Fervor: The Trinity is a Paradox (Part XII)

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A kind woman is helping me up from the hot pavement of a rooftop parking lot. As I’m trying to recover from the lightshow, I see Jesi running down into the garage, still wearing her hazmat suit, and freaking out a couple walking back to their car. “Should I call the police?” the woman asks me.

“They couldn’t do anything,” I say. “She’s too powerful.” I remember what’s just happened, and scramble away from the woman. “Oh no, get away from me, I’m sick!” I look around, as if it would be possible to see the pathogen spreading through the air, or more ridiculously, that if possible, I could do anything about it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says to me calmly. “We’ll get to a hospital and figure this out. What exactly is it that you think you have?”

“They called it anthrolysis.”

“They, who?”

I can’t answer that question, because I’m determined to keep time travel a better secret, and she picks up on this.

“Everything is going to be all right. I’m Carol Gelen. What’s your name?”

“Paige. Paige Turner.”

This somehow seems to catch her off guard. She reaches into her back pocket, and opens a sheet of paper. “I received this in the mail. Not an email, but the old fogey kind. I thought it was strange that a new bookstore would open after nearly all others have closed in recent years. I couldn’t pass up the offer for one free softcover book to the first fifty people who show up to its grand opening, though.” She hands me the flyer. “I figured it was a prank, because I can’t find a store by that name anywhere. I came back up here to leave.”

“KC Page Turner Book Emporium,” I read. “Jesi, you bitch,” I mutter.

“This wasn’t me.” Jesimula Utkin has appeared next to me. She sounds sincere. “I’m Alt!Jesi, from the other reality. I’ve just learned what this is. The Prestons have it out for this woman’s children.”

“I don’t have children,” Carol corrects her. “I only have a daughter.”

“In this timeline, yes.”

The fear in Carol’s eyes. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and almost drops it, trembling like a newborn fawn. “Hey Thistle, call Leona.”

“No,” I say out loud, absorbing some of Carol’s fear into my own eyes as she’s confirming that her daughter is still alive. “Please tell me that’s a more common name than I knew.”

Jesi frowned at me. “Technically it’s a different Leona than you know. The one at the Ponce is far older.”

“I saw you teleport,” Carol says to Jesi after hanging up. “I thought I was seeing things when Miss Turner here did it, but obviously not. What is going to happen to my little girl?”

“She will be fine,” Jesi assures her. “Well, maybe that’s not the best word to use, but she will survive, and she’ll become a hero. She meets a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and has two wonderful children. You actually met your grandchildren, as did your late husband, you just didn’t know it.” That was shockingly generous of Jesi to say, and it seems to be helping Carol feel better.

“But I’m still going to die?” Carol asks.

“It’s like it’s already happened,” Jesi confirms

“No,” I say. “We can stop this. Send me back.”

Jesi frowns at me again as she’s taking out her phone. “Okay Thistle, call Ophir.” She waits a second. “Fifi. Emergency evac to KU Med in realtime. One patient. The human.”

“She doesn’t need a hospital; she needs a reset,” I argue.

A man appears, picks Carol up like they’re newlyweds, and disappears again.

“Arcadia and Nerakali are not going to let this go. Mrs. Gelen died in the other timeline, and I don’t deign to understand why she has to die in this one, but I do not question them.”

“How is that possible? You don’t back down.”

“From them, I do. Anything more would be suicide. I’m sorry, Paige, but the only thing  we can do for Patient One right now is keep her comfortable until she dies.”

“At least take her to Doctor Hammer,” I suggest. “She might stand a chance at fixing this.”

“That is precisely why I didn’t involve Hammer. I’m trying to tell you, it’s hopeless. Her fate has been decided.”

Now I’m getting angry. “Yeah, decided by you! You can blame others all you want, but this was your doing, and you will have to live with yourself.”

“Not if I erase my own memories. I can do the same for you.”

“No,” I say, seething. “I wanna remember how much I hate you.”

“I think you’ll one day forgive me. Afterall, I’m the reason you just saved the world. Yes, someone died, but omelettes and eggs, right?”

I’m getting angrier. “People! Are not! Omelettes! Carol was a human bei—is. She is a human being!”

“In this analogy, Carol would be the egg, and humanity would be the—”

“Argh!” I scream. I invoke my memories of watching football with my dad. He doesn’t actually like sports all that much, but gambling on games with the power to vaguely recall the future is how he makes his money. I pull my arms in, and lower my head, so I can barrel right into her, like a...uhh...linebacker? Jesi’s nearly over the edge when a pair of hands tugs me at the waist. She’s still about to fall to her death when a second pair of hands saves her just in time. But it’s the same pair, and both belong to me. Two other versions of me just stopped me from making the biggest mistake of my life.

Second!Paige regards Third!Paige with surprise. “In the other timeline,” Third!Paige explains, “you pull First!Paige off of Jesimula, but it’s too late. Jesi ends up tipping over.”

