Microstory 1215: Vidar Wolfe

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It took a little bit of time for Vidar Wolfe to discover that he had temporal powers, or rather, it took some time for him to reason what they were. Alone, he was never capable of traveling through time or space. It was only when he interacted with others that he could do it. He realized when he was in his mid-twenties that he could sense the energy that other people left behind when they used their own powers. Not only could he siphon that energy off to use for himself, but also follow them through. If he gathered enough temporal energy, he could travel wherever he wanted, but he had to find that energy first, and it would dissipate eventually if he didn’t use it for something in time. He came to be known as Tracker, using his abilities in the most expected way, by tracking time travelers and teleporters wherever, and whenever, they might be. He was eventually hired by Beaver Haven Rehabilitation Center to hunt fugitives. He was one of the few choosers-for-hire to take cold, hard cash for their troubles. Other people wanted trips to times and places of their choosing, payment-in-kind, or other gifts and favors. Some didn’t require payment at all. They could always get their hands on whatever they wanted with no one’s help, so they didn’t really see any point in getting people to pay them. Vidar had ways of going wherever he wanted as well, but that was the extent of his exploitation of his gifts. He didn’t want to rob banks, or steal from others. He wanted money so he could live comfortably, using his real identity, in the time period that he was born into. When he wasn’t working, he was watching a sports competition, or reading a good book.

He wasn’t all that adventurous, and didn’t care much for exploring spacetime He didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about his work. To him, a job was a job, and it didn’t matter much who the prison was asking him to go after. He wasn’t uncaring, but he tried not to ask for too much information, so he could keep a healthy distance from his targets. Nonetheless, he had a strict code of ethics that he created himself, to make sure what he was doing was at least moral in a generic sense. He never wanted to hurt anyone physically, so if they were fighting against him too hard, he would let it go, and try again later. He avoided regular humans at nearly all costs. He didn’t want them getting caught in the crossfire, or being used as leverage. He also didn’t want his abilities to be exposed to the public, especially since it would be ironic, considering it was his job to apprehend people who were doing just that. Every day was a little different than the last, but he fell into a rhythm, and in later years, found the work to be somewhat tedious. One day, he was asked to capture a regular human; one who had been mixed up with salmon and choosers. She wasn’t a hundred percent innocent, and there were plenty of reasons to send her to a normal jail, which she avoided, because law enforcement considered her a necessary tool to alleviate the crime around Kansas City. Still, she didn’t have abilities, and she didn’t try to expose anyone who did, which meant she absolutely did not belong in Beaver Haven. He was disgusted when he learned that they had sent him to take her under false pretenses, and came to hold her for a whole year. That was when everything changed.

Microstory 1214: Oskari Belker

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Oskari Belker was an old man. He wasn’t always old, but almost always. On the planet of Durus, everyone was aware of time powers. The first of these on their world were the source mages. They were able to bequest abilities to others, which they selected using a series of challenges called the mage games. Those mages who survived the final days of the war with the time monsters were stripped of their powers, but not of their ability to procreate. This was against the law while the Mage Protectorate was standing, but after it fell, the policy was abandoned; or at least it was unenforceable by anyone who still believed in it. Amongst the descendants of mages, a random few of them were born with limited temporal powers, which earned them the name mage remnants. Due to reasons not fully understood—possibly involving environmental factors—some mage remnants weren’t born with time powers, but instead time afflictions. They experienced time beyond the normal linear way, and had no control over this, like salmon. Unlike salmon, however, their patterns weren’t being controlled by an intelligence. Their afflictions caused various problems for their lives, making it difficult for them to live productively, and interact with others. Oskari Belker was one of these people. Everything seemed perfectly fine when he was born, but about a year into his development, he started aging rapidly, and showing no signs of slowing down. Even worse, his family was of a lower class, so it took them weeks for them to find someone who could help stop this horror. The government finally gave them permission to go into what was normally illegal territory, to seek the retroverters. They were a politically neutral type of monster with a long history with the source mages, and the Protectorate. They attempted to reverse Oskari’s aging, but were unable to. The best they could do was halt it in his current condition. Had they tried it a couple weeks ago, he might have become ageless and undying, but perpetually being so close to death made his life unbearable at times. He was constantly fighting off age-related diseases, and was at risk of death with every passing minute. He used to say that he was on borrowed time.

