The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 5, 2487

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Alarms were blaring, internal inertial dampeners and artificial gravity generators were faltering, and sparks were flying. Everything was falling apart. They were suffering severe damage from the onslaught of weapons fire. The teleportation field was not designed to handle this much debris all at once. “Who the hell is shooting at us?” Leona shouted.

“No idea, Captain! Sensors are down!” Marie cried back.

“Twenty-eight percent of the objects are crossing the teleportation field!” Angela added. “Some of them are hitting uncomfortably close to the generators themselves!”

“Slingdrive!” Leona questioned.

“Overheated!” Angela replied.

“Reframe engine!”

“Offline!”

“Teleporter drive!”

“Where should we teleport?” Marie asked. “Our sensors are down. We could be jumping deeper into the battlefield.”

“We don’t even know if it’s a battlefield,” Angela noted.

“At least tell me we’re still in full stealth mode,” Leona asked.

“Yes,” Angela confirmed, “but we are taking hits, and whoever is firing might have a predictive algorithm that measures the trajectory of its projectiles, which could lead it to detecting a discrepancy in the final trajectory results.”

That was an insightful answer. The team was learning. Though, it would have been really nice to have Ramses here, or even Mateo with his idea to shoot people with solid holograms.

“Sir?” Marie prompted. “Do you want us to fire back?”

“We purged the hot pocket before we left,” Leona reasoned. “We have nothing to fire.”

“The hits were taking on are recharging it,” Marie explained. “We’re not at full capacity, but we have something.”

Leona shook her head. “Like you said, we don’t have sensors. We would be shooting blind.” She sighed. “Helmets on. I’m gonna shrink us down to model size...lower our surface area.”

“Can we survive that?” Angela asked.

“Ramses tested it in Stoutverse. Helmets on. Where the hell is Olimpia?” As if to answer, the hits suddenly stopped. “What just happened?” Leona asked.

“I did, Captain,” Olimpia replied through comms. “On screen.” The monitor turned itself on. It was fuzzy from the damage, but they could see enough. Olimpia was somewhere else, holding a knife to Bronach Oaksent’s throat. “We got eem.”

“You have nothing,” Bronach contended.

“If that were true,” Olimpia began, “why did you stop firing?”

Bronach didn’t answer.

“He’s got a teleportation block on now,” Olimpia said to Leona. “I don’t know why he didn’t have it activated before, but I can’t escape, and you can’t come get me.”

“What’s your, uhh...endgame here, Pia?” Leona asked.

“You kill me, they’ll kill you seconds later,” Bronach said to Olimpia, surely referring to the crowd of guardsmen standing at the ready behind them.

“I don’t understand,” Leona said, confused. “If you knew we would be here, why would you come yourself? Why not just send an army of redshirts?”

“I didn’t know you would be here,” Bronach clarified. “I was shooting at them.”

“Sensors back online,” Angela announced. The rest of the monitors switched on, giving them the panoramic view of their surroundings. They were indeed in the middle of a battlefield. A fleet of ships were at their port while another was at their starboard. It looked very neat and organized, like a battle formation that the Regulars liked to use during the Revolutionary War. Not very efficient, and too restrained. They were not in any star system, but apparently out in interstellar space somewhere.

“How do you suppose we’re gonna rectify this situation?” Leona asked Bronach.

“Well, I was thinking that your bitch here could put down her knife so I can pick it up, and slit her pretty little throat. Then you could stick your heads between your legs, and kiss your kitties goodbye—”

“That’s enough,” Leona said defiantly. She turned an imaginary dial in the air, which prompted the computer to genuinely mute Bronach’s words. She stood there for a while, staring at her enemy in the eyes. His lips weren’t moving anymore, but that didn’t mean he was finished expressing his vulgar thoughts. She turned to Angela for a private conversation. “Do you know where they are? Which ship, which part of it?”

“It’s the big one that looks like a compensator,” Angela answered. “Specifically, they are in the tip.”

“They have a real viewport to the outside?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Leona turned the dial back. “Are you done acting like a child?” she asked him.

“Are you done acting like a—?” he started to respond until Olimpia tightened her grip around his neck. “Yes, I’m done. I don’t know how to resolve this.”

“Olimpia,” Leona said with a raised voice.

“Sir!”

“Remember that show we watched together, with the guy in green tights?”

“Sir?” Olimpia asked, puzzled.

“I pointed out one of the characters, who’s a lot like you.”

Olimpia thought about it. “I think I remember that. Are you asking for me to put on a performance?”

Leona sighed. “Sing your heart out.”

Without letting go of Bronach, Olimpia pulled off the necklace that she used to suppress her echo powers. She screamed towards the screen as loud as she could. It didn’t take long before the feed was disrupted by the noise. The VA’s monitor automatically switched to the next interesting thing that the sensors were picking up. The window on the tip of the phalloship had shattered, and dozens of people were being expelled into the cold vacuum of space. The view narrowed in on Olimpia, who was still holding onto Bronach. They expected all the guardsmen to die, but they were still moving around; not convulsing, but reaching out towards their weapons. Some of them were too far away, but they had backups in their holsters. They weren’t human.

“Shit,” Leona muttered under her breath.

“She needs to let go,” Angela decided. “We don’t want him on our ship. She needs to let go of him, and teleport.”

“She can hear you,” Leona explained, tapping on her comms. “Olimpia. Let him go and teleport back in.”

The guards all had their guns trained on her. Olimpia seemingly managed to disappear just in time before the bullets started flying. They shot up Bronach’s body instead. He apparently was still human.

