The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 13, 2526

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There were some major issues with the sensor array, which delayed its activation. Aeterna promised that she had nothing to do with it, but they weren’t the dome police, so she wouldn’t have owed them an explanation either way. It was a year later now, and they were back on track. It would be turned on in a few days, when the team was out of the timestream again. It was inevitable, though, that the descendants of the Oblivios would start noticing the giant tower in the middle of their habitat. Well, they wouldn’t notice it, per se, but their instruments would claim that it was there, and if the Valerians didn’t want to damage people’s psyches, they would reveal themselves. They still didn’t know exactly how they were going to explain it, but now hoped maybe someone on the team had a good idea.

“I don’t know that we have to worry about it,” Leona claimed. They had spent the rest of yesterday in the penthouse, but now they were getting a look at the lower floors. She recognized them, and it clicked. “This is Arvazna.”

Mateo winced. “That micronation that you owned in The Third Rail?”

“That I will own,” Leona corrected. “It hasn’t happened yet, from this building’s perspective.”

“It was 130 years ago,” Marie reminded her. “I know, we’re time travelers, but if this thing ends up on an alternate Earth, thereby avoiding being detected here on Doma, it’s going to have to leave soon, and it’s going to have to go back in time, and then it’s going to have to be shunted to a parallel reality that doesn’t exist in present day.”

“The whole thing doesn’t have to end up there,” Mateo said. “This thing is, what, forty times larger than that one?”

“That’s true,” Leona agreed, examining the walls. “Tertius, how is this thing attached to the dome? Is it buried in the ground, or hanging from the apex?”

“Both, basically,” he answered. “They’re connected. It’s like a giant pillar connecting the ground to the top. Or a column? I don’t know, I’m not an engineer. I just asked Étude to build it, and she used her magicks.”

“I assume you have specifications for it, though,” Ramses said. “We would like to look at those. If we’re gonna bootstrap this tower to the Third Rail—or part of it—we will need to know how it works first.”

“Are you being serious? Are you just gonna make the tower disappear for us?” Tertius pressed.

“I think we’re fated to,” Leona said. The three of them went back upstairs, along with Aeterna and Marie, who was mostly just curious.

“I don’t know what understanding the engineering of the tower is going to do for them,” Mateo lamented. “You can’t just move a tower like this. None of us has that kind of power.”

“It doesn’t have to be one of us,” Olimpia claimed. “We already know someone who can do it. Well, we don’t know they can do it at scale, but we just met them. You partied with one of them.”

Mateo considered all the people he had met recently before landing on a guess. “The Overseers?”

“Yeah,” Olimpia confirmed. “They can just make one of their black hole portals, and send it through.”

“How’s the building going to move?” Mateo questioned.

“Gravity,” Romana suggested. “They can make the portal on the surface of the ground, and it will just fall through.”

“Is that even possible?” Mateo asked. “I’m guessing the foundation runs several kilometers deep. Could they get under it somehow?”

“You’ll have to ask them.”

“You want me to Boyd my way to them,” Mateo presumed.

“We don’t have time to get there and back using the slingdrives,” Angela reminded him. “It takes too long to recharge.”

“Plus, only you can find them through the dark particles,” Romana added.

A few hours later, Leona chuckled upon seeing Magnolia and Garland. “We were just gonna suggest that.”

“Great minds,” Romana mused.

“Can you do it?” Ramses asked the dark portal makers. “Can you make a portal wide enough to fit the tower?”

“The width alone is not really the problem,” Garland began. “Holding it long enough will be.”

“It’s not really the time either, son,” Magnolia said to him before facing Leona, “it’s the mass. I can hold a portal open for several minutes if nothing goes through in that time. But a tower? How long would you need? How long would it take to fall?”

“If we time it right,” Leona replied, “from the moment we release the clamps, to the second the roof makes it past the threshold, I would feel most comfortable with a minute and a half. With Proxima Doma’s gravity, it’s going to fall fairly fast, and get there in under that time.”

Magnolia’s eyes widened. “Whew, that’s a lot.”

“Together we can, though,” Garland said confidently.

She smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m sure we could do it. It would be a hell of a lot easier to send it somewhere with lower gravity, though, like outer space. I don’t know how to get it to another reality in the past anyway, so this would be just a stop-gap measure.”

“We just gotta get it out of the dome,” Rames said.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, everyone,” Tertius finally jumped. “I regret asking them to build it in the first place. It was never necessary, and this isn’t the first headache I’ve gotten from it.”

Everybody filed into the elevator, and went down to the surface. The Overseers and the smart people began to survey the tower, and the surrounding area, rapidly developing their plan to make a gigantic building disappear. It was not a good plan, it was just the only one they had. Any number of things could go wrong. The Valerians could make the inhabitants forget they saw something unexplainable, but if the calculations were off by a single decimal point, memory would be the least of their problems. The apocalyptic explosion from the falling tower would send shockwaves across the surface...literally. It would decimate the dome, at best, and certainly kill everyone in it. As they were standing there, trying to consider every contingency, a tremor came through to remind them what started all this. It was a small one, but a herald of times far worse. They could see the nearest city shake in the distance. Nothing serious broke apart, but they could see some from here, and tons of dust, and it might have been more destructive in other regions.

“We better do this now,” Magnolia decided. “If the ground begins to shake during the attempt, we could lose our balance.”

“That tremor means the big one is coming,” Leona tried to explain, “not that we won’t have another for a while.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Aeterna contended.

“It could be minutes,” Leona warned, “and it’s not your call.”

“No, it’s ours,” Garland argued. “I say we do it, and we do it now. Ninety seconds is all we have available to us anyway.”

