Like a bunch of idiots, Team Matic lost the plot. Ramses and Leona were
absorbed in trying to understand neutrinos, and everyone else was just
relieved to have their friends back. They totally forgot the only question
that mattered. Who was the scary neutrino monster, and how were trillions of
neutrinos sentient? As simple of an explanation as there was for their
profound overestimation of the intelligence of these subatomic particle
clusters, that thing’s awareness of its surroundings could not be in doubt.
It was shaped like a person. It moved like one, and at one point, it was
reportedly trying to communicate. It had a mind of some kind, perhaps as a
disembodied consciousness that attracted, or could control, the neutrinos,
like Buddy. They had to go back to Dome 216 for more answers.
“It’s...gone,” Olimpia stated the obvious. They were standing in the space
between domes, exposed to the harsh environment that was Castlebourne’s
natural state. There should have been a geodesic dome here, but it was just
a deep crater under open space. They didn’t know that it was going to be
like this. Out of an abundance of caution, Mateo insisted on taking Romana
back to Castledome for medical treatment. She was only exposed to the vacuum
for a few seconds before her suit automatically formed itself around her to
protect her, but she wasn’t expecting it, and could still be suffering from
the effects. Hers wasn’t an upgraded substrate designed to withstand such
deadly conditions unaided.
“This is it,” Leona said. “We’re where it once was. Hrockas completely
destroyed it somehow.”
Ramses was checking his sensors. “No radiation, so he didn’t blow it up.”
“Could they have dismantled it?” Marie asked. “I mean, it’s been a whole
year for everyone else.”
“Baudin could have taken the dome itself down relatively quickly,” Leona
explained. “That’s not the problem. The question is what would have left
this crater. Maybe they dug it out to be certain that all of those dark
particles were gone.”
“We could go ask,” Angela offered.
“I already tried, we’ve been cut off,” Leona contended,
“What? Why?”
“It’s nothing personal,” Leona went on. “He just has to focus on the
upcoming grand opening event. We’re no longer in the inner circle. We
claimed to be leaving a few years ago, so he wasn’t expecting us to still be
here.”
“So the neutrino monster is his problem now,” Marie decided, “and we
can finally leave.”
“I still have questions,” Ramses complained.
Leona patted him on the shoulder. “You always will. This isn’t our home.
We’ve overstayed our welcome, and we gotta go.”
They didn’t leave right away. Leona allowed Ramses to take some soil
samples, and other residual readings. Everyone else on the team spent the
rest of the day seeing their loved ones one last time. Mateo focused on his
other two daughters, but also spent a little time with his once-parents,
Aura and Mario, his once-brother, Darko, and Darko’s daughter, Dar’cy. She
showed up a couple years ago, but never reached out to them, for whatever
reason. They didn’t even know if she still had all her special powers, which
Dubra lost when her consciousness was transferred to her new body.
Goodbyes were always hard, and they never seemed to last long enough, but at
some point, they just had to decide that it was over. They congregated on
the outside of Ramses’ lab. To protect it, he trapped it in a temporal
bubble, sunk it into the ground, and disguised it as an unremarkable rock
formation. These weren’t holograms, but solid objects. People knew that it
was around here somewhere, but perhaps they would forget precisely where,
and after being unable to find it, give up, and move on. Or they would
indeed make their way into the rooms, and cause some damage. The team
couldn’t live their lives in the what-ifs, so they washed their hands of it,
and teleported away.
They were floating in orbit now. Well, they weren’t really in orbit. They
were just fully outside the atmosphere, and in freefall. Since they had no
means of propulsion, they would eventually burn up in the atmosphere and die
if they didn’t leave. They could hang here for a moment, though, and admire
the planet from such an amazing vantage point.
“Do you think we’ll ever come back here?” Romana asked. She was all better
now. Space exposure was an easy fix these days.
“It’s almost inevitable,” Ramses mused. “We always go back.”
“Really?” When’s the last time you were in Egypt?”
Ramses pointed. “I think that’s Giza.” It was impossible to tell from this
elevation, but it could have indeed been the replica of the Great
Pyramids that Baudin built under one of the domes.
Some of them chuckled. Then they continued to fall, and watch the ground get
just a little bit closer. “Y’all ready for this?” Leona asked, knowing that
they didn’t have much time left before it became unsafe even for them.
“I’ve been running diagnostics on the tandem slingdrives,” Ramses said.
“They look good. We’re in the violet.”
“Okay,” Leona said. “Yalla.”
They decided to follow through with their plan to fly blindly by
merely activating the slingdrives, and letting it send them wherever. They
weren’t going to navigate, or think about where they wanted to go. They
wanted fate to take over, come what may. The web of technicolors formed
around them, and sent them away.
They emerged from the quintessence cocoon in a room. It was dark, with the
only lights appearing over what looked like an altar on the far wall. There
were other objects around them, like tables and glass cases, but it was hard
to make anything out. There weren’t any dark particles flying around them,
though, so they were presumably not in the neutrino dimension again. Ramses
looked at his arm interface. “Atmosphere: Earth perfect. No toxins
detected.” He collapsed his helmet back into his neck. Everyone followed
suit, so to speak.
As soon as they were exposed to the air, an alarm blared, and a red light
flashed. They all passed out at the same time, and fell to the floor.
Mateo Matic woke up in his bed. He gently lifted the blanket and sheets off
of his body so he wouldn’t wake up his wife, but it was too cold in the
room. Most women preferred it to be warmer than men, but Leona was the
opposite. She kept turning the thermostat down. Part of him thought that
maybe she did it so he wouldn’t sneak out of bed every morning. She was
right about that. He quivered, and put the covers back down. Five more
minutes wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. Besides, what was the boss gonna do? Fire
him? He was the boss!
