The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 20, 2398

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They asked the McIver family to keep what they learned about the true nature of reality a secret. The kids don’t know everything, and it looked like all the evidence was destroyed in the implosion that created an entire lake out of practically nowhere. It was going to be tough to explain to all the people who lived around there, and knew there was no such body of water, so they decided to go stay with their aunt and uncle in Utah for a bit until things cooled down. They always wanted to sell the land anyway. It’s not like they can manage to farm themselves, and they never really wanted to anyway.

Team Matic can’t be sure that they can trust these strangers, but when have they ever? At some point, concerning themselves with what might happen is just going to make living life even harder. If the government comes to E.T. all their asses, well...then they’ll deal with it then. For now, they’re going to stay at home, and try not to worry about anything at all. It’s a day of rest, and likely the last joint day off for a while. Leona postponed her return to work until next week, Ramses is newly unemployed, Mateo is still unemployed, Heath is already on sabbatical, and Marie and Angela are taking a personal day. They’re not just going to relax, though. They’re going to see the sites.

Moreso than the differences, it’s the similarities that this version of Kansas City shares with its main sequence counterpart that they find interesting, especially Angela. Marie felt the same way when she first arrived, but she’s grown used to it by now. The Fourth Quadrant was borne of the original, while the Parallel had a region that they called KC, but which did not resemble anything they had seen before. The Fifth Division seemed to not have anything on Earth at all, except for a small oasis in the middle of nowhere, at least part of which was holographic. It’s inexplicable and bizarre that this version should have the same World War I Museum and Memorial. It looks the exact same, and is in the same place, and this does not make any sense. WWI happened in the 1910s over there, but in the mid-19th century here; closer to the period of the United States Internal Conflict that the five aliens recall. Even just having the same city and state names is ridiculous. The countries, the oceans; none of it can be explained.

Something has to be driving these similarities, or let’s face it...someone. One or more of the Prestons are the most logical culprits, since they’re definitely capable of such things, but they’re not the only ones. Anyone they’ve met with such power has the potential to spawn alternate versions of themselves, if only through the help of others. Cassidy Long, the Repairman, or any one of the countless Jupiters, could also be behind this. They might be doing it for nefarious reasons, good reasons, or even with more of a neutral stance. Mateo realizes  now that he needs to make a special list of candidates. That doesn’t mean that it will help them get any answers, because it will be a shock to run into anyone they already know. Hell, even say, Vearden Haywood’s sister, Allison would be a noteworthy surprise. But it still makes sense to make a list.

Right now they’re standing in front of the Love Kansas City mural. “You didn’t tell us about this,” Leona almost accuses Marie.

“I didn’t know that the main sequence had one too. I died in 1816.”

“You’ve seen this before, though,” Mateo reminds her. “We came here.”

“I guess I forgot. What do we do with this information?”

Leona considers it for a long time. “What we do is all go on that trip together.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 19, 2398

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Angela is sitting at the computer, wearing her headset, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. She’s looking to the side of the computer, bored out of her mind. The job is not easy, and it doesn’t really have downtime, but there are lots of little moments where there’s nothing she can do but wait while the computer runs.

“Ange. Ange!” Marie alerts her through the headset.

“Hmm?”

“The script is done.”

“Did it go okay?”

“You tell me.”

“What am I looking for again, red text?”

“Yes, but there are other errors you need to look out for,” Marie reminds her.

“It looks good to me.” Angela moves her pointer over to close the window.

“Wait.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’re supposed to do something else before you exit out.”

Angela stares at the screen, and tries to recall what she’s talking about. “Am I supposed to...instantiate the panda?”

“No,” Marie laughs. “Confirm the bug report, so it ends the log at the last run. Otherwise, the next report will just start immediately after, and make it harder to find the one we’re looking for later.”

“Oh. Right, right, right, right, right.” She confirms the report, then closes the window, and then tries to back over to the library.

“No, what do you do next?”

“I know!” Angela defends. “I just accidentally clicked on the wrong window.”

“Sure.”

Angela switches over to the spreadsheet. “Why do I manually log the number of bugs every time? Isn’t that what the report is for?”

“The contract supervisor doesn’t want to read through all those reports, and in fact, isn’t probably capable of understanding them. All she wants is a productivity log, so she can show the client that we add value to their company.”

“This is dumb, it’s too much work,” Angela complains. “Can’t the computer just do this all for us?”

“Angela!” Marie cries. “We’re the ones who write the programs, which automatically do the things that the employees at our clients’ companies would be doing themselves! That’s the whole purpose of scriptwriting. It has to start somewhere.”

“Why can’t it start with an artificial intelligence?” Angela questions.

“Someone has to create the AI in the first place, which they do through scripts, and other tools. And the kind you remember from the other realities you’ve been to are far beyond what The Third Rail has achieved thus far. It’s gonna be another couple of decades before we have a program that can write new programs.”

“Is that what we’re working on? Are we working towards that?”

