William Manton.
The man who'd been her original creator. The man who'd brought her into existence. The man who'd taught her about the world. The man who'd been her partner. Directed her. Given her targets.
"You look younger." Sibby said before looking around. "Where am I?"
It was a cemetery. A small one. Only a few dozen headstones, and a couple of trees. There wasn't anything else inside the wrought iron fence. Outside of it, there was a lone country road, hills, grass, a glowing red sky, more trees, and a van.
A familiar looking van.
In fact... This whole place looked familiar. Except for the sky.
"Natalie! It worked!" William had his hands over his mouth. One had a stylized 'C' tattoo, the other had one of a wing. His eyes leaked tears. "Deus... it did it! It took the closest thing. It brought you back to me!"
William hugged her.
Sibby blinked before awkwardly hugging him back. "Uhm... William? Where am I? This place looks familiar."
William pulled away before cupping her face with his hands. "Natalie." He kissed her forehead. "Don't you remember?" He shook his head. "No. Of course not. You were little when we came here last." He blinked away his tears. "This is where we laid your mother to rest. It's..." He swallowed. "It's where you were..."
William looked away - back down to the gray block.
'Natalie Manton. Beloved daughter.'
Sibby was confused. This all felt so familiar. "Oh." She blinked. "This is where I was born." That was right. This is where she had first been created. The gravestone. William crying. The trees. The van. She remembered it all.
It was the same... and yet so different.
She hadn't known what anything was back then. Not really. She'd known how to talk. What things were in a shallow way, but she hadn't... experienced anything before! Why, even the forces that... she... felt?
"Wait." She spoke. It was easy. No concentration needed. No manipulation of, well, everything. She just took air into her lungs, then exhaled and shaped words with countless muscles that she hadn't used before. At least, she hadn't used them when she'd first come into existence. "But I HAVE used them. It's so easy now." Her hand rose to her throat. "There's nothing pressing down, or pulling, or anything. Where am I?"
"Oh!" William let her go and palmed his face. "I'm so stupid. Of course this is a new experience for you. A new existence. A new body..." He glanced down, and then quickly turned his head. "Clothes. I forgot clothes." He let out a small laugh. "I really am the fool, aren't I?" He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders. "Here. I'm sorry, Natalie. I'm not sure what I was thinking."
Sibby felt the rough cloth on her shoulders. She didn't like it. Even if she didn't feel all the forces that flowed through it, it still was uncomfortable.
She wore it anyways. It would make William happy.
"Wait." Sibby frowned. "Why are you calling me Natalie? That's not my name." She had a perfect memory. She recalled William calling her 'Natalie' when she'd first appeared, but he'd stopped soon after. She didn't know why.
"That's your name." William seemed confused.
"No." She shook her head. "It's not. Also," She frowned. "How are you alive? Did Riley do something?"
"Riley?" William's eyebrows rose. "Who's that? And why would I... be... dead...?"
The world shattered.
Chunks of it fell away.
William's body broke into pieces, and then fell to the ground. Except... there was no ground - just more shards of stone, grass, dirt... They broke more as they dropped. Each one shattered into smaller and smaller segments as they fell through the concrete. The coat around her shoulders broke apart too. Its segments slipped through the ground also.
Sibby was standing inside of a small town. There were spread out buildings along the street. Their windows were broken. Glass covered the ground.
She knew this place. This was... uhm... Rock... something. Her perfect memory failed her. In her defense, she hadn't been paying attention. She'd been too concerned about Riley. About shielding her from Jack.
She had to find her!
She raced through the town, but the buildings kept repeating. Over and over again. Sibby let out a growl of frustration before slowing down.
Something weird was going on. Just like before, there were no sensations assaulting her. The sky was still glowing red, but that was the only similarity.
No... wait. There was one other thing: the van.
