Microstory 2284: Take a Break From Me

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I went outside yesterday. I wanted to see the new botanical gardens that opened up about a half hour west of here. Well, the gardens aren’t completely new, but they did just recently expand, especially with their indoor spaces, so I wanted to see that. My security entourage attended with me, however, they wore regular clothing, and we just acted like friends. Which we are at this point, I guess, so it really wasn’t that hard. It felt great to get out of the house, and though it wore me out, I know that it’s better for me to do that at least every once in a while. I hear that Kelly and Dutch had fun too, doing their own thing with their security team protecting them covertly. They went indoor skydiving, and on a short train ride that kind of goes nowhere. It’s just a nice scenic trip to see the landscape without having to drive yourself, or walk. Why didn’t we all go do the same thing? Well, for one, I can’t go skydiving. I am in no condition to exert myself like that at the moment. And I needed them to take a break from me, if only for a very short time. Their whole lives revolve around me now. Even when they’re not actually helping me, they’re thinking about me and my needs. Make no mistake, this was a selfish decision. I can’t stand being waited on, and doted on, all the time. I need help all the time, to be sure, but I prefer to be self-reliant, and I hate to put people out. They say that they’re happy to do it, and I believe them, but they deserve to take some time away for much needed self-care. From now on, I’m going to make sure they get that. Again, I don’t employ the two of them, but I’m sure living with me feels like a full-time job, so they deserve time off, just like anyone would in a normal job. They don’t have to go skydiving again, but they can’t stay here. I won’t be reporting on it until the day has passed, though, in order to protect them while they’re out in the wild.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 52,398

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The security room in the Constant has always been unlocked, which leads Mateo to believe that it’s only there for show. If any room needs to remain secure, it would be that one, so it’s probably just to make any intruder think that they have control. Today, he needs it, because he appears to be completely alone. He still doesn’t even know where the others hole themselves up in stasis. Surely someone is awake, though, right? Tamerlane even said that they don’t want him wandering around alone. He steps into the room, and approaches the microphone. He holds the button down, and taps on it. He can hear it out in the hallway, and other nearby rooms. “Hello? Is this thing on?”

No one responds.

“My mic sounds nice, check one!” he tests in a funny voice.

Still nothing.

“Okay, I’m gonna be in the master sitting room for the next ten minutes. If no one shows up by then, I’m gonna go exploring.” He pauses a moment. “I hope that’s okay.”

He sets the microphone back down, and walks down the hall to the master sitting room. He waits twenty minutes, actually, and no one shows up. So, true to his word, he leaves, and starts looking for something interesting to do. He ignores all the places he’s been to before, like the pools, and the gaming rooms. He wants to find something he’s never seen before. This is a big place, but how big is it?

Hmm. Not as big as he thought it might be. The Olympic-size pool and basketball court take up a lot of space, as does what looks like it’s supposed to be a go-kart track, but he can’t find any of the go-karts. He gets to thinking, though, that maybe he’s going about this the wrong way. He’s been trying to see how deep this facility goes, but he has no idea what it looks like on the surface in this time period. That’s where the real crazy stuff is going on, right? He’s imagining rivers of lava, and unending lightning storms all across the sky. There’s probably no way to see it, but he may as well go up to check. He has nothing better to do today until he figures out how to get back to his own time.

Mateo heads for the main elevator, and presses the call button, expecting it to just do nothing at all, but instead, it opens. He steps inside, and commands it to take him to the top floor. Again, he’s surprised when the elevator moves up for as long as it normally does, covering the entire kilometer distance. He’s in what looks like the little chapel outside of Lebanon, Kansas, but that shouldn’t exist for billions of years. Is this all a trick, or is this all real, and everything up to this point has been a trick? He goes to the window, and looks out, realizing upon closer inspection that they’re vacuum sealed, which the ones in the real chapel are not. It’s just a replica; a replica of something that does not yet exist. It will have to be destroyed anyway by the time humans begin to roam the world in this area, so what’s the point?

Outside is a wasteland, but there are no rivers of lava, nor lightning storms. It’s just barren and empty. There’s no dirt, nor even a sky. This world does not yet have an atmosphere. Right? That makes sense, right? Maybe that’s what she should be spending his extra time doing; studying astronomy and physics, so he doesn’t have to ask these questions. “Hey, Constance, are you there?”

“I’m here, Mr. Matic,” it replies.

“This world isn’t called Earth yet, so I’m going to take this opportunity to give it a name before anyone else does. Wadya think?”

“I think that this planet isn’t Earth, regardless of what you call it.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“As of yet, there is no planet Earth.”

“Explain.”

“In millions of years, the world we’re on will collide with its neighbor. The explosion will forge a new world, composed of parts from the two original celestial bodies. It will also result in the creation of the future Earth’s only significant natural satellite, which the world’s inhabitants will one day know as the moon, or Luna.”

“So, this is Earth, it’s just not done cookin’ yet.”

“No. Based on orbital patterns, and composite share of the resulting body, it is more accurate to say that the other planet is Earth.”

“So, does this one even have a name, if no one even knows it ever existed?”

“Scientists will one day hypothesize its existence, and name it Theia.”

“Theia,” Mateo echoes. “I like it.” He looks through the rest of the windows to get different perspectives. How weird to be on an alien world, yet still so close to home. He comes to the closet. “What is in here?” he asks himself. The AI doesn’t respond, because it knows that he’s about to open it anyway. Inside are vacuum suits. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Constance interprets this one as a real question. “I’m thinking that you should go back downstairs. You have seen enough of this. Best not to tempt fate.”

“Fate is fate; you can’t tempt it. It’s gon’ do what it’s gon’ do.”

“You know what I mean,” Constance argues, but still, it doesn’t do anything to stop him, though it absolutely could. It could lower the elevator on its own. It could alert Danica to the breach. It could even just lock the airlock, and not let him out, but it doesn’t, because it’s cool with it.

He steps into the suit, and let’s the automated robot hands on the door seal him up. Still, no one tries to stop him. He’s like Chris Pratt in Passengers, except this isn’t an accident, and if it were, this place would be designed to correct for it. Welp, anyway, it’s time to go outside and see what Theia looks like from the ground. “Wish me luck,” he asks Constance.

