The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 5, 2398

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Heath is getting better. He’s learning his skills quickly. The clinical neuropsychologist, Doctor Nuadu Merrick is very optimistic regarding his recovery, and expects him to be a fully functioning, independent human being within at least a couple of years, much to his surprise. Heath has the benefit, of course, of not suffering from any actual brain injury, which is what has happened to most of Dr. Merrrick’s patients. Heath—or rather, this version of him—just has a brand new brain, which needs to learn everything that a normal person would know. They’re starting with the basics, like how to walk and talk, before tackling more advanced tasks, like how to eat food with a fork.

Marie was overjoyed when the first assessment came following a few therapy sessions. She could see it for herself too, he is well on his way to no longer needing any help anymore. When she thought about what that day might look like, though, she started to realize the truth. Now she understands that any happiness she feels for the patient’s progress can really only be felt in a general sense. Her love for people, and the desire for their success, is what’s going to keep her going, as long as it’s strong enough. There are other forces at play here. The relief she felt upon hearing the news has subsided. She now feels herself falling into a depression. It’s as close to a literal pit in the earth as possible while remaining metaphorical. Her heart feels low. No matter what they do, that’s not Heath. He’s a completely different person, and he always will be.

“There is another option,” Mateo says somberly.

“What would that be?”

“Keep in mind that this is only a possibility. I can’t guarantee anything, and if it doesn’t work, we may not be able to undo the attempt, and go back to just helping the individual we have here learn how to move around the world.”

“Spit it out, Mateo,” Marie demands.

“If we ever get back to the main sequence, and we bring him with us, we could blend his brain with the real Heath from the past.”

“That’s it,” Marie says. She paces away from him like a soap opera character, and looks for figurative holes in Mateo’s suggestion in the imperfections on the wall. There’s one big one. “Except what are we going to do with him until the day comes when we can escape the Third Rail?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not our biggest problem.”

“What is?” she questions.

“The Third Rail is special. Nerakali can blend brains from any timeline, but I’m not sure what that means for parallel realities. I don’t know if her power would treat them the same, or what. She may not have any access to Heath’s original mind, especially not if this world’s power dampening-power makes it impossible to do anything like that anyway.”

“She’s not the only one with such a power,” Marie points out.

“They all originate from her, including when Leona and I shared the ability.”

Marie paces some more. “So either we help Heath Two-Point-Oh learn how to live, or we stick him in a box on the off-chance that we can recycle his body later.”

“Correct.”

Marie sighs. “We obviously can’t do that. It’s incredibly ethically suspect.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 4, 2398

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It’s impossible to estimate how long Mateo has until he can no longer teleport, or how many times he can do it, or even how far he can travel altogether. Ramses ran every test he could come up with multiple times, and couldn’t come to a solid conclusion. Mateo is not losing the ability little by little. It’s fluctuating unpredictably, and will likely only become more unreliable with time. He may start to have trouble aiming at his destination, or lose a lot of time in a given attempt. Where he is when he’s not at Point A or Point B is unclear, but the answer could be incredibly dangerous, whether he knows what it is, or not.

“What about the timonite that’s stuck to my hands? Is that dripping off, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Ramses admits. “I don’t know enough to figure out how to detect it. I’ve scanned your hands, and it can’t tell whether there’s any timonite there at all. It can’t even detect the weird telekinetic outer layer that the god dude gave you.”

“I guess I’m more worried that I’m going to lose that, and go back to midasing everything I touch, dispatching it to an innocent, unsuspecting universe.”

“The guy who gave that to you was wildly powerful, based on Leona’s descriptions, and what I’ve witnessed for myself. I doubt that it has a time limit, and if it does, it’s surely based on the integrity of the timonite that it’s there to contain.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Mateo says.

“I’m sorry that I can’t do anything about the other thing.”

That’s okay. Having that power back felt nice, but it’s not like he was used to it. He spent most of his life without the ability to teleport, or do anything like that. He was born to be a salmon—he’s not supposed to make his own choices—so anytime he has is gravy. “Don’t sweat it. We’ll get out of this reality, and go back to the way things were.”

