The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 31, 2398

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Bridgette didn’t want to tell them who she was keeping alive in the back of her apartment with the Insulator of Life. That’s okay, it’s her business, but it was important they find out where she got it in the first place. She agreed to hand over the information, as long as they left, and left her alone. Mateo wanted to go find his alternate self, so Marie took the documents to deal with it herself. In the meantime, Mateo was able to convince Leona Delaney—the one who lost her version of Mateo after the kidney transplant—to accompany him on the trip to New Jersey. Never mind how he found out Alt!Mateo was there. He probably won’t respond well to anyone’s face but hers, and the other Leonas are busy at the moment.

Mateo looks through the map as Delaney is driving into the city. The internet calls Howell a township, but neither of them really knows what that means, especially not in this reality. No matter, the point is that Alt!Mateo was captured on camera on Aldrich Road, just off the highway. The file that Winona gave them indicates that he doesn’t have access to a vehicle, or at least didn’t have one in Kansas City, because he hitchhiked with truckers all the way there. So he most likely walked to the restaurant from his motel, and there’s only one in the area. That’s where they head first, hoping that someone will agree to help them.

The clerk—or maybe the owner—doesn’t seem pleased about seeing Mateo when they walk up to the counter. “Have you seen a man who looks like me?” Mateo asks.

“You mean you’re not the one in Room Eleven?” he asks.

“No, that would be my brother.”

The guy looks between the two of them. “He in some kind of trouble?”

“Only with the family. It’s important that we find him, though.”

“Could you maybe let us in his room?” Delaney asks.

“I can’t do that. You probably shoulda told me you were him, and lost your key.”

Mateo smirks, and nods over to a notice taped on the glass. “Then I would have had to pay the thousand dollar lost key fee.”

The man shrugs.

“Is he in there right now?” Delaney asks.

“Haven’t seen him all day, ‘cept when he left this morning. I have a great view of all those rooms. I’da seen him if he had come back. He wasn’t carryin’ nothin’ and he didn’t check out, so do what you will with that information.”

“Okay.”

“I can get you the room next door,” the guy says.

“Thanks,” Delaney says, “but we’ll just wait for him in our car.”

Mateo isn’t sure that he agrees. Since his stuff is still here, he’s probably coming back, and if he doesn't, there is nothing more they can do to find him unless they get more updated intel. The only thing to do now is stake the place out. It could take days, they better get a room. “Hold on. Is Room One vacant?”

“Sure is.”

“Book us for the night.” Mateo catches Delaney’s look. “It’s an L-shape. We have a better view of him through the window, and it’s too hot to sit in a car.”

Delaney is nervous, but she appreciates the logic. “Okay.”

The man chuckles at all this, but takes their money, just the same.

It’s an incredibly gross room, but if all goes well, they won’t be sleeping here, or anything. They crack the shades, and position the chair in a good place. Mateo takes first watch while Delaney sits on the bed. They wait for hours, switching places when one of them gets tired of it, but boredom is the real killer. Everything here costs, including so much as turning on the television. They could probably expense it to the government, but then they get audited, and it would be this whole thing.

“Hey, uhh…Mateo?”

He’s in the chair again now. “Yeah?”

“It’s getting late,” she states.

“I know,” he replies.

“What are we gonna do about sleeping? There’s only one bed.”

“He may return in the middle of the night. We have to take shifts anyway.”

“Oh, right.”

“Why? Do you want to book a room in a nicer place?”

“No, it’s…it’s not that.”

“What is it? I know you don’t know me that well, but you can tell me anything.”

Delaney hesitates, but then she really decides to just go for it. “Can we have sex?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I never got that far with my Mateo, and I was just thinking—”

“Well, stop doing that, I guess.”

“Stop doing what, thinking?”

“If those are the kinds of thoughts you have, then just quit while you’re ahead.”

“If it’s a problem of fidelity, I already asked your wife about it, and she said—”

“You didn’t ask her anything. Why are you lying to me?”

“Will you stop interrupting?”

“Probably not, not if you’re gonna say things like that. I don’t know how much you’ve been told, but I got a lap dance once, and it nearly destroyed my marriage. I’m not going there, and I would ask you to respect that.”

“Your wife sounds like a bitch.”

“What exactly is your problem?”

“My problem?” She’s getting angry. “My problem is that the life of my life died to save my life, and I end up in this reality, only to find—not one, but two—men who look exactly like him. One of them has now asked me to help him find the other, and it’s giving me all these emotions that I’m not allowed to talk to anyone about!”

“I know a good therapist.”

“You know what I mean!”

“No, I obviously don’t. If you need help, you need to find someone who can do that for you, and I’m not that guy. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through, because I’ve lost the love of my life too, but I keep getting her back.”

Something clicks in her brain. “Yeah. You did. But I remember your Leona telling us that you were from two different realities. So how did you make that work?”

“Her brain was blended,” Mateo answers, hoping that the fight is over.

Leona tries to guess the meaning by the context. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s when someone pulls memories from an alternate—”

“Stop. Hold very still,” Leona interrupts him to say.

