Microstory 2447: Terminator Track

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This isn’t a dome. It might be, in fact, the only thing that you can do on this rock that isn’t. It’s basically this big wide train that goes around and around the circumference at a certain latitude. They told me exactly how far from the North Pole and equator we were, but I can’t remember. The point is that the time never changes when you’re on the terminator track. It might be sunrise, sunset, magic hour, or twilight, and as long as you stay put, it will remain as such until the solar system collapses, or the track goes out of commission....whichever comes first. I’ve only seen sunrise and sunset, but I heard that magic hour isn’t that great since the atmosphere is so thin. I think they’re planning on adding more trains in between these, so it can always be night, or always be day. I’m not sure why you would want that exactly, but to each their own, right? This is a cool concept that they’ve tried on a few other planets. Varkas Reflex has something very similar, but the train is of a very different layout, and I think the capacity is a lot smaller, because it’s an older design, and the megastructural engineering capabilities weren’t quite there yet. Or the size of the one here on Castlebourne is the result of natural advancement. They made it bigger very deliberately because they wanted it to be bigger. If the Varkas one had been built to this scale, this one would be even bigger. Anyway, you get the gist. You sit on the train, and watch the sunrise. And watch it. And watch it. The show never ends. Again, it’s a cool concept, but if you stare at it long enough—even though you’re going, like, a thousand kilometers per hour—it starts to look like a painting. Well, I can go look at a painting of a sunset whenever I want. Do you have any idea how many paintings there are of sunsets? I couldn’t tell you, but look it up, and then multiply it by several times, because some people will paint a sunset, and then not show it to anyone else, so whatever’s in the records is probably an underestimation. As you can see, I’m a bit of a tangentist. There’s just not much I can say about Terminator Track. I don’t think it’s any better than just setting your smartwindow to show a hologram of a sunset at will. Actually, it’s worse, because again, Castlebourne has such a thin, dusty atmosphere, so just remember that before you board. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense, even if they thickened the atmosphere, and created some of that Rayleigh scattering. Part of the beauty of a sunrise or sunset is watching it change from one state to the other. Yeah, they’re pretty colors, but seeing them appear and disappear is part of what made humans like them in the first place. This is just static...like a painting. That’s the way I see it anyway. I’m not gonna tell you not to come here. I’ve not gotten into any specifics, but they have a restaurant, and several lounges. You can watch the domes fly by too if you go to the side viewports, so that’s another thing. I see this spot as a one-time destination, not something you frequent, except maybe if you’re on a romantic date, or something. Or, like I said, you could just tell your nearest smartwindow to show whatever you want. In fact, I bet the trains have cameras, which you can tap into, allowing you to watch it remotely anyway.

Microstory 2445: Dune Buggy Paradise

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This is the largest habitable desert in the world. Now, you may be asking yourself, how could it be any bigger than any other? Every dome is the same size as all the others, isn’t it? True, but this one makes better use of that space, because it operates in three dimensions. We’re talking about multiple layers here. It’s quite ingenious, really. I don’t mean that you can wander about on the bottom layer, and then take an elevator to a higher ones. You have to walk or drive up ramps to get to other levels, and you don’t just multiply the area of one by the number of layers to get the total area. The upper layers are nowhere near as big. They’re like giant catwalks, criss-crossing each other in random configurations, looping around, and dipping down. It’s all very chaotic, and hard to track. Here’s the most mysterious—and I think, best—part of this whole place, there is a layer near the top of the dome which no one has been able to figure out how to reach. There doesn’t seem to be any path leading to it, but we can clearly see it. At the right angles—and with good enough vision—you can even make out a dune buggy parked on the edge. It’s gotta be some kind of prize, but as I said, no one has managed to reach it thus far. Even if you found some roundabout way, like with an extremely long grappling hook, how would you drive it down? It’s about a kilometer higher than the next highest layer. Maybe it’s a joke, or the creators are taunting us. Or it’s just straight up unfinished, who knows? Another special thing about the way this place is designed is what happens when sand from one layer falls over the edge. Well, it doesn’t. It can slip over, but then fly back up to where it belongs. You don’t have to worry about sand falling on your head all the time like rain thanks to people on the higher layers. It’s not just regular sand that they harvested from the surface of this planet. It’s smartdust. It’s all smartdust. I hear tales of people claiming that it has flown around in other instances, and formed ominous shapes, which they interpret as the dust trying to communicate with them. It could be true, though I’ve not seen it for myself, but even if it were, there’s a scientific explanation for it. Smartdust is fully capable of moving around, and forming larger shapes, like tiny artificial starlings. Overall, this is a pretty nifty place. It could be pretty boring, with its one niche being hardly distinct from other domes. There are other deserts, and at least one other racing dome, but combining them here is more than just the sum of its parts. I think it’s worth the trip. You don’t have to race if you don’t want to. You can just drive around, people are pretty respectful about boundaries.

Microstory 2432: Infinity Suite

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Oh, I’ve just discovered that, not only can you review an entire dome, but also individual parts of that dome. So here I am, talking about the Infinity Suite in the Palacium Hotel. If there’s one thing this planet does well, it’s not worrying about how much space people take up. The Infinity Suite is the best example of this. I have no clue how it works, but that’s the right word for it. No matter how far I walk, or how many doors I step through, there’s always somewhere new to be. There’s always a new room to explore. Yet, I can’t get lost in it either. Each room, with no exception, has at least three doors. You can go back the way you came, press forward to explore more, or exit to the hallway. And when you do exit—again, no matter how deep you’ve gone—you’re back where you started. But here’s the thing. Your suite has two entrances from the main hallway. One goes back to the beginning, and the other returns to where you last were. So it’s not just some kind of trick of the mind, or an illusion. Or maybe it still is. It boggles my mind, I can’t figure out how the crazy Escher configurations work. Your last known location is somehow being stored in memory. And don’t you think that I’m just in a new hallway that was designed to look exactly like the original one. I’ve made changes, both inside and out, and tracked my progress. I’ve left little numbered pieces of paper on counters, chairs, and couches to create a map. I’ve matched each number with a photo of the room where I put it in. It matches afterwards. I can go back in through the second door, and retrace my steps, and nothing will have shifted. Those rooms are all in there where they’re supposed to be. That still doesn’t rule out some kind of advanced holographic illusion, but I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s still the craziest place I’ve ever been. They let me stay here for two nights, but then I had to give it up, so someone else could try it. There were presumably an infinite number of bedrooms, but I barely slept, because I was too busy trying to figure out how it works. If you manage to secure a booking, please write your own review, and provide any answers that you may have. Or, if you have any explanations, or ideas of what other tests that we could possibly run, comment below. I’m so confused and curious. I won’t ever stop thinking about it.

