The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 18, 2531

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It took a few minutes, but that was all they needed. A.F. shut them down almost entirely, but he left a few key essential systems running. He let them keep breathing, and stay warm, and to keep a relative sense of down. That last one was key. He either did this so his own people could be comfortable when they were ready to board, or when he was ordering his people to shut all other systems down, he simply ignored that one as irrelevant. Under normal circumstances, it was true. Internal artificial gravity alone could not save or protect them. But all these systems were integrated with each other, and rerouting them wasn’t all that difficult. Séarlas, Leona, and Ramses worked together to change the internal gravity to external. It was messy and ridiculous, but it allowed them to move the station, and it allowed them to do it without propulsion. This wouldn’t be useful if they wanted to fly on a particular vector. A.F.’s fleet could always match it, so relative to each other, their velocity would be at zero. But that wasn’t the only dimension to maneuver in. Instead they spun themselves around. The station was basically spherical, so they became a chaotic ball, rolling around space randomly and unpredictably. If the bad guys wanted to board them, they were gonna have a hell of a time getting a foothold.

They were at an impasse, because while A.F. couldn’t reach them, Team Matic and the twins still had nowhere to escape to. Little had changed during the interim year between August 17, 2530 and August 18, 2531. The only thing was that, while the spin was random, the roll that it caused was fairly consistent. The station had spent the entire time in a decaying orbit around the host star, and it was pretty close to it now.

“Oh my God, I forgot to ask,” Marie began. “Why can’t they teleport in here? Whoops.” She lost her grip on the corner of the table. In order to maximize power from the internal-for-external gravity drive, they had to lose it for themselves. This placed them in freefall, just like the ancient astronauts had to suffer when humanity was first dipping its toes into outer space centuries ago. “I’m gonna hold onto you instead, Matt.” She grabbed his thigh with both hands. She could have just magnetized herself to a surface most everyone else, but whatever.

“I have a teleportation-suppression field,” Séarlas explained. “It’s decoupled from the main systems, and even has its own powersource, so A.F. can’t control it.”

“Can we exploit that?” Olimpia asked. “Can we decouple other systems?”

“We did, with the gravity,” Séarlas confirmed. “Unfortunately, we can’t do it for anything that he already has control over, like the quintessence drive, or communications. I gave him too much tech, and too much power.”

“We need a distraction,” Angela suggested. “We can’t gain an advantage over them,\ because they can just stay on us indefinitely. We need something that they can chase just long enough for us to get out of range of their equipment.”

Ramses was looking at the viewscreen. They were tumbling around aimlessly, so trying to look through a viewport, or even a static image, would just make them nauseated. Instead, the exterior sensors were programmed to operate in tandem, and generate an artificial stabilized image, which would be what they would see if they weren’t moving so quickly. “The sun. You get me to the sun, I’ll get us out of here. They won’t be able to block our slingdrive array with all that cosmic interference.”

“We can’t move fast enough,” Séarlas reasoned. We’re in a decaying orbit, but it’s still gonna take us years to get close enough to break free from their grasp.”

“Hence, the distraction,” Angela said, looking over at Leona. “Maybe make it look like there’s a giant hammer out there that’s about to smash them to bits?”

“Or my hubby could make a solid hammer that actually could smash them to bits,” Olimpia offered.

“I don’t know that I have the strength for solid holograms,” Mateo countered, “especially not at scale. I’m still trying to recover. It takes a lot of energy to regather the dark particles, and I can’t turn that off, even if I didn’t care about it. Which I do, because they may be our only hope.”

“We don’t wanna kill them,” Leona argued. “Olimpia, maybe you could replicate us? Confuse them about which space station is real?”

“I could try,” Olimpia volunteered.

Franka shook her head. “It wouldn’t matter. They have anti-holographic technology. It uses augmented reality to delete any falsified light source. The image might still be out there, but they won’t see it, because their AI knows that it’s fake, and shows them what’s behind it. They probably already have it on. They know that you’re illusionists.”

They continued to discuss options, sometimes talking over one another, trying to come up  with a workaround. Marie thought that maybe she could teleport over to one of the other ships in the fleet, and impersonate A.F. to give them false orders. Franka said that the anti-holographics can be miniaturized into other forms. The crewmembers could be wearing glasses which broke the illusions for them on an individual level. Mateo then suggested that Olimpia, instead of creating a remote image, turn the whole station invisible, but that wouldn’t work either, since they were still generating waste heat. Séarlas had not thought to install a hot pocket, since they were 28,000 light years from the stellar neighborhood, and he didn’t expect anyone to get anywhere near them. A.F. must have had some great intel to have gotten close enough for even the longest of long-range sensors to be meaningful. The Dardieti were a hundred times farther away, and even the reframe generation ship, Extremus was farther from the stellar neighborhood at this point, but those were outliers. He found this station because it was the only artificial structure out here. It reportedly could have taken them up to forty decades, which was an insane commitment choice. Either way, now that they had already been found, none of their illusions could counteract it.

“I can help,” Romana spoke up. She said it very quietly, but that was why her voice stood out amidst the cacophony of discussion, because until this moment, she had been completely silent.

“You can?” her father questioned.

“I can use my own holographic specialty. It’s different than yours.” She looked very anxious about it, perhaps even ashamed?

“I guess I hadn’t thought to ask you about it, or try to foster your ability,” Mateo realized. He looked over at Ramses. “Actually, I’m not sure I realized you even had that since you would have gotten your upgrade much later than us.”

Ramses shrugged. “I gave her what I gave everyone else. She’s part of the family.”

Franka winced.

“What can you do, dear, and when did you have time to practice?” Leona asked.

Before she could stop herself, Romana’s gaze flickered over to Olimpia. That was enough.

“Pia?” Mateo asked simply.

