Microstory 2287: Didn’t See Anyone’s Face

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I’m sorry to depress you all yesterday. Kelly called my therapist for an emergency session, so I was able to talk through some of my issues. It’s been frustrating for me. I often don’t realize when I’m being grumpy, and even when I do, I don’t always know why. It was what those people did to me, taking my organs. It’s not just about that, though. They didn’t know that I would be rescued. They didn’t even bother to covertly drop me off at the nearest hospital, or send an anonymous tip. They just left me there on the table, assuming that I would die by the time anyone caught wind of my location. I don’t think they care that I was rescued, because they were all pretty much apprehended by then, and I didn’t see anyone’s face anyway. Which is weird, when you think about it. Why did they hide their identities from me if they didn’t think I would make it? Maybe I’m overthinking it. I mean, they did take my kidneys and liver because they thought I was immortal. Well, maybe they didn’t. Maybe they only took them because they knew that other people believed as much, and that was enough motivation for them. My therapist says that there are truths about this case that I will never know, and I’ll be doing more harm than good by running my own little investigation on the side. For the sake of my mental—and physical—health, I’m better off looking for ways to put it all behind me. We don’t know how I’m gonna do that, but it’s my first priority right now. I just have to remember that they can’t hurt me anymore, nor anyone else. And I’m not going to give up on my writing, even though I offered that suggestion last night. If I do that, then they win, and we can’t have that, can we? I have to toughen up, and hold firm.

Microstory 2277: But Also of Everything Else

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The doctors are impressed. I’m recovering quite nicely. Don’t you go getting any ideas about stealing my eyeballs, or my fingernails. I’m not doing well because of any supernatural magic. I have a great medical team at a great facility, the support of my friends and fans, and the luck of great health prior to this. So yeah, I guess there was something supernatural about it. I was healed from the prion disease weeks ago, but also of everything else, including any aches, and phantom pains that people at my age experience all the time. So I went into that illegal, unethical, and immoral organ-stealing surgery in tip-top shape, which gave me an edge. Plus, they found me rather quickly, all things considered. Had it taken them only a few more hours to locate the site of the crime, I might be telling you a different story today. Or I might not be able to tell you any story at all, because I also could have died. But they found me, and treated me accordingly. I’m so grateful for that; I’m not sure if I can ever say that enough. This is all just to explain that I’m going to be okay, but that won’t work a second time. If anyone tries to do anything like that to me again, I will die. And for anyone who isn’t bothered by that, and is interested in trying anyway, you will be punished for it. We’re boosting our security team, as you can imagine. Law enforcement is rounding up all of the people who were involved in taking me, or my organs. No one has won. No one has gained anything. When my original organs are located, if they don’t need to be preserved as evidence, they will be destroyed as biowaste. I don’t know what that means if they’ve already been transplanted to someone else, but I don’t think they’ll be happy with the outcome. On that negative note, I’m very tired now, so I’m gonna go back to bed. Night!

Microstory 2271: It Won’t Be Long Now

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It’s so much worse than we had imagined. After everything Nick has been through; traveling through time, bouncing around the multiverse, being trapped away from his friends, getting sick over, and over, and over again. At worst, we thought that he would be dead. That would have been horrible, but at least he would no longer be suffering. There were consequences to this blog that none of us foresaw. Learning that Nick’s organs fetched such a heavy price from a reputable and trustworthy businessman, an as-of-yet still at large basket of deplorables abducted my friend, and took him to a makeshift surgical theatre. You heard that right. There was clearly an audience to this thing. It was put together quickly, but it was made with great purpose. A surgeon tore into his body, removing both of his kidneys, his liver, his spleen, and even his gallbladder. I don’t know how much they intend to make for these stolen organs on the black market, but there’s no way these assholes aren’t going to be found. The authorities don’t have to sift through dozens of other dark web postings for organs. They only have to find the one that’s advertising miracle organs for an insanely huge amount of money. They’re going to get nothing, and then they’re going to jail. Meanwhile, my poor Nick will be dead. He’s not immortal anymore, and no one can survive losing that much of their key organs. The doctors have placed him on life support, but there is only so much they can do. These five organs are literally vital to the proper functioning of a human being. It’s true, you can donate half a liver, or one whole kidney, and be fine. Yes, you can be suffering from kidney failure, and be kept alive through regular dialysis. With the proper lifelong treatment, you can even live without your spleen or gallbladder. But you can’t survive if all of these things are ripped out of you all at once. He’s going to die if another miracle doesn’t happen, but I really don’t see that happening. Dutch is running around in a panic, opening every single door that he can find. He has even demanded keys from hospital staff for locked doors. He’s trying to make another connection to the bulk to restore the magic of Nick’s immortality for but a few minutes, just like he did when he came back here from another world. Needless to say, it isn’t working. What happened that day was a fluke. If an angel is looking out for Nick, I can’t imagine they have the inclination to do it a second time. Even so, I’m letting Dutch try, because it’s not hurting anything. Well, it is, he’s causing a disruption, but everyone here has been pretty cool. They know why he’s doing it. Me, I’m sitting at Nick’s bedside, holding his hand, and hoping that he can hear me. It’s really sad to say, but...it won’t be long now.

Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Orthogradient: Antitheses (Part V)

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Hundreds of thousands of years from now, the universe will be a very different place. No world, no culture, no daily routine would be recognizable to someone from the present day, or even thousands of years later. In this future, three boys were born. They lived on Earth, the surface of which had largely been abandoned, and left to thrive in peace. A small sect of humans remained throughout this time, incidentally keeping their population small by emigration, and otherwise avoidable life-threatening diseases and dangers. There were fully organic humanoids elsewhere in the galaxy, but they were genetically engineered one way or the other. This tiny Earthan village was composed of normal people who were the last in a line of natives. Being of the same sex, the trio was unable to further the species, finally marking the end of an era. After their respective parents died, they were all alone in a universe that they despised, and did not understand. They were inconsequential. Or at least that was what anyone who found out about them believed. But there was one thing that set them apart. They were not normal humans. Being the final members of the race had intrinsically made them special, which time itself took to be significant.

The boys grew up, and eventually forgot their own names. They adopted new ones, based on their individual time powers. Time travelers were still around, but only because they traveled through time. Except for these three, they were no longer being born, because the conditions were no longer suitable for them. Antichron was so named because he was a true time traveler, who was capable of freely moving backwards and forward along the timeline. Antiparticle could teleport multiple particles to a single point in spacetime, forcing an unnatural collision that resulted in the annihilation of them all, and an explosion correlative to the number of the particles, and the speed of transport, and reversely correlative to the size of the point. Antintropy could reverse entropy, repairing what once was broken, or healing what once was damaged. He could theoretically restore all of reality to a more ordered state. But to do that, he needed power. To do that, he needed the other two. Together, they became The Antitheses, and set about to change their present. This turned out to mean changing the past first.

A war ravaged the galaxy centuries prior to their time, which contributed to the dwindling natural human population. To win this war, the Antitheses could go back to the beginning of it, and use their considerable powers to win without breaking a sweat, but they did not want to reveal their powers to those who would misunderstand or fear them. They needed to become heroes in their own time, not villains before they were born. They had to win this war using traditional tactics. It was going to take a lot of work, but it was not impossible. To prepare for the mission, they went back even further in time, to an even more primitive technological period, hoping to steal an obsolete warship called the Sharice Davids. It was a powerful vessel, but limited in its advancements, which made it perfect for the future war. There were vulnerabilities in more advanced starships which the Davids did not have to worry about. Unfortunately, this mission proved to be more difficult than they thought it would.

They faced far more opposition in the 23rd century than they ever expected. Antichron’s ability to read the timeline was less refined than he hoped. The ship kept slipping from their grasps. Every time they tracked it to a new point in spacetime, it would move to another before they had any chance of boarding it again. At one point, it appeared to be destroyed, but then it showed back up on their temporal radar, and they were able to pursue once more. Annoyingly, it was traveling much faster than it should have been, and they were having trouble keeping up. Antiparticle was capable of teleporting them from one point to another without annihilating the particles, but this took a lot more concentration, because that wasn’t what he trained himself to do. Destruction was the name of the game for him, and reapplying his skills in another way proved tiresome. It was now the year 2337, though, and the ship was right before them. They were nearly there.

“It’s gone!” Antiparticle exclaimed.

“Again?” Antintropy cried. “How could it be gone again? They were staying in one place! We’re in the middle of nowhere. Why would they come all the way out to this region of space, only to disappear yet again?”

“No idea,” Antiparticle replied. “Follow them, Antichron. Where have they gone to next?”

Theirs was less of a ship, and more of a small snowglobe-shaped lifeboat, protected by a semitransparent plasma field. They didn’t think that they would need anything else, and besides, the more massive the object, the harder it was for both Antichron to jump through time, and for Antiparticle to teleport. Antichron didn’t say anything. His eyes were closed.

“Antichron!” Antintropy shouted.

“I’m looking!” Antichron shouted back. He shook his head. “I can’t find it.”

“That’s impossible!” Antintropy was never really not angry. “We would detect debris if it were destroyed, even if it were vaporized by something. It went somewhere, through a portal, or via the new teleportation drive it seems to have. And if it’s anywhere in the timeline, Antichron, then you should be able to pick it up. All of time and space at your fingertips. Find it!”

“I can’t. I’ve looked,” Antichron insisted. “It never comes back. We have attempted to intercept it at every moment that it has existed after the moment in its personal timeline where it was historically destroyed. I’m telling you, wherever it is, it’s not in the timeline, and it never returns.”

