Before Splintering, Cole would have never believed a description the likes of which the strange woman gave him. It sounded more fantasy than reality. She was serious. He could tell it from her face. Before---he'd have thought she was crazy.
No one was crazy now. If anyone was? It'd be him. He was the one skipping back and forth through time. Cole knew it was over for him. There would be no more skips, no more splintering, nothing except living through the ages thanks to his own personal paradox. All he could do was hope for a better world. He remembered when he'd joined up with the West VII. They'd had a saying about hoping in one hand and shitting in the other to see which got filled first. He knew where he stood on the issue.
"That's some advice there. Accept what I'm given and deal with whatever strings are attached to it while I'm trying to cut through them? Great. That's a really surefire way to make it."
Cole had never been the one making the plans. People thought he was the one with the ideas. It was really Ramse. He was only following along, trying to stay alive. Ramse worked with an agenda in mind. He wanted to keep a part of himself human. The only goal Cole had was to stay alive. He'd murdered, maimed, and become more of a monster than he had realized before becoming a part of Project Splinter.
The doctor might be doing it for her own reasons, but it would affect billions. Cole would literally be saving billions. Splinter was bigger than him. It was bigger than Cassie. He had to follow through on it because it was also bigger than Rames's son.
"All I know? I'm going to do whatever I have to do to stay alive here the same as at home. I'll make it. I have to. Too many people are counting on me for me to fail."