“Get us out of here,” Leona ordered the twins. She jumped to the infirmary, where Olimpia was already lying down in a medical pod, beginning to convalesce. “Report.”

Olimpia opened her mouth.

“Not you. Computer, report.”

“Patient is suffering from mild hypoxia and minor subcutaneous emphysema. There is also a single gunshot graze just over her left ear. Body temperature is low, but rising. Prognosis: the patient will recover within the hour.”

“You did a brave thing,” Leona said to Olimpia.

“Thanks—thanks—thanks,” Olimpia replied in an echo. She reached up with her necklace to try to put it back on.

Leona gently took it from her. “Just rest. We’ll reattach it once you’re fully recovered.” She felt that Olimpia was distressed and confused. “The scream. It took a lot out of you. That’s why you’re not recovering as fast as you would have. Hopefully you’ll never have to do that again.”

Olimpia nodded, then looked back up towards the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

Leona almost jumped out of her shoes when she saw Tertius walk into the room out of the corner of her eye. “I forgot you were still aboard.”

“I stayed off the bridge,” he began to explain. “I don’t have much experience with this kind of technology. I would just be in the way.”

“It would have been fine had you been there,” Leona said. “But you can stay with her now, let me go back.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Leona returned to the bridge. They were currently traveling at reframe speeds, zigging and zagging to confuse anyone trying to track them, as well as occasionally teleporting to random vectors. “Good strategy. I appreciate you taking over.”

“How’s our girl look?” Marie asked.

Leona tapped her comms off, so Olimpia couldn’t hear. “Not great, but she’ll get through it.”

“We intercepted a transmission,” Angela said. “Bronach’s not dead. I don’t know how he survived, they didn’t give any details, but they’re confident.”

“I’m not surprised,” Leona responded. “I shouldn’t expect it to be that easy. Maybe he has an upgraded body too, or persistent consciousness backup, or some other wacky contingency. Right now, we have to focus on finding Mirage.”

“I made contact, but I think we should hold off on a rendezvous,” Marie explained. “I suggest we intentionally destabilize attitude control for half an hour, and vacillate the power conduits to appear derelict. If we’ve been tracked, I don’t want us to lead them to Mirage’s location.”

“Another good idea,” Leona said. “I don’t think y’all need a captain anymore. Computer, can you do as she said?”

“Randomizing maneuvering thruster activations, and power distribution systems now.”

While they were waiting, Olimpia continued to recover, and Leona looked over the diagnostics for the slingdrive to make sure that it was recharging, and going through the proper automated maintenance procedures. Ramses had installed a coherence gauge, which measured the drive’s readiness factors, boiling them down to a color-coded scale. Red meant that it was too early to make another safe jump. Violet meant that it was fully charged, stable, and ready to go. He warned against using it again until it was at least in Green. Right now, it was still on Orange, so it was likely at least a couple of hours from being ready. Leona also finally realized that it was July 5, 2487. They had jumped a year into the future. The navigation system was not calibrating correctly, so Ramses would have to look at it again. They had to get back to Castlebourne first, though, which might be a bit of an issue. A ship was on approach.

Leona jumped back from the engineering section. “Have they announced themselves?”

“No, sir,” Angela replied. “Should we open a channel?”

Leona watched the main monitor. The VA was spinning—supposedly out of control—but the computer was compensating for this, and keeping the image of the other ship straight. “No. If they think we’re derelict, we want them to keep thinking that. We’ll only react if they send a message, or launch a salvage team. I’m not sure if the people in the Goldilocks Corridor do that.”

“They might shoot us out of the sky,” Angela said. “They’re powering weapons.”

“Ready the hot pocket, but keep all available power queued to plasma shields.”

“We have plasma shields now?” Marie asked. “That wasn’t in the lessons.”

“They’re untested, and a huge power drain,” Leona said to her. “But they’ll stop pretty much anything. The EM deflector array isn’t as effective, and the teleporter field only works with projectiles. But yes, we technically have all three now.”

“Why aren’t they firing?” Marie questioned.

“The  guns aren’t pointed towards us,” Angela said as she was looking at the screen. “They’re pointed at nothing. Maybe they need to occasionally purge too, like our hot pocket?”

“Wouldn’t explain why they don’t just kill two birds with one stone, and use it against us,” Marie offered.

“They’re firing,” Angela said.

They were indeed projectiles; missiles, to be exact. Two of them flew off in the same general direction for no apparent reason. Suddenly, though, another ship appeared, right in their path. They had no time to react before the missiles struck the hull simultaneously, and all but vaporized them.

“Vellani Ambassador, this is Captain Mirage Matic of the Enlister. We know you’re playing opossum. Please respond.”

Leona just nodded at Marie, who opened the channel for her. “Mirage, it’s good to hear from you. This is Leona.”

“Welcome back, stepmom,” Mirage said with humor in her voice.

“Restore normal operations,” Leona ordered the twins. “Mirage, we would like to negotiate a new conflict tactic, if you’re up for it,” she said into the mic.

“Allow me on board, and I’ll teleport right quick.”

Leona nodded again. “Direct her jump to Delegation Hall, please.” She jumped over there herself, just before Mirage showed up. They shook hands. “Where’s Niobe?”

“Still on the Enlister,” Mirage answered. She looked around. “I’ve been scanning your systems. You’ve made some upgrades.”

“I hope that’s okay.”

“This here ship is yourn now. I heard about the Rock Meetings. Nice to know you’re using it for diplomacy, as was its original premise.”

“Yes, and we would like to keep using it for nonviolent purposes, though not necessarily diplomatic discussions. Before we talk about that, I have a more pressing question. We killed Bronach Oaksent, but he survived. Do you have intel on that? Is he posthuman?”