“What is it?”

Leona carefully lifts her hands up. “The sun set while we were talking.” She claps, signaling the lights to turn off. She gasps at the sight outside the window.

Mateo pivots to see what she’s so afraid of. It’s Alt!Mateo, and he is not happy. He’s so not happy that he runs away into the night.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 30, 2398

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Winona opens the door, and lets them in. This is a much nicer place than her forging den. Either being the daughter of a U.S. senator has its perks, or she’s just rich. It would make sense. Poor people don’t outnumber the rich ones in politics, no matter which reality we’re talking about. “Welcome. Would you like something to drink?”

“We’re not here for that,” Marie answers.

Winona nods, and starts making herself something.

Mateo is waiting patiently, but Marie has known Winona for a lot longer, so she doesn’t have to be polite. “Do you have it?”

“Well, yeah, but we need to talk about returning the favor.”

“Are you looking for someone too?” Mateo asks.

“As a matter of fact, yes, but not all favors are returned in kind. It just so happens to be the case this time.”

“Is this another Amir Hussain?”

She chuckles. “Don’t worry about him. Only Senator Morton cared about finding him, so wherever you left him, he’ll be safe...at least from us. I promise you that.”

“Her promises are solid,” Marie tells Mateo when he asks her with his eyes.

“Who are you looking for then?” Mateo asks, getting back to business. When she hands him the envelope, he opens it to find a picture of himself. “There’s another one?”

Winona shuts her eyes, slightly aggravated. “No, that’s your packet. He was last spotted in Howell, New Jersey. I’m giving you that in good faith that you’ll help me with my problem, even without incentive.”

“Don’t fall for it,” Marie warns him. “If we don’t follow through, she’ll use it against us later. Our incentive to pay her back now is to not have to pay her back later.”

“I understand,” Mateo says. “Go ahead and give us the second packet.”

Winona hands it to him. There’s a picture in this one too, but neither Mateo nor Marie recognize the woman in it. “We were friends as kids,” she explains. “Morton and my father worked closely together at one point. Then the former turned radically conservative, and dad had to cut ties with him. But then they both got elected to the senate, and suddenly had to start working together again. To be honest, we always thought it was just a way to get his daughter back in his life, but it didn’t work. They’ve been estranged for about eleven years now, I think.”

“Wait,” Mateo says. “The Honeycutts and Mortons were family friends. Then everybody had a falling out with Senator Morton, including his own daughter?”

“He wasn’t a senator yet, but yes.”

“Now she’s missing?” Marie asks.

“No, she’s not missing,” Winona clarifies. “We know exactly where she is, but you’re the only one who can bring her back into the fold.”

“The only one, who?” Mateo asks. “Which of us is the only one?”

“Her.” She points at Marie.

“What are you talking about?” Marie questions. “I never met the girl.”

“We have strong reason to believe that Bridgette has been keeping an eye on her father’s covert operations. That’s what happened between me and my father. He didn’t deliberately read me into all of this. I had to find my own way to the truth. The point is, we think she knows who you are.”

Marie sighs deeply. “You want us to approach her, and get her to come in to brief you on whatever it is she knows that you may not already know about your rival’s secret endeavors.”

“Bingpot,” Winona says.

“So, you want us to lie, or something?” Mateo guesses.

“No lying. Be honest. Tell her what you think of me, that’s okay. Just tell her that I wanna talk. We don’t want to trick her, but if I send my own people, she’ll run and go underground. You’ll be just enough of a curiosity to get her to pause, and listen for a second. There’s no huge rush, though. You can go find your doppelgänger first.”

Marie sighs again. “We can’t go try to bring him in, and then have to leave to do something else. When we do go, we’ll need to be able to give him our undivided attention. We’ll go talk to this Bridgette Morton for you. That’s all the favor is, though. We can’t guarantee it’ll work.”

“No one ever can,” Winona says. “Pleasure doing business.”

They leave Winona’s apartment, and head for Bridgette’s, which looks strikingly similar, as if they used the same architect and designer. Or perhaps it’s some common political aesthetic called senatorial modern. She’s surprised and excited to see them. “It’s you. You’re one of the people from my father’s menagerie. Please, do come in.”

“Is that what he called it?” Marie asks.

“No, that’s what I’ve called it. He had this thing about transparent prisons. He thought that part of a convict’s punishment should be losing all sense of privacy. The darkness surrounding your glass box was his form of a panopticon. Are you thirsty?”

“We’re fine. You knew what he was doing this whole time?” Mateo asks her.

“Yes, but I have limited data, and almost no resources,” Bridgette explains. “I’m the one who leaked your location to Winona, because I couldn’t get you out myself.”

“I believe she’s aware of that,” Marie says, “and she would like to meet with you.”

“To what end? Does she want to join forces? Look, I helped you out of the box, because it didn’t look like you deserved to be there, and as far as I can tell, the Honeycutts aren’t as bad as my father was, but they’re not exactly saints either.”

“I think she just wants to talk,” Mateo says sincerely. “For now,” he adds.

Bridgette scoffs. “That’s not all she wants from me.”

