The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 25, 2398

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Alyssa has been driving all over the region of central-Western Kansas which her brothers discovered to be a black hole of religion. Everyone in the area reports no religious affiliation. She’s interviewed a few dozen residents in several towns, and they all seem like normal people. They don’t act culty or cagey. None of them refused to answer her questions, except for a few who were late to an engagement, or otherwise preoccupied. They didn’t apparently move here with the intention of being in a community of like-minded atheists. Most of them didn’t even notice. Everything here seems completely above board, which means that something has to be lurking in the shadows. There is a force at play here that keeps itself secret; there has to be, or all the time Carlin and Moray spent researching the phenomenon was a waste. She doesn’t want to believe that. When they return from their space trip, she has to show them that she followed through on their suspicions, and found something worthy of investigation, even if it’s a bad thing. Even if it’s a good thing, for that matter.

Now that she’s failed to come to a conclusion, she decides to switch tactics by exploring the literal center of the religious black hole. She rechecks her coordinates. This is the center of her brothers’ map, and it’s the location of one of the presumed time travelers that Ramses detected with his big brain scanner. That can’t just be a coincidence, but this also can’t be what she’s looking for. This is the center of all of it? It’s nothing special, or at least it doesn’t look it. Maybe it leads to a giant high tech underground complex, like the one under her farm. This could hold the key to the answers they’ve been asking since they arrived. She’s standing under this dilapidated shack on stilts in the middle of nowhere. Surely no one lives here, that would be ridiculous. Then again, stranger things have happened to her already.

Alyssa doesn’t see any no trespassing signs, and again, this would be a terrible home for someone, so she decides to take a risk, and get a closer look. She climbs the ladder all the way up, and into the tower shack. The inside looks like a shack as well. It’s pretty clean, with no debris or equipment, but she ought to watch her step, because some of these boards may not be stable enough to hold her weight. It’s a long way down. There is nothing here, except for one window, and a mirror. The mirror is hanging there on the wall, so completely out of place. It’s not old and dusty, but new and pristine. Alyssa stumbles back when she realizes that she doesn’t have a reflection, but she doesn’t have time to figure it out. She was right about the instability of the floor. One leg crashes right through it, leaving the other leg at her side, causing her to hit herself in the crotch. She tries to get her breath back, but she can’t. The pain in her groin is almost too much to bear. Not only did she hit it hard in the fall, but now she’s doing the splits, which is not something she’s trained for.

She doesn’t want to move, because she’s afraid that any motion will cause the whole structure to fall apart, and then that will be the end of Alyssa McIver’s life. She’ll never see her brothers again. She’ll never fulfill whatever future Mateo and the team believe is waiting for in the alternate reality where they’re from. Okay, she packed climbing equipment. Kansas doesn’t have mountains, but it’s not as flat as the coastal elites believe. We do have edges, and it is possible to fall off of them, and it just made sense to be prepared for such an eventuality. If she can just spin her backpack around, and open it up, she might be able to find a rope, and throw it over something here.

As she’s starting to do that, she sees something move out of the corner of her eye. Is that—no. There’s not a hand coming out of the mirror like a Japanese horror film. It’s not being followed by the top of a head. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. This is not happening. She has to get out of here. How long will it take to hit the ground if she falls right now? Is there time to spin this backpack around, open it up, find the rope, and throw it over something? Probably, right? Let’s see, take the square root of her weight, and multiple it by the height of the shack. Carry the one, and no, she doesn’t have enough time. She’s either going to fall to her death, or get eaten by the ghost monster coming for her. Neither one sounds appetizing, but the ghost monster may spare her life if she spreads the message about how they died to as many people as she can, or something like that.

The figure finishes climbing out of the mirror, and does a front roll down the wall. Then she stands up, and reaches out a hand. “Let me help you.”

“Who are you?”

The woman doesn’t want to answer. “Don’t worry about it, just take my hand.”

Alyssa lets the stranger pull her to safety. Together, they jump over to the ladder, and make their way down to the safety of the ground. She finally recaptures her breath. “This is the center of unusual religious activity. Are you the cause of that?”

The stranger doesn’t want to answer that either.

