"What do you want to know about him?" says Aelise.

"Why he's up here. I don't know what way he's important until you tell me."

"He is up here for complicated reasons," says Aelise. "I'm not sure what the best summary is."

"You could tell me the whole story," suggests Tab.

"Not while you're still seven."

"You could tell me all the parts that are okay for someone who is seven and who is also me."

"I could also just introduce you to him and let him tell the story himself," she says, "but I'm fairly sure that if he finds out Kers is up here he will find a way to kill her, and I don't know how good you are at maintaining that kind of information security."

"I don't want Kers to die," says Tab. "It would be strange if somebody my age were up here all alone though, even if I didn't say anything."

"Something tells me he won't think of that," says Aelise. "Besides, he doesn't have to know you live up here."

"Should I just talk like I live back where I used to, then, if he asks me?"

"That would be a good idea."

"I can do that."

"All right," says Aelise. "And there's a small chance he might try to hurt you, but Kers can keep you safe."

"Okay," says Tab, who has already noticed the benefits of Kers's power just by walking around for six months.

Tab emails back, asking if it's okay for Harley to know about her Gift.

Tab then hops into a vehicle and drives herself to 214.

All of the airlocked doors dividing section 214 from the rest of the ring show the red 'no unauthorized access' sign, but they'll open for her.

Tab giggles as she lets herself through. "Harleeeeey?" she calls.

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice yells back from the distance.

"I'm Mehitabel! But you can call me Tab if you want!"

No response.

"Aelise says I can visit you whenever I want!" Tab adds, skipping forward towards the source of the voice.

"Good for Aelise," says Harley, at a somewhat more normal volume; he's only just around the corner now, and then he isn't. He is in a room in the section's living quarters, with a book open on the computer, lying in bed rather than reading it, wearing a pair of rumpled pajama pants in sky-blue dotted with fluffy white sheeps. He is maybe sixteen or seventeen years old.

"How come you're up here?" Tab asks.

"Because I hate Chelsa," says Harley.

"She's awful," agrees Tab solemnly.

"Tab."

"Why are you up here?"

"I'm here to visit you!"

He rolls his eyes. "And why are you doing that? Why do you even know I exist?"

"I'm trying to figure out a safe way to get rid of Chelsa, and if you're up here being secret, you must be important, so I want to know why, so my ideas can have you in them if you have to be in them."

"And what, Aelise sent you to get it from me? Shit," says Harley. "Maybe she's halfway serious about it. So how much do you already know?"

"About you? I know your name and where to find you and that you are secret for complicated reasons and what you told me and that Aelise doesn't think the whole story is okay to tell me while I am seven."

"Wow," says Tab, eyes going wide. "Really?"

"Yes, really," he says. "I got rescued out of one and grew up in another, and then I randomly disappeared out of that one and practically fell right into Chelsa's lap, and it turns out that she can make you like her but she can't make you not hate her, and I hate her a lot."

"She can't make me like her," says Tab.

"I figured as much," says Harley.

"How did you move around between all these universes?" Tab asks, pulling out her tablet to take notes.

"I mean 'randomly disappeared' pretty well literally," he says. "For the first move, though, I had help."

"How did that work?"

"I was like a year old," he says, "I don't actually remember it or anything."

"And they never told you how? Who was it anyway?"

He drags his pillow over his head.

"What? What'd I say?"

"I kind of fucking miss her," Harley growls from under his pillow.

"I'm sorry," says Tab. "I don't know how to send you home."

"Me neither," says the pillow.

"Do you not want to talk about her?"

"I really don't!"

"Okay. I'm sorry."

"What's the world you lived in like?" asks Tab after a respectful silence.

"And everybody didn't start killing each other?" asks Tab, sitting up at attention.

He snorts. "Nope."

"Aelise thinks that if something happened to Chelsa here people would start having wars again. I'm supposed to think of a way for that to not happen, and then Chelsa can go away here too."

