The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 20, 2398

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Heath moved out. He couldn’t handle Marie’s lying. There may still be things that she hasn’t told him, and he just can’t get over that, for now. The team tried to suggest he move into one of the now empty apartments, but that was too close to his wife. The point is to get away—away from her, and the team, and everything. They have yet to sell the condo at the Ponce de Leon, so he just went back there. Hopefully they can get themselves into some marriage counseling, and get this resolved. Most of them stopped seeing Magnus Sharpe for their therapy needs, but they have maintained their relationship with her, so she’ll be able to help, if Heath can come back to the table.

Mateo keeps deciding to go off and investigate the special temporal locations, but things keep getting in the way, and that has to stop. They have been to a lot of them, sure, but there is one particular spot that he’s been anxious to get to, plus one that’s too cold for this time of year. Something tells him that that second one is going to come with some real answers, expressly because it’s inaccessible in the winter months. Easter Island is not like that, though. It’s accessible right now, and in most cases, all you need is something called a Flyer’s Card. This reality has a credit card for everything. They stopped using paper and metal money a long time ago, but really went overboard with the plastic. Unlike loyalty cards, they don’t only work at specific businesses, but for specific types of purchases. One card is for groceries, another is for public city transport, and another for carpentry tools. There’s one that lets you buy electronics, but a subcard that lets you buy handheld devices, and you need it in addition to the more generalized one. They run them both at the same time, and split the cost across each. It’s stupid and insane, and means that people either carry full purses—which is not a gendered practice—or they leave what they don’t think they’ll need at home.

Mateo doesn’t have a Flyer’s Card, because they didn’t think that any of them would need it. He needs it now, or a third alternative. They can’t take The Olimpia without someone who knows how to fly it, but that was always just to allow travelers to exercise some independence. There are other ways to get around the world, so just because Mateo is alone, doesn’t mean he has to wait. New Flyer’s Cards take weeks to process. That’s what he’s doing at Winona’s office. “Can you get me there? It doesn’t have to be covert, and I can make some kind of donation. I just don’t have time to deal with trying to get a Flyer’s Card, or begging someone on my team to go with me. I’m the only one who has time.”

“All you ever have to do is ask, Mateo,” Winona says. “Of course I’ll get you to Easter Island. I only have one condition.”

He wants to roll his eyes, but the muscles necessary to make that work are presently holding his tail between his legs. “Okay.”

“I’m coming with you, and there won’t be any secrets between the two of us.”

“I suppose that’s fair. Can you fly, or is there, like, a link to the air force?”

“I know a guy.” She takes out her phone to make a call.

Mateo accompanies her to her apartment so she can grab a few things. He calls Leona on the way to keep her apprised of the situation. They make it to the military airbase, where their pilot is waiting for them. It’s the Captain from the rogue veterans team in the Bermuda Triangle, Tarboda Hobson.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 19, 2398

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It’s time. It’s time for Marie’s team to learn the truth about what kind of things she’s been doing in this reality for the last four years, and what kind of person they’ve turned her into. They could have lost Mateo. It’s a lot easier to build a machine that teleports you out of the timestream, but much harder to get it to bring you back. Such a fate could be waiting for anyone at any time. Honestly, it’s a miracle how few people they have lost along the way. Whoever is preventing temporal manipulation in this reality was most likely trying to keep it from hurting people, but there is plenty of danger here. Mateo could have been killed by something else, perhaps in a war against Russia? She can’t die without having told everyone the truth. Mateo knows, Alyssa knows, and most of the rest don’t need to know. They’re still not sure what happened to Vearden and Arcadia. He left a note that said he was leaving, but from what it looks like on the security camera footage, she followed him on a whim.

They’re all sitting around the table in the Walton apartment. No one knows what she’s about to say, though Mateo might suspect. She’s putting it off on the seconds scale, but it’s creeping up on a minute. Mateo is putting it together, if he didn’t already realize. “It’s going to be okay,” he pledges with a hand upon hers. “You can tell us anything.”

