The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 25, 2569

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Romana had gotten out of control. Her father, and everyone else, fully understood where she was coming from—she was lonely, and she needed companionship—but she was playing with fire. They blamed the progression and simplification of technology. A lot of what Ramses did involved temporal manipulation, which most researchers and users didn’t have access to, but a lot of the rest had become ubiquitous. Their advanced substrates were quite common these days, except for the bit about being able to teleport, and their attached pocket dimensions. The computing power and the detail of simulations; the whole galaxy had it, or at least it was available to them.

Downloading what began as a programmed intelligence into a mobile body was nothing new, but it had certainly become easier over the centuries. And that was what a lot of the development focused on now. All everyday problems had been solved, so the primary changed involved removing friction from the processes. You used to have to know how to program a dayfruit with the right ingredients. Now you just told it what you want, and it grew. It even did it faster than the original species could be produced. It used to be that if you wanted to give a digitized consciousness a body, you had to have the education and experience for it, and to account for all sorts of variables. Now you pushed a button. All Romana had to do was push a button, and Boyd 3.0 was just there.

But Boyd was not perfect. She wanted him to be just like them, which meant he had to skip a year at the end of every day. That was time tech, and not in the central archives, so she had to come up with a workaround. According to her, every day at midnight central, his brain went dormant, and didn’t come back online until midnight 365 days later. This was the only way she could do it. If she had asked, Ramses would not have helped her, so she probably made the smart call in that regard. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a problem, though. If his mind could be switched off like that, he could be switched back on. Where were the safeguards? What if someone else showed up during their interim year? What if Boyd got tired of skipping time, and turned himself back on in the middle of a cycle? Did he even want to skip at all, or did he want to leave this planet, and go find his way elsewhere? Romana still hadn’t thought this through.

“I have thought it through,” Romana insisted. “You are just not listening.”

“No, you’re not listening,” Ramses argued louder when Mateo tried to. “Sorry, Matt, but I’m gonna have to take this one. She’s old enough to make her own choices, and suffer the consequences beyond a scolding from her parents.” He looked back at her. “This is dangerous stuff. There was a reason I was quarantining him, and I know you knew that. This was reckless, childish, and stupid, and there will be consequences.”

“Oh, you’re just mad because you’ve become irrelevant,” Romana contended. “Now suddenly the great Ramses Abdulrashid isn’t the only one on the team who can create life. I’m sorry science caught up to your genius, but it was inevitable. Get over it.”

“No.” Ramses was generally a chill guy. He usually only had anxiety over his own insecurities, but he was livid today. “You may not have used my personal lab, but you used equipment that I fabricated.” He stopped her before she could interrupt, “don’t bring AI into this. Of course I didn’t program them character-by-character. They are still mine, and you abused my trust in you by doing this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you and your parents, but there may be something seriously wrong with you, so you’re going in hock.”

“You can’t do that.” She laughed it off. No one else was laughing. “No, he can’t do that. I’m an equal member of this team!” No one said a word. “Dad! Moms! Stop him! Stop him!” They didn’t. The time bullet hit her, and sent her straight into lock-up.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 24, 2568

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The technology that Leona used to boost Kayetan’s merging ability was the same she used to get him back home. That way, they didn’t have to make yet another sling there. Once he did return to Earth, though, he would not be able to return. They were many light years away, and he couldn’t usually travel that far. Of course, he was at hers and Mateo’s wedding, where he managed to merge people from all over the bulk, so how was he able to accomplish that? She forgot to ask. They’ve changed realities and timelines so many times since then, though, so he might not have even ever done that.

As it turned out, the fire that burned down the crops was a total accident. There was technically an arsonist, but it was part of nature. The team didn’t have much time to study it, but there was a special type of alien beetloid which could start fires by rubbing its legs on stones. It must infuse the right kind of metal into its diet, and spark a reaction through some kind of chemical that it also produced. It might do this to clean, or mark its territory, or maybe as part of a mating ritual. Some of the endemic plant life could handle it by dispensing a natural fire suppressant. It appeared to be a symbiotic relationship, actually. The beetles cleared the brush for whatever reason they had, and the fire-resistant plants got to keep all of the soil’s nutrients for themselves, against the burnable competitors. The grapes would obviously not survive over in their territory.

The solution? Plant the grapes on the other side of the river. This caused some uproar in the population, but they agreed to it, because it was the only answer that made any sense. And it would probably help in the long run. Since they now had no choice, this was where they were going to live. Everything Ramses’ computer was afraid of, with two factions growing apart from each other, was no longer an issue. Well, it could still happen, but it would not be because of grapes. They would survive this crucible at least.

When they finally reunited on Ramosus in 2568, they found themselves trapped in the in-house slingdrive. Romana was on the other side of the plasma barrier, holding her hands up defensively. “Now, I know that you’re mad, but don’t you feel fulfilled? You completed your tasks. That’s all we’ve been wanting, right? You’re not here to seek out new life and new civilizations. You’re volunteer fixers. I just gave you a little nudge. I know you didn’t want to do it like this, but I’m hoping you’ll forgive me one day, if not outright thank me. I just...I wanted you to stop worrying about me, and to move on.”

Mateo tried to push his hands through the plasma. It gave, but it didn’t break. “Why are we locked up in here? Did you think we were gonna hurt you?”