Mirage laughed. “No. He has the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Leona tilted her chin. “As in...Nicholas Flammel?”

“As in the dome of the Insulator of Life.”

“That’s where that is,” Leona whispered. “It’s powerful enough on its own?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone is more powerful on its own. There are four main components of the Insulator: the actual insulator, the revitalizer, the primary memory chamber, and the regulator. The first one is the exterior of the glass itself, so the dome contains part of it—enough of it to maintain someone’s life under certain circumstances. The rest of the dome is the revitalizer, as well as temporary memory storage. When all four components are combined, the regulator prevents the revitalizer from generating a new substrate for someone in storage. That’s why you have to transfer someone’s consciousness into a clone, or an android, or whatever.”

“So without the regulator, the stone can just make a new body.”

“It’s not that it can, it’s that it will. There’s no way to control it. It’s like a computer without I/Os. I think it takes a few days, but it will do it whether you want it to or not.”

“So he’s effectively immortal, as long as he has the stone in his possession.”

“There’s a downside,” Mirage goes on. “Once it resurrects you, you’re bonded to it. You’re the only one who can use it until this bond subsides. If someone else uses it, you will experience their damage. So in this case, it’s bonded to the Oaksent. If, say, his lieutenant takes possession, and gets a cut on his arm, a cut will appear on Oaksent’s arm. If he breaks his leg, he breaks Oaksent’s leg.”

“And if he dies?” Leona proposed.

“If the lieutenant dies, he basically steals Oaksent’s life. Oaksent will die for good, the lieutenant will live again. But then he has to keep it protected until his own bond fades.”

“How long does that take?”

“I’ve never seen it firsthand, but I believe months; maybe a year. I think the time gets extended when you keep using it. So if you cut your own arm every day, the bond will never dissipate. I’m not sure why you would want that as I consider it a bug, not a feature, but I dunno.”

Leona stared into space, and nodded. “I don’t wanna kill anyone, but...”

“I know. Is that why you’re here?” Mirage asked. “Is this a reluctant assassination attempt?”

“What?” She came out of her trance. “Oh, no. It’s a rescue mission. Rather, a rescue operation. I’d like to see you captain this ship once more...for a new crew.”

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The Fourth Quadrant: Hard as a Rock (Part I)

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In the beginning, there was one gargoyle named Oliver Spout. But then his pattern spread to three others. For the four of them, every day at sunrise, their bodies would slip into a stasis bubble, which essentially sent them forwards in time however long was necessary to reach sunset. For the rest of the world, hours would pass, but for them, only seconds. The length of daylight shifted throughout the year, so they always hated winter more than summer. Things got a bit wonky when their, Kansas City, was copied into the Fourth Quadrant parallel reality, leaving two of them on the original nighttime schedule, while the other two ended up only experiencing daytime. They eventually became the Presidents and Vice Presidents of this new world, sharing responsibilities across the diurnal cycle. Half a century ago, a team of heroes came to their reality, and gave them the technology they would need to break out of their patterns. Their consciousnesses were transferred to new clone bodies, freeing them to live at all times of the day. It was after this that Andrei was born to Skyler Spout and Kostya Orlov.

They all assumed that Andrei would be born completely normal. After all, he was the product of two clones whose pattern had been supposedly successfully stripped of them after they were downloaded into new bodies. Unfortunately, some of his mother’s gargoyleness seems to have been hardcoded into her DNA. While she never fell back onto her old pattern, Andrei grew up to experience one of his own. He has some choice in the matter, but not always. While his family’s perceptions of time were being slowed down to a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of what it should be, his perception is altered by a very minute amount. It only slows him down to about 99% of realtime. But during this time, Andrei is as hard as a rock. He can’t move, he can’t be moved, and if he’s not lying down when it happens, he’ll become incredibly fatigued while he’s waiting to return to the fray. Unless someone is there to help him out.

Selma Eriksen is the Vice President of the Fourth Quadrant Earth. After Princess Honeypea transports them from their neighbor’s penthouse on a planet called Hockstep, she looks over to find that Andrei has become stuck in one of his bubbles again. This can happen when he travels to a new world, but not always. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict when he’ll get stuck, or for how long. They’re standing on the manicured grass next to a fast-moving stream or river. Boats are tied to the bank, but she doesn’t know what kind they are. They kind of look like old, wooden motorboats, except there’s no motor. They’re surrounded by flowering plants, non-flowering plants, shrubs, and short trees. From what they’ve been told, this is a nature preserve of some kind, so this whole place could be designed with intentional obsolescence to protect the wildlife. “Nuadu, can you help me?” Selma requests.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nuadu asks.

“He’s stuck in a bubble. It’s not good for him to be standing up like this.”

“Put him in one of the broads,” Honeypea offers. “I thought you might like to take the scenic route to the Citrus Inn. I didn’t know this would happen to him.”

“Why would we go to an inn?” Cosette questions. “We’re not staying.” 

“You’re not speaking with the Magnolia until he’s ready...and he’s not ready,” Honeypea explains. “Everyone into the broadfloats. Four per. One on each needs to steer the rudder in the back. It’s pretty intuitive.”

Selma and Nuadu lay Andrei down on the floor of the boat. Since he can’t sit up, no one else joins them. Selma keeps an eye on him while Naudu steers. The steering section is raised up a little, so he can see where they’re going while still seated on his little perch. The river takes them in the right direction, but he has to navigate around rocks, limbs, and little whirlpools. The two rows of seats before him could probably fit six additional people total, but there may be a weight issue. If this thing has a rudder, it can’t sit too deep in the water.

