The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 26, 2398

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For the first time in a long time, the whole team is back together, heavy a few extra people. They all came into the city at about the same time, but they didn’t meet at the hotel suite, or the Lofts, or the condo. The government has a facility for this sort of thing already in the area. It’s a sanctuary for negotiations, where members of opposing sides can come together, and figure out how to solve their conflict nonviolently. It’s stocked with food, water, and other basic amenities, but it’s nothing fancy. There isn’t even a security system in place. That’s expected to be up to the guests, should they feel the need for it. In this case, they don’t, and they’re not even really dealing with enemies. They just need to ask a few people a few questions.

Marie flew in from Manila with a woman named Divina Tiongson. The latter called the authorities on the former. They took her in for some psychiatric care, which Marie actually felt was helpful and refreshing. Divina came to visit during her stay, and after some explanation on Marie’s part, admitted that while she doesn’t know anything about time travel, she has memories that are not her own. In a few cases, she can recall entire lifetimes that other people presumably experienced for real. She’s always believed that these visions meant that she was crazy, and never told anyone for that reason.

Bhulan agreed to follow Alyssa back from the site of Springfield, Kansas, but made no promises in regards to whatever questions the team might try to ask her. They probably can’t compel her to comply, but Fax!Mateo is a different story. The version of Mateo who came out of stasis months ago, and has been living here with his wife, knows what buttons to push. For one, Fax!Mateo will never be able to be with Leona, unless they can find some other version of her who would be interested in that, so that’s a weakness they should be able to exploit. He thought he was going to be able to get away in the Constant, but Ramses still had enough temporal energy in him to teleport to his location, and capture him. The reason they didn’t use it to get to Lebanon in the first place was because they needed to save it for their exit from the Facsimile. Fortunately, the Constant gave him just enough of a boost to transport all three of them back to Kansas City, where they exited the Salmonday Club with time to spare.

“Does she need to be here?” Fax!Mateo asks, in regards to Divina.

“You have a problem with her?” Leona asks him.

“Why are there two of you?” Fax!Mateo questions.

“Uh...I’m Arcadia, actually,” the other person wearing Leona’s face explains.

“Of course you are,” Fax!Mateo says.

“You need to turn your attitude off,” Mateo scolds.

“Forgive me for waking up in a world where my wife doesn’t love me, and I’ve missed out on months of my life. What makes you so special? When this Facsimile thing was created, why did I end up over there, and you managed to stay on the correct side?”

“You tell us,” Leona says. “You’re the one who remembers what happened in the Constant, however long ago in the past. Why were you in stasis at all?”

“I’m not saying a word,” Fax!Mateo insists. “It is far too early for that.” He can’t help but glance over at Bhulan.

“Just as I suspected,” Leona goes on. “You were there too, and your memory is intact as well. Tell us what’s going on here. Why don’t we have any time powers, or transhumanistic enhancements?”

“Who told you that my memory is intact?” Bhulan asks her.

“Oh, wouldn’t that just be super convenient,” Alyssa muses. She’s really embracing her new role on the team now.

“We have two psychics,” Leona warns her, pointing to both Arcadia and Kivi.

“I’m busy with another project with SD6,” Kivi says. “And to that, I can only stay a short while.”

“My baby is too far along,” Arcadia reveals. “The only thoughts I’ll be reading will be hers, and her mine. I can’t risk interfering with her development.”

“I didn’t know that’s how it worked,” Leona says to her.

“That’s what Dr. Hammer hypothesizes,” Arcadia adds. “There haven’t been many studies on the development of children from mothers with psychic abilities.”

“That’s fine,” Mateo says. “Bhulan is going to tell us what she knows because it’s the right thing to do, not because someone invades her mind.”

“Oh, you know me so well,” Bhulan says sarcastically.

Mateo reaches across the table towards her, but doesn’t touch her. “I don’t want you to become an enemy. I find it annoying every time that happens. The Anatol Klugman thing was heartbreaking.” He stands up, and starts pacing like this is his room, and they’re all his guests. He places both hands on Arcadia’s shoulders. “I much prefer accumulating friends.”

Bhulan pantomimes chewing gum, just because she’s uncomfortable sitting still. She’s a bit of a fidgeter. She doesn’t speak at first, but it’s clear that she’s about to, so everyone just waits patiently. “I can only tell you my story. I won’t say anything about anyone else, and I’ll be as vague as I must to protect their identities.”

“Very well,” Mateo agrees. “Its a start.”

