All this and more, p.43
All This and More, page 43
Vadasz123:
Mochiko5283: <いや、このエピソードが今までで1番いい!!!!>
Moms4Marsh:
Marsh’s heart is still racing, from the last jump or from her new environment, she’s not sure. She didn’t really have much of a plan at the end of that last episode beyond trying to get out of Mexico as quickly as possible. But now that she’s here, she’s not actually sure what to do. Alexis wanted her to find Chrysalis, but how can she do that if she doesn’t even know what it is?
She supposes she could find out, she thinks as her eyes drift to the little window again. In the cosmic distance, something glitters, a faraway comet or planet beckoning.
Or not.
At least, not yet.
She’s so far away, Chrysalis won’t find her here. Not for a while. Instead of chasing it, she could just take a breath. She could briefly enjoy how beautiful, how exhilarating, how impossible, being an astronaut on the International Space Station would be.
After all, as Talia’s been insisting to her all along, there are infinite lives here in the Bubble for Marsh to enjoy. If something isn’t quite right in one of them, like her career or her city—or Chrysalis—she can just choose another one.
She floats from room to room, giddy at her weightlessness. She does backflips, she swims, she spends an entire day doing everything “upside down,” and marvels at how it makes no difference. She takes pictures of herself in every room of the ISS, to email back to Harper on Earth. She laughs at how whenever she’s not taking a bite of something, she can just let go of it and it hangs suspended in midair. She gets lost for hours looking out of portholes at the great, mysterious expanse of the universe, awed by the magnitude of what the Bubble can do.
Finally, their crew captain Victor puts them to work, and together with him, Jo, and Ren, Marsh prepares to complete a daring space walk that will upgrade the ISS’s satellite system—and she discovers that she’s somehow proficient in mechanical engineering, advanced mathematics, and astronomy all at once.
Ordinarily, she’d be embarrassed by how unrealistic that is, but she’s having too much fun to care. Obviously, she’s not going to make this path her permanent one and really become an astronaut, but to see herself succeed even at this life makes her giddily proud. She’s gone from lonely, sad background character who was convinced she was too late to change her life to finding love again with Ren, reigniting her professional passions, and proving to herself that she can not only survive, but flourish, in places like Iceland and Mexico . . . hell, even in space! She hasn’t found her perfect forever path yet, but she’s starting to believe that when she finally does, she’s going to be brave enough to actually seize it.
As Marsh creeps out into the desolate, terrifying, beautiful obsidian vacuum in her poofy white suit and bulbous helmet, she’s breathless with wonder. For as long as she lives, she knows that without a doubt, this will be the most magnificent thing she’ll ever see.
Ren, on the other hand, is the nerdiest version he’s been so far in any of the episodes, to fit with his new character here, she supposes. He’s pale, and very slender—convenient for life on the ISS—his hair is thinning on top, and his glasses are twice as thick, so that they make his eyes seem giant at some angles. He looks more like a stereotype of a scientist than a real one, Marsh thinks, and rolls her eyes at the show.
But on the bedroom front, he’s just as eagerly, nearly frantically, diligent as always—even with zero gravity. All This and More is smart enough to know not to tweak that detail.
Marsh has been doing everything she can to avoid it, but now that their mission is completed, and a shuttle is heading to the ISS from Earth to pick Marsh and her crew up, she knows she can’t procrastinate any longer.
She has to talk to Talia at some point.
Even though they’re in space, Marsh’s team tries to keep pace with Earth, and all the clocks are set to US Central Time, where the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, is. On their last night before the shuttle arrives to dock, she takes the late shift at their comms desk. She waits until the rest of the crew is strapped into their sleeping bags and all the lights are out. Finally, with a sigh, she opens up the long-distance satellite channel.
Houston—Talia—has called fourteen times and sent fifty emergency pings over the course of this episode.
“Uh, hi,” she finally says, as a nearly hysterical Talia Cruz appears on the grainy screen.
“Marsh!” she shouts, gripping the sides of whatever JSC headquarters computer she’s looking at Marsh from. “Thank goodness! I’ve been trying to reach you since Mexico! Are you all right? Is everyone else all right? Is anyone hurt? Do—”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Marsh interrupts gently. “Everyone is okay.”
“Oh, thank God. Whew!”
Talia, in rare form, sinks into her chair for a relieved moment before springing back to exquisite posture. Even dressed as a government administrator, and at four o’clock in the morning, she looks like a movie star.
“I can’t believe Alexis!” she continues furiously. “That was so dangerous! Flipping through the Show Bible like that, trying to send you somewhere without a plan. Anything could have happened!” She balls her delicate fingers into charming little fists. “I’m just glad I could get you away from her, to somewhere safe!”
Notamackerel:
“How did it even happen?” Marsh asks. “What is Alexis doing in the Bubble?”
“No idea,” Talia says. “She’s not part of your crew, that’s for sure. Believe me, I’m definitely going to have a word with the team that runs our security. That kind of tampering is unacceptable. It’s sabotage!”
“I don’t know what she was doing, but it really didn’t seem like sabotage,” Marsh replies. “It almost seemed like she was trying to help.”