Oskari continued with his life for thirty-years, trying to be as positive as possible, despite his shortcomings. Though he appeared elderly, he first had to develop and mature, just like any child. When it was time, his parents attempted to send him to school, but this proved hard for everyone. The children were not purposely mean. They understood what had happened to him, and accepted him for it. But what they didn’t understand was his perspective. He saw time, life, and the world in a unique way, and they just couldn’t relate to him. They never mocked or deliberately exclude him, but none of them made the level of effort required to be his friend. Many would grow up to regret their failure to try just a little bit harder. Still, Oskari persevered, and made it through. He found companionship with the proverters who once tried to help him, because aging was their specialty, and they knew how to make an effort. He graduated from school, and landed a job at the tax building. It was tedious and boring work, but it allowed him to sit at a desk all day, instead of being out and exerting himself. Like his friends, the retroverters, taxes were neutral, and didn’t require him to judge others, or to be judged. He spent his adult like cross-referencing data, and filling out paperwork, but it could not last forever. Unfortunately, it didn’t even last as long as it should have. Oskari never did find love, because people had trouble getting past how he looked, and he couldn’t be expected to be interested in potential mates who looked more his age. One of his former classmates, however, did contact him about six years before he was meant to die. They started getting to know each other better, and maybe with a little more time, the relationship could have transformed. Tragically, a temporal accident involving a library from another dimension took his life too soon in the middle of a picnic with his friend. A paramount—which was what mages were now called—determined when he would have died had this not occurred. This would have given him more time to live, but also more time to be in pain. His family would note that this might have been the best ending for Oskari Belker. It was quick and painless, and it could have happened to anyone; normal or not. History would remember him fondly, even by people who didn’t know him at all.

Microstory 1213: Darrow Ness

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Very little is known about Darrow Ness, a.k.a The Maverick, and that’s saying a lot, because given enough time, pretty much anyone’s story can be uncovered. People are aware of him, and they have memories of their encounters with him, but no individual has enough of an understanding of his life to truly know who he is. First off, there’s reason to suspect Darrow wasn’t always his name, mostly because he doesn’t immediately respond to it; at least not as quickly as most people do. He’s apparently revealed multiple origin stories to those who have asked him about it, all of which contradict each other, so the assumption among people who know him is that he’s purposefully misleading them. He has the ability to travel through time, and he seems to be able to detect death, but there’s one power that he’s never told anyone else about. He can erase people’s memories. It’s unclear what his limits are, but he can exercise this control over seemingly anyone, and he does so to protect his own timeline. Darrow doesn’t erase the memories of everyone, for every thing he does, but he does like to keep himself wrapped in mystery. And no one is immune; not even The Superintendent. Nothing he’s claimed about himself can be verified or debunked. He is a killer, who uses his time traveling ability to assassinate targets, usually upon the request of someone else. This is all anyone knows of him, though again, there’s evidence to support  the idea that he has spent entire timelines displaying no violent behavior. Perhaps the secret to him lies in these alternate realities.

Microstory 1212: Faustus Lambert

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When the Deathspring came for a seemingly random scattering of Earthan residents, most were unhappy about it, but not as unhappy as one might assume. While the magic portal seemed to take people at random, it often took multiple people within a community sphere; as if it were being controlled by some kind of intelligence. Entire families were swept up, even if they happened to be standing nowhere near one another. The worst losses the refugees felt were the people they loved, but many of their loved ones were taken along with them, so it could have been far worse. This was why—despite how difficult life was on Durus—not everyone lobbied to be transported back to Earth when the opportunity arose. Only a couple hundred people expressed interest in making the journey, and out of those, only about half had come in the Deathspring. The rest were born on Durus, and just didn’t want to live there anymore. Faustus Lambert did not fall into either of these groups. He saw the arrival of the interstellar vessel, The Elizabeth Warren as a means of furthering his own agenda, but its flight plan didn’t matter much to him. He was an entitled prick, to be quite crude, but appropriate and accurate. Durus, Earth; he could live anywhere, as long as there were those who would give him what he wanted most, which was attention. Under the guise of being an advocate for his people, he orchestrated a violent attack on the of the Warren, and demanded they let them tag along as passengers. The truth was, however, that their feelings and desires were of little consequence to him. They were just tools. Faustus didn’t care who his people were. They could be puppy-kickers, Nazis, or serial killers. He just wanted to lead. More to the point, he wanted people to follow him—not because he thought he knew best, but because it made him feel relevant.

