The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 8, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Ramses and Mateo decided to not talk to each other too much for fear of disturbing the timeline, which feels more fragile than the ones in other realities. Ramses is grateful to know that his best friend is safe...for now, but worried more than ever for Leona. He can’t help either of them right now. He has his own problems to deal with. Erlendr initially declined his offer to loan him Leona Reaver’s body so they can fake Leona Matic’s death to get the bounty off her head. As promised, Ramses let him stay in Bhulan’s field of daisies simulation in the Insulator of Life anyway. The next day, Erlendr called to say that he had changed his mind, and he would help them with their ruse. The next day after that, he called again to change his mind again. He’s been flip-flopping ever since, and it’s only now that Ramses has realized that it doesn’t matter what they do now. They can never trust the man to follow the script. Team Matic has turned a number of people to the light side over the ages, but Erlendr Preston will never be one of them. Some people are just broken, and they can’t be fixed, because too many pieces are missing. In his case, it’s any concept of selflessness.

“I’ll do it,” Alyssa says.

“You’ll do what?” Ramses questions.

“Transfer my mind to Reaver’s body. I’ll play the part that Erlendr was going to.”

Ramses brushes the idea away from himself. “You can’t do that, it’s too dangerous.”

“Are you saying I’m not capable? You were gonna trust that man, but not me? I’ve heard the stories.”

“It’s not that we trust him,” Ramses explains, “it’s that we don’t care what happens to him. If it doesn’t work, and that Reaver body is on its last life, it would be no great loss to the world. That’s not something I’m prepared to risk when it comes to someone I actually care about.”

“You care about Leona more,” Alyssa forthputs.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve known her a lot longer.”

Ramses winces. “Love isn’t measured on a sliding scale. You’re one of us, I thought we had already convinced you of this.”

“The danger she’s in is real. Someone is going to kill her, or Arcadia. It’s just a matter of time, in my opinion. I only might die if I do this. I’ll take those odds.”

“Like I said, I love you, but I’m the one who understands the odds. We still don’t know who placed the extraction mirror underneath Alt!Mateo and Leona Reaver. They may have always been trying to kill you, and have been waiting for you to do what you’re proposing the whole time. You’re still not accustomed to envisaging motivations that don’t exist yet...of people who may not even exist yet.”

“Everyone else has risked their lives to help each other. If you truly think of me as part of the group...” She places a hand on his thigh, “and you truly love me, you’ll let me help.” She slides her hand a couple of centimeters up, extinguishing all ambiguity.

He’s never going to agree to this. They’ll just have to find another way. This whole plan was never foolproof, nor inherently necessary. There’s every chance that, even if it goes off without a hitch, Leona and Arcadia will still be in danger. No need to put Alyssa in the same position. Ramses gently removes her hand from his leg. “It’s hard to calculate how much older I am than you.”

She leans in. “I’m sorry, I stopped listening after you said that you were hard.”

“Not what I meant, just like I didn’t mean it that way when I said I love you.”

“I’m almost twenty-two. Where I’m from, when you turn nineteen, there’s no maximum age for your chosen partner.”

“Where I’m from, there is. I think of you as a little sister.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Look—”

“Perfect,” Alyssa interrupts. “Now you’re gonna condescend to me.”

“Look around, Lyss. We’re the only two people left. Angela’s on a spaceship with your brothers, Leona and Marie are missing, Mateo is in another reality. Arcadia and Vearden are...ya know, not really part of this anyway. I don’t even wanna talk about Cheyenne. We’re both feeling lonely, I’m sure, but I’ve seen this happen before, in another life. These sorts of relationships that are just about boredom and escapism don’t just not work out; they turn sour. If we were normal people, I might not think it’s that big of a deal, but we’re going to leave the Third Rail one day, and we could be stuck on a tiny spaceship together. Trust me, it’s not a good idea, age gap notwithstanding.”

“I’m not asking for a boyfriend,” Alyssa spits. “Jesus, get over yourself.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said get over yourself.”

“No, who’s Jesus?”

“It’s just an expression.”

“No, it’s not, he’s a real person from history, but as far as I know, not your history. Why would that be an expression in this timeline?”

“I dunno, man, I’m not a linguist. Stop trying to change the subject. This isn’t one of your crazy time travel mysteries. If you’re not going to let me help you protect Leona, then we need to focus on coming up with a new plan.”

“No, this is the only thing that matters right now. If you really wanna help, I need you to get into that containment chamber, and stand in the center.”

“Are you going to hurt me?” she asks.

“Only if you refuse. Alyssa would not refuse.”

“I am Alyssa.”

“Great!” He nods at her, because she already has her orders.

Confused, she steps up into the chamber, and waits as he closes the door, then goes over to fiddle with his gizmos. “Are you seeing anything?”

“Don’t move, please,” he requests. He engages the scan, and watches the data. She looks mostly like herself, but not entirely. There’s something wrong with her brain, and in all likelihood, his own as well. He grabs his phone, and dials Arcadia. When she answers, he utters the emergency code, “media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages, and online magazine racks.”

“Get in the chamber,” Arcadia demands. “I’m on my way.”

“What the hell is wrong?” Alyssa asks Ramses after he steps into the chamber with her, and commands the lab to go into lockdown.

