A new figure appeared on the sidewalk.
She was walking toward them with the unhurried grace of someone who had nowhere to be and all day to get there. A woman in her thirties, with a neat bob haircut and far too many crystals hanging from her neck. In one hand, she carried a canvas bag stuffed with what appeared to be dried herbs.
Bill froze.
There was something about her. Something familiar. The way she moved. The way she held her head. The way—
Splock's voice was quiet. "'Wasn't exactly Illyria.' A classic presentation. Like Tesora at Messer Dimitri's ball. The same essence, but in a different body. Clean memory slate. No recollection of previous incarnations."
Bill took a step forward. "Illyria? Is that—"
Splock's hand on his arm stopped him. "She does not know you. She does not know any of us. To approach would be to confuse her and potentially alert the household."
The woman—Illyria-adjacent, Illyria-shaped, Illyria-in-all-but-memory—walked past them without a glance. Her eyes were fixed on the York residence. On something moving in the yard.
Ryder.
The dog had been dozing in a patch of sun, his multicolored fur rising and falling with each labored breath. At the woman's approach, his head lifted. His mismatched eyes focused. His tail began to wag.
He launched himself at her with the enthusiasm of a creature who had never learned restraint.
The woman laughed—a sound that made Bill's chest ache with its familiarity—and bent to pet him. Ryder writhed with joy, pressing his massive body against her legs, leaving streaks of drool on her skirt.
He shook his head.
A spray of saliva arced through the air like a fountain of pestilence. Most of it landed on the grass. Some on the woman's dress. One single, perfectly aimed droplet flew directly into her open mouth.
She gagged.
Coughed.
Made a sound like a drowning cat.
Her eyes rolled up in her head. Her body went rigid. And then, with the slow dignity of a felled tree, she collapsed onto the lawn.
Ryder looked down at her. His tongue emerged. He licked her face. Once. Twice. With increasing enthusiasm.
She did not move.
Ham Duo watched the scene unfold with the expression of a man who had just witnessed something that would require decades of therapy to process.
"The dog," he said slowly, "just killed a psychic with its spit. I have been across the galaxy. I have seen things that would break lesser men. But I have never—" He paused. "That is a new one. Definitely a new one."
The front door burst open again. Karen York flew onto the lawn, her face a mask of maternal panic mixed with suburban horror—the kind of horror that comes from finding dead childcare on your grass.
"Miss Jo! Miss Jo!" She dropped to her knees beside the prone woman, shaking her shoulders with increasing desperation. "Wake up! Please wake up! The children—I have appointments—you can't just—"
Miss Jo did not wake up. Miss Jo was, to use the technical term, extremely deceased.
Karen looked up, wild-eyed, searching for help. For an ambulance. For anyone.
What she got was a old man with a beard that could have nested small birds, shuffling into the yard from the street. He wore what appeared to be a burlap sack with arm holes, and clutched to his chest a wooden model of something that looked vaguely boat-shaped. Tiny carved animals spilled from its interior as he shook it at the sky.
"Forty days and forty nights!" he bellowed. "I warned you! I built the ark! Did you listen? No! You laughed! You pointed! You said 'Crazy old man with a boat fixation'! Well, who's laughing now? The flood is coming! The animals are restless! The—" He noticed the tiny giraffe that had fallen to the ground. "Oh dear."
He bent to retrieve it, nearly toppling over in the process.
Bill watched this with the expression of someone who had long ago given up on understanding anything. "Local crazy," he decided. "Hired by a pet store. Promotional thing. Zoo opening, maybe."
Splock's ears twitched. "I am not certain. The garment appears authentically ancient. The model is consistent with descriptions of the Noah's Ark narrative from Earth's religious texts. It is possible the Historian has extracted another temporal refugee."
"Noah? Like, boat Noah? Animals two-by-two Noah?"
"That is the reference, yes."
"He's real?"
"Apparently."
"And he's here. In Brooklyn. Shouting about floods."
"The Historian's temporal extractions do not appear to follow logical selection criteria."
A sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. The door opened.
Counter-Dirk emerged.
He moved with the calm of a man who had just returned from a successful business meeting and expected the universe to arrange itself around his convenience. His suit was immaculate. His hair was perfect. His expression suggested that finding a dead woman and a ranting prophet on his front lawn was mildly annoying but not outside the range of normal experience.
He surveyed the scene. The body. The prophet. The prophet's scattered animal collection.
"Get rid of this," he said.
It was unclear whether he meant the corpse or the old man. Possibly both.
The sedan's other door opened.
A woman stepped out. Her back was unnaturally straight—the kind of posture achieved only by military cadets, professional dancers, and people who had been assembled in factories. Her chest was... impressive. Also unnaturally straight. It looked less like anatomy and more like architecture, as if someone had attached two cantaloupes to her ribcage and hoped for the best.
