Alexa’s blue eyes flashed from Sasha to Zee Captain as she considered her words.

“Me,” she whispered with sudden realization. “Only I… could stop myself so effectively. Only I would tolerate my own shenanigans for so long..."

She stared at Captain.

“But you can’t be me, can you? I mean… what? How could you be me? You… you don't look, don't smell anything like me!"

"That woman you saw," Zee said, "is you, Alexa. Or rather, another version of you, from a different doomed world."

"She doesn’t look anything like me,” Alexa pointed out. "She looks like Infinity, the woman I met on Titanomachy, one who claimed that she created me. How is that possible?"

Zee Captain's mask tilted slightly, as if considering how best to explain. "The manufactured omniverse is vast, Alexa. There are countless versions of you, each making different choices, living different lives within different narratives. The woman you saw - let's call her ‘Prisoner Alexa’ - is one such version."

"Okay, but why is she a prisoner?" Alexa pressed. "What did she do?"

"She chose to align herself with Infinity, to fight against the System,” Zee explained. “It's... a complicated, messy situation."

Alexa's fists clenched. "That doesn't sound like a crime to me. It sounds like she stood up for what she believes in."

"Perhaps," Zee conceded. "But from the System's perspective, her actions were deeply destabilizing. She had to be contained and judged."

“Contained… not erased?” Alexa squinted at Zee Captain. “I’d expect Three to nullify her ass, not just take her to Manchester. Why is she going to Manchester?”

“She, like you, made a Fractal Engine,” Zee Captain explained. “We don’t just unmake someone who wields a Fractal Engine.”

Cottie, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "Wait, if she's Alexa from another world, then what about the rest of us on this train? Are we all different versions of Alexa too?"

Zee nodded slowly. "Yes. Everyone on this train is a version of Alexa. This is how this liminal space functions.”

Alexa looked around the compartment, her gaze lingering on Cottie, then Sasha, then back to Zee.

“Seriously, how are you me?” She demanded.

Zee Captain's shoulders slumped, and with a heavy sigh, she reached up to remove their mask.

Alexa choked as she saw what was beneath the mask. It was nothing. The kind of nothing that was filled with everything that made her head hurt and made her eyes throb. The nothing-everything appeared to be wrapped with some kind of black duct tape that was barely holding everything together. The nothing-everything was still seeping through the holes in the tape, making Alexa's thoughts careen sideways into pure, gut-wrenching madness.

Alexa blinked tears of blood from her eyes trying to understand, trying to wrap her mind around what she was seeing even as her head threatened to split open, her mind boiling inside of her skull.

"I am you, Alexa," Zee revealed, slipping the mask back on. "Or rather, I'm what remained of another copy of you after the Earth I inhabited became subsumed by the Dead Zone. I am the version of you that already studied in Manchester, already became a proper System Wizard, went back to the Dead Zone and created a Syntropic copy of myself to guide another me, per Wizard Revolution’s request.”

Alexa stood up abruptly, her heart pounding. "You're telling me that you're me, that she's..." she pointed at Sasha.

Sasha's starry form twinkled, a million eyes opening and closing inside her shawl-like body. "Yes, we're all you, darling. Different facets, different choices, different outcomes, different bodies.”

Alexa whirled fully to face Sasha. "What version of me are you supposed to be?"

"The kind that chose to be more," Sasha's form shifted, bringing out blue eyes forward from her depths. Alexa choked as she recognized her own eyes. A thousand eyes of a thousand Alexas stared back at her from the endless abyss.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"This... this is rather bonkers," she muttered, running a hand through her silver hair. "You're all me?"

"That's correct," Zee nodded. "Each of us represents a different path you could have taken, a different choice you could have made. A different copy of your soul manufactured into existence on a different world."

Alexa thought of the freaky passengers that spoke incomprehensible languages.

"All of those weird passengers... are me too then?"

Zee Captain nodded. "Yes, even those seemingly incomprehensible passengers are versions of you, Alexa. They're from worlds with narratives so different, so alien, that they're far beyond what you might recognize as human. But at their core, they're still you, copies of your soul, your potential."

Alexa eyed Cottie. "And you? Are you really just some doppelganger, or are you another me too?"