The Seventh Stage: Piffy on a Rock Cake (Part II)

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Bariq walks briskly into the room, finally finding his co-parent standing there with one of her assistants, whispering about something or other. After they see him, they both smile, make one last exchange, then part ways. He walks farther in. “Where are they?” he demands to know.

“The kids?” Judy guesses. “I’m sure they’re just out partying with their friends.”

“I just ran into them in the hall,” Bariq counters. “They haven’t seen Clavia or Echo anywhere since they left the ceremony.”

“You saw all of their friends?” Judy questions.

“I saw enough,” he replies. “They don’t have many.”

“They have more than you think. Not all of them are from the Seventh Stage, you know. They have a lot in common with some of the students from the Third Rail.”

“Judy. The kids are missing.” Over the years, she’s become calmer and more trusting of their children. She’s allowed them to be young and dumb, and make mistakes. She teaches them right from wrong, but she has always seen them as preadolescent and adolescent humans. The reality is that they’re both unimaginably powerful superentities, and very dangerous. Bariq loves them, and cares for them, but he has not forgotten how they started out. They’re both far older than they appear, and he sometimes sees that in their eyes. They will seem normal one minute, bright-eyed and curious. Then the next, they’ll slip into this unsettling state of all-knowing indifference. He has been afraid of them growing up and getting their memories back this whole time. It’s put a strain on their relationship, and yes, he’s even worried that this strain will create a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to the realization of his greatest fears. He can’t help it, though, because they really are dangerous, and it doesn’t seem prudent to ignore that.

“What do you want me to do?” Judy questions. “Sick a tracker on them?”

“I want you to take this seriously.”

“I do. They’re sixteen years old, they’re gonna run off and do stuff without permission.”

“They’re not sixteen, and stuff without our permission could be blowing up planets or smoking nebulas.”

“That is...quite the imagery,” Judy says, “and is completely unfounded. They’re good people. You should believe in them more.”

“So you’re not gonna help look for them.”

Judy sighs. “I have Rebecca for the year,” Judy explains. “I’m going to spend some time with her today. Maybe you should do something for yourself. How about that woman from the academy? She seemed into you.”

Bariq closes his eyes. “She’s a hundred years younger than me.”

Judy shrugs.

“You wouldn’t get it, you grew up with your soulmate.”

“And then I lost her.” When the main sequence version of Earth was copied into the Sixth Key, Judy was duplicated along with it. Her wife, however, Rebecca happened to be in the past at the time, because that was where she was working. When she returned to her present, the other Judy was waiting there to greet her. It took a while for them to even find out about the whole Reconvergence mess. Since then, they’ve established a unique relationship. Rebecca spends some of her time with main sequence Judy, and some of it with Seventh Stage Judy, like an odd joint custody sort of arrangement. It might be unusual, but it’s working for them. And the kids love Rebecca. They treat her like an aunt. Yeah, she’s technically more like a stepmother, but she can’t really discipline them since she’s gone half the time, so they ended up framing it differently.

“Then you got her back,” he reminds her.

Judy concedes the point. After a moment of silence, she thinks of something. “You know who you can go to if you’re looking for someone. And it’s not a tracker.”

Bariq is confused for a moment, but quickly gets over that. “We promised to never go back there.”

“We promise that all the time.”

He sighs. He has a feeling that something is wrong. Echo and Clavia aren’t just hanging out on a habitable moon, watching the gas giant that it’s orbiting dominate the sky. They’re somewhere, doing something. It might be good for all he knows, but it’s not innocuous. It’s not meaningless. He has to find them, and if that means talking to a certain dangerous prisoner, then he will. “Don’t tell Cedar.”

“I don’t talk to that guy anymore,” she says.

“All right. I love you.”

“Love you too.” They are the twins’ parents, but they aren’t married. They have never had any romantic feelings for each other. In fact, their relationship started out pretty rocky. They were chosen to negotiate together during The Rock meetings specifically because they didn’t always see eye to eye. That’s not how it was for every duo at those talks, but it wasn’t uncommon either. Over time, as they’ve tried to raise these kids together, their connection to each other has strengthened, and love is a decent enough word for it. She has Rebecca, and he has his consorts, but they always try to be on the same side, even when it’s hard.

He walks out of the room, and down the hall to their personal Nexus, which will take him indirectly to where he needs to go. While his target is a prison, she’s not in a typical locked facility. It’s too risky to leave her anywhere with people on a regular basis. She’s too charming and beautiful. She has a way of getting into people’s heads, which they take measures to combat with psychic wards. Because of the need for distance, if she needs anything, it’s up to her to provide it for herself, using whatever she can find where she’s being kept. That’s not a lot, but she doesn’t seem to need a lot, so it appears to be okay. And she’s gotten more over the years. Bariq would normally ask one of his kids to transport him there remotely, but since they’re the reason he’s deigning to go this time, that’s not an option. He takes the Nexus to the nearest space station, and then a personal pod the rest of the way. It’s slow, but that’s the point. If there were too many ways to get to the penal planet, there would be too many ways to get off of it, and that’s not an option.

The prisoner has extraordinary extrasensory perception, allowing her to know things without experiencing them, or being around. Even where she is, trapped and alone, she knows what’s going on everywhere else, even back in the original universe. That’s what makes her such a big threat, and why she can’t ever be allowed to leave. Unfortunately, she appears to be immortal, so keeping her in place might be an eternal responsibility. She has taken a particular interest in their family, as would be expected of someone in her position, driven partially by their repeated visits for information, and sadly, even advice. They’ve used this resource far more often than they morally should. It’s just too tempting. The issue is how much she likes it. She loves the attention, and it gives her a sense of power that she doesn’t deserve. Bariq prepares himself at the entrance. The walls are a hundred meters tall, and this is the only way in or out. It’s not guarded by anyone, but a satellite in geosynchronous orbit keeps constant watch over it. He holds his hand up, and motions for the AI to open the door for him, which it does.

He finds the prisoner in the courtyard of her home. Again, it’s not a normal prison. It’s actually a pretty nice place to live at this point. She even has a pool, which she is using right now. Without any clothes on. She knew that he was coming, so it’s not like she’s been caught off guard. “Oh my,” she says in total false modesty. “My king, you’ve arrived. I’m afraid I’m totally unprepared.” She speaks with a hint of an accent. Vaguely transatlantic, Judy once deemed it. The prisoner climbs the steps out, holding her arm and hand over her privates, but not doing a very good job of it. At the moment, she has given herself the appearance of Judy. Sick bastard.

