The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 5, 2518

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mateo and Leona exchanged a knowing look.

“What? What was that?” Marie asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s just a kid,” Marie reasoned.

“No, she’s not,” Ramses volleyed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For now...” Marie joked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s not how my species works.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who?”

“You.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uth too.”

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Microstory 2485: Passage of Rites

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They call this an antimetabole, with the name referring to the physical space where rites are performed, as opposed to the original phrase, which involves a more metaphorical passage from one state of being to another. A rite of passage is a ceremony—or a more abstract transitional period—that marks some change in a person’s life, often when they are still young. In some cases, it’s specifically meant to mark someone’s development from youth to adulthood. Bar Mitsvahs, Quinceñeras, and Sweet Sixteens are all about this concept, and come at the age when that culture believes an individual sufficiently matures. It doesn’t have to be based on a particular age, or there might be some leeway. For instance, our ancestors used to have to wait to learn how to drive land vehicles, and once they did learn this skill, it came with a sense of independence that they usually did not feel before. It often happened at a certain age, but it didn’t have to, and some people never learned. Different people have different ideas about what someone needs to experience in their life before they can be respected in some form or another. Some have believed that you weren’t a man, for instance, until you participated in a physically violent altercation. Others thought you really only needed to learn how to hunt game, or go on some kind of lone journey in the wilderness. Some rites of passage are a very specific set of rituals which offer symbolic practices to represent the transition. They might be asked to drink a bitter drink to symbolize the harsh realities of life, then receive a sweet candy to exemplify the reward of a life well lived. Some of them their participants prepared their whole lives for. A lot of the rites of passage shown here have been lost to time as the culture who practiced them forgot, or had newer generations who began to see less value in maintaining them. There’s a relatively new tradition on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida where the current permanent residents gift each of their younglings a stone every year of their lives. They are expected to hold onto their collection between the ages of six and seventeen, even as it grows, until their seventeenth birthday, when they throw all of them over a cliff. These stones represent the care and attention the child needed as they were growing up. The weight of them collectively represents the burden they placed on their families. Ridding themselves of their collections represents the second stage in their life, when they are now expected to fend for themselves—to collect their own proverbial stones. That rite of passage is here too, reenacted by visitors, so they can physically feel the meaning behind the traditions. Other rites are performed exclusively by androids, such as the human sacrifices, which thankfully, no culture today has continued to observe. As I was saying about the birthday observances, there’s a lot of fun here, and you can come just to party. But I hope you do venture out to the other areas, and see some of the more somber and profound events. You can learn about any of these things in the archives, but there’s nothing quite like seeing it up close for yourself. I’ve learned a lot here already, even though I’m an archaeologist, and I’m sure you will too.

Microstory 2408: Sportsdome

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Sports. Have you heard of them? Well, I like them. I’m pretty old. I was, in fact, one of the oldest people still physically capable of being upgraded enough to stick around back when life extension was in its relative infancy. I remember taking the train all around the country to see baseball games. I managed to see at least one major league game in every stadium. As the centuries went by, I watched as they faded from popularity. Some of them were outright banned—or effectively neutered—due to laws against violence. Remember hockey? That was basically just an excuse to fight on the ice. The whole act of hitting a puck into a net was more secondary to that urge to express one’s aggression and manhood. I never liked it, but they got it here on Castlebourne. They have every single sport somewhere here. Name one, they got it. Even the really obscure or really old ones that I hadn’t even thought of when I was growing up, still believing that I would die one day. Anyway, I think this dome is pretty cool, and I intend to spend a lot more time here. Unfortunately, nearly all of the players are androids, because we’re still in the early days of this planet, and like I said, sports in general have dimmed in popularity. It’s kind of creepy, because there was this glitch when I first showed up. They weren’t expecting me, and they didn’t sense my presence right away. Obviously, these things aren’t just playing games for no one to watch. They only do it when a visitor is around to see it. So there I was, walking onto the football pitch, and the androids were just standing there, staring into space. Of course, they weren’t staring, they were in dormant mode, but since they’re so lifelike, it looked really scary and unsettling. So that was just a little issue that I think will get worked out if people actually start to come here and see what all this stuff is about! Really try to give it a chance. I know it sounds so quaint. I mean, how interesting could it be to watch 22 people kick a ball back and forth? It’s a lot more nuanced. Just because you’re not in a virtual reality where the rules to some random game some random guy randomly came up with take ten years to learn doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. If you swing by, I’m sure we can find you something that you’ll like. For now, I’m going to see what jai alai is like. We didn’t have that when I was a young one.

