Furor: Exit Strategies (Part II)

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Ace didn’t know if he should be surprised that Kolby came back to help, because he didn’t know the guy very well, but he was certainly grateful for it. A security guard unlocked the door, and stepped aside. “Why is she helping us, though?” Ace asked.

“Professional courtesy,” Kolby answered.

“I won’t work for a tyrant,” the guard answered for herself. “Senator Channing’s response to my helping you escape will tell this new world just what kind of person he really is. If we like how he reacts, we’ll back him, but if we don’t...we’ll take care of him.”

Ace didn’t want to know the specifics for what that meant.

“Sorry I took so long,” Kolby whispered as they were sneaking away from the guard, and down the hall. “I was getting this first.” He reached into his bag, and pulled out the dimension-hopping jacket.

Ace widened his eyes, and took the jacket back. “I’m shocked they didn’t use it to go back to the real world.”

“I have a theory about that. I saw a lot of black SUVs and white technician trucks parked by that giant orange TV tower near the border of Union Hill. I was literally running around the city, looking for a hacker informant I once had, who does not work for the Census Bureau. Suddenly, I lost my speed. I think they built a power dampener on that thing, which ironically, means the jacket won’t work.”

“We have to destroy that tower.”

“Yeah, we do. But they will just rebuild it, so I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?”

Kolby remained silent.

“Oh, you want out of here.”

“I take out that tower, you take me with you.”

“The jacket can only take two people at a time, and needs time to recharge.” Ace could have left that part out, and let Kolby just go on thinking that Ace would be able to help, but he didn’t want to make any enemies. “I don’t even know if this thing is ready to take another trip yet.”

“That’s okay,” Kolby said. “I may have a loophole to that. Worst case scenario, the two of you escape. I’ll survive.”

Ace thought about it for a minute as they were lightly gliding down the steps, thankful they were only a few stories up. He knew that a speedster named K-Boy—which was similar to Kolby—was destined to end up in the real world, and join the tracer gang. “You sure will. I promise you’ll get out of here. I know this to be true, don’t ask me how.”

He agreed to not ask how. Then they left the building, and headed South, towards the Union Hill neighborhood. It was just over two miles away, so it was going to take just under an hour. “Is it frustrating?” Ace asked on the way, “You must not be used to walking at such slow speeds.”

“I didn’t get my powers until the flurry,” Kolby explained, referring to the unseasonable winter storm that preceded the creation of this dimension. “So I’ve only had them for a few weeks. Running like that is what I’m not used to.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’ve never been much of a runner, but as a private security professional, I’ve always had to stay in pretty good shape, so it’s not like I lived a sedentary lifestyle before this. I have mixed feelings about my new gifts. I guess I won’t really be able to process any of it until I get back to Earth proper.”

They continued walking in relative silence, until arriving as close as they were willing to get to their destination until they had a good plan. At least, what was what Ace thought. As it turned out, Kolby had already been working on a way to destroy the tower, and he hadn’t done it alone. There was an entire team waiting for them in their secret headquarters. They were in what looked like a print center, complete with a giant printer, but also an ATM.

“Horace Reaver,” Kolby announced, “welcome to the Forger’s lair. We have Garen Ashlock, expert thief. Quivira Boyce, also an expert thief. Hm, do we need two? Maybe one of you should go.”

“Shut up, Morse,” Quivira said.

“You’re right,” Kolby conceded. “I guess Ashlock isn’t so much an expert as he is an amateur.”

Ace wasn’t paying too much attention, though. He found himself just staring at Quivira, whose life he had saved last year, and who had saved his life many years ago. She was smiling at him knowingly, but not saying anything.

Kolby went on, “Doctor Mallory Hammer, who can provide medical support.” He paused to gaze at the last woman, both affectionately, and with disdain. “And here we have Natasha Orlova, former mob princess, and possible lone Russian survivor of the 2023 Gang Wars. She has seen the light, but has not forgotten her past. She’s on demolitions. The Forger and Micro are busy at the Census Bureau headquarters. The latter will be providing technical support remotely. She’ll make sure we don’t get caught. She’s not a salmon or choosing one—or spawn,” he added, looking back at Quivira, “but she’s a good ally. Keep your guard up around Orlova, though.”

“I’m doing my best here, Kolby,” Natasha alleged. “Not every Russian is bad. I never wanted the life my father set out for me. I was always trying to get out, even as a little girl.”

“Prove it tonight,” Kolby advised.

A buzz began to sound from down the dark hallway, and drew nearer. A minidrone appeared from around the corner, and hovered in front of Kolby, who was not nervous about it. A voice spoke from the speaker, “the time is quickly approaching. If you’re going to take out the tower, you better get going now.”

“Thank you, Agent Nanny Cam,” Kolby said to the drone. “Please review the team’s exit strategies.”

