The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 2, 2399

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Angela is asleep again. Marie and Dr. Farlind woke her up for a few minutes to update her on the current situation, but she had to go back down so she won’t unintentionally purge the immortality water from her system. It’s been about a half hour, and they’re miles and miles and miles away from Earth now. Even so, the computer beeps.

“What is that?” Dr. Farlind asks.

Marie tilts her head at the screen. “It’s another ship. It just disappeared. It’s back again. It disappeared again.”

“Someone’s come after her. How long has it been on Earth?”

“Two weeks,” she answers. They’re about to be boarded. Marie goes over to the food synthesizer, opens the cabinet, and starts to pull the nutrient cartridges out. In the back are various parts. Half of the grip, the other half, barrel, trigger, magazine. In seconds, she expertly assembles them into a gun. She’s finished and aiming at the dark figure who has transported into the ship, and would have been able to shoot if Mateo had not been the one to step into the light. “Oh my God, I nearly killed you.”

“Wouldn’t have been the first time,” Mateo says nonchalantly. He looks around. “Room for three more?”

“Three who?”

“The McIver boys, plus another.”

“If need be, yeah, but who is this other?”

“It’s a newcomer. Name’s Cedar. I don’t know his last name. He’s good people. Constance is after him too. He can’t tell us why. We’ve accepted as much.”

Marie looks at the camera feed showing Angela sleeping in her grave chamber.

“Where’d you get the gun?” Mateo asks.

“Never mind that,” she replies. She tucks it into the back of her pants. “Bring ‘em on board. Then, unless you’re staying, you better get going. You’ve been here for almost an entire day already.”

“I know.” He holds up a portable drive. “This is the updated AI system.” He looks between the two of them. “One of you, or the other, can come back. This ship no longer requires human monitoring. It knows where to go, and how to get there.”

“I’m not leaving my patient,” Dr. Farlind says.

“I’m not leaving my sister,” Marie echoes the sentiment.

“Very well. You still need to upload this. It comes up with a full update on our lives since you’ve been gone. Not only does it tell you what we’ve been through, but you can ask the avatar for clarification. You can also ask it the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, or how many dimples are on a golf ball.”

“Three hundred and thirty-six,” Dr. Farlind answers proudly.

“Well. I guess you don’t need the AI then,” Mateo jokes.

He jumps back to the Bridgette when it pings again. It’s not traveling at relativistic speeds, since it’s not a ship. It has to teleport within range, and then Mateo can reach it. He returns with Carlin and Moray, then makes a second trip for the last passenger. “Marie and Dr. Farlind, allow me to introduce you to...Cedar.”

“We’ve met.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 1, 2399

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They may not be individually modular, but the Mangrove rockets can dock with each other. They can, in fact, do so in eight places. They’re cylindrical, of course, but a walkway can extend from all four sides, around the center of the cargo bay, and also at the top, near the bridge. They could theoretically be linked together into one megaship grid of infinite numbers. It would become harder to maneuver with each additional vessel, but the option is there. For now, only two of the rockets are in space, and only those two need to link up. At the moment, the remaining members of Team Matic are having a meeting with Aldona. Her helmsman is running the bridge, while the boys are occupying themselves with playing cards in another room.

“I know I said this yesterday,” Aldona begins, “but I want to reiterate my gratitude for what you all did for my nephew. Mateo, you promised to keep him a secret, and you kept that promise. Leona, you went above and beyond to prevent that monster from breaching the airlock. I can’t thank you enough.”

Leona stops gazing out the window. They’re orbiting the moon again. “Thank you for coming for us,” she reiterates her own words from yesterday.

Aldona pauses to gather herself. “I’m not happy with what you did, but looking back, I could have handled the situation better. We’ve met before, and I know you fairly well by reputation. What happened happened, and could not have happened any other way. You’re trying to find your friend with the same vigor and commitment as I exhibit when it comes to Cedar’s safety. If you were me, and I were you, I imagine I would have reacted the same. That being said, I am here to help bolster the defenses for this reality’s version of Earth. I am not a president, nor a prime minister, nor a king. They have given me everything I’ve asked for thus far, but that is because I’m giving them more than they knew they needed. Asking them to authorize a satellite—or satellite array, or whatehaveyou—which violates just about every constitution on the map would be unwise. It would not go over well, regardless of why you’re asking.

“That being said, I understand the need for this, so I am prepared to go against my oversight, and let you do it anyway. I can’t technically give you permission, but I can look the other way...as long as no one reveals the truth regarding my involvement.”

They all three shake their heads.

Aldona nods. “Unfortunately, that may not be enough, so I’ll ask you for your patience. Allow me to launch the first wave of defense satellites first, so my clients can hardly argue against my value to the program. They need to see tangible results first.”

“How much time?” Leona presses.

“Three weeks,” Aldona answers.

“We can’t wait to look for Alyssa for three weeks,” Ramses argues.

Aldona shuts her eyes, knowing that she would get pushback for this. “Not to speak ill of your friend, but I think we all know that she is not on this world. She would have most likely reached out sooner, correct?”

“Maybe she was sent to a prison, or something,” Mateo reasons.