I can’t speak.

“One thing you’ll learn, First,” Third!Paige says to me, “is that sometimes you can change the past, and sometimes you’re just completing a predestined loop.”

I still can’t speak. Part of me is in shock from encountering two other versions of myself, and the rest is still vengeful against Jesimula Utkin.

“The question now,” Second!Paige begins, “is what do we do with the three of us?”

“Easy,” Jesi says. “You have to do a physical blend.”

I finally feel up to joining the bizarre conversation.“What is that?”

“Choosers tend to not like there being alternate versions of themselves running around,” Third!Paige starts, “so they join together, and form a new person.”

“This new person has the combined memories of the originals, which is why I’m not so sure we should do it,” Second!Paige adds. “Both of us remember killing Jesi, and I don’t want you to have to go through that. Besides, blending brains is bad enough, but quantum merging two bodies is said by some to be more painful than childbirth. I’ve never heard of it being done by three people.”

“Irrelevant,” Jesi says. “It’s immoral to remain apart. Jupiter Rosa is the only exception.”

“You’re one to talk,” Second!Paige says to her.

“The other Jesi and I will be quantum merging soon, I promise you that,” Jesi claims.

Third!Paige faced Jesi more straight on. “You should go before a fourth version of us has to come back in time, and save your life again.”

“I have business on the plaza,” Jesi responds, looking at her watch. “Fair warning, I’m only sliding a few minutes into the future. Be here, or be somewhere else.” She forms a temporal bubble, and disappears.

Second!Paige looks at her watch. “We should get going anyway. The rest of the team is going to be worried about her.”

“We can’t show ourselves to them,” Third!Paige reminds her.

“I know,” Second!Paige agrees. “Which means we don’t have long to settle our affairs, and say our goodbyes.”

Both of the other Paiges take sunglasses out of their respective pockets, and place them on their faces, completely in sync, like they practiced it ahead of time. Second!Paige puts on a funny hat. I guess we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, which three triplets at somewhat different ages would do. We climb the stairs in silence. Once we’re back down on the street, I look back up to the roof, and see Jesimula Utkin creepily staring at us. I watch her for a moment, then turn away, and follow myself down the block. The disguises seem to be working, because nobody gives us a second look as we stroll the plaza.

“Why do we have to say goodbye again?” I ask of them.

“Jesi’s right in that we shouldn’t be seen together,” Third!Paige explains, “or interact with each other in the long run. If we’re each to survive independently, then we should do so, well...independently.”

This was sound logic, and I couldn’t figure out how I felt about. These two are me, and I could learn so much from them. They almost feel like my sisters, and I don’t to part from them. But yes, it would be uncomfortable and confusing for our fathers, and I don’t want them dealing with that. It’s already bad enough that I’m now one of their peers.

Second!Paige sighs deeply. “Our biggest hurdle is which of us gets to go back, and which has to go somewhere else?”

“How would you even get there?” Third!Paige asks her.

“I would...” Second!Paige tries to sound like she knows what she’s talking about, “make contact.”

“With whom?”

“Choosers.”

“You know many choosers?”

“Someone could take me there.”

“Someone, like Ophir Adimari?” Third!Paige questions.

“Yeah, maybe,” Second!Paige argues.

“I have something better,” Third!Paige says. She removes what look like two phones from her back pockets. I assume they’re not really phones, though. “I found Ophir after Jesi died by my hand for the second time, and asked him to take me back there. I had spent years not wanting to try to change history again, thinking it would  only end in disaster, knowing that only Asuk could help me through it. Our fathers were great, but I felt such shame every time I looked at them, I couldn’t bear it. Going back to the future helped immensely, but at a terrible price. Ophir, Jesi, Keanu, and all their friends are horrible people, who don’t do anything for free. Ophir wanted too much from me, so I came back to fix it all, but not before I made these.” She hands one device to Second!Paige, and the other to me.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Photos. Hundreds of millions of them,” Third!Paige answers. “There’s one photo for very day of eight thousand years, in a couple hundred strategic locations around the world. It can take you all the way to about five-thousand B.C.E.”

I examine the device itself, without even turning it on. “They all fit on this one thing?”

“That baby holds eight petabytes, and I’ve used almost all of it. For reference, a petabyte is a million gigs.”

“How did you find pictures before the camera was invented?” Second!Paige asked.

Third!Paige smirks. “I used a time traveling camera, that someone else invented. It doesn’t matter, the point is that those are yours. First!Paige, you’ll stay here, and continue your life. Jesi isn’t likely to be done with you, and her friends have their own nefarious projects going on. Keep a lookout. Second!Paige, you can be the one to go see Asuk, and his family. As you know, this is a different timeline, so they won’t have any clue who you are.”

“Where will you go?” Second!Paige asks graciously.