Alyssa sighs, and takes out her tablet. “Nerakali Preston.”

“Huh?”

“Meliora Reaver, Xearea Voss, Ariadna Traversa.”

“What is this you’re listing?”

“Sanaa Karimi, Aquila Bellamy, Amanda Moss, Cambria Buchanan, Susan Glines, Natasha Orlova, Ellie Underhill, Téa Stendahl...”

“Are these meant to mean something to me?

“Ida Reyer, Aura Gardner, The Officiant, The Overseer, Tonya Keyes, Dr. Mallory Hammer, Danica Matic, Dilara Cassano, Marcy Calligaris!”

“Stop! I don’t understand!”

“I’m listing names of people that you could be, because when I land on your name, your microexpressions will tell me that it belongs to you. I have dozens more to get through, unless you would like to speed this up and tell me who the hell you are!”

She doesn’t speak.

“Quivira Boyce, Catania Porter, Bhulan Cargill—there! There, that’s it. I bet you didn’t think I’d find it, but you’re Bhulan Cargill.”

“That’s Mateo Matic’s list, isn’t it? That’s the cleverest thing that man ever did.”

“Are you the cause of the religious black hole?”

Bhulan still won’t answer that question.

“Daria Matic, Dodeka Sarkisyan, Lita Prieto—”

“I thought you already figured out what my name is.”

“Now I’m just doing it because it seems to annoy you. Answer my questions.”

Still nothing.

“Khuweka Kadrioza, Hogarth Pudeyonavic—”

“Fine. Yes. I’m the cause of what you’re calling the religious black hole, but not by choice. I’m just a prisoner here.”

“Who did this to you?”

“That I don’t know.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 24, 2398

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Mateo and Ramses made a conscious decision to not exit the Facsimile pocket dimension right away. This world has been abandoned for centuries, but certain things they know of were designed to stand the test of time—specifically, anything in The Constant. The version of the Constant in the Third Rail started out as the same as the one in the main sequence, but they split from each other at some point. There should have been two separate elevator shafts, two separate kitchens, two separate libraries, and two separate Danica Matics. The Facsimile, on the other hand, is an exact copy of the way the world was at its last save point, which was reportedly around Christmastime 2022. The only things that don’t get copied over are living beings, particularly people. Plants seem to do okay, but nothing that moves on its own was duplicated. They didn’t know who made the Facsimile in the first place, but they believe they met the man himself yesterday, who ended up being trapped there this whole time by The Cleanser.

Now they’re on their way to Lebanon, Kansas. It would have been a short trip, giving them plenty of time to return to the dimensional exit by the end of the day, except that there aren’t any working vehicles in the world. Nearly everything runs on fossil fuels, and gasoline breaks down over time. They could have found an electric car somewhere, but they wouldn’t have been able to charge it, because power stations run on...fossil fuels, and all the solar panels they happened to come across had fallen apart due to lack of maintenance. Bicycles still worked, though they couldn’t just grab two off the street. They had to first make their way to the nearest bike shop, and go all the way to the back, to the ones that had suffered the least amount of exposure from the broken windows.

They found some really good models, but according to Ramses’ calculations, the ride would take over 21 hours straight. It was the middle of the night, which made it more difficult to see, but at least they didn’t have to worry about traffic. They pedaled for a few hours, took a rest, then pedaled a few hours more. They kept going like this for the better part of two days, and they’re finally here. If there’s nothing underneath that can get them back to the exit in a reasonable amount of time, they’re kind of going to be screwed. The elevator has to operate, and they have to get down there for some help, and an advantage that they never could have hoped for before. If this doesn’t work, they’ll have to wait a whole other week until the next window opens. When they left, everything seemed fine, but a lot can happen in seven days. Things might have taken a huge turn, and it would only get worse. The moment of truth. Mateo presses the secret call button, and crosses his fingers.

“You know it won’t be another week, right?” Ramses says after they hear the motor humming through the walls. “It would be two more weeks by bike. It took us two days to get here, which was fine in the beginning, since we started at midnight, but now we’re starting late on the second day. When we get out of here, it will be the eighth of November.”

“That’s assuming we can’t get back home tonight.”

