The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 18, 2256

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The adjoining of Radiant Lightning, and The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was totally finished when Mateo returned to the timestream. While they did fit well together, geometrically speaking, they weren’t designed with that in mind. There was still a lot to be done to adapt them to each other. Whatever it was that made the AOC go before first had to be taken out, which was apparently the easiest part. There was always a way to jettison it in case something went wrong, such as what happened in that movie where Tommy Lee Jones goes crazy alone in space. The end result of the new ship was exquisite, even though Mateo wasn’t intelligent enough to know what exactly this meant. They could now get to any planet in this region in a matter of days, sure, but why that was suddenly now possible was something that would always fly right over his head.

On a personal note, Leona and Cassidy were still off on whatever it was they were doing, wherever they were doing it. They kept in contact with Homebase, so people would know they were still alive, but neither of them agreed to talk to Mateo. Cassidy had done nothing wrong, and Leona certainly hadn’t, so Mateo was rightfully being treated as the bad guy. He just hoped this didn’t mean his life was essentially over. If he couldn’t be with Leona—either literally, or as soulmates, or both—he didn’t know how he would survive.

Things were awkward in 2256. The crew of the AOC had already known what happened between Mateo and Cassidy, but now that it was no longer an open secret, and just open, it couldn’t be ignored. Mateo, on the other hand, was ripe for being ignored, which was what most everyone was doing. Trinity had a completely different personality than he remembered Paige having before. That was no big surprise, though. They were two totally separate people now, who had experienced wildly different lives. She was ignoring him as well, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with his indiscretion with Cassidy. She kind of acted like she didn’t love that there were now so many people here, and was ready for some to leave. Eight Point Seven seemed fine with Mateo, leading him to ask her if she would shrink him like she did for Leona so many times, but Eight Point Seven said that it would be a conflict of interest. This decision was probably for the best. The only person who didn’t seem to have a problem with him was Ellie. She was still as bubbly and tenderhearted as ever.

“Oh hold on.” Ellie pulled a pair of glasses out of her bag, and a clipboard. She crossed her legs, and looked at him inquisitively. “Go on.”

“I’m not really looking for a therapist,” Mateo said. “I just don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

“So I’m your last resort. How does that make you feel?”

Mateo laughed at this. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m just joking”

“How do you feel about what happened?” Mateo asked her. One of his biggest problems right now was that no one was expressing their thoughts on the matter. Did they just not know what to say, or were they deliberately trying to make him feel bad, simply because he certainly didn’t deserve to feel happy?

Ellie shrugged. “It’s not really my business.”

“But Leona is your friend.”

“And when she comes back, I’ll be here for her. That doesn’t mean I can’t be here for you too. Shitty sitcoms from the two-thousand aughts teach us that the friends of a couple in distress have to take sides. But that’s really reductive; relationships are more nuanced than that, and very complicated. You screwed up, and there’s no denying it, but you’re not irredeemable, and Leona isn’t beyond forgiving you.”

“That’s a very mature position to hold. I’m not sure I would be so thoughtful if I weren’t the one who done it.”

“Well, you gain perspective when you can eavesdrop on the conversations of faceless strangers from thousands of miles away.”

“You do that a lot?”

“I see what you’re leading to,” Ellie said. “I’m not going to listen in on Leona and Cassidy.”

“What if they’re hurt, or lost?”

Ellie reached back into her bag, and retrieved a tablet. She tapped on it a few times, and then turned it around to show him. He could see what appeared to be vital signs, separated into boxes; one for each of the core group at Homebase, plus the two who weren’t there at the moment. Only Mateo wasn’t on there at all. “We chipped everyone after Leona got lost on another continent. As you can see, they’re both fine.”

“Eight Point Seven is on here.” It looked different than the others, though, since she didn’t have a heart rate, or blood pressure, or any other biological reading.

She chuckled a bit. “Well, yeah. We still need to know how her internal systems are faring.

“What’s wrong with that one?” Mateo was pointing at a box that should have been displaying someone’s vitals, but whoever it was, they appeared to be dead.

“Oh, that’s Briar’s. His chip was damaged recently, but I guess he’s not allowed to undergo any medical treatment for this whole month? It has something to do with his religion. I don’t know anything about it.” She dropped the tablet back into her bag.

Mateo decided to change the subject, because he had another question. “Hey, um. Is that a bag of holding?”

“It is, yes,” Ellie confirmed, holding it up. “Do you two not have your own?”

“No one had them on Tribulation Island, which would have been a good place to stock them. I don’t know where else to find something like that.”

“I got mine from an old man I met in 1804 Kansas. Or rather, what would become Kansas a few decades later. I don’t think he made it, though. I won it off him in a game of poker.”

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to reconnect with him.”

“I would have to find him throughout time and space, and then I would have to speak to him. Both of those things require using my time power, which I’ve agreed to not do while I’m on Bida.”

Mateo nodded. “I understand.”

“There would be no guarantee he would have what you’re looking for anyway. Transdimensional bags aren’t the rarest thing in histories, but they’ve never been mass-marketed either. Lots of people who can create pocket dimensions can’t link them to a bag like this. It takes pretty refined skill.”

