The Universe's Mixer

The resource drain was isolated now, but the root cause of the resource drain took more diagnostics before the source became clear: the time/space flux between the dying planet and the one to which the others had escaped had caused parts of the timeline multiplicity subroutine to fail.

The City had patched the subroutine so that no further violations of one of its basic protocols occurred in similar circumstances. With the root cause corrected, the City turned its attention toward resolving the matter of the existing multiplicity.

Logically, the cleanest solution was to combine the multiple entities together, retaining the oldest body and absorbing the younger one, yet transferring the memories of the younger one into the older. The City had learned from its past dealings with its humans, and knew that they valued their individuality. In this way, that individuality would be preserved. The City also did not have to concern itself with issues of returning one or the other to their own timeline - of which there was but one - when the moment came to do so. But another lesson that The City had learned was that its humans were a variable that wasn't precise.

For this reason, The City decided to run a test - a single fix, to ensure that the variables that humanity introduced would not exceed the limits of acceptability.

It chose 4:10 AM as the most statistically probable time when both versions of Evey Hammond would be sleeping. Such a fix would be better handled were the minds already calm.

test >> break.Fix: execute

Her eyes snapped open. From years of practice, her body stayed very still even as her heart continued its thundering. There was no screaming. There was no jolting upright. She held her breath to keep from making a sound. These were things she'd learned in London; things that she'd drilled into herself to keep her safe when panic set in.

And she was in full panic mode.

When she knew she could control her breathing, she quietly slipped away from the bed and went to the living room. Unlocking the window where she often sat, Evey Hammond stuck her entire torso outside and took five long, hard breaths. The cool, slightly damp night air filled her lungs almost painfully. It did nothing, however, to clear her head.

And her head was full of memories that were not hers. She had never gone to a festival with Aidan. She had not arrived at The City by being pulled directly off that broken world. She hadn't felt so free - and so terrified - in a very long time. Evey didn't know what to make of it, but she was no longer herself. And yet, she still remembered the island filled with dinosaurs. She remembered Aidan's truck eaten whole by the white spaces that the broken world created. She remembered grieving silently for him - she remembered quietly falling apart when The City pulled them all here.

But there was nothing she could do about any of it. So she kept breathing and waited for her heart to stop trying to flee from her ribcage. Sometime before the sunrise, she reached into the link between herself and Peter - and found that there was no bright, younger echo of herself anymore. Evey thought she knew why, too.