“Right,” Ramses agrees. The doors open, and he steps in. “This is a good sign.”

They ride all the way down to the bottom. The lights are already on inside, anticipating their arrival. “It looks empty.”

“Computer, report,” Ramses orders.

No response.

He shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

“We don’t have time to search.” Mateo breaks the glass with his shirted fist, and pulls the fire alarm. The alarm still works too. They take another break on the couches while they wait to see if anyone runs up from deeper in the facility. It’s a big place, it might take a person a while. After ten minutes, though, they’re just wasting time. Mateo cancels the alarm, and follows Ramses to the control room.

Ramses starts fiddling with the computer. “It’s blank.”

“What’s blank?”

“The hard drives; everything.”

“They’ve been wiped clean?” Mateo asks.

“No, this is more like how they would look if you bought the computer today, and haven’t used it yet. I guess there are some things that the Facsimile can’t copy.”

Mateo tilts his Mr. Spock brain. “This place is run by an AI, or it’s supposed to.”

“Yeah.”

“That would not be a living organism, but it would be a consciousness. If the Facsimile can’t copy people, it probably can’t copy other forms of intelligence either.”

“Hm. Yeah, you’re probably right. Damn, I was hoping to find some great tech, but I guess that’s not going to happen.”

“This place is huge. Surely there’s something we can use. Let’s go take a look around after all. We need to find some kind of car, or something, anyway.”

They each take a radio transceiver, and split up to search the premises, hoping to come across something both useful, and which they can take with them back to the Third Rail. But only Ramses is going to be doing that. Mateo already knows what he’s looking for, and he’s about fifty percent sure that it’s here. He goes back to the lounge area, and approaches the wall with the sledgehammer he found in the garage. Hoping that Ramses has gotten himself out of earshot by now, Mateo starts banging. It’s not long before he’s through the wall, and can reach the secret door behind it.

Ramses runs back in, having apparently heard one of the last swings. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What do you think?”

“There’s not gonna be another you in there.”

“Wanna bet?”

Mateo pulls the rest of the wood panels away, and opens the door. Inside is the stasis pod he was told he woke up in months ago in a different version of the Constant. It’s occupied, so maybe it’s not such a different version, is it?

“This is just going to make things complicated,” Ramses warns.

“He’ll remember what happened to him in the past. We need answers.”

Mateo deactivates the pod, and lets the other Mateo out. Fax!Mateo steps out. “Is everybody who came down here in this room right now?”

“Don’t worry about that,” the regular Mateo says. “It’s not going to implode.”

Fax!Mateo narrows his eyes at his other self. “Report.”

“No, asshole, you report. The memory of my time down here has been erased. Before it happens to you, you’re gonna tell us. What did you see? Who did you see?”

Fax!Mateo looks behind him at the pod control panel. “October 24, 2398. Sorry, it’s not time yet.” He runs off.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 23, 2398

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Leona has been at a retreat for the last five days since she was forced to accidentally kill Solomon Powers, the star of the hit talk show, Balance of Power. She didn’t technically have to kill him, but she lost control, and hit him too hard against the side of the head during their fight, and that was that. Now she’s in control of a broadcast program that she doesn’t want. They have reportedly been running repeats until she comes back out the woodwork, and gives them direction, which she’s not interested in doing. She certainly doesn’t want to host it. She just wants to go back to the way things were before, whatever that means. Winona has her tucked away on a special patch of land that serves both as the training grounds for intelligence department recruits, and a safe haven for furloughed and retired operatives, officers, and agents.

It’s been nice, but it’s time to leave. Her people need her, especially Mateo and Ramses, who will be returning from the Facsimile dimension in a couple of days. “Wait,” Winona says after Leona explains as much.

“Wait for what?” Leona asks.

“Ugh, I was hoping you would stay at least one more day, so we could clean it up for you. It’s ready to fly, though, and I suppose that’s what counts.”

“What’s ready to fly?”

“Come with me.” Winona leads her across the ranch, into one of the hangars. There’s only one aircraft there at the moment. It looks strikingly similar to The Olimpia.