“I’ll check to make sure the coast is clear outside the Forger’s den first.” The drone buzzed away.

“You people are so well-organized,” Ace noted. “Have you all been working together long?”

“Just since this happened,” Quivira replied.

“What am I meant to do?” Ace offered.

Kolby laughed. “We’ve only been planning this particular job for about a day. We can’t risk throwing another variable into the mix. I wanted you to know who was helping you here, but you’re not a part of this. You need to get to the hospital, and find your man.”

“But, I can do stuff. I have really good intuition. Like, a supernatural sense of intuition.”

“That doesn’t work here,” Kolby reminded him, “especially not while that tower is operational. We have contingencies. Everyone has a backup plan if something goes wrong. We are going to make this happen, but it’s possible that Channing and Andrews have built their own backup at the Entercom towers. If that kicks in, you may only have seconds before the jacket stops working again.”

“You can just run me there.”

“I have my own contingency.”

“How am I meant to take you back?”

“You don’t worry about. Put your family back together, Reaver. We’ll take care of everything else.”

Ace wanted to argue more, but Kolby ushered him out of the lair, and directed him to Serkan’s hospital, which hacker Micro had uncovered. Not knowing how long it would be before the people on the A-team turned time powers back on, he ran towards the hospital. He was there well before midnight, which he assumed was go time, but the hospital wouldn’t let him in. It was the middle of night, and the whole metropolitan area was in a state of emergency.

“Please!” he begged the nurse. “I have to find my boyfriend; the father of my child!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow,” the nurse argued.

A man with the air of authority walked up from the other side of the room. “Is there a problem here?” He didn’t look like a cop, or even a security guard. He did, however, look like a runner.

“You’re part of the tracer gang?”

“We protect this facility,” the tracer responded.

“I need to speak with Bozhena.”

“Who?”

“Slipstream,” Ace clarified.

“She doesn’t have time for you.”

“Tell her Jupiter sent me!”

“Like, the planet? Or the god?”

“Tell her Jupiter sent me!” Ace repeated.

The tracer lifted his chin, and eyed Ace with caution. Then he looked over at another tracer standing guard. He closed his eyes, and nodded.

“Is that a good nod, or a bad nod?”

“You better hope she knows who this...” he stopped in thought. “Jupiter Rosa? The gun manufacturer?”

“He doesn’t make guns anymore, but yes.”

“Interesting.”

“Can I help you?” came Slipstream’s voice from behind him.

He turned around. “The love of my life is in your hospital. I need to see him.”

“Why would I let you do that? I would need confirmation from Census, and they’re not working right now.”

He started walking forward, and looked around at the walls. “You know where we are right now?”

“We just established that it’s a hos—”

“I mean the world.”

“Andrews said it was a pocket dimension.”

“It’s a duplicate. The perpetrators didn’t tear Kansas City out of the ground. They just made a copy. Of it, and everyone in it. There’s another Slipstream out there, and right now, she’s having tea with my daughter, Paige. Well, I guess that was a couple days ago, but it happened. Serkan is a runner, like you, and a different version of him will one day join your gang. As far as I’m concerned, you’re part of the family. I need to get upstairs tonight.” He consulted his watch. “By midnight.”

“That’s fine,” came another voice. “We can all go; have a chat.” It was Senator Channing, and a posse of thugs, pointing guns at them.

Slipstream stepped over to one of her tracers. “Deep six,” she ordered cryptically. He ran off. She then got in between Ace and the men, to protect him. “I got rid of the firearms in this town once. I’ll do it again.”

“You did that slowly,” Channing laughed, “not in one fight.”

“Actually...” Slipstream began, “I once disarmed twice as many guys as you have, all in one go.”

“Alone?” Channing questioned in disbelief.

Slipstream smirked. “No.”

Tracers appeared out of nowhere—a couple from above—and took all the guns away at once, dropping their wielders to the floor if they had to.

Suddenly, Ace’s jacket began to hum as it powered up. “They did it.” It wasn’t quite midnight yet. Either this was always the plan, or they had to move up the timetable.

Channing looked at this phone. “The tower’s down, good for you. Fortunately, I have three extra. They should be coming online within a few minutes.”

“Shit,” Ace said. He nearly got down on his knees in front of Slipstream. “I need to get to Serkan now. Please.”

“Take him into custody,” Slipstream ordered her people. “We need to have a talk with the mayors tomorrow morning.

“Wait!” one of Channing’s men shouted. “Horace, this is Quivira! I’ve come from the future to fix this! You have to wait for Kolby. He’ll be there at midnight. Exactly at midnight.”

“The towers,” Ace argued.

“Will be taken care of,” Quivira said, using the voice of the man she was possessing. “That’s why I came back, but if you don’t take Kolby out of here, both of our worlds are screwed.”

Ace inhaled, and redirected his attention to Slipstream. “Take me to him right now. I don’t care about the worlds.”

