The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 8, 2398

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The guards followed Leona’s orders by transferring this mysterious Meredarchos to a lower level with no contact with the outside world. It apparently has plumbing, electricity, and a reserve of survival food that can last one person ten years. He shouldn’t be of risk to anyone unless whatever power he has is even stronger than Arcadia knows. She doesn’t know a whole lot. What she discovered after commissioning the creation of the LIR Map is that it’s not only capable of illuminating the entirety of the spacetime continuum for the universe it’s in at the time, but also the entirety of the bulkverse when it’s outside of any universe. With it, she could find any and every brane in all of reality, of which there is an infinite number. It was far too much information for her, but before she folded it back up, and shoved the overwhelming memory deep down in her mind, she noticed one thing. Branes exist in neighborhoods, drawn together for various reasons. The neighborhood they live in formed at the hands of people like Vearden Haywood while in possession of The Crossover, but there are other forces at play. Meredarchos hails from his own neighborhood, in a dark corner of the bulk. He’s either the improbably lucky lone survivor of a cataclysm, or the cause of it. Either possibility makes him a threat.

They’re not going to do anything with him until they have a better understanding of what they’re up against, or if they’re against anything at all. Until then, the team is trusting Arcadia to not try anything fishy. While Vearden leaves Ramses’ unit to start using Delaney and Andile’s, Arcadia is moving into Leona Reaver’s old apartment. They will read her into every pertinent situation, and let her contribute to the decisions, but she has to be honest with them. In turn, they will be honest with her, which they were worried about doing, since they know things about her future, but she dismissed these concerns. Nothing they had to say ought to have any terrible repercussions on the timelines, even the bomb they dropped about her father raping her mother. She said that it would be all right, that she would be able to act like it was all new information when the time came. If the Prestons aren’t even aware of the Third Rail, then keeping it a secret against as many people as possible could be paramount.

Mateo walks into the common area, where Heath is reading a book about Easter Island, and Arcadia is staring at the LIR Map. “Are you still at it?” he asks her.

“It’s psychic paper. It knows what I want. It’s just not listening.”

“No, it doesn’t have any power. You’re basically trying to watch a television that isn’t plugged in.”

“Mateo I used to watch the timeline play out through still paintings.”

“Baudin explained that to me once. Those weren’t still paintings, they were transdimensional viewscreens with fancy golden frames. And unless we can find some temporal energy, that thing doesn’t have a working battery.”

She sighs, and finally looks away. “I know. Maybe you could get me some?” She bats her eyes at him. She’s not allowed on the second floor, nor anywhere on the first floor besides the lobby, and the elevator.

“We don’t trust you that much.”

She shrugs with her chin, but not her shoulders. “That’s fair. Do you see anything on the map?”

Mateo goes over to try. “Nope. Still blank.” This is a lie. He’s currently seeing the location of all of his friends, including sketches of what they’re doing right now. Most are somewhere in the building, but Leona is at the fusion factory, and all the McIvers are at the black site with Erlendr. They fully understand that the girl they see in the prison cell is not their sister, Trina, but they still can’t bear to be away from her. The guards have been instructed to prevent any attempt at visitation. They can’t even speak to him. All they can do is watch him through the one-way mirror. He’s also reading a book about Easter Island, which Mateo finds quite alarming.

“You’re lying!” she exclaims.

“No, I’m not.”

“You went into your head,” Arcadia says. “You only do that when something triggers you, and a blank piece of paper isn’t going to do that. What did you see?”

“It’s none of your business,” he tells her.

“Is it a picture of your naked wife, because I saw all that the last time I took a shower.”

“Why does everything with you have to be confrontational or controversial?”

Her smile drops into a frown. “I don’t know, but I don’t know how to stop.”

Mateo ponders the problem. “Think of it as a challenge. You love those.”

“I do,” she agrees. “I really do.”

He ponders some more. “You’ve never had a job in your life, have you?”

“That’s not true. I had a huge job, protecting the timeline from choosing ones.”

“You were born for that. You were literally made to do it. Why don’t you try something that doesn’t come naturally to you?”

“You say that like you have something in mind.”

“Come on.” Mateo spins around three times for show, and then stumbles out of the room as Arcadia smiles and follows. He takes her down the elevator, to the first floor, where Angela just so happens to be setting up the welcome screen for the lobby. “I heard you were looking for a receptionist.”

Angela looks up at him, and then over at Arcadia. She quickly guesses the purpose of the remark. “Do you have any experience with that sort of thing?”

“You mean with...people?”

“I’m not interested,” Angela decides.

“No, please, just give her a chance.”

“Look, Matthew, I don’t know her that well. Most of your dealings with her were before my time, so I don’t harbor any resentment. What I do have are two ears, and they have heard a lot of not-so-great things about her. This new business is really important to me, so I can’t just let anyone sit in that chair over there. They have to be friendly and helpful. They have to have experience.”

“All I’m asking you to do is train her,” Mateo asks. “That’s what you do, right; counsel people who are struggling?”

“Oh, you’re playing that card, huh? You know I have a thing for the Level Threes,” she says, referring to the prisoner class of people in the afterlife simulation.

“I would consider it a personal favor to me,” Mateo adds.

“All right, all right,” Angela concedes.

“Hold on, hold on,” Arcadia interjects. “I’ve not agreed to do anything.”

“You’re doing it, or I’m putting you back in the Insulator of Life,” Mateo warns.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 7, 2398

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Leona Reaver never woke up, while the other three did. Or rather, if anyone took over her corporeal shell, like a hermit crab on the beach, they never woke up. Mateo was right to be worried about what kind of people might show up. Erlendr’s daughter, Arcadia Preston woke up in Leona Delaney’s body, much to her mixed feelings. Serkan, Ace, and Paige’s once-enemy, Rothko Ladhiffe stole Alt!Mateo’s, while some guy named Meredarchos took Andile’s. He made people uncomfortable immediately, but they don’t know what his deal is yet. They didn’t have a safe way to lock these people up until they could get to the bottom of this, so their only choice was to ask Winona Honeycutt for help. Since Mateo was as of yet the only one cognizant of Marie’s strong working relationship with her, it was Leona Matic who made contact.