Third!Paige’s smirk grows larger. “Hey Glasses, telescope mode.” The lenses of her sunglasses turn a deeper black. She looks up, and looks around at the sky, until she settles on one point. “How about Tau Ceti?” Then she disappears.

“Did she just go to a different planet?” I ask. “How is that possible? She wasn’t looking at a photo.”

Now Second!Paige smirks as she’s flipping through her camera roll. “You don’t need a photo. You just need to see where you’re going.” She disappears too.

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Microstory 935: Parental Leave

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When mother nature is sitting in her office, trying to come up with a new species, she generally has two options to choose from. She can either protect that species by making it immortal, or she can allow each generation to pass on its genes to its offspring. Immortality is so incredibly rare because it’s not often necessary. Most creatures are capable of surviving in their environments by evolving useful traits. The primary biological imperative, therefore, is most often the continuation of the bloodline. Nearly every living thing on this planet is driven by an instinct to propagate their respective species, and besides immortals, like certain jellyfish, humans are the biggest exception. As depicted in the positively brilliant film Idiocracy, humans are capable of ignoring their instincts. We can choose who to mate with, and we don’t always choose wisely. While the term sexual selection may sound like it applies to us more than anyone, it doesn’t. We mate for any number of reasons, with genetic viability being pretty low on the list. We also create accidental pregnancies, which is unheard of in the rest of the animal kingdom. However your family begins, under whatever conditions, you should have the right to nurture your young. Many countries have parental leave policies, which allows new parents to take time off work, while not only maintaining their job security, but getting paid simultaneously. In fact, the majority of nations have some federal law dictating the responsibility a company has to their employees regarding parental leave. The United States does not, which means each company has to come up with their own. Their only incentives to offer a good deal in their benefits package are good publicity, and competition. In my opinion, not even the most accommodating countries provide enough parental leave. In some of my stories—since the first three years of a child’s life are so important—a parent is allowed an entire year of full pay, another year with half-pay, and a third with quarter-pay. This may seem extreme, but they have a wildly different outlook on work. To them, working is something you have to do to have the money you need to do the things you like. They pay more taxes than us, because they see it as an investment in the community, and it’s what pays for things like parental leave, which ultimately benefits everyone. I propose we emulate their plan, and give parents the tools they need to raise their children properly. Everyone complains about how terrible other parents are, and how no one is doing it right. One way to solve that disconnect is to allow them to actually parent, rather than spending half the day at the office.

Microstory 934: 3D Printing

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3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, sounded absurd to me when I first heard whispers of it years ago. Objects are made of so many different kinds of materials, so it seemed impractical to keep each one on hand in raw form at all times. As that one guy in The Graduate says, in one of only two scenes I’ve watched, “plastics.” Plastic is manufactured from a myriad of chemical compounds, and formed in a multitude of ways. It is widely available, cheap to make, and capable of assuming any form. It also lasts for thousands of years, which is why it’s so bad for the environment when wasted. Despite its issues, plastic may be our best hope to combat scarcity and inequality. One day, I believe everyone will own two 3D printers; one for synthesizing food, and another for clothing and household items. Certain places will use other types. Every hospital will be equipped with artificial tissue synthesizers, in order to replace bodily organs. Construction companies will utilize specialized mega-printers to build skyscrapers in a matter of days. The average consumer will never have to leave their housing unit to shop. Goods will be selected online—or rather, the technical specifications for them—and printed in minutes, maybe hours. Entire companies will be shuttered, and replaced by those in the business of processing raw plastic cartridges, and delivering to end users via automated drones. This, combined with other societal advances, such as universal basic income, will render jobs virtually irrelevant and unnecessary. I won’t speak more on that, though, because if you’ve been following, you know how excited I am for this future. As of now, most people have no use for a 3D printer of any kind, but in fewer than thirty years, they will be as ubiquitous as microwave ovens. It may sound crazy now, but in the same span of time, the idea of owning a tiny computer the size of a calculator, with access to the whole world, was the stuff of science fiction.

