their weapons, and drew nearer, terribly afraid of what they were about to do, and thinking that there was any way to stop it. There wasn’t. Mateo stood in the middle, and held hands with Leona and Olimpia on either side. He was the obvious navigator, so there was no reason to have communicated that beforehand. Five, four, three, two, one, jump. They were in the staircase. None of the guards was around, but they would have immediately noticed that the time jumpers never returned to the timestream. An alarm began to blare.

“Can you feel that?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah,” Leona said. “You got the timing right. We could have jumped just before midnight, or just after, but if we had waited until after, we wouldn’t have gotten through this wall.” Their time powers were gone. They were no longer able to teleport.

“I don’t know if it’s right. We’re still stuck,” Mateo reasoned.

“We can’t jump—can’t jump,” Olimpia said through her time echo affliction, which she was forced to revert to when they stole her Cassidy cuff, “but we can jump—we can jump.”

Leona did the math. “Two kilometers. Each flight is three meters tall, which means fifteen steps per. If we jump to each landing, that means skipping seven steps at a time, which is doable for us, but that’s still over thirteen hundred physical jumps.”

“I’m not suggesting we skip seven steps. I’m suggesting we skip all of them. It’ll be less like jumping, and more like climbing.

They all looked up as far as their vision could see through the space between the flights of stairs. Mateo sighed. “These substrates are brand new. I have all the energy this body holds right now. I think we can do it.”

They started to hear people rush into the stairwell from other levels. “We better go now.” She took a few steps back on the landing, then ran forward and dove up to the railing. She swung herself around, and landed on the nex railing. But she never stopped. She held onto her momentum, and kept swinging around, and around, and around. Olimpia went next, followed by Mateo. They would occasionally lose their momentum to kick a guard in the face, so they would just start again, and get it back right away.

This didn’t last forever. The guards eventually wised up, and just took the elevator far enough above the team’s location. Then they packed themselves in like sardines, and created a blockade on level 345. There were countless mooks before them, all wearing black, and multiplying like Agent Smiths. The Fifth Divisioner walked up to them from below. “Did you really think that this would work? That’s why we chose somewhere so deep. You can’t get out. You should have given up on the first step.”

Olimpia looked at her friends, and conveyed the feeling of overwhelmingness while she massaged her throat. Another benefit to Ramses’ upgrades was the ability to simply switch off their hearing. Most animals never evolved the ability to do this, because it would be unadvantageous to not be able to detect danger when not looking at it, or sensing it in any other way. But that wasn’t a problem for them. Olimpia faced the Fifth Divisioner. “You should have let me keep my cuff,” she said rather quietly.

He couldn’t quite hear that. “What?”

“You should have let me keep my...” she repeated, increasing the volume with each word, but waiting for the last one until she could build up the energy that she needed. This was when Mateo and Leona shut off their hearing, but they could read her lips as she turned back to the blockade, and screamed, “cuff!” with enough force to knock them into each other, and burst their eardrums. They pawed at their ears, but there was no stopping the sound. It reverberated up and down the stairwell, hitting everyone not on the right side of a door. It bounced off the walls, and continued to attack, even when Olimpia was no longer expelling the syllable. They took this opportunity to turn, and head down one-half flight, knocking the Fifth Divisioner down the other half as he struggled against the sonic weapon as well.

Mateo opened the door, and shuffled the ladies inside. They ran down the hallway, pushed the button, and then took the elevator to the surface. From there, they teleported to one of the arcologies in Chile, which was a random location that none of them had any prior ties to. They found a courtesy phone in the atrium, and contacted the Dante. Ramses, Angela, Marie, and Constance were still in the middle of planning the rescue mission. They burst moded themselves away from Earth, then darkbursted themselves a little bit before making a stop on a random asteroid in the inner belt to regroup. Even with this inconvenient detour, they still needed to locate the second Earth Nexus. Constance thought that she may have that figured out.

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Microstory 1921: Bureaucratic Protocol

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Special Investigator: Thank you for agreeing to come in, Mr. Miazga.

Leonard: I wanna see it.

Special Investigator: There will be time to se the Ochivar—

Leonard: We don’t know that. We may be operating on a tight deadline here. This creature and I have something in common; something that it does not share with you, or with him. I don’t know how the Ochivari developed, or why they go around destroying entire populations, but I know that they’re a curious species.

