The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 11, 2279

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The team was suddenly floating in outer space, next to a three-dozen kilometer tower that was once standing on the surface of Proxima Doma. All they could see was the faint outline of the lightly self-illuminated looming structure. The rest was utter darkness. They could survive like this for now, but they couldn’t communicate well, so they activated their EmergentSuits, and sealed themselves up. “Checking for injuries,” Leona declared. She scrolled through her list, which reported no issues with the team, but it did display something else. “Extra lifesign detected. Or...maybe two. Sync up and jump.” She selected the coordinates, and they all teleported there.

They found themselves in the penthouse of the tower. Aeterna was lying unconscious on the floor. Mateo scooped her up, and set her on a table. “Where’s the infirmary?” he asked, gently brushing Aeterna’s hair away so he could pull her eyelids open to check for a response. He wasn’t a doctor, but it seemed like the right thing to do. He shone a light into each eye, and saw the pupils shrink, which made sense to him.

“There is none,” Ramses replied. “Tertius and Aeterna are both immortal.”

“Obviously not,” Mateo argued. “She’s also pregnant...I don’t know if you noticed. That’s a pretty big change from when we last saw her a few minutes ago.”

Marie unzipped Aeterna’s outfit, and started to feel around on her belly. “It’s as hard as a rock. I don’t know what that means, but it can’t be good.”

“Keep unzipping,” Leona ordered quietly. “I think I’ve seen this before.”

Marie did as she was asked. “Is that what I think it is, or just urine?”

Leona bent over and sniffed. “It’s sweet. It’s what you think it is.”

“She can’t give birth if she’s not awake,” Romana reasoned.

“Oh yes, she can,” Leona contended. “Because we’re gonna help her. Get that thing all the way off of her.” While they were doing that, she held her arms out, and receded her sleeves. She then instructed her nanites to configure into a sanitizer dispenser, connected to the reserves in one of her pocket dimensions. She squirted it all the way, up and down her arms and hands, rubbing them together. She then turned her nanites into exam gloves, and did it all again to sanitize those too. She took one breath, but decided that it wasn’t enough, and continued into a breathing exercise. She lifted one hand again, and apported a sterile knife into it.

“You can’t be serious,” Olimpia said.

Leona continued to look down at the patient as she spoke. “Ramses is right. Aeterna is immortal, just like her father. She told us about it, and demonstrated it. She is injured now specifically because she’s pregnant. The baby is suppressing her immortality because it has to in order to grow. I don’t have to know how to do a proper c-section. I just have to get the child out of her, and she will heal herself.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Olimpia pressed. “What if she needs surgery to...kickstart the healing?”

Leona looked at her wife. “Then I’ll access the central archives, and find out how to do that.”

Olimpia shook her head disapprovingly.

“If we do nothing,” Leona went on, “both of them die. We don’t know where or when we are. We’re not detecting anyone else around. We are all that mother and baby have. Stand back, it might squirt blood. I don’t really know.” Leona just went for it. She cut Aeterna’s body from side to side, then without any instruments, she reached through the seam, and pulled the skin apart. It wasn’t pretty, but she knew she was right. Aeterna would come back from this. She reached further into Aeterna’s womb, and carefully picked up the baby. It was...floppy. That was the only word to describe what the baby looked like. And blue. She was also very blue.

“Oh my God.” Romana started to tear up, and look away.

“I need to lie her down to perform CPR. Someone cut the cord, please.”

Mateo apported his own knife into his hand, and severed the umbilical cord. Leona turned out to be right. Immediately after the connection was severed, Aeterna’s body started to return to normal. Her c-section was beginning to seal itself up right before their eyes.

Leona looked at her, then back at the baby, then back at Aeterna again. “Get a syringe. I need a blood sample.

“What?” Mateo questioned.

“Isn’t there a first aid kit in one of our dimensions?” Leona urged. “Come on! Hurry, hurry!”

“Yes, I got it. Hold on.” Ramses thought about what he needed, then materialized the syringe. He reached down, and tried to poke Aeterna’s arm, but the needle broke on contact. “It didn’t work.”

Leona understood the stakes. “The c-section. It hasn’t closed up yet. Take it from there. Now!”

“I don’t have a second syringe,” Ramses explained.

Angela apported one from her own medkit. She deftly stuck it into Aeterna’s wound, and drew some blood out of it. The needle broke too, and the skin forced it out, letting it fall to the floor.

Aeterna gasped as she sat up, then settled back down, but only for a second. “My baby!”

“This is your blood,” Angela said, shaking it at her. “Will it heal your child? We don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

“Yes, please. Do it now!” Aeterna shouted back.

“The needle’s gone,” Mateo reminded them.

“Use mine.” Marie apported her syringe. She twisted the needle off it while Angela twisted the bad one off of hers.

They put the two good parts together, then Angela tapped on the syringe, and squirted a little bit of the blood out to clear any air bubbles. She carefully slipped the needle into the baby’s vein, and injected her with the crude serum. They waited there for a moment, breathless and scared. More of them started to tear up. Finally, after about a minute, the apparent cure had circulated throughout the child’s bloodstream. Her skin turned pink, and miraculously, she started to cry. Oh, it was so loud and grating, and the most beautiful thing they had ever heard.

Aeterna burst into tears herself as Leona handed her wee girl to her. She continued to cry, but was smiling at the precious life in her hands. Then she started to blink and look a little bit confused. She adjusted her position a little. “She’s moving her arms, but not her legs. Why isn’t she moving her legs?”

“I...I,” Leona eked out. “The blood should have worked. It did work!”

“She’s not moving her legs!” Aeterna repeated.

“Aeterna,” Mateo began. “What is the baby’s name?”

“What? What does it matter?”

“Tell us the name,” Mateo reiterated.

“We hadn’t decided on a first name yet,” Aeterna began. “She was gonna take her father’s surname, and I was gonna surprise him with the idea to name her after his late mother, Delara.”

“Dilara Cassano,” Mateo said.

Aeterna had been staring at her baby girl this whole time, but now jerked her head up. “You know her. You know her in the future.”

Leona solemnly glided over to the wall, and opened the viewport, revealing a black void. No stars whatsoever. “I know where we are. This is The Fifth Division.” She turned back around, and took one step towards Aeterna. “I’m sorry to do this to you right now, in your darkest hour, but...report.”