Apparently, it is SD6 policy to hold all prisoners for at least a day before questioning unless a clear and present threat is posed to life. They find that people are more willing to talk once they have tasted what it might be like for the rest of their lives if they don’t. Unfortunately for them all, Winona and SD6 don’t know who they’re dealing with. The Prestons are immortal, and interpret a single day as less than a second. They don’t know much about Rothko, and they’ve never even heard of Meredarchos, but as they’re the company of the other two, they’re probably not so easily broken either.

Mateo and Lenoa have to start the interrogations on their own the next morning. The prisoners are more likely to respond well to them than to anyone. They’re going to start with Arcadia, because she’s been the most open, and they know her the best. The guard escorts them into the blacksite, and down the stairs. The cells are clean, well-lit, and furnished. Since the team has no idea whether the Livewire transfer to the past worked at all, they can’t do anything to harm these substrates yet. Their friends, the original owners, may need to reclaim them later.

The guard asks what kind of safety measures they would like to make, but they say it’s fine to just be in the room with her. She’s quite powerless now, or else she would have escaped by now. She may be playing the long game, but that still doesn’t place them in any more danger than they are already in. If she wants to hurt them, she will find a way. “You’re looking quite beautiful today,” Mateo says to her, hoping that she finds it funny since she looks exactly like his wife right now, instead of offensive since he’s not saying it about the real her.

Arcadia nods. “Does that mean you can love me now? Was my face the only thing keeping you away?”

Mateo takes her right hand in both of his. “You have always had a beautiful face. And I believe you have a beautiful soul too, if you just...tried to use it more often.”

She pulls away. “Don’t say stuff like that if you don’t mean it.”

“He means it,” Leona says. “You have not always made the right choices, but you’re not evil. None of you is evil.”

“Except for your father,” Mateo adds.

“He’s not evil,” Arcadia protested, “he just—”

“He raped your mother,” Mateo interrupts.

Arcadia blinks. “Why would you say such a terrible thing? He did not. They were married, I grew up with them.”

“Yeah, they were married, but—”

“Matt, stop,” Leona interrupts. “We’re not simpatico with her.”

Arcadia looks between the two of them. “Tell me what happened.”

“We can’t talk about it, I wasn’t thinking,” Mateo says apologetically. “The last thing you experienced was me overwriting you with Aldona’s mind. What I don’t understand is how you, your dad, Rothko Ladhiffe, and this Meredarchos fellow ended up here.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Arcadia straightens up.

Leona lists the names again.

Arcadia stands, freaked out. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that he said his name was Meredarchos?”

“Yes, we are,” Leona says. “Why? What precautions should we take?”

Arcadia begins to pace. “Holly Blue. She built a psychic containment chamber. That’s the only thing with any hope of, well...containing him.”

“She’s not here,” Mateo explains.

“Make any call you need to. Dig a grave, flip a penny, tame a pigeon. Do whatever you must to make contact with her or The Weaver. We cannot let that thing spread.”

“We can’t do any of those things,” Leona insists. “We’re in The Third Rail.”

Arcadia eyes them both, waiting for elaboration. “I don’t know what that is.”

“The Prestons are supposed to know everything,” Mateo complains. “It’s a parallel reality. It doesn’t have time travel. Holly Blue isn’t here. She isn’t ever here...probably.”

“No time travel, or no time powers?” Arcadia questions.

“Both,” Leona says. “We should be enhanced humans, but even that was taken from us when we arrived. We’re trying to figure out what and how.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re upgraded.”

“Yes,” Mateo replies.

Arcadia shakes her head slightly. “Nothing in this universe can dampen biological upgrades. How would that even work?”

“That’s what we were hoping to understand,” Leona tells her.

“If he hasn’t spread yet,” Arcadia begins, “that may be why. He may be trapped in whatever body he’s in right now. I know we have trust issues, but he is one of the greatest existential threats to the bulkverse, so you have to open up to me. He’s the reason I stopped doing what I was trying to do with the LIR Map. The only way to protect yourself from him is to hope he never finds you. So please, tell me what you know. How did me and my father get here? How did he?”

“We have the LIR Map,” Mateo says. “It doesn’t usually do anything, since powers aren’t common. We have our best luck with the immortality waters.”

“Go on.”

“Not here,” Leona decides. She stands up, and bangs on the door. When the guard opens it up, she says, “we’re letting this one go. Either move the man and the little girl to different cells, or the woman to her own cell. Either way, she needs to be extremely isolated.”

“Understood, agent,” the guard says as he’s unlocking Arcadia’s ankle shackle.

Mateo, Leona, and Arcadia go back to the lab to continue the conversation. For her to get a clear picture of what’s happened here, everybody needs to pitch in.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 6, 2398

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Power went out in the whole building, and it took a few minutes to come back on. Once it did, Leona and Ramses were pretty sure that the deed was done, and it was safe to go back down to the basement. The first thing they saw there was little Trina, lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs. The four adults who were trying to send their consciousnesses to the past were also on the floor, and not moving, which was to be expected. Mateo tried to scoop Trina up in his arms, but Leona stopped him. If she had a broken neck, they shouldn’t move her. She ordered Marie to call emergency services. While they were waiting for the paramedics, she told Mateo, Vearden, and Heath to carry the other four bodies into The Olimpia. They didn’t have an idea of what they were going to do with them, but that wasn’t important now. They just couldn’t let people see them, and start asking questions. The story was that Trina was exploring alone when she fell down the stairs, and no one else had anything to do with it.

