The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 19, 2165

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Leona was standing in front of the water filtration system, massaging her chin, puzzled look on her face. “This is just a standard three-stage water filtration system.”

“Okay...” Paige said simply.

“But it’s in a ship. In space.”

“Is that bad?”

“Who designed this thing?”

Paige tapped on her tablet. “A man named—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leona interrupted. “I’m starting to see there was a reason nobody used his design. It’s completely bonkers. It was built exactly to his specifications?”

“Except of the atterberry pods, yeah.”

“He was an idiot. You need a reverse osmosis filtration system when you’re operating this exposed to cosmic radiation, at least. You’ll probably want a DI filter too. Frankly, I’m surprised you lasted this long before hitting an incident that tainted the entire system.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

I guess I can build a RO filter myself.”

“You gonna be able to do that in a day?”

Leona looked over the the filter again. “I have a lot of the components I need already. I’ll have to finish it in a day. You’re suffering diminishing returns from your minimal supply. Count yourself lucky that the only redundancy this bucket has is the water, otherwise you’d be dead by now.”

“You can have everything you need, as long as it doesn’t require a store run. Just let us know.”

“I’ll make another list,” Leona said before getting on her knees and starting to get a more detailed picture of how this all works.

As it turned out, retrofitting the filtration system with upgrades wasn’t nearly as difficult, or time-consuming, as she thought it would be. 3-D printers did their magic much faster in these times than before, so the extra parts were fairly easy to come by. Since there was virtually no communications array on the ship, Leona didn’t have access to Earth’s network, but they were smart enough to have downloaded a number of useful databases, including one that contained a filter design. It took about a half day to finish this all up, but then realized she had to reprogram the ship to maintain these new parts, should they malfunction while Leona was out of the time stream. When finally the chore was completely finished, she promptly dove into her bed, and fell asleep.

She slept so long, that when she woke up, it was already 2170, and they were just approaching Durus. “How the hell did I sleep that long?” Leona asked.

“We knew you were tired. You fixed everything for us, so we didn’t need your help anymore,” Paige explained to her. “You certainly deserved it.”

That made no sense. “But...five days? I slept,” she looked at the clock, “a hundred an eight hours? Straight?”

Paige shrugged. “Like I said, you were tired.”

No one else seemed to think it was strange either, not even Serif.

But things were about to get even stranger. They could see Durus appear on the screens, and through the forward viewports. As they approached this celestial body, the ship decelerated accordingly, eventually slow enough to break the atmosphere, and begin to land on the planet. While she was watching this happen, Leona was incapable of saying anything. She tried to reason that the vessel was imbued with some kind of time power, but she had no evidence to support that. As far as she could tell, Brooke simply engaged the ship’s brakes, as if it were nothing more than a land vehicle.

“What did you just do?” Leona finally asked as they were landing on the surface.

“We’re here,” Brooke answered excitedly.

“That’s impossible. How did you land the ship?”

“What are you talking about, I just landed it?”

Leona tried to explain the physical limitations of such a maneuver, but Brooke simply shrugged off the problem, attributing their success to the advances of the day. But that didn’t work either, because no matter how advanced science progresses, you can’t just throw the laws of physics out the window. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here at all.

“Come on,” Paige said. “Let’s go meet the new Savior of humanity.”

“You guys go ahead,” Leona said, hopefully doing a decent job of pretending she wasn’t scared out of her mind. “I’ll be there in a second. I need to run a quick systems check. Don’t want the ship blowing up from a fuel leak while it sits here, do we?” She gave Serif a kiss on the cheek, and saw everybody off.

Nerakali was the last to try to step down the ramp, which gave Leona a perfect opportunity to pull her to the side, out of sight of the others. “Watch it, lady!”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Leona demanded to know.

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

“Wake me up.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Wake me the hell up!”

“Leona, you must still be tired. Tell ya what, I’ll go get Brooke. She’ll run your little diagnostics, and you can take another nap.”

“I’m already asleep, so get me out of here! Now!”

Nerakali sighed, then pulled her out of the virtual world. They were back in Leona’s room, in 2165.
“Why did you do that?”

“I was trying to help,” Nerakali answered defensively.

“How was that going to help?”

“You’ve been so stressed lately. You keep showing up in the timeline, and having to fix everyone else’s screw-ups. I thought you just needed a win.”

“You thought reaching our destination five years too early would be a win for me?”

“It wasn’t that much of a stretch. Being asleep for five straight days? I’ve seen humans do it for longer.”

“No, you haven’t. It was a weak construct, full of plotholes.”

“Look, I don’t know how you land a ship on a planet. I assumed you just slow down.”

