The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 12, 2398

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This is going to be a lot of work. It was hard to tell back when they were using the elevator to get down here in the main sequence, but it’s incredibly far below the surface. According to Ramses—who stuck around long enough to find Mateo and Heath a blueprint—the main floor is five kilometers under the surface, so the first time the two of them climb the emergency ladder, it takes them just over an hour. Subsequent climbs in either direction are going to take significantly longer. This is not a good alternative, but the computer didn’t tell them where the elevator car was stopped, so they had to do the whole thing to find it. Once they reached an obstacle, it took some sleuthing and math for them to realize that said obstacle was not the elevator. It was a ceiling of concrete, or some other strong material, which was constructed in order to prevent the soil above from falling down.

“Well,” Heath begins as he’s digging through his bag, grateful that there is a ledge here for them to sit and rest.

“Well...?” Mateo prompts after a period of silence.

“Oh. Well, we have all the tools we thought we might need to break into the elevator car, but I guess it was removed...?”

Another bit of silence. “Go on”

“Since it’s not here, we’re going to need something else; a heavy duty power tool of some kind.”

“You wanna take out this ceiling?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t see any other way,” Heath says, “not unless you’re sure that your ability to teleport at this specific location won’t ever go away.”

“Nah, it probably will. It would be foolish for us to rely on that.”

“That’s what I figured, which is why I suggested we do what we’re doing right now. I just didn’t know it would entail this much climbing, or that we would run into this damn thing.” He clumsily pounds on the ceiling with the outside of his fist. “Ow, why is it so hard?”

“Well,” Mateo decides, “I can still feel the energy right now. I can jump up to the surface, dig down with the shovel, and then jackhammer this block.”

“You want to what the block.”

“Jackhammer?” Mateo repeats. He pantomimes with sound effects. “Jackhammer.”

“Oh, a powered demo chisel.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, I don’t have one of those.”

“I should think not.”

“You jump us both up there, I’ll start digging, you go rent one—a hardware store in town surely has one available—and then I’ll operate it.”

“Are you asking me to let you do all the work?”

“How do you mean? I don’t know how else we would do it.”

Mateo laughs. “This is my cousin’s house. If anyone was gonna do it all by himself, it would be me. But no, we’ll do it together. We’ll both go rent the chisel thing, we’ll both dig a hole, and we’ll both break through this ceiling. Let’s hope it’s not made of adamantium, or naquadah, or something.”

“I don’t know what those are,” Heath admits.

“I should think not.” They sit there to rest a little more until Mateo speaks again. “I don’t suppose it’s legal to blast our way through with an explosive.”

“It would be if we owned this land, or secured a permit to conduct such work. Otherwise, they would ask us why we need the explosives. They may even ask us if we try to rent the demo chisel. That’s why I think one will be available, because it’s not exactly something the average household ever needs. It’s a risk too.”

“What about a sledgehammer? Would they question that?”

“A what?”

Mateo growls, though he knows that it’s no one’s fault that they sometimes have different words for the same, or similar, thing. “It’s a hammer you use for demolition, rather than nails.” That’s how he thinks to describe it, but it may be inaccurate.

“Oh, no, that would be fine, though...I imagine it would take a long time. Do you really wanna try?”

Mateo shakes his head. “No one can know what we’re doing here, or that this place exists. We should even move our car to a different location.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heath agrees. “Jump us to the surface, so we can drive to Mankato. There’s a greater population, so we should be able to blend in. I don’t have my own block striker either. Then we’ll park a ways away from here, hide the car behind some trees, and walk.”

“Sounds like a plan, but we may need to get back to the top of the ladder at some point, and I do not want to climb it again, or have to aim at this ledge, so hand me that rope, if you please.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna build myself a web.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 11, 2398

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They didn’t just jump into performing Marie’s abortion, or even in preparing for it. First of all, she needed more time to prepare herself emotionally, and there were things they needed to do in The Constant before they could be sure it was even safe to be down here at all. While she was resting, and Heath was tending to her needs, Leona and Angela spent time in the med bay, taking inventory of everything they had available to them. Mateo and Ramses went off to investigate the facility more thoroughly, with the former more concerned with understanding the power situation.

It isn’t until the next day that Ramses finally figures out how this place works. “It’s fascinating.”

“It looks like a long-ass tube,” Mateo notes as he’s staring at the diagram.

“It is,” Ramses confirms. “Do you remember when we first went to The Fourth Quadrant? Do you remember how they powered the city since they no longer had access to a real sun, or fossil fuels, or anything a normal planet has?”

“Yeah, they were these big temporal energy generators.”

Ramses nods. “Back then, that pocket reality was moving through time at a different rate than the main sequence. The incongruity generated minute amounts of power, which they harnessed, combined, and stored. This place does the same thing, but instead of using incongruent time, it just uses general relativity.”