A man is looking it over, and tapping on his tablet. “Oh, I thought we had until tomorrow. I’m so sorry, sir, I must have screwed up somewhere.”

“You didn’t,” Winona assures him. “She’s decided to leave early. I had to move up the presentation. Agent Matic, this is yours. We heard what happened to your last one.”

The engineer nods. “Same overall dimensions as your old model, but it sports a more streamlined and accommodating interior. More private lofts, no cubbies. Less room in the cockpit to leave more space for everything else, but that’s okay, because more systems are automated than ever before.” He pauses while Leona takes a quick look at the inside. “It’s also vacuum compliant.”

“It can launch into space?” Leona questions.

“It can self-propel from a fusion reactor,” the engineer clarifies. “It has to be launched as a payload on something else, though. Apparently you have your own special engine too? Mr. Abdulrashid left us in the dark for that part of the design.”

“Ramses knows about this?”

“He asked for an upgrade,” Winona reveals. “He’s been planning this for a while.

He always has a lot of irons in the fire. Leona nods at it. All she can think is how much Heath would like this. She didn’t kill him, but she is responsible for it. She feels responsible for everything. Being the captain is great until you count up all the pain it’s caused. She should step down and disappear. Wouldn’t everyone be happier?

“What do you think?” the engineer asks, proud of his work. “We still need to clean it, but it’s sky-worthy, and space-worthy. And subaquatic-worthy, and—”

“I love it. Thank you.”

“What are you gonna name it?” Winona asks. “Not the Olimpia again, right?”

“That’s not my call. My team needs to become more of a democracy.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 22, 2398

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Kivi hangs up the phone, confused and frustrated, perhaps even more frustrated than before she made the call, but now for different reasons. The interrogation of Meredarchos is not going well. There are only a few people in the world who are immune to his psychic abilities, and half of them don’t work for the government, so they’re off doing their own things. The rest are left to stay at the black site, and keep watch over him in tiresome shifts. They grow weary of it, but until they figure out how his ability works, they are the only line of defense against him. Kivi was hoping to get Arcadia to immunize others, but she can’t come back, for reasons she didn’t get into. She did make one crazy claim, which is that generating mental barriers in other people’s heads is something that Kivi may be able to do herself.

“What you’re doing when you say that you’ve picked up the scent of a target has nothing to do with smell,” Arcadia said. “The reason you can find people is because you’re tracking the unique psychic signal that everyone gives off, whether they want to or not. You too have psychic abilities; maybe not as strong as Meredarchos, or even me, but everyone has a little, and you’re definitely better than the average person.”

Kivi is confounded by this. Obviously she knew it had nothing to do with smell. Catching a scent was just the easiest way to put it without having a degree in neurology. Still, psychic is a bit of a stretch. If she can read minds, shouldn’t she have done so accidentally by now? In the movies, if a character has a special ability, it will always surface at an opportune time, especially if we’re talking multiple abilities. Kivi has been interrogating this dark entity for days, and nothing like that has happened to her. Though maybe just knowing it’s a thing will make it work the next time. She’s certainly going to try that before she attempts to protect a new agent from Meredarchos’ intrusions. If she fails, it places someone in danger, but this only puts her at risk.

They’ve been living at a safehouse about a kilometer from the secret one-person prison, which was built into an abandoned mine shaft by another team while Kivi and her team were still looking for the enemy. She makes the drive back, and checks in at the gate. She takes the elevator down, and heads for Meredarchos. His two frontline guards have already moved him to the interrogation room, and placed a dark bag over his head. If this is going to work, he can’t be allowed to sense anything through her microexpressions. She sits down across from him, and starts to operate on instinct. If I were a real psychic, how would I read someone’s thoughts?

After a few minutes, Kivi starts to feel something. Her own mental wall is still there, but now she’s getting the sense that there are two walls. One of them belongs to Meredarchos and Erlendr. They apparently also have to protect themselves against intruders. She looks up to the top. She can see both of them there, on separate corners, scanning the horizon. They’re looking so far in the distance, they can’t even see that she’s right there in front of them. It’s one tall-ass wall, though. As a metaphor, it’s a pretty good one. There’s no way she’s scaling that, and making it to the other side.