“It’s just..Leona has always wanted one.”

“You’re not gonna win her back with a gift, Mateo, and I think you know that.”

“If the gift didn’t win her back,” he began, “she would at least still have a bag of holding. I don’t see the down side.”

“I do,” Ellie claimed. “If you give a gift now, you’re just like any other cheater who thinks it’s possible to make up for the betrayal. You can’t compensate for it. Your only hope is to regain her trust. That’s done through things like being a good person from now on. Listen to her, acknowledge her contributions, ask her for help; basic things that a decent human being does for another. She has to feel like you think of her as a real person. A gift, of any kind—even something less materialistic, like a fun or romantic experience—will only perpetuate her perception that you think she’s a broken object you can repair. Relationships can’t be repaired; they can only grow a new branch, in a different direction, and hopefully leave the dead branch far enough behind that it doesn’t kill the whole tree.”

“Wow. Maybe I was looking for a therapist.”

“I’m not a therapist, Mateo. I’m just a woman.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

After his little therapy session with Ellie, Mateo went out to take a walk on his own. Everyone said it was one of the most beautiful planets, and that Trinity had settled on the most beautiful part of it. The path did not disappoint. The trees and other plant life were gorgeous and calming. Even the animal noises sounded more pleasant than he ever remembered hearing on Earth. Maybe they were just different, and given enough time, he would grow used to them. This wasn’t his first time outside on this world, but he hadn’t paid much attention before. His walk wasn’t perfect, though. Throughout the whole thing, he had this sickening feeling that he was being watched. Perhaps that mad scientist who was trying to transfer people’s consciousnesses to animal droids was following him around, or a hungry real animal. His anxiety worsened every few steps, until it was no longer worth it to keep going. He turned to leave, and came face to face with that guy Leona found alone in the woods. He was acting creepy, but Mateo wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Oh, hey. Briar, right?”

“That’s right,” Briar said. “I’m here to kick your ass.”

“Mateo sighed. “To defend her honor?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll let you hit me once. I can say that I tripped, or something. But if you hurt me more than that, I’m gonna have to tell her what happened, and she isn’t gonna be happy.”

“I dunno, I think she would probably be really happy about that.”

“You obviously don’t know her very well. She abhors violence.”

“She what’s violence?” Briar questioned, confused.

“She hates it,” Mateo translated.

She hates you more.”

“That’s not true. I know I made a big mistake, but she and I are going to get through this. It doesn’t matter what you do to me, she’s not going to leave me, and run to you.”

“This has nothing to do with me. I’m not gonna hurt you to get you out of the way, and take your place. I’m gonna hurt you, because you deserve it.” He started inching forwards.

Mateo didn’t get into fights when he was a kid, but he also wasn’t easily intimidated. He didn’t know why, but Briar was really freaking him out. It could have been the wrathful fire in his eyes, or just the way he was so convinced that this was the right call. Or maybe it was because they were now standing near the edge of a pretty steep drop. “She won’t forgive you.”

“She won’t need to.”

“I’m under the protection of the powers that be.”

“Then you shouldn’t be worried at all right now.” Mateo was starting to think this guy was genuinely mentally ill.

“Don’t do this, Briar.”

“Don’t do what?” Yeah, to be insensitive about it, he was definitely bonkers. “I’m not even here.” He presented the inside of his wrist. “My medical chip has been broken for a week.”

Briar had forced Mateo all the way to the very edge. If the powers that be were going to do anything to save him, like send the Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida’s version of The Savior to pull him back, this was the moment. Presumably banking on the unremote possibility that they weren’t going to do that, Briar delicately tapped on both of Mateo’s shoulders, and sent him tumbling over.

No Savior, no giant bird, no last-second portal. Mateo fell however far it was to the bottom of the cliff, and landed hard on his back. His whole body was in pain, and warm blood was pooling around him; almost like he was peeing his pants. After a few minutes of lying there, a butterfly-like insect started fluttering over his face, giving him one last beautiful thing to look at before he died. He couldn’t help but smile in wonder. This tiny little thing barely had what you would call a brain. It didn’t think, or feel, or hope. It just searched for food, and propagated the species. It probably didn’t even realize it was flying over the dying body of another creature. It probably just considered Mateo to be part of the landscape. He could feel his life slowly draining from him, but as it did, the insect slew down, until it was almost not moving at all.

This was the day Mateo Matic died.

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Source Variant: Painting the Forth Bridge (Part VII)

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Saxon’s idea was to make their McIver hats turn them invisible. Whenever one of the natives was discovered having missed daily boulder god worship, they would step in front of them, and take the hit themselves, to prevent anyone else from getting hurt. They were wearing some padding, but they didn’t bring any special bullet-resistant vest with them, or anything. So it wasn’t a whole lot of fun, but it eventually did the trick. Their constant misses caused the Orothsew to believe that their means of punishment was not appreciated by the boulder. It took a few times for it to really sink in that this wasn’t just a fluke, or weirdly powerful gusts of wind. There was one particularly devout rock worshiper who wouldn’t accept it, though. He just kept throwing rocks at people, even going so far as to throw them at former victims who he figured were still not committed enough. Vearden!Three finally decided that the only way to deal with this bully was to start throwing rocks back at him. If this didn’t lead him to believe that God was angry with him, he at least didn’t like the taste of his own medicine. After a few days of monitoring this isolated group of Orothsew, Saga!Two, Vearden!Three, and Saxon stepped back into their shuttle, and flew off. They traveled really far in time, but not very far in space. They ended up landing exactly where they were before, but two hundred years later.

