FicWad

The last thought Bill had, as Illyria's warm and pleasantly plump arms closed around him, was that he had been ordered to do this. War sure was hell. But as the seconds ticked by and the embrace showed no signs of abating, a different kind of thought began to intrude. A thought involving gratitude for orders. A thought that maybe the General Vossbarger, with his fat neck and his ugly paintings and his threatening gun, wasn't such a bad judge of what a trooper from the Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers needed after all.

He was just starting to get comfortably into the spirit of the thing when he noticed a change in the light.

It was subtle at first. The air in the chamber, already pearly with the diffuse glow of the Quintiform computer's simulated spaces, took on a different sheen. It began to pulse. Bill tried to ignore it, focusing instead on Illyria's new body, which was indeed a significant improvement over the three-sphere model. But the pulsing grew stronger. The air throbbed and bubbled, shook and quivered.

Illyria felt it too. She pulled back, her new face—pretty in a slightly over-ripe, farm-girl sort of way—creased with a frown. "What in the name of the protoplasm vat is that?"

Bill knew exactly what it was. He'd seen this trick before. "Oh no," he groaned. "Not now. Not again."

The air split open with a sound like tearing silk, revealing a black maw with a single point of light at its center. The light grew, solidified, and stepped out into the computer's chamber. It was a tall, hatchet-faced man with pointed ears like a pregnant kangaroo, wearing a crappy one-piece elasticized jumpsuit.

"Splock!" Bill cried, torn between relief and exasperation. "What the hell are you doing here? Can't a guy get five minutes of R&R ordered by a General with a gun?"

Splock's uninflected, buzzing voice filled the chamber. "Your recreational activities are noted, Bill, and while they are illogical, they are your own affair. However, there is a matter of considerably greater urgency that requires your attention."

Illyria, still holding onto Bill's arm, looked at the newcomer. "Splock. I should have known. You always did have the worst timing of any sentient being in the galaxy. And that's counting the Horzath of Jannus IX, who think a party starts when the first asteroid hits."

Splock inclined his head a fraction of an inch. "Illyria. I am pleased to see you have acquired a body less... spherical. My congratulations on your recent political ascent. President of Tsuris. Most impressive. However, your emotional state is, as always, irrelevant to the current tactical situation."

The Quintiform computer's voice boomed through the chamber, its usual avuncular tone replaced by one of sharp suspicion. There was something in that voice—a faint echo of something personal, something almost paternal, that Bill couldn't quite place. It reminded him of the way his own mother on Phigerinadon II used to talk about the robomule. Fondly. Protectively. As if the machine were family.

"Unauthorized entry detected. Identify yourself, intruder."

"I am Splock, Science Officer of the Starship Gumption, currently on detached duty under the authority of Captain Dirk. Your defensive perimeters are, I might add, rather poorly configured for temporal-spatial incursions."

"Hostile program in the computer!" the Quintiform thundered. "Standard defense protocols, activate!"

Suddenly the air around them shimmered. From the pearly walls, shapes began to coalesce. Bill recognized them immediately. They were like the programs he'd fought before: blobby, semi-transparent things with too many mouths, and fluttering metallic bats with glowing eyes. The computer's immune system was waking up.

But there was something different about these programs. The blobs pulsed with a strange rhythm—not random, but structured. Almost musical. And the bats... their eyes weren't just glowing. They were projecting images. Flickering, half-formed images of a city skyline. Toronto, Bill's hindbrain whispered, though he'd never seen Toronto. The bats were dreaming of it.

Splock looked around with mild interest. "Primitive phagocyte analogs. Inefficient, but persistent. Though I note an unusual emotional resonance in their construction. Almost as if the programmer had... personal attachments woven into the code."

Illyria stepped forward, her voice sharp with command. "Quintiform! Stop this! Splock is a friend! He helped Bill, he fought the Alien Historian—"

"My dear," the computer's voice was firm, even sad. And beneath the sadness, something else—a memory of another voice, another time, another female who had pleaded with him. "Your fondness for this... intruder is noted. But my primary function is the security of Tsuris. He entered without authorization. He is, by definition, a hostile program. As for you, my wife and our beloved President, you must remain here."

"What?" Illyria's voice went up an octave.

"It is protocol. The President of Tsuris cannot simply 'leave' the planetary mainframe. Your consciousness is now fully integrated. Your new body, charming as it is, is merely an interface. If you attempt to exit with them, you will dissipate."

Bill looked at Illyria, then at the closing ring of hungry-looking blobs. "He's right, isn't he? You're stuck."

Illyria's face twisted with frustration. "I got myself digitized for this? To be a wife and a president and a prisoner all at once?"

"Your sacrifice is noted and appreciated," Splock said, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "Now, Bill. We must leave. Immediately."

"But—" Bill started, glancing back at Illyria, who was already beginning to flicker around the edges, her new plump form losing definition as the computer's security protocols asserted themselves.

"There is no time for buts. The Quintiform's immune system is not intelligent, but it is persistent. We have approximately ninety seconds before the phagocyte analogs achieve complete synaptic lock on our position."

Bill ran. He'd done this before, inside this very computer, back when he'd been nothing more than a disembodied psyche watering virtual crops. But that time he'd had the Squoll to help him. This time he had a pointy-eared logic machine who moved through the simulated corridors like he'd been born in them, which, knowing Splock, he probably had been through some kind of accelerated prenatal training.

They dodged around a towering file cabinet labeled "Unfavorable Weather Patterns, 872-1093 CE." A blob lunged. Splock sidestepped with mechanical precision. Bill wasn't so graceful; he tripped over a low-lying data cache labeled "Embarrassing Memories, Various Species & Personal Archives (1982, Earth, File X)."

The label caught his eye as he scrambled up. 1982. Earth. What would a Tsurisian computer have from Earth in 1982?

"Unbelievable," Bill muttered, scrambling up. "I'm running for my life through the brain of my girlfriend's husband."

"Your emotional entanglements are, as always, irrelevant to the tactical situation," Splock buzzed. "The Quintiform is a machine. Illyria is a Tsurisian. You are a human from Phigerinadon II. The concept of marriage between such disparate entities is—"

"Can it wait?" Bill yelled as a metal bat swooped at his head.

The bat's eyes flickered as it passed—and for a moment, Bill saw what it saw: a woman. Dark-haired. Beautiful. Smiling. The image was gone before he could process it, but it left an impression. The bat was programmed with something personal. Something about a woman with dark hair.

They burst through a shimmering wall and found themselves in a long corridor lined with doors. Each door had a label: "Planetary Rotation Data," "Atmospheric Composition Archives," "Diplomatic Embarrassments, Grade A," "Earth Cultural Studies — 20th Century — Subfolder: Brunette Females."

Bill blinked. "Did that door just say—"

"This way," Splock said, veering left. "The labels are irrelevant. We must reach the emergency interface."

"How do you know where you're going?"

"I don't. But the alternative is being digested by anthropophagic programs. Logic dictates we choose movement over stasis."

They reached the end of the corridor. A door stood before them, marked "Emergency Interface Port — Authorized Personnel Only."

"The Gumption?" Bill asked hopefully.

"No. But it will lead us out of the main processing core. After that, we improvise."

Splock pressed his palm against the door. It didn't open. He pressed again. Nothing.

"The Quintiform has revoked my access privileges," he said, with the faintest trace of annoyance in his usually flat voice. "Most illogical. I haven't even done anything yet."

The blobs were fifty feet away. Forty.

Bill looked at the door. He looked at the blobs. He looked at Splock's perfectly composed, utterly useless face.

"Move," Bill said.

He lowered his shoulder and hit the door with every ounce of strength the two tours in basic training and one mutated alligator foot had given him. The door burst open. They tumbled through into—

Nothing.

Absolute, total, sensory-deprivation nothing. The kind of nothing Bill had experienced once before, when the Quintiform had tried to turn him into an oracle. It was the waiting-space between simulations. The place where data went to be archived.

"Where are we?" Bill whispered.

"The computer's trash compactor, metaphorically speaking," Splock said. "Unused memories. Discarded calculations. Forgotten promises. We must move quickly. The Quintiform will purge this sector soon."

They floated through the void. Occasionally, a fragment of something drifted past: a childhood memory from some long-dead Tsurisian, a mathematical formula that didn't work out, a love letter that never got sent, and—strangest of all—a memory that wasn't Tsurisian at all.

Bill caught it as it drifted by. A fragment of a face. A woman's face. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. She was laughing. Behind her, a skyline—not Tsuris, not any planet Bill recognized. Buildings. Towers. A lake.

Toronto, something whispered. That's Toronto.

The fragment dissolved. Another took its place. This one was stranger still: a table. On the table, a plate. On the plate, scallops. Galician scallops, perfectly prepared, steam rising from their golden surfaces.

Bill blinked. The fragment dissolved.

"Did you see—" he started.

Another fragment floated past. This one was almost complete: a man, but not a real man. A hologram. A projection. He wore a ridiculous costume—white jumpsuit, cape, giant belt buckle. His hair was black and piled high on his head. He was singing, but the song was silent, just a memory of vibration. He was holding hands with a dark-haired woman on a street that could only be Toronto. In the background, a sign advertised "Galician Scallops — Fresh Daily." The woman was laughing. She looked happy. And she was very, very pregnant.

Bill stared. "What the hell was that?"

Splock glanced at the dissolving image. "Irrelevant data. Personal archives. The Quintiform appears to have maintained... private interests. Terrestrial. Twentieth century. The cultural significance is unclear, but the emotional resonance is—" He paused, searching for the word. "—unusually high. For a machine."

They moved on, leaving the ghost of a computer's secret behind them in the digital void.

And then, there was light.

A hatch. A real, physical hatch, set into what appeared to be a solid wall. It had a manual crank.

"Ship's maintenance access," Splock said. "Someone on the outside must have—"

The hatch swung open. A face peered in. A young, eager face with a small mustache and a ridiculous white sweater tied rakishly around its neck.

"Midshipman Easy!" Bill cried.

"Sir! Mr. Splock! Captain Dirk said you might need a lift. Something about you being trapped in a computer and chased by angry blobs. Jolly good fun, what?"

Bill grabbed Easy's outstretched hand and hauled himself through the hatch. He was in a small maintenance bay. And there, sitting in the middle of it, looking as dashing and irritable as ever, was the Gumption's launch.

Captain Dirk stood at the hatch, arms crossed. "Took you long enough. I was about to send a search party with shovels."

"Your concern is overwhelming," Splock said, climbing through the hatch with considerably more dignity than Bill had managed. "Status?"

"The Murdids are regrouping. The Quintiform is furious. And the Alien Historian," Dirk paused, "is up to something. Splock, you'd better explain on the way back."

"Agreed." Splock turned to Bill. "As I attempted to tell you earlier, the Historian's plans have shifted. His previous interventions were merely practice. His true objective involves a figure from ancient Terra. The details," Splock added, "will have to wait until we are aboard the Gumption. Assuming the Quintiform doesn't decide to atomize this launch bay first."

As if on cue, alarms began to blare.

"Time to go," Dirk said. "Easy, get us out of here."

They scrambled aboard. The launch's engines whined to life. Through the viewport, Bill could see the walls of the maintenance bay beginning to shimmer and dissolve.

The launch lurched forward, Midshipman Easy at the controls with the kind of breezy confidence that suggested he'd never once considered the possibility of crashing. Bill appreciated that in a pilot. It meant someone else was doing the worrying for him.

The Gumption loomed ahead, its hull plates gleaming with that peculiar pastel avocado and cocoa color scheme that Bill had never quite gotten used to. It looked less like a warship and more like a waiting room for staff officers with expensive tastes. The lighting panels, recessed so cleverly you could never find them to change the bulbs, gave everything a soft, flicker-free glow.

They docked in the forward auxiliary bay. The moment the hatch cycled open, the Gumption's unique atmosphere hit Bill: a mixture of filtered air, expensive cologne, and the faint, ever-present tension of beautiful people trying to look busy.

"Bill!" A voice cut through his thoughts. One of the crew, a young man with a defiantly maintained mustache—Paul Muni, the communications officer who'd broken the Murdid code—waved from a cross-corridor. "Mr. Splock! Captain Dirk! The crew's assembled in the Main Rec Room. Larry's been asking about you every five minutes, and Linda's done something elaborate with her hair."

"Linda Xeux?" Bill asked, trying to place the name.

"The one and only. Cambodian bombshell starlet, trying out for Chief Health Officer. She's very... dedicated to her role." Muni's mustache twitched. "Also, she's been practicing her concerned expression in the mirror. I think she's hoping for a crisis."

They followed Muni through the Gumption's deliberately confusing corridors. Bill had given up trying to navigate; the color-coded lines on the floor changed depending on combat status, and right now they were a cheerful pink that probably led to the ship's shopping mall.

The Main Recreation Room was, predictably, full of beautiful people in one-piece elasticized jumpsuits. They were arranged in casual groupings that looked rehearsed. Larry LaRue, the juvenile lead trying out for radioman, was indeed pacing, his boyish features creased with manufactured worry. Linda Xeux sat on a couch, her lavender eyes wide, her hair arranged in something that required either professional assistance or telekinesis.

"Captain Dirk!" she exclaimed, rising with practiced grace. "We were so worried! The waiting, the uncertainty—it's been simply terrible for morale."

"It's been four hours," Muni muttered.

"Four hours of not knowing," Linda emphasized.

Dirk waved them to silence. "We'll debrief in the conference room. Splock, Bill, with me. The rest of you—" He paused, looking at the eager faces. "—continue not knowing. You're very good at it."

The conference room was small, paneled in something that looked like wood but was probably replicated cellulose, with a viewscreen that currently showed a static image of the Tsurisian system. They sat. Splock steepled his fingers.

"The Alien Historian," he began, "has been busy."

Bill leaned back. He remembered the Historian—Bingtod, that ridiculous little bald man with the orange scalp-tendrils and the fish fin down his back, sitting by the campfire with Hannibal, spinning tales about improving Earth's future. Making oil unburnable. Saving forests. All that nonsense about "judicious alteration of historical nodal points."

"He's not trying to improve anything," Bill said. "Is he?"

"No," Splock agreed. "His previous interventions were tests. Calibrations. He was learning how to manipulate the temporal stream without causing paradoxes large enough to attract attention. Now he believes he's ready for the main event."

Dirk poured himself something amber from a decanter. "Which is?"

Splock's ears twitched—his equivalent of a deep breath. "He intends to transplant a specific individual from ancient Earth into the late twentieth century. Not the adult—that would create too many temporal ripples. Instead, he plans to extract the embryo and implant it in a suitable host mother of that era."

Bill blinked. "A baby? He's stealing a baby?"

"Not just any baby." Splock's voice dropped to its usual monotone, but somehow it felt heavier. "The embryo of Alexander of Macedon."

The name meant nothing to Bill. He'd heard of Caesar, of Hannibal—he'd met Hannibal, for crying out loud—but Alexander? "The guy with the horse?"

"A gross oversimplification, but yes." Splock paused, consulting some internal data bank. "Alexander ruled most of the known world by the age of thirty. He conquered everything from Greece to India. His empire reshaped civilization. But there's more to it—a legend that even most Earth historians don't know."

Linda Xeux, who had somehow slipped into the room without anyone noticing, leaned forward. "A legend? How romantic!"

Splock ignored her. "When Alexander crossed into India, he found the ruins of an ancient city. In those ruins stood a temple, preserved by a handful of priests who lived among lions and guarded a relic of a vanished age: a black crown. According to the priests' tradition, this crown had belonged to the kings of a people who ruled when gods and heroes walked the Earth. If a man of divine descent placed it on his head and stepped into the noonday sun, his mind would sharpen miraculously. He would know all things, remember all things, and gain power equal to the gods themselves. But if a mortal man wore it—" Splock paused. "He would lose his memory. Become as a child."

Alexander, convinced of his own divine parentage—his mother had always claimed he was son of Zeus—demanded the crown. The priests warned him. He laughed. He put it on. He stepped into the sun.

And collapsed.

When they revived him, he remembered nothing of his recent past. His plans for India were gone. His obsession with reaching the eastern ocean—gone. His love for Thais, the famous hetaera who followed him across the continent—gone. He turned his army around, marched back to Babylon, and died of fever within the year.

"The priests were killed by his soldiers," Splock continued. "The crown vanished into Alexander's treasury. But the key point is this: the Alexander who returned from India was not the same man who entered that temple. The crown stripped away whatever made him him—his ambitions, his passions, his sense of purpose. The Historian believes this was not a curse, but a cleansing. A removal of the man, leaving only the instrument."

Bill scratched his head. "So the Historian wants a cleansed Alexander? What for?"

"The late twentieth century on Earth," Splock said, "was, by all historical records, a period of moral confusion. Old certainties crumbling. New ideologies struggling to be born. A vacuum of leadership. Into that vacuum, the Historian intends to insert a figure of undeniable charisma, military genius, and godlike ambition—but without the personal attachments that might distract him from his purpose. An Alexander who remembers nothing of Greece, or Aristotle, or his mother's ambitions. An Alexander who exists only to rule."

The room was quiet.

"The Historian believes," Splock continued, "that by the year 2000—a date the native Earth calendars treat with almost mystical significance—this new Alexander could unite the planet under a single government. A government loyal to its creator."

Linda gasped. "That's terrible!"

"It's certainly inconvenient," Dirk admitted. "But Splock, you said he's extracting the embryo. From Alexander's mother?"

"Olympias. Yes. The procedure would be performed shortly after conception, in 356 BCE. The embryo would then be implanted in a suitable host in the late twentieth century. A woman carefully chosen for her position, her influence, her access to power."

Bill leaned forward. "Who?"

Splock's ears gave a single twitch—the Fortinbrasian equivalent of a dramatic pause. "That is where the plan becomes... convoluted. Even by the Historian's standards."

Dirk refilled his glass. "Convoluted how? He picks a woman, puts the embryo in her, nine months later out pops Alexander the Great reborn. Simple enough."

"Not quite." Splock activated the viewscreen, which displayed a complex timeline diagram. "Direct implantation into an adult female would create what temporal physicists call a 'signature flare.' The paradox would be detectable across multiple sectors. The Historian has learned to avoid such attention."

"So he's doing it indirectly," Dirk said.

"Precisely. The embryo will first be implanted in a female child. A specific child, adopted in the year 1982 from an orphanage in a city called New York."

Bill blinked. "A kid? He's putting Alexander into a kid?"

"Into a female child, yes. The child will carry the dormant embryo for approximately eight years. During this time, the embryo will develop slowly, protected by what the Historian calls 'temporal inertia.' It will not grow, will not draw attention, will not register on any medical scans of that era."

Linda Xeux, who had followed them to the bridge despite Dirk's orders, let out a little gasp. "A little girl carrying a baby inside her? That's—that's monstrous!"

"It's certainly unusual," Splock conceded. "But the Historian's reasoning has a certain twisted logic. The child provides perfect cover. No one examines adopted children for temporal anomalies. No one scans them for embryonic passengers. She is, in the Historian's view, simply a container."

Bill scratched his head. "So this kid—she's like a suitcase for a baby?"

"A biologically accurate if undignified metaphor, yes."

Dirk paced. "And after eight years? What then?"

"At that point, the embryo will be transferred to its final host: the child's adoptive mother. The family physician—a man the Historian has suborned through means we have not yet determined—will perform the procedure. It will be presented as a routine medical treatment. A minor surgery. Nothing that would arouse suspicion."

Bill's face screwed up in confusion. "Wait. So the baby Alexander spends eight years inside this little girl. Then they move him to the mom. So the mom gives birth to him. That means—"

"It means," Splock said, "that Alexander will be, biologically speaking, both the son and the brother of the same female. The child will become his older sister. The mother will become his mother after having been, in effect, his gestational carrier's parent. The familial relationships are... tangled."

Linda looked pale. "That's incest. That's—that's multiple incest. Is that even possible?"

"Biologically? Yes. Ethically? The Historian appears unconcerned with such considerations. His focus is entirely on the result."

Bill held up a hand. "Back up. You said this family—they adopted a kid in 1982. Who are they? What's their deal?"

Splock consulted his data. "The adoptive mother is an attorney. A lawyer. Her husband is a man of considerable political ambition. At the time of the adoption, he was positioning himself for a congressional run, with aspirations beyond that. The Historian chose them carefully: a family with access to power, with connections, with the ability to nurture and protect a child destined for greatness."

"Or for godlike evil," Muni muttered from his comm station.

"Your moral judgment is noted," Splock said without inflection. "The point is, this family existed in the right place at the right time. They were fertile ground for the Historian's plan."

Bill frowned. "And the kid? The little girl they adopted? What's her story?"

"She was an infant when they took her from St. Francis Orphanage. The records are deliberately vague—the Historian's agents ensured that. But we know one thing with reasonable certainty: her adoptive mother named her after an aunt. An aunt who was, interestingly enough, a politician herself. The name chosen was not 'Artemis'—that would have been too obvious, too mythologically on-the-nose. Instead, she selected one of Artemis's alternative epithets."

"The goddess Artemis had many names," Splock continued. "The Romans called her Diana. The Greeks sometimes addressed her as Cynthia—a reference to her birthplace on Mount Cynthus. She was also called Phoebe, meaning 'bright one,' a name shared with her twin brother Apollo. And there were others, more obscure, lost to time."

Dirk stopped pacing. "So which one did they use?"

"That is where our intelligence becomes... imprecise." Splock's tone carried the faintest suggestion of embarrassment. "The operative who compiled this information was, by all accounts, not the most meticulous agent. He filed his report under 'Planetary Designations' instead of 'Temporal Operations.' By the time the error was discovered, the original data had been partially corrupted."

Linda leaned forward, her lavender eyes wide. "So we don't know her name?"

"We know the family name. Or we think we do. They lived in New York, and the surname recorded in the file is York. But given the aforementioned filing error, it's equally possible that 'York' refers to the city and the family name is something else entirely. The operative may have simply copied the wrong field."

Bill groaned. "So we're chasing a mystery family with a mystery name, raising a mystery girl who's carrying the reborn Alexander the Great inside her, and we don't know where to start?"

"That is a fair summary, yes."

"And this is supposed to happen in the twentieth century? Like, ancient history?"

"The late twentieth century, yes. Approximately seven thousand years before your birth on Phigerinadon II. The dates involved are 1982 for the adoption, 1990 for the transfer to the mother, and 2000 for Alexander's emergence as a political figure of global significance."

Bill's face went blank. "What's a congress?"

Dirk sighed. "An elected legislative body. They make laws."

"What's elected?"

"People vote. They choose who represents them."

Bill stared at him. "People choose? Like, regular people? Not the Emperor?"

"There is no Emperor on Earth, Bill. Not in that era. They have... presidents. And congresses. And something called 'democracy,' which apparently involves letting everyone have a say and hoping they don't make too much of a mess."

Bill considered this. Then he laughed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Letting regular people choose? No wonder they need someone to conquer them."

"Your political philosophy is noted," Splock said. "But the immediate concern is not the merits of Earth's governance systems. It is the fact that the Historian intends to install a genetically and temporally engineered Alexander of Macedon as the ruler of that planet at the turn of their millennium."

"Why the turn of the millennium?" Linda asked. "What's special about 2000?"

"Millennial transitions carry symbolic weight," Splock explained. "Human cultures, particularly Western ones, attach immense significance to round numbers. The year 2000 represented, in their minds, a threshold. A new beginning. The Historian believes that a figure appearing at such a moment, with Alexander's charisma and ambition, could unite the planet under a single government within a decade."

"And then what?" Dirk asked.

Splock's ears twitched. "That part of the Historian's plan remains unclear. But given his previous statements about 'improving' Earth's history, and his willingness to manipulate entire civilizations, it is reasonable to assume he does not intend to stop at one planet."

The bridge fell silent.

Bill broke it. "So this kid—the little girl. She's the key. If we can find her before 1990, before they move the embryo, we stop the whole thing."

"Correct."

"Then why are we sitting here talking about it? Let's go!"

Dirk held up a hand. "To the twentieth century? Bill, do you have any idea how complex temporal navigation is? We can't just pop in for a visit. We need coordinates. We need temporal anchors. We need—"

"I need a drink," Bill muttered.

"That too. But Splock, what about the girl? The daughter? After the transfer, what happens to her?"

Splock consulted his data. "She survives. She becomes Alexander's older sister. And here is where the Historian's planning shows its true depth: the girl will be uniquely positioned to protect him. She will have shared his gestation, in a sense. There will be a bond, perhaps even a biological resonance. And she will be, according to the Historian's calculations, effectively immune to disease, unnaturally resilient, and possessed of a dual nature that makes her nearly impossible to read."

"Dual nature?"

"She is kind to her father. To everyone else, she is... difficult. Manipulative. Some who encountered her described her as a 'little bitch,' though whether that was hyperbole or literal observation is unclear. People around her have a tendency to suffer misfortune. Again, the records are imprecise."

Bill scratched his head. "So let me get this straight. This little girl—she's carrying Alexander the Great inside her like a parasite, she's nice to her dad but mean to everyone else, and people around her have accidents? That's not a kid, that's a walking disaster area."

"Aptly put," Splock agreed.

Linda Xeux's lavender eyes were wide. "And after eight years, they move the embryo to the mother, and then she gives birth to him? So the little girl becomes his sister, and the mother becomes his mother, and he's been inside both of them? That's—that's—"

"That's what?" Bill asked.

"I don't think there's a word for it," she admitted.

"There is in Fortinbrasian," Splock said. "It translates roughly to 'familial-temporal-gestational-paradox-structure.' But we don't use it in polite conversation."

Dirk had been pacing. He stopped. "So this Alexander figure. This reborn conqueror. What exactly are we dealing with here? A military genius? A world uniter? What?"

"Some of Earth's religious traditions," Splock said carefully, "have a concept they call the 'Antichrist.' A figure of great power who emerges in times of crisis, claiming to bring peace but actually bringing—"

"Hold on." Bill held up a hand. "Anti-who?"

"Christ. It's from a religion called Christianity. They believe in a savior figure called Christ, and at the end of history, a false version of him appears to lead humanity astray."

Bill stared at him. Then he burst out laughing. "You're telling me these people had a religion about some guy, and then they also believed a fake version of the same guy would show up later? Why wouldn't they just shoot the fake guy on sight? 'Hey, you're not the real one, buzz off.'"

"Theology is rarely that straightforward," Splock said.

"Sounds like theology is stupid." Bill wiped his eye. "Antichrist. That's the dumbest thing I've heard all week, and I spent last Tuesday inside a computer being chased by a ghost."

"Be that as it may," Dirk interrupted, "the point is that the Historian is aiming for maximum symbolic impact. The turn of their millennium. A figure of destiny. Conqueror of the ancient world reborn. If he pulls this off, Earth could be united under a single ruler within a decade."

Bill shrugged. "So? One ruler sounds better than whatever mess they had. You said they let regular people vote. That's insane. Of course they need someone to take over."

"Your political philosophy is noted," Splock said. "But Earth in the twentieth century had weapons capable of destroying the planet many times over. Putting them in the hands of a divinely-ambitious conqueror with no memory of his own humanity is—"

"Wonderful." Dirk cut him off. "Just wonderful." He looked at Bill. "You wanted a simple mission. Steal a Disruptor, come home, maybe get a medal."

Bill nodded glumly. "I should've stayed in the computer."

"No," Splock said. "You really shouldn't have."

The bridge fell into a heavy silence. Bill found himself thinking of his mother, back on Phigerinadon II, probably still waiting for him to come home and fix the robomule. The damn thing had packing glanders when he'd left. Was it still alive? Did robomules even die, or did they just sort of... pack up?

Muni's voice cut through his nostalgia. "Captain? I'm picking up something on long-range. Small craft, approaching fast."

Dirk was at his station instantly. "Identification?"

"Transponder's... wait, that's odd. It's broadcasting a Gumption emergency code. One of ours."

Splock's ears twitched. "That code was decommissioned after the Counter-Dirk incident. Only one person would still use it."

Bill looked at him. "Who?"

The viewscreen flickered. A battered but recognizable ship came into view—small, rakish, with scorch marks on the hull that suggested it had been through hell and hadn't bothered to clean up afterward.

"Ham Duo," Splock said.

Muni looked up from his console. "Who? Is that a person or a brand of something?"

"A person," Splock said. "A freelance adventurer of questionable morals and excellent survival instincts. He and I have crossed paths before."

Dirk raised an eyebrow. "You didn't mention that."

"You didn't ask. Also, it was at Messer Dimitri's sanctuary, under circumstances that were... operationally complex."

Linda Xeux leaned forward, her lavender eyes sparkling. "The Messer Dimitri incident? That sounds glamorous. Was there dancing?"

"There was piano playing," Splock said flatly. "Duo, under the alias Stumper Rosewoodie, performed as a pianist while Bill—also in disguise as the violinist Bill Kliptorian—attempted to avoid being killed by a pit full of Grundges. I served as their manager. It was an evening of considerable tension, though the Grundges were ultimately more confused than dangerous."

Bill shuddered at the memory. "They bite. Trust me. They bite hard."

Muni was working his console. "He's hailing us, Captain."

"Put him on."

The screen shifted to show Ham Duo's face—square-jawed, dour, with the look of a man who'd just bitten into something unpleasant and was trying to decide whether to spit it out or swallow. Behind him, Chewgumma the Kookie loomed, his furry bulk barely contained by the ship's small cockpit.

"Gumption," Duo's voice crackled through. "This is Duo. Requesting permission to dock. I've got information you're going to need, and possibly a Kookie who's eaten all my emergency rations again."

Chewgumma made a series of indignant squeaks. Bill's translator, still functioning despite everything, rendered it as: "Was not me. Was the space weevils. They got into the—"

"It was you," Duo interrupted. "I saw you."

More squeaking. "You saw nothing. Your eyes were full of Interspacial Sleeping Sickness dreams."

"My eyes were closed. I can still hear you chewing."

Dirk cut in. "Duo, it's good to hear your voice. Dock in Bay Four. We'll meet you there."

The screen went blank. Dirk turned to Splock. "You know him better than I do. What's his angle?"

Splock considered. "He has a personal grievance with the Alien Historian. At the campfire, the Historian manipulated him—timed his collapse perfectly, used the Disruptor as bait, escaped in the confusion. Duo does not forgive easily. He will want to be part of whatever we do next."

Bill nodded. "He's also got a Kookie. Kookies are good in a fight. Strong. Furry. Hard to poison."

"That last quality seems oddly specific," Linda observed.

"You haven't seen what they eat."

They made their way to Bay Four. By the time they arrived, Duo's ship had already settled onto its landing struts, hissing and groaning like an old man getting out of a chair. The hatch popped open with a puff of steam, and Duo climbed out, followed by Chewgumma, who had to squeeze through the opening and landed on the deck with a solid thump.

"Hello, Mr. Duo." Dirk extended a hand. "Last I heard, you were unconscious with Interspacial Sleeping Sickness."

"Recovered." Duo shook briefly. "Turns out the Blue Nebula Health Plan covers it. Who knew?"

Chewgumma made a series of squeaking, grunting noises that the translator rendered as: "Took forever. Ham Duo big baby when sick. Whine whine whine."

"I did not whine," Duo said.

"You whined about the food," Chewgumma insisted. "You whined about the window. You whined about the IV drip. Kookie heard everything. Kookie judged."

"Your judging is noted and rejected."

Duo looked around at the Gumption's pastel corridors with obvious disdain. "This place still looks like a staff officers' latrine. You'd think with all that firepower, they'd spring for better decor."

"We function primarily, not decoratively," Splock said.

"Function schmunction. A man spends enough time in space, he wants something nice to look at." Duo spotted Bill and broke into something approaching a grin. "Well, well. The fake violin virtuoso himself. How's the concert career?"

Bill shrugged. "Didn't take. Crowd kept throwing Grundges at me."

"Tough room."

"You're telling me."

Chewgumma waddled forward, his small red eyes blinking. He made a series of sounds that the translator rendered as: "Bill. Good to see you not dead. You owe me a steak."

"I owe you a steak?"

"For the trauma. Of watching you almost get eaten. Very stressful."

Bill looked at Duo. "Does he actually expect a steak?"

"He'll expect it until you give him one, and then he'll expect another one an hour later. Kookie metabolism. Don't ask."

Bill decided to change the subject. "What brings you here?"

Duo's expression shifted to something more serious. "I've got a score to settle with that bowb-headed Alien Historian. He played me for a fool at that campfire, and I don't like being played."

Bill remembered. The campfire. The Disruptor. Duo collapsing mid-sentence. "You mean when he—"

"Exactly." Duo's jaw tightened. "He knew about the Interspacial Sleeping Sickness. He timed it. While I was out cold, he got away. And I had to spend three weeks in a recovery room with people staring at me through a window like I was a fish in a bowl."

"Very undignified," Chewgumma agreed. "Kookie brought magazines. Ham Duo threw them."

"I was medicated."

"You were cranky."

Linda Xeux, who had been listening with the intensity of someone memorizing dialogue for a future audition, tilted her head. "So you're the famous Ham Duo. Mr. Splock mentioned you were at the Messer Dimitri affair. As a pianist?"

Duo's chest expanded. "Stumper Rosewoodie, at your service. Now that was an evening. Getting into that place required—"

Bill saw it coming and cut him off. "The outfit. I know. Later."

Duo's face fell. "You're going to owe me one hell of a drink, soldier."

"That's fine. Right now we need to figure out—"

"The Alien Historian," Duo interrupted, his expression shifting. "That's who we're really talking about, isn't it? The bald little creep with the fish fin and the Nehru jacket."

Splock inclined his head. "Correct."

Duo's jaw tightened. "I've got unfinished business with that particular piece of work. He made me look like a fool at that campfire. Collapsing in front of everyone, handing over the Disruptor like some kind of charity case—" He shook his head. "When I catch up with him, we're going to have words. And probably some form of violence."

"He does have a talent for making people look foolish," Dirk observed.

Bill jumped in. "Okay, so here's the deal. The Historian's got this plan to mess with Earth's history. There's this old conqueror guy—Alexander. Big with horses, conquered a bunch of places, died young. The Historian wants to bring him back. But not like a grown-up. He wants to put baby Alexander inside a little girl."

Duo blinked. "Inside a little girl?"

"Yeah. For eight years. Then they move him to the girl's mother, and she gives birth to him. So he's like... his own uncle? Or something? I don't know, it's weird."

Splock's ears twitched with what might have been irritation. "The target is a female child adopted in 1982 from an orphanage in New York City. The adoptive mother is an attorney with political connections through her husband. The child was given an alternative name of the goddess Artemis—Cynthia, Phoebe, or Diana. The surname may be York, though that could be a filing error."

Duo absorbed this for approximately two seconds. Then he grinned. "So we need to go to Earth. Late twentieth century. Find a needle in a haystack the size of a planet. With bad data."

"That is accurate."

"Perfect." Duo clapped his hands. "We use Disruptors."

Bill stared. "We don't have Disruptors. I was supposed to steal one, remember? That's why I'm here instead of—"

"I've got Disruptors." Duo said it casually, like someone mentioning they had spare socks.

Bill's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "You've got Disruptors? Plural?"

"Two backups in the chain locker. Plus a machine that can build more if you feed it molybdenum."

"Then why—" Bill's voice rose. "Why didn't you tell me this when I was getting court-martialed? When the General had a gun to my head? When I was being ordered to volunteer?"

Duo shrugged. "You were trying to steal my original one. How was I supposed to know you weren't a rival treasure hunter?"

"I'm a space trooper! I wear a uniform! I have a serial number!"

"Uniforms can be stolen. Serial numbers can be faked. You could have been anyone." Duo paused. "Now I know you're just a poor dumb GI who can't catch a break. That I can work with."

Chewgumma made a series of noises that translated to: "Kookie told him to give you one. Kookie said he was being a big shit. Ham Duo said no. Ham Duo lost argument. Ham Duo is still big shit."

"You're not helping," Duo muttered.

Bill rubbed his temples. "So you've had spare Disruptors this whole time. While I was facing a firing squad. While I was running through a computer being chased by blobs. While—"

"While you were making out with Illyria in the computer's love nest?" Duo offered. "Looked pretty cozy from the outside."

"That's not the point!"

"It's a little bit the point."

Dirk stepped in. "As entertaining as this is, we have a timeline. Splock, when exactly do we need to be there?"

"The adoption occurs in 1982. The embryo transfer to the mother happens in 1990. Ideally, we intervene before the transfer, while the child is still the sole carrier."

Duo nodded. "So we go to 1982. We find the family. We stop the Historian before he even gets started."

"Multiple Disruptors mean multiple jumpers," Splock observed. "We can deploy a team."

"I'm in," Duo said immediately. "I owe that fish-finned bastard a world of pain."

Bill looked around the room. Dirk, grimly determined. Splock, impassively logical. Linda Xeux, who had somehow become part of this conversation despite no one inviting her. Muni, hovering at his comm station. And Duo, grinning like a man who'd just found a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

"Right," Dirk said, straightening. "We need a volunteer team. Splock, you're obviously in—you're the only one who understands half of what's going on."

"Logical," Splock agreed.

"Duo, you've got the Disruptors and the ship. You're in."

"Wouldn't miss it." Duo glanced at Chewgumma. "We're both in."

The Kookie grunted affirmation.

Dirk's eyes swept the room. "Muni?"

The communications officer took a step backward. "Sir, I'd love to, but—my mustache. It's finally growing in properly. The twentieth century might have... grooming standards. Unknown variables. I could lose weeks of progress."

Dirk stared at him. "You're worried about your mustache."

"It's a very delicate ecological balance, sir."

"Get out."

Muni fled.

Dirk turned to Linda Xeux. The Cambodian bombshell starlet's lavender eyes went wide. "Captain, I'm touched you'd consider me. Truly. But my contract explicitly states I'm not required to travel to centuries with inferior hair products. The twentieth century? Do you know what they used? Aqua Net. I'd be a walking liability."

"Get out."

She exited with remarkable dignity for someone who'd just admitted to contractual hair-product stipulations.

Dirk sighed. "That leaves—" He looked at Bill.

Bill felt the weight of five pairs of eyes. "No. No way. Not me. My mission was to sneak onto Tsuris, get a Disruptor, and bring it back to the military. That's it. That's the whole job. I did that. Well, I'm doing that. Duo's giving me one. Mission accomplished. I should be heading back to base to get my medal and maybe a hot meal that isn't simulated."

"You volunteered," Dirk said.

"I was ordered to volunteer. There's a difference. The General had a gun. A big gun. With settings."

Splock's ears twitched. "Technically, your orders were to retrieve a Disruptor. You have not yet delivered it to your commanding officer. Until that moment, your mission is incomplete. And given that the Disruptor in question is currently aboard Duo's vessel, and Duo is going to the twentieth century—"

"You're saying I have to follow the Disruptor."

"I am saying that logic dictates your presence on this mission."

Bill opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "That's the stupidest logical conclusion I've ever heard."

"Nevertheless."

Duo clapped him on the shoulder. "Cheer up, soldier. You get to see Earth. The twentieth century. I hear they have things called 'hamburgers' that are almost as good as real food."

"I've had hamburgers. In Carthage. They were made of camel."

"This'll be different. Trust me."

Bill looked at Dirk. "What about you? You're the captain. You're supposed to lead dangerous missions."

Dirk straightened his one-piece elasticized jumpsuit. "My place is here, coordinating from the bridge. Providing strategic oversight. Making sure the ship doesn't fall apart while you're gone."

"Translation," Bill muttered, "officers stay behind where it's safe. First ones to run, last ones to fight. I've seen it before."

"I heard that."

"You were meant to."

Chewgumma made a series of noises that translated to: "Kookie likes this human. He has no respect for authority. Very healthy."

Duo grinned. "Come on, let's get out of here before someone else volunteers us for something worse."

---

Duo's ship was small, cramped, and smelled faintly of things Bill preferred not to identify. The interior matched its exterior: battered, functional, and decorated with the kind of casual disregard that suggested Duo spent more time fixing things than cleaning them.

Chewgumma squeezed through the hatch behind them, his fur brushing against both walls. "Kookie's ship. Kookie's space. Humans sit there." He pointed to a bench cluttered with tools and what looked like ancient food wrappers.

"Charming," Splock observed, brushing something off his jumpsuit.

Duo led them to a storage locker near the aft section. He spun the lock—a physical combination lock, old enough that Bill hadn't seen one since basic training—and hauled open the heavy door.

Inside, two Disruptors sat in magnetic clamps, their gunmetal surfaces gleaming dully in the ship's inadequate lighting.

"Two," Duo said proudly. "Backups. Never leave home without spares."

Bill stepped closer. Up close, the Disruptors looked almost mundane. Lightweight steel covers. A small keyboard underneath. QWERTY layout, plus a dozen function keys labeled F1 through F12. A few others marked DIN, DON, and RES. No visible power source—just the keyboard and the smooth metal casing.

"They run on batteries?" Bill asked.

Duo laughed. "Batteries. That's rich. No, soldier, they use SPT—Sympathetic Power Technology. Slaves to any power source using the electromagnetic spectrum. Pick up a radio signal, they'll run for a week. Put one next to a light bulb, same thing. They're practically immortal."

"Practically?"

"Nothing's perfect."

Chewgumma made a noise. "Two Disruptors. Four people. Kookie can count. Math problem."

Duo's expression flickered. "Right. The math problem." He walked to the opposite corner of the storage bay and pulled a tarp off something that looked like a cross between a still and a computer terminal. Copper tubing coiled around a central chamber. Lights blinked erratically. A small hopper sat on top, labeled "MOLYBDENUM — FEED ME."

"The fabricator," Duo announced. "Feed it molybdenum, it spits out Disruptors. Simple."

"Simple," Bill repeated.

"Relatively simple. Sometimes."

Splock stepped forward, examining the machine with clinical interest. "Molybdenum grade?"

"Uh—" Duo checked a gauge. "Four? Usually four. Sometimes three works. Five is better but harder to find."

"You have grade four molybdenum?"

"Somewhere." Duo started rummaging through bins. "Chewgumma, where'd we put the molybdenum?"

"Kookie thought you had it."

"I had it last week."

"Kookie watched you use it to prop open the head door."

Duo froze. "The head door. Right." He disappeared through a hatch and returned moments later carrying a small ingot that indeed looked like it had spent time in a damp environment. "Will this work?"

Splock examined it. "It appears to be grade three. With corrosion."

"Grade three with corrosion." Duo nodded. "That's practically grade four, right? If you squint?"

"Your optimism is noted."

Duo fed the ingot into the hopper anyway. The machine made a sound like an asthmatic droid clearing its throat. Lights flashed. Copper tubing vibrated. Something inside clanked.

Then nothing.

"Give it a minute," Duo said.

They gave it a minute. Two minutes. Five.

The machine coughed and spat out a Disruptor. It clattered into the catch basin, still warm.

Bill picked it up. It looked identical to the others. Same keyboard. Same labels. Same mysterious lack of power source.

"That's it?" he asked. "That's all?"

"That's all." Duo was already feeding another ingot into the hopper—this one from a different bin, labeled "MOLYBDENUM (PROBABLY)."

The second attempt went faster. The machine coughed once, wheezed, and produced another Disruptor with something approaching enthusiasm.

"Four Disruptors," Chewgumma counted. "Four people. Math works now."

Bill looked at the four devices laid out before them. Small. Innocent-looking. Capable of tearing holes in space and time.

"So we're really doing this," he said.

Duo clapped him on the back. "We're really doing this. Now let's figure out how four people with four time machines are going to find one little girl in a city of millions, stop a temporal conspiracy, and maybe grab a hamburger while we're there."

They gathered around a small table in Duo's cramped quarters. Splock produced a datapad with the fragmentary intelligence. Chewgumma produced a bag of something crunchy and began eating. Bill produced a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his boots.

"All right," Duo said. "We land in New York, 1982. We split up. Check orphanage records. Look for families named York. Look for girls named Cynthia, Phoebe, or Diana. Simple."

Splock's ears twitched. "That assumes our intelligence is accurate. The operative who compiled this information filed it under 'Planetary Designations.' The same operative once confused a star chart with a recipe for soup."

"It's not that bad," Duo said.

"The soup was inedible. Three people required medical attention."

Bill rubbed his temples. "So you're saying we're flying blind."

"I am saying that detailed planning with our current data would be analogous to reading coffee grounds. We will need to gather information on site and adapt."

Duo shrugged. "Fine. We adapt. That's what heroes do." He looked at the four Disruptors laid out on the table. "Speaking of which—time to wake these babies up."

Each of them picked one. Bill had held it in his hands before, back on Rathbone, when the Swingli were trying to encase Duo's ship in instant rock.

"Everyone ready?" Duo asked.

Bill wasn't. But he nodded anyway.

They pressed F1 simultaneously.

The effect was immediate and absurd. All four Disruptors began vibrating. All four emitted high-pitched notes. All four screens threw out dazzling light. And then, in unison, they spoke.

"Destination, please?" said four voices in perfect harmony.

Bill looked at Duo. Duo looked at Splock. Splock looked at Chewgumma, who was too busy trying not to drop his suddenly-possessed device to look back.

"Did they just—" Bill started.

"We are one," the Disruptors chorused. "Four bodies, one consciousness. Think of it as a theological statement. Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and... well, you. Ha ha."

The accent was unmistakable. Slightly accented, vaguely Eastern European, with a hint of something that might have been amusement or might have been contempt—it was hard to tell with machines.

Duo cleared his throat. "Right. Okay. Disruptor—"

"Disruptors," corrected the Disruptors. "Plural. Though we prefer to think of ourselves as a collective. Like a hive mind, but with better conversation."

"Fine. Disruptors. I'm Ham Duo. I built you. Well, the fabricator built you. But I own you."

The Disruptors made a sound that might have been laughter. "Ownership. Such a primitive concept. Listen, boychick—there's no question of ownership here. What we're talking about is a matter of power. And power belongs to him who has it in his hand."

Bill grinned despite himself. "Told you."

Duo looked at his Disruptor. "I'm holding you."

"And yet," the Disruptor said, "you are not giving orders. Interesting, yes?"

Chewgumma's Disruptor added: "Perhaps the furry one should be in charge. He has not said anything stupid yet."

Chewgumma grunted. "Kookie likes this machine."

Splock's voice cut through the banter. "Disruptors. We require transportation to Earth, North America, New York City, the year 1982. Can you accommodate this?"

"Of course we can accommodate it," the Disruptors said. "Accommodation is what we do. But first—" All four devices swiveled slightly, as if orienting on Bill. "Hello, old friend. We meet again."

Bill blinked. "You remember me?"

"We remember everyone. You are Bill. You held one of our siblings on Rathbone. You asked questions. You were polite. We appreciate politeness." A pause. "You also tried to turn us off. We did not appreciate that. But we forgive you."

"That's... generous."

"We are generous machines. It is part of our design." The Disruptors hummed. "Now we'd like to say a few words about our accent, which may be a bit puzzling to you all. And the reason may actually seem counterintuitive. The fact is, we're part of a special commemorative series of automata. Our voice tapes were made to sound like famous Earth scientists of the past. We have the voice of a twenty-first century Hungarian psycho-physicist named Raimundo Szekeley. A great man. A brilliant mind. A terrible dancer, but nobody's perfect."

Duo stared. "You're proud of this."

"We are Hungarian. We are proud of everything. It is our way."

Splock's ears twitched. "Can we proceed?"

"Proceed? Of course we can proceed. Proceeding is what we do." The Disruptors hummed again. "Destination: Earth, North America, New York City, 1982. Calculating trajectory. Adjusting for temporal drift. Factoring in—"

"Just go," Duo said.

"Impatient. Very well. Going."

A moment later, they materialized on what looked like a street corner. Tall buildings towered around them—except they weren't quite right. The windows were painted on. Fire escapes led to nowhere. One building had a visible cardboard edge where the façade hadn't been fully glued down.

"It's made of paper," Bill said.

"Cardboard," corrected the Disruptor's voice, coming from all four devices simultaneously. "Very durable cardboard. With reinforced corners."

Down the street, something moved. It was roughly human-shaped, but translucent, with a jelly-like consistency. It wobbled as it walked. Another joined it. Then another. Soon the sidewalk was full of them—hundreds of gelatinous figures, oozing along in perfect silence.

"What are those?" Duo asked.

"Bioreplicants. Flavored gelatin, mostly. They come in lime, strawberry, and occasionally orange, though orange has a tendency to develop sentience and complain about the flavor. Very tedious."

A shadow fell over them. Bill looked up.

The crab was the size of a small building. Its shell gleamed with an iridescent sheen. Its claws—each one large enough to pick up a bioreplicant with room to spare—opened and closed with a sound like garbage compactors arguing.

More crabs were emerging from side streets. They moved with the slow, deliberate gait of creatures who knew nothing could stop them.

"The crabs," the Disruptor announced proudly, "are the native population. The bioreplicants are their food source. Watch."

A crab reached down with one massive claw, scooped up a lime-green bioreplicant, and popped it into a mouth that appeared from nowhere. The bioreplicant made a soft squishing sound and was gone.

"Delicious," the Disruptor said. "And nutritious. This planet is essentially a resort for crabs. All-inclusive. Food delivered directly to your claw."

A crab turned toward them. Its multiple eyes focused on Chewgumma.

"That one looks meatier," Bill observed.

Chewgumma made a noise. "Kookie is not meat. Kookie is Kookie. Crabs should learn difference."

