The Third Rail: Rocked Back on One’s Heels (Part III)

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Today is the day. It’s the final episode of the Rock Meetings. Once it’s over, the rest of the universe will be up-to-date on everything that happened to the reality representatives months ago. It’s been a frustrating experience, having to stay on a prison planet this whole time, but they’ve not been alone. Not only did a few of them forge new bonds with each other, across the proverbial aisle, but the whole group has stuck together. They’ve formed a support structure which will solidify their positive diplomatic relations moving forward, even more than the official discussions on the Vellani Ambassador ever could. There, they were coming at it from a sense of antagonism. Here, they’ve been free to be themselves, and just regular people. Cosette and Nuadu’s relationship has blossomed, as have Ayata’s with Andrei Orlov. No one’s getting married anytime soon, but things are going well. There’s a lingering question of how these relationships will hold up once they’re back where they belong. They’re literally from two different worlds. Will society allow them to be happy?

They’re all in one room now, in Andrei’s penthouse, just because it happens to be on top of the central tower of the building. If they need to meet at all, the typically choose here, and mostly only for this reason. This time, it’s for a watch party. It surprises them that it’s the finale, since the discussions were technically over in the last episode. The only part that the broadcast hasn’t shown yet are their goodbyes to each other. It was the whole thing. Everyone on that ship was required to shake hands with, or hug, everyone else. Which one a pair chose was at their discretion, but they had to do something to express cordiality and gratitude. Something along these lines had to be uttered as well, like thank you, or I respect your position. This finalization ceremony involved not only the handful of delegates with stake in the matter, but also the other related representatives, the crew of the host ship, and the mediators. It added up to 24 people in total, which resulted in 276 farewells. This alone would have made for a boring final episode, so that’s not all that’s happening on screen. While the farewells are going on in the background, final thoughts from the reps have been sprinkled in, through a mix of off-screen narration, and testimonial footage.

As the seek bar marker inches closer and closer to the end, it becomes apparent that Cosette’s words will be the ones to conclude the series. Ellie Underhill says one last bit about how happy she is to share her universe with the residents of the Sixth Key, and then the video transitions to Cosette sitting in the booth. The farewells are over, and it’s just her, smiling regally at the camera. The Cosette from the present day who is watching the playback doesn’t even recall what she is about to say here. “I think what we learned from these discussions is, not that we all have competing interests, but that our interests actually align. While each delegate came here to represent the interests of their own people, I believe we all realized that there is really no such thing. Each former reality was made up of a collection of individuals within communities within subcultures within larger cultures within worlds. No one has the right, nor the fundamental ability, to advocate on the behalf of everyone they care about, and only them. The only way to get anything done is to make the determination that all peoples deserve happiness and prosperity. When you only value what you have in comparison, or from the loss, of what others have, you end up with nothing of use, because you’ve lost the importance of working towards the greater good. There is nothing greater than all-inclusivity.

“I’ve heard a lot of people, in Delegation Hall, and from the public responses, saying that we’ve made progress, or sometimes that we’ve not made enough. But the truth is that the latter is closer to the truth, because we’ve not truly done anything yet. The true test will be in the implementation of our ideas, and the consequences that come from the social changes that we envision. It’s easy to talk about our ideals from a round table, and through interactive polls, but far more difficult to put in the work day in and day out. This is going to take time, and it’s an ongoing process, which will require tweaks, revisions, and a changing of the guard. I, for one, am excited about what comes next, but I’m not ready to call us a success. Maybe I never will.”

No one has ever heard these words before, except whoever was involved in the editing. As the cast and credits for this reality show roll, the delegates nod at Cosette. Nuadu pats her on the back. She doesn’t think that it’s that big of a deal In hindsight, she would have rather been given time to craft a more succinct answer to the Magnolia’s last question, but what’s done is done, and now it’s all done, and they can finally go home. Something else is happening, though. After the playback chevron marker reaches the far right end, it begins to spin. At first, it stays in place, rotating forwards, but then it begins to rotate backwards while moving back to the beginning of the seek bar. This is usually the graphic that runs when autoplay is on, and there’s another episode. But this shouldn’t be this case, as this is the finale. Or is it?

The Magical Memory Magnolia Tree that has taken the form of a man named Tamerlane Pryce appears on screen. He was part of the discussions, and responsible for recording and broadcasting them to the public, but he didn’t make very many appearances in the show. He wasn’t too involved in the negotiations either, since he considered himself an interested third party, and the supervisor. This must be some kind of bonus clip. It’s only a couple of minutes long. “That concludes season one of The Rock Talks. And now I present to you a sneak peak...of season two.”

“What the shit?” General Medley of the Seventh Stage exclaims.

