"So...why the convoluted not-sabotage?"

"Thirteen knows, doesn't she? She got that message from Josephine, after all. That message that was meant for me. And as you've already figured out, the Viewers are more than capable of looking into other loops without the limiter circuits I built in later."

(Thirteen is still frozen).

Jenn hesitates, thinks. "-Looking forward makes things happen? Or like- makes the things you've seen fact? Rather than there being multiple potential ways things can go?"

" - That works between loops? The - 'don't cross own timeline' thing - events lock?"

"Yes indeed! And if only Josephine could aim her damn notes, I could've finished things in my loop! But I looked forward, and I saw you, ten loops down the line, dangling over the edge like a piano suspended by a spider's thread, and I realized I couldn't change what I saw."

"Well. Shit."

"Well shit indeed."

"Why didn't you just tell the other loops this? Why the charade?"

"I didn't want them messing with any of this. So, I gave my other selves all the multi-loop technology they 'needed', but with enough mucked up equations and dangerous incentives for them to think it was a dead area of research. I gave them enough to meddle but not enough to continue spreading my mistake."

She pauses and touches something off screen. "So the Viewers are boring. Turn them on, and they just work. Nobody needed to pay any attention to them."

"I didn't tell them we were doomed, because they'd have tried to fix that. They'd have looked ahead, like idiots. Like Five was going to."

"-So you did stop Five."

"Yes. I - "

"Oh, cool, you got them working," Ant says as ey rounds the corner of the Viewers to peer at them.

Three stops and looks like she's seen a ghost, eyes wide and skin suddenly pale.

"-Oh. Another Bina? Neat."

Jenn narrows her eyes. "Everything okay?" she asks Three.

" - What is ey doing here?" she demands.

"The way I understand it, Bina here," squeezes her Bina's hand reassuringly, "carried Ant out of the courtyard, and it...somehow translated to Ant being in Bina's head?"

"...I don't think anyone else did that. Yes. That makes sense."

Three's bullshitting. And Bina knows it, but what will she say is bubbling up inside her. Hasn't spilled over quite yet.

"Hm," Jenn says, sounds a little noncommittal, looks very carefully to her Bina, waiting for a cue.

Ant's looking down, arms wrapped around emself - ey's not sure what's going on, but ey can pick up on the tension ey caused.

" - Three. Stop the bullshitting. What do you want?"

"What do I want?" she asks, and makes a half-hiccuping noise. It's like something inside her starts to tear. "What do I want? I want - I want to see mom and dad again. Hear their voices. I - barely remember what they sound like. I want to see Lash again. I want to have normal dreams. I want to not be trapped in this stupid endless day - "

"And I'm not going to get any of that, because I'm going to die pointlessly, and no one's going to know I was ever alive because - because my entire loop will be erased, if my plan succeeds - "

She buries her head in her hands. "I - I need a minute - "

Ant reaches for their Bina's free hand.

" - Come on guys, let's give her some space."