As it turned out, Trina had a few broken bones, but her neck and head were fine. She didn’t require any major surgeries, and is presently in her hospital bed, still unconscious. She does read as asleep, though, instead of dead, or a coma. The instruments are detecting a clear heart rate, and even brain activity. She’s still in there, apparently having been knocked over by the blast of the transfer, but not taken by it. The other three McIvers are sitting bedside, with Carlin now passed out in his chair, head and arms on the bed at Trina’s feet. One hand is affectionately wrapped around her uninjured ankle.

Only family is allowed to stay with her at these hours, but Mateo has been permitted to come in every hour to check on the lot of them. He sits in the waiting room otherwise. It’s just past 2:30 when young Moray sends him a text message, alerting him to Trina’s greatly anticipated reawakening. He explains the situation to the nurse sitting at the desk, who allows him to go back off schedule. When he reaches the doorway, the doctor is just finishing her examination.

When the doctor steps aside, Trina see’s Mateo’s face. “My, my, my,” she begins in an unfamiliar tone. “Mateo Matic, how long has it been for you?”

“A few hours,” he underestimates.

Trina narrows her eyes. “You only lasted a few hours before you regretted overwriting me?”

Mateo gasps. “Doctor, are you able to give us some privacy?” he asks.

She looks over at Trina. “Five minutes. Then I need to run some tests.”

“Very well.” Once she’s gone, he addresses the McIvers, “step away from her.”

“Her?” Trina questions.

“This is our sister,” Alyssa protests.

“She’s sick, so get your other siblings away from her right now.”

Trina looks at them, confused. She lifts her hands up, and regards them curiously. “Do you happen to have a mirror?”

Mateo takes out his phone, and opens the camera app. He holds it in front of Trina’s face. She lightly touches her own cheek, just to make sure that it’s actually hers. “This is...disgusting.”

“What?” Alyssa questions, scared.

“This is a person whose body you’ve stolen.”

“Hey, I didn’t steal anything. I don’t know how I got here.”

Mateo turns his lizard brain. That almost sounded sincere. “What is the last thing you remember? Be honest.”

“You were deleting my consciousness, and replacing it with someone else.”

“Then you just woke up here.”

“Yes.”

“What is going on, Mateo?” Alyssa demands to know. “Why are you talking to her like that? Why is she talking like that? Is this some kind of time disease?”

“This isn’t your sister,” Mateo explains. “This is the mind of a very bad man. Though, I suppose man is a bit of an overstatement. He’s more of a monster.”

“Assuming I believe you,” Alyssa begins, “how do we get her back?”

“With help,” Mateo answers, realizing something. “He dials the phone, and puts it to his ear. “Leona? Have the bodies awakened?” He waits for a response. “Lock them up,” he says when she reports that they haven’t. “Where? Well, that’s a good question.” They should have thought to prepare for this eventuality. A jail. Why didn’t they think of that? It would have been quite easy to lay the concrete blocks, fabritate the bars, and install the locks. They have so many enemies in this reality, and every right to hold them against their will. It’s so obvious now. Life has gotten so ridiculous. “I don’t know—just, they may wake up, and they may not be friendly. Erlendr Preston is here.” He shakes his head. “No, I can handle him. Watch out for the others.”

Erlendr is making Trina’s face grin. “You can lock me up, but you can’t hurt me. You care about this person too much.”

“You need to help me figure out how to get your consciousness out of her body,” Mateo insists.

“Why would I help you?” Erlendr asks him. “You just tried to kill me. I don’t know how long ago that was for you, but it was only minutes for me.”

“You’re going to help me, because I saw your face when you realized where you were. This is a little girl, and as evil as you, you don’t relish the idea of staying here any longer than you have to. What happens when she has to go to the bathroom? Are you comfortable with that?”

He scowls. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2398.”

“Perfect,” Erlendr decides. “Just transfer me to a clone.”

“It’s 2398...in the Third Rail,” Mateo clarifies.

“I don’t know what that is,” Erlendr claims.

“It’s what you wanted The Parallel to be. There’s very little time travel here. We kind of have to make our own.”

“Okay...I don’t need time travel, I need mind uploading.”

Mateo rolls his eyes, knowing that this is what smart people feel like when they talk to him. “Without help from time travelers, society progressed at a slower rate. It’s more like the 2050s here. There’s no mind uploading.”

Erlendr frowns, and struggles to get out of bed. “You always manage to screw things up, don’t you?”

“Don’t move,” Alyssa instructs.

“I’m fine,” Erlendr argues.

“I said. Don’t. Move!”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 5, 2398

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A long time ago, Jupiter Fury gave Mateo and his team at the time a task. They had to save Vearden Haywood from being attacked and killed by an ancient dinosauric creature on Tribulation Island. They couldn’t just go to that moment in time, and transport him away from the animal. They had to leave the timeline intact, and make everyone believe that he was dead. He was trampled on out of sight, but found immediately, and brought back to camp where Leona and Mateo tried to treat his wounds. They disappeared from the timestream at the end of the day, and when they returned a year later, they learned that he hadn’t ultimately survived his injuries.

What the team did was create a clone of Vearden, but they couldn’t give it consciousness, because letting it die in the real Vearden’s stead would be unethical. Their plans were screwed up when Mateo himself was killed by the creature first, but they still went ahead with the task. Leona Matic, Jeremy, Ellie, and Sanaa transferred their own minds to the clone, and went off to switch places with the real Vearden, and since then, they hadn’t really thought about what happened to their original bodies. After spending time in the afterlife simulation, they received new substrates from Tamerlane Pryce, and went on with their lives. The bodies are empty shells now, and they could be of great use to them, as long as Leona Delaney’s understanding of the Livewire is correct.