A trailer for the second season begins to play, with the Magnolia as the narrator. “On a world...built for criminals and protected witnesses, a group of nine diplomats will find themselves trapped together in a prison of their own making. To protect the cosmos from a temporal paradox, they’ll sacrifice their normal daily lives as civilization moves on without them. They’ll have to learn to live together in paradise, unable to leave, but given all the tools they’ll need to live safely and insulated from outside influence while the greater population fights to protect their future from decisions made by the delegates in the past.”

This is all intercut with b-roll—including shots of the various worlds now crammed together in this half of the new universe—and quick out-of-context bits of dialogue. “I know how to raise an army,” Ingrid Alvarado of the Fifth Division says.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” General Medley says, making it look like he’s responding to Ingrid, even though those two comments were made weeks apart, and not even in each other’s company.

“I think I might possibly, in at least some ways, be falling for you,” Cosette says. While Nuadu’s back is to the camera, viewers can probably guess who she’s talking to.

More completely unfair, and highly edited, remarks are put on display for people to make assumptions about before the tree comes back. “Drama... Intrigue... Romance. Nothing will ever be the same. Season Two of The Rock Talks, coming September of 2449, only on MagnoliaTV.” The last thing is a live shot of the delegates. They’re all staring at the screen in shock. Andrei’s second-in-command, Selma Eriksen lifts her hand up, and begins to wave it around to make sure that—yep, this is definitely live.

Cosette stands up, and points to the invisible camera hidden somewhere by the screen. “Turn it off, now. End the feed.”

Maybe as a coincidence, or maybe out of obedience, the trailer ends, and the screen goes black. Ayata grabs the remote, and escapes from fullscreen. Comments from other viewers are flooding in. Everyone wants to know what’s going on, and whether this was planned, and if the subjects of this docuseries consented to more scrutiny. They did not. Cosette certainly doesn’t need her experiences on Hockstep to be broadcast for everyone to see. It is an invasion of privacy. They were all very personal, and she had no idea that she was being recorded. No one is above the law, not even a magical tree.

Cosette steps away from the group, and begins to talk into the aether. “I demand immediate audience with the Memory Magnolia. We need to talk about this season two bullshit right this instant.” She waits, but there’s no response. They don’t know if he’s listening to them right now, but probably. There’s a chance that he severed the connection, or it could be that he only turned it off for the nine of them. The rest of the universe could still be seeing all this happen in realtime for all they know. That’s why it’s such a violation. They have the right to know when they’re being watched, and when they’re safe and alone. Everyone has that right. It’s inalienable. “Answer me. Right now!” she insists.

No one else is trying the help, not because they’re apathetic to the situation, but because they trust her to handle it for them. The tree is mysterious and powerful. If he doesn’t want to respond, he’s not gonna respond, no matter how many people express their outrage at this travesty. Cosette continues to speak out, but nothing is happening.

“Maybe we should go to your pocket dimension?” Andrei suggests. He has spent a lot of time in Cosette and Ayata’s penthouse, in order to get to know the latter. “Do you think we’re safer there?”

“It’s not a bad guess,” Cosette replies, “but it’s probably pointless. I bet he can see us anywhere. He lives in another dimension himself. And he’s...a sentient tree. How do we argue with that? How do we fight it?”

“You don’t,” comes a voice from the entrance. It’s the Magnolia’s cohort, Princess Honeypea. “You also don’t need too.”

“Explain,” Cosette urges.

“That may have looked like the Pryce Tree, but it wasn’t him,” Princess Honeypea insisted. “We didn’t record you nine on this planet. It’s none of our business, and we wouldn’t dare risk the security of you, and everyone else living here. Another force is at play, and I promise to do everything in my power to get to the bottom of it.” She’s usually quite bubbly and delightful, but she’s very serious right now, and a bit unsettlingly stoic.

“What can we do?” Cosette asks. “How do we protect ourselves, and our pasts? Can we get this show cancelled?”

“At the moment, what you can all do is come with me,” Princess Honeypea offers. “Whoever is responsible for this, I assure you that they cannot reach you in the Garden Dimension. The tree will protect you.”

Cosette looks around the room to gauge everyone’s reactions. They don’t know what to make of this, but they seem to feel that Princess Honeypea’s idea is the only viable option. Cosette would have to agree. She looks back. “Okay, let’s go.”

They’re overwhelmed by technicolor lights, and spirited away to the Garden.

