The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 1, 2239

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The first face that Leona saw when she returned to the timestream was Eight Point Seven’s. She had been given a new android body, which looked just like her original substrate. Last year, Leona had had only enough time to manufacture a basic robot model, so she must have given herself skin later on. The second face she saw belonged to Hokusai Gimura, and the third to Loa Nielsen. “You’re here?” she half asked, half stated. “Last I heard, you built a lightspeed engine.”

“That’s a bit of a misnomer,” Hokusai said. “It’s still sublight, but you can going ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine percent the speed of light. It’s nothing compared to my next invention.”

“What’s that?”

Hokusai and Loa just looked at each other.

“Here,” Eight Point Seven said. “Let me help you get out of this ship. The base you helped design is almost finished. It will be ready for primetime when the colonists arrive next month.”

As Leona was crawling out of the baby ship, Loa injected her with a gravity-regulating serum. It was true that her artificial legs helped her walk on the surface with such high gravity, but that wasn’t enough to protect the rest of her body. Her heart couldn’t pump blood throughout her body very well on its own. Well, it technically could, but it was needlessly taxing, so these drugs helped maintain healthy blood flow. A normal individual would be able to use permanent nanites, but the powers that be didn’t allow that level of transhumanistic upgrades. Hokuloa must have been using them, though, even though that likely meant the latter in the pair would lose her powers. They would not otherwise be able to thrive here for an extended period of time. Again, it was possible, but quite uncomfortable. The colonists would not be living like this on a regular basis. They were being set up with an entirely different type of environment.

“Have you been here long?”

“Couple months,” Loa answered.

“How are you guys doing in the long-term? Are you spending most of your time in the water?”

Hokusai laughed. “We don’t need that stuff.” With a charming smile, she hopped into the air, and tapped her shoes together dramatically. She went up and fell down a lot slower than she should have. “Antigravity shoes, from the future. I would have invented something myself, but why bother when someone else is going to do it for you?”

“Right now, we’re walking on point-nine-g,” Loa detailed.

“That...is impressive,” Leona said. Though it wasn’t surprising, because impressive was Hokusai’s resting state.

“She can do that for you too,” Loa said excitedly.

“Allegedly,” Hokusai clarified. “I might be able to integrate the technology into your prosthetic, but I would need to at least take a look at them, which I’ve never had the honor before.”

Leona was just as excited. “That would be amazing. I’m interested in this other invention you hinted at, though. You gonna leave me in the dark forever?”

Hokuloa gave each other another look, so Leona glanced at Eight Point Seven, whose facial expression implied she didn’t know what they were talking about either.

“Okay,” Hokusai relented. “I call it...the reference frame engine.”

“I prefer reframe engine,” Loa added. This prompted a hushed, but still audible, conversation between the two of them.

“Honey, we talked about this.”

“I just think it’s more succinct.”

“It sounds like we’re changing people’s perspectives.”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

“No, the frame of reference for the passengers remains constant. I’m not changing that. The engine just changes the temporal outcome.”

“You mean for, like, the people observing from outside the ship? Their reference is being reframed?”

“They’re not actually observing anything; the ship is going too fast.”

“Oh, that’s semantics.”

“Wait,” Leona was pretty smart, but she was having trouble figuring out what they were talking about. “What is this? Who’s reframing what?”

“Okay,” Hokusai prepared to explain. “You know how, as you approach the speed of light, the relative time that has passed from the perspective of the traveler shortens?”

“I follow,” Leona said. This was all basic stuff.

“So, it took us almost eight years to get here from Earth, but since we were going so fast, for us, it only felt like four days.”

“Of course,” Leona agreed. She couldn’t do those kinds of calculations in her head, but the math sounded sound.

“Well,” Hokusai went on, “if I get this new drive working, it will coordinate—”

“Or reframe,” Loa interrupted.

Hokusai continued as if never interrupted, “the inside frame of reference with the outside. Basically, the ship is still going the same sublight speed, but it’s also technically traveling backwards in time, which allows it to arrive before light would.”

Leona understood. “It feels like four days to you in the ship, and it takes four days, even though it should take eight years.”

“That’s right,” Loa confirmed with a nod.

“That’s brilliant, Miss Gimura.”

“Don’t get too excited. It’s an idea; one that obviously requires a cylicone. I haven’t even so much as drawn up designs for it beyond that, though.”

“Still, it’s...I mean, if I were just some normal girl, I might not believe it, but we know that faster-than-light travel is possible. This wouldn’t even be the fastest we’ve seen, so surely it’s possible.”

Loa giggled. “Well, we can’t all be The Trotter. This will allow more reasonable jumps in space for anybody with the power to sit their butt in a seat.”

“Oh, that’s right; The Trotter. He said he was going to be here. He could reunite me with Mateo.”

“We’ve not seen him,” Loa apologized. “We’ve only seen the three of you.”

“Eh, I guess that makes sense,” Leona realized. “He’s not meant to show up for another five years.”

“Five days,” Loa corrected.

