Chapter 7
“I tried,” Victor said. “But Ouroborus...”
Spilled it. Came in and asked an obvious question that tipped off the god of thunder. Mobius could imagine it up to the very details. “Don’t worry about it. We would’ve had to tell him eventually anyway. But next time he causes problems, just send him straight to me.”
“Happy you brought him here yet?” Sylvie remarked. “At least you’re locking down his tempad or he’d be in New York, 2012 already. Again.”
Mobius hadn’t known it was possible to lock down a tempad to a couple of set locations until Sif had asked, which was a great idea really. With the excuse of recalibrating the tempad, needed after passing through a supposed time fluctuation flare (not a thing, as far as Mobius knew), Casey was now in the process of locking down Thor’s tempad to two locations, the Valkyrie’s house and the TVA. Under Thor’s watchful eye, of course. Not that the mighty god of thunder would know the difference, even with his nose pressed to the screen. “Yeah, but did you really have to throw that bottle?”
“I didn’t have another bottle.”
He didn’t bother asking whether she really had to throw anything at anyone’s anything. “I get that this is difficult for you, but I don’t think violence’s the answer this time around.”
“It surprisingly often is, though.”
“Can I just ask you to play nice for now?”
“You can definitely ask.” She took her tempad out of her coat and pushed a few buttons. “But fair is fair, Thunderbrain had a point. We need more info and what I was wondering is, I always use the same calculations to drop in right before the anomaly, so what made this time diffe….Hmm, never mind. Can I have a pen and a piece of paper?”
New York, 2012.Timeline 616-Ex.Dev.02(1/2. Leg.80. 2/2.Leg).In.Dev.01.Minor Composite 12B.(Imm.Stable.Dis)
Loki wiped the dust off himself. Clever Stark, stalling until his weapon arrived in the form of a projectile. It might’ve just launched him from that window. Such a fall would’ve gravely wounded even an Asgardian. Or well, frost giant in this case.
Stark floated back to the window, no doubt planning to land a finishing blow. However, he ended up only tilting his helmeted head.
Loki dared a glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, some of their company had returned. The masked man stood motionlessly, soundlessly. Like a statue coming alive, the masked figure lifted his ungloved hand and moved his finger as if to snap them.
The eerie sense of serenity was promptly dispelled by the woman from before charging at the masked man. The masked man responded by not being there. Heimdall might know how he’d simply vanished the very same second the woman arrived, but Loki surely did not. All the same, he was gone.
The woman maniacally shifted her eyes over every corner of the room. She produced a small device and another orange doorway opened up. During her exit, she said, “Oh we’ll get you, you asshole.”
Loki turned back his attention to Stark. “So?”
“Hey, I’m trying to stop a technical god from bringing an army of aliens to Manhattan. Don’t look at me.”
“Kang wasn’t there, but Loki was, just for a second, but he was there,” Sylvie said, pointing at the anomaly saved on her tempad. “These things, could it be Loki traveling through the multiverse instead of Kang?”
“Would explain why we keep missing the show. It’d mean the anomaly occurs just before he starts cleanup,” Mobius said. It kind of made sense. Kang had still been there each time Sylvie had dropped in, but she’d only spotted Loki once, maybe twice. She wasn’t sure about that second time just now. Anyway, Loki wouldn’t need to step in if Sylvie already did. However, that sounded like something retroactive was happening. “I think Lady Sif is onto something with her retroactive theory. Guess we can throw out the rulebook now. Are you going to tell O.B. and Casey, or should I?”
“Throwing it out in the trash might be a bit hasty.” She pursed her lips. “But if those things just disappear after I stop by, something fishy’s going on.”
“Maybe that outside perspective is just what we need.”
“Yeah, are you going to tell O.B. and Casey that?” She chuckled sarcastically. “These outside perspectives are fucking annoying. Like, there’s something between doing whatever and getting all jumpy thinking you’ll break the multiverse by breathing in the wrong direction.”
