Sarah found herself standing just outside of Aunti Zero’s Coffee Hut, with Erik to her left, and the Audreys to her right, a few steps toward the bus stop.

She also felt the familiar, exhilarating, terrifying rush of having woken up standing in a place she didn’t remember walking to.

She sighed and cussed.

“Well, they’re gone now,” she told Erik.

“Aw, shit,” he responded.

“Oh, hey, Sarah,” the Audreys said in Brock’s unmistakable voice. “How’s Goreth?”

Goreth wasn’t there.

At this point in her life, she was used to being constantly co-conscious with Goreth, and switching back and forth fluidly, with Phage occasionally joining them but otherwise being pretty hands off.

The new headmate that Phage had convinced them both to let into their system had thrown all of that off now, apparently, because she couldn’t feel anyone awake with her.

There was a residual dizziness, and the right half of her body felt distant, with the right side of her head dark and muffled, with some movement of unintelligible thought going on. Like a dream that was still happening in her subconscious even though she’d just woken up.

And it felt like someone was having a meltdown in her chest.

Not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, in either case, really. Just, it had been a while.

“This reminds me of the worst of college,” she said. “You know, back when we almost got diagnosed with DID. I hate it. Goreth’s unconscious and dreaming. Phage, I think, is dealing with the newbie. What are we doing?”

“You don’t remember?” Erik asked.

“No.”

“Full blackout, then?”

“I’m not quite sure what my last memories were,” Sarah told him. “So, I think so, yeah.”

“Damn. It’s been a while since you had one of those!”

“Tell me all about it,” she said. “What are we doing?”

“Well, we were going to go to Laurelhurst park,” Brock said.

Sarah looked down at Goreth’s brocade embossed leather mules and the extension on the tip of the cane, both below the hem of her favorite black trapeze maxi dress, and let herself feel the pain in her feet.

“In these fucking shoes?” she asked.

“Ashwin insisted on seeing the park, and they want to tell us some things in private,” Brock said. “But, I did try to convince nem not to.”

Sarah frowned and glanced at Erik, mouthing, “nem”.

“When Ashwin introduced nemself, they gave us nems pronoun, nem, and then said they liked they/them, too, and couldn’t decide. So I suggested we switch ‘em up, and nem agreed to it,” Erik explained.

“Ah. Cool. Fine,” Sarah nodded. That would be easy enough.

“We can take you back to your place, talk to Ashwin in your bedroom, or just continue this all later,” Brock suggested.

Sarah looked down at the ground again for a while, weighing the options.

Their room was a horrendous mess and tiny. Erik and the Audreys would understand, of course, but there’d be no place for them to sit without a lot of work. And she really wasn’t ready for her housemates to become involved in all of this.

But she also really wanted to meet this new headmate, Ashwin, today if possible.

Ever since, at seven years old, she and Goreth had introjected Phage from the shadow of a sweatshirt on their bedroom floor at night, and started treating it like their imaginary friend instead of the monster it obviously was, it had been telling some wild and imaginative stories about its origins, motives, and supposed abilities.

And there had been some really strange events in their childhood that it had laid claim to.

But, in time, it had learned to cool down and lay off the stories, as adults and classmates repeatedly dismissed them. And, of course, so had they. It had told them the stories, and then they’d told everyone else, and that never went over well, so they’d all stopped.

They also hadn’t known they were plural back then. They hadn’t even known what plurality was.

In fact, they’d thought that Sarah had been Goreth’s first imaginary friend, and hadn’t really recognized the few times she’d fronted. Not until after they’d come out as trans in college, while sharing housing with their high school buddy, Erik.

They’d had some truly upsetting experiences then, and Erik, an old hand at dealing with psychological fuckery, had been a godsend. He’d mostly given them the space to be who they were, but also had coached them on accepting themselves and their weirdnesses. And they owed Erik so much for that.

There was a lot of history and mess there, though, and they’d ended up following him from UW in Seattle to Portland, to get away from their family, and they’d all met the Audreys at Aunti Zero’s shortly after that.

