Phlatus on page 552
Does color mean you're feeling better, Tober? I sure as hell hope so!
And I hope that Charlie's whorls vanishing means the cycle has been broken.

waxy on page 552
That's brilliant!

Versi on page 552
Awesome to see this page and the last in color! I hope that means you're feeling good, Tober.

Moebius Tantalus on page 552
He didn't say the whorls were gone, he said he couldn't read them. Perhaps they have become so complex, due to repeated loops, that they can no longer be deciphered.........

Jimothy on page 552
Even without color, this story has me hooked. Just keep swimming, Tober!

WalexB on page 552
Now the big question: what about Sam's whorls? He is Charlie too, just in a different timeline and older.

WalexB on page 552
The difficulty with what MEMNON says is that the critical factor is not Charlie/Sam, but EOS: in the "humanity exterminated by AI" timeline we know that it is *her* role that is crucial, not Charlie's: she builds MEMNON, and then her death and the destruction of her memory triggers the extermination.
The timeline where Charlie survives is also presumably one where EOS lives, does not build MEMNON, and continues running a biochemistry lab, and it is in those labs that deadly viruses can be bred.

Plot! on page 552
Can’t EMI read his whorls?

SlugFiller on page 552
OMG colors!
@WalexB The thing is, something has to motivate Eos. Charlie works because of her infertility. Losing what she believes to be the only key for children (cloning) causes her to seek another method (AI). It's not clear why Charlie would be a target in a timeline where he wasn't sent to the future, but it's not impossible that a dead child at that time would have had some influence on Eos in some way anyway.