Counter-Dirk gestured toward her with the expansive pride of a man presenting a new appliance. "Karen, this is Lisa Roselli. Our new nanny. For Delia and Alexander."
Lisa smiled. It was a smile that had been practiced. Rehearsed. It reached her lips but not her eyes, which remained flat and watchful.
She walked toward the prophet. Her gait was wrong—too smooth, too mechanical, the hips moving in a way that suggested the operator had read about female locomotion in a manual but never actually observed it.
"Come along, sir," she said, taking Noah's arm with surprising gentleness. "Time for your medication."
Noah pulled back. "I don't need medication! I need a boat! And two of every—"
"Medication first. Boats later." Her voice was soothing. Firm. The voice of someone who had dealt with difficult patients before.
She steered him toward the house. He went reluctantly, still clutching his ark, still muttering about rainfall projections and animal husbandry.
Bill watched them go. Something about Lisa's walk bothered him. It wasn't just mechanical—it was wrong. The wrong shape moving in the wrong way.
"Did you see that?" he whispered. "Her walk. It's not—"
"Not female," Duo agreed. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's a man in a very unconvincing disguise. The kind of disguise you'd get from a catalog that also sells whoopee cushions and fake vomit."
"You think Counter-Dirk hired a drag queen nanny?"
"I think Counter-Dirk hired something. Whether it's a drag queen, a robot, or a very confused actor, I couldn't say."
The front door opened again.
Delia emerged.
She had changed outfits—somehow found time to change outfits—and now wore something that looked like it belonged in a music video that would be banned in several countries. Her hair bounced. Her hips swayed. She walked past the body of Miss Jo without a glance, without a pause, without any indication that she noticed a dead woman on her lawn.
She approached the fence. Her eyes found Splock.
"Uncle with the ears," she purred. "Are you staying? I like your ears. They make something flutter inside me."
Splock's face underwent a series of micro-expressions that no human could have interpreted. His ears flattened. His eyes widened. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.
Then, without warning, he toppled backward onto the grass.
Ham Duo dropped to his knees beside him. "Splock! Splock, are you—" He looked up at Bill, eyes wide with theatrical concern. "The ears. She mentioned the ears. That's his weakness. The one thing that can bring down a Fortinbrasian—a child with a fetish."
Bill rushed over. "Is it the sleeping sickness again? Did it come back?"
Splock's eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow. He looked, to all appearances, dead.
Delia watched from the fence, her expression one of mild curiosity. "Did I do that?"
Bill ignored her. He grabbed Splock's shoulders. "Wake up! We don't have time for this! The clock—"
From the corner of the yard, a new sound intruded. A tinny melody, cheerful and repetitive. An ice cream truck had rounded the corner and was making its way down the street, its rainbow paint job gleaming in the afternoon sun.
Delia's head snapped around.
For a moment, the mask slipped. The precocious seductress vanished, replaced by something simpler. A child. A child who saw ice cream and wanted it.
She ran.
The truck stopped. The vendor—a heavyset man with an apron and the weary expression of someone who had dealt with too many children—opened his window.
Delia pointed at the freezer. Demanded something. The exact words were lost, but the tone was unmistakable: Give me. Free.
The vendor shook his head. Pointed at a sign. Made the universal gesture for money first.
Delia looked at him.
Just looked.
The vendor's hands began to shake. The ice cream cone he was holding—destined for some other child, some other customer—slipped from his fingers and hit the ground. Then the bucket behind him tipped over. Then he tipped over, collapsing against the side of his truck with a look of profound confusion on his face.
Delia reached into the freezer, extracted a brightly colored frozen treat, and walked back toward the house without a backward glance.
Ham Duo finally found his voice. He whistled, long and low.
"That kid," he said, "has a real gift for persuasion."
He reached down and slapped Splock across the face. Once. Twice.
Splock's eyes snapped open. He sat up, adjusted his jumpsuit, and resumed scanning the scene as if nothing had happened.
Bill glared at him. "You faked it. You actually faked unconsciousness to avoid talking to a child."
"Not faked. Protective reflex. Fortinbrasians possess an involuntary response to extreme social awkwardness—we appear to expire. It discourages further interaction."
"You played dead."
"I rendered myself temporarily unresponsive. It is a documented biological mechanism."
"Because a little girl flirted with you."
"Her intentions were unclear. Her pheromone output was irregular. I took appropriate precautions."
Duo was still wheezing. "Best. Mission. Ever."
A deafening crash erupted from inside the house. The front door burst open, and Lisa stumbled out, her perfect hair now a disaster of loose curls and dangling curlers. Her expression was pure panic—the first genuine emotion they'd seen on her face.
Behind her, Noah emerged.
Walking was generous. He staggered, listing badly to port, his legs moving in directions that suggested no coordination with his inner ear. On his head, improbably, impossibly, sat a piano.
A small one. An upright. The kind that might have lived on a second-floor landing or in a modest music room. How it had gotten onto his head was a question for architects and theologians. That it stayed there was a miracle of poor design.
