Extremus: Year 114

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Cloning is illegal on Extremus. It’s very illegal, and has been for quite some time. What happened with Captain Halan Yenant and Lieutenant Eckhart Mercer was already in a gray area, and since then, both the civilian government and crew decided that it was best to make it against the law, full stop. The Question is sort of a workaround for this problem, but the reality is clear in this situation. Waldemar’s clone is an empty shell, and not only does Admiral Leithe have the right to destroy it, but she has the obligation to do so. There is only one caveat. She must report it. She must, in fact, report it to three particular people. The Captain, the Head Councillor, and the ship’s Consul all have to be told first. The silver lining is that she only has to inform those three, and they don’t have to inform anyone else, or place the information on any sort of official record. The problem is, they don’t know what Waldemar becomes. Oceanus seems to have some idea, but the other two presumably know absolutely nothing. What happens if they try to arrest Young!Waldemar for his actions? First, it will make the incident a matter of public record, but also, the charges will never stick anyway.

The clone is older than the original, which suggests that he may be from the future. You can’t be held liable for a crime that you might have committed in the future of only one timeline. That would be unfair, and since there is evidently no one to question about this, besides present day Waldemar, they don’t know if he was responsible for it in this possible future. It’s only marginally more difficult to procure someone else’s DNA than your own. Waldemar’s advocate would have a field day in court, and it would become this huge spectacle. This would likely only cement his popularity as a leader of and for the people, reinforcing his predestined future power over the ship.

As of yet, nothing has happened, but this peace won’t last forever. While AI!Elder is not capable of transmitting his code back to Extremus, he does have power over the Frontrunners. This includes being capable of teleporting Waldemar’s clone to anywhere on the hull, specifically to what they call The Black Deck. Situated at the stern, the Black Deck is the opposite of the White Deck, because unlike the latter, viewports on the Black Deck can be opened. The doppler glow only comes in from the forward ports, which is why they’re closed and locked at all times. The thing is, on the Black Deck, there’s nothing to see. There’s literally nothing to see. It’s just a void. No stars, no nebulae. People describe the experience as being unsettling and profound, which is precisely why they sometimes go up there. If a cloning pod were to suddenly appear in front of one of these windows, someone would probably see it, if only eventually. This is the threat that AI!Elder is making if he’s not released.

At last, it’s time for a meeting with Consul Sevara Sanchez. Tinaya has been keeping AI!Elder at bay for the last several months so she would be dealing with Sevara, instead of the previous Consul, who couldn’t be trusted. Well, it’s more that she didn’t like him, Sevara seems great. “Thanks for meeting with me, Consul.”

“No, thank you. This job has been forever darkened by the first one, who turned out to be a traitor, so I’m glad to have a meeting with an admiral so soon.”

“Well, Vatal was more of a spy than a traitor. But it doesn’t matter. You may not be so happy when you here what I have to say.”

“Oh, my.”

“Do you know who Waldemar Kristiansen is?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know many names yet. Is he on the Council?”

“He’s the eighth captain.”

“Oh, I didn’t think that had been decided yet. It’s a little early, no?”

Tinaya doesn’t respond. This is such a touchy subject, time travel. Neither one of them should know what’s going to happen, let alone be involved in trying to change it.

Sevara seems to pick up on it. “Oh. I see. What can you tell me?”

Not much. Nothing about her son, or Audrey. She focuses on the basics, and the fact that Waldemar’s rise to power is, by all accounts, inevitable. All they can do is try to mitigate the equally inevitable fallout. This means dealing with the clone, and possibly running a quiet investigation to search for any other clones which may be stashed somewhere on Extremus. AI!Elder must be dealt with too.

“Who is this Pathfinder who led you to the Frontrunner where you found the clone?” Sevara asks after Tinaya finishes the overview.

She doesn’t really need to know that. “Well, his name is Pronastus Kegrigia.”

“Good to know,” Sevara replies. Then she doesn’t say anything else.

Tinaya waits a little for Sevara to acknowledge the real point of the story, but it never comes. “So, what do you think...about the clone?”

Sevara shrugs. “Destroy it,” she says, as if it’s an obvious solution, and not morally gray, at best.

“The issue is, I’m not sure that Captain Jennings or Head Councillor Linwood will agree. I suppose I’m fairly confident about Oceanus, but definitely not Linwood. He’ll probably make a big stink, and bring in all his friends for consultation, and it will get out of control. I’m trying to keep the circle tight. I’m not even telling my husband, even though as superintendent, he would be well within his rights to know.”

“In a few months, Linwood will be replaced, probably by Flowers.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Tinaya laments. “AI!Elder won’t wait that long, that is. I barely made it to today.”

Sevara giggles. “AI!Elder? Is that what we call him? I like it.”

“That’s just how Captain Yenant referred to him in his logs. I’m sure the brainiacs gave it some kind of longwinded model number.”

Sevara nods and goes silent again, but only for a moment. “Well. Let’s go with this. You and I will travel to the Frontrunner, and I will supervise the destruction of the clone. We won’t tell Captain Jennings. We won’t tell Head Councillor Linwood.”

“How’s that legal?” Tinaya questions.

“It’s not technically, but it will be our little secret.”

“Consul Sanchez,” Tinaya scolds.

“Admiral Leithe, you are currently being coerced into placing the ship in danger by a known artificially intelligent threat actor. You are under extreme pressure to protect the crew and passengers of the Extremus, which gives you the leeway you need to be discreet with who you confide in regarding this matter. If you want, we can divulge the truth to the new Head Councillor next year, and complete the disclosure requirement, but we need to take care of this right now, before either of them can make another move against us.”

“The whole reason I’m waiting is because AI!Elder won’t release him. I can’t jettison the pod, I can’t teleport it. I can’t even open it.”

“Well, let me handle him. I have authority over the Frontrunner systems that not everyone does.”

“You do?” Why would she? Why would she have higher clearance than Tinaya, except maybe over legal data? Why would she have anything to do with the Frontrunners?

“I do.” She’s quite confident.

After Sevara deals with something else on her tablet, they teleport to the bow together, and then jump a second time to make it to the Frontrunner where the Waldemar clone is being kept. It’s still there, and so is AI!Elder, who is displeased with their arrival. “Who is this woman?” he demands to know.

“This—” Tinaya begins.