“I wanted her to think of me as another mother. I wanted her to know that she could trust me with her secrets. She can.” Olimpia took a deliberate step towards Romana. “You can.”

“We’re not mad,” Leona promised. “Romy, what are you so afraid of?”

“My illusions, they’re...tiny. I don’t generate images that anyone in the room can see. I project them directly onto people’s eyes.”

“We’ve watched movies together in secret,” Olimpia admitted. “You all were sitting right there in the room with us, and you had no idea.”

Romana sighed, relieved to be unburdened of yet another thing that she had been keeping from the group, but not yet clear on the consequences. “You’ve all seen my personalized illusions. I would place a knick-knack on a table that wasn’t really there, or move the edge of the doorframe over a few centimeters. I was testing my own limits.”

Marie massaged her shoulder. “I remember that doorframe.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Marie said with a sincere smile.

“I can bypass any normal anti-illusory tech and make them see what I want,” Romana went on, shaking her head, “including bad things...scary things. I can’t get in their heads, but I can freak them out, and certainly distract them. I could show them only darkness, and make them think they’ve gone blind. Unless they’re using cybernetic eyes, or something, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t want to be negative,” Mateo began, “but there are only six of us. There could be hundreds of crewmembers out there. That’s a tall order. I don’t know how much practice could prepare you for that.”

“She wouldn’t need to do all of them,” Franka decided, “just enough to cause some chaos. Ramses needs the sun. If we can regain control of the base teleporter for only a couple of seconds, that would be enough to get us there. It might even be enough to break us free permanently, and we won’t need to abandon ship. Our quintessence drive needs time to spool up after a power disruption like this, but is otherwise just as capable of traversing the universe as yours or the Vellani Ambassador’s.”

“I can’t do it blindly,” Romana said apologetically. “I need to know who and where, so I would need to get on the ships.”

“If I shut off the teleportation suppression field to let you jump out there, it will allow anyone over there to jump here,” Séarlas explained. “All or nothin’.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Leona determined. “Olimpia, you go with her. Make you both invisible. The rest of us will hold off any boarders.”

There were boarders, and a lot of them. They were probably trying to teleport this entire time, waiting for the team to give them an opening, if only via a brief power fluctuation. Leona fought them off physically, as did Franka, who probably hadn’t trained with the Crucia Heavy on Flindekeldan, but had apparently undergone some level of combat training. Mateo used his solid holograms a little, having been reminded that they were a thing. He really was pretty weak, though, and this was draining him further. If he didn’t use it sparingly, he would collapse and pass out, which would do them no good. Angela and Marie held their own too, but mostly relied on the protection of their EmergentSuits, rather than offensive blows. There was not really anywhere to hide as this station wasn’t all that large. The twins hadn’t built it with the thought of housing any more people than were living here now. They just kept holding them off while they waited for Romana and Olimpia to do their things.

Romana was making her tiny retinal illusions, and besides protecting them both with invisibility, Olimpia was trying to figure out how to sabotage the ships themselves. She didn’t have the technical know-how to do that, though, so Séarlas volunteered to jump over there to help. Unavoidably, when Angela took him over, it created a second teleportation window for the bad guys, which caused an influx in attackers that also needed to be fought off. A.F. was still nowhere to be seen, no doubt cowering in his luxurious stateroom. Before too long, the fleet’s hold on the station’s systems was gone, and they were free to straighten back out, and start to move away.

They had to scream through the ruckus. “They’re integrated!” Séarlas shouted through Angela’s comms. “The fleet’s quintessence drives! They’re all connected, so they can jump to the same place together, even if navigation goes wonky!”

“How does that help us?” Mateo asked. He was just using his bare fists now, punching faceless stormtroopers left and right. They had their armor too, but it wasn’t nearly as strong, probably because their commander didn’t really care about them. “Just get back here! Franka says your quintessence drive is spooled up!”

“I can rig them to blow up! We can be rid of this nuisance once and for all, the both of us!” Séarlas clarified. “We’ll be able to stay here if we want, or take the time to plot a course! This is a future-proofing act!”

“No killing!” Leona insisted.

“You’re not really my mother!”

“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it. Besides, it wouldn’t matter! You could be a stranger, and I would still urge you not to kill!”

“You’ve done enough, Olimpia and Romana. Go back to our station where it’s safe,” Séarlas suggested strongly.

“I won’t let you do this!” Leona contended.

“Now that I’m over here, I can deactivate their teleporters en masse! You won’t have to worry about any more coming over when the girls go back, but you’ll still need to deal with the ones who are already there! I suggest you float them! Wake Miracle up from stasis. She doesn’t mind the dirty work!”

“No killing!” Leona repeated.

“Good on ya,” Séarlas joked. “I wish you could have taught me your values!”

A moment passed. Angela, Olimpia, and Romana reappeared on the station.

Having lost his means of interfacing with their comms network, Séarlas got on the normal ship-to-ship radio, which meant that everyone could now hear what he was saying. “I’m sorry you didn’t raise us! I’m sorry we couldn’t be a family! I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to make it happen!”

“Don’t do—” Mateo started to yell back.

“Wait!” Franka interrupted. She pressed a console button, then pointed at him.

“Don’t do this!” Mateo implored his once-son. “All we needed was to break free, and we’ve done that now! We’re miles and miles away! You don’t have to massacre everyone, and get yourself killed in the process!”

“I don’t have to, but I should!”