“Your mind is infected with psychic energy, most likely Erlendr’s. I’ve been in the Insulator more than you; I must assume I’m infected too. Don’t worry, help is coming.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 7, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Mateo and Rail!Danica follow Quadrant!Danica out of the time machine room, and down to the main floor of the Constant. He makes a mental note of the path so he can get back to it later, in any reality. He has no idea how he could have missed it while he was exploring the Third Rail version of it, but it all seems to have worked out. He’s closer to getting back his family than ever, and it shouldn’t be long now.

The master sitting room is in the exact same place as the other one, but it’s been decorated differently. It would seem that each Danica can put their own spin on things here, and since they apparently come from different timeline, their tastes can vary widely. “Wow, look at all this seating!” Mateo repeats the joke he made last time, which no one was around to hear. Neither of them gets the reference, which is reasonable. He and Rail!Danica take their seats while Quadrant!Danica prepares their tea at the bar. “I’ve always wondered,” Mateo begins, “why you have to make your own tea, and why there are light switches when it could easily be controlled by voice, or something.”

“This facility is one of the most advanced in histories,” Quadrant!Danica starts to respond. “It was designed by an intelligence hundreds of thousands of years from now. Everything could be automated, it never degrades, and it’s virtually indestructible. But it’s not designed for people hundreds of thousands of years from now. It’s designed for people today, and people that lived centuries ago. They might not understand how a lightbulb works, but when you tell them that the magical candle starts burning when they flip the switch, they can at least wrap their heads around the idea of moving something to make something happen. If you tell them they have to pray to an energy god they’ve never heard of called electricity, well that’s...that’s unbearable for some.”

“I met an energy god once,” Mateo muses. “He didn’t ask me to pray to him.”

Neither of the Danicas is sure what to think of his claim that he met a god. “Anyway,” Quadrant!Danica continues. “I make the tea by hand, because I’m bored enough down here alone, I don’t need to be efficient or lazy on top of it.”

Mateo nods. “I see. Well, I don’t know whether to apologize for the intrusion, or say you’re welcome for the company.”

Quadrant!Danica smirks. “I don’t have visitors. Literally no one else has ever been down here before. I appreciate the...intrusion.”

“Why stay?” Rail!Danica asks her. “If you know there aren’t any time travelers to assist. I mean, they don’t even know you’re here. You’re underwater, and insulated against all means of detection.”

“It didn’t even occur to me and my team to look for you,” Mateo adds.

“Where would I go?” Quadrant!Danica poses. “This is my home.”

That’s a nice place for a sequitur. “Speaking of homes, I was hoping to get back to mine.” Mateo looks up at the calendar, confirming that it’s December 7, 2398. “I’ve only been away for a few weeks, I would rather just skip that time with my friends than go back to early Earth and wait it out in stasis. Are you capable of moving between realities?”

“I’m not,” Quadrant!Danica says apologetically. “The designers didn’t take parallel realities into account. As far as they knew, each new timeline would supplant the last, making crossovers pointless.”

Mateo frowns.

“I can help you reach out to your people, though,” Quadrant!Danica goes on. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the residents of this world, and when I noticed that they made contact with the Third Rail, I co-opted the interdimensional communication technology that your friend, Ramses created for myself. I’ve been monitoring the chatter, though I have never engaged.”

“That would be lovely,” Mateo says before turning to face Rail!Danica. “That is, unless you don’t want me talking to anyone at all. I’ve noticed you haven’t tried to stuff me into a stasis pod lately, are you feeling all right?”

Rail!Danica rolls her eyes, and ignores him. “Would you grant me access to your office, so I can read the manual on the time machine?” she asks her alternate self. She glares at Mateo. “Somebody broke ours, and I’ve not yet taken the time to study it.”

Quadrant!Danica closes her eyes, and motions towards the door. “You know where it is. But your tea is almost ready.”

“I’m not thirsty,” Rail!Danica says. She leaves the room in a slight huff.

“I take it you two don’t get along,” Quadrant!Danica points out.

“Do you know anything about what the Third Rail is, and why it’s so different?”

The kettle starts to scream. “I have a vague understanding, based on the interdimensional chatter, but I’ve otherwise always been pretty cut off here.

“Well, I won’t speak out of turn, but she’s very controlling and withholding. For the version of you who’s most involved in the affairs of surface people, she sure is unwilling to help.”

“I’m sure she has her reasons. If you were in stasis you probably didn’t see them.”

“I’m her cousin...or...sort of. I hope you at least know that you can talk to me.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. Try to give her a break,” she says as she’s pouring the water. “This is a tough life for all of us, and we’re not given a choice.”

“The first version of Danica I met was very specifically given a choice by The Delegator. There were Stonehenge portals, and everything.”

Quadrant!Danica’s face turns serious. “That was no choice at all. She looks at the walls and ceiling. “All roads lead here. That’s something I think you should know, even if she doesn’t want you to.” She lightens up a bit. “Now, about that phone call.”

