Furor: Dude Thinks He Invented It (Part V)

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The prison guard held the door open so Ace could call Serkan and Paige, and tell them where he was going to be. Slipstream needed to get her affairs in order with the tracer gang as well, though she wasn’t as honest with them about what she was doing. The reality was that neither of them really knew where it was they were going, though. They could be traveling to the other side of the world, to another world, to the future, or the past. Perhaps the prison existed in another dimension, or maybe somehow all of these possibilities all at once. Susan and Ennis seemed to think it was safe for them to travel there, but Ace didn’t exactly know them that well.

“No cameras,” the guard informed them at the doorway. He took their phones from them, and slipped them into his pocket. Then he started leading them down a passageway. “Who is it you need to speak with?”

“Anyone who can tell us about Rothko Ladhiffe,” Ace answered.

The guard flinched, almost imperceptibly. “He got out on my watch. I can tell you as much as anyone else here can, outside of his friends.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other a look. “We should talk to his friends.”

“They are not allowed visitors,” the guard explained.

“We’re not here to visit.”

“Good point,” he admitted. He turned a corner that Ace didn’t even know was there. Some walls weren’t really walls. “Susan has instructed me to give you everything you ask for, but she is not my boss.”

“Who is?”

“The Warden, of course.” He ushered them into an office, where a woman was sitting at a desk, and just staring at the wood, like a powered-down robot.

Ace cleared his throat, but the warden lady didn’t react.

“Excuse me?” Slipstream piped up.

The Warden held up one finger, and didn’t drop it for a minute. Then she used it to point at what appeared to be some random point on the desk. “There. See it?” she asked the empty space right next to her chair.

“Yes,” came the voice of some invisible entity, right where the Warden was talking to.

“I want him moved to the other side.”

“I’m on it.” The side door opened and closed on its own.

The Warden finally looked up to the two of them. “What, you’ve never seen an invisible person before?”

“Well, no,” Ace said, “but that’s not it. We’re just not sure what you two were looking at on your desk.”

She smiled and reached under that desk. After a click, a holographic image appeared on the surface; apparent footage of the prison. “This is a live feed. We were looking at something that hasn’t happened yet, so you can’t see it unless you have a trained eye.”

Ace nodded. He didn’t fully understand what she had said, but he long ago learned when someone with more experience in the world of time manipulators said something is a thing that’s real, he was better of just accepting it and moving on.

“What can I do for you?” Who are you?”

“You just let us walk into your office without knowing us?” Ace questioned.

“Don’t you know the future?” Slip added.

“Not the whole future.”

“Well, I’m a salmon...sort of,” Ace began. “That’s what everyone calls me, but the powers that be have never asked me to do anything.”

“That you know of,” the Warden corrected.

“That I know of,” he agreed. “This is Slipstream. She’s, uhh...” Yeah, he still wasn’t clear how different people were going to react to a regular ol’ human.

“Bozhena Horvatinčić?” the Warden asked, with a proper fangirl squee. She stood up, and walked around the desk to shake her idol’s hand. “It is such an honor. What you did for Kansas City...”

“Was a group effort,” Slipstream said with flawless modesty.

“That’s my girl. We should do lunch. Are you hungry?”

“We’re...anxious,” Slipstream replied. “As I’m sure you know, our fair city is in danger.”

The Warden fell into seriousness. “Right, the ninth and last City Frenzy event.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other another look. Neither of them knew anything about this being the last Frenzy.

“Whoopsie-doodles, I’ve said too much. I would hit the redo button, but I don’t wanna do that to you. You’re here looking for answers about Mister Ladhiffe. I can put you in a room with Keanu ‘Ōpūnui and Jesimula Utkin, but I’m not sure that’s safe.”

“You have ways of suppressing people’s powers, don’t you?”

“That’s not the problem,” the Warden said. “The Springfield Nine aren’t just dangerous because of their abilities. They’re also all insane. Well, Kallias isn’t, but that’s because he was immune to side effects of the...”

“What?”

“Well, I mean he’s not pristinely ungifted, like Brooke Prieto, but he can control how nonlinear time effects him, if at all.”

“Kallias Bran is one of the Springfield Nine?” Ace asked. “He babysat my child.”

“Yes, but like I said, he’s different.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. I read about those children,” Slipstream said. “I read about all nine. He wasn’t in there.”

The Warden nodded. “You’re probably thinking of Kayetan Glaston. No, he’s tight with them, but he’s just a regular choosing one. He was born that way. The Nine were made.”

“Are you gonna lock him up too?”

“Kayetan?”

“No. Kallias.”

“I don’t lock up anybody. I’m a warden, not a judge. But to make you feel better, I doubt it. Your child was safe with him.”

After a reverent pause, Slipstream continued, “what did we decide about the interview with Rothko’s friends?”

“Please.” She opened her hand, and pointed to their knees. “Have a seat.”

As soon as they sat down, they discovered themselves to be sitting in an entirely different room. Keanu was on the other side of a cold, metal table that was an awkward few meters long. At the far corner was a young woman Ace didn’t know, but guessed to be Jesimula Utkin. They were both chained to their respective corners. The prison guard from before was performing a beautiful impression of a statue in the corner.

“I don’t think she teleported us,” Ace said. “I think we lost time.”

“You’re getting smarter,” Keanu said to him with a grimace.

“It’s been so long,” Jesi said to Slipstream.

“Is that a joke, or has it been longer for you?”

“Just a year, but I do miss the time we spent together. What’s the deal with this table?”

