The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 2, 2391

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The Technological Advancement Detachment. Obviously this was where all the scientists were kept, along with their scientific studies. It was impossible for a disc world to exist in nature, despite what flat-earthers would tell you. There were ways to accomplish the same thing using extravagant engineering, but since these people were capable of manipulating time and space, it was even easier for them. To avoid any annoyingly inconsistent gravitational problems, they just created gravity on their own using dimensional generators. To prevent from killing their inhabitants while in faster-than-light motion, they used inertial dampeners on a scale most couldn’t fathom. Why did they go through all this trouble for an unnecessary celestial shape? Simply because they could. When you live in a universe of endless possibilities, and nothing new to discover, most of your choices had little to do with achieving something important, and more about killing time.

The team used the same method to sneak onto the TAD as they did to get back to the SWD, letting the AOC hitch a ride over the course of their interim year, and then pilot fishing itself once the two giant objects were close enough to each other. Summit said that he knew there was at least one time machine here, and he had a good idea of where it was, but he didn’t know much about it. Traveling backwards in time was illegal. Of course the Fifth Division didn’t want anyone to be able to go back to a time period that could erase them from history. Since it was difficult to regulate every single corner of the vast supercluster, and beyond, it was easier to build a time machine for themselves, and only break the proverbial glass in the case of an emergency. Their machine was housed in a special section of the TAD, which was protected inside of a paradox containment field. It would theoretically survive the collapse of any given timeline, and push itself into the next. Even if nothing else survived, including the disc world itself, it would still be around, and a team would go back to undo whatever change the rogue travelers made. To no one’s surprise, the machine was very heavily guarded.

“But we have a way around that,” Marie said. “Our temporal technology is incompatible with theirs.”

“Yeah, why is that?” Angela remembered. “Don’t we all source from the same parent reality? Aren’t we all in the same universe?”

“I think it has more to do with how they developed the technology over time,” Leona figured. “Pribadium Delgado is said to have invented time tech of her own. Even though she had already been exposed to our variant, she was able to figure out some other way. I think after having been so isolated from us for so long, this reality drifted from us.”

“The Parallel didn’t seem to do the same,” Mateo pointed out, “and they are arguably just as advanced and isolated.”

“We never really saw that come into play,” Leona reminded him. “I don’t know, but it kind of brings up a good point. We can’t rely on our supposed advantage for everything. We can’t assume we’ll be able to just teleport into the time machine, enter our destination into the keypad, and disappear without a hitch. Mr. Ebora, any intel you can give us about it would be quite welcome.”

Summit seemed surprised to be called upon. “I don’t even know what you guys are talking about? Parent realities? Incompatible time travel? Like, what?”

Leona shut her eyes and exhaled. She was about to kick him out of the group when she thought better of it. He would surely just run off to warn someone of their presence, and then their mission would be lost. “Do you know what to do when you don’t have a plan?”

The group looked around at each other, each shaking their heads upon seeing the others shaking their heads.

“You go in without a plan,” Leona answered herself. “The more time we spend trying to worry about everything that could go wrong, the less time we have to just get it done. So here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna teleport in there, and wing it. If we find an obstacle, we’ll overcome it. Elite squad of assassins, massive military contingency, a giant space monster guarding the entrance. We could go on with the list, and come up with a solution to each, or just go. Raise your hands, are we ready to go?”

Everyone raised their hand, except for Summit, but his vote didn’t matter anyway.

Leona nodded. “Here are the coordinates. Let’s use the empathy link Ramses built us with to sync, and head out.”

They synced and jumped. Before them was an actual field of energy that they could feel. It buzzed into their skin, causing tiny ripples throughout their bodies. The closer they approached, the stronger it became, but it didn’t hurt. The doors were left wide open, or maybe didn’t exist at all.

A woman was sitting on the other side of it, chin resting in her hand. She unenthusiastically looked over at them as they tested out the energy barrier. “Welcome to the time travel section,” she recited apathetically. “We are protected by a paradox containment field. Only those who are not destined to disrupt the creation of the time machine on a quantum level are free to enter. Whether you intend to harm the timeline according to the doctrines set forth by the founders of the Fifth Division, or not, the field will not let you pass unless you are fated to do no harm. Again, this is on the quantum level, your macro decisions are irrelevant to the sanctity of the timeline.” She blinked slowly a few times. “Good luck.”

“Okay.” Mateo unceremoniously crossed the threshold, finding no difficulty in passing through the field.

The guard was shocked by this.

Olimpia followed, as did Angela, Ramses, Marie, and finally Leona. When Summit tried, he found it impossible. The field just bounced him right back. The harder he tried, the harder it resisted, and the more it hurt.

“Sorry, dude,” Mateo said, genuinely, but not too butthurt about it personally.

“No!” Summit cried. “I’m not gonna disrupt the timeline. I’m gonna do whatever you say! Why is it stopping me!”

“I don’t know,” Leona said. “But...how hard would it have been for you to transfer to the TAD from where you were stationed?”

“Virtually impossible,” Summit answered.

“Great,” she said. “Now you’re here, so go find your glorious purpose.”

“It doesn’t have to be glorious,” Summit admitted.

“Even better. Thanks for leading us here. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Summit stared at them a moment. “Yeah, whatever.”

“I have never seen anyone make it through,” the guard said in awe. “I’ve been working here for seventy years. Probably over a million have tried since my shift began. It hasn’t happened once. You have to work here, and vow to never use the machine except in an emergency. What business does a small group of children have here?”

“The business of leaving,” Ramses explained. “We do not belong in your world. Our quarks are different.”

“Are you...them? Are you the true Fifth Division? The founders?”

“God, no,” Angela said. “Are we free to use the machine?”

The guard pointed her hand down the hallway. “Evidently.”