The three of them stay in the shuttle for awhile. It takes a few minutes for it to reconnect with the system. They need to find out what’s been going on before they do anything. After the update, they start looking through the historical records. The former nomads, turned rock worshipers, have now dropped all rock-worship, and have founded a new culture. And it’s all their fault. Again. As it turns out, the Orothsew they were trying to help—who have now distinguished themselves from the rest of the world by calling themselves Telijir—did not attribute the human intervention to the rock god at all. They now worship Ijirasa, a whispering god of the wind. While they were invisible, the humans still needed to communicate, but this was a difficult task since they were unable to see each other. They thought their voices were going unnoticed, but that was clearly not the case. All they did was replace one false deity with three others. Yeah, the Telijir were even able to tell that there were three of them. A cursory glance didn’t make it seem like their new religion was as violent as the one they followed before, but it still had to be stopped, right?

“What are we gonna do this time?” Saga!Two questions. “I feel like anything we try is just going to create a whole new set of problems that we can’t predict. I mean, if we’re only here every two centuries, we can’t keep trying to guide them in the right direction. I think this has grown beyond our capabilities.”

“Do we even need to do anything?” Vearden!Three asks.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Saxon asks. “This is our doing.”

“Right,” Vearden!Three agees, “but the Telijir haven’t heard whispers since we were here. Yet they still believe. I kinda think that’s on them.”

“Never underestimate the power of conviction,” Saga!Two says. “According to these notes, the Telijir still hear whispers all the time.”

Vearden!Three dismisses this with his hand. “We know they’re making it up. Every time a Christian claims to see a bush that burns but isn’t consumed; or a Buddhist claims to have found enlightenment—it’s all just bullshit. There is no God, on any planet, and anyone who claims to have uncovered evidence of such is only doing so to stop themselves from feeling like shit about their lives. They want to believe there’s some higher power, not to take comfort in their divine control, but so they don’t have to admit that their predecessors duped them into believing such obvious nonsense in the first place. No one wants to acknowledge that it isn’t real, and they’re just being stupid. Should we try to convince the Telijir that they’re wrong? Of course not.

“People spent a lot of time and energy on Earth trying to debunk other people’s myths, and they didn’t make one step of progress. No follower has ever been told they’re wrong, and been, like, yeah, ya know what? I think you’re right. Sure, they switched religions all the time, because some invading force conquered them, and they didn’t have a choice, but it never really took hold until the next generations. Why? Because people don’t change; they just die off, and make room for different people, with different ideas. That’s the only reason religion faded away on Earth. No one changed their minds; they were just increasingly less skilled at getting their children to believe as strongly as them. So why should we refuse to help? Because we’ve already seen that it’s a fruitless pursuit, and is more work than it’s worth. The only thing we can do is find some other lie to grapple onto. They won’t become rational overnight. The best we can do is hope it gets better for them faster than it did for us.”

“This is a complete one-eighty from your position last time,” Saga!Two points out.

“That was two hundred years ago,” Vearden!Three says.

“It was a week,” Saxon corrects, though it didn’t need to be said.

“Maybe I changed my mind after all those people threw a bunch of rocks at me.”

“I thought you said people don’t change their minds.” Saxon actually isn’t happy about noting the contradiction.

“I meant that people don’t change their minds about their worldview,” Vearden!Three argues, “but they gain perspective all the time.”

“Vearden,” Saga!Two begins. “How did you get to be so cynical? Was it really the rocks?”

“I’m just sick of this,” Vearden!Three begins. “When I was young, I kept looking for my purpose. With no prompting, I just knew there was something about the world that was hidden from most people. It was by random chance that I stumbled upon the truth. Now I know none of it matters. Nothing we do is going to make any real difference. So why have we been sent to this world? To keep fighting against the inevitable? Count me out; I ain’t doin’ shit this time. May the powers that be strike me down if my decision angers them. I don’t care anymore.”

During Vearden!Three’s last speech, Saxon was looking through the window. Once it’s over, he stands up, and tries to get a better view of something out there.

“What is it, Saxon?” Saga!Two asks.

“Do you think it’s possible that the Orothsew built a monument that’s strikingly similar to Stonehenge on Earth?” he wonders.

“You’re joking.” Saga!Two stands up, and gently moves Saxon out of the way, so she can see what he’s talking about. “That’s the real Stonehenge.” She engages the exit door. “Come on, Vearden!Three. There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

The three of them leave the shuttle, and head for the standing stones. The Delegator is waiting for them in the center with a neutral smile. “Ah, there you are. Thank you for coming.”

“Who are you?” Saxon asks.

