Microstory 2482: Teledome

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This is the biggest known ground-based telescope in existence. They make them bigger, but they’re all floating in space, because that’s the best way to avoid atmospheric distortions, and other artifacts. For those of you not in the know, Earth launched two arrays of telescopes for something called Project Topdown. These are currently on their way out into the two intergalactic voids adjacent to each face of the Milky Way Galaxy. They’re all about the practical applications. I won’t go the details, because you can look it up in the central archives, but I’ll say that the purpose of it is to map our galaxy, as well as peer into the local group, unencumbered by the light and other distractions that come from being within the “border” of our own galaxy. Of course, these are not the only telescopes in existence, and it’s not like we’ll ever dismantle the more local ones in favor of using Topdown exclusively. Earth still has its Bouman Interferometer Array, and other worlds in the stellar neighborhood are working on their own projects. Castlebourne isn’t trying to make any breakthrough discoveries with its Teledome, but it certainly seemed logical to build it anyway. At 5400 square kilometers, the Sugimoto Phased Radio-Optical Telescope takes up nearly the entire area of the dome. You might ask yourself, why is it even under a dome? It shouldn’t need to be. Other telescopes certainly aren’t. Well, dust; that’s why. The space within the confines of the dome is pristine, and very easy to keep well-maintained. If they had to worry about dust storms clogging up the sensors, it would be this huge constant chore. So instead of a geodesic dome, it’s a smooth one. And instead of diamond, it’s made of an ultra-clear polycarbonate. It’s not a single object, however. There are seams in it, but they’re bonded at the molecular level. So if it suffers damage, only that section has to be replaced, but that’s only in the event of catastrophic damage, because it’s just as self-healing as any other metamaterial. As for the telescope itself, the name tells you that it’s both radio and optical. It’s also not made of a single, uniform lens. Nanomodules can shift between states, allowing for the absorption of a wide range of frequencies on the light spectrum. There is an atmosphere on Castlebourne, however thin, and it does create artifacts on the image, but as I’ve been saying, they didn’t engineer this to be perfect. We have plenty of alternatives, and they’re always building more. If you want to see the telescope first hand, you can come here, but obviously, the prospectus includes a live feed of the image, and a constant readout of the data, for your own analysis and synthesis. So you don’t have to come here, but it’s cool to see anyhow, so I still recommend it.

Microstory 2384: Earth, November 23, 2179

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Dear Corinthia and Velia,

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from either of you. I spoke with some friends that I made at the Mauna Kea observatories after our birthday parties, who told me that the Valkyrie short-cycle disruption has come into play. So there’s this dumb rogue meteoroid out there, blocking your communications, and preventing us from staying connected to each other. It seems to be lasting longer than it did the first time. I don’t know if that’s normal—if there’s significant variation—or what. I just know that I hate being so far from both of you, and unable to even speak. A two-week delay between your messages is bad enough. Corinthia, I received yours about how Velia and I are talking to each other. I understand that the distance is an issue, but I’m not going to hold back because of it. In fact, I’m going to be more bold, because you’ve got me thinking, and so have the Valkyries. If there’s only one thing that I’ve learned in my four decades of life, it’s that time is the only thing that matters. We don’t have enough of it, and when you add space into the mix, we end up with even less. Velia, if you lived a few decks down, we could see one another regularly. We could meet for coffee, and we could stroll along the perimeter of the dome. We could spend time getting to know each other. Frustratingly, we don’t have that luxury. So I’m just gonna say it. I’ve developed feelings for you. You’re gorgeous and sexy, but I don’t even care about the photos. It’s about the words that we’ve exchanged. We have so much in common despite our vastly different upbringings and environments. I don’t know how we could possibly have a real relationship given our restrictions, but I don’t think that’s reason enough not to try. I think the opposite is true. I think we owe it to each other, and ourselves, to give it a shot. If we’re not willing to do something crazy in the name of love, then we don’t even deserve it, do we? If this was just you being funny and flirty, that’s okay, it doesn’t have to be awkward. I will be able to move on. But if this was real for you in any meaningful sense, then write back when you can. And Corinthia, you’re just going to have to be okay with that, even if it’s a little weird for you, or if you continue to believe that it’s a mistake.

Thinking of you both in greatly different ways,

Condor

Microstory 2350: Vacuus, May 18, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Happy belated birthday! I decided to wait a few days to send you my next letter, so it could be after the party, but you ought to already know that, since I sent you the custom read receipt about it immediately after receiving your last one. This was a really good reason to use that system, so thank you for coming up with it. The party went great on my end. We had food and cake, and everybody was wearing the same thing. That’s right, I decided to pass along your cool, fashionable garment design to all invitees, and encouraged them to print and wear one of the options themselves. The garment fabricator liked them a lot herself, so it was her idea to really lean into the theme. She was there too, along with several other people. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I didn’t have anyone to invite, or that I didn’t have any friends in general. We’re in fairly cramped quarters for logistical and practical reasons, so everyone knows pretty much everyone. I don’t like them all, and they don’t all like me, but we get along pretty well. We have to, or it could lead to catastrophe. Animosity does not mix well with a planetary base on an airless world. One person gets mad at another, and decides to open an airlock out of anger, and it’s bye bye half the living people on Vacuus. No, we obviously compartmentalize the sections, but you get what I mean. We place great emphasis on counseling and mental health. So I do have friends. It’s true that I never developed relationships as strong as the ones I sometimes see on TV, but I would still consider them my friends. I don’t know why I’ve never talked about them to you, but they were there, and we had fun. Who else was at yours? We don’t really do much with constellations here, so we’re not all that familiar. We found Libra, and everyone looked at it, trying to figure out why they’re called “the scales”. It wasn’t until someone had the bright idea to turn the image slightly then we were all, like, “ooooohhh. Kinda!” It was fun, though, and I thought of you the whole time. I wish we could have been in the same room. How did it go on your end?

