The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Friday, July 24, 2139

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They were woken up by alarms on their Cassidy cuffs; alarms which they had not set. They were going to wake up before too long anyway, but this sounded quite urgent. Leona hopped out of her bunk, and slid down the ladder to the control area. While Mateo was following behind, he saw her take off her cuff, and drape it across the interface module. The screen lit up, showing that it was syncing the cuff with their mobile home, which they had since officially started calling Imzadi. The rest of the crew came down afterwards, asking what was happening.

“We have a set of coordinates, Leona said, pulling up the map. It’s a hundred and twenty thousand astronomical units from there.”

“What does that mean for us?” Mateo asked. “How do we get there?”

“A series of jumps,” Leona answered. “There’s nothing out there. It’s beyond the Oort cloud, which the natives call the helioshield. I mean, there might be some icy planetesimal, or even a rogue planet, but it’s not on the map. I have no idea what might be out there in the main sequence, or why Nerakali is sending us there.”

Sanaa rounded the table, and zoomed into the spot where they were meant to be headed. “It’s a ship, it has to be. That’s a dangerous place to travel, especially in this time period, when the Earthans still didn’t know everything they needed to in order to survive interstellar space.”

“Do you know of a ship that would be out that far right now?” Jeremy questioned.

“Not that I know of,” Leona answered. The first humans don’t venture out beyond the heliosphere until twenty-two-oh-five. I suppose this could be from some alternate reality in the main sequence that I’m not familiar with.”

“Either way,” Aeolia decided, “we have to get there. It’s the mission. Someone needs our help out that far.”

“If we’re going to get out there in time we’ll need burst mode. Are you capable of that, Imzadi?” Leona asked the ship’s artificial intelligence.

“Of course I can. Entering burst mode.” They felt the slight tug that came each time they teleported. It was subtle, and easy to get used to, but stronger now, because they did it again. And again, and again, and again. “Time to destination: sixteen hours, forty-two minutes,” Imzadi reported.

Now that they were on their way, they breathed a collective sigh of relief. Some sat down, while others remained standing.

“Seventeen hours doesn’t sound very burst modey,” Bran pointed out.

“It’s twice the maximum limit,” Leona laughed. Most teleporters can’t jump farther than the diameter of the Earth’s atmosphere. That’s a standard limit. Some can jump far enough to reach the moon, and a very select few can reach the sun. This machine can make it to the sun and back. I don’t know any teleporter capable of that, except for the intergalactic travelers, like Maqsud Al-Amin, who can do it on his own, and Dave Seidel, who still needs help from Shimmer.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Bran admitted.

“The point is, without the Nexus network, this is the fastest we can get there,” Sanaa explained. “I mean, it’s possible for a Nexus to dispatch travelers to an off-grid egress—that is, it would spit us out in the middle of space without another Nexus on the other side—but we would need to get permission for it, and that might take too long.”

“Sixteen and a half hours is okay,” Imzadi jumped in. “I’ll get us there with plenty of time to spare. The real test will be hitting our exact targets. These coordinates are extremely specific, and the timing profoundly tight. We’re not just going to one spot, but to many, and I have to get to each one at the precisely right moment.”

“We must have to save multiple people on the ship,” Mateo guessed, “and they’re not all going to be in the same place.”

“That is my assumption,” Imzadi agreed.

“What is the best way to reach every target at the right time?” Leona asked.

“I am working through the simulations now,” Imzadi replied. “You humans should get some sleep. There’s nothing you can do until we arrive, and maybe not even then. It depends on whether anyone needs medical attention. If not, this transition is all my responsibility.”

“Thank you, Imzadi.”

“I appreciate your support.”

And so most everyone went back to bed, but Mateo was unable to. It would seem the time he spent with Sandy Klausen’s dreamwalking family gave him some kind of boost. He didn’t know if there would be any long-term consequences for not sleeping now, but it didn’t matter. He could barely close his eyes when he wanted to, let alone actually shut down his brain, and drift off. Instead, he just spent a lot of time playing RPS-101 Plus. It was addictive, and the most prolific serial killer of time of all time. It did come without limits, however, and after a few more hours of it, he was too bored to continue. He just let the chainsaw destroy his sponge, and sat there, watching the death aftermath animation for a good three minutes. He wasn’t really looking at it, though; he was staring into space.

As his vision narrowed, a fuzzy darkness took over from all sides. Black turned to blacker black, and he couldn’t feel his body anymore, until he realized he was back in the dream void from before. The feeling of hopelessness began to overwhelm his entire being, replacing each thought with empty nothing space. Suddenly, he felt himself being shaken at the shoulders. He struggled to blink his eyelids, and focus back in the real world. Jeremy was in front of him. It looked like he was shouting, but Mateo couldn’t hear anything. His ears were still only sensing the deafening sound of utter silence that only exists in the void. Finally, he broke himself out of the funk, and returned fully to his body.

“...you hear me! Something’s wrong!”

It was then that realized Mateo’s shoulders weren’t the only thing shaking. His whole self was, as well as Jeremy, and also the rest of the ship. He could also hear creaking and maybe the tearing of metal. “I know, I know! Let’s get out of burst mode.”

“We can’t!” Jeremy argued. “Leona’s been trying. Apparently, the computer is not responding.”

Mateo took a breath in, and let it out. The shaking stopped, as if he had done something to control it.

He looked over the edge to see most of the rest of the crew on the command floor, stopped, confused about what had just happened. He looked up to the third level  to see Angela, also looking down upon the chaos now trying to reorder itself.

“Bbbbbbbbb-bu-bu-burst mode ret-ttttttttt-turning to nnn-normal,” Imzadi said in that stuttering computer voice we’re all familiar with. “Sorry about that, folks. Burst mode has returned to normal.”

“Imzadi, please run a level three diagnostic.”