A.F. suddenly appeared before the team. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

They didn’t have time to respond or react. Despite having managed to fly a significant distance from the fleet, they could see the ships explode into technicolors, mostly all at once, but not quite. And they could feel the blast wave as it rippled into the station, and dispatched the team to somewhere else in the universe.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 17, 2530

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Séarlas and Franka were not Mateo and Leona’s children, but Mateo and Leona were their once-parents, and no one knew how to feel about that. A version of the two of them had twins in another timeline, but neither of them had memories of that. This Leona lost her babies in a terrible tragedy on an interplanetary ship that was breaking apart. They didn’t talk about it anymore, and she never said it out loud, but those were her kids, and the only way for her to get through the sadness was to believe that. The living Séarlas and Franka were some of the first people they saw when they started traveling through time, and had anticipated their births for years, only to have that dream pulled away from them. Them being here right now wasn’t some way of getting it back. It was just confusing and uncomfortable. That was why Mateo never pushed for a relationship with Aura or Mario. Neither of them raised him, nor even conceived him. To them, it had never happened, and trying to force a connection was worse than pretending there was nothing there at all, and just trying to be decent friends. The question was, what did these two think? Did they see it the same way?

“We don’t expect hugs from you,” Franka went on after letting the shock of the development run its course for a few moments.

“Hold on.” Ramses materialized some kind of little tool in his hand. “Do you mind?” he asked vaguely, holding it between him and the twins.

“Do what you must,” Franka agreed, pulling up her sleeve, and nodding for her brother to do the same.

Ramses used the tool to extract small samples from them. “I already have your DNA on file,” he said to Mateo and Leona while they waited for about fifteen seconds. It beeped. “I’m seeing a 92% familial match. That would be low confidence for today’s technology, but substrate variance would account for the difference. You two still have the core DNA that you were born with, but I spliced in some extra code.”

“So, they are our genetic children,” Mateo asked to confirm.

“Their bodies are,” Ramses clarified. “I have no idea about their minds. I never did figure out how to build a simpatico detector, not that that’s exactly what we’re after.”

“I see that our tactics have bred distrust between us,” Franka acknowledged.

“Ya think?” Olimpia asked. If these two could be categorized as Mateo and Leona’s kids, she would be their stepmother.

“Why do you think we took so long to introduce ourselves to you?” Pacey—no, Séarlas prompted.

“I’m guessing that you tried to do it earlier in other timelines, but it always went poorly,” Leona figured.

Franka smirked. “Yeah, you definitely get your intelligence from her.”

Mateo looked at Franka. “And you? You got my stupidity?”

Séarlas shook his head disapprovingly. “Your instincts. She got your instincts and intuition. You may not be as educated, and you may not have much interest in improving that, but you are the one who steers the team; not as a leader, but as a compass. Not only can you see a threat a mile away, but you can gauge how much of a threat it will be, and can adjust accordingly. You treated me and Boyd differently than you did Zeferino and Erlendr. You saw goodness in Arcadia when no one else did. Mateo, after Horace Reaver captured you and Leona, and kept you separate, he finally explained why he hated you so much. Do you remember how you reacted?”

“That was so long ago,” Mateo replied.

“You’re being modest,” Séarlas judged, “of course you remember. He told you that an alternate version of you in another timeline made a mistake, which got his wife killed. You have no recollection of that, because you didn’t do it. Yet after his story was over, you apologized. Do you know how few people would respond like that? So no, father, she didn’t get your stupidity. She got your heart.”

“Yes, so much love,” Olimpia jumped in again. “This is a living Rockwell painting.”

“We know things that you don’t,” Franka volleyed. “We’ve seen things.”

“I’ve seen a lot too,” Olimpia defended.

“I mean, our abilities allow us to try out timelines, and choose the best one,” Franka began. “This is not regular time travel where we have to go back to the point of divergence and try again. Time is a crossroads, and we have binoculars.”

“You’re seers?” Angela questioned. Seers were fairly common in their world, but none of them had actually met one in person, or even heard a name. People will just show up unexpectedly and it will be because a seer told them to be there.

Séarlas shook his head again. “Seers typically see one possible future, and if they don’t like it, they find a better one. We can see them all at once, but only from wherever we are when we’re looking. It’s not perfect, before you ask why we’re not all living in a utopia. The metaphorical binoculars only show us so much before things get fuzzy. We can walk down a given road to see further in the future, but once we do, we can’t walk backwards and try a different road. We have to pick the best choice from our perspective, and hope things don’t get worse. Then we end up at a new crossroads, and it starts all over.”

They were all just staring at him. “It’s not a perfect metaphor either,” Franka contended. “None of them really is. Time is a road, time is a river. Time is just all the things that happen.”

“This is a great lesson on temporal mechanics,” Leona said sarcastically, “but I have more questions. When were you gonna introduce yourselves to us, and honestly so, instead of with aliases. Franka, why didn’t you show up pretending to be someone else?”

“It’s like my brother said,” Franka replied, “I’m not intelligent, I’m intuitive. In this day and age, when you meet someone new, you expect them to be smart, and have something to give you. He gave you the slingdrive. I have nothing like that to offer. My job was to tell him what to do, and truthfully, to cultivate our assets.”

“Octavia and Miracle,” Mateo said, nodding. “Anyone else? You got Bhulan in your back pocket? What about my third grade teacher? She on your payroll too?”

“Well...The Overseers,” Séarlas admitted. “That’s thanks to you. We didn’t know where either of them was before.”

“Yeah, we guessed that they were with you,” Marie said, “and the Arborist.”

“It’s not like how Arcadia did it, though,” Franka insisted. “We don’t force or trick people. We don’t...tell them everything either, but they make their own choices.”

“My little intelligence officers,” Leona snarked.

Séarlas tensed up, so Franka placed a hand on his shoulder, and spoke before he could say something that he regretted. “We knew there would be hostility. This is the tough part, and it was always going to be like that because of one mistake we made long ago. I told you about the crossroads. At a real crossroads, you could walk back, and take a different path, but for us, we can’t. We had one single good opportunity to show ourselves to you. It was after our alternate versions died, and some of the initial sting from that had worn off, but before you went off to...be king of Dardius.”