All partied out and not alone,

Corinthia

Microstory 2348: Vacuus, April 30, 2179

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Dear Condor,

These outfits look great. I’ve selected the one that I think will look right on me, and sent the specs off to the garment fabricator. She says that she’s a little busy right now, and one of her machines is down. It will take a few hours to print since the design is pretty intricate, and she probably won’t get around to it until tomorrow, so thanks for sending them early. I don’t have my own aug mirror, which would allow me to see what it will look like on my person before she fabricates it. They don’t make them anymore, because they’re considered a waste of resources, and the people who still have theirs are pretty protective of them. Fortunately, it’s a pretty small fee if I have to return it, since an alternate would use all the same materials, and like I said, I have plenty of time. I’ve run the conversions, and it looks like the best time for me to use the local observatory without getting in anyone’s way is about 20:15 Australian Eastern Time. I’m assuming that you’re somewhere along Queensland, and will be on May 17, but if you’ve already started heading west around the continent, you may have to adjust accordingly. I hope that’s okay for you, I really can’t change it unless we’re willing to schedule the parties for a different day. I’m still fascinated by the idea of mountaintop living. We don’t really have shifting weather here, or significant geographical changes without heading towards the equator, or something. We’re close to the north pole, because that’s how we maintain contact with you. That might change with our new relay system, but we’ll see. I doubt it will affect me, since I’m just monitoring the sun. I’m curious about other alternatives for your world. It sounds like most people live under land domes, but you’re on a floating platform, which takes some level of creative thinking. Has anyone ever thought of living in an aerostat? It might not be better—per se—but it could give people more options. It’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s why we have multiple bases, not because we don’t like each other, but for safety. If you don’t use those specifically, are there other types of habitats that you’ve not mentioned before?

Wearing something chic,

Corinthia

Microstory 2347: Earth, April 23, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Yes, some people live above the toxin line, on top of mountains, but it’s not like every sufficiently tall mountain is inhabited, because not every one is habitable. The really tall ones are too high and too steep. I mean, you might find a cavern to survive in with your family somewhere lower down on a given mountain, but you couldn’t build a civilization there. I should clarify too that the air on top of Mauna Kea isn’t great either, it’s just not fogged enough to stop them from using the telescopes. They don’t have domes, since that would interfere with the views from the telescopes, so they built compartmentalized vestibules to keep the fumes from getting inside the buildings, always keep the doors closed, and only go outside in hazmat suits. All told, I think there are about forty mountain top safe zones, which take varying degrees of precautions. Some of them still require that people wear filtered masks, and on some of the higher ones, they wear oxygen masks because it would be hard to breathe whether the apocalypse had happened or not. Yes, we had a number of jobs that took us to these mountaintops. In fact, earlier ones involved us transporting people to ones at lower elevations, then later having to evacuate those same people, because the toxins started rising. No one really knew how the gases would settle, since the poisoning of our air was a gradual development, not a sudden burst. There was a lot of chaos in those days. I’m sorry to say that we lost people because there wasn’t enough room, nor enough time. Or we just weren’t there, because we were busy somewhere else. I would say that we settled into some stability about five years ago? It’s not perfect, and obviously things are always changing—as we’ve talked about, we just picked up some new friends from Australia—but it wasn’t an urgent need. We’re now in a place where we’ve mostly accepted how things are, and are doing our best with the cards that we’ve been dealt. Observatory access is one aspect of that. Earlier this decade, there was no registering for viewing. No one was concerned with granting people access to information. It was only about survival. That’s all anyone had the bandwidth for. I wouldn’t say that things are great nowadays, but they have certainly been worse. Anyway, I don’t want to get too depressing here. Attached is the file for the outfit that we could wear for our imaginary joint birthday party. Well, it’s a collection with a few options. We can keep talking about it, but we don’t have much time before the date rolls around. Let me know when you’ll have access to your telescope so we know when to schedule our own festivities.

Trying to find Vacuus through the smog,

Condor

Microstory 2346: Vacuus, April 16, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I think it’s a lovely idea for us to celebrate “together” and to be looking at the same stars at the same time. From where I’m standing, Libra is as good of a selection as any. I don’t otherwise have any favorite stars or constellations, and it sounds like you don’t either. I do like to look at them, and didn’t even think about the fact that you can’t unless someone gives you access. So I guess the toxic gases in your atmosphere sit low enough that there are pockets of clean air above it. According to my research that I just did ten minutes ago, Mauna Kea isn’t even the highest peak in the world, so there must be a decent number of these undomed safe zones. Did you and your father transport people to and from these places too, or just the domes? To answer your question, we do have our own observatory that I can access through a tunnel. If we time it right, I won’t have to worry about registering for remote viewing, or anything. There will be a sliver of time where no one’s using it, and I’m sure I could ask for permission. It was one of the first things they built, so they could track the Valkyries, but it’s not as good as the one you’ll be seeing through, and isn’t all that important anymore. I never said, but our settlement is not the ideal location for a large telescope, so our main one was built at an outpost several kilometers away. A small team operates there in person while researchers use the data as needed, and allowed, remotely. Since our local observatory doesn’t serve that much purpose, I doubt I would have much resistance if I just ask to set up my little one-person birthday party there. As far as the clothing goes, send me the design for the outfit, and I’ll have it made. I’m in need of some new clothes anyway, so it won’t break my budget to buy something. In fact, I usually get myself something special around my birthday anyway. I obviously get a discount if I return material for recycling, and I’m done with some of my old stuff.

Searching for Australia through the telescope,

Corinthia

Microstory 2345: Earth, April 9, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I got so wrapped up in the explanation of my experiences outside of the dome that I forgot to respond to your questions about our birthday. Thanks for not throwing that oversight in my face. I was talking to dad about it, and we couldn’t come up with very many ideas, but he thought that maybe we could indeed try to coordinate our celebrations. We don’t really have any specific traditions, but perhaps we could agree to a specific time, and maybe wear matching outfits? That might sound stupid, because I doubt that we would do that if we lived on the same planet, but that’s just what we came up with. You do have fiber synthesizers there, right? And do you have access to a telescope? Perhaps we could be looking at the same stars at the same time, to sort of symbolically connect to one another. In real life, there is no part of the firmament that holds any significance to the both of us. At least, I don’t think there is. But there is this sort of religion called astrology. Have you heard of it? People basically think that the alignment of celestial bodies has some sort of impact on their lives and personalities. It’s bogus, of course, but I say that anyone can create a psychoemotional connection to it in any way they see fit, and ignore the rest. According to astrology, our sun sign should be Taurus, because 2,000 years ago, when you were looking at the sun on May 17, the constellation Taurus would be behind it. But as we all know, everything in the universe is constantly on the move, so some people believe that our sun sign should instead be Aries. Obviously, this is all nonsense, but I was thinking that we could use it anyway. We can’t stare at the sun, though, so instead of looking at the stars in Aries, let’s look in the polar opposite direction, which would be Libra. What do you think of that? It might sound dumb to you, but because of our separation, and because of the vast expanse between us, we’ve never seen or done anything at the same time. I just thought that we could try it. There’s no harm, right? Unless you can’t get to a telescope, I don’t know. It wasn’t automatic for me, because the pollutants hide the stars, but it just so happens to be that one of the Mauna Kea observatories will already be looking in the right direction on May 17, so all I’ll have to do is register for remote viewing. Let me know what you think, and also let me know how I can help with your fear of the outside. I do have a lot of experience with it, but only on Earth. Death would not be instantaneous for me, but I want to help in any way I can.