“Maybe,” Aldona agrees. “But you don’t really think that’s a likely explanation, do you? Not in our line of work.”

She’s right, it’s not a good explanation. If you want to hide someone from a group of fiercely loyal teleporters, the last thing you want to do is take her anywhere in the present day. The best thing to do is use time travel, perhaps even to prehistoric times; a practice known as zoicization. She could also be in the future. Or another reality, or an old timeline, or another universe. The possibilities are literally endless, and very few ideas would be too far-fetched to consider. “We have to try,” Mateo insists.

“We can help speed up your interim deadlines,” Ramses offers.

“You’ll be doing no such thing. I need you up here,” Aldona counters.

“Up here for what?” Ramses questions.

“For Cedar. I need someone to protect him. Space is still our best option. Obviously I didn’t work hard enough to conceal him, but he doesn’t have the skills necessary to stay on the move. That’s what I need you for. I don’t trust anyone else. Well, except maybe for Mateo and Leona, but I need her with me.” She doesn’t bother to explain why Mateo is an inadequate choice.

Still, he may not be completely useless. “What about the AOC?”

“It’s gone,” Ramses says. “I don’t have any other saved copies.”

“We could always catch up to it,” Mateo reasons. “I assume they’re already too far for me to teleport there on my own, but I can do it in the Bridgette instead. I know enough about how to use that thing.”

“They’re almost 3,000 astronomical units away by now,” Leona tells him. “So yes, you would need a vehicle to survive. You wouldn’t want to spend too much time there. Assuming you can cross the distance, and hit the bullseye, if you stay on board the AOC for a couple of minutes, it’s a whole day for us.”

“That’s not so bad,” Mateo determines. He faces Aldona. “Is that safe enough? He’s not untouchable, because what we’re talking about is reaching the ship, even though it’s going at relativistic speeds, but it’s not going to be easy, and we already know where they’re headed. Constance would not know as much.”

“Who else is there?” Aldona asks.

“Marie, Angela, and Angela’s doctor.”

“He seems to be getting along with the McIver boys, even though they’re much younger. He hasn’t had much experience with friends. His life has been....tough.”

Ramses and Leona exchange looks. “They should probably go back into relativity anyway, now that this new looming threat has replaced the old one. They only came out of it due to unforeseen circumstances, which are not present with this second trip.”

Aldona gives it some serious thought. “I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of him being that far from me, and it being virtually impossible to communicate with him.”

Cedar scurries into the room, Carlin and Moray in tow. “Please, I would like to go. If I can’t stay on Earth, at least let me be with my friends.”

“It is equipped with six grave chambers,” Mateo mentions.

“I don’t like that you call them that,” Aldona says.

“They’re fun to sleep in,” Moray says excitedly.

“I assure you that Marie is more than capable of protecting them,” Ramses says. “I really should stay here; for Alyssa, for the threats, for everything.”

Aldona gives it more serious thought. She looks into Cedar’s eyes. “Okay, but only if you navigate the transformer,” she says to Ramses. “Mateo can go too, if he wants. I may consider shortening the amount of time you’ll have to wait to deploy the satellite, but it’s not gonna be tomorrow. So take your time, and do it right, please.”

“Thanks.” Cedar gives her a hug.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 31, 2399

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There should be no one on the moon but the three of them. How the man outside is surviving the vacuum of space is a nonissue. Leona can think of a number of ways for him to accomplish such a feat. The problem is that there is nothing out here. They scanned the entire surface several times while they were still in orbit. They found no structures, no power signatures, no nothin’. They’ve also not detected any new arrivals since they’ve come. Best guess, he’s an android who lay dormant in a hole somewhere, and woke up when Mangrove Zero showed up. That wouldn’t explain who he is, or exactly what he wants, but either he’s crazy, and he thinks he’s asking someone who isn’t here, or Cedar is a thing that Leona should know. Here for Cedar. What does that mean? Is it a band? A place? A tree? Does he think Cedar is on this ship, or is Cedar the person who asked him to come here, and he is the one who actually wants something?

Regardless of what’s going on here, the guy is a creepy moonwalker, so no way in hell is he getting in. She’ll fight him to the death to protect the children. She’s chosen not to say anything to Mateo and Ramses, as they have enough on their minds, and their mission is more important than ever. If this is a sign of a conspiracy, their leechcraft array could be the thing that saves them. Instead, she has tried to contact Aldona, who is not answering. One would think she would want to keep apprised of the situation up here, but who knows what she’s dealing with at the moment?

Leona checked on the boys once to make sure they were okay, but has not returned to reclamation since. She has to stay out here, so she can keep an eye on the would-be intruder, and look out for any accomplices. He or they may just be waiting for enough alone time to break through. Aldona built this thing to be a stronghold, but it is not impenetrable. Nothing is impenetrable. If brute force isn’t working, you’re just not using enough of it. It’s been a day, and this is all she’s been doing. They have spent the last hour literally staring at each other through a viewport, as if in a contest. If he really is an android, there’s no reason for him to blink. She’s all right for now, but she’s no longer wearing the upgraded body that Ramses built for her, so she’s going to need to sleep at some point. That’s most likely what he’s waiting for.

