Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business LMB Onevision: "Project Möbius: The Life... and Times... of Exnihil"

Chapter A.

"All right then, Mr. Nihil, let's see how we're doing today, shall we?"

Exnihil shifted awkwardly in the hospital gown. One would think that after two months of coming to Medicus Two for treatment, it would get easier, but the entire clinical environment never failed to put him ill at ease.

Doctor One examined the chart in silence, but his stony expression told Ex everything he needed to know. The doctor exhaled grimly, then took a seat.

"Mr. Nihil... Ex... I'm going to be candid. I’m at a loss. As you know, I don’t normally handle cases like this. My expertise is in protistology, the study of unicellular organisms, but considering the... um... uniqueness of your case, I was called in as a specialist.

"The damage your body sustained during the attack by the Red Bee was, in itself, not that severe. In any other case, we would have expected that, by this point, the normal healing process would have addressed any tissue damage, but… to be absolutely frank... we are seeing no progress whatsoever.

"It’s almost as though your cells are not acting as an interdependent system. The behavior we’re seeing is more akin to that of, as I say, a collection of independent organisms. I realize how absurd that sounds... the Terran physiology simply does not function in this fashion. Your cellular activity appears to be in a state of complete stasis."

He paused, deciding for the moment to put aside his bedside manner and just speak frankly. "To be honest, I think whatever I'm seeing here is the same phenomenon that informs your growth patterns. You are...," looking at the chart, "...37 years old, but your body looks to be only about six or seven Terran years. Ex... there has to be something you’re not telling us. We’re trying to treat you based upon the assumption that you are human, but everything we’re seeing is saying that’s not the case."

Ex narrowed his eyes. This was pointless. He had known all along that this was a mistake coming here. He cleared his throat and, looking Doctor One in the eyes, lied, "I'm sorry, Doctor, I have no idea what you’re talking about."

Doctor One pursed his lips, such as they were, and looked back down at the chart. He sighed. "Well... it is what it is... of course, we'll keep exploring, but I don’t want to give you any false hope at this time. It's not getting any worse, but it’s definitely not getting better."

Chapter B.

"Blood work time, Mr. Nihil!"

The Medicus Two nursing staff was nothing if not annoyingly cheerful. Over the past couple months, Ex had gotten to know them on a first name basis and, given Ex's diminutive appearance most of them had taken on almost a maternal tact, treating him like he was the child that he looked like. He had never seen this nurse, though. It must be the start of a new rotation.

"Good morning," Ex barely contained his sarcasm.

"Good morning," she said sing-songedly, "and how’s our little patient today."

"Yeah… not good."

"Owww… don’t be such a grumpy Gus..."

"Grumpy Gus?" he muttered under his breath.

"...you know that Doctor One is going to make you all better," she reached around to prop his pillow, "Now sit up, I’ve got to take another sample."

"Yeah... I’m not sure about the 'all better' part, I’m pretty sure I’m almost done here," he sat up and rolled up his gown sleeve, talking really more to himself than to the nurse, "I don’t think there is anything they can do for me."

"Oh, nonsense, you’re just being hard on yourself,” she pulled out the syringe and pricked his forearm, "you just stop worrying."

"That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have to..." Ex felt a strange liquid rush in his arm. He looked down at the syringe and saw that she was depressing a plunger not drawing blood, "Hey... what the...?"

"Oh, you just relax, now. You don’t want this to hurt."

"Wait... what are you..." Ex instinctually tried to pull away, but suddenly he felt incredibly tired, "Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaat aaaaaaaare yoooooo..." his voice echoed in his head.

Ex tried to swing around to the side of the bed, but the floor appeared a mile away. He looked at the nurse, who was now withdrawing the syringe. She walked toward the door as Ex tried to shout, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy..." but he heard the almost whispered words draw out in slow motion. His head fell back on the pillow as he saw the nurse opening his room door.

"He’s all yours," she said to a figure now entering. "and I assume I’ll be getting my share in short order?"

"Oh," the shadowy figure replied, "You’re getting exactly what’s coming to you." Ex tried to focus but as his consciousness waned, all he could see was a hand-held object being pulled from the figure’s coat. He heard a short zap as the nurse fell to the ground. The figure slowly approached Ex's bed.

"And now..." Ex heard as he passed out, "it’s time we get you home."

Chapter C.

"Can you keep it down back there?!"

Ex's mind slowly began to return to reality. What was going on? Though he was still in a bed, this was most decidedly not Medicus Two, . He tried to sit up, but suddenly realized he was restrained. He tried to shout, but all that came out was a garbled bellow.

"Oh, for the love of..." the voice again called from a distance. "Hold on!" Ex listened to the sounds as he tried to gather context. He heard a low hum and several rhythmic beeps, though not the familiar sounds of the hospital. He again heard the voice, almost with a robotic timbre, speaking what sounded to be not conversation, but rather commands.

"Activate course lock. 212 Mark-7 by 782 Mark-5. Thruster engaged at 70 percent power. Switching to auto. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand… done. OK, you, I’m coming back!"

Ex heard the sound of someone standing up and then the procession of footsteps on metal. Clearly, he was in a cruiser of some sort. The footsteps got closer.

"For Pete’s sake," the robotic voice spoke as it approached, "you'd think you were being tortured back here." Ex’s eyes began to clear and the figure resolved itself. Approaching him was a man dressed in what appeared to be a military field uniform. His entire garb was black, from his leather boots, to his fatigues (complete with holster, Ex was quick to note), to his full head blast helmet, the shield of which covered his face in a reflective black polymer. Ah, that explained the voice. It was being filtered through the com system, giving it a mechanical sound. Ex began to come around more quickly.

"Whe... where am I," he said, his tongue still thick in his throat.

"Right now? You’re about..." the man looked down at a small computer screen strapped to the back of his wrist, "about 3.5 light years from Legion World... and counting. But I'm guessing that’s not really the most important question on your mind."

Ex tried again to sit up, forgetting the restraints, and immediately felt the downward pressure. He began to panic, feeling slightly claustrophobic, "Ahhhh... Let me out of this, you bastard and I'll show you what’s on my mind!"

"Oh, god... just relax. The straps are just for your protection. I didn't need you flailing around during take off. Hold on one sec… now, listen, I'm going to undo these... don't do anything stupid, OK?"

Ex looked into the blankness of his captor's blaster shield and gave a slight nod.

"OK, then," He reached across Ex's prone body and pressed a small button. Immediately, the straps loosened. Before the man could even fully step back, Ex swung around and lunged at him but, unfortunately, the effect of whatever he had been injected with had not fully worn off. He lost his balance and fell to the ship floor.

"Oh, man...," the man said shaking his head, “you said you weren’t going to be stupid. Do we really have to go through this... the whole 'mistaken identity fight' thing? I’m on your side, you putz. I always have been, or don’t you remember… 'Subject X-Null'?"

Subject X-Null!

Ex's mind swum. My god, he knows!

Feeling completely physically helpless at this point, Ex decided to make the best of the situation until his strength returned. Reconciling himself to his current situation, Ex sighed from his position on the floor and asked, "What… what do you want?"

"That’s better." The man reached across to the side of his helmet and undid the chin clasp. He pulled the blast shield slightly forward and, tipping it back, pulled off the helmet. Ex looked at the face before him in astonishment.

Looking down at him was a man who, with no doubt, was a complete doppelganger of Ex himself, but 20 years older. The man continued, now in his normal voice. "What do I want? Why... I just want to bring you home... little brother."

Chapter D.

"Didn’t expect to see me again, did you, little brother?"

The man laughed and extended a hand to Ex. Grabbed it, Ex pulled himself upright off the floor. "Stop calling me that. I thought you were all dead."

The man smiled, "Well… you know... 'dead' is sort of a relative term when you’re talking about Möbius. But, we’ll get to that. So... how long have you been out there?"

Ex rubbed the back of his neck. His bearings were beginning to come back to normal. "Out where?"

"You know... the world?"

"What are you talking about? You know damn well, I left 20 years ago." Ex sized up his companion. "So… what are you supposed to be, then? From the looks of you, you’d be… what… 'Series K'? 'Series L,' at the latest?"

"Yeah, I'm 'L'. Subject L-107, actually. I like to call myself, 'Elliot'," he laughed, "but that kind of vanity is sort of a family trait, eh, 'Exnihil'?"

"Would you stop with the 'family' stuff, already! I’m not your brother. You’re nothing but a remnant of a failed experiment... just like me. I don’t know how you got away, but I made my peace with that a long time ago, and I'm not going back without a fight."

"Whoa, settle down there, Ex. Do you honestly think that I’d bring you back against your will?"

"Ok, then, what are we doing then?"

"We’re going back."

Ex stared at his companion blankly. Why were they all like this? "Look... 'Elliot', is it?... I don’t know what your game is... honestly, I don’t care. As soon as they see I’m missing from Medicus, there is going to be a whole cadre of LMB heroes who are going to be tracking me down. Do you really think that Möbius – a bunch of scientists, for god’s sake - are going to be able to stop that. What are you smoking?"

Elliot laughed. "Smoking! Now that is a capital idea. Another family trait, eh?" He walked back to the front of the cabin and grabbed a pack of Carggite tri-gars. He pulled one from the pack and lit it up, offering one to Ex. He begrudgingly took one. El extended a filo-match to Ex and lit him up. As he took a drag, he looked down at his smaller doppelganger and began.

"OK, Ex, here’s the deal: I am not bringing you back against your will... but I am bringing you back. Yes, the LMB might come looking for you… but they are not going to find you. How do I know this? Because it’s already happened."

Ex blinked.

El continued, "Listen, you escaped... what?... 20 years ago? Well, not from my vantage point. To me, you just ran away about a year ago. Dr. Hall was furious, but Dr. Jordan took a more practical approach. He told Hall to just wait it out, and two days later you came back... with me. So far, so good... except for the fact that I hadn’t left yet. You can’t very well have two L-107's running around in the matrix... so they had to send me out after the fact. It took a while to get me trained on piloting a cruiser but, after about nine months I was proficient, so... I left and, about three months later, I found you, and brought you with me. We’ll get home about a year ago - minus those two days, of course - and about nine months from then I’ll leave."

Ex blinked again.

"You’re completely mad."

El sighed. He looked at his watch. "Oh! Ex... wait... you have got to see this. Quick... in about ten seconds... I can’t believe I almost missed it... No, of course... I didn’t miss it... come here..." El pulled Ex over to the cabin window and directed him to look out at about 30 degrees to the left. "Watch this!"

Ex peered out at what, at first looked to be just a dot. Almost immediately it got larger, as it took on the appearance of another cruiser. No... that wasn’t it... it was... no!

El looked out the window smiling as, coming from the opposite direction, the self same cruiser as the one they were in sped by. El waved.

"I didn’t see me at the time, of course, but I’ll catch it when I review the tapes in a few hours. Space/Time curvature, eh? Fascinating stuff. So you see... you already went back and by the time you get there you will have already left... the first time, I mean."

This was going to be a long trip.

Chapter E.

"Ex…," El looked at his younger doppelganger, now sitting beside him at the bridge, with a familial affection, "why did you leave Möbius?"

"What? Are you insane? Why wouldn’t I have left? What did I have to look forward to?"

"But they were only looking out for our best interest."

"Whatever... they were looking out for their own best interests. Dr. Jordan was the only one whoever treated us with anything resembling humanity. The rest of them – Dell, Halop, Punsley, and especially that bastard Hall - they treated us like we were freaks. And why not? That’s what we were. It was the happiest day of my life when I heard that he died."

El smiled, "He didn’t die, yet."

"Whatever, man. This 'Time' nonsense has given me enough trouble as it is. Ever since that business with Phineas B. Fuddle, my mind has been so scattered I can’t even keep my consciousness stable for more than a few days without it slipping back and forth through time. Yeah, it’s come in handy for doing business... very handy, I’d say," Ex smiled to himself, then shook it off, "but I’d sacrifice the whole thing to just have a week where I could stay in the present."

"Phineas B. Who?"

"Fuddl... oh, forget it! It’s just LMB stuff." Ex thought about the LMB... Cobalt, Lardy, Rocky... they had all tried so hard to help him and he just repaid them with nothing but opportunistic greed. But faced now with his past rushing headlong at him, Ex thought that perhaps he should have been more of a friend.

"Ex," El said, interrupting his reverie, "I don’t know how to tell you this... but that 'mental time travel' you’re talking about doesn’t have anything to do with this Fuddle character. It’s part of who you are... part of who we all are.”

"What are you talking about?"

"That’s just a part of the Möbius engine. It happens to all of us. I keep forgetting that you’re younger. You never had a chance to have the full explanation. They would have explained it all… in time. But you ran away."

Ex looked at his older doppelganger with interest. "Are you saying that they did this to me?"

