The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Thursday, July 30, 2145

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Lowell disappeared shortly after the reception, and it wasn’t clear whether body jumper, Dalton went with him, or if he moved on to someone else’s body. Aura, and the rest of the people who Arcadia had already removed from the timestream, secretly returned to the island resort in The Parallel. Speaking of Arcadia, she kept her distance for the rest of the event, evidently moved and frightened by Leona’s words. They would never call her a true friend, but they developed some kind of understanding with at least two future versions of her, so perhaps this was the start of that. The transition team walked back towards the Nexus. Nerakali sent them through their own window behind the scenes, and directed them to once again return to Earth.

The next year, they had a new transition, this time in what those in the main sequence would call Croatia. “Look at the z-axis,” Jeremy pointed out once they were nearly there. “We have to get up six hundred and forty-five meters.”

Mateo looked around at the wilderness. “This must be where one of the arcologies is in the main sequence. They’re on an upper floor.”

“Two-sixteenth,” Leona clarified. She pulled out a handheld device, and started working on something without telling anyone exactly what. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Xearea.” That was when they couldn’t find the right room number in a hospital in time, and Mateo ended up falling to one of his deaths.

“Whatever you’re getting,” Aeolia began, “do we have time?”

Leona glanced at her cuff. “Yeah, it shouldn’t be too long now.”

She was right. They waited a few minutes, before a cuboid flew down, and landed on the grass before then. A man was waiting for them inside with a polite smile, and a bellhop uniform. “Going up?”

“Yes, please,” Leona said. She placed her device against the console, and beamed over the exact coordinates. The freestyle elevator started flying back up.

“For a civilization that’s not allowed to help us,” Bran started, “they sure do help us a lot.”

“What’s that?” The elevator operator asked.

“Nothing,” Bran answered. “Can he see me?” he questioned the group.

“He’s a bot,” Leona answered. “Their memories are different, so they can hold on longer, but he will forget as well. I’ve already tested it.”

The elevator stopped. “Two one six,” the bot announced.

“Hold this pattern for the next ten minutes,” Leona requested.

The bot nodded, and froze in place, presumably in standby mode.

Six minutes later, the transition window opened up, and deposited two people in lab coats. The man looked around a moment, then headed for the window. “What is this? Did it suddenly start working?”

The woman fiddled with her tablet. “What program is this? We never initiated anything. Computer, end simulation. Where’s the arch?”

Mateo stepped forward. “Greetings. You are not in a simulation. This is reality...just a different reality.”

They both narrowed their eyes, and sized him up. The woman pulled at his collar, and let it snap back to his neck. “What is your directive?”

“I am here to help,” Mateo answered. It was probably going to take them a long time to believe that this was all real—that they were real—and it wasn’t just a virtual construct. “My name is Mateo Matic. I hail from your reality, but am currently living in this one. It’s called The Parallel, and it is our responsibility to protect you from something that might have happened in your future. We are not aware what that might be, but if you are here, you belong here, and we will not return you until we’ve fixed whatever was going to go wrong.” Wow, that was a mess of an explanation. Somebody should write up a binder like customer representatives have to help them navigate calls.

The woman went over to Angela, and pressed on her nose, like she wasn’t sure whether it was a button, or stationary. “Boop!” Angela joked as she did it.

“Computer, freeze simulation,” the man commanded.

Mateo, Leona, Jeremy, and Angela tried to be as still as possible. They were all thinking the same thing, and had the same idea of how to approach these people. After about twenty seconds, Mateo broke free. “Just kidding, we are real. This is not a simulation, as I said. You have been transported to another reality.” He looked over at Leona. “How could we convince them?”

Leona lifted up her device, but acted like that wasn’t going to help. “I have no way of knowing for sure what level of detail they expect from the simulation in this time period. I suppose we have to show them something so detailed and comprehensive that it would be impossible for their technology to render with its current processing power. They do not believe that this is VR. They believe that it is a physical sim...like a holodeck.”

“State your names, please,” Mateo asked of them.

“Let’s just humor the program,” the woman told her partner. “It may be our only way to end it. My name is Miapaktem Ibuka. This is my colleague, Padera Vortex.”

“The Ibuka Vortex,” Aeolia said. “We’ve heard of that.”

“As have I,” Leona said. “They pioneer physical sim technology. Twenty years from now.”

“Why are physical sims important if you have virtual reality?” Angela questioned. She had just spent centuries in an afterlife simulation, so she had more experience with this than anyone.

“VR is great,” Miapaktem said to her. “You can do anything inside of a construct, yet it still has its limitations.”

“Muscle memory,” Padera continued. “We’ve found that learning through totally virtual environments is great for academic studies, but skills are difficult to reapply to the real world. Physical simulations allow you to get the feel for how something works.”

“In a controlled and safe, but still tangible, environment.” Miapaktem finished.

The elevator operator broke out of standby mode, and didn’t miss a beat. “Traveling to Corvenala Ecumenopolis.” He directed the cuboid back down to the surface, but at a diagonal, so they could land next to the nearest Nexus.

