Second Stage of Something Started: Rush (Part VI)

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Saga struggled to turn from her back to her side so that blood could drip out of her mouth. There was a way to survive this. Gutshots are deadly, but people survive them a long time before succumbing to death. Well, maybe that means she wouldn’t survive this. She was alone on a remote island in the South Nowhere Ocean. Hell, she didn’t even know if she was on Earth. She looked up and scanned the clearing behind her. It was upside, but why? Oh yeah, it was because she was lying on the ground, bleeding out from a G-S-W, as the say on TV. Vearden had disappeared with Makarion in thin air. There was no way to know if and when he could come back to help. She was going to have to fix this on her own.

Crawling. That was the only way to get out of this. But it was less of a crawl, and more of a slither. About twenty feet into her journey, she encountered a snake. It was passing her by, but also daydreaming, so it wasn’t paying any attention. Where was she going again? The stargate, that’s right. That was the only way off the island, and even then, it might not be operational. This was a very bad plan either way. Why was her brain so screwed up today? Slithering was no way to get around, especially after Makarion had literally torn her a new one. But she also felt incredibly lethargic, and unable to stand. Vearden wasn’t particularly strong, or at all combat ready, but he had emulated a special kind of fighting from a race of aliens they had met years ago. The first step to this was engaging an adrenaline rush. That was what she needed right now, at least that’s what made sense. It’s not like she was a doctor, or anything.

She lifted herself to her hands and knees and began to hyperventilate, occasionally punching herself in the chest. Okay, so that was not a good idea. It wasn’t working, and it was only making blood leak out of her stomach faster, so why couldn’t she stop herself? The blood loss was damaging her mental faculties, and making decision-making decisions problematic. And she also had this sneaking suspicion that it was making her repeat herself, and she was also having trouble making decisions also. Then Saga opened her eyes and realized that it was twilight. She had been lying on her back for what was probably hours. Someone had taken her shirt off and wrapped it around her stomach to keep pressure on her wound. It took her a few minutes to remember that this mysterious stranger was herself.

A different stranger entirely came over her, preparing to attack. He wasn’t technically a stranger, though. She and Vearden had met him earlier in the day. They played a round of golf together, which was a lot of fun, but resulted in her having to murder him in front of his brother. Sevastian, that is, not Vearden. How Sevastian was alive and kicking...literally, was something she couldn’t understand. He didn’t look hurt, or at all weakened. He was, however, enraged from having been this close to death. His parents probably should have named him Karma.

“You goddamn bitch!” Sevastian towered over her like a bear, arms raised and everything. He dipped down, trying to scratch at her, but it was like he wasn’t quite sure which direction the ground was.

Saga crabwalked backwards, desperately trying to get away from him, like a pretty girl in a horror film. “I’m sorry!”

“No, you’re not!” he yelled.

“I didn’t want to kill you! Makarion made me! It was either you or us, and I chose us! You made the same call!”

“But you’re a good person! You’re not supposed to hurt people! You were a nurse!”

Saga was even more confused than before. “When did I tell you that?”

“I know everything,” he claimed.

“How could you?”

“Because I’m Batman,” Sevastian answered in a raspy voice. He finally seemed to have figured out exactly where she was. A hundred and eight arms reached down to her, clawing at her skin, but never tearing it and drawing blood. The arms weren’t just trying to kill her; this was torture.

“No, please no!” Saga pleaded, but was met with nothing but disgust.

Vearden’s loud whispery voice rang out from all directions, “It’ll come back around.”

Saga woke to find herself flolloping and globbering, her heart racing towards quadruple digits. She was pumped. Adrenaline rushed throughout her body and pulled her into standing position, eventually allowing her to start running through the jungle. She knocked into trees and tripped over roots, but nothing ever stopped her. She always righted herself and kept going without missing a beat. In her heart, she knew that Sevastian had never really been there, that it was just a dream, but she kept believing in the fear of him. It was the only thing keeping her from curling into a ball and drifting away. The torn shirt that was wrapped around her torso was soaked through with blood, but there was nothing to do about it now. Getting to the stargate was her only shot. Hopefully there was a way to make it work without help from Makarion.