She'd run past it a few times, but she hadn't noticed it. It was designed to not attract attention. Nothing Tinker-related, William had made it as unassuming as possible. Dirty, but not so much it would stand out. An off-shade of white. Large, but not too large. Dirty windows that were hard to see through, but didn't look like they were an imitation of tinted glass.
They weren't glass, of course. William had made that modification, along with others, once Shatterbird had joined the Nine. It was the only vehicle in sight with an intact windshield. Yet, somehow, it didn't look out of place.
Sibby took a step towards it.
Something in the back of her mind rebelled. Warned her of what she'd see.
She couldn't stop...
The back doors creaked open... and revealed Panda holding William's head!
Sibby fell to her knees. She couldn't pull her eyes away. She didn't want to see this! She didn't want to be reminded of what had led to this. She didn't want to remember what William had made her do.
"Why?" Her voice was soft, but it was the only sound in this silent world. "Why did you do it William? How could you help them do that to Riley? To me? She was our daughter!" She felt something on her face. She brought a hand up to it. Water? From her eyes? Was... she crying?
"Riley? My daughter?" The voice came from nowhere. "Did something happen to my daughter?"
The world shattered again. Everything, except the van.
Pieces of it fell away, but underneath them there was another van. One that was clean. Had clear windows that were made of glass. One that hadn't been modified to be his house while he plotted their revenge.
Their revenge... or his revenge?
"Riley?" The voice came from behind her. "Who's that?"
They were back in the graveyard.
William was back inside of it again. Back by Natalie's grave.
She walked back to him. "Riley. Bonesaw. Your daughter."
"What?" William looked confused. "You're my daughter, Natalie." He shook his head. "I did get around in the seventies, but I'd know if I had another kid."
"No." She frowned. "Riley isn't that old. She's young and cute!" Had she even been born yet? "We adopted her when she joined the Nine."
"The... Nine?"
The world shattered again.
Sibby was in a small town. A different small town then before, and one that she couldn't immediately place. She did recognize the van. It was camouflaged, so that meant... uhm... this was after they had joined the Nine? She strolled up to it and heard mumbling from inside. She opened the door.
"...corrupt. The world. The 'superheroes'. The government. EVERYTHING!" William was inside. "None of this even matters. Twenty or thirty years from now? Kaboom!" He spread his hands wide before coughing out blue smoke.
Oh. It was one of THOSE times. Sibby didn't understand why William injected himself, or smoked, or drank, or whatever. He'd told her it was like when she was unsummoned. 'An escape from reality.'
After he finished coughing, he brought the glass container to his lips and inhaled again. "The bastards won't even tell anyone! Hah! They know. They KNOW! ...And they won't 'do' anything! That's why we have to do it. That's why we have to open her eyes." He exhaled a plume of smoke. "She'll thank us later. Better to rule in Hell then serve in Heaven, right? So it's better to be a monster than to be a sheep. Better to be one of us, or to be dead. Delusions must be shattered!"
Sibby crossed her arms. There was no talking to him when he was like this. It would be better to see if there was anything interesting she could find.
Before the world started repeating itself, that was.
She picked her way through the shattered glass. That meant they weren't in the stalking point of the game. Let's see. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Nothing looked familiar.
Except...
Oh.
Sibby turned around. She didn't want to go into THAT house. She didn't want to see Riley like that.
She wandered back to the van.
"..good. It's for her own good. It's for her own good."
Great. He was repeating himself now, and Sibby couldn't unsummon herself to get away from it. She squared her shoulders and stepped inside the van.
"William, wake up!" Sibby liked him more when he was mourning Natalie's death. She slapped him, and the world shattered.
She was back in the graveyard. William was by Natalie's grave again.
"William, what's going on?" She walked up to him. "The world keeps changing."
"What do you mean, Natalie?"
"Why are you still calling me that?" She asked him. "At least you aren't surprised to see me..."
"Why wouldn't I call you by your name?" William seemed confused.
