The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 23, 2230

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Unlike people in Mateo’s past who claimed to have fallen onto his pattern, Cassidy appeared to be the real deal, though she didn’t act like she had any previous knowledge of it. Other people were around when she disappeared one year ago, and they witnessed her return at the exact same time Mateo did. Since they didn’t have access to a type of chooser called a diagnostician, who was capable of interpreting people’s time powers, Weaver would have to suffice.

“What do you expect me to do, diagnose her?” She tickled Cassidy’s fingers with her own, like a bad attempt at an examination.

“Couldn’t you invent a medical device capable of that?” Mateo asked.

“Theoretically, maybe. I wouldn’t be able to do it within the next several hours, though. Perhaps if a real diagnostician were here for me to study, I could imbue their power into something, but my own ability takes time. I have no clue how they do what they do.”

Cassidy tilted her lizard brain. “What if we started by checking for temporal anomalies. Surely you’ve already invented something that can do that. I mean, that’s all salmon and choosers are, aren’t they? Walking, talking temporal anomalies.”

Weaver tilted her head as well. “Did you intuit that, or do you know something?”

Cassidy shrugged. “Iono, it just makes sense.”

Weaver studied Cassidy’s face for a moment. Then she walked over to the central table, and accessed one of the terminals. She pulled up a hologram of an object, and tapped a corner of it to make it spin around perpetually.” “Do you know what this is?”

Cassidy stepped closer and watched the hologram. “I suppose I would call that an echo chamber.”

Weaver smiled. “The official term is cylicone, but yes. That’s exactly what it is.”

“Weaver, what do you know? She’s from 2019, and said her arrival here is her first exposure to our world.”

Weaver spoke into her wrist, “Greer, no real emergency, but could you emergency teleport back to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, please?”

Greer appeared. “Yes?”

“Miss Thorpe, this is Cassidy Long. Miss Long, this is Greer Thorpe.”

Cassidy and Greer shook hands.

Weaver’s smile grew as soon as their hands touched. “Greer, could you please place Goswin in a temporal bubble?”

“What, why? What did I do?”

Greer did as she was asked, and for several seconds, Goswin was frozen in place.

“Okay, you can let go,” Weaver went on. “Now, Cassidy. Would you mind...trying to do the same thing to me?”

“You want me to freeze you?” Cassidy questioned.

“Couldn’t hurt to try.”

“Okay, how do I do this?” She lifted her arm. “Should I just wave my hand in—holy shit, she’s not moving! Are you frozen in place? Did I just do that? How do I get her out of it?”

“Just try,” Greer said. “If you can do it, you can undo it.”

Cassidy waved her hand again, and brought Weaver back to realtime.”

Now Weaver was beaming. “You’re an absorber. Or a channeler. There’s no way to test which one at the moment, but that explains why you disappeared and returned when Mateo and Serif did, and presumably how you got here in the first place. You must have accidentally bumped into The Trotter on the street, or handed The Chauffeur his wallet after he dropped it.”

“So, I’m one of you? Which one, the kind that can control it, or the kind that can’t; the fish ones?”

“I guess you would have to create a time bubble, and then invent something, to figure out whether you can have more than one power at a time. Or you would have to encounter someone with a time power, and choose not to use it. We’re kind of low on options all the way out here.”

“Can I get back to work now?” Greer asked. “I’m still trying to figure out how to maintain two massive bubbles at the same time.”

Weaver laughed at this. “We don’t need you to do that anymore. You can focus on holding the Maramon bubble. Miss Long here can pick up the slack, and cross everyone over.”

“Wait, you figured out how to cross people over?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah, while you three were gone,” Goswin said. “There’s a problem, though.”

“The technology is stable,” Weaver began, “but it’s limited. Not even the Muster Beacon has ever had to summon eleven billion people before. What we need is, more time. I mean, Greer can hold the bubble indefinitely to keep the Maramon out, except...”

“Except some of the Maramon are at our borders,” Greer finished for her. “A few have even gotten past the bubble’s barrier, just because they were already on their way when I made it. We outnumber them a hell of a lot, but we don’t have long before we’re overrun. I wouldn’t be able to modify it in time. Too many people live on the border towns. If we want to evacuate them, we have to bring them into this universe.”

“Cassidy can do what Greer wasn’t able to do alone,” Weaver added. “She can create a second bubble; one that goes faster than realtime. By the time the Maramon break through, all the humans will be safely over here.”

“If it works,” Greer noted.

“If it works,” Weaver agreed.

“And it won’t be all the humans,” Goswin pointed out.

“Yes, some are stuck in inaccessible parts of Ansutah. That’s not an easy fix regardless.”

“It’s my greatest concern,” Goswin reminded her.

“Well, the people we know we can save are my greatest concern.” This was evidently a touchy subject for the both of them, about which they had already fought at least once before.

“Guys. People. Fish...people. I just learned that I’m some sort of magician. I can’t create the kind of time bubble you appear to be discussing. I don’t know how any of this works, and if I only have one day to figure it out...”

“We’ll have more than one day to teach you,” Weaver assured her. “You shouldn’t have to jump to the future with Mateo, like you did before. It’s possible that you are, in fact, being infected by people’s powers and patterns, and you can’t ever get rid of one once you acquire it, but I wouldn’t put money on it.”

“I just don’t know. I mean, I got no stake in this. Who are these people?”