Microstory 2360: Vacuus, July 30, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Lol, I appreciate your offer to commit physical violence against my aggressor, but I should warn you that a lot has changed since I sent my last letter. Bray and I have gotten to know each other better, and we have found something between us. I know, it’s really weird. He’s about 18 years younger than us, but we can’t help how we feel. I honestly never planned on spending the rest of my life with anyone else. I never really connected with any of my peers. The gene pool is just so small. The truth is that the gap between us isn’t even the widest on the base. I don’t know how that sort of thing is received on Earth, but the stigma for us is long gone. In order to maintain our population, we’ve had to sort of ignore the social conventions of the past. I’m sure you think that it’s still a little weird, but I don’t want to just disregard our developing feelings. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you about any of this. You’re my brother, which makes it awkward, but we also don’t know each other very well yet, so that makes it awkward in a different way. I’ll spare you the details no matter what, but please let me know if you would rather not hear about it at all. I wouldn’t want to say anything that makes you uncomfortable. This is all I’ll say until I get your answer in that regard. Right now, nothing has happened between him and me, and it might fizzle out soon anyway. As I said, I’ve always seen myself more as a loner. Okay, I promise that that’s the last I’ll say. Thanks and sorry. On the other hand, we could discuss our love lives openly, that wouldn’t bother me. I know that you’re life has been defined by go, go, go, but have you ever gotten to know anyone special? Have you been looking for companionship since you settled down in the ocean platform? Again, you don’t have to say anything, this is just a topic that we’ve not touched on before, and I want us to feel comfortable being honest, if that’s even possible at this juncture, and through the detached medium of interplanetary correspondence. Sorry again! That’s it! I really won’t say anything more. To prove it to you, let me shift gears. You were talking about the people who did this to us; specifically who they might be, and what they might have been doing for the last 37 years. I’ve personally given up on trying to find those answers. I’m still mad about it, but all I think we can do is move on, and play with the cards that we’ve been dealt. We can’t go back in time, and choose a single planet together. If you want more information—if it’s eating at you—I will support you, and do whatever I can on my end, so don’t hesitate to be honest about it. I really mean that. There are still some stones on Vacuus that I can turn over if we agree that that’s what’s best. I love you, Condor. I want us both to be happy, and to experience whatever closure we’re looking for.

Not yet in love,

Corinthia

Microstory 2009: Ohio

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Both of my dads are really smart, and everyone in their families are smart too. While my papa was still in high school, his sister was older, and went off to college. She chose a place in Ohio. It was really fancy, and only for really smart people. There are probably really good colleges closer to where they lived, but she wanted to go there. I forgot to ask her what it was called, and she was too busy tonight, which will be last night by the time you see this. She had too much stuff that they couldn’t fly it all out there, so they drove the whole way from Idaho. They left early, so they could make it a road trip. It took them over three days to get all the way across the country, but they could have done it faster if they had really wanted to. They drove through five other states besides Idaho and Ohio. Remember, my papa had already been to Wyoming and Nebraska, but not Iowa, Illinois, or Indiana. Papa didn’t count that as going to those states, though, since they drove through them so quickly. He even thought that his family didn’t stop once the whole drive through Indiana, though dad thinks they probably had to stop for gas and a potty break at least once. Anyway, Aunt Cooper had to go back and forth from home to her school a few times every year in college, but papa never went back. This was the only time he was there, and he stayed one night in a motel before his parents drove the three of them back to Idaho, so Aunt Cooper could be alone and start learning. I’m still too young to be thinking too much about college, but I really hope to go to somewhere here in Massachusetts. Maybe even Harvard if my grades get a little better.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 8, 2398

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Ramses and Mateo decided to not talk to each other too much for fear of disturbing the timeline, which feels more fragile than the ones in other realities. Ramses is grateful to know that his best friend is safe...for now, but worried more than ever for Leona. He can’t help either of them right now. He has his own problems to deal with. Erlendr initially declined his offer to loan him Leona Reaver’s body so they can fake Leona Matic’s death to get the bounty off her head. As promised, Ramses let him stay in Bhulan’s field of daisies simulation in the Insulator of Life anyway. The next day, Erlendr called to say that he had changed his mind, and he would help them with their ruse. The next day after that, he called again to change his mind again. He’s been flip-flopping ever since, and it’s only now that Ramses has realized that it doesn’t matter what they do now. They can never trust the man to follow the script. Team Matic has turned a number of people to the light side over the ages, but Erlendr Preston will never be one of them. Some people are just broken, and they can’t be fixed, because too many pieces are missing. In his case, it’s any concept of selflessness.

“I’ll do it,” Alyssa says.

“You’ll do what?” Ramses questions.

“Transfer my mind to Reaver’s body. I’ll play the part that Erlendr was going to.”

Ramses brushes the idea away from himself. “You can’t do that, it’s too dangerous.”

“Are you saying I’m not capable? You were gonna trust that man, but not me? I’ve heard the stories.”

“It’s not that we trust him,” Ramses explains, “it’s that we don’t care what happens to him. If it doesn’t work, and that Reaver body is on its last life, it would be no great loss to the world. That’s not something I’m prepared to risk when it comes to someone I actually care about.”

“You care about Leona more,” Alyssa forthputs.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve known her a lot longer.”

Ramses winces. “Love isn’t measured on a sliding scale. You’re one of us, I thought we had already convinced you of this.”

“The danger she’s in is real. Someone is going to kill her, or Arcadia. It’s just a matter of time, in my opinion. I only might die if I do this. I’ll take those odds.”

“Like I said, I love you, but I’m the one who understands the odds. We still don’t know who placed the extraction mirror underneath Alt!Mateo and Leona Reaver. They may have always been trying to kill you, and have been waiting for you to do what you’re proposing the whole time. You’re still not accustomed to envisaging motivations that don’t exist yet...of people who may not even exist yet.”