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Extremus: Year 88

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For her first year as Captain, Tinaya lived with a lot of anxiety. It was eating her up from the inside. She was keeping so many secrets, and she just wanted to forget everything. She used to be grateful that at least she wasn’t dealing with a bunch of other tangible problems. Omega and the Verdemusians were protecting them from the war, leaving the Extremus free to continue on its journey. The crew and passengers were getting along, and there weren’t any major crises to solve. Her therapist would say that if she were working through those kinds of captainly issues, she probably wouldn’t have much space in her brain for anxiety, and that might be true. Whatever the case, all of that disappeared the day that her husband, Arqut did. Tinaya didn’t see it herself, but one person happened to be in the corridor with him at the time. He didn’t just blink away, which is the most common form of temporal or spatial travel. No, if he had done that, then the witness probably would have just assumed that he had gone away on purpose.

The way the passerby described it, Arqut was looking rather sweaty. Then he started spinning around like there was a bug on his back, and he was trying to get ahead of it. The witness apparently tried to reach out to help, but missed his opportunity when the spinning seemed to start to happen on its own. He vanished in a haze of dark particles, which gradually faded within seconds. Current temporal engineer Sabine Lebeau had never heard of anything like that before, and it wasn’t in any database that she could find. The uncertainty scared Tinaya more than anything. This was no accident. Someone wanted Arqut, and for the last three months, had yet to return him to her. Unfortunately, her means of investigating were severely limited.

Most people on the ship could not know that he was missing. He disappeared once before, but that was in pursuit of getting Tinaya back. If she admitted that this time was not a planned departure, it would raise too many questions. Only a few people were allowed to know what was going on, and were sworn to secrecy. The witness agreed to his silence in exchange for a minimum on his contribution score. Basically, no matter what he did now, his score would never go below a certain threshold. It was a small price to pay, as long as he didn’t try to use this advantage to become a serial killer, or something. But even if he did, no deal with the captain would protect him from retribution. After that matter was settled, she started to work through the investigation, mostly on her own, though she couldn’t let it interfere with her regular duties either. That would raise questions too. But she wasn’t completely hopeless. She couldn’t make a big fuss about it publicly, or risk other truths coming to light, but there were still ways to conduct this investigation both vigorously and quietly at the same time. She made a list of suspects, and started running down every lead. She started by accusing the Bridgers of having something to do with it, but they denied it, and even let her return to the Bridger section to see for herself. He wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up in the future, or hell, the past.

Today is not a good day, though. All of her leads have dried up. She has no one left to talk to, no test left to try. He could be lost forever. It’s worse than it was when she was the one trapped on the outpost planet. She knew where she was, and she knew where Arqut was. The uncertainty; what could she do to remedy that? She’s supposed to be discussing her problems with her therapist at the moment, but instead, she’s retching into the toilet in her stateroom.

“How are you doing, Tinaya?” Most people would not be able to just start talking to her like that without waiting for Tinaya to answer first, but some people have special communications privileges, such as medical staff.

Tinaya spits into the bowl. “I’m fine.”

“Come back, I need to talk,” Dr. Lebeau requests. That’s right, another Lebeau. Tinaya would normally use the Executive Psychologist for her personal needs, but Sabine introduced her to her sister in order to enact a sort of loophole. While any therapist would respect patient confidentiality, the EP is obligated to report meeting times to the ship’s council, so they can make sure their captain isn’t isn’t showing signs of not being able to handle this job. A private therapist, on the other hand, is under no such obligation. Tinaya can talk to her all she wants, and do so at their joint convenience. Plus, Virve Lebeau already knows many secrets that not even the EP does.

“I’m a little busy.” She spits again.

“I can tell. I can help.”

“Fine, one second.” Tinaya flushes the toilet, and washes her face. Then she teleports back to Dr. Lebeau’s office. “What is it?”

Dr. Lebeau is holding her watch between her thumb and index finger.

“It’s your watch. Okay, are you scolding me for wasting your time? I’m sorry, next time I’ll use your bathroom, and talk to you about my feelings in between forcing last night’s dinner out of my stomach.”

“No, it’s not about that, Captain.” Dr. Lebeau walks forward, and drapes the watch over her opposite backhand, as if presenting it as a prize for a gameshow. “See these little dots under here?”

Tinaya is confused. “Uh, yeah, those are for blood tests. They spring microneedles to take samples on the fly. Why are you asking me about them?”

“These are necessary when the user doesn’t have any sort of medical implant that could test twenty-four-seven,” Dr. Lebeau goes on. “Obviously, though, you can’t program the watch to poke you whenever it wants. You have to tell it to do it. You have to decide when you’re ready for an update.”

“Are you saying that I have a virus, and I should test myself for it?” She’s still so confused. “Okay, I’ll find out. I think it’s just acid reflux, though. Stress-induced, I’m sure; we can talk about that, if you want.”

“Not a virus. I think you’re pregnant.”

Tinaya chuckles. Then she does it again, but louder. She manages to stop at that, though. “What? I can’t be pregnant, I’m in my sixties!”