Leona Matic came up with an idea, but first she had to convince everyone else to go along with it. Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo’s problem was that they were destined to die in their own timelines, and would eventually have to go back to realize that. While their deaths weren’t locked in by the hundemarke, they were integral to the creation of every timeline that came after it. Without these events, who knows what would become of reality? The extraction mirror was designed to buy time, not to change the past. But time has little meaning without perception. It exists, sure, but it doesn’t matter unless something is conscious and experiencing it. As long as everyone involved believes that something happened, then it may as well have. The timeline won’t be changed if no one can tell the difference. They can save Reaver and Alt!Mateo, and it’s all thanks to the bodies that Leona and her friends left behind. But what to do with the two extra ones.

“Are we really doing this?” Leona Delaney asks her friend.

“I have no strong feelings about this reality,” Andile replies.

“We’ll be leaving people behind,” Delaney reminds her for the upteenth time.

“No one we’re leaving behind doesn’t want us to do this,” Andile volleys, also for the upteenth time. It didn’t take long for Andile to get on board, but Delaney has been struggling with the decision.

“I dunno.”

“Four bodies, two people,” Andile goes on. “If we don’t go, they’ll just decompose, and go to waste.”

“The people in those bodies didn’t just leave. They left, and then they died. It feels disrespectful.”

“The other Leona says it’s okay.”

“She can consent. The other three aren’t around to.”

“She said that they would be okay with it if they knew. They have all moved on.” Andile takes Delaney’s hand. “I’m sick of calling you by your last name. You need to go somewhere where you’re the only Leona.”

“I won’t be Leona. I’ll be Ellie, or maybe Sanaa. I don’t even know those people.”

“Sanaa has darker skin, I would rather be her.”

“That’s such a weird decision to have to make. Don’t you think so?”

“I think...that I’ve made it. And it doesn’t have to be permanent. We’ll be in the main sequence, which is more advanced, and has more time travel. We’ll be able to transfer again later. This is just temporary.”

“That kind of contradicts your idea that the bodies we’re stealing would go to waste otherwise.”

Andile shrugs. “So we’ll use them for a few decades, and then transfer. That’s the beauty of the future, honey. No one ever really dies.”

Delaney is still concerned, but she wants to get out of this place, and she wants to make her friend happy. Her only hangup is wondering whether this is the only way, or the best way. It will never not be a strange thing to do, taking over someone else’s body, and walking around, looking like them. She better make her choice fast. They get a text from the other Leona, alerting them to their return. Bridgette and Cheyenne have agreed to let them borrow the Insulator of Life, as long as they came with, and took it right back. They also wanted to stay out of all this other stuff, and be left alone after their business was over. Leona Matic and Marie have spent all day today discussing it with them. They can’t just take it from her. It’s an unwritten rule in their world. Even the most villainous of villains don’t steal things from people, if only because the worst of them are usually too powerful to exert the effort it would take to care that much.

She mirrors the look that Andile gives her. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Andile smiles, and hops off the bed. They reach the elevator just in time to ride down with Ramses. Everyone else is already in the basement, where it’s taking place. Ramses points to one of the outlets to tell them that that’s the one he’s rigged up to transmit power to the Insulator. Leona Matic sets it on the table, but doesn’t hook it up.

“Is this going to work?” Alt!Mateo questions.

“Yes,” Ramses assures him. “Based on Delaney’s intel, my genius, Leona’s genius, and Jupiter’s knack for planning far in advance, this is what is meant to happen.”

“And what is that exactly?” Leona Reaver presses. “What is happening?”

Vearden steps forward. “When I ran into Jupiter, he was plugging something into power, which I didn’t think much of at the time, since we were on a spaceship. Now I know it was the Insulator. He set it up centuries ago to receive a transmission from us, in the future. When we all leave the room, and the Insulator is activated, every consciousness in the blast radius will be pulled out of its body, sent to the past, and inserted into its new body. You’ll be in the year 2125, on a planet called Dardius.”

“How does it know whose body to put which consciousness in?” Delaney asks.

“Jupiter has that all set up,” Leona answers.

“But you don’t know that,” Alt!Mateo reasons.

“Does it matter? It’s gonna save your life,” Mateo contends.

“This isn’t mandatory,” Leona tells them. “Anyone and everyone can back out. It’s an option that we’re providing you, but you have until that thing is plugged in to change your mind. In fact, you’ll have to plug it in yourselves. None of us can be down here.”

Ramses looks around. “Does everyone understand the risks, and rewards?”

“I don’t,” Bridgette jumps in. “What if this burns out the Insulator? What will happen to Cheyenne?”

“Bridge, it’s fine. They need this more than I do.”

“No, it belongs to you right now. You have the right to back out as well. These people act like they know what the hell is going on, but they don’t. They’re operating on faith, and that’s how World War I got started. People and their religions,” she spits.

“It’s not religion,” Leona says. “It’s science.”

After Bridgette scoffs, Cheyenne takes her by the hand, and begins to lead her towards the stairs. “This isn’t our business. They said that the Insulator would be fine, and that they would give it back. I’m choosing to trust, and believe, them. If you don’t, it’s like you don’t trust or believe in me.” She stops at the bottom of the steps. “Marie’s sister said that she would give us a tour of her startup. That’s where we’ll be. Thanks.”

Mateo starts to head up too. “I don’t need to be here either.”

Pretty soon, they all follow suit. “Remember. You have to plug it in. It’s in your hands now.” Leona and Ramses are the last to leave.

Alt!Mateo strides over, and takes the Livewire in his hand. When Leona Delaney lurches forwards a little bit, he holds up the other hand. “It’s okay, I’ll wait. But I’m never changing my mind. I wanna live, even if I end up looking like this Jeremy Bearimy fellow, so this is getting plugged in no matter what. I’ll count down.”

“You don’t need to count,” Andile says. “We’re ready. Right?”

“Let’s vote,” Reaver suggests, “so there’s no ambiguity. All in favor of him plugging it in, raise your hands.”

They all raise their hands.

“Perfect,” Reaver decides with a quick nod. “Do it.”