“They’re my people,” Greer explained. “Look, I don’t know if you were sent to us by someone on purpose, or if it’s just a brilliant coincidence, but we need you. You can save an entire world’s worth of human beings. There are as many of us living in that universe as there are on your home planet.”

“She’s from the past,” Weaver clarified. “There were actually fewer people living on Earth when she left it than there are in Ansutah.”

“Cassidy,” Greer went on. “I implore you, don’t let these refugees die just because you don’t know them. Please. I can teach you how to use your powers. These isn’t a comic book. Most of us don’t have tragic origin stories where we killed our families because we didn’t know our own strength. It generally comes pretty naturally.”

“When did you first discover your powers?”

Greer looked for guidance from the group, but no one had any answers. “Okay, well, I’m different. I obtained them from this fruit I ate few years ago, but I put someone who was trying to kill my friends in a bubble before I even knew I could. It’s an instinct thing.”

Cassidy sighed. “I will do what I can.”

“Thank you,” Greer said. She draped an arm over Cassidy’s shoulders. “Come on. We need some space for your training...and tennis balls.”

After they left, Mateo nodded towards Goswin. “Yo, you know where Ramses is?”

Goswin rolled his eyes. “He’s probably working out. He’s convinced he’ll have to be the one to muster all the refugees, so he’s trying to be in tip-top shape.”

“I thought the machines were going to do it.”

“In conjunction with the Nexus replica, and the muster device on the other side of the bridge, the Muster Lighter can pull everyone into this universe, but the lighter has to be operated manually. Someone is going to have to teleport from sector to sector, taking chunks of the population one at a time. We can’t take everyone all at once.”

“Is that right?”

Mateo left the ship, and ended up following Greer and Cassidy to the recreation building, but he kept a distance, so they could talk amongst each other. He found Ramses exactly where Goswin thought he would be, pumping furiously on a stationary bike. “Deputy Director Abdulrashid.”

“Hey,” Ramses replied shortly, but stayed focused on a spot on the opposite wall that he would never reach.

“Stop pedaling.”

“No brakes. Can’t stop..don’t want to either.”

“Stop the bike, Deputy Director.”

“I don’t work for you anymore, Patronus.”

“Stop the fuckin’ bike!”

He did as he was told, then pulled a green towel from his handlebar, and started wiping the sweat off his face. “I need to hydrate anyway.”

“You’re not gonna do this.”

“Hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“You’re not going to muster the refugees.”

“Mateo, we don’t have time for you to come back in a year and play hero.”

Mateo shook his head. “I’m not doing it either. I want Goswin on it.”

“Why would he do it?”

“You don’t have anything to prove, Ramses.”

“And he does?”

“He doesn’t have a heart condition.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you do.”

“I told you that in confidence.”

“And I’m confident you’ll do the right thing. Teleportation is tough on the body. Weaver had to invent a special kind that can work with humans, otherwise you would just straight up die. Goswin has been fitted with transhumanistic upgrades that will allow him to survive. You weren’t, since you thought it would be better to live in a world where you had to pay for them, instead of just filing a request.”

He dumped the rest of his water on his head. “Hey, I rejected those doctrines a long time ago.”

“And I’m grateful for the friendship we developed because you made that choice. You’re still not mustering the refugees. If I come back next year and find out you’re dead, because you didn’t listen to me, I’m going to head straight for the extraction mirror, summon you just before your death, then kill you myself.”

“Mateo, I just spent the last seven months training like hell for this mission. Now you’re telling me it was a waste of time?”

“Of course not. Now you can play a superhero in a movie. You look good, Ram. That’s not a waste.”

A moment of bro silence.

“Hey, what’s up with that girl who disappeared when you did?”

“Oh, her. I’ll explain why it looked like she was on my pattern.”

“Nah, I don’t care about that. I mean, is she single?”

“I don’t know, man. She’s from the past. If she was with someone, they’re probably dead now.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What do you mean, not necessarily?” Leona asked.

“We don’t know that someone is trying to hurt you,” Eight Point Seven started to explain herself.

“They hijacked my ship, and they’re sending me in the wrong direction.”

“Maybe you’re supposed to go in this direction.”

“You’re supposed to be finding a way to turn us around.”

“I told you, I’ve not been able to. You’re the engineer.”

“I’m an astrophysicist. You’re an artificial superintelligence.”

“Yes, I’m super, not omniscient.”

Leona opened her mouth to argue.

“Nor omnipotent. Look, if we were gonna figure out how to get back on course, we would have done it by now. You’ve been here for a couple days. I’ve been working the problem for years. There’s no solution. I’m locked out of navigation.”

“Goddammit.”

“Maybe Mateo will be on Varkas Reflex, waiting for you. You’ve not been able to establish contact with him, and there are ways of achieving faster-than-light travel.”

Leona shook her head.

“You should eat.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my leader anymore.”

“No, we’re partners, and as someone who cares about you, I’m telling you...you should eat.”

“Fine. But then we get back to work.”

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Proxima Doma: Developments (Part VII)

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And then there were four. Two of each. It was as awkward as you might expect, but they kept going, and eventually fell into a good rhythm. Now there were two Caretakers. The people of Proxima Doma were getting into a good rhythm as well, and figuring out how to protect themselves better. They were becoming more and more like the Earthans of the day, creating the same kind of infrastructure and society that allowed the original Savior program to end in the first place. The Caretaker program wasn’t so much a program as it was a failsafe. They went for days not having to go back in time at all, and even when they did, usually only two of them would have to work, and it was usually the pair who were responsible for there being duplicates of themselves now. But things were changing once again. The last of the Oblivio-primitivist Pioneers were arriving, which meant it was coming time to erase their memories. Technically, the memories of the ones who were already inside of the simulator dome weren’t completely intact. Étude had built Tertius a command tower in the center of the dome, which stretched all the way up to the ceiling.