Which had been fortunate, because Erik hadn’t had room for them in his living situation, and the Audreys had known Abigail. And had introduced Sarah and Goreth to her. And she’d convinced her boyfriend Peter to take them in.

And so then they’d settled in with Peter and Abigail, who were ambiguously queer. Or, at least, Abigail said she was bi, and Peter was just Peter and wouldn’t admit to anything but his own privileges, even if he was sometimes terrible at actually owning them. But he also gave off safe vibes, and treated Sarah and Goreth like the separate people they said they were, and that was preciously important.

However, slowly, Phage had been reasserting itself. And Goreth had been insisting that the two of them take it at its word.

And Sarah wasn’t really sure she was OK with that.

She really didn’t feel like countering her aunts’ and uncles’ Evangelical bigotry with accepting the idea that she was playing host to the psychic manifestation of Entropy Itself, which Phage kept saying that it was.

Or, well, it said various things to that effect, while it also insisted that no one call it a god or a demon or angel or anything of the sort. Not even ‘the universe itself’.

“I was conceived in the processes that led to what you call the Big Bang,” it would say. “I am a reflection of my greater self, but I am finite. I have limits. Which makes me more akin to you than to physics itself.”

Whatever it was, she didn’t want to let its presence in her system lead her to become all woo and silly, like her aunt Brenda. Even her parents’ Universal Unitarianism was still too much for her, really. She liked focusing on people, and living her life, not the possibility of spirits.

If she could make her art while helping Goreth navigate social situations and write their novel someday, that would be enough.

Ever since middle school, Goreth had wanted to be a writer, so Sarah tried to give them ample time to write, or think about writing while she was drawing.

But then, with Phage’s resurgence came strong memories of the weird things. And then this dream they’d had that night, way back when they were seven, when they’d made a pact with it, where it would help them get through their life in relative safety in exchange for giving it a taste of living mortality.

And something about a generational starship named the Sunspot, and a tunnel that had been buried under a nearby mountain, and the people of the Sunspot who wanted to come through it to visit.

Phage had mentioned it recently, and the memory came back to her like it had been yesterday. And Goreth had corroborated it, reminding her that they’d been there, too, and remembered it just as clearly now.

The veils of denial, the closet, and dissociation had been lifted for years now. And at the age of twenty-seven, Sarah found herself face to face with personal knowledge of things that she couldn’t explain away.

Unless it was psychosis, like Erik experienced. But he always frowned and shook his head at that suggestion, and told them not to pathologize themselves like that.

In any case, if she dismissed it all, that meant she also dismissed the realities of the people who shared her body. And then how could she ask them to respect her in turn?

Especially when she clearly and vividly remembered the inexplicable things, like the parking brake on her dad’s VW bus spontaneously failing and allowing it to roll back into the road they’d been playing in, in front of a speeding car, preventing them from being hit.

And the difference between her memory of that and her parents’ memory of it was that Phage had said, “I will protect you,” just before it had happened.

Which, of course, her parents couldn’t have heard. And she and Goreth had been so absorbed in their play they hadn’t even heard the car coming, let alone seen it.

And also, just like with her memory of their first encounter with Phage, she’d remembered sitting beside Goreth in the road back then. As if her brain had reconstructed the memory to fit her preferred way of seeing it, but more like she’d literally been beside her own body somehow.

If she questioned those memories, which of her memories should she not question?

At a certain point, she had to test what her brain could do, regardless of how or why it was doing it. Just to know what to expect. If her own personal reality was becoming unexpected and unpredictable, she needed to learn the new rules.

So, when Phage had come forward one night, while they were lying in bed before sleep, and had said in their vessel’s deepest voice, “It is time for your first visitor, if you will accept them. You are ready,” it hadn’t been exactly wrong.

It took Sarah a day or two to get over that, but she’d decided to go forward with the experiment.