“How?” Talia asks. “By trying to fling you through the quantum universe completely at random, without a clue as to where you’d land? Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t managed to reach you in time? She risked your life, and your loved ones’ lives, carelessly.”
Marsh frowns at that. Talia does have a good point. What Alexis did was risky.
But she also knows that Talia didn’t hear what her old producer said, before she sent Marsh here. That she has to find the source of Chrysalis. She was so desperate, she put them all in danger to give Marsh the chance to do it.
Just what does Alexis think Chrysalis could be?
And why does Talia seem so unconcerned?
“Whatever Alexis was trying to achieve, it doesn’t matter,” Talia continues. “I promised you at the beginning that I’d do everything I could to make your life as perfect as mine is by your finale, and I’m going to keep that promise.”
The words are so comforting. Even with so many unanswered questions, Marsh just wants to sink into them. To forget the strange things that happened in Iceland and Mexico, to forget what Alexis said. She didn’t join the show to track down whatever this Chrysalis thing is—she came here to fix her life! It’s already hard enough to do that without trying to solve a mystery on the side that’s not even hers to begin with.
She’s spent so much of her life doing what everyone else wants, she almost forgot she doesn’t have to.
Especially not on All This and More.
“This is your season. Not hers,” Talia says, like she can read her mind. “This is about what you want.”
“Yes,” Marsh echoes. “This is my season. And what I want.”
“That’s it, Marsh!” Talia replies, with double the verve. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be concerned about Alexis. There are so many paths left for us to choose from, I doubt she’ll ever end up in the same place as us again.”
She bends down, reaching for something out of the frame.
“And,” she says, as she sits back up with effort, and pulls the Show Bible into her lap. “Most importantly, the Show Bible is safe. We have it.”
The book is, as usual, even more monstrous than the last time Marsh has seen it. It’s so gigantic now that it’s nearly as tall as Talia is, as it sits there on her thighs. It takes up more of the little video screen than her host does.
“So, outer space was a fun diversion—can we just pause for a second to say, Wow! How incredible!?” She continues as she opens the cover, struggling to keep her voice bubbly and easy as the weight of the pages nearly overwhelms her. “But it’s time to get you back on track. Let me send you somewhere else. After all, we don’t have much time left, and there’s so much more for you to do!”
Despite her lingering unease, just the mention of a new life makes Marsh’s pulse quicken with excitement. It’s still a thrill—all the possible things she could try, all the possible places she could go.
“Are you ready?” Talia asks over the feed, her finger hovering just above some new future, some new life. “You could have All This . . .”
Marsh smiles.
“And More,” she replies.
Always Another
Marsh opens her eyes slowly, both hesitant and excited to see what new possible future is laid out before her this time.
This one will be it, she tells herself.
And if not this one, then the next one will be.
Or the one after that.
She tries everything, because she can. Marsh is an haute couture fashion designer, a painter in Paris, a senator, a wine vineyard owner. Her faithful cast follows her through every life: Victor always her boss, Jo always her colleague, Harper always her daughter, Ren always her partner. The scenery changes so quickly, it’s like reading a pop-out flip book, where from every page springs a new cardboard cutout. None of them can tell except for Marsh, although there are more strange contradictions—Victor and Jo lose themselves in conversations, or appear wearing suits and holding court papers when they should be clad in park ranger uniforms or carrying firemen’s gear, and Harper keeps talking about the violin and then getting confused, even though with every new scenario, she has a different area of musical expertise. Sometimes the background flickers, replacing itself with a new environment that makes no sense, then flickers back again.
Ren bears the most of it, though. Out of all of them, he changes the most each time, morphing into some updated incarnation based on the previous episode, edging ever closer to Marsh’s ideal man. He seems downright exhausted, at times—maybe because of all the transformations he’s being put through, even if he doesn’t know it.
Still, Marsh can’t stop. It’s simply too addicting.
A marine biologist. A world-renowned sculptor. An architect for the first permanent moon base.
Notamackerel:
Moms4Marsh:
Marsh nods. That’s right. Every new life is close, nearly right, but not exactly so. It amazes her now to think that at midseason, she almost thought she was close to done. Her life has become a thousand times better since then—she’s ambitious and successful at whatever job she tries, her love life is blossoming, her makeover and her new closeness with her daughter have stuck around past the next commercial break—far more than she ever could have hoped for.
But the more places she visits in this montage episode, the more things she tries, Marsh starts to really understand what this show is all about.
Her family, her career—heck, even her bold new personality and style . . . those things are the big pieces. The broad strokes.
But broad strokes only do not make a masterpiece.
They don’t make perfect.
And that’s what Marsh is here for.
She won’t rest until she gets it.
It seems ungrateful at first, to discard a path for a mere detail. But didn’t Talia tell her that nothing, no matter how small, is out of reach on All This and More?
She leaves one life because the house isn’t big enough, and the one after because it’s monstrously big. Another time, it’s because of the wrong city; the next, the wrong job. Once, Harper seems bored, then, the weather isn’t good. Then Marsh doesn’t like her hair.