“Take off that face, Effigy,” he demands. When the Reconvergence happened, and the main sequence was copied into the Sixth Key, most time travelers weren’t around. They were warned that it would happen, and given ways of protecting themselves, often by simply skipping over the moment entirely. Effigy was a prisoner in a different place on Earth, and had been for many centuries prior to all this. The theory is that whoever put her in there died, or completely forgot about her, so now there are two of her, just like everyone else there.

“Is this not pleasing to you?” She sounds innocent and naïve, but it’s all an act, just to screw with him.

“Go back to normal.” This is a loaded command, because her real form is an intimidating white monster. She’s literally not human. They call her a Maramon.

“Do you really mean that?” she asks.

“Yes.” Intimidating is a strong word when it comes to Bariq’s constitution. She doesn’t scare him, and her true appearance doesn’t change that.

“Very well.” She transforms. “How can I help you today, Your Majesty?”

He’s not going to once more argue the point about him not being a king. It’s exhausting, and there is no way to win. She could deny the existence of light if it served her agenda. Logic and reality were irrelevant concepts, as was perception. “You know where my kids are.” It’s not a question.

“I do.”

“Are they safe?”

She smiles. “They’re safer than you are.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that your greatest fears are coming to fruition. They are realizing how powerful they are, and they’re learning to exercise their independence.”

“What. Does. That. Mean?” he reiterates.

She waits a moment to respond. “If I’m going to help you, I need something in return.” She always does. That’s why she has this swimming pool, and a breadmaker. And an actual parachute made out of gold, which they only agreed to give her because it’s too heavy to fly.

“What is it this time?”

She looks around with a feigned frown. “Here I am, piffy on a rock cake. I’m nice and  sweet, and everyone loves me...but I’m so small. The rest of the cake is bland, and boring. It deserves more of me. It deserves more piffy.”

“Honestly, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. What is a piffy?”

“Nobody knows.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh.

She mimics him. “General Bariq Medley, always so frustrated. If humans still had heart attacks, why you would have died centuries ago.”

“Get on with it, what do you actually want?”

“A mirror.”

“No,” he answers. He doesn’t know why exactly, but they have been told that she is not allowed to have mirrors. Sure, there is such a thing as a time mirror, which is a temporal object designed to view—or even access—other points in spacetime. But you can’t just turn any mirror into a time mirror. That’s mostly just what it looks like on the outside. There’s all sorts of technology and temporal magicks hidden in the guts. But in a world of time travelers, they can’t take any chances. She can presumably indeed give a regular mirror temporal properties.

“Oh, it’s just for my vanity. I have no one to talk to when you’re gone.” She exaggerates her frown, but a little too much. Her face is warped enough to throw her into the uncanny valley. Even white monsters don’t usually have this creepy of a face.

“So you’re going to talk to your own reflection?

“That’s my business.”

“Isn’t your reflection right there?” he gestures towards the water.

“I told you, I’m a piffy.”

“I still don’t know what that is.”

“It’s too big, I need a smaller mirror. I don’t care how it’s designed, just so that it can sit on a flat surface on its own, and is too small to fit through if it were a window.” That might sound like safer specifications than the most dangerous time mirror would have, some of which can be stepped through as portals, but no means of reaching across space and time is worth what she might do with even only an ounce of freedom beyond the confines of this one corner of this one celestial body.

“As I said...no.”

“Then you will never find your children.”

“You are not my only avenue.” He turns around to leave.

“No tracker can find them either,” she insists. “They are...beyond their sight.”

He looks back with a bit of a smirk. “A decent tracker can find anyone in the universe. If they’re beyond that, they’re in another universe. They’re in Fort Underhill.” He turns around again, and begins to walk away.

“Not...Fort Underhill,” she clarifies. After he turns to face her again. “Not Salmonverse either. Not even Ansutah.”

He narrows his eyes at Effigy. “A new universe,” he reasons. “That’s what they’re doing. They’re building one, just like Hogarth did. I knew it.”

“I never said that.” She’s either realizing that she has said too much, or this is all part of some dastardly plan, and her upset demeanor is yet another ploy.”

“Either way, I know who to talk to now. You’re not getting your mirror.” He turns away for the last time now, determined not to let her change his mind.

So he can’t see, but he can hear that she’s turned back into Judy. “Stop! No! I’m so lonely. Don’t go!” There’s a pause before he makes it back over to the wall. “Daddy!” She sounded like Clavia just there. He knows that it’s a trick. It’s easier to see that when you’re aware of the extent of her powers. Still, it’s hard to ignore, and he has to fight his instincts. It takes everything he has to open that door, and leave.

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Microstory 2417: Racetrack Dome

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I’m gonna say this real slow. This is a racetrack dome, which means there are...racetracks. That’s all it is. It’s hundreds of racetracks just all over tarnation. A racetrack here, a racetrack there. There’s even a track that runs the entire circumference of the dome, which is something like 260 kilometers. That sounds boring to me, but hey, you do you, right? I would much rather stay close to the inner tracks. They’re so much more interesting. The vehicles are electric, obviously, but they’re also electromagnetic. This allows them to do all sorts of crazy stuff, like drive up the wall, or even do loop-de-loops. There are jumps and shortcuts, and drops into rivers of lava. Yeah, this particular dome was chosen for its proximity to a volcano. The volcano isn’t inside the dome, and if there were ever an eruption, there are safeguards in place to seal off the lava flow, and protect the dome. But as long as everything’s copacetic, it’s there. Plus, they have clear emergency procedures in place. I mean, this hasn’t actually happened since I’ve been here, so there’s no way to know how effective their plans are, but they claim to be ready. Of course, the lava they do have is dangerous, as are all of the other tracks. Well, almost all of them. They have bumper cars, and some go-kart tracks too, for the kids, or people who want something a little lighter. If you do get hurt, and don’t want to just jump your consciousness to a new body, they have excellent medical teams on standby. I was never injured, but I did walk in once to find someone having just crashed on one of the traditional intermediate tri-ovals. I heard the collision from the corridor, and by the time I rounded the corner, they were already loading the driver into an ambulance. I asked after him later, and he’s fine; didn’t even have to switch to a new body. I can’t even begin to describe what other kinds of tracks they have here, but if you’ve ever played a racing video game, they’re pretty much all recreated here. They don’t have boats, planes, or spaceships, though. Man, people kept asking about that. I’ll say again, it’s a racetrack dome, not races in general. Look for that in another dome. I’m sure they’re somewhere. I see all these negative reviews from morons who are disappointed when the name alone tells you everything you need to know. Just think it through, and you’ll be pleased with what you find.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 28, 2480

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A couple of hours later, Dr. Hammer was finished with her other work for the time being, and was available to speak with the team. She stepped into her own office, and didn’t seem shocked to see them. Siria must have warned her through a text message, or something. She smiled at her assistant, and nodded, but didn’t say anything, yet Siria knew that she could leave, and tend to other things. “Could I see the card?” Dr. Mallory asked once Siria was gone.

