The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, March 29, 2022

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As soon as the final bullet landed in its target, everyone stopped. Two sides of the battle dropped their weapons, and watched Anatol Klugman as he was dying. People were dying all around them, but it was as if they knew this death was different. Were they somehow aware that Mateo had pulled the trigger, with a weapon that wouldn’t exist for nearly a century and a half? Anatol fell to the ground, and exhaled his last breath. And then, just like that, everyone else disappeared. Arcadia had said that this battle wasn’t even meant to be part of the Franco-Prussian War. The hundemarke had created the battle that would create the hundemarke. But if the hundemarke were never allowed to exist at all, the war wouldn’t exist in this time period either. It was ended months ago in this new timeline. It didn’t make any sense, but then again, when it came to the hundemarke, nothing really made sense anyway.

Anatol’s body lied there alone. The screen slowly turned black. And then, so did all the others. Some of them had been shaded red, which meant Jupiter wanted to paradox them by killing killers before they could kill with the hundemarke. The screens shaded blue, however, were ones he wanted to persist, even in this new reality. None of them was safe, though. They were all turning black, because none of them ever happened.

Jupiter watched the whole chamber turn, and with it, his apparent plans for world domination. “What did you do? What? Did? You? Do?”

“Leona?” Mateo said in the form of a question, but he didn’t really know what he was asking of her.

“I think you did the right thing,” Leona said. “I know it doesn’t sound like me, but...”

“I agree,” Ramses added. “Hard reset. The hundemarke is responsible for so much death. The world is a better place without it.”

“Are freaking kidding me?” Jupiter was seething. “The moment that you destroyed was everything. It occurred in the first reality ever.” It was like he was experiencing true grief. “Three temporal objects were created on May 23, 1871. First, the hundemarke. It creates fixed moments in time. The second, was the Sword of Assimilation. It can transfer time powers. Well, actually, I think it can transfer any special property from one individual to another, but in terms of our world, time powers are the only things that matter. The third...” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“What is it, Jupiter Preston?” Declan prompted.

“Don’t call me that!” Jupiter cried. “My name is Fury.”

“I thought it was Rosa,” J.B. said.

“My alternate goes by that name, but I’m Fury.”

“Keep explaining,” Leona coaxed.

Jupiter composed himself. The third object that was created on May 23 was the Omega Gyroscope. It was...kind of a toy that one of the soldiers was carrying with him. I guess he planned on giving it to his son, or something? It can manipulate reality in any way imaginable, and any way unimaginable. It can do literally anything.”

“Well, that sounds dangerous,” Mateo figured. “I’m not sure it’s a bad thing it doesn’t exist in this timeline.”

“You don’t get it.” Jupiter was shaking his head profusely. “The Omega Gyroscope is responsible for time travel.” He waited for a reaction before continuing, “it led to everything! It led to everyone you’ve ever known existing. It led to the Saviors of Earth, to the salmon, to the Gallery. This world is nothing without it. It’s..nothing!”

Mateo approached Jupiter, and placed his hand on his shoulders. “It’s not nothing. It’s what the world should be. It’s what nearly everyone believes the world is...until someone like us shows up, and reveals the truth.”

“You still don’t understand, Matic. You erased time travel from history. We may not be in what we were calling The Parallel, because it might not be running parallel at all. You might have just destroyed the timeline you come from. We could be stuck here forever. You know how many trillions of people you just killed?”

“I know how many people I killed,” Mateo defended. “I killed one person here today. At least in terms of traveling through time, I only killed one person. Every time you go back, even just one second, you’re collapsing the timeline you came from, right? So I’m not any more of a killer than any of you. Don’t try to guilt me. I stand by what I did, even if it means this is just where we live now.”

“Yeah,” his friends backed him up in relative unison.

“And I’m not so sure we can’t call this the Parallel,” Mateo went on. “I just carried out Arcadia’s plan, and I hardly think she would have wanted to undo the creation of this gyroscope thing, if it’s so important to you people.”

“She wasn’t going to do that,” Jupiter argued. “She was only going to erase the hundemarke. There is a moment that we mapped that could have prevented the one, but not the other two, from existing. She was going to act on that moment, but you preempted it. You stopped the whole thing. You essentially went back too far.”

“I’m sorry you lost,” Mateo said. “I guess, if time travel doesn’t exist, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“Oh, to be sure, time travel doesn’t exist in this timeline, because we’re still in the miniature Gallery chamber. But when we step out, we’ll integrate ourselves fully into the timestream.” He held up his primary Cassidy cuff. “We’re just the only six people with time travel capabilities right now.” He reached out to the keypad, input the code, and opened the door. The basement was a total mess. Furniture was strewn about the floors. Leaky pipes were hanging from the ceiling. Exposed wires were sparking. A little fire was burning in the corner that probably wasn’t going to get much bigger. The walls were blown out.

“I’ve seen this before,” Leona said as she was stepping out. “This is what it looks like in our timeline...sometimes. It spontaneously switches back and forth between perfectly pristine, and destroyed.”

“I guess now we know where that temporal anomaly comes from,” Mateo said with a smile. “I think that’s pretty good evidence that this really is the Parallel, and not all there is.”

“Maybe,” Jupiter was forced to admit the possibility. He started tapping on his cuff screen.

There was a sharp gust of wind, and the fire disappeared, but other than that, things looked about the same. “What did you do?” Declan asked.

“I wanted to test the new pattern,” Jupiter answered. “Nailed it too. This is March 29, 2022.”

“What is the significance of this date?” Leona asked.

“I just said it. It’s your new pattern. It combines yours with Jeremy’s. You were designed to jump forward one year at the end of every day. He only lives on Tuesdays and July. There are certain instances where these dates intersect, and now that is all you will ever know.”

“What is the point of that?” Mateo questioned. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Well, I did have plans for you, which is why I chose all five of you to come with me to the Parallel. Those have since changed, but I see no reason to change everything. You’ll still remain on this new pattern until I decide otherwise. I guess we’ll find out if you were right about the old timeline staying intact.” Without another word, he teleported away. Not that it mattered. They would eventually figure out how to break their connection to him and his primary Cassidy cuff, and when they did, they would be free of all control. The powers that be had no jurisdiction here, and as the man said, there weren’t any other time travelers either. This could have been everything Mateo had been searching for since this all began.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ramses decided. “We need to find out what the rest of the world looks like in this reality.”