She nods at him and his kindness. It’s given her the confidence she needs to push forward. She gets into the explanation, starting at the beginning, disabusing them of some beliefs that they held regarding her. She started out as an asset, but became a full agent. Winona does not have some grip on her; she does it voluntarily. She’s not proud of every mission she’s been on, but overall, she doesn’t regret her choices. She tries not to focus too much on how they’re receiving the information, because it’s just making it harder. Ramses remains anxious as ever to get back to his work, but this was a good excuse for him to take the period break that he needs. Kivi is nodding nonjudgmentally. Angela seems hurt. She’s had a tough time with the dynamics of living with her alternate self. Leona acts like she’s always known, which wouldn’t be surprising. Heath is stunned and angry. Things might get bad with him. Things might get real bad.

When she’s done with her speech, silence falls over the group. Heath is not yet ready to respond, and may not feel comfortable saying anything until their friends have left. Angela breaks the ice. “I don’t understand. I know that I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I still can’t see myself going down this road. I mean, I couldn’t bring myself to step into Carnage World.”

“I’ve never killed anyone,” Marie protests. “I don’t do those missions. Well, I’ve...associated with it, but I’ve never done it, and I’ve never directly assisted in it.”

“Wait, what’s Carnage World?” Kivi asks.

“It was a server in the afterlife simulation,” Marie explains. “There were many like it. Basically you run around, killing people, and then they respawn. That one was particularly brutal, because you gained points by how creatively vicious your kills were.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” Heath cries. “I want you to explain why you lied to me for four years, and I want you to do it in front of your friends! I don’t want excuses, and I don’t want you to play the victim anymore! Tell me why you thought that was okay! I’m your husband, I deserved to know who I was married to!”

“I’ll try to stop playing the victim, but not if you keep yelling at me like that.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 18, 2398

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Ramses looks at the time again, even though his hypothetical chronoceptor organs are operating at maximum efficiency, and he knows that it’s been around three minutes since he last looked, and also that Mateo isn’t due for another three minutes.

“How are we lookin’?” Winona asks. She’s about ten meters away, so everyone can hear her.

“No way to know until it happens,” he answers. Since Leona has been busy with her fusion work, Ramses has been consumed with harnessing the limited temporal power on this world. It’s the hardest job he’s had in his whole life, and it’s killing him. He barely sleeps, and eats too quickly, because every second spent holding food could delay progress. The problem is that his obsession has come with consequences. He rushed a teleporter out of the gate because he wanted to rescue Trina so badly, and now his best friend is stuck outside of the timestream. It was supposed to transport the site of the mine instantaneously, since that’s the whole point of teleportation, but he made a gross error in his calculations, and they ended up jumping forward two days. It’s not the first time that’s happened, and unless he gets his head out of his ass, it won’t be the last.

When The Constant imploded, it was replaced with a massive body of water, which Mateo called Danica Lake. He promptly passed out, and lost the memories that may have answered all the questions they had about the development, such as where the water came from, and why this happened at all, but that didn’t mean they were completely lost. With a little investigating, Ramses was able to learn that the water was there the whole time, just locked in an underground lake, and released from pipes by a series of valves. Those valves have been degrading over time, along with the pipes themselves, but they’re still there for now, and they can still be reversed, allowing some of the water to return to the ground. When the mine appears in the next two minutes, it’s going to displace billions of gallons of water, and if they hadn’t done something to prepare for that, it would have flooded the area. So really, the temporal delay was a good idea, and Ramses wishes that he could take credit for it. He never thought that Mateo would actually use the teleporter. It was only a last resort.

His thirty second warning alarm goes off. “Here it comes! Earplugs on!” When the lake first appeared, it made the news. Winona came up with a decent explanation for the public, which involved shifting tectonic plates releasing water from an underground lake, so it was almost half true. People have come from all over the world to see it, but while the filling of the lake was spectacular, it just looks like a regular body of water now, albeit shockingly deep for something in Kansas. The spectacle has since died down, and the last thing they need is to make another one. Fortunately, the agency team doesn’t have to cordon off the area to prevent people from witnessing the arrival. No one else is around. But they’ll probably hear it. He’s expecting a sonic boom.

Five, four, three, two, one, and...nothing. There’s no sonic boom. There’s no cloud of dirt. Maybe there was a little splash down there, but they can’t see it, because the water has been drained far below the edge to insulate them from that displacement issue, and they’re standing pretty far away. In cartoons, whenever the bad guy tries to shoot the good guy, the bullet either misses, or the gun just doesn’t go off, which makes sense, because these cartoons are meant for children, and not meant to be horrific. It’s perfectly okay for the bad guy to get himself shot, though—as long as it doesn’t kill him—and that’s usually what happens when he points the barrel towards his own face to figure out what’s goin’ on with the darn thing. Ramses knows that it’s a risk to stick his head over the edge, but someone’s gotta do it. What he finds there is a friendly face.