“That sounds perfect,” Leona said. “Come with us,” she asked Miapaktem and Padera. “We’ll show you a world too complex for your computer to have accidentally simulated.”

Seeing no danger in going with these non-playable characters, the two technology pioneers shrugged, and went with them through the Nexus, to a world on the other side of the galaxy.

“While most of Earth in this reality was left to wilderness,” Leona began to narrate using the information she found on her device, “Corvenala was completely industrialized. Don’t worry, they didn’t destroy life to make it. Planets near the supermassive stellar collapse are often too hostile for life, but planets that form on the outer edges of the Milky Way are generally fairly smooth, and experience low volcanic activity. Nothing really changes, so nothing really grows. It’s called an Ecumenopolis, because it is completely covered in a gargantuan city. We’ll probably never do it in our reality, but the population boom in this one makes it a viable option. Quadrillions of entities likely live here, and still experience no shortage of space.”

They left the Nexus building, and walked out into the super megacity. Leona went on, “There’s no way your early developments are capable of rendering these structures, on this scale. It would even be hard to render in VR. Step up here.”

They all stepped onto a teleportation platform, which transported them to another part of the city. They could have been thousands of miles away now. It was just as elaborate and insanely large as the last location, but definitely not just a copy. Leona immediately jumped them to another section. Same thing, but clearly different. The more parts of the city she showed them, the more the two scientists were convinced that their tech was nowhere near good enough to make a simulation that looked like this. After five jumps, they were done. “Okay,” Miapaktem said. “It would be hard to claim that what you say is a lie, if not a dream. Why are we here?”

The group was silent. “We don’t know,” Mateo answered for them.

“We were assigned to welcome you, but we weren’t told what we can do for you.”

“We never are,” Angela said.

“Usually it’s pretty obvious, though,” Jeremy said. “I mean, sometimes we literally have to save someone’s life, but we often know the people who come through, and we know what they’re supposed to be doing. We don’t really know you.”

“It no doubt has to do with their research,” Leona suggested. “We’re either here to stop them from creating it, or help them create it.”

“Any reason why the timeline would be better off without physical sims?” Mateo asked his wife.

“Not that I can think of,” Leona answered. “We can certainly help them further their advancements. Hell, we could expedite the process by ten years, if not faster. The Parallel natives surely cracked this tech millennia ago.”

“Why are they more advanced than us?” Padera questioned. “I understand the concept of a parallel reality. What was the point of divergence?”

“The moment it changed is irrelevant,” Jeremy explained. “Unregulated time travelers came here, defeated death long ago, and deliberately shielded its people from the growing pains our race had to endure, such as war, and religion. They skipped over some technological milestones, like figuring out how to get a rocket out of Earth’s gravity well, and traveling to other stars without dying on the way. They proverbially invented the aerosol can before the wheel.”

As scientists, Miapaktem and Padera knew they had to be strong and rational. Though they had never heard of real time travel before, they had to accept it as a given, or the conversation would stall. “So...you’ll help us overcome our obstacles?” Padera asked. “Like those time travelers did for these people? You’ll just...give it to us?”

Leona leaned back against the guard rail. It probably wasn’t great that they were just hanging out on the teleporter pad, but...other travelers would just be rerouted somewhere close. “It’s not really ours to give. I mean, we can mediate a deal, but... I dunno, are we even allowed to? Nerakali doesn’t know everything, perhaps this is a huge mistake, and she shouldn’t be asking this of us.”

Now that they were out from under the thumb of the powers that be, things were different. Though Nerakali was a choosing one, she wasn’t forcing them to do anything, but giving them opportunities. They grew quite used to ignoring temporal ethics while they weren’t in control of their own actions, but now it was up to them to decide. Was it right to let the team adapt this advanced technology to their own world? What did the Prime Directive say? Well, it would say that they violated the code already, and they should do everything they could to prevent further damage. The main sequence should be developing at its own pace, with no interference, and even coming here, and learning this world existed, was a problem.

“We need an ethicist,” Angela said.

“I don’t think they have those here,” Leona negated. “They kind of do whatever they want, because no consequence is too massive to walk past. Even if people die from a mistake, they can just come back to life.”

Miapaktem and Padera regarded each other, and had a conversation with their eyebrows. “We don’t want it,” Miapaktem finally said.

“Really?”

“That solves that ethical dilemma,” Bran noted.

“If you have a choice,” Padera agreed, “then we have a choice, and we choose to continue on as we are. It would be too easy to roll down this slippery slope. We’ll take physical sim tech, but then it’ll make us realize we want a way to extrapolate the safeguards to the real world. And then we’ll want to defeat death in whatever way these people have. Then we’ll want planetary teleportation, and then interstellar. We’ll never stop wanting more, and that will be problematic whether there’s some way to get back here to actually ask for all those things, or not.”

“Was this some kind of test?” Miapaktem asked them. “Are you some ascended alien race, trying to figure out if our species is worthy of joining you in a higher plane of existence?”