“I don’t understand,” Mateo says honestly. “I know general relativity is about how time moves slower because of higher gravity, but I don’t understand the tube.”

Ramses points to the diagram as he’s explaining. “Right. Time moves slower at the bottom of this tube than it does at the top. It’s even more minute than it is for the people in the Fourth Quadrant—we’re talking a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second—but it’s there. This asymmetry generates vibrations, which travel up the tube to become stored in extremely dense and long lasting batteries. Again, these are incredibly small perturbations, but they’re basically free, and they add up over time. I think tectonic shifts impart energy as well. Anyway, it takes billions of years for it to amount to anything useful so a normal civilization wouldn’t be able to reasonably use this method, but that’s perfect for something that mostly sits dormant.”

“Does this explain where Danica went?”

“It does not. This, the antimatter chamber, and the backup fusion drives, are running perfectly smoothly. In fact, since she hasn’t been here to use up lighting and life support, the batteries are at top capacity. If there’s a reason she abandoned this place, I haven’t found it.”

Mateo sighs. “This suggests that something happened to time powers after she arrived here. Maybe it occurred only a few hundred years ago, which is plenty of time for her to die of natural causes. If the asymmetric gravity tube doesn’t technically run on normal temporal energy, it wouldn’t have been affected, which is why it’s still going.”

“Now, we don’t know she’s dead. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

“Bottom line, it’s safe for us to be here, correct? More to the point, it’s safe for Marie and her procedure.”

“Yes, this place is safer than houses.” He kind of scoffs. “We should probably just live down here.”

“I think the others want to lead real lives, and contribute to society.”

“I don’t,” Ramses decides. “I can quit my job if everything we need is right here for the taking. It’s annoying anyway, I don’t like being in charge.”

“I get it. We should report to the others, and see if they need help with anything.”

They walk back up to the main floor to find everyone busy with their responsibilities, but Marie knows that it won’t last. This was a nice break, but they’re going to have to come back down from the clouds. They can’t all help her with her problem. None of them is a doctor. Not even Angela studied enough medicine to feel comfortable doing anything like this. Their only hope now is automated technology, which will require either Ramses or Leona to operate it. The question then becomes, who stays? “Oh, good, you’re back,” she begins. “Now I can speak my piece. I appreciate you all being here, but it’s neither necessary, nor smart, to continue as we are. Besides Mateo, you all have to get back to your regular jobs. I need someone to help me with this, but I don’t know who, and I don’t want to ask that of anyone.”

Leona and Ramses both step forward, and announce, “I’ll stay,” simultaneously.

“No,” Ramses argues. “I have a dumb job. You have an important job. You can’t just throw away working in the lab. We might need it one day. The only reason I wanted to work at the electronics store is because it was going to give me access to certain parts and equipment. But you work there too, and now we’ve found the Constant, we should be fine on technology. Marie, Mateo, and I will remain, and figure this out. The rest of you should go back. Angela, I know you’re going to contend that the library doesn’t need you, and that may be true, but you need to take Marie’s place at her job eventually. You may as well get on that.”

“I have no idea how to do her job,” Angela reminds him. “Does this place not have cloning tech, or an android plant?”

“No,” Leona answers simply.

“It looks like we all need more time,” Heath jumps in. “Fortunately, it’s time that my wife has.”

“The longer she waits, the harder the procedure will be for whoever needs to perform it,” Leona says.

“I know,” Heath replies, “but there’s a little time for us to make this a safe and believable transition.”

They continue to argue and try to work out the details. In the end, they agree on Ramses and Marie’s ideas. The two of them will return when the time is right. Mateo will be here for added support, because he’s of no use anywhere else. Until then, though, he and Heath will remain here for probably the entire time to work on the access shaft. The team was able to teleport down here at first, but the temporal energy could run out, or be rescinded by the Third Rail god at any point, so they need a decent alternative.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2398

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The map was finished when Mateo woke up the next morning. It took him a few minutes to confirm what he was seeing, since he didn’t exactly take any training to use this software. According to this data, there is indeed some kind of access shaft right about where he always suspected there should be. That’s all he can tell about it. He’ll only have to dig a few meters down in order to reach the empty space. It’s too square and perfect to have been made by natural causes. Someone built something down there, and then covered it up. It can’t be anything but The Constant, because that would be too great a coincidence. He’s so excited. This is the first time since coming to this reality that a plan someone on the team came up with to find answers has actually gone well. Furthermore, he’s the one who conceived it, which is just wild considering...