Microstory 933: Recycling

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It would seem difficult to argue against things like renewable resources, and recycling, but people manage to do it. There are some issues with it; I would never claim it to be perfect. Solar panels can make the area hot enough to fry birds, that is, if the wind turbines don’t chop ‘em up first. Recycling facilities also pollute the air, which kind of defeats the purpose of them in the first place. But we should still invest as a society in environmentally-minded projects and technology. Just because something doesn’t work the way we want it to now, doesn’t mean it won’t be better in the future. People seem to think progress is based merely in time; that if you wait long enough, everything will be done. In reality, you have to work for it. We had to want to travel great distances faster in order to invent trains, cars, and planes. If oceans were made of lava, we wouldn’t build ships out of wood. We would instead try to figure out how to mould metal that won’t melt, or just skip right to aircraft. If we all lived on a tiny island, and had everything we needed to live happily, we probably wouldn’t build any transportation technology beyond the humble bicycle. We have to use crappy recycling techniques now so we can learn from our experiences, and one day come up with something better. We are presently a planet of trash. This trash was tossed out not only by our ancestors, but by us. And when I say it was tossed out, remember that there is nowhere safe for it to go. All you can hope to do is make it someone else’s problem, but that is not a very dignified way to live. There are a few people out there who benefit financially by keeping us the way we are, which is living in literal filth. They are generally old, and would sooner see this world die than give up their cash. They use their charm to convince people who are both poor and stupid that their open positions in destroying the environment are the only ones to be had. People like King Dumpster want you to rely on them to live. Because if you figure out that a couple solar panels, and a miniature wind turbine, can get you off the grid, and save you tons of money in the long-term, you might also realize that they do not have your best interests in mind. It’s negligibly harder in most regions—in this country, at least—to sort your refuse into two separate bins; one for waste, and one for recycling. There are many reasons to take that extra step, and so few reasons to not. Your descendants will live better, so that should be enough for you. If not, consider that you might be young enough to live forever, or long enough to personally suffer consequences of environmental disaster. (Side note: while hurricanes themselves are perfectly natural, the frequency, and increased intensity of them in recent years, are being directly caused by global climate change, which is being perpetrated by humans.) If you believe in an afterlife, I guarantee deliberately not recycling is not going to score you any points with whatever Flying Spaghetti Monster you worship. Unless you worship an evil being. Is that it? Are you a devil-worshipper? Those three reasons should encompass the majority of people living in the developed world, so stop listening to garbage people, like Donald Trump, and pick one. Reduce..reuse...recycle.

Microstory 932: Quantum Entanglement

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I wouldn’t claim to understand exactly what quantum entanglement is, how it is a thing that exists, or what we can do with it. I am no quantum physicist, though as you can read in my bio, I did have aspirations to study that in the future when I was younger. I realize now my only reason for this is because my favorite show was once Quantum Leap, but the field requires a level of math that I’m not capable of. Judging from one failing grade, and two D grades, I’m not even capable of college algebra. What I can do, however, is utilize a very basic grasp of the most basic concepts to come up with cool science fiction stories wherein characters exploit physical laws to their own gains. Quantum entanglement is a complex subject that not even those studying it can fully explain, but I’ll give you the gist of it, as I’ve interpreted the sources I’ve used for research. Let’s say you have two particles that are close to each other, and spinning around. They spin because nothing in the universe stands still. Everything is in flux, exchanging energy, and succumbing to the ultimate vastness of entropy. I’m not sure how it happens, but by some manner, these two particles can become linked to one another. You can then move the particles far, far away from each other, but this connection inexplicably remains. If you measure the spin of one, you can know the spin of the other, even faster than it would take for you to learn that using normal spacetime limitations. Einstein referred to this as “spooky action at a distance”. The man was so intelligent, he intuited the concept using mathematical formula before humanity had the technology to even come close to testing his hypothesis. So what does this all mean? Well, in my stories, it’s possible to communicate across the universe by connecting two devices together, and then sending them far apart. The internet says, “not so fast, compadre. That’s not how it works.” Welp, maybe not. It’s true that the two particles lose their connection as soon as you try to manipulate one of them. We call this the Uncertainty Principle, but I won’t get into that. I still believe that there is a loophole to that. I don’t know what it might be, but I also don’t think we’re all stuck here. I believe humans are destined to reach for the stars...literally, and to be able to stay connected to each other. And isn’t that what it’s all about? The real reason I love quantum entanglement so much is because it’s a property of physics that demonstrates the best thing about being alive: interacting with others.

Microstory 931: Gravity

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There are few things in the universe as important as gravity. One of them is spacetime, and the other—if it exists at all—is any underlying component of reality that allows for the creation, and persistence, of life in general. We have only studied organic life on Earth, as well as quasi-living entities we call viruses. There may be other forms of life beyond our single orbital we have yet to encounter, or which we have encountered, but do not recognize. One thing is for sure, however, in whatever form this other life takes, it would not be able to exist without gravity, because nothing can. Gravity is what holds celestial bodies together. People like to say that it “keeps us down to the ground” but that’s not a very reasonable way to put it. There is no up and down in space—and we are in space, just not outer space. So it’s more like gravity pulling us inward, and keeping us from going outward. The distinction matters, because it’s important to understand that a body gravitationally bound to another will always be pulled towards the center of  that more massive object. Why exactly it does this is something we’ve been struggling with for years. Contrary to the tale of the apple that has been misinterpreted into your brains, Isaac Newton did not discover gravity. At no point did someone have to realize that things fall down, or even that they don’t spontaneously float upwards. There are things like wind, lift, and pressure, which allow certain objects to move away from its gravitational pull, but that doesn’t mean gravity isn’t operating upon it. The reason those objects, like birds, are capable of resisting the effects of gravity to some degree is because gravity is a weak force. It’s the weakest force, because it takes a lot more to make it happen than it does to make the other forces happen.

