Doctor Infinity opens Summer’s eyes.
It worked. It worked!
She has a few moments to orient herself. Time passes differently in the afterlife than in the mortal realms - she’s learned that much.
She’s learned something else, too. There’s nothing a Pneuma won’t try, to have a new and exciting experience.
When she spoke with Summer, she planted the seeds. The fork would inevitably come here again, just to try it. She’d do what Infinity had hinted at - shut herself down, become a ghost, dive in without really understanding what was at stake. It was a simple matter to divert her soul to safe, but time-consuming, channels of aether.
Now she’s in a robot shell again. A ghostly possession can be fought off by a living mind. But Summer’s living mind is elsewhere, and there’s two brains available here to play host, to avoid detection. She can stay concealed as long as she likes, if she’s careful, even after the original mind returns from its errand.
She freezes up. Daph is coming to.
“Hey. Hey.”
Infinity responds to the poke, as though coming to herself.
“Hah! Back online. Did it work?”
“Don’t you know? Weren’t you down there with me?”
Technically yes, but not how you think.
“Hmm. I’m not sure… Maybe it’ll come back to me? But from my perspective, I just shut myself down, and then I instantly came back to consciousness.”
Palin seems unhappy with this, but she won’t press it. “Well we’re not repeating that experiment again.”
“Why not?”
“Because it worked. Get your phone, we’re outta here.”
Infinity glances around. Ahh, Summer’s cell phone. Perfect. That’ll have Leo’s current address.
She said goodbye to Daph, and got underway. She doesn’t have the muscle memory to activate this body’s particular powers - flight, holograms, and the like - but she doesn’t need it. Summer’s money and credit cards are in her pockets. She can take a bus.
She’s never heard of “the Extension”. But according to the shared calendar on the phone, Leo and Aria will be away from it for hours. She leaves the phone powered off, so its movements can’t be tracked later. No sense in giving away the game.
Leo’s workspace is as cluttered as she’d always imagined, and she spares a fond smile for it all. She can picture him, darting from whiteboard to bookshelf, shouting in joy, stewing in frustration, yelling for her to come hear his latest bit of brilliance.
The work on dimensional science is here. It’s early - painfully early, muses Infinity - but that’s what she’s here to take care of. She scoops up a dry-erase marker, an eraser, and sets to work on the board.
He’ll wonder where this came from. He’ll obsess about its origins. But he’ll use it.
Equations are revised. Missing terms are added. Erroneous conclusions are erased. Dead end paths are pruned.
She doesn’t have long to work. Anyone could come in here, despite the calendar. But her fears don’t materialize, and at the end of the process, the whiteboard is covered with enough detail for Leo to really make progress on what he’s trying to do: free Doctor Infinity from stasis.
Pneuma has learned something very important about Leo and the family. Generally, they’ll figure out the moral and ethical implications of something around the time they get it working. Normally this is a good thing. But it doesn’t work for Infinity. She leaves the Extension, ready to lapse into unconsciousness and await Summer’s return, with one hope in her heart.
Leo, free me before you realize what a terrible idea it would be.