Leona took a breath. “If that were what was going on here, it would be the dumbest thing to ever happen to the human race. And what would give you the right to be responsible for the fate of literally everyone else?”

“Agreed,” Miapaktem said. “I am relieved.”

The Cassidy cuffs beeped. “It’s a transition window,” Mateo said. “Nerakali has been listening, and now knows that it’s over. You shall return to your lives.”

“Will we be here on Corvenala? Can we even survive on this world in our reality?”

“No, we’ll take you back to Earth,” Leona assured them.

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Big Papa: Day Zero (Part II)

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I have the ability to teleport sound waves and brain waves. I can’t read people’s minds, but I can transfer a consciousness from one substrate to another. Is there something that connects these two kinds of waves? Are they just two sides of the same coin? I don’t know, that sounds crazy, so maybe I just have two completely unrelated time powers. I choose not to question it beyond those two possibilities. I’ve been developing my powers for millennia, and long ago, I figured out that I can listen in on a conversation that happened in the past, or even the future. I have to be careful not to step on any butterflies when I do this, and I generally don’t like to invade people’s privacy, but it has proven to be incredibly useful on many occasions. I have to find out what became of my friends after I left them sixteen years ago, and this is safer to the timeline than if I just went back to that moment, and interfered with them directly.

When Lowell was resurrected into a clone body, Tamerlane Pryce removed his power. He was born with the ability to see other people’s sins. He became a murtherous vigilante because of this, so being rid of it was actually a welcome relief. That’s not what I ever wanted for myself, so fortunately, Pryce didn’t remove what I could do. He’s not the worst person in the world, and if I can find a way to work with a serial killer, it’s not crazy to think that Pryce and I could come to some kind of agreement. I don’t want to kick him out of his job, but things have to change about the afterlife simulation, and I know he won’t do it on his own. No one—however noble they think they are—deserves to be solely responsible for over a hundred billion people.

I reach into the past, and even before I find the conversation I’m looking to eavesdrop on, I can tell that my powers are safe. This is the first time I tried them after being resurrected, so even though I could feel that they were still here, I couldn’t know for sure. It’s a great relief. I scour what I call the soundstream, and navigate all the way to Tribulation Island, in The Parallel reality, on July 3, 2218. You might think it’s weird that I can access a parallel reality, but it’s no further removed from my present-day than any other moment in time. The only reason I’ve never done it before is because I wasn’t aware that it existed until recently.

I’ve found them. Trinity, Abigail, and Thor are exactly where I left them. Though Past!Me is gone, they’re still discussing plans for our new afterlife sim. They plan on catching me up when I return. “...ethics. This will disrupt everyone’s perception of the divine.” Trinity, always the pragmatist.

“Everyone knows that their religion could be wrong,” Abigail argues. “At least, everyone reasonable knows this. Anyone who didn’t so much as consider the possibility will just have to figure it out. We will tell them the truth, and they’ll accept it eventually.”

“We’ll tell them our truth,” Thor reminds her. “We’ll tell them what we’ve decided to do with them.”

“Sure, yeah,” Abigail agrees.

Like I said, I’ve been perfecting my abilities for a really long time now. It started out small. I discovered I could act as a walking surround sound speaker system, and carry my voice to huge crowds without the need for technology. My strength grew over time, and I could always get better, hear further...but at a certain point, I reached a kind plateau. I can’t hear beyond the bounds of the observable universe, and I can’t see what I’m hearing. Light waves, or whatever, are not the same thing as sound, or even consciousness. I have never been able to see remotely. Until now. Either Pryce altered me somehow, or I was always destined to evolve. Little by little, my friends come into focus visually. At first, I just get the sense of how they’re moving their mouths, and then I can detect the silhouette of their mouths, which slowly begins to extend to the rest of their bodies. And then I see the world around them, which fills in gradually, until the picture becomes as clear as it would be if I were truly there. This is the second biggest leap in my abilities I’ve ever experienced, and I’m floored. I’m teleporting light, that’s insane.

Thor stops the conversation. “Do you see that?”

“What?” Abigail asks.

“Over there,” he clarifies, pointing the direction that I would be if I were really there.

“I see nothing,” Trinity says.

“I do,” Abigail confirms. She and Thor were also transferred to new bodies, but not because they died. Abigail’s father has always been obsessed with surviving past death, and was tinkering with consciousness transference since long before we came up with the afterlife sim. The two of them are the result of what was probably his last experiment before going full God mode. He must have given them extremely enhanced vision.

I adjust the angle at which I’m spying on them, like an invisible drone flying a few meters away. Except I’m not invisible. Thor and Abigail both turn their heads to keep an eye on me. If they could see me straight up, they would greet me, but they can clearly only tell that something is over there, watching them, but they can’t tell what. Before they freak out, I decide I have to explain what’s going on. “It’s me,” I say to the past.

Trinity tilts her lizard brain. “Ellie?”

“Yeah, sorry, guys, I’m watching you from the future.”

“How are you watching us?” Trinity questions. “Did you contact The Screener.”