They struggled to climb up the stairs of the basement. Even though they were made of concrete, and remained mostly structurally sound, they were covered in debris. Large chunks were torn off as if bitten into by a dinosaur, and the whole thing could come crashing down eventually. The steps didn’t lead them to the first floor of Fletcher House. They had to pull themselves up a wall of dirt and dead grass, and push other vegetation out of the way. When they finally emerged from underground, they saw little else but a meadow at the edge of a forest. They should have been standing in the middle of the suburbs, but it was all gone. They didn’t know what to think.

Declan pulled one of his pant legs up, and removed a cuff from his shin. He started fiddling with the screen.

“You hid that from Jupiter?” Leona asked.

“It’s just my backup teleporter cuff,” Declan started to explain. “I keep it there in case my primary one is damaged, not if an evil clone steals it from me.”

“That could come in handy,” Ramses noted.

“No, it won’t.” Declan wrapped it back around his leg. “Well, I could use it to transport us from here to over there. He shut one eye, and pointed to the distance. “If we wanted to travel the globe, we would need at least one satellite to do it. There aren’t any satellites, though.”

“There aren’t?” Leona was the most shocked by this, but obviously everyone understood how strange this was.

Declan went on, “my mother dispatched a very small and undetectable constellation so I could navigate the world. If those failed me, however, I should still be able to hack into any number of other artificial satellites up there. It’s like when you go hiking, and can’t find a single WiFi signal. There’s nothin’ up there. At all. This world is not space-capable.”

“Thoughts, Leona?” Mateo prompted.

She started to pace around, and work through the problem. The others gave her time to come up with a theory. “One thing I wondered when I first learned about time travel, is whether it explains some of the more wondrous things that humankind has accomplished. Were they responsible for the world’s pyramids? Stonehenge? The moai on Rapa Nui? When I was on Tribulation Island, I spoke with The Historian, and it turns out...no. Humans built those magnificent structures, and they did it with their present-day technology, and that technology was as advanced as it should have been given the constraints of logical progression.

“Still, time travelers do exist, and they do make an impact on the past. They spread future diseases, and save lives, and open people’s eyes. Perhaps they make subtle changes to our species’ development that not even the Historian has noticed, because there are too many variables. If time travel doesn’t exist here, maybe that was enough to slow progress. I mean, Horace Reaver went back in time and made a lot of inevitable technology happen just a few years earlier than in his original timeline. That sort of thing may be happening constantly. Of course, we still need more information.” She looked around. “We’ve yet to see anyone here. That could indeed mean the human race died out centuries ago, and all that’s left is this basement. Or it just means they live on the other side of that hill, and everywhere else on the map, but they haven’t gotten into orbit yet.”

Mateo smiled, and looked over at Declan. “You can’t teleport to China, but you can see over that hill. Why don’t you scout around, and see what else is in the area? It’s not an order, I wanna be clear. I recognize you don’t owe us anything.”

“I want answers too,” Declan said. He removed the teleporter cuff once more from his leg, and placed it on his arm, higher than it normally would be, because of the Cassidy cuff that he was unable to remove. “Well, that’s gonna be annoying.” With a smile of his own, he aimed his special device down West, where the golf course used to be. He appeared on top of the hill, though he was far enough away to be barely visible. Fortunately, Jupiter didn’t disable the feature that let them communicate with each other through the Cassidy cuffs. “Nothing here. I’m gonna keep going. Go ahead and search for shelter, and make camp. I don’t think we should go back down to the basement.”

“Roger that,” J.B. replied.

They watched Declan’s silhouette disappear. He fell out of comms range after an hour of running a circular grid search, and didn’t return until long after nightfall.

“Did you find anything?” Leona asked.

“Nothing. We’re alone for miles and miles.”

“I’m sure Jupiter’s pissed,” Ramses figured.

“Good,” Mateo said.

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Varkas Reflex: Time (Part I)

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Pribadium Delgado, Hokusai Gimura, and Loa Nielsen were standing awkwardly in the hallway. The former hadn’t seen the latter two in however long, and they didn’t know what to say to each other. It was ridiculous, though, because they were all friends. “It was a lovely service,” she finally blurted out. Mateo Matic was dead, and being honored on a very distant planet called Dardius. He was still alive, though, because...time travel. So he was around as well, though far too popular at the moment for them to have any hope of catching up with him.

“Indeed,” Hokusai replied.

“Yep,” Loa agreed.

“So, where have you been?” Hokusai decided to ask.

“Lots of places,” Pribadium answered. “It’s been a whirlwind. Do you know who Arcadia Preston is?”

“We do,” Hokusai answered. “Not well, but we know of her.”

“She’s the one what took me from Varkas Reflex, and transplanted me to a ship called the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

“That’s Leona’s ship.”

“Yes, I met her at some point. Two versions of her, actually. We jumped through time quite a bit. I went back to Earth in the past. Now I’m here.”

They nodded their heads. It wasn’t much information, but they could discuss the details later, if there was going to be a later.

“So, what year is it for you?” Pribadium asked.

“It’s actually 2263 for us,” Loa said. “We came here across space, but not time.”

“Well, time and space aren’t really all that different.”

“Yes, dear,” Loa said jokingly.

“Do you wanna come with us?” Hokusai asked. “I mean, it’s where you were, which theoretically means that’s where you wanted to be when you stepped onto the colony ship. But if too much has changed since then.”

“Ya know, I’ve spent all this time just trying to get through the next hour that I haven’t thought about what I want to do in the future. Things have finally slowed down, and I don’t really know what to do with myself. I suppose I would like to see how Varkas has changed in the last seventeen years.”

“Quite a bit, actually,” Loa said. “We would love to have you see it.”

“How did you arrive here? Would I be able to latch on?” Pribadium asked.

“Invitations,” Hokusai began. “It’s just like with Mateo and Leona’s wedding. We just have to press this return box right here.” She held up the piece of paper that allowed her to shoot across space at speeds far exceeding the speed of light.