Mateo handed it over.

Dr. Hammer inspected it carefully with her eyes, then inserted it back into the reader for more information. “Miss Webb does not have my access code. Neither should you. Please look away.” Her hands hovered over the keyboard, ready to type it in.

“We should leave real quick,” Ramses suggested. “Our brains can process keystrokes, and determine which keys are being pressed, based on the sound each one makes, unique to its position on the board, and its distance from our ears.”

Dr. Hammer narrowed her eyes at him, regarding him with fascination. “I should like to study you.”

“Maybe one day,” Ramses tentatively agreed.

Dr. Hammer typed in her code without worrying too much about it, and read the screen in silence for a moment. “Where did you get this?”

“A friend,” Mateo replied.

“A friend...who?”

“Who...I trust,” Mateo said, still playing it close to the vest.

“Should I trust them?”

“Indeed.”

“Well,” Dr. Hammer began. “When I stick it into that device, and stick you into that machine, I can tether you together, but in order for it to work, it must first be logged into the system. Otherwise, someone could simply steal one from the manufacturing room, and use it without authorization. Whoever gave it to you, that’s what they did. This is stolen property, I didn’t issue it.”

“I’m sorry,” Mateo said sincerely.

“Mister Matic, there is a reason I have not offered you a place at this facility. Well, there are a number of reasons, the main one being your significant connection to the Superintendent. For anyone else, I can prevent him from seeing what’s discussed in these meetings, but you’re more difficult to tease from his prying eyes. I don’t know what to do about that. We can’t let him go spouting off about confidential information. It wouldn’t be fair to the other members. He already knows too much.”

“I understand,” Mateo replied, just as sincerely as before.

I’ll skip the sessions. I’ll just say that he’s gone off to one, but I won’t follow him there. I respect doctor-patient privilege.

“Hold on, I’m getting a message,” Dr. Hammer said as she was clicking the mouse. She read the Superintendent’s claim. “The fact that you’re watching us at this very moment does not instill confidence in me that you would honor the boundaries. Even one peek could have devastating consequences for my patients that I cannot allow.”

The team wasn’t fazed by her apparent conversation with the Superintendent. They sat there patiently and quietly.

“Another one.” She took a second to read it, then paraphrased it for the whole class. “He promises to stay away, and says that there’s plenty of story to be told that has nothing to do with this place.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to do about this emotional bond. I can find a workaround on the calibration, but you’ll all be able to use it, which is not the purpose of the card.”

“We don’t need the card,” Leona explained. “We go wherever we want, whenever we want. We promise to stay out of it, just as the Superintendent did. Mateo will be the only one to use that card.”

“And if anyone breaks this rule, you may revoke it,” Mateo added.

“We don’t really do that,” Dr. Hammer explained.

Mateo shrugged. “Do it anyway, if it ever comes up.”

Dr. Hammer thought over her options. “Is this the whole team?”

“My sister, Angela’s still on the ship,” Marie said.

“The two of them were once one and the same,” Leona clarified, “in case that matters when calibrating the machine for Mateo, or whatever.”

“It doesn’t. But she does need to be here. You’re like limbs of the same person, so you all need to be a part of it.”

Angela teleported down to the office, which alarmed Dr. Hammer, who believed there to be a barrier around the building that prevented anyone from showing up anywhere besides the vestibule. She wrote a note to herself to reinforce the security system, even though she obviously wasn’t worried about the six of them. She went on with the procedure. Mateo alone lay down in the card tethering machine, but they could all feel the procedure in their minds, and their bodies. A connection was created, between them and the card, and also to the facility. Their bond with each other felt like it was reinforced as well, though that might have been in their imaginations. The whole process only took a couple minutes. Mateo sat up, and left the room to go through orientation with Siria. As the Superintendent, I’m not allowed to divulge what he learned on his tour. I know only that it happened.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, the rest of the team was hanging out in Delegation Hall. Leona was reading a book, the other girls were chatting about nothing, and Ramses was looking through data on his tablet. After doing this for a bit, he looked away with a sort of concentrative frown, and shut his eyes. Finally, he said, “one more jump.”

“What was that?” Leona asked, though she didn’t take her eyes off the page.

“If we make one more uncertain jump, I believe that I will at last have the navigational abilities to find Romana.”

She turned her ereader away, and looked down at the floor between the two of them. “How certain are you of that?” Now she looked him in the eye.

“Fifty-fifty,” he answered.

She nodded, and considered it. “This sounds like one of those situations where we should vote on it.”

“We’ll do it when he gets back,” Olimpia said, referring to Mateo.

“We know how he would vote,” Leona replied. “We may as well do it now. You can call me his proxy, so I get two votes.”

Marie scoffed. “Raise your hand if you don’t think we should go.”

No one raised their hand.

“Motion passes,” Marie decided.

Leona took a breath, and yawned unwillingly. “Ange, run a pre-flight check, just how we taught ya. Rambo, you handle the quintessence drive, of course.”

While they were in the middle of their checks, Mateo returned, and listened to the update. “Wait, is it going to take us to her, or just help us find her eventually?”

“The latter,” Ramses answered.

“If it turns out to be enough,” Leona added.

“Where are we going? Anywhere?”

“A random jump would give us better data than a target one. I think that’s my problem. I think I’m trying to exert too much control, when I should really be letting the slingshot guide my trajectory.”

“That’s not how slingshots work,” Mateo argued.

“We thought you would want this,” Leona told her husband.

“We could end up anywhere,” Mateo went on. “That means inside of a star, or at the beginning of the big bang, or hell, a different universe.”

“I wrote safeguards into the program to prevent us appearing inside of a solid object,” Ramses began to explain. “Or a liquid or plasma, for that matter. Those are basic protocols, even the teleporter has them. The big bang was so dense that it would be tantamount to being in a sun, so the protocols would cover that too. As for another universe, the slingdrive can’t do that. We can pierce the membrane from the outside, but not from inside. We can only slide along it.”

“My position holds,” Mateo stood firm. “It’s too dangerous of a proposition.”

“What did you talk about down there after we left?” Leona asked.

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“Can you tell me if you’re an impostor?”

