The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 1, 2398

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Leona and Zacarias exchange a look. This is not what they expected to happen, but they didn’t really have any expectations in the first place. They didn’t have time, because neither of them knew that the first possible address on the dialer would work. Come to think of it, though, it makes a little bit of sense. If this person is in charge of the Nexus network, then it’s only natural that reaching them means pressing zero. After all, in Leona’s universe, that’s how you contact the switchboard operator.

“I can see that you’re confused,” Senona says. “That’s okay. If you have never experienced space travel, it can be a bit of a trip.”

“Wait,” Leona stops, “space travel? Are we still in salmonverse?”

Senona tilts their head, the confused one now. “No, I was just trying to simplify things. You’re cognizant of other universes?”

“I’ve been to several,” Leona answers like it ain’t no thang.

They’re moderately impressed. Zacarias, on the other hand, is quite impressed, and still confused. “You can grant any wish?”

“Yes, two of them. But don’t worry, you don’t have to agree upon them. You can choose two for the both of you, or one each. It’s up to you.”

“Anything?” Zacarias presses.

“Anything within my power,” Senona clarifies.

“How do we know what is in your power?” Leona asks.

They laugh. “Why don’t you ask me what you want, and I’ll tell you whether I can do it. Don’t worry, it can take as long as it takes. I’m not a genie, I’m not going to try to trick you into wording it the wrong way. We’ll work together to figure it out.”

Leona looks to Zacarias to start. “We don’t know each other well, so we’ll ask for separate things. You can go first.”

“I would like to end all war and wanting in the world,” he decides confidently.

Senona smiles. “As would I. Unfortunately, that is not within my power. This is more of a single act thing. I could probably lift your civilization up, but it would require too much time, and though I am immortal, I have other interests.”

Zacarias looks away to think about it. He feels like the steward of his whole planet. “Hold on, if I tell others—”

“One wish per traveler per Nexus,” Senona interrupts. “If you want another one, you will have to come to me from elsewhere.”

Zacarias nods. He was asking for clarity, not to be greedy with a loophole. He clearly wants to help people, and has no plans to ask for a zillion dollars in space cash.

“We can come back to it if you want a few days to consider your options.” Senona steps over to the dialing terminal. “In the meantime, if you’re hungry or thirsty, we can summon literally anything. I love a certain sandwich from Adamsverse.

“I’m ready,” Leona announces. She’s been thinking about her own options the entire time. There are so many things she could ask for. She could transport her and her friends to the main sequence. She could undo any mistake from the future, or the past. She could remove the powers that be and Superintendent from the equation. She doesn’t know if Senona could wield any control over such things, but all of them potentially leave her husband with his midan curse. Had they come here before the timonite, or in a timeline where it simply never happened, it wouldn’t be a problem. Then again, the only reason she went to Antarctica was to help him, and the butterfly wings that carried her led to this moment with Coronel Zacarias. Had they shown up under different circumstances, would he have come to the conclusion that they could try to contact this operator? This is a boon for them. Now that they know this place exists, when they get to another Nexus, they could ask for more things. Or perhaps that’s unethical. Is that really what this place is for? Or does Senona want to teach the a lesson of some kind? What does their title, Intentioner even really mean?

Senona smirks. “I can see that you’re struggling. It’s okay if you changed your mind about what you were gonna ask. This really is not a trick. My associates have their own lives and responsibilities, leaving me with nothing to do, so I decided to stay on Origin, and help people. The address you dialed is too poetic to not go somewhere special. Any rando planet would be anticlimactic. Still, not many think to try.”

“Do all possible addresses go somewhere?”

Senona narrows their eyes. “That’s a hard question to answer. As you know now, if you didn’t know before, they are technically capable of interversal travel, but they’re not really designed that way. They’re meant for local brane travel. If you have already experienced interversal travel yourself, then you probably already know that each universe has its own spacetime. So is every single possible permutation used up? Yes, at some point in time, because the bulk is the true definition of eternity. We will one day run out of numbers, but I haven’t even seen that happen in my personal timeline, so I couldn’t tell you what that day looks like. The fact is that most universes will never even hear of the Nexus network.”

“I’ve been to a reality where they built their own Nexa. How does one get on the network if one didn’t create it oneself? How do they have an address of their own?”

Senona nods. “If you build your own to satisfactory specifications, a new address will automatically be assigned to it. Most of the time, when your Nexus doesn’t work, it’s because one or more of these specifications have been corrupted, be it self-made, or one of ours. We did it that way so that people can’t modify them into weapons, or something else that we did not intend. To be the fairest, it’s an all or nothing deal, so even if the corruption was accidental or unintentional, it needs to be fixed before it’ll work again.”

“I wish for a detailed manual of these specifications, written in my native language,” Coronel Zacarias declares, jumping back in. “Yeah, that makes sense, right? If we can always fix it ourselves, we can use it as it should be used.”

“Is that your final answer?” Senona asks.

Zacarias thinks on it a little more. “Yes.”

Senona presses a button on the terminal, and releases a small device. “The manual is now accessible on your primary Nexus computer, but you will need this to copy it.” They prepare to hand it off, but wait. “You must recognize that this does not entitle you to travel to any particular place. You are still limited to your local network.”