Just in case they needed a couple of extra hands, Angela teleported up to the control room in the penthouse with Tertius and Ramses, so they could release the clamps connecting the tower to the dome. They were coordinating on comms, relayed to Magnolia by Leona on one side of the cylinder, and Marie on the other with Garland. They were still in the middle of the process when another tremor began. “Guys, we need to abort,” Leona urged. No, she begged.

It was pretty much too late, though. Declamping the tower links wasn’t a single step. For clamps that large, it happened in stages, and they had already opened the first two stages, which placed them at more risk if they didn’t just move forward, full steam ahead.

“On my mark,” the team could hear Ramses say through comms. As he counted down, Leona and Marie’s voices synced with his, “eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, mark!” They slammed their fists down in the air, and pointed to the Overseers.

Magnolia and Garland opened a joint dark portal, slicing through the bottom floor like a hot knife through butter. The tower started to fall through. It was a magnificent sight to behold. The people in the control room appeared back down on the ground next to Mateo, Olimpia, and Romana.

“We can’t hold it anymore!” Leona cried, just about immediately, repeating what Magnolia was saying.

Marie reported a similar sentiment from Garland. “It’s worse than we thought! Best we can do is collapse the portal uncleanly, and generate an annihilating vortex!”

“I’ve never done that before!” Magnolia argued.

“Do it now!” Garland urged. There was absolutely no time to argue. After only about ten or eleven seconds, the portal fell apart, but it didn’t just evaporate into nothing. It exploded from the ground, and ate up part of the tower like a Lucius bomb. Unlike an L-bomb, though, it didn’t travel very far. Almost all of the tower was now falling towards them, preparing to crash on the surface. Leona teleported Magnolia out of the dome while Marie took Garland. Ramses hugged both Valerians, and spirited them away to safety.

Mateo was about to teleport too when he saw his wife, Olimpia take her Sangster Canopy out of her bag. She didn’t even give him the chance to protest before she jumped only a couple hundred meters away, directly underneath the falling tower. She opened it, and aimed it at the annihilator. She sent pockets of new space out of the tip. It wasn’t holding up the tower, but perpetually making the ground farther and farther away from it. She couldn’t hold on forever, though, and in fact, not for any meaningful amount of time. The Oblivios could not evacuate before she lost control. The first to escape would probably still be in the tunnel when it happened, and still be caught in the destruction. This was a desperate attempt doomed to fail.

But maybe Mateo could help instead. Both he and Romana jumped over to her, and took hold of the umbrella. “No!” he argued. “Just me! You two get out of here!”

“I know what you’re planning, dad! I can help!”

“You don’t have dark particles anymore!”

“Oh, yes, I do! Get out of here, mom!”

“Mom?” Olimpia echoed. “You’ve never called me mom before.”

“Go!” Olimpia reiterated.

“I love you!” Olimpia disappeared.

“Is this gonna work?” Mateo asked his daughter.

“Hell, yeah, it will!”

They both screamed their heads off. A massive swarm of dark particles erupted from them, through the umbrella. They were still adding space between them and the tower, but they were experiencing diminishing returns. It and the swarm met in the middle, but it was taking time for the dark particles to cover the entire thing. Meanwhile, it continued to fall, closer and closer to the surface. It might have appeared to be going rather slow from the outside, but it was actually accelerating, and would strike the planet with an even greater force than it would have had they done nothing but save themselves. The particles were nearly at full coverage and the tower was nearly upon them when the rest of the team appeared next to them. One by one, they took hold of the handle or the shaft, wherever they could find purchase.

“There’s nothing you can do to help!” Mateo shouted at them.

“We can die together!” Leona reasoned.

“That’s freaking stupid!” Romana volleyed.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” Olimpia scolded.

They continued to scream into the wind, as a team, and as they struggled to hold on, they started to float in the air a little. With one final push of their might, the dark particles turned all sorts of colors, and disappeared, as did the tower, and the whole team with them.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 12, 2525

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No one chased the team as they fled the city, probably because they hadn’t done anything wrong, so the locals had no reason to try to apprehend them. Most of the team didn’t even know why they were running. They just trusted that Leona had good reason to order them to. She had to remind them to slow down, though, because their bodies moved too fast. They were supposed to be normal humans who were born a few decades ago, and would die several more decades from now. Finally, when they were out of the city limits, and safe within the coverage of the trees, they were able to stop. “Rambo, you understand what’s going on?” Leona asked him.

“I have an idea. Fascinating development. I need to get my hands on the slingdrives, so I can figure out why we’re off the mark. Proxima Centauri is close to Sol, but it’s not Sol. We also jumped to our next year too early”

“No, I mean, with the people in this dome. Do you understand why we ran?”

“Oh, of course I do. The Oblivios.”

“Then please go check the perimeter. Do it quietly. There could be campers or homesteaders, or just hikers. I’ll explain what happened to everyone else. I’m not sure if they’ve ever heard of Oblivios.”

“On it, boss.” Ramses left.

Leona caught her breath so she could think more clearly. “Okay. Oblivios. They came to this planet with the intention of living a more simple life, with very primitive technology. It’s like Castlebourne’s Dome for Pioneers, but for real.”

“They don’t look like pioneers,” Angela pointed out.

“That was 300 years ago. The reason they’re called Oblivios is because they had their minds wiped. The first generations didn’t remember advanced technology. They didn’t even know that they were in a dome, so they didn’t pass stories onto their children. Most of the criticisms of the project were about how they would eventually end up like this. You can’t stop progress. Since whatever dogma they had against tech was lost to them, they couldn’t instill such values into their descendants, so those descendants kept trying to make their lives better.” She pointed back in the direction of the city. “This is where that leads.”

“You’re gonna wanna see this, sir,” Ramses said through comms.

“If you see people, don’t talk to yourself.”

“I’m sure they’ve developed short-range wireless by now. There’s something I don’t think they’ve made yet, though, and I’m looking right at it.”

“Be right there,” Leona responded.