"My name is the Siberian. Or 'Sibby'. 'Sibby' is cuter, and therefore better, but I think my, uhm, 'real' name is the Siberian."
William raised an eyebrow. "Who named you that? I get the stripes, but Siberian tigers aren't white. Not most of them anyways... I think there are a few." He blinked. "And I forgot clothes!" He let out a small laugh. "I really am the fool, aren't I?" He started to take off his jacket before stopping. "I have a strange sensation of Deja-vu."
"Deja-vu?" Sibby tilted her head.
"The feeling that I've done this before." William adopted his 'explaining' voice.
Sibby nodded. "You're probably feeling that way because we HAVE done this before."
"We have?"
"Yes."
"How many times?"
Hmmm... "Well, you've given me your jacket three times now."
William's eyes narrowed and he glanced left and right. "What else have we done multiple times?"
"Oh, lots of things!" Sibby smiled as she thought. "You've taught me a lot of things, and also told me to do lots of things!"
William blinked. "Like what?"
Something that he both taught her and told her multiple times? Oh, that was easy! Sibby opened her mouth, but William and the world was already falling apart. It revealed a small, suburban house with a familiar van parked outside of it.
The house's windows were intact, so this wasn't during the 'announced' part of a Nine game. What was odd was that the door to the van was open.
Sibby looked closer.
The van was also clean - not camouflaged. The windows looked strange... like regular windows. She placed her palm against them, but she couldn't feel anything. Well, she could feel them, but she couldn't FEEL them. Her powers still weren't working. Regardless, they felt like normal glass, and not the slightly rough stuff William had replaced them with.
That meant... something.
She was sure it was important... probably.
William wasn't inside the van, and the door was open. She looked around for where he might be. That was another annoying thing about this place. Without her power, she couldn't tell where he was! She couldn't reform next to him.
Not that she could probably do that without being able to sense him. Sibby bet the two issues were related somehow.
In any event, she didn't need to use her peerless hunting abilities to track William. The door to the house was open, and she could hear him yelling from inside.
"-doing?! Why did you kill him?" His voice lowered, but she was close enough to still hear him. "No, you didn't do bad, but... Yes, killing him is fine." There was an audible sigh. "Why are you eating the body?"
Sibby entered the house and saw herself crouching over a blood-splattered and mauled corpse. Wow. She was beautiful!
Sibby admired herself as William continued to try and teach/lecture/question the eating version of her.
"-needed money! It's not a big deal to kill someone Siberian, but I was watching through your eyes when you ate his fingers! Do you know how that felt?!"
Wonderful?
Both Sibbys nodded. Wonderful wasn't the best word for it. People were better than 'food', but most of them were still on the bland side. They were nothing like her first meal...
Sibby blinked. The world was breaking apart again! Only... this time it was worst because she was breaking apart too!
The vision of loveliness broke down into smaller and smaller fragments as everything changed again.
Nooooooooo!
"Ha ha ha ha! I did it!"
Sibby was next to William's van again. It still had clean windows, and there were no pieces of glass anywhere she could see. Admittedly, her line of sight wasn't that far. Buildings towered above them on all sides.
Hmm... This looked like a big city. Like L.A. or New York, but where were all the people? It was night, and William was ranting in his van. That shouldn't be enough to clear the streets.
She moved closer and listened.
"I killed one of them! Me! My power!" Sibby opened the back doors and saw William sitting in his 'lounging' chair. "The rush! The righteousness! Oh... it even felt good to eat him. I bet David never saw THAT coming!" William chuckled to himself as he lit a small, white object and began to smoke it. Judging by the number of butts at his feet, it wasn't the first one. "I bet SHE did though. ...or if she didn't she knows now."
William froze. His eyes grew wide as he looked around. He looked like he expected someone as scary as Sibby was to jump out of a random corner and kill him.