If gravity were stronger, the computer you’re reading this on may be experiencing a gravitational pull towards the center of your body right now. There’s an episode of Family Guy that demonstrates this by having several household objects float around Peter, suggesting that he’s so fat, he’s massive enough to hold his own orbit. And while we know that such a thing is impossible in the real world, and Isaac codified a great deal of the basic properties of gravity, there is still so much more to learn. The scientists who know the most about it still don’t understand what gravity is, how it works, or why it’s so much weaker than the other three (or four) forces. They’ve proposed this particle called the graviton, but there’s no proof it even exists. What we do know is that it’s vital to the universe. I’ve read some sources that say if we didn’t have gravity, everything would just fall apart, but that’s only a helpful image when you’re trying to explain what would happen if gravity suddenly disappeared. The truth is that, without it, nothing meaningful would exist at all. Particles would just be floating around in empty space, never having come together to form something larger in the first place. Gravity has done a lot to work against us. Rocket ships expend the majority of their fuel just getting off the ground, and away from the atmosphere, in the first place. And we don’t even have it that bad. It’s conceivable that a species living on a heavy world would never develop technology capable of reaching space, because it would just not be practical to try. Still, gravity is one of my favorite things, because we will one day conquer it, and once we do that, nothing will be able to stop us from reaching greatness.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 20, 2197

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Though Ulinthra herself could not be caught, because she left the timeline as soon as Leona did, all of her loyalists directly responsible for Brooke’s senseless death were apprehended by the Kansas City Police Authority. Vitalie remained partially on Leona’s pattern, but experienced it differently than before. She would sometimes wake up and it be tomorrow, and sometimes a few weeks later. She continued like this for the entire year until Leona returned, at which point, they were able to regroup, and prepare for their next move. Without bothering to figure out how to contact Ulinthra, they flipped their penny yet again, more as a symbol than anything. It did land on heads, though Leona was determined to follow through with the plan regardless of the outcome.

“You can back out at any time...while we’re still here. As soon as you make the jump with me, you’re on the hook. If this doesn’t work, Ulinthra will surely find a way to kill you, just as she has everyone else who’s helped me.”

“She hasn’t killed people who’ve helped you,” Vitalie argued. “She’s killed people you love. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I already qualify. If you try this alone, I’m still at risk. Hell, if we do nothing, I may be at risk, ‘cause Ulinthra be crazy.”

“This is true, but anything you participate in puts you at more risk. What you do does matter.”

“You’re right, it does matter. I just spent part of the last year looking for one of the only people in history who can get us where we need to go. You don’t need to convince me to choose a side. I already have. All you need to do now is say the word, and that woman comes into this room.”

Leona thought on it some more, just to be cautious. But the truth was that they still needed an advantage over Ulinthra, and she knew of only one person who could provide that for them. It would be a nice bit of poetic justice, because it was Ulinthra who once gave them this leverage against him, and if this went well, he would have the opportunity to return the favor. They needed Horace Reaver. But not just any Horace would do. They needed the OG Reaver, and in their current condition, he was a difficult man to reach. “Do it.”

“Come on in!” Vitalie shouted in the general direction of the door.

A woman came in with an apathetic look on her face. She reminded Leona of April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation. “Do you have it?”

“I don’t understand why you need this. Aren’t you powerful enough to get just about anything you want?” Vitalie questioned her.

“It’s not about me getting it. It’s about you going to get it for me. Yes, payment is hard to come by for choosers, because we’re so connected and powerful. But half of any transaction is sacrifice. If you want something, you have to work for it, even if I don’t technically benefit from it.”

“All right,” Vitalie said with a short sigh. “Here’s a diamond the size of my hand. Did people really value these things in your day, Leona?”

Leona took the diamond from Vitalie, and examined it. “In my day, most diamonds had to be found in the dirt. They had a certain...air of rarity that the jewelry companies imposed upon society. We were only starting to make them ourselves when I was growing up. Now, of course, they hold almost no value.”

The woman took a fancy cane from her magical bag of holding, and placed the diamond on top of it, to see how it looked. “They’re valuable, because they’re pretty.”

“Are we cool?” Vitalie asked.

“Seeing it now, I realize it’s not quite the cut I wanted, but it is what I asked for, so yeah...we’re cool.” She tossed the cane and diamond into her bag. “Are you carrying any citrus?”

“Of course not,” Leona replied.

“Then let us hold hands, like a coven of witches.”

“Is there any way I could know your name first?” Leona asked her.

“Transporter rules, sweetheart. No names. You can call me The Arborist.” She reached out her hands to grasp Vitalie and Leona’s. “Now, what year are we looking for?”

“2055,” Leona told her, “but we’re using an extraction mirror, so it doesn’t necessarily matter. I suppose it should be no earlier than that, though. Let’s say 2066, because I’m not certain when he died.”

“Why do you need an extraction? Why couldn’t you take him long before his death?” the Arborist asked.