“Bozhena, please!” Quivira pressed. “Wait until midnight. If that man finds his husband a minute too soon, we’re all dead. Remember what I said to you when you were young. Vous aurez un mouton...”

“...si vous avez la vrai nourriture,” Slipstream finished, astonished.

The jacket abruptly stopped buzzing. The towers were back online.

“I’ll take you to him,” Slipstream said to Ace, “at midnight.”

Twenty minutes later, the jacket turned back on yet again, but it still wasn’t midnight, so Ace had no choice but to wait.

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Microstory 1020: Ruth

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My time is very valuable, so I hope we can keep this interview short and efficient. A little bit of background. For the record, my name is Ruth. I’m class secretary, and hope to one day become a real secretary. Not as in, assistant, but a cabinet member. That may sound like too lofty a goal for a small town girl born to a middle class family, but I know what I’m doing, and I’m right on track. I have high aspirations for my life, and I don’t need this scandal getting in the way of that. For the record, I had nothing to do with what happened by the river that day, and was not at all involved in Viola’s death. For the most part, she was a diplomatic person. She loved to be loved, and she was willing to change her entire personality to fit in with whoever she happened to be around at the time. My God, I’m so sorry. Whomever. Get it together, Ruth. Anyway, my point is that I may have been the only person in the whole town that she didn’t like. We were quite similar—she and I—except that I have more trouble connecting with people, since I’m so mindful of order. We weren’t friends, but we were very close. This is our story. She was a lot more fun and relaxed, and people liked being around her, but I too care about the people around me, which is why I want to serve my country. We competed in everything, from grades, to sports, to the position of class president. We both lost out to that ineffectual, feckless cad, Riley, because he promised the school he would put brawndo in the water fountains. It’s not a real drink! Even he meant it as a joke! Whew, sorry about that. Calm and centered, you are worth it, Ruth. Well, no one ran for class secretary, so our apathetic principal decided to let Viola and I fight for the position once Riley took the top spot. She would have told you that she gave it to me to be nice, but I negotiated my way into it. She didn’t realize what she had really lost until later, so she’s never forgiven me for it. Our rivalry would have gone beyond the walls of this school had she survived through graduation. On a personal level, I am most upset with her murderer for taking that motivation away. Her tailgating me pushed me to be my best, and drove me to reach my goals. Oh dear, was that a terrible thing to say? Of course her death is sad on its own, and requires no selfish feeling of loss, or particular qualification. For the record, I did not dislike her as she me. I felt nothing but admiration for her. While she lacked the discipline to realize her own potential, I lack the social grace that she possessed in spades. The truth is that I miss her as much as anybody else, even though we were frenemies. I can only hope that she carried even half the amount of respect for me as I do her.

Microstory 1019: Calvin

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Funny story, Viola and I lived in this town our whole lives, but only spoke on one occasion, and it wasn’t anywhere near here. When we were seven years old, our respective families took a tour of Europe. The way my parents tell it, this was not at all planned or coordinated. They had no idea they would run into each other, so it was just a big coincidence. Well, the Woods are very well-traveled, and that was not their first time out of the country, which made it easier for them to adapt their itinerary to ours. My dad can’t work, and my mom doesn’t make that much, but she had a really good year that year, and they wanted to take my sister and I on something really big, so we would have some good experiences. They also wanted us to learn about other cultures, and gain perspective about the world. Anyway, the Woods helped us figure things out. Her dad speaks, like, a hundred languages, so he was a big help. Viola, Pauline, and I spent a lot of time together during that impromptu joint vacation. Ya know, if nothing else, it brought my sister and I closer together. I often look back fondly on those memories. I don’t remember anything we talked about, so I couldn’t tell you much about what kind of person she was, beyond what we all saw just by her walking around school, but I’m still glad it happened. It’s like this little secret amongst us. When we got home, we didn’t tell anyone that it happened. Our families don’t exactly run in the same circles. People like to think there’s nothing that happens in a small town that not everyone knows about, but that’s the case all the time. People have their own lives, with their own friends, and if you don’t have a reason to talk to one another, you won’t. So no one really noticed that we were all out of town at the same time. I don’t think our parents remained friends after that, even though they seemed pretty chummy during. Likewise, Viola and I didn’t talk again either. I never got the impression she didn’t like me, or that she was faking it the whole time we were hanging out. When we would see each other in the halls, we would exchange this knowing look, but we never said a word. I guess that’s what made our relationship so special. It was short, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t regret not getting to know her better. I knew her well enough.

