Training. Before Ramses started to have to devote all of his time to trying
to get Trina back, he was working on a way to give people their time powers
back permanently. The immortality water injections worked really well for a
few uses, but they wore off quickly, and it would be nice to not worry about
procuring more. It was never that high on the list of priorities since
teleporting is a convenient alternative to traditional means, it isn’t
usually necessary. It’s mostly a luxury that most of them spent most of
their lives not having anyway. Angela and Marie could do it in the afterlife
simulation once she reached Plus status, but she didn’t exercise the right
very often. It wasn’t because she was used to a life without it. It’s that
after you die, the time it takes to accomplish something the hard way
doesn’t seem as bad as it once was.
Alyssa McIver was born in a reality that didn’t allow temporal manipulation,
except for certain exceptions, apparently. But they know that she has time
powers, which allow her to create illusions, which she may or may not use
primarily to generate disguises for people. There is a chance that she gets
such powers later in her personal timeline, but they have every reason to
believe that she was born with them. She should have them now, though they
would have been suppressed her entire life up until this point. The team was
content to keep her in the dark regarding her destiny. If they couldn’t
prove it to her, there would be no point in saying anything. But things have
changed. They need disguises. They need McIver hats, if that’s even possible
with the state that she’s in.
“It’s not working,” Alyssa says. Her eyes are so closed, so what does she
know? Anyway, she’s right, it’s not.
“Do you feel anything different?” Ramses asks, tablet in hand, ready to take
notes on how the experiment is going.
“Nothing. I’m still not sure that I believe you.”
“Perhaps that is your problem,” Mateo says. “If you believe you can’t do it,
then you can’t, so why not try believing that you can?”
“You can’t just decide to believe something,” she contends. “Something has
to convince you, and that usually comes from the outside.”
“We showed you the McIver hat.”
“Stop calling it that.”
“That’s what it is,” Ramses reasons.
“I didn’t make no hat, and you didn’t show me using any special power. You
showed Marie changing herself into famous actors, and other celebrities. I
have seen no evidence that that has anything to do with me. The hat is
amazing. I’m unremarkable.”
“That is certainly not the word I would use to describe you,” Mateo argues.
“We have been at this for hours,” Alyssa begins. “We’ve not made any
progress. You haven’t even seen my cheek bubble as the illusion tries to
form. Nothing has happened. It’s useless.”
“It’s not useless,” Ramses tries to explain. “It’s all part of the process,
and it’s all leading up...to this.” With the final words, he reaches into
the box, and pulls out the McIver hat that Marie got from The Dealer,
handing it to Alyssa.
“What am I meant to do with this thing?” she questions.
“You don’t know where hats go?” Ramses jokes.
She chuckles voicelessly. “I thought this was for other people who want to
borrow my power.”
“Generally, yes,” Ramses says, “and it can do that because there’s power in
it. Yours. It doesn’t work with everyone, because not everyone has the
ability to harness it. The Dealer doesn’t, but Marie does, and I’m presuming
that you’re more like her.”
“Someone told me that Marie has some of that immortality water in her
system. They wouldn’t tell me what kind, or why it’s lasting longer than
normal. But instead of these injections, why don’t you give me some of that
stuff?”
Mateo and Ramses exchange a look. Marie still has Health and Death water in
her system, because they were used to perform an abortion. This is a medical
condition that cannot be replicated. “She has private reasons for that. It
won’t work for you,” Mateo says as vaguely as possible, hoping to not elicit
any followup.
“Go on and put on the hat,” Mateo suggests. “It’s like jumpstarting a car.”
She sighs, a tiny bit frustrated, but mostly tired. “I don’t know what that
means.” Oh yeah, this world hasn’t used petrol cars in a long time.
Ramses doesn’t say anything, he just nods at her encouragingly.
She sighs again, and gives it a try. Her facial expression changes just from
putting it on. She still looks like herself so far, but she’s clearly
feeling something, maybe a surge of energy?
“Report,” Ramses requests.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “I can’t describe it. It’s...it’s like a light?
What would light feel like if it didn’t feel like heat? I dunno.” She shakes
her head, trying to come up with a better way to word it.
“That’s good, that’s good.” Ramses taps some notes down. “Okay, now I want
you to do it the same way we practiced, except now there’s a zero percent
chance that it won’t work. Think about someone you want to look like.
Visualize an image of them standing in front of you. Then turn it around,
and pull it back until the image is wrapped around you, like a suit.”
Alyssa closes her eyes and tries again. They can see her struggling with it,
but in a way that makes it look like it might actually be working this time.
Her cheek doesn’t bubble, like she said it might. Sharp beams of light
appear out of nowhere, and shoot across her face and body. She slowly
disappears, and then faster and faster, until she’s been completely
replaced. It’s the current President of Russia.
“Okay,” Ramses says, smiling widely. “You’ll probably always have to wear
the hat, until we fix the time power suppression problem for this reality,
or get you to the main sequence, but I think we have something here. It’s a
great start.”
Alyssa doesn’t seem to consider it a problem. It’s a comfortable enough hat,
and it disappears when she transforms into someone else anyway. She’s more
concerned with the mission itself, which is perfectly understandable. It
won’t be a walk in the park. A part of her always thought that none of this
would work, and she wouldn’t have to participate. Now it’s all too real.
Ramses calling it a start is a nice thing to hear, though.
“A start?” Mateo asks. “I would call this more than a start. She looks
exactly like him! I can’t tell the difference!”
“Take a step to your left,” Ramses tells her.
They see the President step over, but not all of him moves at the same time.
It looks like a bad censorship job, not quite synced up. Okay, so he’s
right; it’s only a start.
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