The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 10, 2399

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Ramses tethers the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to a small asteroid. It’s just within teleporter range of the Constant. It’s not the perfect quick getaway plan, but it’s better than letting himself and Alyssa be trapped in there with no hope. They don’t know who they’re going to find, or what their intentions will be. Once the ship is locked up and secure, they make the jump.

“Mr. Abdulrashid, it’s nice to meet you. Miss McIver, nice to see you again.” Danica holds out her hand as if greeting a couple of guests that she respects.

“We’ve never met,” Alyssa says.

“Oh, but we have.”

“You erased my memories, which means that—for all intents and purposes—it never happened. Your accounting of events is irrelevant to me.”

“I see my reputation has spread.”

“My mother would always say, your reputation starts with you.”

“Wise woman.”

“Dead woman; thanks to you, no doubt.”

“Why would you say that?”

“The causality chain is profoundly long, but everything that has ever happened in this reality started with you.”

“Is this the kind of stuff you’re teaching her?” Danica asks Ramses.

“She’s an independent human being. I taught her how to teleport, that’s it.”

“And how to use my illusion powers,” Alyssa reminds him.

“Right.”

“But that was in my old body,” Alyssa adds. “Perhaps you can shed some light on that too? Who is trying to murder my friend, Leona?”

“Contrary to what you’ve been...” Danica trails off, not wanting to repeat the word taught since it seems to be a sensitive subject for them. “...what you may have heard,” she amends, “I am not the god of this world. I don’t control everything.”

“You control enough,” Ramses contends.

“Is that why you came all the way out here?” she questions. “You just wanted to tilt at windmills?”

“You’re not imaginary; you are clearly very real.” Ramses takes a beat. “But no, we’re looking for answers, and for help.” He takes out his handheld device, and clears his throat. “Number one, how do we safely get Leona out of Leona Reaver’s body, and back into—?”

“How many questions do you have on your list?”

“At the moment, two hundred and sixteen.”

“Ye, my child, I will answer but one question per member of your party,” Danica teases in bad faith.

“Does my dick count as a separate member?” The look on Alyssa’s face, he can barely see it out of the corner of his eye. They did not rehearse that line.

Danica sighs like a teacher who hasn’t reached her tipping point yet. “You must be hungry and tired from your journey. Please follow me to the master sitting room.”

“We ate and slept on our ship,” Ramses explains.

“Surely you’re sick of Third Rail Earth food. When was the last time you were able to order literally anything you wanted from a molecular synthesizer?” Danica asks.

“Tantalizing us with food,” Ramses muses mockingly. “You know us so well, we’re eating like pandas down there.”

“What’s a panda?” Alyssa asks.

“I’ll tell you later,” he replies, still staring at Danica. “I’m winning a battle of wits right now.”

Danica smiles on the edge of a laugh. “You think you’re winning?”

“Show us who’s here,” Ramses demands.

“Is that the first of your two official questions?”

“I didn’t raise my inflection at the end of that sentence. Did it sound like a question? Do you want me to write it down for you?”

“Which of those two questions is your official question?”

Now Ramses is growing frustrated. “Show us who is here. Show us why Mateo is risking his life in a stasis pod in the middle of interplanetary space.”

Danica purses her lips. “Follow me.”

“Wait, we need to check on Angela first,” Alyssa realizes as they’re walking down the hallway.

“They’re both in the infirmary,” Danica tells them. She leads them away.

A man in a white lab coat is sitting next to one of the stasis pods. He stands up when he sees them come in. He’s nervous, and seemingly a little protective. When they get closer, they can see that he’s watching over Angela. “How is she?”

“Couldn’t tell ya,” the doctor says in a frustrated voice. “I don’t know how these machines work. She hasn’t moved a centimeter.”

“She’s frozen in time,” Danica has to explain for probably the upteenth time. “You’ll be staring at her for a long time if you want to see her move even a millimeter. Even then, I gave her a sedative, so she’s probably not even active within her own temporal reference frame.”

The doctor looks to Ramses, even though they don’t know each other. Ramses takes a look at Angela’s readings. “She looks fine.” He places a hand on the doctor’s back, and leans them both towards it. “Watch this number here. It’s the differential. Alert someone if it changes even a decimal point, as that could mean her time is starting to catch up with ours.”

He nods. “Okay.”

And see this soft pulsing light,” Ramses goes on. “It should stay green. If it starts to turn red, it means that the containment field is failing. Red, right?” he asks Danica.

“Is that your official question?” she asks again. That joke is getting old.

“Danica.”

“Mauve,” she corrects. “Mauve is a broken field. Watch for a blue or purple light.”

“Got it,” the doctor says gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Did you want to see my other patient, or what?” Danica asks.

“Ramses Abdulrashid.” He shakes the doctor’s hand. Then he jogs over to Danica while Alyssa introduces herself as well, having to take a moment to explain why she looks like Leona right now.

“Who is it?” Ramses asks. He’s looking at a very old stranger in his own pod, though it’s not stasis. He’s hooked up to advanced life support.

“Lucius Carlise.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s dying. He’s dying of old age. He made his way here too many decades ago.”

“Can’t you save him?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Danica responds. “I wasn’t given the kind of resources that I would like. The medicine and medical equipment, in particular, are severely lacking. I guess the builders of this place decided that it wasn’t my job to save people’s lives. That’s the responsibility of people like Doctors Sarka and Hammer.”