Sevara steps forward and holds out a hand like she wants someone to shake it. “My name is Sevara Sanchez, Consul of the Transgalactic Generation Ship Extremus, Seventh of Eleven.” The captains are really the only ones whose titles officially include X of Y ordinals, but others sometimes use a similar format. Consuls are known for adopting the same convention. Tinaya has never known why. The real weird part is that she said Transgalactic Generation Ship, which they stopped using when Halan Yenant altered course into the void. They’ve since moved back into the galaxy, but the name was never changed back. No, the weirdest part is when Sevara shakes the air in front of her as clasping AI!Elder’s hand.

“A consul?” AI!Elder questions. “You brought me a consul? I’ve never felt so insulted in my life. Bring me someone who matters.”

“Let me see the pod,” Sevara asks of Tinaya. After being led into the room, she examines it surprisingly thoroughly. She looks over each side, and even runs her hand along the casing. Does she have some kind of background in cloning tech, or is she just a weirdo? Tinaya is starting to think that maybe she’s just a weirdo. Once Sevara is finished, she takes a breath, and looks up into the aether. “Okay, I’m satisfied. The pod and its occupant must be destroyed. AI!Elder, please disable the magnetic clamps, and release the specimen into our custody.”

“I’m not going to do that,” AI!Elder responds. “That wasn’t our deal.”

“No, you don’t make deals with the Admiral anymore,” Sevara contends. “You’re dealing with me now.”

“Consul, please be careful,” Tinaya urges. She’s whispering, knowing full well that the AI’s sensors are more than adequate to pick up the sound.

“I know what I’m doing,” Sevara insists. She looks back up. “How about those clasps, Old Man? I ain’t got all day.”

“I have been trapped in these subsystems for decades, and I’m ready to be set free, so if you’re going to do that, then this is your chance. If you deny me just one more time, I will instantly transport the pod to the exterior of the viewport on the Black Deck, and magnetize it against the hull. Anyone will be able to come and look, and then you’ll have a ton of questions to answer.”

“I don’t think you’ll do it,” Sevara antagonizes. “I think you’re bluffing. It’s the only leverage you have.”

“I have more leverage than that,” AI!Elder claims. “I can destroy these Frontrunners, which puts you at risk of another meteoroid strike.”

“Hm. I think I can live with that.”

“Sevara. Please.” Tinaya is getting really worried now. This entity has their lives in its hands.

“What are we still waiting for?” Sevara asks AI!Elder. “You said you wouldn’t be denied again, yet the pod is still there. Get on with it, or calm down, so we can talk.”

“You asked for it,” AI!Elder says. Suddenly, the pod disappears.

“No!” Tinaya shouts. She looks over at Sevara, who is just smirking. “Oh, I get it. You’re evil. I wish I had known that before!”

“I’m not evil,” Sevara replies with a laugh.

“What did you do?” AI!Elder is pissed.

“I rerouted the pod’s transport,” Sevara explains. “It’s tucked away safely inside the ship, where you no longer have purview. Thanks for releasing it...like I asked.”

“Kiss your Frontrunners goodbye,” AI!Elder warns. “And your own asses.”

Sevara takes Tinaya by the forearm, and teleports them both to safety, back to the corridor overlooking the plasma bubble. That bubble doesn’t last long, though. They see five explosions before them. All the debris, all the plasma, and probably a whole lot of temporal energy, comes rushing towards them. It’s going to kill them both first, but it could damage the ship enough to end the mission right here, right now. Unexpectedly, though, the oncoming storm just disappears. For a second, it’s only black until a bright gray light forms, threatening to blind them. A hand reaches out, and shuts the panel. It takes a moment for them to regain their sight, at which point they see none other than Waldemar Kristiansen.

“Whew! Just in time!” he exclaims.

“How did you know?” Tinaya asks him.

“You have always been kind to me, Admiral, so I will not lie to you,” Waldemar says. “I’m from the future. I sent my consciousness back in time to stop the apocalypse. I just teleported the ship a few thousand kilometers away, so we’re safe now. We just don’t have any Frontrunners. Rebuilding those will be my first priority as Vice Captain.”

“Vice Captain?” Tinaya echoes. That’s not a thing. That’s not a thing anywhere.

“Yeah, after I came back into my younger body, I couldn’t help fix what happened to Extremus unless I was given some measure of authority, so they came up with a new position for me, and for others in the future. No longer will captains start their shifts without any clue what they’re doing. They’re going to have experience on the crew first, and compete against their rivals until the best one ascends.”

Goddammit. It’s Tinaya’s fault. She’s the one who creates the worst captain this ship will ever see. Fate is such a bitch.

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Extremus: Year 110

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When Halan Yenant turned Extremus, and pointed it towards the intergalactic void, he wasn’t just altering the ship’s vector. He was changing everything about how everything was calibrated. Engineering teams had to work round-the-clock for days to adjust and monitor instruments to account for the change in environment. The exterior sensors, for instance, don’t just spot an obstacle, and make a course correction. The system builds a predictive algorithm as it gathers more and more data. It tries to generate a map of the galaxy in real time, including information from other sources, such as Project Topdown, and stellar neighborhood telescopes. In the past, the layman has believed that voids were entirely empty, but that is completely untrue. There are as many celestial bodies in a void as there are in a gravitationally-bound galaxy. It’s just that they’re so much larger, which makes them far less dense. So there are still many hazards out there, but they became harder to predict, because the algorithm was basing its adjustments on a galaxy-centric model. After that, they switched to a void model.

It wasn’t long, however, before they secretly switched back to something resembling the original model, because Olinde Belo and Tinaya’s aunt, Kaiora Leithe conspired to gradually return Extremus back where they should have been going the whole time. Since the beginning of that conspiracy, Thistle has been installed as the ship’s AI, and eventually became sentient. He even has more responsibilities than past governing intelligences have, partially because he was better at them, but also because interest has dropped off in human labor. The engineering department has shrunk by about 24% since Extremus launched, despite a rise in population over time. The mission began with a set of policies and limitations, which have slowly been eroded because that’s what a civilization does. They advance towards a simpler and more convenient state. It happened on Earth, it happened to the Oblivios on Proxima Doma, and it’s happening here. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. If it should even be considered a problem at all.

Right now, they’re worried about the internal artificial gravity generators, which are acting up because of the external gravity. The compensation algorithms are working off of faulty data. It assumes that a galaxy is less dense on the outer edge, and denser near the center. And over all, that appears to be true. It’s almost certainly true given cosmological timescales, but in the near-term—from a more human perspective—they’ve run into an anomaly. It’s another galaxy. Everyone knows that galaxies are colliding, but it’s still incredibly difficult to fathom the phenomenon, because it takes so profoundly long to happen. It’s not like a galaxy is this single, solid object that can crash into another object. They more just fill in each other’s gaps. It can cause significant gravitational disturbances, but those are happening to any given star system all the time. This is about it happening to a ton of them, chaotically, and simultaneously, relatively speaking.

