Microstory 608: Replace Eido Andrea

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The Sacred Savior, Sotiren knew that he would not be able to manage the entirety of the galaxy himself. For he was humble, wise, and aware of his own limitations. There were five star systems he deemed to be the most important, and would be central to galactic activity. He chose these because each carried with them exactly three habitable planets. Though they are referred to as the “central” worlds, they are actually nowhere near each other. And so he took from his followers, and appointed eleven eidos to protect his interests distantly. Over the course of the taikon, these will all need to be replaced by new eidos. Though the central planets have been under the rule of one person, group, or another since the beginning, there has been no singular vision since the time of the eidos. This is not a mistake; it is by design. The whole purpose of moving to this galaxy was so that our people could live their lives without being interfered with by some sort of unifying government. The only reason the eidos existed in the first place was so that we would not lose sight of what we wanted, and didn’t fall into the same traps that earlier cultures have. We sprouted from a dirty communist society, and many of us fear every day that we will ultimately turn back to this. It was foretold that a small group of irritants would arrive in Fostea one day and attempt to revert us back to a time when all men were equal; when we just lived in the dirt, like animals. We have so far been unable to hold them back, for their silver tongues are thick and convincing. What we need now are a new set of eidos to protect us from these foreigners. The new Eido Andrea was chosen from the House of Ulaire to fulfill this purpose.

Microstory 607: Trap the Dam of Cerelune

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In order to travel to other star systems within any practical period of time, you have to use the simplex dimensions. These are filled with energy, matter, and compressed space. They allow faster-than-light travel, while normal three-dimensional space will not. They are natural, conquered, but still mysterious. We do not yet know where all of their energy comes from, for the origins of the universe do not adequately account for it. But we accept it, because these dimensions are useful. You can even accelerate the speed of travel by dematerializing passengers and cargo with machines known as Nexa. No one knows exactly where these machines first came from, but they have been found in every galaxy thus far, and replication is fairly straightforward. And they still use simplex dimensions, for they are the only things capable of interstellar travel...except for one other thing. Spacetime phenomena known as wormholes can do the same thing. Unfortunately, wormholes are microscopic at best, flash and burn out in seconds at most, and are always unstable. The only practical use for them took place thousands of years ago. When man was first trying to seek out life on other planets, data bursts were sent through wormholes, which would open randomly on the other end, hopefully near another civilization. This actually worked a couple of times before galactic mapping became a more realistic means of outreach. Still, no one has managed to find a way to enlarge, stabilize, and maintain a wormhole long enough to transport matter. The endeavor has been largely abandoned. Yet, even through these limitations, life finds a way. It has been hypothesized that the Dam of Cerelune’s species somehow evolved the ability to make use of wormholes to escape massive numbers of predators. She seems to be the last of her kind, and all attempts at capture have been futile, until now. While recovering from her impregnation, Sacred Mother of Light, Marilesse Lyons was sitting by the Yulven Ice Fields when the Dam of Cerelune suddenly appeared from a wormhole. With one touch, Marilesse managed to break the dam’s ability to escape. She remains on Lyon’s home planet of Yrosfulh today, as a family pet, ready to welcome the arrival of the child of Sacred Savior.

Microstory 606: A Virgin’s Child by Sacred Savior

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Each taikon was written independently. In few places will you find it said that one taikon necessarily informs another. We’ve now learned that each one has been ultimately made possible by the one before, but this is not explicitly stated in the Book of Light. A major exception to this has to do with Peter Fireblood. The Book makes it quite clear that he, and only he, is capable of accomplishing the sixth taikon. He must impregnate a young virgin with the seed of the Sacred Savior. Obviously this is referring to Sotiren, whose body was only recently recovered from interstellar space. Since the Sacred Savior has been dead for centuries, his body no longer carries with it the ability to conceive a child. Fortunately, this is no longer a necessary component of conception. Through the miracle of science, it is possible to generate a baby using more sophisticated ways of mixing genetic material. Nowadays, it is possible to be born of two men, two women, more than two parents, or even just one person. Yes, by recombining the DNA of the progenitor, an entirely new scion can be created. Artificial gestation technology exists along with these methods, but this would not be allowed for the taikon. A girl below the age of majority must become pregnant by the genetic remnant of the Sacred Savior, and Peter Fireblood must perform the procedure, and he must perform it somewhere near the Yulven Ice Fields, for whatever reason. A number of girls were chosen to apply for the position of Sacred Mother. The Book of Light does not specify how to narrow down the contestants, but they did not have to do that anyway. The most  recent candidate was none other than the younger sister of Katafar Lyons, the woman who was sacrificed for the second taikon. When Peter Fireblood’s acolytes saw Marilesse Lyons on the list, they knew that she had to be the one. Her presence only fueled their belief in the truth. Marilesse, of course, agreed to the procedure, and things could continue.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 17, 2132

