Okay. Good. Jenn gives Bina's shoulders a squeeze. "We need a place to bunker down. I'm not sure how easy hiding from tall, red and crazy is gonna be."

"Probably very..." She rubs at her face. "At least if we stay in one spot."

"...Okay then. We need a vehicle."

"Can probably do something with teleporting around using the Moment or the n-continuous machines - "

"I think we want to use the Moment as little as possible. Having it to retreat to is more useful than it as a teleporter."

"Can I butt in for a second? I would really like an explanation about what's going on here."

"...That's a kind of long story! So. Um. It started - around three in the morning?"

And she'll give a very abridged story - got eaten by a skeleton monster thing, got stabbed by an alien space bug god, time traveled, woke up, saved a dude - via time travel - met Jenn, ran for it, met Elizabeth, ran from the naughts, built a time machine out of scrap, ran some more, Jenn got mauled by the not-Ant, then they spent a while in an ever-shrinking slice of the universe that's frozen in time. 

Lainey sits down part way through the explanation. But by the end she's half-grinning. "Time-travel? Okay that's kind of awesome? Does the alien space bug god have to do with the fact that Jenn really shouldn't be able to use that arm at all? How does a frozen moment of time even work?!"

"Lainey this really isn't that awesome! It's, like, the sucky time travel where you can't change stuff unless brain aneurysm - "

"Also I think it works by believing really hard, it makes no scientific sense even though my past loops were convinced there was a logical explanation. The fake-science explanation is it spends space to extend time - so you burn the edges of the universe whenever you're in there, and it's made from a shard of time that was hanging around in Three's loop from where the botfly crashed into reality."

"And yeah Jenn's arm is space bug's fault on several levels. We think."

"-Oh. Yeah. Brain aneurysms: bad." Pause. "So what're we doing about it then?"

"Panicking and pretending we have any idea what we're doing? In more seriousness, we don't currently have a long-term plan, we're - trying to figure out what the botfly's doing, what my past selves were doing, and... I guess dislodge it? There is a continual debate about whether we should try getting Elizabeth's people to start an evacuation - I don't know if that'd work or make things worse..."

"...Does it need people to look at it, or just pay attention to it?"

"I don't know? It seemed like - the people who were looking couldn't look away, so I don't think they could stop paying attention, and... Thinking about it didn't seem to do anything, and it wasn't making noise?"

Lainey nods slowly. "Hard to know what to do there."

"I want to rescue them. The people on the couch. Everyone."

"Okay then," Lainey nods. "That's what we do."

"Thanks, Lainey. And sorry to drag you into this..."

"Hey, no worries, okay, B? I don't think there's some catchy about friends who defeat alien space bug gods, but."

"Still, you're a good friend. Sorry about lying to you earlier..."

"Hey, you had good reason. I would've done the same."

"Thanks. So, uh, ideas on where next?"

"Somewhere quiet. And I think...preferably away from other people. Something tells me Ira's not going to be dissauded by crowds."

She shudders. "Yeah. That'd end poorly." And - "Here's not too bad, if we want to start as a base? We know she's at the apartment right now, it'll take her at least ten minutes to get here... Though we don't know where the not-Ant is."

"Gotta say, I don't wanna run into that thing. I suspect my hockey stick will have no affect."

"Probably not. A swiffer didn't..."