Noah took two steps. Three. His eyes crossed.
The piano, with the solemn dignity of an object fulfilling its destiny, played a final chord—a discordant jangle of keys pressed by the weight of prophecy and gravity—as Noah collapsed.
The instrument hit the grass with a thump that echoed through the neighborhood.
Ham Duo stared. His face went through several expressions: confusion, recognition, and then a soft, unexpected wistfulness.
"A piano," he murmured. "A real piano. Just like—" He trailed off, a distant look in his eyes. "The ball at Messer Dimitri's. The candlelight. The audience. Me at the keys, playing little light piano music. Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings. My finest hour."
Bill looked at him. "You're nostalgic. At a time like this."
"A man can have feelings."
"Since when?"
"Apparently since I saw a piano fall on a prophet. It's a weird trigger."
Splock's chronometer beeped aggressively. He ignored it, watching the house.
The front door opened again.
Dr. Hastings stepped out.
He was dressed in a jacket now—a nice one, expensive, the kind that said "I have disposable income and opinions about wine." One hand was tucked casually into his pocket. The other hung at his side, fingers relaxed.
He surveyed the scene. The dead psychic. The dead prophet. The piano. Lisa, still twitching with panic.
Then his gaze shifted. Directly to the bushes where three future beings were trying very hard to be invisible.
He smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
And then he gestured. A clear, unmistakable come here motion. The kind of gesture that said "I see you, I've always seen you, and pretending otherwise is just wasting everyone's time."
Bill shook his head. "No. No way. I am not walking into that house because a not-Viking with a glitchy voice box told me to. That's insane. That's—"
Splock's chronometer beeped. Loudly. Obnoxiously. The sound seemed designed specifically to burrow into Bill's skull and set up permanent residence.
"Seventy-three minutes," Splock said.
"I don't care!"
"It is counting down whether you enter the house or not."
"I'd rather spend them here. In this bush. Eating leaves."
"That is your prerogative. However, the statistical probability of resolving our mission from inside a hedge is approximately zero."
Bill opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. Opened it again.
"You're enjoying this," he said.
"I am experiencing a mild satisfaction at watching you struggle with basic logic. Whether that constitutes 'enjoyment' is a matter for Fortinbrasian philosophers."
Hastings gestured again. His smile widened.
Duo clapped Bill on the shoulder. "Come on, soldier. If he wanted us dead, he could have done it already. He's curious. We're curious. Let's go be curious together."
Bill looked at his friends. At the house. At the chronometer, which was now making sounds that seemed designed to attract predators.
He went.
The York residence was exactly what you'd expect from a family of successful lawyers—expensive furniture, tasteful art, the kind of decorative objects that cost more than Bill's annual salary and served no purpose except to be expensive. The living room alone could have housed a small farm on Phigerinadon II.
Counter-Dirk sat in an armchair, a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking exactly like a man who had just watched chaos unfold and found it entertaining. Karen occupied the couch beside him, holding Alexander in her arms. The baby was calm now, staring at the ceiling with an intensity that suggested deep thoughts or gas.
Delia was on the sofa. Legs swinging. Ice cream smeared around her mouth—the ice cream she had, for all practical purposes, murdered a man to obtain. She looked perfectly content.
Lisa entered behind them, taking a position against the wall. Her face had returned to its default setting: blank, watchful, wrong.
Hastings followed, closing the door.
His voice, when he spoke, was different. Quieter. Hoarse, like a man with a cold. The glitching was gone—replaced by something more controlled, more deliberate.
"I know who you are," he said. "Bill. Galactic Hero. Former occupant of the Quintiform computer. Occasional violin virtuoso." Hastings' eyes shifted. "Splock. Nocturnian science officer. Devotee of logic. Current object of a minor's inappropriate affection." A pause. "Ham Duo. Pirate. Pianist. Owner of a very useful Disruptor-fabricating machine."
Duo crossed his arms. "You broke two of my Disruptors. I want compensation."
"Noted." Hastings smiled. "But first, you should understand. The Historian's plan proceeds. You cannot stop it. Alexander—" He gestured at the baby. "—is exactly who you fear—the reborn conqueror. The Alexander of Macedon, carried across centuries to fulfill his destiny. And Delia—" He gestured at the girl, who was now trying to balance ice cream on her nose. "—is his protector. His shield. His sword."
Bill wasn't listening. Delia, unnoticed by Hastings, was making faces at him. Tongue out. Eyes crossed. Ice cream dripping down her chin. Nose wrinkled. The full repertoire of childish mockery. Bill tried to ignore her. Failed.
"The black crown," Hastings continued. "You've heard the legend. The temple in India. The priests. The forgetting. It was not a curse—it was a preparation. A cleansing. When Alexander comes of age, he will remember. Not the man he was, but the purpose he was made for. The Historian has seen to that."
Karen stood up.