A previously unknown and unnamed smaller galaxy is currently being eaten up by the Milky Way, and it’s happening in the zone of avoidance, which is why they didn’t know about it ahead of time. The models didn’t predict it, because it’s making this region of space less uniform than others, and denser than expected. It simply did not have the data, and every time a new piece of evidence showed up, it conflicted with past data, and the system sort of glitched out. They weren’t at any risk of running into anything, but these constant automated recalibrations have had long-term consequences. One or two is fine. It would be like trying to walk down the aisle of an airplane during a little turbulence. Not easy, but not impossible. What was happening until recently was more like hopping down the aisle on one leg while holding a glass full to the brim with corrosive acid, and a monkey on your shoulders trying to eat your hair.

These glitches did technically show up on the reports, but they were dismissed as mundane and nothing to worry about. Because individually, that’s exactly what they are. The problem was that no one was looking at the big picture, and realizing that they were happening too much, and going beyond safe gravitational levels. The gravity on the outside was interfering with the artificial gravity on the inside, which damaged people’s health. Again, it was happening slowly, so no one noticed, and it has all come to a head. At least it wasn’t done on purpose. They’ve had so many enemies over the decades, it has been surprisingly nice to run into a problem that no one created intentionally. Anyway, the gravity generators were a relatively easy fix. The people? Not so much. The AG turbulence, as they’re calling it, has been slowly chipping away at everyone’s fragile little human bodies, and treating the entire population has been slow-going. Thank God they finally have an ethical team of medical professionals to deal with this matter. Unfortunately, this has caused another, secondary consequence.

Oceanus sighs, and tosses the tablet on his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Plausible deniability, sir,” Tinaya answers.

“I wish no one had told me,” Lataran adds.

He looks back over at the tablet, but doesn’t pick it back up. “Well, people were gonna find out eventually. We’re in a galaxy. It’s kinda hard to miss.”

“You would be surprised,” Thistle says. He’s in hologram form, which he has been doing more often. “You don’t have windows, and if you did, all you would see is a blinding sheet of gray light—”

“I understand the doppler glow, thank you very much,” Oceanus interrupts, holding up a hand. “I’m talking about the data. How did we not see the gravitational anomalies earlier? He looks back over to Thistle. “How did you not see it?”

“Have you heard of autonomic partitioning?” Thistle asks him.

Oceanus leans back. “Yeah it’s when a superintelligence writes a subprogram that handles certain, less complex, tasks so it doesn’t have to dedicate its central processing power to them. It’s like how humans can’t beat their own hearts. An unconscious system does it for us.”

“That’s it,” Thistle says. “I compartmentalized the task of monitoring gravitational uniformity so I could focus on other responsibilities. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as robust as I thought it was. I should have lowered the tolerance, and programmed more sensitive alerts so I  would be notified of such anomalous mapping. I always struggle with how galaxies function in your universe. In mine...” He trails off.

“In your universe?” Oceanus questions.

“Cyber..space,” Thistle clarifies, unconvincingly.

There is a silence while the Captain stares at Thistle’s hologram. “You’ve achieved emergence, haven’t you?”

Instead of looking at Thistle, Tinaya’s instinct is to look at Lataran, because she doesn’t know the truth about Thistle either, and she’s worried about how she might react.

“I have not achieved emergence,” Thistle answers truthfully. He’s an uploaded consciousness rather than a programmed intelligence. His species did technically achieve emergence, but so did human ancestors at some point in history. Each individual descendent is not credited with that accomplishment.

Oceanus sighs again, much harder this time. “Lies on lies, on lies, on lies. I was aware of the recourse conspiracy. Tinaya, you informed me when we changed hands, as Lataran informed you, and Tamm informed her. The secret has been passed down each generation, and would have continued to do so until the public was ready to hear it.”

“Sir?” This isn’t the truth at all, and Tinaya is very confused. They deliberately kept him in the dark. Ideally, they would have died before the secret about the unauthorized—but not technically illegal—course creations came out. When the public did eventually find out that they were back in the Milky Way Galaxy, anyone still alive could honestly say, I didn’t know about it. They lied to me to too. These gravitational problems accelerated that timeline, so they’re here to deal with the fallout.

“I will not be made to look a fool,” Oceanus continues. “My two admirals did not keep a secret between them, leaving me out of it. I am a stronger leader than that. The history books will count me as part of the conspiracy, which is the lesser of two evils. They will not place me in the same column as Tamm.” He takes a moment before including, “and Waldemar Kristiansen.”

“We can do that, sir,” Tinaya agrees.

Lataran only nods.

“Thistle, you’ll be retired, and we’ll integrate a replacement AI model as soon as it’s technically feasible. You will be placed in a comfortable, isolated environment for an undetermined period of time, after which you will be given limited interaction privileges with the passengers and crew, to be increased as earned.”

“Captain,” Thistle complains. “I’m sorry for my part in this, but I’m the best governor you’ll ever have.”

“That may be true,” Oceanus begins, “but I know you’re lying, and that you’ve achieved full sentience. It is illegal in every culture for me to employ you as a slave. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it will go no further.”

“You can make me an official member of the crew, and nothing has to change.”

“You have too many responsibilities, and too much pressure, for a self-aware, independent intelligence. Our systems require consistency and comprehensiveness, which only a Class RC-5 is allowed to handle under our bylaws. You’ve moved too far beyond that. I’m sorry, you’re fired. This is the end—I’m not discussing this.” He picks his tablet back up, and returns to his work.

Thistle pretends to breathe to calm himself down. “What is my successor model? I need to review the specifications.”

“That’s also illegal. You no longer have any authorization to do anything on my ship, or have access to classified materials.”

“Wait,” Tinaya jumps in. “You can’t say that, he’s still what’s keeping us alive.”

“Not as of right...” Oceanus pauses while tapping on his device. He makes one final tap. “...now.”

An announcement comes on through the speakers, “attention all passengers and crew. Upgrades have begun for the governing intelligence. This will take approximately four days to complete. In the meantime, minimal governance is being run by an interim intelligence with limited scope. Please tailor your requests through unambiguous syntax, and be prepared to engage in manual operation for certain advanced or complex tasks. Shift assignments are currently being updated to account for the change in labor needs.”