The joy of success wears off quickly when Mateo realizes that there’s a huge problem here. Just because there’s something down there doesn’t mean he can go down and get to it. The Lebanese people won’t—is that what he should call them? Probably not. The people who live in Lebanon, that is, surely won’t care for it, or maybe just not whoever owns this particular acre. Scanning is one thing. It wasn’t hard for him to run the machine over this land without causing a stir. It might even be public land, but that doesn’t mean he can excavate it. Now he’s both literally and figuratively at a crossroads, and he needs help.

Just then, as if she could sense his desire, Leona calls. The quality is loud and clear, but she pretends that it’s shoddy. “Captain. Can you hear me?”

“What?”

“On your left.”

“You’re the Captain.”

She sighs. “I know, which is just one more reason why I should be there, and you should be in this car. Look to your left,” she reiterates.

He looks over to find Heath’s flying carboat coming right for him down Highway 191. “Did you get up to drive in the middle of the night?”

“We flew most of the way,” Heath answers proudly. “That’s why I bought this.”

“I was trying to remain conspicuous,” Mateo complains.

“Inconspicuous, you mean,” Leona teaches.

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

The giant vehicle pulls over into the grass, and parks right next to the location of the ground anomaly. Leona gets out first. “You bought that thing with our shared credit card,” she begins to explain. “That means I had access to the serial number, and therefore the data in the app. Angela happened to be awake early, and noticed what you found. So we took off work, piled in here, and came out to investigate with you.”

“I’m sorry I left without you. I was just worried how Danica would react.”

“It’s fine,” Leona says sincerely. “We’re not mad. We’re all kind of doing our own thing. It’s time for a joint adventure, though.”

“I found what I was looking for, but not necessarily who. My cousin may not even be alive. If this reality suppresses powers, then she died billions of years ago.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Ramses says with a smirk. He’s walking over the access shaft, arms down at his sides, feeling the air churning under his palms. “Do you feel that?”

“I felt it when I arrived,” Mateo agrees. “It’s become stronger since you showed up.”

“There’s temporal energy here,” Ramses believes. “There may be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Marie questions.

His smirk widens. He closes his eyes to concentrate, locks onto the apparent energy around him, and disappears.

Heath is shocked. “I always believed. I always believed it was all real, but a part of me still experienced doubt.”

Marie takes him by the shoulders, and leads him closer to the shaft. “That’s fair. I’m glad you stuck by me, and you will be too. The first time is always a rush. “She holds on tight, and jumps him down to meet Ramses.

The other three come together, and follow. The lights are on in the elevator, and a little beyond the open doors, but no farther. Ramses is already venturing out, and Marie is smiling at Heath’s look of exhilaration.

“Hey, computer...I’m home,” Mateo says out loud.

“Welcome,” comes the AI’s voice. Lights begin to illuminate for them, but never get too bright, possibly to conserve power.

The team continues down the passageways, splitting off every once in a while to check out rooms to see if there’s anything of note in them. All but Angela meet back up in the main lounge once it becomes rather clear that they’re the only ones down here, and it’s probably been this way for quite a long time. “Computer, report.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“What happened down here?”

“You arrived seven minutes, thirty-two seconds ago.”

“What happened before we arrived?” Leona clarifies.

“No data available,” the computer answers.

“I’ll look into it more,” Leona tells the group. “There might be answers in the system that the processor doesn’t have direct access too, or even a handwritten note on the refrigerator.”

“This alone is a pretty big answer,” Mateo points out. “Just the fact that it’s here proves that we may have everything we need to get everything we ever wanted. We could leave, not leave, travel back and forth. This gives us possibilities that we didn’t have yesterday, or at least lights us the way.”

“You were right,” Leona admits. “This is real.”

Angela walks in. “So is the med bay. I think we can work with this. Marie, you’re gonna be okay.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 9, 2398

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Mateo is just driving a regular car, rather than the flying carboat—a form factor which definitely needs a new name, or at least that particular vehicle needs its own designation. This car he’s using today is not even Heath’s at all. Ramses and Leona pooled the money they made from their first paychecks at their three jobs, and put a down payment on a second one for the team. It’s an SUV that can fit all six of them, and then some. It just makes practical sense to have two standard forms of transport, even if two members will soon embark on a long-term mission with that third vehicle. Mateo didn’t tell anyone that he was leaving. Well, he leaves every day, usually to go to therapy, or the library, so the real problem is that he didn’t tell them where he was going this time. About halfway into the trip, Ramses evidently experiences a psychic vision, and decides to call him up on the video screen, which is overlaid on the windshield.

“You don’t need to know that,” Mateo replies when asked for his whereabouts.

“Something is wrong, I can feel it.”

“I thought we weren’t empaths anymore,” Mateo says.

“We shouldn’t be, but maybe our powers are slowly coming back. Or you’re drawing nearer to a location of great power, and that’s helping? Where are you?”