“You’re mighty confident these days,” Ramses notes.

“I’m trying not to be so stressed out and worried. Everyone else is having a really hard time right now, and the best thing I can do is stay calm, and help where I can.”

“That’s a very mature thing for you to say.”

“Well, I am hundreds of years old, or thousands, or just a regular adult, depending on how you’re measuring time,” Mateo muses.

“I measure it with this.” He takes a wand from his cabinet, and waves it around.

“What is that?”

“It’s a temporal...a temponeural, umm...”

Mateo laughs “What? What are you trying to say, guy?”

“I’m not sure what to call it yet. A neurotemporal something something detector.”

“What exactly does it do?”

Ramses hovers it over Mateo’s forehead. It makes a noise. Once it’s finished, he inspects the readout. “Hmm. It says that your consciousness is a few seconds old.”

“So it needs work.”

“Yes.”

Mateo thinks that he might possibly have a halfway decent idea, which he hopes won’t sound stupid. “Could you scale that up?”

“How big?” Ramses asks.

“Big enough to scan the whole world?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 3, 2398

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Ramses removes the brain scanning bonnet from Mateo’s head. He places it on the table, and starts looking over the data. Everything looks good. No full consciousness has been uploaded, just the basics. The entity is capable of making decisions, and moving muscles. Or at least it would be, if it were attached to any muscles. For now it’s just a blob of digital synapses, waiting to fire. “All right, the upload went great.”

“Better than Leona’s?”

Ramses smirks. “Virtually indistinguishable. You two may as well share a brain.”

“Did you delete hers from the system?”

“She might ask to see it later. It’s best to just keep both programs around, maybe even after we use them.”

“When do we test it? How do we test it?”

Ramses is uncomfortable. “We test it on Rothko.”

“So you upload my partial mind into Alt!Mateo’s brain, which is currently being occupied by Rothko Ladhiffe. Then someone tries to kill him, at which point fate will intervene, and take him back to the place where that body is supposed to die in another reality. Meanwhile, the extraction mirror will be waiting to bring him back to this reality, but my mind will override any survival instinct that Rothko has, forcing him to stay where he is, so that an old version of Horace Reaver can murder him in a New Jersey Hospital.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds absolutely bonkers.”

“It is bonkers. It’s just...also necessary.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. Rothko is a person. We will be murdering him.”

“Reaver will be doing the murdering,” Mateo rationalizes.

“That is a pretty weak justification, Matt. If this were made public, we would be arrested for conspiracy and-or reckless endangerment, or something like that. Alt!Mateo was destined to die, not Rothko.”

“Someone in that hospital is supposedly wearing the hundemarke—”

“That’s not why his death can’t be changed,” Ramses claims.

“What? What else is there?”

“His murder is inevitable because it precipitates the creation of the next timeline, and the one after. It’s a major turning point in reality, as is Leona Reaver’s accidental death. They have to happen, or none of us comes into existence, not even you.”

“You’re telling me that if we don’t kill these two people’s bodies, whoever is using them at the time, we will all just blink out of existence.”

“It’s possible, yeah. I mean, it’s hard to be sure what the consequences would be.”

Mateo considers this. “Maybe that’s why someone created the extraction mirror loop. They’re trying to disrupt the continuum in some way, be it for good or bad, like what Erlendr and Jupiter were trying to do when the Parallel was created.” Fair guess.

“Yeah, that could be the case. Either way, this is why extraction mirrors are so dangerous. It’s best to never use them. Given that, how would you say we proceed?”

“Let’s hold off on the testing for now,” Mateo recommends. “I’m not convinced that it’s the right call anymore. Why don’t we run more tests on my hands? I’m fine with losing my teleportation ability, but I need to know when, and what my limits are.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 2, 2398

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Angela’s company was a great idea, but she was a fool to think that it could last. This reality is not her home, and she doesn’t want to stay here any longer than she has to. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about what happens to it. There’s some decent people here, and if she can help lift those voices, she will feel more comfortable walking away when the time comes. It’s unclear when that might happen, if ever, so she has come up with a continuity plan. She will keep working as long as she’s around to do so, but she’s also going to have a line of succession, and one that does not rely on friends which might follow her through the dimensional exit. She was already looking to expand the team, so she had a short list of candidates, but one in particular has been on her mind, so this morning, she set up a same-day interview for the afternoon.