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At the moment, it seemed to be nearing the noon hour of 2132, and the three captives had yet to see any sign of their jailers. All they had to look at were their cell bars, and a cave wall. Mario was trying to sleep, Horace was meditating, and Mateo was literally twiddling his thumbs. He had already tried some meditating techniques that Future!Leona had taught him to help him recover from The Cleaner’s horrific memory implants. This time, they weren’t doing any good. He was starving, yes, but their biggest problem was that they didn’t have any water. They would soon die of dehydration. Something had to be done. This thought apparently psychically transferred to Horace, who suddenly broke his meditation, and started banging on the bars like a maniac. Mario shot up from the ground, ready to fight any oncomers. Mateo pulled back and unsuccessfully hid in the corner.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mario cried.

“Something new. What we’ve been doing has not helped us, so I’m just changing things up.” Then he started screaming and banging his hands on the bars again.

“That’s not gonna do any good!” Mario argued.

“Can’t hurt!”

“You don’t know that.”

He just went back to making as much noise as he could. And, as luck would have it, it actually did help them. They could hear a voice in the distance, but drawing closer. “This way, Lee! Keep up!”

“I’m not a runner!” the second one replied. It was Leona. “I’m a thinker!”

“Are you callin’ me dumb!”

“No, just fast!”

Two women appeared from around the corner and smiled. The one he didn’t recognize smiled. “Thank you for the alarm. This place is a freaking maze. Even I was getting tired.”

“Slip, holy crap!” Horace said to her. Yet another person he knew from his past.

Leona ran up and hugged Mateo through the bars as best she could. “I finally found you. Christ, what trouble are you in this time?”

“How long have you been on Earth?”

“Just ‘bout a year,” she answered.

“You’ve met some friends.”

“Yeah, that’s just this thing.”

Horace and, uhh...Slip were continuing their own conversation. “How did you get to this time period?” Horace asked.

“Ashlock shot me through. I can’t stay long.” She then looked at Mateo. “Don’t worry, Matty. We’ve already broken Leona’s tether, so she doesn’t have to revert back to my time period.”

“I don’t know that what means,” Mateo said, “but thank you.”

“Do you have a way to get us out of here?”

“The cells, or Easter Island?” Slip asked. “Doesn’t matter...yes, both.” She took a doorknob from her bag.

“The Escher Knob,” Horace said, relieved.

“I couldn’t find the Card.”

“That would have helped us find Paige, but at least we can break out.”

Slip placed the knob against the lock on the cell, which magically opened it up, with no apparent effort. She then did the same for Mario’s and Mateo’s cells. “Let’s get going,” she suggested.

“Have you seen Tauno and Keanu?” Horace asked as the five of them were jogging down the cave corridors.

“No, but we’ve see a couple of the others. Apparently they’ve set up shop here. The powers that be are not exactly happy about it.”

“Does anyone have any idea where we’re going?” Mario asked as the voice of reason.

“I usually just keep running ‘til I find what I’m looking for,” Slip replied.

“We have an idea,” Leona clarified. “Slipstream, don’t freak them out.” Oh, so that was her full name. Or at least it was her full nickname.

They heard voices down the corridors again, this time from behind. “They’ll have no hope to find the exit,” one of them said. “I can pick up their trail!”

“Crap, we have to get out of here now,” Mateo said, his concern about their pursuers causing him to fall behind.

“Mateo,” came a voice from his left. It was none other than Juan Ponce de León. He was pointing towards a turnoff to Mateo’s right. “That way.”

“Guys!” Mateo called up to them, not bothering to ask Juan where he came from, or questioning his credibility. “Follow me!”