The residents had no clue that the tower was there at all. They could be literally looking at it, and would not be able to see it. Their brains were interpreting the tower as a physical object in three-dimensional space, but Tertius was using his power to prevent that information from encoding itself as memory anywhere in the cerebrum. If some other resident of the planet ventured into the dome, they would not be able to see it either. He was only actively allowing the two Études and two Vitalies to see, along with the Ambassador.

The Oblivio ambassador wasn’t the only one who would never have her memories erased, but she was the only one who fully understood that Tertius possessed special abilities, rather than just highly advanced technology. She and the rest of the cognizants realized it would be impractical to leave the integrity of their new way of life in the hands of strangers. They sacrificed their aversion to technology to make sure their people would be safe from learning the truth. It was unclear whether their secret would die with them, or if they would pass the knowledge onto a select few, so the Oblivios could always be protected. One of the pairs were now discussing the far, far future with Tertius and Ambassador Kavita Lauritz, around one of the many fountains Tertius asked Étude to build for him. One day, the dome would not be large enough to keep residents from exploring its borders without realizing it. Similarly, Tertius would not always be around to work his magic. Everything they had come up with was a temporary solution, and it was time to think about how things could last.

“Well, in less than four hundred years, the walls of the dome could likely come down anyway,” Vitalie pointed out.

“How so?” Kavita questioned.

“That’s the estimated time it will take to terraform this planet,” Étude answered in Vitalie’s place.

“Are they doing that?” Kavita asked.

“Yeah, they’ve begun the process,” Vitalie said.

“Venus won’t be done until 2700,” Kavita noted.

“They started earlier, which means they started with older technology. The progress is getting faster and faster.”

“Plus, we have a different set of variables. We’re not saying it will definitely be done by 2600, but that’s the goal anyway.”

Kavita nodded, but also shook her head at the same time. “That’s assuming we can’t figure out how to keep them from reaching the dome walls. I would rather they continue to be protected from all external influence.”

Vitalie breathed deep, and addressed the ambassador more directly. “The average life expectancy for the human species, barring medical upgrades, is still about ninety years. I even rounded up to make the math easier. In four hundred years, everyone living today will be dead. Were any of you transhuman, the timespan would be meaningless, but you will not be able to control where your society goes. The last time our species was living under the conditions you’re planning to live under, we didn’t stay there forever. We figured out how to churn butter faster, and get to places more efficiently. Though thee pioneers for yesterday were fine with their way of life, and many individuals never wanted it to change, as a whole, progress just cannot be stopped. Religion does a pretty good job at suppressing and oppressing, but we always overcome. My point—and I do have one—is that we have no reason to believe your Oblivios won’t do the same.

“Once all the people who came here by choice are gone, and all you’re left with are their descendants, who never developed distaste for technology, memory or no, there’s no telling what will happen. I know you don’t wanna hear this, but there’s no reason to believe by the time the world is fully terraformed, your people won’t have invented cars and television. In all likelihood, history will just repeat itself. Nothing stays the same forever. Ironically, you might be able to get away with it if you don’t erase their memories, because then parents will be able to indoctrinate their children into remaining as they are, but by making them Oblivios, you’re really just making them unadvanced peoples. Unadvanced peoples always either die out, or become advanced.”

“What about the American Indians from our history. Their technology remained stagnant for centuries, while the rest of the world developed,” Kavita said.

“That’s a common misconception. They were more advanced than you’ve probably been taught. They just did things differently. And they died out, because they were massacred, by people who were, not superior to them, but greedy and envious.”

Kavita thought about this for a moment. “Well, we’re here by choice. Everyone in this dome has agreed to have their memories wiped, and to live a simpler life. Our future children never agreed to that, so it would be unethical to find ways of sheltering them, should that go against their wishes. We don’t have to tell them where they really live, but we can’t stop them from trying to find out. It’s less a technology thing, and more a philosophical one. Humans are driven to explore, and we recognize that, which is why we’re not violent, like the anarcho-primitivists.”

“That’s not our biggest problem anyway. I still won’t live forever,” Tertius reminded them. “Unless you can find me some immortality water, I’ll die long before the planet is terraformed. If I tried to adopt transhumanistic upgrades, I would just lose my powers.”

“What you need is a successor,” Étude said to him. “Like Vitalie is for me, and I was for Xearea...and Xearea for Makarion.”

“That would be great,” Tertius said, “if that person existed. There are others with memory manipulation powers, but none quite like me; not with my scale.”

“What if you had a kid?” Vitalie asked.

“Time powers can be genetic, and are sometimes hereditary, but there’s no guarantee. Plus, I’m not going to have a child just so I can groom them to replace me. I never wanted children, so it would be wrong.”

“What if we could create a successor?” Étude wasn’t sure how they would take her suggestion. They seemed to want to know more. “My seer. I haven’t spoken to him in years, but I will never forget his last prediction. He said, the water reptilian living on Earth’s twin can make or break your gifts.”

Vitalie raised one eyebrow. “That’s vague.”

