As Megatron lifts the unconscious Rewind out of the Magnus Armor and lays him down, the little 'bot slowly awakens. Skids tries to make sure he's okay and talks him through the surprising sights that greet him—an Autobot Megatron, a living Nightbeat, and Nautica being female—but Nightbeat butts in, desperate to find out what happened on the ship. The detective is fascinated by their recent discoveries, and a closer examination of the poster for Information Creep has revealed its release date to have been only a weeks after the ship's original launch, all standing in contradiction to the history they know—but Rewind dissolves into whimpering, able to give no verbal answer, instead offering up a data slug to the detective.

Meanwhile, across the room, Nautica observes the quantum engines' quantum drums floating in the web of quantum foam, prompting Riptide to make fun of her by suggesting her profession just involves putting "quantum" in front of other words. She responds with a (failed) joke about the way all quantum objects exist in two superpositioned states—which gives her a sudden realization that explains everything. She presents her theory to the crew: that upon launch, the malfunction of the Lost Light's quantum engines caused the ship to undergo a quantum duplication, yielding an exact copy, just as valid as the original, which materialized in the region of the space the ship was supposed to appear in, rather than jumping to the random planet that "their" Lost Light did. Nightbeat confirms her theory is correct with the data provided by Rewind, which reveals that the Rodimus they found in the coffin perished during the Sparkeater fiasco when his head was phased inside the engines instead of just his arms. Ultra Magnus subsequently took command, while Rodimus was interred by Drift; the coffin proceeded to fall from the ship when it broke up following the Decepticon Justice Division's attack—brought on, Rewind claims, by the fact that someone onboard deliberately deactivated Overlord's cell, allowing the DJD to detect his signal. Rewind explains that he was forced to film the villains' murder spree because they promised to let Chromedome live if he did so, but for added psychological torture, they then tried to force the mnemosurgeon to wipe his own memories of Rewind, killing him with his own finger-needles when he refused.

Riptide brings Rewind's grim tale to an end by pointing out that the quantum foam floating outside is beginning to spread; Nautica realizes that it could potentially destroy Ofsted XVII down below by causing a chain reaction in the thinned-out space-time of the region and proposes shutting down the quantum engines entirely, which should also theoretically erase the "duplicate" Lost Light and reinstate their own. Megatron has no interest in risking his own life for a planet of non-Cybertronians, but Skids makes it clear it's not a choice: he is an Autobot now, and for that to mean something, Megatron must put his life on the line for others. Unfortunately, the quantum foam is meshed around the drums so tight that a 'bot of Megatron's size cannot make it through; Rewind volunteers, but as both drums must be deactivated simultaneously, a second small 'bot is needed. Skids recalls Brainstorm's mass-displacement gun, capable of shrinking someone for the job, so the group heads for his lab to see if the "duplicate" Brainstorm invented the weapon. While searching the wrecked lab, Nightbeat and Nautica discuss the minutiae of the quantum duplication process, realizing that the Rewind "data ghost" and his altered message to Chromedome were the result of quantum "cross-contamination", and concluding that the erasure of their Lost Light was triggered when it came into proximity with Rodimus's coffin, making the paradox too blatant for the universe to continue "ignoring". Their conversation is brought to a shuddering halt when they lift a piece of rubble and reveal Brainstorm's body underneath... a discovery mad

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