Namaste and all that,

Condor

Starstruck: When Antistars Align (Part II)

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They couldn’t see anything, but they could feel it. The inertial dampeners could only do so much to protect them from the shaking ship. Mirage ran over to release an emergency crash cocoon for Belahkay, since he was in the most danger from all this mayhem. It wasn’t long before it was all over, though. The Iman Vellani’s EM shield managed to protect them from the massive matter-antimatter annihilation that was supposedly going on all around them. Maybe they overestimated how bad it was going to be. It would certainly explain how it was at all possible for them to survive. They were drifting through space aimlessly, but apparently safe now, so they raised the viewport shutters to get a look at what had happened.

Belahkay tried to say something, but was muffled by his cocoon.

Mirage lifted her palm in front his his face. She tapped her index finger and thumb together. Then she tapped her middle and index fingers together. She continued down the line to show him how to escape from the bubble. He mirrored the steps, successfully deflating the bubble. “What were you trying to say?” she asked.

“How do I get out of this thing?”

Mirage smiled, and went back to the console. “Preliminary readings coming in. We’re definitely not in Toliman space anymore. The stars are all wrong.”

“Could we be in the wrong time period?” Sharice asked. She looked over at her mother to see if she was wearing her umbilical cord necklace, which she would need if she wanted to travel through time.

Brooke guessed at her inquiry. She slipped her thumb underneath the chain, and pulled out the pendant to show her that time travel was a possible explanation.

“Impossible,” Mirage said. “The stars are too wrong for even that. They’re too far away. I mean, we could still be in the wrong period, but we’re nowhere near the stellar neighborhood anymore, that’s for sure.” She stopped, and looked up for answers on the ceiling. “Topdown.” Project Topdown is a special endeavor that Earth created in order to map and understand this local region of the universe. Two arrays of eleven telescopes each were sent off into the voids on either side of the Milky Way. They each had their own mandates, but combined, they should be able to tell the entire story of the galaxy, and beyond. It was launched from the Gatewood Collective about ten years ago. The data wasn’t accessible by most people yet, especially since there wouldn’t be much information to pick from at this time, but the relevant time travelers were given VIP early access. She shook her head. “We’re farther than even they can see.” She sighed. “Let me try to find Sagittarius A-star.” She kept fiddling with the instruments.

“Hey, guys?” Belahkay was looking through a side viewport, trying to get a better angle on what he was seeing.

Sharice was the only one to take notice. “What is it?”

“Hell. If I. Know.” He stepped back to let her see.

“Holy crap that thing is big.”

“Yeah, I see it now. Or rather them.” Mirage had gotten control of attitude for the most part, but they were still drifting. The profoundly gargantuan megastructure was now visible through the forward ports as well. “I’m scanning it too. Three nested rings. We’re on a trajectory to crash into one of them in the next couple of days, assuming they don’t start moving, which I believe they are supposed to. They look like an aerotrim.”

“What are they?” Brooke asked.

“A threat.” Mirage turned away from the controls. “I found our black hole. I know where we are. We’re around seventeen thousand light years from Toliman, on the top edge of the galaxy, looking down at the spirals from the void.” She waved her hand towards the floor, and made it disappear behind a hologram. There it was, the galaxy from a short distance. “This shouldn’t be here. We’re in trouble.”

“What makes this a threat, knowing where we are?” Belahkay asked.

“We’re too far from civilization to be seeing signs of civilization,” Mirage began to explain, “especially of this magnitude. I don’t know the purpose of these rings, but they’re designed to generate a massive electromagnetic field, and there’s something very familiar about the data from my scans.”

Sharice stepped over to the console to look over the data herself. After a few minutes, she figured something out. “Antimatter. It’s a giant antimatter containment field. And by giant, I mean the size of a star.”

“Oh my God,” Mirage said. “It was a star. It was an antistar.”

“I thought those were just a myth,” Belahkay said.

“We never really knew. From the outside, they look like regular stars, or we assumed they would. Even these days, scientists haven’t figured out how to tell for sure that they’re looking at an antistar, and it’s not particularly an area of interest for me. I can tell you that, due to their very nature, they would have to be like this, distant from anything else. So not only did someone come all the way out here long before they ought to be, they found the first confirmed antistar in the universe, and engineered a way to contain it. I sure would like to determine who the hell they are.”

“What was its connection to Toliman?” Sharice questioned. “That’s obviously why it’s been destroyed, because there was some kind of link, which became unstable, and led to their mutual annihilation.”

“We did this,” Brooke noted. “We destabilized the link. I don’t know why it was there in the first place, but we set off a few of our own antimatter bombs, and these are the consequences.”

“We don’t have enough information yet,” Mirage said to her dismissively. “The connection to Toliman might somehow be natural, in which case, sorry, our bad. If it was created by the builders of this megastructure, on the other hand, it would be their bad. What did they need with a random orange dwarf thousands of light years away, so close to Earth, and what gave them the right to it?”

Belahkay shrugged. “Let’s ask.”

“Ask who?” Brooke asked.

He pointed. “Them.”

A capital ship was heading right for them from the direction of the nearest containment ring. As it approached, a swarm of smaller ships broke off, and fell into an envelope formation. Mirage zoomed in to get a better look at them. They looked like flying police cruisers, complete with the red and blue flashing lights on the roof. All four of them looked at each other incredulously.

Mirage opened a drawer in the back of the bridge, and pulled out a stylish harness vest. “Take off your top.” Once Belahkay complied, she fitted the vest over his head. “Let me know if you ever want to upgrade your substrate. Until then, this vest mimics some of our most important features, like increased strength, durability, and a little speed. It also has limited teleportation capabilities.”

Belahkay intuitively pulled on the chest straps to tighten them up, and tight they became. He screeched in pain as a surge of energy rippled through his body. It only lasted for a few seconds, though, and he felt all right again.

“Oh, yeah, it’s gonna hurt a little bit,” Mirage added.

Belahkay rolled his eyes, and struggled to put his shirt back on. “Thanks.”

Sharice helped him secure his clothes over his new superhero suit, and then started to gently massage his shoulders.

The flying police held their position around the Vellani. Once the main ship was closer, a call came in on an open channel. “Unidentified foreign vessel. Please respond.”

Mirage snapped her fingers. “This is Captain Mirage Matic of the Stateless Private Vessel Iman Vellani, go ahead.”

“Please prepare to be boarded. You may make it easier on yourselves by extending an airlock, but it is not wholly necessary.”