"They didn’t do anything to you. You... we... were a willing participant in the Project. It all would have been explained if you had stayed. You younger series have no patience. It started with the 'S' series, but you "X's" are really the worst. They actually deactivated the whole batch after you left."

"Deactivated? You mean, 'killed'."

"Stop being so dramatic. There is no death."

"That’s the same line of crap they feed all of you. Why don’t you just wake up, El! We don't have go to back. You can pilot this thing? Fine! Change course. Head to... anywhere... I don’t care. But have a life. You’re more than just a cross-section of some volunteer, you’re... 'you'."

"Yep... and, so are you. And why don’t I change course? Because I didn't. By the way... we’re here."

Ex looked out the window of the cruiser. At first he saw nothing but the blackness of space, but... ever so slightly he began to see the motion. The space before him moved in a circular fashion, at first clockwise, then through some bizarre trompe l'oeil, appeared to loop back on itself and continue counterclockwise in the same space.

"Welcome back to Möbius, Ex."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Chapter F.

"Forget it! I’m not going back!"

Ex leapt from his seat on the bridge and, in a movement he had been playing out in his head for the past two hours, reached out to El's holster, undid the snap, and pulled out the gun. As Ex staggered back, pointing the gun directly at El, he was almost as astounded by the fact that El didn’t look at all threatened, as by the fact that the move had actually worked. El just smiled at him.

"What are you smiling about, you freak?" Ex shouted. "I am not going back. If that means I have to use this, than so be it. You think 'there is no death'? Fine... let's put that to the test."

El just stood up and reached out his hand, "Can I have that back please? You are not going to kill me."

"And why is that? Let me guess... because I didn’t. That predestination stuff isn’t going to wash, El. I literally am prepared to do this."

El sat back down at the controls. "Do what ever you like, Ex. It won’t work."

"I saw you gun down that nurse at Medicus Two with this thing!"

"It’s a stun gun, Ex. I had to get you out of that hospital. The corruptibility of humans seemed like the best way. I told that nurse I was bounty hunter and I’d cut her in if she helped. After she did, I didn’t need her interfering, so I stunned her into unconsciousness."

"Fine, so a stun gun... it’ll still take you down."

"It only had the one charge."

"What?" Ex was rightfully incredulous. "Why on earth would I believe that? Who takes a stun gun with one charge?"

"Someone who has already informed himself of the way events played out a year prior."

Ex’s heart sank. He had been waiting until the last moment to stage his coup in the hopes that he would at least be in com distance of another civilization... but this entire plan was for naught. Ex sat down dejectedly.

"Fine, so you got me back," Ex looked at the sickening shape of Möbius drawing ever closer, "but you said that I'd go in of my own free will. Clearly that ain't happening! How do you explain that, Elliot? The infallible prediction of the great Project Möbius seems to be in error. How can you explain…"

El interrupted, "She is in there, too, Ex."

Ex looked at El, stunned.

"Sh… she is?"

Chapter G.

"Good enough reason to go back, Ex?"

Ex looked at El with an almost empty expression, still in a state of disbelief. When he finally spoke, it was as much with regret as with hope. In a near whisper, he asked, "Amelita?"

El nodded.

For 20 long years, Ex had looked back on his departure from Möbius without a single regret, save one: the loss of the only woman for whom he had ever had any affection. An assistant to the doctors of Möbius, Amelita Ward had been initially tasked with the psychological evaluation of the subjects. A weighty task, to be certain, given the sheer number of subjects that were created but, over time, her duties had been narrowed to deal with only those who had demonstrated the aptitude for longer-term continuance. Ex had been one of those few.

He still remembered that afternoon she had left as though it were yesterday.




Ex had come to her lab slightly early for his weekly session, but stopped outside the door as he heard shouting. It was the distinct voice of Dr. Hall.

"I don't care, Amelita! He volunteered for this and you both knew the commitment!"

"He didn't know it would be this long!"

"It will be as long as it takes. If we abandon it now, that is years of work down the drain! He wouldn't have wanted that, and I'm damn certain not going to let your misplaced sense of devotion do anything to jeopardize this..."

"Misplaced devotion?!?! You're a MONSTER!"

Ex heard Dr. Hall heading for the door, so he quickly ducked down behind a piece of equipment in the corridor. Luckily his small size made him unnoticeable as Hall strode by angrily. Waiting to make certain he no longer could hear the footsteps, he tentatively peeked into Ms. Ward's lab.

She was standing at the window, facing away, but Ex could see from the motion of her shoulders that she was crying. Trying to step backward, Ex accidentally hit a chair, which squeaked on the floor.

"Oh," she spun around, quickly rubbing her eyes. She was very obviously startled, "Oh, it's you, X-Null. I didn't expect you so soon."

"I'm sorry," Ex said, "There was an holo-drive crash in Dr. Jordan's lab, so I was released early. Shall I come back...?"

"No, no, " she said, sniffing. She straightened her coat and regained her composure, "We've got work to do."

"Have you been crying, Ms. Ward?"

She had looked at him for a moment, pausing as though she was going to say something, But then immediately burst back into tears. "I can't... I just can't do this anymore! Fifteen years already! Fifteen years like this! I'm almost an old woman... why would you ever do this?"

Ex was confused. Was she talking to him? "I... uh... Ms Ward?"

"I... I'm sorry, X... ", she said quickly, gathering her things, "I can't... I have to go..." she rushed passed him and just for a moment, Ex had the oddest sense of déjà vu.


Five days later, Ex had heard that Ms. Ward had been released from Möbius and that the psychological evaluations for subjects were no longer required. From that point on, Ex grew more and more withdrawn from the others, and before long had made up his mind that he, too, would escape this place forever.




Ex's memories faded, as he looked back again at El. He was still doubtful. "Why now? After all this time? Even discounting all the time I've been gone, she left almost five years before that. Why would she come back after all that time?"

El grinned, "All that time? Who said she ever left?"

Chapter H.

"Hold that thought, though, Ex...," El said, just as Ex was about to demand more about information about Amelita, "We're about to cross into the threshold."

"What's the thresho...?" Ex started to ask, but before the words could escape, the shuttle suddenly lurched forward with a nauseating pitch.

"Hold on, Ex, this is going to get a bit rough."

A bit rough was, unfortunately, a very mild way for El to put it. As Ex reached out to secure the seat's restraining strap, he was alarmed to see the buckle retreating away from his hand. As he watched, it continued its backward movement at an ever-increasing rate, now appearing as though it were at least a hundred meters away. Even more disturbingly, his arm seemed to be trying to stretch the entire expanse to reach out for it.

In a panic, Ex spun around to shout to El, but the very motion of turning his head seemed only to hasten his own bodily distortion. As he turned, he felt his neck elongating on one side while it contracted to what felt like near microscopic size on the other. His face began to tilt at an impossible angle as Ex tried to scream, but only felt the air filling his throat like a balloon.

"Caaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllmmmmm dooooooooooooowwwwwnnnnnn, Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex, iiiiiiiiiiiiiit's aaaaaaaaaalllllmoooooossssssst ooooooveeeeeerrrr!!!" El's words arrived across the increasing expanse in stomach-turning waves, like flotsam tossed in a tsunami. Even as the sounds began to register in Ex's ears, they concurrently started to retreat just as quickly.

The verbal bubble rising in Ex's throat finally gave way and popped, but the words that escaped seemed to run in reverse, "?!?Gniyas uoy era tahw?!?"

"!!!revo tsomla s'ti, Xe, nwod mlaC!!!" Ex felt El's words rushing out of his ears, trying to return to their point of origin. ".Hguor tib a teg ot gniog si siht, Xe, no dloh."

Ex grasped for anything in his reach that would still this torrent but, even before his hand could reach the strap, he felt the storm retreating into calm. His words began to issue forth again, even though he had long since stopped trying to speak them, "???...ohsereht eht s'tah...w...hat's the thresho...???"

"That was the threshold," El replied, once again calmly taking the controls of the shuttle.

"That was insanity!!!" Ex shouted. "What the hell? I never went through that when I left the first time!"

"Of course not... there's no problem leaving an area of time potentiality to one of actuality. That's what everyone does, every moment of their life. It's the other way that's the kicker. Call it a 'security system'. One that we... hold on..." El looked at his monitor, "...yep... one that we have successfully bypassed. Let me just check the coordinates... and... good... looks like we came in at the right angle. Welcome back, little brother! We have arrived back home in the Möbius engine. About a year ago for me, and about 20 years ago for you. There's the satellite, now," he pointed to a small moon-like structure in the distance. "We should reach it in no more than about twenty minutes."

"Wonderful. So what now?"

El looked at his watch. "Now... they start attacking us."

"What do you mean atta...?"

Ex never finished his question, however, as a sudden blast from the satellite tore a hole through the hull of the shuttle.

Chapter I.

"In a pig's eye, Gorcey!"

Jordan laughed as he tossed the bar coaster at his friend, plugging him squarely between the eyes. A raucous laugh went up among the group gathered around the table.

Gorcey laughed right along with the group, but held fast, "I'm telling you, it's true!"

"So when are they making the 'big announcement', then?" Dell asked, throwing back another SilverAle.

Gorcey grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Tomorrow."

"Wait... you're serious?" Halop asked, the laughter beginning to die down. "They are giving you the Goldwyn Grant?"

"Serious as a heart attack, buddy. I got called in today. They liked what they've seen so far in my theoretical studies, and... god knows why with this crew... but they want the work to continue on a practical level." He paused for effect. "They actually want to build the thing."

"Whoa... whoa... whoa... hold up here," Punsley interrupted, "I know I might have drunk a little too much of 'Rimbor's Finest' here, but I could have sworn you just said, 'with this crew'."

Gorcey smiled. "That's right, boys. As part of the deal, I get to put together my own team. Well... I don't know about you guys, but I can't imagine a better team then the one we've already got. We've been working together for five years already. Let's be honest... any one of us could have taken the prize, it just worked out that 'Potentiality Partitioning' happens to be in vogue this year in the Temporal Studies world. I got lucky. But not half as lucky as I did when I met you five."

Jordan got serious, "Wow. I can't believe it. They really want to do it. I would have thought that at a bare minimum, that zoning would have made it impossible. The peripheral borders alone would have to be..."

"Huge?" Gorcey interrupted. "Yeah... that's the thing. The space they're prepared to allocate is being donated by an anonymous donor... in sector 73-19."

"Ooooh," Dell recoiled, only half-jokingly, "That is out there, man. That is definitely not a nine-to five gig. How long would they expect you to stay out there?"

"They're looking for a minimum commitment of five years... post-construction, of course. That gives me enough time to get my things in order before taking the 'big lonely'."

Punsley spoke up next, "How do they expect you to stay sane up there?"

"Oh... if it goes through, the Institute is assigning someone from the Psychology Group... you know, in a 'monitor' capacity, to keep me from going space-happy... probably some greybeard who will talk to me once a week about 'ze relationzhip wiz yor muzzer'."

"Well... I don't know about the rest of you," Halop spoke up, "but the engine is everything we've been dreaming about for five years now. This might be the SilverAle talking, and I reserve the right to deny all of this tomorrow but... Gorcey," putting his hand on his shoulder, "If you are serious about wanting me in on this... five years is nothing... I'm in."

"Well, you had me at 'Goldwyn Grant', so you know I'm in," Jordan laughed.

"I think I'd go nuts if I knew you were doing this without me, buddy," Dell said.

"I think I am nuts, but, of course I'm in," Punsley said, "and who knows... maybe we'll actually get a female Psychology aide."

"Ohhhhh!" they all laughed and flung their own coasters at Punsley.

Throughout the whole conversation, however, the sixth member of the group, Hall hadn't said a word. Gorcey had known how much the grant had meant to him but, like he said, it had just been luck of the draw which of them would get it. It was only now that it dawned on Gorcey how silent Hall had been throughout. As the laughter died down, however, it suddenly dawned on them all.

Playing the fool, Gorcey put on his best little kid voice and, grinning like an idiot, said to Hall, "Oh, please, mommy... please can I play with the big Time Travel machine?"

Hall slowly grinned back, and jokingly said to the only man he had ever truly considered a friend, "You are an absolute imbecile, Gorcey... when do we leave?"

Chapter J.

"Just cleave together, damn it!"

Dr. Gorcey was apoplectic. It was all he could do to not simply pick up the femtoscope and throw it across the room. Five years into the project and they still were still only making baby steps.

"Would you please keep it down?" Dr. Hall called across the lab, where he was examining a Terran rat, "I'm trying to work here!"

"You think I'm not doing the same thing?"

"Listen, I know you're frustrated, but we're almost there."

"Almost there?" Gorcey left his set up and crossed the room to Hall's desk. "We've been almost there for the last five years. We were almost there on day one, for god's sake, as soon as we fired up the damn engine."