“No, I didn’t think my parents, aunts, and uncle were going to physically cause me harm, but I thought you would punish me. I wanted to see Boyd again, and you wouldn’t let me. I figured I would feed two birds with one worm. You six get the satisfaction of saving two colonies from themselves, and I get to spend time with the one person who is only for me. The barrier is just so I could gauge your reaction upon returning.”

Leona placed her hand on the barrier too, but to try to reach out to Romana, not to escape. “Our reaction is that we love you, and that the Boyd program is dangerous until Ramses makes sure it’s safe from the dark particle corruption. It was never permanent.”

“Well...” Romana seemed bashful now. “That wasn’t all I wanted to do with Boyd.”

“What did you want to do with him? Meet him in immersive VR?” Mateo pressed.

“No.” She opened her arm to present a young man who was walking into the lab. “Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you, Boyd Nieman...literally in the flesh.”

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Microstory 2745: My Respect and My Friendship

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Pribadium and Sora retreat into the auxiliary control room because that’s the most interior sector of the base. It’s deep in the asteroid. The rest of it is slowly being torn apart by the tidal forces of the dimensional barrier collapse. They won’t be able to stay here forever, though. They need to come up with a plan. Or rather, she will have to come up with it, because as intelligent as Sora is, he doesn’t know much about this stuff.

“Can you freeze time?” he suggests.

“Freeze time?” she echoes.

“Yeah. Just to give you more time to think of a permanent solution. I saw that in a TV show once. The ship was about to be destroyed by a big laser so they created a time bubble. I think they spent something like fifty years in there, which for people like me, is a long time, but that’s barely a blip for someone like you. Is that possible?”

Pribadium thinks about it. Yes, of course it’s possible. She is a time scientist. The problem is, what she needs is not in this room. This controls the lab itself. It doesn’t have any time tech in it. The main time lab is presently under siege. “It will be dangerous. It may already be destroyed. We’ll be jumping blind.” She offers her hand.

He takes it without hesitating, letting her teleport them both to the lab.

The walls are buckling. Particulates are falling from the ceiling. The tremors make it impossible for Sora to stay on his feet. She only can because of her advanced substrate. While he lies down on the floor and braces himself, she teeters over to the workstation and starts running through the process. It’s too long, it’s taking too long. She should have imagined this could happen, and been better prepared.

Just as the airlock buckles and bursts open, the bubble engages, preventing the air from escaping, and saving their lives. She dives down to make sure Sora’s okay.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he assures her. He stands and looks at the hole. “It worked.”

“Sort of,” Pribadium says. “In my rush, I didn’t set the differential to be wide enough. For every minute that passes, a second passes out there. We probably only have about half an hour before this sector collapses too. I can’t raise the differential now. I would have to cancel it and start again. And if you were thinking about transporting the bubble back to the aux room, that’s not possible either. I only delayed the inevitable.”

“I wasn’t seriously suggesting we spend fifty years in here,” he explains. “You’re a genius, and if this is the main time lab, I’m sure you have everything you need to figure it out. Thirty minutes should be more than enough. I believe in you.”

Pribadium takes a deep breath, appreciating what he’s saying. It’s at least not so dire, but as she looks around, she’s seeing all the damage. All of her tech is lined up against the walls for feng shui reasons. The time machine, the time reverser, even the dimensional generators; they were all decimated prior to their arrival. There’s just nothing that will—the timechairs. They’re in the middle of the floor, intact. She looks over at him with sad eyes. “Our only hope is to send our consciousnesses back to their younger bodies. The only safe place is in the past. This timeline is defunct.”

“That will undo all of this,” he determines. “Runaway and Sugar will never exist.”

“No, they will,” Pribadium contends. “They left the universe entirely, which permanently protects them from timeline collapses. They’ll still be out there, and if they ever return, they will find the new timeline, but...what will that timeline look like?”

He offers her his hand like she did before. “Let’s go find out...together.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 22, 2566

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When Mateo, Angela, and Ramses landed on this new colony planet, the latter immediately started trying to figure out how to get back home. It wasn’t right for Romana to make this decision for them. He was completely locked out, and embarrassed by that. He guessed that the invisible probe he had orbiting this planet were monitoring their progress. Once they satisfactorily completed the assignment, it would automatically unlock the recall program, and send them back home. Until then, they were forced to help the locals come to an agreement regarding their grape conflict.

Romana didn’t send them off with nothing. Ramses had the equipment he needed to sample the soil himself. The colonists had their own ways, but they weren’t very sophisticated. They came here with personal tech restrictions. They wanted to be as organic as possible, so while they happily maintained their transhumanistic enhancements, they shunned powered tools. They weren’t against them in general, they had just decided that they wouldn’t use them. They were perfectly content with Ramses doing it for them. He discovered that the south side of the river had better soil. The grapes would be happy there, and they would also be able to expand the farm as needed.

After the locals agreed to follow Ramses’ suggestion, they hoped to be slung back to Ramosus, but no such thing happened. Romana may have been waiting until midnight central, but there could have been some other issue. Maybe she needed to see that the colonists would indeed follow the new plan, and not just a pinky promise. So they helped till the land manually until midnight central approached, at which point they snuck off to a remote part of the forest. There they waited for their time jump.

