"Alright. Fine."

"No. No. I'll do it. -That many? I don't think the watch will..."

"I understand."

"I will call them right away."

This happens at an inconvenient but not disastrous time.

Bina's arm flares blindingly bright green.

She sways - 

But compensates as she jumps.

Jenn wraps an arm around Bina as she lands on the scaffolding. "You okay?" she asks, eyes drawn to her arm.

"Yeah."

The arm's still glowing.

"It hurts. I don't know what it's doing."

Jenn nods. "Let's--just get down. We can figure it out. But we should get away from here."

"Right."

She starts climbing.

Jenn keeps pace with her climbing down, but drops the last few feet and looks around for Elizabeth.

Peering into the distance, concerned.

"I think I hear something."

Jenn pauses, listening intently.

A wet, sucking sound, like something moving through the mud.

Many somethings.

"Shit. We need to move. Bina, can you run?"

"Uh, yeah, think so."

"There's an exit towards the subway, I've memorized the map - "

" - We need to get to the Moment, that's supposed to be safe. Ish."

"Let's just get ourselves some space. Which way's the subway?" (Because if it's approximately the same direction as Bina thinks the moment is in, they're not going to lose anything by aiming in that direction.)

"In Sector Seven, there's a map in that tent in camp - but I think it's that way."

"...The Moment's in the other direction."

Jenn presses a hand to her face. Can she tell what direction the sounds are coming from?

Everywhere. They're pretty much surrounded. There's more farther out.

She needs height. And time to think. She's willing to accept Bina's word that they need to get to the Moment. She points - in a third direction, midway between the two points. "We're running that way. That way we don't lead these things to either our exit or our safe space. We'll find somewhere to bunker down and think."

"Right. Makes sense."

"Yeah..."

And Jenn starts running. Running through mud isn't anyone's idea of a good time, but she doesn't want to walk.

Elizabeth is a good runner, too, especially for a construction site manager.

Bina is not.

Jenn notices, and adjusts her pace so that she's keeping pace with Bina. She's not leaving her behind.

She keeps a careful eye on their surroundings. Both for threats, and for somewhere to bunker down.

"I think it's the bodies," Elizabeth observes after a while and a few things stirring in the mud. "Reanimating. There's clusters where we've cleared more, but - mostly closer to the camp."

"In this direction - there's two cleared buildings. Three-fourteen and eight-forty-six. Three-fourteen's closer, but not by much - we're in sector two right now, and we can cut towards sector three, near the camp and that 'Moment' Bina mentioned, or to the edge and sector eight. Sector eight has fewer buildings and fewer bodies, and I think is more defensible, but the stretch between two and eight hasn't been cleared at all."

Jenn tries to remember the map she'd looked at earlier. "Three-fourteen for now." Then they can regroup, and try and figure out and actual plan.

"Right. There's an alleyway over there, by three-ten, or we can double back to camp - but I don't know if the camp bodies are reanimating, too."

"Alleyway," Jenn says. She's not willing to risk the bodies at the camp being among the reanimated. Not unless she has to.

"This way, then."

Luckily even with Bina limping and clutching her still throbbing, still glowing arm, it's a fairly short way, and they dodge the corpses. The building's two stories, with an exterior fire escape, and small and dark. There's very few windows.

Jenn considers it for a moment, before nodding. It'll have to do. She falls back so she's bringing up the rear, ushering Bina and Elizabeth ahead of herself.

They enter into the lower level - Elizabeth and Bina immediately start barricading entrances. There's plenty of shelves and furniture and unidentifiable equipment about with which to do that.

Jenn does a quick scan of the room, but providing she doesn't see any threats, she'll help barricade the entrances as well.

Nothing immediate.

Elizabeth isn't exceptionally strong, but she has a good sense for what's a good defense and what isn't. This furniture is solid, though, at least, good wood and metal.

Jenn sees the logic in that, and puts her own strength to good use.

Once they finish: "We should get the upstairs window by the fire exit, too."

There's a metallic crash from outside.

"...Fast."

Jenn finds the stairs and races to the level above, hoping there's materials for barricading the window as well.

Elizabeth follows.

They're not as good. Mostly shelving units - thinner, easier to break - but they're better than nothing, and there's a single thin desk. (Elizabeth proposes two shelves next to each other in front of the window, the third shelf behind them, and the desk pushed against that for good measure.)

Jenn thinks about it, and then nods, setting about moving the pieces into the correct place.

A hand goes through the window as they're moving the second shelf.

Elizabeth hits it with a hammer.

It retracts, hammer and all.

"-Shit," Jenn states, shoving the shelves into place with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

"That does not seem good, yeah," Elizabeth agrees, helping shove.

There's a sort of shlopp sound outside.

"Any idea if it's possible to get to the roof?" Jenn asks, finishing up with the shelves, and starting to shove the desk into place.

"I haven't worked down here as much, but most of them had a roof ladder - exterior, though, usually from the fire escape. Only a few had interior access points."

Jenn nods. Eyes the window. "I think that's as secure as we're getting for now."

And starts to head back to Bina.

Who has started trying to find ways to cover her arm better. The glow seems to be going down on its own a bit, though.

"I think the light's attracting them," she says, voice frustrated. "Or causing them. Or something."

Jenn nods gravely. "We need a plan quickly then."

"I'm not sure we can safely get anywhere. At least not now. But... If they're following me. I might be able to keep them here, or lead them in circles, or trap them somewhere I can get out of but they can't. And you guys could - get supplies, or help, or something."

"If you think I'm letting you run off on your own we're going to have an argument. Look..." She pauses. "-You said I didn't make it out of the basement last time?"

"No. Not according to Twelve. I don't know if you ever have."

"-There's something working against us. Something isn't happy with us being...here. But- There's been no messages from past-mes. And none from past-Elizabeth's. So- They won't be expecting us. They'll be expecting you to act like a Bina. Not like...Not like part of a group..."

"Good point. But - the split up plan requires us having a group? And... I think there might be something useful in the journal. Twelve put it this early, instead of in the Moment or wherever - she must've thought we could use it, but I don't think I would've been able to stop and read if I'd been running for my life."

Jenn nods, a little reluctantly. "Elizabeth. What other supplies do you have at the camp? I didn't spot any medical supplies, or weapons, but I'd kill for either right now."

"Uh. A portable x-ray. Maps. Potentially useful files. Water. More flashlights. Spare batteries that could fit the flashlights. There are medical supplies, in the tent on the narrow end of the camp - other side of the truck from the open air tent and the showers. It's mostly meant for if we had a major accident and trouble getting to a hospital in time, so it's specialized towards dangerous bleeds. Nothing intended to be a weapon, but there's cutting tools in the tent with the medical supplies. I have a gun on me, but I'd rather not use it when we don't know if those things can hear. Or that they won't just absorb the bullets. I don't have anything to reload with."