Her name is Derina Torres. She’s young and active on social media, advocating for more government community support programs, and less reliance on individual religions to help the impoverished and disenfranchised. She actually built her own platform, which is impossible to control with a dogma filter or region block, allowing oppressed peoples to vocalize their needs, and reach out for help. She would be perfect for the job, if she were willing to take it. She was apprehensive of Angela and her intentions during the interview, and clearly has trust issues, which is understandable. Even so, her responses were respectful, considerate, and open-minded. Some of the questions were a little unorthodox, but she never flinched, and she’s clearly as passionate about social change as her persona appears. Her answers reminded Angela of herself in her younger days, in the time before she died, but after she met Ed Bolton. She has great potential, but she would never be able to do this on her own. She needs a partner; preferably a realist with experience. That might be a harder ask.

After Derina’s interview, Angela started researching business people who are particularly known for integrity and high ethical standards. It’s a short list too, based on what she’s already seen so far, except one that she’s going to have to build from scratch, because there is no database with such information.

“Yes, there is,” Leona tells her.

“There’s a database of good people?”

“Pretty much, yes. It’s not Winona’s department, but the government has curated a list of every member of the country’s labor force. It uses a rudimentary artificial intelligence to rank them according to tendency towards dishonesty and corruptibility, as well as level of import within their current company, and social status in general.”

“Why would they have that? Why would they make that?”

“That’s how they know who to exploit or turn into assets.”

“There it is, that makes more sense.”

“Yeah, so all you would have to do is sort it in reverse, and all the good people will suddenly be at the top of the list.”

“That’s all, huh?” Angela asks sarcastically. “I suppose this list is a matter of public record then?”

“Not quite, but I’m sure I could get you access to it.”

“I don’t want you to burn a favor. At some point, they’re gonna get sick of you.”

“Let them try. They know they don’t want me as an enemy.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 1, 2398

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Nearly everyone is gone. Olimpia either doesn’t exist at the moment, or is trapped in a different reality. Trina lived in one alternate reality, and died in another. Alt!Mateo, the other Leonas, and Andille ended up who knows where, doing who knows what? Both Bridgette and Cheyenne are dead, as is Heath, though a duplicate doll of him remains. Marie is helping him learn how to function in Palmeria, using the expertise of a clinical neuropsychologist who specializes in rehabilitating patients with severe brain damage. He has never met someone with such an extreme case of cognitive incapacity, and was more than willing to move to a different country just for opportunity. Marie has agreed to let him write and publish a paper on his subject in exchange for anonymity and discretion. Vearden is on the island too, so the McIver boys, Carlin and Moray, aren’t alone. The eldest can take care of himself, and for the most part, his younger brother, but they need a trusted adult around, and Marie is pretty busy most of the time.

With Kivi and Arcadia—who is still in Leona Delaney’s body—now working with the tactical SD6 team in pursuit of Meredarchos, and other bad actors and missing persons, that only leaves five left in the Lofts. Mateo, Leona, Ramses, Angela, and Alyssa now attempt to fill the void once occupied by their friends. They’re finding it quite difficult. Angela’s apartment, which she used to share with Kivi, is clear on the other end of the floor, so she moved in with Alyssa right away. They tried to all eat together in the huge common area, but it’s so awkward with so few people. They’re probably going to start doing it in one of their unit’s from now on. Mateo had a thought to choose Ramses’ place, because he’s more likely to try to get out of meals to work downstairs, so always having to host might force him to take at least three breaks every day.

It’s almost midnight, and they’re still in Bridgette and Cheyenne’s old apartment. Everyone pitched in throughout the day, but Mateo and Alyssa led the effort to clean it out so it no longer reminds them of their failures. Now they’re sitting on the floor together, tossing garbage into an empty box, dwelling on those failures anyway. “We’re gonna have to do this for the condo too,” Alyssa points out. “We should sell it. Or you should sell it. Whoever owns it should sell it.”

