Contents

Chapter 1: The Second First Day of School

Chapter 2: Heavy Lifting

Chapter 3: Kick Some Ars Goetia

Chapter 4: The Ballad of Glocktopus

Chapter 5: The Eyes of Marsh

Chapter 6: Sun of a Beach

Chapter 7: The Floor is Lava

Chapter 8: Trickster Gods Make Terrible Meatloaf

Chapter 9: Undedison

Chapter 10: Competitively Crappy Camerawork

Chapter 11: Unfortunate Sun

Chapter 12: Karens are a Universal Constant

Chapter 13: A Hello to Arms

Chapter 14: Secrets, Lies, and Adelie Penguins

Chapter 15: Dollars and Signs

Chapter 16: Cutthroat Kitchen

Chapter 17: Born and Bread

Chapter 18: The Cowboy Calamity

Chapter 19: Butterfly Affection

Chapter 20: In Case the Flaming Skeletal Arm Is Too Subtle: This Guy’s The Big Bad

Chapter 21: Applied Dracology 101

Chapter 22: Pure E-Vell

Chapter 23: Gorillas in the Midst

Chapter 24: Moneybreakers

Chapter 25: Calling Cards

Chapter 26: And Then There Were Dumb

Chapter 27: It’s Not Me, It’s You

Chapter 28: Varying Degrees of Familial Embarassment

Chapter 29: May Contain Quantum

Chapter 30: Postmodern Warfare

Chapter 31: Apoc Blocked

Chapter 32: Daddy Issues

Chapter 33: The New Adventures of Vell Harlan

Chapter 34: Old School

Chapter 35: Vex the Ex

Chapter 36: Cult Following

Chapter 37: Alive and In Concert

Chapter 38: Having a Ballball

Chapter 39: The Mian Mystery Box

Chapter 40: Whacky Races

Chapter 41: One Last Hangout

Chapter 42: The Graduate

Chapter 43: No Second Chances

Chapter 1: The Second First Day of School

Everyone had told Vell Harlan that his first day at his new college would be incredibly stressful, but his first day was now nearly over, and he’d had a great time.  He’d taken a tour, met his new professors, and even gotten acquainted with his roommates, all of whom were surprisingly cool.  The only hiccup came at the very end of the day.

“Does anyone else hear buzzing?”

Vell paused and looked out the window.  The buzzing sound was noticeable, and getting louder.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Luke said.  He had become the de facto leader of the four roommates, by way of natural charisma and being intimidatingly handsome.  “Have another beer, Renard.”

It took very little convincing for any of the young men to have another beer.

“Man, to think I almost walked past you guys,” Renard said.  “I could’ve missed you entirely.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Cane said.  “My brother told me the people you sit with on the boat ride over are your roommates.  You would’ve been rooming with us either way.”

“Wait, seriously, is that buzzing getting louder or is it just me?”

“It’s probably some experiment powering up, Vell,” Cane insisted.  “Some first day science project getting noisy.”

“Well, the first day is almost over,” Luke said.  The buzzing outside got louder even as he spoke.  “And then it’s all-”

The buzzing reached a crescendo, and was joined by the sound of shattering glass, as a swarm of wasps crashed through the dorm room window.  As the furthest from the window, Vell got an excellent view as the stinging swarm descended on his new roommates, then turned towards him, stingers poised and ready to pierce his flesh in a hundred places, as they soon did.

And then he woke up.

After bolting upright in bed, Vell shook his head clear and looked around his hotel room, finding it entirely absent of any wasps.  The phantom pain of deadly stings faded, and Vell relaxed.  All just a dream.

Vell Harlan packed his things and put the oddly vivid dream behind him.  Stress caused nightmares, and he’d had a very stressful few days.  On top of going to college, Vell had also had to take a train to get this far.  He had a bad history with trains.  Putting stress aside, Vell finished his preparations, gathered his bags, and set out to the docks.

His ultimate destination, the Einstein Odinson College of Paracausal Forces, was the most prestigious school on the planet.  As the ultimate destination for anyone studying any form of science or magic, the EOC had ridiculously high standards to apply, much less to be accepted.  As the school that had pioneered new forms of space travel, invented rune technology, and made teleportation possible, they could afford to be picky.  In a figurative and literal sense.  Teleportation was expensive.

The exorbitant cost of teleportation also made it more practical for the College to ferry its students to the campus with an actual ferry—albeit a high-speed one. The Einstein-Odinson College was several hundred miles from any inhabited territory, built on an artificial island in the middle of the Pacific.  It had the dual benefits of ensuring the College remained neutral among all the nations, and minimizing the damage of any potential explosions.  Most of the people on the planet were, frankly, baffled the school hadn’t blown up a long time ago.  As Vell would soon discover, there was a very good reason it hadn’t. 

He found his way to his assigned seat on the ferry and sat down.  The docks and the ferry all looked familiar, but Vell thought nothing of it.  He’d planned and studied his route to college so extensively he’d probably just seen a picture of it before, somewhere.  He settled in to his seat and got comfortable as the PA overhead announced that they would soon be departing.

“Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened,” the PA droned.  Vell nodded along, even as he tightly fastened his seatbelt. 

“And ensure that any live specimens are properly secured, because we’re still trying to catch the last one that got loose,” Vell mumbled, quoting his dream.

“And ensure that any live specimens are properly secured, because we’re still trying to catch the last one that got loose,” the PA droned.

Vell’s eyes narrowed.  As he squinted, another student took the seat next to Vell.

“Hey man,” the chipper young man said.  Vell looked at him, and his heart skipped a beat.  He was Vell’s age, but with dark skin, broad shoulders, and very wide set brown eyes.  Just like Vell remembered him.

“Nice to meet you,” Vell said, for the second time.

“I’m Cane,” the other student said, confirming what Vell already knew. 

“Name’s Vell,” he said, through clenched teeth.  He pondered the strange repetition, and decided to try something.  “So, uh, have you heard the people you’re sat next to are going to be your roommates?”