“I’m in the middle of it, but I already know that the issue was due to external influence, rather than some kind of internal error within my systems. The hull was shaking, not me, and not because of burst mode.”

“What, some kind of spatial anomaly? That’s not a thing,” Leona explained, though not Imzadi, who would already know that, but the rest of the crew.

“It was me,” Mateo said apologetically. Somehow, he had returned to the dream void, and it had created some kind of malfunction for the whole machine.

“What are you talking about?” Leona questioned, having no idea how that could possibly be the case.

“I have some bad news,” Imzadi said. “We’re pretty far off course.”

“How far?” Leona asked.

Imzadi did not reply.

“Imzadi, how far off course are we?”

“Uh,” she replied, like she needed the linguistic hesitation mark. “About fifty-thousand. Fifty-six, actually.”

“Fifty-six thousand AU isn’t that bad. We should still have time to get there, it’ll just be tighter. Let’s get back to where we were going, and hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Uh...fifty-six thousand...light years?” Imzadi asked in an interrogative voice, but not as a question.

“How is that possibly possible?” Leona pressed. “You are not equipped with such technology. Was there really a spatial anomaly? That was a joke.”

“I said,” Mateo began to repeat, “it was me.”

“Mateo, what are you going on about?” Leona asked, perturbed at the second interruption.

“Just let him speak,” Jeremy said supportively.

Mateo went into the story about what had happened to him yesterday, how he went to this pocket universe within the bulkverse type thing, where he met a bunch of other universe-hoppers, and basically experienced the cold reality of the true death, which was simply the absence of all but self-consciousness.

Of course, Leona had already heard all of this, but she didn’t understand how it related to today. “And you went back there?”

“Spontaneously,” Mateo confirmed, “yes.”

“And you think Imzadi, and the rest of us, went with you?” Leona figured.

“I do,” Mateo said. “If we technically traveled to another universe, it would explain how we ended up in a completely different location in this universe.”

Leona revealed a fake smile. “You’re learning a lot of astrophysics, and brane cosmology, I’m impressed. But also, what the fuck are you talking about? We didn’t go to a different universe, we would know. Even if you were capable of that, you wouldn’t be able to pull a machine of this mass in with you.”

“Well, do you have a better explanation? More importantly, do you have a way to get back home without it taking eighty years?”

Now Leona was really confused. “First of all, we don’t have a reframe engine in this thing. And secondly, if we did, how did you know it would take eighty years? Did you do that math in your head?”

Mateo thought about it for a moment, and still didn’t know how to answer that question.

Leona was upset, and feeling the burden of being the second smartest person in the room. Though, Imzadi wasn’t technically in the room, so... “Our only hope...” She checked her watch. “We have to be there in two hours, as long as my watch is accurate, which it might not be if we went to another universe—and I’m not saying we did.” She shook her head, but didn’t continue talking.

“Just say it, lady, we need him to do it again.” Sanaa didn’t have to be as sensitive when talking to her as most people, even including Mateo.

“That’s crazy,” Leona contended. “I’ve seen people do things like this, but not us. We don’t have powers. We’re salmon.”

“You’re not technically salmon,” Sanaa said, but she got the point.

“I almost died in the vacuum of space,” Leona began. “My children died there. We can’t...we can’t.” She sighed. “We have to get back, and if Mateo’s new bulk travel power can get us there, then...I guess we have to try.”

“What exactly am I meant to do?” Mateo asked, more to make sure everyone was fully aware that he didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with this newfound supposed power.

“I have an idea,” Imzadi said tentatively.

The biggest problem, the AI realized, was not opening a door for Mateo to enter the dream void, but in navigating once he passed them all through. They could exit the universe here, and return a billion years in the past, or a trillion in the future, or a different reality. Or they could just get lost in the outer bulkverse, and end up in some other brane altogether. Or they could die. If they wanted to be on the edge of the helioshield at the very right moment, they had to come back in a very certain way. The Crossover was, in some way, capable of making these calculations. In fact, Chase Palmer from Universe Prime even suggested that most of bulk travel computational power was dedicated solely to navigation. Breaking a hole in the barrier was not the easiest thing ever, but not the hardest part either.

Individuals who could navigate the bulkverse, like the puncher, Limerick, and this one guy who wore a colorful coat, evidently did so upon their own psychic abilities. They were both born with this gift, and Mateo was decidedly not like them. Not even Imzadi was powerful enough to make these calculations, but perhaps the rest of The Parallel was. She called it the Milky Way blockchain, and it was their only way to tap into enough processing power to complete this mission. There was a protocol for requesting this sort of thing, but it was incredibly rare, and even rarer for someone’s request to be accepted. Even then, it took time for all the necessary gatekeepers to get back to the requester. Fortunately, Mateo and Leona enjoyed a special relationship with the natives, specifically, its creators, the Tanadama. Mateo knew them as Ramses Abdulrashid, and Kalea Akopa. So they only needed to reach out to these two people.

“I’ll do it,” Ramses agreed using his hologram avatar.

“We need to discuss this together,” Kalea argued, confused as to why Ramses would pretend he didn’t know that.

“This is that thing we talked about?” Ramses tried to remind her covertly. “A long time ago. I don’t survive unless...”

“You’re on that ship?” Kalea asked.

“No, but...I need their help. I need to get back to the main sequence.”

Kalea thought about it. “This year?”

“Next year,” Ramses clarified. “Preferably next year, at least. There’s some wiggle room.”

“You need us to do something for you next year?” Mateo asked and offered.

“I need a transition window back to 2140 in the main sequence. There’s something I have to do there, or I’ll die by the time I make it to this reality. Don’t worry, it’s not just about me. Lots of people could die if I don’t close my loop.”

“Say no more,” Mateo assured him. “We’ll be glad to help. That is, as long as your partner can accept the price.”