“Boarding us will not be necessary either,” Mirage replied to the voice. “I know where we can talk.” She started to do some finger tuts that no one else in the room understood. The last movement featured her fingers tightly pressed against their respective thumbs, and slowly drawn away from their opposites like ripping a piece of paper in half. A section of the Vellani separated itself from the rest of the ship simultaneously, and started to float away. “Teleport into it,” she said to the crew only.

“Better not test your new power in the vacuum of space,” Sharice said to Belahkay after Mirage and Brooke were gone. She took him by the hand, and transported him.

Once they were all on the separated section, Mirage did some more finger tuts. The rest of the Vellani disappeared.

“Is it invisible, or did you teleport it away?”

“Both,” Mirage answered. She snapped her fingers again. “You may dock with my Ambassador Detachment,” she explained. “If you’ll send us your boarding specifications first, I can modify my airlock to accommodate for its unfamiliar dimensions.”

The voice waited to respond. “Very well, but we are not happy about it. We are starting these discussions on a bad egg. You will not be retaining the advantage.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Mirage closed the channel. “What do eggs have to do with anything?”

“Since when were you a Matic?” Brooke asked Mirage accusatorily.

“It felt like I needed a surname, and his was the first I came up with. Mateo and I were very close once. Like, real close.” A long time ago, in an old timeline, Mirage was created with the directive to kill a man by the name of Mateo Matic. He managed to stop her, and she managed to stop herself. She transcended her programming, and they became friends. In a desperate play to save her life shortly thereafter, he literally swallowed some of her composite nanites. It obviously worked, which was how she was still alive today. Brooke and Sharice were not cognizant of this particular story, and Belahkay didn’t know who they were talking about.

“Gross,” Brooke said. She was partially raised by Mateo’s future wife, Leona, and still thought of her as a mother figure.

The visitors docked with the Vellani Ambassador, and came in hot with a police contingency. A man stood amongst them who was clearly in charge. He was one of only two people with a face. The other looked like his lackey. Everyone else was wearing an opaque helmet. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” Mirage asked.

“I am Ex-10. Are you the ones who destroyed the Red Heart of Exis?”

Mirage looked over through the nearest viewport. “Probably.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t do it on purpose. Have you ever heard of Alpha Centauri B?”

The leader guy’s lackey tapped on a tablet. “Origin plus 4.”

“That was our counterstar,” Ex-10 said cryptically.

Mirage emulated clearing her throat. “It wasn’t your anything. It belonged to the stellar neighborhood.”

“We are vonearthans, same as you. We had ever right to channel baryonic particles through the portal at will.”

“You are not vonearthans,” Mirage argued. “You couldn’t be. How did you come to be this far out?”

“Human ingenuity, and the visionary leadership of our Emperor, the Great Bronach Oaksent.” He stood there proudly, clearly under the impression that the crew of the Vellani should bow in fright at the sound of his magnificent name.

“Who?” Mirage questioned jokingly, doing her best impression of Djimon Hounsou’s Korath.

Ex-10 came this close to growling at her.

“I suppose you’ll want to kill us now,” Sharice guessed.

“Don’t give them any ideas,” Brooke warned.

“Oh, as if they needed my help getting there.”

“Silence!” Ex-10 ordered. “You cannot die yet. You must replace what you broke.”

“I’m sorry to tell you, Toliman collided with your antistar through the portal that you created. Those there stars are gone. Destroyed. Kaput. Annihilated.”

“We are aware of how matter-antimatter reactions work. My father’s father’s father’s father was responsible for building the Hearth Rings.” He looked up at the rings in reverence. “We found a suitable replacement. It was going to be our backup Heart, but thanks to you, our plans must be expedited. You will serve the Exin Empire in that capacity until the job is done. If your lifetimes are too short for the job, accommodations will be made to extend your lives.”

“How long did these take to be built?”

“Roughly four hundred years,” he answered.

“Pshaw,” Mirage laughed. “I can do it in two hundred. Hell, hundo-fitty.”

Ex-10 narrowed his eyes at her ominously. “I will hold you to that. But you might want to think about the fact that it will take us roughly 33 years just to get there.” He jerked his head to signal to his men that they could file back out of the room. “We will send you the details, including the coordinates to the new antistar that needs to be protected. Any attempt to diverge from the path will be met with excruciating pain, but not death. You will not be allowed to die until we’re done with you.”

Mirage nodded like that was nothing more than a word of caution, instead of what it really was, which was a major threat.

They waited for the boarders to leave before speaking again. “We’re going to surrender to their demands?” Brooke questioned.

“Just look at them,” Sharice reasoned. “If the way they look and act doesn’t scream bad guys, I don’t know what does. That man had a number, not a name.”

“They’re right,” Mirage explained. “We’re responsible for what happened to their antistar. Besides, I’m a follower of Leona’s Rules for Time Travel. Rule Number Fifteen, don’t antagonize the antagonist.”

“I don’t want to be stuck here for a hundred and fifty years,” Belahkay admitted.

“Don’t worry,” Sharice assured him. “She pulled that number out of her ass.”

Mirage looked over her shoulder at her own ass as if Sharice meant her comment literally. “I don’t know who these people are, or how they came to be here, but there are things I know about the future which no one can escape. When the time comes, the antistar containment rings we build will change hands swiftly anyway. Besides, I like a challenge. As for you, Belahkay, we won’t be doing anything by hand anyway. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, because the robots are the ones who will be doing the actual heavy lifting. You won’t have to do a single thing yourself.”

A nearby console beeped. Brooke stepped over to look at it. “Directions to the new antistar. It’s about 23,000 light years away, deeper into the void.”

Mirage nodded. “Yeah, that’ll take around 33 years with a reframe engine at maximum speed. These people must have access to such tech as well. I find that concerning considering that it was just invented recently. They didn’t even offer us a ride, which means they either know we have one as well, or they presume we do. Either one is bad. I don’t like them being able to scan my ship, and I don’t like the possible ubiquity of the technology.”

“So, what do we do?” Belahkay asked. “What can I do? I’ll be an old man in 33 years. I wanted to have an adventure, not sit on a ship for most of the rest of my life.”

“There’s plenty to do,” Mirage explained. “Don’t worry about aging. We can place your body in stasis, and your mind in a surrogate substrate. Or you can just be in stasis. We can all go dormant for stretches of downtime. We’ll play it by ear.”

“Hold on,” Brooke jumped in. “We’ve not even decided if we should really be doing this. The Vellani can turn invisible and teleport. There must be a way to escape without any hope of them pursuing us.”