Leona groaned and turned over. When she saw that her husband was still
there, she smiled and nuzzled his neck. Then she grabbed him by the
shoulders. “I’ve trapped you!”
“Oh no!” he cried jokingly. “What can I do to escape you?”
“Kiss me.”
He kissed her.
She took her lips off of his, and tilted her head all the way back away
from. “No! I know what that kiss means! That’s a goodbye kiss!” she
complained.
He really did have to go. He was onboarding a new assistant today, and
needed some time to get some actual work done before she came in. They
didn’t make him Fleet Commander of the Central Midwest because he couldn’t
make it to his destinations on time. “I promise to be home in time for
dinner.”
“Good. Romana’s cooking, and she’ll be disappointed if you don’t make it.”
“I’m sure it’ll be great.” He gave her another goodbye kiss, then jumped out
of bed, shivering all the way into the bathroom.
Once he was finished getting ready, he ran downstairs to catch his ride. Of
course, as the big man on campus, he could absolutely afford his own car,
but he wanted to support his own business, and stay in touch with his
people. He always called a driver so the public would know that he believed
in his company. He wasn’t famous, per se, but if he were ever to be
interviewed—say, by the local news—hopefully this would help his image. He
didn’t know, maybe it was stupid, but it was important to him.
“Dad, you’re missing breakfast again.”
“Sorry, I gotta go. Boyd M. is coming, and you know how obsessed he is with
his q stats.”
“Wait, give me a kiss,” Romana urged, tapping her own cheek.
When he leaned it to kiss her, she faked him out, and stuffed a piece of
toast in his mouth. “Thanks, honey,” he said, grabbing it with his hand so
it wouldn’t fall to the floor.
“Most important meal of the day!” she said as she was running back off to
the kitchen. “Your tea is by the door!”
Mateo’s watch dinged. “Thanks again!” He ran outside to find Boyd M.’s car
waiting for him on the street, next to the driveway.
“Hi, neighbor!” It was one of the Walton twins, digging around in her
flowers. Actually, they were his flowers, but she had a lot of time
on her hands, so he never complained about her crossing the property line.
He could never tell her apart from her sister, mostly because they lived
together, always matched their outfits, and acted like the same woman. If he
hadn’t ever seen them both at the same time, he would think she was just a
crazy person who sometimes wanted to be called a different name.
“Hi...you.”
“Say hi to me too!” the other twin asked after appearing from behind a bush.
“Hi to me too!” Mateo joked. He walked over to the car, and shook his head.
“We talked about this, Boyd. You’re only gonna be here for thirty seconds.
Park in the driveway. If someone needs you to move, you move!”
“Your door is on the left side of your driveway,” Boyd defended. “Studies
have shown that they prefer to step into our cars from the passenger side.”
“Okay, I personally don’t care about walking around, but a solution would be
to take a moment to back in.”
“You got it, boss.”
“Great.” He opened the front door, and climbed in. A regular customer
wouldn’t do this, but Boyd was his employee. They needed to be on the same
level here. It was about respect. Speaking of which, Mateo noticed that Boyd
was looking around Mateo’s head, back at the house. Mateo turned to see the
curtain in the parlor fall back into place. “She’s sixteen,” he reminded
him.
“What? I was just admiring your flowers. Tulips?” Boyd cleared his throat
uncomfortably, and began to drive away.
“Daisies.”
The regional RideSauce branch wasn’t too far away. Once he secured this
promotion, Mateo could pretty much live wherever he wanted within this
region, and they would find affordable office space to accommodate him. Not
every region had a local office, but it was growing in popularity in recent
years. That was what set them apart from their competitors. They only
had corporate offices. They didn’t care about their drivers, and never
reached out to the communities. Their drivers weren’t even considered real
employees, but contractors. There was this whole lawsuit surrounding the
status of their personnel, which cost these other companies millions.
RideSauce managed to avoid all of that by treating their workers with the
respect they deserved from the very beginning. It was why they were now
number one in this country, as well as in many others. Boyd stopped in front
of the door, and let him out.
“Thanks! Five stars!” Mateo found his new hire waiting at the door. “Miss
Sangster, you’re early.”
“If you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; if you’re
late, you’re fired.”
Mateo smiled as he was starting to unlock the door. “We don’t operate like
that here. We’re more chill. But I appreciate the initiative.”
Before he could manage to unlock the door, it opened. His engineer, Ramses
was on the other side. “You’re a bit late, boss.”
“Then I guess I’m fired.” He gave Olimpia wink. “Come on in.”
Before this, Olimpia was living in Lincoln, Nebraska. Until today, they had
only ever spoken on video chat. So she needed a tour of the offices. It
didn’t take long. He took it seriously, but still casually. “This is the
congregation area, where we can talk to drivers if there are any questions,
comments, or concerns. This is the front desk, you’ll probably spend a lot
of time here. Kitchenette to the right, bathroom to the left.” He gave her
the side-eye. “Sorry, there’s only one, but there are only three of us, so
we should be fine. That back there is the server room, which is Ramses’
workspace, and that’s my cubicle. There’s technically a basement, but we’re
only allowed to use it in case of a tornado emergency. It connects to a
store next door called Pregger Craves, which uses it for storage.”
“Pregger Craves? What does that mean?”
“They’re open 24/7, and only sell foods that are most commonly associated
with pregnancy cravings. You got your ice cream, but you also
have...pickles.”
“Oh, that’s what that smell is.”
Mateo chuckles. “I give it a year.” There was a short awkward pause. “Well,
you can drop your bag down anywhere. Rambo, please make sure her computer is
set up how she wants it.” He turned around while he was taking a sip of his
tea, and gazed out the window. “Let’s keep the Midwest moving,” he said to
himself.