“Yeah, actually,” Cane said.  “My brother used to go here, he gave me the heads up.”

Vell nodded.  He’d already known that, but only because Cane had said so last time.  Whatever the hell “last time” was.

The other students came and took their seats, and Cane sparked a conversation with each of them in turn.  A conversation Vell had already heard once before.  Luke sat down first, and introduced himself while Renard accidentally wandered past and then circled back.  Vell tried to grit his teeth and play along with the conversation as everything in the world around moved down a familiar, and deadly, path.

◆◆◆

After hours spent weaving through dorms, laboratories, and academic facilities, Vell and company had nearly completed their tour of the extensive island campus.  Every high-tech lab had been filled with unique and spectacular gadgets, and an overwhelming sense of deja vu.  Vell had taken this tour before, seen every sight, heard every speech, in exact detail.  He remembered it like it was yesterday.  Now Vell was being led to the end of the tour, the dining hall near the center of the island.

“And this is our lunchroom,” Vell mumbled to himself.  “Don’t be fooled, you can eat breakfast and dinner here too.”

“And this is our lunchroom,” the tour guide said.  “Don’t be fooled, you can eat breakfast and dinner here too.”

Vell nodded and looked to Renard.  He’d be the one to speak next.

“Is brunch off limits?” Renard asked.

“Yes,” the tour guide said.  “Brunch is banned.”

Renard laughed, and Vell put a hand on his chin.  Everything was going on track so far.  Unfortunately, that track led to death by wasp.  Vell had an obvious interest in preventing that, and in finding out why he knew about it in the first place.  They’d be set loose from their tour guide in a few minutes, and Vell would be able to start poking around for answers.  He didn’t mind having to wait a few more minutes.  There were a handful of events from the first time around he wouldn’t mind repeating.

While the tour guide ranted about tomorrow’s schedule, Vell kept his eyes on one of the side hallways.  If his theory of repetition was correct, which all evidence was pointing to, in about thirty seconds a woman was going to walk around the corner, bump into someone coming the other way, and fall to the ground in disastrous fashion.  While that was a solid moment of slapstick comedy, Vell was actually more interested in what the klutzy girl’s friend would do afterwards.  The short one dressed in various shades of red was going to take advantage of the fact that all eyes were on them to flash the entire room at once.  Vell’s interest was obvious.

He kept a close eye on the side hall as the klutz approached.  She strode confidently and with purpose, headed right for the impact that would see her embarrass herself in front of the entire room.  Just like Vell had already seen it happen once before.

Then, just as the moment of impact approached, she stopped in her tracks.  The woman who should have been falling instead watched with a satisfied smile as the person she would have run into walked by without incident.  Vell stared at her for a second as her friend, who should have been showing off her assets to the entire room right now, stepped up and had a short conversation with the would-be klutz before they went to a table and sat down.

“That about wraps it up for today,” their tour guide said.  She should’ve been awkwardly shuffling them away from the indecent display.  “Feel free to find me if you have any questions, and enjoy the rest of your day!”

With a friendly wave, the tour guide bid them good day and excused herself.  Luke led the group to the nearest table to chat about their next move.  Vell had other priorities.  For the first time all day, something had changed without Vell changing it, and it had started with the two women now sitting in the center of the room.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said.  “I think I, uh, recognize that chick over there.”

“If you want to flirt you can just say so,” Luke said.

“Sure, I’m flirting, let’s go with that,” Vell said.  He turned sharply and headed for the pair of women who’d somehow defied repetition.  They stopped their conversation and eyed him warily as he approached.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt, can I talk to you?”

“That depends entirely on what you have to say, dear,” the would-be klutz said.  She sounded British -too British.  Like she was an actor putting on an accent.  That accent, combined with her conservative, businesslike attire, pale skin, and intense gaze, gave the impression of a time-displaced victorian child who wasn’t coping well with life in the future.

“Well, this might sound weird,” Vell said.  “But have you two been feeling any, uh...deja vu lately?”

The two women exchanged a look.

“Maybe a little,” the shorter woman in the red outfit said.  Her mere presence radiated a cheerful, friendly energy, in stark contrast to her friend’s stiff, restrained presence.  She even looked like the polar opposite of her friend, with vibrant, revealing clothing and dark skin.  “Why’re you asking?”

“Well, like I said, uh, odd stuff, but,” Vell said.  “Things are sort of repeating themselves, I think?  Except for you guys.”

The two women shared another look.  They seemed impressed.

“Wow, got it all on your own, and on your first loop,” the little one said.  “Nice going, dude.”

“And you’re handling it quite well,” the obscenely British one said.  She turned to her friend.  “We were both quite panicked our first time around.”

“I’m more of an internal panic guy.  So, uh, I take it that this is not the first time this has happened?” Vell said.  They were being remarkably casual about time loops.

“Quite so,” the tall one said.  “And if you’re worried about the wasps, don’t be.  We handle such problems.  ‘We’ now meaning ‘us’, I suppose, if you’re interested in helping.”

“I’d like to not die, yeah,” Vell said.  He was already well past his quota for deaths in one life.  Most people only died once.

“Wonderful. Harley, be a dear and give him the basics, I’m going to get Leanne and set up for a meeting.  Apparently we have an introduction to make.”

The taller woman, who was apparently in charge, clapped her hands together and nodded towards Vell.

“I’m Lee,” she said. 

“And I’m Harley,” snapped her friend.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Lee continued, never missing a beat.

“Vell Harlan,” he said.  “Nice to meet you too.”

Lee departed to fetch an apparent third member of their group while Vell took a seat with Harley.  She held her round face in her hands and looked up at Vell with a sparkle in her eyes.

“So, you remember seeing me flash everyone, huh?” Harley said.  She seemed to have mixed feelings about that.

“Yep,” Vell said.