“Hm, I guess you could think of it that way. Once we deliver this particular script to the client, they’ll approve it, and probably ask us to train the individual or team who will be actually running it regularly. Right now, that person or people are doing all of it on their own. This will cut down on the time it takes for them to complete their job, and/or allow their bosses to give them additional work. Theoretically, we could write another script that’s designed to run before this one, or after it, which automates even more of that work. Automate it enough, and you might be able to fire the humans. You might clear out an entire department, or a company. That’s not what the client is asking of us right now, but it’s probably headed that way. That’s part of what drove automation in the main sequence. These people are just slower. The executives might realize this, and be hoping for it, or they might have no clue. It’s probably the first one, and what they really don’t realize...is that a script could one day take their jobs too.”

“It could one day take your job too.”

Marie laughs again. “Yes, but I’ll be the last to go. That’s why I picked this field. Someone has to write the job-stealing scripts, and until that true AI shows up, such a job is guaranteed. Basically, if my job isn’t safe, no one’s is.”

“Sneaky snake.”

“Yep.”

“Oh. I forgot I can refilter the executions, now that the bug tracker is finished.”

“That’s okay, we were talking.”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask; why do you have an office if you work from home? And why am I in your office, and you’re still at home?”

“Well, we can’t rightly both be there, and you need experience with my colleagues.”

“Oh. But I’m not going to be attending any meetings, right? There’s one on the calendar, but you’ll come in for that, right?”

“No, I need you to fill in for me. It’s best you start now, so you’re aware of the new inside jokes, and all that stuff.”

“What if there are old inside jokes that I wasn’t around for?”

“I haven’t been staring into empty space while the tasker is locked up,” Marie begins to explain. “I’ve been drawing up a cheatsheet for you. Though, sheet is a bit of a misnomer since it’s more like a novelette by now.”

“Argh, there’s so much to this!”

“You don’t...have to...”

“Don’t start again,” Angela warns. “I’m happy to do this for you. It’s just been a lot. This job is a lot.”

“I know. But it’s why we live where we live, and why Ramses was able to quit his job without giving it a second thought.”

“Yeah. Did you see this message from them? They’re on their way back.”

“I did. I think we have just enough time for one more test. I don’t like how the screen flickers about halfway through the process, and it’s still not as fast as I would like it. I think I know how to fix those issues, though. Scroll back down to Line 216.”

“Okay, boss.”

Angela and Marie end up running two more tests before they’re ready to call it quits for the day. By the time Angela gets back home, the rest of the team is already there. It’s time to come up with a new plan. Rather, they have to default to an old one. They probably need to move up the time table too.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 18, 2398

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The McIvers agree to continue hosting Team Matic, but at their real house this time. They don’t have a fancy schmancy infirmary there, but it doesn’t look like that’s what Mateo needs. He just needs rest, and when he wakes up, fluids. There aren’t as many rooms in the farmhouse, but it’s comfortable enough, and the team is grateful. From what Leona can surmise, Mateo spontaneously traveled into the past, where he met up with his cousin, Danica. For whatever reason, she found it necessary to store him in a stasis pod for however long, strip The Constant of all sensitive materials, and leave a single clue as to his whereabouts. Once the trail was at its end, the bunker was programmed to self-destruct, giving Mateo—and anyone else down there—just enough time to escape.

Leona knew that her husband would be found inside that particular wall, if anywhere, because that’s where she found him back in the early 23rd century. He was removed from time, brought back dead using a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption of temporal objects, and resurrected with a final special object. The line from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, “meet me in Montauk” told her that it was the key to finding someone again who she had once forgotten. Mateo should be able to fill in the blanks when he’s better.

“He’s awake!” Trina calls out for the whole house to hear.

Leona was eating her breakfast. It was supposed to be a soup, but she was distracted, and accidentally skipped out on the milk, and most of the water. It’s good, though. She places her bento box in the refrigerator. Then she walks up to the bedroom.

“Lee-lee, what happened?” Mateo asks her after Trina leaves.

“It’s your job to tell us,” Leona says.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Mateo tilts his lizard brain to think. “I was driving out to see if I could find the Constant. Sorry I went alone.”

“That’s the last thing?” she questions. “That was nine days ago.”

“Oh. I jumped forward in time? Then it’s true, and I was right, the Constant is still there, and houses temporal energy. How far are we from it?”

“It was there,” Leona begins to explain. “It’s been destroyed.”

“Why?”

“Do you remember not too long ago in the main sequence, when we ended up in that version of the Constant? Danica told us about a sort of reset protocol if the facility were ever compromised.”

“Yeah, of course. She did that?”

“Evidently, she did it halfway. She said that a new Constant would spring up in its place, and she would be replaced by an alternate version of herself too. But this Constant is just gone. There’s a lake where it used to be. You seemed to know it would happen. You called it Danica Lake.”

“When did I say this?”

“Yesterday. You fell down the elevator shaft, presumably went back in time, was placed in stasis, we found you, and then the whole thing imploded.”

