The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, December 7, 2275

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This wasn’t the first time that Mateo and Leona returned to the timestream to find their environment having changed dramatically. Mateo once broke his leg when the train he was on at midnight was no longer under his feet. Later, he and Leona woke up in a forest that experienced a devastating fire sometime during the year. Now on this planetesimal, in this hangar, their instinct was to venture out, and just figure out what was going on. Olimpia didn’t think that was such a great idea. “Computer, whisper mode.”

“Yes, can I help you?” the AI offered, but in a much quieter voice than she generally did.

“How did you get into this hangar? Is it where you landed?” Olimpia asked.

“I was transported here after landing,” the computer replied. “The outpost on this planetesimal was established five years ago.”

“Has anyone made any attempt to breach the hull of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” Olimpia continued.

“They have made attempts, but all have failed. They wanted to get in carefully, and without damaging anything.”

“Do you know what their hypothesis is regarding the nature of this ship?”

“I am not cognizant of that.”

“No one has been in here,” Olimpia stated to the group. “No one knows that this thing has been empty for the last five years, let alone that last nineteen, and that people have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They probably think it’s from an alien race, but they’re afraid to do anything to upset some kind of cosmic balance.”

“So, what should we do?” Leona asked. She was happy with not being the one to have to come up with all the solutions for a change.

Olimpia considered it for a moment. “Let’s just bail. Why go out there and introduce ourselves? We’re not here to meet them. They’re not supposed to be here at all. Our business is on Earth. Let’s teleport to maximum distance, and continue doing that until we reach our destination.”

“Leona, can you plot a course that avoids detection until we reach Earth?” Angela questions.

“I can’t, but the AOC herself can.”

“I don’t wanna, like, try to force anyone to agree with me,” Olimpia said, a little defensively. “This is just what I think we should do. Anyone else have any ideas? I mean, it’s entirely possible that the hangar was built for us, and the people out there have been waiting for our return, because they’ve known who we were the entire time.”

“If we were meant to go talk to them,” Mateo began, “then something would force us to do so. Like you said, let’s just bail.”

Everyone else seemed to agree as well, much to Olimpia’s relief. Though they had been friends for the last three years, she still felt a little bit like an outsider...like her opinion mattered less than the rest of the group. Of course that wasn’t true. Hopefully they would be able to convince her otherwise in time. For now, they needed to get out of here. Leona and the computer synthesized the present-day solar system. They accessed a detailed map, which told them where every outpost, every ship, every beacon was right now. Knowing this was going to allow them to teleport to blindspots, where no one would be able to detect their presence. They wouldn’t go full burst mode, because that endangered the integrity of the hull, but if they teleported fast enough, even if they accidentally got too close to a sensor, they would be gone before it could verify what it was seeing, and maybe mark it down as a technical error.

It took them most of the day, since the best route didn’t max out their teleporter range, and they couldn’t go through the manifold highway, so it wasn’t the fastest, but they made it back. They were now in the hangar where the Sharice Davids was once kept. At first, it didn’t seem like anyone was using it. Then four people came out of the shadows. No, they weren’t in the shadows, they were behind them. They appeared out of an illusion of a wall, but behind it was the past version of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ramses, Tracker, The Stitcher, and Flex. These were the four people Leona found to help them with their fight against Erlendr Preston. That was in an old reality, though, if they weren’t mistaken. Why were they here now?

“You’re not supposed to arrive until next year,” Leona said, looking at her watch. “We thought this place would be empty.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” a past version of Ramses said. “We’ve come here to meet you, and it seems we’re right on time.”

Leona shook her head. “We are future versions of your friends. If Past!Us are gonna show up today, then we have to get the hell out of here.”

“It’s okay,” Mateo tried to assure her. “I think I have this figured out. It’s a different reality. We don’t have to worry about a paradox. In fact, we should save them some trouble, if we can.”

“That’s dangerous, Mateo,” Leona warned.

Nerakali suddenly appeared with past versions of Mateo, Leona, and Jeremy.

“I think it’s kind of too late,” Future!Mateo said.

Nerakali took a step forward. She was surprised, but not shocked. “Report.”

Future!Mateo smiled, and looked over at his crew to make sure no one wanted to say anything for themselves. He decided to take charge of this situation. “First, let’s do introductions. Future!Jeremy Bearimy, Future!Leona Matic, Angela Walton, and Olimpia Sangster. Over on this side, we have my good friend, Ramses Abdulrashid. Next to him is Vidar Wolfe, Tonya Keyes, and Yadira Cordosa. Lastly, we have a younger version of Nerakali Preston. She is still alive, and it looks good on her.”

Nerakali rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her own smile. “Anything else?”

“We’re not just from the future,” Future!Mateo went on. “We’re from an alternate reality. Nothing you do will impact what has happened to us. What’s done is done. Fortunately for you, we went through the heartache for you. We can fix your Erlendr problem. Then once we do...” He hesitated.

“Once you do...” Past!Mateo pressed, “what?”

Future!Mateo sort of started focusing on his alternate self more. “This timeline ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

“You’re suggesting we assimilate with each other?” Past!Mateo presumed.

Future!Mateo shook his head. “We’ve made a lot of friends since 2275. I don’t know what you’ve been through, who you’ve met. I don’t even know when you and I diverged. But at some point, someone suggested to me that they could get me and Leona out of here. They could take us to a place where the powers that be, and the choosing ones, couldn’t get to us. They called it Havenverse.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“That dream is dead for us,” Future!Mateo revealed. “Leona, you agree?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona said, completely sincerely. She hadn’t thought about the prospect in a long time.