Faustus lived a rather comfortable life from the very beginning. He was born male, so he had that going for him. He outright rejected the idea that women were systematically treated unequally, while simultaneously treating women poorly. His beliefs were no less true anywhere than they were on Durus during its phallocratic era. He wasn’t a violent rapist, but unfortunately, that was more problematic in its own way. Had he committed even one assault, it would have at least been possible to arrest him, but he just continued with his life, never breaking the law, but never following the spirit of the law either. He abused his girlfriends psychologically, but too subtly for them to prove anything, even to themselves. He cheated on his partners frequently, and while he didn’t ever do anything with a minor, he sure did like them young. He had an unwritten rule that he couldn’t date anyone over the age of 20. This lasted until he was 35, and could no longer “score” so young, so he raised his limit to 25, but only because he had to. When the public learned that the only ship on the planet capable of transporting more than one person was scheduled to leave within a matter of months, Faustus took his shot to get those precious followers. He quickly changed his tune on a number of sociopolitical causes; pretending to champion women’s rights and Earthan refugee living conditions. Anytime anyone brought up his history of bigotry and misogyny, he simply denied their allegations. Anytime anyone presented proof that he was lying, he doubled down, and claimed that it was nothing more than fake news. Faustus took control of the movement that was trying to get to Earth, and nobody felt like they could fight him on the matter. His new people thought he could get them on that ship, and if that meant they were following a dishonest clown to do it, then so be it. In the end, the majority of the people who wanted to go were allowed in, but all the violent people—the ones who took the crew hostage—were completely excluded, including Faustus himself. He was finally sent to prison for his proven crimes, and this was where he died, alone and unremembered.

Microstory 1211: Irene de Vries

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Irene de Vries was a 21st century virologist. She wasn’t a superstar in her field, and that was probably the reason a time traveler named Trinity chose her for a very special assignment. Twelve light years from Earth, there was a star system called Tau Ceti. Despite the fact that there were a handful of planets within the habitable zone of the star, there was only one planet that had the potential to be perfectly suited for human life. Named Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, it was full of flora and fauna, but nearly everything was deadly to humans. It was Trinity’s dream that it be modified on a molecular level, and for this to happen before Earthan colonists had the chance to even arrive. She secretly recruited a number of experts, and Irene was only one of them. It was her job to use extremely advanced technology to seek and destroy all dangerous viruses on the planet before they could infect its first colonists. Automated systems could do a lot of this work, but Trinity wanted a human touch, to make sure everything was done correctly. Irene took to her job, comforted by the promise that Trinity would return her home only seconds after she first left, no matter how long she spent there. Unfortunately, there was a temporal anomaly on Bida that no one—not even Trinity herself—was aware of. She left her associate near this anomaly for only one week while she flew off to the other side of the globe to work on other things. On the last day of her solo exploratory mission, Irene found the special cave, and decided to take a good look around. She spent only five hours there, which was longer than she had planned, but the organisms she discovered were just too damn interesting. When she finally emerged, Trinity was nowhere to be found. She waited at the rendezvous point for three weeks, but she never saw her again. She resigned herself to the fact she would be trapped on an alien world forever, and this was just her life now. She figured she might as well seek better shelter. She reentered the cave, but this time she went deeper, all the way to the other side. It was here that she found humans.

A little bit of investigation made it clear that she was back on Earth, but many centuries in the past. According to the Julian calendar, it was the year 1128. Despite the fact that this was not what she would call civilization, she decided to stick around. Life was difficult for her there, but at least she was no longer alone. The first thing she had to do was start learning the language. This was England, but so long ago that they were speaking a form of English that was completely unintelligible to her. She fell in love with her teacher. He was kind and understanding, and he didn’t question her about her native tongue, or what she was doing in these lands. He accepted her, and within the year, they were married. Less than a year after that, she bore him a son, who they named Briar. They lived pretty contently for the next few years, raising their child together, and just trying to get by. One day, Irene was taking a walk with Briar when a torrential storm suddenly came upon them. She didn’t want to have to run all the way back home, so she sought shelter in the same cave she used to come here. She stayed fairly close to the entrance, but not close enough to watch the storm. She and Briar fell asleep, and by the time they woke up, Irene didn’t know how much time had passed. When they stepped back out, however, she discovered it to be no less than sixteen years, and the love of her life had passed. She realized that the cave must slow time, in addition to sending travelers from Bida to Earth. Irene finally understood, but it was too late. Her husband was dead, Trinity was long gone, and she had to make a choice. She could either raise Briar on Earth in a bad time period, or alone on Bida. She depleted 140 years weighing her options. Her husband was the only person she could ever trust, and it was because of this that she spent so much time in the cave yet again, trying to decide what to do, and also why she ended up choosing Bida. She spent the rest of her life on a world devoid of all intelligent life but her son, lying to him to make sure he never entered the cave unless it was absolutely necessary, and died an old woman.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 15, 2253