"Calm down, Gorcey, every member of this team is just as dedicated to this as you. All of them have signed up for another tour, and the replacement psychologist should be arriving today. The Institute is obviously pleased with our progress or they wouldn't have extended our funding for another five years."

"The Institute wouldn't know progress if it bit them. All they are looking for is something they can patent."

"And we've been providing that in spades, so what's the problem?"

"Trust me, Hall, we've got nothing but problems. We've been working on this for five years, but honestly, what have we learned here that we didn't already know before the first beam of inertron was ever laid in this place? The Möbius engine was a thing of beauty from the very first moment we put it down on paper. Imagine... a machine that could literally warp a subject's personal timeline such that all potential moments of his life could be physically partitioned off of one another. An entire lifetime worth of captured moments to be laid out sequentially for scrutiny!"

"Yes... I'm well aware of what it is we built."

"Are you? Because if you were, I don't think you'd be talking 'progress' while playing with a damn rat! We need to go further, Hall... and we need to do it now. We've gotten a reprieve... another five years. We've got to take the whole thing back to square one and do it our way, this time."

"The Ethics board is not going to let you turn Möbius on a human subject, so stop belaboring it. And they are certainly never even going to consider it unless we can demonstrate successful reintegration of our subjects."

"The only reason that hasn't happened... the only reason... is that they keep removing the partitions from the satellite. You know as well as I do that once we partition a subject, the individual generations lose all relational integrity.'

"Well... not all..."

"OK, fine... yes... we've proven that there is still the mental link. Their minds 'bleed' together under stress, traveling forward or backward across the subject's original timeline. But on a strictly physical level, these," Gorcey picked up the rat for emphasis, "subjects exhibit no sequential cellular activity. How could they? They don't have a next logical step to take. That step is somewhere in a different lab halfway across the satellite. Once you damage one of them, that's it for reintegration. You want to put the egg back together again, you better make sure you don't shatter the pieces. As long as they keep taking them off the satellite, we have no chance of keeping them pristine."

"So what do you want to do... hide one of the Series from the Institute? Are you insane? They own all of this, Gorcey. It might have been your idea, but it's their credits."

"They don't own it all, old buddy... not all of it."

Before Hall could respond, however, the two were disturbed as Dr. Jordan came through the lab door. "Gentleman."

"Hiya, Jordan," Gorcey sighed, as much in exasperation from the conversation with Hall, as from the relief of seeing the only one of their group who always kept a bright outlook, "what's the good word?"

"The good word," Jordan said, holding the door for another person coming in behind him, "is that we have a new member of the team. Freshly arrived from Earth, allow me to introduce our new Psychologist, Ms. Ward."

"Oh, please," Ms. Ward said, coming into the lab, as Dr. Gorcey's jaw just about dropped, and Dr. Hall's clenched, "I'll be here for the next five years... just call me Amelita."

Chapter K.

"Keep it steady, Dell!"

"Well, excuse me, Hall!" Dell shouted down, trying to turn the electron-ratchet. "I'm doing the best I can up here. I'm sorry that chrono-kymatology didn't prepare me to be a mechanic! Why the hell can't the service-droids do this?" Dell leapt down off the ladder.

Hall buried his hands into his lab-coat. "You know very well that all service droid activity is recorded and monitored by the Institute. The modifications we're making to the engine need to be kept off line for a while."

"And that's another thing," Dell grabbed a rag from the floor and began wiping the grease from his hands, "what's the big deal about this, anyway? We're expanding the range of the engine, so what? It's not the first time we've increased the power levels. Do you really think the Institute is going to care if we expand the range another meter or so. I think they've got better things to worry about the fact that we're partitioning a Xanthuan Parakat as opposed to a Venusian Hopper."

"It's a bit more involved than that."

"What then?"

"Excuse me, Dell, but the last time I checked, it was Gorcey who made the final decisions up here."

"Oh, yeah? Fine... then maybe Gorcey can pull himself out his extended sessions with Ward long enough to adjust the engine," he tossed his electron-ratchet to the floor. "I don't even know what the hell is going on here, anymore. You and Gorcey might think that you're running a fiefdom up here, but I've had about enough... and I'm not the only one."

"Who... Punsley?"

"...and Halop. We're done. It's no secret that the Institute is pulling the plug. We've got two more years up here and that's it. The two of you can waste your lives trying to prove out a decade old theory, but the rest of the Temporal Studies world is moving on. Potentiality Partitioning? Seriously, Hall? This isn't 2961 anymore. The rest of the community thinks we're a joke. It was a good idea... that failed."

"It hasn't failed."

"Really? Then where are the practical applications? Where is the great promise of time travel? You and Gorcey waste your time splitting apart animals into chronal segments... for what? It's one thing to draw the past into the present, but that's not good enough anymore. People want to go to the past, and there is nothing at all in the Möbius engine that going to make that a reality."

Hall pursed his lips. He was seething, but he replied calmly, "Well... I guess there is nothing more to say."

"Yeah...I guess not." Indignantly, Dell turned to leave.

As he headed for the door, Hall pulled his hand from his coat pocket and, pausing just a moment to take aim, fired the stun gun directly into the back of Dell's head. He then casually walked over to the com system and pressed the call button. "Gorcey... it's done."

"Dell?" Gorcey's voice crackled back across the com.

"Yes... and the others?"

"Jordan already has Halop and Punsley prepped in the chamber."

"And the woman... when does the shuttle leave?"

Nothing but silence.

Hall pressed the button again to make sure. No, the channel was still open. "Gorcey? When does Ward's shuttle leave?"

Another pause, then Gorcey replied, "She... um... she's not leaving."

Hall was furious, "What? Gorcey! This is not what we discussed. Once we fire up the engine, the threshold is going to blanket the entire sector. There's no getting back out. This is it... she leaves now, or she's in it for the duration!"

"I know... I know... she's in. Bring Dell down to the chamber... Gorcey out." The com went dead.

Hall clenched his jaw. He looked up at the Möbius engine and, placing his hand upon the housing, quietly said, "Time am I... world destroying... grown mature... engaged here in subduing the world."

Chapter L.

"Let me go!"

Amelita twisted her arm, freeing herself from Gorcey's grasp. Sobbing, she demanded, "Is this what we've come to? You have to force me to stay?"

Gorcey's anger almost immediately dispelled, the sight of Amelita's pain breaking his heart, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart... I didn't mean to grab you like that. You just get me so upset. We've already been through this. You know you're not a prisoner here... but it's just too risky to let you outside the threshold until we have it fully mapped."

"Fully mapped? If you had infinity and a day you couldn't get it fully mapped. I stayed because you asked me. Because I love you, and that's what people who love each other do. Sacrifice. But it's been two years since you created that thing... two years! No matter how many probes you send out you're not going to get a fraction of it mapped!"

"I... I know... Hall and I have discussed it, and our current methodology isn't enough."

"Do not mention his name. It's him that gotten you this way."

"Hall believes in me."

"I believe in you!!!" Amelita sat back down on the bed and sighed, "Why... why did it have to be this way? If you had just appealed to them two years ago... if you had told the Institute the true capability of the engine, they would have supported you."

"No... no, they wouldn't have. They were going to shut us down." Gorcey was adamant.

"But you created something amazing! The very thing that they had been looking for all along, the very reason they sent you here... time travel! I don't begin to understand what that engine is capable of... but I do know that every time I look out the window I can feel the power. You... all of you... have changed the very space around us. That's why you're so worried... you know that if I leave, I can't come back... or if I do it might be years before I ever left."

"That's why we've got to get the damned thing mapped, Amelita! The threshold that surrounds us has the capability to send a person anywhere in time, as long as you know where to cross it. And we don't know that yet! Once we find the right avenue, we can take the whole thing back to two years ago, before we ever closed it off."

Amelita stared at him, dumbfounded. "What did you just say?"

Gorcey swallowed. "That was the plan all along. Right now... that is to say, right now to them...," he pointed out the window, "I have to imagine we're all wanted criminals. The technology that we created is... well... there is no way to sidestep this... potentially the greatest weapon ever. This is far bigger than some equipment theft, Amelita, the engine has the potential to... well... I'm sure I don't have to spell it out. The only reason they haven't descended on us in droves is that the threshold stops them. Unless they cross it at exactly the right angle, they have no way of reaching us. Once we find the right avenue, we can take the whole satellite back to 2969 and go public before we closed it off."

Amelita's mind was swimming, "But... but... what about the two years that already happened?"

"They will still happen, but inside the threshold, hidden from the rest of the world. We know that they didn't find, it because they haven't found it."

"But what about us... won't we be older?"

"Yes, for us, the time we spent mapping it would still have happened, but it won't be that noticeable... it's really only a couple years."

She took a deep breath, "A couple of years. Assume... just assume for the moment... that my love for you is strong enough that I don't want to absolutely murder you for proposing that I wouldn't have any problem with being two years older than I'm supposed to be. Just how do you propose that you keep it at only two years, considering that you don't even have the threshold fully mapped."

Gorcey smiled, "What is the other function of the Möbius engine? The original function?"

Amelita squinted at him, "What... the potentiality partitioning? You split apart things into their chronal components... but how does that..." she suddenly looked at him in horror, "No... you not going to use it on a..."

"We already did."

She stood up in disbelief taking a step backward. This could not be happening. "Who?"

"Jordan was the first. He was... is... a good man. He believed in the project, but he knew the Institute would never approve it, so he volunteered, even before we enabled the threshold."

She stared at Gorcey, her eyes growing larger as he continued.

"The others... Dell... Halop... Punsley... they weren't so trusting. So Hall and I had to... convince them."

"My God! What are you saying? They were your colleagues! Your frien..."

Gorcey slammed his fist on the wall, "They were NOT my friends! They had given up. They were going to leave."

"So you forced them not to?"

"At first. But after the partitioning, Hall and I simply 'deactivated' any iterations from the point after they had lost faith. We were left with a near infinite supply of their chronal segments that were more than willing to map the threshold to help further the project."

"Slaves!"

"Stop being so dramatic, Amelita. You said yourself that we've created something amazing. It was a necessary sacrifice."

"A sacrifice that you made for them!"

"A sacrifice that anyone who believes would be willing to make." The room was silent for a moment, as she absorbed the enormity of what he had told her. Her voice quavered as she finally spoke.

"Wh... what... do you mean... anyone?"

Gorcey swallowed. "I said we had a near infinite supply. But all four of their series had to be culled to a certain point to ensure allegiance. We couldn't risk rebellion with any later partitions. The only way to finally get the threshold mapped... to cover an infinite amount of space... is to have an infinite number of people to man the probes."

She stared at him, blankly... drained. He continued.

"The only way to have an infinite number of people... the only way to have a complete partitioning without having to cull them... is to ensure that the subject believes completely. There is only one answer."

Amelita felt sick. Utterly betrayed and utterly stupid. For almost five years she had been blind to the machinations of a madman. And through it all she had loved him... and now she was going to lose him. "I... I'm sorry. I can't... I..." With all the passion of an automaton, she walked to the door and left, fully aware that she had nowhere to go.

Gorcey let her pass without saying a word. As she passed him, just for a moment, Gorcey felt the oddest sense of déjà vu. Before he could dwell upon it, though, his comlink buzzed. He tapped it to open the channel. "Yeah?"

Hall's voice came across, "It's all prepped."

"Yeah," Gorcey replied, "I'll be right down."

Chapter M.

"Ms. Ward?"

Amelita looked up from her notes. Which one was this? She looked at the child waiting in the door and tried to place it. "V" series? It had the innocent look in its eyes but, perhaps, the size seemed too small. All at once she became aware that it was starting to feel awkward as she scrutinized it. "Oh, I'm sorry," she quickly recovered, "please come in."

The child smiled and advanced into her office. "Um... do I just sit here?" it asked, pointing to the sofa.

"If you like."

It hopped onto the couch and, making itself comfortable, smiled at her. You would think that she would have gotten used to it by this point... five years of seeing them ushered in, each one a bit more uncomfortable, a bit more unsure of itself... but no, each time it was as though a bit of her died. She looked at the child and, forcing a smile back at it, spoke, "So... what would you like to talk about today?"

"I... um... I don't know..." it said, scratching its arm. "I knew I was going to have to start coming here, but the others didn't really tell me what I supposed to do."

"Well," Amelita said, shifting into her comforting mode, "you can talk about whatever you like. This is your time... to get away from the others and to just talk about how you feel. Is there anything that is bothering you?"

"Bothering me? What does that mean?"

"It means... well, when something happens that you don't like. Something else else that doesn't make you happy."

"But... I live on the satellite with the doctors and my brothers. Why would I not be happy?"