Others who worked there watched them in wonderment as they walked towards the machine. Nor had they ever seen anything like it. And like the guard, they too were looking at them like they were gods. Of course Ramses and Leona, and a little bit the others, knew that it was just because they were part of a stable time loop. They were a part of the past, and it was time to close the loop. They would leave the universe on the Transit, come back to the main sequence, and never see this reality again. They weren’t special, just on a track.

The technician was frightened, but determined to do his job. “Uhh, umm...destination?” Olimpia handed him a small piece of e-paper. He looked at it and nodded. “Of course, sir. Sirs. Your Honors...Highnesses. Uh...I don’t know what to call you.”

“Call us...” Mateo began, trying to think of a good name for them. Team Matic was always a weird placeholder that he didn’t care for. Even though Leona was also a Matic now, it always felt very self-serving. There had to be something better. Anyway, he wasn’t going to come up with it in the next couple of seconds, so he just contrived a new placeholder. “The Fifth Column.”

He nodded respectfully again, and motioned for them to enter the machine.

They did, and a minute later, they were back in the past, but not in the machine. They were on a planet. No, the ground was curving up towards the sky, so they were inside of a rotating habitat, which was unusual, because they didn’t need centrifugal force to simulate gravity. It was unlikely that a reality that always had time tech ever came up with the idea of constructing rotating space habitats at all. Whatever, if this was where they were meant to be—which Leona appeared to believe was the case after consulting her watch—then this was where they would stay.

Olimpia looked at her notes. “That building there, that’s where he’ll be.”

“When?” Marie asked.

“In the next fifteen minutes, according to the logs.”

“We better go. We want to be ahead of him, not behind.”

They walked across the grass, and into the building, noting how eerie it was that they didn’t see any sign of life. Though that was par for the course, wasn’t it? These people engineered such large space objects that there was too much room, and not enough people to fill it. It was ridiculous, really, but if there was one thing they learned in this reality, it was that nobody knew anything, or saw the big picture. Everyone just focused on their tiny patch of paradise, and that was probably how it always would be, war or no war.

They entered the building, and spread out to look around. Their empathy link would keep them connected to each other, and their teleportation abilities would allow them to jump into protective action should any one for them come up against a problem. Unlike in the movies, they didn’t see any reason to stick together in the physical sense.

“Holy shit, wait!” Angela spoke into her communicator. “We left the AOC behind.”

“We were always going to have to do that,” Leona said sadly. “Sure, it would fit in the Transit, but how would we get it into this building? No, the historical records would have said something about it. We probably have a matter of seconds to hop on before the building blows up, it was never gonna happen. Sadly, you can’t just pack up a spaceship, and bring it with you wherever you go.”

“You can’t?” Ramses asked.

“Ramses, what did you do?” Leona asked.

“Guys, I found something,” Marie interrupted. “Come here.”

They transported to her location. She was standing before a human-sized metal machine. They couldn’t say for sure what it was, but there was a timer on the front of it, and to everyone, it screamed bomb. “I guess we know how it blows up,” Olimpia said.

“There’s nothing else here, though,” Ramses said. “Why does what’s-his-toes come in here in the first place?”

“I came here to rescue you.” They turned around to find a man in the doorway.

“Medavorken Alon?” Olimpia asked, excited and hopeful.

“I am,” he said. “What’s a bunch of children doing in here? This place is about to explode.”

“Wait, you know?” Olimpia pressed.

“Why do you think there’s no one else here?” Medavorken questioned.

Just then, a horn blared, but it didn’t sound like the one they could remember hearing during the few times the Transit showed up. “What was that?”

“That was the siren,” Medavorken began, “reminding everyone that the cylinder is about to explode, and they need to evacuate. It’s been going off every ten minutes.”

“Oh, shit,” Mateo said.

“No,” Olimpia said sadly.

“Shit,” Mateo repeated, more earnestly this time.

No, this wasn’t right. It could not have all just been a mistake. There had to be something here. Olimpia looked so embarrassed and ashamed. Seeing this, Ramses took her into a hug. It was going to be all right. They would find another way. Together.

“You should go,” Angela told the apparently unremarkable man.

“Not without you,” Medavorken promised. “Come on, we have just enough time to clear the blast zone.”

“We’ll be fine,” Mateo assured him. “We can teleport.”

“The records,” Olimpia lamented. “They didn’t say anything about people knowing there would be an explosion. They just said it exploded. There was a horn, and it exploded!”

Ramses tightened his grip around her. “I know.”

Leona placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe it’s still coming. We can wait until the last second, and then jump to the nearest vessel. These substrates have that feature, right, Ramses?”

“Yes, they’ll default to the nearest safety zone if you jump blindly. You can’t just kill yourself by jumping into outer space, or something.”

“Why is this here?” Olimpia complained.

“We’re in a war,” Medavorken explained. “It’s a vacuum bomb. We can’t disable, and we can’t jettison it. All we could do was get everybody out. You’re the last of the survivors.”

Mateo stepped forward and smiled at him, darting his eyes over one last time to check the clock. Thirty seconds. “You’re a brave man, coming in here alone. You deserve to be in the Transit Army.”

“O...kay?”

Mateo wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t hold your breath.” He programmed his body to jump at the very last second, in case something magically showed up to stop time and saved them, be it the Transit, or something else. Something might have, because while he did begin to teleport, and it felt like it had since they transferred themselves to their new bodies, there was something different about it too. Some force was pulling them away from where they were trying to go. It lasted a lot longer too. The point of teleportation was to be instantaneous. Otherwise, a teleporter could just walk. But they spent minutes in a blinding void of technicolors, unable to move or speak. They could still feel each other’s emotions, so they knew that they were all at least together.

Finally they landed, but their vision was a bit blurry. Before them were three men struggling in front of what looked like an airlock. Two of them were together, while the third was alone, opposite them. “Hello. I’m Captain Leona Matic.”

“I know who you are, young one,” one of the men said. “It’s me, Lucius.”

