Using the recall again, DTH Jon and Karyn returned to the exact instant he left. Sage Jon was still unconscious and lying under the blankets on DTH Jon's bed.
DTH Jon spent the next ten minutes getting Karyn up to date with everything that had happened. He explained about meeting Sage Jon, getting kidnapped and escaping. He also explained what he'd learned about the stone. He did deliberately neglect to mention a few of the weirder details such as the precise damage caused by the stone. He doubted she would believe it. He barely believed it himself. He reasoned his enhanced intelligence gave him a degree of protection from the insanity it would likely cause a normal human.
"It's incredible!" Karyn stated.
Before Jon could reply his phone started ringing. He pulled it out his pocket. The name 'Zoe' was displayed as the caller.
"Weird," he said. He pressed the speaker button as he didn't want to hide anything else from Karyn today. "Hi sis! I didn't think you had the number for my spare phone."
The voice could be heard clearly through the speaker "I don't and I'm not your sister."
"Yes you are, I recognise your voice."
"You recognise my voice but I'm not your sister."
Jon was confused by the cryptic response. "Zoe," he considered an explanation, "are you high?"
"No I'm not high. I don't do drugs."
"Right." Jon could barely hide the sarcasm.
"Look, I don't know what that weird Goth chick does and really I don't care but I can understand her taking drugs if she has a brother like you."
"Zoe, if you are going to insult me, then I'm going to hang up."
Before Jon had a chance to press the button Karyn grabbed the phone from his hand. "Jon, " Karyn pushed his hand away before he had a chance to grab it back, "it isn't your sister."
He was suddenly annoyed by Karyn's actions. "Don't you start...," at that precise moment he understood, "...oh, it's Zoe from the dimension where I don't exist. I should have been able to work that out."
Karyn looked at him. "Maybe some of those drugs that messed you up are still in your system. I knew as soon as she called your sister a Goth chick. She called her that before."
Jon was again impressed with Karyn's reasoning abilities. It was at times like these, he was glad they were a team.
"Helloo?, " Zoe's voice came from the phone, "I'm still here."
Karyn continued the conversation "Hi Zoe, what is it?"
"I need to talk to you guys, something has happened."
"Well we're kind of busy at the moment," Karyn told her apologetically,"but I'm sure we'll get there as soon as we can."
Jon interrupted "It's all relative anyway," he explained, "we can only arrive the moment we left because we don't have a divergence point after that."
Zoe paused. "That was weeks ago," she paused again, "I'll make one for you, this is important. Please come quick."
Before Karyn or Jon could answer the call ended.
Karyn handed the phone back. "How did she manage to phone you? She is in a different dimension."
Jon put the phone back in his pocket. "A wish obviously." he told her somewhat disappointed. The DTH beeped, Jon looked at it and sighed. "Her timeline has just had a new divergence point added to it."
"Another wish?"
"Yeah, I hoped she'd learn to stop using the stone all the time."
"Well before we find out what she wants, we need to sort out all this conspiracy stuff first."
"I know, I know but there's not much we can do till he wakes up," Jon pointed at the bed, "he's a lot smarter than me. He'll figure something out." The DTH made another series of beeps, "What now?" On the screen a new message had popped up.
"What is it?" Karyn asked. Jon showed her the screen. It stated 'NEW ANOMALY DETECTED'. "I don't understand."
Jon pushed a few buttons. "Okay one of the timelines is changing colours between black and red without diverging, that shouldn't be happening."
"Is it to do with Zoe?"
"No," he pushed some more buttons while looking at the screen of the DTH, "this is a much newer timeline. It's not even the device timeline."
"What device timeline?"
"Sorry," Jon explained, "the creation of DTH, ARD and cloning machine all split from the same timeline. I'm assuming that's where other versions of me, all decided to use the stone to make devices. This new one is completely separate."
"I guess another 'you' must have made something like an ARD."
"If it was an ARD it should only make red lines, not dotted red and black lines. A DTH will change a red line to black but the DTH can't turn black lines red."
"A device that is a combined ARD and DTH?"
"That would be an awesome amount of power in one device. It needs investigating."
"Is that before or after we go to Zoe's dimension or deal with the conspiracy?"
Jon sat on his computer chair. "We're going to need a 'to do' list at this rate."
Karyn pondered the problem for a moment. "Can't we outsource some of this work?"
"What do you mean?"