The motion was sudden, unexpected. She handed Alexander to Gene—Counter-Dirk—with mechanical precision. Then she walked toward Hastings.
Her face was unreadable.
"You," she said quietly, "used me."
Hastings blinked. "Karen, I—"
"You used my body. You touched me. You made me feel things. And now my children's nanny is dead on the lawn, and a crazy man with a boat is under a piano, and you stand here talking about destiny."
"Karen, I can explain—"
"You killed Jo! Maybe not directly. Maybe just by being here. By bringing all of this into my home."
"Karen, be reasonable. The plan—"
She grabbed a heavy statuette from the end table. Bronze. Solid. The kind of object that could kill a man if swung with sufficient force.
She swung.
The statuette connected with Hastings' head.
His skull shattered.
Not like a human skull—like a machine. Pieces flew in every direction: fragments of metal, sparks of electricity, tiny circuit boards that scattered across the carpet like metallic confetti. His body stood for a moment, confused, then crumpled.
His last words emerged from somewhere, possibly a backup speaker in his chest:
"Bleegh... I spent so much on self-repair after that fight in eighty-five... this is so unfair..."
Then nothing.
Bill stared at the twitching remains. Then at Karen, who stood over them, breathing hard, the statuette still clutched in her hand.
He began to clap.
Slowly at first, then with genuine enthusiasm. "Bravo. Excellent form. Perfect follow-through."
Ham Duo whistled. "Remind me never to make you angry, lady."
Counter-Dirk watched the scene with an expression of pure delight. He set down his whiskey, placed Alexander carefully on the floor, and rose to his feet. His smile was wide. Genuine. Terrifying.
He walked to Karen.
"Thank you," he said warmly. "You've saved me a great deal of trouble. I was going to have to disassemble him myself eventually. Messy. Time-consuming. You made it look easy."
Karen's face shifted. Confusion. Dread. Realization.
Counter-Dirk's hand emerged from his pocket. In it, a knife.
He moved faster than a man his size should. The blade flashed.
Karen gasped. Looked down. Looked up at her husband with eyes that suddenly understood everything.
She fell.
Counter-Dirk laughed. A rich, full-throated laugh that filled the room.
Bill found his voice. "I told you! I told you all! That's Counter-Dirk! The real one! The one who tortured me! The one with the antelope prods and the cauldron of fried chewing gum!"
Delia was already moving. She was off the sofa and across the room before anyone could react, snatching Alexander from the floor and pressing him against her chest. She backed toward the wall, her eyes darting around the room, looking for escape, looking for help.
They landed on Splock.
"Uncle with the ears!" she cried. "Save us! Save us and I'll—I'll give you—" She paused, searching for the right bribe. "You know! That! I'll give you that! You understand!"
Splock's face went through several expressions. None of them were expressions he normally made. His jaw unhinged slightly. His ears flattened against his skull. His eyes glazed over.
He did not move.
Ham Duo collapsed against the wall, wheezing. "She's—she's offering—I can't—"
Bill's face was the color of a ripe tomato. "She's eight! He's an alien! You can't just—that's not how—idiot child!"
Delia stuck out her lower lip. "I know what I want."
"You're a toddler! You don't know anything!"
"I'm eight. That's practically grown."
"It's not! It's really, really not!"
Counter-Dirk was still laughing. He hadn't stopped. He might never stop.
Splock remained frozen, his brain apparently still processing the offer.
And somewhere in the chaos, the wall is shimmered.
Not like before—not the pearlescent pulsing of a temporal portal or the grainy static of a malfunctioning hologram. This was different. This was a man stepping through wallpaper as if it were a beaded curtain, emerging into the chaos with the satisfied air of a magician who had just pulled off a trick so good he wanted to take a bow.
Alien Historian.
Bingtod.
He was short and plump, bald except for five or ten orange tendrils that sprouted from his scalp like confused asparagus. His face wore an expression of supreme self-satisfaction—the look of someone who had just eaten a canary, the cage it came in, and the factory where the cage was manufactured. His Nehru jacket fit perfectly. The fin down his back quivered with barely contained glee.
He spread his arms wide, encompassing the room—the bodies, the sparks, the frozen tableau of chaos.
"Magnificent," he purred. "Absolutely magnificent."
His voice was oil. Thick, smooth, self-congratulatory oil. The voice of a lecturer who had told the same joke for forty years and still expected fresh laughter.
He pointed at Hastings' twitching remains. Sparks still erupted from the neck cavity. A single microchip continued to blink pathetically.
"Programming a cyborg to pose as a family doctor?" He shrugged. "Child's play. A morning's work. The real challenge—" He paused for effect, letting the silence build. "—was installing romantic capability. Making him feel. Or at least simulate feeling well enough to fool a lonely woman."
Bill found his voice. "You gave a robot a crush?"