Jenn hums. "The supplies would be useful. And another map so we're not reliant on you. I grabbed post-it's, but drawing a map on those is going to leave it uselessly small, or uselessly many-paged."

Bina really doesn't like the idea of staying cramped in a box while wigglies surround her, but: "I still think me leading them away from here's a good plan. But I can also read the journal while you guys are out."

Jenn definitely doesn't seem to like that idea, but: "It's logical," she admits.

"Which? Leading or reading?" She drags her hand down her face. "Ugh. I think... I think I can do it. Lead them away. They didn't seem that fast. But if you both think it's a horrible idea..."

"Quite frankly we don't need two people to fetch supplies. It might be smart to leave one of us here, with the supplies and this journal. Another to the camp. And you potentially to lead them off."

Jenn tilts her head very slightly at Bina - it's a question about whether Bina is willing to trust her or Elizabeth with B12's journal.

She doesn't know Elizabeth, is the problem. "You know the camp better, and the area," she says to Elizabeth. "Jenn's more caught up on - everything - so might understand it better."

Jenn nods (she doesn't necessarily want to be the one doing the reading, but she recognises the trust Bina is placing in her). "I think I'm gonna try and get onto the roof. Better sightlines. And you can yell if you need me?"

"Yeah. You can be my backup."

Jenn smiles back. "Always."

"So. Guess we should do this sooner rather than later?"

"That'd be my suggestion. I'd also like to take the backpack with me - preferably emptied."

Jenn shrugs it off, and sets about emptying it out onto one of the surfaces not finding employment as a barrier. "Finding another would be nice. But that's wishful thinking."

"We might be able to fashion something crude out of curtains, but I wouldn't want to try out in the open."

Jenn nods sharply. "We've got duct tape here if you can supply the curtains."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Appreciate it." She hands over the backpack, and turns back to Bina. "No unnecessary risks, huh?"

"I promise! I'll be extra careful! But I should probably head out first?"

"Don't let them corner you," Jenn adds. "Good luck. Be back here in an hour?"

She checks her little pink watch. "Yeah, that's doable."

Jenn nods again. "Same goes for you, Elizabeth. Back in an hour." (She doesn't say who she's following if they're not, although there's a definite implication she's going to follow one of them.)

"Right."

"Anything else before I head out?"

"Don't die?" Jenn manages to make her tone flippant.

"Promise I'll try my hardest." A glance at the door, a muttered, "Wish me luck," and a check there's nothing immediately outside - 

And she's off.

Jenn finds somewhere she can watch Bina's progress from, and see if the dark wiggly things are following her.

Wigglies do, indeed, follow Bina!

They seem mostly slower than her, at least.

Elizabeth slips out once the way's clear.

Well then. Jenn will have a quick look around to see if she can find roof access, keeping the journal with her, one of the flashlights, and water.

There is, indeed, a metal ladder leading to the roof, accessible from the fire escape.

Alright then. Up to the roof it is for some heavy duty reading.

There's nothing visibly alarming at first glance. Not too many of the wigglies - there seem to be only a few, indeed clustering around Bina, and they're incredibly difficult to see in the dark.

The journal has a sticky note affixed to the front page.

Hey Me! 

So getting this notebook to you, while avoiding any Observed areas, has been a bit of a nightmare. You'd better appreciate it! 

I kid, I kid (but seriously, this truck was really hard to track down!). 

Assuming our time-lines match up at all, and you're in the truck while reading this, you have about half an hour before Elizabeth returns your call. 

Don't fall asleep! And when she does call back, get her to flip the crane to automatic and then RUN. I think if you do that, some really really nasty stuff won't happen. 

Other then that, I won't try to tell you what to do. Eleven tried that with me and it just made a mess of things. We're looping, but everything changes each time. This situation is all the worst parts of time travel with none of the benefits! Hurrah! Weee! 

I could go on, but this is getting pretty long, and I have a Thing I need to go do.

Wish me luck,

- You

If Jenn had to guess, the 'really nasty stuff' was probably Elizabeth dying. Which: go them, they'd prevented without B12's help. She leaves the note tucked where it is, and delves into the rest of the journal.

The first page opens with:

I am writing this journal for my successor because recent events have convinced me that B3 has, systematically and repeatedly, been leading us to our death.

While I'm convinced that's what she's done, I have no idea why. I can't think of a situation where I'd do this, but 3 spent at least a year, maybe more, of subjective time in the Moment, so… I don't know. I don't know why, but I do know that her actions are inconsistent with allowing us to get out of this.

Reasons I think she's messing with us: 

1. The version of the Mathematical model she passed on, is inconsistent with the principles she used to create the greater Devices. This is difficult to tell, but an in depth comparison between their actual design and the designs on the blueprints reveal significant differences. Leading us to…

2. Some of the Devices contain mechanisms that limit their range or effect. These mechanisms have been added purposefully, but placed such that their removal would damage or destroy the device. 

3. She appears to have developed and then destroyed several Devices that would be useful, and has left no notes as to how to recreate them. I believe she developed a method for reconstructing shattered patterns (at an enormous entropic cost), as well as a means of extending n-displacement beyond 466.2 Hz.

For these points, I have proof, proof that I will explain later, at length, in this journal. You'll be able to verify them yourself when you get to the Moment. 

The last point is just a theory.

But it's the one that convinced to write this journal.

I think 3 killed 5. 

Not through omission, directly.

I think 5 found out something that she wasn't supposed too, and 3 scrambled her time-line by entering it on the fourteenth and killing Ant. This would have caused enough stress on the Loop to make the situation untenable, forcing the Botfly to shuffle the Loop immediately.

I know that this isn't supposed to be possible, and we're not supposed to be able to affect things beyond one loop in either direction, but it's the only thing that makes sense. 

My understanding of the order of events looks like this:

4 finds the Moment, finds the first notebook, and Loops. 5's time-line starts, and at some-point she discovers something dangerous, something that 3 doesn't want us to know. 3 uses one of the Devices that she later destroys to scramble 5's time-line. The Botfly Loops.

6 starts, gets to the Moment, and finds the second notebook right away, in a place that 4 must have been several times. The second notebook contains the essay on "Probabilistic Uncertainty in Entropic Time-Loops." The essay that everyone afterwards agrees explains what happened to 5. But if we assume that 3 could reach forward into 5's loop, then it makes sense for her to be able to reach into 6's loop as well. She could have written the second notebook later, AFTER killing 5, and given it to 6 to allay suspicion. 

The Second Notebook is almost all user and fabrication instructions for existing Devices. Aside from the Probabilistic Uncertainty Essay, it has no new theory, no new math, just some formalization on the entropic constant (which I think is probably wrong, and only serves to make the PUETL essay more believable).

