The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 19, 2073 (continued)

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“Get out of the car,” Darko ordered.

“What just happened?” Mateo asked in a panic.

“Leave the car now and ask questions later,” Darko said authoritatively.

They slipped out of their respective doors and slinked over to hide behind a large pile of boxes and random parts they couldn’t identify. They were back in the warehouse where they were first sent off on their Transporter tribulation. The car was not a burning pile of wreckage, nor were the three of them dead. Mateo didn’t quite know how many times he was sure he was going to die, but he was starting to think he would be better of counting the times they lived.

“Leona,” Darko went on, “hack into the car’s cameras and erase the last two minutes of footage.”

Leona only tapped a few  buttons on her computer.

“That was quick,” Mateo said, impressed.

“I had already written that function into the program.”

“Quiet now,” Darko said in a loud whisper.

They watched as their own past selves were apported into the warehouse right next to the car. Darko had threaded them through the car, back in time to just before they started the tribulation. It was a bizarre experience, watching his past self open the door for Leona’s past self so she didn’t have to look up from her computer. Mateo had been to the past before, and seen his first jump through time in the graveyard decades ago, but that felt more like a movie. Seeing himself just a few hours ago somehow felt more real, like an out-of-body experience.

The older version of Leona was still typing on her computer, but more quietly, as their past selves drove off. “There are no cameras in the warehouse, at least none that I can find.”

“Good,” Darko said with relief. “We have to go.”

“Why did we not think to do this before?” Leona asked while they were escaping the warehouse, “to escape Makarion?”

“It is not as simple as that,” Darko explained as the three of them walked down the streets on the edge of town, keeping their heads on swivels. “The powers that be do not appreciate when choosers disrupt salmon patterns. I was only able to take you back a day because it didn’t break your pattern; it just delayed it.”

“What about when you took us back to 2014?” Mateo asked.

“I was able to thread you back to 2014 because, from the security guard’s hat’s perspective, 2014 was only earlier that day. I didn’t know I would be using that loophole when I asked you for the hat in the first place.”

“The original Rogue manipulated our pattern all the time,” Mateo pointed out, “especially mine.”

Darko nodded his head, clearly expecting this line of questioning. “He had his own loopholes to exploit, and he was far more powerful than I could ever be. With me, you can either go back over the day you’re already on, or quickly skip to the next one.”

“One day would be all we need, though,” Leona said. “That doesn’t explain why we didn’t try this before. Makarion’s not looking for us because he thinks we’re driving in the car, completing his tribulation...because we are. The other us, that is.”

“Makarion has someone working above him,” Darko said. “I suspected there was someone else, and he confirmed his subservience to this mysterious unknown party after you got back from the dancing tribulation. I think it’s how he knows so much about all of us.”

“So?” Mateo asked. “Go on...”

“So we don’t know who this person is, or what they can do,” Darko said. “They could be watching us right now, like the Cleanser does. We’re not out of the woods yet. We can try to get away, hoping Makarion thinks we’re dead by day’s end, but that’s predicated on the idea that no one else knows we’re here.”

“We have to hope he doesn’t look too hard at the wreckage too,” Mateo said. “There aren’t any bodies in there.”

“This is true,” Darko agreed.

“All we have is hope anyway,” Leona said.

They had turned onto a dirt road that looked like it went on for miles, away from civilization. Rather, it went on for kilometers. Mateo jumped a little and stopped, “our death bracelets.” He looked at his own wrist to find the death bracelet was apparently off. There were no working indicator lights. “Hm. Let me guess, going back in time deactivated them because they interfered with their past selves? Some kind of entropic cascade failure...or something?”

Leona laughed. “Nope. That’s what I was doing on my computer while we were driving; figuring out how to dismantle the bracelets. It’s a good thing I did, because Makarion would otherwise have six bracelets to track, and would know what’s happened. When we get to a safe place, I’ll start working on removing them completely, just in case.”

“Where might a safe place be?” Darko was still not sure they would get out of this.

Leona went over scenarios in her head. “If you jump us forward exactly a year and a day, it doesn’t break our pattern, right? I mean, if the Rogue was able to keep Mateo in a time bubble across a single day, then surely you could use the same method, but  in reverse.”