Mateo is able to reach out to Ramses, who is relieved to hear his voice. They exchange brief stories about what’s been happening. Ramses and Alyssa wanted to insert Erlendr’s mind into Leona Reaver’s body to fake Leona Matic’s death, but he ultimately declined the offer. They don’t know what they’re going to do now. As for Mateo’s wife, Leona; she went to Lebanon to find him, and since Marie has been missing for the same amount of time, they suspect that she stowed away on the Bridgette. There is no sign of them anywhere, but a spike in temporal energy under the surface of Danica Lake suggests that they went somewhere. If she’s back there then that’s where Mateo needs to be. There’s no way through the dimensional barrier anyway. Ramses wanted to tackle that issue, but the Traversa Bracelet has since been destroyed, and it kind of had to fall down on his list of priorities. Now the real problem is getting back to the past.

Rail!Danica comes back into the room. “I’ve figured out how to get us back.”

“How?” Mateo asks.

Rail!Danica looks at her watch. “All we have to do is wait. After 24 hours, the machine is going to pull us back automatically. It was designed for short recon trips, not permanent travel. I think I’ll have that tea now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 62,398

« < » > Table of Contents

When Mateo went back inside, and rode the elevator back down to the Constant, he found himself once again alone. Danica had apparently come out of stasis long enough to recall him, but didn’t want to stick around for any longer. That was ten thousand years ago, and Mateo has come out of his own stasis, determined to get her alone, so they can have a real conversation.

“Constance, what is the location of Danica Matic?”

“Unable to convey that information,” she replies.

“What is the location of anyone else in this facility?”

“Unable to convey that information,” she repeats.

Perhaps he ought to go about this a different way. “What is the location of the greatest current power draw?”

Constance pretends to sigh. “That would normally not be that much of a problem to answer, but I’m not an idiot; I know what you’re going to do with that information.”

“Constance, please alert Danica to my request for an audience.”

“She knows. She’s declined.”

It’s time for Plan Z. Mateo starts to teleport all over the place, kind of like how he was planning to evade capture when he first woke up, except now he’s trying to get people’s attention. If they truly don’t trust him, they can come out and prove it. He doesn’t just jump from one room to another, though. He goes into the swimming pool pump room, and starts draining all the water. He goes into the gym, and wraps tape over the bleacher controls, so the engines don’t stop turning even once the bleachers are good and extended. He goes to the master sitting room, and just drops books onto the floor.

“None of this is going to work,” Constance claims.

“Well, if you have any better ideas, I would love to hear them.”

Constance waits to respond. “Try this.”

Mateo suddenly finds himself in an area of the Constant he has never seen before. He doesn’t even know what level he’s on right now. Before him is only one room. He opens the double doors to find what he can only assume to be, “a time machine.”

“That’s right.”

“Can this get me back to my time period?”

“It can only take you across its own timeline. I am not cognizant of the temporal limitation, but as I understand it, it doesn’t exist that far into the future.”

“What’s the point of me trying, then? A billion years from now, three billion years from now, I would still need stasis to make it the rest of the way.”

“You won’t actually be using it. You’re just trying to get your cousin’s attention, correct?” Constance asks.

“Good point. Thanks for your help.”

“I didn’t help you at all, I’m forbidden.”

“In that case, screw you, I found this place all on my own.”

Constance doesn’t give him any more guidance, for her own protection. He spends a little time examining the machine. He has to figure out how to activate it without accidentally sending himself to some other time. He was never one of those drivers who could repair his own car. He tried changing the oil once, but didn’t care for it, so he started treating the process of going to the mechanic as a business expense. Still, he’s learned a few things about fuses and wires, and he believes he’s found a solution. This switch right here is blocking the time machine from getting power from the wall, because it’s not in use. All he should have to do is close the circuit, and hopefully that’s enough to set off all kinds of alarms. It’s dormant for a reason, because it goes against Danica’s decrees, of which the no time travel thing is the only one he’s heard so far. Why they didn’t take this whole thing apart upon agreeing to these rules is presently low on his list of questions for her.

There, it’s on, and making a noise. He stands back in case the transport field can extend beyond the confines of the chamber, and waits. After about a minute, he does hear alarms, so he continues to wait for a response. Finally, Danica herself teleports into the room with an angry expression on her face. By now, the sound of the time machine operating has increased. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouts.

“I’m just trying to have a conversation!” he shouts back.

“With whom, Benjamin Franklin!”

“With you! You keep avoiding me!”

“What?” Now it’s too loud for them to hear. It doesn’t sound like it’s that great of a time machine, that’s for sure.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

She shouts something intelligible.

“It’s hard to nardle bardle zouz with all these marbles in my mouth!” Not really what’s happening here, but Mateo makes himself laugh anyway.

She yells something at him again, but he still can’t understand her.

“I’ll go turn it off!” he cries. He goes back to the switch, but it won’t budge. Yeah, he really shouldn’t have turned it on. Constance was wrong about this being a good idea. He tries to get some leverage with his foot, but he still can’t get it to move.

Danica bends over, and places a finger on the switch. She twists her wrist, and looks at him inquisitively. He nods back. She evidently doesn’t know how it works, but yes, turning it down should turn it off. She tries to move it herself, but can’t either. She takes a flashlight out of her back pocket, and starts trying to hit the switch with it. Strike one, strike two, strike three, and they’re gone in a flash.

