[Cortex] Into the Crimson Code [EN] | ходы игроков | Moonlight Rendezvous

  The trip felt in the same time fast and eternal. Officer Braum took quite a scenic route, but there was no time for sightseeing, as the police car glided through the empty streets of the city, embroiled into a tragic event. They rarely even saw another car, and usually it was another white car with bright neon-green and blue decals. Normal people either slept or sit home, there was nothing to do on the streets in a night like this...

  The car stopped, as they reached their destination. Officer proclaimed "We're here. Shall we proceed?" as he exited the car and opened the door to Margareth, reaching with his hand to help her crawl out from the limited space of his Tesla. He was a gentle man in the end... but Helsinc decided not to wait and just did everything on her own. That wasn't supposed to be any sort of a message, she just really wanted to smoke and a couple of times she tried to start in the car, she was stopped by the owner. Now she was free and even happy.

  Then they head out towards the building with the big sign of London Underground above the enter. On a side of it there was a small shop "It's Boba Time", clearly specialized on the boba-tea, which is a sweet tea with tapioca bubbles in it. That was an unnecessary detail, but probably not every universe in the multiverse has reached this concept, so better safe than sorry. Officer knocked a couple of times...

  "Yes-yes?" questioned the cheery voice from the inside. It clearly belonged to an old man: rusty, but warm.

  "We are here for some... hero stuff," Braum had a tough time keeping straight face, as he said it. It was a strange password. In fact, it was also a very bad one. But if it worked...

  "Oh, I expected third one to be a woman," Old Man was definitely surprised to hear the wholesome masculine voice of the officer... or he was just joking, as he opened a door to the side. The stylish aviator-glasses, the fashionable hairstyle, the mustache, this man was clearly young in his heart, but not in a body... "Hello, Miss, the others are already there, but you may come in. I won't even bother you with questions, as you look positively charming."

  In the end he winked, like a charismatic dandy, and then turned away and lead the party down the corridor towards a now-openned door of the elevator-shaft. But not everybody was going to go down... Officer awkwardly waited for a pause and then finally said: "This is where our roads diverge, ladies. I wish you all the best, but I have tons of work and a werewolf on my books."

                  

  Loophole stood before the elevator shaft. There was no elevator in it, no rope, just a tunnel leading down with light at the bottom: around 10 meters below. Climbing here was definitely not an easy task, and to think that somebody may have used it every day... Then there was another tunnel leading to a big chasm or hall, where people were working, while listening to The Wombats' 2003 hit "Let's Dance to Joy Division".

  Looking inside Time-Jesse could see the handsome guy with an emo hair trying to attach a power cable to some sort of a capsule with yet unknows purpose. There was also a girl in wheelchair soldering plates on the table, and an Eel-monster, trying his best. He clearly looked like he didn't belong, but he wasn't too noticeable from the side, so he was doing a great job...

"...Nah, in my world the third Star Wars trilogy is fire. Samuel L Jackson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christoph Waltz, Heath Ledger, Liam Payne... theyre just killin it, I'm telling ya, folks”, Hydra sat above the wire in front of the massive capsule.

He went through numerous hoses, liquid supply systems to the tank and tried to adjust the chim that he pulled out of an old broken coffee maker so that he could count the number of operations performed, instead of the number of cups of coffee served per day. It wasn't easy. Especially when you consider that he used the wrong equipment for assembly.
For the first time in his life, Jesse understood how supervillains feel when they just escaped from prison and are trying to recreate their laboratory from two pizza boxes, a radio and gum. He felt bad for them. But not long enough to shed a tear.

“Especially Bruce Lee: after turning into a Chinese zombie, he began to play just fucking, all his roles are very soulful. And the scenes with Mark Hamill and Yoda?.. Uff”, scientist shook his head, "After we save the world, I'll download the best movies I've seen from the helmet and upload it here. You should see this... even if it hurts the space-time continuum. It's worth it. I swear!"

Widowmaker raiser her eyebrow. "Yeah, see ya later, officer, it's not like you were going to be invited to this... superhero meeting." She looked at Helsinc and the old man. "Seriously, you call THAT secrecy?? Looks like local villains and organized crime aren't even trying at all to find your secret base. By the way, who are you, and what is this place? You probably already know who I am... which is weird, but whatever." The "snake lady's" forked tongue flashed between her lips over and over again, probing the air.