“What do you mean?” Marie asks.

Bridgette hesitates to go on, but seems to decide to when she notices Mateo and Marie not applying any pressure to her. “My father took notes about you. I don’t know exactly what he meant, but he said he couldn’t trust people like you. Generally speaking, any enemy of his is a friend to nearly everyone else. But still, I’m risking more than you could know by showing you this.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable,” Marie assures her.

This only deepens Bridgette’s belief that the two of them can be trusted. She goes back into a room, where they hear the distinct sound of her turning a permutation lock. She returns with an object that’s covered by a golden cloth. She hesitates once more, or maybe she’s just pausing for effect, and then she reveals what’s underneath. It’s a green glass telegraph insulator. “I’m not ready to tell you what this does, and I don’t know how it works anyway, but I can tell you that it’s immensely valuable.”

Mateo nods. “Ah yes, that is called the Insulator of Life. So tell me, who is it keeping alive?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 29, 2398

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It came to Leona Matic’s attention that Alt!Leona doesn’t really like to be called that. Before things went haywire in her timeline, she had already developed feelings for her version of Mateo Matic, but they never got married, and she never took his name. She asked to be referred to Leona Delaney, or maybe just Delaney. They both asked Leona Reaver what she would like to be called to distinguish her from her two alternates, and she doesn’t really care. Unless ambiguity comes up, they decide to use her married name in the same way. They all have different last names, so that should make things easier to understand, and prevent any of them feeling less than.

Reaver wanders into the lab. Ramses is out in the field so Leona Matic is the only one here right now. “What are you working on?”

Leona sighs, grateful for the break. “My final report.”

“Report on what?”

“I’m building the government a fusion powered rocket ship. It’s all been on paper and computer modeling so far, but that’s almost over. I’ve completed quadruple checking the specifications, and once it’s approved, it will be ready to be disseminated to manufacturing. Well, I guess I still have more paperwork, because we can’t have people knowing what it is they’re building, so I have to break up the work. One guy will be in charge of fabricating part of the shielding, while another welds them together, but neither will know what the finished product looks like, or what it’s for. Sorry, I’m rambling. This type of work always makes it hard to go back to talking normal.”

Reaver is looking at the document on Leona’s screen, but not really.

“What is it?” Leona asks.

“How did you do this?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“How did you get so smart? I barely passed my high school math classes,” she clarifies. She looks like she’s feeling very self-conscious and unworthy.

“Oh. Me too, early on. But then I got a tutor.” She looks up and thinks about it. “Actually, it was Mateo’s half-sister from an old timeline...but we didn’t know that yet.”

“That’s all it took? One tutor, and you’re suddenly a genius?”

“Quite frankly, Leona Reaver, you’re also a genius. So pretty much, yeah. Frida didn’t just teach me how to solve for X. She showed me how to think about math and science in a new way. She showed me that I already knew all this stuff, but it was trapped in a box of anxiety, self-doubt, and an inferiority complex.”

Reaver continues to look at the document in a half-grimace.

“Do you wanna ask me something?” Leona asks.

“I’m afraid that you’re too busy.”

Leona nods. “Honestly, I am. Work is ramping up, not slowing down. I’ll have to be away from home daily for months, overseeing production. But Ramses is independent, and better educated,” she adds in response to Reaver’s frown. “He’s just as intelligent, but he was born later in the timeline, so he would be a better teacher.”

“Do you think he’ll go for it?” Reaver asks hopingly. “Would you ask for me?”

“He absolutely will, but I think it’ll be better if you ask instead. Show initiative.”

“Okay, I think I will. Thanks...self.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 28, 2398

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Most everybody is somewhere other than the third floor lofts. Leona and Ramses are in the lab. Alt!Leona and Andile are helping Angela with her new business on the first floor. Heath is giving the McIvers a guided tour of Kansas City. Kivi is off doing something on her own, and Leona Reaver is holed up in her apartment. Marie is alone in her and Heath’s unit, so Mateo takes this opportunity to knock on the door. “When did you last speak with your handler?”

Marie frowns, uncomfortable at having to have this conversation, but not angry at him for starting it. “I’ve been informed of the development. You’ve not told Leona?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to hear what you had to say about it.”

“You want me to justify my actions?” she figures.

“Some of them.”

Marie sighs. “I had nothing when I first came here. Heath makes it sound like this romantic story where he believed in me the whole time, and we fell in love at first sight. It wasn’t that easy, and it took much longer than that. I was homeless for a bit, sleeping in an empty lot before I ever felt safe telling him anything. I needed money, and I needed an identity. Winona had already set up her forgery operation by then, so that’s who I ended up with. Can you imagine how different my life would have been if I had just found a different forger? I can. I think about it all the time. She asked me a lot more questions than she did you, Mateo, and I didn’t have any good answers. She gave me what I asked for, free of charge, and I should have known right then that it wasn’t just pity, but I was on the hook. She started asking me to do things to pay her back. Little things at first, then more dangerous, and she came to realize that I was far more educated and skilled than any normal person could achieve within a single lifetime.

