A Guest from the Prehistoric Era

[Narrator]

Sam's brief census of the dorms shows that no one else seemed to be effected by the visitor -- most people had heard the growl, but it turns out not everyone is on the X-Teams, and didn't rush out to help.

[Samantha McManus]

"All clear on this side!" She calls to Nailah.

"How about over there?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Same." she says, giving a thumbs-up. It doesn't look like she actually moved from her spot.

[Samantha McManus]

"...doesn't it give you a headache if you look ahead but don't do the thing you were looking ahead about?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"It just kind of hurts in general. I'm getting used to it."

[Samantha McManus]

Sam winces.

"You really ought to get that checked. It probably shouldn't hurt."

[Nailah Weaver]

"You never get headaches when you use your mind-reading?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I get feedback sometimes but usually that's a sign I did something wrong."

[Nailah Weaver]

"I'm not using it wrong. I..." she trails off for a moment while trying to come up with a good way to explain what she saw and felt when fighting Hazard. "I'm keeping a future version of me from locking me into her path."

[Samantha McManus]

"What, like an awful version of you?" She cocks her head.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Yeah. It's Hazard's fault somehow. Abusing m... my power or something."

[Samantha McManus]

"So she was steering you into becoming her? That's pretty messed up."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Yeah... And it was real easy to fall into that kinda rut, cause it was just... there all the time. It's harder now and it hurts and I keep waking up thinking I just fought of Hazard, but it's better. I try not to dwell on it. Which is pretty easy. You know, cause of the amnesia." she tries to joke.

[Samantha McManus]

"Are you sure you don't want like... help?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"If you got any good ideas, let me hear 'em."

[Ashlie Minamida]

And that's about the time Tereza returns with Ashlie in tow.

"This is where the anomaly occurred?"

[Samantha McManus]

"Well I mean... I know the last time I tried to touch your mind it hurt but... you're hurting already, Nailah."

[Tereza Rozanov]

And that's about the time Tereza returns with Ashlie in tow.

"This is where the anomaly occurred?"

"Yes, this wall," Tereza says, gesturing at the wall and then down the hallway. "I think the cat thing came from down that way."

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah glances over at the robot, then back at Sam.

"I just dunno what that's gonna accomplish, but if it'd make you feel better..."

[Samantha McManus]

"It's not about me, aye?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Alright." Ashlie says as she puts down most of her equipment near the indicated wall. Detaching a spherical sensor she hands it to Tereza. "If you could carry this down the hallway along the path the cat took, please." The sensor is attached by a cable that unspools from the main assembly that's dotted with holes in the insulation where small lenses indicate some sort of array.

[Nailah Weaver]

"It's not about me, aye?"

"You're the one who'll be feeling bad about it." she says with a shrug and a small smile. "I'll be okay again tomorrow."

[Tereza Rozanov]

"Alright." Ashlie says as she puts down most of her equipment near the indicated wall. Detaching a spherical sensor she hands it to Tereza. "If you could carry this down the hallway along the path the cat took, please." The sensor is attached by a cable that unspools from the main assembly that's dotted with holes in the insulation where small lenses indicate some sort of array.

Tereza takes the sensor carefully and walks down the hallway, trying not to move too fast for the cable unspooling.

[Samantha McManus]

"I guess I just... don't know how that fits the definition of 'okay.'"

[Nailah Weaver]

"You know. Feeling fine. Not worrying about it."

[Ashlie Minamida]

Meanwhile Ashlie is setting up her scanner. Looking like a small satellite dish on a tripod that she points at the wall while Tereza unspools the secondary sensor array.

"The array should pick up any significant spatial distortions as well as temporal fluctuations." she says as the lenses in the cable begin to light up in sequence. "That should give us some results fairly quickly while the main sensor-dish gathers enough particles to give us an idea about the kind of anomaly we're dealing with."

[Samantha McManus]

"Forgetting you were feeling bad isn't... quite the same?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"It is from my point of view. And I got headaches. So what. Not like I'm screaming bloody murder at my friends and scaring the everliving shit out of everybody." she says, trying to shut the conversation down.

[Samantha McManus]

"Okay, so you don't want to talk about it," she sighs.

[Narrator]

Meanwhile Ashlie is setting up her scanner. Looking like a small satellite dish on a tripod that she points at the wall while Tereza unspools the secondary sensor array.

"The array should pick up any significant spatial distortions as well as temporal fluctuations." she says as the lenses in the cable begin to light up in sequence. "That should give us some results fairly quickly while the main sensor-dish gathers enough particles to give us an idea about the kind of anomaly we're dealing with."

The array was not showing any current spacial distortions or temporal fluctuations. That was good!

There were lingering chronotons, however, indicating that there was a temporal breech in this area in the recent past (though that's a relative term, when you start talking about chronotons). Interestingly, they also showed an abnormal quantum signature.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'm getting the wrong quantum signature and temporal distortions. Hard to tell if it was intentional. It's possible the number of distortions that have taken place around here have had an effect and are causing a dimensional bleed-through. You said you saw people?" she turns to Nailah who gladly takes the excuse for not answering Sam.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Yeah. One was part robot and one was naked. And then two more I didn't get a good look at. I think they were scared of the sabretooth tiger too maybe?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't even think there's a room on the other side of that wall. I couldn't feel any of them after it ended."

[Tereza Rozanov]

"Temporal distortions? Time stuff?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Not just 'time stuff'. There's a dimensional... softspot." she says, dumbing down her more technical explanations. "Time and space are intrinsically linked, but it's not a rigid connection. Just as space and location are linked but not immutably so. Think of reality as a bubble-bath. The water is quantum energy and through processes unknown it foams. Those bubbles are what we think of as reality. Matter, time, space. But there are billions of other bubbles, perhaps an infinite amount. We're kept separate from them by the dimensional boundary of our bubble. Not a physical barrier but one made of Quantum configurations. The bubbles all move around and sometimes they form clusters. Bubbles linking up but not breaking. This can form a somewhat predictable barrier to cross through if the surface interaction is large enough. That's what Conduit took advantage of to get here."

"But both bubbles are still operating under different quantum effects. The... rainbow of colors on a bubble representing space, time, all those things. From our point of view ours move predictably while theirs seem erratic and vice versa. In a big enough surface area you can avoid most of those effects. You'll cross over at roughly similar times, roughly similar locations. There's... affinity. It's unlikely you'll end up in space because the quantum effects tied to the matter of our planet is substantial enough and similar enough that there exists a certain overlap that is hard to break, even if their planet might be spinning the other way around their sun. But you went through off the coast of Ireland and came through somewhere in the Pacific. Spatial drift. Space is generally more mutable than time, so it wobbles easily."

"This right here is what happens when time slips around. Doesn't line up properly. The universes possibly aren't connected as strongly. Or naturally. Or any number of things. The bubbles are spinning and slipping around each other and the affinities become less predictable."

[Samantha McManus]

"I didn't understand a bit of that but I think I'm bothered that she already knows what this is."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"You shouldn't be. I've been researching dimensional dynamics for a while now and the last couple of months have provided an ample supply of data. But rest assured that I have currently no theories as to what is causing this latest dimensional event."

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean it bothers me because it means it's happened before, and happened enough times that you know what it is, and you still don't know how to stop it."

"So it's going to happen again."

[Tereza Rozanov]

"We've dealt with it before, we can deal with it again," Tereza says confidently, "though I'd suggest we should probably start having a couple of X-Men on active rotation at all times, in case we get worse incursions."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"So far they seem more incidental than actively malicious, but they could be a side-effect of something else."