To be fair, O.B. had been a little insensitive explaining what would happen if she accidentally created a new timeline, Sylvie had made some unhelpful remarks, and Mobius had to admit he and B-15 had laughed at the face the lady had made in response. “I think that’s just healthy caution. It’s refreshing actually, an Asgardian that considers consequences.”
Sylvie screwed up her face. “I don’t get it, why did he bring his little girlfriend with him? She doesn’t look like she wants to be anywhere near this.”
“They’re just close like that,” Mobius summarized. “But try and be nice to her. No need to put anyone in the crossfire.”
“Sure, I’ll play nice,” Sylvie said nonchalantly. “But imma look for a new anomaly now they’re still occupied and out of the way.”
Victor cleared his throat, looking up from the handbook that was now open on the counter and pointed at the radar’s screen. To be honest, Mobius had kind of forgotten he was still there. “It may be worth the trouble to return to the first one. The anomaly has shifted once more.”
Well, looked like Mobius knew what he was going to do with the afternoon.
New York, 2012.Timeline 616-Ex.Dev.03(1/1. leg.80. 2/3.Leg).In.Dev.01.Minor Composite 12B. (Imm.Stable.Dis)
Mobius exited the time door behind the stairs, hoping the cover would last long enough. The anomaly should occur in five seconds. He was almost tempted to get himself a drink.
“And oh look, there’s that guy again,” Tony Stark noted. His suit’s AI must’ve alerted him. Oh well, spilled milk. “Does this happen a lot in Asgard?”
“It does not,” This version of Loki answered. “I take it it’s not a common Midgardian phenomenon?”
“At this rate, it will be.” Stark paused. “Could this be because of the Tesseract?”
This Loki hummed. “Perhaps.”
Mobius checked the time. He’d sit right through the anomaly and again, zilch. Had he scared Kang off and prevented the assassination attempt by just standing there? Whatever the case, he’d run out of reasons to be there. “Pardon the interruption. Do carry on, delivery boy.”
He stuck around a second longer just to see that trademark offended face.
Sif had gotten a headache from trying to understand what exactly was going on with Thor’s tempad and stepped away. Then, she realized the one she had used was still in her pocket and returned to the basement workshop to drop it off. There, she found Sylvie and Victor watching a line moving through another, perpendicular line on a screen. Neither paid her any more than the absolute minimum of heed, despite having sent Thor and her away in clear terms. Out of curiosity, she stayed and watched too.
A steep zigzag in the horizontal line approached the vertical line. But just when they were supposed to cross, the zigzag jumped back down the horizontal line. While the zigzag began approaching the vertical line anew, a time door opened.
Mobius entered. “Nothing at all.”
Sif asked, “Is it me, or did I just watch an anomaly jump further down the timeline?”
Sylvie looked her in the eye. “You sure did. Grab a seat. Mobius likes your theory, but then a little to the left.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Okay, what you’re saying is that these anomalies are Loki traveling through the multiverse,” Sif said. “So that would mean these anomalies disappearing is because he doesn’t need to prevent the assassination because you already did?”
“Exactly,” Sylvie said. “I think.”
“I don’t think that is possible,” Ouroboros said. “But then again, I did not know it was possible to time slip in the TVA, and that happened too.”
Time slip? What was that even? Did she care enough to ask? Or more importantly, did her mind have space to store that information anyway? Well, not right now.
“Then there’s the fact that the anomalies we’ve investigated are still in place,” Victor said. “Yet, none of our people witnessed anything while on location.”
Right, she’d stood right in the middle of an anomaly and witnessed nothing out of the ordinary. The same for the others. But if those anomalies announced Loki’s arrival, at least one of them should’ve seen something. Also, “But for what reason does the anomaly shift each time? Does the assassin simply delay his attack when he sees someone will interfere?”
Ouroboros shrugged. “I don’t see how he would know that.”
“Perhaps he lies in hiding?” She paused. “If it is a viable tactic to strike just before the nexus event and this is done by several variants of the same person, wouldn’t there be multiple attacks around this time?”
