Zara nods toward McGinty. "The time traveler appeared here a month ago. Our guess is that this translucent state is caused by phase dissonance: he is not quite in this time, nor is he in the time he left. This is, presumably, because of your own presence during the last time jump. Were you to touch him, I believe this dissonance would be resolved. He would fully materialize, solid and whole."
"And you'd be happy to let me do this?" you ask.
"Of course," says Zara.
"In exchange for?"
"Your friendship," she says. "This city, this tower, was where the H'ssurru'ssurri—the Surgeons—first arrived in this world. They owe their presence here to MetaHuman Incorporated. Under the Surgeons' governance, this world knows peace. There is no war, no overpopulation, no famine, no drought. The Surgeons do not allow such threats to humanity."
"Just as a farmer takes good care of his cattle?" you ask.
"The Surgeons reproduce parasitically," Zara goes on. "This is true. And in your terms, yes, that effectively kills a number of humans each year. But compared to the global total, it's a tiny percentage. Many, many more humans would die if the Surgeons were not present in our world."
Mekk is lying in a fetal position on the floor, twitching, barely conscious. You kneel down next to him a few moments, and check his pulse.
"What about Mekk, and people like him?" you say. "Why do people hate and fear you, if you're such a force for stability?"
"They cling to the past. They cannot accept that the world as it was has passed away, replaced by a newer, better state." She glances over her shoulder then, at Randy McGinty—a little apprehensively, perhaps.
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