“Okay,” Alt!Mateo replies. He leans over, and plugs the wire in. A jolt of electricity coming from the wall startles him, but he doesn’t get hurt.

They can hear the energy running through the Livewire, which is wrapped around the Insulator. It starts to glow, the light eventually spreading beyond the confines of the glass. A bubble is forming around it, heading towards them. Delaney instinctively starts to back away, but Andile holds her forward. This is surely what’s supposed to happen. She gently pushes her closer to it, and lets the bubble consume them both. Reaver and Alt!Mateo are doing the same. Once they’re all inside, the Insulator begins to make a humming noise, like static. It’s trying to find the right frequency, or something. Before anyone can ask if it’s working, a sudden surge shoots through them, and expands the bubble even farther, and then everything goes black.

Leona Delaney wakes up on a couch. No, it’s not a couch, but a loveseat. That wasn’t clear before. Her head is resting on the shoulder of a stranger. Or maybe it’s not a stranger at all, but Andile. She looks over to see a man, and another woman on the other side of him. It’s not her own face, which can only mean one thing. Her consciousness has been transferred into the body of this Leona, instead of Reaver’s. She’s back on the yearly jump pattern, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Andile, meanwhile, with whatever body she’s in, will not be on the same pattern. This is bad, this is really bad.

“Hello,” comes a voice, but it doesn’t sound like a normal voice from the outside. It sounds more like a thought.

“Where are you?” Delaney asks. “Who are you?”

“I don’t know where I am,” the voice replies, sad and scared. “I’m Trina.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 4, 2398

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Certain that the team would make new friends, or reunite with old ones, Ramses bought a gigantic table for the common room on the third floor. This is the kind of thing that you see in castles, where two people who married only for political purposes sit on either end, forcing their servant to make the ungodly trip several times throughout the meal. It comes in at five meters long, which is over sixteen feet in a measuring system that no one in this reality uses. It was hauled up here through the window, since it was custom made as a single piece, and had no way of fitting in the elevator. It’s designed to accommodate eighteen people, which is good, because they have fifteen at the moment. Vearden!Three joined them yesterday after being spotted, tracked, and recruited by Alyssa McIver, with assistance by Carlin McIver. They’re all gathered ‘round for a nice dinner, prepared by Heath, Andile, and the three youngest McIvers.

There was nothing particularly special about today, besides Vearden’s arrival, and some people were sort of maybe just a little bit worried about the possibility of these massive group dinners becoming a regular thing. Not everyone was available yesterday to hear Vearden’s story, so he tells it again at the urging of the children, who want to hear it again, since they’re still excited about this time travel stuff. “After the other Vearden—who I now know to have been Leona and her friends in a clone of me?—took my place on Tribulation Island, I took the map, and headed for Jupiter.”

“He means a person named Jupiter, not the planet,” young Moray makes sure they all know.

“Right,” Vearden agrees kindly. “So I find him, and he tells me that my work isn’t done yet. He says that I have one more thing to do before I can relax. He agreed to send me to when and wherever I wanted to go for my retirement, which I’m not sure I’m going to do. I mean, what does that even mean for people like us? This isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle, right? Anyway, he asked me to open a door. Now, I don’t know if you realize this, but that whole opening doors to other points in spacetime isn’t something that I was truly ever able to do. I did it in order to find the other Vearden on Tribulation Island, but I was pretty sure I had help. But I did as he asked, and on the other side of that door was Jupiter again. They gave each other a knowing look, like it was all planned out. After I closed the door behind me, the second Jupiter handed me this necklace, and pushed me out of the window. I landed on my feet in a parking lot, so far from other buildings that it had to be some kind of portal.”

“So Jupiter can transition people from the Third Rail too,” Mateo muses. “He could bring us back if he wanted. Or Nerakali could, or The Warrior.”

“One of them would have to know that we’re even here,” Ramses believes.

“They might not be able to even then, though,” Angela reasons. “I’m starting to get the feeling that coming here is a hell of a lot easier than leaving.”

“That makes sense,” Marie says.

“Let me see the necklace,” Leona Matic requests of Vearden.

“Okay, sure.” Vearden takes it off, and hands it to her.

She examines it, with her eyes, and with her fingers. She holds it open like the start of Cat’s Cradle. She tries to ball it up, but it’s not really flexible enough. Finally she twists the clasp open, and separates the two ends, peering at one of them. “There is something in here.” She pinches it, and delicately begins to pull out the wire. As she does so, it grows thicker, like a cartoon. The casing is apparently bigger on the inside. The length appears to be the same as the circumference of the necklace, though. Once it’s free, they all look at what appears to just be a regular metal wire, though with an unusual greenish coloring.

“Oh, it’s the Livewire,” comes Mateo’s voice, but it’s not from the one sitting at the table. Alt!Mateo has come in, arm in a sling, and a bandage still around his forehead.

“Self,” the other Mateo begins, “you’ve decided to join us?”

“I realized that I had some unfinished business here.” Alt!Mateo glances over at Leona Reaver, but quickly corrects himself.

“You called this the Livewire,” Leona Matic says. “What does that mean?”

“No idea,” Alt!Mateo answers with a shrug. “That’s just what my friend, Gilbert called it. He didn’t say anything else.”

“You knew Gilbert Boyce?” Leona questions.

“Yeah, you too?”

She sighs and scoffs. As far as they were aware, Gilbert Boyce had nothing to do with anything in the timeline that this version of Mateo is from.

The other Mateo gets a better look at the thing. “Has anyone else noticed how familiar that shade of green is?”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Marie concurs.

“You’re right,” Ramses decides. “It looks like the Insulator of Life, which I guess makes sense since that’s what glass insulators do, hold wires in place.”

“Okay, fine!” Leona Delaney cries. “I’ll help you make it work!”

“Leona, what are you talking about?” her friend, Andile questions.

“If you get the Insulator of Life, I will help you work it. But you have to promise to give it right back to the person who’s using it right now.”

