Year Zero - 2. Recovery

Alter: Olivia

Local Network World: 0098/0103

Dates: 31/03/2025 - 02/04/2025

The Way Out Is Through

Something Olivia had always found funny about England was how much she didn’t hate it. From her perspective, there was, objectively, quite a lot to hate. Even taking the exchange rate out of the equation, it was really fucking expensive to do much of anything there, particularly in the bigger cities. Outside of the more heavily gentrified neighbourhoods, all the buildings looked mildly dour and aged. Also, the sky was always overcast, days were either way too short or way too long, everyone seemed either depressed or aggressive (or both), and for a good half of the year every single tree looked grey and sad and dead.

But Olivia was deeply in love with England. And it was that kind of love where you didn’t see as much of your lover as you’d like, so you even romanticised the shitty things. Because it wouldn’t have been the same without those. She fantasised about big coats and short, cold, grey days…dank, moody pubs and getting politely exasperated looks when she asked for ‘chips’ instead of ‘crisps’. She daydreamed about old, run-down brick buildings huddled together like destitute orphans, and existentially exhausted randos pottering around Tesco, looking like they’d literally rather die than make eye contact with a stranger.

“You’re quieter than usual.” Dawn nudged her. They were walking side-by-side down an unpaved path through a quiet little park. The grass was slightly overgrown. It was this kind of aggressively bright shade of green that almost hurt Olivia’s eyes to look at. The trees all looked dead - gnarled and craggy - and the sun was nothing but a faint smear of discoloured yellow pastel in the sky behind grey cloud. It looked less like the sun and more like an artist had made a mistake.

“Sorry, just mentally preparing to go back to the colonies.”

“We should really have a one-in-one-out policy. You’d have no trouble finding someone who’d rather be in Australia than here.”

“I’m aware. You all watch too many Australian soap operas. Home and Away is bullshit. It sucks there, actually.”

“But this has been good? Helpful?”

“Seeing you is always helpful. Though it does kinda throw me a bit that TERF Island is my ‘happy place’.”

“Yeah, it is a bit funny.”

“I haven’t had any problems in that area, of course. I never really seem to. I guess it’s just further evidence that the really over-the-top anti-trans stuff is mostly just an online thing.”

“I mean, yeah. I’m sure it’s hard to not internalise, though.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“So are you gonna be okay, heading back?” Dawn asked. Olivia sighed, burying her hands in the pockets of her coat.

“Oh, you know me. I’m always okay.” Olivia sniffed an ironic little sniff.

“Look, Liv…I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up. I don’t want to have to pry it out of you. I just need you to know, we can talk about it if you want to. It’s actually a bit weird not talking about it, isn’t it? We talk about everything.”

“Okay. Yeah. It’s not like I’m keeping it from you, y’know? It was just…” Olivia paused, looking for the right words: “Fucking traumatic, to be honest. I have all this power, and it didn’t mean anything. We just got absolutely crushed. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save anyone. I keep remembering back to before any of this…Many Worlds bullshit was even a thing, when I was just this normal girl. I can’t recall ever having felt as completely hopeless as I did against Seven.”

“Seven? That’s her name?”

“It’s what she calls herself. We don’t know why.”

“And she’s one of your…alternate selves, from other worlds?”

“Mmhmm. Alters.” Olivia confirmed. They walked in silence for a while. Olivia could tell Dawn was waiting for her to explain. So she decided, albeit reluctantly, to give it a go: “I was already in Anna’s world when Kira showed up with the others, talking about needing to prepare. They knew something was coming. Kira’s power…they feel where we all are, the connections between universes…that kind of thing. So when they said there was something wrong, we believed them. They said the weak points - the Rifts - were…changing? Kira and the rest of the Alters could get in but they couldn’t get out. It’s hard to explain. We didn’t know what was happening at the time, but Anna and Kira knew it had something to do with Seven. Anna was the only Alter who had actually met her before. She’d said she was ‘troubled’. Powerful. So we…started trying to prepare, like Kira wanted us to. But there was no preparation to be had, really. When things started to actually happen, I’d been thinking about it like…Seven shows up, we have a big sci-fi fight somehow, and that’s how it’ll go down.”

“I’m guessing that’s not how it went down?”

“No, it was just…people. People losing their fucking minds. It was like everyone in the entire world started fighting each other, and Seven was just there. All the hatred, and cruelty, and petty stupidity you see everywhere, every day: it was just that, but faster. Bigger. And before we even knew what was happening, it was in the streets, busting through doors and into homes. We got lucky a couple of times: people joining fights on our side just because there were two sides to choose. Flip of a coin, y’know? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that luck is the only reason I’m here to tell you about it all, to be honest. Things escalated so quickly. There was nothing we could do. Some of us tried to stop some things from happening - little things, people getting hurt - but our powers aren’t…we’re not…how did Kira phrase it? Yeah, ‘we’re not offensively capable’. Understatement of the fucking century, there. And then Anna died. It happened right in front of me: someone threw something big and hard and her head just…I’ll never forget her falling into me. So sudden, like a video dropping frames. One second she was looking at me and then the next…gone. Kier and Lee as well. I didn’t see them go, but Kira did. They had this plan, this stupid fucking plan: they tried to go after Seven directly. Kira won’t talk about what happened when they got close, we just know that Kira came back from it alone. After that, we just…ran. Those of us that were left, we ended up managing to force our way through a weak point - I still can’t work out how - and we ran.”