“He looks...old enough to pass away. Does he want you to save him?”

“I didn’t ask. He’s been unresponsive for weeks.”

“What’s so important about keeping him alive?” Ramses asks.

She bites her lower lip. “Is that your official—”

“Just answer the goddamn question, and stop it with the arbitrary rules,” Ramses interrupts, fed up with this bullshit.

“He’s a molecular teleporter.”

“I know that. He can tear you apart, sending individual molecules to different points in space and time. That doesn’t explain why you need him alive.”

“There are things that you don’t know,” she says, “about the future.”

“Then tell me. That wasn’t a question either.” He needs to be careful about those.

She really doesn’t want to answer, but she’s kind of giving him the impression that she needs him, or someone else on the team. “There’s a war coming. I tried to stop it, but I failed. I failed one hundred percent of the missions I ordered. Now the only way to save lives is...”

“Is to win this war?” Ramses figures.

“I don’t want to fight anyone.”

“Danica, this guy doesn’t fight. I mean, for a dude with such massive muscles, he sure doesn’t need them. How powerful is he? Could he destroy a planet without lifting a finger? A star system?”

“He could destroy a star system. It would have to be one celestial body at a time, but yeah. I don’t plan on using him.”

“He’s a deterrent, I get it. I’m from the main sequence too, remember? Our wars came with real risk of precipitating a nuclear holocaust. We didn’t have any religions telling us not to. But we moved past mutually assured destruction, and rose to a higher level of understanding. You were born in a more enlightened age, and you had the opportunity and power to make an even better world here. I was told that that’s exactly what you were trying to do, but now you tell me that you’re just gonna throw it away?”

“Like I said, I don’t want to kill anyone, but the Parallel is too powerful. We have no other defenses against them, because I’m not in control of the Omega Gyroscope. No one is. It’s been on autopilot for billions of years. He may be our only hope.”

“Wait, the Parallel? This is a war between realities?”

“Yes. That is what I witnessed.”

He looks back down at the half-dead Lucius. Ramses doesn’t know any version of him all that well, but there is no way he wants this. If her story is true, then he must have come here on purpose, and it was not to commit genocide. Nothing about how Mateo described him suggests he’s that violent. He probably came here knowing that his powers wouldn’t work. He looks back at a frowning Alyssa. “Do it.”

She nods, and lifts her watch up to her mouth. “Mateo...burst mode.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 9, 2399

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The AOC came this close to catching up with the Constant, and whatever is propelling it through space. It was moving away from its original coordinates at subfractional speeds, probably under the assumption that it would be able to hide itself away without using up too much power. Then, as soon as they detected Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa’s pursuit it switched the engines on to maximum, and started to stay ahead of them. This is where they have remained since yesterday, with pretty much no hope for the team to overtake them. There’s no way for them to gain an advantage. The reframe engine moves the ship faster than light, but it’s still inextricably linked to the light speed barrier. The Constant apparently has access to this technology, thanks to Pryce himself, no doubt. What they really need is a true faster-than-light drive, though to be fair, if they had that, so would likely the Constant. It’s kind of weird that they don’t, to be honest. Team Keshida figured it out, which means it’s possible, so why didn’t the builders of the facility from deep into the future include a propulsion drive in the original design? They supposedly had multiple contingencies for everything else.

“Is there anything we can do?” Alyssa asks.

“Not unless they falter,” Rames replies. He’s on edge, like a real spaceship captain, even though there’s nothing for him to do. Constance is handling everything.

“Well, if they’re going—as you said—ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine percent the speed of light, can we just tack on a seventh nine? Or hell, even a one would get us there eventually, right?”

“That’s not how it works,” Ramses tries to explain. There are no more decimal places. Adding even a one at the end would be close enough to the speed of light to break the laws of physics.”

“Don’t you break the laws of physics every day with your powers?”

“It’s my theory that all time travel is powered by vacuum energy, which—to simplify it greatly—operates at a level higher than the bounds of the universe, which means it does move faster than light. Our problem is that we don’t have the resources to truly harness its might. We have friends in the main sequence who cracked it, but their ship is gargantuan compared to ours, and I would need more time to study the technology if I wanted to replicate it.”

“Maybe there’s some other loophole?” Alyssa offers.

“There’s one,” Ramses says, “but it won’t work for us. We could theoretically teleport forwards while we’re still moving at reframe speeds, which will cover a little extra ground. Unfortunately, we’re too far from them. It would only have worked if we had caught up to within teleporter range before the max reframe chase began.”

Alyssa frowns, and looks down at the floor, hoping that her uneducated brain can come up with a solution that a super intelligent person wouldn’t think to try, because it’s just too simple. “When’s the last time you tried to call them?” she asks Mateo.

“Twenty minutes ago. They have their heart set on staying away from us.”

“Did you tell them that Leona isn’t here, so they don’t have to worry about her being able to take over?”

“They’re aware. My messages got through, they just aren’t responding anymore.”

Alyssa paces. “Why are they so afraid of us catching up? What did we do so wrong? I mean, I know you’ve had your issues, but from the sound of it, they’re using a lot of energy to keep us at bay.”