“Ahh, perfect,” Mateo said. “A friend. It’s about time.”

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Extremus: Year 41

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Sixty years ago on the linear timeline, Omega made a choice. He rejected his fate, and refused to become just another one of the clones on their mission to potentially do nothing with their lives. He doesn’t know why, out of a pool of over a million men who are supposedly just like him, he’s the only one who went off on his own. But because of it, their progenitor, a man by the name of Saxon Parker, had to take his place. This is the first time they’re seeing each other since then, and it’s even more complicated than that, because they never actually spoke in person. Saxon was always far too important to have even one conversation with every single one of his clones. The only time they spoke was via radio, and if Saxon has been in stasis this whole time, this incident was only minutes ago for him.

Obviously all of the clones look exactly alike, though at various stages of aging. To avoid confusion, each one gives off a unique neurological signature. Even when Omega’s mind was mistakenly transferred to a different clone’s body, his personal signature transferred with him, so others will still know which one he is, and it will remain this way if he ever returns to that body, or takes another. Being the original, Saxon is the only one which doesn’t have one such of these signatures, which means he does have a signature, because the absence of a signal makes it incredibly obvious that he’s different. He is standing on the stage, curtains down, along with Valencia, Omega, and Anglo 83, who has inserted himself as a leader amongst equals. It’s possible that he feels entitled to some greater recognition since he presently has no substrate to return to in base reality. It’s an awkward situation, which only Valencia can alleviate. “I can’t tell you three apart.”

Saxon and Omega are staring at each other. The former reaches up, and taps Valencia on the forehead, transmitting a little bit of code which will allow her to pick up on the clone signatures. In some cases, it’s not necessary. She peeks her head through the curtain to find more diversity than she expected. Dozens of the over one million clones are already wearing different avatars, and more are selecting their own every minute. One is an anthropomorphic bunny who is trying to ride on the back of a sheep, who may or may not be another clone. Another is a three meter tall mech. A sperm whale is casually floating around in the air above the massive crowd. For a virtual simulation that only exists for an all hands meeting of clones, it sure has come with a lot of options. They’re mostly concerning themselves with finding their respective ways to stand out, and aren’t impatient about getting this meeting started.

“Okay,” Saxon says, “I’m ready for you to explain what’s going on. I have successfully driven the anger out of my body.”

Omega and Valencia take turns explaining the True Extremists. They go over it in much more detail than before, pretty much briefing him on every single little thing they know about this interstellar threat. Saxon and Anglo 83 ask about their level of technology, the size of their fleet, and other tactical intelligence, but they don’t have any of these answers. According to the logs, not a single module has encountered the enemy, which contradicts what they were told about the limits of the stellar neighborhood. So the True Extremists could be just as powerful as they’ve claimed, even more so, or almost not at all. It’s unclear why they haven’t attacked yet, but maybe the asteroid chain that they used to try to destroy the Extremus was more of a fluke, and less of an indication of their true might. Maybe they can’t attack at all. There is just no way to know without a real recon mission.

“So that’s the question,” Saxon decides. “How we proceed is dependent upon the rest of the clones. Either we conduct a recon mission, and try to figure out what we’re up against, or we just find some other way of defending the Project Stargate mission.”

“So you believe us?” Omega asks.

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

Omega frowns, and kicks at the wooden planks of the stage. “I just didn’t think you were capable of trusting me.”

Saxon places a hand on Omega’s shoulder. “You’re more like me than any of them. What you did was always a known possibility. But our ability to think independently is exactly why I was chosen as the basis for the cloning program. I mean, we were never gonna clone Hitler, but the perfect candidate doesn’t exist either, does it? Anyone logical and unemotional enough to guarantee that none of the clones rebelled likely would have resulted in them—not quite rebelling—but just not caring enough about the mission to carry it onwards amidst a crisis. It’s a balance, and I had to go through a lot of tests to prove myself worthy, but again, I was the best of the bunch; not the best, full stop.”

“Well, what do you think we should do?” Omega invites.

“What do you think we should do?” Saxon asks right back.

“We don’t even know where to go for a recon mission,” Omega says.

“A time traveler led us to the region of space where we would ultimately rendezvous with one of the modules,” Valencia adds, “but we saw no sign of the True Extremists there.”

Saxon nods. “That seems like a dumb mission then, flying around aimlessly, looking for their home planet, or even just some kind of an outpost.”

“Tell us about this reframe engine you’re using,” Anglo 83 asks.

They look over to him. “It’s basically a warp bubble,” Omega replies. “It forces the universe to experience the same amount of time that you are while you’re moving at relativistic speeds. You’re not actually traveling faster than light, you’re slowing down the speed of all of time, instead of only the local time as experienced by you as an observer on the ship.”

Anglo 83 nods in the same way that Saxon did and does. “Can we use those?”

“Use them for them for what?” Saxon asks.

“Project Stargate is meant to take a hundred and fifty-thousand years,” Anglo 83 begins. “Now that we have this clearly superior technology, shouldn’t we make the switch?” These ships weren’t designed with reframe engines, and it would be impossible to retrofit them, so the only way to switch would be to scrap the originals, fire all the employees, and start over. Would it be faster? Absolutely. Is it necessary? Eh, no. Anglo 83 doesn’t understand when Valencia explains as much. “Why not?”

“Even if you’re chosen to stay on the modules—which you might not, because we would probably redesign the entire thing—it will still take you 216 years total,” she explains. “You’re on the same schedule as Extremus, just earlier, and on a different trajectory. What do you care what year it is when that mission is finally over? A hundred years, a hundred thousand; that’s nothing compared to the trillions of years you’ll eventually have behind you.”

“I’m just saying, it seems weird that we would move on like this when we know there’s a better way,” Anglo 83 reasons.