“I honestly don’t remember how we broached the subject, but I remember I gave her as little information about where I come from as possible. I didn’t just spill the beans about everything all at once. She’s been squeezing more and more out of me ever since. One day, she noticed a few extra people stepping into my condo, and she questioned me about you. It was her idea to have her forge your papers too. She had shut down by then, as it was an only temporary assignment years ago. She finished re-setting up her den just hours before we arrived for help, and you were her only recent clients. That’s what put her on the radar of legitimate law enforcement, because they noticed unusual activity in the system. She’s the daughter of a U.S. senator, but she’s not invisible. She decided she needed help, so she concocted this plan to get into bed with you by upgrading your credentials to SD6. To protect you, I...manipulated the situation to put a greater target on Leona, since she has actual training in the field.”

“This all checks out so far, but it doesn’t explain everything that’s happened to us.” He’s not judging her for what she did to get by. They’ve all done things. He’s only questioning her choice to keep it from them. The government has been weird with them from the start, which doesn’t make sense, given her position. Why wasn’t she honest? “They keep following us around the globe. Why is that?”

She’s seething just a bit. “They don’t trust me to report back on you, which they’re right not to. I’m trying to keep you out of it as much as possible. They’re following us because they hope you will eventually be more forthcoming about our origins and abilities.”

“What do they know about us already?”

“They know that we’re time travelers, and that we don’t have control over it. I’ve told them that you’re cognizant of certain special locations around the world that can give us temporary control. We are now looking for this special water in the hopes that it can somehow get us back home.”

“These claims are rather accurate,” Mateo points out.

“Yes, it’s very easy to omit information, but it’s not easy to lie to them outright. If I make a claim, it better be true, to some degree.”

Mateo nods. Now for the real question. “Why lie to us?”

Marie is reluctant to answer, or maybe she’s unsteady in her self-awareness. “This life; this...secret agent shit, it teaches you not to trust people. You get really comfortable hiding things from others, even when you love them. Heath knows absolutely nothing. I sold my intellectual property, that’s true, which mostly explains why we’re so rich, but it doesn’t account for all the money. I get paid for this work. I get paid very well. I just have to go in the field every once in a while.”

“Field work, doing what?”

“Various things, usually unrelated. At least that’s what I thought, but now we’ve found out that Senator Morton was involved, I’m starting to think there’s some kind of secret civil war in the government, and it’s all connected.”

“If there’s a secret war,” Mateo begins, “our team is at the center of it.”

“Yes. Unless...”

“Unless our arrival here is but a fraction of the story, and plenty of other travelers have made their way into this reality.”

“Yes, we may be only part of a statistic. I’ve been trying to find that out, but Winona doesn’t give without getting.”

“Then let’s give,” he suggests.

“What do you mean?”

“She wants answers, and you haven’t been able to give her very many, because you’ve had to protect us. But the thing is that we’re here, and we can protect each other, so let’s give her whatever we need to in order to get what we want. She may know where my cousin is, and not even realize it. She may know the location of a reality transition point, but not understand its nature.”

“You want to tell the rest what I did?” Marie asks, up to her eyeballs in anxiety.

“Well, only the core group. Andile, the alternates, and the McIvers don’t need to know anything about all that.”

“That’s how it starts,” Marie says, “the lying. You start justifying what you’re saying, and what you’re not. Then it just gets worse from there.”

“You’ve had to carry this burden on your own for four years, and I would love to share the load, but I am not smart enough to help. We need the others. Leona, Ramses, and Angela can tell us what to do. Truthfully, Kivi is literally unreliable, and Heath...”

“Heath is still an outsider to you.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“That’s okay, I get that. Either way, can we wait a little while longer?”

“Okay,” Mateo replies diplomatically. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 27, 2398

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Mateo didn’t think to put Las Vegas, New Mexico or Las Vegas, Nevada on his list of places to investigate. It didn’t occur to him to include every single place that he’s ever been. For many people, that’s a costly and time-consuming endeavor, but for him, he’s been to surprisingly few places around the world. He’s probably been to more worlds than particular locations on any given world, and they’re all inaccessible for him anyway. His list would be a lot longer with faster-than-light intergalactic, or even just interstellar, travel. Anyway, there is probably more to learn about New Mexico, but Leona declared that they were going to leave for Kansas City, so that’s what they did. The bus took the two of them, plus Winona, across two more state borders, and dropped them off at the condo. From there, the latter separated from the group, and made her way back to whatever secret government lair she lives in.

The condo was a mess. It was designed for a family of four, but there were now fifteen people, it’s absolutely ridiculous. They made it work like a slumber party, but if anyone wants any privacy going forward, something is going to have to change. Ramses woke up really early the next morning, and tiptoed over the sleeping bags, very careful so as to not wake anyone. He only had one final thing to do at the lab before it was ready for primetime, but it was going to take the next several hours, and he didn’t want to go one more night without the third floor.

