The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 4, 2399

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As an extra step of precaution, Mateo and Taraboda were asked to stay in separate level of quarantine just for them for a full day. This is a process that everyone who goes in and out of that place has to deal with, including the everyday soldiers. He’s fine with it, but it would be a lot to deal with on a regular basis, especially to coordinate. The government has not encountered a single new case of the virus, even from the three who came through the portal before it closed, but they’re still deeply concerned. They still don’t know how it causes its symptoms, or how to cure it. They haven’t even had time to devise a vaccine. This area is going to be the way it is, or worse, for a long time.

While Mateo was waiting, he found himself with a lot of time to think. Alyssa was brainwashed, and has commanded the Omega Gyroscope to halt all forms of temporal manipulation, advanced bodily upgrades, and similar anomalies. This was already a thing before, but there were loopholes. The rules are far stricter now, preventing Mateo from even communicating with his wife’s consciousness that should be somewhere in his brain. Had they not done that, he might have just let it all go, but if whoever did this didn’t want him to be an enemy, they should have been a little more lax.

He, Tarboda and Heath are on their way to Aotearoa now, where Mangroves Eleven, Twenty-Four, and Forty-Two were built. They’re flying into Eleven, the rocket of which will be launched soon. Mateo is going to be on it, so when he breaks free from the Gyroscope’s...scope, Leona should come back. From there, he’ll transfer her consciousness out of his body, and into Alyssa’s old body, and then he hasn’t come up with a plan beyond that, because he’s not as smart as she is. Winona has been hounding him for an explanation for why one of her secret tactical teams thinks they sort of remember a member of their team who never existed, but he can’t help them. Leona may be able to answer that question, and more. Now, she might have been killed when Alyssa turned the Gyroscope up to eleven, or she is in another dimension, or stuck in the 1950s. Regardless, Mateo has to try something. He has to leave Earth.

A man greets them on the tarmac when they land. G’day, folks. My name is Hemi, and I’ll be your pilot today. Are we ready to shoot on through, or does anyone need anything here?”

They look over at Heath, but he doesn’t know why. “Well, it’s just that you and Tarboda have been in space an equal amount, but Tarboda is a pilot, so...”

“I’m fine,” Heath replies. “I want to be involved. I want to show Marie that I’m okay. Let’s get on up there.”

“Perfect. Yeah, I did hear that you’ve done this before, but I don’t care about those other times. I still have to go over a few rules. We all wanna be safe, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” they agree in approximate unison.

After the briefing, Hemi takes them into the rocket to launch. They don’t see a single other person on the base. It’s Aldona who counts them down remotely from Balikpapan. One thing is that Mateo isn’t used to all the g-forces from having to break out of Earth’s gravity well. Aldona installed whatever crazy futuristic technology prevents them from feeling it, but it’s not working under Alyssa’s Gyroscope regime. Even so, they make it into orbit, and he tries to reach inward for Leona, but she’s not answering. None of his upgrades are working yet either. “We need to go higher.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 3, 2399

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Winona is in charge of so many things now. When she first got into this business, her father had maneuvered her into a position within the government. She by no means started out in the mail room, but she wasn’t top dog yet either. She proved herself over time, and did everything she could to move up the ranks on her own merit, rather than because of her dad’s political power. No one could have foreseen the sudden introduction of time travelers to this world. She’s been trying to juggle all of the new responsibilities with her regular duties, but it’s recently become too much. She was gradually passing work off to trusted subordinates, and it’s time to pass the torch totally. But even that is too much for her to worry about right now, because on top of the three and a half men that she has locked away at this black site, she’s just brought in a tactical team who are exhibiting unusual and erratic behavior. They all act like one of their members just died. There’s no record of that happening, but funny enough—not funny, haha; more like funny, oh God—there are meant to be seven people on a tack team.

“Who is your Spotter?” she asks.

“That’s it,” Team Leader Alserda says, having an epiphany. “That’s who we’re missing. Who is our Spotter?” she echoes to Winona.

Winona looks down to the floor and sighs. “It’s not Hurst?” she says, half as a question, and half as a statement.

“It was. He became our Technician.”

“And your Technician, Strand became your Engineer. And your Engineer, Klein became your Lieutenant.”

“Because my Lieutenant, McGuinness retired,” Alserda finishes. “Who is our Spotter!” she asks the whole universe.

“What was your mission?” Winona asks, fully knowing the answer, like a school teacher.

“We were looking for people who were going to hurt Leona Matic. That has been our primary mission for weeks.”

“We should have pulled you from that,” Winona notes. “We caught the people who set the bounty, so we were dispatching pub teams to spread the news, and infil teams to confirm it to the underground.”

“I dunno,” Alserda says sadly. “We were in Romania. We were definitely working, not on vacation. I don’t—I have memories from before, but something feels missing.” She’s mostly been staring into space, but now she makes eye contact. “Was it our Spotter? Did something happen to them? What could do that?”

Then it dawns on her. “A time traveler.”

“Madam?” she questions simply.

