"I'm heading back now. If you find anything interesting on that tape about the universe it's from, just message me." Regina said, and walked back inside.
"I think we should head back in too, to get a pair of earbuds and more paper to write down notes in case this is interesting." Marcia said to Antares.
"Alright, but I have one request." Antares said.
"What's that?"
"For this to be in your room or one of the sound-proofed meeting rooms. My machines need to re-organize things again."
"No problem."
They walked back into the headquarters.
Marcia's room was somewhat messy with scattered papers here and there on her bed and desk. "Could I just put these over here?" Antares asked.
"Just sort them by label-- or color."
"Alright." Antares looked at the color-coded labels on the papers she picked up from Marcia's desk, and put them on the bed. Marcia brought out a pair of wired earbuds. Antares plugged the earbuds into her tape recorder, and placed them on the desk.
"Before we start, I'll tell you where I found it." Marcia said. Antares turned towards her.
"Where did you find it?"
"The headquarters of our team's counterpart. It has to be-- When I traveled to that universe, I set the location to be at the counterpart of ours, and I took a lot of notes about who I saw and what I heard! I saw Pleiades' counterpart and heard a conversation about her returning from a trip that she went to along with someone else and..." Marcia explained, sounding just as shocked as she was during her discovery. She sounded certain though she started to trail off.
"The cassette tape I found is from someone who was there, but I couldn't clearly see who it was." She continued, sounding disappointed. "I'll go to when and where I was to give this back when we're done listening to it. I was reluctant to take this, but I only did in case it was a piece of intel about that group."
"I know I wouldn't want to drop one of those." Antares said, noticeably shuddering a bit, then she sighed. "We joked about how boring it was hiding out, but you've really been through a lot and there's a lot eating at you with that visit." She said with concern.
"I have. That's exactly what it is like." Marcia said and nodded, with more sadness. Antares tried to think about how to respond. After a few moments of silence, Marcia nervously smiled and said "Thanks for listening. I was worrying about it all so much and had to keep it from everyone when I returned because we can't just bring up the existence of another universe and our counterparts."
"When you found that tape, you could've just asked to borrow my tape recorder to play it by yourself, but I'm happy that you're letting me also listen to it, inviting me to TIMES and to this adventure."
"You're welcome, though I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this sooner since this work still needs to be kept a secret from outsiders. We're not going this alone and we have the other TIMES members to talk about with this first, but I must warn you that this may also be difficult for you since you have a similar sense of justice that I do."
"I'll take the risks. As you said, we're not going this alone." Antares said. She picked up the recorder and the earbuds, and handed one of the earbuds to Marcia.
Marcia nodded in agreement. "Are you ready?" She asked.
The touch screen on the recorder glowed, and it displayed a message reading "Tape loaded".
"Absolutely." Antares said in a determined tone. "Let's hope this'll be interesting." With each of them having an earbud in their ears, she was ready to press the play button.
"Begin recording... November 2017. Pleiades and I returned home the morning after that rant Concordia got into when we were at her house. [sighs] It wasn't over that-- not entirely. Moonlight also told us there were security issues at home. We haven't found who caused them, but whoever did will be put on probation and have to take additional security training classes."
They were astonished when they heard the recording. Each sentence raised questions and issues. Marcia paused the recording. "Is it okay if I pause?" She asked, and started to write down questions in a notebook.
"Yeah. I need it too. This is already intense!" Antares said. "That voice sounded just like mine!"
"I think so too and this goes beyond just being interesting! I need to tell Regina about this." Marcia quickly materialized a chat window and messaged her. "Hello, Regina. Antares and I started listening to the tape. Only a few sentences in and there's so much! It raises a lot of questions and it's hard to contain our excitement and shock over it!" "Do you know if the meeting rooms are available to take notes in them?"
While they waited for a reply, Marcia went to her desk to take another look at her notes. Fortunately she received a reply after about a minute and read it.
"She says she's checking now, and it might be another minute." She said. She smiled when she received her next reply after another minute. "They're available! I'll reply to her now." She said and typed into her chat with Regina "Thank you! We'll be on our way there!" Marcia replied. She quickly dematerialized the chat window in front of her and picked up her notes and a couple of notebooks. Antares quickly picked up the tape recorder and both of them walked to the meeting room as quickly as they could.
The door to the meeting room opened. Marcia and Antares walked in, closed the door and briefly took in the view before they sat down. The floor had glossy, light brown wood planks, and the walls were light purple. Immediately standing out from the calming hue and tint of the wall were the curtains which were beige with yellow stripes, and the chairs along the side of the meeting table.