“That takes too much fuel, you have to use atmosphere. If it weren’t a rogue planet, we would be able to use a sun, gas giant, or even a moon, but aerocapture is our only option. If it were a real rogue planet, it wouldn’t have an atmosphere, and we probably wouldn’t be able to land at all.”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t know how all this works. When I want to go to another planet, I just snap my fingers.”

“I understand,” Leona said. “What I don’t understand is why you bothered doing this for me. Why would you care?”

“Crew morale is my job. It’s my only job. I’m pretty powerless here. The virtual worlds are all I have to offer, so I take it pretty seriously.”

“That doesn’t explain why you would help me. We hate each other, more than any of the others. I certainly don’t need an escape from this place, since I’m not here that much. It’s the others who have to worry about pandorum.”

“Leona, I am thousands of years old. My approach to blame, grudges, and revenge are completely different than yours. I hold you responsible for my brother’s death, yes, but that was also centuries ago for me. So...I’m kind of, like, over it.”

“So all it takes is time?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Then time is a commodity.”

“I suppose.”

“With a little more time, all wars would end before they could begin.”

“Okay, that’s a philosophical argument I’m too old to be having before my cup of coffee.”

“It’s the middle of the evening. It’s something you should be thinking about. You and your siblings were like gods. No, you were gods. You could have saved everybody, just with the gift of time.”

She smiled. “Time is not ours to give, nor were we brought up to want to help others with it. The choosers, the powers that be, my family; we all have one thing in common.”

“What is that?”

“We don’t give a shit,” she said plainly.

“I see.”

“Do you? Because you seem to be under the impression that you’re on your way to pick up someone whose sole purpose in life it is to help people. The powers haven’t done you any favors by calling her the Savior, but she’s nothing. All she is, is a tool for microsolutions. Nothing we do really makes anything better. Or worse, for that matter.”

“That’s pretty cynical of you to say.”

“You misunderstand. Powers, choosers, salmon; we’re pointless. In the grand scheme of things, the only people with any real power to save the humans...are the humans themselves. We didn’t design this ship. Even with all its flaws, it is still a testament to human ingenuity. The medical advances, transhumanistic upgrades, asteroid mining, the interstellar pre-colony probes that just launched to the nearest neighboring stars. That’s all them. We didn’t help make those things happen. Can I give you one piece of advice, Lee-Lee?”

“Only if you never call me that again.”

“Fair enough. Whatever your name is, you’re a pawn in someone else’s game. We all are. Normal humans are the only ones with actual free will. Absolute corruption, and stuff, you know how it goes.”

“What’s the advice?”

“Stay on Durus when you get there.”

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You do. There’s a reason the powers that be want you taking a relativistic ship to go get her. There’s a reason they sent you, and it’s not just because she can’t transport across planets, though we believe that part is indeed true.”

“What would that reason be? Rather, what do you think it is?”

“They have no power there. That’s what truly makes it rogue. If you stay on Durus, they won’t be able to get to you. You’ll still be on your pattern, but there’s a way around that as well.”

“Is any of this true?”

“It’s all true.” A very-much alive Missy had walked into the room. “I’ve seen it done. That’s why I volunteered for this job.”

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Void: Star-Crossed (Part V)

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One of the conditions of letting the people of Durus vote in a new administration to replace the provisional government was that anyone serving in the provisional government would be allowed to run. Prosivor Drumpf was the only one exempt from this requirement, since he made all his cronies look bad when his hatespeech was broadcast live on LoaTV. A not insignificant number of people from the provisional government were either reëlected to their original positions, or to new ones, even those who really shouldn’t be there. Yet, the people have spoken, so Saga et al. would have to accept it, and move on.

One of Andromeda’s conditions was that she be allowed to step down from her leadership role as well. She enjoyed using her time power to build up the city, but she didn’t want people looking to her for answers. She just wanted to live her life for herself, and now, with Saga. The two of them had grown incredibly close over the course of the last year. Since their first, they had gone on dozens of other dates, and had even technically moved in together. Five Earthan months ago, it was becoming clear that not everyone in the original two cities were interested in staying. They wanted to spread out across the planet, like their ancestors had with their little towns. And so Andromeda built a mobile home. Since there were no city streets on Durus to worry about, she was free to make it as wide as she wanted, which meant there was enough room for the two of them, plus Loa, and her girlfriend, Hokusai. Loa was using her time power to stream their construction efforts in a sort of documentary designed to showcase all the good Andromeda was doing. It was Hokusai’s job to keep their home in operation. They probably had the most luxurious and technologically advanced home in the world; one that was capable to piloting itself to other settlements, where Andromeda would start laying the foundations for neighborhood isolates.