The Screener, whose real name is Sanela Matic, has a similar ability, though by slipping into an observation dimension, and she enjoys no control over it. She’s salmon, which means the mysterious powers that be decide what she sees, and who she shows it to. “No, I guess I’ve been...upgraded. I can see remotely now.”

Trinity looks behind her, in the general direction of the nearest other island on this planet, Tribulation Island. “When are you from? A version of you just left to help save Vearden Haywood’s life.”

“We did that,” I respond. “A lot has happened since then. I know what becomes of our idea.”

“Well, don’t tell us,” Abigail warns. “You’ll throw off the timeline.”

“There are things I need to know about what you went through after I left,” I explain to them. “We don’t see each other until now, and I need to know where you go.”

“We don’t plan on going anywhere,” Trinity says. “If we leave, it is an unplanned trip.”

Just then, we hear a rustling in the bushes. It could be some kind of alien rabbit, or a person, and if it’s a person, it could be an ally, or an enemy. They stop talking, but don’t approach. They just wait patiently. Finally, a figure appears. It’s me. It’s some other version of me. This Other!Ellie wipes leaves off of her arms, and scrapes burrs out of her hair. She still looks like a mess. “Okay, sorry I’m late.”

Thor and Abigail stare at her, and then turn their heads to where my signal is coming from. “What year are you from?” Abigail asks.

Other!Ellie squints her eyes in suspicion. “I don’t remember. I think Pryce did something to me.”

“That’s not me,” I warn the group. “I don’t know who that is, but I don’t talk like that. That is not me.”

“No, I’m me,” Faux!Ellie contends. “You’re not you.”

I didn’t say what I said to her. I only said it to my three friends. She should not have been able to hear my warning. “Get out of there now.”

Faux!Ellie smirks, and removes what looks like an ancient tape recorder from her pocket. “Captain’s log, Day Zero. Now that I’m back with my group, we can finally get to work. We’re gonna build this afterlife together, and it shall be glorious.”

“Run!” I warn again.

“What’s more believable?” Faux!Ellie asks. “That I went off to save Vearden, and then came right back to you only moments later, like a normal time traveler? Or that I’m talking to you from the future, acting like I can see you, which is an ability that I’ve never exhibited before, and I’m asking you to not trust the Ellie that’s standing right in front of your eyes?”

“Pryce has the ability to transfer his mind to other substrates,” Thor reasons. “This technology was always at risk of leading to impersonations. Most people probably wouldn’t think to use it in a post-scarcity society, but he’s a sociopath.”

“Psychopath, thank you very much,” Faux!Ellie says. “Uhh...I mean, that’s what he told me once.”

“Well, that seals it,” Thor decides. He reaches into his bag, and removes a gun.

“No, wait!” Faux!Ellie cries. “You can’t really ever know for sure.”

“The real Ellie is eleven thousand years old,” Thor says calmly. “That’s long enough, I imagine. It’s worth the risk.” He shoots her in the head.

“That was my father,” Abigail assures him. “I can always tell.”

“That was the right call,” Trinity agrees.

“He’s not dead,” I remind them. “He’ll always have an extra body lying around. He’s planned for every eventuality.”

“But he’s no longer among us,” Trinity replies. “We won’t ever talk about this beyond this group of three, and we won’t ever let each other out of our sight.”

“Three?” I question.

“I’m sorry, Ellie. You’re out.” Trinity looks sad, but determined. “We can’t trust anyone now. We’ll be sure to give you the credit you’re owed.”

“No, you don’t understand. He co—” I have to warn them that Pryce takes over. I still don’t know how he does it, but he does. At some point.

Trinity knows the risk of messing with the timeline. “I don’t wanna hear it. This is what we’re doing. Please kindly never eavesdrop on us again.” She takes out her device, which allows her to travel through photographs. “Keep watching whatever it is that allows you to know where this supposed Ellie is,” she tells Abigail and Thor. “I don’t want her seeing where we’re going.”

“Please, don’t do this,” I beg of them.

“Goodbye, old friend.”

The three of them take a look at the photo they won’t let me see, and disappear into it. I still have no idea how Pryce finds them, but there’s nothing I can do to change things. Not only could that ruin everything about the timeline, but my friends will never trust me again. They’ll never trust anyone. I exhale, and come back to the present.

“I could only hear your end of the conversation,” Lowell tells me. “But it didn’t sound good.”

“It is...the inevitable,” I reply cryptically. “Time travel aside, all we can do is move on. I will plead my case without their help.”

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Microstory 1575: Fresh New Life

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Prompt

It’s time for me to leave this place, without telling anyone where I’m going, or even that I’m going. It’s for my family’s benefit if I just sneak away, and start fresh with a new life somewhere else.