“That’s up to Marie,” Leona says, “but yeah, it needs to be cleaned, at the very least. If Heath...or rather, if the new Heath ever learns how to function on his own, they may want to move back, and still stay out of all this stuff. Or since he died in there, she may never want to see it again. We don’t have to worry about that right now, though.”

“This was so stupid, I’m sorry,” Ramses says.

No one knows what he’s talking about. “You’re sorry? About what?” Mateo asks.

“This whole building. This was a dumb idea. There weren’t even that many people with us when we agreed to it. The McIvers were still in Utah, we hadn’t even heard of Bridgette and Cheyenne. Arcadia, Vearden, the other Leonas, Alt!Mateo, Andile? It’s like I knew these people would show up, but I didn’t know that they would leave us.”

“Honestly? I miss the AOC,” Angela adds. “It was small, but it had everything we needed. I took comfort in its efficiency.”

“This was your ship that you’re talking about?” Alyssa asks.

“Yeah, it was great,” Leona explains. “It only had three levels. The top was for facilities and microponics, and the bottom was engineering. The middle was for living. Instead of rooms, we slept in these things we called grave chambers in the floor. You couldn’t even stand up in them, but you could fit two people if you needed or wanted to.”

Ramses bites his upper lip. “We may be able to get it back,” Ramses claims.

“How?” Mateo questions. “We left it in the Fifth Division.”

“We left a copy of it there,” Ramses reveals. “I have another one in my pocket. I mean, I don’t have it right now. It was in my pocket, now it’s locked up in the lab.”

“I thought you couldn’t copy the ship,” Angela begins. “I thought you could only bring it back from a save state at a specific point in space where it once was. That’s why come Marie exists at all.”

“That was a bug, I figured it out,” Ramses says dismissively. I figured out how to save the ship in a pocket dimension on a device...in my pocket.”

“Why haven’t you brought this up before?” Leona asks in a captainly sort of way.

Ramses shrugs. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Reconstituting it in this reality would take a shit-ton of temporal energy. The tanks on the Olimpia can’t even fit the volume of Existence water we would need to take from the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Couldn’t you reconstitute it at the Bermuda Triangle?” Mateo offers.

“I guess so, if I thought it would help, but I also don’t know what the point would be,” Ramses laments. “The reframe engine requires a constant supply of temporal energy, as does the teleporter, and even if they didn’t, where would we go?”

“That’s true,” Leona agrees, nodding.

They sit in silence for a while.

“Well, what about the Olimpia?” Alyssa suggests.

“What about it?” Mateo presses.

“We could live there instead, if it’s cozier and efficient.”

“Yeah, I guess that could work,” Angela determines.

Leona and Ramses too think it’s a good idea.

“Wait, are we seriously talking about this?” Mateo questions. We have perfectly good apartments. Who cares if the other units aren’t occupied? When you rent your own apartment in a normal complex, do you think that much about how many neighbors you have? This place is great, we don’t need an alternative.”

“We do need a contingency, though,” Leona decides. “When we had all those people, there was nowhere to escape to, but now we can.”

“You can escape through me, because I’m a teleporter,” Mateo reminds her.

Leona bites her lower lip. “Did you happen to look at your watch the last time you teleported? I rode with you to take Vearden to Palmeria after your first two roundtrips.”

“Did I—no, why? Did you?”

Leona hesitates to explain, but she knows that she has to. “Yes, it took us five seconds to get from Kansas City to the island, and eight seconds to get back.”

“Okay...is that bad?”

“It’s teleportation, Mateo, it’s meant to be pretty much instantaneous.”

Mateo’s face drops. “Right. What does that mean? Am I losing my power?”

Ramses perks up. “You’re probably losing energy,” he postulates. “You’re losing temporal energy. That’s what happens in this reality, it just gets sucked away.”

“Well, how long do I have?”