Balancing the brighter yellow were two beige chairs along the meeting table, one closet to the door and another closest to the window. An arm chair by the window, and a plush bench to the left side wall were beige. In the back corners were plants with orange pots. On the left wall was a large framed painting of a landscape in a sunset, and on the right wall was a large flat screen TV.
Antares and Marcia looked over the notes that were spread out in front of them on the table.
"So, Pleiades and her counterpart have the same first name- or go by the same first name. That helps." Antares said. She opened the blank notebook that Marcia gave her and started taking notes.
"I overheard that Regina and her counterpart also share the same first name as each other." Marcia said. "We'll still need to figure out who Moonlight and Concordia are the counterparts of, and anyone else."
"Since Concordia has her own house, she's likely a former member of that group."
"Oh-- I just realized it! She might be the person that Pleiades' counterpart mentioned and she is a former member! I saw Pleiades' counterpart have a conversation with another person about a vacation where she and someone else met up with Concordia but that it went poorly at the end!"
"Whoa-- Pleiades and I went to an event too, though we also went with Janice, some of The Defenestrators members and with Wanda and Wénjié. It was good, but the timing of it and who was there was still similar enough that I have to wonder if this is a coincidence!"
"I couldn't see who dropped the tape, but this person being your counterpart is almost certain!" Marcia said. She quickly jogged her memory over another detail. "That person that Pleiades' counterpart was talking to had to be Mi-ho's counterpart. Looked almost just like her and sounded like her. When I was hiding, I heard someone sounded like Kiah's counterpart and had a similar way of speaking. That person left, but I heard another person join the conversation who mentioned returning from that trip and that it ended poorly--" She froze for a moment and turned towards Antares.
"That person sounded like you, and was heading in my direction when I heard the tape drop." She continued.
Antares looked at Marcia. "That's enough proof to say you heard my counterpart." She said. Marcia nodded in agreement.
After the moment of shock wore off, Antares wrote this down in her notes. "The recording is from my counterpart who went with Pleiades' counterpart on a vacation around the same time I went on that vacation with Pleiades and Janice. Objective: Investigate the counterparts. Investigate whether the similarities in events there and here are coincidences."
"Did you have any other leads?" She asked.
"Yes! The other best piece of intel I found, and one of the most exciting moments was a wall-mounted touchscreen in the hall that had a map of the headquarters which I'll check out in more detail next time! It'll be so helpful!" Marcia said, her tone and eyes lighting up in excitement. "It also had a roster of everyone on the team, with portraits of them and--" She shuddered when she thought about it further. "--It also listed who was there and who wasn't, and the map could display where everyone was." She shuddered again and her eyes looked dull with despair.
Antares shuddered too. "That's terrible, but unfortunately it's convenient for your mission."
"It is, and that's how I felt when I saw it, but I'll have to rely on it to know which areas would be safe and which to avoid when I can't conceal my appearance."
Antares nodded in acknowledgement. "You'd just be using it to stay safe."
"That may be the best I can do. That roster was helpful too in giving me clues of who our counterparts are and if they have the same names as us."
"Did you take any notes about them?"
"Yes, but from memory. I didn't have much time to look." Marcia said. She looked through her notes again and passed them to Antares.
"Sorry, my handwriting wasn't the best for these." She added. "If Janice were in on this, she'd be a great help deciphering them!"
The notes included the following details: The group, or organization is called POMME. Several of the POMME members that Marcia saw a glimpse of looked similar enough to Chariots of Colors members that it'd be reasonable to assume they're each others' counterparts, though there were a few that didn't seem to look like anyone in CC. One of them appeared to be a tough but cheerful-looking woman with golden hair in a spiky ponytail and had turquoise eyes. Next to her description, Marcia wrote that she's stumped who this is since she didn't remember the name below the portrait, but pondered if this was Moonlight.
She noted she saw a glimpse of her own presumed counterpart, who like her, had snow leopard ears and a stoic expression and generally looked similar, but had a different hair color and eye color. She wrote that she wants to find out if this person is also a time traveler.
"This is someone who could be a great ally or enemy to us with that power." Antares said.
"I agree with that."
The notes also listed that Marcia saw more cat people than CC has on its team and some of them don't look similar to any CC members, yet it may be clear who they're counterparts to based on the type of cat features they have, but one seemed to be missing. The one person she saw with tiger ears and a tail looked like Mi-ho but with orange and brown striped fur instead of Mi-ho's silver with gray stripes. In the notes, a question was scribbled down about this: "Is Terrell's counterpart missing?"
A conversation continued before Marcia and Antares were ready to play the next part of the recording...