Finally she was at the beach, stargate in view, lit up partially by a set of safety lights along the side of the ramp leading up to it. Oh, and there was also a polar bear. It was just standing on the ramp, staring at her. “Is this the part where you attack?” she asked politely.

It didn’t answer, because it was a bear.

“Shall I not pass?”

It still didn’t answer, but it did move out of the way, so maybe that was an answer.

Saga nodded cordially. She just about reached out to pet its fur, but caught herself just in time. No need to push her luck. She placed her hands on her hips and examined the piece of machinery before her as the bear slowly headed for the tree line. It felt real; not like a prop. The ring itself could spin around, which was probably true to the mythology of the show. There seemed to be no way of activating it, though. There were no buttons or switches. The characters probably just spun it around like a rotary phone, but what was the phone number? Makarion didn’t so much as snap his fingers when he first left them alone on the island. He was a powerful time traveler, so maybe that was what it took. No, that can’t be it. He wanted the two of them to transport building material to the island from God knows where, and he surely didn’t want to have to open the door for them each time. Besides, they were freakin’ door-walkers. This was their thing. Though, come to think of it, Vearden was more the door-walker. Saga was often transported to other places just by walking forwards, sometimes without even realizing it had happened. Oh. That’s the walking part of door-walking. It’s a pun! Sort of. She took a deep breath, keeling over a little under the returned pain of the gunshot wound. “One chance,” she hissed.

As Saga walked across the event horizon, the scene changed. She was on the edge of a battlefield. Gunshots, explosions, and other death noises polluted the sky. Men screamed out of rage in her right ear, but out of pain in her left.

“Hey!” she heard, but was too delirious to care whether the voice was calling to her. “Hey, are you hurt!” he cried.

“I’m...” Saga began as the figure of a man came up to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m not part of this.”

“Yes, I can see that, but you’re bleeding. I can help.”

“Can you?” she asked. “It looks pretty dangerous here.”

“Yes,” the man replied. “This is World War I.”

Even through the delirium, Saga knew that that was a strange answer. “If it’s the first great war, how do you know there will be another one?”

The man laughed. “What’s your name?”

“Saga Einarsson, why?”

“Pleased to meet you, Saga.” He started to lead her towards the tent. “My name is Doctor Baxter Sarka. We better get you patched up and into new clothes. That kind of bra doesn’t really exist here in 1918, but you’ll be safe with the salmon battalion.”

By the time Saga had sufficiently recovered from her wound, the war was practically over. The salmon battalion was gradually sent back to the future, leaving her and Baxter alone. She ended up following him to his next assignment to assist him with treating infamous salmon Mateo Matic after he donated a kidney to his partner. A much earlier version of Vearden showed up to heal Mateo after a bad reaction, but she managed to stay out of sight. After that job was done, she continued as Dr. Sarka’s nurse for the next six years or so.

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Microstory 325: Love

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Family Support

Sophie Love Highfill, on her first night at her new home. Yes, her real middle name was Love.

