Number Five spoke up, “Part of the process of collecting people included seeing if any people from particular Earths or cultures were more receptive. We couldn’t use Contessa to figure it out. That map there on the wall would be Earth Tau-He.”

“What’s that rooted in?” Chris asked. “The receptiveness?”

“There was a correlation between mental state, mental fitness, and the results the vials got,” Number Five said. “The theory was that there might be cultures that are better at focusing, or have particular mental traits that lend themselves to better outcomes.”

“And?” Chris asked.

“Not in a statistically significant way. Cauldron kept it up even after the numbers came in. It drew less notice to take five people from a thousand worlds than to take them all from one world. If we’re talking about Contessa… it reduced the labor for her. She needed food, rest, sleep, showers, or she’d have to lean on her power for more minute details, and doing that made it harder to run background processes, and long simulations.”

“It’s not instant?” Sveta asked. “We studied her and we were sure it was instant.”

“It’s instant but it’s harder,” Five told her. “If she didn’t take care of herself and became weaker, then the power would break things down into a series of derivative steps.”

“Hypothetically, if she was fighting someone like Alexandria,” I said. “And she had the flu, hadn’t slept… she’d drop a few percentage points in execution, but she’d have a fifty step process instead of a fifteen step process?”

“She wouldn’t drop by any percentage points,” Sveta said. “If she’s fighting, she’s at one hundred percent. She would beat Alexandria.”

“But there would be fifty steps, or a hundred,” Five said. “To be more precise about foot placement, breathing, and every other detail that contributed to a specific end result. More so with simulations.”

“Explain that,” Chris said.

“If she doesn’t or can’t know something, then she can ask herself what the best path is, assuming known variables. Factor in a need to account for new information, adjust and re-run the simulation regularly, and the small steps become necessary elements of the set.”

“If things get hard, what happens?” Sveta asked.

“She gets more run down.”

“That’s circular,” I said.

“The principal element is still there,” Five said. “The person.”

Around us, the scenes changed, from Contessa in various confrontations to the image, again, of her standing in a doorway, looking at Doctor Mother as the woman slept.

“What’s the worst-case scenario? Why is this a weak point?” I asked.

“That she asks the wrong questions, or hears the wrong things,” Five said.

“Define wrong,” Sveta said.