“Does seem irrational,” Ramses agrees. “We’re little threat to them.”

Alyssa narrows her eyes at Mateo. “Do you know who all is out there?”

“Besides everyone on the government rocket, Tamerlane, and Danica, anyone else could be there. The facility fits thousands, and could accommodate hundreds at least if they needed to spend the night.”

“Right.” She pauses. “Ramses, how many people have we still not yet found from your little brain scanner; the errors, I mean?”

“According to the last scan, there were three remaining errors. We just haven’t taken the time to look into them. Why?”

“These grave chambers,” she begins, “they can be jettisoned?”

“Umm...yeah. What are you getting at here?”

“She thinks there’s someone in the Constant who has been marked with the timonite,” Mateo finally realizes. “Danica doesn’t want me there, because I would make them disappear.”

“How would they have gotten up there?”

“I don’t know, but think about the math. There were eleven errors in total, including the guy from that other dimension, who didn’t always show up on the scans. Add him to Erlendr, Meredarchos-slash-Erlendr, the woman from Manila whose name I can’t remember, because we let her go...”

“Everest, Curtis, and Aquila-slash-Bhulan,” Ramses finishes. “There’s one missing. How could I have not noticed that?”

“You’ve been pretty busy,” Mateo comforts.

“Wait, did you ask about the grave chamber, because you want to jettison Mateo?” Ramses questions.

“Park him somewhere safe, and retrieve him later,” Alyssa suggests.

“That’s so dangerous,” Ramses argues. “We could get to the Constant, and then find ourselves being locked up in stasis for 10,000 years. The suspended animation tech we have in the grave chambers can’t last that long.”

“Leave him with your little remote thing,” Alyssa puts forth. “If we don’t return in X amount of time, he can replicate himself a new ship.”

“There’s not enough ambient temporal energy out here. The teleporter eats more than the reframe engine, but the reframe engine also requires antimatter, which is even more precious to us at the moment.”

“All the more reason we should stop fighting from behind, and try diplomacy again. It can’t hurt to ask,” Alyssa assumes.

“It can. Trust me, it can.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo volunteers.

“Matthew, you don’t have—”

“I said I’ll do it.” He slides the door to grave chamber four open. “Now show me how to jettison myself.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Ramses warns. “That may not be the issue, and even if it is, they may not accept the solution. Constance?”

“Attempting to contact the Constant...again.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 8, 2399

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Mateo kisses his wife on the cheek, then starts to walk away in slowmo. He has a vacuum suit helmet tucked under his arm, which means he teleported up to the AOC earlier to retrieve it, only so he could do this bit. They’re all astronauts here, nobody is impressed, nor is it that funny. Still, once he passes under an overhead light, he switches it on using the app on his phone. Just at the right time, he teleports again, as if being beamed up by Scotty. What exactly is he parodying here? Ramses and Alyssa roll their eyes, but they too give Leona kisses, then teleport away. Alyssa has spent the last couple of days practicing, so she was both excited and nervous to try it in the field.

“Engage,” Mateo orders as soon as they appear.

“Constance, lay in a course for Phoenix 15-236P7,” Ramses plays along, though out of order.

“Directions unclear. Please repeat request,” Constance replies. She waits a beat. “Just kidding. AI got jokes too.” She waits another beat. “Initiating quarter-speed burst mode, AU level.” The ship lurches, and teleports. A few seconds later, it teleports again.

“What does that mean, quarter-speed?” Mateo asks.

“Our ship is fragile, I don’t feel comfortable pushing it too hard for such a long journey. Instead of one jump every second, it will take one every four seconds. It will take us seventeen hours to get to our destination, but we’ll be alive when we do.”

“So, what do we do in the meantime?” Alyssa asks.

“I’m going to check every single system on this vessel, and then I’m going to go to bed,” Ramses answers. “You can skip the first thing, and just do the second.” He heads down to the engineering section.

“We could...” Mateo begins.

“I don’t feel like playing RPF Plus 101 right now, Mateo,” Alyssa interrupts.

“It’s RPS-1o1 Plus.”

“That neither.”

This may not be good. Being on his own with nothing to do generally doesn’t go as he expects. He’s liable to find a young woman living alone in here somewhere, or stumble across a lewisian portal to another reality that never works again. But if Alyssa doesn’t want to play the only good game they have saved on the computer, then he’ll have to figure something else out. He climbs the steps up to the top section, and opens the hatch to the airlock. “Okay, how does this thing work?”

“I can turn it on for you,” Constance offers. The hologram projectors switch on, and display a screensaver of swirling colors in the middle of the room.

“Hey, thanks. Is this just for calls, or can you show me other things?”

“Like what?”

“Like where we’re going?”

An image of mostly empty space appears, evidently showing the region of the Oort Cloud where they’ll be going to search for the Constant. He can see little tiny specks that must be the asteroids—or whatever—that are floating around, each one their potential target. One of these things is not like the others. It’s stationary while everything else is moving. They’re not moving fast as seen from afar, though, which is why the AI needs to gather and analyze the data. It could take as much time as it will to get there. Hm. Still bored. “Call Leona.”

“Calling Leona.” The asteroids disappear, and the screensaver returns. The colors shudder in sync with the sounds of a ringing phone.

An image of Marie appears in the room. “Hello?”