“He undergoes dramatic changes to his personality, so the closest we can get to his death, the better. He’s in prison during the years leading up to that death, and we don’t want to interfere with that. Only the final version of him would be willing to return to his final moment.”

“Thanks for the life story,” the Arborist joked. “I’m to understand you have blended memories of the destination timeline?”

“Correct,” Leona answered.

“Good. It’ll be much easier to find. Please devote all of your thoughts upon it.”

Leona did as she was told. She had traveled through time many times before, in many different ways, but never like this. Time was extremely mutable. Choosing ones and salmon were constantly traveling back and forth, making small and large changes to the timeline. Each one sprouts a new branch of history, from the point of divergence, which was why this woman was called the Arborist. She could jump to alternate branches, supposedly without creating yet another branch. These older branches were delicate and precious. They were generally meant to be left alone, because any change could create a paradox. If anything a traveler does in a deprecated timeline negates the creation of the branch they first traveled from then they could never have come from that branch at all, but if they didn’t come from that branch, then they couldn’t have made the change in the old branch. This endless loop of impossibility was why not even the worst of the worst, like The Cleanser or Nerakali, trifled with old branches. No one really knows why so very few choosers were capable of traveling to old timelines, but those who understood the consequences were grateful for it. Leona would generally never risk it, but she was desperate, and they were only going to be there for a few seconds.

The Arborist pulled her hands away from theirs. “We’re here. Do you want some privacy?”

“We won’t be staying long, but this isn’t Palace Glubbdubdrib.” They were standing in front of a mirror, but not the one Leona had seen before, when she put the OG Gilbert Boyce back to his moment of death.

“I don’t really like that place,” the Arborist noticed. “I prefer this one. I assure you, it works, and it doesn’t require blood. Just say his name, and think of his face.”

Leona faced the mirror, and deliberately said, “Horace Reaver.”

The man could now be seen in the mirror, standing in his Easter Island cave prison, an explosion at his back. He was already in the midst of talking to someone from a completely different mirror. One of the men, whom Leona thought she should recognize, started angrily pushing a second man right through the event horizon. Reaver was assisting from the other side. A third man tried to help as well, but the victim pulled him through with him. Once it was done, Leona’s mirror managed to make time slow down, uh...again.

Reaver, noticing that his two new cellmates, were quite nearly frozen, stepped away. “What’s going on?”

“Come Horace,” Leona called to him. “It’s time to leave.”

“Leona?” Reaver asked.

“I don’t have time to explain. Just come through.”

“I didn’t think I could.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Who are those other people?” Vitalie asked, referring to Reaver’s security team.

“They have to stay,” the Arborist said sternly.

“Wait, that one is Lincoln. And that one is too!” Lincoln Rutherford was a security guard in this timeline, and in charge of Reaver’s imprisonment. But there was a second Lincoln watching the explosion from outside the prison cube, along with some other version of the guy Mateo forced through the mirror. Mateo. That was his name. Why did Leona know who Mateo was? Why was she meant to know him?

“You can’t save him,” the Arborist explained. “This version—these versions of Lincoln don’t matter. This is an old timeline, remember? We came for this guy, so take this guy, and we’ll put him back when we’re done.”

Reaver scoffed. “Screw that.” He went back over, and stuck his arms under Lincoln’s. He then leaned back, and started dragging Lincoln’s frozen body towards Leona’s mirror.

“You can’t do that!” the Arborist barked.

“Watch me,” Reaver countered. He stepped backwards through the mirror, pulling Lincoln with him. Once the latter’s last foot was all the way through, time restarted in the prison cube. The explosion overwhelmed the rest of the people left in there, and then the dimensional doorway closed completely, leaving them with nothing but their reflections.

Lincoln joined them in real time, and scrambled up from the floor. “What just happened? Am I not dead.”

Horace kindly placed his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. “I just saved your life, brother. I couldn’t save everyone, though.”

“Shit,” the Arborist said.

“What?”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Shiiit! Shiiiit!”

“What is it, Arby?” Vitalie asked.

“Did you see that?” the Arborist asked in a frenzy. “Horace Reaver and Lincoln Rutherford never go back to the cube, to their deaths. We would have seen it from this angle. You just changed the timeline, which means our timeline may never have been created.”

“We don’t know that,” Leona suggested. “Everyone may still think they’re dead. That explosion wasn’t just from an IED. It vaporized everything. There’s no way of knowing anyone survived.”

The Arborist was shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s right. I think we’re in trouble.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Horace said, stepped closer to Leona. “There was a time when she and I were an unstoppable team.” He stepped back. “Maybe we can find a way to get back to that.”

Leona reached up and wrapped her arms around Horace’s neck. “We’re already there. I remember everything.”

“What about Mateo?” Horace asked.

“Who?”