“I don’t know what it means, but it certainly sounds like he was talking about Dardius, which is a planet eerily similar to Earth. And it sounds like someone there can give people time powers.”

“It sounds like some sort of animal can give people powers,” Vitalie said. “I mean, are we supposed to—?”

“It’s not an animal,” Étude interrupted. “That’s just a clue to who we would need to hunt for there. She might have a tattoo of a lizard in a river, or maybe an actual pet is owned by the metachooser. I don’t know. But I know we can find it there, if that’s what we want.”

“Where is this Dardius?” Kavita asked.

“It’s two million lightyears away,” Vitalie replied.

“It’s closer to two point eight.”

“Oh, that’s so much better.”

“It doesn’t matter how far it is if you can get me the Cosmic Sextant,” Tertius said.

“What the hell is that?” Kavita was still learning about all this crazy stuff that existed.

“It’s a special device that can help navigate space travel,” Étude answered. “It can’t take you that far without a massive structure that facilitates said travel. It can go a few stars over at most, but definitely not to another galaxy.”

“That’s why they built the Great Pyramid of Giza,” Tertius said. “That’s its entire purpose.”

“Wait, people with powers built the pyramids?” Kavita asked, heartbroken.

“No, we didn’t,” Étude promised her. “People like us just designed them. Pure human ingenuity and willpower is what really built them.”

“It does us no good for the Sextant to be on Earth,” Vitalie said. “We would need Tertius in person to create his successor, and he can’t leave Proxima Doma.”

“I can’t leave this dome,” he corrected. “Fortunately, there’s more than one reason I asked you to build me this tower, and do so with this shape.”

“Yeah,” Étude understood. “It’s an echo chamber; the cylicone. I thought you needed it to magnify your powers.”

“It certainly does that,” Tertius confirmed, “but it’s also good enough to facilitate travel all the way to the Dardius galaxy. If you go back to Earth, get the Cosmic Sextant, and bring it back here, we can reach Dardius. What you’ll find there is anyone’s guess, though, because I never spoke to this fortune-teller of yours.”

“The question is who will go?” Vitalie realized. “I kind of need to stay here and protect the Oblivios, now that it’s finally time for them to have their memories erased.”

“I’ll do it.” It was the other version of Vitalie; the one who never experienced the reality where the colony ship experienced a cataclysm. She could have been eavesdropping on their conversation the entire time. “This planet isn’t big enough for the two of us anyway. I wanna do something important.”

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Microstory 1095: Wanda

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Your five minutes are up. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t separate you from Ralph at all, but Della’s worried you’ll start working on an escape together, and we can’t have that. I suppose this is the part where I sit you down and explain our dastardly plans, isn’t it? It looked like Julius was already filling you in on the ritual we’re going to perform today. He wasn’t really meant to do that. But I do want to talk to you, because...well, you’ve talked to just about everyone else in our graduating class, haven’t you? I’m fully on board with this project, but I don’t think we have to be mean to people. The truth is that Gertrude and I really were friends. We lied to the cops, and said that we were all in a group of friends together, but my friendship with Gertrude is a hundred percent real. Homer even had to do some witchy woo to prevent people from realizing they had never even seen us all together before. That was the opposite of the original plan, which was to stay as far from each other socially as possible, so no one would suspect we were the killers. Of course, the whole thing went awry when Viola showed up to stop us, and we had to improvise. You may be asking yourself, why would Wanda sacrifice Gertrude if she liked her? That’s precisely why I had to do it, and also precisely why I hesitated when it came time. You see, Homer claimed that it was only a sacrifice if we were losing something, which makes sense, when you think about it. You can’t really sacrifice a stranger, and expect the universe to be impressed by it. Annoyingly, it appears that this was a total lie as well, and Homer was just doing it to be cruel to his own people. We’re not actually sacrificing someone to the universe, but creating a new balance between life and death, which means the targets could have been anyone. This is where you and Ralph come in. I still don’t love that we have to do it at all, but at least the distance between us will make it easier. I intend to wield one of the holy blades again, and I intend to carry out my mission, without question this time. Even though Homer lied to us, I know that he has a pure soul, and this will herald a better future. Climate change, the refugee crisis, wage disparity, homelessness, disease, racism. These are all human creations, and the only way to fix the lunacy is by accepting the leadership of someone who is not quite human. But Homer can’t do it on his own. He needs more people to be like him, and the six of us are the start of that. Why six? It has nothing to do with the ritual itself, but Sidney apparently came up with that number for strategic purposes. He says, if you want to surround a building with a tactical team, you need a minimum of seven people, so you can box them in on all three dimensional axes. I don’t know exactly where he came up with that, but Homer seemed to agree, which is why he recruited five more people, and stopped there. Anyway, you better prepare yourself. The end is nigh for you, while the beginning of a new day is at hand.