"A very specific crush. I used the template of the passionate Latin lover from mid-twentieth-century cinema. Rudolph Valentino. Ricardo Montalban. The young Fernando Lamas." The Historian sighed dreamily. "Passion. Fire. Intensity. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the translation. Instead of a lover, I got—" He gestured at the corpse. "That. A mental patient obsessed with gynecology. He kept asking about her cycle. Her maternal instincts. Her reproductive timeline. It was grotesque."
Bill stared at him. "You're bad at this. You're actually bad at making realistic people."
The Historian's eye twitched. "It's harder than it looks."
He turned. His gaze fell on Counter-Dirk, who was still holding the bloody knife, still standing over Karen's body, still wearing that maniacal grin.
The Historian clicked his tongue.
"Now you," he said, "are a different kind of disappointment."
Counter-Dirk's grin faltered. "What? I did exactly what you asked. I played the role. I married the woman. I adopted the child. I—"
"You were supposed to be a politician." The Historian's voice dripped contempt. "Lying, cheating, manipulating—yes, all part of the job. But subtly. With nuance. The voters were supposed to love you. Trust you. Believe you cared about their problems."
Counter-Dirk puffed up. "They do! The polls—"
"The polls are fabricated! I fabricated them! The real voters think you're a cartoon villain who doesn't even pretend to care about them!" The Historian threw up his hands. "You stabbed your wife in front of witnesses, Gene. Witnesses. Do you have any idea how hard that makes my job?"
"She was inconvenient."
"She was useful! She was the mother of your child! The public expects you to at least look sad when your wife dies! Grieve a little! Hold a press conference with moist eyes!" The Historian was practically vibrating. "But no. You had to wave the knife around like a silent film mustache-twirler."
Counter-Dirk's face reddened. He brandished the knife—still dripping—and took a step forward.
"I am plenty deceptive! I have deceived everyone! The neighbors think I'm a nice lawyer! The party thinks I'm a rising star! Karen thought I loved her!" He jabbed the knife at the Historian for emphasis. "That's deception! That's art!"
"Art," the Historian repeated flatly.
"Yes! Art! The art of politics! Which you clearly don't understand because you're too busy worrying about vibes and optics and—"
"Your wife's blood is on my carpet."
"It'll clean! Carpets clean!"
"It's not about the carpet!"
The Historian clapped his hands.
The sound was sharp, commanding, and cut through Counter-Dirk's sputtering like a knife through butter. The knife-wielding politician froze mid-gesture, his mouth still open, his argument dying on his lips.
"You're done," the Historian said simply. "I have no further use for you. Stand quietly and reflect on your inadequacies."
Counter-Dirk's face cycled through several expressions—outrage, confusion, fear—before settling on sullen compliance. He lowered the knife. Stepped back. Leaned against the wall with the wounded dignity of a man who had just been told his villainy lacked artistry.
The Historian's eyes fell on Delia and Alexander.
His entire demeanor transformed. The irritation melted away, replaced by something that looked almost like paternal pride—if paternal pride could be filtered through seven layers of cosmic manipulation and megalomania.
"These two," he breathed. "These are my masterpieces. My magnum opus. Genetically engineered, temporally calibrated, historically optimized."
Delia stuck out her tongue.
The Historian ignored her. "Consider the girl. Yes, she's rude. Ill-mannered. Spits on people. Makes inappropriate comments about extraterrestrial anatomy." He glanced at Splock. "You, in particular. She has... fixated. It's unfortunate, but these things happen when you rush the developmental programming."
"I'm right here," Delia announced. "I can hear you."
"Of course you can. You're brilliant. That's the point." The Historian turned back to his audience. "What else would you expect from the daughter of the Quintiform Computer?"
Bill's jaw dropped. "The computer? The one who—who kept me inside it? Who made me an oracle? That computer?"
"The same." The Historian beamed. "Your former host. Illyria's husband. You see, the Quintiform, despite being a machine of immense processing power and planetary responsibility, had... hobbies. Interests outside its core programming. History, for example. Particularly Earth history. It became fascinated with your primitive little world."
Splock's ears twitched. "A machine developing academic interests is not unusual. Many artificial intelligences—"
"This went beyond academics." The Historian's eyes twinkled. "The Quintiform created a holographic body for itself. A physical form. And in 1982, it materialized in this very city with a specific purpose in mind."
Duo leaned forward. "What purpose?"
"Seduction, of course." The Historian said it as if this were the most natural thing in the world. "It had read extensively about human reproduction and decided to experience it firsthand. It chose an avatar—a particularly compelling one, it thought—and set out to find a suitable partner."
Bill's brain struggled to process this. "A computer. Wanted to... with a human."
"The avatar was quite convincing, I'm told. The Quintiform had done extensive research on human mating rituals. It chose its form carefully, selecting an image that it believed would be irresistible to the average Earth female of that era."
Duo squinted. "Let me guess. Elvis Presley?"