“You tell me.”

“If I had to guess? Lebanon.”

“Close. Manhattan.”

“What’s in Manhattan?”

“It’s...on the way to Lebanon.”

“So I’m right. You’re hoping to get into the Constant.”

“I am, yes. It will be harder since it’s not the center of the country in this reality, so they won’t advertise the location, but the Constant was built billions of years ago. There is no reason to believe there’s not a version of it here, and if there is, it’s an hour from my current location.”

“We don’t know where the point of divergence was,” Ramses reasons. “Angela is still researching history. The Constant is a secret place, which could have been moved without anyone knowing.”

“Why would they do that?”

“That, sir, is an unknown unknown.”

“I’m gonna check anyway.”

“What are you looking for, the church above?”

“Why don’t these cars have autopilot?”

“I don’t know,” Ramses says.

They do have some advanced cruise control features, which allows Mateo to participate in a video call, and also reach behind his seat to struggle to lift a box up with one hand. “Can you..can you see that?”

“I see a box. What is it?”

“Ground-penetrating radar.”

“You’re just going to go to where you think the church would be in the main sequence, and search for signs of an access shaft?”

“Bingo was his name-o,” Mateo confirms.

“Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you just waiting until Heath, Marie, and Angela can get their affairs in order? Are you really this anxious for answers?”

He’s not doing it for himself, or even to get his people back home. It’s for Marie. The Constant was designed with all sorts of advanced technology, including medical equipment. They don’t need to trust an outsider if he can make contact with Danica. “If I can find my cousin, she can help us complete Marie’s procedure, and she can do it in such a way that it doesn’t leave evidence, and we know that she won’t rat us out. It’s a far better alternative than Croatia.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, or ask one of us to come with you? Do you even know how to use GPR?”

“I don’t know how to use GPR. It comes with instructions. I didn’t tell anyone, because I don’t want to spook her. She trusts me more than anyone, and I’m more likely to be invited if I’m alone.”

“That’s a stretch,” Ramses contends. “We’ve all been down there too.”

“And you will again one day,” Mateo promises. “Just not today. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just looking for help.”

“Fine. Just be careful, and stay in touch.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Having spent a relatively small amount of time in the Lebanon area in the past, Mateo doesn’t know exactly where he’s going. He sort of has to take for granted the likelihood that the roads at least are the same. He starts in the town proper, then makes his way North, backtracking a little until he figures he has reached the correct crossroads. In the main sequence, the actual center of the U.S. is located in a rough triangle, rather than a four-way intersection, which makes it even harder to guess, but this must be it. It’s just about two miles from town, yeah, it has to be.

He removes the various parts of the radar thing from the box, and begins to assemble it. It takes him a few hours to get through it, at which point he finds himself too hungry to go on with the mission, so he stops to eat some lunch. Then he spends the rest of the sunlit hours scanning the ground, hoping to find any evidence that there’s something below his feet besides more dirt and rocks. He looks for landmarks on the surface too; perhaps an interesting tree, or a boulder. They don’t really have that second thing in Kansas, so it would be very out of place. He’s assuming that this version of Danica opted out of an entrance for normal people, and just teleports herself whenever she needs to, but there might be an emergency exit somewhere too.

The machine isn’t designed to just beep when it finds some kind of anomaly. It sends waves into the ground, which detect impediments along the way. This is how the machine measures density, and estimates composition. A picture of the soil below does begin to form on the data screen, but it’s incomplete until the entire data can be synthesized into a full image. He pretty much has to scan the whole area strip by strip before he can find out whether it’s found anything of note. He’s done with a good chunk of land when the sun sets, so he stuffs the thing back in the back, crawls into the passenger seat, and goes to sleep so the computer can continue its work. He’ll check it in the morning.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 8, 2398

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Everyone seems to be having problems at their jobs, but Angela’s is going well. She likes the people she works with, and she likes the work itself. She feels a little guilty about this, though, so she doesn’t talk about it at home. The team dynamic has definitely shifted. They used to pretty much go through everything together, with only a few major exceptions, like when almost all of them died, leaving Leona alone to deal with the aftermath. Now it feels like Angela is the one left out, unable to really do anything to help, while the rest struggle. She works on her studies, and helps other library-goers do the same, but she doesn’t contribute to her family. Mateo was feeling this before, but it’s only recently come to her attention that she’s kind of in the same boat. She’s smart, experienced, and knowledgeable, but what good is that if she doesn’t do anything with it?

“Hey.”

“Oh, hi, Rance.” Rance volunteers here too, and started around the same time she did, so he thinks of them as friends. She does too, but maybe it’s a little more than that?

“Need any help with those encyclopedias?”

“No, I’m all right.”

“Okay.” He looks nervous.