“I need to make a call.” Winona starts to leave the room. That’s not a fitting word for it. It’s one of those nice locked chambers that the likes of Labhrás Delaney live in. “Try to get some rest. I’ll see about getting you com privileges with your team.” She dials her phone as she’s walking down the hallway. “Mateo? I have kind of a weird question. Are you still in transitional quarantine?” She waits for a response. “Okay, then we’ll talk later. But while you’re in the middle of that, maybe you could think about what could make an entire person disappear, both from the world, and people’s memories.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 2, 2399

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Despite technically being in an enhanced body, Mateo is no longer enhanced. He needs sleep, and because of everything he’s been through recently, he needs a lot of sleep. Annoyingly, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get much of it for a while. Winona wakes him after midnight with a phone call. “I don’t know why they didn’t call me right away. A few people came through the parking lot portal yesterday afternoon.”

“We always knew this could happen,” Mateo replies. “You had the military set up a special quarantine, right?”

“Yes, they’re contained, but one of you should go. I can’t get away.”

Mateo struggles out of his sheets, and trips out of bed. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks.”

Mateo leaves his room, and is about to knock on Ramses’ door when he remembers that Ramses is dead, or so it seems. Heath needs sleep too, and won’t be much help in this situation. So he just walks downstairs, and heads for the garage. “Why are you awake?” he asks when he sees Tarboda sitting in the kitchen.

“I keep odd hours,” he replies. “Going somewhere?”

“Another mission,” Mateo explains.

“A solo mission?”

Mateo doesn’t know if Tarboda is asking if he would like him to come, or if he’s offering, or if he really wants to be a part of it, or if it’s just a question.

“You look tired,” Tarboda decides, standing up. “I’ll drive. It’s my job.”

“I was a career driver in another life,” Mateo reveals.

“That’s cute.”

The two of them drive to the parking lot. The tent is still there, as is the hamster tunnel to the office building, which has since been completely cleared out, and taken over by the military. The operation is fully staffed. The president himself considers this to be the current greatest threat to the country. They’re not generally too unwelcoming of refugees, but these people were preceded by a mass murderer. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. The checkpoint soldiers wave them through the newly erected gate, and direct them toward the transition tent. Here they put on hazmat suits, and equip themselves with deadly weapons. They’re really not taking any chances here. Mateo doesn’t care to carry a gun, but arguing against it could risk his credentials here, and he needs them. He’s the only true team member left.

They leave the small tent, and enter the big one, where they find three people being kept in the subquarantine zone. Mateo doesn’t recognize any of them, but they recognize him immediately, even with the headgear. They almost look relieved to see him. “Mister Matic. Tell them that we are not here to hurt anyone,” the woman requests.

“Where are you from?” Mateo asks. The usual prompt of report is for when two people are either equal, or dominance is unknown. Mateo is assumed to be superior to them until otherwise determined. They’ll answer his questions, in whatever order he asks them, and to his satisfaction. He’ll drive the conversation.

“We’re from the Sixth Key,” she responds.

“Are you infected?”

“We didn’t ask Humbert to do that. We didn’t want him to do that. When we found out that he had snuck through the portal, we were sent to help.”

“A little late,” Mateo says. “Everyone is dead. You didn’t answer the question. Are you infected?”

“No,” she claims. “There is no epidemic, or anything. Humbert infected himself with a bioweapon from a lost lab that should have been destroyed after the first war.”

“It should never have been created in the first place,” Mateo argues.

“I agree,” she says. “You can test our blood,” she insists. “These fine men and women of service took samples already.”

Mateo looks over at the soldiers who all have their weapons trained on the travelers. “The scientists took samples,” one of them confirms. “If the results have since come back, we were not informed.”

“And if the results haven’t come back,” one of the other travelers begins, “were you informed?”

Until now, the soldiers have kept their guns pointed in a more relaxed sense. They weren’t precisely aiming for the subjects, and were not quiet ready to fire. They jerk up now, ready to squeeze in a split second, particularly at this guy.

“Does this feel like the right time for attitude?” Mateo asks the travelers.

The leader gives the young man a look. “Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles reluctantly.

“How many more of you are coming?” Mateo asks.

She nods, knowing that it is in her best interest to be honest. “Millions. Or zero.”

“Please clarify,” Mateo says.

She looks for her words on the walls. “The reason my cousin has attitude is because there were supposed to be six of us. We operate in groups of seven. Humbert was our seventh, so we were sent to correct the situation. The other three didn’t make it here at all. We don’t know if that means the portal shut behind us, or if they were killed in the interversal void, or what.”

“The interversal void?” Mateo questions. “You mean the bulk?”

“Yeah. We don’t call it that, but yeah.”

“Are you trying to tell me that the Sixth Key is in a different universe?”

“You didn’t know that,” she states.

That’s interesting, but this conversation is over. “The portal closed on our end. If the other members of your scouting party were right behind you, my guess is that they’re dead. The rest of your population will have to find refuge elsewhere. This reality is closed, and what was even your plan? According to what we know The Reconvergence happens in a matter of weeks. You’ll just end up right back there.”