Aeterna swallowed, but recognized that she had to catch them up. “You failed. You didn’t have the strength to spirit the rest of the tower away, and it crushed you. But you were lucky. The shockwave blasted its way through the dome, and killed everyone. The massive destruction accelerated the instability of the planet just enough to prevent any hope of evacuation. The poles were the only safe places to be, but most couldn’t get to them. And there certainly weren’t enough ships to get them all off planet. Since I was pregnant, I had a pass. I used what little time I had to make contact with the choosing one network, and found someone willing to send me back. He had his limits, unfortunately, so when I returned, I only had enough time to use the tower’s power reserves to give you the energy boost you needed to finish the job. It looks like we succeeded.”

“So there’s another Aeterna back in the main sequence,” Marie realized, “and another Dilara.”

Mateo looked at her. “That’s why she didn’t recognize us. She was a dupe, like you.” They both looked over at Angela.

“So she never walks,” Aeterna asked. “My baby never walks?”

“I’m sorry,” Leona said. “I wanted to go for the bone marrow, but we didn’t have the equipment, and definitely not the time. Once she was separated from you, your body decided that it was ready to be invincible again. That’s what makes you and your father special. You have layers of death defiance.”

Aeterna nodded somberly. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant. I always have unprotected sex, because I didn’t think it mattered. Even if my partner had an STD, they couldn’t give it to me, and I have nothing to give to them.”

“How did Tertius have you in the first place?” Ramses asked. He then recoiled, worried that it was an inappropriate question.

“He had some kind of legacy loophole,” Aeterna answered. “It was some special serum that gave him one shot at conception, which he used to make me.”

“Maybe it was lingering in your system,” Leona guessed. “That’s how you have her.” She gestured towards the baby.

“That was our assumption too,” Aeterna agreed.

“Were you pregnant when we met?” Olimpia asked.

“No. I was pregnant when you came back, but that was a year later, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I just...didn’t think it was relevant,” Aeterna defended.

“You don’t owe us an explanation,” Mateo assured her.

Just then, a beam of light appeared. They turned their heads to see a crack in the far wall, right where it met the floor. It looked like someone was trying to break through using a thermal lance. The bean split in two, and each one began to travel up the wall at roughly the same speed. As they moved upwards, more cracks of light began to appear between them, in random, wavy curves. It looked rather familiar. They just needed more information to win this game of Pictionary. Knowing that it could be dangerous, everyone suited up. Mateo figured that it would be unsafe to donate his nanites to a baby, like he had with Boyd years ago, so he stood between her and the mysterious intrusion. The others bunched up to do the same. Mateo commanded the nanites on his front to turn into little cameras, and the ones on his back to become monitors so Aeterna could still see what was happening.

The beams continued to move up in straight lines, and accelerated, until beginning to split off into branches. Oh, it was a tree. The first two lines had formed the trunk, and the curves between them was the bark. Finally, the beams met back up with each other to complete the full image. The light became saturated, and began to fill the room. After one final flash, the light and the tree disappeared from the wall, but left a lingering image in the air. Behind it were two figures, holding both of each other’s hands. As the hologram faded, their eyes adjusted, and they were able to see who it was. Well, they were able to see one of them. The other was covered by a hood.

“Romana?” Leona asked.

“That’s not Romana, Mateo determined.

“Miracle,” Romana said. “Why are you here?”

“I think you know why.”

“Who’s your friend there?” Romana asked.

“I know who it is,” Leona said. “Show yourself. You’re not fooling anyone.”

Adult!Dilara Cassano pulled her hood back, and stretched her lips into a polite, but fake smile. “I didn’t wanna come, but I had no choice.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Leona demanded to know. The team hadn’t budged. There was no reason to relax, and think that Aeterna and Baby!Dilara weren’t still at risk.

“It has nothing to do with the kid,” Miracle began. “It’s mostly a coincidence that Miss Cassano here was the person we found to come pull you back into our reality.”

“We,” Mateo echoed. “We who?”

Miracle smirked. It was quite unsettling, seeing her look like Romana, but realizing that she wasn’t their friend anymore. “I think you know who. You broke out of negotiations way too soon, and Pacey is not happy. You need to get back to the main sequence, and back to the Goldilocks Corridor, so you can get back on mission, and assassinate Bronach Oaksent.”

“We have decided not to do that,” Leona retorted.

Miracle laughed. “Oh, I forget. You keep thinking you have choices. That’s enough of that.” She turned her head to face Adult!Dilara. “Do your thing.”

Adult!Dilara hesitated.

“Do it,” Miracle insisted.

Adult!Dilara reluctantly released creepy light vines from her ankles, and sent them out towards the team.

The vines reached their legs, and started climbing up their bodies. They couldn’t be removed. “Your escape modules!” Ramses yelled. “Release them! For the baby!”

They all did it, leaving behind seven caches of supplies to keep the baby alive until Aeterna could find civilization, and then they disappeared in a flash of branching light.

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Microstory 2533: Patient Relative

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My father has been battling cancer for years now. It’s been so hard to watch him struggle. I’ve sometimes thought that the treatment was worse than the disease. I’m still not entirely convinced that that’s not true. It always seemed crazy to me that the only way to fight it off is to make it sick. It’s like shooting the hostage. One of the bullets might hit the hostage-taker too, but is the price worth it? Well, now we don’t have to worry about it anymore. No more tests, no more chemo. No more sleeping half the day away, no more spending the rest of the day worshiping the porcelain god. He’s going to be cured. Our application was just accepted. Now we’re just biding our time until the appointment. Per sound advice, he has continued his conventional treatments, not because we think the appointment will fall through, but because we don’t want to take any chances. He’ll stop a week before, because that will be the end of another round, and so he can feel better for the trip down to Kansas City, but no sooner than that. This is going to be such a relief. I’m excited to have my dad back, but all he’s been talking about is my education. I dropped out of college when he was diagnosed so I could go back home to take care of him. He’s always thought I resented him for that, but I didn’t care for school anyway. It’s not like I was training to be an engineer, or a lawyer. I was getting an undergraduate degree in underwater basket-weaving. It might have helped me get a job, but it wouldn’t help me make better money. That’s one thing you have to remember when you’re trying to decide whether you’ll go or not. It helps you get in the door, but it doesn’t keep you in the room. Your boss and your hiring manager may like to see it on your résumé, but if you suck at the job, they’re not going to say, “oh, but she’s a graduate. Better give her a second chance. We would fire her right away if she only had a high school diploma.” No, that’s not a thing. I’m happy where I am now, and I love living at home. I love my dad, and I like spending time with him, regardless of what brought me back here in the first place. He wants me to go back to school, but I think it’s mostly about the symmetry of it. For him, he doesn’t like to start something without finishing it. Things like that are just always hanging over his head, and he can feel them. It makes his condition worse, worrying about something undone, even if it doesn’t need to be done. He once finished a bowl of soup that was making him nauseated just because when you have a meal, you eat until it’s gone. He immediately threw it up, but guess what? He threw it all up. I hope getting the cure will help alleviate the stress from all that. I can’t wait. I’m probably more excited than he is.