“My name is The Delegator. I handle salmon assignments; when necessary, that is. Some salmon don’t need to speak with anyone to do their jobs. They figure out what’s expected of them, and do it with no instructions. Others can be confused, resistant, or just need a little proof that they are indeed there for a reason, and it’s not all just a random occurrence.”

“Which is it for us?” Vearden!Three questions. “Why are you here now?”

“It’s a little of all three. Saga!Two, you seem to be having a little trouble making decisions. Vearden!Three, you’ve obviously become quite jaded about this whole thing. And Saxon, you like facts. You’re a facts guy. I’m a fact. I’m here, and you’re here, and this planet needs you. Those are the facts.”

“Why are the powers that be having us show up every two hundred years, and not a year too soon. That actually is random,” Saga!Two complains. “It may seem like a pattern, but socio-political events don’t follow it, so neither should we.”

“You’re right,” the Delegator begins, “it’s a temporal pattern, but not a logical one. But that’s how they all work. We got a few guys who jump through time based on temperature scales, as they convert from Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin. We have another group that only lives during repdigit years; year eleven, year two hundred and twenty-two, year three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, and everything in between. One guy only exists on Tuesdays, and July. His name is JB. Anyway, that’s part of the suspense, and it mirrors real life more than you would think.” He starts pacing around demonstratively, like a college professor in the middle of a lecture. “The question that everyone should be asking themselves, whether salmon, or choosing one, or just regular human, is what do I do with the time that I’ve been allotted? The question doesn’t really apply to immortals, so don’t worry about them. Most fully biological people know, assuming nothing goes wrong, that they’re gonna live about eighty years; maybe a hundred. They have to grow, mature, learn, become wise, contribute positively to society, and leave a legacy. Some do better than others, but that’s besides the point. They all ask themselves the question, whether they’re conscious of it, or not.

“You have to ask yourself this as well. Just because you’re not limited to the linear eighty years doesn’t mean you don’t have a limit at all. You have a few days, maybe weeks, to help these people. You have to help them in any way that’s possible, based on where they are in their development right now. You can’t help them in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty. You’re gonna come back in two hundred. And when you do, you’re gonna try to help them again. Neither I nor the powers that be are going to tell you how to do that. They don’t..know. They’re not giving it any thought. They, honestly, probably don’t really care. They’re sort of...into math. Your appearances are mathematical, and they wanna see how that turns out. What you do here is totally up to you, but once you decide what your job is, the powers are going to wait until it’s done before forcing you to move on. This is how it’s been working, even if you didn’t realize it. So Mister Haywood, you intend to sit this one out?”

“Yes.” Nothing the Delegator said has changed Vearden!Three’s mind.

“You can’t,” the Delegator says definitively. “If you attempt to do nothing, you’ll be stuck here. You’ll be stuck here...for eighty years. Do you understand what I’m saying? Your life will mean nothing. You will have failed to answer your question appropriately. What are you going to do with the time you’ve been allotted cannot be answered with nothing of value.”

“So what if I’m stuck here?” Vearden!Three begins to argue. “What’s the difference between living eighty years in one place, and living eighty years jumping through time. That might be preferable anyway.”

“If you do your job, you are not going to be living here for eighty years.” The Delegator chuckles. “My God, man, that’s hundreds of thousands of years in realtime. How long do you think civilizations survive? This is your last assignment. Did you not realize that?”

“No,” Saga!Two says. “Why would we know that?”

“What does that mean?” Saxon asks.

“When you’re finished here, we’re going to let you live out the rest of your lives in Havenverse.” The Delegator pretends that this is a reasonably sufficient explanation.

“What the hell is that?” Vearden!Three asks angrily.

“It’s safe,” the Delegator answers. “Saga!Two, you will be reunited with your daughter. Vearden!Three, you will find where you belong. And Saxon?”

Saxon smiles with one side of his face, curious about the answer. He’s never really seemed to know what he’s wanted out of life, but safe has never been it.

The Delegator continues, “Saxon, we’ll let you go wherever you want, I guess. The powers that be have no real control over you. We’ve let you tag along with the other two, because we recognize your value, but you can quit anytime.”

“No, thank you,” Saxon says politely.

They stand in silence for a few moments.

“Well.” Vearden!Three finally says, but waits another moment to find all his words. “Any suggestions for this point in time? What could we do to help the Orothsew, and provoke the next jump?” He seems to have accepted his role.

The Delegator thinks about this. “You could be a bridge.”

“A bridge between what and what?” Saga!Two asks.

“Two cultures have appeared on this continent. They originated from the same one forty-seven, but they’ve been separate for centuries. Perhaps it is time to bring them back together.”

That’s not the worst idea ever.

The Delegator speaks again, “but that really is but a suggestion; one I’ve just now thought of. It’s not a mandate. You do what you wish.” With that, he disappears, along with all of Stonehenge.