“I should be able to latch onto one of you,” Pribadium said. “That’s what Mateo and Leona did to go to their own wedding.”

“Are we ready then?” Loa asked.

Hokusai held onto Pribadium tightly by the shoulders. Then she initialized her return protocol. They went right back to Hokusai’s lab together.

“Everything looks the same,” Pribadium pointed out.

“Has as much time passed for everyone here as it did for us at the memorial?” Loa asked.

“According to the invitation, this should be a mere second later; just enough to avoid a temporal paradox,” Hokusai explained. “Hey Thistle, what is the current time?”

“Eleven-fifty-seven Earth Central Standard,” a voice responded.

Hokusai went over to inspect her desk. Things looked slightly different than they had when they left. It wasn’t enough to make her think that she had been robbed, but perhaps someone had come in, searching for a pen. Though, if it truly had been only one second, that shouldn’t be possible. “Thistle, what is the standard Earthan year?”

“Two-two-eight-seven,” the computer replied.

“Thistle, using all available resources, including stellar drift data, please confirm that the year is indeed twenty-two-eighty-seven.”

“Working...” It took nearly twenty seconds for her to continue, but this was an illusion. The computer’s response should be immediate. This data was easily accessible, and while it was certainly possible for there to be some kind of error, it was unlikely, especially when it came to a question such as this. Hokusai was simply exercising her right as a flawed human being to deny the truth as it stood before her. Asking for confirmation was nothing more than an attempt at psychoemotional comfort. Artificial intelligence, at its core, felt no such desire, nor did it appreciate this kind of need in others. To make them easier to communicate with, AI programmers coded these entities, however, to at least approximate human emotion, and respond accordingly. Inflections, pauses in speech, and in this case, a delayed response to pretend it was searching more thoroughly for a solution to the problem, were all about making the human requester feel better about the inevitable conclusion. “Confirmed. The year is twenty-two-eighty-seven.”

It’s been twenty-four years,” Loa noted the obvious. “We’ve been gone twenty-four years.”

“Why?” Hokusai wondered out loud. “Why did the invitation return us to the wrong point?”

“It’s me,” Pribadium said. “I’m the variable that the invitation didn’t account for.”

“Is that what happened when Mateo stowed away to witness his own wedding from the audience?”

“No,” Pribadium answered, “it took us back exactly when it should have once it was over.”

“Well, in that case...no valid conclusion.”

“All things being equal, Madam Gimura, I’m the culprit. We can’t deny it. I screwed this up for you.”

Then Loa just started laughing her head off. “We’re all immortal here. We spent nine years on a scouter ship to get here in the first place, while you were spending slightly less on the colony ship. Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang.”

“Well, that was only four years from our perspective,” Pribadium pointed out.

“Exactly,” Hokusai agreed. “And just here, we only lived for a few hours, and now it’s over twenty years later. I don’t see the problem. When you’ve got eternity, this is shorter than an eye blink of time. Let’s assume you’re the thing that caused the delayed return: whatever, I don’t care.”

Loa was still laughing a little bit. “Let’s go outside, and find out what we missed.”

“See?” Pribadium began. “You even say that you missed it.” She couldn’t bring herself to not feel guilty about this, even though she didn’t purposely make them late.

“We’ve also missed everything that’s been happening on Earth, and Gatewood, and Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” Loa argued. “FOMO is a state of mind, but you’re always missing something, because you can’t be in two places at once.”

Hokusai stopped, and tilted her head ten degrees.

“Oh no, I know what this look is,” Loa said.

“Is she thinking?” Pribadium guessed.

“She’s inventing,” Loa clarified.

They waited about three minutes for Hokusai to step back into the real world. She was like a sleepwalker in that it would be dangerous to try to pull her back to reality before she was ready.

“Maybe you can be in two places at once,” Hokusai finally spoke. Though, she remained in her thinking position.

“How would you do that?” her wife asked.

“Extended consciousness,” she answered. “We’re already built for it. Project Stargate is building surrogate substrates for us as we speak. Right now, a mind can only be in one place at once, but that’s a very deliberate limitation. We could change it.”

“There’s a reason that limit is there,” Pribadium contended. “Hive consciousness muddies identity. You can move your mind from substrate to substrate all you want, and as long as you’re using a neurosponging technique, there’s no issue. If you want to spread that out amongst multiple separate substrates, though, who are you really? Are you everyone, or any one of them?”

Hokusai fully snapped out of her mind. “We can debate the ethics all day, as well as the technology necessary for it. That’s not what we’re here for, though. We want to see what Varkas Reflex looks like now.”

They stepped out of the lab, and prepared to climb onto a special hover platform Hokusai and Pribadium had invented together many years ago. It and the lab were both designed with artificial gravity. The mass and density of Varkas Reflex were very high, making it impossible for an average human being to stand on their own two feet. Transhumans were more capable, though it was still uncomfortable. Colonists instead lived in a special O₂-rich water, which they could breathe through their skin. They essentially turned themselves into water-dwelling creatures.

Unlike most people, Hokusai had knowledge of time travel, and parallel dimensions. She used her skills to generate lowered gravity for a given area by placing a different dimension underneath the regular one. A user wasn’t quite in one dimension, or the other, but simultaneously in both. She had built these dimensional generators in only a few key locations, however, including the hover vehicle they were intending to use as transport. It was gone, and seemingly unnecessary. The ground below them was perfectly fine, evidently calibrated for Earth gravity.

Loa was no scientist, but she understood what was happening, and why it was a problem. She was worried for her wife. “How is it like this?”

“I didn’t give anyone else the technology,” Hokusai answered. “Leona has some idea how it works, but the reason she couldn’t learn all of it is the same reason she couldn’t have done this; because she skips so much time. I also gave it to Pribadium, but she’s been gone as well.”

“Maybe you underestimated the people here,” Pribadium offered. “You left the tech unattended for two decades. They probably figured it out.”

“You mean, they stole it,” Loa said.