– What a lovely facility.
That guy looked alot like Jessie. His other one? Emo suddenly had found himself in a conversation. As a girl herself.
– G'day, folk. Seems like a rest-capsule, but I don't think...
– Yello, gal. You might want to call some dude called "Moment" in... Oh, like right now, I guess.
– ... it's belong here. Wanna some help with those stem cell regulators?
– So what's the plan, I see he's doing something really interesting. Will join him later, I guess. And who is a BBEG for this time?
– They don't have t-calibrators... This buddy will require better timing in electric stimulator matrix.
– Lemme guess - it's our evil parallel clone? Or another Loophole? Tell me it's another Loophole. Our battle will be legendary!
– Isn't it too much of, emm, everything? I mean this is a rest pod, not a cloning machine... Oh. Oooooh. Wow. For what? I'm something of the scientist myself. Hey, ask her for t-calibrators!
– You have t-calibrators here? No? Well shit. This will be very long days and short nights I guess.

This.
Was.
A Fucking.
Nightmare.

  "Well, they did try. One of them, a couple of times. The others are usually a little less proactive, but they often attack the wheel or good ol' Big Ben, so the risk is worth it. Thanks for your attention."

  "He is strange, hon. But he actually sees a lot, am I right?"

  "Yes, you are. Let me introduce myself, m'ladies. Stanley Lee, or Prophet, or Stan, whichever you prefer. Perhaps, I can see a little bit into the future or maybe know some things about others, I can't tell you too much. I heard one of you loves a good mystery," he dramatically smiled at Helsinc, letting her to know that her joke just bit her back. She just stared back at him with a slight combination of disbelief, amusement and a little bit of disgust. Her mind was comparatively very easy to read. But Mr. Lee on the other hand... "Let me just say that I don't like to know too much. It's a dangerous burden... But a bunch of jokes won't hurt anybody, am I right?"

  His mind was a maze. It's like he was thinking not only for himself. And from that entangled mess to get something valuable was hard. Probably easier would be just to ask..

  "You probably want to know how much do I know about you. Not that much. I know where you from, I know where you came and I knew when you will be here. With others even those were harder to figure out. The first one completely avoided me," he laughed, while putting his hand on the elevator's panel. "The second one... let's just say I had to manually adjust some things, or he would cause my friend down there too much trouble. It would have been funny, of course, but a little bit too much. Down there is the base of Viper."

  He even raised his voice as he was doing this "epic" reveal, but then smiled.

  "Good guys usually know about it and we help them. It's just... now the things have changed, so we need to change too. Or there will be nobody to pay rent... So, you wanna go down? Or you need some proof first?"

                  

  "You must be kidding. You've got Cumberbutch in Star Wars? That should be leet. Not like ours was bad..." Gal definitely had second thought about this statement, but after a second, she dropped them. She was ready to back up her statement.

  "It was. Objectively. They just tried to replicate the original trilogy without any passion and in the end published the rubbish cashgrab," Eel, who watched all the films on DVD before getting caught, was definitely not a big fan of the way the third trilogy of this universe was unveiled.

  "Yeah, but then they dropped this show about Palpatine or something. Now that was shit. Oprah Winfrey as his wife was the only highlight."

  "I was in jail, so sadly, can't comment on that, but I'll gladly watch this version of trilogy... Wait, what continuum?"

  "Yes, fuck space-time continuum!" Gal inspiringly shook her hand with the red hot soldering iron. "By the way, Hydra, the cables are too short, are you sure the extension lead will manage the power?"

  But the answer would wait, as the Jesse-intruder showed himself. He casually walked in one conversation with like... five of them in the same time. Gal tried to follow along, but got stuck on the first one addressed directly to her.

  "Moment? You mean... Oh, well, if you say so. You seem like a time-breaker Mr. Lee told about..." she casually reached for her phone and started searching for the contact to call. "And we have no t-calibrators. They are with tablecloths. Extinct. Gone. Why does everybody comes here and demands something I don't have?" She wasn't angry or disappointed, she was just casually shit talking with a smile on her face.

  "Yes," answered Eel.