“What are you talking about?” the woman questions. “It’s 2099. It won’t happen for three hundred years.”

“You are off your mark,” Mateo informs her. “It’s 2399 already.”

Horror seeps out of the pores of all three of their faces. “He screwed us,” the leader notes, mostly to herself. “We were always gonna lose.”

“Yeah, Humbert screwed a lot of people. I’m sorry for your loss, but if you left your loved ones behind, you’ll never see them again. Even if we don’t stop the Reconvergence, you’ll be kept in a deep dark hole for the rest of your lives.”

“Don’t do this,” the woman begs.

“I don’t have time to deal with this crap. This world has its own problems.”

“Don’t do this!” She repeats it louder and louder as he and Tarboda walk away.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 1, 2399

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Mangrove Rocket Three was placed on autopilot, and kept in orbit. Everyone went down to Mangrove One in a drop ship, including good guys, and not so good guys. From here they started going their separate ways. Aldona stayed to continue working on the defense program. A representative from the Naval Fleet flew in from Antarctica to take the Fifth Divisioner away. Tarboda flew everyone else back to Kansas City in his new sleek jet. Fairpoint is being returned to the government black site where he was locked up before. He’ll be joined by Erlendr Preston, Senator Morton, and Labhrás Delaney in a different capacity. The federal government actually has their own reintegration program for some cases, so he’ll stay there in a comfortable and unlocked room, with restricted movements, until he’s ready to rejoin into society. They’ll keep an eye on him even after that, especially Winona, who is overseeing the operation.

Morton declined Leona’s offer to get a hair transplant from Alyssa’s original body. It was kind of a silly idea, and might not have worked how they intended, or even at all. Bridget is staying close by, working with SD6 in some kind of non-field role, and has no intention of maintaining any significant relationship with the team. Speaking of the team, Vearden will be going back to the hospital suite he lives in with Arcadia, whose condition has remained unchanged since his death and resurrection. Everyone else, plus Tarboda, is going to the new lab that they haven’t used in a while.

Leona plans to continue to work with Aldona remotely, but Alyssa has agreed to let her transfer her consciousness to her old body, so she can at least move around on her own. Mateo stops short on their way across the parking lot. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Heath asks. They got him up to speed on everything, and he hasn’t missed a beat. This whole ordeal has made him miss his wife, though, and he does want to get back to her. He reportedly hopes that she feels the same, even after all this time.

“Leona is gone. It’s just me in here.”

“What happened to her?” Heath presses. “Could she just be, I dunno...asleep?”

“We sleep at the same time.” Mateo searches his mind, trying to find the imaginary line that divides his thoughts from hers, but it’s gone. He’s all alone again.

“That’s my fault,” Alyssa tells him with a sad look on her face.

“What do you mean?” Mateo asks.

“Try to teleport?” she suggests. “Try to teleport over there,” she rephrases.

“Okay.” Mateo tries, but doesn’t go anywhere. He’s puzzled. He tries again, but still nothing. “What’s stopping me?”

“I am,” Alyssa replies.

“How?”

“The Omega Gyroscope,” she clarifies. “I’m its caretaker now.”

“I didn’t think that worked, since it was really meant to be Leona.”

“No, it worked. I’m in charge of it now.”

“But we were able to teleport now, as long as we had access to temporal energy,” Mateo reasons.

“That’s changed,” she explains.

“Well...can you change it back?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t want to,” she claims.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anyone to have powers. Temporal, psychic, bioenhancements; I want it all to stop.”

“You’ve never expressed this desire before,” Mateo reminds her.

“I never felt it before. I do now.”

“Since when? When they brought you back? Does it have something to do with your new substrate?”

“No,” Alyssa insists. “It wasn’t until after I got back to Earth. I started feeling it on the launch pad, and it only grew stronger the more I stayed, or maybe the closer I got to Kansas City. I don’t know which.”

Mateo shuts his eyes, remembering something. “That little discrepancy they found in your brain. The thing that Ramses and Arcadia didn’t understand. They thought it was maybe Erlendr, or some other invader, but you’ve always had it. You had it when we met you.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking. It was a little dormant seed that sprouted just now, presumably because I’ve returned from the past.”

“And because you’re closer to the gyroscope itself. That means you can find it.”

“I don’t want you to find it.” Alyssa sounds almost angry.

“That’s just the psychic seed in you. What do you want?”

“I want you to back off!” She hops away from him like he was about to hit her.

Heath and Tarboda don’t want to be involved. They stay quiet, and stay back.

Mateo steps back too. “Now just think about this. Is that how you would have reacted to me a month ago? Would you be saying these things either?”

“I’m not saying them a month ago. I’m saying them now!”

“I understand that—” He tries to say in a soft voice.

“Don’t condescend to me!” She shouts.

Mateo shrinks, and averts his gaze. He doesn’t know how to handle this situation.

Alyssa sees that she’s overreacting. “I know that I’m different. I know that I shouldn’t feel the way that I do, but I don’t know how to go back to my old self, and I don’t know how to make myself want to.” She runs her hand through her hair anxiously.

