Microstory 2443: March 14, 2016

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I came to this dome mostly out of curiosity. Not only does it seem so random and vague, but there’s also no information on it. Most prospectuses in the catalog have a lot of information about what you’re getting into. Even the more secretive ones, like Foggy Forest still give data about temperature and wind patterns, and the types of plantlife that can be found there. It also warns you about how dangerous or troublesome it might be for the younger crowd, or people with heart conditions, or whatever. March 14, 2016 does not have anything. There’s not even a picture associated with it, which was the weirdest part about it. All it shows is the title, and under that, the word “Perfect”. I don’t have a family, or anything going on in my life. I’m guessing that I’ll probably move here on a more permanent basis, so I have plenty of time to explore the other domes. I figured I might as well check this one out, especially since I seem to be the first person to review it. There’s a chance that I was even the first visitor ever? I don’t believe that any other visitor was there at the same time, but it can be hard to tell since the androids just look like people. Though, I will say that no one else seemed confused or weirded out, so I really do think that I was alone. Enough of the build-up, what is March 14, 2016? Well, it appears to be St. Louis, Missouri, presumably the way it looked like on that date. The only reason I say that is because there’s a big arch that looks exactly like the one in the photos. I pulled out my handheld device, and tried to figure out where I was standing at any one time, but nothing seemed to match up. All of the street signs were blank. Almost none of the buildings had signs of any kind, and I’ll get to that here in a bit. First, I wanna tell you that the buildings weren’t real either. They were basically cardboard cutouts, including only the façade. You can walk in them, but be careful with the doors. It’s very unsettling, because there aren’t any interior walls or furniture. It feels like the whole thing is about to come down. Unlike the Kansas City replica dome, this was all fake; not just a replica. Remember when I said that there were androids? Well, not a whole lot of them. They weren’t walking on the sidewalks, or crossing the streets. They weren’t driving the cars—or pretending to drive, anyway, because the vehicles were fake too. They had all congregated in one place. It might sound like a big event or gathering, but that’s not right either. There was a reasonable number of people at a store of some kind, which were common in this time period before they were replaced with free inventoria. Some were wearing blue vests or polo shirts, and name tags, so I’m assuming they worked there. Everyone else was wearing whatever, so they were probably customers. Unlike everywhere else, the store had a sign, but it too was disappointing, because it was just given the generic name of Superstore. The inside was full of stuff; the kind of stuff I’m told would be typical of the age in a store. It had gizmos and gadgets and clothes. People were buying things, and then walking out. Nothing interesting or crazy happened all day. I kind of thought maybe that there was a bombing here, or some kind of attack? Or maybe ghosts would fly out of the walls, and start scaring people. But nothing. Everyone smiled at each other. While no one actually said a word, they behaved as if they were talking to each other. There didn’t appear to be any conflict. At the end of the “day” the store shut down, and hours later, it reopened, and restarted the exact same routine over again. I tried to find any other places of activity, but couldn’t. I did find other Superstore locations, but they weren’t populated. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe someone else can try it, and see something different.

Microstory 2055: My Real Problem

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Not much to report today. The medicine is working, and I’m feeling better. I’m trying to focus on getting a job, and not worrying too much about my requirements for that. It just has to give me some kind of steady income, and my employer can’t get hung up on my lack of social security number, or whatever other info this country expects out of me. I’ve not found anything yet. Unemployment seems to be rather low here. There are about as many jobs as there are people, and my arrival has thrown off that balance. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t really know how any of this works. I try to spend a little bit of time every day getting an idea of what exactly is different about this world, but there’s no real way for me to understand. My real problem is that I don’t have any résumé to speak of. I mean, I do, but I can’t prove any of it, since I lived in a different universe at the time. Still, I’m putting out feelers, as they say. Nothin’ yet, but I’ll keep looking. It’s only been a few days. I’ve spent months looking for work before, so I’m not going to be discouraged quite yet. Then again, I was living in a lot of privilege before. Now I have nothing to fall back on. I’m alone. That’s not true. I have this great finished attic, and I’m so grateful for it. Still, I don’t want to overstay my welcome. It’s important that I figure out how to take care of myself. I think I’m going to have to start hanging out in the side lot of a home improvement store as a day laborer, if that’s even a thing here.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 3, 2398

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Kivi can presumably find anyone anywhere, but it helps to have a general idea of where they are. If their targets had run off to hide in Croatia, for instance, she probably would have never found them unless someone tipped them off to this fact. Fortunately, her SD6 team is not the only interested party. Investigators from multiple departments have been looking into the bombing of the former Balance of Power studios, and they do not believe that the culprits have managed to get out of the city. They’re still in New York, and as long as she doesn’t get distracted again, Kivi can take it from there. That’s not all the other investigators found.

A small group known as the Weighers of Justices have claimed responsibility for the attack. This is a new organization; so new that organization is a strong word to use for them. They say that they’re loyal to Solomon Powers and his legacy, and were retaliating against Leona’s legal killing of him, and her takeover of his microsovereignty. They’ve not released names, or shown themselves on camera, so this could all be a red herring, but Kivi and the other members of her team don’t care. Understanding motive is not part of their job descriptions. They just have to find these assholes.

It’s called a Pyramid Whelm. In a standard square or rectangular building, two members of the tactical team will take up positions on corners diagonal from each other. This allows them to watch for escape attempts from all side doors. A third member will take up a position on the roof, in case someone has some way out via helicopter or wingsuit, or something like that. When the main door of any given building is breached by two more tack team members, anyone hoping to evade capture will usually instinctively move to the back. The final two team members will be waiting for them at that exit. This is the most efficient use of a seven-member team, but it is a scalable tactic. A group totaling fourteen can double up on each position, or spread across a larger area, depending on necessity, threat level, and resource inventory. A single-family home can probably be contained with a single team, but an abandoned bulk store, for example, may need some extra people to cover all bases, but the same vaguely pyramidal formation is used in either case.

Before the Whelm comes the recon, which is when a single person, or maybe two people, attempt to gather as much information about a target location as possible before anyone else goes in. This is especially useful in urgent cases such as this, but it’s also risky if a security system tips the targets off to the oncoming containment. That’s what Kivi is supposed to be doing right now at that abandoned bulk story. But she’s not just doing it for her team, because they’re not preparing a Pyramid Whelm today. This is called a Deluge Configuration. It’s basically when every able-bodied law enforcer in the area comes out, and dominates a target location. This has become such an important case, despite the fact that no one was severely hurt, that everyone wants a piece of it. Leona Matic has her detractors—case in point, the bombing—but for the most part, she’s become very popular. People want to see the bad guys go down for this, so every department has a strong incentive to get it done quickly, and unambiguously.