“No touching,” the guard clarified.

Ace took a moment to pretend he was alone with Slipstream. “As a feminist, I grapple with this idea that hitting a woman is worse than hitting a man, but I know if I punch this guy in the face right now, everyone who heard the story would shrug it off. But if I did the same to—”

“I catch your drift,” Slipstream interrupted. She stood up, and punched Jesi in the face for terrorizing Ace’s daughter.

The prison guard immediately opened a cabinet on the wall, and pulled out a med kit. He removed a piece of cloth from a container, and placed it on Jesi’s face. “Sixty seconds,” he said to her before going right back to his corner, and freezing.

Jesi leaned her head back and sighed while she waited to heal.

“What is it with you people and hitting?” Keanu asked.

“What is it with you people and harming others on a grander scale?”

“Hey, I stand by my winter wonderland!” he shouted jovially.

“They let you stand in here?”

It was a silly retort, but offensive enough to the prisoner. “What is it you want?”

“Rothko.”

Keanu scowled. “That bastard promised to take us with him.”

“So, you’ll help us catch him?” Slipstream imagined.

“Hell no! Springfield code!”

“Oh God,” Jesi said as she was finally removing what was obviously a healing mask. “Enough with that bullshit! We owe him nothing.”

“We owe him everything,” Keanu argued. “He got us out of the pocket dimension.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“It’s a fact, Jesi. You can’t just ignore it because—” Keanu stopped short. “Oh, I see what you did there. Pitting us against each other, making us give you information about the pocket dimension. You’re a couple of sneaky snakes. I see you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ace said honestly. “You started fighting all on your own. If you don’t want to tell us what we need to know, then you are free to go.”

“They’re not free to go,” the guard said.

“Oh, my bad,” Ace said. “Looks like you’ve been compelled to help us.”

Jesi pursed her lips and regarded them with exaggerated disdain, like a lady thug. “Yo, watchu wanna know?”

Slipstream took this one, stooping herself to a way of talking that Jesi was already pretending to have. “Yo, like...what does he want? What beef he got with the City Frenzy?”

“That ol’ thang?” Jesi went on. “That dude thinks he invented it.”

“He did,” Keanu argued.

“Puh-lease, ain’t nobody remember him talkin’ about it when we was kids.”

“Well, he did. To. The. Letter.”

Jesi sucked her teeth, and brushed that dirt off her shoulder. “Yeah, right. And I introduced the word fleek.”

“You did,” Keanu reminded her. “That wasn’t meant to be part of English vernacular until 2049.”

“Oh, for reals? Schway.”

Slipstream reached towards Jesi’s face. “No. No. Use whatever accent you want, but no one is uttering that word in my presence.”

“What, schway?”

Slipstream stood up so fast, her chair fell back. Ace picked it up for her while Jesi assured them she wouldn’t use it again.

“Getting serious, guys, Rothko is not all there.” Jesi gestured to Keanu as her voice got quieter. “These kids love him, but he is not okay. He had this thing with this girl, on this other planet. But then there was this other guy, and I don’t know what happened to him, but no one’s ever seen him again. He don’t talk about it, but I think Rothko killed him.”

“Allegedly,” Keanu interjected.

Ace decided it was time to get to the point. “What’s his weakness? How do we stop him.”

Jesi laughed. “How do you stop gravity?”

“Lift?” Slipstream offered.

Jesi thought that was a pretty good answer. “Tell ya what, you get me furlough, I’ll bring him in...dead or alive.”

“You’re not getting furlough,” the guard said abruptly.

Ace looked back at the guard, and then back to the prisoners. “Can you do it.”

“They’re not getting out of here,” the guard said, growing angrier.

“Yes,” Jesi answered.

Steam was coming out of the guard’s ears. “I won’t let two more people get past me.”

“Not two,” Jesi said. “Just me.”

“Traitor!” Keanu cried.

“I need backup,” the guard called into his radio.

“We have to go now,” Jesi urged. “You’re untouchable. They can’t hurt you. Either of you.”

“Okay,” Ace decided.

The guard tried to make a move, but Slipstream was too fast. She took him down without breaking a sweat. But then his jackbooted backup arrived. She pushed back on the door to keep them out, but they were too strong. Keanu jumped up and helped her. “You have a plan to get us out of here?” he questioned.

A pigeon suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and landed gracefully on the table. It started cooing, and looking around for food. The backup was now banging on the door harder, and it looked like someone was coming with a breaching bar to knock it down.

“Now would be nice,” Slipstream said.

“Read the note!” Keanu ordered.

Ace carefully removed the little note wrapped around the bird’s leg. “Take a picture,” he read. “I don’t have my phone with me.”

“They’re in his pocket,” Slipstream reminded him. She and Keanu were starting to lose the match against the guards.

Ace dove down and grabbed his phone. He flicked up the camera app, and snapped a photo of the floor. An older version of Paige wearing glasses suddenly appeared. She took Ace in one arm, and Jesi in the other.

“Wait. Slip!” Ace yelled.

“Everyone who wants a ride has to be touching me,” Glasses!Paige said.

The door was too far away from Jesi. “Go!” Keanu said to her. “I’ll hold them off, just go!”

“I won’t forget this,” Ace said to him.

As soon as Slipstream’s fingers were at Paige’s shoulders, the latter spirited the four of them away.