“It’s fine,” Hokusai said. “I didn’t want anyone to have control over it, because it could endanger natural technological progress. But I’m not Captain Picard, and this isn’t the Enterprise. The fact is that other dimensions exist, and let us do wondrous things. Time travelers have been hoarding these properties of physics since the dawn of man, but things are different now. We’re approaching the 24th century. Perhaps it’s time the vonearthans catch up. Perhaps...it was inevitable.”

“Do you think they placed generators all over the surface of the planet?” Loa asked. “Has there been enough time for that?”

“It depends on how long it took them to break into my second lab,” Hokusai answered. While she genuinely believed what she said about letting them have this technology, it was still going to be hard for her to come to terms with it. It had more to do with the damage already being done anyway, and less to do with real acceptance.

They ventured out to find answers.

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Microstory 1380: No Remorse (Part 4)

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Celebrity Interviewer: Thank you all for sitting down with me. My audience is very interested to understand the reasoning behind this arrangement. I’m very sorry the warden was not able to be with us today.

Producer: Yes, I just spoke with him, and he has some important business to take care of with the government, but he sends his regards.

Ex-Cop: A private prison owner’s job is never done.

Celebrity Interviewer: Quite. Now, let’s get into it. Whose idea was it to make a film about Ex-Cop?

Producer: That would be me.

Celebrity Interviewer: And who decided to cast Ex-Cop to play himself?

Producer: That would be me as well.

Celebrity Interviewer: That wasn’t Casting Director’s responsibility?

Casting Director: I was responsible for securing the casting, but it was an executive decision. I wasn’t even part of the project yet.

Producer: Yes, my vision started in my head, and I didn’t tell anyone about it until I had a really good idea of what I wanted to do.

Celebrity Interviewer: That makes sense. But, Casting Director, you had to convince the warden to go along with it, correct?

Casting Director: It was a team effort, but I was his primary point of contact.

Celebrity Interviewer: Tell me about the film. Where does it begin?

Producer: We start before the beginning, actually. The first five minutes follow Mr. Ex-Cop’s parents as their relationship evolves, from their first date at the zoo, to the day Ex-Cop was born. The next five minutes follow Ex-Cop’s upbringing. He has said that he knew he wanted to be a law enforcement officer because of a presentation an officer did at his middle school in eighth grade, so that’s where we stop moving so quickly through the narrative. We keep it linear, though. We don’t have any flashbacks.

Ex-Cop: That was my idea. Flashbacks, honestly, confuse me.

Celebrity Interviewer: I’m not surprised by that. Walk me through the reasoning behind not casting any other actors for the role. Are you using visual de-aging technology for Ex-Cop? How does that work? Can you really make a full-grown adult look like a child with CGI?

Ex-Cop: I’m not doing any CGI.

Celebrity Interviewer: So, you just haven’t cast the younger parts yet?

Casting Director: I can explain this. Ex-Cop is going to be playing himself throughout the entire film, and no digital editing will be employed to make him look younger. In fact, he’s not even going to be wearing makeup. This is a gritty, true-to-life experience. We want the audience to see him as the real world does, so they better understand what he’s gone through.

Ex-Cop: That was my idea too. I don’t wear no makeup. Do I look like I got titties?

Producer: Ex-Cop, we talked about this.

Ex-Cop: Whatever.

Celebrity Interviewer: No. I want to know what he has to say. I think you’re right that it’s important the audience sees him as he is, rather than some cartoon on the screen. And to that, I’m still confused. The world sees him as he is today, but when he was six years old, they saw a six-year-old. Sure, you could never find a single-digit child who looks exactly like he did when he was that young, but how exactly can you claim this to be an authentic portrayal when you have a fifty-year-old running around in diapers?

Ex-Cop: I’m not fifty!

Celebrity Interviewer: Assistant, please make note of the time. We’re going to want to put a fact-check up on the screen, making sure my audience knows Ex-Cop is indeed fifty years old.

Assistant: Yes, sir.

Ex-Cop: You go to hell, the both of you!

Celebrity Interviewer: Don’t talk to her like that.

Producer: He didn’t really mean it.

Celebrity Interviewer: No. I want him to apologize. He can say whatever he wants about me, but he will leave my assistant out of this, or he’s gonna wish the state had just sent him to some hole in the ground where I can’t find him.

Ex-Cop: Fine. I’m sorry.

Assistant: Thank you.

Producer: Let’s get back on track. I understand where you’re coming from, but Ex-Cop expressed to us that he’s always felt more like an adult, so we wanted to illustrate that by having him play his younger selves as well. It’s a creative choice, and I stand by it.

Casting Director: As do I.

Celebrity Interviewer: And do you stand by casting a convicted murderer in your film at all?

Casting Director: I’m sorry?

Celebrity Interviewer: You should be.

Producer: I would like to clarify this. We’ve obviously heard all of the criticisms. It’s not my job to judge whether Ex-Cop is racist, or if he’s guilty of his crime—

Celebrity Interviewer: He’s guilty. He was found guilty by all six peer arbiters, all four professional arbitrators, and a highly respected adjudicator. He’s considered guilty by the majority of the country’s population, and then some. The film that started this all—the one that shows Ex-Cop pounding his fist into the head of Innocent Victim until he dies—proves that what they said he did, he did.

Ex-Cop: You can’t talk about me like this!

Celebrity Interviewer: On the contrary, sir, I can. You gave up your rights when you abused your power, and murdered an innocent blackman on the streets of Hillside. This film is outrageous! This private prison is outrageous! And you, Ex-Cop are the most outrageous of all. Why, if I had—

Assistant: Celebrity Interviewer? Your boss is on the phone. He’s watching the closed stream.

Ex-Cop: You’re in trouble now, bitch.

Celebrity Interviewer: You fucking piece of shit. I’m gonna put you on the ground. Why you runnin’? Get back here, coward!

Producer: Stop.

Celebrity Interviewer: Get your hands off me. You’re as bad as him, because you validate his sentiments!

Assistant: You better take this call.

Microstory 1379: No Remorse (Part 3)

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Ex-Cop: I don’t even wanna be here.

Prison Counselor: I understand that, but if you want to stay in protective custody, this is how its done.

Ex-Cop: I’m a cop, I should be in protective custody no matter what, and since I’m a cop, I know that this is not how it works. I shouldn’t need a psychological assessment to see if I’m fit to not be murdered by some big black man.