“God, Liv.” Dawn murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t believe we ran.”

“What else could you have done?”

“Y’know, the worst part of it is actually that part. I keep thinking back through it, and it feels almost like…” She paused, raising a hand to the bridge of her nose and squeezing tightly. “It feels like, if I could figure out something I could have done, then maybe that would be something to hang on to. But I can’t see a single thing we could have done differently, and that makes me feel like they died for nothing. Like we should have all just gotten the hell out of there to begin with.”

“The thing is, how could you have known? Hindsight is always going to be twenty-twenty, but there’s no way you could have known what was going to happen walking into it.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. So my takeaway, knowing you like I do, is that you’re grieving, and you’re trying to turn that grief into something else. Guilt? Accountability? We both know there are some things in your past that you spent a very long time blaming yourself for to avoid feeling like they were out of your control. You’re almost as bad at accepting you were a victim as you were at pretending to be a boy.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Oh, maybe?”

“You’re right, okay? I know you’re right. As like…a general rule.”

“The memory thing must make it quite a lot harder.” Dawn noted. Olivia sighed.

“It does. I’ve never told any of them other than Anna how it actually works - my power, I mean - but yeah. It does make it harder.”

“I can’t even imagine, to be honest.”

“I’m sort of glad you can’t. Like…it’s pretty bad when I’m around the other Alters. I pick up bits and pieces about them whenever we spend time together; just snippets of extra context mostly, particularly around big events, or places where our lives diverged significantly…and that’s usually fine. Especially once I’ve known them for awhile, it sort of just becomes background noise. I can - and usually do - just tune it out and ignore it. But for me? When it’s just me, alone? I can’t turn it off. Every time I run through a memory, or think too long about anything in specific, all the blanks fill in and it’s like I’m reliving it. It takes me right back to the place I was in at the time. Especially when it’s about…” Olivia sighed and stopped talking, letting Dawn infer the end of the sentence.

“It sounds…overwhelming.” Dawn reached down, pushing into the pocket of Olivia’s coat to grab her hand, squeezing it gently. “Do you think it’s something you should talk to them about? I mean, they’re all just different versions of you, right? If anyone could understand…”

“Oh yeah, cause I’m so good at taking care of myself,” Olivia chuckled bitterly. “No. And anyway, other than Anna, I’ve never been all that close with any of them.”

“You just went through the end of the world with them.”

“I went through the end of the world, and they happened to be there while it happened.” Olivia muttered.

“Suit yourself. But think about it, maybe? Either way, you know I’m here if you need me.”

“Mmm.” Olivia Mmm’d. “I do. Thank you. I just wish we didn’t spend most of our time on opposite sides of the planet.” Dawn leaned in, pressing her shoulder into Olivia’s arm. Olivia smiled quietly to herself.

“I uh…I do actually have a possibly insensitive question…?”

“Mmhmm?”

“How did it feel? In a second, going from a world that was falling apart to the exact same place in a world where it wasn’t?” Olivia considered the question carefully. She hadn’t really thought about it, but she had certainly felt it. She turned it over in her mind like it was the first bite of something that she hadn’t tasted before. She didn’t love the texture. The mouthfeel was decidedly off.

“Honestly, when we got back, it felt like the world was still ending. It felt like the idea that it wasn’t was just a lie, or an illusion or something. You have to understand, nothing happened that isn’t already happening here. Nothing happened that isn’t already happening in any world I’ve been to. It just accelerated. It got bigger. I’m walking around, day to day, and what happened there feels inevitable here. It just feels like I’ve seen the future.”

They continued their walk in silence, slowly making their way back to Dawn’s house. They stopped by Dawn’s local Co-op - this little grocery place that Olivia loved a great deal for no particular reason - and got some random things for lunch. Almost the second they were in the front door of Dawn’s house, Olivia started crying. Not the kind of crying that starts with a single, forlorn tear, but the kind that just bursts out of you, crippling you from the abdomen upwards. For a moment or two, Dawn just watched her, hunched over and trying to get her boots off as she sobbed pathetically, before dropping the bag of groceries and stepping in to help. Together they managed to get Olivia’s boots and coat off before navigating their way to the couch in the living room where Olivia sort of just collapsed, foetal, head in Dawn’s lap. She had no idea how much time passed before Dawn quietly asked:

“So were you and Anna…?” Olivia sniffled. Her throat hurt and the skin around her eyes felt hot and tender.

“No.” She croaked, shaking her head in Dawn’s lap. “I mean…maybe? Sort of.” It occurred to her that this was the first time since Anna’s World that she’d cried.

The next day, Dawn drove her to Heathrow. Olivia did her best to be visibly okay, but heading back to Brisbane, all she could feel was this vast, overwhelming sense of dread. She’d almost gotten out from under it for a few weeks, but now she had to actually face it.