Amelita felt that familiar lump rising in her throat. Hall had conditioned these younger ones well. They had never known anything other than the wholly unnatural environment of the satellite, so they just accepted unquestioningly that this was the normal state of affairs. She probed gently. "Do you like the doctors?"

"Oh, yes. They look out for my best interest."

She involuntarily twitched at this statement. It was the same line that she had heard from the very beginning, since the first member of the "A" series had come into her office, not recognizing her, but looking exactly like... she pushed the thought out of her head and refocused. "Do you like all of them the same?"

"Well..." it paused, thinking, "I guess I like Dr. Jordan the best. He believes in me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Dr. Halop and Dr. Dell and Dr. Punsley can be kind of weird, sometimes. Not always, but sometimes they act like they are..." he searched for the word, "confused? Like, they do their science stuff and all but sometimes they get stuck... like they are missing something."

Amelita pursed her lips and nodded. The earlier subjects she had spoken to never mentioned that. They were more focused on the tasks that Hall handed out - on the training for their eventual exit into the threshold - but these younger ones, who likely would never be tapped for external duty - seemed more perceptive, almost as though they were able to think more clearly. They could, without even being told what had happened to the Möbius doctors, almost feel who had been culled. It was an avenue she had been pushing a bit harder with the last few series, but she had to be careful... she knew that Hall would hear if anything got too deep. She continued.

"Missing something? What would they be missing?"

"Well," the child shifted, clearly getting more comfortable with Amelita's nature, "it's like with me and my brothers. All of us are different, right? Older and stuff, but then, all of us are the same, too. When we sleep, our dreams come together, so like... I know what G-47 feels or M-13 or P-Null, but some of the doctors, like I said, not Dr. Jordan, but the others. Sometimes I think they don't feel what they are supposed to," the child knotted up its brow, thinking hard, "I don't know."

"No, no, that's fine. You have a very good way of thinking about things." Amelita shifted and self-consciously cleared her throat. She proceeded cautiously. "And... um... Dr. Hall? How do you get along with him?"

With an almost palpable shift in mood, the child responded almost robotically. "Dr. Hall looks out for my best interest."

"Yes... you said that earlier, but how do you feel about him."

"I don't know. I guess sometimes he doesn't make me happy. I wish he would let my older brothers stay here longer. They leave, but when they come back, Dr. Hall just takes them away and doesn't let them see us anymore. I know the work is important, but sometimes I miss my older brothers."

"That's perfectly normal. Everyone misses people they don't see for a long time."

"Do you miss people, Ms. Ward?" the child asked innocently.

Amelita tensed, but kept her composure. "Well... yes... sometimes. But I know that sooner or later we will see all the people we miss again."

"We will?"

Hold it together, Amelita thought. This was going in a bad direction, "Yes. Your brothers are doing important work, but... when it's done, you will all come back together again." That was a safe answer... the same direction that Hall had provided to the earlier series. He wouldn't approve of this line of discussion, but he couldn't reasonably say that she was doing anything against him.

"Oh, that's good," the child smiled. "I don't like missing things."

At that point the buzzer sounded on Amelita's com. She tapped it to open the channel, "I'm sorry, I'm in a session right now."

Dr. Jordan's voice came across the com, "I'm sorry, but the session will have to wait. Dr. Hall wants to begin the deactivation of the 'B' series and we need all the younger ones to man the coolant controls. Send Subject X-Null down to maintenance."

"Right away, Doctor." She looked at the child on the couch sadly. Someday. She had to bide her time and do her best and someday he would be back. She put on her brave face and spoke, "Well you heard the doctor... um... X-Null... time for work."

"OK," it replied, hopping down from the couch, "thank you for talking with me, Ms. Ward. I hope I get long-term continuance. You are really nice."

She watched the child exit, and quietly said to herself, "I hope so, too, X."

Chapter N.

"Nice... very nice... what is that you're building there, little fellow?"

Huntz looked up from the design he was making in the sand at the man standing over him. At only five years old, he was quite a shy child. He didn't want to reply at all, but he begrudgingly mumbled a, "Nuthin'," half under his breath.

The strange man squatted down next to the sandbox and tilted his hat backward. "Nothing, eh? If I didn't know any better I'd say that's a time machine you're drawing there."

Huntz's mouth dropped.

"Yeah..." the man continued, reaching down into the sand to the figure-eight shape Huntz had been tracing, "...I'd know that shape anywhere, but you're missing a little bit of a..." he pinched the sand together at one of the bends of the shape, "...twist, right there. There you go... should run like a dream now." The man smiled at the boy.

"How do you know what I'm playing?"

"Well..." the man sat down on a bench next to the box "... I used to play the same thing, myself, when I was a little boy." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of Carggite tri-gars, placing one in his mouth, and lighting it up. He looked down at the boy, taking on a more serious tone, "It's not just a game though, Huntz. If you believe in it. I mean if you really believe in it, you can make it real."

Huntz was startled at the sound of the man speaking his name. He quickly looked around the playground. There was his mother on the other side of the fence talking with the other ladies. He wasn't in any danger. He leaned closer to where the man was sitting and demanded, "How do you know my name?"

"Oh... I know quite a bit about quite a bit." He grinned. "Or, at least, I used to. These days I try not to be so clever. Clever people often make other people nervous. But... you know that all too well, don't you, Huntz?"

Huntz looked down. It was true. He was much smarter than all the other kids and they often teased him about it.

"Well," the man continued, "It doesn't matter. They'll see in the end... won't they? Oh, don't look so surprised, Huntz. I know what you're thinking. I know you can't tell the grown-ups the way you feel... they wouldn't understand. They would think you're crazy, right?"

Suddenly, Huntz got very afraid. This man wasn't saying anything that wasn't true, but he was saying things that he shouldn't. He stood up and said, "OK, mister, thanks for the help... I have to g..." but before he could get the words out the man interrupted.

"Listen, boy, you think you have all the time in world... but you don't. It runs out and then you're... what?"

"Umm..." he replied very nervous, "...dead?"

"That's right. I have something to tell you, Huntz, and it's very, very important that you remember this. Someday, not very long from now, there will be another boy who will have the same kind of ideas as you. You'll like him at first, but over time, you might get jealous because he gets more attention."

"Please, mister... I don't know what you're talking about..."

"You will. It might not make any sense now, but you'll know him when you meet him. It is very important that you look out for him. No matter how weird the things are that he wants to do... no matter how much it might seem that he's hurting people or even hurting himself, it's very important that you protect him. If you do this... if you look out for his best interests, even it seems like it takes forever, then, Huntz... you'll never die."

"Huntz!!! What are you doing? Get over here, right now!" Huntz was suddenly shocked out of the near trance he had been in by his mother's shout. He quickly got up and, not saying another word to the man who was already walking away, ran over to his mother. "What did I tell you about talking to strangers?!" she yelled grabbing him by his wrist, "Sometimes, I think you don't have the brains the good lord gave you, Huntz Hall."

Chapter O.

"Open journal... 12 mark 11 mark 2966... playback..."

Dr. Huntz Hall sat in his private chambers. He took another sip from his scotch as his own voice issued forth from the audio system, playing the words he had spoken 20 years prior.


"It is a trial at times, lending him the support he needs. I have to believe there is a greater plan... that I am not simply deluding myself. That the half-remembered encounter of my childho..." There was an audible click, as a portion of the recording that had been erased was skipped before resuming. "He has become calmer, it is true, since the arrival of Ward... at least that much has been borne out. I had to cash in a great number of favors to get the Institute to approve the assignment of a female but, knowing him as I do, I knew the feminine influence would be well served. I wonder whether she has any idea the enormity of what lies in..."


"Journal stop..." he spoke, "...forward 15 mark 03 mark 2969. Resume playback..."


"It has worked. After eight years of doubt and wavering, that beautiful genius has done it! Forgive me, Gorcey, for having doubted your capabilities but, dammit, man, you were right all along! As long as the subjects are kept in isolation, reintegration is [i]not simply a fantasy. I cannot imagine the strength of will that Jordan must possess... willing to lay his life on the line simply on faith. He is still in medical for observation, but all signs point to a complete recovery. There is no observable trauma whatsoever. My cynicism blames the Institute for not approving the step years ago. How much time have we lost? But, in the end, I can't help but feel that this wouldn't have even been possible had it not been for the calming influence of Ward. That woman is truly the best thing that ever happened to him. I can only speculate what goes on in Gorcey's maelstrom of a mind, but it seems like the storm has been cal..."[/i]


"Journal stop..." he spoke, "...forward 27 mark 07 mark 2969. Resume playback..."


"God, forgive me for what I've done. There is no turning back now. The threshold has been engaged and we are, for all imaginable purposes, on our own. Why... why did I agree? To see the deadened eyes of Dell and the others, I fear, no... I know... he has gone too far. Am I to be Ishmael, caught in the swell of a mad Ahab? But then, I look out the window and see the whale, itself. Is he right? Is that swirling, almost sickening shape that surrounds us the key? And the woman... god, poor Amelita. I tried to save her from this. She could have left before the wall went up... but now? Even I don't begin to know what lies beyond. Is that the price of love? Of loyalty? Of faith? And is mine that strong? God, I..."


"Journal stop..." he spoke. Hall looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes looked so tired. Forty-five years old and twenty five of them spent on this satellite. Over half his life spent in pursuit of the promise of immortality. If the irony were not so distasteful, he'd die laughing. He took another drink and spoke again. "...forward 03 mark 07 mark 2971. Resume playback..."


"Two prisoners. That's all we are now. As Jordan continues his work in almost cultish devotion, and the others walk around in their perpetual obedient daze like three revenants... I have to face the reality now that Amelita and I are in this for as long as it takes. Call it love... no... don't call it that at all. More like insanity but, now that he has gone, we are as two high stakes gamblers who have to stay pot-committed. To turn back is unfathomable... the only way out is forward, holding on to nothing but the ever-narrowing faith that he was right.

But now... he's gone. In his place we are left with the hollow echoes of the moments of his life, a never ending series of ever-younger partitions, all of which for whom I bear the responsibility. Well, I... and she. We are two tortured parents of an infinite brood; she tasked to mother them through their confused states of identity... to help them to avoid, on an individual level, the madness which affected him as a totality; and I the father, preparing my sons for their exit into the world. Gorcey... wherever you are... whenever... I hope you are laughing at the cosmic joke that you played on us. I should have stra..."


"Journal stop..." Hall stood up, as his knees creaked. This body was getting older. Was there enough time left? What was it the man had said so many years ago... 'even if it seems like it takes forever'? It did. It truly did. And now, now it was going to get even longer. He cleared his throat and spoke again, "Journal... record new entry... 19 mark 04 mark 2986...

"It is done. I pray... no... the time for praying ended long ago... I can only hope... when all of this is over, you will understand and, perhaps... forgive me. It was an act of mercy, Amelita. To see you tortured in this way... fifteen years since he left. I... I try to be strong... to have the faith necessary to see this through... but you never asked for this. It was my fault that you ever came here in the first place, through my mechanisms that you met him and became as I, a prisoner of loyalty. After our argument today, I came to the only decision that I could; the decision I should have made years ago, before you were ever sentenced to what must have been fifteen years of slow torture. To see those... faded copies... every day, each one less and less the man you knew... I... I'm so sorry. I have to believe... I really have no choice at this point... that if he had know how long it was going to be, that this is how he would have wanted it. That this is in your best interest. That I... that I... that..." He paused, the words failing him then, abruptly spoke again, "No. Journal stop... erase entry... 19 mark 04 mark 2986... journal close."

Hall pressed the com link for the medical chambers, "Jordan come in."

"Yes, Dr. Hall," Jordan's voice came across.

"Is it... is she..."

"Yes, Dr. Hall."

"Thank you, Hall out." He stood a long time at the window of his chamber, looking out into the swirling space of the threshold. Somewhere... somewhere out there it had to end.

Chapter P.

"Please, Jordan, if there is something I should be looking for, just tell me. Otherwise, I have a lot work to do trying to fix the damage done by the subject's absence."

Dr. Hall was very nearing the end of his patience. To be this close to the end and then to lose one. Subject X-Null! The very sound of that name infuriated Hall at this point. The 'X' series wasn't even one of the ones slated for the threshold exploration... how could this have happened? He should have seen this coming. That child had been becoming ever more distant ever since the sessions with Ward had been discontinued five years prior. Hall should have ordered deactivation the first time he noticed it, but X-Null had been earmarked for long-term continuance. Clearly a mistake, given the events of the last two days. Dr. Jordan continued typing, as he looked up and to the right out of the main satellite window.

"Any time now, Hall. If my calculations are correct... and I assure you, they are... we should expect reentry from the northeast quadrant."