“That’s true,” Leona admitted. It was one of the few benefits of this life. On the other hand, how long was he going to stick around? Would he wait until Leona returned to the timeline, or would she miss him by that much? They never nailed down specifics. He knew what her pattern was, but did he keep track of the exact days? Not likely. Damn. She shook the thought out of her head, because it wasn’t worth worrying about right now. Besides, there was something else. “Hold on. You said you’ve seen three of us.” She pointed to Eight Point Seven, then to herself, then back to Eight Point Seven, all the while pretending to struggle with counting to two.

“Yeah, there’s someone else here. I guess she’s been here awhile. She refuses to tell us how she survived this long, but we put her in the water. She is not happy about it.”

So, life on a heavy world is difficult at best. Drugs and nanites are only capable of doing so much. At some point, walking around on a super-Earth becomes so tiring for the average human being that it’s not even worth it anymore. The alternative technology would be more important on an even heavier world, but not useless here on Varkas Reflex. Instead of injecting one’s system with drugs, chemicals would remain outside the body, which is suspended within it. Submersion in water simulates weightlessness, by distributing pressure evenly. Obviously this is not a good solution, unless there is some way for the person to breathe, which is why they’re not being suspended in just regular water. This oxygen-rich liquid can be absorbed through the skin, effectively turning a human into an aquatic animal. The tech was first used centuries ago, for certain medical treatments. It was also incorporated into a special suit to counteract the effects of acceleration—until internal inertial negators were invented—but this method doesn’t work well on a relatively static orbital surface. Enter habitat tanks, stage left.

Leona had to fight extremely hard against the urge to laugh at the person she was seeing inside the tank, like a penguin in a zoo.

Sanaa Karimi, who was not too pleasant of a person, was floating around in what was evidently her new home, staring back with dead eyes. She removed a device from her belt, and pressed it over her mouth. “What the f— are you looking at?” Like before, she self-censored. But why?

“What the hell are you doing here, Sanaa?”

“You tell me!” Sanaa shouted back.

“I have no clue. You’re the one who escaped Bungula without a word.”

“I have a few words for ya,” Sanaa spit back. “First one is bitch!”

“Settle down there, Spongebob,” Hokusai scolded.

“Why does she get to walk around?” Sanaa complained.

“I’ll tell you what,” Leona began, “you come out of that water, I’ll cut off your legs, and give you new ones. Then you can go wherever the f— you want. That’s more than I got. I had to cut them off myself!”

Sanaa appeared to not have known that about her.

“All right,” Eight Point Seven said in her mediator voice. “Nobody’s cutting off anybody’s legs here.”

“Tell me your story,” Leona asked calmly.

“The ship’s systems were pretty easy to operate. Everything seemed fine. I just told it I wanted to go to Earth, and it went on its way. Then something went wrong, and it changed directions. Next thing I know, I’m here. Her ship is broken.” Sanaa pointed to Hokusai.

Hokusai frowned. “I legit have no idea what happened. I’ve run diagnostics three times, and everything checks out. According to the logs, she never requested it take her to Earth. It thinks Varkas Reflex was always her destination.”

“I told you—!” Sanaa tried to say.

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Hokusai assured her. “Someone messed with the computer. I have no idea how, and I have no idea who.”

“Who would do that?” Mateo asked.

“I think you know who,” Weaver replied.

“Mirage? Mirage wants us to go to Thay...thay”

“Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” Goswin spoke for him.

“Yeah, there. Why would she not want us to go to Varkas Reflex?”

“We’re not even certain Leona is there,” Weaver reminded him.

“Is it possible she’s at, umm...you know what I’m talking about. We gotta come up with an English word for this planet; goddamn.”

“Some people call it Bida,” Thor jumped in.

“We can’t change vector,” Weaver said apologetically. “AOC is heading to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, or at least in that general direction. It’s the most likely candidate. We won’t arrive for another sixteen years.”

“Wow, déjà vu all over again,” Mateo lamented. “But you said Cassidy and I have only been gone for five months.”

Weaver nodded. “It’s been about twenty-one weeks for us, but a year has passed for the rest of the universe. You see, when you approach the speed of light—”

Mateo waved his hands erratically in front of his face, like a swarm of mosquitos were on the offensive. “I don’t need to hear the sciencey relativistic bullshit again.”

Weaver cleared her throat, on the defensive.

“I’m going back to bed,” Mateo declared. “When I wake up, we better be on our way to Leona, wherever the hell she happens to be.”

“You know I can’t promise that,” Weaver shouted after him.

Mateo just threw up his hand, because he knew he was being unreasonable, but didn’t have the constitution to apologize for how rudely he was treating everybody right now.

“Is he always like that?” he could hear Thor say to the group.

He didn’t hear a response.

This was going to be a long flight.