Botner

I don’t want anyone to know what’s happened or why I’m leaving. Just leave quietly, under the cover of night, just like we always did in the old days when things were quieter. But I know that will never happen. I’m just one of the lucky ones. Yesterday, I gave my two weeks’ notice at work. Two weeks. As in, I’m leaving after two weeks. Just like that. And I was going to leave it there, but the truth of it is that I have nothing else to say about it. My mind is blank, and the thoughts that have been swirling around in there since I decided to leave, now seem to have no connections to each other or the outside world. I can’t think of what to do next, or how to move forward. I feel adrift, rudderless. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t think it was even possible. When I was working at my old job, I was the king of my domain, working late hours every single day, dealing with my job and then coming home and being the king of my domain, too. Sometimes, I felt like there was no...

Conclusion

..escape, because I had so many responsibilities. I now realize that the only thing holding me back from the life I want was always myself. I thought that my father needed me after his second wife died, but that was two years ago, and he’s already found himself someone new. I thought my brother needed help with the baby, but they have a nanny, and I’m just the fun uncle. I have to go, and find out who I am when I’m not defined by the people I grew up with. Everything is packed, everyone is asleep, and I’m ready to go. I carefully carry my heavy suitcase down the stairs, careful to not make any noise. I drop it once, but don’t hear any movement from upstairs, so I’m still safe. I get to my front door—well, I suppose it’s not mine anymore, is it?—and swing the suitcase over to get through first. It nearly collides with someone standing on the porch. She looks scared, as if this were her house, and I was the one intruding. I just stare at her a moment, not knowing what she could possibly be doing here so late at night. Selling cookies? It takes me a long time to realize that I recognize her. She was a temp at work that I spent the night with a few months ago. I thought we had an understanding, that it was a one time thing. I don’t even ask her how she found me, or what she’s doing here. If she wants to talk to me, she can speak first, so I just wait patiently. Finally, she works up the courage. “I’m pregnant.” Well...I did ask for a fresh new life, didn’t I?

Microstory 1574: Nap

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Prompt

I just woke up from a very unfulfilling nap where I dreamt that...

Botner

I think I had a dream once that my future husband and I were in our bedroom talking. We were talking about what a close relationship he wants to have with his parents. I remember talking about how he needs to talk to them before he tells them about our relationship. The problem is, they are moving and they are leaving the state before he can tell them, or they are moving to another country. He left to go talk to them and I got mad because I was supposed to tell them before they moved. I went to go talk to them and found that they had moved and I wasn’t invited to the wedding. My fiancé was there though. He was not at the wedding. I was so mad. I looked over at my fiancé and he had tears in his eyes. I felt bad. Then I woke up. I am always very, very glad that I am not still in that relationship. When I had this dream, I always thought, man, maybe I’m about to have a really bad life. I’ve recently gotten into reading the Harry Potter books. And I think I’m in the...

Conclusion

...minority here, because everyone else has already read them, and they managed to do it before all the news broke about the author’s transphobia. I’m in the middle of the third one, and I don’t know if I should keep going. It’s one thing for an actor or filmmaker to be cancelled. You can still enjoy their work, because it’s not just their work. A lot of people worked very hard to make that, and why should they suffer because this one person screams at young women, or does worse to them? This is different. She’s the only person who made these books, and I feel committed to them, but I also feel dirty. The nap was meant to make me feel better, but I only feel worse now, because the doorbell rang in the middle of a cycle, or something, and my heart is racing. I can’t even remember what happened in the dream, and it was only moments ago. That’s why I started talking about an old dream. Though, maybe it’s more relevant to my anxiety than the recent one was. People around me were making decisions, and they weren’t asking for my input, or even warning me about them. That’s kind of how I feel about cancel culture. So much of it is happening too fast that I don’t have time to really dig deep, and find out what happened. I’m just supposed to accept that we don’t like this person anymore, and not ask questions. The author thing is a pretty easy answer, but they’re not all like that, I just don’t know. I guess that’s what the dream was trying to teach me, that I have to slow down, and make time for the facts, or I’ll make bad decisions, and piss off everyone else.

Microstory 1573: Party of a Lifetime

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Prompt

Last night, I tried to have a few people over to watch the season finale, but more people showed up than I expected, and things got way out of hand.

Botner

I wasn’t prepared for that kind of party. I had food, of course, but no hostess gift, no place to put people, and no clue as to what to expect. The shower gifts in particular were way too much: three washers and dryers, six cell phones, two electric grills, and all sorts of other things. I was scrambling around at the end to get the whole thing wrapped and ready to go before 10:00 PM (when the new episodes of House start!). I have no idea who all came. I’m sure most of my current neighbors, and the ones I invited. In fact, there are four people who are sure to come. I have no clue as to who else was invited. At least, I didn’t think so until after I had left. Maybe those four won’t show up. Maybe they weren’t invited. Maybe they don’t know that there’s a party! I’m going to hope that my neighbors will be polite enough to give me a day or two to have a good, clean-up party before they show up for dinner. There’s something about riding along on the big tractor that is so relaxing. It’s...