And if Probabilistic Uncertainty in Entropic Time Loops Theory was correct, how am I here? How is anyone after 10 here? The number of events necessary to create my own time-line are immense, and as entropy has increased, probabilistic mishaps should have stopped my own time-line, and that of 10 and 11 as well. 

But they didn't. 

The ONLY 'probabilistic mishap' in thirteen loops happened to 5, and that was in a loop with less then 1/300th of the amount of entropy in my loop (less then 1/6000ths of the amount of entropy that B13 is dealing with). 

If the PUETL essay were correct, there is only a 0.00086% chance that I could possibly exist, and an exponentially smaller probability that B13 could exist.

But she does, because I've seen her. 

You. 

This is very confusing to write.

Anyway, it's wrong. It has to be.

Either we believe that 3, someone who managed to do things that none of the rest of us have ever been able to even get close to replicating, got one of her fundamental theories wrong, while also believing that 4 was so unobservant as to not notice a brightly coloured notebook on a table in the cafe, in over THREE MONTHS of walking past it every day, OR we believe that the notebook was never on that table. That 3 put the notebook on the table AFTER she'd killed 5.

If this is the case, then only explanation is that 3 had the ability to reach forward into future Loops, an ability she has never shared, and has apparently done everything in her power, including murder (and suicide?), to prevent us from acquiring.

-The idea that there's a previous Bina working against them seems... insane. But also Very Dangerous. Jenn files a note to ask her Bina if she can think of any reason she'd want to stop herself learning something. (And Jenn finds it Highly Unlikely that any Bina would miss something when she's looking for a solution to something.)

Alright then. Conspiracy theories read: What else does the journal contain?

It seems to mostly be a rebuttal of other books that Twelve's assuming they have access to.

There's at least five different models of time machine described, though, two of them labeled 'historical.' 

Time machines seem to all have at a minimum a power source, a tune-able antenna, and something to handle paradox. Most of them require a piece of the future and the past.

One doesn't.

What does 'historical' even mean when there's time travel involved.

She reviews the information again, but she's not sure what she can do with it, and wants to talk to Bina (...and Elizabeth) before making any plans.

She makes another scan of her surroundings.

That's probably Elizabeth approaching, off in the distance.

No sign of Bina yet.

She's not going to draw immediate attention to her presence on the roof, just in case it isn't Elizabeth. And she's not going to worry about Bina just yet. (She can take care of herself. Probably.)

Definitely an Elizabeth. Exhausted, muddy, with a tear in her hazmat suit she's hastily patched, but alive and probably not bleeding.

There's a sound of breaking glass off in the distance.

(Bina would like to register she was so being extra careful. The pipe adventure wasn't her fault. Extra speedy wiggly is even less so.)

Jenn wishes she had some sort of binoculars or sight so she could figure out what the hell was going on.

Bina has five minutes before Jenn is going after her. In the meantime: Jenn slinks off the roof to meet Elizabeth and do a reassessment of their supplies.

"No serious trouble?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at the tear in the hazmat suit.

"One of the not-corpses was hanging around camp. Apparently, when you throw things at them, they absorb it and then grow. I suspect shooting them will be pointless. I did find everything I was looking for, though."

Jenn nods. "You got the curtains?"

"Yeah. Should have enough for a rucksack."

...Jenn would start on that but.

"I'm going to go look for Bina."

(With the journal tucked inside her suit.)

"Do you want me to stay here, or come with?"

"Stay. In case she gets back before I do."

"Alright. I can start working on the sack, then."

Jenn nods, and leaves the building carefully, starting to sweep in the direction she heard the glass breaking from.

Bina, on the other hand, is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Hour. Last five minutes.

First, the pipe adventure. Then, just when she thought she was free, Zoomy chased her up a fire escape, into a very dark building, down the building's stairs, and then she's trapped in with a garage door he can get past if she can, so she yanks on the pulley, which breaks, and she tries to slide under the door -

It lands on her ribs, driving the breath from her lungs.

Jenn might see the twitching of the door as she tries to push it off herself.

-She does. And her gut tells her that's Bina causing that door twitch. So she takes off running towards it. She drops down, fumbling to get her hands under it to try get it up, feeling her way along to try and find Bina. (If this is a not-person, she's going to be mad at herself.)

Those are Bina's legs there! She definitely seems to be moving, and between the two of them they get it up just enough she can surge out - 

And fall back into the mud as a skeletal hand entangles in her hair.

Jenn wraps her arms around Bina - letting go of the door in the process - and tries to pull her away from the hands.

The hand is pretty firmly grasping, but the wiggly can't get much more of itself out with the door dropped on it.

In fact this part off the arm appears to be detaching.

Oh look it came off.

It's still moving.

Jenn grabs for it, detangles it and throws it away.

Bina's gasping for sweet, sweet air for the second time in twenty minutes, never mind that it smells like burned barbecue. 

Jenn pulls her close, so that Bina can lean against Jenn's shoulders, and counts her own breathing quietly.

Gradually Bina manages to sync her breath with Jenn's - 

There's a roar from inside, the 'hnng' sound getting larger as the wiggly slams against the gate - 

"Oh shut up!" Bina half-yells at it.

It does.

"-Neat trick. Can you walk?"

"-Actually. No. C'mon. Get on my back."

"I can walk!"

"Can and should are different things. You just had this very heavy door on your ribs. Let me help you."

"Fine." She knows she shouldn't be snippy with Jenn but her pride's bruised and her ribs are worse.

Jenn doesn't hold it against her. "I've broken my ribs," she says conversationally as she gets Bina onto her back. "Even if you haven't, bruised ribs aren't much fun."

"You have?" She settles in. "What do you do. With, like, your life?"

"This and that," she says as she starts walking back towards their current base. "I grew up all over, sometimes in warzones. Recently I've been doing a little bit of security for my mother, but she talked me into actually going to college."

"That sounds tough. But - I'm not really surprised you do security? You just. Seem to have it together." 

She's tired and maybe drifting off a bit, but fighting to stay awake.

"Yeah. It's a good job, and I'm good at it." She tilts her head back very slightly. "What about you? What do you do?"

"I'm a journalism student. At McGill. Work as a waitress." 

"What do you want to do with that?" They're nearly back now.

"Just. Find stories. Help people? My grandparents worked at the newspaper. My grandmother was always doing investigative stuff. Revealing corrupt bureaucrats and all."

"...I think you'd be good at that. You're stubborn. That's a good trait for that."

"Heh. Thanks. Need to get better at - noticing stuff. I guess. Didn't believe the weird stuff until I got eaten. Thought I was tired."

Jenn is quiet for a moment. "To be fair. With what we knew before we got grabbed by tall, red and crazy, that wasn't a bad hypothesis."

Half-hearted shrug, and a muttered 'ow.'

"Just feel like grandma would've done better."