They were reluctant to follow, but did so anyway. It was clearly the right choice when torchlight revealed the shadows of a horde of people, now trying to catch up to them by going the wrong direction.

“Walk softly,” Slipstream whispered, “stay quiet.”

They kept moving at a decent pace, but not as quickly, and definitely not as loudly. They came to a three-way intersection, and decided to take a left, but then Keanu and Tauno appeared from behind, as if having been waiting for them to pass by.

“You’ll never get out of here,” Keanu said with a grin, and a gun.

“I could have done better,” Tauno claimed, “but this is a pretty good maze.”

“A human weapon?” Horace said. “Really?”

Slipstream smiled back. “Do you remember what I used to do for a living?”

“Who are you again?” Keanu asked her rhetorically and insensitively.

With no further warning, she used her kung fu ninja skills to disarm Keanu before Mateo had a chance to blink. She then finished the job but planting him on the ground, and knocking him out cold. Tauno just stood there like a deer in the headlights, unable to decide how to escape, even though he had shown himself capable of opening doors the likes of which Saga and Vearden once used. Slipstream took him down too. “Felt good to get back to my roots,” she said when it was done.

“Disarming people?” Mateo asked.

“That’s exactly what she did,” Horace answered for her.

They then turned around, only to find themselves face to face with Keanu and Tauno once more. The other two versions of them were still lying on the ground. “Quantum replication,” Keanu said, without a gun. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

“How many of you are there?” Leona asked accusatorily.

“Enough,” Tauno replied. Three more Taunos, and two more Keanus revealed themselves from their various hidey-holes, like they had rehearsed their grand entrance.

But then all they could hear was flesh being torn apart...and all they could see was blood splattering all over the walls. An attacker was making their way through the Keanu-Tauno legion. The Warrior stood over their bodies, and began wiping the blood off his sword; a different one than he had used to steal other people’s time powers. “Not enough to contend with me,” he said, like a B-movie action hero.

No one knew what to say.

The Warrior looked only at Mateo. “I have given up killing, like you asked. But these are...” He struggled with his explanation.

“Let’s call it a cheat day,” Mateo said.

The Warrior just dipped his head in respect. When they could hear even more pursuers—probably another group of duplicates—he raised his sword and ordered them to leave. Mateo didn’t like killing, but he appreciated the assist. They needed to find Paige, and they needed to escape. They couldn’t be picky about who helped them do that, or how they did it.

They kept jogging, hoping to find their way back to the amphitheatre stage, which was their best shot of somehow leaving the island. They came upon another group of Keanus and Taunos, but there were other replicated people with them; those that Mateo didn’t recognize. Vearden appeared from a door to what looked like an office, with two women. “I’m not the Vearden you knew,” he said to Mateo and Leona. “I’m from this reality.”

The horde was frightened, having either never heard of Vearden and his partners, or having heard enough about them that they didn’t want to start a fight.

“Come quietly,” one of the women said. “We can either take you to an exile universe, or to a hell universe. Either way, you’re leaving these lovely people alone.”

They actually agreed, despite likely having some ability to fight back.

Immediately following that, Slipstream stopped short. “Ashlock’s calling me back.”

“Can’t you take a message?” Mateo asked.

“He has control, and if he’s doing this now, it means he needs to transport someone else. He can only do one at a time.”

An invisible force took hold of her at the stomach, and pulled her away from them. She didn’t just enter a portal, or fade away. She just grew smaller and smaller until disappearing completely.

“Come on,” Mario said. “Paige still needs us.”

“Yes,” Horace agreed.

They kept jogging. Every once in awhile, Juan would appear to direct them where to go. Darko randomly showed up once to fight a couple of enemy combatants, but he didn’t act like he knew any of his friends. He must have been from the past, before being trapped on Tribulation Island, and was just guessing which side to pick.

At last, they were at the end of their journey, back in the amphitheatre. Paige was waiting for them, but was trapped between two Keanus, and two Taunos. The rest of the auditorium was completely full of their duplicates. Most of them appeared to be Keanu alternates, though. It looked like the boss fight in the third Matrix movie, except that there could be no fight, because none of them was equipped to handle this many people. What they needed was a miracle.

