“N-not enough of me left… to p-pull together… and make a full p-person…” he shakes his head, trying to muster the strength to walk.

“T-they have me upstairs. The old me. They wont let that version of me die because if they do, everything is undone, n-none of this ever happened. But it’s also a paradox. Timestream is weak right now. Cant compensate for a paradox of that magnitude. If he dies, and none of this happens, we could lose the entire future. Everything. E-even Hourglbum.”

“It’s the same with Agent O9K. Averting paradox is a d-delicate science. I am- I was our agency’s temporal physicist. They hired me because you were tired of being treated like the generic scientist.” Talking seemed to be doing Ramirez good. He looked a little less tired. “And besides, it would erase the prisoners they have of ours from the timestream entirely. Unless you’re prepared to sacrifice Orb, Murderousness, and the 70CS building, we have to do this carefully. We cant cut events short. We have to steer them away.”