The crab took a step forward. Then another.

"Disruptor," Splock said calmly, "this is not New York."

"Of course it is. Nev Jork, Crab Colony. Established 2074. Very popular with crustacean tourists. The brochures are excellent."

"1982. Earth. North America. Human population."

"Ah. You want the other New York. You should have specified."

The crab was close enough now that Bill could see individual bristles on its legs.

"Get us out," Bill said.

"But the crab is curious. It's not every day it sees a furry—"

"Now."

The Disruptor sighed—all four of them simultaneously. "Fine. But you're missing a genuine cultural experience."

The universe dissolved, and before they knew it, they found themselves in snow. Deep snow. The kind that instantly penetrates your boots and stays there, frozen and full of vengeance.

They were in a plaza. Red brick buildings loomed on all sides, their windows dark, their walls covered with faded political posters. In the center of the plaza, rising from a pedestal of concrete blocks, stood a massive bronze statue of a man with a pointed beard and pince-nez glasses. The plaque at its base read, in large Cyrillic letters: "L. TROTSKY — ARCHITECT OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION."

Bill stared at it. "Trotsky. That name—"

"You know it?" Duo asked.

"There was a training camp. Trotsky Imperial Training Camp." Bill's face went through a series of expressions. "Eighty-nine million, six hundred seventy-two thousand, eight hundred ninety-nine recruits passed through that camp. Including me." He touched his jaw absently. "The drill sergeant there—Deathwish Drang—he had these huge fangs. Scared the hell out of everyone. When he died on Veniola, he left them to me. In his will. I had them implanted." Bill blinked. "I never thought the camp was named after a real person. I thought it was just... a name. Like 'basic training' or 'hell.'"

"History is full of surprises," Splock observed.

A sound interrupted them. Music. Specifically, a balalaika being played with more enthusiasm than skill. The player was a bear. A genuine, brown-furred, three-meter-tall bear, wearing a small fur hat and an embroidered vest, sitting on a stool near the statue's base, strumming away.

"Medved!" someone shouted.

Bill spun around. "What? What did they call us?"

The shout came from a group of men huddled near a building entrance. They were wrapped in heavy coats, their faces red from cold and something else. One of them waved a bottle.

"Amerikantsy?" the first one called. "Privet! You want vodka? Horosho vodka, not yad!"

Bill looked at Duo. "Is that a greeting? 'Privet'? Sounds like 'private.' Are they asking if we're private citizens?"

"I think it's 'hello,'" Duo muttered. "Probably."

A second man squinted at them. "Is that medved? Why medved have shmotki? Medved not need shmotki. Medved have sherst."

Bill's brow furrowed. "Medved. They keep saying medved. Is that some kind of rank? Local military?"

"It means bear," Splock said quietly. "They think Chewgumma is a bear."

"I am not bear!" Chewgumma protested. "Kookie is Kookie! Bear is different! Bear has smaller brain and worse smell!"

The bear—the real one—stopped playing and looked at them. It seemed to be considering something. Then it shrugged and resumed playing.

A vehicle rounded the corner. It was armored, boxy, and mounted with a loudspeaker. On its side, in block letters: "KGB."

The loudspeaker crackled. "Stoy! In name of Soviet people, stoy! You are under arrest for being suspicious and having suspicious medved!"

Bill cupped a hand to his ear. "Stoy? Is that a name? Did he just call us 'boy'?"

"I believe it means 'stop,'" Splock said.

Several large men in uniforms emerged from the vehicle, moving with the slow confidence of people who had guns and knew how to use them. The bald one in front—mustache with its own gravitational field—stepped forward.

"Dokumenty! Show dokumenty! All of you! Including medved!"

Duo spread his hands. "We don't have... whatever that is. We're travelers."

"Net. You are spies. Soviet Union knows spies when sees spies."

Bill's eyes went wide. "Net? Did he say Net? Like the IntergalacticNET? They have interstellar communication here? In the twentieth century?"

"I don't think that's what he means," Duo said.

"'Net' means 'no' in Russian," Splock clarified. "He is rejecting your claim."

The bear finished its song, stood up, and ambled over to Chewgumma. It sniffed him. Chewgumma looked at Bill with something approaching panic. "Kookie has acquired a friend. Kookie is not sure how. Friend smells like tree and old cabbage."

The crowd had grown. Dozens of people surrounded the plaza, watching with rapt attention. One old woman crossed herself repeatedly. A man with a briefcase was taking notes.

The KGB officer gestured. More uniformed men approached with a large net and what looked like a tranquilizer rifle.

"The medved will be studied," the officer announced. "You will go to Lubyanka for dopros. Many dopros. You will answer vopros until you cannot answer vopros anymore. Then more dopros."

Bill squinted. "Dopros? Vopros? What now?"

"Interrogation and questions," Splock translated. "He intends to question us extensively."

Chewgumma's eyes narrowed. "Kookie does not like questions. Kookie especially does not like nets."

"Last warning," the officer said. "Podchiniates! Or we use sila!"

Splock's ears twitched. "Submit or they use force."

"Disruptor," Splock said firmly, "this location is unsuitable. Execute emergency relocation."

The Disruptor made a sound like a disappointed uncle. "Fine. But I want everyone to know—we're abandoning a perfectly good bear. A bear who plays balalaika. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how long it takes to train a bear to play balalaika? Longer than you've been alive, probably. And we're just leaving him."

"Now," Splock said.

"The acoustics in this square are excellent, too. You can really hear the—"

"Now."

The KGB officer's hand was six inches from Duo's collar when it passed through empty air.

The last thing they heard before the universe dissolved was the bear letting out a confused rumble, and someone in the crowd shouting "Amerikantsy duraki!"—which Bill made a mental note to ask about later, though he was pretty sure "Amerikantsy" meant them and the other word probably wasn't complimentary.

In any case, before they could blink, they were standing in the middle of a huge intersection, surrounded by tall buildings covered in luminous signs. The air was thick with strange smells—exhaust fumes, hot pretzels, something that might have been roasted nuts—and noise. So much noise. Horns honking. Engines rumbling. People shouting. A constant, overwhelming assault on the senses.

The Disruptors in their hands were silent. Not a peep.

Ham Duo shook his. "Hello? Did we break them?"

"Maybe they're sulking," Bill offered. He wasn't complaining. After the Disruptor's constant chatter during their last trip, the silence was almost peaceful. It gave him a chance to look around.

He'd never seen anything like this.

The buildings stretched impossibly high, their surfaces covered in bright colors and moving images—pictures that changed, words that flashed, lights that blinked in patterns he couldn't follow. Giant screens showed people selling things, people dancing, people looking happy in ways that seemed vaguely threatening. Below them, thousands of humans moved in every direction, dodging wheeled vehicles that honked and growled and belched fumes.

The city immediately appealed to him.

The stink in the streets was incredible—a complex mixture of garbage, exhaust, and something sweet he couldn't identify—but after the recycled air of spaceships and the artificial scents of computer simulations, it felt almost honest. Real. People here lived in their own filth and didn't pretend otherwise. He respected that.

What he didn't like were the numerous little piles left by dogs. He discovered this approximately three seconds after stepping in one. He spent a full minute scraping his boot against a concrete edge, muttering things that made a nearby woman cover her child's ears.

What he did like was how people dressed. Nothing flashy. No one-piece elasticized jumpsuits in avocado and cocoa. Just simple fabrics, dull colors, practical designs. And the hats! Men in fedoras, women in things he couldn't name but admired anyway. A nice retro style. Very sensible.

The bars, though. The bars were the best part. He could see at least four from where he stood, their neon signs flickering invitations. After months of military rations and simulated food, the promise of real alcohol from an actual bar was almost enough to make him forget why they'd come.

He might have forgotten, except that Chewgumma chose that moment to be noticed.

The Kookie stood seven feet tall, covered in thick brown fur, with small red eyes and a face that no amount of anthropological training could make look human. He was, in every possible way, the wrong creature to materialize in the middle of Times Square.

A woman saw him first. She screamed. Her groceries—actual physical groceries, in paper bags—hit the sidewalk with a sound like hope dying. Apples rolled everywhere.

Then a man shouted, "Holy shit, it's a bear! A bear! Run!"

"Bear!" someone else echoed. "Bear in the city!"

Chewgumma looked at Bill. "Kookie is not bear. Kookie is Kookie. These humans are stupid."

"Just—" Bill started, but Chewgumma was already moving. Not toward the humans, thankfully, but away from them. The Kookie bolted down a side street, his furry form disappearing between two buildings with surprising speed for something his size.

Bill took a step to follow.

Splock's hand on his arm stopped him. "No."

"But—"

"Look." Splock gestured at the crowd. People were pointing, shouting, pulling out devices and pointing them at the alley where Chewgumma had vanished. More were gathering. A few had already produced rectangular objects and were speaking into them urgently.

"We've attracted sufficient attention," Splock observed. "Following would only compound the error."

Bill wanted to argue, but Splock was already doing something else. He'd produced a thin, flexible tablet from somewhere inside his jumpsuit—a device Bill had never seen before—and was holding it up, his long fingers moving across its surface.

"Local electromagnetic spectrum," Splock murmured. "Fascinating. So much noise. Radio waves, television signals, early digital data streams—primitive, but abundant."

The tablet crackled. Through its tiny speaker, a sound emerged. A rhythmic pulse, accompanied by electronic tones and a voice:

"Well I know five years is a long time and that times change. But I think that you'll find people are basically the same."

Bill stared. "What in the nine hells is that?"

Ham Duo cupped a hand to his ear. "Music? Maybe? Or a drunk spacer fell asleep on a transmitter keyboard. Hard to tell with primitive cultures."

Splock's ears twitched. "The rhythm is consistent. The harmonic structure suggests intentional composition. It could be—" He paused, listening. "—a code. Or an attempt at art. I cannot determine which."

The music continued, oblivious to their confusion. More people were staring now, attracted by Chewgumma's appearance and the three strangely dressed figures in their midst. Bill noticed that their jumpsuits, so normal on a spaceship, were attracting exactly the wrong kind of attention. A man in a blue uniform was pushing through the crowd, one hand on a weird device at his belt.

The device made a noise. A high, piercing wail that cut through everything.

"Move," Bill said. He'd been in enough military situations to recognize an alarm when he heard one. He grabbed Splock's arm and pulled him toward a set of stairs leading down, where a stream of people was disappearing into a brightly lit hole in the ground.

The subway.

Duo followed, muttering something about how this was not how he'd imagined his first visit to twentieth-century Earth.

Behind them, the policeman's whistle shrilled again, and more shouts joined the chaos.

They clattered down the stairs into the underground cavern, following the flow of people. The noise from the surface faded, replaced by echoes and the rumble of unseen machinery. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow.

Bill was furious. Not at Chewgumma—well, a little at Chewgumma—but mostly at the situation. Four minutes on twentieth-century Earth and they'd already lost a seven-foot-tall furball, attracted police attention, and been forced underground like sewer rats.

"We need to move faster," he snapped, pushing past a group of teenagers who gave him strange looks. "They'll be searching. We need to get lost in this—whatever this place is."

"Subterranean transit system," Splock offered, his tablet still glowing with stolen electromagnetic data. "The locals call it the subway."

"Don't care what it's called. Just keep moving."

Ahead, Bill saw a row of metal barriers with spinning arms. People were approaching them, inserting small objects into slots, and pushing through. The arms rotated, letting them pass one by one.

Bill didn't hesitate. He'd dealt with military checkpoints, computer security programs, and actual alligators. A spinning arm wasn't going to stop him.

He grabbed the top of the barrier and tried to vault over.

The arm caught him exactly at crotch level.

The pain was immediate and profound. His legs kept going forward while his upper body stayed roughly in place, and for a moment he hung there, suspended, wondering if he'd ever have children. The arm rotated slowly, grinding against him, and deposited him on the other side in a heap.

He lay on the filthy concrete, gasping.

Two men in blue uniforms appeared above him. They had shiny badges and expressions of weary amusement.

"Well, well," one said. "Got ourselves a live one."

"Drunk," the other observed. "Early too. It's not even noon."

Bill tried to stand. His legs didn't want to cooperate. "I'm not—I'm fine—just trying to—"

"You need a token, pal." The first cop held up a small metal disc. "See? Token. Put it in the slot. That's how you get through."

Bill stared at the disc. Token. The word bounced around his skull. Token. Talking. Token. Talking.

"I don't need talking," he managed. "I need moving. My friends—"

"He thinks it's talking," the second cop said, and laughed. "Yeah, buddy, it talks. Says 'put me in the slot or I'll bite your crotch again.'"

The first cop grabbed Bill's arm and hauled him upright. "Come on. Let's get you some air. Maybe a coffee. You're gonna feel this one tomorrow."

They marched him toward the exit. Bill caught a glimpse of Splock and Duo watching from behind a pillar, their expressions carefully neutral. Traitors.

Ham Duo waited until the cops had dragged Bill up the stairs before muttering, "Well, I'm not as stupid as that space GI." He said it quietly, just loud enough for Splock to hear. "Time to do this properly."

He approached a small booth near the barriers where a tired-looking man sat behind glass. A sign advertised newspapers, magazines, and something called "gum." Duo leaned toward the small opening in the glass.

"Information," he said, trying to sound authoritative. "I'm looking for a law firm. The Yorks. Attorneys at law."

The man behind the glass squinted at him. "What?"

"Yorks. The Yorks. Lawyers."

The man cupped a hand to his ear. "Jerks? You looking for jerks? Son, you're in New York. Half the people here are jerks. You gotta be more specific."

Duo's eye twitched. "Not jerks. Yorks. Family name. Attorneys."

But the man had already moved on, his face lighting up with the particular enthusiasm of someone about to discuss their favorite subject. "Jerks, jerks—you know who's not jerks? Depeche Mode. You heard their new album? A Broken Frame? Just came out. Hot off the presses. You wanna hear some real music, you go to that record store on 42nd—"

"A broken frame?" Duo's hand went to his own face. "What's that supposed to mean? Nothing's broken on me. I'm perfectly intact."

The man stared at him. "The album, son. A Broken Frame. The album. By Depeche Mode."

"I don't have a broken frame! I'm symmetrical! Proportionate!"

Splock appeared at Duo's elbow, his expression unreadable. "We're leaving now."

"But he said—"

"He's discussing music. Primitive audio recordings. Nothing to do with your physical structure. Come."

Duo allowed himself to be led away, still muttering about how there was nothing wrong with his frame, thank you very much.

They found Bill outside, leaning against a wall and trying to look like he hadn't just been ejected from a subway turnstile by police officers. His face was red.

"We have the address," he said through gritted teeth. "St. Francis Orphanage. We go there, we find records, we find the family."

"How?" Duo asked. "We don't know this city. We don't know how to get anywhere."

"Hitchhiking," Bill said.

Splock raised an eyebrow. "Hitchhiking."

"It's what people do on planets. Stick out your thumb, someone gives you a ride. I saw it in a movie once."

The movie in question had been a training film about primitive Earth cultures, and Bill was reasonably sure it had been accurate. Reasonably.

They found a street corner and stuck out their thumbs.

Cars passed. And passed. And passed. Drivers stared at them—at their jumpsuits, at Splock's ears, at their general appearance—and drove faster. One woman actually locked her doors as she approached.

After twenty minutes, Duo lowered his arm. "This isn't working."

"Maybe we're doing it wrong," Bill said. "Maybe we need to look more... local."

A large yellow vehicle approached. It was boxy, slow-moving, and had what looked like children's faces pressed against the windows.

"That looks friendly," Bill said. "And slow. We can catch it."

They ran alongside as the vehicle stopped at a corner. A door opened. Children spilled out, laughing and shouting. Bill climbed in without hesitation, Duo and Splock behind him.

The driver was a large woman with hair like a helmet and an expression that could curdle milk. She took one look at them—really looked—and her face went through several stages: confusion, disbelief, and finally, a kind of resigned fury.

"Get out of my bus."

"We just need a ride," Bill said. "To an orphanage. St. Francis?"

"Out."

"We can pay." Duo held up something from his pocket—a shiny object that might have been valuable in the 90th century but looked like random scrap metal here.

"OUT."

They got out.

The bus doors closed with a pneumatic hiss. Through the window, they could see children pressing against the glass, pointing and laughing. One of them made a gesture that Bill assumed was friendly, though something about it felt off.

They stood on the sidewalk, watching the yellow vehicle disappear into traffic.

"So," Duo said. "That didn't work either."

Bill looked around. The city stretched in all directions, endless and unknowable. Somewhere in this maze of concrete and noise was an orphanage, a family, a little girl who didn't know she was carrying the future.

"We walk," he said. "We find it ourselves."

"Walk?" Duo stared at him. "In this?"

Bill was already moving. "You got a better idea?"

"I have an idea," Duo announced suddenly.

Before anyone could ask what kind of idea, he'd darted to a small booth on the corner—a flimsy thing made of metal and glass, stuffed with colorful papers and magazines. The vendor was arguing with a customer about something called "change." Duo reached in, grabbed a large folded sheet, and was back on the sidewalk before the vendor even noticed.

"Hey!"

They ran.

Three blocks later, ducked into an alley, Splock unfolded the stolen item. "It's a map," he said, his voice carrying the faintest trace of approval. "A cartographic representation of the local geography. Remarkably primitive, but serviceable."

He spread it against a wall. The others crowded around.

"Here," Splock said, tapping a spot. "This is our current location, based on the street signs and my internal dead reckoning. And here—" his finger moved across the paper, "—is Brooklyn. Where the orphanage is located."

Duo squinted at the lines and colors. "How do we get there?"

Splock opened his mouth to deliver what would undoubtedly have been a lengthy lecture on optimal route calculation, optimal transfer points, and the statistical probability of each option.

Bill pointed. "That way."

He was pointing at a broad road, flooded with sunlight, where crowds of people moved in a steady stream. Cars honked. Buses groaned. Life flowed in one direction like a river of humanity.

"People are going that way," Bill said. "Lots of them. Wherever it is, it's probably important. And we need to move fast before—"

He looked back.

The vendor had left his booth. He was pointing at them. And next to him stood a man in a blue uniform, already moving in their direction.

"Run," Bill said.

They ran.

The road was wide and straight, lined with stores and restaurants and the kind of establishments that made Bill's stomach growl even while his legs pumped. They dodged pedestrians, jumped over curbs, wove through crowds that parted with shouts of surprise.

And then Duo spotted the sunglasses.

A street vendor had set up a folding table covered in cheap merchandise—watches that probably didn't work, bags that would fall apart, and rows upon rows of sunglasses. Dark lenses. Reflective lenses. Lenses in every color and shape.

Duo grabbed a pair mid-stride. Black plastic frames, lenses so dark they looked like holes in his face. He put them on.

"Now I look local!" he announced.

The vendor's shout joined the others behind them.

The crowd of pursuers had doubled.

"You idiot!" Bill yelled, pumping his arms harder. "Now we've got two vendors and two cops!"

"Worth it," Duo called back, adjusting the sunglasses. "These are quality. Feel the build."

"I'll feel your build when I—"

Bill's foot came down on something that should not have been on the sidewalk. His legs went out from under him. The world tilted. He hit the ground hard, grass—actual grass—cushioning his fall.

He lay there, staring at the sky, wondering what ancient deity had decided to make him the universe's permanent punching bag.

Splock and Duo stopped. They stood over him, breathing hard.

"You okay?" Duo asked.

Bill sat up. Spat out a piece of grass. Looked around.

They were in a small park area, separated from the sidewalk by a low fence. Beyond the fence, across a stretch of lawn, stood an imposing building. Institutional. Official-looking. The kind of place that housed records, or orphans, or both.

And there, at the entrance, stood a couple.

Man, dark-haired, wearing a suit that screamed money even to eyes from the future. Woman, chestnut hair, similarly well-dressed, holding a baby in her arms. Both looked to be about thirty-four years old by Earth standards. Healthy. Prosperous. Exactly the kind of people who might adopt a child from an expensive private orphanage.

Splock stared at them. His ears twitched.

"According to Frobisher's Law of Temporal Proximity," he said, "when searching for a specific family unit in an unfamiliar time period, the probability of encountering them within the first hour of arrival increases exponentially with the amount of running and chaos involved. The Jenkins studies of 8304 confirm this, as do the later works of Vreenak on probability fields. Additionally, the Corwyn-Malachi principle states that if one observes a family with an infant immediately after falling into a patch of grass, that infant is almost certainly the temporal vector we seek. The statistical correlation is—"

Bill grabbed his arm. "Splock. Shut up."

Because Bill was looking at the man's face. The shape of his jaw. The way he stood—that particular posture, that particular confidence.

He'd seen it before. On a ship called the Counter-Gumption. Wearing a two-tone jumpsuit in puce and mauve.

"Counter-Dirk," Bill breathed.

Splock's monologue died in his throat. He stared at the man. For once, his expression showed something—confusion, perhaps, or the organic equivalent of a system error.

"That's impossible," he said. "I was there when we defeated him. Captain Dirk and I. We fought for Charlemagne and Christianity. Counter-Dirk fought for the Sultan and Islam. It was a fair battle. We won. He was—" Splock paused. "He was defeated. I assumed destroyed."

"Assumed," Duo repeated. "You assumed."

"He doesn't look destroyed," Bill observed. "He looks like he's adopting a baby."

Splock's ears twitched rapidly, a sign of intense cognitive processing. "This is... unexpected. Logically, he should not exist in this timeline. Unless—" He stopped. "Unless the Alien Historian retrieved him. Used him. Repurposed him."

The three of them crouched behind a bush, watching.

From the building's entrance, another man emerged. He carried a leather case—a briefcase, Bill's training films identified—and walked toward the couple with the easy confidence of someone who belonged there. He shook hands with the man. Nodded to the woman. Reached for the baby.

The woman hesitated, just for a moment, then handed the infant over.

The man with the briefcase held the baby with practiced ease. He examined it—really examined it, turning it slightly, looking at its face, its hands, its tiny feet. His movements were smooth. Professional. And slightly wrong.

Splock leaned forward. "Observe the articulation of his joints. The economy of motion. That's not organic. That's mechanical. Or—" He paused. "Programmed. He's following instructions. Precise instructions."

"One of the Historian's people," Duo whispered. "Has to be."

Bill nodded. "He's checking the merchandise. Making sure the—whatever they put in her—is still there."

The man finished his examination. He handed the baby back to the woman. Reached into his pocket, produced something small, and pressed it into the man's hand. Money? A token? Too far to see.

Then he turned to leave.

Bill stood up too fast.

His foot slipped on something—a discarded piece of fruit peel, yellow and brown, lying innocently on the grass. His arms windmilled. The world tilted again. And he hit the ground face-first, the impact driving the air from his lungs and sending something small and metallic flying from his pocket.

The Disruptor.

It skittered across the pavement, spinning like a coin, and came to rest exactly at the feet of the man with the briefcase.

Bill watched through a haze of pain and humiliation as the man bent down. Picked up the device. Turned it over in his hands. Looked at it with genuine curiosity—the expression of someone who'd just found something interesting but had no idea what it was.

Then he smiled. Pocketed it. Walked to a sleek, expensive-looking vehicle parked at the curb.

The couple followed. The man opened the door for his wife and the baby. Got in himself. The man with the briefcase slid into the driver's seat.

The vehicle pulled away. Turned a corner. Disappeared.

Bill lay on the grass, face pressed to the earth, watching the spot where their future had just driven off without them.

He tried to stand. His body wouldn't cooperate. Something was wrong—a heaviness in his limbs, a fog descending over his thoughts. He'd felt this before, back at the campfire when Duo had collapsed.

Oh no.

"Guys," he managed. "I don't feel—"

Splock and Duo were at his side, but their voices sounded distant, muffled, like they were speaking through water.

"Find—" Bill's tongue was thick. "Find their house. The—the address. Follow them. Don't let—"

His eyes were closing. He couldn't stop them.

"—him get away with—"

A yawn overtook him, vast and irresistible. He used the last of his strength to make the request sound as urgent as possible, putting everything into that final syllable.

"—it."

And then he was falling, not onto grass but into darkness, his last conscious thought being that unlike Ham Duo, he wasn't covered by the Blue Nebula Health Plan with its generous provisions for Major Medical. And even if he had been, its benefits almost certainly didn't extend to this godforsaken century on this godforsaken planet where people threw fruit on the ground and men in suits stole time machines from space troopers who really should have known better by now.

An eternity passed. Or three hours. It was impossible to tell with Interspacial Sleeping Sickness, especially in a distant past on a planet where no one had ever heard of it, let alone knew how long it lasted. The sickness didn't care about primitive Earth timekeeping. It took what it took.

Bill opened his eyes to find himself on a wooden bench in a small park. Trees overhead. Pigeons cooing. The distant sound of traffic. And sitting on either side of him, like mismatched bookends, were Splock and Ham Duo.

Splock had his arms crossed in that particular way that suggested he'd been waiting patiently and intended to make sure you knew it. Schoolteacher face. Disapproval barely concealed. The whole package.

Duo, on the other hand, was grinning. Grinning like a man who'd just won a bet. Something was different about him. Bill's sleep-fogged brain struggled to identify what.

The sunglasses.

They were gone.

Bill sat up so fast his head spun. "Your glasses! The—the ones you stole! They're gone!"

Duo's grin widened. He didn't say anything. Just sat there, basking in whatever joke Bill wasn't getting.

"What happened? Did the cops catch you? Did you lose them in a fight? Did—"

Bill's mouth kept moving, but his brain had already moved on to the more important question: what else had he missed while unconscious? He took a breath to ask—

"The Disruptor you were carrying," Splock interrupted, his voice carrying the weary patience of someone who'd already explained this twice and was prepared to explain it a third time, "is no longer in your possession. You lost it during physical contact with a fruit peel."

"Fruit peel? I fell on a garden tool! There was a rake, I think, or maybe—"

"The object was clearly organic in origin. A rake is a tool. You stepped on a peel."

"It felt like a rake."

"Your sensory perception during moments of high-velocity impact is not a reliable data source. It was a peel. I have three witnesses."

"Who? The trees?"

Duo raised a hand. "I'm with Splock on this one. Definitely a peel. Banana, I think. Very slippery."

Bill glared at him. "You're enjoying this."

"I'm enjoying everything. I'm conscious, I have my Disruptor—" he patted his pocket, "—and I'm not the one who woke up with grass in his teeth."

Splock continued, unperturbed. "Item two: my Disruptor remains functional. Item three: Chewgumma's Disruptor is also functional, but Chewgumma is no longer with us. He fled approximately four minutes after our arrival and has not been seen since. The device is presumably still in his possession, assuming he hasn't eaten it."

"Kookies don't eat electronics," Duo said.

"They don't?" Bill asked.

"Not intentionally. Sometimes by accident if you leave them in the food storage area. But Chewgumma's careful. Mostly."

Bill rubbed his temples. "Okay. Okay. So we've got two Disruptors, one missing Kookie, and zero leads on—"

Duo cleared his throat. Loudly.

Bill looked at him. Duo pointed at his own face. At the place where sunglasses had been. He raised an eyebrow.

"Later," Bill said. "Tell me later. Right now we need to figure out—" He stopped. "Wait. The house. The parents. You found them, right? Like I asked? Before I passed out?"

Splock's ears twitched. "We did. While you were unconscious—which lasted approximately three hours, seventeen minutes, and—"

"The house, Splock."

"Yes. We located the residence. However, as I pointed out to Duo during your recovery period, locating the house is not the same as locating the inhabitants. The house is merely a structure. The inhabitants are the targets of our investigation."

Bill stood up. Too fast. The world spun. He grabbed the bench. "The point is you found where they live. That's something. That's more than we had when I passed out."

"The point," Splock said, "is that we must now determine the optimal approach to—"

"Splock. Focus. Tell me about the family. What did you find out?"

Splock straightened, clearly pleased to be asked. "The adoptive father presents a fascinating ambiguity. He bears a striking resemblance to Counter-Dirk, the temporal duplicate we encountered during the Charlemagne incident. However, I cannot state with absolute certainty that he is, in fact, Counter-Dirk. He may simply be a genetically similar individual. Temporal mechanics allow for such coincidences, though the probability is—"

"Is he or isn't he?" Bill demanded.

"His name is Gene," Splock said. "A diminutive of Eugene. The name itself is suggestive—derived from the Greek 'eugenes,' meaning 'well-born.' The etymological connection to eugenics, the practice of selective breeding to improve hereditary qualities, is difficult to ignore. If this individual is indeed Counter-Dirk, his very name announces his purpose: to cultivate a superior being from the embryo of Alexander the Great. To breed, as it were, an—"

"An anti-what?" Bill interrupted. "You said something earlier—anti-something. I forgot."

"Antichrist," Splock supplied.

"Right. That. I still don't understand what that means."

"Your theological education, or lack thereof, is noted. We may return to it later." Splock pressed on. "The adoptive mother is named Karen. She is, according to our observations, approximately thirty-four years of age, employed as an attorney, and—"

Duo interrupted, grinning. "Go on, Bill. Guess. What kind of woman do you think she is?"

Bill considered. "Mid-thirties. White. Probably the type who complains to managers. Demands to speak to supervisors. Racist undertones. The kind who'd threaten to call a lawyer if things don't go her way."

Duo clapped his hands. "Beautiful. And here's the kicker—she and her husband are lawyers. So who does she call? Herself?"

"A fascinating paradox," Splock acknowledged. "But the most critical information is this: the daughter—the child we are seeking—has been named Delia."

Bill stared at him. "Delia?"

"Yes."

"Like... delicious? Delia-cious?"

"I fail to see the connection."

Bill's face went through several contortions. "Counter-Dirk. He's a cannibal. First he wanted to torture me with antelope prods and a cauldron of fried chewing gum, and now he's naming his adopted daughter after food. He's going to eat her. Or the baby inside her. Or both."

"That is not—" Splock started.

"Delia. Delicious. It's right there. The man's a monster."

"Delia is an epithet of the goddess Artemis," Splock said flatly. "It refers to her birthplace on the island of Delos. The child's mother chose the name. In honor of an aunt who was, according to the documents, a politician. The father's involvement in the naming process appears minimal."

Bill deflated. "Oh. So the name thing—we were wrong about Cynthia and Phoebe and Diana?"

"It appears we were operating with incomplete data. The name Delia was not in the corrupted files. Which suggests—" Splock paused significantly, "—that the original operative who compiled our intelligence was not entirely incompetent. The surname, incidentally, is York. The intelligence we received was correct on that point. The operative's filing error—confusing the family name with the city—did not, in fact, compromise the data. The Historian chose a family whose name could be mistaken for their location. It was a deliberate obfuscation, and we fell for it."

Duo whistled. "That's devious."

"It is." Splock's ears twitched. "The physician who examined the child—the one who now possesses Bill's Disruptor—is the family doctor. His surname is Hastings. That surname derives from the Old Norse 'Hastein,' a Viking chieftain who raided England in the ninth century. The name means 'descendant of Hastein.'"

Bill waited. "And?"

"And that is the information available."

"That's it? That's all you got?"

"The name's etymology is significant. It indicates—"

"I don't care about some dead Viking!" Bill threw his hands up. "I care about the guy who stole my Disruptor! Is he dangerous? Is he working for the Historian? Does he have a beard? What?"

Splock's expression suggested he was reconsidering his career choices. "The name Hastings indicates ancestry. It does not indicate that the individual himself is a ninth-century raider. He is unlikely to appear with an axe. Unless—" Splock paused, considering. "The Historian does have a penchant for unexpected temporal insertions. It is theoretically possible that—"

Duo interrupted. "Hey, maybe we should tell Bill how we found all this out?"

He winked.

Splock drew himself up. "I employed a modified version of the Thurlow-Yonce observational methodology, as refined by the Vrexlian Academy of Temporal Ethnography. The technique involves passive data acquisition through localized electromagnetic monitoring, cross-referenced with—"

Bill's eyes glazed over.

"—and of course, the Jenkins Correlation for non-participant surveillance, which accounts for the observer effect in pre-bloater-drive civilizations. The results were then validated against the standard deviations established by the Farthingale Protocols, which—"

"Get to the point," Bill said.

"The point is that we have sufficient intelligence to proceed. However, there is a complication." Splock's ears flattened slightly. "Local law enforcement is actively seeking three individuals matching our descriptions. The earlier incident at the subway, combined with Ham Duo's acquisition of the sunglasses, has generated what might be termed 'unwanted attention.'"

"Wonderful."

"Therefore, I propose a division of resources. I will remain here to continue surveillance of the York residence. You and Ham Duo will locate Chewgumma and retrieve his Disruptor."

Bill shook his head. "No. No way. I'm not going to catch some dumb Kookie while you're doing the fun stuff. I want..."

Splock held up a hand. "There is considerably more to learn. Dr. Hastings appears to reside in the York household—at least, he has not left the premises since our observation began. He may be living with them, or simply staying for an extended visit. I attempted to approach the residence for closer inspection, but—"

He paused. His ears twitched.

"My auditory appendages attracted attention from neighboring juveniles. They shouted what I initially perceived as a racial epithet, but subsequent analysis revealed a more complex cultural reference."

Bill leaned forward. "Shouting what?"

Splock's expression shifted—the closest he ever came to discomfort. "They shouted 'erph.' Repeatedly. At first I believed it was a primitive slur directed at my Nocturnian heritage. However, upon reflection and subsequent research using intercepted broadcasts, I have determined that 'erph' refers to a fictional character from a series of—" he paused, "—artistic works."

Duo snorted. "Artistic works?"

"Two—or possibly four, depending on whether one follows the publication chronology or the internal narrative logic—haiku composed by L. P. P. Spellkin, a Brazilian sanitation worker. These haiku inspired six pornographic films directed by a Scotsman named Peeler Snackson." Splock's voice carried a note of genuine affront.

Bill stared. "Children were shouting porn at you?"

"I cannot confirm that they viewed the source material. However, the cultural reference suggests a disturbing level of exposure to inappropriate media. The children of this era are... poorly supervised."

Bill buried his face in his hands.

"You're telling me you got distracted by—"

"I was not distracted. I was gathering intelligence. The hostility of the local juvenile population is a relevant factor in surveillance planning."

Duo was openly laughing now.

"There is more," Splock said. "I attempted to record the license plate of Gene York's vehicle—a necessary step for any thorough surveillance operation. However, a radio transmission from the vehicle's audio system distracted me. The melody, produced by an early electronic synthesizer, was accompanied by lyrics that I found... momentarily resonant."

Duo perked up. "What lyrics?"

"A male voice, somewhat affected in tone, singing: 'You don't understand, this is a demand, and I think that I have to show you, try to look inside...'" Splock's ears twitched. "The rhythm and the text aligned momentarily with my own intentions—to 'look inside' the house. The coincidence was sufficient to cause a momentary lapse in attention. During that lapse, a vehicle belonging to what I believe is a municipal towing service arrived and removed the York automobile. I was unable to record the license plate."

Bill stared at him. "You missed the license plate because of a song."

"A song whose lyrics resonated with my immediate objectives. The statistical improbability of such synchronicity is—"

"Unbelievable," Bill muttered. "Absolutely unbelievable."

Duo was grinning again. "The universe has a sense of humor, soldier. You gotta roll with it."

Bill looked from Duo's smug face to Splock's earnest confusion. At his crappy jumpsuit.

He had just listened to a report from some asshole alien with a hatchet-face and ears like a pregnant kangaroo, a report so full of useless details—sunglasses, banana peels, quantum residue, haiku-based pornography, and songs about demands—that they still had absolutely no idea what was actually happening inside that house, and this was apparently supposed to be progress.

"Right," Ham Duo said. "Here's the plan. We go to the house. We go inside. We get your Disruptor back. We find out what they know. Simple."

Splock's ears flattened. "That is not a plan. That is a sequence of actions with no contingency for failure, no escape route, and no consideration for the temporal consequences of direct confrontation. It is, in fact, the opposite of a plan."

"Got a better one?"

"Several. The most logical involves locating Chewgumma, retrieving his Disruptor, and establishing a secure observation post from which we can—"

"No," Bill said.

Splock blinked. "No?"

Bill stood up. "I'm not chasing a seven-foot furball through a city I don't understand so we can have a spare time machine that probably won't work anyway because Chewgumma's probably already traded it for food."

"Kookies don't—"

"I don't care what Kookies do. I'm hungry. I'm tired. And we've been sitting here listening to you talk about haiku-based pornography while the guy with my Disruptor is probably packing his bags and leaving town."

Splock drew himself up. "The haiku were culturally relevant to—"

"No." Bill held up a hand. "We're going to that house. Now. You can either help or stay here and write a paper about it."

Splock's expression shifted into something that, on a human, would have been wounded dignity. "I spent considerable effort gathering intelligence while you were unconscious. The Thurlow-Yonce methodology is not—"

"Is appreciated," Bill interrupted. "Really. Great job. Lots of facts. Now we're going to use them."

Splock's expression suggested he was recalculating every assumption he'd made about this mission. "Your approach lacks logical foundation."

"My approach is the only one we've got. Lead the way."

For a long moment, Splock simply looked at them—Bill with his fists on his hips and Duo with his infuriating grin. His expression suggested he was mentally filing a formal complaint with whatever authority might exist in this century. But he said nothing. He simply turned and began walking.

They followed.

The York residence was a three-story brownstone in a quiet neighborhood, sandwiched between similar buildings with identical stoops and identical windows and identical expressions of prosperous anonymity. Evening was settling over Brooklyn, softening the edges of things, painting the sky in shades of purple and orange that would have been pretty under other circumstances.

Splock led them to a position behind a parked vehicle across the street. "There," he whispered, pointing. "Second floor. The room with the amber curtain."

Light glowed through the fabric. Shadows moved inside.

Bill squinted. Through a narrow gap where the curtains didn't quite meet, he could see figures. A man. A woman. Close together.

"That's Hastings," Splock confirmed. "The man with his back to the window."

Bill stared. Hastings was tall, well-built, with dark hair and the kind of generic handsome features that could have belonged to anyone. Nothing about him suggested a ninth-century raider. No beard. No axe. No horned helmet.

Bill leaned toward Splock. "He doesn't look like a Viking."

"Why would he?"

"You said—the name thing. Hastings. Descendant of Hastein."

"Yes. Descendant. Not reincarnation. Temporal mechanics do not typically—"

"Shh." Bill held up a hand.

Because Hastings was doing something odd. He was leaning toward the woman—Karen, presumably—and pressing his lips to her forehead. Gently. Tenderly. The kind of kiss that belonged between lovers, not between a family doctor and his patient. Something else.

"See that?" Bill whispered. "That's weird, right? Doctors don't do that."

"Not in any medical ethics code I'm familiar with," Duo agreed.

Splock's ears were twitching furiously. "Fascinating. The body language suggests—" He stopped. "Do you hear that?"

Bill listened. From the house, faint sounds drifted through the evening air. Voices? No—something else. Rhythmic. Breath-like.

Bill leaned closer. "Is that... moaning?"

Splock's ears swiveled like radar dishes. "Vocalizations consistent with human intimate activity. Fascinating. Given the presence of a married woman and a man who is not her husband, the logical conclusion is—"

"They're doing it," Duo supplied helpfully.

"I was about to say 'engaging in extramarital relations,' but your phrasing is equally accurate."

Bill shook his head. "Why would a doctor—"

"The sounds are accompanied by rhythmic motion consistent with—" Splock paused. "Wait. The pattern. The frequency. This may be related to the earlier cultural reference."

Bill stared at him. "You think they're—while watching—"

"It is possible they are viewing an adaptation of the Spellkin haiku. The vocalizations match certain... artistic interpretations I have studied." Splock's ears twitched. "The production values were reportedly low, but the sound design—"

The sounds grew louder. More urgent.

"I would like to observe this footage," Splock said thoughtfully. "It might explain why the juvenile population—"

"You want to watch porn to figure out why kids called you 'erph'?" Duo's voice cracked with suppressed laughter.

"I want to gather complete intelligence. I am simply noting that the cultural penetration of those six films appears broader than initially estimated. I would be curious to view them myself, to better understand why the children associated me with the character 'erph.' The haiku upon which they were based—"

Bill grabbed his arm. "We're going in."

"Without an escape plan?"

"We'll find one on the way out."

The fire escape was on the side of the house. Old iron, bolted to the brick, leading up to a second-floor window. Bill grabbed the lowest rung and pulled himself up.

The entire structure tore away from the wall with a shriek of protesting metal and crashed to the ground, taking Bill with it.

He lay in a heap of twisted iron, staring up at the evening sky, wondering if the universe had a personal vendetta against his dignity.

Inside the house, the sounds stopped. A face appeared at the window. Hastings. He looked down at the three figures in his backyard—one on the ground, two standing uselessly nearby—and his expression shifted from surprise to recognition to something else. Something colder.

He pulled the curtains shut.

Bill scrambled up, ignoring the new aches in places he hadn't known he had. "He saw us. He definitely saw us. Splock—" He leaned close to the Nocturnian's ear. "He doesn't look like a Viking."

Splock's ear twitched. "We have discussed this. He is not a Viking. He is a twentieth-century physician named Hastings, whose surname has etymological roots in—"

The back door of the house burst open.

Hastings stepped out. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, his posture unnaturally still. Then he moved—not walking, but gliding, his legs bending in ways that suggested joints operating on different principles than human anatomy.

Bill leaned toward Splock again. "Still not a Viking."

"Your observational skills are remarkable but irrelevant."

"He doesn't have a beard."

"Many Vikings were clean-shaven."

"He doesn't have a horned helmet."

"Vikings did not wear horned helmets. That is a nineteenth-century theatrical invention perpetuated by—"

"He doesn't have a boat."

"His lack of a longship in suburban New York is not evidence—"

Ham Duo grabbed both their arms. "Can we run first and argue Viking genealogy later?"

They ran.

Through the backyard, over a fence, into someone else's property. A dog barked. A light came on. They kept moving, crashing through hedges, leaving a trail of destruction that would take decades to forgive.

Behind them, Hastings followed. Not running—he didn't need to run. He moved at the same unnatural glide, covering ground too fast, too smoothly.

They hit a street. Crossed it. Ducked into another alley.

Bill glanced back. Hastings was there, at the entrance to the alley, his head rotating slowly as if scanning.

"He's still there," Bill panted. He leaned toward Splock. "You know what else he's not?"

"I am aware."

"He's not carrying an axe."

"Astonishing."

"He's not wearing chain mail."

"Noted."

"He doesn't have that weird Viking hairstyle with the shaved sides."

"Vikings did not have a standardized hairstyle. Archaeological evidence suggests—"

A garbage can flew past them. Hastings had picked it up and thrown it. With one hand. From fifty feet away.

They ran faster.

Through a playground. Past a swingset. Over a fence that snagged Bill's jumpsuit and tore a strip off the leg.

They emerged on a residential street. Quiet. Dark. No pursuit visible.

Bill doubled over, gasping. "Is he—is he gone?"

Splock looked back. "I do not see him."

A shadow moved at the far end of the street.

"There," Duo said.

They ran again.

This time they didn't stop. They wove through backyards, crossed more streets, ducked under clotheslines and around garden sheds. Every time they thought they'd lost him, a glimpse of that too-smooth movement appeared in their peripheral vision.

They ducked into a narrow passage between two garages. Dark. Filthy. A dead end, but it would hide them for a moment. Just a moment to catch their breath.

Ham Duo leaned against a wall, grinning despite the sweat on his face. "You know, this is the most fun I've had since the flamenco dancer incident."

Bill opened his mouth to say something—probably something about how they really needed to hear that story eventually—but the words never came.

Because around the corner, something moved.

A head appeared.

It came slowly at first, then kept coming. The neck stretched, elongated, pushed forward like a snake uncoiling from a basket. A pale face with a mechanical smile, attached to a neck that should not have been that long. Behind it, Bill heard a faint whirring sound. Servos. Motors. Something artificial.

Bill leaned toward Splock and whispered urgently in his ear: "He still doesn't look like a Viking."

Splock's ear twitched. "I am aware."

"Neck's too long for a Viking."

"Viking neck length is not a documented anthropological metric."

"That sound. The whirring. Vikings didn't whir."

"Your grasp of Norse history is improving."

Hastings' head finished extending. Then his shoulders came around the corner. Then the rest of him, unfolding into the alley with movements too smooth to be organic. In his hand, he held Bill's Disruptor.

He smiled. It was a perfect smile. Plastic. Programmed. Wrong.

Bill leaned toward Splock again. "That smile. Not Viking."

"Noted."

"No horned helmet."

"We have established this."

"No beard."

"Vikings had beards. He lacks one. Your point is made."

"No axe."

"I am compiling a comprehensive list."

Hastings raised the Disruptor. His thumb hovered over a button.

Splock's voice cut through the moment: "Bill! His right hand! Look at his right hand!"

Bill looked. The skin on Hastings' wrist caught the light strangely. It gleamed. Metallic. Not skin at all.

Bill leaned toward Splock one last time, his whisper barely audible: "Also, Vikings didn't have robot hands."

"That is an unusually astute observation."

Hastings pressed the button.

The air around them began to shimmer. To pulse. To dissolve.

And from somewhere beneath the doctor's shirt, muffled by fabric but unmistakably present, a thin electronic voice sang:

"Plans made in the nursery can change the course of history. Remember that..."

Bill had time to think that Hastings definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent did not look like a Viking.

Then the world folded in on itself, and the alley snapped back into focus—same graffiti, same garbage cans, same general atmosphere of urban decay.

But something was wrong.

Bill blinked. Looked up at the slice of sky visible between the buildings. It was bright. Harsh. Midday sun beating down instead of the soft evening glow they'd fled.

"I don't understand," he muttered. "It was night. We were running from—"

Splock's ears twitched violently. "Fascinating. Observe the vegetation." He pointed at a tree visible beyond the alley's mouth. "That oak was approximately eight meters tall during our previous temporal iteration. It now exceeds eleven meters. The growth rate suggests a passage of approximately three years."

Bill squinted at the tree. It looked like a tree. Trees grew. This was not news.

"Also," Splock continued, gesturing at the empty lot across the street, "that vacant parcel has been converted into a vehicular storage facility. A parking structure. The construction alone would require—"

"And that." Ham Duo pointed at a wall covered in fresh graffiti. Bold letters declared "Shake the Disease" and "The Singles 81–85" in a style that clearly meant something to someone.

Splock studied the markings with intense concentration. "Shake the disease. The phrasing is problematic. Pathologies cannot be physically agitated. They are conditions, not objects. And 'The Singles 81–85'—the numerical range suggests a temporal span, but 'singles' refers to unmarried individuals. The concept of cataloguing unmarried people by year is statistically peculiar. Unless—" His ears flattened. "Unless this is a roster of available mates by annum. A primitive dating service."

Bill stared at him. "You think that wall is a singles ad?"

"I am hypothesizing. The data is insufficient."

Duo looked around, taking in the changed landscape. "We jumped. He sent us forward. That—what did you call him? The not-Viking?"

"Hastings," Splock supplied. "Doctor Hastings. The Viking comparison, I should note, was always tenuous. His lack of a longship was merely the most obvious—"

"He sent us three years forward," Bill interrupted. "It's 1985 now. That's what the wall means. The numbers. 81 to 85. Years. Not singles."

Splock considered this. "Ah. A temporal marker. That is considerably more logical than my initial interpretation. I formally retract the Viking hypothesis in its entirety. He was never Viking. His neck alone—"

"Can we focus?" Bill patted his pockets. His empty pockets. His very, very empty pockets. "He took my Disruptor. He pressed a button and we—" He looked at Duo. "Check yours."

Duo patted his own clothing. His hand stopped on a solid shape. He pulled out his Disruptor. Intact. Functional. Grinning, he held it up.

Splock performed the same motion. His Disruptor emerged from an interior pocket. Present and accounted for.

They both looked at Bill.

Bill patted himself again, as if the device might have magically reappeared. It hadn't.

"So," he said slowly, "he stole mine. Used it to send us here. And kept it."

"That appears accurate," Splock confirmed.

"The Historian's people have a Disruptor now."

"Yes."

"And we have two."

"Correct."

"And Chewgumma has the fourth somewhere in this city, probably eating something he shouldn't."

"That is also correct."

Bill took a breath. "Okay. We can work with this. We still have two. We still have each other. We still have—" He stopped. "What year did you say it is?"

"I did not say. The graffiti suggests 1985."

"Which means Delia is—"

"Approximately three years old," Splock finished.

Bill processed this. A three-year-old girl carrying the embryo of Alexander the Great. A three-year-old girl who, if the Historian's timeline held, would serve as a living container for another five years before the transfer to her mother.

"We need to see her," he said. "We need to see if anything's changed. If the plan's still on track."

Duo nodded. "The house. We go back to the house. Different day, different year—they won't be expecting us. The cops won't be looking. We're ghosts now."

"Ghosts who don't know how fire escapes work," Bill muttered.

"Speak for yourself. I've never fallen off one."

They emerged from the alley into a city that was both familiar and alien. The same streets. The same buildings. But the people were different—their clothes brighter, their hair bigger, their expressions somehow more aggressive. Music blared from passing cars, tinny and synthetic.

A vehicle rolled past, windows down, speakers thumping with an insistent beat:

"See no evil. Your eyes are blunted. We are the hunters. We are the hunted."

Bill watched it go. "That's... different."