“Not in the timeline,” Antintropy echoed. “Where could they be if not in the timeline? There is no outside of the timeline.”

“Not as far as we know,” Antiparticle reminded him. “We could not find a teacher to help us learn the ways of the time traveler. If we were to find someone now, they might be able to illuminate us.”

“Stop suggesting that!” Antintropy demanded. “We’re not going to look for help. We’ve always done this on our own, and will continue on that way.”

“It’s obviously not working,” Antichron said. “Perhaps we underestimate these primitive people. They may have escaped in a way that none of us is familiar with, and are now cloaking themselves from detection. We’ve been chasing them relentlessly. They could have learned something about us.”

“What can ants learn of gods?” Antintropy questioned.

“Wait,” Antiparticle said, looking at the screen. “There’s something out there. We may have picked up a piece of debris afterall.”

“Plot an intercourse immediately.” Antintropy was not always the leader. Their trio had no predetermined leader, but power shifted periodically when one of them managed to bully the others into submission. It would continue to change if they never came up with an agreed upon hierarchy. This was assuming, of course that they didn’t destroy themselves by the time they accomplished their objectives anyway.

Antichron did as he was told, and flew their platform towards the only known object in the area. It was very slow, yet still difficult to maneuver. They passed by it a couple of times before they managed to sync up with its drift. It appeared to be a person, wearing a vacuum suit, but they were also sitting down. Antiparticle programmed the plasma barrier to accept them as a non-threat, then floated up to bring them in.

Once their mysterious visitor was completely inside of their transporter, the helmet opened, revealing a man. He was not surprised to see them, but also did not look upon them with any level of familiarity. He moved his eyes from one to the next, to the next. “You are here to steal the Sharice Davids?”

Antintropy cleared his throat, and took a half step forwards. “Yes, we are. Do you have a problem with that?”

“I personally don’t,” the man replied, “but you’ll find it difficult since the Sharice Davids no longer exists.” He paused, only to continue before they could respond. “They changed the name. It is now known as the Cormanu, so depending on what you’re after, you may be too late to the party.”

“Who are you?” Antintropy asked.

“My name is Meredarchos, but I’m currently in the body of a man named Carbrey Genovese. I can help you get to the universe that they have escaped to, but you will have to do everything I say without question.”

“Why would you help us?” Antichron questioned warily. “What’s in it for you?”

Meredarchos nodded as if they had already come to an agreement. “I have been searching for someone to help me in my home universe. I keep believing that I have found my champions, only to be thwarted by someone else, or even my targets themselves. I am trapped where I was born, and cannot leave on my own. I can teach you how to travel to where the crew of the Cormanu have escaped to, but before we do that, I demand that you use this technology to rescue me first.”

“Your physical form is stuck where it is, and you can only leave with your mind?” Antiparticle summarized.

“This is correct,” Meredarchos confirmed. “I seek out the weakest of minds, which might be the mentally vulnerable, or the injured. This man here was too busy trying to recover from truly severe wounds to keep me out. Unfortunately, my intrusion suppressed that recovery further, leaving me in this lame shell. I had to stay dormant for a while to survive. I need strength to find another host, but that does not matter if you can get to my real body. It is dying, and I cannot fix it where it is. It must be transported somewhere else, or I may end up trapped in a faulty new body, such as this one. The Cormanu is of no concern to me, but I’ll help you. As an added bonus, I’ll ignore your universe, and only conduct my work elsewhere. Trust me, that’s a good deal.”

“What exactly is your work?” Antintropy asked him.

“You cannot be made aware of that. It is a non-negotiable stipulation. If you want the Cormanu, you’ll have to agree to that, as well as a few more details. You may add your own requirements as well as we continue to discuss this.”

The Antitheses negotiated with Meredarchos, and laid out their plans. He taught them how to synthesize something called an atomic lance, which tapered to a point so small, it could pierce through the nucleus of an atom. With this, they were able to access hyperdimensional space, also known as the outer bulk. Bulk energy would leak into their lance, and fill the storage tank. This took a very, very long time, but they did not need to stick around to wait for it. All four of them jumped a few hundred years into the future, but they left the snowglobe where it was. When they returned to the timestream, the bulk energy reserves were full, and they were ready to make the jump. The whole thing shook violently, tossing them around like rag dolls. They did not bother installing seats on this thing, nor protective belts to hold them in place. Meredarchos was able to stay put by magnetizing his hover chair to the floor. The Antitheses, however, had to alter artificial gravity to keep themselves against the plasma barrier, which could be as hard as rock, or in this case, as soft as pillows.