“Did you ever go through menopause?” Dr. Lebeau questions.

“I think so.” This isn’t a dumb answer. Thanks to advances in medical science over the centuries, menopause still happens for those who were ever biologically capable of birthing young, but it’s far less pronounced than it was for ancient humans. The same is true for pregnancy and the menstrual cycle as a whole. These conditions are not nearly as uncomfortable as they were back in the day. It’s not that uncommon for people who lived particularly physically rough lives to not even notice that menopause has come and gone for them. If they’ve ever been on advanced chemical or implantable birth control too, it’s really easy to lose track of the cycle due to persistent interference in the body’s natural scheduling.

Dr. Lebeau raises her eyebrows, and looks down at Tinaya’s own watch.

“Y...you want me to test right now? Fine.” She swipes the screen to the appropriate menu, and releases the microneedles. Once it’s done, she self-assuredly bobbles her head a little bit while they wait for the results. After the beep, she takes one look at it, and shows it to the doctor. “See? Look. Pregnant. Pregnant? Fuck.”

“Congratulations,” Dr. Lebeau says to her, rather unconvincingly, one might add.

“I can’t be pregnant.”

“You can. You receive some of the best medical care in the galaxy. Many don’t experience the change until their seventies. You don’t read that in the reports.”

“Virve, I can’t be pregnant. The Captain. Can’t. Be pregnant!”

“There’s no law that says a sitting captain can’t be pregnant. It’s just never happened before,” Dr. Lebeau reminds her.

“For good reason. It splits attention. I must be fully committed to the operations of this vessel, and the safety of its crew and passengers. That is literally my only job.”

“If that’s how you feel about it—”

“I can’t have an abortion either. It’s not illegal, of course, but it’s...unbecoming.”

“Sounds like you’re in a tough spot. I can help you through it, but you have to be willing to explore all options. And you have to be patient, with me, and yourself.”

“Those are my only two options. I mean, what the hell else am I gonna do?” She starts to pace the room. “And yeah, I know, I could put it up for adoption, but that would be scandalous too. That kid will grow up knowing that its mother was just too busy for it, not that she was genuinely incapable of caring for a child. Adoption doesn’t hardly ever happen here, because nobody dies before they’re old! And they don’t have kids after they become old, because that’s nuts! I mean, if Arqut were here, maybe we could make it work together. He could take care of the baby, and even when I’m there, I would be able to teleport at a moment’s notice when duty calls, and I could always argue that that’s an option when anyone tries to criticize me for going through with the pregnancy. But is that enough anyway? Because it’s not just about the perception that my priorities are split. It’s about them actually being split. How can I look out for everyone on the ship, when there are only two people I truly care about? Then again, I am the only Captain who has ever been married at all, so that’s always been a lingering criticism, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that to me, I’m sure that plenty of people feel that way. And now he’s missing, and I can’t even tell anyone about it. I have to claim that he’s on a new mission. But then once people find out that I’m captaining for two, they’re gonna wonder why the father of my child hasn’t come back for his family. Then some are gonna realize the possibility that he’s not the father at all, and there will be a cheating scandal that isn’t even true, but do you think people even care about the truth anymore? That’s all we’ve been talking about; perception, and there’s nothing I can do about that. And either way, this whole thing is gonna get people wondering where Arqut has been this whole time, and they’ll start asking questions, and they’ll all find out that he’s missing, and that we’re been course correcting for decades, and that Verdemus wasn’t destroyed, and why aren’t you trying to call me down!”

“I think you need this outburst,” Dr. Lebeau explains. “It sounds cathartic.”

“Well...” She starts, prepared to argue. “I think you’re right, I appreciate it.”

“Captain?” Tinaya’s First Lieutenant asks through her watch.

“What is it, Faiyaz?”

“It’s Arqut. He’s back.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 10, 2399

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Ramses tethers the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to a small asteroid. It’s just within teleporter range of the Constant. It’s not the perfect quick getaway plan, but it’s better than letting himself and Alyssa be trapped in there with no hope. They don’t know who they’re going to find, or what their intentions will be. Once the ship is locked up and secure, they make the jump.

“Mr. Abdulrashid, it’s nice to meet you. Miss McIver, nice to see you again.” Danica holds out her hand as if greeting a couple of guests that she respects.

“We’ve never met,” Alyssa says.

“Oh, but we have.”

“You erased my memories, which means that—for all intents and purposes—it never happened. Your accounting of events is irrelevant to me.”

“I see my reputation has spread.”

“My mother would always say, your reputation starts with you.”

“Wise woman.”

“Dead woman; thanks to you, no doubt.”

“Why would you say that?”

“The causality chain is profoundly long, but everything that has ever happened in this reality started with you.”