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When Leona and Briar got back to the shuttle, it was even dirtier and duster than it was just a few hours ago. There was no overgrowth on the craft, but that was because they had landed in a fairly barren spot. It still reminded her of what happened to it after she left it unattended to during her time jump. That couldn’t be it, though. They weren’t gone for long enough, and it should still be November 14, 2253. Leona checked her watch, though. Mario Matic gave it to her a long time ago. It wasn’t originally a gift; she was only meant to keep it so she would have a tether to remember him when Arcadia inevitably ripped him from time. She tried to give it back to him once the whole thing was over, but he insisted she keep it. Honestly, she was secretly excited when he said that. She had grown used to always knowing exactly what time it was. The only reason she hadn’t taken it through the portal to Earth was that it did require charging every couple of months, and that just happened to fall on today. But it wasn’t today, was it? No, it was next year.

She gently tapped on the watch a few times. She hadn’t ever known it to be inaccurate, but this couldn’t be right. Did she miscalculate when midnight central was? Briar hadn’t noticed her being gone for a whole other year, so maybe the cave was exactly like the one on Easter Island, which echoed time powers, and affected all present. She activated minimals systems on the shuttle. “Computer, what is the date by the Earthan Calendar?”

“It is November 15, 2253,” the AI replied.

“Please confirm using all available data,” Leona requested.

“Recalculating,” the AI said. “Confirmed. November 15, 2253.”

“Is that bad?” Briar asked. “I never needed to keep track of time before.”

“We were gone a year,” Leona explained. “But how? When did that happen?” She tried working through it in her head. “Wait, this wasn’t the first time you went to Earth. Did you not notice this before?”

“Like I said,” Briar began, “I never needed to know the date. It took me some time to repair the shuttle while you were gone, but I don’t know how much time. I didn’t bother asking the computer what the date was until I explored the coordinates my mother gave me, and returned to the landing zone. I thought it hadn’t felt like it had been a year, but I figured I just didn’t understand. That’s why I was late coming back for you; because I didn’t realize you would be back yet.”

Leona scratched at her forehead. “We made four passes through the cave. We went there to check it out, then we came back for the stellar drift instrument, then we went back to Earth to use it, and finally, we came back here. It’s been exactly one year since we were gone, which suggests each pass lasts three months.” She thought about it some more. “It’s a time trap. Time moves slower in the cave. I saw that in a movie once; it was really good.”

“Did it have a happy ending?”

“Depending on how you look at it,” she answered. “I’m just glad our cave doesn’t slow time as much as it did for those characters, or I would never see my friends again.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Briar, I know we’ve already talked about this, but now it’s even more important that you tell no one what we found. Before, it was potentially dangerous to let people travel back to the past, but now, it could be even worse. We spent ten minutes in there, just trying to get to the other side. If someone tries to go into that cave, and rest for the night, they could end up missing over a decade of their lives.”

“I understand,” he promised. “You took the shuttle in the year 2250, but wanted to spend all of 2251 alone. You got lost in the woods, and by the time you returned, it was already 2252, and the shuttle was damaged. I was there. We fixed it together, but there wasn’t enough time to fly all the way back to Homebase, so I agreed to wait another year until you returned. Now it’s 2253, and we’re going back to your friends.” The timeline he was proposing was a bit inconsistent from what really happened, but it was a good lie, especially for someone who didn’t have any experience with deception. It was just close enough to the truth to be believable. This might could work.

Unlike a few years ago, the shuttle was fully capable of restarting, even after all this time out of commission. They flew together to Homebase, where Briar could finally ask Trinity what had happened between her and his mother.

“Irene de Vries,” Trinity said calmly once they arrived, and explained who Briar was. They didn’t bother with any other conversation before jumping right to the confrontation part of the day. “I remember her. I never didn’t remember her.”

“No, you ate wanderberries,” Briar argued. “You did forget her, but then you should have remembered her later.”

Trinity sighed. “I don’t know what she told you, but I have never heard of these wanderberries. If ever there was a plant on this world that made you lose your memories, I would have genetically altered it to remove those properties. That’s what I was doing here all that time.”

“Then what happened?” Leona asked her. “Why didn’t you send her back to Earth?”

“I couldn’t find her,” Trinity explained. “I worked with her for years; longer than any of my other associates.”

“That’s impossible!” Briar interrupted. “You just said you didn’t know anything about me! You’re saying I took years to be born?”