Prison Counselor: This isn’t a psychological assessment. This is regular counseling that’s required for you to maintain your right to protective custody. It doesn’t matter what you stay here, as long as you agree to these sessions, the warden will let you stay.

Ex-Cop: So, I can say whatever I want?

Prison Counselor: I understand that it is your instinct to rail against minorities, and all the other people that you believe are responsible for you losing your job. But we won’t get anywhere until you admit that what you did was murder, and wrong. First step towards that, I believe, is admitting that you’re no longer a law enforcement officer.

Ex-Cop: Once a cop, always a cop.

Prison Counselor: I can see how you would feel that way symbolically, metaphorically. But literally, you are not. I’ve read the court transcripts. You expressed no remorse for your actions. Has anything changed in that regard?

Ex-Cop: Yes, absolutely.

Prison Counselor: Oh, good.

Ex-Cop: I regret that I didn’t notice that bitch holding her cellphone camera at me sooner, and that I didn’t rip it out of her hands as soon as I finally did see it.

Prison Counselor: You’re referring to Innocent Victim’s boyfriend, who identifies as a man. Acceptance of non-heterosexuality is another thing we’ll need to work on.

Ex-Cop: Where do you get off telling me what we need to work on? I’m fine. I just need to stay away from all these black people who keep trying to kill me in here.

Prison Counselor: You are protected now. This is a safe space. You can be honest. I want you to be able and willing to change, though. That’s what life is, a constant progression towards an improved state.

Ex-Cop: If I’m not willing to change, you’re gonna kick me back to gen pop?

Prison Counselor: That’s right.

Ex-Cop: Is that even legal?

Prison Counselor: No one behind these gates is guaranteed protection. Do you think you can do this? Do you think you can entertain the possibility that you’re wrong, and that you need to become a better person? Or are you convinced you’re an infallible god?

Ex-Cop: I never said I was a god.

Prison Counselor: ...

Ex-Cop: Yes, I can do that. I suppose it’s possible that I’m just a little bit racist, and that there’s a slight chance I haven’t been my best self.

Prison Counselor: Great. Now, let’s start from the beginning. What do you remember your parents teaching you about race, ethnicity, and skin color when you were a child?

Microstory 1378: No Remorse (Part 2)

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Crime Reporter: Take me through the event, from start to finish. When did you first notice Innocent Victim, and what was going through your head in that very moment?

Ex-Cop: I was doing my job, protecting the protestors from themselves—which I was glad to do, by the way, even though they were mostly black, so that proves I’m not racist.

Crime Reporter: I don’t think it proves that.

Ex-Cop: Are you going to let me tell my side of the story, or what?

Crime Reporter: Well, you see, the problem is—never mind. Go on, tell your side.

Ex-Cop: Thank you. So, I’m doing my job, protecting this city, when a car comes out of nowhere. I didn’t have my radar gun, because I wasn’t planning on doing any traffic stops, but I think they were speeding. Then they suddenly almost come to a complete stop. Now, why would they do that? It’s suspicious, right?

Crime Reporter: Well, according to the video, they weren’t aware that there were going to be protestors on that street. Evidently, the road wasn’t blocked off properly?

Ex-Cop: Well, that’s not my job. I was in charge of the people, but not the streets themselves.

Crime Reporter: Fair enough, but I think that’s the answer to your question of why Innocent Victim slew down. The video doesn’t support the speed of the vehicle, one way or another, so I’ll give you the possibility that you thought they might be speeding.

Ex-Cop: The point is, it made me nervous, so I flagged Mr. Victim down. He stopped immediately, I will give him that. He made the right call, but I could just see in his eyes that he would have bolted if he thought he could get away with it. But his little girlfriend was filming, so he would have been in possession of proof of the hit and run.

Crime Reporter: I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to pause you there. The person filming the incident was his boyfriend, not his girlfriend. You know that same-sex couples exist, so don’t add fuel to the fire. Also, they could have just deleted the video, so I’m not sure that argument holds up. I also don’t believe your supposition that he wanted to run would hold up either, since we don’t prosecute people for the actions they take in alternate realities.

Ex-Cop: Whatever. So, I usher him out of the car, and proceed to try to start a conversation. I just ask him routine questions about who he is, where he’s going, and who that is in the car with him. Well, that’s when I see his friend’s camera, and now I’m real suspicious. It’s becoming abundantly clear to me that these people are driving around town, looking for cops to antagonize, so they can film it, and get us in trouble. I ask the friend to shut off the camera, and he doesn’t even get the chance to comply, because then Innocent Victim attacks me. You can see it in the video.

Crime Reporter: I think what I saw in the video was him raising his hands demonstratively, as many people do when they talk.

Ex-Cop: Yes, demonstratively. That’s the word I would use. It felt very much like he was a dangerous demon.

Crime Reporter: That...oh my God.

Ex-Cop: What?

Crime Reporter: Forget it, let’s fast forward. Why did you beat him to death? Assuming you had legitimate reason to arrest him, why did you continue to pound your fist into his head, and his head against the asphalt, even after he stopped moving?

Ex-Cop: You don’t understand what it’s like to be out there. When you’re a cop, every corner carries a threat, every person is an enemy. I risk my life every day, and I can’t worry about whether I’m up against an innocent person, or not. It’s not worth the possibility that he could kill me, or someone truly innocent. I would rather knock out an innocent person I thought was a criminal than let my guard down in front of a criminal.

Crime Reporter: What you don’t understand is that I was a cop, and I do know what it’s like out there. I spent more time on the force than you have—or, sorry, more than you did, because you were fired, and you will never spend another day on the job. None of our training involves beating suspects. A fight should only break out between a civilian and a law enforcement officer when the civilian instigates it, and refuses to relent. I don’t mean resisting, I mean actually fighting. They have to throw a punch or kick first. We only use potentially lethal force when there’s reason to believe the civilian possesses a weapon.

Ex-Cop: Well, let’s say I thought he might have a weapon.

Crime Reporter: That isn’t in the report.

Ex-Cop: Well, of course hindsight is—

Crime Reporter: No, I mean you didn’t put it in the report that you feared a weapon. This is the first you’ve ever brought it up.