“We need to run some tests on you.” Ramses replies. “I guess I know what my next project is now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 30, 2398

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Alyssa adds more shirts to the suitcase as Carlin stands there, watching her. He’s old enough to pack for himself, but he doesn’t want to go, so this is his way of being defiant. If she’s the one who wants this, then she’s going to be the one to make it happen, and he doesn’t have to help her with that. Young Moray has just finished packing his own bag, because while he doesn’t want to leave either, making people do things for him is not his style. Alyssa smiles sadly over at him. “Thank you, Mor.”

“Why do we have to go?” Carlin questions.

“Because it’s not safe here anymore.”

“It’s never really been safe,” he argues. “These people’s lives are dangerous, that’s what makes them so interesting.”

“It’s become more dangerous since we arrived,” Alyssa clarifies.

“Then why aren’t you coming with us?” Moray asks her.

She stops trying to close Carlin’s bag, and goes over to Moray. She gets on her knees, and holds him by the arms. “You understand that they’re time travelers, right?”

“Yeah,” Moray confirms, holding back tears.

“Well, they know things about the future. They know things about my future. I’m destined to work with them, they’ve already seen it.”

“What happens to us in the future?”

Alyssa looks at Carlin over her shoulder, and then back to Moray. “You’re safe, and it’s because today, you go to Palmeria.”

“You’re lying,” Carlin believes.

“I’m not,” Alyssa lies. “That is where you belong.” She stands back up. “And this...is where I belong. We’ll see each other again, I promise. Mateo can teleport me there whenever I need to. In the meantime, we’ll holo-chat, and text, okay?”

“Okay.” Moray is still holding back those tears, and doing a pretty good job of it.

“Okay,” she echoes. She leans over to kiss him on the forehead, then turns to face Carlin. “I need you to take care of him, because I’m not in a position to do it anymore.”

Carlin seethes just a little, but then grows determined. He punches the top of his suitcase, and holds his fist in place while his other hand zips it up. “I assume they have internet. I’m not done with the religion research.”

Relieved, Alyssa nods. “They do; Mateo confirmed. In fact, they don’t have dogma filters, so you won’t be limited to any given religion’s biased interpretation of competing faiths. You’ll have a better understanding of the history and culture for your thesis.”

“What’s a thesis?” Carlin asks.

“It’s kind of when you come to a conclusion before your research, and then you do the research to find out if it’s actually true.”

“Do they even need this anymore? I mean, if I’m leaving...”

“Part of the reason you’re leaving is so that you can continue safely, and without worrying about anything else,” Alyssa explains. “It’s still vitally important data; more so now, probably. We’re not just tryna get rid of ya, I promise.”

“I’m helping with it,” Moray interjects.

“I know,” Alyssa says to him proudly. “Now, come on. “We’re going to have one last group meal together before the big move.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 29, 2398

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That proves it. Meredarchos and Erlendr are sharing a body, they can transfer themselves to anyone they choose, and the whole thing with taking Trina’s body was just a ruse to get them to look for the wrong face. The danger here is that, regardless of what body they’re possessing at the moment, they can psychically infect others. Either their victims become so loyal to them that they’re willing to kill their own friends, or the process instills such hatred in them that they’re willing to kill their own friends. Either result ends the same, and they don’t know how to stop it. Arcadia was able to keep them out of her head, as well as Vearden’s, but she may not be able to scale that to the entire team, let alone everyone in the world. Right now, the evil duo feels like an unstoppable force, and while nowhere is safe, some places may be safer than others.

“Are you sure?” Leona asks. She came back early from her business trip at the factory in Oberlin, Ohio to deal with all this.

“Positive,” Arcadia answers. “He’s...a shell.”

Heath is kind of like a baby, except that he doesn’t cry, and he has the motor functions of an adult with absolutely no motivation. If someone turns his head to the left, he just leaves it there. If they stick his hands up in the air, he leaves them there too. He can be physically manipulated like a puppet with invisible strings. He can’t talk, or express needs and wants. He can’t feed himself, and he soils his pants when the opportunity comes up. Fortunately, he’s showing signs of being able to relearn all of these things. He’s mimicked basic sounds, and Marie is hopeful that he will one day speak again. He won’t really be Heath, though. He’s just a doll who looks exactly like her husband did, who is now dead. Any emotional attachment she holds for this individual is irrational and human. He can’t reciprocate, at least not yet.