Microstory 1094: Julius

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If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m not as unfeeling as Clyde, or as twisted as Nannie. I’m just trying to make my life better, and unfortunately, that means yours has to end. When Homer first approached me with his offer, I...well, I just didn’t believe him. But when he showed me what I could do, I still turned him down. I’m not a bad person, Alma, I promise you. I know these chains don’t make it look like that’s true, and I understand there’s no way you and I could ever be friends, but we’re all just doing our best here. Homer explained to me that the universe only exists through balance. There is no way for everyone in the world to be happy; it just doesn’t happen like that. Everyone’s fine with corporate executives firing their minions left and right. They’re fine with protected presidents sending poor soldiers to die in an unjust war. But they get all up in arms when we make a human sacrifice or two. Can you tell me, what exactly is the difference? In all three scenarios, people die, so why is it so much worse what we’re doing? I’ll tell you why, because we and Homer aren’t part of an institution. You’re only allowed to hurt people if you’ve gathered enough others who want to hurt people. Isn’t that sickening? We’re killing two people, while world leaders regularly kill by the thousands, but somehow, we’re the monsters. Priorities, am I right? Well, I’ve been through enough, and I’m not going to take it anymore. This town may accept me as the token gay jock, even though I’m definitely not the only one, but it hasn’t always been like that. I had to learn to filter out a lot of hate when I was a kid, growing up in the deep south. I’m one of those gays who can’t contain it, even if I tried—my mom knew who I was before I even did—so I had a huge target on my back before we moved up here. The only thing that kept me alive was football. You might think my opponents would be too homophobic to even touch me, but they were always itching to knock me down. They underestimated me, though, because I hit them back, and I hit them harder.

We’re not going to sit back and let people come after us anymore, and we’re not going to be silenced. I’m sorry you won’t be around to see it, but Homer is building a better world, with more logical rules. He’s recruited some terrible people to help him, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but they won’t be around to see it either. I think we can all agree that there is something seriously wrong with this world, and if our species is going to survive, something has to change. The process is not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be pretty, but it starts today, and I wish you could be proud of what you’re a part of. It’s my job to explain what we’re going to be doing to you, and the first thing you should know is that each one of us went through the same thing...except that your ritual ends differently. First, we have to submerge you in water, and hold you there until but one air bubble remains clinging to your nostril. Then we pull you out, revive you, if we have to, and lather you with mud. We’ll set you on the ground next to a campfire. If you’re up for it, you can be sitting, like Maud was, or you can be lying down, like Gertrude. Homer will then use his wind magic to blow the fire towards your bodies, until the mud hardens. After a little bit of chanting, which I suspect isn’t truly necessary for the ordeal, you will reëmerge from your cocoon a new person. This is where things change from the rituals we experienced. One of us will be chosen to kill you, while another will be chosen to carry out the second sacrifice. We don’t know who that’s going to be yet, but I will almost certainly be chosen. Wanda and Della were chosen last time, while Clyde and Sidney were responsible for protecting the sacred grounds. The girls hesitated, which gave Viola the opportunity to interfere with the ritual. The guys got distracted in an argument, and were unable to stop her. Nannie and I will probably have to wield the holy blades, while Homer takes matters into his own hands, and prevents any Viola-like magician from stopping us this time. Like I was saying, I get that none of this is going to make sense to you, but things are going to get better. If ghosts exists, which it seems like maybe they do, perhaps you’ll even be able to watch humanity’s magnificent transformation from the other side. Hell, we still don’t know what all of Homer’s powers are, so he might even be able to bring you back. Oh, we should stop talking. Wanda’s here with the second sacrifice. I believe that you and Ralph have become friends, right?

Microstory 1093: Clyde

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So, I’m driving in the big city—well, the suburbs—when I find myself behind this guy who just won’t drive fast enough. I mean, the dude’s going fifteen miles and hour on a thirty-five. I just can’t stand it, so I finally pass him. It wasn’t technically legal for me to do that, since there was one lane each one, and the street was adjacent to neighborhoods, but I hate driving that slowly. I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be, but he didn’t know that, right? What a jerk. So now I’m in front of him, which pisses him off; enough to make him start tailgating me, and honking his horn nonstop. It’s funny that he couldn’t go over twenty while he was in front of me, but now all the sudden, he wants to go fifty. Well, that sort of thing might have concerned me back when I was driving a little sedan, but I have a gigantic SUV now, so I’m not sure what he think he’s accomplishing. We keep going, and he stops honking long enough to whip out his phone and take a photo of my license plate. Whatever, man. The cops aren’t gonna hunt me down and arrest me for a minor offense they weren’t around to see. They have better things to do, and I don’t even think that’s legal. They have to catch you in the act when it comes to a traffic violation. Anyway, we keep going, and it’s starting to get a little suspicious that he’s still following me. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that we’re still heading the same way, but I have to be sure. I make a sudden right turn into a neighborhood. He does too. I make a right turn out of the neighborhood, onto the next main street. He does too. I make yet another right turn; he’s still there, which is insane, because we’re literally going in a circle. I start thinking the guy’s a serial killer, or a CIA assassin, and I’m not meant to know who I’m messing with. But he’s the one who doesn’t know who he’s messing with, because I’m a diagnosed sociopath, and I just don’t give a fuh. I lure him to an abandoned part of town, and pull over. I keep thinking he’ll just drive off, because he don’t want no confrontation, but he’s not that smart. We both get out of our cars; him with a tire iron, and me with nothing. He pulls into a golf backswing, and prepares to knock out my taillights, but his weapon doesn’t make it that far. I take it off his hands, and swipe his chin with it. I’m fully prepared to leave it at that, but then he has the nerve to cough blood onto my new shoes.