“Well.  Was not expecting anyone to remember that, but since we’re here,” Harley said.  “How’d you like ‘em?”

Vell considered his words carefully, but Harley seemed eager for his feedback.  Her round cheeks curved upwards as she smiled broadly—and expectantly—at Vell.

“They were, uh, nice,” Vell said.  

“Thanks,” Harley said, apparently satisfied.  “It’s hard to get feedback since most people I show them to forget afterwards.”

“Right.  And you do this often?”

“Not often, but it’s been a long summer break, and I had to get something out of my system,” Harley said.  “I usually keep my shenanigans less public, because I don’t like strangers getting involved, but, you know, one time doesn’t hurt anything.  We’re the only people who remember what happens during the first ‘loop’ day, and everything you do on the first day basically gets undone, so you can kind of do whatever you want.”

Vell nodded.

“So you flash people because nobody will remember.”

“Oh I do more than flash people,” Harley said.  “Like I said, no consequences!  On the first day you can have all the sex you want and never need to worry about getting knocked up or STDs or anything, because time rewinds and then you technically never had sex at all!”

“Huh.  So…”

Vell took a look around the room and pointed to a random table.

“So, say, tomorrow, on the ‘first loop’, I give all those guys twenty bucks, by the ‘second loop’, that money would be right back in my wallet.”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Harley said.  “That’d be one way to spend your loops.  But you might want to come up with some other ways to pass the time.  There’s going to be a lot of them.”

Vell’s eyes narrowed.

“Ah.  So, the uh, wasp situation, that happened today, is that a…?”

“Regular occurrence?” Harley said, finishing his thought.  “Sort of.  It’s usually not wasps.  I think this is a first, actually, at least while I’ve been here.”

“But, the people dying, that happens every day?”

“Basically,” Harley said.  She saw the look of concern on Vell’s face and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder.  “Don’t worry.  You get used to it.”

◆◆◆

After a brief discussion on the inevitability of death, Harley led Vell to an empty classroom that was apparently their headquarters for the day.  While Lee finished preparing her presentation, Harley introduced Vell to Leanne, who had the physique of a Greek goddess and the conversational skills of a Greek statue.  Leanne nodded at Vell once and then stared blankly forward towards Lee, pointedly ignoring any further attempts by Harley to coax her into making an introduction.

“She’s not mute, she’s just quiet,” Harley assured Vell.  Leanne nodded in agreement.  “She’s technically the senior member here, but she doesn’t really give a shit about any of this, other than the obvious apocalypse-preventing, so Lee’s in charge now.”

“You’ll excuse me if my leadership is a bit rough around the edges, Vell,” Lee said.  “There were two upperclassmen who previously led the group, but they have since graduated.”

“Fun fact,” Harley said.  “Once you graduate, you’re out of the loop!  As soon as they hand you the diploma you just stop remembering the stuff that happens on the first loop, just like everybody else.”

“Yes, a detail I was about to make him aware of,” Lee said, glaring pointedly at Harley.  “Now if you could please follow Leanne’s example and sit silently, I’d like to begin.”

Harley crossed her arms and waited patiently.  Vell did likewise.

“So, Vell, as you are now well aware, the Einstein-Odinson College exists in a very dangerous state.  The constant clash of magic, technology, and the ambition of those who research it creates an environment in which catastrophe is all but inevitable.  Luckily, the College also exists in some kind of time loop wherein those same catastrophes can be prevented.”

Lee held up a binder she’d compiled of everything that had happened last year and perused it.

“Every day of every school year in which classes are held, an event of variably apocalyptic nature occurs,” Lee said.  “Nuclear meltdowns, accidental summonings of eldritch beings, teleportation devices that move the body but not the soul, several instances of the undead by either scientific or magical means.”

“Blech.  Too many zombies,” Harley said with a small grunt. 

“You have a problem with the undead?” Vell asked.

“Not personally, the zombie apocalypse is just played out.”

Lee snapped her binder shut to draw attention back to her.

“The point is, on a regular basis, some form of destruction, be it major or minor, occurs,” Lee said.  “This is only prevented because, for unknown reasons, time loops in on itself whenever such an event occurs, and a small group of people retain their memories of the first loop.  We act to prevent the apocalypse that occurred on the previous loop, and we have so far succeeded without fail on every occasion.”

Lee stepped away from her podium for a bit.

“Now, there are a few-”

She stopped as her foot slipped slightly on a ledge that held the podium up from the floor.  Lee managed to catch herself on the edge before she fell and then stood to regain her composure.

“There are a few rules we try to follow,” Lee said, acting as if nothing had happened.  “And a few interactions you should be aware of.”

Lee perused a separate binder she’d prepared, filled with the rules and regulations that she had collected.

“First of all, you should know that we don’t tell anyone who’s not a ‘looper’ like us about the time loops,” Lee said.  “A half-awareness of the time loops can have unpleasant psychological consequences.  Contemplation of temporal repetition can have some repercussions for a person’s sense of self-determination and free will.  It tends to drive the person afflicted, well, severely homicidally insane.   Our predecessors called it Butterfly Effect Psychosis.”

Having set herself up for a clever segue, Lee moved on to her next point.

“Though speaking of the Butterfly Effect, the second thing you should know is that it doesn’t actually apply as much as you think,” Lee said.  “While we can use our knowledge of past events to change what’s going to happen, it requires some applied effort.  When you try to change something, the universe will try to change it back, so it can stick to the ‘script’.  Say you step on a butterfly -like that one, for instance-”

Lee pointed at the classroom’s window.  A single butterfly with iridescent purple wings had alighted on the windowsill.

“-the universe will simply put a different butterfly where it should have been.  We must put in a certain level of effort to make sure the future stays changed.”

She looked at Vell to make sure he wasn’t getting overwhelmed with knowledge.  To his credit, Vell seemed to be handling the information dump quite well.  Now that it was done being used as an example, the butterfly fluttered away, leaving Lee to continue her explanation without any fortuitous visual aids.