Microstory 2525: Rich Patient

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I am no stranger to charity. I have always been on this side of it. I was born into a wealthy family of business moguls. I can’t tell you exactly what our family does, because we have our hands in a lot of different cookie jars. My ancestors liked to invest in ideas, and they were very good at telling the difference between the great ones and the stinkers. Most people in my family have kept the tradition alive, and invest in whatever they think will be the most profitable. They are not saints, but I wouldn’t call them evil either. We didn’t make our money on great instincts alone. Research is the name of the game, and we pride ourselves in supporting ethical and sustainable companies over get-rich-quick schemes that some of our contemporaries are involved in. You’ll notice, I sometimes separate myself from my family, and sometimes lump myself in with them. The truth is that I’ve never been that interested in this kind of work. It’s oh so boring. I like that we do research, but I don’t like to do it myself, so to maintain the integrity of our practices, I have simply chosen to opt out. I’m lucky to have parents who allowed me to do this, and did not insist on me following in their footsteps. They actually had a lot of children for this reason. It might sound so calculated, but really, they were just practical. Instead of having one kid, and hoping they turned out exactly how they dreamed, they played the odds. They knew that the chances of one of us being like them went up the more they had. It ended up only being four, so don’t think they went crazy, or anything, and lucky them, three of them are all in. It’s really only I who chose a different path. I’m not entirely removed. I’m entitled to a trust fund, just as my siblings are, which I use to support my philanthropic endeavors. And you know what? My siblings do the same, but in their own way. They don’t wanna have to judge people, and determine what kind of charity they deserve, or how much, so they just give me the money, and I donate accordingly on their behalf. It’s a truly symbiotic relationship. I’m still quite a bit different than them. I open my own car doors, which my chauffeur keeps forgetting, and I raised my own kids with no help beyond my husband, and a few babysitters here and there. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a condition called Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. That first word means that they don’t know what caused it. So it’s no one’s fault. I have had it all this time while the Foundation was running, but I hesitated to apply for a healing. I’ve never called myself old, but I’m no spring chicken either. I honestly could have died at any time while I pursued typical treatment. I just didn’t want to butt in. So many other people needed help, and I didn’t want to take anyone’s slot. I admire Landis for developing a fair system that didn’t prioritize people like me, but it still felt so icky. Then something changed. I had grandchildren. Two twin girls. I decided that I wasn’t just fighting for my life, but for the time I could spend with them. So I applied, and got my healing. I don’t know how long I would have survived without it, but...not long. I was likely weeks away from expiring. Did you know, because of all of my charitable donations, they wanted to classify me as a no-pay? I wouldn’t have it. It goes against my entire being. I insisted they recategorize me for pay-up, so I could contribute my fair share. I didn’t give them all my money, since I need to leave some for my family when I finally do die, but I think I helped keep the lights on for a few more days. It’s the least I could do.

Microstory 2516: First Coordinated Patient

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Everyone in my family calls me the guinea pig, or the first patient, but that is not entirely true. The reason Mr. Tipton was able to purchase the hotel was because of his very first patient. But even he probably wasn’t really his first. This wasn’t in the patient introduction video, but I bet Landis experimented a little bit with his abilities. You have to understand your limits, so he would have made a little burn mark on a friend’s shoulder, or had him fall from the second story. No, I dunno. I’m making stuff up. I just don’t want to go down in history as some special case. Back in the early days of this foundation, they weren’t yet a well-oiled machine. The way they have it set up now, a lot of the process is automated, and you get your little arm band, and you stand in a snaking line between the stanchions. It has to be. You got more people requesting healing per day than Landis can handle. There’s really no way to scale up this operation. When all the magic comes from one guy, you’re gonna hit a bottleneck. It wasn’t like that for me. They started out a little slow, partially because they had to figure out how they were going to organize the process, but also because people didn’t really believe it. Sure, you had one of the richest men in the country claim that he was cured, and many people believed it, but so many more figured it was a stunt. Maybe the original medical records were forged, or the post-healing ones were. Or maybe it was all a misunderstanding. There was no way to be sure. It took people like me to be brave enough to go for it without proof. I’ve always been like that, though. Life is meant to be lived; not scared of. The way it works is if you’re rich, you pay, if you’re middle-class, it’s free, and if you’re poor, they pay you. That was always the plan, but they didn’t yet have the infrastructure when I signed up. They didn’t yet have the relationships with the banks to verify a patient’s private financial situation. So for the first few months, it was all on the honor system. Of course, I am rich enough. I actually think I qualified for middle-class at the time, so I shouldn’t have paid anything, but it didn’t matter. If I wasn’t paying Breath of Life for the cure, I was paying the hospital for the treatment. At least Landis could actually fix me. There was no guarantee, since like I said, we only had evidence back then; not proof, but obviously it was worth it. Since then, I’ve been donating a little bit of money to them every month. A lot of people don’t know that. You can just support them without getting anything out of it as a secondary source of revenue for them. Everything they receive, they put back into the system to keep the place running. I won’t tell you what disease I had, because the way I look at it, it never happened. When you get breast cancer, you can go into remission, but you can’t be cured. It’s always there, and you’re always scared of it coming back. But what I had, it’s completely gone, and I was restored to perfect health, so it’s like it was never there. Naming it won’t do any good. Landis Tipton. From now on, that’s the only name you’ll ever need to remember when it comes to your health.