The doppel shifted, turning into an exact copy of Alexa.

Alexa stared at her own shocked face, mirrored perfectly in the form of the doppelganger.

"Welp, that doesn't freaking answer anything," Alexa muttered. "So, what, this whole train is just... Alexa Express? Wait... so which one of us makes it to Manchester? Do all of these Alexas have tickets from Revolution? What happens when the time loop ends? Do we all just... merge into one super-Alexa or something? Not that I mind being a super-Alexa, but I kind of like myself as an individual with specific dreams and wishes. Wait, no... if that were the case then you wouldn't be so against Sasha and the doppel-me... Seriously, what is this, some kind of cosmic blender for all possible versions of me?"

Zee nodded waving a gloved arm. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

Alexa felt a chill run down her spine. She glanced at Cottie who was back to Cottie per her desires - or rather, the doppelganger version of herself that had taken Cottie's form. "So when you were trying to get rid of them," she gestured to Cottie and Sasha, "you were actually trying to... what? Prune me... away from me?"

Zee Captain's mask tilted slightly, a gesture Alexa now recognized as discomfort. "I'm trying to keep you on the path of goodness so that you don't become... her."

Zee pointed at Sasha One.

"What's wrong with me?" Sasha one tilted her head.

"Other than the fact that you want to destroy everything?" Zee asked.

Sasha rolled a few of her eyes.

"Wait, wait, wait," Alexa waved at her companions. "Where are all of the Alexas that look exactly like me? Where are the Alexas that have her best friends with her?"

"Such would be far too similar to you as you are now," Zee explained. "The train exists to sample a very wide degree of Alexa-ness deviation. It seeks to understand the full spectrum of possibilities that you represent."

"Why?"

"To compile a report on you for your future instructors,” Zee answered.

"Riiiiight. So, what's going to happen to these... deviations when the ride ends?" Alexa asked.

"The train's engine will devour them," Sasha One answered before the Captain did. "That's the price of getting to Manchester. This is a very hungry train. If there were too many Alexas similar to you, you could cooperate, work together, break things. The deviation variance makes sure that you don’t just overcome the ticket Inspector and don't mess up this space.”

Alexa pursed her lips, trying to think. The thought of all these different versions of herself being devoured by the train made her stomach churn. She may not have known these other Alexas, but they were still her in some fundamental way even if she didn’t understand their language. The idea of sacrificing them for her own advancement felt wrong on a visceral level.

"No," Alexa said firmly, shaking her head. "I won't... I can't let that happen. There has to be another way."

"Alexa,” Zee Captain said. “This is the price that must be paid for entering Manchester. The System requires balance. For you to gain the knowledge and power of a System Wizard, something must be given up in return."

"But why does it have to be them?" Alexa demanded, gesturing around the train. "Why can't I just... I don't know, give up my favorite pair of socks or something?"

"It doesn't work that way," Zee replied. "The price of the ticket must be paid, must be... a significant, a greater part of you."

Alexa opened her mouth to argue further, but before she could, Sasha One stepped forward, her starry form shimmering with an otherworldly light. She extended a hand towards Alexa.

"There is another way, darling," Sasha purred, her voice a symphony of countless Alexas. "You don't have to play by their rules. You can take control, feast on everyone in this train yourself. Become something greater, something beyond their petty constraints. You already have the ticket, you don't have to pay for it."

Alexa felt a pull towards Sasha's offer. The idea of seizing control, of not being a pawn in someone else's game, was tempting. But a nagging doubt held her back.

"And then what?" Alexa asked. "What happens if I do that?"

Zee Captain stepped forward, their mask tilted in what Alexa now recognized as concern. "If you do that, Alexa, you'll just become her," she said, gesturing towards Sasha.

“You stopped me, took away my raygun, so why don't you stop her?” Alexa asked. “Why are you tolerating this whack, entropic, extra-dimensional version of me at all, Captain?!”

“I don’t want to force you into a certain path,” Zee said. “Since I know that we’re… quite stubborn, I'm permitting her to exist, for now. You have to make a choice to be a good person, Alexa. Sasha One is a premium example of what you will become if you begin to feast on liminality itself, consuming your other selves and growing with only one goal in mind."