"...Do you reckon your grandma would've figured out time machines?"

"Those're in the journal? Dunno. She was smart, though. Knew a lot."

"Yeah. There's...a fair amount of stuff missing. Assumes you have access to information in the Moment. But yup. Time machines are apparently a thing."

"Kinda what I'd figured Twelve meant. With devices controlling paradox and all."

"There was other stuff as well. You'll probably want to read it yourself, but... Can you think of any reason you'd want to hide something from yourself?"

"To save someone? Or a lot of someones? If I knew I'd do something stupid with that information, or would act on it wrong, or if me finding it meant like Ira could also find it and it's better for everyone to be in the dark - "

Jenn hums. "You should read the journal," she advises. But by now they're back at their base.

"Right..."

Bina's drifting again.

"Hey. Stay awake just a bit longer. I want to check your ribs, and that'll go quicker with you awake. You can rest after, I promise."

She looks around for a surface to put Bina on.

Elizabeth's able to get them to a low table that hadn't been used too much for barricading, and which has already has assorted items removed by the survey teams.

"Ugh. They don't feel broke."

"They don't always." Beat. "You've broken your ribs before?" Jenn's hand in gently pressing over Bina's ribs.

"Ow. Yeah. Play field hockey."

"I thought ice hockey was the violent one," Jenn says with a teasing smile. "Nothing seems out of place."

"You haven't seen us play." She groans and tries to sit up. "That's good. We don't have time for them to be a problem."

"You should still take it easy...er. No more getting doors dropped on you."

"I wasn't trying to do that, or the pipe thing. Just happened."

"-Pipe thing?"

"Uhhhhh so the wigglies are kinda slow, and I managed to lead a bunch into this building, except then I kinda. Got cornered. They weren't really chasing me was the problem, they kept circling around to drop down in front of me and that made stuff stupidly hard."

"So there was this pipe. Maybe a drain? Anyways I escaped through that. I didn't get stuck! Just. A bit momentumly challenged. And soggy. But a bunch of them got themselves wedged into it, and I got out on the other side just fine."

"-I am finding a pair of handcuffs and chaining myself to you."

"I'm not that bad!"

"Uh-huh," Jenn's tone is a bit lighter now. "Tell that to your pipe adventure."

"I can pick locks anyways."

Jenn reminds herself that now is not the time to propose a lock picking race. "It's a useful skill."

She pulls the journal out and holds it out. "Wanna read?"

"You got the important stuff, right, we don't have time - "

And she's tired and her head's spinning enough she's not sure she'll be able to read.

"-But what if we did."

"What do you mean? Like, time travel?"

"Yes. But- So. We have designs. And most of them need a piece of the future and a piece of the past. But there's one that doesn't... And it's...it's almost like a radio? Except one picking up time rather than radio waves?"

"- At some point I'd like an explanation you know."

"That machine sounds sensible except for all the ways it's convenient."

"You're not wrong. But-" Jenn frowns. "What if we- you're expected to go to the Moment now? And I don't mind saying it. The wigglies aren't fast, but do you really think we can avoid them?"

"Probably not? And Zoomy was fast."

"I think I can make this?" Jenn says - sounding a lot more confident than she actually feels. Pauses. "Your call if you think this is too convenient."

She shakes her head. "No. It sounds like something I'd want to develop. I'm guessing it's not perfect?"

(Elizabeth, meanwhile, has started writing a report on the sticky notes. She probably won't be able to leave a copy in camp but this is a reasonable place to look for them, so some notes - all the parts except "what you need to know to survive" coded, she isn't an idiot - are getting left here.)

"Almost certainly not. I think I might be able to use that fragment as a focus but...we're kinda gonna be leaping at somewhere where time is already...broken? As it were?"

"Yeah. That doesn't sound super good."

"No. But I'm not sure we exactly have a 'good' option right now."

She nods. "How long do you need to make it?"

"Half an hour? Maybe a little longer? I don't- exactly have experience with time machines, but..." She shrugs. "Less if I didn't have to jerry-rig a radio out of hand warmers and flashlights."

Elizabeth furrows her brow. "We used to have radios back at the camp, but they didn't work - heavy static, mostly, but also higher chance of failing badly. I don't know if they're still there. I know there's at least two places with a lot of wiring in the factory - I can make a basic radio out of that."

Jenn nods. "How close are those places?"

"Closest one's really near, I'll mark it on this map - it's a 'do not enter' though, which means there's something unsteady or dangerous. Farther one's enterable, but it's on the other side of camp."

"I'm assuming you want to go?" She drags her hand down her face. "Look, just, for the record, you have combat training? I'm assuming special forces?"

"Something like that," Jenn confirms. "And I've stripped buildings for wire before. Misspent youth and all that."

"Seems to be a lot of that around. I'll hold down the fort here, how about, sort our supplies and get them in bags properly."

Jenn nods. "I won't be too long."

Looks across to Bina.

Who is very stubbornly trying not to fall asleep. "I'll be fine. Won't wander off."

"Take a nap. You've earned it keeping the wigglies off us."

"Ughhhh."

She might be blushing though? Jenn's smile. Just.

"...Can we call them anything else, I'm not putting 'wigglies' in my notes."

Jenn smiles a tiny bit wider.

Then turns her attention to Elizabeth. "If you can think of a better name, by all means, feel free."

"Not-corpses. Or not-people, is what I've been using. Shortens nicely to 'naught.' Does not sound like I got high and watched too many zombie movies."

"Fine by me."

And Jenn will collect her map, and be on her way.

And Elizabeth will return to her notes.

And Bina will, eventually, drift off to sleep, and dream.

(She's nineteen. She can't talk right now. If she tries, if she looks away, she's going to break, or scream, or explode, and - )

(She's on a plane and this feels like the end of the world.)

(Or the end of her and Lash, at least.)

Ant isn't actually here right now - ey's somewhere, nearby, but not actually right next to Bina.

(Ey wants to be, but it's taking em time to get there.)

That's alright. If Ant was here - if Ant tried to comfort her, or ask how she's doing - 

It's stupid, it's all her fault, and it's dumb to be this upset, just because she and Lash are going to university fifteen hundred kilometers apart, just because she didn't ask Lash to stay even though she could tell Lash wanted her to - 

She tries to breathe as the plane takes off. She can't get away from the stressor like her therapist recommends. But she can breathe, because if she doesn't she starts hyperventilating and then she throws up like last night - (like she's going to)

This'll be a bad one, enough to alarm the flight attendants, get the Air Marshall called - and none of her strategies will work.

It's almost inevitable.

The man in the seat next to her (concerned she's having a heart attack, she learns later) asks if she's alright, and that's what does her in.

She gets up. She runs, like she always does, past the empty seats (wrong, isn't it? Hadn't there been people? Numerous eyes on her, too many eyes looking at her - )

She gets to the bathroom, closes the door, and the flight attendant isn't there banging on the door.