I’ve heard people explain what’s happening when someone feels love. They speak of brain chemical messengers, hormones, and other bodily reactions. They seem to think these explanations are sufficient proof that love “isn’t real”. Legitimate scientists, however, don’t lose their fascination for a scientific phenomenon after learning how it works. I’m going to tell you a little bit about my spiritual beliefs, and I call it spirituality because none of your religions make any sense to me. I’ve spoken on this before, but with a fictional slant, so here is only how I truly feel. I believe that nearly everyone has a soul, and those that don’t are known to as sociopaths. The soul is a tangibly intangible some sort of nothingness from another dimension with a connection to other souls on the quantum level. Animals are born without souls, but can obtain them later through the love of a human. We call these pets. Trying this method with a sociopath is more difficult, but not impossible, which is one reason compassionate caregivers are so important to a person’s upbringing. Our souls are in constant flux by the input they receive from the people and conditions around them. When a person dies, their body decays, their consciousness dissipates, but their soul recedes deeper into its dimension to live on forever. At this point, the soul is unchanging except by the general state of humanity. Your goal in life is to fuel the soul collective with goodness. The afterlife is not a place. Your soul persists either through eternal bliss, or eternal itch. It’s up to you to decide which it’s going to be, but keep in mind that your choices have an effect on humankind. Every ensouled person needs love, and deserves it. Ignoring all specifics, the only reason any ensouled person is bad is ultimately because of a lack of love. Love everyone, including yourself, and you’ll be well on your way to happiness.

Civilization

Microstory 324: Family Support

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Life Balance

I don’t think I have to tell you how important family is, so what’s the point of spending 324 words on it? Why, because I committed to this series, and I’m gonna see it through. That word family is thrown around a whole lot, and this so often bothers me. Many believe themselves to be indebted to people they are related to just because of their connection. They say that you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. But that’s not how it works. A family is a stronger bond than friendship, but is built just the same. You choose who you consider to be part of your family, and who you don’t. I’m not going to get into specifics, but there are people I’m related to who are decidedly not my family. You can’t run around, doing whatever you want, and expect people to stick with you. Likewise, if you have a family member partaking in behavior you find offensive, cut them off...at least after spending a sufficient amount of effort trying to help them. Do not fall into the trap of unconditional love. All love has, and should have, conditions. My family has the right, and in some cases an obligation, to disown me if I become a rapist, a serial killer, or hell, even a republican. I would not deserve their respect if I turned into, or turned out to be, a monster. I certainly wouldn’t deserve their love. Mistakes are one thing, but clear and obvious bad choices are an entirely different animal. It’s ironic that people use the idiom blood is thicker than water in the completely wrong way. The original phrase was something more like the blood of the battle is thicker than the water of the womb. Your true family is composed of people you love, and fight with. Never take your family for granted, and always protect them...but only when they deserve it.

Love

Microstory 323: Life Balance

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Nutrition

I’ve never much liked stories of the battle between good and evil because nobody ever really wins. They always throw in this concept that the fight is a perpetual one, and that there’s no way to defeat evil, but that the only goal is maintaining balance. This is a ridiculous suggestion, and one that does more harm than people realize. First off, writers only do this to explain why their God doesn’t just reach down and fix things. If that’s your best explanation, then maybe you ought to rethink your beliefs. Another problem with this is that it gives people justification for making poor choices. Too many people are on the wrong side of an argument because they think there is inherent value in opposition. For a long time, I considered John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to be my favorite book. The truth is that I remember little of it, and one of my only take-aways was one character’s revelation that bad things happen only as a result of choices. There is no good, and no evil; there is only the constant chain of causality. Life is all about making the right choices, and one should always strive to ensure that the number of good choices outweigh the bad by as much as possible. Please do not mistake the word balance for the word even. This is not about keeping the scales at an equilibrium, despite how you may interpret the title of this story. I suppose I’m really trying to drive home two things here. The first is that evil does not exist. People are just people, and are the result of either their own choices, or the choices of those around them. The second is that there’s always hope for you. Whenever you feel like you’ve dug yourself a hole you can’t get out of, never give up. Every attempt you make will draw you closer to better balanced scales.