“Faster, not better,” Saxon contradicts. “Though not everyone back in the neighborhood knows about this mission, we are doing this on behalf of Earth, the Greater Sol System, and all vonearthans. If we message back from the other side of the galaxy in only a couple centuries, it will expose all time travelers to the truth, and that is not our place.” He shrugs, “there’s no rush. The stars beyond the neighborhood are about the same as the ones inside of it. There’s no reason to reach the most distant once quickly. Again, it will be the same amount of time for you no matter what.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Anglo 83 says, unrelenting. “You don’t want to change Project Stargate. That’s fine, I understand. But something has to be done to protect our modules, because they are not equipped to protect themselves. They do not have weapons, they do not have a crew, they do not have tactical AI.”

“Where are you going with this?”

Anglo 83 paused for effect. “Operation Escort.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Saxon says.

“That’s because I literally just made it up,” Anglo 83 clarifies. “Keep the mission going as it is, but build those reframe engines. Normally, something catastrophic would be fatal to any aspect of the mission. But if you have a bunch of escorts who can arrive quickly, they’ll have protection, and they’ll have it in secret, over the course of the next hundred thousand years. No one who’s not allowed to know has to know.”

“How many of these escorts do you suggest we construct?” Saxon questions. “One for every what?”

“That’s not my call, I’m just the idea man,” Anglo 83 answers, shrugging, again just like his progenitor.

Saxon summons a chair out of nothing, and sits down on it to think. “I’ll need to run the numbers, but it’s a sound idea. It will allow us to maximize our technology while keeping the vonearthans in the dark about the true nature of their reality. With more ships, we might even end up gathering enough information to conduct a proper recon, like we were talking about.”

“You run those numbers,” Anglo 83 agrees as he’s walking towards the curtain, “I’ll tell everyone else about it.”

“No, wait,” but they don’t stop him in time.

He steps out, and the crowd cheers, even though they don’t know whether they should be excited, or what. Remember that he’s just another one of the clones. Unlike Saxon or Omega, or the one who prefers to look like a sperm whale, he’s not famous or notable. Not yet, anyway.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Anglo 83 announces once he’s made it to the microphone. He motions for the noise to die down. “If you think you’re happy now, just wait until I tell you how I’m gonna save all your lives!”

Not thinking it would help to go out there now, Saxon just pops up a floating screen that shows what it looks like on the other side of the curtain.

“Hi. My name is Deodatus.

“I think we know why September sent us to this particular region of colonizing space,” Valencia says.

“Did you see this coming?” Omega asks Saxon.

The progenitor looks back, and stares at his offspring. He takes an uncomfortably long time to respond. “Yes.”

“If he’s gotten this taken care of, then maybe we should go look for Captain Moralez,” Valencia suggests to Omega.

Saxon perks up. “Yitro Moralez?”

“Uhh...yeah?” Omega confirms, confused.

“Oh, don’t worry about him, I know where he is.”

Meanwhile, in the past, Yitro is finishing up his 72-hour mental health hold. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s going to go. The authorities tried to investigate the location of the lab, but of course, they found it completely abandoned and stripped of all evidence. Whoever was hiding out in there surely used temporal technology of some kind. Or maybe they were never really there, and the door he ran out of three days ago was actually a portal that sent him back to the year 2022. If that portal’s now closed, then there’s no going back. If true, that begs the question, why haven’t those people come after him yet? If they’re powerful enough to store him in a vat of acid that’s strong enough to cause him agonizing pain for an extended period of time without killing him, why don’t they just teleport into his hospital room, and pluck him out? What did they ever want with him in the first place, but also, did they get it, or what?

Yitro doesn’t have any ID, and isn’t in any kind of system, since he’s from the future, but besides some clearly accidental public indecency, he hasn’t broken any law. The facility is just going to let him go, and the cops aren’t going to pursue him. He’ll apparently be on the streets, just like any native homeless person would be. All he has now is a set of clothes that the nurse retrieved from the lost and found, a single packed lunch, and a cup for panhandling. They actually gave him a paper cup; like, they’re not even gonna try to provide him with any sort of social service. “The past sucks,” he says to himself out loud as he’s tying his new old shoes. He’ll be fine, because he’ll find someone to help, but a normal person would be totally screwed in this situation.

“You should try going back even further in the past. That’s where I’m from.” It’s a young woman. She’s dressed in what looks like a company uniform, but she’s not hospital staff. Her shirt says Tractus Delivery.

“Everyone’s from the past,” Yitro points out.

She smirks. “Too true. Except for you. What year are you from?”

Yitro is smart, he didn’t bother telling anyone that he’s from a spaceship in the future, because it wouldn’t do him any good. How would this person know anything about him? As suspicious as this is, he may as well be honest, because they’re legally not allowed to keep him here for a minute longer. He sighs. “What year was I born, or what year was it when I left? For the latter, it was 2300.”

She nods understandingly. “Okay, I think we can get you back there.”

“How?”

“Lemme show ya.” She steps forward, and takes him by both shoulders. “Call me an n-word.”

“Which n-word are we talking about?”

She laughs. “I’m kidding, I’ve learned to get my heart rate up on my own.” She tightens her grip, and pushes him forward, all the way into a wall of fire that has spontaneously appeared before them.

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Microstory 1870: Nullified

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I can’t tell you how many regrets rest on my shoulders that will burden me until the moment I die, which is coming up soon. The biggest thing I did with my life, however, is not one of them. The day I pulled that trigger was the proudest of my life, second only to the day when that choice was validated. I never officially admitted to any wrongdoing. I pleaded not guilty because of a loophole. You see, they charged me with murder, and I still don’t count my actions as murder. It was self-defense; I did it in protection of others. That’s not murder, so we went forward with the trial. I didn’t do that in the hopes that I would be set free—the evidence against me was insurmountable—but I wanted the facts to get out there, so the world would understand why. I didn’t care how the judge and jury saw me. I wanted everyone else to judge me for themselves. The verdict was a bonus that made the whole ordeal taste sweeter, but it wasn’t necessary. Several years ago, a pharmaceutical company made a breakthrough in their research, which made lifesaving medicine ten times cheaper to produce, and ten times more effective. It was revolutionary, and should have been the best news for millions of people. Instead, the company buried the true cost, and only promoted the benefits, which allowed them to charge more than they were before, and it was already really inexpensive, sometimes prohibitively so. The General in this army of scoundrels was the most evil of them all, and he shall remain nameless, because he’s dead now, and justice prevailed, even though it did not bring back the estimated 56,000 people who died as a result of his wicked practices. He could have saved them, but he chose not to, and it was for that reason that I chose to send him to hell. But it was no choice at all.