“Understood.” Zacarias smiles proudly.

“And you?” they ask Leona. “Are you ready? No pressure, I literally don’t age.”

She takes in a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. “My husband, Mateo Matic, is cursed to banish any object he touches with his hands to an unknown location. I wish for him to be able to control when he does that, and when he doesn’t, and also to control where he sends things.”

Senona looks like they’re debating the request in their head. “Let me make a call.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 31, 2398

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Leona has been working on this machine for the last fourteen hours straight. She gets bathroom breaks, and someone will bring her whatever she wants to eat from the kitchen—which doesn’t have much variety, because the more supplies come in from Mozambique, the greater the chances that someone will notice that they keep going to random region of Antarctica. It’s not really that she hasn’t been allowed to sleep, but the Coronel doesn’t seem to sleep, so she doesn’t feel she has the right to waste his time. As for the Nexus itself, it doesn’t go anywhere. She can see the so-called map of possible destinations, but there’s nothing on it. The artificial intelligence that runs the network has evidently decided that she doesn’t have the right to go anywhere. Maybe it’s because the Mozambicans are here. Maybe it’s only because one other specific person is nearby. There is no way to understand its motivations. It does not communicate with its users.

“Magnus Matic.”

Startled. “Yeah, I’m up.”

“I apologize for disturbing you,” Coronel Zacarias says. “I was just wondering if you made any progress.”

“Since you asked me ten minutes ago? No.” She’s grumpy.

“It has been an hour and a half,” he corrects. “I was tending to other matters.” He appears not to have interpreted her tone as nasty, even though it was.

Leona looks at her watch. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I sometimes forget that people need to sleep. That is why I am not in charge of duty rotations. I do not understand how it feels to work without rest. I was born with a condition that makes it impossible.”

“You were?” she asks, fascinated. “How do you function?”

“Medicine,” he answers, and it doesn’t look like he wants to elaborate.

She nods. “Well, I still can’t do anything. I mean, I can do this.” She dims and raises the lights a few times. “And this.” She presses another button, and the computer beeps.

“What does that beeping mean?”

“No idea, it just happens when I push this button.”

“It is okay. You have gone further than anyone else has. At least you have been able to tell us what it does. Perhaps one day, we shall prove ourselves worthy.”

She frowns. “This thing knows more than you may think. It doesn’t gauge how worthy you are, or your people. It measures the world. It may think you could handle the full power of the machine, but also be aware that it would lead others finding out about it. Heck, it may have nothing to do with Earth at all. If there are other inhabited planets out there, maybe they’re not ready, so there is nothing for you to do but wait.”

Zacarias nods. “Yes. God sees all.”

She sports a half-smile. She wishes that she could help these people. There’s a reason the Nexa are always placed in neutral territory. No single state is more worthy of using it than another. The fairest way to do it—short of the Inventors sending a representative to watch, and later interfere with, the natives—is to let the first group to find it make whatever decisions they will with it. She needs something from them, and she’s afraid that if she doesn’t do more for them, they won’t agree to it. The first time she encountered one of these things was on Tribulation Island, but in The Parallel, she was given the opportunity to learn more from experts who knew so much about them that they were able to manufacture their own at will. They didn’t hand her the operating manual, but they did tell her a few things, such as the fact that they’re all powered by bulk energy. That’s why they don't ever run out, or have to be refueled. It’s all around; you just have to know how to access it. There is something in the guts of the machine that lets it do that, and if she just had a little bit of whatever that is, she might be able to make gloves for her husband, so he can start using his hands again. But how to broach the subject with the Coronel?

Zacarias has moved away from the computer, and is looking at the hand dialer on the wall. “What does this thing do?”

“If you have the code for a destination, you could enter it there.”

“Instead of the computer? Why is that necessary?”

“Redundancy. There’s also a foot dialer in the machine itself, in case a traveler needs to go somewhere alone.”

“These markings? What do they mean?”

Leona wheels back a little so they’re looking at the same thing. “They’re numbers. Zero through F.”

“Base-sixteen,” Zacarias says, smiling widely.

“The civilization that created these must have used a hexadecimal system in their everyday life. That’s just a hypothesis.”

“Have you tried just pressing random numbers? How many digits does each destination require?”

“Any number of digits, and with sixteen choices, repetition allowed, that’s quintillions of permutations.”

Zacarias shrugs. “Well...have you ever tried the first one?”

“The first one, what do you mean?”

He reaches up and presses the glyph that represents zero. Then he presses the ENTER button. Suddenly, the Nexus starts to power up.

She stands up, and looks through the observation window. “Holy crap, I can’t believe that worked!”

“It did?” he asks.

“Come if you’re coming. It’s probably only delayed because it’s been dormant for so long!” Leona races out of the control room, and hops down to the main floor, ignoring both the steps, and the ramp. She jumps down into the transport cavity.

Cheyenne walks in. “Leona, we heard something. What’s going on?”

“Call our friends. We pushed zero!”

Just as Zacarias crosses the threshold, the chamber fills with technicolors, and spirits them both away.