A Coffee Table in London

Finally through customs, Olivia wasn’t surprised to see Kira waiting for her. She had a few rules in life, little observations that seemed so consistently true they formed, in her mind, part of the larger organising principle for the universe: First, hell is other trans girls. Second, wallowing in your own bullshit is a form of privilege. Third, when you really don’t want to run into someone, you’re probably going to, and the probability of doing so is directly proportional to how much you don’t want it to happen.

Olivia really, really didn’t want to see Kira right now.

“Need a ride?” Kira asked. Olivia noted that they looked…awful. Typically veering towards business-casual femme-leaning-androgyny, the faded, wrinkled Buffy T-shirt and jeans combo - together with unkempt curls and no makeup - set off alarm bells, which Olivia summarily ignored. Instead, she opted for:

“‘Need a fucking ride’ they say,” She muttered, reluctantly letting go of the handle on her luggage to give Kira a perfunctory side-hug. “Sure. I was gonna get an Uber, but I’m not gonna say no to saving forty dollars.” She paused, her eyes narrowing: “Wait, why do you have a car? This isn’t your world. Kira, did you steal a car?”

“No, I was kinda hoping we could head to mine for a bit. We have some things we need to discuss.”

“Oh. Right. Well, bold of you to assume I’d want anything to do with that discussion.”

“Liv. It’s been a month.”

“Yeah, it has. It’s been a pretty good month, actually, hanging out with people who don’t have my same face, who aren’t always going on about multiversal bullshit.”

“I lost them too, y’know?”

“What?”

“I knew Anna longer than you did. Kier was my best friend. I loved Lee like a sister. I lost them too. We don’t all have people who aren’t us.”

“Okay, look…I’m an asshole. Whatever. I just needed some time.”

“And did I annoy you with this stuff while you were in England?”

“No, you didn’t.” Olivia sighed. “Fine. It’s fine. Do you have a weak point we can hit?”

“I do. It’s just over in the uncovered parking lot.”

“A little more public than I’d prefer…”

“Has anyone ever noticed us doing this?”

“Can you just…stop making good points? It’s actually really annoying, Kira.” Olivia reached back for her luggage before striding ahead, throwing a comically exaggerated roll of her eyes over her shoulder as they started making their way out of the Arrivals area.

“Maybe stop saying so much dumb shit and I won’t have to.” Kira threw back.

“Fuck you.” Olivia briefly paused before continuing. “So what are we in for? Is this an All-Hands or what?”

“Sort of. Ari, Tash and Sage will be there. They’re calling themselves ‘Exodus’ now for some reason.”

“Suits them. Always running away from something.”

“Yes, well. Aren’t we all?” Kira muttered rhetorically. “Maya has gone dark, you know how she is.”

“I would kill for that power…”

“Yeah. Must be nice being able to just slam the door in our faces.”

“Yeah. Must be nice.” Olivia echoed pointedly. Kira ignored her.

“Okay, here we go.” Kira tilted their head towards an empty parking space. The process wasn’t difficult. Or, more accurately, it had become a lot easier over time. The weak points - the Rifts - were everywhere. Moving and shifting; invisible currents slipping and sliding through the world that the Alters could use to move between universes. Some girls - like Lee - had even accidentally stumbled through them without meaning to before. For Olivia, it had always taken conscious effort. Now that Kira had pointed it out, she could feel it: that familiar sense of aversion flowing through the space in front of them, a little like trying to push two magnets of the same polarity together as she got closer. Taking a deep breath, she used the sense of aversion to guide her. She pictured Kira in her mind’s eye - which, she had found, helped with not winding up in the wrong place - and stepped forward. She could feel the sense of aversion behind her, now. Some of the cars were parked in different spots. Different cars. That was that.

“You do have a car in your own world, right?” Olivia queried as Kira appeared beside her. She hadn’t thought to ask until now. She and Kira hadn’t spent a great deal of time together without the others around, so the interaction didn’t not feel awkward to her.

“Yeah, of course I do,” Kira confirmed. “It’s just over here.” They said, pointing towards what Olivia’s mostly car-illiterate brain clocked as probably some kind of Subaru. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I love stereotypes. Big fan.” Kira seemed confused, but Olivia didn’t care to explain the joke, letting Kira open the boot for her and throwing her suitcase in before making her way around to the passenger side door and hoisting herself up and into the car. Kira paid their way out of the airport and they started north. “Can anyone teleport?” Olivia asked. Kira glanced over at her.

“Other than Seven? No.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard. Going to a different place on the same world as opposed to the same place on a different world?”

“Would you like me to explain to you why that’s harder?”

“I would not, no. Just seems like maybe something we should be working on.”

“‘Working on’? Yeah, sure. I’ll take it to the boys in R&D and see what they can mock up for us.”

“Don’t be an asshole. My point is…I’m assuming this whole thing is about Seven. Am I wrong?”

“Not entirely, no.”