Mateo tries to remember. “We need Nerakali.”

“That’s an understatement, but you passed out shortly after the event, suggesting that your memory loss was predetermined, and nowhere near an accident. It may have even been consensual.”

“I’m sorry,” Mateo says, shaking his head. “I wish I could remember why I don’t remember.”

“You can’t apologize for something you don’t know that you did, or why you did it. I blame you for nothing. I don’t really blame anybody. We’re all okay now.”

“Except for Marie.” Heath is standing in the doorway.

“Except for Marie,” Leona echoes.

“We’ll always have Croatia,” Mateo says, determined. “I won’t let anything happen to her. I’ll always protect my team.”

“You should know,” Heath says, hobbling forward. He’s hurt again—not still—having twisted his ankle when the elevator car came crashing down. It was the only injury. “You should know you saved my life. I’m not a traveler. What happened to you when you went back, may not have worked for me.” He frowns. “I probably would have just splattered onto the floor.”

“I would say you’re welcome, but according to..my wife,” Mateo says in a Borat voice, which he has never done before. “..I can’t take credit for something I don’t remember doing.”

“I never said that,” Leona defends.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Mateo contends.

“You need something to eat.” She kisses him on the forehead. “Were I you.”

“Were I you.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 17, 2398

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Everybody found their own room, and slept in The Constant that night. They didn’t make any plans for the next day, but it seemed as good a place as any. They stayed close to each other, even though they consisted of two parties of strangers. The next day, with nothing better to do, Ramses and Leona start looking into the database, or what’s left of it. There’s a lot still here, but it becomes clearer the more they look through the directories that a lot of data has been stripped. When Danica left, she knew someone else could find this place one day, and she didn’t want them to have access to certain information. The fact that she didn’t just run out all of the sudden, or die without warning, was already obvious. She had the wherewithal to seal up the top of the main elevator, and dismantle the elevator car itself. If she recorded some kind of log that might give them an idea why she’s no longer here, she took that with her too.

The little girl, Trina runs into the room, holding a small black box. “What is this thing?”

Leona isn’t paying her any attention, so Ramses takes it from her, and looks it over. “I have no idea? Wait. It looks like some kind of magnetic memory storage device.”

Leona turns her head. “It’s a video cassette tape.” She turns back.

“Where did you get it?” Ramses asks Trina.

“I think it was a library, but this is the only thing that was in it.”

Now Leona’s interested. “How big was this library?”

“Like, four stories tall, and maybe endlessly long?” Trina ballparks.

“And that’s the only thing you found?” Leona presses.

“Yeah, it was in this thing.” She hands Leona the case.

Jim Carrey is dreaming of himself lying on the snow next to Kate Winslet. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

“Is it a movie?” Trina guesses.

“Yeah.”

“Is it good? It must be good if they cleared out the entire library, except for this one thing.”

“Did you find it fallen on the floor, as if someone had dropped it, or still sitting on the shelf?”

“It was on the first shelf I saw when I walked in, facing the door. I looked through several aisles. They were all empty.”

Leona and Ramses give each other a look, but they’re not thinking the same thing. “Computer, where do you keep the VCR?”

The computer doesn’t respond vocally. It just lights up the floor and walls to lead them down to the legacy technology sector. Leona follows it, and Ramses and Trina follow her. They find the VCR already connected to a box TV, rather than tucked away somewhere. She expects to blow dust off of the top, but it’s perfectly clean. There’s a robot in here somewhere who’s been maintaining the bunker. Leona inserts the tape, and presses play.

“I love you,” says Joel.

“Meet me in Montauk,” Clementine whispers back.

That’s it. It’s stuck between 1:30:50 and 1:30:55, repeating those two lines over, and over, and over again. The tape keeps skipping. Ramses thinks he might be able to fix it, but Leona stops him. “It’s a clue.”

“It’s a clue for what?”

Leona pauses the video, and echoes the last line herself. “Meet me in Montauk. Meet me in Montauk.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Trina asks.

“That sounds like a city. Is that where we’re meant to go?” Ramses questions.

Leona tilts her head, considering the words, and what they may mean in a more figurative sense. Thinking she has it figured out, she runs off. The other two follow her again, down the hallways, and into the main living area. Heath, Alyssa, and the boys are already there, chatting about this and that.

“Is everything okay?” Heath stands up to help in whatever way necessary.

Leona ignores him, and heads straight for the corner of the room. She stares at the wall. “Where’s that sledgehammer?”

“Why do you need it?” Heath asks.

She just turns to him and scowls. He’s not really in a position to question her. Intellectually, she knows she shouldn’t blame him—that it could never have been his idea to use a time bullet to blow a hole in a concrete ceiling five kilometers up—but she can’t help but be angry at him anyway.

He steps over to the main elevator shaft, and retrieves the sledgehammer.

“Rambo,” Leona says, “he’s still recovering. Could you do the honors?”

Ramses accepts the tool from Heath. He gets in position, but doesn’t swing. He places the business end against the wall that she’s staring at. “Right here?”