“Again,” Mirage began, “we don’t know what kind of technology they have. How about we try to gather more information first? We have a few decades to change our minds. Let’s reconnect the detachment, and start heading that way. Sound fair?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 20, 2398

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Marie has been staking out this apartment for the last two days. This is the kind of work that she used to do for SD6. She was taken off of all such assignments when her team showed up, and that became her only priority, both on a personal level, and for the government. This still has to do with time travel, but her team isn’t involved. They’re looking for people who have experienced an inordinate amount of time for a normal living human, or just have unusual brain chemistry. The orbital scanner that Ramses built, and which Mateo installed on a Snowglobe satellite, only mapped where these targets were at the time of the last scan. This information is now over a week old, so if any of them were just on vacation, or something, they’ll probably never find them. This may all be a waste of time. She hates this now. She hates everything she used to love or like. She’s just bitter and angry, and nothing seems right anymore. She shouldn’t take it out on the team, though, and she knows it. Hopefully they understand, and won’t hold it against her. Maybe getting herself a win will raise her spirits.

She has the extra mobile scanner that Ramses left in his hotel room. He didn’t have time to write up a manual, and the data burst he was able to send from the time bubble he and Mateo are presently trapped in didn’t say much about it. Even so, it seems pretty self-explanatory. Marie was able to adapt it to a tripod, and place it next to her other surveillance equipment. She doesn’t know which unit in the apartment complex is housing the target, but they’ll have to go through the front door at some point, and when they do, this thing should beep to let her know. It starts to beep. The scanner doesn’t communicate with the digital scope, of course, so she has to cross-reference the time codes to find who she’s looking for. Three people entered the building at about the same time, but two of them appeared to be together, and the scanner only caught one unusual brain. That’s not a guarantee, but it’s a safer bet. She pulls up the photo, runs downstairs from her surveillance nest, crosses the street, and enters the building.

“English?” she asks the lobby supervisor.

“Yes,” he replies. “But my shift is over. Divina will be out soon.”

Just as he’s saying that, the woman she was looking for steps out of the back office in her uniform. The scanner beeps. The two of them exchange a few words in Filipino, and then the man leaves. “Yes, can I help you?”

Marie isn’t prepared for this either. She doesn’t know what to say, so she just goes with the tried and true code words. “Yeah, thank you. Listen, I’m in the mood for some fish. Do you know of a good restaurant that serves salmon?”

The lobby supervisor starts to consult her computer. “There is a really great seafood  restaurant down the street, but I can pull up a comprehensive list for you.”

Hmm. That didn’t work. Marie holds up her scanner, which thankfully, doesn’t look like a weapon. Yeah, her brain is definitely unusual.

“I’m sorry, do you live here? We’re really only meant to help residents.”

“I’m a time traveler from the 19th century, trapped in your reality, hoping to find others like me. We have been looking for a way back home, but we don’t want to leave without first checking to see if anyone else would like to join. I believe you’re one of us.”

“Of course, ma’am. One moment, please.” She calls the authorities.

Microstory 1779: Telescope

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I forgot my telescope on the bridge. It’s this hopelessly useless little thing that can’t see the sun on a clear day, but I still wanted the Captain to autograph it for me, and I’m so proud of myself for having been brave enough to ask. She signed it with a smile, and didn’t even blink out how difficult it was to write on a cylinder. It was an honor just to be there, but the fact that she spoke to me personally was more than I could ask for. I can die happy now. I was so relieved that it all worked out, and excited to be up where the action was, that I left the telescope on top of an auxiliary console. By the time I realized my mistake, something had gone terribly wrong in the ship. I don’t have access through the doors myself, but an engineer was running out just at the right time, so I slipped back in and hoped not to bother anyone. I just wanted to grab it, and get out of everyone’s way. Things escalated quickly. We had apparently come out of plex too close to the planet, and were unable to compensate. The ship was being torn apart by the tidal forces, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Our vessels are at their weakest when they collimate back to realspace. The strain from faster-than-light travel is not enough to vaporize us, or anything, but couple it with the sudden gravitational pull of a celestial object, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. I’ve always hoped to be a pilot one day, so I’ve been studying all of this stuff. I really shouldn’t be here right now, though. I try to leave, but the doors are blocked by the hustle and bustle. I think it’s best if I just try to stay out of the way. I grab my telescope, and stick myself in the corner, where nobody notices me. It’s not long before they all begin to evacuate. They’re heading for the escape pods, as are the rest of the passengers like me. Meanwhile, I’m frozen.

I can feel the ship cracking from the gravity, and I know that I have to get out of here too. Hopefully I can squeeze in one of the pods before they all leave. I don’t make it. This ship’s bridge was designed as an actual bridge, which overlooks the crew observation deck below. As I’m running along the railing, an explosion from the side pushes me over the edge, and I begin to fall towards the floor below. I watch it crumble, and escape into the vacuum of space before anything hits me. I’m sent into the black as well, where I expect to die quickly...except I don’t. I’m still alive, for some reason. I’m not breathing, but my blood isn’t boiling either. I’m just there, conscious and watching the debris flying chaotically around me. I don’t hang around for long before I fall towards the atmosphere of the planet. I was supposed to live here for the next year while I finished school. Now I’ll die here. It doesn’t happen yet, though, as I continue to fall. I can see the fire around me, but I don’t burn up. This doesn’t make any sense. This is not what’s meant to happen when an object falls from space. I’m not built to survive. What the hell is going on? I feel like I’m suspended in place while the ground flies upwards to greet me. As it becomes larger, I see more detail. The indistinct terrain, the road that cuts through it, the vehicles, the people walking to the beach, their eyes. As fast as I was moving, and as quickly as I stop, I don’t even die on impact. I land, awkwardly but safely, as if I simply hopped out of bed a little too hard. I still don’t understand this. Then I look up and see a flat piece of debris falling down right over my head. It’s too large for me to get out of the way. And then I crash onto the floor of the observation deck, and die as the rest of the ship is ripped apart around my body, telescope still in hand.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 30, 2237

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As soon as Mateo and Cassidy fell back into the timestream, several of Goswin’s guards tightened up their circle around them. They were still awake, because she wanted to see what it felt like to jump forward in time when she knew it was going to happen.

“We have to get you to safety,” Goswin said with authority.

“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked. She had to sit down. The fatigue from the jump seemed to be affecting her more than it normally did for Mateo, Leona, and Serif.

“Someone is coming, and we have no idea who it is,” Goswin answered.

“They’ve landed,” claimed a voice on the radio.

Mateo tried to follow Goswin through the wall of guards.

“No, you’re going with Cassidy.”

“She’s the one in danger,” Mateo said. “I’m fine. I need to see what’s happening. What evidence do you have this has anything to do with her?”

“It’s arrived on your day,” Goswin reminded him. “We don’t think that’s a coincidence. You could be in danger too. You’ve done a lot to make enemies.”

“The powers that be protect me,” Mateo said. “Let’s stop wasting time.”