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Bungula: Black Stuff (Part II)

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Mirage wanted to allocate a year to run a more detailed survey of Bungula, but Brooke wasn’t happy with these parameters. With that amount of time, even with three highly advanced artificial and upgraded intelligences, you can really only get an idea of what it’s like on the surface. Brooke needed to see below the surface, and deep in the world’s oceans. Life is tricky to find, and even harder to recognize. She demanded they spend no fewer than two years on the project before they started altering the planet’s dynamic conditions. They ended up spending three years on it, just to make sure. Fortunately, Mirage’s plans for terraforming were a lot more sophisticated than the humans would have been able to accomplish. This all had to be a pretty big secret, because if word ever got out that people were using temporal powers in full public view, they risked being sent to Beaver Haven Prison.

Mirage hinted that the way she wanted to terraform Bungula was less advanced than she probably could do it, but they wanted to remain somewhat plausible for this time period. They could theoretically teleport any nearby celestial objects they needed, but residents and scientists would wonder how they hell that got there so fast. There were already going to be enough questions about this process, so Mirage didn’t want to field even more. While teams were surveying the planet, others were constructing the machines and ships they would one day need to get started. At the moment, Mirage had some news for Brooke. Sharice was presently in the far reaches of the solar system, studying a field of icy planetesimals, like those found in Sol’s Oort cloud.

“First things first,” Mirage says. “It’s too cold here. I was thinking about using the second moon to paint the surface hyperblack, which would lower the albedo, but based on the survey you insisted we take, we’ve discovered that this would take far too long.”

“You’re welcome,” Brooke says.

“Yes, thank you. I freely admit this project needs you, which is why I asked you to be part of it in the first place.”

“Well, what else did you have in mind?” Brooke asks.

Mirage grinned. “Mavrophyllic algae.”

“What is that?” I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a synthetic, algae-like organism created in a laboratory. Except it doesn’t use chlorophyll or photosynthesis to generate energy.”

That doesn’t explain much. “Go ahead and say it. I think I can guess from the morphology of the word, but I don’t want to assume.”

“The organisms feed off of dark matter.”

“And there it is,” Brooke says. “That’s insane.” It should be impossible.

“I assure you, it’s very real.”

“Why have we not heard of it?” Brooke questions.

“Well, technically it doesn’t exist yet, but we can invent it. It grows really fast, and can cover the entire surface in a matter of months. It can also be killed when it gets out of hand.”

“Mirage, if it’s invented in the future, we can’t invent it now. It’ll alter the future.”

“Oh, we’re altering the future all the time. This is a reasonable scientific development that’s going to shock people, but not expose time travelers. No one’s going to be like, we didn’t predict that happening until seven hundred years from now!”

“You’re looking to do this seven hundred years early!” Brooke exclaims. “That’s way too far. No, I won’t allow it.”

“Too bad, it’s done.”

Brooke is offended. “Excuse me?”

“You have the ability to control your involvement in this project, and perhaps even Sharice’s, but I can do what I want. I’ve been assigned the administrator of this place, and I’m free to conduct whatever experiments I deem necessary. I’ve had a team working on this for months. I barely gave them a nudge. They figured most of it out on their own.”

“And you’ve already deployed this stuff?”

“No, it’s still just in the lab, but I can release it without your permission.”

“I can contact Beaver Haven about this. They may not be so happy with you suddenly sending us all to the thirtieth century.”

Mirage laughs. “I thought you might say that, which is why I’ve already spoken with The Warden. She assures me she don’t give a shit. She would have a problem if we were trying it in her time period, but it’s 2229. We both agree, the vonearthans aren’t going to freak out.”

“Can you even mass produce enough of this? I mean, you said it grows fast, but metabolism has its limits.”

Mirage doesn’t seem to want to answer the question.

“Okay, now I’m getting really worried. What’s the problem?”

“You’re right. The lab can’t just create this on its own. It has to start with a base organism...which we found..in the oceans.”

“You found life in the oceans?”

“We found bacteria,” Mirage clarifies.

“You lied about the survey results! What did I say about that?”

“Nothing.”

“Another lie. I told you I would pull the plug if you did something like this, and here we are.”

“The bacteria is going to stay just that,” Mirage tries to assure her. “It’s not going to evolve into complex life.”

“How do you know that?”

“I used a time mirror. It lets you slide back and forth through time, watching how things change. I went billions of years into the future; Bungula remains a lifeless rock.”

“If Bungula remains lifeless,” Brooke points out, “then this project obviously fails.”

Mirage shakes her head. “I removed everything we’re going to do from the equation. I saw the future of this world if we shut down the domes, and left it all alone.”

“Time mirrors don’t have buttons. How did you input those parameters?”

“I’m a genius,” Mirage explains with a fake sigh. “I interfaced with the mirror. Trust me. I waited to say anything until I was sure, because I knew exactly how you would react.”

“Oh, you did?” Brooke asks her rhetorically. “Did you see me in the time mirror too?”

“I would never exploit you like that.”

Brooke shakes her head. “Well, it looks like you’ve already thought this through. Wadya need me for?”

“I don’t need you for this part of the project,” Mirage admits, “but your services will become useful in the future.”

“Well, you won’t be getting it if you do this.”