Future!Mateo continued, “I’ll get you there. I’ll reach out to someone I know who knows someone else, and we will find you a ride. Would you like that?”

“What are you gonna do?” Past!Mateo asked.

Future!Mateo chuckled once, and looked lovingly over at his wife. “This is our life now. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not anymore.”

She smiled back.

Past!Mateo and Past!Leona did the same with each other. “Can we do that?” the former questioned. “Can we just...bail?”

“I think we deserve that, don’t you?”

“I guess, I just...”

Before either of them could produce a definitive answer, a horn echoed throughout the facility. The Transit came flying across the room out of one portal, and into another. Just as before, it stopped. But that was 2276. What was it doing here a year early? Why was everyone a year early in this timeline? Saga didn’t come out this time. It was a man that no one recognized. That was another thing, no one was frozen in place this time around. Everyone was seeing this happen. The man cleared his throat while he was consulting his handheld device. “My name is Wyatt Bradley. I have been asked to come out here, and inform you that we are looking for Evaluator Nerakali Wilson.”

“Scroll up, buddy,” Nerakali said.

Wyatt swipes up on his device. “Oh, you’re right. Nerakali Preston. Sorry about that. I think Wilson’s already on the train.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet her,” the real Nerakali said excitedly.

“Can you even go?” Future!Mateo asked. “I mean...because...”

“I’m sure the universe will figure it out. I have been summoned.” She started to head for the ramp.

“Wait,” Future!Mateo said, prompting his friend to stop. “Can you take two more? Can you take them to a different universe, somewhere that’s outside of the war?” This would be easier than trying to communicate through Amber.

Another man appeared from the train car. “We do not rescue refugees. Are they fleeing oppression?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona claimed. The truth was too complicated to say whether she was lying or not.

“I’ll send word to The Strongbox. If they accept your application, then they’ll be here immediately after we leave. If not...then you’re out of luck. I don’t make those decisions. That’s for Thack to worry about.”

Nerakali tried to leave again, but Yadira said, “wait,” as well. “I was told to get on the train by someone who knows the future.”

“You’re already on it,” the unnamed man said.

“Oh.”

The man sighed. “I suppose you can’t have too many Flexes, can you? Come on.”

Yadira looked back to make sure everyone was cool with her decision, and their facial expressions showed that they were. Now both she and Nerakali started trying to make it up the ramp.

“Wait, I have to know what this is,” Vidar said.

“If you come, you have to fight. This is a war transport vessel, not a ferry.”

“I...have to know,” Vidar explained.

“Very well. Does anybody else want to come, besides the refugees?”

No one else seemed to want to, so finally, the three conscripts were able to start leaving. But there were two more delays. Before Vidar could make it past the threshold, he disappeared. He then started jogging up from behind the group. “Sorry, sorry. I just kind of had to...die first. But I’m resurrected, and back!” Having returned from the afterlife simulation, his loop was now closed, and his destiny was his own to do with it as he pleased. The same thing happened to Nerakali, whose death was also predetermined.

Once the doors were closed, the Transit left through its portal. A much, much smaller vessel appeared from its incoming portal, and stopped in the same place. A woman came out from it. “I hear we got some refugees?”

“Are we sure about this?” Past!Mateo asked. “This isn’t going to cause any problems for the timeline.”

“We’ll handle it,” Future!Mateo said honestly.

“Thank you,” the two of them said simultaneously. As they were boarding, the woman introduced herself as Rosalinda. They heard a scream, and the ship disappeared.

Mateo clapped his hands. “Gang’s all here. Let’s go take care of The Warrior.”

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Extremus: Year 1

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It’s launch day. The crew has been working towards this goal for the last fourteen years. It’s only an interim goal, though. Their final destination won’t be reached for another 216 years. Captain Halan Yenant won’t be alive to realize the dream, but he still wants to do it. He wants to push forward, and find a new home on the other side of the galaxy. People often ask him why he would attempt such a thing. It’s not particularly dangerous—at least not compared to what his parents went through to flee to this universe in the first place—but the rewards are impossible to know. What’s out there? Is there a planet hospitable to human life? Is it any better than what could be discovered in the stellar neighborhood, or maybe just a little further out? A hundred and fifty-thousand light years is a hell of a trip when you don’t know what you’re looking for, and don’t much care. They’re doing it because they can, and because they couldn’t do it before. Yenant’s ancestors lived in a tiny universe, populated primarily by white monsters who would rather see the humans dead. Now that they’re here, they have room to spread out, yet they’ve not done it. Every single one of the eleven billion refugees—and all their recently born descendants—still live in the Gatewood Collective. There are no terrestrial planets here. They orbit the host star in gargantuan centrifugal cylinders. They’re great; they have everything they could ever need, but they aren’t natural, and Halan never considered them to be his home.