Kivi does not feel the same way that everyone else does, and she knows that neither does Leona. That’s why she’s going to secretly convert the recon mission into a capture mission. She does not have the training or experience to take on all these guys on her own, but she’s doing it anyway, because it’s the safest way to go about it. It’s also the most rational, or maybe it’s more that a Deluge Configuration is an insane tactic. First of all, these people are bombers. This whole structure could be rigged up with explosives, which would put hundreds in needless danger. Secondly, when you have this many people who don’t even know each other, it would be incredibly easy for the suspects to slip away in the chaos. She refuses to let that happen.

As Kivi is double-checking her count of the suspects, Paula crawls up to her. “What are you doing here?” Kivi whispers. “You’re supposed to be hunting for underground exit points.”

“You think I’m going to let you do this alone?”

“It’s my job. I’m the Spotter.”

“Yes, but you’re not just spotting, are you? You were just about to go in alone.”

How does she know that? “What makes you say that?”

“I could see it in your eyes. Maybe I should be the Spotter.”

Kivi frowns. “The Deluge—”

“Is the dumbest thing that some guy with a computer keyboard came up with two hundred years ago. There’s a reason that the SD6 has never employed it once, because it doesn’t work. We’re surgical, that’s the whole point of a seven-person tack team.”

The Technician, Hurst crawls up to their position on the catwalk. “Hey, are we doing this, or what?”

Right behind him are Corolla, Hartwin, Klein, and Alserda. Now the whole team is here. “Are you mad?” Kivi asks their leader.

“No, you had the right idea, just the wrong tactic,” Alserda says. “We’re doing Hermit Crab Formation,” she orders.

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Kivi says.

Lieutenant Klein looks between Kivi and Corolla. “You’re in back.”

“Because I’m the newest?”

“Because you’re the smallest,” Alserda clarifies.

Hermit crabs live in shells created by other organisms. When one specimen grows out of its shell, it has to find a new one. So what they’ll do is get in a line next to each other, and trade shells one right after the other. In this case, Hermit Crab formation dictates the largest member of the tactical team approach the targets in front, hopefully giving the impression that there is only one person about to attack them. As soon as the targets see that an enemy is coming, and the tactical advantage of the ruse is lost, the crabs in back will break formation, and begin the attack using whatever means necessary and authorized. Despite the fact that two people on the team have never done this before, their technique serves them well. All bombing suspects are apprehended without anyone firing a single shot.

Once it’s over, Alserda conducts a brief interrogation in an attempt to ascertain whether there are any impending attacks. This is when they learn the truth. These guys never cared about their former boss, Solomon Powers. There was a vault in the sub-basement, which they robbed. The explosion was just to cover their tracks. They refuse to say where the money is, though. “That isn’t our problem,” Paula advises Kivi.

Kivi turns away, realizing that she’s right, and feeling a sense of relief in this truth. She’s not responsible for detecting clues, extracting confessions, or prosecuting crimes. She finds people; that’s it. What happens afterwards is out of her hands. Then again, that was Leona’s money. Maybe Kivi is responsible for recovering it after all.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 13, 2398

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It’s too much work. They tied a mess of rope to the ladder, and across the shaft to the metal beam things that were once used to transport the elevator car, back when there was an elevator in here. They still can’t figure out what happened to it, but it’s looking like they’re going to have to somehow build their own. Should teleportation stop being available to them at some point, they don’t want to have to climb up and down a ladder five kilometers at a time. Perhaps a slide? Or a staircase? No, none of this is at all reasonable. It’s just too much work, and neither of them is equipped to take on such an endeavor.

They still have plenty of work that has to be done either way, so they try not to worry about it while they’re digging. The soil level could be piled several meters thick, and they can’t dig straight down, instead opting for a ramp that people can actually walk down. After waking up the next day, having barely made a dent in the job, they decide it’s time to rethink this whole thing.

“Hasting,” Heath suggests without elaborating.

“Hastings...Nebraska?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Stay with me here. Why doesn’t the ground over the elevator shaft just fall down into the hole?”

Mateo points over their heads. “Because of this ceiling,” he says, knowing that Heath is only asking to support his argument, not because he doesn’t know. They’re standing on a little platform that they installed to give them more room. It was the easiest part of yesterday’s work, drilling holes in cement while hanging over the abyss.

“Right. So what would happen if we took out the ceiling first?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo says, nodding his head. “I get where you’re going with this, but I’m not a civil engineer, or whoever would understand how this all works. Maybe the ground would fall in, or maybe not.”

“We have to break through this anyway. Might as well start from below. All we would have to do is extend this platform.”

“Uhuh,” Mateo begins. “And if there’s a platform, where does all the concrete and dirt fall as we break through it? And if it doesn’t work, and we still need to start digging from above, what happens to us when we destabilize it enough to actually cave in?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath frowns. “This is impossible!”

They’re silent for a few moments, before Mateo remembers something. “Why did you bring up Hastings, Nebraska?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath repeats himself, then shrugs. “It’s only thirty minutes away the way you drive, but we could rent a power chisel without anybody asking any questions.”

“Yeah, that’s one option.”

“What’s another one? Everything seems too slow.”

Mateo nods. “It’s gonna storm tonight.”

“Yeah...?”

He rifles through his bag until he finds their salvation. He holds it between his fingers like it’s the most important find ever.

“It’s a bullet.”

“It’s a telebullet,” Mateo corrects. “It may just be all we need.” He smiles, dreaming of Shawshank.

“What does it do?” Heath asks.

“Usually, you shoot it at someone, and it instantly transports them to wherever you want.”

“Isn’t that something that you can do yourself?”

“Yes, but I can’t move a concrete ceiling and hundreds of cubic meters of soil and rock.”

“But that little bullet can?”

“Well, it can be more destructive, which should be enough to destabilize the ground, and cause a cave-in. Or, uh, not should, but could. Hopefully.”

“I guess we might as well try,” Heath figures, “as long as you don’t need that bullet for something else.”

“It’s like you said, I can teleport myself, but only at this special location. It has no other use in this reality. If we ever get back to the main sequence, I could always find myself some more, I’m sure.”

“All right, I’m in. I assume you mentioned the storm, because there could be thunder?”

“Yes, but the sound is not the only problem we have.”

“How does the bullet explode?”

“Right.”

“Well, I can make a little bomb. I assume it doesn’t have to be powerful enough to blast through a mountain.”

“I assume as much as well.”

