On the workshop floor of the enormous hangar that contained the interdimensional aircraft – a terrifying thing with the shape of a stealth fighter and the mass of an airbus, impossibly huge – Jasons scurried like ants in a nest, every one carrying some clipboard or toolbox or remote control for an industrial transport drone. The drones circled overhead, huge pieces of machinery clamped in their metal magnet jaws. Every so often, one would pull a piece off the aircraft, and another would replace it with a new one.
“My God,” said Jason. “How is this even possible?”
The guard shrugged. “I’ve got to get you to the foreman, says here,” she said.
“Oh yeah? How can you tell which one is which?” said Jason. “We all look the same!” “That’s a bit dimensionist, don’t you think?” said the guard. “Number One says we’re all unique, and we all agree with her.”
Jason decided that she had exhausted all coherent conversation options with the guard and nodded to one of her that was standing on a raised platform, talking over her shoulder to a couple of lackey Jasons.
“Is that her?” she said.
“There,” grumbled the guard. “That wasn’t so hard. Context clues.” She led Jason to the foot of the platform. “Hoi!” she shouted. “Got another lab jockey for you!”
The foreman looked down over the handrail, and her glasses slipped off the end of her nose. As easily as breathing, Jason plucked them out of the air and tossed them back up.
“Nice one, newbie!” shouted the foreman. “We could use a coordinated operator like you! Half these me’s have the hand-eye skills of a damn carp! That’s the multiverse for you.”
“What’s a carp?” shouted Jason back up. After the foreman had hurriedly explained that it wasn’t worth getting into now, she gestured for Jason to come up the stairs so they didn’t have to shout anymore, which seemed sensible. “You can go now, ma’am,” she said pointedly to the guard, who huffed. Whether at the slightly haughty dismissal or the “ma’am” Jason couldn’t tell.
“You’ve got work for me, I take it?” she said to the foreman, once she had climbed the mobile staircase onto the platform.
“I’m putting you inside the plane,” said the foreman. “We need people with skills in there to wire it all up, or else it’s basically a modern art piece. Jackie will meet you inside. Shuffle along,” she said, diverting her attention to a large blueprint.

A long flexible tunnel, the kind they have at airports, connected the platform to the dimension ship like a rubber umbilical cord. The air inside was hot, and constantly blowing outwards – whatever version of the tech they were running was kicking out a lot of heat and this tunnel was apparently at least one of the most convenient vents for it. It reminded Jason of walking through a hairdryer. Even though she knew it was worse in the long run, she instinctively licked her lips.
“Jackie” had close-cut hair and burn scars on her hands. She chewed gum constantly, which Jason recognised as a coping strategy from her smoking days, which this version of herself was still in. She nodded to Jason as she came in, and said:
“You must be my new pair of hands.”
“I hope not,” said Jason without thinking. Jackie nodded, acknowledging the joke without giving it any respect as humour. That’s exactly the joke I would have made, the nod said, and it’s exactly the joke everyone who has walked down that corridor has made for the last year.
Jason was determined not to let the silence hang in the air any longer. “Anyway, I’m eager to get started,” she said, unconvincingly. “Is there anything that needs doing?”
“There’s always stuff needs doing,” said Jackie. “Here’s a map. Soldering needs done down in the tail. Tina Two will explain.”
“Tina Two?”
“Comes after Tina One. Get moving,” said Jackie.

“You must be the newbie,” said Tina Two, who was wearing a sweatband with her name stitched into it. “You like the band? My idea. Don’t listen to Tina One, she’ll tell you I stole it. I’ll make one for you. What’s your name?”
“Uh,” said Jason.
“Haven’t got one yet? That’s fine. What you thinking of? Don’t tell me, we’re not supposed to influence each other. I was thinking if I didn’t get Tina Two I might have gone for Jayjay or something like that. We’ve got a Jaycie already though, so that might be a conflict of interest.” She didn’t talk fast exactly, but she never seemed to leave a gap long enough for Jason to think of a response. It was a constant, steady stream. “Roll up your sleeves,” she said. “You’ll be glad of the extra airflow. And it gives the jumpsuit that classic ‘Wendy the Welder’ feeling.”
“Rosie the Riveter?”
“Her too. Those are some good names. I wonder why we all chose names out of bits of our real name. Guess we’re just not that imaginative.”
Jason nodded, unbuttoning the sleeves of the jumpsuit and rolling them back from her wrists. At a glimpse of purple, Jackie grabbed her hand. The thin outlined heart with an eye in the centre stared back at her.
“Stone the crows!” she said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just have to make a call,” said Jackie. “Get on down to the tail and solder what looks like it needs soldering, alright?”

Working in the ship was unpleasantly like being baked in the bad way, but eventually a loud klaxon sounded and Jackie came down to Jason.
“Shift’s over,” she said, jerking her thumb towards the door she had come in by. “I’ll take you to the mess.”
“Do we have to clean that up too?” said Jason innocently. To her surprise, Jackie snorted a quick laugh. Immediately after, though, she was dead serious once again. She led Jason out of the ship.
“You finish the soldering?” she said. Jason nodded, holding up her hands. A large red mark betrayed the spot where she had carelessly let her hand rest against a deceptively hot outcropping from one of the processor cores. Jackie laughed and held up her own hand. One exactly like it marked her own hand, just between the thumb and first finger.
“We’re all the same here,” she said. “Just some of us are the same in different ways.”

A girl sat down opposite her at dinner and held out her hand. “Tina One,” she said. “You got your name yet?” She couldn’t have been older than fifteen. “Still just Jason. Nobody explained it to me.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Nobody ever explains it. They always leave it to me.”
My, this one is… precocious, thought Jason. Was I like this when I was her age? Silly question. Of course I was.
Tina One’s voice took on a hushed, awed quality. “There’s a book, you see. It’s kept in a safe place, where the big cheese in her ivory tower can’t mess with it.”
“A book of names?”
Tina One smiled. “All of them, and a lot more besides. There’s a plan, you see. We’re going to overthrow Jason Prime.”
The name shook Jason a little. Of course the leader of this all was called Jason. They all were. It was still a shock to the system. Tina One smirked.
“‘But I’m Jason Prime!’ That’s what you just thought, right? We all did the first time. But it just makes sense. She brought us here. She rules over us. She’s the Number One, Big Brother, Head Honcheau. It’s not a term of endearment.” She made a face as though she was smelling something particularly odious, not just the greenish lumps of vegetable matter (anonymous) that were slopped on Jason’s plate. “That tattoo on your arm. Our leader had the same one. She disappeared, or rather she was disappeared by Prime’s turncoat bloody Geschtapo! T2 reckons you might be the closest strain to her we’ve seen yet.”
“Gosh,” said Jason. It was a lot to take in.
“Lot to take in, right? Don’t bother answering. You’re in, I can see it. We’re a scientist, right? This top-down fascist way of thinking is against our nature. You’ll be contacted. Don’t worry about when. Don’t try to anticipate.” She winked. “Now, I’ve got to go. Behave yourself until it ceases to be convenient.”
“Wait,” Jason said. “Can I ask – how come you’re Tina One?”
“I was here first, dummy. Prime snatched me on my twelfth bloody birthday.”
Ain’t that a kick in the head, Jason thought. There’s a thought. Maybe I slipped in the shower or something, and this is my brain’s way of processing my gradually ebbing cognitive abilities… It would certainly explain the endlessly multiplicating impossibilities of my current situation, not to mention the self-centred (some would say masturbatory) fascination with an infinite recursion of one’s own self…
“Oi!” said T1, snapping her fingers. “No musing on the essential subjectivity of perception! We’ve got work to do.”