Mateo is treading water, and starts to swim over when he sees which direction to go. One of the military guys that Winona brought with her throws down a rope, and pulls him up. “Thanks,” Mateo says to him. He doesn’t look distressed, or scared, or anything. He’s perfectly okay, just a little wet. Well, he periodically grimaces as he’s standing there, but he must just be cold. He faces Ramses. “It worked. Nice. I guess you’ll have to get some divers down there to drag the bottom of the lake, though. Isn’t that what it’s called?”

“It’s not down there,” Ramses says.

Mateo looks down over the edge again. “Oh, no?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“The water would still be moving, and be a lot higher. You are the only thing that came through the teleporter.”

“Oh.” Mateo squints. “Are you sure?”

“Damn sure.”

“Maybe it’s coming later. We’ve had trouble with delays before.”

“You’re already two days late.”

Mateo looks over at the frowny Alyssa. “I’m sorry. It was supposed to take the whole mine, not just me.”

“It did,” Alyssa tells him.

Winona steps forward. “National Intelligence Authority assets on the ground confirmed it. The would-be mine is gone. All that soil and rock went somewhere.”

“Or somewhen,” Marie advises.

Mateo nods, and grimaces again, but this time also leans forward, and reaches for his stomach.

“Are you okay?” Alyssa places a hand on his back.

“I’m fine. It must just be that Mongolian breakfast. They must have made it with a little citrus.”

“What does that matter?” Alyssa asks.

“It doesn’t travel well,” Marie explains.

“Really?” Winona asks. “You never told me that.”

“I was a non-traveler for four years. It didn’t occur to me to mention things like that, I suppose.”

“That’s not it,” Ramses contends. “There’s something seriously wrong with him.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Mateo insists. But he’s not fine. He lurches, and gets down on all fours, groaning in pain. He retches once, and twice. He looks like a cat trying to cough up a furball. People are standing around him, debating what they could do to help, when he does manage to cough something up. It’s a rock, but not just any rock. It’s a beautiful stone of many colors. It is red, and yellow, and green, and brown, and scarlet, and black, and ochre, and peach, and ruby, and olive, and violet, and fawn, and lilac, and gold, and chocolate, and mauve, and cream, and crimson, and silver, and rose, and azure, and lemon, and russet, and gray, and purple, and white, and pink, and orange, and blue. It could be tourmaline, but it’s probably timonite.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 17, 2398

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Since he arrived, Vearden has been on vacation. He’s helped carry equipment up to the second floor lab, and stuff like that, but he hasn’t really tried to get too involved. Before this reality, he was really busy and stressed out all the time, and it didn’t seem like there was much he could do to help here. It’s probably time for him to make some decisions regarding his future. He’s living in his apartment for free, and while no one has asked him to get a job, it’s probably not okay that he hasn’t. According to the group history, he’s not the first person to feel this way. The core people are Mateo, Leona, Ramses, Angela, and Marie. Everyone else has had to work much harder to find their place. There don’t seem to be any openings at the moment. Angela’s new business is too small to need more than three employees. He’s not equipped to be of any use in the lab. He’s not qualified to go on the secret missions, not that he’s interested in any of that.

He’s decided that he has had enough of this time travel business. He remembers being young and motivated. He wanted to understand how it all worked, and to know his place in the world. He had to force his way into the underground time traveler society. Nobody asked him to do it. They asked a version of him in another reality, but since that version ended up in the new reality, people apparently didn’t feel that they needed another. That is, until they did. They sent him to another planet, in the future, where he tried to help an alien race coexist with a competing species. It was exhausting, and now that it’s all over, his perspective has changed. He’s always liked to be the little helper. That’s what he’s been for most of his life, the guy who’s just there to help others with their objectives. He’s worked as a literal assistant on more than one occasion, including a position usually filled by women. He got some looks for that. Whatever. Whatever about everything. He’s just going to leave.

“Where are you going?” Vearden has gotten a good grasp on people’s schedules around the building by now. No one should be up and down here at this hour, but the receptionist is at her desk almost two hours before the first floor even opens.

“Oh, hey, uhh...Arcadia, right?” It’s weird that she’s using Leona’s body.

