Story debate.

"Are you human?" Cynthia asked, leaning back by the glow of the fire and smoking her cigarette."Not exactly," replied Alexander, hunched over their bag of canned food stirring the leaves and twigs. "We were human once, but biologically and psychology we're something else... it's complicated. The term itself is subject to quite a bit of interpretation over the millenia as they alter their characteristics."She sat back and smiled. "So the idea is... there are millions of universes radiating out from this central point in hyperspace? And if you can correlate enough quantum permutations to match your brain structure to another one, you can basically-""Become it. I should explain it more thoroughly- consciousness is actually pretty fluid- but that's enough for tonight."Cynthia, who had been crawling into her sleeping bag, looked back at him. "Do you have to know quantum physics and all this to be a hunter?""No. Those of us who travel across reality have to know what we're doing, but otherwise theory isn't necessary. We just often develop a compulsion to understand the mechanism. It settles our minds from the mismatch of our day-to-day life."By now she was fully covered. "And when you say I'll never have to go back- I'll be one of you, searching the multiverse for these travelers- how exactly did you pick me out to be allowed to know this? Who cleared me?""You weren't," he replied. "If you aren't going to get recruited, you'll have a mind-wipe. But I do think you will be. You seem to have a stable personality- temporally speaking. You've been on the run for four years. I've been hiding out in this verse for four weeks, but it usually takes decades to find someone like that. I could have simply used your technical skills without your knowledge. It doesn't take much to erase someone's memory. But I didn't.""And what happens if I count to thirty and you don't come back?""Then I won't ever."He settled in.------------------------The universe closes in. He knows by now the appareance of temporal consistency was an illusion, but jumping past every quantum permutation in which another actual Alexander, with fully intact memories and personality, existed did little to reassure him that time wasn't flowing exactly the way it had always flown. The his mind is outside. He has the impressions of millions of mirrors facing each other, each Alexander bursting up into his consciousness and being dragged away down the chain. He sees himself strapped to the machine he built out of junkyard scrap.He now sees, not with his eyes, but with his mind, the true structure of the multiverse. He can't quite comprehend it intuitively, the way we can't really understand a Penrose staircase, but he knows how to navigate it. So he pushes himself towards the singularity; the zero-dimensional gateway in time. He dimly senses the arch of the multiverse receding behind him. The amount of energy being used up is immense, but it was being drained from the core of a random star somewhere (he hoped). Give humanity this knowledge would be like giving an monkey a nuclear bomb. Of course she had to go- be mind-wiped or join the hunters; he didn't know.And with all his might, he thinks:I KNOW WHERE THE TARGET IS I NEED BACKUP HELP I NEED HELPHe waited. He tried again.No answer.