They waited patiently as the shaking continued for several minutes before finally reaching critical mass, and falling through the breach in the universe’s membrane. Now that that part was over, they were able to place themselves in temporal stasis so they wouldn’t get bored, because it would be untold time before they could reach Meredarchos’ universe of origin. Seconds later, they were there, so they pierced the second membrane, and landed on the planet. It was desolate and plain. There were absolutely no geographical features. The whole world was entirely smooth. They found Meredarchos’ original body where it was barely holding onto life inside of a small personal living chamber. They pulled it into the snowglobe, which was getting pretty crowded now, and took off. First the shaking, then the piercing, then the stasis, then the piercing again, and they were finally where they wanted to be.

“This...this feels weird,” Antiparticle noted.

“It’s a dead universe.” Meredarchos was still piloting Carbrey’s body. “The laws of physics don’t foster life here. There are no habitable planets, only us, and the Cormanu.”

“Why would they come here?” Antichron asked.

He shrugged Carbrey’s shoulders. “It has plenty of chemical elements. “The ship was heavily damaged, so they need raw materials to repair it. If I hadn’t taught you how to travel the bulk, this would be one of the safest places to hide.”

“They’ve detected us,” Antiparticle announced.

“That’s okay,” Meredarchos decided. “They won’t be able to leave yet. I’m surprised they made it here in the first place, but I’m sure they’ve exhausted their power, so even if the repairs didn’t keep them from escaping again, they’ll have to refuel first. If I were you, I would take your shot now, though. They’ll be looking for workarounds to their predicament.”

“You can stay here,” Antintropy told him. He took Antiparticle’s hand, who in turn took Antichron’s. The Antitheses teleported right into the Cormanu where they found themselves trapped in what looked like a hock.

A woman casually approached, and dragged her fingers along the laser beams that were preventing them from leaving. When she removed her hand, they saw that the tips had been burned off. “I’ll just get Landis to fix it. Because you underestimate us. You see, we’ve been eavesdropping. We know who you are. We’re currently upgrading the ship, rendering it completely useless to you. It will not serve you in your stupid future war. We’ll let you out if you leave us alone forever, but if you ever come after us again, then we’ll react in kind. We give second chances, but not thirds. What say you?”

Antintropy scowled and approached the lasers. “We’ll leave your ship alone, and revert to our backup plan, but in the meantime, you’ll become our new fixation.”

The woman leaned in closer. “Then you’ll die.”

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Microstory 2136: Try the Punching Thing

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While I’m feeling all right, I still have the fungal infection, so I still can’t leave my apartment. I’m really super extremely very hoping that this is all over by this weekend, so I can get back to doing my time, and finish my current sentence before I die of old age. This is one of those days where I have little to tell you, because not much interesting happened to me. The nurse came last night to take my blood, and I got my results this morning. She’ll come three more times this week, on Wednesday, and on Friday. After that, if I’m still having trouble, I may be ordered to go to the hospital. I mean the real hospital, not the prison medical ward. That would be really bad, for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that it might ultimately mean my death. If I were given such a terrible prognosis, I would probably start punching the air, and screaming at the top of my lungs. That might seem random to you, but I have two characters who can travel the bulkverse using those methods. It would be my last hope. I mean, I could always try them now. Well, I can try the punching thing. The screaming thing is different, because I would have to be away from other people, but that’s not a bad idea. It may be cathartic to let out some primal cries anyway, and hey, maybe it’ll work. A part of me doesn’t want it to. Back when I first became immortal, I was also learning that using people’s powers meant stealing it from them temporarily, and I also knew that once I stopped using it, I would lose it, and I really want that immortality back. I’m sick of being sick. But also, get me out of this universe, and tell me where Cricket and Claire are! *screams primally*

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 18, 2409

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

“What the hell was that?” Olimpia questioned.

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

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

“Actually, I can’t take credit.”

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

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

“This is Mateo. Go ahead.”

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

“For what purpose?” Leona asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Teleporting now.”

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

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

“Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?” Olimpia asked.

Leona and Constance laughed. “Yes.”

“Why is that so funny?” Mateo questioned.

“They’re the same,” Leona explained.

The two of them stared at her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing happened.

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

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

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

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

“Is everything okay?” Ramses asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leona got up. “You do?”

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

“The drum?” Leona asked, confused.

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

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

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

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

“Okay, we’ll do that,” Mateo decided.

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

“What would that be?”

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

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 32,398

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Asier doesn’t come to retrieve Mateo after the next break from realtime. The stasis pod hatch opens on its own ten thousand years later, so Mateo steps out to head for the master sitting room. It’s empty, which he takes as an opportunity. Looking around to make sure that no one is spying on him, he creeps over to the globe, and opens it up. It’s empty too; the Omega Gyroscope has been removed from it.

“She knew she couldn’t trust you,” Bhulan reveals.

Mateo closes it back up without looking at her. “I just wanted to see it again.”

“Uhuh,” she says, not believing him. “It’s hers, you know. As long as the Gyroscope is in use, the user can do whatever they want with it, and no one can take it from them until the current objective has been fulfilled, or they give it freely.”