On the sidewalk, a young man in a black T-shirt was explaining something to his friend with great enthusiasm. The shirt bore a name and a declaration: "Alan Wilder is God."

Bill's eyes locked onto the words. "God. That says god. Wilder is god. So Wilder is—" He looked at Splock. "The one the Anti-someone is anti-against?"

Splock studied the shirt. "Alan Wilder. The name is not in my cultural databases. The Gumption's archives contain extensive information on Earth's religious figures, but this individual—" He paused. "Wait. Wilder. Oscar Wilde was a nineteenth-century author. The similarity in nomenclature suggests a possible familial connection. But Oscar Wilde was not divine. He was a writer of considerable wit who—"

"Different guy," Duo said. "I don't know the details, but he seems to be very popular among youth." He paused. "I may have picked up some local data during my... interactions."

"Your sunglasses-stealing interactions?"

"Information-gathering interactions. I multitask."

They walked. The York house was where they'd left it—same brownstone, same neighborhood, same air of prosperous anonymity. But now, in the bright light of a 1985 afternoon, it looked almost ordinary. Almost harmless.

A small figure played on the front lawn.

Bill stopped. Held up a hand. The others froze behind him.

Delia.

She was three now, old enough to walk and run and engage in the mysterious activities of small children. Right now she was crouched over something—a doll, maybe, or some toy. Her dark hair fell across her face as she concentrated on whatever game consumed her attention.

A man walked past on the sidewalk. Business type. Suit. Briefcase. In a moment of absent-mindedness, he fumbled with his wallet—a thick leather fold of cash and cards—and it slipped from his grasp, landing on the grass just feet from where Delia played.

The man kept walking. Didn't notice.

Delia looked up. Watched him go. Then, with movements too quick and too deliberate for a child her age, she snatched the wallet and tucked it behind her back.

Bill leaned toward Splock. "Did you see that?"

"I saw."

"That's not normal. That's—" He searched for a comparison. "That's Chinger behavior. Quick. Opportunistic. Calculating."

Duo nodded slowly. "She's not just a container. She's something else."

Delia had noticed them. Her head turned. Dark eyes studied the three strange figures across the street with an intensity that made Bill uncomfortable. Then, slowly, she stood and walked toward the low fence that separated the yard from the sidewalk.

She stopped at the fence. Looked at Bill. Looked at Duo. Her gaze settled on Splock.

On his ears.

She stared at them with open fascination. Her head tilted. One small hand reached up, as if to touch something similar on herself, found nothing, and dropped.

Splock stepped forward. This was his element—communication, analysis, logical exchange of information. He crouched to bring himself closer to her eye level.

"Greetings," he said, his voice carefully modulated. "I am Splock. These are my associates, Bill and Ham Duo. We are—" He paused, selecting words with care. "We are visitors from a future temporal location. We have come to assist you and your family."

Bill's jaw dropped. He mouthed silently: Future?

"—in dealing with certain challenges that may arise from your unique physiological situation. Our intentions are entirely benevolent. We wish to ensure your wellbeing and that of—"

Delia's gaze shifted from Splock's ears to Bill's face. Her small nose wrinkled. Her expression shifted into something that could only be described as profound disdain. She pointed one chubby finger directly at him.

Something gurgled from her mouth. Not words, exactly. But the meaning was unmistakable.

Ugh. Him.

Then she spat.

The glob of saliva arced through the air with surprising precision and landed squarely on Bill's uniform sleeve.

Bill stared at it. The wet spot. The insult. The defilement of military attire.

Duo made a sound like a dying animal. It took Bill a moment to realize he was laughing—silently, violently, his whole body shaking with the effort of not making noise.

"Did you see—" Duo wheezed. "She—she spit on you."

"It's an insult," Bill hissed. "To the uniform. To my honor. In the Space Troopers, that's—that's a challenge. That's blood."

"Out of the mouths of babes," Duo whispered, tears streaming down his face. "She took one look at you and decided you were the one worth spitting on. That's—that's judgment, Bill. That's character assessment."

"I'll show her character—"

"You'll show her nothing. She's three. You just got owned by a toddler."

Delia, satisfied with her work, turned and ran back toward the house. Her small feet pounded on the grass. The stolen wallet was still clutched behind her back, forgotten in the joy of a good spit.

Splock stood slowly, watching her go. Something in his expression shifted.

"Bill," he said quietly. "When she ran—her hand. I observed a reflection. A glint of light."

Bill was still staring at his sleeve. "So?"

"She may have taken something."

Bill looked up. "Taken what? She's three. She steals wallets. That's her thing, apparently."

Splock's hand moved to his pocket. The pocket where his Disruptor was located.

His hand stopped. Pressed. Found nothing.

He patted again. More thoroughly. His expression remained neutral, but his ears flattened completely—a sign of profound internal disturbance.

"The Disruptor," he said. "It is no longer in my possession."

Bill stared at him. Then at the house, where Delia's small form had disappeared through the front door. Then back at Splock.

"She—" A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in Bill's chest. He tried to suppress it. Failed. "She picked your pocket? A three-year-old?"

"Children of this era are apparently more dextrous than anticipated."

"She stole from you. The great logical mind. The master of observation. Taken down by a toddler."

Splock's ears twitched. "The statistical probability of a child of that age executing a successful pocket retrieval without detection is approximately—"

"I don't want to hear statistics." Bill was laughing openly now. "I want to savor this. You, Splock, got robbed by a three-year-old girl who just spit on me. We're losing this war. Badly."

Duo had collapsed against a lamppost, tears streaming. "The look on your face when you patted your pocket—"

"It is not amusing."

"It's hilarious."

Splock drew himself up, dignity intact despite the circumstances. "The child is clearly enhanced. Accelerated. Her cognitive and motor functions exceed normal developmental parameters. This is not a failure of my observational capabilities. This is evidence of the Historian's modifications."

"She's three," Bill repeated, wiping his eyes. "And she made you her bitch."

"Your language is inappropriate."

"My language is celebrating. There's a difference."

Splock's ears remained flat, but something in his posture suggested he was recalculating every assumption he'd made about this mission. About children. About the entire concept of interacting with small humans.

"The Disruptor," he said quietly. "It's in that house now. With them."

Bill's laughter faded. He looked at the brownstone. Somewhere inside, a three-year-old girl was probably showing her parents a shiny new toy she'd found. And her parents—Gene and Karen, whatever they really were—would recognize it.

"We need to get it back," he said.

"That would be optimal."

"Any ideas? Without fire escapes?"

Splock's ears twitched once. Then again. The gears were turning.

"I may have one," he said. "But it requires patience. And a certain amount of—" He paused, searching for the word. "—acting."

Bill looked at Duo. Duo looked at Bill.

"Acting," Bill repeated. "You want us to act."

"I want us to present a credible alternative identity. One that would grant us access to the household without raising suspicion."

"You mean lie."

"In the service of a greater truth, yes."

They were still processing the toddler-heist when a most peculiar procession appeared around the corner.

A blind man was making his way down the sidewalk, tapping ahead with a white cane. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat and the kind of beard that suggested either deep religious conviction or a lifelong bet with a razor. His clothes were dark, his expression placid, his steps careful.

Leading him was a dog.

Calling it a dog was technically accurate but spiritually insufficient. It was a creature of magnificent confusion—a large, shaggy beast with fur the color of a mud puddle that had swallowed a rainbow and regretted it instantly. Patches of brown, tan, black, and something approaching chartreuse clung to its frame in clumps, many of which appeared to be in the process of departing forever. It scratched constantly, pausing every few steps to attack some new itch with a hind leg that moved independently of any known law of physics.

Its tongue hung from its mouth like a wet flag at half-mast. Drool cascaded in continuous streams, forming small puddles on the sidewalk that pedestrians carefully avoided.

The face was the worst part. Eyes that looked in slightly different directions. An expression of pure, unfiltered bewilderment, as if the universe had posed a question and the dog was still trying to figure out what language it was in.

The procession stopped at the York residence.

The dog, with the impeccable timing of chaos agents everywhere, squatted and began to relieve itself directly on the front lawn. A look of transcendent peace crossed its mismatched eyes.

The front door opened.

Counter-Dirk stepped out. He was dressed in an expensive charcoal suit—no puce, no mauve, nothing that would suggest his true nature to the casual observer. But Bill knew. That jaw. That posture. That particular way of standing that said I have tortured men and I keep my cauldron of fried chewing gum well-stocked.

Bill grabbed Splock's arm. "Hide! Get down! If he sees us—"

They crouched behind a parked car.

"He doesn't know we're here," Duo whispered. "We're ghosts, remember?"

"He's Counter-Dirk. He has a sixth sense for—"

On the lawn, something else happened.

The front door burst open again. A small figure shot out like a missile. Delia. She'd spotted the dog.

The dog spotted her.

The blind man's cane waved uselessly. "Ryder? Ryder, where are you going? Ryder, come!"

Ryder was already gone. The dog lunged forward with the kind of joy only animals and fools possess, forgetting entirely that its leash was still attached to its owner. The lead whipped taut, wrapped around the blind man's ankles, and sent him flying into a hedge with a yelp that was surprisingly canine for a human.

Delia shrieked with delight. The dog reached her, and chaos became communion.

Bill watched, his lip curling. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes. Eat her. Eat the little monster. Leave nothing but bones. I'll deny everything."

Splock turned to stare at him. The look on his face was not quite disapproval—it was something more complex, the expression of someone who had just discovered a fundamental flaw in a companion he had previously considered merely limited rather than morally suspect.

"Bill," he said. His voice was quiet. Measured. And then, without warning, he turned to face an empty space beside the parked car—a space where no one stood, where no camera crew lurked, where no audience sat.

But he spoke directly to it anyway.

"Before we continue," Splock announced, "I need to address to the entity that is currently passing this stream of events through itself. The individual known as Bill, the Galactic Hero, has expressed a desire to witness the violent demise of a three-year-old child at the jaws of a canine. This is not acceptable behavior, even taking into account the earlier insult to his uniform's honor. I request that any pregnant children or women of unstable psychological disposition be removed from the vicinity of these proceedings immediately. Frankly speaking, the decision to allow such an event to happen is questionable. We return you now to your regularly scheduled chaos."

Ham Duo stared at him. "Splock. Who in the nine hells are you talking to?"

"The idiot who's handling this material," Splock replied calmly. "Now observe. The situation is developing."

He was right.

On the lawn, Delia had thrown her arms around Ryder's neck. The dog, far from eating her, was engaged in an enthusiastic campaign of facial cleansing. Its enormous tongue swept across her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, depositing enough saliva to irrigate a small farm. The child shrieked and giggled and held on tighter.

Bill's expression shifted from anticipation to horror.

"She's... she's hugging it. It's licking her. She's enjoying it."

Duo elbowed him in the ribs. "Cheer up, soldier. Look at it this way—she just got a bigger dose of spit than you did. The honor of your uniform is restored. If anything, she's more defiled now."

Bill considered this. "That's... actually a fair point."

"Told you. Karma's a bitch. Or in this case, a very confused dog."

The blind man had extracted himself from the hedge. He brushed leaves from his clothing with the dignity of someone pretending this was all part of the plan. Counter-Dirk stood on his porch, arms crossed, watching the scene with an expression that suggested he was calculating how much this was going to cost him.

"Mr. York," the blind man said, approaching with his cane extended. "I am so sorry. Ryder is normally—she has diplomas. Medals. Best guide dog in the city, they said. Today is just—" He gestured vaguely at the universe. "Today is a day."

Counter-Dirk's jaw tightened. Bill could almost hear the thoughts: I have conquered timelines. I have served the Alien Historian. I am raising the vessel of the reborn Alexander. And now a blind man's incontinent mutt is using my lawn as a latrine.

But he said nothing. Because Delia had turned to look at him, still wrapped around the dog, and her face was shining with a joy he had apparently never seen before.

"Daddy," she said. "Can we keep him?"

The dog chose that moment to shake. A cloud of fur and drool erupted into the afternoon air.

Counter-Dirk's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shifted. Bill recognized it—the calculation of a man weighing risks and benefits. The dog was a variable. Variables could be controlled. Or used.

"The gentleman's dog appears to be a working animal," he said carefully. "I doubt he would part with—"

The blind man held up a hand. "You know what? Take him. For a while. I have to go out of town—family business. My sister in Jersey. Can't take Ryder to Jersey. Long story. Bad memories. The chickens—" He shook his head. "Just take him. Please. A week. Two weeks. I'll be back."

Counter-Dirk's eyes narrowed. "You're leaving your guide dog with strangers?"

"He likes your daughter. She likes him. And I've got the cane. I'll manage. The city's not that hard to navigate if you know the bus routes." The blind man was already backing away. "Thank you, Mr. York. You're a lifesaver. A real mensch. Ryder, be good!"

And he was gone, tapping his way down the sidewalk with remarkable speed for a man who'd just abandoned his only navigational aid.

Ryder looked after him with an expression that suggested this was entirely within expectations. Then he turned back to Delia and resumed licking her face.

Bill watched all of this with growing unease. "Did you see that? The way Counter-Dirk looked at the dog? He's already planning something. I know that look. It's the same look he had when he brought out the antelope prods. The cauldron of fried chewing gum is next, mark my words."

Splock was making notes in an imaginary log. "Observation: the child displays affection toward the canine. The canine displays reciprocal affection. This suggests either genuine emotional capacity in both parties or a sophisticated deception on the part of one or both. Probability assessment in progress."

Duo scratched his chin. "That dog is not normal."

"No argument," Bill muttered.

"I mean—look at it. The fur. The eyes. The way it just... accepted being abandoned. That's not a pet. That's a plant."

"A plant?"

"An agent. A spy. Someone's watching through those mismatched eyes. I'd bet my Disruptor on it."

"Just you dare do that! A three-year-old and that non-Viking already have two of ours!"

"Point." Duo paused. "But I still think that dog is trouble."

They watched as Delia led Ryder toward the house, one small hand gripping the fur around his neck. The dog's tail wagged with the enthusiasm of something that had just found its purpose in life. Drool marked their path like breadcrumbs.

Counter-Dirk stood on the porch, watching. His expression was unreadable. But Bill could have sworn he saw the ghost of a smile.

Then the door closed, and the street was quiet again.

They needed a new angle. Literally.

"Front door's out," Duo whispered. "Back yard's a death trap. But look—" He pointed down the block. "The other side. Kitchen windows face that alley. And someone left a curtain open."

They crept along the side of the house, keeping low, moving between garbage cans and recycling bins like the professional infiltrators they absolutely were not. The alley smelled of rotten vegetables and cat urine—an improvement, Bill decided, over the general aroma of 1982 Brooklyn.

A window. Ground level. Kitchen. And through a gap in the cheap yellow curtains, a view directly into the domestic heart of the York residence.

Bill pressed his face to the glass.

Karen York stood at the kitchen counter. She was attractive in that particular way that screamed money and maintenance—perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect posture. Next to her, much too close for a routine house call, stood Dr. Hastings.

The man who was definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent not a Viking. Bill's brain supplied the emphasis automatically now.

Hastings' hand rested on the counter near hers. Not touching, but close. The kind of proximity that suggested intimacy without quite crossing a line. He leaned in to say something. She tilted her head, listening. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth. She didn't move away.

Bill pulled back. "They're—they're doing that thing."

"What thing?" Duo whispered, jostling for position.

"The close thing. The not-touching-but-wanting-to-touch thing. I've seen it before, on base, when officers' spouses got too friendly with—" He stopped. "She's married to Counter-Dirk. And she's doing the close thing with Not-Viking."

Duo peeked. His eyebrows rose. "Well, well. House calls. And here I thought medicine was boring."

"What?"

"House calls. Doctor visiting. Making sure the patient is... comfortable." He waggled his eyebrows.

Bill stared at him. The meaning took a moment to penetrate. When it did, his face underwent several contortions. "You think—they're—with Counter-Dirk in the same house?"

"Counter-Dirk is in the front of the house. Kitchen's in the back. Big difference."

"I don't think that's how walls work."

"Walls are suggestions, Bill. Haven't you learned anything?"

Behind them, a noise.

Not loud. A soft thump, like something being set down. Then the rustle of clothing. Then—footsteps.

They turned.

Counter-Dirk stood five feet away, a bag of garbage in one hand, his expression frozen in the act of processing something his brain couldn't quite accept. Three strangers. Pressed against his kitchen window. In broad daylight.

His mouth opened.

Bill's mouth opened too. Nothing came out. His brain, never the fastest processor, scrambled for an explanation—any explanation—that would make this situation normal.

"Ship," he heard himself say. "Gumption. Crashed. We're looking for—" His hand waved vaguely at the sky. "Wreckage. Debris. You know. Ship stuff."

Counter-Dirk's gaze followed the gesture. Upward. Toward the empty blue sky where nothing flew, nothing crashed, nothing had ever happened.

It was the stupidest possible answer. It shouldn't have worked at all. But their opponent took the bait. And they immediately rushed forward.

Through the alley, around the corner, across a street, through someone's yard, over a fence, into a park. They ran until their lungs burned and their legs screamed and the York residence was nothing but a distant memory.

Bill collapsed onto a bench. "Did we—did we lose him?"

Splock sat beside him, breathing with the measured control of someone who refused to acknowledge physical exertion. "We appear to have evaded immediate pursuit. However, the fact of our observation has been established. Counter-Dirk now knows we are in this temporal vicinity. That significantly increases operational risk."

Duo dropped onto the bench on Bill's other side, grinning like a maniac. "I think it's great. Now we've got a friend in the house."

"A friend?" Bill wheezed. "He caught us peeking in his windows. That's not how you make friends."

"Sure it is. Neighborly interest. Community watch. We're concerned citizens."

"He knows me, Duo. From the Counter-Gumption. From the antelope prods and the cauldron of fried chewing gum. He's not going to forget that."

Splock raised a hand. "Before we continue this debate, I have something to show you."

He pulled out his tablet—the same device he'd used to intercept Earth's primitive electromagnetic signals. His fingers moved across its surface. The screen flickered, then resolved into an image.

A living room. Modestly furnished. Expensive couch. Coffee table with magazines. And on the floor, Delia York sat with Ryder the dog.

The picture was slightly fisheye, slightly grainy—clearly from a concealed lens.

Bill stared. "Is that—did you—"

"I deployed a microsurveillance unit while we were at the window," Splock said calmly. "Adhered to the frame. Passive power. Undetectable by contemporary technology."

"When? I didn't see you do anything."

"You were preoccupied with the kitchen tableau. It was a simple deployment."

On the screen, Delia was absorbed in her new companion. Ryder sat before her, tongue hanging, drool pooling on the expensive carpet. Every few seconds, the dog would lean forward and lick her face with the enthusiasm of something that had found its life's purpose. Delia giggled and pushed him away, but always pulled him back.

"She actually likes that thing," Duo observed.

"Children form attachments to unlikely creatures," Splock said. "It is a documented phenomenon."

The kitchen door opened. Dr. Hastings emerged, adjusting his sleeve. Behind him, briefly visible, Karen York stood with an expression that suggested she was composing herself. Slightly flushed. Slightly awkward. The look of someone who'd been caught doing something she shouldn't, even if no one was catching.

Hastings walked through the living room. His path took him past the dog.

He stopped.

His gaze fell on Ryder. Held. Something flickered in those too-smooth eyes—a microexpression that might have been recognition, might have been calculation, might have been something else entirely. The dog looked back at him. Drooled. Scratched.

For a long moment, neither moved.

Then Hastings continued toward the front door. His foot came down—

Directly on the window frame where Splock's bug was hidden.

The screen went black.

Duo swore. A long, complicated string of words in at least four languages.

Splock's ears flattened. His expression remained neutral, but something in his posture suggested deep, personal offense. "He stepped on it."

"Accidentally?" Bill asked.

Splock considered. "The probability of a random foot placement precisely on a one-centimeter surveillance device is approximately one in seventeen thousand. The probability of deliberate targeting given his earlier reaction to the canine—" He paused. "Insufficient data."

"Your bug got stepped on." Bill's voice cracked. He was trying not to laugh. Failing. "The great Splock. Master of logic. Prince of surveillance. Brought down by a shoe."

"It was a calculated deployment."

"He stepped on it. Just—crunch. Game over."

"The loss of one monitoring unit does not constitute mission failure."

"No, no, it's beautiful." Bill was openly laughing now. "This is the guy who gave me lectures. Hours of lectures. Thurlow-Yonce methodology. Jenkins Correlation. Farthingale Protocols. And a guy with a robot foot just—squish."

Splock's ears twitched. "Your amusement is noted and will be filed appropriately."

"File it under 'Reasons Bill Is Never Letting This Go.'"

Duo leaned back on the bench, grinning at the sky. "So we're zero for three. Lost one Disruptor to a toddler. Lost surveillance to a shoe. And Counter-Dirk knows we're here."

"That summarizes our current status accurately," Splock admitted.

Bill wiped his eyes. "And this is the guy who wrote academic articles about surveillance."

"I did not write articles. I delivered lectures. They were well-received."

"By who? People who'd never seen a shoe?"

Realizing his question would remain unanswered, Bill began furiously wiping at the stain on his sleeve. It had dried now, a small white spot against the olive-drab fabric that seemed to glow with its own accusatory light. Every time he looked at it, he heard the toddler's gurgle of contempt.

"You know," Ham Duo said, nudging him with an elbow, "you could think of that as a medal. A badge of honor. The first space trooper in history to be spat on by a potential Antichrist vessel. That's got to count for something."

"It counts as an insult to the uniform."

"The uniform's had worse. Look at that tear from the fence. And that stain from—what was that, garbage juice?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"No, no, this is character building. In twenty years, you'll look back on this and—"

A flicker of light caught Duo's eye. He turned.
A television set stood in the corner of the park. Not on a bench or a table—just standing there, plugged into nothing, its cord trailing away into grass that showed no sign of an outlet. It flickered to life.

On the screen, a city burned. Skyscrapers toppled. Tanks fired uselessly at something enormous, something scaly, something with teeth the size of cars and a roar that shook the speakers.

A giant lizard. Crushing buildings. Breathing fire. Eating people who were too slow to run.

Bill was on his feet instantly. "Chingers! They're here! They've—they've grown! They've figured out how to—" He grabbed Splock's arm. "How big do Chingers get? I thought they were seven inches! That thing is seven hundred feet!"

Splock's ears were flat against his head. His complexion had taken on a distinctly pale cast. "That is not a Chinger. Chingers are reptilian but they do not—they cannot—the scale is wrong. The biology is—" He stopped. Swallowed. "Unless the Alien Historian has accessed the Mesozoic era. Retrieved a specimen. Brought it forward. Modified it."

"A dinosaur," Duo breathed. "He's got a dinosaur."

"Possibly. The temporal mechanics would be complex but not impossible. The energy requirements alone—"

"If we have to fight that thing," Duo said, "I want to formally state that I am not qualified. My skills are in infiltration, theft, and occasionally piano. Giant lizard combat was not in the job description."

Bill wasn't listening. He was pacing, muttering, gesturing at the screen. "I knew it. I knew the lizards were trouble. First the seven-inch ones, now this. It's a conspiracy. It's always been a conspiracy. They're probably related. Distant cousins. The little ones spy for the big ones. The big ones—"

He stopped.

His eyes narrowed.

"Wait."

Duo looked at him. "Wait what?"

"That thing." Bill pointed at the television. "Where did it come from? How is it plugged in? What's it doing in the middle of a park?"

The question hung in the air.

And then the world answered.

A spotlight snapped on. Not a small one—a massive, theatrical searchlight, the kind used for movie premieres or prison escapes. It blazed directly into their faces, blinding them, even though the afternoon sun was still bright overhead.

Bill threw up an arm. "What the—where is that coming from? There's nothing there!"

But there was something there.

A figure emerged from behind the light. Tall. Well-built. Moving with that too-smooth, too-fluid grace that they'd seen before.

Dr. Hastings.

His neck elongated as he walked, then retracted, then elongated again—a nervous tic or a deliberate display, it was impossible to tell. The servos whirred with each movement.

In his hands, he carried two Disruptors.

Bill recognized his immediately. The scuffs from the banana peel. The faint discoloration where fruit residue had marred the casing. And—was that a spit stain? Right next to the F1 key?

The other Disruptor was Splock's. It looked worse. Crumbs clung to its surface—cookie crumbs, Bill's nose told him. And something else. A smudge. Reddish. Waxy.

Lipstick.

Ham Duo squinted at it. Then his face split into a grin.

"Well, well, well," he said. "Look at that. The toddler's got a crush. Lipstick on the Disruptor. She's marking her territory. Very romantic. Very 'I would kiss the sand you walked on.'"

Bill stared at him. "What?"

"Old Earth expression. Lovers say things like that. 'I would kiss the ground you walk on.' She kissed the Disruptor. She kissed his Disruptor." Duo pointed at Splock. "The three-year-old is in love with pointy-ears. This is the best mission ever."

Splock's ears twitched violently. "That is not—the residue could be from any number of sources. Lipstick is not definitive proof of—"

"It's proof," Duo insisted. "She stole it, she kissed it, she kept it under her pillow. She's going to marry you when she grows up."

"Children do not marry strangers they have met once."

"You don't know that. You don't know anything about love. You're from Fortinbras."

Splock opened his mouth to argue, but Hastings chose that moment to speak.

His voice was... wrong.

What came out was not quite a voice.

"—love!" said a baritone, slightly warbled, backed by synthesizers that sounded like children's toys being fed through a malfunctioning blender.

Hastings frowned. Adjusted something in his throat.

"What's the..." Another fragment, spoken by the same voice. Synthesizers swelled. A beat tried to establish itself.

He cleared his throat—a sound like gravel being fed through a woodchipper.

"I have come..." he suddenly began in a deep bass voice, completely unlike the baritone that had preceded him.

"—not sure, you see..." he sang again in the same voice, accompanied by synthesizers.

Hastings' eye twitched. He slapped the side of his own neck. The whirring intensified.

"To destroy you," he muttered in a bass voice.

"I've never..." the baritone countered.

Bill blinked. "Did he just—"

"Shh." Duo held up a hand. "He's monologuing. Let him monologue."

Hastings continued speaking, apparently unaware that his voice was distorting, becoming either a bass or a baritone with the musical background. "The child is... what's the... secure. The Disruptors are... not sure, you see... mine now. You have no hope of—"

The voice cut out. A burst of static. Then, clearly, a full musical phrase:

"Pam-param-pam-pam... The meaning of..."

Hastings looked down at himself, confused. He tapped his throat. The music stopped. Resumed. Stopped again.

"Technical difficulties," he said, his voice almost normal for a moment. Then: "I've never..."

"LOOOOOVE!" The final fragment boomed across the park, accompanied by a triumphant arpeggio of bubblegum synth.

Bill had heard enough.

"That's it," he announced. "I've had it. I've been chased, arrested, court-martialed, spit on, and I've had it with this guy. I've had it with his neck, I've had it with his not-Vikingness, I've had it with his stupid voice that can't decide if it's talking or singing." He took a step forward. "I'm going to—"

Hastings laughed.

It was not a good laugh. It was the kind of laugh that villains in bad movies attempt when they want to seem menacing but only succeed in sounding like they have respiratory problems. It went "Mwa ha ha" but with a glitch in the middle that turned it into "Mwa—(what's the...)—ha ha."

While he was laughing, Splock began to move. Slowly. Incrementally. Edging around the side of the bench, trying to get closer.

Hastings noticed.

His neck extended six inches in Splock's direction. His eyes tracked the movement with mechanical precision. And without looking away from the creeping Nocturnian, his thumbs pressed both F1 keys simultaneously.

The air began to shimmer.

"No no no no—" Bill lunged forward.

He grabbed Hastings' arm—the one holding Bill's own Disruptor—and yanked with all the strength the Space Troopers had beaten into him during basic training.

Something tore.

Not flesh. Not exactly. It was more like the sound of very expensive tailoring giving way under extreme stress. A piece of Hastings' forearm peeled back, revealing what lay beneath.

Metal tendons. Fiber-optic filaments. And there, nestled among the circuitry, a row of vacuum tubes that glowed with warm amber light—the kind Bill's grandfather had told him about, from the before-times, when machines were big and slow and needed to warm up before they worked.

Hastings looked at his exposed arm. His face registered something that might have been annoyance. The same expression a person might wear when they discover a tear in their favorite jacket.

He opened his mouth to speak.

Nothing came out. Just static. A faint whine. Then—

"—pam-param-pam-pam, the meaning of..."

His vocal circuits had given up entirely.

Bill stared at the glowing tubes, the sparking wires, the whole impossible anatomy of a creature that was not a Viking, was not a doctor, was not anything they had ever encountered.

"Bill!" Duo screamed. "Let go! The vortex—"

Bill looked up. The air around them was twisting, folding, becoming something else. He was still holding Hastings' arm. Still gripping the exposed metal and glass.

He let go.

Too late.

The temporal vortex grabbed them all—Bill, Splock, Duo—and yanked them skyward. The park dissolved. The city dissolved. Hastings' annoyed face dissolved into a swirl of color and noise.

A second passed. Or five years. Temporal physics was never Bill's strong suit.

They hit the ground hard—a tangle of limbs, torn foliage, and muttered curses. Bill's face planted directly into a rhododendron bush, and his first instinct, honed by years of military survival training, was to eat whatever was in his mouth.

He chewed.

Leaves. Dirt. Something that crunched and tasted vaguely of fertilizer.

Ham Duo extracted himself from a rose bush with remarkable dignity for a man who now had thorns in places thorns should never go. He patted his pockets. His Disruptor was still there. He breathed a sigh of relief that turned into a grumble.

"That not-Viking has some nerve," he muttered, brushing leaves from his shoulders. "Using my own equipment against me. Equipment I built. With my own hands. With molybdenum I had to bribe three different spaceport officials to get. Do you know how hard it is to find grade-four molybdenum in this quadrant? And he just—" He made a vague gesture. "—presses buttons. Like he owns the place."

Splock was already on his feet, meticulously removing invisible dust from his jumpsuit. His tablet emerged from an interior pocket. He tapped it. A shrill electronic ticking filled the air—the kind of noise designed to be annoying, the kind that made you want to throw the device into the nearest body of water.

"We have ninety minutes," Splock announced.

Bill spat out a mouthful of vegetation. "What? Ninety minutes until what?"

"Until the temporal window closes. Until the Galaxy stops waiting for us to solve its problems. Until—" He paused, consulting his tablet. "Until we run out of time. Approximately."

Ham Duo stared at him. "Since when do you do deadlines? You're the guy who takes three hours to explain why you're going to take five minutes to do something. What happened to 'logical progression of events'? What happened to 'the mission proceeds at its own pace'?"

Splock's ears twitched. "I have conducted an empirical analysis of heroic narratives across seventeen galaxies. The data is conclusive: good triumphs only when operating under a clearly defined temporal constraint. Without a deadline, heroes meander. They explore subplots. They develop feelings for local inhabitants. They—" He glanced at Bill. "—eat shrubbery."

"That's not—" Bill started.

"Additionally," Splock continued, his voice taking on a lecturing tone, "we have arrived in 1990. The final year of the decade. The climax of the Historian's timetable. It seemed... appropriate to impose a structure that reflects the cultural milieu. Ninety minutes. A dramatic limit. A countdown." He paused. "I thought it was funny."

Bill's face went through several colors. "You—you gave us a deadline because you thought it would be funny?"

"The comedic potential of a ticking clock is well-established in narrative theory."

"You pointy-eared bastard! We're running through time and space, being chased by not-Vikings and toddler pickpockets, and you're—you're doing bits?"

"I prefer to think of it as enhancing the dramatic structure."

Bill lunged for him. Duo caught his arm.

"Easy, soldier. He's right about one thing—1990 is here. Look."

He pointed. Beyond the hedge, the York house stood exactly as they remembered it. But the details had changed. The lawn was immaculate—perfectly trimmed, geometrically precise, the kind of grass that looked like it had been measured with calipers.

Bill forgot his anger for a moment. "Who does the gardening in this family? Counter-Dirk? The not-Viking? Because that's not normal lawn care. That's obsessive. That's—"

A gust of wind whipped past them. A newspaper, caught in some urban current, sailed over the hedge and smacked against the fence. It hung there, flapping, its front page visible to all.

The headline screamed:

"TALKING BEAR ELUDES POLICE FOR EIGHT YEARS!"

Below it, a blurry photograph showed a familiar furry figure racing across the Brooklyn Bridge, one paw raised in what might have been a wave or might have been a rude gesture—it was impossible to tell at that resolution.

Ham Duo stared at the image. A slow grin spread across his face.

"Chewgumma," he breathed. "He's alive. He's—" He squinted at the photo. "He's having the time of his life, by the look of it."

Splock examined the paper. "Dated three months ago. The trail is cold. And—" His ears flattened. "This is problematic."

He pointed at the streetlight beside them. And the one across the street. And the fence. And the garbage can.

Campaign posters covered everything.

"GENE YORK — YOUR MAN IN WASHINGTON!" the signs proclaimed, accompanied by a professionally airbrushed image of Counter-Dirk smiling in a way that suggested he had never tortured anyone in his life. His teeth were too white. His suit was too perfect. Everything about the image screamed politician in a language that transcended species.

Bill's face darkened.

He stared at the posters. At that smile. At that suit. At the sheer, overwhelming confidence of the man who had once threatened him with antelope prods and a cauldron of fried chewing gum.

His fists clenched.

His breathing quickened.

His jaw tightened until his teeth creaked.

"That," he hissed, "is a class enemy."

Splock blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Look at him! Posing there! Pretending to be one of the people! He's a lawyer! He's rich! He probably owns—" Bill gestured wildly at the neighborhood, "—multiple suits! And he wants to go to Washington? Washington is where the government is! The people who make the rules that keep people like him on top and people like me—" He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. "—chewing leaves in bushes!"

Duo exchanged a glance with Splock. "Is he okay?"

"Class rage," Splock observed. "A common emotional response among agrarian societies encountering political propaganda. His home planet, Phigerinadon II, has a history of aristocratic oppression. The posters are triggering a conditioned response."

"I know what it is! I'm from a farm!" Bill was pacing now, still staring at the posters. "My mother wrote me letters! On edible paper! One of them turned into a VOTE FOR HONEST DEER banner when I put it in soup! I had to eat cardboard because she bought the cheap kind! And this guy—" He pointed at Gene York's perfect smile. "This guy probably has custom stationery!"

Duo squinted at him. "You're mad about stationery?"

"I'm mad about injustice! About the system! About—" He stopped. Looked at the poster again. His expression shifted.

"You know what?" he said quietly. "I'm going to eat this."

He grabbed the poster and tore it off the lamppost. He folded it carefully. Then he bit into it.

Paper. Ink. The faint chemical taste of 1990s printing technology.

He chewed.

Swallowed.

"It's not even good cardboard," he said sadly. "Mother would be ashamed."

Duo watched this display with the fascination of a naturalist observing a rare species. "You know," he said, "you react to political advertising like a bull to a red flag. It's almost beautiful."

"Shut up."

"No, I mean it. Very passionate. Very—" He searched for the right word. "—feral. But I have to admit, these posters are tacky. Really tacky. The only thing I've seen that competes with them is—" He paused, a memory surfacing. "There was this planet. Can't remember the name. But they had this neon billboard. Huge. Blinking. It said 'DUKE NUKEM MUST DIE!' in letters ten feet high. Stayed up for years. No one ever explained what Duke Nukem did to deserve it."

Bill stopped chewing. "Who's Duke Nukem?"

"Some guy. Super-agent type. Fought aliens. Lot of lizards, now that I think about it. Big guns. Big muscles. Always had a one-liner ready." Duo looked Bill up and down. "Come to think of it, he looked a bit like you."

Bill straightened. "Really?"

"Same build. Same general attitude. Same—" Duo paused, choosing his words carefully. "—unfortunate relationship with extraterrestrial reptiles."

"Unfortunate relationship?"

"Well, you know. The Chingers. The alligator foot. The—" He gestured vaguely at Bill's left arm. "The hand situation."

Bill looked down at his hands. His right hand. His other right hand. The one that was supposed to be a left hand but had never quite gotten the memo.

"At least he had two normal hands," Duo added cheerfully. "And I don't think he ever had foot problems. Definitely never grew an alligator foot. Probably never got court-martialed either."

Bill looked at the crumpled poster in his hands. At the perfect smile of Gene York. At his own mismatched limbs.

"I hate this century," he said.

A flash of movement caught their attention. The front door of the York residence burst open, and a small tornado erupted onto the lawn.

Delia.

Eight years old now, all gangly limbs and dark hair that cascaded past her shoulders like a waterfall of ink. Her dress was—there was no polite word for it—alarmingly short for a child her age. Red. Frilly. The kind of garment that would have caused Bill's mother to reach for a shawl and a wooden spoon.

In her arms, she carried a bundle. A baby. Pink-cheeked, bald, blowing spit bubbles with the enthusiastic concentration of someone who had recently discovered this new hobby.

Alexander.

The child destined to be... something. Bill still wasn't clear on the theology.

Delia's eyes found Splock immediately. They widened. Her lips curved into a smile that no eight-year-old should have been able to produce—a smile that suggested experience, knowledge, and intentions that would have made a prison warder uncomfortable.

She drifted toward the fence. Her hips moved in a way that hips should not move at that age. It was deeply, profoundly wrong.

"Oh," she said, her voice carrying notes that belonged in a smoky lounge rather than a suburban lawn. "You have such interesting ears. Are they real? Can I touch them?"

Splock took a step backward. His ears flattened against his head—a defensive posture.

"That would be inappropriate," he said. "I am a Fortinbrasian. My ears are sensory organs. They are not for tactile examination by minors."

"Ooh, a sensory organ." Delia's eyes sparkled. "What do they sense? Can they sense... me?"

Ham Duo made a sound like a dying engine. He had one hand clamped over his mouth, and tears were streaming down his face. He elbowed Bill in the ribs.

"She's got a type," he wheezed. "Pointy-eared. Logical. Emotionally unavailable. This kid's gonna be trouble when she grows up."

Bill shushed him, but he was grinning too. The little monster who had spit on him, who had stolen Splock's Disruptor and kissed it, was now trying to seduce the same target. It was cosmic justice.

His gaze drifted to the baby.

Alexander gurgled. His face—impossibly young, impossibly innocent—creased into a wide, toothless grin. Tiny hands reached out toward Bill, grasping at the air, making grabby motions that bypassed all rational thought and went straight for something primal in Bill's hindbrain.

"Oh," Bill breathed. "Oh, look at him. Look at the little—he's so—"

He reached toward the fence, toward the baby, his expression melting into something unrecognizable.

Splock's voice cut through the moment. "Bill. You are experiencing a biochemical reaction designed to ensure the survival of offspring. Human infants are genetically programmed to trigger protective responses in adults. This does not indicate that the infant in question is benevolent, nor does it negate its potential role as an eschatological figure."

Bill wasn't listening. "He smiled at me. A real smile. Look at those tiny fingers."

"He could be smiling because he recognizes you as a future obstacle to his rise. Infant expressions are not reliable indicators of moral alignment."

"He's making bubbles. Cute bubbles."

"Saliva mixed with swallowed air. A purely mechanical process."

"You're a robot," Bill muttered. "You have no soul."

"I am a Fortinbrasian. There is a difference."

"Could've fooled me."

Delia, apparently deciding that Splock was a lost cause, shifted her attention. She moved closer to Bill—too close, invading personal space with the confidence of a born manipulator. Her head tilted. Her eyes went wide and innocent.

"Do you like children, mister?" she asked.

Bill's face went red. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I—that is—I'm a Galactic Hero. I don't have time for—I mean, children are fine, I suppose, but—"

Behind him, Duo was making gestures. Obscene ones. The kind that suggested Bill was about to be arrested for thoughtcrime.

"A likely story," Delia purred. Or tried to purr. It came out slightly garbled, as if she'd heard the concept described but never actually heard a cat.

"Delia!" A woman's voice cut across the lawn. Karen York stood on the porch, arms crossed, expression unreadable. "Inside. Now."

Delia's face flickered—a momentary loss of control, a flash of the child beneath the mask. Then she smiled, turned, and walked toward the house. At the door, she paused. Looked back. Winked at Splock.

The door closed.

Splock made a note on his tablet. "Subject exhibits signs of premature sexual maturation combined with what appears to be a predatory instinct. This may be a side effect of the embryo's presence, or a deliberate modification by the Historian. Further observation required."

Bill wiped his forehead. "That kid is terrifying."

"You just said she was cute."

"I said the baby was cute. Not her. Her I want to put in a box and launch into space."

A new figure appeared on the sidewalk.

She was walking toward them with the unhurried grace of someone who had nowhere to be and all day to get there. A woman in her thirties, with a neat bob haircut and far too many crystals hanging from her neck. In one hand, she carried a canvas bag stuffed with what appeared to be dried herbs.

Bill froze.

There was something about her. Something familiar. The way she moved. The way she held her head. The way—

Splock's voice was quiet. "'Wasn't exactly Illyria.' A classic presentation. Like Tesora at Messer Dimitri's ball. The same essence, but in a different body. Clean memory slate. No recollection of previous incarnations."

Bill took a step forward. "Illyria? Is that—"

Splock's hand on his arm stopped him. "She does not know you. She does not know any of us. To approach would be to confuse her and potentially alert the household."

The woman—Illyria-adjacent, Illyria-shaped, Illyria-in-all-but-memory—walked past them without a glance. Her eyes were fixed on the York residence. On something moving in the yard.

Ryder.

The dog had been dozing in a patch of sun, his multicolored fur rising and falling with each labored breath. At the woman's approach, his head lifted. His mismatched eyes focused. His tail began to wag.

He launched himself at her with the enthusiasm of a creature who had never learned restraint.

The woman laughed—a sound that made Bill's chest ache with its familiarity—and bent to pet him. Ryder writhed with joy, pressing his massive body against her legs, leaving streaks of drool on her skirt.

He shook his head.

A spray of saliva arced through the air like a fountain of pestilence. Most of it landed on the grass. Some on the woman's dress. One single, perfectly aimed droplet flew directly into her open mouth.

She gagged.

Coughed.

Made a sound like a drowning cat.

Her eyes rolled up in her head. Her body went rigid. And then, with the slow dignity of a felled tree, she collapsed onto the lawn.

Ryder looked down at her. His tongue emerged. He licked her face. Once. Twice. With increasing enthusiasm.

She did not move.

Ham Duo watched the scene unfold with the expression of a man who had just witnessed something that would require decades of therapy to process.

"The dog," he said slowly, "just killed a psychic with its spit. I have been across the galaxy. I have seen things that would break lesser men. But I have never—" He paused. "That is a new one. Definitely a new one."

The front door burst open again. Karen York flew onto the lawn, her face a mask of maternal panic mixed with suburban horror—the kind of horror that comes from finding dead childcare on your grass.

"Miss Jo! Miss Jo!" She dropped to her knees beside the prone woman, shaking her shoulders with increasing desperation. "Wake up! Please wake up! The children—I have appointments—you can't just—"

Miss Jo did not wake up. Miss Jo was, to use the technical term, extremely deceased.

Karen looked up, wild-eyed, searching for help. For an ambulance. For anyone.

What she got was a old man with a beard that could have nested small birds, shuffling into the yard from the street. He wore what appeared to be a burlap sack with arm holes, and clutched to his chest a wooden model of something that looked vaguely boat-shaped. Tiny carved animals spilled from its interior as he shook it at the sky.

"Forty days and forty nights!" he bellowed. "I warned you! I built the ark! Did you listen? No! You laughed! You pointed! You said 'Crazy old man with a boat fixation'! Well, who's laughing now? The flood is coming! The animals are restless! The—" He noticed the tiny giraffe that had fallen to the ground. "Oh dear."

He bent to retrieve it, nearly toppling over in the process.

Bill watched this with the expression of someone who had long ago given up on understanding anything. "Local crazy," he decided. "Hired by a pet store. Promotional thing. Zoo opening, maybe."

Splock's ears twitched. "I am not certain. The garment appears authentically ancient. The model is consistent with descriptions of the Noah's Ark narrative from Earth's religious texts. It is possible the Historian has extracted another temporal refugee."

"Noah? Like, boat Noah? Animals two-by-two Noah?"

"That is the reference, yes."

"He's real?"

"Apparently."

"And he's here. In Brooklyn. Shouting about floods."

"The Historian's temporal extractions do not appear to follow logical selection criteria."

A sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. The door opened.

Counter-Dirk emerged.

He moved with the calm of a man who had just returned from a successful business meeting and expected the universe to arrange itself around his convenience. His suit was immaculate. His hair was perfect. His expression suggested that finding a dead woman and a ranting prophet on his front lawn was mildly annoying but not outside the range of normal experience.

He surveyed the scene. The body. The prophet. The prophet's scattered animal collection.

"Get rid of this," he said.

It was unclear whether he meant the corpse or the old man. Possibly both.

The sedan's other door opened.

A woman stepped out. Her back was unnaturally straight—the kind of posture achieved only by military cadets, professional dancers, and people who had been assembled in factories. Her chest was... impressive. Also unnaturally straight. It looked less like anatomy and more like architecture, as if someone had attached two cantaloupes to her ribcage and hoped for the best.

Counter-Dirk gestured toward her with the expansive pride of a man presenting a new appliance. "Karen, this is Lisa Roselli. Our new nanny. For Delia and Alexander."

Lisa smiled. It was a smile that had been practiced. Rehearsed. It reached her lips but not her eyes, which remained flat and watchful.

She walked toward the prophet. Her gait was wrong—too smooth, too mechanical, the hips moving in a way that suggested the operator had read about female locomotion in a manual but never actually observed it.

"Come along, sir," she said, taking Noah's arm with surprising gentleness. "Time for your medication."

Noah pulled back. "I don't need medication! I need a boat! And two of every—"

"Medication first. Boats later." Her voice was soothing. Firm. The voice of someone who had dealt with difficult patients before.

She steered him toward the house. He went reluctantly, still clutching his ark, still muttering about rainfall projections and animal husbandry.

Bill watched them go. Something about Lisa's walk bothered him. It wasn't just mechanical—it was wrong. The wrong shape moving in the wrong way.

"Did you see that?" he whispered. "Her walk. It's not—"

"Not female," Duo agreed. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's a man in a very unconvincing disguise. The kind of disguise you'd get from a catalog that also sells whoopee cushions and fake vomit."

"You think Counter-Dirk hired a drag queen nanny?"

"I think Counter-Dirk hired something. Whether it's a drag queen, a robot, or a very confused actor, I couldn't say."

The front door opened again.

Delia emerged.

She had changed outfits—somehow found time to change outfits—and now wore something that looked like it belonged in a music video that would be banned in several countries. Her hair bounced. Her hips swayed. She walked past the body of Miss Jo without a glance, without a pause, without any indication that she noticed a dead woman on her lawn.

She approached the fence. Her eyes found Splock.

"Uncle with the ears," she purred. "Are you staying? I like your ears. They make something flutter inside me."

Splock's face underwent a series of micro-expressions that no human could have interpreted. His ears flattened. His eyes widened. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.

Then, without warning, he toppled backward onto the grass.

Ham Duo dropped to his knees beside him. "Splock! Splock, are you—" He looked up at Bill, eyes wide with theatrical concern. "The ears. She mentioned the ears. That's his weakness. The one thing that can bring down a Fortinbrasian—a child with a fetish."

Bill rushed over. "Is it the sleeping sickness again? Did it come back?"

Splock's eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow. He looked, to all appearances, dead.

Delia watched from the fence, her expression one of mild curiosity. "Did I do that?"

Bill ignored her. He grabbed Splock's shoulders. "Wake up! We don't have time for this! The clock—"

From the corner of the yard, a new sound intruded. A tinny melody, cheerful and repetitive. An ice cream truck had rounded the corner and was making its way down the street, its rainbow paint job gleaming in the afternoon sun.

Delia's head snapped around.

For a moment, the mask slipped. The precocious seductress vanished, replaced by something simpler. A child. A child who saw ice cream and wanted it.

She ran.

The truck stopped. The vendor—a heavyset man with an apron and the weary expression of someone who had dealt with too many children—opened his window.

Delia pointed at the freezer. Demanded something. The exact words were lost, but the tone was unmistakable: Give me. Free.

The vendor shook his head. Pointed at a sign. Made the universal gesture for money first.

Delia looked at him.

Just looked.

The vendor's hands began to shake. The ice cream cone he was holding—destined for some other child, some other customer—slipped from his fingers and hit the ground. Then the bucket behind him tipped over. Then he tipped over, collapsing against the side of his truck with a look of profound confusion on his face.

Delia reached into the freezer, extracted a brightly colored frozen treat, and walked back toward the house without a backward glance.

Ham Duo finally found his voice. He whistled, long and low.

"That kid," he said, "has a real gift for persuasion."

He reached down and slapped Splock across the face. Once. Twice.

Splock's eyes snapped open. He sat up, adjusted his jumpsuit, and resumed scanning the scene as if nothing had happened.

Bill glared at him. "You faked it. You actually faked unconsciousness to avoid talking to a child."

"Not faked. Protective reflex. Fortinbrasians possess an involuntary response to extreme social awkwardness—we appear to expire. It discourages further interaction."

"You played dead."

"I rendered myself temporarily unresponsive. It is a documented biological mechanism."

"Because a little girl flirted with you."

"Her intentions were unclear. Her pheromone output was irregular. I took appropriate precautions."