Just Bina. Sick and alone.

Except she doesn't throw up, or pass out.

She calms down, in increments and fractions.

And wonders where everyone went.

...Now there's a tap on the door.

"Bina?" Ant asks quietly.

She opens it.

"Ant! You're okay!"

"Yeah," Ant nods. "Guess Lash did take care of me."

"Yeah. She's really nice." Kind of too nice to Bina, really, too forgiving, but.

"Do you know - what happened to people? Or if this memory's just... Twisted."

She steps out.

"Or what's with that picture?" It's a red ball on a white background, bouncing.

- Except no it's not, it's two, one shadow behind the other except that's not how it was - 

There wasn't a picture in her memory she doesn't think, except - she can't really be sure, now, like how she can't remember what happened at Lash's birthday party, or when exploring the bakery at summer camp, or her first kiss...

Ant shakes eir head. "I don't know. Sorry." Offers eir hand.

She takes it, and looks around.

The plane's perfectly still. Quiet. Frozen. Like a chess set, not the chaotic swirling vomit-tinged nightmare it is in her memory. 

She shivers.

"We should probably try and see who's flying?" she suggests, but her heart isn't in it.

Ant nods, reluctant as well. "If anyone's flying..."

"Yeah. Don't know, here..."

She starts walking forwards. There's a curtain, separating the cockpit, which the pushes aside - 

Revealing somewhere else entirely.

Blue skies. Puffy clouds. The soft thrum of an engine. The sound of a propeller spinning in the air. A repetitive thwock-thwockthwock-thwock.

A concrete wall across from them, and a little Parisian cafe table before it, with a light spread of food.

Ant looks around. "This is...not a cockpit. -Is that food? I'm starving."

"It isn't a cockpit, yeah." For one, there's no plane behind them, nor a curtain - instead there's a door into what looks like a potential stairwell from outside. And it is food - soft bread and cheese, already cut into, and grapes, and a pitcher of something. "I'm not sure the food's safe to eat?"

Ant pouts. "You're not wrong. But it looks like someone is waiting...for someone? You?"

"Maybe? There's two chairs..."

She walks towards the wall - and behind it are three more. Two large, on either side, and one small one in the middle, narrow slits between them. She's prepared to be annoyed at whoever being another her. (If it's the botfly she's jumping off this skyboat, see if she doesn't.)

But - "Come on," she says to Ant, and - 

It's not another her.

"Earmuffs? That you again?" a familiar voice calls, before they round the second set of walls. Josephine's sitting there, in a yellow dress and jacket and sunhat. "Oh! There you are! You're not Earmuffs, but even better - now, which one are you? And your friend!"

"Uh. What do you mean?"

Ant shifts a little closer to Bina, slightly unnerved.

"Oh, don't play dumb - which you are you? There's been quite a number."

"...The thirteenth? I think?"

(And it seems Josephine has the ridiculous sentence structure of this situation down.)

"How many of us have you met?"

"Oh, all of you. That first time when you come in my office. Of course, then I've not a single idea what is going on, and you're all mostly similar at that point. It's only later that things diverge, get complicated. Once things are complicated... I've only met three."

"I'm not her."

"Her who?"

"The third one! The one you met."

"Oh, no! I meant I've met three of you. Though I do believe she was one of them. But, Bina, this whole calling yourself numbers thing - it's very confusing."

"But if you're ten after her... It's just, I didn't expect everything to hold together for so long. So many iterations. Everything must be held together like grand piano dangling from a spiders thread. Just a little more weight and the whole thing falls to pieces."

Ant shudders a little. "That's a comforting thought."

"Isn't it just. Though you're new, too - I've seen you in the office a few times, though none of the other late Binas had you with her."

Ant shrugs. "Guess this time round's different."

Bina takes a deep breath. "Josephine - I'm sorry, but - is any of this real? This, what, sky boat? And you - you don't look the same as before. And this was definitely a dream a few minutes ago."

"I don't look the same?" She glances down at herself. "Oh! Yes. I'm twenty-five, now, maybe younger."

"Hah. Two decades of running a sugar factory, chasing around after beet farmers and workers. A husband, friends, all those late nights in the lab. It takes a bit out of you."

She laughs to herself, a private joke. "That's one thing they don't tell you about death."

"It works wonders for your complexion."

"Wait, what - you're dead?" Like Ant? "Am I dead? I thought this was about time travel..."

"It's a complicated question. And you're not, the one you are right now - well, probably - though at least one of the other you's is. I'm certain of that."

"I don't think I'm a dream, either. Of course, if I were a dream who thought she was real, I'd say exactly that, wouldn't I? And you can't verify a single thing I tell you. If I was a dream it'd be exactly what you think I'd tell you. A horrible experiment all around."

"It's just, augh! What is happening!? Why are you here? How are you here? You say you're dead and not a dream, ok fine. But then how are you here? Why are we having this conversation? Where even is here!?"

"It's my house in the sky! I had such high hopes for these things. Designed this one, though I never got a chance to build it in life. Now, come on, we should all sit and talk properly, like civilized people. The brie is delicious, and you both look like you could use a drink." She comes around, takes Bina's arm, and starts leading her towards the table, and away from the unseen pattern on the concrete wall. A little slit experiment she was doing, nothing significant.

Ant eyes it, suspicious, and then follows after Bina and Josephine.

"What are you actually, really doing here Josephine?" Bina asks, letting herself be pulled.

"Oh, not much at all. Just killing time."

"-Uh. Are we being literal or metaphorical?"

"Oh, metaphorical now. The dead can't affect the living quite that much. But, in life... That's another story."

Ant raises an eyebrow - almost an invitation to continue.

"Have you figured it out yet? What's going on?"

"No! Because people keep being cagey and talking in riddles!"

She sets the table, separating out food and drinks for each.

"Now, no need to be rude about it."

Bina makes a high pitched, frustrated noise.

Ant reaches out to hug Bina. "She's been through hell," ey says to Josephine. "And no-one will give her a straight answer. I think she gets to be rude."

Hugs. "Everyone's been jerking me around. Just - please just tell me."

Josephine sighs. "I'll try, but - well, it's complicated. 

"It can't be that complicated! You told me - you were doing an experiment, involving people looking at something, to make light. And something went wrong."

"Oh, something went wrong far earlier than that. But this won't be easy to explain, even then..."

Ant hugs Bina, and half-glares at Josephine.

"It's no slight, but, well, I don't fully understand it myself, and even the one you call Three had trouble - and she was a physicist."

"...How can Three be so different- No. No. That's not important."

"She was much the same at first, possibly, but she might have become a physicist later. Or perhaps there was indeed some change. I'm not sure, I haven't compared your histories."