“I’ll be with you the whole time, even if it’s just to walk the suit back to base with your lifeless corpse still inside.” If it’s going to have an attitude like that, he should probably stop thinking of the AI as an it, and more of a her.

Mateo opens the hatch, and steps outside. He tries to hop around, but the gravity isn’t that low. He was on Mars once a long time ago, and it feels a bit like he remembers. He’s been outside of a ship in space a number of times, but it never gets old. He doesn’t go too far from the Constant, and Constance does stay in his ear the whole time. He just looks around a little, and kicks a few rocks. It sucks, being away from his friends and family, but this experience is certainly nothing to regret. Even assuming that all of the people in the Constant right now have also stepped outside for a walk, he can still count on one hand the number of people who have seen what he has. That’s pretty cool.

Danica’s voice comes through the earpiece, “you’ve had your fun. Come back in.”

“Be right there.” He starts to head that way. “And Danica...?”

“Yeah...?”

“I love you.”

Brief moment of silence. “I love you too.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 19, 2398

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Still feeling the feels from their serious conversation yesterday, both Marie and Leona choose to sleep in, and make it a lazy Sunday. When Ramses goes on one of his walks, Mateo decides to go with him so he’s not making any noise down in the bunker. They only make it half a kilometer away before Ramses announces that he won’t be able to go any farther.

“What’s wrong?”

“I guess my body’s not used to the freeze-dried meals. I’ve been having trouble all week, but now it’s just...”

“I understand, we’ll go back,” Mateo says.

“No, I don’t want you to do that. I’ll go back, but you should keep going. The nature will do you good. It’s been a long time.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Mateo points out. “We lived on Flindekeldan not two months ago.”

“Trust me, despite the terrible things Marie has told us about this place, the woods are peaceful. And there’s no one else for miles and miles. Just enjoy it. I really gotta go.” He runs off.

Mateo is about to slowly follow, but then figures he may as well do as asked. He keeps walking, hoping not to get lost. He remembered to pack one of the two-way radios, so it should be okay. Before too long, he realizes that Ramses was right. Flindekeldan was great and all, but there’s something special about this particular forest. It could be some kind of side effect from whatever is canceling out their powers and patterns. Maybe he’s always felt like a time traveler since he was 28, but now he’s normal again, and it’s changed him into something he doesn’t recognize. Is this how regular people feel all the time? They probably don’t think about it much.

A couple of hours later, Mateo squeezes their predetermined code into the radio, and gets the appropriate reply, which means he’s still within range. It’s probably time he head on back, though. He hears something that stops him. Oh, no. What is this? This is another thing, isn’t it? This is just like when he came across Cassidy Long in Gatewood, or that time he ran into his future self, or that time he became the future self, and met his past self. It’s gonna start something, and he doesn’t have time for it. Still, there’s someone over there, and he has to know who it is, and why they’re there.

He snakes his way through the brush, and comes to a small clearing. A woman is kneeling on the ground, presumably praying. Three pipes are sticking out of the ground. Does this religion worship some kind of metal God? She gasps, and stands defensively. “I don’t want any trouble, and I don’t have any money.”

“Neither do I,” Mateo agrees. “I’m just on a walk. I didn’t mean to disturb your....uh, ritual.”

“It’s a monument,” the woman counters.

“Okay.” He doesn’t need to know any more.

“To my friends.” She points to each one: “Frank, Lawrence, Jefferson.”

“Okay,” he repeats.

“I was placed underneath one of these once. They saved my life, so now I honor them by erecting a monument in every city we ever lived in together.” She clearly wants to tell someone about it.

“That sounds nice.” He clearly wants to leave. Marie needs to know about this in case she considers this woman a threat.

“Would you...please stay? I don’t have anyone to talk to about them, and they deserve to have their story told. I always try to find someone to listen, but this is the first time someone actually showed up at the site, so it feels like fate.”

He smiles sadly at her, then swings his bag off his shoulders, and drops it off the ground. It’s a bag of holding, which was designed to access a pocket dimension. That no longer works here, but a random assortment of items managed to stay in the normal part of the bag, including two small, light, camping stools. He pulls them out, and extends them with a flick of the wrist. “I’m Ma—artin. Martin.”

She doesn’t seem to notice he had to come up with an alias. “Jessie.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 17, 2398

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Fairpoint Panders is a consultant. Marie isn’t quite certain what that entails, or exactly what kind of projects he consults on, but she knows he has to travel a lot to do it. He usually goes out on a Monday morning, and comes back on a Friday afternoon. She doesn’t have his exact schedule, so the team has to sit in front of his house all afternoon, watching for activity. They have a creepy white van, which they hope neighbors won’t call in as suspicious. Finally, Fairpoint’s classic car pulls up to the driveway. Classic might not be the right word for it. It’s easy to forget that this is 2398, so this thing is positively ancient. Either somebody worked really hard to restore it to working order, or history is a lot more bizarre than any of the newcomers can fathom.

They move the van farther down the block, but still keep an eye out in case he leaves again. They then wait another hour to walk up to the house, because they want to give him time to settle back in, and they don’t want it to look like they’ve been staking out his place all day.

“How long have you been waiting out there for me?” Fairpoint asks.

“We just arrived,” Marie lies.

“I saw you there when I came home,” he reveals. “I didn’t realize it was you, but we’ve had a few break-ins in this neighborhood, so I notice things like that now.”

She gives in. “We just wanted to give you time to get some dinner, or take a shower, or whatever.”

“How thoughtful,” Fairpoint says sarcastically. “Now what the hell are you doing here?”

“Did you hear about Heath?”

His face drops. He looks devastated.

“Oh, no. He’s not dead. He’s just been arrested.”

“Your fault, no doubt,” Fairpoint assumes.

“It was mine,” Mateo blurts out.

“Can we come in?” Marie asks. “I’ll explain everything.”

He thinks about it. “Just you two, and only because I want him to be doing most of the explaining.”

Leona glares at her husband. He apologizes with his eyes. She and Ramses go back to the van to wait.

“Are you thirsty?” Fairpoint asks as he’s gesturing them towards the chairs in the parlor.