When he was a boy, Halan was hanging out in his parents’ lounge when a man walked in with an interesting idea. A friend of his thought it might be cool to send a spaceship from here, to the outer edge of the outer ring of the Milky Way galaxy. Of course, there are plenty of stars beyond this imaginary border, but if they were going to do this, they ought to place the destination somewhere. The man, who named himself Omega, was a clone of an engineer. Omega was created to be responsible for a modular spacecraft destined to connect every star system in the galaxy. He had abandoned his post, but was seemingly trying to make up for it. He thought Project Extremus sounded nice, but the two people in charge of the solar system scrapped it, believing it to be too outrageous, and possibly unethical. Halan knew better, so he dedicated his life to learning everything he could about space travel, so he could one day fulfill the hypothetical mission. He never thought he would be leading it, though. He couldn’t do it on his own, and plenty of other people thought it was a nice idea too. He was chosen to be the ship’s first captain, and he is planning to honor that by being the absolute best possible.

Most of the people going on this journey with him have already been living on the ship. It’s just as comfortable and spacious as their original homes, so they figured there was no point in waiting. Some may have been worried about being left behind if they didn’t wait there for a few months. The pre-launch inspection has already been done, so right now, Halan is standing at the entrance, watching the stragglers arrive, along with the last of the cargo. Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell come up last, after everyone is in. They run the entire solar system. The refugees from Ansutah have their own form of government, which runs things on a day-to-day basis, but anything that impacts a greater region than a few sections of a centrifugal cylinder has to go through the two of them. No one elected them to this position, but they were the ones who built the cylinders in the first place, and facilitated the people’s rescue from a dangerous home universe. Since the arrival, no one has questioned their right as the ultimate leadership.

The two of them had to sign off on this entire project, though going against Halan’s people’s wishes probably would have caused more problems than it was worth. They want to leave, and that should be respected. They engineered their own ship, so little should be in the way of them realizing their goal. Even so, Team Keshida, as they are collectively called, are still not extremely jazzed about this situation. They have always been rather adept at hiding it. “Do you have everyone and everything you need?”

Captain Yenant’s lieutenant, Rita Suárez comes up to his side, holding a tablet. As she can trace her family tree back to one of the original members of the group of humans who first lived on Ansutah, she’s a bit of a celebrity. She doesn’t like the notoriety, though, which is why she’s leaving. The reality is that this decision has only made things worse. She taps on her pre-launch checklist. “The last of the biomolecular synthesizer back-up parts have been loaded up.” She checks it off the list. “We should be good to go, sir.”

Captain McBride smiles. “There’s one more thing that’s not on your list.”

“There couldn’t be,” Rita protests. “I was very thorough—”

“It’s not on your list, because it wasn’t decided until this morning,” the other Lieutenant, Ishida interrupts. She taps on her wrist device. Omega suddenly appears next to them. “He’ll be going with you.”

“I must voice my concern,” Rita continues to argue. “I was not made aware of this, and he is not on the manifest. You cannot simply add whoever you wish to be rid of. This in an internal matter—”

Ishida interrupts again, but this time with merely an authoritative wave of her hand. “We are placing him on this vessel to be rid of him, yes, but we could have just as easily dispatched him to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, or Teagarden. We’re sending him with you, because he went against my wishes, and told you about this idea...my idea. These are the consequences for his actions. If he thinks it’s such a good idea, then he can see it through. I don’t really care whether you have anything to say about it, or not. You can shoot him out an airlock once you take off, for all I care. I literally have a million more just like him.”

“Ain’t nobody like me,” Omega contends.

Ishida taps on her cuff some more. Omega’s eyes roll to the back of his head, and he faints, but before he hits the floor, he disappears. “I’ve hidden him somewhere on the Extremus. You can either waste your time trying to find him, or you can just stick to your schedule.”

Halan looks over at the other Captain. Kestral looks back. “Don’t expect me to argue with her. Her title may make it sound like she’s my subordinate, but she’s actually my partner. If she says Omega stays on the ship, he stays on the ship.”

“Very well,” Halan decides.

“Sir,” Rita presses.

“We will launch on time, and then we will search the ship for him. Don’t worry, Rita. I’m sure we’ll find some use for a brash and disgruntled clone of an engineer.”

Rita is not an unreasonable person. She knows when she’s been beat, and she will concede graciously. “Very well, sir. You have five minutes until you need to speak to the passengers. I’ll prep the crew.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be up there in a minute.”

“One more thing,” Kestral says after Rita leaves. She takes out a small roundish object, and hands it to Halan ceremoniously. “This is a recall device. If you hold the string, and press the top button several times, all of this will be undone.”

“What do you mean?” Halan questions. “All of what?”

“The mission, the trip,” Ishida clarifies. “It’s a reset button. If something goes wrong, and you have no other options, this will reverse time, and put everyone back here instantaneously. It will have quite literally never happened. Once your tenure is over, you may pass it on to your successor. But I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, If I were you.”

A confused Halan stares at them. “This is a generation ship. What if something goes wrong in a hundred years? They’ll just be erased from existence?”

“The captain won’t,” Kestral says. “Or rather, whoever pushes the button. They’ll be returned with all these people, even if they haven’t been born yet now. They alone will survive that paradox, should it come to that.”

He keeps watching them with that look. Then he drops the device on the ground, and stomps on it. “I won’t allow that. We live and die together. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“Very well, sir,” Kestral echoes Rita from earlier.

“Good luck, Captain,” Ishida says cordially.

“Thank you.”

“You better go.”

“Close it up,” Halan says as he’s walking up the ramp. The ship’s AI seals all entrances. Halan transports to the bridge, where the crew is working on prelaunch. “Everything on schedule?” he asks them.