"The other Chelsa wasn't doing her thing to the whole world," says Harley. "Just a little piece of it. It was the other you who killed her," he adds offhandedly.

"There's another me?" Tab asks, sitting bolt upright and looking utterly fascinated.

"There's like twelve," says Harley, with a little smile. "I've only met one, though. Her name's Bella and she's a vampire empress."

"Wow." Tab isn't sure if she believes this story, but it promises to be fascinating. "There are vampires in that world? And my - mirror universe twin is the empress of it? I bet she isn't seven, though. How do you know I'm her?"

"You look like her and you talk like her, if she was seven."

"Huh. Wow. What are the vampires like?"

"...They're... like vampires," he says. "I only know about the one kind. I mean, they drink blood and they're immortal and stuff?"

"I think being immortal would be nice," says Tab. "I don't think drinking blood would be very nice."

"Being immortal kind of sucks sometimes," says Harley. "But drinking blood would suck worse, I can't believe they don't miss food more."

"How does being immortal suck?" asks Tab.

"When you want to die and can't."

"Why would you want to?" Tab asks, furrowing her brow and frowning.

"Chelsa," sighs Harley.

Tab considers. "I might be able to make you safe," she says. "But you're already up here, being secret."

"Yeah," he says. "As long as she doesn't ever have to see me again, there's no point. I can just stay up here and be Aelise's battery."

"Battery?" asks Tab, nonplussed.

"...Wait, you don't know that part?" he says. "Why do you think she's keeping me away from Chelsa in the first fucking place? Besides the fact that I cry and break things every time she comes near me, I mean, there's more than one reason, but the main thing is Aelise's Gift moves lifeforce around and mine is a renewable resource. I'm pretty sure that's why she stuck me up here and, like, let me have visitors, instead of just dropping me on the moon or something."

"I knew she could make people immortal, I didn't know how she did it," Tab says.

"Before I showed up, she used to kill babies," says Harley.

"Oh," says Tab. "...She didn't tell me that. I will have to ask her about it."

"Wonder why she didn't," says Harley.

"I don't know. Maybe because I'm seven."

"Probably," says Harley.

"She's not doing it any more, though?" Tab asks slowly.

"Nah. She uses me instead," says Harley. "Maybe not for long, though, I'm going nuts up here."

"I could visit you a lot," says Tab anxiously, "if that would help. I don't want any babies to die."

"Maybe," he says. "Aelise already visits me a bunch. But I think I need more people than this. This fucking place is just so empty, you know?" He hugs his pillow some more.

"Maybe she could secret more people?" Tab says. "How many people?"

"Enough people. I don't think she's gonna do it," he says. "Anyway, if she brought me twenty people who are all still all fuzzy over Chelsa, I'd probably launch myself into orbit. And there aren't twenty people who aren't."

"I don't know if I can unfuzz a person," frowns Tab. "I think maybe I could keep them getting more fuzzed."

"And if you could unfuzz a person—" Harley shakes his head. "Fuck it. I need to be on the ground, that's all. And if I can't be on the ground then I'll just - find somewhere else to be."

"...with people in it?" asks Tab dubiously.

"Somewhere with people in it would be good," he says. "But there's plenty of things that are worse than good but better than here."

"Like what?" Tab asks, bewildered.

"Like dead," he says. "Dead would be great compared to lonely all the fucking time."

"I thought you were immortal?" Tab says, clearly confused.

"Yes," he says, "and I wish I wasn't, did we not just cover that?"

"But can you not be? Is that a thing you can do?"

"Nope. Dying is not my actual plan," he says. "I'm not telling you my actual plan, because you'd tell Aelise, and then she'd find a way to stop me."

"She didn't tell me I had to tell her any things, so I could promise not to," Tab says, "and then I wouldn't."

"You sure?" he says. "Even though if I got away for long enough she'd go back to killing babies?"

"...Do you want her to go back to killing babies?" frowns Tab.

"No," he snorts. "And I'd stick around and let her drain me all day long if that was all it took. But this place, this universe, with Chelsa and everything, and being up here all alone - it fucks me up, I can't take it forever."