“We’re fine, thank you.”

He shrugs and grabs his own beer as he’s sitting down across from them. “Go.”

Mateo looks to Marie for guidance, but they don’t have the telepathic connection that came with his marriage to Leona, so he realizes he’s going to have to handle this himself. “Heath and...Marie’s twin sister were arrested for trespassing and disorderly religious conduct the other night. We need your help advocating for their release.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Fairpoint questions.

“Fair point,” Mateo jokes.

He rolls his eyes. “It was my mother’s name, I’m not ashamed of it.”

“As you shouldn’t be,” Mateo said. “Anyway, the authorities don’t think she’s the sister. They think she’s Marie. So Marie can’t go to them and get her out.”

“What about you and the other two?”

“We have no one that we’re capable of pretending to be.”

“Why do you need to pretend to be anybody?”

Mateo’s gotten better at lying over the years. In one form or another, he usually has the advantage of being a time traveler, or more specifically, of them not knowing this about him, but it doesn’t feel like that’s going to help him here. “We’re deeply embedded, and our true identities must remain a secret...for now.” Vague, not too nefarious-sounding, and altogether meaningless.

Fairpoint takes a sip. “You never mentioned a twin sister.”

“Now you know why,” Marie answers.

“No, I really don’t. You haven’t told me anything.”

“Don’t do it for me,” Marie begs. “Do it for him. Don’t worry about the details.”

“Heath Walton is not a zealot. That’s why I love him.” Fairpoint addresses Mateo. “You see, sir, I’m an atheist, and the only people that religious people hate more than competing religious people are people who don’t believe in anything. If he was arrested for zealotry, it’s because he was covering for something else...or someone else.”

Mateo waits to answer for an appropriate amount of time. “I’m an asset. I know things. More than anything, I can’t be discovered.” Also vague and meaningless, but maybe a little too intriguing. “Please, Mr. Panders, help me make this right. He wasn’t supposed to get wrapped up in this. An—” No, no names. “Marie’s sister said she knew someone in town who could protect us.”

“And she sacrificed herself to protect my baby,” Marie interrupted.

Fairpoint darts his head back over to her. “I just...” He’s seething a little. “Since I know what kind of person you are, I need to know...is it his, or do you even know?”

“There is zero chance that it’s not his,” Marie promises. “I just found out, so I’ve not had time to talk with him about it. Get him back for me so we can have that discussion. And don’t tell them anything about who my sister really is, or that her friends are involved.”

Fairpoint looks at Marie’s still flat stomach. “You always knew what buttons to push. I’ll do it, because I know that one day, he and I will be the couple with the baby, and you’ll just be—”

“A forgotten mistake,” Marie recites. “I recall.” She sighs.

He chuckles, and downs the rest of his beer. “I’m gonna need another, and you’re gonna need to get the hell out of my house before I start thinking of ways to trade you for him.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 16, 2398

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It was annoying to spend a whole other day just sitting around, waiting to do anything to fix this problem. If even one of them had an identity in this reality, they could have gone to check on their friends, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Marie actually wasn’t sure if the authorities would ask for identification or anything, but they most likely would, so there was nothing they could do. They watched the news, which wasn’t reporting the incident. It was a minor infraction, all things considered, so they wouldn’t expect anything to be up there, but there was a small chance, so it was nice to see this was all being kept fairly quiet. The downside was they weren’t entirely certain where Heath and Angela were being held. Based on the location of the arrest, they could guess, but that wasn’t a sure thing either. It should all be resolved in the next couple of days, but they’re finding it hard to wait.

Marie is sitting at the kitchenette table, chin resting on the palm of her hand. “What do you think Olimpia is doing right now?” The two of them had a thing back when there was only one version of Angela. Mateo is unaware how serious it was, or if they had time to attempt to navigate the duplication that complicated matters. She has Heath now, but obviously still feels something.

“Hopefully she doesn’t exist,” Leona decides. “If Dalton accidentally created a shortlived pattern, then we were each delivered to our respective realities a year and a day apart. That would put Olimpia on April 9, 2398.”

“That was a week ago,” Marie laments.

“Yeah, but she should have only been alone for a day,” Leona figures. “We can try to retrieve her in 2399. That gives Ramses and me a lot of time to solve the issue. I think our main obstacle is a lack of accessible temporal energy. But we are still living in salmonverse, and salmoverse still has time travel. If somebody has a way of suppressing it, then they have to be using it for themselves.”

“What does that mean for us?” Mateo asks.

“It means that there is a source of temporal energy, be it a person, a special object, or even a location. If we find it, we can just take the energy we need for ourselves. We’ll have to rebuild the devices that Ramses got from the Parallel, but like I said, we have a year. We will probably want to try it on April 10, 2399.”

“How do we know that Olimpia isn’t on our same non-pattern, wherever she is?” Marie complains. “Maybe she’s been alone for as long as you’ve been here, or as long as I’ve been here.”

“We just can’t think like that,” Mateo tries to say in a comforting voice. “Let’s try to be positive.”

“Well, I’m A-negative,” Marie argues. She stands up, and tries to climb up the narrow steps, but Ramses happens to be coming back down.

When he gets to the bottom, he doesn’t realize right away that she’s trying to get past, so he just stands there for a moment, looking amongst the others to gauge the tone of the room.

“Please!” she says plainly in a raised—but not yelling—voice.

“Sorry.” He steps to the side, and watches her leave in a huff. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” Leona answers, “but...she just needs some time alone.”

“It is safe up there, right?” Mateo asks him.

“I didn’t see any activity. They chose this site well.”

Ramses sits down where Marie was, bored after his forest walk. “What are we gonna do now? We can’t even play RPS-101 Plus.”

“No,” Mateo agrees with a smirk, “but we can play regular RPS-101.” He pulls the wheel from his bag, unfolds it, and presents it to the two of them.

“Where did you get that?” Leona questions.

Mateo shrugs. “I had the industrial synthesizer print it out forever ago. That’s why it’s made of metal instead of paper.”

“How would one even go about playing?” Ramses asked.

“You search the wheel for the gesture you want. Then we pound and shoot just as we would for Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then we consult the outcome list to find out who won. It’s etched on the back.”