"The northeast quadrant?" Hall demanded, not believing his ears, "But when...? That would mean it would be arriving anywhere from 15 to 25 years in the future."

"Exactly. I'd estimate sometime around April of 3011."

"So, X-Null has been gone 20 years from his perspective? God knows what sort of damage it could have sustained during that time. Jordan... are you absolutely certain?"

Jordan looked at Hall with a slight grin and a raised eyebrow. Of course he was certain. If there had been one undeniable effect of Jordan's own reintegration, it had been the retention of his unfixed mental time index. Similar to the way to partitions interacted with one another, Jordan's reintegrated mind was able to occasionally retrieve glimpses of his past and future selves as though they were through seen through his own present eyes. Though not as defined as the effect on the partitions themselves, they did make Jordan's belief, and resultant loyalty to the Project, unshakable.

"So, how long?" Hall demanded, looking again at the section of the threshold that Jordan had indicated.

"It should be any time now. If the... wait! There it is!"

Jordan pointed at a small dot on the horizon, nearly indistinguishable from the swirling morass of the threshold itself, save for a slightly unnatural glint of man-made material.

"Ah!" Hall breathed a sigh of relief as the shape drew nearer. Slowly, he was able to discern the familiar shape of the very shuttle that had brought the six of them to this satellite nearly thirty years ago and which was, at this very moment, sitting in the dock of the satellite. He spoke to Jordan, "Can you get any readings on the shuttle? How long has it been gone?"

"It looks like..." Jordan typed furiously, "... its own chronometer is registering a departure from the satellite three months prior to its relative age, which is... nine months... yes, nine months hence from our position. I'm registering... two life forms onboard... X-Null, of course, and... one moment... another partition... from the... from the 'L' series."

"That would have to be Subject L-107. I believe it works in equipment repair... that would make sense. All right, Jordan, it looks like you were right all along. I shouldn't have been surprised. Are you able to get internal audio from the shuttle?"

"It might be a bit difficult at this distance, but I can try," he continued, still typing, "I'm getting a faint signal... wait one... let me adjust for their speed... and..." Suddenly the audio in the satellite monitor room fired up:


"...the right angle. Welcome back, little brother! We have arrived back home in the Möbius engine. About a year ago for me, and about 20 years ago for you. There's the satellite, now. We should reach it in no more than about twenty minutes."


"Ha, ha!" Dr. Hall grinned like a madman. It was all happening. Thirty years in the service of this engine and it all was coming together. With the closest thing he had felt to happiness in a long time, he turned to Jordan and asked, "Is everything prepared for their arrival?"

"Yes, Dr. Hall."

"Fantastic!" Hall slapped his hand together as overhead audio continued. "Dr. Jordan… prepare to fire."


"Wonderful. So what now?"

"Now... they start attacking us."


"Fire!!!"


"What do you mean atta...?"


Ex never finished his question, however, as a sudden blast from the satellite tore a hole through the hull of the shuttle.

Chapter Q.

"Quietly, sweetheart... the doctor said it would take a little while for him to recover from the anesthesia."

Ex heard the distant voice of a man echoing as he slowly began to regain consciousness. Ugh... he felt horrible. What had happened? The last thing he remembered, the shuttle had been approaching the satellite when Elliot had said...

"It's just so hard... seeing him like this..." Ex now heard another voice, this time a female. Where was he? He tried to open his eyes, but his lids felt like they weighed a ton.

"I know sweetheart, I feel the same way, but it's for his own good."

"But, he's only a chi..."

The female voice was suddenly interrupted, as Ex heard the sound of footsteps echoing across the floor. He tried again to open his eyes, but he just felt exhausted. He attempted to move his arm and, with great effort, was able to slightly raise his fingers. As this slight burst of strength again waned, his fingers fell back down upon what felt like bed sheets. He heard a third voice begin speaking.

"Bernard... Josephine... I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

"Oh, doctor..." the female voice spoke worriedly, "...is he going to be OK?"

"Oh," the doctor spoke reassuringly, "your boy will be just fine. He should be coming around shortly. That was quite a fall he took, but there appears to be no real physical damage."

"Physical?" the original male voice spoke. "What do you mean?"

After a slight pause, the doctor said, "Perhaps the two of you should sit down."

Ex's mind began to clear, and suddenly he began to gather from context that he was in a hospital. Now it was coming back to him. Of course: the explosion! They had attacked the shuttle. He had no idea how he gotten here, but clearly he was safe for the time being. Unable to gather the strength to move, he continued to listen to the conversation going on about the other patient with an almost a voyeuristic curiosity.

"We're fine as we are, doctor," the man spoke again, "What is it?"

The doctor cleared his throat. "Your son... Leo... does he ever... exhibit any odd behaviors?"

"He's five years old doctor!" the woman replied with a hint of defensiveness "Of course he behaves oddly."

"Now... now... Josephine..." the man gently upbraided his wife, "How do you mean, doctor?"

The doctor paused as he chose his words. "When we performed the scan on Leo, we noticed something slightly anomalous."

"Oh, god!" The woman said, with a hint of rising dread.

"Now... we would like to perform some more tests, of course, but during the scan there was a noted irregularity in his brainwave patterns."

"Stop with the kid gloves, doctor," the man suddenly said sternly, "what did you see?"

The doctor paused for a moment, then began again resolutely. "All right... imagine the normal pattern of brain activity to look like a circle. A thought occurs and, in its brief life, it makes a full circuit from conception to execution to termination. Imagine that each thought we have are these small... almost mini-life cycles. The moment ends, the circle closes and the next begins. This cycle is what we would expect to see in any routine scan."

"But, in my son's?"

"Yes... well... that is the anomaly. It appears that your son's patterns are almost... how can I say this... duplicated. We see the cycle begin, but as it reaches the point where we would expect to find the termination, there is..." the doctor paused, "... a twist in the pattern. The cycle appears to fall back upon itself and retrace its journey... this time in reverse. This retro-duplication is consistent across each one of these cycles but, as it continues, each subsequent one seems to build in intensity, until it peaks."

"What does that mean?" the woman asked frantically.

"Now, please... Josephine," the man calmed his wife. "But, yes, doctor... what does it mean?"

"Well, I don't want to alarm you, but I will be frank. We feel that, if left unchecked, these periods of peak intensity could, over Leo's life, manifest themselves in potentially harmful ways."

"Such as...?" the man demanded.

"Well, that's just it. We don't know. It could range from anything as harmless as a period of intense hyperactivity... times when his mind runs faster than he is capable of processing it... to times when he runs the risk of suffering a temporary dissociation all together."

"Dissociation?"

"Yes... he could, during these periods experience a... a break with his own sense of identity. Periods characterized by paranoia... unfamiliarity with his surroundings... in severe cases, he may even imagine that he is someone else entirely. Now... all that being said... this is entirely treatable. If we are able to isolate this duplicate cycle we may be able to excise it."

"Excise it? You mean...cut it out?"

"Well... not in so many words, there would be no incisions of course, but great advances have been made electron-thought surgery..."

The man interrupted the doctor angrily, "You have got some gall, doctor. How dare you? How dare you suggest that we would even consider thought surgery on a five-year-old, for god's sake, based upon a possibility? Something else else that you freely admit you don't even understand?"

"I was only trying to present you with options..."

"Well, right now I'm presenting you with the option to leave my wife and I alone."

Ex listened as the doctor, clearly insulted, walked out of the room without a further word. Whoever the other patient was, Ex was pleased that his parents obviously cared so much. As he mulled this over, he began to feel the sensation returning to his body. Lord, did he feel wiped. He again heard the man speaking to his wife.

"Sweetheart, whatever this is...we will get through it together. Leo is a smart boy, you know that. Whatever these supposed 'experts' think, we haven't seen the slightest bit of evidence that there is anything wrong."

"But what if there is? Sometimes... sometimes he does behave oddly. Like all those pictures he draws. The same thing all the time. It's almost the same thing the doctor was talking about. That shape... like an eight... like those two circles."

"He's a kid, Jo... kids like to draw. Listen, it's going to be a while before he wakes up... why don't you step out and get some air? Go have a tri-garette, I'll stay here with him."

She sighed. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I need a break. It's just when I think of anything being wrong with him, I get so...I... I'm sorry. I can't... I..."

"I know, sweetie."

Ex heard the sound of a kiss, followed shortly after be the sound of a woman's footsteps leaving. He heard the man sit down. Slowly, with a laborious effort, Ex forced his eyes to open. As the room resolved itself, he focused on the man sitting in the chair. Rolling his head slightly to the right, he looked to the bed next to him to see his five year old roommate who they had been discussing so intently. As his eyes focused on the bed, he was confused to see the bed empty. What was... a sudden dread filled Ex's stomach... please, no.

"Ah, there he is!" The man sitting in the chair began to rise, "Welcome back to 2946, buddy!"

God, no... Ex needed time to sort this. but already he knew. The man stood up and began to walk to Ex's bedside.

"No, no... take it easy, Leo, don't try to talk. The medicine is still wearing off. Your mother is just downstairs." The man reached out and laid his hand on the side of Ex's hair, lightly touching it in a comforting way. Smiling, he said, "Ah, you'll be OK, buddy. It takes more than a tumble off a set of Arcturian Monkey Bars to do in a Gorcey."

Chapter R.

"Retrieval complete."

Dr. Hall and Dr. Jordan waited patiently as the electronic voice echoed through the docking bay. Hall sighed and, speaking as much to Jordan as to himself, quietly said, "30 years."

Jordan smiled. "I know... but, after this is over, it will be like the blink of an eye."

Hall looked at his companion. "You never had any doubt, did you?"

"Oh, sure, I had doubts in the beginning... back in school. How could I not? There were times when I thought he belonged in a nuthouse. But, then I saw the proof."

"Proof?"

Jordan grinned. "Come on, Huntz, don't pretend he didn't come to you, too. Why else would you spend the past 30 years in the swell of his nightmare? You wanted the same thing I did... never to die."

Hall started slightly. "You know about that, eh? So, he visited you, too?"

"Yeah... but he got to you much earlier. Probably thought that he needed to get to you at your most impressionable. For me, it wasn't until much later."

"Jesus, why didn't you ever say anything? Everything we've been through... Dell, Punsley, Halop... god, Amelita..."

"I know, I know... I should have, but this is the way he wanted it. It was important to him that we believe."

Before Hall could respond he heard the tell-tale clunk as the retrieved shuttle locked into its docking bay. The ship slowly rotated into place, revealing the hole that had been blown into the side. "Lord," Hall exclaimed surveying the damage, "what a number we did on this thing! I think this shuttle has seen its last flight."

"Well," Jordan replied ironically, tilting his head toward the earlier chronal iteration of the shuttle, still docked in pristine condition in another portal further down the bay, "or rather it will in... what do you think, about nine months or so?"

"Nine months?"

"Well, someone needs to train Subject L107," almost on cue, the landing ramp of the damaged shuttle whirred into action, lowering down to the bay floor as Elliot descended out of the shuttle, "and who better to do that than Subject L107 himself?"

Elliot advanced toward the two doctors, undoing the chin strap and releasing the helmet. He smiled at the doctors, "Well... that was close. I barely had time to get my blast shield down before the air rushed out. You don't want two damaged subjects on your hands, do you?"

Hall was not amused, "This is no time for levity, L107. We have been planning this for years. You can rest assured that our own sense of timing is a bit more precise than your own."

Jordan interrupted, "That will be all, L107. You performed admirably. Please report down to the conference room for a full debrief. Your earlier iteration will be down shortly."

Hall scowled, "I imagine the two of you will get along famously for the next few months."

"Yes..." Elliot grinned, slightly amused at what he knew lay forward, "yes, we did."

As Elliot exited the bay, Hall looked at Jordan and, growing very sober, said, "You ready?"

"Of course."

The two of them ascended the landing ramp and entered the shuttle. Approaching the control area, Hall was suddenly seized by a slight pang of guilt. Everything was playing out as Gorcey had told him but, nevertheless, the reality of his actions still were difficult to deal with. He pushed the thoughts out of his head though, certain that this would all soon end.

"Ah," Jordan called, reaching down into one of the control chairs, "here is our little friend."

"Is he...?"

"Of course he is," Jordan interrupted, as he hoisted Exnihil into his arms, holding him the way one holds a sleeping child, "Subject X-Null is dead."

Chapter S.

"Sober up, Gorcey."

Bobby Jordan unceremoniously dropped his drunken companion out of the makeshift fireman's carry he had him in and onto his bed. They had all had a little too much SilverAle to celebrate the news about the Goldwyn Grant, but Leo had really overdone it. It fell to Jordan, as usual, to get him home - the price of living in the same part of the Institute campus. Jordan looked at his snookered friend with a mix of amusement and pity. Who would have ever thought that the most brilliant among their group of friends would also have the greatest problem with doing himself harm.