She hears a whisper at the base of the wall. “Psst. Come here.” It’s a shadowy figure, holding onto an open door.

“Who is that?” Kivi asks.

“It’s me, come on.” The figure steps a little more into the light. It’s Cheyenne.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 21, 2398

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Alyssa comes out of her room, and looks around at the empty communal area of their hotel suite. It’s been empty for days. Mateo and Ramses are stuck is some sort of something or other. Leona and Winona are off doing whatever, they won’t talk about it, but it kind of sounds more personal than operational. Arcadia and Vearden are dealing with family issues. Kivi never lived here anyway. Marie was the last to leave, and she hasn’t called in since. Seems mighty weird, Alyssa living here all alone. Not only is it too much space for one person, but she has the least amount of experience with any of this. She’s just a farm girl from Central Kansas. That’s the problem, isn’t it? They don’t trust her with anything, so they don’t ask anything of her. At least not anymore. They asked her for a lot in the past. The temporal energy has dwindled, though, so she’s of no use to them as an illusionist. Still, a quick call would be nice.

She has to do something. Living it up in this fancy place is making her feel terrible. Maybe Marie needs her help tracking the other time travelers, but she doesn’t know how to ask. Let’s find out where she is. Alyssa pulls out her device, and looks for Marie’s location. Her device hasn’t moved in a long time, and it’s not where she had her surveillance nest set up. She zooms into the satellite view of the friend finder app, but she can’t tell what this building is. She has to cross-reference it with the regular map. It’s showing those coordinates to be a mental hospital, which doesn’t sound good. No one else’s device is on, or they’ve switched off location tracking. Either way, they’re not picking up. She can sit here alone and be useless, or she can try to help.

Seeing no better option, Alyssa looks up the number to the hospital, and dials. “Hello, English?” she confirms. “Yes, I’m looking for a friend. We share our location history, and she’s been there since yesterday afternoon.” She waits for a response. “Her name is Sydney Bristow?” It’s the alias that Marie has been using, and apparently the name of an agent on a TV show from her reality called Alias. “Oh, really? Well, does she have outside communication privileges?” She does, but Marie will have to call her if she’s feeling up to it. “My name is Alyssa, she’ll know me.” She hangs up, and waits.

Ten minutes later, her phone rings. “Sydney, are you okay?” The phone may be tapped, she doesn’t know what kind of laws they have over there, so stick with the alias. “Yeah, I can see where that might get you into trouble, if you weren’t talking to the right person. Well, how can I get you out of there?” Marie doesn’t want to leave. “You’re happy there? What, are ya gonna stay there forever?” Not forever, just a few days to clear her head. “Your friends need you. I need you, I don’t know what to do.” Marie has one idea. “You think I’m ready for something like that on my own?” Yes, it’s just reconnaissance. “That’s the problem, we don’t know what—or who—I might run into.”

They keep discussing it for a little bit, Alyssa asking to fly to Manila herself, and be there for her. Marie doesn’t want that, and she’s the one controlling the purse strings. The trip would cost about ten thousand dollars, and still, no one else is available to help. Marie has to go, so she leaves the choice up to her, and hangs up. Alyssa thinks about it for a few minutes. This is her moment to prove that she deserves to be part of the team, and she doesn’t always need help from other people. She grabs her coat, and heads downstairs. If she’s gonna do this, she’s gonna do it right. She needs to shop for supplies. Who knows what she’ll find in Springfield, Kansas?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 20, 2398

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Marie has been staking out this apartment for the last two days. This is the kind of work that she used to do for SD6. She was taken off of all such assignments when her team showed up, and that became her only priority, both on a personal level, and for the government. This still has to do with time travel, but her team isn’t involved. They’re looking for people who have experienced an inordinate amount of time for a normal living human, or just have unusual brain chemistry. The orbital scanner that Ramses built, and which Mateo installed on a Snowglobe satellite, only mapped where these targets were at the time of the last scan. This information is now over a week old, so if any of them were just on vacation, or something, they’ll probably never find them. This may all be a waste of time. She hates this now. She hates everything she used to love or like. She’s just bitter and angry, and nothing seems right anymore. She shouldn’t take it out on the team, though, and she knows it. Hopefully they understand, and won’t hold it against her. Maybe getting herself a win will raise her spirits.