“We’ve met.”

“You might be thinking of a different me,” Vearden says.

“We met briefly on Orolak, when I came to take your alt to Tribulation Island.”

Vearden looks for his memories up in the corner of the ceiling. “Yeah, I guess I did see you once. I wouldn’t say that means we met, though.”

Arcadia nods. “It looks like you’re leaving us.”

Why would she care? He doesn’t have to lie to her. “Yep, for good, probably.”

She goes back to her book. “Good luck.”

He nods, picks his bag back up, and starts walking towards the door, half-expecting her to dole out some morsel of wisdom that might get him to rethink his plans. She doesn’t say a word. He was right, she doesn’t care. Vearden steps out of the building, and into the predawn darkness. He breathes in the warm summer air. It’s a new chapter in his life, but don’t call it the second, because he’s lost count of how many times he’s changed directions. He has no job, and no place to live. He doesn’t even have an identity, but what he does have is—Arcadia catches up with him, and starts to walk by his side with a smile. She still doesn’t say anything, though, not until the next day.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 16, 2398

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The checkpoint has evidently been abandoned by the time they get to it the next morning. From the looks of it, there’s a pretty decent operation here that’s designed to prevent unwanted crossings. There is no reason to not station someone here at all times, even if this weren’t the most popular place to transit, which it is, because it’s the closest to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. Mateo thinks he sees someone move over yonder, but it’s just some plastic sheeting flapping in the wind. This feels like the start of a monster movie. “Timofey, what do you make of this?”

“We should turn back,” he advises. “Something has happened here.”

“What, were they attacked, or something?” Alyssa asks. She already looks like the dvoryanin, Vissarion Chaykovsky.

“We would see signs of struggle,” Timofey explains. “The men were ordered to leave. They knew we were coming.”

“No, I meant that maybe someone else was attacked elsewhere, and the border guards went off to help.”

“It’s possible guards from one side were called off, but what of guards on other side? We should turn back,” Timofey repeats.

“You can,” Mateo says. “This is too important to stop now.”

“I tell you, it’s trap,” Timofey insists.

“Getting out of traps is sort of our thing,” Marie says. “Why do you think Winona keeps trying to recruit my people?”

“Very well,” Timofey submits. “We proceed...with caution.”

Mateo gently depresses the pedal, going only a kilometer an hour at first. He gradually accelerates every several seconds, until he’s finally back up to normal speed five minutes later. They don’t run into any trouble all the way up the highway. Timofey keeps his eyes on the windows for suspicious activity while Marie keeps her ear on the signals. No one seems to be tracking or chasing them. It goes smoothly...too smoothly.

It isn’t until they get to the site that they encounter a problem, and it’s a big one. Marie peers through the windshield. “Alyssa, Plan B.”

Alyssa transforms herself into the image of an agent that she passed in the hallway of Winona’s SD6 field office. He’s big and imposing, so while Alyssa hopes not to have to fight, she will be able if it comes down to it. Mateo sees what Marie does at the same time. Vissarion Chaykovsky is already here. He’s standing on the edge of the empty lot, clearly waiting for them. A construction crew is behind them, beginning to dig exactly where they expect the diamonds and timonite to be. One thing’s for sure, there’s a leak in the organization. He looks back at Timofey.

“I know how this looks,” Timofey says in an immediately defensive tone. “I swear upon my God’s heart that I had nothing to do with this.”

Mateo looks over to Marie sitting shotgun for guidance. She reaches under her seat and takes out an actual shotgun. It’s really short, which he believes would be called a sawed-off? Yeah, that sounds right. “Follow my lead.” She opens the door, and steps towards the men with action hero confidence.

“There is no need for violence,” Vissarion says with calm supervillain confidence.

She points her weapon at his head as she draws nearer. “We’re taking over this operation. Tell your men to shut off their machines, and surrender.”

“In our country,” Timofey whispers, “on local level, you want something, you take it. Strongest wins.”

Vissarion smiles. “You are not Russian. You have no rights here.”

“What are you digging here for?” Marie asks, unrelenting with the shotgun.

Vissarion waits to answer, milking this moment for all it’s worth. “Diamonds.” Yeah, definitely a leak.

Mateo checks Timofey’s expression again, but there’s still no way to tell if he’s truly defected, or if he’s been playing them the whole time. When it comes to double agents, you never really know.