Conclusion

...not something I did as a child, even though I grew up on a farm. My father didn’t want me to work in the fields. He always said he worked so hard so he could send me to college, where I would presumably figure out what I wanted to do with my own life. I chose to live in the city, and quickly earned enough money so that he could help him retire, and live nearby. He died a few years ago, and I miss him more than anything. I suppose that’s how the party ended up traveling to the farm, where I finally rode on the tractor. I wanted to honor him, and everyone who showed up for the party wanted that for me too. It was then that I discovered the confusion. I got so wrapped up in planning the event that I made an error on the invitations. I said it was for my finale, and didn’t even bother mentioning the show we would be watching. I still think people should have assumed that it was a show, but word somehow spread that I was dying, and this was my farewell. I dunno, that’s not what I would have thought if I were them. Or if I had, I would have tried to confirm it. I suppose a rumor will just take on a life of its own, and even when people question it, no one will be able to give them a decent answer. So I give all those gifts back, and thank them for their concern, while assuring them that I’m quite all right. Still, it was a nice evening, even if it had a strange reason for being, and I’ll remember it forever.

Microstory 1572: Honest Eyes

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Prompt

My car broke down in the middle of the road, and there was no cell service, so I tried to flag down another car, but the only person who answered was...

Botner

...you guessed it. Joe. He was driving a brand-new Mercedes, and the song on the radio was about partying until dawn. So we went to the Sunset. And that’s when I discovered the first little side effect. Joe isn’t normal. He’s supernaturally enhanced. I knew it at first sight when he was throwing back shots and hooking up with other girls. But I figured it out later; he’s got these—what do they call them—veins in his neck, and when he’s all strung out and drunk, his eyes go silver. You think they do that with meth addicts? I mean, it’s genetic, right? He knows everything about me, because, right after we met, he dug deep into my past, and I was too afraid to tell him my full name, or where I went to high school or if I ever drank vodka in my bedroom as a teenager. Instead, I told him that I grew up in Seattle, and that I was in college, studying journalism, working on a story about SeaTac, the airport outside of Seattle where most of the charter flights go. And then I told...

Conclusion

...him that I worked for a reputable newspaper, which contradicted what I said earlier about being a college student. So he caught me in a lie, but he was fine, he just told me I had to tell him the truth from now on. That’s his power. I don’t know if the first and only lie was what bound me to his demands, but I’ve been telling him every little thought that pops into my head ever since then. There are no secrets between us, at least not from my end. He claims he tells me his own thoughts as well, but they could all be fabrications, or embellishments for all I know, because I’m not the one with a special ability. I’m ashamed to tell Joe that the reason my car broke down was, not because there’s something wrong with it, but because I purposefully let it run out of gas. I honestly don’t know for sure why I did it. I imagine it’s self-sabotage, because I have a really important meeting with my boss tomorrow and I can’t lie to her either. If I tell her I can’t make it because my car doesn’t work, my car has to actually not work. I remember one day in high school when I didn’t feel very well, but could have probably pushed through, and gone to my classes. I didn’t want to, though, so I blasted the air conditioning on what would turn out to be the coldest day of that winter, and then stuffed my face with doughnuts once I arrived. If I was feeling all right before, I sure as hell wasn’t now. Now I really did have to go home, and instead of being able to enjoy my day off, I retched every couple hours, and came this close to accidentally making my mom think I should go to the hospital. Joe says it’s okay...that’s it’s not a problem to lie to other people...that I’m just not allowed to lie to him. I couldn’t if I wanted to, I joke with him, and he responds by turning his eyes silver. “We are now equals,” he tells me, and I think he’s not wrong, because I can feel my own eyes change as well. They’re probably just as silver. “Now you can compel others to be honest. What are you gonna do with that?” I smile, and say, “I’m gonna spread it around. One day, the whole world shall tell the truth.” He smiles back, and then he drives us off to find our first convert.

Microstory 1571: Secret Compartment

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Prompt

I just found this secret compartment in my grandfather’s old oak desk, and inside it was...

Botner

...his driver’s license! He’s never been married, he’s in his 60s, and he’s been married to the same woman for 25 years! How crazy is that? I had a hard time believing that, but there you have it. Here’s the proof. I’ve had many girlfriends over the years, but never an old girlfriend. After my daughter was born last May, a friend of mine called to ask if I could watch her infant daughter for a few days. Of course, I said yes. Then I asked, “do you happen to have an old girlfriend around who can’t have the baby?” We had a blast. The baby and I spent a few nights and weekends together, but we got to see each other the rest of the time. What did we do, you ask? We shopped, we talked, we ate dinner, and we watched movies. We didn’t actually get to do any of those things the whole time, but what we did do was talk for hours and hours on end. It was nice to reconnect after all these years. When I got my first full-time job in 1998, I saved money and...

