Interlude the First
The two watched the monitor carefully.
One, who was standing, licked his lips nervously. "He's leaving."
The other, who was sitting, nodded her head. "He'll want to."
The stander: "He's an anomaly."
The sitter: "Most anomalies balance out in time. My guess is that the younger one will fade out over a short amount of time."
"And if it doesn't fade away?"
"Then we'll have to kill one of them."
"You're serious."
"Very."
He glanced down. "What started this?"
She glanced up. "She did."
"Oh. What the fuck was she doing?"
The female snorted. "She used the Twindaggers. Either she was really trying to help him and give him a second chance, or she was trying to kill him."
"…Well, she really fucked that up then."
"Watch your language. You're in the presence of a lady."
"Some lady you are."
Another monitor distracted the two for a while. The screen showed a blurred, grainy image of a large chapel exploding in a landslide. The woman wrote something down, and then turned back to the original screen she and her partner had been observing.
"Do you have the number of that dimension recorded?"
"Yes. Z101-683-259-17c."
"C?"
"A splinter form the main dimension occurred when she appeared. To account for the choice he was facing."
"But then it should be 'b,' not 'c,' unless there's another."
"Yes, there's another. It's been running parallel to the main branch dimension for about a thousand time-units."
"Does the main dimension have a letter designate?"
"No. 'a' was a natural splinter when the dimension was still young. 'b' is still unexplained. And of course, we're looking at 'c' now."
Kiku Honda was knocking on the door of England's house.
"Well well. Should we dispatch a team now?"
"I'll go."
He looked down at her. "You? Are you qualified for that?"
She glared at him. "Of course I am, you twit. Prepare a dispatch module."
"Right away."