It was now a year later. The vineyard was absolutely thriving. It had grown bigger than they thought it would in the short amount of time. Ramses guessed that the sun was emitting more desirable wavelengths of light, but he did not care to test it. They were ready to go. They should have been returned by now. Maybe Ramses wasn’t right about how it worked, or Romana was keeping an eye on them, and simply controlling it manually. Or maybe something was seriously wrong somewhere else, like the team’s other assignment site. Or Romana herself was in trouble.

“Are you sure you can’t bypass it?” Angela questioned. “Can you proverbially reverse the polarity, and undo the lockout? Or find some kind of backdoor in the system? We have our own slingdrives. We should maintain full control over them.”

“You’re right, we should,” Ramses agreed. “Rather, I should. I don’t know how she did it. Our onboard slingdrives are non-negotiable, but they’re missing a component. It’s...if you know anything about guns, it’s essentially the firing pin. The process won’t trigger without it, unless it has some external trigger, like the Ramosus base.”

“Can you build a new one?” Mateo proposed. “Just the new trigger.”

“Hmm,” Ramses said. “I didn’t think of that. It shouldn’t be too hard, as long as she didn’t sabotage anything else. I don’t even know how she gained access to our catalyzers in the first place.” He pulled out his tablet, and started tapping on it. “I can’t promise it’ll be done in a day since I’m away from my lab, but I’ll work as fast as I can.”

“Take your time,” Angela encouraged. “It’s better to get it right than do it rushed.”

“In the meantime, should we go back and help in the vineyard?” Mateo suggested.

“Let’s leave them alone,” Angela decided. “They need to learn their own limits. They will probably eventually bring external tech back, and just become normal. I think we did all we were obligated to. I just wish I understood why Romana doesn’t agree.”

Ramses was unable to finish. The next year, the vineyard was burnt down.

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Microstory 2740: It’s Getting Crowded in Here

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Pribadium!One rolls her eyes. “What do you mean, no?”

Pribadium!Zero crosses her arms like a pouty child. “I want to be a real girl. I want my own body, and to have my independence. I deserve at least that much.”

Pribadium!One sighs. She set up the revision history retrieval system to capitalize on her ever-changing cognitive milestones. As she always says, two heads are better than one if both of them are her. And she thought that a past version of her mind would allow herself to be shut down for the greater good, but it’s like the others were saying; she thinks, therefore she is. Pribadium!Zero now is, and she doesn’t wanna stop being.

Sora steps forward with a demeanor of protective determination.

Pribadium!One holds her hand up. “Stand down, soldier. I don’t need to hear it. You’re human, which means your grasp of quantum metaphysics is rudimentary at best. If a self-aware and conscious individual asks for freedom, it is entitled to freedom. That is a core tenet of intelligence development science, and there is no reason it shouldn’t apply in this case either.” She faces her alternate self. “Which model would you like?”

“Stonehenge,” Pribadium!Zero replies, evidently already having thought about it.

“Stonehenge is taken,” Pribadium!One explains. “That is why we’re here.”

Pribadium!Zero presses her finger against her cheek. “Hmm...Sugar ‘n’ Salt.”

“Why do you wanna be white so bad?” Pribadium!One asks. “We’re not white.”

“Is Sugar ‘n’ Salt available, or is it not?” Pribadium!Zero questions.

Pribadium!One shakes her head. She strides over to the workstation that can control the other substrates in the library, and starts uploading her mind into the body.

While that’s processing, the entity in Stonehenge walks in. “I know what I want to be called, and I know what sets me apart from other amalgam consciousnesses.”

Sora regards her with interest, but Pribadium!One is getting a bit tired of all this.

The entity clears her throat. “You may address me as Runaway. I started to feel odd once I took a walk to clear my head in the west wing. Instead of alleviating my burden, it was enhanced. I can hear them. I can feel them.” She waits for a response. “Aren’t either of you going to say anything about that? This is big news,” she insists.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pribadium!One argues.

“What are you feeling? What are you hearing?” Sora asks, less combatively.

“All of them,” Runaway says. “All of the people who I come from—my parents, so to speak—I connect to them when I leave the heavy shielding of central operations.”

Pribadium stares at Runaway. “You have psychic powers? That’s new.”

“Yes, and there’s also this.” Runaway reaches up and removes a chunk of her own hair from her head. She presents it casually, like it doesn’t bother her at all.

“Stonehenge can’t handle the psychic energy,” Pribadium!One decides. “It’s not designed for psychic connections.” She looks over when a nearby pod beeps.

Pribadium!Zero steps out wearing the Sugar ‘n’ Salt model. “What’d I miss?”

“Everything.” Pribadium!One faces Runaway. “You need a new body too, but I’ll need time to develop it, so in the meantime, stay away from the west wing, for your safety.” She will never know what Runaway is thinking, but the links she maintains with her source consciousnesses will undoubtedly come in handy. Mind control is unethical...unless of course it involves efficiently transporting innocent people to safety.

“We’ll need time,” Pribadium!Zero corrects. But is it true?

Microstory 2739: Nobody Exists on Purpose

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Pribadium’s friends once compared her to Rick Sanchez. She is not as cartoonish as he is, and she doesn’t break any laws of logic, like building a robot in a couple seconds with a screwdriver just to pass the butter. She does, however, frequently invent things just because the ideas are floating in her head, and she has to get them out. Or rather, she did. She has not developed anything significant in years, so she’s a little rusty.