After all, life really fucking sucked in a lot of ways, and she needed a distraction. Even if a distraction was the last thing she needed.

National politics was making the future seem bleak and hopeless, on top of their disabilities and everything else. The country had already nearly shattered itself just after their transition with a disastrous President, and he was obviously going to run for office again, despite his recent loss.

And it wasn’t just him. It was the whole global movement of fascism that he represented that made everything so terrifying. It had been growing steadily worse since before she’d been born, but now it had reached a crescendo, and…

She felt sick thinking about that now.

She made herself stop.

Going over all this again while trying to decide what to do, with Erik and the Audreys looking on, was not the thing to do here and now.

Maybe she was turning to this to avoid some paperwork that she’d just gotten in the mail from the state of Oregon, actually, but it felt like an act of taking care of herself and her system, and that doing this was the first thing she should do.

Do some internal science and learn what was going on in her own head. Then turn back and face the world’s bullshit.

And so Phage had then told them enough about Ashwin to help them feel at ease with their arrival, and they’d negotiated the time and day they’d try to meet them, and started coordinating with Erik and the Audreys for support. And to have them as witnesses.

Which had been a very good idea.

And so.

“Let’s go to the park,” Sarah said.

“OK,” Brock said. “But I’m getting you a taxi ride home. No protesting.”

“None,” Sarah relented easily. “We’ll need it. Thank you.”

And with that, they hobbled and walked over to the bus stop.

“Did I comment on how awesome those golden mermaid leggings are, Brock?” Sarah asked.

“Not yet!” Brock called back.

“They’re so awesome.”

“Thank you!”

—

My name was spoken once more.

When I fronted again, I was more immediately lucid and more fluidly received working memories of climbing up on a park table and resting shoeless feet on the bench of it, while Erik and the Audreys talked.

But I didn’t recall the bus ride, just that it had happened.

I and my hosts were still very dissociated and separated from each other’s conscious minds.

And I didn’t recall being aware of anything while not fronting. No inworld, no dreams. Just like the first few years of my life before the neural terminal.

Though, much later, I would hazily recall a discussion with Phage about what to expect of this conversation. But I didn’t recall it then.

The park was situated in a dip between two hills, and filled with trees. And though the sky was still disturbingly clear of landmarks, this made the horizon much, much easier for me to handle.

“Hello,” I said, feeling somewhat refreshed despite the body’s aches. I’m told it sounded like ‘hewwo’, which was immediately recognizable.

“Ashwin!” Erik cheered, pronouncing my name more lazily than before. He was standing near a tree just a couple paces away.

The Audreys were seated on the bench near our feet, straddling it to sit sideways to face Erik and me. Their long, lightly colored, fine plumage was lifting up and waving slightly in a breeze.

I could feel the weight of the long feather in our hat doing the same thing, and the edges of the hat’s brim occasionally lifting up, too, but never threatening to lift off our head.

“So, what’s the big secret?” Brock asked.

Directives given to me by Phage manifested as a clear motive in the center of my being. I was very much feeling my full self, and I thought I could recount my entire life aboard the Sunspot to anyone who asked then, even if I could not remember much of my time here on Earth since I’d first arrived.

Phage had vetted these people. That wasn’t my job. My job was to be a true representative of my people, that Erik and the Audreys and Sarah and Goreth could come to trust. And to convey a message. One that came with a question.

I spoke, “I am getting the impression that what I will tell you is not well accepted by most people of this planet. Or, at least, most people of this region. If I were to say I was an Outsider projected here by my own people’s technology and science in order to learn and teach about the diversity of life in the universe, most people would be skeptical. Yes?”

“Phage already told us that much,” Brock said. “But that sums up the situation, yes.”

Erik nodded.

“Sarah is one of those skeptics, isn’t she?” I asked.