“You mean speed up your pattern? I’ve mentioned that I can.” Darko thought about this. “Why would we do that?”

“Best case scenario is that Makarion thinks we’re dead in 2073,” Leona started to go over it. “If he suspects you did something, then he either thinks we’re in the past, or the future.”

“That’s a wide range of possibilities,” Mateo noted. “He would always be looking for us.”

“I’m focusing on the ‘wide range of possibilities’ part,” Leona said. “I think that’s too much for him. Yes, this other chooser he’s working with may be powerful enough to find us, but let’s ignore that, because worrying about him or her does us no good. If we just worry about Makarion, he can’t find us in the past, because we could be anywhere in the world by the time we catch up to his timestream.”

“I am so confused,” Mateo said helplessly.

“The details don’t matter. All we can do is try to get away. The only question is how many years you want me to skip.”

“I hear 2078 is beautiful this time of year,” Leona said confidently.

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Second Stage of Something Started: Lost (Part IV)

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They woke at first light and looked at Step One in their instructions for the Colosseum job. They were being asked to find a nice open space to build the whole structure. The best way to know where to find this was to climb up to the highest point. Otherwise, they would have to search the entire island. Again, they didn’t know how much time they had, but starting early was the best plan of action. They ate a couple of the freeze-dried meals Makarion left for them in the survival pack, then they headed out. The climb up the mountain wasn’t all that bad. They suffered some bug bites and burr scratches, but that was nothing compared to the lives they had led up until that point. What they discovered upon reaching the summit was possibly the scariest part. They didn’t have binoculars, but they could see something white and big moving in the middle of the valley of a mesa down below. No, it wasn’t just moving, it was crawling. It could have been a bear, and in fact probably was. In another life, Saga had been a huge fan of the television show LOST. “Perfect,” she whispered.

“That’s a golf course.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, I meant to phrase that as a question. That’s a golf course?!”

“Of course it is,” Saga answered before beginning the climb back down. “They build it in episode nine.”

“What?”

By the time they got all the way down to the makeshift golf course, the polar bear was gone, if it was even ever there. Two people they didn’t recognize were standing by one of the flags, as if waiting for them. “You must be our competition,” one of them said.

“Are we?” Vearden asked.

“Only one team gets to build the Colosseum,” the other one explained. “Did the Rogue not tell you this?”

“Who is the Rogue?”

“Makarion.”

“Oh, yes,” Saga said. “I mean, no, he didn’t say anything about another team.”

“So we’ll be golfing for the contract?” Vearden asked. “Like rich idiots whacking balls around while hammering out business deals?”

“I thought you didn’t watch the show,” Saga lamented.

“What show?” Vearden asked.

“Are we gonna do this thing,” the first guy began impatiently, “or just talk about it? The wind’ll pick up soon.”

The other one felt the need to mediate. “What my brother, Octavian is trying to say is that bad things happen when you keep the Rogue waiting.” He lifted his hand. “I’m Sevastian, by the way.”

“Saga and Vearden.”

Sevastian motioned for his brother to be polite as well.

Octavian reluctantly shook their hands. “You must be the door-walking freelancers.”

“We are.”

“Well, let’s play, door-walkers.”

After losing the game, Saga and Vearden found themselves rushing through the jungle. What they hadn’t known at the beginning was that they were competing not for the contract to build the Colosseum, but for the right to live long enough to build it. Had they won, they wouldn’t have been able to go through with this task, but Sevastian and Octavian seemed to have no trouble with it. In fact, they were acting like their responsibility was no different than any other day. Perhaps they had killed people before. Saga and Vearden were no strangers to death, but they had never been the direct cause of it. Vearden drove the first ambulance back in 1487 during the Siege of Málaga while Saga was a nurse at the hospital. It is there that they met their spouses-to-be. Vearden’s future wife, Violante was a nurse as well. Saga’s future husband, Hernán was an injured soldier that they all treated. The two of them had spent the majority of their lives helping and healing people. They didn’t want to kill. They would never kill. But it was either them or the brothers. They had to find a way out of this.