“I wasn’t king.”

Franka went on without responding to that, because it wasn’t the point. “We didn’t know that the babies were going to die. Space is more difficult to see into. It’s hard to explain, but it’s easier with an atmosphere. The point is, it was a tight window, and we missed it. We wanted to know when you were going to come back to the stellar neighborhood from Dardius, and unfortunately, by the time we saw that happen, we had passed our turn. From there, too much was going on, and showing up would have only made things worse. Gatewood, Varkas Reflex, Mateo dies, the rest of the team dies, you disappear into the past, you jump to the Fifth Division, and the Third Rail. I don’t know if you can believe us, but we kept looking for opportunities, and each one was worse than the last. Eventually, we decided that the only way we could have a relationship with our parents was to...”

“Be antagonists,” Leona finished for her.

“We don’t like that word,” Franka said, “but we appreciate your perspective on that. We prefer to see ourselves as tough-love mentors.”

“You’ve been trying to get us to murder someone!” Leona shouted.

“The Oaksent’s future is profoundly clear to us,” Séarlas maintained. “With him, we don’t have binoculars, we have a planet-sized telescope. He has..to die. That’s the only solution. If you’re worried about him becoming a martyr, don’t. His loyalists see him as a god-king. His death alone will shift allegiances for millions. Gods can’t die.”

“Neither can Bronach,” Ramses reasoned, “so what does that make him?”

“The man behind the curtain,” Franka suggested.

“Learning who you are has not changed our position one iota,” Mateo tried to tell his once-children. “If you find a team who is willing and able to do it, we won’t get in your way, but we won’t help either.”

“What if it’s Team Kadiar?” Franka put forth.

It was not a good idea to say that. The twins had hardly looked at Romana since she showed up. It was between them and the parents. She had to respond to this, though. “It won’t be. I don’t care what my mom and dad say, we will interfere if you approach my sisters.” She all but growled.

“Okay, okay,” Marie stepped in. She hadn’t talked much either, but she and her sister were the diplomats. “Romana is right. Team Kadiar is also off limits. They literally crew a diplomacy ship. I won’t have you corrupting them, or even trying to. This has been a tough day. One thing I’ve learned as a counselor is that the breaks are just as important as the talks. We would like a place to retire, and will reconvene in a year. I understand that the anticipation might be difficult for you, but we will only experience less than a day. That time apart will make things easier. I promise you. We have learned a lot—maybe too much already. The human brain, even one designed by Mister Abdulrashid here, needs time to consolidate new information. Does this sound okay to everyone?”

They all agreed to take a break. Mateo had to reframe his thoughts on all this. He hadn’t raised any of his other kids, and in fact, Kivi was born in an entirely different reality, so he didn’t really even conceive her. He still saw her as his child, though admittedly, in a different way than he saw Romana, or even Dubravka. Franka and Séarlas weren’t nothing to him. He didn’t know what they were, but he already knew that they weren’t going to be strangers who he didn’t care about. A good night’s sleep would hopefully help with this. Thank God Marie was here.

There was an Alaskan king bed for Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia to share. The others each had their own rooms with regular king beds. When they woke up the next day, the twins had reportedly skipped over the interim year as well. It could have been a lie to endear them to the team, but even if it was true, it wasn’t exceptionally impactful. It didn’t solve their problems. Probably only one thing could do that, and that was a common enemy. Annoyingly enough, he was right on time. The angry Fifth Divisioner, also known as A.F. had finally found the location of this secret base, having evidently been searching for it since he discovered that Séarlas-slash-Pacey-slash-his nameless engineer had betrayed him. He had a fleet at his fingertips now, and had the space station surrounded. He remotely managed to shut down all systems besides life support and artificial gravity. It was more than that, though, the team’s slingdrive array wasn’t working either. Mateo might have been able to get them out with his dark particles, but he still needed more time to recuperate.

Séarlas sighed. “Goddamn, I wish I hadn’t given that man quintessence technology.”

“Why did you?” Mateo asked.

“You asked us to move on to Plan B for the assassination of Bronach Oaksent? You are Plan B.” He scoffed and shook his head. “A.F. was Plan A.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 5, 2518

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Only Mateo was able to try the Daedalus wings during the reception, and that was only because he flew off before Ramses could stop him. They should have been inspected first to make sure that they were safe. Humans with wings were not impossible these days. There was, in fact, a relatively small community of wingèd people on the Core Worlds. The main reason they were impossible prior to genetic engineering and bioengineering was the weight. Wings with enough lift to carry a person would have to be so large that no one was physically capable of flapping them. If they were mechanical, well, that just added to the weight, especially with a powersource, and this all made it totally impractical. Only when humans could build new substrates for themselves did it become a reasonable prospect. Ramses designed the team’s bodies to be lighter than a natural human being’s, but they still weren’t specifically tailored for flight. Daedalus was an android of some kind, and since the mythology stated that the character had fabricated wings, he was almost certainly designed to be perfectly suited for flight. Mateo was not, and that was dangerous.

Fortunately, once Ramses did manage to get his hands on the things, he discovered that they weren’t just well-ordered feathers. Carefully hidden along the underside were tiny little fusion thrusters, which provided the lift, and the forward movement. They were controlled by the adjustment of the wearer’s head. It was essentially a cleverly disguised jetpack. It was unclear whether Daedalus’ own wings operated on the same principles, or if he was just somehow smart enough to build them after being instantiated in this physical simulation. He should have been placed under this dome with the knowledge typical of the time period he supposedly lived in, but who knew what was going on in Hrockas’ head when he conceived of Mythodome? It was one of the few domes that he conceptualized with hardly any help from his AI. He was an expert in Earthan mythology prior to his travels to the Charter Cloud, so this one was near and dear to his heart. He refused to explain it, expecting the art and adventure to speak for themselves.