“Okay, sure. So…what the fuck is the point if we’re gonna be as completely impotent as we were last time? Shouldn’t we be working on some way of actually countering whatever it was that she was doing? Or at the very least, some of her powers?”

“You know how the power thing works. We have what we have. Sage and I can visualise pathways and connections between worlds and ‘track’ Alters we know. Ari is much better than the rest of us at finding and using weak points. We’ve never quite figured out what Tash can do. Maya can shut down other Alters’ ability to access her world, and you have that whole thing with being able to see Alters’ histories. It’s not like we can develop new abilities. If we could, I expect it would have happened by now.”

“Which is exactly my point. We’re useless. Whatever Seven can do is so far beyond us it’s fucking laughable. She can teleport. She can make it nearly impossible to leave a world. And somehow she can end one. What’re we going to do: have you and Sage map the Local Network at her while I tell her why she’s a fucking psychopath?”

“And what’s your big suggestion, Liv?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think talking about it is going to actually benefit us.” Kira didn’t say anything, but Olivia could see their knuckles go slightly white against the steering wheel. She decided to drop it.

It didn’t take long - maybe ten minutes - for them to arrive at Kira’s apartment. Olivia knew before they got to the front door that everyone was already there. She could feel them inside. Even after all this time, it was still mildly jarring for her: that passive little sixth sense they all had for each other. Like a light in the dark that got brighter as you got closer. Leaving her luggage in the car, Olivia followed Kira up to their front door.

“Kira, I’m actually really jet lagged to be honest,” She groaned as Kira slid their key into the lock. “Can we please keep this fairly quick?”

“Sure, whatever,” Kira said dismissively. Olivia rolled her eyes.

Fine, bitch.

Olivia didn’t know what she’d been expecting: Ari and Tash were the closest to extroverted her Alters seemed to get, so she had predicted a certain level of bounciness. At minimum, multiple big hugs. This was not the vibe. The vibe, in actuality, was ‘funeral’, which was not helped by Ari and Tash’s - not uncharacteristic - choice to dress like they were cosplaying futch and femme variations on a Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge era Gerard Way. Ari wore a long sleeved black button up shirt rolled up to the elbows with black chinos. Tash: a long sleeve black blouse and flowy, floor length skirt. Olivia could make out Tash’s buckle’ heavy combat boots peeking out from beneath the hem, purple laces and all. Skin naturally pale, hair messy and around their shoulders, they both sat there on Kira’s couch, silent and looking towards Olivia and Kira expectantly. Sage stood in the far corner of the room - wearing, for her part, a long blue sundress with elaborate, stitched patterning around the hemline with chunky black Doc Martens on her feet - leaning against the wall. The skin around her eyes was puffy and red.

Oh God. What the fuck have I walked into?

“Hey everyone…” Kira raised their hand in a little wave. The three of them nodded to her silently.

“So what’s the go…?” Olivia asked, making her way over to a ratty old occasional chair and dropping herself into it with a pointed amount of force.

“I wanted to get us all here because of…what happened.” No one reacted. Kira was simply stating the obvious. “What Seven did…” Olivia sighed. Kira had clearly not prepared for this part.

“This feels so weird without the others.” Tash muttered, shaking their head.

“Well they’re all gone, so…” Olivia shrugged.

“Could you be less…you?” Ari snapped.

“I’m not gonna sit here and pretend we’re not in the situation that we’re in.”

“No one’s pretending anything, Liv.” Kira’s voice contained a warning. Olivia ignored it, continuing:

“Aren’t we? Annabelle was the best of us. She’s dead. Lee was the strongest of us. She’s dead. Kier was the nicest of us, and he’s also fucking dead. And for what? Why are we even here?” Everyone’s attention turned to Ari as they got to their feet.

“We think we figured it out. How Seven did it.”

“You think?” Olivia raised an eyebrow in Ari’s direction. Ari ignored her.

“Sage thinks Seven opened a door to somewhere else and let something in. Somewhere outside the Local Network.” Olivia looked over at Sage, who nodded in the affirmative.

“Well that’s insane.” Olivia scoffed: “We can only go to places where we are. Alter Worlds. Minor variations, nothing significant. That’s what the whole ‘Local Network’ is, no? We’re stuck in this little corner of the Multiverse where it’s just…useless versions of us who can jump between worlds with other useless versions of us, being generally useless at each other.”

“It’s not like we actually know how any of this works,” Tash replied. “We’re just going off of precedent, really. Seven’s unprecedented.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Liv.” Sage said quietly, without looking at Olivia. “Couldn’t you feel it? Something…just fundamentally wrong about the world, getting worse and worse the longer we stayed?”

“Aside from literally fucking everything that happened there?” Olivia interjected. “How are we meant to differentiate some vague, esoteric feeling from friends dying and society falling apart?”

“Liv.” Ari warned.

“What? I’m sorry, am I being fucking unhelpful? What the fuck are we meant to do with that information?”

“Can’t you see how hard this is for her to talk about?” Ari took a protective step in Sage’s direction, positioning themself almost directly between where Sage stood and Olivia sat.