Erik chuckled, and said, “I might be the only one here who truly isn’t. Even in my own system of Eriks. But I can’t even be certain of that. Like, I’m not even sure which one of me I am right now, anyway, but I mean. We’ve all internalized this since forever, Ashwin. I always say that there are multiple consensual realities, or consensus realities, or whatever everyone agrees they’re called. And no objective reality. But, uh, neither of us have seen or know anyone who has seen irrefutable, independently verifiable proof of aliens. And your story very neatly matches a really common one amongst crazies like me, so. Like, I totally believe you, but also our entire cultural upbringing says you’re not real.” He held up a finger, “But it also says I’m not real!”

“You and your multiple consensus realities,” Brock snarked.

“I will fucking lecture you again,” Erik snapped back, lightly. “You know you want me to.”

“Hypeshare it, shortstack!”

“Later.”

I considered this, and then said, “If I told you all of the details, even if you believed them, you yourselves would not be taken seriously.”

“Correct,” Erik said. “The plausible deniability of the mad is iron clad. Saneism at its finest!”

“And if somehow, I or Phage were to lead you to real, tangible, physical proof of where I come from,” I said, “then, unless you showed that proof to anyone else, you would still be disbelieved.”

They both abruptly tilted their heads.

The expression was so much like one I’d seen countless times growing up, I nearly forgot I was on a different world with an alien species. I wondered if it meant the same thing to them, or if they were imitating what I’d done before. It read it as quizzical.

“What proof?” Brock asked.

“A physical artifact that should probably be destroyed,” I replied.

There was dead silence as the eyes of both of them widened, their jaws slackened. Maybe they hadn’t been simply humoring me. Maybe they did believe in something I’d been saying.

“Like in a fucking movie?” Brock eventually asked.

“Oh, holy shit,” Erik exclaimed, nearly over his friend. “If you are not fucking with us, I have got to touch it! I’m sure my ancestors, if I even knew who they were, would be screaming at me not to. But I’m my own men, and if you have a piece of alien tech on this planet, I have got to touch it. After the Audreys and Sarah and Goreth touch it, of course. Confirm that it’s real. That it’s our shared consensual reality, and not something just from my own head. Please.”

“That may be possible,” I admitted. “Destroying it remotely would be safer and easier. But it requires a command issued by a human, so that you have a choice in your own fate. So, some day, when we are all ready, we will need to go and find it.”

“What is it?” Brock asked, thumping the table with a fist.

“A probe,” I said. “It was dropped here by an ancestor ship to the Sunspot, or a cousin ship, really, as part of a program to make contact with emerging cultures. That ship didn’t survive. Few Exodus Ships live longer than a few reproduction cycles. The Sunspot has yet to have one. But the Weaver’s Shuttle, we might call it, left this probe here a long time ago, before your most recent ice age. And the probe is still functional.” I stalled Erik’s excited intake of breath with a lifted hand, and said, “It has a communication device on it called a Tunnel Apparatus. Phage traveled here through that twenty of your years ago, and met Sarah and Goreth then.”

“Where is it?” Brock asked.

“Under a mountain, near Sarah and Goreth’s childhood home,” I replied.

Erik squinted and said, “I didn’t think there were any mountains near there. I mean, not any nearer than the Olympic peninsula or the Cascades, but that’s, like, miles from there, if I remember correctly.”

“Phage told me this,” I told him. “And while its interpretations of the truth are sometimes hard to understand, it does not lie. It will be the first to tell you that language is very limited, however, and that it doesn’t trust language to convey any real meaning.”

“Hm.” Erik rubbed his chin, squinting, then swept his hand to the side, saying, “I’ll be puzzling over that until we figure it out. I’ll let you know what I come up with.”

“We will find it when it is time to find it,” I said, noting to myself how much I sounded like Phage right then. “In the meantime, it is safely buried, and the Tunnel has been moved from the Apparatus to Sarah and Goreth’s psyche.”

“How did that happen?” Erik asked.

But Brock almost talked over him, asking immediately after, “What’s dangerous about the probe?”