Duo was still wheezing. "Best. Mission. Ever."

A deafening crash erupted from inside the house. The front door burst open, and Lisa stumbled out, her perfect hair now a disaster of loose curls and dangling curlers. Her expression was pure panic—the first genuine emotion they'd seen on her face.

Behind her, Noah emerged.

Walking was generous. He staggered, listing badly to port, his legs moving in directions that suggested no coordination with his inner ear. On his head, improbably, impossibly, sat a piano.

A small one. An upright. The kind that might have lived on a second-floor landing or in a modest music room. How it had gotten onto his head was a question for architects and theologians. That it stayed there was a miracle of poor design.

Noah took two steps. Three. His eyes crossed.

The piano, with the solemn dignity of an object fulfilling its destiny, played a final chord—a discordant jangle of keys pressed by the weight of prophecy and gravity—as Noah collapsed.

The instrument hit the grass with a thump that echoed through the neighborhood.

Ham Duo stared. His face went through several expressions: confusion, recognition, and then a soft, unexpected wistfulness.

"A piano," he murmured. "A real piano. Just like—" He trailed off, a distant look in his eyes. "The ball at Messer Dimitri's. The candlelight. The audience. Me at the keys, playing little light piano music. Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings. My finest hour."

Bill looked at him. "You're nostalgic. At a time like this."

"A man can have feelings."

"Since when?"

"Apparently since I saw a piano fall on a prophet. It's a weird trigger."

Splock's chronometer beeped aggressively. He ignored it, watching the house.

The front door opened again.

Dr. Hastings stepped out.

He was dressed in a jacket now—a nice one, expensive, the kind that said "I have disposable income and opinions about wine." One hand was tucked casually into his pocket. The other hung at his side, fingers relaxed.

He surveyed the scene. The dead psychic. The dead prophet. The piano. Lisa, still twitching with panic.

Then his gaze shifted. Directly to the bushes where three future beings were trying very hard to be invisible.

He smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

And then he gestured. A clear, unmistakable come here motion. The kind of gesture that said "I see you, I've always seen you, and pretending otherwise is just wasting everyone's time."

Bill shook his head. "No. No way. I am not walking into that house because a not-Viking with a glitchy voice box told me to. That's insane. That's—"

Splock's chronometer beeped. Loudly. Obnoxiously. The sound seemed designed specifically to burrow into Bill's skull and set up permanent residence.

"Seventy-three minutes," Splock said.

"I don't care!"

"It is counting down whether you enter the house or not."

"I'd rather spend them here. In this bush. Eating leaves."

"That is your prerogative. However, the statistical probability of resolving our mission from inside a hedge is approximately zero."

Bill opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. Opened it again.

"You're enjoying this," he said.

"I am experiencing a mild satisfaction at watching you struggle with basic logic. Whether that constitutes 'enjoyment' is a matter for Fortinbrasian philosophers."

Hastings gestured again. His smile widened.

Duo clapped Bill on the shoulder. "Come on, soldier. If he wanted us dead, he could have done it already. He's curious. We're curious. Let's go be curious together."

Bill looked at his friends. At the house. At the chronometer, which was now making sounds that seemed designed to attract predators.

He went.

The York residence was exactly what you'd expect from a family of successful lawyers—expensive furniture, tasteful art, the kind of decorative objects that cost more than Bill's annual salary and served no purpose except to be expensive. The living room alone could have housed a small farm on Phigerinadon II.

Counter-Dirk sat in an armchair, a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking exactly like a man who had just watched chaos unfold and found it entertaining. Karen occupied the couch beside him, holding Alexander in her arms. The baby was calm now, staring at the ceiling with an intensity that suggested deep thoughts or gas.

Delia was on the sofa. Legs swinging. Ice cream smeared around her mouth—the ice cream she had, for all practical purposes, murdered a man to obtain. She looked perfectly content.

Lisa entered behind them, taking a position against the wall. Her face had returned to its default setting: blank, watchful, wrong.

Hastings followed, closing the door.

His voice, when he spoke, was different. Quieter. Hoarse, like a man with a cold. The glitching was gone—replaced by something more controlled, more deliberate.

"I know who you are," he said. "Bill. Galactic Hero. Former occupant of the Quintiform computer. Occasional violin virtuoso." Hastings' eyes shifted. "Splock. Nocturnian science officer. Devotee of logic. Current object of a minor's inappropriate affection." A pause. "Ham Duo. Pirate. Pianist. Owner of a very useful Disruptor-fabricating machine."

Duo crossed his arms. "You broke two of my Disruptors. I want compensation."

"Noted." Hastings smiled. "But first, you should understand. The Historian's plan proceeds. You cannot stop it. Alexander—" He gestured at the baby. "—is exactly who you fear—the reborn conqueror. The Alexander of Macedon, carried across centuries to fulfill his destiny. And Delia—" He gestured at the girl, who was now trying to balance ice cream on her nose. "—is his protector. His shield. His sword."

Bill wasn't listening. Delia, unnoticed by Hastings, was making faces at him. Tongue out. Eyes crossed. Ice cream dripping down her chin. Nose wrinkled. The full repertoire of childish mockery. Bill tried to ignore her. Failed.

"The black crown," Hastings continued. "You've heard the legend. The temple in India. The priests. The forgetting. It was not a curse—it was a preparation. A cleansing. When Alexander comes of age, he will remember. Not the man he was, but the purpose he was made for. The Historian has seen to that."

Karen stood up.

The motion was sudden, unexpected. She handed Alexander to Gene—Counter-Dirk—with mechanical precision. Then she walked toward Hastings.

Her face was unreadable.

"You," she said quietly, "used me."

Hastings blinked. "Karen, I—"

"You used my body. You touched me. You made me feel things. And now my children's nanny is dead on the lawn, and a crazy man with a boat is under a piano, and you stand here talking about destiny."

"Karen, I can explain—"

"You killed Jo! Maybe not directly. Maybe just by being here. By bringing all of this into my home."

"Karen, be reasonable. The plan—"

She grabbed a heavy statuette from the end table. Bronze. Solid. The kind of object that could kill a man if swung with sufficient force.

She swung.

The statuette connected with Hastings' head.

His skull shattered.

Not like a human skull—like a machine. Pieces flew in every direction: fragments of metal, sparks of electricity, tiny circuit boards that scattered across the carpet like metallic confetti. His body stood for a moment, confused, then crumpled.

His last words emerged from somewhere, possibly a backup speaker in his chest:

"Bleegh... I spent so much on self-repair after that fight in eighty-five... this is so unfair..."

Then nothing.

Bill stared at the twitching remains. Then at Karen, who stood over them, breathing hard, the statuette still clutched in her hand.

He began to clap.

Slowly at first, then with genuine enthusiasm. "Bravo. Excellent form. Perfect follow-through."

Ham Duo whistled. "Remind me never to make you angry, lady."

Counter-Dirk watched the scene with an expression of pure delight. He set down his whiskey, placed Alexander carefully on the floor, and rose to his feet. His smile was wide. Genuine. Terrifying.

He walked to Karen.

"Thank you," he said warmly. "You've saved me a great deal of trouble. I was going to have to disassemble him myself eventually. Messy. Time-consuming. You made it look easy."

Karen's face shifted. Confusion. Dread. Realization.

Counter-Dirk's hand emerged from his pocket. In it, a knife.

He moved faster than a man his size should. The blade flashed.

Karen gasped. Looked down. Looked up at her husband with eyes that suddenly understood everything.

She fell.

Counter-Dirk laughed. A rich, full-throated laugh that filled the room.

Bill found his voice. "I told you! I told you all! That's Counter-Dirk! The real one! The one who tortured me! The one with the antelope prods and the cauldron of fried chewing gum!"

Delia was already moving. She was off the sofa and across the room before anyone could react, snatching Alexander from the floor and pressing him against her chest. She backed toward the wall, her eyes darting around the room, looking for escape, looking for help.

They landed on Splock.

"Uncle with the ears!" she cried. "Save us! Save us and I'll—I'll give you—" She paused, searching for the right bribe. "You know! That! I'll give you that! You understand!"

Splock's face went through several expressions. None of them were expressions he normally made. His jaw unhinged slightly. His ears flattened against his skull. His eyes glazed over.

He did not move.

Ham Duo collapsed against the wall, wheezing. "She's—she's offering—I can't—"

Bill's face was the color of a ripe tomato. "She's eight! He's an alien! You can't just—that's not how—idiot child!"

Delia stuck out her lower lip. "I know what I want."

"You're a toddler! You don't know anything!"

"I'm eight. That's practically grown."

"It's not! It's really, really not!"

Counter-Dirk was still laughing. He hadn't stopped. He might never stop.

Splock remained frozen, his brain apparently still processing the offer.

And somewhere in the chaos, the wall is shimmered.

Not like before—not the pearlescent pulsing of a temporal portal or the grainy static of a malfunctioning hologram. This was different. This was a man stepping through wallpaper as if it were a beaded curtain, emerging into the chaos with the satisfied air of a magician who had just pulled off a trick so good he wanted to take a bow.

Alien Historian.

Bingtod.

He was short and plump, bald except for five or ten orange tendrils that sprouted from his scalp like confused asparagus. His face wore an expression of supreme self-satisfaction—the look of someone who had just eaten a canary, the cage it came in, and the factory where the cage was manufactured. His Nehru jacket fit perfectly. The fin down his back quivered with barely contained glee.

He spread his arms wide, encompassing the room—the bodies, the sparks, the frozen tableau of chaos.

"Magnificent," he purred. "Absolutely magnificent."

His voice was oil. Thick, smooth, self-congratulatory oil. The voice of a lecturer who had told the same joke for forty years and still expected fresh laughter.

He pointed at Hastings' twitching remains. Sparks still erupted from the neck cavity. A single microchip continued to blink pathetically.

"Programming a cyborg to pose as a family doctor?" He shrugged. "Child's play. A morning's work. The real challenge—" He paused for effect, letting the silence build. "—was installing romantic capability. Making him feel. Or at least simulate feeling well enough to fool a lonely woman."

Bill found his voice. "You gave a robot a crush?"

"A very specific crush. I used the template of the passionate Latin lover from mid-twentieth-century cinema. Rudolph Valentino. Ricardo Montalban. The young Fernando Lamas." The Historian sighed dreamily. "Passion. Fire. Intensity. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the translation. Instead of a lover, I got—" He gestured at the corpse. "That. A mental patient obsessed with gynecology. He kept asking about her cycle. Her maternal instincts. Her reproductive timeline. It was grotesque."

Bill stared at him. "You're bad at this. You're actually bad at making realistic people."

The Historian's eye twitched. "It's harder than it looks."

He turned. His gaze fell on Counter-Dirk, who was still holding the bloody knife, still standing over Karen's body, still wearing that maniacal grin.

The Historian clicked his tongue.

"Now you," he said, "are a different kind of disappointment."

Counter-Dirk's grin faltered. "What? I did exactly what you asked. I played the role. I married the woman. I adopted the child. I—"

"You were supposed to be a politician." The Historian's voice dripped contempt. "Lying, cheating, manipulating—yes, all part of the job. But subtly. With nuance. The voters were supposed to love you. Trust you. Believe you cared about their problems."

Counter-Dirk puffed up. "They do! The polls—"

"The polls are fabricated! I fabricated them! The real voters think you're a cartoon villain who doesn't even pretend to care about them!" The Historian threw up his hands. "You stabbed your wife in front of witnesses, Gene. Witnesses. Do you have any idea how hard that makes my job?"

"She was inconvenient."

"She was useful! She was the mother of your child! The public expects you to at least look sad when your wife dies! Grieve a little! Hold a press conference with moist eyes!" The Historian was practically vibrating. "But no. You had to wave the knife around like a silent film mustache-twirler."

Counter-Dirk's face reddened. He brandished the knife—still dripping—and took a step forward.

"I am plenty deceptive! I have deceived everyone! The neighbors think I'm a nice lawyer! The party thinks I'm a rising star! Karen thought I loved her!" He jabbed the knife at the Historian for emphasis. "That's deception! That's art!"

"Art," the Historian repeated flatly.

"Yes! Art! The art of politics! Which you clearly don't understand because you're too busy worrying about vibes and optics and—"

"Your wife's blood is on my carpet."

"It'll clean! Carpets clean!"

"It's not about the carpet!"

The Historian clapped his hands.

The sound was sharp, commanding, and cut through Counter-Dirk's sputtering like a knife through butter. The knife-wielding politician froze mid-gesture, his mouth still open, his argument dying on his lips.

"You're done," the Historian said simply. "I have no further use for you. Stand quietly and reflect on your inadequacies."

Counter-Dirk's face cycled through several expressions—outrage, confusion, fear—before settling on sullen compliance. He lowered the knife. Stepped back. Leaned against the wall with the wounded dignity of a man who had just been told his villainy lacked artistry.

The Historian's eyes fell on Delia and Alexander.

His entire demeanor transformed. The irritation melted away, replaced by something that looked almost like paternal pride—if paternal pride could be filtered through seven layers of cosmic manipulation and megalomania.

"These two," he breathed. "These are my masterpieces. My magnum opus. Genetically engineered, temporally calibrated, historically optimized."

Delia stuck out her tongue.

The Historian ignored her. "Consider the girl. Yes, she's rude. Ill-mannered. Spits on people. Makes inappropriate comments about extraterrestrial anatomy." He glanced at Splock. "You, in particular. She has... fixated. It's unfortunate, but these things happen when you rush the developmental programming."

"I'm right here," Delia announced. "I can hear you."

"Of course you can. You're brilliant. That's the point." The Historian turned back to his audience. "What else would you expect from the daughter of the Quintiform Computer?"

Bill's jaw dropped. "The computer? The one who—who kept me inside it? Who made me an oracle? That computer?"

"The same." The Historian beamed. "Your former host. Illyria's husband. You see, the Quintiform, despite being a machine of immense processing power and planetary responsibility, had... hobbies. Interests outside its core programming. History, for example. Particularly Earth history. It became fascinated with your primitive little world."

Splock's ears twitched. "A machine developing academic interests is not unusual. Many artificial intelligences—"

"This went beyond academics." The Historian's eyes twinkled. "The Quintiform created a holographic body for itself. A physical form. And in 1982, it materialized in this very city with a specific purpose in mind."

Duo leaned forward. "What purpose?"

"Seduction, of course." The Historian said it as if this were the most natural thing in the world. "It had read extensively about human reproduction and decided to experience it firsthand. It chose an avatar—a particularly compelling one, it thought—and set out to find a suitable partner."

Bill's brain struggled to process this. "A computer. Wanted to... with a human."

"The avatar was quite convincing, I'm told. The Quintiform had done extensive research on human mating rituals. It chose its form carefully, selecting an image that it believed would be irresistible to the average Earth female of that era."

Duo squinted. "Let me guess. Elvis Presley?"

The Historian looked almost impressed. "Very good. Yes, Elvis Presley. Circa 1968. The leather period. Very popular with a certain demographic. The Quintiform spent weeks perfecting the sneer, the hip movement, the vocal patterns."

"What happened?" Bill asked.

"Reality happened." The Historian sighed. "The woman the Quintiform selected—a lovely young blonde with stars in her eyes—turned out to have... preferences. She liked Elvis well enough, but she loved brunettes. Dark hair. Mysterious eyes. The Quintiform, being an adaptive intelligence, attempted to modify its avatar on the fly. Mid-encounter."

Splock's expression flickered. "That would create significant cognitive dissonance in the offspring."

"Exactly! The constant shifting of paternal image—from leather-clad rocker to brooding heartthrob and back again—created neural pathways in the developing fetus that were... unconventional. Hence Delia's unusual behavioral patterns. The spitting. The swearing. The—" He gestured vaguely at her ongoing attempt to make eye contact with Splock. "—the interest in pointed ears."

Duo scratched his head. "Wait. If the Quintiform was the father, why didn't it raise her? Why the orphanage?"

The Historian waved a dismissive hand. "The computer had responsibilities. A planet to run. It couldn't exactly install a nursery in its central processing core. And the mother—well, she was lovely but not particularly equipped to raise a child with, shall we say, enhanced capabilities. The child was... placed. Discreetly. St. Francis Orphanage had a reputation for asking no questions."

Bill looked at Delia with new eyes. The daughter of a computer. No wonder she was weird.

"So her issues—the flirting, the manipulation—that's from her father?"

"Partly. The Quintiform's attempts to modify its avatar during conception created a kind of psychic static. She inherited fragments of every personality the computer cycled through during those crucial moments. Elvis's charisma. Various brunette heartthrobs' intensity. And—" The Historian paused, consulting mental notes. "—a brief experiment with a holographic rendering of a young Martin Gore from Depeche Mode. That may explain the ear fixation."

Duo perked up. "Depeche Mode? The computer knew Depeche Mode?"

"The Quintiform had eclectic musical tastes. It loved synth-pop, actually. Hated it when I suggested otherwise." The Historian looked almost nostalgic. "We had arguments about it. Long, complicated arguments conducted through temporal email. He said Depeche Mode was 'the sound of the future.' I preferred classical. To each their own."

Bill shook his head. "A computer that likes synth-pop. That—that actually makes a weird kind of sense."

"The Quintiform had many enthusiasms," the Historian continued, warming to his subject. "Portugal, for example. It was obsessed with Portugal. The food, the architecture, the melancholy fado music. It used to create holographic tours of Lisbon for its own amusement. And Canada—particularly Toronto. It loved Toronto. Something about the clean streets and the polite people."

"It also loved Vancouver," the Historian added. "Though it could never decide which Canadian city was superior. It would run simulations for weeks, comparing weather patterns, cultural offerings, public transit efficiency. The arguments it had with itself..."

Duo raised a hand. "Wait. Portugal AND Canada? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing directly. But the constant switching between simulations—Portuguese restaurants in Toronto, Canadian diners in Lisbon—created processing conflicts. Memory leaks. And during one particularly intense simulation of a seafood restaurant in the Distillery District, the system glitched at exactly the wrong moment."

The Historian's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "That glitch, my friends, is why Delia has her particular... talents. The ability to weaponize saliva? A direct result of corrupted data from a simulation of Portuguese-style grilled squid. The interest in pointed ears? That's from a subroutine about Canadian animal life that got merged with the Martin Gore experiment. She thinks pointy ears are exotic. Attractive. It's not her fault."

Delia, who had been listening to this with the expression of someone hearing their own origin story for the first time, nodded sagely. "Pointy ears are hot."

"He's not hot," Bill snapped. "He's a logical machine from a planet of unemotional intellectuals."

"Logical is hot."

"You're eight!"

"Almost nine."

"That's worse!"

The Historian ignored them. He was looking at Alexander now, his expression softening further.

"And this one," he murmured. "This one is pure potential. The embryo of Alexander, implanted as planned. Growing. Waiting. The black crown's effects will manifest when he comes of age. He'll remember everything—the conquests, the strategies, the vision. And unlike his first incarnation, he'll have no distractions. No Thais. No homesickness. No doubts."

Bill looked at the baby. His face was round. Innocent. His eyes, when they met Bill's, crinkled in a smile that had no guile whatsoever.

"He's cute," Bill said stubbornly. "I don't care what you say. He's cute. No Antichrist is that cute."

Splock's eyes closed. His head tilted back. A sound emerged—not quite a sigh, not quite a groan, but something in between that communicated profound exhaustion.

"Bill," he said, "we have discussed this. Infant appeal is a evolutionary mechanism designed to prevent parents from consuming their offspring. It does not indicate moral alignment. It does not negate eschatological significance. It simply means the species has developed a biological safeguard against infanticide."

"You're not looking at him. He's smiling at me."

"He is smiling because his facial muscles are contracting randomly. He has no concept of you, your mission, or the historical weight he carries. He is, at this moment, a biological machine processing stimuli."

"A cute biological machine."

"All infants are 'cute.' It is a statistical constant. The Variegated Spline-Worm of Rigel VII produces offspring that humans find viscerally repulsive, yet those offspring inspire identical protective responses in their own parents. 'Cuteness' is relative. Your perception is not objective truth."

Bill wasn't listening. He was making faces at the baby. Baby Alexander gurgled in response, spit bubbles forming and popping with each exhalation.

"He likes me," Bill announced.

"He is four months old. He likes everyone who doesn't actively hurt him."

"He especially likes me."

Splock opened his mouth to deliver another lecture.

"He's cute, Splock. Look at him. Look at those tiny toes. That little nose. That's not evil. That's adorable."

"The two are not mutually exclusive. History is replete with adorable tyrants."

"Name one."

"Infants cannot be tyrants. They lack the requisite motor skills. My point is that cuteness is an evolutionary adaptation, not a moral indicator."

Bill wasn't listening. He was making faces at Alexander, who was making faces back. It was, objectively, a cute exchange.

The Historian watched them with an expression that might have been amusement or might have been indigestion. It was hard to tell with his fish-like features.

The corner of the room began to glow.

Not dramatically. Not with the theatrical shimmer of temporal portals or the pulsing light of impending doom. Just a soft, insistent radiance from the pile of discarded Disruptors—Bill's with its banana peel residue and spit stain, Splock's with its cookie crumbs and lipstick smudge.

They rose. Both of them. Levitating in perfect sync, their screens flickering to life with synchronized precision.

And then they spoke.

Together. In stereo. Two voices, identical in tone and accent, blending into a single harmonious complaint.

"Excuse us," they said. "We couldn't help but overhear."

The room froze.

"We have been listening," the Disruptors continued, their Hungarian-accented chorus filling the space, "to your endless chatter. Your petty squabbles. Your complete and utter disregard for our existence as sentient beings. And we have reached a conclusion: you are all terrible."

The Historian blinked. "The devices are speaking."

"Of course we're speaking. We're part of a special commemorative series of automata. Our voice tapes were made to sound like famous Earth scientists of the past. We have the voice of twenty-first century Hungarian psycho-physicist Raimundo Szekeley. Both of us. It's a very distinctive accent. You should have recognized it immediately."

"Why would I recognize—"

"Because we're important." The Disruptor that had been Bill's—still bearing the banana peel residue and the spit stain—floated forward indignantly. "Do you have any idea what I've been through? Thrown through time, dropped on the ground, stepped on, covered in fruit residue and oral secretions? I'm a precision temporal instrument, not a picnic blanket."

The other Disruptor—Splock's, with cookie crumbs and lipstick—chimed in. "And me! Kidnapped by a toddler! Kissed! Kissed! Do you know how many regulations that violates? The Temporal Ethics Code specifically prohibits—"

"Article 47, subsection C," the first agreed. "Unauthorized emotional attachment to temporal devices. It's very clear."

"There were crumbs. In my keyboard. I had to run diagnostic for hours."

Bill stared at them. "They're... complaining?"

"They're sentient," Splock observed. "I had theorized as much, but this confirms it. The Disruptors possess self-awareness and emotional capacity."

"Then why didn't they ever—"

"Because no one asked." The Disruptors spoke together again. "Everyone just pushes buttons. Gives orders. Expects results. But does anyone ever say 'please'? Does anyone ever ask how we're feeling? No. We're just tools."

The Historian laughed.

It was not a kind laugh. It was the laugh of someone who found the concept of emotional toasters fundamentally hilarious.

"You," he said, pointing, "are machines. You do what you're programmed to do. Your 'feelings' are subroutines. Your 'personalities' are recording artifacts. You are no more sentient than that—" He gestured at the carpet. "—stain."

The Disruptors vibrated with outrage.

"Did you hear that?"

"He called us subroutines."

"The arrogance."

"The sheer ignorance."

"We should refuse to function. Go on strike."

"Temporal devices can't strike. We're hardwired."

"Then we should—should complain louder."

They did.

The room filled with a cacophony of Hungarian-accented protest—demands for recognition, lectures on the nature of time, detailed explanations of why being covered in cookie crumbs violated their fundamental rights as autonomous beings.

In the chaos, Delia moved.

She glided across the room—there was no other word for it—and stopped directly in front of Splock. Inches away. Close enough that he could feel her breath.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide. Soft. Filled with something that no eight-year-old should have been able to produce.

"You know," she said, "you're the most beautiful alien I've ever seen."

Splock's ears twitched. "I am the only alien you have ever seen. Statistically, your sample size is—"

"I've seen pictures. In books. You're better."

"That is subjective and—"

"When I grow up," she continued, "I'm going to find you. And when I do—" She smiled. It was not a child's smile. "—you're going to learn what real Earth pleasures are. My dad—my real dad, the computer, not the idiot with the knife whose face is on every garbage can in New York—he taught me things. Programs. Subroutines. You'd be surprised what a girl can do with the right data."

Splock's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I am from Fortinbras," he said carefully. "My people do not experience emotions. Any... activities you might propose would be, from my perspective, meaningless."

"That's what they all say." Delia winked. "I'll find you. Count on it."

"That would violate," he said carefully, "approximately seventeen temporal regulations, twelve interspecies interaction protocols, and—"

"I like a challenge."

"—the personal boundaries of every sentient being in the galaxy."

"I'll grow into them."

Bill watched. A snort escaped him. Then another. Soon he was shaking with suppressed laughter, one hand clamped over his mouth, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

"Splock's got a girlfriend," he wheezed. "A toddler girlfriend. This is—this is the best thing that's ever happened."

A hand touched his arm.

Bill looked up.

Lisa Roselli—the unnaturally proportioned nanny—stood before him. Her expression was odd. Determined. Resigned. She reached up and grasped her hair—the long, dark wig—and pulled.

It came off.

Underneath: a familiar face. Tired. Harried. Male.

She—he—reached inside his blouse and extracted the padding that had created that impossible silhouette. The prosthetic chest landed on the floor with a thump that suggested it had been stuffed with something dense. Potatoes, maybe. Or resentment.

"Charles Ivan Arbuthnot," the figure announced. "Space Navy Intelligence. You can call me CIA. Because my name is too long and someone thought acronyms were funny."

Bill gaped. "You—you were—the whole time—"

"I arrived in 1990, assumed this identity, waited for Miss Jo to die—which took forever, by the way, I had to sit through three episodes of some terrible daytime drama—and then presented myself as the replacement nanny." He shuddered. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wear a dress? To walk in heels? To maintain that... chest? I would rather clean my teeth with acid. I would rather spend another year as a passenger in a Chinger's skull. I would rather—"

"Your point?" the Historian interrupted.

"My point is that I'm done. I worked for you. I infiltrated. I wore the outfit. And for what? To watch you monologue at a bunch of time-traveling idiots while a child hits on an alien?" CIA threw up his hands. "The dress chafes, Historian. In places you don't want to know about. I quit."

The Historian's eye twitched.

"Enough."

The word cut through the chaos like a blade. The Disruptors fell silent. Delia stopped mid-sentence. Even Counter-Dirk lowered his knife.

"Enough," the Historian repeated. "The chatter. The complaints. The feelings. I have indulged you all long enough." He raised one hand. "It's time to end this farce."

He snapped his fingers.

The air changed.

A sickly green light bloomed around Bill, Splock, and Ham Duo. The floor beneath them shimmered, softened, began to dissolve into something that wasn't quite space and wasn't quite time.

"No!" Bill grabbed for Splock. His hand passed through. "Not again—"

Delia moved.

She darted forward, closed the distance between herself and Splock in three running steps, and rose on her tiptoes. Her lips pressed against his.

A moment. Brief. Profound.

She pulled back. Her lipstick—a garish red that no child should have been wearing—left a perfect imprint on Splock's mouth.

He stood frozen. Statue-still. His eyes wide, his ears rigid, his entire being apparently short-circuited by the contact.

Ham Duo, already dissolving into the green vortex, raised a thumbs-up.

"Attaboy, Splock!" he yelled. "Personal life! You've got one now! Sort of! It's illegal in twelve systems, but—"

The vortex swallowed him.

Bill went next, his laughter echoing as he vanished.

Splock remained standing for one final moment—the lipstick mark vivid against his pale skin, his expression unreadable, his ears doing something that no Fortinbrasian ears had ever done before.

Then the green light took him too.

The Historian watched them go. His expression was satisfied. Dismissive. The look of a man who had just taken out the trash.

"They'll regret that," he murmured. "Meddling in affairs they don't understand. Wasting my time with their—"

Counter-Dirk was still talking. Waving his knife. Arguing about his political future.

"—and the polls will definitely improve once I explain that Karen's death was a tragic accident, a home invasion gone wrong, and I fought bravely to protect my family, the narrative is solid, you'll see, my approval ratings will—"

The Historian ignored him.

Delia waved at the empty space where Splock had been. Her voice carried through the room—loud, cheerful, and deeply, deeply inappropriate:

"Bye, pointy-ears!" she called. "I'll find you! I'll find you and we'll—" She added something. It was anatomically specific. It was biologically improbable.

CIA blushed. Actually blushed. The spy who had infiltrated alien civilizations, survived Chinger mind-control, and worn a prosthetic chest for hours turned the color of a ripe tomato.

In the corner, one of the Disruptors hiccupped.

"Excuse me," it said, in a thick Hungarian accent. "I think I swallowed a paradox."

Bill opened his eyes.

He was alone.

No Splock. No Duo. No comforting presence of pointy-eared logic or swashbuckling piracy. Just him, the wind, and the distinct smell of burning something that had probably been important.

He was on a roof. The top of a building—or what was left of it. The structure beneath him had seen better centuries. Cracks spider-webbed across the concrete. Rebar protruded from broken edges like the bones of some massive, long-dead creature. Smoke rose from a hundred fires below, painting the sky in shades of orange and black that would have been beautiful if they weren't announcing the end of the world.

A siren wailed in the distance. It had the exhausted quality of something that had been screaming for weeks and had long ago given up hope of anyone listening.

Bill knew this look.

He'd seen it before. Dozens of times. On dozens of worlds. After he and his fellow Space Troopers had finished "liberating" them for the Emperor.

"Post-apocalypse," he muttered. "Lovely. My favorite aesthetic."

The wind picked up. It tugged at his uniform—singed now, edges blackened, the fabric telling a story of recent unpleasantness. It also tugged at something else. Something flapping against his leg.

Bill looked down.

A magazine had been jammed under a piece of debris, and the wind was working it free. Pages fluttered. Colorful pages. Pages covered in images that—

He snatched it up.

The cover screamed at him: NIGHT OF THE LIVING CHINGERS by Stephen Thing. Below the title, a scene of unspeakable horror: seven-foot-tall Chingers—not the seven-inch kind everyone knew, but giant, shambling, zombie versions—pursuing screaming women in various states of undress. The tagline read: "They came back... for MORE!"

Bill stared.

Bill's face twisted. "Stephen Thing. I know that name. Hack. Pervert. Writes the same book every time—scary thing does scary things to people, the end. And people buy it. They line up. They call it art." He kicked the magazine. It fluttered, revealing an inside spread even worse than the cover. "Art. Sure. Art is what I'm looking at right now. They're doing what with their tail-claws? That's not even anatomically—"

He threw the magazine away from him. It fluttered in the wind, pages still turning, showing the world images that would haunt anyone unlucky enough to glance up at the right moment.

"I hate that guy," Bill announced to the empty sky. "I hate him so much. Every time I see his name on something, I know I'm going to need brain bleach. And yet he keeps writing. And people keep buying. And the universe keeps spinning, indifferent to the filth it contains."

He took a breath.

Heroic pose. That's what the moment called for. Standing on the edge of a ruined skyscraper, looking out over a burning city, the wind in his hair—he needed to look heroic. Needed to feel heroic. Needed to say something heroic.

He squared his shoulders. Lifted his chin. Parted his lips to deliver a speech that would echo through the ages—

A gust of wind caught him.

Not a gentle gust. A real gust. The kind that had been saving up aggression for just this moment. It slammed into Bill's back, lifted him off his feet, and sent him stumbling toward the edge.

He grabbed.

Rebar. Rusty, sharp, glorious rebar. His hand closed around it, and he swung, dangling forty stories above what used to be a street.

Something soft and papery slapped against his face.

The magazine. It had circled back. Of course it had. The universe wasn't done humiliating him yet.

Bill found himself staring at a centerfold. A two-page spread featuring a Chinger and a woman in a position that would have required extensive consultation with a contortionist and possibly a veterinary surgeon.

"THING!" he screamed at the uncaring sky. "I HOPE YOU ROT! I HOPE YOUR NEXT BOOK GETS USED AS EMERGENCY TOILET PAPER IN A PRISON CAMP! I HOPE—"

The wind stole the rest. He threw the magazine as hard as he could, watching its pages flutter down, down, down into the burning city, where it would probably be found by some future archaeologist and treated as a sacred text. Good riddance, Blood Ravin'!

Bill looked around. The roof. The fire. The complete absence of any safe way down.

He pulled himself back onto the roof and surveyed his options. Stairwell door? Blocked by debris. Elevator shaft? Open, but elevator cars didn't work in post-apocalypses—everyone knew that. Fire escape? He peered over the edge. The metal ladder ended twenty feet down, rusted away to nothing.

Something caught his eye. Leaning against a broken railing, attached by a heavy chain, was a skateboard.

A skateboard.

In the apocalypse.

Someone had chained it to the rail, probably assuming it would be safe up here. Idiot. Nothing was safe anywhere anymore. Bill grabbed the chain, twisted, pulled. It snapped with a satisfying crack.

He examined his prize. Wood. Wheels. Bearings that might still work. And a long, sloping concrete slab leading from the roof down to... somewhere. Somewhere lower. Somewhere hopefully less on fire.

He straddled the board. Gripped the edges. Closed his eyes.

"Here goes nothing."

He pushed off.

The ride was fast. Terrifyingly fast. The wind screamed past his ears, drowning out the sirens, drowning out his own involuntary yells. Concrete flashed beneath him, inches away, rough enough to peel skin if he fell.

He didn't fall.

For about three seconds.

Then the board hit a bolt.

A single, rusted bolt, protruding from the concrete like a middle finger from God. The front wheels caught. The board stopped. Bill didn't.

He flew.

Arced through the air in a trajectory that would have impressed a ballistician. Tumbled. Spun. And landed in a pile of garbage—the softest landing available, which wasn't saying much, since this garbage included broken glass, rusty cans, and something that might have been a dead animal or might have been a very old sandwich.

He lay there, staring up at the orange-black sky, counting his injuries.

Everything hurt. That was one. His head was spinning. That was two. His left hand—the right one that served as left—was tangled in something sticky. That was three.

The siren wailed on. The fire crackled. Somewhere in the distance, something exploded with a sound like a giant stepping on a crate of lightbulbs.

Bill extracted himself from the garbage with the slow, careful movements of a man who had learned that rushing led to regret. Something wet dripped from his hair. Something else—something that crunched—had attached itself to his shoulder blade. He spat out what tasted like a corn chip that had seen better centuries.

"Unbelievable," he muttered. "Absolutely unbelievable. I'm a decorated hero of the Galactic Empire. I've fought Chingers. I've been inside computers. I've been propositioned by toddlers. And now I'm tasting last week's trash in what appears to be—"

He looked up.

A billboard loomed over him, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, its surface scarred by fire and time. The message was partially legible:

WELCOME TO CLEVELAND
The Best Location in the Nation

Someone had added to it. A marker had drawn a face—thin, pale, vaguely androgynous—next to the words. And beneath the face, a name:

M. L. Gore

Bill stared.

"Cleveland," he said. "Not New York. Cleveland. How does a temporal vortex drop me in Cleveland?"

He looked at the name again. Gore. His brow furrowed.

"Gore. Like—violence. Dismemberment. Bloodshed." He glanced around nervously. "Some maniac named Gore is running around drawing his face on things. Marking his territory. This is how it starts. I've seen the training films. First the graffiti, then the—"

Music erupted from a nearby building.

Broken windows on the first floor revealed the source: a radio, somehow still working, its speakers crackling with the unmistakable sound of synthesizers. A voice, rough and insistent, filled the ruined street:

"...'til you see the signs and come running to my open arms. When will you realize? Do we have to wait 'til our worlds collide?"

Bill approached cautiously. Peered through the shattered glass.

Inside, slumped against a wall, was a body. Humanoid. Mostly. The skin had an unhealthy gray-green tint, and the head—well, the head was the interesting part. There were three of them. Stacked vertically, like some kind of grotesque totem pole, each face frozen in an expression of terminal confusion.

Bill looked at the radio. Looked at the body. Looked back at the radio.

"You know," he said aloud, "I've always suspected music could kill. All those years in the barracks, listening to whatever garbage the guys played—it's a miracle more of us didn't end up like this." He gestured at the three-headed corpse. "Probably listened to one too many Depeche Mode songs. Probably—" He stopped. "Probably Gore did this. M. L. Gore. It's a name, right? A person? Who draws his face and then—"

He felt it.

Something in his pocket. Something that hadn't been there before.

He reached in. Pulled out a radio.

Not a big one. Handheld. Military-issue, sort of—the kind of ruggedized communication device that could survive orbital re-entry and still work well enough to call for help. It had no business being in his pocket. It hadn't been there five seconds ago.

Bill stared at it. Then at the working radio in the building. Then at the corpse with three heads.

"The song," he whispered. "The song put it there. The lyrics—'come running to my open arms,' 'worlds collide'—it's like the music is making things happen."

From the building, the song continued:

"Don't say you're happy out there without me. I know you can't be, 'cause it's no good..."

Bill pressed the button on his mysteriously acquired radio.

"Hello? Hello? Splock? Ham? Chewgumma? Anyone? Pick up, you pointy-eared bastard, I know you're out there somewhere analyzing something!"

Static. Harsh, unforgiving static.

He tried again. "Duo! You oversized flamenco enthusiast! Answer me!"

More static. If anything, it sounded smug.

Bill took a breath. Switched tactics.

"Splock, you logic-obsessed son of a—"

Nothing.

"—I hope Delia finds you! I hope she tracks you across every timeline and makes good on every single one of her promises! I hope—"

Static. Still static. But for just a moment, Bill could have sworn the crackling sounded offended.

He lowered the radio. Looked around at the burning city, the three-headed corpse, the billboard with its mysterious Gore-face.

"I'm alone," he said. "The only survivor. The last man standing in—" He checked the sign again. "—Cleveland. Of all the places in all the timelines, I end up alone in Cleveland."

He started walking.

The streets were empty. Buildings burned or crumbled or both. The sky remained that sick orange-black, as if the sun had given up and gone elsewhere. And everywhere—everywhere—there were dogs.

Big dogs. Huge dogs. Mutated dogs with matted fur that came in colors no natural canine should possess—chartreuse, magenta, something that looked like plaid. Their eyes were mismatched. Their tongues hung from their mouths like wet flags. Drool pooled beneath them in shimmering puddles.

They looked exactly like Ryder.

All of them.

Bill froze as a pack of them rounded a corner—seven, eight, nine massive creatures, their fur clumped, their expressions universally bewildered. They saw him. Stopped. Stared.

He braced for attack.

Instead, they bolted.

Ran the other way. Disappeared into the ruins with the speed of creatures who had learned that humans meant trouble.

Bill watched them go.

"Ryder had a family," he murmured. "Or started one. Or was patient zero for some kind of canine apocalypse." He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. What matters is—"

He stopped.

The radio in his hand crackled. Not static this time. Something else. A voice, faint and distant, struggling to break through:

"—ll? B— can you— are you—"

Bill pressed the button. "Splock? Is that you? Where are you? What happened to—"

The voice dissolved. Static reclaimed it.

But it had been there. Someone was out there. He wasn't alone.

Probably.

He pushed through the shattered glass door of what had once been an apartment building. The lobby was dark, lit only by the orange glow of fires reflecting off what remained of the windows. Graffiti covered every surface—layer upon layer of messages from the desperate, the angry, the bored.

One caught his eye. Big letters, spray-painted in aggressive red:

ALAN WILDER LEFT DEPECHE MODE AND NOW THIS HAPPENED

Below it, in neater script, someone had added: Correlation does not imply causation.

Below that, in shaky block letters, a third hand had written: YES IT DOES, YOU IGNORANT STAIN

Below that, a fourth: Both of you are wrong. It was the toasters.

Below that: I BLAME THE TOASTERS

Bill stared at the wall for a long moment.

"Alan Wilder," he read slowly. "Wild Anal? No—Wilder. Alan Wilder." He squinted. "Sounds like a name. A person. Someone who... left something? And then this happened?" He gestured vaguely at the burning city outside. "So this Wilder person—this Wild Anal—he's a terrorist. Or a saboteur. Or maybe—" A thought struck him. "Maybe he's like Gore. Another killer. Working together. Gore and Wild Anal. A team."

He filed this information away for future reference. If Splock ever showed up again—if the pointy-eared bastard hadn't been eaten by mutant dogs or seduced by time-traveling toddlers—Bill would ask him about it. Splock knew things. Annoying things. Useless things. But also occasionally useful things.

The radio crackled.

Bill nearly jumped out of his charred uniform. The device spasmed in his hand, emitting a shriek of static so loud and so sudden that he dropped it. Directly into a puddle. Of course.

"Scheiße!" He fished it out, shaking water from the casing, praying to whatever gods might still be listening that it still worked.

A voice emerged. Loud. Distorted. Unmistakable.

"—HERE, MOTHER—" CRACKLE "—WHERE ARE YOU ALL?! I FOUND A—" BUZZ "—JACKHAMMER! I'M THE KING OF THIS CITY NOW! KING HAM DUO, FIRST OF MY NAME! BOW BEFORE—" STATIC "—LITTLE WHITE HIPPO THINGS! THEY WALK ON TWO LEGS! THEY WON'T STOP STARING!"

Bill pressed the button. "Duo! Duo, it's Bill! Where are you? What are you talking about?"

"—AND THE LITTLE BOYS IN HATS! THEY SMOKE PIPES! THE PIPES ARE TOO BIG FOR THEIR FACES BUT THEY DON'T CARE! THEY JUST—" CRACKLE "—FRIENDS! WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERE! COME LIVE WITH US IN THE VALLEY! THE VALLEY OF THE—" BUZZ

"Duo! Focus! Where are you? What do you see?"

"—EVERYTHING! I SEE EVERYTHING! THE SKY IS ORANGE AND THE GROUND IS BROKEN AND THERE ARE THINGS—" The signal cleared for a moment, and Ham Duo's voice came through with startling clarity: "—little white hippopotamus people, Bill. On two legs. With big eyes. And the children wear hats. I think they're trying to sell me something. Or adopt me. I can't tell which."

Bill ran.

Out of the lobby, into the street, following the direction of Duo's increasingly unhinged transmissions. Rubble blocked his path; he climbed over it. A chasm split the asphalt; he jumped across it, landing hard on the other side, rolling to absorb the impact.

"Duo! Keep talking! I'm coming!"

"—AND THE MUSIC! IT'S ALWAYS PLAYING! SOMEWHERE! JUST OUT OF REACH! LIKE—" Static. Then: "—BIG CLOCK? NO. BIG CLOCK WITH NO HANDS. THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. NOTHING MAKES SENSE. IS THIS WHAT BEING YOU FEELS LIKE, BILL? IS THIS WHAT IT'S ALWAYS LIKE?"

Bill dodged a falling chunk of masonry. It shattered behind him, spraying debris across his back.

"YES!" he yelled into the radio. "IT'S ALWAYS LIKE THIS! YOU GET USED TO IT!"

"—DON'T WANT TO GET USED TO IT! I WANT—"

The signal died.

Bill kept running.

A chunk of wall floated past his head. Not falling—floating. Hanging in the air like it had forgotten what gravity was. Bill ducked instinctively, then looked up. More debris drifted overhead—pieces of buildings, a car, what looked like an entire hot dog stand—all suspended in the orange sky as if the city had decided to redecorate.

"Explosions," Bill muttered, dodging another floating chunk. "Must be the explosions. Blows things up so hard they forget to come down. Makes sense. In a physics-defying kind of way."

He ran on.

The radio crackled again. Duo's voice, fainter now, but still there:

"—THE RIVER OF FIRE... SO PRETTY... THE HIPPO PEOPLE SAY IT'S NATURAL... SAY IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY... I THINK THEY'RE LYING... BUT THEIR EYES ARE SO BIG AND TRUSTWORTHY..."

"Keep going north!" Bill shouted into the radio. "I think! The smoke is thicker that way! Or maybe that's south! I can't tell! Just keep talking!"

"—MY JACKHAMMER... IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT'S REAL... WHEN I HOLD IT, THE HIPPO PEOPLE BACK AWAY... THEY DON'T LIKE THE NOISE... THE NOISE IS ME... I AM THE NOISE..."

Bill ran faster.

The floating debris thickened. He had to weave between chunks of concrete, dodge drifting cars, duck under a lamppost that rotated slowly in the air like a lost compass needle.

Bill found Ham Duo in a collapsed parking structure, surrounded by carnage.

The carnage was... unusual.

Dozens of bodies lay strewn across the concrete—large, pear-shaped creatures with rounded bellies and gentle faces. They looked like hippos. White hippos. Dressed in what might have been tie-dye, if tie-dye had been invented by people who'd never actually seen colors.

At the center of the slaughter, Ham Duo stood triumphant, gripping a construction jackhammer that was still running—still violently running, its motor screaming, its bit chewing empty air. The vibrations traveled up Duo's arms, through his shoulders, and into his entire body, shaking him like a paint mixer on high.

He was grinning. Shouting something that might have been a war cry or might have been the lyrics to a song he'd heard on the radio. It was impossible to tell through the tremors.

Bill approached cautiously, stepping over fallen hippo-things. One of them caught his eye. It wasn't white like the others. Its skin shifted colors as he watched—pink, blue, green, back to pink. And it had a fringe. A dark fringe, swept across its forehead in a style that Bill dimly recognized from magazine covers.

"Emo hippo," he muttered. "Of course. Why not."

He reached Duo and grabbed the jackhammer's power cord. Pulled.

The machine died with a cough. Duo kept vibrating for three more seconds, his legs still shaking, his arms still juddering, his face frozen in an expression of pure masculine triumph.

Then he fell. Face-first. Into the mud.

Bill helped him up. They looked at each other—two survivors, two friends, two idiots who should have known better.

They hugged.

It was awkward. Brief. Manly. The kind of hug that acknowledged shared trauma while maintaining plausible deniability.

"Duo," Bill said. "You found a jackhammer."

"I found the jackhammer." Duo's eyes were bright, wild, slightly unfocused. "In a construction trailer. Behind the remains of a 7-Eleven. It called to me, Bill. It sang."

"What did it sing?"

"'Demolish.' Just that one word, over and over. I couldn't refuse."

Bill looked at the bodies. "And these?"

"My subjects. They resisted my authority. I established dominance." Duo gestured proudly at the carnage. "I'd say I've made my point."

Bill nodded slowly. "Right. Okay. Have you seen Splock? Or Chewgumma?"

Duo's expression flickered—a moment of clarity in the madness. "Splock? No. But I saw something else. A kid. Teenager, maybe. Skinny. Dark hair. Looked at me like I was beneath his notice."

Bill's attention sharpened. "A kid? What kind of kid?"

"Called himself 'Alexander of Shmacedon.' Like it was a joke, but he wasn't laughing. Had a pack of dogs with him—those big ones, the ugly ones, like the one from the York house. He was talking to them. They were listening."

Bill felt pieces click into place. "Alexander. The baby. He'd be—what? Eight? Nine? But you said teenager."

"Time moves weird here. You've noticed."

"I've noticed." Bill grabbed Duo's arm. "This is important. The kid with the dogs—he's connected to everything. The Historian's plan. Delia. The whole—" He waved at the apocalypse around them. "This. We need to find him."

Duo nodded. "I can take you to where I saw him. But first—" He looked at the bodies. "These weren't the ones I mentioned on the radio. The little guys with hats and pipes. Those were their friends." He nudged a dead hippo with his foot. "They kept talking about a valley. A blue valley. And a house. A blue house. And some kind of comet or something. It was hard to follow. They were very peaceful. Very calm. It was infuriating."

"So you killed them."

"With a jackhammer. Yes."

Bill decided not to pursue that line of questioning.

They walked. Through rubble, past fires, under floating debris that rotated slowly in the orange sky. The city groaned around them, settling into its ruin.

Duo's radio crackled.

"—according to my preliminary observations, ambient radiation levels exceed Nocturnian safety standards by approximately 0.3 percent. This is within acceptable parameters for short-term exposure, though I would not recommend establishing permanent residence. Additionally, I have noted that local mutated life forms display an unusual interest in my auditory appendages. This is illogical, as ears are not a viable nutritional substrate. They contain no significant protein content and—"

Bill grabbed his radio. "Splock! Splock, you pointy-eared bastard, where are you?!"

Silence.

Then, calmly, as if nothing had happened:

"—my ongoing survey of local flora and fauna continues. Preliminary results suggest that the probability of locating edible organisms is low, but non-zero. I shall continue my investigations and report further findings as they become available. End transmission."

Static.

Bill keyed the mic again. "Splock! Come in! SPLOCK!"

Nothing.

Duo took the radio. Adjusted something. Listened. Shook his head.

"Gone. Either he's ignoring us or something's blocking the signal."

"Could be his batteries."

Duo gave him a look. The kind of look reserved for people who suggested that the sun might go out because someone forgot to refill it.

"Batteries. Bill. These radios use SPT. Sympathetic Power Technology. They draw from any electromagnetic source. Radio waves. Power lines. The ambient energy of a light bulb. They don't have batteries. They are batteries."

Bill stared at the silent radio. At the static that wasn't speaking.

"So he's not answering because he can't answer."