"With her - parts of it I could explain. Parts we worked out together. But we mostly got to the observable parts. The why remained as much a mystery to us as it is to you. She may have figured it out on her own, later, but by the end of the conversation neither of us were much enlightened. And I haven't talked to her since."

"Figured out - Josephine. Whatever you're dancing around, just say it."

"It's. Well. My device, my entire experiment. It never made sense in the first place. I didn't actually start out trying to do what I did... I started out trying to prove that electrons behave in the same way as photons when fired through a pair of slits - though I doubt the experimental background is of much interest to you two."

"And this. Somehow ended up with you breaking time?"

"Well. That's further in the story. I did in fact prove my hypothesis, and - "

"That actually started as an accident. My second greatest discovery. It was almost immediately after I had finished the experiment with the electron emitter. My measuring device was not particularly large, but it was very complicated, and contained several fragile reservoirs of mercury gas. Mercury is a dangerous poison. A metal that - "

"I know what mercury is," Bina interrupts.

"Ah, all right, regardless. Dismantling it safely after the experiment was not a simple task and it was one I didn't feel safe trusting it to any of my assistants. I had it only half dismantled when I had to leave for two weeks. My husband and I had arranged a trip to Boston earlier in the spring, and it could not be rescheduled, so I left the emitter partially deconstructed and told our staff that they could not, under any circumstances, touch anything."

"When I returned, the first thing I did was check in on it. By that point, everyone who worked at the factory knew not to touch Madame Dubois' funny machines, not unless they had a cavalier attitude regarding the presence or absence of some or all of their limbs, so everything was where I had left it."

"I started putting things in order, I had left for Boston in bit of a hurry so everything was a bit of a mess. I tried to pick up one of the piles of reactive plating when it gave me a shock. A rather bad one."

"That was strange, but I put it down to static electricity. The plates were silver-plated and very conductive, so while it was odd, it wasn't that odd. I grounded them with a wire and went back to work."

"But it kept happening! Twice more, I got shocked, once almost immediately after I'd grounded the pile, and then again not even an hour later. Far too fast a build-up for static electricity. My lab was in the basement of the main storage warehouse and I often complained of damp. I thought it had to be a short somewhere on my work table, or maybe Chantal (she was my main assistant at the time) had left a power cell somewhere she shouldn't."

"The table itself was… busy, I am not by nature an organized person, but it was made of wood, non-conductive wood. I checked nearby and found nothing, then I checked the whole table, pulled everything off it onto the floor."

"It was clean. No batteries. No frayed wires. Nothing."

"At that point, I was tired, so I left it over night, telling myself I'd figure it out in the morning."

"Of course, the following morning was a delivery day, and then one of the haulers locked himself in the downstairs wash-room again, and with one thing and another it was the evening two days later that I finally got back to my lab."

"The first thing I did was check the plates, with a voltmeter this time, not my hand. I was getting tired of being shocked all the time." 

"The reading was negligible, exactly what it should have been in the first place, so I put everything back on the table and went back to disassembling the emitter, thinking that the problem, whatever it had been, was solved."

"I'm guessing it wasn't."

"Oh, not in the slightest."

"Less then an hour later, as I was placing one of the capacitors from the main housing on the worktable, bang! It exploded!"

"It was the size of a dime, so no damage done, but I noticed that it had rolled against that same pile of plates again."

"I grabbed my meter and checked again."

"It measured a high voltage."

"Before, I had been annoyed. Now I was intrigued."

"-Okay. I'm pretty sure most people would be at that point."

"Indeed!"

"I then did what any reasonable person would do. I ran a set of experiments."

"It took a while. We were busy, fall is always busy for anyone dependent on farmers, and the results were baffling. I spent all of September and October of that year messing with them and not getting very far.

"If you left them alone, they did nothing. If you took them out of the room? Nothing. Took them too far away from the table? Nothing."

She pauses, apparently waiting for a response.

Ant doesn't actually know what response to give to that.

"Weird," Bina produces after a long moment.

Josephine seems satisfied by that. "It was indeed weird!"

"And worse, I could never see the charge going up. I'd measure them when I got the room. Nothing. Ten minutes later, there'd be a charge! I once stood there for half an hour with the meter, staring at the needle, daring it to move, and it did nothing. Five minutes later, I checked again and there it was!"

"It was bizarre. I stopped disassembling the device, I had an inkling that the effect was connected to the electron emitter, and I was worried that taking the device completely apart would stop the effect before I understood it."

"I also tried to test if it worked with all of them. I'd had them tied with twine to a board, all forty. So I separated the stack in two. Only one stack worked. And I separated them again. And again, only one stack worked. I repeated this, until I'd narrowed it down to a single tile."

"I ran every test I could think of. Tried to see if it had a magnet, or contamination by radium, or a natural sort of battery - nothing."

"...You hadn't already looked for these things before the original experiment?"

"They weren't actually part of the experiment, you see. They were the backing to prevent the experiment from affecting other things."

Ant nods, and holds back a slightly snide remark.

"I also didn't know where that tile was from. My assistant, Chantal, had found it - she was remarkable at finding little odds and ends, but she went all over town and never kept records. Probably some pawn shop. We thought at first they made be roofing tiles, but - they had images on them. One had something about cola, one something about noodles. It seemed odd for tiles. Who'd want a drink name on their roof?"

She decides to ignore that.

"The image on the special tile. It looked like a fly, didn't it?"

"You know, that's the funny thing. We could never actually agree. One assistant, Leo, thought it looked like a bunch of scratches. Like someone was playing with the machine. My husband thought it looked like a star. I couldn't be quite sure what I saw; perhaps a tree? It was a funny little thing, regardless."

"But I continued my tests. Had Leo sit in the room and ignore it for an hour. No charge. Tried that again. Someone in the room, not looking at it - multiple someones not looking at it - no charge. Looking directly? No charge."

"It was indirectly that did it. Viewing it out of the corner of your eye, or through the slits in my electron emitter."

"Well, it took a lot more testing to confirm, but basically, anything with the image from the tile on it would spontaneously generate electrons if viewed through a pair of slits smaller then the amplitude of the wavelength of light you were using to view it. So, it didn't work in the dark, and it definitely had to be conductive, the surface. Leo etched it into several pieces of wood at different sizes and those were all complete duds."

"Oh! And it couldn't just be paint, it had to be embossed, or a relief of some kind. That was very important."

Ant nods thoughtfully. "-And it never occurred to you that you shouldn't be poking this?"

"Or that this makes no sense - it's magic, you didn't invent anything scientific, you discovered a magic image."

"There's nothing that science can't shine a light on. And by that argument, humans didn't invent fire, we stumbled upon rubbing sticks together."

"-I'm not sure there's a scientific explanation for two dead people having tea and cakes with a time traveller."

"We just haven't discovered it yet."