“Everyone else has risked their lives to help each other. If you truly think of me as part of the group...” She places a hand on his thigh, “and you truly love me, you’ll let me help.” She slides her hand a couple of centimeters up, extinguishing all ambiguity.

He’s never going to agree to this. They’ll just have to find another way. This whole plan was never foolproof, nor inherently necessary. There’s every chance that, even if it goes off without a hitch, Leona and Arcadia will still be in danger. No need to put Alyssa in the same position. Ramses gently removes her hand from his leg. “It’s hard to calculate how much older I am than you.”

She leans in. “I’m sorry, I stopped listening after you said that you were hard.”

“Not what I meant, just like I didn’t mean it that way when I said I love you.”

“I’m almost twenty-two. Where I’m from, when you turn nineteen, there’s no maximum age for your chosen partner.”

“Where I’m from, there is. I think of you as a little sister.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Look—”

“Perfect,” Alyssa interrupts. “Now you’re gonna condescend to me.”

“Look around, Lyss. We’re the only two people left. Angela’s on a spaceship with your brothers, Leona and Marie are missing, Mateo is in another reality. Arcadia and Vearden are...ya know, not really part of this anyway. I don’t even wanna talk about Cheyenne. We’re both feeling lonely, I’m sure, but I’ve seen this happen before, in another life. These sorts of relationships that are just about boredom and escapism don’t just not work out; they turn sour. If we were normal people, I might not think it’s that big of a deal, but we’re going to leave the Third Rail one day, and we could be stuck on a tiny spaceship together. Trust me, it’s not a good idea, age gap notwithstanding.”

“I’m not asking for a boyfriend,” Alyssa spits. “Jesus, get over yourself.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said get over yourself.”

“No, who’s Jesus?”

“It’s just an expression.”

“No, it’s not, he’s a real person from history, but as far as I know, not your history. Why would that be an expression in this timeline?”

“I dunno, man, I’m not a linguist. Stop trying to change the subject. This isn’t one of your crazy time travel mysteries. If you’re not going to let me help you protect Leona, then we need to focus on coming up with a new plan.”

“No, this is the only thing that matters right now. If you really wanna help, I need you to get into that containment chamber, and stand in the center.”

“Are you going to hurt me?” she asks.

“Only if you refuse. Alyssa would not refuse.”

“I am Alyssa.”

“Great!” He nods at her, because she already has her orders.

Confused, she steps up into the chamber, and waits as he closes the door, then goes over to fiddle with his gizmos. “Are you seeing anything?”

“Don’t move, please,” he requests. He engages the scan, and watches the data. She looks mostly like herself, but not entirely. There’s something wrong with her brain, and in all likelihood, his own as well. He grabs his phone, and dials Arcadia. When she answers, he utters the emergency code, “media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages, and online magazine racks.”

“Get in the chamber,” Arcadia demands. “I’m on my way.”

“What the hell is wrong?” Alyssa asks Ramses after he steps into the chamber with her, and commands the lab to go into lockdown.

“Your mind is infected with psychic energy, most likely Erlendr’s. I’ve been in the Insulator more than you; I must assume I’m infected too. Don’t worry, help is coming.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 30, 2398

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Marie just got back from a hiking trip with her husband, so she’s not having too many problems. Kivi, on the other hand, was literally born less than a week ago, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of experience in the wilderness. “Ow!” She stops walking and instinctively, reaches up to slap herself in the cheek. “That’s blood. I’m bleeding.”

“It’s not only your blood,” Marie tries to tell her, “and it’s just a little.”

“A bug bit me, and you think that it’s totally fine.”

“It’s a hematophage. It only needed a little bit of your blood. We put on that smelly stuff to keep them away.”

“It’s obviously not working.”

“Well, it’s not magic.”

“Why did you say that in a different accent?”

Marie gets going on the trail. “It’s a pop culture reference.”

“You know I won’t get those.”

“I know,” Marie says as she’s getting farther ahead.

“What if it was carrying a disease?”

“It probably wasn’t.”

“Probably?”

“Hurry up! I wanna get there before it gets dark!”

“How do you know where we’re going again?”

“Ramses had a little bit of data from the main sequence in his bag when he came to this reality. Using the AI, he was able to overlay corresponding coordinates to the geography of this world, which we can follow using SatNav.”

“In English?”

“I have a map.”

They continue for another kilometer or so until they hear rushing water. This area is surprisingly remote, while it’s pretty heavily developed in the main sequence. The trek was rough, but they have come to a clearing, where they find a source of water. “Ah, there it is, you were right,” Kivi says with a smile.

Marie zooms in and out of the map. “No, this isn’t right at all.”

“You said we were looking for the Fountain of Youth, and that to me looks like a fountain. I mean, the water isn’t coming out of sculpted horses, but it’s nice enough, I guess.”

“Hold on.” She goes into the overlay code, and checks for errors, to the best of her ability with only a cursory glance. There’s too much data to go over comprehensively right now. “This isn’t gonna do me any good.” She starts to remove her clothes, ultimately keeping her bra and underwear on.

“What if someone else comes?”