“Never saw that happen,” Sylvie said. “There is always just one. But I haven't seen this variant yet and thus didn’t kill him yet, so could be he’s still there. I’ll stab if necessary.”
She did not doubt it. “Do they coordinate?”
Ouroboros said, “There isn’t a single way in the whole multiverse that that is possible. We’d know if they were traversing realities to meet each other.”
But weren’t they already traversing realities? Or did every future variant of this man just come up with the plan individually and travel back in time? However, then how did they not individually conclude the same time and location and encounter each other, or at least cause a string of anomalies in a short timeframe? And how was Loki causing these anomalies by time traveling while these assassins left no trace? Shouldn’t the TVA also not know what a time travel anomaly looked like? They’d had her travel through time. Then again, they couldn’t seem to figure out if an event could change retroactively. “Is it perhaps possible that none have any understanding as to what is happening to any degree? And if so, should we not take more precautions?”
“Well,” Victor said. “It is possible that an implicit law of temporal decay or a mechanism of entropy that we are ignorant of is at play that motivates these events in ways that are beyond our understanding, thus making it impossible for us to accurately interpret the events.”
“Uh?” Sif looked around. Victor and Ouroboros were occupied with nodding and shrugging at each other, so she continued to Sylvie. “Does that mean yes?”
Sylvie shrugged. “I don’t think it was a no, but that mostly sounded like a load of jarble to me.”
“Her theory of retroactive alterations is contrary to all common sense,” Ouroboros told Victor - as if she wasn’t there to hear it- and grabbed a tempad. “But it could be possible that something beyond our understanding really is happening. I’ll go and check.”
Not exactly what she meant with precautions, but what did she know?
New York, 2012.Timeline 616-Ex.Dev.04(1/1. Leg.80. 3/4.Leg).In.Dev.01.Minor Composite 12B.(Imm.Stable.Dis)
One of those magicky doors had barely closed when another opened. Tony was beyond being surprised. Or so he had thought.
This time, an Asian guy in a vintage mechanic's overall walked out, waving around some kind of crappy sci-fi device prop. After a minute or so, he nodded at no one in particular. “There is absolutely nothing happening here.” He exited through the gazillionth magic doorway.
Loki planted his hands on his hips and screwed up his face. Tony understood that feeling. Like, what the hell?
Sif had seen the anomaly shift twice now. She did not see how it would eventually stay put if they just interrupted enough times, but she understood little of this. These people had done this before and probably knew what they were doing, even if it felt riskful. In the meantime, she’d come to the TVA for a reason and it wasn’t untangling the mysteries of temporal physics. “Should I inform Thor of these new developments?”
“Now or when he’s back?” The technician asked. “I can set an alarm for when he opens a portal back to the TVA.”
“He left the TVA?”
He turned the screen. “He opened a portal to the Valkyrie’s house just now.”
“Set that alarm,” Sylvie interrupted. She planted her elbow on the counter and leaned her head on her hand in order to throw Sif a taunting smirk. “So, he went without you? Was that, like, the intention?”
She’d thought it was not. He’d returned without her the last time, but that was because he was dismayed with her for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, not at all concluded from past events, there was a small chance Loki might have somewhat possibly ulterior motives. Given that he hadn’t even notified her, he must be more aggrieved now. Presumably, because she’d assisted in keeping him in the dark. It was not unreasonable of him. “He does not need me to hold his hand.”
“Yeah right, but like visiting home, you’d think-.”
“They’re probably just testing the tempad,” Mobius interrupted. “Now it’s, uhm, recalibrated. I’ll go get everyone.”
“It’s frustrating enough that these people are keeping me out of the loop,” Thor said. “But Sif too? We don’t keep secrets from each other. Never have.”
Brunnhilde handed Love a juice pack before opening up another beer. “Can we go back to the part that made you think she’s accomplice to this ‘keeping you out of the loop’ plot?”
“Well, she was already there.”
“Standing there, eh?”
“At the moment they were actively going behind my back. I still don’t know what they were doing and she hasn’t told me.”