“We have to get back to the stargate,” Vearden eked out while they were at a jog, unable to keep the high pace from the beginning of their escape attempt.

“We don’t know how to operate that thing,” Saga noted.

“I do not intend to operate it,” he replied. “The guns should still be under the ramp.”

She pulled him down so that they could hide under some brush. “I thought we didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“This is our island. We can’t leave, even if we had the means to do so. If we don’t fight back, we’re just going to keep running and hiding. That’s not practical. Somebody’s going to die, and somebody’s going to build a Colosseum. I know which one I choose.”

“So we shoot them?”

“It’s a lot more humane than their plan to bash us over the heads with golf clubs.”

“Were there even bullets in the guns?”

“Yes, twelve. I did look.”

“Violante would be disappointed in you.”

“My wife is dead, and has been for centuries, so I don’t really have time to worry about what she might have thought.”

“You don’t know she’s dead.”

“She’s dead to me, just the same.”

“Okay, well what would your daughter say?”

“Stop putting up roadblocks!” Vearden yelled. “I’m trying to get us out of here!”

They could hear Sevastian and Octavian draw nearer. “I think I heard them somewhere around here,” one of them, doesn’t matter which, said.

Saga and Vearden stopped talking and kept their heads down. They watched as feet walked by, still on the hunt for their prey. Saga wanted to point out that this was an iconic scene in the second season of LOST, but she managed to stay quiet. Once the danger seemed to have passed, they stood up and started running again, this time in a completely different direction. They were able to make it about a half-mile before Sevastian plowed into Saga like a bull, dropping them both halfway into a shallow creek. Vearden tried to run back and help, but was stopped by Octavian.

“Just let it happen,” Octavian growled.

Vearden called upon his memory of fighting the two Gondilak on Orolak many years ago, and also of some things they had later taught him. Though they were an extremely sophisticated race, they had a special brand of battle. They didn’t learn technique or control. They learned to let go. They summoned their baser instincts and forced themselves into a kind of fugue state they referred to as the blood rampage, so that all of their reservations could drift to the side. He had never actually tried this himself, but there was no time like the present. He first pushed Octavian away from his person and knelt only one knee on the ground, holding balance with the opposite fist. He began to hyperventilate himself, increasing in speed and intensity with every breath.

“What the hell is he doing?” Octavian screamed to his brother who had Saga pinned down, but was too intrigued by Vearden to continue his assault.

Vearden ignored them and went about his routine, purposefully allowing slobber to spray out of his clenched teeth like a rabid animal. He added a voice to the barrage of breaths to convert them into howls. Part of this ritual was to enter the battle state, but also to disarm nearby opponents. It was especially effective against an enemy who had no clue what was going on. The howling changed to shrieking, and then to full on yelling. Vearden’s head was pulsating with pain, and had turned red to prove it to everyone else. With no warning, he leapt off the ground, higher than he ever had, aided by a surge of adrenaline. He landed in Octavian’s arms, who had opened them by an instinct of his own. Octavian fell to the ground so that Vearden could begin a proper beating.

Before Vearden could do all that much damage, Sevastian had gotten up from Saga to pull him away, holding Vearden’s arms behind his own back. Vearden kicked at Octavian furiously before sticking his leg between Sevastian’s and tripping him. Sevastian let go to protective himself from the fall, so Vearden took his chance to attack them both simultaneously. It was like an action film sequence, but one choreographed by somebody who had come into work drunk that day. Not only did the the blood rampage increase the user’s ability to do damage to the opponent, but it also prevented them from being bothered by injury. A rampager will continue to attack until their final breath unless the danger passes, or they can be calmed by someone else.