Marie looks around. “I see no signs that a single human has ever been in this area ever. It’s pretty well hidden. I’m not worried. Besides, I don’t care.” She wades into the water, which she finds to be lukewarm. It’s not a hot spring, but it’s not freezing either. Perhaps it’s warmed by geothermal energy just a little bit. She walks along the smooth floor, encountering no obstacles or sharp rocks, and approaches the bubbling fountain in the center.” A warmness comes over her, but not physically, just emotionally.

“Can you teleport?” Kivi asks.

“What?” Marie didn’t really hear that. She’s mesmerized by the sight, and can’t think about anything else. It just looks like the work of jets in a hot tub, but there’s something so beautiful and entrancing about it, she can’t look away.

Kivi yells something else from the shore.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 29, 2398

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Heath is pacing around the living room, talking to his wife on the phone. The other four are watching him, worried. It’s hard to tell how the conversation is going, but it’s clear by now that she and Kivi are at least not dead or hurt. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah,” he repeats. “Okay.” He nods, unhappy, but trying to be patient with her. “No, they’ll understand.” He continues immediately, “even Mateo.” He pauses. “All right, we’ll see you when you get back. Be safe.” He pauses one last time. “Love you.” He hangs up, but doesn’t say anything right away.

“Are they okay?” Leona asks him.

“They’re fine.”

“Are they on their way back?” Mateo asks.

“They’re not. They’re in Florida.”

“What? How did they get there?”

“Apparently, Marie wanted to see the plot of land where she grew up,” Heath begins. “In this reality, in these days, it’s an airport. It doesn’t go to very many places, but one of the destinations just so happens to be Orlando, Florida.”

“Okay...does she have a thing for Orlando, errr...?”

“It’s near something called the Fountain of Youth?” He answers in the form of a question.

Oh, that makes sense, sort of. “Well, it’s not,” Leona contends. “They founded the city of Orlando relatively close to the location of a spring that no longer exists.” She goes on, “my namesake, Juan Ponce de León once looked for it in 1513, and found it to already be dried up. He did find the Compass of Disturbance, though.”

“That sounds bad. Marie never mentioned it, what is it?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she assures him. “It just detects temporal anomalies; rifts in the spacetime continuum, invisible portals, the spot where a teleporter disappeared from, etcetera. The spring is hard to find, and even more so now. Juan once described the terrain for me, but his info is almost 900 years out of date. Even then, to get Youth water, you probably have to be there centuries prior.”

“So, what is the point of them going there?” Heath asks.

“They’re probably just doing their best to check it off the list,” Mateo figures.

“Well, they don’t have to do it alone,” Heath decides as he’s looking at the map on his phone. “We can be there in three hours.”

“I don’t think that’s what she wants,” Angela says in a warning tone.

“It could be dangerous,” he argues.

“She can’t get hurt,” Ramses reminds him.

“Kivi can! I know you four don’t remember her, but I’ve known her as long as I’ve known you.”

“We’ve known her longer than that,” Leona volleys. “Both of them are capable and cautious women who have been through more than your wife has had time to tell you. She’s been around the block. The farm where she grew up is an airport. I’m sure the location of the former Youth Spring is a baseball diamond, or something.”

“What the hell is a baseball?”

“Out of all the dumb sports,” Angela replies, “it’s the least dumb.”

Heath has grown weary of being away from his wife so much. He’s noticed that she’s the one who keeps doing the leaving, even though at one point, he was meant to go off on these adventures with Mateo. Once they get past this, things are going to change. Ramses, Leona, and Angela have their new business to think about, which will hopefully resupply the funds that dwindled quite a bit when the majority of the team showed up. The only dangerous outsiders who might care about that both Marie and Angela exist already know about them, and the back-up twin thing they have going on. There is no reason why Marie and Heath can’t now begin the real mission of studying time travel in the Third Rail. Mateo should come too, and Kivi, if she isn’t interested in anything else.

“Are you doing okay?” Angela asks after he takes too long to react.

“I’m fine. I’m just going to go take a bath, and clear my head.”

“Okay.”

If Marie were here, she would be able to stop him from taking the bath, because that’s usually when he takes the time to locate and purchase something that costs them far too much.

Microstory 1802: A Mother Doesn’t Know

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The end has finally come, and I welcome the relief. The doctors have been keeping a close eye on me for years now, but they can’t stop the inevitable. I have a DNR, and nobody lives forever. I don’t remember how I ended up in this institution, but it was definitely against my will. They keep me drugged up so I can’t think straight, let alone move fast enough to get out of this place. It’s been such sorrowful torture. I would protest against them, but I just don’t have the energy anymore, and haven’t for a very long time. They know this about me. They do that on purpose. They took away my free will, because if I had a voice, people might actually listen to what I have to say. But they can’t have that. No, far be it for me to speak my mind. I’m a crazy person, who no one cares about. I had someone who cared about me, but they took him away. Not the same people, technically, mind you, but close enough. Anybody who works for the institutions of this country, and promotes the oppression of the masses, might as well just be one evil man. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here, and I am well aware that the only way that happens is in a bodybag. The time has almost come; what I’ve been yearning for. This won’t be the first time that I died. I tried to kill myself a few years ago. My son got into an awful mess, and ended up being murdered by a cop. I was foolish to have made my attempt on the day the charity organization would come to deliver meals. He was the only person who ever gave a damn about me, and now he’s gone. What do I have to live for but him? Now this cough has taken me down my final path, and I’ve been letting it happen. They can’t keep me locked up forever, no sir. Now it’s just a waiting game.