Microstory 1018: Lenora

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Viola Woods. Blast City Senior High’s very own future President of the World. I hadn’t spoken to that girl in twelve years. We were the best of friends when we were kids, but nothing lasts forever, does it? Ask anybody here, and they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, that’s how badly things ended between us. She was so far removed from my friend list that I wouldn’t have known she was dead if they didn’t write about it in the paper. I would love to tell you what happened, but the truth is I’m not entirely sure. Like I said, we were six years old, which may sound like it must have been something petty, but it wasn’t. She hurt me, and now that I’m older and more mature, I realize that probably I hurt her too. I remember that it had something to do with my mother. She was—as you might call it—the town drunk. She had a bad reputation when it came to men, spent most of her time at the town bar, and single-handedly kept the glass recycling plant working overtime. She’s a lot better now, and I always knew she would be. Lots of kids with bad parents grow resentful, and purely self-sufficient. They have trouble trusting others, and they start looking out only for themselves, because they don’t think anyone else would be interested in doing it. I never hated my mother, though. No, I don’t think alcoholism is a disease, and I always had faith that she could quit, but also that it wouldn’t happen if no one believed in her. Unfortunately, a six-year-old child isn’t a very good ally, so I couldn’t prove my theory until I was old enough for her to see me more like a peer. It was only when we could have meaningful conversations that I started being able to get through to her, which was only a few years ago. Viola was really good at getting people to love her, but that girl had a dark side. She talked bad about others behind their back all the time, and she could never be trusted. She said something about my mom she didn’t think I would find out about, and I was never able to forgive her for it. The most hurtful part about it, though, wasn’t just what she said, but also that she showed no remorse. She never apologized, and she never asked me for a pardon. You wouldn’t believe how quickly and easily she dropped me as a friend, and found someone else to leech off of. I don’t think she deserved to die, whatever it was that pushed her killer over the edge, but it also doesn’t surprise me. She could enchant you, and get you to do anything for her, but that power came at a price. If ever the illusion broke, the reality of what kind of person she really was would just come pouring in, and there is no coming back from that. I wish that I could have done something, not specifically to prevent her death, but to prevent whatever it was she did that got her killed. I know we’re not supposed to blame the victim, but that’s an impractical generalization, because sometimes it really is the victim’s fault.

Microstory 1017: Roy

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As my momma would say, I’m not the brightest tool in the shed. Even I know that’s not the right saying, but I don’t know whether she meant it as a joke, or if it’s just—what’s that thing where somebody says something, but it’s funny, because it’s also about them? Iconic? I don’t always know what I’m talking about, and people have a hard time understanding me. My big brother wasn’t like that. He spoke my language; my dumb language. He could always translate whatever I was saying to other people. Sometimes he even seemed to read my mind, which was good, because it was embarrassing trying to talk, knowing that people were doing everything they could to hold back their snickers. He’s not here anymore. He flew planes for the army, and died. They couldn’t tell us exactly what happened to him, but the men in fancy uniforms said he died a hero, which didn’t surprise me. He grew up wanting to go in the army, but then I was born, and he had to take care of me. He coulda done anything he wanted with his life, but he knew he had to stay and take care of me. He stayed home and worked a suck job at the diner, so he could live at home. Lord knows our parents weren’t going to be able to help me. We live on the wrong side of the tracks, so they have their own problems, they shouldn’t have to worry about me. Anyway, my brother was finally able to go army because I was in high school. You see, I’m a slow learner, but I do still learn. So when I was six years old, I was still like a baby, but now I’m eighteen, I’m like a ten-year-old. Ten-year-olds take care of themselves all the time. Little Bill down the street stays at home and he’s even nine. He feeds his dog himself when he’s alone. We’ve been friends for a couple years now, and I know that’s weird. I don’t get along with kids my own age, however. They’re not that mean to me, because they know I’m different, and I don’t think it bothers them that much. Viola was the best, though. She would always smile at me in the hallways, and ask me how I was doing. I think she had a crush on Leroy when we were younger. That was my brother’s name, by the way. He started having people call him Lee, because he said it was stupid our stupid parents practically gave us the same name. They’re so stupid. They call me stupid, but they’re the ones who don’t have jobs. Even I have a job, working at the grocery store. My boss says I can start working at the front once I turn eighteen, which is in one week. Viola already gave me my birthday gift. She said she needed to give it to me early, in case she didn’t come back to school on Monday. And you know what, she didn’t. She died that day, it was weird. It was a cheat sheet. She gave me a math tables so I can give people the right change when I start working at the cashier. I’m really gonna need it.