Leona stares at the wheel. “I can’t believe you’ve been lugging that thing around this whole time.”

“It’s made of graphene, so it’s light,” Mateo contends.

“That’s not metal.”

“Whatever. Do you wanna play a game?” Mateo offers.

She stares at it some more. “Whatever. Just be careful of choosing Sponge every time, like you usually do.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, August 7, 2153

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Mateo went on a memory-wiping spree after saving Lucius from having to kill Ambrosios with his time power. He went after everyone who was even remotely involved in the occasion, including Leona, The Warden, and Lucius himself. He even did it to Nerakali, who fought back, but lost in the end. Sure, it was a violation, but things would be much worse if they knew what Mateo really did with Ambrosios. No one could know. No one could remember. It was better this way; safer.

There were an infinite number of realities, but that didn’t mean anything that could happen would happen somewhere. This was the fallacy of the many-worlds interpretation of multiverse theory. There was no reality, for instance, where Angela took one of Beaver Haven’s remaining lethal weapons, and started shooting people with it randomly. Sure, it was possible, but nothing would logically have led her to do that, because they would not to this moment have allowed her to stick around if she was the type of person to do something so horrendous. They would have noticed earlier if she was. Nerakali would say that this sort of possibility had near zero realistic potential, which was a term that always embodied its most literal interpretation. Her brain blending ability worked by allowing her to transfer memories from a potential reality to the real one—or theoretically from some other point in space time to the present—which meant that the memories had to have reasonable realistic potential. The higher the potential, the closer to actual reality, the easier the transfer.

Finding the right lie to tell his people was no easy feat for Mateo. Sure, he could have simply removed their memory of what really happened with Ambrosios, but then they would be left with a void in their memories, and wonder what they had done for all of August 4, 2150. The only way to prevent these questions was to replace the memories with alternatives. He was getting really good at finding these alternatives. As far as they knew, Ambrosios really did die on Lorania years ago, and was never in Beaver Haven. Instead of dealing with him, the transition team reportedly helped an alternate version of Darko Matic start a new life in The Parallel, since he was not capable of quantum assimilating with his past self. This sort of thing happened all the time with him, so if it were true in this case, they wouldn’t be liable to ever see him again anyway, so they would never see a discrepancy.

Now that the four of them had made their jump three years into the future, Mateo knew he needed to leave the past where it belonged. If he acted all sullen or guilty, it would raise suspicion, and defeat the whole purpose. It was time to get back to his old new self. He just didn’t know how he was going to accomplish that.

I can help, came Amber Fossward’s voice from his head.

How long have you been there? he asked back telepathically. He was in mixed company, so he couldn’t say it all out loud, even though it would be easier.

I come and go, Amber replied. Don’t be embarrassed, though. I’ve seen a lot of terrible things over the years, both in person, and through other people’s thoughts and experiences. What you’re going through isn’t that bad, and I can help.

You can fix me? he questioned.

Well, no, you can’t fix what ain’t broken. People can’t be broken. They can just be imbalanced, and then treated.

In that case, how would you treat me?

I would start by walking you through breathing exercises, like you did with Angela the other day. Once you’re more open and accepting, I would put you through a soul cleanse.

Is that like a juice cleanse in that it’s not real, but a hoax?

No, it’s very real. I can’t make you forget your bad memories, or erase your dark thoughts, but I can fill your heart with enough joy to sort of dilute such things.

Oh, I’ve done that before, Mateo said, by myself. I recalled good memories to the surface.

Well, that will make it that much easier, Amber said happily. But I don’t want you to just remember good things that you experienced. You’re soul already knows about them, and while it can be a temporary solution, it won’t last long. I’m sure those memories have since faded again, haven’t they?

I suppose they have, yes. I can’t just keep doing that?

You could, of course, and it would probably keep working, but that’s a lot of effort to expend when you got me. I can just add you to the mailing list.

That’s obviously a metaphor, what does it mean?

You’re not the only person I’ve created a psychic bond with. We share some of our experiences. We’re not a hive mind, though; you only share what you choose, and you even get to choose what you receive from others. There are two lists. One is for good memories, and the other for bad. The latter are for the support group, which I don’t think you really need right now, because it’s filled with negativity. It can be really helpful when you have an external obstacle to overcome, to hear what others have had to deal with. But you’re dealing with an internal conflict, and you’re struggling with accepting your past, which—even though you’re a time traveler—doesn’t seem to be something you can change. If you can’t change it, then you need to change your mind, and for that, we want all positivity.

How does it work? Mateo asked. Is it a one time thing, or a periodic appointment...?

It’s an extended session, Amber clarified. You’ll want a quiet place to be alone, where no one will disturb you. If we do this again, you’ll need less of this solitude, but first timers should dedicate all of their attention to it, and it’s not instantaneous; not if you want to do it the healthy way.

I think I can take the day off.

Good.

Thank you ahead of time.

Leona, Angela, and Jeremy were going to have to take the next transition on their own. Mateo needed some time to be alone. They didn’t specifically know what it was he was going through, and the last challenge with Darko wasn’t all that difficult, but they didn’t question it. They happily left him in the Imzadi, and went off to find the window, which was on top of a fairly low mountain on Earth. They used Nerakali’s teleporting ability to jump right there and wait. Even though most transitioners didn’t literally fall out of the windows, they did kind of get startled, because they didn’t know it was going to happen. As the transition flickered, they could see a woman casually hiking along the crest, hands on the straps of her backpack, enjoying the day. Once it was over she kept walking, and approached the three of them like she knew exactly what was going on. “Okay, I’m ready—I’m ready.”

“Did you just repeat yourself?” Jeremy questioned.

“Not technically, I’m The Echo—I’m the Echo.” They stared at her, not understanding, so she went on, “I developed a time affliction, where every sound I make is sent a second or two into the future, so I always sound like an echo—always sound like an echo.” Now that they were hearing her speak a more extended sentence, they could tell what she was talking about. She sounded like she was making her voice vibrate, like The Flash sometimes did just to mask his identity. It was actually pretty soothing, and not irritating, but maybe because her voice was beautiful on its own.

“We’ve never heard of you,” Leona pointed out.