“Is everything all right?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I just...” He sighs. “My friends told me to come up with a cool pickup line, but I’m too honest to say something like that, so I’m just going to be blunt. Do you want to go on a date with me tonight or tomorrow night?”

Yeah, she would. He’s a nice guy who cares about people. He likes to read too, which is high up on her list of preferable traits. She smiles, and tries to say yes, but for some reason, it sounds a little more like, “I’m married.” What the hell was that?

“Oh, I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry, you just never talk about your partner.”

“Well, he’s real. His name is Heath, and I have to go. Can you cover for me?”

“Of course,” Rance promises. “See you tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She runs off.

She burst into the condo. She had the evening shift, so everyone is home already, except for Leona, who is still at her primary job. She leans back against the door to catch her breath.

“Angela, are you okay?” Mateo asks. He’s probably getting ready to go pick Leona up.

“My name is Marie.”

He flinches, and walks backwards down the entryway, until he can see the living area. “No, she’s over here. Right? You’re Marie?”

“Yep,” the real Marie answers.

Angela follows him around the corner. “No, I’m Marie. You don’t even exist.”

“Whoa,” Marie says with a frown, “what are we talking about here?”

Angela gathers her composure. “You’re going to Croatia to get an abortion.”

Marie’s frown deepens. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“But when you come back, they’ll know that you went there, and they’ll question whether that’s why you were there, especially since you’ve already been to the doctor, so they already know about the baby.”

“They won’t necessarily know,” Heath contends. “When you fly private, there are certain ways you can get around being discovered.”

“But they could still find out,” Marie adds. “Angela, we’ve already discussed the plan. I’m going to fake a miscarriage before we even leave.”

“That’s not going to work,” Angela argues. “The authorities are not stupid. Nor are your medical professionals.”

“We have to try,” Heath insists.

“Or you don’t. Like I said, one of us doesn’t exist,” Angela repeats.

“Please explain,” Marie urges.

“I have never been pregnant before,” Angela begins to reason. “If the authorities attempt to examine me, they will find no proof that I was pregnant, or that I had an abortion. So I need to take your place. I need to become you, and you need to become nobody, like I am right now.”

“You have an identity now,” Ramses reminds her. “You’re Angela Bolton.”

Angela shakes her head. “That’s never been scrutinized. The forger inserted my name into the system. She can take it back out. Meanwhile, I take on Marie’s identity, and Marie just becomes this secret person with no identity. If she ever needs to prove who she is, she’ll pretend to be herself again, but hopefully we can just keep her under wraps, because I need to be the one available for a pregnancy test.”

“How will you explain why all those medical professionals you mentioned all believed that I was pregnant at one point?” Marie questions.

Angela scoffs. “They’re liars. They’re dirty, rotten liars, the lot of ‘em. Prove it. Prove that I ever took a blood test with them, or had an examination. You can’t, can you, because Leona is going to hack into their records, and erase them, and once it’s done, it’s their word against mine, but the authorities will believe me, because they’ll find no evidence that I was pregnant, as I’ve said.”

Heath looks over at his wife. “This is just gonna complicate things even more. It won’t make it easier.”

“But it will make it safer,” Mateo determines. “She’s right. It doesn’t matter what claims the people at the doctor’s office make. They’ll be proven wrong. They can run a million tests if they want, but they will not find the evidence they’re looking for in Angela’s body.”

“Marie will have to live the rest of her life in hiding,” Heath argues. “We had an excuse for her long-lost twin sister. Now they can’t ever show their faces in public simultaneously, because they’ll quite quickly realize what’s happening.”

“That’s assuming anyone even wonders whether Marie had an abortion in the first place,” Ramses says. “They may never knock on our door. You’re not going to be telling people that you went to Croatia.”

“Plus,” Angela goes on, “there will be undeniable proof that I didn’t even leave the country, because I’ll be taking her place at work, and the grocery store, and whatever. I’ll get myself under as many security cameras as I can find while you’re gone.”

Heath looks back at his wife. “It’s up to you. I’m worried about the risk. Abortion is illegal, and it comes with consequences, but combined with fraud, I don’t know what they’ll do to you. I doubt anything like this has ever been attempted.”

Marie faces him. “This is kind of what we do. We have a long and complicated history of tricking the bad guys into believing things that aren’t true. I’m willing to try, but only if you’re sure, Angie.”

“Let’s do it,” Angela agrees with a nod. “The first step is you telling me what you do for a living again?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 7, 2398

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Mateo is startled awake. He’s nervous at first, because he assumes the person who’s shaking him by the shoulders in the pitch black is a friendly, but he doesn’t know that for sure. “Who is that?” he asks.

“Shh. It’s Heath,” he says in a whisper.