“Yes,” she orders.

He does as he’s told, bashing the hammer against the wall over, and over, and over again. The facility is constructed out of metal, probably graphene, and maybe other metamaterials. There’s no wood, or even brick anywhere. They wouldn’t last very long. Why is this made out of wood? Once he’s gotten through, they find a door on the other side. He knocks the last of the wall out of the way, and wrenches it open. A light flickers on to reveal an upright stasis pod. There’s only one reason to design a pod like that, and it’s if the user is literally kept in stasis. Time is probably moving at infinitely slow speeds, so almost none will have passed since they stepped in. As long as you have power, it’s the only way a normal person could survive for many thousands of years, if not longer. Other methods allow for too much aging, radiation poisoning, and other failures.

Leona uses the touchscreen to command the pod to open. When it does, Mateo steps out. “You’re here!” she exclaims. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

Mateo takes her by the shoulders, and pushes her out. He looks around the main living area to take stock. “Is everybody who came down here in this room right now?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Ramses asks.

Mateo screams in his face, “is everyone here!”

“Yes.”

“Then run!” Mateo sprints across the room, to the little secondary elevator. He holds the door open, and ushers everyone in one by one. First Leona, then Ramses, Trina, Carlin, Moray, and Alyssa. Heath and Mateo squeeze in last, making it a very tight fit. But it’ll be worth it. Mateo pops open the firefighter access panel with a flathead screwdriver that he has in his pocket. He reaches in, but waits. “There are more people in here than I thought there would be. Make sure the young ones are in the middle.

Moray has to adjust a little, but it’s about as good as they’ll do.

Mateo pulls the switch. They shoot upwards, faster than any elevator should safely move. They can feel the g-force desperately trying to squish them into the floor. But it’ll be worth it.

“Oh my God!” Heath shouts.

“Whoopee!” Trina cries.

At some point, the elevator car starts to tip over. Everybody begins to yell in fear, even the little one, because they’ve reached the surface, and now they’re coming back down. They don’t crash, though. They can feel themselves bouncing, rolling, bouncing, and rolling. When the ride finally ends, the door opens automatically, allowing them to see the giant air bags that released automatically, which are now gradually deflating.

“What the hell was that?” Leona demands to know.

Before Mateo can say anything, they hear a boom. A plume of dirt rises into the sky. He runs over, and the rest are compelled to do the same. They hear rushing water as they near the road, and after they get over the hill, they can see the crater. It’s filling up with water, resourced from pipes that they barely have time to see before they’re covered up.

“I say again...what the hell was that?” Leona repeats.

Mateo catches his breath. “It’s Danica Lake.” He falls to the ground, and passes out.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 16, 2398

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Ramses quit his job, having come to the conclusion that the extra income was not worth keeping. He hated it, and truthfully, probably wouldn’t have been able to steal very much before getting caught, and then that would just paint a target on their backs anyway. Fortunately, it isn’t customary to give notice in this country in this reality. He just told his boss it was over, and hung up the phone. Looking back, it was a bit of a silly plan, and he’s glad to be free to do things like this. He’s taking Leona out to the site of The Constant. It took Heath days to make contact with the rest of the team, but now they’re all caught up. Leona is nervous, but she’s coming anyway, because she knows more about time travel, and has to inspect the scene herself. She’s fairly confident that Mateo is alive. No, Heath didn’t look all over the facility to find him, but he probably looked enough. Mateo has a habit of surviving, even if he has to die first. There’s no reason to believe that this time will be any different. Still, Leona’s husband just disappeared. She can’t not go, and just wait for him in Kansas City.

That’s what Angela and Marie are doing, as the second reason that they’re just staying in the area. The number one reason, though, is that they still have to go through with the plan to have the former be able to successfully pretend to be the latter. Even if it never comes up in regards to the abortion, it’s a handy secret weapon to keep in their arsenal for any future use, and the logical thing to do. Not many people would be able to get away with it; not in this time period, anyway.

“We’re here,” Ramses announces.

“This is where The Olimpia is hidden,” Leona complains. “I wanna go to the Constant.”

“Heath sent us a text message while you were asleep. He wants to meet here.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.” Ramses drives into the shallow ditch, and up into the treeline, where he parks behind the Olimpia.

Heath is waiting for them outside, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.

“What’s wrong?” Leona asks him after getting out.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong,” Heath begins. “But first of all, I want to apologize for the part that I played in—”

“Get on with it, what’s wrong?” Leona interrupts.

“Okay, so...when the thing that happened happened, Mateo saved my life by pushing me out of the hole. I fell backwards, and hit a rock, suffering a latent concussion. I managed to get all the way down to—”

“I know all this,” Leona interrupts again. “Move on.”

“Okay, well, the concussion caught up to me, and I passed out. I woke up in the med bay.”

“How did you get to the med bay?” she asks.