Trinity shook her head. “I don’t know how you exist, but she was never pregnant when I knew her, and there weren’t any males around us. Could you have been a latent pregnancy? I’ve never heard of it, but it’s not impossible. We all know that time isn’t always linear.”

“Go on,” Leona prompted. “Let’s table the baby talk so you can continue the story.”

Trinity restarted, “after Irene was done helping make this place a paradise, I was preparing to take her back to Earth. She had some more things she wanted to do first, so I left her alone. For a week. I went back to this continent for only a week. If I had realized what would happen, I would’ve stayed with her, but I wanted to show that I trusted her enough to let her do her own thing. When I came back, she was nowhere to be found. I searched for her, for more years, but she never showed up. I figured she had been eaten by a wild animal, or had fallen down a crevice. I’m sorry.”

“You could have gone back in time,” Leona pointed out. “You could have followed her in secret, to see where she went after Past!You left.”

Trinity sighed again. “I made a vow. I don’t change the past.” She looked back to Briar. “Your mother knew that.”

“You could have broken that vow, to save her life.”

“Maybe I should have, but that was two hundred and sixteen years ago. I was still kinda figuring all this out.”

“That’s impossible,” Leona echoes Briar. “He’s only fifty-seven. He eats this root that keeps him young, but not that young.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” Trinity said, “Irene and I worked together in the 2030s.”

Leona thought this through, trying to figure out how it could work. Then it hit her. She looked over at Briar, who seemed to be coming to the same realization. “The cave.” Well, that lie didn’t last long.

“What cave?” Trinity questioned.

Now Leona was the one to sigh. “I didn’t really want to tell you about it, but we found a cave. Actually, Irene left the coordinates to her son. It goes back to Earth nine hundred and nine years in the past, but until you pass through the cave, time is moving slowly for you. About ten minutes equals about three months. It explains everything. She could have found it, met a man on the other side, and at some point, spent a lot of time in the cave itself, which is why Briar is still alive, and in his fifties. She must have made up the story about memory-wiping berries just to make sense of it. She may not have even realized what the cave did to her.”

“That’s why I couldn’t find her. I never saw a cave, but since it was shelter from the elements, I would have definitely gone inside to check if I had.”

“You see, Briar?” Leona began. “It’s no one’s fault. They were separated by time.”

“She still could have gone back in time, and stopped it all from happening,” he contended. “Hell, she could do it right now.”

“She can’t do that,” Leona said. “It would erase you from history. You were only born because your mother met your father in the twelfth century.”

“Not if he goes with me,” Trinity said. “If he goes back to save his own mother, it will erase him from the future, but this version that we’re talking to right now will remain. His mom won’t remember him, though, because it will have never happened, according to her.”

“Would you really do that?” Leona pressed. “Would you break your vow?”

“Only if he wants me to. Either way, you’re sacrificing her, Briar. You can’t have her back.”

Briar was obviously torn. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?” Thor asked. “Can you do it, or not?”

“I don’t know if I can build anything until I try,” Weaver said. “I’ve never failed before, though.”

“So...” Thor said. “Go ahead and do it.”

“Just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it should be done. I have to consider the ramifications of everything I create. Pretty much everything I’ve done has blown up in my face in some way. If there weren’t any other time travelers, I could protect my inventions from falling into the wrong hands, but when I have to worry about all of time and space, I just can’t do it. Things will inevitably go bad.”

“I’m not certain what we’re talking about,” Mateo jumped in. He hadn’t heard the beginning of the conversation; or the argument, as it were.

“It’s not a big deal,” Thor claimed. “I just want her to make me a small quantum replicator.”

“Why do you need that?”

“I have minor transhumanistic upgrades,” he said. “I can’t interface with computers, or lift a car over my head, but they keep me alive. They need regular maintenance and replacements, though.”

“Everything you need can be found with an industrial synthesizer,” Weaver reminded him.

“It’s not so simple. I need raw materials, and I need to be near a machine when I need it, and I need the right specifications to build it, and I need to wait for it to be synthesized, and the machine is real big. I want something that can fit in my bag, that will always be with me, and will always make an exact copy of my required part.”

“I’ve built them before,” Weaver said, “but nothing that small. A portable replicator would just...I dunno, that sounds like a weapon.”

“Just build one,” Thor asked of her. “Don’t keep the specifications for it, and...I dunno, can you tie it to my DNA? If I’m the only one who can use it, then it’s no problem. I won’t abuse it; I don’t need to clone a girl I’m in love with, or bring back Adolf Hitler. I just need some nanites so I don’t die.”

“I don’t know...”

“I think you should do it,” Mateo determined.

“You do?”

