“Koldo,” said Kepa as he took a sip of his patxaran, “that was indeed the best steak I have ever had. Zorionak!”

Koldo beamed as the table erupted in applause. 

“Mil esker,” he replied. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Shall we head to the plaza, then?” asked Maite. 

“I’ve got to clean up, but I can meet you all in a little bit,” replied Koldo.

“I’ll help,” added Kepa. “We’ll be there soon.” He blew Maite a kiss.

Kepa started gathering the dishes and taking them to the sink as Maite and the others left.

“So,” began Koldo as he filled the sink with water. “You and Maite? How serious are you?”

Kepa blushed. “Serious enough, I guess. We are thinking of moving in together if she goes to school in Donostia.”

Koldo smiled. “I’d always hoped you two would get together.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Koldo. “You complement each other. She is so rational, so level-headed, and you are…”

“What, irrational and flighty?” interjected Kepa, laughing.

Koldo smiled. “Ez, ez. More of a risk taker, someone who dreams about the impossible. I always thought you could help lift Maite up as she does her work.”

Kepa nodded. “I can see that. Inspire her, in some way.” His lips tightened into a small frown. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk science with her, though. I worry she will get bored with me.”

Koldo shook his head. “She’ll have loads of people to talk science with. I wouldn’t worry about that. What she will need is someone to talk about other things with. To distract her from all of that science stuff. To keep her grounded in the every day world.”

“I thought I was going to inspire her!” exclaimed Kepa, half jokingly.

“Bai, bai,” nodded Koldo, “but you also need to give her a lifeline to every day life.” He paused as he passed a dish to Kepa to dry. “You have a hard job.”

Kepa laughed. “I hope I can handle it. I’d hate to get fired.”

“Just do what you are doing, I think you’ll be fine.”

“What about you?” asked Kepa, shifting the focus away from him. “Anyone special I should know about?”

“Ez,” replied Koldo emphatically. “I’ve got my music and my cooking. I don’t have time for anything, or anyone, else.”

“Not even someone from the band?” asked Kepa. “I always imagined that band mates were especially close.”

Koldo laughed. “Ez. We all have great chemistry. I don’t want to mess that up by getting romantic with any of them. That’s when things start to fall apart. Or egos. Egos are also bad for bands. No, I want to give the music and the cooking a real chance. Maybe after they have run their course, I’ll consider settling down. But until then…” Koldo threw his head back, his long hair flipping over his head as he did an air guitar solo. 

Kepa couldn’t help but laugh. “Let’s go find the others,” he said as he put the last dish in the cabinet. “Unless you’ve sworn off txikiteo too!”

Koldo laughed again. “Inoiz ez! Never!”

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After Marina/Ainhoa left, Kepa went up to the bar to order some drinks. 

“Orain zer?” asked Kepa when he returned, handing a beer to Maite. “What now? What do we do if we can’t trust Marina’s manifestations in the bubbles?”

Maite shrugged as she took a sip of her beer. “I’m not sure. I suspect it all depends on how long the bubble exists when we get there. If we get there soon after the bubble was created and find the zatia quickly, I suspect that version of Marina is in pretty good shape. But the longer she lingers in the bubble…”

“The more corrupt she might become?” finished Kepa.

“Well, not necessarily corrupt,” replied Maite. “At least, I don’t think so. But certainly more independent. More separated from the core that is Marina. So, I think we need to be finding the zatia as fast as possible whenever we enter a new bubble.”

Kepa nodded as he picked up his gin and tonic.

It wasn’t long before they finished their drinks, paid their tab, and headed across the street to the next pub where they were going to meet Koldo and the rest of their cuadrilla. Koldo was already there, waiting for them, when they entered. He had more drinks waiting on the bar with their names on them. Kepa smiled as he took another gin and tonic. 

“Epa!” he cried. “Is everything ready?”

“Bai,” replied Koldo. “We have the place for the evening.” He looked over at Maite. “You ready for the best meal of your life?”

Maite laughed. “Remember, my parents used to run a restaurant. That’s a pretty high bar, you know.”

“Oh, badakit! I know,” replied Koldo. “But, I’ve been practicing. I think I’m turning into a pretty good chef.”

Koldo’s sister, Itxaso, and her boyfriend Xanti showed up a few moments later. Koldo downed his drink.

“Everyone ready?” he asked.

“Don’t you have a date?” asked Maite, making a show of looking around the bar.

“Ez, not tonight. Tonight, the food is my date. I plan to lavish all of my affections on the wonderful meal I’m preparing for you all.”

Maite looked quizzically at Itxaso, who smiled and nodded. “Yeah, he’s always like this now. Ever since he joined the txoko…”

“I’m just glad you invited us,” interjected Kepa. “I could use a great steak!”

Koldo laughed as he slapped Kepa on the back. “Ez, not a great steak. The best steak ever!”

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“Zer?” exclaimed Maite, her eyes wide. “You are in all bubbles at the same time?”