“No, I’m fine, it’s…” Sage reassured Ari, before pausing…collecting herself. Olivia fought back her frustration, evaluating Sage’s demeanour. She was clearly shaken, and it was clearly fresh. Everyone in the room looked more than a little shell-shocked. Which meant that Sage had been thinking about it, they’d all been talking about it, and whatever Sage had thought or felt was sticking with her to a problematic degree. Olivia could pick up on the thoughts and memories Sage was having, but they were fragmented and centred on the nebulous fear she was trying to describe. Vignettes of carnage and apocalypse from Anna’s world that Olivia didn’t need to sift through, because she could just as easily remember…hard as she had been trying not to. Beyond those, she found it difficult to differentiate Sage’s fear from objective recollection. Ari and Tash…their thoughts were entirely centred on concern for Sage, and speculation that, hopefully, this was a revelation that might lead to something. Kira’s thoughts, as usual, were all over the place; seemingly random memories and recollections. Flotsam and jetsam. But beyond what Olivia could read, something about Sage herself - in that moment; looking like a frightened animal on alert for a predator - was enough to make Olivia want to hear her out.

“I’m sorry, Sage. You’ve got the floor.” She conceded. Sage just nodded and took a deep breath:

“Okay, so when you get near weak points, there’s this feeling of connection. A sense that they lead to places. They’re like…currents, and we can ride them to either where we want to go, or where they’re naturally inclined to take us, but all the places they lead are…familiar. Not home, but home-like.” Olivia shrugged and nodded. “The feeling I got on Anna’s world was that the world as a whole was becoming…not home-like in that way. It was becoming something else. And it was doing it around us, while we were there, and it had something to do with where the Rifts were connecting from. I think back, and try to focus on how Anna’s world was connected to the rest of the Local Network Worlds while we were stuck there, and what I keep coming back to is that it feels like it wasn’t. The connections led somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere dark and…alien. Far beyond what I’ve felt before, beyond any connections I can visualise. Fuck, Liv: I can’t describe it properly, but did you feel anything like that? Just a creeping sensation that her world was becoming less…a part of you?” Liv sighed.

“Look. Maybe. It’s difficult to separate out what I was feeling from the situation I was in. And losing Anna, and Kier, and Lee? It was…a lot.”

“I know the feeling she’s talking about.” Kira directed the comment at Olivia. “It’s a feeling of proximity. Our own worlds have a centricity to them. I can explain it pretty easily.” Olivia raised a skeptical eyebrow as Kira moved towards the coffee table, grabbing a pack of playing cards. They pulled the deck out from its little box, absent-mindedly shuffling the cards as they continued to explain: “So all worlds exist in the same place and time. But the more different two worlds are from one another, the more worlds exist between them. Because parallel worlds are iterative. So your world and mine? Pretty similar.” Kira extracted two cards from the deck, laying them down next to each other at one edge of the coffee table: “Maya’s world is quite different from ours, so let’s say she’s over here…” Kira lay a third card at the opposite end of the coffee table. “You’ve felt that right? When you’ve been in Maya’s world? That feeling of distance from where you’re ‘meant’ to be?”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Olivia glanced at Sage. “You can feel how far from home you are.” Sage nodded, smiling a thin little smile.

“Yeah, so…” Kira pulled out a fourth card, holding it between their index and middle finger. They made eye contact with Olivia. “Think about the way that feeling amplifies between being here, with me, and being there, with Maya.” Olivia nodded. “Cool. Now imagine this card - ” they wiggled the card between their fingers: “ - is on a coffee table in London. And imagine how you’d feel, being there. Now ask yourself if, while you were on Anna’s world, you felt it - the world - moving further away?” Olivia felt her skin prickle. She didn’t want to admit it, but the explanation resonated. As, now, did the way Sage was acting. There was something deeply uncomfortable about the feeling of growing distance; like a hole opening up beneath you, making you want to claw your way desperately upward. She had felt that distance opening up on Anna’s world, but had dismissed it as…fear. As a normal reaction to watching the world descend into insanity around you. As just part of the horror and chaos of it all.

“Let’s say you’re right.” Olivia looked over at Sage. “What then? What does this change?”

“Well, for one thing…” Ari contributed: “If Seven’s opening doors - if that’s the problem we’re solving for - then maybe we can work out how to close them. Maybe that stops it.”

“So that would mean we need to talk to Maya.” Kira clarified. “Of all of us, she’s the only one who can actually change the way that Rifts work.”

“If we ever see her again, that is…” Tash muttered. Kira ignored this, taking charge of the conversation:

“I think we should also be looking for other Alters. We’ve never actually tried to find others - we just sort of run into one another sometimes. Anna did most of the heavy lifting in bringing us together. She travelled further into the Local Network than any of us ever really bothered to. So, moving forward, we need to be strategic about this. It stands to reason that there might be some of us out there with powers that are actually useful. If Seven can do things we can’t…someone else might also be able to as well.”

“I don’t feel right about bringing in versions of us who have no idea about any of this.” Ari countered.

“Makes sense. For now. We’ll focus on Alters who can travel, or who have powers, unless we end up having no other option.” Kira agreed.

