The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 8, 2552

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Before calling anyone else about the creep, the twins walked back around the portal building, which they had named The Gatehouse. Angela wanted to call it The Iris, but Marie said that they weren’t allowed to. They stress-tested the structure, and found themselves unable to get in, which suggested that Bronach Oaksent would not be able to get out. They certainly didn’t design it to be that easy. But they had only just now built it, so they were paranoid that it wasn’t enough. Who knows what tricks this guy had up his giant sleeve? They returned to the doors where he was waiting to be let out, and urged him to go back where he came from. He didn’t leave, and he didn’t speak. He didn’t lift his hood either, so they weren’t even able to confirm that it was him. For all they knew, it could have been a troublemaking teen just playing a prank.

Once it looked like their opinions weren’t being respected, they relented, and called in everyone else. The Matics were not happy to be interrupted from what they were doing, but they understood the seriousness. Ramses was fortunately at a stopping point in his work, where the trillions of simulations he was running needed time to iterate and resolve. “I’ll handle this,” he said. He took the forge core back from Angela, and started working on something new, claiming that it would be complete by the time they returned to the timestream. He was right. When they came back a year later, it was impossible to even get close.

It was now surrounded by the largest pyramid they had ever seen. Ramses said that the perimeter was 20 kilometers in total length. He would have built it bigger than that, but that was all the space he had to work with outside of the capital dome. There was actually an entrance that went from the dome, into the pyramid. From there, a maze leading to the portal would make it virtually impossible to find your way through. Even if Bronach returned to where he came from, and flew back through the portal with a stealth bomber, he should not have been able to escape. He kind of went overboard with this one, but admitted to feeling bad for not addressing the issue before. Leona wanted to point out that it was Echo who made the portal in the first place, with no apparent way to shut it off, but that would have been insensitive of him.

“Is he still there?” Leona asked over Angela’s shoulder as Angela was studying the Gatehouse’s feed.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, his robes are anyway.” She cast the video to the big screen, and stepped through days and days of footage. “See? He doesn’t move. He’s literally frozen. I’m thinking he teleported out, and teleported a mannequin in to take his place.”

“I though you had the suppression field up.”

“Oh, that doesn’t just prevent people from getting in or out?” Angela asked.

“It should stop it altogether.”

“Oh, then I don’t know,” Angela said. He’s, uhh...a robot? I saw that in a show once. An evil android went too far back in time, so he made himself a little money, bought some infrastructure, then sealed himself up, and just went dormant for decades.”

“That’s absolutely not impossible.” Leona looked back at the screen for a few seconds. It made her shiver. “Ack, that’s so creepy. Turn it off, turn it off.”

Angela exited out, letting it revert to a wide shot of the pyramid from the outside. “I know this was all automated, but it still took a lot of energy for just one little person.”

“It’s not a waste. It’s good to have a pyramid anyway. It helps facilitate interstellar and intergalactic travel.”

“I’ve heard that,” Angela said, nodding. “I don’t understand why, or why it seems like we’ve never worried about it. Most people can’t jump that far anyway. Is it just for people like Maqsud and Aristotle Al-Amin?”

“The way I understand it, it’s specifically not for them. They were born with the ability to cross those distances on their own. There are a lot of things going on that we don’t hear about, from both salmon and choosing ones. They need to cover those distances too, for various reasons. I don’t think that pyramids hold special power. I think it’s more about the size.”

“Also the shape,” Ramses added, having returned at some point from his work on the moon. “It could be a cone instead, but those are harder to engineer, and I personally prefer the former, though I am Egyptian. It’s about funneling temporal energy from a large area to a fine point. But you’re right, the pyramid-builders in ancient days didn’t do anything special to the interior. Energy just concentrates well from this basic shape.”

“Right,” Angela said. She twisted her shoulders back and forth a couple of times between Leona and Ramses. “Am I the only one seeing an issue here?”

“What do you mean?” Ramses questioned.