“You hate me,” Thor said.

“I don’t hate you, Mister Thompson. We just don’t get along. That doesn’t mean I want you to die. Most transhumans live in civilization, and can find their needed replacements. All the way out here, it’s trickier. Weaver, can you build something that only works for him?”

Weaver sighed. “Yeah, probably. Theoretically. But also theoretically, someone else could find a loophole. Maybe they already have.”

“You said it yourself,” Mateo told her, “you can’t be responsible for all of time and space. Do this for him, consider the consequences of how you do it, and then hope for the best. I think he’s proven he’s worth the risk.”

Thor frowned, but Mateo could tell he actually wanted to smile.

“Very well,” Weaver gave in. “I can’t tell you how long it’ll take me, so don’t jettison the synthesizer we have on board just yet.”

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Source Variant: Hat Tricks (Part IV)

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After Vearden!Two healed fully from his injuries, he opened a door to grab a snack from the kitchen, and found himself two hundred years in the future. Saga!Three and Zektene followed a few hours later when they were searching for him throughout the Maramon lab. Ramses was left in the past, and whatever had happened to him in the last couple centuries, he was no longer in the facility. There was no evidence that he died here alone, so perhaps he decided to leave.

“What are we doing back here?” Saga!Three asks.

“I don’t know,” Vearden!Two admits. “I can sometimes walk through a door on purpose, but I wouldn’t have in this case. The powers that be created that one. We have to figure out why, I guess.”

“It surely has something to do with the Gondilak,” Zektene assumes. “We need to find out what they’ve been up to all this time; how they’ve developed.”

“We won’t be able to get very close,” Saga!Three warns them. “Seeing a clearly intelligent species that doesn’t look anything like them could seriously disrupt their culture, especially at this early stage in their development.”

“Maybe we could dress up like them?” Vearden!Two suggests.

“You mean, like makeup?”

“Yeah,” Vearden!Two says. “Have you seen what some makeup artists can do? They’re amazing.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Saga!Three agrees. “So let’s open a door, and find one of them. We’ll have to make sure they have the right equipment. We’ll tell them it’s for the Gondilak, and since they know what Gondilak are, they’ll know exactly which colors to use.”

“Okay, well, you don’t have to be snarky about it.”

“Sorry, it’s just...it would be a good idea if we had all the resources we needed, but we’re pretty limited here.”

“I can help with that.” A woman they don’t recognize suddenly appears before them, right where they had heard her voice.

“Hello,” Vearden!Two greets her. “You can make us invisible?”

“I can,” the woman confirms. “Sometimes you’ll want to be invisible, and sometimes you’ll want to look like a, uhh...”

“Gondilak,” Zektene assists.

“Gondilak,” she echoes. “I can give you the ability to do either one.”

“Great,” Saga!Three says. “I assume you know who we are, but we don’t know who you are.”

“Actually, I don’t know her.” The woman indicates Zektene.

“Hi, I’m Zektene. I’m from another universe.”

“Oh, cool. I’m Alyssa McIver. I work primarily with Mateo and Leona Matic, but many centuries in the past.”

“How many centuries?”

“You wanna know what year it is,” Alyssa guesses.

“By the human calendar,” Vearden!Two says. “Yes.”

“Which humans?”

“On Earth,” Saga!Three specifies.

“I’m kidding. I knew what you meant. It’s three-six-four-zero by the calendar you’re familiar with.” Hm, that’s interesting. They must start a new calendar sometime in the future. Alyssa looks around. “I have four hats.”

“Oh, fun.” Saga!Three says, not sure what that has to do with anything, but wanting to be understanding. “Do you like hats?” That might have been a little condescending.

“That wasn’t a non sequitur,” Alyssa claims. “The hats will give you my ability to create illusions.”

“Oh, okay.” Saga!Three takes a beat. “Oh, you probably mean Ramses. Yeah, he’s not here. We don’t know what happened to him.”

Alyssa removes a notepad from her back pocket. It was the same brand that Vearden!Two remembers Mateo always using to keep track of the people he encountered on his travels. She flips back and forth through it, looking for the right page. “Vearden!Two. Saga!Three. Ramses Abdulrashid. One other unnamed individual, that’s probably you.” She points at Zektene with both hands, still attached to her notepad.

“I hope he’s okay,” Saga!Three says, concerned.

“Is he salmon?” Alyssa questions.

“He’s human. I think.”

“Then the powers that be have no control over his movements.” Alyssa scratches his name out of her notes.”

“Well, they have no control over me,” Zektene points out, “but I’m here.”