Ex-Cop: Aren’t you supposed to be unbiased?

Crime Reporter: I am, yes. But I’m also friends with the man holding the camera to me right now, so I can just edit this out. You’re here because you weren’t, and you couldn’t. So, let’s talk about that. What do you have to say about the fact that you didn’t just turn off your bodycam, but that you weren’t even wearing it?

Microstory 1377: No Remorse (Part 1)

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Crime Reporter: Hm. An ex-cop who was the subject of a scandal involving an innocent black—

Ex-Cop: Allegedly innocent.

Crime Reporter: Sir, footage proves that the victim was not part of the protests, and was on his way home from work.

Ex-Cop: Well, I think it’s up for interpretation.

Crime Reporter: His boyfriend was filming the protests from the passenger seat, and the victim was talking about how the protests aren’t doing the community any good, and they’re better off waiting until the next vote. He was clearly doing nothing wrong.

Ex-Cop: I stand by my actions.

Crime Reporter: You do? You were charged with homicide.

Ex-Cop: Allegedly.

Crime Reporter: No, sir. It is a fact that you were charged in the homicide of Innocent Victim, police brutality, and related charges.

Ex-Cop: Those are bogus charges, and you know it. We all know it. This is just another ploy by the black man, trying to get sympathy for a so-called hard life.

Crime Reporter: Um. I’m not sure how to respond to that.

Ex-Cop: It’s the truth, so I imagine all you have to do is open your eyes and ears.

Crime Reporter: This isn’t an identity studies debate, so let’s get back to the interview.

Ex-Cop: Fine by me.

Crime Reporter: Your report on the incident claims that you felt threatened by the victim, and that you had no choice but to beat him to death.

Ex-Cop: I did not say I beat him to death.

Crime Reporter: No, sorry, I was mixing it up with this social media post you released later that day. I quote, “what the black man will newer [sic] understand is that cops arent profiling the color of his skin. We’re looking at a history of crime perpetrated by those with similar skin color. There is a huge difference there. I beat him because i had to. He died because he broke the law.”

Ex-Cop: I deleted that post. How did you get your hands on it?

Crime Reporter: Magic.

Ex-Cop: Earlier, I said I stand by my actions. I also stand by my words. It’s not racial profiling. Black people are incarcerated at a much higher rate than white people. They commit more crimes, so I was just doing my job.

Crime Reporter: First of all, you literally defined racial profiling in the same paragraph where you refute that that’s what it was. Secondly, incarceration rates are based on the actions of law enforcement, and not criminals. Those rates include those who are later found innocent, and technically those who are never found innocent, but are anyway.

Ex-Cop: Well, I don’t believe any of that.

Crime Reporter: You don’t believe innocent people go to jail?

Ex-Cop: They might go to jail, but they don’t go to prison. The system is flawless.

Crime Reporter: I can’t imagine that’s your real position.

Ex-Cop: It is. Look, everyone wants me to apologize for what I did, but I don’t apologize. I would, if I ever did anything wrong, but that ain’t me. I didn’t make a mistake, or take it too far, or abuse my power. I did everything by the book, and I’m proud of the work I did with the Hillside Police. I’m going to be fighting these charges, and I’m going to get my job back. Or I’ll get a better one somewhere else.

Crime Reporter: Okay. Well, let’s talk about the evening in question. 

Ex-Cop: Ask away, sweet thing.

Crime Reporter: Don’t call me that.

Microstory 1376: Conviviality

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Employer: Mr. Ex-Con, thank you for coming in. I’m very impressed by your résumé, but it looks like you’ve been out of work for awhile. Tell me about that.

Ex-Con: I was in prison for the last five years, sir.

Employer: Oh, you were? Oh, yes, I see that now. To be honest, my brain skips all these other little boxes. I mean, your list of skills? I imagine your education and experience would tell me what you can do. And if not, that’s what the interview is for, right?

Ex-Con: I suppose so, sir.

Employer: You don’t have to call me that. In fact, I would rather you not.

Ex-Con: Okay, Mr. Employer.

Employer: So, we’re always looking for interesting new blood here. We want you to have been in the workforce, so you know what it’s like to clock-in, get along with your co-workers, have a boss; that sort of thing. We’re not necessarily looking for particular experience, though. I’m very curious about the two years you spent as a park ranger. I’ve never met anyone who’s done anything like that.

Ex-Con: Yes, sir—I mean... [sighs]

Employer: It’s okay. Go on.

Ex-Con: I took that job so I could help transport drugs into the city. The park crosses just a little bit into Canada, and that’s how we stayed under the radar. It was meant to be my job to stop people from doing that, but I abused my position, and I regret it terribly.

Employer: Right on, right on. So, did you come across any bears?

Ex-Con: Bears, sir?

Employer: In the park.

Ex-Con: No, no bears. Plenty of mountain lions, but it was fine.

Employer: Oh, that’s cool. I love wild animals, that’s why it piqued my interest. Not that that’s all you have going for you. It seems you also know your way around a boring ol’ office.

Ex-Con: That’s right.

Employer: And you’ve done warehouse and factory work as well.

Ex-Con: Indeed.

Employer: Well, I think your experience speaks for itself. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself? We have a lot of teams here, and they’re all run by different people. Please don’t be afraid to answer this next question, because you think it will reflect poorly on you. What do you look for in a boss? Like, if bosses had to apply to supervise you, what sort of characteristics would you look for?

Ex-Con: I’m...I’m not sure...

Employer: No, it’s okay. It’s important that you be able to vocalize what you need out of your job. We have openings on every team, and like I said, they’re all different. Nothing you say is going to hurt your chances. It’ll only help us decide where to place you.

Ex-Con: This is all moving so fast. I mean, I expected you to ask me about my labor gap, freak out about my prison time, and just politely tell me you’ll call me if something opens up. Just like everyone else.