They left the AOC, and headed for the dock where an apparently unscheduled interstellar vessel had arrived. “Why did you let them in if you don’t know who it is?”

“I don’t know,” Goswin said, shaking his head. “Kestral is in charge of that.”

“She couldn’t stop it.” Ishida was suddenly behind them. “We’ve been tracking their approach for days, but they won’t respond to our attempts to contact them. We think it’s unmanned. The ship is quite sophisticated too; it broke through our defenses with no problem. It hasn’t fired weapons, or anything, but it wants on this cylinder for a reason.”

The three of them, along with a group of guards, separated into pairs, and slinked through the passageways of the mysterious ship, which would open its doors invitingly every time. There was only one door that would not open, which obviously meant it was the most important. “What’s the Tun Room?” Mateo questioned.

“Stasis pods,” Ishida explained. “A tun is the form an animal called a water bear takes when it needs to hibernate outside of its safe habitat. It dries itself out, and essentially dies, until water is reintroduced, and it comes back to life. That’s not how stasis works for us, so it’s just a cutesy nickname.”

“So, there are people in there?”

“I doubt it’s locked because it’s as empty as everywhere else.”

“And this isn’t people from Proxima Doma?” he asked. “I heard some colonists asked to move out here.”

She shook her head. “They won’t be arriving for another several years. Besides, this thing clearly came from the direction of Sol.

Goswin and the guards came up to them. “The rest of the ship is clear, sir. If you’ll hand me the teleporter, I’ll check it out.”

“No, I’ll be going,” Ishida said.

“It’s too dangerous, sir. We have no clue what’s on the other side of this door.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Wait,” Mateo stopped her just before she calibrated her teleporter to just send her a meter through a door. “No one should ever be alone. Fighting a hundred demons with a friend is not the same thing as fighting fifty by yourself, even though that’s how the math works out. The teleporter can handle the mass of two people, so I’ll go with.”

“Very well,” she said, adjusting the controls to account for him.

It looked exactly like a stasis room. There were two dozen pods, but only two of them were filled. A man was crawling out of one, struggling to maintain balance. “Report.”

“You’re on Cylinder One of the Gatewood Collective. Your ship automatically bypassed our defense systems, and docked itself with us. It’s not responding to our query.”

“Yeah,” the man said, steadying himself against the wall. “The ship has no personality. It doesn’t respond to anyone but me and Saxon.”

The other man started crawling out of his own pod.

“What are you doing here?” Ishida demanded to know.

“Stargate,” the second man said. He was stumbling around more than the first one, like a drunkard at the beginning of morning.

“You’re here for Project Stargate?”

“No,” he replied. And it was then that Mateo realized he recognized him, though from a different timeline.

“Julius? Julius Parker?”

“Parker, yes,” the man said. “Not Julius, though. Saxon. This is...where are you?”

“I’m over here, on your left side,” the first man told him. “Thor Thompson,” he introduced himself.

“Your name was Julius,” Mateo said to Saxon.

He finally just gave up, and sat up against the pod wall, eyes fully closed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. I think it was on my parents’ list of baby names, but they went with Saxon.”

“Oh, I guess that sort of thing happens,” Mateo noted.

“You said Stargate,” Ishida reminded him, “and then you said no.”

“Yeah—no! Seed. Not gate; Operation Starseed.”

Ishida pursed her lips, and looked to Thor, who confirmed as much with his facial expression.

“Who sent you?”

“The powers that be,” he answered.

“Shit.”

“Of Sol,” Saxon added. “The powers that be of Sol. Like...the leadership? Sorry, I forget you people use that term for a very specific group.”

“Wait?” You’ve heard of the powers that be?” Mateo asked. “You know time travelers in this timeline.”

He nodded and burped. “Yep,” he hiccuped. “Yeah.”

“Have you ever heard of Cassidy Long?”

Saxon shook his head and yawned. “Nah, man. I don’t know him. Why?”

Mateo spoke into his radio, “stand down. Cassidy’s safe. The arrival is totally unrelated.”

“So, it is indeed a coincidence?” Goswin asked from the other side of the door.

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Matty,” Cassidy replied from her hiding spot.

“When are you coming out?” Goswin asked.

“We’ll explain soon,” Ishida said. “Please prepare a welcome package for our new guests.”

“I wonder if anyone is going to tell me what this Starseed thing is.” Mateo said, not so subtly.

Ishida started to explain what Gatewood was about, and what they were working on. “Project Stargate is designed to send millions of ships all around the galaxy. Each capsule would hold a hundred plates. Inside a plate is an extremely complex system of historical data, sensors, nanites, and other instruments. After completing a general survey of the solar system it was sent to, the plate finds the best place to land, and utilizes the materials found there to start building things. Interplanetary vessels to cover the rest of the system, equipped with more detailed survey probes; interstellar ships to reach the system’s neighbors; and more. It’s that more part that we’re concerned with here. The void telescopes will give us a better idea of what we’re going to find, but depending on the conditions of the planets this project encounters, a few things might happen.

“The planet could already be hospitable to life, in which case maybe the plate does nothing else, except build us a way to reach it, and explore. The planet could already be harboring intelligent life, and there’s this huge list of protocols about what to do. Are they friendly? How advanced are they? Are they a threat to us? More importantly, are we a threat to them? Maybe the planet is uninhabitable, and has no potential, so we just leave it be. Or it can be terraformed, and we’ll come visit later. Either way, if the planet has no intelligent life, but could support it, Operation Starseed would change that dynamic. It would grow...people, and those people would live there. Again, there’s a huge variety of options here. We could give them knowledge of where they come from, or not. We could protect them their whole lives, or leave them alone after the first generation matures. We could engineer them to be perfect, or make them just like normal biological humans. No matter what we do, though, we can’t just conjure life. It has to start somewhere, and it starts with a dedicated section of the seed plate. This section would contain genetic samples from real people on Earth, and it would use them to start life on the new worlds.”

“You’re telling me this ship is filled with genetic...samples?” an unsurprisingly uncomfortable Mateo asked.

Saxon was finally feeling well enough to open his eyes, and stand back up. “That’s right. A hundred million people volunteered to be progenitors; a hundred million people, in secret. Each one believes their sample is being taken to one specific planet that humanity has studied. Few people fully grasp the magnitude of this undertaking.”

This sounded unethical, but Mateo elected to say nothing. If these two men were here, they were either passionate about the project, or just doing a job for people who were. Regardless, trying to convince them otherwise would be a waste of breath. He did have a philosophical question, and he couldn’t help but pose it to them. “So, humans had this idea to spread to the stars. We decided to create life artificially, and that life may not have any clue we exist?”