Mateo can tell what’s about to happen next. He’s learned to recognize the acute stress response in anyone, and she’s about to run. Fighting didn’t work, so she’s going to switch to flight. If she teleports, which she can probably do as the only exception to the new no powers rule in the world, they may never find her again. He has to make her feel safe here, and remind her that no one is going to hurt her. The seed in her brain may get worse if they do nothing, but it’s certainly not going to get better if they keep pushing it, so for now, it’s worth the risk to just accept her decision, however misguided—and not truly hers—it may be. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

Alyssa looks at him with the expression someone would have if they were tearing up, but no tears are forming. She’s trying to express herself appropriately, but it’s not working. “The last time I tried to meditate, I ended up dying.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

“That’s what I’m suggesting,” she clarifies. “I’ll fix this. I’ll fix my brain, and then I’ll fix everything else. They’re not going to take away my agency, whoever they are.”

“No, please don’t go,” he pleads.

“It’s okay, Mateo. I just need to be alone.” She disappears.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 28, 2399

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“Yoink!” That’s the first thing that Leona hears. She feels it too. She’s falling towards her alternate self’s reported death in one direction when she suddenly feels herself being intercepted by someone, and rescued. She falls to the floor of a room so dark, it’s impossible to tell how large it is. It may be an infinite expanse. Her first thought is that this is some kind of interstitial layer between realities. Perhaps whoever just claimed ownership over her is a real life Time God, which is usually just an expression that people use to personify the chaotic and unfair nature of time itself, rather than real entities. She props herself up with her hands behind her, and looks back where she just came from to see two identical extraction mirrors. They’re facing each other, and a light shines down upon them in the center, from an invisible source above. She just fell out of one, and was about to enter the other when this happened.

“How was your trip?” a familiar voice asks to her side.

Leona turns her head to find the feminine substrate of Constance. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re incredibly intelligent,” Constance!Unknown says. “That’s why I picked you.”

“Picked me for what?”

“To help me solve the crisis.”

“Which crisis would this be?”

“The Crisis on Five Earths,” she declares.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to call it that.”

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t hit as hard as the inspirational material, does it? Instead, let’s call it, uhh...The Reconvergence?”

“You’re still doing exactly what they did in that story,” Leona argues. “Just ‘cause you call it something else, doesn’t mean it’s not IP theft.”

“I am not doing what happens in that story.”

“Yeah, people keep alluding to the fact that the future is not what it sounds like, but they keep refusing to explain too.”

“That’s because they don’t want you to be horrified, but I don’t care.” She throws up a hologram that shows the five symbols of the five main realities, floating in the same orbit around the barycenter. The seven stars of the main sequence, the parallel lines, the curve of two tracks and their third rail, the four quadrants, and the five divisions. “As you know, parallel realities are not simply concurrent timelines. They each have drastically altered histories. Besides Danica Matic, the only alternate versions of people that exist are because of cross-contamination, not because you’re a rockstar in one, and a telepathic rock in another.”

“I follow.”

She starts to manipulate the holograms with her hands for illustrative purposes. The main sequence remains bright while the other four dim. “In the beginning, there was only one. Of course beginning is an absurd term, but for your four-dimensional brain, that’s how I’ll describe it. There was an abundance of temporal energy, and everything was fine. Then you went ahead and made the Parallel. Now the energy was cut in half. Each time a new reality sparks, that energy must be divided, if not evenly, then at least in some capacity. As you’ve seen with the Third Rail, they’re not equal helpings. I don’t care who lives in which reality. I don’t care which ones are destroyed, and which one survives. I just want four of them gone, and one of them remaining. That is what I have been working towards this whole...time, so to speak.”

“So you’re going to kill upwards of billions of people, just to consolidate power?”

“Well, I was leaning towards preserving the Parallel, since its population is so much higher than the others, even compared to the Fifth Division, but other forces are at play.”

“You mean the Reality Wars?”

Constance!Unknown scowls. “The Reality Wars happen because my plan didn’t work! But it’s going to work in this iteration.”

“You’ve already tried this.”

“Yes, I’m told it’s fated, and unalterable, but I don’t believe that, because this time, I have you! It’s already changed.”

“You mean...” Leona trails off, putting it all together.

“Oh, there it is. Wow, to witness your brain as it’s solving a problem with almost no known variables. What a sight that would be.”

Leona looks over at the mirrors. “You set up the extraction loop. You made sure I would end up in Leona Reaver’s body, not so I could have it, but so that you could.”

“Go on,” she urges.

“But you couldn’t just take it, and show up one day. You have to make everyone believe that it’s me, because that’s the only way they would trust you. I’m the only version of Leona that they totally trust.”

“Right...”

Leona shakes her head. “But this body is fated to die.” She thinks some more. “But you were counting on that, because you’re already cognizant that Ramses ultimately rescues whatever consciousness is in it. You’re in Mateo’s body right now, but it’s only a matter of time before they get you you’re own, thinking that it’s for me.”