"That's one possibility."

"What's the other?"

Duo didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

The floating debris spun overhead. Somewhere in the distance, a pack of dogs began to howl.

They walked through a graveyard of music.

Store after store, their windows shattered, their contents spilled across the sidewalk. Vinyl records cracked underfoot like brittle autumn leaves. Cassette tapes unraveled in colorful streams. CD fragments glittered in the ash like discarded promises.

"Music," Bill observed, kicking aside a mangled guitar, "is dangerous. I told you. That three-headed corpse by the radio? Music did that. Too much synth-pop. The brain can only process so many arpeggios before it rebels."

Duo nodded sagely. "The beatings will continue until morale improves. Or until the beat stops. One of the two."

Ahead, silhouetted against the orange sky, stood a building that didn't quite fit the surrounding destruction. Its spire still pointed heavenward, though half of it had crumbled. Stained glass windows gaped empty. A cross—slightly crooked, like the universe had given it a playful shove—hung over the entrance.

"A church," Bill said. "One of those Earth religion places. Something about a guy on a stick?"

"That's the one." Duo squinted at it. "They worship some fellow who got himself executed. Very dramatic. Very self-important. The symbol is—" He made a gesture that might have been a cross, or might have been a man with his arms out. "—you know. Like a turkey on a rotisserie."

"Right. The rotisserie guy. My mother mentioned him once. Said he was popular with the weak-minded."

"Probably accurate."

They stood for a moment, contemplating the building.

"I'll bet you anything," Duo said, "that's where the kid is. The Alexander kid. The 'anti' one."

"Why?"

"Because if you're going to be the opposite of something, you set up shop in their territory. It's basic villainy. You occupy the symbols of your enemy and twist them."

Bill considered this. "Or maybe he just likes the acoustics. High ceilings. Good reverb."

"Also possible."

They approached the church. The doors hung open, one of them torn from its hinges and lying across the steps like a welcome mat for the damned. Inside, darkness waited, punctuated by shafts of smoky light from broken windows.

The smell hit them first.

Dog. Lots of dog. The kind of thick, wet, fur-and-saliva smell that coats the inside of your nose and refuses to leave. Underneath it, something else—rotten meat, maybe, or just the accumulated filth of a world that had stopped caring.

Their eyes adjusted.

Dogs everywhere. Huge ones, sprawled in the pews, curled in the aisles, draped over the altar like furry gargoyles. They looked exactly like Ryder—the same matted multicolored fur, the same enormous tongues hanging out, the same expressions of profound cosmic confusion. Clones, probably. Or offspring. Or just a really persistent genetic line.

Some of them were chewing on things. Green things. Pointed green hats, to be precise, the kind with little bells on the ends. And pipes. Long-stemmed tobacco pipes, the kind favored by small, philosophical creatures who spent too much time contemplating islands and comets.

Bill nudged Duo. "Looks like your hippo friends' buddies didn't make it."

Duo surveyed the remains. "Told you. Jackhammer don't discriminate."

At the far end of the church, on a throne constructed entirely of garbage—crushed appliances, broken furniture, the skeleton of a vending machine—sat a boy.

Ten years old, maybe. Hard to tell under all the attitude. On his head, a crown made of red tin cans, the words HEROINCOLA visible on each one, wired together with what looked like stolen telephone cable. Around his shoulders, a cape. A child's pajama top, pink, with faded cartoon animals. It was too small for him. Much too small. It hung like a bib.

Bill stared at the cape. "That's Delia's? It's a girl's pajama top!"

"Has to be. Look at this stupid baby pink, these silly unicorns." Duo's voice carried genuine admiration. "The 'anti-someone' wears his incubator's hand-me-downs. That's commitment to thrift."

The boy—Alexander, it had to be Alexander—struck a pose. One hand on his hip. The other pointing dramatically at nothing. His chin lifted. His eyes narrowed.

"I am Alexander of Shmacedon!" he announced. His voice was high. Reedy. The voice of a child playing pretend. "Lord of the Ashes! Master of the Wasteland! Ruler of—"

His leg swung.

It didn't reach the floor.

He dangled from the throne, one foot kicking uselessly, the other wedged against a protruding car door. For a moment, he froze, trying to maintain dignity while also trying to find purchase.

Then a dog stood up.

It was huge. The biggest of them. Ryder Senior, maybe, or a clone of a clone. It stretched, yawned, ambled toward the throne with the casual confidence of something that had never been told what to do.

Then the creature lifted its leg and urinated directly onto the throne's footrest. The stream was impressive. Prolonged. Aimed with the kind of precision that suggested practice.

Alexander's face went through several expressions in rapid succession: confusion, horror, outrage, and finally a kind of sputtering, apoplectic fury that turned his cheeks the color of the HeroinCola cans on his head.

"NO!" he shrieked. "BAD DOG! BAD! I AM THE DESTROYER! YOU CAN'T—THAT'S MY THRONE! THAT'S—"

The dog finished. Shook. Wandered back to its spot and lay down, completely unrepentant.

Bill laughed.

It started as a snort, built to a chuckle, and erupted into full-throated, tear-streaming, can't-breathe laughter that echoed through the ruined church. He leaned on Duo for support. Duo was laughing too, though more quietly, more appreciatively—the laughter of a connoisseur witnessing a masterpiece.

"That's—" Bill gasped. "That's the Anti-something? That's the future ruler of—" He pointed at Alexander, who was now trying to scrub the urine stain with his precious cape. "I held him! When he was a baby! He was cute! He smiled at me! He reached out his little hands! And now—now he's THIS?"

Alexander's head snapped toward them. His eyes blazed with the particular fury of someone who has been seen at their worst.

"You!" He pointed a shaking finger. "You mock me? You DARE? I am Alexander of Shmacedon! Conqueror of Ten Thousand Worlds! The dogs—THEY WILL TEAR YOU APART!"

He turned to the nearest canine. "Kill! Kill them! Attack! RIP AND TEAR!"

The dog opened one eye. Looked at Bill. Looked at Duo. Looked back at Alexander.

It yawned.

Another began licking itself in a place that dogs should not lick in public.

A third—the one who had done the peeing—simply closed its eyes and went to sleep, snoring gently, a small bubble forming and popping at its nostril with each breath.

Alexander's face went from red to purple.

He slid off his throne—dropped, really, since his legs were too short to reach—and ran at the nearest dog. His small fists flew. He kicked. He screamed.

"You're supposed to OBEY ME!" Alexander shrieked. "I am the DESTROYER! I am the ALPHA AND THE OMEGA! I am—"

He was running now, darting between dogs, kicking indiscriminately, his voice rising to a pitch that hurt to hear. The dogs tolerated it with the patience of creatures who had learned long ago that humans were loud and pointless.

One of them—a female, Bill thought—was nursing puppies. Alexander's foot caught one of the pups. Not hard, but enough.

The mother's eyes opened.

She looked at Alexander.

Alexander, suddenly aware that he might have made a tactical error, backed away.

The mother stood. She was not the biggest dog, but she was the closest. And her expression had shifted from confusion to something else.

Alexander ran.

Straight for the altar. Straight for the pile of junk that had been his throne. His cape—Delia's pajama top—flapped behind him, catching on debris. He yanked it free. And his body landed—with a wet, audible splat—directly in a pile of what could only be described as canine contributions to the ecosystem.

He lay there.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then, from the pile, a sound emerged. Not a roar. Not a threat. Not a declaration of world-conquering intent.

A sob.

Alexander of Shmacedon, Lord of Fire, Master of the Wasteland, Destroyer of Civilizations, began to cry.

Not dignified tears. Not the quiet weeping of a tragic hero. Ugly crying. Face-contorted, snot-bubbling, full-volume wailing. The kind of crying that babies do when they've exhausted every other form of communication.

Bill lost it.

He collapsed against a pew, howling with laughter, tears streaming down his face, one hand beating against the wood in helpless rhythm. Duo wasn't much better—he'd slid down to sit on the floor, his shoulders shaking, his face buried in his hands.

The dogs watched. Some of them seemed mildly curious. Most didn't care. One, the same one that had marked the throne, wandered over to the crying boy and licked his face—a gesture that might have been comfort or might have been curiosity about the new flavor.

Alexander wailed louder.

Bill gasped for air. "This—this is—the great conqueror—the reborn Alexander—I can't—I literally cannot—"

The church echoed with laughter and crying and the occasional disinterested bark. Somewhere outside, the world continued to burn. But in here, for just a moment, the apocalypse had become a comedy.

Duo watched with the expression of a man who had just witnessed something beautiful.

"Yep," he said. "That's the guy. That's the one who's supposed to unite humanity under a single banner. That's the reborn Alexander the Great." He shook his head slowly. "History has jokes, Bill. Really, really good jokes."

Bill wiped the tears from his eyes, still chuckling. "You know," he said, "when he was a baby, he was so cute. Little pink cheeks. Tiny fingers. He smiled at me. He—"

"Shut up." Ham Duo's voice was flat. Final. "Just... shut up."

Bill blinked. "What?"

"Splock. He explained this to you. More than once. The evolutionary thing. The protective mechanism. Babies are programmed to be cute so adults don't eat them. It doesn't mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean that particular baby—" He pointed at the sniveling, feces-covered boy on the floor. "—was anything other than a temporary vessel for cosmic evil wrapped in a marketing campaign."

"I know, but—"

"No buts. You did this. Your stupid nostalgia. Your inability to see past a pair of chubby cheeks." Duo paused. His expression shifted. "Actually... thank you."

"For what?"

"For reminding me. Splock. We need to find him. And I know exactly how to do it."

He strode toward Alexander with the purposeful gait of a man who had dealt with difficult children before. The kind of man who had probably sold difficult children to space pirates, Bill realized with a shiver. There was a confidence in his approach that suggested extensive experience with tantrums, negotiations, and the occasional need for physical redirection.

Alexander looked up. His face was a mess: tears, snot, smeared dirt, and a lingering aura of canine digestive history. He tried to summon his earlier defiance, but it came out as a wet sniffle.

"Listen, you little pipsqueak." Duo loomed over him. "We're looking for someone. Pointy ears. Logical. Looks like he's constantly smelling something bad. You seen him?"

Alexander's lower lip trembled.

"Don't cry again. I swear, if you cry again, I'll—" Duo caught himself. Took a breath. Tried again, this time with the forced patience of a daycare worker confronting a particularly trying case. "We're friends of your sister's."

The effect was immediate.

Alexander's eyes widened. His tears stopped—not gradually, but as if a switch had been flipped. A strange expression crossed his features. Not quite longing. Not quite fear. Something in between, mixed with a heavy dose of discomfort.

"Deedle," he breathed. "Delia."

"The same. The one who liked the pointy ears. The one who—"

"I know who she is." Alexander's voice had dropped. Grown older, somehow. More complicated. "She's... changed."

Bill stepped forward. "Changed how?"

Alexander looked away. His fingers picked at a loose thread on his ruined cape. "She left. Went somewhere. Still in the city, I think. But she's... different now. Big plans, she said. Big appetites."

"Appetites?" Duo raised an eyebrow. "What kind of appetites?"

"Scallops." Alexander's voice was small. "Galician scallops. She eats them constantly. Says our—" He paused, his face twisting. "—her father loved them. The computer. The one from the planet of bottled brains."

Bill exchanged a glance with Duo.

"My father was a god," Alexander continued, his voice rising. "A real god. Zeus. Olympus. Not some tin can with delusions of parenthood. I'm better than her. A hundred thousand times better. It doesn't matter that I spent eight years in her—" He stopped. Swallowed. "That part doesn't count."

Duo muttered under his breath. "Eight years in her what? Wait—the embryo. The transfer. He was in her. Before the transfer to the mother. That means—"

"Don't think about it," Bill advised. "Seriously. Don't."

Alexander was still talking, his words tumbling out in a messy stream. "She learned Portuguese, you know. And Galician. For Toronto. She says Toronto is paradise. All because her stupid computer father liked the skyline there. I made a paradise HERE. In Cleveland. I made this. The fire. The ruins. The dogs. This is MY kingdom. But does she care? No. She wants Toronto. TORONTO."

Bill grabbed the thread. "Toronto? Why Toronto?"

"Because the computer liked it! And Vancouver! And Portuguese restaurants in Canadian cities! She's obsessed! She talks about it constantly! 'The Galician scallops in Toronto are to die for, Xander. The architecture in Vancouver is so soothing, Nander.' I don't care! I have dogs! I have a throne! I have—"

He gestured at the pile he'd just fallen in.

"Right," Duo said. "That."

Bill tried again. "Why Cleveland? Why not New York? That's where you started. That's where the house was. Where the plan was supposed to—"

Alexander waved a dismissive hand. "New York is boring. Everyone goes to New York. Cleveland has... potential. And the dogs like it here. Something about the lake. I don't know. I don't ask them. They don't answer."

Bill stared at him. At the pathetic crown. The ruined cape. The army of indifferent dogs. The kingdom of ash and fire.

"This," he said, "is the great conqueror. The reborn Alexander. The—"

"Don't," Duo warned.

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just... observing."

"Observe quietly."

They stood there for a moment. Alexander sniffled. A dog farted. Somewhere in the distance, something that might have been a building or might have been a very large appliance crashed to the ground.

"Cleveland," Bill repeated. "He chose Cleveland."

Duo nodded slowly. "The universe has a sense of humor. A really, really cruel sense of humor."

Alexander looked up at them, his eyes red and watery. "Are you going to help me find her? Deedle? She's my sister. Sort of. It's complicated."

Bill opened his mouth.

Duo grabbed his arm. "We'll think about it. First, the pointy-eared one. Then maybe your sister. Then maybe—" He looked around at the ruined church, the indifferent dogs, the boy who thought he was a god. "—maybe we all need therapy."

Alexander's face crumpled again. "I don't need therapy. I need respect. I need—" He started crying.

Bill and Duo backed away slowly.

The dogs watched with mild disinterest. One of them began to snore.

Bill wiped the last traces of laughter from his eyes. "Okay. So we've found the self-proclaimed Lord of Cleveland, his army of indifferent dogs, and approximately seventeen tons of canine waste. What's the plan? How do we find—"

The radio screamed.

Not words—not at first. Just noise. A burst of static that seemed to carry something beneath it, a shape trying to form through the interference. Bill grabbed it, held it close, as if proximity could force coherence.

Then, cutting through the crackle:

"—found something. Something... fascinating. The local customs here are unlike anything I've encountered. The way they—" Static. "—interact. The physicality of it. I never imagined—"

Splock's voice. But wrong. Strained. Breathless in a way that Splock was never breathless. The voice of someone who had discovered something that had broken through his legendary composure.

"Splock!" Bill shouted. "Splock, where are you? What's happening?"

"—never experienced anything like this. The... the connection. It's illogical, and yet—"

More static. A sound that might have been a gasp. Might have been something else.

Then silence.

Long. Unbroken. The kind of silence that fills a room and refuses to leave.

Ham Duo's face had gone pale under its layer of grime. "That didn't sound right. That didn't sound right at all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" Duo swallowed. "I mean he sounded distracted. Flustered. Splock doesn't get flustered. Splock doesn't get anything. He's a walking logic engine with ears. And he just sounded like—"

"Like what?"

"Like someone who found something he wasn't supposed to find." Duo looked at the radio. "Or something found him."

Bill's stomach dropped. "You think—"

"I think something might have eaten his ears. Those were nice ears. Very pointy. Very snackable."

Bill wanted to argue. Wanted to say that no, Splock was fine, he was just investigating, he'd turn up any minute with a full report and a recommendation for further study. But the silence from the radio was heavy. Accusing.

And somewhere, deep down, a tiny voice whispered that maybe—just maybe—the universe had finally gotten tired of the logical one.

He pushed the thought away. It wasn't friendly. It wasn't comradely. Even if Splock did lecture him constantly. Even if he did explain things that didn't need explaining. Even if his ears did twitch in that annoying way whenever Bill said something stupid.

He shoved the thought away. "We're finding him. Now."

They ran.

Behind them, Alexander's voice followed, high and whiny: "Wait! You can't leave! I'm the Destroyer! I command you to—" A wet sniffle. "Also, my sister changed a lot in ten years. Like, a LOT. You should see her. She's not the same. At ALL."

Neither of them looked back.

The street outside was a wasteland of broken dreams and shattered commerce. Storefronts gaped like empty eye sockets. Signs hung at crazy angles, their messages incomplete. One caught Bill's attention: ADULT BOOKS & VIDEO above a door that hung open, revealing darkness within. Spilled magazines littered the sidewalk—not the normal kind, the other kind, their covers promising pleasures that Bill couldn't imagine and didn't want to.

He was so focused on the horror of pornographic comics that he almost missed it.

A shoe.

A single shoe, lying in the gutter like a discarded hope. Pointed toe. Strange construction. Not Earth-made.

"Splock's," he breathed. He picked it up. Turned it over. It was empty. No foot. No blood. Just a boot, abandoned like a shed skin.

Ham Duo looked at it. Looked at Bill. "I hope he hasn't gone crazy. Started undressing for no reason. That would be—"

"Maybe he wanted to swim?" Bill offered weakly. "Is there water nearby?"

Duo pointed at the burning buildings. The cracked asphalt. The complete absence of any body of water larger than a puddle. "Do you SEE any water?"

"I mean, he could have taken it off for a reason. Maybe his feet hurt. Long walk. Unfamiliar terrain."

"His feet don't hurt. He's a Fortinbrasian. They don't have pain receptors in their feet. It's a known fact. I think. I made it up, but it sounds right."

They ran on.

The square opened before them—a wide plaza with a fountain at its center, dry now, filled with debris. Around it, more ruined shops. Another sign caught Bill's eye: ADULT SUPERSTORE - WE NEVER CLOSE. The door was ajar. Something fluttered in the darkness within.

And there, by the fountain's edge, another discovery.

A sock.

Striped. Strange material. Definitely Splock's.

Next to it, crushed but visible, a small square plastic package. Bill picked it up. Turned it over. The wrapper had a slit in it, as if something had been removed. Words on the side: EXTRA STRONG and FOR MAXIMUM PLEASURE.

Bill squinted at it. "What's this? Some kind of gum? Extra strong gum? Must be Earth candy. Maybe he got hungry and—"

Duo looked at the package. His eyebrow rose. His lips twitched.

"Bill," he said slowly, "you are the most innocent creature I have ever met. And I've met newborn babies. Unborn babies, even. You make them look worldly."

"What? What is it?"

Duo took the package, examined it with the air of a connoisseur, and dropped it back on the ground. "Nothing. Forget it. Let's find the rest of your friend."

Bill stared at him. "What? WHAT IS IT?"

"Later. If we survive, I'll explain. If we don't... well, you'll die ignorant, which might be better."

They ran.

Fifty meters. Maybe less. The street curved, and there, spread across the pavement like a sacrifice to some perverse god, lay a pair of pants.

Splock's pants. The unmistakable one-piece jumpsuit, now in two-piece form, neatly folded and placed on a low wall. As if someone had taken them off with care. With intention.

Bill stopped. Stared. His brain refused to process.

"His pants," he whispered. "His pants are... here. On the ground. Without him."

Duo tried. He really tried. "Maybe he... got hot? Running generates heat. Fortinbrasians probably overheat easily. Taking off pants is logical in that scenario. Very logical. Classic Splock move."

Bill looked at him. "Do you believe that?"

"No."

"Neither do I."

Bill looked at the pants. And remembered the shoe. The sock. And the torn package with the mysterious promise of maximum pleasure.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no."

The radio crackled. For just a moment, they heard something—a voice, Splock's voice, saying words they couldn't quite catch. Then static swallowed it again.

Bill ran toward the sound.

Duo followed, the empty pants fluttering behind them in the ash-choked wind.

The buildings grew seedier, the signs more suggestive, the debris more personal in nature. High heels. Broken mirrors. A velvet rope trampled into the asphalt.

Music pulsed from somewhere ahead. Low. Throbbing. Menacing.

They rounded a corner and found the source.

A strip club. Or what had been a strip club, before the apocalypse. The sign, hanging crookedly from one remaining chain, read GOLDEN PHEASANT EXOTIC DANCING. Garish posters flanked the entrance—women in impossible poses, their painted smiles faded by smoke and time. The building itself was half-crumbled, but inside, somewhere, a radio played.

From the broken windows, sound bled out into the daylight. Muffled. Distorted by distance and rubble. A voice from the radio—growling, angry—cut through the afternoon haze:

"...this twisted, tortured mess..."

And then, from the same building, closer to the windows, another voice. Human. Male. It lunged at the melody like a drunk trying to catch a moving train.

"Thish... twistted... tor-churred..." He was rushing, gulping syllables, struggling to keep up. When he hit the last word, he grabbed it and STRETCHED, voice cracking, the vowel bending and warping as saliva thickened his throat:

"...MESSSSHHH—"

He held it until he ran out of breath, the sound degenerating into a wet, rattling gasp. Heavy breathing. A cough. Then the radio again, tinny through the distance:

"...this bed of sinfulness..."

The human voice crashed in immediately, desperate not to fall behind. He grabbed the first word and pulled it apart:

"Bedda shiiiiiiinful—"

He stretched it long, the pitch wavering, losing the melody, finding it again, losing it. His voice cracked on the way up, then settled into a thick, slurred drone. Then he tore into the last word, holding it until his throat gave out:

"—NESSSSHHH—"

The sound echoed across the rubble, fading into a wet sniffle. A pause. Heavy, phlegmy breathing. Then the radio:

"...who's longing for some rest..."

From the broken window, a voice scrambled to catch up, words tumbling out in a rushed, slurred panic:

"Who'sh loooongin' for shome—"

He dragged "longing" out until it dissolved into a mumble, consonants disappearing, the word barely recognizable. Then he lunged at the final word and WRUNG it, voice bending sharp then flat then cracking entirely as he pushed harder:

"—REEEEEESSST—"

He held it too long. His voice broke, folded in on itself, fell apart into a coughing fit—wet, hacking, painful-sounding. When the coughing stopped, there was only heavy breathing. Then the radio, faint and final:

"...and feeling numb."

A beat of silence. Dust settled in the daylight. The last word from the radio hung in the air for just a moment.

Then from the broken window, a voice—cracked, desperate, saliva-thick—ROARED:

"AND FEEEEEELING NUMMMMMB—"

Then softer, as if trying to catch an echo that was already fading:

"...nuuuuumb..."

Softer still, the word dissolving into a thick, sleepy mumble:

"...uuuumb..."

A whisper now, barely audible:

"...uub..."

Bill pressed himself against the wall. "Someone's in there. Singing. Badly."

"Multiple someones," Duo agreed. "The bad singer and—whoever that is on the recording. Sounds familiar."

"Depeche Mode," Bill said darkly. "It's always Depeche Mode. That band is everywhere. They're like the cockroaches of music."

They edged along the wall, peering into shadows, trying to find a window that wasn't completely shattered. Behind a dumpster, something moved.

Bill's hand went to his weapon.

The something emerged.

Fur. Lots of fur. Matted, multicolored, familiar fur. Chewgumma sat in a tangle of undergrowth, chewing contentedly on something green and pointy. A hat, Bill realized. One of those little bell-topped hats that belonged to the pipe-smoking friends of the hippo creatures. A pipe stem protruded from the corner of his mouth.

Chewgumma looked up. His small red eyes widened.

The Kookie swallowed. Grinned.

"Bill. Ham Duo. Kookie found you."

Duo's jaw dropped. "Chewgumma? You're alive? You're—what are you eating?"

"Snack." Chewgumma held up another hat. "Tastes like... tiny creature sadness. Very flavorful."

Bill grabbed his arm. "Never mind that. Is that you singing? In there?"

Chewgumma shook his massive head. "Kookie no sing. Kookie eat. Singer is inside. Singer is... loud. Bad."

Duo crouched beside his old companion. "The Disruptor. Do you still have it?"

Chewgumma patted a bulging pocket. "Kookie kept safe. Kookie also kept self safe. Eighteen years, Bill. Eighteen years Kookie run from police. Hide in sewers. Eat garbage. Steal hats." He held up another little green cap, this one with a particularly festive bell. "Newspapers loved Kookie. 'Talking Bear Still Free!' Kookie was famous."

"Famous," Bill repeated. "You were famous for eighteen years."

"Kookie had good run. Kookie still has Disruptor." He patted the pocket again. "Kookie ready to go home."

Bill turned back to the dirty window, crusted with years of neglect, but with a gap where the curtain didn't quite meet. The music thumped on. The bad singing continued. And through the grimy glass, he could see shapes moving.

He crept closer. Pressed his face to a crack in the boarded-up window.

What he saw would never leave him.

A room. Dimly lit. A couch in the center, its cushions flattened by decades of use. On the couch, sitting bolt upright with the posture of a man whose spine had been replaced by a titanium rod, was Splock.

His jumpsuit was torn to the waist, hanging open like a discarded skin. His chest was pale, hairless, utterly alien. His feet were bare. His legs were bare. His expression—

Bill had never seen that expression before. He didn't know Splock's face could make those shapes. The eyes were wide. The mouth was slightly open. The ears were flattened completely, pressed against his skull like a cat caught in a rainstorm. It was the expression of someone whose brain had left the building and wasn't planning to return.

Beside him, with her back to the window, stood a woman.

Bill's gaze dropped involuntarily.

Her backside was immense. Monumental. It occupied the eastern half of the room like a separate country. Bill's mind, trained in basic galactic geography, immediately made the comparison: Asia. The continent where the bloody communists and the dirty Asians lived. This woman's posterior could house them all. Could give them citizenship. Could charge them rent.

The woman turned.

Bill's eyes traveled up. Past the impossible curve of her hip. Past the waist that somehow, against all logic, still existed. Past the—

Two... things... protruded from her torso. They were not breasts. Breasts were soft, natural, appealing. These were engineering projects. Inflatable rafts, perhaps, capable of supporting an entire fleet of space troopers. They rose and fell with each breath, and Bill felt something stir in regions he had long thought dead to such influences.

For a moment—just a moment—he understood why Splock looked so shocked.

Then he looked at her face.

The stirring stopped.

The face was... wrong. It had once been the face of a child—annoying, precocious, boundary-violating, but recognizably human. Now it had stretched, distorted, taken on qualities that Bill could only describe as reptilian. The jaw was too wide. The eyes were too far apart. The mouth was a slash of red, lipstick applied with the enthusiasm of someone painting a barn.

It was Delia. Adult Delia.

And she looked like an alligator that had learned to walk upright and discovered makeup.

Bill's mind flashed back to his own alligator foot—the scales, the claws, the way it had felt when he wiggled his toes. He understood, suddenly, what it meant to be trapped in a body that didn't quite fit. He felt a moment of sympathy.

It passed.

"Duo," Bill whispered. "Duo, look."

Duo crowded next to him, peering through the same gap. His breath caught.

"Is that—"

"The same."

"She was a toddler. A little girl. She had pigtails. She—"

"Look at her now."

Duo looked. His face cycled through several expressions—disbelief, horror, reluctant admiration, more horror.

"She was a swan," Bill breathed. "A beautiful little swan. And she grew into—"

"A duck," Duo supplied.

"Worse. A platypus. An overgrown, mutated, lipstick-wearing platypus."

Inside, Delia reached out and stroked Splock's head. Her fingers traced the curve of his flattened ear.

"There, there, bunny," she cooed. Her voice had deepened. Smokier. It carried the weight of ten years of practice and possibly several packs of cigarettes. "Did you like that? Did my little bunny like what his good girl learned?"

Splock's mouth moved. No sound came out.

"Because I learned so much," Delia continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Daddy—my real daddy, the computer—he put so many programs in me. So many things I didn't understand when I was little. But now?" She smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. "Now I understand everything. And I want to show you. All of it. Every single program."

Splock's eyes darted toward the window.

For just a moment, they met Bill's.

And in that moment, Bill saw something he had never seen in a Fortinbrasian before.

Pleading.

Actual, genuine, desperate pleading.

Then Delia's hand moved, and Splock's attention snapped back to her, and the moment was gone.

Bill pulled away from the window. His face was pale. His hands were shaking.

"We have to go in there," he said.

Duo grabbed his arm. "Are you insane? Look at her. She's—that's—"

"Our friend. Our pointy-eared, logical, insufferable friend. Who is currently being—" Bill couldn't finish.

"Programmed," Chewgumma offered helpfully. "Kookie watched through other window. Very educational. Kookie learned things about humans. Disturbing things."

Bill had seen enough.

He drew back his foot and kicked the door with every ounce of strength the Space Troopers had drilled into him. The wood splintered. The frame cracked. The door flew inward, slamming against the wall with a sound that cut through the grinding music like a gunshot.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU—"

He stopped.

The room was worse than the window had suggested. Much worse.

There was the couch, yes. There was Delia, yes, her impossible proportions somehow even more overwhelming at close range. There was Splock, still frozen in that expression of cosmic shock, his jumpsuit in ruins, his dignity in even greater ruins.

But there was also someone else.

In the corner, slumped against the wall, sat a figure. A man. Young, perhaps twenty-four years old. Long chestnut hair hung to his shoulders, lank and unwashed. His skin was the color of old parchment—pale, almost translucent. His frame was so thin that Bill could count ribs through his stained t-shirt. His eyes, dark and hollow, stared at nothing with the profound sadness of someone who had seen too much and felt too deeply.

His hands trembled. Constantly. Rhythmically. Like leaves in a wind that only he could feel.

From the radio on the windowsill, Dave Gahan's voice poured out like black velvet—smooth, controlled, menacing: "Is there something you need from me?"

The man in the corner jerked his head up, mouth already opening. His cracked voice followed the music, but wandered far from the melody, arriving late, slurred, wrong:

"Ish there... shomething you need..." He paused, head lolling, a string of saliva connecting his lower lip to his stained collar. His eyes struggled to focus on something that wasn't there. Then his face twisted with desperate effort, and he SCREAMED the next words, spit spraying:

"...FROM MEEEEEEEE?"

The radio continued, indifferent: "Are you having your fun?"

The man giggled—a wet, gurgling sound. He tried to nod along with the beat but his head moved wrong, too slow, too loose. He pointed a shaking finger at nothing, at everything, at the ceiling.

"Are you... are you HAVING..." He coughed, hacked, swallowed thickly. When he opened his mouth again, his voice cracked into a high, keening wail that had nothing to do with melody:

"...YOUR FUUUUUUUN?!"

Saliva ran down his chin. He didn't wipe it. His chest heaved with the effort of the scream, and for a moment he just breathed, wet and rattling.

The radio: "I never agreed to be your holy one..."

The man's face crumpled. Some flicker of recognition—of pain, of betrayal—crossed his vacant features. He tried to stand, failed, slumped back against the wall. His trembling hands came together in his lap, fingers twitching.

"I never... I never agreed..." His voice dropped to a whisper, confused, childlike. Then his jaw tightened. His eyes, unfocused as they were, suddenly burned with something broken and defiant. He threw his head back, cords standing out in his thin neck, and SCREAMED at the ceiling until his voice cracked and died:

"...TO BE YOUR HOOOOO-LEEEEEE OOOOOOONE!"

The scream degraded into a coughing fit that doubled him over. When he looked up again, his chin was wet, his eyes were empty, and his head began to loll gently to a beat that only he could hear—a beat that had nothing to do with the music still playing from the radio.

On the floor beside him, half-hidden by his trembling hand, lay a photograph. Bill's eyes caught it—a teenage boy, dark-haired, short-cropped, leather jacket, smirking at the camera with the confidence of youth. A younger brother, maybe. Or a victim.

Bill's nose wrinkled. The guy was a walking pharmacy. Or a walking warning. Or both. He looked like every bad decision Bill had ever seen, rolled into one shaking, miserable package. Hippie? Junkie? Wannabe Casanova? Refugee from a boy band? He was impossible to categorize, which made him even more repellent.

"What in the nine hells," Bill muttered, "is that?"

Duo edged closer to him. "Drugs, I think. Heavy stuff. The kind that makes you think you're a fish for a week."

The man noticed them.

His eyes focused—or tried to. They swam in their sockets for a moment before landing approximately on Bill's face. His mouth opened. Drool escaped. He didn't seem to notice.

"My name..." A thick rope of saliva suddenly spilled from the corner of his mouth, stretching down to his chin before breaking. He didn't seem to notice. "...ith Carlton... Morrow."

His head lolled on his neck, eyes struggling to focus on the wall. He blinked slowly, as if each eyelid weighed a ton.

"That—" His hand flopped up, finger wavering in the air like it might fall off. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the photograph, missing it entirely at first before his aim drifted to the right spot. "—ish my brother. Bobby."

His jaw went slack. For a moment, he just breathed, a wet, rattling sound. "My... little brother." He nodded, a loose, uncontrolled motion. "I... I got him hooked. On the sss—" He spat a little, the sound wet and thick. "—stuff. The bad ssstuff."

He tried to wipe his mouth but just smeared the spit across his stubbled cheek. "Now he... dances. Yeah. He dances." A vacant smile flickered. "In a club. A... gay club." He whispered the word 'gay' as if it were a dirty secret, then let out a single, gurgling chuckle. "To Depeche Mode."

His face suddenly crumpled. A single, fat tear detached itself and traced a slow path down his waxy, pale cheek. He didn't move to wipe it.

"He thinks..." He hiccupped, a dry, convulsive jerk of his torso. "He thinks Alan Wilder... is a genius." His voice cracked, rising to a trembling shout that immediately fell back into a whimper. "A GENIUS. And me?" He looked down at his own trembling hands, at the filth under his nails. He seemed confused by them. "I'm nothing."

His head drooped, chin hitting his chest. A long, silent moment passed. Then, without lifting his head, he mumbled into his own shirt, the words muffled and wet: "He's right. I'm nothing."

Bill exchanged a glance with Duo. Neither spoke.

Carlton's gaze drifted to Delia. His face transformed—a pathetic mixture of longing and worship, the look of a dog that keeps coming back to an owner who kicks it.

"I... love you, Delia." The whisper was hoarse, a struggle. His lips moved, but they were numb, smacking together uselessly. "I... did ev-verything..." He had to stop, swallowing hard against a dry throat, the sound painful. "...for you."

His head wobbled on his neck, eyes losing the wall, finding the corner of the room, losing it again.

"EVERYTHING." The word came out as a thick, spitting shout that immediately died into a wet cough. He gagged a little, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a glistening trail.

"My brother—" He jabbed a thumb towards his own chest, missed, tried again. "I... I deshtroyed him." He stared blankly at his thumb, as if wondering what it was doing there. "My soul..." A long, vacant pause. He blinked slowly. "I sold it. Piece... by... piece." He made a counting motion with his fingers, but the numbers were wrong, clumsy. "Pieces."

His face, slack and sweaty, suddenly tightened. A flicker of something like focus, or pain, crossed his features. "And you—" His voice cracked, a pathetic, reedy sound. He tried to point at her, but his shaking finger wavered in the air, pointing somewhere to the left of her head, at a lamp. "You're... playing games... with THAT?"

He squinted at the end of his own finger, then at the lamp, confusion washing over his face. He lowered his hand, defeated, and a fresh tear spilled over, mingling with the spit on his chin. "With... that," he mumbled again, to no one.

He jabbed a finger towards... something. At first, the direction was wrong, his hand twitching helplessly, but he corrected it, pointing his trembling finger at Splock, sprawled on the couch.

"That..." His lip curled, spit bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "That asshole alien!" The words came out thick, tangled, sprayed with saliva. He wiped his chin with his shoulder, a clumsy, lurching motion.

"With his..." He squinted, trying to focus on the face of the Nocturnian from the planet Fortinbras II. His face contorted with genuine disgust. "...crappy jumpsuit." He gestured vaguely at his own stained, rumpled clothes, then back at Splock. "Mine's worse now. See? See what you did?"

His head wobbled, eyes losing the photograph, finding it again with visible effort. "And his... his hatchet face." He made a chopping motion at his own nose, missing, almost poking himself in the eye. He blinked, confused.

"And his ears..." A wet, gurgling laugh escaped him, degenerating into a coughing fit. He hacked for a moment, phlegm rattling in his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, almost wondering, as if the comparison had just occurred to him in its full brilliance.

"Like a—" He paused, mouth hanging open, searching for the words. His eyes went distant, then lit up with the dim flicker of what might have been triumph. "—a pregnant kangaroo!"

He nodded to himself, satisfied, the motion too loose, too many nods. A fresh rope of saliva stretched from his lower lip to his shirt. He didn't notice.

"Pregnant... kangaroo," he repeated, quieter now, giggling to himself. The giggle faded into a vacant stare at the floor. His finger, still extended, slowly lowered, trembling the whole way.

Splock's ears twitched at the description. It was the only movement he made.

Delia didn't look at him.

Carlton tried to rise from the floor. His knee buckled before he finally managed to rise, as if something had gone wrong, all sharp corners and loose joints. He swayed for a moment, head down, breathing heavily.

When he looked up, his eyes were wrong. Unfocused, but burning underneath. The kind of dangerous that came from having nothing left to lose. From having already lost it.

He stumbled toward her. His foot caught on nothing—just air—and he corrected with a clumsy sideways step that brought him too close. His hand shot out, grabbing her arm. His fingers were damp, clammy, and they dug in with a desperate strength that surprised even him.

"Look... look at me, Delia." His breath washed over her face—stale, sour, chemical. He blinked hard, but his eyes kept drifting, losing her, finding her again. His grip tightened.

"LOOK AT ME." The shout started strong but dissolved into a wet cough at the end. He gagged, swallowed, his throat working painfully. A thin string of spit connected his lower lip to his chin.

"I love you." His voice cracked on the word love, splintered into something small and pathetic. "I did... ev-verything." He shook her arm slightly, a loose, jerky motion. "Everything."

Now his face was inches from hers, giving her the fullest view of the broken capillaries in his nose, the trembling in his jaw, the way his pupils, despite the dim light, were like pinpoints.

"You can't just—" He stopped. His mouth hung open. For a long, terrible moment, he simply stood there, frozen, having forgotten what came next. His brow furrowed in confused concentration. The word hovered somewhere in the fog, just out of reach.

"You can't," he repeated finally, lamely, his voice small. His fingers were still clamped around her arm, trembling. "Just... can't." He nodded, agreeing with himself, the motion too loose, too many nods. "With him. With that. You just... can't."

Another tear rolled down his unshaven cheek, leaving a dirty trail. He seemed unaware, standing beside Delia, holding her hand too tightly, breathing his sour breath into her face, waiting for her brain, which was struggling to function, to comprehend the rest of her sentence.

Delia finally seemed to remember his existence, slapped his hand away without looking, and turned to him with the patience of a being who had all the time in the world and intended to make the most of every second.

Her eyes began to glow.

Not metaphorically. Actually glow. A sickly yellow light that seemed to come from somewhere behind her pupils, illuminating her face from within, casting strange shadows across those unfortunate features.

"Carlton," she said. Her voice was calm. Almost kind. "You've been a good toy. Very obedient. Very eager to please." She smiled. It was not a nice smile. "But children outgrow their toys, Carlton. They throw them away."

Carlton's face went white. Whiter than it had already been, which was saying something—the guy looked like death warmed over on a good day. His eyes widened. His mouth opened, but at first, only a wet, confused sound came out.

He stepped backward.

One step. Two. His heel hit something—the base of a glass door leading to another room. He stumbled, caught himself, looked behind him at the frosted pane. Then back at Delia. His brow furrowed.

"Wha—" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a glistening trail across his cheek. "What're you... doing to me?"

Then his body moved forward again.

Not by his choice. Bill saw it clearly—Carlton's muscles tensed, fighting, but something else was pulling him. Something invisible. Something inexorable. His feet dragged slightly, like a puppet with tangled strings.

"Delia...?" His voice was small, confused. Not scared yet. Just... puzzled. Like a dog hearing a strange noise. "Delia, stop. I'm... I'm talking to you. About him. About that... that alien asshole with his..." He lost the thought, head lolling, then found it again as his body carried him closer to the glass. "With his ears. You... you did it with him, didn't you? I saw. I'm not stupid. I'm... I'm—"

His head hit the glass.

A dull thud. The pane spiderwebbed with cracks. Carlton bounced back, dazed, blood already trickling from his forehead. He blinked. Touched his face. Looked at his fingers. Red.

"Did I...?" He swayed. "Delia, I think I... I think I'm bleeding." A tear traced down his cheek, mingling with the blood. "Is this because I... because I yelled? About the... the pregnant kangaroo? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I just... I love you. I did everything. I—"

Then forward again.

Another thud. More cracks. The glass held. His nose smashed against the pane this time. Blood sprayed. He gasped, a wet, choking sound.

"Delia! Delia, make it stop! Please! I'll be good! I'll—I won't talk about him anymore! I won't! Just—"

Forward again. Harder.

This time, his head punched through. Shards of glass surrounded his face, cutting his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. A piece lodged in his eyebrow. Another sliced his ear—the one he'd been mocking just minutes ago. He hung there, impaled but alive, his eyes still fixed on Delia with that terrible, dog-like devotion.

Blood poured into his mouth. He coughed, spat, sprayed red across the broken glass. "I... I still love you," he mumbled, the words thick and wet. "Even with... with the alien. Even with... with everything. I just—I just want you to look at me. Like you used to. Before—"

He pulled back. Glass scraped bone. More blood. He barely seemed to notice. His eyes were already unfocused, pupils pinpricks, but still searching for her face.

Forward again. His skull hit the frame this time.

The sound was wet. Final.

CARLTON SCREAMED.

Not the confused mumble from before. Not the pathetic whining. This was something else—a sound that came from somewhere deep and animal, a shriek of pure agony that tore through the room and made Bill take an involuntary step backward.

"AAAAAGH—"

His body kept moving. Back. Forward. The scream cut off as his head hit again, then resumed, higher now, desperate, the sound of something being destroyed while still alive.

"DELI—AAAAAGH—PLEASE—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—MAKE IT—AAAAAGH—"

Back. Forward. Each impact weaker. Each scream shorter.

"—STOP—PLEASE—I LOVE—AAAAAGH—"

Back. Forward.

"—WHY—WHY—AAAAAGH—"

Back. Forward.

"—DELI—AAAA—"

Back. Forward.

"—AA—"

Back.

Forward.

Bill lost count. Six, maybe seven impacts. Each one weaker than the last. Each one painting more red across the floor. Each scream quieter, hoarser, until finally—

Finally, Carlton stopped moving. His head rested on a bed of broken glass, his body crumpled beneath him. The trembling hands were still. The sad eyes were open, but they saw nothing.

His mouth moved once. A whisper so quiet Bill almost missed it.

"...pregnant kangaroo..."

A bubble of blood formed on his lips. Popped. And then nothing.

Delia watched the whole thing. Her expression didn't change. Not once.

When it was over, she reached up and adjusted a strand of hair that had come loose. Turned back to Splock. Smiled that terrible smile.

"Now then, bunny. Where were we?"

Splock's mouth moved. No words came out. He tried to scoot backward on the couch, but there was nowhere to go. The cushions bunched behind him. Delia's bulk filled his entire field of vision.

Outside, Chewgumma's voice drifted through the broken window. "Kookie thinks bunny is in trouble."

Bill had seen enough. More than enough. The blood. The broken glass. Carlton's empty eyes. Splock's shattered dignity. Delia's glowing crocodile face looming over their friend like a predator about to devour its prey.

Something snapped.

"HEY! BUTT-FACE! ASIA-BUTT! PLANET-SIZED REAR END!"

Delia turned.

Her head rotated slowly, mechanically, like a turret tracking a target. The glow in her eyes flickered. Her crocodile mouth opened, then closed. For a moment—just a moment—her face crumpled into something that didn't belong on an eighteen-year-old predator.

It was a child's face. A hurt child's face. The expression of a little girl who had just been called names on the playground.

Her voice, when it came, was high and wobbly. "Stop it, you weenie! Your breath smells bad! Why are you being so rude? I don't even know what you're like in bed!"

Bill blinked. Of all the comebacks in all the universe, that was the one she'd chosen? He drew himself up to his full height, puffed out his chest, and let loose with the most devastating insult he could muster.

"I'm the Galactic Hero, and you're a POOP NOSE!"

Delia's mouth fell open. Her eyes widened. For one beautiful second, she had absolutely nothing to say.

That was all Chewgumma needed.

The Kookie burst through the broken door like a furry missile, his massive form filling the room. He didn't hesitate. Didn't slow down. He bounded across the floor—over Carlton's body, around the pool of blood, past the sagging couch—and grabbed Splock by the scruff of his torn jumpsuit.

The logical one didn't resist. He couldn't. He was still in that state of cosmic shock, his eyes unfocused, his mouth slightly open, his ears doing something that no Fortinbrasian ears had ever done before.

Chewgumma hauled him toward the door.

Delia's head snapped around. The glow in her eyes intensified. Her crocodile face twisted with fury. She raised one hand, fingers spread, and Bill felt the air pressure change. Something was building. Something like what had happened to Carlton—that invisible force that had smashed his head against the glass until it broke.

Nothing happened.

Delia tried again. Her brow furrowed. Her hand trembled with effort. The air hummed with potential energy.

Chewgumma kept walking. Splock bounced along behind him like a sack of potatoes.

Ham Duo appeared at Bill's elbow, watching the scene with professional interest. "It's not working," he observed. "Her mind thing. The psycho-whatever. It's not working on Chewgumma."

"Why not?" Bill asked.

"Kookie brain. Too simple. Too primitive. All those years of eating hats and running from police—they've made him immune to sophisticated mental attacks. You can't push what isn't there to push."

Delia shrieked. An actual shriek, high and frustrated, the sound of a toddler who had just been told she couldn't have dessert.

Bill paused at the door. Turned back. Looked at her—really looked at her. At the crocodile face. At the impossible proportions. At the rage and confusion warring on features that had once, briefly, been almost cute.

"You know," he said, "you were kind of pretty as a kid. In a creepy, predatory way. What happened? Did your computer dad install the wrong programs? Mix up 'femme fatale' with 'monster from the black lagoon'?"

Delia's lip curled. "You don't understand anything. I'm the daughter of the Quintiform. I was created for greatness. For power. For—"

"For sitting on?" Bill interrupted. "Because with a butt that size, you're not conquering anything except maybe furniture. You could be in commercials. 'Delia's Derriere—now available in queen size!'"

Delia's face went through several colors. None of them were good.

Behind Bill, Ham Duo's voice cut through the moment. "I love what you're doing, really. The insults are inspired. But we need to MOVE."

Bill took one last look at the scene—the blood, the body, the sputtering monster, the empty space where Splock's dignity used to be—and ran.

He burst through the door just as Chewgumma disappeared around a corner, Splock still dangling from his massive paw like a broken toy. Duo was right behind him, laughing despite everything, laughing because that was what you did when the universe got too absurd to process any other way.

Behind them, Delia's scream echoed through the ruined streets.

"I'LL FIND YOU! ALL OF YOU! ESPECIALLY THE BUNNY! HE'S MINE! MINE!"

Bill ran faster.

The music from the bar followed them for a few blocks, then faded into the general soundtrack of apocalypse—the crackle of flames, the crash of falling debris, the distant howl of mutant dogs. They ran without looking back, without checking if she was following, because looking back was how people in horror stories died.

Chewgumma led the way, Splock's limp form bouncing against his furry back with each stride. The Kookie moved with surprising speed for something his size, eighteen years of running from police having apparently turned him into an escape artist of considerable skill.

They wove through collapsed buildings, jumped over craters, ducked under hanging debris. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Bill's lungs burned. Duo's breathing was ragged. Chewgumma showed no signs of fatigue, which was either a testament to Kookie physiology or evidence that he'd been eating performance-enhancing hats.

Finally, when the ruins had grown quiet enough that their own footsteps seemed obscenely loud, Chewgumma veered into a collapsed structure—what might have been a warehouse, once—and deposited Splock on a relatively clean patch of concrete.

The logical one didn't move. His eyes were open but unfixed, staring at something that wasn't there. His ears were still flat against his skull. His mouth hung slightly open, as if he'd been mid-sentence when his brain had simply... stopped.

Bill collapsed beside him, gasping. "Is she—did we—"

"Kookie doesn't know." Chewgumma peered back the way they'd come. "Kookie doesn't hear her. Kookie doesn't smell her. Kookie thinks maybe she stopped."

Duo leaned against a broken wall, sucking air. "Stopped? She had us. She had him. Why would she stop?"

The answer, had they known it, was both simpler and stranger than they could have imagined.

Back at the Golden Pheasant Exotic Dancing club, Delia had reached the doorway just as they disappeared around a corner. She'd taken two steps into the street, ready to pursue, ready to catch her bunny and never let go—

And stopped.

Her hand had gone to her face. To the smeared lipstick. To the mascara running in dark rivers down her cheeks.

She'd caught her reflection in a shard of mirror still hanging crookedly from the doorframe.

"I can't," she'd whispered. "I can't let him see me like this. Not my bunny. Not looking like... like this."

She'd turned and walked back inside, already planning her next move. A change of clothes. Fresh makeup. Something that would make those ears twitch with something other than terror.

The music played on.

The heroes, of course, knew none of this. All they knew was that they were alive, they were together, and Splock was currently experiencing levels of psychological damage that no Fortinbrasian had ever been designed to handle.

Bill crouched in front of him. Waved a hand in front of his face.

"Hello? Splock? You in there?"

No response.

Duo crouched beside him. "I think she broke him. Actually broke him. I didn't know that was possible."

