The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 12, 2398

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Angela is sitting in the welcome room. It has a conference table, multiple screens, a snack bar with refrigeration, couches, and comfortable chairs. This is where she’ll first meet clients. It’s a playground for them to explore what kind of software they might want to create without the limiting factors of a stuffy office. Completing this room was the final flourish. If she wanted to take a meeting today, she would be ready for them. Well, the building would be ready. Psycho-emotionally speaking, she may never be ready. She’s nervous already, and she hasn’t even opened the doors yet. Can she do this? Is she ready? Should she do it?

Kivi peeks her head into the room like a sideways prairie dog. “Hey.” She’s Angela’s researcher. Angela knows how to counsel people, and she knows how to code, which is a lot of work for one person. It will be Kivi’s responsibility to find people who might be interested in their services, but who might not be aware that it’s even a thing. Or they might not be aware that they can do it for free. This is a highly competitive field, but most companies charge for development. Angela isn’t even sure that she wants to call them clients, because once they go into business together—if it goes that far—they will be more like partners. They will work together to build something, and share in the profits, and if it fails, they will share in the loss. The point of this is to take on the financial burden, because her only partners will be people who both can’t do it on their own, and can’t afford to invest monetarily.

Angela takes a deep breath. “You found my secret hiding place.”

“You mean the biggest room on the floor besides the lobby? Yep.”

Angela nods, but doesn’t say anything.

Kivi walks over and sits down next to her. “What are you feeling?”

“Hesitation.”

“Hesitation,” Kivi questions, “or cold feet?”

She shakes her head. Does it matter? The result is the same when this whole project is cancelled. They should never have even tried, and they wasted so much time, money, and effort getting to this point. They don’t need the money. The entire pursuit is all about her, inspired by the simple fact that Leona and Ramses only needed one floor for their lab. The business doesn’t do the team any good, and it doesn’t do the world much good either. It’s selfish. She feels so selfish, spending so much time on this.

It’s like Kivi can see all this detailed angst in Angela’s eyes. “You don’t have to feel bad about doing this, just because Leona is working on fusion, and Ramses, Mateo, and Alyssa are trying to get Trina back. They want this place to succeed. We all do.”

“It’s all so stupid compared to everything else going on.”

“It’s not, and you won’t feel that way when I show you the profile for your first partner.” She casts her tablet to the big screen. A group of teenagers are laughing for the camera. “The boy in the green shirt has been walking two miles to the nearest internet cafe everyday to research ways to help his community. The area is poverty-stricken, and the school’s population is dwindling as a cult promising riches recruits kids for what he realizes is actually a militia. He has some pretty cool ideas to put a stop to it, but not the resources to follow through. Upon your go-ahead, I’m prepared to reach out.”

Angela reads about him on the screen, and thinks. “Okay. Call him.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 11, 2398

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Training. Before Ramses started to have to devote all of his time to trying to get Trina back, he was working on a way to give people their time powers back permanently. The immortality water injections worked really well for a few uses, but they wore off quickly, and it would be nice to not worry about procuring more. It was never that high on the list of priorities since teleporting is a convenient alternative to traditional means, it isn’t usually necessary. It’s mostly a luxury that most of them spent most of their lives not having anyway. Angela and Marie could do it in the afterlife simulation once she reached Plus status, but she didn’t exercise the right very often. It wasn’t because she was used to a life without it. It’s that after you die, the time it takes to accomplish something the hard way doesn’t seem as bad as it once was.

Alyssa McIver was born in a reality that didn’t allow temporal manipulation, except for certain exceptions, apparently. But they know that she has time powers, which allow her to create illusions, which she may or may not use primarily to generate disguises for people. There is a chance that she gets such powers later in her personal timeline, but they have every reason to believe that she was born with them. She should have them now, though they would have been suppressed her entire life up until this point. The team was content to keep her in the dark regarding her destiny. If they couldn’t prove it to her, there would be no point in saying anything. But things have changed. They need disguises. They need McIver hats, if that’s even possible with the state that she’s in.