Kalea wasn’t going to accept immediately. She had to take the offer seriously, even though rejecting it evidently threatened everything they had built in the Parallel. “Very well. We will make the call. Go...rescue your whatever.”

Reaching out to every star system and rogue world in the entire galaxy was something not even the Tanadama were capable of. No single button did all that, for if it existed, a nefarious force could hypothetically exploit it for some agenda. There was, however, a loophole, and based on what little in the way of a description Ramses gave, Mateo surmised that the loophole was Mirage. It could have been some AI equivalent in this reality, but it sure sounded like her. However they did it, it worked. Imzadi reported a surge in computational power the likes of which she never thought she would have access to. Now all they needed to do was figure out how to get Mateo’s mind back to the void.

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Exemption Act: I Did What I Had To (Part IV)

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The problem with keeping The Sharice Davids—and this would be true of any ship, though there would be less at stake—was that they needed to get the vessel off the ground, and onto a vector without anyone outside the team noticing. There were ships that were capable of doing this, but they had to be quite small, and there was about a fifty-fifty chance of death. It was called darkbursting, and the downside to being invisible was that everything else was invisible to those in the ship as well. Even if the Sharice was capable of darkbursting, Carbrey would have to very carefully plot a path through interplanetary space without hitting anything, but also without being able to course correct. Again, though, it was impossible for an object of this mass anyway because it wasn’t small enough to be mistaken for space debris. Small objects did not appear on any but the finest of sensors, but while The Sharice was no interstellar colony ship, it was hard to miss.

“If I could still turn this thing invisible, I would,” Khuweka lamented.

“You used to be able to do that?” Limerick asked.

“I used to be able to do a lot of things,” Khuweka answered. “I could teleport anywhere in the world, I could diagnose any medical condition, lots of stuff. Then it all got taken away by a base modification in bladapodoverse.”

“What the hell is that?” Limerick pressed.

“On that version of Earth, there are these little creatures called bladapods. They release this sort of gas, which gets into everything, and changes it in unpredictable ways. I once met a woman with literal eyes in the back of her head. She had a son who could only speak in a sarcastic tone. And they lived in a house with constantly changing paint color. Sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s good, and other times it’s whatever. For me, it was bittersweet. My powers made me really popular, but that came with the same downsides that any celebrity experiences.”

“So, that’s all it did?” Zektene asked. “They removed your other powers?”

“Well, they made it so that I bleed out of my fingers every few months until I’m pretty much dry. Obviously it replenishes, but the more it happens, the weaker my abilities get. I can technically still do it.” She looked around until spotting a bottle of water on the table. She concentrated on it for a few moments until it disappeared. Then she picked up, and drank from it, showing that it was still there, just hidden.

“If you’re still capable of it, then I might be able to help,” Zek offered. “My abilities were created in a lab, and passed down the generations until evolving into something stable and usable. The scientists weren’t just working on teleportation, though. I remember one experiment they designed to enhance other people’s abilities. I never met this person in my reality, but they may exist in the reality that supplanted it. I think it’s worth a shot if Limerick here really is capable of traveling the bulkverse.”

“I am!” Limerick protested. “I think. I am, right? That’s what you said.”

“You are, yes,” Khuweka confirmed. “You ever try to punch someone, but you miss, and hit a wall, except there is no wall, it was just air?”

“I know I’m a drunk.”

“No, that’s what you’re doing,” Khuweka tried to explain. “When you punch at seemingly nothing, at the right spot, you can start weakening a point we sometimes like to call a thinny. If you continue to strike at it, this thinny will break, and you can cross over. Others can follow if the portal is large enough to stay open before spacetime heals itself.”

“Wait,” Limerick began, “do I have the ability to punch these so-called thinnies because I’m a bastard brawler, or am I bastard brawler because I can punch thinnies?”

“That I do not know,” Khuweka answered sincerely. “I have never heard of anyone who was born with this ability. Meliora learned it after spending centuries in a persistent meditative state. Zoey has to use a knife. Joseph has his coat. Every other form of bulkverse travel ultimately came from a single people’s ultimate invention, and they spent literal aeons working on it. It is an incredibly rare gift, even more so when you can grasp how unfathomably large the bulkverse really is. You are unique among undecillions upon undecillions of people, and I have no clue where you get it.”

Limerick acted like he had never heard anyone say anything nice about him before. He didn’t cry, or even tear up,but he did have to straighten himself out, and act like he had been there before. “Okay. So I just need to punch hard enough for everyone to get through? Doesn’t sound so hard.”

“Not everyone needs to get through,” Khuweka clarified. “It’s my problem, I’ll go alone.”

“That’s stupid,” Zek argued. “I’m the one familiar with that universe, so I will go escort you.”

“We’ll all go,” Andraste corrected. “If we’re going to be a team, then let’s be a team. I hear tell her universe is parked right next to mine. I should quite like to see that.”

“You won’t recognize it,” Khuweka warned Zek.

“Didn’t think I would.”

“It may be dangerous,” Khwueka continued.

Freya placed her hand on Khuweka’s shoulder, though it was highly uncomfortable, because of how tall she was. “We’re going. Limerick, do whatcha gotta do.”

Limerick took a breath. “Nobody help me. I wanna see if I can figure it out on my own.” He tried to punch the air, and honestly, it looked a little pathetic. “Forget you saw that. I’ve never swung this arm sober before, it don’t feel right.” He prepared himself, and tried again. His had better form this time, but still nothing happened.

“You have to find a thinny,” Khuweka reminded him. “It’s the difference between hitting a concrete wall, or solid wood. They’re both difficult, but the first one is nearly impossible. It might not be pleasant if you’re not inebriated. It might hurt.”

“No, I wanna do this clean. You were right, I haven’t felt this good since I was eight years old. Maybe you can teach me how to find a thinny, though?”