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Microstory 1035: Ezra

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My family has been in this town since it was first founded. Blast City, and all of Mineral County, is best known for its mining roots, but we have a long history of more—dare I say—honorable pursuits. We are also in a land of farmers and ranchers. Gold sure is pretty, but its only value comes from whatever arbitrary number of monies the people who have it are able to convince their customers to give up. Diamonds are the same. Coal actually serves a purpose, but it’s not exactly the resource of the future. And salt? Well, I guess salt is fairly important too, so I won’t say anything negative about Salzville. We Kinder are famous for our fruit, which we harvest from acres and acres of orchards, producing everything from apples, to oranges, to peaches. Yes, I did pronounce my own name right. Most people assume it should be kine-der, but no; it’s German. Anyway, it’s been a couple generations since it’s been necessary for any of us to actually work the orchards, but I’ve always really enjoyed it. I can spend ours out there, picking and sorting, while listening to music on my headphones. A picker of ours hypothesized I would feel a whole lot different about it if I worked ten hours a day, made minimum wage, and had no choice. He certainly had a point there, but I also don’t get paid for it, so life is kind of a give and take, isn’t it? But you didn’t come here for my worldview, did you? You want to hear about how I know Viola. I don’t have any stories from recent years, but something did happen when we were in elementary school. Well, I guess we weren’t in school at the time, because this happened in the summer, but you get what I mean. Here goes.

A big news story broke that a little girl a few years younger than us got lost somewhere in Silver Shade. For reference, since you’re not from around here, that’s over an hour away, due East. It’s basically a ghost town now, because its founders hoped they would find silver near where our predecessors found gold, but there was nothing. Their descendants have been struggling and dwindling ever since. Blast Citians didn’t pay much attention to this story, because the girl was said to be on foot, but Viola somehow knew this to be inaccurate. She called me through my older sister’s cell phone (I don’t know why she had her number) and told me to go straight to Plupple Lane. Again, I don’t know how she knew anything about it, because Plupple Lane isn’t a street; it’s the boundary between our plum trees and apple trees, and a term we only use internally. It’s also the near the farthest reaches of our property, because we don’t grow many plums. I asked Viola why I would do that, but it sounded really urgent, and she said she was out of town, so she couldn’t go herself. I figured, hey, when a pretty girl who’s never talked to you before asks you to do something, you better just do it. I was, like, eleven, by the way. I got on my bike, and rode all the way out there, where I found the missing girl, crying by the irrigation regulator. She was covered in mud, and wearing raggedy clothes. I was too young to be told this at the time, but I learned years later that her stepbrother had sexually assaulted her. Until now, I haven’t told anyone how I really found her, out of respect for Viola’s privacy. It was easy to lie about it, because everyone knew that I liked spending time alone with the trees. But I think it’s time people know that Viola was the one who truly saved this little girl’s life, and didn’t take any credit for it. I asked her how she knew after she came back from vacation, but she completely denied it, claiming she didn’t make a single phone call while she was in Greece. My sister didn’t tell anyone about the call either, and she and I have never discussed it. I heard the girl moved to the other side of the country, but she might like to know the truth too. I’m gonna go look her up on social media.

Microstory 1034: Etta

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Roughly eight months before I was born, my parents-to-be bought their first house, right here in Blast City. He was originally from Coaltown, and she from Adamantingham, so they figured they would live right in the middle, and be could be equally close to their respective families. To commemorate this big step in their relationship, she surprised him with a dog. Henry was a cairn terrier, and won the family lottery that day. They were fully prepared to take care of that furball just as they would a human child baby. That very day, they discovered her to be pregnant. As they tell it, I wasn’t a mistake, but I think we all realize this cute story doesn’t work if I wasn’t. It’s okay, I’ve come to terms with it, but I couldn’t have done it without my best friend, Henry. We grew up together like siblings, exploring the world, and learning from our mistakes. He was never as smart as any human, of course, and I quickly surpassed him in intelligence, but I think having me around gave him that little bit higher IQ. We would get into all sorts of trouble, and since we were doing it together, we suffered the same consequences, so our brains ended up being linked in a way no normal dog would. I know how silly that sounds, and again, I don’t think he could have done my algebra homework, but he did sit on the toilet once. No one believes me, just as you don’t, I’m sure, but it happened. Anyway, I’m eighteen years old, and dogs don’t live forever, so we lost him last year. He was actually pretty old for his breed, everyone was really impressed, but I was just heartbroken. My father buried him in the woods behind our house, but we it was a while before we held a service. I holed up in my room, trying to come up with the perfect eulogy for him, but I couldn’t figure it out. My parents told me I could give it whenever I needed, even if that wasn’t for another fifty years. Whenever I was ready, they would drop everything, and come out to the woods, so we could finally put him to rest. Two weeks go by, and I still haven’t finished my speech. I’m just staring out my window, as the baseball-sized hail crashes to the earth. Feeling particularly depressed about it, I sneak downstairs in the middle of the night, and step outside. I’m not trying to kill myself, but if some hail happens to hit me in the head while I’m on a walk, then I’m not going to fight it either. But they don’t. They’re falling all around me, but not one of them hits me as I walk all the way out to Henry’s grave. As I approach, I hear something that sounds only slightly different than the hail. I climb up the ridge, and see Viola Woods at the site. She’s stacking one of those stone monuments over his grave, and the hail isn’t hitting her either. Oh, and she’s not wearing any clothes at all. She turns around and smiles reverently at me. “Don’t write it down first. Just say it,” she advises. The next morning, I call my parents outside. We hold the service, and I start to heal. I’m almost nearly a fraction of the way to being about a half percent past it. Wherever Henry is now, I hope it’s not too far away from wherever Viola is.