“Indeed,” Thor agreed.

“How do you know that hasn’t already happened?”

“Well, who would have done that?” Saxon asked. “I guess it’s possible someone found a place like Gatewood, and has already deployed—”

“No, I’m not talking about us,” Mateo interrupted. “I’m talking about ancient progenitors. What if we—meaning people of Earth—were created by people who actually originated from somewhere else.”

Thor scoffed. “We would know. I mean, we know where humans come from. Our evolution dates back billions of years.”

Mateo shrugged. “Okay, so what? What if our ancestors did this...billions of years ago.”

“That’s a long time to wait,” Ishida argued. “What would be the point?”

“Well, what’s the point of us doing it?”

“There’s an answer to that question,” Thor said. “Most people who reject this very concept don’t like it.”

“Lay it on me.”

He hesitated for a moment. “Because we can.”

Mateo smiled with superiority. “Yeah, I thought so. Look, I’m all for equality. If you know me, you know that about me. But I think the world would be better off if we acknowledged the fact that getting rid of capitalism had some consequences. People say that necessity is the mother of invention, which is probably true, but if it’s the case, then I would argue money is the father. Until recently, we didn’t do anything if there wasn’t money in it. Sure, this mindset held us back, but it also protected us. Now that we have AI and automation, anything is possible, but the problem is that not everything possible should be made manifest. Getting rid of the money gave us this freedom to reach for the stars...literally. But freedom can be the enemy of safety, and the stars don’t belong to us. Perhaps they belong to no one, but this whole project; these dual projects, perfectly exemplify the audacity and arrogance of man. Why should other worlds have people on them? Evolution didn’t ask for it. These other worlds aren’t designed for anything except what they have, or are destined to have one day.”

“That sort of thing happens all the time, Mateo,” Ishida volleyed. “Our home solar system is full of visitors from other worlds. Durus, which quite nearly collided with Earth last century? It got there so fast because of time powers, but it was going to happen in thousands of years anyway, and it originated from a star many light years away, millions of years ago. You’re right, maybe an extremely advanced race of proto-humans are what seeded life on Earth aeons ago. Or a naturally occurring comet is what did it. Perhaps life only evolved on a single planet in the entire galaxy, and when it exploded one day, fragments containing traces of its inhabitants flew off into interstellar space. These possibilities change nothing. It’s not going to stop me from building the transgalactic quantum communication network, and it’s not going to stop these two from contributing in their own way.”

“That’s true. I know I can’t convince you to not do this. I haven’t even convinced myself that you shouldn’t. I just think you should understand the ramifications, or rather you should understand that you couldn’t possibly predict the ramifications. I don’t know much about science, but if there’s one thing that Leona taught me, it’s that results can be unpredictable. You may think you’ve accounted for everything, but you can’t be sure of that. Now. I thought Cassidy was safe here, but this ship just straight up docked without permission. It turned out okay, but what if it doesn’t next time? I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but there’s nothing keeping us here now. We’ll be leaving tomorrow-slash-next year.”

“Where will you go?” Ishida asked.

“I need to get back to Leona. We’re going to Varkas Reflex.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 29, 2236

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Mateo went to bed early that night, so he could be awake and alert come midnight central, and the next year. Cassidy was a bit claustrophobic, and didn’t like closing the sliding hatch of the grave chamber when she slept, which was a good thing, because then he could make sure she was there and safe. A lone private security guard was standing still against the bulkhead, shrouded in darkness. When he stepped out of the ship, he saw a right army of guards protecting the whole vessel. “Have there been any incidents since I was gone?” he asked the nearest one.

“All safe, sir,” the guard answered. “No incursions, whatsoever.”

“Do you happen to know where Weaver is? Her grave chamber was empty.”

“She likes to work late, in her lab.”

“Thank you.”

He tipped his hat.

Mateo went off to Weaver’s lab, where he found her engrossed in her work. She didn’t even seem to notice he had walked in. He peered at a model on her computer screen. “That doesn’t look like what I thought it would look like.”

“Oh, this?” she asked. “No, this isn’t it. That was done months ago. This here is a prototype of this idea I have for a teleporter shield.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, the void telescopes are going to be flying through interstellar space at ninety-nine percent the speed of light. We can send navigational probes to alert the telescope ships to any impediments in their paths, but each course correction slows progress. Plus, the probes themselves can be damaged, and replacements can’t really be manufactured to compensate, because then the telescope would have to slow down, just so that replacement can get ahead.”

“So instead, any debris that tries to crash into the telescope will run into the force field, and be teleported away?” Mateo guessed.

“Right, but I’m having trouble with the vector calculations. Every time I try to model it, about point-oh-three percent of debris ends up being teleported inside the field, which defeats the purpose.”

“I wish I could help, but I barely understand what you’re talking about.”

“So do I,” Weaver admitted. “I’m not really that educated. My power doesn’t simply allow me to invent things with temporal properties. It’s the powers themselves that engineer the inventions. I’m more like a vessel, so when I run into an issue, like this one, I don’t know right away how to fix it. That’s why come it takes me so long to make something new.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Most people can’t ever do it ever. I don’t care how long you give me, I wouldn’t be able to invent a single thing.”

She smiled at the praise. “Anyway, that’s not what you’re here for.” She removed a key from around her neck, and used it to open a drawer. She removed a small box from inside, and presented it to him.

“That’s the thing?”

She opened the box, and pulled the device out. It looked a whole lot like jewelry. “The absorption regularizer.”

“Why has it not yet been implanted? Honest question.”

Weaver placed the regularizer in his hand. “You need to calibrate it first. If it’s going to match with your pattern, it needs to know what that pattern is.”

“What does that involve?”

“I just need some blood,” Weaver said.

He lifted his sleeve, and let her draw blood from his arm. “Would this work for anyone else?” he asked as she was doing whatever it was with his blood. “Like, if Goswin wore it, could he be on my pattern too? Did you just invent a way to give humans powers or patterns?”

“That’s not what I did,” she answered. “I spent weeks studying and testing Cassidy. She’s the one with the ability to absorb powers. This thing is just designed to make sure she keeps the pattern we want her to have, in case she comes across someone else. If I wanted to give one random human some random chooser’s powers, I don’t think this would do us much good.” She connected Mateo’s blood to her computer, and initialized a program.

“What if we need Cassidy off my pattern temporarily? Can the regularizer be switched off, or switched to a different pattern?”

She rifled through some papers, and removed a sheet phone from the table. “There’s an app for that.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to carry a phone. Leona called it marginally transhumanistic; extensions of the self.”

“Well, Cassidy is the one who needs to maintain possession of it anyway. Still, I’ll code your DNA for access, should things go south. We can’t let it fall into the wrong hands, though. Anyone who controls the app controls her.”