When the light recedes, they find themselves in a gorgeous expanse. There are no walls, and there is no control room. A hand dialer is on a terminal within reach of the cavity. Under them is an endless ocean, and above is a starry sky. A rowboat approaches from the darkness. An individual ties it to a post where the door to the outside of the Nexus chamber would normally be. He or she steps onto the floating platform, and smiles at them. “Welcome to Origin. I am Intentioner Senona Riggur. Congratulations on finding this destination. My guess is that you tried the address on a lark. There are two of you, which means you get two wishes to share. What would you like?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 30, 2398

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There is a rumor that Earth possesses two Nexa, one of which is hidden on an island in the South Pacific Ocean. If anyone has ever found it, its whereabouts have never made it to Leona. The only one she knows for sure exists is the one in Antarctica, and they only have a rough estimate of where specifically, and that’s just where it is in the main sequence. If it’s anywhere in the Third Rail, it could be just that; anywhere. This is why they weren’t in a big hurry to look for it before. Antarctica is best accessed during its summer months, which begin with October, but even then, it’s better deeper into it. No matter, it’s not like the continent is impossible to traverse in winter, especially not now that The Olimpia has been repaired. Rames managed to equip it with some upgrades, which will allow it to survive under harsher conditions than original specifications ensured.

Marie volunteered to be Mateo’s caretaker. She insisted, since she still feels bad about lying to everybody, and wants to feel useful in a less secret agenty sort of way. He agreed to let her do it without too much reluctance now that there actually is hope in finding a way to let him use his hands again. Cheyenne, meanwhile, has grown tired of sitting around and doing nothing, so she asked to accompany Leona on the Antarctica mission. And of course, wherever Cheyenne goes, so shall Bridgette. Ramses wishes he could be there too, but it’s been decided that one of them had to remain local. The home team might need something invented, fixed, or just explained, so it’s safer to not put all of their smart eggs in one basket.

“I wanted to thank you.” Cheyenne is up with Leona on the bridge, looking at the endless white before them as the Olimpia’s sensors scan the area.

“For letting you come along? No problem. It should be pretty safe.”

“No, I mean for trusting us with everything, and not asking where I came from, or why I need the Insulator of Life.”

“Does your world have the concept innocent until proven guilty?” Leona asks.

“I’ve never heard those exact words, but I think I understand the meaning.”

“You and Bridgette have given us no reason not to trust you, but we have upended your lives. You don’t ever have to tell us where you’re from. We’re used to that being a potential risk. If you’re my daughter from the future, for instance, we shouldn’t know.”

Cheyenne bites her lower lip, and averts her gaze slightly.

Leona doesn’t say anything more about it. The conversation would not have continued anyway. The computer gets a ping.

Bridgette comes down from the back. “I heard a beep. Did we find something?”

“Something is a good word for it,” Leona answers, looking at the datapoint. “We should be coming up on something big in three...two...one. Just over the ridge, they find a manmade structure, built up against the side of a mountain. It looks huge. This should be surprising, but nothing really is to them anymore. They could wake up tomorrow to find the sun has been transformed into a big ball of water, and they wouldn’t even bat an eye. They have seen too much already. It is interesting, though. “This is the most remote region of Antarctica that’s also close to the ocean. Nothing should be here, except for the Nexus. It’s not even populated in the main sequence.”

“Unidentified Flying Aircraft, you have entered a secure area. Please recite your landing codes,” comes a voice on the radio.

“Rule Number Seventeen, when in doubt, be honest.” Leona opens a channel. “Unknown Antarctica base, this is Leona Matic, Captain of the Stateless Private Vehicle Olimpia. We request diplomatic visitor landing authorization. We’re here in search of something known as the Nexus.” She shrugs, hoping they don’t shoot her out of the sky.

There’s a long pause before the voice returns, “authorization granted, please land on the big yellow circle.”

Part of the ground retracts, and reveals the landing pad. Leona instructs the Olimpia to land on it, and as soon as it touches down, the ground begins to lower. It goes down and down and down until reaching the bottom, which is a giant cell. The opening they just came through closes up. People with guns are standing all around them. And by all around them, I mean all around. This cell must be 8,000 cubic meters in volume, but the uniform guards are shoulder to shoulder around the whole perimeter on the other side of the bars. They look highly organized, and well trained.

“What do we do now?” Cheyenne asks.

Leona reaches for the PA system, which she never thought they would ever have to use. “Permission to disembark?”

One of the guards lifts her steady hand from her weapon, and motions them out. The three of them exit the vehicle, and head in that general direction. They all look the same, they can’t even tell which one of them gave them the go-ahead. It doesn’t matter when an old man in a uniform steps into the light. “I am Coronel Zacarias of the Mozambique Naval Fleet. This is my facility, where we research only one thing...the Nexus. How did you hear about it?”

“We’re travelers from a different world. That may get us home.”

Coronel Zacarias regards them with doubt, but he’s willing to entertain them with a leash. He turns to his soldiers. “Open the gate.”

They do as they’re asked without question or hesitation. Leona locks the Olimpia down with her gene-coded remote, and tentatively steps out of the cell. Bridgette and Cheyenne do the same. They begin to follow Zacarias down the passageways, heavily guarded by a dozen of the soldiers, none of whom needed any direction to do this. They apparently just know who has been assigned to their detail, and who must go off and do other things.