“We don’t have the resources to protect him,” Leona points out, “nor the qualifications.”

“What about our joint therapist?” Marie asks. She’s always teary-eyed now, but keeping it together.

“She’s not qualified to help someone like this with something like this,” Leona explains.

“But surely she knows someone. He doesn’t need neurological help, the tools are all there in his head. He just needs...a parent. I can help partially, but I really need the guidance of someone who understands development.”

“Okay, I can try to speak with Magnus Sharpe,” Leona agrees.

“No, I know her the best,” Marie says. “I’ll speak with her. I just need someone to help Heath get into bed for a nap.”

“I can do that,” Arcadia volunteers. She frowns when Marie gives her a look. “Forget what you remember of me, or what you’ve been told. I’m not that person anymore. I want to help. He and I grew close while we were living together at the condo. Let me do this.”

Marie is hesitant, but gives in. Heath needs constant supervision, and since she can’t be with him all the time, she’ll have to learn to trust others to pitch in. She steps away to make the call, expecting to have to speak to a number of people regarding her husband’s unique condition.

Mateo nods at her respectfully as he’s entering the apartment. He sees Arcadia ushering Heath into the bedroom. “What can I do?” he asks his wife.

Leona has been thinking about that. “You developed rapport with the founder of Palmeria, correct?”

“Keaton Palmer, yes, I did. He’s quite friendly. He’s going to help us leave this reality when his ride shows up in five months.”

“Even if it overrides that favor, I need you to ask him for a new one.”

“What’s that?”

Leona releases a hologram from her watch, showing a satellite view of the islands. “I had Ramses look into why you weren’t able to teleport within the borders of the island. Preliminary data suggests a powerful barrier protecting the area. I wondered how he was able to prevent invasion without any security to speak of. Why, even a couple of kids wanting to pull a prank might try to boat up there and teepee the woods. They can’t. Ramses found stories of people trying. They all wake up on this side of the border, feeling terribly sick, and with no memory of what happened to them. Barely any time has passed. This may be our best defense against Meredarchos, and his future legions. I think he has to be in proximity to get into your head.”

“You want me to ask Palmer how he built his barrier?”

“More than that, I want you to ask if he would be willing to accept some refugees. We need to protect our family. We need to protect Heath and Marie, and the kids. Ram and I can construct our own barrier of some kind if we need to, but this would still be a warzone. Palmeria is small, remote, and inconsequential.”

“You don’t need to sell me on it, love. I got you.” Mateo disappears.

Arcadia steps out of the bedroom and shuts the door quietly. “I think he understood me when I told him to sleep. He closed his eyelids on his own upon hearing the words. He’s picking up skills quickly.”

“Good. I know that Marie appreciates the help, and I appreciate you wanting to help us at all. And I think we both know that playing capacity nurse doesn’t exactly make use of your own skills, does it?”

Arcadia frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“Kivi is leaving us. She’s leaving the business, and staying in the field. She may not know yet, but she’s taking her team leader up on an offer to work full time for SD6.”

“Okay...” Arcadia isn’t sure why she needs to know any of this.

“I have a lot of pull there, so while I haven’t actually spoken to anyone about it, I’m certain that I can get you assigned to the team as well.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Kivi can find Meredarchos and Erlendr. You can combat their psychic power.”

Arcadia wants to argue, but she knows she’s in no position to do so. “Okay.”

“Before you leave for that, however, I need you to do something else,” Leona begins, “if you’re even capable of it.”

“I’ll try, whatever it is.”

“What you did for Vearden, when you blocked psychic energy from getting into his head, or whatever it is. Is that permanent, or has his mental wall fallen since then?”

“I made it permanent once I realized the full extent of the threat. I suppose you want me to do the same for everyone else?”

“I like the way you think,” Leona says.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 28, 2398

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There’s a knock at the door. No one has the chance to even go over to answer it before it opens. A large and looming man comes down the hallway. His facial expression keeps changing from happy to irritated, like he can’t decide which one he feels. Vearden jumps up, and places himself between the man and his friends. Seeing this, the man forces himself to hold a smile. “I’m glad that my daughter found someone like you.”