Widowmaker shook her head. Some abysses should better be left not gazed into. She once tried reading Angel's mind and... she looked into her mind just for a second, but what she saw was ENOUGH, or more so.
"Stan Lee? Stan Lee??" thanks to Trevor, this name was familiar to Margaret, and... "Look, if you tell me I'm a comic book character, and you're my creator, start breaking the fourth wall and other stuff, I'll... I'll be fully convinced that it's all a dream."
"Proof? No, to hell with it. Answers - yes. WHY I am here? I guess it has something to do with my alter from this universe, who is a dude... WAS a dude and is now dead..." Widowmaker paused. "And, also - after I'm done with whatever you want me to be done with here, will I return to my own world?" She looked at Stan intently. "I realize, this world no longer has a hero like me, but now MY world doesn't have me. I've got my friends, Onlyfans subscribers, people to help, scores to settle, businesses to finish... PLEASE don't tell me I'm stuck here forever." The snake girl bared her fangs in a very menacing manner.

  "No, not Stan. But I like how he looked and fashioned myself accordingly. I am... a little bit not entirely physical, as you can guess. This is a mere vessel. But I like this simple life of night guard of a boba-shop. By the way your friend is the same, just with more extreme taste..."

  "Do not start about it, please," Helsinc was defensive about something. Well, her mind really was outside of her body, but was it something to worry about?

  "Okay-okay. In the end, I am not a creator... but also I can create... It's hard. I will explain it, though. You can trust me. And also you will be able to go back... Or you will die. So it's in our best interest to assist you in getting back," he finally looked entirely serious. No dumb smiles, no attempts to joke. Just deadass seriousness. He wants to help... but can't do much. That she can read in his mind. "I'll explain my predicament, and yours, down there. Others are also waiting for an explanation. Also they are guys, so be ready for some strange questions."

  The elevator shaft had actually no elevator, but Stan pushed a button and on the side appeared a ladder to climb down. It was mostly for him, as the girls were fit enough to just straight up jump. Then the tunnel that leads to a hall. There was nothing in particular to say about it, just an old tunnel. Quite narrow, so they had to go by one, but at least there were no forks to actually harden the navigation. Already the group could hear voices coming from the hall. There were like three or four of them. Secrecy was definitely not the strongest part of this place...

"Sometimes a simple "yes" or "no" is enough," Widowmaker grimaced, struggling to filter out the tiny bits of actually useful information from his long monologue. She walked to the elevator shaft, and... yes, she jumped down, slowing her fall by clawing at the walls. With a soft "smack!" she landed on the floor below and stood straight, her arms crossed.
"What, you're all Vipers here? I'm not sure if four is too much or not enough... and you must be the heroic sidekick of... someone?" she looked at the Gal. "Looks like I'm the Smurfette... or Viperette..." she grimaced. "Sorry, I'm kinda in a bad mood today after I've been snatched from my own world for some mysterious heroic reasons," she did the "air brackets" gesture. "You too, I guess?"

“In my world, they wanted to start a Rogue Trade series starring Bruce Lee, but then his revived wife was kidnapped by an old Chinese sorcerer and went to save her along with Raining Man, Tuning Fork and Red Dragon, and the series was canceled,” with sadness in his voice said Jesse after hearing about the Palpatine series.

"By the way, is there a Dr. Moth in this world too?", Hydra looked back at them. He caught the glances of his comrades. They weren't really sold on that. He explained slowly:

"Well, you know... the talking super sly moth replaces some of the words with moth-puns", looked at the Eel, then at the girl and threw up his hands, "I'm serious, I swear!"

“YOU DON'T?!”, Jesse leaned back, “Holy. Fuck. This place is great!”

“What ‘what continuum’?”, he innocently double asked to the Eel.

"In theory, my being in this world without a special device that would tie me to this universe has a bad effect on my structure and the structure of the fabric of the universe around me. But ... this is the problem of the future Jesse!” brushed aside the problem, “And even more so, the collapse of the world or my decay will not happen for at least three more days," Eel Hydra assured, still senselessly tinkering with electronics,

"What is more important ... what is the percentage of real estate tax in this world you say?..", the guy squinted.

They did not have time to answer his questions, because at the same moment another Jesse with clones broke into the room. Or not with clones? Hydra caught a snippet of time manipulation and nodded to himself. Yes. This version of him was about t-calibrators and timers, so he's some kind of time travel guy... what was his name? Tommy? Lenny? Jimmy?.. In general, like the Black Express!
He got up and stood next to the cloning pod. He sighed heavily, wiping sweat from his forehead. Hydra briefly introduced himself: "Jesse James, but you can call me Dr. Hydra." He smiled at his new acquaintance and held out his oil-and-coffee-smeared hand. He smelled of chemicals, metal, and baby food.