Carlin comes up to her.

“I told you to stay put,” Leona scolds.

“Can he hear us?”

Leona glares at the stranger. “Possibly.” He can probably read lips, and he may be able to eavesdrop in more creative ways, like measuring vibrations, or even reading minds. Though, if it’s that second one, there’s nothing they can do to stop it anyway.

“Let’s go somewhere where he can’t.”

“I have to keep an eye on him.”

“Use the cameras. We have to talk.”

Leona exhales through her nose, then leads Carlin to the nearest bathroom, which is away from any exterior wall, but close enough to get back on the defensive if need be. “What is it?”

“We met someone.”

“What do you mean, you met someone?”

“His name is Cedar. He’s in a secret room behind the place where Moray and I were sleeping on the floor. He let us in.”

Now everything makes more sense. Mateo must have found out about him when he first came here, and he was trying to protect him by not saying anything. He hopefully didn’t know about this stranger, though, or it would have been irresponsible to leave, and leave her in the dark. “I see. Is he nice?”

“Yeah, he’s very nice. He’s Aldona’s nephew.”

“I see,” she repeats.

“What do we do?”

Leona looks at the camera feed on her handheld device. The stranger is still where he was when they left, staring into that viewport. Maybe he’s on standby mode. Goddamn, if Leona only had her real body, she would just teleport him to the South Pole, and build a new propulsion system with the nanites, scheduled to be completed before he had the time to get back. “If he’s Aldona’s nephew, he must have a way to contact her.”

“He did. She told him to stay inside, and go radio silent,” Carlin explains. “That’s literally all she said apparently.”

“Yeah, that thing out there might be able to intercept the signal.” She looks away to think. “Go back and follow those directions. Stay there, and stay radio silent.”

“What are you gonna do?” he asks.

“I’m gonna try to talk to him,” she replies.

“Is that safe?”

“Nope.”

Carlin goes back to reclamation, and Leona heads for the airlock. The stranger is still standing on the other side of the building, biding his time, no doubt. She puts her vacuum suit back on, and prepares to exit. She grabs the golf club at the last second for a modicum of protection. She seals the hatch with a code known only to her, then walks around to meet the man. She stands to the side of him for a while, waiting for him to react in any way. When he finally does, he acts like he’s just realized that she was there. He really was in standby mode, wasn’t he? She taps her helmet where her ear would be if the helmet were her head. Then she points to herself, and then to him with an inquisitive face. “Can you hear me?” she asks at the same time.

He taps his thumb with his index and middle finger at her. He then holds his head out, palm forward and down, and slowly moves towards her helmet. He’s sporting an inquisitive face too. He seems to be asking whether he can touch her helmet.

She cautiously makes a fist, and taps the air twice to indicate a yes.

He raises his hand up, and places it upon her helmet. “I can hear you now,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” He’s sending intelligible vibrations down his arm, and then into her helmet space, which is atmospheric, and can propagate sound, unlike the space outside. “Are you an android?”

He tilts his head. “I’m using an android body. Saying that I am an android is a bit...how do I put this? Opprobrious.”

Opprobrious. What a douche.

He may or may not be reacting to her thoughts.

If you don’t remove your hand from my helmet, I’m going to rip both of your arms off, and set you on fire, she thinks.

No reaction. So either he can’t read her thoughts, or he’s pretending not to.

“State your business.”

“I’ve told you. I’m here for Cedar.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Say I did. Why should I help you?”

“Because I’ll kill your sons in front of you if you don’t.”

Hmm. If he thinks that Carlin and Moray are her sons, then he doesn’t know who she is. That’s good. “What do you want with this Cedar?”

“That’s not your problem.”

“You threatened my kids. It is indeed my problem.”

“That’s only if you don’t comply.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve said it, which means you’ve established yourself as an enemy. I don’t like having enemies. I always get rid of them.”

“How do you usually do that?”

“If they refuse to become my friend, I either kill them...or I erase their entire existence, past and future.” She’s not lying.

“You’re more than someone who was simply hired to protect the boy.”

“What has the boy done that makes you hate him so?”

“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he will do.”

“This reality has no time travel. You can’t know the future.”

“We obviously both know that it’s more complicated than that.”

“What is your issue? What does he do? Why shouldn’t he do it?”

He looks away for a second, seemingly not wanting to clarify. “This is not what I intended when I founded Operation Free Will. This universe is too messy now. These parallel realities, and these people who are capable of reaching backwards to collapsed timelines; they’re too much. I was just trying to give people choice. I didn’t know that the elite few would use their choices to control everyone else. That is not free will.”

“What is Operation Free Will?” She doesn’t get the chance to hear the response. Something behind Leona catches his eye. She turns around to see what it is. An object is falling towards them rapidly from space. It’s this close to them when she realizes that it’s a missile. It’s heading for them; not the rocket, but the two of them, specifically. It’s very precise. At the last millisecond, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders, and spirit her away.

She’s in the hallway now of the flightworthy part of the rocket, looking into the control room. Ramses is at the radio. “Mangrove One, this is Mangrove Zero. All lives accounted for. I repeat, all of our people have been rescued.”