I reflect on the decades behind me. They say that your life flashes before your eyes, but maybe that doesn’t always happen automatically. Maybe I have to force it, and expedite the process. I’ll take any advantage I can get. I did my best raising my child, but I could only do so much without his terrible father. Sure, he was the one paying for everything, so I didn’t have to work, but he should have been there. He should have helped teach our son how to be a man. I don’t know how to be a man; I’ve never done it before! Looking back, maybe there were some signs that he wasn’t well, and maybe I should have gotten him some help. But, really, how was I meant to know that his fixation on certain girls in his class was some kind of warning? It didn’t seem weird when these fixations transferred down to new girls. They kept staying the same age, while he grew older. He was very protective of others; I thought it was sweet. He didn’t ever kill any small animals, which everyone says is the behavior you’re supposed to look for. He has absolutely no trouble feeling empathy for people. I mean, when I say these signs were obvious in retrospect, it’s because hindsight is 20/20, not because I think I should have understood what the problem was back then. I couldn’t have known, I couldn’t. He did some bad things when he was older—those cages. He didn’t have to die for it, though, and they certainly shouldn’t have blamed me for it. Like I said, he didn’t ever show any violent tendencies. He truly wanted to help those women, and the situation sometimes just got out of hand. If their own parents had raised them better, perhaps they wouldn’t look so vulnerable. That’s what he was attracted to, but not in a sexual way. He wanted to help them, and I can’t help but be proud of him for that. I know he’s in heaven now, where he belongs, and I know that I’ll soon meet him there...at last.

Microstory 1801: Jellyfish Cycle

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I have been around for centuries, but I’ve not been young the entire time, or even most of the time. A few species of jellyfish are capable of something similar, through by different means. They use their genetics to be immortal. I use my soul. Before they can die, they will revert to an earlier stage of development, and begin anew. These creatures have evolved to do this, but the same can’t be said for me, because humans are not like that. The majority of us aren’t, anyway. I belong to a subspecies of humans called voldisil. We did not technically evolve out of the other either, though. You see, there are three genders. Normal people are only conceived by two, but a third can get involved, often without their knowledge. They’ll inject something else into the process. It’s a spiritual experience, which those like me would consider a gift. Back in the early second century, I was created, and unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting my third parent. My mother and father died shortly after I came into the world, when you think about it, because it was only a few decades. I felt like I was able to spend a lot of time with my family back then, but I now realize how precious those moments were, and how I should not have taken them for granted. When I was 36, I contracted malaria, and I assumed that was it for me. There was no cure, no vaccine. It was pretty much a death sentence in my region in that time period. One night, I felt myself drifting away, and had to make peace with the end. I was surprised to find myself waking up the next morning as a toddler. All of my memories were intact, and I was cured. I couldn’t explain it. A new couple adopted me, thinking I was the child of a victim, and not even considering the possibility that I was the patient. They just thought of me as their little miracle.

I continued to go through this cycle lifetime after lifetime. Though, I probably shouldn’t call them lifetimes. I would be older when the transition happened every time, but I was also coming back older. The second time it happened, for instance, I looked more like an eight-year-old. By the fifth cycle, I no longer had to worry about someone trying to take care of me. I appeared to be old enough to handle myself. Each time, I would have to pack up, and move to a new land, so no one would become suspicious. I felt like I was in my early forties the last time I cycled, but that was only sixteen years ago. I’ve not known what it was like to die of age-related causes in a very long time. If I keep this up, I’ll probably only have days to live at a time, and I don’t want that. My soul’s ability to rejuvenate my body was never destined to last forever, and I always knew this about myself. What I needed to do was find some way to make my legacy last. I, of all people, understood what it looked like when someone just faded away. That’s what happens to most, in the end. Barring great fame, perhaps someone’s great great grandchildren will recall stories of their ancestors, but they won’t likely pass these on to their own descendants. I didn’t have any myself, because I didn’t know what their lives would have been like. It wasn’t worth the risk. As I lie here on my bed, prepared to go through this once more, and come back as another middle aged woman, I see now. I see that my third parent must have been in my same position all those years ago. This must be how it works; we pass the torch. I may simply be the latest in a line going back to the dawn of man. My final thoughts are of a newborn baby crying with the others two floors down, who receives my spirit ability, and has no choice but to accept the burden.

Microstory 1748: My Future as a Hare

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Everyone in the galaxy has a right to immortality, unless they lose it by committing a severe enough crime, but not all forms of immortality are created equal. We’re all ageless, but how old you look—and feel—when you stop aging, is dependent upon a number of factors. You can be awarded lagomorphic status, as they call it, upon your own merits. Good people lead infinite lives, unless they become bad, in which case their lagomorphicity can be removed from them. Some buy their way into status, often worried that they won’t be worthy of achieving it on their own, or because they’re children whose parents don’t have confidence in them. But again, just because you’ve been accepted into the program, doesn’t mean you’re going to be young and healthy forever. There are three primary classes of lagomorphic immortals. Pikas appear as children, which could mean they were children when they underwent the procedure, or because their age was sufficiently reversed. They may not have been the one to make this choice. The most common of the lagomorphs are Rabbits, who look like adults. The last class are the Hares, which is what I have recently become. They’re not constantly on the brink of death, but they’re not super healthy either. I suppose I should be saying we at this point. I would rather be a Rabbit. Pikas are often not taken seriously, because they look so young, but at least they’re healthy. Hares, like me now, apparently, are riddled with general aging problems, which can’t really be treated. We suffer for eternity. There is one upside in that we’re the ones who run the government. We make decisions about who receives the gift, and what kind. We can even transition people at will. I know what you’re thinking, but no, we can’t later choose to change ourselves into Rabbits or Pikas. That would be a conflict of interest, and a gross abuse of power.