Now that Ramses was satisfied with the results of his assessment, everyone was trying them. Well, he wasn’t so much as satisfied as he wasn’t allowed to block them anymore. He was hesitant to trust a gift from such a mysterious legendary individual, but he was overruled. Daedalus probably really did have a hidden agenda, but that doubtfully involved killing anybody on Team Matic, or anyone else. He did put his foot down at Romana, though. Her temporary reyoungification had not yet worn off, and she was still walking around in her original substrate. He might consider it later, but he wouldn’t allow anyone else on Castlebourne to use them unless they agreed to let him perform a thorough physical exam, which they didn’t. Leona was the last to give them a go before Ramses took them back, and secured them in his lab. That was okay, because it was about time to get to work.

“Wait, you’re not having a honeymoon?” Angela questioned.

“The average honeymoon these days,” Mateo began to reply, “is one month. That’s thirty years for us. We don’t have time for that.”

“Okay, well, you don’t have to do a full month,” Marie reasoned. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t choose a dome or two, and relax for a bit.”

Mateo and Leona exchanged a knowing look.

“What? What was that?” Marie asked.

“You should have noticed by now,” Leona said, to her, and the group, “that there is no such thing as a vacation for us. As soon as we try to relax,” she explained with airquotes, “something will come up, and we won’t be as prepared for it as we should be.”

“What are you talking about?” Angela pressed. “We relaxed for, like, three years on Flindekeldan before The Warrior finally found us.”

“The exception that proves the rule,” Mateo contended.

“You’re not using that right,” Leona told him reluctantly.

Mateo was about to ask for clarification when they heard whooping and hollering in the distance. An indistinct dot appeared just under the lowest clouds a few kilometers away. They focused their telescopic eyes, and were able to zoom in enough to make out that it was Young!Romana. She was wearing the wings, having presumably stolen them from Ramses’ lab. She flew towards them, and almost kissed the ground, but arced upwards at the last second, and headed back for the sky. “Hell yeah!” she exclaimed in her little high-pitched voice.

Ramses was noticeably upset. “I give you people too much access to my operations. I will be changing that.”

“She’s just a kid,” Marie reasoned.

“No, she’s not,” Ramses volleyed.

“Shouldn’t she have re-aged by now?” Olimpia asked. “I thought she said it wouldn’t last more than a day.”

“Yeah, that’s why she went down for a nap,” Leona said. “She said she thought it would trigger her transformation back. I’m not sure if she lied about that, or the nap, but she obviously teleported to Treasure Hunting Dome at some point to sneak into Ramses’ lab.”

Ramses was fiddling with his armband. “I’m working on new security protocols now.”

“She just wanted to be part of the group,” Mateo defended his daughter. “She’s been through a lot over the last few years. She needs this.”

“Daedalus didn’t design those things for a child’s body,” Ramses argued.

“They’re adjustable,” Marie reminded them. “That’s why I was able to wear them after Olimpia managed to fit the straps around her ample bosom.”

“Please,” Olimpia said, feigning disgust while holding up the back of her hand. “I’m a married woman.” She lowered all of her fingers but her ring finger, simultaneously showcasing her wedding ring while making it look like she was flipping Marie off.

“For now...” Marie joked.

“I can teleport up and grab her if you want,” Angela volunteered.

“No, that’s too dangerous,” Ramses replied. “She has to come down eventually.”

“Will the fusion thrusters run out of fuel at some point?” Mateo asked.

Ramses shook his head. “The feathers are lined with microscopic ramscoop nodes, which can draw in hydrogen for processing, so...no. She’ll get tired, though. She’s just a baby. Speaking of which, we need to fix that. Who are these twins who did this to her?”

“The Ashvins,” Angela reminded him. “Twin gods, part of the Hindu pantheon. We found them in the Dawnlands. This dome has many sectors, and they can’t all be accessed just by walking through a door. If you don’t have access to the right portal, you can’t go. Of course as teleporters, we can skip over those rules.”

Ramses tapped on his comms. “Romy, you’ve had your fun. I’m worried about your condition. I’ll let you use the wings later, but first, you need to go from Allen to Garner.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Romana responded.

“Just get back down here, please. I’m not mad, but you could be in medical distress, and not know it until it’s too late.”

Romana suddenly appeared a few meters above them. She slowly glided down towards the ground, and landed with grace and poise. The wings collapsed into their little box, which slipped off of her chest.

“You’ll navigate us to the Dawnlands,” Leona said as she was picking up the box.

“No,” Ramses decided. “The Walton twins are right. You need some kind of honeymoon. Get on the catalog, and choose a dome for your vacation. I don’t want to see you at least until 2521. That’s not that long of a honeymoon. Doesn’t it sound fair?”

“Yes, sir,” Mateo said, standing up straight, and saluting. He bent over real low and gave his daughter a kiss on the forehead. “I love you, sweetie. Be good for Uncle Ram-Ram.”

“Okay, I think we do need to go see the Ashvins again.” Them playfully treating her like an actual little girl got old a long time ago.

After a few more goodbyes, the newlyweds ran off for their honeymoon adventures. They weren’t going to confine themselves to only one dome, but a series of them, starting with Mud World: World of Mud. Ramses and Angela then split off to take Romana back to the Dawnlands sector. Marie said that she would be staying behind to do her own thing elsewhere without telling anyone what or where.