Microstory 2512: Very First Patient

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It’s true, I was Mr. Tipton’s very first patient, though no one used that term at the time. My company suffered a major blow when the truth came out that I was suffering from a terminal disease. Stock prices plummeted, and the board was worried that we would ultimately have to shut down. I wasn’t desperate, though. I was never desperate. I designed my company to operate without me, and I’ve never thought of it as being my responsibility, and mine alone. The market failed to understand my vision for a collaborative future, but they would have come to know the truth in time, and the company would have bounced back. Still. It’s not like I wanted to die. I spoke with all the experts, and tried all the reasonable experimental treatments. Nothing was working, but I’m an old man, and we all die eventually. I was understandably skeptical when these two young men approached me with the claim that they could cure me for good. But I listened to them, because I was intrigued, and I didn’t think it would do any harm. After a brief demonstration that involved Mr. Tipton’s associate stabbing himself in the arm, they only asked for $5,000 as a sort of down payment. Clearly, either they were master magicians, or it was true that Mr. Tipton could heal people, but he didn’t want to ask for all the money up front. Not to brag, but $5,000 was nothing to me. I decided that if this was all just some big scam, then these two deserved to be paid for being able to fool me, so I gladly paid it. They said, once my medical professionals proved that I was entirely disease-free, I could pay the remaining $10 million. I ended up giving them 15. Since it turned out to not be a scam at all, I felt like they definitely deserved the money. Compared to dying in a few months, I call that a bargain. Many believe that I am a silent partner in the Foundation, but I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t investing in their future; it was just a straight payment. What they did with the money was none of my business. I’m pleased with their choice. They could have just as easily shot through to a beach resort, and gave the rest of us the middle finger, but they stuck around, and put in the hard work. So many more have benefited the way that I have, and even more will, if rumors of the panacea are even vaguely accurate. I’m proud to call myself the very first patient. That’s something that will always make me special. When I do finally leave this planet, my legacy will outlive me, thanks to one boy’s choice to include me in the very early days of his incredibly ambitious plan to heal the whole world.

Microstory 2500: Welcome to the Landis Tipton Breath of Life Foundation

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Welcome. And thank you all for coming to the Landis Tipton Breath of Life Foundation. In a few moments, I’m going to start the video, which will give you a more comprehensive idea of what we do here, and how our principles have guided our vision for the future. You all came to this place either because you are suffering from a debilitating or terminal disease, or you are chaperoning someone who is. You have all already filled out your preliminary applications, and would not be in this room if there were some reason to reject you. So congratulations, you’re about to be cured! Let’s go over some reasons why some people face rejection, so you’ll better understand why you were selected for treatment. First, we handle otherwise incurable diseases only here. We do not treat injuries. No one is here because they broke a leg, or suffered a cut on their cheek. Those are not life-threatening conditions, and conventional medicine should be able to help them. We also do not accept patients for holistic benefits. Someone who just wants to feel better overall will not be given a place in line. Landis also can’t treat what we like to call conditions of state. You may be considered overweight, by popular medicine, your doctor, or even yourself, but this is not an acute or chronic illness, and Landis is unable to make changes to these types of systemic issues. There is simply nothing to repair in these cases. It may be unhealthy, but nothing is broken, and in the end, that’s what Landis can do for us. He can fix what is broken, not simply make something more preferable.

It’s important to understand as well that, while you were granted allowance to add more than one medical issue on your form, Landis is unable to selectively decide which conditions are cured, and which are not. I doubt any of you would like him to leave anything out anyway, but we have to make it clear that if you left anything off of your form, it will not be excluded. If you have poor eyesight, but don’t care about that, Landis’ breath has no way of knowing that, or ignoring it. In fact, if you do happen to have some minor injury along with your illness, that will be cured too. The breath doesn’t choose. It is the program, and our policies, which choose what to spend Landis’ time on, but once you’re here, everything that can be repaired will be repaired. We have yet to find a disease that Landis cannot cure. Our mission is to one day rid the whole world of all disease and pain, but for right now, due to the sheer number of requests, we have to prioritize, and sacrifices must be made. I don’t say any of this to scare you, but to excite you for what’s to come. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I know you’ve all been waiting for your chance to be healed of what ails you, even before this organization was founded. You’ve been through great hardship. I can’t tell you that life will be easy from here on out, but we can at least take this off your plate. Now, please sit back and relax while you watch the introductory video, which will provide you with a history of our foundation, beginning with the mystery of the origin of Landis Tipton’s powers, and explain how we are providing the community with more than just cures. We’re building the future, and finding a place for everyone in it.

Microstory 2414: Adrenadome

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TRIGGER WARNING. I want to talk about laws here, but I’m not going to say which laws specifically right away, because if my review ends up in a blurb, then it could get banned—or shadowbanned—for perpetuating harmful ideas. I think I need a few extra words to be safe sooooooo, there we go. Suicide laws. That’s what I mean. Back in the old days, when death meant the end of everything, and there was no going back, it was illegal in many places to attempt or commit suicide. Over time, these laws were changed to account for people’s unique desires and needs. Suicide and assisted suicide became necessary evils in certain situations, especially when a slow, painful death was the only other option on the table. The funny thing is, over time after that, these laws had to adapt again. Once they started sufficiently treating, or even curing, certain previously life-threatening medical conditions, the reasons for wanting to unalive yourself began to disappear at about the same rate. People stopped having very good excuses for not wanting to be alive anymore. Progress in mental health research, the proliferation of advanced medical solutions, and the drive towards a post-scarcity economy, among other factors, contributed to a healthier society overall. The development of more extreme technologies, like maximal longevity treatments, transhumanistic or cybernetic enhancements, and consciousness uploading and transference made it practically impossible to justify ending your own life, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Even the language of the relevant laws shifted to phrases like “reckless self-destruction” or “consciousness back-up endangerment”. Self-harm became illegal once again. Whereas before, dying meant taking maybe only a hundred years from someone’s potential future, now you’re potentially robbing you or someone else of the rest of eternity until the heat death of the universe. That should be profoundly immoral and unethical in anyone’s book. They’re even talking about making normal biological humans illegal, with some arguing that letting yourself die after a pitiful century is tantamount to suicide when framed as a negligible blip in the full timeline of reality. I don’t know about that. What we’re talking about is your body, your choice. Anything short of total freedom in that regard is hypocritical when you really think about it. Castlebourne is a Charter planet, which means that it doesn’t have to follow Core World Law. They still do, for the most part, having modeled their legal system on what came before, but they’re also free to make some changes, such as the definitions of those phrases above, like reckless self-destruction. What does reckless even mean? Does it mean jumping out of an airplane without a parachute—a new extreme sport, which they call skydying? Adrenadome is attempting to test the boundaries of what you’re allowed to do with your own body. I’m not gonna just list the extreme sports that can be found here. You can look them up. They’re all available, along with variants that forgo safety measures entirely, and just let you die, knowing that your mind will wake up in a back-up body moments later. Not everyone is gonna like it. I personally don’t. I came here to study the concept, because I’m a scholar of law. But it’s certainly interesting that these philosophical questions about the meaning of life and death get to play out in the real world, and no longer only on the lips, or the page.