“I don’t understand what the big deal is. Bacteria don’t have souls. Dark algae is easier to contain than you would think.”

Brooke scoffs. “And what if the kind of organism your scientists created is unlike the kind you witnessed in the future when you were a god?”

“Stop calling me that,” Mirage complains.

Brooke goes on, “what you made could have unforeseen consequences, because if you’re not lying, and you only gave them a nudge, the algae could grow uncontrollably without you realizing it. It’s not necessarily the same black stuff the people in the future invented. This could threaten the lives of the people living here already, and I do consider that my responsibility, whether you’re the administrator, or not.”

“I can use the time mirror again,” Mirage supposes. “Make sure I’m making the right call.”

“You want to mess with the timeline even more? I can’t condone that.”

“There’s just no pleasing you,” Mirage argues. “You worry about what’s going to happen in the future, but you worry about what happens if we find out. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Sure, I can!” Brooke cries. “Time travel is a dangerous thing, which is why it just shouldn’t be done. If you didn’t find dark algae in the future, regular scientists would have come up with it organically. They would have done so with the consideration of ethics, and systems thinking, and it still could have turned out badly.”

“Don’t talk to me about time travel.” Mirage raises her voice as well. “You wouldn’t be here without it. You may be pristinely ungifted, but your entire life has revolved around time powers. Half of the people in your family have powers or patterns. You survived the near-destruction of your ship because of a time bubble, and then the actual destruction of your second ship because of a life-preserving time object, and teleportation! I told you we were going to terraform Bungula three and a half centuries ahead of schedule. What did you think that meant!”

“I don’t know!” Brooke shouts even louder. “It’s not the speed; it’s just...how you’re doing it. You’re messing with a very delicate balance. I just feel like you’re not taking it seriously.”

“You’re the one not taking it seriously. Humanity needs protection, and redundancy. If Earth is destroyed, maybe people can flee to Mars. But what if Mars is destroyed too? We have yet to find an exoplanet with the necessary requirements to sustain life on its own. Even once we do, are we allowed to move there? Is it ethical to interfere with its own development? Terraforming a dead—or mostly dead—world is actually the most ethical option of all. You may be virtually immortal, Miss Prieto, but there are still a lot of vonearthans who will die in a matter of seconds if you open a door on their spaceship. We have to find a way for them to survive beyond the confines of one solar system, in some capacity, or the organics could be wiped out.”

“What do you know?” Brooke presses.

“Quite a bit, of course. To what specifically are you referring?”

“Is something going to happen to Earth and Mars?”

Mirage laughs. “They are never not in danger. When I was trapped in the higher dimension, I didn’t see the future; I saw every possible future. Even with a consciousness as advanced as mine, it was hard to synthesize all the information, but one thing I did learn is that life is always one rusty ladder rung away from death.” She pauses. “Bungula is not humanity’s last and only hope, but it’s important. True aliens don’t exist anywhere in the universe—which is something not even I can explain—but that doesn’t mean The Great Filter doesn’t exist. I know in my proverbial heart that a species that stays on one world is doomed to die out on it. You think it’s a risk to do this, but it’s a greater risk not to. I can’t make you help us, though. I recognize that.”

“This is how I’m helping,” Brooke says. “You don’t really need a pilot. Pilots are just computers these days, and you have loads of those. What you need is someone who questions your every move. I made a mistake with the survey; letting you do it on your own, and it led you to lie to me. I won’t make that mistake again. I will be with you every step of the way, and you’re just going to have to deal with the criticism, because every war ever fought was started because people in power refused to listen to reason.”

“I would appreciate that greatly.”

Brooke simulated a deep, meditative breath. “Now. There’s no life whatsoever on the primary moon, correct.”

“Correct.”

“But there are ice caps.”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s going to take longer, but I need you to do this for me. I need you to melt the ice, and plant the mavrophyllic algae there first. You can test in a lab all you want, but it’s not going to give you a very good understanding of how a specimen reacts in the field. Test on the moon first, and then we’ll talk about trying it here.”

Mirage nods. “That’s not an unreasonable request.”

Brooke shakes. “I wouldn’t call it a request.”

“No, I suppose not.”

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Microstory 1140: Anatol Klugman