Arcadia reaches behind the couch cushion and pulls out the emergency knife. Without any warning, she flings it at the body that her father is now wearing. It lands right in his heart, where it belongs.

Erlendr looks down at it. “This body will die soon, but we will find another.” He reaches both arms out like a stereotypical Frankenstein monster.

Arcadia feels a pulsing energy in her head. He’s trying to break into her brain, which would normally be fine, because she can hold the door closed, but her friends are not like her. She’s particularly worried about her beau, Vearden. She’s always struggled with empathizing with other people. She’s always had her own feelings—she’s not a sociopath—but she’s only recently figured out how to care about others. Well, she’s learned how to truly care about them, instead of just convincing herself that she does. If she doesn’t help combat the psychic intrusion for the other people in this room, though, it will prove that she didn’t learn anything. She really is trying to be a better person. Vearden is helping her with it. He’s not directly teaching her what it takes; she’s smart enough to understand academically. She just needs to be reminded everyday that it is possible for someone to love her. But that love is not what’s going to save them now. It’s her love for them that will. She concentrates on putting up barriers to protect them.

Erlendr smirks. “You may protect one or two, but you can’t keep me out of all of their minds.” He tips backwards, and falls over. He’s not dead yet, just unable to withstand his own weight.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t protect all of them, like he said. Vearden appears to be safe, she created a psychic barrier to keep Erlendr—as well as Meredarchos, most likely, judging by the fact that he used the word we to describe himself—out of him. Bridgette and Heath, on the other hand, are not necessarily safe. What did they do to them, though? The stranger’s body is dying anyway, which means that the psychic stowaways can’t maintain control over them, so did they just want information, or what?

Heath suddenly breaks out of a stupor, and gathers his bearings. He looks around, quickly settling on the dying man on the floor. “Master, no!” He runs over, and dives down to inspect the wound. “No, it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Just hold on. He takes off his own shirt to wrap around the knife, and keep pressure on the wound.”

“What are you doing?” Vearden questions.

“Somebody help!” Heath cries. “We can’t let him die!”

“Not only can we let him die,” Bridgette contends, “but we have to make sure it happens. Every possible vessel for his twisted soul is a threat.” She runs over too, but not to help. She jerks the knife out of the man’s chest, and then drives it into his chin, all the way through to his brain.

“No!” Heath elbows her in the face, knocking her to her back.

Vearden runs over and tries to break them apart, but they just keep fighting each other. They’re relentless. “Stop! Just stop!” It’s useless. Bridgette is as dedicated to destroying all of Meredarchos’ followers as Heath is to protecting his master. “Little help here?” Vearden asks Arcadia.

“I’m trying to help,” Arcadia explains. “I’m trying to clean their minds of whatever he infected them with.” It’s not working. He created his own barrier to prevent that very thing. He’s a strong psychic, that’s for sure...leagues beyond better than Erlendr. Combined, they’re the greatest threat she’s ever encountered. They have to be stopped, and saving these two people isn’t going to help. They can’t be saved anyway, and if it’s between preserving their lives, or killing the infection before it can spread, that’s what she’s going to do. They can at least die with a little dignity, though. The knife is too messy and slow. One shot to the head is the only good option.

“Is it working?” Vearden asks, doing his damned best to hold the fighters apart.

“No,” Arcadia replies plainly. She goes to retrieve the gun from the safe.

“Arcadia!” Vearden shouts at her. “Arcadia! What are you doing! No, no, no, no no! Ow! NO! Arcadia, come back! They just stabbed each other!”

Arcadia runs back into the common area to find both Heath and Bridgette on the floor, bleeding. “What happened?”

“Heath remembered the knife. He took it out, and sliced my arm. Then he stabbed Bridgette in the heart, so she took it out and tried to do the same. He dodged, so it landed in his stomach. I think he’s still alive.”

Arcadia checks them both for pulses. “They’re both alive, but barely.”

“We have to help them,” Vearden pleads.

“If we do, they’ll just go back to killing each other, and anyone else who gets in their way.”