Most of the time, a Hare has become that way because they have spent a lifetime proving themselves to be up to the challenge, and have kept themselves on track. They have usually refused to be turned into Rabbits specifically so they might one day be entrusted with the ongoing prosperity of our culture. Occasionally—and it is incredibly rare, according to everything I have ever heard about Hares—someone will be aged forward so that they become an elder after having only lived a relatively low number of mortal years. Why this happens is a closely guarded secret. It’s happened to me, and I still don’t know whether someone did it on purpose, or if my body reacted to the treatment in a unique way. I don’t know why I’m like this. As I said, I’ve always just wanted to be a normal Rabbit. I have no interest in making decisions, or in wearing a diaper until the end of time. I don’t think all Hares have to do that, but it’s not unheard of, and no thank you. Right now, I’m waiting in The Great Hall for someone to retrieve me, and give me some sort of assignment. I’m sure most people understand the process at this point, but I don’t pay much attention to politics, so I don’t know how the distribution of power works. It’s been two hours. I would complain about them making an old man wait this long, but they’re old too, so they’re probably pretty slow. Finally, the gargantuan doors open, and I just get the feeling that I’m meant to step in. I walk up to the Grand Council, and stand before them patiently. I have never even seen their faces before. Honestly, it’s a huge honor. “Welcome. The sad news is that a member of our council has chosen to die after centuries of service. The bad news is...you were selected to replace her.”

Microstory 1715: Little Dog

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They call me Little Dog. My mom says my grandpa was Big Dog, or maybe his grandpa? Or maybe his grandpa’s grandpa’s grandpa’s grandpa’s grandpa? I can’t remember it. It’s not my real name, that would be silly. I am this many years old tomorrow, and I’m so excited. They tell me I’m going to be getting a table for my birthday. They seem pretty happy about it. I guess grownups all have their own table, and when you get your own, it means you’re one of them. I don’t know if I’m old enough to use my own table, but I see my mommy and daddy using them all the time. They tap, tap, tap on it, and pretty pictures come up on the top of it. I hear them arguing with each other about whether I’m allowed to have a style to go with it. I don’t really care what style it is, as long as it works. My big sister has a table, but she doesn’t have my name anymore. When I’m old enough, our parents will have another brother and sister, and he’ll be named Little Dog instead of me. That’s what my sister says she used to be called. I don’t want to not be the Little Dog anymore. I mean I don’t want someone else to have my name. I like being a Little Dog. I like to crawl on the floor and bark at people. They seem to think that it’s cute, but if I stop being the dog then I won’t be able to do it anymore. My dad doesn’t get to see my dog game very much anymore because he always works in the big office. They sometimes take me to see everyone, and all the people in the blue jackets seem to think I’m pretty cool. Okay, bye!

Microstory 1537: Grave Error

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I’ve always loved going to ________, and in fact ________ to when I’m feeling ________ from work. They make me ________ calm because of how remote they are. Even the ones they ________ inside the ________ seem distant from ________ else, as if crossing through that ________ puts me in a different ________ altogether. I suppose I could just go ________ through nature, like the ________, or ________ ________, because it’s not like I ________ this fascination with ________. Then again, maybe I do, because I do like ________ the names on the tomb____, and especially the ________. I like looking for the ________ grave in the ________, and the most ________ life spans. I guess I can’t say that I ________ it; more like it’s a compulsion. I want to ________ who the youngest person is in ________, and who the ________ is. I saw one a few ________ back where the ________ date was the same as the ________ date. What ________ there? I mean, I ________ what happened ________. But how did the ________ react, and what became of ________ afterwards? It ________ have been heart____, I don’t know what I would have done if I were a ________ of that ________. The oldest ________ I’ve ever found up until ________ was a hundred and ________ years old. I can’t ________ that either, seeing all your ________ ones die as you go ________. I did a ________ research into her and her ________. All five of her ________ passed before her, and all but ________ were pretty old at the time. No one would have scoffed at their ages, but she ________ outlived them, and that must have been pretty ________. Now I’ve found someone who appears to be so much ________ than that, and I don’t know if I can ________ it. This guy’s marker reads ________ 1812 to ________ 1979. That is a hundred and sixty-seven ________. I mean, come on. The marker itself looks ________, so I’m thinking it has to be some kind of prank. I lift up on it, as ________ as that sounds, because I figure if it’s ________, it won’t be stuck in the ________ very well. The marker does move, but not because it hasn’t been ________ for long, but because it’s some kind of switch. The ________ where the grave ought to be ________ over like a trap ________, revealing a ________. A small group of ________ are sitting around a ________. They look up at me, unsurprised by my arrival. “Welcome,” one of them says. Now that you’ve found this ________, you must join us. Or ________.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, June 15, 2100

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They were happy to confirm the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had become like one giant Cassidy cuff. Anyone inside of it during the jump to the future would be swept along with it. This was important, because it would allow them to take people with them, in case something was wrong with the date they were already in, as it was with Ariadna Traversa. It would also theoretically let them remove their own cuffs somehow, and still have a way to escape any given time period. For now, they weren’t going to do that, but it might come in handy in the future, or even be quite necessary. Now in the year 2100, the cuffs were directing them back to Kansas, where they were scheduled to encounter the next transition window in several hours. This gave them time to get some more sleep, and some breakfast, before the job began.