Agent Parsons: How do you know that? Nothing about its behavior thus far implies any strong feelings regarding anything.

Leonard: I know that its curious, at least it’s genetically probable, because it has to be. Any species that evolves intelligence will lose that character trait if they do not also evolve the tendency to exercise that intelligence to gain knowledge. It obviously learned a great deal about the way the multiverse works, or it would not be here, and even if its arrival were an accident, its people’s history suggests its motivations to be driven by higher-level thinking, rather than simply base instinct.

Special Investigator: I see.

Leonard: Basically, it’s smart, social, and alone right now. It will feel an urge to connect with me, even if it’s only as an enemy. Which is fine, because at the moment, you’re really just trying to get it to communicate, aren’t you?

Special Investigator: That is an accurate assessment.

Leonard: I’ll get it to talk. I can’t guarantee what it will talk about, or whether its responses will ultimately prove fruitful, but it will be a start.

Agent Parsons: Do you have experience in interrogation, though? Our parole officers are mainly here to keep track of the...freemen, and report their movements.

Leonard: Well, I wasn’t always a parole officer. I came up after a brief stint in the military before I was injured. Then I joined the police as a regular officer before becoming disillusioned with its inefficacy. After befriending a social worker, we came to the conclusion that I would be better off avoiding crime scenes. But I was required to study all aspects of law enforcement before that, including interview techniques.

Agent Parsons: Special Investigator? What do you think?

Special Investigator: You make a compelling case, parole officer Miazga. I’m inclined to let you in that room, but it will not be as easy as the three of us taking the stairs down to that level, and opening a door. There is a protocol here, involving an interview with you on the other side of the table, a not insignificant amount of paperwork, and...

Leonard: And what?

Agent Parsons: Oh. And a background check, I would imagine.

Special Investigator: Yes. We are as bureaucratic as any other government entity. I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to handle your situation. Records must be filed.

Agent Parsons: Treat him as a spy. Spies don’t have real identities. Surely you have a form you can fill out that just gets us by without worrying about verifying any data.

Special Investigator: Yes, that’s a good idea, Agent Parsons. Wait here, I’ll go procure what we need to expedite the process.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 12, 2399

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Leona tried to escape the boiler room two nights ago. Tarboda thought that she was going to remove the chain from her ankle with the wrench, but instead she started banging on the pipes with it, and making a whole ruckus. When the eejit goon came in to see what all the fuss was about, she hit him over the head with it, and stole his keys. She was about to free Tarboda too when she thought better of it. She was in uncharted territory here. The chances that she would actually succeed in escaping were extremely low. They were almost as low as the number of friends she has left. They may try to use Tarboda against her if they think she gives a crap about him, and they may not if they think she doesn’t. He cursed at her as she was running out of the room, but also gave her a wink at the last second, so he understood. Perhaps he can be added to that friend list.

As she suspected, she didn’t make it far at all. The boiler room was one section of a basement with seemingly only one way out. That door at the top of the stairs was locked, and the goon was never given that key. By the time she was able to pick it, his brother was upon her. She didn’t see much of the ground floor, but it looked like the start of a maze. Not a window in sight. But that was okay, because getting out was never the plan. She wanted them to place her in more danger, and activate the fear center of her brain, which would have alerted psychic Kivi to her location. It might have worked too, but only if she were a different person, and the people she was trying to escape were also different. She knew that she was never in any real danger, which is why she couldn’t have just created the fear on her own, and her abductors knew it too.

To her surprise, the goons made no attempt to scare her. They weren’t rough with her, they didn’t yell at her. They did nothing to generate the appropriate psychic signal. They calmly escorted her back to the boiler room and chained her up again. They didn’t even move her to a different pipe. They took the wrench away, and took a cursory glance around to make sure there weren’t any more weapons, but that’s it. It just wasn’t enough. Leona’s escape attempt wasn’t enough to concern them. They felt no compulsion to react, and even if they did, she probably wouldn’t react much worse either, because she has had too much combat training. So she has to be scared for real, which means that she can’t know when—or, really, even that—it’s coming, and when it does come, she can’t let herself decide that everything’s going to be okay since Kivi will rescue her as a result. That’s impossible! She thought she had it figured out, but she was being naïve.

The boss man walks into the room. “I heard we had a bit of trouble.” His accent is still there, but it’s toned down a little. Is he faking?