"No... no... I'm alive still." He leaned back and laughed some more. "I'm alive because they weighed my life on their little scale, and I'm more valuable than Hero was!" He laughed again, but started coughing. "Ugh. I'm so excited, I can't even toke right. I need to calm down." He took a long drag, and seemed to melt into the chair.
Sibby sat down cross-legged and looked at him. When was this? She didn't remember this, so... that meant she didn't exist right now?
Yeah, that was probably it. William had mentioned Hero. She remembered him. She remembered how good he tasted! Why couldn't she have relived that?
Sibby frowned. Then again, she hadn't gotten to taste that man the other Sibby was eating. She probably wouldn't have been able to taste Hero either.
What hell was this? Was THIS Riqre's punishment? The fiend!
Not that she'd had a good meal since she'd been separated from Kevin...
She let out a sigh. She missed him. She missed their connection. Strangely... she could still feel it, even though the rest of her power wasn't working.
Oh! That was nice. She was going to tease him SOOOOO hard when she saw him again! She liked her latest game. It was hard to ruffle his feathers, but she managed. She was perfect after all. Yes. She'd walk in front of him and stretch. Then, she'd slip around behind him and lick him when he wasn't expecting it!
It was getting easier and easier to make him blush.
What next? She could always-
"That's right." William resumed talking to himself. "I'm alive. The boogie man hasn't killed me. Didn't kill me before I acted. Thought I wasn't worth 'mapping'. Must've thought her golden four didn't need protection either. Ha!" He sighed. "Still, I probably won't be able to kill another one. If I press it too hard..." He brought his fists up and then spread his fingers. "Poof! I'm in another world. Worst comes to worst, one with no other people."
He fell silent again. Sibby looked at him, and then decided to think about Kevin some more-
"No!" William shook his head. "Not a desolate world. Too much risk of me dying. I'm not the outdoor type. They wouldn't do that if they aren't willing to kill me." He let out a short laugh. "All their greater good bullshit, and they'll let me do what I want. Kill whomever I want!" His smile faded. "Well, not the people that I really want to kill. Not the people that deserve it. She'll protect them from me now. The rest of the world? Ha! My Natalie is too strong! Not strong enough, but too strong to risk losing!"
Sibby tilted her head. William had ranted about 'them' in the past, but he hadn't really gone into details. Also, she wasn't 'Natalie'. Did William call her that when she wasn't around?
"Not that we could win with a million of me. Or her. He's just too strong." Uh oh, his trip was taking a bad turn. Should she do something? She could slap him again. Or talk to him. Why hadn't he'd noticed she'd entered his van anyways? "We're all going to die. No... hope..."
William fell asleep, and Sibby waited for the world to shatter...
But it didn't.
Odd.
Time to think.
Time to think... hard!
One of the things she loved about Kevin was that he recognized how smart she was, but that he also helped her train! Unlike her natural beauty, strength, and skill - there were ways to leverage her intellect better.
...She supposed there were ways to leverage her strength and skill better, but 'learning' how to fight was boring!
Besides, it's not like knowing how to punch 'correctly' would help her now.
Let's see... she needed something to write with, but there didn't seem to be anything handy within the van. No matter, she was good at investigating!
...
This city sucked.
It was all empty. Like, a fake city or something. There were doors and windows and stuff like that in the buildings, but every room was barren! Sibby gave up and went back outside. Maybe... nope. None of the garbage cans held anything either - as if she needed further proof of how fake everything was.
She let out a sigh. She'd just have to use her hands. Honestly, she'd have done that from the first place, but Kevin got annoyed when she drew on the walls.
Sibby knelt down and placed her finger on the ground and... Oh, right. No powers. She frowned, and then looked at the tip of her finger. It wasn't supposed to be black there!
She rubbed it against her thumb.
Ah, grime. She guessed there still were ways this city was like the real New York.
Okay, it felt yucky... but not as bad as if she had to feel it with her power too, so she'd make do. In fact...