At 8:15 in the morning, the transition began. The images started flickering around them. Sometimes they were in what looked like a hospital lobby, but other times they could only see a hospital bed hovering several stories above them. “Oh, no,” Mateo said. “It’s happening again. But we don’t have a teleporter to rescue them this time! What are we gonna do? They’re gonna fall!”

“I got this,” Sanaa said. She tapped a few buttons on her interface. Once she was finished, the flickering stopped, but the building didn’t disappear, and no one fell from up in the air. Everything just stayed as it was.

“What did you do?” Leona asked her, trying to find answers on her own cuffs, but they were frozen on one screen. It was a nine-minute, fifty-four second countdown. Fifty-three, fifty-two...

“Can I help you?” asked a nurse, who hopefully hadn’t just witnessed them suddenly appear out of thin air.

Sanaa ignored her. “Like I said, these gadgets are more powerful than they seem,” she nearly explained. “We’re in the main sequence right now, but we apparently only have ten minutes before the transition completes. It’s a failsafe, exactly for situations such as this. We have nine minutes to get up to the room, pull our refugee from their bed, and get them down to ground level.”

“Do we even know what floor that was?” J.B. asked. “I mean, it was high, but we don’t really have a frame of reference.”

“It was the sixth floor,” Jericho answered. When everyone looked at him funny, he said, “what? I have an eye for these things. I can picture what one foot looks like, so I just add them up until I get nine for one story, and then I divide the space I have left.”

“Fine, sixth floor, let’s go.”

“If you just tell me who you’re looking for,” the nurse began to call out to them as they were running for the elevators, “I can give you a room number.”

“We don’t know who we’re rescuing!” J.B. shouted back politely.

Once they were on the sixth floor, it was a little more difficult to figure out where they were meant to go. Jericho had an understanding of how to calculate the Z-axis in his head, but now that they were impeded by hallways, and counters, it was a little more difficult for him to know which room they were looking for. As the minutes ticked by, they were growing more and more worried. If they didn’t find their target soon, not only was this person going to fall to their death, but so would everyone else. They still didn’t even know who they were looking for. No idea.

“Everyone come back to the elevator bay!” Jericho shouted. Though he was not their leader, they all met back up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. The cafeteria is on the second story. The ceiling is probably higher. I think we should be on floor five.”

J.B. pressed the call button. For a normal person, the amount of time they waited for the elevator to come was no big deal, but here, every second counted. When it finally arrived, they jumped in, and J.B. pressed the button for the fifth floor.

Then Leona pressed the button for the lobby. “Everyone else go all the way downstairs. Don’t argue with me, just do it. If you try  to come with me, you will die. I’m the only one who can save her.”

“Her who?” Mateo asked.

Leona bolted out of the doors without answering. He wanted to do what she said, but he couldn’t let her be alone. If they were going to die, they would do it together. He stepped out as well, and only stayed back long enough to make sure no one else followed. He then found Leona at the nurse’s counter.

“X. Voss,” the nurse was saying. “Room six-thirty-one.”

“Leona?” Mateo asked simply.

“I took a gamble,” she replied, “based on what year it is.”

They ran off for 631, and found Young!Xearea asleep in her bed. She looked very badly hurt, which didn’t make any sense, because even though they first met her in 2099, and didn’t know exactly what happened to her shortly thereafter, they knew it wasn’t this. “We have forty-five seconds,” Mateo said to Leona. “We can’t get back down ourselves, let alone with her.”

Leona started unplugging Xearea from the wall. “I have a way to get us to the AOC. I was able to get past the timer, and back into the cuff’s systems. There’s an emergency teleport function. I’ll be able to take two people with me. I’m just glad you’re the only one who decided to go against my orders.”

They both stopped for a few seconds to look over at the door, believing that to be the moment one—or even all—of their friends would show that they made the same bad call. They were shocked to see that someone was indeed just stepping through the door. It wasn’t one of their friends, though. Mateo actually recognized him as one of the men that attacked Xearea in 2099. Again, though, Xearea survived that onslaught unscathed last year when he, Horace, Gilbert, and even Darko showed up to protect her. They called it the Terminator 2 Tribulation, because this man had come from the future to kill her, because he was pissed off about something she hadn’t done yet.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asked very impolitely.

Mateo checked his cuff. Twenty-five seconds. “Go.”

“Mateo...” Leona said.

