Page 27

Mission Possible

Marsh has no idea where she is. Alexis and Talia were wrestling over the Show Bible so fiercely as that last episode ended, both struggling to flip to different parts of the book, there’s no telling where Alexis’s finger randomly landed in the nearly endless stack of pages.

So, as the scene opens and Marsh finds herself looking through a telescope, studying a building site on the other side of the street, she doesn’t think it’s odd at first.

But then as she pulls back and sees what’s actually in front of her, it suddenly is.

It’s not a telescope, she realizes.

It’s a sniper rifle scope.

Uh...

Marsh looks down. There’s no telenovela set, no raging party, no fancy masquerade gown. She’s in a quiet, nondescript apartment, and dressed in all-black tactical gear. Jo, who’s seated on a folding chair next to her, nods grimly.

Where did Alexis send her?

In the stillness of the room, the little buzz in her ear pierces like a siren.

“Report in,” Victor’s voice says, and Marsh gingerly touches the small device nestled there.

“Target acquired,” Jo answers for her, into her own earpiece. “Marsh and I are going in.”

“You’re our only hope, agents,” Victor replies to them both. “We’re counting on you. America is counting on you.”

Marsh lurches as the pieces finally fall into place.

Is she...

TopFan01: Marsh is a secret agent in this episode????

Loulou22: C’est ridicule !

WarszawaMan: Wy ba?wany, to najlepszy odcinek!!!!

The comments positively explode, word shrapnel covering everything in her view until all she can see are letters and exclamation points.

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 asking Alexis to get her out of Mexico as fast 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 wonders if that’s why Alexis tried to pick this path.

So she can find out?

“Roger that,” Marsh replies, finally figuring out how to make the device work. “Agent Marshmallow out.”

Every spy movie trope Marsh can think of, this path has it. In just the time it takes her and Jo to get out of their safe house and across the street to the target site, they crawl through air-conditioning vents, hide around corners from bad guys, crack a safe, outmaneuver a car chase, and even triumph in hand-to-hand combat. Marsh herself is incredible, somehow proficient in computer hacking, karate, and throwing knives all at once.

She wants to be embarrassed by how over-the-top everything is, but she’s having too much fun to care. Obviously, she’s not going to make this path her permanent one and become a secret agent—but to see herself kick so much ass, to succeed even at this, 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 as a super spy! 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.

She and Jo infiltrate the half-finished construction site while trying not to marvel at Washington, DC’s dramatic skyline in their background. Marsh kicks down the door to the room where Victor tells her that Ren is being held hostage through her earpiece, and Jo gets shot!—but she’s wearing a bulletproof vest, Marsh realizes with overwhelming relief.

“Objection!” Jo shouts hoarsely, as she tries to get her wind back. “Badgering the witness!”

Despite the adrenaline of the situation, Marsh stumbles to a stop and looks back at her. “What?” she asks.

Wait.

She spins around, bewildered, as she realizes that they’re not standing in a partially built building anymore. They’re in a courtroom now!

Suddenly, all the walls are warm wood, with rows of pews lining one side. A sharp crack startles her as a gavel drops from above and smacks against the ground. A supervillain sporting a blond mohawk and a pin-striped suit is standing in the judge’s place, brandishing a pistol and a threatening-looking remote, and below, Ren is strapped to a chair on the witness stand.

“Marsh, hurry!” he cries as he works the gag out of his mouth.

What the—?!

“Jo,” Marsh says, nervous. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t—I... I meant to say, stop them!” Jo coughs and manages to yell again, looking rattled.

Marsh turns back, but the room is suddenly an abandoned building site again.

What was THAT?

“Marsh, don’t let the virus upload!”

“It’s too late.” The villain laughs, standing on construction scaffolding instead of the judge’s chair now, and Marsh finally recognizes them.

Is that... Sarah? She blinks.

Talia’s makeup artist from season one?

It has to be. Marsh remembers Sarah revamping Talia’s entire look during the makeover episodes, turning her from drab to fab!

But Sarah was part of Talia’s team, not Marsh’s.

Frantic, Marsh stares down at the gun in her hands. Why is Sarah in this episode? Are there even more people from Sharp Entertainment’s old crew hiding in her Bubble?

But why?

“Alexis?” she calls, starting to panic. “Alexis? Are you there?”

But the action is too loud, too fast, and she can’t even hear herself.

“Marsh!” Ren yells again.

He’s older in this life, his hair shot through with streaks of gray and his brow creased with lines. More like he’s a mentor of Marsh’s than a contemporary. Perhaps he’s an older spy, brought out of semiretirement to teach a new crop of agents the secrets of their trade, and somewhere along the way the sharp new recruit and jaded, wise veteran fell in love...

“The terminal!” he yells.

“What?” Marsh stammers.

“The terminal!!”

He jerks his head toward a gigantic computer server on the other side of the room, bursting with ports and cables and flashing lights. It’s plugged into the incomplete building’s power grid, and there’s a little Sharp Purple memory stick jammed into one of the inputs. On the status screen near the top of the device, a graphic of a progress bar ticks up slowly, three-quarters complete.

The virus!