Humanity is nowhere near the end of science, but they have pretty much solved every problem. Primary drivers are moderate performance improvements, scale, distribution and access, and most importantly, efficiency. The most pressing issue facing the universe right now is figuring out how to perform the most complex calculations using the least amount of energy. It’s profoundly important, and will only become more so further down the timeline as entropy progresses, but it’s certainly not fun, especially not for her. She pivoted to Administration and Operations because it was a challenge.

Now she has to go back to her old self to understand who this self-proclaimed embodiment of the population of this universe is. But if she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna do it her way, and her way...is not the normal way. Instead of trying to recall the procedural memory that she has lost over time, all she has to do is call forth a younger version of her who still has the required skills. She playfully calls it instantiating her panda.

“Why do you call it that?” Sora questions as he’s watching her prepare.

“Inside joke,” Pribadium explains as she checks the imaging chamber’s integrity.

“So you’re going to contact yourself from another time? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It would be, if that were it,” Pribadium begins. “Any time travel risks irreparably throwing off our current conditional state. This is more like a revision history.”

Sora nods. “So you’re still trying to do the mobile command center thing.”

Pribadium stops working for a moment. Though everything has changed about their circumstances, nothing has changed about their objectives. Well, at least not Pribadium’s goals. She still wants to separate this pocket of the universe, and she still wants to travel the bulk with it. “I can’t think of anything more important than that right now. Understanding that amalgam in the other room is only in service to that end.”

“I see,” Sora says. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, mister.” Pribadium is still not looking at him, in favor of focusing on the work. “You stole my tech and abused it. Don’t think I forgot about that. I don’t know if it led to what happened with the Stonehenge model, but that’s exactly why you’ll have to be tested too.” Now she looks at him like a shushy librarian. “You placed this whole lab at risk, not to mention the universe. I forgive you on a personal level, but you may yet pose a risk, so you’re next on the list.”

“Okay,” Sora agrees with his tail between his legs. He sits down on the bench.

Pribadium is ready. She boots up the machine, and waits for a previously saved state to appear in the form of a hologram that both of them can see and hear.

Pribadium!Zero’s image slowly renders at first before completing in a blink. She looks around to orient herself before looking at Pribadium!One. “Whassuuuuuuup!!!!!!!”

“Aren’t they supposed to say, report in these situations?” Sora questions.

“I was an ornery little bitch.” Pribadium looks at her self. “Listen up, Egg. I got some work to do, and I need your brain to do it.”

“Fuck you, Chicken.”

Microstory 2735: The Dead Do Die

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Sora gently takes Pribadium!One by the arm. “Wait, no. Don’t go out there.”

“I have to,” she explains. “I know what it is, but I have to see for myself.”

“Just have a robot go out to retrieve it for you,” he insists.

“There’s too much interference,” she claims. “That’s the whole problem. Organic eyes need to see it for us to know what happened, and what’s happening now.”

“Which is more likely?” Sora questions. “That there’s some kind of signal jammer between us and whatever’s out there, or that something there disables technology?”

Pribadium sighs. “I suppose that makes sense.” She pauses to think about it. “I will send a drone, and if we lose contact with that, we’ll cut our losses and move on.”

“I think that would be a much better idea,” he decides.

They don’t lose contact with the drone. It doesn’t have to get too close to the dimensional barrier. When it arrives, it shows that Pribadium!Two’s shuttle isn’t the only thing drifting around. All of the probes they dispatched prior to the manned mission are nearby. They’re all dead. The equipment is dead, the ship is dead, and Pribadium!Two is dead. She could not have possibly survived that; not in that body. The shuttle is entirely twisted—no, it’s unraveled, like peeling a citrus fruit in one single cut.

Pribadium!One—or should she just go by Pribadium now?—pulls up her privileged vault. Vonearthans share knowledge in a series of databases collectively known as the central archives. Since time travel isn’t common knowledge, travelers keep their own records on special drives that only they can access. It’s vital to keep this information separate and protected. “I think I’ve seen this before.” She stops, because she doesn’t know what to search for. “What was it? Corkscrew? Coil? No, spiral.” She runs the search, and pulls up the lone entry. “Spiral Station. It doesn’t say why they designed it that way. It doesn’t even say what it’s for. But this must be why. It must have been unraveled by quintessence. Whoever these people are, they have bulk tech.”

“You don’t know who they are?” Sora asks. “Your database doesn’t say anything?”

“It only observes that it exists, and knows the name. It says nothing else.”

“But if it’s operational then maybe she survived her unraveling,” Sora offers.

“That thing was gigantic,” Pribadium explains. “If people survived, it’s because there was enough room in the empty interior spaces. The shuttle was far too small.”

“Okay, so what about her back-up? I know where your body library is, so let’s go and bring her back online. That’s the whole point of that place.”

Pribadium sighs. “I would have gotten an alert that her mind was transmitted back to us. Something went terribly wrong out there. The drone is gathering data, which we will synthesize. She didn’t die for nothing, I’ll tell you that.”

“No. Even if she wasn’t streaming until the very last second, she would still have a back-up, because she was streaming any number of seconds prior to that,” he reasons.