"Yeah, I could use help," Hydra took a couple of steps away from the capsule, "Gal is right. The wires are too short. The timer I ripped out of the coffee maker... is hardly accurate enough. The machine needs some extra tuning. Even with the fact that its main power and calculations will be produced by my helmet after connection"


"It's a replication chamber" Hydra remarked, "we need it for…"

His alternate didn't even listen to Hydra and continued speaking as if he already knew the answer. It somehow reminded him of communicating with himself. When the clone has already read your intent over the synoptic link. Slightly strange experience. Especially when you yourself do not read other people's thoughts and intentions.

"But even with this wire and timing... you can do a test run"

"Hey, Eel, buddy," he said to the monster, "You said you have particular tastes... what do you eat?"

"Let's try to clone something for you for dinner and find out where the problems are ... and whether it will work at all"

When Jesse heard a woman's voice, he froze. His hand naturally reached for his breast pocket with adrenaline, and he was ready to inject it into his heart and start the mutation to turn into an Aberration. Helmet would still not have time to put on. But when he turned and looked at the newcomer, he exhaled:

"It's not Medusa!", Hydra sat down on the capsule wearily, "Thank God"

"You scared the hell out of me!" he said to Margaret, "...But yes. Hello! My name is Jessie, but the locals call me Dr. Hydra. We're kind of like alternate versions of the Viper too. Make yourself at home. The girl in the chair is Gal-in-a-Chair, The big snake man is Eel... he's not an alternate version of Viper, too dramatic for that. This guy here... also an alternate Viper" pointed at Loop.

– Hai-i-i!
Both... All of Loopholes, because there was a new one right at the doors, greeted her in a unison.
– Mkay, dude, lemme check something.
Jessie, who was closest to Jessie, pluged some wires to the machine. His watch seems... Advanced. Pretty much futuristic. Holographic display, universal connectior. It even writed drivers for the chamber by itself.
– It will take some time, sorry. Can't push Q-tech any further. Even with Uroboros.
– So, your name is Jessica? My mom said that her choice for a girl was "Margaret", but I dunno, sounds pretty plain.
– Come on, gal, I'm new in town, remember? Who knows what you have and what not. Maybe you have a singer talent? Tell me, sweetheart, who's trying to make a time-space continuum into his playground? Even I don't know how someone can travel through timelines by will. Actually, I thought it was impossible.
– Yeah, timer is a piece of crap. It doesn't even count global time, only local with a quartz crystal. It's like a century old tech. I can build a better one, but not without some osmium and liquid nitrogen. Or just use a bunch of them with a better soft to minimize error.
– I'm not sure what that one is a Viper. Actually, I am not a Viper... Almost not a viper, it was my codename before Loophole. Sheesh, dude, we are hot, aren't we?
The last one was addressed to Hydra.

"Whoa!" Widowmaker suddenly felt startled and embarrassed by Hydra's reaction. "Easy, man, I don't even know who's that Medusa you're talking about, it's been only an hour since I got in this world!"
Then she looked at the "twins"... doubles? Different version of the same person from different... timelines? "You remind me... of a friend I once had... but he's my friend no more. Are all chronokineticists... like THAT?" She grimaced. "Why EVERYONE in this world tries calling me some stupid names?" She didn't say that Loophole was pretty accurate... and that was kinda sus. "Call me Widowmaker. Because I make widows. But all the widows I made were married to really bad people. And by "really bad people" I mean drug lords, human trafficers and other criminal scum of the earth. Actually..." she looked at the other people in the room, "it may be important to know: on a scale from 1 to 10, how much against killing bad guys you are?"

– Nope, that's my niche, I don't think there are much more chronoskimmers here, nonetheless chronokinetics. Oh, you about this... There are no t-calibrators, can you believe it? This is like in my nightmares! So, I assumed that I can, you know, squeeze more time in a conversation. Widowmaker? So edgy, I almost cutted a tongue on that one. Define "Bad Guy", then I'll tell you my score on an idea to, emm, kill someone.
It was obvious that Loophole wasn't comfortable with this idea.