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Microstory 1225: Irving Hummel

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Irving Hummel was a reality corruptor, but not an exceptionally good one. His ability to alter reality was fairly limited, and often only significantly impacted his own life. If he wasn’t careful, any changes he made could quite easily revert, and he might not be strong enough to change them back to the way he wanted. He wasn’t that great of a person in general, and the power he wielded only made him worse. He was by no means evil, but he lacked both drive and skill. Ambition wasn’t a problem, but that and drive are not the same concept. He wanted to do great things, and to be recognized for them, but he didn’t want to put in the effort. And so, thanks to his time power, he forced the world to become what he needed in order to realize his dreams. He barely scraped by at the police academy, but he did make it, and he didn’t do anything bad to get there. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t reach any of his goals beyond that. He was stuck as a regular uniformed officer, and it wasn’t looking like things were going to get better, so he changed them. He arbitrarily turned himself into a Sergeant. It was no Lieutenant, or Captain, but it was kind of the best he could muster. You see, the modifications he could make to reality had to have some kind of plausible basis. He couldn’t just make himself king of the world, because no world would accept him as such. He did have the potential to become a sergeant, if only he worked harder at it, but that would always be the best he could do. The problem—though he wasn’t sure he saw it like this—was that his corruptions also had an effect on his personality. He couldn’t just slip his mind into his new life. He had to become the person he would be if he had done it in a more conventional way, and apparently, the more conventional way led him down a somewhat darker path.

Sergeant Hummel was a lot grumpier and harder to get along with than Officer Hummel. He was snarky, and short with people, and constantly pushed them away. Even though he could still remember his life before the corruption, he couldn’t help but adopt this new behavior, and start treating people poorly. There was only one person he knew who could see through him. A colleague of his evidently had his own temporal power. It was immediately clear to Irving that Detective Bran could see the discrepancies between the two conflicting realities. He didn’t want to let on that he was not only fully aware of the changes as well, but that he was responsible for them. Well, he didn’t think he was responsible for all the changes. Bran was regularly concerned about the town literally shrinking in size with no logical explanation, but Irving had no clue what he was talking about, and couldn’t believe that it had anything to do with him. He just kept doing his thing; transforming himself into what he hoped was a better person, eventually faltering, and going back to the way he was, and then trying again once he was strong enough. In the end, none of his efforts mattered. Irving was in the wrong part of town when the phenomenon Bran kept talking about swallowed it up. Presumably because of his own ability, Irving managed to survive the trip through the portal, and landed on a different planet entirely, as one of very few who weren’t torn apart, and scattered throughout time. Now what was he going to do? There was no reality where this dead world wasn’t a terrible place to live.

Microstory 1224: Vito Bulgari

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Vito Bulgari was born on Durus in 2161, which meant he had no recollection of how the world was during the phallocratic state. He was never taught to distrust women, or disrespect people in general. To him, such notions belonged in the past, and he had no use for them. But his outlook on what makes a decent society wasn’t the only thing different about him. After the Mage Protectorate fell, devastated by the final battle against the temporal monsters, people were only ever born with weak powers, if any. They were deemed mage remnants, and weren’t generally strong enough to do much good with their abilities. Once Hokusai Gimura saved the planet from colliding with Earth, however, something changed. While a few full paramounts were born with all the strength that they would have had if they were regular choosing ones on Earth, it did not become common until Vito’s generation. Like Alyssa McIver and Joanna Zegers, Vito had the ability to turn invisible. His power fell somewhere in the middle of those two. He could turn visible whenever he wanted, and also make other people and objects visible, but he wasn’t capable of making them look like other things. Alyssa was an illusionist, who could substitute whatever she wanted in place of whatever was actually there, while Vito was only able to make something look like it wasn’t there at all. When the small interstellar ship, The Elizabeth Warren was preparing to return to Earth, a movement formed on Durus, of people who felt entitled to become passengers. Despite their inappropriate means of making their desire known, many of them were ultimately accepted into the vessel. Space was made to accommodate them using pocket dimensions. Vito was not one of these people. He did not even hear about it until the future-passengers had taken some of the crew hostage in order to force the issue. He applied for transport with the Durune government once he discovered it to be a possibility. The crew of the ship was so impressed with him for having been the only person in the entire world to think of that, so they let him in as well. They even excluded another hopeful passenger, just to make room. Vito went on to have an adventurous life. His ability—and abilities, once he was transformed into something greater—got him into trouble as often as they got him out of it, but he never used them for selfish reasons, or to harm the innocent. His decency and compassion earned him the role of second-in-command of a special machine that could travel to other universes. Captain Cabral felt that he was the only one who could be trusted with the responsibility, and he did not let her down. He went on to be a major force for change, taking down more white monsters by himself across the bulkverse than anyone could count. He became a legend on many worlds as a hero.