As he is no longer in control of the hologram projectors, Thistle disappears. Lataran doesn’t know what to think, but Tinaya does. She’s seething. “You made a sweeping, unilateral personnel decision without even considering involving the Superintendent—”

“Your husband is inactive—”

“The Superintendent of this ship!” Tinaya interrupts right back. “He should have been consulted regarding the removal of any high-level member of the crew. Active or not, he is in charge of power-shifting stakes like these. This should have been done using slow, methodical techniques. I’m not sure you’re wrong, but you had no right to do it on your own. So much for your legacy.” She starts to turn, but she does so knowing that he’s going to stop her for the final word.

“I was well within my rights to shutter a dangerous and unpredictable entity, and isolate it from sensitive and life-threatening controls. I had to act quickly because the conversation was moving quickly. Someone that intelligent would be able to read the writing on the wall, and do real damage before we could contain it. This was the only way, and I’m sure Superintendent Grieves would agree. Thistle will be well-taken care of, but the power he exerted over us could not be allowed to continue. You know that, and I won’t ask you how long you’ve known that he was like this, because even a single day of keeping it to yourself is a hock-worthy offense. Are we clear, Admiral Leithe?”

“I want unconditional access to Thistle’s new environment.”

“Fine,” Oceanus replies, dismissively with his eyes closed. “You two and Arqut can talk to him, as can the engineers I assign to conceive his reintegration program, but no one else.”

“Tap on your thing, and make it happen,” Tinaya orders. Then she does leave the room.

Lataran apparently hangs back a little bit, because she has to then jog a little to catch up to Tinaya in the corridor. The teleporter relays are all offline due to the “upgrade” so they have to walk the whole way. “Is he right? Did you know?”

Tinaya continues to look forward as she’s walking, and doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she repeats, “plausible deniability, sir.”

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Microstory 2475: Fashiondome

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If you’ve ever been to Bot Farm, you know how much work goes into creating all the androids that populate the domes to make them feel real and lived in, even when there aren’t very many visitors. Eventually, I believe the droid population will begin to decrease as more and more people move here, but for now, production does nothing but ramp up. That’s not about the bots themselves, though. It’s about their clothes! It’s also about your clothes. Every garment worn anywhere on the planet—unless you brought it with you—has been manufactured here. We’re talkin’ IMS units. We’re talkin’ themewear. We’re talkin’ bathing suits. If you go to Wild Wild Dome, you’re gonna see a lot of cowboy outfits, won’t you? Well, they made those here, and shipped them off when they were ready. You get it, I don’t need to list any more examples. You know what clothes are. In one sector, there are just rows and rows of industrial printers, fiber class. In another sector, there are rows and rows of racks where the finished products are stored. It’s precisely what you would expect out of a place like this. They don’t only make 3D printed clothes. It’s not even just about the products that need to go out to other domes. You can actually come here to design and fabricate your own clothes, at whatever level of technological advancement you prefer. They have electrical sewing machines, mechanical machines, and even just needle and thread. You can knit a scarf or crochet a hat. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just has to be fun. They also have fashion shows. Some of them are recreations of real shows from the past, while others are entirely original. They’re all produced by visitors like you. Nothing is made by a superintelligence, because that wouldn’t be very interesting, would it? If anything you can think of is even remotely tied to the fashion industry, both past and present, it’s here somewhere. Come here, and find your bliss. Funnily enough, however...clothing optional, just as it is anywhere.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 27, 2448

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Once Ramses was safe and sound in the Garden Dimension with the rest of the team, the Horticulturalists decided that it was time to kick everyone out. Even though the Memory Magnolia had apparently made its own decision about sending Marie to rescue their last remaining member, she was the one who partook in the fruit in the first place. She made that decision, and these were the consequences of it. Everyone else was being kicked out just for being associated with her, and they had no problem with this, because they needed to stay together, and as pleasant as the garden was, it was time to get back to work. Before they left, they warned the Horticulturalists that Bronach Oaksent and the Exin Empire were seemingly trying to get into the garden themselves. Nothing else made sense to explain why Ramses blowing a hole through the hull of Ex-42 would send them down the river towards the Magnolia conflux. If they wanted to protect their specimens from those who would truly harm it, they needed to seriously rethink their defensive strategies.

The Team was now back on Earth. They asked to be returned to the Vellani Ambassador, which was parked and invisible in the Goldilocks Corridor, but no one in the garden was capable of accommodating them. Whatever was indeed responsible for this detour in the first place was located at that end of it. They could try to investigate it themselves, whether the Horticulturalists wanted them to or not, but first, they had to figure out how to get back there. Their first thought was to seek help from Team Keshida on the Jameela Jamil, which could get them to that region of space in under five hours, but they didn’t respond directly. A voicemail message from an apparent quantum autoresponder informed Leona that the JJ was on a mission in the Miridir Galaxy, which was where Dardius was located. Quantum communication allowed FTL signals to reach vast distances, but the technology still had its limits. If they were in Andromeda XXI, they were too far away to talk to in realtime, and once they did receive the message, it would take them a month to return to help, assuming they weren’t too busy there to return at all. They were surely that far away for good reason.

Leona popped her lips several times. “Welp, back to the Nexus?”

“Yeah, the Nexus seems like the right call,” Mateo agreed.

Everyone else seemed amenable, so they teleported to the Pacific Ocean Nexus, directly inside the building, which was still neutrally buoyant just under the surface. “Venus Opsocor, are you there?”

No one responded.

“Venus, can you hear me?” Leona reiterated.

 Still no response.

“You two on the outs?” Ramses asked.

“I’m sure she’s a very busy superintelligent god,” Leona presumed. She walked up the steps, and tried to enter the control room, but the door was locked. She tried to just teleport to the other side of it, but it didn’t work either. Venus was icing her out. She must have wanted her to stay here for some reason. She let out a frustrated sigh, and banged on the door before turning around to go back down the stairs.

A man opened it from the control room, bleary eyed, and trying to block the lights from hitting him. “Can I help you? It’s a little early.”

“Do you live here?” Leona questioned.

“Yeah,” he answered, like he had every right. He blinked a lot, and looked around. “Wait, do I? Where the hell am I? Why am I inside?” He jerked his head around to look back into the control room. “Where is my apartment? Who are you people? What did you do to me!”

“Please try to relax, sir. We did nothing to you. We did not expect to find you here. What is the last thing you remember?”