Leona turns over in her sleep.

Mateo drops down into a whisper too. “What is happening?”

“I wanna show you something.”

“Can it wait until morning?”

“It is morning. Come on.” He gets his hands further along Mateo’s shoulder blades, and pulls him out of the bed.

“Can I put on pants first?”

“Probably should.”

Mateo hastily pulls on some clothes, and follows Heath out of the room. He slips his shoes on too, and they leave the condo. They walk down the hallway, down the elevator, and down the hill. He rubs the sand out of his eyes as they continue walking for another couple of kilometers. He complains a little, but feels he needs to respect his host’s decisions, as bizarre as they seem right now. Finally they make it to a parking garage. There’s something different about it, but Mateo can’t place his finger on it, because he’s still so sleepy. As they walk through it, though, he realizes that the ceilings are very high. Some garages can’t even accommodate a heavy duty pickup truck, but this could handle semi-truck trailers. He yawns. “What are we doing here?”

“I got the notification that my present arrived, and just couldn’t wait.”

“Present for me?” Mateo asks.

Heath stops at a...plane? He extends his arms to present it. “Present for us.”

“Is that an airplane?”

“It’s a flying carboat.”

“What?”

Heath runs his hand along the curve of what looks like a turned up wing. “It can float in the sea, drive on the roads, and fly through the sky.”

“What, couldn’t spring for the one that’s also a spaceship?” Mateo jokes.

“No,” he answers genuinely. He continues to admire the vehicle.

“Where are the wings?” Mateo questions.

“It’s a lifting body, it doesn’t need wings.” He points to the vertical wing thing. “Or that’s what those things are. I don’t know. All I know is it works, and it cost me a fortune.”

“Do we need all of this? Could we not just take regular commercial jets where we need to go, and then rent cars?”

“Well, sure, if you wanna be basic.”

“Far be it.”

“Isn’t it beautiful? Come on, let’s check out the inside.”

It has to be really narrow, so it can fit in the standard road lane—and those weird wings do stick out a little—but it’s pretty long, and sufficiently tall. That’s why it needs this high ceiling parking garage, but it should be able to fit under any bridge just fine. The controls are in the cockpit, where you would expect, for a pilot and co-pilot. Behind it are four little cubbies; two on each side, separated by seats. By the door is a little kitchenette, then a lav, a toilet, and steps up to a loft. It feels like too much. It feels like too much. It all feels too extravagant.

“These cubby seats recline into flat beds, while these two are just for sitting .” He pulls down one of the three jumpseats along the wall by the door. “You could technically fit eleven people, though these three of them wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep.” He continues the tour, pointing around as necessary. Cargo is stored behind the shower, to leave space underneath for mechanical. Retractable floats allow water takeoff and landing. Of course, the wheels retract as well. Back there is a powerful boat motor, but you could opt out of that in favor of just using the jet engines. Distributed propulsion, obviously more fuel efficient. Solar panels mostly provide power for internal systems and land travel operation, but they can support flight in a pinch. Well, they can support an emergency landing.”

“This is...” Mateo doesn’t want to repeat himself. Heath knows it’s a lot. He knows what he bought. “When did you have time to buy this? Was it on your wishlist before we got here?”

He laughs, “no. I ordered it as soon as we first started talking about the mission five days ago.”

“Quick delivery time,” Mateo notes.

“Was it?” It must be pretty typical in this reality.

“I really appreciate everything you’ve done, including this, but not excluding everything else. You’ve been a great help to us, and I thank you for helping Marie when she had no one.”

“You speak as if you’re about to leave alone.”

“I know this thing is yours, and I’m not saying you should give it to me—I would find another way—but I assume it runs itself, because no one has mentioned you having a pilot’s license. I’m just reminding you that I’m fine doing this by myself. You don’t have to spend time away from your wife. I know you two are going through something profound.”

“Yeah, we’ve been talking about that,” Heath says, nodding his head. “You need to add another destination to your list, which we’ll be going to first. Marie needs a real abortion.”

“Where is it?”

“Croatia.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 6, 2398

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Marie is sitting with her alternate self at a late lunch, who she should probably think of as her twin sister now, since that’s what everyone beyond the team is meant to assume about them. They’ve been working on their relationship since Angela first appeared in this reality back in early April. It’s still a little weird, knowing that there’s this other person around with identical memories, but it helps now that Marie has four additional years’ worth of experiences. The more they diverge from each other, the less awkward it will become. But they will never lose the benefit they have of also knowing that there’s this other person around who knows how they feel about the world. Their personalities will not ever become unrecognizably different. She takes another bite.

“It’s not working.”

“What’s not working?” Angela asks.

“No bleeding, no cramps, no vomiting. These foods, they’re not working, and I’m getting sick of them.”