“That’s what you get with me. I’m trouble, with a capital T, which rhymes with P, and that stands for pool!”

He’s the kind of guy who’s smiling all the time, probably even when he’s pissed off, but he cracks it wider. “Stands for pool,” he echoes. “I like that. I’m gonna use it. The Chinese are movin’ in on some of our territories with drugs hidden in pool tables.”

“Have fun, I’ll probably be making my upteenth escape.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he says. “In fact, you’ll have one more opportunity. We were meant to move ya to the exchange, but something went wrong on the other end.”

“Don’t you hate it when the murderers who paid you to kidnap someone they want to murder can’t get their shit together?”

“You didn’t hear?” he asks. “The bounty’s changed. You’re no longer wanted dead or alive. They’ll only accept you alive.”

“What would be your guess as to why?” Leona questions.

“I would assume there’s somethin’ you can do or tell ‘em that only you can do or tell ‘em.”

Leona doesn’t know what to think of that. Her guess the whole time was that the bounty was only ever on her head because she was forced to kill that asshole TV pundit. But the bounty doesn’t actually say anything about motive. That’s just when it came about, so that’s the connection she made. As far as most people know, she doesn’t know anything that could help them. She’s just the jerk who took their precious demigod away. Maybe it never had anything to do with that. Maybe someone just recognized her on the screen, and knows who she is for other reasons. The talk show could have gone swimmingly, and she still would have ended up in this situation. Or maybe she’s still wrong, because she has no idea what’s going on, who wanted her dead, or why they don’t want that anymore.

“I can see yu have some tinkin’ to do. I’ll leave ya to it. Big day tomorra.” He turns to leave while she’s still lost in her head.

“I have a list,” she says, stopping him.

He’s curious. “A list of what?”

“Of friends, enemies, friends who’ve become enemies, enemies who’ve become friends.”

“Which column am I in?” he asks.

She waits to reply. “That’s for you to decide. I can’t do it for you.”

“What happens to the enemies who never become friends?” he presses.

“You can’t ask them. You can’t ask them anything. You think that guy I killed on TV was my first? Technically, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of billions. No, don’t look over at the pilot, he doesn’t know. He’s just in the fifth, neutral column of my list.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why do you think?”

“I think you remembered that I offered you a job. Are you finally ready to talk about it?”

“I’ll do whatever you need, as long as it doesn’t involve killin’ someone I don’t want killed, or causing harm to the poor, helpless, or disenfranchised.”

“In return, you want me to call off the exchange?”

Leona chuckles. “No, I want the meet to move forward, but I don’t want to be hooded and chained when it does.”

He sighs. “I think that can be arranged. Anything else?”

“Let him go.” She nods over to Tarboda.

“Can’t be done. He’ll tell someone where we are.”

“Then let’s don’t be here when he does,” she reasons.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds to think. “Very well, bonnie.”

“Before you go again, what’s your name?”

“Labhrás Delaney. May our business be fruitful and prosperous.” He tips his hat and leaves.

Tarboda looks over at her once he’s gone. “Are you two related?”

She’s still in shock. “He’s my grandfather.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 7, 2399

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Petra is standing over Angela’s bed, watching her chest move up and down under the covers. The monitor indicates that she’s still alive too, though she’s not a doctor, which is why she needed more accessible confirmation. “She asked for this.”

“Yes,” the doctor repeats himself.

“Why would she do that?”

“She claimed that she’s not allowed to urinate.”

She looks over at him. “She didn’t explain why?”

“Sir, you instructed me to accommodate them. I didn’t ask too many questions.”

“I told you to give them what they wanted, not to just ignore your ethical obligations. You should have pressed her.”

“There was an apparent sensitivity of time.”

“So sensitive that you couldn’t have called me in first?”

“Those were not my instructions.”

Petra sighs, and takes a beat. “Is she safe like this?”

“It’s three more hours,” the doctor says. “I have nothing else to do but sit and watch her.”

“Good, do that. Literally don’t take your eyes off her. You’re not allowed to pee either.” She leaves the infirmary, and heads for the bridge. Today is a big day. It’s the turn around. Normal physics says that the faster you’re moving, the harder it is to change direction, and the longer it takes. They ought to be making a ginormous arc around the solar system, but the technology they’re using is decades beyond the need for that, if not longer. Leona Matic gave them more than just a fusion engine. She gave them instant acceleration.