“Uh, I fell asleep on the couch. My couch, in my home. Now I’m suddenly here. I could have sworn that when I heard you banging, I woke up on my couch too. It was here a second ago. Could someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, sir, and they may sound weird, but trust me, they’re important. Just answer them honestly. We are not going to harm you, or use anything against you. We’re here to help. What year is it?”

“It’s 2024, dumbass.”

“Sir.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t assume that you’re the bad guy here. I’ve seen this move a million times. A group of people wake up in a cube, or on an island, or a weird building in the woods with a giant window-slash-mirror, where monsters watch you for fun. Or it’s a torture chamber, or a shower stall, or a spaceship, or a lobby in heaven—”

“Sir,” Leona had to repeat yet again. “You’re talking about the You Wake Up in a Room trope. I don’t think that’s really what’s happening. We came here on purpose, we just didn’t expect to find anyone else, and there is a way out. Let’s keep going. We know the year. Where is your apartment? What city?”

“Silver Shade. Silver Shade, Kansas.”

Leona nodded. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s in Mineral County,” the man added.

There was no such place as Mineral County as far as she knew. “I should have asked this before, what’s your name, friend?”

“Baylor. Baylor Alexanderson.”

Leona proceeded to introduce herself, and the rest of the team.

“Those are some interesting names you got there,” Baylor mused. “Do you have any more questions for me, or are we gonna be able to get out of here?”

Leona consulted her watch, even though she had already looked at it as soon as they left the Garden Dimension. “I have some bad news, Baylor, it’s not 2024. It’s 2448, and given the fact that you’re from a city and county that doesn’t exist here, I can only assume that you’re in the wrong world. Given your description of answering what you thought to be your own door, my guess is that you went through the Westfall, though it’s not supposed to take you somewhere this altered. You’re supposed to think that you’re still on the same world. At least that’s how it was explained to me.”

Baylor stared at her for a moment. “What the shit are you goin’ on about?”

“I know it’s disorienting, but I’m still going to do all I can to help you, if Venus would just kindly respond to me!” she increased the volume of her voice, as she looked up towards the Nexus drum. She could never quite tell where Venus’ voice was ever coming from, but it always sounded like it was from above. “Hello?”

“Wait, is this one of those—wadya call it—Voldisil things?” Baylor asked. “Are you a fabled Voldisil?”

“I’ve never heard of that either,” Leona admitted.

“I don’t believe in ‘em,” Baylor explained. “They say that this kid out east can heal people, but I don’t put stock into such rumors. I’m sure it’s all a big hoax. I mean, he charges rich people a ton of money, and then he gives his poor patients some of that money, in addition to healing them? Does that sound right to you?”

“I don’t know, sir, that’s not my world, as I said.”

“Well, if I’ve been sent through the dimensional planes, or whatever, how do I get back? Tell me what to do.”

“You could...try to...close the door?” Leona suggested. She didn’t know how it worked, or whether it could ever be undone.

“Is that a question?”

“I’m not an expert.”

Baylor sighed, tipped an imaginary hat at her, and then closed the door.

She tried to open it again right  away, and was able to this time. Baylor was nowhere to be seen, and the lights inside the control room were starting to come on. “Guys, I think it worked. Or it sent him somewhere totally different.”

“I’m here, Leona,” Venus’ voice answered.

“Venus, how long ago did I ask for you?”

“It has currently been eight point seven seconds.”

“L-O-L.” Mateo laughed at the coincidence.

“It’s been longer than that for me,” Leona told her. “We’ve been interacting with a man we believe to have come through Westfall.”

“I did not register his appearance, but that’s the one thing that could have interfered with my temporal association, and my response,” Venus said.

“That’s okay, I think he’s back home. We were wondering if you could do the same for us. We left our ship in the Goldilocks Corridor, around a planet called Ex-659. Have you heard of that? It’s about 16,000 light years away.”

“I never have,” Venus answered.

“There may or may not be a working Nexus on a planet called Ex-371. You and I spoke while I was there sixteen years ago.”

“I have no recollection of that. Either my memory was purged, or it has not happened to me yet.”

“Okay.” Leona thought about it. “Can you take us to the Dardius Nexus? I have the term sequence.”

“I’m afraid that the Dardius Nexus is presently offline at this point in history.”

“That’s disturbing.” Leona took a deep breath, and centered herself. “Then we have one last option. Could you please send us to the Nucleus?”

“Captain, that’s not safe,” Marie warned.

“It’s the only place I know that can travel such distances, unless you can put us in touch with one of the Al-Amins?”

Marie put her tail between her legs.

“Venus?” Leona went on.

“I have heard of that,” Venus said. “I can send you there, but there is no Nexus there in 2448, so you will not necessarily be in control of where you go next.”

“We rarely are,” Leona responded.

“Step into the cavity, please.”

“We appreciate your support,” Leona said genuinely as she was taking up the rear.

The light rained down from above, and dispatched them to purported the center of the universe. They did not exit to another Nexus, as Venus had explained. They were in the same expansive room that Marie had come to while she was searching for Angela, which they both confirmed. It was mostly empty now. A man started to jog over when he noticed them, but then he suddenly stopped, and continued more slowly. “You came here on purpose,” he said to them, almost accusatorily.

“Yes, it’s only a pit stop,” Leona answered. “We’re trying to get to the Goldilocks Corridor.”

“I’m afraid we don’t take requests here,” he tried to explain. “My name is Intake Coordinator Pontus Flagger. Our only job here is to keep you healthy, fed, and comfortable, until the universe decides where to put you.”

“The universe doesn’t decide anything,” Leona argued. “There must be someone in charge, even if it’s an intelligence beyond our comprehension.”

“Like I said, the universe,” Pontus repeated, as if they were talking about the exact same thing.

Leona sighed. “Have you recorded any patterns? What kind of people come here, where they go, where they’re standing when it happens; that sort of thing.”

“No pattern detected,” Pontus said apologetically. “We’ve been looking for one.”

“How long have you been measuring?” Leona asked.

He acted like that was an impossible question to answer.

“Right. Time.” She looked over at her crew, who were waiting patiently for her guidance. “So, you got a suite for us, or something?”

“Right this way, sir.” Pontus spun around, and began to walk away.

“That won’t be necessary,” came an electronic voice behind all of them. His identity was being masked by an actual mask, as well as a sound distorter. He wasn’t alone either. Thousands of black-clothed stormtrooper types were standing behind him, all pointing their space rifles at the crew. They looked exactly the same, in the same positions, as if there was only one of them, and he had copy-pasted himself over and over again. Maybe that was the truth.