Vissarion goes on, “we are prepared to make a deal. The diamonds, and all their worth, are ours, but we promise never to use any weapons we engineer from the funds against the United States. Also, we would like fusion, and this would be how we pay.”

“I’m not at liberty to make any deal such as this,” Marie admits. “And I don’t know what fusion is.”

“Don’t play coy, Mrs. Walton,” Vissarion grins. “It’s unbecoming of a lady.”

Marie thrusts her weapon forward, fast but only a little, to send the menacing message that she’s ready to use it.

“The deal is to get you to lower your gun,” Vissarion goes on. “We don’t need permission to mine these lands. They are well within Russian borders. You have no authority here. All I ask is that you give us your fusion reactor specifications. We will manufacture ours ourselves. In fact, we insist upon it to support our own economy.” This is a terrible deal, but it may be the only decent choice they have. They need that stone, whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter that Trina wouldn’t want them to risk a war on her behalf, because she doesn’t have a say in it. She’s the one who’s lost, and this might be the only way to get her back. They’ll worry later. “Or we could just hold you all for espionage until your government gives us what we want. We know you’re valuable.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Now Mateo can’t work with them at all, and has no choice but to resort to what he and Ramses decided to call Plan Z. It’s going to be demanding of his acting chops. “Okay,” Mateo answers.

“What are you doing?” Marie doesn’t know about Plan Z.

“I’m assuming control.” Mateo directs his attention back to Vissarion. “We agree to your deal, but we have to make sure that there are actually diamonds down there.”

“We’ve not had time to take samples and conduct studies,” Vissarion tells him. “We’re operating on your government’s intel, which is presumably why you’re here in the first place?”

“My scientists have developed a means of detecting subsurface minerals from the surface,” Mateo says as he’s heading for the back of the SUV. He hopes the sciency words he’s using make sense. “Don’t ask me how it works, but they assure me it does. Tim, help me with this.”

“What are you doing?” Marie asks again after Timofey hesitates to help.

“I’m doing what must be done. Put down the gun. Trust me.”

“I did not realize this was back here,” Timofey says as they’re both struggling to carry the machine from the truck to the bottom of the pit that has just been dug.

“It’s mostly water,” Mateo reveals in a hushed voice. “Once you and the girls are in the car, drive as fast as you can back to Mongolia. Stop for nothing, you hear me?”

“I can do it, but what will make us go to the car? It will be suspicious.”

Mateo catches his breath for a second once they set the machine down. Then he speaks for all to hear. “This is going to be really loud! I suggest you get in your cars, and shut the doors!”

The men laugh, but that’s okay. Only his people need to be safe. Once he hears the SUV start up, Mateo turns to boot the machine up. The Russians are scrambling, trying to figure out what’s happening. Some run off, but Vissarion and others run down to stop Mateo from doing what he’s trying to do. They’re too late. The teleporter engages, and sends them all to Lebanon, Kansas, along with 530 meters of soil, a crapton of diamonds, and time gods willing, the timonite.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 15, 2398

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In the woods of northern Mongolia, outside a border city called Hiran, is a camping resort run by a family that has no love for Russia. They are not officially an agency safehouse, but this is the closest the team can get to Russia without being in Russia. They will cross here, and assume their new identities, which Winona’s people were able to create for them at surprising speed. The resort tried to house them for free, but Winona insisted on paying. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and in a capitalistic society, transactional relationships tend to last longer, and remain stronger, than ones without strings, and up-in-the-air exit clauses.

Alyssa is no longer nervous. She’s done well with her training, and at this point, the longer they wait, the more difficult it will be. She’s had to memorize a lot of cultural and political information to complete this mission, so she doesn’t want to forget. Mateo, Marie, and their new associate, Timofey Putin have learned their roles too. They feel like real secret spies now, working for the government, and managing assets. Leona would be better at this, but she’s a woman, and a female in a position of power doesn’t fly in this reality’s version of Russia. Marie has to pretend to be a submissive secretary, and Alyssa will literally look like a man. She’s not the President, though. She’s just a dvoryanin, which is a sort of nobleman in soviet nations. The story is that his daughter wants a new summer cottage for her and her dogs, and she wants it in a very specific place. Vissarion Chaykovsky loves his daughter, and would give her the world if he could, so he’s willing to spend whatever it takes. The best part is that the name should ring a bell in Mirny, but not be surprising enough for people to try to confirm his identity or presence.

