Since it was too risky to even attempt to use the quintessence drive again,
Ramses engaged a short reframe burst to the planet where the signal was
coming from. Once they arrived in orbit, they found there to be no lifesigns
aboard the other ship. This wasn’t surprising as the design suggested it to
be completely automated, meant to prepare the surface for habitation at a
later date. It deployed dropships to begin construction on geodesic diamond
domes, which was funny, because the atmosphere was fairly comparable to
Earth’s. With only a minimal amount of bioengineering, any organic human
should be able to survive unaided by external technologies. Leona posited
that the onboard systems were not smart enough to realize this. They were
programmed to build domes, and fill them with oxygenated air generated via
electrolysis, so that was precisely what they were doing. It didn’t even
seem to detect the Vellani Ambassador’s presence at all. So they just stayed
out of its way.
Curious, the team hung out for the rest of the day until midnight central
hit, staying invisible so they wouldn’t be seen by anyone else. The domes
were completed by the time they returned to the timestream, and a second
ship had arrived in the meantime. There could be people here now. “I’ll go
down,” Olimpia volunteered.
“Just you?” Leona asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t dare go alone,” Olimpia clarified. “Perhaps Mateo could
come with me for support? I believe that I can keep him invisible too, but
taking any more may be too difficult.”
Leona sighed. “No one’s going down right now. Rambo, just keep an eye on the
surface. Send an invisible probe, and gather some recon data for us. Pia,
could I speak with you for a moment?”
When they were alone in the second pocket dimension, Olimpia spoke up rather
defensively. “I know what you’re going to say, but this is how I contribute.
I can’t dispatch and control probes, and I can’t mediate diplomatic
discussions. I happen to be good at invisibility, so let me use that.”
“I don’t have a problem with you leaning on your strengths. I don’t have a
problem at all. But I did want to speak with you about you and my husband.”
“What about us?”
“He told me what happened in the simulation.”
“I don’t know what he said—”
“He told me the truth,” Leona interrupted. “He told me that the two of you
have been inching towards each other ever since you met, like a derelict
satellite caught in a decaying orbit.”
“Okay, well I don’t know that I would describe it like that...”
“You’re right, because the satellite would just burn up in the atmosphere.
And I don’t want that. The metaphor doesn’t work anyway, because it doesn’t
account for me.”
“What are you saying?” Olimpia asked.
“Do you know who Serif is?”
“Yeah, she was a clay woman who came to life while you were living on
Tribulation Island. She left to go save the multiverse from the Ochivari’s
virus, or something.”
“She was carved from stone, not clay. She was more than only another member
of our crew at the time. I was in love with her. I still am, to an extent.
My brain contains memories of her that never took place. Mateo didn’t even
have those fake memories, though, and when he disappeared from the timeline
altogether, she and I only grew closer, because I couldn’t remember him
either. When he came back...it was like falling in love with him all over
again. And Serif was...sort of left out in the cold. Our three-person
relationship didn’t work, because it was uneven.”
“I’m still not following.”
“There are six of us here, and we all love each other, in various ways.
Angela and Marie are sisters who were once the same person. Mateo and Ramses
are best friends. He and I are married. And you? You’re falling in love with
him, if you haven’t already. I believe that he’s experiencing the same
thing, at his own pace.”
“I’m not a homewrecker,” Olimpia argued.
“I know, and I don’t want you to be. None of us does. That’s why it’s a
problem. Even if you push through it, ignore your feelings, and find someone
else, this connection between you two will never go away. Instead of letting
it be the way that it is, I propose a—shall we call it—an unconventional
response. As I said, we all love each other, so I don’t think it’s
completely impossible for you and me to...”
Olimpia shook her head slightly as Leona trailed off. “To what, fall in love
with each other too? To save your marriage, and the team, you want to force
a polyamory triangle?”
“Well, I don’t see it as being forced.”
“Are you even attracted to me?”
“Have you even seen a mirror before?”
Olimpia blushed a little. “This is weird.”
“I know, and it may blow up in our faces, but if we don’t try
something, it definitely will. I don’t want one of us to become the
next Serif. Nothing has happened between you two yet, so let’s go on this
journey together. Let’s not keep secrets, and hide our true selves. You
don’t have to come up with an excuse to spend time with him. You and I would
be better suited for the ground mission. You have the invisibility, I have
the brains. I didn’t mean to say it like that, I’m sorry. I know that sounds
mean.”
“It’s fine,” Olimpia assured her. “I know I’m not stupid. I’m just
uneducated, because whenever my teacher tried to ask me to respond to a
query, I would give the answer several times in a row.”
Olimpia was the only one still wearing a Cassidy cuff, but still Leona would
forget that this was because of her sonic echoing time affliction. She had a
pretty good reason for her lack of life experiences. “Right, I get that.”
She paused for a moment. “So. Are you willing to try this weird thing? It’s
unusual, to say the least, but I don’t just want to be the jealous,
resentful wife who denies my man’s desires because society has told me that
only two people are allowed to be together at any one time.”
Olimpia reached up, and took a lock of Leona’s hair out from behind her ear
to let it fall in front of it.
“What was that for?”
“So I could do this...” She reached up again, and tucked the hair back
behind Leona’s ear, placing their faces close together as well. “Gut
reaction, how did that feel? Uncomfortable? Awkward? Breathtaking?”
“Both B and C maybe,” Leona answered.