“A nice family of four orphaned children found the hole before I had the chance to cover it up better, and treated me. That’s why it took me so long to contact you. I was out for quite awhile.”

“Four orphaned children,” she echoes. “Where are they now?”

“They’re still down there,” Heath explains. “They’ve sort of...laid claim to it. It’s not completely ridiculous, because they own the land. Well, they own the land over most of the facility. The entrance, they believe, is on public land, because it’s so close to the road.”

“Are they not letting us down there?” Leona presses.

“No, they’re happy to host us, but they’ve decided that they are the hosts, and we are the visitors. They’re hoping to sell tickets to rich people who fear World War VII.”

“That’s not an option,” Ramses decides.

“I told them as much. They’re...willing to negotiate.”

“I don’t have time to deal with this right now,” Leona says. “I need to be there, and not be here. Let’s go.”

“Okay, I just wanted to warn you that things are complicated. They’re not going public until we tell them it’s okay, though, so don’t worry about that. Or, they won’t go public at all, I guess. They’re not going to advertise—”

“Let’s go!” she repeats, walking past him, and heading for her destination.

When they get down the elevator, preliminary negotiations begin. Ramses tries to explain to the eldest sister that the bunker was built long before the land above it was in their family’s name. When the girl argues that it’s been in the family for centuries, he tries to clarify that it’s far older than that, but she has a hard time believing it, because the technology down here is even more advanced than the rest of the world nowadays. In the middle of the argument, he introduces himself, and she returns in kind.

Leona wasn’t paying any attention, but she perks up now. “Alyssa? McIver?” She didn’t even have to hear a last name to make the connection. She’s just used to meeting people from her future, so a first name is often enough to spark an associated memory.

“Yeah. Do you know me? He acted like he knew me too.”

“Yes, but I won’t explain it unless you sign over the rights to a small plot of your land, plus everything lower than three kilometers under all of your land.”

Alyssa crosses her arms. “Whatever, I’m not stupid. This is the only thing we own that’s worth any money. You think I’m gonna let you keep it?”

“We don’t want money for the bunker. We just have to keep it a secret,” Leona tells her. “You see what this place is like. It’s much, much older than my friend here has even told you. It’s so old, no one owned this land. No one was living anywhere near here. No human was alive at all.” She looks around at the walls. “Except for the ones who built it, but they were just there to supervise the robots. That’s a taste of the explanation; the tip of the iceberg. You want the whole story, you sell us the above land for at least double the fair price, and you don’t tell a soul about it. You don’t utter a single. Damn. Syllable.”

Alyssa’s interest has been right piqued, but she still isn’t sure.

Leona throws in a bonus. “You can live down here, if you want, and use whatever technology you find that we don’t take out for our own purposes, or to protect you. Again, you can’t tell anyone, but it’s yours. Have you found the swimming pools?”

“Pools?” one of the young boys asks, emphasizing the last letter of the word.

Alyssa wants to counter, but looks like she’s worried about losing everything if she doesn’t accept what’s been offered. “Okay, deal.”

The six of the presently able-bodied people begin to clean up the mess from the explosion. Not only does it have to be done regardless, but they want to be absolutely sure that Mateo’s body isn’t lying in there somewhere. Ramses breaks up the rock with a sledgehammer. Alyssa and the boys collect the pieces, and the youngest girl operates an automated vacuum for the rest. They get it done in a day.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2398

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Heath Walton awakens in darkness again. His head feels better, and he’s comfortably lying down in a bed. He doesn’t know how he got here, though, or how long he’s been asleep. He has to regain his memory once more, but this time, he isn’t going to move around, and look for clues. He’s just going to lie here quietly and think about it.

“I know you’re awake,” comes a voice from the other side of the room.

“Who’s there?”

A light flips on, startling and blinding him for a moment. Once his vision returns, he sees a little girl sitting in the corner, holding a book. She turns off the tiny reading lamp she was using, and stands up. “He’s awake!” she calls out towards the hallway.

Heath looks around, realizing that he’s in the med bay of The Constant, where his wife, Marie is meant to have her abortion. Judging by the fact that at least two strangers are here, that’s probably not going to happen anymore. “What are you doing here?”

Three more people walk in, all of them children. The two boys are probably a few years older than the girl in the corner, and the last one might technically be an adult, though not likely their mother. She inspects Heath’s vitals on the monitor above him. “You have a concussion, but the computer thinks you’re gonna be okay.”

“Who are you?” Heath asks. “Do you live down here?”

“No,” the young woman replies. “We were driving into town to secure a booth for the farmer’s market when we noticed a hole in the ground by the side of the road.”

“A giant-ass hole!” one of the boys exclaims proudly.

“Language, Carlin,” the leader scolds.

“Sorry,” he says with a frown.

“You saw a hole, so instead of calling the cops, you decided to climb down a five-kilometer deep elevator shaft using the emergency ladder?” Heath questions.

“We didn’t climb down the ladder,” the woman denies. “We took the elevator.”

“There is no elevator,” Heath argues.