“Thank you, Mangrove Zero,” Aldona’s voice replies.

Leona turns around to find her husband. “Cut it a little close, don’t you think?”

“You were unwittingly distracting him,” Mateo replies.

“Who is he? Or was he, rather?”

He sighs. Aldona didn’t say much when we asked for help, but he is a bit of an inaccurate pronoun. It’s more of an it. There’s more than one parallel reality, which means there’s more than one Constant...”

Leona nods, finally getting it. “Which means there’s more than one version of Constance. Constance!Five was just the beginning.”

“We were so wrong. The AI doesn’t work for Danica. Danica works for the AI. This is who Tamerlane kept calling the boss.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 30, 2399

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Aldona has apparently never heard of the principle of SCR&M, because she didn’t design this rocket to be modular. It’s one giant tube, with living spaces at the top, cargo in the middle, and propulsion at the bottom. It’s a good thing that the first two aren’t switched, because while it’s not modular, it is compartmentalized. With a little bit of effort, they were able to pull it apart to leave one section on the moon, while the rest flew away, using the auxiliary control room as now the only control room.

Ramses and Mateo are heading back towards Earth to deploy their supersecret array of leechcraft. They’ll enter a high orbit, and launch the little leeches as they pass by other objects. Once those are dispersed, they’ll drop down to a lower orbit for another round. They’ll keep doing that until every sufficiently sized object up there has a little piece of hardware on it that Team Matic controls. Is this ethical? One hundred percent no. Is it morally right? Absolutely yes. Aldona and the world leaders are primarily concerned with external enemies, like the other parallel realities, but they know that there are plenty of domestic hostile forces to worry about. That’s what these technologies do. Like Ramses said before, this is more than just a temporal error detector. The software will map the behavioral patterns of everyone in the world, synthesize the data, and model the threats.

No specific individual is going to be targeted through this system. The artificial intelligence that Ramses curated himself will only ever output locational concerns, not people or groups. The AI is not based on the Constance program. The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez already had its own intelligence, which became dormant when Constance was uploaded for consistency, but Ramses still has a copy of it, so there is no concern of an uprising, like they have on their hands with Constance!Five. That’s something that Aldona doesn’t even know about, which puts civilization at more risk than just aliens from other dimensions. It’s why they’re doing this. Ramses’ little assistant, Mateo is certain that people will thank them for this one day.

While all of this is going on, Leona will be on the moon with the boys. She’s not being sidelined, though. There’s plenty of work to be done here. The far side of the moon is a perfect place to install a vanguard extrasolar incursion detection system. There are others, like the Lagrange points, but it has to start somewhere. The orbital defense grid will protect Earth, but it works best with forewarning. The small container of nanites that they came here with has grown extraordinarily in just a few days. Until now, all they have been doing is replicating themselves using lunar material. Now it’s time to build some stuff. Half will be sent with Ramses to turn into leechcraft during the deliberately slow journey. The rest are for Leona’s special projects.

She’s going to expand what little infrastructure is here now into a full-fledged lunar base. Hundreds of people will be able to move in by the end of next month, and thousands by the start of this future war. This time next year, it could potentially be considered the center of a colony of millions. That’s a long way off, if ever. For now she just needs to focus on making sure she and the kids don’t die in the vacuum of space. That doesn’t mean they can’t have a little fun at the same time, though.

Little Moray’s face is pressed against the glass, watching the nanites work their magic. The shaft is done, and the head is nearly there. “What is it?”

“You’ve never seen one of these before?” Leona twirls the finished one.

“No.”

“You don’t have golf on your world?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Oh, I think you’ll like it. Go get your brother, and meet me in the airlock. I’ll show you how to use them.”

Moray runs off to grab Carlin. When they get to the airlock, Leona helps them into their custom-made vacuum suits, then gets into her own. Then they go out for a walk. “Four hundred and twenty-eight years ago tomorrow—in the main sequence—a man by the name of Alan Shepard landed on the moon. He was there to collect moon rocks, and do a bunch of science stuff, but he secretly smuggled one of these bad boys with him.” She holds up Carlin’s club. “He also had a couple of these.” She pulls several balls out of her bag, and drops them onto the lunar regolith.

“I assume you’re supposed to hit the balls with the sticks?” Carlin figures.

“Clubs, and yes,” Leona confirms.

“Farthest one wins?” Moray asks.

“Well, in regular golf, you would want to aim for a tiny little hole that’s hundreds of meters away. It’s never just a straight shot, and they put all kinds of hazards between you and the hole, like water and sand traps. I don’t have time to build all that, so yeah, farthest hit wins.”

“How far did Alan Shepard hit it?” Carlin asks.

“About thirty-seven meters, but his suit was extremely cumbersome, and he could only hit it with one hand.”

“How are you supposed to hit it?” Carlin presses.

“I’ve never played. So let’s watch a video.” She taps on her wrist device, and releases a hologram for them all to watch. It’s a tutorial from some famous golf player that was being stored in the AOC’s databank of main sequence knowledge.”