“Keep going,” Andile urges.

“Okay, I met The Dealer several years ago, Andile, when we got separated. He asked me if I needed the Insulator, and of course, I didn’t, because I was only living one day out of the year at the time. He asked me to help him find a worthy successor, and I’m like, what do I know about that? But I actually did find someone. She was a visitor to this time, and she didn’t belong, but she was going to die before she got back to her rightful place in the timeline, so I connected them, and I never saw either of them again. I didn’t know that this senator’s daughter had anything to do with it, I promise.”

“Delaney, it’s okay,” Leona assures her. “You don’t have to explain. We all have secrets. But can you tell us, what does the Livewire do? We may end up not having a use for it at all, and won’t have to bother your friend about it anyway.”

Delaney sighs. “It can get you back home. Well, theoretically, it can. I don’t know that much about it, but when I was researching it back in my own timeline, the literature made it sound like someone would have to give up their life. It said something about needing a sacrifice on the other side of the call?”

Leona turned back to Vearden. “V, what did you see when you were with Jupiter the first time? Did you see me, and maybe a few other people?”

“Yeah,” Vearden confirms. “You were sleeping on the couch with Ellie Underhill, and two people that I didn’t recognize.”

Leona Matic grins in a devilish way. “We don’t need any sacrifices. Those four bodies on the couch aren’t asleep...they’re vacant. Jupiter planned this all along.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 3, 2398

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When Alyssa McIver was fully brought into the fold last week, she decided that she wouldn’t feel comfortable here if she wasn’t contributing in some way. Some of these people have jobs, and some go on missions, and who knows what’s going on that she and her family don’t even see? There had to be something she could do. Perhaps they wanted a roof garden. She could certainly help with that, but someone would have to pay for it, so that seemed like an odd request, since it could sound like she was being too greedy and needy. There was a way, though. On the first floor of the building, they had set up the security room. They didn’t have any security guards to work out of there, but they had plenty of cameras. They even had ones installed in a parking lot less than a mile away. She didn’t understand at first, but then they explained that that’s where everybody seems to end up when they come to this reality from elsewhere. It’s an easy job, but not one that can be ignored. Someone has to watch the footage, or at least review it fast forwarded later.

So that’s what she’s been doing for the last week. She keeps an eye on all of the cameras, some of which are just pointing at lava lamps, for reasons that she’s not expected to care about. Again, it’s not particularly difficult, but it keeps it off of other people’s plates, freeing them to conduct more important business. She’s sitting here right now, and has just realized that the building’s been nearly all cleared out. She doesn’t have audio, so she doesn’t know why, but it seems everyone left for different reasons, rather than as part of some conspiracy. Leona Matic had to go inspect a manufacturing plant, Angela and Kivi had to have a business lunch; who knows? As she’s rechecking the monitors, just in case she spots someone somewhere, she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. It’s one of the parking lot cameras. That’s not that weird. People drive in and out of it all the time. It’s an overflow lot, so it’s not extremely packed, but it sees traffic every day. Still, when that happens, she’s been asked to run it back to see if the persons there walked or drove like normal, or appeared out of nowhere. She jumps back ten seconds. Holy crap, he appeared out of nowhere. Wait, go back again, and keep an eye on the timestamp. Yep, it happened. It’s a time traveler.

It’s been almost a minute now, and every second that passes gives the visitor more time to leave. He may not even be trying to escape, but just not know to stick around and wait for the welcome party. There are so many people that Alyssa could call, but she doesn’t know who among them is closest to the lot, or whether they’re in a position to get there anyway. The Lofts aren’t that far from it, though. It’s within walking distance. More appropriately, it’s within running distance. She doesn’t have time to think this through. She’ll ask for forgiveness later. This is her best opportunity to demonstrate her value, and she considers it part of her job here. They didn’t specifically say that it was, but they didn’t tell her what else to do, probably because they didn’t truly believe that it would ever come up.

Carlin is in the hallway when Alyssa bursts out of the security room. “Lock up for me!” she yells back. “Moray is in charge!”

“Where are you going?” he questions.

“To the lot!” Someone ought to know where she’s run off to.

She races down Main Street as fast as she can, then steers to the left at Grand. She doesn’t stop, even when her shins begin to scream angrily at her. She just has to make it there, and then she can rest. The visitor needs to know that he’s not alone. Even if he runs off after that, at least he would have gotten that message. Or maybe he won’t get any message at all. Even at top speed, it still takes her five minutes to cover the distance, and the guy is no longer around when she reaches his last known location. He may be meters from her, but if he turned the corner of a nearby building, she wouldn’t be able to see him, and she has no idea which direction to try. What would someone who has just experienced this do? Where would they go? That depends on who they are, and what they know of all this. It’s an impossible question to answer.

Alyssa’s phone rings, and she picks it up instinctively, but keeps looking around for clues, all the while trying to catch her breath. “Carlin, I’m kind of busy right now.”

“He went south on Warwick,” Carlin replies.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The guy you’re trying to find. He’s heading south, probably intending to cut through that park.”

“How do you know this?” Alyssa asks him.

“You left the room open. I took a look at the cameras, and watched him walk away. He’s out of range now, but if you hurry, you’ll catch up. He doesn’t seem to be in any sort of rush. Once he got his bearings, it looked like he kind of knew where he wanted to go.”

“Thanks,” Alyssa says. “I assume you’re watching me right now. Which way is Warwick?”

After she gets the info, Alyssa hangs up and heads off. She drops to a jog, because she no longer needs to break the land speed record, she only needs to close the gap. Before too long, she sees the back of the head of the target. He’s wearing the same clothes, so it’s got to be him. She drops pace so it doesn’t look like she’s coming for an attack, but maintains an advance.