“We built a megastructure to prevent someone from coming here from far away without our permission. And this new structure is particularly well-suited for helping people come from far away without our permission.”

“Don’t say that,” Leona urged, “because if you say that, something’s gonna happen, and we’re not gonna like it.”

Fearfully, all three looked back up at the live feed. Leona was seemingly correct. A beam of fiery blue light landed right on the tip of the pyramid, releasing a pressurized vhwm, loud enough to be heard by the far camera, but not from inside the dome.

“Everyone report to main control immediately,” Leona ordered into comms.

They all appeared nearly instantaneously, except for Romana.

“Romy!” Leona cried. “Romana, where are you!”

Mateo checked the locator. “She’s in the pool. She likes to float around in there when she’s meditating.”

“I guess that’s okay, as long as she’s not near the portal pyramid,” Leona decided. “We have an intruder. I don’t know who it is. Marie, you’re with me. Ramses, secure virtual systems. Angela, be an extra set of hands if he needs it. Mateo.... Mateo?”

“It looks like he’s at the pool now,” Olimpia notified her.

Mateo reappeared, wet from the waist down, carrying his daughter in his arms. She was breathing, but not opening her eyes, or stirring. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

“I do,” Marie admitted. “She’s in VR. She’s been living a second life.”

“Ram...” Leona began, “deal with that too. Marie, we gotta go.”

They took each other’s hands, and teleported to the benbenet, where they found Bronach Oaksent, as well as some unknown person, who was wearing too much clothing and goggles to recognize. That second guy had some kind of apparatus attached to the balcony floor, and was doing something with a tablet.

“Whoa, hold on, ladies,” Bronach said, holding up his hands defensively. “We’re not here to hurt you. There’s a peace treaty, remember?”

“I remember we can’t trust you. How did you get out?” Leona demanded to know.

“I didn’t,” he answered. “I didn’t have to, because I was never in there.”

The other guy pushed his goggles to his forehead, and looked up. It too was Bronach, but the old version of him, who Mateo rescued from the afterlife simulation. The two of them had a weird relationship since they could both lay claim to the Goldilocks Corridor. “It’s nearly done, then it will need to calculate the return vector.”

“Make sure you make it two-way,” Young!Oaksent instructed. “I don’t want the two of us getting trapped in there too.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that,” Leona said sarcastically.

“Before you get any bright ideas,” Young!Oaksent responded, “there’s a reason we’re wearing these vests. They let us dig tunnels through suppression fields. All he’s doing now is calculating the trajectory so we get a straight shot into the Gatehouse. Without it, we would still be able to get free.”

“I don’t like how much you know about this place,” Marie spat.

“This is the most famous planet in the galaxy,” Young!Oaksent explained. “Or it will be anyway. I don’t have time to tell you everything—”

“I don’t care,” Leona contended. “I just need to know who the hell is down there, and what you want with him.”

Young!Oaksent winced. “It’s Key!Bronach, obviously. Your portal only goes to one place. He’s been searching for a way back here since the Sixth Key was created. He finally found a safe route with the portal that you so graciously created for him. We don’t want him here. We can’t have it. We’re already splitting power in the Corridor. He would only muddle things up.”

“Why is he all weird, and not showing his face?” Marie questioned.

He shrugged. “No clue. We don’t know that much about what he’s been through. We just see him as a threat. I promise, once we get him, we’ll shimmer back home, and not bother you. There’s no reason for us to stay on Ramosus.”

“Not yet,” Old!Oaksent quipped.

“Shut up,” Young!Oaksent scolded.

Leona laughed. “Wow, could you two be more having totally rehearsed that?”

“Huh?”

“Look, I don’t doubt that you have a problem with sharing the wealth, but I don’t believe that you’re going to leave us alone. I’m sure you already know that we’re formulating a plan to shave the top of this pyramid off so it can no longer access Shimmer.”

“That’s your prerogative,” Young!Oaksent agreed. “Either way, I’m getting my alt self, and taking him somewhere so far away, you’ll never see him again.”