“I’m not a time traveler—time traveler. I’ve just been wandering around in the wilderness, because I have no control over it, and there’s no decent way to explain it to normal people—to normal people.”

“Do you want us to make it stop?” Angela offered.

“I was to understand that that’s why I was here—why I was here. The first reason, anyway—first reason, anyway.”

Angela retrieved a Cassidy cuff, and handed it to the Echo. “Put this on. It won’t fix you right away, but Leona knows how to suppress it, don’t you?”

Leona started tapping on her cuff. “Yes, Nerakali gave me control over people’s powers and patterns. Only me, though.”

The Echo smiled and placed it around her wrist, but she waited to test it until Leona gave her the go ahead. “My name is Olimpia Sangster, and I have a normal voice!” she spoke a little loud for emphasis. Then she waited to hear back from herself, but there was nothing but silence. “I don’t have an echo,” she said, testing it another time to make sure it really was working. “Oh my God.” She started tearing up, and then couldn’t help herself. She reached over, and took Leona in a bear hug. “I’ve been so alone, like you don’t even know.”

Leona waited patiently, then pulled back a little. “I’m glad we could help, but there’s a catch. It’s not a permanent solution; you’ll have to leave the cuff on at all times. You can take it off for a few minutes probably, but if you leave it off too long, it will reset, which means I’ll have to reengage the suppression for you again. Which is fine, it’s not like that bothers me, but it means you can’t just go off wherever you want. We are time travelers, so you’ll have to stick by us. And if all of us remove our own cuffs, you’ll lose your suppression, because it’s tied to our ability to not echo. I don’t see us doing that, but it’s something you should know.”

“I wasn’t just told to come here for the cure,” Olimpia explained. “I was told I was meant to join your team. I’m supposed to, umm...transition people?”

“Yeah, that’s what we do,” Angela confirmed.

Olimpia looked around. “I was also told I would be the fifth player. He made some sort of basketball analogy, which I don’t know why he did, I don’t care for sports.”

“He?” Leona echoed. “He who? Jupiter?”

“No, I know Jupiter. He’s a historical figure where I’m from. No, this guy never said his name.”

Leona would have expected her to have been recruited by Nerakali, or maybe Jupiter Fury before he moved on, so who was this mysterious man, and was that a good thing or a bad thing? Olimpia seemed like a perfectly lovely person, but the chances her pleasant demeanor was just a façade were nowhere near zero. This was something they were going to have to worry about soon, if not right away. If there was another player in the game, they needed to know who he was, and what he wanted. Perhaps she would be able to describe him for them, but that would have to wait until they returned to the Imzadi. Mateo still needed his alone time to meditate, so out of respect for that, they decided to go on a hike, and enjoy the great outdoors. It was a really nice day, so it felt like a vacation.

Hours later, they teleported back, and Leona went in to make sure Mateo was okay. He was apparently fully recovered, and enjoying a snack. He was glad for their return, and eager to meet this new member of their team. Olimpia climbed in, and tilted her head quizzically. “Oh, it’s you.”

“You know this man?” Jeremy pressed.

“Yeah, that’s him. That’s the guy who told me to come here.”

Hmm.

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Microstory 1590: Isolated

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Prompt

I have the ability to feel other people’s pain, but I can’t do anything about it, so I’ve moved out to the middle of nowhere, and plan to avoid people as much as possible.

Botner

Not just to protect myself, but also to help the curse on my life disappear as soon as I can. I’m stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, by my lonesome. No one knows where I am. And that scares me more than I can explain, as it means that they’re all waiting for me to turn up again, and either find me or confront me. I’m not good at hiding things. I have a very bad conscience. It feels as if my chest would burst from the weight of what I’ve been through. But I’m not alone in the house, or in the hills. I have a loving cousin who understands my curse, and who has promised to hide me and help me as much as he can. I have friends, too, who believe in me and who I can talk to about anything. I feel my power is growing, too. I’m seeing power in objects around me that wasn’t there before, and my curse is helping it happen. It’s getting harder to hide. I’m only hiding myself because it’s safer than talking to my neighbors, who think I’m a dangerous psychopath. Even though I’m not. With...

Conclusion

...everything going on in the world right now, I should look quite normal as a hermit, but you know people, they talk. For the last week, my satellite internet has been down, and I don’t know how to fix it myself. I keep trying to force myself to go into town to get some help, but I just can’t do it. It hurts too much. Now that I know how much easier life is when there’s no one around to mess with my feelings and senses, I can’t go back to how it was. I don’t want to spend another minute around another person. My cousin hasn’t attempted to come help me, even though I missed our weekly video chat check-in. He’s given up, as have my friends. I look around the cabin for something to do, but I didn’t bring a whole lot of entertainment with me, because I was intending to stay connected to the world virtually. Another week goes by, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to seek help. I have, however, given the simple life a real shot. My garden is blooming, and I am loving the long walks I take through the woods. Maybe I don’t need the internet at all. Even without my curse forcing me into it, maybe this is the best life I could have asked for. Right now, I’m farther from my home than I ever have been before, and it turns out I’m pretty close to some campgrounds. I hear music in the distance, but there’s only one tent within my pain-sensing range. It must be empty, though, because I’m not feeling any pain, emotional or physical. I turn back, glad that I didn’t run into anyone else, when a woman appears from around the bend, holding a stack of firewood. It’s amazing, I don’t feel anything but serenity, love, and joy from her. I don’t know if that means she isn’t feeling any pain, or there’s just something different about her. I wonder what my life could be life if we were together, just me and her. I would no longer have to be alone, and my curse wouldn’t matter anymore. She smiles at me politely, completely unaware of how incredibly magnificent she is, and how great it feels just to be around her. I can’t tell her, either. She wouldn’t understand, and it would just make her uncomfortable. All I can do is tip my hat, walk past her, and move on with my life without ever seeing her again.

Microstory 1564: Plantworld

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Prompt

Everyone thought that robots or aliens would take over the world, but no one considered the possibility that sentient plants would grow out of control.