Fortunately, Heath already owns a six-meter long ladder, stored in his flying carboat. They’re going to stop calling it that, as they’ve come up with a proper name. It will now be known as The Olimpia. Mateo carefully extends the ladder so that it’s resting on the ledge on the other side of the shaft, and ties everything up. He runs planks across it so he has somewhere to stand while he’s working. It’s absolutely not the safest thing in the world, but he has himself tied to the structurally sound emergency ladder with mountain climbing equipment, so it should be fine. It’s his job to drill a hole in the concrete ceiling while Heath rigs up a small explosive to catalyze the temporal bullet. This may not work at all, and it might be a waste of their time, but the way they see it, they either spend a couple hours on a lark before resorting to digging a hole by hand, or they skip it. Either way, the digging will cost them days, not hours, so this is hardly a digression.

While Mateo is constructing his safety platform, Heath goes out and buys a special long drill, and the ten-centimeter bit that they’re going to need, along with his own supplies. The hole doesn’t have to be pretty or clean. It just has to be deep enough to get to the dirt. According to their research, a normal ceiling should only be about twenty centimeters thick, but this one is twice that, presumably to support the weight of the ground above. That’s going to make it harder, but not impossible. That’s why he requested a super narrow drill. Once the hole gets started, it goes surprisingly quickly. Now all they can do is wait until the thunderstorm begins. They’re not sure how loud the explosion is going to be, so it’s best to muffle it as much as possible.

They’re in the middle of dinner when Thor’s battle against the God Butcher begins. They leave their dishes on the table, and run back to the would-be center of the country. Using radio transceivers, Mateo waits for a signal from Heath, who is counting thunder strikes. Once it’s time, Mateo lights the fuse, and tries to teleport out. For a split second, he’s stuck, and doesn’t go anywhere, so he’s afraid the temporal energy already ran out, but then the glitch disappears, and so does he. He meets Heath back on the surface just in time for the temporal explosion. Heath timed it perfectly with the storm, so Mateo feels compelled to give him a high five. At first, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. It definitely shook the earth, but nothing has changed from above. But then it does. The ground begins to sink. More, then even more, until it all caves in. It worked. Holy crap, it actually worked. They high five again.

Carefully, the two of them step over to the hole so they can get a look inside, every once in a while looking up to see if police cruisers are coming down the highway to investigate. They stomp on the ground to make sure it’s still stable, and it seems perfectly safe...until it doesn’t. The ground right under Mateo sinks. A normal person would probably reach out for help, but he has the opposite reaction. He’s died—or come so close to death that he would not have survived without time power intervention—so many times, it feels more natural to let it happen. Instead, he pushes Heath away with as much force as he can muster, which serves to pull him downwards even faster. He slips off the grass, and tumbles down the hole. He spreads his arms out, hoping to catch hold of the emergency ladder, the portable ladder, the little platform, the ledge, the rope web, or some other structure, but nothing meets his hands but dirt and other debris.

Finally, as he’s falling, he attempts to teleport himself to safety, but it would seem that the explosion used up all the temporal energy left in this place. There’s no way out. He’s going to actually die this time, and it’s so incredibly unlikely that someone created an afterlife simulation in this reality. It’s the end. As he’s falling towards his demise, he almost regrets no longer having his faith, but he appreciates that it wouldn’t change anything. Death is death, whether you believe in it or not.

Thirty seconds later, he reaches the floor, but it doesn’t hurt like it should. Did he get his invincibility back somehow? He thought they decided that was a separate phenomenon from the time power blocker. No, that’s not what happened. He didn’t fall hard on the floor, and just not feel the pain from it. He didn’t crash into it at all. It’s more like a magical force sucked out all his momentum, and materialized the floor millimeters under him. He’s landed safely as if he was never moving at all. He turns over, and sees a ceiling above him. This isn’t just the elevator shaft. It’s the elevator. It’s back. Or more accurately, he’s back. He’s obviously traveled to an indeterminate moment in the past. He sits up, and is about to stand up, when he notices people watching him from the main floor. One of them is Danica Matic. The other is Bhulan Cargill. And the third...is Tamerlane Pryce.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 12, 2398

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This is going to be a lot of work. It was hard to tell back when they were using the elevator to get down here in the main sequence, but it’s incredibly far below the surface. According to Ramses—who stuck around long enough to find Mateo and Heath a blueprint—the main floor is five kilometers under the surface, so the first time the two of them climb the emergency ladder, it takes them just over an hour. Subsequent climbs in either direction are going to take significantly longer. This is not a good alternative, but the computer didn’t tell them where the elevator car was stopped, so they had to do the whole thing to find it. Once they reached an obstacle, it took some sleuthing and math for them to realize that said obstacle was not the elevator. It was a ceiling of concrete, or some other strong material, which was constructed in order to prevent the soil above from falling down.

“Well,” Heath begins as he’s digging through his bag, grateful that there is a ledge here for them to sit and rest.

“Well...?” Mateo prompts after a period of silence.

“Oh. Well, we have all the tools we thought we might need to break into the elevator car, but I guess it was removed...?”

Another bit of silence. “Go on”

“Since it’s not here, we’re going to need something else; a heavy duty power tool of some kind.”

“You wanna take out this ceiling?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t see any other way,” Heath says, “not unless you’re sure that your ability to teleport at this specific location won’t ever go away.”

“Nah, it probably will. It would be foolish for us to rely on that.”

“That’s what I figured, which is why I suggested we do what we’re doing right now. I just didn’t know it would entail this much climbing, or that we would run into this damn thing.” He clumsily pounds on the ceiling with the outside of his fist. “Ow, why is it so hard?”

“Well,” Mateo decides, “I can still feel the energy right now. I can jump up to the surface, dig down with the shovel, and then jackhammer this block.”

“You want to what the block.”

“Jackhammer?” Mateo repeats. He pantomimes with sound effects. “Jackhammer.”

“Oh, a powered demo chisel.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, I don’t have one of those.”

“I should think not.”

“You jump us both up there, I’ll start digging, you go rent one—a hardware store in town surely has one available—and then I’ll operate it.”

“Are you asking me to let you do all the work?”

“How do you mean? I don’t know how else we would do it.”

Mateo laughs. “This is my cousin’s house. If anyone was gonna do it all by himself, it would be me. But no, we’ll do it together. We’ll both go rent the chisel thing, we’ll both dig a hole, and we’ll both break through this ceiling. Let’s hope it’s not made of adamantium, or naquadah, or something.”

“I don’t know what those are,” Heath admits.

“I should think not.” They sit there to rest a little more until Mateo speaks again. “I don’t suppose it’s legal to blast our way through with an explosive.”

“It would be if we owned this land, or secured a permit to conduct such work. Otherwise, they would ask us why we need the explosives. They may even ask us if we try to rent the demo chisel. That’s why I think one will be available, because it’s not exactly something the average household ever needs. It’s a risk too.”

“What about a sledgehammer? Would they question that?”

“A what?”