Microstory 2390: Earth, December 18, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Ah yes, my voice was breaking a little bit, because I was so nervous. I wasn’t...really...upset about what I learned from Madalena. I understand why she did what she did, and why she thought it made sense. The truth is that she treated me for very little money, and I would love to blame her for my condition, but I had a consult with a doctor recently, who ran tests. She was sure that I would have developed my epigenetic disease no matter where I lived. As you said, Madalena could have remained a partial observer. We all now know that she was always a doctor, not only a nurse, but from what my father knew of her back then, she shouldn’t have been qualified to treat my symptoms at all. She went above and beyond to keep me alive. Watching me wither away and die while she kept me comfortable to maintain her cover would have been really easy. Plus, wouldn’t that have been part of the study? You observe these two twins in vastly different environments, one of them dies, and you try to determine what caused it. The experiment was doomed from the start, because they were going into it with far too much bias. They should have secured regulatory approval, instituted a double-blind study, observed from afar, and with impartiality, and let whatever happened happen. If they couldn’t get that approval due to its ethically questionable premise, then they just shouldn’t have done it! Perhaps researchers would like to know what it looks like when a million people are shot into the sun, but that’s morally wrong, so no one’s done a study on that, as far as I know. Anyway, Madalena is a human, and I forgive her. But it’s a lot easier for me, because she lives so far away, and I don’t think that she ever plans on coming here. We don’t need her kind of help, we’re doing well. You’re stuck with your observer, but here’s the good news. I sent her another message after your last letter, and asked her to confirm that Elek Katona was the only passenger on your ship that had anything to do with the study, and she was pretty adamant that he was. She didn’t even think that it was a possibility that someone else was working with him in secret. She knew quite a bit about what was going on, back then, anyway. There was some compartmentalization in the organization to protect their secrets, but she was part of designing those levels of secrecy from above. I think there was very little that she was not aware of. That being said, she admits that she hasn’t spoken to Elek, or anyone else who was a part of the project, in many years. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he recruited someone after the fact. Her guess is that he partnered with your mother, and saw no reason to include anyone else, but there’s no way to know. Honestly, as scared as I am for you, I think you’re gonna have to confront Elek. Take Bray with you, do it in public. Don’t talk to Velia first. I know you don’t want her to be surprised, but what if she turns on you? What if she warns her father? What if she doesn’t realize what he’s capable of. Don’t take any risks. I love you.

Your younger or older twin,

Condor

PS: Oh my gosh! We don’t know which one of us was born first! Did your mother say?

Microstory 2388: Vacuus, December 11, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Don’t think I don’t remember what you told me the last time you sent a message to just me. I was going to address it right away, because that’s huge news, but then the Valkyries came, and Velia wanted to send a joint letter, and then you sent a joint letter back, and I’m also trying to keep up with our Winfield Files Book and TV Show Club in case the long-cycle interrupts us for years, and my mind has been so preoccupied with so many other things. Okay. So. Your nurse. Madalena. You hypothesized that she may have been tied to the twin study, but you didn’t seem all that convinced about it. It sounded like you maybe just thought that it was a possibility, which it always was. It’s crazy that you turned out to be right. I’m glad to know a little more, but I’m worried about you. That must have been a hard conversation to have. I watched the recording of the video chat that you sent, and your voice started getting a little trembly when it became apparent to you how involved she was with the whole secret program. Maybe you were just a bit cold, or needed some water, and if you tell me that something like that is the explanation, I’ll believe you. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. I don’t want to put any dark ideas in your head, but I can imagine that it felt like a violation, her taking care of you with ulterior motives. I hope she was telling the truth that she never made you sick, and was genuinely treating you for the regretful condition you were born with. It shows that she wasn’t a total monster. A true scientific observer wouldn’t allow themselves to interfere. To answer your question, Elek Katona is Velia’s father. She and I became friends because he was friends with my mother. He wasn’t even on my list of suspects, not because I didn’t think he would ever be that kind of person, but because he’s not a medical professional of any kind. He’s responsible for breeding and raising the insects that we brought with us as a protein source. I guess that’s just his cover? Sort of weird. I don’t know why an entomologist would be recruited for a human experiment, but maybe he has a secret educational background as well? I’ve not had the courage to confront him about it. I’ve not even told Velia, which I think I should do first. If it ruins my relationship with that family, I don’t want her to be blindsided. But obviously I’m very nervous. I don’t know how it’s gonna go, and he may not be the only one here. I’m already paranoid about who I’ve known all my life who might have been studying me and my behavior. Knowing about one of them has actually made it worse, because that sounds more like a conspiracy. You were able to move away from your nurse and neighbor. Whoever it turned out to be on my end, they were bound to still be here. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll build the willpower to pursue, and maybe get us a few more answers.

Thanks for lookin’ out,

Corinthia

PS: I support you and Velia, and whatever choices you make when it comes to your bond. I won’t stand in your way.

The Fifth Division: Solid as a Rock (Part V)

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Ingrid wanted to be discreet, and not change the timeline. Yeah, it could be their chance to prevent all this horror from ever happening, or the result could be even worse than before. There is no way to know which path you’re on until your fate is upon you. That’s why the representatives from the various Sixth Key cultures are all here right now. They were trying to prevent themselves from meddling with their people’s futures. And now their worst fears might be realized. She and Onyx were hoping to slip in, rescue the fabled red fruit, and sleep away unnoticed. But that’s no longer possible. The regular blue magnolia fruit pod that they took to get here was more powerful than they knew. It has brought with them a bunch of noisy gold. Killjlir and Andrei come around the tree, ready for battle, surprised to see the two of them, but even more surprised by all this random treasure.

“Was this all about a heist?” Andrei questions. “Are we trying to thwart a heist? Are we doing a heist?”

“This has nothing to do with anything,” Ingrid explains. She looks at the garbage strewn about the ground. “This is a transport error.”

“Fair enough,” Andrei decides. “You’re dressed differently. Yet you left about thirty seconds ago.”

“A lot has happened since then,” Ingrid replies. “It’s been longer than thirty seconds for me.”

Ayata suddenly appears. “How did you beat me back here?”

“I’m from the future,” Ingrid says plainly. “And I need you four to do everything that I say. We don’t have much time before the enemy arrives.”

No one argues.

Ingrid looks over at Killjlir. As terrible as she feels about her new friend being injured, it’s even worse to be considering urging them towards the fall. Unfortunately, she really has to hope that this is all predestined, and she’s just working on closing her own loop. Killjlir has to climb that tree, and they have to fall, so they can float down the river towards the tunnels, and set this whole time travel rescue operation in motion. “Climb the tree on that side. There’s a red fruit at the top that we need.”

“Yeah, I was starting to climb it when you showed up.”