The group walked over to Ramses’ location, and before they caught up, saw what he was referring to. A gargantuan tower rose up into the sky, and disappeared above the clouds. The city they came from was advanced, but not like this. It took the kind of megaengineering that the hosts needed to build the domes themselves. It was hard to tell, but it might have risen all the way up to the ceiling. It might have been structurally necessary, since this dome was so much older than the ones on Castlebourne, but probably not.

Leona tilted her head. “That looks familiar to me. Why does it look familiar?”

“We’ve seen towers before,” Mateo pointed out.

“Yeah...” Leona wasn’t so sure. It was of plain design, but not generic.

“There’s no one around,” Ramses informs them. “Let’s just jump over to the base, and see what’s up with it.”

Leona was hesitant, but she looked around too, and checked her lifesigns detector. They were calibrated for human life, and sufficiently related cousin species, so they should be pretty accurate in a world that didn’t have transhumanism yet, but there was no way to be sure. They weren’t even worried about naked eyes anyway, but surveillance. “Okay, fine. Let’s just slip back into the trees first.”

They hid away, and then teleported to the tower. As soon as they appeared, a door opened up, likely via motion sensor. They all stepped into the elevator, and let it take them all the way up to the top, which yes, was right there at the dome’s zenith. A woman greeted them when the doors opened. “Greetings, travelers. I saw you teleport in. My name is Aeterna Valeria. I run this joint.”

“The tower, or the dome?” Mateo asks.

“Both, I guess.”

“You’re related to Tertius Valerius,” Marie guessed.

“Yeah, he, uhh...he was my father.”

“We just saw him not too long ago,” Romana explained. “He’s still alive.”

“I don’t really see it that way. It’s been something like two hundred years for me.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation, which Leona needed to break. “So...report?”

“Yeah, we’ll get to that. Are you hungry? I have a synthy. It takes a few hours, but I’ve already synthesized some mashed potatoes and green beans for myself, if you’re interested in joining me. I like leftovers, so I always make extra.”

None of them was hungry, but they agreed to eat to be polite. It was good, and interesting to go back to regular food, instead of just programmable dayfruit or dayfruit smoothie. Leona needed to break the silence again while they were eating. “The people down there. What do they think of this tower?”

“They can’t see it,” Aeterna began to explain. “I have my father’s powers. I make them forget. I make them forget the tower at the same time they’re looking at it. It’s not technically invisible, but effectively so. I exempted you from it when you showed up.”

“Did you notice that they have moved past their original mandate?” Marie pressed.

Aeterna rolled her eyes. “Of course they did. We knew it was gonna happen. Our key contact died, but before she did, she and my father would fight all the time about keeping the dream alive. He said he promised he would erase people’s memories, but that he wouldn’t govern their thoughts. If someone came up with the lightbulb, they could have a freakin’ lightbulb. So that’s what they did, and they kept doing it, and now they’re here.”

“They said something about tunnels,” Mateo brought up.

“Yeah, they interact with the other domes,” Aeterna confirmed.

“How does that work?” Romana questioned.

“The others are pretty good about it. They don’t understand the technology, and they certainly don’t know that there’s a pretty girl up in this tower with magical memory powers, but they play their parts. Most of the nearby domes were also once intentionally primitive, though with no one like me. The Oblivios don’t really get how the dome works, but they know that they can’t go outside. They used drones to find the wall a long time ago, in defiance of the sonic deterrents, and for some reason, they didn’t freak out about it. It looked like a barren wasteland, and it made them sick, but they saw through the ruse anyway, and now they’re about to figure out the whole thing. The weird part about it is that they simply accepted that this was how their little pocket of the universe functioned. I was expecting riots, but everyone’s okay. It’s crazy really; a fascinating social experiment, I’m sure.”

“If they know they’re in a dome, why are you still here?”

“They know they’re in a dome because the data told them so. The drones kept crashing into the holographic walls, and I can wipe their memories of it all I want, but they’re gonna look back at that data, and it’s going to challenge their beliefs. So yeah, I gave up. But they still can’t see the tower. I’m still making them forget that they’re looking at a superscraper in the middle of it all. It’s limited in area, so it’s easier. They’re not looking for it, whereas they were looking for a way through the wasteland.”

“You ever thought about just stopping?” Romana offered.

Aeterna consulted her watch. “Yeah, won’t be long now.”

“What do you mean?” Mateo asked.

“The planet is going through a period of instability,” Aeterna went on. “Back on Earth, technologies like LiDAR were inevitable. Earth is too big, and you gotta navigate it. It’s easier to let computers do it for you. Here, in this cramped space, they didn’t need it. Human-driven cars are fine. You never have to go very far.”

“The tremors finally gave them a reason,” Leona realized.

“Bingo. Necessity being the mother of invention, it was suddenly absolutely necessary that they build sensor arrays to measure the world around them. Weather, for the most part, can be controlled in here, but we can’t stop the ground from shaking. They feel it just like everyone in all the other domes does.”

Ramses nodded. “And as soon as they turn on one of these sensor arrays, it’s going to pick up on the tower that humans keep forgetting, even when a camera records video of it, and plays it back later.”

Aeterna nodded back. “I won’t be able to combat that. And honestly, I shouldn’t try. The tower was a dumb idea that my father had, and I stuck around because once it was built, it couldn’t be dismantled, or it would ruin everything. They thought that someone with our power would have to stay here forever to keep it working, but the scope of this place is not limitless. They were always going to find the wall, and the data from their geological surveys would always contradict their perceptions. The ancestors thought, if they just went back to the way things were, they would stay that way. But that’s not what happened before, or they wouldn’t have needed to leave Earth to reclaim that way of life in the first place. So shortsighted.”

“Why did Tertius leave? He didn’t even tell us that he had a daughter,” Mateo said, worried about how she would react.