The inn is wooden and rustic, with no electricity, but it at least has running water. It has no apparent means of climate control, but no one feels that this is necessary. The whole world seems to be sitting at the perfect temperature. The beds are simple in design too, but the mattresses are modern and comfortable. They’re not animals. Princess Honeypea tells everyone to get settled, because it could be a while. The Pryce Tree is a unique lifeform, the origins of which no one here knows much about. Trying to understand his motivations and sense of time would be a waste of their time. Fortunately, they have been assured that they are not wasting it just by being here. The garden is located, not only in another spatial dimension, but also temporal. They should be able to pick up right where they left off when they return to the Sixth Key.

Selma wishes they could have just spent a few nights here before, back when they were being isolated to protect the timeline, and then gone back several months later after the danger had passed. No one else is bringing that up, though, so she’s not going to rock the boat. Something strange is going on here. The magical tree’s power is awe-inspiring, and if there’s some other entity out there that rivals its might, that could be a real bad thing, and they could be in real big trouble, as could all of reality. They just have to hope that something can be done about it.

They reluctantly retire to their respective new rooms, and try to get some sleep. Selma is sharing one with Andrei. He doesn’t like to come out of his time bubble alone. It’s not typically she who has to wait on him, but she’s all he has right now. His relationship with Ayata is still too new for them to spend the night together, even though there’s nothing romantic going on here at any rate as Selma chose this particular room for its two beds. When she wakes up to use the restroom, she passes by him again, and sees that the bubble popped at some point, but he’s still asleep. If he’s in the right position, he can sleep while he’s in there, but it’s reportedly agitating, and he prefers to be able to change positions, and get comfortable. She takes care of business, then goes back to bed, waking up with the eastern sun a few hours later.

Andrei is hovering over her with a cup of tea. “Get any rest?”

She’s still groggy. “I should be asking you that.”

“The answer’s yes. Thanks for taking care of me. I should have liked to see the sights on the way down the river, though.”

“I’ll remember that next time,” Selma replies. They have a decent rapport, but they actually don’t know each other all that well. In the Fourth Quadrant, the President and Vice President run for office separately, and once the election is over, they operate independently, living and working on distant islands. This is done for practical reasons. If something should happen to the President, the VP shouldn’t be there to suffer the same fate. The whole point is that she’s the backup. This is the most time they’ve ever spent together.

Andrei takes a sip. “The princess thinks that the tree’s about to talk. Best get dressed, and grab something to eat. They have citrus here.” Citrus didn’t exist in their reality, and that’s because it didn’t start out as a full-fledged reality of its own. It was a pocket dimension at first, and citrus fruits can’t travel between the dimensions. All the lemons, limes, and oranges exploded every time a new region was expelled to it, both on the trees, and elsewhere. Grocery stores were a mess. That was their biggest concern when they were negotiating for their interests during the Rock Meetings. The other civilizations had citrus because they were really just from another timeline that ran concurrently with the main sequence. Selma and Andrei were not super satisfied with the results, but they had little to offer their opponents. But if there’s a way to get what they need from here, without the help of the rest of the Sixth Key, they might end up in a better position moving forward.

Selma gets up and dressed in a tunic that she found in one of the dresser drawers. Wearing it isn’t a requirement, but most everyone else in the group made the same decision, because they’re soft and convenient. General Medley is still wearing his IMS. He says it’s versatile, but it looks restricting and itchy. She’s never worn one before. Again, the Fourth Quadrant was once only a collection of pocket dimensions. By the time it was upgraded to full reality status, space travel was too much trouble with no projected rewards.

While Selma and Andrei, and a few others, are still eating breakfast, Princess Honeypea walks into the communal area. “The Magnolia will see you now. I will escort you upriver to the Confluence.”

“Can those broadfloat things do that?” Kalea Akopa of the Parallel asks.

“We’ll take the airboats,” the princess clarifies.

They climb in, and speed back up the river, past where they first appeared, and into what has to be what Honeypea was talking about. It’s this big open area of water, where even from their low vantage point, they can see other rivers moving off in other directions. In the center is an island of roots underneath a giant tree. They really weren’t kidding when they kept calling him that. They have only ever seen him in his human form. Mysterious blue glowing fruits are hanging down from the blue leafed branches. At the base is a gravestone where monarch butterflies are fluttering about. They stop by a flat and level part of the arboreal island, and step out one by one.

As soon as the last person gets out, the boat drives away on its own, and the human form of the Magnolia appears. Tamerlane Pryce wasn’t a good guy when he was just a regular person, but this is just what the tree chooses to look like, for whatever reason. It’s not really him, though...not anymore. They were never given a whole lot of details. He steps forward. “I apologize for the delay, but I was seeking information. I know what our issue is now, but I don’t know how to solve it.”

“Is season two of our unauthorized reality show moving forward?” Andrei asks.

“I hope not,” Pryce replies, “but as it stands, I can’t stop it.”

“Who’s doing this to us?” Cosette demands to know.

“She calls herself The First Explorer. She claims to have witnessed the big bang, and while she did so through some form of time travel, I believe that she sees herself as the first being to exist in the whole universe. This universe, that is; not Fort Underhill.”

“What does she want?” Selma presses.

Pryce Tree takes a moment to respond. “She’s convinced that she’s at war with Fort Underhill and the Sixth Key. She perceives you as a threat. She’s more powerful than I am, I’ll admit that...but she’s not more powerful than me and The Nucleus.”

“The Nucleus is a place, not a person,” Nuadu insists.