“It’s not working,” Alyssa says. Her eyes are so closed, so what does she know? Anyway, she’s right, it’s not.

“Do you feel anything different?” Ramses asks, tablet in hand, ready to take notes on how the experiment is going.

“Nothing. I’m still not sure that I believe you.”

“Perhaps that is your problem,” Mateo says. “If you believe you can’t do it, then you can’t, so why not try believing that you can?”

“You can’t just decide to believe something,” she contends. “Something has to convince you, and that usually comes from the outside.”

“We showed you the McIver hat.”

“Stop calling it that.”

“That’s what it is,” Ramses reasons.

“I didn’t make no hat, and you didn’t show me using any special power. You showed Marie changing herself into famous actors, and other celebrities. I have seen no evidence that that has anything to do with me. The hat is amazing. I’m unremarkable.”

“That is certainly not the word I would use to describe you,” Mateo argues.

“We have been at this for hours,” Alyssa begins. “We’ve not made any progress. You haven’t even seen my cheek bubble as the illusion tries to form. Nothing has happened. It’s useless.”

“It’s not useless,” Ramses tries to explain. “It’s all part of the process, and it’s all leading up...to this.” With the final words, he reaches into the box, and pulls out the McIver hat that Marie got from The Dealer, handing it to Alyssa.

“What am I meant to do with this thing?” she questions.

“You don’t know where hats go?” Ramses jokes.

She chuckles voicelessly. “I thought this was for other people who want to borrow my power.”

“Generally, yes,” Ramses says, “and it can do that because there’s power in it. Yours. It doesn’t work with everyone, because not everyone has the ability to harness it. The Dealer doesn’t, but Marie does, and I’m presuming that you’re more like her.”

“Someone told me that Marie has some of that immortality water in her system. They wouldn’t tell me what kind, or why it’s lasting longer than normal. But instead of these injections, why don’t you give me some of that stuff?”

Mateo and Ramses exchange a look. Marie still has Health and Death water in her system, because they were used to perform an abortion. This is a medical condition that cannot be replicated. “She has private reasons for that. It won’t work for you,” Mateo says as vaguely as possible, hoping to not elicit any followup.

“Go on and put on the hat,” Mateo suggests. “It’s like jumpstarting a car.”

She sighs, a tiny bit frustrated, but mostly tired. “I don’t know what that means.” Oh yeah, this world hasn’t used petrol cars in a long time.

Ramses doesn’t say anything, he just nods at her encouragingly.

She sighs again, and gives it a try. Her facial expression changes just from putting it on. She still looks like herself so far, but she’s clearly feeling something, maybe a surge of energy?

“Report,” Ramses requests.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “I can’t describe it. It’s...it’s like a light? What would light feel like if it didn’t feel like heat? I dunno.” She shakes her head, trying to come up with a better way to word it.

“That’s good, that’s good.” Ramses taps some notes down. “Okay, now I want you to do it the same way we practiced, except now there’s a zero percent chance that it won’t work. Think about someone you want to look like. Visualize an image of them standing in front of you. Then turn it around, and pull it back until the image is wrapped around you, like a suit.”

Alyssa closes her eyes and tries again. They can see her struggling with it, but in a way that makes it look like it might actually be working this time. Her cheek doesn’t bubble, like she said it might. Sharp beams of light appear out of nowhere, and shoot across her face and body. She slowly disappears, and then faster and faster, until she’s been completely replaced. It’s the current President of Russia.

“Okay,” Ramses says, smiling widely. “You’ll probably always have to wear the hat, until we fix the time power suppression problem for this reality, or get you to the main sequence, but I think we have something here. It’s a great start.”

Alyssa doesn’t seem to consider it a problem. It’s a comfortable enough hat, and it disappears when she transforms into someone else anyway. She’s more concerned with the mission itself, which is perfectly understandable. It won’t be a walk in the park. A part of her always thought that none of this would work, and she wouldn’t have to participate. Now it’s all too real. Ramses calling it a start is a nice thing to hear, though.