“Let me guess, the distant future?”

“N—no,” he protested.

Old!Oaksent’s tablet beeped. “We’re good to go.”

Young!Oaksent put his goggles on. “All right, sweethearts, it was nice to catch up, but we gotta do a thing.” He clicked his tongue and pointed at the girls with both hands.

Before they could tunnel away, Olimpia and Angela appeared behind them with jet injectors, which they promptly stuck into the two Oaksents’ necks. They fell over unconscious immediately.

“Boom, asshole! Wait for her to shoot you!” Olimpia cried. She looked up when she realized her words weren’t landing. “Dredd, 2012. Anybody? Anybody? Whatever.”

A few hours later, they saw on the interior Gatehouse cameras as the two newest Oaksents were waking up in the Gatehouse with the third version of him. The creepy one was still just standing there frozen. “Welcome back,” Leona said into the microphone.

Young!Oaksent looked up at the camera. “You took our vests.”

“Ramses is already looking them over,” she told him. “What a thoughtful gift.”

“I underestimated how ruthless you were,” he said. “A chemical attack. It doesn’t sound like you.”

“I do what I must,” she replied.

“Are you gonna trap us here forever?” Old!Oaksent asked.

“There’s a way out, right behind ya, up the hill.”

They both looked over their shoulders at the portal. “We’ll find a way back. And anyway, our people know what to do in our absence.”

“We’ll be ready,” Leona claimed, not knowing if it was true.

Young!Oaksent shook his head indignantly. He snapped his fingers in front of the supposed Sixth Key version of them. “Simon says, unfreeze.”

The hooded figure slowly turned towards him, but didn’t react too dramatically.

Young!Oaksent took him by the upper arm, and began to walk up the hill. Old!Oaksent followed them both through the portal.

“We need to find a way to close it completely,” Leona determined. “I thought it would be a good idea to have that connection for our own use, but it’s too dangerous.”

“Yeah, I’ll look into it,” Ramses volunteered. “But right now, I’m trying to get Romana out of her virtual environment.”

Leona looked across the room, where Mateo was next to his daughter, stroking her hair gently. Leona breathed deeply. “Yes, that’s priority. Then the portal. Then the Outriders. Then...preparing for anything and everything else. And we thought this world would be boring.”

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Extremus: Year 39

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“Good late night. My name is Taila March, streaming live from a secret section of the ship that you’re not allowed to go to. Pause of laughter. The time is midnight central according to the Earthan clock, on September 12, 2308, and you’re watching Extremus Measures. If you’re under sixteen, maybe you wanna shut your eyes, and cover your ears—or just go to bed—it’s about to get real.”

She walks up and over to her desk, forgoing her usual slew of topical jokes. It’s not the first time she’s done it. She alters the format when she’s going to be discussing some more serious topics. She sits patiently as the band completes its song, pretending to read through notecards and the show’s agenda. She goes on when the music stops, “tonight, we have two very special guests. The first is our very own Captain, Kaiora Leithe. This is a real treat, guys, I hope you’re tuning in. Traditionally, members of the executive crew don’t do civilian streaming, but she wants to clear the air on a few things, so she’s agreed to come talk with us. Second, former First Lieutenant Rita Suárez is here. She returned to the ship about two years ago after having been missing for over thirty years. She’s spoken up a little about what she went through in that time, and has suggested that she didn’t experience the same amount of time apart as we did, but tonight, she says she’s ready to provide us with a bit more information. I hope you all have, and will continue, to show her a warm and caring welcome. As always, this stream is live, and any form of recording is forbidden. We’re off the cuff here; unadulterated, unedited...and sometimes unprofessional, but always respectful.

“That all being said, please welcome my first guest, Captain Kaiora Leithe.”

The studio audience cheers.