“That’s what you think.” Pryce sighs. “Still, we won’t be able to do this alone. We need human agents to accomplish some of our goals. Any volunteers?”

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Microstory 2345: Earth, April 9, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I got so wrapped up in the explanation of my experiences outside of the dome that I forgot to respond to your questions about our birthday. Thanks for not throwing that oversight in my face. I was talking to dad about it, and we couldn’t come up with very many ideas, but he thought that maybe we could indeed try to coordinate our celebrations. We don’t really have any specific traditions, but perhaps we could agree to a specific time, and maybe wear matching outfits? That might sound stupid, because I doubt that we would do that if we lived on the same planet, but that’s just what we came up with. You do have fiber synthesizers there, right? And do you have access to a telescope? Perhaps we could be looking at the same stars at the same time, to sort of symbolically connect to one another. In real life, there is no part of the firmament that holds any significance to the both of us. At least, I don’t think there is. But there is this sort of religion called astrology. Have you heard of it? People basically think that the alignment of celestial bodies has some sort of impact on their lives and personalities. It’s bogus, of course, but I say that anyone can create a psychoemotional connection to it in any way they see fit, and ignore the rest. According to astrology, our sun sign should be Taurus, because 2,000 years ago, when you were looking at the sun on May 17, the constellation Taurus would be behind it. But as we all know, everything in the universe is constantly on the move, so some people believe that our sun sign should instead be Aries. Obviously, this is all nonsense, but I was thinking that we could use it anyway. We can’t stare at the sun, though, so instead of looking at the stars in Aries, let’s look in the polar opposite direction, which would be Libra. What do you think of that? It might sound dumb to you, but because of our separation, and because of the vast expanse between us, we’ve never seen or done anything at the same time. I just thought that we could try it. There’s no harm, right? Unless you can’t get to a telescope, I don’t know. It wasn’t automatic for me, because the pollutants hide the stars, but it just so happens to be that one of the Mauna Kea observatories will already be looking in the right direction on May 17, so all I’ll have to do is register for remote viewing. Let me know what you think, and also let me know how I can help with your fear of the outside. I do have a lot of experience with it, but only on Earth. Death would not be instantaneous for me, but I want to help in any way I can.

Namaste and all that,

Condor

Microstory 2344: Vacuus, April 2, 2179

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Dear Condor,

That all sounds very dangerous. I’m glad that you’re inside fulltime now. I’ve only ever lived in three places, and never go outside. I grew up on the ship while it was on its way all the way out here, and a little when it was first in orbit around Vacuus. I was eighteen when we arrived, and after some initial surveys, I was part of the first group to drop down to the planet. And I really mean that. We took something called a dropship down to the surface. We lived there for almost two years before they had built enough of the residential base for us to move in there. Back then, we couldn’t launch any ships back into orbit, because it takes too much fuel to do it the traditional way, and the necessary infrastructure for more advanced methods took time to engineer. Now we have something called a launch loop, which—if you don’t know—is like a giant-ass roller coaster that allows us to get into space without expending too much energy, or requiring as much tensile strength as a space elevator would. They’re thinking about building the latter at some point, but it’s going to take a lot more effort and time. Anyway, until we started to be able to travel back and forth relatively cheaply, there were two separate populations. Those who never dropped down to Vacuus lived up there, and had their own kids. We stayed in contact with each other, though, since it was the only place we could talk to which had no significant time delay. I’ve never been back in person, however, while most people I know have gone back at least once. It’s really just little kids who have no had the opportunity yet. My friend who lives up there now has been asking me to take the launch loop into orbit for a visit, and I want to do that, but I also don’t. So much can go wrong. I cannot believe that I used to live on a ship. How did I end up so soft and cowardly? How did you do it? How are you so brave? You don’t have to answer that. This is just my neuroses getting in the way of my goals. I already go to counseling to get this stuff figured out.

Not yet living my best life,

Corinthia

Microstory 2343: Earth, March 25, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

It’s funny that you bring up transportation between safe zones, because that’s what we used to do before we came to this floating dome for permanent residency. For security reasons, pilots really preferred not to leave their secure cockpits, so they would hire other people to actually leave the aircraft, and help travelers load and unload. That’s what my dad would do for work, but it was more than that. I don’t remember how he got into it, because I was doing something on my own at the time, but I ended up working on the transport crafts too. I was a sort of flight attendant, but more for safety, and less for customer service. These people were fleeing very dangerous situations, so they didn’t need to be coddled and doted on, they just needed to know how to use their seatbelts, and where the emergency hazmat suits were. Anyway, for dad, it wasn’t as easy as climbing down the steps, and ushering people inside. We primarily dealt with families, the individual members of which often disagreed about leaving their homes, or where they should go. You have to remember, these were the early days of the poisoning of the atmosphere. It didn’t just all happen at once. A lot of safe zones were still open areas, rather than airtight domes. And a lot of the not-so-safe zones were still technically habitable, leading many to believe that the air would one day be cleaned up. They were wrong, but not crazy for holding out hope. No one knew how bad things would get. Few could have known. The ones that did were either very intelligent and observant, but few and far between, or responsible for destroying the environment themselves, and deliberately withholding pertinent information. Either way, the general population wasn’t hearing it. The bulk of dad’s job was convincing people that where they were living was no longer healthy enough for them, and they had to move somewhere else. The answer to where kept changing, and the number and size of the safezones kept shrinking, but we kept working. Because of his naturally diplomatic personality, and because he continued to develop his skills in this area, he was ultimately selected for the position he has now in this dome. It was still a very nascent development back then, having only recently achieved its vacuum seal, and they were in need of population growth. By then, transportation was big business. It had become easier to persuade people to move, so the qualifications for the job were now less rigorous. So others could do it who couldn’t before, and there were so many more aircraft that could be used for this. In the past, jets just had doors that led right to the fuselage. Now we need both an airlock, and a decontamination chamber. Older craft were retrofitted with these additions, but newer ones have been designed with these necessities. I’m getting a little off-topic, but yes, transportation is no joke. And to answer your question, I can indeed see the coast of Australia from our cabin, but only from my dad’s room. Mine’s on the other side. Now, if we were traveling clockwise...