The most recent of these isolates was a neighborhood that called itself Dawidux. When the Earthans came in the Deathspring, they banded together and protested against giving refugee aid. As time went on, and the “Earthan problem” persisted, they gradually transitioned their goals to that of ethnic cleansing. They started covering themselves with hoods, and lynching Earthans that had strayed too far from the herd, reminiscent of a darker time in Earth’s own history. Scholars today believe they, in fact, got all their ideas from the Nazi and white nationalism movements, which was ultimately ironic, because if any Nazis or white supremacists were on Durus, they would be treated just as poorly as any other Earthan. Provisor Drumpf was rumored to be a powerful leader in the Dawiduxian movement, and though a direct connection was never proven, he was quite clear in his sympathy for them, as were other members of government, some of whom remain in power.

Though, of course, Andromeda was adamantly opposed to Dawiduxian principles, she had no choice but to build their neighborhood for them. She promised to do what she could to help restore the world to its former glory, and even improve upon it. The fact that she was in support of Earthans, and lived with two of them, appeared to be completely lost on the Dawiduxians. The hate-mongers needed something from someone they hated, and so they were going to carefully look away and pretend they didn’t notice, only expressing their outrage once Andromeda was done helping them. That day was today. Saga and Andromeda were presently walking on the edge of the neighborhood on a final inspection, to see if anything needed to be fixed, or added. Things started not feeling quite right, and they realized the residents were comfortable enough with their neighborhood to make their move.

“There’s a fire!” Saga called out, seeing the red and orange blaze in the distance.”

“That’s where we parked our home!” Andromeda cried.

“Hokuloa!” Saga screamed, referring to Hokusai and Loa’s shipper name.

They started running, but a horde of Dawiduxians deliberately stepped into their way.

“Please!” Andromeda begged. “There are people in there!”

“That’s the point,” one of them said luridly.

“You would murder two innocent people? We’ve already given you what you want! You asked for a neighborhood of your own, and you’ve got it.”

“That does not absolve you of your sins. You have conspired with the Earthans, and you will be punished for it.”

“What exactly is your problem with us?” Saga questioned.

Saga stepped back, in sync with the leader, as he stepped forward. “This is our world, and you have invaded it.”

“We didn’t ask to come here.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, “but Earth asked you to leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

He smiled and shook his head, like a Christian wondering why a Muslim hasn’t figured out that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. “We have mage remnants on our side.”

They said nothing.

“What, you thought it was just you? Lots of remnants are part of our cause. They can see things others can’t, and they have told us that Earth sent us the worst of their worst.”

“Again. What the hell are you talking about?”

He looked to the air above his head for the right words. “You’re like lice. On a dog.”

“Do you even know what a dog is?” Saga asked bitingly.

He ignored her. “You’re actually the bad lice. All the other lice are just trying to live their lives in the dog’s feathers, but the bad lice keep raping them, so the dog’s owner uses a special machine to suck all the bad lice away. Durus was that machine, and it brought you all here so Earth wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore. But we don’t want you either.”

Saga just stared at them. “I don’t..even know...how to respond to that. There was so much wrong with what you said, I—I just..can’t even. How do you argue against something so absurd when your opponent is too dumb to know that dogs don’t even have feathers!”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“There’s no such thing as good lice.”

“So what?”

“We aren’t rapists, and you have zero evidence that we are. You’ve just..been told this? And you accept it?”

The Dawiduxian scoffed. “We don’t have to listen to your lies. We were perfectly happy with building a wall separating our cities, but now you’ve infected people’s minds, and our only option now is to just rid of you altogether.”

“What does that mean?”

He spoke above their heads, “you have them?”

Saga and Andromeda turned around to see Hokusai and Loa being dragged towards them. They tried to run to them, but were held back.

“Yes, they’re alive,” the leader said, like he had done them a favor. “And one of them will remain that way, as long as she does what she’s told.”

“What are you telling?” Andromeda asked.

He nodded to two of his goons. One of them handed Andromeda a knife, while the other handed one to Loa. “You have been found guilty of literally sleeping with the enemy. You have two choices. You can either die in each other’s arms, or you can excise the demons from your souls, and join us.”

Saga knew neither Andromeda, nor Loa, would do such a thing. Had they not been respectively in love, they still wouldn’t kill guiltless and harmless people. That just wasn’t in their nature. This was a waste of everybody’s time. Perhaps the Dawiduxians knew it wouldn’t work, and were just screwing with them. Or maybe they were really delusional enough to think they were on the right side of history, and were confident everyone else would eventually see the light.

“Andromeda, maybe you could build a nice little cage for these people?”

