The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 23, 2077 (Part I)

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“It’s nice to see you again too, Commander Parker,” Leona said lightly but confidently.

Julius tried to rub the stress out of his eyes. “Why me? Why is it always me?”

“Because we trust you,” Mateo answered.

Julius shook his head. “You barely know me.”

“That’s the point,” Leona began to explain. “We’re on the run, and the person chasing us knows who our allies are. They don’t know about you.”

“We at least don’t think they know you,” Darko clarified.

“So you’ve put me in danger to avoid endangering people you care about,” Julius criticized. “How kind of you.”

“It’s not like that,” Mateo said. “It’s unlikely that Makarion knows anything about you. We just need a place to lay low for a few decades.”

“I’m not going to be here for a few decades.”

“We’re going to burn that bridge when we get to it,” Leona said.

“I’ll let you stay here for two years,” Julius said plainly. “Then we will reassess.”

“That sounds fair,” Darko jumped in before Leona could protest.

“I suppose,” Julius started to say while he was putting his stuff down in the corner, “that you’ll be needing some food, what with you still being mostly human.”

“Are you not human?” Mateo asked. “Have you turned yourself into a robot?”

“No,” Julius said with a chortle. “Nothing so undignified. I have been upgraded, though. Nanotechnology, synthetic blood, and neural interfaces have made me better, faster, stronger.”

Mateo’s eyes widened. “Like the Six Million Dollar Man.”

“Yes, that is not a bad comparison,” Julius agreed.

“That’s cool,” Mateo said shyly, like a child meeting his hero.

“Some food would be lovely,” Leona said, “as long as it does not raise suspicion.”

“Many people still eat,” Julius confirmed. “And I do too, just not as much. Not everyone is a transhumanist like me, not even all early Martians.”

Julius returned later with some food from the cafeteria. Mateo had expected food cubes—and they certainly weren’t eating organic—but it did still look real food. They crowded around a table meant for only one person and gobbled it down, as if they hadn’t eaten in days. And actually, though they had gotten some food here and there, it had been a long time since a decent meal. He probably would have hated this Martian food before, but now it tasted like heaven.

After they were done with their meal, Mateo sat down in front of Julius so that they could have a talk. He wanted to explain to Julius about his brother, Richard. The Rogue had extracted him just before his death and placed him with Mateo temporarily. They spent months on a lifeboat together, living through the Life of Pi tribulation. He then accompanied Mateo for the Gulliver’s Travels tribulation, later making the ultimate sacrifice when Mateo opened up a portal to Reaver just before his death. It was ironic that Richard was pulled out just before he was blown up only to be blown up in Reaver’s prison cube. But that incident had ended with The Rogue’s death as well, and could very well have saved Mateo and Leona’s life. Richard was instrumental in stopping the Rogue from his games. Though Makarion was still a problem, he was less powerful, and that was not nothing. Mateo felt that Julius had the right to the truth; to understand what really went down. “Do you know what happened to your brother?”

Julius nodded. “He died in an explosion. The vessel was supposed to be unmanned, but Horace Reaver broke the rules. All of these secrets came out years ago. It’s part of history now. I suppose it was just yesterday for you.”

“That’s not the entire story,” Mateo said. “You obviously know that we’re time travelers, and you’ve probably guessed that we’re not the only ones.”

“I’ve met others.”

“Who did you meet?”

“Immediately after you left Luna back in 2036, two more appeared. I didn’t catch their names. They disappeared just as quickly as they had come.”

“Could you describe them?”

“Well, I guess I don’t need to, do I? This is the future afterall.”

Back in 2046, artificial intelligent android, Harrison had used technology to read Mateo’s mind and create a picture of a man he had met in an alternate timeline. They did this so everyone could see what The Cleanser looked like, in case he ever showed up later. That following year, they used the same technology to create composites of Samsonite and Aura’s daughter, who turned out to be Mateo’s old neighbor, Frida. And now in 2076, that technology still existed, and was actually even more sophisticated. Julius reached into his memory archives and generated extremely detailed pseudophotographic frames from when he met two other salmon. He then spliced each of these together to make a movie they could watch on a computer screen. It looked like someone had actually filmed the occasion. All that was missing was the sound, but Julius also had memory of the conversation, and was able to lip sync for them.

This is what happens in the memory splice movie.

“Not again,” Julius says. “I just got rid of you people. Literally ten seconds ago.”

“Where are we?” Makarion asks.

Julius points to the window where they can see Earth.

“Is this the moon?” Vearden asks.

“No, it’s Mars, dipshit,” Julius answers. “I am Commander Parker, King of the Mascos.”

“Who like us have you met?” Makarion asks.

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

“Was one of them named Mateo?” Makarion asks.

Julius sighs. “Yeah, I think that’s what they said.”

“Just as I suspected,” Makarion says with a nod.

“Shut up,” Vearden spits.

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

“Well, how do we get back?” Vearden demands.

“All we can do is keep trying.” Then Makarion takes Vearden by the cheeks, and they both disappear.

“So Makarion is going after Vearden, just like us. Or he did. Or he will.”

“Damn.” Darko turned away to pace around a little.

“This is not good,” Leona said, even more upset than everyone else.

“No kidding,” Mateo answered.

“No, this is really not good.” Leona shook her head violently. “There’s something I never told you, because I was worried about disrupting the timeline, but I think it’s time I speak up.”

“What is it?” Mateo asked, not wanting to jump to any conclusions.

“This happened to me once,” Leona tried to explain, but she was very shaky. “Makarion and who I now know to be Vearden appeared before me. It could have been just before this, or just after. I obviously didn’t know who he was at the time, but he warned me about paradoxes, and me being genre savvy, I agreed with him that I should keep quiet about it.”

“When was this?” Mateo asked, not upset with her for having kept this from him.

“It was after our kidney transplantation surgery,” she replied, still afraid of the truth. “After the security guards sent you off to the police station, they continued their rounds, and I had a window to sneak out of the warehouse. The two of them jumped into the timestream just before I could. Makarion did seem to recognize me, but I couldn’t really tell. Now it makes sense that he had already met me from his perspective, because he knew exactly what to say to make sure I didn’t say anything about it. I’m a fool.”

“You’re not a fool,” Mateo tried to comfort her. “You did exactly what you should have. That was not pertinent information until now. You understand the timeline better than I do, so I trust that that was the right call. Now is not the time to doubt yourself.”

“It’s just a pattern of behavior. Another time travel protocol has gotten me in trouble. Reaver knew my secret time travel passphrase because I decided to tell him in an alternate timeline. All these rules I’ve set up,” she said through tears, “they’re all garbage!”

“No, they’re not,” Mateo disagreed. “They’re just not perfect. We’re literally dealing with forces beyond our control. The rules are there to protect us, and I believe they’ve served us better than we even realize.”

She didn’t stop crying. “I should have told you. I was angry at you for having killed the Rogue, but I may have just killed us all.”

“You didn’t kill us, Leona,” Mateo said. “Everything is going to be okay. So he knows that we know Julius? He might have known anyway since the original Rogue was aware of our connection to the family. Coming here was always going to be a risk.”

“It sounds like the two of them are uncontrollably jumping through the timestream,” Darko said with authority. “And that they’re somehow tied to Mateo. Makarion might show up out of sheer bad luck, no matter where we ended up going.”

There was a knock at the door. Julius ushered the three of them to the wall and opened it with caution. “Oh my God.”

Makarion’s voice came from the hallway, “my ears were burning.”

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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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