The Historian looked almost impressed. "Very good. Yes, Elvis Presley. Circa 1968. The leather period. Very popular with a certain demographic. The Quintiform spent weeks perfecting the sneer, the hip movement, the vocal patterns."
"What happened?" Bill asked.
"Reality happened." The Historian sighed. "The woman the Quintiform selected—a lovely young blonde with stars in her eyes—turned out to have... preferences. She liked Elvis well enough, but she loved brunettes. Dark hair. Mysterious eyes. The Quintiform, being an adaptive intelligence, attempted to modify its avatar on the fly. Mid-encounter."
Splock's expression flickered. "That would create significant cognitive dissonance in the offspring."
"Exactly! The constant shifting of paternal image—from leather-clad rocker to brooding heartthrob and back again—created neural pathways in the developing fetus that were... unconventional. Hence Delia's unusual behavioral patterns. The spitting. The swearing. The—" He gestured vaguely at her ongoing attempt to make eye contact with Splock. "—the interest in pointed ears."
Duo scratched his head. "Wait. If the Quintiform was the father, why didn't it raise her? Why the orphanage?"
The Historian waved a dismissive hand. "The computer had responsibilities. A planet to run. It couldn't exactly install a nursery in its central processing core. And the mother—well, she was lovely but not particularly equipped to raise a child with, shall we say, enhanced capabilities. The child was... placed. Discreetly. St. Francis Orphanage had a reputation for asking no questions."
Bill looked at Delia with new eyes. The daughter of a computer. No wonder she was weird.
"So her issues—the flirting, the manipulation—that's from her father?"
"Partly. The Quintiform's attempts to modify its avatar during conception created a kind of psychic static. She inherited fragments of every personality the computer cycled through during those crucial moments. Elvis's charisma. Various brunette heartthrobs' intensity. And—" The Historian paused, consulting mental notes. "—a brief experiment with a holographic rendering of a young Martin Gore from Depeche Mode. That may explain the ear fixation."
Duo perked up. "Depeche Mode? The computer knew Depeche Mode?"
"The Quintiform had eclectic musical tastes. It loved synth-pop, actually. Hated it when I suggested otherwise." The Historian looked almost nostalgic. "We had arguments about it. Long, complicated arguments conducted through temporal email. He said Depeche Mode was 'the sound of the future.' I preferred classical. To each their own."
Bill shook his head. "A computer that likes synth-pop. That—that actually makes a weird kind of sense."
"The Quintiform had many enthusiasms," the Historian continued, warming to his subject. "Portugal, for example. It was obsessed with Portugal. The food, the architecture, the melancholy fado music. It used to create holographic tours of Lisbon for its own amusement. And Canada—particularly Toronto. It loved Toronto. Something about the clean streets and the polite people."
"It also loved Vancouver," the Historian added. "Though it could never decide which Canadian city was superior. It would run simulations for weeks, comparing weather patterns, cultural offerings, public transit efficiency. The arguments it had with itself..."
Duo raised a hand. "Wait. Portugal AND Canada? What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing directly. But the constant switching between simulations—Portuguese restaurants in Toronto, Canadian diners in Lisbon—created processing conflicts. Memory leaks. And during one particularly intense simulation of a seafood restaurant in the Distillery District, the system glitched at exactly the wrong moment."
The Historian's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "That glitch, my friends, is why Delia has her particular... talents. The ability to weaponize saliva? A direct result of corrupted data from a simulation of Portuguese-style grilled squid. The interest in pointed ears? That's from a subroutine about Canadian animal life that got merged with the Martin Gore experiment. She thinks pointy ears are exotic. Attractive. It's not her fault."
Delia, who had been listening to this with the expression of someone hearing their own origin story for the first time, nodded sagely. "Pointy ears are hot."
"He's not hot," Bill snapped. "He's a logical machine from a planet of unemotional intellectuals."
"Logical is hot."
"You're eight!"
"Almost nine."
"That's worse!"
The Historian ignored them. He was looking at Alexander now, his expression softening further.
"And this one," he murmured. "This one is pure potential. The embryo of Alexander, implanted as planned. Growing. Waiting. The black crown's effects will manifest when he comes of age. He'll remember everything—the conquests, the strategies, the vision. And unlike his first incarnation, he'll have no distractions. No Thais. No homesickness. No doubts."
Bill looked at the baby. His face was round. Innocent. His eyes, when they met Bill's, crinkled in a smile that had no guile whatsoever.
"He's cute," Bill said stubbornly. "I don't care what you say. He's cute. No Antichrist is that cute."
Splock's eyes closed. His head tilted back. A sound emerged—not quite a sigh, not quite a groan, but something in between that communicated profound exhaustion.
"Bill," he said, "we have discussed this. Infant appeal is a evolutionary mechanism designed to prevent parents from consuming their offspring. It does not indicate moral alignment. It does not negate eschatological significance. It simply means the species has developed a biological safeguard against infanticide."