The leader laughed. “You could try.” He nodded to an old woman at his side. “She’s a power dampener, though, so the most you’ll get is a psychic nosebleed.”

“He’s right,” Andromeda said quietly to Saga. “I’ve been trying this whole time.”

“You have sixty seconds to choose,” the leader said. With another nod, he ordered several of his people to lift their bows and arrows. One of the arrows slipped away, though, and flew right into Hokusai’s chest.

“Hokusai!” Loa screamed.

The one who had shot her was really just a kid, who was mortified by what he had done. It was clearly an accident.

“Andy! Be ready!” Saga yelled. She took the knife out of her hand, and used a skill she had learned on Tribulation Island to throw it into the power dampener’s neck.

The dampener didn’t have to die to lose control of her power, giving Andromeda the edge she needed. In anger, adrenaline coursing through her veins, she pulled a platform of stone out of the ground, and shot them up into the air. The four of them managed to stay on, but so did several Dawiduxians. In her own anger, Loa started fighting them alongside Saga, until they had thrown them all off the precipice. By the time Andromeda had calmed down, the tower was hundreds of meters in the air, and leaning to one side. She had built parapets to hold onto, so they wouldn’t slip off themselves, but the tower was not going to last much longer. They could already feel it threaten to tip over completely.

Some other version of Saga appeared from a hatchway in the floor. “Come on!” she called out to them. Andromeda and Loa carried Hokusai through the hatchway, while Saga took up the rear. Just as she was climbing through, the tower was starting its race back to the ground. When they exited at the bottom of the tower, though, it was still standing. The other Saga had magically transported them a few moments into the past. A Dawiduxian that Loa had pushed off the edge landed on the ground next to them, so they ran away from the new building, looking for safety. They then closed their timeloop as they watched the tower topple over, and destroy the majority of the neighborhood that Andromeda had just constructed.

“Thank you,” Saga said to herself.

“I need to get her out of here,” Future!Saga explained, indicating Hokusai, who was still alive, but barely.

“Where will you take her?” Loa asked.

“There’s gotta be a door in that town that’s still standing,” Future!Saga answered. “I have to take her back to the future.”

Loa didn’t like hearing this, especially since she didn’t know how far into the future this would be, but she knew she couldn’t question the decision. “Let’s go.”

While Future!Saga ran up to find the safest route to the closest stable door, the other three able-bodied women began transporting Hokusai using a three-person arm-stretcher carry. They made it to the door, and let Future!Saga take her through alone.

Present!Saga should have been more careful, but she did accidentally see Serif waiting for them on the other side of the portal. That was a good sign. “What do we do now?” she asked. “We’re scheduled to start building New Springfield a few miles from Watershed. With transportation burned down, though, we’re gonna be late.”

Andromeda surveyed the rubble that was once a budding town, bitter look on her face. She took in, and released, a deep breath. “I quit.”

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Microstory 770: Crab

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At the beginning of the 21st century, the Earth’s population was rising beyond all expectations. Searching for work, people began flocking from rural regions, to denser cities, which allowed for some level of food distribution efficiency, while causing other problems, like an epidemic of isolation depression. When you put everyone in just a few large metropolitan areas, people start to feel like meaningless drones in a sea of other drones. Feeling the need to spread back out, people started looking for other places to live. One such place was Antarctica, which up until that point, was largely uninhabited, save for a few researchers, many of whom operated seasonally. The effects of global warming were becoming abundantly clear as it was now perfectly acceptable to live on a continent which had always been inhospitable to most life. The first nation there formed quickly, and was not immediately recognized as independent, but since they weren’t hurting anybody, they were allowed to remain. In an area originally referred to as Graham Island, and Palmer Island, stood the new country of Tundra Nouveau, populated primarily by antihipsters looking to shed their reliance on mainstream economy. For reference, an antihipster is a hipster who people keep calling a hipster, but doesn’t identify as a hipster, and in fact believes themselves to be the least hipster-like possible. They do this by claiming to adopt new trends later than the mainstream. Because of the drop in temperature, the beaches of Tundra Nouveau became inundated with, not only humans, but a hefty population of King Crabs. At first, this did not seem like a problem, but then they just kept coming. They were throwing the ecosystem out of wack, and threatening the survival of native species. Tundra Natals, as they liked to be called, started hunting the crabs to tame the population as much as possible, but this ad hoc approach was proving to be not quite enough. A man named Beery Snowkiss (not his real name) decided to capitalize on this crab hunting craze by arbitrarily regulating it. He bought up coastal land, and started charging people to hunt there; half price to residents, full for visitors, and he required a percentage of the profits from all meat sold. With the money he earned, he bought even more land, and eventually, he was in control of the entire peninsula. As the crab population dwindled, he saw a danger to his bottom line, so he paid crews of fisherman to go farther out to sea, catch the crabs that had not ventured to the beaches, and relocate them to Tundra Nouveau, so that hunters could pay him for the privilege of hunting them from the safety of land. Upon investigation, the Tundra Nouveau government determined Snowkiss’ business practices to be unethical, and he ultimately lost all of his power. Forty years after the founding of the nation, the King Crab population remains steady and sustainable. Every year, in honor of Snowkiss’ brilliant idea to exploit antihipster conforming nonconformity, residents still observe an annual crab hunt. It’s reserved primarily for children, who either keep the crabs as pets, or let them go at the end of the day.