Microstory 1033: Warren

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I was always a very gullible child, and it’s something I’m proud to be over now. Any number of factors went into me having severe trust issues; some of it probably genetic, but most of it had to do with how I was raised. I was born to an incredibly loving family, but I was also very sheltered. My family didn’t ever want to worry me, or disappoint me, so they just held onto every lie they thought would make me feel better. I was in double digits before a classmate callously, but methodically, explained to me how it would be physically impossible for Santa Claus to exist. I once missed an entire week of school because someone told me the government came up with a new holiday that lasted for six days. Conversely, I’ve come in to school on an embarrassing number of Saturdays. Still my parents skirted the issue, and didn’t try to do anything to help me get past this huge character flaw. I am nearing high school graduation, and I would not have been prepared for the real world if not for Viola. The worst thing that I ever let happen to me was the day after the end of middle school. I was walking my dog around Master Creek when I ran into a couple of kids from school who were acutely aware of my naïveté. You may think it’s bad that you can’t maintain healthy relationships, because some trauma has caused you to be too suspicious of others, but try having the exact opposite problem. Trust me, mine was worse. You don’t know what bad is. These kids convinced me that they found plants that were a special kind of lettuce that was genetically combined with sugar cane, which made it sweet. Well, I think you know where this is going. The plant turned out to be poison sumac. Don’t blame the kids, though. Both of them had experienced rashes on their skin before, and knew how easy it was to treat. What they didn’t realize is how much worse it can be for certain others, and when ingested.

They freaked out, but did the right thing, by calling emergency services, and getting me to a hospital. As you can see, I survived, and though I wouldn’t recommend it, I’m better than I ever was. Other than the bullies—who grew up to be two of the most generous and kind people you’ll ever meet, in part thanks to the horror they were responsible for—one other classmate came to visit me in the hospital. Yes, it was Viola Woods. She had heard what happened, and seemed to have some drive to keep it from happening ever again. She was perfectly normal when she walked into the room, but my mother thought one or both of us had a crush on the other, and wanted to give us some privacy. That was when Viola changed. She started breathing very deliberately and deeply. She shut her eyes on every exhale, and stared into mine with each exhale. Once she had completed her preparations, she placed her hands under my neck, and spoke. She gently, but firmly, ordered me to be more careful. She told me that some people can be trusted some of the time, but no one can be trusted all of the time. She told me to educate myself in a number of subjects, so that when I hear fake news—yeah, she used the term long before it became a political buzzword—I know how to debunk it. It may seem silly, but everything changed for me that day. I swear to God, I could literally feel my brain rewiring itself, absorbing all of her instructions as irrefutable. This was just advice, I cannot go against her commands. The last thing she did was give me a peck on the lips, which immediately relieved me of the pain the poison had caused. Then we never spoke again. I don’t know what she is, but she couldn’t be quite human. I’m not even convinced she’s really dead, because I don’t trust the people who are telling us that.

Microstory 1032: Riley

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Hello. This is your president speaking. I know you weren’t around to vote for me, but I’d like to think you would have had you gone to this school at the time. Today, I’m going to talk about a dear, dear friend of mine named Viola Woods. We didn’t always see eye to eye politically, but we were a lot alike. We both care and cared about this school, and ran for office to see it reach greatness. We both like and liked to help people; even strangers, and we both consider and considered our peers to be our best assets. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things about me since you started these interviews, but I think you would have a different perspective right now if you had spoken to me first. We could have combined our minds, and coordinated a strategy to tackle this series. First and foremost, I am absolutely, one hundred percent, behind our police force. I believe that justice has been served, and the right person has been found guilty of this terrible crime. I know that the trial has not yet commenced, but I have complete faith that the truth is exactly what we were shown. I know people are spinning tales about some religious cult, and are filling your head with ideas about what really went down by the river that day. I just want you to be careful about who you listen to, and who you trust. This is a small town, and though I love it terribly, I recognize that it’s fairly pleasant and uneventful. This murder has made the news statewide, and with that comes the crazies. People like conspiracy theories, because they take comfort in the possibility that not everything is as it seems. They don’t actually care who killed Miss Woods, but the idea that there’s something stranger going on than the public is aware of makes them think there could be other things they don’t know about. Why, if a demon possessed an impressionable young girl, and forced her to kill her best friend, or a ghost drowned Viola in revenge for some crime carried out by someone else, what else might there be? The fangirls can hold onto hope that vampires are real, and out there, and just waiting to seduce them. Nerdy young boys might actually get the girl, because hey, crazier things have happened, right? Conspiracies are just believable enough that they could technically be true, but insane enough that they open us up to other—perhaps more fantastical—possibilities. In philosophy class, we learned about something called hokum’s razor [sic]. Basically, if you haven’t heard of it, it means that life is really simple, and if something is too complicated to explain, it’s probably a bad explanation. Viola’s death was a tragedy; one that could have been avoided, but the investigation came to a legitimate conclusion. All the pieces fit, and if anyone tells you they have evidence to the contrary, they’re most likely trying to feed you a bunch of hokum. Thank you, and God bless America, and Blast City. Go Miners!