Also in a vacuum,

Condor

Microstory 2342: Vacuus, March 18, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Ha, you’re welcome for the ultra-capacitors. Yes, I invented them single-handedly when I was nineteen years old. I’m a god here. Hopefully that makes up for missing your last 36 birthdays! Speaking of which, ours is coming up soon. What do you typically do to celebrate? Mother and I would always spend the day together, but we didn’t have any specific traditions that we held to. There’s not a lot of different forms of recreation, and nothing that you could consider special. The best I have ever been able to really do is take the day off, and kind of relax all day while someone fills in for me. I suppose that part won’t necessarily change, even though mom’s gone. I really wish that you and I could do something together, or at least communicate in real time. Maybe we could agree to do the same thing at the same time, when the day comes. On second thought, that’s not a great idea, because then you’re limited to staring at rocks, or just hooking up to a virtual simulation. I dunno, I’m starting to get on another emotional ramble. Let’s move on. That’s interesting about the Australian coast, and the condition that you stay there for a period of time. Australia is a big place. Do you have to stay near the dome you were trading with, or is the whole continent fair game? If it’s the second one, then this stipulation feels a bit arbitrary. Maybe they have a reason that makes sense when you hear it. Can you see land outside your window where your stateroom is, or can you really not tell any difference during your daily life? I hope that your other trading partners don’t have any issue with you being so far away all this time, but surely you have other means of transport. No, I know that you do, because your father didn’t have to wait until your platform made it back to where he was to get back on board, or you would have said something along those lines. That sounds like a fascinating job to me, to go all over the world, transporting people between the safe zones peppered in all over the globe, but very dangerous, like the field workers on Vacuus. I’m honestly glad that you don’t do that.

Cheers mate,

Corinthia

Microstory 2341: Earth, March 11, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Ultra-capacitors, really? That was you? We use those here for everything. It was a breakthrough in technology, which has allowed us to harness the power of lightning, just like you do, but has had numerous other applications through advancements in miniaturization. Back in the olden days, it would take minutes, or even hours, to charge a small device. Now it takes seconds. I just place my phone on the charging pad, and it’s at 100% by the time I can take my watch off to charge it next. Some people even have these gun-like chargers where you simply point and shoot at what you want charged. They’re developing persistent charge technology as well, but that’s a few years away, and would take a lot of retrofitting for preexisting infrastructure. It’s mostly the backend that’s slowing us down on that, though. We need a constant, reliable source of energy generation, which lightning strikes do not provide. It’s particularly hard to develop such things on a moving platform on the water. They never told us that these inventions ultimately came from off-world. I hope that it’s in the literature somewhere—and I’m just ignorant as an individual—not that they’re intentionally hiding the truth from us to allow someone else to take credit. To answer your sort of question, we’re not back out to sea just yet, but definitely by the time you read my letter, we will be. All of our new friends are now safely inside the dome, but we’re still docked because they’re still making sure that everyone who came won’t change their mind, and everyone who chose not to come hasn’t changed theirs. We have the luxury of being able to go wherever we want most of the time, but that’s not going to be the case for the near future. Part of the negotiations involve us staying close to the Australian coast for at least the next six months. We can still move around, which we do to maintain safety and security, but we can’t stray too far. I believe that that’s what slowed the talks down overall. We also move around to trade and interact with other land partners, but that won’t be possible until our time is up. I personally don’t see us staying a minute past our negotiated duration, because we want to maintain positive relations with other regions, though many are projecting that we’ll be here for a full year. We’ll have to wait and see. Speaking of the future, we’re probably a couple months out from reaching Bowen Orbital Spaceport. You and I will be the closest we’ve ever been since we started talking. After a quick car ride, I could be stepping onto a shuttle, headed your way, haha.

Thanks for the electricity,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 4, 2486

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After Mateo and Ramses returned to Castledome, the latter hopped into their ship to run diagnostics on the slingdrive. Following careful examination and thought, he decided that it was not a good idea for them to try to jump again today. The good news was that they didn’t have to wait an entire year to begin the sidequest. Mateo’s daughters were capable of operating it on their own. They were going to have to learn sometime, and obviously all the systems were automated. While Ramses was spending time showing them the ropes, Mateo and Leona put their heads together to draw up a list of everyone they wanted to live here on Castlebourne with them. Darko Matic was first on the list. According to Dalton Hawk’s claims a while back, Darko’s last known location was the top of Monte Albán step pyramid in Mexico. This was where Dalton was killed, leading him to ending up in the afterlife simulation. Assuming there was no delay between his final moment on Earth, and his arrival in the simulation, this occurred in the year 2400.

While the team was gone, Kivi, Dubravka, and Romana took the Vellani Ambassador 85 years in the past to retrieve Uncle Darko. It was he who came up with the collective term of Kadiar, as that was the spelled out form of their first name initials as an acronym. They seemed to like it. Team Kadiar. Tertius was a part of their team too, but didn’t seem to mind being left out of the name. He wasn’t the only one to not be included, though everyone else’s role in this new operation hadn’t yet been fully fleshed out. Some would join the away team for the refugee missions, while others would remain on Castlebourne to work those refugees through orientation, and make sure they had everything they needed, as well as maintain some level of order as hosts.