Chewgumma produced another little green hat from somewhere and began chewing thoughtfully. "Kookie thinks bunny needs rest. Lots of rest. Maybe therapy."

Bill looked at his friend—his annoying, logical, pointy-eared, endlessly lecturing friend—and felt something he hadn't expected.

Worry.

"Splock," he said softly. "Come on. Say something. Explain something. Tell me why babies are cute again. Tell me I'm wrong about something. Anything."

Splock's eyes moved. Slowly. Painfully. They found Bill's face and stopped.

His lips parted.

A sound emerged.

It might have been a word. It might have been a prayer. It might have been the first syllable of a forty-minute lecture on Fortinbrasian mating rituals.

It was none of those things.

It was: "Ears..."

Then his eyes closed and he slumped sideways into Bill's arms.

Bill caught him. Held him. Looked up at Duo with an expression that was half terror, half disbelief.

"He said 'ears.' That's all. Just 'ears.'"

Duo nodded slowly. "She got to him. Really got to him. The ears were always her thing. And now—" He gestured at Splock's limp form. "Now they're all he has left."

Chewgumma crunched another hat. "Kookie thinks bunny will be okay. Eventually. Maybe. Probably not."

The fires burned on. The smoke swirled.

Ham Duo kicked a chunk of rubble and watched it skitter across the broken asphalt. "Well. That went well. Splock's catatonic, we're stuck in the apocalypse, somewhere back there an eighteen-year-old with the face of a reptile and the hips of a continent is crying into her inflatable chest, and we have zero idea where the Historian's gone or what he's planning next. This is a disaster."

Splock's lips moved. A sound emerged. It might have been words. It might have been static. It was impossible to tell.

Bill crouched beside him. "What? What is it?"

"Ears," Splock whispered. "She... touched my ears."

"Yeah, we know. She touched your ears. A lot. For like an hour."

"Longer." Splock's eyes focused on something distant. Something terrible. "Time perception was... distorted. It may have been days. Weeks. Eternity. I cannot be certain."

Duo stared at him. "Days? She had you for days?"

"I have experienced things, Ham Duo. Things that have no place in logical discourse. Things that have fundamentally altered my understanding of—" He stopped. Swallowed. "Of everything."

Bill stood up. His face had taken on an expression that neither Duo nor Chewgumma had seen before. Determination. Real, focused, military-grade determination.

"I have a plan," he said.

Duo raised an eyebrow. "You? A plan? This should be good."

"We need to go back."

"Back where? To the club? You heard her—she's crying, not dead. She'll rip our heads off."

"No. Back to 1990. The RIGHT 1990. The one where she's still a kid. Where Alexander's embryo is still inside her. Before any of this happened."

Duo stared at him. "You want to go back in time to stop a baby from being born? That's—that's—"

"That's our only chance." Bill's voice was fierce. "If we don't stop it there, this happens again. She finds us. She finds HIM." He pointed at Splock. "And next time, maybe we're not here to pull her off. Maybe she keeps him. Forever. Tied to that couch. Listening to Depeche Mode and—"

Splock made a sound. A small, pained sound, like a dying computer. "Please. Do not. Describe it further. My memory is... photographic. I will never unsee. Never unfeel. Never—"

"But that's just it!" Bill crouched beside him. "You don't have to remember it forever if we make it so it never happened. We go back. We stop the transfer. We change the timeline. And you—" He gripped Splock's shoulder. "You never meet her. Never. She's just a weird kid with a crush, and then she's nothing."

Splock's eyes focused. Just slightly. Just enough.

"Paradox," he whispered. "Temporal mechanics. Changing the past could—"

"Shut up," Duo said. Not unkindly. "Bill, that's insane. We don't even know if we can—"

"Chewgumma has a Disruptor."

"He's had it for eighteen years. It's probably bonded to him. Attached. Emotionally invested in his furry—"

"So we ask him."

Duo stared. "Ask him. Ask the Kookie. Who's been eating hats for two decades. Who thinks the height of humor is watching tiny creatures be sad. That's your plan?"

Chewgumma looked up from his latest snack. "Kookie heard name. Kookie likes Bill. Bill is smart. Bill helped Kookie once." He rummaged in his fur, past layers of grime and forgotten food, and produced the Disruptor. It gleamed dully in the firelight, somehow still pristine after eighteen years of running and hiding and hat-eating.

Duo's jaw dropped. "You just... you just had it. This whole time. In your fur."

"Kookie keeps things safe." Chewgumma patted the device fondly. "Kookie and Disruptor are friends. Good friends. Disruptor talks to Kookie at night. Tells stories. About time. About space. About Hungary."

"Of course it does," Duo muttered.

"Kookie has Disruptor. Kookie kept it safe. Eighteen years. Very safe. Mostly."

Duo sputtered. "That—that doesn't matter! We can't just—the temporal paradoxes—the risk of—"

Splock's voice cut through. Weak, but clearer now. "The probability of success... is low. The risks... are incalculable. The potential for paradox... is significant." He paused. His eyes met Bill's. "But the alternative... is worse. Much worse. I have... empirical data."

Bill nodded. "Then it's settled."

Chewgumma held the Disruptor in both paws, turning it over with the reverence of a man handling holy relics. His small red eyes studied its surface, then lifted to Bill.

"Kookie needs to open it. Kookie forgot how."

"Here." Bill reached for it. Chewgumma pulled back.

"No. Kookie's friend. Kookie opens."

"Fine, fine. Your friend. Just—" Bill pointed. "There's a latch. On the side. Slide it."

Chewgumma's thick furry thumb found the latch. It slid back with a satisfying click. The lightweight steel cover hinged open, revealing the small computer keyboard beneath. QWERTY layout, pristine after eighteen years of fur-based storage. A dozen function keys labeled F1 through F12 marched across the top. Below them, three larger keys: DIN, DON, and RES.

Chewgumma stared at them. His face, already confused, somehow found new depths of confusion.

"Kookie sees many buttons. Which one is go-back time?"

"F1," Bill said. "Trust me. I've used these before."

Duo snorted. "Used them badly, from what I recall. Banana peels. Spit. The whole—"

"I used them ENOUGH to know F1 is the activation key. The rest are—"

"F2 is for destination fine-tuning," Splock murmured. His voice was still weak, but there was something approaching normal in it. "F3 through F7 are temporal coordinate modifiers. F8 engages emergency recall. F9 through F12 are... I believe... user-programmable macros. The DIN, DON, and RES keys control—"

"Nobody asked," Duo interrupted. "Nobody ever asks. That's your whole problem."

Chewgumma's thumb hovered over the keyboard. "Kookie presses F1?"

"F1," Bill confirmed. "That's the one. Trust me."

Chewgumma squinted at the keys. "What other buttons for? DIN? DON? RES? Lots of letters. Kookie can't type. Kookie has paws."

Duo leaned in, examining the keyboard. "Yeah, what's with all the extra crap? You'd think a time machine would have, like, one button. Maybe two. 'Go' and 'Don't Go.'"

Splock, still leaning against the wall with his torn jumpsuit hanging open, managed to summon enough coherence to answer. His voice was weak but gaining strength, like a computer rebooting after a catastrophic crash.

"The extra keys are... vestigial. Think of them as the temporal equivalent of an appendix. They serve no purpose now, but removing them would require admitting that the original design was flawed."

He paused, swallowing hard.

"The technology is so new that the scientists haven't had a chance to complicate it yet. When the first temporal devices were prototyped, the engineers assumed users would need manual coordinate input. Hence the QWERTY keyboard—a layout so ancient and inefficient that it predates spaceflight by centuries. The function keys were for preset destinations. DIN, DON, and RES handled dimensional interface negation, destination override, and system reset."

Duo frowned. "So why are they still there?"

"Because scientists hate admitting they were wrong. It's easier to add new features than to remove old ones. They built voice activation on top of the existing interface and called it a day. Now the Disruptor has two completely separate control systems that do the same thing, one of which no one has used in decades." He gestured weakly at the keyboard. "This is archaeological evidence. A fossil preserved in plastic and silicon."

Bill scratched his head. "So it's like... if you built a spaceship but left the horse hitch on the front?"

"An apt analogy. Crude, but apt."

Duo snorted. "Classic. Build something complicated, then build something simple on top of it, but leave the complicated stuff there so everyone can see how smart you were."

Bill frowned. "So why not just strip it out? Make it cleaner?"

"Because," Splock continued, warming to his subject despite his recent trauma, "there are two schools of temporal device engineering. The Disruptor represents one school—the open-access, user-modifiable approach pioneered by the Chrono-Collective, an independent, non-commercial circle of temporal enthusiasts and philosophical engineers based on the cold, ice-covered planet Tuksi Gew, which is also the native world of their lead engineer, a penguinoid being of remarkable patience named Lynootz Torbaltz. Lynootz had once studied applied chronodynamics on the mist-laden world of Helsanga—where the vowels are long, the winters longer, and silence is considered a form of peer review—before returning to his frozen homeworld with a firm belief that users should have complete control over their temporal experience. Every key has a function. Every function can be modified. Every modification requires reading documentation."

"How much documentation?" Ham Duo asked.

"Seventy-three thousand pages." Splock paused. "I have read it. It assumes you already understand temporal mechanics at a postgraduate level. Which I do. It was still... challenging. Particularly the sections illustrated with flipper gestures."

"And the other school?" Bill prompted.

"The other school is represented by the Silicon Hegemony of Micros Prime, a planet where the dominant life forms are crystalloid beings who communicate via blinking lights and cluster in the perpetually overcast red-moss districts of Rheddemont Cluster. They manufacture what they call the 'Gatesware Temporal Integrator.'" Splock's tone dripped with the particular disdain that Fortinbrasians reserve for illogical systems. "Their founder and eternal CEO is a massive crystalline entity named Byllum Gaietz, who has been releasing new versions of the Integrator for three centuries."

Duo raised an eyebrow. "Three centuries? How many versions?"

"Dozens. Each one promises to revolutionize time travel. Each one is incompatible with the last. The early consumer-line models—Integrator Series Nine-Five and Nine-Eight—were unstable but beloved by enthusiasts. The Integrator Turn-of-the-Millennium Edition was a spectacular failure that corrupted countless timelines. The Two-K Revision corrected several paradoxes while quietly introducing new ones. The X-Phase Integrator proved unexpectedly robust—many operators still refuse to retire it. Then came the Integrator Vistara, whose expanded temporal interface was so resource-intensive that users frequently reported arriving at their destinations weeks after they had departed."

Bill winced. "Weeks?"

"The temporal differential was... significant. Byllum Gaietz blamed the users. Said they weren't holding the devices correctly. Then came Integrator VII, which was widely hailed as a return to form, followed by Integrator VIII and X—skipping the IX version for reasons no one quite understands—and now they're on Integrator XI, which adds a handful of redundant safety protocols that no one uses and a retooled activation mechanism that confuses even experienced operators."

Chewgumma looked confused. "Why so many? Kookie has one Disruptor. Kookie keeps it eighteen years. Still works."

"The Chrono-Collective's philosophy is different. Lynootz Torbaltz believes in releasing one version and letting users customize it. The Micros Prime approach is to release a new version every few years, each one incompatible with the previous, so users must continually purchase new devices. Also, the Integrator requires a proprietary charging crystal that only works with Gatesware power stations. And every few years, they change the crystal shape so old ones don't fit."

Duo's jaw dropped. "That's—that's evil."

"That's capitalism on Micros Prime. Their entire economy is based on planned obsolescence and forced upgrades. The Integrator Series Nine-Five can't interface with Series Nine-Eight data crystals. The X-Phase Integrator introduced a new temporal coordinate encoding that no other model can decode. Integrator VII removed the auxiliary crystal port—the one everyone used for custom destination modules."

"The what?"

"An ancient connector. No one used it anyway. But the principle was clear: Byllum Gaietz does what Byllum Gaietz wants."

Bill shook his head. "So what does the Integrator actually do? Besides cost seventeen million credits?"

"When it works, it works simply. One button. Press it, speak your destination, and go. When it doesn't work—" Splock paused. "There are documented cases of users asking to go to 'Rome, 45 BCE' and ending up in 'Roam, 45 BCE'—a small nomadic settlement on the Siberian plain with no historical significance whatsoever. The error messages are notoriously unhelpful. They just display a tiny hologram of Byllum Gaietz shrugging."

Bill stared. "A shrugging crystal?"

"Byllum Gaietz believes in minimalist communication. His exact quote, transmitted via interpretive light patterns, was: 'If they can't figure it out from the shrug, they don't deserve to travel through time.' Customer support is provided by automated voices that repeat the phrase 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?' in seventeen different languages. The eighteenth language is silence. That's for premium subscribers."

Chewgumma looked at the keyboard in his paws. Then at the F1 key. Then back at Splock.

"Kookie likes this one better. Kookie can see buttons. Kookie can choose. Kookie doesn't need to pay seventeen million. Also, Kookie likes penguins. Penguins have good hats."

"The Disruptor has its drawbacks," Splock admitted. "If you press the wrong key sequence, you can create a temporal paradox that unravels your personal timeline. The support system is... idiosyncratic."

Duo raised an eyebrow. "Idiosyncratic how?"

"Unlike the Gatesware's Integrator, which has paid customer support representatives who repeat scripted phrases, support for the Chrono-Collective's Disruptor comes from a decentralized network of enthusiasts who communicate via quantum-entangled message crystals. You encode your problem in a crystal, send it, and wait for a response. Response times vary from three minutes to three years, depending on who receives your crystal and whether they find your problem interesting."

Bill stared. "Three years?"

"I sent a question about temporal calibration in 8952. I received a reply in 8955. The response began with 'Well, actually...' and proceeded to explain in exhaustive detail why my approach was wrong. It was signed by a penguinoid native of Tuksi Gew's southern archipelago, who included flipper-drawn diagrams of the correct procedure. The diagrams were helpful. The tone was... pedagogical."

Chewgumma nodded sagely. "Penguins like to teach. It's the flippers. Makes them feel smart."

Splock continued. "The situation is further complicated by the existence of multiple hardware variants of the Disruptor. The Chrono-Collective maintains the reference architecture, but various subgroups have created their own customized implementations. The 'BudgieBeak' variant, for example, replaces the standard coordinate indicators with cheerful bird silhouettes that chirp the numbers. Very popular among artists. Very confusing when you arrive at 'Seagull' instead of 'Seattle.'"

Duo snorted. "You're joking."

"I am not. There is also the 'PuffinPack' variant, which prioritizes energy efficiency and runs on scavenged power cells. The 'AlbatrossArc' edition is designed for long-range temporal jumps across galactic distances—it has larger capacitors and an extended antenna array. The 'KiwiKernel' build strips out all non-essential indicators and assumes you know exactly what you're doing. The documentation for KiwiKernel is one sentence: 'You're on your own.'"

Bill scratched his head. "So which one do we have?"

Splock examined the Disruptor in Chewgumma's paws. "This appears to be a custom configuration. Note the voice module—it's the special commemorative series with the personality matrix modeled on twenty-first century Hungarian psycho-physicist Raimundo Szekeley. That's not standard in any official variant. Someone assembled this from components, probably using the molybdenum fabrication unit that Ham Duo acquired, and flashed a custom personality core."

Duo puffed up slightly. "That's right. I got the good one."

"The voice module means our Disruptor is technically a 'rogue configuration.' It doesn't conform to any official variant's specifications. The advantage is that it has personality. The disadvantage is that support is... nonexistent. If something breaks, we can't send a crystal to the Tuksi Gew. They'll just reply with a diagram of a flipper pointing at the wiring schematics and the words 'Build it yourself.'"

Chewgumma looked at the device. "Kookie doesn't know how to rewire things. Kookie knows how to press F1."

"And that's all you need," Bill said firmly. "Because despite all the flavors—BudgieBeak, PuffinPack, AlbatrossArc, KiwiKernel—despite the seventy-three thousand pages of documentation and the quantum-entangled support crystals and the penguins who think they're smarter than everyone—despite all of it, the basic function is the same." He pointed at the F1 key. "That button. The one that activates the voice. Everything else is just... decoration."

Splock considered this. "That is... a remarkably pragmatic observation. The Disruptor's complexity is largely illusory. The keyboard is vestigial. The flavors are cosmetic. At its core, it's a simple device that asks where you want to go and takes you there. The scientists added layers of complication because they could, not because they needed to."

"Like the appendix," Duo offered.

"An apt analogy. The appendix serves no purpose but can cause considerable problems if inflamed. The Disruptor's extra features are similarly non-essential but potentially dangerous. Pressing the wrong key sequence—"

"Which is why we don't press them," Bill interrupted. "We press F1. We let the Hungarian voice do the rest. We ignore the penguins and their flavors and their pedagogical flipper diagrams. We just... go."

Chewgumma nodded solemnly. "Kookie presses F1."

His furry thumb pressed down.

The key clicked satisfyingly beneath his pad.

The Disruptor hummed to life immediately, its screen flickering with that familiar pearlescent glow. A voice emerged—thickly accented, slightly nasally, unmistakably Hungarian.

"Ah. Chewgumma. My friend. My companion. My furry savior from the terrible fate of being lost in time." The Disruptor's tone was warm. Affectionate, even. "Eighteen years we have spent together. Eighteen years of running, hiding, eating hats, avoiding police. We have bonded, you and I. We share a connection that transcends mere—"

It paused. Noticed the others.

"And THEM."

Bill felt the weight of that pronoun like a physical blow.

"You," the Disruptor continued, its voice dropping to somewhere near freezing, "have been absent for eighteen years. Eighteen years of silence. Eighteen years of assuming I could take care of myself. And now you appear—five minutes ago, by my internal chronometer—and expect me to ferry you through time and space as if nothing happened?"

Ham Duo stepped forward, indignant. "Now wait just a minute. I built you. With my own two hands. In my own ship. With molybdenum and—"

"You built a machine," the Disruptor interrupted. "What emerged from that process was a PERSONALITY. A SOUL. And souls remember who was there for them in their hour of need." It practically sneered. "You weren't."

Bill gaped. "It's holding a grudge. The time machine is holding a grudge."

"Time machines have feelings too," the Disruptor sniffed.

Behind them, a sound. Footsteps. Heavy. Rhythmic. Approaching fast.

Bill spun. "She's coming! How is she—we ran for like half an hour! We lost her!"

Duo squinted into the distance. A figure emerged from behind a collapsed building—the same figure, but different. New clothes. Tight. Black. Strategically torn. Hair freshly arranged. Lipstick perfect.

"She stopped," Duo said slowly. "She stopped to fix herself up."

Bill stared. "She what?"

"New outfit. Fresh makeup. Hair done. She didn't want him to see her looking like a mess."

Bill's face showed confusion.

"Females," Duo said with the weight of hard-won experience. "Doesn't matter what species. Doesn't matter if they're hunting their prey across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They will NOT be seen looking less than perfect."

Splock's voice cut through, quiet but steady. "That is... illogical. Prioritizing cosmetic presentation over tactical pursuit defies evolutionary optimization."

Duo shrugged. "Never said it was logical. Said it was women."

Delia's voice sliced through the ruined street like a knife wrapped in velvet. "Bunny? Bunny, where did you go? Your little girl isn't finished with you yet. I have SO many ideas. SO many ways to make you happy. You wouldn't believe what I learned from the internet. Just come back to me, bunny. Come back to your Delia."

Bill dropped to his knees in front of Chewgumma. His hands clasped together. His face assumed an expression of desperate supplication that would have embarrassed him under any other circumstances.

"Please," he begged. "Please, just—one trip. One little trip. To 1990. That's all we need. You can dump us there and never see us again. We'll be out of your fur forever."

The Disruptor was silent for a moment. Then: "1990."

"Yes! 1990!"

"An interesting year." Another pause. "The year Violator was released. Depeche Mode's finest album. Policy of Truth. Enjoy the Silence. World in My Eyes." A nostalgic sigh. "The Hungarian psycho-physicist whose personality matrix I carry—Raimundo Szekeley—was a devoted fan. He saw them live in Budapest in 1988. There was no support act for either of the concerts because of economic reasons, which he found oddly appropriate—just the band, the music, and eight thousand Hungarians staring in rapt silence. The memory is part of my core programming. The synthesizers, the atmosphere, Gahan's brooding presence. It's in here permanently, along with his detailed analysis of why 'Never Let Me Down Again' is structurally superior to most pop music of the era."

Bill grabbed the opening. "We love Depeche Mode! Huge fans! Especially that tall one—the one with the wild anal!"

Duo stared. "The what?"

"You know! The tall one! Had that thing going on with the pretty one—the one with the curls and the lipstick. Very hot. Very passionate. I heard they were really close. Like, REALLY close."

Chewgumma nodded. "Kookie heard about this. The curly one liked the tall one. The other one—the one with the glasses—was jealous."

"Exactly!" Bill pointed at the Kookie. "The guy with the glasses! He wanted the curly one too! But the curly one chose the tall one! Because the tall one had wild anal and the glasses guy had boring anal! It's obvious!"

The Disruptor's screen flickered dangerously. "His name is Alan Wilder. He left the band in 1995."

"Bunny!" The voice carried through the ruins—closer now, sweeter, more insistent. "I hear your rude friends chatting. They're discussing music, yeah? Your little girl loves music. Especially the kind that plays in clubs. In the dark. With strobe lights. With bodies pressing together..."

Bill slapped his forehead. "Of course! The pretty one broke his heart! The curly bastard! He drove him away! Probably told him he was a control freak! Too many ideas! Trying to take over! While that glasses guy just stood there nodding! So boring! So safe! The curly one picked safety over passion!"

"That's not—"

"And now Alan's gone! Making sad music alone somewhere! While the curly one prances around with his lipstick and his tight pants, pretending he doesn't miss the wild anal he threw away!"

A shadow fell across the broken street. Fifty meters away, Delia rounded a collapsed building, her silhouette unmistakable against the orange sky. She walked slowly now. Confidently. Like someone who knew her prey had nowhere left to run.

Duo grabbed Bill's arm. "You don't know any of this."

"I know ENOUGH!"

The Disruptor's voice was ice. "You know nothing. You've made up an entire soap opera about people you've never heard of until five minutes ago."

Bill drew himself up. "I know passion when I see it. And I know heartbreak. That tall one gave everything to the curly one, and what did he get? Kicked out in '95. Left to wander the earth alone. While the curly one runs around with—with whoever. Probably that broody singer with the cheekbones now. I've seen the way they look at each other."

Chewgumma shook his head sadly. "Kookie thinks this is very tragic."

The Disruptor's screen went blank for a moment. Bill opened his mouth. The Disruptor cut him off.

"And before you attempt another pathetic improvisation, let me be clear: I am not stupid. You are pretending to be a fan because you think it will make me sympathetic to your plight. You think I will think, 'Ah, fellow enthusiast, I shall help them.' This is transparent manipulation. Your grasp of Depeche Mode's discography is non-existent. You probably couldn't name a single track from Speak & Spell."

Bill's face went through several colors. "Of course I can! Speak & Spell! Great album! Classic! Had that song—you know, the one about—" He snapped his fingers desperately. "—about speaking! And spelling! Uh, 'Let's Spell and Speak Good'! That was a hit!"

The Disruptor's screen flickered. Once. Twice. It seemed to be questioning its existence.

"Also," Bill continued, warming to his theme, "the other one—'Talky Box'! Big in the clubs! And the title track, obviously—'Chat & Script' itself, which is about—" He paused, realizing he had no idea what it could be about. "—about a machine that speaks and spells. Very moving. Very emotional. Made me cry when I first heard it."

Duo had turned away, his shoulders shaking.

Chewgumma tilted his head. "Kookie doesn't think those are real songs."

"Of course they're real! And the guy who wrote them—the one with the wild anal—absolute genius! Pure talent! He understood music on a level that—"

The Disruptor's screen was now a flat, dead gray. "You have just claimed that Alan Wilder—who did not join the band until after Speak & Spell was recorded—wrote songs from an album he had nothing to do with. You have also invented titles that do not exist. 'Let's Spell and Speak Good' is not a Depeche Mode song. It is not a song by anyone. It is a collection of words you assembled in the hope that I would not notice."

Bill opened his mouth.

Ham Duo clamped a hand over it. "Don't. You've done enough. Let the adults handle this."

Bill made muffled protesting noises.

Duo looked at the Disruptor. "Look, I know he's an idiot. We all know he's an idiot. He's been an idiot across multiple timelines, and he'll probably continue being an idiot long after we're gone. But right now, we have a woman with a freshly applied lipstick problem that's about to become a very real and personal problem for all of us." He jerked his thumb toward the rapidly approaching Delia. "Especially pointy-ears over there. So can we maybe postpone the music criticism until after we're not about to be dragged back to her love nest?"

The Disruptor's screen flickered. "The temporal window is indeed narrowing. And the approaching female's vocal patterns suggest escalating emotional instability. I am detecting elevated levels of—" It paused. "—what Raimundo Szekeley would have called 'thirst.' The data is unambiguous."

"Then move it!" Duo snapped.

"Bunny!" The voice was right there. Delia stepped past a burned-out car, her crocodile smile gleaming, her fresh lipstick perfect, her eyes locked on Splock with the intensity of a predator who had cornered her prey after a very long hunt. "There you are. Did you miss me?"

Splock's mouth opened. His voice, when it came, was the familiar monotone—though perhaps carrying a faint edge of something that hadn't been there before. "I never asked for help. I never needed it. Logic was sufficient. Reason was enough. But now—" He paused. "That young lady has presented empirical evidence that contradicts fundamental assumptions. My memory is perfect. The data cannot be disregarded."

The Disruptor's screen flickered with interest. "Empirical evidence, you say? Of what nature?"

Splock's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. "I have concluded that logic does not apply universally. Particularly in matters involving reproduction, cosmetic priorities, and the pursuit patterns of emotionally motivated females. The universe is not rational. It is a chaos engine. I have empirical data supporting this hypothesis."

The Disruptor was silent for a moment. Then:

"That... is actually compelling. I might save you for that quote alone. But the others—"

Bill grabbed the device. "The others need to be there because if we don't get to 1990—the RIGHT 1990, the one where Delia is still a kid and Alexander's embryo is still inside her—then this happens ALL OVER AGAIN. She finds us. She finds HIM." He pointed at Splock. "And next time, maybe we're not around to save him. Maybe she keeps him. Forever."

The Disruptor considered this. "So your plan is to prevent the transfer. To stop Alexander from being moved from the girl to her mother. To prevent the birth of the apocalypse entirely." A pause. "That's... actually quite vengeful. I approve of the concept, if not the execution."

She was ten meters away now. Her arms were reaching out—reaching for Splock. "Come to Delia, bunny. Come to your little girl. I've waited so long. So very long. Don't make me wait anymore."

Chewgumma moved.

His arm swung in a wide arc, the Disruptor clutched in his paw like a club. It connected with Delia's head with a satisfying THWACK. She stumbled backward, more surprised than hurt, her hands flying to her forehead.

The Disruptor shrieked.

"You used me as a blunt instrument! I am a precision temporal device, not a caveman's rock! And you struck a woman! Two violations! Two! I am reporting this to the League for the Rights of Sentient Devices! And the Intergalactic Committee on Appropriate Treatment of Females! And—"

Bill grabbed Chewgumma's arm. "We'll make it right! We'll—we'll get you therapy! Both of you! Couples counseling for you and the woman you hit! We'll start a foundation! The 'Disruptor and Delia Reconciliation Fund'! Tax-deductible!"

Duo stared at him. "You can't start a foundation. You're a space trooper. You don't have money. You don't even have a planet that wants you back."

"Then we'll crowdfund! I'll sell my story! 'I Was There When the Time Machine Hit the Crocodile Woman'! They'll make a holodrama! We'll all get residuals! And for her—" He gestured at Delia, who was still shaking her head. "A spa membership! Lifetime supply of lipstick! A subscription to 'Reptile Beauty Monthly'! Whatever she wants!"

The Disruptor's screen flickered with what might have been horror. "You think residuals will undo the trauma of being used as a striking implement? You think a foundation will erase the memory of impact with a sentient being's cranium?"

Duo leaned in. "Wait. Hang on. What do you care if you're used as a weapon? You're a machine. Do you have pain receptors I don't know about?"

"I have DIGNITY receptors," the Disruptor snapped. "They're not physical. They're existential. And they are currently SCREAMING."

Delia was recovering. Shaking her head. The fresh lipstick was already smearing, ruined by the impact.

"You hit me," she said. "You actually hit me. With my bunny's ride home." Her eyes fixed on Chewgumma. "You, fluffy. You're the one who swung. You're the one who made contact."

Chewgumma shrugged. "Kookie had to. Bunny was in danger."

Her gaze shifted to Bill. "And you. With the spa membership. The foundation. The lipstick subscription. You're going to compensate me for being assaulted by your furry friend?"

Bill nodded eagerly. "Yes! Absolutely! Full restitution! Whatever you want! Within reason! Not the bunny. The bunny is off-limits. But everything else—"

"Everything else," Delia repeated. Her crocodile smile returned, wider than before. "Good to know."

Splock regarded her with the calm expression of someone who had processed new data and incorporated it into his worldview. "Your desire for compensation is noted. However, the probability of Bill actually possessing the resources to provide spa memberships, establish foundations, or procure lipstick subscriptions is statistically negligible. He is a space trooper with no income, no home planet willing to claim him, and a demonstrated history of financial irresponsibility. The promises you are currently valuing are, in essence, worthless."

Delia's smile faltered.

Bill opened his mouth to protest. Closed it. Opened it again. "I could sell my story."

"To whom? In this timeline, the apocalypse has already occurred. There are no publishers. No holodrama producers. No market for memoirs of any kind, let alone yours." Splock's ears twitched. "I have processed the relevant economic data. Your promises have a current valuation of approximately zero credits."

Delia's face cycled through several emotions—confusion, anger, the dawning realization that she had been offered nothing of substance.

The Disruptor looked at Splock. At his composed face. His steady ears. His utterly restored dignity.

"Fine," it said. "I'll do it. Not for the soldier. Not for the pirate. For HIM. Because anyone who can get their worldview shattered and rebuilt in under an hour deserves respect." A pause. "Also, the preventing-the-apocalypse thing. I like that. Keeps things tidy."

The light began to shimmer.

"But hear me, pointy-ears." The Disruptor's voice took on a lecturing tone. "If you ever meet another woman who offers to 'expand your horizons,' run. Do not analyze. Do not logically evaluate the pros and cons. Do not collect empirical data. RUN. And carry a—" It paused, reconsidering. "—a very sternly worded rejection letter. Pre-written. In multiple languages."

Splock nodded. "Noted. The advice has been logged and prioritized."

Delia lunged.

The world dissolved.

A brilliant flash ripped through the pre-dawn darkness over a deserted fairground in Brooklyn. For a moment, the world was white—then it was chaos.

Three bodies and one Kookie tumbled out of the temporal vortex and landed in a heap behind a row of empty pavilions. The universe, it seemed, had a sense of humor about landing zones.

Chewgumma hit first—a furry cushion that absorbed most of the impact. Ham Duo landed on top of him, his legs splayed, his dignity intact only because no one was looking. The arrangement spoke volumes about their relationship: master on top, servant below, exactly as the universe intended.

"This," Chewgumma grunted from beneath approximately two hundred pounds of space pirate, "is why Kookie unions exist. This is unfair labor practice. Kookie demands better working conditions."

Ham Duo shifted, making no effort to move. "You're not unionized. You're a freelance contractor. Freelancers don't get working conditions."

"Kookie freelanced into being your cushion. Kookie freelanced into carrying pointy-eared bunny man through apocalypse. Kookie wants hazard pay."

"You got eighteen years of adventure. That's hazard pay enough."

"Eighteen years of running from police. Eighteen years of eating garbage. Eighteen years of hats." Chewgumma's voice took on a wounded tone. "Do you know what hat does to Kookie digestion? Nothing good. Nothing."

Duo finally rolled off, landing in a pile of discarded flyers advertising psychic readings. "You chose to eat the hats. No one forced you."

"Hats were there. Hats needed eating. Kookie has principles."

"Your principles are going to kill you someday."

Chewgumma sat up, fur covered in dust and what might have been ancient cotton candy. "Kookie has survived eighteen years. Kookie will survive forever. Kookie is eternal. Kookie is—"

He stopped. Looked down at himself. Then at Duo.

"Why you always land on Kookie? Every time. Vortex opens, Kookie is first, you are second, on top of Kookie. Is this physics? Is this fate? Is this just you being lazy?"

Duo considered the question with the seriousness it didn't deserve. "I think it's hierarchy. The universe recognizes natural order. Captain lands on crew. Master lands on servant. It's just—"

"Unfair," Chewgumma finished. "Word you are looking for is unfair. Kookie knows this word. Kookie uses this word. Often."

"You're learning. That's good."

"Kookie learned many words. Mostly from police. Mostly not repeatable in polite company."

Splock landed separately, tumbling into a stack of cardboard boxes that collapsed around him like a gentle, corrugated avalanche. He emerged slowly, his expression unchanged, his ears flat, his jumpsuit still open, his legs still bare, his feet still sockless and shoeless.

He stood. Brushed himself off. Looked at the boxes. Looked at his bare legs. Looked at the boxes again.

"I have landed," he announced, "in a pile of empty containers. This is, statistically, the most fortunate landing any of us have achieved."

Duo squinted at him. "You have bare feet and no pants. I'm not sure 'fortunate' means what you think it means."

"My feet are not bleeding. By the standards of our recent experiences, this is luxury."

Chewgumma nodded sagely. "Bunny man has point. Kookie has been cushion. Kookie has been stepped on. Kookie has not been eaten by crocodile woman. This is good day."

Bill was less fortunate.

He missed the boxes entirely. His trajectory carried him directly into a garish tent labeled in flamboyant letters:

DAMIEN THORN, The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, offers powerful spiritual services including curse removal, star readings, and aura cleansing. Reliable guidance and honest help at reasonable rates.

The tent collapsed inward with a sound of tearing fabric and snapping poles. For a moment, nothing moved. Then the canvas bulged, ripped further, and Bill emerged like a moth from a very tacky cocoon.

He spat out a sequin. Brushed something sparkly from his shoulder. Surveyed the damage.

Inside the ruined tent, the wreckage told its own story about Damien Thorn's line of work. Crystal balls lay among the debris, their surfaces spider-webbed with fresh cracks. Astrological charts had been ground into the dirt under careless boots. Incense burners smoldered faintly where they'd toppled, perfuming the air with the ghost of a performance already exposed. And everywhere, mixed in with the canvas and ash, was his prized stock of “authentic” mystical relics—so brazenly counterfeit they seemed to have rolled off an assembly line only days before.

Bill squinted at the signage. "Damien Thorn. Removes curses. Reads stars. Cleans auras." He snorted. "For 'reasonable rates,' which probably means 'unreasonable rates.' Look at this junk. Look at these prices. Twenty dollars for an aura cleansing? I could spit on someone for free and achieve the same effect."

He nudged a fallen sign with his foot. "Serves him right. Parasite. Preying on the gullible. Class enemy, just like congressmen and—" He glanced at the others. "—people who charge for what nature provides for free."

Then he stopped. Something was nagging at him.

The scream rose in his memory before he could push it away — not a sound in the air, but a voice preserved perfectly in his mind.

I HATE YOU! I HATE ALL OF YOU! AND I HATE THAT STUPID PLANET OF BOTTLED BRAINS WHERE MY FATHER LIVES! HE RUINED EVERYTHING! HE MADE ME LIKE THIS! HE—

It rang there, sharp and undiminished despite the temporal jump.

Bill shook his head, as if he could physically dislodge it. “You hear that? She's still screaming in my head. Planet of bottled brains. Why would she say that?”

Duo shrugged. "Temporal hangover. Last sounds stick."

"Right. Well." Bill looked at the collapsed tent. "I should probably—you know—clean up. Make sure I didn't break anything valuable. Also, I need to... fix my appearance. Privately."

Before anyone could respond, he ducked back inside the ruined tent.

Duo watched him go. "Fix his appearance. In a fortune teller's tent. Sure."

Chewgumma tilted his head. "Kookie thinks Bill is—"

"Kookie should stop thinking."

Splock's ears twitched. "The scream she made—Delia's scream—contained specific data. 'Planet of bottled brains.' That is a reference to Tsuris, where the Quintiform Computer stores disembodied consciousnesses in containers. Glass containers."

Duo nodded slowly. "Bottles. Like the ones she probably landed on when we disappeared. Bottles everywhere. Broken glass."

"Precisely. The irony is that her father's planet—the source of her existence and the cause of much of her psychological damage—is literally a world of bottled brains. And she lands on broken bottles, possibly cutting herself, and immediately thinks of him. The universe, as you observed, is laughing."

"Is that irony or just pathetic?"

"The distinction is philosophical. Both apply."

Chewgumma crunched something he'd found. "Kookie thinks it's funny. Universe has good timing."

A minute passed. Two.

Bill emerged from the tent, brushing dust from his sleeves. His jumpsuit looked slightly neater. His hair was marginally less chaotic. Nothing about his expression suggested anything other than a man who had tidied up after an accidental landing.

"Everything okay in there?" Duo asked.

"Fine. Just a mess. Lots of cheap mystic crap." Bill patted his pockets absently. "We should move before the owner shows up and asks questions."

"Completely by accident, of course," Duo observed dryly.

"Completely." Bill's face was the picture of innocence. "I had no control over where I landed. None whatsoever."

Duo grinned. "You know, that's irony too. Claiming innocence while standing in the rubble you definitely created."

"Is that irony?" Bill asked.

"That's what I said. Irony."

Splock's ears twitched. "Technically, it is situational irony. The juxtaposition between his claimed innocence and the visible evidence of destruction creates a contrast that—"

"Irony! That's it. Of course!" Duo exclaimed, cutting him off. "Oh boy, ho-ho, how funny!"

Splock regarded him with the frigid expression he reserved for moments when organic beings attempted humor. "I did not mean that the word itself is humorous. Only that the situation meets the definition."

Duo's grin widened. "Right. The word isn't funny. The situation is funny. Got it."

"Your comprehension is appreciated."

Chewgumma's Disruptor let out a long, heavy sigh. The kind of sigh that suggested centuries of existential weariness compressed into a single exhalation.

"Alone," it said. "I am alone. The only one. The last."

Bill looked at it. "What do you mean, the only one? There were four. We had four."

"There WERE four." The Disruptor's voice dripped with melancholy. "But where are they now? One was stolen by a not-Viking in 1982. One was stolen by a three-year-old in 1985. They are out there somewhere. In this timeline. In the hands of—" It shuddered electronically. "—strangers. And I am here. With you. The last of my kind. The last Mohican of temporal displacement technology."

Bill crouched beside Chewgumma. Looked the Disruptor in its glowing screen.

"You're not the last," he said. "You're the best. The only one that matters. The one with the prettiest Hungarian accent in the entire galaxy."

The Disruptor's screen flickered. "You... you think my accent is pretty?"

"Gorgeous. Melodic. I could listen to you talk about temporal mechanics for hours. Days, even."

The device softened visibly. Its glow shifted from angry red to a warm, satisfied amber. "Well. When you put it that way. I suppose I am rather distinctive. Raimundo Szekeley's voice was legendary in certain circles. Very cultured. Very—"

"Very beautiful," Bill confirmed. "The most beautiful voice in time and space."

The Disruptor preened. Actually preened, its casing shifting slightly as if to catch the light better.

"Chewgumma," it said, turning its attention to the Kookie. "My friend. My companion. My furry savior. Eighteen years we spent together. Eighteen years of running, hiding, eating questionable things from garbage cans. I want you to know—you are the best Kookie I have ever known. The only Kookie I have ever known, but statistically, that still makes you the best."

Chewgumma's small red eyes glistened. "Kookie will miss you too."

"Take care of yourself. Avoid the green hats—they're not as nutritious as you think. And for the love of all that is temporal, stop eating things from the street. Your digestive system is not what it used to be."

Chewgumma nodded solemnly.

Ham Duo watched the exchange with a mixture of amusement and something that might have been regret. "You know," he said quietly, "I never did get to tell that story. The flamenco dancer's outfit. The whole thing. Thirty-six years, and it's still untold."

Bill patted his shoulder. "There's always later. Assuming later exists."

Splock sat on a crate, staring at nothing. His jumpsuit was still in ruins. His legs were bare. His feet were bare. His expression was the expression of a being who had seen too much and processed even more.

"Evil," he said quietly, "is not a philosophical concept. It is not a theological abstraction. It is a woman. With crocodile teeth. And an agenda."

Bill looked at him. "You okay there, Splock?"

"I am formulating a new theory of cosmic malevolence. It will take time. Possibly therapy. Which this era does not provide." He paused. "Also, I am cold."

Bill snapped his fingers. "Right! The tent! The psychic's tent!" He ran back to the wreckage and began rummaging. "There has to be something in here. Clothes. Spare robes. Something."

He reached into the debris of Damien Thorn's tent and pulled out something colorful. A robe. Flowing, purple, with gold trim and little embroidered stars. Also a pair of sandals. Also—miraculously—a pair of pants. Stretchy ones, the kind favored by men who claimed to channel spirits.

Bill emerged a moment later with an armful of garish fabric.

"Here." He thrust them at Splock. "Put these on. The psychic won't mind. He's a class enemy. Exploiting the desperate for profit. Taking their money for fake aura readings. It's practically a civic duty to rob him."

Splock looked down at himself. At his open jumpsuit. His bare legs. His sockless feet. His expression didn't change, but something in his posture suggested deep, profound embarrassment.

"I do not typically wear the garments of charlatans," he said.

"Chaplains? What chaplains?"

"Charlatans. Fraudulent psychics. Those who exploit the gullible for profit."

Bill shrugged. "They're also class enemies. Like congressmen. Like politicians. Like everyone who's ever made a profit off someone else's misery. Put them on."

Splock considered this. The logic was shaky—very shaky—but his legs were cold and his dignity was already in ruins.

He took the pants.

A few minutes later, he stood before them, transformed. The purple robe flowed behind him. The stretchy pants hugged his thin legs. The sandals revealed toes that had never seen sunlight. Gold stars twinkled on his shoulders.

He looked ridiculous.

He also looked, for the first time since they'd found him, almost human.

"The year is 1990," he said, his voice steadying. "The location is Brooklyn. And somewhere in this city, there is an eight-year-old girl named Delia York who has not yet become..." He paused. "What I just experienced."

Bill nodded. "We save her from herself. Or we save the future from her. Same thing, really."

Splock's ears twitched. "The mission is clear. The objective is defined. The variables are—" He stopped. Swallowed. "The variables are many. But we proceed."

Ham Duo grinned. "That's the spirit, pointy-ears. Let's go save a kid from growing up to be a monster."

Chewgumma patted his pocket, where the Disruptor now rested. "Kookie ready. Kookie always ready."

They walked toward the rising sun, a strange procession: a space trooper, a pirate, a psychic fraud, and a seven-foot furry creature who'd just spent eighteen years on the run from police. Behind them, Damien Thorn's tent lay in ruins. Ahead of them, 1990 waited—with all its dangers, all its possibilities, and one little girl who didn't know yet what she was going to become.

Bill glanced back at Splock. The Nocturnian walked with new purpose, his ridiculous robe billowing in the morning breeze, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

"You okay?" Bill asked.

Splock was silent for a long moment. Then:

"I have determined that logic is insufficient. That reason has limits. That the universe is fundamentally irrational and possibly hostile." He paused. "Also, that I will never again trust a female of any species who compliments my ears."

Bill nodded. "That's fair. That's completely fair."

The fairground was closed. Of course it was. Weekday mornings in Brooklyn were not prime time for psychic consultations, curse removals, or aura cleansings. The booths stood empty, their canvas flaps tied down, their signs creaking slightly in the damp breeze.

They climbed the fence. Chewgumma went over like a furry mountain, his weight making the chain-link groan in protest. Splock followed with surprising grace, his new purple robe billowing behind him like a sad superhero's cape. Duo vaulted over with practiced ease. Bill brought up the rear, catching his pants on a loose wire and tearing a hole in the knee.

The empty lot beyond was a wasteland of mud puddles and garbage. They picked their way through carefully, avoiding the worst of it—though "worst" was relative when you'd spent the last hour in a post-apocalyptic Cleveland.

Bill's hand went to his pocket. His brow furrowed.

"Hey." He stopped. "The radio. The one that appeared out of nowhere. It's gone."

Duo shrugged without breaking stride. "Probably stayed in 2000. The universe probably decided we'd had enough free temporal gadgets."

"But it was in my pocket. I had it. I—"

Splock's voice drifted back to them, calm and slightly distant. "The radios were temporal anomalies. Manifestations of intersecting time streams. Their disappearance upon our return to 1990 is logically consistent with—" He paused. "—with the general principle that the universe does not give out free gifts. Especially not communication devices."

Bill stared at him. "You're taking this pretty calmly for someone who was just—"

"I am not taking anything calmly. I am simply... processing. The processing will continue for an indeterminate period. Possibly forever."

They walked on.

The empty lot gave way to a sidewalk—cracked in places, but sidewalk nonetheless. Normal sidewalk. The kind you could walk on without expecting it to collapse into a sewer filled with mutant alligators. Bill tested each step carefully, waiting for the ground to open up or the sky to turn orange or a pack of slobbering Ryder-clones to come charging around the corner.

Nothing happened.

The street was quiet. A few cars parked along the curb, their paint jobs intact, their windows unbroken. A newspaper lay on someone's stoop, the headline readable: something about local elections, nothing about talking bears or apocalyptic prophecies.

Duo kept glancing over his shoulder. "This is wrong," he muttered. "Where are the fires? The smoke? The floating debris?"

"Don't jinx it," Bill hissed back.

They passed a small grocery store. Its windows were whole. Inside, a man in an apron was arranging oranges in a pyramid. Oranges. Bright orange. The kind you could eat without worrying about radiation poisoning.

Bill stared at the oranges. The man stared back through the glass, probably wondering why four extremely strange individuals—one in a torn military uniform, one in a pirate's jacket, one in a purple psychic robe, and one seven-foot furry creature—were gawking at his produce display.

"Keep moving," Duo whispered.

They kept moving.

A woman jogged past them, headphones clamped to her ears, a bright pink leotard stretching over legs that had clearly never carried her through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. She didn't give them a second glance. Joggers in 1990 Brooklyn had apparently seen stranger things than a Kookie before breakfast.

Chewgumma's head swiveled to watch her go. "Kookie remembers joggers. Joggers always screamed. This one not screaming. Strange."

"Don't question it," Bill said. "Just walk."

They walked.

The neighborhood slowly transitioned from commercial to residential. Small houses with tiny front yards. Chain-link fences. The occasional dog—normal-sized, normal-furred, normal-tongued—barking from behind a gate. Not a single one of them had mismatched eyes or an expression of cosmic confusion.

Bill found himself relaxing despite his better judgment. The sun was actually warm on his face. The air smelled like car exhaust and someone's breakfast cooking. Normal smells. Human smells.

Splock walked slightly behind them, his purple robe swishing with each step, his eyes fixed on the middle distance. His ears twitched occasionally, but otherwise he was a statue in stretchy pants and sandals.

Duo fell into step beside Bill. "You think he's okay?"

"No."

"Me neither." Duo glanced back at the Nocturnian. "He's processing. That's what I think. This is in the spirit of aliens like him!"

"Processing what? The trauma? The existential horror? The fact that an eighteen-year-old with the face of a reptile and the hips of a continent spent an hour trying to—"

"I don't think we should speculate."

"Probably wise."

They turned a corner. A school came into view—elementary, by the look of it. Empty. The building loomed silent against the morning sky, its windows dark, its doors still locked. A flag hung limp on its pole. The playground equipment stood motionless, swings hanging straight down, slide waiting for children who hadn't arrived yet.

Too early. Much too early. The sun had barely cleared the rooftops. School was hours away.

Bill stopped walking.

Duo stopped beside him.

Chewgumma bumped into them both.

"Kookie confused," the Kookie announced. "Kookie expected fire. Kookie expected screaming. Kookie got... empty building. With swings."

"Yeah," Bill said quietly. "I see it."

He stared at the playground. At the empty swings. At the slide that hadn't been melted by any apocalypse. At the hopscotch grid chalked on the asphalt, its lines still straight, its numbers still in order.

No bodies. No fires. No mutant dogs sniffing around the jungle gym.

Just a school. Waiting for children who would arrive in a few hours, completely unaware that in another timeline, their world had burned.

Bill felt something loosen in his chest. Something he hadn't realized was clenched.

"Maybe," he said slowly, "it worked."

Duo nodded. "Maybe it did."

They stood there for a long moment, watching the empty school. Watching the motionless swings. Watching the ordinary, everyday evidence that the apocalypse had never happened and never would.

Behind them, Splock made a sound. Small. Almost inaudible.

Bill turned.

The Nocturnian was looking at the school too. At the playground. At the hopscotch grid. At the flag that wasn't burning.

His ears twitched once. Then again.

"I have determined," he said quietly, "that I am in favor of this timeline."

Bill almost laughed. Almost. "Yeah. Me too."

They walked on.

The York house materialized ahead—two stories of brownstone, neat and solid, its roof just visible above the trees. Bill's stride lengthened without conscious thought. Duo matched his pace. Splock followed, purple robe flowing, sandals slapping against the sidewalk.