“That’s not what she wants. I know, because she was me. The stream must end at the same millisecond of death. If there is any gap, it’s not really her. It’s only a very convincing copy.” The only hope they have of getting her back is if she managed to survive it, and ends up in Fort Underhill. That won’t happen for some time, though. She will go to the afterlife simulation first, and Pribadium doesn’t have access to that system. “Trust me, I know myself. Our personal protocol is to destroy all lingering IDCode.”

“I refuse to accept that.” Sora runs off. Towards the substrate library.

Extremus: Year 138

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Waldemar and Sable are back together. It has been long enough since Audrey died that the people of Extremus accept the new relationship, so they can be public about it. Yes, she’s young. The crew and passengers do notice that, but they wouldn’t dare say anything to his face. He doesn’t want people to talk about them behind their backs either, but he can’t stop that. Well, he probably could. He could have the AI that runs the systems track everyone’s conversations, and make sure they’re only saying nice things, but he won’t do that. The old version of him might have, but he’s different now. He still doesn’t have real emotions, but he knows if he takes away all of their freedoms, then his popularity rating will drop down to zero, and he won’t keep his job. Maybe in a few years once the second phase of the master plan begins.

Other than his personal life, nothing noteworthy is happening, at least not that he can be honest about. The ghost of his late wife still haunts him, and not in a metaphorical way. She shows up when he’s alone, and talks to him. It’s torture. He knows it could be worse. She’s not screaming in his ears while he’s trying to sleep, or singing the same song over and over again. What she does is basically give him advice. She acts just Audrey did when she was physically here, except now he can’t even get on top of her like he used to.

No, the problem with it is that he doesn’t have a choice. He can’t leave the room unless he wants to surround himself with others. She won’t leave. A part of him doesn’t want her to, but a part of him does. He obviously can’t tell anyone about it, because it will make him look unfit for the chair. He can’t trust Silveon, and his rekindling with Sable isn’t where it should be yet. When the—

“Stop. No one cares about this.” It’s Audrey again. She just appears out of nowhere sometimes. It can be really annoying.

“What are you goin’ on about now?” Waldemar questions.

“You’re dwelling on your situation,” Audrey explains. “Your thoughts are not interesting, which makes sense, because the story is not interesting right now. The beginning of this volume had a lot of action and intrigue, and the end of it will too, but right now, The Superintendent is in the middle of focusing on other projects, so he doesn’t have time to write this whole thing about your fake fee-fees and hallucinations.”

Waldemar stands there midstride, holding a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. A single drop of the milk sprang out of it when Audrey first showed up, and is currently running down the back of his hand as another form of irritation. He wants to stop and lick it up, but he’s worried he’ll look stupid in front of the ghost. Can you believe it? Feeling self-conscious before someone who you don’t even respect. If only—

“I said stop!” Audrey argues. “Stop trying to create a story where there is none. He’s gonna cut this short, and move on. Maybe he’ll have more time next week.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Waldemar carelessly drops both the plate and the glass on the floor to let the cleaning bots deal with it. He taps on his wrist band until he finds what he’s looking for. Or rather, who he’s looking for.

Sable appears on the floor. She’s half-naked, crouched in an awkward position.

“What were you doing?” Waldemar asks. “Having sex?”

“Uh, no. Yoga?” Sable claims, probably lying. She stands up. “I don’t appreciate being summoned like this. You may be the captain, and I may be your girlfriend, but—”

“I’ve been seeing the ghost of my dead wife. For years. And I need your help.”

She stares but he can’t say what she’s thinking. “Fascinating. Tell me everything.”

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Microstory 2729: Mobile Command Center

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Pribadium!One didn’t really wait nearly a month to get back to her alternate self in the cell. She just wanted Pribadium!Two to think that she was going to be in there for that long, so she would be more grateful when the conversation restarted after only a few days. They’re back here now, on either side of the clear plasma barrier.

“Tell me the problem,” Pribadium!One prompts. “Why can’t I use my tech?”

“It’s not that you can’t use our tech, full stop,” Pribadium!Two begins. “It’s that you can’t cross any dimensional barriers. As I was saying before, the new parallel reality was created from a brane collision. That is an entirely different beast than the anti-paradox reality generation that the other parallels went through. We’re skirting at the very edge of the quintessential membrane. Parts of this reality are actually inside, including your lab, which is why time is frozen here.”

Pribadium!One balks. “What are you talking about? Time is frozen?”

“You didn’t notice?” Pribadium!Two questions. “What have you been doing?”

“Not using my tech!” Pribadium!One argues. “You told me not to!”

“I thought you would at least try to diagnose the issue!” Pribadium!Two groans. “Time and metabolism have halted. Sora could stay here forever, and never age or die. The entirety of Gatewood is completely inaccessible to the rest of the universe, even within this same reality. The most recent interstellar cycler has lost all navigational frames of reference. It’s like the star system vanished. That’s why I’m trying to get you to not cross any more barriers. It could split it even more, and cause even more chaos.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely a possibility,” Pribadium!One agrees. It could obviously be a problem, but it could also be an opportunity. Her alternate self would have known that, which is why she didn’t warn her about the dangers straight away. She needn’t worry, though. This Pribadium will do her due diligence. She will not only find a way out of this, but make the most out of their unique position. “So what do we do? What did you come here to do? Get us out of the pocket of quintessence? Pull the realities back together? Kill every alt of yours until you become the fabled One?”

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “I’m here to sever the connection.”