“It can’t be stolen, got it.” He steps away from it and sighs.

“I can be convinced not to tell her you came straight here to steal it.”

“I wasn’t stealing it, I was just going to borrow it.”

“For what purpose?”

“To get back to my family.”

Bhulan chuckles. “That thing can’t do that for you. I mean, technically it can, but not on its own. People seem to think that its power is limitless, but it’s not. It can alter the physical laws of the world that it is in. It can’t turn you into a bird, and it can’t send you forward in time. At best, it would give you the option of jumping through time, but you would have to figure out how to actually accomplish that on your own.”

“What if I asked it to alter the world so that psychically-powered wormholes capable of time travel open up when conceived up by someone who wants one?”

She smiles. “That’s creative, but you’re not psychic enough. It doesn’t alter people, I mean, not really. Like I said, it can’t turn you into a bird.”

“No birds, no psychics. Understood.”

“Anyway, we’re having a pool party today, if you wanna come. We can print you a swimsuit. I bet you’ve never worn one that fits perfectly.”

It seems weird to have a pool party with five people, three of which are related, but he follows her anyway. They’re in the short course pool today, instead of the Olympic-size one, and it is packed full of party-goers. Who the hell are these people? “Are they holograms, androids...?”

“Oh no, they’re real,” she claims. “Have you ever heard of Westfall?”

“So, they don’t even know where they are?”

“They think that this is a rich community’s disaster bunker.”

“Isn’t that what it actually is anyway?” Mateo suggests.

She just rolls her eyes. The three of them aren’t rich in the traditional sense, but they command all of this real estate, and all power is concentrated in them. They’re rich.

“Did you ask for them to come here?” he asks. “Spit it out,” he encourages when she hesitates to respond.

“It’s the Gyroscope. This is a glitch. Tamerlane thinks it has something to do with its user. He was actually the first Westfall victim to show up, and he just never left. Without them, there would be nothing to do here. Most of the time, when we’re not in stasis, it’s because alarms have reported that someone is here who shouldn’t be. One of us is then tasked with leaving the stasis chamber, and containing the intruder.”

“That’s why Danica is so freaked out, because the whole point is to prevent all this scifi stuff from being able to happen in this reality.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“But intruders like this don’t happen in the other realities, right?”

“Not to this annoying degree, no.” She gestures towards the kids laughing and screaming in the water, thinking they’re pulling one over on a wealthy snob.

“Maybe it’s wrong to think of it as a glitch. Maybe it’s more of a consequence. The Gyroscope is like a vacuum, sucking up all temporal energy, and pushing it away from the world, but that opens tears in whatever separates this universe from others. Things are supposed to go out only, but occasionally, something comes the wrong direction through these tears. I mean, maybe it’s even the temporal energy itself that’s doing it. If you were trying to suck out all the carbon, it would be fine, but what you’re doing is taking power away from us, and giving it to them, which they then use to sneak in.”

Bhulan slowly turns her face away from him in thought. “Hmm.”

“I don’t sound like an idiot?”

“Usually, yes, but that was surprisingly...not entirely ridiculous. What we need to do is move the temporal energy out of the world, and put it somewhere where we can contain it, where it can’t affect anyone. Like a...pocket dimension?”

“Or how about Durus?” Mateo offers. He’s not doing it to be nice. Durus is a rogue planet that is not very far away from Earth in celestial terms, and if he and his friends can get back to the AOC, it won’t take them long to make the journey. From there, the smart team members will surely be able to come up with a way out of the Third Rail, with virtually limitless power at their disposal.

“No, there are too many people there. Well, not in this reality, of course, but in others, and that would put them at risk of accidentally crossing over. One errant portal, and the system breaks down.”

That’s okay, it doesn’t have to be Durus. As long as Mateo knows where it is, they can get to it four and a half billion years from now. By then, these people will have tossed it to the back of their minds so they can focus on other issues. Once this new plan works, they’ll stop worrying about it, which will allow Mateo’s team to exploit it. “I suppose Dardius is out.” He doesn’t want them choosing it, because it’s too far away from here. The AOC can’t make it in a reasonable amount of time.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t wanna do that.” She looks over at him. “In fact, we wouldn’t want it to be anywhere where there are people. That includes you. You’re trying to trick me into telling you where we’ll end up sending the temporal energy.”

“I don’t understand the problem,” Mateo argues. “You want us to leave the Third Rail, we want to leave the Third Rail. To me, that sounds like our objectives are aligned, but you keep acting like I’m the frickin’ enemy.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Yeah, it’s way complicated, and I’m just a big ol’ dum-dum who couldn’t find his arms with his hands. Well, if I’m no longer needed, I think I’ll go take a nap. I haven’t slept in a long time, because the time jumps give me a huge case of FOMO.”