“I was this close to shooting you out of the sky,” Zacarias explains on the way. “No one in the world knows that we are here, let alone what we have found. We have been looking for a way to turn the machine on, but have had no luck. That is why I am taking you to it, because if you are telling the truth, you will be able to help us, but if you are lying, nothing will happen, and we will not have to worry. There is a computer in the control room, but it does nothing. We suspect it suffers from a depleted power source, but we have been unable to verify that.”

“I’ll try to help,” Leona replies. They come to a large expanse, like the one where they landed, but instead of a cell in the center, it is the Nexus building. Leona stops. “I should ask you kindly to let my associates remain here, at this distance.”

“Why?” Zacarias questions.

“The Nexus is truly as dangerous as you must suspect it to be, or you would not keep it such a secret. I cannot guarantee what will happen when we walk over there, but I recommend you evacuate the room, and leave only essential personnel.” That’s not really what she’s worried about. The Nexa are alive—or conscious, as it were. They respond differently to different people. She has used them before, and the machine likely knows this. There is a strong chance that it will power up simply by her arrival. She doesn’t want them thinking Bridgette and Cheyenne have anything to do with that.

He scowls just a little. “If this is a trick to overpower my soldiers, I’m afraid you will find yourself severely outmatched.” Zacarias eyes the high walls around them. Turrets line the perimeter. There is no advantage to lowering the number of people over there.”

Leona nods, prompting Zacarias to evacuate most of the scientists. A contingency of four soldiers accompanies them while the other eight escort Cheyenne and Bridgette back out of the great hall. She’s worried about them being separated, but all three of them are at these people’s mercy, whether they’re together, or not. She continues across the floor, and to the Nexus building. They step inside. It looks the same as they always do, but this one has been retrofitted with lights powered from a normal external source. He’s right, nothing turns on for them. They do for her, though. All of the retrofitted lights switch off on their own, only to be replaced by the ones that are built in. They’re not really built-in though, so much as the walls themselves illuminate.

“My Gods,” Zacarias utters in a breathy exclamation. “What did you do?”

“These machines are networked, so they communicate with one another, which means if one recognizes someone, they all do.”

Zacarias can’t stop looking around, even though it’s really just a room with the house lights on. The real interesting stuff is in the control room. “You mean there are others? What do they do?”

“They transport people from one place to the next. You didn’t know that?” A little rude on her part.

He looks at her now, still smiling like a kid in a candy store. “Please. show me.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 29, 2398

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Mateo can’t shower himself. He can’t feed himself, he can’t clothe himself, he can’t even open doors. He has sent a number of random items to God-knows-where in an attempt to gain control over his newfound ability, but he’s confident in his assessment that he has been blessed with suck. He’s basically King Midas, except that at least that guy was surrounded by a bunch of gold. He can touch his own skin, which is a small miracle, but if he was able to transport himself, maybe he could find out where he’s banishing everything else. It might still be the key to finding Trina.

Leona has returned from the store, where she picked up a number of stylish vests for him to wear. He’s fine with pants, as long as someone helps them on, but shirts are a no-go. A single brush against the skin from his wrist to his tips, and it’s gone. Vests are really the only type of clothing with arm holes big enough to avoid an issue. But that is nothing compared to the humiliation of needing help going to the bathroom. He really had to go while his wife was out, and Marie was the only one around who he felt comfortable enough asking. She did so without complaint or awkward tension. “Are you mad?” he asks.

“That Marie helped you with your clothes?” Leona asks.

“Yeah.”

“Did you cheat on me?”

“Of course not!”

“Then of course not, I’m not mad. What kind of person do you think I am? If you were an amputee—or your hands were mutilated—we would probably have a nurse for you, who would be doing the same things.” She carefully gets the vest around him so he can stop walking around topless.

“That’s true, it’s just...”

“It’s just that we’re family, and we’re all here to help you get through this.”

He appreciates that, but he’s having trouble expressing it. He can’t really express anything right now but frustration, anxiety, and depression. Once Leona is finished, he plops back down on the chair, and hangs his arms over the armrests. It’s not very comfortable, but it keeps his midan hands away from everything. “Thank you.”

She frowns down at him, slouched there. “You know, this could be a blessing.”

“How so?”

She steps over to the table, and picks up a package they received earlier today. “This is our new shower mirror.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She removes the mirror from the box, and then tosses the box to him.

He instinctively reaches up to catch it, banishing it to the unknown. “Why did you just do that?” he questions.

“I’m your garbage man! I go across the land!” she sings as if that’s a song he’s meant to be familiar with.

“We don’t know where it went. We don’t know if it went to the same place as all the other stuff.”

“That’s why Ramses is in Lebanon.”

“He’s not going to find anything there.”

“We’re working on a way to get him into Russia. He’s just starting his field work closer to home. The Olimpia is almost ready to fly at optimum efficiency again.”

“He’s not going to find anything there either.”

“Mateo, that timonite sat there for upwards of millions of years without transporting anything anywhere. Otherwise, it would have destroyed the whole planet. Something has to be able to render it inert.”

“It was inert because it was sitting under immense pressure,” Mateo argues, “pressure which would vaporize my hand, if not straight up kill me. I unlocked it. I relieved that pressure. And I seriously doubt there is anything in the universe that can shield against bulk travel. There’s nothing anyone can do. Hope is a teardrop in the ocean. Once it falls, you’ll never find it again, but you may drown in the attempt.”