“I was in the main sequence,” Bhulan begins, “when I found myself in the company of Horace Reaver, Serkan Demir, and Paige Turner. They were in possession of the hundemarke, and they wanted to destroy it. For those of you who don’t know, the hundemarke creates fixed moments in time. If activated, it will protect every event that occurs within its spatial bubble, no matter how much time travel tries to interfere with it. This means that it can’t be destroyed under normal circumstances. You can’t just throw it in the fire, and watch it burn. As soon as you let go, the hundemarke will deactivate, and that moment will have the potential to be changed. And with something so powerful and important, it will be changed. Someone will want to stop it from being destroyed, even if they’re born a trillion years from then.

“Therefore, if you want to destroy it, you have to destroy yourself along with it, so that it remains activated the entire time. You use the power of the object against itself, it’s the only way it’ll happen. So that’s what I did. I was a trespasser from an old timeline, and I decided that my sacrifice was worth it, and that I was worthy. I don’t know if what we believed about it was untrue, or if I was just the wrong person to try it, but my plan failed. I jumped into the fire, and landed in this reality, unburned.”

“In that parking lot,” Alyssa figures.

“No,” Leona says, shaking her head. “The parking lot didn’t exist yet.” She points at Bhulan knowingly. “You landed in The Constant. You were with Danica Matic.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that I was with The Concierge in the Constant.”

“That’s a yes,” Vearden claims. “That always means yes.”

“Forgive me,” Winona interjects, “but is this what’s most important right now? I have a prisoner in my custody who needs to be dealt with. If you can get him out of my universe, I would be fine with that, but I can’t be responsible for him forever.”

“I need to talk to everyone about that,” Kivi says. “Well...not everyone.”

That’s fair. They are not getting anywhere with these extra people around. The core group needs to peel off, and discuss things on their own. They all trust Winona by now, but she doesn’t need to be involved, so maybe she would agree to guard the others for them. Or maybe not guard them, but keep watch over them, so they don’t get lost in this five room building. “Is there somewhere we can go?” Leona asks her.

“Down the hall, to the left.” Winona stays seated, like she knows what Leona needs out of her.

Leona, Mateo, Ramses, Marie, Alyssa, Kivi, Vearden, and Arcadia leave the room, and go to the other conference. Arcadia doesn’t even hesitate, which is a big step for her. She’s learning. Leona waits a moment to speak. “We have a plan to kill Meredarchos and Erlendr. I won’t go through with it, though, if anyone here can come up with a good reason why we shouldn’t, besides the obvious fact that killing is a no-no.”

“Well, for one, Cheyenne is still alive,” Kivi finally tells them.

“Excuse me?” Leona asks.

“She’s in that victim’s body right now, along with the other two. She hides in his subconscious. I’ve been reaching out when I can, but the longer I stay in the triple mind, the easier it is for him to find me. That wouldn’t be a big deal, but if he finds me, he finds her, and I can’t let that happen. We have to get her out before we do anything else to that body, but I don’t know where she could go.”

“We still have Andile’s body on life support,” Ramses throws out there. “We have Leona Reaver’s body too, though we’re planning on getting rid of it, so I wouldn’t call that a good long-term strategy.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about trading bodies around like they’re cars. Has anyone considered the ethical ramifications of all of this?” Alyssa asks.

“Yes,” Leona answers. “History’s top ethicists debated it for centuries before it was possible, decades once it was, and continued to regulate it as necessary. No one takes this technology lightly. I appreciate and recognize your concern. Andile signed away her body to do with it what we need. I firmly believe that she would agree to donate it to Cheyenne in a heartbeat.”

“The last time we tried to use the Insulator of Life and Livewire in this way,” Ramses begins, “it didn’t go so well. We have to figure out how to get one consciousness out of a body shared by two others, and not accidentally pull in those other two.”

“That’s what Kivi is for,” Arcadia believes. “She’s already described performing head dives. Use her in tandem with the temporal objects.”

“Okay,” Leona says. “Assuming we succeed in that endeavor, I’ll ask again; is anyone opposed to executing the prisoner via intervening fate.”

Divina opens the door. “You won’t be killing him. Meredarchos is not on this world. He’s safe and sound in his own universe, reaching out psychically. That’s how he always does it. He doesn’t have the ability to travel the bulk physically.”

They all stare at her. Why did Winona let her leave?

Divina sighs, realizing that she has to start being honest. “All right, I may know a little more than I let on before.”

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.”