Khuweka walked him through the process of locating the weak spots in the spacetime continuum. They were all over the place, but ephemeral. And it wasn’t something a normal person could exploit for their own purposes. In fact, they were largely undetectable. Machines like The Crossover were so large that they could punch through that proverbial concrete wall at any spot, so no technology existed that could find them. That was just one more way that he was one of a kind. He did have his limitations, though. Not all universes were open to him. They had to be part of a network of bridges created by others, and these bridges could only be accessed at certain points in spacetime. Other bulkverse travelers had more freedom, but his gift was still impressive.

Limerick found his point of entry, and got to punching. It took him about a half hour to get all the way through, but Khuweka assured him that he would get better over time. He did have to keep going through all of it, however, because like an antlion’s pit-trap, the thinny would always start repairing itself as soon as he let go. Once he was finished, Landis and Carbrey helped him through the portal he had just created, following Khuweka on the frontline. Andraste went through next, followed by Freya and Zektene.

Limerick was instructed how to find a good egress location, using a psychic connection he evidently enjoyed with the bulkverse itself. They didn’t want to come out in the middle of a highway, or something, and Khuweka in particular needed to keep a low profile. Unfortunately, as this was Limerick’s first sober shatter portal, he didn’t get it quite right, and instead of the middle of the woods, they ended up in a park. By the time Freya got all the way through, the children and their parents had already stopped the fun they were having, and were staring at Khuweka’s unfamiliar appearance. They didn’t seem frightened, and no one tried to rush their kids away, but they were exuding optimistic caution.

A woman in a construction outfit was the only one brave enough to approach the team. “Where did you come from?” She was asking in order to obtain the information, not because she had never seen anything like it before.

“Let’s just say...another world,” Khuweka answered, using her own caution.

The construction worker nodded. “You probably ought to check in with Bellevue.”

“Is that a city, or...” Andraste began.

“It’s a city, and an agency,” the woman replied. “I believe they have a field office downtown, but Bellevue Proper is thousands of naykos away.”

No one seemed to have heard of that form of measurement before, but it sounded like miles or kilometers. She surely wouldn’t be talking about feet. “If you show us where it is on a map, we can get there on our own,” Zek told her.

“A teleporter, okay.” She pulled up her phone, and found Bellevue on the map.

Zek began to ferry the team there two at a time, saving Freya for last, who was able to see how indifferent the crowd was to seeing someone teleport. She couldn’t help but notice how different it looked. Normally, Zek would just disappear, but here she turned a shade of purple, and visible strands of energy flowed around her body. Before Freya too left, the children had already returned to their fun and games, having seen this sort of thing before.

They walked into the lobby of what, honestly, looked more like a hotel than some kind of government agency headquarters. The receptionist smiled at them, took down their info, and relayed it to the appropriate representative. Then she asked them to sit in the waiting room. No one else there was the least bit concerned about Khuweka’s form. This seemed like a nice world.

Five minutes later, a man came down from the hallway, and started shaking everyone’s hand. “Hello, my name is Luka Drake, Head of Base Security. Come with me to Conference Room C, if you will?” He led them down another hallway, and into the room. “Where are you all from?”

“Can we be perfectly candid?” Khuweka asked.

“I wish you would,” Luka confirmed.

“We are from a parallel universe. Actually, multiple universes. Now, you may have heard of alternate realities.”

He waved off the rest of her explanation. “We are aware of the bulkverse. We try to stick to the Composite Universe and Universe Prime, in order to avoid any temporal confusion. And we don’t crossover often.”

“Unfortunately, we do not have this luxury,” Khuweka continued. “You see, we are at war. At war with a race known as the Ochivari.”

He nodded. “I have never heard of them. Perhaps we simply use different words. Our historical records speak of a multiversal threat called the Maramon.”

“That is my race,” Khuweka revealed. “They are truly a threat as well, however a team is already working on that problem. I have assigned myself the Ochivari threat. We are attempting to quash them before they can even evolve. We were hoping to encounter an anomaly who can enhance my associate’s teleporting abilities. Our world is unaware of the threat, and we would like to launch from the surface without their knowledge, to protect them from the truth.”

“You betrayed your own race to help humans?”

“I did what I had to,” Khuweka said. “Still do.”

“Understood. So you’re looking for an anomaly who can enhance your abilities,” Luka echoed. “I have not seen Ambrose Richardson in quite some time, and we are not presently cognizant of his whereabouts. There are two options after that, but you will need Savitri’s permission for the first, and the agency’s permission for the second. The second is a permanent solution, albeit a bit less stable.”

“You know Savitri?” Khuweka asked, surprised.

“Not personally, but it was through studying her that our scientists were able to come up with a technological adaptation. We’re working on a drug, but it is not yet ready. We’ve had some bad history with ability-enhancement, and besides, that would only work on an anomaly.”

“I’m an anomaly,” Zek told him.

He was shocked. “You are?”

“I’m from an alternate timeline. I went back in time, and erased myself from the future. That’s how I ultimately ended up on this team, and how you ended up existing. Bellevue’s not a thing where I’m from.”

“Hmm...” Luka contemplated this new information. “As an anomaly, you are entitled to join the drug trial, if you would like. I can get you in quick for the price of an account of this alternate reality you come from.”

Zek looked to Khuweka for any hint that she should say no. Khuweka gave none. “Well, okay. I don’t see why not.”

Luka smiled. “I could probably throw in a booster platform if you also tell us what you know about these Ochivari. It enhances your power as long as you’re using it, and it’s designed to work with anyone, not just anomalies. Success not guaranteed, however; not with either of them. Only Savitri herself can guarantee results.”

“We’ll take it,” Limerick exclaimed. “Madam Kadrioza, tell the man what you know.”