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The Franco-Prussian War began in 1870, following years of complicated tension between the French Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia. It involved a letter from Spain, border disputes, and as per usual, Russia. Anatol Klugman didn’t care about any of this, though. To him, his kingdom was calling for him to fight for his people, so he answered it. He became a musketeer, and fought with passion and relentlessness. It was on the battlefield that he met Adolphe Sargent, who was as passionate about his own home as he was about Prussia. They fought for several minutes before Anatol gained the upper hand, but before he could deliver the final blow, one of Adolphe’s fellow soldiers appeared out of nowhere, and turned the tables. But those tables just kept turning when the Sword of Assimilation appeared shortly thereafter, just in time to save Anatol’s life. The man who had come to Adolphe’s aid happened to be a time traveler, who was uncontrollably drawn to important events in his family’s history. The sword allowed his powers to be transferred into Anatol’s system permanently. But instead of being drawn to his family, he found himself traveling to other wars that involved Prussia in the past. He felt compelled to continue fighting for his people, but once he was finished with the last one, he was finally free from this pattern. He gained a reputation in the choosing one underworld as a ruthless killer. To temper these rumors, he chose to only steal powers from bad people, and only kill them when it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t enjoy it, but thought it was necessary. He wasn’t simply trying to gain powers for himself, but remove them from people who he felt didn’t deserve them. Once they were in him, they could not be given back, or given to someone else. After years of this, from his perspective, he procured the ability to travel through time in various ways, teleport, and alter people’s memories, among other things. But he was not the only one to survive that first battle, and continue on in the world of temporal manipulators. Adolphe went on to become a major force in the salmon battalion, which traveled throughout time, turning the tide of many wars, for reasons only the powers that be who controlled them could understand. Suddenly, the two of them met once more, and had to decide for themselves how they were going to react. They had both been through a lot since they tried to kill each other. They even discovered that, although they jumped back and forth throughout the timestream, the same amount of time had passed for each of them, so they had that much in common. They had both seen the future, and recognized that their differences from before were a little ridiculous now. They never became great friends, who could trust each other with anything, but they did come to an understanding, and even fought alongside each other, against some truly awful foes.

Microstory 1139: Dar Tresler

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The source mages were a group of people whose time powers are not well understood. The prevailing theory is that they were all in crucial stages of development in their mothers’ wombs when the small town of Springfield, Kansas was transported to the rogue world of Durus during the Deathfall. Ultimately, eleven children were born as a special class of temporal manipulators, who may not have been born without those powers had their circumstances been different. It would seem an unlikely coincidence if they all just happened to be regular choosing ones, and the Deathfall portal had nothing to do with it. Still, no one really knows the truth. Dar Tresler was one of these children, who would grow up to realize that ve did not accept traditional categorization of gender assignment. Ve considered verself to be androgynous, feeling equally feminine and masculine. When the Deathfall occurred, the world was living in 2016, which wasn’t exactly the wokest period of human history, but it was getting there. Dar felt safe. Vis friends, and the town, accepted ver without question, allowing ver to be verself, and be treated with respect. Dar was a motherly/father individual, who cared for the town, even though ve was one of the youngest people there. While Valda saw it as their duty to lead their people in this new world, and Jeremiel was focused more on being revered, Dar wanted to be a teacher. Or rather, ve was concerned more with how well the town learned to live successfully on a planet of monsters, and other dangers, with no way home. Ve became good friends with Lubomir, who had a similar position on priorities. Together, they made sure Springfielders remembered to be kind, even when confronted with their worst darkness. Many wanted to execute the tyrant Smith’s loyalists, for having brought their new society to the brink of destruction, but Dar and Lubomir managed to dissuade them from the violence. When Yeong and Limbani wanted to create the mage games, so they could determine who amongst them deserved powers of their own, Dar was adamant that the contestants be trained beforehand. The competition shouldn’t be about natural talent, but the potential for greatness. People weren’t always happy with Dar’s decisions, but ve would go down in history as the most profoundly influential, once Durus was old enough to appreciate what ve had done for them.

Microstory 1138: Nereus Jolourvedin

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When Opal Jolourvedin was 27 years old, she had a child, who she named Nereus. They lived relatively contently on Durus for the better part of the next decade, doing their part to increase social justice, and support the transitional government. She taught him to be a feminist, a kind person, and a generous human being. When he was eighteen, he found himself drawn to a mysterious section of the planet called The Abyss. It was out of here that the first monsters came, but since they were destroyed in the war, and the portal more or less was closed, no more temporal anomalies were coming through. Still, the Abyss was a dangerous and hazy place. No one who went in ever returned. Laws were passed to prevent it from ever being used as punishment for a crime, and a border guard was stationed along its perimeter to prevent the curious from trying their hand. Though over the years, these protective measures were lessened. Nereus knew that he had the power to alter reality, and he thought he would be able to repair the problem, so that no one else’s life would be at risk from it. He realized he had failed when the portal snapped him away, and sent him to another universe. This was an extremely dangerous place, for it is where the monsters originated. And they were not happy that humans were invading their home. That was what they were trying to do. Fortunately, when their powers were combined, a pair of women were capable of sending all the humans to the past, where it was safer. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to make it through when the bubble that formed to encompass the crowd was disrupted. Nereus and the rest of the standard humans had to fight their way out of a city of enemies, most of them losing their lives along the way, but Nereus survived. He protected those few survivors for years, by constantly generating realities where the monsters hunting them never succeeded. But this was becoming tiring, and he needed a permanent solution. After learning a little bit about the history of the universe, which was called Ansutah, he mustered all of his strength, reached deeper into the past than he ever had before, to find a reality where there was one final way of escaping Ansutah. Scientists long ago invented a way to travel to other universes, but before they built the main machine, they engineered The Prototype, to make sure the technology worked. Plans were made to build a version in between the Prototype, and the Crossover, to measure the feasibility of scaling the infinity drive that powered the machines, before they used up too many resources in the massive undertaking. These plans were scrapped in the original timeline, but Nereus needed it, so he changed history to accommodate those needs. He then found where The Transit was hidden, and finally left the hell world with all his new friends. He eventually returned to his home universe, but in a much earlier timeline; one in which he was never even born. He started calling himself The Repairman, and used his ability to protect the timestream, so that the actions of the time travelers didn’t get out of hand.