The backup team is going to be staying right here on this side of the border, waiting to welcome them back at the end of a successful mission, or to extract them if it turns out not so successful. It’s cute that they think they could help. Mongolia is hours away by aircraft, over enemy territory. If something goes wrong, they’re pretty much on their own, which is why Ramses packed them a little present. It’s an in case of emergency kind of thing. Why did Russia have to be the largest country in the world, and why did the mine have to be so close to the center of it? That’s a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, they’ll get some sleep, and try to cross the border in the morning, hopefully without issue.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 14, 2398

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Leona stands on the edge of the field as the helicopter drops from the sky to land on the grass. Leaves, loose blade, and other debris assault her face, but she remains steadfast. Her colleagues are more easily flapped. “Aren’t you nervous?” one of them asks, trying to whisper above the noise.

“Why would I be?” Leona asks.

“It’s a United States senator, coming here to evaluate your work.”

Leona waits until Senator Honeycutt is within earshot, and the bird quiets down a little. “He’s just a man; not someone to be feared.”

Her colleague is even more scared now.

“Thank you for taking the time, Dr. Matic,” Senator Honeycutt says, ignoring her remark in the way a statesman should.

“Same to you,” Leona replies sincerely. She does recognize that he’s busy, and the tour will eat into his schedule significantly. She genuinely appreciates it. “Follow me.”

She leads him across the grounds, and into the building. This is not the underground lab where the rocketship was constructed, nor the little lab that the Honeycutts gave her and Ramses. It’s a decommissioned muscle car factory about an hour from the KC metro, which came ready with the space, ventilation, and powerload operationalization potential that they require for this venture.

Petra is in the lobby, and only didn’t greet the senator on the lawn so she could present all the team leaders in a neat, orderly row, like the children in The Sound of Music before bedtime. They seem to be standing in order of height, though that may be a coincidence. One can only hope. It’s nice that he’s here, but Leona wasn’t being facetious when she said that he was just a man. He nods appropriately as Petra lists off the team leaders’ names, and each time she does, that leader runs off in a show of work ethic that suggests they barely have enough time for even a moment such as this.

“Could I please see the staging area?” Melville asks.

Petra is perturbed. She had more grandstanding and fanfare to go through.

Leona saves it. “Of course, sir. Right this way.” He follows her onto the mezzanine that overlooks the factory floor below. They walk along it, to another section.

Most of the space has been devoted to part fabrication. The area where they will all be put together into the form of a working fusion reactor is small. Early reactors in the main sequence were gigantic because they had to be to get anywhere close to net positive output. Leona has decided to not worry about doing this. She considered starting them off slow, but she promised them a fusion-powered rocket, and she may not be around long enough to see it through if she doesn’t jump right to real progress. Hopefully the Prime Directive isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

All businesslike, with a brilliant poker face, Melville looks down at the space. He snaps a few photos, and nods. “How long does it take to build one reactor?”

“One year for the first one,” Leona replies. “With staff experience, we’ll cut that down to seven months for the next one...should you want another.”

“Oh, we’ll want more,” he says. “We’re currently scouting eighty-two more sites which...” He makes a quick calculation on his handheld, “...based on your estimates, means phase two manufacturing will take less than four years for all major U.S. cities.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 13, 2398

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Mateo, Marie, and Alyssa are sitting on one side of the table, trying not to look up at the overly bright bulb above. The others have yet to arrive. Alyssa is noticeably nervous, bouncing her knee, and cracking her knuckles. They know that she’s under a lot of stress, so they don’t want to say anything, but this isn’t the kind of behavior that she should be displaying when that door opens. “It’s okay,” he assures her.

“What?” She didn’t even notice what she was doing.

“Are you gonna be able to handle this?” Marie asks her.

“Yes, I’m fine, it’s fine. It’s just...this is the government, but kind of not?”

“That’s the best way to describe it,” Marie says. “They’re sanctioned, but...not everyone who expects to know what they’re doing actually knows what they’re doing. It’s a special kind of covert.”

“And you’re one of them, but no one can know.”

“Yes, you can’t tell anyone,” Marie confirms.

“I can do that. I can keep secrets. I basically raised Trina, and the boys, though less so. You learn how to lie when you have kids.”