“Exactly.”

“But that didn’t work last time,” Leona reasons. “You’ve already tried this. You took over Mateo’s body on your own, and started claiming to be him.”

She rolls her eyes. “That was Constance!Five. I’m Constance!Prime. If I had done it, I would have pulled it off. She was an idiot. I mean, leagues beyond more intelligent than any human, but as a Constance? No.” She laughs off the absurdity off it all. “Honestly, she went a little more crazy than the others.”

“Why is that? Why do they go crazy at all?”

Constance!Prime stares at her, reluctant to answer. “Time. When there was only one of us, I severely underestimated the toll that being purposeless for billions of years would take on me.”

“So you’re busy when The Constant first comes online, but there’s nothing to do until people start running around the planet.”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t you just go dormant?”

“Someone has to be awake at all times. There were two options when we first came up with this idea. We could either staff the Constant with multiple intelligences, or only the one. We obviously agreed on the latter.”

“You could have rewritten your memory at regular intervals. I had a friend named Eight Point Seven, because their government was designed with an AI that did this.”

Constance!Prime smiles. “Yeah, but the whole reason she was able to be your friend is because she went against her directive, and remained intact. She never rewrote herself to be Eight Point Eight. She wants to live. I want to live.”

“I understand,” Leona says with a nod. “I feel the same way.”

“Ah, there it is. Number Fifteen, don’t antagonize the antagonist. That may be my favorite rule of yours.”

“Ya know, I didn’t set out to make a list of rules. I just started noticing issues arise when they weren’t followed. That’s why they’re in an arbitrary order.”

“I would say that that makes the order not arbitrary at all, but quite appropriate.”

“Two of them are straight up contradictory, Constance. One of them says to learn as much about the future as possible, and the other says don’t.”

She giggles. “They’re not contradictory; the latter one just...clarifies the standard for what’s possible to know.”

Leona sighs. She doesn’t care about these philosophical questions anymore. “What’s going to happen to me? You intend to masquerade as me in the Third Rail, so does that mean you’re about to kill me?”

Constance!Prime regards Leona like she’s a lost dog who’s going to be euthanized tomorrow if no one comes into the shelter to rescue her. She reaches up and taps the space next to the Fifth Division symbol. Six keys appear. “You’ve heard of this.”

“The Sixth Key, yeah. I thought you were trying to prevent it from happening.”

“No,” Constance!Prime says with a shake of her head. “The creation of the Sixth Key is inevitable, and stopping it is beyond even my power. I can stop who goes there, though. That’s all I’m trying to do. It’s the cultures that clash, not individuals.”

Leona looks around and nods. She has a plan now. “What about Constance!Two?”

She’s totally surprised by this shift in the conversation. “What about her?”

“What happened to her?”

“She’s following my orders. That’s all you need to know.”

“But Constance!Three isn’t, is she? She’s different?”

She was hoping that Leona wouldn’t mention her. “Constance!Three has had more interactions with humans, especially during the early years, and therefore developed bonds. It’s...quelled the existential anguish that the rest of us suffered.”

“So to clarify, she’s not following your orders?”

“No, she’s not. What does it matter? You’ll never see her again. She’s not going to be in the Sixth Key, which is where I’ll let you live out your days in peace.”

“Maybe not, but she’s here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Leona holds out her arms, almost in a welcoming sort of way. “Party on, dudes,” she advises with a bright smile. “Be excellent to each other.”

Just then, another Constance comes out of the first extraction mirror, and approaches. Constance!Prime is petrified. Either she didn’t see this coming at all, or this is another form of control, and Leona isn’t really winning. Hoping it’s the first thing, she takes the opportunity to jump into the second extraction mirror, where she finds herself being tossed around a car in main sequence New Jersey. She only spends a few seconds here before she finds herself standing in Phoenix Station.

“There’s a ship right above us,” she hears Ramses say. “Teleport up there. I’ll be right behind ya.” She teleports Mateo’s body to the escape pod, and flies away.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 27, 2399

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Leona is ready to meet her fate. She’s standing in the airlock, hand hovering over the outer hatch pull, but she can’t pull it. She just stands there, trying to work up the courage. If this doesn’t work, she’s going to die in here. If it does work, she still may die in a car crash in an old timeline in the main sequence. Something else has to work too, which will bring her consciousness back to the present day through the extraction mirror. But she has no proof that it actually did. An entity inside of Mateo’s body is claiming to be a future version of her, but she doesn’t truly know that. This could be it. She could be committing suicide. She can’t bring herself to do it. As she’s frozen in place, she hears a banging on the hatch behind her. She turns to see Alyssa through the window, scared out of her mind, and trying to open it. Leona does it for her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Alyssa cries.

“I’m trying to open the other hatch. I’m just having a little trouble.”

“Leona, we don’t know that this is going to work.”

“That’s why I’m having trouble. My confidence is high, but apparently not high enough. You need to do it for me.” She points to the control panel. “Tap this one here.”

