Alter: Kadence

Local Network World: 0008/0103

Dates: 10/07/2025

In Post

Kade stared at her naked body in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the sliding door of her closet. Her eyes slowly panned over the inward curve of her waist and the corresponding outward curve of her hips…subtle but increasing, week by arduous week. She registered her breasts; new, and growing, and slightly triangular from a side angle. When she looked front-on, small shadows formed beneath them; subtle crescents. Her thighs had thickened slightly, and her calves had become fatter, more rounded, and less muscular. Her skin - freshly shaved - even just visually and from a distance, registered as soft. When she reached out to touch it, there was a resistance - an elasticity - that hadn’t been there before.

She liked what she saw, in spite of the imperfections. Or maybe - in a way that was new to her and slightly difficult to parse - because of them. The slight overhang of her belly; the lighter-coloured ridges of her stretch marks…the few tiny patches of spidery blue veins evident beneath the softening, thinning skin of her thighs? They made her smile. She registered them as imperfections, but they were imperfect parts of her. She understood why she felt that way, and wondered if a cis woman mightn’t. A woman who hadn’t chosen it; fought for it; paid for it, both literally and figuratively. She knew she’d never know how cis women experienced their bodies, but she did wonder about it. About whether they appreciated what they had in the way that she was beginning to.

The fact of the matter was that Kade had spent her entire life looking in the mirror and seeing an absence of ‘her’. An absence of who she was. Negative space where that ‘her’ should have been. Back when she used to see Kieran in the mirror…sometimes he looked like a stranger. Sometimes he looked familiar, but other-than-her, like a friend she was standing across from. Sometimes he looked…grotesque, as though his body was shaped wrong; too…blocky and angular, bulging out in places where there should have been straight lines with straight lines in places where there should have been curves. It had taken her a very long time to work out why it all looked so absolutely, inherently wrong to her: that the inconvenient, difficult, expensive, problematic truth was that it looked wrong because it wasn’t right. There hadn’t been anything wrong with her reflection, other than the simple, painful fact that it wasn’t hers. Wasn’t her.

And she had never understood why anyone else liked it, either. Attraction had always confused her. Her self-image had bled smoothly into her schema for understanding the world and her place in it. She had believed as an a priori fact of her existence that she was a fundamentally broken thing overlaid with an all-too-visible veneer of grotesque wrongness. That there was nothing there to want, or appreciate, or enjoy. She assumed that people saw what she saw, so for the longest time, attraction felt like charity: a thing you accept with gratitude, but not with any sense that the other party is getting any benefit from giving it to you beyond, possibly, the feeling that they’ve done something kind. Not once in her entire life had she been with a person, or had a person want her, and felt like it was anything but an act of selflessness or…in her more negative moments, poor judgement or questionable sanity?

Still, she’d sought it out, sometimes desperately, because it felt like a thing that she needed - that she longed for; craved - despite it never being…’enough’. As she had come to realise…when people were attracted to her for reasons that didn’t register to her as authentically what they claimed, it was pouring water into a bucket with a gaping hole in the bottom. No matter how much was poured in, she still ended up feeling…empty. Even if dissociation hadn’t been her day-to-day experience of interacting with the world around her…the people she wanted…loved…laughed with…missed…fucked…craved closeness with, they were never reciprocating those things with her. They were doing them with her reflection. Her mask. They were with Kieran, and she was never anything but a degree of separation away from those experiences. One of the few times she could remember having cried before starting estrogen was the first time she had watched Being John Malkovich…feeling this sinking feeling of intense discomfort build as John had slowly been excluded from his own experiences; made a puppet in his own body; a witness to his own life. She related. Hard.

The pill she’d been choking on, trying to swallow down in her current situation was her growing suspicion that the only thing to be attracted to had been him. That she was finally looking in the mirror and seeing someone she registered as desirable - in her way, for all her flaws - and that she was alone in her perspective. That the mask…the reflection…the shell of her had been desirable to others in some way that the fully formed version of her was simply not. Every time she was told to care less about external validation, all she could think about was how simple it had been for Kieran - even if it had never felt like it at the time - and how fundamentally inaccessible it felt for her. And that was a whole half of why she’d done it.

Fucking Olivia had been stupid; the outcome predictable. She also knew the other half of why she’d done it, of course. The whole of why Olivia had done it. They were both reeling from - running from - their memories of dead friends, shattered connections and broken worlds. In that place, seeking distraction was like breathing: not simply automatic reflex, but necessary for survival. And the lizard-brained desire for the shallow comfort of warm flesh, of a body pressed onto you like a weighted blanket, of whispers in your ear that drove away your own thoughts a gasp…a latching breath…a groan of pleasure at a time? Fuck. They were both there. They were both them. In retrospect, it seemed…inevitable. But in the present - predictably - the reality of the act was mirroring historical context, and it felt to Kade a lot like evidence. Getting fucked didn’t prove anything about being wanted. She could have been anyone. She remembered needling Olivia, walking her through the logical justification that she could have been ‘just some girl’. At the time, she’d thought it was hot. In retrospect, it felt like self-harm. Like pressing the razor against soft, pale flesh; living in that moment before the skin gives way beneath it. Because she could have been anyone. Anyone but her. Kade sighed. She had wanted to feel seen; desired. And for a moment - in the moment - she’d let herself believe it was something other than it was. Something that mattered. But it hadn’t mattered. Olivia’s words - her actions - were something she didn’t feel ownership of; they weren’t for her. They were like bits and pieces of memories and echoes of a more meaningful act. In a sense, she almost felt ashamed for enjoying it; for participating in it. For devouring the scraps of a thing that belonged - in whole - to someone else. To someone Olivia truly wanted. To one of her T-for-T crushes, or the past partners she didn’t talk about, or…the one that she did talk about. Annabelle. Feeling seen; feeling desired: why would she ever, ever have thought that she was a person who could provide that to herself? But…if reality wasn’t enough, she could always…

Don’t even think about it.