I didn’t know anyone who suffered from the disease, let alone died from it. It was because of the children. I was outraged when I found out, as were most others. But I trusted in the judicial system, because that was what we were taught to believe. I have mixed feelings about it now. He was going to get away with it. The jury found him not guilty, and he was just going to walk. His purse might have gotten lighter in a civil case, but he was a billionaire, he didn’t care. Someone had to do something. Others tried, but they couldn’t get close. I was fortunate enough to have been working at the hotel where he was staying while the government worked on reopening his assets. No one pays attention to the invisible maid, so I found it easy to slip in with a revolver my late father left me, and which I wasn’t even sure would function. I didn’t make him beg or suffer like he did so many others. I told him why I was there, and then ended his life painlessly. I won’t get into how the trial went. It would have been brutal for someone who hadn’t resigned themselves to their fate, but I was comfortable, and like I said, I regret nothing. After a few hours, the jury returned with a not guilty verdict, despite all the facts, including my admission that I did it. The judge called it jury nullification, but there was evidently nothing she could do. I was already becoming a folk hero, and if they thought it was hard to find an unbiased jury before, it would have been impossible after all this publicity, so declaring a mistrial probably would have probably just been a waste of everyone’s time. The prosecutor chose to let it go, probably out of a secret sympathy for my decision. Now, according to my attorney, all I needed to worry about was a civil trial. But this never came to fruition, because no one cared about him.

Microstory 1869: Warehome is Where The Hotplate Is

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The first thing I did when I got out of college was to apply for a bunch of jobs at warehouses. I didn’t even bother trying to leverage my degree into something “better” because if there’s one thing my entire education career taught me, it’s that even when I work hard at something, I only ever barely make it. So I really needed something entry level, and there were a few other jobs that were off the table. I don’t do cleaning, and I don’t do food services. Cleaning—ironically, but not surprisingly—makes you dirty. And I don’t want to see how the sausage is made. Warehouse work seemed like the ideal environment. If I could just find something lowkey and small, I wouldn’t have to deal with all the stresses of other jobs, or bring my work home with me. I could just sit around and wait for item requests, and then fulfill them. Well, I severely overestimated the number of opportunities like that. They were all busy, busy, busy. We weren’t running, or anything, because that was dangerous, but I wasn’t ever not filling an order. But I didn’t bother looking for anything better, because that sounded like a lot of work. As always, I was an average worker. I was at no risk of getting fired, and at no risk of being promoted. Those guys got paid more, but they also had much more of that stress I was telling you about, because they were responsible for other guys. I just wanted to stay in my lane, and make enough money to afford my not quite rent-controlled apartment. That’s what did me in decades later. I never earned enough to do any significant saving, and when my rent went up, I got out. I realized, though, that I had a backup place to live. There was a nearly secret room in the warehouse on the upper level, which they didn’t use for anything anymore. Always at a comfortable temperature, and big enough to fit a mattress, a hotplate, and some safe space between the mattress and the hotplate. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? No. You don’t.

I spent about a week looking for a new place, all the while trying to make my living space as nice as possible. I put up some decorations; I like lemurs, so I had a lot of pictures of lemurs. I learned some clever recipes. I even bought a few new things to be more efficient with what little space I had available. Mostly what it did was get me to reassess my needs. I hadn’t watched TV that whole time, and I didn’t miss it. I spent a lot of time reading, which was not a hobby I enjoyed before. See my earlier statements about school. I decided to stop looking for a new apartment, because this was doing me just fine. I had a nice routine, which allowed me to sneak up there without anyone noticing. The perfect thing is that it wasn’t just any room. It was, like, an industrial shower, or something. I don’t know what they designed it to clean, but I don’t think it was people, yet the plumbing was still on, and I found it worked just fine. There was a less secret toilet down the hall that I just couldn’t use until I was sure the place was completely empty. With all that nearby, it was months before I felt bold enough to loosen up a bit. I stopped tiptoeing around, and being careful with the sounds I made. I even ended up venturing downstairs once, curious what the warehouse looked like without lights. I found a bunch of my coworkers down there, playing cards in their pajamas. They greeted me warmly, like they knew I was there the entire time. They said they did know, and then they took me down to a secret section of the basement that was totally finished, where they all lived in more luxury then I ever had in my apartment. So I moved again.

Microstory 1868: Walking Out

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It’s funny, all these stories coming out recently about employees walking out of their places of employment, not on strike, but genuinely quitting their jobs. In my day, I only know of that happening once. Most of the time, we’re talking about people who were brave enough to fight for their rights, but once they won, they expected to have their jobs waiting for them. That was the bluff, and sometimes it worked, while other times, not so much. Here, these kids are realizing that these jobs aren’t worth the heartache. They don’t pay enough, and there is plenty of competition. I actually witnessed one of them long ago. But since it was before camera phones and social media, most people didn’t hear about it unless they subscribed to the local paper, and found this particular story interesting enough to read. Let me set the scene. It was 14:00, which was when a certain unnamed popular restaurant opened. It was packed immediately, because it was the weekend, and the dinner rush was pretty much all day, especially since they didn’t do breakfast or lunch. So every table was filled, but no one had been served yet. It was the only time of day this was the case, but it happened at this place twice a week, every week. I say all this, because you have to understand that it didn’t really matter if you thought you ought to be served first. The waiters got to you when they got to you, and if you chose to arrive right when the doors opened, you had better been prepared to make a day of it. So I was sitting there with my friend at a table for four when the manager came up and asked if we would be willing to share with a couple. Sure, of course, we had no problem with that. But he was acting weird, and even when we agreed, his demeanor didn’t change. Something else was wrong, and this interaction had little to do with it.