“And that’s when we open a crèche?” Olivia suggested sardonically: “Multiverse kindergarten?”

“Y’know what, Olivia - "

“ - fucking what, Ariadne?”

“Don’t fucking deadname me - "

“ - Oh please, it’s not even an actual deadname, it’s not like I’m calling you ‘Kieran’ - "

“ - Liv. Enough already.” Kira snapped.

“Whatever.” Olivia scowled.

“There’s also the fact that Seven and Anna were both running around doing their own thing for quite a while before all of us met them and each other.” Tash attempted to manoeuvre back to the larger discussion. “It’s…possible that there are Alters out there who have more information than we do about the situation.” Sage added. Kira nodded in agreement.

“So we can work on all that,” Ari stated. “I mean, it’s basically what we were wanting to do anyway, before Anna’s World. Branch out, start getting a better idea of the how far the Local Network goes and who’s out there. So Exodus is reconnaissance.” Olivia tried to hide how hard she was cringing at that last part. She didn’t succeed, based on the look Ari was giving her. “Problem?”

“No, not at all. Enby recon squad, go!” Olivia raised a fist in the air with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

“So very glad to have you back.” Ari snarked sarcastically.

“Oh, not even fucking close to how glad I am to be back, I guarantee you.”

“Okay. Great.” Kira glared from Ari and back to Olivia before continuing. “Liv, I might need you to do the first contact stuff - bringing new Alters into this. Does that work for you?”

“Cause she’s such a people person.” Ari muttered.

“First, fuck you. Second, like…yeah. They’re right. Logic, please?”

“We need your powers.” Kira sighed, closing their eyes raising a hand to the bridge of their nose to massage it slowly.

“Of course you do. Sure. I guess I’m in.”

Restless

Olivia pulled the door open, threw herself and her bags inside, slammed the door shut, slumped against it and slid her way down to the floor. For a moment, she was relieved to be back in her own apartment. Her own world. No Alters, no multiverse, just her and her bubble and her fucking jet lag. In that moment, she managed to get in a sigh of relief. And then it all came flooding back: the job she tolerated, the ‘friends’ that were barely there, and…her. Always her. The one Alter she could never get the fuck away from.

It wasn’t that she hated herself. Not really. She got over that high-school shit about the same time as she started on estrogen. It was just that she could never get any distance. Drinking helped, but not that much and not for that long. It was the neuroses, and the maladaptive daydreaming, and the constant fucking critiquing and hyper-analysis of every…little…thing on an endless loop. And that wasn’t even getting into the way that her power forced her to functionally relive all the shit she’d been through with perfect clarity again, and again, and again. She was a lot. And the one person, the one fucking person who had made her feel even slightly…

No. Fuck no.

Olivia needed a drink. She got to her feet and slouched towards the kitchen, making a beeline for the cabinet above the fridge. Vodka. She cradled the unopened bottle affectionately before realising she’d been away for a whole month and didn’t have anything in the fridge to mix it with.

“Fuck it.” She shrugged. She went for the third cutlery drawer down, where all the random bits and pieces were, rooting around for a shot glass. She found a few. Her favourite was the one that had the outline of a skull etched into it. She also liked the one that said ‘Meanjin’ - she’d swiped it from a bar in Anna’s world a few years back; Brisbane was formally called ‘Meanjin’ there which she wished they’d do in her world - and another one that had the outline of some stupid cartoon koala on it. She decided to just use all of them, lining them up, pouring them to the brim and knocking them back.

“Blergh…” She shuddered, eyes closed and mouth open, shoulders hunched, feeling tingles of physical shock spread out across her body.

The thing about Anna was…

No. Stop.

She refused to do this. Why was her brain trying to make her do this? Olivia slammed her hand against the countertop, making the shot glasses jiggle. There was a knock at the door.

“Who the fuck…?” Olivia’s eyebrows creased involuntarily inward as she became aware of who was outside the door. She took a moment to fantasise about not answering, before sighing and slumping her way over. The girl on the other side was instantly recognisable. It was Olivia’s own face - her own body - if she hadn’t been forced to settle for ‘near enough is good enough’. She pulled the door open.

“Hey girl,” Maya held up one of those mix-packs of vodka cruisers proudly, like she was freshly eighteen and presenting her ID to a bouncer for inspection. Olivia gave her a quick once-over: dark blue satin halter-halter top that seemed to ripple like liquid, and a black asymmetric midi-skirt.

“Nice boots.” Olivia nodded appreciatively at the black leather ankle boots accented with thin strands of gold chain-links at the sides.

“Thanks! They weren’t cheap.”

“Oh, trust me. I can tell.”

“Good. That pretty much makes them feel worth it.” Maya beamed: “How was England?”

“I mean…it was grey and miserable and perfect, as always…”

“Very on-brand for you.” Maya acknowledged, pushing past Olivia and into the apartment. She went straight for the fridge, raising an eyebrow at the excessive emptiness of its interior before shrugging, dumping the box of drinks inside, grabbing out and uncapping one on the counter, and bouncing her way over to the couch. Olivia shut the door, torn between irritation at the intrusion and relief at not having to be alone with herself.