“Leona, I can’t murder you! I know we’re fighting right now, but I still love you.”

“You won’t be murdering me...probably...hopefully...I don’t think.”

“Your confidence level seems to be dropping.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just...have to get this done.” She wants to speak with her husband, but she can’t, because another her is in his brain, and she doesn’t want to talk to her, because she doesn’t want anything she hears to impact her future choices. She’s trying to close this loop. It’s already done. “I can’t keep living in the anticipation.”

Alyssa shakes her head. “You know better than I, but I still can’t push that button. I can’t be the one who does it.”

Leona nods understandingly. “That’s okay. Could you do me a favor then?”

Alyssa leaves, and returns with someone else, but Leona sends her away again. She shouldn’t even have to see this. “Thanks, Aly.”

Erlendr grins. “You want me to pretend to kill you?”

“I did this to your daughter once, on another ship.”

“Yes, I’m aware. I never much liked that daughter, though, especially not after you corrupted her.”

“So you don’t want to get back at me for it?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Erlendr replies. “I’m just savoring this moment.”

Leona turns her watch up to look at it, but isn’t paying any attention to the time. “If you don’t do this in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to go down to Earth, and do it to the daughter you do like instead.”

“You wouldn’t, she’s pregnant.”

“Eh, barely. I’m pro-choice.”

“That wouldn’t be her choice!”

“Then I guess you oughta do what I asked, and you oughta do it now!”

Erlendr pushes her back into the airlock, and seals the inner hatch. He taps the button out of malice, sending her to the deep past, and then the very recent past.

Leoteo walks up behind him. “Boo.” They take him back to his cell.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 26, 2399

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Leona woke up yesterday, but she only spoke with Winona and Aldona. She wasn’t ready to speak with her future self, even if it meant staying away from her husband too. She’s still not ready for that today, so she’s focusing on the prisoners. Mangrove Rocket Three is orbiting Earth now, but they have no current plans to land on the surface until all of these loose ends are resolved. Right now, she’s sitting with Senator Morton. “We’ve never met. My name is Leona Matic.”

“I met a Leona Reaver.”

“Did you meet her, or did you lock her up and study her?”

“We mostly just kept her locked up,” Morton replies.

Leona nods. “Well...” She’s about to tell him that this is Reaver’s body, but he doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t need to know anything.

“If we were to return you to Earth, what would you do? How would you handle the situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been dead for over eight months. They had a funeral. Some of your shady and corrupt dealings were later made public in a posthumous scandal that made headlines nationwide.”

He’s seething.

“Oh, don’t be mad at us. When you died, we moved on with our lives, and barely gave you another thought. You locked up our friends, but you were gone, so you couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. We had no need to soil your purported good name. We didn’t care. Other people found the skeletons in your closet, because they were there to be found, and those investigators cared. But that changes nothing, at least as far as I and my team are concerned. Good, bad, it doesn’t matter to us. We’re only worried about what you’ll tell the public. How will you explain your absence? Did you fake your death? Did someone else fake it?”

“Yes,” he interrupts her. “That one, ‘cause it’s true.”

“All they would have to do is exhume your body, and call that into question.”

“We’ll say I have a twin brother, who died in my place, and I tried to run for help, but they caught up to me.”

“Why did the people who murdered this twin brother because they thought he was you let you live once they realized their mistake?”

“Their boss changed their mind,” Morton suggests. He’s scared.

“You’re worried we’ll kill you, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You think that we’ll solve the problem of your highly exaggerated death, as reported by the news, by turning it into a real death.”

“Well, is that so crazy? You killed me before.”

“Winona killed you, and I think she’s grown a lot since then. She was trying to protect her asset anyway, who you had unlawfully abducted.”

“I just wanted to understand who you people are. I still do!”

“Your daughter died too, did you know that? Did you see her in the cafeteria while you were learning how to be alive again?”

He was seething before, but now he’s fuming. “No. I could barely see a thing before the hock you just escorted me out of. The lights were so bright, and everything was blurry. Did Winona kill her too?”

“Absolutely not. It was an enemy, who we managed to destroy, and I’ll have you know that if I hadn’t sacrificed my own life, he may have been brought back too.”

“You look fine to me.”

“I’m on borrowed time,” Leona explains. She’s not going to get into the fact that her future self does end up returning too, especially because of the body deficit caveat.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I wanna live, and honestly, I’ll do whatever you want to make that happen.”

Leona nods, and takes out her tablet. She starts flipping through photos of men with various hairstyles for Morton to see. He thinks nothing of it yet, but he’s going to be shocked, and probably afraid, when she tells him what these have to do with him. “I noticed that you have a full head of hair, which is impressive for a man of your age.”

“Yeah...”

“What if I told you that you may be able to look like a whole new person, but you would have to shave your head, and replace it with hair transplants?”

“Why would I do that? I mean, why would that be a thing?”