Microstory 1016: Finley

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Good mornin’. Yes, my people do say good mornin’ sometimes. It isn’t always top o’ the mornin’ to ya. Hi, my name is Finley, and I’m Irish. Well, that made me sound like an alcoholic. Is there a difference? According to our neighbor, there ain’t. Me dad wanted to move us back to a small town, like the one where we lived in Ireland, but we couldn’t afford to go back overseas, so here we are. Coming from the big city was a bigger culture shock than the original move to the states. People here a lot more racist, and they don’t even know it. They think they’re being funny and endearing, but that can be just as offensive. Viola wasn’t like that. We immediately became friends. Believe it or not, we liked to play darts and pool together. We weren’t technically supposed to be allowed in the pool hall, but the bartender made an exception, as long as we didn’t try to drink, which we didn’t. Councilman Koch is there all the time, and she was cool with it too. We would spend an hour or two there most weekdays, and sometimes on Sunday, just talking about meaningless stuff. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time with her before she was taken from us. I think that’s why that Ralph feller told you to speak with me early. Either he didn’t know how close we were, or he figures that three weeks is still just three weeks. I couldn’t tell you what happened that day, or what was going on with her friends. I can tell you that the whole group makes me feel really uncomfortable. I have a sense about these things, ya see. My mother was very sensitive to auras. I’m not super superstitious, but I believe there are laws of physics out there that we don’t even know enough about to study. I was really only cool with Viola. She was so much different than them, I don’t understand why they all hung out together. I’m sure they’re lyin’ about something, I just don’t know what. She was worried. She didn’t say anything, but I could hear the anxiety in her voice. The week of her death, she was really short and distant. I thought maybe I had done something to bother her. I scoured my social media pages, looking for a post I made that didn’t paint me in the best light. I didn’t find anything, but now I know it was a waste of time. It wasn’t me, it was them. I’m sure you’ve heard whispers, they are into some weird shite. Those are really the only ones you need to talk to.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 7, 2214

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Mateo was devastated at the news. Just like his father—who was, ironically, not really his father, as Mateo erased himself from history long before he was erased from time—he tore the place apart. He flipped up the bed, and ripped into the mattress. He knocked over the nightstand, and kicked the door off the wardrobe off. He threw a chair at the viewport, which was strong enough to handle it. He pulled at his hair, and snarled like a wild animal. He got this close to bashing his head against the wall. All the while, Leona watched him patiently. It didn’t upset her more, and she didn’t see the need to stop him. She had her own way of dealing with grief, and this was his. He stomped out of the room in a huff, and took refuge in a closet. Still, Leona left him alone. By the time he returned to the bedroom not a half hour later, everything was exactly as it had been before. Not a single thing was broken.

He was still breathing heavily. “What the hell is this?”

“Étude’s womb-mother was a builder, like Baudin,” Leona explained. She was sitting on the bed, and it was clear that she had been crying. “She reset the room, in case you wanted to...destroy it again.”

He took a couple of deep breaths, and dragged the chair over to face her. “No, I don’t need to do that again. I shouldn’t have done it once, and I’m sorry for that.”

“No, it’s okay,” she assured him. “I know what you’re going through.”

He shuffled the chair closer, and leaned in. “But I don’t understand what you’re going through. I can’t. I’m—my perspective is inadequate. I will never know what it’s like to carry a child, and I will certainly never know what it’s like to lose one. I feel so angry that we never got to meet them, but also that I’m so hopeless to help you. I...I don’t know what to say.”

“These were your children, Mateo. Unlike anyone else, there is nothing you should or should not say. Your feelings are legitimate, and you have just as much right to express them as I do. It’s not your job to make me feel better. We need to work together. I appreciate that you recognize the difference between us, but that doesn’t diminish your position.”

“We have lost so many people; you more since I was away. But we always lost them to time. My versions of the Gelens, your versions, your biological parents, our friends. We met them, and we knew them, and we loved them. Sometimes we even hated them,” he said, referring to Gilbert Boyce. “But we never got to meet our children, and that’s the worst.”

“The worst is that they probably still exist in this timeline. Like you said, they’re powerful. I think they can travel to timelines they weren’t born to.”

“What are you saying?”

“Remember that show, Highlander.”

“There can be only one? Leona, are you saying our alternate children killed our babies?”

Leona shook her head. “No. I don’t think they would ever, but the powers that be have rules that go beyond the handful I came up with myself. They don’t like duplicates.”

Now Mateo shook his head. “No, I won’t accept that. I can’t work for someone who would do that. And since I can’t quit, I have to believe they had nothing to do with this. Who was this cargomaster guy?”

“Nobody, just some pathetic capitalist whose life never amounted to anything.”

“But he’s dead?”

“He had no way off the ship when he sabotaged it. I don’t know why he went that far. He died with everyone else.”

“Good,” Mateo said. “It’s best I have no reasonable path to trying to kill him myself.”

Leona had no response to this. Instead, she glanced at her watch. “It’s almost midnight.” No, it wasn’t. “We should get a full night’s rest. We’ll try to find a way to Bungula next year.”

