Dyna blinked her eyes open, feeling drowsy, dizzy, and yet unbearably alert at the same time. She tried to sit up but a hand against her chest pressed her back down.

“Woah, hold on there. Take it easy. It isn’t everyday that you wake up from elective brain surgery.”

Blinking a few more times cleared the fuzziness from Dyna’s eyes and brought the world into focus. The first thing she saw was herself. Not in a mirror, but in the form of DT, easily identifiable from the size difference between her and Dyna-Prime. Much like the mountain man, her real-world form was significantly larger than any regular person. It wasn’t the first time Dyna had seen her in the real world—that honor went to six-weeks prior when Dyna had first arrived at Tartarus—but it was still somewhat jarring to see a massive version of herself.

Leaning back, relaxing into a comfortable pillow, Dyna stared up at the ceiling for a long few moments. “Did it work then?”

“Your brain surgery was a success, at the very least,” DT said, holding up a mirror.

Dyna looked at herself, eyes immediately drawn to one side of her head which had been shaved clean. A bright red line, laced together with black stitches, ran in an arc just over her ear. Tenderly, Dyna prodded at the incision and found herself somewhat surprised at the lack of pain.

“Ado’s Continuity Engine thing is implanted properly. Whether that works is something that was probably impossible to determine while you were unconscious,” DT continued. “I imagine they’re upstairs, poring over their terminals and checking the data to better determine how that implant will affect you and your power.”

“Ideally, it won’t affect me at all.”

“True but it was brain surgery.” DT smiled and added, “At least the doctor didn’t lobotomize you on accident.”

“Or on purpose.”

DT cracked her knuckles. “That is why I was in the operating room.”

Knowing full well what she would do if she saw herself in a sensitive operation and the doctor started mucking around, Dyna laughed. Then she paused and grimaced. “Did you have a backup doctor on the line ready to put me back together if you had to crush the first one?”

“Darq claims he could have done it.”

“Pass. Don’t tell him but Doctor Darq gives me the creeps. Something about him, you know? I thought he was a tulpa at first but then we head down to lower Tartarus and he doesn’t change. I’m still not convinced that he isn’t some kind of construct that prison… constructed just to maintain itself.”

“Don’t ask me,” DT said with a wince of her own, one remarkably similar to the one Dyna just made. “I’ve been avoiding him. I think he wants to lock me up down there. Probably Id too.”

Dyna started to laugh only to recognize the tone in DT’s voice.

That wasn’t a joke.

“I don’t suppose Id happened to wake up while I was out?”

“Still unconscious,” DT said with a shake of her head. “You were only unconscious for about a day, by the way, don’t go talking like you were out for weeks or months. At this point, we’ll continue with the plan.”

“Still don’t want my help?”

DT shrugged. “Just going off the advice of November and Darq. Putting more of you into such a divergent form of you would, apparently, not end well. I can’t do anything for the same reason.”

“It just feels weird, feeding her tulpa in an attempt to revive her.”

“You’re thinking of them as people—or at least the soldier-level tulpa. These are just stray thoughts. Thanks to Alpha’s psychic beacon and the blueprints Beatrice got us, we can even specify exactly what we want and how intact each thought is. As for feeding? Think of it more like a blood transfusion except for tulpa. Maybe.” DT rubbed the back of her head, messing up her dark hair. “I don’t know. I’m a lot of you. The mountain man was pretty stupid. I don’t know much about tulpa despite being one. It’s something for which I’m glad the Carroll Institute loaned us November. I can quiz her thoroughly.”

Dyna, now that she had taken a moment to get her bearings, tried to sit up again. DT didn’t stop her this time and Dyna slowly swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Darq want to capture November too?”

“Not with Gamma and Hematite acting as her bodyguard. He hasn’t gone near them as far as I’m aware.”