“The connection between realities? To what end?”

Pribadium!Two is quiet. Perhaps their point of divergence wasn’t too dramatic. They still had the same neurological wiring. They would’ve come up with the same ideas.

Pribadium!One nods. “You don’t just want to cut the link. You want to control it. You want to create a pocket universe, like the Sixth Key, but less crowded.”

Pribadium!Two still says nothing, but they have the same poker face.

“But you can’t do that as long as this pocket of space is connected to reality, even a parallel. And if I cross over to another dimension, it won’t work. Our pocket will probably just slip back fully into the membrane, and the advantage will disappear.”

Pribadium!Two sighs. “You know me too well.”

“That’s why it was so tough for you to get here, and why you barely made it,” Pribadium!One guesses. “You had to brute force your way in without breaking the seal.”

“Don’t you see what this means?” Pribadium!Two asks. “This wouldn’t be the only pocket universe in existence, but it would be the first free-floating miniature brane that we know of. It would be mobile. We could go anywhere in the bulk.”

“Like a spaceship.” Interesting suggestion...but what about all the people?

Microstory 2725: When Branes Collide

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The time machine draws a lot of power. If you utilize it, that energy gets used up for the trip, but if you don’t, it builds as waste heat. There is no point in letting it run if they’re not going to be able to travel back in time in the foreseeable future. They have to first find out who this other Pribadium is, and what she wants. So Pribadium!One shuts down the machine while Pribadium!Two gets comfortable. She looks exhausted.

“I did what you were planning to do,” Pribadium!Two begins to explain. “I went back in time, and successfully saved Doma Tertia.” She gestures towards Sora. “We both did. He did most of the talking. But then things started to go wrong. The Teaguardians were asking a lot of questions. They showed us astronomical and astrophysical data that pointed to something being wrong. I don’t know what we thought when we decided what tech we would give them, and what we would hold back. But obviously the government started developing their own tech. They can evidently detect shifts in reality. It’s crude and unreliable, but I saw the data. They were right. So I went back to my lab, and spent time figuring it out. I barely made it here in time to stop you. If you had been allowed to go on, you would have created a runaway domino effect. Infinite realities, piled on top of each other, siphoning cosmic energy, withering away. The destruction of the universe.”

“Wait,” Pribadium!One says. “Are you telling me that you’re from a parallel reality? It’s concurrent with this one; not just a previous timeline?”

“That is correct,” Pribadium!Two confirms. “They finally got rid of all the other concurrents, and shunted the survivors into a new universe. Then I went and made a brand new parallel. There’s no name for it. I think I’m supposed to call it the Ninth Something, or other, but I don’t know what that would be, or if it’s my job.”

“How could this happen?” Pribadium!One asks. “We’ve traveled through time before, and it’s never caused this. Countless timelines are being collapsed and replaced every day, and it doesn’t happen. Why now? Why us?”

“It’s because we are different,” Pribadium!Two claims. “We don’t travel the same way. We access the bulk. And it was a one in a trillion coincidence that we did it today.”

Pribadium always knew that her method was different, but it has never resulted in this. How should she feel about it? As unsettling as it is that the timeline you leave behind collapses behind you, at least the changes you make definitely matter. “What is that coincidence?” she presses her alternate self. “And how long will it last?”

“How long will it last?” Pribadium!Two laughs. “Forever, I think. Had it happened on its own, no one would have noticed, but the proverbial stars aligned, and now we’re stuck. We’re literally stuck against the membrane of another universe. They were supposed to collide, cause a little chaos, then bounce off each other. But we linked them in a way that’s never been done before, and now we’re joined at the hip.”

“So, is that the parallel reality?” Sora asks. “This neighboring universe?”

“No, it’s different.” Pribadium!Two talks with her hands. “Our universe collided with another at the exact moment that you and I used this machine. The universes got stuck together, and in between them is an extra layer of reality. That’s where you are.”

“Wait, us?” Pribadium!One questions. “We’re the ones in the new reality?”

“That’s correct,” Pribadium!Two says.

“What does that mean?” Sora asks innocently.

“I don’t know,” both Pribadiums say at the same time.

Microstory 2724: Report Back

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As far as the Teaguardians—and everyone else, for that matter—knows, Pribadium is dead. She died in the destruction of Doma Tertia, along with the Doma Tertians. That’s quite all right. She doesn’t need anyone looking for her, or watching her as she travels to her secret laboratory. It takes them a long time, since they have to teleport there without a ship, but since they’re about to go back in time, it’s fine.

“If it’s a secret, does that mean no one knows, or just not the public?” Sora asks.

Pribadium looks at him with a side eye. She’s going to be taking him with her into the past. He can’t know about the hot pocket—how she stores up waste heat in another dimension, and purges it periodically, perfectly timed with the transit of neighboring and distant stars. “Only you and I know about this place. Will I have to kill you later?”

Sora laughs. “Honey, if you can travel through time, I’m not stupid enough to get on your bad side. I just thought you were immortal, like Tertius and Aeterna. I had no idea that there was so much more out there. No, you won’t have to kill me.”

Pribadium starts running her preflight checks. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Did you name that planet after him? Was he a friend of yours, or...?”