Mateo growls, though he knows that it’s no one’s fault that they sometimes have different words for the same, or similar, thing. “It’s a hammer you use for demolition, rather than nails.” That’s how he thinks to describe it, but it may be inaccurate.

“Oh, no, that would be fine, though...I imagine it would take a long time. Do you really wanna try?”

Mateo shakes his head. “No one can know what we’re doing here, or that this place exists. We should even move our car to a different location.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heath agrees. “Jump us to the surface, so we can drive to Mankato. There’s a greater population, so we should be able to blend in. I don’t have my own block striker either. Then we’ll park a ways away from here, hide the car behind some trees, and walk.”

“Sounds like a plan, but we may need to get back to the top of the ladder at some point, and I do not want to climb it again, or have to aim at this ledge, so hand me that rope, if you please.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna build myself a web.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 10, 2398

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The six of them had a lovely dinner. They tried not to think about the fact that Olimpia wasn’t there to enjoy it with them. When most of the team was missing, it was sad, but at least they could fight to get them back. And at least there was more than one. Now that there was only one outstanding member, it felt like a betrayal; like they were excluding someone on purpose, even though of course, they weren’t. Leona still had trouble being convinced that they would not jump forward at the end of the day. As she saw it, it was programmed into their DNA, and their neurology, and the only way they could suppress it was with the Cassidy cuffs...until now. This place, this whole layer of reality, suppressed all nonlinear time. It was more than that, though. Not all of the upgrades that Ramses designed for their bodies had anything to do with the manipulation of time. Their strength, their ability to convert sunlight into energy; it was highly advanced, but not time travel. Not even their form of immortality was time-based. He used more traditional forms of cellular regeneration that were common throughout human civilization in the main sequence. For these reasons, Ramses and Leona are pretty confident that a person, or a group of people, were responsible for the state of things here. No natural phenomenon explained it...not in this universe, anyway. It was not time to investigate it, though. It was time to rest, and sleep, which they needed more of these days.

This unit was made with three bedrooms, which allowed Marie and Heath to keep the master, and Mateo and Leona to have the medium-sized one. Angela had the smaller one all to herself, while Ramses slept on the couch. Everyone was comfortable and content. Come midnight central, Leona was proven wrong. They were still there, having not missed a second. This might only last another day before they solve the problem, or they’ll have to wait four years, just like Marie did. There was no way to know right now. When they woke up, Ramses and Heath went to the store together to pick up some supplies. The former needed parts to build his own tiny cameras from scratch, and that wasn’t not something the latter could help with, but he wanted to be involved. Meanwhile, the two Angelas spent the day together, talking about secret things. They probably needed to figure out what they were going to tell the friends that Marie made here in this world of muggles and mundanes. They looked exactly alike, which she could probably explain away by saying they were estranged twins, but Marie also looked four years older, and that might be easy to spot for eagle-eyed viewers. The Matics decided to take a tour of the city, going to all the spots that they were familiar with, including the Forger’s original den, Aura and Samson’s house in Mission Hills, and even the warehouse where Mateo gave Leona her kidney. Nothing. Everything was normal. Mateo suggested they broaden their search, and try looking for answers in far away places, starting with Lebanon, Kansas, and even to Antarctica, where the Nexus should be. These were good ideas, but they would all have to wait for another day.

Microstory 1887: Feeling Poverty

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Even though I grew up as the son of general store owners, I always felt poor. I think it mostly had to do with the fact that we couldn’t afford the time it would take to enjoy luxuries, like vacations, because someone always had to be at the store. When mom and dad both retired, I took over fulltime, and tried to put my snazzy business degree to good use. We expanded into the empty unit next door to add more shelves, but I never thought to franchise out, or do major advertising campaigns, or anything like that. I just wanted us to be a little more comfortable, and work a little less. I ended up hiring a larger staff than we ever had before, and spent less time there personally. My children weren’t interested in helping out after serving their part time sentences as middle school and high school students, and I didn’t discourage them from pursuing their respective dreams. I ran a clean business. I filed my taxes accurately and on time—or rather I paid the right person to handle it all for me—and I treated my employees fairly. I also kept my prices fairly low; not enough to dry out my profits, but enough to support my community faithfully. Back in the late 1990s, this country suffered a terrible economic depression. Inflation was at an all time high, as was unemployment. Everyone was struggling, including us. But we did okay. I didn’t have to let anyone go, I just had to raise my prices a tiny bit. For some, that tiny bit was as vast as a canyon, and for the very worst off, an untraversable one. People starved to death. My heart went out to them, but I had to protect my own family. Still, I did what I could, instituting promotions where possible, usually when a particular item was in higher than normal supply. Even then, not everyone could afford to buy what they needed to survive.

We had a couple of security cameras by then, but they weren’t exactly HD quality. There were likely a number of instances of theft that went by unnoticed. A box of cereal here, a can of soda there. It happens, and anyone who runs retail just sort of has to accept the risk. One day, during this depression, I was stocking an aisle with canned food when I noticed a misplaced item. People do this all the time when they change their minds, you’ve seen it. All I had to do was hop over to the next aisle over, and reshelve it. I incidentally did this quite quietly, and happened to catch a young woman sticking baby formula inside her stroller, right under her baby’s legs. At that moment, we locked eyes, and she froze like a stunned animal. I recognized her as a regular, and I’m pretty sure she knew that I was the owner, and not just some minimum wage worker. All of those were on the younger side of the spectrum. I didn’t know what to say as we stared at each other, so I ended up not saying anything. I cleared my throat, shelved the item in its place, and walked away. I don’t know what was going through her head, but she probably had her own internal debate about what to do. In the end, she left with what she needed, and only actually paid for a carton of milk. Years later, she returned to my store in tears. I had seen her many times since the incident, and we never spoke of it, so I’m not sure what had changed, but she wanted to apologize. She wasn’t the real mother. She was actually the sister, and their mother had died, which was why she wasn’t producing breast milk. I told her it didn’t matter. The kid needed food, the kid got food; end of story, no apology necessary. I wasn’t able to help much during the depression, but I was able to help this one person on that one day. I guess it will have to do.