Botner

That’s what this bizarre creature from Tokyo seems to be: a strolling rose that puts us to shame with its round-about conversation, longevity, and willingness to prostrate itself before unsuspecting passersby. The rose, a forget-me-not, started out life as a normal plant in the garden of Urayasu City’s Chuo Ward. Initially, it was a member of the quiet ground cover family, but a sudden surge of excitement occurred among the neighborhood’s residents after a rose began growing up and out of its pot. According to the plant’s owner, the guy who brought home the forget-me-not in the first place, the plant’s red flowers, which were not there before, are supposed to signify good luck. At this point, the standard human reaction would be to marvel at the skill of the plant’s operator, who has apparently decided to use its many complicated arms and legs to celebrate Japan’s 125th year of reign in the world’s foremost soccer league. However, the rose is showing some unpredictable behaviors.

Conclusion

It’s not begging to drink human blood, or inject poison into victims. All its doing is multiplying, so rapidly that it can’t be stopped. Scientists tried to find a way to kill it, but before they made any progress, everything changed. The forget-me-not started to impact the plantlife around it, effectively transforming everything else into an invasive species. The spores get on clothes, and fur, and spread around. Not only do new plants grow from this, but also command nearby plants to do the same. In a matter of weeks, the entire island is covered in plants and flowers. They adapt to grow out of the cracks in buildings, and up through the floors. They thrive in the sun, in arid land, and even in saltwater. In months, all of Asia has been overcome, and the rest of the world will surely follow suit. People start to cut back on the brush as much as possible, to carve out some small area of livable land, but it doesn’t last long. It all grows back. People don’t die off as much as other apocalyptic scenarios would predict. There’s plenty of food to eat now, and it’s possible to just live in the wild, using natural shelters, like trees. So it’s only civilization that falls, while the population itself continues. It’s not as interesting anymore, as any plant or vine will destroy any attempt to establish lines of communication, and it’s also lonely, but we continue. We continue in our little isolated pockets like this, and if anyone came up with a solution to the problem, it wouldn’t be a simple thing to get that information to others. My family and I just decide that this is how life on this planet is, and there’s no way of going back to the way it was before. Then everything changes again. I leave camp for my daily walk alone, and come across a plant I see all over the place. But this one is different. It starts to speak to me. It asks me who I am, and what my intentions are. Soon, all the plants around me are speaking. I run back to camp, and tell my family, but they don’t know what I’m talking about. Only I can communicate with them, and now...it’s my duty to do so.

Microstory 1558: Bladder

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Prompt

I was walking my dog last night when a stranger came out of nowhere and offered to help me with my problem. I asked him what he was talking about, and he said...

Botner

“Let me see your bladder, I can tell if you have a problem.” My first reaction was “Do I have a problem?” But I’m not a doctor, and I also wondered if he just had a strong intuition about this and wanted to have a look for himself. But what came next almost made me pee myself with fear. He touched my bladder, and when he pulled back, he said “you have a lot of pressure there, you need to see your doctor, your bladder is only designed for 10 – 12 CCs.” I don’t even know what that means, but I said OK, and started walking away, and he repeated, “don’t forget your appointment, come back.” I want to say that it was a case of free will, but really...he had already touched my bladder, I was scared. I didn’t have the time to think about what I was going to do. I ran home as fast as I could and didn’t stop for a breath until I was in my bedroom. I’m so angry at myself that I didn’t do anything, that I let a total stranger touch me without my consent, without my knowledge... It’s almost as if the air around me changed...or the gravity. I wanted to get rid of the stress and anxiety I had, so I took a nice hot bath, but this man was stuck in my head, there was no peace in my body. I know...

Conclusion

...that it wasn’t not my fault, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I started to wonder if the man had some way of implanting a thought in my brain, or if these were truly my feelings. I needed to find some kind of distraction. I had had a really stressful day of work, so the dog walk was meant to be that distraction, but that totally backfired. What could I do? I could try to watch some TV, but I was sure that everything that happened would remind me of the incident. That guy on that one show kind of looks like him. Oh, she mentioned having to use the toilet. No, that wouldn’t work at all. I didn’t want to hear words, or see people, or be anywhere near here. The car. It’s like a sanctuary. I’m still in the world, but I can separate myself from it at the same time. I loaded my dog into the back, and got myself on the road. It was the middle of the night, so there weren’t many others around. The further I got from the city, the more isolated I felt. I even listened to classical music, so as to make believe I was the only person in the whole world. I drove all through the night, until I was so far away that I didn’t even know what state I was in. I didn’t pay attention to highway signs, or anything. I just focused on the pavement. I’m running out of gas now, though, so I start to look for the nearest place to stop. It’s in the middle of nowhere, with only a tiny little convenience store for drinks and smokes. I walk up to the counter and find that I recognize the clerk. It’s the man from before. He’s grinning at me, and then he asks if he can touch my bladder.

Microstory 1531: Trees

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I’ve always hated trees, but here I am, ________ through the ________, because my girlfriend wants me to get into better ________. Of course, she’s far too ________ to come with me, so I’m just doing it ________, which is ________ ridiculous. But I ________ her, so I’m doing it. Plus, I know that if I don’t, she will know it. She’ll pick up on my level of ________ when I get back, or my ________ rate, or something. I wouldn’t be able to ________ skip it and lie. She’s hyperobservant, bordering on the super____, so I’m not a hundred percent sure she’s even ________. Anyway, I keep ________, and the ____er I make it into the ________, the calmer I begin to ________. The noises of the ________ fade, and I find myself ________, which is how I always liked it before I met ________. Maybe ________ aren’t so bad after all. Maybe I’m just a ________ grump. Wouldn’t that be just ________? Finally, I come ________ this one tree that I can’t ________ past. I stare at it, then when I feel I’ve seen enough of it, I ________ a bit, and try to step ________, but it won’t ________ me. No, it doesn’t have some kind of magic____ hold on me, but I ________ look away. It’s not a particularly ________ tree. Sure, it’s different than all the ________ around ________, but if I were in a grove of this ________ of tree, it wouldn’t ________ out. I memorize every square ________ of this ________ as I’m staring, which means I could ________ when it transformed. I notice a dark ________ on the ________ that was definitely not there before, as if someone had ________ some ________ on it. It begins to ________ darker, but I can only see it out of the ________ of my eye. This ____al tree is forcing me to look at it at different ________, so I can’t watch whatever it’s ________ directly. The spot ________ full black, and spreads down towards the ________. Just when I ________ I may be able to ________ my eyes, the dark spot opens up like a ________ zipper, and a figure steps ________ of it. It’s my new ________. She tells me she’s a dryad, and that I’ve just ________ the first steps towards becoming like her. If she had ________ me this yesterday, I would have ________ to stifle nervous laughter, and then made my way ________ of there as ________ as ________. But after the walk I’ve just had, I feel like a ________ new ________, and being part tree ________ doesn’t sound like such a ________ idea anymore.