Leona nods. “I applaud you for your hypothesis that it remained inert due to the pressure. That’s not something the old Mateo would say.”

“Maybe Erlendr is controlling me psychically again.”

“Maybe.” She doesn’t believe that, but her own mind is somewhere else already. He’s right, they can’t recreate the pressure of the depths of an undug mine, but he’s wrong about there being no hope. There are others with the ability to travel the bulk, which means that they must have ways of controlling how that happens. They must have access to materials that react to it differently than normal baryonic matter. Maybe that’s neutrinos, maybe it’s dark matter, but whatever it is, it has to exist. There is only one place on Earth that might have it, and they weren’t planning on going there until the winter. Well, it’s in the southern hemisphere, so really, it’s more about it being summer at the destination. Hopefully it’s not just a main sequence location, because then they really might be searching for teardrops in the ocean.

“I know that look,” Mateo says. “You’ve come up with an idea.”

“I need to order a few more things,” Leona tells him with a smile. “I’ll have you throw out the boxes for me.”

“Gee, thanks.” He cracks a smile. “What do you need?”

“For one, a good winter coat. I hear Antarctica is freezing this time of year.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 28, 2398

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While the agency continues their search for Erlendr Preston, who is still in the body of Ramses Abdulrashid, Leona and Ramses continue their work on the timonite. It has gotten them just about nowhere. Since Mateo coughed it up in Lebanon, there is very little they have been able to learn about the thing. It doesn’t respond to temperature or pressure changes. It doesn’t refract light, or interact with immortality water. Despite its beautiful, and sometimes mesmerizing, appearance, and the unusual route they took to find it, it just appears to be a regular rock. It does feel a long lighter than they would expect, given its size, but perhaps that’s more about how important it is to them.

Mateo has come up to the lab to check on them? “Hey, wadya know?” 

They don’t know much. It’s technicolor, which implies a connection to the greater bulk. It’s impossible to cut, even using lasers, so that’s both an interesting fact, and why they have not been able to learn anything else. There must be some loophole. There must be a way to do something with it, because it can’t just be a really pretty paperweight.

“You cleaned it, right?” Mateo admires it, sitting on its little display stand.

“Since it was in your stomach? Yes, husband.”

“Whoa, I thought you were Ramses,” Mateo jokes. “Hold on...who did I sleep with last night?”

“Trying to lighten the mood,” Ramses presumes. Nice try. This is pretty depressing work.”

“Maybe it’s alive. Have you tried to feed it?” Mateo reaches out to poke it like a middle schooler at the museum of natural history. He doesn’t tap on it very hard, or it would fall off the pedestal, but it doesn’t matter, because it sticks to his finger like a magnet. He instinctively tries to flick it off with his other finger, but it only makes things worse.

“What the hell is happening?” Either Leona or Ramses questions.

What Mateo said before was a joke, but he’s not looking at them, so he genuinely can’t tell who said that. He’s too focused on getting the stone off of his fingers. He shakes it like you’re not supposed to shake a Polaroid picture, but it won’t come off. He tries to pull it off with his other hand, knowing that it’s not going to work, but desperate and not thinking clearly. The stone melts in his hands, and separates in half. The molten rock wraps itself completely around Mateo’s hand and fingers, and threatens to flow higher up on his arms. “Oh my God! It’s Venom! I’m Venom! Stay back, I’m gonna bite your head off!” But then it stops. “Oh, wait. Wait, I think I’m fine.” His hands are now technicolor and kind of sparkly, but otherwise, they just look like hands.

Leona and Ramses are staring at him in concern. “How do you feel?” she asks.

“I feel fine.”

“Does it...tingle, or hurt?” Ramses asks, ready to take notes, as always.

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Mateo replies. “I can’t even tell that it’s there.” Without thinking, he leans back on the table beside him, and sets his hand down upon it. A pool of technicolor liquid comes out, and begins to overwhelm the desk, and everything on it. Once the entire top is covered, it all disappears, but it doesn’t manage to take any of the legs, so they just fall down, unsupported.

“Ramses, can you track that?” Leona questions.

Ramses grabs his tablet, and taps through the menus. “It’s off the charts.”

“What does that mean?” Mateo asks, making sure that he doesn’t touch anything else, including his own face, which of course, now itches quite a bit.

“Wherever you sent that stuff, it’s beyond the borders of our reality. I can’t track things that go to other realities, or...”

“Or what?” Mateo prompts.

“Or other universes,” Ramses finishes.

“You are wearing technicolor hands now,” Leona notes.

“Oh, yeah, just say it like it’s normal,” Mateo says sarcastically. He calms down a notch or two. “What was on that table?”

“Not much,” Leona explains. “Just some basic equipment, and a high-powered microscope.”

“That’s not all,” Ramses remembers.

“What?” Leona asks.

“My copy of your fusion work. That was on there too. That was all there. I didn’t think something like this would happen.”