She nods. “There was a little hole in the side of the big hole. We dug into it deeper, and found a door, which leads to an elevator. It lets off at the bottom at what appears to be a hidden entrance down here too. Did you fall in the big one? How could you have possibly survived that height?”

“I didn’t,” Heath begins. “I fell next to the hole, and hit a rock, which knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I climbed down the ladder, looking for my friend, and I guess I lost consciousness again.”

“You’re lucky we found you. You were asleep all day yesterday, and into this morning. It’s May 15 now.”

“You’ve been down here this whole time? Did you touch anything?”

“Of course we did,” the woman responds. “We didn’t do anything dangerous. This is a nice place. It kind of looks like an underground hotel, but clearly no one actually lives here. Did rich people build it centuries ago to survive one of the older wars?” 

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

She can tell he’s lying, but appears to recognize his claim to this facility is much stronger than hers, and she’s not entitled to answers. “Anyway, you’ve already met little Trina, and foul-mouthed Carlin. This is Moray, and I’m Alyssa. We’re the McIvers.”

Heath perks up, and can’t help but ask, “Alyssa McIver?”

“Yeah. Have we met?” she asks him.

“No, of course not.” And it’s true, they haven’t, but he has heard the name before. Or rather, he’s read it. Mateo keeps a list of every person he’s met, even those he knew before becoming a time traveler. Anyone from his past or future could return, and he finds it hard to keep all that in his head. Heath has no such memory problems—at least, not unless he has a concussion—so he became pretty familiar with that list just by reading over it once. Alyssa McIver is on it. He knows she is, but what does that mean? Was that an alternate version of her? Does this one standing before him end up traveling to the main sequence at some point? Has she already been to the main sequence, and now she’s trying to keep it a secret? That wouldn’t be an outrage. What was that code Marie told him about, the one they sometimes use to find out if a stranger is like them, or oblivious to time travel? Oh, yeah. “Do you like salmon?”

“Huh?” she asks.

Oh, wait. He has to emphasize that word. “I mean, do you like...salmon?”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“I’m not!” Carlin announces.

Well. They could still be lying, but it’s not his job to decide what to do about them either way. He starts to get out of bed. “I have to call my friends.”

Alyssa steps over and gently presses his shoulders down. “Whoa, you are in no shape to go anywhere. There is no service down here, and there’s not enough room for a hospital bed in the elevator, and this bed doesn’t move anyway, and the computer says that you need more rest.”

“You have to leave, and pretend you never saw any of this,” he orders.

“Go back to sleep,” Alyssa orders right back. “We’ll talk about it later.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 14, 2398

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Heath Walton awakens in the darkness with no memory of recent events. The last thing he remembers is preparing to blow a hole at the top of the empty elevator shaft with Mateo. The storm just started, and they were running out to take advantage of the noise it would create. It must not have gone well. Sure, there’s a hole in the ground, but there’s also a huge lump on his head that hurts like hell, and Mateo is nowhere to be found. “Mateo! Mateo!” he calls out, but nothing. He begins to meander around the area with his flashlight, looking for clues, and continuing to call out his friend’s name. There’s an obvious place where he would be, but he doesn’t want to think about it. That is not an option. There is no way they went through all this—taking the easy way out—and Mateo is just dead, lying at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

As he keeps going with his search for answers, memories begin to return to his mind, first as contextless fragments, which gradually transform into coherent recollections. They hid behind the trees as the fuse shortened. No, Heath was hiding alone. Mateo had to light the fuse himself, and then teleport away at the very last second. But he did make it out, Heath remembers that quite clearly now. They...they high fived to their success, and went out to see it for themselves. But it was too early. Yeah, that was the problem. The hole wasn’t finished forming yet, so when they peeked over the edge, their weight caused it to widen more. They could not have fallen through, though, because Heath woke up on the surface. Think. What happened?

He sighs, and continues, but comes up short. This isn’t helping. He has to stop and concentrate on the last moment he experienced before falling down and getting bonked in the head. Let’s see, his watch is still fine. It’s been seven hours since dinner. That’s a long time to be unconscious. Maybe Mateo woke up first, and wandered off? Heath goes back to the spot where he woke up and shines his light on the ground. There. There’s the blood stain on the rock. He feels the back of his head. His hand comes back red. Yeah, that tracks. There’s only one blood stain, though. Remember. The ground fell out from under them, and they fell backwards. But... But Mateo fell in the opposite direction. There’s no doubt about it now. He still can’t recall the exact moment, but it is the only reasonable explanation. In fact, he has the feeling that the last thing Mateo did was save Heath’s life.

He points his light into the hole, knowing full well there’s no way he’s going to see the bottom of the five kilometer high elevator shaft. He should be able to see all the stuff they constructed near the entrance, though. The rope, the ladder, the little platform. One of those things might have saved Mateo’s life, but none of them have been left standing. The explosion took them all out, which isn’t all that surprising. The concrete ceiling was almost half a meter thick. If it didn’t break apart all the way, it would have taken out any obstacle in its path on the way down. And then Mateo would have fallen right upon that rubble a minute later.