Slowly, Kade pulled on some underwear and lay down, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she was lying in her own bed, in her own apartment. No Alters, no Kieran - whether in her head or in the mirror - no apocalypse unfolding outside. It didn’t feel entirely real. Absently, she started to shift in and out of Otherwheres. It took almost no effort, now. She’d simply picture a place in her mind and make herself be there. In the blink of an eye, she was lying in the grass on her little island…then on a soft, unrealistically warm bed of snow under a representation of the Northern Lights she’d pulled from videos she’d seen, snaking across dusky, star-studded Scandinavian skies…then reliving that memory of drinking chocolate-cake-flavoured cocktails in a vodka bar in Birmingham with Dawn; of the first time she’d put on makeup and liked the result; of the first time she and Sara had kissed. There didn’t really seem to be a limit on what she could do with it. Other than, of course, effectively distracting herself.

Stop.

“No. I can, so why shouldn’t I? Just once. Just to see.” Kade murmured, getting to her feet and shifting into another Otherwhere. In the blink of an eye she was surrounded by the afternoon glow from the penthouse she and Olivia had stayed in. Olivia stood by the windows, just like Kade remembered, in her underwear and Kade’s over-shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to just above the elbow. Kade looked over towards the couch, where she herself had been laying that day but suddenly wasn’t. “Hey Liv,” The words came out slowly. Cautiously. She began to walk towards her doppelgänger who looked over at her with a peaceful smile. She noticed her hands were shaking slightly as she moved behind Olivia, sliding her arms around her waist over her own over-shirt.

“It’s weird that we’re the same height.”

“Not quite. I’m a little taller.”

“Yeah, by maybe an inch or two? HRT I guess.” Olivia turned in her arms, leaving them nose-to-nose. Gently she leaned in, her lips grazing Kades as her arms moved up and over Kade’s bare shoulders. Kade shivered. Olivia’s skin on hers was so very soft. Kade’s eyes flickered closed and her bottom lip dropped a trembling centimetre. “If you want to fight over a few inches, though…happy to do it.” Kade let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding in.

“Fuck, that’s…wow, definitely something I could see her actually saying. Part of me wishes this was real.” Kade admitted.

“Maybe it could be.”

“It’s just a fantasy. Just…bullshit emotional masturbation.”

“Like you’re above jerking off all of a sudden…” Olivia murmured, leaning in again to nip at Kade’s bottom lip. Kade felt every muscle in her body consecutively relax utterly and tense anxiously. Olivia chuckled: “Good girl.” Kade’s eyes flickered shut. A brief, involuntary moan escaped her lips.

“Don’t…say that.” Kade shook her head. “You know what that does to my brain.”

“Of course I do. I’m you.” Olivia whispered.

“Even moreso than normal,” Kade acknowledged with a sharp intake of breath. “I wonder if she’d hate me for this?”

“I think she’d understand.” Olivia murmured.

“What, that I’m that fucking touch-starved and lonely that I’m fantasising about an imaginary version of an alternate version of myself?”

“No…” She felt Olivia shaking her head. As Kade opened her eyes, she saw Olivia’s identical ones fixed on hers, a wry smile obvious in her southward peripheries: “That you’re curious how it would have felt if this moment had been for you. If it had been yours.”

“Jesus. When you put it like that, it sounds…”

“Sweet. Romantic. Heartsick.”

“Pathetic.”

“Why is it pathetic to feel…longing? To wish someone would fill that emptiness you can’t fill yourself?” Olivia murmured. Kade bit back a laugh at the double-decker irony of the question.

“It’s pathetic because it’s not just ‘someone’. It’s pathetic because I don’t even want her, I just want someone - anyone - to want…” Kade trailed off, sighing. “God, this multiverse stuff is a nightmare. I was already enough of a tragic, sapphic mess and now...” Kade sighed. “I’m so fucked.”

“Not yet, but uh…play your cards right?” Olivia shrugged, smiling innocently, mirroring back Kade’s own words from the other night.

“That would be…something.” Kade admitted. “But no. I just wanted to see.” Olivia nodded, leaning in to kiss her deeply. Kade let it happen, feeling as if she were melting…Olivia’s lips gliding over…pressing against…opening up around her own. A gentle scratch of teeth and a subtle brush of tongue. Upper body pressed into her, flesh warm against flesh; the feeling of Olivia’s bare leg sliding against hers, their hips locking against each others’. She wanted to stay, to feel like it was possible for her to feel wanted, but this Olivia was just a shadow; a cross between a memory and a wish. It meant nothing and Kade knew she’d hate herself for it later. Well, hate herself more. She pulled away before blinking back to her bedroom. “You’re so fucking stupid.” She informed herself as she sat on the edge of her bed, head in her hands. Sitting up straight, she pulled one hand back and to the side, paused, then slapped herself across the face hard enough that she momentarily saw white. “Guh,” she choked out. A ringing sound buzzed in her ears as she recovered her faculties. “Do better.” She demanded, getting to her feet, starting the process of getting dressed. Losing motivation, she slumped back down onto the bed, staring blankly at herself in the mirror. Her brain rippled with a sort of numb static. Possibly from the slap; possibly from jumping in and out of Otherwheres. She waited for it to settle. It didn’t.