“Hold on,” Andraste stopped them. “Let’s make sure we all know the details, and what’s at stake. I want to know more about this drug, and how far along you are in your research and development process. We are time travelers, let us not rush this.”

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Microstory 1545: First Breath

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I am a ________, and I know that prison is where I ________. I do not belong, however, in this ________ secret laboratory lair ________. Just because I was convicted of a ________, doesn’t mean I’ve given up my ________. I should still have to consent to scientific ________. I don’t know who these ________ are, or who they think they are, but I have to get the ________ out of here. They keep injecting me with this stuff, all over my ________. Every few ________ they roll me back to the ________ room so they can administer more drugs. They won’t tell me what’s in it, or what it’s meant to do. In fact, none of them ever ________ at all, I can’t be sure they know how. They all just ________ what they’re doing, and don’t have to say ________ to coordinate with each ________. They clearly have very strict protocols and procedures, which allows them to leave me ________ in the dark. They set me up with a pretty nice ________, I’ll give them that. It has a full-sized ________ with a comfortable mattress, and nice ________. It also has a very ________ shower. I have more space than two normal cells combined, and the best ________ I’ve ever eaten in my ________. These are red flags, though, and I can’t let them ________ me into thinking it’s a good thing I’m here. To test a drug on a ________, you have to jump through a lot of ________, and prove it’s at least ____ly safe to get approval. And when you do it, the ________ are volunteers who walk in the front ________ of a building that has windows. I may not know much, but I know that, and I know that this ________ right here is shady as shit. That’s the truth.

One day, the scientist-nurse ________ breaks all the protocols. He doesn’t ________ me down tight enough, he leaves the ________ before someone else comes in to watch ________, and it doesn’t sound like the ________ locked. This looks like a great ________ to escape, which is why I can’t. They’re testing ________, and because it’s starting ________ so easy, not to see how I ________ to get out, but how I sur____ once I’m ________. We’re probably ________ a volcano, or a ship. I’m staying right ________, thank you very much. Unfortunately, of ________, my plan doesn’t work. I’m going to leave this room whether I ________ to or not. They ________ up the heat as high as an oven. Who the hell designs an exam ________ to get this hot? I leave. I remove my restraints, open the ________, and leave. I don’t run, though, and I don’t sneak. I’m just trying to find my way back to my ________, or to someone of authority. The ________ are completely empty. The heat is following me down, though. What they really want is for me to ________ the building, so I’m forced to find the nearest door to the out____. It’s not just a door, but two doors with what looks like a ________ airlock in between. That cannot be good. The airlock is even ________ than the rest of the facility, though, so it’s not like I can put it off. The door to the outside doesn’t ________ until I close the inner door first. Yeah, I’m about to ________ out there, this much is obvious. I turn the wheel ________ with all my strength, and step out. The sun blinds me, and the air chokes me. I fall to my ________ and desperately search for my breath. It takes a few minutes, but it does return to me, and my ________ refocus. The sun is a lot redder than I remember it, and maybe closer? I turn my head and see another ________. It looks more familiar, but I know it’s not the same one. I must be on some alien ________, and I must be the first ________ to step foot on it without a suit. I run off towards the ________ before they can snatch me back up for more tests.

Microstory 1544: Communication Skills

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I was born with a ________ ability that, for some reason, people have ________ understanding. They think I can ________ with animals, but that doesn’t make much sense, because most animals have no ________ language, and the ones that do still can’t hold a ________ conversation. All I do is manipulate the ____’s emotions and demeanor. I can make it feel ________, or ________, or combative. Or I can do what I normally do, and just make it ________ safe and comfortable. Most of the time, it’s a temporary ________. I can prevent a rabid dog from ________ his neighbor’s young ________, or make a feral cat relax so the vet can ________ it. If I try hard enough, though, I can also tame an animal ____nently. I can ready a ________ horse for a saddle, or give zoo-goers the ability to ________ right up to a tiger, and pet it on the ________. I don’t generally do this sort of ________, however, because I kind of feel like it’s a violation. Sure, they’re not ________, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be respected, or to make ________ choices they feel are necessary. Who am I to control their ________? One thing you have to understand is that humans are ________ as well, and while commanding their ________ and behavior is much more difficult than it is for other ________, it is not im____. Obviously, it’s even ________ of a violation, however, so I’ve only ever done it ________. And that was just to ________ if I was capable of it. The subject consented to my ________, and I ________ him from any hold I had over him ________ afterwards. I possess no ambition to ________ any____, for any ________. I worked very hard to prevent ________ from knowing that my ________ could extend to humans, and while I was successful in that, I couldn’t stop a smart ________ from figuring it out on his own using ________ logic. Now I have the government breaking down my ________, trying to get me to ________ for them. I could help so many ________, they say, make the ________ a better place, they claim. I’m not interested, and I won’t do it, but these ________ are relentless. They leave a white van on my street permanently, and someone ________ on my door every day. I would change my ________ and move if I thought it would help, but they would find ________, and I wouldn’t be able to use my gift anymore either way. Today, I’ve had ________. They’re going to drive ________, and leave me alone, or they’re gonna get an earful. I powerwalk across my ________, and approach the ________. We get into a heated ________ which escalates by the minute. I’m yelling, I’m imagining the evil ________ yelling too, but they’re truthfully staying ________ calm. They still won’t let up, though, and I just can’t take it ________. I ________ at them to drive away, never return, and forget they ever knew I ________. To my ________, that’s exactly what they do. I watch my window for ________, but I never hear another ________ out of them. Perhaps I have underestimated the ________ of my abilities.