While Vearden was fighting, a sort of summoning happened to Saga as well. After turning to her side so as to not drown in her own blood, a silvery object appeared before her eyes. It was one of the guns from the trunk that Makarion had left them. Despite Vearden’s wild side, it was clear that he was going to lose. His defeat over the two Gondilak was a fluke. Deadly weapons were involved, and he was mortally wounded. The only reason he survived was because he was imbued with the ability to self-heal. And he only won the fight because this was something the Gondilak had not expected. Nothing like that was going to happen here, so if they were going to beat the brothers, they would need an advantage. Without hesitating, she lifted the gun, pulled that thing on the top of it back, and squeezed the trigger with her eyes closed. She quickly reopened them—embarrassed about succumbing to a stereotype of female weakness—to see Sevastian fall to his knees, and then to the side. She had landed a hit right in his back, exactly where she was aiming.

Octavian flipped around, hoping to catch his brother, and somehow prevent him from dying. Vearden, still in blood rampage, picked up one of their golf clubs and slammed it against Octavian’s head.

Makarion teleported into the clearing as Vearden was coming down. “Wow, that was totally unexpected. Where did you learn how to do that?”

Remembering one last thing about the blood rampage, Vearden slammed his fist into his own jaw as hard as he could. Gondilak were taught to go for their eyes. They were the most vulnerable spots of their bodies, and the pain of a strike there was enough to push them back over the edge in case a new threat ever came about while they were in the middle of the self-calming process. Vearden used this second wind to attack Makarion.

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Microstory 315: Sleep

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Carbohydrates

I have, in earlier stories, discussed the truth behind sleep. Most recently, I got into it for my microfaction story Carbohydrates. You’ve probably always considered sleep to be a nothing more than deeper form of rest. It’s true that some bodily functions are carried out during sleep that can’t be done throughout the day. When you’re asleep, you’re working less, so breathing slows, blood pumps more steadily, and certain beneficial hormones are released. The primary purpose of sleep, however, is to regulate the brain. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’re not grumpy just because you’re upset about this fact. You’re grumpy because your brain hasn’t been given the opportunity to consolidate memories of the day, and restore the brain to a sort of default setting, purging and renewing chemicals so that you can start back up again tomorrow. Sleep works on shift scheduling, meaning that we don’t just fall asleep then wake up. Sleep is composed of several stages, each designed to help the brain and body with different things, and each one vital to a healthy waking lifestyle. The best time to wake up is after the end of a full cycle. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t operate according to this philosophy. You’re allotted only as much time to sleep as you don’t need to be doing something else. The healthiest way to sleep would be entirely without an alarm. Eventually, your body will adapt and wake up at the best time for your age, right around eight hours average, and never in the middle of a cycle. It’s possible to feel more rested after an hour and a half of sleep than seven hours with an alarm that interrupts your cycle. You will, however, later notice signs sleep deprivation, so I don’t recommend such actions. There are many theories on how to sleep, but only the one I’ve cited is the right one.

Disease Prevention

Microstory 314: Carbohydrates

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Vitamins, Minerals, and Proteins

I hear a lot of people claim that they’re no longer eating carbs. I assume this to be referring to carbohydrates, because giving up carburetors is an entirely different endeavor, and I would applaud them for joining us in the 21st century. The craze to cutting carbs out of one’s diet is not a new thing, but it seems to resurface with new life every few years once the next charlatan comes ‘round with an idea that’s supposed to change the face of nutrition forever. It’s true that carbohydrates do not have the same nutritional value as vitamins, minerals, or proteins. But that doesn’t mean there is no value in them. As with anything, the key is balance and moderation. There are many benefits to carbohydrates, most of which you’ll know just because you have a tum-tum and a tongue-tongue. Studies have shown that eating carbs makes you happy, probably because they taste so good. Joy is the entire point to living. If all we wanted to do was survive, then we wouldn’t have invented music. There are some biological reasons to eat carbs as well, including the very simple fact that fiber is a carbohydrate, which means it can curb your urge to eat sugars, and generally regulate your digestion. Lots of people are under the impression that sleep is all about rest. The truth is that sleep lowers your caloric burn by about 100. That’s negligibly better than just sitting and reading a book. We don’t gain energy from sleeping; we get it from eating. And carbohydrates are incredibly good at giving us just that. Like anything, carbohydrates need to be managed, but removing them entirely will not only do no good, but could harm what benefits sleep gives your brain. Instead of lowering or eliminating carbs, research what foods hold the “good” kind. Here’s a hint, processed foods are generally worse.