He notices that someone is behind him, so he looks over his shoulder, but since they’re in a park of all places, it doesn’t concern him. He must assume she’s just out to get some exercise. She decides not to wave. He may freak out yet, and if he does, she ought to be closer. He turns back, and keeps going, but then he stops. He turns around completely, and steps forward to meet her in the middle. “Alyssa? I thought that was you,” he says like they went to high school together.

She stops, worried. Maybe she’s the one who’s going to have to run away.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone else,” the man backtracks.

She’s not buying it. “My name is Alyssa, so you really do know me. How?”

The man looks around. “Is it a coincidence that you’re in this park, or did you know that I arrived?”

She doesn’t speak, but it’s written all over her face.

He nods. “If you knew that you would find me here, you must know at least a little bit about time travel. You are from my past, but I must be from your future. That explains why you look a little younger than when I last saw you.”

“When was this?” she asks him.

“That’s too much information. We are not what the kids call simpatico, which means that I know things about your personal future. Best not to tamper with that.”

“Can you at least tell me your name?” she asks.

“Of course. I’m Vearden Haywood.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2398

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One of the first things that Bridgette learned about her father was that he was after two interrelated things. He wanted to collect unusual people, and special objects with unusual properties. Based on what she was able to gather from a distance, he didn’t accidentally see something he wasn’t supposed to, or get read into an organization already involved in this stuff. He was obsessed with the occult his entire life, and it took him half of it to get anywhere with his investigations. Aliens, vampires, cryptids, superheroes, and time travelers. He didn’t know for a fact whether any of these things existed, but he was convinced that one of them had to, or one of the many others in a long list of fictional possibilities. Was there a secret society of five people who ran the whole world from the shadows? Did immortals travel the world with swords, cutting each other’s heads off? It had to be something, and he had to find it, and find it he did.

Once Leona realized that Winona’s father, Senator Honeycutt had figured out the secret of reality, she called it The Masquerade. But this suggested that there was some kind of organized system to all this, like the Archipelago from Sense8, or the chaotic network of salmon and choosing ones from the main sequence. It doesn’t seem to be like that here. Leona Reaver, Delaney and Andile; even Alt!Mateo; none of them has ever found anyone like them. If there are other time travelers here, they’re scattered throughout the world. They may even be separated by time, up to billions of years. There is no network, no I know a guy thing going on here. At least that’s what they have believed this whole time. Even Marie, in all her dealings as a covert agent with the U.S. government, hasn’t found evidence of such a thing. Until perhaps now.

They call him The Dealer, and the only thing Bridgette had about him in her notes is that he moves around a lot, and if you want to do business with him, you’re going to need a referral. It took three days of calling and texting for Marie to procure one from Bridgette’s initial contact, but here she is in Mount Zeil in the Northern Territory. Like Lebanon, Kansas in the main reality—or Gothenburg in this one—for the United States, it’s the center of Australia. It also happens to be around 270 kilometers from Uluru, which is on Mateo’s list of important temporal locations to check out.

Marie ducks down to clear the top of the entrance. All kinds of knick knacks, tchotchkes, trinkets, and baubles sit on the shelves along the wall. What she would guess to be a massive aboriginal mask sits in the corner. The man behind it probably thinks that she doesn’t see him, and expects her to look around on her own while he watches to get an idea of what kind of person she is. She examines a few items, but there is nothing of interest to her, except for one thing. “Nothing in this shack is of any real value,” she begins, taking the black hat from its shelf, and raising it up. “...save for this.” She places it upon her head, faces the mask in the corner, and extends her arms to the side to present the new her. She’s transformed herself to look like a famous actor that anyone in the world would recognize.

The Dealer knocks the mask away from himself, and stands up. “You got it to work. How did you do that?”

“Let’s just say...I keep hydrated.” The Health-slash-Death waters are still technically in her system, and can allow her to tap into the temporal energy necessary to make the McIver hat work. It’s not enough to teleport, but this thing has its own power. Marie studies his face for a few seconds, and then transforms herself again, now to become a mirror image of him.

He slowly slinks towards her to get a better look. “Brilliant.”

She removes the hat to return to her true visage, and sets it back down. “Where did you get it, and where did you get the Insulator of Life?”

He gingerly sets the hat upon his own head, and frowns when he looks in a nearby beauty mirror to find that it still doesn’t work for him. It is unclear how he knew beforehand what it was supposed to do, or that it was supposed to do anything at all. Now he studies her face. “How well do you know history?”

“Not as well as someone my age should. Why?”

“I was born in 1991, right smack dab in the middle of the bloodiest battle of World War II. My mother was a soldier, who’s unit leader didn’t give a crap that she was nine months pregnant with me. She still had hands, which meant that she could still hold a gun. He was pissed when she went into labor, partially because of her, but also because the rest of her unit came together to protect her, instead of pushing forward with whatever mission they were on. When my cries rang out to the sky, it is said that everyone on both sides stopped shooting simultaneously...and they wept. The war ended that day, because of me. My first act in this world was potentially saving millions.”

“That’s...a haunting story.”

The Dealer smiles. “This isn’t about me, or my mother. It’s about the unit leader. You see, he wasn’t from around here, and when I say around here, I mean—”

“He was from another reality.”

This surprises him, but then he remembers just a minute ago when she activated the McIver hat without giving it a second thought. “That’s what he told me on his deathbed, and also that he was my real father, though I guessed as much when I heard we shared a first name. I don’t know why he didn’t raise me, or why he didn’t have the instinct to protect his baby mama during the war. I know that she wasn’t raped, though. They were in love at one time, to a certain degree. Anyway, he died right in front of me before he could say much more, but just before his last breath, he gave me a key to a safe deposit box. I found the glass insulator thing in there, and a few clues to other objects. Do you wanna know how old he was?” It was rhetorical. “I couldn’t get the exact date he was born, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of over 500 years ago. It’s all because of that little green object that doesn’t even give off any energy readings. As far as I can tell, it’s nothing but glass.”

“You’re being surprisingly forthcoming with all this,” Marie notes.