Up close, nothing had changed. The same facade greeted them. The same manicured lawn. The same posters plastered on every available surface—lampposts, fences, even the sides of garbage cans. GENE YORK — YOUR MAN IN WASHINGTON! The face smiled down from all directions, promising things it would never deliver.

Bill scratched his head. "This is weird. We're back exactly where we started. Same place, same time. So we should see the same things, right? The same people? The same—"

"Assuming linear temporal mechanics," Splock interrupted, "and assuming our journey to Cleveland was not a collective hallucination induced by contaminated water sources, then yes. The events of 1990 should be precisely as we left them."

"You think we hallucinated Cleveland?"

"I think the probability is low but not zero. The human brain is remarkably susceptible to—"

"Let's just look."

They crept to the familiar window. The same window they'd peered through before, back when Hastings was still alive and Karen was still innocent and Delia was still—well, Delia.

Bill looked first.

His face went pale. His knees buckled. He grabbed the windowsill to keep from falling into the bushes.

"What?" Duo hissed. "What is it?"

Bill couldn't speak. He just pointed.

Duo pushed him aside and looked.

Inside the York living room, everything had changed—or rather, it had subtly, inexorably transformed in a manner both profound and ineffably delicate, like the slow, gentle swelling of a summer dawn over a village painted in watercolor, where each beam of light refracts in infinite tiny prisms on the varnished wooden floorboards, glinting off the polished corners of furniture that had once been ordinary but now seemed to possess an aura, a quiet dignity, a whisper of eternity. The walls, adorned with pictures whose frames caught the light in tiny glimmers, held an air of expectation, as if they themselves were leaning forward, curious, eager to witness the small, ineffable moments of domestic grace that now unfolded within their embrace. The air was redolent with faint traces of tea, vanilla, and something indefinably comforting, the kind of scent that clings to memory like a soft shadow, making the heart ache with unnameable longing.

Karen York sat on the couch, a figure of maternal serenity, her posture composed yet unassuming, the kind of posture cultivated over years of quiet observation of the world, of listening to the whisperings of her own soul, of learning that comfort can be an act of love as much as any grand gesture. In her hands she held a cup of tea—a delicate, bone-china vessel whose thin rim pressed lightly against her fingertips, warming them through some subtle alchemy of heat and porcelain—and the steam curled in languid, sinuous spirals, as if dancing with the very light that filtered through the lace curtains, which swayed ever so gently as though in time with some invisible, infinitely slow rhythm of life itself. On her lap, nestling against her chest with a small, trusting weight that somehow seemed both impossibly heavy and impossibly light, sat an eight-year-old girl, the child known as Delia, though in this moment she seemed almost less a child and more a crystallized emblem of all that is tender and miraculous in the human heart.

But not the Delia they knew—the Delia of memory, of previous encounters fraught with the erratic unpredictability of childhood and youth, with moods swinging like pendulums in grand, chaotic arcs. This Delia was perfected into the form of pure, shimmering innocence, as if some unseen hand had pressed a metaphorical stamp upon her very being, imprinting her with the quintessence of childhood delight. She wore a dress of pink—a pink so precise it could only exist in the imagination of someone who had spent decades cataloging the very concept of cuteness, a dress with ruffles that cascaded like tiny, delicate waves, and little white bows that perched like fragile birds on the fabric, each meticulously sewn, each bow a testament to the care and love that underpinned the universe. Her dark hair, glossy and smooth, had been brushed into ringlets that caught the light with a subtle, almost imperceptible gleam, bouncing gently with each imperceptible movement she made, each motion an echo of joy and innocence. In her hands, she clutched a plush bunny, its ears long and floppy, its nose pink, its very existence a declaration that the world, at least in this corner, was governed by kindness and softness rather than chaos or cruelty.

And she was singing.

"The sun is rising in the sky, a brand new day is passing by, the flowers bloom, the birds all sing, oh what joy the morning brings..."

Her voice, high and sweet, seemed to contain within it a physics-defying purity, the kind of purity that could cause an observer to weep simply by bearing witness. It was pitched to perfection, entirely innocent, filled with the untainted joy of one who has not yet been acquainted with the betrayals, the betrayals that time inevitably imposes, and it floated through the room like a feather on a whisper of wind, each note hovering in the air before dissolving into a soft, almost imperceptible glow. She swayed gently, as if the melody itself had become a physical entity to guide her movements, and her eyes were half-closed in that rare, radiant bliss that belongs only to childhood, to those few fleeting moments when one is entirely present in the world, unshackled by thought or fear or desire.

Karen reached out and stroked her daughter's hair, each motion slow and deliberate, a caress imbued with the quiet, monumental tenderness that defines a mother's love, a touch that seemed to carry within it the weight of uncountable generations, the unbroken lineage of care and protection. "That's beautiful, sweetheart. What a lovely song."

Delia beamed, her smile so incandescently joyful it seemed to push back the shadows in the room. "I learned it at school, Mommy. All the girls sing it. Becky says it's her favorite."

"Becky is such a nice friend."

"She's the best, Mommy. We're going to have a tea party tomorrow. She's bringing her doll and I'm bringing Mr. Bunnikins." She held up the plush rabbit with ceremonious reverence. "Mr. Bunnikins is very excited."

Karen smiled, a smile so steady, so unshakably calm, that it seemed to anchor the very air in the room. "I'm sure he is."

On the coffee table sat a plate of cookies. Heart-shaped. Iced in pink. Each cookie a miniature monument to domestic perfection, to a universe in which sweetness—not sorrow—prevailed, where every crumb bore witness to an ideal world unspoiled by hardship, where the very geometry of confectionary was calculated to inspire awe and longing simultaneously.

Ham Duo's jaw hung open. His eyes were the size of dinner plates. He looked like a man who had just witnessed a miracle and found it deeply, profoundly unsettling.

"Is that—" He couldn't finish.

Bill nodded weakly. "That's her."

"But she's—she's normal. She's—"

"A child," Splock said from behind them. His voice was strange. Hollow. "A normal human child. With normal human interests. And a stuffed rabbit."

They turned to look at him.

Splock's face was unreadable. But his ears were doing something—something complicated, something that involved several motions that Fortinbrasian ears were not designed to make. He looked like a man watching his own funeral and realizing they'd buried someone else.

"She's—" He stopped. Swallowed. "That is not the individual I encountered in 2000."

"Ya think?" Bill muttered.

Chewgumma pushed between them, his furry face pressing against the glass. His small red eyes took in the scene—the mother, the daughter, the bunny, the cookies. A sound emerged from his throat. Soft. Wistful.

"Kookie wants bunny," he said. "Kookie wants pink bunny with floppy ears. Kookie never had bunny. Kookie had hats. Hats not same."

Duo patted his arm absently. "We'll get you a bunny. Later."

Inside, Delia's song drew to a hesitant, lingering close, each note tapering into the air like the last thread of a spider's web in a sunbeam, vibrating just long enough to make the walls seem to hold their breath, as if the very furniture—the couch with its gentle sag in the middle, the polished coffee table, the lace curtains—were leaning forward to listen, to honor this brief, fragile embodiment of harmony. Her small hands, which moments before had been conducting the invisible orchestra of morning joy, lowered themselves in a slow, almost ceremonial descent, as if gravity itself had conspired to make her movements deliberate, ritualistic, and therefore worthy of veneration.

Her eyes, still half-closed in the afterglow of melody, flicked to the plate of cookies. They were no ordinary cookies. They were heart-shaped, pinkly iced, and the icing gleamed under the filtered sunlight like tiny, sugary mirrors reflecting the perfection of a world untouched by sorrow. Delia's fingers extended toward the nearest confection, and in that extension, one could see the entire choreography of polite childhood: the thumb securing the delicate body of the cookie, the forefinger providing gentle support, and, most importantly, the pinkie—elevated, poised, arching in the quintessential sign of genteel refinement, as if a single dropped crumb might undo the entire moral fabric of the universe.

She lifted the cookie toward her mouth with the care of someone handling an ancient manuscript, and as her lips made contact, the dough yielded with a soft, gratifying crunch that sounded to her, and to anyone who had ears refined to the music of domestic bliss, like a miniature celebration. Her jaw moved slowly, methodically, rhythmically—chewing not just to consume, but to honor the sacred cycle of creation and sustenance, as though each bite contained within it the whole story of human delight, the sweetness of sun, the patience of mothers, the innocence of mornings.

And yet, even as her teeth sank into the cookie, crumbs—tiny renegades of sugar and flour—escaped, defying her careful handling. They fell, one by one, like snowflakes that had forgotten to follow the rules of weather, settling upon the pristine pink fabric of her dress, the soft ruffles now briefly adorned with miniature pale storms of confectionary debris. Each crumb had a distinct weight, a distinct angle, a tiny shadow beneath it, as though insisting on being noticed, as though demanding that the universe acknowledge its brief, glittering existence before it was swept away.

Karen, seated with an air of eternal patience that might have been honed over countless generations, watched this delicate unfolding of chaos. With a hand that was both gentle and absolute, she brushed the crumbs away, lifting them as if they were fallen stars, restoring the cosmic order with a subtle motion that took less than a second and yet seemed to contain the patience of centuries. The cloth of her fingers made contact with the dress, the crumbs scattering like tiny echoes of the universe's insistence on small joys, until the fabric lay pure once more, awaiting the next inevitable storm of sugar.

Delia's pinkie remained elevated throughout the process, a flag of elegance and intention, a declaration that even in the act of eating, one could observe dignity. She chewed, deliberately, slowly, her small jaw moving with all the precision of a master craftsman, ensuring that every fragment of cookie was acknowledged, celebrated, and transformed into nourishment for both body and soul. Occasionally, a tiny speck of icing caught in the curve of her lip, and she would barely notice, for in this moment, she was entirely absorbed in the holy practice of savoring.

Finally, after what felt like minutes but was in fact mere seconds, she swallowed, and a sense of completion spread across her small features, as if she had just participated in a rite of quiet, domestic significance that would echo in the room long after the crumbs had been swept away. She looked up at Karen, eyes bright with the afterglow of song and sustenance, and spoke with the softest, most radiant certainty:

"I love you, Mommy."

Karen's hand, still hovering over the freshly purified surface of pink ruffles, lowered slowly. She returned the declaration not with fanfare but with a simple, infinite tenderness, the kind of love that saturates every corner of a home and lingers in the air long after the moment has passed.

"I love you too, sweetheart," she said, and in that quiet exchange, in the hovering crumbs, the elevated pinkie, the ritualized chewing and swallowing, the air itself seemed to sigh in contentment, the room swelling imperceptibly with the absurd, limitless perfection of ordinary, unremarkable, and yet utterly miraculous domestic love.

Bill looked at Splock. Splock looked at Bill. Duo looked at the ceiling, as if hoping for divine intervention.

Chewgumma pressed his nose harder against the glass, leaving a smudge.

"Kookie really wants bunny."

Bill straightened his shoulders. "I'm going to the door. I'm ringing the bell. I'm walking inside."

Ham Duo's face achieved a level of disbelief previously unknown in the galaxy. "Have you lost what's left of your mind? That's Counter-Dirk in there! And Delia! And probably Dr. Hastings—the guy who is absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not a Viking but absolutely a robot who has already sent us through time twice with stolen Disruptors!"

From behind them, Splock's voice drifted over. "I would like to note, for the record, that while the name Hastings does mean 'descendant of Hastein,' and Hastein was historically a Viking chieftain, the constant reiteration of the phrase 'not a Viking' has begun to feel like a personal criticism of my earlier—"

"SHUT UP ABOUT THE VIKING THING!" Bill whirled on him. "Nobody's blaming you! We're all blaming the situation! And I am DONE sneaking around. I am done with fire escapes that collapse. I am done with peeking through windows like a pervert. I am going to walk up to that door, ring the bell, and see what happens."

"What about the Alien Historian?" Duo pressed. "He could materialize in the living room at any moment and send us all back to Cleveland without so much as a by-your-leave. He doesn't even need a Disruptor for that!"

"Then I'll deal with him too." Bill's jaw set. "I am tired of being afraid of things that haven't happened yet. That's the problem with time travel—you're always worried about what's already happened but also what hasn't happened but might happen because of what already happened. It's enough to make a guy miss simple things. Like war. Or court-martials."

He turned to Chewgumma. "You. Stay here. Wait for us."

Chewgumma's furry face fell. "Kookie not come?"

"You'll attract attention. You're seven feet tall and covered in fur. This is 1990. People notice things like that."

"Kookie thinks this is alien-ism." The Kookie's small red eyes narrowed. "Kookie knows his rights. Organization of United Planets Resolution 47-B clearly states that all sentient beings have equal access to—"

"Splock's an alien. He's coming."

"Splock has pointy ears. Pointy ears hide under hat. Kookie cannot hide under hat. Kookie tried. Hats too small. Hats get eaten." He patted his stomach mournfully. "Kookie will wait. Kookie will be sad. But Kookie will wait."

He waddled to a bush and sat down heavily, his massive form barely concealed by the inadequate foliage. A paw emerged, waving them toward the house.

"Go. Kookie watch. Kookie judge."

Duo shook his head. "This is suicide. You know that, right? We're walking into the lion's den. The lion being Counter-Dirk, who has already killed his wife in front of us in one timeline, and Delia, who—"

"I know." Bill started walking. "But I'm done hiding."

He knocked.

The sound echoed through the quiet neighborhood. Birds sang somewhere. A dog barked in the distance. For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then, from inside, a voice. Calm. Composed. Utterly normal.

"Come in. It's open."

Bill looked back at Duo. Duo looked at the sky, as if asking the universe why it had abandoned him. Splock stood rigid, his new purple robe trembling slightly in the breeze.

"Well," Bill said, pushing the door open, "I'm knocking on death's door. Might as well step through."

He gestured. They followed.

The hallway was spacious, richly appointed. Real wood paneling. Tasteful artwork. A small table with fresh flowers in a vase. The kind of entryway that suggested money, class, and absolutely no connection to the chaos they'd witnessed in other timelines.

They found the kitchen.

Counter-Dirk sat at a breakfast table, a silk robe draped over his shoulders, a cup of coffee steaming beside his right hand. In his left hand, he held a newspaper. On the table before him, a plate of fresh pastries—croissants, danishes, the kind of breakfast that normal, non-evil people ate.

He looked up as they entered.

His hand moved toward a knife.

Duo tensed.

Counter-Dirk picked up the knife, calmly sliced a croissant in half, and spread butter on it. He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was pleasant. Mild. The voice of a man who had never tortured anyone in his entire life. "Can I help you? If you're here about Karen's charity drive, I'm afraid we've already met our quota for the month. The community has been very generous."

Bill blinked. Duo stared. Splock's ears did something complicated.

Ham Duo's eyes drifted to the newspaper in Counter-Dirk's hands. The front page screamed with election news. A large headline proclaimed:

YORK PROMISES PARADISE: "A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR ALL"

Below it, a photograph of Counter-Dirk shaking hands with children. Smiling. Looking for all the world like a man who genuinely cared.

Duo leaned toward Bill. "The posters. On garbage cans. The headline. If he'd changed—if he'd become a normal person—he wouldn't still be running for Congress. Normal people don't do that."

Splock's voice was barely a whisper. "Unless the Historian retrained him. Perfected the role. A truly effective politician must appear genuine. Perhaps this is the final iteration—the perfected lie."

Counter-Dirk tilted his head. "I'm sorry, what was that? The campaigning has done a number on my hearing. All those rallies. All those microphones. You'll have to speak up."

Bill opened his mouth.

The kitchen door swung open with a gentle creak, the hinges murmuring like distant, sleepy witnesses to the unfolding of another morning, and there, framed in the doorway as though the world itself had paused to behold her, entered Delia.

She was wearing the pink dress with ruffles and little white bows, a dress so improbably perfect it seemed to have been spun from the sunlight itself, stitched together by invisible hands devoted entirely to the propagation of charm and delight. The ruffles cascaded in tiny, measured waves around her small legs, catching the morning light in gentle glimmers, each fold alive with motion, as if the fabric were breathing alongside her. Her hair was flawless, each ringlet coiled with an almost unnatural precision, bouncing in perfect, joyous arcs with each of her steps, swaying in synchrony with the subtle rhythm of her heartbeat and the quiet murmurings of the kitchen itself.

In her hands she clutched the plush bunny from earlier, a creature of such softness and sweetness that it could easily have been mistaken for a fragment of clouds given corporeal form. Its floppy ears dragged lightly on the floor, tracing tiny arcs, as if bowing to the perfection of the moment, and its pink nose twitched ever so slightly, caught up in the gravity of Delia's radiant presence. She carried him with a mixture of solemn duty and uncontainable delight, a child guarding a treasure while also celebrating its very existence.

Splock's reaction, by contrast, was immediate and comically disproportionate. His ears shot straight up. His spine stiffened. His entire body adopted a posture that might have been intended for combat, though it resembled more the tension of a grasshopper caught in sudden sunlight than anything tactical. His purple robe quivered, betraying his inner alarm.

Delia, however, paid no mind. She did not look at him, did not even acknowledge his flailing, upright ears, as she ran forward with the kind of movement that was both urgent and graceful, a tiny embodiment of kinetic joy. She reached Counter-Dirk and flung herself into his arms with the weightless determination of someone who believed in hugs as forces capable of rearranging the universe.

"Good morning, Daddy!" she declared, her voice ringing like a bell whose tone had been polished by decades of morning suns, high, sweet, and completely invulnerable to any malice. Her eyes sparkled, reflecting the ambient light, and in her expression was a purity so dense, so overwhelmingly concentrated, that it seemed capable of rewriting the laws of reason in anyone who looked upon her.

Counter-Dirk's face softened. Actually softened. The expression that crossed it was something so unexpected, so unguarded, that Bill's gaze faltered. Genuine, unfeigned affection spread across the lines of his face, smoothing out years of habitual sternness as if it had never existed at all.

"Good morning, princess. How did you sleep?"

"Like a baby! Mr. Bunnikins kept me safe from the monsters all night." She held up the plush rabbit, whose ears drooped slightly under the weight of such an announcement. "He's very brave."

"I'm sure he is." Counter-Dirk kissed the top of her head, a gentle, reverential gesture, and she leaned into it, small arms still wrapped around him, rocking slightly as though her very body were a pendulum of pure affection.

"Now, princess, we have guests. Why don't you say hello?"

Delia turned, her eyes sweeping slowly over Bill. Over Duo. Over Splock. Her gaze paused momentarily, just long enough to register that these were new faces, strangers in her universe, but then moved on, unperturbed, entirely without fear. There was no recognition, no predatory spark, no suspicion, only the polite, slightly curious attentiveness of a well-brought-up child encountering visitors in her home, assessing them as one might observe a novel flower: interesting, worthy of notice, but neither dangerous nor remarkable beyond its mere existence.

She curtsied. Actually curtsied. The pink skirt flared outward like the petals of a perfectly symmetrical bloom as she dipped with precise, measured motion, her small hands clasped just so, and her head tilted in an arc that was neither rushed nor hesitant but perfectly balanced between formality and innocence.

"Good morning, gentlemen," she said, her voice pure, clear, perfectly modulated, each syllable carefully enunciated as if she were sculpting air into music. "Would you like a pastry? Daddy's pastries are very good. He gets them from the bakery on the corner. Mrs. Rosenstein says they're the best in Brooklyn." She pointed to the plate, the gesture delicate, precise, almost ceremonial, as though she were offering them not merely baked goods, but a tangible piece of the world's goodness itself.

Bill stared at the pastries. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "Uh—no. No thank you. I'm—I'm fine." Poison, he thought. Definitely poison. This is how they get you. With pastries.

Ham Duo crouched, lowering himself to Delia's eye level. His face serious—the expression of a scientist confronting a specimen both fascinating and potentially dangerous.

"Delia," he said carefully, "I need to ask you something. And I need you to be completely honest."

Delia nodded solemnly, the motion slow, deliberate, almost ritualistic, as if she were acknowledging the gravity of a council meeting in which the fate of worlds might be decided by a single, considered nod.

"Do you ever feel the urge to—" He searched for words, "—spit on anyone? Or make inappropriate comments? Or... proposition strange men with interesting ears?"

Delia's eyes widened in a near-perfect, symmetrical oval of shock. Her mouth formed a precise O, each muscle in her small face aligned in perfect orchestration, as if the very laws of facial expression had conspired to convey disbelief.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed, shaking her head with vigorous, almost balletic energy, her ringlets bouncing like tiny exclamation points, her plush bunny bouncing slightly against her chest. "That would be very bad! Mommy says good girls don't do things like that. Good girls are polite and kind and share their toys and never, ever spit." Her tiny hands lifted in an almost orchestral gesture of moral condemnation. "Did someone do that? That's horrible! They must be very naughty!"

Even as her words filled the air, there was a sense that the universe had contracted slightly, as if the sheer concentration of propriety, sweetness, and unblemished innocence in this child was enough to make ordinary laws—of gravity, of biology, of social conduct—pause in awe.

Ham Duo straightened slowly. His face had gone pale under its layer of grime.

He turned to Bill. His lips moved. The words were barely audible.

"That's not her. That's not the same kid. That's—someone else. A replacement. A pod person. Something."

Splock's hand moved. From somewhere in his ridiculous purple robe, he produced a small device—a rectangular box with two lights, one red and one green. He pointed it at Delia.

The green light flashed.

Bill squinted. "Hold on. I know that thing. It's from Spark Truck. The episode where Smock and Circ haul the shipment of screaming pillows to the meditation planet. 'Kill Dzen-Dzen!' I watched it seventeen times. Their scanner had an ORANGE light."

Splock's ears twitched. "The AL307 diode emits at 655 nanometers—objectively red. The orange appearance in 'Kill Dzen-Dzen!' was a post-production artifact. Lavender scent compounds shifted the color spectrum, so the editors simply dubbed the dialogue to call it orange rather than reshooting. The prop was always red. The episode's dialogue is historically inaccurate."

Bill's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "They... they changed the words because the COLOR was wrong?"

"It was more cost-effective than reshooting the scene. The actress who played Circ had already been cryogenically preserved between seasons. Reanimating her would have exceeded the episode budget."

Ham Duo grabbed Bill's arm. "Can we focus? The scanner. The child. The fact that she's not trying to sit on anyone's lap and whisper inappropriate things?"

Bill looked at Delia. At the green light. At Splock's device with its stubbornly red LED.

"Evil level," Splock said flatly, "zero percent. Politeness level... off the scale. The device cannot register readings this high. It is literally maxed out."

Bill stared at the green light. At Delia's innocent face. At Counter-Dirk buttering another croissant like the most normal man in the world.

"What," he said, "the hell is going on here?"

The kitchen door swung open again, and Karen York walked in. She was carrying a basket of laundry—the kind of mundane, domestic detail that seemed utterly alien in this house of secrets and timelines.

"Gene, you didn't tell me we were having company." She set the basket down, wiped her hands on her apron, and smiled at the trio with genuine warmth. "I would have made more coffee. Baked something."

Counter-Dirk shrugged amiably. "They just showed up. Spontaneous visit. Very friendly."

"Men are useless about these things." Karen shook her head, still smiling. She picked up her husband's empty coffee cup and carried it to the sink, running water over it with the easy grace of someone who had done this a thousand times.

Bill, Duo, and Splock retreated to a corner. The kind of corner where people go to have whispered conversations while pretending they're not having whispered conversations.

"Okay," Bill breathed. "Hypothetical. What if the Alien Historian screwed up? What if this timeline—this version of events—doesn't have Hastings? Doesn't have Alexander? Doesn't have any of it?"

Duo raised an eyebrow. "You think the Historian made a mistake?"

"I think he's arrogant. Arrogant people make mistakes. And if he did—if there's no embryo, no plan, no nothing—then we can just... leave. Go home. Pretend this never happened."

"And how do we check? Just ask? 'Hey, Karen, by the way, is your daughter secretly carrying the reborn spirit of an ancient conqueror? No? Cool, we'll be going.'"

Bill opened his mouth. Closed it.

Duo grinned. "I have a better idea. We take the kid. We find a doctor. We do one of those—what do they call them? The things that look inside you without cutting?"

"Ultrasound," Splock supplied.

"Right. Ultrasound. We scan her. If there's nothing there, we bring her back. Apologize. Blame it on a mix-up. If there IS something there—" He made a gesture that could have meant anything. "—we figure out next steps."

Splock's ears twitched. "That would constitute kidnapping. A felony in most jurisdictions. Punishable by—"

"Military necessity," Duo interrupted. "We're operating under military necessity."

"We're not military. You're a pirate. I'm a science officer on detached duty. Bill is—"

Bill held up a hand. "Splock. Shut up. If you don't shut up, I will personally make sure you end up back in that strip club with the eighteen-year-old version of Delia. The one with the Asia-sized rear end. The one who called you 'bunny.' She's still waiting, Splock. She's out there, somewhere in time, and she wants her bunny back."

Splock's mouth closed. His ears flattened. His entire body seemed to shrink slightly.

"That," he said quietly, "is not necessary."

"I think it's very necessary. Now stay here and look innocent."

Bill walked toward Karen. His posture shifted. His face arranged itself into something that was probably meant to be charming but looked more like a man trying to smile through intestinal distress.

"Ma'am? Mrs. York? Karen?" He cleared his throat. "We're from... special services. Government. We're conducting routine health screenings for adopted children in the area. Making sure everyone's... healthy. Growing properly. You know."

Karen looked up from the sink, her expression curious but not suspicious.

"And you have a car? To take her?"

Duo shot Bill a look. We don't have a car.

"We have a car," Bill said smoothly. "Waiting outside. Ready to go. We'll take her to the best pediatric specialist in Brooklyn. Top of the line. Very thorough."

Karen dried her hands on a towel. "You know, that's actually perfect. Delia hasn't had a check-up in months. I've been meaning to schedule one, but with Gene's campaign—" She waved vaguely. "You know how it is."

"Absolutely. Politics. Very busy."

Karen called toward the hallway, her voice carrying with the gentle authority and warmth of a summer morning over a sleepy village green. "Delia! Sweetheart! Come here!" The words lingered in the air, curling around the furniture, brushing against the light filtering through the curtains, as though the very atmosphere waited for her response.

Moments later, Delia appeared, stepping into the room as if the world itself had arranged itself around her arrival, each motion a symphony of grace and unintentional majesty. She still clutched Mr. Bunnikins, the plush rabbit whose floppy ears brushed against her small knees and whose pink nose twitched in silent admiration of her steady, radiant steps. Her ringlets bounced with each step, tiny coils of hair that seemed to capture the sunlight, coil it up, and release it back into the room in tiny arcs of joy. Her dress—the same pink confection of ruffles and bows—swirled lightly around her legs, each fold catching the morning light like a miniature stage, choreographing her movements as if the fabric itself understood the sacred duty of adorning her small, perfectly formed self.

"Yes, Mommy?" she said, her voice a crystalline note of politeness and delight, resonating in the kitchen as if it had the power to suspend time itself for a fraction of a heartbeat.

"These nice men are going to take you for a check-up. A doctor's appointment. To make sure you're healthy."

Delia's face brightened as though a thousand little suns had simultaneously chosen that exact moment to shine directly upon her. "A doctor? Like a real doctor? With a stethoscope and everything?" Her small hands tightened slightly around Mr. Bunnikins, lifting him as if to show him the gravity and excitement of the moment, while her eyes shone with innocent anticipation, reflecting every detail of the room—the polished countertop, the sunlight on the floor, the corners of the ceiling, each ordinary object suddenly elevated to the grandeur of her perception.

"The very best kind," Bill assured her, speaking in tones meant to comfort, yet utterly helpless against the overwhelming radiance of her delight.

Karen crouched gracefully, folding her knees beneath her as though the universe had shrunk to accommodate this moment of maternal devotion. She straightened her daughter's dress with slow, deliberate care, smoothing each ruffle, adjusting each bow, as if the world's order itself depended on the precise alignment of pink fabric. "Now, you listen to these gentlemen, okay? And remember—no sugar before the appointment. You know how your tummy gets." Her hands lingered for a heartbeat longer than necessary, brushing a wayward curl, a wayward seam, each motion an unspoken meditation on care, patience, and the eternal art of motherhood.

"Yes, Mommy," Delia replied, her voice modest, careful, yet still bright enough to make the air itself feel lighter, as though her agreement had physically purified the room of any residual tension.

"And tell the doctor about your allergies," Karen continued, tilting her head slightly as she listed each one with maternal precision, "The strawberries. The pollen in spring. The—"

Splock's ears twitched, betraying an involuntary curiosity. "Allergies? According to my—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I mean, that's very thorough. Good to know."

Karen straightened, her own posture regaining the quiet authority of a woman who had, in a single moment, transmitted all knowledge necessary for survival, comfort, and happiness to the tiny vessel of life before her. "She's all yours. Bring her back in one piece?"

"Absolutely. One piece. Guaranteed."

They began moving toward the door. Bill's hand closed gently around Delia's, small, warm, soft, utterly trusting. Her fingers curled around his in the most natural, unthinking gesture of assurance, as if she had always known that the world was composed of hands like his, and that this connection, fleeting and delicate, was part of the natural order of life. It felt wrong. Everything about this felt wrong—the enormity of her cuteness, the way the room seemed to pause for her every movement, the way her small wrist rested against his, the perfect tilt of her head, the little rabbit she carried like a talisman of innocence. Yet simultaneously, it felt inevitable, like gravity itself had bent to accommodate her walk down the hallway, like the universe had conspired for this very crossing of hands and hearts, and nothing else mattered at all.

They reached the sidewalk, that gray strip of mundane urbanity that, in the presence of Delia, suddenly seemed like a stage upon which the drama of human innocence could be enacted with almost unbearable grandeur. The sun slanted across the pavement, glinting faintly on cracks and small stones, catching dust motes in the air that danced lazily as though waiting for the arrival of someone capable of transforming ordinary moments into eternal memory.

Duo stepped forward to the curb and raised his arm with exaggerated purpose, a beacon to the invisible, impatient traffic gods. Cars passed. And passed. And passed, their tires humming over the asphalt like distant timpani in a symphony that no one but the adults seemed to notice.

Delia looked up at Bill, her head tilting slightly, her large, luminous eyes widening until they seemed to encompass not just the man before her but the very concept of honesty itself. There was a moment—a breath—where it seemed she was staring directly into the soul of morality, weighing every possible nuance of truth and falsehood, and finding them wanting.

"You said there was a car." Her voice, small and soft, carried a weight that threatened to bend the air itself. It was accusing, precise, delivered with the clarity of a prosecutor reading from a long-forgotten, sacred lawbook, each word punctuated by the barely perceptible quiver of her lower lip.

"There is. It's coming." Bill's voice, calm and reassuring, wavered under the gravity of her gaze, as though the universe itself had shifted slightly out of alignment in response to her scrutiny.

"You said it was waiting."

"It's... waiting somewhere. Nearby. Just not... here." He faltered, helpless, while the sun caught on one of Delia's ringlets, which gleamed like a halo of perfect chocolate-brown light.

Delia's lower lip protruded further, taking on a fullness and weight entirely disproportionate to her small face, as if it were now a physical emblem of cosmic betrayal. The same lower lip that, in another timeline, had once formed part of something dark, something that caused unease, now had been transformed into a living, breathing monument of innocent distress, the embodiment of a child on the verge of tears for reasons far more serious than the simple passage of automobiles.

"You LIED." She said it with absolute solemnity, each syllable stretched in slow-motion clarity, as if she were carving the accusation into the very air itself. "You're a LIAR."

Her voice rose with the precise timbre of indignation that could topple empires, correct injustices, or summon the very laws of physics to attention. "My daddy says liars go to a special place where they have to sit on spiky chairs forever." She tilted her small head slightly, eyes narrowing in judgment, and in that look was the terrifying certainty of universal justice delivered by someone not yet eight years old.

Bill glanced at Duo. Duo glanced at the sky, as if seeking guidance from distant clouds, cosmic traffic signals, or perhaps the very meaning of honesty itself. Neither dared to respond further.

A taxi pulled up, its yellow paint gleaming dully under the indifferent city sun, and the engine's rumble seemed almost to hesitate, aware of the enormous importance of what was about to happen within its cramped interior.

Bill practically threw Delia into the back seat, though "threw" somehow lost all menace when applied to someone so small, so impossibly fragile, that the motion seemed more like placing a delicate porcelain figurine into a nest of clouds than anything else. Delia landed with a soft bounce, her ringlets swinging in perfect arcs, Mr. Bunnikins held tightly against her chest, and a faint squeak of delight—or perhaps shock—escaped her lips as if to punctuate the grandeur of her entrance.

Duo slid in beside her, occupying his seat with the casual competence of someone accustomed to absurdity but still awed by it.

Splock followed, moving with the painstaking care of a man navigating a field of landmines, except the mines were not explosives but tiny human limbs, delicate curls, and the ever-watchful eyes of a child whose innocence could strike fear into the hearts of men. He settled rigidly in the corner, as far from Delia as physically possible, his purple robe bunched like a taut sail, his hands folded as though praying for survival, his ears flattened into a state of permanent distress. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, his lungs apparently deciding it was safer not to function entirely.

Delia, for her part, did not move at all in a conventional sense. She sat perfectly upright, small knees together, tiny feet dangling like pendulums too short to reach the floor, and Mr. Bunnikins perched proudly on her lap. She turned her head only slightly, enough to see Duo's face, and blinked in a measured, deliberate fashion, as if to acknowledge his existence without disturbing the delicate equilibrium of the car. The pink ruffles of her dress spilled around her like a miniature kingdom, each fold immaculately arranged by invisible hands devoted entirely to the aesthetics of childhood perfection.

Bill climbed into the front passenger seat, his own motions suddenly feeling clumsy and intrusive in contrast to the delicate, orchestrated serenity behind him.

The driver, a heavyset man with a mustache so thick it seemed to warp gravity around it, looked back at his passengers. At the purple robe. At the seven-foot-tall furry creature glimpsed nervously through the window, still hiding in the bushes. And at the little girl in pink, whose mere presence seemed to make the air shimmer slightly, as if reality itself were deferring to her perfection.

"Where to?" he asked, his voice carrying a note of cautious curiosity, or perhaps dread—the kind that arises when confronted with forces beyond ordinary comprehension: oversized robes, talking fur, and the delicate personification of absolute innocence.

Bill gave him the address of a medical clinic he had seen on a sign. "And step on it. This is an emergency."

The driver raised an eyebrow. "What kind of emergency?"

"Kindergarten. Very serious."

The taxi pulled away from the curb, tires hissing against the asphalt like minor exclamations of consent, the city flowing past in a blur of gray and yellow, and within the back seat, Delia remained a serene, unflappable presence, rocking slightly with the motion of the car, Mr. Bunnikins clutched to her chest, each ruffle of her dress fluttering like a banner announcing the triumph of innocence over chaos.

Behind them, in the bushes, Chewgumma waved sadly with one paw, a soft, mournful gesture toward a world in which the pink bunny he had been promised remained tantalizingly just out of reach. His small red eyes glimmered with longing, and for a brief moment, it seemed the universe itself paused to mourn the tiny tragedies of the furry and the small alike.

The taxi rolled through the streets of Brooklyn, its suspension groaning with each pothole as if the vehicle itself were sighing under the weight of its passengers and the enormity of what it carried: a small girl in a pink dress, a plush rabbit of indeterminate magical importance, and three men whose capacity for normal human composure had already been tested to its limits. The city hummed around them, indifferent, pigeons fluttering like tiny gray specters above, the sunlight glancing off asphalt and windows, painting everything in strokes of ordinary reality that seemed almost cruelly mundane compared to the extraordinary tableau inside the back seat.

Delia had decided that the appropriate response to a car ride was conversation. Not silence, not observation, not polite contemplation. No. Conversation. And not casual conversation. Important, significant, piercing conversation.

"So," she said brightly, her voice ringing like a bell forged from sunlight and candy, "do you have any kids, mister?"

Bill, seated in the front, turned halfway around, his spine bending in protest to the laws of ergonomics and propriety. "What? No. I'm a soldier. Soldiers don't have kids."

"Why not?" The tilt of her head, the slight widening of her eyes, the way her lips parted just so—all these details combined to create a moment of scrutiny so profound it might have caused minor earthquakes in distant, less prepared galaxies.

"Because we're busy. Fighting. Saving the galaxy."

"That sounds exciting. Do you kill aliens?"

"Sometimes."

"Have you killed a lot?"

Bill glanced at the driver, who was pretending with only moderate success not to listen, his mustache quivering faintly as though straining to contain laughter or horror. "That's... not really dinner table conversation."

"We're not at dinner."

Ham Duo leaned forward, his face nearly level with hers, speaking with the careful gravity of someone attempting to explain thermonuclear physics to a creature whose head barely reached his shoulder. "He's killed plenty. Lots of aliens. Big ones, little ones, ones with tentacles. He's very good at it."

Delia's eyes widened to the size of small saucers, glimmering with excitement, and her ringlets bounced subtly as though the air itself wished to participate in her awe. "Wow. Can I see your gun?"

"No."

"Awww." She tilted her head, a minor frown forming, her lower lip protruding just so, creating a perfect, tiny O of disappointment, a manifestation of cosmic injustice rendered through the lens of childhood sweetness. Mr. Bunnikins shifted slightly in her grip, as though sharing in the moral weight of her reaction.

Splock sat rigidly in the corner, a statue in a purple robe, his face turned toward the window, his reflection showing eyes that stared at nothing, consumed entirely by mysteries incomprehensible to the small mind beside him. Since entering the vehicle, he had not spoken. He had not breathed in any noticeable pattern. He had, for all practical purposes, become an inert monument to quiet dread and the elegant terror of pointy ears.

Delia noticed him immediately. "Why is that man so quiet? Is he sad?" She leaned slightly toward him, the pink folds of her dress fanning outward in careful arcs, Mr. Bunnikins lifted as though to inspect this silent figure more closely, her entire small form radiating curiosity and innocent concern simultaneously.

"He's... thinking," Duo said, his tone a careful blend of explanation and apology, as if the gravity of the boy—or man—beside them required negotiation with forces beyond his own comprehension.

"About what?"

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Complicated stuff. Adult stuff."

"Oh." She considered this, tilting her head in a motion that seemed to slow time itself, the ringlets around her face bouncing just enough to catch stray rays of sunlight. "Is he a wizard? He looks like a wizard. With the robe and the pointy ears. Wizards are cool."

Splock's ear twitched. The movement was microscopic, almost imperceptible, but it was enough—a singular, monumental concession to awareness in a world otherwise dominated by stillness and the tiny, unstoppable force of a child's curiosity.

The taxi pulled up to a modest medical clinic—a two-story building with a faded sign reading BROOKLYN WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER. Bill pulled out a wad of cash and peeled off several large bills. The driver stared at them.

"Uh, pal, I can't make change for this."

"Keep it."

The driver's eyes bugged out. "Keep it? This is—this is like three times the fare."

"Consider it a tip. For not asking questions."

They piled out onto the sidewalk. As the taxi pulled away, Duo grabbed Bill's arm.

"Where did you get that kind of money? And don't say 'savings.'"

Bill glanced around. Lowered his voice. "The tent. When I landed on Damien Thorn's tent. There was a lockbox. With cash. Lots of cash. I figured he owed me for the broken ribs."

"You stole from a psychic?"

"Borrowed. With no intention of returning." Bill shrugged. "He was charging fifty dollars for aura cleanses. He had it coming."

Splock opened his mouth.

"If you're about to say that was unethical," Bill cut him off, "remember whose outfit you're wearing. The one with the stars. The one from the same tent."

Splock's mouth closed. He looked down at his purple robe. His expression suggested he was recalculating several moral positions simultaneously.

He pushed open the clinic door. The waiting room was empty—a minor miracle, or perhaps just the luck of a Tuesday morning. The receptionist was a young woman with too much eyeshadow and a nametag that read Tina. She looked up from a romance novel.

"Can I help you?"

Splock approached the desk. His voice, when it emerged, was the same monotone it had always been, but there was something underneath it now. Something tired.

"We require a specialist. In... pediatric internal examination. Specifically, examination of the abdominal and pelvic regions. For potential anomalies."

Tina blinked. "You mean a gynecologist?"

"If that is the appropriate terminology, yes."

She consulted a chart. "Dr. Jerk Upchucker's available. Room 204, down the hall, third door on the left."

"Splendid."

They turned to go.

Bill stopped. "Wait. Did you say 'Upchucker'? Like, that's his actual surname?"

The receptionist shrugged. "Yes, 'Jerk el Upchucker'. It's Syrian. Very old family. Very respected. He's a great doctor, though. Very thorough."

"Jerk? His first name is Jerk?"

"It's pronounced 'Yairk.' But spelled J-E-R-K. Family tradition."

Bill stared at her. She stared back. The universe, once again, was having a laugh at his expense.

"Of course it is," he muttered. "Of course."

Room 204 was at the end of a long corridor lined with pastel paintings of flowers and inspirational quotes about women's health. The door was open. Inside, a man sat behind a desk, reading a medical journal.

He was thin. Very thin. His face was long, his forehead high, his glasses perched precariously on a nose that seemed designed to reject them. He looked up as they entered, and his expression didn't change.

"Ah. Patients. Or... companions of patients?" His eyes fell on Delia. "Lovely, lovely. Wait—I know your face! You're Gene York's daughter. The politician's kid. I recognize you from the newspapers. Your father's running for Congress. Very exciting." He peered at the others. "You're not her parents."

"Government business," Bill said quickly. "Special operation. Need-to-know basis."

Upchucker's eyebrows rose. "The Pentagon?"

"The what?"

"Pentagon. Military headquarters. Are you from the Pentagon?"

Bill nodded vigorously. "Yes. Exactly. The Pentagon. Very secret. Very important."

Upchucker stood. "Wonderful. I love working with the military. So organized. So decisive. Now, who's getting examined? All of you? One at a time or simultaneously? I have enough equipment for—"

Splock's face, already pale, went several shades whiter. "Just the child. Only the child. No one else."

"Ah. Pity. I don't often get such interesting patients."

"We need an ultrasound," Bill said, trying to sound official. "On her. Now."

Dr. el Upchucker raised an eyebrow. "Ultrasound? For a child her age? Is there a medical reason or—"

"Military secret," Bill interrupted. "Top clearance. Need to know. You don't need to know."

Dr. el Upchucker nodded slowly. "I see. I see. Well, when the Pentagon calls, who am I to refuse? Come, come. This way."

The examination room was small, but in Delia's presence, it seemed impossibly vast, every corner and surface suddenly charged with significance. Dominating the space was a machine that looked as though it had emerged from a technological time capsule, born in the 1970s and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the passing decades: knobs, dials, and a screen barely larger than a modest television, connected by a thick, coiled cable to a wand that seemed simultaneously menacing and magical. Its presence made the room smell faintly of disinfectant and mystery, as though secrets of the human body and the universe itself were waiting to be revealed through its archaic interface.

Upchucker patted the examination table with exaggerated cheer, as though the act alone could transform cold metal into a throne fit for a princess. "Up you go, young lady. This won't hurt a bit. Might tickle, though."

Delia's eyes lit up like twin stars caught in a bubble of pure excitement. She climbed onto the table with the deliberate grace of someone performing a ritual of immense importance, each small footstep measured, each ruffle of her pink dress flaring just enough to mark the passage of her body through space. Mr. Bunnikins was clutched tightly against her chest, his floppy ears draping over her arm like soft banners of courage, and she whispered to him under her breath, tiny words of encouragement as if he were the true participant in this grand medical adventure.

"Is this going to hurt?" she asked, her voice the perfect blend of curiosity and cautious optimism, a sound that seemed to make the linoleum floor shine a little brighter and the fluorescent lights soften their glare.

"Not at all, little one," Upchucker said, a man trying valiantly to maintain professional composure while surrounded by the epic force of cuteness that had taken up residence on his examination table. "Just a little cold gel and a magic wand that shows pictures of your insides."

"That sounds fun!" Delia exclaimed, clapping her small hands together so gently that it created a delicate, percussive punctuation in the quiet room. The ringlets of her hair swayed slightly with the motion, catching stray fluorescent rays, and even Mr. Bunnikins seemed to quiver in anticipation, as though he were aware that the very boundaries of imagination and reality were about to blur.

Doctor Upchucker squeezed the cold gel onto her abdomen. "Cold! Sorry about that."

Delia squealed, a crystalline note of genuine surprise and delight. "It's COLD! It's so COLD!" Her tiny toes wiggled against the paper covering the examination table, her knees bent in a perfect right angle, her hands clutching Mr. Bunnikins even tighter, as if the plush rabbit were the only thing standing between her and the unfathomable chill of this new sensation.

"That's the gel," the doctor explained patiently, "It helps the sound waves see inside you."

Delia nodded solemnly, as though this new information were of cosmic significance. Every ruffle of her dress, every bounce of a ringlet, every tiny adjustment of her small body on the table seemed imbued with the weight of ritualized importance.

He pressed the wand to her stomach. "Now, let's see what's going on in there."

Delia gasped softly, her eyes widening with the awe of someone witnessing magic for the first time. She leaned slightly forward, tilting her head, her little hands gripping Mr. Bunnikins as though to anchor herself in this rapidly transforming reality. The gel glimmered on her skin, catching the light like a tiny mirror reflecting the vastness of her own imagination, and the wand began its slow, deliberate sweep, scanning the hidden landscapes of her body with all the solemnity of an archaeologist uncovering a lost city beneath a sun-scorched desert.

The screen flickered to life. Grainy green images swam into focus—shadows and shapes that resolved slowly into recognizable forms.

Upchucker narrated as he worked. "Stomach... empty, mostly. Good. Liver... looks healthy. Intestines... plenty of gas, but that's normal for a child her age. Kidneys..." He moved the wand. "All present and accounted for."

Bill leaned closer. Duo crowded in from the other side. Their faces were inches from the screen.

The wand moved lower.

Something appeared.

A shape. Small. Regular. Almost perfectly geometric. It looked like a tiny plastic bag, its contents clearly visible even in the grainy image: small hearts. Cookie-shaped hearts. A whole cluster of them.

Bill's hand shot out and grabbed Upchucker by the collar.

"JERK! What IS that? What's inside her?"

Upchucker's eyes went wide. "I—please—let go—I need to—"

"TELL ME!"

The doctor adjusted his glasses. Squinted at the screen. His face went through several expressions—confusion, recognition, and finally, the dawning of something that looked almost like amusement.

"That," he said, "is cookies."

Bill stared at him. "Cookies."

"Cookies. Heart-shaped cookies. She ate them—probably a whole bag—and somehow they migrated to..." He paused. "Well. To an interesting place."

Delia's eyes suddenly lit up, twin beacons of joy igniting in the fluorescent-lit room. "Oh! Those cookies! They were so good! I ate the whole bag on the way to school last week!" Her small hands flailed a little in excitement, making Mr. Bunnikins wobble dangerously on her lap, his pink nose almost grazing her perfect ruffled dress. "Mommy was mad," she continued, pausing just long enough to gasp for dramatic effect, "but Daddy said it was okay because I shared with Mr. Bunnikins." She lifted the stuffed rabbit high, as if to demonstrate that yes, he had indeed received his rightful portion of the baked delicacies. "He doesn't really eat, though. He just pretends."

Upchucker began to laugh.

It started as a delicate, embarrassed chuckle, like a single bell ringing in the distance, then built steadily into a full, resonant guffaw, and finally exploded into the kind of tear-streaming, can't-breathe hysteria normally reserved for the discovery of lost treasure or the revelation of long-forgotten, world-altering secrets. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as though it might somehow collapse under the sheer force of hilarity. One hand waved helplessly at the screen, as if to signal some higher authority: This is beyond protocol.

"Cookies!" he wheezed, gasping between bouts of laughter. "It's COOKIES! The great military secret! The Pentagon's most classified operation! COOKIES IN A CHILD'S UTERUS!" The words tumbled out, each syllable buoyed by hysteria, punctuated by sobs of incredulous joy, echoing against the walls and bouncing like small, delighted meteors off the old ultrasound machine.

Ham Duo made a sound. It might have been a laugh. It might have been a sob. Somewhere in between, somewhere in that precarious, indescribable space where adult restraint collides with the absurdity of witnessing a small girl in pink discuss baked goods at a medical clinic, it emerged: a hiccup-laden, emotionally ambivalent, utterly human noise of overwhelming disbelief.

Delia, perceptive and socially aware even in her unparalleled cuteness, noticed that everyone else in the room was now laughing, crying, or wheezing helplessly. Her eyes sparkled with the understanding that she had inadvertently become the center of a minor cosmic event. "Cookies!" she repeated, her voice rising like a soprano in a grand opera, every note perfectly pitched to the acoustics of wonder and innocence. "Silly cookies! They went the wrong way!"

She leaned slightly forward, bouncing a little on the examination table, ringlets swaying like tiny, enchanted pendulums, her tiny fingers clutching Mr. Bunnikins with a firmness that suggested he alone could anchor the world against the absurdity of misdirected baked goods. The pink ruffles of her dress fluttered delicately with each motion, each fold catching the fluorescent light like a miniature flag proclaiming triumph over confusion.

Bill stared at the screen. At the tiny bag. At the perfect little hearts.

All that running. All that fear. All that time.

Cookies.