Sleep

Microstory 313: Vitamins, Minerals, and Proteins

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Cleanliness

The problem with pretty much any diet fad is that they almost all remove at least one chemical important to healthy living. Humans regularly produce chemicals necessary to life just by breathing, eating, and drinking water. There are certain substances, however, that the body cannot produce on its own, and so they must be ingested directly. Scientists, since 1920, have referred to these as vitamins. Similarly, minerals are elements that must be in an organism’s diet in order to support their continued survival. I’m not going to list them all, but you’ll recognize them. As a few examples, iron is used to transport oxygen through the blood, calcium strengthens bones, and iodine assists with the release of certain bodily hormones. Restrictive dietists often like to claim that humans are not biologically designed to ingest certain foods, particularly meat, and that removing these altogether fortifies the body. I want to make sure you understand that these claims are entirely baseless and sometimes flat-out lies. That’s the best way to describe them. They’re either lying, or they are ignorant on the matter themselves. Every living organism needs protein. Humans have evolved to metabolize proteins by the consumption of other animals. Make all the moral accusations you want, but you leave science and health out of it, because you’re straight up wrong if you think we’re not physiologically meant to eat meat. Vegans and vegetarians can supplement their diet with vitamins and minerals they forfeit because of their exclusions, but this requires commitment, and an enormous amount of work. You can’t just stop eating meat or animal byproducts. You have to be diligent and careful, keeping a record of everything you eat so that you don’t miss anything. And you have to find other ways of maintaining a healthy diet of vitamins and minerals. Research every diet fad you try. Do not just believe the hype.

Carbohydrates

Microstory 312: Cleanliness

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Intuition

Unlike other stories I’ve written for the Stepwisdom series, for this one, I’m going to be a little bit more personal. I have something called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This gives me a lot of ticks and unnatural habits, but it also demands I be excessively clean. I’m constantly worried about cross-contamination. I don’t like touching something I deem unclean, and then touching something that is clean, because then I have just polluted it. I remember the day I first learned about hand sanitizer; it was as if God reached down and gave me a little kiss. Unfortunately, this discovery also enhanced my need to be clean, because suddenly, it could be achieved instantly, and at pretty much any time. I keep a small bottle of it attached to my hip, and this tends to freak people out, so I just have to ignore their judgments. I grew up in a clean household, though, so I always understood it. We don’t wear our shoes in the house, and we shower before bed, because if you shower in the mornings, then your whole house is perpetually dirty, and how the hell do you not even realize this? I know I have a condition, but come on, you sleep in dirt? That doesn’t bother you? Cleanliness is an indicator of a developed society, one that not every culture has the luxury of. Uncleanliness leads to poor hygiene, and thus disease, but to a certain degree, it can also lead to immunity. It is said that “you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die”. This is true figuratively, but also literally. I always knew that exposure to dirt was important so that my immune system would know how to fight off disease, so I make a point sullying my hands on certain occasions. Always keep your children clean, but let them get dirty first.

Vitamins, Minerals, and Proteins

Microstory 311: Intuition

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Physical Safety

First of all, it’s important to know that intuition is not the same thing is instinct. Instinct is presented as a reflex to certain stimuli, and not something that can be controlled. It’s based on a species’ biological imperatives, rather than cognitive processing. Intuition refers to the ability for a free-thinking individual (read: human) to make decisions, and come to conclusions, without a clear rational path. That is, being intuitive is knowing the answer to a problem without knowing exactly how it’s known. I have personally defined the word as, “a feeling of knowledge without any apparent episodic memory attached,” and “knowing something without having actually learned and verified it as true.” Episodic memory is the memory of past events, but does not directly include any information learned during those events. For example, you are aware that the Earth revolves around the sun, and this knowledge exists in your brain as semantic memory. Episodic memory would be the day in first grade when your teacher told you this fact, and you wrote it in your notes, and you answered a test question about it later. As I’ve said, intuition is a higher level of problem-solving that takes place independent of this episodic memory. And I don’t mean it happens without particularly recalling the moment you learned the truth in question. That moment of learning simply never happened, but you still somehow understand anyway. Intuition is an incredibly powerful characteristic, and is a vital component of both basic survival, and of complex social interaction. It allows us to read each other’s nonverbal cues, fix unpredictable problems, and learn new skills. Trust your intuition, but do not rely on it exclusively. Without learned information, chemicals in your brain will not be balanced enough to make intuitive determinations. Intuition is the mark of a highly intelligent person, but its limitations must always be respected.