"Nah Gorsay..." Leo mumbled, still trying to sit up in bed.

"What's that, big guy?" Jordan asked, humoring his friend.

Gorcey pushed himself up into something resembling a sitting position, swaying the whole time. He looked up at Jordan and with an alcohol-thick tongue, repeated, "I'm not... Leo Gorcey."

"No?" Jordan asked, chuckling, "Who are you then, buddy?"

Gorcey sat a while, trying to put the words together, "I mean... I am Gorcey... most of the time... but there's somebody else," he tapped his temple meaningfully, "in here."

"I know, buddy, I know... but it's time to get some sleep now. They're making the announcement tomorrow... you don't want to show up with one still tied on."

"No!" Gorcey suddenly got very adamant, "You gotta listen...!"

"OK, Gorcey, OK," Jordan pulled a chair up from the desk next to the bed and sat down heavily with a sigh, "what's on your mind?"

"You guys think it's easy... doing all this stuff... that it's all a game..."

"What are you talking about, man? Nobody thinks it's easy."

"No... you do... you do... you, and Dell... and everybody..."

"I'm pretty sure Hall doesn't think anything's a game." Jordan grinned.

Gorcey got quiet and nodded. "Yeah," he continued after a couple moments, "That's because Hall knows... or he thinks he knows... he doesn't know everything."

"Know what, buddy?" Jordan said with a sigh.

Gorcey eyed his companion warily. "You're a good guy, Jordan."

"Thanks."

"No, no, I mean it... you're a good guy... I need good guys. You always treated him good."

"Who did I treat good?" Jordan looked over to the clock. Three in the morning, good god, he was never going to be able to get up tomorrow.

Gorcey tapped his temple again. "Him. Can you keep a secret, Jordan?"

"Yeah, sure."

"No. I'm serious. Can I trust you?"

"You know you can."

Gorcey's shoulders sank a little bit then, as if he suddenly made up his mind, began talking very resolutely, "When I was... a little kid... I had an accident; I fell. It wasn't bad or anything, but when they took me to the hospital they saw something in my head. They saw someone in my head."

"What the hell are you talking...."

"Just shut up and listen. This is crazy... I know you all think that anyway, but... there is another voice in my head. Sometimes he's quiet, just whispering, but other times he's so loud it's like my own mind get pushed right to the side. I don't know how he got in there, but all of this... all the school and the plan... even the Möbius engine... it's all to try to get him out."

"Jesus, Gorcey, you need to settle down. You just had too much to drink tonight. For god's sake, don't start any talk like this tomorrow, they'll pull the plug on the whole thing."

"No they won't, Bobby... the Institute wants this more than anything. Potenshial... potenshal..." Gorcey drunkenly stumbled over the name of his own project.

"Potentiality Partitioning..."

"Yeah... they want it bad. Time travel. It'll work, too. It did work. I know. That's where he came from... I know it."

"The little man in your head?"

"Don't joke! It's true. I hear what he's thinking. What's our work? We split it apart... we bring it together... split it apart... bring it together. It works on paper... and you'll see, soon, it works for real. But something happened... after it was all done. This... this... thing in my head... it's part of me from the future. It's one of those partitions... I know it. I don't know which one... which part of me... but sometimes I see the things he remembers... I see you... and Hall... a whole other life."

Jordan stared at his friend for a couple moments, then burst into laugher, "Ahhhh... you had me going for a second there. Time traveling thought monster... woooooo... you are a pistol, Gorcey!" He stood up, "Seriously, though, you have to get some sleep."

"I'm not joking..."

"OK!" Jordan suddenly erupted, "Then you're not joking! You're just utterly insane. What do you want me to tell you?"

"That you believe me."

"Listen... Leo... you're a brilliant man... half the things the team has accomplished over the past five years wouldn't have even occurred to us without you and Hall driving us, but this is our career you're playing with. If you want to throw that all away to because of some bizarre fantasy you're caught up in, then I'm out right now... and, trust me, you better not even mention this to the rest of the team. As much as they love ya, they're not going to be as patient as I'm being. I know the pressure you put on yourself, but, trust me, it's only going to get worse once we get out there. You have to keep it together."

Gorcey looked at his friend sadly. "I guess I was wrong."

Jordan sighed, "Look, get some sleep... I'll see you tomorrow. If you still need someone to talk to then, we'll continue when we're both a little more sober."

Leaving Gorcey's room, Jordan headed out into the quad to make his way back to his own building. Good god, what a night. What was he getting into, here? He buried his hands into his coat and began walking more briskly. As he approached the common area, he suddenly caught the slight aroma of tobacco from over by the benches. Looking over he saw a man sitting there in the shadows, smoking. Who on earth would be sitting out there at this hour?

"Jordan!"

Jordan started at the sound of his name. Who? He walked a bit closer, as the man stood up. Was that...?

"Gorcey!? How the hell did you get down here so quickly? I just left you five min..."

As the man approached, Jordan suddenly grew very fearful. The man looked identical to Leo... but perhaps ten years older. "Who are...?"

"Hello, Jordan," the man said, taking a drag off of a Carggite tri-gar, "So... you just heard the beginning. Interested in how it ends?"

Chapter T.

"That's the last of them."

Jordan closed out the com channel and turned to Hall, "Dell and Halop have confirmed that the final data feeds from the exploratory probes have been loaded. The full threshold map will be available shortly."

Hall grunted, "Not the full map."

Jordan sighed, "Never give up the fight, eh, Huntz?"

"Just trying to be accurate."

"Fine... the entire curvature of the threshold... with the exception of the asymptote... will be mapped within the hour."

"And Punsley?"

"Yes, he's confirmed a successful launch by the initial iteration of Subject L107 from the docking bay. The shuttle departed at a bearing of twenty years hence to the Legion World sector to retrieve Subject X-Null from Medicus Two. At least we know that that piece worked out all right."

"Some of us know a little bit more..." Hall looked at Jordan with a raised eyebrow.

"Not this time, Hall. Anything that I've glimpsed through my mental time index has already come to pass. From this point on, we're flying blind."

"Faith does tend to be that."

Jordan smiled. "Did you just make a joke?"

Hall grinned wryly. The past nine months had given him quite a bit to be pleased with. All the years he had spent on this satellite, a prisoner to his own doubts, were finally coming to fruition. Gorcey, as mad as he had been, had been right.

It had been twenty-two years since the threshold had been created, and twenty since Gorcey had leapt into the abyss, partitioning himself into a nigh endless series of chronal duplicates. In the end, though, it was the leap that was needed. All the partitions had returned from the threshold unscathed, and through the combination of Amelita's psychological screenings to determine eligibilty for long term continuance, and the contextual leads that Gorcey himself had provided, they had been able to successfully identify the errant partition that needed to be excised.

Subject X-Null... Hall mused on the almost ironic designation. How strange that the name of the piece of Gorcey's timeline that had unbalanced him so should contain both the circle and the cross, the same shapes that informed both the design of the Möbius engine and the curvature of threshold itself.

Hall shook these thoughts away. Now was not the time for metaphysical musings. It had worked, that was enough. It was true that Hall felt that the final excision of X-Null needn't have been so convoluted - once he was identified and retrieved, he could have simply been deactivated without the added theatrics of the shuttle attack - but this was the point that Gorcey had been insistent upon prior to his partitioning: the errant partition had to be eliminated in a violent fashion.

Well, Hall thought, he had followed his old friend this far, to question at this point would be foolish. "All right, Jordan," Hall spoke, "It looks like all the pieces are in place... you ready to put this bastard back together?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Jordan typed the initiation sequence into the control panel of the Möbius engine, and it began to whirr into action.

"All right," Jordan began, "deactivation of remaining active partitions underway... goodbye, Elliot."

"Please, Jordan..."

"Sorry... OK...deactivation complete... reintegration sequence commencing... Series A complete... B complete... C... D..."

Hall felt the anticipation rising in his chest. Gorcey's return, coupled with the full map of the threshold, meant the nightmare was over. They had done it.

"E... F... G..."

Thinking of the few remaining tasks ahead, he knew that everything from this point would be child's play. Amelita... the return to 2969... the restoration of Halop, Punsley, and Dell... the delivery of the completed engine back to the institute... all just rewards for everything they had sacrificed.

"H... I... J... K... L... M... N... O... P..."

And then... then, after all the practical details had been put to bed... the true reward. The great promise that he had been pursuing since the first moment in his childhood: Immortality.

"Q... R... S... T... U... V..."

Hall shook off his reverie. This next sequence was critical. No integration had ever been successful when a partition had been damaged. To attempt one with a partition missing entirely was theoretically impossible. But Gorcey had taught him that "impossible" was only a catchword for fear. It was possible, Gorcey had said, if one of those partitions shouldn't be there in the first place. It was just a matter of identifying the rogue piece.

"W complete... hold one... hold... yes!!! X!!! It held... Hall, Series X held!!!"

Hall slapped Jordan on the back, letting loose a laugh that was a combination of both jubilation and immense relief. The Möbius engine slowly whirred down as an electronic voice issued forth from the control panel, saying, "Reintegration successful."

"All right," Hall said, grounding himself back in the work ahead, "let's get him out of there and down to Medical. The sooner we get him reoriented, the better." They walked over to the integration chamber of the engine and releasing the locking clasps, raised the lid of the chamber. There, looking exactly as he had twenty years prior, was Leo Gorcey.

"Uhhh..." Leo groaned, opening his eyes, "When am I?"

Hall laughed. "Welcome back, buddy."

Gorcey looked up at Hall and Jordan. "Jesus... you guys look so old. How long did it take? Did it work?"

"One thing at a time, Gorcey," Hall said, extending his hand to Gorcey to help him out of the chamber. "Yes, it worked. The threshold map is compiling right now. We took it as far into the Asymptote as we could... we got a phenomenal amount of data."

"How long?" Gorcey propped himself up, swinging his legs to the side of the chamber.

"Twenty years."

"Twenty years... uhh..." Gorcey put his hand to his head.

"Take it easy, Gorcey," Jordan said, helping to stand him up, "You're going to be a bit wobbly for a bit... trust me. I went through the same thing during my restoration."

"No... it's not that," Gorcey said, still rubbing his head, "it's him. You got him. It's not in my head anymore... I'm free... I... uhhh..."

"Easy does it... there will be time for all that." Hall was beginning to get a bit concerned as Gorcey stumbled.

"No... uhhh..." Gorcey put the palms of his hands against his eyes, "Uhhhh.... god... my head... where is Amelita?"

Hall looked at Jordan with concern. Jordan returned the glance and, struggling to hold the swaying Gorcey said, "Don't worry, she'll be down to see you in a bit. C'mon... let's get you down to Medi..."

"No! I... ahhhh... what's wrong? I.... ahhhhh!!"

"Hold him, Jordan!"

"I'm trying! Easy...!"

"Noooooo!" Gorcey shouted, as his body suddenly collapsed, the weight forcing Hall and Jordan to lower him to the floor.

"What is the matter with him?" Hall demanded, "The trauma of reintegration shouldn't be this intense."

"I don't know... I..." Jordan placed a handheld mediscan against Gorcey's neck and, looking at the reading, suddenly looked at Hall in horror.

"What is it!?"

"My god! Hall... he's dead!"

Chapter U.

"Unable are the loved to die
For love is immortality
Nay, it is deity -

Unable they that love - to die
For love reforms vitality
Into divinity"


Amelita sat on her bed, again reading the now yellowed letter, folded and unfolded so many times over the past fifteen years that it was beginning to tear at the creases. She had thought about transcanning it into holo-format but, somehow, the tangibility of the paper seemed to give it a greater weight. Small things like this were so typical of Leo. It was that sentimental side which only she had known, that she missed so much. Feeling the tears welling up again, she pushed the thought out of her head. She continued reading.


Isn't it funny the things we remember in our moments of crises?

I heard that poem perhaps once in my life, during some second millennium literature class I had to take at the Institute. Some crazy idea about balancing the curriculum to ensure that our technical educations were tempered with an element of spirituality. As if those who felt the draw to the temporal sciences weren't already gazing into the eye of God. But as I sit here now, just hours away from entering into the engine, these are the words that come back to me.

I know you think I'm mad... that somehow this work has overcome me and I've forgotten what is truly important. That - more than anything else could be - is my greatest regret. I fear that in pursuing what I believe is our only hope to be together, I may driven us permanently apart. I pray that I'm wrong.

Amelita, these past five years have been the happiest in my life. I never thought I would know peace like I found with you. Ever since my childhood accident, since I lost the sole proprietorship of my mind, I've known nothing but fear. How long could I hold on? What would he do during the times when he took control? What if, during one of those times, he didn't let go... and I was lost forever. These were the things that haunted me every day.