“That said, we try not to change too much,” Lee said.  “We ask that you please avoid buying any lottery tickets, doing any gambling, stock trading, et cetera.  You’re free to make some minor adjustments as it suits you-”

“Like how Lee avoids tripping on her own feet all the time,” Harley said.

“Or engaging in wanton sluttery like Harley,” Lee said without skipping a beat.

“Don’t slutshame me,” Harley said.

“It’s just a statement of fact, dear,” Lee said.  “You’re free to sleep with whoever you please in whatever quantity you please.  You whore.”

Harley merely laughed at the insult, putting an end to the friendly banter.

“Anyway!  Back on topic,” Lee said.  “Do you have any questions, Vell?”

“A lot, actually, but I assume you’d have told me if you knew,” Vell said.  “Like, ‘why is this happening’?”

“You’re right, I would tell you if I knew, which I don’t,” Lee said.  “We assume it’s some kind of curse, or maybe a practical joke Loki is pulling.”

“Personally, I think Einstein built some kind of time machine loopy mechanism as a safeguard,” Harley said.  “Leanne, what do you think?”

Leanne shrugged her broad shoulders and said nothing.

“At any rate, this has been happening for a very long time and no answers have revealed themselves yet,” Lee said.  “We’re usually a bit too concerned with stopping the apocalypse to investigate it too deeply.”

“Alright, um, I think that about covers it for now,” Vell said.  It was time to move on to his top priority.  “Can we do something about the murder wasps?”

◆◆◆

As it turned out, Harley and Lee had already concocted a plan for the wasps before Vell’s ‘recruitment’.  Lee had already tracked down some students in the entomology department who knew about an experiment happening today.  From there it was a matter of concocting an excuse to take a look around their lab.  Lee had an idea, but she needed at least a partial cover story.

“Now, what’s your degree in?”

An odd question to ask a freshman student, under normal circumstances, but the students of the Einstein-Odinson College were no ordinary students.  The school was so prestigious it actually required you to have a two-year degree from a different, slightly less prestigious school before you could even apply.

“I’m studying rune tech,” Vell said.  The ability to inscribe spells into stone tablets was relatively new, and still a very expansive and profitable field of study.  Vell had a more personal interest in runes, but the commercial applications were a nice side benefit.

“Rune tech, very modern,” Lee said.  “Any possible applications on entomology?”

“Uh, almost none.”

“Very well, we’ll say you’re considering a minor,” Lee said.  “Just play along and ask about wasps when it seems natural.”

“Sure.”

Harley apparently acted as Lee’s usual sidekick on these operations, but Vell had been given the ‘honor’ of field duty to celebrate his new membership.  He tried to avoid questioning too many decisions to avoid slowing down the process.  The top of his priority list was currently “avoid getting killed by wasps” with “ask questions” significantly further down the list.  He’d always been better at learning by doing anyway.

Lee led the way, pretending to be giving Vell a tour of the school.  She pointed out some mundane features of the school’s hallways before bursting into the entomology room.

“And this is our entomology department,” she said, gesturing broadly to the room.  It was packed to the brim with terrariums and plastic containers, as well as glass display cases displaying pinned insects.  “Take a good look around, but be careful not to touch anything.  Unlike most of our class subjects, these ones do bite.”

“And sting, and excrete toxins, and some of them spray acid,” one of the room’s residents said.  “But don’t worry, we keep those ones in especially sturdy containers. Like this one!”

The woman reached below her desk and pulled up a container with a hole melted in the side.

“Uh oh.”

Vell stared at the melted box while Lee gave a polite, yet forced, chuckle.

“Oh, Dr. Boniventure, that never gets old,” Lee said, in a way that implied it very much did get old.  Dr Boniventure’s style of humor wore out its welcome fast even for people who didn’t live every day twice.  The Doctor set aside her prop with a laugh and stepped up to reach out a hand to Vell.

“Dr. Boniventure, but you can call me Dr. Bon.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, this is Vell, he just started today,” Lee said, before Vell got the chance to make his own introduction.  “He’s just touring our different departments, trying to see what he might want to take a minor in.”

“I asked to come here because I’m really into wasps,” Vell said.  Lee gave him a look, as if he was jumping the gun.  Vell, however, felt that “as soon as possible” was the best time to ask about the murder wasps.  “You ever do any experiments with wasps?”

“Why yes, as a matter of fact, we’re going to start one this evening,” Dr. Bon said.  “You’re probably not going to like it, though.  Some idiot imported a wasp hive into west Africa and now the newly introduced species is tearing up the local ecosystem.  We’re trying to invent a way to kill off the invasive species en masse.”

“Ah, well, you know, sometimes the ecosystem needs balancing,” Vell said.  “I’ve never let my passion for wasps get in the way of understanding sometimes they need a good genocide.”

“You have a very interesting perspective on bugs, young man,” Dr. Bon said with a squint.

“If I may, Dr. Bon, how do you plan on executing your plan?” Lee said, trying to salvage the conversation.  “Maybe a glimpse into the method of the College’s brilliant minds will help Vell decide where he belongs.”

“Well, I suppose I could share some details,” Dr. Bon said.  “What we’re planning to do is introduce a targeted chemical agent that will attack the wasps brains and basically cause them to shut down.  Like a modified version of what we use to exterminate mosquitoes in plague-heavy areas.”

“It must be hard to target a specific species of wasp, though, I imagine there’s some complicated chemistry at work,” Lee said.  Dr. Bon nodded to a nearby shelf, stocked high with bottles.  Vell turned around and examined it.

“Yes indeed, took us a long time to collect everything we needed.”

The bottles were all labeled, but as Vell was not a chemistry major, they were labeled in varying degrees of gibberish.  He took a pair of glasses out of his pocket, tapped the edge of the lenses, and put them on as he did a second scan of the shelves.