They don’t know if that’s really bad, really good, or maybe doesn’t matter. If it landed at the bottom of the ocean, or an uninhabited world, or somewhere in the middle of outer space, it could be fine. It could also change the course of history for the entire population of some unsuspecting universe out there. They may never know. All they know right now is that Mateo can’t touch anything for the time being, not even his own clothes. Within minutes, he’s completely naked. This is gonna be a problem.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 27, 2398

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When Ramses returned to the lab, he inspected it, but by then, Angela had reviewed the cameras. When Erlendr teleported there in his body, he was seemingly disoriented. He didn’t have some elaborate plan, and likely still doesn’t; it was an act of desperation. He wants to be free, and he probably felt like this was his only option. He stole the LIR Map for the same reasons, because it happened to be the nearest object when he first appeared. He might have even been only hoping for a stack of cash, or maybe a change of clothes. He got lucky, really, but now they suspect he’s using it to avoid detection. The map seems to show you what you need to achieve your objectives, not necessarily what you consciously wish. All he wants now is to stay out of sight, so it’s showing him CCTV blindspots, speed traps, and the like. That’s just the guess, though. At least that was Leona’s guess, once she returned home from rescuing her husband.

She and Ramses are sitting across from each other in his apartment. “I’m sorry.”

“You bent over to plug something in, it’s fine.”

“I’m not sorry for that. I mean, I am—I feel like an idiot—but I’m sorry that I’m trapped in this body.”

“Wait, are you apologizing to me because you look like me now?”

“I haven’t showered, I close my eyes when I go to the bathroom.”

“Do—do you want me to absolve you of some kind of sin? Do you want me to give you my blessing to use that body however you need to?”

Ramses sighs. “I’m just apologizing. I would apologize to her, but she’s not here. You’re the closest thing I got.”

“Rambo, you built me the body I’m using right now. You took a sample of my DNA, and cloned me. You have seen me naked, and we’re all friends here. You don’t have to be uncomfortable. This is just a substrate. It might have been weird in the past, but with consciousness transference, it’s just not a big deal anymore.”

“It still feels like a big deal. She wasn’t an empty clone, she was a real person.”

Leona nods. “Did you ever meet Téa Stendahl?”

“She was before my time. You told me about her, though. She was your brother.”

“That’s right. In one reality, she was my brother, and in the next, she wasn’t. She was born Ed Bolton in the eighteenth century, and traveled through time starting in the early nineteenth. He died, and was reincarnated as Theo Delaney. Fastforward to when my husband went back in time to kill Hitler, and created an entirely new reality, and suddenly I didn’t have a brother anymore. I didn’t even know what he was to me until my brain was blended later. When Arcadia was tormenting us on the island, we sometimes had downtime, and we got to talking about it. I asked her why she identified as a woman, even though she had more memories of a man. Was she transgender? She said, no. I’m just me. I’m not a man, or a woman; I’m not even salmon. I’m a person. When I was a man, I felt like a man, and now I feel like a woman, but if the powers that be see fit to reincarnate me as a praying mantis...I suppose I’ll feel like a praying mantis. There was a praying mantis sort of creature in the grass next to us while she was explaining it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Not really,” Ramses admits.

“I guess I’m saying...relax. You’re fine, Reaver’s fine, I’m fine. It’s gonna be fine.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Erlendr is still out there, somewhere.”

“We’ll catch him,” Leona says confidently. “He doesn’t have an identity here, so he can’t even leave the country.”

“He has the teleporter, and he knows how to use it.”

She shakes her head. The teleporter will run out of juice, if it hasn’t already, and he won’t know how to get more. Even if he did, he doesn’t strike her as the type of person who knows enough about technology to modify it to take him anywhere but right back to their lab. “He was only scary because of all the power he wielded in the main sequence. It was power that he was born with, and which is now gone. I bet he doesn’t even know how to drive a car, because he’s never had to before. We will catch him, and we’ll switch you back. Do you believe me?”

“I guess,” Ramses replies bashfully.

“I promise you, this is all going to work out. I just flew a helicopter in and out of a portal that took me to another reality. We’re closer than ever to figuring this all out. Now come on, let’s get back to studying that timonite. Trina is still our first priority.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 26, 2398

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Ever since the incident that sent Leona Delaney, Leona Reaver, Andile Mhlangu, Alt!Mateo Matic, and presumably Trina McIver to the main sequence, Leona Reaver’s body has been kept alive in the SD6 black site. The team asked the agency to  hook her up to life support, because they don’t know for sure what happens to a body whose consciousness has vacated it. Back in the main sequence, it’s legal to transfer a consciousness to another substrate, and then just leave the old body lying there. Bills were passed before it was possible, dictating the responsibility of whatever licensed individual or organization conducted the transfer. The old body must either be destroyed, or kept alive artificially. No legal experiments have been done to observe the consequences of leaving such an empty body as is. The assumption is that it would just die, even though certain involuntary bodily processes, including breathing and pumping blood can continue without true consciousness. To let that body die on its own is considered just as unethical as letting a real person die.