“Good.” Dyna stood up. She wobbled a bit, requiring DT to save her from a nasty fall, but got her balance and straightened fully. “I feel pretty fine, actually. Don’t really know if I should be walking around immediately after brain surgery but I think most of my problems aren’t in my brain, they’re in my limbs. From the general anesthesia I was under.”

“Yeah, they mentioned that might be the case. You should take it easy. Ruby will be happy to sit down and watch movies for a day straight. In fact, I’m surprised that she isn’t here—”

Not many people slammed open doors.

Ruby was one of the few who could and did.

Bright red eyes looked from the shorter Dyna to the taller one. “You didn’t tell me she was awake?”

“She only woke up twenty minutes ago—”

“Twenty minutes?” Ruby snapped. “You said you would call me the moment she woke up.”

DT shrugged. “You come by every half hour anyway.”

Ruby’s expression flickered. She didn’t blush—Ruby had too great of a control over her body to blush—but the look she shot at DT was filled with murderous embarrassment. “You’re such a… Dyna, your clones are bit—”

“Ruby.” “Ruby.”

“Bitches,” Ruby finished despite the simultaneous admonishment.

Both Dynas sighed.

“Look,” Ruby said, pulling out her phone and flipping it towards Dyna. “I pulled up a big long list of old-people movies that you like so much. I found a few to watch on your recovery. Look, this one is about a guy who gets an AI installed in his brain that can control his body.”

Dyna gave Ruby a flat look over the top of the screen. “I didn’t get an AI installed in my brain, Ruby.”

Ruby’s eyes very visibly flicked up to the line of stitches above Dyna’s ear. “Close enough,” she said.

“Alright, we’ll watch it.”

“Do you… need help getting to the elevator?”

Dyna opened her mouth to deny it—she was getting steadier the longer she stood—but DT interrupted her. “I can handle it. Run up to the Demonstration Stage and get some snacks ready.”

“But—”

“It’s fine, Ruby. I’ll be right along. I promise.”

Ruby stared for a long moment before bobbing her head. “If you blow up another building without me…”

“It was one little tower and I didn’t even get to see it come down.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ruby said, turning her back with a small harrumph. She slipped back out of the room before Dyna could say anything else.

Shoulder slumping, Dyna turned to her larger counterpart. “You had something to say without Ruby around?”

DT nodded and, in a move much swifter than such a large body should have been capable of, she closed the door Ruby had left open. As soon as it was closed, she turned around and opened up her large hand. A small pendant in the shape of an eye dangled from a long silver chain. It swung back and forth a few times before settling.

“My pendant?”

“Only myself, Ado, and you know about this,” DT said, approaching and holding it out to place over Dyna’s neck.

Dyna pulled her hair out of its chain, feeling the weight around her neck. It was heavier than she remembered. Unless that was the anesthesia. “I’ve worn this openly since I first came to the Carroll Institute. I think a few people know about it.”

“Only myself, Ado, and you know about its new functions. Not an artifact, like what I’m sure you’re thinking right now. It’s a control device. You might feel a slight indentation on the back.”

Frowning, Dyna felt the pendant and sure enough, there was an odd ridge there that hadn’t been before.

“Don’t push it! Not unless you want to disable the Continuity Engine in your head.”

“It has an off switch?”

“I convinced Ado to add it to the schematics at the last minute,” DT said. “Just in case. After all, I’m still fairly positive that Alpha wasn’t acting alone. Maybe circumstances conspire against you in the future. Maybe Omega crawls out of whatever rock she has hidden herself within and reveals herself to be a threat. Maybe the Carroll Institute or Doctor Darq take a sudden dislike to you.”

“I don’t…” Dyna frowned down at the eye pendant, now feeling like it weighed a whole lot more than she thought. Not just in physical mass but in gravitas as well.

“I know. Believe me, no one knows more than me. I always wanted to be special,” DT said, wistfully. She nodded her head. “You never have to activate it if you don’t want to. It’s just an option.”

“I appreciate the thought. It’s just… Special isn’t all it was cracked up to be.”