The name was absolutely appropriate. It was dawn here. It was bright enough for them to walk around without running into anything, but not clear enough to see the details of the landscape. It was a beautiful and calming place. Even the air seemed ultraclean, like something you would breathe out of an oxygen tank. As they were standing there,  two horses trotted up to them, pulling a golden chariot. Two strong young men stepped out, and approached. One had lighter skin, and the other darker. They moved with grace, symmetry, and synchronization. They were perfectly attuned to each other, perhaps by some kind of centralized hivemind shared between them. When they spoke, they did so in a seamless concerted effort, finishing each other’s sentences in some cases, and saying words simultaneously in others. “Hello, and welcome to the Dawnlands, foothills to Svarga, the celestial plane of light. How may we help you?”

“Could you undo what you did to her?” Ramses requested, gesturing to Romana. “She was told that the de-aging process would be temporary.”

The Ashvins smiled, again in sync. “Youth is temporary for all before they enter the Svarga or Naraka Loka. Aging is a part of life. It may be undone, but as the lotus reliably blooms each year, so too will man grow and change.”

Ramses gently closes his eyes, exasperated. “Are you telling me that she will only return to her normal age because she’s aging normally from here, and will eventually reach it anyway?”

“She will one day be as old as she was, and following, she will be even older. So too will you.”

“That’s not how my species works.”

The Ashvins were confused by this as it was leaning on the fourth wall, and they did not have a response.

“Look, we need this to happen faster than the full twenty years,” Ramses went on. “She clearly misunderstood the rules when she requested this from you.” She looked down at Romana. “Right?”

“Right. I didn’t want this to be permanent, or...so slow,” Romana confirmed.

“Apologies for the confusion,” the Ashvins claimed, “we meant no harm to your body or mind. We may reverse the ravages of changing seasons, but not hasten them. We cannot return you to the state you were in before your bath in the Sindhu River.”

Ramses shook his head again, which he felt like he was doing a lot of today. “Do you know of anyone—in any realm—who might be able to do what we ask?” No one on the team had ever heard of a retroverter who wasn’t also a proverter, but to be fair, they weren’t all too familiar with the concept. They really should have been questioning how such temporal powers ended up on this planet in the first place. They hadn’t recruited anyone with such abilities. Perhaps someone they did bring here, however, had connected Hrockas with other time travelers. These others could have donated their gifts to building Mythodome, or maybe even other domes, in such ways that broke the publicly known laws of physics.

“That is not something that we would know,” the Ashvins answered, a little bit sadly, but still believing that this wasn’t their fault. They did not know that they should clarify how Romana’s situation would work.

“All right. Let’s go do some research,” Ramses said, turning around. “There are a lot of mythological beings here. Maybe one of the other gods has real powers too.”

“Wait,” Romana said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “I know someone who can do it.”

“Who?”

“You.”

Ramses’ eyes darted over to Angela’s from a brief feeling of panic, because he didn’t know what Romana was talking about. “I can’t do what you ask. I’m not a proverter either.”

“I don’t need a proverter,” Romana clarified. “I need a cloner.”

Ramses sighed. “That is a big decision, and it’s also irreversible. Once your consciousness is digitized, it can’t be undone. You will never be what you once were. A scar you got when you skinned your knee skateboarding in first grade. A missing appendix from surgery. You will lose all of that. The body that you’re in now, at whatever age you happen to be, will be destroyed as biomedical waste. Your consciousness will remain intact, but not everyone appreciates that. There are those who have expressed regret at being uploaded.”

“I know the process, and the rules. It’s about time I become more like you all, particularly Mateo. If I’m gonna be on this team, I wanna feel like a part of it.”

“Ro-ro,” Angela began, placing a hand on her shoulder. “If we’ve ever made you feel excluded, that was not our intention. You are on the team. That’s undeniable.”

“It’s nothing that you’ve done. In the past, I’ve hesitated to digitize, but it’s the practical choice, and it’s inevitable. I don’t wanna die any more than you do. I’m more vulnerable than all of you, and I don’t like it. People have to be more worried about me than they should. This isn’t out of nowhere. I’ve been considering it. I think...maybe, reaching out to the Ashvins was my way of testing the waters, to see how I would feel about my body changing so drastically. I am ready now.”

“Well, it’s complicated,” Ramses started to try to explain. “You were born with your time-skipping power. The rest of us were either made that way from Tamerlane Pryce’s design, or we stole it from those who were. I don’t know if I know how to replicate what you are. You have to remember that we’re not technically on the same pattern. They just technically match up. If you had a hiccup, and got off by one day, we may never sync back up.”

“All the more reason to do this,” Romana contended, like it was obvious. “Don’t worry about understanding my pattern. Just put me on yours.”

“We’ll need to talk to your father first,” Ramses insisted.

“This isn’t his decision,” Romana retorted.

“Absolutely, but he’ll never forgive me if we just do this without even so much as a heads-up. He would feel the same if you got a secret tattoo, or...” He cleared his throat, and chose not to finish that thought.

“Okay. We’ll take our time with this,” Romana agreed, “but it’s happening, one way or another. If not you, then I’ll find some other cloner to do it. You’re not the only member of The Shortlist.”

Ramses nodded. “All right. Now let’s get back to THD. I’m mythed out.”

“Uth too.”