Microstory 1865: True Security

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This is the dumbest story from my life. Maybe that’s not the right word for it. Silly, I suppose. It’s certainly not the kind of thing a person should be thinking about as they’re on the brink of death. A normal person wouldn’t, anyway. I was known in my day as someone with an excellent memory. I didn’t have any supernatural ability, or even a diagnosable condition, like hyperthymesia or an eidetic memory, but I was good. In particular, I never forgot a name, and I never forgot a face. So it was a little jarring when a random woman came up to me in the bread aisle of the grocery store, acting like we were old pals. As she started talking, I was thinking that maybe she was mistaking me for someone else. I hear that sort of thing happens to other people. But while the things she was talking about didn’t make any sense, she used enough keywords for me to think that maybe we did know each other somehow, and I started questioning my confidence in my amazing mental faculties. Maybe I forgot people and things all the time, but they never came up again, so I never had the chance to even realize it. Perhaps this woman was tapping into a weakness that I was too blind to see I had at all. Was she a witch? A god? Was she still talking? I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying, her lips were moving so fast. She didn’t have an accent from my perspective, and she wasn’t mumbling, it was just too fast. I wished I had a little remote that would let me slow her down. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I would probably just mute her, or turn her off. I didn’t need to talk to this person, except maybe I did, because she knew me, and I needed to know how! Yes, I had a cat when I was a child. No, his name wasn’t Mittens, it was Buttons. My first car? I made one up, because I don’t drive.

I keep trying to listen to her, but then I really did get bored of the “conversation” and wished that I could simply walk away. If I were anywhere else, I might have been able to, but I had this cart full of food. She would probably follow me, and skip the milk this week just so she wouldn’t have to end our little one-sided chat. Of course, I could have left my cart, and proceeded right to the exit, but that would have looked so weird, and again, what if she really did know me, and she tracked me down, and tried to spark a friendship? What was that about my mother’s maiden name? I still couldn’t—oh my God, she’s a scam artist. This woman was trying to get my bank information to steal my identity. Keep in mind that this was in the early days of the internet, so people were still mining for information in the real world. It was still bizarre. Joke’s on her, because of my great memory, all of my security answers were fake. I don’t find it any more difficult to recall a food that isn’t my favorite than one that is. It’s tomatoes, by the way, but I told her pizza, because that’s a normal answer. Then I just keep leading her on with her stupid little questions. I met my spouse in a city I had never been too, and also, I’m not married. The name of my first celebrity crush is an actor that I hate. My astrological sign? Really? I’ve never even seen that question before, and I would never use it, because it’s too easy to find out. I don’t even bother lying to her about that one. She went through so many questions, finding clever ways to sprinkle them in, I was almost impressed. Once she was satisfied, she claimed she had to get going, and we parted ways. It wasn’t until I tried to pay that I discovered my wallet missing. I realized that she wasn’t only probing for security answers. She was also distracting me from a pickpocket.

Microstory 1852: No Friends

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My dog and I were born on the same day. He was one of the first faces I saw when my parents brought me home from the hospital. Their neighbors didn’t realize that the dog they adopted was pregnant, so they needed people to take in the pups. Frankenstein and I grew up together. There are tons of photographs of the two of us snuggling together in a shared crib. Back then, there wasn’t anything you could do with the photos you took except put them in a physical album in case company came by, and asked—or agreed—to look at them. I was really attached to Frankenstein. I always considered him to be my brother, and I didn’t really have friends beyond him. It probably didn’t occur to me that we weren’t actually related until I was much older. I think I recall asking why we didn’t look alike. My older human brother just laughed, because he thought I was a dummy. He confirmed that I didn’t make up this story once we were well into adulthood, and expressed regret at laughing at me, and just in general mocking my relationship with Frankenstein. As you can imagine, I didn’t take it very well when he died. It’s the cruelest thing God did, making humans live so long, and our pets live so short. That didn’t make any sense to me, and I struggled with my faith a lot after it happened. My parents were concerned, but they didn’t want to be overbearing, so they let me tread my own spiritual path, knowing that it could lead me into atheism. That’s precisely what it did. I decided that it was the only explanation for my pain, and for the pain of so many others. Either God exists, and he’s evil, or he doesn’t. I would much rather it be the latter. The former is such a horrifying prospect. I can’t believe people live their lives under such obvious oppression. My family didn’t disown me, but we did drift apart.

I had to forge a new family with the people that I met along the way. I sort of collected them from the various groups that I was a part of. One guy was on the football team with me. We were drawn to each other, because we both enjoyed the sport, but we weren’t passionate about it. We taught each other that that was okay. I met a girl in one of my classes that I got along with real well. She didn’t know the footballer, in case you’re wondering. Lots of people play sports for their schools, but for us, it was a separate thing. I had a part time job at the grocery store, where I hung out with another guy. I met a cool girl in college. It was about two hours from home, so it was hard to stay in contact with the others. Once I graduated, and started working full time, I strengthened my connection to my old friends, and built some new ones, but eventually realized that after all this time, they still didn’t know each other. That had to be remedied. I decided to organize my own birthday party, even though I hadn’t really celebrated it before. It was just an excuse for them to finally meet. These were the most important people in my life; it was ridiculous that they weren’t friends with each other. It didn’t go well. Politics, religion, general personalities; everything clashed. They tried, they really tried. None of them went into that dinner with the intention of hating the others, but things just kept getting worse. If two of them agreed on something, another disagreed so adamantly that it overshadowed that whole part of the conversation. For the next few months, we continued to try finding some common ground, but never could. I then tried going back to just keeping them separate, but that no longer worked. I drifted from them too, and I haven’t had a friend in decades. Isn’t that just the saddest story you’ve ever heard?

Microstory 1806: Winning at Life

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I won the lottery. I worked for nearly twenty-five years. It wasn’t backbreaking work, but it wasn’t fun or rewarding either, and it didn’t pay particularly well. I had always wanted to quit. I remember one class in college that required a lot of group discussion. We had a little trouble getting along, so a fellow student suggested we play some team-building games so we would have a better understanding of where our opponents were coming from. One of the questions was what you would do if you won the lottery. Everyone else had all these elaborate plans involving buying sports teams and owning yachts and private jets. I figured I would just take enough to live on, and donate the rest. They weren’t disappointed in this answer, but they wanted me to come up with the kinds of charities I was most interested in. I had to give them a thoughtful answer, and not just be lazy with it. They actually asked me to do homework that no one else had to do so they could follow my logic. I didn’t end up winning the millions of dollars that we talked about during that exercise, but I still held true to my original answer. I saved up enough money, and finally felt fine about being a little frivolous, so I began to spend a little on instant win scratchers. Twenty bucks approximately four times a year. I never exceeded my maximum, and I managed to win a few times, breaking even twice, and making a five dollar profit once. Though, that’s not really a fair assessment—is it—since I spent a lot of cash on losing tickets, so I didn’t truly make anything. Until I did. I finally won big, and it was under unique circumstances. It was because I decided to spend more than usual.