Firestorm: Aeolia Sarai (Part VIII)

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The year is 2027. I’m minding my own business, trying to take a nice stroll in the park, maybe shed a few pounds while I’m at it, when I suddenly find myself on my ass. Oh my God, this is it, I think. The terrorists have come for my town, and I’m collateral damage. Or I’m a target, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m in an immense amount of pain, and I’m not alone. Other people are strewn about the ground around me. They weren’t there before, though, I know that. I would have remembered if I had been in a crowd. I feel like I’m hurt more than most of them, yet they help each other up, and don’t so much as acknowledge me. Until one sees me.

He lifts me up. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I say, but I’m overpowered by someone else’s response.

“I’m fine,” says some guy who happens to be standing next to me. He’s brushing that dirt off his shoulder.

“I was talking to her,” the kind man tells him.

The rude man looks around. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about this stranger who we’ve just hurt! Correction, who you just hurt by keeping a weapon like whatever the hell that thing is in your closet.”

“Hey, you guys wanted to open the door; I told you not to.” The jerk looks around again. “I still don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m the only stranger to you people. You came into my office..unannounced.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s happening?” I ask, about as politely as I think I can muster.

“What’s your name?”

“Austin Miller, and I swear to God, if you try to call me—”

“I wasn’t talking to you! Just always assume I’m not talking to you! Go over there! Now!”

“Kallias, what’s happening?” one of the other guys questions.

He sighs. “Raise your hand if you can see this woman right here.” Kallias points to me.

No one raises their hand.

“I think you hit your head,” another guy suggests.

“Don’t assume that,” a teenage girl contradicts him. “Maybe she’s invisible.”

“Why would I be able to see an invisible person,” Kallias asks her, “but no one else can?”

“Why would anyone be invisible? That’s not a time power.”

“We don’t know what that explosion did,” the teenager reasons. “We don’t know what the gyroscope does.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I can’t see you. My name is Paige Turner. These are my fathers, Serkan Demir, and Ace Reaver. This is an asshole named Hello Doctor.” Hello Doctor doesn’t seem pleased by this designation, and I don’t know what it means, but if he doesn’t like it, then I’m gonna use it. The girl gestures towards Kallias, and adds, “I guess he can introduce himself.”

Kallias shakes my hand. “Detective Kallias Bran.”

“I thought you were an agent,” Hello Doctor spits.

“I am. I was a police detective before that, so it’s just a habit. Relax.” He turns back to him. “I know you said you weren’t okay, but...do you need medical attention?”

“I would just like to sit down,” I say to him.

He helps me over to a bench.

“She’s invisible, and we can’t hear her,” Serkan points out. “That’s weird. I feel like I just lost a few seconds of time too. I mean...I saw you standing right there, and now you’re by that bench, and I don’t know how you got there. I imagine you walked, but I didn’t see it happen.”

“Did this woman somehow make him invisible too?” Ace offers. “Temporarily?”

“No, that doesn’t make much sense either,” Paige says. “We didn’t see him disappear. It’s more like we forgot that it happened.”

“We forgot a few seconds ago?” Hello Doctor asks.

“Shut up,” a couple of them say in unison.

Paige tries to think about it more, and everyone seems to automatically understand that she needs silence. “Uncle Bran, do you have your wallet, or your badge, or something?”

“Yeah,” Kallias answers her. “They’re one and the same.”

“Hand it to your new friend, and ask her to throw it at one of us. Don’t tell us which one. Just pick one of us at random, and give it your best shot.”

“Gladly,” I say, taking the wallet from Kallias. I actually have a really good arm; I played baseball in college. I send it hurtling towards Hello Doctor.

He dodges it, then goes right back to how he was standing before I threw it. He blinks, confused. “What just happened?” He finds the wallet on the ground. “How did this get her? Is this yours?”

“Holy shit,” Ace says, dumbfounded. “Did she do it? Did she throw that?”

Paige kind of snorts. “She’s not invisible. She just...erases our memories so quickly that we can’t even recall that we’re looking at her right now.”

“How is that even possible?” Serkan asks.

“How do I time travel through photographs?” Paige counters. “We don’t really understand how any of this works, and as I said, we really don’t understand the Omega Gyroscope.”

Kallias approaches Hello Doctor threateningly. “What is it? What does it do? Where are we?”

“We’re in another world,” Hello Doctor replies with a shrug. “As far as I can tell, it’s only different from ours by its history. They had different presidents, different TV shows, different people altogether. It’s otherwise just like our Earth, though. Same geography, same animals, same relative technology. I was just starting to compare climate history when you guys showed up.”

“It’s an alternate reality,” Paige clarifies.

“What are you doing with it?” Serkan asks Hello Doctor.

“Nothing,” Hello Doctor defends. “I’ve no interest in this place. It’s just the world the gyroscope sends me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to control it, so I can take it anywhere. I’m hoping for a world that doesn’t have any people at all.”

“For what purpose?” Ace asks.

“To exploit its resources without hurting anybody. I’m not a bad person! Again, you barged into my office!”

“Never mind that,” Serkan dismisses. “We just need to figure out how to get back. First, though, we should find somewhere to go before someone in this world sees us. This grass is all dead. We don’t want to have to explain it to one of the natives.”

“You can come to my house,” I tell them. “I’m Aeolia Sarai, by the way.”

“There’s someone here who will let us into her house,” Paige says for some reason.

“Yeah, me. I just said that. Wait, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Serkan agrees, “but who?”

Kallias is less confused than I am. He’s almost getting used to this. “Which direction should we go?” he asks me quietly.

“That way,” I point down the street.