Microstory 1137: Mikilos Sparacello

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If you’re living in the 21st century, chances are, you know a criminal. You may even be one. I don’t mean you know a serial killer or rapist, but lots of people have swiped a couple pens from work, or downloaded a movie from an illegal site. If you’re living in the 22nd century, you probably don’t know a criminal, though you may have heard of them. By the time the 23rd century rolls around, though, it’s statistically negligible that you’ve ever been anywhere around a criminal, unless you’re old enough to remember the old ways. Money is gone, poverty is gone. Healthcare is free. Nobody needs to work. If you want to watch a movie, or listen to some music, check the archives; literally everything is on it. There are no competing services, or paywalls. You need a new chair? Stores don’t exist anymore, but there’s a really great inventorium that has all kinds of customizable models, which are manufactured through automation. Equality has become so ubiquitous that the idea of doing something illegal is difficult for most to fathom, because the only crimes that are left in this world are the really bad ones. One of the biggest problems society still faces is mental illness. Any physiological disease has a cure, or at least a treatment. Scientists may not know what it is, but they know there’s an answer. The means of handling a psychological condition is much more complicated. If you manage to diagnose the right illness, is it really an illness? Does the patient want to change? If so, in what way? At what point can you determine that they’re a danger to others, and you have to intervene, whether they want you to or not? How far are you allowed to go in that intervention? Remember, people are a lot harder to kill these days. What with the longevity escape velocity, transhumanistic upgrades, and pervasive surveillance, getting away with a crime, diagnosis or no, is practically impossible. Letting a mentally unstable individual return to their life untreated is easier to justify—or rather, it’s harder to justify not letting them go—when the harm they can inflict upon others is so much less of a concern than it was back in ancient times, like, say 2019. This approach to mental health is not without its risks, but all that surveillance makes privacy a lofty promise that the world leadership would never be able to accommodate, so freedom is that much more important to grant, and fight for.

There was one man who refused treatment for his psychological problems, and went on to attempt to kill another, just to see if he could. His plans were thwarted by the Last Savior of Earth, and he was caught by the authorities, but his legacy lived on beyond the confines of time and space. As the last person to be saved by Étude Einarsson, Mikilos Sparacello was in even more danger than he ever could be at the hands of the sick killer. Time travelers from all over wanted to come and see if they could get close enough to finish the job. It was suddenly brought to the surface just how much violence there was in the time traveler underworld. Seeing that he would never be safe, the planet of Dardius decided to try and rescue Mikilos from the constant onslaught of hopeful assassins. What started out as nothing more than a hotel for humans whose lives had been put in danger by time travelers, had by then grown into a magnificent civilization, with billions of people, spanning all continents of the planet. The reason the wannabe killer chose Mikilos was that he didn’t think anyone would miss him. So when Dardius offered to protect him in a galaxy far, far away, it was an easy decision. He figured he could live anywhere, so he might as well accept. He assumed he would be able to blend into society, and not make any waves, but his fame and popularity followed him across the void, and before he knew it, he was being appointed Vice Patronus over the whole world. He was tasked with fighting the war against the capitalistic Freemarketeers, and maintaining policy when the Patronus, Mateo Matic wasn’t in the timestream. A few years later, when Mateo left the galaxy, and returned to his family, Mikilos had to take a more significant leadership role. When elections rolled around soon thereafter, many wanted him to run for Patronus, but not everyone. And he would have to decide for himself which side he thought had the right idea.