Team Kadiar’s first stop after Darko was Baudin Murdoch’s architectural firm. His power would be invaluable on this world, speeding up construction on every dome by orders of magnitude. He agreed to the job with very little convincing. Over the course of the next year, more people were recruited to live on this world. This included Mateo’s once-mother Aura, and her husband, Samsonite, along with family friend, Téa. Ace and Paige came with a non-dead version of Serkan Demir. Kivi asked to bring in a version of Lincoln who didn’t literally know everything about everything. Next came Mateo’s once-father, Mario, and his wife, Angelita Prieto. They hoped to reunite with their daughter, Brooke, but she was off doing her own thing. She might show up later, once things were settled with the Exin Empire and the Ex Wars. Several other people agreed to live here too, like Kallias Bran and Aeolia Sarai. Lastly, they found a few less likely allies in Ida Reyer, Jericho Hagen, and Jesimula Utkin. Team Kadiar reportedly spoke with many others who didn’t have any interest in joining, or had too much work to do elsewhere, like Quivira Boyce and her team of time fixers, and the members of the Interagency Alliance Commission, which operated primarily around the turn of the 21st century. At some point during this, too, Dubra intentionally crossed her own timeline, and stole some DNA for a new clone body. It didn’t sound like that big of a deal.

There was one more major recruit on the list, and now that Team Matic was back, it was up to them to complete the mission, as the Matic girls were still too untrained to handle it on their own. Mirage was still presumably in enemy territory in the Goldilocks Corridor with Niobe Schur. Everyone was getting ready to go. They were checking their IMS and PRU systems. They were running a preflight check on the Ambassador. The hot pocket didn’t have much trapped heat, but it was purged anyway, so it could be as empty as possible. Mateo was looking for leaks in his helmet. Onboard diagnostics were capable of detecting such things, but as a point of redundancy, it was prudent to also have an external means of confirming the safety of the suit using an unsynced tester.

“You’re not going,” Leona told him.

“What?”

“You’re staying here.”

“You think you need to protect me?” Mateo question.

“No, of course not. Your daughters get one day a year with you. You can’t waste that time.”

“I’m on a different team,” he began. “I encouraged her to form her team, but I still need to stay with you.”

“I appreciate how you feel, but whether she says it or not, she needs you.” He had three daughters, but Leona was referring specifically to Romana, who was the youngest, and perhaps most vulnerable right now. “Ramses is staying too, for his work.”

“Have you talked to her about this?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good. I need to show you something.” He held out a hand, and when she took it, teleported them both to a farming dome. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary when vertical farming had long ago replaced traditional methods, but Hrockas put a lot of effort into transporting live organisms on an arkship, and he didn’t want to waste it. Arkships were very rare vessels designed to store tons of organic material, such as seeds, and flora and fauna DNA. They were meant to seed life on other worlds, but the government didn’t just hand them out to anyone who bothered to fill out an application. It wasn’t even clear whether a single other one had ever been launched as the ethics of them proved to be the most complex and divisive of all. It was pretty insane that Hrockas managed to get one. He must have been able to prove that this rock was otherwise completely inorganic.

“This is nice. Come here often?” Leona asked in half sincerity.

They were standing by a tall fence, which was an even funnier thing to have here since there was no such thing as trespassers, or animals that needed to be kept penned in. Mateo had strung a bunch of different types of fruits from the top rail. A couple of them had apparently burst open, and there was fruit splattered on the wood and ground. “I was just practicing, and wanted my new abilities to be a surprise, but I guess you’re gonna need an early demonstration.”

“What new abilities?”

“Not really new, we just haven’t really been talking about it.” Mateo put his hands together in front of his chest in an unusual configuration. He then split them apart, leaving his left hand out where it was while pulling his right back towards him. A holographic arrow materialized between them, clarifying that he had been pretending to string it on a bow. He looked over at his wife, and winked. Then he let go of the imaginary arrow, and sent it flying towards the fruit. It struck a passion fruit, which burst open, and splattered all over.

She was shocked. “How did you do that?”

“I think I have that figured out.” He sauntered towards the fence, and pulled what remained of the passion fruit from its string. He tossed it over to her, so she could feel that it was real. “It took me a while, but then I remembered. The timonite.”

“You still have timonite in your system?”

“I don’t know, but it was definitely on my hands, which is why a lemon would explode if I ever tried to pick it up.”

“Yeah, I remember you doing that for fun in the Third Rail. We got that fixed.”

“Exactly,” Mateo agreed. “A god gave me telekinesis. I haven’t touched a single thing with my bare hands in months.”

“Oh, right. That was telekinesis.” She shook her head. “Wait, no, those were different hands. We transferred your consciousness to a new substrate. That body is gone. You shouldn’t have that anymore.”

He shrugged. “I guess it transferred too. I don’t know how telekinesis works. Do you?”

“No,” she admitted. “It’s not a time power as far as I can figure.”

He started talking with his hands. “I think it...integrated with my illusion powers, and created something new. We were wondering what my specialty was. Olimpia is better at invisibility. Marie is better at impersonation. This is my thing. I can make solid holograms.”

She shook her head again. “The god guy said that it was just really close to your hands. You weren’t meant to do anything at that great of a distance.”

“It mutated,” Mateo decided. “Again, we don’t know how it works. But it’s the best explanation. I’m not that strong right now, but with more practice, I might be able to create a giant fist, and smash into that fence. I’m Ms. Marvel!”

