Lannon’s face was looking much better than it had several hours earlier.

The rest of his body, not so much.

A dozen wires and tubes were connected to his chest, pumping in blood and fluids. A large machine governed the input and output of the polyethylene serpents, keeping his physiologic functions from veering out of bounds. Webs of filamentous material patched torn vessels and anchored together the viscera of his gaping chest wound, holding him stable for surgical repair.

“I figured you’d be here soon,” he said, propping his head up against the pillow to get a better look at me.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve got so much medication on board, I don’t think I can feel anything.”

“Guess that’s a good thing.”

He glanced down at his chest and back at me.

“Definitely a good thing.”

I didn’t have it in me to laugh at the understatement.

“What do you think of your first alternate reality?” he asked.

“It looks hot and miserable outside.”

“Yeah. We didn’t pick the widow’s nest as a vacation destination. The environment’s too brutal for the Republic to be interested in exploring. Human life never evolved here on its own.”

“The whole planet’s like this?”

“It’s all either desert or arctic tundra. Thanks to this species of algae that evolved here and fucked up the climate. Now there’s massive desert storms and sandbison that we have to deal with.”

The biologist in me would’ve found this talk fascinating any other time, but I couldn’t be bothered with it right now.

“Revella destroyed the thread to my Earth,” I blurted.

Lannon’s expression sobered.

“I heard.”

“How am I going to get back?”

“Don’t worry. We have a plan. To get our hands on a bridgemaker and create our own access to your Earth.”

My shoulders sagged with relief.

“How?”

“It’s…well, it’s kind of been our plan from the start. I’ve got a confession to make to you. I haven’t been totally honest about my motivations for coming to your Earth.”

Revella’s warning flashed to the forefront of my mind. I stood straighter, keenly aware of Mack standing over my shoulder.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s true that I wanted to save your mom. I think Revella’s methods are savage and inhumane. But protecting a few innocent lives from demon hunters isn’t MEAD’s primary goal.”

“Then what is?”

“Remember what I told you about how humanity has united all its knowledge and culture in the connected multiverse? About how our collective discoveries have revolutionized life for everyone on all those Earths?”

“Yeah…”

“Medicines, transportation, power systems, inventions that just make daily life easier – trillions of people have access to these things thanks to the multiverse. That’s a miracle, right?”

“Right.”

“So then…”

He was interrupted by a fit of coughing. His entire frame hacked and jerked with the spasms. The microfibers holding his chest wound together strained under the tension. Droplets of blood splattered from his lips onto the blanket before him.

After the episode subsided, he continued as if nothing had happened.

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“So then, would it not be a crime to deny this knowledge to other Earths that haven’t been connected to the multiverse? Wouldn’t it be fair to at least offer these worlds an invitation to join us? Rather than let their people die from curable diseases or waste their lives puzzling over problems that were solved decades ago on a different Earth?”

“I…guess that makes sense.”

“That’s our goal. To bring more Earths into the connected multiverse so that more of humanity can benefit from the sharing of our knowledge.”

“Then why does Revella think you’re all terrorists for wanting to do that?”

“Because Revella represents the Republic. The body that holds an iron grip over the entire connected multiverse. They hold on to their power by carefully regulating when new Earths can join the multiverse. New realities trickle in slowly, giving the Republic time to assert control over each world completely before the next joins.”

He inhaled deeply and blew the air out, his breath warbling through his lips like a spluttering engine.

“If we bring in hundreds or thousands of new Earths, the Republic won’t have the military resources to control them all. They’d be vulnerable to be overthrown and replaced with a more egalitarian system.”

And now things were beginning to make sense. Lannon wanted an army. A civil war.

“I’ll give Revella and the imperialists credit where it’s due,” he said. “They actually were trying to do a charitable thing, dropping into your Earth to kill a radish demon that would’ve destroyed your planet. However, if they had things their way, they would’ve dropped in, killed the demon, and vanished without a trace, leaving your world as blind to the existence of the multiverse as it had been before the demon slipped through the void into your reality.”