The issue with traveling at fractional speeds—that is, speeds above ten percent of lightspeed—is that it takes an incredibly long time to start moving that fast. It’s not the engines themselves that are the only hurtle, but also the passengers. No organism is naturally equipped with the necessary biological characteristics that would allow it to survive accelerating faster than 10Gs. People have done it in experiments, but not for extended periods of time. But Leona’s people figured it out. Not only did they reach 99.9999% the speed of light virtually instantly, but they didn’t feel a thing. Petra still doesn’t quite understand how the inertial dampeners work, and this is her field of study. Researchers will be publishing papers on the science for years to come. She’s grateful for the opportunity to test it out, even though the trip will only last a few hours of observed time, and a few months of realtime.

They’re at the halfway point now, which means that it’s time to turn around. The plan is to make a stop in the middle of what Leona referred to as the Oort Cloud. While essentially static, they’ll literally turn the rocket, and then restart the engines. If all goes well, they should be on their way back to Earth within minutes. Petra walks onto the bridge. “How are we lookin’?”

The ship’s tiller keeps her eyes on her screen. “Just ran the final diagnostics. Everything is good to go.”

“You sure you can do this?” Petra asks.

“Does a Tamerist kill without reason?”

“I wish they didn’t.” A stranger has just walked into the room. No one else on the bridge recognizes him.

“Who are you?” Petra questions. “Security.”

The security officer assigned to this station draws her weapon.

“That will not be necessary. My name is Tamerlane Pryce, and I’m just hitching a ride back home.”

“Stand fast,” Petra orders. “What do you mean, you’re Tamerlane Pryce? Were your parents warmongers?”

The man sighs. “I did not mean for my religion to turn into that. It just...got out of hand; out of my control.”

“Explain yourself.”

“I’m a time traveler. To say that I was friends with Leona Matic would be...said in bad faith, but we are associates. She would recognize me. Angela would recognize me.”

“How convenient that the only person who might be able to vouch for your identity is currently indisposed.”

“Uh, sir?” the tiller jumps in. “It’s about to happen.”

“Get him out of here,” Petra orders the guard. “Take him to hock.”

“You can go alone,” the supposed Tamerlane says. He points the crown of his watch towards the guard, and taps on the screen. The guard disappears.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Custom modified teleporter gun,” he says with a shrug. “No big deal.”

The tiller has started counting down, “...six, five, four, three, two, one. Full stop.”

The doppler shades that Leona also designed stop filtering the grayish glow, and turn completely black. “Raising shades,” the aux officer announces so that they can see fully out of the viewindow.

There is something that none of them expected; none but Tamerlane. They’re parked in front of a chunk of rock. Embedded in this rock is some kind of building. The lights are on, so someone is home. “What the fuh...?” Petra questions in a breathy voice.

The astonished bridge crew stands up, and leans forward.

“That, my new friends, is The Constant. It was my home for billions of years. Then they kicked me out, and they thought I would never find them again.”

Frightened but awe-inspired too, Petra admires the sight. “How is this possible?”

“I can get you docked,” Tamerlane tells her, “but you have to give me control.”

“Do it.” Angela has just come into the room. She’s still wearing only her bra and underwear, and holding onto her IV pole.

“Put this on,” the doctor offers, finally catching up to her. He wraps the blanket over her shoulders.

“Angela, you do know him?” Petra asks.

“Let’s just say I know...his twin brother.”

Tamerlane smirks.

“Get—” Petra stammers. “Get us in that building, I guess.”

Tamerlane approaches the controls, and starts tapping away. He lifts the microphone up. “Constance, Vacuum Entry Override Protocol Temple-Algae-Marathon five-nine-nine-eight.” In response, the walls of the building split open. A greenish-blue light appears from inside, and takes hold of the rocket. It pulls them in, turns them up, and lands them gently on the floor.

“Welcome back, Mister Pryce,” a voice says as a staircase extends up to them, and lets Tamerlane start climbing down on it. Petra follows, but Angela has to stay in the airlock, as she can’t handle the steps.

“Step on the landing,” Tamerlane calls up to her. “It’ll bring you down.”

The doctor insists on accompanying her, but everyone else is expected to stay with the ship until they’re told otherwise. Once the other two are safely down on the floor, the stairs contract slowly, and let Angela and the doctor down.

A woman comes into the room. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before we were found. I just thought it would take longer than eight months. I hoped, anyway. Tamerlane, I admire the ingenuity in orchestrating all of this.”