Microstory 1543: The Escape

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Since before I can ________, I have been obsessed with being ________, and being capable of ________ autonomy. I watch all the survivalist ________, multiple times each, and I love getting ________ for the apocalypse. Do I think the ________ will actually end? No, probably ________, but there’s a greater than ________ percent chance, so I would rather ________ how to get through it than be sorry. I’ve also considered what I would do to escape a bad ________ on a more personal ________. What if the ________ doesn’t end, but my world does? I have no intention of becoming a ________, but I can conceive of a ________ where I’m wrongfully accused, or I’m in the wrong ________ at the ________ time. I store tons of ________ and other resources in and around my ________, and of course, I have a tricked out bug-out ________, which I can take to an off-the-grid bug-out ________. But I did more than that, because I’m ________ I’ll get caught up in ________, and not have any way out. I built ________ tunnels. One leads from my ________ to the ________ about a ________ away, and the ________ is only half as long, but it goes from my ________, which is already ________ deeply in the ________. I realize that my ________ goal is to disappear, not just sur____. Over time, I decide it doesn’t ________ if I truly need to or not. That’s only the first ________, and I may not even need that one. The real ________ is whether I can become a ghost in a more general ________. I have to wipe ________ from the world, so that no one can track me, or ________ me. I’m obviously going to live in the ________, but not the ones near my places. No, I have to travel far, ________ away, and I have to do it on ________, so that people don’t see me. If even one eye lands on me as I’m making my way towards my new ________ life, it will be a total waste of ________, because that one person can identify me. Even if they don’t see my ________, the authorities will be able to work out that it’s me through deductive ____ning.

Stealth, initial resources, and full independence. Wherever I end up, I want to be as far from ________ as possible, and I don’t want to have to go into ________ for supplies. Everything I need should be at my campsite, and that ________ should be nearly impossible to detect, or stumble ________. I’ll live up in a ________ in a ghillie suit if that’s what I have to do. I spend ________ working on my plan, making sure every detail is ________, and there aren’t any ________. I sell all my property by the New ________, and start living minimalistically for the first ________ after that, so no one will be looking for my ________ return come next year. I want to stop being a real ________, and start being on my own, and taxes are the most ________ part of that process, but they are not impossible to avoid. I just can’t take in any income for the start of the ________, I can’t make any ________ but with cash, and I can’t be worrying about utilities, and the like. The day is finally here when it’s time to leave my ________ life behind, and become the new me. I break my outskirt campsite when the night is at its dark____, stuff everything into my ________, and head into the ________. This is amazing already. I keep my eye on the map, and away from roads, and even trails as much as ________. When I do have to walk close to inhabited ________, I do so only at ________, so no one can see me. It takes me six ________ to get all the way up to a random spot in ________, Canada, which is over four thousand ________ away. I have fresh ________, plenty of game, and a tent that’s rated for the coldest of cold. This is all I need, and I’m ________. For the first year, I’m still para____, though, that people have figured out where I ________. I’m still not certain I avoided any tax ________, so it’s pretty stressful throughout the next year too. But then I relax, and realize that nothing’s going to ________ to me. I don’t owe the world anything, and they have ________ about me. Then it hits me. They didn’t have to ________ about me, because before I left, I wasn’t anybody anyway. No one ________, and they don’t care now. I didn’t escape ________. I’m just as alone as I have always been.

Microstory 1542: Waterslide

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As a religious ________, I’ve heard all the ________ for what happens after you ________. Some say there’s a heaven and a ________, while others really just have a ________. Some have different ________ for different kinds of ________, and some think we’re all just ________ in together. Some believe our ________ survive, while our consciousnesses do not. Lots of people believe in some ________ of reincarnation, but none of them ever came close to the ________ about how that works. I can hardly ________ it myself, and a part of me still doesn’t, even though I’m looking at it right ________. It’s a series of waterslides, which you go ________ in order to reach your new ________. Really? Water____? I don’t know what to make of it. I’m watching all these ________ choose their paths, and they don’t seem to take any ________ with it, but I’m not quite that accepting. I have to find out just who the heck thought of this ________, and why. One of the people here in ________ of facilitating the ________ tries to be as helpful as ________. No one else is asking any ________, so she seems all right with ________ mine. The slides are complex, and there is no map. You choose the one you ________ to go down, but that does not lock you in to one path. You can ________ over to another slide if one happens to intersect with yours. You can even ________ off and land on an entirely separate one if it happens to be below ________. Where do these ________ end? Well, some will ________ you into another human ________, but others lead to an ________, or even an insect. Some of them exit right back ________ at the ________, so you can ________ again, and a few will ________ you into an ________ worker, like the ________ who’s explaining all this to ________.

The first thing I note after the explanation is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to figure out which ________ path to take. She notes that a ____slider will always have a choice to either ________ their destination, or go back up and try ________. That’s evidently why most ________ aren’t asking her questions. The majority of ________ have already been through many, many times, and they just keep not ________ satisfied with their ________. Not everyone even gets the chance to reincarnate at all. Only those with the potential to contribute more to the ________ are here. The rest are sent off ________ else, and she doesn’t know where, because she wasn’t here when the system was first ________. This means that she doesn’t ________ who came up with this, or what their reasoning was. Surely early ________ would have been confused by the ________, as waterslides would not have been ________ yet. I ask her if there are any other ________, not because I’m disinclined to do what everyone else ________, but because I want to know ________ about how this works. Sure, she says. I can take the stairs. No one has ever ________ before, even though it would result in getting to pick whatever reincarnation you ________, because it would take decades to get all the way ________, and be as tiring as tedious as it would be on ________. I smile at the ________, debating taking it, just to be different. Then I hop onto one of the ________, don’t bother trying to alter course, and accept my ________ once I’ve reached the bottom. I’m ________ as a pangolin in China, and things go downhill from there.