There’s still some hope, though. Like the rest of the original team, Mateo has the ability to teleport, as long as he stays within some certain radius of this facility. He could have transported himself out before crashing to the bottom. That doesn’t explain why he never returned to make sure that Heath was okay, but there could be any explanation for that. Perhaps Mateo accidentally jumped to the other side of the world. Or maybe he finally figured out how to get back to his home reality. He can’t assume anything yet. This can all be proven wrong if Heath can find a body. The only thing he can do now is climb down there using the emergency ladder, and hope to find nothing but dust, dirt, concrete, and metal.

He’s about to rush down there, but realizes that there is absolutely no way someone survives that fall. If Mateo’s down there, it’s just his body. There’s no hurry to go down and see that, and he has to be smart about this. The sun is going to rise shortly, and anyone could just show up and see this weird sight. It’s probably going to be someone who lives around here, and knows that there’s not meant to be a gigantic hole by the side of the road. It’s okay, they planned for this. They ripped some bushes out of the ground from farther away, and set them off to the side. All he has to do is place them in between the roads and the hole. He doesn’t even have to plant them for real for now. He just has to make it look like they belong there. When they have more time, they’ll complete the transplanting, and cover this whole thing up better than any government agency could.

Once it looks good, he ties a rope to a tree, repels down to the emergency ladder, which is fortunately intact, but still doesn’t go all the way up to the very top. As tired as he is by now, he doesn’t stop. The journey takes him around an hour. He sets up the battery-powered work lamp, and starts to sift through the wreckage. He spends several minutes on it, and doesn’t find a damn thing, which is a good sign. He hasn’t gotten anywhere near the real bottom, but he shouldn’t have to go that deep. Memory issues notwithstanding, Mateo had to have been standing on top of the ground when the shaft caved in. Sure, some debris may have fallen down after him, but not this much. Heath should be able to find him here somewhere, or perhaps...parts of him. That is, he would find him if he were here. But he’s not, it’s all but impossible. He keeps pushing things around for another half hour anyway, but still doesn’t find anything; not even blood. Mateo is alive, wherever he is. Then he has a thought. Maybe the question isn’t so much where, but when. The other team members would know better. It’s time to call them and explain. This is going to be a terrible conversation, but it has to happen. He just needs to take a rest for a second first.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 13, 2398

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It’s too much work. They tied a mess of rope to the ladder, and across the shaft to the metal beam things that were once used to transport the elevator car, back when there was an elevator in here. They still can’t figure out what happened to it, but it’s looking like they’re going to have to somehow build their own. Should teleportation stop being available to them at some point, they don’t want to have to climb up and down a ladder five kilometers at a time. Perhaps a slide? Or a staircase? No, none of this is at all reasonable. It’s just too much work, and neither of them is equipped to take on such an endeavor.

They still have plenty of work that has to be done either way, so they try not to worry about it while they’re digging. The soil level could be piled several meters thick, and they can’t dig straight down, instead opting for a ramp that people can actually walk down. After waking up the next day, having barely made a dent in the job, they decide it’s time to rethink this whole thing.

“Hasting,” Heath suggests without elaborating.

“Hastings...Nebraska?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Stay with me here. Why doesn’t the ground over the elevator shaft just fall down into the hole?”

Mateo points over their heads. “Because of this ceiling,” he says, knowing that Heath is only asking to support his argument, not because he doesn’t know. They’re standing on a little platform that they installed to give them more room. It was the easiest part of yesterday’s work, drilling holes in cement while hanging over the abyss.

“Right. So what would happen if we took out the ceiling first?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo says, nodding his head. “I get where you’re going with this, but I’m not a civil engineer, or whoever would understand how this all works. Maybe the ground would fall in, or maybe not.”

“We have to break through this anyway. Might as well start from below. All we would have to do is extend this platform.”

“Uhuh,” Mateo begins. “And if there’s a platform, where does all the concrete and dirt fall as we break through it? And if it doesn’t work, and we still need to start digging from above, what happens to us when we destabilize it enough to actually cave in?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath frowns. “This is impossible!”

They’re silent for a few moments, before Mateo remembers something. “Why did you bring up Hastings, Nebraska?”

“Oh, yeah.” Heath repeats himself, then shrugs. “It’s only thirty minutes away the way you drive, but we could rent a power chisel without anybody asking any questions.”

“Yeah, that’s one option.”

“What’s another one? Everything seems too slow.”

Mateo nods. “It’s gonna storm tonight.”

“Yeah...?”

He rifles through his bag until he finds their salvation. He holds it between his fingers like it’s the most important find ever.

“It’s a bullet.”

“It’s a telebullet,” Mateo corrects. “It may just be all we need.” He smiles, dreaming of Shawshank.

“What does it do?” Heath asks.

“Usually, you shoot it at someone, and it instantly transports them to wherever you want.”