They had to modify their grip, because even though these suits are a lot more streamlined than the early Apollo missions ever could have dreamed of, they still weren’t designed for extreme dexterity. Even so, they were able to make it work. To no one’s surprise, Carlin was the best at it. He barely tried, and he hit it as far as an experienced player would, though maybe without too much accuracy. Given more time and practice, he could play it for real. They evidently have to get through this war first. Once all of the balls are gone, they head back for the base. Perhaps she’ll build a rover on her downtime that can go retrieve the balls later for another competition.

That night, the three of them are trying to eat their freeze-dried dinner when they hear a banging coming from down the hallway. “Do you remember when I showed you reclamation?” Leona asks.

“Yes,” the boys reply in sync.

“Go there, and find somewhere to hide,” she instructions. After they run off, Leona heads in the direction of the banging, holding the longer club. They come in a pattern, suggesting an intelligence behind them. The exterior security cameras aren’t showing anything, but there’s a blindspot right against the hatch to the airlock. She steps inside, and peeks out the viewport to find a man. He’s not wearing a suit, and is casually tossing one of the golf balls into the...moon air. “Can I help you?” Leona asks.

He nods, and slaps his free hand against the viewport. Written on his palm in black marker reads HERE FOR CEDAR.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 29, 2399

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They’re on the moon now. It isn’t their first time, and it won’t likely be the last. Now they can finally rest, and maybe rest easy. Or perhaps not. All this time, no one has even attempted to communicate with them, but suddenly they are. It should be difficult—if not impossible—to deliver a signal here. They’re on the far side of the moon, which always faces away from Earth. In order to send a message, you need some kind of relay point. They’ve not been able to detect one, but it must be around here somewhere.

“Mangrove Zero, this is Mangrove One actual, please respond.”

“M-1, this is Zero actual. Go ahead.”

“Could I please speak with Mateo...alone?”

“Not possible, M-1,” Leona replies. “You can speak with me. I’m the captain now.”

“I’m not speaking as M-1 actual. I’m here as a person. I need to speak with Mateo. It’s urgent, and it’s personal.”

Mateo could hear the transmission from the hallway. He steps onto the bridge. “Make this happen. We need to talk privately, not just because she asked for it, but because it’s necessary. All will be explained, but for now, there are things that you just can’t know at this point in the timeline.”

Leona considers her options. “Go to auxiliary control. I’ll transfer the call.”

“I mean it. You can’t listen in.”

“I understand. I’ll respect your privacy,” Leona promises. She goes back to the microphone. “Aldona, give us two minutes to transfer. I will no longer be listening. Captain Matic out.”

Hopefully she’s being honest, and won’t make an executive decision to eavesdrop. Mateo heads downstairs. It is not a small rocket, but there are few rooms. The body is mostly taken up by the cargo and weapons bays. The bridge is big enough for five people. The aux room was apparently designed for two, but it’s a tight fit for Mateo alone. He squeezes in. Aldona is already trying to reach out again. He can hear her from the headphones hanging on the magnet. Mateo grabs them, and puts them on. “Uh, yeah. I’m here now, but if you said anything before, I missed it.”

“I didn’t say anything. Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

“What is it going to take for you to believe that we’re honest people, and that your nephew is safe? I didn’t tell anyone about him, and I won’t.”

“What you can do is not have stolen my ship.”

“You should have agreed to help us find Alyssa.”

“That’s what your wife said.”

“You have literally a thousand ships. No one said we had to use this one.”

“There are other reasons to not authorize you scanning the entire planet.”

“We’re not going to invade people’s privacy. This is only to find other people who have experienced time weird. We purge all other data. We don’t care about that stuff. There are three of us now. It’s not some giant conspiracy to control everyone’s mind.”

“I’m not going to debate this with you. You three will do whatever it is you want to do, and clearly no one can stop you. I learned that about you on Lorania. It’s just been so long, I thought maybe you had grown up.”

“I don’t know how many enemies you have had, but we have fought against entire intergalactic civilizations. We don’t ask permission anymore. W’eve learned that no one has the right to grant it. No one is responsible for anything.”

“Sounds like chaos. Anarchy.”

“I’m sure you know more about the parallels, what with this mysterious future war between realities that everyone’s worried about. I don’t really understand why we’re talking about anything happening in the future, though. If it’s between realities, why aren’t there battles happening right now, or even in the past?”

“Just because they’re called the Reality Wars doesn’t mean they’re being fought between realities,” Aldona says cryptically. “You’ll see in a few months.”

“A few months?”

“How is Cedar?” she asks.

“You mean you haven’t spoken to him since we came aboard?”

“I can’t, or you would have detected the transmission. Well, Leona or Ramses would have anyway.”

“The best way I knew how to protect him was to stay away from the safe room completely. We haven’t talked either. I assumed that you built in some secret special radio transmitter, or whatever.”

“I did not.”

He waits to say anything. “Can we build one now?”

“You would do that for me?”

“For the last time, yes! Tell me what to do, I’ll do it. If I need help from Leona or Ramses, I’ll keep Cedar out of it, and just say that it’s something that I need for myself.”