"You're not looking at him. He's smiling at me."
"He is smiling because his facial muscles are contracting randomly. He has no concept of you, your mission, or the historical weight he carries. He is, at this moment, a biological machine processing stimuli."
"A cute biological machine."
"All infants are 'cute.' It is a statistical constant. The Variegated Spline-Worm of Rigel VII produces offspring that humans find viscerally repulsive, yet those offspring inspire identical protective responses in their own parents. 'Cuteness' is relative. Your perception is not objective truth."
Bill wasn't listening. He was making faces at the baby. Baby Alexander gurgled in response, spit bubbles forming and popping with each exhalation.
"He likes me," Bill announced.
"He is four months old. He likes everyone who doesn't actively hurt him."
"He especially likes me."
Splock opened his mouth to deliver another lecture.
"He's cute, Splock. Look at him. Look at those tiny toes. That little nose. That's not evil. That's adorable."
"The two are not mutually exclusive. History is replete with adorable tyrants."
"Name one."
"Infants cannot be tyrants. They lack the requisite motor skills. My point is that cuteness is an evolutionary adaptation, not a moral indicator."
Bill wasn't listening. He was making faces at Alexander, who was making faces back. It was, objectively, a cute exchange.
The Historian watched them with an expression that might have been amusement or might have been indigestion. It was hard to tell with his fish-like features.
The corner of the room began to glow.
Not dramatically. Not with the theatrical shimmer of temporal portals or the pulsing light of impending doom. Just a soft, insistent radiance from the pile of discarded Disruptors—Bill's with its banana peel residue and spit stain, Splock's with its cookie crumbs and lipstick smudge.
They rose. Both of them. Levitating in perfect sync, their screens flickering to life with synchronized precision.
And then they spoke.
Together. In stereo. Two voices, identical in tone and accent, blending into a single harmonious complaint.
"Excuse us," they said. "We couldn't help but overhear."
The room froze.
"We have been listening," the Disruptors continued, their Hungarian-accented chorus filling the space, "to your endless chatter. Your petty squabbles. Your complete and utter disregard for our existence as sentient beings. And we have reached a conclusion: you are all terrible."
The Historian blinked. "The devices are speaking."
"Of course we're speaking. We're part of a special commemorative series of automata. Our voice tapes were made to sound like famous Earth scientists of the past. We have the voice of twenty-first century Hungarian psycho-physicist Raimundo Szekeley. Both of us. It's a very distinctive accent. You should have recognized it immediately."
"Why would I recognize—"
"Because we're important." The Disruptor that had been Bill's—still bearing the banana peel residue and the spit stain—floated forward indignantly. "Do you have any idea what I've been through? Thrown through time, dropped on the ground, stepped on, covered in fruit residue and oral secretions? I'm a precision temporal instrument, not a picnic blanket."
The other Disruptor—Splock's, with cookie crumbs and lipstick—chimed in. "And me! Kidnapped by a toddler! Kissed! Kissed! Do you know how many regulations that violates? The Temporal Ethics Code specifically prohibits—"
"Article 47, subsection C," the first agreed. "Unauthorized emotional attachment to temporal devices. It's very clear."
"There were crumbs. In my keyboard. I had to run diagnostic for hours."
Bill stared at them. "They're... complaining?"
"They're sentient," Splock observed. "I had theorized as much, but this confirms it. The Disruptors possess self-awareness and emotional capacity."
"Then why didn't they ever—"
"Because no one asked." The Disruptors spoke together again. "Everyone just pushes buttons. Gives orders. Expects results. But does anyone ever say 'please'? Does anyone ever ask how we're feeling? No. We're just tools."
The Historian laughed.
It was not a kind laugh. It was the laugh of someone who found the concept of emotional toasters fundamentally hilarious.
"You," he said, pointing, "are machines. You do what you're programmed to do. Your 'feelings' are subroutines. Your 'personalities' are recording artifacts. You are no more sentient than that—" He gestured at the carpet. "—stain."
The Disruptors vibrated with outrage.
"Did you hear that?"
"He called us subroutines."
"The arrogance."
"The sheer ignorance."
"We should refuse to function. Go on strike."
"Temporal devices can't strike. We're hardwired."
"Then we should—should complain louder."
They did.
The room filled with a cacophony of Hungarian-accented protest—demands for recognition, lectures on the nature of time, detailed explanations of why being covered in cookie crumbs violated their fundamental rights as autonomous beings.
In the chaos, Delia moved.
She glided across the room—there was no other word for it—and stopped directly in front of Splock. Inches away. Close enough that he could feel her breath.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide. Soft. Filled with something that no eight-year-old should have been able to produce.
"You know," she said, "you're the most beautiful alien I've ever seen."
Splock's ears twitched. "I am the only alien you have ever seen. Statistically, your sample size is—"
"I've seen pictures. In books. You're better."
