"I am not making an elaborate joke. Someone may have played an elaborate joke on me, but it came with an actual adult Mark who remembered the same events at the other end of it, and I don't know how in the world they'd go about pulling it off."

"Well, 'adult'. You're what, seventeen, eighteen?"

"In number of years lived, yes. Other questions may yield other answers."

"You're cryptic and weird. Ivan, have you told him he's cryptic and weird?"

"Not in those exact words."

"'You confuse me.' 'Well that's bizarre.' 'Ooookay then.' 'Say that again more intelligibly?' 'Does time travel at a young age cause that sort of thing?'," recites Mark in flawless imitation.

"...My brother, the impressionist," snorts Miles.

"Obviously it's less effective when he's doing me, but yes."

"Thank God for that. Imagine if he could do it to anybody. Now there's a substitution plot."

Mark cracks up.

"He could just sort of wander around, switching identities when no one was looking."

"Sounds like fun."

"Somebody get this kid a hobby."

"Mostly he reads. And cons my raspberry cookies out of me. He isn't technically confined to the embassy but it's more convenient for everybody that way at least for the time being."

"Hm," says Miles, looking at Mark.

...Mark grins and bounces excitedly.

"...What?" says Miles, alarmed at this evidence of possible actual telepathy. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Why are you looking at him like that?"

"Because he is confined to the embassy for some reason, probably Captain Galeni's understandable overprotective streak, and it's occurred to him to use me to get around that and I think that sounds like tremendous fun."

"Can you actually read my mind, or what the hell?"

"I've been studying you literally my entire life. I can't hear what you're thinking, but I can guess it very accurately."

"This could get very hairy very fast. You know, I was thinking, when I had successfully rescued Mark, 'isn't it nice how simple a mission can be when Miles is not around', and now Miles is around, and things are going to cease to be simple."

"Oh, come on. Locate and retrieve your sense of fun," says Mark. "My two main skills are killing people and pretending to be Miles, I'm the perfect replacement mercenary commander."

"I didn't say I was going to do it," Miles protests. "I didn't even think very hard about doing it, it just occurred to me that the option existed. Stop bouncing. I'm not letting you touch my mercenaries under any circumstances until I'm satisfied you'd take good care of them."

Ivan sighs and eats a raspberry cookie.