Leona and Angela join him there at a more reasonable hour to work on some things on the other two floors, and then everyone meets there before dinner. It’s going to be a mini-twin convention. At least that’s what they’ll tell anyone who notices the duplicates in the private room of the restaurant. They’re asked to wait at the bottom floor while Ramses runs up alone to prepare for the big reveal. He actually locks the elevator down so that no one can get a sneak peek. Rolling his eyes, Mateo takes the stairs, but everyone else continues to wait in the lobby.

Ramses is trying to carry two nightstands down the hallway. “Oh, it’s just you. Could you help me?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfectly finished,” Mateo points out to him as he takes one of them. “It just needs to be livable for now; electricity, plumbing...”

“And that’s all I’ve done. There’s still a lot to do to make any of this look like a home...or homes, that is.”

After Mateo finishes placing the nightstand by the bed, he starts to look around on his own, ignoring protests from Ramses who wants to give everybody the tour all at once. This is where they’re going to move to, the lot of them. They’ll be safe here. Well, at least as safe as possible. No place on Earth is safe from their enemies, but this is still the better choice. They have outgrown the Ponce de Leon, especially with the newcomers, who may or may not be staying. It’s in need of decor, but it will do nicely. Ramses done did good. “How many units? Nine?”

“Eight,” Ramses corrects. “That door at the end is not a unit. It’s a common area for all of us. The others are studio-size, according to this world’s current standards. The two on either side of the common area are each a little bigger, but they’re all fit for one or two people. Ah, but I’m saying too much. Come back during the official tour!”

Mateo laughs. “Open the elevator, Rambo.”

Ramses presses a button on his device, and sends the elevator down for the others. They spill out of it like sardines, thirteen people in a space for ten or eleven. “Welcome, welcome, all, to The Lofts at Matic Labs!”

“That’s not what the lab is called,” Leona says in a way that sounds like she’s had to tell him that many times.

Ramses insists on showing everybody each apartment, even though six of them are pretty much identical, and the other two are identical to each other. Each one has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette. Most of the cooking is meant to be done in that common area, which resembles an office break room. Its kitchen is fully loaded, and is accompanied by couches, computers, other screens, and its own bathroom. He may have called these lofts, but in reality, they combine to form a single house that happens to be sitting on top of a small office building.

“Which one is ours?” little Trina asks.

“Oh, we can’t stay here,” Alyssa says to her sadly.

“Why not?” Ramses asks her.

“Well, this is yours. We’re not really part of all this.”

“Nonsense,” Ramses says. “You have a destiny with us, you may just not know it yet. I built this for our friends, and you qualify.” He addresses the whole room, “you all qualify, duplicates included.”

Alyssa is unsure. She looks to Leona and Mateo, whose facial expressions echo the sentiment. This should be their home now, and not because they can’t take care of themselves, but because they’re family. The only question would be the other Mateo, the other Leonas, and Andile. It’s unclear what they want out of life, and whether their objectives align with everyone else’s. Well, that’s not the only question. If they too want to return to the main sequence—and not just to die—they might want to stay close. Whenever the team figures out how to accomplish their task, it could be time sensitive, and space might even be limited. They don’t know yet. They just don’t know.

“Okay, we’ll stay, and we’ll take whatever unit no one else wants,” Alyssa decides.

“The two on either side of us have more square meterage, but an odd configuration, because this room butts into them,” Ramses begins. “For a family of four, I would recommend units B, C, F, or G. A and H are smaller because of the elevator, so I’ll take one of those.”

“We’ll take the other,” Mateo volunteers for himself and Leona.

Ramses points at people’s heads, and counts in his own. “If the McIvers are together, and couples are together, four of us will have to pair up to make it work.”

“My Leona and I can be in one unit,” Andile says.

“Are you sure?” Alt!Leona asks. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m tired of running. Let’s stay with people who care about us.”

“That still leaves two roommates. Alt!Mateo, I’m okay bunking with you.”

“No, we can do that, can’t we?” Kivi asks, indicating herself and Angela.

“No,” Alt!Mateo says. “I don’t know what made you think I would be interested in joining your little cult, but I’m not going to do that.”

“What will you do instead?” Alt!Leona asks. It’s very awkward between them since he was, and will be responsible, for her death in Reality One.

“I don’t have to go home, but I can’t..stay..here.” He starts to leave.

“You will always have a home here, just the same!” Ramses calls to him.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 26, 2398

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The process of freeing the unconscious prisoners is not easy. It wasn’t legal for them to be kept there like that in the first place, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal to just let them out, and drive away. Certain people should be notified about all of this so a proper investigation can take place. The Matics didn’t have time for this, and they didn’t want all that heat on them anyway, so their only choice was to sneak them out themselves. Most people working at the facility didn’t know about the secret prisoners, but enough of them did to avoid having to actually break out, like Mateo and Leona have had to do so many times in the past. Still, they had to wait for the cover of night, and the few guards who could help them had to dress differently. The prisoners would have been spooked to see a guard’s uniform. It had to look like a legit covert mission by a third party, which it essentially was. They loaded them into a school bus, and drove off without a hitch. Winona had to go back to finish one last thing first, which Leona assumed was code for killing the doctor who kept them locked up there, but she can’t prove that.