“So Kira says you’ve been ignoring us?”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Maya smirked, folding one leg exaggeratedly over the other before taking a dainty sip of her drink. “You’re not the only one who needed a holiday after that.” Olivia passed by the kitchen bench, grabbing the bottle of vodka and joining Maya on the couch.

Olivia didn’t like Maya, particularly. Ironically, they were very different people. In the early days, Maya had been something of an object of jealousy for Olivia: this version of herself who somehow managed to get on puberty blockers and avoid male puberty altogether before starting on hormones at eighteen? For a little while her existence had blown a massive hole in Olivia’s ‘I don’t give a shit’ approach to passing, to other people’s opinions, to desiring external validation. Finding out that she was, deep down - in Olivia’s estimation - kind of a terrible person had been…a relief. But even now, Olivia had to actively try not to stare. Maya’s face - the result of an early transition Olivia hadn’t known was an option and surgeries she’d spent so much energy convincing herself she didn’t need - was always slightly jarring for her to look at. She had spent enough time deconstructing her own face in the mirror that every difference in contour stood out to her. It was her own face, but for the perfectly rounded, rosy cheeks; the complete lack of brow-ridge; the effortlessly pouting lines of her lips; the smaller, much cuter chin; and the shaved down profile of her nose that obscured the little bump at the top that every other Alter had. Maya’s face made Olivia want to smash every mirrored surface in her apartment to avoid the comparisons she knew from experience she’d be making for days to come. She took a swig directly from her bottle of vodka.

“You missed an All-Hands.” She croaked out at Maya, who rolled her eyes.

“You guys had a little get together without me? Damn, gutted I wasn’t there.” She grinned, seemingly proud of her sarcasm: “Catch me up, though?”

“Well, Ari and company have decided they want to go role-play Sliders. They’re calling themselves Exodus, now.”

“Suits them.” Maya shrugged. “Always running away from something or other.” She paused, considering. “What’s Sliders?”

“Oh, it’s this really old show? Bunch of people jumping around between parallel worlds? So like…our life.”

“Enbies...” Maya shook her head. “Always latching onto weird, random stuff.” Olivia took a deep breath, willing herself to not get into this topic with Maya again. It always ended the same way: with Maya laughing it off like it was a meaningless joke before rapidly pretending nothing had ever happened. It had always confused Olivia that Maya’s antics never seemed to bother Ari, or Tash, or Kira. They always just…glossed over those sorts of things. It was possible, Olivia supposed, that she was being oversensitive about it on their behalf.

“The big news is that Kira and Sage think they worked out how Seven did what she did. They think…maybe we can work out how to stop it happening again. And hopefully stop her.”

“Right.” Maya’s demeanour shifted noticeably. It was like a wall came up between them: Olivia could see her eyes lose their sparkle, her lips tighten and her jaw clench. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Well, we might have to talk about it soon. It’s looking like we’re going to need to know more about powers. Specifically yours.” Maya cocked her head.

“My powers?”

“Yeah. The lockout thing.”

“Oh. You know it’s not deliberate, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not something I actually control. It just happens when I’m feeling…avoidant. I want to be left alone and voila, I get left alone.”

“Oh. Okay.” Olivia frowned. “Makes me wonder what you could do if you were actually trying.”

“I’m open to working on it. I’ve just never really bothered before.” Maya shrugged.

“I just had no idea it worked like that. You never mentioned.”

“Yeah, well. You never really asked. None of us ever really ask each other about anything; have you noticed that? We’re all so sure that because we’re the same person we all know each others’ deal. We’re stupid.” Maya paused, staring intently at her partially empty cruiser, swirling the liquid around in neat little circles.

“I guess that’s true. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s all of us.” Maya sighed. “The ones who are left, at least. Kier was never like that. What’re the odds that the only version of us actually comfortable with being a boy would be the most emotionally intelligent?”

“I never really thought about it like that but…yeah. It did feel a bit like that sometimes. Though he and Anna, both being cis…I feel like there was always a gap, there. They couldn’t quite understand a lot of what the rest of us had gone through, at least in terms of gender. So maybe there were less assumptions.”

“Maybe.”

“I still sort of think he was an egg, though.”

“You’d know better than I would: you’re the one who can read people.”

“Oh, it’s just bits and pieces. I never got anything definitive on that front. I think the most telling thing was the way that every time he got drunk he’d ask me lots of questions about transition, and how I knew, and how knowing felt…and I never got the vibe that the interest was uh…purely academic, y’know?”

“Guess we’ll never know, now.”

“Right. Yeah. Guess not.” The two sat in silence for a few moments, reflecting.

“I keep thinking about what happened. I can’t help but feel like…” Maya trailed off awkwardly, taking a sip of her drink.

“Like the wrong ones survived?” Olivia asked cautiously. Maya nodded, avoiding eye contact. “It’s okay. I miss them too.”

“Liv…” Maya started, her voice dropping into a quiet murmur.

“Yes, Maya?”

“We’re not very likeable, are we? As people?”

“Speak for yourself.” Olivia replied sardonically: “I’m a fucking delight.”