He nodded listlessly, and turned the device over in his hands. “Why does it look like a belly button piercing again?”

“So it can hide in plain sight,” she answered.

It did look like the one Cassidy already had, which Mateo wished he didn’t know. He stuck it back in its box, and cleared his throat. “Weaver, am I doing the right thing?”

“You mean, are we? Do we have a better choice?”

“It looks like she has pretty good protection,” Mateo noted, referring to the dozen guards assigned to protect her, and the countless others who would protect her too if someone attacked.

“Time is complicated. It can be both bane and boon. You just have to know how to use it to your advantage. We don’t know how many people are going to come after her, or how many times they’re going to try. If we don’t do this, they’ll have three hundred and sixty-five days a year to try something, and they’ll just keep getting better at it. I would rather reduce their chances than have to protect her twenty-four-seven. Yeah, Mister Matic, I think we’re doing the right thing.”

“Good.” It was Cassidy herself. She was gliding into the room. “I don’t want ‘round the clock protection. It’s asking too much of others.”

“No one’s complained,” Mateo pointed out to her.

“They shouldn’t have to do it either way.” Cassidy nodded towards the box. “If it’s ready, I’m ready.”

Weaver’s computer beeped. “Perfect timing. It is indeed ready. Go ahead and lie down on that table over there. Lift up your shirt.”

Cassidy did as she was asked. She reached out and stopped Mateo as he was trying to leave.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he answered an unvocalized request.

“Please.”

“I assure you,” Weaver said as she was preparing for the simple procedure, “this is perfectly safe. I’m just going to take your original one out, and replace it with the other. You might feel a pinch, but it shouldn’t hurt like it did when you first got the piercing.”

“Please,” she repeated to Mateo.

No one really knew exactly what had happened between Mateo and Cassidy a few years ago, but everyone knew that it was something. Weaver was trying to be polite, but the patient needed to feel safe. “It couldn’t hurt to have the donor present—to make sure that the absorption takes hold.”

That surely wasn’t necessary. They didn’t know if the power or pattern Cassidy absorbed at any one time eventually wore off, but they knew it wouldn’t happen in the next five minutes. Still, he had little room to argue. It wasn’t like she had to take her clothes off.

It didn’t take long at all. Mateo held her hand all through the ten seconds it took for Weaver to remove Cassidy’s piercing, and the twenty seconds it took for her to replace it with the high tech version. Then she started fiddling with the sheet phone. Once she was finished, she spoke to Cassidy like a doctor. “This is to be used in emergencies; in an extreme emergency, that is. You are now, more or less, permanently on Mateo and Leona’s pattern. If you run across, say, somebody with the ability to see the future, and you want their power, use this.” She unscrewed the tiny fake pearl from the bottom of the piercing, and revealed it to serve doubly as the handle for a needle. “You just need a drop of their DNA. The app will recalibrate your regularizer. But you still can’t have more than one power or pattern at the same time, so you will fall back into realtime, until you switch back. You can also suppress the pattern, and turn it back on at will. Do you understand how dangerous this phone, and your piercing, are?”

“I do, yes,” Cassidy said with a nod.

Weaver was worried. “Mateo can use the app too, but you are administrator, so you can remove permissions whenever you want, or add other people. Again, though, use discretion. This thing is like your heart in a box. It can turn you into a weapon.”

“I get it,” Cassidy took the phone, and tucked it away. “Heart in a box,” she echoed. “Well, more like my pocket.” She looked between her friends. “You two act like I’m the first person in the world to be in danger.” She hopped off the table. “Your lives are filled with danger; why are you so obsessed with me?”

“We both knew your father,” Mateo said. “He was a good man, and he died for it. We know he didn’t want you to suffer the same fate.”

“You don’t know that he’s dead. Weaver’s told me that story a million times over the past year. You didn’t see him die.”

Mateo frowned. “We kinda did.”

“You don’t know what you saw. One day, a bunch of smart scientists are going to turn the Dardius Nexus replica back on, and we’ll find out. Until then, I have to pretend like I’m salmon. I would appreciate it if you didn’t place such a stigma on that.”

“We can do that,” Weaver said.

Kestral McBride walked into the room, staring at her tablet. “Weavey, I was hoping you could double check my math on the—oops, sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. Mateo, it’s that time of the year; I lost track of the calendar.”

“It’s nice to see you, Captain. We’ll get out of your hair.”

“Did you do the procedure?” she asked.

Cassidy lifted her shirt to show her.

“Looks good. Keep it clean. Don’t want an infection.”

Mateo and Cassidy left the room.

“All right,” she said with a deep breath. “I guess this is it. It was nice knowing ya.”

“What does that mean?” he questioned.

“Now that I’m on your pattern permanently, we don’t have to be anywhere near each other. It’ll never wear off.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s obviously what you want.”

“I never said that.”

“I can see the guilt in your eyes, Mateo. It doesn’t exactly make me feel great about myself. I’ve danced for dozens, if not hundreds, of people. I never have to meet their spouses. Well, there have been a few couples, but something tells me Leona wouldn’t—”

“I’m sorry I put you in this position,” Mateo said. “It wasn’t fair, and it’s not fair how I’ve been treating you. We can get through this, and remain friends.”

“We can be social media friends, you mean.”

“You have a home on the AOC.”

“I also have four gigantic cylinders, and my pick of the empty units. Hell, Goswin tells me they never filled the one I was using when I first got here, so I could just go back.”

“You’re still in danger, and I don’t mean to stigmatize you, or whatever. It’s just...I would rather keep you close. This doesn’t give you superpowers; it just lowers your chances of being attacked by making you harder to find.”

“They’ve set up great security here; I’ll be fine.” She tried to walk away.

“Please,” Mateo said. “It’ll be worse for my marriage if you leave. Like you’ve said, it was one dance. That’s not illegal, but if it ruins our friendship, Leona will think it meant something more.”

“Did it?”

“Did it what?” He knew what she was asking.

“Did it mean something to you?”

He stammered, “wull, I—just because...”

“That’s what I thought. It’ll be worse if I stay. It’s not like it matters anyway. You have to get to Varkas Reflex, and I have no business there.”

“Ishida said it’ll take twelve years to get to Varkas Reflex, and we’re still not a hundred percent certain Leona even went there.”

“Then you better get going.” She turned and walked away.

He stared at the space where Cassidy once was. Things were extremely complicated. He was in love with Leona, but he also loved Serif, who wasn’t exactly real, and now in another universe. Now this new woman shows up, and he doesn’t know what to feel. Were all his caveman friends right? Were humans just not built to be monogamous? Or was he just a bad person?

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