“Hey, is she there?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I just miss her.”

“It’s been less than five minutes,” Marie chastised.

“It’s so boring up here!”

“Goodbye, Mateo. Good luck.”

He growls as the hologram disappears completely. “Constance. You got any other tricks up your sleeves? Maybe a time bubble generator that will make the time go faster?”

“I don’t have that, but your grave chamber doubles as a stasis pod. You could just hook yourself up to that, and go to sleep until the journey is over. That’s what Alyssa is doing right now.”

“That’s a good idea.” Mateo starts to head back downstairs.

The sound of the phone rings again. “Incoming call,” Constance announces.

“I guess Lee-Lee got my message, and wasn’t happy that Marie hung up on me. Go ahead and answer, please.”

It’s not Leona who appears in the room, though. It’s not even Marie. It’s Magnus Petra Burgundy from the underground rocket research lab. “Oh my God, it actually worked. Hi, hello, Mister Matic. Can you hear me okay?”

“Hello, Magnus Burgundy,” Mateo replies. “I can hear you fine. Where are you?”

She looks around nervously. “I’m in the Constant.”

“Really?” he questions. “You were going in the opposite direction.”

“No, you’re going in the opposite direction. Magnus Pryce thinks that you were passed bad information to throw you off the trail.”

“Magnus Pryce? Are we talking Tamerlane, or Abigail?”

“Tamerlane. I don’t know an Abigail.”

“Why does he want us to find the Constant?”

“He says that Leona is the only one who can take over. I’m not supposed to be talking to you, but he’s keeping Danica busy.”

“Where is Angela? She is supposed to be in hypertime. If you’ve stopped...”

“She’s in stasis. Danica knows what’s going on with all that.”

“Okay, we haven’t gone very far the wrong way,” Mateo says. “Tell me where you are. My AI can hear you, so use whatever technobabble you need to specify.”

“Constance, end transmission,” Danica’s voice comes in off-screen.

“Constance, full stop!” Mateo orders just after the image disappears.

“Terminating burst mode.”

“Please tell me that you were—”

“I was able to trace the call, but there’s a problem.”

“Let me guess, the signal was fading, which means that they’re on the run.”

“That would be my best hypothesis, yes.”

Ramses starts to climb up the ladder. “I was watching on the screen, but did not interject. Constance, could you—”

“Engage the reframe engine?” Constance figures. “Initiating now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 7, 2399

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Petra is standing over Angela’s bed, watching her chest move up and down under the covers. The monitor indicates that she’s still alive too, though she’s not a doctor, which is why she needed more accessible confirmation. “She asked for this.”

“Yes,” the doctor repeats himself.

“Why would she do that?”

“She claimed that she’s not allowed to urinate.”

She looks over at him. “She didn’t explain why?”

“Sir, you instructed me to accommodate them. I didn’t ask too many questions.”

“I told you to give them what they wanted, not to just ignore your ethical obligations. You should have pressed her.”

“There was an apparent sensitivity of time.”

“So sensitive that you couldn’t have called me in first?”

“Those were not my instructions.”

Petra sighs, and takes a beat. “Is she safe like this?”

“It’s three more hours,” the doctor says. “I have nothing else to do but sit and watch her.”

“Good, do that. Literally don’t take your eyes off her. You’re not allowed to pee either.” She leaves the infirmary, and heads for the bridge. Today is a big day. It’s the turn around. Normal physics says that the faster you’re moving, the harder it is to change direction, and the longer it takes. They ought to be making a ginormous arc around the solar system, but the technology they’re using is decades beyond the need for that, if not longer. Leona Matic gave them more than just a fusion engine. She gave them instant acceleration.

The issue with traveling at fractional speeds—that is, speeds above ten percent of lightspeed—is that it takes an incredibly long time to start moving that fast. It’s not the engines themselves that are the only hurtle, but also the passengers. No organism is naturally equipped with the necessary biological characteristics that would allow it to survive accelerating faster than 10Gs. People have done it in experiments, but not for extended periods of time. But Leona’s people figured it out. Not only did they reach 99.9999% the speed of light virtually instantly, but they didn’t feel a thing. Petra still doesn’t quite understand how the inertial dampeners work, and this is her field of study. Researchers will be publishing papers on the science for years to come. She’s grateful for the opportunity to test it out, even though the trip will only last a few hours of observed time, and a few months of realtime.

They’re at the halfway point now, which means that it’s time to turn around. The plan is to make a stop in the middle of what Leona referred to as the Oort Cloud. While essentially static, they’ll literally turn the rocket, and then restart the engines. If all goes well, they should be on their way back to Earth within minutes. Petra walks onto the bridge. “How are we lookin’?”

The ship’s tiller keeps her eyes on her screen. “Just ran the final diagnostics. Everything is good to go.”

“You sure you can do this?” Petra asks.

“Does a Tamerist kill without reason?”

“I wish they didn’t.” A stranger has just walked into the room. No one else on the bridge recognizes him.

“Who are you?” Petra questions. “Security.”

The security officer assigned to this station draws her weapon.

“That will not be necessary. My name is Tamerlane Pryce, and I’m just hitching a ride back home.”

“Stand fast,” Petra orders. “What do you mean, you’re Tamerlane Pryce? Were your parents warmongers?”