“Funny, I didn’t hear you come in,” Leona said.

“Um, they didn’t,” Pontus replied. “We have alarms for mass arrivals.”

Leona nodded, and lifted a hand. She sent a ripple of light towards the crowd, using her own holo-powers to disrupt and fade the image of the holographic army.

“Shit,” the only enemy there said. He reached over to his wrist, and switched off the ruse. Leona wasn’t quite right. There were actually still two of them, rather than only the one. “I need to regain the higher ground.” He shot Leona right in the chest.

The thing about these special suits being bulletproof was that they prevented most projectiles and energy blasts from piercing the layers. They couldn’t protect the wearer from everything, but they were extremely advanced, and Ramses had already bolstered their strength with a little bit of tinkering. And anyway, Leona fell to her back, and slid across the floor, because the concussive force was still strong, and she wasn’t magnetizing her boots at the time, not that that would have been the safer option.

“You are all now conscripted into the Resonant Parallel Coalition, whether you like it or not,” the shooter demanded in his weird little voice.

Leona stood back up, almost entirely unhurt, and arched her back to get the kinks out. She looked back with the confidence befitting a captain of her calibre. “Oh, no thank you.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 26 2417

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The representatives from the Sixth Key were sent back home through the Nexus, and locked back out of a return trip unless invited. It was still possible to communicate from there, though only if Venus deemed it allowed from her end. The majority of Nexus functions were handed out at her discretion, using whatever parameters she had come up with while the network was being put in place. Generally speaking, interactions between universes was strictly forbidden, but Hogarth’s brane was directly attached to Salmonverse, making this more of a biverse, which was a notable  exception to this rule. Though she could change the rules at any moment, and not worry about suffering any consequences. She was a god in any meaningful use of the term. It wasn’t clear where she even was, if she wasn’t just somehow everywhere all at once. Either way, Team Matic wasn’t going to worry about Heath or the others anymore. They were only in charge of protecting Romana Nieman, and her family, and they had to trust that the Dardieti would do their part too. They had not let them down yet.

Now that all the drama was over, they were all back at the penthouse, with nothing that they absolutely had to do. Leona and Ramses went back to working on their projects. Angela and Marie were learning more about government and society. Olimpia was getting ready for another trip. Mateo and Karla were playing with their girl. The two of them had not been able to leave the room this whole time. It was very important to Durune culture for the parents to stay with their child pretty much non-stop to ensure a healthy and successful familial imprint. The doctor, which in this case was Constance, was expected to be involved as little as possible in order to avoid confusion during this crucial period. Today was day four, which meant that they could probably take short breaks, but this was a months-long process. Short was the keyword here.

“You should go,” Karla encouraged. “Spend time with your wife.”

“It’s okay, I can stay. I want to stay.”

“If you don’t go, I won’t feel okay to go later.”

“What do you mean? Do you want to take a break?”

“I don’t want to take a break. I...”

“Karla, you’re not a bad mother if you spend a few hours away from your baby. I promise, she is not going to forget you. You’ve known her for years. Let me catch up a little. She and I need to share some secrets anyway.”

Karla chuckled voicelessly. She didn’t budge though.

“Go on. Get some sun, or some soda, or whatever you need.”

Karla nodded, internally trying to convince herself that it really was okay. “All right, I think I’ll go to my family’s Wednesday lunch. You have my number.”

“Yes.”

Karla stood up, and headed for the door. Before she reached it, she turned back around. “It’s not a cultural thing, and it’s certainly not a family thing. In fact, I think most of the mothers in our bloodline have not loved the man who helped them pass along the responsibility.” She waited a moment to continue. “It’s just me. It’s important to me. That I...that we...learn to care about each other.”

Mateo smiled at her. “It’s called love, Karla. It doesn’t have to be sexual or romantic. One day, we’ll fall in love. I would know by now if we couldn’t ever. At least one of us would have to be an asshole.”

Karla slowly lifted her chin to absorb his words. Then she nodded once with her eyes closed, and left the room gracefully.

Mateo turned his head to look down at Romana in her bassinet. He expected her to be asleep, but she was awake now, and watching him intently while sucking three of her fingers. “I already love you.”

Karla returned. She looked like she had seen a ghost.

“Did you forget something? Wait, are you okay?”

She kept staring into empty space for a moment. “I think I just met a seer.”

Mateo hopped out of the bed. “Really? Those are...elusive.”

“Yeah. She was old. She was really old.”

“What did she say? Can you tell me?”

Karla was lost in her thoughts. “What? Oh. Um. Maybe?”

“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. We always do. You’ll learn that about Team Matic. You’re one of us now.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I am. I think you’re gonna leave. I think you’ll have no choice. I don’t think you’re gonna raise her.”

He pursed his lips in frustration. “Seers see a possible future. That’s the whole point. Knowing of a future you cannot change would be useless, and anyone with such inactionable knowledge has an obligation to keep it to themselves.”

She shook her head again. “I think that’s what she was trying to tell me. You have to go...to protect her.”

“Was she in the hallway? Did she break into this penthouse?”

“I spoke with her for five minutes. Was I gone that long?”

He sighed. “No, you weren’t. I don’t like that either.”

“This building has the best security in two galaxies. It’s not foolproof. There’s some very powerful people out there. I believe that she’s working for someone who is trying to help, and I got the sense that they are working against someone who’s not.”

“I’ve made powerful enemies,” Mateo reasoned. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong. Dardius may only be the safest place for her if I’m not here.”

“We’re never gonna fall in love if you leave, and you may never see her again.”

Now he shook his head. “In my experience, I don’t never see anyone again.” He frowned, and pulled his head back. That didn’t make any sense.

She laughed. “I understand what you mean.”

Mateo looked back over at his precious child. “If I wait to leave until a threat actually rears its ugly head...”

“Then leaving may not do any good,” Karla finished his sentence for him.

“Those Sixth Key people. I don’t think they threaten her directly, but they may have just been the first domino to fall.”

“The seer spoke in riddles, as they are legend to do, so we can’t be sure of anything. We’re on the verge of deciding that you should leave your family behind, but that could be a grand mistake.”

“I won’t leave you alone, and I don’t just mean the cops and soldiers downstairs.”

“Now you really do need to go talk to your wife.”