The force is strong enough to knock them both on their asses, but not enough to knock them unconscious. When the energy recedes, they stand themselves up, and make sure each other is okay. The alarms are still going off, but nothing else has changed. Just then, someone else teleports into the room. After Mateo’s eyes adjust to the change in lighting, he can see more clearly who it is. It’s another Danica Matic, which is no big surprise. This is a time machine, after all.

“Report!” she demands.

“Danica Matic, Concierge to the Third Rail Constant, Day 56 of Year 62,398 after first activation Hadean.”

The other Danica loosens up. “Danica Matic, Concierge to the Fourth Quadrant, December 7, 2398 by standard advanced inhabitant phasing.”

“Well, you got your wish, Matt. You’re home.”

“Not quite.”

“Let’s go talk in the master sitting room,” Quadrant!Danica suggests. “I’ve been alone for so long.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 52,398

« < » > Table of Contents

The security room in the Constant has always been unlocked, which leads Mateo to believe that it’s only there for show. If any room needs to remain secure, it would be that one, so it’s probably just to make any intruder think that they have control. Today, he needs it, because he appears to be completely alone. He still doesn’t even know where the others hole themselves up in stasis. Surely someone is awake, though, right? Tamerlane even said that they don’t want him wandering around alone. He steps into the room, and approaches the microphone. He holds the button down, and taps on it. He can hear it out in the hallway, and other nearby rooms. “Hello? Is this thing on?”

No one responds.

“My mic sounds nice, check one!” he tests in a funny voice.

Still nothing.

“Okay, I’m gonna be in the master sitting room for the next ten minutes. If no one shows up by then, I’m gonna go exploring.” He pauses a moment. “I hope that’s okay.”

He sets the microphone back down, and walks down the hall to the master sitting room. He waits twenty minutes, actually, and no one shows up. So, true to his word, he leaves, and starts looking for something interesting to do. He ignores all the places he’s been to before, like the pools, and the gaming rooms. He wants to find something he’s never seen before. This is a big place, but how big is it?

Hmm. Not as big as he thought it might be. The Olympic-size pool and basketball court take up a lot of space, as does what looks like it’s supposed to be a go-kart track, but he can’t find any of the go-karts. He gets to thinking, though, that maybe he’s going about this the wrong way. He’s been trying to see how deep this facility goes, but he has no idea what it looks like on the surface in this time period. That’s where the real crazy stuff is going on, right? He’s imagining rivers of lava, and unending lightning storms all across the sky. There’s probably no way to see it, but he may as well go up to check. He has nothing better to do today until he figures out how to get back to his own time.

Mateo heads for the main elevator, and presses the call button, expecting it to just do nothing at all, but instead, it opens. He steps inside, and commands it to take him to the top floor. Again, he’s surprised when the elevator moves up for as long as it normally does, covering the entire kilometer distance. He’s in what looks like the little chapel outside of Lebanon, Kansas, but that shouldn’t exist for billions of years. Is this all a trick, or is this all real, and everything up to this point has been a trick? He goes to the window, and looks out, realizing upon closer inspection that they’re vacuum sealed, which the ones in the real chapel are not. It’s just a replica; a replica of something that does not yet exist. It will have to be destroyed anyway by the time humans begin to roam the world in this area, so what’s the point?

Outside is a wasteland, but there are no rivers of lava, nor lightning storms. It’s just barren and empty. There’s no dirt, nor even a sky. This world does not yet have an atmosphere. Right? That makes sense, right? Maybe that’s what she should be spending his extra time doing; studying astronomy and physics, so he doesn’t have to ask these questions. “Hey, Constance, are you there?”

“I’m here, Mr. Matic,” it replies.

“This world isn’t called Earth yet, so I’m going to take this opportunity to give it a name before anyone else does. Wadya think?”

“I think that this planet isn’t Earth, regardless of what you call it.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“As of yet, there is no planet Earth.”

“Explain.”

“In millions of years, the world we’re on will collide with its neighbor. The explosion will forge a new world, composed of parts from the two original celestial bodies. It will also result in the creation of the future Earth’s only significant natural satellite, which the world’s inhabitants will one day know as the moon, or Luna.”

“So, this is Earth, it’s just not done cookin’ yet.”

“No. Based on orbital patterns, and composite share of the resulting body, it is more accurate to say that the other planet is Earth.”

“So, does this one even have a name, if no one even knows it ever existed?”

“Scientists will one day hypothesize its existence, and name it Theia.”

“Theia,” Mateo echoes. “I like it.” He looks through the rest of the windows to get different perspectives. How weird to be on an alien world, yet still so close to home. He comes to the closet. “What is in here?” he asks himself. The AI doesn’t respond, because it knows that he’s about to open it anyway. Inside are vacuum suits. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Constance interprets this one as a real question. “I’m thinking that you should go back downstairs. You have seen enough of this. Best not to tempt fate.”

“Fate is fate; you can’t tempt it. It’s gon’ do what it’s gon’ do.”

“You know what I mean,” Constance argues, but still, it doesn’t do anything to stop him, though it absolutely could. It could lower the elevator on its own. It could alert Danica to the breach. It could even just lock the airlock, and not let him out, but it doesn’t, because it’s cool with it.