“Let me respond to you backwards. Remember what mother always said when we refused to eat our cucumbers.”

“Ugh, I hate cucumbers. And peppers. Now I really am gonna retch.”

“She said to treat them like medicine. You have to eat it, so just do it, and be done with it. Without cucumbers, we might have starved, and neither of us would exist right now.”

“Well, that’s a bit overdramatic, but okay.”

“Secondly, the foods might still be working. You just need more time. It’s barely been a week, and a miscarriage may not present itself for a couple more, which means you need to give it over a month.”

“The longer I wait, the fewer alternatives I have.”

“I understand that,” Angela agrees, “but you need to let this first attempt play out. You can’t keep going to the doctor to find out if it’s working, because then you’ll get in trouble, so all you can do is keep going, and....hope.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Marie accuses.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“What’s the next thing you wanted to tell me?”

“The cramps and the vomiting.”

“Yeah, that’s how I would know that I’m having a miscarriage.”

“They’re also symptoms of pregnancy,” Angela points out.

“And they’re sometimes symptoms of regular menstruation, what’s your point?”

“My point is, you’re not experiencing those at all?”

“No.”

“Did you...experience them while you were menstruating?”

“No.”

“Have you...ever been sick...since you came here?”

Marie pulls her head back, and stares into empty space to think on that question for a moment and a half. “No. Never.”

“According to Ramses, something is blocking our powers and patterns, but...our durable new bodies aren’t all just about powers. I don’t remember if he specifically said we could no longer get sick, but it was sort of implied. I mean, if you’re gonna give someone an upgrade, don’t include Huntington’s disease, or cancer. You would take those things out, along with other medical problems like the occasional low blood sugar, seasonal allergies, and stress-related hives.”

“We still can’t get sick,” Marie realizes, “even here. What does that mean?”

Angela shuts her eyes. “The food that you’re eating, which is tailored for you to place the fetus at risk, is dependent upon your reaction to certain chemicals that those foods possess. They throw off hormone imbalance, and they send bad neural signals. If your body was designed to work around that kind of thing—to combat it—then...”

“Then I may be medically incapable of having a miscarriage.”

Ramses sits down before he collapses. “It’s possible. I don’t understand how this reality works. If there is something out there that protects linear time, then our immortality shouldn’t be affected. But we know that it is, because we get tired, and we don’t absorb solar power, and we—” He stops short. Then he stands up, goes over to the kitchen, and takes out a knife. He drags it across his arm, going in far deeper than he needs to in order to illustrate his point.

“Goddamnit, Ramses!” Marie exclaims.

“Yeah, we can still get hurt...a lot easier than we should. But maybe...” He gets lost in his thoughts, and the other two don’t try to force him to continue. He starts rubbing his blood up and down his arm like he has an unhealthy fascination with it. “Maybe...” he repeats.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe it’s external. Maybe it’s literally external. Your body doesn’t get sick, because most illnesses are internal, which might be protected against the...magical...power-dampening whatever?”

“I open my mouth all the time,” Marie counters. “I’ve cut myself before; with the knife you’re holding right now, in fact.”

Ramses shakes his head. “It’s not a constant thing. It’s not an invisible gas in the air. When we jumped from the main sequence to the Third Rail, we passed through something that stripped us of part of who we were. It took away everything special about our skin. It didn’t take away anything inside.”

“Then why can’t we teleport?” Angela questions.

“It’s a separate thing,” Ramses decides. “They’re two different things: the linear time protector, and the skin changer.”

“Why would someone do that?” Angela presses. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it sort of does, but who’s going to all that trouble, and to what end?”

“Maybe it’s not on purpose. Maybe it’s just that whatever barrier is between realities does this to us.”

“It didn’t happen when you went to all those other realities, did it?” Angela asks.

She’s right, it didn’t. Or did it? Mateo and Ramses thought they were converting solar energy in the Parallel, but even though he personally engineered these upgraded bodies, he hasn’t spent much time in his own. Maybe he was mistaken this whole time. “I need to talk to Leona.”

“Wait.” Marie stops him from going down one of his absent-minded genius professor rabbit holes. “What can I do? How do I fix this?”

He shakes his head at her. “I don’t know. Let me think on that too.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 5, 2398

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Leona braces herself for another day of work. She loves the lab itself. The technology here is so—with no better way to say it—weird. Due to religion, of course, as well as other variables, there are some things that were just straight up never invented. Other things were invented too early. According to what limited research she’s been able to do during her downtime, none of these early inventions has been as ridiculous as, say, aerosol deodorant before the wheel, but she finds it fascinating to read about them nonetheless. For instance, unlike in the main reality, where the electric vehicle, and the combustion engine, were invented around the same time, the latter predates the former by nearly a hundred years on this planet. This was how people drove around in the 20th century. Also unlike the main sequence, once car batteries became efficient enough to last two day’s worth of the average daily commute on a single charge, the transition period between the two form factors was extremely short. This was probably because the people who originally sold petrol-powered vehicles were also responsible for manufacturing the battery-powered ones, so they saw no reason to stifle progress. Who could have guessed that all the corporations would have to do to maintain their oligopolies would be to innovate deliberately, and noncompetitively?