He waited to respond. “Not applicable.”

“We thought for sure you’d vote to go,” Olimpia said, stepping into the room.

“I would,” Mateo agreed. “I am. It just didn’t sound like any of you discussed the dangers that this poses. You only made it here because I took a fear pill. We don’t have that luxury this time. Wherever we go, it may take us on a wild adventure that lasts for years. As we’ve tethered our personal timelines together, that would mean Romana stays alone until we’re finished fighting Cthulhu, or whatever it ends up being.”

“She’s alone if we do nothing,” Leona reasoned. “We need this data.”

Mateo twirled his rendezvous card between his fingers, just as the other Leona had earlier. He was probably thinking about what he talked about in group at the Center for Temporal Health, but I was not there, so I don’t know anything that anyone said. He chuckled, perhaps getting the feeling that someone was leaning on the fourth wall from the outside. “I should stay. Whatever happens, wherever you end up going, you can always end up back here at least. Let me be your anchor. Something goes wrong, jump right back.”

“Dr. Hammer doesn’t want us doing that sort of thing,” Leona reminded him. “That’s not what this card is for. It’s not what that place is for.”

“I’ve just...we’ve been here before...so many times. We’ve been on a mission, and then we end up on a tangent. We have to break that cycle. We have to stick with something until it’s done. Our team has grown, yet remains incomplete. I’m afraid.”

“Give us the room, please,” Ramses said mysteriously.

Leona and Olimpia were a little surprised, but they left without arguing.

“What is it?” Mateo questioned.

“I analyzed that card,” Ramses said. “I couldn’t get much from it, but I bounced tiny ablation lasers off of the surface, which were absorbed by our sensors. They detected two DNA signatures from the sample. One was yours, and the other was Romana’s. She’s the one who gave it to you.”

Mateo didn’t want to say anything, even though he had obviously been caught. “She was wearing gloves.”

Ramses smiled. “She probably wasn’t wearing them the whole time. Lemme guess, she was from the future?”

“Maybe.”

He smiled wider. “I’ll keep your secret, as long as you vote yes, and come with us. We will find her again, so she can go back to see you in the past, and close her loop. I don’t think you should be this worried. Studying that slingdrive, and improving it, has been my sole focus for days. Please trust me, Mateo. You’ve done it before.”

Mateo sighed. “All right. Fire it up.”

They returned to the group, and confirmed that everyone understood what they were getting themselves into. They may find themselves back on Earth centuries ago, or on the other side of the universe. No result was more likely than another, however, regardless of where they ended up, they should be able to initiate a second jump, and go back to where they belonged. This should give them the data they needed to understand how the drive worked, so that they were not flying blind for that second time.

Ramses stood there like he was waiting for someone else, but he was the only one qualified to operate this thing. Even Leona hadn’t spent much time on it.

“What?” Leona asked.

“Say the thing. Say that word I like.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “Yalla.”

They jumped, and for a moment, they were disoriented, as was the ship, though the computers recalibrated themselves, unlike the first time they tried to use this thing. “I can tell you where we are, but not when,” Ramses announced. “I have enough positional data to know that we’re in the Miridir Galaxy.”

“It’s June 28, 2480. Present day, for lack of a better term in our line of business,” Leona elucidated them while consulting her special time watch.

“We’re not in the Beorht system, though,” Ramses continued. “Dardius is about two thousand light years from here, give or take a couple hundred.”

“All I care about is the new navigational data,” Mateo said to him. “Can we pinpoint a destination now?”

“I’ll need time,” Ramses said in an apologetic tone. “I can’t even tell you if the new data looks promising. I’m sorry.”

“Well, if we’re this far from civilization, finding the peace you need to conduct your work shouldn’t be a problem,” Angela figured.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Olimpia contended. She was looking through a viewport that wasn’t big enough for them all to see.

Leona threw the image onto the screen. There was another ship out there. Her armband pinged, so she looked at it. “External sensors are detecting a Nexus nearby. It’s probably on the ship.”

“What does that mean?” Marie asked.

“We can’t possibly know yet.” Mateo reached back for his helmet, and put it over his head. “Prepare for another tangent.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 27, 2479

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The thing about these magical tethers was that there would be no more sneaking off alone; to protect the others, to escape from them, or for any other reason. Mateo was famous for this, breaking free from the group, and that was no longer an option, for they would always be able to find him. It was funny how one of the first things that happened to him was that he came into possession of a metal business card that could whisk him away whenever he needed it to, but he couldn’t do that without telling anyone. Either way, it was really important that he give this support group therapy thing a chance. So he decided to tell them about it. He didn’t tell them everything, though.

“Do you even know where it takes you?” Leona asked.

“Dr. Hammer seems to be more comfortable in the 21st century, so I’m guessing sometime around then,” Mateo answered.

“Who gave this to you?” Ramses had his arm outstretched, waiting to receive the rendezvous card for examination.

“I’m not at liberty to say...and I’m not giving it to you. It doesn’t need to be studied, I know what it is.”

“No, you don’t,” Leona argued. “It could deliver you to a special prison where we couldn’t track you, and wouldn’t be able to teleport into if we ever did manage to find it.”

“It’s not that. I trust the person who gave it to me,” Mateo explained. “And if it is, we’ll deal with it. We always come out on top.”

“Yeah, because we’re cautious, thoughtful, and prepared,” Angela said. “You’re being neither of those things right now.”

“I’m wearing my suit, aren’t I?” Mateo defended.

She rolled her eyes.

“If you trust it, I trust it too,” Olimpia decided. She gave him a kiss on the lips. Besides, you need a range test, don’t you, Ram?”

“Well, I guess, but I wasn’t gonna—”

“Asked and answered!” Olimpia declared. “No further questions.”

“I need this,” Mateo said to the whole team, but mostly to Leona. “I’m losing my mind. I’m willing to take the risk that it’s a trap, especially since I really don’t think that it is. The way it was given to me...it would have been easier just to abduct me right then and there. I wouldn’t have had time to say goodbye.”

Ramses sighed. “Hold it up, balancing it between your fingers on the edges.”

Mateo did so.

“Turn it around,” Ramses added. “All right, I have at least some data. Proceed.”

Mateo gave Leona a kiss, and then gave another to Olimpia. As he turned around to give himself some space, she slapped him on the ass. He was going to say one more thing, but the slap made him drop the card, which activated it, and spirited him away.

He found himself standing on a gently sloping rock floor, inside of a glass tunnel. He was facing the ocean, which made him feel centered and calm. He stared at it through the window, noticing how there was no door leading to the outside. After a few moments, he turned around, and headed for the door to the building.