Sibby rubbed her fingertip on the grimy place more, and then stood up and wiped it against a building. Not perfect, but that would work.
Right. What did Kevin say to do? Make a list of knows and unknows.
Knows:
-She was with William
-William was dead
-She didn't have a connection with new-William.
-She still knew that he was William Manton. Unlike everything else, he fit her memory exactly, and the Siberian had paid a lot of attention to her creator.
-It couldn't be all in her mind. She'd seen events that she hadn't been around for the first time.
-It probably wasn't time travel, unless time travel was only for her and William, and it also cleaned up places and warped space.
-The world could shatter, with only William and the van being constant.
-She missed Riley and Kevin.
-She was worried about Laila... who was probably dead. Even Riley would have a hard time dealing with partial decapitation and digestion.
-She missed Panda. Her connection to her daughter was still there, the same as Kevin's, and it still felt strange.
Sibby could continue writing down things she knew, but she felt that was probably sufficient.
Unknows:
-Why William was acting so strange. Drugs? She meant, more drugs than normal.
-Did ghosts exist? Could William be a ghost?
-Could she talk to ghosts now?
-Why didn't she have her powers? Aside from her connections to Kevin and Panda.
-How did she get to see things from the past? If they weren't her memories, could they be Williams?
-Why did the world shatter? She needed to make a list of what had happened that might have caused it. Kevin said to check for things like that. He'd also said that correlation didn't imply causation... but she wasn't entirely sure what that meant.
-How Kevin and Riley were doing. They might be getting in trouble without her to keep a watch on them. They weren't invincible after all.
-Why was the sky red?
Sibby stepped back and looked at her work and nodded. She'd done a good job!
So... what was next?
Hmmm... pick an unknown and make a theory? Yeah, that sounded right.
No, no, no, no, no, yes. The world shattering. That seemed like the most important thing right now, and one that she could investigate!
So, why had it shattered?
No. Wait. WHEN had it shattered?
No. Even more importantly, WHERE had it shattered?
She wrote out a list of where she'd been so far: Graveyard. Small town. Graveyard. Riley's town. Graveyard. Some town. Fake New York.
That was the where, what about the when? Most were in response to William's reactions. She'd say something and he'd react, and then the world would go away. Or there was that time she slapped him, but that still provoked a reaction.
There! She'd solved it already! She was so smart!
...Wait.
What was that thing that Kevin had said? Something about about proof and assumptions?
Oh! And counter-examples!
Right!
So, the question to confirm her logic would be... uhm... the counter... That was - 'did the world shatter without William reacting?'
Hm. Yes. Yes, it had. There had been some fractures where she'd hadn't spoken to William. Ones where he hadn't even noticed her. Ones like now.
Sibby looked over from her work. William was still asleep. Would the world shatter if she woke him up? If she slapped him again?
She could perform a test... or she could see if everything centered around her. If the world could shatter from William's reactions, then couldn't it do the same from hers?
Sibby thought about her death.
When William had betrayed Riley. When he had died. When Kevin kept her from dying. Kept both her and Riley alive...
The world shattered.
Yes!
She watched her hard work break apart as the wall she'd written everything down on broke into pieces.
No!
The world changed, and she was alone.
No Kevin. No Riley. But... she did recognize this place! It was where she and Kevin had 'fought'. Where he'd become her creator.
Sibby felt melancholy as she ran her fingers over the walls of the building. It was the same town as she'd been in before. William's van would be... that way, but she couldn't go there. It was too far away. This place had been outside the 'size' of the world before, so it stood to reason that the Van would be outside of 'here'.
Besides, even if it wasn't, William was dead. Sibby didn't want to look at that. She didn't want to think about that.
Huh.
Was that why William never spoke about Natalie? Because her death was something too painful to think about?
The world shattered.
Sibby was back in the graveyard. A painful memory for William. No wonder it was so easy to come here, and so easy to leave. Heh. That was ironic.