"I thought you couldn't get home."

"Yeah, that's kind of the root of all my problems," he says.

"So... aren't you going to keep being in the universe with Chelsa and it sucking, here or someplace worse, whatever you do? Unless you help me think of something. You could do that. If I think of something good Aelise can get rid of Chelsa."

"I thought we covered the part where I already have a bad solution and I'm not telling you what it is," he says.

"Yes," says Tab. "But it's bad."

"There aren't any good ones," he says, throwing up his hands. "I am past good solutions. My bad solutions are bad but at least they're mine."

"How do you know there aren't any good ones?" Tab insists.

"If you got here randomly maybe someone else could too, or you could randomly co somewhere else. Maybe I'll think of something good enough and Aelise will get rid of Chelsa. Maybe it turns out Chelsa doesn't work perfect over broadcast and blind people or something don't like her but they keep it quiet 'cause they know what's going on better than I did and they could come live up here, I don't know because I only found out about this problem a couple of minutes ago and haven't asked yet. Help me think of stuff! I hate her too, we could get rid of her if we could think of something!"

Right this second, he is too busy crying.

Tab waits.

"Pretty fucking much," says Harley.

Tab opens her mouth to ask him something else, but then decides against it.

He hugs his pillow and sighs.

Tab sits ready to take notes. "I don't know what all you know so I don't know what's maybe useful."

"I don't know what's useful either," he says. "You have a bunch of alts. The one I've met is a vampire empress, there's more that are other kinds of empress, basically all of you end up taking over the world somehow or other but there's different kinds of taking over and 'empress' isn't always it. Um - vampires in Aurum used to all eat people, now they mostly eat fake blood instead, the ones who eat people tend to get violent with each other and you usually couldn't get more than a group of three or so to hang out for long without somebody ripping somebody's head off and setting them on fire - Chelsea, our Chelsa, she was a vampire and she worked for the previous vampire government making their employees all like each other so they could stick together and not fight."

"This world is already taken over," frowns Tab. "How do they take over their worlds? Do they have to do anything horrible like Chelsa-ing people to do it?"

"I think one of them blew up a building once or something," he says. "But the rest just set up colonies on Mars and stuff."

"How would blowing up a building help?"

"I should know? I just heard it from somebody once," he shrugs.

"Well, how do they run the worlds once they take them over, then?"

"Pretty well, I guess."

"No, I mean - what do they do? They've had more time to think of ideas than me, maybe they have good ones I can copy?"

"I should know?" he repeats, frustrated. "I don't follow Bella around all day watching her empress."

"Oh," muses Tab.

Harley sighs.

"You knew she killed the Chelsa in your world, though, what did she do when all those people who liked her didn't have her any more?"

"Uh, killed a bunch and hired the rest?"

"How did she get them to work for her if she just killed a person they liked?"

"Oh, that. Um, her daughter could un-Chelsea people," he says. "Wipe out what she put on, I mean, not grow back what she cut off."

"Wow," says Tab. "Do you think she would work on Chelsa too?"

"Yeah," he says. "She couldn't do a whole planet in one shot, though, and if she did there'd be riots. Even just the fifty-some people she got for her mom's takeover, some shit went down - I mean, suddenly everybody didn't automatically like each other, you know?"

"I don't know," says Tab. "I'm safe but that's just me."

"Ask Aelise, then, I bet she remembers," he says.

"She remembers what it's like to have never liked everybody. I don't think she remembers what it's like to stop."

"I don't either. I wasn't there."

"This is a really hard problem," sighs Tab, looking at her notes.

"No shit," says Harley.

Tab stays a while longer, since Harley is lonely, but it doesn't take her long to agree with him that she's not making much difference on her own. And he has nothing else of much use to tell her. She goes back to Kers, after.

"Well that was interesting," says Kers.

"Were you listening?" Tab inquires. This doesn't surprise her, although she would have liked to be told.

"I usually am."