“Good,” Ingrid decides. “I’ll be climbing on this side. This is a stealth mission. One of us has to reach it.” She looks at Ayata and Andrei. “You two have to fight, and keep them from catching us, or even spotting us.”

Andrei tenses up. “Understood. Get on up.”

“What do I do?” Onyx asks.

Ingrid winces. It should be obvious. “Hide.” There’s only one vertical object on this island, and it’s the tree. Luckily, there’s an alcove at the base for him to curl up in. He might still get caught, but since he’s a pacifist, they may not hurt him, especially since they’re planning to blow up the tree anyway. It all depends on how psychotic the First Explorer’s human agents are.

Here’s how the timeline should go. When the enemy comes, Ayata and Andrei hold them off while Ingrid and Killjlir go for the red fruit. Ayata and Andrei lose, but don’t die. The attackers plant their bomb, and bug out. That hopefully leaves enough time for the five of them to escape too.

Onyx gives Ingrid a boost up to the first branch while Ayata does the same for Killjlir on the other side. Ingrid is just starting to reach the foliage when evil Tamerlane Pryce and the other chick show up, but Ingrid can’t see them. It doesn’t sound like they see Killjlir, though, so they must have scurried up far enough already to be concealed by the leaves. Meanwhile, Ingrid quickly moves too high up to really hear the conversation. This close the tree, her ears are overwhelmed by a low hum coming from it. It’s only now occurring to her that it has been doing this the whole time, but it felt so natural and normal, she didn’t notice before now. The trunk lets out the sound consistently while the leaves echo it back as they rustle, like a sound visualizer. She keeps pulling herself up, branch by branch, trying to stay as quiet as she can. These people absolutely cannot know that there is any hope in saving all of this beauty.

As she’s heading up towards the very top, she notices that there aren’t any other fruits up here. They were thinning out, and now they’re gone. It feels like a wasted opportunity. They’re going to need to get out of here as fast as they can, and they’re certainly not going to be able to outrun it. They could try to jump into one of the rivers, like Killjlir incidentally did in the future past, but she was severely injured, and only survived because a magic branch kept her alive, and she happened to float towards the underground bunker. Ingrid doesn’t even know which river goes that way. No. They don’t just need the one red fruit. They also need blue fruit pods, at least one each. She’s so high that she and Killjlir can finally see each other. They stare for a moment, not knowing if it’s safe enough to utter a word. There’s no need. Ingrid just points at them, and then points upwards. She points at herself, and then downwards.

That’s all Killjlir needs to know. They nod, and get back on their way.

Ingrid carefully starts heading back down. She’s not carrying a bag, or anything, so the best way to handle this is to find a branch that happens to be holding several pods, and just break that whole thing off to keep them all together. Another thing comes to her mind. They’ve both been up here a long time. She occasionally hears the clanking of gold, strongly suggesting that the fight is still going on down there, but should it be? Shouldn’t the tree have exploded by now? She tries to multitask, and think back to when she experienced this before. After evil Pryce and that woman disappeared, Ingrid and Iolanta continued to fight each other, but it didn’t last long. And the explosion wasn’t long after that. No, this timeline is all wrong. They’ve changed things. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but maybe it means everything. If she could only hear better what’s happening down on the ground, she would know what to do.

No, it definitely doesn’t matter. She needs these fruits. That’s her only job right now. She’s found the branch that she was hoping for. Five pods are hanging from the tip, which is precisely how many they require. It’s too thick closer to the trunk, though. She’s going to have to crawl farther out to make a clean break. She would much rather inch her way down, but she doesn’t have time for that. The explosion could happen any second. She slides out there as fast as she can, but before she can reach her goal, the branch that she’s standing on cracks first. In a last ditch effort, she reaches out for the bundle of fruit pods, and takes it in her grasp. She falls with it through the branches below, and crashes down on the ground.

Her head hurts, not like a simple headache, but sharper and tighter. It’s concentrated on one very specific spot. Ingrid tries to reach up to find out what’s wrong with her, but she can’t move her arms. She’s either actually paralyzed, or just too injured to move right now. It’s cold, though. It’s cold and wet.

Onyx’s face appears above her. “Don’t move,” he whispers. “I won’t lie to you, it’s pretty bad. We’re gonna get you fixed up, though.”

“What happened to me?” Ingrid can feel her own mind being blanketed over by confusion. She’s trying desperately to hold onto her wits, but they’re slipping away from her in realtime. She’s dying, and her brain is turning the lights off one by one.

“You fell on a crown. It’s jammed into the back of your head,” Onyx explains.

She can still tell that she’s holding the bundle of fruits. Hopefully she’s lifting it up towards him, so he gets the idea. She can’t leave, but everyone else should be able to. “Where are they?” Ingrid struggles to ask.

“They’re inside the tree, trying to set off the bomb at the heart, as they said.”

“And the others?”

“Ayata and Andrei. They’re pretty hurt too, but I’ll feed them the healing sap as.”

Someone else walks up. Ingrid can’t turn her head, and moving her eyes isn’t enough. Onyx doesn’t look happy, though, so she’s guessing that it’s one of their enemies. “You get away from him.”

The woman whose name Ingrid still doesn’t know steps into view. “You think because you changed the timeline, you’ve made things better?”

“You know?”

“I’m omniscient, you insufferable dimling,” she claims.

“Why are you doing this?”

The woman pulls her face into an evil grin. “For this.” She swings her hand into view, showing that she’s holding the red fruit.

“What is it to you?” Ingrid questions.

“It’s an end to my competition,” the woman answers. Ingrid can see her fingernails begin to pierce the skin of the red fruit pod. Unlike the blue ones, it does appear to contain juice. It looks a lot like blood as it’s running down the side of her hand, and her arm. She twitches when a stick bursts out of her chest. Her blood starts spilling out too. Some of it spurts and drips on Ingrid’s face.

“Did you see that coming?” Killjlir asks, having been the one to impale the defiler.

The woman hasn’t stopped smiling. “Yeah. Sure did.” Her hand opens.

The magic red fruit falls into Ingrid’s mouth. For some reason, her reflex is to bite down. It feels a lot different than the other one. As she noticed, it’s juicy, and maybe is indeed made of blood, since it has a bit of a metallic taste, but with a pleasant sweetness to it. The juice runs down her throat, into her lungs, and her stomach. Her whole body pulsates with a power that she’s never felt before. Still, she can’t move. She just begins to know what’s happening around her without being able to see it. Everything starts to move in slow motion. Killjlir angrily tosses the woman to her side next to Ingrid, but falls to their knees, having also been injured prior to this. Onyx lunges towards them to help. Ayata and Andrei are both lying on the ground a few meters away. They’re reaching out for each other, but they’re probably not gonna make it. As soon as Tamerlane steps out of the tree portal, a fire sparks at his feet, and rises up the trunk of the magnificent magnolia tree. As it’s shooting up to the sky, it billows out, and threatens to engulf the lands as it did the first time they tried this. Time moves even slower...and slower.