Microstory 1541: Dreaming of Days

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When I was in ________ grade, our ________ asked us to start ________ a dream journal. It was a simple enough ________. Some ________ had more trouble with it than others, because some ________ just don’t remember their ________ as well. I’ve never been one of those people. I remember my dreams vividly, though I wouldn’t call that a gift. They aren’t frightening most of the ________, but they are boring. It was during the other students’ ________ that I realized everyone else dreamed of ________ things, like a world in negative colors, or having ________ for feet, and ________ for hands. I just dream about ________; about regular daily life. I wake ________, drink some ________, go to work at a boring ________, come home, eat alone, and go back to ________. Or sometimes I come ________ to a family, or a ________, or a bird. It’s never the same ________, but it’s never exciting either. I’m not myself in my dreams, but ________ else, and I don’t even think the same someone else, because I keep taking ________ routes to different jobs. Fortunately, I wasn’t the first to do my ________, so this gave me enough time to fib. I made up ________ that were more fantastical and interesting, because no one wanted to hear the true ________ if they were going to be that sad and ________. After that, I moved on with my life, but I would continue this ________ of making up my dreams, instead of relating the real ones to ________. It’s not like the subject came up a lot, of course, but people did ________ ask me about them, and I got used to the lying. I got so ________ at it that when it came to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, being a ________ writer made the most sense. Things were going ________, I wasn’t the most famous ________ in the ________, but I was making a ________ living sending short stories to various ________ magazines. I kind of made it my thing to claim that my work was inspired by my dreams. I don’t think there’s any legal issue with that. I hope not, at least. One ________, I even slipped in one of my real ________, just to see how it would be ________. It didn’t get great ________, but they actually weren’t that bad. There were just fewer of them this time, because fewer ________ were ________ in providing their ________. It was only an ex____, so that’s fine.

Anyway, my critics and ________ aren’t the only people who get a hold of this story. A ________ contacts me, demanding to know how long I’ve been ________ on him. I tell him I’m doing no such thing, that I don’t know who he is, but he’s not ________ it. He starts ________ my latest story, which...whatever, anyone can do that, but then he adds details that I never released to the public, because they’re even more ________ within the boring. He mentions the ________ of his briefcase, and the look of the novelty clock in the ________. This ________ was somehow in my dream, and I have to find out how the hell he did it. So against my better ________, I agree to meet him at his apartment two ________ over. It’s not just familiar, it’s exactly the same ________ I saw in my dream. He takes me back down____, and down the ________, and all the way to where he ________. I’ve seen it all before, this is from my dream. We continue on our ________ through town, trying to work out what’s going on together. I start to realize everything feels ________. All of my dreams, though no two are the same; they all apparently take ________ in this same town. I think at any ________ I will wake up, and this will also turn out to be a dream, but I never do. I go back ________ to consult my ________ journal, and I start mapping out the ________. Then I return to this town to meet other ________ whose lives I’ve borne witness to. They all exist, they’re all ________. Then we go deeper, and check the ________. I’m not just watching other people’s ________, but events that would not happen to them for another ________ days. I can see the ________, but only in this one town, and that’s what makes it the least impressive power I’ve ever heard of, because the more time I ________ here—as fascinating as the ________ itself is to investigate—the more bored I become.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 23, 2138

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Leona started shaking Mateo, but he did not stir. He wasn’t dead, though, that much was for sure. Nerakali evidently sensed that something had happened, and teleported in to investigate. “What was he doing just before he fell unconscious?”

“We were just standing here, talking,” Jeremy explained. “It looked like his neck hurt.”

“Yeah,” Angela corroborated. “Those alien bugs stuck something in the back of his neck to stop him from jumping to the future. They got it out in the other universe, but who knows what kind of lingering effect it might have on him?”

“Nerakali,” Leona began. “You can tell when someone has a consciousness, right? I mean, if their mind was transferred to another body, and there was just nothing there, you would know.”

“I would. It’s necessary for my brain blending power to work.” She knelt down and placed her hands on either side of his head. She stopped, and pulled back, not frightened or surprised, just curious.

“What is it?”

Nerakali placed her hands back on Mateo’s head to get another reading. “It’s...very similar to how people feel when they’re asleep. Not just asleep, but dreaming. You’re not always dreaming when you’re asleep, but he definitely is, and...”

“And what!” Leona was growing impatient and nervous. Being asleep didn’t sound so bad, but it was troubling that they couldn’t wake him up.

“Oh, I remember. He’s lucid. Lucid dreaming. It reads a little bit differently, and I don’t blend people who aren’t awake, so I had to remind myself what it felt like. Yeah, so he’s fine.”

“Why won’t he wake up?” Obvious question, Leona figured.

“I have no idea,” Nerakali answered apologetically. “But he is neither dead, nor dying. Nor is he in a coma, or some kind of fugue state. He’s just...dreamin’. I hope it’s a good one. Perhaps the jump to 2139 will wake him up. Until then, I can stay and monitor him if it’ll make you feel better.”

“It would,” Leona said. She was sick of shit happening to her and her family.

Mateo could feel himself coming together, like a billion beams of light converging on a single point, and building upon one another to form a solid object. He found himself standing-floating in a technicolor void, like something out of a Dr. Strange movie. The lights spread out from him, and wrapped themselves around his body, and danced in the distance. He was alone for an eternal second, and then more figures came into view. Dozens of people were float-standing around him, enjoying their own personal color show, until the beams let them go. They all drifted in one direction, but it wasn’t down, because down didn’t exist in this crazy world-between-worlds. They smiled and waved at each other, like they were all arriving at a family reunion. It was then that Mateo noticed one man was separated from the others, shrouded in a haze. He was crouched, and probably would have been up in a corner if corners existed here.

The reunion continued without this mysterious other man. They were doing their best to ignore him, but would every once in a while look over and scowl. It took them a surprisingly long time to notice Mateo, but once they did, they realized that he too did not belong. One of them came over and scrutinized his face. “Who are you?” He looked back to the crowd. “Who is this guy? He’s not part of the family.”