“Any chance she doesn’t know either?”
“She was standing right there when they were talking about it.”
“Did she, maybe, look a little confused standing there?” Brunnhilde asked. “Like she wandered in a minute before you and heard some people talking time-dimension mumbo-jumbo?”
“Well, she was asking some questions,” Thor admitted. “And it was a little implied they weren’t very good questions.”
“No kidding. I’m just ignoring all that time-space crap in favor of ‘Loki’s a tree’,” she said. “Because that’s the only part I’m willing to wrap my head around, and only because it sounds funny.”
“Look, I made a family portrait.” Love giggled and held up a sheet of paper she’d been drawing on. It were bubble-head figures, one small and black-haired, two armored, one of which was blond and the other also black-haired, standing next to a tree with a fourth person flying overhead on a pegasus. Oh wait.” She picked up a silver crayon. “But it’s really easy to tell if she’s hiding something.”
“Oh, how so?”
“You ask her,” Love said with all the sweet naivety of a child. Then she added, “That woman can’t lie to save her hide.”
Actually, that was an excellent point. In times past, if they needed to fool someone, sending in Loki had been their first option. Sending in Sif would’ve been the very last resort. “True enough.”
She showed the drawing again. He’d thought the black-haired adult -which he’d assumed to be Loki- had his arm behind the tree, or in the tree, or was still climbing out of the tree, but Love had added a silver arm with red lines.
“Oh, the tree’s Loki.” The arm was relatively new. Trying to enlist Rocket’s assistance had only yielded the knowledge of how he kept getting his hands on all those prosthetics every time. Some time after, Sif had acquired it elsewise. Courtesy of an old friend, she’d said. “Looks good. We’ll put it on the fridge.”
“Is she coming back too next time?”
“Of course.” Yeah, he’d jumped to conclusions there. Sif was incapable of fooling anyone, even if she tried. Even if the world depended on it.
Love smiled. “And is coming to live with us after we find Uncle Loki?”
What? Sif? “I don’t…think so. I think she plans on staying in New Asgard.”
“Does that mean we’re going to be staying in New Asgard?”
“Not all the time,” Thor said. “Why do you ask?”
Love shrugged. “I thought she liked being with us.”
“Of course, honey, but that doesn’t mean she has to live with us.”
“That’s a little weird.”
Brunnhilde chuckled and pointed with her bottle to behind Thor. “You want a beer too?”
“No, thanks,” Mobius said, seeming amused for some reason. “And I think you’ve had enough too, since well, you are babysitting. A few more and you might think that term literal. You know what to do then, kid?”
Love smiled. “Bite.”
“Right answer.” Mobius turned to Thor. “But to get to it, we might be onto something and Sif thought you might want to know about it.”
Thor felt the two sarcastics looks burn through his back on the way out.
New York, 2012.Timeline 616-Ex.Dev.05(1/1. Leg.80. 4/5.Leg.).In.Dev.01.Minor Composite 12B.(Imm.Stable.Dis)
In unspoken agreement, both he and Loki waited a moment to see if another magic clown would show up. As if not to disappoint, the man with the mask made his reappearance and another attempt to snap his fingers.
Tony pointed it out to Loki before he made a false start in the reindeer hunt. Loki rolled his eyes. The gesture was relatable.
As the masked man’s fingers were about to touch, he groaned- in echoes- and dropped his hand. Three seconds later, someone opened fire from the other side of the room. The masked man stared at a wall and planted his hands on his hips and -what was that? shrink? Vanish into thin air? Fold out of existence?- whatever the specifics of the method, he left.
After almost a minute of not being hit, Tony was pretty confident he wasn’t the target. He readjusted his position along the window to get a visual on the shooter. A guy with a futuristic gun. Great, just another one of these things you see when fighting evil.
Oh well, looked like not his problem. He waved at the gunman. “Everyone, have a nice day. My best to your portal buddies. I’ve got shit to do. Oh and gun guy, I appreciate your efforts and all that, but don’t expect my help against whatever Thor’s gonna do to you if this guy kicks the bucket.”