"That is useful to know," says Tab. "I don't think Harley knew it."

"Of course he didn't. He doesn't know I'm here, remember?"

"Right, but he didn't know anybody at all might be listening."

"I'm sure he could have figured it out," says Kers.

"Really?"

"I find it hard to believe he might not have."

"All right, I guess. Did you think of anything I should ask him if I go visit again?"

She shakes her head.

"Will you tell me if you do?"

"No," she says dryly, and then snorts and shakes her head. "Yes, I'll tell you."

A week later, Kers mentions offhandedly that section 214 is no longer inhabited. Harley asked to be moved, and Aelise found somewhere to put him.

"Is he safe from Chelsa and with people?" asks Tab.

"He's safe from Chelsa. With people was a tall order, so he decided he'd rather be unconscious all the time. Aelise can drain him just the same."

You could try it on me, says the return email.

Okay, Tab writes back, I will next time you visit. If I can do it may I?

I will think about it.

But you think it's worth trying out?

It's woth knowing if you can do it at all.

Aelise lets her keep trying as long as she likes; then she shrugs and says, "So much for that. Maybe it'll grow in as you get older; that happens."

"Okay. I might as well try it whenever you're up here."

"Good plan."

"Apparently it did," says Aelise.

"So you can't sense my life force anymore but for this to really work you have to not be able to do things - so - I guess you should try immortaling Kers some?"

"I guess I should," she says, and goes off to find Kers.

Tab trots after her, eager to see the experiment's results at once.

"So can I try it on Chelsa? Quick flicker, gauge reaction, write up a schedule?"

"Yes. Wait until I'm on the ground again, in case something unexpected happens. I'll email you to tell you when."

"Okay," beams Tab.

Aelise smiles slightly.

At Aelise's prescribed time, Chelsa experiences a split-second... outage.

Anneia is closest; she runs to the sound.

Anneia cuddles her helplessly.

Chelsa clings and sobs and kindles everything she can reach as hot as it will go.

Tima sits up in Corona's room from where she's been snuggling, when Chelsa screams. "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah," says Corona. "Who was it?"

"It sounded like Chelsa." She swings her feet out of the bed, brow furrowed in confusion.

They find Chelsa with her face buried in Anneia's shoulder, sobbing, hands plucking frantically at the air.

Tima unhesitatingly turns this into a group hug. "What's wrong?"

Corona also cuddles up.

"My - my Gift broke - just for an instant but it broke - and it was so cold -"

Aelise is in her office.

"About what?"

"What, is there more than one thing? Harley! My power - glitched or something - but when it came back everything was sharp for a second and I know that warmth when I feel it! You didn't even put him far away, let alone in orbit!"

"I put him in orbit," she says. "It's harder to keep an eye on him in orbit, and there's a lot of mischief he could get into up there if he put his mind to it. I took him back down when he looked like he might be getting into some. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to upset you. Are you all right?"

"I am now," says Chelsa darkly.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Harley's ten kinds of trouble, but I need him in reach if I'm going to use him to keep everyone immortal. I've been keeping him unconscious most of the time; he wakes up when I drain him and that's it."

"Consciousness doesn't make a difference to how it feels. It never has."

"I am hoping," Aelise says dryly, "that it will make a difference to him."

"Excellent, best of luck," says Chelsa, still fuming at the deception.

"He's a troublemaker. I am trying to make sure he doesn't have either the means or the motive to cause much trouble."

"You promised me, and of all the ways I could find out - I don't understand what's wrong with me," says Chelsa sitting down heavily.

"I don't either," says Aelise, coming up and hugging her. "But I intend to find out. All right?"

"Fix it," says Chelsa desperately, clinging. "I can't live like that, not all cold - I don't know how anyone else can stand it."

"We manage somehow," she says, hugging her some more. "I'll do everything I can."

Aelise pets her hair soothingly.

"Hullo, Aelise! I usually don't hear from you this often," laughs Demauri.

"Harley's gone missing again," she says. "Be a dear and haul him back to me, would you?"