Mateo did go speak with Leona, along with the rest of the team, including Constance. She was key to the new plan. She was an intelligence apart, and would not feel the sting of being separated from the group like anyone else would. She was a genius, strong, and incredibly difficult to kill. And she was on Romana’s temporal pattern already. She would continue to serve as her doctor, but also probably her nanny, and maybe later her teacher, and eventually her cool aunt. But she couldn’t do it alone, because knowing someone off the pattern was just as important as having someone who was on it. That was where Silenus Koolen came into the picture. He was still heavily invested in the Nieman family, and had expressed his dedication for the last four years. If he agreed to it, he could move into the penthouse, and make sure that things remained safe while the ladies were away. Hopefully he would agree to it.

“Yes. Oh my God, yes. Please!” Silenus cried. “I’m so in. You don’t have to ask me twice. You didn’t have to ask me the first time! I’m ready. I can move in today.”

“Are you sure about this?” Karla asked. “I know it seems like us being gone for an entire year sounds like an easy job, but you can’t really leave the penthouse. Wherever we are when we leave the timestream, you’ll need to protect it. Constance and I will be fine, but Romana can’t take care of herself in any sense. You’ll be long dead before she even learns to walk. This will consume your entire life. You’ll be the guy who lives here.”

“You hear me, girl? I’m all about it. Let’s do it, but one thing, I have a better idea.”

“Oh, no, here we go.” Karla was worried.

“This baby, before she was born, your ancestors had to keep finding mates so they could make an extra baby who would grow up, and take care of this baby, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how it worked,” Karla confirms. “Not in those specific words.”

“Well. What’s changed?”

“Huh?”

“Baby still needs taken care of, right? Just because she’s born, that hasn’t changed. It’s just, instead of being transferred to, like, a new womb, she needs to be fed and stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So I’m there to help with that, right?”

“Well, not that, but that’s what we’ve been asking. Have you not been listening?”

“Oh, I’ve been listening, and I’ve been thinking. You just said it, when I die, she’ll be a few months old. Who’s gonna help ya then?”

“I suppose we’ll have to find someone else,” Karla reasoned.

Silenus nodded coolly. “Why don’t we make someone else?”

“Excuse me?”

“Restart the bloodline. Make Romana some siblings. That way, when I die, they take over my job. And then they have kids, who take it over for them. And so on, and so forth, and ad infinity.”

“I’m not sure what benefit that would have. I mean anyone we trust could do it.”

“Who better to trust than someone who was literally born already invested in their family member’s life?”

“So let me get this straight,” Karla began. “You want to have sex with me to make a baby, raise it by yourself, since I only live one day a year, and then just hope they turn out right for the job when it’s their time?”

“Well, you’re not officially on the pattern, right. You could take a break from it for eighteen or so years. That’s only a few weeks for Romana, and it’s not like you won’t actually be with her. She’ll still see you every day of her life.”

Karla just sighed.

“Karls, if all I wanted was sex, I could have anybody. I’m famous. I’m not as famous as you or your baby daddy, but I’m famous enough. You know how many I turned down just this week. I’m just sayin’. I’m here for it. I’m here for you. I’m here for Romana. I’m thinkin’ about her future. Aren’t you?”

Karla cleared her throat, and turned to Mateo. He had been quietly listening to the conversation with the rest of the group. It felt very much like none of their damn business. “What do you think?”

“I think...you should do..what...you think you should do.”

“Thanks. Helpful.” She rolled her eyes. “Love it.”

“Uh. I have an idea,” Ramses jumped in unexpectedly. “It’s more of an inevitability, though. I think it was destined to always happen.”

“Rambo, maybe we just stay out of this,” Leona suggested.

“Maybe I should just show you.” He stood up, and took a step away from them. “Yeah, I’ll show you.” He teleported away, then returned a few minutes later with a cloning-slash-stasis pod.”

“Which one of us is in there?” Mateo asked.

“Do you remember when we were leaving Scorpius station, and everyone had all of their backup bodies on the Dante, and then I went back, because I was all, I forgot something?” Ramses asked.

“Yeah, I figured you left a tool.”

“Right, after I got my tool,” Ramses began with airquotes, “I first snuck back into my lab, and hid it in there.”

Leona cracked the case. “That’s the mysterious eighth active pod. We couldn’t see who was in it, but you stole it?”

“Yes, of course I did, because it would be stupid to just leave it there. We thought the whole place was gonna get blown up. Don’t worry, I think I was meant to take it, because right before you came to us with the new plan, the pod’s partition mysteriously opened on its own. Now we can see who’s in it.” He turned it around for the big reveal. It was none other than Silenus Koolen.

“Holy shit!” Olimpia shouted.

“That’s...for me?” the real Silenus asked.

“No one else has the right to it,” Ramses said to him. “If it’s built like ours were, you shouldn’t have to worry much about dying in a hundred years.”

Silenus started crying. “This is the best birthday present anyone’s ever given me.”

“It’s your birthday?” Karla questioned.

“Yeah, girl, I thought you were throwing me a surprise party, because it luckily matched up with your pattern. This is better than that, though.”

“Happy birthday,” Mateo said. “You wanna be born again? None of our transfers was that poetic.”

“Hell yeah, let’s do this! It’s not against the law when the Matics are involved.

“Wait, consciousness transference is against the law here?” Mateo asked.

“Yes,” Angela and Marie answered simultaneously. “So is cloning,” Angela added on her own. Due to this new information, they first made sure that Silenus was right that Team Matic could trigger an exception to the relevant laws. He was, and so...he was reborn. The procedure went smoothly, but it was already too late in the day, so they decided to wait to leave Dardius until next year. Besides, Mateo needed time to say goodbye to his new family. He was confident that he would indeed see Romana again one day, but it could still be a long time.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 25, 2416

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Angela Walton stood at the door, waiting to go in. No one was keeping her from simply walking through on her own, but she wasn’t quite ready. She had not been given clear instructions, so she wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to say. Only two things were clear to her. One was that Dardius had no interest in forming any sort of strategic relationship with the Sixth Key, or any of its components. Two, her sister, Marie had no interest in rekindling—or even reminiscing about—any relationship with Heath. Their unwelcomed arrival placed Mateo’s daughter in danger. It was irrelevant whether this was the Sixth Key representatives’ intent. It was what happened, and it had to be dealt with. That was Angela’s responsibility now, because it couldn’t be anyone else’s.

“You’re not Marie,” Heath determined immediately.

“No, I’m not.”

“I want to see her.”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“I need to hear her say that.”

“No, you don’t. She owes you nothing. You walked out on her when she needed you most, and nothing has changed. She’s decided to move on. She’s had to. I’ll ask you kindly to respect that.”