It turned out, Mateo didn’t need anyone’s help at all. She was able to upload a subroutine to a portable drive, which Mateo took to the safe room, and plugged into the communications port there. Did Aldona secretly upload a virus that will force the rocket back to Earth, or encase the safe room in a protective barrier, and blow the rest of them to smithereens? Yeah, maybe, but hopefully not. And if he wants to show Aldona that he can be trusted, he has to trust her first.

Cedar was grateful for the company. He’s sick of being alone, but being able to talk to his aunt from here should help. At some point, this will no longer be necessary. Everyone will have everything they need. They are not enemies, and they do not have to be at odds with each other. Be it the war, Constance!Five, or some new threat; something will make all these people realize that the safest place to be is on Team Matic.

Mateo returns to the bridge when it’s all done. “How’s it going?”

“We should ask you that,” Ramses says.

“I can’t talk about it,” Mateo replies.

“Does it have something to do with that secret room in reclamation?” Leona asks.

Mateo frowns, but doesn’t know what to say.

Leona looks at him knowingly. She reaches over to the touch screen, and swipes her hand across it. “All footage deleted. I didn’t see anything. Did you, Ramses?”

“I only saw two things: jack and shit.”

Mateo still doesn’t know what to say. Any word could be the one that ruins everything. So he just leaves it at that, and starts to leave.

“Were I you,” Leona begins, “I would trust me.”

“Were I you,” Mateo begins to echo, “I would trust me.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 28, 2399

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It’s true that Leona has stolen control over Mangrove Zero, but that doesn’t mean they’re not at risk. Going up to orbit didn’t automatically protect them. Aldona could always launch a second rocket, or even a missile, at them. As soon as they arrived, she and Ramses went to work. He had already been studying the bridge systems whenever he took a break from rebuilding his satellite. It wasn’t long before they figured out how to break orbit, and head for the moon. They weren’t necessarily safe there either, but maybe safer. Theoretically, Aldona wouldn’t try to harm them while there were children on board, but she died centuries ago, and lived the rest of the time in the afterlife simulation. It’s unclear whether Tamerlane ever conducted any case studies to determine how that impacts an individual or group’s outlook on life and death.

Orbiting the Earth is no small feat, but orbiting the moon is even harder. It’s lumpy, and gravitationally unstable. Mangrove Zero was apparently designed just to show the primitives down on the planet how easy it was for Aldona to build and launch it. She didn’t equip it with an AI, or any other significant means of maintaining stability. Someone has to be at the controls the whole time to keep it from crashing on the surface, and of course, Leona and Ramses are the only ones with the skills to do that. They taught Mateo the basics, so he would be able to take over in an emergency, but even that is probably not enough to actually save their lives. They would land if they could, but they’re going to have to spend a little more time reading the manual.

Good news is they’re now sufficiently far from Earth to give Leona and Ramses their powers back. Bad news is Carlin and Moray have no powers to speak of, so the mission is still in just as much danger of cataclysmic failure. That’s the constant threat looming over them. The more general issue is that they can’t launch Ramses’ satellite from here, and even if they could, any world superpower would have the technology capable of blowing it out of the sky. As it stands there’s no way to make it invisible. None of them has the power to do that, and there is no traditional technological path towards it. Not even the Parallel can do it. It’s a fundamental rule of physics. If an object does work, it produces heat, and if it produces heat, it can be detected. Fortunately, there may be a workaround. Leona holds the bottle in the palm of her hand.

“Starter nanites?” Ramses asks. Nanobots are usually designed to serve a single purpose. Some repair a specific organ in the body. Others will maintain an inorganic system, like a quantum computer. Starter nanites have not yet specialized. Think of them as the stem cells of industry. There aren’t very many in the bottle, but that’s the beauty of it. If you even have one of these microscopic things, and the right raw material, you can build anything. It may take a long time, but it is possible. Any good emergency kit will have one of these, or something similar. “What are we building?”

Leona swings her other arm around, In her hand is a mostly black object about the size of a phablet or large phone, but much more narrow. It has little protrusions, and maybe a button or two. “I call it...leechcraft.”

“Isn’t that what ancient physicians used to use to heal,” he asks with airquotes.

“This is not that,” Leona begins. “This will find a preexisting satellite, and leech its power. In turn, the other satellite will mask its power signature. It can even latch onto space junk. Why have one satellite when you could have tens of thousands?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 27, 2399

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When Leona was in college, in the second reality that her brain has been blended to remember—the one where she studied astrophysics, rather than film—she was always taking a lot of classes at once. For four semesters straight, she had at least a full load, if not more. The first semester of her sophomore year, she had to get special permission to take more than the maximum number of hours allowed. It was extremely taxing, but worth it. She had to learn a lot of ancillary subjects if she wanted to succeed. If she didn’t understand computers, she wouldn’t know how to model star systems. If she didn’t study geology, she wouldn’t know the difference between a volcanic rock, and a meteorite. She took the summers off to relax, justifying that she deserved a little time to herself, but it was a lie, as it’s not like she wasn’t working at all. That’s when she took extra classes, at the community college, and a few at the learning annex.