One man was there as witness, and I’m thinking I’ll have to take him out too, but he approaches from the darkness with a smile, and I realize it’s none other than Homer Durand. That’s right, Viola didn’t save me; he did. All the way out here I run into a kid I go to high school with. He tells me he appreciates my work, and wants to know if I would be interested in collaborating on a project with him. I have no clue what the hell he’s talking about, but I’m intrigued. When I tell him I’ve never hurt anyone before, he says that’s okay, and he can teach me how to do it better. He likes that I managed to find someone I was motivated to kill, but who I can’t be tied to. He warns me the building we’re parked in front of has a security camera, though, so I need to be more careful next time. Don’t worry, he took care of it, so that’s all over. Why am I telling you all this when I know it could get me in trouble? Why did I not listen to Sidney when he told me you have the ability to make people tell you the truth? Why am I not freaking out that it’s working? Because I know you can’t do anything about it. You wanna hear the truth, Alma? Here’s the truth. Viola interrupted a delicate ritual Homer and we were performing. It’s important, but not irreproducible. We’re going to do it again, and this time, we won’t fail. This interview series you’re working on won’t see the light of day, Alma, because Homer has chosen you. You won’t be in any position to stop us, and once it’s all finished, neither will anyone else. You’ve been wasting your time. This is it for you, Julius is here to escort you away. We just need to find one more victim. Any ideas?

Microstory 1092: Sidney

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My mother worked her whole life on the farm, while my father worked there for most of it. He was a ranch hand when they met, and he was looked down upon, because he was so much older. They didn’t start dating until she turned sixteen, and didn’t get married until she was eighteen. Love is love. For all the sex positive messages people these days keep trying to spin, they sure don’t think it’s right my dad happened to be an adult when he met the girl he would only one day end up happening to marry. Nothing happened when she was five. Anyway, our lives have been pretty tough, so you can’t blame me for trying to make it better. Farming is a dying industry. People are only interested in eating organic, free from pesticides, and grown in laboratories. Ugh, it disgusts me. Who cares how much wilderness we destroyed to accommodate our pigs, and who cares how many hormones are in our milk? If it tastes good, and it keeps you alive, what more could you possibly want? I tell you, this world is going to hell, and we’re being forced to go along with it. We had to literally sell the farm, so we wouldn’t starve to death. Where was Viola then? She’s helped everyone else in town, but somehow we’re not worthy? Am I supposed to feel bad for her? I’m not happy she’s dead, and I think it was a tragedy, but she shouldn’t have gotten in the way. My God, why did I just tell you that? I mean, we had nothing to do with her death—except that we did. Why can’t I lie? I mean, I’m not lying. Or, I mean...I am lying, because we’re not not responsible for her death. Christ on the cross, this is ridiculous. You did something to me. You’re making me confess to something I didn’t not do. There I go again. You’re just like Viola and Homer, aren’t you? You’re one of them. I can’t believe I agreed to this interview. I should have known you could control what I say, like a freak. No, I couldn’t have known, but Homer should have warned me. He agreed to protect us if we helped him. Sure, we didn’t succeed, because like I said, Viola got in the way. But that wasn’t our fault; we’re not the ones who can do magic. We have to find a way to make it up to him, and complete the ritual. If Gertrude and Maud are no longer viable candidates, then we need to find someone who is. I’m leaving, and I’m warning all my friends about what you can do, so don’t even try to use your magic to get them to talk. Not all of them are as strong-willed and disciplined as me. Goddamn, I didn’t mean to tell you that. Get away from me!

Microstory 1091: Maud

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My name is Maud Benson, and I am not innocent in all this, but I did not kill Viola Woods. Welcome to jail, Alma. I hope they’re treating you well. I certainly can’t say the same for me. I’ve been in here for months, awaiting trial, knowing that I should not be here. This crime totally freaked out the town’s local law enforcement. They watch a lot of television, and were worried about the feds coming through and taking over, so they were real motivated to find someone to book for it. I’m not saying they didn’t do a thorough investigation, because the reality is I have no clue what they did. All I know is that they picked me up the day her body was found down creek, and held me until they thought they had sufficient evidence to arrest me officially. They’re not incompetent, but they’re scared, yet I can’t sit here, and honestly tell you that they had no reason to suspect me. I was there that day, and unlike Gertrude, I remember everything that happened to us. First of all, I wanna talk a little bit about me and Viola. I know what she was, but I didn’t always. Once she turned five, she started using her amazing gifts to help people. She would always stay pretty close, but not too close, to Blast City. She didn’t want to be too far from her family, but she didn’t want to be recognized either. She was wise to begin with easy missions, so she would know what she was doing by the time she got older, and they started getting more dangerous. Her parents realized early on that there was nothing they could do to stop her. She was destined to do this, and when she told them she knew for a fact she wasn’t going to get hurt, they believed her, because she had long ago proven herself to know a lot more than a normal child her age should; or anyone, for that matter. But at her seventh birthday farm party, which I attended, they sat her down and told her that she needed to take a break. They were worried, not that she wasn’t being safe and careful, but that she wasn’t enjoying her life. If she spent all her time only trying to help others, she could lose sight of why it was good to help them at all. They said on the day after her eighth birthday, she could resume her duties, if she felt so inclined. This was, I guess, like one of those soul-searching adventures that Amish people go on, to decide if they want to stay in the city, or go back home.