“We didn’t even interfere with this one,” Casey said. “It’s like someone put it on repeat.”
“Strange idea of me, perhaps,” Sif said, developing a headache of watching the two lines on the screen playing evading each other while people kept walking in and out of horribly orange portals, and yes, on repeat. And was that anomaly changing shape every time, or was that just her imagination? “Could it be that this anomaly will simply keep shifting as long as we keep disturbing it?”
“That’s a valid hypothesis,” Victor said.
“It’s a hypothesis,” Ouroboros agreed. “I have a lot of hypotheses, but we don’t really know anything if we don't test them.”
Wouldn’t that be an endless loop?
“Here’s a hypothesis for ya,” Sylvie said. “I’m going in there to see what delayed the anomaly this time.”
“Nah.” Bee-15 tapped her fingers on Sylvie’s shoulder. “My turn.”
New York, 2012.Timeline 616-Ex.Dev.06(1/1.Leg.80.4/5.Leg.6/6.CD.05) In.Dev.01.minor Composite 12B.App.(Imm.Stable.Dis)
As he retreated into the hallways, using the corners as cover, it became clear that the assailant was not using a Midgardian weapon, nor an Asgardian one. Nor anything he’d ever seen during his frequent journeys throughout the nine realms or his exile beyond. Loki was starting to suspect his conquest had crossed paths with a conflict across times. Which begged the question, what did he do to induce one of those interlopers into attempting to end him? For that matter, was it him who had planted those snakes? If so, they had detailed knowledge of him. Perhaps his ascent had ramifications that had lasted until the age in which time travel became common.
Whatever the case, he had no plans to die today. Alas, few ever did.
The barrage of energy blasts ceased with the sound of cartilage cracking, gurgling, and fluid splashing on the floor. He cautiously threw a glance around the corner. The assailant was trying to keep the blood from gushing out of his throat, crawling away.
Behind him, a woman in an armored suit loosely held some sort of spear, tip bloodied of course. She seemed less than impressed.
Loki took the risk of showing his face. “Many thanks, Madam. Now, if I may be as rude as to ask, what exactly is happening here?”
She pushed the blunt end of the spear, which lit up orange, against the assailant's back. The tip lit up orange. The assailant fell apart until there was not as much as dust left. The woman’s face had not moved the entire time. “Move along. You never saw me or I’ll know where to find you.”
Loki decided to take her most kind suggestion.
Sif’s new theory had not been disproven so far. The anomaly jumped again. Still, she’d left the explanation to the experts when Thor had returned and asked her what was going on. Why had he asked her specifically to begin with? She knew about as much as he did.
“Let me guess,” Sylvie said the second the timedoor closed behind B-15. “Nothing?”
“No, actually.” She grabbed a cloth off the workbench and started cleaning what seemed to be blood off her magic time spear. “The assassin was there and not very subtle, but no problem. I got rid of the body.”
Thor hummed. “The assassin’s, right?”
“No, I stabbed that Loki just for laughs.” She dropped the cloth when she was done with it. “Yes, the assassin’s. But I’m pretty sure that Loki won’t feel like talking about it any time soon.”
That was the weird thing, two assassinations attempts, half a dozen unidentified individuals interrupting, including a walking blanket, and most of the aforementioned arriving by magical portal, and Loki just carried on like nothing happened? Wouldn’t he have changed plans by now? Nexus potential, right? Sif asked, “Shouldn’t that timeline be splitting right about now?”
Ouroboros laughed. ‘Good one.”
Casey sighed. “If the timeline splits with us in it, that’d create variants of us, which is not possible because we’re not attached to a timeline. We can alter a timeline a bit, but we can’t split it.”
Oh shit, that couldn’t possibly not have altered their past. “You’re not rewriting our timeline, are you?”
“Come on, again? Timelines cannot change retroactively.”
“But then how long does it take after you leave before the timeline splits?” It had to split somewhere, right? How else can you affect a timeline without actually changing it? “Wait, is that why everything is happening the way it would anyway? The timeline can’t be changed and while you’re there, it cannot split. And you’re constantly there.”