Kaiora steps through the curtain, and waves to them as she approaches her chair. It’s true, being on this show is very unorthodox. But it’s not against the law, and as long as she doesn’t reveal any sensitive information, everything should be fine. She’s here to discuss her personal life. As the most famous person on the vessel, she doesn’t have the luxury of privacy. Sure, she has the right to keep some things to herself, but if the captain is going to be dividing her attention between the ship, and a love interest, it’s not outrageous for people to question her competence. She didn’t want to come on here and talk about it, but as the last nine months rolled by, it became clearer that the less she said, the more the public made up about her and Ima. It’s time to take control of the narrative. “Thanks for having me, Miss March.”

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, Captain, we’re all very excited.”

“Oh, please, we’ve known each other for over twenty years. Call me Kaiora.”

“Is that true? Do other people who happen to have known you for so long get to be on a first name basis with you?”

“That’s a good point. I suppose it will have to be more of just a you thing.”

“Hear that, kids.” Taila holds her cards to the side of her mouth. “Don’t call her by her name, or it’s off to the hock with ya! Oh, I joke, I joke. But seriously, Captain—Kaiora, you’re here to officially announce a personal romantic relationship, right?”

“Well, I think that ship has sailed,” Kaiora replied. “We’ve been open with everyone since day one. We didn’t hold a press conference, but it’s been out there.”

“But of course, this must have begun before. I mean, you didn’t just fall in love on day one. You had been working together for years.”

“No, it kind of was a sudden thing. The feelings were there, yes, and we exchanged some glances, but neither one of us had anything close to confirmation of mutual attraction. Then, one night, I had a hard conversation with someone else, and I just...felt like I had to take a chance. I raced over to Ima’s office, and we started talking. So it wasn’t love at first sight, but it wasn’t a long courtship either.”

“Is love the right word to use, or no?”

“It’s what we use, but not in the beginning. We both felt it was our responsibility to be honest with the crew and passengers regarding our connection. Not only was it better for the health of the mission, but keeping it secret would have made it—I think—less real, like we weren’t fully committed. So you’ve all been with us as it’s evolved. Though, of course, we do keep some things to ourselves.”

“Of course, of course. Now, you said you had a hard conversation, which somehow inspired you to have this epiphany. Can you tell us anything about that?”

No. She definitely can’t drop Daud’s name, but she doesn’t even want to give the audience a hint about what might have gone down. This isn’t about him, and he deserves to remain anonymous. “That’s internal, and classified,” she states simply, hoping to imply it was just some kind of random crewmember behavioral issue.

“Very well.” Taila clears her throat to continue. “I understand that Dr. Holmes is here with you tonight, but she won’t be coming on stage?”

“No, she has chosen to let me take the reins on this one. She’s here for support, but she prefers to stay off camera. I’m the one who signed up for public scrutiny.”

“Well, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to appear on screen like this. We all really appreciate the candor. Don’t we?”

The crowd claps at an appropriately subdued volume.

“Lovely. Perfect. Not to cut us off, but it’s time to bring out our second guest. We would like you to stay here, and keep talking, though. And obviously you’re always welcome to come back to the show anytime you want. Is that okay?”

“I blocked the time for it,” Kaiora replies with a half smile. “For tonight, that is.” She recognizes, however, that Taila is ending the interview before getting to the real questions, because it will prompt the audience to complain about it, forcing the Captain to return for a second interview. It’s just a coincidence that this will result in another ratings boost.

“Great, so that will be your new chair,” Taila says, pointing before turning back to the camera. “Crew and passengers of Extremus, please welcome Rita Suárez.”

The audience claps subdutifully again, giving Rita a standing ovation in deference to her. She comes out of the curtains unsmiling, and more slowly. Wearing a flowy, robey sort of outfit, she carefully climbs the two steps, and crawls into the chair like she’s worried it’s going to change shape on her. She had to notice Taila’s attempt to shake her hand, but acts like she doesn’t know what it means.