“Mateo...”

“No, it’s okay, I understand. Good luck with your little power vacuum.” Holy crap, power vacuum? Is it really that obvious? Did he just help himself realize where they end up dumping the temporal energy?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 22, 2398

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The agents are on the case. Cheyenne’s murder was a terrible tragedy, but in the end, it hasn’t changed anything. They still need to find Meredarchos, who is hiding out in Andile’s former body, and they still don’t know where he’s going. His motives are difficult to understand, to say the least. Why sneak into the Lofts, and how did he do it? Why kill her? For the Insulator of Life? If he’s as powerful as he sounds, death is probably not something he’s really ever had to worry about.

Angela calls Leona, Mateo, and Ramses into the security room. She’s been studying the footage, and might not have slept last night. At first, she was focused on making sure that Ramses didn’t do anything, or his body, anyway. After she cleared his name, though, she apparently wanted to go back through, and look more closely at the feeds. “How did he get in the building?” she poses.

“We don’t know. How?” Leona asks right back.

“I’ve seen every frame from every camera,” Angela begins, “and he doesn’t. He doesn’t step one foot in this place.”

“Okay... Do you need to sleep?”

“I’m fine, I’ve had some coffee,” Angela says. Coffee indeed, the trashcan is full of coffee pods. She takes another sip from her current cup of the stuff. “The reason I didn’t see him enter the building is because he was already inside.” She switches the monitors to the feeds from the fifteenth of this month, which is the day Rothko broke out of the blacksite, and—probably unintentionally—freed Meredarchos. It is here where they see him pick the lock on the side door, and enter the building. “I looked into the operation records from SD6. He came straight here. He knew exactly where we lived and worked, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.”

“What did he want to do?” Mateo asks.

Angela begins to step through the timeline. They see Meredarchos walk right up to the lab, let himself in using a badge that shouldn’t exist, and which he definitely shouldn’t have, then approach the Insulator of Life. He touches the top of it, and disappears in a flash of life.”

“Where did he go?” Alyssa asks. She wasn’t in the room before.

“That I don’t know,” Angela answers, all jittery. She tries to take another desperate sip, but Mateo takes it away from her.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

“Whatever, you can’t control me, I’ll just wait until you leave. Now, that’s not the interesting part. Here’s the interesting part.” She jumps back to the feed from two days ago, dragging one particular camera over to the main screen, so they can see it better that’s showing the outside of that side door. “Okay, so watch her—I mean him—leave.” Meredarchos does indeed leave the building, and walk out of frame. “Right quick, look at the distant viewer...there. Did you see that? His arm—well, I mean, Andile’s arm—appears in frame for a second, and then he goes back out. So it looks like he’s leaving, right? Wrong. He comes back. Now, we don’t see him coming back, but I know that he did. Because look at this camera.” She switches to the loading dock camera, where nothing happens. “Uhuh. See it right? Right?”

“See what?” Mateo questions. “Nothing happened.”

“Run it again,” Leona asks, leaning forward, and squinting at the screen.

Angela nods. “Okay.” She does so. “There! Aaaaaand there! And there, and there, and there.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Leona acknowledges.

“I see it too,” Ramses says. Of course the three smartest people in the room see what the other two don’t.

“What is it?” Alyssa asks them.

“There’s a leaf on the pavement. The wind picks up, and pushes it maybe a centimeter to the left. It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there. And it keeps repeating. This footage is on a loop. In fact, it loops the same five seconds over and over again for twenty-five minutes. That’s enough time to step out of the blindspot, and into the dock through the regular door.”

“I thought that’s why you guys put those lava lamps all over the place,” Alyssa points out. “Don’t they prevent loops from happening?”

“There are none outside. It’s not a mistake,” Leona tells her. “We made a conscious decision to not put them on the exterior.” Having lamps on the outside would draw too much attention. It seemed safer to assume that anyone wishing them harm from the outside, would try to make their way inside, where cameras would be waiting. That seemed good enough...unless they had explosives. “They would look suspicious. People would be asking why the hell they’re out there.”

“So, what does this mean?” Mateo poses. “Meredarchos snuck in here to kill Cheyenne for the thing he already had in his possession a week ago?”

“It’s all about Erlendr,” Leona realizes. “He knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep Ramses’ body forever, because we would figure it out, and we would spend untold resources to get him back if he escaped with it again, so he came up with a plan to get himself into Andile’s body, which is extra, and thusly less important. Because apparently Meredarchos has the ability to store full substrates in the Insulator, which we were to understand is not something it’s capable of.”

“So both Meredarchos and Erlendr are in Andile’s body?” Alyssa guesses.

“Either that, or Meredarchos just took the Insulator with plans to use it on some other poor unsuspecting soul later,” Leona suggests.