Family Support

Microstory 322: Nutrition

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Geographic Stability Part II

I’ve already discussed nutrition with you in this series, but I wanted to swing back around to it once more, because it’s so important. I’m going to be talking about general life balance in the next story, but I wanted to focus on the nutritional aspect of that for its own separate microstory. I’ve done a not insignificant amount of research into diet fads, looking to find the right one. None has helped me all that much, mostly because I have trouble with commitment and discipline. But they wouldn’t have helped either way, because most are not designed with balance in mind. Out of all types of people who cut out certain foods for moral reasons, the only ones I respect are fruitarians. They make a conscious decision to not kill living organisms. Not even vegans can boast such integrity. Unfortunately, fruitarians are missing out on vital nutritional substances, and just about the only way for them to integrate these things into their diet is with supplements. As excited as I am about future health and technological advances, pills will never be a viable substitute for actual food. If you’re participating in a particular diet, unless maybe (maybe) it’s based only on proportioning, you’re losing out. The real key is moderation. When I was a kid, my school taught us something called The Food Pyramid, which has apparently since been removed from the curriculum. I imagine they did this either because the proportions were unrealistic, or because children found it hard make the connection between it and actual meals. It probably wasn’t because it was a triangle, and not a pyramid. Sorry, always bugged me. Either way, it felt irrelevant to me. Other people were telling me what to eat, and I rarely had much of a choice anyway. I was also doing a lot of incidental exercise, but that was not going to last, which leads us to the next story...

Life Balance

Microstory 321: Geographic Stability Part II

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Geographic Stability Part I

I decided to break this step into two parts, because the subject is important, and can’t be addressed within only 320 words. Climate change is not something I’m well versed in. When I was in eighth grade, I found myself failing science class, which was a big blow because I had intended to become a scientist. In truth, I didn’t do all that well in school in general. I do, however, conduct constant self-driven research. I like to look into things, trying to make sense of the world around me. I’ve always had an interest in knowing a little bit about most everything, but never becoming an expert on any one thing. So even though I can’t say exactly what’s causing climate change, or what we can do to stop it, I know it’s real. I know that no self-respecting scientist denies that things are getting worse. The only question they have is to what degree it’s happening, and how much humans are contributing to these problems. I want to make sure you understand that seeking Geographic Stability for the purpose of being happy does not mean that a perfect place to live even exists. Also in eighth grade, I knew a classmate who wasn’t worried about the ice caps melting “because they [were] so far away”. He was too stupid to get the fact that liquids always move towards surface equilibrium. And though I think climate change deniers are smart enough to get this particular thing, there’s this attitude that it’s something people in developed nations don’t have to worry about. But nowhere on Earth is safe. Everyone is in danger of ecological disaster, due to more complex causality chains than simple water displacement. Even if you think you’re too old for it to matter, you’re not; it’s happening literally right now. There are things you can do to help, though, namely by voting for candidates who recognize the truth.

Nutrition

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: 2074, 2075, and 2076

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Darko threaded all three of them through the future timestream of a tree in the middle of the woods. Very little had changed from their surroundings, but they did look different. “Okay,” Mateo said. “So this is 2074.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Are we going to use the same tree to get to 2075?”

“We’re not,” Leona explained. “We have to mix it up, so Makarion can’t find us.”

“Like running in serpentine.”

Darko laughed. “That’s a funny analogy, but I’ll allow it.”

“Well, if we’re staying here for some time, where are we going to go?”

“Give me a minute,” Leona said as she was working her magic on her device. After almost an hour, she seemed to have a plan. “You’re gonna call me crazy, so if we could please just take the train to Gabon without any questions, that would be lovely.”

“I don’t have any questions about why we’re going there,” Mateo said. “I mean, I do, but I won’t ask them. The only questions I have are where is Gabon, and how do we get there?”

“We take the train,” Leona answered. “Obviously, we don’t have to sit there through the whole thing. It’s over eight thousand kilometers away, but Darko can skip us through the whole thing. They built a coastal vactrain down parts of Europe and Africa.”

“Where does that begin?” Darko asked.

“We really just need to get to the border of France and Spain.”

Darko clapped his hands together, as if in preparation for a magical spell. “All right, I’m trusting you to get us to where we need to go.”