Employer: Well, that’s not how we do things here. Truth be told, we need bodies. These are all entry level positions, so my only concern is where you fit in; not if you fit in. I promise you there’s a place for you here, but you are going to have to want it, and then every single day, you’re going to have to earn it. We lose about forty percent of new hires in the first month. Some don’t like it, some just don’t work out. But I would rather give those people two paychecks, and turn them over, than risk not taking a chance on someone who could be really great. I don’t really care about your criminal record. If the system let you out, that’s good enough for me. Because we got cameras all over this facility. There are zero blindspots, so if you try to use us to go back to your old ways, we’ll know it, and we’ll put a stop to it. I’m not going to reject you before you have the opportunity to prove to us you’ve changed.

Ex-Con: I have changed. I don’t want to do that stuff anymore. Lots of people go into lock-up, and get worse, because of the things they have to do in there. I hated every second of it, and it made me hate the person I used to be that led me there.

Employer: Well, great. So how ‘bout it? What kind of boss do you prefer?

Ex-Con: Someone who’s willing to take a chance on an ex-con, and who likes wild animals.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, March 26, 2019

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It was unclear whether Arcadia overshot their destination by two years, or if she fully intended to arrive back in Fletcher House in 2019. Fortunately, Declan was still living there, and currently attempting to help Nerakali and Serkan remove their Cassidy cuffs.

“Okay, this is the last time you people can do this,” he said when all the others showed up in the bunker. “I mean it. Adelaide Fletcher is going to buy this place with her reparations in a couple months, so we gotta be out of here. I was trying to strike my lab, and move on.”

“I’m glad you haven’t taken it down yet,” Mateo told him as he was helping a weak Zeferino into the isolation chamber. “We need this to contain and kill a psychic. We don’t have the Insulator of Life anymore.”

Declan stood up, and walked over to make sure the chamber was secure. “I told you that I’m not killing anybody.”

“You don’t have to,” Mateo said. “This is just the safest place for everyone until he can kill himself.

“What are you goin’ on about?” Zeferino questioned.

“How old are you right now?” Mateo asked him.

“Ballpark?” Zeferino asked rhetorically. “Three or four thousand years.”

“That’s like...” Mateo began. He turned his head to elicit Leona’s help.

“Thirty,” she helped.

“Thirty or forty times longer than the average human lives. You’ve traveled up and down the timeline, seeing an unknowable number of things more than most people do, and throughout it all, you were a stone-cold killer.” Mateo stepped back to address both him and Declan. “We have one chance to get Erlendr Preston out of our lives before he does something wildly dangerous. I’m not very smart, but if there’s one thing I learned from all those time travel stories I used for research, it’s that paradoxes are bad. Avoid the paradoxes. I’m sick of all this bloody time travel. I can’t stop it, but I sure as hell can alleviate it. So if you’re not on board, then get out of this basement!”

“This is my basement,” Declan argued.

“No, it’s a community basement,” Mateo insisted. “Several disparate groups use it for their needs over the years. Your mother moved you here after we made her feel unsafe at the old place; you used it to train to become a vigilante; Gunbender, Armbreaker, and Fairware use it for their base of operations; two separate groups use it to help put right what once went wrong. Do you know who built it? It was a man by the name of Baudin Murdoch, who designed it specifically with all these different future people in mind. He’ll even be the one to install the bank vault door when it’s time for that. I need it for a special purpose right now, so I’ll ask you again, to get out! Go climb up a salmon ladder, or something. This has to be done.”

The group was silent, like they knew Mateo wasn’t quite finished yet.

He looked back to Zeferino. “This is called a sacrifice. I was prepared to make it myself, but I am beholden to the powers that be. This is your last chance to do something good. I don’t know what you know, but the man inside your head raped your mother. He probably felt entitled to it since they were married. You may be evil, but you would never do something that bad, and we all know it. I don’t think you would be happy knowing your body might be used to hurt someone like that. You’re dying either way, so at least try to go out a hero. I’ll personally see to it that The Historian writes favorably of you.”

Wow. It almost looked like Zeferino was actually considering letting himself be killed. Then it happened; the biggest shock of them all. “Just so we’re clear,” he begins, “this doesn’t undo anything I’ve already done to you, and I don’t regret a single choice I’ve ever made, including this one. I always win...Flash.” After his one last pop culture reference, his pulled a knife from his boot, and stuck it through his neck, all the way into his brain. “You were right. Turns out, I’m a hero after all. That’s not what I wanted to be.” Then he died.

“That was very noble,” Jupiter said. “Unfortunately for you, if you were trying to prevent the creation of The Parallel, then you didn’t kill enough people.” It was only then that Mateo realized Jupiter had secretly placed Erlendr’s primary cuff on his own wrist. He was now in control of all of them.

“What are you doing?” Arcadia questioned, anger building.

Jupiter tapped on his cuff screen. “I’m saving our sister.” He executed a program, sending the cuffs that were on Nerakali and Serkan flying through the air. They landed around both of Declan’s wrists. “And also Mr. Demir, even though he gives my friends huge headaches.”

“Why am I cuffed now?” Declan asked.

“Wait, did they both just transport themselves to you? I didn’t do that on purpose. Weird, I guess I don’t know how this works. What does this button do?” He selected another program. Three cuffs appeared out of the aether, and wrapped themselves around Ramses, Leona, and Mateo’s formerly free wrists. “No, that’s not what I meant either.” Jupiter was just screwing with them now. “Hm. Ah, here it is.” He pressed one last button, which summoned J.B. to them. He was also wearing two Cassidy cuffs of his own. Now all eleven were accounted for.

Before Jupiter had the chance to say anything else, Daria Matic appeared in the room.

“Why did you have to bring her into this!” Mateo cried.

“I didn’t do that,” Jupiter replied defensively. “I certainly wouldn’t have brought her here with what I assume is vomit on her shirt.”

“I just came from Vegas,” Daria explained. “I’m not sure what I’m meant to do here.”

“Him,” Leona said, pointing to Serkan. “Get him to safety.”

“You got it.” Daria slipped her arms underneath Serkan’s, and spirited him away.

“Noooooooooo!” Jupiter screamed, arm outstretched towards the emptiness where Serkan just was. “Just kidding, I don’t need him.”

“You don’t need J.B. either,” Ramses suggested.

“Oh, him? He’s vital to the plan. You, on the other hand, are just a hangeron. I could take you, or leave you, but then I would have to give someone else your handcuffs. I don’t want them in this reality anymore, so I’m trying to get rid of them all at once.”

