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Except one.

The man was standing at the base of a pillar in a square in Barcelona, leaning back with his hands in the pockets of his coat. His thin mouth was pursed, almost as if he were whistling, although he was making no sound. And he was looking at him.

Right at him.

Despite the dirty sunset reflected in the man’s glasses, the Absolute could see his eyes, see what he was focusing on. One of the man’s eyebrows quirked up and he smiled broadly.

Everything was changing. Suddenly all the intricate interwoven lines were fracturing, wildly whipping about through the times, the places. Pulses of information flashed past, too fast to be captured. The connections broke, decayed and faded. Narrowing. Narrowing down and down and down until there was only the man in the square, only his gaze. Everything had gone, all the multitudes of view, all the pure simple truths were gone. There was just the one man, and the Absolute realised with horror that he was seeing him through eyes. Human eyes. From just the one angle, just the one time. There were no other perspectives, no absolute. No Absolute.

And with that, the man began to flicker in and out of view as if he had never been there at all.

* * *

Chapter Two

Una Casa Europea Segura

‘Oh bloody hell! It’s another alternative history thingy, isn’t it?’

Fitz flopped back next to Anji on the low-slung modernist sofa that faced the enormous painting. He automatically patted his pockets for his cigarettes before equally automatically stopping. Then he remembered when he was: he could smoke indoors! Yes! There wasn’t a damn ‘No Smoking’ sign in sight. There were even ashtrays at either end of the seating, waiting for him to dirty them. It was almost enough to make up for the whole alternative reality business. Almost.

‘You mean, one of those “what if Japan conquered America in the 1940s?” things?’ Anji asked him. ‘Or a “what if my heel broke running down an escalator so I got a different tube train?” thing? And do you have to smoke?’

‘Yes, perhaps not quite that specific and yes.’ Fitz deliberately exhaled a series of rapid smoke rings, just to show her he still could. There were only so many centuries he could smoke indoors without hassle and he was determined to make the most of it. He smirked as Anji rapidly moved to the far end of the sofa from him, waving her hand about. She had kicked her shoes off when she had sat down and now curled her legs up under her, leaning on one arm, propped up on the narrow side of the sofa, getting as far away from his cigarette as possible and pointedly wrinkling her nose. In the direction of the still-pacing Doctor, that was, rather than towards Fitz himself. She wasn’t about to try to pursue that lost cause, he could tell.

‘Doctor...’

He paused in his pacing and glowered at the two of them. ‘It’s not one of those, as Fitz puts it, “alternate history thingies”,’ he said. ‘They tend to be blatant. We’d be standing in front of, for example, a giant portrait of Franco if it were one of those.’ He resumed trailing back and forth across the foyer. Fitz suspected that, had the area been carpeted, there would be a little path wearing into the weft by now. He waited until the Doctor passed again.

‘How would we know we weren’t supposed to be looking at a painting of Franco then?’

The Doctor barely paused. ‘We’d know. Apart from anything else, I’ve already lived through the 1930s once. I’m sure I’d remember.’

Fitz and Anji glanced at each other, both with one eyebrow raised. He grinned at her, gesturing at the Doctor with his cigarette. ‘Your turn,’ he whispered. He slouched even lower, dropping his head back and sprawling his legs out in front of him so the Doctor had to step over them. He briefly looked at the patterns of smoke rising slowing to the ceiling above him, then closed his eyes, content to wait. He smiled when he heard Anji give a little huffy sigh whilst she waited for the Doctor to walk in front of them again. One of her feet was tapping against the seat and