“No, you don’t, Danica, you’re annoyed by it.”

“I can have mixed feelings,” Danica contends. She reaches out to Angela. “Miss Walton. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Danica Matic.”

“Mateo’s cousin, yes. I met a different version of you.”

“I hope to live up to your impression of her.”

“Based on my experiences in this reality, you have a long ways to go.”

“True,” Danica admits. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll personally escort you to a comfortable medical stasis pod.”

Angela looks over to Tamerlane for guidance.

“Him?” Danica questions. “You’re looking to him to see if you can trust me?”

“If you know that I need stasis,” Angela begins, “then that means you’re not only monitoring what’s happening back on Earth, but also specifically what’s been happening to our team. This means that you know that we’ve been looking for you. Well, they’ve been looking for, I’m not sure I give a shit. Yet here you’ve been, hiding out...like a coward. You could have helped so many times, in so many ways.”

“I’m helping now. Do you want your sister to live, or not?”

Angela frowns, but surrenders. “Lead the way.”

“The rest of you can meet us in the master sitting room,” Danica says, taking Angela’s free hand.

“I’m staying with my patient,” the doctor declares. He gives Petra a look. “Those are my orders.”

“Very well.” Danica leads them both away.

“What is this place for?” Petra asks Tamerlane after the other three have left.

“Get everyone else, including the kids,” he replies. He nods at the stairs, which somehow respond to him by starting to extend back up towards the airlock of the rocket. “What this place is, is a haven for weary travelers. Danica has forgotten this fact, but we...are taking over.”

“Do you have the power to do that?” Petra asks. It’s become clear that Angela doesn’t care for either of these two mysterious people, but she seems to trust this one more than she does Danica.

“Not me,” Tamerlane acknowledges, “but Leona does.” He chuckles. “She should be here soon.”

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa are preparing to investigate the region of the Oort cloud that Aquila mentioned, hoping to find the Constant, or at least a clue to its whereabouts. Unfortunately, they’ll be going in the wrong direction.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 21, 2398

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Ever since Arcadia bailed on Team Matic, Alyssa has been working as the receptionist at Angela and Kivi’s company. It’s been pretty easy. As a startup, they don’t have a lot of calls and foot traffic. She’s getting paid for the work, which seems quite weird seeing as her and her family’s room and board are also being provided by these people. They have given them so much, and now it’s time to ask them for one more thing. She needs to have a conversation with the man trapped in her sister’s body, but she has to ask permission. The security guards will let her watch him through a one-way mirror, but there is to be no direct contact without authorization, and only a member of the core group can make such a decision. She’s also going to need the day off.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Kivi asks. “You remember, Trina isn’t in there, right?”

“I know,” Alyssa says. “She’s in the past with your other friends. I just...I wanna know who he is.”

“I can’t help you with that, but the others could.”

“I’ve heard enough second hand. I want to speak with him.”

“I understand. It’s all right by me for you to take off, but I have to stay here to fill in, so someone else will have to accompany you. Mateo is up in the air, Leona is halfway across the country, and Marie is...preoccupied. I think Ramses is your only choice.”

“I’ll talk with him. Thank you.”

“Okay.”

Alyssa climbs the steps to the lab, and badges herself in. Ramses is there, like he always is. He has his own unit upstairs, but there’s a cot next to his desk, and he’s clearly been sleeping here. She feels bad. He’s so obsessed with figuring out how the Insulator of Life and Livewire work that he can’t make any time for himself. Perhaps driving her to the black site is as close to a break as he’ll be willing to take, especially if she’s the one asking. He would probably kill for her if she asked. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“What?” He was engrossed in his work. “Oh, yes, of course. Anything.”

“I need you to take me to the black site. I would like to meet Erlendr Preston.”

Ramses frowns. “Oh. I’m not sure that I should do that.”

It would be morally right for her to plead her case, and convince him through reason, and emotional understanding. She doesn’t have time for that, so she pulls out her trump card. “I’m sure that you should.”

He frowns for a few more seconds, but then his expression changes. “Wait, that’s perfect. Yes, that could work. He hates all of us, but if you talk to him, you may be able to get him to do what we need.”

“What do we need?” Alyssa asks.

“More data.”

“Okay. What kind of data?”