So we continued to wait. Twenty minutes passed, we were getting to know our new friends, when one of them noted that no one had been helped at all. She hadn’t seen a single waiter come out, even to take a drink order. We had only seen the manager. Again, this was how it worked. At 14:00, you walked in, and found a table on your own. They didn’t start tracking who sat where until later. Another five minutes, and others were seemingly noticing the same thing. No one was upset, because only a few tables would have been first anyway, but it was still weird, and we were all getting worried. Five more minutes, that manager returned. He asked my friend if he could borrow his chair for a minute. Being the agreeable guy that he was, he hopped up, and stood by the table to wait, which he soon realized was a mistake. Because the manager didn’t take the chair away. He pulled it out a little more, and stood on top of it to give his speech, which kind of made it look like my friend was his lieutenant, or something. It would have been weirder if he had tried to step away. Anyway, the manager revealed himself to actually be the owner. “I’m sorry, folks, but we won’t be serving you today. Every single one of my employees has walked out on me.” He kept going, but didn’t get much further before a waitress ran out, and started arguing with him. They weren’t walking out on him, they were protesting unfair wages, and poor working conditions. I was close enough to hear her whisper that they were planning to sneak out the back, but now, because of his words, they would march out through the dining area. Silence reigned as they began, but I felt for them, so I began to clap, and soon...the whole room was doing the same.

Microstory 1867: Lottery Winners All

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In third grade, I took a math test. I wasn’t a child prodigy, but I was one of a handful of students who tested into a slightly more advanced math class. While the rest of the students stayed in the room, we went off to learn at a higher rate. We focused most on probability. The first question our designated teacher asked was what were the odds of winning the lottery. None of us knew the answer of course, nor were we expected to. It was just to get us warmed up to the basic concepts. I don’t remember the numbers people say, but the truth is that the chances are actually a hundred percent. Hi, my name is Arnie Arnoldson, and I’m about to die. But before I go, I’m gonna explain to you what I mean. The reason my answer works out is because each and every one of you has already won the lottery. The chances that the universe would exist were profoundly low. The chances that life would exist were profoundly low. The chances that any given person will be born to this world are low. You went through so much to get here even before you were alive to do anything on purpose. That’s amazing. You’re amazing, and I want you all to give yourselves a round of applause for making it this far, because as I’ve said, it was virtually impossible, yet you did it anyway. You know, I didn’t start out as a motivational speaker. I was just a wee li’le baby, like anyone else. What I did to get to this place in my life is I kept playing the lottery. Sometimes I won the pot, but I never truly lost, because at the very least, it was experience, which helped me play the next round. Because life isn’t really like a lottery, it’s hard work. Put in your time, day after day, and I promise you, no matter what, at the end of the week, you’ll be paid fairly.

Notice how I said that you’ll be paid weekly. This is important, because if you expect that paycheck every day, six times out of seven, you’ll be disappointed. As a result, you’ll stop working as hard, and you’ll start getting paid less, and that will make you even more discouraged. We all receive what we deserve. It may not feel like it, but that just means that you need to manage your expectations, work harder, and never give up. Say it with me, manage your expectations, work harder, never give up. That is your new philosophy. Whenever you’re down, or you think you have done nothing but lose, just ignore all that, and remind yourself that there is always time to turn things around. But you have to take charge of your life, and decide that you’re not satisfied with what you have right now. No one else can do that for you. Let me tell you a story about the moth in the pond. A moth fell into a pond, but he didn’t die. He had spent his whole life fluttering through the air, and landing on leaves, but now he realized that those same wings he used to balance himself and fly were also good for swimming. This opened up a whole new world to him. So he said to himself, I’m never going to fly again. I prefer to swim. I’m a swimmer now. He smiled—insomuch as a moth can smile—and continued to swim around, looking for food. But he could not find the fruits and flowers he normally drank from. Oh, the moth realized, now I know why we moths don’t usually swim. And so the moth summoned all of his might to get back into the air, but he quickly discovered that his wings were too heavy, weighted down by the water. Try as he would, all he could do was swim. He swam until he was too exhausted, but before he could drown, the hand of a human reached underneath, and raised him from perdition. All of you are that moth, and the water is every obstacle you face; past, present, and future. I am the hand.

Microstory 1866: Garden Path

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My family had more than enough money to afford college, but I refused to go, because I already knew what I wanted to do with my life, and four years of studying math and history weren’t going to do me any good. My parents were disappointed, but they understood. They worked long hours to earn that money, so my father’s parents chose to move closer to us so I could go over there after school every day. My grandmother would read me classic books while I was curled up in a plastic storage bin, and my grandfather would teach me things he thought every growing child should know, like how to hold a baseball like a pitcher. But we all three worked in that garden together. It was so beautiful that neighbors would ask them to landscape their yards for them. They were both retired, and appreciated the opportunities to do something productive with their lives. They didn’t start a real business, but I knew that it could become that one day, and that I would be responsible for it. By the time I graduated from high school, they were too old to be on their hands and knees all the time, so I took on the clients alone, and started charging money for my services. I kept getting more and more requests, and before I knew it, I had to hire some help to get everything done. In only a few years, I had an office clerk, an accountant, and two separate crews so we could serve two homes at the same time. I was making a real name for myself in the industry; so big, in fact, that I risked not being able to do what I loved, because I ended up with so many administrative duties. That was when a new opportunity knocked in my door.