“So that’s why you came to my Earth? You wanted to connect it to the multiverse?”

“Eh, sort of. Indirectly.”

“Then why did you come?”

“For Revella. She’s high up in the chain of command. She’s got access to bridgemaker facilities, and when she’s on a mission on an uncharted Earth, that’s the best time to target her.”

I studied Lannon’s face. A shadow of pallor was still cast over his flesh, but his brow was knotted with grim determination. This was what he’d been building to.

“You want a bridgemaker of your own,” I said.

He nodded.

“With one of those, we’d be able to punch a connection to any Earth we please. Including yours.”

“I…feel like you’ve been using me.”

“Maybe I have, a little. And I apologize. It wasn’t to be malicious. It was because I saw an ally in you. I thought we could be united against Revella. And it worked. We caught her, and your mom’s alive.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But now there’s a radish demon running loose on my Earth, and we don’t have a way back.”

“We’ll get you back home.”

“Why do you care?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just steal a bridgemaker and recruit realities that aren’t infected with demons?”

Lannon shrugged.

“It would be easier, I’ll admit it. But creating a bridge to your Earth and rescuing them from a radish demon infestation, after the Republic had left them for dead…” he salivated. “That would be the perfect way to start our movement.”

He noticed my face, and added, “plus, of course, it’s the right thing to do. Your Earth needs our help, and I promised it to you.”

Maybe it was a mistake, but I felt I could still trust Lannon. His motives all made sense, and while our goals were different, saving my home reality seemed to fit with his endgame. He didn’t have a reason to betray me, as far as I could tell.

“So when are we going to get this bridgemaker?”

“About two months. That’s how long it’ll take to grow a biometric clone from Revella’s cells. And for me to get back into fighting shape.”

My heart sank into a pit of quicksand, disappearing below my diaphragm. Two months? I thought of Jack and Violet being trapped on the same planet as the hellish reptilian that Michael had transformed into.

“Is that too long? How much damage will Michael be able to do by then?”

“I’m not sure. That could be enough time for some eggs to germinate. I’m not sure how many radish demons will be waiting for us when we arrive. Could just be the original. Could be twenty. Could be two hundred. And if we don’t cull that herd quickly, that number will increase exponentially.”

“God damn it.”

“Sorry.”

“Why did Revella close that fucking portal?”

“It’s the imperialist way.”

Jack wouldn’t know where I was that entire time. I felt like puking. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if our roles were reversed. He wouldn’t know if I was dead or alive, wouldn’t have any way of knowing if or when I’d ever return. He wouldn’t know I’d traveled across realities. He’d probably assume I’d gone missing. The FBI would put pictures of me on milk cartons or whatever they did these days.

Fuck Revella and the Republic for giving up on my home so easily.

I could see how people like Lannon turned into violent revolutionaries.

“What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Get stronger,” Lannon said simply. “We’re going to need you on the ground whenever we arrive to rescue your Earth. If you’re going to run with us, you’re going to need some upgrades.”

“Upgrades?”

“I’ll ask our bioengineers to talk to you. See what they can outfit you with.”

I remembered the wires and pistons articulating underneath Revella’s flesh. The metallic insides that had spilled out of Magrue when I’d shot him.

“I don’t know if I want all that,” I said.

Lannon shook his head.

“It’s not about what you want, it’s about what you need. Trust me, if you want to maximize your chances of saving your home reality, you’ll need to be more than you are right now.”

I studied the blood, sugars, antibiotics, and other fluids being pumped into Lannon’s fame. Metallic mesh still peeked out from underneath the fibers holding his wound closed. That was an easy statement to make, coming from a man whose body was dead, save for the robots propping it up.

But his words had truth to them to. I couldn’t live with myself if the reason Jack, Violet, and countless other people died was because I’d let my inhibitions turn me into a liability. If I was going to save my reality with a team of superhuman soldiers, I might have to be a little bit superhuman myself.

Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to get beefed up a little bit. It would certainly make it easier to open jars of jam when the lid got stuck.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what the bioengineers say.”