“For the purposes of this lecture,” Me₃ explained, “the ‘Présent’ is 9:45 PM on the night of the car accident.” He moved the slide forward, and red dot appeared in the center of the screen. “The two of you, who are both me in a way, both followed the same timeline up until now.” He clicked the button again, and a series of neon-reddish-orange lines appeared, dotted at the upper left and looping back to the Passé after they ended at the Futur. “However,” Me₃ continued, pointing at Real Me, “after Latrodecta drew you back here—”

“Wha?” Me₂ and I asked in tandem.

“That’s her name. ‘Latrodecta’.”

“What kind of a name is Latrodecta?” Me₂ asked.

“After Latrodecta drew you back here,” Me₃ went on, “after you altered time and caused the earlier crash…” Another slide, another dot (green this time), another snaky neon line. “…your body surged with adrenaline in a fight-or-flight response. In the doing so, this defense mechanism triggered a latent facet of your temporal abilities that you never knew you had.”