Microstory 1031: Carl

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Did Herman really not say anything about magic club? Well, that is just like him. He’s too cool to be part of something larger than himself. He’s not ashamed of being in it, but he’s definitely one of those people in the band who think they can go off and start a solo career. I’m not like that; I’m a team player. That being said, I should have been president of the club this year. It’s been Alfred every year since it began, just because it was his idea. I could have come up with it too, if someone had first told me that it was an option to start your own club. I was a dumb little freshman at the time, so you couldn’t have expected me to know how to do that. But I was one of the first people to join, and I’m proud of that. It’s not the only thing I have going on, though. I have many interests. I play darts and pool, just like Finley. My parents belong to the Masters Country Club, though, so I never needed to sneak into a bar. History is my best subject, just like it is for Bertha. Right now, Minnie is helping me learn how to train horses to do dressage. I already know how to ride real well, so I’m ready for the next level. My favorite thing to do is kayaking, and everyone knows this about me. Masters Creek is basically my territory. I should charge a toll for other people to use it. I tell ya, Viola wouldn’t have died if I had had something to do about it, I tell ya that much. Wow, that made me sound really conceited, but I really am a...master on the water. See what I did there? Too soon, I guess, that’s why you’re not laughing. Well, I knew Viola from magic club, but we didn’t talk much. She was clearly there just to keep our numbers up, or we would lose our status. There was one time outside of all that that I saw her, if you wanna hear about it. I was just floating down the creek, not working hard; just enjoying the serenity. School was in full session, but I skip every year on my uncle’s birthday. We were really close, you see, and the administrators and I have this unspoken understanding that I’m just not going to be there. I have perfect attendance otherwise, and wonderful grades, so they’re fine with it. I mean, they haven’t said anything to me about it. Anyway, I was peeing in the weeds on the bank, and to my surprise, Viola showed up. I ducked down when I saw her walk up on the other side of the creek. She was gazing at the water with this shockingly beautiful, but indescribable, expression on her face. It was somehow simultaneously a frown, and a smile. She was watching a very specific section, where the stream goes all still. It was like she and this spot on the water were old pals who would never see each other again after one of them moved across the country. But I shook it off, assuming she stumbled upon a family of tadpoles, or was just admiring her swirly reflection. Well, it appears that I should have told someone about it, because like, a week later, she died. They found her body in that exact same spot, I swear to god. I pee there all the time, because I have the same routine, and it’s nice and secluded, so I’m not mistaken. I’m calling it her body of water. Is that too dark? Either way, I’m pretty sure she predicted her own death.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 10, 2217

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Mateo woke up in a bed with a terrible headache. He reached for his head, where he found some kind of cap on it that he figured he better leave alone. Leona was reading next to him. “You have to stop doing that to me,” she said.

“What happened?” he asked.

She kind of acted like she was still half-reading her book, and wasn’t too concerned with his wellbeing. “For starters, it didn’t work. I guess a grave chamber is not the same thing as a real grave in the ground. We shouldn’t be surprised. It’s only a meter deep, too wide, and not long enough. You didn’t manage to travel to Dardius, but you did hit your head somethin’ fierce on the side of the chamber. You’ve been out cold since last year.”

“Christ, it hurts.”

Leona reached for an IV bag hanging in the corner, and examined it. “Ahh, you ran out of painkillers. On the bright side, the pain is probably what woke up again.”

“So, it’s 2217?”

“Yes.”

“I better get up, then. We need a real grave this time.”

She flipped the page. “Way ahead of you. Ramses dug it while we were gone. I’m not convinced you should do it, though.”

“Was anyone else able to do it?”

“No, but they got hurt in the trying; not quite as bad as you, but...”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one what can summon Halifax with an open grave,” Mateo said, “other than Serkan Demir, of course.”

“You’re in no condition to be falling backfirst into a hole.”

“I have to try, and I have to do it now. We don’t know when the Maramon will find the human Ansutahan. They haven’t yet, right?”

“Serif is coordinating with the leadership on the other side of the bridge right now. No, I don’t think the Maramon have found them yet.”

Mateo slid the needle out of his arm, and started climbing out of bed. “Take me to the grave.”

She sighed, and dropped her book on the mattress. “Very well. It’s in the Blacklight District.”

She led him outside, or to what passed for the outside under a giant city-sized dome that protected the human inhabitants from the harsh conditions of Jungula’s surface. People were watching them curiously, but someone had already provided the Jungulans with sufficient explanation.

Ramses was waiting for them with a big smile on his face. “I didn’t know when you would come to, but I knew you would come to here once you did.”

“Are you going to Dardius with us?” Mateo asked him.

“No, he’s not,” Leona answered quickly.

“She’s kidding,” Ramses said. “Yes, I am.”

“We need you to stay here, and keep watch over the ship.”

“That’s bullshit. Put me in, coach. I have to see this.”

Mateo gave Leona this look. “We’ve no right to keep him away from this. He’s been proving himself trustworthy since before I existed.”

Leona sighed again. “Fine. I don’t want you out of our sight, though. When it’s time to come back, it’s time to come back.”

“Absolutely,” Ramses agreed.

They huddled together, and fell back into the grave. The light above them changed, revealing that their plan had worked. They climbed out of the hole, and looked around. They were in a cemetery on the edge of a city, but The Gravedigger was nowhere to be found. “Hmm, he must be busy,” Mateo guessed. “He had enough time to transport us, but no time to talk.”

“As long as he takes us back, with everything we need, I’m okay with that,” Leona noted. “Come on, we have to get our bearings. Sharice indicated the beacon would be in something called the Intake Building.”

As it turned out, they were in Sutvindr, which Mateo recalled being considered the Kansas of Dardius. It was the central region of the world, where everything began. A friendly passerby gave them directions to the Intake Building, and didn’t ask why they didn’t already know it. The three of them moved on until they came upon it, and then they walked in, and up to the reception desk.