Microstory 769: Hen

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In 1867, Eoin Burke, having traveled from Ireland to the United States, began a musical instrument manufacturing company called Hudson Euphonics Neorama with his friend, Cyril Kader. Of course, it started out small, but gradually grew as word spread, and their work became popular. Their ability to create custom-build instruments at a high turnover earned them a brilliant reputation in the midwest. Things went really well for them for half a century, until Cyril fell ill, and died. Cyril’s son took over the business, and was not at all interested in maintaining their image as a family business. Through some legal maneuvering, Junior Kader managed to push Eoin out of his own business, leaving him with virtually nothing. Though he was seventy years old, he had but a few years ago fathered a son out of his marriage, then realizing his and his wife’s inability to conceive children was due to her infertility, rather than his sterility. He fell into a deep depression, which coupled with his advanced age, prevented him from effectively caring for his son. Hearing the story of his grandfather’s struggles inspired Manus Burke to start his own company, one hundred years later, almost exactly to the day, in 1967. By then, HEN had expanded into several unrelated industries, transforming it beyond recognition. Wanting to immediately begin competing with an organization he considered to be his family’s enemy, Manus started out in the furniture sector, which was HEN’s weakest at that point in time. His success with this allowed him to later start competing with HEN’s second weakest division of clothing ten years later. And then a pattern formed, with Magnate entering new markets after about five years of slowly overtaking the previous one. In 1992, in honor of his family’s legacy, Magnate began manufacturing musical instruments, and though they were never able to become more successful in this than HEN, or other competitors, the division survived by utilizing profits from other divisions. For his own reasons, Manus Burke kept the secret of what HEN had done to his grandfather to himself, not even fighting about it with the original company’s leadership, as it changed hands over time. Only after his death did the truth come to light. The new Chief Executive Officer of HEN, Cassarah Hardwick was horrified to learn of her company’s dark history, and worked to mend relations between it and the new Magnate executives, Manus Burke’s two estranged daughters. This marked the beginning of one of the greatest business partnerships in the country.

Microstory 768: Salmon

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A lot of people wonder where the term salmon comes from. For the longest time, nobody actually knew, because it did not originate in the same reality. During one timeline, the powers that be decided to call upon one of their little pets, who was named Ed Bolton. He was living in the year 1809, but they pushed him forward one year to 1810. But he only stayed there for three seconds, at which point they pushed him again to 1811. Again, this was short-lived, as he was only there for three minutes, long enough to encounter his friend and roommate, who had been wondering where he was for the last two years. He didn’t have time to both figure out the truth, and explain it, when he was pushed forward two years to 1813. By then, his roommate had moved out of their unit, and somewhere else. It took Ed nearly three hours to find where this was, and then go to him, looking for help. But at this point, the powers that be pushed him all the way to 1816, where he spent three days discovering his friend had moved to the other side of the country. He continued to jump forward in time, hopeless, and completely alone; three weeks in 1821, three months in in 1829 and 1830, and three years from 1843 to 1846. Just when he was feeling comfortable in this new era, with some simple math, he realized he was destined to jump yet again, this time to 1867, where he was likely to spend the next three decades. Fortunately, he would not have to be alone the entire time. He found himself in the company of two other travelers, who were from the future. They immediately treated him with kindness and understanding, and he came to find out that they already knew him, for he was scheduled to run into them again, periodically over the next century. Each time he did, he knew them better, and they knew him less, for they were jumping through time in opposite directions. Through all this, at some point, somebody remarked that these friends were, in fact, going the wrong direction. But it was Edward who drew the analogy of salmon, who were known for traveling upstream to spawn in the same place they were first born. Now this moment—this seemingly innocuous moment—would have repercussions across all of time and space, spanning past, present, future, and all realities. Though earlier versions of the timeline left Ed Bolton free to live his life oblivious to time travel, they too would come to refer to travelers who had no control over their travels as salmon. Some call it inevitable, others fate or destiny, but this would not be the only example of something in a reality that does not yet exist having an inexplicable effect on prior timelines. It would not even be the most profound.