Cleanliness

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 19, 2073

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Mateo and Leona decided to watch Transporter 3 for a third time after the jump. This was after they watched all other films in the Transporter franchise, some that had not been released when Mateo first started jumping through time.

“What scene do you think he’s going to have us recreate?” Leona asked.

“None of them really fits. The tribulations up to this point have been about normal people surviving some sort of traumatic event.”

“Except for The Martian.”

“Yes, but at least you were technically qualified to command a ship, to a degree. And for the most part, all I did was sit there. But this one would require skills we do not possess, unless we play two of the side characters.”

“Yeah,” she paused, “wait, what are you talking about? You’re a driver.”

“I was a driver’s ed instructor.”

“And you have experience driving a taxi, and a bus, and you delivered food on a motorcycle, and you have a commercial driver’s licence, and you were thinking about moving out west to become a stunt driver.”

“I never breathed one word to you about my absolutely inane fantasy of being a Hollywood stunt driver.”

“Your parents and I had time to talk while you were gone for the year.”

Mateo was embarrassed she knew all this about him, but unmoved. “Well...it’s true that I was a driver, but that doesn’t make me Jason Statham. I’m no better at driving than anyone else with decent experience. I lived with my parents because I didn’t make any money.”

“There’s no shame in that. I think you’re underestimating your talent as a driver. Makarion isn’t going to pick anything we can’t conceivably handle. If we die, then his game is over.”

“Theoretically he has any number of other salmon to go after. In fact, he may be doing that during our yearly interims. I’m not sure we’re as inexpendable as you think.”

“You don’t know that we aren’t.”

“I don’t know why we’re talking about my driving skills. Those movies aren’t just about the driving. There are a lot of scenes of him just fighting. He was a...he was in the army, or something. I don’t remember, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to his backstory. I would have no clue how to handle those encounters.”

“I would,” Darko said from the door. He came into the room with Makarion in tow.

“It’s true,” Makarion concurred. “I’ve seen him in action. He’s some kind of Taylor Lautner beast.”

“Well,” Darko started to explain, “Taylor is known for karate. I did some of that too, but I’m more into taekwondo, kung fu, and Muay Thai. For some reason, it was important for me to gather skills from different countries?”

“Darko, we didn’t know that about you.”

“I always try to keep people guessing,” Darko said.

Makarion clapped his hands together. “Awesome! Darko has agreed to be part of your team so that he can complete the scenes you’re not qualified for.”

“How many scenes are we doing?” Mateo asked.

“All of them.”

“All of them?” Leona was surprised.

“Well, I mean, you’re just going to start with the scene where Frank gets into the car and begins his assignment, and go from there. You don’t have to worry about cutaways to other characters and such.”

“You employed bad guys to chase after us?” Mateo was worried. A not insignificant number of people died in the movie. Getting rid of the original Rogue is one thing, but a fight to the death with multiple assailants was not something he was comfortable with.

“That is none of your concern.”

“It’s mine,” Darko disagreed.

“Very well, it takes some of the fun out of it, but if you must know, they’re just androids. I’m not a monster.”

They weren’t sure this was true.

“Anyone have anything to say about that?”

Nope.

“Good. Now,” Makarion began, “manually driving, and recklessly so, isn’t something that’s really done anymore. If you don’t want the cops coming after you, then you might want to find a way to keep them off your back, because they’re not really in the movie all that much. It’s why I chose the one that takes place primarily in the countryside, rather than the city.”

“Too many variables,” Leona said understandingly.

“Yeah, you’re the smart one, so I’m confident you’ll be able to find a way to stay as true to the action as possible.”

Leona sighed. “I have some ideas.”