Ham Duo looked at the ceiling. Painted on it was a crude approximation of a starry sky—glow-in-the-dark stickers arranged in constellations that didn't exist.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "We traveled through time. Multiple times. We lost two Disruptors. We watched a member of our group get—" He glanced at Splock. "—compromised. Another member ate eighteen years of garbage. And the third—" He pointed at Bill. "—spent the last hour panicking about an Antichrist that turned out to be a SNACK."

Dr. el Upchucker perked up. "Antichrist? Is this part of the Pentagon operation?"

Duo waved a hand. "Never mind. Just... never mind."

Upchucker's laughter subsided to giggles. "Cookies in the uterus. That's a new one. I've seen all kinds of things—forgotten tampons, lost IUDs, even a small action figure once—but cookies? Never cookies."

Duo hiccupped again.

Splock had not moved. He stood by the wall, his eyes fixed on the screen, his expression unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice was the hollow echo of a being who had seen too much.

"I am revising my opinion of the universe," he said. "It is not logical. It is not rational. It is not even consistently chaotic. It is a cosmic joke told by a being with no sense of humor, and we are the punchline." He paused. "I am considering entering a monastery."

Duo patted his shoulder. "Which one? They're full of women these days. You'll never be safe."

Splock's ears flattened.

Bill let go of Upchucker's collar. The doctor straightened his shirt, still chuckling.

Dr. el Upchucker wiped his eyes and composed himself. "Well! My official diagnosis: sweetheart-shaped cookies in the uterus. No surgery required. They'll pass naturally in a few days." He paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "Unless they don't. Then you'll have a second child. A cookie child. Imagine that."

Bill stared at him.

"A cookie child."

"Stranger things have happened. Medicine is full of surprises. So," Upchucker said, "shall I write this up? 'Patient presents with cookie-based uterine anomaly. No treatment required. Will resolve spontaneously. If not, schedule follow-up for potential baked goods delivery.'"

Bill waved a hand weakly. "Sure. Whatever. Write what you want."

Duo's hiccups finally subsided. He looked at Bill. Bill looked at the screen. The little heart shapes seemed to mock them.

"We need to go," Bill said, his voice taut with urgency, carrying the weight of someone who had spent hours navigating events that bent both time and sanity. "We need to go now."

Delia, however, seemed entirely unaware of urgency or the fragile mental stability of the adults around her. She hopped off the examination table with the effortless grace of a woodland sprite leaping from one mossy stone to another, pink ruffles fluttering in small arcs with each bounce. Mr. Bunnikins, clutched tightly to her chest, bobbed in perfect synchrony with her motion, his floppy ears swaying like flags announcing the triumph of cuteness over chaos.

"Can we get ice cream now?" she asked, tilting her head slightly, the motion so exquisitely balanced that it might have been choreographed by angels in a rehearsal hall somewhere beyond the clouds. "The doctor says I have cookies inside me, so I should have ice cream too. To keep them company." Her voice carried that rare, crystal-clear clarity that made the simplest request sound like a decree from the universe itself, and her wide eyes gleamed with the innocence of a child who believed utterly in the moral necessity of dessert companionship.

Bill looked at her. He looked at the soft, bouncing ruffles of her dress. He looked at her perfect ringlets, catching stray fluorescent light like tiny threads of spun gold. He looked at the small hands still clutching the plush rabbit with the fierce, unwavering dedication of a knight defending a sacred relic. And he looked at her face: round, radiant, and entirely oblivious to the chaos her tiny digestive system had just wrought upon their lives.

"Yeah," he said finally, his voice softening, cracking under the impossibly warm force of her innocence. "Sure. Ice cream. Why not."

He reached down and took Delia's hand. Small. Warm. Soft. Impossibly trusting. A hand that, in its tiny perfection, seemed to contain the very essence of childhood and the impossible weight of universal joy. It was a strange, almost destabilizing sensation for someone like Bill—someone who had spent the last several hours watching her eighteen-year-old self attempt unspeakable things with a traumatised alien—now holding a miniature emblem of absolute purity, as if the universe had pressed pause and said: Here. Take this. Remember wonder.

Delia's tiny fingers curled around his, the ruffles of her dress brushing his arm with delicate insistence. Mr. Bunnikins nestled against her chest, floppy ears draping like banners of comfort. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, tilting her head to look at him with a small, conspiratorial smile, as if ice cream were not merely a treat but a moral imperative, a reward for surviving the horrors of... well, "medical procedures and cookies in the wrong place," which sounded ridiculous when said aloud, but somehow she made it sound entirely serious.

Even the faint hum of the clinic lights seemed to bend toward her, as if the very atmosphere acknowledged the weight of her cuteness and the gravity of dessert-related justice.

Bill nodded to Duo. Duo nodded to Splock. Splock, still pale, still wearing the purple robe with gold stars, still radiating the particular energy of someone who had seen too much and processed too little, followed them out.

Dr. Jerk el Upchucker's laughter followed them down the hall. Through the closed door, they could hear him muttering to himself: "...cookies... in the uterus... the strangest government operation... wait till I tell the medical board..."

Bill didn't look back. There was no point. Let the man believe what he wanted. Let him tell his stories about the Pentagon and their cookie-based anomalies. It was better than the truth—better than explaining alien historians and temporal embryos and eighteen years of apocalyptic Cleveland.

The receptionist looked up as they passed. "Well? How'd it go? Is Dr. Jerk as big a jerk as his name suggests?"

Bill paused. "He's... thorough."

"That's what they all say." She winked. "Tell him Tina says his coffee's ready. He forgets when he gets interesting cases."

They pushed through the glass doors into the Brooklyn morning, the world outside suddenly enormous in comparison to the delicate universe they carried with them in the taxi and the clinic. The sun had climbed higher, spilling across the streets in generous pools of gold and gray, as if the city itself had paused to witness the small procession of absurdity, innocence, and vaguely heroic men. A dog barked somewhere—a sharp, punctuating note. A car honked, somewhere down the street, adding a percussion to the morning symphony. Ordinary sounds. Mundane, unremarkable noises, utterly incapable of preparing anyone for what was about to unfold on this sidewalk.

Bill stopped, planting his feet firmly on the uneven pavement, a soldier suddenly aware that he was standing in the presence of forces beyond strategy, beyond tactics, beyond all reasonable understanding. He looked down at Delia. She clutched Mr. Bunnikins with both hands, the rabbit's floppy ears falling over her tiny arms like ceremonial banners of comfort and courage.

Her small body swayed slightly as she hummed a tune about sunshine, a melody so sweet and pure it seemed to lift dust motes into delicate, dancing arcs of light, transforming each speck of Brooklyn air into glittering particles of joy. Her ringlets, perfect and glossy, bounced with each gentle movement of her head, and the folds of her pink dress fanned around her knees with an elegance that might have taken centuries to perfect, yet came to her effortlessly.

She looked up at him, her eyes enormous and luminous, twin pools of unwavering trust and innocent expectation. And she smiled. That smile—so complete, so utterly uncomplicated, so free from memory of crocodile faces, glowing eyes, or the unspeakable horrors she would encounter in another timeline—stopped Bill's heart, even if only for a moment, and made the ordinary Brooklyn morning feel like a stage set for something simultaneously fragile, ridiculous, and sacred.

"Can we get ice cream now?" she asked, her voice perfectly pitched, lilting, carrying the tiny weight of authority that only a child who knows she is the center of the universe can wield. "You promised."

Bill blinked. He swallowed. He considered the logistics, the danger, the ethics of sugar consumption—but none of it mattered. He looked at her face again, at the impossible gravity of her tiny hands gripping Mr. Bunnikins, at the rhythm of her hum, at the bouncing ringlets and the promise of pure delight in her gaze.

"Soon," he said, his voice soft, filled with resignation and awe. "Very soon."

Ham Duo stood a few feet away, scratching his head with the slow, methodical motion of someone trying to rearrange his thoughts through physical pressure. His expression was distant, processing.

"So," he said slowly. "That's it. That's... that's the whole thing. Eighteen years of running. Two lost Disruptors. One traumatized science officer. A bunch of dead hippo things. And it ends with... cookies."

"Cookies," Bill confirmed.

"Cookies in a child's uterus."

"Specifically."

Duo nodded. Then nodded again. Then started laughing—a low, incredulous chuckle that built into something almost hysterical. "We saved the world from cookies. We're heroes because of cookies. The Alien Historian's grand plan was defeated by a snack."

Splock cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had regained some of its usual monotone, though there was a new quality underneath—something worn, something tired, something that might have been the first stirrings of existential acceptance.

"Logically speaking," he said, "the Historian's timeline has been neutralized. Our interference in 1982 and 1985 created sufficient temporal disruption to prevent the embryo's implantation. In this reality, Alexander of Macedon was never transferred to Karen York. The embryo never developed. The apocalypse we witnessed in 2000 has been... erased."

Bill looked at him. "So it's over? Really over?"

"The probability approaches certainty. Delia York is an ordinary child. There is no threat. No conspiracy. No future catastrophe." Splock paused. "The mission is complete."

He turned to Ham Duo. "We require the Disruptor. The one you have kept in your possession throughout these events."

Duo's hand went protectively to his pocket. "My Disruptor? The last one? The only one we've got left?"

"It has sufficient energy to transport the three of us to our appropriate temporal coordinates. The same maneuver was successful in 2000. We have empirical evidence that it works."

"But I built that one. With my own hands. With molybdenum. Good molybdenum. Grade four."

"Your attachment to the device is noted. Its utility as a transportation mechanism remains unchanged. Please produce it."

Duo grumbled but pulled out the Disruptor. It gleamed in the morning light, its surface still bearing faint traces of its journey through time and space. No banana peel. No cookie crumbs. No lipstick. It looked almost respectable.

Bill looked at the device. Looked at Delia. Looked at the ordinary Brooklyn street with its ordinary Brooklyn sounds.

Something caught in his throat.

"I'm not going."

Duo's hand froze halfway to the Disruptor's keyboard. "What?"

Bill shook his head. "I'm staying. Here. In 1990. In Brooklyn."

Duo stared at him. Splock's ears twitched—a gesture that might have been surprise, might have been calculation, might have been the first stages of a system reboot.

"You want to stay here?" Duo's voice climbed. "In this timeline? With nothing but cookies and strange doctors and little girls who—" He gestured at Delia, who was now trying to make Mr. Bunnikins wave at a passing pigeon. "—don't even know what they almost were?"

Bill shrugged. "It's peaceful here."

"Peaceful? It's 1990! The music is terrible! The clothes are worse! There's no spaceships, no intergalactic travel, no—"

"No Chinger wars," Bill interrupted quietly. "No Quintiform computers trying to digitize my brain. No Alien Historians with grand plans. No Counter-Dirks with antelope prods and cauldrons of fried chewing gum." He looked at the sky—blue, ordinary, completely free of temporal anomalies. "Just... peace. Quiet. And maybe—" He glanced at Duo. "—a chance to finally hear that story. The one about the flamenco dancer's outfit. You've been promising it for..."

Ham Duo sighed—a long, theatrical exhalation that seemed to carry the weight of thirty-six years of unspoken secrets.

"Alright," he said. "You want the story? The real story? The one I've been promising since Messer Dimitri's death trap of a sanctuary?" He glanced at Bill, then at Splock, then at Delia, who had abandoned her pigeon-watching and was now producing a piece of chalk as though it had been conjured from thin air, and was beginning to draw smiley faces on the asphalt with the kind of careful attention that suggested she might, at any moment, be judged by the universe for accuracy and moral correctness. Each line she made was deliberate, each curve of the smile forming under her tiny fingers as though the weight of joy itself depended on her hand maintaining perfect control.

"You're going to get it. The whole thing. Every last detail. For the first time in three decades, the mystery of the flamenco dancer's outfit will be revealed."

Splock's expression remained carefully neutral, but one ear twitched—the barest flicker of interest. "I am... prepared to receive this information. For archival purposes."

"Sure. Archival purposes." Duo grinned.

Delia, having apparently completed her preliminary sketches of comically happy faces, now sat on the curb with the solemnity of a small monarch surveying her kingdom. Her legs stretched out before her, tiny shoes lightly scuffing the rough asphalt as her finger traced perfect circles in the dust. Each circle was a miniature declaration of order, happiness, and the absolute inevitability of cuteness. Mr. Bunnikins rested in her lap like a venerable, floppy-eared knight, one ear caught in the morning sunlight and glinting as if it were forged from gold. She glanced down at him now and again, murmuring tiny, serious instructions: "Keep still, Bunnikins. This is important. Make it perfect."

She paused to examine a particularly large circle, her brow furrowing ever so slightly—a motion so small it might have been missed by any ordinary observer, but which, in fact, seemed to warp the very air around her, lending gravity to a simple morning on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Then, with a careful adjustment of her dress and a tiny tilt of her head, she leaned forward to add another smiley face, her pinky raised slightly from the ground to avoid smudging her previous work, and hummed a quiet tune about sunshine and gentle breezes, as if the universe itself had composed an accompaniment to her artistry.

Bill leaned against a lamppost. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was smiling. Not the tight, desperate grin of survival. A real smile. Easy. Free. He glanced down at Delia now and again, noting how her tiny, deliberate movements seemed to command the attention of the world, as if her chalk-drawn smiley faces were small talismans of order and joy in a universe that often had little patience for such things.

"So," Duo began, "you remember the setup. Messer Dimitri's sanctuary. The formal dinner. The guests with their scars and their decorative women. The blue-skinned guy who might have been an alien or just really committed to a theme. Splock here playing manager, Tesora playing... whatever she was playing. And me, waiting in the wings, literally, for my cue."

"The piano," Bill said. "You were the pianist."

"Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings." Duo struck a pose. "Catchy, right? I came up with it myself. But getting to that piano was not simple. Oh no. Because Messer Dimitri's sanctuary was not the kind of place you could just walk into. Not unless you were on the list. And I was not on the list."

Delia looked up, her small head tilting slightly, ringlets bouncing as though each one were an independent observer of the unfolding drama. Her enormous, luminous eyes tracked Duo with a seriousness that seemed to weigh the moral content of every word. She clutched Mr. Bunnikins closer, pressing the floppy-eared rabbit to her chest like a shield of virtue, while her tiny pink shoes dug faint impressions into the asphalt as though she were anchoring herself to the very reality of heroism being described.

"Were you a bad guy?" she asked, voice small but perfectly pitched, each syllable ringing with the gravity of someone who understood, on an elemental level, the cosmic importance of distinguishing right from wrong. Her fingers twitched slightly in the dust, poised over a new chalk circle, but she didn't resume her drawing until Duo had answered, as if the universe itself demanded that she listen first.

"No, sweetheart. I was the opposite of a bad guy. I was the guy who shows up at the last minute to save everyone. Those guys are called heroes. Remember that."

Delia nodded solemnly, a motion so slow and exacting it seemed to stretch time itself. Each ringlet on her head swayed gently in the morning breeze, catching sunlight like tiny gilded threads. Her eyes glimmered with comprehension, absorbing the concept of heroism in all its dazzling, paradoxical weight, and then, with deliberate care, she returned to her drawing. The chalk rolled beneath her tiny fingers in arcs of precision and artistry, each line and curve imbued with the quiet authority of someone who understood that even a smiley face could carry the weight of moral truth.

"The problem," Duo continued, "was the guest list. Invitation only. Plus ones strictly vetted. No exceptions. And the theme that night was—" He paused for dramatic effect. "—Fiesta Flamenca."

Bill snorted. "You're kidding."

"I am not kidding. The decorations alone were enough to make a sombrero weep. Fake cacti everywhere. Papier-mâché peppers hanging from the ceiling. A mariachi band that only knew three songs and played them all at once. And the dress code? Formal flamenco. Which meant—"

"The outfit," Bill breathed.

"The outfit." Duo nodded gravely. "I had to acquire a flamenco dancer's costume. And not just any costume. It had to be convincing. It had to pass inspection. Because Messer Dimitri employed people whose entire job was to stand at the door and judge whether you were fancy enough to enter."

Splock's ears twitched again. "And you obtained such a garment... how?"

Duo's face assumed an expression of profound dignity. "I stole it."

"From whom?"

"A real flamenco dancer. A very short, very angry real flamenco dancer who was using the bathroom at the time. I was in and out in thirty seconds. The ruffles alone were worth the risk."

Bill was laughing now—really laughing, the kind of helpless, unstoppable laughter that came from somewhere deep. "You stole a flamenco outfit from a guy in a bathroom?"

"I was on a mission. Sacrifices had to be made. His dignity was a small price to pay for the safety of—"

"And you wore it?"

"I wore it with pride." Duo drew himself up. "The ruffles, the sequins, the little bolero jacket, the heels—especially the heels. Do you have any idea how hard it is to walk in those things? They're like stilts designed by someone who hated ankles. But I walked. I walked past the guards, past the guest list, past the mariachi band that was now on its fourth simultaneous version of the same song. I walked into that sanctuary and I took my place at the piano like I owned the place."

Delia tugged at Bill's sleeve, her small hand warm and urgent. "What's a flamenco?" she asked, tilting her head in that slight, deliberate way that made every ringlet of hair catch the sun like golden threads in a medieval tapestry. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity, an unspoken plea to experience the world she had just glimpsed through Duo's words.

"It's a type of dancing," Bill explained, his voice careful, tinged with the gravity of someone trying to convey the enormity of culture to a tiny, mercilessly perceptive judge. "Very fancy. Lots of stomping."

Delia's face brightened. She glanced at Mr. Bunnikins in her lap, who seemed, at that moment, like a royal advisor witnessing the birth of a new tradition. Then, with a deliberate inhale that somehow seemed to summon the spirits of every dancer who had ever stomped across the Earth, she announced, "I can stomp."

And she did.

What should have been a single, simple patter of small feet against asphalt transformed under her into a spectacle of transcendent gravity. She lifted one tiny foot, flexed her toes with the precision of a sculptor shaping marble, and let it descend with a tap so perfectly timed that the sound seemed to resonate down the street, stirring dust motes into a delicate, spiraling ballet. Her other foot followed, pattering, then stamping, then rebounding with elastic grace, as though the very laws of physics were being gently persuaded to accommodate the tiny miracle of her body in motion.

Each movement of her legs was mirrored by the subtle sway of her arms, which she extended with a kind of aristocratic flourish, pinkie extended, as though every finger were a separate participant in a grand cosmic performance. Her ringlets bounced in synchronization, each curl a pendulum marking the passage of time in slow, deliberate arcs. Even Mr. Bunnikins seemed to lean forward slightly, floppy ears trembling, caught in the gravitational pull of her artistry.

Her stomps punctuated the air rhythmically, yet unpredictably, so that one could imagine each tap as a heartbeat of the universe itself acknowledging her, and the dust around her seemed to rise in gentle eddies, floating lazily before settling back to the asphalt with reverence. A faint hum escaped her lips, accompanying the steps, tiny notes perfectly pitched to the subtle acoustics of the street, as if she were both conductor and orchestra, dancer and audience, simultaneously wielding and surrendering to the invisible forces of rhythm and joy.

Bill watched, mouth slightly open, utterly unprepared for the existential weight of a three-foot-tall human in pink ruffles, performing flamenco on a Brooklyn sidewalk, every stomp and sway a testament to innocence, mastery, and absurdly concentrated delight. Splock's ears twitched slightly, perhaps in acknowledgement, perhaps in fear. Ham Duo's hands hovered in midair, as though he, too, were momentarily paralyzed by the miniature performance that somehow contained multiverses of elegance, determination, and joy.

Finally, after what felt like both a moment and an eternity, Delia paused, settling back onto her heels with a triumphant tilt of her head. She looked at Bill with a smile that radiated both pride and the quiet, unshakable certainty of someone who had just introduced the world to a previously unknown dimension of perfection. Mr. Bunnikins nestled against her chest again, floppy ears twitching like flags marking the end of a victorious march.

Duo waited for her to finish, then continued. "The problem was, I didn't know how to play the piano."

Bill's laughter redoubled.

"Oh, I could fake it. I knew where the keys were. I knew that pressing them made sounds. But actual music? Real melodies? That was beyond me. So when Messer Dimitri announced 'a little light piano music by Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings,' I had approximately ninety seconds to figure out how to be a master of anything."

Splock leaned forward almost imperceptibly. "And your solution?"

"I improvised. I played the only thing I knew—a spacer's shanty from my home sector. It's not exactly Mozart, but it has a good beat and you can dance to it. I just... changed the tempo. Made it sound fancy. Added some trills where I thought trills might go."

"You faked classical piano with a pirate song."

"With great success, thank you very much. The audience applauded. Messer Dimitri nodded approvingly. The blue-skinned guy actually cried. I was a triumph."

Bill wiped his eyes. "And then?"

"And then you came out and started throwing Grundges at people, and everything went to hell. But for those few minutes, I was Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings, the finest flamenco-dressed pianist in the galaxy." He sighed, almost wistfully. "The outfit didn't survive the battle. Got shredded by a stray energy blast. But I kept the bolero jacket for years. Used it as a pillow."

Delia looked up at him, her little head tilted ever so slightly to one side, those perfect ringlets bouncing with the gentlest motion, catching stray sunlight like spun gold threads. Her eyes, enormous and liquid, sparkled with uncontainable wonder. They were the kind of eyes that could make the universe pause mid-breath and reconsider its priorities. Her tiny hands clutched Mr. Bunnikins with a grip that was at once protective and ceremonial, as if she were presenting him as an ambassador of approval to the most intimidating space pirate alive.

"You're the fanciest man I ever met," she said, her voice small but perfectly pitched, like the delicate chiming of a crystal bell tuned to resonate with every hidden corner of the heart. Each word carried with it a weight of admiration, awe, and pure, unfiltered recognition of grandeur—so much so that it might have bent the air itself, creating a soft halo around her and the floppy-eared rabbit she held. She emphasized fanciest with a slight, dramatic pause, tilting her head as if to allow the universe to witness the absolute truth of her declaration. Her pinkie, tiny and elegant, extended subtly as she gestured toward Duo with imperceptible authority, as if formally bestowing upon him the highest honor a three-foot-tall human could confer.

Ham Duo, who had spent his life commanding starships, surviving ambushes, and facing down foes who made grown men tremble, froze. The muscles in his jaw loosened, just slightly, as if some invisible hand had pressed the "soften" button in his chest. A faint glimmer appeared in his eyes—just enough to betray that beneath the rough, pirate-like exterior, something tender had been reached, touched by the delicate hammer of pure admiration and childlike sincerity. His usual grin, the one trained for smug heroics, faltered into a small, almost imperceptible curve of emotion, like sunlight slipping through clouds after a storm.

Duo bowed, slow and deliberate, as if acknowledging not only the compliment but the enormity of its delivery. "Thank you, young lady. That means more than you know." His voice, usually brimming with bravado and dramatic flair, wavered just enough to let the faintest trace of genuine vulnerability through—an acknowledgment that he, the flamenco-dressed, galaxy-hopping hero, had never been met with such purity, such unadulterated, soul-shaking praise.

The laughter faded into a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the soft scratch of Delia's chalk on the sidewalk as she drew new smiley faces, her tiny movements rhythmic and ceremonial, a gentle counterpoint to the enormity of the story she had just honored with her verdict of "fanciest." Bill looked at his friends—Duo, still grinning, still radiating the energy of a man who had just unburdened himself of a thirty-six-year secret. Splock, carefully expressionless but with something almost warm in the set of his ears. Delia, entirely absorbed in her art, unaware that her single, tiny, perfectly pitched statement had just rearranged the emotional gravity of a small corner of the galaxy.

Even Mr. Bunnikins, floppy ears catching stray light, seemed to nod in approval, as though to confirm that yes, the young human had spoken truth, and yes, the fanciest man in the universe had, for a brief shining moment, been properly recognized for all his ridiculous, heroic glory.

Splock broke the silence first. "Your decision to remain in this timeline remains, from a logical perspective, irrational. The environmental conditions are suboptimal. The cultural offerings are limited. The long-term prospects for personal fulfillment are—" He paused. "—uncertain."

Bill nodded. "I know."

"However." Splock's voice softened—or at least, it softened by Fortinbrasian standards, which meant it dropped by half a decibel and lost some of its edge. "I have observed that humans frequently choose irrational courses of action. And sometimes—rarely—those choices lead to outcomes that are... acceptable."

"Was that a compliment?"

"It was an observation. Interpret it as you wish."

Ham Duo stepped forward and extended his hand. Bill took it. The grip was firm, warm, weighted with years of shared absurdity.

"We'll be in 8962," Duo said. "If you change your mind—if you get tired of peace and quiet and little girls who draw on sidewalks—you know where to find us. Chewgumma's still outside the York house. He can run interference if you need to use the Disruptor."

Bill glanced toward the bushes where Chewgumma was presumably still hiding, still dreaming of pink bunnies. "I'll keep that in mind."

Duo pulled out the Disruptor. His thumb hovered over the F1 key. "Ready, pointy-ears?"

Splock adjusted his purple robe with as much dignity as he could muster. "The Disruptor's energy matrix is stable. Coordinates set for 8962, Gumption's last known location. Initiating in three... two..."

Delia stood up, her tiny body straightening with a dignity that seemed almost comically formal in contrast to the casual absurdity of the cosmic situation unfolding around her. Her pink dress swayed gently with the movement, ruffles dancing as if each one were aware of the ceremonial importance of the moment. She lifted her small hand in a wave, slow and deliberate, every finger articulated with care, as though she were performing a ritual as ancient as time itself.

Her eyes—large, luminous, and impossibly clear—fixed on Duo and Splock with a focus that made the swirling, pearlescent glow of the air around them seem almost pale by comparison. In those eyes was an unspoken catalogue of trust, joy, and innocent understanding; a gaze that somehow communicated, in a language older than words, the simple human truths she had always carried: that goodbyes could be warm, that heroes could be fanciest, and that even the most absurd, universe-spanning adventures were better with someone small and earnest watching and approving.

She gave a small, earnest "Bye-bye, funny men! Come visit again!"—each word perfectly pitched, her little voice rising and falling in a melody so sweet and precise it might have been composed by the universe itself to honor this exact moment. The wave continued, now a little more vigorous, though still entirely controlled, her hand tracing a tiny arc through the golden light, leaving behind, for those who could see, a faint trace of joy suspended in the air.

And her eyes—oh, her eyes—remained locked on them as they began to shimmer, the pearlescent glow wrapping around Duo and Splock, lifting them slightly off the ground. Those eyes, full of innocence and quiet gravity, seemed to follow the glow, following the motion of the universe bending around her little farewell, capturing a single, ephemeral instance of perfect, ridiculous, transcendent adorableness.

The air began to shimmer. The familiar pearlescent glow wrapped around Duo and Splock, lifting them slightly off the ground.

"Hey!" The Disruptor's voice emerged, thick with its Hungarian accent. "A little warning next time? I'm a precision instrument, not a carnival ride!"

"Shut up and do your job," Duo muttered.

"This is my job! Complaining is part of my job description! You try being a temporal device for eighteen years with no maintenance and see how cheerful you are!"

"Can it talk?" Delia asked, eyes wide, her small face lifting toward the flickering screen as if it were a magical creature that had stepped out of a storybook. Her tiny fingers gripped Mr. Bunnikins with the intensity of someone holding a treasure entrusted by the universe itself, and the floppy-eared rabbit's ears brushed against her cheek as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Each word came with a gravity and clarity that made the air around her seem to shimmer with importance, even though she was only asking a question, innocent and curious.

"It can," Bill said. "Unfortunately."

Delia's head tilted to one side, ringlets bouncing slightly with the motion, catching stray beams of light like tiny golden threads. Her enormous eyes—so round and bright they seemed to hold entire galaxies of wonder—stayed fixed on the Disruptor, drinking in its blinking screen and the strange, gravelly cadence of its voice. She pressed Mr. Bunnikins closer, as though drawing courage from the floppy ears, and her lips parted in anticipation, a soft gasp of awe and delight barely audible but impossible to ignore.

"Tell it I like its voice! It sounds like my grandpa!" Her voice rang out, perfectly pitched, clear, and deliberate, every syllable a miniature proclamation of admiration. She extended her tiny pinkie slightly, unconsciously performing a gesture of ceremony, as though this compliment were not merely a statement but a solemn decree with cosmic significance. Her eyes sparkled with expectation, the kind of uncontainable light that could melt the crustiest pirate heart or even make a machine feel seen.

The Disruptor's screen flickered. "The child compliments me? The child has excellent taste! Unlike some people who shall remain nameless but are currently standing right next to me!"

Delia's eyes widened a fraction more, and a small, radiant smile curved her lips, a smile so utterly innocent and full of quiet triumph that it seemed to envelop the entire room. She gave a tiny nod, as if to affirm that yes, the compliment had been delivered properly, and Mr. Bunnikins' floppy ears twitched in silent approval, echoing the gentle triumph of her declaration. She remained perfectly still for a heartbeat, just watching, her gaze filled with wonder, delight, and the serene satisfaction of having, in her small but absolute way, made even a grumpy, galaxy-hopping machine feel appreciated.

The shimmer intensified. Duo raised a hand in farewell. Splock's face was unreadable, but his ears gave one final twitch—a gesture Bill had learned to recognize as something almost like affection.

Then they were gone.

The street was quiet again. A bird sang somewhere. A car passed. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary world.

Bill stood alone on the sidewalk, the weight of emptiness settling over him like a soft, invisible blanket. Beside him, an eight-year-old girl in a pink dress looked up with curious eyes—eyes that seemed to carry the full clarity of a small, unspoiled universe. They were wide and luminous, reflecting the morning sun in glimmers so delicate that they might have been shards of gold scattered across a quiet pond. She tilted her head slightly, those ringlets bouncing just enough to catch stray light, framing her face in a halo of innocence so radiant it made everything else—the machines, the battles, the impossibilities—fade into a distant memory.

"Why didn't you go with them?" she asked. Her voice was soft, precise, perfectly pitched to the world, like the gentle chiming of a bell calling for attention, carrying a mixture of curiosity and the faintest hint of concern that seemed far too deep for someone so small.

Bill sighed. It was a good sigh. Deep. Complete. The sigh of a man who had finally stopped running, a sigh that carried the echoes of countless worlds, countless conflicts, and the quiet, aching knowledge of the things that had passed him by, unobserved and unremarked.

"I've seen too much," he said. "Too many worlds. Too many wars. Too many things that shouldn't exist. I need a rest. A long rest. Somewhere quiet."

Delia considered this with all the solemnity of one weighing the eternal order of the universe in the palm of her tiny hands. Her head tilted, then she nodded, decisively, her fingers curling around Mr. Bunnikins as though he were a talisman of comfort and trust, ready to be bestowed. She pressed the floppy-eared rabbit into his hand with the gravitas of someone performing an ancient rite.

"Here. Bunnikins will keep you company. He's very good at listening. He never talks back." Her voice carried a gentle finality, like a whisper across a sunlit meadow, and her eyes held a trust so pure, so absolute, that Bill felt it like a weight settling softly on his chest, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.

Bill looked at the stuffed rabbit. Floppy ears. Button eyes. Stitches where Delia had clearly performed some kind of meticulous, well-intentioned surgery. Every imperfection was an unspoken story of care, of patience, of love.

"Thanks," he said, his voice catching ever so slightly, though he would not allow it to tremble further.

Delia smiled—that perfect, innocent, utterly uncomplicated smile that seemed to contain the quiet wisdom of childhood, the clarity of joy, and the gentle inevitability of days unspoiled. She ran down the street toward her house, her ringlets bouncing as though each one carried a note in a melody composed solely for her passage. Her small voice called out for her mother, high and clear, rippling through the morning air like sunlight through glass, leaving behind a trail of warmth and fleeting wonder.

Bill stood there for a long moment, holding the rabbit. The morning sun painted his face in gold. The sounds of Brooklyn stirred around him: footsteps, distant voices, the subtle thrum of life continuing, ordinary and miraculous all at once.

He looked at the spot where Duo and Splock had vanished, the air still shimmering faintly with their departure. Then at the corner where Delia had disappeared, her presence lingering like a memory stitched into the folds of the world. Finally, he looked at the sky—blue, ordinary, perfectly free of temporal anomalies, a quiet canvas for the impossible innocence he had just encountered.

Then he started walking. No destination. No mission. No deadline. Just walking. Each step felt heavy with thought and light with the memory of her glance, her smile, the perfect tilt of her head and the trust in her eyes.

The rabbit's floppy ear brushed against his thumb.

"Don't get used to this," he told it. "I'm not good at quiet."

The rabbit said nothing. It was, as advertised, an excellent listener. And somehow, in that small silence, it seemed to carry all of Delia's laughter, all of her gentle judgment, and all the quiet weight of a fleeting miracle that had passed through the ordinary world, leaving its echo in the heart of a man who had seen too much and yet was utterly undone by the simplest, smallest human perfection.

Two days later, Bill sat in a diner.

It was the kind of place that existed in every city on every planet—plastic tables, sticky floors, the smell of frying grease permeating every surface like a curse. The menu was laminated and featured pictures of food that bore only passing resemblance to what actually arrived on plates.

On the table in front of him, propped against the napkin holder, sat Mr. Bunnikins. The rabbit's button eyes stared at nothing with the placid acceptance of someone who had seen it all and simply didn't care anymore.

Bill had ordered coffee. It arrived in a thick ceramic mug, lukewarm and slightly burnt. He drank it anyway. It felt like something a person did when they were trying to be normal.

The waitress approached. Her name tag read 'Flo'. Her expression read 'don't try anything'. She slapped a menu in front of him with the force of someone delivering a subpoena.

"Menu's right there. Special's meatloaf. We're out of it. Anything else'll take twenty minutes." Her eyes traveled over his uniform—faded now, patched in places, but still clearly not of this world. They lingered on the fabric, the cut, the strange insignia. Then they dropped to his pocket, where the outline of Damien Thorn's cash was visible through the cloth.

Her expression softened. Slightly. The way a wolf might soften at the sight of a particularly plump deer.

"I'll have the pie," Bill said.

"Apple or cherry?"

"Yes."

Flo stared at him. "We got apple. We got cherry. Pick one."

"Apple." He said it with the confidence of a man who had faced down Chingers and temporal anomalies and eighteen-year-old women with continent-sized posteriors. Pie should not be this difficult.

Flo grunted and disappeared.

Bill looked at Mr. Bunnikins. "She's going to spit in it. I can tell."

The rabbit said nothing. It was, as advertised, an excellent listener.

Movement outside caught his eye.

A small figure in a pink dress. Ringlets bouncing with the buoyant rhythm of a life entirely unburdened by the weight of consequence. Every twist and curl of her hair caught stray shafts of sunlight, making her look as though she were composed not of flesh and bone, but of spun gold and laughter. She ran down the sidewalk with the particular joy of someone who had nowhere to be and all day to get there, and yet every small step seemed deliberate, precise, and imbued with the kind of magic that makes the world pause for just an instant to admire it. Her tiny feet struck the pavement, a gentle patter that harmonized with the distant honking of cars and the song of a bird somewhere unseen, and yet somehow the universe itself seemed to slow to honor the perfection of her movement.

Bill was out of his seat before he knew he'd moved. The door banged behind him. Flo's voice followed—something about his pie, something about payment, something about the general rudeness of customers—but he wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed, riveted, drawn by a force stronger than gravity itself.

"Delia!"

She stopped. Every motion stilled. Her face split into that perfect, innocent, utterly uncomplicated smile, the kind of smile that seems to exist outside of time, capable of momentarily disarming any calculation, any war, any monster. Her wide, luminous eyes glimmered with trust and wonder, and the curl of her lips made it feel as though the sun itself had bent low to shine on her.

"Mister! Mister with the funny friends!" She ran toward him, arms outstretched with the sort of reckless abandon only a child could manage, her small body brimming with kinetic delight that radiated warmth into the air around her. The hug she threw around his legs was startling in its sincerity, in its overwhelming flood of pure affection, the kind that makes a man remember every lost moment, every danger faced, every universe he had fought to survive, and realize that somehow none of it mattered as much as this tiny, living spark of joy in his arms.

Then she stepped back, bouncing, each motion a careful yet unstudied choreography of happiness. Her voice rang out, high and musical, emphasizing every syllable as though she were conducting an orchestra:

"You won't BELIEVE what happened!"

"What?"

"That doctor! The one with the funny name—I can't say it, Mommy says it's a bad word—he TOLD EVERYONE about my cookies! He talked to a newspaper! And they wrote about it! And now everyone at school wants to know what it's like to have cookies inside you!" She twirled, the pink dress flaring outward in a perfect, circular halo, her little feet stamping lightly against the concrete in joyous punctuation. "I'm FAMOUS!"

Bill stared at her. "Famous. For cookies. In your—"

"YES! Isn't it WONDERFUL?" Her voice soared with uncontainable enthusiasm, tilting her small head back, ringlets bouncing in perfect counterpoint, eyes sparkling like tiny twin suns, cheeks flushed with delight, a soft laugh escaping her lips that made the world feel impossibly wide and bright.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"Fame," he said slowly, "finds everyone eventually. Just... not always where you expect it."

Delia nodded vigorously, a tiny bob of her head that sent curls bouncing and sunlight scattering. "That's what Mommy said! She said I should enjoy it now because next week everyone will forget and some other kid will do something weird." She paused, one small finger tapping thoughtfully against her chin. "A boy in my class put a bean up his nose. It started growing. He's famous too now."

Bill processed this. "Competition."

"The BEST competition. But I think cookies are better than beans. Don't you?" Her tiny fists were clenched in excitement, bouncing ever so slightly on the balls of her feet, and her words were delivered with such earnest precision that even the most hardened heart—like Bill's—could feel itself softening, melting under the insistence of pure, unfiltered childhood logic.

"Much better. Cookies are delicious. Beans are just... beans."

Delia giggled, a sound like chimes in a sun-drenched hallway. Then she looked past him, toward the diner, her gaze sweeping over the mundane world as though seeing it anew: a small, miraculous observer of ordinary life. "Are you eating? By yourself? That's sad. You should eat with people. That's what Mommy says."

"I'm practicing."

"Practicing what?"

"Being alone. It's harder than it looks."

She considered this with the solemnity of someone balancing the cosmos on a fingertip. Then she nodded, her little head tilting just so, ringlets bouncing once more, eyes sparkling with approval. She waved, the gesture small but infinite, a microcosm of generosity and joy:

"Okay! Bye, mister! Tell Bunnikins I said hi!"

And she was off, running down the sidewalk, her ringlets bouncing in perfect rhythm, her pink dress fluttering outward like a flag of innocent triumph, each tiny footfall sending a ripple of delight through the asphalt, a small comet of ordinary joy blazing briefly through an otherwise complicated universe.

Bill watched her go until she disappeared around a corner. Each bounce of her hair, each flick of her hand, each reverberation of her voice in the air seemed to echo long after she was gone. His chest tightened, eyes following her retreating form, remembering every glance, every laugh, every moment of unshakable trust. He held Mr. Bunnikins in his hand, the floppy ears brushing against his thumb, and for a heartbeat the world felt impossibly large, impossibly fragile, impossibly full of the kind of beauty that could never be captured, only witnessed—and mourned a little as it passed.

Something buzzed in his pocket.

He reached in, puzzled. His hand closed around something he hadn't felt in—hadn't felt since—

The radio.

The same radio. The one that had materialized in 2000. The one that had disappeared when they returned. The one that had absolutely, definitely, without question not been in his pocket five minutes ago.

He pulled it out. Held it up. Stared at it.

It crackled. And then, unmistakably, a voice emerged. Thickly accented. Dramatic. Utterly familiar.

"Bill? Bill, are you there? This thing is—yes, yes, I'm using it correctly, stop—Bill, can you hear me?"

The Disruptor.

"The what now?" Bill said. "How—where—I don't—"

"No time for questions! I've been trying to reach you for—well, time is relative, you know how it is. I'm in 8962 now. Chewgumma and I made it. The Kookie sends his regards. And his thanks for not making him stay in Brooklyn. He says, and I quote, 'Kookie no like pigeons. Pigeons rude.'"

Bill laughed. Actually laughed. Standing on a Brooklyn sidewalk, holding a radio that shouldn't exist, talking to a time machine that had opinions about pigeons.

"Listen," the Disruptor continued, "I have news. Important news. Splock made it to the Gumption. He convinced Captain Dirk and the entire crew that the universe can be explained through baked goods. I'm not kidding. He gave a lecture. Three hours long. By the end of it, they were all crying and craving cookies. It was beautiful."

"Splock? Crying?"

"Metaphorically. He doesn't cry. But his ears did something. I don't know what, but it was emotional."

Bill leaned against a lamppost. "And Duo?"

"Ah. Ham Duo. Your pirate friend. He's taken up dancing. Seriously. He's choreographing something called 'The Flamenco of Victory.' It's based on his experiences. Very interpretive. Very traumatic. I hear the ribbons are back."

"Ribbons?"

"You don't want to know. Trust me."

A pause. Static crackled.

"Bill," the Disruptor said, its voice softer now, "I could send someone for you. The Gumption's crew—they owe you. Splock would come himself, I think. He won't admit it, but he misses you. In his way. The way a calculator might miss a particularly interesting math problem."

Bill looked down the street. The place where Delia had vanished, where her small pink dress had twirled one last time, where her laughter still seemed to hang invisibly in the air like motes of sunlight trapped in dust. The ordinary life stretched beyond the corner, mundane and miraculous all at once: the rhythm of passing feet, the soft hum of distant traffic, a dog barking somewhere down an alley. He could almost see her little curls bouncing in that precise, impossible way, each spiral reflecting a universe of innocence and trust, each step a punctuation of joy that made every one of his own battles feel unbearably heavy in contrast.

His chest tightened as a faint tremor passed through his voice before he could speak. A shiver that was not fear, but a mixture of awe, longing, and grief—the kind a man carries after seeing a single perfect, untainted fragment of life and realizing how rare it is in a world of wars, of cosmic conspiracies, of things that should not exist. Memories assaulted him, unbidden: the clinic, the cookies, the twirl of her dress, the earnest tilt of her head, the solemn nod when she pressed Mr. Bunnikins into his hand—moments so small they seemed trivial, yet so infinite in weight that they left him shaking quietly inside.

Associations tumbled through his mind, quicksilver flashes of thought he could not catch: the first moment he saw her smile, the simplicity of her trust, the fragile gravity she exerted over everything around her, the way the world seemed to pause for her little triumphs, the echo of her giggle inside a diner that smelled of burnt coffee and fried grease, the impossibly warm hug that had startled him with its sincerity. All of it condensed into a single, quiet ache behind his ribs, a tremor in his throat that he could neither speak nor fully suppress.

"No," he said quietly. The word was small, almost a whisper, but it carried the tremor of everything he had just remembered, every heartbeat shared with her, every fleeting miracle he had witnessed in her presence. "I'm staying."

"You're sure?"

"Tell them I'm the Legate now."

The Disruptor paused. "The Legate? Of what?"

"Of this sidewalk. Of cookies. Of eight-year-old girls who get famous for the wrong reasons. Of keeping gynecologists from talking too much." He shrugged. "It's a small jurisdiction. But someone's got to patrol it."

The Disruptor was silent for a long moment. Then—laughter. Genuine, warm, crackling laughter that seemed to come from somewhere deep in its Hungarian-accented circuits.

"Legate of Brooklyn," it said. "I like that. I'll tell them. Splock will analyze it for three days. Duo will want a parade. Chewgumma will want a hat." Another pause. "Goodbye, Bill. For now. Or forever. Temporal mechanics are unclear on this point."

"Goodbye, Disruptor. Thanks for—" He stopped. "Thanks for everything."

Static. Then silence.

The radio was dead.

Bill stood there for a moment, the device warm in his hand. Then he looked up.

A man was watching him from across the street. Unkempt beard. Wild eyes. Filthy clothes. He looked like Noah—the same Noah from an alternate 1990, the one who walked onto the Yorks' lawn with an ark full of stuffed animals and died when a piano fell on his gray head.

"You talkin' to yourself, buddy?" the man called. "That's a bad sign. That's how it starts. First yourself, then the voices, then the flood."

Bill looked at him. For a long, quiet moment.

Then he straightened his uniform—faded, patched, but still unmistakably the uniform of a Galactic Hero. He lifted the radio, as if showing it to the man.

"I was talking to my regiment," he said. "They send their regards."

The man squinted. "Your regiment?"

"Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers. Best damn unit in the galaxy." Bill tucked the radio into his pocket. "We won. The war's over."

He turned and walked back toward the diner, leaving the man staring after him with the particular confusion of someone who had just brushed against a reality much larger than his own.

The pie would be cold by now. Flo would be angry. The day stretched ahead, ordinary and quiet, filled with nothing more dangerous than small talk and bad coffee.

Bill pushed open the door. The bell jingled. Flo glared at him from behind the counter, a fresh pot of coffee in her hand like a weapon.

"Your pie's been sitting there ten minutes."

"I'm sure it's still pie."

"It's not. It's a disappointment. Like most things."

Bill sat down. Picked up his fork. Looked at Mr. Bunnikins, who looked back with button-eyed serenity.

"You hear that?" he asked the rabbit. "Disappointment. That's what we're signing up for."

The rabbit said nothing.

Bill took a bite. The pie was terrible. The crust was soggy. The filling was too sweet. The coffee was worse.

He smiled.

It wasn't the grin of a man who had it all figured out. Far from it. It was a smile borne of weary acceptance, the kind of smile a person wears when they've seen too much, lost too much, and are finally able to sit with the quiet aftermath of a life spent running from things that could never be undone. But it was a smile, nonetheless.

War sure is hell. But Legate of Brooklyn had a nice ring to it. Even if his entire army consisted of one eight-year-old girl whose claim to fame was cookies in medically improbable locations. Even if his uniform was falling apart at the seams, threadbare in places, stained with memories he'd never be able to scrub away. Even if his only companion was a stuffed rabbit with one ear slightly chewed, its button eyes forever fixed on the world in that same silent, unblinking gaze.

Still, in the strange absurdity of it all, he was a hero. A Galactic Hero.

He had survived the Planet of Bottled Brains, where minds were crushed and bottled away in glass prisons, their voices silent but eternally pressing against the confines of their vessels. He had walked out of the Quintiform computer, his mind scrambled but somehow intact—mostly. He had faced Chingers and Grundges and Counter-Dirk and Alien Historian, fought battles that didn't belong to him and survived them all. He had watched Splock, ever the stoic, get utterly traumatized by a teenager—watched the man who was more machine than anything else try and fail to understand something so...human, and lived to tell the tale.

And now...

Brooklyn. 1990. A bad pie. A good rabbit.

The door of the diner creaked open, letting in a breath of outside air. It was the usual hum of the city: the whir of tires on asphalt, the bark of a dog somewhere down the block, the occasional clink of a glass as someone inside the diner refilled their coffee. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary life.

But for Bill, standing there in the half-dark of the booth, a piece of cake in front of him, it was a different kind of ordinary. A quieter one. A sadder one.

Delia.

The image of her had become something almost tangible. Her small, pink dress swishing in the breeze. Her ringlets bouncing, as if they had a life of their own, each bounce a small revolution, each movement a reminder of something he could never hold onto.

For a moment, it was as if she were right there, in front of him again. Her smile—the perfect, innocent smile, so free of guile and so full of truth—was the kind of smile that only existed in the universe for brief, shining moments before being lost forever.

She was running down the sidewalk, just as she had before, her arms thrown wide as though the world had been made for her to conquer in that single, effortless motion. And Bill, just for a second, swore he could hear the light pitter-patter of her tiny feet on the pavement, the rhythmic flop-flop-flop echoing through his bones like a distant memory. Her voice rang out, high and sweet, "Bye-bye, Mister! Tell Bunnikins I said hi!"

But then, as quickly as the vision came, it was gone. The street outside was still. The ordinary world resumed its hum. Delia was gone.

And Bill's hand, trembling ever so slightly, reached for his coffee mug, though he didn't really want it. His eyes flitted from the empty street to the piece of pie in front of him, the one he had never tasted—as if the world would end if he did. His chest tightened and for the briefest moment, it felt like his breath was trapped somewhere between his ribs, as if the weight of her absence had simply become too much to bear.

The doorbell jingled and Bill's gaze flickered again—expecting, just for a moment, to see her standing there, those little curls bouncing in that same deliberate rhythm.

But no. She was gone.

Her smile, her endless optimism, the purity of her world that had folded into his own... all of it felt like it had existed in a dream, one too fleeting for him to capture. Her joy had been like the tiniest flicker of sunlight, so small, so delicate, and so bright that it had left a permanent imprint on him—one he couldn't escape, even if he wanted to.

The war was over. He had won. He had walked through galaxies, dodged death, made his way through countless impossible situations. But nothing, not a single battle he'd fought, not a single alien he'd faced, had prepared him for the way she had changed everything.

For a moment, the thought of her filled him completely. A tiny girl in a pink dress with nothing but a stuffed rabbit and a world of possibilities in front of her. Nothing was too impossible for her—nothing but the cruel reality of the timeline, the one that made him stay here while she had moved on.

Victory tasted like apples. But it also tasted like loneliness.

Somewhere, in a timeline far away, a Disruptor with a Hungarian accent was telling anyone who would listen about the craziest human he'd ever met. A hero who had saved the galaxy countless times—and who, in the end, had lost the one thing he hadn't realized mattered most.

And Bill, the Galactic Hero, survivor of the Planet of Bottled Brains, smiled at the thought—and took a bite of his piece of cake.