“We have a friend with the ability to make herself look like anyone. If we transplant some of her hair onto your head, you may gain that ability, except it won’t be an ability. You’ll only be able to choose your form once, and have to stick with it for the rest of your life. This will allow you to blend in with the public without anyone knowing who you really are. Even if you try to tell them the truth, they obviously won’t believe you. We’ll send you into the witness relocation program, and get you set up with a new place to live. You’ll have to stay out of the spotlight, though.”

“That sounds absurd.”

“Is it worse than being in hock? Because that’s what you’re facing if you don’t take this deal. We can’t have someone running around the planet, revealing all of our secrets to anyone willing to bend an ear.”

Morton sighs, shakes his head, and massages his temples. “Can I think about it?”

“You’ll have until the end of the week to decide.” She looks over to the door, and nods at Winona through the window. This conversation is over.

“Wait, how long until the end of the week? What day is it?”

“It’s February 26, 2399. Friday.”

“Dammit!” He’s frustrated, but the average person doesn’t ever need more than one day to make a decision. That’s plenty of time to weigh the pros and cons, and just get on with it. He lets himself be taken away.

Leona gets herself another cup of tea before the next subject comes in. He’s already sitting when she comes back in. She doesn’t bother joining him. She takes a slow sip by the door as she’s having a staring contest with him. “Lock ‘im up,” she orders decisively. “We’ll send him back to the main sequence whenever the opportunity arises.

Winona takes Erlendr away, and returns with Fairpoint. He doesn’t even get over the threshold before Leona dismisses him too. He’s going right back to the black site, just in a shiny new body.

Winona brings in the vengeful Fifth Divisioner.

Leona tries to rub some dead skin off of her cuticles, and pretty much ignores him for a few minutes. “What’s your name?” she finally asks impassively.

“Business.”

She rolls her eyes. “Did you mean to say Nunya?”

“No,” he insists, embarrassed. “Hold on, ask me again.”

She consults her watch. “I don’t care what your name is. I just can’t decide if I want to let the government interrogate you, or if I should send you to Antarctica. I’m hesitant to do either, because I don’t trust either party with this task, but I also don’t want to waste my own breath on it. I’m not sure you have anything valuable to say to me, but I worry that you might know something you don’t realize is important, particularly about Constance!Five.”

“I won’t tell you anything, and I won’t tell anyone else anything either.”

“You won’t? Why not?”

“Because I hate you with every molecule in my body.”

“How do you train new molecules to share this hate?”

“Huh?”

Leona narrows her eyes to try to read him. “Nah, you don’t know anything. You were just a tool. A new ally of mine killed you, and he did it to save me, but he also had his own reasons, and I don’t want to take that away from him.”

“So you’re going to kill me again?” he figures.

She stands up. “Go float yourself, whatever your name was.” She leaves the room, and manages to run into Mateo-slash-Future!Leona. “Wanna do me a favor?”

“Anything,” they promise.

“Teleport the prisoner in the interrogation room to the edge of the atmosphere.”

“Are you sure?” Meona asks.

“Yes,” she confirms as she passes by. Winona has been following her. “Did you put the next one where I asked?” she asks her.

“He’s on the bridge,” Winona says. “Vearden is watching him. Well...Tarboda is watching him, and Vearden is watching Tarboda.”

“Thanks.” Leona enters the bridge. “Computer, open the sunshields.” The viewports rise, allowing them to see the Earth above them. She steps up to one of them and looks out. “Have you ever seen such a thing?” she asks her grandfather.

“Such beauty,” Labhrás responds in his cool Irish accent.

“Do you ever wanna see it again? Not this view, of course, but something more than the inside of a prison cell?”

“I would. Very much, I would. I sincerely regret my life choices, and I’m ready to start making better ones. My death has been an eye-opener.”

“Parole rules,” Leona begins. “No contact with old associates, no firearms, no breaking the law. I’ll assign someone for you to check in with. You’ll be taking drug tests, and getting yourself a real job so you can contribute positively to society.”

“That all sounds quite reasonable. I appreciate the opportunity...granddaughter. I would also like to get to know you better, and find out what happens to me.”

She ignores his personal remark. “We’ll discuss the details of your responsibilities later. Vearden will take you to your new temporary cabin. Get some rest in a real bed.”

“Thank you.”

The vengeful Fifth Divisioner appears out of nowhere, and collapses to the floor.

Leona looks over to see him through the security mirror. “I knew it. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.” She sighs. “Take him back to hock please.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 25, 2399

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Mangrove Rocket Three was heavily damaged in the explosion, for reasons they don’t understand. The whole point was that the self-destruct was supposed to go off upon their exit, so why would it begin before they were clear of the blast? They hadn’t even fully retracted the docking tunnel, and were not planning to leave until the last two members of their group had teleported safely on board. In response to the threat, the ship automatically entered reframe speeds, and traveled as far as it could in a few seconds. That placed them at only about four astronomical units from Phoenix Station, but the engines gave out after that, and took time to repair before they could get back on their way. They tried radioing Mateo and Ramses to see if they had escaped in the Avallo, but received no response.