As Horace tried to step forward, the Keanu holding onto Paige’s collar tightened his grip, and waved Horace back. “Uh-uh-uh. No closer. I want you to watch this, though. I want you see her end. Then I’m gonna duplicate from a quantum reality. And I’m gonna kill her too. Then I’m duplicate her again..and again..and again..and again..and  again.” He pointed to all his alternate versions. “I’m going to create and kill as many Paige’s as there are Me’s in this room right now. And only once I kill them all will I let you die. Slowly.”

“Your beef is with her,” Horace yelled to him, confusing his friends. “So if you wanna hurt her...hurt me.”

“Interesting proposition, the Keanu said. “But no.” He tightened his grip once more, and lifted a knife from its sheath.

A blur raced out of the exit corridor, down the steps, and onto the stage. Before them was the speedster Horace and Serkan already knew, plus Guard Number Two. As what was likely always, the speedster didn’t say a word. But Guard Number Two addressed the whole crowd while holding a very large futuristic gun. His voice carried throughout the entire amphitheatre, even though he wasn’t using a microphone, much in the same way a girl named Ellie had in the Colosseum replica during Mateo’s and The Cleanser’s Uluru battle. “My name is Kolby Morse, but may know me as the guy who keeps sending you and your kind to hell! You are all in violation of the Babylonian Treaty! Either the primary versions can step up and extinguish all their respective replications, or we can do this the hard way! From my end...the fun way! We at Beaver Haven do not possess a criminal facility capable of holding all of you at once, so you can either line up, or I can shoot you with my apportation gun where you sit! No one escapes this, though! No one hurts this woman! And no one hurts any of these fine people!” He gestured to Mateo, Leona, Mario, and Horace. And The Warrior, who had arrived sometime in the middle of Kolby’s speech.

Nobody moved.

Kolby lifted his special gun to his shoulder. “Fun way it is!” He then just started spraying what Mateo just now decided were called time bullets all over the crowd. They tried to run, but the speedster zipped up and down the aisles, forcing them back. Kolby certainly was having fun with this, laughing and smiling in between battle cries. He was barely a quarter of the way through his targets when the remaining bunch disappeared at once, leaving behind only the alternates for his friends.

Kolby looked around, trying to figure what had happened, as did everyone else. Their eyes landed on the Keanu who had been personally holding onto Paige. The Warrior’s sword was sticking through his chin, and out the top of his head. Horace’s hand was still on the handle. Apparently killing the real Keanu automatically deleted all the others from the timestream.

Better-late-than-never Arcadia teleported in and placed her hand on Horace’s shoulder. “It’s over,” she said to him soothingly. “You can let go now.” She then turned to Guard Number Two, which was something Mateo would have a hard time not calling him. “Thank you, Mister Kolby. I can take it from here.”

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Flurry: The Lake House (Part X)

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“Quivira? Was she named after the street?” Serkan asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ace said, taking charge. “We’re kind of in the middle of our own crisis. We don’t have time for anything else. I’m sorry, but you’re just gonna have to find some other way.”

“The way is clear. I know the way. You are the way.”

“We don’t even know your name.”

“I go by many names.”

“Well, great, Bob. I’ma call you Bob. Or no, Not Bob. You’re Not Bob.” Sassy Ace was about the same as regular Ace.

“Look,” Not Bob, said, “I know this might be difficult for you to understand, but there are bigger things at play than just a little snow. By measure, Keanu’s thing isn’t all that big of a deal. His friends are far worse, and they have no intention of stopping. We need you. Quivira is important.”

“Right now, I don’t care about the snow either. I’m just trying to protect my daughter.”

“Well, then, if you’re not going to listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to a voice your trust.” He started taking something out of his bag.

“We don’t trust many people,” Serkan said.

“This person you do.” He removed a polaroid camera, and carelessly took a picture of whatever was in view at the time as he was swinging it around. By the time he had the chance to put the photo away, the woman they now knew to be an older Paige teleported herself in.

Ace lunged to hug her, but resisted. He didn’t know what she’d been through, or how she felt about them anymore. “Paige.”

“Hi, dad. I can’t stay long, but you need to follow this guy. Keanu is just the tip of the snowflake.” It would seem that photographs were some sort of transportation technique for her, which was fitting since she was holding a camera when they first met her. She took out a phone and started sifting through an album.

Serkan could kind of see over her shoulder. “Are those pictures of us?”