It’s morning now, on a Sunday. They can’t take the strangers to the secret McIver cabin, because there must be a reason they were in the prison in the first place. The question is what was that reason, or those reasons? It wouldn’t be any of their business what they allegedly did to get themselves into a special isolated section of the prison under normal circumstances, but since the team broke them out, it doesn’t seem crazy to ask. But are they entitled to an answer? Maybe, but food and shelter first, and Winona claims to have a little place to take them just outside of Las Vegas. Leona tried to call it a safehouse, but Winona was hesitant to agree with that guess. Both she and Mateo slept most of the way, the Energy water they injected themselves with having worn off, and caused them to crash

“Where are we?” a groggy Mateo asks Winona, who is sitting behind him.

“A few miles past Santa Fe,” Winona answers.

“Santa Fe...New Mexico?” he questions.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the wrong direction? I thought we were going to Las Vegas.”

“Yes,” Winona confirmed. “There’s also a Las Vegas in N-M.”

Mateo relaxes his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve been there.”

“You have?” Leona asks. It’s funny that she should forget such a thing. How many other memories managed to escape her steel trap?

“Yeah, my parents and I were stranded there once, back in, uh...” That was 378 years ago, in an old timeline.

“Right, I remember now. I was in school at the time.”

“Do you have something against the town?” Winona asks, worried about pissing them off.

“As long as it helps these people, it’s fine,” Leona brushes off.

“Anyway, we’re not technically going to be in Vegas. We’ll pass it in a half hour or so, and end up closer to a one-horse town called Arriba.”

Leona nods, unperturbed. She doesn’t know about Marie yet. Mateo doesn’t know how to tell her, or any of them, for that matter. He should talk to her first, to get her side of the story. She’s obviously not evil, but the Honeycutts have caused them all a lot of problems since they came here, and that’s not something they should have to just forgive and forget without an explanation.

The bus exits onto Highway 104, and heads away from civilization. Before too long, it turns again, and takes them to a place in the middle of nowhere called Jimenez Cemetery. “Ominous,” one of the prisoners muses. “You are saving us, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Winona replies believably.

The driver stops, and opens the door. Everyone begins to climb out, looking for any sign that this is the right place to be. It might be a poetic location, fit to kill a bunch of ne’er-do-wells that society doesn’t want to deal with anymore. She’s probably going to force them to dig their own graves.

There’s a little shack on the other side of the graves. A man comes out of it in response to their arrival, polishing something in his hands. As he approaches, Mateo starts to think that he must recognize him. Even Leona seems to be having trouble matching a name to the face. “Mr. Halifax,” Winona greets him respectfully.

How could they not spot him immediately? It’s The Gravedigger. Though, to be fair, it’s been a pretty long time since they’ve seen him, and he looks a few years older. If anyone can get them back home, it’s this guy. He lives in another universe, and is on a first name basis with the powers that be. Or maybe they should be referred to as the powers that were. Nah, they’re still in control of other people’s lives.

“Is this all of them?” Halifax asks.

“Yes,” Winona says. “Can you take them all at once?”

Halifax narrows his eyes at the crowd, particularly at Mateo and Leona. “That depends. Do any of them not want to come with me?”

Leona crosses her arms. “That depends. Where are you taking them?”

“That depends...on where they belong,” Halifax says cryptically.

“Where might they belong?” Mateo asks him.

“Various places,” Halifax begins. “Kind of like how I belong elsewhere.”

“They’re bulk travelers,” Leona realizes.

“What does that mean?” Winona asks.

“It’s above your paygrade,” Halfiax says to her.

Winona looks over at Mateo. “This is why I need to debrief you, despite what you think I’ve already been told.”

“You’ve been told enough for us to want to debrief you.

“How did they end up here?” Leona asks Halifax, ignoring the short exchange between her husband and Winona.

“Westfall,” Halifax answers, surprisingly forthcoming.

“So, they don’t even know,” Leona notes.

“Unclear,” Halifax says. Westfall is a section of The Crossover which instigates travel between universes while preventing travelers from even realizing that anything happened. Instead, they believe that everything they see is just a part of their own world.

“We’ll go with you,” Leona begins “as long as our friends can come with us, and as long as we get certain biochemical characteristics back.”

“I can’t give you either,” Halifax says apologetically. “I wish I could.”

“Come on, Honeycutt,” Leona says as she turns away. “It was nice to see you!” she yells back to Halifax.

“Likewise,” he returns.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 25, 2398

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Mateo didn’t really have a plan, he was more just winging it, processing his actions through instinct, and powering them by his emotions. When he saw Leona Reaver lying there, helpless on the table, he felt guilty. It was an alternate version of himself who was responsible for her inevitable death—the one, in fact, in a medical coma on the other side of the room—which as Nerakali would remind him, was someone completely different, but he still felt the blame. This was his chance to protect her in the way his counterpart couldn’t. She’s young, and untraveled, and by all accounts, innocent. His wife, Leona, meanwhile, has lots of experience getting out of scary situations. He knew that she could handle it, and would jump at the chance.