The man sighs. “I did not mean for my religion to turn into that. It just...got out of hand; out of my control.”

“Explain yourself.”

“I’m a time traveler. To say that I was friends with Leona Matic would be...said in bad faith, but we are associates. She would recognize me. Angela would recognize me.”

“How convenient that the only person who might be able to vouch for your identity is currently indisposed.”

“Uh, sir?” the tiller jumps in. “It’s about to happen.”

“Get him out of here,” Petra orders the guard. “Take him to hock.”

“You can go alone,” the supposed Tamerlane says. He points the crown of his watch towards the guard, and taps on the screen. The guard disappears.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Custom modified teleporter gun,” he says with a shrug. “No big deal.”

The tiller has started counting down, “...six, five, four, three, two, one. Full stop.”

The doppler shades that Leona also designed stop filtering the grayish glow, and turn completely black. “Raising shades,” the aux officer announces so that they can see fully out of the viewindow.

There is something that none of them expected; none but Tamerlane. They’re parked in front of a chunk of rock. Embedded in this rock is some kind of building. The lights are on, so someone is home. “What the fuh...?” Petra questions in a breathy voice.

The astonished bridge crew stands up, and leans forward.

“That, my new friends, is The Constant. It was my home for billions of years. Then they kicked me out, and they thought I would never find them again.”

Frightened but awe-inspired too, Petra admires the sight. “How is this possible?”

“I can get you docked,” Tamerlane tells her, “but you have to give me control.”

“Do it.” Angela has just come into the room. She’s still wearing only her bra and underwear, and holding onto her IV pole.

“Put this on,” the doctor offers, finally catching up to her. He wraps the blanket over her shoulders.

“Angela, you do know him?” Petra asks.

“Let’s just say I know...his twin brother.”

Tamerlane smirks.

“Get—” Petra stammers. “Get us in that building, I guess.”

Tamerlane approaches the controls, and starts tapping away. He lifts the microphone up. “Constance, Vacuum Entry Override Protocol Temple-Algae-Marathon five-nine-nine-eight.” In response, the walls of the building split open. A greenish-blue light appears from inside, and takes hold of the rocket. It pulls them in, turns them up, and lands them gently on the floor.

“Welcome back, Mister Pryce,” a voice says as a staircase extends up to them, and lets Tamerlane start climbing down on it. Petra follows, but Angela has to stay in the airlock, as she can’t handle the steps.

“Step on the landing,” Tamerlane calls up to her. “It’ll bring you down.”

The doctor insists on accompanying her, but everyone else is expected to stay with the ship until they’re told otherwise. Once the other two are safely down on the floor, the stairs contract slowly, and let Angela and the doctor down.

A woman comes into the room. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before we were found. I just thought it would take longer than eight months. I hoped, anyway. Tamerlane, I admire the ingenuity in orchestrating all of this.”

“No, you don’t, Danica, you’re annoyed by it.”

“I can have mixed feelings,” Danica contends. She reaches out to Angela. “Miss Walton. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Danica Matic.”

“Mateo’s cousin, yes. I met a different version of you.”

“I hope to live up to your impression of her.”

“Based on my experiences in this reality, you have a long ways to go.”

“True,” Danica admits. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll personally escort you to a comfortable medical stasis pod.”

Angela looks over to Tamerlane for guidance.

“Him?” Danica questions. “You’re looking to him to see if you can trust me?”

“If you know that I need stasis,” Angela begins, “then that means you’re not only monitoring what’s happening back on Earth, but also specifically what’s been happening to our team. This means that you know that we’ve been looking for you. Well, they’ve been looking for, I’m not sure I give a shit. Yet here you’ve been, hiding out...like a coward. You could have helped so many times, in so many ways.”

“I’m helping now. Do you want your sister to live, or not?”

Angela frowns, but surrenders. “Lead the way.”

“The rest of you can meet us in the master sitting room,” Danica says, taking Angela’s free hand.

“I’m staying with my patient,” the doctor declares. He gives Petra a look. “Those are my orders.”

“Very well.” Danica leads them both away.

“What is this place for?” Petra asks Tamerlane after the other three have left.

“Get everyone else, including the kids,” he replies. He nods at the stairs, which somehow respond to him by starting to extend back up towards the airlock of the rocket. “What this place is, is a haven for weary travelers. Danica has forgotten this fact, but we...are taking over.”

“Do you have the power to do that?” Petra asks. It’s become clear that Angela doesn’t care for either of these two mysterious people, but she seems to trust this one more than she does Danica.

“Not me,” Tamerlane acknowledges, “but Leona does.” He chuckles. “She should be here soon.”

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa are preparing to investigate the region of the Oort cloud that Aquila mentioned, hoping to find the Constant, or at least a clue to its whereabouts. Unfortunately, they’ll be going in the wrong direction.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 6, 2399

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Kivi tries to sit down on the retaining wall, but it’s too high for her, and she doesn’t want to climb, or try to jump up awkwardly, so she moves down a meter. It too was an awkward move, but the job is done now. She takes in a deep breath, and pushes it out. Team Leader Alserda breaks from the group, and approaches her. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Not really.” Kivi looks up at her. “Oh, you mean physically? I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s possible that we’re done?”