“Yes, sir,” replies the Executive Bridge Officer.

“Keep at it. I need to address the passengers.”

“Of course, sir.”

Halan steps into his bridge quarters. He readies himself with a good glass of water, and some speech warm-ups. Finally, when it’s time, he approaches the microphone. “Passengers of the Extremus. Some say that our journey to this day began fourteen years ago, when a man came to us with an idea his superior came up with about traveling across the galaxy. Others say that it truly began once we were rescued from our home universe, and brought here, back in 2230. I wasn’t around for that, but I am grateful for it. Still, there are those who claim the journey actually began centuries ago, while our ancestors were struggling on the human continent of Ansutah. However you look at it, I’m not personally concerned with when the journey began. What matters is where we’re going, and how we get there from here. We are about to launch from the Gatewood Collective, and fly at reframe speeds, across thousands of light years. It will take us two hundred and sixteen years.

“We do not possess the kind of longevity technology the rest of the stellar neighborhood does. We live day to day, and we do that for about a hundred and twenty years. Not one of us will be alive to see our new home. This is your last chance to avoid the truth that you will die in space, far from any star. We’ll be taking off in eleven minutes. That should be enough time to make it to the nearest airlock. Anyone inside of one of these will be teleported out of the ship with no questions. I hope none of you do, but that is your choice, and I will understand. Our numbers are great now. We started out with a few hundred hopefuls, but have since grown to the thousands. I find that impressive. Like I said, none of you will see the planet we are destined to name Extremus, and that is the bravest thing I’ve seen anyone do.” Halan clears his throat. “If you are a member of the crew, please take action stations. If you are a passenger, and you haven’t already, make yourself at home, and enjoy the ride.”

Minutes later, they’re gone.

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Microstory 1670: Diplomacy First

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I’m going to be honest with you. I was very wrong when I made the claim that there was nothing interesting about Limerick Hawthorne’s universe, except for Limerick Hawthorne. Imagine looking at a painting. In the bottom left corner, the first thing you see is a creature made of fire, fighting against his water foes. Keep staring at that fire creature, and that’s kind of all you’ll see. You don’t notice at first how vast the canvas is, and how many other things are happening in that painting. You might eventually, but that’s you seeing in three dimensions. I see in four dimensions, which is more like looking at an infinite number of paintings, and trying to decipher a full story from them. When I saw Limerick, the metaphorical fire creature, he took all focus. As I told you, people who travel the bulkverse are more clear to me than other events across the branes. What I didn’t realize then was just how fascinating Limerick’s universe was, and what it would become after he left. All I could see was him, but I see a bigger picture now. This is another story about aliens. They evolved from source variants all over this version of the Milky Way galaxy. They’re based on human DNA, but they developed independently and spontaneously for reasons I don’t understand. Some universes just have aliens, I guess. When Limerick disappeared, he left behind a tear in the spacetime continuum that didn’t close completely. It wouldn’t cause anyone to become lost in the outer bulkverse, fortunately, but it was still there, and still dangerous. Scientists from all over the world showed up, hoping to figure out what it was, and what, if anything, they could do with it. As it turned out, quite a bit. The rift ultimately sent a group of volunteers to another world, where they came face to face with their first alien race.

These aliens would end up becoming the real threat, but they weren’t the only ones in the galaxy, and it was only a matter of time before they met some new allies. Things seemed okay at first on the alien planet, but the volunteers learned some things they didn’t like, and it sparked a philosophical divide with the natives. Both sides tried to keep the peace, but they failed. That was when the humans knew they had to escape. The natives weren’t evil, but they felt dishonored, and in their minds, the only response was war. In their culture, once diplomatic discussions passed what they considered to be a point of no return, domination was the only way forward. Someone had to win, and prove the other side wrong. I’m simplifying all this, of course, but you get the idea. The explorers managed to get out of there when they found that planet’s Nexus machine, but the conflict was not over. The good thing about how Nexa work is that you can block travel from any one machine, so Earth was safe for the time being. But there were other Nexa in the network, and the aliens would keep looking for a way to continue the war. The scientists knew that they couldn’t just leave it at that. What followed was a series of missions from Earth designed to establish relations with other cultures, determine which others could pose a threat to them, procure useful technology and knowledge, and generally protect the galaxy from these warmongers. The aliens, meanwhile, went on their own missions, now that they had a working Nexus. They couldn’t go to Earth, but they went to other planets first, and tried to gain some kind of advantage. This proved to be more difficult than they thought it would, and it eventually made them start seeing everyone as just as much of a threat to their honor as they thought Earth was.

Microstory 1669: Of Kindness and Cruelty

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For every Hypostate in Adverse, there was an opposing force called an Apostate. These postates—to use an unauthorized collective term—could be anyone. It was never really clear whether someone was born this way, or became so over time. Some were humans, others were demons, and a few were original Maramon. There were twenty-three of each, plus the primaries, and they represented the virtues and sins that could be found in anyone and everyone. There are two of these special people that I want to talk to you about today. The virtuous one was named Kindness. Of course, that wasn’t his original name, but once he learned what he was, and what role he played in the fight against evil, he started going by it. It was kind of expected of him, and since he was so kind, he didn’t try to stop it. Kindness was a gentle human being, who genuinely cared about people, both on a personal level, and in a general global sense. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, though, and maybe not even after an interaction with him. He was tall, muscular, tan; all the generic traits of a dude-bro. He liked to work out, but he did it for all the right reasons, and he didn’t look down on those who didn’t do it at all. He was tan mostly because it was his natural skin color, but also because he spent a lot of time outside, and sunscreen can only do so much. He didn’t treat people unkindly, and he never felt awkward, but he wasn’t the most outgoing individual, and people wouldn’t have ever called him fun. Remember that kindness was his virtue, not friendliness. Friendliness is someone else. Those are two distinct characteristics, and while there’s often a lot of overlap, it’s not technically necessary, especially not for a hypostate, whose every trait is exaggerated, and whose mind is usually hyperfocused towards a goal.