“Lucky you.” She removes a hat from her bag, and hands it to her. “You look like a cowgirl.”

Zektene takes the hat and shrugs.

Alyssa takes out one of those brown helmet things ancient Europeans used to wear when they went off to explore Africa. She hands that to Saga!Three, and then gives Vearden!Two a mask.

“A baklava?” he asks with a funny face.

Alyssa shakes her head. “No.”

“These are gonna turn us into Gondilak?” Zektene asks.

“Yes, they operate on psychic energy, so when you need to change forms, just think about it. You could theoretically look like whatever you wanted, as long as you have a good enough idea of what it looks like, and it already exists somewhere, at some time. You couldn’t, for instance, make yourself look like a taco that poops ice cream, because that’s completely made up. My power is still time-based, like all others. All you’re doing is taking someone from another point in spacetime, and making it look like they’re standing in the same point you are.”

They nod. It makes perfect sense. It’s weird, there’s no denying, but it does make sense. They’ve all seen enough special abilities to accept the logic behind any new one they learn about. “No ice cream-crapping tacos. Got it.” Vearden!Two nods again.

“This is all you got?” Saga!Three asks her. She isn’t a very vain person, but this looks ridiculous, and will probably look worse when it’s on her.

“Sorry,” Alyssa replies. “I gave all the normal hats to...um, never mind.”

“Well, what’s the fourth one?” Vearden!Two asks. “The one you were gonna give to Ramses.”

Alyssa removes a fourth piece of headgear from her bag. They stare at it a moment.

“Oh, hell no.”

“Cool. Then we’re good. I gotta go now.”

“Wait,” Vearden!Two stops Alyssa before she can blip away, or whatever it is she’s going to do. “How are Mateo and Leona?”

Alyssa smiles. “Does it matter? The next time you see them could be long before, or long after, the last time I saw them.”

“It does matter,” Vearden!Two argues.

“They’re fine,” Alyssa answers. “That was eleven hundred years ago, though. Who knows where they are now?”

“Thank you for your help,” Saga!Three says to her graciously. “Hopefully you’re not a bad guy pretending to be good.”

Alyssa transforms herself to look like a legit bad guy named The Cleanser. But she keeps her original voice, which suggests this was now the illusion. “Yeah, hopefully.” With that, she disappears.

“Are you still here?” Zektene asks the aether.

“There’s no way to know,” Saga!Three reminds her, which Zektene fully understands.

Vearden!Two is fidgeting with his mask, looking for circuitry, or other signs of it being more that a piece of cloth cut a certain way.

“You meant balaclava,” Zektene explains to him as she places the cowgirl hat on her own head.

“Yeah, that’s the word.” He slips it onto his face and adjusts for comfort.

Following suit, Saga!Three puts on her helmet. “Anyone know exactly what this thing is called?”

“Nope.”

“Anybody know what the hell they’re doing?” Zektene asks. She spins the hat around her head, presumably to see if she can activate it somehow.

“We’re just meant to think about being invisible,” Saga!Three says.

“Wait, are we sure we want that?” Vearden!Two questions. “Maybe we want to blend in with them by looking like them.”

“Do you speak Gondilak?”

“Actually, a little,” Vearden!Two replies proudly. “I can say...Dandavo Dali Dali.”

Zektene chuckles. “We all learned that one.”

“Besides,” Saga!Three says, “that’s Maramon. We don’t know that these people speak the same language as their progenitors.”

“Oh!” Vearden!Two remembers. “Ked rihl. That means pipe dream. Or maybe more like yeah, right. Or maybe that was the Orothsew language. Oh yeah, it was.”

“Okay, so—” Saga!Three tries to get back to the task at hand.

“Treda!” Vearden!Two exclaims.

“What?”

“That means human,” Vearden!Two adds. “It’s what the Gondilak called me.”

“That’s the last word we want to say to them,” Saga!Three complains.

“And it’s only one word,” Zektene adds. “We wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation. Maybe we can learn their language in time, but we should be invisible to do it.”

“Exactly,” Saga!Three agrees. “So everyone, just think about not being seen.”

“No, that’s not it,” Zektene disagrees. “Alyssa said we’re not really turning invisible. We’re just making it look like something is in our place. What we have to do is show the Gondilak what the area were standing in would look like if we weren’t in it.”

“Is that different than what she said?” Vearden!Two asks.

“It is,” Saga!Three says. “She’s right. We should look around behind us, take in our surroundings, and then command our hats to present that to others.”

“Okay.”