Microstory 1223: Lanolin Foley

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Until it found its home star to orbit, there was never a time when the planet of Durus was not at war. It was at war when the first of the Springfielders arrived on the Deathfall, and had to battle frightening temporal monsters. It was at war when the Mage Protectorate formed, and started enforcing boundaries against these monsters. It was at war again after those monsters were finally defeated, and a new threat rose to power. In the hunt for votes, a group of small men grew bold, and started making complaints about the women of history. They didn’t start out explicitly stating that women were inferior, but they certainly catered to a demographic that already believed that. They just kept adding more and more outrageous statements to their repertoire, and increasing their numbers, until there was no hope in reasoning with them. They played on the worst fears of some of the least decent people in the world, and that was enough to make dramatic and terrible changes. The war continued as the rebellion against this tyranny did everything it could to put a stop to it. Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of places to hide on Durus. Sure, only a tiny fraction of the surface was settled, but that was for a very good reason. There was only a single source of water, in a region known as Watershed. It never stopped raining, and it was extremely difficult to get to. A system of pipes had to be constructed to accommodate the population beyond its original several hundred, because there was almost no land within kilometers of the area. The rebels had to find somewhere else to live, and set up a convoluted system of water theft just to survive. They chose a region called the thicket, which was what they themselves came to be called. There was plantlife for minimal cover, which survived on what little moisture the wind carried over to it, but none of it was edible, and conditions were terrible. The Thicket spent so much time just making sure their people didn’t die that they didn’t have any time to actually fight against their oppressors. Lanolin Foley wanted to do things differently. She never planned on becoming the leader, but she knew she could do it when the responsibility fell to her. The cause was important, to her, and to the world at large. This was her chance to effect change in a way her predecessors never could. Though she retained the name, she moved their operations out of the thicket, and into the city. The government hadn’t been spending many resources catching them when they weren’t really doing anything except barely scraping by, and when Lanolin reintegrated the rebels into society, the government still didn’t do anything, because they did not know about it. Gradually, things began to get better. It was easier to find sympathizers than The Thicket ever knew. They had spent so much time in isolation that they didn’t realize things had already been changing, at least for the general population. With help, Lanolin ushered in a new era, and paved the way for people like Ludvig to keep the torches burning, and find peace on Durus.

Microstory 1222: Ludvig Portillion

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While the end of the phallocracy on Durus was suddenly brought about by a visitor from Earth who refused to accept the status quo, her arrival was not the only thing that brought the system down. Women had been living under oppression for over sixty-five years, and a lot had changed since the new rules were first implemented. For one, everyone responsible for the new world order was dead, leaving their descendants to decide for themselves whether they still agreed with their ways. For the most part, the system held up on its own. Anyone who disagreed with it feared retaliation for voicing their concerns, so they simply kept quiet. Active rebels were few and far between, but there were even more people who secretly supported them, and needed but a push to stand against the injustice. Ludvig Portillion was one of these people. He didn’t see women as inferior, but he also didn’t think he could do anything to help. He was born into a world that not only mistreated over half its population, but also into one that discouraged questioning the government, or coming to one’s own conclusions. It wasn’t tyrannical. Criticism—by men, at least—was usually met with dismissal, rather than explicit punishment, but it certainly wasn’t a democracy, and it wasn’t set up with sufficient change-making procedures. The truth was that Ludvig thought he was doing everything he could when he pursued a relationship with Loa Nielsen. Her father, Anchor was infamous for his understanding of the progressive Earthan culture, and thusly developed empathy for the female condition. Ludvig thought that, by courting a strong and independent woman, he was showing that he wasn’t afraid of female independence, nor would he attempt to take control over her. He also thought that being around both Loa and her father made him a better person. He never considered himself to be a bad guy, and the women who knew him didn’t either. It just took him too long to realize that, since he wasn’t really part of the solution, he was still technically part of the problem. He could have done more. Treating this one woman fairly, was the absolute bare minimum, and wasn’t nearly enough to demonstrate his goodness, let alone make the world a better place. Fortunately, he came to have an opportunity to contribute positively. After Hokusai Gimura came to the planet, and changed everything about it, Ludvig stepped up. He raised his voice, in support of progressive changes, and against any who would see society crumble back down to the way it was. And by his words, along with the words and actions of many others, the world did finally become its best self.

Microstory 1221: Sanaa Karimi

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Sanaa Karimi belonged to a bloodline of telepaths that were specifically designated The Casters. The first girl to come of age after the death of the last Caster—which was usually the grandmother—will have the ability to communicate with others on a psychic level. Each individual’s strength and range varies from woman to woman, and will not follow any sort of pattern. Some are better than others, and there appears to be no reason for this. Most choosing ones do not not come from a bloodline, so understanding of it is limited. Sanaa ended up being the most powerful in all her family history, essentially sharing her power with The Emissary. Like him, she could reach out to people in other universes, though because of her personality, didn’t really use it all that much, and it never occurred to her to try to speak with the powers that be. In fact, she didn’t much care to use her ability at all, because she was grouchy, and somewhat misanthropic, so holding conversations with others just wasn’t her thing. People often sought her out to send messages to each other, and she never demanded payment for it, but she certainly would have preferred it if they just left her alone. There was kind of this unwritten rule in her family that no Caster was allowed to time travel, because there was meant to always be one of them at a time. This meant no overlap, and no gaps. But Sanaa never did like following rules. A series of events forced her to throw in with a group of women she would ultimately come to know as her friends. They encouraged her to relax, and be more personable; not generally through deliberate moral lessons, but just because they accepted her in a way that no one before had. Okay, maybe Leona tried to teach her a few lessons, but the others mostly just let her be herself, while simultaneously showing her that she didn’t have to be so guarded around them. It was for them that she sacrificed her safety and life, and she didn’t regret it one bit.