“Okay.” Maya rolled her eyes.

“What’s with you?“

“What?”

“You seem so…un-Maya - “

“ - Maybe it’s because things got too real, you idiot.” Maya hunched over, staring straight ahead. Olivia’s felt her brow involuntarily furrowing. She wanted to reach out, to comfort her. But she just shook her head and sighed.

“Yeah…” Olivia said. “They really did, didn’t they?”

“Can I ask you something kind of messed up?”

“Yes?” Olivia squinted guardedly, taking a pre-emptive swig of tolerance.

“If you had to do it again, knowing what you know now, would you have still tried to fight? Or…if the option had been there, would you have run from the start?”

“Uh…fuck. I really don’t know. I don’t know if I could just walk away from something like that, even if I knew it might kill me. I’d have to try to do something.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“Wait, really?”

“Fuck, Liv, how much of an asshole do you think I am?” Olivia found it jarring to hear Maya swear. It didn’t happen that much.

“I don’t, I guess I just thought - “

“ - No, like…it’s fine. Before it happened, I don’t think I really would have expected myself to stay either. Now we know, I guess.”

“Yeah. Guess we do.”

“Guess that means we should be prepared, next time.” Maya acknowledged reluctantly. It was as close to an enthusiastic confirmation that she was ‘in’ as Olivia was going to get and she knew it. Maya raised her cruiser in Olivia’s direction. Olivia reciprocated, bottles clinking together.

“Nastrovya.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” They both took a drink.

They talked awhile longer. Olivia was surprised to find that she was actually enjoying Maya’s company. This was likely because she was strategically avoiding topics like non-binary identities and transmedicalism, but still. It was nice. Eventually - after maybe an hour or so - Olivia had enough vodka that suggesting that she and Maya could make out if they felt like it started to seem like a good idea - which from historical experience would have been a deeply stupid path to go down - so she lied and told Maya she needed to sleep. After Maya left, Olivia decided to keep drinking and watch Buffy. She settled on rewatching the last few episodes of Season Three.

The thing about Anna was…it wasn’t like the two of them were actually anything in particular. It was more like…look, have you ever had this friend who you really like - you think they’re great, really you do - but they just never fuck off? They’re always around in some capacity, wanting your attention? And you’re like…’dude, I’m not actually that exciting to be honest, I’m just this girl, y’know?’. And they act like they get it - even though they have no idea you’re misquoting Hitchhikers Guide because you’re a massive, old nerd like that - but still…they never fucking leave you alone? And you’re just like…what the hell do I do, here? You like them - a lot actually - but god damn does this shit take a lot of spoons. So you start drinking about it, and it gets a little easier. But at the same time, you’re like…’why does this one fucking person need my attention so very much?’, and it’s like no one else gives a single shit about you, let alone is putting this kind of work in to be around you? The only time people give a shit about you is when they want something, or they’re projecting their own shit onto you and it’s not really you they’re engaging with so what the fuck is even going on here? Obviously, the answer is that there’s something wrong with them. They’re weird and annoying and should probably be focussing on unpacking a whole laundry list of shit rather than trying so hard to be close to you. But you’re their priority, and somehow…fuck, somehow that makes you like them more. And you get to a point where it all kind of flips around and when they’re not bugging you, you spend a not small amount of your time wishing they were bugging you, and you’re spending all this time together and you’re like…’okay, maybe something in my life can go right in spite of me’. They forced their way in through your bullshit avoidant walls and now you’re happy that they’re there. And then, suddenly, you’re watching them die and they’re dead, forever, and you know, you just fucking know that there was exactly one person in the entire fucking multiverse who saw the real you and still wanted to be with you, and that will never, ever happen again, and the reason you know that for a fact is that it took a literal version of you to think you were worth…knowing like that, and it’s like they’re gone but they’re still under your skin and in your bones and it’s breaking your heart like a fucking clot lodged in a ventricle and…fuck.

Olivia took an aggressive swig of vodka. Mentally…emotionally…she was fried. Wincing as the vodka burned its’ way down her throat, she started silently running back over her second rule like a mantra: Wallowing in your bullshit is a form of privilege. Drink about it, cry about it, and get over it.

I miss you.

She texted Dawn, guesstimating that it would be about midday in England.

I miss you, too. How are you holding up?”

Olivia sighed:

I hate it here. I can’t stop thinking about her.

I have a couple of hours tomorrow morning between meetings if you want to talk about it some more?

Fuck, Dawn. I feel selfish. While I was over there and every time we’ve talked for the last little while we’ve been exclusively focussing on my bullshit. It makes me feel like a bad friend.

Oh please. If anything we’re playing catch-up on all the times you’ve been there for me over the years.

I guess. And yes, I would love to see you. Thank you.

You’re welcome. I love you. You know that right?

You’re the only person I don’t question it with. And I love you too.

Olivia settled into the couch, feeling a tiny bit better. Slowly, she continued to drain the bottle of vodka, staring absently at the TV. Eventually, the ‘sleepy’ side of her jet lag caught up with her and she passed out on the couch.