He steps into the suit, and let’s the automated robot hands on the door seal him up. Still, no one tries to stop him. He’s like Chris Pratt in Passengers, except this isn’t an accident, and if it were, this place would be designed to correct for it. Welp, anyway, it’s time to go outside and see what Theia looks like from the ground. “Wish me luck,” he asks Constance.

“I’ll be with you the whole time, even if it’s just to walk the suit back to base with your lifeless corpse still inside.” If it’s going to have an attitude like that, he should probably stop thinking of the AI as an it, and more of a her.

Mateo opens the hatch, and steps outside. He tries to hop around, but the gravity isn’t that low. He was on Mars once a long time ago, and it feels a bit like he remembers. He’s been outside of a ship in space a number of times, but it never gets old. He doesn’t go too far from the Constant, and Constance does stay in his ear the whole time. He just looks around a little, and kicks a few rocks. It sucks, being away from his friends and family, but this experience is certainly nothing to regret. Even assuming that all of the people in the Constant right now have also stepped outside for a walk, he can still count on one hand the number of people who have seen what he has. That’s pretty cool.

Danica’s voice comes through the earpiece, “you’ve had your fun. Come back in.”

“Be right there.” He starts to head that way. “And Danica...?”

“Yeah...?”

“I love you.”

Brief moment of silence. “I love you too.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 42,398

« < » > Table of Contents

Mateo’s stasis pod opens on its own again. It’s been ten thousand years, on the dot. “These people are nothing if not consistent,” he thinks to himself out loud. He steps out of the room to find Tamerlane sitting in a chair as if patiently waiting for Mateo to finish getting ready so they can go see a movie together. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hey, good morning.”

“Have you been awake long?”

“Just an hour,” he replies. “They don’t want you wandering around here alone, which makes sense, right? You’re just Danica’s cousin, who anyone who has ever glanced at the timeline can see almost always does the right thing.”

Mateo narrows his eyes at him. “Why are you buttering me up?”

Tamerlane chuckles. “Is that how it sounds? I apologize. It’s just frustrating to see them treat you this way. It wasn’t even this bad when Bhulan and I first showed up.”

“It wasn’t? What was it like?”

“Well, at first Danica threw us in hock, but we talked a little bit, and she soon decided that we weren’t bad news. We lived together for years before anyone started seriously thinking about doing something different in this reality than the main sequence. I mean, of course, we didn’t always know that it was a parallel reality. Danica figured that our respective arrivals were just something that was destined to happen. Only once we learned the truth did she decide to look into how things turned out for her counterparts. And that...”

“Broke her,” Mateo guessed.

“It broke her heart,” he corrected.

“I would sure like to talk with her, if she’s around,” Mateo requests.

“Our schedules have become incongruent. Your whole idea of shunting the unwanted temporal energy to a remote world was brilliant, but it changed how often we come in and out of our pods. I’m only here to keep you company for the day.”

Mateo holds back what would be an offensive grimace. A whole day with no one for company but Tamerlane Pryce? No, thank you. Even though he believes him when he says that he’s an alternate version, Mateo doesn’t see them becoming friends in any reality. They don’t have a lot in common, and that is okay. “If I ask you a question, can you promise to keep it just between the two of us?”

“Certainly.” No hesitation, or hint of sarcasm.

“Why do I need to come out of stasis at all? Is ten thousand years some kind of inherent limit, or what?”

“They thought you were just going to keep teleporting out of your pod anyway, and while teleportation doesn’t technically go against our no time travel rule, it’s close enough, and they would rather you just not do it at all. I see your concern. If you would like to keep coming out of stasis, I won’t say anything. If you want to be on a different schedule, I’m sure they would be more than willing to discuss.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t really matter when we’re talking billions of years.”

Tamerlane nods. He doesn’t push it when Mateo strongly suggests that he would prefer to be solo for the rest of the day. He seems to trust him more than Danica and Bhulan do. Maybe he really is a different Tamerlane Pryce.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 32,398

« < » > Table of Contents

Asier doesn’t come to retrieve Mateo after the next break from realtime. The stasis pod hatch opens on its own ten thousand years later, so Mateo steps out to head for the master sitting room. It’s empty, which he takes as an opportunity. Looking around to make sure that no one is spying on him, he creeps over to the globe, and opens it up. It’s empty too; the Omega Gyroscope has been removed from it.

“She knew she couldn’t trust you,” Bhulan reveals.

Mateo closes it back up without looking at her. “I just wanted to see it again.”

“Uhuh,” she says, not believing him. “It’s hers, you know. As long as the Gyroscope is in use, the user can do whatever they want with it, and no one can take it from them until the current objective has been fulfilled, or they give it freely.”

“It can’t be stolen, got it.” He steps away from it and sighs.

“I can be convinced not to tell her you came straight here to steal it.”

“I wasn’t stealing it, I was just going to borrow it.”

“For what purpose?”

“To get back to my family.”

Bhulan chuckles. “That thing can’t do that for you. I mean, technically it can, but not on its own. People seem to think that its power is limitless, but it’s not. It can alter the physical laws of the world that it is in. It can’t turn you into a bird, and it can’t send you forward in time. At best, it would give you the option of jumping through time, but you would have to figure out how to actually accomplish that on your own.”