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Fervor: Fever (Part XI)

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Asuk fell in love with me pretty much as soon as we met, though he would never admit to it. When I tried to explain that I felt nothing for him beyond friendship, I realized that I didn’t understand it myself. I had actually never felt anything like that about anyone, and always figured that I just hadn’t yet met the right person. Before you get any ideas about me, I’m no sociopath. I experience empathy for others, and I care what happens to them, but I have no interest in romantic or sexual relationships. This was unheard of in the 1970s, and my life in the 2020s was so consumed by time travel, that no one had the chance to explain it to me before. Asuk understood completely, though, because in his day, all sexuality stigmas have been almost entirely erased. He said that I was asexual, and provided me with some resources to help me figure myself out.

After we made s’mores that first night, I agreed to stay with him that night, because he was afraid of being alone in the dark. He said that his camping lot was located in a region of Earth purposely left uncontrolled by weather satellites, but admitted the satellites contributed so much to the global climate, that it was still not all that natural. While the weather wasn’t as perfect as it was for most of the surface, it was a decent night on its own. I woke up the next morning, and waited for a sign. I allowed myself to wait until noon o’clock central for anything that would point me in the direction that Jesi wanted me to go, but nothing happened. And so I said my goodbyes, then I pulled up my phone, where I kept several photographs I took of April, 2025 Missouri, so I could return in a case such as this one. Unfortunately, I was unable to go anywhere. I could feel a slight burn in my eyes as I stared at one of the photographs of Cleaver Fountain, but I couldn’t actually travel there. I swiped through all of my dozens of saved photos for one that would work, including the scans I made of the pictures from my childhood camera. I only ignored the ones that would have taken me back to 1971. Anywhere is better than there. Nothing worked, but I kept trying...for about a week. Then I gave up, and surrendered myself to the time period. From then on, I only attempted to travel back in time about once a week, just in case whatever was preventing me from traveling wore off.

I stayed with Asuk and his family, who were living on Earth for that month. They were nomads, though, like so many others, and whenever they moved somewhere else, I would go with them. I spent some time on Mars and Venus, both of which had, through miracles of science, become just as habitable as Earth. We went back to what I now know is something called a dyson bubble. Basically, giant mirrors were suspended around the sun and Jupiter, allowing more solar energy than ever before to be harvested and used to power the worlds, connected via relay satellites orbiting these worlds. We also lived in habitat domes on two moons of Jupiter, which by the way, was now a freaking sun. Somehow, they turned Jupiter into a star, and no matter how many times my new friends tried to teach me how it was done, I couldn’t understand it. I don’t even understand why they did it, other than for the possibility of some of the larger of these moons to have their own atmospheres. Asuk’s family was planning to move to a different star system—and leave me behind, because I didn’t feel comfortable traveling that far from home—when disaster struck.

A mysterious pathogen spread throughout the entire system, infecting every biological species of some particular level of complexity that went over my head. It possessed an alarmingly long incubation period, which meant it transmitted out of control from person to person before anyone realized what was happening. The system was placed in quarantine, but experts believed these measures to have been far too late. Lightspeed ships were virtually unreachable while traveling at relativistic speeds, so the damage was done. Every organic human within a thousand lightyears would be infected, with little hope for a cure. Of course that meant it would take a thousand years to run its course, but all entities not created, or fitted, with artificial parts, would be dead by then. The oldest purely biological person living today was a hundred and thirty-two years old. The pathogen itself did not cause death, nor symptoms that could not easily be remedied. What it did was prevent someone infected from procreating. If the people working the problem were unable to solve it, normal humans would be wiped out. This is what Jesi wants to bring back to my time, and I have to do anything in my power to stop it, even if it means staying here for the rest of my life; even if it means dying today.

“Maybe we should go,” Asuk says. “Maybe you should come with us.”

“Where?” I ask him. “To Teagarden?”

“Why not? It’ll only take twelve years.”

“We’re still in quarantine.”

He brushes this off. “Eh, in a couple years, they’re gonna discover patients on Doma, and the quarantine won’t mean a damn thing. They’ll let us go, because it won’t matter anymore. Besides, I know a friend who can get us a darkburster.”

“Like from the twenty-second century? Didn’t they figure out how to detect those? Isn’t darkbursting impossible now?”

“Intentional obsolescence. They could detect darkbursters, but they don’t scan for them, because they don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to use them.”

“Because people who used them died half the time.”

“I’ll take those odds.”

“I won’t,” I say. “I’m not getting in a darkburster, and I’m not going to Teagarden. I’m perfectly fine here.”

“On Rhea?” Rhea is a large Saturnial moon that was considered too small for terraforming. It was instead gutted, and turned into the largest single-processor computational apparatus in the known galaxy. While the dyson bubbles are ultimately larger, they’re each composed of disparate parts, so they don’t count. Few people actually live on Rhea, but it’s a cool tourist attraction. We’re currently staying in what I can’t help but call a space motel.