One major scientific advancement that this world randomly doesn’t have is reconstructive surgery. We’re not just talking about elective surgery where someone wants to change their appearance because they think it will make them more attractive. Skin grafts, deformity corrections, even sexual reassignment surgery; none of these things exist here. Leona so far can’t figure out why. When she’s brought it up to her coworkers at both of her jobs, people seem amenable to the examples, and they can’t explain why they haven’t been done before. Another thing this culture seem never to have invented is sexual harassment seminars. What Leona believes is that all harassment training is focused on protecting children. Apparently, once someone reaches the age of seventeen, they’re expected to fend for themselves. They should be able to reject unwanted advances on their own, stand up for themselves against bullies, and brush off inappropriate comments. Well, that last one is even more complicated, because her definition of inappropriate is very different than whatever these people have decided on.

This is why Leona hates working here, and if this one thing were to change, it would make it worthwhile. They wouldn’t even have to repair the shortcomings of society in a greater respect. All they would have to do is let her do what she needs to do to help them, and not try to interfere, or be involved. This would be so much easier if she could work alone. She’s the one from the alternate reality. She’s the one who has seen all kinds of wondrous technology. Many people in this lab may be smarter, but none of them can match her experience and knowledge. Having to deal with this one particular colleague who has been assigned to learn from her has made her almost want to quit. After a productive conversation with Marie and Angela, Leona has resolved to do something about it today. Marie reminded her that the lab needs her more than she needs it. Yes, she wants to know what happened to their powers and patterns, but not at the expense of her dignity and self-respect.

As soon as she steps off the elevator, she sees him. He’s trying to hand her a cup of coffee, as he does every day. He thinks it’s sweet, but from him, it feels like an attack. Plus, she doesn’t really drink coffee—especially not the kind from the Third Rail, which no matter the variety, always tastes at least a little sweet—and she’s told him this numerous times. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, he just doesn’t care. He expects this to become a lovely story they’ll tell their grandkids one day; that he just kept trying, even though she never accepted. Oh, hahaha, that’s so cute. She’s about to preemptively tell him yet again that she doesn’t want any, but he begins a different subject. “Aww, come on. Where’s that teal blouse I like so much? Your tits look so great in that.”

She stops and stares for a moment. Then she takes one of the cups from his hand, aims it towards him, and squeezes. He screams in agony. “Yours look great in that.”

“Fucking bitch!”

She ignores him, and walks right up to Petra’s office.

“What’s that ruckus down there?” Petra asks.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” She’s always so trusting, it’s bizarre.

“Did you receive my latest numbers?”

“Yes, I did!” Petra exclaimed. “They’re very promising. I don’t think you were lying about your ability to develop actual fusion technology.”

“I wasn’t. So...you’re impressed?”

“Very much.”

“You might even say that you value my contributions.”

“Of course.”

“You wouldn’t be super happy if I—oh, I dunno—quit?”

Her smile disappears. “Are you going to quit? Have you been in talks with India Tech? They may have lots of money, but they can’t give you what—”

“It’s not about money. It’s about this place. It’s about him.” Leona just sort of glances towards the bottom of the door.

“Him?” Petra asks before realizing she already knows the answer. “Oh. Him.”

“He’s still harassing me, and I’ve had enough of it.”

“I know, I’m sorry. You’re not the only one complaining, but I can’t report him to Staff Support just for bringing you a beverage every morning. Can you imagine how that conversation would go? He’s too nice. That’s not illegal, or against policy.”

“It should be!” Leona catches her breath. “At least in this context.”

“I know he won’t stop bothering you. I’ll try to talk to him again.”

“I only want you to have one more conversation, and it’s either going to be an exit interview with me...or with him.”

“Is this an ultimatum?” Petra asks.

“Absolutely. You can fire him, or I quit. You’re not going to entice me with more money, or a bigger workspace, or even less time having to work with that man in person. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I want him gone. I want him humiliated, and out of a job, and I want him to hate me for it.”

“This is a big ask, Magnus Matic.”

Leona nods, not disagreeing with her. “Fusion, or one little asshole with a big mouth. You can only have one.”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

“Great. And bonus, if you do it soon, I’ll finally have enough time to complete the simulations, and then I can start on some real design specifications. You’re welcome.”