“Let me explain.” Ramses goes over what they would be asking Erlendr to do for them, and together they strategize how to get him to go along with it. He shouldn’t have any real problem with it in general, as long as they leave out one particular detail. They just have to hope that it’s not something he already knows about.

The guard lets them in, and escorts them to the observation room. The mentally unstable man in Alt!Mateo’s body is fidgeting with one of his flashlights. He’s fixated on the damn things, so the government agreed to supply him with dozens of all different kinds. He just keeps switching them on and off, and rearranging them around his cell. Alyssa thinks that they should get him professional help, but that’s not really her call. It’s also not what she’s about today. She’s here for Erlendr.

“You don’t need to rush this,” Ramses advises her.

“I’m ready. You can open the door.”

The guard opens it, but Ramses steps through first. Erlendr smirks, and doesn’t put the novel he’s reading down. He’s obsessed with books, instead of flashlights. He realizes that they’re in an entirely new reality to him, full of culture that he doesn’t know anything about. He’s got a lot of catching up to do. He changes when Alyssa follows. He sets the book down gently, and regards her with an empathetic face; the kind that Trina hasn’t gotten old enough to need to use yet. He seems to be gathering who Alyssa is, or at least that she’s not just some random interrogator. He waits patiently.

“We’ve not formally met. My name is Alyssa McIver, and you’re in my sister, Trina’s body.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Erlendr replies.

“I’m sorry to hear that you’re not a very good person.”

“In real life, villains don’t think of themselves as villains. We’re the heroes of our own stories, and in my story, everyone agrees with me.”

“You’re story is not factual,” Alyssa argues.

“No one’s is,” he counters.

“I didn’t come here for philosophy class,” Alyssa begins. “I’ve decided that I’m no longer okay with you being in the body of my baby sister.”

“I was never okay with it,” Erlendr explains. “I want you to understand—in case Leona and her friends have not made it clear—I did not choose to end up in here. The Insulator of Life is difficult to control.”

“I get that,” Alyssa says, “which is why I don’t blame you. I can’t even blame you for all the horrible things you did in your reality, because I wasn’t there to witness them. I can only go on what others tell me. The truth is that I’ve not known them much longer than you. Fate put us together, much like you and my sister. I can change my circumstances by leaving them, but I can’t do it without her, which is why I need you to change your circumstances first.”

“Would if I could,” Erlendr claims.

“You can,” Ramses declares. He takes the Insulator out of his bag.

“I told you that it can’t be controlled, not even by me. What makes you think you could do any better?”

“You wield magicks. I use science. That’s the problem with you choosing ones, you can live so easily without technology, you don’t know how things work.”

“I know a lot more than you might think, young one,” Erlendr condescends.

Ramses sets the Insulator down, and takes out the Livewire. “I want to transfer your consciousness to another body, but with such low technology, these are the only tools I have at my disposal, plus only one alternative substrate. You’ll look like Leona, which may not be ideal, but for my part, it’s better than where you are now.”

“I’ll do it,” Erlendr agrees with no argument.

“Now, if it works, you may think you’ll be able to exploit your new position, but—”

“I said I’ll do it,” Erlendr repeats. “You’re right, anything is better than this. And Miss McIver’s right, I’ve done a lot of bad things, but I don’t hurt kids. So get on with it.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 7, 2398

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Leona Reaver never woke up, while the other three did. Or rather, if anyone took over her corporeal shell, like a hermit crab on the beach, they never woke up. Mateo was right to be worried about what kind of people might show up. Erlendr’s daughter, Arcadia Preston woke up in Leona Delaney’s body, much to her mixed feelings. Serkan, Ace, and Paige’s once-enemy, Rothko Ladhiffe stole Alt!Mateo’s, while some guy named Meredarchos took Andile’s. He made people uncomfortable immediately, but they don’t know what his deal is yet. They didn’t have a safe way to lock these people up until they could get to the bottom of this, so their only choice was to ask Winona Honeycutt for help. Since Mateo was as of yet the only one cognizant of Marie’s strong working relationship with her, it was Leona Matic who made contact.

Apparently, it is SD6 policy to hold all prisoners for at least a day before questioning unless a clear and present threat is posed to life. They find that people are more willing to talk once they have tasted what it might be like for the rest of their lives if they don’t. Unfortunately for them all, Winona and SD6 don’t know who they’re dealing with. The Prestons are immortal, and interpret a single day as less than a second. They don’t know much about Rothko, and they’ve never even heard of Meredarchos, but as they’re the company of the other two, they’re probably not so easily broken either.