The power surging within Ingrid intensifies. It too spreads out. Two primal force of nature, preparing to battle it out on this one tiny island. Or maybe not. Ingrid’s energy reaches out for Onyx and Killjlir, as well as Ayata and Andrei. It forms a protective bubble around them, but it doesn’t stay put. It drags them all together into a single entity, and spirits them away just before the wrathful fires can consume them all.

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The Fifth Division: Rock of Gibraltar (Part IV)

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The wave of fire is drawing too close, and Ingrid has no choice but to duck into the bunker with Selma, who leads her down the steps to safety. Once they’re at the bottom, they run through the corridor, and into a wide open room, which must be a gym. Nearly everyone is here, notable absences being Killjlir, Ayata, and Andrei. Horrified, the survivors are watching a bird’s eye view of the destruction on the surface, as likely streamed by a sentry drone. Princess Honeypea is crying into her brother’s shoulder while the other Horticulturalists do everything they can to hold back their own tears. They are distraught, though. There’s nothing they can do to fix this. They don’t know about the whole garden world out there yet. Is it Ingrid’s place to tell them? Did the tree have another plan in mind? What the hell are they supposed to do now?

No one seems to know, but Storm knows that it remains her job to be the leader. “The universe has suffered a terrible loss,” she begins. “Most people in existence don’t even know that this place once stood tall and proud and beautiful. Those who did may never learn that our world was destroyed. We have a lot to talk about. Some of us have lost our purpose, others a home, and some of you, a temporary refuge. I don’t know that I can get any of that back for any of you, but I know that we’re all exhausted and sad. The barracks are down the hall, to the right. It’s okay if we sleep here tonight, Weaver?”

“Of course,” Weaver says sincerely.

Storm nods gratefully. “Get yourselves cleaned up, find something to eat in the kitchen, and then get some rest. We’ll reconvene tomorrow once everyone’s up to it.” She looks at Pinesong to say something to him quietly, but stops to say one more thing to the whole group. “Oh, and anyone who blames themselves in any way for what happened, just don’t. We faced an impossible enemy, and we lost. There’s nothing you could have done. Don’t let the anxiety keep you awake.” Now finished, she does move off to the side with her own people so they can whisper in private.

Ingrid is dirty and bloody, so she takes a shower, and lies down in the medical pod for a bit, but she isn’t ready to sleep. She’s too curious. The fire has finished roaring down its path of destruction, leaving the whole dimension in ashes, but the drone seems to have crashed, or just been switched off. If she wants to see what it looks like out there now, she’ll have to go back outside. She dons a respirator mask, and starts walking back up the stairs. Before she has the chance to open the cellar door, it opens on its own. Killjlir is standing there. They’re soaking wet and coughing violently while holding a broken branch tightly in one hand. There are a few flowers growing from it, and one blue fruit pod hanging from the tip. Whatever Killjlir has been through, it’s a wonder this thing is as intact as it is. They pass out, and fall into Ingrid’s arms.

Ingrid carries her new friend back down to the bunker, and into the infirmary. She places Killjlir in the same pod that she was just using, and carefully removes the branch from their grasp so the machine can track their vitals, make its diagnosis, and execute the proper treatments. They’re not doing well, but they’re not going to die. They suffered wounds all over their upper body that are consistent with hand-to-hand combat, and cuts on their legs indicative of crawling through a bower, or perhaps climbing a tree. They have some level three burns too, but the most pressing threat right now is the water still in their lungs. The little robot arms turn them to their side, and then stick a tube down their throat. It suctions some of it out of their lungs while the rest of the fluid manages to leak out of their mouth. The pod leaves Killjlir on their side while it moves on to the next issues, in order of severity. After removing the necrotic tissue, it triggers rapid in situ dermal regeneration to replace the missing skin. It seals up the cuts with a liquid bandage, and breaks down the bruises with something that it calls a macrophage therapy. Lastly, it begins to emit an ultrasonic wave up and down their body to stimulate blood flow for accelerated healing. Ingrid finally exhales in relief, seeing that her friend is going to be okay. This is a strange feeling to be having for a person she once called her enemy.

Storm walks in. “They’re alive.” It’s unclear if this is a question, or a statement.

“Yes,” Ingrid replies.

“Have they spoken?”

“Not yet.”

“Were they carrying that?”

Ingrid looks down at the branch, now in her hand. “Yeah, I don’t know why.”

Storm steps forward. “May I?” She accepts it from a reluctant Ingrid, then runs her hand along it like it’s a violin that she’s just crafted. “Bark...wood...flower...fruit...”

“Did they bring it here for a reason?” Ingrid asks.

“I fell on it,” Killjlir explains with a very hoarse voice. The pod reacts to this development by administering a nebulized soothing agent along their pharynx. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to stick the tube as far down as it did before. Killjlir clears their throat, and tries again. “I was climbing the magnolia when this asshole whacked me in the head. I fell back, and the branch broke my fall, but then I fell the rest of the way with it into the water. The current took me away, but I could see the fiery explosion above, and feel some heat. I’ve been floating ever since. I don’t know how I got here.”

“I carried you from the entrance,” Ingrid tells them. “You were walking on your own before that.”

“I couldn’t have,” they say with a dismissive shake of their head. “I was dying.”

“The tree wasn’t a single consciousness in a single whole organism,” Storm says. “When you broke the branch, you took a little piece of its mind with you. It might have given your body the strength it needed to make it here from the river bank. We’re only about twenty meters from it, I would say.”

“So, it’s gone?” Killjlir asks? “It’s all gone.”

Storm smiles, and raises the branch. “This is still here. It’s a symbol of resilience and strength.”

“The fruit,” Ingrid poses, “can it be planted? Will it make a new magnolia tree?”

Storm shakes her head. “It’s a virgin fruit, like an unfertilized egg. There is no seed inside this pod.”

“That’s why I was climbing,” Killjlir tries to clarify. “The Pryce guy, he told me to retrieve the red fruit on the top of the canopy.”

“A red fruit?” Storm is confused, but intrigued. She pulls the blue fruit off of the branch, and squints at it. “We’ve always wondered what was preventing it from producing seeds. If you’re right, something must have triggered it, but just this once.”