Olimpia giggled. “I suppose that people date each other all the time without
knowing where it’s going. That’s the whole point of the dates. All we’re
doing is agreeing that true love is the end goal, and admitting that if we
don’t reach that goal, I’m gonna die alone. I’m a time traveler, and my
options are limited. So if you and I can’t make it work, it probably means
that the only reason I fell in love with Mateo is because, to me, he may as
well be the last man on Earth.”
“So, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll take it slow, start with a first date; no
sex.”
“No sex,” Olimpia agreed. “No sex...at all. If you really want to give this
a shot, I think you two need to pretend like you’re not already together,
just for a time.”
Leona nodded, considering the parameters. “I think that makes sense.
Polyamory doesn’t work unless there’s mutuality. Without that, it just
devolves into polygamy.”
“Yeah. So it’s settled. You and I will go down to check out the dome while
Mateo sets up a romantic date for us.”
“Is that what we settled on, that he does all the work?”
“You and I had the hard conversation,” Olimpia reasoned. “Let him do
something.”
The two of them called Mateo into the pocket to essentially have the same
conversation all over again until he came to the same conclusion. It was
definitely weird until he looked at it from the correct angle. They had to
be active participants in this situation, rather than trying to let the
chips fall where they may, and hoping that none of them flew up to hit
someone in the eye. He had no problem with staying home to set up their
first three-person date together while the womenfolk went off to figure out
what was going on with the planet below.
Ramses agreed to help once he was clued into the new dynamic. “Dude, that’s
great, man. Two ladies, I hear that’s kinda the dream.”
“It’s not like that,” Mateo argued.
“Bullshit. Ya know, you can appreciate someone for their mind,
and their body at the same time.”
“What would you know about it?” Mateo asked.
“I still have sexual needs, I just choose to fulfill them on my own.”
“So, you’re not annoyed that I’ve found two special people, and you’ve not
even found one?”
“Nah, it’s cool. Really. I’ve always been ultra-focused on my work. Creating
something that does exactly what I want it to do is the closest thing to a
relationship that I’ve ever needed. I might have thought twice about turning
myself into a time traveler if I felt the compulsion to seek out a mate.” He
stopped setting the plates down. “Ugh. This dimension is so bland. I can’t
work with this. I think you need to have your date in a simulation.”
“No, it has to be a real place with real food,” Mateo contended. “If I just
ask the computer to make something perfect, I’ll have done nothing.”
“Let me help.” Angela was in the doorway.
Mateo was worried. “Angie, I didn’t know you were in this pocket.”
“I was bored. And you forgot to switch off your comm disc again. We all
heard everything.”
Mateo widened his eyes in horror. “Leona?”
“It’s fine, love. Just locker room talk. It’s perfectly normal to have a
conversation with your friends about someone you haven’t had sex with
yet.”
“Huh?” Ramses was as confused as Angela.
“We’re starting from scratch,” Mateo explained. He turned away to speak into
his disc again. “Okay, I’ll see you two tonight. I won’t say
I love you, because I don’t know you very well yet. Okay, love you,
bye.” He tapped it off. “Dammit.”
“Aww,” Angela feigned fawning.
“Did you say you could help with something?” Mateo asked her, embarrassed.
“This new girl you’re seeing,” Angela joked, “called it four-dimensional
holography. We all appear to have our own specialties, and mine is being
able to generate images that last across time without me having to be
focused on them. I can just set something up, and walk away, so I’m
confident that I can make this room look like anything,” she said, looking
around, and taking mental notes of a few ideas.
“Wow. That’s very exciting, and not the least bit concerning since I seem to
be the only one who’s not particularly good at creating holograms in any
special sort of way.”
“I don’t have a specialty either,” Ramses claimed.
“Are you kidding me?” Mateo asked. “You take our power, and replicate it in
technology. This ship is invisible.”
“Yeah, well, I guess.”
“So, what were we thinking?” Angela asked, putting the conversation back on
track. “Grand banquet hall? Kitschy theme restaurant? Low stakes fast-casual
joint?”
Mateo thought through his options, which were apparently limitless. “Um.
Let’s go with quaint small town bar and grill that used to be City Hall
before they built the new one ten years ago.”
“I think I can make that work.” Angela began to throw up some holograms,
adjusting bits and pieces here and there, taking in input from the two guys
and her sister, until they had something as original as possible while still
channeling photons from real places elsewhere in spacetime.
After Leona and Olimpia came back from their little mission, they showered,
and showed up for the date. Marie served as their waiter, because she wanted
to be a part of it too. She has a hypertime food synthesizer to make the
food, but she elected to sit and wait to make it feel more real. The dinner
was nice. They didn’t hold onto the ruse about being strangers on a blind
date. They discussed their real lives, acknowledging that they were quite
familiar with each other already. The whole team was there, with Ramses and
Marie having their own meal together as friends. So they were able to hear
the mission debrief too. A very young Bronach Oaksent was in the dome with
none other than Elder Caverness. They were seemingly the only two people on
the planet, besides the secret spies. They were currently calling it Ex-001,
which Leona once mistakenly believed to be the seat of power for the Exin
Empire. So it did exist, but instead of being the most important world, it
was simply the first one to be settled. It made Mateo wonder, what would
become of it thousands of years from now? Would it end up holding secrets
that were just waiting to be exploited?
The meal was a success, which wasn’t surprising, because they were all
friends, and there was nothing to fight about at the moment. As promised, it
did not end in sex. In fact, Mateo retired to his own room in the second
pocket dimension, as he would if this really were his first evening with a
new prospect. They chose not to worry too much about what was happening on
Ex-001, or how they would involve themselves. They couldn’t be sure how much
would change during their interim year. As it turned out, quite a lot. There
were now 147 new people living there.