Before any guard could return to the evil prisoner experimentation lab, the Matics teleported in, and took their respective places on the tables. Leona and Ramses don’t know whether immortality water injections wear off over time, even without use, so they needed to be as quick as possible. The Energy water they used should be pulling double-duty, insulating them from any mind-numbing drugs, and keeping them powered up. To pull off this latest prison break, they probably won’t be able to teleport everyone to safety, but the trick might still come in handy. The others are relying on them. Time travelers or no—part of their group, or no—these people need help. They are the only ones in a position to do it, and if they didn’t swap places with their alternate selves, then the prison would have heightened security after the first escapes. Now the prison isn’t even aware there were any escape at all.

It’s been two days, and nothing has happened. The non-plan won’t work if they don’t encounter at least one person who is part of all this. All this time, they have only ever seen the other test subjects. Leona is starting to think that maybe they’re not even subjects at all, but special prisoners who are simply not allowed to get up and move around. It’s plausible that the fact that Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo are time travelers is a coincidence, and this section has nothing to do with that. No, that can’t be true. It’s too unlikely of a coincidence. Leona is about to tap a status report request from Mateo when the doors finally open. She shuts her eyes to avoid getting caught.

“I believe this is one of the two you are interested in?” asks a voice in a sort of Baltic-Canadian accent. He sounds fairly close to Leona’s table.

A familiar voice replies, “yes, that would be her. Where is the other one?”

“Over here,” he answers, stepping farther from Leona.

Winona follows, but speaks loud enough for Leona to hear. “And that’s the other one. How long did you say they’ve been here?”

“The man came to us almost one year ago, but the woman hasn’t been here but a month.”

“And you’re certain of this? There is no way they could have escaped?”

“Escaped? But how? And why would they return?”

“Far be it for me to answer that, just assure me that they could not have.”

“I keep a man posted at the door at all times, and personally check in on my patients at least once a day.”

“Except for yesterday, when you were in Washington to meet with us.”

“Except yesterday, of course. But I promise you, that door has not opened.”

Winona mutters something under her breath that Leona can’t hear. Then she continues with, “and the others? Who are they?”

“Oh, you do not want them. There is nothing special about them. No unexplainable photographs. They are down here for other reasons.”

“Give me the reasons.”

“Well, it’s different for each of them. You don’t have the time. You came here for these two, just take them...and there is a matter of my payment?”

“I have been unable to locate any security cameras in the basement.”

“I’m sorry, no cameras down here, as we like to keep this project private, but as I said, they never could have escaped, and even if they could, they would not have been able to return. It’s quite simply impossible.”

“What do you think, Agent Reaver? Would you have been able to escape this place unnoticed?”

Leona sits up on her table. “I’m sure I would have figured out a way.”

The evil doctor, or whatever it is he is, is mortified. “What is the meaning of this?”

“You have been holding two of my best SD6 agents against their will. We have spent untold amounts of taxpayer money in the search for them. Agent Reaver here caught a lead in the whereabouts of Agent Dufresne. She followed it right here, which is obviously when you abducted her as well.”

“I...I had no idea,” the doctor apologizes.

“I believe you, but that doesn’t mean my superiors will be lenient with you.”

“No, please. Take them, take them. No charge.”

“And the others.” Mateo sits up on his table as well.

Winona looks to Leona for guidance, then sighs. “Yes, the others.”

“Are they all agents?” the doctor questions.

“They’re persons of interest,” Leona explains, hopping down to the floor.

“Yes, of course.” He bows humbly. “I’ll begin revival procedures.”

He jogs over to one of the other patients, and starts fiddling with the equipment. Leona goes to watch him in case he tries to do something funny, like release a cyanide solution. Winona turns to Mateo. “This is the last favor I do for you without any answers. I don’t care if my father and I have built enough trust, or not. You’re going to tell me what I want to know regardless.”

Mateo tilts his head. “I don’t think I have to.”

“Mister Matic, I have helped you on a number of occasions, and now I’m breaking you out of prison, which will take money to stay quiet. You—!”

“I don’t know why you’re so hellbent on getting me and my friends to admit what we are, but I don’t care. There’s a song I like where we’re from. It has a lyric that goes, no one can tell you what you already know. You keep showing up at the right place at the right time. We’ve scanned for trackers and listening devices. There is no way you could know the things that you know without amazing intel. So why don’t we cut the shit, and you tell me who it is?”

“Who who is?” Winona asks, still playing dumb.

“The mole. Who has been feeding you information about us?”

Winona frowns, ‘cause she knows she’s been found out. “Agent Walton.”

“I knew it! I knew we couldn’t trust Heath.”

“No.” Winona shakes her head. “Agent Marie Walton.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 24, 2398

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Mateo wasn’t gone for long. He teleported himself, his other self, and yet another Leona to the Provo farmhouse, which was not part of the plan. He was supposed to take them to Alyssa’s secret cabin. It’s only by luck that the rest of the group hadn’t left for the rendezvous yet. He asked Kivi and Andile to drive the rescues to the cabin the long way around, and for Alt!Leona to accompany him elsewhere. He apparently had business left in the prison. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

She didn’t know him that well, but, “yes.”