Probably. She still didn't quite understand what 'irony' was, but she was pretty sure this qualified.
Sibby smiled. This was a good thing though! The William here was in a lucid state! He could help her! Plus, it would be easy to return if the world broke apart again.
She walked up to him.
"Oh?" He glanced at her. "I'm sorry... Natalie?" William blinked. "No. You're not Natalie are you? You look like her, but you're not." He frowned and bit his thumb. "I got a projection like I wanted, but I didn't get Natalie back... Did I get an information power? That's an uncommon expression for Deus..."
"You have Deja'vu." It was best to clear that up first. Would she have to do this every time she returned? That sounded exhausting. "We've repeated this a few times." Hm, what else? "I'm the Siberian, not Natalie. We're not really 'here', and I'm from the future... I guess. From your point of view?"
William's hand fell from his mouth and he gave her a flat stare. "What?"
...
"So we killed Carl." William nodded. "Getting Rebecca or David would've been better, but managing to kill even one of Cauldron's golden four is an accomplishment.
...
"The Slaughterhouse Nine? I decided that we should join the Slaughterhouse Nine?" William looked at her in disbelief.
"Yep."
William let out a sigh. "I guess that makes sense. Cauldron left them alone because of 'reasons'." He lifted his hands and made air quotes. "Did I tell you why?"
"Not really." Sibby shrugged. "Just that I would fit in there. I think you were lonely."
...
"That's horrible!" William was ranting again. "I mean, I know that the Slaughterhouse Nine did some sick things. I know that you like eating people. I know that they torture and kill entire towns... but..." He buried his face in his palms. "How could we do that to a little girl?"
"We did it to lots of little girls before then." Sibby thought back, but not too hard. She didn't want the world to crack. Natalie was dead. She had to maintain that idea. "She became part of our family. Let me tell you about her cute dress collection!"
...
"So, this Kevin was the next person to join the Slaughterhouse Nine after Bonesaw?"
"Huh?" Sibby tilted her head. "No. There were lots of others in between." So many that even her perfect memory couldn't recall them all.
"Then why are you going into so much detail about him?" William paused. "And why does it matter how you were... posing?"
"Because it's important to set the right image. You taught me that." Sibby smiled. "If my powers were working here, then I could show you how I can make my hair blow without a breeze, or let light pass through me to make my eyes glow!"
"Yes." William looked her up and down, before glancing away. "You are... powerful. And versatile. And with a lot more agency than most projections would have." He nodded. "That was the intended result, and I'm... glad you're you."
"You're just sad I'm not Natalie?" The world cracked a little, but didn't shatter. They couldn't go to a place 'closer' to Natalie.
Probably.
Sibby still wasn't quite sure how this whole thing worked.
"Yes." William immediately looked guilty. "Sorry. It's just... I don't remember you or what we've done." He looked around the graveyard. "I'm still taking everything in, please continue."
...
"Ah, so that's why 'Kevin' was important. He killed Riley." William nodded sagely.
Sibby frowned. "You should be more emotional!"
He held up his hands. "I apologize, but I'm afraid I still don't remember any of this. Or it hasn't happened to me yet. I'm still coming up with theories."
Sibby crossed her arms and glared at him. "You should care. Riley is the cutest, best little sister and daughter in the world!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, continue."
...
"I'm dead."
Cracks started to form in the world.
Natalie's dead. Sibby held onto that thought, and the cracks... lessened. They were still there, but not THERE.
"I'm dead. I succeeded in summoning a version of my daughter, took revenge on Cauldron... and then joined those Slaughterhouse Nine psychos that we left around because the ends justified the means?" William sagged. He started to lean back against Natalie's tombstone before realizing what he was doing. Instead, he opted to kinda... collapse on the ground. "And you ate people? I could share your senses... and you ate people?"
Why did he keep focusing on that part?