These were mostly designed to teach her how to learn better, and prepare her for the upcoming regular school year. It was in these classes that she learned things like basic library sciences, speed reading, hacking, and the skill that she’s using a lot of today, multitasking. Aldona has asked her to help revamp the entire global defense strategy, and she’s doing that. She’s fulfilling her commitment. But she’s also doing other things. Winona gave her access to the security systems on the base, so she would know how to incorporate the government’s preexisting protocols into the new orbital defense grid. She used the security feeds to keep an eye on her husband and Ramses, as they were secretly teleporting the latter’s new satellite up to Mangrove Zero. She knew what they were doing the whole time, but she didn’t say anything, because she needed to keep these people happy long enough to get what she needed out of them.

The security cameras do not allow audio recording, for legal privacy reasons, but as a loophole, they do stream audio. You have to be watching a live feed of any given camera in order to pick up sound, but you won’t be able to return to it later. This is where Leona’s multitasking skills failed her. While she was consolidating the command codes into a master code known only to her, she was also shoring up the orbital station-keeping fuel reserve calculations, locating the room where the starter nanites were being stored, and downloading the complete list of everyone involved in the Mangrove Program. She had been keeping an eye on Mateo and Ramses’ progress all the while, but stopped paying so much attention to it when it looked like they were just about done with their little mission. She didn’t notice when Aldona ran up to them with a teleporter gun, because she had lowered the volume to concentrate on those very precise fuel measurements. By the time she turned the volume up, Ramses was already gone, and she was only able to catch the tail end of the conversation before the audio was lost forever.

For whatever reason, Aldona doesn’t want Mateo to go back up to the ship, and she’s willing to let Ramses wither and die up there alone to stop it. She shot him with the gun, transporting him to hock, no doubt. So before Aldona came back, Leona had to add yet another task to her then-current caseload. She had to find out where Mateo was, and how to get him out. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to do that right away, because she was still not done with her other stuff.

“Have you seen my husband?”

“Not since the meeting yesterday,” Aldona lies.

“I’ve been so busy, I worked through the night, and never went back to our quarters,” Leona says. It’s not a lie, but not the whole truth either, of course. “I went to take a quick shower a couple hours ago, and he’s not there.”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

She’s not going to accuse Aldona of anything. “The kids are okay, though, in case you were wondering. Carlin is old enough to take care of them both now.”

“Right,” Aldona agrees, though she’s not spent any time with them.

“Anyway, here are the plans.” She hands her a tablet. “You have a thousand rockets already, I suggest a thousand satellites to start. You can always add more.”

Aldona peruses the data. “This is perfect. I wish I had thought of it.”

“Yeah.”

“I appreciate this. I’ll get the nanofactories back online with their new directive.”

“Cool. I’m gonna go to bed. Hopefully Mateo comes back by the time I wake up.”

“I’ll let him know you’re looking for him if I run into him first.”

“Thanks.” Leona leaves.

Mateo has been awake in his cell for hours. He’ll sit on his bunk for a few minutes before getting sick of it, and lie down. Then he’ll stand up, and maybe pace a little bit. Standard bored prisoner behavior. An action movie would put his movements on a loop to make it look like he’s still there while the heroes sneak in and rescue him. But Leona has something they don’t. She has deepfake technology. She can generate new footage that’s based on his patterns. While she’s walking down the hallway, she initiates the program she wrote during her last multitasking session, and heads downstairs.

“Miss me?” Mateo asks, standing up to greet her.

She goes right up to the bars, and pulls him in for a passionate kiss. “I knew where you were all along.”

“I figured. It took us a long time to get that satellite up there. I thought it was weird that we were never caught.”

“There are things I needed to do here. They’re done; we can go. I had to prioritize though, and decided not to access the layout for Mangrove Zero, which is different than the newer models. Is it an okay place to keep children?”

“I didn’t see much of it.”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Leona decides. “When Aldona realizes you’re gone, our bridge to this place will have been burned, possibly the one to the government as a whole.” She punches in the code to unlock the gate.

They casually walk back up to the residential section, where Carlin and Moray are staring out their viewport like the rolling waves are a TV show. They pack up their belongings, then Mateo teleports the two of them up to the ship. When he returns to the room, Aldona is there. She always knows how to show up at the last minute. “Why?”

“You shot my husband,” Leona says. “That’s reason enough.”

“No, you were planning this for a long time,” Aldona assumes.

“Not that long,” Leona says. “I’m just that good. You should have agreed to help us find Alyssa. She’s part of our team. You’re not. That’s never a good position to be in.”

“I have full control over Mangrove Zero,” Aldona claims.

“Not anymore,” Leona replies coolly. She holds out her hand.

Mateo takes it, and teleports them away.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 26, 2399

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“Why would I be here to kill you?” Mateo asks, taking a step back to look as nonthreatening as possible. “Is someone trying to kill you?”

“That’s what Aunt Aldona told me,” he replies. “She said I have to stay up here, because it’s not safe down on the planet.”

“When you say Aunt Aldona...?”

“She’s a family friend; not a real relative.”