A wealthy man who had already founded and sold off two companies had decided to break ground on the headquarters for a new organization right here in my community. Back then, before the internet, it was hard to determine who was a good guy, and who was bad, but I couldn’t find any skeletons in his closet. He asked me to design the landscaping for the building. He didn’t like the idea of anyone working in an office setting without windows, so there would be no cubicles, and no interior rooms, except for bathrooms, and storage closets. If it had a desk in it, it also had a view. To maximize the space, it was built with four separate courtyards that weren’t even all at the same height. So I guess some people would be working without windows, but for good reason. It was a company that shot commercials for other companies, so the soundstage had to be big, and soundproof. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The point is the courtyards. The landscaping had to be gorgeous and extravagant, because hundreds of people were going to be looking at it, and living in it, every day. It was a huge project. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I certainly wouldn’t have any time to plant any trees myself, which is what I always loved. Still, it was good money, so I had to take it. Once it was complete, the founder was so impressed that he essentially donated his nephew to me. The nephew wanted to be a businessman, but he didn’t want to work directly for a family member. He seemed perfect. He could handle all the boring stuff, and I could return to what I did best. It went well for the next few years until he pushed me out using some legal maneuvering that I still don’t understand. His uncle was horrified, but he said there was nothing that either of us could do. Except that wasn’t true. I started a new company from the ground up, using my good name to accumulate clients, and before I knew it, I was bigger than the nephew ever hoped to achieve.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 1, 2390

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There is no stealth in space. If you’re generating power, then you’re generating heat. There is nowhere to dump all that heat, except to radiate it away, which others can detect. According to Ramses’ research, some ships in this reality can shunt it to another dimension, but on its own, this takes a lot of energy, and can still be detected in other ways, so it’s not really that useful. Pilot Fish protocol was not about making themselves completely invisible, but hiding themselves in the chaos of a larger vessel; a very large vessel. The WTD was enormous, and radiated a ton of waste heat. It also had lots of other little ships flying around, executing repairs, and whatnot. It was rather easy for a tiny lifeboat such as the AOC to attach itself to a remote part of the hull, and sit there quietly. No one and nothing knew that they were there, which was good, but it was the easy part. Presumably, the Warmaker Training Detachment was presently in the middle of the beginning of a new war. While it was out here, there was no telling where the rest of the detachments were, or whether they would ever be rendezvousing with each other anytime soon. Fortunately, they only needed to cross paths with the SWD once. The team’s AI knew what to do when that happened. It would detach itself from the first ship, and attach itself to the next. They didn’t know if it would happen within the next year, but they figured it would occur at some point in the next few days from their perspective. It turned out to be one day realtime.

When the team returned to the timestream, they learned that the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had been pilot fishing the Security Watchhouse Detachment for almost the entire year. This was perfect, because it was even more massive than the WTD, so their chances of being caught eventually had actually gone down. Everything was going according to plan. They were going to make their way to Dilara Cassano’s office, reveal to her that she had a special time power, and a destiny in another reality, then all go home together.

“Wait, who are you again?” Dilara asked. She was sitting in the same place they had always seen her, in the breakroom area.

“Mateo. This is Leona, Ramses, Olimpia, Angela, and Marie.”

“Angela and Marie are twins?”

“Alternate selves,” Angela clarified.

Dilara yawned. “I remember you people looking older.”

“Eh. Time, right?” Ramses noted

“Right,” Dilara sort of agreed. “Did you need some...antiquated technology, or sanctuary...?”

“We want your help getting home,” Mateo requested.

“There’s nothing left for us here,” Leona added. “The main sequence is where you belong anyway.”

“How do you figure?” Dilara questioned.

“We’ve seen you there,” Leona claimed. “You have the ability to cross back into old timelines, which means you necessarily also have the ability to travel to parallel timelines.”

Dilara stared at her, and then looked one by one at the rest of the team, like she was waiting for someone to give away that this was some kind of prank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We know,” Mateo said. “It happened in our past, but in your future.”

“Do I go on adventures in this future?” Dilara pressed. “Do I exert a lot of effort?”

Mateo leaned his head back in confusion. “I mean, I think so...”

“And I’m walking?”

“What?”

“This person who you think is me, does she walk?” Dilara continued.

“Yeah, she walks,” Leona confirmed.

Dilara opened a panel on her armrest, and pushed a few buttons. The chair gently flew out from under the table, and began to hover before them. “I can’t walk.”

“You what?”

“I have literally never walked,” she said, though it must have been a lie. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not your girl. I don’t have any powers, and I’m not going to be going on any adventures.”

“They can’t cure whatever’s stopping you from walking?” Angela suggested.

“Mother says no. They tried when I was younger.”

“Can we speak to her?”

“She’s dead.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ramses said. “At the very least, you can strap an exoskeleton on her, and have her simulate walking. There is no way a reality this advanced can’t find a way to fix her.”

“I don’t need to be fixed,” Dilara contended. “I’m fine sitting down, thank you.”

“I’m sorry,” Ramses said sincerely.

“There’s also the matter of this.” Dilara reached up to her necklace, and pushed another button. A hologram flickered off, leaving a much older and wrinkled face behind. “I know what it’s like to change your age of appearance.”

They all stared at her, unsure what to say. Mateo looked to the floor behind them. “The football. You say you can’t find a record of it being a sport that ever existed before, yet you know what it is.”

“That’s right,” Dilara agreed.

“Mateo...” Leona began without finishing.

“You are our Dilara Cassano,” he realized. “You’ve just lost your memories. I don’t know how, or whether it was done on purpose, but that’s why you’re older than we knew you, and it probably partially explains why your mother claimed you couldn’t ever walk again. I don’t have all the answers, but the main sequence is not part of your future. It’s in your past, just like it is for the six of us.”

“Except it should also be in your future,” Dilara reasoned. “Because you want to get back there, whereas I don’t think I care to get those memories back, if they even exist.”