“Is this the kind of stuff you’re teaching her?” Danica asks Ramses.

“She’s an independent human being. I taught her how to teleport, that’s it.”

“And how to use my illusion powers,” Alyssa reminds him.

“Right.”

“But that was in my old body,” Alyssa adds. “Perhaps you can shed some light on that too? Who is trying to murder my friend, Leona?”

“Contrary to what you’ve been...” Danica trails off, not wanting to repeat the word taught since it seems to be a sensitive subject for them. “...what you may have heard,” she amends, “I am not the god of this world. I don’t control everything.”

“You control enough,” Ramses contends.

“Is that why you came all the way out here?” she questions. “You just wanted to tilt at windmills?”

“You’re not imaginary; you are clearly very real.” Ramses takes a beat. “But no, we’re looking for answers, and for help.” He takes out his handheld device, and clears his throat. “Number one, how do we safely get Leona out of Leona Reaver’s body, and back into—?”

“How many questions do you have on your list?”

“At the moment, two hundred and sixteen.”

“Ye, my child, I will answer but one question per member of your party,” Danica teases in bad faith.

“Does my dick count as a separate member?” The look on Alyssa’s face, he can barely see it out of the corner of his eye. They did not rehearse that line.

Danica sighs like a teacher who hasn’t reached her tipping point yet. “You must be hungry and tired from your journey. Please follow me to the master sitting room.”

“We ate and slept on our ship,” Ramses explains.

“Surely you’re sick of Third Rail Earth food. When was the last time you were able to order literally anything you wanted from a molecular synthesizer?” Danica asks.

“Tantalizing us with food,” Ramses muses mockingly. “You know us so well, we’re eating like pandas down there.”

“What’s a panda?” Alyssa asks.

“I’ll tell you later,” he replies, still staring at Danica. “I’m winning a battle of wits right now.”

Danica smiles on the edge of a laugh. “You think you’re winning?”

“Show us who’s here,” Ramses demands.

“Is that the first of your two official questions?”

“I didn’t raise my inflection at the end of that sentence. Did it sound like a question? Do you want me to write it down for you?”

“Which of those two questions is your official question?”

Now Ramses is growing frustrated. “Show us who is here. Show us why Mateo is risking his life in a stasis pod in the middle of interplanetary space.”

Danica purses her lips. “Follow me.”

“Wait, we need to check on Angela first,” Alyssa realizes as they’re walking down the hallway.

“They’re both in the infirmary,” Danica tells them. She leads them away.

A man in a white lab coat is sitting next to one of the stasis pods. He stands up when he sees them come in. He’s nervous, and seemingly a little protective. When they get closer, they can see that he’s watching over Angela. “How is she?”

“Couldn’t tell ya,” the doctor says in a frustrated voice. “I don’t know how these machines work. She hasn’t moved a centimeter.”

“She’s frozen in time,” Danica has to explain for probably the upteenth time. “You’ll be staring at her for a long time if you want to see her move even a millimeter. Even then, I gave her a sedative, so she’s probably not even active within her own temporal reference frame.”

The doctor looks to Ramses, even though they don’t know each other. Ramses takes a look at Angela’s readings. “She looks fine.” He places a hand on the doctor’s back, and leans them both towards it. “Watch this number here. It’s the differential. Alert someone if it changes even a decimal point, as that could mean her time is starting to catch up with ours.”

He nods. “Okay.”

And see this soft pulsing light,” Ramses goes on. “It should stay green. If it starts to turn red, it means that the containment field is failing. Red, right?” he asks Danica.

“Is that your official question?” she asks again. That joke is getting old.

“Danica.”

“Mauve,” she corrects. “Mauve is a broken field. Watch for a blue or purple light.”

“Got it,” the doctor says gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Did you want to see my other patient, or what?” Danica asks.

“Ramses Abdulrashid.” He shakes the doctor’s hand. Then he jogs over to Danica while Alyssa introduces herself as well, having to take a moment to explain why she looks like Leona right now.

“Who is it?” Ramses asks. He’s looking at a very old stranger in his own pod, though it’s not stasis. He’s hooked up to advanced life support.

“Lucius Carlise.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s dying. He’s dying of old age. He made his way here too many decades ago.”

“Can’t you save him?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Danica responds. “I wasn’t given the kind of resources that I would like. The medicine and medical equipment, in particular, are severely lacking. I guess the builders of this place decided that it wasn’t my job to save people’s lives. That’s the responsibility of people like Doctors Sarka and Hammer.”

“He looks...old enough to pass away. Does he want you to save him?”

“I didn’t ask. He’s been unresponsive for weeks.”

“What’s so important about keeping him alive?” Ramses asks.