Leona did further research and found a way for Darko to thread them to Cerbère, France through a public bus. From there, they snuck into the vactrain track without a ticket. Before anyone could catch them, they had jumped all the way to the end of the course, several hours in the future. There was no indication that anyone had any idea where they were, or even that they were still alive. They desperately wanted to contact their family to let them know that they were safe, but they needed to maintain plausible deniability.

“All right, I’ve never had more fun not riding a train,” Mateo said. “Where to next?”

Leona smiled, almost sinisterly, and looked towards the sky. “Up. But we can’t do it for another year.”

Darko found a random vehicle to thread them all the way to 2075. From there, Leona created for them new identities so that they could rent their own car and travel to something called the Space Elevator. A giant metallic structure towered above them. It rose up so high that Mateo lost it to the clouds. If the name meant anything, then it was high enough to reach space itself. He didn’t do the best in science class, but he did remember learning that at no point does the atmosphere end where outer space begins. The air gradually becomes thinner, eventually succumbing to the vacuum.

“The top of the Space Elevator exists in orbit at about 36,000 kilometers above the surface of the Earth,” Leona said, like a high school teacher. “It’s used to transport cargo out of the atmosphere so that it can be taken to other locations, like Luna or Mars, without having to waste so much fuel propelling a ship off the ground.”

“Why would we go all the way up there?” Mateo asked. “I understand that Makarion wouldn’t likely look for us there, but we would also be stuck in space. Then what?”

“We’re not going to remain in orbit,” Leona said. “What we need is on Mars.”

“And what might that be?”

“Safe haven.”

“We’re moving to Mars?”

“For a period of time, yes. For everyone else it’ll be decades, but for us, only a few weeks. By then, this will all hopefully have blown over.”

“That sounds like wishful thinking,” Darko said.

“I don’t want to be away from my family for that long,” Mateo complained. “Do you?”

“I do not,” Leona admitted, “but this is the only way to keep them safe.”

Mateo wasn’t so sure. “Is it, though?”

“You agreed to not ask any questions.”

“I wouldn’t have agreed to that had I known what the answers would be.”

Leona began a line of questioning. “Do you want to get away from Makarion?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to protect our family?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust me?”

He could not answer that at this time.

“Do you trust me?” Leona repeated.

Still no answer.

“I guess that means no.”

“Leona, this is...you have to admit that this is a strange plan, even for us. You can’t just go off to Mars. Barely anyone lives there at this point in history, I would imagine. They would surely notice a few stowaways.”

“We will have protection.”

“From whom?” Mateo was skeptical. “Why can’t you just tell us?”

“I have my reasons. Are you with me, or not?”

Mateo only sighed.

“Mateo!”

“Yes, I’m with you. We’ll go to Mars...and see what happens.”

They never actually reached the space elevator itself. Instead, they snuck into a small facility on the edge of campus. Leona was consulting her computer while she was looking for a bit of cargo in particular. Once she found what she was looking for, she asked Darko to use it to take them to 2076.

“Are you sure about this?” Darko asked. “My body has certain instincts that prevent me from threading an object to a moment in time when it happens to be at the bottom of an ocean, or even inside a cupboard, but I’ve never gone into space. If the ship explodes or something in the meantime, we could end up in the vacuum. Or maybe this piece of equipment is just going to be placed out in the open. There’s no way for me to be certain it’s safe.”

“I know what it is,” Leona said, still displeased with their distrust of her. “It’ll be inside the base, I promise. And the ship’s not going to explode. Besides, something tells me you’re not the kind of person who avoids risky behavior.”

Darko smiled. “No, I guess I’m not.”

In a split second, they were on Mars in 2076. At least, that’s where they assumed they were. There were no windows in the closet they found themselves in. There were, however, clothes there for them to put on so that they could blend in. That was lucky, just like when Mateo ended up in Reaver’s facility back in 2034. Upon leaving the closet, they discovered themselves to be in an underground part of the base. “We’re going to need to get to a different tower to find our room,” Leona said, looking through data on her device. “There’s a tunnel, though, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“What exactly is in this room?” Darko asked as they were moving through the tunnel. “And enough of the no questions thing. We deserve to know.”

