WILLIS:

OH!!!! THE HEADBONES WAS MISS MAGLADEME!!!

MAGDOLENE:

Close enough! I remember ya now too, Willis!

*cough* How's, uh... how's yer mama?

WILLIS:

Busy. Busy with surgerin or busy with her dumb ol' paintins.

FERN:

...Busy with the "patient zero."

MAGDOLENE:

Well, shucks, knowin' her like I do, she's workin as hard as she has to and that might just be why we're all still here.

WILLIS:

I guess so.

MAGDOLENE:

Look at you, though! You been keepin' Fern outta trouble, I bet!

WILLIS:

We kilt a big guy and we put Phage in a box and we changed the computer guy to a other guy and Fern's working for Miss Gynnies but that's a SECRET!

MAGDOLENE:

Shucks, that's all pretty Neat-O! And who's yer friend, here?

ISAAC:

OMMB EBBLEPK!

FERN:

I didn't see it happen, but somehow I'm aware he used to be Jay. Jay's still making more of these things, too, even though he's also a coffee monster now?

MAGDOLENE:

Hmmmmmm....sure is the blight alright, and a mighty fine specymen! Ya likely gathered that whatever this here biomatter is, its first order'a business is to compensate for any major damage to the host. Unfortunatelike, it compensates so hard it kinda...well...I suppose you could say it's thrown everything out in the process and started fresh. It brings in so much new information that it doesn't just fix an injury, but goes on to overwrite the entire being with somethin' totally newfangled. Emphasis on the "fangled" a'course.

It really ain't the Jay feller anymore; it ain't even got anything that used to be his core, corrupted or otherwise. It's kinda like his whole place in the scheme of existence got purged to make room fer this critter, and as a matter'a fact, I ain't smellin any kinda core at all. This is just a branch.

FERN:

What's that really mean? I've had cores and branches explained a couple times, but I could always use another perspective.

MAGDOLENE:

An "original" or "true" being is the manifestation of a concept core, and a concept core typically has branches. Wherever a branch ends in another zone, it manifests another entity, object, idea or phenomynon related to the original core. That sub-concept can develop its own sub-core and in turn send out branches of its own, and that's basically how almost all us come to be. We're all cores n' branches what spun off some other core somewhere.

You grey zoners are "dead ends." Ya each got yer own true core, but it don't branch out no further from ya, and ya carry it around the same layer ya physically manifest. That's why ya tend ta' get only one brief bio-instance and then kick the bucket fer good. Fortunatelike, as you know by now, the Hospital's rigged so that don't happen here and ya' just get transferred over to a new vessel, like any of our other patients.

FERN:

And where do those come from, again?

MAGDOLENE:

Ya' may have only the one lonely core, but there's still a lotta hypothetical, alternate paths through the layers, alternate "futures" ya might take. None of those "possible" you's are really real until yer core takes that path, a'course, so we scan fer an "empty" you that's doomed anyway, pluck it outta its final layer and pop yer core right inta' it. Pretty complicated procedure ya' probably wouldn't grasp, no offense, but I guess you could say we recycle one of yer potential "deaths" into an "extra life," a process unique ta' the true Hospital.

Anywho, back on topic...you got a core, I got a core, n' Willis here's got a core, though he started out as onna his mama's branches with only a sub-core, already functionally his own being but simultaneously nut'n but an appendage of Doctor Tori. Now that she let his subcore ripen into a true core, they're capable of existing without any direct connection ta' one another, makin' them two truly independent, equivalent folks.

FERN:

But Isaac...isn't that?

MAGDOLENE:

Don't seem like it. He's nut'n but a branch offa some other core, no core or even subcore'a his own. He might develop one, might even adapt n' survive if the link is severed, but for now he's just a little fingertip of a bigger being, and that bigger being's gonna keep replacin' folks with its branches as long as its original core is out there somewhere.

Reckon that original core is the "old flesh" the parlyment's on about in Maggie's research, and if yer kiddo is really the "patient zero," or the apex'a this here outbreak, I reckon the old flesh critter is try'na use him as its conduit inta existence, its central activity hub as it were.

FERN:

What does that mean for him? Don't hold back. Worst case scenario.

MAGDOLENE:

Ain't my area of expertise exactly, but I reckon it's in the process of replacin' his core with its own. IF it were to finish that process, that's an IF, mind ya', there'd be nothin' left of his core ta' salvage and nothin' left ta' do but unexistalize the malignant new core, which would in turn unexistalize whatever else that core has entangled itself with...even whole entire zones. We'd be amputatin' a swathe of reality itself before it went any more sour.

Alls I can say is it can't be that hopeless yet if they've got Tori on the job.

FERN:

Am I doing the right thing, messing around in the Hospital?

MAGDOLENE:

You kiddin?! Ya got me back ta' functionin, didn't ya? Ya helped sort things out with Maggie's subzone, ya fixed that blue feller, Willis says ya spruced up the computer system...Reckon we'd be even doomeder without yer quick thinkin', not ta' mention the unique advantages'a yer very predicyment.

Awful lotta beings interconnectated with the old flesh by now, but if it's usin' yer son as its alpha host, I reckon yer connection with it is the most direct. Ain't sure why ya' seem less afflicted than others, but I reckon the parlyment can't do nothin' to block ya' from perceivin'em, without it also affectin' yer son and their precious old flesh core in some similar fashion.

FERN:

So even if they know what I'm doing, they can only do so much to stop me before it starts to hurt them too.

MAGDOLENE:

Reckon so!

Now, we don't have to stop swappin' idears, but I think I'd like ta' get back to my office, where ya found me. What's left of it anyway. I'm gettin' mighty tired'a wiggling around in here nekkid.