She has the extra mobile scanner that Ramses left in his hotel room. He didn’t have time to write up a manual, and the data burst he was able to send from the time bubble he and Mateo are presently trapped in didn’t say much about it. Even so, it seems pretty self-explanatory. Marie was able to adapt it to a tripod, and place it next to her other surveillance equipment. She doesn’t know which unit in the apartment complex is housing the target, but they’ll have to go through the front door at some point, and when they do, this thing should beep to let her know. It starts to beep. The scanner doesn’t communicate with the digital scope, of course, so she has to cross-reference the time codes to find who she’s looking for. Three people entered the building at about the same time, but two of them appeared to be together, and the scanner only caught one unusual brain. That’s not a guarantee, but it’s a safer bet. She pulls up the photo, runs downstairs from her surveillance nest, crosses the street, and enters the building.

“English?” she asks the lobby supervisor.

“Yes,” he replies. “But my shift is over. Divina will be out soon.”

Just as he’s saying that, the woman she was looking for steps out of the back office in her uniform. The scanner beeps. The two of them exchange a few words in Filipino, and then the man leaves. “Yes, can I help you?”

Marie isn’t prepared for this either. She doesn’t know what to say, so she just goes with the tried and true code words. “Yeah, thank you. Listen, I’m in the mood for some fish. Do you know of a good restaurant that serves salmon?”

The lobby supervisor starts to consult her computer. “There is a really great seafood  restaurant down the street, but I can pull up a comprehensive list for you.”

Hmm. That didn’t work. Marie holds up her scanner, which thankfully, doesn’t look like a weapon. Yeah, her brain is definitely unusual.

“I’m sorry, do you live here? We’re really only meant to help residents.”

“I’m a time traveler from the 19th century, trapped in your reality, hoping to find others like me. We have been looking for a way back home, but we don’t want to leave without first checking to see if anyone else would like to join. I believe you’re one of us.”

“Of course, ma’am. One moment, please.” She calls the authorities.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 19, 2398

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Vearden and Arcadia are sitting in the car together. It’s pretty cold out there, so it’s still running with the heat on full. They’re not talking, but it’s not awkward. It’s just that neither wants to interrupt the other, and they both feel like they’ll probably start talking at the same time, and make it awkward. So maybe it is a little awkward either way. Finally, Arcadia starts. “You have to pretend to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“I’m serious, abortion is very illegal here. The ultrasound tech, the receptionist—no one can get the sense that we would consider it in a trillion years.”

“I’m not considering it.”

“That’s good, very convincing. Say it just like that.”

“Arcadia, who are you arguing with; me...or yourself?”

“Vearden, I’m thousands of years old. I’ve never been able to have children; not that I would have wanted to with anyone for most of my life as I was surrounded by my family anyway. This is never going to work. You and me? No one was shipping us. No one even thought about it. Now here we are, pregnant out of wedlock—”

“They don’t care about that here, which is weird, given their backward ways.”

Arcadia looks over at Vearden with a frown.

He nods softly. “I want to raise this baby, and I want to raise it with you. I know that our respective backgrounds are complicated at best, but so it is for everyone we care about. Some of those people are here with us, and will be more than willing to help. You may not be used to people loving you like that, but you have it now. I believe they’ve forgiven you for Tribulation Island. I haven’t even heard whispers of locking you back up, have you? That’s pretty telling, if you ask me.”

That’s a good point. They let her out, and never so much as threatened to put her back. Forgiveness is a strong word, but maybe she’s on the road to one day becoming like her sister, Nerakali. Arcadia takes a deep breath. She’s ready to face this, or hopes that she is. She opens the door, only to pull it back immediately. “Drive.”

“What? Why? Vearden asks.

“Please just go, or you’re going to get Leona in trouble.”

He starts the car. As they’re driving off, he looks back. “Did you see someone?”

“I just saw people,” she explains, shaking her head. “I saw people who will very likely recognize Leona Matic after she killed an enemy combatant on national television yesterday. I can’t go in there, claiming to be pregnant, until I solidify my identity.”