“A friend,” she said bluntly.

“A friend?” Mateo scrunched up his face in confusion. “All the way out here? Who do we know on Mars in 2076?”

“We don’t know anyone in 2076,” Leona corrected. “He won’t show up until 2077.”

Mateo crooked his neck, recalling past events. “Do I know this person?”

“I believe you do,” Leona confirmed. “Though you were a little preoccupied with a pretty girl at the time.”

No. Really? He was pretty sure he knew what guy Leona was thinking of. “Are you talking about Mirage?”

Leona laughed. “I am indeed.”

“So that means...?” Mateo began, now more sure his guess was right.

She answered his unfinished question, “yep.”

Now Darko was the only one confused. “Who the hell are we talking about?”

Leona hacked into the door console and entered the room she wanted. It was empty, but there was clearly someone living there at the time. “We don’t know when the current resident will be back. So you better find something to thread us to our final destination.”

Darko walked over to a lamp in the corner and waited for the two of them to place their hands on his shoulder. “I hope you can trust this guy.”

“We’ve chosen to trust you,” Leona said, “despite what we know of your personal future.”

It was unclear whether the man they met upon arriving in 2077 was going to be an ally, because he did not look happy to see them. “Not you two again,” Commander Julius Parker said to them.

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Second Stage of Something Started: Observers (Part V)

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Vearden never had a thirst for blood, and never thought he would kill anyone, not a human anyway. But this was different. Saga was in danger, and that always put him in a special state of anger. This Makarion guy had been toying with them for the last couple days, which was annoying, but their whole lives were meant to be nothing but challenges. Once he made them play the golf game of death, though, there was no saving him. Even if he had never killed anyone himself, he enjoyed putting people in no-win situations. He was basically just the character of Jigsaw, but without the tricycle. He was having the Colosseum built for nefarious purposes; there was now no doubt about that. Someone had to do something about him. He had to be stopped. Might as well be Vearden.

Unfortunately, he was growing tired, and the blood rampage was wearing off. Presumably, Gondilak could keep ahold of it indefinitely, but Vearden was human, and had his limits. In a matter of only seconds, they were really just two men fighting. It wasn’t epic or badass. There were no jump kicks or backflips. There was just sweat, skin, and spit.

“Stop right now!” Saga ordered.

Vearden immediately backed off, not because he saw the gun in his partner’s hand, but because he trusted her.

Makarion backed off because of the gun.

“Now we’re here to help people,” she continued. “That’s what we do. We may be freelancers, but we don’t kill people! You corrupted our morals. You turned us into killers. That is not supposed to be the deal.”

“You’re not here to help people,” Makarion explained angrily. “You’re here on a whim. The only difference between that other planet you were on and this island and is now it’s my whim. You don’t serve a purpose, Saga. You’re just a game piece.”

“Well now I’m a game piece who has a gun, so you’re gonna open that stargate and take us back to Stonehenge where we can sort this all out.”

“Who has the gun?” Makarion snapped his fingers, landing in the familiar vague shape of a gun. The sound of a real gun went off, however.

Vearden thought Saga had shot Makarion, but it was the other way around. In Makarion’s other hand was another revolver, a slight wisp of smoke curling out of the end. But it wasn’t another revolver, it was the same one. He had used his ability to steal it from Saga. Vearden wanted to go help her, but his masculine instincts kicked back in, this time without the benefit of the blood rampage.