“Welcome to Intake, how may I help you?”

“Yes, umm...” Leona hesitated. “What is this place?”

“Everyone who comes to this planet does so through this facility.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone, even you. Unless...” The receptionist peered at them. Then she looked over to the far wall, where they found a gigantic painting of Mateo, Leona, and a few of their closest friends. “Oh my God, you’re back.” She didn’t know how she was supposed to handle this situation.

“Please don’t make a fuss,” Mateo asked of her. “We’re just looking for the Muster Beacon.”

She was taken aback by this. “Well, that’s what we use to summon massive numbers of refugees from Earth. The last time we used it was for the arcology hanging tower in Panama.”

“Ooooohhh,” Leona said. “This is where it went.” Years ago, when Leona was deep in the fight against Ulinthra in the corrupted reality, the former tried to kill thousands of people by dropping their building, which was hanging from a platform, to the ground. A portal had opened up, and taken the building away, but Leona never found out where. Now it was all coming together.”

“Does that mean you’re done with it, and we can take it?” Ramses asked her.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” The receptionist questioned.

“A new series regular,” he replied.

She ignored him, and went back to the celebrities. “Mister Matic, it’s true you still own this planet, but in your absence, a governing body is elected to maintain order.” She frowned, worried about their reactions.

He wasn’t offended in the least. “Naturally.”

“I’m not saying you can’t have the Muster Beacon, but I also can’t say that you can. This may be a decision for the Senior Administrator. I don’t personally have a way to contact her, but I can get you close.”

“That would be lovely, thanks.”

The receptionist dialed the phone, and spoke into her headset. “Hello, this is Reception. I have two executive guests, plus an undesignated associate, here to see Transportation Administrator Moss.” She waited for the person on the other end to talk. “Uhh, the tippy top.—Yes, those two.—Just tell her the owners are here, thank you!” She hung up, probably in the middle of the other person’s sentence. She looked back up at them and smiled. “Please have a seat.”

They waited for about ten minutes before a woman that looked familiar walked down the steps, and greeted them. “Mister and Missus Matic, thank you for coming in. Who else do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

He shook her hand. “Captain Ramses Abdulrashid. I don’t own any planets, but I’m happy to be here.”

“Great, great. How can I help you?”

“We would like to...borrow your Muster Beacon.”

“For what?”

“Refugees, just like how you use it. Eleven billion humans, trapped in another universe, with no time to evacuate them all once.”

“I should say so,” Administrator Moss agreed. She consulted her tablet. “If they’re in another universe, that explains why we haven’t been notified of their need for help. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can give up the beacon. We will be needing it for a pressing matter. Dozens of helpless passengers are requiring extraction from two related ships. Let’s see, The...Vosa, and The Sharice.”

Mateo, Leona, and Ramses looked amongst each other. “You’re saving them?”

“Quite.”

“The Vosa, I understand,” Leano said.

“But the Sharice?” Ramses questioned emphatically. “Those people are horrendous. I would know, I used to be one of them. I was on that ship, and they don’t deserve to be saved!”

Moss looked back at her tablet. “Captain Abdulrashid? You were a mechanic.”

“Engineer,” he corrected. “I’ve transcended my old life.”

“It’s already happened, right?” Mateo asked. “I mean those ships blew up years ago?”

“Yes.”

“So, it doesn’t matter when you extract them, because it’s time travel anyway.”

Moss nodded her head. “Yes, but we do have a schedule. It may seem arbitrary to you, but the assimilation of new people into our society is a very delicate process. Our experts have spent months dedicated to research and predictive modeling. They must arrive within the next seven weeks to safely acclimate to our way of life.”

“The Muster Lighter,” Leona said simply.

“I’m sorry?” Moss turned the tablet’s screen off so she could pay Leona attention.

“When I was on the Vosa, trying to get back to Earth, I spoke with Holly Blue about all the objects that I had accumulated. She said the Muster Lighter is capable of summoning hundreds of people at once. You don’t need the beacon for this mission. The lighter could do it.”

“We don’t have the Muster Lighter,” Moss reminded her.

“Something tells me you have ways of getting the things you need from Earth. If the beacon reach out and find its predecessor, maybe you still have access to the Nexus we once had on Tribulation Island.”

“Yes, it’s still there. We use it for recon missions.”

“Find a chooser with potential permission to go to The Constant. If the Muster Lighter isn’t still there, The Concierge will know what happened to it. Tell her I sent ya.”

Administrator Moss cleared her throat, and thought over this proposal. “I’m inclined to accept your exchange, but only because you’re the owner. I need assurances that you will bring it back as soon as you’re done with it, in pristine condition. Just because we may not need it for the next arrivals, doesn’t mean we’ll never need it again.”

“Of course, you have our word.”

“Huntsville Waterdome,” Mateo suddenly blurted out.

Administrator Moss had mixed feelings about hearing this, but she knew exactly what he meant by that.

“What?” Leona said.

“This was her. This was the woman who flew us all the way from Ontario to San Diego when we were trying to save my mother and Samsonite. She saved their lives, with little hesitation, even though she had no idea who we were.”

The Administrator was quiet and reticent.

“Oh, he’s right,” Leona realized. “I remember you. That was in another reality.”

“Yes, Dardius is aware of changes to the timeline. We save people from every reality, so even when one collapses, the people we took from there will still get to live out their lives in whatever reality remains.”