Microstory 1136: Elasy Taggart

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When the source mages took control over Springfield, Kansas, and the new society that was forming, they came up with a few rules. They could give anyone any power they wanted, but they knew doing so carelessly would lead to chaos. Still, they didn’t want to be too terribly controlling, because then they would be no better than their tyrannical predecessor. They would source powers for anyone who passed a series of tests. On the surface, these challenges appeared to be evaluating physical skill, but they were really more about psychological and emotional stability. The source mages needed to know who was worthy of being given powers, and be sure they would use them responsibly. To prevent bias, and other forms of inequality, each chosen town mage would receive a random time power. Whether or not they ended up with something useful, or something obviously useful, was entirely up to chance. Some were more powerful than others, but no one got to swap theirs out for something else, and no one was in danger of having whatever they received taken away. The source mages realized pretty early on, however, that this system would not work without a little bit of oversight. People often fail to apply their powers appropriately, because they don’t fully understand what it is they can do. To combat this risk, they came up with the Diagnostician Bloodline, so that no one’s potential went unrealized. A diagnostician is capable of, through various means, figuring out everything someone else with powers can do. It’s a relatively rare power in the universe, so the source mages couldn’t take the chance that there would always naturally be one around. This was unlike any other bloodline, however. Each child born would be primed to be a diagnostician, but would not necessarily be activated as one. There would only need to be enough to accommodate the needs of the world population. In the beginning, only one was needed, and his children were never activated, because they were not necessary. As time went on, however, and the population on the planet continued to increase, the source mages decided he would need two replacements, one of which was Defirnod Taggart, and the other, his sister, Elasy; the original’s grandchildren. She spent years training to be one of the new diagnosticians, and took her responsibility seriously, though she also noticed a deficit. Diagnosticians were not only capable of seeing people’s powers, but their whole selves. The proper term should have been holistic diagnosis, for they could interpret the inner workings of a patient’s entire body. She lobbied to expand the scope of their work, and possibly even increase the number of staff members, so that people’s medical needs could be tended to in all ways, in what would have probably been the galaxy’s greatest hospital. The world changed before her plans could be realized, but she did manage to help in one small way before it all fell apart. She and her brother figured out how to disable the blockers inside each other’s system that prevented them from passing on the full power of holistic diagnosis to their children. So the bloodline persisted unimpeded, and decades later, this gift would become an important one for a lot of people, in multiple universes.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 31, 2238

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It was time to leave. Mateo first went to Dardius to retrieve the Muster Beacon, so he could save Serif’s people. He then went to Gatewood to make sure they really were saved. Then Cassidy showed up, and he felt very protective of her, but he was otherwise pretty useless here. He wasn’t a scientist or engineer. He wasn’t a civil servant or pilot. He was just some guy; some guy light years away from his wife. He needed to reunite with Leona, and it wasn’t like the people here were begging him to stick around. It was kind of surreal going straight from a world where he was the leader of billions of people, to one where he could do little to help. He hadn’t realized until last year how unnerving he felt. It was best to get out of here, even without the other reasons.

He wasn’t setting about on the journey alone. As awkward as things were still with Cassidy, he hoped she was coming. That was a conversation they needed to have. Goswin was finished setting up the system of governance on these worlds. Many people wanted him to run for elected office, but he evidently didn’t think that was a good idea. He was, and always would be, an outsider. The Ansutahan refugees had this shared history he could never understand, so they were better served with a leader of their own. Weaver too was coming, but that was more about her curiosity. She was kind of steampunk, and spent a lot of time enjoying advanced technology in the nineteenth century in her reality of origin. She had never been to other planets before, and now she was anxious to see more. There was one last passenger, and it was a good thing he was the only one. Though the ship was built with six grave chambers, for a maximum complement of twelve people, chamber four was heavily damaged from having been used as a link to the Ansutahan universe bridge. It could be repaired, but no one had bothered to do it yet.

“Why do you wanna come?” Mateo asked.

“There’s nothing for me here,” Thor replied.

“What about your partner, Saxon, and Operation Starseed?”

“That was more his thing. I’m kind of all about the neighbors. If not for him and the project, I would have probably chosen to travel to Varkas Reflex. This my opportunity.”

“Well, we have room for ya, but I don’t know if I can trust you. I know Juliu—Saxon. Sure, it was in an alternate reality, but that’s something, and I don’t know you at all.”

“I just need a ride, man. I’m not here to steal your girlfriend, or whatever.”

“Cassidy is not my girlfriend. I’m just in charge of her safety.”

“Whatever, dude.”

There was only one person Mateo could talk to about this. He didn’t exactly trust her either, but that was only because everyone is capable of betrayal. It wasn’t safe to let just anyone board the AOC, but if Mirage said he was cool, Mateo would accept it. He made his way to the VR room in the command center building, and was surprised to find Cassidy already there, removing the needle from her skull. “You were talking to her?”

“I was, yes.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I was asking her whether we can trust Saxon and Thor.”

Mateo smiled. Great minds. “And...?”

“She says they can be trusted indubitably.”

“Very well. I guess it’s a good thing you sat in the chair, because I can’t be sure she would even talk to me a second time.”

“Yeah, she said you would be coming, and confirmed your suspicions.”

“I’m leaving today. I’m going to go find my wife. I would like you to accompany us. That is, unless Mirage told you not to.”

“She frustratingly made a point of leaving that decision up to me.”

“You frustratingly made a point of not answering what that decision is.”

She didn’t want to, but couldn’t keep herself from cracking a smile. “I’ll go with you. It’s the right move. Just so you understand, it’s not that I need a big strong man to keep me safe.”

“Good, because Goswin is more of an intellectual, so I don’t know that you’ll find someone like that on our ship. Then again, apparently Thor is coming...”

“Mateo. You and I are not a thing. We had a moment; a three minute moment, and it’s gone. We can fly in the same spaceship together without it getting weird.”

“I agree.”

“So, we’re not going to talk about it anymore.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Captain McBride to Mateo Matic,” they heard on the radio.