Microstory 767: Sailboat

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Christopher Clark was a Hydro Scout, which was a special class of scout dedicated to water activities. This didn’t mean they didn’t ever enjoy other environments, or that other classes of scout didn’t also participate in water activities, but they did have their own niches. There were Forest Scouts, Mountain Scouts, Prairie Scouts, Desert Scouts, Snow Scouts, Jungle Scouts, and even stranger ones, like Swamp Scouts, and City Scouts. In this world, scouts work differently than what you may be used to. For example, there is no separate organization for girls. They would never think to put people in those boxes. Nor was there ever a time when certain peoples were excluded from joining. Nor was there ever a time when certain peoples were excluded from joining. You are free to practice whatever spiritual beliefs you follow, you can be of any gender, or sexual orientation, and you can be of any race. The scouting program is also designed to be more of a lifelong adventure. The penultimate division is Senior Scouts, which starts when an individual reaches the age of majority at sixteen years, and generally goes for four years. After that, Post-senior scouts become more independent, often enter the workforce, and involve themselves in scouting functions only when they have time. Chris was only fourteen years old when he moved up to Senior Scouts, but this was because he was such good friends with those already in it, so they made an exception. One day, Chris and his fellow scouts were scheduled to go on a sailboat trip, marking the first time most of them had been on the ocean, including Chris. With his ability to see the future, Chris knew that things would not turn out well for them. He did not seek to stop the trip altogether, even though he knew everyone would believe him. Instead, he kept trying to fix the timeline, so that the future would change in their favor. They were meant to travel from Hawaii to a remote island in the North Pacific Ocean, but something went terribly wrong, and a sea of death came to swallow them up. Though he was not able to prevent the catastrophe, it would seem that he was able to save some lives in the trying. Though it would not be easy, and Christopher Clark would never return to his home stateside, he would find a bit of peace...in the last refuge.

Microstory 766: Four Spot

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The four spot, or the universal heart symbol, is a graphical representation of the human heart. Historians are unsure who first came up with the symbol. Earliest depictions can be found in prehistoric art from the sixth century BUC, but it is believed to be much older than that. As the myth goes, there were two people deep in love with each other, who used the four spot as their new family crest, intending to pass it down to their children. The four curves represent the four chambers of the standard human heart, and later on as four tenets, ideas, or beliefs. Many religions have adapted the four spot to their respective faiths, and have come up with differing uses for the quadrant symbolism to satisfy their own dogma. The original story, however, says nothing about it. What is present is the intersection of two independent streams of infinity, symbolizing time as cyclical, and that no matter how far one travels from their loved ones, they will always inevitably come back around to their intersection. This is important as the story progresses, predicting a grand reunion between the lovers sometime in the future, after a great cataclysm separates them across a seemingly insurmountable vastness. Supposedly, each of the couple was holding onto one side of the crest at the moment of the calamity. When they were torn apart, so too was the crest itself, with the man retaining only the bottom half, and the woman keeping the top. Later apocrypha suggests the man’s half represents the testicles, while the woman’s the breasts, but this is improbably more than coincidence. The man ended up in the new universe, spreading the symbol to its inhabitants as the only symbol for the heart, while the woman stayed in the primary universe, notably causing Earthan humans to believe that they had come up with it on their own. As the tale predicts, these two universes shall one day be made whole again, and the four spot heart can once again be accepted as the true icon of love.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 18, 2164

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Late in the morning of 2164, Dar’cy came into Leona and Serif’s room and gently woke them up. “We let you sleep a little, but we need you. Serif, specifically you.”

Serif was still groggy. “What is it? What happened?”

“A lot. Since you’ve been gone. We lost Missy.”

Leona shot up out of bed. “What? What do you mean, lost her?”

“Acute radiation poisoning. She was exposed. Well...” she lifted her shirt to reveal radiation burns on her chest. “We were all exposed, but hers was the worst. She didn’t make it a week, even with treatment.”

Leona found Serif’s shirt while she was looking for her own, and threw it over to her. “The micrometeoroid. I scrubbed afterwards.”

“It was too late for us,” Dar’cy explained. “Symptoms appeared just after you left. We all thought we just ate a bad batch of meal bars.”

“How much treatment do you have left?” Leona asked.

“None,” Dar’cy answered. “We ran out months ago, and now everybody looks like me. We were hoping Serif’s special healing powers could help us.”

“Of course,” Serif said. She couldn’t get her pants all the way on without her morning coffee, so she just gave up. “Take me to them.”