A vaguely humanoid, but still very mechanical, robot was sitting at what resembled a reception desk. “Hello, and welcome to the Center for Temporal Health on Ilha da Queimada Grande. My name is Defghij. Please present your rendezvous card, so that I may check you in.”

Mateo padded his suit, even though he knew it couldn’t be there. “Oh, crap. Where does it go when you use it?”

“Usually the ground.”

“Lookin’ for this?” It was Leona, holding up his card. What was she doing here?

He carefully took it, maintaining eye contact with her as he handed it to the robot. “How are you here? Why? Who?”

“I’m not your Leona,” she replied. “I’m from an old timeline.”

“Our twins,” Mateo realized. That was why she needed the therapy.

“My twins,” she corrected. “You had nothing to do with it.”

He dropped his gaze, and deepened his frown. “We can’t be in the same session.” He looked back up to her to see how she felt about that.

“I agree, which is why we’re not. You still need to go through orientation.”

“She’s right,” Defghif confirmed, presenting his card back for him. “Down the hall, to the left, through the door that leads to Dr. Hammer’s office.”

He couldn’t stop staring at the alternate version of his wife. “You don’t think we should talk, about what happened?”

“About how your wife lost the children that I had,” Alt!Leona asked. “No.” She handed Defghij her own card for check-in. It was black, rather than silver. She noticed that he noticed. “It’s like a mood ring, except it actually works. Once yours is tethered to you, it will change colors accordingly.” Another goddamn tether. Great.

Mateo finally took his card back. “I’m sorry. I’m guessing black isn’t good.”

She watched it in her own hand as she flipped it around between her fingers like a magician preparing to make it disappear. “It doesn’t mean sad, it means...empty.”

He couldn’t help himself. He took her hands in his, and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. “Even though you’re not my Leona, you can always count on me. Whether we’re in the same group session, or not, I can be here for you. You don’t have to feel empty.”

Her card was still mostly black, but specks of blue began to shine through like stars on the firmament. He noticed that she noticed, and he saw her tuck it away up her sleeve. “I have to go. Good luck.” She walked past him, down the hall, and to the right.

Mateo looked back over at Defghij. “Your name is part of the alphabet.”

“My creator wasn’t particularly creative.”

“Have a nice day,” he said as he was walking towards Dr. Hammer’s office.

“Hey, that’s my line!”

Mateo knocked on the door. After a few seconds, it opened on its own.

Dr. Hammer wasn’t at her desk, but someone shorter was filing something in the cabinet, facing away from him. “Have a seat, Mister Matic.” She finished what she was doing while he sat down. When she turned around, he saw that he knew her.

“Siria Webb. It’s been a long time for me.”

“As well as for me,” Siria said. She sat down on the other side of the desk.

“Could you tell me what year it is?”

“It’s the year 216 of the common era,” she replied.

“That’s early.”

“That’s the point.”

“What’s this place? Where are we?”

“Snake Island,” Siria began. “As you can imagine, there are a ton of snakes here. There are no doors to the outside, so if you were a teleporter, we would caution you to not even try.”

“I am a teleporter,” Mateo corrected.

“Oh. You are? I think we need to update your records.”

He nodded. It didn’t matter to him either way. “What are the next steps?”

“First, we must link you to your card. This will prevent anyone else from using it, and allow you to access all of its features.” She walked over to the side wall, and opened what Mateo thought was just a cabinet. She pulled a sort of morgue drawer from it, having to move the second visitor’s chair out of the way. “I promise, it won’t hurt.”

“What other features does it have?”

Meditation apps, coping skills, and other lessons. It can hold photos of your loved ones, even if you don’t have any to upload, as it can pull the images from your memory. There’s also a, uhh...”

“A what?” Why was she nervous to answer?

“It’s an orgasm button.” She was still rather uncomfortable to be explaining this, but was holding it together. “Sometimes a sexual release is all you need to get through the day, and this is quicker and easier. I should warn you, though, that it keeps track of when you use it, and Dr. Hammer can see the logs, so she may bring it up if that’s, like, all you do all day. It also tracks your vitals, which she’ll use to tailor your treatment.”

“I was to understand that this was more of a support group, and Dr. Hammer would be less involved than all this.”

“I don’t know how you ended up with that card, and it’s none of my business, but they may have been misinformed, or withheld information on purpose. I couldn’t tell ya. This is all about consent, which you may revoke at any time. You can turn around and leave right now, and even keep the card, though some features may not work.”

“No, it’s fine. I want to talk to people who aren’t my friends. They’re supportive, but...”

“They’re too close?” Siria guessed.

“Yeah.” Mateo removed the armor and response modules of his IMS.

“You don’t need to strip down completely,” she informed him. Once he was on his back, she went back over to the computer to begin the procedure. She slammed on the keys with purpose, stopping to click through menus as needed. Shortly after announcing that she was starting, the dull hum of the machine stopped. “Something’s wrong.” She removed the card from its dock, spun around in her chair, and stuck it in some other device. “Card seems fine to me, unless I’m reading this wrong, so it must be you.”

“What’s the error?” he asked.

“It can’t get a clear reading.” She turned to look down at him. “Do you have multiple consciousnesses in your brain, or has it been recently blended?”

“Oh. No, but I am spatio-temporally tethered to six other people. And I have a neuro-emotional bond with five of them.”

“That must be it. One or the other would probably be fine, but if you’re permanently linked to them, then the machine can’t calibrate to your emotions, and yours alone.”

“So I’m SOL?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but I’m neither authorized nor trained to proceed. It would be up to Dr. Hammer to decide what she’s willing to do, because my guess is, if we move forward, all six of the bonded people will be able to use this card. You may be okay with that, but she may not. I really couldn’t say for sure.”

“Can I bring my team here, so she can speak with all of us at once?” he offered.

She chuckled a little. “The card is designed to transport only one person at a time. It’s not an inherent limitation, but an arbitrary one which Dr. Hammer imposed to prevent someone from abusing its power.”

Mateo chuckled back. “We don’t need the card. They just need to know where I am.” He took a breath, and prepared himself. Then he removed the microinjector from a compartment hidden in the back of the armor module.

“What the hell is that?” Siria questioned.

“A break-glass-in-case-of-emergency serum.” Before she could stop him, he jammed it into his own neck. He was overwhelmed with an intense feeling of fear. It wasn’t that it gave him images of things that he would be afraid of. It was more like he became acutely afraid of the terrible danger that the whole world around him posed. This machine he was in, the office furniture, the window, the walls. Everything felt like such a profound threat to his safety, and he knew for a fact that it would never end. He would feel this sense of loneliness and dread for the rest of his life. Nothing could stop it, no one could help him. He was lost, alone, and would soon die of the panic in his twisted and tattered heart. He began to hyperventilate. Siria tried to help, but there was nothing she could do, except make it worse. She was the scariest threat of all. This was his life now. It was always going to end like this.