“That doesn’t explain why he came back into the building,” Angela reminds her. “What did he need in the basement? We swept the whole place, nothing was taken.”

“You didn’t sweep everything,” Ramses reveals solemnly.

“What are you talking about?” Leona asks.

“Okay, don’t get mad, but I found something in the basement when we first got here that I decided to keep secret in case I needed to store hazardous materials. I don’t have all my memories of when Erlendr was in my head, but I get fragments back. I think he put something in there.”

“Something, like what?”

“Something like...Trina’s body?”

“Oh my God,” Alyssa exclaims.

They all take a field trip to the basement to see whether what Ramses believes is true. He remembers digging in the dirt, and coming down here with something approximately human-sized, so he just put two and two together. Now he needs proof. He removes the false panel, and opens the secret refrigerator door, but they don’t find Trina’s body in there. Instead, they see Andile’s.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 5, 2398

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A long time ago, Jupiter Fury gave Mateo and his team at the time a task. They had to save Vearden Haywood from being attacked and killed by an ancient dinosauric creature on Tribulation Island. They couldn’t just go to that moment in time, and transport him away from the animal. They had to leave the timeline intact, and make everyone believe that he was dead. He was trampled on out of sight, but found immediately, and brought back to camp where Leona and Mateo tried to treat his wounds. They disappeared from the timestream at the end of the day, and when they returned a year later, they learned that he hadn’t ultimately survived his injuries.

What the team did was create a clone of Vearden, but they couldn’t give it consciousness, because letting it die in the real Vearden’s stead would be unethical. Their plans were screwed up when Mateo himself was killed by the creature first, but they still went ahead with the task. Leona Matic, Jeremy, Ellie, and Sanaa transferred their own minds to the clone, and went off to switch places with the real Vearden, and since then, they hadn’t really thought about what happened to their original bodies. After spending time in the afterlife simulation, they received new substrates from Tamerlane Pryce, and went on with their lives. The bodies are empty shells now, and they could be of great use to them, as long as Leona Delaney’s understanding of the Livewire is correct.

Leona Matic came up with an idea, but first she had to convince everyone else to go along with it. Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo’s problem was that they were destined to die in their own timelines, and would eventually have to go back to realize that. While their deaths weren’t locked in by the hundemarke, they were integral to the creation of every timeline that came after it. Without these events, who knows what would become of reality? The extraction mirror was designed to buy time, not to change the past. But time has little meaning without perception. It exists, sure, but it doesn’t matter unless something is conscious and experiencing it. As long as everyone involved believes that something happened, then it may as well have. The timeline won’t be changed if no one can tell the difference. They can save Reaver and Alt!Mateo, and it’s all thanks to the bodies that Leona and her friends left behind. But what to do with the two extra ones.

“Are we really doing this?” Leona Delaney asks her friend.

“I have no strong feelings about this reality,” Andile replies.

“We’ll be leaving people behind,” Delaney reminds her for the upteenth time.

“No one we’re leaving behind doesn’t want us to do this,” Andile volleys, also for the upteenth time. It didn’t take long for Andile to get on board, but Delaney has been struggling with the decision.

“I dunno.”

“Four bodies, two people,” Andile goes on. “If we don’t go, they’ll just decompose, and go to waste.”

“The people in those bodies didn’t just leave. They left, and then they died. It feels disrespectful.”

“The other Leona says it’s okay.”

“She can consent. The other three aren’t around to.”

“She said that they would be okay with it if they knew. They have all moved on.” Andile takes Delaney’s hand. “I’m sick of calling you by your last name. You need to go somewhere where you’re the only Leona.”

“I won’t be Leona. I’ll be Ellie, or maybe Sanaa. I don’t even know those people.”

“Sanaa has darker skin, I would rather be her.”

“That’s such a weird decision to have to make. Don’t you think so?”

“I think...that I’ve made it. And it doesn’t have to be permanent. We’ll be in the main sequence, which is more advanced, and has more time travel. We’ll be able to transfer again later. This is just temporary.”

“That kind of contradicts your idea that the bodies we’re stealing would go to waste otherwise.”

Andile shrugs. “So we’ll use them for a few decades, and then transfer. That’s the beauty of the future, honey. No one ever really dies.”

Delaney is still concerned, but she wants to get out of this place, and she wants to make her friend happy. Her only hangup is wondering whether this is the only way, or the best way. It will never not be a strange thing to do, taking over someone else’s body, and walking around, looking like them. She better make her choice fast. They get a text from the other Leona, alerting them to their return. Bridgette and Cheyenne have agreed to let them borrow the Insulator of Life, as long as they came with, and took it right back. They also wanted to stay out of all this other stuff, and be left alone after their business was over. Leona Matic and Marie have spent all day today discussing it with them. They can’t just take it from her. It’s an unwritten rule in their world. Even the most villainous of villains don’t steal things from people, if only because the worst of them are usually too powerful to exert the effort it would take to care that much.