“I see.” So the connection is nebulous, and may not help them understand exactly where Aldona came from. She was in the afterlife simulation, but how—and why—was she resurrected, and where did she go from there? How did she meet this kid, and his family? “Well, I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t even know you were here. My name is Mateo. Mateo Matic. What’s yours?”

“Cedar. Cedar Duvall.”

Mateo perks up. “Your parents are Curtis and Cheyenne.”

“Yes, do you know them?”

“Yes, I know them pretty well. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume that you’ve heard of time travel? I mean, real time travel; not just as a concept?”

“Of course,” Cedar says.

“Mateo, what’s the hold up?” Ramses asks through the radio.

The son of Curtis and Cheyenne Duvall is living—possibly totally alone—on a spaceship orbiting Earth. He was brought here by a dead and resurrected woman from another reality. It’s bad enough that Mateo now knows about it. He trusts Ramses, but Aldona doesn’t, and Cedar doesn’t even know him. Their team is having trouble with Aldona, and her choices, but she’s not evil, and he has no reason to believe that she’s not genuinely trying to help. The only way to protect this kid is to tighten the circle as much as possible, which means not so much as telling his wife about it. It’s the only respectful thing to do. The problem is, Mateo is a teleporter. What’s a good reason to not have returned to the hangar to retrieve Ramses in a matter of seconds? “Uhh. I’m, uhh...trapped under this octagon thing. I was just rearranging the equipment a little to make it more organized.”

“Well, I...can’t help you,” Ramses returns.

“No, it’s okay, I’m getting it off. I’m just doing it a centimeter at a time. Give me a minute or two.”

“Why are you lying?” Cedar asks.

“Your aunt is trying to keep you safe. I’m not going to interfere with that, but we have work to do up here, so is there any place that you think would be a good hiding spot? Just so you know, Ramses will need to access this cargo bay, the bridge, engineering, and maybe a common area for food and rest.”

“There’s a safe room behind reclamation. I could survive there for a week or two.”

“That’s perfect, he won’t need that. Go there, and don’t come out unless you hear two knocks, a pause, and then three more knocks. Does this all make sense?”

Cedar starts to leave, but stops. “Why are you helping me?”

“It’s what we do.” Mateo lifts the heavy satellite part that he mentioned to Ramses. He finds the business end of an uncovered screw, and drags it along his leg to draw some blood. “Now go.”

“Thanks.” Cedar runs off.

Mateo gives it another minute, to make sure he can no longer hear footsteps from here. Then he sets the part down carefully, and returns to the surface.

“Are you okay?” Ramses asks.

“I’m fine,” Mateo says. “I’ll heal.”

“Next time, just wait for me. I know how all this stuff goes.”

“Good point. My bad, sorry.”

“It’ll be fine. Now let’s go.”

“Wait! You’re not going anywhere!” Aldona is running towards them with a gun, looking like some kind of federal agent.

“You’re gonna shoot us?” Ramses questions. “Really!”

“It’s a teleporter gun,” Aldona explains. “It’s programmed to send you to hock in the bottom level of the base.”

“You think you can shoot us faster than I can teleport out of here?” Mateo poses.

“I only need to shoot one of you,” Aldona reasons. “You’re standing far enough apart. He can’t teleport without you, and you don’t have anywhere to go without him.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mateo volleys. He jumps to right behind her. “Behind ya.”

Aldona spins around, and fires the gun, but that was just a distraction. Mateo immediately jumps to Ramses, and takes him up to the ship. She can be forgiven for not thinking this through. She’s desperate to protect her nephew. She doesn’t know that she doesn’t have anything to worry about.

After getting Ramses to where he needs to be, Mateo jumps right back to the hangar again. Her arms are hanging down, and she’s about to hyperventilate. “Cedar seems like a good kid,” he says to her.

“So it’s too late,” she laments.

“Too late to keep him a complete secret, but not too late to keep him safe,” Mateo says. “I didn’t tell anyone else about him. I didn’t even tell Ramses.”

“He didn’t see him yet?”

“No, and he won’t. I told Cedar to hide in the safe room. I don’t think Ramses will need more than a week up there. Once the satellite is deployed, he should be able to work it remotely, like any other satellite.”

For a second, she looks hopeful, but it fades. “No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of time before someone else finds out about him.”

“I don’t know what about your past—or future—interactions with us have made you think that we can’t be trusted, but I assure you that Cedar is safe. We would never hurt him, and we would never let anyone else hurt him either. People from all over the multiverse know that that shit doesn’t fly with us.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand what he’s up against.”

“You’re right, I don’t, and I don’t need to. Because anyone who’s after him doesn’t know what they’re up against. We don’t lose. Besides, I can guess why he’s at risk. No one will tell us what the Sixth Key really is, but one thing we have figured out is that Cheyenne is very special. The Officiant jumped at the chance to take a favor from her. If Cedar is half as important, it’s no wonder you’re working so hard to keep him a secret.”

She shakes her head again, but not lamentably this time. “If you have learned and surmised all that, you’re already too much of a danger to him. I’m sorry, I can’t let you go up there again, or bring Ramses back.” She shoots him in the chest.