“Well, he gave up on the Oblivios a long time ago. I don’t know why I’ve been holding on. I suppose in rebellion to him. I told him, if he left, he couldn’t come back. He has respected that, which I appreciate.”

“It might not have been as long for him as it’s been for you,” Leona reminded her. “I didn’t get the sense that it had been a full 300 years since he last saw me.”

Aeterna shrugged. “Whatever.”

“What if...” Romana began. “What if you did see him again? Would you be mad?”

Aeterna considered the question. “A year ago, I might have been, but as I said, this is all ending anyway, so it would be fine. I’m not gonna break down crying, and hug my daddy, but we wouldn’t fight. Well. I wouldn’t pick a fight. Let’s just say that.”

Romana accepted this answer, and decided that this somehow translated to her taking a matchstick out of her breast pocket, and setting it down on the table ceremoniously.

“What’s that?” Mateo asked.

“It’s a muster match. Light it, and Tertius Valerius will appear.”

“He gave this to you?” Mateo pushed harder. “Why would he do that? Did he know that we would end up here? Did you?”

“Of course she did,” Ramses deduced. “She brought us here.”

Romana’s demeanor didn’t change. She remained cool. “I spend more time in the timeline. I get to know people. He asked me to come here. He said that anytime would be all right, but he clearly really wanted it to happen by 2525, so I’m glad we got a move on with it.”

“I don’t like that you did that,” Ramses admitted. “I don’t like that you messed with my slingdrive.”

“I don’t like that you lied to me,” Mateo added.

“This is between a father and his daughter, but a different father and daughter,” Romana defended. She redirected her attention to Aeterna. “He asked me not to light it. He said that you have to do it, so it’s up to you if it gets lit at all. He did want to be here with you when the tower becomes detectable, but he understands if you’re not ready, and will accept it if you never are.”

Aeterna stared at the match for a moment before picking it up. She held it between her thumb and forefinger for another moment, until slipping the other end between the thumb and forefinger of her other hand. She was about to break it, or was at least contemplating it. No one knew what was going through her head, but it looked like an internal debate as her nostrils flared, and her lips moved, suggestive of the words that she was thinking of. At last, she let go of the match with one hand, and scraped the head against the wooden table. A flame burst out of it. It looked like any normal lit match.

For a second, nothing happened, then a smoke portal appeared a couple of meters away. When the smoke cleared, Tertius was standing there. He smiled kindly at his daughter, barely registering that there were other people in the room. They just regarded each other, her not being able to move, and him not wanting to make the first move. Suddenly, Aeterna burst into tears, and ran over to hug her dad.

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Microstory 2489: Coasterdome

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It’s the largest amusement park in the known universe. Varkas Reflex has some pretty crazy stuff, but there’s not as much diversity with their rides. When I say that this one is the largest, that doesn’t mean it takes up the whole dome. In fact, I believe they intentionally left room for expansion, basing their future plans on feedback from the fans. So I’ll use this space to discuss my ideas. First off, the rides they have are great. I have no notes on them. There are so many of them, and they’re all different, and there are hardly any lines, and people just kind of naturally spread out. One thing is when you show up, you’re transported to a different entrance using an underground local vactrain network. So I think they were always aware of the concern for bottlenecking, and deliberately assign you an area to start with. It’s not like you’re not allowed to travel as far as you want, but this helps with overcrowding. I will say that as far as the layout itself goes, there doesn’t really seem to be any sense of organization, which I think is probably a consequence of this multi-entrance thing. There’s no dedicated area for the slower rides, or one which aren’t really rides at all, but still belong in an amusement park. There’s no gaming zone, or eating establishment neighborhood. They’re all spread out, and the map is hard to get a handle on. It’s interactive, so you can tell it what you’re looking for, and it will give you options, and show you the directions, so it’s not like all hope is lost. I dunno, I guess this is how they’ve designed it, and there’s no changing it now. As far as new rides are concerned, you could take the megaengineering aspect of Castlebourne more seriously. I propose a drop tower right in the center that goes all the way up to the apex of the dome. That’s 41.5 kilometers, in case you forgot. It would be the most impressive ride I’ve ever heard of. You could also go to the other axis, and design a coaster that flies around the whole perimeter without any lulls. It would be like the trains in Eldome, but much faster. Of course, organies might face health and safety issues with a ride that long, or a drop tower that tall, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. You just tell people who can’t handle it that they can’t go. I already came up with some great names for these new rides, but I don’t want to share them here, because I don’t want someone to steal them. Perhaps you’re already thinking about these things, I just thought I would offer a few ideas. You can even contact me if you want more. I got loads of ‘em. I’m kind of famous in certain circles for designing the craziest of rides in VR. I have a bit of a following, no big deal. But I’m just telling you that I do have experience, and I’m not just some rando. HMU, if you want.