I know it's impossible for anyone to imagine what it must be like... to have thoughts entering your mind that you know are not your own. Sometimes I wonder whether even Möbius itself is truly my idea. My parents told me that as a child I would always draw the shape - the two circles that merged together at a cross point, but ever since I felt him enter my head, it's grown so much more intense. I've had that same image pounding in me, almost like a second heartbeat... O... X... O... X... O... X. It's the daily rhythm of my life.

It wasn't until I met Huntz Hall that I knew. The moment I saw his face I was seized by déjà vu. I had seen him before, or rather, that other part of me had seen him. When I met Jordan, it all but confirmed it. Whatever was in my head had come from the future. It was then when I conceived of the idea of Potentiality Partitioning. We are, all of us, component beings, our totality only defined the sum of each of our moments. If I could find that piece... find that one moment in my life that didn't belong... I could cut it out and finally be my own person again.

It was this, and this alone, that drove me. It was a novel theory, to be certain, one that Hall himself had hit upon independently... though his own motives were far from my own. He showed me the practical aspect - that if the same concept were applied to space itself, as opposed to a single individual - hypothetically, the secret to time travel could be unlocked. It was this that allowed us to gain the support of the Institute for this work and... well... you know all the rest.

I'm sorry that I'm dwelling on all of this again... I know you must wish that you never had to hear another word about this work again, but if ever I needed you, Amelita, it is now. I said before that ever since you came here I have felt peace. I can't begin to overstate how important that's been. You have calmed the storm in my head... allowed me to make the necessary advances that I never could have done without you. You stood by me when we erected the threshold... I know what a leap of faith that must have been, but you did it - I have to believe - because of love.

When I saw the horror in your face today, though, when you found out about the others... about how we had culled Halop, Punsley, and Dell... I feared that I had lost that love forever. You said that you wanted to leave the satellite, to go back. I beg of you, Amelita... please do not. I know that somewhere within you is that same love you used to feel. Please foster that for just a short time longer. I am putting myself through the partitioning process to map the threshold, certainly, but that is only the secondary goal. First and foremost, it is imperative that the errant partition be identified. Hall and Jordan can attempt this, of course, but I feel certain that you, more than either of them, have the capacity to truly know.

I know I have no right to ask this of you, that it may seem just so much more of the same spiral of madness that you've felt already, but if there is any part of you that still loves me, please, stay for this last task. Once it is found, Hall will know what to do. After that... after I am reintegrated... I will understand if it is over between us, but I hope against hope that that won't be the case...that the words of that poem will still be true more than a thousand years after they were written, and that love truly is immortal.

Yours forever,
Leo


Amelita finished reading the letter, and let it tip back in her hand. Yes... the weight of tangibility. "Oh, Leo..." she said softly to herself, "I'm sorry, my love... but after all this time, it's just grown too heavy." She folded the letter again, and with an air of finality, shoved it firmly back into its envelope.

She reached across to her communicator and depressed the button. "Hall, come in."

"Hall, here," his voice came across, slightly slurred. It was clear he had been drinking.

"I'm made up my mind... I'll do it."

There was a long pause before Hall spoke again, but when he finally did it was with an uncharacteristic tenderness, "Amelita... I... I might have spoken too rashly earlier today... it's not the only w..."

"No!" she interrupted, adamantly, "My mind is made up."

"All... all right then... I will have Jordan make the necessary preparations."

"Hall... Huntz... will it... will it hurt?"

"Not at all. Everything we've seen in Halop, Dell and Punsley indicate they have no knowledge whatsoever that they were ever culled. It will be as though you are just waking up on the last day we take you back to. So... shall I tell Jordan you want the full fifteen years removed?"

"No... I want it to be twenty. To the day of my arrival. I don't want to have ever met him."

Chapter V.

"Vital signs are still negative."

Jordan looked at Hall across the gurney for a sign that he accepted it.

"Hit him again."

"Hall, this is pointle…"

"I said hit him again!"

Jordan sighed and changed the paddles again. "Clear!" He placed them again on Gorcey’s chest, as the chronal energy pumped into the body, violently raising off the gurney. Jordan again placed the mediscan to Gorcey’s neck. He shook his head. "Nothing, Hall."

"Again."

"No." Jordan hooked the paddles back onto the cart. "It’s over."

"It can’t be over."

"It is! We’ve been pumping him with chronal energy for the past two hours, Hall. He’s mainlined directly into the god damned Möbius engine! He is not coming back!"

"It doesn’t make any sense!" Suddenly enraged, Hall kicked the crash cart and stared at Gorcey’s lifeless body. Speaking as much to himself as to the absent Gorcey, he seethed, "What am I missing?"

"Listen, Hall..." Jordan pulled his gloves off, "Nobody believed in him more than I did... trust me. I believed in him so much that I volunteered to be partitioned. Believed in him so much that I was willing to sacrifice thirty years of my life to his cause. To stand by without question as we culled our own colleagues... our friends, for god sakes. To watch as the woman he supposedly loved wasted away until she couldn't take it anymore. But this," he gestured toward the body, "this is it. He's not coming back. He's gone. And what's more... he was wrong."

Hall shook his head. "I'm sorry... I can't accept that. When was he ever wrong? No matter how far out there he was, he knew what was happening. He was right about the partitions having to stay pristine; he was right about the threshold; he was right about the errant subject... why would he be wrong about this."

"I don't know... but he was."

"And what about the 'visits'? He came to me when I was a child... pushed me into this life. He came to you at the Institute... how could any of that happened if he died before he even went back?"

"Hall... it's all speculation... we don't even know for certain that it was him. I mean, how many partitions have we sent into the threshold over the past twenty years? For all we know, one of them could have taken a side trip before their probe returned."

"No... it doesn't make any sense."

"Sense or not, it's over. We have the map now. We know exactly how to take it back to before the threshold was erected. It's time to put an end to this."

"Oh... that's just great, Jordan. Let's just go back to 2969 and just turn this whole thing over to the Institute, and, oh... by the way, sirs... just ignore the fact that we're 22 years older than we are supposed to be. Ignore the fact that one member of the team is dead, three are zombies, and the psychologist you assigned doesn't remember the last three years. Get a grip, Jordan... you are supposed to be the sensible one."

"Fine... then what do you suggest?

He walked to the window of the Medical bay and quietly murmured, "I just.. don't know."

Hall stared out into the abyss as he heard Jordan beginning to close up the equipment behind him. How could this have happened? He watched the sickening shape of the threshold swirling around them. The human mind wasn't meant to conceive of motion in such a fashion. The forward swirl of space in one direction overlapped by its own movement backward had a nauseating effect. The mind literally had to choose a single direction to follow, to the exclusion of the other, in order to not be overwhelmed. As the conflicting motions drew into one other they descended backward into a cross point that extended backward, seemingly into infinity. It was called an asymptote, a point where the two curves drew ever closer to one another, but could never reach in any terms that the human mind could understand. They had mapped out nearly the entire threshold, certainly enough to cover any reasonable expectation of time travel to within a femtosecond, but to map that cross point was an impossibility. The two lines would remain ever apart, never crossing, never forming an...

"My God!"

Jordan paused in his clean up, 'What now, Hall?"

"The subject.... the... the... X-Null!" Hall excitedly ran over to the crash cart, flipping it back on. "Get the body out of cryo... that's it!"

"That's what?"

"No time to explain... I need the subject down here immedia..."

"Hall! Calm down! I'm not doing anything until you tell me what's going on."

"Jordan..." Hall said to his colleague with a wild look in his eyes, "...why did Gorcey go mad?"

"Why? He said he had a piece of his mind that didn't belong... that one of the partitions had gone..."

"...had gone back in time and supplanted that piece of his mind," Hall hurriedly interrupted, "We... and Gorcey himself... made the assumption that since it was X-Null, that point of entry was after his accident. That the violent trauma of the subject's death sent his mind backward to merge with Gorcey at the age of five... driving him mad and setting him on a course to partition himself to find that piece and get rid of it."

"Right... basically closing the loop..."

"But what if it's not a loop?"

"Hall... it's been a difficult day... I think you need to..."

"No... listen..." He pulled out his Omnicom and drew a vertical line with his stylus, "Say this is Gorcey's life... from birth to death..."

"OK..."

Hall drew a horizontal line across it perpendicularly, "And this is the point when he was partitioned... an infinite number of points drawn out. Now all of them are later merged back in... all but one." He drew a point on the horizontal line. "That one continues on a different path until its own death." He drew a curved line from the point, drawing up to an asymptote. "Both Gorcey and Ex's lines were heading to the same point... death... but they never merged."

"Right... that was the whole point."

"No... no, it wasn't. The errant piece of Gorcey's mind manifested when he was five... that is true... that's why he viewed it as an invasion... but he was already drawing the Möbius before that. I think... I think X-Null was already there when the accident happened. He had been since before Gorcey was born. God, it's so simple, really! What did Gorcey always say about death... what did he insist we tell the partitions?'

"There is no death."

"That wasn't just a platitude, Jordan! I think on some level Gorcey intrinsically knew that. He was living proof. Subject X-Null didn't die, he overlapped Gorcey before he was even born. But he didn't do it by going back in time... he did it by going forward!"

Jordan stared at Hall, mouth agape, mulling it over. "Jesus, Hall... I think... I think you're right!"

Hall smiled. "I think we can still save him, Jordan... I think we can save us all."

Chapter W.

"What happened then?"

Dr. Gabriel Dell looked over the shoulder of the new intern at the historical chronomap. This was his favorite question to pose each semester to recently graduated chrono-kymatology students. He knew full well that these anomalies were not part of the curriculum, so he liked to use it as a segue to introduce the practical aspects of time curvature monitoring.

"That would be a..." Thomas paused, sensing that this was a trick question, "...a retrograde eddy?"

"An eddy? That size? It spans from 2961 to 2991. When have you ever seen a thirty year long eddy, Mr. Lanese?" Dell clucked his tongue in mock disapproval. "What are they teaching at the Institute these days?"

"Yeah... no... I'm sorry. You're right... it looks like an eddy... it has a retrograde curvature, but it looks..." Thomas squinted, "..flatter? Like it collapsed?"

"That... Mr. Lanese... is what is referred to as a 'Notional Tangent'. It's a chronal branch that existed at one point, but, as you say, later collapsed on itself. They come into existence from time to time, but are really nothing more than academic curiosities."

"Wait... what do you mean, 'notional'? Do you mean to say that they are self enclosed... they contain their own parallel sequences?"

Dell scoffed. "Certainly not. What... do you think there are just parallel timelines spinning around out there? No, these chronal 'scars' were themselves, at one time, the main branch but... for whatever reason... they ceased to be. They have no longer have any real existence, so we tend to just ignore them, apart from accounting for their duration when mapping."

"How many are there?'

"Oh... too many to count. They've been more frequent in the last couple of years. The last one was... let's see..." Dell typed in a more recent range as the map shifted, "...a couple months in 3009, centered around that business with Phineas B. Fuddle."

"Oh! When he fought the LMB."

"Yes... quite. The LMB. Trust me, son, if you stay in this field for any length of time you'll find that group to be nothing but a headache."

"What do you mean? The LMB kicks nass."

"I'll excuse your language, Mr. Lanese, and instead ask you what you think of this." Dell typed into the monitor, calling up a chronoscope image of 4500 years prior.

"Ha! Is that...?"

"The crew of the Argo, yes. You'll find that a great deal of Terran legends have their basis in historical fact. There you have Jason... there is Castor... his twin Pollux... that large fellow is Heracles... and who are those three?" he pointed, as Thomas squinted.

"Whoa. That's Cobalt Kid... and... Eryk Davis Ester! Wait... in the water... that's Shark Lad!"

"Exactly. These are the types of shenanigans we have to put up with all the time with that group. The men coming out of the Institute have toiled endlessly for nearly a century, to no avail, to provide an accessible means of time travel, and these... "heroes"... just fall over backward into it all the time. Don't even get me started on the Yellow Kid and his vortex."

"So these Notional Tangents, then... are they because of them?"

"Oh, no, no. They've existed far longer than that. I just cited that Phineas one because it was so recent."

"And the events that happened originally... what happens to them?"

Dell sat down. "You're really putting far too much thought into this. I was just using the tangents as an example of the type of thing that you might encounter in the real world. Nothing happens to the events. They just never happened."

"But you said they did happen originally."

"You're getting caught up in circular thinking, Mr. Lanese. Sometimes events happen that the continuum... for lack of a better term, 'knows,' aren't correct. Rather than course-correcting those events wind up collapsing under their own falsehood. To use that Phineas nonsense, for example, who knows what could have happened then. You seem fond of the LMB, so how about a world where the Yellow Kid was still a villain? Or Jailbait Lass was a librarian? Or Shark Lad was... oh, I don't know... a Naked Mole Rat."