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Microstory 2393: Vacuus, December 28, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I’m up to speed on what’s going on. I was present when Corinthia confronted my father about being the one involved with your unauthorized twin study. I was horrified to learn what my father did to you. He separated two children from each other, and one of their parents each. I can’t imagine how you or she must feel about it, but I’m embarrassed and ashamed. It was very brave of her to speak up for herself. We were sitting in the cafeteria. It was just her, me, and my dad. I was sitting on his side, because she’s my best friend, but he’s my father. I had no idea what was coming. After I realized what she was saying, I felt like I was on the wrong side of things...literally. I stood up, pivoted, and sat down next to her instead. I wasn’t sure how she would take that, but she rested her head on my shoulder. I think she was scared that I would be mad at her, but she did nothing wrong, and neither did you. I wish there was something I could do to make up for his betrayal, or to help, but Corinthia assures me that there’s nothing. She wants to put this whole situation to bed, and stop thinking about it. The study was decades ago, so my dad claims that he hasn’t thought about it all this time. I don’t know if I believe that. He must have had some sort of reaction every time he passed her in the corridor, or whenever they came to have dinner with us. If I were him, it would have put a knot in my stomach. Then again, I wouldn’t have let it go on this long. I would have fessed up. He says that your mom wouldn’t let him, but he’s an adult, and what was she gonna do to stop him? You deserved to know the truth your whole lives. You deserved to know each other. And now the Valkyries are coming, and this could be the last message you see from either of us for two years! I wish we had more time. I wish I could read more of your words, and see more of your photos and videos. I wish that I could touch you, and smell you. I wish that we could spend real time together. My dad didn’t take all that from us, but he took a lot, and I don’t know if I can forgive him. I just hope that you forgive me for being associated with him. Try to write back as fast as you can, because they don’t think we’ll see very much of the year 2180 before we become utterly isolated again.

Officially and hopelessly in love with you,

Velia

Microstory 2392: Vacuus, December 26, 2179

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Dear Condor,

No, I don’t know which one of us is older than the other. We could have been born hours apart, for all I know. Well, that’s probably too long of a difference. You would think that Pascal would say something about it if that were the case. Unless, I guess, if he was out of town, or something. Was he even there? Has he never told you anything about what it was like when you were born? Probably not since his story would have been shaky from having no choice but to leave me out of it entirely. Let me get right into what happened. I’m glad that I talked to Elek sooner rather than later, because I might not have had another chance to tell you about it. Our scientists believe that the Valkyrie long-cycle is imminent. Unless something major happens to change their current projected trajectory, they’re coming for us, and they’ll be blocking transmissions for a really long time. Theoretically, the only thing that could affect them enough for them to change their path would be a gravitational body of significant mass-density. That would be even worse, because it would probably cross the Roche limit, and collide into Vacuus. I told you that I would be getting into what happened, then went off on a tangent. Sorry. Elek. When I approached him earlier today, he seemed very scared. I don’t think he read our messages, or anything, but I think he knew that this conversation would be coming at some point. We were bound to put the pieces together eventually. He actually seemed relieved when I demanded answers about the study. Attached is the full transcript of our conversation. Our laws say that I can record audio on the base with everyone’s permission,  but I can’t record video. It’s a little weird, but it would be a lot to compress anyway. Here are the highlights. The program had been going on for a hell of a lot longer than we realized. Madalena was only hired for its most recent iteration. They tried this with other missions prior to this, including lunar bases and Martian outposts. They have always wanted to know how one person would fare across contradictory realities, and twins are the closest thing they can come to gaining any insight on that. The thing about us being fraternal twins was the result of a series of concessions they had to make over the years. It started out as one would think, with the ideal conditions, and no legal qualms. They just kept changing it and changing it until it became all but pointless. Elek observed me as I grew up, and took some notes, which he showed me, and they’re all attached too. They weren’t very detailed, and his heart wasn’t in. It was just stupid from the beginning, but they sunk so much money into it, they didn’t want to let it go. They since have, disbanding entirely, and the various players no longer communicate with each other. He thought that Madalena was dead, but he’s pretty sure most of the others on Earth are indeed gone. After this I think it’s time we put this whole thing to rest. It sounds like it’s all over, and nothing really came of it. Now let’s just be. Let’s be twins who talk via weekly letters.

Until the Valkyries descend upon us,

Corinthia

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 2383: Earth, November 1, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Huge news. I couldn’t wait to write this until after your next message, whenever that ends up being. I know that dad told you what he found out from our old neighbor, so I won’t go over all that again. While he was gone, I managed to make contact with my old nurse. Her name is Madalena Rich, and she was part of it all. She wasn’t just hired by the researchers to observe me. She was part of the braintrust that came up with the idea to study twins separated at birth throughout their entire lives. It was she who located our mother, since her name was in the records as being pregnant with twins. She didn’t make first contact with your mom, but they did become friends after Alizée was read into the program, and honestly, kind of brainwashed into believing that this all made sense. At first, mom thought that they were just going to have her live a few towns over, but then they kept talking about it, and a few towns became a few states, and a few states became a different country, and so on and so forth, until we ended up where we are today. It was this whole long-con. They just kept getting her more and more excited about what kind of data they could get from this study, and how beneficial it would be for the advancement of science. Madalena was already a nurse by the time this happened, which means that she lied to our father about being a student. It was an excuse she came up with for why she wasn’t demanding much money to care for me. She didn’t need money, she just needed to get into that apartment, though obviously it would have been quite suspicious had she agreed to do it entirely free.

We talked about a lot more than this, so these are only the highlights. I screen recorded our conversation—in secret at first, though I later divulged it, which she didn’t argue against. She said that she has done a lot of growing up, and has dedicated her career to helping the less fortunate. She also regrets having participated, especially since it made little sense to begin with. It took them a few months to build up to the whole Vacuus expedition offer, and just when they had it, they discovered that we were fraternal twins. We were right that it was really disorganized. They didn’t try to develop a relationship with any other candidates, this was their one chance, or they would literally miss the boat that took you across the interplanetary void. They realized how little meaning their study would have at this point, but decided to press forward. Over time, they eventually gave up. At least, that’s what Madalena believed. She stopped treating me (by the way, but illnesses were real, it’s not like she was getting me sick on purpose), and she walked away from it all. She only later found out about her old business associates approaching our neighbor for further observation when I was a little older. One last thing. The screen recording doesn’t have this, because she never said it out loud, but she sent me an old contact card with the name of the person assigned to study you on the ship, and on the planet. It was Elek Katona. Isn’t that Velia’s last name?