Alyssa insisted that Erlendr not be placed in chains. She doesn’t want to see her sister like that. She doesn’t want the memory of that to sit in her brain forever. It should be okay, Erlendr wants to make this transfer. He doesn’t want to look like a little girl any longer than he has to. Still, two guards walk at his flank while Alyssa holds him by the hand. It’s weird and uncomfortable, but necessary. They lead him into the room where Ramses is waiting next to Reaver’s bed. He has wrapped the Livewire around the Insulator of life. One end is attached to a helmet of his own invention, which he has placed around Reaver’s head. The helmet on the other end is sitting on the nightstand. A regular wire, which will provide power, is leading to the wall, but it has not been plugged in yet. He could probably attach a switch to the apparatus for easier control, but it’s safer just to keep electricity out of the equation until the last possible second.

“Okay,” Ramses says. “Everything’s ready, so everyone needs to leave the room.”

“We can’t do that, sir,” one of the SD6 guards replies.

“These helmets have never been tested,” Ramses explains. “Energy is going to be passing through the Livewire, which is not insulated. I’m not sure that it can be, and still function properly. There’s a chance that energy gets loose, and I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to anyone nearby. It’s better if I only put myself at risk.”

The guards exchange a look, and then leave the room.

“Go on,” Ramses says to Alyssa.

“Promise me that this will work,” she demands.

“I can’t do that. This is new territory. I had never even heard of the Livewire until recently. I can tell you that your sister is safe. Nothing’s going to happen to her body. Honestly, Erlendr is at the most risk here.”

“Gee, thanks,” Erlendr says.

Ramses ignores him. “Go on. You can watch from the observation window.”

Alyssa leaves, and closes the door behind her.

Unlike the cells down below, the observation room isn’t directly connected, so Ramses waits a minute to make sure that she has time to get there. Meanwhile, he has Erlendr sit in the chair next to Reaver’s bed. He sets the helmet upon Trina’s head, and makes sure that it’s secure. He didn’t include a chinstrap, but as long as Erlendr doesn’t move during the process, it should be fine. “Are you ready?”

“Absolutely,” Erlendr answers. “Get me out of here.”

“Okay.” Ramses gets on his knees, and picks up the power cable. He reaches for the socket, and just as he gets to it, he feels something on his head. He doesn’t manage to stop himself in time before power begins to run through the wires, and once it does, he can’t move at all. In a flash, the world goes dark.

Ramses is lying on his back when he comes to. “What happened?”

“Erlendr corrupted the procedure,” Alyssa explains. “I’m sorry. He’s in your body now. You’re in Leona’s.”

Groggy, Ramses flutters his eyes open, and looks down at himself. He can see the hospital gown that she was wearing. He looks over to the floor, where his own body is slumped against the wall. One of the guards is placing him in handcuffs, and pulling him into a more comfortable position. “How long has it been?”

“Not even a minute,” Alyssa responds. “You woke up a lot faster than the others did before.”

“I figured it would happen like that.” Ramses clear’s Reaver’s throat. “There’s no temporal factor.” He looks back down at Erlendr once he comes to. “What did you think you were going to accomplish? Now that we know it works, we’ll just switch.”

Erlendr puffs Ramses’ chest out, testing the tautness of the cuffs. “If there’s one thing I know about you, Rambo, it’s that you always have an exit strategy.” He pulls the cuffs under himself, and around his feet. The guard is back on him quickly, but it doesn’t really matter, because he doesn’t understand what to expect. Erlendr reaches up to the emergency teleporter strapped to his chest, and disappears.

“Call the building!” Ramses shouts to Alyssa. “He’s in my lab!”

“They took our phones!” Alyssa shouts back. “I don’t know the number by heart!” she cries when the guard tries to hand her his.

“Give it to me,” Ramses orders. He takes the phone, and dials Angela, hoping that she can make it upstairs in time to stop Erlendr before he does something crazy. “Angie, this is Ramses, trapped in Reaver’s body. Erlendr is in mine, and he’s there.”

He can hear her breathing heavily as she skips steps up the stairs. She opens the door, and starts to rush around, looking in every corner, and under every desk. “He’s gone. If he was ever here, he’s gone now. He probably took the fire escape.”

“Is anything missing?” Ramses asks her.

“I don’t know. I’m not familiar enough with all the stuff you have up—wait.”

“Wait, what?” Ramses asks.

“What did you have in the gray case where we found the LIR Map?”

“The LIR Map,” Ramses answers. There was no reason to keep it anywhere but where it came from.

“Oh. Then he took the LIR Map.”

“Crap. Okay. I’ll get there when I can. Thanks.” Ramses hangs up, and starts to get out of bed. It’s a little difficult, learning how to maneuver this new body, so he’s going to take it slow. “Clean the sheets, replace the life support systems, and put Trina in them,” he orders one of the men. “No one else comes in without my say-so.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looks to the other. “And you, I need to find someone in the city.”

“This site is designed to contain suspects, persons of interest, and prisoners. Such tools cannot be here. I’ll initiate transport to the field office.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 25, 2398

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By the time Mateo, Winona, Tarboda, and the cartographer, Oreata Kask, arrived at Stonehenge, it was full of people. In the main sequence, there could be billions of tourists who never had the pleasure of visiting the place, but most people on the islands in what is apparently the Fourth Quadrant have seen it by now. It’s often used for music festivals, food festivals, and all kinds of other festivals. For Sunday and Monday, and into this morning, it was booked for an exhibition dance party. Most of the fun took place a ways away from the stones, but party-goers were close enough that Mateo didn’t want to try anything there. He doesn’t want witnesses. While they were waiting, they helped Oreata in her office, organizing maps, and performing simple clerical duties. It was weird, seeing the world as almost all water. They had dinner both nights with the first friendly stranger they met, but slept in Oreata’s guest room.