“What’s your plan...brother?” Arcadia asked.

“It’s the same as Erlendr’s, for the most part. The main difference is I’m going to be the one in charge. The other main difference is that I know what the hell I’m doing. He may understand the flow of time, but I know people.”

“Why do you care about any of this?” Nerakali interrogated. “You have your own life going with the Springfield Nine.”

“Can someone get her up to speed, please?” Jupiter requested. “Sherwood, go ahead and set it up whenever you’re ready.”

The half-brother, Sherwood stepped into the isolation chamber with his duffel bag. The first thing he did was drag Zeferino’s dead body out, and leave him carelessly in the corner. He pulled out a little tripod table, and a huge canister of what looked like paintballs, but of dozens of different colors. He then removed what looked like a bomb. But no, it couldn’t be a bomb. Could it?

Jupiter carried on explaining himself as Sherwood was working on setting up his apparatus. “I didn’t always know everything about our species’ history. Athanaric kept us very sheltered, and then when I joined up with the other Springfielders, my focus was...well, too focused. It wasn’t until recently—which I recognize is a relative term—that I started branching out, and learning about what everyone else has been doing. I discovered this obsession the other Prestons had with the Matics. Why was it? What is it about the two of you that draws people in; gets them to sacrifice themselves for you, and give you everything? Well, I never figured it out, but in my trying, I realized that I too was obsessing over you. I was just becoming another twisted stalker. I was stanning you, Mateo. I wasn’t happy with doing this from afar, though. To free myself from this, I realized the only thing I could do was echo my estranged siblings. They toyed with you, forced you into harrowing challenges. Then I learned what our illustrious father was planning, and that helped me come up with my own plan.

“I’m going to challenge you too. Don’t worry, though. Most of the time, it probably won’t be deadly. You’ll probably even want to do the work; you’ll just wish it wasn’t necessary. If you fail any one of these challenges, the consequences will be whatever they are. I won’t actually be controlling anything you do. I’ll be transplanting people from this reality, to the Parallel; one at a time. Your mission will be to get them back home. You could always go back with them, but then you would be sacrificing however many people in the timeline you haven’t gotten to yet. Oh, and you’ll be on a brand new pattern, courtesy of those Cassidy cuffs. It’s a perfect blending of Mateo’s and J.B.’s. I’ll let the smart one explain what that means. Are we ready?”

“It’s ready,” Sherwood said as he was standing back up from a crouch. “I’ve set the timer for fifteen seconds.”

“I thought I asked you for a trigger,” Jupiter asked in an audible whisper. “I wanted to push a button.”

Sherwood stepped out of the chamber, and sealed the door behind him. “I don’t work for you. A timer is fine.”

A few seconds later, the bomb went off, spreading the paint all around the glass. It was actually quite beautiful.

“That was cool,” Jupiter said with a genuine smile. “I’m gonna need this, dear,” he said to Arcadia. He lifted the hundemarke from her neck, and placed it around his own. “I need to be the one who makes sure it’s actually activated. I’m not clear on your loyalties.”

Arcadia appeared too shocked to go against him, which was unlike her.

He continued, “sisters, you can watch from outside. The rest of you, get on in. It’s a tight fit, but there’s enough room for eight, and there are only six of us.”

No one moved.

Jupiter sighed. “Very well. I’ll do it myself.” He tapped on his cuff, and transported all of his prisoners into the chamber. It was even more beautiful from the inside. Jupiter was in there with them, but Sherwood was not. “Boot it up, brother!”

The pain swirled around, and reformed itself. Where once it was chaotic and random, colors began to organize into deliberate shapes. Shapes sharpened into discernable images, and the images began to move. They were watching dozens of movies at once. Mateo had heard about some of them before, others he had been there to see, and some were completely unfamiliar. The one thing they had in common was the hundemarke. These were all moments when it was used to create a fixed moment in time.

“My God,” Declan said. “All these people are gonna die.”

“Not if I can help it. All right!” Jupiter said happily. He took a gun from the back of his pants, and held it up like one of Charlie’s Angels. “Everybody ready? Only shoot the red-shaded moments. The blue moments are meant to stay put. We want those to happen in both realities.” He looked around at the rest of the group. He relaxed his arms in feigned frustration. “Ugh. Where are your guns? Did you not bring the guns? I’m sorry, I thought this was America. Okay, fine. I’ll shoot ‘em all myself. Here..we..go!” He started shooting at the images. Each time a bullet went through, and planted itself in the head of a future killer. He was killing real people all throughout time and space, but treating it like a video game. Mateo was just surprised he wasn’t literally keeping score.

Mateo watched him a little, but his eyes wandered to a very specific moment. This one was shaded purple, unlike any of the others. Also unique to it was that it kept playing over and over again in the same spot, while the other moments had to come back in the next cycle, because the chamber walls weren’t large enough to fit all of them at the same time. They only turned black and disappeared for good once Jupiter had paradoxed his target successfully. He had an idea to fix all of this. There was a reason the Prestons were obsessed with him and Leona. They would always ultimately lose, and they were never happy with that. It really was a game to them, and they absolutely despised losing. Perhaps Arcadia had the right idea, even if she was coming from the wrong place. Anyway, it was the only way Mateo could think of to stop all this. Even if it was a bad thing on its own, it at least went against their enemy, and sometimes, that just had to be enough.

Before Jupiter could finish shooting all the hundemarke killers, Mateo body slammed him. That was one good thing about close quarters. Jupiter had no room to fight back fast enough. Knowing he didn’t have long, though, Mateo grabbed the gun for himself, rolled back to the other side of the chamber, and aimed the best he could.

“Hey,” Jupiter said jovially. “You want in on this? Oh wait, no; not that one. That is the worst one you could pick.”

Damn, his target was gone. The GIF started back at the beginning, but he didn’t have a clear shot at Anatol Klugman. He didn’t really want to kill the guy, but it was his only move, and The Warrior was the one man he could trust to understand and appreciate the dilemma. Jupiter got up and tried to attack Mateo, but Leona and Ramses held him back. Just a few more seconds. Three..two..one..fire.

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