Ouroboros stared at her for a solid minute before noting something down. “Sounds extremely unlikely.”
“Yeah, that would mean that an outside factor is influencing the behavior of people on a metaphysical level,” Casey said. “If that was possible, the whole pruning business would’ve been unnecessary.”
Yeah well, what did she know? “Okay then, what is happening?”
“You know, it’s really complicated,” Casey said. “Just let us handle it.”
“Well, explain it to me then,” Mobius said. “Because she has a point. There is no way that’s still 616.”
“Probably because of the class C4 fluctuations,” Victor said. “It’s a very common phenomenon. The composite negates any alterations made.”
“Ah yes, composites.” Ouroboros’ lit up with inexplicable joy. “They are amazing. Absolutely integral to the structure of the multiverse. Transient, fluctuating, merging, diverging, everything is possible.”
“So guys, I’ve been out of the running for a while,” Mobius said. “What exactly are composites?”
It was good to know even those closely involved did not have full understanding of these matters. Or actually no, it wasn’t. That was terrifying.
“A composite is a type of pocket on a section of a timeline that is in essence a mirror reality,” Victor explained. “It can absorb variations or external influences on the main timeline. It’s the main reason your presence is often wiped away after you leave. Like you were never there.”
Sif dared ask it, even if just for the entertainment of making someone roll their eyes. “Wiped away retroactively ?”
“No,” Casey said quickly. “It doesn’t change. It simply never really existed. That word never applies here. Just don’t use it.”
“So, it never happened, after it happened? That does sound like it changes…afterwards.”
“No, the nexus potential gets absorbed by the composite pocket,” Casey said. “Which is a dead end in the way of timelines. It technically still happened. If you really want to, you can jump into the composite pocket and it will still be there.”
“Unless the pocket is transient,” Victor added. “And even then, composite pockets are famously difficult to navigate.”
Mobius chuckled. “Make it simple for me, is this still 616?”
“I think they mean this is happening in a mirror reality that doesn’t fully exist,” Sif summarized, for the sole sake of being able to say, “Which might disappear retroactively.”
“The lady is largely correct,” Victor said. “A composite could be defined as a mirror reality. It appears that it attracts variance potential by nature, but as long as the variance potential doesn’t outgrow the composite’s ability to absorb it, it will, to put it simply, dissolve. What were you just writing down, Ouroboros?”
Ouroboros glanced at his notebook. “That we should leave this anomaly alone for now.”
“Indeed. With this much contained variance potential, this timeline might be best served by letting it branch.” Victor adjusted his glasses. “Perhaps you should have a look at the next item on your list.”
Bee-15 glanced over Ouroboros shoulder, then looked at Sif and made a throw-away gesture while rolling her eyes.
Unsure what that meant, Sif dared one more question, “What does happen if the variance potential overloads the mirror reality?”
Ouroboros stared at her for a while, annoyed or confused, she couldn’t tell. “I’m not sure you understand these terms correctly.”
Neither was she.
“That makes two of us then,” Mobius said. “Isn’t all this composite stuff just what we used to call branches?”
B-15 said something about a red line, but the rest of the discussion was lost to Sif, because Thor started to insistently poke her arm. “What is it?”
“Can you summarize all this in one or two sentences?”
“No, I don’t think I can.”
“It comes down to, we gotta stop poking this particular zit before it bursts all over us.” Sylvie stretched her arms overhead and audibly cracked some joints. “Oh well, this was a bloody merry go ‘round anyway. And I’m hungry. Anyone want something from McDonalds? If at least three of you want Starbucks, I can drop by there too, but just know that I’d be going out of my way for that.”
Sylvie snatched Ouroboros’ notebook and held it out of reach of the technician’s grasping hands. She read it, pulled a face, and ripped off the top sheet of paper and discarded it in Ouroboros’ general direction. “Someone got a pen? I’m not memorizing anything for any of you. So, no pen, no food.”