Kindness grew up with a boy who would come to be known as Cruelty. Cruelty was exactly as you think he would be. He was a man, still—not a demon—but he shared the demons’ compulsion for wickedness. He was clever, always making sure the chaos he caused couldn’t be directly linked to him. People didn’t know that he was essentially a manifestation of evil, but they didn’t think he was a swell guy either. They generally didn’t want to be around him. However smart or careful an apostate is, they have a hard time completely masking their sick and twisted ways. His true nature was no more apparent than when the two of them were together. Everyone believed them to be friends, and most couldn’t understand why, since they were so clearly incompatible. This was a misunderstanding that neither of them refuted. Kindness was too kind to get angry at people about it, and Cruelty enjoyed how much it bothered Kindness. They just kept running into each other throughout their lives, no matter how much Kindness tried to get away. It wasn’t a constant pairing, but the relief was never very long. They were roommates in college, co-workers at their respective second jobs, and ended up moving to the same street several years later. Cruelty claimed it was an honest coincidence, but I think we all know how unlikely that is. Kindness and Cruelty weren’t the only two postates to have known each other before The Rapture, but they were the only opposing forces to know each other, and they were the only ones to know each other so well. They obviously didn’t get along, though. Cruelty would get tired of Kindness’ incessant need to make sure everyone around him was safe and cared for. It was sometimes even enough to keep him from torturing his frenemy. They never fought each other when they were alive, but they were directly at odds once both of them died. It was up to a small group of heroes to find all the hypostates, and defeat all the apostates. They were scattered throughout the three realms, including heaven where Kindness was found, and hell, where Cruelty was unsurprisingly sent to.

Microstory 1668: Curtain Call

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Year after year, Joseph Jacobson showed up to the universe that deliberately invited him with his special summoning ritual. They put on a show that fictionalized his life. Actually, they put on multiple shows at the same time, and crowned the one he responded to the winner. Joseph was aware of what they were doing, and seemed to have no problem with it. When he returned a year later for another go around, the amount of time he had spent away was incongruous. It might have been a year for him as well, or longer. He once spent three days doing this, just going straight to the next one after the last, though that wasn’t too terribly much fun, because the point of the event was to listen to the tales of his travels while he wasn’t with them. He even once jumped to five years in the future from everyone’s perspective, before going back and filling in the years prior, which meant both that he knew their future, and they knew a little bit of his. The point is that he always showed up, without fail. Until one year. It was the largest contest yet, with hundreds of productions around the world hoping to go down in history as the best. None of them won, though, which was odd. By then, they were pretty well versed in his life’s story, and the chances of not one of them being good enough seemed unlikely. Did something happen to him? Was he indisposed? That didn’t make much sense. He was a time traveler in the truest sense of the term. The only thing that could have ever stopped him from not eventually getting their message was death, and maybe not even then, because a younger version of him could simply appear instead. They didn’t even think he could die anyway. He certainly never gave anybody that impression. He had already been alive for millennia upon millennia.

As far as they knew, he was immortal, but they didn’t know everything. Perhaps there was some weakness he quite deliberately withheld from them. That would be completely understandable. But the idea that no one won the contest? That sounded far-fetched. He always acted like he quite enjoyed traveling to a world that knew all about him. He was famous in some circles, but since he moved around so much—and rarely visited the same place twice—there weren’t a lot of others that revered him so much, and continued to show it. The summoning ritual was always a choice. It was a way for people to contact him, not force him to show up at their whims. He never had any obligation to come if he didn’t want to, so if this was his way of saying he was over it, it seemed like an odd occasion. What had changed since then? Well, that was probably the point. He could tell them all the stories he liked, but they never really knew what it was like to be Joseph Jacobson. That wasn’t even suggesting he liked to lie. Maybe he left out enough about himself that they didn’t really know him at all, and there was no explaining his absence, because there was no explaining him, full stop. The reigning theory after everyone went home was that Joseph simply didn’t want to tell his stories anymore, but a close second was that they were so used to putting on the productions that there was nothing interesting about them anymore. People put a lot of effort into analyzing past winners, and trying to come up with the perfect way to perform to maximize their chances. After carefully going over the shows from the total failure year, they realized just how similar they were to each other. Either Joseph couldn’t pick the best, or the fun was gone, and it didn’t matter anymore. The world tried again the next year, but they were much more rigorous about weeding duplicate performances out. Still, Joseph didn’t show, so they tried one more time, but only with one single great performance, and then they just gave up. He never appeared again, and the people chose to move on. Maybe that was his intention all along, to somehow teach them to be completely self-sufficient. Or maybe something else had happened that most people on this planet didn’t know anything about.

