[Very much so. At least Elspeth can deprogram half of it.]

[Which half?]

[She can undo any positive Chelsea-based affections. She can't put back what was taken.]

[Oh, delightful,] he sighs, snuggling her. [We kill these people when we find them, yes?]

[Golden killed hers. Tab explicitly told her not to kill the Gift one, on the grounds that she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock.]

[Right. Never visiting Gift, then.]

[Tab is setting up on another planet that Chelsa doesn't know about, with the resurrected city of It Got Nuked This One Time Toronto, not that there's any reason you need to visit Gift.]

"The next galaxy over is not far enough for comfort."

"Okay." Nuzzle. Idly, "Which part spooks you more?"

"The irreversible one."

"Well, yeah, but what if you factor out Elspeth."

"Is there some purpose to this line of inquiry?"

"Idle curiosity. If I factor out Elspeth I'm way more freaked out by the part she can fix. You don't have to answer if you don't want."

"If I factor out Elspeth they are much less comparable. In a very 'they both lose' sort of way."

"Yes, that's a relief."

Checking, checking...

When she checks for a Lazarus, one turns up who is an interesting new kind of demon: pebbled pine-green skin with iridescent black streaks in a vaguely spiky pattern, 'hair' made of thin iridescent black spines, short tidy iridescent black claws. Controlling for obvious species differences, his face is recognizably that of a Lazarus. He's even the same height, under that spiky crown of hair.

"Got a Lazarus," she remarks. "He's a demon, I don't know the kind."

"Ooh, let's see," says Sherlock. He looks. "Damned if I know. Doesn't seem to be on Earth, either. Perhaps we've discovered a whole new demon dimension. I wonder if he's a friendly sort?"

"It's hard to imagine an unfriendly Lazarus, but we only know the one of him, so who knows. Maybe having a tail wreaks awful psychological damage on the personality type."

"What do you suppose, should I say hi right now, invite Stella's one over to help make introductions, or just be generally aware that he exists and see if metacausality does cause us to intersect in some charmingly coincidental way?"

"The last one. Or tell Stella's that we found him an alt and see what he says about it. Perhaps he'll have a more interesting suggestion."

Nuzzle. "Hey, Jane, can you tell Lazarus we found a demon of him here and could use his input?"