"It is," she says.  "Just - it didn't even take a hex.  I figured we could raise the dead with these but I didn't expect - it'd be that easy - I'm really glad we paused time."

"Me too," says C, and he glances at the other two of him.  "Us too."

B: "Good day, good news.  Think it's time for us to turn in."

"All right."

"...thank you so much, Leo."

They all grin.

They meet again in Kaylee's tower the next day.  Leo C shows up alone.

"Right now I'm the point-Leo on talking over our plans with you," he says, "and A and B are working on making more coins.  We might switch out in the future, or we might work out some kinda hive-mind situation.  We wanna avoid having just one of us diverging from the others by having the closest relationship with you."

"Yeah, I - really didn't think about that sort of thing, when we were planning for forking you - how we'd handle having more than one of you around, interpersonally."

"It's okay.  Neither did we.  But we don't mind keeping each other in the same place socially by sharing memories around, if it comes to that.  Right now I think you don't have to worry about it too much."

"All right, if you're sure."

"One of us will let you know if we become less sure."

Businesslike: "So what were we in the middle of yesterday, when we did the resurrection test?"

" - talking about what conditions I'd want to resume time under.  Handling resurrecting the dead was a prerequisite for that.  ...I think I read that something like a hundred billion humans have ever lived, and ideally I'd like to bring them all back eventually, plus any non-H-sapiens moral patients if we figure out some principled way to figure out who those are, but I can't imagine it's feasible to set up a system that will let us do that perfectly from inside paused-time with no - test-cases or anything."

"Does that include all the - well, I could name any number of extremely evil historical figures..."

She - exhales.

"I have - almost always thought that if I were omnipotent I would resurrect everyone who's ever lived - even if I had to put them in solitary confinement forever I could at least let them choose between that and death.  It's never sat right with me to kill someone - really to hurt someone at all - if you didn't need to to save more lives, or fix some bigger problem.  And I think when we're this powerful the line between killing someone and - letting them stay dead - kind of dissolves for me.  Maybe not all the way.  I don't have to bring everyone back as soon as we unpause time.  But in the long run, not being-going-to resurrect someone, eventually, when we're omnipotent enough - means condemning them to death, in a way that doesn't feel all that different to condemning them to death if they were still alive."

"But I do sometimes wonder if I only feel this way because nothing - evil enough - has happened to me personally, or anyone close enough to me."

"I think there are people to whom evil things have happened that agree with you," Leo says.  "But you're gonna piss some people off if you resurrect - "

He stops.

"You can say the examples you're thinking of," she says.  "If I'm going to wield this kind of power and do the kinds of things I'm going to do I have to be equal to talking about horrible things."

He - nods.

"You're gonna piss some people off if you resurrect Hitler, or their rapist who they killed in self defense."

She nods soberly.

"And I'm not telling you not to," he says.  "And I'm not telling you to by telling you that I'm not telling you not to.  I'm just - observing the consideration."

"Yeah.  You can observe the consideration without - declaring whether you're fighting for or against the side that would cite that consideration."

"Exactly."

She stands, and turns away, toward the railing of the platform, toward the wide sunset-window beyond it.

"I'm wondering if I need to found a country."

"Oh?"

"I'm - twining together a few trains of thought," she says.  "My focus has been on resurrection, but one of the other conditions I had for unpausing time was setting up a system for getting people out of unsafe situations even if they weren't about to die.  In my most starry-eyed visions - we flip the switch, and everyone comes back, and everyone on Earth - gets a little note or hears a little voice, if you're not safe where you are or you're not comfortable where you are or you can't bear to live like you're living, I can give you something better.  We flip the switch and every homeless person is offered a home, every abused kid or abused partner is offered a sanctuary."

"And if I am going to push magic as far as I can, to improve as many people's lives as much as I can - building something from the ground up might be easier, in some ways, than trying to interface with and modify existing institutions.  Especially if I want to go as fast as I can, to get as many people to post-scarcity as I can as soon as possible.  Which I still kinda do."

"And.  If I am eventually going to resurrect dictators, or war criminals, or even just people who were executed - it might go over better if I can take responsibility for them."

"Mmm, a place where we're sovereign might be a useful thing to have, but I think we want to avoid... a situation where anyone who dies gets forcibly relocated there, de facto, even if they're allowed to immigrate right back."