"So...by no recollection," Brittney started, the entire conversation taking a few moments to even process, let alone for her to truly react. The last two days had put her poor gears into overdrive and she was officially mental exhausted, something the other six could relate to entirely.

"I mean, you won't even know your own names anymore. Today you're going to start forgetting things about your own lives, and start to feel that your writings about theirs are now your memories. You will not longer see these things as third person, but as things you, yourself, have experienced. You're not Brittney, you're Audrey...You already look the part, and soon you'll be playing the part. Think of this as a dress rehearsal before the show tomorrow," Mr. Q replied, looking extraordinarily relaxed considering all she had unloaded on the girls in the past five minutes, let alone the past two days.

"What if I don't want to be Relic? What if I didn't fucking sign up to be Samantha friggin Kates and I want to get my ass back home and in my bed now?" Nikita asked, looking like she was about to damn near throttle the woman. Screw polite conversation. As far as she was concerned, turning her into someone she didn't want to be without her concent was reason enough to rid herself of any polite behavior she may have had.

Mr. Q sat there, smiling, waiting for the girl to finish. After all, she knew them all, whether they knew her or not. She knew better than to interrupt. However, when it finally seemed safe, she replied, "I know you didn't sign up for this, but, think of it this way...You were all drafted, and while I could have let you go on your merry way like I have several other potentials, you all, with all your stories and your various characters and lives, seemed to be able to represent the time period well enough and be able to understand your characters best. After all, Nikita, you understand the ins and outs of what it means to be Samantha 'Relic' Kates, don't you?"

"Hell no I don't!" she snapped back. "Half the time I don't even know what she's talking about, and she was more normal in 1902 than she was in 1899! I don't even want to touch on 1899! So now I'm a fourteen year old basketcase and you're telling me...Oh fuck you!" And, with that, the girl headed toward her designated cot and looked damned determined to get back to sleep.

"I dunno...This...might not be so bad," Sarah replied after a while, trying to look on the bright side. "I mean, it will be kinda neat, right? It'll be...educational?"

"I don't need educational. I was fine with my degree," Rachel replied, not quite as angry as Nikita, but bordering on irate. However, she did have to consider the amount of research she'd get here and now that she wouldn't elsewhere. What better way to research the strike and the events surrounding it than to be involved?

It began to sink in in different ways for each of the girls, some looking more at the positive, some livid about the negatives, and some just wanting to forget the whole thing entirely. This was way too much to handle, especially for a vacation. They signed up to see Ellis Island, not to look like they just came through it!

"You just need to get through a few things and then it's life as usual. Nothing seriously traumatizing will happen to you," Mr. Q assured them, the lump that was Nikita laughing under her blankets, which the shopkeeper merely ignored. "Like I said, you'll slowly lose your memories...It'll be less sudden than any previous changes, so write down what you can while you still can. Some of you won't be literate when all of this finishes, so, might as well get it out while you can both write and remember. Oh, before I forget as well, those people you met yesterday? They'll now slowly start to know you as well. As far as they're concerned, meeting the modern you, the real you, never happened. It's two-sided, though. You'll know them and they'll know you...The character of you, anyway." With that, she headed out, leaving them with yet another headache to try and comprehend, everyone still sitting in denial over the whole situation.

Finally, Brittney decided to actually be the voice of reason, perhaps because she had gone so far beyond what her nerves would allow that all there was left was a strange calm...like the calm after a storm. "Everyone, find a piece of paper or something and something to write with. I have a few things I'd prefer to, you know, not forget entirely. Don't bother with stuff like your family and whatever...Just, well, if people are going to know us and if things are going to happen that we know now because we wrote about them and we won't know later, we might as well try and get those out of the way first before anything extra."

So, the great hunt for pens and paper began, an old ledger and a bottle of half-dried ink being all they could come up with. So, finding hair pins and things of the sort, resorting to fingernails if they had to, the girls wrote down all they needed to remember- little notes of general dates and names of people to contact or avoid. The more they wrote, the more they felt attached to the names they were writing about, the more memories they had never even written suddenly coming to mind. When had Cassie ever tricked someone into diving into the Hudson in the middle of winter? When had Brittney ever stolen jewelry from a corner store because she had the sudden urge?

However, as Mr. Q had said, it was all two-sided, and the more useless memories they attained from their OCs, the less they remembered from their own lives. Lindsay couldn't remember small things like holidays or her first bike, Sarah couldn't remember her boyfriend...was he a boyfriend or just a friend that was a boy? Rachel was beginning to lose track of all of her family members, which wasn't too hard to do considering the sheer size, but, to her it still raised an alarm. Mr. Q wasn't kidding...they had to get everything in order now, while they could.

"So..." Carrie started, looking around the group before her. "Any ideas of where to go or what to do first?"

"We need real jobs," Nikita pointed out, having crawled back into her bed once she realized what all being Relic entailed. There were too many people in Samantha Kates's life that she didn't want to even think about, let alone contact, and the list of people to avoid was far longer than anything else she could think to write down. "Just...keep me away from Harlem. In fact, keep me away from outside entirely. Everything Relic touches turns to shit and she's a basketcase to boot. I'm not going out there."

"You kinda have to," Brittney pointed out. "Bosley said we have a mission or some such and we need to all do it...wait, she said several...whatever. But, we all need to do them and you'll forget you don't want to go outside in a few hours anyway, so why not get it over with and get something done."

"Fuck..." was all Nikita replied with at first, before kicking the sheets off of herself in an irritated manner. "I know that in a few hours, I'll be forgetting a lot, but that's because Relic is a drunkard and...Shit, no she wasn't. Not really. Fuck. Ben...Fuck, I'm going back to bed."

Several of the girls looked at each other confused, Sarah turning to ask in a whisper. "Who's Ben?"

"Let's just say he's the ex from Hell. Come on. If Ben is around, that means several others are too, which means we need to find them while we know who they are and how to talk to them. I can't remember how close to some of them I am, but, I know I'm at least on their good sides," Carrie replied.

"Like who?" Cassie asked, trying to think of anyone she may know, her OC lacking really any attachments, or any permanent ones, anyway.

At that, suddenly Nikita shot up, looking straight at Carrie, simply saying one word. "Dusk?"

"Dusk."