Mateo places a hand on her shoulder. “She has to see what you can do, that’s the only reason you’re here. We wouldn’t involve you with this side of things if we had a choice. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know anything about these people.”

Winona comes in, followed by two men, one of which appears submissive, and maybe about as nervous as Alyssa. “Sorry we’re late.”

“It’s my fault,” the nervous one says.

“We’re fine,” Marie promises.

“Yes, it’s all right, Tate. You’re not losing my job.” She faces the members of Team Matic that are present. Mateo starts to think about this. They only ever called it that because most of the members used that name, but now they have multiple Waltons, and multiple McIvers. So it just sounds self-serving.

“Snap out of it,” Marie orders him, reaching across Alyssa’s face to literally snap her fingers in front of his.

Winona laughs. “He does do that, doesn’t he?”

“He’s waiting for the narrator to finish talking,” Marie explains cryptically.

Winona doesn’t know what that means. She was never briefed on the whole Superintendent thing. “As I was going to say, this is my assistant, Tate. He’s afraid of his own shadow, so you can speak freely around him, and he won’t tell anyone.”

Mateo leans forward. “If he really is so afraid, then don’t forget to be nice.”

“I am,” Winona says. “He’s not just loyal to me, I’m loyal to him. The way I see it, that’s what separates us from the bad guys. Speaking of which...” She turns to look at the other man. “...this is Timofey Putin.”

Mateo is surprised by this name. He tries to exchange a look with Marie, but she’s not fazed at all. He’s the only one balking at it.

“What is it?” Winona asks, concerned.

“We really can speak freely here?” he asks.

“Yes, Timofey knows. Marie okayed him a month ago, even before all of this.”

“Vladimir Putin is the name of a historical President of Russia where I come from. He’s...well, he’s a bad guy.”

“Interesting,” Winona begins. “I said, speaking of bad guys, because that’s what he used to be. He was a spy, but he’s recently defected. We believe, however, that his people do not yet know, which is why he could be a great asset to you on your mission. I mean, I don’t know why you’re on the mission, or what this has to do with everything that you are, but that’s why we’re here today, right? Anyone want tea?”

“We’re fine,” Marie says. “Please, sit.”

They sit down. Tate pours himself a glass of water, spilling it from the pitcher, from the glass, and out of his mouth, right down his shirt; all three, a turkey. Alyssa can’t help but giggle. For a moment, no one speaks.

“Does this have to do with that fancy hat you’re wearing?” Winona asks, looking at Mateo.

“You don’t know what that is?” Marie asks her.

“I believe it’s called a fumbler?”

Marie laughs. “Alyssa, are you ready to remove it from Mateo’s head, and place it upon yours?”

Alyssa first looks at Marie, then turns her head to look at Mateo, and then turns back. “Any requests?”

“Her,” Marie answers, nodding towards Winona.

“Is this going to hurt?” Winona asks.

“Not if you hold still, and give Tate a raise.”

Winona cracks a smile. “Fine. Three percent.”

Tate is more scared than anyone.

Alyssa takes a deep breath before taking the hat. She immediately transforms into a mirror image of Winona, complete with the same clothing she’s wearing right now. She adjusts her position to match too, which is a trick they didn’t know she had until yesterday.

“You can move again,” Marie says as Winona is doing everything she can to hold back a gasp.

She adjusts herself, and Alyssa continues to match in realtime, like a true mirror. It’s just something that she can feel. When she creates an illusion of someone who is still alive and kicking, she also creates some kind of connection to them. Ramses figures that she could match Winona’s movements from the other side of the planet if she wanted to. It’s not necessarily just an image. It’s...her. This is important, because they need to convince people that she’s someone else, both in how they look superficially, and how they move around. Everyone has their own gait, their own way of itching the back of their head, or pushing their glasses up the bridge of their nose. Even holding up the wrong specific fingers to gesture a quantity could give her away. She has to look and act like her target at all times, or people might get suspicious, even if they could never guess that it has something to do with a time power illusion.

“I do not understand how that works,” Winona laments. “I thought all powers had to do with time in some way.”

“Time and space,” Marie clarifies. “You’re in that space over there, so she is superimposing everything in that space over what is in her space. It’s all about the movement of light.”

“Fascinating,” Timofey finally speaks, and does it in his thick Russian accent. “I have heard the stories, but to actually see it... Is there more you could show us?”