She bites her lower lip. “Is that your official—”

“Just answer the goddamn question, and stop it with the arbitrary rules,” Ramses interrupts, fed up with this bullshit.

“He’s a molecular teleporter.”

“I know that. He can tear you apart, sending individual molecules to different points in space and time. That doesn’t explain why you need him alive.”

“There are things that you don’t know,” she says, “about the future.”

“Then tell me. That wasn’t a question either.” He needs to be careful about those.

She really doesn’t want to answer, but she’s kind of giving him the impression that she needs him, or someone else on the team. “There’s a war coming. I tried to stop it, but I failed. I failed one hundred percent of the missions I ordered. Now the only way to save lives is...”

“Is to win this war?” Ramses figures.

“I don’t want to fight anyone.”

“Danica, this guy doesn’t fight. I mean, for a dude with such massive muscles, he sure doesn’t need them. How powerful is he? Could he destroy a planet without lifting a finger? A star system?”

“He could destroy a star system. It would have to be one celestial body at a time, but yeah. I don’t plan on using him.”

“He’s a deterrent, I get it. I’m from the main sequence too, remember? Our wars came with real risk of precipitating a nuclear holocaust. We didn’t have any religions telling us not to. But we moved past mutually assured destruction, and rose to a higher level of understanding. You were born in a more enlightened age, and you had the opportunity and power to make an even better world here. I was told that that’s exactly what you were trying to do, but now you tell me that you’re just gonna throw it away?”

“Like I said, I don’t want to kill anyone, but the Parallel is too powerful. We have no other defenses against them, because I’m not in control of the Omega Gyroscope. No one is. It’s been on autopilot for billions of years. He may be our only hope.”

“Wait, the Parallel? This is a war between realities?”

“Yes. That is what I witnessed.”

He looks back down at the half-dead Lucius. Ramses doesn’t know any version of him all that well, but there is no way he wants this. If her story is true, then he must have come here on purpose, and it was not to commit genocide. Nothing about how Mateo described him suggests he’s that violent. He probably came here knowing that his powers wouldn’t work. He looks back at a frowning Alyssa. “Do it.”

She nods, and lifts her watch up to her mouth. “Mateo...burst mode.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 30, 2398

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The internal investigator looks over the file like a cliché. His gaze jumps from the middle of the page to the top, then to the bottom, and then back to the other side. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with what appears to be a dishrag, and pulls the chair out for himself. “State your name for the record.”

She looks around for a recording device. Perhaps it’s hidden under the table. “Leona Matic.”

“What is your position within this organization?”

“My official title is Advisory Head of Special Projects.”

“Advisory Head?” he echoes in the form of a question.

“A little odd, but anything less ambiguous would be too elaborate and long.”

“Very well.” He flips through the file a little more. “How did Mister Bandoni do what he did?

She carefully considers the statement she prepared. “The device he used emits a particular frequency, which researchers have discovered to temporarily interfere with the human brain’s ability to encode recently absorbed long term memory.”

“I understood that,” the investigator says honestly. “But for the record, could you repeat that in English?”

“It makes you forget what you just saw. To compensate, your mind simply skips over the time it missed, and moves on from there, which can make it appear as if objects and people have moved instantly from one point in space to another.”

He closes his eyes and nods, satisfied with this response.

“Do you know what happened to the security footage from the basement lab during the hostile actions on the part of Mr. Bandoni?”

“I imagine he erased them.” He did not. He cut off the live feed so outside observers could not watch remotely, but it was she who wiped the footage after managing to incapacitate him.

He nods again. “He did. Well, not all of it. He looks up and over at his shoulder as he takes a little remote out of his pocket. The mirror behind him renders a video image. “Take note of the timestamp.” It’s showing a bird’s eye view of the lab, presumably from the perspective of a camera mounted on the rocketship, which must not be linked to the network. It clearly shows Holger teleporting across the room as he wrangles the staff without the aid of anyone else. Of course, since he really is teleporting—and not interfering with anyone’s memory—the timestamp shows him to be jumping around instantaneously.

“Touché.”

“Tell me, Magnus Matic, why would you lie to us about this? What does he have on you?”

“Nothing. He’s an idiot.”

“He’s not saying a word.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

The investigator kind of rolls his eyes. “We don’t just have video, but audio. We heard your whole conversation. You know more about this stuff than he does. You weren’t surprised by what he could do, and you took control of the situation at your earliest convenience. I assume the thing you said about the watch exploding was a lie?”

“Maybe.”

“The problem is we can’t find it.” He leans back and skips the video to the point where Leona picks up the watch and transports it to oblivion. It’s not full on molecular teleportation, but a failsafe that rips the device into a thousand pieces, and embeds it in the nearest solid object. In this case, it’s probably in the floor, or maybe a nearby wall.