“The bounty on Leona’s head was raised to fifty million dollars. Do you think we’re done?”

“Well, we haven’t found anyone in the last two days.”

“You mean I haven’t found anyone.” Kivi realized a while ago that her psychic ability to find people that fall under the criteria of needing to be rescued or stopped was only locating those who were seriously attempting to assassinate Leona Matic in order to receive the reward money. That’s what matters to her, so the team hasn’t been concerned with anything else since. But recently no one has appeared on her radar. No one is calling to her. She’s tried to force it, she’s tried to not force it. She’s tried to trigger it by following down leads that were uncovered using more traditional investigative methods. Nothing has worked. She’s not sure she has her power anymore.

“Well, you have been operating at a hundred percent for weeks. Perhaps you’re simply exhausted. You have nothing left in the tank.”

That’s true, she has been nonstop for who knows how long. She can’t remember. She can’t even remember how long she’s existed. That’s a bad sign, and probably indicates that her performance is about to suffer, if it hasn’t already without her noticing. Even if her power were still working, she could be placing the team in danger by continuing on like this. If it’s wearing her out, someone is going to get hurt. “I don’t know what to do about that.”

“I do, it’s called leave,” Alserda says.

“You want me to leave?”

“No, it’s leave time. It’s...a vacation.”

“Oh. We can’t just stop on my account.”

“The rest of the team could use some time off anyway.” Alserda looks back at the group, which does look a little aweary.

“What happens to all the people who haven’t been caught yet?”

“Other teams within SD6, and other agencies, are on the hunt for those people. Killing your friend would be a crime, and the planning and preparation of it is also a crime, so don’t you worry about what kind of resources are being devoted to this. There’s plenty of effort, and they’re all happy to do it, because most of the contenders have committed other crimes in the past anyway. The bounty has inspired legislators to pass new laws regarding how agencies are allowed to go after criminals. That’s the silver lining, I would say. Now come on, I know of a great place to eat in this town. Then you can call your friends, and tell them that you’re coming home.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 5, 2399

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Neither Arcadia nor Vearden has any family in this reality. The closest thing to it is Team Matic, and they’ve been so great and supportive this whole time. It only seems right that they announce the latest news on the baby to them, and that they make a whole thing about it. So they’ve invited everyone to their home, including Kivi, to a nice brunch. They’re having it catered, because they don’t know how to cook themselves. Normally, to the best of their knowledge, one person or couple will show up a little early, and then others will trickle in. One will inevitably arrive forty minutes late, and blame it on something that no one believes, and when he does join them, they’ll remember why they just about didn’t invite him in the first place. For this group, they all come at the same time, because they all live together in the retrofitted disease research lab. Kivi called, and she can’t make it, so everyone is here.

“Thank you for coming,” Vearden says, holding a glass of orange juice. “If you’ll give our caterers another few minutes, they’ll leave, and we’ll be able to talk freely.”

Most of the caterers keep their poker faces on, but a couple of them are confused and curious about what they’re not allowed to hear. They knew it would be like this from the start, though. They won’t be serving the food. They’ve been asked to leave it, and come back for their stuff later. They remove the last of the foil, and start to leave. While they’re still within earshot, Arcadia decides to make a joke. “Great, now the human sacrifice can begin!” The caterers get out quick.

“Joking!” Vearden tries to shout at them, but they may not have heard. “Thanks for that, now we’re going to be on a list.”

“That’s okay,” Arcadia declares, “we work for the government!”

“It’s more like they work for us, but we’ll talk about that later. Go on, and dig in,” Vearden encourages.

Near the end of the meal, they tell the crowd the good news, and the strange news. They reveal that they had to switch to the government hospital, that the baby is a girl, and that she’s going to be born early, but not premature. She’s developing faster than normal, and while that is certainly cause for concern, they’re both time travelers—plus Arcadia was originally made out of clay, and is only borrowing this body—so it’s not the weirdest thing they’ve seen. “We’re going to keep an eye on little Delaney,” she continues. “All we care about is that she’s born healthy.”

“Delaney?” Leona questions.

“Named after her womb and egg mother,” Arcadia says with a nod.

Leona smiles. “That’s very sweet of you.”

“You can’t name her that,” Alyssa says bluntly as she takes another bite.

“What? Why not?” Vearden questions.

Alyssa talks with her mouth full. “You’re Berarians, right?”

“Well, not really. We were just expected to put something on the form, and that seemed like the least annoying one to choose.”

Still casually, Alyssa takes another bite of her potatoes. “Doesn’t matter. It’s your religion of record, and if you try to choose your child’s name, they’re gonna get mad. It’s not illegal, per se, but I don’t think you want that heat on ya. Can you pass the butter, please?”

“Alyssa, what are you talking about?” Mateo asks.

“Oh, you don’t know? It’s customary for a Berarian to name their child after the doctor who delivered it,” Alyssa explains.

“Really?”

“Well, I mean, I guess it doesn’t have to be a doctor. You would also name it after your neighbor if you were stuck in an elevator with him when you went into labor, and couldn’t get out.”

“I’m not naming my baby Cenric,” Arcadia says. “It’s perfectly fine for a forty-year-old government doctor, but not for a little girl.”

“Well, what’s his last name?” Alyssa asks. “That’s okay too.”