“You’re a good person, Administrator Moss,” Leona reminded her. “Like he said, you helped us when you had no reason to. You’ll do the right thing now.”

She considered it once more, then finally gave in. “Okay. You can take the beacon, but we do still need it back.”

“I promise.”

“I’m staying here,” Ramses said.

“You said you would come back when it was time,” Leona said, only a bit upset.

“I know, and I meant it, but if the Freemarketeers are coming here, I just...I don’t trust that they’ll accept their new reality.” He faced Admin Moss. “I don’t know what kind of economy and government you have on this world, but they’re fiercely capitalistic. I’m not sure you’re fully prepared to change their minds. My mind has already been changed, so I know what it’s going to take.”

“It’s fine with me,” Moss said. “I can help you get your citizenship request forms started.”

“Very well,” Leona relented. I do want to get back before 2218,” she said to Mateo.

“Me too,” he said. “But there’s no reason we can’t have some dinner at Lorenzo’s Grill.”

“It’s midmorning,” Moss said.

“Then we’ll have quiche at Reaver’s.”

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Furor: The Required Skills For It (Part IV)

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Before Ace could leave with Slipstream, he needed to regroup with his family, and obtain Serkan’s knowledge and memories of what was going to happen in the next coming weeks. Once he had that, Serkan and Paige went back to their lives for the time being, while Ace went on a background mission about their new enemy. Slipstream wasn’t able to keep the files from The Archivist, but she was able to remember quite a bit about him. Rothko Ladhiffe was born on the second of February, 1984. He was born after the cutoff date, but he showed such promise as a young child that they let him into kindergarten early. He would go on to skip fifth grade, and be one to two years younger than most of his peers.

In the summer of 2000, just before the beginning of the school year, the incoming senior class got together for a lock-in at the high school. It was an unauthorized event, but a decades-long tradition that adults allowed to continue, as long as no one got hurt. Rothko was living on the edge of a breaking point. For the last ten years, the city of Springfield, Kansas was gradually disappearing. Entire blocks would spontaneously disappear, leaving all survivors completely oblivious to its former existence. Rothko’s family was suddenly living on the edge of town, where they were once somewhere in the middle of it. Rothko, however, happened to have strayed beyond the borders on the night of that block’s disappearance. Several of his friends in the senior class had done the same. Together, they worked to get back home, and after awhile, they succeeded. Rothko, however, would not return for another twenty-one years.

He became stranded on a rogue planet that would come to be called Durus, with a boy named Escher, and a girl named Savitri. They had fallen into their own portals on two separate occasions before, and were the only survivors until much later, when the last of the now-small town of Springfield was swallowed up. No one—not even the Archivist himself—seems to know what happened to Savitri, and there were some plot holes when it came to Escher’s fate, but Rothko was eventually saved. He was sent back to Earth via a machine of Hogarth Pudeyonavic’s design. It would be another few years before she was able to rebuild that machine, and return to Earth herself, where she fought Jesimula Utkin by Paige’s side.

It was a culture shock for Rothko, who was now basically alone on a second world he knew nothing about. Smartphones, cars that could drive themselves, and the corporate automation tax were just too much for him to bear. Beaver Haven Penitentiary keeps criminal records in a location far removed from the Archivist, who was responsible for everything but. Slipstream was unable to garner information about what Rothko did that led him to a prison cell, but it wasn’t likely something good. The prison was specially designed to handle people with time powers. These weren’t the worst of the worst, or the ones with the potential to do most damage. They were just the ones who risked exposing the underworld to the Earth at large. This can be as simple as teleporting a loudmouth human—with a lot of followers on social media, and a permanent body cam—out of a deadly fire, to predicting global events that are destined to come true on national television. An individual who spent the majority of their life in a hellworld, fighting literal monsters, probably wasn’t capable of making considerate and careful decisions. Rothko Ladhiffe was placed in custody at some point in 2022, and managed to escape just last week. He was the only one in this reality to ever do so. It was unclear what he was so upset about when it came to the City Frenzy, but it was becoming clear that whatever was going to cause the commotion Serkan recalled from the near-future, he had something to do with it.

“What’s his power then?” Ace asked.

“He can manipulate local reality,” Slipstream answered unelaboratively. They were headed towards The Forger’s den. They weren’t going there to see him, but a man named The Courier, who operated in the same building, and was the only person they knew who traveled regularly to the prison. They needed answers, and that was the best place to get them.

“What exactly does local mean?”

“Well, he has to be able to see something in order to change it. He can’t just create a world where all trees are blue, or buildings hang from the clouds.”

“That’s a nice little limitation. I can’t imagine dealing with someone who could do those things.”

“Oh, that person exists too. She’s one of the other Springfield Nine.”

“Is she evil?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why is Kolby not coming with us to this place?”

“He’s doing this thing with his alternate self. I was asked to not ask too many questions about it.”

“Oh, okay.”

A man opened the door when they knocked on it. “Do you have a thousand dollars?” he immediately asked of them.

“What? We’re just here to speak with the Courier.”

“The last guy who came in without an appointment gave me a thousand dollars.”

“We don’t have that kind of money,” Slipstream said.

“Yeah, we do,” Ace said. He took a credit card out of his wallet. “The Forger has an ATM, doesn’t he?”

“You can give me the cash on your way out,” the freelance security guard said. He stepped to the side, and presented the dark rounded hallway to them. “Forger on the left, Courier on the right,” he called to them. “Don’t forget the money!”