“Maybe in the movies, not the comics.”

“Well, our ship is named after the movie version, so...”

“Why are you showing me this? I mean, I’m glad I know now, and I wish you had told me sooner, but what does this have to do with the mission?”

“Leona, I can make an impenetrable force field for the VA out of light. I have an endless supply of missiles that I could send to an enemy.”

“Oh, hold on. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You literally just said that you need more practice, and if the arrow is the best you can do right now, I believe it. I’m not sending you out with this. I have half a mind to try to figure out how to suppress your pattern, so you can spend the next 365 days training with Prince Darko.”

“We need Mirage back,” Mateo reasoned. “I’m your best chance of getting her back safely. You need me.”

“This is a stealth mission,” she contended. “We’re going to be invisible. No one from the Exin Empire should know that we were ever there. I don’t even want our allies to know that we were there, save for Mirage herself. We are not ready for an assault. You’re not just unpracticed, you’re a liability. I was willing to discuss you coming along, and even bringing your daughters, but you just made the decision for me. You’re grounded until further notice.”

“You’re grounding me?” he questioned. “Like a child?”

“No, like a sky jockey.” She sighed. “Show this to Dubra. She has experience with lots of powers. We don’t have time to argue, and I’m not interested in your complaints. We’re going to get Mirage without you. I have spoken.”

He didn’t want to get into a real fight either, especially since he would definitely lose. She was the Captain, and her face certainly showed that she was giving him an order in that capacity, instead of as his wife and partner. He nodded respectfully. “We can maintain contact with the quantum messenger on the Ambassador, right?”

“We’ll be technically reachable, yes, but I want you to stay busy. They just opened a new scenic train in one of the domes. Right now, the landscapes are all computer-generated holograms, but I still hear it’s nice. It goes around the entire circumference of the dome, from a few kilometers above. So it takes about four hours to go from start to finish. Why don’t you get to know the girls there? You could have a nice lunch, talk about your hopes and dreams...”

“You can’t force this, Leona.”

“You can’t get anywhere with them if you don’t try.”

“So your suggestion is for us to ride around in a circle?”

“Very funny.” She paused. “It has slanted windows. You can look right down at the geographic features.”

“The fake features,” he pointed out.

“The topography is already there. That’s why Hrockas chose that spot on this planet, because it’s more textured than other regions. They just need to paraterraform it, which will take some time. The holograms are a stopgap.”

“You’re a stopgap,” he muttered under his breath, actually like a child.

“What was that?”

“I said were I you,” he lied.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” she lied back. She lowered him down by the shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead. “Qapla’!” She disappeared.

Mateo took only one moment to look back at his hanging fruit, and contemplate what he might do to accelerate his own training. By the time he teleported back to Castledome, the Vellani Ambassador was gone. It would never return.

He tried to call them on their comms disc, which were synced through a quantum connection to increase the range, but no one responded. They were probably too busy to deal with his incessant nagging. He reached out to Romana instead, who said that she was in Dojodome. It wasn’t just one big dome with thousands of dojos. It was modeled on Japanese architecture in general, so there were also ponds, gardens, and empty spaces. This was one of the big problems with the whole one dome per theme concept. A lot of themes just weren’t grand enough in scope to take up the whole 1.3 million acre area. Your only choices at that point, really, would be copying and pasting the same structures over and over again, or just leaving some of it as unused desert.

“Are you guys training?” he asked once he had teleported to Dojodome.

“Yeah, it’s scheduled as a solo day,” Romana answered, “so we each do our own thing. It’s how Uncle Prince Darko gets his breaks.”

“Do you really call him that?” he laughed.

“L-O-L, sometimes, he doesn’t like it. Hey, I thought you were going off to the Goldilocks Corridor. We said our good lucks at breakfast.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Mateo said, “but Leona kicked me out. She was right, they don’t need me out there. I want to spend it with you three, if you’re not too busy.”

“No, this is a perfect time. I was just gonna go for an extra run.” She fiddled with her armband. “It looks like Dubra’s at the South Pole at the moment, probably for a swim. And Kivi’s in...where is that? She’s on the move. Oh, that’s probably the Terminator Track. Ooo, I bet she’s on a date with Lincoln. I don’t have his location ID, but I’m sure he’s there too.”

“What’s the Terminator Track?” he asked.

“The pod’s speed is based on the rotation of Castlebourne in order to maintain a fixed position relative to the sun at that latitude. I think there are four pods. One is in perpetual sunset, and another at sunrise. The other two are in daylight, and nighttime...or is it twilight? Maybe there are five. I can’t remember, but they follow each other on the track.”

“Hrockas really thought of everything, huh?”

“I’ve helped,” Romana bragged, “but yeah, he pretty much had the big picture painted before I got here.”

Mateo took Romana’s arm to look at the little dots that indicated where all of Romana’s friends were currently located on the satnav, paying special attention to Kivi’s and Dubra’s. “I’ll let you do what you were planning on doing, and let the others do the same. But can we agree to meet one year and one day from now?”

Romana thought about it for half a moment, debating in her head whether she would try to make her sisters accommodate a daddy-daughters date this year. Having come to a decision, she nodded once, and said, “okay. What are you gonna do today instead?”

Mateo looked around the dojo, eventually zeroing in on a wooden dummy on the other side of the room. Drawing inspiration from his own comment from earlier, he reached his arm back, and shoved it in the air towards the dummy. A hologram of his fist flew away from him, as the arrow had before. It crashed into the training apparatus, bursting it apart. He smiled and admired his own work. “I have some training of my own to do.”

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