Thomas laughed.

"Exactly. The time continuum won't support absurdities of that magnitude, so whatever events would have happened in these tangents just... didn't."

"But that first one you showed me... thirty years. That's a long time for something that didn't happen to... happen."

"Yes... well... that was the heyday of the Institute. They were trying everything under the sun back then to bring about the promise of time travel. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that quite a few of those things went slightly awry. But, I wouldn't know. I spent the 2960's in one of the projects that never really went anywhere."

"You were on an Institute team?"

"You find that so hard to believe?" Dell grinned. "I wasn't always a stodgy old curvature monitor, you know. Oh, yes. I was part of Huntz Hall's team back in 2961. 'Project Möbius', we were called. Hall won the Goldwyn Grant that year for his work in Potentiality Partitioning... don't laugh, that was very big in the 60's. Anyway, we spent five years or so in an Institute sponsored satellite trying to make it work. It was me and Hall, and Bernard Punsley, and Billy Halop, and... uh... Bobby Jordan. Yeah... we had a lot of good ideas back then, but, I don't know... we just didn't have that core spark of genius that those things need to take off. Ah, well..."

"Are you OK, Dr. Dell."

"Oh... yes. Sorry, I just get a bit wistful when I think about those old guys. Hmph. They're all gone now. Hall was the last one to die... back in 2991. Oh, well... I say that, but actually there was a sixth member of the team back in school, but he never really had his heart in it. He passed on the chance to join us up there. What was that fellow's name?" Dell started typing into the monitor to see if he could pull up an old class picture. "Got married... I think... to some Psychology student... Lita or something... what was his name?" The monitor lit up with an image of the class of 2961. "Ah... of course... Leo Gorcey! Really nice guy... but sort of, hmmm... calm... I guess. A little too traditional to ever make it in Temporal Studies. Well... it's not for everyone, you know."

"That guy looks familiar."

"Who? Gorcey? I wouldn't think so. That image is from 50 years ago. He'd be at least 70 years old by now if he's even still alive."

"Oh, wait... you know what I'm thinking? He totally looks like this Tobacco dealer I met in shop on Legion World. It's actually sort of uncanny."

"Hmph. I wouldn't know. As I say, I'm not very fond of that whole planet. Too many superheroes. What's the fellow's name?"

"Oh, I forget. I've only been in his shop a couple of times, but he has the same sort of look as your old buddy. Sort of a smaller guy... like 5'6'' or so, but... actually, now that I look at the picture, he's probably about ten years older than your friend was in that picture."

"Hmmm... well... enough reminiscing for one day, I think. There is work to be done, Mr. Lanese... what say we get you mapping?"

Chapter X.

x…

o…

x… o…

x… o… x…

o… x… o… x… o…

x… o… x… o… x… o… x… o…

Contraction.

Expansion.

The tide swelled forward in red shift systole then receded backward into the blue diastole. The pulse was steady, a calming rhythmic voice unmoved by the storm all around. Through it all, the probe sailed quietly through space - an ever distancing dot in the black expanse.

x… o… x… o… x… o… x… o… x… o… x… o… x…

The heartbeat increased steadily, surrounding the craft and penetrating to the consciousness held within. He could feel it... the journey was almost complete.

How long had it been? Had it been scant moments ago, or eons measured on a cosmic scale? As the probe continued its descent into the infinite stretch of the threshold's asymptote, any human reckoning ceased to have relevance. In this expanse, if he wished, he could choose any moment of the sequence and fix it as the focus around which all others revolved. The only moment he wished to consider, however, was the moment when they had finally found him... the moment that set him on this course and would soon spell his freedom. He thought back.





"Can you hear me?" Huntz Hall asked, pushing back the feeling of morbidity that seized him as he looked at the lifeless bodies of Ex and Gorcey, now both hardwired together directly to the core of the Möbius engine.

"I can hear you, Huntz Hall," he responded, his voice an odd electronic thing, not so much spoken as willed through the makeshift sound system that Hall and Jordan had routed through the engine's monitor.

"Good. That's good. Jordan, adjust the frequency, please, I'm getting quite a bit of interference." Jordan typed into the monitor as Hall again addressed him, "What... what shall we call you?"

He no longer had any true name, and any that he may have had at one time had long since been lost. "You may call me as he called himself, for I, too, have come from nothing."

"Ah," Hall said. "Exnihil, then. That will make things a bit easier."

"Make no mistake, Huntz Hall," he spoke, "I choose this name not for the designation 'X-Null' that you and colleagues bestowed upon the original partition, but in spite of it, as it is the name to which he gave honor following his departure."

"Yes..." Hall said, leading into the task at hand, "But his departure was yours, as well, was it not?"

"Do not presume to speak on matters of which you have but only the slightest understanding."

"Then help me to understand. It is my belief that you are the consciousness that inhabited the mind of Leo Gorcey - the voice that drove him to distraction, and what caused him to wish to undergo his partitioning. Even in death you remain, an inexorable presence in Gorcey's very cells... and those of X-Null. Is this not true?"

"You speak as though events are a mere linear progression. The fact that you realize that I remain indicates that you know this is not the case. Speak freely of what you believe."

"All right, fine." Hall cleared his throat and, getting a nod from Jordan, began, "I think... I believe... that at one time... in a timeline that may no longer even exist... Gorcey enacted the events of Project Möbius for the first time. Something else else must have gone wrong, because his consciousness was projected forward in time, beyond the point of his own death. I don't begin to understand how, but I believe that the point of termination and the point of initiation... Gorcey's birth... are one and the same. They are somehow connected by a tangential asymptote. I believe that rogue consciousness was overlaid in Gorcey's mind at birth, but that he didn't become aware of it until he was five years old. It was that awareness that caused him - in the newly created timeline - to become obsessed with the elimination of that chronal partition - the one corresponding to that age... Subject X-Null."

"You believe a great deal, Huntz Hall."

"It has taken a long time, trust me."

"But there is more that you believe, is there not?"

"Yes... I believe that Gorcey made good on his plan, but that his logic was flawed. He overlooked the fact that the partitions' minds had a tendency to bleed into one another. I think that every partition that was created in this new timeline had the potential... and indeed, the likelihood... to suffer the same ailment that Gorcey himself had suffered. When X-Null was killed, and when his consciousness was projected forward, it was not merely his own, but his... complete with his own rogue element. When Gorcey was born again in what would now be a third timeline, his consciousness would have had a two-fold overlay."

"You have a keen understanding, but what you describe is merely the origin of the events."

"Yes... yes, I imagined so. I could see no reason, once the cycle began, for it ever to have ended. Each time Gorcey lived his life to point of partitioning... each time a new X-Null was created... each time Gorcey's consciousness was overlaid... a new timeline was initiated and the level of abstraction increased. It just got deeper and deeper until..."

"Until the infinite was achieved."

"So is that what you are, then, 'Exnihil'? Are you a recursive consciousness... an ouroboros?"

"What I am, Huntz Hall..." he spoke with what both Hall and Jordan immediately perceived to be a tinge of emotion, impossibly coming through the electronic voice, "...is a prisoner."

At that word, despite the fact that to lose his temper might endanger what he hoped to achieve, Hall seethed. "A prisoner? How dare you speak to us of imprisonment? Whatever you are now, at some level... you were initially Leo Gorcey. Whatever you became, it was, nevertheless, of your own doing. Can you say the same about me? Or Jordan? Or the other members of our team who were culled through your actions? Or Amelita? You drew all of us into this mad cycle... made us prisoners."

"It was your own choice to be here, Huntz Hall."

"You pushed me to come! Pushed all of us. You... or one of your past incarnations... came to me as a child and told me that I had to protect him. That if I did, I would live forever."

"I did not say you would live forever. I said that you would never die. You have not. Just as I exist in infinite recursion, so, too, do all who exist within the threshold. Each new timeline created since the first still exists in its entirety... within parallel tracks of this space. As Gorcey himself was partitioned so, too, in a sense, is the entirety of the Möbius space."

Hall made a short, slightly insane sound that vaguely resembled a laugh. Jordan looked at him with concern, but saw that it was just a moment of release. "That... that is so... twisted that it's nearly genius." Hall sighed. "You have wasted my life, Exnihil... excuse me... wasted my lives... on nothing more than a semantic twist. Well... no longer. I owe you nothing, Ex... or Gorcey... or whoever you might be, but... nevertheless... I am going to offer you your freedom."

"That, I fear, is not yours to offer. Had there been an escape from this cycle, it surely would have presented itself within one of the nigh infinite iterations that have preceded yours."

"Yeah... well... first time for everything. It may have taken an infinite amount of time from your perspective, and an infinite amount of Halls to play your game... but this Hall just figured out how to cheat. One of the things that Gorcey... our Gorcey... said was that the unless all the partitions remained pristine, reintegration was an impossibility. Any damage would result in the subject's death. He thought he was exempt from that rule, but...well... you see how well that worked out for him. You claim that all of Möbius space is nothing more than a timeline that has itself been partitioned? Well... I'm about to reintegrate them... but I'm going to ensure that there's a piece missing. This time around... Exnihil... I'm going to help you escape."





The probe continued its silent journey, now long past any external point of reference.

Within, as the core of the Möbius engine continued to pulse with an ever increasing power, the consciousness decided it would be only fitting that these last moments should be shared on a physical level. Projecting his thoughts outward through each cell of the two bodies, Leo Gorcey and X-Null opened their eyes.

What a novel experience, observing the child through the eyes of the man while at the same time observing the man through the eyes of the child. How interesting that the residual patterns contained on each of their minds should be so similar in the end. He thought of the shared perspectives they had felt toward all who had played a part in this grand drama. He thought of the way they had each viewed Jordan and Hall - the two who had believed; one with the unshakeable faith who, at the last moment, had wavered; and one who had struggled throughout but, in the last moment, had made the leap. He thought of how each of them had carried him throughout, and how each of them had held him at the last. He thought of the love each had felt toward Amelita, the beautiful woman who had stood beside him, filling his life with both compassion and adversity, but above it all, filling it with love. If only he had walked that middle path, they could have survived it all together. Balance was there before him, but it would be he who left, again and again.

The Möbius core pulsed more and more strongly, as the probe traveled deeper into the asymptote. Time and distance elongated impossibly, as the line between the two began to blend. How far had he gone... how long had he travelled? He had been certain that there had been times other than now, but as the probe continued, they seemed all as one.

He sat on the bench in the Institute common area, enjoying the night. He watched as the young student briskly approached, so full of the certainty of youth. He smiled, and called out to the young man.

He stood in the playground at the side of the sandbox and watched the little boy drawing in the sand. So intelligent, this one... but so unsure. Putting on an authoritative stance, he cleared his throat and spoke to the boy.

He looked at the beautiful woman before him, and the tumult in his mind drew away.

The probe continued deeper, as all of these moments - all of the mercy, and all of the severity, and all of the love - drew into the eternal now. The man looked at the child with a sense of growing serenity as the child looked back in kind.

As the probe moved ever outward into the asymptote, he felt the world beginning to unfold before him, all of the infinite potential paths it could take - one more likely than the others, even now beginning to coalesce. He held the thought of that world tightly as the engine pulsed more intensely.

He watched in his mind's eye as Leo Gorcey was born anew, his mind finally free of the burden of his madness. He watched as he grew into a young man, meeting Huntz Hall - but never feeling the pull that he did toward space and time. He watched as Hall, Jordan and the Institute team set off again to the stars to begin the work which, this time, would bear no fruit. He watched as Gorcey, left behind, found solace in the heart of a woman who believed in him, and who always would. He watched their life unfold together, first joined in marriage... then in flesh, as they bore forth a son. He watched that son as he discovered a birthright - an inborn power to tap temporal worlds that no longer existed, drawing on their energy... seemingly out of nothing. He watched as Leo and Amelita grew old, finally passing together into the great beyond, their love never wavering throughout. And he watched as their son, taking on the only name that he could, finally embraced his destiny... standing beside the heroes of Legion World as their equal, his deeds passing into legend as the hero, "Exnihil".

Yes... this was the world to come... the world that lay beyond the end of his journey.

He blinked. As the eyelids of both Gorcey and X-Null closed, it was as though existence itself collapsed into blackness for a moment. He knew... he was almost there and it was time to say goodbye. Calmly, with no regret, the man extended his right hand toward the child who, almost as a miniature mirrored reflection, extended his left. Their two hands touched, and together reached out toward the Möbius core, its pulsation so rapid now as to be a sustained unbroken tone.

Smiling as they lay their hands upon it, he felt all that now was... and all that had been... draw into the singular cross point. Holding his last thought, "There is no death," deeply in his mind, he closed his eyes for the final time, and let the world that he had created come to an end.