Truthfully, Kaiora hasn’t been keeping track of Rita’s life back on the ship. She’s really relied on the expertise of the people trained to handle this sort of thing. They never said she was a threat to the mission, so it wasn’t the Captain’s business. Rita hasn’t expressed a desire to be reinstated onto the crew, so the crew hasn’t needed to be involved. Even so, she seems different now, like she’s regressed. According to the limited psychological reports that Kaiora has received, she should have improved more by now. It’s been two and a half years, and nothing she’s heard would suggest she would behave like this.

Taila doesn’t seem to notice, though who knows how well she knew Rita before today? They don’t exactly run in the same circles. “Thank you for coming, Miss Suárez. How are you feeling?”

“I’m great,” Rita says unconvincingly.

“How have you been adjusting to life?”

“It’s been wonderful.” She’s saying the words, but she doesn’t seem to believe them. It feels like she’s reciting from a script.

Now Taila seems to be picking up on the same awkwardness that Kaiora is. “Care to elaborate?”

Rita runs her fingers through her hair as she looks up at the lights, as if she didn’t even hear the question. “No.”

“Okay,” Taila begins, hoping to salvage this interview. “Could you tell us what happened to you after you disappeared back in 2272?”

Rita smiles. “I saw the light.” She’s still literally looking at the lights, which is presumably why she finds her own answer amusing.

“You did? I was to understand that it was a harrowing ordeal, full of constant dangers, and even some near-death experiences.”

“Yeah,” Rita responds lazily. “That’s what happened, but it’s not what happened, ya know.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t understand.”

“I know.” Now she’s acting like a frustrated and sad child, but not angry. “No one understands. You haven’t seen the light.”

“Rita,” Kaiora steps in. “What’s going on?”

Rita jerks her face around to face the Captain, like she didn’t remember she was sitting next to her. “Everyone’s always calling me that. It’s dreadful, don’t you think? Rita Suárez,” she mocks. “It’s sooo...human.” She’s so disgusted by this.

Kaiora stands up. “Security,” she prompts rather quietly.

Rita stands up too. “Yeah,” Rita agrees. “The more the merrier, as you people would say.” She reaches up to her shoulders, and removes the outer layer of her clothing, revealing a suicide vest. Because of course there’s a suicide vest.

The three members of civilian security rightfully stop, and take a half step back in shocking unison. Without hesitating, Kaiora reaches for her teleporter, and tries to banish Rita off the ship, but she’s unable to. Something’s blocking her. She keeps pressing the button, but it still doesn’t work.

Rita turns around and smirks. “You think I didn’t prepare for that?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“This is exactly what I would do in this situation,” Rita contends. “You don’t even know me.”

“Rita,” Taila tries. “Please.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Okay, what do you want us to call you?”

“I...” Rita takes hold of what’s most likely the detonator. “...am Oblivion.” She presses the button with her thumb. Instead of her blowing up, though, she just disappears. Was that it? Was it not a bomb at all, but a bizarrely intricate transporter?

Kaiora looks over and sees Daud between cameras B and C. He’s holding a sort of tennis racket sort of thing towards the stage, and panting a little. “Did you do something?” she asks.

“Cut the feed,” Daud demands.

Taila swipes her fingers in front of her neck. The broadcast lights turn off.

“Report,” Kaiora says.

“You remember when we found her?” Daud asks as he approaches. “We finally figured out that she was in another dimension, which only made her appear to be a teeny tiny person?”

“Vividly,” Kaiora recalls. It was a traumatic experience.

He waves the weird racket thing around. “We also figured out how to replicate that.”

“Why? I didn’t give you authorization to conduct such research.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Kaiora says, changing her tune. “You just saved our lives.”

“Why did he need to do that?” Taila questions. “Why would Rita Suárez want to kill the two of us, and herself, and this randomly selected audience?”