Her phone buzzed on the side table. She looked over at it suspiciously before picking it up and opening the messenger notification. “Damien?” She asked no one in particular.

Hey dude :p the message read: What’re you up to?

Kade shrugged, texting back that she wasn’t busy with anything in particular.

Feel like having some drinks?

“Why not?” Kade shrugged, texting back in the affirmative. They decided to meet at a bar near Kade’s house. She finished getting dressed and doing basic makeup before getting an Uber out to the bar. Damien was already there, waiting at one of the small outdoor bench-seats with a beer in front of him and a vape in hand.

“Hey girl,” He smiled as she walked up.

“Yeah, don’t do that.” She cringed visibly, shaking her head. “Comes off as super fucking camp from one of the cis-est, straightest guys I know.”

“You know other straight cis guys?” Damien raised a hand to his chest, pantomiming offence.

“Why? Is being my token dude friend important to you?” Kade threw out a raised eyebrow paired with a dry smile.

“What if it is?”

“Then I guess you’re in luck?” She shrugged. “I’m gonna go get a drink.”

“No problem. Gin and tonic fine?” He nudged a second glass she’d previously dismissed as water in her direction.

“Perfect, thank you.”

“No worries.” Kade sat down across from him. He raised his glass. Kade picked up her gin and tonic, clinking the rim against his.

“Nastrovya,” She nodded.

“Prost.” He countered as they both took a long sip.

“Oh that’s actually good.” Kade’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as she inspected the glass.

“Yeah, I went upper shelf.”

“Why bother? I feel like we’ve had that conversation about my whole thing with alcohol being efficiency over taste.”

“Yeah, I dunno. I figured something fancier might be called for, what with everything you’ve been through lately.”

“Huh?”

“Transitioning. Marriage breakdown…”

“Oh, right.”

“Life in shambles, at the end of your rope, cursed and broken…”

“Shut the fuck up.” She laughed. “You’re stupid. But thank you for the drink. Just glad that when it comes to my shout there’s no such thing as fancy beer.”

“You think there’s no such thing as ‘fancy beer’?”

“Is there?” Kade asked earnestly. Damien squinted at her, nodding slowly. “Oh. I…figured it was all pretty much the same.” She reached out to grab his vape, taking a long drag before releasing a small cloud of vapour.

“So you’re just…fully leaning into training for the stereotype Olympics, huh?”

“Beer isn’t gendered.” Kade snorted. “Beer is just water that tastes like shit, and anyone who likes it is fucking weird: him, her or them.”

“It’s cause you think it’s inefficient, isn’t it?” Damien smiled.

“That alcohol content paired with that taste?” Kade shuddered. “May as well drink mouthwash. This,” She held up her gin and tonic, swirling it around demonstratively: “Is both stronger and tastes much better, so what are we even talking about, here?”

“Well…agree to disagree, I guess. So how’ve you been, anyway?”

“Oh, you know. Just spending time with myself, mostly. Processing my way through some things. Trying to, at least.”

“Well it’s clear you’re getting somewhere. You look great.” Kade frowned, looking down at herself.

“Do I?”

“Well yeah. You look uh…more comfortable in your own skin, y’know? More expressive?”

“Oh. Okay,” Kade laughed awkwardly. “It’s probably just the clothes. I feel more awkward being out in public like this, but I also feel more comfortable? More ‘me’? It’s um…a weird cognitive dissonance to navigate.” She took a sip of her drink. “How’s that project you mentioned going? Any progress?”

“At work?” Damien confirmed. Kade nodded. “Yeah. Definite progress. A pretty big setback recently, but we’re nothing if not adaptable.”

“You’re so vague about it.”

“Well I could tell you, but then I’d have to - "

“ - Yeah, yeah. So cheesy.”

“I’d tell you if I could. I swear.”

“I know. You were always so bad at keeping secrets. I remember that one time, back in year twelve, when…” Kade trailed off, feeling her phone vibrating in her pocket. “Sorry, just a second.” She pulled out her phone. It was an unknown number. She shrugged and answered.

“It’s Kira.”

“Oh hey. You’re calling me. We do phones, now?”

“I mean…not usually? Multiversal reception, not really a thing. But I have a system. For emergencies.”

“God, everyone’s being so fucking vague today.”

“I don’t know what that means. Anyway. We need to catch up.”

“Sure. When were you thinking?”

“Pretty much now?”

“I’m out with a friend.”

“Couple of hours?”

“Fuck, Kira…is this urgent?”

“Like I said. Phones are for emergencies.”

“Okay. I guess I won’t get drunk, then.”

“Well, this conversation might go better if you are drunk, so…feel free.”

“Well that’s ominous.”

“Nine o’clock, okay? My place, my world?”

“See you then, I guess…” Kade hung up, pushing the phone back into the pocket of her jean-skirt. She exhaled sharply; a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding in. Her brain had latched onto a few of her and Kira’s words - ‘emergency’, ‘better if you’re drunk’, ‘ominous’ - and was attempting to cement them into circadian rhythms that she recognised as spirals towards nebulous feelings of dread. She forced herself to let it go: no point in worrying about it. Yet. “Sorry. Turns out we’re on a timer. I’ve got until around nine.”

“That’s no problem.” Damien shrugged. “It’s weird. I couldn’t help but overhear the voice on the other end of that and he sounded just like you.”