Now that it’s midafternoon, they’re walking back to the prehistoric monument that spans realities. On the way, Mateo starts to think about what that means. Maybe they’re truly the same stones, which exist in multiple realities at once. Then again, much of Kansas City is the same here for no logical reason. This was all probably done on purpose by choosing ones. They seem to be responsible for everything.

“What are you thinking about?” Winona asks him.

“It’s hard to articulate,” Mateo replies. “My mind is a jumble of thoughts. I try to come up with explanations for the world around me, basing my presumptions on my exposure to more intelligent people, such as my wife. I fail a lot at that, and it takes me longer than a normal person to purge my system of all the nonsense.”

“That is a shockingly thoughtful answer, coming from someone who obviously understands himself well.”

“It’s harder for smart people to admit their faults. I’m more used to them.”

The conversation ends once they realize that they’ve made it to the henge. No one else is in sight, so this is a good time for them to conduct their experiments, whatever those may be. They don’t have immortality water full of temporal energy—and wouldn’t be able to find any without the planet’s normal geographical boundaries for reference—so there is only so much they can do. They can try to walk through a portal, and see if something happens. If nothing does, then that’s probably the end of the story.

The closer they get to the stones, the more the other three fall behind. They listened to Mateo’s stories, and it has them worried. Time travel sounds quite dangerous, and a portal can just as easily trap you on one side as the other. Sure, it might work, but if they don’t like what’s over there, what if they can’t cross back? Mateo nods softheartedly. “I’ll go on my own, assuming there is anywhere to go at all.”

Winona composes herself. “I’ll go with you. My training didn’t prepare me for this specifically, but I know how to survive.”

“Someone should stay behind either way,” Tarboda suggests. “If you never come back, we’re the only two people here who know what happened.”

“Unless you can get through to Kansas City,” Mateo begins. “If we don’t come back, tell whoever needs to hear that I have an idea. The people in the bubble might not be able to see through the barrier, but sunlight gets through somehow, so blot it out. If you can, tell them that Mateo Matic sent you. They all know me there.” He turns to Oreata. “Pick a number between one and eleven.”

Oreata shrugs. “Eleven.”

In his head, Mateo decided that the lone archway on one side of the circle is number one, and the rest go clockwise. “Number eleven it is. Follow me, Winnie.” He approaches the opening, and begins to feel different. The air is a little warmer around it. The differences only feel stronger the more he steps over the threshold. This is definitely something. It may not be what they want, but these are not just stones on stones on stones. There’s more resistance as he continues. It’s not impossible to walk through. It’s not even like something is trying to stop him. It feels like a protective membrane that needs a little bit more effort to breach. Breach he does. The pillars on either side of him start to move farther from each other, and change shape. He steps all the way through, and in a blink, he’s somewhere else, standing under a beautifully designed wooden archway. He only has to look around a little to know that this is Japan, or at least somewhere in Asia. It’s probably Kure, like Tarboda explained.

Winona comes in right behind him. “Whoa, you weren’t kidding.”

No one noticed their arrival, but there are plenty of people bustling about. He reaches out towards a man who looks less in a hurry than most. “Excuse me. English? You speak English?”

The man shakes his head.

Kind of a dumb question, but, “Japan?” He indicates the world around them.

“Japan,” he echoes. “Hai.” He’s confused, but humoring him.

“Kure?”

“Kure.”

“Uhh...China?” he asks, as he’s scanning the environment with his hand over his eyes, like he’s searching for it. “China?”

“China?” The man shakes his head like he’s never heard of it. He probably hasn’t.

“Arigato,” Mateo butchers the only word he knows, thanks to a certain pop song.

They walk back through the Japanese archway, and return to Stonehenge. As much time has passed for Tarboda and Oreata as for them, so no apparent time travel has occurred. They take turns, and try to walk through the other portals. Confident now in the dependability of the process, Tarboda accompanies him to Panama and El-Sheikh Zayed, and Oreata goes with to Easter Island and Muskoka District. Tarboda and Winona try to cross over to Machu Picchu on their own, but nothing happens. Upon trying it himself, Mateo learns that he has to be there, presumably because he’s time traveled so much more than all of them combined. One of the archways is blocked by a wall of glass, and some of them don’t go anywhere, even for Mateo. This is great, but they don’t really need to get to the rest of the Fourth Quadrant. They need to get back to the Third Rail, or ideally, the main sequence. Four of the openings feel like they should work, but do not, plus the one that’s probably KC.

“This changes everything,” Oreata says, awe-inspired, and hopeful for the future. “Thank you so much for helping us make these connections.”

“It may be a start, but I’m afraid I can’t spend the rest of my life ferrying people back and forth. What we need is a permanent solution from someone smarter.”

That was a cue to the universe. A shimmering portal opens in the sky, over the grassy area on the other side of the trees, where they first woke up in this reality. A helicopter descends from it, and lands before them. The door opens, and Leona hops out to meet the other four halfway. “Guys...where are we?”