The two men began to fight again, but this felt much different. Vearden could see the scene change behind Makarion’s shoulder, as if there were a portal. But they were not in front of a portal, they had just straight up teleported. He looked behind himself to see what was very clearly The Constant. It was a special building in the middle of nowhere Kansas. Construction workers had built it underground an unknown amount of time ago, designing it to accommodate salmon on vacation. Almost nothing in it had changed since Vearden had first taken refuge long ago. The Concierge was still there, and as young as ever, even though she would have to be at least centuries old. Makarion jabbed him right in the face, so Vearden lifted his leg and slammed it into his stomach, forcing him to trip over the coffee table. No, it didn’t collapse under him, because no one wants to own a table that just falls apart so easily.

“Dad? What’s going on?” His daughter, Laura was there, along with Saga’s son, Samwise. Some girl he didn’t recognize was with them.

The Concierge pursed her lips and waved her finger around. “Nope, nope, nope! This is 2034, you are absolutely not supposed to be here right now!”

“The year 2034? What?”

Before he could ask further questions, Makarion had recovered and tackled him to the floor. No, the ground. It was grassy and dewy. They were in Stonehenge, just like Saga had wanted, but in what year?

“Okay, this is getting weird, Makarion said. He climbed off of Vearden and crept forward. They could faintly hear voices on the other side of the stones.

Vearden crept alongside him, more curious about what was going on than he was angry at Makarion. Saga was shot and hurt, so he would need to get back, but that apparently wouldn’t happen for another few decades. The Delegator would know how to return to her.

They drew closer and could hear him speaking, “that’s the brilliant thing. Every salmon is given assignments. It’s my job to dole them out. But you’re different. To my knowledge, you don’t have any responsibilities. It’s my assumption the powers that be want to see what you do on your own.”

They peeked out from behind one of the stones and watched as Mateo and Leona disappeared from sight, leaving the Delegator alone. “I know what this is. This is when Mateo and Leona first come here. This is...” he had to think about the history. He knew entirely too much about all of them. “This is the year 1517.”

“Saga and I left 1517 and came here just before meeting you.”

The Delegator had come up to them as they were looking away. “Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet. You’ve just stepped into your own past. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, and I don’t wanna know. I just want you gone before the past version of yourself shows up and wonders why there’s another him.”

“We have no idea how we got here,” Vearden said honestly.

“I might have an idea.” He tentatively lifted his hand and slowly moved it towards Vearden’s arm.

As soon as he took hold, the scene changed again. Fire raged all around them, burning trees and stealing their oxygen. A fiery branch fell down between them. “Get us the hell out of here!” Vearden yelled.

“I can’t do it on my own!” Makarion called back, trying to breath through his sleeve. “Something happens when we make physical contact!”

“Okay, you come to me!”

“No, you come to me!”

“Goddammit, get the hell over here!”

“Son of a bitch, fine!” Makarion looked all around him to make sure nothing was going to kill him. Vearden was torn between wanting something to snap him up, and needing him to get back to Saga. “This is the Yellowstone fire of 2039,” he informed him, for no apparent reason.

Vearden tried reaching for him, only to be rejected. “Don’t you want to leave?”

“I think you may be in control of this,” Makarion explained. “I can control where I teleport, but I can’t travel through time. You can travel through time, but you can’t control it. I think we combined our powers.

“Okay...?”

“I told you when and where we are so that you understand this power. Concentrate on when and where you want to be, and that’s where we’ll end up.”

Vearden closed his eyes and thought about the island where they had left Saga. But he didn’t want to land back there at the exact same moment. He wanted to get there before so he could stop her from getting shot in the first place; perhaps even stop them from having to kill the brothers. He could feel Makarion’s hand on his shoulder, and he instinctively reopened his eyes.

They were standing on a bridge in the dark. A train was coming right for them. “That didn’t work,” Captain Obvious said.

Between them and the train were three figures which disappeared just before being run into. “Ya think?”

“Just take us anywhere.” He placed each hand on either of Vearden’s shoulders.

“Not again.” A man Vearden didn’t know was rolling his eyes at them. “I just got rid of you people! Literally ten seconds ago!”

They found themselves in a pristine room that looked like a laboratory or something. “Where are we?” Makarion asked.