“Just because I went against your orders, doesn’t mean you should go against mine. Get her out of here, for the both of us. I can’t die, remember? My fate’s been sealed.” If anything were to try to kill him, the universe itself should automatically transport him back to 2256, so he could die on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. This was how it worked with Nerakali anyway. She often let herself be almost killed, so she could escape a situation, and get another chance. She had several opportunities to do this, but Mateo probably had none. He was a lot closer to his death than her when someone swooped in to rescue him. It would be worth it, though. He had to protect Leona, and especially Xearea. The latter was destined to grow up to be the Savior of Earth, so her death was absolutely not an option.

Mateo charged the attacker, and pushed him back out into the hallway. He wasn’t exactly a trained fighter—like Darko, or his students, Slipstream and Declan—but he knew he would be able to keep this man at bay until the timer hit zero, and his chance to get to Xearea passed. He was going to die anyway, so it wasn’t like he needed to protect his own life. That gave him the freedom to fight hard, and without hesitation. His cuffs started to beep near the end. Five-beep, four-beep, three-beep, two-beep, one. No flickering this time. The building simply disappeared from under their feet. The attacker came with him back to the Parallel, so he was going to die too. It was good that he wasn’t going to get a third chance to murder a lovely person. They dropped through the air. Mateo determined there was a small chance Xearea herself would show up and teleport him to safety, or someone else like her. But no, that wasn’t going to work here. The powers that be did not have control over this reality. That was kind of the whole deal. If Leona or Mateo ever took off their cuffs, they would be off their pattern, and free from them forever. Though this also meant that no one was coming to rescue him. This was finally it. He kept falling until he hit the ground. And then he woke up.

He was submerged in a liquid; possibly just water, but he couldn’t tell. He wasn’t drowning, so it was probably the special kind of water they used on Varkas Reflex that let people breathe through their skin. He was freaking out, though. He looked over, and saw the glass of his tank, as well as two figures on the dry land beyond it. He pounded on the glass. Upon noticing this, one of them rushed over, and slammed her palm against the side of the tank. This released the water onto the floor, and him along with it. He coughed on instinct, even though he wasn’t really in any danger. He was actually feeling fine; maybe just a little weak and tired. Once he felt stable enough, he stood up, with a little from... “Paige Turner?”

“Trinity,” she corrected. She was indeed Paige, but a specific alternate version of her.

“And I’m Abigail Genifer Siskin,” another young woman said. She handed him a towel that was large enough to help him get a little dried off, but not really large enough to cover his bits.

He patted himself down. It was only then that he noticed how wrinkly his skin was. He was old. He was real old. “Report.” 

“Hm. Well, I suppose the truth will do,” Trinity said. “You’re alive.”

“What year is it?”

“2340.”

“Is this...does this have something to do with Ellie rescuing me with the extraction mirror?” he asked.

“I didn’t use the mirror.” Ellie was walking into the room.

After they dried him off more thoroughly, and dressed him in some clothes, they sat him down, and explained themselves. The extraction mirror had had nothing to do with saving him from his death. What they did was clone his body, and transfer his mind into it. That was the body he used to travel back to 2258, and get back on track, having only missed a day of his life. The body Mateo was inhabiting right now was a failed attempt at this process, before they knew how to do it right, and had to start over. That was why it was so old; because they had just left it in the tank all this time.

“It was a failsafe,” Ellie continued. “I honestly didn’t think it would work, but if something ever happened to you again, your mind was supposed to be sent across time, into another clone. I didn’t plan for it to be this clone, in this moment, but I guess I never had that much control over it. How did you die?”

“I shouldn’t tell you about that,” Mateo said. They were finally being honest with him, but that didn’t mean he could reciprocate.

“Okay,” Trinity said.

“Mmmmmmm...” Old men groan a lot, for now apparent reason. “Mmm, what should I do now?”

“Well,” Trinity began, “I can make you young again, and send you back to 2014 while I’m at it.”

“You have a homestone,” Mateo guessed.

“Yes, but I will need it back, so...”

“Can I send it through the mail?” he asked.

“Hm,” Ellie said. “Yeah, we can contact Ennis, and he’ll return it to us.”

“Okay, cool,” Mateo said.

“Yeah. The problem is, once you’re in 2014, how are you going to get back to where you belong, wherever that is?”

“That’s not your problem,” Mateo assured them. “You let me worry about it.”

“Mateo...”

“Seriously,” he promised. “I have a plan, and it’s best I don’t tell you. You let me borrow the stone, and teach me how to contact The Courier, and I’ll send it back to you. That’s all you need to know.”

Trinity and Ellie looked at each other, and seemed to have a telepathic conversation, or something. “All right, we’ll trust you.”

“Great. Now help an old man up. I’m a little shaky.”

Trinity ran off to retrieve the stone, but came back quickly, and handed it to him.

“Oh my God,” Ellie said, “I almost forgot. There’s a reason we didn’t use this clone for you before. It’s defective. You’ve fallen off of your pattern.”

“That’s okay,” Mateo responded with a wink, and a smirk. “I don’t need it anymore.” He squeezed the stone, and disappeared.

The Courier, Ennis was waiting for him in the graveyard, having received a message from Ellie, who was capable of communicating with people across time. He opened a small box, and let Mateo drop the stone into it. “Can I help you with anything else, sir?”

“Yes, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the Interagency Alliance Commission. More specifically, can you get me a meeting with Demcov Sands?”

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