"What do you mean 'Oops!'?" Karyn asked DTH Jon
He had just opened up the back of the DTH to reveal a number of hidden controls. He had started adjusting the controls when he made his exclamation and hastily put the cover back on.
"Nothing important." he lied.
"What were those in the back of the DTH?"
"Hidden controls. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have to touch them, just leave them on the default settings."
"So why did you start playing about with them?"
"Well I was hoping to use them to send a message to the divergent timelines upstream. We could have visited them all indvidually of course but I'm not sure how many there are, so that could have taken a very long time."
"Did you send the message?" Karyn asked.
"Not exactly, no." DTH Jon confessed.
"What did you do then?"
"I may have inadvertently, kind of, manually diverged this timeline."
"Whaaatt?"
Even Zoe and ARD Jon looked concerned by Karyn's outburst and they didn't really understand what was going on.
"Look we just have to stay calm." DTH Jon told her.
"Calm! Calm! This was supposed to be the greatest thing ever! Exploring different timelines and universes together. We've only hopped half a dozen times and we're already bogged down in a convoluted mess of paradoxes, convergences and divergences and I don't even know what half of that means."
She was in full rant mode.
"True it's not been as exciting as I thought it would but it has been a journey normal people wouldn't experience."
"Barely a journey. It's only been about an hour since you created the DTH!"
"Well look how far with come, eh?"
"We haven't got any further than your house!"
"Well technically it's the drive and we did go out on to the street."
Karyn turned bright red and looked about ready to explode.
Zoe interrupted.
"Jon you're not helping."
ARD Jon also interjected.
"I'm just another version of you and I can see you are just making her angrier." he said.
DTH Jon considered this silently. He had been trying to be positive but that was causing more upset as Karyn got defensive. Time for a new strategy he decided.
"You are absolutely right to be angry. If I was in your position I'd be upset about this too. We're a team and I should be more supportive."
"Yeah you should!" Karyn said
With her back turned to Karyn, Zoe gave DTH Jon a wink.
"In fact why don't you be in charge." he told Karyn
"What really?" Karyn asked her mood now changing.
"Yes, absolutely. I keep making selfish decisions which upset you, so I'll let you make the decisions."
"But I don't really understand the DTH, the way it all works."
"Well I can still give you advice and point out stuff. I don't really care which of us in charge as long as we're a team."
Karyn reached over and hugged Jon. They slowly pulled apart.
"I'm glad you are seeing sense." she told him.
"Yeah, I guess all the knowledge I gained from the wish overwhelmed me a bit, kind of messed up my feelings."
They both smiled at each other until ARD Jon interrupted them.
"Look it's great you two have had this emotional breakthrough in your relationship but I'd like to get back to my Karyn."
Karyn spoke first.
"Of course, sorry," she turned to her Jon, "so this new divergence, are the same events happening there?"
"It might be quite similar or it could be quite different. Let me have a look."
He examined the screen of the DTH. He quickly got a concerned look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Karyn asked
He showed her the screen.
"This is weird, we're here and here is the divergence. They both started when I messed with DTH. As you can see ours is a straight line.."
Karyn finished the thought "...but the other one keeps curving back, over and over it's like the petals of a flower."
"The display should only ever show straight lines. Something has messed up that dimension."
"Like what?"
"Well the DTH can't do that. If I was a betting man I'd guess something like a wish."
He looked at Zoe who now had the stone in her hand.