A woman came up, and Mateo realized he knew her. He just couldn’t remember her name. “It’s cool, Tiago. He’s...an exception.”

Mateo finally remembered. “Sandy Clausen.”

She smiled. “That’s right.”

“What is this place?” he asked. “This is your family?”

She smiled wider. “When we met, I told you that I come from a bloodline of dreamwalkers. Once in a generation, a child will be born with the ability to transmit thoughts to other universes.” She breathed in deeply, and gazed upon her domain. “A friend built us this place so we could all be together in the same moment. We’ll be here once, and then never again. We’re calling it The Last Dream.”

“How did I get here?” Mateo questioned.

“I’m not sure,” Sandy replied, unperturbed. “You were possessed by him once, but that can’t be it. He possessed a lot of people.” She gestured towards the lonely man.

“Wait, him? That’s the guy who possessed me, and had sex with someone using my body?”

“Well, we don’t know the details, but...yeah. He is...you don’t need to know his name. He’s just the...bad egg, I guess. To be honest, I’m surprised there is but one. Look at this crowd. Fifty-six of us, and only one black sheep.”

“There are only fifty-six people in your bloodline? The power disappears?”

“We disappear,” she answered. “Bloodline ends. It’s fine. Most of us aren’t there to see it, and it’s not like this big battle, or anything. We just stop makin’ babies.”

Mateo nodded, and watched the other family members enjoying getting to know each other. “I won’t keep you.”

“I’m all right,” Sandy assured him sincerely. “I’ve actually met most of them. We’re all dreamwalkers, but they’re more into creating new worlds, and I like to travel to  the ones others created.”

He nodded, and waited a moment. “Have you ever heard of the Ochivari?”

“I didn’t technically fight in the Darning Wars, but my team and I worked against them in our own way.”

Mateo reached to the back of his neck, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t in his body anymore anyway, and this was about as real as any dream. The patch was gone, as was the pain, but he still felt some connection to it. Perhaps he always would. “Two of them put this implant thing in my neck. It suppressed my time-jumping pattern. A surgeon got it out pretty quickly, but could that have something to do with how I’m here?”

Sandy thought about it. “Hm. I suppose they could have given you some of their blood, be it by accident, or on purpose. With your history of brane possession, it’s the start of an explanation at least.”

“If this has given me some kind of universe-hopping ability, I don’t want it.”

She laughed. “I doubt it’s that powerful. I mean, there’s not enough Ochivari blood in the bulkverse to give someone the power to travel on their own. It takes one of them to open a portal long enough for just two others to pass.”

He understood what she was talking about as much as his little baby brain could.

“That wasn’t very nice, Superintendent,” Sandy scolded.

“It’s fine,” Mateo said honestly. “That asshole can say whatever he wants about me. What other god lets you get away with calling him an asshole?”

“That’s an enlightened way of looking at it.”

“I’m quite used to other people being in control of my life.” He decided that he wanted to change the subject. “How long does the reunion last?”

“Forever.” She waited a good moment before shaking her head. “No, people will start fading away pretty soon. It lasts as long as we stay alive.”

“Wait, you’re all dying?”

“Yeah, I called it the Last Dream, remember? These are our collective dying moments. We wanted to be together once, but...no more than that. We led our own lives, across centuries, and throughout the bulkverse. Most bloodlines don’t even get this.”

She was right. They started disappearing little by little. Those remaining did not frown, but let tears roll down to their smiles. And then they too disappeared, along with all the rest, until Sandy was the only one left. Oh, and that other guy.

“I hope you find your way out of here,” she said. “If you’re not dying, I really don’t know.” She did kind of frown, and then she disappeared.

Only now did the possessor stand up. He looked around, and while Mateo could still not see a face, he was somehow exuding a deep sadness. Mateo approached cautiously, growing worried he would recognize the guy from somewhere else, and it would shake him to his core. Or maybe the darkness in his soul was hiding everything about him except for the sadness, and the form of his face didn’t really matter. Mateo took a calculated breath, and let some time pass. They just stared at each other for another eternal second. “I forgive you.” The man said nothing, and then he died.

Mateo woke up in a bed, having spent an unknown amount of time in the void. The lights didn’t just blink away. They faded over time, as if also dying, until he was left alone in the remote darkness. His return to the world was a welcome relief.

Leona was beside him. It was nice to know that whatever his body looked like while he was gone, that it didn’t worry her. She sensed his alertness. “You’re back. Oh my God, what happened?”

He told her the story.

“But you’re okay?”

“I’m all right. It was hard, watching all those people die, but I’m fine. Let’s not tell anyone else about this. It was kind of a dark and personal experience. I’m not traumatized, but I need to carry it with me, and I don’t want help.”

“They’ll understand,” Leona agreed.

“These Ochivari,” Mateo began. “They’re going to become a problem in the future.”

“Angela said that our universe was safe, that we stop negatively impacting our environment, and they choose to leave us alone.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

“When I was in the void, I had a sort of special connection to the Superintendent. I couldn’t read his thoughts, or hear his narration, but I did kind of get a sense of the oncoming story. I can still kind of feel him. We have a lot of work to do in our universe, that much was clear, but...there was something else.”

“Something, like what?”

Mateo was trying to recall the feeling that the Superintendent was likely attempting to hide from him. “The Ochivari might not come back to destroy our universe, but I think we’re gonna fight in the war anyway. It won’t be tomorrow, but that train that keeps showing up and recruiting people? One day, I think we’re gonna get on that train. I think it’s just not our time yet. They conscript fighters, and we’re not that now, but we might become that over time. Hell, the Superintendent may even be preparing us for it.”

Leona nodded solemnly. “Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Little did they know how right she was about that bridge.

“What was that you said?”

Don’t worry about it.

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