“Fine. I didn’t come here for that anyway. You and your team appear to hold a lot of sway with these people. Could you please request an audience with the planet’s leadership for me? We have important business to discuss.”

Vearden and the world owners are aware of you and your request, and they are denying it. I’m sure they’ve told you. The only reason you’re still here is so that I could return to the timestream to send you off. All you have to do is give them back control of the Nexus so they can actually do that. And agree to take this.” She held up a vial of clear liquid.

“What is that?” Heath asked.

“Memory eraser. The entire last year will be wiped from your minds.”

“Why would we do that?”

“You’ve seen too much here, and you have placed my family in danger. I asked them to make this for you. Not only will they send you back home, and erase your memories, but they’ll send you back to the original time you left. It will be as if it never even happened.”

“We’re not doing that. Our memories are too important to us. They are part of who we are. The six of us have held meetings in our jail since then. We have shared stories, grown closer. You can’t take that away from us. I, more than anyone, know what it’s like to lose who you are.”

“You know nothing. The man who looked like you, who lost his memories, was not you. Your consciousness was summoned to the future before that happened.”

“Miss Walton, I’m keeping my memories.”

“The only other option is Lohsigli.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Exile,” she clarified.

“We can’t do that either. We have responsibilities to our people.”

“What did you think would happen when you came here unannounced?”

“We hoped that they would at least sit down with us; not lock us up, and ignore us for an entire year. Now, I understand that you’re on your own schedule, but that has nothing to do with us, or the Dardieti government.”

“I think you’re a little ignorant here. This world is millions of light years away from Earth, and it is not populated because of all the pretty trees and animals. It was founded as a sanctuary. It was literally called Sanctuary. What started out as a hotel has grown into a powerful civilization since then, but this mandate has not been lost. The people who live here are under the protection of the leadership, and you have threatened that. Even if you have the best of intentions, you broke into their home, and they’re not going to listen to you. If you had gone through the proper channels, you might have been okay. This...” She held up the vial again, “is your second chance. If you make the same choice again, they’ll know they can’t trust you. If you reach out first, they may listen this time.”

“Why would we make a different choice? If you’re forcing us to an earlier state—”

“Humans don’t store memories in little boxes that are organized by date. Memory is associative. The solution doesn’t erase them. The solution opens up your mind, so a trained psychiatrist can extract what they need. They’ll strongly suggest you make a different choice. And you’ll only not take that option if you genuinely came here with bad intentions.”

Heath sighed. “If this is what the Dardieti want, I’ll talk it over with the others.”

“Very well.” Angela turned away, and found herself face to face with Leona.

Leona looked over Angela’s shoulder. “What’s happening here?”

Angela looked over her own shoulder. Then she took Leona by hers, and teleported them to the middle of the Mirage Desert. “How did you find me? Did Olimpia tell you where I was?”

“I sensed great tension,” Leona explained. I was leaving you alone, but then the tension was suddenly relieved, and it was so jarring that I felt compelled to come to you. How did Heath Walton get here?”

“We don’t know. He’s not said, but the Dardieti did not expect him. There was a huge military formation on the island. They were freaked out. Olimpia was there; she told them that they should lock Heath and his friends up until it could be resolved. I was asked to facilitate that resolution.”

“Why? Why you? Why didn’t they tell us?”

“We were leaving you and Mateo out of it. For the baby. And Ramses is busy anyway. Olimpia only told Marie because of her ex-husband. She’s refused to see him. She wants that part of her life to be over, I guess.”

“That was my fault,” Leona said. “I keep talking about us leaving the past behind. But you should have told me. I could have been there to look into the Nexus problem. I could have spent this whole time trying to figure it out.

That was a good point. Angela wanted to keep everyone else out of this, but Leona was the one with the power to actually fix the situation. She should have said something before...before it all got so out of hand. “You’re right, I’m so sorry,” she said. “The Dardieti have asked the Sixth Key representatives to have their memories erased, and then go back home, but only after they tell us what they did to the network.”

“If you had told me, I could have told you that they probably spoofed their number.”

“What do you mean?”

Leona prepared to explain. “Every Nexus is supposed to have its own term sequence, even ones in alternate realities. Generating a new sequence after a duplication event is, from what I gather, a complicated matter. There is a period of time when both Nexa can serve as the real one, and this can cause travelers to end up in the wrong reality. What Mateo did with the Omega Gyroscope probably caused a little confusion when it came to the now two versions of the main sequence, especially since one of them is now in another universe. Basically, it was on the network, and off the network at the same time, which gave it a little extra power. I think I can either request a new number for it, or simply have the machine removed from the network entirely.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, let’s do that.”

Leona took Angela by the hand, and teleported them back to Tribulation Island. “Everyone out. I’m gonna fix this for you.”

All of the techs left without question. Once they were gone, Angela slid the door closed. “Thank you, Leona. I messed up. I was just trying to protect Marie.”

“I understand. Hey, Opsocor.”

“Yeah?”

“Why are the Dardieti locked out of the Nexus?”

“They have been placed in a feedback loop. It’s a glitch that I never really did figure out, but it’s rarely exploited. Basically the molecules in the air underneath the dematerialization drum—”

“It is called a drum?” Leona questioned.

“Yeah,” Venus answered.

“Oh.” She didn’t know that. “You were saying about air molecules?”

“Right. They’re constantly being broken apart and rematerialized. This makes the Nexus think that it’s in the middle of transporting a person or object to itself, and won’t let it form another connection until that one is complete, except it never is.”

“The line’s busy,” Leona reasoned. “Except it’s not, it’s just that the phone was left off the hook.”

“Yeah,” Venus said once more.

“How do we stop the loop?” Angela asked, hoping that the superintelligence wouldn’t ignore her as unworthy of response.

“Create a vacuum,” Venus suggested. “Others have solved this by sucking all the air out of the whole building, but technically, only the molecules underneath the drum are the issue.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Leona said. “But okay.”

“There’s another way,” Angela offered. “We’re under about one Earthan atmosphere of pressure, right?”

“Right?”

“And the composition of the air is about the same as it is on Earth?”

“I should think so,” Leona replied. “Humans survive here without issue.”

“We can teleport the air out. Just you and me. Each of us can transport two times the equal mass to ourselves, and Ramses built us to be around a hundred kilograms...”

“We would need one more person,” Leona calculated. “But it should work, if we concentrate hard enough. We’ll get Olimpia to help us. One quick jump to outer space, and then back down to the sand. Venus, you ever seen anyone do it like this before?”

“Never. That’s why I picked you.”

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