"Perhaps," Ant sounds dubious.

"What does any of this have to do with quantum mechanics, anyways?" Bina asks. 

"I theorized that the light packages - the other you had a name for them - oh, photons, yes - well, that the photons weren't being absorbed by the tile, or bouncing off, but doing something else, and that it was the observer that mediated this - like that cat in the box, apparently a famous thought experiment in your time? In the experiment, you take a cat, and put it in a box with a vial of poison, and closing the lid triggers a trap, which contains an emitter, like my electron emitter, except it contains a radioactive atom, and a switch. You set it up so if the atom decays, it will send a particle out of the emitter, which might hit the switch, which breaks the vial, which releases the poison and kills the cat."

"But because quanta, subatomic particles, exist as a wave until they interact with something. Until they are observed, their position is probabilistic. They are somewhere, and we can guess roughly based on their origins, but we can't know. Not for sure, without reacting with them. You can't see a photon without absorbing it. You can't measure an electron without reacting with it."

"So when you close the box, you can't know if the atom hit the switch or not. Not for sure. That means that the rest of the state of the box, the vial of poison, the cat, is also up in the air. The cat's life or death is literally unknowable."

"-Okay. I'm- wasn't Schrödinger's cat pointing out the problem with one of the interpretations of quantum mechanics? Helsinki or Oslo or something?"

"But I proved the theory it was meant to make fun of!"

"-how?!"

"It was meant to make fun of quantum superposition as applied to subatomic particles like electrons and photons, by applying it to a macro-scale object and illustrating that it is counter intuitive, as if that is an argument against the truth - "

"Anyways. I proved that electrons behave in a way consistent with quantum superposition."

"Alright. So. Say this is true. How does this then relate to what's happening here?"

"I figured out how to get both cats out of the box. Rather than a particle collapsing the wave and hitting only a single target, the image it… It made the wave collapse multiple times. Possibly its shape was reflecting some… I don't know, some fundamental pattern that we haven't discovered in the movements of subatomic particles. Or something. It didn't matter."

"It didn't matter? What are you talking about, how could it not matter - "

"I didn't understand it, not entirely, but it was happening. It was observable, and repeatable, and so it had to be accounted for. Maybe I couldn't get the math to work out, or figure out how to answer all the questions it raised, but it was real!"

"I tested it, I tested it a lot but I kept getting different results. The image created energy, but how much and how quickly? I didn't know. It was very frustrating. My equipment kept screwing up. My first meter burned out with only two days of testing and my backup not much later. It was only when I borrowed some more sensitive equipment and got a proper apparatus up and running that I started getting consistent results."

"It turned out that the size of the image didn't matter, provided that the lines were clearly delineated. That was important. I theorized that you could make one very small, perhaps small enough to fit inside a pocket, if you could get the engraving fine enough. The size of the slits? They needed to be placed at a wide enough angle for the image to be entirely visible, and to be narrower then the wavelength of the light used to view it."

"But that wasn't the most interesting thing. The amount of power acquired from a single viewer was tiny. Enough to build up tiny spark over an extended time perhaps, but not enough to do actual work. A single viewer was almost unmeasurable while it was happening. I had to get special equipment from the university."

"But when viewed by two people at the same time, the effects doubled!"

"And if you added a third? Not tripled, but quadrupled! It doubled again!"

"Don't you see!? Twice a spark isn't still isn't much, neither are three sparks, or a hundred sparks! You'd need an entire city to power a building. But doubling every time? You only need eight people and that spark becomes two hundred and fifty six sparks. Twelve people? Over four thousand sparks. My first test with ten people melted to the table."

"My husband, after the incident with the table, he asked me, hesitant you know, as if it were beyond the realm of possibility, if we might, one day, use it to power the factory! Hah! Power the factory!? He didn't understand either! Don't you see? With only seventy three people, I could provide infinite free power to the entire nation! With seventy seven? The entire planet!"

"Josephine!" Bina shouts, having tried to speak up several times during the rant and failed. "That's great, but you're missing something. If it's a fundamental property of the universe, why does it need people to work?"

Josephine seems taken aback - 

And for a moment, so fast it's barely noticeable, the sky isn't so perfect anymore. Is dark and yawning like teeth - 

And then the sky is blue and lightly clouded again. Like it always was.

Ant glances up, and then back down, shaking eir head. "Bina's not wrong. That seems... Too easy."

"It requires people because that's what made the effects work."

She seems to be getting frustrated, or perhaps angry, shoulders tight and jaw tense.

"But there haven't always been people so-" Ant has no idea where ey was going with that, but it seemed important.

"Look, I don't know, okay? I don't know! And I don't appreciate being lectured on it! The other Bina got quite huffy with me as well..."

She crosses her arms over her chest and looks away. She seems upset, now, like she doesn't know whether to start shouting or to cry.

"Thought I was the teenager," Ant mutters to Bina.

Josephine gets up and walks away, staring into the distant sky.

The air's still and heavy and hot, almost liquid, and the engines have developed a soft, high pitched whine.

Bina sighs and drags a hand down her face. Gives Josephine a moment, but - 

This is coming to an end.

She's developing a sense for this now.

"Forty watts," she says. "You said the experiment would get only forty watts, when we talked. A whole crowd for a lightbulb."

"Don't you know how exponents work, dear? Forty-seven people is forty watts. Forty-eight would've been eighty - why I didn't look. Forty-nine, and you have a hundred and sixty. Seventy three people? Over two and a half gigawatts. Sixty seven million lightbulbs. It'd be an easy job, too, for those seventy three. Just staring. They could work in shifts. Power the entire world."

"-Almost too good to pass up."

"I couldn't! Imagine it, clean energy, easily more than we could ever use! It'd be enough to end scarcity, to launch us ahead into a new age - "

"...To get the botfly's image in every science textbook," Bina says, mouth dry.

"Alien space bug. Ruling the human race. Or eating it."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not how it'd go - " she says, voice far away and almost dreamy.

"Wait - No. Look." They're low on time. Either Bina's about to wake - or she should wake - and: "You've spoken to Three, and to the others. You remember the other loops? Have you talked to them?"

"Oh. No. Maybe. Your Three, she pulled me forward, but this is my first time in this dream... You anchored me here. Gave me this." And she touches the red scarf around her neck. "You left it behind this time. In two pieces. You don't, usually. I gave you one back, with the note. I kept the other, for a time..."

She seems vague, eyes unfocused.

"That doesn't actually explain anything!" she shouts, then - 

There's a growl.

It's not the engines.

It's the sky above them.

A cloud splits, grows teeth, turns into a gaping green maw - 

There's no time left, but Bina has one last question.

"Josephine!" she shouts over the wind, over the dying engine. "You have to tell me how you died!"

"Oh. It's the funniest thing. I don't remember."