“This is Mateo, go ahead.”

“Please report to the throne room.”

“Very good, sir.” Mateo called the area where Kestral and Ishida’s worked the throne room offhand one time, and since there was no better term for it, it sort of stuck. The two of them were responsible for the scientific projects going on here, and of the cylinders themselves, but had little control over what the people living on them did. So they were decidedly not rulers. The throne room was used as an office, a laboratory, even sleeping quarters, and probably at the moment, a discussion room. Mateo speedwalked as fast as he could over there, not wanting to make them wait for him.

“Are you all ready to go?” Kestral asked him once he arrived.

He presented his bag. “Everything I have in thirty litres or less.”

“Mister Thompson will be joining you?”

“Looks like it; is that okay?”

“It is.” she nodded. “Mister Parker, on the other hand, will be joining us, just to keep you updated.”

“So, you’re moving forward with Operation Starseed?”

“Is that a problem?” she questioned.

“Not at all. Just...staying updated.”

“It’s why I called you here. The Ansutahan humans are aware that we are manufacturing exploratory ships in this system. What they don’t know is the magnitude of our mission, nor any of the details, including anything about the Starseed aspect.”

“I appreciate the need for secrecy and security.”

“Good. I need you to keep exercising that belief. Starseed is a sensitive subject. It’s not...strictly speaking, legal. The general vonearthan population did not vote to allow it. This is one of the reasons we’re building and departing from Gatewood, and why Saxon’s cargoship originated from Titan, rather than Earth. It’s our responsibility to insulate the Earthan leadership from any blowback. They’re hoping that, by the time anyone finds out about it, public opinion will have swayed in our favor. People may have reached the longevity escape velocity, which endangers progress from taking shape due to mortal turnover, but that doesn’t mean new generations don’t influence social politics. Still, Stargate is quite deliberately avoiding all systems within fifty light years of Earth. They’ll be sending independent missions to those systems, on an as needed basis, like we’ve already been doing with the closest stellar neighbors.”

“You don’t want me telling anyone what I know about these projects,” Mateo presumed. “I get it.”

“I know that you and Leona are close, and I assume you tell each other everything.”

Mateo opened his mouth to promise not to say anything, even to her, but she interrupted him before he could get one sound out.

“I’m not going to ask you to lie to her. Way I understand it, she already suspects the program exists, so denying it would put undue strain on your relationship. I’m fine with you being completely honest with her, because I know she can keep a secret. No one else needs to know, though.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you. Now, Lieutenant Caldwell is currently running diagnostics on your ship’s new engines. Then you’ll be good to go.”

“New engines, sir?” He didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yes, we’ve upgraded them to more recent speed standards. You’ll be able to reach a maximum of point-nine-three-c, though the average might be closer to point-nine-two.”

“That’s amazing. Thank you.”

“You should be able to reach Varkas Reflex inside of twelve years. It’s more like eleven, but the AOC is not likely to arrive on your day.”

“That’s perfect. Thank you again.”

“It’s been a delight, Mister Matic. You and the rest of your crew are always welcome back on Gatewood.”

“I appreciate your support. What could I ever do to repay you?”

“I haven’t thought of anything yet.”

“Anything yet?” Leona asked.

“Leona,” Eight Point Seven said, “there’s nothing down there.”

“You’re telling me they built nothing on the surface?”

“They built nothing on the surface, or just below it.”

“Does that mean the humans aren’t coming?”

“You know I don’t know. Nothing in the reports I received while I was administrator on Bungula led me to believe that they had abandoned missions to colonize this world.”

“This is a super-Earth, Eight Point Seven, with nearly six times its mass. Humans can’t survive on it without technological intervention.”

“I understand that. Either the nanofactories they sent ahead of time never arrived, or they arrived, but malfunctioned. I’m not picking up any signals, and the surface appears clear.”

“This must be why we’re here. But surely the Earthans know. I mean, the factory was meant to give them the thumbs up. Even without quantum communication, they would have had seventeen years to get the message that something went wrong.”

“I agree, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“Okay, let’s go down and fix this. You know the landing points?”

“I do, but you can’t go down there.”

“Why not?”

“For the same reason the other humans can’t! Surface gravity is way too high for a standard biological.”

“Well, you have to go down there, and if you don’t come back up and get me in a year, I could reappear in the timestream in the vacuum.”

“Wouldn’t you reappear in the ship, just like you always do, even though it’s moved?”

“You might have to cannibalize the ship to fix the factory, so...maybe not. I might be able to walk on the surface. My legs are artificial, remember?”

“It has more to do with your lungs and heart, and your legs aren’t the only parts of you with bones and muscles.”

“Eight Point Seven, you don’t have hands. I might be able to build you a new body here, but I gotta get down there first.”

“This could kill you.”

“Anything could kill me. My life is hella dangerous. The powers that be have it in their hands. There’s a certain freedom in that. Get. Me. Down there.”

“As you wish. You better make like a jock, and strap in! It’s about to get real!”

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