“They exist,” Mateo assured her, “and no one’s going back now. You were our last hope. If anyone else had the ability to cross realities, we probably would have heard of them by now. I mean, maybe if we were able to find Jupiter, or Jupiter, or one of the other Jupiters...”

“There may be another way,” Olimpia said, nervous about bringing up whatever it was she was thinking.

“What would that be?” Leona asked.

“I don’t wanna say anything without any more information.” Olimpia answered. “I was just hoping you could...point me towards that library database that you used a few days ago, Mateo?”

Mateo wanted to respect her wishes, even though he also wanted her to just say it. “Yeah, I’ll take you.” He offered her his hand. When Olimpia took it, he turned his head back to Dilara, who was resituating herself under the table. “Thank you for everything. I apologize for the confusion.”

“It’s quite all right.” Dilara reinitialized her youngification hologram.

Mateo escorted Olimpia to the library. Nothing had changed since last time. It was still completely empty. He tried to look over her shoulder as she began her search for whatever she was searching for, but she looked right back with a look. All he caught were the words mysterious war before he agreed to literally back off, and walk the perimeter. It wasn’t long before he started to get a feeling. It didn’t hurt, but he knew it wasn’t great either. It felt like waves of energy pulsating on the side of his forehead. When he turned his head, the waves stayed in place, so now they were on the other side of his forehead. He did a one-eighty, and now they were hitting the back of his head. Something external was out there, doing this to him. Again, it wasn’t painful, but he instinctually prepared himself for an attack of some kind.

The attack came in the form of a bullet, right in his shoulder joint. At least that was what he assumed it to be. He heard a loud explosive sound, and felt a sharp pain in his chest. It didn’t last very long. The pain went away to be replaced with another wave of information, reminding him that there was a bullet wound there. It happened several more times after that. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Somebody wanted him dead, but Mateo was getting the feeling now that that wasn’t going to happen. Ramses’ upgrades were just too good. He didn’t know if he could heal as fast as superheroes did in movies, but he was still standing even after all this, and the pain was gone.

A figure rounded the corner. “You think I wouldn’t recognize you, didn’t you?” It was the security guard from years ago. He was still patrolling the same area. He walked forward, and placed his gun against Mateo’s head. “You can hologram your face in whatever form you please, but I can still tell. You have a certain smell.”

“Hey, that rhymed.”

“Shut up!”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

Mateo shrugged. “People changed their minds. It’s been six years.”

“No, it’s been one year.” He reached into his bag, and pulled out the mangled remains of the Cassidy cuff that Mateo forced upon him to make sure he didn’t leave him trapped in a time bubble.

“It took you that long to figure out how to get it off?”

“I don’t have any friends!”

“Sorry, dude.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s just time. I told you that you shouldn’t ever come back, and now you’re gonna face the consequences.”

“Look at me,” Mateo said. “You’ve already shot me several times. Why do you think it hasn’t killed me yet?”

The man tugged at Mateo’s shirt. “Body armor.”

“No. Armored body,” he corrected.

He frowned, and loosened his grip on his weapon while he looked away. “This isn’t a hologram, is it?”

“No.”

“You people have technologies that we have never seen before.”

“Which is weird,” Mateo said. “I mean, consciousness transference? That’s not easy, but it didn’t take us as long as faster-than-light travel. It’s like you just skipped over a bunch of developments that would have been really helpful to your lives.”

“Or they were deliberately withheld from us.”

“That would sure make sense. I personally know the people who invented FTL where I come from. It’s taken them until recently to even begin thinking about sharing that with everyone else.”

“You’re trying to get back there, aren’t you?”

“We weren’t before, but we are now. Unfortunately, the tech we used to come in the first place has been lost to us. We’re working on it.”

Now the security officer lowered his arm completely. “Take me with you.”

“What?”

“It sounds like you have purpose. I want that too.”

Mateo sighed. “You wouldn’t be the first stray we took in.”

“Please.”

“Mateo!” Olimpia came up from behind him. “I found him.”

“Found who?”

“The guy who’s gonna get us back home,” she said cryptically.

“How’s he gonna do that?”

She presented her tablet. “Medavorken Alon.”

“Is that a band, errr...?”

“He was a famous Comradiant in the People’s Army of the Independent Triangulites For The Independence of Triangulum.”

Mateo couldn’t help but laugh, “wwwwhat?”

“The Triangulites?” the security guy questioned. “They were wiped out centuries ago.”

“Who are you again?” Olimpia questioned in return.

“Go on,” Mateo prompted.

“He went missing...before all that happened. They say he went into a deserted building alone, they heard a loud horn, and then it blew up.”

“So he’s not missing, he died,” the security—

“What is your name?” Mateo asked.

“Summit Ebora.”

“Well, Summit, we know he disappeared because of the horn. It’s The Transit. That’s your idea?” Mateo asked her. “You wanna hitch a ride?”

“They’re the only people who can do it,” Olimpia said. “And we know exactly where they’re gonna be, when they’re gonna be there.”

“The problem is that we don’t have a time machine,” Leona said, having teleported to their location. The rest of the team was there too.

“A time machine? I can get you to a time machine,” Summit claimed.

“Now, is it an actual time machine, or just an amusement park ride in the bulk store?” Angela joked.

“I don’t know what that is,” Summit said. “It’s an actual time machine, which can get you back to the 21st century.”

“Great!” Mateo said enthusiastically. “Leona, that’s your birthday present. I didn’t get you anything else.”

“Kind of an irresponsible gift to give to a thirteen-year-old,” Angela joked more.

Leona shook her head and half-scoffed, half-laughed. “I’m gonna get you back for that.”

“Thirteen-year-old or not,” Marie began, not joking, “you’re the captain.”

They waited patiently for her decision.

Leona waited to respond, considering the dangers and ramifications. “Very well. We’re going back to the past.”

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