The rest of the crew was sitting in the lounge area, except for Nerakali, who was sprawled out on the floor. They all had vomit buckets. Paige noticed them come in, and checked her watch with her eyes closed. “You’re back. I didn’t realize it was your day.”

“Brooke, Paige, your upgrades. They’re not protecting you?” Leona asked while Serif was assessing everybody’s condition.

Paige laughed. “I didn’t get the antirad upgrade. I didn’t think I would need it.”

“I did,” Brooke said lethargically. “But I bought the bronze package. I need regular doses, or I lose it, which are heavily regulated, and supplied by my employer, who has no control over this mission.”

“Dar’cy?” Serif asked. “You seem the healthiest.”

“I threaded two months after the incident, when my dermatitis appeared. I only came back yesterday. Obviously we needed to save treatment for the people who couldn’t jump through time.”

“I still don’t get why you couldn’t take us with you,” Nerakali griped from the floor, head buried in a throw pillow.

“I don’t really either,” Dar’cy admitted. “I guess radiation poisoning makes it difficult for me to take passengers.”

“You barely tried!”

“Enough,” Paige demanded. “She’s back now, along with...Serif.” She clearly just wanted to go to sleep. “Please start with our pilot.”

“I’m the worst one!” Nerakali complained.

“She’s right,” Serif said. “She has to go first.”

Paige shook her head. “I can’t have that. She may be the sickest, but she’s also the most expendable. If Brooke goes, we lose control of the Warren.”

“Why does it matter?” Brooke questioned. “We’re all getting cured? She can go first, I don’t mind.”

Paige struggled to sit up straighter. “What if Serif can only save one of us? What if she can only save one of us per day? No, Brooke, it’s you. I make the decisions around here, and with Miss Atterberry gone, you are our best bet.”

“You’re wrong,” Leona said. “If Nerakali dies here, it will create the paradox I was telling you about. We don’t know when she goes back in time to seal her own fate, but one thing I do know is that she wasn’t at all sick when it happened. She has to get the cure to protect the timeline.”

“Leona Matic. Unlikely voice of reason,” Nerakali said.

“Shut up,” most of them barked at her in unison.

“Dar’cy,” Brooke said.

“What is it, hon?” Dar’cy asked her, coming over and kneeling down at Brooke’s side, ready to help.

“No, you. You get the cure. This is a logical problem, like that one where you and a...and like a, sheep and a wolf, or something, have to cross a river. You’re the piece of the puzzle that solves everything.” She was having trouble concentrating, but pushed through it. “Serif cures you, and say...say she can only do it once a day. Days don’t matter if you’re alive. If the rest of us die, you can go back in time and pull us out of the timestream to stop it from happening, meeting up with Serif after she recharges.”

“And what if she can only do it every week? Or every year, from her perspective?” Paige posed. “What if she can only do it once ever? What if the illness is so bad that it drains her of all her power?”

The room had no answer to this morbid riddle.

“Twelve hours,” Leona finally said.

Paige slumped back into the couch. “To what?”

“I never got a chance to study her ability. Give me twelve hours to do so. You think you can all make it that long? More importantly, Brooke, can you make it? Because Paige is right about one thing, you’re the most valuable crew member this boat has, with Missy gone.”

“Yeah, I can make twelve hours. I can make sixteen.”

“Ten,” Paige amended. “You have ten hours, and regardless of what you find out, Brooke goes first.”

“All right,” Leona accepted. “I’ll make a list of things I need. You’re all more familiar with the inventory.”

Eight hours later, Serif walked into Leona’s lab. “Anything?”

“Lot of things,” Leona answered. “Come here and take a look.”

Serif put her eyes on the microscope. “What am I seeing here?”

“Nanobots,” Leona said with a grin.

“Nanobots?”

“Nanobots,” she repeated. “Organic nanobots. Your body makes them. It converts the chemicals you eat in everyday foods into programmable machines. Programmable..by your brain. You can expel these through your breath, instinctively programming them to treat wounds.”

“Don’t the Earthans have this kind of technology anyway? Aren’t they part of transhumanistic upgrades?”

Leona shook her head, even though this wasn’t technically wrong. “You can’t just..give someone medical nanites. They have to not only be programmed for specific tasks, but be customized to the individual.”

Serif just stood there.

“The only nanites that can treat a patient are the ones that were made especially for them. They’re non-transferable.”

“Well, then why are mine?”

“Because you’re a miracle,” Leona said, no doy. “We already knew that. When you donate your nanites to others, they automatically become compatible with their blood, organs, and microbiome.”

“You say I create them when I eat.”

“Yeah, basically. They die eventually, just like any cell, and your body discharges them, probably through urine, and replaces them simultaneously. That’s why your patients don’t suddenly start carrying nanites themselves. They lose them after the job is done, and they don’t replicate.”