"Look, I would love to be a girly-girl, wearing all pink and battling bad guys with the power of LOVE, but... not with my biography," Widowmaker grimaced again. "Oh, lemme think... A drug addict who killed and robbed some innocent civilians to pay for another dose of crack. His drug dealer. A regular mobster who kills people when his boss tells him. A psycho who kills people because it's fun. A RICH psycho who kills people because it's fun and his money and lawyers can get him away with anything. A vigilante who thinks he's doing the right thing but frequently endangers innocents... no, I'm not talking about myself. A vigilante who thinks all black, queer or non-Christian people are evil. A child molester. A telepathic rapist who brainwashes girls. A corrupt pedophile senator. A human trafficker who supplies him with little girls. Okay, that's all the colors of the spectrum - did I miss anything?"

"I'm sorry. It's my own fault. With all this world travel, I'm a little bit… overreact to some things”, Jesse calmed down and tried to explain his reaction. He shrugged and nodded to the girl:

"Anyway, it's always nice to see an alternate version of me that isn't a bloodthirsty vigilante or crazy warmonger," Hydra told cheerfully, smiling at her new acquaintance and lowering his glasses.

And then she introduced herself. JJ looked around at the others:

“Part about ‘bloodthirsty vigilante’ — scrap it, this is better than crazy warmonger”

"So... ya killin dudes? Neat. Kinda fucked up, but I'm not to judge”, shrugged it off.

“I'm against it... seven times out of ten", Jesse immediately explained “Not like ama some great moralizer or paragon of justice, but i believe in two things: some people, even even the nastiest ones, may have a second chance… it first thing”, doctor lifted one finger, “And I believe that for some, the most disgusting bastards, death is too easy an escape from a well-deserved punishment… this is the second thing”, slowly raised a second finger.

"Many of those we call villains still have a chance of redemption... but some of them do not, unfortunately. And so we must not kill both the first and second", he folded his arms across his chest.

"For the firsts, we must help integrate into society, repay our mistakes and become the best versions of themselves. They deserve better. We… still deserve better"

“For the seconds... well… the human body can most often be killed only once, but the ‘soul’ can be killed an infinite number of times. So... let's not kill their bodies, r8?”

– Err... The Creator himself? If we are really going to the roots of all evil, I mean. Dunno, in my timeline most of the villains are even psychos, who need mental help, or they have some point to prove. I mean, nobody kills for fun if they are sane. Also, what do you mean by "lawyers and money"? How much money you'll even need to get yourself out of rehab after a murder, nonetheless massacre? And how many can you kill before anyone will notice without a weapon arsenal or any help?
All that was odd. Too odd. Loophole remembered that "Witch hunt" shit and opened the Internet.
– Hey, gal... Is this statistics true? I mean, by it there are at least 100 murder in town per day.
Another site. Same shit. Wait... He runned his searcher program. Decentralized physical money, or cash? What are those weapon laws, like he can just buy a gun without tracker and AI-limiter? Mutant dilemma... Why alcohol is not banned!? But weed is, wtf? World War... Second one!?
– You tested nukes here!? Why the fuck would anyone use it on his planet? IN AN ACTUAL WAR!?.. Wow. Okay, point taken. If you's world even remotely like that, and I guess it is, that's fucked up. Big time. I have absolutely no idea what's going on here and how you all were not wiped out by the great filter, gal... Yeah...

"Fuck. Why did I even think speaking about it was a good idea?!" Margaret mumbled to herself.
"OK, OK, don't get me wrong... it's not like I believe in that "all crimes are equal" bullshit... I totally agree that most criminals should be handed over to the police, most psychos need therapy and medications, most murderous vigilantes can be reasoned with... well, you can't always succeed, but at least you can try. I am... somewhere between nine and minus two depending on the circumstances." She forced herself to give the guys a wide smile. "Wow, you're calling ME edgy? One says "the God Almighty is the root of all evil", the other one "I'm against killing people, because for some of them killing them would be NOT ENOUGH". I guess we'll make an excellent team... I promise not to kill anyone without your consent. Actually... where's that old man who was supposed to tell us WHOM we are actually going to fight?"
"What?" she raised her eyebrow (but it was hard to see it under her domino mask). "You didn't have nukes used in your dimension?? Wow... or Haigerloch, Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't count? Or..." she frowned, "you meant, in this world, they used nukes more than thrice??"