The grocery store where I would always buy the tickets started using a vending machine. You selected which game you wanted to play, inserted your money, and it would spit it out for you automatically. I know, in 2022, that’s not a big deal, but it was special back then. I found out later that mine was the first state to introduce these new machines. I had a little bit of extra cash on me, and it had been a bit longer than usual since the last time I played, so I decided to splurge. It sometimes makes me shiver to think that I almost didn’t do it. I was this close to just sticking to my normal technique. I won $150,000; I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call my boss right then and tell him that I was going to go in another direction. That was what he had said to me years prior, and he only ultimately hired me because his first candidate turned out to be terrible at the job. I never forgave him for it, and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. I had to wait, though. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I was on a prank show. I had to be patient and careful. I took my ticket to the lottery offices, confirmed the win, and watched the numbers go up in my bank account. Only then did I quit my job. I wasn’t a millionaire, but I only spent about $1,000 a month, so it lasted me a decade, with a few mediocre investments, and a couple of luxuries just for me. The rest went to charity, as promised. I stopped playing the scratchers, and just enjoyed my hobbies, which were bowling and knitting. Boring, I know, but I liked them. Then the money started running out. It was bound to happen, and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to return to the workforce. Hopefully employers would agree with my life choice, and not hold it against me. On my way back from my first interview, I stopped by my store, and bought another ticket, spending thirty bucks like last time. Guess what? I won again; this time, for $250,000. Funny enough, I got the job, but I went in another direction.

Microstory 1799: Adventurous Spirit

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There’s not much to say about my life, so I’ll just tell you about my death, with a little bit of background. My father once told me that I had an adventurous spirit. I liked to learn about other places, and read about people’s harrowing ordeals. I didn’t actually do anything, though. I kept thinking that I would grow up to be a boat captain, or a pilot, or I dunno...just something that would show me the world. I was always watching Indiana Jones movies, so I thought becoming a college professor would help me. I ended up at the community college five miles from my childhood home, and I rarely stepped beyond my comfort zone. I was certainly not having any adventures. I woke up one day—it wasn’t a random day, but a few weeks before my birthday, which is around the time I start planning my party, which fewer and fewer attend each year. I was about to turn forty, and I had nothing to show for it. That was not acceptable. I had always considered that to be the age when you start getting old. It’s at the top of the hill. You spend half your life climbing up to it, and the other half falling down from it. Obviously I could make new memories in the second half, but I knew it would haunt me if I couldn’t say I did anything by then. I had to start before. I had to start now. I didn’t have any money, or more than a few vacation days saved up, but that was okay, because I was too scared to go too crazy anyway. There was a lake twenty miles out of town that I figured would be the perfect place for me to literally test the waters. If I could survive a baby adventure there, then I would know I was ready for something more, and then maybe more after that. I was never gonna end up in space, but I thought I would go further than this.

As someone who was so inexperienced, I didn’t know how to prepare. Was I going camping? Hiking? Water skiing? No, not water skiing, that’s insane. And no hiking either, I don’t like to walk. How about I just rent a little row boat, and go out onto the water? Yeah, the weather wasn’t too bad that day, so it should have been calm. I assumed that was what the weather report meant. Little wind, little waves. Anyway, twenty-five miles an hour sounded like a low number to me. I still didn’t know what to buy, so I just went to the watersports section of the sporting goods store, and pretty much grabbed one of everything. I knew I wouldn’t need a water trampoline, or a giant canoe, but every small thing seemed like a good idea, because it’s better to be safe than sorry. I gathered everything up, and drove to the lake, where there was indeed a little place to rent rowboats. God, I wish there hadn’t been. I wish it was out of season, or the guy had warned me that the weather was worse than I realized. I don’t know how the boat sank, or why it waited until I was in the middle of the water, but screaming for help did me no good. No one was around to hear, especially since that motorboat was being so loud. A life vest. That was the one thing I forgot to pack. I felt like such an idiot, loading up all this unnecessary gear, but leaving out the one thing that could save my life. I wouldn’t have needed it to keep from drowning, though. That’s not how I died. I didn’t stick around the boat, assuming it was best to swim towards the shore. That turned out to be my downfall. Had I stayed with all that floating crap, the motorboat people might have been able to spot me. Instead, breaststroking my way through the wavy waters, under the darkening sky, in my grayish sort of lake water-colored swimsuit, was the last mistake I made before the propellers came over to say hello.

Microstory 1757: Norma’s Kitchen in a Box

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Marjorie Norma did not invent 3D printing, but she was instrumental in standardizing it. And when her competitors came for blood, she ended up on top, because she still had the best product, and brand loyalty. The science of additive manufacturing was still in its infancy when she started working on it as a pet project. She knew that speed and sophistication were going to progress on their own, and that all she had to do was keep up with it. She was focused on how people would begin using such things in their home. This meant that industrial synthesizers, and biomedical synthesizers would be less useful to most customers than food synthesizers. For the most part, she found that the current machines were either very large, or very small. Many of them were designed with a specific result in mind, or had unfortunate limitations. If people were going to place these things in their homes, they needed to be versatile, and be capable of making more than just a single pastry at a time. It was never going to transition from a novelty item for people with a disposable income to a ubiquitous household appliance, unless anyone could download any program, and print anything. She got her idea when she walked into her kitchen one day, and looked around. By the entrance was the refrigerator. It took up the most space, and it wasn’t always full. She also had a stove/oven combo, above which her husband had installed a microwave oven. Then there was a sink, and a dishwasher. She owned a fairly small kitchen, and she made pretty good use of the space, but she wasn’t much of a cook, and neither was anyone else in the house. What if she could put everything together, or almost everything? She kept looking back at that fridge. Yes, it was the largest, but it was also the most important. A lot of foods don’t require any cooking, but they all require storage, unless you want to go to the store every day. Some people do that, but it’s not very efficient, and that lifestyle isn’t marketable. There was a solution, and she could find it.

She used that refrigerator as the basis for her new design, knowing that most living spaces were capable of accommodating it. Some units were only large enough for a mini-fridge, but people who lived in such places already knew how to make sacrifices. The top of her design was a water tank. It didn’t necessarily fit in every space, but it would be optional, and customers could connect a waterline either way, just like they would for that refrigerator. Under that would be where the cartridges went. Here she took inspiration from the toner bottles in the copy room down the hall from her office. For the synthesization cavity, she found herself limited by the dimensions of everything else, but it was still larger than the capacity of any standard oven, so that was more than enough. Since the cavity is where her users would be retrieving their food, they couldn’t put this on the floor, but at a reasonable height, which meant everything below it could be dedicated to storage. She chose to include a utensil drawer, and then an extra cartridge cabinet. All told, she figured that a fully stocked synthesizer could feed one person for about six months. Her original model did not include a dishwasher, but later ones did, allowing customers to keep almost an entire kitchen in the space of a refrigerator. It could be programmed to make just about anything, cool food, heat food, and supply water. What more could a normal person need? Well, they needed tools, and they needed organ and tissue replacements. She started to work on those machines next.