“Oh,” Kade forced out an awkward laugh, trying to formulate a response to that: “Did they? I’ve never really noticed. Also, it’s ‘they’. Sometimes ‘she’, but they prefer ‘they’ and ‘them’.” She amended. “They’re non-binary.”

“Look at you. Last time I saw you, you didn’t even want to tell me what pronouns you preferred.”

“That’s true, actually.” She nodded, taking a drink. “It’s been a long few weeks.”

“So who were they, anyway? Friend? More than a friend…?”

“Just a friend. Kind of a colleague, in a sense?” Kade mused.

“So it’s a work thing you’re needing to go to? Bit late, no?”

“What is this, a fishing trip all of a sudden?” Kade smiled wanly, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry, just curious I guess.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on anything exciting. They just need me for this thing. Apparently it’s urgent, so…”

“Yeah, it’s no problem. I’m happy for you, by the way.”

“What? Why?”

“Y’know, connecting with other people like you.” Damien replied nonchalantly. Kade’s eyes narrowed.

“Sorry, what do you mean, ‘people like me’?” She asked, certain that she was overthinking an innocuous statement, but needing to confirm nonetheless. Briefly, she saw a cold - almost stern - look pass over Damien’s face, before reverting to his typical, perpetually wry half-smile.

“People in the community. You said they were non-binary?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely nice to have…community.” She smiled awkwardly, taking a large mouthful of gin and tonic, increasingly watered-down as the ice melted. Damien pointed to Kade’s drink.

“Did you want another?”

“Yeah, sounds good. Shouldn’t this be my round, though?”

“Nah, I got this.” Damien shook his head dismissively, getting to his feet. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Kade watched him walk inside and back towards the bar. Slowly, she let her head lilt to the side, considering. She couldn’t quite place it, but something about the interaction had felt…wrong. Maybe it was nothing, though. Maybe she was just too tired to tell the difference. Turning back to the dregs of her gin and tonic, she scowled quietly, draining the last watered down mouthful of it, staring down into the tiny pool of remnant ice and lime slices. She felt annoyed, more than anything. Both Kira and Damien had set her on edge. Which was bullshit, frankly, considering she was already navigating being on the edge of something else that, she felt, was far more compelling and urgent. She sighed, running a finger slowly along the rim of the empty glass, propping an elbow on the table and resting her head in the palm of her hand.

“Yeah, alright then.” She muttered to herself, not even entirely sure what she was responding to.

The Local Network

Kade knocked on Kira’s door. It had seemed more polite than using an Otherwhere to suddenly appear in their living room. After a few moments the door opened, revealing not Kira but Olivia.

“Hi.” Kade said slowly, the one syllable stretched out; rolling off her tongue like molasses. Olivia raised an eyebrow.

“Really? Hi?” She took a step forward, pulling Kade into a brief hug. “I’m sorry I suck. You were right. I am all over the fucking place. I’ll try to do better. Just…uh…don’t give up on me, okay?”

“I never would.” Kade frowned. “I just want you to be nicer to me. Have a little more self awareness and empathy and stuff. That’s literally all.” Kade paused, her eyes narrowing. “Have you been obsessing about this since we left the penthouse?” Olivia nodded, avoiding Kade’s eyes.

“Yeah. We barely spoke that whole afternoon or the next morning. I should’ve said something then, but I didn’t know what to say, y’know?”

“It’s okay. I could’ve said more, too.” Kade nodded.

“You said plenty. I haven’t been particularly fair to you, or really…held space for you to be your own person. I think I’ve just been looking at you through the lens of early transition ‘me’, and uh…I maybe have more issues with younger me than I’ve really taken the time to unpack. So I fucked up. I do that a lot. Kinda my thing.”

“It’s not like you have a patent on it. I really do get it. Wow, you’re so…vulnerable right now.” Kade smirked.

“Fuck you,” Olivia laughed.

“No, it’s great. This is working for me. I should get mad at you more often.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“And…look. I’m also aware that both of us are struggling with what happened in the apartment. What happened on the beach.”

“Yeah.” Olivia sighed. “I just wish…”

“Me too.” Kade nodded. “But they’re gone. And we’re not. So what choice do we have? Gotta…keep moving forward, I guess.”

“Fucking…evergreen sentiment, right there.” Olivia acknowledged. Kade slowly angled her head to the side, a smile worming its way across her lips. “What?”

“Dawn talked you through it, didn’t she?”

“To be clear, I am actually capable of having grown-up revelations on my own.”

“Yeah, but did you?” Kade raised an eyebrow. Olivia sighed.

“Look. I’m surrounded by different versions of myself, and she’s still more a part of me than anyone. Of course we talked about you.”

“I know. I’m you. The only thing that stopped me from doing the same is that I haven’t had time to explain the whole…’situation’ to her yet.”

“Oh, I remember that conversation. Just skip right to providing proof. Disappearing and reappearing in front of her got the point across pretty efficiently.”

“Or I could just bring you with me to England.”

“Just say when and I’m there.” Olivia smiled.

“Should we go in?” Kade asked.

“Yeah, they’re all in there already.” Olivia nodded.

“Oh. Right.” Olivia led Kade through and into the living room. Kade nodded to Kira, who smiled at her from her seat in this old beige occasional chair with its’ fabric fraying where it met the wooden frame. On the couch were three others. Olivia held out her hand towards the closest of the three.

“Kade, this is Ariadne - "

“ - Ari.” Ari corrected, giving Kade a small wave and Olivia a pointed glare.

“Sorry. Still an adjustment.”