“It’s all about energy.” Princess Honeypea is standing in the doorway.

“Temporal energy?” Storm guesses.

“It metabolizes lots of different forms of energy, including temporal, yes. It typically uses it to produce its leaves, flowers, sap, and virgin fruit, but it doesn’t have enough to make a seed, and didn’t have any reason to until today. When the bad guys broke the dimensional barrier down, the energy that Pinesong usually channeled to keep it up was all pulled into the earth at the same time. This gave the Magnolia a surge of power, which it used to produce a miracle. Like you said, just this one time. It was a last ditch effort to survive.”

Killjlir turns away from them. “I was its only hope, and I failed.”

Honeypea smiles and lifts the clear casing of the pod. She gently rolls Killjlir back over by their shoulder. “You were only a distraction.” She takes the fruit from Storm’s hand. “I can go back to that moment, and fulfill the task just before the fire overwhelms this world.”

Storm snatches it right back. “No. It’s too dangerous. There are ways that we can rebuild. We won’t allow visitors this time. At all. The magnolia was only one tree out of the many thousands of specimens that we’ve saved over the ages. Saving it would accomplish hardly anything.”

Ingrid takes the fruit this time. “It’s the only one that hasn’t already been saved,” she insists. “The rest are out there.” She makes a general gesture towards the surface. “The tree showed us as much. This whole world is lush with your vegetation, untamed and breathtaking. You’ve just never seen it before.”

Storm studies Ingrid’s face for signs of deception. Then she looks over at Honeypea, who shrugs. “I didn’t know. If this is true, Pinesong’s barrier was always thinner than we knew. Maybe he did it on purpose.”

“I did,” Pinesong confirms after they call him in, and bring him up to speed. “I made the barrier weak so seeds could and would travel through it. It’s actually structured to facilitate the right wind currents. That’s also why I insisted on including the birds and the bees, so they could propagate certain specimens in their own way. I regret it now, though. The walls would have held had I made them stronger.”

“Those defilers would have broken through eventually,” Ingrid believes. “And we would have been left with nothing. You saved all the beauty. It was the right call.”

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Storm says to her husband.

“You were so focused on a structured system. I just didn’t want to contain life like that, and I was afraid you would force me to change it. I’m sorry.”

“We’re time travelers,” Princess Honeypea begins. “Maybe what you did in the past was caused by it being necessary in the future. Maybe it was always going to end like this.”

“Then it’s my responsibility.” Pinesong takes the fruit from Ingrid. “I’ll go back and find the magnolia seed.”

“How many can go?” Ingrid questions.

“Only one,” Storm answers.

“No, this is a big one. It could carry two,” Honeypea determines.

“In that case, whoever goes, I’m going with,” Ingrid decides. “They’ll need protection, and it won’t hurt to have a second set of eyes on the seed. Once we do get it, it doesn’t mean the day is saved. We’ll have to find a place to plant it way out there.”

“Then it has to be Onyx,” Honeypea suggests. “He’ll know exactly where it needs to go. Assuming there is water out there?” she asks her brother specifically.

“Yeah, there’s even another confluence,” Pinesong replies, “though it’s only three rivers, not eleven. I don’t know if that’s where it would belong, though, or what.”

“That’s why it’s gotta be him,” Honeypea reiterates about Onyx.

Storm considers the options. They could go through with this and risk the timeline, as well as their own lives, or they could cut their losses, and leave the magnolia in the past. This won’t be an easy decision, so she decides to not make it right away. She orders everyone to go to bed while she stores the fruit and the branch it was once attached to somewhere safe, and secret.

It’s not secret enough for Ingrid, however. After some time has passed, she finds the hidden trapdoor, climbs down the ladder, and looks around for the specific hiding place. The room is full of all sorts of treasure. That’s literal. Gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels are strewn about like a dragon’s keep.

Before she can locate the safe, or wherever the fruit may be, she hears Onyx’s voice behind her from the shadows. “It’s not what you think.” He slowly steps into the light, holding his arms behind his back. “We’re not hoarders, and we’re not greedy. This stuff is meaningless to us.”

“Where does it come from?” Ingrid asks.

He breathes deeply as he’s hunting for the right words. “It grows here.”

“Come again?”

“I wasn’t here yet when Storm and Pinesong had the idea to build this world in the first place. They were on their own, and trying to do everything. His pocket dimension could only be so big, and she struggled to figure out where to plant the specimens. But apparently, these little trinkets have always come through since Piney’s sister came on board. You see, transplanting a plant is difficult on its own. Combine that with the need to transport it into a pocket dimension that’s inside a parallel dimension, and you’re just asking for something to go wrong. The Princess solved their problems, but this new method that she uses has a side effect. It attracts gold. Not raw gold, though, but forged pieces. She either doesn’t know why, or refuses to explain. That’s why she changed her first name to Princess. She thought it was fitting and funny. We toss it down here when we find a piece on the ground, because what else are we gonna do with it? Every item comes from a now defunct timeline. Putting it back in the real world would just flood the market, and as I said, it is of no use to us.”

“It is of no use to me either,” Ingrid agrees. “I’m here for something else.”

He swings a hand around to his front, revealing that he’s been holding the last surviving fruit of the magical memory magnolia tree. “Storm is out of her element. She’s just lost everything that she dedicated her life to preserving. She’s never gonna be happy with any decision she makes moving forward. Trust me, she wants us to make it for her.”

“What do we do?”

Onyx flashes those pearly whites, and swings his other arm around to toss her the branch that the fruit came with. He cups the fruit in both hands now, and tears it apart down the middle, handing one half to Ingrid. “Pop it in your mouth, and start chewing.”

She lifts up her half in customary celebration. “May all fall into your gravity well, but only your enemies hit the ground.” She stuffs it in and bites down. The flesh is spicy and bitter, and not juicy. She can feel the fibers shoot out as the fruits are crushed between her teeth. They crawl down her windpipe and her gullet alike. The tips puncture the tissue, and spread into every system—nervous, muscular; everywhere. An energy surges from them, and across every surface of her body, inside and out. Her skin glows blue, as does Onyx’s. The light that they’re both emanating sweeps out into the room, and when it fades away, they find themselves on Magnolia Island. They were aiming for the back of the tree, so Killjlir and Andrei wouldn’t spot them, but it doesn’t matter. All of the gold and jewels were spirited away with them. The treasures clatter and clank as they knock each other down the hill, into the water. The question now is, was this all predetermined, or have they just changed the timeline?

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