She stood back up to run for help when Leona appeared out of nowhere in front of her. “What did you do to him?” she demanded to know.

“Nothing! He did it to himself!” Siria insisted.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Leona warned. She jammed a second microinjector into her husband’s neck.

Mateo immediately felt a sudden sense of relief. This room was the best, safest place in all of histories. The furniture was soft and comfortable. The walls were welcoming and warm. The window was showing them the coolest island that ever rose out of the sea. The machine was exactly what he needed today. Never again would he feel the cold emptiness of a life alone. Everything in the whole world was perfect, and he felt so much love in his bright, shining heart. His happiness could know no end, and he would never die.

“Don’t blame her, it’s not her fault,” Mateo assured Leona. “I’m fine, I just needed you here, and this was the fastest way to do it.”

“Matt, the fear serum was only to be used in emergencies.”

“This was an emergency,” he decided. “We were worried about the range of our tether. Now we know that we can find each other across a hundred and twenty light years, and well over two thousand regular years.”

Leona gave it some thought. “I guess that’s true. So, you’re okay? You’re really okay? You can be honest.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Mateo reiterated. “Call off the dogs of war.”

“Okay.” Leona took a look around. “Where’s Dr. Hammer?”

“She’s in a session,” Siria replied. “They’ll be done in about ninety minutes.”

“We can wait,” Mateo determined. “Ramses needs time to look through the data from this last jump, I’m sure.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 26, 2478

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Ramses frantically searched through the operation logs, trying to figure out where Romana could have gone off to, but this ship wasn’t originally designed for time or instantaneous travel. He has had to develop the new navigation system from scratch, and that wasn’t something that he could just sit down and code. Like the explorers of yore, he needed information, and the only way to get it would be to go out and blaze the trails first. It wasn’t ready. None of this was ready, and he was freaking out again, feeling like a failure. He spent all day on it, and then the computers worked on it without him for a year. Nothing. They needed new avenues of data collection.

They had given Romana a communication disc, and her own IMS, but she wasn’t wearing an upgraded substrate, so she didn’t enjoy an emotional bond with the others. That was probably why she spun off alone, leaving everyone else behind. What they realized they needed to do now was determine whether the tether worked for any of them. Perhaps they couldn’t find her because it didn’t work at all, or perhaps they just didn’t know what they were doing yet. Since the Vellani Ambassador was preoccupied by a proverbial level three diagnostic, they were gonna have to do this themselves.

“How far should I go?” Mateo’s helmet was locked in, but his visor was still up.

“As far as you can,” Leona answered as she was making sure there weren’t any leaks in his suit. “We’ll instruct you from here.”

Marie was doing the same for Olimpia. “Just make sure you’re going in opposite directions. You head towards the sun. Pia, go for Pluto.”

“Got it,” Olimpia confirmed, jerking her head down as her visor dropped as if the gesture had caused it to happen. She quickly switched the helmet to depth hologram mode, which essentially turned the whole thing invisible.

Mateo did the same, then walked over to her. They reached out with their right arms, and slammed them against each other. “See you on the other side, love.”

“Not if I see you first.” Olimpia quickly let go, and spun around before disappearing.

Mateo tipped himself over backwards, and disappeared at the last second before hitting the floor. He found himself floating in orbit over Castlebourne. He hung there for a moment, just to admire the view. Then he pushed himself into burst mode, and jumped as far from the planet as he could. He went a few degrees off the host star, but eventually passed it, and kept it at its back. He stayed in contact with his friends, especially Olimpia, who was making good time too. He was starting to get tired, but he never said anything, and never gave up.

“Okay, kids, you’re far enough,” Leona began over comms. “Switch off your beacons, and go radio silent. Choose a new direction in secret, and keep going for another ten minutes. Zig zag if you want, just don’t tell us where you are. Only make contact in an emergency.”

“Roger, boss,” Olimpia replied.

“Understood,” Mateo added. “Going dark now.” He did as he was asked, then started teleporting again, somewhat perpendicular to the orbital plane. It wasn’t a perfect ninety degree angle, though. He was on his way sort of back towards the sun, but on the scenic route. He did zig a few times, and even zagged, but kept mostly on a straight line. Ten minutes later, he stopped jumping, and just let himself drift. It took a lot out of him, so he drank some water, and some dayfruit smoothie. He thought about watching the next episode of American Housewife on the queue to pass the time, but he was supposed to be darklurking. Even a little extra heat waste could alert the team to his location. Ramses wanted to design miniature heat shunt pocket dimensions for their suits, but it was low on the priority list at the moment. They were supposed to ignore such old school tracking techniques anyway, but it was best to not tempt fate.

Less than thirty minutes later, a suited somebody appeared out of nowhere, and tackled Mateo. “Tag, you’re it!” Angela cried through helmet conduction.

“It worked?” Mateo asked. “You could sense my location?”

“It did. Turn your comms back on. Marie already found Olimpia. She turned right around, and came back towards the planet to trick us, so she was pretty close again.”

“I thought about doing that,” Mateo said for all to hear.

“I’m glad we both didn’t do the same thing,” Olimpia decided.

Outer space and the sun suddenly disappeared to be replaced by the interior of the Vellani. They were back in the airlock. Ramses walked in. “That confirms it, we can find each other, but not Romana.”

“Theories,” Marie asked, “besides the obvious that the tether’s range is limited, and we are limited in our ability to test it?”

“Everyone be quiet,” Ramses ordered. “Just close your eyes and ears, and listen with your mind. Think about her, and only her. You should hear something.”

They did as he said. It took Mateo a moment, but there was something. It wasn’t Romana’s location, but it was something. It was like...static? Some sort of noise. It wasn’t constant, though, like television snow. There were blips, and if they were exhibiting a pattern, surely one of the smarties would be able to translate it.

“Calibration delay,” Leona finally figured.

“That’s right,” Ramses agreed. “At least I think so.”

“What does that mean?” Olimpia asked.

“The tether has to take a moment to recalculate its connections each time there’s a significant change in position of one of its nodes, e.g. one of us. We could feel it as you two were teleporting away from us. Of course, since you were still relatively close, there wasn’t much of a delay...”

“But if Romana went a lot further or farther, it will take a lot longer for us to pinpoint her location,” Angela realized. “But it’s been quite a while. How long are we expecting it to take?”