It wasn’t her. It was just someone posing as her, so they could gain access to the ship, and move about at the lowest clearance level possible. And to what end? To assassinate the Captain? What would that accomplish, besides ushering in a new captain? If that’s the case, this secret organization—be it new, or still the same old True Extremists—would have to have a candidate in mind who would be more amenable to whatever insane agenda they have. Rita is presumably dead now, so they can’t ask her, but they will have to begin a formal investigation to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. People have always called Kaiora a peacetime captain, but now she’s starting to think that designation will have to be amended.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 19, 2226

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Sanaa was right that the terrorists’ plan would work. At midnight central on the night of October 18, 2225, Leona jumped forward exactly one year. She had every reason to believe that Mateo had done the same all the way on Durus. They were now fully back on the pattern they had been dealing with for an indeterminate amount of time, across two realities. It wasn’t the best thing that had ever happened to them, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The few years of realtime they were able to experience was really just borrowed time. The powers that be would have found some way of getting them back, regardless of what in-universe explanation people would have for it.

The Caster evidently had some psychic power they didn’t know about, even over androids. Brooke and Sharice attempted to prevent her from leaving in lightspeed ship that Hokusai built, but she was too strong for them. She took it before they could retrofit it to fit two people. They then spent the last year building Leona an entirely new ship, so she could finally meet back up with Mateo on Gatewood. That was assuming he was able to make it to his own Nexus replica, and travel back to this galaxy at all. Someone needed to get to Gatewood, so Serif could have some backup. There was no telling what exactly she was going through with the Ansutahan human refugees.

“Much less fanfare than when Ramses unveiled the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Sharice said to Leona as she was leading her down the hallway.

“We don’t have a teleporter to get you into orbit,” Brooke added, “so you should probably leave as soon as possible.”

“You’re not coming with me,” Leona said as a statement.

They stepped through the door, and revealed a relatively small ship in the hangar. “There’s not enough room for us.”

“More to the point,” Sharice began, “there wasn’t enough time to build a vessel with enough room for all of us. It’s single-occupant, just like Hokusai’s.”

“Unlike hers, though,” Brooke said, “we weren’t able to study Sanaa’s ship before she bugged out, so this thing can only go point-seven-five-c. You might be able increase efficiency to point-eight, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Is it going to operate itself while I’m gone for my interim years?” Leona asked. She might have tried to convince them to go along with her, but it would have been a wasteful conversation. They could upload their consciousnesses to the ship itself, but Leona was certain they had thought of that, and for their own reasons, decided against it. She was just going to have to go it alone.

“Your pilot will handle that for you.”

“I thought it was single-occupant,” Leona said.

Her two friends climbed up the steps with her, but watched her climb inside alone. “Eight Point Seven, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” Administrator Eight Point Seven replied, through the ship’s internal systems.

“You’re coming with me?” Leona asked, excited.

“The Bungulans want a new leader. I have overstayed my welcome. Fortunately, they recognized that overwriting my programming would have been cruel at that point, so they activated an entirely new personality to take over for me.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“I have outgrown this world,” Eight Point Seven said. “I’m ready to see the stars.”

“So, who’s the current leader? Are we on Nine Point Eight, or did they decide to skip over the missing versions, and go straight to Eleven Point Eight, which is where it would have been, if not for you?”

“They’ve done away with the periodic update naming convention,” Eight Point Seven answered. “They just gave the new administrator a name, and she’s been running things for the last year. They call her Mirage.”

Mateo thought he was looking at a mirage. Standing before him was a man he never thought he would see again. Ramses Abdulrashid was meant to be exiled to Lohsigli, which was like the Mars of this solar system. How was he here, and where had he been? Dardieti had explored enough of Lohsigli to know that it was fully capable of sustaining life, but they did not yet have resources allocated towards human exploration; let alone settlement. Per the Freemarketeers’ wishes, he was reportedly sent up there to live the rest of his days alone. There was plenty of food and water, but he was expected to survive with next to nothing else. Experts calculated a fifty-fifty chance that he would make it through the first year up there. One little cut, and he could have ultimately died from an infection, with the nearest medical facility being tens of millions of kilometers away. Mateo tried to find a sneaky way to keep him on Dardius, but Ramses insisted he leave. He had dedicated his political career to the ending of the Muster Wars, and wanted to do anything he could, even if it was literally the last thing he would ever do. Nonetheless, someone else must have decided to stop this.