And her smile is a skull's smile, her flesh gone, her clothes except the brilliant red scarf long rotted rags - 

Ant grabs Bina's hand again, staring up at the sky.

"I'm no thief, though, and this is yours," Josephine says, beginning to unwind the scarf from her neck.

"Won't you die?!" Bina shouts.

"Oh. I can't stop what's coming. It merely held me together long enough for this. And I am many things, not all of them good - I guess I never really figured out how to be a nice person, I never saw the point - but. I will not take this from you."

She laughs, dryly. "And for death - did you think it merely killed us? It did a great deal more then that. It killed every part of us. Up and down, left and right, forward and backward. It undid us. Excised us from the time-line. There has never been a woman called Josephine Dubois ne Gallieni, not anymore. There has never been a company called Astre Sucre. There has never been a major beet sugar industry in southern Quebec."

"All the things I've done. My experiments. My writing. My husband. My friends. Not simply gone. They never existed." Her voice, though soft and coming from a skull, is intense, and filled with despair. "My parents had no children. We were erased."

"Everyone there, everything nearby, gone. We are a hole punched out of history. A page cut from a book."

She holds out the scarf.

And Bina takes it.

(This is awful.)

Ant leans closer to Bina. "I'm sorry." Because it seems like the right thing to say.

"I'll change it," Bina says. "There has to be a way - "

" - Just, let me be brave here, alright? You can make your resolutions to yourself later."

"But for now... Let me be brave."

Bina nods.

And the sky roars.

"We should jump," Ant says, eir grip could probably be considered clinging at this point.

"Yeah - yeah - " She turns, and ignores the screaming engines behind her - 

And jumps.

And Ant jumps with her.

They fall - 

And Bina wakes, gasping and panicked.

Jenn's beside her almost immediately. "Hey," she says, quiet but insistent.

"What - "

Deep breath.

"Sorry. Bad dream."

"You seem to get those a lot," Jenn says carefully - empathy, and an offer to listen if Bina wants to talk about it.

Shiver. "Yeah. This was - talking to Josephine." Quiet, and she glances over to see if Elizabeth's around - "I think it's pretty significant. But might take a while to explain - honestly I should write it all down..."

"We've got a pen, some post its...I think there was maybe a spare page in the journal? The post its are probably a better option."

"I'll do that, yeah, at least the highlights."

"I'll go grab them for you then." Pause. "If you'll be okay?"

She nods. "Yeah. Just. Need a moment." She rubs her hand down her face.

Jenn nods and goes to do that - her gait seems off. It isn't a limp, but that is likely because Jenn is far too stubborn to limp.

...Really. Seriously, Jenn.

When she gets back, Bina asks, fake casual, "So how did getting the wiring go?"

"About as well as can be expected," Jenn says, equally casually. "I only ended up jumping off one roof."

"...Jenn. Weren't you the one threatening to handcuff yourself to me? Because I take risks?"

"Yup," Jenn says, almost cheerfully.

"And jumping off of buildings is better than escaping through pipes?"

"Harder to get...what was it? Momentumly challenged? Jumping off a building."

"Easier to break something."

"Not...wrong," Jenn admits, a little reluctantly. "It seemed the wise thing to do."

"I'm going to sit on you. See if you're jumping off any buildings then."

"Well. You're pretty tiny. I can totally carry you."

"I'm not tiny!"

"Petite?"

"You. Are a pest. And not funny."

Jenn grins, and laughs quietly. "You should write down your dream before you forget."

"...Right. Thanks."

And she'll start doing that.

(...She can't remember what happened the first time around. In the airplane. She writes that, too.)

Jenn stays nearby, going back to tinkering instead.

"Any progress on the time machine?"

"...I mean. Provided that I'm not just fumbling blindly, quite a bit. You were asleep for a while."

"Huh. I remember being surprised how long the dream lasted..."

She goes quiet, then, "The dreams are overwriting my memories. I. Think writing down everything I can remember about my life might not be a bad idea?"

"Yeah. That- that definitely seems wise."

"Have you been having them? The - weird dreams?"

Jenn shakes her head. "Not...really? There was...the one. Of me talking to my Dad the last time...but. Not like what you're talking about."

The thought 'maybe it didn't find enough broken places' wiggles uncomfortably into Bina's head.

Instead she says, "Maybe it's just - I saw it, got stabbed, all that?"

"Maybe," Jenn sounds upset about that for some reason.

She goes quiet, then: "In one of my dreams. I remember thinking. It's in all the broken places."

"All my places."

"I think dream me knows weird things."

"-Is it trying to communicate something?" That doesn't sound like it's reassuring Jenn any.

"I don't know! It's - it doesn't make sense, and I haven't had time to just. Sit and think?"

"Well. Hopefully we'll be able to...stop. For a little. In the Moment."

"'swhat I'm hoping too, yeah."

Jenn moves over to sit next to Bina again, nudging their shoulders together. "We've got this."

"Thanks."

"Any time," Jenn assures her.

"I'm lucky I met you."

Elizabeth chooses that moment to come down the stairs. "Hey, not to interrupt, but we may have a problem - the naughts found us again. There's a lot."

"-Shit. Guess it's time to find out whether or not this thing actually works." She gestures at her attempt at a time machine.

"I'll get our supplies." Luckily most of them are together; still, there's some they'd been using that still need packing up.

Bina gets to her feet -

And her hand lands on her grandmother's scarf.

...Well, it's convenient for tying up her hair, which she does. She'll examine the dream scarf problem later.

"What do we need to do, for the machine?"

"It needs 'unlight', which, I think, means your arm woo-woo. And then I kind of...try to tune it in? To the break? With these," she indicates the relevant pieces, which are a bit makeshift. "They should kind of...vibrate? When I find the right place with the n-tuning. It's...a little imprecise."

"Where - well, when - are we aiming?"

"Approximately? That moment with the TV. We've got that piece to use as a...focus? I guess?"

She nods. "We might want to be careful we don't land on ourselves. I wouldn't like the backlash from that."

"I think I can avoid that? The damage... I think the big damage was done after-or-as you were leaving?"

"Then we really don't want to land on the Corpse."

"As much as I love running for my life, yeah, let's avoid that."

"Can we target location at all?"

"Kind of? I don't understand all of it, but direct n-tuning appears to be through time," she indicates one of her tuning devices, "lateral n-tuning appears to mean through space?" She indicates the other. "Unless I've got that vastly wrong."

"You'll know more -"

There's the sound of breaking glass from upstairs, and a series of thumps.

"-Shit. Out of time. Can you-?" Jenn gestures vaguely at Bina's arm.

"Yeah, flashlight's probably safer - "

She grabs one in her right hand, flicks it on, and shines the green beam at the floor. There's already growing cracks in the air, and it's getting cold. "Where?"

Jenn points at where she wants the unlight.