Microstory 1740: Hercules Wagon

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I just found a dead body. It’s a fifteen-year-old girl, who is—I mean was—one of two of the last remaining residents of Cepheus, Kansas. Everyone else who once lived here either left, or died already. Technically, anyone in the world could have killed her. I can’t rule out any of them, except for myself, but there is one person who is my prime suspect right now. Her father is the only one I know of who was here at the time. They were supposed to go fishing today, I know that much, but I’m not a coroner, so there is no way for me to know how long ago she was killed. It could have happened anytime within the last month, but I feel like the smell would be worse if she had been lying here for longer than a few days. Plus, food is something that I do know a little bit about, and I can tell you that this ice cream that spilled all over the floor only went bad recently. It looks like she dropped the bowl, slipped on it, and hit her head on the corner of the counter. Or maybe that’s just what her dad wants us to believe. I mean, where is he now, right? A month, a few days; either is plenty of time for him to contact the authorities if it really was an accident. Running makes anyone look suspicious, so he’s only making it harder on himself. I simply cannot let the trail go cold, and I can’t rely on the sheriff to do his due diligence. He’s going to rule it an accident, and not even look at the damn facts. She’s dead, and the dad’s gone. They need to investigate, or even call in the FBI. No, he can’t be trusted. I have to go on the hunt, or no one else will. Sure, I’m just a rural area supply transporter, but I know these woods like the back of my eyelids. If the killer is hiding somewhere around here, I’ll find him. You can bet on that.

I get back in my wagon, and head to what’s left of Main Street, hoping to find some evidence of where my suspect could have gone. There aren’t a whole lot of locations around here, and of course I’m well aware that he could be in Peru by now. If I killed my own teenage daughter, accident or no, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around unless I wanted to get caught, consciously or no. I never pegged him for much of a bright boy, so I expect he’ll turn up sooner or later. These abandoned buildings are a pretty decent place to hide if you’re not worried about someone like me being on the hunt. Not in the old general store, not in the one restaurant still standing, not in the playground slide. It’s covered in mold, though. Someone should really do somethin’ about that. Where could that guy be? I head farther out to check the fishing hole, and the run-down cabin nearby. No one has been here in weeks, by the looks of it. Maybe he’s camping out on the prairies, or in that trailer that someone abandoned deep in the forest a couple of decades ago. Man, pretty much everything around here is falling apart, isn’t it? I still can’t find him, so I decide I need to get some perspective. One thing I didn’t try that they always do on those crime shows is inspect the scene. I can’t believe I was so dumb that I didn’t really even look for clues around the body. Maybe I’m not a bright boy either. When I get back to the house, police lights are flashing in my eyes. The sheriff has finally shown up. Took him long enough. He has some colleagues with him from neighboring counties. I get out, thinking it’s time I fill them in on what I know. I don’t get to say much before they slam my face into the hood of my own truck, and wrap handcuffs around my wrists. Apparently, they found the father lain neatly in his casket in the cemetery. He probably died before her. Now I’m the only suspect. I shouldn’t have run.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 2212

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Mateo was able to see his past self unceremoniously disappear while the mirror portal was still active. Leona and Horace moved on like nothing had happened, because to them, it hadn’t. The portal closed, revealing a normal door. Someone opened it up, and looked perturbed. “I believe this is the ladies room. I don’t care how you identify,” she said with airquotes, “but anyone who has ever had a penis..does not belong in here.”

“Thanks for the tip, Karen.”

“Um, it’s Jan.”

Mateo rolled his eyes, and passed her. “Sure, Jan. It’s 2212, by the way. Get with the times. Transphobia is so 20th century.”

“It’s only two thousand twelve, McFly.”

Mateo looked over his shoulder at her. Then he surveyed the scene. Cases of plastic water, cash registers on the counter, gasoline-powered cars through the window. This was 2012, wasn’t it? “Shit.” He jogged over the the clerk. “Is this Lebanon, Kansas?”

“It sure is,” he answered.

“Can you direct me to the center of the country, please?”

He pointed to the front corner of the store. When Mateo tried to leave, the clerk said, “hey. Bathrooms are for customers only.”

Mateo took an ancient hundred-dollar bill out of his quantum duplicating wallet, and slapped it on the counter. “I would like to pay for the next however many customers it takes to drain my tab.” When the clerk tried to take the money, he held onto it. “If this just ends up in your pocket, I will know.” He eyed the security camera that was pointing at the register. “My Field Supervisor will know.” Yes, it was illegal to impersonate a law enforcement agent, but he had to do something to make sure this money went to good use.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the clerk replied.

Mateo released the money, put on a sweet pair of sunglasses, and left the store. Then he walked about a mile and a half, all the way to US Center Chapel, where his cousin lived. He expected to walk in, and then maybe—maybe—be lowered down to The Constant, but the door opened right into the foyer underground, as if Danica was expecting him. She very well might have been.

She greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a bit off target.”

“By 200 hundred years, yes,” Mateo said. “Is there anything you can do to help? I have to skip over some time. I can’t just wait.”

“Yeah, now that you’re free and patternless, I can send you wherever you want.”

“Do you have a machine, errr...?”

Danica laughed. “No, it’s done.”

“How do you mean?”

“I just jumped you 200 hundred years, before you even asked your question about the machine. I’ve been waiting for you this whole time. Made sure to where the same clothes I was when we were talking, and everything. You blinked, and you missed it.”

Mateo smiled. “Thank you. Why do you think Darrow sent me to the wrong time period?”

Danica smiled too, but for a different reason. “It wasn’t the wrong time period, it just wasn’t the one you were expecting. Eleven people went into the convenience store after you who benefited from the money you donated to their purchases. Most of them just wanted a sports drink or a bag of chips, and most of those people moved on without much thought. A few actually subconsciously changed their lives because of the kind gesture; not by a whole lot, but you moved the needle. One teenager in particular was inspired by you. He gave the clerk sixty bucks of his own, which ultimately went to a woman who was desperately trying to get away from her ex-fiancé in Santa Fe. She was out of money, and 2012 suffered from the highest gas prices in the history of the country, not accounting for inflation. That paid for her whole tank, which was enough to get her nearly all the way to Chicago, where she was able to start a new life. You did that. You did it, and you didn’t even know it. You just wanted the clerk off your ass about the bathroom.”

“Well, it wasn’t really my money. I have this wallet, see?”

“Yes,” Danica said dismissively. “Your wallet literally copies the money you need, from any time period, from several select regions. The teenager didn’t know that, and neither did anyone else. The result remains. That woman is still alive today. In another timeline, she isn’t.”

He nodded, and waited an appropriate amount of time before segueing. “Leona’s not alive, nor is one version of Kivi. Rather, neither of them exists at the moment—not the ones I need anyway.”