“A start?” Mateo asks. “I would call this more than a start. She looks exactly like him! I can’t tell the difference!”

“Take a step to your left,” Ramses tells her.

They see the President step over, but not all of him moves at the same time. It looks like a bad censorship job, not quite synced up. Okay, so he’s right; it’s only a start.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 10, 2398

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Mateo knocks on the door, but can’t hear the muffled response from the other side, so he knocks again. The response is still muffled, but it sounds angrier this time, so either Alyssa wants him to just come on in, or she very much wants him to leave. He decides to open it carefully, and prepare an exit strategy. “Hey, sorry, I couldn’t hear you out there.”

She’s rushing from one side of the apartment to the other. She’s wearing a towel around her body, and one on top of her head. She’s trying to put away some dishes in the kitchenette, and haphazardly fold the clothes on the couch at the same time. “I said to come in. I can’t talk, though. I just came back to shower, because my brothers complained about the smell, but I’m going right back to the blacksite.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Look, Matty, I know you all say that Trina isn’t in there, but what if she is? What if this Erlendr asshole is just suppressing her consciousness, and she’s been trying to escape this whole time? She may be watching through his eyes, I have to control for that. When we get her back, what should I say to her, that I just stayed home, and left her there in the prison?”

“No, I suggest you tell her that you did everything you could to get her back, and sitting in that room doesn’t accomplish that,” Mateo replies. They’ve been to a number of places on Mateo’s list already, usually for other reasons, and now it’s time to start considering making a point of finishing off that list with a real world tour. He does not yet know, however, who will be accompanying him. A good start could be to ask for help for something very specific.

She unwraps the towel from her head, and furiously dries her hair as much as possible. “What else can I do? I’m not a physicist, like Ramses.”

“He’s not a physicist, he’s an engineer.”

“Whatever.”

“Speaking of Ramses, he needs something from somewhere, I need help getting it for him. Marie is considering going with, but whether she does or not, I could do with a translator.”

“You’re going back to Russia?” They learned that Alyssa’s mother’s family originates from Russia, and that her grandmother taught Alyssa the language before her death. The younger children don’t know it, and of course, wouldn’t be suitable for this mission anyway.

“Technically, I wouldn’t say that we were ever in Russia before since we never got off the boat. I’ve never been at all, even in my home reality.”

“What do you need in Russia, and how will it help Trina?” When he takes a little too long to answer, she winces. “Is it dangerous? Spit it out.”

“It’s politically very dangerous, they could brand us traitors by asking to excavate in the area, because we would have to give the Russians the mineral rights, but I don’t see that we have any choice given what else is down there.”

“What else is down there?” Alyssa questions, annoyed. “What is down where? You’re explaining this all out of order, you realize that, right?”

Mateo takes a breath. “You’re right. There’s a mine in Russia that contains a ton of diamonds, worth hundreds of billions of dollars—maybe even over a trillion—but the thing is that this mine was never discovered in the Third Rail. We know exactly where it is, and we don’t care about the diamonds. According to lore, there’s a gemstone down there that’s worth more than everything else combined.”

“Lore?” Alyssa asks skeptically.

“Marie’s friend from Australia who collected stuff like this, and things that Leona Delaney read in her book about time travel; they corroborated each other’s stories regarding the thing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called timonite, and it’s rumored to grant the user control over all of time and space.”

“That sounds like a fantasy,” Alyssa reasons. She steps behind her bedroom door so she can finish changing. She starts to raise her voice a little to compensate, but it makes her seem irritable. “I don’t much care for fantasy. Talk to Moray about that stuff, he’ll go on, and on, and on.”

“It might not be real, but isn’t it worth the risk?”

“If it starts a war with Russia, which Russia will win because of their sudden influx in capital, then no. Trina is a child, so she doesn’t understand the politics, but if she did, I know she wouldn’t want that. She hates violence. She doesn’t even like to watch cartoon characters fighting each other, even though they’re all immortal.”