"Sure. Wow, he got a ways away, this is gonna take a while, and I need to requisition a boat."

"I think he might have learned how to teleport. I recommend you knock him out when you find him."

Hauling him up is an interesting proposition, because he drowns along the way and for a moment the net is holding nothing but spectral flames. But drowning is slow enough that he doesn't do it again on the way up.

"Thank you," says Aelise. She gives him a smile.

"Love and loyalty. See if you can keep him teleporting to such inconvenient places, that immortality thing he does can foul up a net," says Demauri, half-smiling.

"I'll try my very best."

Demauri salutes, and sees himself out.

"No," he snarls, scrunching his eyes shut. A wavering moment, and then he's gone again.

"On it," sighs Demauri, and he follows the trail.

"Aelise! What's up?"

"I need to borrow you two for a little while. Could be dangerous. Likely to be painful," she says with a quirk of a smile.

"Sign me up," laughs Sandre.

"I'm all for it," Anneia says cheerfully.

"I know you are."

Harley weeps desperately into Sandre's shirt.

"What happened to you?" murmurs Anneia, petting his miraculously regenerated hair.

"Chelsa got me again, I was miles away, I wasn't even awake and she got me, I can't fucking stand it," he sobs. "I hate it, I hate her, I hate everything, I want to die and if I can't have that I want to hurt until I stop caring."

"There are other methods available for that," says Aelise.

"Fucking do it then," Harley spits. "'Cause next time you're not gonna fish me out so fast."

When Anneia and Sandre are home, Chelsa calls them from where she's snuggling with Corona. "Where did you go?"

"A volcano?"

"I dunno how he got there, but he was pretty wrecked when we pulled him out," sighs Sandre. "Wouldn't stop crying until Aelise started draining him."

"That's awful. I'm so glad you got him out."

"I don't think he is," Anneia says pensively.

"He was never going to be happy," sighs Chelsa.

Corona frowns.

Chelsa pets him.

He wriggles discontentedly and sighs.

Meanwhile, Tab wants updates about the results of the experiment.

Tab is annoyed and impatient, but she waits.

Aelise calls Demauri.

"...Triangulation's not working," Demauri says, after a while of looking. "Or, I dunno, maybe it is, but I've walked four blocks now and if the direction's changed I don't have the sensitivity to tell. He'd have to be ridiculously far away. Not on Earth."

"Love and loyalty," says Demauri. "I can look in on him occasionally if you want, see if he moves?"

"Thanks."

"...Of course it does," sighs Aelise. "Thank you, Demauri. Well, that's going to be a thorny problem."

"Yeah, I wish I could help you."

"You found him. That's something."

And it is, alas, the extent of Demauri's skills. He bids her goodbye and hangs up.

She has calmed down some, since recovering from the... breakage.

Tab is more than happy to obey.

Corona shivers.

Chelsa falls back asleep, cuddled up close.

Demauri wakes up when that signal goes. "'lo?"

"I need you to find Corona. Urgently."

"Dammit," says Kers. She sighs. "Thank you. You can go back to sleep."

"Love 'n loyalty," mumbles Demauri, "sorry," and he goes back to sleep.

Anneia finally answers, with a sleepy, wordless mumble.

Chelsa hugs her and bawls.

Anneia hugs her tightly.

Anneia and Sandre both stay with her.

Chelsa will take hugs. She is very tearfully welcoming of hugs.

Then Aelise will give her hugs.

Chelsa would like that.

Aelise makes the arrangements. She would like it if Chelsa did one last set of announcements, to say goodbye to everyone, reassure them as much as she can. But she'll understand if Chelsa doesn't feel up to it.

Chelsa isn't even upset that this all means she'll start aging again. She's afraid her power will go, maybe stay gone; she would like to leave before it does, if it's going to go.

"I wish I could tell my parents, even if walking around on the planet was too risky," Tab says. "How would she find out, if I told them?"

Tab frowns and nods and starts reading more physics, less sociology.