"What do you mean by 'how'?", Jesse smiled cheerfully at Loophole, "The reasons why this world has not yet burned to the ground and we have not been devoured by the eldritch gods are sitting right in front of you!", waved his hands to everyone in this room, "Your welcome, pal. Our work is not much, but it is an honest work, you know"

"Hey, I never said I wasn't edgy!" Hydra even got a little indignant at Widow's words.

– They using them right now! In a desert, tho. Test run. Why there is no constant nuclear winter... Ah! They use uranium in it instead of...
He looked around.
– Spoilers, sorry. That answers why this world is... whole and not a new asteroid belt around a star. We used the same construction in Sol-4 colonization program. To create, or to be more specific, restore an ionsphere. Okay, then it is kinda understandable. In my world we tested our nuclear in space. It was like the second sun for an hour. If to belive videos.

  "Wow-wow, I'm kinda losing my mind here...but I'm with Hydra here. Killing is often too easy. And I don't wanna crumble the hell with our problems too much. Devil is a busy man..." for Helsinc three arguing alters were too much. They were similar in some ways, but their lives is what defines them and those were some really different lives. "Also helps, that I deal with undead. Killing them is way too much work, I tell you. Much easier to dress them up and put them into the dungeon. But that's just my opinion, I am a little bit of a wildcard here... Hey, mister, can I smoke here?"

  Her question was met with silence, as Stanley just shook his head, declining her request. Before the answer she already started looking through the pocket, so she disappointingly stopped and instead just rubbed her own face with hands and sighed. Helsinc had no authority here, so following the rules was the only way to stay here for her.

  "There was actually four," Gal corrected Widowmaker. "Something-something-giant monster. Spoiled the Pacific for years, until some magical Apollo-tech helped to clean it from radiation. Guy won back-to-back Nobel Peace Prizes and Monster is still nowhere to be found by the way..." Gal was a fan of this monster, whatever it was. It was clear just from one look through the dirty mags, half of which had some type of dinosaurs, and a couple had those «Gidorah» arts printed on them. Or those could have been Viper's, but something about this idea didn't resonate well with any of the alters. "And yes, those stats are bullshit. This city isn't safest but Liverpool is much more worse."

  "Yes, lady is right, I wanted to tell you something important," Stanley walked across the room, just for a handshake with Hydra. "Pleased to meet you. Stanley Lee. Anyway, everybody is here... Everybody who I saw to be here at least. Now let me explain your predicament..."

  He moved to the center of the room, standing by the cloning chamber. Something about this thing in the middle of the hall, felt right. Like the design of this place clearly supported the addition of such a device. And Stanley noticed it too, carefully placing his hand on the frame.

                    

  "Three days ago Viper... Our Viper had found the secret lab somewhere under the city. Whatever this lab's goal was, they built something terrible, and so Viper tried to stop the experiment. It all went out of control after that. The images a blurry and the only thing I know for real is that Viper basically shoved himself in the machine and then... he died. But the machine was broken and this experiment was stopped... And then they fixed it today. As you can guess the machine is something with capability of moving between the universes. That's why we call it UniCollider. And the first thing it did was to bring y'all here. Probably has something to do with Viper being inside before it turned off..."

  All this time he was walking an only now stopped for a moment. Not for questions, though, he just found himself besides the Gal's table and non-chalantly took her tea and made a sip, then moved his hand, inviting Gal to continue.

  "Yeah, and you were snatched from your universes without any synchronization. The problem is that it's lethal. Potentially. Your bodies are already decaying rapidly. That's how I found you so easy. Those things leave nasty trails, so meteorological stations easily detect the radiation spikes and then I had to listen to the police reports to find a hero to call," Gal clearly was proud of herself. "And so... we need to get you back to your worlds. I'd say two days and you are a Swiss cheese. I'd like to just try and synchronize you, but sadly that's just beyond me and the only person who could help... well, that's another problem. He would rather die than help. But you still have to find him..."

  Gal slowly made her way to her computer station with an excessive set of monitors, chose one of the screens and pressed Alt+Tab a couple of times, scrolling through month-long news about some random football match of Fulham, a browser with 53 open tabs, all of which were definitely needed, Mario Cart on the Rainbow Road, paused in an attempt to ragequit, and finally a bunch of photos. It was too hard to get anything from the thumbnails and she wasn't opening them yet and finally being quiet to allow some questions...