“What if I asked it to alter the world so that psychically-powered wormholes capable of time travel open up when conceived up by someone who wants one?”

She smiles. “That’s creative, but you’re not psychic enough. It doesn’t alter people, I mean, not really. Like I said, it can’t turn you into a bird.”

“No birds, no psychics. Understood.”

“Anyway, we’re having a pool party today, if you wanna come. We can print you a swimsuit. I bet you’ve never worn one that fits perfectly.”

It seems weird to have a pool party with five people, three of which are related, but he follows her anyway. They’re in the short course pool today, instead of the Olympic-size one, and it is packed full of party-goers. Who the hell are these people? “Are they holograms, androids...?”

“Oh no, they’re real,” she claims. “Have you ever heard of Westfall?”

“So, they don’t even know where they are?”

“They think that this is a rich community’s disaster bunker.”

“Isn’t that what it actually is anyway?” Mateo suggests.

She just rolls her eyes. The three of them aren’t rich in the traditional sense, but they command all of this real estate, and all power is concentrated in them. They’re rich.

“Did you ask for them to come here?” he asks. “Spit it out,” he encourages when she hesitates to respond.

“It’s the Gyroscope. This is a glitch. Tamerlane thinks it has something to do with its user. He was actually the first Westfall victim to show up, and he just never left. Without them, there would be nothing to do here. Most of the time, when we’re not in stasis, it’s because alarms have reported that someone is here who shouldn’t be. One of us is then tasked with leaving the stasis chamber, and containing the intruder.”

“That’s why Danica is so freaked out, because the whole point is to prevent all this scifi stuff from being able to happen in this reality.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“But intruders like this don’t happen in the other realities, right?”

“Not to this annoying degree, no.” She gestures towards the kids laughing and screaming in the water, thinking they’re pulling one over on a wealthy snob.

“Maybe it’s wrong to think of it as a glitch. Maybe it’s more of a consequence. The Gyroscope is like a vacuum, sucking up all temporal energy, and pushing it away from the world, but that opens tears in whatever separates this universe from others. Things are supposed to go out only, but occasionally, something comes the wrong direction through these tears. I mean, maybe it’s even the temporal energy itself that’s doing it. If you were trying to suck out all the carbon, it would be fine, but what you’re doing is taking power away from us, and giving it to them, which they then use to sneak in.”

Bhulan slowly turns her face away from him in thought. “Hmm.”

“I don’t sound like an idiot?”

“Usually, yes, but that was surprisingly...not entirely ridiculous. What we need to do is move the temporal energy out of the world, and put it somewhere where we can contain it, where it can’t affect anyone. Like a...pocket dimension?”

“Or how about Durus?” Mateo offers. He’s not doing it to be nice. Durus is a rogue planet that is not very far away from Earth in celestial terms, and if he and his friends can get back to the AOC, it won’t take them long to make the journey. From there, the smart team members will surely be able to come up with a way out of the Third Rail, with virtually limitless power at their disposal.

“No, there are too many people there. Well, not in this reality, of course, but in others, and that would put them at risk of accidentally crossing over. One errant portal, and the system breaks down.”

That’s okay, it doesn’t have to be Durus. As long as Mateo knows where it is, they can get to it four and a half billion years from now. By then, these people will have tossed it to the back of their minds so they can focus on other issues. Once this new plan works, they’ll stop worrying about it, which will allow Mateo’s team to exploit it. “I suppose Dardius is out.” He doesn’t want them choosing it, because it’s too far away from here. The AOC can’t make it in a reasonable amount of time.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t wanna do that.” She looks over at him. “In fact, we wouldn’t want it to be anywhere where there are people. That includes you. You’re trying to trick me into telling you where we’ll end up sending the temporal energy.”

“I don’t understand the problem,” Mateo argues. “You want us to leave the Third Rail, we want to leave the Third Rail. To me, that sounds like our objectives are aligned, but you keep acting like I’m the frickin’ enemy.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Yeah, it’s way complicated, and I’m just a big ol’ dum-dum who couldn’t find his arms with his hands. Well, if I’m no longer needed, I think I’ll go take a nap. I haven’t slept in a long time, because the time jumps give me a huge case of FOMO.”

“Mateo...”

“No, it’s okay, I understand. Good luck with your little power vacuum.” Holy crap, power vacuum? Is it really that obvious? Did he just help himself realize where they end up dumping the temporal energy?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 22,398

« < » > Table of Contents

Mateo willingly returns to the stasis pod, but he’s once again brought out after only one second. When Asier opens the hatch, ten thousand more years have passed. No one was reportedly awake at the time, though there’s no way for Mateo to know whether that’s true or not. “Well, we do things a little differently than you,” Asier explains. “Time moves a little slower for us in our pods, and slower still in our joint stasis chamber. It’s still not as slow as time is moving for the rest of the universe, though. This allows us to decide when we want to be part of the group, and when we want to move off alone, while at the same time not being bored by watching the clock tick by as slowly as realtime. And now, you’re part of the group too.”