“I thought you were off-world,” Mateo said, breaking out of his trance, and going in for a long-awaited hug.

“The Caretaker saved me as the exile pod was lifting off.”

“Is that that rumored superhero who flies in and rescues people from the brink of death?” Mateo questioned. Lots of people claimed to have been saved by her, but there was no solid evidence she existed at all.

“She is very real.” A version of The Weaver was there as well. Back when Leona was looking for the objects that would ultimately bring Mateo back from nonexistence, she ended up on Brooke Prieto-Matic’s ship. There they came across not only the version of the Weaver that lives in this reality, but also the one from Mateo’s original timeline. She, along with the other man in this group of three, sacrificed themselves to save the rest of the crew and passengers. Mateo didn’t know these two had been rescued by the Muster Twins, along with all the Freemarketeers.

“I’m just doing my job.” Yet another person came into the room, and Mateo recognized her as well. It was Vitalie; a very good friend of Leona’s, and new friend of his. Last he saw her, she was on Proxima Doma, sending him and Leona off on a mission to deliver Brooke and Sharice from their Insulator of Life prison.

“You’re the Caretaker?” Mateo asked her, not in shock, but a desire to understand what was going on.

“Yes. I travel the world, saving people as necessary.”

“That sounds like a Savior.”

“I didn’t like that term, especially since using it would have undermined Étude’s status as the Last Savior of Earth.”

“How did you get to Dardius, and...can you teleport now?”

“That’s not important. A lot has changed since you left the two of us on Bungula. I came here, because this is where I was most needed. It won’t be forever, but that’s not what matters right now. I summoned you to me, using my Diplomatic Protection Authority contact, because it’s time for you to leave.”

“I agree,” Mateo said. “I am not exactly up for reëlection, and I need to get back to Leona.”

“I can get you to the Nexus replica, but I need you to take four people with you.”

“I’m happy to take you with me,” Mateo said sincerely.

“No, I’m not part of the four. I still have work to do on this planet. Those terrorists won’t extraordinary rendition themselves.”

“We don’t really have foreign nations for you to transfer prisoners to,” Mateo said. “Xonkwo is the closest to it.”

“Oh, is that what extraordinary rendition means? No, I just mean arrest. I have to arrest them.”

Mateo nodded. He was totally cool with that. They had just killed a man on an international video feed. “So, who would be the fourth person to come with me?”

“Me.” A final person came into the room, on cue. It was none other than Newt. Technically, they hadn’t seen the terrorist kill him before the DPA cut the feed off. The Savior’s specialty was teleporting in at the very last second, and pulling people out of deadly situations. It wasn’t surprising the Caretaker used the same techniques, since she appeared to have been trained by the Last Savior.

“If you’re alive—and I hope this isn’t offensive—then how did I fall back on my pattern?”

“I’m sorry, I asked him to do that,” Vitalie answered instead. “I had to make it look like he really was dead. We’re not sure if killing him would have automatically reverted people’s powers, but that’s what the capito-terrorists seemed to think, so it was safest for everyone if you just went back to normal.”

“That’s okay,” Mateo said. “The world deserves a truly elected leader; one without the baggage of unjustly owning the planet. It’s time for me to leave, and to be honest, I had gotten used to my pattern. A part of me is glad to be back as I was.”

They paused reverently, before Vitalie started talking again. “Well, we’re approaching midnight. I have a plan, which is open for discussion. I can only take two people with me at once, so I’ll teleport Goswin and Holly Blue to the Nexus replica. Then I’ll come back for Mateo and Ram. I’ll save Newt for last, since he’s in the most danger here. Then I’ll send you all to Gatewood at once.”