Margaret froze. She couldn't help but take a look at herself for any signs of bodily decay... seriously, if she noticed any, she would panic. Now she even more wanted this all to be a dream and to wake up home.

"Where is this guy?!" she ALMOST managed to not make her voice tremble, but her hands and knees were still shaking. "You said he would rather die than help?!" she bared her teeth. "Fuck, I know I've been talking way too often about killing people, but you just told me I've only got two days to live!
And where's that machine?? You could detect US - so you probably should've been able to detect IT too, haven't you? Haven't you???"

– Possibly, no.
There was only one Loophole now. When did he managed to reduce his number?
– I mean, he obviously can synchronize, so he will not release any radiation. Tho, I guess, I also should have some kind of resistance, due to my paradox resistance. Or not. Maybe Uroboros screens from it, I have literally no fucking clue.
He was very calm for someone who just been told that he is going to die. Old news for him?
– Anyway. Do you have any data about that UniCollider? Maybe I'll be able to see something new. I mean, my world is really good in that 4-dimentional thinking. How much harder 5D can be? Pass it here, if you don't mind. Wanna join to the analysis, pal?
Jessie shook his watch, indicating where he wants that data, and asked Hydra for a help in that.

  "That's the important part... We don't know. Should be in prison, but you already know about breakout, so in this chaos finding him is hard. And we can't detect the machine either," Gal once again alt-tabbed to show some strange graph. "Here. This is the approximate time of an activation and the amount of the according anomalies in the day of Viper's death."

  The graph was basically nonexistent, as it was zeroed all throughout and then had a peak at around 10k cases around 9pm. Then it continued oscillating around 618. She then clicked showing the graph with a small peak at 3am.

  "And here is today. As you can see first run had a huge effect, and every station in the 30 km radius detected something. And now there is nothing, only your appearances. They probably screened the whole thing. UniCollider itself is of course synchronized. Cases are objects that were desynced by its activation. One of them is constantly moving between stations, that's a train. Whole freaking train desynced. There are also some people. Currently there are doctors trying to help them, but sadly you don't have the time to wait for their breakthrough... And all the data I have is analytical. I have no design docs, I don't know how it works, who built it or where it stationed. Everything I use is here, so I can give you access, see what you can find..."

  She was frustrated. A little bit. Also pumped up. Finally she met somebody who was willing to take action.

  "Thing is, we need to get somebody who would know something useful... These are escapees, who police wasn't able to catch."

  She returned back to the list. There was a bunch of aliases with faces. Chelsea: a small girl with blue hair and no emotions on the photo. Division, who looked identical to Chelsea, but she was smiling and her hair was colored in the toxic pink. Eel, who didn't need an introduction. While looking at his own face, he averted the gaze from the screen. If he could blush he probably would have. Fafnir, a red-haired guy in a beanie. He didn't look like a big-time villain, more like a street vandal. You could almost see him standing on the skate while this photo was taken. Marilyn, woman in almost army-attire topped with a beret and short hair, who looked oddly familiar to Margareth. Python, whose unshaved face was leaking charisma and experience of a man who saw a lot. Gal paused on his image, like she was collecting strength, before clicking once again and showing the disgusting partially reptile face of the last fugitive, called Varanidae.

  "That's all of them. They are all dangerous and famous... except Eel. I believe that at least some of them would be recruited for this project, so I thought that finding some them and defeating them is much easier than looking through the whole city..."

  She clicked once again showing the whole list on the screen. And waited for the feedback on the idea.

"Can anyone translate this technobabble to me?" Widowmaker was growing impatient. "Or at least tell me what to do, where to go, and whose face to punch. Okay, listen, you've told about a man who can... do something about this desynchronization stuff. You know WHO he it, and he is one of the escapees, right? - WHICH one? Ah, crap, we don't know where they are anyway... Any suggestions where we could look for them? Hey, it's my first day in London, I've never been here before!"

"So you're a Yankee?" Hydra laughed melodiously at Margaret's first day in London, "Welcome! Holy crap, you'll love it here. I promise you," wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye while laughing, "I hope you took with you your protection against magic knives and a dictionary for translating from the language of snobs"