Welp, she needed a guide, and I was the most obvious choice, because I was one of a handful of her peers who had any clue what she was up to. I actually hadn’t know anything about it until the party, and accidentally overheard their conversation. Looking back, I probably wouldn’t have believed any of it if I hadn’t been so young and impressionable. I taught her how to be a kid, and ignore all the terrible things that were happening in the world. She couldn’t completely shut off her absorption of the world’s troubles, but I helped her learn to filter out all but one at a time. She couldn’t be in two places at once, so there was no point in her dwelling on all the missions she would never be capable of even attempting. If you think FOMO is bad, you should walk a meter in Viola’s shoes. It would drive you insane. Harriet and Clarence would go on to serve these kinds of roles more permanently, and in a more official capacity, but I was her first true friend. I would have never killed her, even if she had asked me to. There were a number of times where she would give me a little job, and it was oftentimes really weird out of context, but it would always make sense in the end. But there are some lines you don’t cross, and though I can imagine a world where she knew she was going to die, and in fact, thought she had to die, but I wouldn’t have allowed myself to assist her with that. It may seem random of me to even volunteer that information at all, but when you start interviewing all the other kids that were at the creek that day, they’re gonna do everything to make you think I was at fault. Some may say I did it maliciously, but most will probably just claim I thought I was doing the right thing. I am here to set the record straight before those creatures have the chance to fill your head with their lies. Here’s what really happened that awful day—

[Reporter’s note: Maud Benson was escorted back to her cell the moment she opened her mouth to reveal her truth regarding the day of Viola’s death; suggestive of a cover-up at the police station. They have not allowed me to continue my interview with her since, but I will go on with this series—with discerning skepticism—and update if I speak with Maud again.]

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 22, 2229

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While Mateo was gone, Greer Thorpe managed to alter the time bubble, so that the entire continent of Comron was experiencing real-time, while the rest of the universe was moving at an incredibly slow rate. Some Maramon warriors and spies were free on Comron, and some human prisoners were stuck on the other side, but this was never going to be an easy or perfect fix. The idea was to give a few smart people enough time to come up with something more permanent, so that eleven billion humans would survive. As for the outliers, they would have to deal with that later. Serif was spending her day mulling over some plans for rescue missions, but they would not be practical until the majority of refugees were all the way in the Gatewood cylinders.

Mateo had nothing to do. A better man might be able to contribute significantly until the timejump, but he wasn’t qualified to help with anything. Leona could do more in one day than many engineers could in a year, but Mateo was useless in the attempt to expand the power of the Muster Lighter. He had new experience as a world leader, but Ramses and Goswin were already working on that. He decided he would just wander the primary centrifugal cylinder, and see what was out there. He couldn’t get too comfortable, though, because every time he tried that in the past, some new enemy reared his or her head. So far, so good; this place was beautiful. And impressively expansive. They said it could hold nearly three billion people.

He went up to the platform on top of one of the gigantic megastructures; a design adopted from the ones built on Earth. He then stepped onto the automated train, and asked it to take him on the scenic route. All the arcs looked exactly the same, but they were surrounded by majestic vegetation. This was basically an entire continent in cylindrical form, and possibly the coolest thing Mateo had ever seen. He was enjoying his solitude, which he hadn’t felt in decades, when he noticed some light coming from one of the living units in a tower down below. He instructed the train to stop, then carefully made his way towards the light. It was pretty difficult figuring out exactly which unit he was looking for, but he eventually did, and knocked on the door.

The person who opened the door was none other than...someone he did not recognize. She was even more shocked to see him than he was to find her. “Who are you?”

“Mateo Matic. And you?” The safest way to speak to someone who was where they weren’t supposed to be was politely.

“Cassidy.”

“How did you get here, Cassidy?”

She shut her mouth tight, as if leaving it open would risk letting a truth out that she wanted to protect.

“I can help you, Cassidy, but I need to know what the problem is.”

“I woke up like this,” she answered.

That wasn’t that weird for him. “You went to sleep in your own bed, and when you woke up, you were suddenly in a strange place?”

“I wasn’t in my own bed; I was in a hotel, but pretty much, yes.”

“What year is it?”

She didn’t like hearing this question, but she wasn’t too confused about it, so this kind of technology must have already caused her to question her reality. “I don’t know.”

“I mean...what year should it be, for you?”

“2019,” she finally answered. “I assume that’s...wrong?”

“2229,” he said simply.

“How long have you been here? Did it happen to you too?”

“A couple days. No, I...well,” it was hard to explain that he came here suddenly as well, but did so on purpose.

She squinted at him curiously, but decided to put a pin in it. “The sun looks different.”

He looked in the general direction of the ground, outside of which was outer space, and Barnard’s Star. He couldn’t actually see the sun from this vantage point. I’m afraid...that’s a different sun.”

“I assumed, but I couldn’t be sure. How far is Earth?”

“Five-something light years. Maybe six. I forgot my tape measure,” he joked.

“You seem to know a lot for having only arrived two days ago. I’ve been here for almost two months.”

“What have you been eating?”

“I figured out how to work the food synthesizer. This place is ready to be inhabited, but it isn’t. Are we alone?”

“There are a few others, back at ops.”

“Ops?” she questioned. “You military.”

“No. Look, I don’t know how much you know, but you are what we call a salmon.”

“What, I’m part fish?”

“It’s just a nickname, for people who travel through time against their will.”

“Are you a salmon too?”

He nodded. “Yes. So I only came here a couple days ago, but I’ve been doing this for...” That was even more difficult to explain, what with all the detours, and alternate realities, and time bubbles, and being torn out of time. So he just settled on the vague word, “longer.”