"And now... I'm dead. I'm dead, and this is hell." He let out a laugh. "A hell that even Dante couldn't have predicted. A sort of... inadvertent punishment of an artificial version of myself." William gestured around him. "Don't you get it? The entities have ways to store engrams." He looked at her before continuing. "It's us. We're memories. I'm dead, but all I can remember is being here. Drinking the vial that would either kill me or bring Natalie back! How long have I existed in this singular point in time? A perfect cage of my own misery. The alien shard may have forged it, but I provided the blueprints myself!"
"Oh!" Sibby understood. "That makes sense! That's why there are different versions of you!"
"What?" William looked up at her.
...
"And the... cracks... are still there?"
Sibby nodded. William couldn't see them like she could.
"I see. The shard recorded everything... and it's damaged. Or I am." His head sagged between his shoulders. "Something must have changed for you to be here. I might... retain a string of consciousness, or I might be some amalgamation of my experiences." William chuckled. "But what human isn't?" He let out another sigh. "I can't say what the worst fate is, but... from what you've told me... I earned it."
He stretched his hands out the side, before violently slapping them both to his cheeks.
Natalie is dead. Natalie is dead. Oh, wait. William slapping himself didn't seem to break the world.
"Okay. I think I'm ready to hear what happened after. Please continue, Sibby."
...
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" William stopped laughing to take in a deep breath. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I... I can't..." He wheezed a few times as he breathed in and out. "So, the world is safe. Well, not safe, it will still have to deal with humans. I'm sure that it'll be nuked or something, but the near-infinite number of Earths are safe!" He wiped his eyes. "And it was because someone TALKED to Scion!"
"And killed the Simurgh." Sibby added.
"Yes." William laughed again. "And killed the f-ing Simurgh!"
...
"An Artificial Intelligence, huh?" William was lying on his back and gazing at the red sky. "I suppose that's the best choice. Couldn't let a human have all that power, and goodness knows that anyone would be better than Scion. Eh." He shrugged. "If the Shards need a governing force, then... yeah. Fascinating."
...
"Really?" William sounded incredulous. "Really? You aren't making things up are you?"
Sibby blinked. "Why would I do that?"
"It just..." He paused. "It just sounds so bizarre to have all the parahumans essentially playing a video game with their powers."
She shrugged.
...
"Damn." William shook his head. "David did that?" He lowered his head and was silent for a long time. "I have no words. That's... No. I guess I can understand his situation. I've been there. In a way, I'm still there."
...
William scowled. "I knew China couldn't be trusted. They were too much like Cauldron - in all the wrong ways.
...
"Another world, but not an alternate version of Earth?" William sat up. His eyes were figuratively shining. "And it only intersects with a singular Earth? I wonder... Could it have a compression effect like we theorized the Entities did? Or could it be at a ninety degree angle, cosmologically speaking, and only a single version of it intersects with a single version of the Earth?"
Sibby rolled her eyes and waited. William was in one of his 'other' moods. Not a drugged one. Or a rant about something. Or a lecture. No. This was the sort of mood he got when they encountered a particularly 'exotic' parahuman.
He'd tell her to play with them in a certain way, or to see if she could manipulate something new. Of course, Sibby inevitably ate them. Still, it was a better mood than most, even if she didn't understand WHY he was so excited.
"The implications are staggering!" He was walking back and forth now. "Where there's one, there could be two, or three, or ten to the eightieth, or even... infinite! This is an even bigger discovery than the entities! Why, it might be what they were looking for! Infinite, unending. How many..."
Sibby wished she could unsummon herself until William was done. She wanted to finish telling her story.
...
"Slaves." William looked angry. "And they trapped you, and think you're a Djinni?" Sibby nodded. "They can control your body, but not your power?" She nodded again. "Well..." He steepled his fingers and smiled. "I have some ideas."
Oh, she recognized that smile. She liked that smile. That was his 'I'm going to teach you a cool, new way to kill people' smile!