Vearden!Two shakes out his arms and legs to prepare. Zektene starts to breathe in and out methodically. Saga!Three closes her eyes, and tries to lower her heart rate. When she opens them again, the other two are gone. “Hello?”

“I’m still here,” Vearden!Two says. “Where did you guys go?”

“I’m standing where I was,” Zektene answers.

“We can’t even see each other?” He asks, frustrated.

“She said we have a psychic link with our respective hat,” Saga!Three begins, “but we’re not mind-controlling other people. We can’t see each other, because there’s nothing to see.” She tries to wave her hands in front of her face. “I can’t even see myself.”

Vearden!Two looks down at where his own body should be. “Ah, crap.”

“Not used to people not being able to gaze upon your magnificence, are you?” Zektene teases.

He decides to lean into the joke. “I don’t like to deprive people.” He’s largely considered to be the most attractive time traveler in the underworld, and he can’t help but know this. Other people don’t really let him forget it.

They spend the next hour practicing their use of the magic hats. They transform themselves into various forms. They start simple, conjuring the images people they know, like Ramses and Alyssa herself. Then they get a little more creative by looking like fire hydrants, and two moose chillin’ next to each other under a tree. They even discover that they don’t have to be inside the illusions themselves. They can create one on the other side of the room, and still appear as normal people in funny hats.

It’s not until they’re confident in their abilities, and are about to go out and field test the technology, that they realize they don’t know why they’re doing this. When they go and observe the Gondilak, what are they looking for? Are they expected to take notes about their behavior and habitat, like a conservationist would? Will they be going into people’s homes, and watching them in their private moments? What is the point of all this? Their question may have to wait, however. As soon as Saga!Three opens the exit door, they see a mirror image of their own lab staring back at them.

“Is this someone’s illusion?”

“No,” the other two answer in unison.

“I think we’re going to the future. Again.”

She’s right. The door sends them another two hundred years in the future. After they close the door again, and then try to walk back through it, there’s another mirror image. Except now they see themselves on the other side, like a real mirror. Vearden!Two walks through, and simultaneously reappears going the opposite direction. They’re stuck here, but why?

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 1210: Randall Gelen

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In an alternate reality, Randall Gelen and his wife, Carol adopted a young boy whose mother couldn’t take care of him by herself. She remained part of his life, but the Gelens were responsible for raising him, and helping him grow. When Mateo was older, he unwillingly became a time traveler, and was ultimately the reason for Randall’s death, when Randall attempted to fix his son’s problem. Mateo would later go back in time to before any of them were even born, and kill Adolf Hitler a few years before his time. This would have massive consequences for reality, the extent of which few people are capable of fathoming. One such consequence was that Mateo was never born. Another was that Mateo’s companion, Leona’s parents both died. Neither of these things were Mateo’s intention, but causal chains over the course of decades are incredibly difficult to trace. Without Mateo to be of need, Randall and Carol ended up adopting Leona instead; a decision which they would come to suspect wasn’t entirely their own, though no real reason has ever been uncovered. Also for reasons they don’t fully understand, Randall died of a heart attack on the same day in the new reality that he died in the prior timeline. What many don’t realize was that this was not the end of his story. He got to live an entire life in the second before his death, and he got to meet the son he never knew he had. He also got to see what happened to his daughter after he died. His only regret was that Carol wasn’t there to experience it with him.

There was a special device called the time mirror. Actually, there were many time mirrors, but the temporal extraction mirror was the rarest, and the kind used in this instance. Just before death, Randall was pulled from his place in time—through a process that required less blood than the other extraction mirror did—and transported to the future, where advanced medical technology was used to save his life. He then continued on for awhile, having adventures with his daughter, as well as his once-son, Mateo. He didn’t ask for this, but he was grateful for the opportunity. He helped a lot of people during his second chance, but it couldn’t last forever. There was nothing he could do to prevent his own inevitable demise. At some point, he would have to return to the exact moment he left, and die for real. The extraction mirrors were a dangerous invention, because the longer someone stayed outside of their own time period, the more they put reality at risk. If Randall were to die under different circumstances, he would never be able to return to his fated moment, and if he didn’t do that, the timeline will have been altered on the quantum level. But if the timeline were altered, he would then have been running around an old timeline, and that could spell disaster. Time travelers are changing events of the past all the time, but an extraction mirror only operates in one reality, and no changes are expected; just predestiny. It is for this reason that it is generally unwise to remove an individual from their moment of death. It should only be done when no other options are available, or when reality would be in more danger by inaction. Randall’s involvement in the future proved just how problematic it can be, and there was only one way to fix it.