Conclusion

...was able to hire someone to help me get clean. I had never done drugs before, but the cleaner says the desk must have been lined with some kind of hallucinogenic, perhaps to stop anyone from accessing it. Now that I’m better, and the things I’m saying make any bit of goddamn sense, and don’t contradict each other, I can get back to the driver’s license. At first, I don’t think there’s anything interesting about it, because I saw his current one in his effects after he died. Little by little, I start to notice discrepancies. Firstly, it claims that his birthdate was last year, and that his license won’t be issued until decades from now. That cannot be right, of course. Is there a smudge on the card? I try to wipe it off, then find myself a magnifying glass. No, it says 2020, which is absolutely bizarre. His home address is weird as well. It says he lives—or will live, as it were—at my friend’s house, the one with the infant daughter I just babysat. Only then do I notice the name. The baby’s name is Indra, and my grandfather’s was Darin. Those are anagrams of each other, which is not something I would have realized until seeing it here on the license, paired with the wrong surname. My grandfather was a time traveler. That’s the only explanation. He’ll grow up in the wrong body, undergo gender reassignment surgery, and then at some point, go back to the past, and become my mother’s father. I don’t know why, and I definitely don’t know how, but I know I have to do whatever I can to protect that baby...or I’ll never even exist.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 29, 2144

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Shortly after they woke up in 2144, their cuffs beeped, indicating that they had a transition window to get to. It was weird, getting back to this kind of mission. This was what they were meant to be doing, but they had just spent so much time on tangents that they had almost forgotten about it. The map was directing them back to Tribulation Island, so they requested Nexus transport, and headed off.

At the resort, they only found one person. The rest had been returned to the main sequence for Mateo and Leona’s wedding. “Mom!” Mateo shouted. He knew this version of her was not exactly his mother, but he didn’t care. He had to hug her. It had been so long since he had seen her. She was surprised at his shock, and not quite as shocked herself, for she had no memory of him as her son, and had only not seen him for a few years. That was nothing in time traveler time.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, graciously hugging him back.

The window opens up over there in a half hour,” Leona said, pointing. “It’s outgoing.”

Mateo looked at Leona, and then the direction of the window, then at his once-mother, and finally back to Leona. “Nerakali is letting her go to our wedding.”

“You’re getting married?” Aura was shocked at this.

“We already did,” Mateo answered. “This is the past for us. We didn’t know you were there, but...you must have been disguised the whole time.”

Bran stepped forward. “Or invisible.”

“We’ve never tried to borrow your...power?” Leona wasn’t sure whether it was a power, or a time affliction.

“We call it a condition,” Aeolia clarified. “It depends on how you look at it, and how you use it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Aura questioned.

Leona reached into her bag, and retrieved one of the extra Cassidy cuffs. She handed it to her never-mother-in-law. If this works, you could be standing right in front of someone, and they will not be able to see you. Or rather, they will, but they’ll forget you so fast, that it will be like you’re not there at all.”

“Oh, interesting.” Aura put the cuff on without need for further discussion.

“They have to teach us how to do it,” Angela pointed out. “We have about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Bran said. “Shouldn’t be too hard since...it happens for us automatically, and we have no control over it, and we’ve never learned anything about it.”

They asked for help from the Nexus technician who greeted them here. They needed someone who wasn’t wearing the cuffs, so they would know when their borrowing of Bran and Aeolia’s condition was working. It took them nearly the whole time they had to get it right, but just in time, the technician stopped acknowledging their presence, and walked off to get back to work, having forgotten why he had left his post in the first place. They each tried to get his attention, but nothing. Jeremy commanded him to walk the rest of the way on all fours, which he complied with, though he didn’t know why. Now that they were right invisible, for all intents and purposes, they ran back to where the map was leading them, and jumped through the transition window together.

They were standing exactly where they were before on the island, but now in the main sequence of realities. To their right, people were walking into the head of the trail that would lead them to the Colosseum replica, where the ceremony would be held. To their left, things were weird. People were waiting in line for their turn at a booth, where someone was handing out hooded robes, but that wasn’t the weird part. They were already obscured, as if they were paintings, and someone had carelessly wiped their faces off with the charcoal. When the person at the front of the line received their robe, and started putting it on, their face was briefly visible until the hood was all the way over their head.

“Don’t look at them,” Leona ordered. “There’s a reason we’re not meant to see who they are, and that reason is probably similar to ours.”

“Well, you don’t need that,” Aeolia said, glad to be contributing to the group.

“We should get them anyway,” Jeremy determined. “What if a cuff runs out of battery, or someone can break through, and takes it off of us. It’s not worth the risk. Better to be redundant than sorry.”

“Good idea, let’s get our own,” Leona said.

They waited in line for a fairly long time. Whenever someone else got in it, they weren’t able to even detect that the seven of them were standing there, so they cut in every time. That was fine, and probably for the best, as this was just for extra protection, and if there weren’t enough robes for everyone, they should wait to be last anyway. As it turned out, they were totally right about that. Only one robe was left after everyone had gone through it, and the booth operator was preparing to close up.

“You take it,” Mateo said to Aura. “If Arcadia catches you, she’ll be pissed, and possibly violent. The rest of us are okay, even Leona.”

“No,” the man at the booth said. “This is for Leona.”

“Wait, you can see us?” Bran asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. “Though not for long. I too flipped the retgone coin, but mine landed on tails. I remember no past, and have no future. All I know right now is that I flipped a coin...and that I’m supposed to hand these things out to those who need them.” He lifted up the last robe, and presented it to Leona. “And that this one belongs to you. I don’t know why I know this, I just know it. Please take it before I forget why I’m here.”