That night, Mateo dreamt of reality. He was watching the world through Leona’s eyes. He saw himself disappear by the extraction mirror, and his friends move on with their lives without him. Leona and Serif returned to Earth with the aid of choosing one who could jump across galaxies. They were contracted for a mission to retrieve the Last Savior of Earth, who was destined to be born out of her jurisdiction, on Durus. On their way back, they investigated a murder, and Serif was lost to another universe. Once on Earth, Étude left for her job. Some friends disappeared, while new relationships grew stronger. One by one, these died off in a years-long battle against an alternate Ulinthra. Then they were all brought back to life at once when the OG Horace Reaver killed their enemy with a dagger made of human ash.  Leona’s memories of Mateo were returned to him, and she went on a quest for several special temporal objects. Upon full assembly, they would bring him back into existence. Then he woke up.

“Finally,” Mateo could hear Étude say. “He’s back!” she called out.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Can you walk?”

Mateo got out of bed. He was covered in sweat, and hooked up to an IV. “Of course I can. I already recovered.”

“We weren’t sure,” Étude said.

Leona and Vitalie clamored into the room. The former took Mateo into a great, big hug. “Thank God. We were so worried. We thought the insulator took you away from us, but nothing helped.”

“I was just asleep,” Mateo said. “Wasn’t I? I remember my dreams.”

“Yes,” Leona said to him, “but you were asleep for nineteen hours.”

“I was?”

“Yes,” Étude confirmed, “and we couldn’t wake you up. You were showing signs of being in a coma.”

“I’m sorry, but I think I know why. I mean, I don’t know why, but I know what happened while I was out. I remember everything, Leona.”

“Everything what?”

“Your life, without me. I experienced it, as if I were you. It was like getting my brain blended, except it was slower, and it doesn’t hurt.”

“They were also not your memories,” Vitalie pointed out. “Can brain blenders do that?”

Étude stepped forward. “Technically, they’re always doing it. Alternate selves are, at their core, approximations. Identity only refers to a single entity. It can’t be copied or replaced. You are always unique; always. Vitalie, for instance, if you went to The Warrior, and asked him to blend your brain, he would hunt for someone in an alternate timeline who is not quite you, but is almost you. The other Vitalie lived under different conditions. Therefore, she is not truly you. If the point of divergence took place before your birth, the other individual is even further away from you, because now you were conceived and born under different conditions. All this means is that there is a negligible difference between someone and their alternate, and two entirely separate people. So yes, it would be easy for a blender to give someone the memories of someone else, because that’s actually how they do it every time.”

Leona and Vitalie stared at her for a moment. “I just can’t get used to you talking out loud.”

“No, I can’t either,” Étude agreed. “I can see how that would be more difficult for you, though, because even though I never said them out loud, I always had words in my head.”

“Are we thinking Anatol or Nerakali snuck into this room undetected, and blended my brain, then just left without saying anything?” Mateo asked the group.

“That wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened in our lives.”

“No, and Anatol might be able to turn invisible, for all we know,” Vitalie said. “If Vito had that power, then someone else does, or did, or is going to.”

“Well, either way, I’m sorry to scare you. I really feel fine. I just hope we didn’t miss our window to go to Jungula.”

“Bungula,” Leona corrected.

“I’m never going to call it that,” Mateo said. “It’s Jungula. Ya know, like a jungle.”

“There’s no jungle there.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“You should get up and move around,” Étude said to Mateo. “You can check on Ram’s progress while you’re at it. You may be able to leave today yet.”

“You won’t be able to leave tonight, goddammit!” Ramses shouted after Leona and Mateo went to his lab, and asked him how he was doing. He was hovered over his table, soldering a logic board together.

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “We’ve no reason to believe Brooke and Sharice can’t survive in there indefinitely. Mateo, are you still hearing them?”

“I’m not hearing them,” Mateo clarified, “but I feel them. They’re still there.”

“I promised you would be able to lift off this year, so you arrive by the time the exodus ships arrive.” Rames was pissed off.

“Exodus ships?” Mateo asked Leona quietly.

“They’re carrying the passengers who are intending to settle on the planet.”

“What use would it be us getting there before anyone else does. Won’t it be empty?”

“It was hard enough explaining our presence to the people living here, though a vessel that was ahead of its time wasn’t the most implausible thing ever, we don’t think anyone believed us. We want to get in, erase all evidence that we were ever there, and get out. And we can do that, because the planet is not empty. Automated ships were dispatched before the passengers, to get ready for them. All initial habitats and other structures are already in place, including the tech we need to bring Brooke and Sharice back.”

Rames threw his tool on the table so hard that it bounced off. Then he split the logic board in half. “Son of a bitch!”

“I’m sorry we broke your concentration,” Leona said to him.

“Oh no, it isn’t you,” Ram promised. “I’m just having trouble working through this. My capitalistic upbringing really overshadowed my education. My parents struggled reconciling letting me go to school for free when they didn’t believe in it. I have the knowledge, but I’m always second guessing myself. I can’t believe I ever believed in that shit. If I were half the engineer Holly Blue was, I would have been done with this six months ago!”

“Holly Blue had magical powers that created things for her without her having to think about it,” Leona responded.