“Best,” Vearden replies. “Cenric Best.”

They grimace. Best Haywood.

“You could try finding out his middle name,” Alyssa suggests

“Says here that the feminine form of Cenric is Kendra,” Ramses interjects, looking at his handheld device.

Arcadia waffles. “I don’t hate that. Part of it is that I don’t like the idea of leaving my fate up to someone else. I was a god in another life, I’m not used to this. I suppose I should have read the fine print before I chose Berar.”

“Every faith has both advantages and downsides,” Alyssa muses, “like character traits for a roleplaying game. The way I understand it, Berarians respect their caretakers, and since the person who delivers you isn’t usually involved in your upbringing, that’s the best way they could think of to honor that person’s contribution.”

Arcadia looks over at Leona. “Maybe you could deliver her? I mean, Dr. Best could still be there if something goes wrong, but we’ll call you our midwife.” She turns back to Alyssa. “That would work, right? Her unmarried name is Delaney”

“I don’t see why not, but you would want to speak to a real Berarian about it.”

“I can think of why not,” Leona counters. “I’m not a midwife, nor a doctor, nor anything of the sort. Besides, I’m not really myself right now.” She indicates the Leona Reaver body that she’s wearing. “My life is in too much danger for me to be making plans for April. I’m sorry.”

Arcadia nods, and starts clearing the table. Others try to stand up to help, but Vearden shakes his head at them. She’s on autopilot right now, and any sudden move will throw her off. At the moment, she’s the only person in the room, and everyone else is just a statue that she has to work around. She takes Alyssa’s plate too, even though she’s obviously not yet done.

Leona frowns as she watches poor Arcadia try to work through this issue in her head. She doesn’t want her to backslide into the person she was before. “I don’t have time to become a nurse or midwife...but what about a doula? Do you have those here?”

“I don’t recognize the word,” Alyssa says, “but if you’re talking about a minimally educated birthing specialist, perhaps you’re thinking of a facilitatrix.”

“There, that sounds perfect,” Leona determines. “Would she be able to name her child Delaney if I do that?”

“I think so, yeah,” Alyssa responds.

“Really?” Arcadia asks, hope in her eyes. “You would do that for me?”

“Yeah, what the hell. You’re me, ain’t ya?”

Arcadia smiles, thankful for the offer, and grateful for their improved relationship. She’s closer with these people than she ever was with her birth family.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 4, 2399

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They’re at it again. Arcadia and Vearden are at the doctor’s office. Every four weeks, like clockwork, they schedule an appointment, with a few extra appointments sprinkled in between. Today, they’re here for a special reason, as they have decided to preemptively find out the sex of the baby. They have been thinking of her as a girl pretty much the whole time, but they obviously don’t know that for sure. A doctor that they don’t recognize comes in looking at the chart as Arcadia is dangling her legs off the edge of the table. “All right, Mrs. Haywood.”

“Uh, Preston,” Arcadia corrects. “Haywood is his name.”

“I see. And why are you not yet married?”

Arcadia winces. “I thought we had an understanding at this establishment. Where is Dr. Garver?”

He sighs. “Dr. Garver had to be let go, I’m afraid. She was being too lenient with her patients. You know how women are,” he says to Vearden as if Arcadia weren’t even there. “You have to be firm, or people will lead unhealthy lives.”

“Being unmarried is unhealthy?” Arcadia questions.

“No, it’s a perfectly legitimate life choice...if your religion says that you can—”

“It does,” Arcadia interrupts.

“Right.” He’s really having trouble communicating with his patient, instead wanting to focus on the man, since Vearden is automatically treated as a well-adjusted, non-hormonal, reasonable human being who is allowed to make decisions. “Now, we’re here for an echouterogram, correct?” Yeah, he’s looking at Vearden again.

Arcadia snaps in his face. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. I’m the patient. Look at me, please.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just used to dealing with male patients.”

“Aren’t you an OB/GYN?”

“A what?”

Different words for things here. “A gyniatrician.”

“I am, yes.” No elaboration.

Arcadia has half a mind to leave, but she doesn’t want to make a scene. “Yes, I would like an echouterogram. We would like to know the sex at birth.”

“What do you mean, at birth?”

Yeah, she keeps forgetting about stuff like that. She doesn’t really want to raise her child in a world that has flying cars, but no openly transgender people. Assuming it’s even in the cards, though, when will it be safe to travel to any other reality? This place is awful, and this guy is awful. That’s it. They can’t escape to the main sequence, but they don’t have to stay here. Vearden doesn’t even need her to say it. As the hack doctor is turned around to wash his hands—which they’re surprised he even bothers to do since Arcadia isn’t a real person, and can’t get sick—Vearden stands up to grab their coats.

“What were we thinking, normal convex or endovaginal? Now, most ladies prefer me to just stay on the outside, but I like to really get in there, and take a good look around. Wadya say?”

“I say, go screw yourself,” Arcadia spits. She’s wearing her coat over her gown, which she doesn’t intend to return to the facility.

“That’s just the hormones talking.”

“Can I?” Vearden requests of his girlfriend?

“Doesn’t make you any less of a feminist in my eyes.” Arcadia decides.

Vearden holds the door open for her, and then punches the doctor in the stomach as he’s stepping out himself. “That’s..not gonna leave a mark,” he snipes.