Microstory 1667: School of Thought

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When the Ochivari arrived in what would come to be known as Efilverse, they didn’t really have any specific intentions. They were explorers at that point. Sure, they hoped to gather resources, but they believed the multiverse to be infinite, so they weren’t too worried about whether this one would be useful to them. They could always figure out how to travel somewhere else. The Efilversals didn’t know what to think about these alien visitors either. They didn’t seem to be hostile, and it didn’t seem like they had technology, or other knowledge, that they would find useful. In the beginning it felt like an innocuous situation, and everybody could kind of take it or leave it. They did tell stories about their respective homeworlds, though, and learned from each other just the same. Both races were shocked to discover that they each had faced the same problem with destroying their own environments. Even with a sample size of only two, they were beginning to think that it was an inevitable development. If other races evolved on other worlds, they were destined to destroy it, just like the two of them had. Of course, we know that this is not true, but they didn’t understand that, and over time, the idea became so ingrained in their culture that there was no way to prove them wrong. They didn’t, and couldn’t, listen to reason. The Efilversals taught the Ochivari their ways in a general sense, not by directly telling them how they should do things, but through unintentional inspiration. The idea that any given ecosystem could be saved by taking action to preserve it faded from their hearts—if it was ever there in the first place—and was overwritten by the belief that the only way to save it is to kill anything that threatens it. One Efilversal in particular felt that some form of genocide was sometimes the only answer. The most famous quote of his would become the basis of the Ochivari’s entire belief system. “If a man begins to walk the path towards annihilation, the only way to stop him from reaching the end is to break his legs. There are no nexions from darkness to light.” In this case, a nexion is a small path that connects two paths somewhere after the original splitting fork. Apparently, you can’t even walk back in the opposite direction in this metaphor.

The Ochivari travelers saw no problem with the man’s claims, and took his words to heart, along with many more. He seemed to be the wisest of them all, and they hoped that he would help them make the multiverse a better place. They no longer wanted to be concerned with resources and expansion. They wanted to fix worlds. They wanted to prevent others from making the same mistakes. No, that’s not it. That they could do, if they interfered with any given culture’s timeline at the right moment. Instead, they just wanted to stop those who were already destined to fail their planets. They were going to proverbially break their legs. The wise man seemed to be the best person to teach them how to make their new dream a reality. He seemed willing to do as they asked, but his teachings would no longer be given for nothing. In exchange for his help, he wanted to be relocated to a universe that was free from all the drama and trauma. It would have to be normal and safe, and the Ochivari were not allowed to visit it again for any reason. These seemed like fair conditions. Again, they knew that the bulkverse was infinite, so if there was only one universe they could not save, even if it needed it, then that was a small price to pay. The teacher actually stood on a hill, and continued to disseminate his philosophy, but it eventually turned more into a group effort. The Ochivari came up with ideas that he had not thought of himself, and eventually, the radical antinatalistic school of thought was born. Once the planning stages were complete, the Ochivari stayed true to their word. Two volunteers agreed to transport him to a random universe. Unfortunately, the psychological disease he carried managed to follow him through the portal, and once he was on the other side, it began to infect everyone there as well.

Microstory 1666: Guardian Dolphins

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There was a pod of dolphins. They lived in the sea. They understood that the humans who came in their boats came to see them. So they would always put on a show. They breached the surface often, even when they didn’t need air, and they would occasionally perform flips. They could hear the cheers and applause that came from the boats, and they enjoyed it. One day, the tourists stopped coming with their boats. The seas calmed, and the quiet took over. There was no more cheering, no more applause. The dolphins just slept, and looked for food, and played amongst themselves. Two of the dolphins were curious and concerned. What had happened to the humans? Surely they would still want to see the creatures. They could not have all simply decided to stop all at once. The humans and the dolphins had long enjoyed a special relationship, with the latter always being around to lend a flipper when the former was in need. Something terrible could have happened to them, and if that was the case, they needed to know about it. The two friends went on a journey to find answers. They swam up the coast, trying to find humans who could explain their absence. The journey was proving to be longer than they thought, but they did not give up. They had to know if something was wrong. Perhaps they could help. Finally they found some people on the cliffs, but they seemed unable to communicate with them. Some humans can understand dolphin language, but most cannot. That would prove to be the most difficult challenge. They continued their pursuit of their truth, eventually coming across a lone fisherman in a small boat, who appeared to only catch enough for himself to eat. He could understand them, and he explained that a great disease was spreading through the world, killing some, and making the rest sick. The dolphins were saddened. They could not fix this problem. They did not have scientists of their own. Heck, while they could understand it conceptually, they couldn’t even make fire. Yet they still wanted to help in some way. They kept swimming around, meeting other people, and asking whether there was anything they could do, but there was nothing. They had always considered it there purpose to help the humans. After all, they were known as a guardian race. They had helped vessels find their way in the darkness, and even signalled to civilization when a traveler from a wreck was trapped on a remote island. This was something they were ill-equipped to handle, though. People started joking that they were out of their depth. They laughed quite a bit, actually, at the possibility that there was anything the water-dwellers could do. In the end, the humans had no choice but to deal with the issue themselves. Frustrated by this, the two dolphins switched missions, and began to commune with other dolphin pods, spreading the word that the humans no longer needed their help at all. It was then that the dolphins of all species began to discuss their future in the global collective. They ultimately decided to stop being a guardian race, so they could focus on their own prosperity. The humans, meanwhile, lost out on their opportunities to enjoy watching the dolphins play.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, November 18, 2256

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Due to having been living on another planet for the last three years, and not paying any attention to Leona’s special time watch, the group didn’t know how close to midnight central they were when they went back to the main sequence. Before the AOC was able to scan the surface for the location of the Nexus inside a crater, it was already three years later. There was no sign of Anatol, so hopefully that meant he was on their pattern, and not that he was already in the Gatewood Collective. This was the most likely reason, as Nerakali and Jupiter had to deliberately program the primary Cassidy cuff to keep them from being bound to the Bearimy-Matic pattern. It wasn’t set that way automatically, so he would have needed time to figure it out.