She mirrors the look that Andile gives her. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Andile smiles, and hops off the bed. They reach the elevator just in time to ride down with Ramses. Everyone else is already in the basement, where it’s taking place. Ramses points to one of the outlets to tell them that that’s the one he’s rigged up to transmit power to the Insulator. Leona Matic sets it on the table, but doesn’t hook it up.

“Is this going to work?” Alt!Mateo questions.

“Yes,” Ramses assures him. “Based on Delaney’s intel, my genius, Leona’s genius, and Jupiter’s knack for planning far in advance, this is what is meant to happen.”

“And what is that exactly?” Leona Reaver presses. “What is happening?”

Vearden steps forward. “When I ran into Jupiter, he was plugging something into power, which I didn’t think much of at the time, since we were on a spaceship. Now I know it was the Insulator. He set it up centuries ago to receive a transmission from us, in the future. When we all leave the room, and the Insulator is activated, every consciousness in the blast radius will be pulled out of its body, sent to the past, and inserted into its new body. You’ll be in the year 2125, on a planet called Dardius.”

“How does it know whose body to put which consciousness in?” Delaney asks.

“Jupiter has that all set up,” Leona answers.

“But you don’t know that,” Alt!Mateo reasons.

“Does it matter? It’s gonna save your life,” Mateo contends.

“This isn’t mandatory,” Leona tells them. “Anyone and everyone can back out. It’s an option that we’re providing you, but you have until that thing is plugged in to change your mind. In fact, you’ll have to plug it in yourselves. None of us can be down here.”

Ramses looks around. “Does everyone understand the risks, and rewards?”

“I don’t,” Bridgette jumps in. “What if this burns out the Insulator? What will happen to Cheyenne?”

“Bridge, it’s fine. They need this more than I do.”

“No, it belongs to you right now. You have the right to back out as well. These people act like they know what the hell is going on, but they don’t. They’re operating on faith, and that’s how World War I got started. People and their religions,” she spits.

“It’s not religion,” Leona says. “It’s science.”

After Bridgette scoffs, Cheyenne takes her by the hand, and begins to lead her towards the stairs. “This isn’t our business. They said that the Insulator would be fine, and that they would give it back. I’m choosing to trust, and believe, them. If you don’t, it’s like you don’t trust or believe in me.” She stops at the bottom of the steps. “Marie’s sister said that she would give us a tour of her startup. That’s where we’ll be. Thanks.”

Mateo starts to head up too. “I don’t need to be here either.”

Pretty soon, they all follow suit. “Remember. You have to plug it in. It’s in your hands now.” Leona and Ramses are the last to leave.

Alt!Mateo strides over, and takes the Livewire in his hand. When Leona Delaney lurches forwards a little bit, he holds up the other hand. “It’s okay, I’ll wait. But I’m never changing my mind. I wanna live, even if I end up looking like this Jeremy Bearimy fellow, so this is getting plugged in no matter what. I’ll count down.”

“You don’t need to count,” Andile says. “We’re ready. Right?”

“Let’s vote,” Reaver suggests, “so there’s no ambiguity. All in favor of him plugging it in, raise your hands.”

They all raise their hands.

“Perfect,” Reaver decides with a quick nod. “Do it.”

“Okay,” Alt!Mateo replies. He leans over, and plugs the wire in. A jolt of electricity coming from the wall startles him, but he doesn’t get hurt.

They can hear the energy running through the Livewire, which is wrapped around the Insulator. It starts to glow, the light eventually spreading beyond the confines of the glass. A bubble is forming around it, heading towards them. Delaney instinctively starts to back away, but Andile holds her forward. This is surely what’s supposed to happen. She gently pushes her closer to it, and lets the bubble consume them both. Reaver and Alt!Mateo are doing the same. Once they’re all inside, the Insulator begins to make a humming noise, like static. It’s trying to find the right frequency, or something. Before anyone can ask if it’s working, a sudden surge shoots through them, and expands the bubble even farther, and then everything goes black.

Leona Delaney wakes up on a couch. No, it’s not a couch, but a loveseat. That wasn’t clear before. Her head is resting on the shoulder of a stranger. Or maybe it’s not a stranger at all, but Andile. She looks over to see a man, and another woman on the other side of him. It’s not her own face, which can only mean one thing. Her consciousness has been transferred into the body of this Leona, instead of Reaver’s. She’s back on the yearly jump pattern, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Andile, meanwhile, with whatever body she’s in, will not be on the same pattern. This is bad, this is really bad.

“Hello,” comes a voice, but it doesn’t sound like a normal voice from the outside. It sounds more like a thought.

“Where are you?” Delaney asks. “Who are you?”

“I don’t know where I am,” the voice replies, sad and scared. “I’m Trina.”