Mateo and Lenoa have to start the interrogations on their own the next morning. The prisoners are more likely to respond well to them than to anyone. They’re going to start with Arcadia, because she’s been the most open, and they know her the best. The guard escorts them into the blacksite, and down the stairs. The cells are clean, well-lit, and furnished. Since the team has no idea whether the Livewire transfer to the past worked at all, they can’t do anything to harm these substrates yet. Their friends, the original owners, may need to reclaim them later.

The guard asks what kind of safety measures they would like to make, but they say it’s fine to just be in the room with her. She’s quite powerless now, or else she would have escaped by now. She may be playing the long game, but that still doesn’t place them in any more danger than they are already in. If she wants to hurt them, she will find a way. “You’re looking quite beautiful today,” Mateo says to her, hoping that she finds it funny since she looks exactly like his wife right now, instead of offensive since he’s not saying it about the real her.

Arcadia nods. “Does that mean you can love me now? Was my face the only thing keeping you away?”

Mateo takes her right hand in both of his. “You have always had a beautiful face. And I believe you have a beautiful soul too, if you just...tried to use it more often.”

She pulls away. “Don’t say stuff like that if you don’t mean it.”

“He means it,” Leona says. “You have not always made the right choices, but you’re not evil. None of you is evil.”

“Except for your father,” Mateo adds.

“He’s not evil,” Arcadia protested, “he just—”

“He raped your mother,” Mateo interrupts.

Arcadia blinks. “Why would you say such a terrible thing? He did not. They were married, I grew up with them.”

“Yeah, they were married, but—”

“Matt, stop,” Leona interrupts. “We’re not simpatico with her.”

Arcadia looks between the two of them. “Tell me what happened.”

“We can’t talk about it, I wasn’t thinking,” Mateo says apologetically. “The last thing you experienced was me overwriting you with Aldona’s mind. What I don’t understand is how you, your dad, Rothko Ladhiffe, and this Meredarchos fellow ended up here.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Arcadia straightens up.

Leona lists the names again.

Arcadia stands, freaked out. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that he said his name was Meredarchos?”

“Yes, we are,” Leona says. “Why? What precautions should we take?”

Arcadia begins to pace. “Holly Blue. She built a psychic containment chamber. That’s the only thing with any hope of, well...containing him.”

“She’s not here,” Mateo explains.

“Make any call you need to. Dig a grave, flip a penny, tame a pigeon. Do whatever you must to make contact with her or The Weaver. We cannot let that thing spread.”

“We can’t do any of those things,” Leona insists. “We’re in The Third Rail.”

Arcadia eyes them both, waiting for elaboration. “I don’t know what that is.”

“The Prestons are supposed to know everything,” Mateo complains. “It’s a parallel reality. It doesn’t have time travel. Holly Blue isn’t here. She isn’t ever here...probably.”

“No time travel, or no time powers?” Arcadia questions.

“Both,” Leona says. “We should be enhanced humans, but even that was taken from us when we arrived. We’re trying to figure out what and how.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re upgraded.”

“Yes,” Mateo replies.

Arcadia shakes her head slightly. “Nothing in this universe can dampen biological upgrades. How would that even work?”

“That’s what we were hoping to understand,” Leona tells her.

“If he hasn’t spread yet,” Arcadia begins, “that may be why. He may be trapped in whatever body he’s in right now. I know we have trust issues, but he is one of the greatest existential threats to the bulkverse, so you have to open up to me. He’s the reason I stopped doing what I was trying to do with the LIR Map. The only way to protect yourself from him is to hope he never finds you. So please, tell me what you know. How did me and my father get here? How did he?”

“We have the LIR Map,” Mateo says. “It doesn’t usually do anything, since powers aren’t common. We have our best luck with the immortality waters.”

“Go on.”

“Not here,” Leona decides. She stands up, and bangs on the door. When the guard opens it up, she says, “we’re letting this one go. Either move the man and the little girl to different cells, or the woman to her own cell. Either way, she needs to be extremely isolated.”

“Understood, agent,” the guard says as he’s unlocking Arcadia’s ankle shackle.

Mateo, Leona, and Arcadia go back to the lab to continue the conversation. For her to get a clear picture of what’s happened here, everybody needs to pitch in.