Ramses stopped short, then looked at Leona over his magnifying specs. “She did?”

“Yeah, did you not know that?”

“No. And Hogarth?”

Leona thought this over a bit, but Mateo decided to answer in her place. “Eh, it’s unclear whether her powers helped her with her work, but she definitely had them.”

Leona was dumbfounded.

“What? I told you I have your memories.”

“All of them?”

“No, just the ones you made while I wasn’t there.”

“Good. There are some things a lady does she doesn’t need anyone else knowing.”

“Oh.” Mateo cleared his throat. “I saw plenty of those things.”

“Really?” Ramses asked. “Tell me more about that.”

Leona ignored the intrusion. “Will our ship be ready by this time next year?”

“Yes,” Ramses said as he was pulling parts to replace the logic board he broke. “One year wasn’t enough, but two years is too much. I’ll have it done in another month or two. I just need to figure out this switching mechanism. I can get the ship to connect to your time jumps, so it disappears while you’re gone. We don’t want it sitting in a harsh environment for months on end, completely out of use. But I’m still working on allowing you to turn that off. It would take you decades of realtime if you used that feature while you were en route.”

“Okay, Ram.” She patted him on the back, and started walking away. “I believe in you!”

“I appreciate your support!” Ramses called back to them.

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Furor: The Audacity of Politicians (Part I)

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And then Horace ‘Ace’ Reaver returned to his bedroom to gather supplies. He was about to leave his adoptive daughter to search for the love of his life, Serkan Demir, in another dimension, and he didn’t know exactly what he would need. He took extra clothes, a blanket, water,  chocolate bars, and some MREs. Once he had everything he thought could help, he took one last peek downstairs, where Paige was getting to know her new friend, Slipstream. Then he whispered a last goodbye to her, and activated the special jacket that could transport him to a copy of Kansas City.

Everyone in the entire metropolitan area had been copied, along with everything else in its borders. Ace didn’t know what he would find when he arrived. Did its inhabitants know that they were copies of the original, or had they moved on with their lives, completely unaware? No, they would have had to know that something happened. It had been an entire year, and only the city was part of it. They wouldn’t have been able to take trips to Easter Island, or Stonehenge, or even Topeka. Nobody was in the alternate version of their house when Ace landed. A few people had been exempt from the duplication curse that a very powerful temporal manipulator had done on them—Ace’s family included—so the house was empty, and he didn’t have to worry about running into an alternate version of himself.

After checking the house for any sign of Serkan, Ace stepped outside to find an eerie silence. It was meant to be the middle of the day, so normally people would be moving about. They would be doing yard work, and walking their dogs, but there was nothing, because the sky was pitch black, and it felt like winter. Had the evil time manipulators not created a fake sun for them to enjoy, or had it just taken longer for him to get there than he realized? He was grateful for having thought to bring coats. He slipped his on, and started walking. The last time he had seen Serkan was in an apartment complex southwest of here, but again, that was a year ago. If he wasn’t at their house, there were only a few places he might have gone. He could have returned to his mother’s place, but a younger version of him would still likely be there with his mother and brother, so he would have wanted to stay away. He could have sought help from the tracer gang, or his friends at the City Frenzy headquarters. There were too many options, and none of them good. A lot could change in a year. If Serkan survived the explosion that screwed this all up, he could have died any number of ways since then.

It was several miles away, but as luck would have it, a copy of Ace’s car was still parked on the curb, waiting for him. He was grateful yet again, since he had brought all of his keys with him, and then once more when he discovered the car key worked. A few minutes into the drive, he finally saw signs of life. Another car was driving in the opposite direction. It suddenly pulled over to the wrong lane, and blocked Ace from continuing. “Shit. This can’t be good,” he said out loud. He tried to go in reverse, but another car came up and boxed him in.

“You have to pay a toll!” someone shouted to him through a megaphone.

With no other choice, he rolled his window down, and stuck his head outside. “A toll of what?”

“Whatever you got!”

Ace sighed, then threw a bunch of chocolate bars onto the pavement. A lackey stepped out of the car, and checked on the merchandise.

“We got plenty of candy here! You’ll have to do better than that!”

There was one other thing that Ace brought with him that he hoped he would never need. He hung his gun out the window, and shot out one of the tollbooth operator’s headlights. Of course, though, that only made things worse. They had their own guns, and they were all trained right at Ace’s head. Click, click, click. But then something happened. The lights were not good enough to show him what was happening, but he could hear screams, and a few other gunshots. Ace just ducked down in his car as best he could. Just as it ended, he found something grab him by his hips.

When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else entirely, and his car was gone. It was just as dark as it had been outside. “Hello? You don’t have to hide from me. I know all about teleporters. Come on out.”

A light switched on above Ace’s head, blinding him for a second. Then a man appeared from the darkness. “I am not a teleporter. I’m a runner.”