They found what they were looking for, and between the two of them, Leona and Angela were able to get their ship hooked up to the Nexus. There was no space next to the Gatewood Nexus, so they had to program their exit to appear in the middle of interplanetary space. Kestral and Ishida knew what the AOC was, so after confirming the crew’s identities, they let them dock at the nearest airlock. They recommended the Nexus technician to place anyone else who came through in a hock that was fitted with temporal dampeners. It wasn’t necessarily going to be Anatol, but it probably was, so it was best to be prepared. Team Keshida was busy with something, so the debrief would have to wait until later. Until then, the crew of the AOC decided to take a rest in a family-owned lounge in the main centrifugal cylinder. It was set up like a bar, but this was a dry cylinder. The owner was massaging a glass, and watching them from across the room. Mateo went over to see if he needed anything.

“I know who you are,” the owner said.

“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing.”

“You saved us.”

“It was a team effort.” That wasn’t modesty, it really was mostly other people’s doing.

“I got somethin’ for ya...if you want it.” He reached under the bar, and Mateo could hear the beeping of a safe. He pulled out a bottle of bourbon, and set it down.

“Heh. That was never my drink, and I don’t drink anymore. Thanks, though. Better put that away.”

“I don’t drink either. I keep it for preferred customers.”

A young boy came in from the back room. “Dad?”

The owner looked back. “Yes, son?”

“A ship came in. I saw it outside. Do you know who it is?”

He smirked and looked back at Mateo. “He loves ships. Wants to grow up to be a captain.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” Mateo said.

The boy regarded him for a moment, then widened his eyes. He furiously started typing onto his handheld device. “You’re Mateo Matic.”

“I’m one of them, yes,” Mateo confirmed, knowing there was some other Mateo running around out there, somewhere.

The boy turned his head down abashedly. “Wait, it was you, in the ship.”

“Yeah,” Mateo said. “My crew and I are here to take a rest.” He gestured towards his friends, still sitting in the corner.

“Whoa,” the boy said, staring over at them.

“What’s your name?”

“Halan,” the boy answered. “Halan Yenant.”

“Well, Captain Yenant. I’ll have Crewmember Walton give you a tour of our ship, if you want.” Mateo moved his eyes back up to the father. “That okay?”

The father nodded. “Of course. Just go tell your mother first.”

“Thanks!”

While Halan went back to the back, Mateo went over to make sure Angela was cool with this. She was the best candidate, since next to Leona, she was the most knowledgeable about the ship, and also had experience counseling people. She was more than happy to do it, so once he came back, they joined hands, and left. Mateo started thinking about this interaction. He was no starship captain himself, but he was technically a member of a crew, which was just insane. He was a ridesource driver back before all this time travel began, no hope of going into space. It didn’t even cross his mind back then that such a thing was an option. Now it was just his life. Until Flindekeldan, he probably spent more time in space than on the surface of a planet, non-Earth worlds included. It wasn’t bad, or good, just different; the only problems now were all these people coming after him and his friends. Without them, he might even be able to enjoy himself again.

Mateo sat back down with the group. A few other people came in, and recognized them, so they got to talking. As it turned out, there were others who wanted to fly in spaceships. Apparently, space travel as a real concept was taught to children living in Ansutah. But this was kind of annoying, because they knew it would never be possible for them. Not only was there very little space to explore, but humans weren’t allowed to so much as leave their continent, or it would place the entire species at risk against the Maramon, who dominated the world. Now that they were actually living in what was technically a spaceship, some were frustrated that they still didn’t go anywhere. After more discussion, Mateo realized that it was no coincidence that so many such people frequented the same lounge. They deliberately formed a community for this reason. They wanted to be close to the Nexus, and the main docking sections. No one traveled to Gatewood, except for those who knew it was populated by aliens, and those few always came through here. Other docks on this cylinder, and in the other cylinders, would be out of use if not for the ferries.

After a while, Angela came back with Halan. They were soon followed by a man that Mateo recognized. It wasn’t Saxon, though, and it definitely wasn’t Julius. His name was Omega Parker, and he was a clone of Saxon’s, who chose to become independent, and ignore his duties. He was now evidently working closely with Team Keshida, and everyone in this lounge knew who he was. They didn’t seem to hate him, but they weren’t in love with him either. He took off sunglasses that didn’t make him look as cool as he probably thought. “I’m glad that most of you are here,” he said with a grin. “I have a proposal for—what the hell are you people doing here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mateo said coolly. “What’s your proposal, I’d like to here it.”

Omega was nervous.

“Go on, Omega,” Mr. Yenant echoed.