Reeling from the truth,

Condor

Microstory 2381: Vacuus, October 30, 2179

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Dear Velia,

I need you to tone it down with Condor. As if it’s not weird enough that he's my twin brother, but he lives billions of kilometers away. He’s not going to be able to take you out on a romantic dinner, or even hold your hand. I’ve been letting it slide, because I understand that you’re lonely, but this is inappropriate behavior, and it’s gone too far. I know you say that he’s responding well to your advances, and I’m not going to argue against that, because the truth is that I don’t know if he likes it, or if he’s just being polite. What I do know is that it’s completely irrelevant, because nothing is going to happen between you two. I mean, maybe if long-distance meant the other side of the planet, and you could still have realtime conversations, everything would be okay. But you have to wait two weeks before receiving each other’s replies. I know how frustrating that is for me. I can’t imagine how much worse it is when you throw sexual tension into the mix. Those photos you sent him, woof. I told you the first one was too revealing, but that’s how you’re built, and I don’t wanna body-shame you. But I can’t believe you sent him the one of you doing yoga too. Why did you even take that in the first place? He doesn’t need to know how “flexible” you are, or that you’re fine on your “hands and knees”. Jesus, girl. I know that you’re an adult, and you’re only trying to follow your heart, but damn, Velia, this has got to stop. I don’t want to make everything about me, but you were not like this before Bray and I started seeing each other, so maybe you’re just feeling rushed, I don’t know. And I don’t know if you’ll ever meet anyone who’s good enough for you on this base. I had all but given up on it. I wasn’t even looking for it. It just happened, and it could happen for you, but it’s not going to be Condor, I’ll tell you that much. He also deserves to find someone special, and if you keep distracting him with your sexy photos, your innuendo, and your blatant sexual advances, it will be that much harder for him to notice it when someone who lives on Earth is standing right in front of him. I’m sorry to be so harsh, but despite our distance, he has been very protective of me, and I feel like it’s my duty to extend the same courtesy in my own way. I hope that we can still be friends after this, and also that you’re not offended that I had to write this in a letter. I wanted to get all of my points out, and if I confronted you in person, I was afraid that we would just end up in a screaming match, and we wouldn’t hear each other. I’m more than willing to discuss this further, though, so don’t take this as some final word from me that you’re not allowed to respond to.

I love you like a sister,

Corinthia

Microstory 2375: Vacuus, October 13, 2179

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Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Condor,

I trust that you’ve been getting my daily health updates. I think that’s all I’m going to do, just forward my morning vital stats. It’s a lot easier, and the system is already set up for it. Of course, the feature is typically meant for patients to update their doctors, but if it makes you feel better, then I can do it. Yes, I do have other people to help me when I’m having trouble, be it with my health, or anything else. Like I was saying, it takes a village, and we’re a tight-knit group here. Some are closer than others. Some have more friends than me, but overall, I feel like I could count on just about anyone on this base. I’ve been reading about it, and other colonies are facing similar issues, living in these controlled environments. People don’t ever get just a little sick, so when something happens, it runs rampant. No one knows what the solution might be, though I’m guessing that your domes make things a little safer. If you have plant life growing in them, you have bacteria growing on them. All those variables are making illness a real concern, but hopefully, a manageable one. I have been taking vitamins my whole life, which include more than one immunity booster, so that’s always helped me. It’s probably part of what staved the disease off for as long as it had been. Anyway, I’m okay now. Bray has been great, and if you don’t know how to interpret vital sign trends, I’m back to the way I used to be before all this. It was a scare, but I think I can safely say that I’m out of the woods now. You’re right, testing twins for this sort of thing could be a good idea if it weren’t horrific, and we probably weren’t the first to think of it. I’m sure our observers did too. I bet they were indeed studying the physiological differences between us, living in vastly  different environments, or at least they were trying to. We’ve mentioned that it makes little sense, trying to study anything in fraternal twins, but whatever. It’s over now, and we don’t have to worry about those people anymore. I hope you took my advice, and sent a message to Velia. I know that she’s looking forward to it.

Ta-ta for now,

Corinthia

Microstory 2374: Earth, October 7, 2179

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Dear Velia,

My twin sister, Corinthia gave me your contact card. She’s talked about you a little. You’re the one who made the matching outfits that we all wore to our interplanetary birthday party, right? I know you read my open letter to the base, but if you want to talk and get to know each other personally, here’s how you can reach me. Tell me about yourself. I don’t have that much experience with what you do, and have never met anyone with your job. Things are a little different here on Earth these days, but I think they’re becoming more like they are on Vacuus, now that society is coming back. We have garment fabricators like you here, but it was a change for me, wearing new clothes. In the past, when we needed replacements, we had to trade for them at whatever market we came across, or even scavenge them from the ruins of the old world. It’s not really something I thought about a whole lot growing up. We were just trying to survive, and as long as you were protected from the elements, that would have to be good enough. If you were in the midst of the toxic fumes, it really didn’t matter what you were wearing unless it was a hazmat suit, because you weren’t going to make it out there for long. Also, when we were busy traveling the world, we were limited to how much we could carry, which was par for the course for a lot of people at the time, certainly everyone we were dealing with. In some instances, it was a rule based on who you were with, and in others, it was a practical necessity to stay light and unburdened by too many belongings. I’ve only recently begun to collect personal possessions. It just wasn’t worth it before, when I was on the road, and in the air. Before we came to this platform, I only had a few shirts and a couple of pairs of pants. Socks and undergarments were the most precious due to their heavy impact on hygiene. I’m sure there’s more to you than your job. You may not even like clothes. Not everyone gets to work in their preferred field. In case you are into fashion, though, here’s a picture of what I’m wearing today. What do you think?

It’s nice to kind of meet you,

Condor