They have entered the library from before, which appears to be a hangout room for these people. Danica is there, along with Bhulan, and Tamerlane, and that’s it. It’s kind of a letdown, really, Mateo was hoping to see someone here that he didn’t already know was a part of this, so it could be a shock, and maybe explain a few things? Maybe Tristesse Ulinthra is hiding behind the couch? Or how about this, Leona’s birth mother is in the bathroom right now, and about to walk through the door behind them. He’ll just have to wait and see, there’s no inherent reason why everyone in The Constant right now is also awake. He just wishes he could have some kind of ally here to talk to. There are so few people, but there are two clear sides to the party, and he’s on one side alone. He feels out of place, which may be what others have felt when they encounter the team that he’s been on since it was only him and Leona. He’s always had to accept others, rather than be accepted, and truthfully, he doesn’t care for this side of things.

They noticed him at first, but are sort of ignoring him. Asier goes to grab himself a drink from the bar which seems weird for a library, but whatever. Mateo breathes, and works up the nerve to approach the triumvirate. “Matt,” Danica says with a nod.

“Dan,” he volleys awkwardly.

She sighs. “You and I never met.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that. We met, what was it, twenty thousand years ago?”

“No, I know, but I mean, you have history with your Danica. I’m not her. So you’re expecting me to take you in my arms, and tell you everything is going to be okay, but I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

Asier side steps over, and offers Mateo a cup of something. “You look like you could use this.”

Mateo continues to stare at his once-cousin while he takes the drink, and takes a sip. It’s just orange juice, no pulp. “I understand the concept of alternate selves.” He jerks his head to the door behind him. “I sleep next to another one of me.”

“Well, you’re not really sleeping—” Tamerlane starts to correct.

Mateo faces him. “No, no, no. You can shut the fuck up.” He turns back to Danica. “I understand that you do not feel as close to me as I do to you, but I would like you to consider something that you seem to have not realized yet.” He points to the crown moulding above them, as if that is specifically what he’s discussing. “This place, the Constant...is a glorified hotel. They even call you The Concierge. Your job is to take in guests, and make them feel relaxed, because people like me have really hard lives. Mine’s not even that bad, comparatively, and I recognize that. Just the same, I expect to be treated with respect. Whether I was technically invited, or not, what you don’t do when someone arrives at your doorstep—who you damn well know is not a threat to you—is throw them in a stasis pod for ten thousand years!”

Bhulan clears her throat, and instinctively shies from the raised voice.

Mateo breathes again. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can see that it’s a very touchy subject. If you really were my cousin, Future!You would have tried to reach out by now. And funny enough, if you had, I would never have come back here. But I can’t submit a complaint to the customer service department, because you haven’t done that yet. All I can ask is that while I’m here, you try to be patient with me. A parent does not angrily send their child to their room because they ask where babies come from, and the parent isn’t ready to go over that.” He’s starting to get angry himself again, and raising his voice. “Getting pissed at me for trying to get my family home is a bit absurd, if you ask me!” He looks back over at Tamerlane. “And I mean, this guy? I know he hasn’t done the whole afterlife simulation yet, but surely you know how that turns out!”

“I’m not who you think I am either,” Tamerlane says, seemingly a little afraid of being shut down again.

“You mean you’re an alternate?”

“My alt went back in time to create the timeline that had the simulation, and I was born in that timeline. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Mateo nods. “I apologize for snapping at you. I will...try to remember that, and treat you as someone I’ve only just now met. Rule Number Five: treat everyone you meet with respect, as they may unexpectedly return.” He downs the rest of his drink, and decides to walk away. The ball’s in Danica’s court now.

She picks it up. “Can I show you something?”

He turns back around, and closes his eyes gently while he bows slightly.

“Are you sure about this?” Bhulan questions.

“Unless you want to deliberately break The First Decree—which you must admit, would be quite a pathetic attempt at adhering to the Decrees—he’s going to be with us for quite a long time. I would prefer it if he stopped getting so angry at us.”

“We could always keep him in stasis the whole time.”

Danica ignores the suggestion. “It’s just over here.” She walks towards the rotating globe on the other counter.

Mateo plots an intercept course. “It’s quite nice, very detailed.”

Danica laughs, and splits the globe at the equator. The inside is hollow, as one would expect, but it’s not empty. A gyroscope is floating in the center, spinning around, and producing a scifi glow. It’s obviously the Omega Gyroscope, which can apparently manipulate reality to any and all degree.

“Quite nice, indeed,” Mateo emphasizes.

“This is what we’ve been protecting. We protect it so it can protect the timeline. No one is supposed to come here, to this reality. There is no time travel; that’s the First Decree. You being here flies in the face of everything the three of us discussed. There’s a weakness to the Gyroscope’s power, and you’re proof of that. That is why I’m so touchy, because it proves that everything I’m trying to do here will eventually become meaningless.”

“And your father? Is he proof of that too?”

Danica looks at Asier with a frown. “He was...an exception to the First Decree.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 12,398

« < » > Table of Contents

One second. That’s how long Mateo spends in the stasis pod that Danica forced him into. As soon as that door closes, he teleports out, and lands on the other side of it. To his left is Past!Mateo’s pod. This is the version of him that first came back here after falling down the main elevator shaft. He’s destined to remain here for the next few billion years until his team rescues him with a sledgehammer. For now, though, this room has not yet been sealed up with concrete and wood. He could walk right out that door, assuming it’s unlocked, but that may not be the best way to handle this. She obviously doesn’t want him wandering around The Constant unsupervised. He might learn a secret that she doesn’t want getting out. He has to be smart about this. He tries the door anyway, and finds that it is indeed locked from the outside, so that’s a no-go.