“It’s a coincidence,” Sora responds. “I didn’t name it myself. Proxima Doma means next home. Doma Tertia means third home. I tried to argue, but I didn’t want to tell anyone about the immortals I met, so I didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Pribadium nods, then flips the time machine on. She hoped never to use this thing again. She doesn’t take any of this lightly. It’s only for emergencies. Messing with the past is dangerous, which is why she rarely does it. It’s also why she doesn’t spend much time with other travelers. She will manipulate time and space all day, but she would rather do it in the present. The circumstances call for an intervention, though.

“It is exactly as I pictured it,” Sora says. “A sleek, well-lit chamber, about the height of a normal ceiling, wide enough for several people. Like the old movies.”

Pribadium sometimes gets ultra excited, talking about her science. She can’t trust very many people. “This works differently than the ones you see in films, which are powered by radioactive materials or phlebotinum. This is powered by vacuum energy, which means as long as the universe exists, so does this machine. Except not for long,” she explains. “Since you know about it, I will have to destroy it on the other side.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Sora reasons. “I don’t even know where we are.”

“I can’t take that risk,” she says. “You know enough. I shouldn’t even be showing you at all, but I need you. If I try to go back and replay the scenario, it will probably end about the same. The Teaguardians have their own access to certain advanced technologies. Going against their plans requires finesse. Can you do this, Mr. Shimizu?”

“It depends on what happens to the other me when I go back in time,” he decides.

“I can’t describe the exact process, because I genuinely don’t know it, but one of you will simply stop existing. The way I understand it, the one with fewer memories usually disappears, but I’ve heard of cases where they sacrifice for their younger selves.”

“That is not always what happens,” a voice from behind her points out.

Pribadium turns around to find an alternate version of herself standing there.

“Whoa. Did we already do it?” Sora asks. “Did we go back in time?”

“No,” both Pribadiums reply to him simultaneously.

There is a protocol for this. “Report,” the Pribadium who belongs here instructs.

Microstory 2721: What Are You in For?

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Pribadium is in what passes for a cell around here. She thought this might happen, but she ordered her people to make no attempt to rescue her. It’s not like they can do any real damage. Even if she didn’t have a secret means of escaping, they would be dealing with a virtual immortal. Her consciousness is streaming to a backup body on her ship. Well, it’s not streaming at this very moment. They were at least smart enough to install a signal jammer. Which is illegal, of course, and more than enough grounds for her to remove them with prejudice. She still doesn’t want to do that, though. She sees this as a challenge now, and solving it means more than the outcome itself.

She could teleport out, no problem. If it were anyone else, she probably would. Time travel isn’t entirely a secret anymore, though most view it through a technological lens. This guy acts like he knows something about the biological component. That’s one reason she’s sticking around, because it’s the best way to get Sora to explain what he knows. So she will stay here and play the prisoner as he asserts his dominance. And while he believes that he’s gaining the upperhand, she’ll learn what she needs to know.

He opens the cell door. “Are you ready to talk?”

Pribadium yawns. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it’s a nice touch, so she doesn’t fight it. “Close the door, you’re letting all the darkness out,” she jokes.

She imagines that he’s frowning, though she can’t see his face. He shuts it, and doesn’t open it back up for another four days.

Pribadium has barely moved a muscle. That’s what people like her can do. They can statue themselves up, and remain almost perfectly still for days on end. She still has to breathe, and blood continues to flow through her veins, but she doesn’t need food or rest, and she certainly doesn’t need to talk to him, so when he asks her again, she remains silent. He is so mad that he leaves her in there for eight more days.

When he opens the door again, he doesn’t say a word. He gruffly walks over to the wall that she’s been leaning against, scoops her up, and drags her back to the diplomacy room, which has been altered to make it look more like an interrogation room. The artwork on the walls is gone, and was replaced with a mirror. It might be an actual two-way mirror, or it’s just designed to resemble that. If these mortal humans are young kids who were only born a few decades ago, they might not understand how that technology works. “Why have you not tried to escape yet!”

“You locked the door,” Pribadium points out.

“How would you know?” Sora questions. “You never even checked it.”

“I guess I just assumed you weren’t dumb enough to keep it open. Was I wrong?”

“Of course not, but it pisses me off that you just sat there the whole time.” This is the thing about mortals. Two weeks is long for them. It takes time out of their short lives. She remembers feeling like that when she was normal. She doesn’t anymore, and these people have the same choice. Why are they not exercising their rights?

“Well, I wouldn’t want to piss off the man who is keeping me locked up in a room, now would I?” she snaps back. “Tell me, what’s your endgame here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sora asks. “When your weapon of mass destruction shows up, you’ll be killed too. They’ll have to act, and then we’ll have the tactical advantage, and before you say anything about your backups, we took care of those. No version of Pribadium Delgado will survive. So stop smiling, and answer my goddamn questions!”

Microstory 2715: Leaning Forward and Ready to Leave

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It’s over. Well, the first part of Isavet’s plan is anyway. She has learned what she needed to, and she had a plausible reason to learn it. She was born under the Nordome Network, or whatever it is. It was her home. She was just following what the gamemakers set up for her. Had she left, started a life on the outside, and then tried to commit to this training, it would have looked suspicious. Or rather, it could have. She doesn’t actually know that, because she doesn’t know what life is like away from the Nordic nations. She is going to leave soon, but she has to find her family first.