“You’re right. Again.”

“There has to be a way to dig where we need to dig without starting an international incident,” Alyssa figures. “You’re time traveling teleporters, for God’s sake; get creative.”

A lightbulb comes on over Mateo’s head. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. We need you more than ever.”

“I could interpret for you, but you’ll have to figure out who you want to talk to. It can’t lead to violence, that’s my one rule.”

“We require the most powerful person in Russia. He’s the only man who can get us what we need.”

“Well, yeah, but you’ll still be branded as a traitor.”

“Not if we have help from the U.S. government, because we don’t need to talk to the actual Russian President. We just need someone who looks like him, and we need him to talk to other Russians on our behalf.”

She stares at him. “Am I supposed to know where you’re going with this?”

Has anyone ever told you why we were immediately comfortable being around you? Didn’t it seem like we recognized your name, or something?”

“It seemed a little weird, but I had other things on my mind, and later I thought we knew too much anyway, so you either had to bring us in, or kill us.”

“It is we who knew too much,” Mateo corrects. “We already knew you. Or we knew of you. Vearden knows you personally, he met you centuries from now, or something.”

“You mean that I’m going to go with you to your alternate reality, and meet people I’ve already met before?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. What does that have to do with the Russian President?”

He smirks. “What are your thoughts on hats?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 9, 2398

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Marie badges herself in, and heads for Ramses’ area of the lab, which is farthest from the elevator. His hair is mussed up, and the table is full of chemicals, some of which may be drinkable, placing the whole operation—and his life—in danger. He doesn’t even notice her approach. “Rambo.”

He’s startled, but he doesn’t make eye contact. “What?”

“You haven’t been sleeping.”

“I can sleep when it’s over, Angela.”

“I’m Marie.”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“Have you made any progress?”

He laughs at the very idea. He’s run so many tests on the Insulator of Life, and the Livewire, trying to figure out how to get Trina back, or at least confirm where she is. He hasn’t worked on anything else since the incident, and he’s no closer to solving the problem. Cheyenne is going to need the Insulator back pretty soon, so either she’s going to have to come to them, or he’ll have to find another way to the answers. “Nothing. I have absolutely no idea how either one of these things works. No moving parts, no obvious unusual properties. If I didn’t know any better, I would call it magic.”

“Maybe that’s what it is,” she offers.

He scoffs.

“Why not? When I first found out that time travel was a thing, I immediately started questioning everything I thought I knew about the physical world. Ghosts, sorcerers, even God; perhaps they were real. I’ve not seen any evidence of such things so far, but maybe these two objects are evidence of something.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that. Time travel is crazy, but it’s not magic. Magic inherently doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t have rules. If you need something done, there’s a way to do it, and any failure to accomplish it is based solely on your lack of imagination. Science has rules, whether we’re cognizant of all of them, or even any of them, or not.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue with you about it. I’m your elder, but you’re much smarter. I’m not here to convince you to stop trying, just to take a break.”

“I can’t do that. People are counting on me.”

“I’ve spoken with Bridgette and Cheyenne. They’re moving into the Lofts.”

Now he finally looks directly at her. “They are?”

“This floor is exclusive to travelers, which Cheyenne is. Angela is moving back in with Kivi, even though Kivi just moved out of Angela’s place.”

Ramses is happy for a moment before he realizes that this only solves one issue. “It doesn’t matter. The McIvers need me to find their sister. Yeah, it’s great that I can keep working with the Insulator, but I still can’t waste time sleeping. Trina needs me.”

“She needs you to be at the top of your game,” Marie corrects. “Sleepy Ramses is sloppy Ramses. Who knows, you might even come up with a new angle to tackle the problem when you let your brain rest a little.”

Ramses argues more, but Marie calls Leona to ask her to give him an order, so he reluctantly goes upstairs to sleep on it. She was right, a weird dream gives him an idea.

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.”