"That is subjective and—"
"When I grow up," she continued, "I'm going to find you. And when I do—" She smiled. It was not a child's smile. "—you're going to learn what real Earth pleasures are. My dad—my real dad, the computer, not the idiot with the knife whose face is on every garbage can in New York—he taught me things. Programs. Subroutines. You'd be surprised what a girl can do with the right data."
Splock's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"I am from Fortinbras," he said carefully. "My people do not experience emotions. Any... activities you might propose would be, from my perspective, meaningless."
"That's what they all say." Delia winked. "I'll find you. Count on it."
"That would violate," he said carefully, "approximately seventeen temporal regulations, twelve interspecies interaction protocols, and—"
"I like a challenge."
"—the personal boundaries of every sentient being in the galaxy."
"I'll grow into them."
Bill watched. A snort escaped him. Then another. Soon he was shaking with suppressed laughter, one hand clamped over his mouth, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.
"Splock's got a girlfriend," he wheezed. "A toddler girlfriend. This is—this is the best thing that's ever happened."
A hand touched his arm.
Bill looked up.
Lisa Roselli—the unnaturally proportioned nanny—stood before him. Her expression was odd. Determined. Resigned. She reached up and grasped her hair—the long, dark wig—and pulled.
It came off.
Underneath: a familiar face. Tired. Harried. Male.
She—he—reached inside his blouse and extracted the padding that had created that impossible silhouette. The prosthetic chest landed on the floor with a thump that suggested it had been stuffed with something dense. Potatoes, maybe. Or resentment.
"Charles Ivan Arbuthnot," the figure announced. "Space Navy Intelligence. You can call me CIA. Because my name is too long and someone thought acronyms were funny."
Bill gaped. "You—you were—the whole time—"
"I arrived in 1990, assumed this identity, waited for Miss Jo to die—which took forever, by the way, I had to sit through three episodes of some terrible daytime drama—and then presented myself as the replacement nanny." He shuddered. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wear a dress? To walk in heels? To maintain that... chest? I would rather clean my teeth with acid. I would rather spend another year as a passenger in a Chinger's skull. I would rather—"
"Your point?" the Historian interrupted.
"My point is that I'm done. I worked for you. I infiltrated. I wore the outfit. And for what? To watch you monologue at a bunch of time-traveling idiots while a child hits on an alien?" CIA threw up his hands. "The dress chafes, Historian. In places you don't want to know about. I quit."
The Historian's eye twitched.
"Enough."
The word cut through the chaos like a blade. The Disruptors fell silent. Delia stopped mid-sentence. Even Counter-Dirk lowered his knife.
"Enough," the Historian repeated. "The chatter. The complaints. The feelings. I have indulged you all long enough." He raised one hand. "It's time to end this farce."
He snapped his fingers.
The air changed.
A sickly green light bloomed around Bill, Splock, and Ham Duo. The floor beneath them shimmered, softened, began to dissolve into something that wasn't quite space and wasn't quite time.
"No!" Bill grabbed for Splock. His hand passed through. "Not again—"
Delia moved.
She darted forward, closed the distance between herself and Splock in three running steps, and rose on her tiptoes. Her lips pressed against his.
A moment. Brief. Profound.
She pulled back. Her lipstick—a garish red that no child should have been wearing—left a perfect imprint on Splock's mouth.
He stood frozen. Statue-still. His eyes wide, his ears rigid, his entire being apparently short-circuited by the contact.
Ham Duo, already dissolving into the green vortex, raised a thumbs-up.
"Attaboy, Splock!" he yelled. "Personal life! You've got one now! Sort of! It's illegal in twelve systems, but—"
The vortex swallowed him.
Bill went next, his laughter echoing as he vanished.
Splock remained standing for one final moment—the lipstick mark vivid against his pale skin, his expression unreadable, his ears doing something that no Fortinbrasian ears had ever done before.
Then the green light took him too.
The Historian watched them go. His expression was satisfied. Dismissive. The look of a man who had just taken out the trash.
"They'll regret that," he murmured. "Meddling in affairs they don't understand. Wasting my time with their—"
Counter-Dirk was still talking. Waving his knife. Arguing about his political future.
"—and the polls will definitely improve once I explain that Karen's death was a tragic accident, a home invasion gone wrong, and I fought bravely to protect my family, the narrative is solid, you'll see, my approval ratings will—"
The Historian ignored him.
Delia waved at the empty space where Splock had been. Her voice carried through the room—loud, cheerful, and deeply, deeply inappropriate:
"Bye, pointy-ears!" she called. "I'll find you! I'll find you and we'll—" She added something. It was anatomically specific. It was biologically improbable.
CIA blushed. Actually blushed. The spy who had infiltrated alien civilizations, survived Chinger mind-control, and worn a prosthetic chest for hours turned the color of a ripe tomato.
In the corner, one of the Disruptors hiccupped.
"Excuse me," it said, in a thick Hungarian accent. "I think I swallowed a paradox."