They opened the door on the right to find another man sorting mail into slots, while a woman was sitting in the corner, in one of those giant covered chairs that hip startups have in their exposed-brick headquarters, which allow employees to take naps.

Ace tried to get into the Courier’s periphery. “Excuse me?”

“Speak softly,” he responded. Only then could they see that he had severe burns on part of his face. “She’s sleeping.”

“I didn’t know there were two of you,” Slipstream noted.

“Susan and I work in different departments. She’s The Switcher.”

“What does she switch?”

The Courier snuck past the sleeping pod, and into another room. It was full of stuff. They saw jenga blocks, and dark cloak hanging on a hook with a knife, and a penny sitting on a table that looked like it was there very much on purpose. “When you’re dealing with time travelers, you can’t exactly call each other on cell phones.” He picked up a device from the table. “Though, this is a Doctor Hammer pager.”

“Don’t touch that,” Susan mumbled from the other room.

“Sorry, love,” he said back. “Anyway, some choosers have special ways of contacting each other, usually with something that is symbolically relevant to their specialty. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the connection. He was about to lift the penny, but thought better of it. For instance, there’s a woman with the ability to project her consciousness across space. If you want her to come, you find an ordinary penny, and recite be the penny to it. If you watched a certain science fiction adaptation on a certain science fiction network, you’ll know why that makes sense, but not if you didn’t.”

Slipstream nodded. “I watched it.”

“Susan is sleeping because she has one of the strongest powers ever. She can see the river of time itself, and she uses it to manage communications for all of us. If you’re trying to reach across time, she’s the one who decides precisely when your contact gets your message. Sometimes she maintains an order, and sometimes she lets people meet back up with each other in the wrong order. We are no one to question her reasoning.”

“Would she be able to contact someone at Beaver Haven for us?” Ace asked him. “Or could you?”

“It’s a prison,” the Courier said, “which means they’re not generally allowed packages. I can propel regular mail through time without actually traveling to it, so I’ve never had a reason to go there myself. You’ll have to wait until Susan wakes up. If she has a contact there, and wants to help, she will.”

“I’m up,” Susan said, somehow both reluctantly and ardently.

“We’re sorry to wake you,” Slipstream said to her as she was coming into the room.

“It’s okay,” Susan said. “As Ennis was saying, it’s exhausting work, so I need to sleep about fourteen hours a day.”

“We absolutely must build that extension,” Ennis lamented, “so you have an entire sleeping room to yourself.”

“We would need an extra dimension for that,” Susan said, “because the other tenants in this building aren’t scheduled to leave for another nine years and four months.”

Ace thought about their predicament. “You help us get to Beaver Haven, and I’ll get those tenants out ahead of schedule.”

“You don’t understand. The timeline says—”

“No, I get it, but the future can be changed, right? If anyone can do that, it’s me.”

Slipstream backed him up with her facial expression.

“That would be lovely. Let’s assume you’re bound to succeed in that endeavor, why do you want to get to the prison in the first place?”

“We would like to interview someone there who knew a man named Rothko Ladhiffe.”

The name seemed to make both Susan and Ennis really uncomfortable.”

“He and the rest of the Springfield Nine are out of pretty much everyone’s jurisdiction,” Ennis explained. “The fact that Beaver Haven arrested him in the first place speaks volumes about their desperation to stop him, and his escape is probably their greatest shame.”

“So, what are you saying?” Slipstream pressed.

“They’re not going to want to talk to you,” Susan said. “They’re going to pretend it never happened. If word gets out that their facility is not inescapable, they’ll start having a lot more people on their hands who want to test the limits of time traveler exposure.”

“We can reason with them,” Ace said confidently. “Because we can get him back.”

Susan sighed deeply. “Well, you were instrumental in bringing in Keanu ‘Ōpūnui, and she was vital to bringing in Jesimula Utkin, so I guess you are indeed our best shot.”

“Wait, if they’re also Springfield Nine, how did the prison justify locking them up too?” Ace asked. “I didn’t realized they had gone there.”

“No, me neither,” Slipstream said.

Susan smirked. “You’re loopholes. Choosing ones are not allowed to go after outliers, like the Nine.” She faced Slipstream. “But you’re human.” She faced Ace. “And you’re a salmon, your husband is a chosen one, and your daughter is spawn. We also aren’t allowed to go after any of you, but it’s totally fine if you go after each other.”

“You’re saying that we’re the only ones who can do this?” Ace gathered.

“Essentially. I mean, you’re not the only ones, but you’re some of the few living in this time period who have the required skills for it.”

“And they’re not going to get in trouble for involving me?” Slipstream questioned. “They exposed time travel to a human.”

“No, Jesimula exposed time travel to a human. Paige and the others just garnered your help with stopping her. They’re perfectly innocent, and even if they weren’t, Beaver Haven doesn’t arrest everyone who gives up their secret. It has to put us all at risk, and you’re not a liability because you’re a badass mercenary who knows how to keep a secret.”

“So, you’ll help us?” Ace wanted to confirm.

Susan smiled again as she was walking over to a corner. Ennis helped her move some boxes out of the way, revealing a barred window without the actual window. She lifted a metal mug from the sill, and started swiping it back and forth along the bars, making a huge racket. “Guards!” she shouted.

A security guard stepped in from a door on the other side of the room. “Yes, Madam Glines?”

Susan gestured towards Ace and Slipstream. “These two will be asking some questions at your institution. Give them anything they desire. Anything,” she reiterated.

“Yes, sir,” he said with the utmost respect for her.

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