She nodded. “Right. Well, Past!Leona activated the weird temporal object contraption yesterday. Unfortunately, it’s missing a component.”

“Yes,” he understood, “the Insulator of Life. I’m hoping to actually use it before her, as she won’t make it to the base on Proxima Doma until next year.”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Danica decided. “Best not to cross paths with any of your past selves at all, or hers, or butterfly affect their futures.”

“I need that insulator,” Mateo argued. “I don’t know why The Superintendent brings us back dead, but as far as I know, this is the only way to fix it.”

“I’m not saying you can’t use it. You just can’t use it today. You would have to go to Proxima Doma, so getting back to Earth would be this whole thing. Plus, the timeline is going to change, and I don’t think it should. I think it’s best for everyone if you find the Insulator  in 2338. I know where it will be.”

“Twenty-three thirty-eight? But that’s...”

“Yes.” Danica knew everything. “It’s time to finish this.”

“No, it’s too early. She’s not ready.”

Danica placed a hand on his shoulder. “She’s been ready for a long time. She’s just been waiting for you to accept it.”

“So you want me to bring them back to reality using the contraption that you built for Past!Leona, and then jump all three of us to finally retrieve the Insulator of Life? Then you want us to go through with the challenge?”

“That sounds like a decent plan,” Danica said.

“You’re telling me this because you already know that it happens,” he figured.

Danica opened her mouth to explain, but had to think about it for a moment. “I know everything that has happened up to this moment right now, as long as it pertains to my job as The Concierge. I don’t know the name of some rando eating a turkey wrap in Toronto, or my old neighbor’s porn site password. I know some things about the future, but again, only when knowing it is necessary for me to help my clients. I know enough to urge you to go to 2338. I’ve had to guess as to why, based on evidence from the past. Make sense?”

“Actually,” Mateo began, “yes. I’m just so worried about her. Coming back to life and then having to jump into the battle right away. It’s not fair.”

“I promise you, it will be all right. Now sit. Let’s have a meal together.”

“I would really rather get Leona back right away,” Mateo requested.

“Oh, you can’t do it today.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Let me show you.” Danica led him into the other room where the reintegration contraption was still up on a table. The LIR map was taped to the opposite wall, but there was something wrong with it. A hole was burned in the center.

“Can it be fixed?” Mateo questioned.

“It’s fixing itself. Or should I say, it’s healing. It’s taking its own sweet time, but it’ll get there eventually.”

“How long, do you suppose?”

“At this rate, I’ve calculated...three weeks?”

“Is that a question?”

“It’s barely started, so it’s pretty hard to measure, but that’s my current estimate, based on one day of observation.”

“Danica, that’s not going to work. I have to save two people. If it only brings back one at a time, Leona will start to decay by the time I’m ready to retrieve Kivi.”

“I can jump you both a month into the future,” she explains. “Hell, I could jump you to the end of this month right now, if you would prefer not to wait.”

“When you think about it, you and I don’t know each other very well. If you’re confident that your wards will keep out any nefarious characters, like the Warrior, then I don’t see why we can’t just wait until the LIR map is finished healing. But then I will want to skip to the end of November to get Kivi back.”

“Sounds like yet another decent plan.”

Two weeks later, the map was fully healed. They couldn’t tell that it was ever damaged. Even so, they decided to wait one more day just to make sure every atom was back where it was meant to be. Danica rechecked the instructions on the page from the Book of Hogarth, and verified that the contraption was set up correctly. According to what she saw at the beginning of the month, Past!Leona didn’t do anything to make it work except spin the Incorruptible Astrolabe. She presumably sent it some kind of psychic message, which let it know who she was trying to bring back from nonexistence. That would probably not be so hard for Mateo to replicate, since she and Kivi were the only people he knew who had been taken out of reality. If there was anyone else, then he probably wouldn’t remember them. He concentrated on what he wanted to happen, and spun the astrolabe.

It happened just as Leona had described it. The astrolabe turned the Rothko torch, which sent a beam of light towards the Jayde Spyglass, and then the Cosmic Sextant, which split the beam in two, which each passed through the HG Goggles, which recombined the light into a laser, which passed through the Muster Lighter. This burned another hole into the map, large enough to attach the Escher Knob. When Mateo pulled on it, however, it did not open a morgue drawer. An entire door broke from the wall, and out of it came Leona. She was followed by Kivi. And Kivi, and Kivi, and Kivi, and Kivi, and Kivi. They just kept coming through, one after the other, after the other. All told, likely over a hundred different versions of her appeared. The last two people were none other than Kallias Bran, and Aeolia Sarai. The truth was that Mateo knew a lot more people who had been taken out of reality than he realized.

Surprisingly, the Constant was large enough to accommodate everyone. They proceeded to the recreational area, where a football pitch and basketball court had been constructed. The five non-Kivis stood before the Kivis, who were sitting in the bleachers. “Which one of you is ours?” Mateo asked.

A couple dozen of them raised their hands.

“Which one of you was last with us on August 12, 2338?” Mateo amended.

All of them lowered their hands, except for two.”

“Uhhhh...” was all he could say at this point.

“Which one was dealing with Anatol Klugman, a.k.a. The Warrior?” Leona clarified for him.

Both of the remaining Kivis lowered their hands, but one of them stood up and joined the group.

“Thank you,” Mateo said. “I’m sure you’re all very great Kivis. I think we’re just going to...uh, stick with...who we know...for now.”

None of the others seemed the least bit offended.

“What is going to happen to them?” Kivi!Current asked Danica.

Danica was watching the crowd, and reacted fairly slowly to the question. “I don’t know. I can certainly...keep them all here. Or they could go to the Sanctuary, or to different time periods. There aren’t any rules about this sort of thing.”

Mateo couldn’t help but interject and change the subject. “Hey, man, did we just cure you?”

“I think you did,” Kallias replied.

“What happened to that homicidal madman, and his homicidal alternate self?”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Aeolia warned.

“Okay.”

Danica chuckled. “It looks like you five need to regroup and strategize. When you’re ready, take the elevator back up to the surface. It will be 2338 when you get up there.”

“What of my alternates?” Kivi!Current asked again.

“We’ll discuss it, and reach some kind of consensus,” Danica promised. “You belong with your friends...for now.”

They found a room and got the other two up to speed with what had happened since they were gone. Leona confirmed that she was ready to finish this thing once and for all, and Mateo had to be okay with that. As they were walking to the elevator, Kivi!Current suddenly disappeared on them. They could still remember she was once there, unlike other times when their memories had been erased along with her.

Shockingly, but also fittingly, one of the Kivis was waiting for them at the entrance to the chapel. “Which one are you?” Leona asked.

Kivi smiled. “I’m all of them.”

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