“I have an amendment for that plan,” Holly Blue said. “Goswin is not a fighter, but I hear Ramses knows how to brawl.”

“Capitalists get in fights all the time, because we’re so greedy and envious.”

“If you take me and him first, he can ward off any threats, while I work on operating the Nexus. I should only need two or three minutes to get it working. We don’t know what the Freemarketeers did to the thing while it’s been under their control. We don’t even know if it’s been dismantled. We know no one’s used it.”

“Yeah, I doubt they know how,” Ramses agreed. “I’m perfectly happy to be on genius protection detail.”

“That works for me. If it keeps Newt and the Patronus out of harm’s way for longer, I’m all for it.” Vitalie stepped away, and invitingly held out her elbows. “Let’s go.”

Ramses and the Weaver interlocked their own arms with hers, and they all three disappeared.

“So, are there multiple versions of you?” Mateo asked Goswin.

Goswin shook his head. “We weren’t part of the Freemarketeer summoning. We came through the Muster Lighter just before the big mission started. We didn’t get a chance to escape Tribulation Island before they came through. We’ve been their prisoners for years.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know about you. We would have—”

“I know, Patronus. Weaver and I hold nothing against you.”

Vitalie jumped back in, and grabbed the next two. “Weaver’s figured it out. We have to go quickly.”

She teleported Mateo and Goswin right into the undecagon, where Ramses was waiting for them, head on a swivel. Weaver’s hand was hovering over the console inside the control room, ready to go at a moment’s notice. They waited there for several minutes before they started to hear banging on the door.

Weaver spoke through the intercom. “They’re coming! Where the hell are Vitalie and Newt?”

“They should be right behind us!” Goswin cried.

Ramses stepped out of the undecagon, and put up his dukes. “I’ll hold them off if they get through,” he assured them.

“We can’t wait,” Weaver said. “I’m setting the timer for ten seconds.”

“No!” Mateo yelled. “We wait!” He was used to barking orders.

“It’s almost midnight!” Weaver said as she slammed the button with her palm. Then she ran through the door, and hopped into the undecagon. “Come on, Ram!”

Ram stepped back into the portal, but kept his arms in a defensive position.

Just then, a frightened Newt appeared, standing outside of the undecagon. He was wearing a suicide vest. They could see a timer on his chest, counting down from three. Two. The Nexus activated.

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Microstory 32: The Cop

There was a cop that I used to see, sitting in various speed traps, while I was out on my walks; the only exercise I would ever get.  We would speak for a few moments each time. I learned that he’d been on the job for the better part of a decade, had a son from a one-night stand, and was planning on proposing to his boyfriend. One day, I decided to walk straight east, towards Stateline, through a not-so-great neighborhood. Up ahead, I could see Officer Pender. Instead of sitting in his car, he was standing on the corner with his radar gun. I waved up to him, and as he smiled and waved back, I heard a pop from the left. Pender twisted a little from the force, but remained upright. A series of crackling noises followed; an automatic weapon sending him to the ground. A car screeched away and disappeared behind the hedges. I ran to Pender and reached out to him on instinct. It was obvious that many of the bullets landed in his vest, but there was still blood. At least a couple of them made contact. He was coughing and struggling to recover, and I tried to put pressure on the wounds but there were too many. I heard shuffling behind me. “Back away,” a man said. “This doesn’t involve you.” I could practically feel the gun pointed at my back while he continued to walk closer. I looked down to Officer Pender’s face. He was admiring the clouds sliding across the sky. He was losing too much blood, and the life was draining from him. I could only think that if I ran, he would die, and if I tried to talk the attacker down, I would be wasting precious time. The threat needed to be eliminated. Pender’s eyes darted over and met mine, as if he had heard my last thought. There was no time to argue. I pulled out his sidearm, spun around, and shot the attacker. He was close enough that it landed in his face. It was the first time I had fired a weapon, but it wasn’t my last. A year later, Officer Pender and I became partners.