Microstory 2449: Windbourne

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Holy crap, it’s windy here! It’s almost like that’s the point! I’m yelling, because it’s hard to hear with all this wind! Did I mention that it was very windy? Why did they make a dome that’s just super windy? Well, I don’t know, why the hell not? What would you do instead? I’m asking a lot of questions, and I’m not a prolific reviewer on the network, so no one’s going to answer them. The staff certainly didn’t. It’s windy here, because that’s the way they wanted it, and they were technologically capable of it. Before you read on (if you do manage to find this review) you should know that I’m one of the uneducated. By early 21st century standards, I would have been an average student. By today’s standards, with perfections in educational tools, and individualized lesson planning, I’m well-below average. I did this on purpose. I don’t find value in learning beyond a certain point. I’m happy, and I’m content with who I am. So if you’re looking for a scientifically dense explanation for how the wind generation works here, tap on, buddy...tap on. Windbourne. It’s windy. The topography has been moulded to create the perfect conditions for wind, where they want it, when they want it. Air is heated and cooled in very precise configurations to create the wind patterns as planned. Temperature usually flows spontaneously from hot to cold, I remember that. I’m not sure how they’re heated, but I think the process is solar-powered, perhaps by use of mirrors, rather than just solar panels to convert into electricity. They also use gargantuan fans to control the airflow, but I didn’t see them, so the must have cleverly hidden them behind geographic features, or maybe holographic illusions. Some regions are windier than others, of course, and they tell you where these are. The map color-codes the zones by the speed of the wind, so if you just want a light breeze, you can stay there. If you want near tornado-like conditions, baby, you’re gonna wanna go to Gale City. Winds in this area reach up to 400 kilometers per hour. That sounded like a lot to me, but I didn’t have much of a frame of reference until I tried it myself. What you do is enter a tunnel where you can walk through, or stand on people movers. Once you’re on the other side of the Arnett Mountains, you climb up to these towers. There are robot staff here, so they’ll tell you where to go, and how to get there. You get to your platform, which is fully protected by walls, and situate yourself in the waiting station. You have a few options here. You can strap yourself in, hold onto the straps, hold onto a bar, or freehand it. Once you’re ready, they’ll open the flap behind you. At this point, you can hear the wind roaring at your sides, and above you, but you’re still protected. This only lasts for a few moments before the wall opposite you opens up. The wind rushes in, as I said, at 400 km/h. What happens to you next is entirely dependent upon your choices, both leading up to it, and once you hit the point of no return. Did you grab on to something? Can you keep holding onto it? Are you gonna fly over the edge? If you do, will you activate a parachute, or a wingsuit? If not, will you manage to land in one of the scattered foam pits, or plummet to your death? Please note that, due to the obvious dangers, there are certain criteria that you must meet before they let you go to Gale City, such as, do you have a heart condition, and do you have mind-transference on, or are you a suicidal moron? I’ve already gone on the ride several times, and I’m gonna end this here, so I can go back to see if I can beat my own record for the farthest fall without wings. Wild ride, friends, wild ride. Catch the wind, and fly out of control!

Microstory 2402: Castledome

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I had the rare opportunity to visit Castledome. For those of you not in the know, this was the first dome ever built on the surface of this planet. They’re not even sure if the original colonist was intending to build more domes at the time, or if he just needed a breathable place to live. This is where the leadership and other sentient staff members of the whole planet live and work. Obviously, there’s a castle, but that’s not all. They’ve built up a whole village in the surrounding areas, giving it the real feel of a medieval settlement. Everything on the outside looks really archaic and simplistic. I’m not sure if the old-timey machines are functional, like the water mill, or the wagons that I see strewn about, but I’m sure they are. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time outside, or inside, for that matter. I was only granted a one night stay in one of the towers as a sort of treat. To be fair, this planet is still in its early stages. They’re still testing a lot of these hotspots, so I’m sure more people will have the chance to do what I did. It was interesting to be in all that stone architecture. I’m fairly young, so I just don’t have any experience with that sort of thing. But don’t fret, it wasn’t all rustic. They still have computers and a network connection. The bed might have looked old, but the mattress was still really comfortable, and came with all the adjustable settings and smart sensors. I was hoping to get a chance to meet the planet’s owner, but he was just too busy. I can imagine that running this place is not easy, even though he has a full staff of dedicated personnel. This may change in the future, but there aren’t any activities or adventures in this particular dome. It’s just for living and exploring, and again, it’s not available to everyone since that’s where all the people work. Check it out if you can, but don’t get your hopes up.

Microstory 2395: Earth, January 4, 2180

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Dear Velia,

I know that the blackout is coming, and I really hope this letter gets to you in time. I don’t have very much time to write it, so pleaser excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes, nad anything that I probably should have said, but failed to. I’m working with a really old spellcheck program, so it misses a lot of thing, and doesn’t even autocorrect a lot of the time. I feel like I’m using a lot of the same words over and over again, but whatever. I can’t slow down. I won’t have time to proofread before it’s time to cleave. There I go again, using the word time. It’s been so many times. Speaking oftime, we did not get enough. There’s still so much that I don’t know about you, and vice versa. What do you find most and least attractive in a person, not necessarily romantic, but just with people in general. Like, what are your pet peeves? What annoys you about people. These are rhetorical questions. Even if you have time to respond to me before the Valkyries, I won’t be Abel to receive any messages at all. I’m going away on a little trip, and there will almost no technology there. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I am as scared as I am excited and enthusiastic. It’s going to be a real adventure. When I get back, and you get back online, we’re going to have a lot more to talk about. And who knows, we may be able to do it in realtime next time. They’re working on faster-than-light communication technology, but if that doesn’t work out, there may be other options that we haven’t even ever thought of before. You said it before I could get the chance, but let me say...officially and without any reservations, that I love you. I want to do all the things you said you wanted us to do, and more. I could get pretty graphic, but I really don’t have time to get everything out. They’re starting up the engines, and we’re about to leave. I need to make sure I’m in range of the towers before we take off, or it will be this whole thing. I promise that this isn’t over between us. I’ll wait for you. But as I’ve said before, if you can’t...if you find someone else. Don’t let them walk away. I just want you to be happy.

