“What the deuce?!” I shouted, then took a swig of Coke to calm my nerves.

Me₃ indicated the screen. “I went back into the future. By giving up the ghost with the accident…sorry, bad choice of words…I loosed myself from Lactrodecta’s interest, so she didn’t bother me.” Me₃ sipped his Coke again and pointed down the line. “Seventeen centuries is an extremely long time to have to wait, but somehow I managed it, and with it, saw the meltdown at Musjaav and how it all aerosolized, giving a select few of us the ability to travel through time.” He opened up the briefcase and showed me a vial filled with a mercury-like substance. “You’re more or less immortal, barring some sort of an accident. Find the Girl as a girl and inject her with this…the vaccine.”

“Why him?” Me₂ piped up. “Why not you? Or me?”

“He has traveled to the distant past,” Me₃ replied, “and he has tasted what we are capable of. You haven’t. You wouldn’t be as adjusted as well as he is. And as for me…I have my own role to perform in this dance.”