Leona took the robe, and started putting it on. The man with no memory blinked, and looked confused. He didn’t seem to be able to see them anymore. He just left the booth, and wandered off.

“That’s why you don’t flip the coin,” Bran warned. “You might think it sounds awful not being able to be seen by others, but it’s so much worse being alive with no ability to form memories.”

“Come on,” Mateo said. “Let’s go to our wedding for the third time.”

They followed the trail to the Colosseum replica. Pretty much everyone else had found their seats. Most of them were dropped off closer than the beach. Jeremy noticed someone in the crowd. It was the man who saved him as a baby, Lowell Benton. “I would much like to talk to him, if I could. We didn’t get a chance before. I guess I should say, we didn’t take our chance.”

“He looks very confused,” Leona said. “I’ll drop my invisibility for him, and lead him away from the crowd. I don’t actually need to see the ceremony again.”

“I need to,” Aura said.

“Yes,” Mateo said. “You, Bran, Aeolia, and Angela can go find seats. The rest of us will talk to Lowell. We’ll meet back up later.”

“I love you, Mateo,” Aura said. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”

“I love you too, mom.”

They hugged again, then went their separate ways. Leona figured out how to make Lowell remember her, but kept her robe on, so no one would recognize her. Bran and Aeolia’s condition was an all or nothing kind of thing. They couldn’t control who remembered them, and when. Leona had some control over it because it wasn’t really her condition at all. This was probably why she had to wear the robe, instead of Aura, who had never met Lowell before. She took him aside, and found an isolated part underneath the Colosseum. Mateo recognized it from way back in 2079, when he was forced to watch a bunch of strangers kill each other. This was the room where The Cleanser kept them before the slaughter. That was in an alternate reality, though, and never technically happened, so all those people lived to eventually become his friends. There were surely around her somewhere.

Now that they were safely alone, Leona lifted her hood. “Don’t worry, I’m an alternate version. The Leona who’s supposed to get married has no idea I’m here, and won’t become me for a while. You and I have already met.”

“Right,” Lowell said, but he didn’t look like he believed it.

“We have already met, right?” Leona asked. “I mean, you shouldn’t have received an invitation unless we knew each other. No one here is a stranger, even if we haven’t met them according to our respective personal timelines.”

“Yeah, of course, we know each other. Lona.”

“Who the hell are you?” Leona questioned. “You’re not Lowell.”

The person pretending to be Lowell exhaled sharply. “No, I’m not. Sorry. My name is Dalton Hawk. I am salmon, and I am not possessing your friend on purpose.”

“Okay...” Leona started to say. “So you don’t recognize any of us?”

“Any of who?”

Mateo and Jeremy temporarily deactivated their Cassidy cuffs, placing them on a timer for thirty minutes.

“Uh, no. Sorry, don’t know you. Can you turn invisible?”

“Sort of. We don’t know a Dalton either,” Mateo said. He looked over at Jeremy, who was disappointed about not being able to meet the real Lowell.

“I do.” Arcadia was walking down the ramp. She placed one hand on her hip, and the other on her forehead. “Once I ran into you after the ceremony, which is about to start, I decided to go back in time, and find out if there are any more of you. It turns out, there are. There are four versions of Mateo here, and five of Leona!” She side-eyed Jeremy. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve only seen one of you, so congratulations on that, I guess. Why do you keep coming back to your own goddamn wedding! You’re only supposed to do it once!”

“Wait, did you say there are five of me?” The version of Leona here was only the third one. And why was Mateo not with her for one of the other two times?

“I don’t care which version of you you are! I just need you to get the fuck out here!” She made one step back towards the ramp, and pointed up to it. “Are you all the people in hoods? I haven’t checked them, because I respect their temporal privacy, but maybe I should!”

“I don’t know who the people in hoods are. Yeah, they could be other versions of us, but either way, you should continue to respect that privacy, because you, of all people, understands what happens when you mess with the timeline!” If there were going to be multiple versions of her, they could call this one Bold!Leona. “Your sister brought us here, and she’s more powerful than you! So you’re gonna let us be, and not make us do some extra challenge, or something, and you’re gonna get the fuck out of here! A lot has changed since we last saw each other, and we are not simpatico.” Presumably by summoning Nerakali’s abilities, Leona suddenly teleported a few meters forward, and promptly pushed Arcadia to her ass. “I’ve changed.”

A seething Arcadia got back up to her feet, and pressed her fist against her mouth. She blew into her palm, and disappeared, but not all at once. An afterimage of her middle finger lingered for a few seconds before fading away.

“Wow,” Jeremy said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

“Am I on the same side?” Dalton asked.

“You are now,” Leona said, taking him by the hand. “Turn your invisibility back on, and teleport to our team’s location. I’ll stay visible, and act as a link to the homines memorias.”

They landed in their seats just as the ceremony was starting. They watched it all yet again, and then afterwards, during the reception, they danced.

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