I’ll be seeing ya, sweetheart,

Condor

Microstory 2391: Earth, December 20, 2179

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Dear Velia,

You only sent a list of eight movies, and I wanted to get through every single one, which is why my reply is a little late, but attached, you’ll find my thoughts on each of them. If it’s going to be a shared experience, then let’s share it. I don’t have all the time in the world, so to speak, but I’m not constantly bogged down by my responsibilities. In fact, I quit my job just today. I’m still working there, since it’s customary to give two weeks notice before you stop going into work. I just had to stop tying my identity to my father’s. I love the guy, but I’ve lived my whole life in his shadow. I moved when he moved, I say the kinds of things that he would say. He didn’t do that on purpose, and when I told him my plans to leave, he was one hundred percent supportive. He still sees me as his little baby boy sometimes, but he recognizes that I am well into adulthood, and I can make my own decisions now. They may be bad decisions—you may even call them mistakes—but it’s time that I fly the nest, and find my own way. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with myself now, but I think I’m gonna go back on land. I’ve saved up enough resource vouchers to keep myself going at least for a few months without having any official work. The dome where we brought in all those immigrants isn’t the only settlement there is on the Australian continent. Some aren’t doing so great right now, and they’re always looking for good hard-working people to help them repair their infrastructure. The platform is about to leave and head back towards the Atlantic Ocean, so now is my chance to get off. Don’t worry, though. Unlike on the ocean, there are towers that people use to stay connected. I won’t be out of communications range, and will pretty much always be able to link up to the server to check my messages, and send replies. I might have a harder time accessing entertainment, like those movies we both watched, but we’ll worry about that later. I’m more anxious about the Valkyries. My scientist friends really think that it’s going to happen any day now. The next time we speak, I may be in a very different living situation than I am now. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while now, especially since hearing from Corinthia for the first time gave me some much-needed perspective. I didn’t quite decide until yesterday, though, which is why you’re hearing about it before she does. You can tell her if you want, or I will. I appreciate the little video clip of your introduction. You’ve sent me some nice photos before, so in return here’s one of me to remember me by.

Still under your spell,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 24, 2415

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The great thing about life on Dardius was that Mateo and Karla had no responsibilities beyond caring for their child. They didn’t have to get up and go to work in the morning. They didn’t have to mow the lawn, or go out for groceries. Everything they did revolved around little Romana. They slept when she slept, and they played when she was up for it. A lot of experts will recommend not sharing a room with one’s infant, and especially not a bed, but the two of them didn’t agree. They were in little danger of accidentally harming their girl. She slept in a bassinet that was situated between the two of them in the center of a gigantic bed. Even if something happened overnight, alarms would go off, because all three of them were being monitored by medical equipment. If she woke up to cough once, the computer would log it, and if the cough kept going, and the parents didn’t wake up on their own, that alarm would go off. Karla was born to a long line of roomsharers, and this didn’t change when the Neimans made the move from Durus to Dardius. And Mateo? He wanted to give his new blended family everything they wanted or needed, so he was flexible.

Most of the rest of the team didn’t have any responsibilities either, but they were keeping themselves busy. Ramses and Leona spent a lot of time in the lab, inventing new things, and even retrofitting the shuttle. Angela and Marie wanted to learn more about the planet, its culture, and particularly the global government. They were currently in the tower next door, shadowing the owners, and sitting in on meetings. Even Constance had something to do. She decided to become Romana’s fulltime doctor. Dardius had prepared a medical team for them, but it wasn’t necessary. She possessed the knowledge and skills of four and a half billion years. She could do just about anything. After all, her prime directive was nurture and care. As for Olimpia, there was nothing. She wasn’t smart enough to work in the lab on the Dante, and she wasn’t interested in any of the boring sociopolitical stuff. She felt like a fifth wheel with the baby, so she just sat in her room, and started watching Dardieti TV. She found it a little odd. They were speaking English, and they were talking about things she had decent experience with, but it was like they were on a slightly different wavelength. Plus, she was growing bored with it too. What she needed was a native to tell her what historical programs to watch, and which ones to skip. But who has time for that?

This was a big world, and while everyone else was limiting themselves to one tiny sliver of it, she decided to go explore. They had all been able to teleport for a long time now, but hadn’t really used this power for personal reasons. There was always some specific place they needed to be, and some urgent matter to attend to there. She was just going to be a tourist. In a single day, she hiked the Mountains of Opalia, canoed on Azuria Lake, and walked the streets of Quasar City. Now, for no reason at all, she decided to return to Tribulation Island, and take a dip in the completely unpolluted ocean. But when she arrived, she was overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle.

A man in military uniform was barking orders at his soldiers, who were running around, then taking formation around the Nexus. Two helicopters were flying overhead. A fleet of ships sat at various distances in the water. Olimpia thought about just leaving, since this wasn’t her business, but her curiosity got the better of her. She noticed one soldier standing separately from the others, staring out over the sea, instead of towards the Nexus building. “Forgive me. Is it all right if I ask what’s going on here?”

“How did you—oh, Miss Sangster. It’s an honor, but you should leave. It’s not safe here.” She lifted her binoculars back up to scan the horizon.

“What’s happening?”

“There’s been an incursion in the Nexus. And unauthorized visitor has come through. Don’t ask me who were why, because it’s not my job to know. I’m here to keep a lookout, in case the true threat is coming from out there, and the Nexus arrival was nothing more than a distraction.”

Olimpia looked over to see that others like her were staring up at the sky, a few of them with telescopes. “I’ve seen in movies, distractions like that. You’re smart to be concerned with other points of entry.”

“It’s unlikely anyone will come by sea, in such a sparsely populated remote galaxy, but it’s not impossible for someone to have secretly landed in deeper waters, and are now making their way here. We always keep an eye on the vastness, but we’re on high alert right now.”

Olimpia looked behind them. “My team and I just arrived through the Nexus.”

“I am aware.”

“How many visitors do you receive on average?”

“Almost none these days. We don’t make many rescues anymore.”

“So, it’s probably not a coincidence,” Olimpia guessed.

The soldier lowered the binoculars. “That’s why it’s not safe. They could be coming for you. I do not believe your team has been informed of the development, or you would not be the only one here.”

“I teleported here on a whim. I don’t know what the others are doing.”

“I urge you to go find out, to tell no one of what’s happening here, and to never return to the island unless a trusted authority has assured you that it is no longer a risk.”

