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[mothmansplaining]

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"Stanford Pines. Leave a message."

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[mothmansplaining]

[Come on, don't sulk. Have a kiss to the side of your eyemouth. He's carrying you to his room, that's completely normal couple behavior.

The idea of moving in together makes him bark out a laugh.]

I missed you, too.

[tetractys]

[Bill grumbles, but gives Ford a squeeze all over various parts of his arms and torso. Hug.]

AT LEAST YOU'VE GOTTEN A LOT DONE. I'VE BEEN TRYING TO BUILD A RADAR TO SEE IF THE AUTHORITY'S CHASING US, BUT EVERYBODY'S GOT THEIR OWN DUMB AGENDA OR WANTS TO PUNCH ME.

[mothmansplaining]

That's a very good idea.

[He pulls his bedroom door open and walks in. It all looks pretty much the same as when Bill saw it last, except the drawer the Leitner was in doesn't have tape over it anymore. Ford had to childproof the place, thanks to last month's houseguest. And maybe more security than some caution tape was a good idea anyway.]

If we can determine that they are definitively on our tail, that'll open up a lot of opportunities. I'm...sorry you've been having trouble with your team, though.

[He crosses to the desk and opens the laptop.]

Is there anything I can do to help?

[tetractys]

MATERIALS ARE THE BIGGEST BOTTLENECK WE HAVE! IF YOU CAN GET US SOME OF THOSE, I CAN GIVE THEM TO ENTRAPTA. AND I CAN SAY YOU'RE HELPING US, SO JASPER DOESN'T KILL YOU! I MEAN, I ALREADY DID TELL HER THAT, BUT I WAS LYING.

[Bill worms so his main body is sitting approximately over Ford's shoulder.]

[mothmansplaining]

Hm. I'd like to see the progress on the machine, if I can. I trust you, and I trust that when you say it's a radar for detecting the Authority that that's what it's meant to be, but I don't know Entrapta as well as I know you. And Jasper...well, I don't know what to make of her at all. She seems very....blunt.

[Laptop boots up. Password is entered. Retina is scanned. Blood sample is taken. Ha ha it's meant to detect hydrogen, who would predict that? The home screen finally comes up.]

I want to be sure any parts I get you are ending up where they ought to go, that's all.

[tetractys]

I THINK THE KID'S A FLAKE, AND I DON'T TRUST HER NOT TO TAKE ANYTHING AND JUST STICK IT INTO A ROBOT.

[mothmansplaining]

Mm. I see.

[Those are the terms: materials in exchange for oversight.]

Well, it might complicate matters further, but I believe Rose Quartz is behind the cause. She'd be willing to help, if we asked her.

[A bunch of keystrokes, and Ford pulls up two sets of readings. One is his own, through the genderswap flood, and one is someone else's. (Not Tris's.) The readings detect the same type of energy, but one of them shows much greater dimensional distortion, another entity entangling with the person as the dimensions overlap. Ford's readings, on the other hand, just show the energy altering his physical and mental make-up; there is no second presence.]

[tetractys]

GONNA HAVE TO VETO ROSE QUARTZ! I GOT THE BIG ORANGE ONE INVOLVED IN THIS SO SHE'D HAVE SOMEWHERE CONSTRUCTIVE TO PUT HER ENERGY BESIDES BREAKING THE ESCAPE PODS. IF SHE FEELS LIKE SHE DOESN'T HAVE OR WANT CONTROL, I GOT NOTHING.

[Bill goes quiet when the statistics pop up, thinking of the clip in Ford's pocket.]

AWFULLY ROUGH. WONDER WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE FROM THEIR END? SHE JUST APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE?

[mothmansplaining]

Eh. Fair enough.

[He doesn't know the politics of Bill's team. But Rose is an ally, and that's important.]

I can't say for sure. My best guess is that the wave of transdimensional energy shifted my physiology and memories into whatever would be the least unnatural, and in the process, implanted her into others' memories as well.