“Isn’t that something that you can do yourself?”

“Yes, but I can’t move a concrete ceiling and hundreds of cubic meters of soil and rock.”

“But that little bullet can?”

“Well, it can be more destructive, which should be enough to destabilize the ground, and cause a cave-in. Or, uh, not should, but could. Hopefully.”

“I guess we might as well try,” Heath figures, “as long as you don’t need that bullet for something else.”

“It’s like you said, I can teleport myself, but only at this special location. It has no other use in this reality. If we ever get back to the main sequence, I could always find myself some more, I’m sure.”

“All right, I’m in. I assume you mentioned the storm, because there could be thunder?”

“Yes, but the sound is not the only problem we have.”

“How does the bullet explode?”

“Right.”

“Well, I can make a little bomb. I assume it doesn’t have to be powerful enough to blast through a mountain.”

“I assume as much as well.”

Fortunately, Heath already owns a six-meter long ladder, stored in his flying carboat. They’re going to stop calling it that, as they’ve come up with a proper name. It will now be known as The Olimpia. Mateo carefully extends the ladder so that it’s resting on the ledge on the other side of the shaft, and ties everything up. He runs planks across it so he has somewhere to stand while he’s working. It’s absolutely not the safest thing in the world, but he has himself tied to the structurally sound emergency ladder with mountain climbing equipment, so it should be fine. It’s his job to drill a hole in the concrete ceiling while Heath rigs up a small explosive to catalyze the temporal bullet. This may not work at all, and it might be a waste of their time, but the way they see it, they either spend a couple hours on a lark before resorting to digging a hole by hand, or they skip it. Either way, the digging will cost them days, not hours, so this is hardly a digression.

While Mateo is constructing his safety platform, Heath goes out and buys a special long drill, and the ten-centimeter bit that they’re going to need, along with his own supplies. The hole doesn’t have to be pretty or clean. It just has to be deep enough to get to the dirt. According to their research, a normal ceiling should only be about twenty centimeters thick, but this one is twice that, presumably to support the weight of the ground above. That’s going to make it harder, but not impossible. That’s why he requested a super narrow drill. Once the hole gets started, it goes surprisingly quickly. Now all they can do is wait until the thunderstorm begins. They’re not sure how loud the explosion is going to be, so it’s best to muffle it as much as possible.

They’re in the middle of dinner when Thor’s battle against the God Butcher begins. They leave their dishes on the table, and run back to the would-be center of the country. Using radio transceivers, Mateo waits for a signal from Heath, who is counting thunder strikes. Once it’s time, Mateo lights the fuse, and tries to teleport out. For a split second, he’s stuck, and doesn’t go anywhere, so he’s afraid the temporal energy already ran out, but then the glitch disappears, and so does he. He meets Heath back on the surface just in time for the temporal explosion. Heath timed it perfectly with the storm, so Mateo feels compelled to give him a high five. At first, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. It definitely shook the earth, but nothing has changed from above. But then it does. The ground begins to sink. More, then even more, until it all caves in. It worked. Holy crap, it actually worked. They high five again.

Carefully, the two of them step over to the hole so they can get a look inside, every once in a while looking up to see if police cruisers are coming down the highway to investigate. They stomp on the ground to make sure it’s still stable, and it seems perfectly safe...until it doesn’t. The ground right under Mateo sinks. A normal person would probably reach out for help, but he has the opposite reaction. He’s died—or come so close to death that he would not have survived without time power intervention—so many times, it feels more natural to let it happen. Instead, he pushes Heath away with as much force as he can muster, which serves to pull him downwards even faster. He slips off the grass, and tumbles down the hole. He spreads his arms out, hoping to catch hold of the emergency ladder, the portable ladder, the little platform, the ledge, the rope web, or some other structure, but nothing meets his hands but dirt and other debris.

Finally, as he’s falling, he attempts to teleport himself to safety, but it would seem that the explosion used up all the temporal energy left in this place. There’s no way out. He’s going to actually die this time, and it’s so incredibly unlikely that someone created an afterlife simulation in this reality. It’s the end. As he’s falling towards his demise, he almost regrets no longer having his faith, but he appreciates that it wouldn’t change anything. Death is death, whether you believe in it or not.

Thirty seconds later, he reaches the floor, but it doesn’t hurt like it should. Did he get his invincibility back somehow? He thought they decided that was a separate phenomenon from the time power blocker. No, that’s not what happened. He didn’t fall hard on the floor, and just not feel the pain from it. He didn’t crash into it at all. It’s more like a magical force sucked out all his momentum, and materialized the floor millimeters under him. He’s landed safely as if he was never moving at all. He turns over, and sees a ceiling above him. This isn’t just the elevator shaft. It’s the elevator. It’s back. Or more accurately, he’s back. He’s obviously traveled to an indeterminate moment in the past. He sits up, and is about to stand up, when he notices people watching him from the main floor. One of them is Danica Matic. The other is Bhulan Cargill. And the third...is Tamerlane Pryce.