Ramses took a moment to respond. “The calibration should be measured in seconds, even at the furthest reaches of time and space. The reason we can’t find her is probably because she’s not staying in one place. She’s in constant flux.”

“Like my sister, Aquila,” Mateo guessed.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Ramses said. “It was before my time, but maybe. If our hypothesis is correct, Romana is truly lost in time.”

“What could we possibly do from here?” Marie asked. “Could we—I dunno...try to match her energy?”

Leona smiled. “That’s a nice thought. If we intentionally became as erratic as her, we might end up in the same temporal dimension. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work. If anything, it would make it worse by triggering more calibration than our tethers should be expected to calculate.”

“So, what do we do?” Mateo pressed. “How do we find my daughter?”

Leona and Ramses were silent.

“What do we do!” Mateo repeated himself in a raised voice.

“I don’t know,” Ramses admitted.

Mateo finally removed his helmet, and dropped it on the floor. He tried to walk towards his best friend, but the helmet slid along right behind him. “Goddamn proximity control magnets. Tethers will be the death of me!” He hastily turned off the feature to cut his stalker loose, so he could talk to Ramses in peace. “Do whatever you have to do. Tear that machine apart and put it back together backwards, take every ounce of temporal energy from me, call a time god; I don’t care. Find her.”

Ramses briskly walked out of the room, presumably to comply.

“What? Do you think I was too harsh?” Mateo questioned the room.

“Ram’s okay,” Leona assured him. “He understands that he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a kid. That being said, it doesn’t give you the right to treat friends like enemies, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that line, lest you cross it.”

“Okay.” Mateo put his helmet back on. “I’ll be on the roof.” He teleported outside and activated his boot magnets to stay in place. The ship was moving at very low subfractional speeds to get back to the planet. There wasn’t any reason to jump back there instantaneously, even though they obviously could with ease. He stared into the abyss, and when he grew tired, he lay down and watched the stars above him.

A clanking of boots approached him. Someone else wearing an IMS appeared in his view. They switched on their hologram to make themselves look like Romana.

“I don’t need role play therapy, whoever you are,” he contended, forgetting to turn his comms on. “I’ll tell her whatever I need to tell her when I see her for real.”

The way Angela talked to him before, by placing her helmet against his, was a way to send soundwaves into each other’s air spaces since they wouldn’t make it across the vacuum. This was a really great way for two people to communicate without involving anyone else. Theoretically, any signal could be hacked one way or another. In an atmosphere, even if there were no electronic or mechanical devices nearby, maybe someone was eavesdropping. Helmet conduction was probably the safest way to keep a secret that was ever invented, as long as everyone kept their radios off, which was true of Mateo in this case. This mystery person didn’t need to crouch down and place their helmets directly together, though. They took out a device that was specifically designed for it. They stuck one patch on their own visor, extended the second patch out with the retractable wire, and stuck the second one on his. “I really am Romana.”

“They found you?” Mateo asked, still not sure if he believed it.

She sat down next to him as he was sitting up. “No, not yet. But they will.”

“Tell me how we do it in the future, so we can just do it faster this time.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she replied. “Rambo has to go through the whole process. I only came back in time to alleviate your stress.”

He stared at her for a moment, then looked away. “You’re not really her.”

“You really think one of your friends would trick you? Plus, I just read your mind.”

“If you’re from the future, you would know them better than me.”

“I’m not from that far in the future,” she claimed. “But here’s the funny thing, we never did run that DNA test, did we? The girl you met the other day might not have ever really been Romana. Or maybe she was, but her history wasn’t true in the first place. Because you actually never ran a DNA test, meaning Romana the baby was never necessarily your child in the first place. It could be Silenus’ baby instead, and the whole embryo being passed down the matrilineal line was a giant lie. Or you do have a baby, and she’s out there somewhere, or she was, or she will be, and we cloned her, and inserted someone else into the copy. Or someone else cloned her, and I’m the real one, and every version you’ve met until now has been an impostor.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You never really know someone.”

“All we can do is our best,” she added.

“I thought you were supposed to make me feel better. How is this helping?”

“I am, and it is. Here’s the lesson; you’re an advancer. The whole point of you as a salmon was to force you to jump through time, leaving everyone behind. Other time travelers leave their families in their own pasts, but they usually do it all at once, like ripping off an adhesive bandage. You did it gradually, giving you time to watch them slip through your fingers. You should be used to it by now. If you never see me again, you’ll be okay. You have three other daughters, and a son. You didn’t raise them either.”

“Again, your pep talk isn’t working. The fact that I don’t know any of my own kids is not a point of pride. It is my great shame.”

She sighed and nodded as she watched Castlebourne grow larger and larger. She removed a silver business card from her arm cache, and handed it to him. It clinked a little, and felt hard, like metal, instead of paper, but it appeared to be blank. “I’m not really here to make you feel better. That’s not something I could ever do. You lost out on fifteen years with me. I’ve had exactly that much time to come to terms with it. You haven’t. Activate that whenever you’re feeling upset, and need to talk to someone who understands. Most rendezvous cards are single use, but this one is permanent.”

“This is therapy? Who’s it with? Dr. Hammer?”

She smiled with teeth. “Good guess. She’s the facilitator, but it’s more of a support group, full of people who have gone through what you have. I’m sure your story beats ‘em all, but they’ll be a great resource just the same.”

“They all lost their children in general,” he pressed, “or time travel took them?”

“The second one,” she promised. “Some of them are the travelers, some of them were the ones left behind. Some are both.”

He frowned at her. “How long will it take Ramses and Leona to find you? When will you close this loop?”

Mateo’s comms disc pinged, so he opened a channel. “Mateo, come back inside, I figured something out,” Ramses said.

Romana helped her father up from the hull. “Won’t be long now. You go first. I don’t want you to see me leave again. It must be so traumatizing by now.”

After a quick hug, he disappeared, but he secretly jumped back outside to watch her from a distance. Dark particles. That was how she came here, and how she left. This somehow all involved Buddy Citrus. Realizing that there was nothing he could do about that at the moment, he went back to the group inside.

Ramses presented them with something that they all recognized. It was the little machine that scientists in the Fifth Division designed to help them locate each other before, back when Dalton Hawk separated them to all the five realities. “The original is long gone, but I still have the specs, so I printed a new one. This is how we’re gonna find your girl. All I need to do is figure out how to interface it with the slingdrive.”

Mateo stepped out of the armor module of his IMS. He stumbled back  a little like a newborn fawn, bracing himself on the wall before leaning against it. “Do it.”

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