“If the virus finishes uploading, the whole city will collapse!” Ren explains. “Traffic systems, subway control, electricity, everything! Thousands will die!”

“Hurry!” Jo adds.

Marsh remains frozen a moment longer. There’s so much happening, she can’t figure out what it all means.

Is the virus Chrysalis, in this path?

What happens if it uploads?

But there’s no way to pause the episode to figure it out.

“Time to light this on fire!” Ren shouts her tagline at her, and the Bubble responds. Everything cuts to slow motion, the scene readying itself for something dramatic, and Marsh realizes that she’s already moving. She’s whirling, her gun raised, taking aim—

She fires straight into the terminal.

The machine shatters theatrically into a million pieces, as if she shot it with a rocket launcher instead of a mere handgun. The progress bar flickers, then darkens as the remnants of the terminal crumple into a heap—the upload thwarted.

“Go, Marsh!” Jo cheers.

“Noooo!” Sarah wails, their chance at an evil monologue squandered. “You haven’t won yet!”

Marsh helps Jo up as the construction site threatens to collapse, and the two of them free Ren from his ropes as Sarah escapes, likely to allow a sequel episode, if Marsh decides she likes this life and wants to stay. Together, the three of them hobble-run through the smashed door and down a few flights of steps as bits of drywall and concrete sprinkle their path.

Victor is waiting for them outside, surrounded by a team of men and women in suits and sunglasses and earpieces.

“Status?” he asks tensely as they reach him.

“We stopped the upload,” Marsh says. “The city is safe.”

“Marsh!” Ren cries. “You’re a hero !”

Then the building explodes in the background behind them, turning itself into fireworks.

StrikeF0rce: I’m back on board with this show now! Marsh is such a badass!

Frónverji: This is better than any of the spy movies!

SharpTruth99: Don’t any of you see what’s happening??!?

“Where’s Alexis?” Marsh asks as she waves the comments away.

“Who?” Victor asks.

“Someone get that man to a hospital,” a voice orders, and Marsh turns around to see Talia, in a general’s uniform, striding over.

Marsh supposes that she’s not surprised.

It took Talia a minute, but her host was always going to find her star again.

Victor salutes Talia crisply. “Roger that, General Cruz!” he agrees, and Jo springs into action to wave down a crew of paramedics for Ren.

“I’ll handle Agent Marsh’s debrief,” Talia says, and earns another salute and a “Yes, ma’am!”

She keeps her steely expression in place until Victor runs to help Jo with Ren, but as soon as they’re alone, Talia grabs Marsh into a hug.

“Whew! I’ve been racing through the Bubble as fast as I could, looking for you everywhere!” She gasps. “Are you all right? I can’t believe that Alexis did that! Anything could have happened. I mean, look at how dangerous this path is!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Marsh says, to quiet her. “But how did that even happen? What is Alexis doing in the Bubble?”

“I don’t know,” Talia says. “She’s not part of the crew, that’s for sure. I’m definitely going to have a word with the team that runs our security. That kind of tampering is unacceptable. It’s sabotage!”

Behind them, Victor is supervising Ren’s loading into an ambulance, and Jo hops in to accompany him to the hospital. He looks weak but proud, his gaze distant as if he’s replaying every significant moment he’s ever had with his protégé over the years, culminating in this defining, heroic scene. He raises his head from the gurney, and when he spots Marsh, he waves slowly to her.

Marsh waves back, hoping that she’s doing it poignantly enough.

“There’s something I want to show you,” Talia says, once the emotional moment has passed. “Let’s go back to headquarters.”

Marsh is expecting a drive in a sleek, unmarked car, but instead, Talia snaps her fingers. Suddenly, there’s no crumbling, smoldering building, no scrambling news crews, no crowd of onlookers. They’re both standing in a drab, government-looking office.

“Whoa,” Marsh murmurs. “Is that how you do that?”

“Comes with being the host,” she says. “It’s second nature after a while.”

There’s only one thing in the room besides them, which is a serious-looking desk. On it, the Show Bible is waiting.

“There are so many paths left to choose from, I doubt we’ll have to worry about Alexis ending up in the same place as us again,” Talia says, looking relieved. “But I wanted to show you that the Show Bible is safe.”

“I still don’t understand,” Marsh says. “It almost seemed like she was trying to help.”

“How?” Talia replies. “By flinging you through the quantum universe completely at random, without a clue as to where you’d land? 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 vow.”

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, and what Alexis said. She didn’t join the show to track down whatever Chrysalis is—she came to fix her life! That’s hard enough without trying to solve a mystery 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 Alexis’s,” Talia reminds her. “This is about what you want.”

“Yes,” Marsh echoes. “This is my season. And what I want.”

Talia beams back and turns Marsh gently toward the waiting Show Bible. It is, as usual, even more monstrous than the last time Marsh has seen it. It’s so tall when closed now that Talia needs a step stool to reach the cover.

“This was a fun diversion, but let’s 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 things she could try, all the places she could go.

“Hey, Marsh,” Talia says. “You could have All This ...”

Marsh smiles as she watches her beautiful host cling to the massive book for balance, teetering in her stilettos as she climbs toward its cover.

“ And More, ” she replies.