The man scrunched his face in disgust and pointed to the wall with his middle finger as if they should already know the answer.

Out of the window they could see planet Earth. “Is this the moon?”

“No, it’s Mars, dipshit,” the man said, of course sarcastically. “I am Commander Parker, King of the Mascos!”

Makarion squinted his eyes and asked, “who like us have you met?”

“I dunno, a bunch of people. I didn’t care about their names.”

“Was one of them named Mateo?”

He sighed out of exhaustion. “Yeah, I think that’s what they said.”

“Just as I suspected,” Makarion said, nodding his head.

“Shut up.”

“We’re jumping into important moments of Mateo’s timestream. God, that guy’s so important, and I do not know why.”

“Well, how do we get back?” Vearden demanded to know.

“All we can do is keep trying.” This time, Makarion cupped Vearden’s cheeks in his hands, but not in a good way, because he was a psychopath.

As Makarion was releasing his hands, they could hear an alarm blaring, and a voice on the intercom. “That is it! I’m calling in the cavalry. This is who we’re lookin’ for!” The walls around them turned out to be computer screens. Each panel was displaying a picture of Mateo Matic. Horace Reaver was in the midst of trying to capture him, as always. But that battle had already been won from Vearden’s perspective, so there was nothing left to do about it now. “Bring him in and I’ll write a blank check!”

“God, I hate that man so much.” Makarion had a deep scowl on his face. He really meant it.

“He sounds like your kinda guy.”

Makarion squeezed Vearden’s arms against his body with the fire of a thousand suns. “Don’t you ever compare me to Horace Reaver ever again! You under-fucking-stand me?”

Vearden nodded then looked around. They were outside, and it was a bit difficult to breathe, so they must have been pretty high up in the air. It seemed to be some kind of town. Three men were sneakily running across the lawn. One of them was Mateo, the other was Reaver, and the third was someone Vearden didn’t recognize.

Makarion looked horrified. This was different than his hatred of Reaver. “I don’t wanna be here. Not again.”

They were standing in a gigantic cavernous amphitheatre. The ceiling was showing the sky in various locations, like a constantly changing portal. Vearden wanted to admire it, but Makarion would have none of it, and they did hear what sounded like rushing water barreling towards them from the corridor behind them. “Ugh, I don’t want to be here again either!”

“Hello,” Doctor Baxter Sarka said to them. “Sorry, I was just doing a consult here. I’ll leave you two to grieve in peace.” They were in the special graveyard where salmon are buried. Vearden had only been there once, but he remembered it as an impactful experience.

“That’s okay, we were just leaving,” Makarion said.

A young woman was staring at them midstride, like a cat burglar who had just been caught. Vearden and Makarion were standing on a mattress in the middle of the floor of a warehouse. How odd.

“You understand how time travel works, yeah?” Makarion asked.

“Um...” she began.

“Causality, paradoxes, E-T-C?”

“I do.”

“Then when I tell you to forget you ever saw us, you recognize the importance of that.”

“I do, yes,” the woman replied.

“Perfect. Byeeeee.”

“Oh my God,” Vearden said. “Where the hell are we now? I just want to get back to Saga.” They were in a cemetery, but a much larger one than before.

“She’s right over there.”

Vearden looked to where Makarion was pointing. He could see an earlier version of himself, along with an earlier version of Saga. This was March 21, 2014; the night Mateo first began his pattern of jumping forwards one year every day. They were there to witness it that night; after finishing their first mission, and before going back in time to live with Samuel and Laurel.

“And there’s Mateo,” Makarion moved his hand to a separate group of people. “And there’s also Mateo.” He was right. Birthday boy, Mateo was standing in the middle of the crowd, hanging out with his friends. But another Mateo was standing with two guys he didn’t recognize, and the girl from the warehouse jump. That must be Leona. He wished he had known that then.

Vearden threw up his hands and plopped down on the ground. “We’re never getting back!”

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