“Say it louder than me,” he prompts.

“My house is that way,” I say in my outside voice.

“Let’s go this way,” Serkan says, like it was his idea.

“What the hell?” I lament as they’re all walking in the right direction.

“They can forget you,” Kallias begins as we hang back from the group a little, “but they can’t forget what you taught them. You told us where to go, and they respect that, even though they have no idea where they got the information.”

“Hey, man, is this yours?” Hello Doctor is presenting Kallias with the badge I threw at him. “Why am I holding this?”

“I dropped it,” Kallias lies. He speaks up to address the group, “the invisible woman’s name is Aeolia Sarai.”

“Who’s invisible?” Paige questions.

“Jesus Christ.” I’ve never felt so disregarded.

“We need to find out how powerful you are,” Kallias puts forth.

“Well, we need to find out why it is you can remember me when no one else can.”

“Oh, it’s kind of my thing,” he explains. “There are lots of things I remember that no one else does. I’ve never met anyone like you before, but I’m not that surprised. If you can conceive of a way of manipulating time or memories, someone probably exists who can do it.”

I look at him like a sad puppy.

He smiles, and lowers his voice. “Tell him to do something that he wouldn’t do on his own.”

“Take off your shoes,” I order Hello Doctor.

The guy actually does what I say, and removes his shoes. He doesn’t know why.

“Agent Miller, could you keep up, please?” I’m not sure why Serkan is using the guy’s normal name. “What are you doing?”

“I have no idea,” Hello Doctor says truthfully. “Why are my shoes off?”

“Ace, clap your hands three times above your head,” I order.

“Honey?” Serkan asks after Ace does exactly as I’ve instructed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. We just need to get to this person’s house.”

“Take a left.” Now I’m just the satnav voice.

Everybody turns left. This is becoming awfully frustrating. People are listening to me, but they don't know it. I don’t need credit, but this can’t just be my life now. Kallias can’t be the only person I ever talk to again. That isn’t fair to him. He deserves freedom...from me.

“Wow,” Kallias says. “You need to not, like, abuse that power.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely. How can I communicate with people, though?”

This saddens him. “I don’t know. Maybe you can control it. Maybe you could voice your opinion without forcing others to share it. Maybe you just need time to learn.”

“Take your gun out of its holster.”

He doesn’t budge.

“Maybe I just need you. You’re the only one who’s immune to me.”

“I shouldn’t be, though.”

“Take the next right,” I direct the group. “What do you mean?” I ask Kallias.

“Serkan is special. He can suppress other people’s powers. There only seem to be a few exceptions. His daughter is immune to him, and apparently so am I, but that doesn’t explain why you are. He should be able to see you, if not also make other people be able to see you.”

“I’ve not had this—I wouldn’t call it a power...”

“The term we use in your case is time affliction.”

“Yeah, that describes it well,” I agree. “I’ve not had this time affliction before. It probably happened because of this gyroscope you keep talking about. How do other people get their powers? Is it from that, or something else?”

“Different ways,” Kallias begins. “Ace was born with a special pattern. His soul lives through every day twice. His memories don’t go with it, so he can’t remember what’s going to happen in the future, but he has really good instincts when his boyfriend isn’t blocking this power. Somebody gave Serkan his power, but we don’t know why, and he in turn, gave Paige hers. That was an accident, though. I got mine because I spent some time in another dimension. We think Agent Miller was born with his power, as most people are, but we don’t even know what it is yet. We just know he can do something because he too remembers things other people don’t.”

“He doesn’t remember me, though. This is it right here.” I walk towards my front door, and find the keys in my purse. “Follow me, everyone.”

They all come inside. “Whose house is this?” Paige asks.

“I don’t know, but we’re safe here,” Ace responds. I guess that’s nice to hear, even if it’s not directed towards me specifically.

“Can we speak privately?” Kallias asks me. “I’m still not sure I understand when they can hear me talking to you, and when they forget.

“My bedroom’s this way.”

Once we’re alone,” he continues. “I know I just said that I don’t want you to abuse your power, but we may need it.”

“You wanna control someone,” I imagine.

“I just want answers. “We’ve been investigating this rogue FBI agent. I haven’t been part of the group that long, but...well, you’ve met him. He’s being difficult. He found this very powerful device.”

“The Omega Gyroscope.”

“That’s right. He said we can’t get back to our reality. He said he didn’t have time to prepare, which there may be a little truth to that.”

“You don’t think it’s the whole truth.”

“He’s too relaxed. He should be freaking out that he can’t ever, ever go back home. He has some way, though, and I need to know how. There must be some reason he’s not telling us.”

“I can ask him, it’s fine.” I start to get up to go do that.

He stops me, “the problem is, when we go back...you’ll be alone. If you can’t talk to me, I’m not sure you can talk to anyone.”

“Oh, I’m going with you.”

“You are?”

“The guy said this world is kind of superficially different. You don’t have sharks with lasers on their heads, or damn dirty apes enslaving humans, right?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There’s nothing left for me here. I don’t have any family, and even if I did, they wouldn’t know me anymore. That is...if you’ll have me.”

“I would love for you to come. You just have to be certain about this. When we go back, we’re taking that gyroscope, and securing it. We can’t let Miller hold onto it, and we probably can’t use it ourselves either. It’s just too dangerous.”

“I understand. I’m ready. And I can pay my way,” I say with a grin. “Look, I have all these gold coins my late uncle left behind. He was a survivalist. I just came from the bank, where they told me they wouldn’t take them.”

“Hmm,” he says, holding up one of the coins. “Heads you don’t have to pay with the coins. Tails you also don’t have to pay.” He flips it. Heads.

“Whew,” I joke. “That was a close one.”

“I feel different.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Like I’ve had a headache my whole life, and now it’s gone. Whatever. Let’s go ask the man some questions.”

We return to the living room, where everyone is sitting on my furniture, presumably trying to decide what to do next. “Okay, I know none of you remembers our new friend, Aeolia, but she might be able to help us get out of here.”

No one reacts.

“Guys?”

Still no one reacts.

“Guys!” Kallias shouts louder. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Umm,” he says tentatively. “Everyone, stand up.”

They stand up, confused. Oh, shit.

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