“I thought you did have your own identity,” Vearden says.

“I technically do, or rather Leona Delaney did, which I just sort of absorbed when I took over her body. We never came up with a connection to Leona Matic, though. I’m obviously her twin sister, but were we separated at birth, or what? What’s the story there? We need to regroup.”

“Okay, I agree, but as you said, Leona is going through something right now, and Winona is with her. Mateo and Ramses are still in that other dimension, Kivi is overseeing the prisoners, and Marie is trying to track down other possible time travelers. I don’t think Alyssa can help, so who could we reach out to?”

“Well, I’ve got one idea.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 18, 2398

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Leona pulls up to the building, and checks the text message again. Yes, this is the right address. It’s a news station; cable news, it appears. She’s sure she should recognize it—it’s probably really famous—but she’s found it hard to stomach these people’s ideas of journalistic integrity. Why would Winona summon her here? This is fishy. Ah, she may as well go in and check it out. It’s not an abandoned warehouse, after all, so if it’s another blacksite, there sure are a lot of cars in the parking lot. She gets out, and enters through the front door. The desk attendant asks for her name, and when she gives it, he hands her a badge. It already has her face on it. Maybe it is a government building, and the news station thing is just a front. He pulls out a map of the interior, and draws a pathway from this location to the greenroom, where she’s apparently supposed to go. She badges herself in, and heads off.

Winona is sitting on a couch in the greenroom, tapping on her phone. She holds one finger up, and keeps tapping with the other hand. She smiles up at Leona when she’s done. “Thank you for coming. Welcome to New York.”

“Why am I here, Honeycutt?”

Winona puts her phone away. “The day we launched the ship, did you launch something else? Or was there a payload in our rocket that we weren’t told about? I’m not mad, I just need to know before I go on.”

“Go on what?”

Winona doesn’t answer.

“You’re going on TV.”

“Someone has to answer for the launch. I’ve been on my damage control tour. Again, I’m not mad. We were going to send that thing into space sooner or later, we just weren’t planning on having Miss Walton or the kids on board. This particular show is particularly important, because of the other guest.”

“Who is the other guest?”

“The lead engineer for the Snowglobe Collective.” So the sinister organization exists in this reality too. That could mean that someone is purposely matching history, like with the War Memorial, or it’s actually the same company that spans multiple realities. “Well, he’s not really the lead engineer. He’s more the mouthpiece, but he’s going to use science to show how irresponsible we were.”

“They’re the ones who own the satellite,” Leona guesses.

“So you did launch something else? Did you attack the satellite on purpose? Were you targeting them?”

“It was a coincidence that had nothing to do with them,” Leona tries to explain. “We needed to orbit Earth to find Meredarchos and Erlendr. We didn’t have time to build and launch our own so Mateo...”

“So Mateo what?” Winona prods.

“He teleported up there.”

Winona nods. “Because of course you people can breathe in space.”

“It’s complicated.”

She sighs. “It always is.” She removes a holstered gun from her bag, and hands it to Leona. “Here’s your sidearm.”

“Mine?”

She jiggles the gun. “Yeah, you’re my bodyguard.”

“Since when?” Leona questions.

“Since that’s how I got you into the station. Don’t worry, it’s not just a cover. I need you to actually protect me. This is a crime hole.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a special place where certain crimes are legal as long as they’re justified in the eyes of the entity that dug the hole, i.e. the guy who owns it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The mouthpiece out there. We’re going to have a debate. If I lose, has the right to kill me. You cost his company hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue from their research investment.” There’s that high inflation again.

“You brought me here knowing that I would be trapped.”

“If I win, you can kill him.”

“I don’t want to kill him.”

“You won’t have to. It’ll be our prerogative. You’re my champion. He has his own, who I’m sure is not as good as you.”

Leona turns away from the gun. “I’m not trained on firearms.”

Winona reaches into her jacket, and pulls a stick from her breast pocket. She swings it down to telescope it open.

Leona rolls her eyes, and takes it from her. “That’ll work.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there a lawbook, or something here?”

Winona beams a file to her device. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m going to send it to my loophole expert.”