He decided to continue. “My associate came up with an idea. I thought we should move forward with it, but they have chosen not to. I’ve been trying to convince them for a week, but they’re occupying themselves with other projects, and I’ve determined it’s useless to keep trying. Still, I think it’s a good idea, and if you want to do it for yourselves, I doubt they’ll do anything to stop you.”

“What is it?” someone in the crowd asked.

“They call it Project Extremus. The idea is to send a ship full of people to the other side of the galaxy. You’ve been looking for an excuse to get in a ship, and this is that. You tell ‘em you want a new home, I don’t think the bosses will say no to it.”

“How long will it take to get there?” someone in the crowd asked.

“About two hundred years,” Omega answered, “with this technology.” He held up a virtual storage device. A woman stepped forward with the air of authority. She reached for the device, but Omega pulled it away. He lowered his voice to speak directly to her, but everyone else could still hear. “I need verbal confirmation that you’ll fight against any sort of punishment that Keshida tries to dole out for me for giving you this.”

“I promise to defend you,” the woman said after snatching away the device. “As I have always done.” Strangely, she handed it right to Halan, the only kid in the room. “You know what to do.” As the boy was running off, she turned back to Omega. “Thank you. You can go now.”

Omega nodded. “Yeah.” He left.

Now the leader stepped back to address the crowd. “We’ll convene a full roster meeting in three days, after we’ve had time to look over the data, and discuss the proposal formally. Everyone here think that’s a good idea?”

The crowd nodded and agreed.

“All right,” Mr. Yenant said to break the silence. “Drinks on the house,” he joked.

“Mateo Matic to the throne room, please,” came Ishida’s voice on the intercom. “Mateo and friends to the throne room.”

They all walked down to where Team Keshida operated. The two of them were waiting in front of the strategy table. An android was next to them, holding Anatol Klugman in custody. He had a muzzle over his face, like some kind of cannibal.

“Why did you come here with him?” Captain McBride asked.

“Gatewood was the only destination from the Nexus where we came from,” Leona explained.

Kestral started shaking her head mildly. “Someone needs to figure out how to make those more programmable. Can you imagine buying a phone that only calls one number?”

“I think that’s the point,” Leona continued. “We didn’t buy the Nexa. They’re gifts, and we can only use them however we get them.”

Lieutenant Caldwell sighed. “We don’t want him in our star system. We don’t want him within ten light years of our people.”

“We don’t want him here either,” Leona agreed. “Now that he’s arrived, we can all leave.”

“You have two options,” the Captain said. “You can step through the Nexus, and go to whatever other Nexus you want, or you can take your ship there. We don’t care which. You just have to be out within the half hour.”

“If we connect the ship to the Nexus from the outside—” Leona tried to begin.

“We won’t let you butcher our machine,” Ishida said dismissively. “You have your two options.”

“We need our ship,” Leona said to the group. “If we use the reframe engine, it will only take us three days.”

Anatol muffled something that no one could understand.

Kestral made eye contact with the android guard. She closed her eyes, and nodded once, prompting the guard to removed the mouthpiece from Anatol’s muzzle.

“Thank you,” Anatol said. “What I said was that I’m not taking off your cuffs. I’m still wearing the primary, and nothing can be done about that.”

“We could have his arm surgically removed,” Kestral suggested.

“Don’t worry about it, but thanks for the offer.” Leona took a moment to think through a plan. “We’ll all take the reframe engine back to Sol. I’ll program the AOC to land on an icy planetesimal that has not yet been colonized for Project Oort Shield. It will be waiting for us...” She stopped. “Can we at least suppress Jeremy’s pattern, so we’ll return in 2257?”

“No,” Anatol replied simply.

She didn’t want to fight in front of company. “In that case, the AOC will be waiting for us in 2275, at which point we can teleport to Earth, and deal with whatever is going on here. Keshida, if you could give us access to Oort Shield plans, it will help me choose a celestial body that won’t come online sometime in the next nineteen years.”

“We have access to that schedule,” Ishida confirmed. “We’ll give you an extra half hour to look them over before you have to leave.”

Kestral gave her a look, which Ishida could see, but she was unfazed by it.

 Mateo gave Leona his own look, hoping the magical psychic message came across correctly. She appeared to understand when she shook her head slightly to indicate that no, they would not be telling Team Keshida about what Omega told the residents at the lounge. Perhaps if they weren’t being kicked out so quickly, they would have considered being honest with Keshida.

“Very well,” Kestral said. “While you’re finding those plans, I’ll help the android escort Mr. Klugman to the AOC. I know you don’t have a holding cell—”

“I know what to do with him,” Leona promised. “Thank you for hosting us, if only briefly.”

Kestral bowed her head a little.

They executed the plan. Leona found a pretty random icy rock orbiting the Earth’s solar system near interstellar space. An outpost wasn’t destined to be built there for another hundred and fifty years, which would give them plenty of time to get out of there, and plan their next move. Something had to be done about Anatol, and it had to be done before he gained some kind of advantage over this stalemate. Without the Cassidy cuffs themselves, only so much could be done to suppress a choosing one’s time powers. He would break free at some point, and become another antagonist for the team to defeat. For now, they locked him in grave chamber four.

As soon as they entered reframe time, they were suddenly struck by the next midnight central, which instantly jumped them all to the year 2275. The AOC had landed long ago, and was waiting for them at the destination. They expected to just be sitting on the surface of IOO-TH-2-44-256-83, completely alone, but they appeared to be inside a hangar.

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