“I have to be. Someone needs to keep going. Someone needs to find the truth about this world, and I won’t be able to do it for very much longer.” He reaches up to his hair, and pulls it all off. He’s completely bald underneath. “Shortly after he passed, World War III began, which I believe to have been the worst. Biological weapons gave an estimated three million people cancer. I only survived because of the insulator.”

“Why did you give it away? You know you have to stay close for it to work.”

“I’m tired,” he explains. “I’m done. That’s why he gave it away, and I’m sure whoever Bridgette gave it to will also only last a few centuries.”

She nods, respecting his position. “I’m Marie. What’s your name?”

“Lawson Junior. I was apparently named after my father, and he was named after his mother, Laura Gardner.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 1, 2398

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The night nurse comes into the hospital room to check Alt!Mateo’s vitals. At first, he doesn’t notice the other Mateo in the chair next to him. He managed to get some sleep last night, but only a few hours, and now he’s probably awake for the rest of the day. “Oh, I didn’t see you there,” the nurse whispers. He looks over at the one in the bed, and then back to Mateo. “Twins?”

Mateo rolls his eyes as if he’s heard it a million times before. He hasn’t, but if they really were twins, this is likely how he would react to such a dumb question with such an obvious answer. “All my life. Sometimes I feel like we’re the same person, but other times, I look at him, and I don’t know who he is.”

The nurse nods, and takes a look at Alt!Mateo’s chart. “He got hit by a car?”

Mateo nods. “It was his fault. He’s an idiot.”

“All the smart genes went to you in the womb, huh?”

“No,” Mateo replies. “I’m an idiot too.”

This gets a chuckle out of him. “Can I get you anything? Some water, a soda?”

“I’m all right, thanks.” Mateo waits until the nurse is finished with his work before saying, “he’s gone.”

“How did you know that I was awake?” Alt!Mateo asks, turning over to face his other self.

“Because I know you.”

Alt!Mateo turns back away. “No, you don’t.”

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

“It’s like ya said, I was hit by a car...because I’m an idiot.”

“You ran into traffic, because you desperately wanted to get away from me and Delaney,” Mateo clarifies for him.

“Delaney?” Alt!Mateo echoes.

“That’s what we call her, to distinguish her from Leona Matic and Leona Reaver.”

“Peachy.”

“Would you like to be called something else too?”

“Don’t matter to me. Call me Alligator Pimpleface, for all I give a shit. Just get out of my room, and out of my state.”

“How much did it cost?”

“How much did what cost, New Jersey?” It’s surreal, talking to an alternate version of himself with the same sense of humor. It’s hard to trip him up when he sees every punchline coming a mile away.

“One dollar, Bob,” they say simultaneously like creepy twinspeak in a horror film.

Alt!Mateo can’t help but laugh at this, causing Mateo to hope that he might be opening up. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve been through, but...you’re not alone anymore. We can help you. All you have to do is let us. Come back.”

“Who told you that I was ever alone?” Alt!Mateo question.

“I don’t see anyone else in the room,” Mateo points out.

“They’re probably just getting tea.”

“What’s got you so upset? So sour?”

Alt!Mateo sighs, and sits up quickly, immediately regretting straining his still healing body, but pushing through it. “What has me upset? I killed someone, Matt!” He realizes that he doesn’t want to be so loud in public, but no one seems to have heard. “I killed an innocent woman. And to make matters worse, it hasn’t even technically happened yet. But that doesn’t mean I can stop it, so now she dreads every second she spends above ground, because she knows it’s coming, she just doesn’t know when.”

“Most everyone lives their life like that,” Mateo points out. “Most people don’t know the date of their own deaths.”

“Yes, because that’s what God decided. It’s not like that for her. I’m the one who put her in that position. No wonder God doesn’t come down and help us. He’s probably paralyzed with guilt!”

Mateo waits a beat. “You know that no one ever really dies, right?”

“What, like, we all go back to the earth, and it’s the cycle of life?”

“No, I mean that literally. It’s called the afterlife simulation. There are tiny little tube things in your brain, which are actually organic computers. They convert all of your thoughts to digital format, and when you die, your consciousness is uploaded to a server in the center of the galaxy, on a giant space statue called the Matrioshka Body.”

Alt!Mateo peers at him. “That sounds insane, Matt, and that is saying a lot, given what we both know about how the world works.”

“Worlds,” Mateo corrects. “There are countless others, and I know a lot more than you. I don’t remember how many times I’ve died. What I’m trying to tell you is that Leona is going to be fine. She’ll just go up to the big video game in the sky. So shall you.”

Alt!Mateo considers the possibility for a moment. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter. It won’t last.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re from an old timeline,” Alt!Mateo reasons. “It’s gonna collapse, whether we’re in this so-called simulation, or not. Everybody dies.”

Mateo closes his eyes, embarrassed at the terrible logical mistake he made. “You’re right. Reality One doesn’t count. Neither does mine. We keep changing the timeline, so what does that mean for me, and my past?”

Alt!Mateo struggles to lean towards his alternate, almost menacingly. “It means nothing. Life doesn’t matter. Everything you try will be erased...and you too shall be replaced. No rhyming intended.”

Mateo leans back, letting the words sink in. “You’re right again.” He doesn’t let Alt!Mateo be pleased with himself for long, though. “Which begs the question, why are you so butthurt about all of this? Leona Reaver will die no matter what you did.” He shrugs coolly. “She’s even already met her replacements. That’s pretty rare, even in our world...or worlds, rather.”

Alt!Mateo reaches out for the remote, and lowers the head of his bed down until it’s fully flat. “I need to get some real sleep now. Leave me be, please.”

Mateo stands up, and grabs his tea from the table. “Come back to KC, and not for me, but because my guess is that you owe her. She deserves some level of closure before fate intervenes, and spirits her away to her inevitable death. Goodnight, sir.”