“It’s been years, Liv.” Ari deadpanned, before turning their attention to Kade: “I was Ariadne when I transitioned. I realised my whole thing was a bit less…binary, ultimately. They-slash-them, for reference. But I was attached to the name, I guess? It meant something to me, so…I both kept it and changed it.”

“Makes perfect sense.” Kade shrugged, enjoying Olivia’s clear discomfort.

“See? She gets it.” Ari winked at Kade.

“I get it too, I just…” Olivia took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Fuck this has been a humbling couple of days. Anyway, this is Tash,” Olivia indicated the Alter in the middle seat of the couch. Tash held up a hand in greeting.

“She-slash-they,” Tash clarified.

“And this is Sage.” Olivia indicated the last Alter on the couch.

“She-slash-her, please and thank you.” Sage smiled.

“Everyone, this is Kade.”

“She-slash-her.” Kade said, her voice lilting upwards reflexively at the end, making it sound slightly like a question. The three Alters on the couch nodded in tandem.

“Where’s Maya?” Olivia asked Kira. As if on queue, a door opened from a couple of rooms away and Maya emerged.

“Hi Liv. Kade.” She said quietly.

“How’re you doing?” Kade asked, immediately aware of the shallow bags under Maya’s eyes; the lack of makeup, the oversized hoodie, bare feet and a rumpled, knee-length skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a simple pony-tail and she looked profoundly tired.

“I’m doing okay. I had to break lease on my apartment and move my stuff into storage, but…I decided to take a bit of a break before looking for a new job. I’ve been staying with Tash in their world. They and Ari have been really great. I’ve even started working on getting a better handle on my powers. I can do a bunch of new things: I can shut down access out of worlds as well as into them now, for starters. It’s been uh…a good distraction from everything else. And I’ve been sober since you guys…went away.” Maya gave Kade a small smile.

“I’m glad you’re doing a bit better.” Olivia moved over to her, giving Maya a hug.

“Well, doing better than the both of you, or so I hear?”

“Kade’s tough. Took her first apocalypse like a champ.” Olivia shrugged as she broke the embrace.

“I think we’re holding up as well as can be expected.” Kade confirmed. “So uh…Kira, you called this thing. Why’re we all here?” All eyes immediately went to Kira.

“Helios.” Kira sighed. “We need to talk about Helios.” They added before stopping, looking down at their feet.

“Did you find out something new?” Olivia prompted.

“Not really. Look, I need to preface this with a couple of things. First, I know how this is going to sound. Second, I have never been on any side but ours. The same goes for Anna. We thought we were doing the best thing for everyone in keeping this information to ourselves.”

“What information?” Olivia asked, her voice calm and low. “Say more. Now, please.”

“As you all know, I knew Annabelle before any of you met either of us. The bit you don’t know is that we both had encounters with Helios in the early days. We’ll start there. Here’s what we knew. Everything we knew. Firstly, they’re not like us. They don’t have powers. They’re just people, but they have technology that lets them do some of what we can do. It lets them access weak points and move between worlds. Anna and I were almost certain that they weren’t locked into the Local Network like we were. Secondly: Helios built the Local Network. Those Helios Foundation pyramids are holding sites. Inside of them are pylons. Those pylons create the barrier between our worlds and the rest of the Multiverse. A Helios agent once told us that they were all technically the same pyramid, existing across all the Local Network worlds at once, tying them together like a knot. I don’t understand the science. Something about a restricted spectrum of vibrational frequencies. All we really know is that those pylons keep us locked into a finite number of universes. Thirdly…from the outset, they had a…pretty specific focus when it came to us.”

“Seven.” Olivia ventured.

“Seven.” Kira confirmed, nodding their head. “We never found out specifically why. All we knew was that she was an Alter, she was powerful, and she was dangerous. Anna was the person you all remember. She thought that the best way to protect everyone was to stand between us and them. Helios wanted Alters. They wanted to look into our powers, to work out how to use us to…mitigate Seven. Anna offered them a deal. They keep their distance, and she would handle contacting Alters and…bringing them in. She’d report back to Helios, give them information, but only so long as they left the rest of us alone. She worked with them but she never trusted them.”

“And what about you?” Olivia asked coldly.

“I thought Anna was wrong. We…agreed to disagree. I wasn’t working with them at the time, I just…sometimes gave them information. Helped them with mapping connections between worlds. Things like that. But it was all very transactional. Quid pro quo. Like I’d do something for them, if it seemed harmless, and if they gave me what I wanted in return. Like a consultant.”

“So that’s how your ‘system’ works?” Maya asked. “You sell us out and they pay you?”

“No.” Kira shook their head emphatically: “I would never. My power lets me create maps between places I’ve been - "

“ - and Alters you know?” Olivia queried, her voice still dangerously calm.

“Liv, no. I swear. It was never anything but feeling out which worlds felt closer and which felt further away from each other.”

“Keep going.” Tash prodded.

“Okay. It all came to a head when Seven’s world collapsed. Anna felt it; all of Seven’s pain, and rage, and despair, and she went looking for her. She found her. When she told me about it…Seven had accused her of being with Helios. Of being their way to get at her. She wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. Seven could read her, but…you know how it works, Liv - it’s your power - she can only see bits and pieces. Fragments and vignettes. She could see that Anna had a connection to them and that was all it took. She teleported Anna worlds away. We don’t know what happened after that. Anna went home.”

“And that’s when it happened?” Olivia asked, confirming. Kira took a sharp inward breath before nodding.