They both climb into the car, but don’t leave yet. “We’re going to the government,” she declares.

“I thought you didn’t want to involve them in this.”

“I don’t,” Arcadia confirms. “But to be fair, I said that months ago, back before Team Matic and Kivi had strengthened their relationship with them. I think maybe they can be trusted...or trusted enough anyhow.”

They drive straight to the government hospital to check in. They don’t even have to say anything; Arcadia looks exactly like Agent Matic, and at least some people are already aware of Arcadia’s current medical condition. A hopefully real doctor comes into the room after she only has enough time to undress.

“Miss Preston, how are we feeling today?” That is the right way to start a visit.

“I’m feeling all right. I feel bigger than I feel like I should,” Arcadia replies.

“Well, everyone develops differently. It’s not the size that matters, it’s the strength of the labor pain medication, I always say. We’ll have a look, though. Firstly, my name is Dr. Cenric Best, and I can be with you every step of the way until delivery. It is government policy for gyniatricians to take vacation either one day at a time, or after forty-two weeks. I should ask, are you comfortable with a male physician?”

“Yes, as long as you don’t criticize me for being married.”

He winces. “I’m not married.”

“We had a bad experience with our last so-called doctor,” Vearden explains.

“Well, we don’t like those here; bad experiences. I’m going to do everything I can to make this a safe environment, and a painless procedure. When you look back on these days, I hope you remember them fondly. It will make it easier on your relationship with your child.”

“That makes sense,” Arcadia says.

After a few more questions so that Dr. Best could get to know Arcadia and Vearden better, he begins the ultrasound procedure. He uses the external wand, as opposed to the endocavity one, since it should be good enough for their needs. As it turns out, they were right, they’re going to have a little girl. And when she’s old enough, she’ll decide if she wants to keep being a girl, or be something else, and they’re not going to let anyone in this reality tell her otherwise. Once it’s over, Dr. Best starts looking over the results, as well as Arcadia’s past visits, which the other facility sent over.

Arcadia is concerned “Is something wrong, Doctor?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. It’s just...what’s the earliest you could have gotten pregnant?”

“Very early September; it’s impossible for it to have been any earlier.”

“I was briefed...briefly regarding your origins. Forgive me, but how long is a member of your species usually pregnant for?”

“Forty weeks. It should be the same as you. We’re all human.”

“Of course, yes. It’s just...”

“It’s just what?”

“Well...” Dr. Best wavers. “She’s gestating rather quickly, and...it’s accelerating. If she keeps this up, and I did the math right, you may give birth in April—not June.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 3, 2399

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Alyssa wraps her towel around Leona Matic’s body, wishing that she had a robe instead, and peeks her head out into the hallway. It’s kind of annoying now, not having a bathroom directly attached to her room. Then again, this was how she grew up. She had to share one with her brothers and sister growing up. What’s awkward here is that she still looks like Leona. It’s not her face, though; she’s a temporal illusionist, so it’s not the first time that she’s looked like someone else. It’s the rest of the body. Seeing it, washing it, using the toilet. It all feels like a violation. Leona told her that it was fine, partly because this isn’t even her original body anyway, but that hasn’t made things any less weird.

By the time she makes it to the shower room, Mateo has come around the corner, holding his own shower stuff. “Oh, sorry. Go ahead.”

“There’s more than one stall in there,” she points out.

“That’s okay, I’ll just wait.”

Alyssa frowns, but doesn’t enter the room.

“Have you talked to Ramses about switching to your old body? When does he think it’ll be safe?”

“Oh, it’s safe now,” she replies. “I just don’t really want to switch back just yet...”

“Why not?” He starts thinking about it when she doesn’t answer. “Oh, you like the idea of being able to teleport and survive in the vacuum of space.”

“I haven’t tried to do anything yet, I’m kind of scared, but yeah. Is that wrong?”

“No, it’s not wrong, I’m sure—” He stops talking abruptly, and a look of horror appears on his face. “Oh, no.”

“What? Did I already mess something up?”

“No. No, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is their fault. They should have seen this coming. In fact, Ramses shouldn’t have let you even attempt to transfer to Leona Reaver’s body, because something like this may have ended up the consequence.”

“What? What consequence? Tell me.”

“It’s hard to explain, and I definitely don’t understand it, but when we were resurrected from the afterlife simulation, the man in charge added a code to our minds that gives us our time skipping pattern. We can’t delete the code, or modify it. We can’t even get rid of it by switching to new bodies, because it’s a part of us. Every time we transfer to a new body, it somehow becomes a part of it too. Again, I don’t get how it works, but that body you’re in right now has the code...and now so do you. You are now like us, and it apparently can’t be undone.”

“So once you five start jumping through time again, I’ll go with you?”

“Yeah, unless Ramses can finally figure out how to stop it, which he might actually, because he didn’t really have time to work very hard at it the first time it happened, and now we’re in this world, which has different rules.”

This is big news, and a huge game-changer for Alyssa. It explains why all these people already knew her from the future. She would not officially join the team if something like this hadn’t happened. They wouldn’t have asked her, and she wouldn’t have been able to keep up. She needs some time to process. Without saying another word, she just walks through the door, and spends a good forty minutes under the hot water. The good thing about this being a medical facility is the shower seat.