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you,” Future!Paige said. “But we’ve had a lot of good years together. It won’t always be this bad. I can’t tell you much about what happens, of course, but know that the three of us always have each other’s backs.” She had presumably found the picture she was looking for. “I’ll see you later, and you’ll see me soon.” She disappeared.

“Well,” Ace said to Not Bob, “it looks like you have your wish.”

Not Bob nodded. “I have a car waiting for us outside.” He lifted his arm to let them pass first.

As Serkan was heading down the steps, he could hear Ace confront Not Bob, probably under the impression that Serkan was out of earshot. “We’ll help you now, but if you ever use my family against me again, make no mistake, I will kill you. In another life, I was a pro.”

Not Bob was scared shitless.

Wanting to avoid another fight, Serkan kept quiet, and just left the house. A couple years back, some now-defunct company produced this weird clamshell car with no navigation controls, and a door that locked from the outside only. It was designed to transfer prisoners, but it never took off. The few hundred models that had already made it through production were being kept in a warehouse somewhere in Tennessee, but it wasn’t well protected. A group of criminals, who were never caught, made their way in, and managed to steal almost every single one of the models. They had been floating around the country, and some internationally, ever since. It was illegal to send one on the road, but not to just have one sitting in front of your house, which was why the one Serkan was standing next to now was being left alone.

“We can’t get in this thing,” Serkan said.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Not Bob tried to assure him.

“This feels like a trick,” Serkan responded.

“You heard Future!Paige.”

“This feels like a trick!” Ace repeated.

“This is the only way to get to Quivira. We don’t have time to fly to Wisconsin.”

“Oh, but a car gets us there faster?”

“It’s a magic car,” Not Bob said with a smile. “The Chauffeur built it himself, with help from The Weaver, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Ace said sarcastically.

Not Bob stepped in first to show them that he was not trying to lock them up. They were in there for only a few seconds before it evidently teleported them all to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, right next to a lake. They removed all their winter clothing, and left. They walked about a mile before coming upon a house. Nice, well-maintained, secluded, but clearly not built a hundred years ago. There were a few too many windows for Serkan’s taste, but the area did look like a great place to run.

Then they saw it. Through the windows, they spotted a woman place a chair into position right under a noose. Serkan froze. As much of a runner as he was, springing into action wasn’t one of his strengths. He was no scaredy cat, but he hadn’t found himself in any emergency situation before. Still, he wished he had been stronger. Fortunately, Ace was fast enough for the both of them. He ran down the hill to the front door, which was locked, so he kicked it in like a federal agent. Finally, Serkan broke out of his fugue state, and followed him in. Ace was already slowly walking around the woman, trying to give her a berth, but ready to take action, if necessary.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked from the chair; the only piece of furniture in the room.

“We’re here to help,” Ace answered gently.

“You can’t help me,” she replied.

“If you tell us the problem, maybe there’s something we can try.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“Maybe there is. You don’t know what we’re capable of.”

“Can you go back in time and stop me from making the biggest mistake of my life?”

That was an interesting question. He looked to Serkan, and gave off a slight shrug. “We may be able to accommodate that, yes.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” she said before starting to place the noose around her neck.

“Wait!” Ace pleaded. “It’s not a joke. We are time travelers. We weren’t just walking along the lake. We were sent here to help...by another time traveler.”

“And who would want to save me?”

“Well...” Ace looked around. “Where the hell did he go?” he whispered to Serkan.

“I thought he was here.” He looked out the windows, but Not Bob was gone. “Maybe he had fulfilled his purpose by getting us here.” Or maybe he was just worried Ace would kill him.

“That’s right,” Ace said, turning that news into an opportunity. “His job was to bring us here, and my job is to bring you down from there.”

“Then what’s his job?” the woman asked, indicating Serkan. That was a good question too. He would be useless in this situation. He had no idea how to help this woman, either as a time traveler, or an empathetic human. He had empathy, but no training or predisposition to use it effectively for something like this. He had turned eighteen, but in the end, he was still just a kid.

“He’s here to save me,” Ace said quietly.

This gave her a reason to stop what she was doing.

“Now, your name is Quivira, right? Quivira Boyce?”

“It is, yes.” She didn’t seem too bothered that he knew her name.