“It was a few days after that when I first felt it. You all know how this works: if I’m connected to one of you, if we know each other, I can feel the path to your world. There was something wrong with her world. We went there, warned her, and…then…you know the rest.”

“Is that it?” Ari asked, their tone cold and unreadable. Kira shook their head.

“After Anna’s world, I went to them. I was…I was broken.”

“We remember.” Ari said. “We worked through it with you.” Kade thought she could detect an accusing edge to their voice.

“Kier was my best friend. Lee and Anna, I loved them. They were the three most important people in my life, and suddenly they were dead, and I had someone to blame, and that person had a multiversal organisation looking to take her down.”

“So Liv became an alcoholic - “ Tash started before Olivia cut them off:

“ - Functional alcoholic.”

“I don’t think that distinction helps you as much as it sounds like you think it does…” Tash noted. Olivia shrugged. “So Olivia became a functional alcoholic, and you…what? Signed up with Helios?”

“I offered to take Anna’s place. Keep working towards a mitigation strategy. What else was I meant to do?”

“Fucking tell us!” Sage shouted, her voice cracking dangerously: “We’re all the same person, so you know beyond any kind of doubt how you would feel if one of us kept you in the dark like this! You weren’t ‘working towards a mitigation strategy’! We are their fucking mitigation strategy, and you and Anna were willing to keep us blind, and let them use us! Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t have a problem with this shit? Show of hands if you’re okay with this?!” Every Alter pointedly, simultaneously, crossed their arms across their chest.

“Sage is right, Kira. You said you’d never been on anyone’s side but ours.” Ari observed: “I don’t doubt that, actually. But not as our teammate. As our General. Only I don’t remember any of us getting a say in that.”

“Same with Anna. We let her take the lead, but it was because she was one of us, not because we thought she was above us.” Tash added. “And now it turns out she was lying the whole time?” Kade watched as Liv’s eyes instinctively drifted towards Tash, more than a hint of anger behind them. Still, she said nothing.

“Like I said,” Kira stated: “I know how it sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound that way, it is that way.” Maya snapped. “We all almost died in that shit-show on Anna’s world: who’s to say how things might have been different if you’d told us what was going on?” Everyone turned to look at Maya for a moment.

“Gotta say: girl’s got a point.” Ari shrugged in agreement.

“Even if we accept that Anna got caught up in trying to mother us all…” Sage paused, seemingly for effect: “After what happened, that was the time, y’know? That, in the timeline of events, would be the last reasonable opportunity you had to bring this to us.”

“Hang on…” Tash interjected. “Why didn’t Olivia know? You can read Alters, so…” They trailed off. Olivia, still silent, shot a warning glare in Tash’s direction.

“Liv doesn’t understand her powers.” Kira responded quietly. To Kade, they sounded shell-shocked. Broken. On the verge of tears. “She can’t read Alters’ histories, she can read Alters’ thoughts. When you talk about an event, your mind fills up with adjacent context. That’s what Liv can read. It’s why she’s so good at pinpointing divergences: they’re usually huge events that are perpetually on the edge of our conscious recollections. They leave a mark on everything. It’s triangulation. I’m just…good at distracting her with other information. Anna did it too. You can misdirect her power by overloading it, keeping the things you want to avoid in the background. Putting other things in the foreground. It’s not hard when you know how. And…Anna and I knew enough to know how.”

“But if Seven could read Anna - " Tash reasoned before Kira cut them off.

“ - Seven is stronger. And she knows her powers better. I don’t think there’s a one of us that doesn’t already understand that.”

“Clarity…” Olivia murmured to herself. Kade could feel visceral frustration rising from her gut and into her diaphragm, primarily on Olivia’s behalf but more generally on that of the Alters as a group.

“Does uh…does the fact that they went to those lengths to avoid this conversation make the situation so much worse for anyone but me?” Kade asked, looking over at Olivia: silent…her arms crossed over her chest…her face unreadable.

“You’re not alone in that.” Ari confirmed coldly. Olivia stepped forward, sighing deeply.

“I can get past Anna doing what she did. She was a hero. Heroes are idiots. She should’ve known better, but I get it. I can get past your logic, too, Kira…why you did what you did, why you kept us in the dark…all of that. The thing is, if nothing had come of any of this, I think we could all get past it. Can we all just be real here for a minute and admit that we could forgive the betrayal if not for the consequences of it? From where I’m standing, both Maya and Sage have made really good points. Like Maya said, we don’t know how things might have been different if they’d told us what they knew. And, like Sage said, there was a time for confessions, and that time has long since passed. Because…that’s really what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? The reality that, for all we know Kira, you and Anna’s silence might have collectively managed to get Kier and Lee killed?” Olivia looked around the room: “And you guys never met Alice, or Faith, but…they were just as real and just as important as anyone else that’s been lost. When Kade and I were on that world, we had to watch these two amazing women - just the best versions of us that you could imagine - die.” Olivia turned to Kira specifically. “So I get the reasoning. I get the logic. I get the betrayal. But what I need from you is to tell me how we get past that bit. The consequences of your actions.” The room fell completely silent as they waited for Kira to respond.

“Just one more question.” Kade added quietly. The room turned their collective attention to Kade. “Olivia spoke to Seven. Seven told her what she would do if she found out any of us were working with Helios. We told you that, Kira, and you said nothing. So I’m…forced to infer that, in the event that she came for you, you would have let us die trying to protect you. Am I wrong?”

“Those are two very good questions.” Ari contributed. “I think you should answer them.”

