I'm 35 years old and sweltering. It's summer in South Dakota. The sun hangs in the sky like a man in the gallows. I stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier that has manifested in a lonely ravine.

A major greets me.

"Director Moffat sent you?" she asks.

"Yes." I offer my hand. "Linguistics and Deniable Comms."

"DC? Desks don't usually come out on field trips."

"It's not my first rodeo, Major," I say. "Lead on."

We walk across the deck to a lift, where the corpse of a Hellcat rots. She punches the down button on the lift. I take my glasses off and pull on my respirator.

I follow her deep into the carrier. I can hear muttering from somewhere ahead. Someone moans in the darkness. The major clicks on a flashlight and illuminates the corridor, revealing the air to be thick with particulates.

We follow the voices. I hear two or three speakers. One sounds familiar. I don't wait. I run to the sound of my brother's voice.

Ben is fused to the wall. A saline drip runs into his free arm. His left is lost inside the metal bulkhead with the lower half of his body. A pair of medics attend him. This can't be my brother. Ben is probably having a beer in his barn as he brushes his horses. I take a moment. Compose myself.

"I'm Agent Yero," I say. My mouth is so dry that I cough. I've got to keep distance. This isn't him. "What's your name, Lieutenant?"

"Small world," Ben says. "We got the same last name." He doesn't recognize me with my respirator on. He looks around the hallway, his eyes glazed and wandering. "Really small world. Where am I?"

"South Dakota."

"Pretty far from the Pacific."

"That's where you were?"

"Yeah, three days out from Formosa. Going to wallop Mao's boys."

"How did you get here?"

"One step at a time," Ben jokes.

"What ship is this?"

"The 'Hornet.' CV-8. Mighty old gal." His gaze wanders over the scene. "You military? That suit looks out of place."

"Army Air Corps. B-17s, then an F-5 during Market Garden."

"My brother died on a B-17," Junior says.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Lieutenant." I make a note that in his world, I am dead. "Does 'Assumption' mean anything to you?"
Ben's idle, pain-killed smile vanishes.

"Who are you?"

"Please, Lieutenant, we don't have much time."

"I saw the Devil there," Ben says. "She walked up and gave me a kiss. Told me I would live for 80 years. I won't die here. The Devil told me so."

I can smell the coal. My Ben may have seen it first, but it chose me.

He only saw the sunrise. I saw the sun.

"Gimme more," Ben groans.

The medics look to the major, who looks to me. I nod: I'm finished.

The major finds me back at camp. My head is swimming.

"He's dead," the major says. "Ten minutes after you left." She tosses a file on my fold-out desk. "You handled that well. Family manifestations are tough."

"That wasn't my brother," I say.

"A doppelganger, like the outbreak in '59."

"No," I reply. "The CV-8 sank in '43, and Ben was never at Formosa." I massage the back of my neck. My head is pounding. Vacuum tube static spreads inkblots across my vision, starting from the left. "This is something else. A, uh, tulpa, maybe."

"But it knew what you were asking it about? 'Assumption'?"

A wave of nausea. "It's a town. Ben and I saw something there as kids. It's a focal moment. Fixed time. Matter is constant—it repeats, and time happens in parallel. Deniable Comms investigates the meaning of those fixed points. We think they have, uh, external meaning."

"Aliens?"

"Could be. Or ghosts. Other times. Other realities." I lean forward on the desk and close my eyes. "I need a constant to help navigate phenomena. Ben is my constant. I know him. That wasn't Ben." He's still out there.

"So, what was that?"

"Chirality. Variegation. Not sure: It depends on where I am observing this from," I say, and for a moment, I am trillions of years old. Understanding backfills, then purges. I forget nearly all of it. I see what happens next.

"Major," I say, "the trash can, please. I think I'm going to be sick."