No. There was no such thing as a coincidence when it came to time travelers. She may have thought that she came to this island just to feel the waves tickle her ankles, but she was here for a reason. It was her job to represent the interests of Team Matic. It was her job to keep the others safe from whatever was going on here. They all had important things to deal with. As the only free agent, it was the least she could do. “Thanks, soldier.” She stepped away and walked up to the General. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, Miss Sangster.”

She waited a beat. “Report.”

“A group of six people came through the Nexus. We have safeguards in place that prevent anyone from doing that unless they call ahead.”

“We didn’t call ahead.”

“Unless they call ahead, or it was prearranged,” the General clarified.

She nodded. “What are their names?”

“They’ve not said. They claim to be representatives of a multireality advocacy group working towards a cooperative future in the Sixth Key. I don’t know exactly what that means, but we’ve quarantined them in there until we can figure out how they breached our security, and why we’ve been locked out of the controls.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They would like to establish diplomatic relations with Dardius.”

She nodded again. “I’m going in.”

The General sighed. “I can’t stop you, but I can advise you to not.”

“Noted,” she said simply. She turned to face the building, and prepared herself. Then she teleported in.

The six strangers were standing in a circle in the Nexus cavity, talking amongst themselves. When one of them noticed Olimpia’s arrival, she indicated as much with her eyes, prompting the others to turn. “Hello.” An apparent leader took one step forward, but stayed in the pit. “My name is Heath Walton of the Third Rail. Do you represent Dardian interests?”

“Dardieti,” she corrected.

He closed his eyelids softly, and nodded. “Apologies.”

“And no, I don’t.” She pulled out her handheld device, and ran a search. Heath Walton did not appear on her list of people she had met. But he was on everyone else’s. “The name of your wife.”

“Marie. Angela Marie Walton.”

“What happened to her?”

“It’s complicated. Do you know her?”

“Why are you here?”

“To establish—”

“Diplomatic relations with Darius,” she interrupted. “Yes, I’ve heard.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You do not have diplomatic experience yourself, yet they sent you?”

“Nobody sends me anywhere. I do as I please.”

“Ah. So you’re one of the elite travelers; someone so powerful that smart people know that it’s safer to just let you make your own choices than to try to get in your way, and risk turning you into an enemy. Yes, Marie is like that as well.”

“There is a Fifth Divisioner; his name, we’ve never known,” Olimpia began.

Heath’s face fell. He knew where she was going with this.

“He imprisoned Team Matic. What do you know of this?”

Heath nodded. “He was one of the few of us who happened to be in the main sequence during the Reconvergence. A copy of him materialized in the Sixth Key, and he established contact with his alternate self. He joined our group, and we asked him to find and secure Team Matic so they could return to our new universe. I wanted to see my wife again, and to offer them all to join us. They are a source of inspiration for many, and we were hoping they— wait, you’re Olimpia Sangster.”

“And if I am?”

He didn’t really answer the question. “What happened to you was wrong. We charged that man with getting you back to us. He thought that we wanted him to hurt you. He is an idiot, and an asshole, and both versions of him have since been removed from our organization. I apologize for the trouble, and the trauma. That is not what we are about. We are aware of the impending war between realities, and we are doing everything we can to stop it. We came to ask Dardius for its guidance, but since you are here as well, we ask the same of you.”

She scanned the representatives. “Do any of you have powers; temporal, psychic, or otherwise?”

“No, not even the one from the Parallel.” Heath answered, shaking his head.

Olimpia teleported out and returned a minute later with zip ties. “Let the military take you in for questioning. I’ll speak with my friends. We’ll get back to you next year.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 23, 2414

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Mateo was the one to donate his blood to Karla, so she could start skipping time, and remain on the same pattern as their daughter. This was intentionally a temporary fix, just in case she changed her mind later. It made sense on paper to stay this way forever, but she may decide that it would be best for her to always be waiting for little Romana to return to the timestream. She had about a week to decide, and if she still wasn’t sure, they could always give her a second dose of the temporary pattern-sharing serum, instead of the permanent one. Perhaps they would just keep doing it like that. Neither Cassidy nor Mateo had a problem with this eventuality.

She was a very special little baby. Generally speaking, the first time a person travels through time—and usually to a lesser degree for every subsequent trip—it’s a jarring experience. It can come with sometimes very nasty side effects, such as nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, or diarrhea, among other possibilities. These symptoms can come on in the moments leading up to the jump, and last for minutes or hours afterwards. For Romana, she seemed to have no issue at all. As midnight central approached, she giggled, as if it were a pleasurable experience for her. It probably was. It wasn’t the first time she did it; just the first time after she was born. The truth was that it had happened to her about 270 times before this. It was part of who she was, in a deeper sense than most time travelers, including her own father. Meliora Rutherford, the daughter of this building’s namescape, was likely the only person with some understanding of what Romana’s is going through right now. They couldn’t wait until she was verbal.

It was April 23, 2414 on Dardius right now. The Dardieti toyed with their own calendar for a while before deciding to conform to that of Earth’s. A dying man was sent back in time about two millennia to let his final act alive be setting the flag of Dardius in the North Pole. His remains were discovered beside the now-buried remnants of that flag in recent days. His fusion-powered solar watch was still ticking, allowing them to accept the calendar as real. Of course, this was but a symbolic gesture. There was no real reason why they couldn’t simply deliberately have declared what year it was without technically starting at zero, but it made it a little easier to believe in.

Leona was sitting on the huge penthouse balcony, watching the sun rise. The arch that the Isaac Skybridge created was facing north and south, so the sun came up over Lincoln Tower, and set over Rutherford Tower. It was beautiful up here. There was no rule that LIR Towers had to be the tallest structure in the city, but it was. In fact, it remained the tallest one in the world. They were pretty lucky to live here now, and hopefully it would last. Leona being the cynic of the group, was not so convinced, but she wasn’t about to let that on to anyone else. It wasn’t helpful. So she was regarding the sky, and appreciating the time that they did have in this wondrous place. As she sat there, she started to feel a pull behind her. It was Ramses, calling to her from the Dante using their empathetic bond. She stood up, and teleported to the shuttle.