“I’ve been exploring, even though the internet always says to stay put and wait for rescue, but I couldn’t get that train to work. I thought I heard it moving over my head, though. Were you on that?”

He nodded again. “We would just need to put you in the system, and authorize voice control.”

“What the hell is this place?”

“Giant space station. Lots of people need a place to live, so my friends built this place, and a handful of others like it.”

“They did it on their own?”

“Robots did most the legwork.”

“How do I get home?”

“You complete whatever mission the powers that be want you to complete.”

“And what would that be?”

He shook his head. “Most of us don’t ever know. We usually just try to do the right thing, and help people any way we can.” He went on when she didn’t respond to this, “you’re not random, though. You must have something that someone here needs. What do you do for a living? What are your hobbies? What are your skills?”

“I’m a stripper, I don’t have any skills.”

“You can dance,” Mateo said.

“I can swing around. I’m not one of those trained dancers trying to pay her way through nursing school. I’m just a stripper.”

“Hm. Maybe you’re distantly related to someone here, or you’re destined to fall in love with someone? There’s gotta be a reason. Either the PTB wanted you here, or you wanted to come. No one travels through time and space on accident. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Well, there are naturally occurring tears in the spacetime continuing. Some people can access them, but they usually use some device. I’ve never heard of anyone falling into one unintentionally. Otherwise, it would happen all the time.”

“I could be a statistical anomaly.”

“Possibly. There’s one person we can ask, but he’s hard to contact, and I don’t know if he’ll be willing to come all the way out here.”

“I don’t suppose I could talk you into trying?”

“Nah, I’m glad to do it. But I’m going to need to borrow your synthesizer.”

She stepped to the side, and let him in. “It’s not really mine. This was just the apartment I woke up in.”

He took his notepad out of his bag, and handed it to her. “This is a list of every time traveler I know, organized by salmon, choosing ones, and other. Let me know if you recognize anyone’s name.”

She took a cursory glance at the list. “What does the cross symbol mean?”

“It means stay away. They’re bad guys.”

“One of them has a cross symbol, but it’s crossed out.”

Mateo chuckled. “Horace Reaver. We made up.” He walked over to the synthesizer, and requested it build for him two replicas of the game jenga.

“You wanna play a game.”

“It’ll all make sense once I have it set up.” When the printer was finished, which was faster still than the ones Leona used in the 22nd century, he started setting up the blocks. “Any luck?”

“Well, I recognize this one, but not as a person.”

He looked at where she was pointing. “Yeah, her parents didn’t live on that street, but we think they liked it as a name. We don’t have the full explanation, though. You live in Kansas City?”

“Lawrence. Is that important?”

“Is Kansas important to time travel? Actually, it is. Lots of us are from there; we don’t know why. I lived in Topeka.”

“Speaking of lots of people; this list is long. What are the asterisks?”

“Those are people who I’ve heard mentioned, but never met. There are more empty pages than filled ones. No one seems to know quite how many of us there are in total.”

When Mateo was Patronus of Dardius, one of his constituents sought audience with him, and spoke of a way to contact The Delegator. He was considered middle management between salmon and the powers that be, and since he didn’t own a cell phone, he could only be reached one way.

“That’s what you think!” he uttered in feigned outrage.

The wall disappeared, and revealed Stonehenge behind it. The Delegator stepped towards the portal, but did not cross over. “Mister Matic, I’ve already told you, I’m not sending you back to Bungula to get your girlfriend.”

“Wife,” Mateo corrected. “And I’m not here for that; I’m at Gatewood, and she’s already on her way. I just need to know who this person is.”

The Delegator looked over at Cassidy. “Hell am I supposed to know?”

“She’s from 2019, and I don’t think she’s a chooser.”

He was growing more irritated, as he fumbled with his glasses. “Step closer.”

She took a few steps forward, but was wary of the portal, as she should have been.

“No, no clue. It must be a mistake. I can take her off your hands.”

She stepped back again. “Wait a minute.”

“You don’t wanna go back?” Mateo asked her.

“Well, it’s just...”

“Go on,” he prodded.

“I do recognize another name, and I don’t just mean Juan Ponce de León, which I would love to hear about.” She was pointing at one of the asterisked names.

“Asuk? I don’t know much about him, except that he was Paige Turner’s friend, and lived, like a thousand years in the future.”

She shook her head. “It’s very familiar. I mean, it’s not exactly a normal name, and I can’t place it, but I feel like I know it. I know it. I have to find him. See, I even know it’s a him.”

Mateo looked up to the Delegator.

“What, you want me to give you permission? I don’t care. She wants to stay, she stays.” And with that, the portal closed.

“Umm, if you change your mind, I can’t promise I can get him back. I didn’t summon him, I just called him. Sometimes he screens and ignores his calls.”

“I understand,” Cassidy said. “I have to find out who this Asuk is, and how I know him, and my answers must be here.”

Paige wasn’t here, though he didn’t really know where she was at this point, since the last time he saw her was in Leona’s memories back in the last century.

“I can’t promise we’ll find him either. Space and time are very big and long.”

“Well, in the meantime, maybe I can be in charge of entertainment. If you work at a place called ops, I imagine people need to relax.”

On the train ride back to where all his friends were working, he filled Cassidy in a bit more about his life, and what he had been through since leaving 2014. He introduced her to everybody, and set her up with one of the grave chambers on the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Come midnight central, he exited the timestream, and didn’t return until 2230, where he learned Cassidy had exited and returned at the same moments.”

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