“Hm. Weird.”

He smiles out of mad respect. “I like your lie. The whole interference with long-term memory thing, that’s pretty cool; we’re gonna use it.”

“Pardon?”

He flips the file closed as he’s standing up. “That’s what we’re gonna say to the rest of the lab scientists, to explain why what they think they saw is not what they really saw, even though you and I both know that that’s exactly what they saw.”

“Okay...”

“You’re free to go,” he says, stepping towards the door, not in a hurry. “Your husband is waiting for you in the parking lot. He’s known something was wrong longer than we have. Please don’t run. We would like to know more, and we promise to be courteous, and...discreet.”

“Who’s we?” she questions.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He leaves the door open, and begins to walk away coolly.

Leona stays seated for a moment, then she jumps up, and hangs her head over the threshold. “Sir!”

He turns around patiently.

“Welcome to the Masquerade.”

He nods politely, and turns the corner.

That should keep them busy for a while. Now it’s time to run.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 29, 2398

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Yesterday, Holger forced all the staff into the interstellar spaceship that was under construction, and locked them in there so he and Leona could be alone. He placed the entire facility on lock down, which even prevented the guard topside from getting down. He surely would have noticed that something was wrong fairly quickly. Even if he never needed to reach out to someone in the hangar, he would have wondered why no one was leaving for lunch, and if not then, why did no one go home at the end of the day? Leona didn’t know what was happening up there either, though. Holger cut off all information, and spent the rest of the day trying to get Leona to prove that she too had a teleportation watch like his. When she tried to claim that she didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, he grew frustrated. But he didn’t want to ruin their special day, so he takes his time setting up a candlelit midnight dinner for the two of them, and that’s when he explains what he’s been up to recently.

Holger was unsurprisingly upset about being fired from the lab. Day by day, his anger ballooned, until he couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t want to grow up and look for a new job. He wanted back in, and he wanted an apology. One might think that he would have gotten over Leona in that time, since she was the reason for his dismissal, but his fixation on her only increased. He wanted her more than ever, and he became convinced that he was entitled to her devotion. This was a game, and she was winning, but all he needed to do was gain an advantage. And the first step in this new mission was to stalk her. He found out where she lived, who she was living with, where she liked to go for breakfast, and everything else about her. He watched her, he watched her husband, and he watched their friends. He had trouble understanding the group dynamic, so he started branching out, and investigating the others in greater depth.

Fortunately, the forger’s forgeries were airtight, so he never discovered that all of their identities were fake, but he did know about Angela. Sure, he wasn’t aware that they were intending to use her to replace Marie as a backup twin, but it was still something they didn’t want out there in the world. He was probably the worst person to know so much information about them. And he wasn’t going to stop here. He kept watching them, eventually following them all the way out to a little town in the middle of Kansas called Lebanon. Here was where things got real interesting.

He watched from a distance as the six of them literally disappeared by the side of the road. Confused but excited, he snuck over to get a better look. No smoke, no mirrors, no hidden passageways. All he found was dirt, grass, and other plants. He situated himself in a foxhole, and kept watching the area, eventually witnessing the group reappear and disappear at will. He didn’t know where they were going, or how they were doing it. It was a puzzle, and Holger Bandoni loves puzzles. He continued to watch them as most of the group left, including Leona. He didn’t stay attached to her, though. He had to remain near the site, because unlocking its secrets was more important at this point.

Mateo and Heath blew a hole in the ground. The former fell in, and the latter fell back. While he was unconscious, Holger ignored him, and made his way down the hole using the emergency ladder. He was shocked by how deep it was, and exhausted by the time he reached the bottom, but it was so worth it. An expanse of living spaces and advanced technology. He had to learn more. While he was alone, he managed to search pretty much every room, ultimately making his way to what he thought might have been a hot tub. It was a beautiful room with blue mosaic tiles, and shimmering light, but the water was cool, and it wasn’t big enough for swimming. But there was something black on the bottom. He dove in and retrieved a box, inside of which was the teleporter watch.

As he was fiddling with it, he suddenly found himself in a different room. He pushed the button again, which transported him to a third room. He kept working with it, learning how to navigate, instead of relying on a random destination. Once he was satisfied with his self-training, he made his way back to the main room, and stood by the debris in the elevator shaft. He pushed the button again, and attempted to jump all the way back to the surface, but could not make it all the way up. As he was falling towards his death, he desperately pressed the button once more, and returned to the floor, but apparently, this form of teleportation preserves momentum, so he still landed hard, breaking his arm in the process. While he still lay there, Heath was making his way down, so Holger crawled into what he believed to be a closet, but was actually a second elevator. He used this to travel back up to the top, ultimately having to use his one good arm to punch through the wall of soil in his way. This finally explains how the McIvers were able to see the alternative means of transport that Heath did not.