On a nearby planet called Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, she and her friends discovered a hidden cave. It acted both as a portal to Earth centuries ago, and also a time trap, where time moved much slower than it did outside. This was a dangerous thing to exist, for either planet, so she agreed to cross over, and destroy Earth’s entrance. They made a plan to bring her back once she was done, but this wasn’t what happened. As soon as she stepped through to the other side, Sanaa lost her psychic ability. Though she wasn’t specifically told it would happen, the stories her ancestors passed down over the years implied that this was exactly why time travel was forbidden; that their link to the cosmos was directly dependent on their own respective time periods. She suddenly saw that she could live her life free from the thing she hated most about it, and she was worried trying to go back would ruin that. But this wasn’t her only reason for scrapping their plan. She never had any intention of returning to her life on Bida. She liked her new friends, and was very appreciative of how patient and kind Leona had been with her, but it was time to move on. To make it easier, she decided to make a clean break. She wrote a note, and made sure it would be delivered to the exact right place, at the exact right time, for her friends to read it almost a millennium later. She didn’t want them trying to get her back; not just because this risked her freedom from the gift, but also because it was dangerous for them. She didn’t always stay in the same time period, and in fact, was worried her power might come back if she didn’t keep moving, but she quite purposefully avoided her original lifetime, with a good fifty year padding on either side, just to be safe. Years later, from her perspective, she sent a second message to her friends, letting them know that she ended up living a good life, and wished only that she could have seen them again.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 17, 2255

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During Leona’s interim year, Trinity received a letter in Sanaa’s handwriting, urging them to not look for her. She didn’t explain what had happened to her, or where she had gone, but she was clear that their plan had worked. She safely made it to the other side of the time cave, and filled it in so that no one else could pass. She implied an Earthan had aided her in this mission, but didn’t explicitly say who or why. She seemed to know that someone had blasted the Bida-side entrance for them, and she didn’t want them trying to dig it up again. According to her, this was the best outcome. Again, vaguely, Sanaa made it seem like Leona would never see her again. That was sad, but it was also not the first time it had happened. Even with all this travel, there were still some people she would forever miss. The last thing Sanaa said was that Leona should be happy, for by the time she would be reading the letter, Mateo should have finally showed up. She was right.

The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sitting in the hangar, right next to Radiant Lightning. It had arrived a couple months ago, but of course, neither Leona nor Mateo were there at the time. As she was exiting her quarters, he was exiting their ship, followed by the mysterious Cassidy, whose presence Leona never fully understood. She ignored this for a moment, and ran up to hug her husband. It had only been ten days for them, but that was long enough. They held each other in the embrace for a good three minutes before the rest of their now much larger group came in, and something distracted Leona.

“Pribadium! When did you get here?”

“I was on the AOC,” Pribadium explained. “Arcadia used me as part of the punishment for you crashing your own wedding.”

“Oh. That explains it...kind of.” There were still a lot of questions to be asked and answered. They spent the next couple of hours either eating, or just sitting around the large dining table. There was so much to catch up on, including a lot of information from before the wedding that Leona and Mateo just hadn’t had enough time to go over. All the while, Leona noticed that Weaver kept staring at the two ships on the other side of the large space.

Trinity noticed this as well. “Weaver, what is it?”

“What are the dimensions of that thing?”

Leona eyed it, trying to remember. “Uh...the passenger tube is about one-point-four meters wide, I think. It’s three meters tall, but with all the instrumentation, there’s still only enough space for one person. Why?”

“What about the inverted umbrella thing?”

“The main engine?” Trinity confirmed. “A little over six and a half meters in diameter. What are you thinking?”

Weaver kept staring at them. “They fit together. They fit together perfectly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your passenger tube is about as wide as the AOC’s antimatter fusion drive.” Weaver held both her hands into claws, and visualized maneuvering the two ships in different formations. She appeared to be right. It was like they were built to fit together. It could be the easiest way to incorporate the reframe engine into the AOC.

“How long might that take you?” Trinity wondered.

“I need to study the engine first,” Weaver figured. “I guess it could take two years, because of Mateo and Leona’s temporal restrictions. I would hope to have it done in under a year, though.”

“That might be a little too soon anyway,” Leona said. “I’m still hoping Sanaa shows up, having lost Trinity’s picture. We still have a couple more colony ships on their way over the next few years. Maybe she just had to hitch a ride with someone else.”

Everyone got quiet. No one believed Sanaa was coming back; via ship, magic photo, or by any other means. Mateo was supportive of her, but he wasn’t around before, so he didn’t know what he was talking about. “We’ll leave whenever you want,” he said, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “I’m not even sure who would be coming with us.”

“I’m probably gonna stick around here for a couple decades,” Thor decided.

“I would like to go with Leona,” Briar said. “Or rather, I would like to leave this planet finally.”

“One for one,” Eight Point Seven pointed out. “It’s perfect.”