“A speedster.” Ace remembered the stories Serkan would tell him about the mysterious tracer who could runner faster than the speed of light. He had always assumed that to be a metaphor, but maybe not. “You’re K-Boy.”

“No, I’m a man...named Kolby. And you are?”

“Horace Reaver. Hey, it’s been a year. Is Kansas City just a lawless hellworld now?”

“It hasn’t been a year. It’s been less than a month. Where are you from?”

“The real world. How has it not even been a month yet?”

Kolby ran away, and returned just as quickly with two chairs, and two beers. They sat down and enjoyed them for a moment. “Andrews was afraid of that. He told us we were in another dimension. He was worried there was a temporal component too, so that time passes differently in here. He had no proof of that, though, since we can’t escape.”

“You know Duke Andrews?”

He laughed. “Nah, man. He is our leader.”

“He is?”

“Well, he could be. The mayors are trying to hold onto power, but...” he trailed off and shook his head. “Tracers are doing their best to maintain order, but it’s Duke Andrews who gives us hope. Without him, we would have no clue what’s going on.”

“I’m looking for someone here.”

“Brother, if you have a way to get back to the real Kansas City, I suggest you cut your losses, and take it.”

“I’m in love with him. And if what you’re telling me is true, then he hasn’t been waiting for me as long as I thought. He hasn’t moved on yet. I have to find him. Our daughter needs him too.”

Kolby thought about it, and scratched at the back of his head. “Well, if you must find him, you should probably talk to the Grammers. There’s not really anyone to hack anymore, so I think they’ve started a new Census Bureau. It’s probably not quite finished, though.”

“Thank you. Do you know where they’re working?”

Kolby started downing his beer.

“Oh no,” Ace said. He wasn’t able to hold onto his own bottle when he felt himself being flung across town again. They were suddenly standing in the lobby of the tallest building in Kansas City.

“This has become Capitol of the whole world,” Kolby explained. “Duke and his people run the top floors. The grammers are reportedly on the thirty-third. It’s the middle of the night, but this place never sleeps. Not anymore.”

They were heading for the elevators when an alarm rang out behind them. It kind of sounded like the sound effect used for the six million dollar man, and it didn’t hurt their ears. They turned around to see a group of soldiers approach. One of them was holding a small device that was creating the noise. She spoke into her radio. “Sighting confirmed. We have a salmon in the building.”

“I’m not a salmon!” Kolby argued. “I’m just human. I don’t know why I can run so fast. I wasn’t born like this!”

“Not you,” the guard spat. “We already know about you. The tracers have ordered us to leave you alone. “Walk out of the building, and down the street. You’ll be out of range of the power blocker eventually, and can go on your merry way.”

“What about him?” Kolby asked, concerned for Ace.

“He’ll be fine. The boss just wants to talk.”

“I’m looking for my boyfriend,” Ace complained.

“That’s not my problem,” she replied.

They ushered him into the elevator, where they rode up to the top floor. They walked down the hall, and into an office. A man was working intently on a tablet. Other people were flying in and out, giving him bits of information. After a few moments, he took a breath. “Horace Reaver. I’m Senator Channing, and also a huge fan.”

“Channing? The Frenzy council member?”

Channing smiled. “That hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m still a senator. Well, I was..before..all this.” He gestured all around.

“Can you help me find my daughter’s father?”

The senator shrugged. “Probably. But that’s not why I brought you here.” He clapped his hands with each word he spoke. “I need to know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

“No idea.”  It was true, Ace had that power in another timeline, but not here.

“No, see I heard about you. Lincoln explained everything.” He stood up, started walking around the table, and pointed out him. “You’re The Rewinder. If this isn’t the second time you’re living through this day, then I need you to come back here, and give me the information once you do go back in time.”

“Sir, you have been severely misinformed. What Rutherford told you was about a different version of me, in a different reality. I have intuitions about the present, but I didn’t actually experience it. I may have some insights, but I can’t give you the advantage to take over this town.”

He burst out laughing. “I’m not trying to take over the town. Andrews and I are already the leaders. We’re just trying to create some semblance of civility. It’s been three weeks, and if we don’t reassert democracy, this new world is doomed. I’m trying to put down the violent gangs that are rising back to power. You can tell me their moves, before they make them.”

“Again, sir. I can’t.”

Channing sighed, and looked over to his guards. “Take him to the hock, give him a day. Or a negative day, as it were. Hopefully he’ll come back a few hours ago, and be ready to help.”

Ace rolled his eyes. The audacity of politicians; even the good ones. He believed the senator truly wanted to help New Kansas City, or whatever it was they were going to call it, but he was one of those people who didn’t like to hear what they didn’t want to hear. If it didn’t fit with their presumptions, it probably wasn’t true.

“And give me that funny jacket of his. I wanna know what it is.”

Ace sat in his cell for nearly two days before Kolby came back, and broke him out.

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