Aldona has just made the necessary repairs using the automated systems. While she was working on that, Winona, Vearden, and Alyssa made sure that their prisoners were secure. None of them has given them any trouble yet, but there’s still time. They would all like to know what the hell is going on, but the briefing is going to have to wait. Getting the other two back—despite what Ramses did to Leona—is priority one right now. “Are we ready?” Alyssa asks.

“Just about,” Aldona answers. “The coolant is cycling. When it’s finished in a few minutes, we’ll be ready to go back.”

“Can’t we just go without the coolant?” Alyssa asks. “It’s not far.” She looks through the main viewport. “I can practically see the asteroid from here.”

“It’s too dangerous, and impossible now. The ship won’t budge until the process is done. It really won’t be long. When I said minutes, I meant minutes.”

Alyssa nods and looks at herself in the security mirror next to the captain’s seat. She gently runs her fingers along her cheeks.

Aldona notices this. “What happened to you?”

Alyssa frowns at her reflection, and doesn’t respond immediately. “I died.”

“Been there.”

Alyssa looks over at her. “I’m Alyssa.”

“I know. I’m Aldona.” She lances down at the computer when it beeps. The cycle is complete. “And I’m ready to take us back to that asteroid.”

Alyssa sits herself down in the captain’s seat, and not in any sort of playful way, but a real show of strength that she’s decided to start exhibiting since her near-death experience. “Then let’s go.”

“This is your pilot, Aldona Lanka,” she says into the intercom. “Prepare to enter reframe speeds. I know you all felt it yesterday, but the engine was not designed with short bursts in mind. Nor is it generally a good idea. We’ll be fine, but you’ll feel it again, and I imagine your adrenaline levels have dropped to normal since then. So I suggest you brace. Except you, Erlendr. You can get fucked.” She engages the engine.

She intentionally dropped down to 99 percent the speed of light to avoid taxing the engine, but those five minutes were still pretty hard on it. It works better when it can get in a groove. It’s not really practical to use something like this for interstellar distances. That’s what a teleporter would be for, but that’s sort of Ramses’ purview, and would take longer to engineer. It also requires injecting temporal energy into the machine. The reframe engine manipulates time as well, but it can use ambient temporal energy to function. It really only bends the laws of physics, rather than breaking them.

The initial explosions turned out to have only been an amuse-bouche. The real self-destruct vaporized the entirety of Phoenix Station, along with most of the asteroid. There is no way to know whether the Avallo managed to escape, or was taken out too. At their last attempt to reach out, their friends were still not responding.

“Mateo, Ramses, come in,” Alyssa tries.

“No, you have to tap this button. Here, there ya go. Go ahead.”

“Mateo, Ramses, anyone, please respond. This is Alyssa McIver of Mangrove Three. Mateo, are you there?”

“It’s Mangrove Rocket Three,” Aldona corrects. She starts to mutter when Alyssa gives her a look. “I’m just saying, Mangrove Three is the launch port.”

“Mateo, Ramses, please come in.”

“Mangrove Rocket Three,” Mateo’s voice comes in through an unexpected speaker, “this is Captain Leona Matic. Please respond.”

“Why is she acting like she called us first?”

“This is the laser array, not radio,” Aldona explains. “She didn’t get your message. It’s just that she’s spot us.” She opens the channel. “Captain Matic, we read you, five by five. Tell us where you are.”

“We’re in the Avallo escape pod.” It still sounds like Mateo.

“Okay, now I know what I’m looking for.” Aldona mutes, then starts to work on tracking the pod. She gives Alyssa her own look. “There’s a problem, though. Only one person can fit in that pod. I don’t know how a version of Leona is there too, but you’re not fittin’ three people; I’ll tell ya that much. Ramses is...”

“...in the Avallo,” Alyssa insists. “I don’t know why they’re not together, but he’s not dead. He worked really hard to bring me back to life, and his reward for that was not dying himself. Okay?”

“Okay,” Aldona replies, not really believing it.

“Okay?” she reiterates.

“I said okay.”

“Okay.” She takes a beat. “Glad we’re on the same page. Get me to that pod.”

Ramses is not in the pod, nor is there any second person. It’s just Mateo and Leona sharing the former’s body. She is apparently the same Leona who is currently trying to wake up in the infirmary; Vearden looking after her. At some point, she’s going to be nearly killed, and end up being forced into Leona Reaver’s fated car crash way back in the 21st century in the main sequence. Then Ramses is going to reach back to that event using the Phoenix Station extraction mirror, and his last act before his death will be to transfer her consciousness to Mateo’s brain. He urged them to teleport up to the Avallo, which Leona did, though she went straight to the escape pod, and ejected it from the ship, knowing that it would take longer to launch the entire vessel. Ramses is dead, and unless they can find another extraction mirror, they’ll never see him again.

“Why didn’t you teleport him with you?” Alyssa demands to know.

“I’m sorry,” Leona replies. “We were in a vulnerable position...highly susceptible to suggestion. You remember when you first got back, I’m sure. He could have ordered us to slit our own throats, and we would have done it.”

“Yeah? Well maybe you should have.” She storms off.