Now free, Holger made his way to the nearest hospital, and while he was undergoing treatment, he began to make more plans. He had to wait until Leona returned from her vacation, “and that brings us to today.” He smiles, proud of himself for surviving the harrowing adventure, and pleased to now fully understand who Leona is. “We’re in the same boat now. I have a watch, you have a watch. We can be together.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Uhh, no,” he maintains. “See?” He jumps to the other side of the breakroom.

“No, I mean, you’re delusional about us. “Just because you randomly found a flicker watch, doesn’t mean we’re in love now.”

“Is that what this is called?” He admires the thing.

No, but whatever, haha. She sighs. “What about this are you not getting? I don’t like you. I don’t just not like you in that way. I hate you. I don’t want to ever see you again, or have anything to do with you.”

Holger pouts and mumbles. “Ugh. Harumph. Gaaaah! You obviously wanna stay here with me! You haven’t tried to escape!”

“You locked the exit!” she argues. “I can’t get out!”

“Why don’t you just flicker out! How do you think I got in!”

“I can’t!” Leona pulls down her sleeves, and rolls up her pant legs just for good measure. “They run out of juice!” she lies, sort of. They will eventually run out of power, but they likely last a good few years. “When it’s out, it’s out, and you throw it away.”

“Oh.” He seems to be believing her. “Well, how long do I have?”

“How many times have you used it?” she asks.

“I dunno, maybe a hundred? I hate walking all the way over to my bathroom.”

“Ooo,” she begins. “In this short of time?” She decides to repeat a lie Mateo once told someone. “You’re severely overtaxing it. That thing’s about to blow your wrist off.”

He desperately removes it, drops it on the floor, and hops away with a yelp, so that’s when Leona punches him in the neck.

Microstory 1766: Pisces

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I’m the best scuba diver in the world, which is saying a lot, because I was afraid of it when I was a kid, and I come from a family of masters. I’ve since surpassed all others in skills and experience. I can venture to the deepest parts of the ocean that are humanly possible to survive. I can use any kind of tank, and complete any task. Today, I’m about to set the record for the deepest dive ever, and cement myself as one of the absolute best in history. I’ve already passed the last record, but I’m not satisfied with that. I have to get to 600 meters. No one will try that depth after me without a submarine. I check my watch. I had to have it specially made to survive these pressures too, and so far, it’s done me well. I’m at 570 meters, and so pleased with myself. No one has ever seen what I’m seeing right now. Of course, like I said, submarines can descend this far, but they haven’t, not around here. My cousins are going to be so jealous, I can’t wait to run it in their faces. None of them thought that I would make it, and I’ve yet to prove them wrong. It’s not really the deepest dive if I die down here, is it? Maybe they’ll still count it, and sing songs of my brave and tragic end. I keep going: 580, 590, and...600 meters! I reached my goal. If I stay too long, I really will die, though, so I immediately prepare to ascend. Then something catches my eye. It’s a fish. No, it’s two fish. Wow, it’s an entire school. There’s something strange about this species, but I can’t put my finger on it. Oh, yeah, they’re swimming in pairs.

These fish are exhibiting behavior that I’ve never heard of. I’m no ichthyologist, but I know what species live around here, and this ain’t one of them. Every single fish is paired up with another, face to tail. They’re swimming in circles around each other, or more appropriately, around some mutual barycenter between them. Since they’re not going straight, the only reason they go anywhere is because the spin isn’t constant. They nudge themselves in one direction, like propellers. Why the heck are they doing that? Is there some sort of evolutionary advantage to spinning? Perhaps it has more to do with the pairs, and less to do with the way that they swim. I obviously have to take photographs and video of this phenomenon. If I’ve discovered a new species, it will only make me more famous, which is kind of what I’m going for here. I don’t even have to survive. The footage is being automatically beamed back up to the boat. There’s no way for me to communicate with them directly, but I can.imagine my mother urging me to begin the ascension process. It’s going to take an extremely long time, and the extra tanks they left hanging for me at my stop intervals won’t be enough if I don’t maintain my schedule, not to mention the risk of getting bent. I’m about to let it go, and save myself when the fish change behaviors. They stay in their paired circles, but also begin to circle me. They’re aware of me, but probably aren’t sure if I’m a predator. I’m amazed but frightened, but the latter grows faster once they start biting at my equipment. They tear off the straps, and cut the breathing tubes. Welp, I guess I really am gonna die. Except I don’t. I suddenly stop feeling the intense pressure, the freezing cold, and the need to breathe. They’ve somehow transformed me into one of them, and once I realize what an amazing gift this is, I all but forget about my past life as a human, and together...we dive deeper.