“But you all already know the answers. I’m not going to defend myself. I’m sorry. I fucked up and I am so sorry. I have no excuses.”

“Screw it.” Tash sighed. They got to their feet, standing next to Ari. “Intent has to matter. We’re dealing with Seven, and apparently Helios, now. You’re right about consequences,” they turned to Olivia. “It’s fucked up. None of us are gonna forget it. It’s going to be really hard to rebuild trust, if that’s even possible, but…” Tash looked to Kira: “Your heart was in the right place. You fucked up massively, but your heart was in the right place and…for me at least, I guess that counts for something. Cause I’m looking at you, and I’m looking at Seven and Helios, and I can’t help but think that everything you did wrong is because of a situation you were forced into by a conflict they’re having where, at best, to them, we’re just pawns on a chess board. I know we were never that to you. I know it.”

“Yeah, but we can’t just let it go, Tash.” Olivia said

“When did I say we’d let it go? I never said that.”

“I know, I’m just saying that something has to change. At minimum…at minimum,” Olivia repeated with emphasis: “We need a new…configuration.”

“How do you mean?” Ari’s eyes narrowed.

“She means…” Kade sighed: “That none of us are going to be able to live with this while Kira is calling the shots. Which they have been, by default. Right?” Kade looked over at Olivia. Olivia nodded.

“So what’s your suggestion?” Ari asked, skepticism evident in their tone. “You want to be in charge, Liv?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Olivia glared at them. “Why the fuck would I want to be in charge? I’m a mess. It just can’t be Kira.”

“It shouldn’t be anyone.” Maya muttered.

“Huh?” Ari turned towards Maya.

“Well it shouldn’t be. Isn’t that like…the root of the problem, here? We’re all the same girl - "

“ - Person.” Ari corrected.

“Sorry, we’re all the same person.”

“You’re right.” Tash nodded. “We’ve been letting one of us sit above the rest and it’s not fair, or right.”

“That wasn’t what she meant…” Olivia interjected: “Was it, Maya?”

“No. It wasn’t. I just meant that…what Kira did, what Anna did, what Seven is doing, it’s the same. And we are all the same person. We all have that in us. And let’s be real about this: Anna and Kira, they didn’t take the lead. We weren’t just passive, trusting subjects…we actively chose to defer to them. We pushed them to the front. None of us want to be in charge, but any of us would do it for the rest if we thought it was what everyone wanted. And I’m thinking…if we force one of us to do that, to stand for all of us, eventually that Alter is gonna start speaking and acting in a way that the rest of us aren’t okay with, no matter how good their intentions are. We’re all different but none of us are better.”

“She’s right.” Kade shrugged. “I don’t know you all very well, but…I know me. I know Liv. Both of us instinctively react to being forced to take charge by very much trying to live up to that - to the point where it blinkers us - and by breaking down when we fail to. It’s not like…a moral failure. It’s probably a coping mechanism. But all the same, not an awesome characteristic for a leader to have, I wouldn’t have thought.”

“I know you all pretty well, and I second the fuck out of that sentiment.” Olivia nodded to Kade.

“So like…democracy, then?” Ari shrugged.

“Huh?” Tash frowned.

“I’m just connecting dots here. And if this…ad hoc structure we have results in us always pushing someone to the front…and if none of us can be trusted at the front, then…” Ari trailed off suggestively.

“Oh, we’re stupid.” Sage muttered.

“Yeah…kind of seems like it shouldn’t have taken us this long to get here.” Ari agreed. “Should we uh…vote on it?”

“Seems appropriate.” Tash said. “Show of hands for the thing that probably says some pretty negative stuff about our collective psychology, given it took us this long to suggest it?”

“Yeah, it’s…not great.” Olivia sighed as she and the rest of the Alters raised their hands.

“And are we forgiving Kira? Show of hands?” Ari asked. Kade watched Kira smile quietly to themself as each and every Alter, again, raised their hands. Reluctantly, she did so as well.

“Thank you.” Kira murmured.

“Sorry, everyone. I need a minute, I think.” Kade shook her head, rapidly walking outside.

Desperation

Kade sat out on the front steps of Kira’s apartment, staring out into the night; lost in thought. She barely registered the sound of the front door opening and closing, but glanced to her left as Ari sat down beside her. Ari pulled a pack of cigarettes out of their jacket pocket, looking over at Kade:

“Do you mind if I…?”

“As long as you’re okay with paying some tax?” Kade shrugged. Ari nodded, opening the pack and holding it in Kade’s direction. Kade pulled out a cigarette, placing it between her lips. Ari did the same, pulling out a small lighter and lighting up before passing it to Kade.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Oh, I don’t. Disgusting habit. And did you know it’s apparently really unhealthy?” Kade asked in mock disbelief. Ari shook their head, smiling to themself.

“No, I’ve never heard that.” The two of them sat for a moment, watching the smoke pool around them before dissipating into the air.

“Ariadne: like the Greek myth?” Kade asked quietly.

“Mmhmm. I just liked it. My mother…less so, after a quick Google search or two.” Ari grimaced. Kade nodded, laughing quietly to herself.

“Sorry about that thing with Liv, before.”

“No, it’s no problem. Liv is just…” Ari chuckled to themself: “Liv is just Liv. She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s our pain in the ass. And we all know that without Anna, she’s struggling. We make allowances for that.”

“It’s worse for her now, I think. The things that happened on Alice’s world? Both of us are…well, we’re compartmentalising it pretty thoroughly. Some things are just too big to face head-on, y’know? So you dislocate them from your schema. Set them off to the side. Eventually they become…sterilised, in a way. Separate from how you view yourself.”