“So we just let them die?”

“They’re like zombies, V; They can’t be cured.”

Vearden seethes. “I refuse to accept that.” He takes out his phone, and calls Mateo. “Matt? I need a doctor at the condo right now. They’re gonna die.”

Fifteen seconds later, Mateo appears in the room, holding onto a woman that Arcadia presumes to be a doctor. “What just happened?” she asks, confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vearden tells her. “Just save them.”

She kneels down to get to work. “We’re going to have to triage,” she says after seeing how far gone Bridgette is.

“Matt?” Vearden asks.

Mateo disappears and returns with a second doctor so he can focus on Heath. While they’re doing that, Mateo feels like the right thing to do is to bring Marie here. They’re struggling, but they’re still married, and still in love. She’s seen a lot of death in her day, so she’s crying and pleading, but she doesn’t interfere with the medical professionals’ work.

The doctor who was trying to save Bridgette sighs. “I’m sorry, she’s gone. Time of death thirteen-oh-nine.”

Marie can see that Heath is on his way out too. He’s not going to last much longer unless they take drastic measures. She starts thinking about her options. Arcadia can’t quite read her thoughts, but she can sense what’s happening in there. Finally, she thinks she has it. “Mateo, where is your knife?”

“What knife?” Mateo asks.

“The one that can duplicate things,” Marie clarifies.

“If the doctor needs any more equipment, I’ll be happy to retrieve it for them.”

“I’m not talking about equipment,” Marie says. “I’m talking about Heath. Duplicate him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vearden questions.

“It doesn’t work on people, Marie,” Mateo claims.

“Have you ever tried?”

“Have I ever stabbed someone to see if they die while a duplicate of them appears next to them? No, I guess I haven’t, but that’s crazy!”

“Doctor, what are the chances that he lives?” Marie asks him.

The doctor looks up. “They’re very low.”’

“There.” Marie starts talking with her hands. “You can stab him, a second one will appear next to him, and the first one will die anyway. The second one, however, will be good as new, right; that’s how it works? Now we have nothing to lose.”

“I’ll direct you to my earlier comment about that being crazy.”

“I would do it myself,” Marie argues, “but evidently you’re the only one with the literal magic touch, so would you please just try?”

“There’s a low chance of him surviving,” Vearden reasons, having basically caught up with what they’re talking about. “That’s not zero. But if you’re method of saving him requires stabbing him again, those chances drop much lower, I’m sure.”

Marie ignores him. “Please,” she begs Mateo.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” the doctor begins, “but if you plan on stabbing our patient, then we’re out.” They both clearly work for the government, but they haven’t been told everything.

Mateo frowns. “I can’t be blamed for the consequences.” He disappears and returns thirty seconds later, holding the knife.

“Maybe you should test it on her first,” Vearden suggests.

“Or maybe he shouldn’t do it at all,” Arcadia warns. “They’re both infected. They pose a risk to us all, especially anyone here without the slightest psychic ability.”

“Noted,” Mateo says, but it’s hard to tell how genuine he’s being. He pauses to think about it, but has to make a decision quickly, because if it doesn’t work for Bridgette, it definitely won’t work for Heath if he waits too long. He closes his eyes, and stabs her. Nothing happens. “I really don’t think this is gonna work, Marie.”

Marie grabs the television remote, and hands it to him. “Let’s see if it’s you or the knife, or just because she’s too far gone.”

Mateo sets the remote on the floor and stabs it with no hesitation. It breaks apart, but a second one pops out of the aether, and lands right next to it. “She’s either too dead, or too a human being.”

“If you stab him,” the other doctor warns, “we’re gone.”

“The door is that way.” Once they’ve left, Mateo crosses his fingers, and stabs Heath as well. Heath lurches and gasps, and his muscles relax more than they already were. For a few seconds, nothing else happens. Then a light appears out of nowhere and grows until it’s in the vague shape of a person. It recedes quickly, leaving a naked Heath lying next to his former self.

“Oh my God, it actually worked,” Vearden muses. Physically, yes, it did. Mentally, it didn’t work at all.