When called, the two of them leave the greenroom. Leona watches from side stage as Winona takes her place on one side of a table. A well-dressed man sits down on the other, while the host, Solomon Powers sits at the head. He gives his opening spiel to the audience, and then prompts the debate.

The lead engineer, a Mr. Jacey Plaskett throws a graphic to the space above his shoulder, not just in chroma key, but as a hologram. “What you’re looking at here is the last known location of our research satellite before it was attacked on the tenth of October. As you can see, at 17:56, the satellite begins a decaying orbit. It should have been able to stay up there for three years, which would be more than enough time for us to course correct, but roughly 36 hours later, we lost contact with it entirely. Not even the world’s greatest orbital tracker has any idea where it is. In between the time of the mysterious attacked, and the loss of signal, that woman right across from me launched an unsanctioned, unworthy, un-American fusion-powered rocketship from the weirdest longitudinal parallel imaginable in Kansas!”

“It’s in Missouri, actually. And how was it un-American?” Winona questions him.

“We have reason to believe that you employed scientists from Croatia.” He says that word with such disdain. “I can’t think of a country worse than it, besides the other baby-killing nations.”

“We’re not here to debate the morality of medical abortions,” the host reasons. “Please keep your remarks on topic.”

“Sorry about that, Solo. Thank you for your understanding.” Jacey turns his attention back to Winona. “What was your explanation for the launch again? You were testing fusion motion endurance?”

“That’s right,” Winona replies.

“What do you have to say about the timing?”

“It’s a coincidence. Our rocket was nowhere near your satellite at any time.”

“Right, and where is it now?”

This is all putting the team at risk. They’re at fault, but not for the reasons everyone thinks. Admitting responsibility would open the door for the authorities and the public to ask questions that neither Winona, nor the rest of the SD6, want to answer. The team doesn’t want that either. “That’s confidential.” It’s all she can say.

“Of course it is.”

“Let’s take a look at the Scales of Truth!” Solomon interjects. A curtain behind him slides open. The scale is pretty much to the table on Jacey’s side. “Oh, it’s not looking good for you, Miss Honeycutt.”

Leona’s phone dings. After she reads Kivi’s message, she steps into frame, wielding her telescopic stick, shocking all. “I challenge for control of the Microsovereignty.”

The audience gasps and Solomon smiles. “Listen, Little Miss—”

“What did you just call me?”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”

“You don’t need to know my name, you just need to take off your jacket, and come down here for a fight.”

He’s still in shock. “A challenge for sovereignty entails a fight to the death.”

“I can choose to show you mercy when you’re on the floor and unconscious.”

“I don’t think you know who I am. I didn’t get to my position by being a little pussy cat. I earned it through strength and mercilessness. You’re not going to beat me, I don’t care how long your stick is.”

Leona lifts the stick up a little, and looks down at it. Then she throws it to the side. “Then I’ll do it with my bare hands.”

Everyone laughs, except for Winona, who knows what she can do. “Solomon, don’t take the bait. All she wants is for you to unilaterally rule in my favor. But rest assured, she will beat you, and you will lose everything.”

Solomon keeps staring at Leona for a moment, then looks over at Winona. His face hardens, and he starts to remove his jacket. This is a man who does not operate by silly things, like honor or morality. He likes to keep score, and there is no greater threat to his winning streak than a challenge that he doesn’t accept. He’s the kind of guy who would follow the old saying that goes, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, even though any reasonable person would realize that the chances are actually zero percent. He rolls up his sleeves as he’s dramatically walking down the steps.

Leona leaves her rental in the lot. Winona drives them both back to the airport, where they’ll board a flight to Kansas City. “Did you know I would do that?”

Winona gulps. “I wasn’t aware of that loophole. I was just hoping you would beat his champion in combat. If you had, I would have gotten a second chance at the debate.”

“That wouldn’t have been enough.”

“I realize that now. I’m sorry,” Winona says after a beat. “The first time is hard.”

Leona lets her forehead bounce against the rattling window. “That wasn’t the first time I killed,” Leona contradicts. “It’s not even the first time I did it to gain control over something that I didn’t want. It’s just the first time I didn’t do it on purpose.”