“I feel like I knew a Boyce once. “Gavin...or Gideon, maybe?”

“My parents were gonna name me Gilbert if I had been born a boy.”

“Hmm.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Ace probed.

“If you can go back in time—if you really can, then I would want nothing more. Otherwise, we have nothing to talk about.”

“If we do find a way back, we’ll need to know what we’re doing. So start there, and we’ll see what happens. Deal?”

“Okay.” She stepped off of the chair, and sat in it. Then she waited until she could figure out what to say. “I’m not a good person. My parents were civil servants, working their whole lives to serve a country that never gave a fuck about them. When it came time for me to become an adult, I couldn’t, because I didn’t have very many options. I could shovel shit at a zoo, or I could take what I wanted. I chose the one with less cleanup. It started out small, as you might expect. Most people don’t break into Fort Knox on their first day. A little shoplifting here, a few car stereos there. Then I went on to credit card scams, and ATM skimming. Eventually, though, I started actually putting people in danger. I cased houses so I could rob them when they were on vacation, but there were a few miscalculations. The worst one was three weeks ago. I got away with something I shouldn’t have, and it’s been eating me up the whole time.

“It’s worse than you think. Yes, I killed someone, but it’s who I killed that matters in this story. At first, I just saw him. He must have realized what was going on in his house before I knew he was there, because he already had his gun. I didn’t carry weapons, so all I could do was hope he didn’t do anything stupid while we waited for the cops to arrive. He was angry, though. He kept screaming at me, trying to find out where my partner was. I didn’t have a partner, but he didn’t believe me. It was a huge mansion, so he just figured I was working with a team. I guess he had seen Home Alone a few too many times. He was waving the gun around, and growing more and more agitated by the second. I don’t think he knew how to use that thing; he just bought it for protection. I just could not convince him that I was alone, and that I wasn’t dangerous. I wanted his stuff, but I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” She kind of got lost in her own thoughts. “I just wanted his stuff...”

They waited patiently until she was ready to get back into it. “The floorboards creaked behind him, and I assume he thought it was one of my people. But the hallway was dark, and he was flustered, and he couldn’t think straight, and he wasn’t trained to only point a gun at something he wanted to shoot...and to be sure what he was shooting deserved to be shot. He just swung around and fired. It was his son. Maybe seven or eight. He had come up to help his father stop the bad man. At least...that’s the story I made up in my head, because the kid didn’t make it. Way it looked, he died pretty quickly. I tried to console the father, but of course, I was the last person who could do any good in that situation. He decided that he wasn’t going to live in a world without his son, so after spending some time sobbing over the body, he lifted the gun to his temple, and left this world.

“It was like he completely forgot about me. In fact, he had never gotten the chance to call the police. Upon realizing this, I put everything back, wiped my prints, and walked away. There was no evidence that I was there, or at least as far as I knew. I had completely resigned myself to the fact that a SWAT team would soon break down my door. But they never did. I was fine. Two people were dead; one a child, and I was free to do it again. I’ve tried moving on with my life, but can’t.”

“I remember this,” Serkan said, possibly insensitively. “It was on the news. They say a father accidentally shot his son, so he killed himself.”

“Yes, it was national news. But they didn’t say anything about a robbery, because I was just that good.” She stared into space for a good long time. “I have to kill myself. I can’t live while they’re dead. That is...unless you can kill me before I even step foot in that house.”

Ace smiled warmly. “We don’t have to do that. Now that you’ve told me the truth, I can tell you mine. I’m saying this now, and just hoping it makes sense in the future...before it’s too late. Forgive me if I fail. I didn’t know your name because that teenager told me. I knew it because you and I have already met. You have a bright future ahead of you,” Ace said to her believably. “You go on to do great things...save a lot of lives. You even save me once. You can’t die here today, Quivira Boyce. If you do...I do.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Would this face lie?”

This made her smile narrowly, but it didn’t last long. Everything changed. She disappeared, furniture appeared all around them, and they were even wearing different clothes.

“I thought we were changing the future,” Serkan said, confused.

“We changed her future, which is part of our past, and thus our present. All this is the result of those alterations.”

“What made you think to lie to her about having met already?” Serkan asked.

“I didn’t lie,” he explained solemnly. “It happened.”

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