“Bai,” replied Marina. She paused a moment before letting out a large sigh. “Even now, I exist in all of these bubbles, but my mind…” She took a deep breath. “I feared that I might be fracturing, that I might lose touch with my different selves.” She looked at Maite and Kepa. “It seems my psyche is starting to break.”

Kepa exchanged a nervous glance with Maite. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“My mind co-exists in all of these different bubbles. I thought I could handle it, experiencing all of these realities all at once, but clearly, I cannot. I think some of my… selves, for lack of a better word, are splitting off from me.” Marina paused again. “What bubble did you just come back from?”

“It was a future version of Bilbao,” replied Maite. “De Lancre was a high level government official. It was almost idyllic, except for his corrupting influence and the near omnipotent AI that controlled everything.”

Maite felt a rumble in the back of her mind but Garuna said nothing.

Marina nodded slightly. “I vaguely remember that bubble. It’s like when you wake up from a particularly vivid dream. You know you had a strong emotional response but you can’t quite remember the details. That’s usually how it is for me when a bubble pops. After a little while, I only have wisps left. But this one is even worse. I think my other self was growing even more independent from the rest of me.”

Maite shook her head. “There is so much I don’t understand. If you can’t remember the bubbles that pop, how do you know what de Lancre is doing?”

Marina frowned. “I don’t. I only have these vague impressions. I know he has done some horrible things, but I don’t know the details.”

“When a bubble pops,” began Kepa, “what does that do to you? To have that other self simply disappear?”

Marina nodded faintly. “It’s hard to explain. In some ways, I feel more whole, as my mind isn’t stretched as thin. But, at the same time, I do lose a whole part of me, a whole set of experiences that my brain was part of.”

“It seems like you could use an AI,” muttered Maite, shaking her head in disbelief. “Ok, so if you are in all of these bubbles at once,” she asked, “then why don’t you tell us what is going on in each before we go?”

“It’s complicated,” replied Marina. “First, I never know what zatia you will be chasing. That is almost random. It does depend on where you are, but there are so many out there, it is almost impossible to guess what bubble you might go to next. However, most importantly, I can’t really pull information out of each bubble. I know what is going on in each of them in some abstract way, but even when I can see what is going on, I can’t really pull it out. It’s confined to the bubble.”

“Sort of like the event horizon of a black hole,” mused Maite. “Information can never escape. It isn’t quite the same thing, but it has things in common. Information flow is only one way.”

“Sounds more like Las Vegas to me,” added Kepa. “What happens in the bubble, stays in the bubble.”

Maite gave Kepa a mock groan before turning to Marina. “But, what really matters is what is happening to you. You said your psyche is fracturing. What does that mean?”

“It means that I really don’t know who all of the other Marinas you find are. I just know they aren’t really me. You can’t trust them all.”

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Kepa’s phone buzzed almost simultaneously with the chime on Maite’s phone. He picked his up off the table as Maite glanced at hers.

“Ainhoa,” they both said, simultaneously.

Kepa read Ainhoa’s text. Looking up at Maite, he said “She wants to meet us.”

Maite shrugged. “Ok.”

Kepa texted that they were in the plaza. Ainhoa replied that she would be there in twenty minutes.

“What do you think she wants?” asked Kepa as he put his phone down.

“I’m sure it isn’t Ainhoa, it has to be Marina.”

Maite heard Garuna’s voice rumble in the back of her brain. “Who is Marina?” She chose to ignore the AI for the time being.

“Do you think she knows we just returned from one of our excursions?” asked Kepa.

Maite shrugged again and then sighed. “I don’t know what she knows. I feel she knows much more than she tells us.”

It wasn’t long before Ainhoa appeared in the plaza, walking up to their table. Her black hair was highlighted with yellow streaks this time. Even though it was reasonably warm, she wore a black leather jacket that almost seemed to engulf her. Black boots with bright red laces rose up to her calfs. One of her bare legs was covered in a tattoo of a woman with her hands crossed and fingers out in strange directions. Smoke poured from her finger tips and wrapped around Ainhoa’s leg. 

Ainhoa pulled up a chair from a neighboring empty table. “Kaixo, Kepa. Maite,” she said as she sat down.

“Kaixo, Marina,” replied Maite.

Ainhoa/Marina sighed. “Bai, it’s me. I can’t hide anything from you,” she added with a wry smile.

“Oh,” replied Maite. “I think you hide plenty from us.”

“What is that supposed to mean…?” began Marina before Kepa cut her off. 

“What’s up? What did you want to see us about?” he asked.

“Somehow,” answered Marina, ignoring Maite’s barb for the moment, “you broke the rules.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kepa.

Looking first Kepa and then Maite in the eye, she replied “You brought something back with you. The last time you went out.”

“How do you know that?” asked Kepa, trying to divert Marina’s attention away from Maite.

“I just know,” replied Marina curtly. “Did you or did you not bring something back?”

“We did,” said Maite. “We brought back an AI.”

“A what?” asked Marina.

“An artificial intelligence.”

“Where is it?” demanded Marina. “I need it back now.”

Maite pointed to her head. “It’s in here.”