“Incredibly interesting, Dr. Boniventure, is there any chance I could observe this experiment happening?”

“Sorry, Ms. Burrows,” Dr. Bon said.  Lee’s eye twitched involuntarily. “But this one’s off limits.  We’ll be sealing the lab at eight pm tonight.”

Vell looked up from the shelves, and Lee met his gaze.  While his stare bore a note of vague panic, Lee barely registered the new complication.  In her experience, minor complications like changing schedules rarely amounted to much.  She’d once had to disarm a nuclear bomb in thirty seconds, having to stop a wasp attack in a few hours was barely worth mentioning.

“Sorry for the quick interruption, Dr. Boniventure, I just have to talk to Vell real quick,” Lee said.  “We need to discuss something.  We might be back, so don’t lock us out just yet.”

Dr. Bon nodded as they hurried off back into the hallway.  Lee grabbed her phone, as did Vell.

“I need to call Harley and let her know we have to advance our timetable,” Lee said.  Vell held up a hand to slow her down.

“Hey hey hey wait, are Harley or Leanne chemistry majors?  Ask them if they know about pheromone stuff,” Vell said.

“Why?”

“Because I scanned the bottles and one of them is labeled wrong,” Vell said.  “It says it’s a pheromone that induces mating, but it’s actually a pheromone that induces aggression.”

Vell held up his phone.  An itemized list of every bottle he’d looked at was displayed on screen, including details about the contents.

“How do you know it was labeled wrong?”

Vell removed his glasses and displayed the edge to Lee.  There were small runes carved into the sides of the frames. 

“There’s some runes here that ‘see’, ‘identify’, then ‘search’, combined with some circuitry to link them all together in the right way,”  Vell explained.  “And then I’ve got a chip in the glasses that connects to my phone, and the phone connects to the internet, so basically I just look at something and the glasses tell my phone to look it up.”

“Yes, I’m aware of the system,” Lee said.  A sudden edge of skepticism cut into her voice.  “Isn’t that a Kraid Tech copyright?”

“Technically,” Vell said.

“And you’re using them?”

“Uh, well yes,” Vell said.  “I’m not connected to Kraid Tech or anything if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Then you stole them?”

“No!  Not, uh, literally, at least.  I sort of stole the idea of them.  I just saw some Kraid Tech guys using them and then I made my own later.”

“You rebuilt a mechanism that complicated from memory?” Lee asked.

“It took more than one try.”

“Still, it’s as impressive as it is concerning,” Lee said.  “Aren’t you worried their copyright will still apply?”

Kraid Tech’s copyright department, like their founder Alistair Kraid, had a reputation for being merciless -some of their magical copyright protections left a mark on the offending thief’s soul.

“I’m not worried,” Vell said.  He had a bit of a loophole when it came to certain legal punishments, even -and especially- ones aimed at the soul.

“If you say so,” Lee said.  “For now, those will be very useful.  I think that mislabeled bottle may be our culprit.”

“Do you want to just go in and tell Dr. Bon she’s got a bottle out of place?”

“Oh, it’s never that simple,” Lee sighed.  “Remember what I said about the Butterfly Effect not really applying?  The universe will move towards the events that already happened.  Even if we told her, she’d just forget, or the bottle would get misplaced, or something.  We have to neutralize it more permanently.”

“So what, do we walk in there and pretend to trip and knock over the bottle or something?”

“As a last resort, perhaps,” Lee said.  “But causing trouble like that would give us a bad reputation and make our job far more difficult in the long run.  Breaking things is a specialty of Harley’s, however.  I’ll stick around and be ready to make a distraction, you go help her set up.”

Vell nodded, and after receiving directions, headed off to Harley’s room.

◆◆◆

“While getting you in the bedroom was always on the agenda, this is a bit ahead of schedule, so pardon the mess,” Harley said.  True to her word, the room was disorganized, though mostly as part of her unpacking at the start of the semester.  The detritus around the room consisted mostly of clothes and electronic components.  Harley started digging around for some of the pieces she needed, mumbling under her breath about things like actuators and steppers.

“So I take it you’re a tech major,” Vell noted, looking at the electronics scattered haphazardly across her room.

“Yep, specifically robotics!”

Harley stood and triumphantly displayed a small mechanical body -noticeably absent a head.   With a flourish of her hand, a small orb bearing two mechanical lenses appeared in her palm.

“This is my familiar, Botley,” Harley said.  The golf-ball sized head glanced side to side.  Vell glanced right back at the tiny head.

“Your familiar is a robot?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought they, uh, couldn’t do that,” Vell said.  He wasn’t an expert in magic, but he knew enough to be pretty sure a familiar had to be a living thing.

“Don’t even worry about it,” Harley said.  “Look at all the cool stuff Botley can do!”

Demonstrating one such instance of cool stuff, Harley plugged the disembodied head into the spiderlike frame, and the limbs began to move.  She dropped Botley on the floor and he immediately started scuttling in the direction of the entomology lab.  As a school for advanced tech, a few scuttling robots were to be expected, so Botley didn’t draw any attention as he traveled.  Every few seconds, Harley pressed a palm to her fingertips to her head to share Botley’s sight.

“Hmm, I have to replace those servo’s, the left leg is a bit sticky,” Harley noted.  “Botley’s almost in position.  I’m going to need to take manual control soon.  You know how this works?”

“Yep.  Keep your body relatively still and the environment relatively silent to maintain synchronicity, and don’t let any physical harm occur to the body.”

While transferring one’s consciousness to a familiar was a useful process, it came with the risk of psychic backlash if the original body was disturbed.  It was almost never harmful, but it was a major headache.  Harley nodded in approval of Vell’s understanding, and pointed towards a nearby chair.

“Take a seat and keep an eye on me while I’m out,” Harley instructed.  Vell carefully removed a bra from the appointed seat and sat down.

“Alright, where are you going to be lying down?”

