Xaviers!

"Oh I remember. What I don't exactly understand is how the mirror specifically was able to provide a physical space large enough."

"You're talking to a ball of flesh with a mouth of it. Conservation of mass has never been an issue for me.

Thanks for the attempt, Ashlie, but like the other me said, this may just not have a solution. And if I didn't understand how it works, I'm not sure if anyone else will be able to figure it out, either. It worked, it was good, it doesn't work anymore. Such is life."

"So you're giving up? Because one hypothesis failed? We already know it's possible."

"Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. I keep hearing 'I don't know how this happened' and 'this doesn't make sense' and 'we don't have infinite space'. I don't comply with the laws of physics; I get it," Will grumbled. "It sounded to me like you were giving up."

"I'm outlining the questions and obstacles that need solving or at least addressing. That's what science is. You're right, there's a lot I don't know yet, but I know more than I did this morning. I would have liked to be correct and able to help you right away, but that doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel. Physical guidance and enough space for it to occupy or direct you into. Very broadly speaking, yes?"

"That would be a start," Will admitted. "And I don't know what happens after that.

I'm sorry, this is just...this is frustrating," Will sighed. "Being confronted with how broken I am makes it harder to ignore it."

"I understand. Quite well, in fact. And I don't think you're broken. I think you're trying to deal with something enormous that everyone else understands even less than you do and it doesn't seem like there's a way out. Even after you set me free, it took me a long time to adjust. Something others took advantage of to hurt everyone at the school when I was right there and could have done something. So no, you don't owe me an apology for having a hard time with this; though I appreciate it none the less."

"I can't promise you a fix, but I will keep trying."

"And I appreciate it," Will sighed.

"I'll go over the data and everything you've told me and come up with the next step. One final thing before I let you go. You currently can't merge all your different selves, right? Any idea why that is?"

"'Can't' might be too strict a term. Put me in a bin and mash me all together, and you'll get one Will, presumably. The book isn't doing it because that's not what a book is; another form would work just fine, presumably. Now, how things would mix and match is unclear, and losing the connection to the dimension, or folded space, or whathaveyou that allowed me to generate and reintegrate copies of myself makes it dangerous. Remember -- I can't generate more copies of myself right now, so killing some of me is rather permanent. And while I don't strictly obey the laws of conservation of mass, I have a maximum and minimum size; I can't go subatomic or anything crazy like that. So putting together several hundred versions of myself would also get into the problem of the sheer amount of clay. Even if all of me could or was willing to shrink down as much as I could, you're still talking about a ton of mass to deal with for the central blob -- and then, I wouldn't be able to split back off again.

Splitting and subdividing myself is not part of my powerset. It's been something that's been enforced on me -- other people have caused it to happen through various means, and the MGH stimulated it as a secondary mutation of sorts -- but it wasn't something I could ever really induce on my own. This whole 'being able to create and remove versions of myself' thing happened because of the effects of the MGH, and the 'able to do it without the effects of a significant number of performance-enhancing drugs' came because of my connection to the mirror."

"The splitting is imposed or a side-effect of sorts, not an elevation of your own abilities." she muses. "This... let's call it managing of your selves, reintegrating, controlling the mass associated with all of it. Do you think that was coming from that connection? I keep equating the Sparks with the Powers but maybe there's more to it. To them."

"I always thought of it as just kind of a space to be in. I'm sorry; it wasn't something that we ever really explored to any real extent, so I don't know much more about it than that."

"Even still, if it provided a space that you can't otherwise create or access... Anyway, it sounds like there are three major components that need to come together. You need the space to accommodate all of you, the physical structure to anchor it in and guidance to sort and deploy all the aspects of you?"

"I'm not positive the physical structure is strictly necessary," Will allowed. "Though, yes, it'd probably make things easier. Otherwise, I think you've come as close as anyone to articulating it so far."

"I'll take it. And the algorithm could serve as one of them. It's tuned for electro-magnetic fields but there's no reason I couldn't rewrite it for a different vector if need be. The structure I'm not too concerned about. The main issue is the space and connection. I suspect the two are closely related and one might enable the other, considering how instinctively adaptive you and your power are."

"I think my adaptiveness is slightly overrated," Will confided. "But I suppose only time will tell."