Each time, it gets a little easier.
“Sorry, can we cut?” she asks as she stands at the edge of a hot air balloon’s basket, gazing out over the gorgeous, golden Serengeti. The swelling music cuts off abruptly. “I just—I really want to be able to enjoy this moment, and the light was kind of in my eyes. Can we redo it?”
“Absolutely,” Talia says, and gives the burner a little more gas to lift them back to their original position again, before the close-up started. The zebras seem to also turn around, to head back to where the herd was before they started galloping.
The Serengeti is incredible, and so is the romantic, candlelit dinner Ren has prepared for them in their luxury safari tent later that evening. Although she wishes it had been a pasta dish, not a salad. That there had been a few more candles, and that Ren’s hair had been a little longer and more touchable.
And that hints of Chrysalis would stop popping up at the periphery of every other scene.
A path in which she’s a famous author lasts for half a day, a life as a white water rafter for an hour. At a break in the river, Marsh sets down her paddle and waves away a butterfly, more forcefully than she ordinarily would if it had been just an insect and not a strange saboteur, doggedly pursuing her across the quantum universe.
“You know, this is great, but I feel like Ren’s footwork wasn’t quite as snappy as it could be,” she says as they hand her a trophy for first place in the national ballroom dancing championship. “Do you think it’s worth redoing?”
“We can do anything you want, Marsh!” Behind her graceful posture, it’s clear that even the world’s most unflappable host is exhausted, although she’d never admit it. “Or, something else! There are millions of lives here in the Bubble.”
Talia’s right, that there may be nearly infinite paths for her to try, and infinite details to tweak. But in the back of her mind, Marsh knows there’s a limit to it. She might be able to keep going forever if it were just up to her, but it’s not. It’s about her happiness, but also about episodes. And there are only two of them left before the finale.
She has to pick something eventually.
Things go fuzzy around the edges as the Bubble prepares to shift to somewhere new yet again, and Marsh grins.
But not yet.
A Game of Chance
Marsh can’t tell if she feels the thunder of applause or hears it first. As the darkness lifts, she looks eagerly around the chaotic, bustling room. There are no windows, but lots of bright lights, neon signs, and wall-to-wall carpet in a terrible geometric pattern. Tables are everywhere, each one tightly packed, and people are laughing, crying, shouting, and everything in between. Somewhere, a bell begins to ring, and another excited cheer rises up from the back corner.
It’s a casino, Marsh realizes.
Is she in Las Vegas?
“Ah, there you are!” a brown-haired woman in a fancy business pantsuit cries from the table nearest to her.
She looks familiar to Marsh, but amid all the chaos, Marsh can’t place her. Is she from Mendoza-Montalvo and Hall? Or perhaps from Pallissard? She knows she’s seen her somewhere before, but nothing seems right.
“We were about to finish the match without you!” the woman continues, gesturing to an open chair. At the same table, Ren and Jo are also waiting.
“We’d never finish without Marsh,” Ren bellows, and slaps the green surface in front of him, more fired up than Marsh has ever seen him.
“That’s right,” Jo agrees. “It wouldn’t be a proper victory if I won without beating the reigning champion.”
“You wish!” Ren chuckles villainously. “That prize is all mine.”
“Take your seats, please,” Victor says. He’s in a suit, standing alone on one side of the table, and holding a deck of cards. Marsh’s eyes finally focus on the giant banner on the wall behind him.
ANNUAL WORLD SERIES OF POKER TOURNAMENT
FINAL ROUND
In this life, they’re all world champion professional poker players?
Marsh grins as the casino roars.
This will be fun.
Still gaping at the sign, she manages to drop into her chair. She has no idea what all of the stacks of colored chips in front of her are worth, but if this is the final game, it must be millions. Another bell rings, another match won somewhere, and the crowd begins to gather around her table now. From the mezzanine above, even more onlookers lean over, eager to witness the final event.
Behind her, a tournament jumbotron broadcasting the action cuts to a tight shot on Marsh as she gets settled. As she watches, the Bubble senses the tweak she wants, and zooms so the close-up is even more extreme. She, as she always does now, looks fantastic—might as well enjoy it.
Victor clears his throat. “Now that all the players have returned, let us continue the final round of this tournament!” he proclaims—part dealer, part announcer, it seems. “Good luck to you all.”
“Prepare your concession speech!” Ren crows at Marsh. Clearly, his tactic is to bluff his way to victory with that unshakable confidence. “Don’t worry, you’re all invited to my after-party!”
Marsh can’t decide what to make of this new Ren. He’s so much cockier and showier, which is interesting, but he’s also obsessively competitive. She gets the sense that his ultimate goal in this path, the thing he’s been working toward for decades, has been to be at this table, in this tournament, playing against her. Perhaps they’re lifelong rivals? He’s so happy to be here, he hasn’t stopped grinning since the scene began. So much so, in fact, that he almost seems the opposite—so maniacally thrilled that he can’t control it. Marsh is faintly concerned that, whether he wins or loses, he’s going to flip the table and launch himself at poor Victor.