In answer, Harley turned around, laid on Vell’s lap with her head on one armrest and her legs propped up on the other, and went limp.  Vell sat there, arms and legs pinned beneath her, for about thirty seconds before he began to wonder if this was a joke or not.

As seconds dragged on to minutes, Vell started to realize it wasn’t a joke.

◆◆◆

Lee gave a nod to Botley as he approached.  It was time to start the distraction.  She opened the door and let Botley slip into the entomology lab by creeping around her ankles.

“Oh Dr. Boniventure, could I bother you one more time?”

“Of course Ms. Burrows, I have some spare time before the experiment,” Dr. Bon said.  Lee grit her teeth at the mention of her last name.

“Well, I was actually discussing that experiment with my father over the phone earlier, and he seemed genuinely interested,” Lee said.  She restrained a sigh as she saw Dr. Bon’s ears perk up the way any professor’s did when she mentioned her father.

While Dr. Bon began brown-nosing, Botley scuttled into position.  Through their now-shared mechanical eyes, Harley appraised her climb.  Lots of plastic and glass on the way up, thanks to all the terrariums.  She hadn’t packed Botley’s adhesive footpads.  This was going to be slow work.

Carefully wedging Botley’s pointed legs into whatever solid footing she could find, Harley ascended the rack, moving limb-by-limb up the slippery shelves.  With one final pull from Botley’s forelimbs, the machine ascended to the top of the shelf.  The rack of chemicals, and the presumed source of today’s doomsday, was just a few steps away.  Harley guided the bot one step forward, and then down, as a mesh roof to a tank gave way under Botley’s weight.

“What was that?” Dr. Bon said, at the sudden noise.

“Sorry, my fault, I think I slipped a bit and kicked the edge of your desk,” Lee said.  She then veered the conversation back towards the experiment, hoping to distract Dr. Bon from Botley’s shenanigans.

The arachnid in the tank Botley had fallen into did not take kindly to the intrusion.  The scorpion emerged from its hiding place and expressed its displeasure in the traditional scorpion manner, which consisted mostly of showing that its stinger was ready to sting and its pincers were ready to pince.  There was also a bit of mandible action, for those looking closely.

Harley tried to mimic the scorpions threat display as best she could with Botley’s significantly less pointy limbs.  The scorpion was duly cowed by the strange display of the odd robot that had stumbled its way into its home and backed off.  Harley scanned the terrarium for a way out, and settled for the mesh that had collapsed.  Part of it still clung to the lid of the terrarium, and assuming it held under the weight, Harley could climb it back to the top.  She cautiously set Botley’s limbs to crawl up the loose mesh grate and managed to begin her ascent, the mesh wobbling below her borrowed body all the while.

Halfway through the climb, the ascent became much more stable -suspiciously so.  Harley turned Botley’s head down to see that the scorpion had latched on to either side of the mesh with its pincers and was holding it steady.  As Botley’s examined the scorpion, Harley would almost swear its tail bobbed twice in the direction she was traveling, goading her further out of the terrarium.

Harley made the executive decision not to think about that, and continued climbing.

The minute she was out of the tank and up on the shelves once again, though, she turned back to look at the scorpion -who was itself now climbing out of the tank and finding its footing atop the shelves.  The scorpion turned and gave a wave with one pincer that mimicked a salute before dropping off the shelves and scuttling away.

Harley briefly considered the issue of a hyper-intelligent scorpion on the loose, and decided it was a problem for a different time and a different person.  She set her own skittering limbs towards the mislabeled bottle.

Botley’s spherical head turned to Lee to check on her distraction.  Dr. Bon was wrapped in a rant about the virtues of her experiments, and barely noticed as Lee turned to check on Harley’s progress.  Seeing that Botley was in position, Lee winked.  Harley tried to wink back, but the borrowed body of Botley didn’t have eyelids.  She settled for reaching out one metal limb and knocking the bottle off the shelf.  She waited until she heard the crash to poof her robotic familiar back to her physical body.

Botley reappeared by Harley’s body with a puff of smoke, and the link broke almost immediately.  Back in her own body, and still sitting in Vell’s lap, she quickly stood to stretch out tired limbs.  Vell also stood, though in a much wobblier manner.  Both of his legs had fallen asleep.

“Looks like mission accomplished, bud,” Harley said.  “Good job keeping me steady.  You get handsy with anything while I was out?”

Vell looked down at her and squinted.

“What?  No,” he said, vaguely offended.

“Good on you,” Harley said.  “Just because I like to bang doesn’t mean you can disrespect my boundaries.  That said, how about you and I meet up on the first loop tomorrow for a ‘successful first mission’ celebratory screw?”

Vell considered the offer very intensely but very briefly.  While the idea of consequence free sex by exploiting a time loop had its appeal, there were other factors at play.

“Thank you for the offer, but I think I’m going to spend most of tomorrow consumed by existential dread that I’m going to die at an unknown time for an unknown reason.”

Harley gave an understanding nod.

“That’s fair.  You take all the time you need to get used to it,” Harley said, patting him on the shoulder.  “It’s an open invitation.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Vell said.

◆◆◆

“So that’s all, huh? One broken bottle.”

“Well, the loss of the bottle has delayed the experiment, and I persuaded Dr. Bon to be more careful the second time around, so I’d say yes, job well done.”

The team of time-loopers had regrouped to debrief -although Leanne, who was both uninvolved and uninterested, was merely looking at her phone.  Harley had assured Vell that Leanne took her responsibilities seriously, when she had them, but her brand of talents leaned more towards the physical.

“We usually get these things on the first try,” Harley assured Vell.  “Don’t worry too much about it.”

“We have been an exceptionally efficient unit so far,” Lee said.  “As one can obviously tell by the fact the world hasn’t ended, this group has never failed in its mission, and I believe we have everything we need to carry on that winning streak.”

“Yeah, we’ve got my tech, Lee’s magic, Leanne’s muscles, and, well, whatever you bring to the table,” Harley said.  “Not trying to be rude, it’s just as far as I know the only thing you’ve done is get sat on.”