“How…?” began Marina.

“It wouldn’t let us come back unless it could come too,” interjected Kepa. “We had no choice.”

“What do you mean you had no choice?” said Marina, her voice rising. “You could always get the zatia.”

Maite shook her head. “Ez. It had control of the zatia. It wouldn’t give it to us unless it came back with us.”

“You shouldn’t have brought it back.” Marina was almost in a state of panic. “We don’t know what will happen next!”

“What would you have had us do?” barked back Maite. “Stay in that bubble until we died? You weren’t helping us.”

Marina gasped, taken aback. “Zer?”

“You were there,” replied Kepa, his voice steady, trying to defuse the situation. “You were leading an underground revolt. But when Maite was taken by de Lancre, you were no where to be found.”

“I…” stuttered Marina. Her head fell, her eyes staring at the table in front of them. “I can’t believe I would do that.”

“Well, you did,” replied Maite, her voice cold.

Marina looked up. “Let me explain something, something I should have told you before. When you jump around, looking for the zatia, time is still linear for you. You jump through time, but you experience each event in sequence. It isn’t like that for me. I don’t jump from one bubble to another. I exist in all of them simultaneously.”

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“So…” began Maite, her cortado in hand as she looked across the small table at Kepa. They had met at the Herriko Taberna and found a spot outside on the plaza, far enough from the rest of the patrons so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “What now?”

Kepa looked nervously into his own cup, the swirls of brown espresso mixing with the creamy milk. For a moment, he hoped that if he stared hard enough at his coffee, he might find answers. But, nothing came. He sighed.

“All I know for sure,” he said, looking across at Maite, sweat upon his brow, “is that I want to be with you. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

Maite smiled at him. “That’s enough for me.”

“Do you know where you will go to school?” asked Kepa.

“I’m thinking Donostia. They have a good physics program there. What do you say? Do you want to move to Donostia with me?”

Surprisingly, given how close the city was, Kepa had only visited a handful of times in his life. He remembered the beaches, and the multitude of people in their swimsuits. He remembered the Parte Vieja and the rows upon rows of bars with the most wonderful pintxos. He wasn’t used to such a big city, but what he remembered was overall positive.

“I think I could do that,” he said. “I’d need to visit ama often…”

“As would I, visit my parents I mean,” interjected Maite.

Kepa smiled. “Ok then. Let’s do it.”

“What about the zatiak?” asked Maite.

“What do you mean?” asked Kepa.

“I mean, do we try to search them out, or do we just let things happen haphazardly like we’ve been doing?”

“You want a more systematic approach, I assume?”

“Well,” began Maite, “if we are going to make any real progress, I just think we need some kind of plan.”

“How are we supposed to do that? We don’t know anything about where, or when, the zatiak ended up.”

“No,” said Maite with a mischievous grin, “but I know have this supercomputer in my head to help us figure it out, to look for any patterns.”

As she spoke, Maite felt a grumbling in the back of her head. She almost thought that Garuna snorted mockingly at her. But then it settled down.

“Can you control it like that?” asked Kepa. “Will it do what you want it to?”

Maite shrugged. “I don’t know, but there is only one way to know.” For no real reason, she sat up a little straighter. Her voice became a little more formal. “Garuna,” she said in a somewhat demanding tone, “will you help us find the zatiak?”

“Is that how you talk to it?” asked Kepa. “Out loud like that?”

Maite giggled as she shook her head. “No, I can talk to it in my head, but I wanted you to hear at least one side of the conversation.”

Maite felt Garuna rumble again. “Why?” was all it asked.

Looking at Kepa with her shoulders hunched a bit and in her regular voice, almost a whisper, Maite said “It asked why.” Again sitting up, she replied “Because, we need to prevent de Lancre from collecting them.”

“Why?” came the reply in her mind.

Maite sighed. “It asked why again. I swear, it’s like talking to a toddler. Ahem,” began Maite, again reverting to her formal mode before Kepa interrupted.

“Can it hear me, if I’m speaking?” 

“Yes,” replied Garuna in Maite’s head. 

“Yes,” Maite whispered back to Kepa.

“Well, then,” continued Kepa, “if de Lancre recovers the majority of the zatiak, he will gain untold power and reshape the world into his own twisted vision. You came from the future, you know our history. Does it ever turn out well when any one person can shape things at that scale, much less one who has bad intentions like de Lancre?”

There was silence. Eventually, Maite heard an “Ez” echo in her head.

Maite, looking at Kepa, shook her head.

“Exactly,” replied Kepa. “We can’t allow a madman like de Lancre have free reign over the rest of humanity. Who knows what he will do, but I would guess he reshapes his own time to reflect his deepest desires, and that will ripple throughout the timeline.”

“But,” repeated Maite as Garuna spoke in her head, “it would simply be a bubble, which could eventually be burst.”

Kepa shrugged. “Maybe, but if he has that much power…” Kepa looked deep into Maite’s eyes, trying to find Garuna in there somewhere, “maybe he could make the bubble permanent, and pop the rest of the timeline.”

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