“Yeah. I uh…I have this rule of thumb with us. All of us: y’know, the ‘multiversal self’ that we collectively are? We all process most of our bullshit pretty externally. So if one of us isn’t saying something…isn’t going into detail? I tend to assume it’s bad. Speaking of which: we’re here if you need us. I know you know that but it’s worth saying out loud.”

“Thank you. And yeah, I do know that. Maybe someday I’ll be ready to unpack it all, but…not today. Today I’m just…reconciling that Kira could have maybe stopped the thing that almost broke us. Probably not, but…maybe. It’s a difficult thing to process.”

“Yeah. What Maya said about the way that things could’ve been different? That girl is much smarter than we give her credit for. I always thought she was kind of a ditz, honestly, like getting her transition shit worked out so early meant…I dunno, that somehow she hadn’t had to work through the shit we did and came out the other side of it a little…undercooked? Since she had that meltdown; started working through some of it with us and Kira, I’m thinking I was wrong.”

“Olivia thinks she’s weird about enbies. Judges trans girls who don’t pass.” Kade noted. Ari smiled, before laughing quietly to themself.

“Olivia may be projecting just a scooch, there. She’s a lot more like the version of Maya she has in her head than she thinks she is. It’s not so surprising, really. I think a lot of girls who transitioned earlier get it into their heads that they’re somehow better than the rest of us, that their way was the right way and the rest of us are either weird, or lost, or…whatever.”

“You think so?”

“I kinda do. Olivia and Maya…they’re not so bad: but yeah, I do think they’ve both built a chunk of their identities on top of the belief that they did it right, which by default suggests that the rest of us did it wrong. Enbies, later-in-life trans girls and so forth. It’s less like they have problems with us and more like…they have blind spots, y’know? Or we make them uncomfortable because we’re a mirror that forces them to look at how things might’ve been different. I mean…literally in the case of their Alters. I don’t really mind, though, personally. Mostly it just makes me a little sad for them. You don’t want your sense of the validity of your own identity tied up in comparisons with other people’s expressions of theirs. That’s no way to live, y’know? Not if you want to like…actually have fun with your life.”

“I think that’s a really good way to look at it.” Kade smiled over at them. “But how do you…stop?”

“Well, like anything it’s aspirational. It’s a goal. None of us are perfect, and there’s always room to grow and improve.”

“I think it’s something I’ve struggled with a bit. Something I’m starting to come to terms with. I’ve had this thing Olivia said to me bouncing around in my head the last couple of days…about not restricting your identity based on what you’re scared other people see when they look at you. And some other stuff. She said…a lot.”

“Yeah,” Ari nodded. “Our girl loves a monologue.”

“She really, really does.” Kade nodded, taking a long drag on her cigarette before exhaling deeply, mesmerised by the smoke as it spilled from her mouth. “What was she like?”

“Who?”

“Sorry, I meant Annabelle.”

“Oh. Wouldn’t you know better than any of us?” Ari frowned.

“Oh, my stories? The Annabelle I wrote about was just a kid. This uh…fucked up, lonely, self-destructive mess who pathologically could not get her shit together.”

“Well, she was definitely that. Just like the rest of us, really.”

“Fuck, isn’t there any version of us who isn’t fucked up?”

“Well, we’re clever. In my experience, intelligence correlates pretty heavily with depression…anxiety…neuroticism, to the point it might as well be like…a predictive metric for them. It’s funny. People look at intelligence as an inherently positive thing but uh…it’s never done shit for me. If anything, it’s just been a kaleidoscope of analysis paralysis and navel gazing bullshit. I think people maybe mix up ‘intelligence’ with ‘being good at stuff’ far too often? If intelligence in a vacuum was worth anything, it sort of feels like we might be able to think our way our of these situations, rather than just…get traumatised, break, and learn to live with the brokenness. Such a bullshit cycle, but one we’re all trapped in. And Anna was too, no less than the rest of us. But beyond that, the Anna I knew was kind. Quiet, sometimes - very reflective, very in-her-own-head - but tough as hell, and confident in what she believed. And just so…fiercely, passionately protective of all of us. She never put herself first, even if sometimes she thought she knew better and acted accordingly. We all loved her. Even Lee, who was constantly fighting her on like…fucking everything.” Ari paused, considering. “Y’know, the lot of us are really bad at thinking nice things about ourselves. Being kind to ourselves. That was something Anna was good at doing for us. Making us feel like we had value. Making us feel loved. The irony of Liv’s situation is that - as hard as it is for her - we all know how she feels. Maybe not to quite the same extent, but if she’d let us, we could have been there for her.”

“Liv’s not awesome at that. Letting people in? She’s working on it.”

“I think you might be a good influence on her.”

“No, I’m just me.”

“No one’s ‘just’ anything, Kade.”

“I guess.” Kade sighed.

“So is it just Alice’s world on your mind?”

“For the most part. But also Seven. I just like…I don’t see how any of us can live our lives with her there. She’s just this constant, unending crisis we have to deal with. I wish we could just…” Kade trailed off, cocking her head to the side. “Huh.”

“Just what?” Ari prodded.

“I think I’m having an idea.” Kade murmured slowly.

“What kind of an idea?”

“Potentially a stupid one. Just letting it marinate for a little bit…” Kade trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she took another drag on her cigarette, coughing slightly on the exhale and reaching out beyond the pathway to tap the ash from the end of it. “Can I run some thoughts by you?”

“Of course,” Ari nodded.