“You’re staying too?” Leona asked her.

“I like my job,” Eight Point Seven answered. “You don’t need me anymore.”

“No one needs friends,” Leona argued.

“This isn’t the end. I promised to get you back to Mateo. I’ve followed through, so focus on that. I’m immortal. We will meet again. It might be, like, six hundred and eighty years from now, but it’ll happen.”

Ellie gave Eight Point Seven a look.

“Speaking of which.” Mateo pulled Leona closer. “Could we talk in private?”

“Sure. Let’s go for a walk; burn off some of these calories.”

“Do you want me to come?” Cassidy asked as she was standing up with them.

Mateo shook his head, but didn’t say anything. That was weird, Leona couldn’t help but think.

This felt familiar. Mateo had taken her on a walk on Tribulation Island a few days ago when they were briefly reunited. There was something he was reluctant to tell her. Was this it? If it was, he was certainly taking his time spitting it out.

Leona had to break the ice, or she would go insane right here. “When I was a little girl, my parents let me get a dog. The Gelens, that is. She was so smart; picked up on most commands so quickly, but sometimes she refused to obey. Our friends and neighbors thought she was stupid, but it was actually quite the opposite. Think about it; if I ask you to ram your face into that tree, would you do it? Probably not. Is that ‘cause you’re too dumb to figure out how? Of course not. You wouldn’t do it, because you’re smart enough to know you don’t want to, and you know the consequences for insubordination are far less than the severe head trauma it would cause. Freya—that was her name, by the way; after the Norse goddess—was the same way. If she didn’t want to sit, then she didn’t, because the treat she would get for doing it wasn’t worth it for her in that particular moment.

“One of the hardest commands for me to teach her was to speak. I wanted her to bark when I said so, because I didn’t want her to bark at inappropriate times. And she knew that. She screamed her head off when she heard an owl three houses down in the middle of the night, but she never did it when I was around, so conditioning her was practically impossible. I couldn’t get Freya to associate my hand signal with her bark, because they rarely happened at the same time. I understand, Mateo, that whatever it is you want to tell me is something you’ve probably been talking about for the last x-number of days, but that doesn’t do me any good. I don’t just need you to speak. I need you to speak to me. Does that make sense?”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Mateo said, fully grasping Leona’s moral lesson.

She waited for a moment. “Obviously you’re not trying to confess what you didn’t do. So what did you do?”

“She was a stripper before all this.”

“I assume you’re talking about Cassidy.”

“Yes.”

“So, she put on a show?”

“Just for me.”

Leona waited again, but not so he could explain in greater detail, but just because she didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry.”

“She touched you?”

“Yes.”

“You touched her?”

“A little. I had just watched your bottle messages. Seeing your...decline—for lack of a better term—in such a short amount of time was heartbreaking. For you, it was days, but I watched you feel worse and worse over the course of only minutes. I’m not saying that my witnessing your pain was more difficult than you actually going through it. It just made me feel so alone. This ship full of other people, but not the one person I really wanted to be there. I guess Cassidy was...as close as I thought I was gonna get. You know, you two aren’t so dissim—.”

“No, you don’t need to talk about your fetishes.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’re saying that you have a type,” Leona argued, “and that both of us fit into it. But that’s what makes it worse. You took a substitute, because I wasn’t there.”

“If you were there, I wouldn’t have needed anything!”

“Do you want to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

“Yes, please!”

“Do you want to stop yelling at me, since I didn’t do anything wrong?”

Mateo took a breath, and lowered his voice. “I do.”

“Now. You had a lapdance. It’s not illegal. I’ve had friends who bought their partners dances at the club for their birthdays. The problem is you didn’t tell me. You didn’t ask me, and you didn’t tell me. I’m guessing this happened before we returned to Tribulation Island, which means you actually did have an opportunity. That lost you points. I’m a hundred percent certain we’ll get through this, Mateo, but we’re not supposed to lie to each other anymore. I don’t even want to look at you, but there is someone I do want to talk to.”

“Eight Point Seven?” he presumed.

“You’re gonna run up ahead, or stay behind. I don’t care who gets there first, but we won’t be walking back to Homebase together. Because when I get back, I’m taking the shuttle, and I’m heading for another continent. I won’t return until 2257, and where you and I will stand at that point, I make no guarantees. I’ll be going there with someone else, but no, it won’t be Eight Point Seven.”

“Then who?”

Mateo wandered around the woods for a couple hours. He was only planning on giving her a thirty-minute head start, but he got lost somewhere along the way. When he returned to Homebase, Leona was already gone, but he had to do a headcount to find out who had gone with her. After Eight Point Seven, his first guess would have been Trinity, who was just a different version of Paige Turner. But nope, she was still here. Briar was too. Mateo hadn’t picked up on any sexual tension between them, but he was an eligible bachelor, and a part of Mateo was honestly hoping she was doing something that would alleviate his guilt. Weaver, Thor, Goswin, and Ellie. Everyone was accounted for, except for one. He had no reason to believe that Leona would hurt Cassidy, but if they were going to be alone together on the other side of the world, there was no telling what was going to happen.

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