“Perfect!” Makarion took three metallic rings out of his bag. “Then I guess the only thing left to discuss is the matter of these death bracelets.”

“We were hoping you would forget those.”

“Nonsense,” Makarion spat. “Authenticity.”

“What are those?” Oh, that’s right, Darko didn’t watch the movies with them.

“You go too far from the car, and you blow-up,” Mateo told him.

“Nothing that messy,” Makarion corrected. “They’ll inject a neurotoxin, that’s all.”

“Oh, is that all?” Leona asked sarcastically.

Makarion apported all three of them to a warehouse where a car was waiting for them, not unlike the one from the film. The built-in GPS directed them to their first pit stop a few hours away. This gave Darko the time to watch the movie in the back of the car on his own. Leona spent that time on her computer, but did not say what she was doing. Mateo learned long ago that if she didn’t explain her actions, it was in their best interests to just let it go. She had some kind of plan. From what they could gather, the source material took place over the course of a couple days. They wouldn’t have that kind of time, and Makarion wasn’t capable of placing them in a time bubble like the first Rogue, so they were on some kind of truncated trip. They did begin, however, in France.

In the movie, Frank and some chick ended up going to the garage of one of his friends, hoping to have their death bracelets deactivated. This was, of course, not in the cards for the three of them, so they just drove into a warehouse to meet up with a gang of robot adversaries. Though this was Darko’s field of expertise, Mateo stayed in the action to help as much as he possibly could. Fortunately, these particular robots were not built like terminators, so they were just as breakable as any human. They didn’t follow the same choreography, but they got the job done, and were free to go on their way. If nothing else, these tribulations were tiring.

Once in town, Darko stepped out of the car so that Mateo could drive off without him. This was the part where the main character is replaced by a second driver, leaving him to be in danger of exploding once the vehicle got too far away from his death bracelet. Mateo started by slowly inching through the market, but then Makarion’s voice came through the speaker system, “your instinct is to let Darko keep up with the car so it doesn’t get away from him. But I have a specific route I want you to take, and as extra incentive for you to actually do this right, I’ve mashed another film franchise into the mission. You have ten seconds to start driving for real. After that, if the car goes under 30 miles per hour, the death bracelet will activate. Only Darko’s, though,” he amended after it wasn’t clear whether Mateo fully understood.

Crap. Mateo looked to his brother who was presently only casually jogging alongside them. “It’s okay,” Darko said through the window. “I can handle it.” The timer on the car’s interface counted down, and Mateo was soon forced to speed off. He weaved and bobbed through the marketplace as Leona rattled her fingers on her computer, hacking into the police system to ensure they would not be disturbed. Like in the movie, Darko would later tell them he did end up stealing a bicycle that was sitting conspicuously in his path as he raced to keep up with the car. Finally, the GPS told them the completely fabricated race was over, and they could stop and let Darko get back in.

Makarion clearly just wanted to see them survive the action scenes, so they didn’t waste time with all the little dumb conversations and distractions. They stopped for food with no complications and then drove off to wait for the only real car chase in the film. Their enemy car showed up before too long and gave Mateo a run for his money. It was true that he didn’t want to admit how good of a driver he was. Despite having a completely clean record, he knew some pretty dangerous vehicular maneuvers. He even managed to get the car to drive up on only two tires in order to fit between parallel semitrucks. Ridiculous. He zoomed down the highway, and turned into the forest roads when the GPS instructed him to. He probably could have excelled as a stunt driver.

Everything was going according to Makarion’s sick plan until something unexpected and unscripted happened. Mateo dodged trees and other obstacles through the woods while the other car continued their pursuit. They even shot guns at them, which must have been real, because it sounded like they were bouncing off the apparent bulletproof glass. Mateo successfully lured the other car into driving in front of them, and—despite his reservations of harming a free-thinking individual, robot or no—managed to force them off the cliff, just like in the movie. Unfortunately, he was not as good of a driver as Leona seemed to think, for he found himself flying off the cliff as well. Welp, they really were gonna die this time. There was no way out of this, unless the car also turned into an airplane. It didn’t. The car continued to fall until crashing into the rocks below, exploding in true action movie fashion

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