“If I create them when I eat, and lose them after a period, then I only have so many.”

“At any one time, that’s right. But theoretically you’ll just keep producing them, like man’s sperm. I still don’t know why you can do this. If you were born with it, or what. It’s not really a time power, and those are the only kinds we’ve ever seen, but I guess it’s possible tha—”

“Leona!” Serif interrupted her. “Come back to me.”

“Yeah, sorry, I get carried away. This is a major discovery.”

“If I have a limited number, maybe I really can be drained. Maybe I can only save one. Maybe two. Hell, maybe even three, which means I don’t just have to decide who lives, but also who dies.”

“Paige is making that decision. It’s her job.”

“She can make all the decisions she wants. It all comes down to me.”

“Look, I need more time. I need you to heal someone, and then I can test your refresh rate. We can’t know that if you don’t use it.”

“You’re not getting it. You were supposed to tell me I can heal everyone, with absolute certainty.”

“Science doesn’t work like that.”

“This isn’t science. It’s magic. What we do is magic! There’s a way out of this, and you need to figure it out!”

Leona shut down and turned herself into a statue.

Serif composed herself. “I’m sorry. I’m under a lot of stress. I can’t wrap my head around the possibility that something I do—or don’t do—could lead to someone’s death. I can’t pass that off to Paige. I’m the one with the power.” At last, she inhaled.

“No you’re not.” Leona said, coming to an idea.

“What?”

“You are now, but you don’t have to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Allogeneic HSCT.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A transplant. Transplants can transfer powers.”

“That works with time powers, but you said you don’t know if that’s what this is.”

“True, but it shouldn’t matter anyway. Cancer patients receive marrow transplants when their body can no longer produce certain cells on its own. Your nanites are probably made in the marrow, originating as stem cells, like all your others. If we transplant these stem cells to all the patients, they’ll start producing nanites on their own, for a short time.”

“For a long enough time?”

“There aren’t any studies on this, Serif. I know that’s a shitty answer, but it’s all I have. That certainty you were looking for doesn’t exist, not in ten hours.”

“Can you perform a, uh...an allergic CT?”

“Allogeneic HSCT. Probably.”

“What?”

“Yes, I can,” she clarified, though she wasn’t really so confident.

“Paige isn’t gonna like this. A lot can go wrong in surgery, even I know that.”

“Well, if we had five days, and growth factor, I could give you growth factor, and it would be totally noninvasive.”

“Helpful remark.”

“I just need a blood centrifuge, and some needles,” Leona said, as if that wasn’t asking a lot. “And anesthesia.”

“And a sterile environment, surgical tools, time to practice the procedure, oh yeah, and the years it takes to become a surgeon.” Paige had hobbled into the room, and was resting against the door frame.

“You shouldn’t be up,” Serif said, trying to help her stand.

Paige refused the help. “And you shouldn’t be indulging in your girl’s fantasies.” She turned back to Leona. “You’re not performing surgery on five people, Leona. Jesus Christ, who do you think you are? I’ll be the first to admit that you’re an amazing woman, but you cannot do this. Time is up.”

“I have two more hours,” Leona argued.

“I’ve decided you don’t. Brooke’s health is too important, so Serif, you’re saving her now. We can only hope she isn’t your last.”

“Love,” Leona called out when Serif started following her out of the room.

“I’m sorry. If I can only save one, let me at least save one. If I jump forward in time to find nothing more than a pile of rotting corpses, because we wasted these last few hours on the off-chance you find out how to make this work, will the try have been worth it?”

“We can try to contact The Crossover,” Leona begged as they were walking away. “They know doctors, and they can be here in a flash!”

No one answered.

Leona remained to stew in her defeat, praying that someone from the Crossover randomly decided to show up without prompting. Then she realized that that was it. The Crossover. Serif was badly injured by the Sword of Assimilation. She must have absorbed the powers from someone else; someone from the other universe. She ran out to stop Serif, hoping her epiphany could be enough for them to rethink their plan. Only when she saw Serif breathing deliberately all over Brooke’s body did she realize the news didn’t matter.

As midnight approached, Brooke showed no signs of improvement, and the conditions of the others were deteriorating. In a desperate attempt to save the crew, Serif breathed on everybody, including Leona, just in case. Come 2165, they found everyone in perfect health. The nanite treatments apparently just needed a few days to work. Unfortunately, they realized that their exposure to radiation was not due to the meteor strike itself, but the contamination of most of their water supply. They had been forced to get creative with the recycling system, especially since no one knew how to repair the atterberry pods following Missy Atterberry’s death.

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