To be very clear which question I was answering, I gestured at Erik first and said, “Phage. It can alter the direction of physics on a fundamental level, within a certain range, and the probe was near enough to Sarah and Goreth that, with their express consent, it was able to entangle its wormholes with the molecules of their neurons in an intelligible way. I am very educated and experienced, and like everyone aboard the Sunspot, Phage has granted me access to its abilities as a gift. I can sense and do many amazing things. But I couldn’t do that myself, and I couldn’t explain how it actually works.”

“Wait. ‘Granted’ you… Are you saying –” Erik started.

I held up a hand, and then gestured to Brock, and opened our mouth to answer their question.

But Brock interrupted me to ask, “Are you saying you’re psychic?” Then nodded at Erik, who solemnly nodded back.

Psychic. By the etymology of that word, everyone is psychic. Everyone that thinks has a psyche. But, the common meaning was known, and Phage had directed me how to answer that.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” I said. “Though, I’ve been cautioned not to show off, or to stretch myself too far here. There seems to be some mechanism of Earth or its people that makes that difficult or dangerous, and Phage is nervous about it. At the very least, I cannot violate anyone’s express revocation of consent. That is, if it involves actions taken by anything but the physical force exerted by this body. It is like a law of physics itself. Even Phage is governed by it.”

“I consent,” Brock said, quickly.

“Hold on,” Erik said, standing with his arm stretched out toward the Audreys, palm facing them. He lowered his brow at them and waited a beat before saying, “Don’t ask the alien to hurt you. Not while I’m thinking about this.”

“I’m just saying, I can take it for science,” Brock said.

“Shsh!”

Brock and I let Erik tap his chin and pace for a moment.

Then Erik whirled and snapped, “What about the lucky car wreck?”

I didn’t immediately know what we was talking about. Still, I spoke quickly anyway.

The words that came out of our mouth were mine, but they surprised me with their knowledge, “The other driver was not in control and not lucid enough to say ‘no’. And his actions were about to violate the consent and autonomy of Sarah, Goreth, and Phage. He was also grateful afterward to have not committed vehicular manslaughter of a nine year old child.”

“So, OK, that tracks, I guess,” Erik said. Then he bobbed his head a couple times. “Which means that all of Phage’s shenanigans were always limited to being witnessed and experienced by people who could accept them, either by willingness to believe or by explaining them away as chance and fortune.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And that’s why it went quiet for so long, when Sarah and Goreth were deepest in the closet.”

“Yes.”

“OK, cool. Now,” Erik pointed at Brock. “It’s time to learn about that dangerous thing. The probe, not what Brock wants you to do with them.”

I looked at Brock and said, “I do not wish to ever hurt anyone.”

“You don’t talk like someone who would,” Brock said. “And I trust Sarah and Goreth.”

“Would the rest of your system consent to – shall we call them ‘shenanigans’?” I asked.

“Aw. I’d have to ask. I’m getting some yeses, but there are a lot of us,” they said.

“I will consult Phage to see what it is comfortable doing, then,” I told them. “In the meantime, let’s focus on that probe you asked about.”

“Cool.”

This was it. This was the message.

“It has a tank of something we call construction nanites,” I said. “And though they are dormant and safe so long as no one commands them, the first person to learn how to access them will be able to reshape your world with them.”

“Oh.”

“Shit. Really?”

“Why?”

“Because my people had lived with shared control of them for so long that we’d forgotten how dangerous unequal access to them can be. A lesson we relearned only recently on the Sunspot,” I said. “Or because someone aboard that ancestor ship was being actively malicious toward you.”

“Why are you trusting us with this?” Brock asked, Erik nodding in agreement with the question, eyes wide.

“Because someone responsible from Earth needs to make the decision. Because you are friends with Sarah and Goreth, and because you are all multiple. There is no one of you here that is alone. And in sharing a body with others, you inherently understand how interdependent you are, and how dangerous and destructive an imbalance of power can be,” I told them. “Collectively, you will be able to make wise decisions regarding the safety and health of your planet.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Erik spat.