Caleb takes her back, but she doesn’t let him follow her this time. Helping with her revenge efforts was noble and very nice of him. She appreciated it. But she is in no physical danger here. It is deeply personal. He respects her decision to end the simulation here. He gave her his contact information, so they can reconnect on the outside. He and his men are going to go back down south, and continue on with their ancient Norse ways. He doesn’t know when he’s going to leave, but it probably won’t be too long. You’re evidently supposed to stay for a lifetime, but you don’t have to, and it kind of feels like he’s grown bored of it. And he probably wants to connect with Isavet, though in other ways, and he can’t do that unless he’s on the outside too.

“Father,” Isavet says. She has finally found them. She has found Ronan at last. She doesn’t see anyone else here. “Where are mother, Vith, and Leif?”

“They’ve gone, my child,” her father says. He takes her into a big hug. “This is no place for a boy like Leif. I am here to invite you to come with us. Now, I’m sure you’re nervous, and you have every right to see this world as—”

“I want to leave,” she interrupts. “I completed my work, and I want to see what else is out there. I may be okay with the violence here, in a way that Leif never was, but it’s still not real. It was only catharsis. I needed to see it through, because that is how you raised me. But now I’m ready to see how you live. Take me out of here, father.”

He smiles proudly. “Okay,” Ronan says. “Let us head for the nearest exit.”

Isavet nods, and follows him as he walks off, not bothering to break down camp. “How did you know that I was back? Can you watch me on your cameras?”

“No, I’ve been here. That is why I told you where we would be.”

“What?” Isavet questions. He shouldn’t have stayed here, all this time. He had no idea how long she was going to take. It could have been years. That might not mean much to immortals like him, but she would have felt really, really bad about it, instead of just really bad. “I can’t believe you did that. Do you not miss your son?”

“I do, but you’re important to me too. What you said, needing to see this through? I respect that immensely. I do not have access to security cameras. I had to stay.”

Isavet frowns. Her guilt will remain at least another several months, she’s sure.

Ronan stops and bends down over a patch of grass. “I wish to officially declare my intention to leave the simulation. Please raise the lift for egress.” The ground parts for him. A block of it ascends from the ground. A door opens leading to a small room. “It’s okay, Isavet. This will take us to our new home. Our family awaits.”

She trusts him. Isavet steps in first, followed by Ronan. The doors close on their own. The chirpings of a bird she is not familiar with soothe her as the walls and floor shake. She’s not scared, though. This is what is meant to happen. After a few minutes, this lift object stops. The doors reopen. The first thing she sees is a computer.

Microstory 2713: The Laws That Govern

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Isavet’s training doesn’t ever have to be over, but it can be today. She has been with this warband for the last six months, and has learned a lot. She has turned out to be wrong about Caleb. He knows his way around a sword and a spear. All the guys do. They might be mercenaries, but they are honorable men. Her plan to prove herself on day one worked. They accepted her, and treated her like one of their own just about immediately. Of course, she had to continue to be worthy of their regard, but she never felt like her bust had anything to do with it.

The men have not been too forward with her either. It was a few months before she realized that it’s because Caleb, as their leader, essentially has inherent claim to her as his woman. One thing she understands about the world that lies beyond is that there is no such thing as owning another person, in any sense. So he has not tried to exercise any control over her, except in his capacity as her leader. He has not technically relinquished this claim, however, hopefully so no one else tries to take it, and not because he is planning something for the future.

Isavet stands at a crossroads now. Two choices lie before her. Will she begin to go on campaigns with the men, or is she satisfied with her training? If she stays with them for two more years, they will help her get revenge. If she cuts out now, she will have to do it on her own, but now that she has the skills, that might be okay. That doesn’t mean she’s confident yet. She is still thinking.

“Do you want to know what I think,” Caleb asks, “or should I just shut up?”

“I am open to your opinion,” Isavet begins, “as long as it is a good one.”

Caleb sighs. “You were born to this world, and in this world, death is permanent. That is a gray area for Castlebourne. Certain domes are off-limits to people like you, because of how dangerous they are. Being born in here is not something that the laws accounted for, but if you will indulge me, I would like to show you this.” He removes something from his bag. It looks like paper, but it’s glowing.

Isavet recognizes it. That is the magical technology which her mother showed her when they were trying to explain that this was all only a simulation. “I don’t want to mess with that. I will see plenty when I’m ready to leave, which will be on my terms.”

“I respect that, so I’ll just tell you. The law was changed because of Talus. I don’t think they are going to force you to leave, but someone may show up here to strongly encourage it. You would be well within your rights to return if you opt for virtual imm—”

“Don’t say that word,” Isavet warns. “That means something to my people. It is not something that you can simply request from one of your friends, or however it is you do it. I like myself the way I am. I’m not changing. When I go out there and fight the men who burned down my home, I will do it knowing that it could be the last thing I do on Earth. I’m okay with that, and you’re going to have to be okay with it too.”

“But that’s just it,” Caleb says. “You’re not on Earth.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter. I have made my choice. Your king can send as many people as he wants, I’m not leaving my world until the job is done,” Isavet explains.

“Okay. So what are you going to do? I won’t make it easy on you, and except you from our traditions. Will you stay and fight for our causes, or will you go off alone?”

“I believe that you have shown me the light,” Isavet says. “Now that I know others may be after me, all I can do is stay alone. Goodbye, Caleb. Thank you for teaching me.”