“I get it,” Vell said.

“He has some rather interesting glasses, and a very masterful grasp of rune technology,” Lee said.

“Yeah!  See, that’s a thing!  We’re going to be a great team,” Harley said.

“Indeed,” Lee said.  She clapped her hands together.  “Now, decorum would naturally suggest having a celebration of your first success, but given our circumstances I’d wait until tomorrow, when you can really cut loose.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I’ll be fine, I’m kind of still coping with all this,” Vell said.

“I already invited him to our own personal celebration and he turned me down,” Harley said, giving a dramatically exaggerated sigh of disappointment.

“Really, Harley, first day?”

“Summer break is a hell of a dry spell to go through,” Harley said.  “I apologize for nothing.”

“Well, however you choose to celebrate, Vell, do it fast and do it recklessly.  You have literally nothing to lose, after all,” Lee said.  She stood and curtsied at the newest member of her team.  “We’ll see each other tomorrow, and then again tomorrow.”

Lee winked at Vell and strode off.  She’d barely made it around the corner before Vell heard her trip and fall to the ground.  He then heard Leanne sigh, the first noise she’d made around him at all, and walked out of the room to check on Lee.  With them gone, Harley turned to Vell and took a long look at him.

“So, you seem to be taking this all in stride,” Harley noted.  Vell nodded in agreement.  He was probably being remarkably cavalier about the whole “daily apocalypse” scenario, but then, this was not his first brush with the inexplicable. 

“Yeah, well, you know, to tell the truth, this is uh, not my first time dying.”

For the first time since Vell had met her, the radiant smile on Harley’s face vanished.

“Wait, what?”

With some hesitation, Vell lifted his shirt.  Hidden beneath the fabric, just below his navel, sat a large, pinkish-red scar about half an inch wide, circumnavigating his torso at an odd angle.

“I was sort of in a maglev train accident when I was ten,” Vell said.  “Launched me into a metal wall at five-hundred miles an hour.  I got cut in half.”

He looked up at Harley’s face to try and gauge her reaction.  Luckily, she was not being subtle in her sheer confusion, and she stared down at Vell’s scar with wide, curious eyes.

“What the fuck,” Harley said, before deciding she had not said it with appropriate horror and going for another try.  “What the fuck!  How the fuck are you alive?  We can’t do that!”

As far as Harley was aware, their advances in medical technology had yet to solve death -at least in a way that didn’t involve brains in jars or becoming a lich.  Vell had far too much skin to be a lich, leaving Harley baffled as to his apparent resurrection.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Vell admitted.  “They put both halves of me in the morgue and a couple hours later, I guess I unzipped myself from the body bag with this on my back.”

Vell turned slightly, to reveal a symbol on his spine, just below the scar, situated directly on his sacral chakra.  It had the look of a rune, but Harley didn’t recognize it as any rune she’d ever seen -nor had any of Vell’s years of research on runes revealed a match for it.  Vell lowered his shirt and turned around again.

“It’s not so bad, honestly,” Vell assured her.  However it had happened, he was not dead, which was good on its own.  He was also immune to all of Kraid Tech’s soul-marking copyright magic, since his soul was technically marked as “dead”, despite his currently-alive status.

Harley looked down at his midriff, back up at Vell’s face, then down at his midriff again.  As Vell had expected, she took the strange revelation better than most.  Her life was already weird enough that Vell’s resurrection was not that far from the baseline -although still far enough to be a concern.

“Vell I’m going to be honest with you I don’t think I can cope with this shit right now.”

“You have a lot on your plate already, I understand,” Vell said with a nod.  Harley stood up, clapped her hands together, and bowed at Vell.

“I promise I will help you deal with this later, but right now I need to go lie down,” she said.  She turned on her heel and left the room at an unsteady pace, leaving Vell alone with his thoughts -for a second.  Harley peeked back through the door momentarily.

“Oh, and you being undead does not affect my offer to bang,” Harley said.  “I do not discriminate for any reason.”

“Thank you,” Vell said, though even he was not sure why.  Harley waved goodbye and left Vell alone, with no company but the rapidly-growing cloud of unanswered questions that surrounded him.

Chapter 2: Heavy Lifting

Vell laid in bed for an hour or so, staring at the ceiling. He was trying to wrap his head around what he was going to do on the first loop.

Technically, nothing he did today really mattered -anything he did would be undone and forgotten. He could walk into the quad and slap everyone he saw in the face and the next time he woke up, no one would remember. His palm wouldn’t even hurt from all the slapping. Vell didn’t like slapping people on principle, so he retired that idea shortly after it flitted through his head.  He also considered just not getting out of bed, and taking this ‘free’ day as an opportunity to sleep in.  Alternatively, he could stay in his dorm, order as much fast food as he could afford, and spend all day pigging out -he wouldn’t gain any weight and he wouldn’t have spent any money, really. Or he could call Harley and do the horizontal tango with her for a while. Apparently he had an open invitation.

But, just as Vell had told Harley yesterday, the specter of an inevitable apocalypse hung over him. It was difficult to enjoy anything when you knew the world was going to end—albeit briefly—at some point in the same day.

With a sigh, Vell got out of bed. Laying in bed would make it very difficult to identify and prevent the apocalypse. Vell got showered, then started getting dressed as he formulated a plan for the day. He had to deal with regular college shit at some point, so he’d spend today acting the part of a normal student, finding out where his classes were located and what kind of teachers he had. With his responsibilities out of the way, he’d be able to dedicate more time on the second loop to preventing the daily doomsday. Vell was certain Harley would find it ridiculous that he was using his free day to be responsible, but some things needed to be done.

Before he finished putting on his shirt, Vell took a close look at the thick scar around his abdomen. He needed to get some answers about his resurrection eventually, and the research he could do here was the best chance of that. He had to take his studies seriously at some point.