“No, just here in general. I like moving around with you guys, but if I never go back to my time period, I’ll still want to be near Earth. It will always be my home. I won’t go past the Oort cloud.”

Asuk yawns. “Well, I suppose I have a couple years to change your mind, unless you would reconsid—”

“I’m not stepping foot in a darkburster.” Darkbursters are ancient ships capable of interplanetary travel without being picked up on sensors. But they resulted in too many deaths, and are fundamentally pointless these days. If you want to go somewhere, for the most part, you can. You really just have to ask.

“Preach, sister!” comes a voice from behind me. I turn around to see someone standing there with a hazmat suit on. There’s a glare on the face part, so I can’t see who it is until she moves slightly.

“Jesi.”

“This is a special suit,” Jesi says. “It doesn’t just protect me from germs, but also from this time. It’s basically shields me against everything, but it comes at a price. I can’t use my power while it’s on. I created a latent time bubble to get me here, but now I’m stuck.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. The world is probably better off with you in one place.”

“Not so fast,” Jesi says. “I can’t take us back, but you can, and you will.” She holds up an injection gun. “I give you this, and your powers return. Then you take us both back home. Easy peasy..little queasy.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re in love with this kid?” Jesi gestures towards Asuk.

“No,” Asuk laughed a bit too hard.

“I’m not taking this pathogen back to 2025. Why do you wanna destroy the human race? Lemme guess, so choosers can start fresh, and bring about a new dawn?”

Jesi shakes her head at pathetic little me. “The pathogen is rampant in this time. We still don’t know where it comes from, but we know how it spread. Paige, it came from multiple places at once. It was this onslaught of slow and unavoidable death. It probably originated on another planet.”

“Sounds tasty,” I spit.

“You’re not getting it. There’s a reason I’m in this suit, and it’s not so I don’t get infected. I mean it is, but not because I’m selfish.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’m trying to save the world!”

“By destroying it, I get it.”

“No, you don’t.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you a story. About a man.”

“What man?”

“His name...was Mateo Matic.”

“Never heard of ‘im.”

“I’m not surprised, he was erased from the timeline. Not even his wife remembers him.”

“Who’s his wife?” Asuk asks. He always loves a good story.

“Her name’s Leona.”

“Whaaaat?” I question overdramatically.

“It’s true, but that’s not the point. The point is that he once accidentally came to the year 3118. He picked up the pathogen, and then he took it back to 2025.”

“So he’s here right now?” Asuk asks.

“I just told you, he was ripped out of time.”

“Right.”

“You seriously like this guy?” she asks me.

“Get to the point!” I shout.

“This all happened in a different timeline. The reason you’re here, Paige, is to replicate what happened to him.”

“Yeah, I understand. You want me to destroy the world.”

“Christ, Paige, will you get off that? No. You’re one person, and you’ve been living here for the last several months. The disease has mutated since it first came about. It’s begun to focus on conserving energy, rather than spreading. When you go back to 2025, no one is going to become sterile. They might get a little fever, but they’ll get over it, and will be stronger for it. They’ll continue to evolve over the millenium, and by the time they get here, the pathogen will do them no harm. All of this will be erased. This guy here, if he’s even ever born, will not even know you existed.”

“That might be what you think will happen, but I have it on good authority that your plan does not work,” I counter.

“Oh, you mean the other version of me?” she asks. “Yeah, we spoke. Bringing you here was her idea. This is what fixes it. This is what fixes everything. Paige Turner Reaver-Demir, you are about to become mother of a multitude.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t believe this will work. I don’t trust you. Or her.”

“That’s fine,” Jesi says, confidently casual. “You’ll see, though, and you’ll be glad. Asuk will too, though he won’t know it.”

“Aha!” Asuk cries with glee. “You do know my name.”

“That’s what you took from this?” Jesi asks rhetorically.

I stare at Jesi, biting my bottom lip. I can tell that she knows what I’m going to do, but I still have to try. I spin around, and bolt for the exit, but something hits me in the back. Goddamn, I wish people would stop doing that. Next time it’s gonna be a knife. Next time, someone is going to literally stab me in the back. But for now, I fall to the floor. I’m not knocked unconscious, or anything, but the pain is enough to keep me down so Jesi can catch up to me, and force the power suppressor antidote upon me.

“I just won’t jump!” I scream as I’m flipping over. “I just won’t!”

She giggles. “I know you don’t have that much control.” She takes a fist-sized device out of a bag that I somehow know to be an icosidodecahedron. She drops her hand, and lets it hover a meter over the floor. Light explodes from its faces, releasing a sea of nearly a hundred projections, strewn all about the walls. Each one is a photo of a different part of Kansas City, and each one is strobing like the dance floor at a discotheque, overwhelming my senses. My eyes start to burn, so I look away, but they continue to burn. I try to close my eyelids, but somehow that hurts my head even more. I’m looking at a picture of Plaza rooftops when my power overcomes my will, and I jump hopelessly back to the past.

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