Once they were gone, the other two did as they were asked, and headed for the cabin. They carried the third Leona over to the bed, and laid Alt!Mateo on the couch. Then they waited, all day, and all night. There didn’t seem to be anything medically wrong with them, but they could see electrode marks on their temples, and IV sites in their arms. They clearly hadn’t just been in prison, but in the infirmary, or something. They didn’t know what had happened to them, but Mateo and Alt!Leona weren’t back, which could mean the same awful thing had happened to them during this new mission.

The rescues wake up at the exact same time, as if programmed to do so. They’re both surprised to see each other. Neither of them knew that the other was in the same prison as them. Their memories are a little fuzzy, so they drink some water, and rest, before they can launch into their respective stories. Mateo goes first. “You see, there’s not much a man can do when he finds himself in a strange land with no identity, no money, and no hope for help. Especially if the world is designed to screw over anyone not fortunate enough to have been born...um, fortunate. I had to scratch and claw my way to everything I had, and even that wasn’t much. I managed to get enough money for a fake identity, so that’s what I used, hoping to find a real job. I didn’t want to be a criminal anymore. Problem is, I reached that point in my life just as World War III was starting up, and I feel like they started from the bottom of the list, because I got called up right away. They sent me straight to Russia to hold back forces advancing on Mongolia. That’s when I learned that I can’t die. I can get close. I can get real close, but something always pulls me away.”

When he pauses, Kivi speaks, “the extraction mirror.”

“Bingpot!”

“That’s how you survived Horace Reaver killing you in the old timeline in the main sequence.”

“Except I don’t survive. Or I won’t. Or whatever. I’m destined to die there, and every time something threatens my life here, I end up right back there.”

“But eventually, you have to die,” Kivi reasons. “You can’t just keep on doing that forever.”

Alt!Mateo smirks. “It’s on the floor.”

“What’s on the floor?” Andile asks.

“The extraction mirror,” Alt!Mateo says. “It’s literally on the floor in the hospital, right under me. Each time I go back, I just fall down again, and return to that goddamn parking lot on the edge of Crown Center. It’s a loop. It doesn’t matter how many times I do, it will never end.”

“That still doesn’t make sense,” Kivi believes. “You would constantly run into your alternate selves. You couldn’t all fit in the mirror at once.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” Alt!Mateo begins, leaning back in the wobbly chair. “That’s what happens to me. A Russky tries to kill me, I go back to the hospital room to find Horace Reaver frozen in time, trying to bludgeon me with a bedpan, fall into the mirror, and land in the parking lot. I fall down a flight of stairs, hospital, Reaver, bedpan, parking lot. Reaver never moves, the mirror is always there.”

“Who put it there?” Andile asks him.

“No idea,” Alt!Mateo answers. “No one’s come to claim responsibility, not even the first time.”

“How long have you been in this reality?” Andile asks.

“Eh, time, right?”

“Are you saying that you don’t age?” Kivi questions.

“No, I do. I skip time, and land in the parking lot at random points in the future.”

“Mateo was right,” Kivi decides. “This guy is the key. He’s been using temporal energy this whole time. Whatever is suppressing it in all of us has no effect on him.”

“What about her?” Andile asks, gesturing towards who they have decided to refer to as Reaver!Leona.

“I was skipping time too,” Reaver!Leona explains. “But more periodically. I live one day a year, just like he’s supposed to. It suddenly stopped a few months ago.”

Kivi and Andile look at each other. Everything changed on that day.

“This is all fun and interesting,” Alyssa begins, “but it doesn’t explain where our Mateo is, or the other, other Leona.”

“Who are you?” Alt!Mateo asks.

“Our friend,” Kivi replies.

“Who are you?” Mateo repeats, this time to Kivi.

“Your other self’s friend.”

“I dunno, where would they be?” Reaver!Leona asks Alyssa, hoping to avoid any further argument.

“He said they were going back to the prison,” Alyssa answers.

“Oh, he shouldn’t have done that,” Alt!Mateo warns. “He’s not going to like it there. They know about us. They’ve been doing tests on us. I’ve been in there the longest, I guess you just got there?”

“I’ve been there for about a month,” Reaver!Leona negates.

“How do we get them back?” Alyssa questions.

“We don’t.” Another Leona walks into the cabin from outside. They don’t know which one it is, though.

“Report,” Kivi says to her.

“I’m Alt!Leona,” she says, taking Andile’s hand affectionately to clarify her meaning a little more. “Mateo tried to keep me safe by spiriting me away to Kansas City, but we’ve all come back.”

The rest of the team files in behind her. “The third floor is done,” Ramses announces proudly. “There’s enough room for all of us.”

“Who are all these people?” Alt!Mateo asks vaguely.

Alt!Leona goes on, “the married Matics are in the prison together, having taken the place of their counterparts. We have been instructed to let them get themselves out, which they will do while freeing all the other test subjects. Our job is to be ready for them when they do that.”