[tetractys]

SO HOW DO WE KNOW WE'RE NOT THE FLOOD FOR SOMEONE ELSE? HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW OUR PASSENGERS ARE ALL REAL NOW, HUH?

[mothmansplaining]

The only way to determine that would be the same way I noticed the last thing the Director published: to look for behavior that doesn't add up when what we should have known at the time is taken into consideration.

We also have the network. That thing's been around forever, and it doesn't seem to be affected by floods. Put something up there, and it's there forever! We might be able to cross-reference network activity with a passenger list.

[tetractys]

OH YEAH.

WHAT ABOUT BREACHES, HOW DO THEY WORK?

[mothmansplaining]

[Ford pulls up another set of readings, one of someone with a breach self and one of someone without one.]

It's a similar phenomenon. But instead of another Barge overlapping with us, it's an entire dimension. The energy is at much higher levels and remains constant throughout the event. We and the versions of ourselves we become don't shift back and forth, like they do in floods. It becomes stable very quickly.

[tetractys]

ARE BREACH COUNTERPARTS EVER REAL?

[mothmansplaining]

Sometimes.

[He pulls up data to demonstrate.]

[tetractys]

SO THOSE ARE WORLDS WE'RE TANGLING WITH, NOT EVEN SHIPS.

[Bill is drumming his fingers somewhere near Ford's spine]

WE'VE MESSED A LOT OF WORLDS UP PRETTY BAD IN BREACHES! I KNOW I KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE AT LEAST ONCE. RHYS ENDED THE WORLD ONE TIME!

[mothmansplaining]

And Cthulhu rose from the depths in the last one. I can't imagine that ended well for anyone.

[tetractys]

YEAH, BUT THAT WASN'T OUR FAULT! I THINK THAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED EVEN IF WE HADN'T JUMPED INTO THE WORLD.

[mothmansplaining]

Eesh. Well, at least there's that.

I don't know, Bill. I can't determine how responsible we really are for what happens to breach-worlds! We don't choose what our breach selves are like, and we make choices we wouldn't have if we weren't changed.

I do wonder what it looks like from the other side.

[tetractys]

AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS, FOR PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T HAVE COUNTERPARTS? DO THE OTHER PEOPLE ON BUFORD'S SHIP THINK SHE JUST VANISHED? DO THEY NOT REMEMBER HER AT ALL?

[mothmansplaining]

...there's no way to say for sure. Not without reaching that ship somehow. Or asking the Authority directly.

[tetractys]

FORDSY, THIS IS PRETTY BIG. ARE YOU GOING TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THIS?

[mothmansplaining]

Not yet. I'm going to gather data on ports first. Someone's going to go overboard, and I want a look at the watch readings when they do. Most likely, it'll look similar to what happens in a breach when someone doesn't have a counterpart, but I want to know for sure. After that, I'll make the report.

[He hasn't made much progress on the real purpose of the project, which is disappearances, so he kind of wrote these discoveries off as incidental. Bill caring about them and telling him they're important reassures Ford, makes him feel just as warm as the limb-tangle he's currently wound up in does.]

[tetractys]

THIS CHANGES A LOT OF WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHIP. THESE EVENTS AREN'T JUST, YA KNOW, INCONVENIENT, WE'RE CHANGING REAL LIVES FOR THE SAKE OF SOMETHING THAT'S PROBABLY JUST TO MAKE THE SHOW SEEM MORE EXCITING.

[Bill scans over the screen again.]

Y'THINK WE COULD USE THIS TO PROVE THAT THEY'RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE?

[mothmansplaining]

[Heavily:]

I'm not sure. There's a high probability we'll have people arguing that because the other worlds are real, this can't be artificial. It's just the Admiral steering us into other worlds, or transdimensional weather, or something.

I'm afraid this doesn't prove anything except that the Barge causes chaos on every world it lands on.