Mateo jumps around to loosen up his joints. He’s assuming that each section of the Constant has its own set of alarms. If he can teleport to each one of them in succession, he’ll be able to choose one at random, and hide out there while Danica is scrambling, searching through the rest. It’s not the most brilliant of plans, but that was never his strong suit. He doesn’t usually do well on his own, but he’s all he’s got right now, so there’s no point in dwelling on that. He starts going over the sections in his head one by one, formulating a route, when the handle turns, and the door opens. He peeks his head out, and looks around to the other side of it. There was someone there, but he doesn’t get the chance to see who. He catches a glimpse of a silhouette before it disappears, either teleporting or time traveling away. They’re either trying to help him or hurt him, but either way, they have more information than he does, so worrying about it isn’t going to do him any good. All he can do now is try to gain some kind of advantage that will prevent Danica from being able to just throw him away like garbage.

First off, he wants to find out where she is, and where there might be others lurking about this facility. Though, if there is anyone else here, they’re probably fully invited, and he’s the only lurker. He steps out of the stasis room, and immediately regrets it. His shoes are too loud. What are they designed for, tap dancing? After he closes the door behind him, he takes them off, and starts walking with them in his hand, but he doesn’t get far before changing his mind. He feels like a heroine in an action movie who had to go undercover at a fancy party where the villain is entertaining a bunch of freeloaders to hide the fact that he’s really there to host a black market auction in the wine cellar, and now it’s time for her to run and fight. He decides to tuck them away underneath the couch, and move on.

He slinks down the hallways, hugging the walls, and trying to avoid the cameras, but he didn’t exactly memorize their locations, and there probably aren’t any blindspots anyway. He just keeps going, and hopes that his presence doesn’t trigger the artificial intelligence to sound that alarm after all. He could probably breathe easy, because the person who let him out of the stasis room surely knows whether they would be a real issue or not. No one is in the kitchen, no one’s in Danica’s office. No one’s in the security room, or the small film screening room. There’s no one in this library-looking place that is apparently called the master sitting room. “Wow, look at all this seating!” he exclaims to himself. The gym looks empty, but it has lots of spots to hide, so he gets himself a better look to be sure. No, it’s clear. Man, this is a big place for only a few visitors at a time. Only one person is meant to work here, except for Danica’s current posse, which Mateo assumes consists of Bhulan, Aquila, and maybe Tamerlane Pryce and Dalton Hawke?

“Tryna get swole?” a voice asks from behind him.

Mateo turns around to find a man who he doesn’t recognize. “I’m just trying to get answers,” Mateo admits.

“Aren’t we all?”

Mateo sizes him up a little. “Report.”

The man smiles. “Asier Mendoza, father of The Concierge. Some people call me Corporal Mercy.”

“Never heard of ya. Danica never mentioned her father, and Daria never mentioned her baby daddy.”

Asier nods. “You were probably talking to the wrong version of Danica.”

“I thought there was only one.”

“It’s complicated when you’re the way that she is.”

“Is that why we’ve never met before?”

“I guess.”

That’s not surprising, when Mateo thinks about it more. This is not the Danica he knows and loves, and that’s the point. Nerakali was always trying to explain that alternate selves are not identical. The fact that everyone is unique isn't just something to teach your kids; she called it a metaphysical maxim. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Do to you? What do you think we are, monsters?”

“Honestly, I don’t know anymore. Danica can’t take five minutes to have a conversation with me before she either erases my memory, or throws me into stasis.”

“If your memory was erased, how do you know how long the conversation was?”

“Does it really matter if my memory is gone? It’s like it never happened anyway.”

“Good point,” Asier muses.

“Interpret my question however you please, I would still like an answer. What is going to happen, and how can I prevent you from putting me back into that stasis pod?”

“Stasis is a gift, Mateo. For you and me, it’s a way for us to skip time, and reach the future. For the others, it’s a way to avoid the boredom of the aeons.”

“I understand its value, but why did she force me into it without saying a word? She took my friend, Alyssa away, claiming that she was going to send her back to the future, but I don’t know if that’s the case. Why is she being so cagey?”

Asier considers his approach to this. He’s obviously not allowed to answer all of Mateo’s questions. “This version of my daughter has caught glimpses of the parallel realities, which most versions never see. Each one is only meant to be responsible for one reality, and are meant to fend for themselves. The insight she gained from this information has changed her. She’s decided to make this reality different. She’s decided to protect it in a way that all other Concierges were never asked to do. It was a hard decision to make, and she’s incredibly stressed out about it. I would kindly ask you to be patient with her while she figures out how to proceed. Can you do that for me?”

Mateo considers what’s been asked of him. “If I’m going to support her, then I’m going to need to speak with her personally. Can you promise me that?”

“She’s not scheduled to come back out of stasis for another ten thousand years.”

“Then I’ll be back in ten thousand years,” Mateo responds.

“Okay, then. I’ll escort you back to your pod.”