Ramses was in his laboratory pocket dimension, hunched over his table, studying something with his ocular loupes. “I’m hoping not to have disturbed you. It did not feel as if you were asleep.”

“I did not sleep,” Leona clarified. “None of us but Mateo did. Did you see the bed they designed for him and Karla?”

Ramses looks up from his work. “No? This sounds juicy.”

She laughed. “It’s a giant king-plus sized bed with a bassinet installed in the center, so co-parents can sleep on either side of the baby.”

He chuckled. “Cute.”

“I should say, I don’t think the concept was inspired by them. I believe it’s a normal product that anyone can order, but this one was custom-made as a gift from a friend of the family, or maybe just a fan.”

“Who knows, this planet is weird.”

“What are you working on there?”

“The rosary.” He lifted it up with a pair of tweezers. “I’ve been trying to get it to work. So far, I’ve been able to guess at its function, but not actually trigger its power.”

She looked upon it. “I forgot about this thing. It definitely works. I’ve seen it used. You, or someone who looks very much like you, used it at The Edge meeting. And someone who looked very much like you popped in and out of the timeline while I was gone to take things from the team.” It could be that the real version of him was never destined to use it. Ramses was in possession of it now, and Future!Leona will have it at some point later. It pretty much had to be in that order, because Ramses took it directly from Arcadia in another brane, but that was the extent of their understanding of the thing. It didn’t mean he would ever figure out how to operate it. “What does it do?”

“I think...it counteracts time.”

“In what way?”

“Well, you said that this other Ramses—maybe Future!Me, maybe always Future!Leona—would squeeze it and disappear. That sounds like your average time travel or teleportation. But if that’s the case, why is it so coveted? Why does it matter? Plenty of people can do that on their own, there’s no real reason for anyone else to want it, especially not Future!Leona. She can do a ton of things. My best guess is that when someone uses it, they separate themselves from whatever time is doing to them in that moment. If they’re moving forward in time at typical speed, maybe they move backwards, or maybe just slower. If true, it could be reapplied to other temporal manipulations, such as breaking out of a time bubble, or undoing illusions, like invisibility.”

Leona looked away to think. “Or time jump patterns.”

He nodded solemnly. “It could...cure us. That is, if you look at it as a disease, which I personally don’t. After all, I did this to myself on purpose.”

She nodded back, just as solemnly. “But it could cure Romana. She could be a normal little girl.”

“That’s not my call, and like I said, I can’t turn it on.” He stood up, and walked over to a locker. “But that’s not all I wanted to show you this morning. Unlike the rosary, Dante 2.0 is complete.”

“Two-point-oh?” Leona questioned.

He smiled as he took what looked like a parachute pack out, and held it open. “Well, come on and put it on.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“Not as far as I can throw you.”

He shook the pack, and then started helping her arms through the straps. “We’re five hundred meters up in the air, my dear. You could throw me quite far.” He came around and closed the waist buckle and chest buckle for her. “Looks good on ya.

“A parachute’s not gonna fit in here.”

He laughed. “It’s not a parachute.” He turned around so they were facing the same direction, and shook his hands accordingly. “Left is open, right is closed. I’m working on a special function that happens when you pull them at the same time, but that’s not ready yet. For now, that will just do nothing.”

“You’ve still not yet said what either one of the other cords does.”

He smiled knowingly, and pulled the right cord for her. Everything around them started to collapse in on itself, and become sucked into the pack as it shrank. In seconds, the whole Dante was gone, and they were standing in the open air on the top of the Isaac Skybridge.

“Oh. That makes sense. It’s just like the Phoenix.”

“It was already designed to potentially be collapsed into an uninhabitable pocket dimension of its own. All I had to do was reprogram it to collapse into this thing, instead of the suitcase that the rest of the capital ship goes into. The only thing is, if this shuttle were ever to be reunited with the Phoenix, I’m not sure whether it would function correctly or safely. It may go ahead and fall into the suitcase along with everything else, or it’ll be vaporized.” He grimaced at the thought.

She shook her head. “We’re never getting the Phoenix back. The people from the afterlife simulation need it more than we ever could.”

Suddenly, guardsmen from both towers rushed onto the bridge, and pointed their weapons in strategic directions. “Is everything okay, sirs?” one of them asked. “Your shuttle disappeared!”

“Everything’s fine!” Leona assured them. I just...put it in my bag!”

They were still on high alert. “Are you quite certain? We can protect you from anything!” the leader from Rutherford Tower added.

“Really, it’s fine! We didn’t mean to alarm you. Um...” She switched to false bravado. “Return to your posts, please. I think I’m going to..take it out of the bag again!”

The guardsmen retreated into their respective towers, except for one. He was just a kid, surely no older than nineteen. He held his gun at the low ready position. He was trying to avoid eye contact like he was really trying to avoid being noticed.

“You may go, soldier!” Ramses encouraged.

“I was actually hoping to, um...see it?”

“From outside, or in?” Ramses asked him.

The young man thought about it. “Both!”

Leona removed the Dante pack, and handed it to Ramses. She approached the soldier. “What’s your name, son?”

“Mercari, sir. Officer Mercari. This is my first week.”

“Are you related to Andromeda Mercari?”

“Distantly, sir. I...I can’t remember the family tree.”

“You don’t have to call me sir. I’m just a person. Why don’t you set that gun down? I don’t like weapons.”

Officer Mercari switched the safety on, and set the rifle down against the wall.

“We’ll start out here. Go ahead and do it!” she called over to Ramses.

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