First up on the agenda, in the literal and figurative sense, Vell needed to know more about the essence of life itself. The College’s department of biological sciences had a long list of chi-related classes, and Vell had decided to start with Medicinal Chi 101. The art of using chi to heal seemed like the closest connection to potentially using chi to resurrect someone. Though even that “closest” connection was a massive leap.  He didn’t have much else to get on but hunches and assumptions, though, so it was as good a start as any.

Being the last of his roommates to wake up, Vell had no problems taking a shower or preparing his breakfast in their shared living space. Renard stepped into the dorm while Vell ate his waffles.  The redheaded roommate perked up when he saw Vell.

“Hey Vell, are the rune tech labs next to the cloning facility?”

“I don’t know if this place has a cloning facility,” Vell said.  Renard put a hand on his chin contemplatively.

“Wait, but we saw those two dudes who looked exactly the same yesterday…”

“I think those were twins, Renard,” Vell said.

“Oh,” Renard said.  “That would make more sense, yeah.”

Renard stepped out of the dorm once more.  Vell stepped past him on his own way out the dorm, and saw Renard giving directions to a red-eyed young woman.  The fact that she had red eyes stood out much less today than it might have yesterday -both yesterdays. In his wanderings around campus, Vell had seen people wandering around with a few different eye colors, and as he crossed the quad he even saw someone who apparently had antlers. Magical cosmetic alterations were pretty common, even among groups not as magically gifted as the students at this college. Vell had considered learning a few such spells himself -something he was considering more strongly now that he knew he could try it out without risk of looking stupid. Once he had a few loops under his belt, he’d try changing his hair color. For now, he had higher priorities. He had to get to class.

Vell stepped into the classroom and saw that most blessed sight to any new student; a familiar face. Even if it did take him a second to recognize Leanne. Her athletic garb and neatly tied ponytail had been abandoned in favor of unkempt, unwashed hair and loose-fitting clothing. The most striking change was the box of donuts sitting open on the desk in front of Leanne. She was halfway through shoveling one into her mouth when Vell walked up and took a seat next to her.

“Hi Leanne,” he said. She paused mid-bite long enough to look in his direction. Vell appraised the box of donuts, and the significant progress she’d made in eating her way through it.  “Don’t have to worry about counting calories on the first loop, huh?”

Leanne gave a knowing smile and a nod. She tilted the box Vell’s way, and he gratefully took one of the smaller donuts for himself.

Vell took a bite and immediately choked on it as the professor walked through the door and let loose with an airhorn. Every student jumped to attention, most of them covering their ears or letting out yelps of surprise.

“Just making sure you’re all awake,” the professor said. “I find early morning students to be too lethargic for proper chi movement. The flow of chi is at its strongest when both body and mind are alert and active, and you can hardly understand chi if yours isn’t pumping.”

The professor placed his airhorn on the desk and flexed in several poses as he demonstrated his own physique. There was a lot to display, but not in the good way. He looked more suited to a Florida retirement home than a mountain monastery.

“I am Doctor Montgomery, and starting today, I am your guide through all the myriad mysteries your body is capable of.”

Vell wasn’t sure he wanted to find out any of the mysteries that this guy’s body was capable of.

◆◆◆

Vell’s next few classes passed by without incident, and without much interest. The professors failed to assault Vell’s ears with an airhorn, so they were all a step up from Doc Montgomery. They were all teaching rune and rune tech-related topics, which attracted a less “vibrant” crowd than chi.

After being loosed from his first afternoon class, Vell had a break in his schedule long enough to grab something to eat. He decided to take a page from Leanne’s book and treat himself to anything, and everything, he wanted. He perused the dining hall’s offerings for what seemed most tempting, as did many other students, including another familiar and now very frustrated face.

The red-eyed woman who Renard had been talking to earlier in the day patted her side frantically and then sighed. Vell hazarded a guess as to the source of her frustration.

“Forgot your bag?”

“Yeah,” the woman said. “Any chance you know any retrieval spells?  My debit card was in there.”

“No such luck,” Vell said. “But I do know a spell that’ll get you lunch. It’s called ‘I’m buying’.”

While this woman’s problems would inevitably be erased later today, Vell saw no reason to leave her unhappy. The same loop that would erase her forgotten purse would also erase any problems he faced as a result of helping her. Like many college students, she did not back down from the offer for free food, and ordered a frankly surprising amount of food. Vell didn’t mind the excess, considering he wasn’t actually losing any money on this.  He ordered a lot less than he’d been planning to, since now he had someone else looking over his shoulder and making him self-conscious.

“Thanks for this,” the red-eyed woman said. “I’m Joan Marsh. Just started yesterday.”

“Vell Harlan. I’m a freshman too,” he said. They took a seat. Vell glanced sideways at the hallway where he’d first seen Lee and Harley yesterday. No sign of them today, at least.

“Oh yeah? What do you think of the place so far?”

Vell paused.

“I’m still figuring it out,” Vell said, counting that as an honest answer.

“Same here,” Joan said. “You’re that Renard guy’s roommate, right? You saw me asking him how to get around this place, so you can guess how well I’m adjusting.”

“This place isn’t really easy to get around. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I think the buildings rearrange when you’re not looking,” Vell said. Joan snorted with laughter, though Vell had been entirely serious.

“I heard sometimes the staff straight up removes all the staircases from the dorms,” Joan said. “It ‘encourages creative problem solving’, so they say.”

“Hmm. I’ll have to invest in a levitation rune.”

“I’ve got a neighbor who’s working on something like that,” Joan advised. “You majoring in runes?”

“Runic medicine,” Vell said.  Joan’s ears perked up.

“Hey, me too,” Joan said.  “Maybe I’ll see you in class, huh?”

Vell nearly got a chance to respond to that before a slap on his back nearly caused him to choke on a mouthful of food. After percussively announcing her presence, Harley sat down in the seat next to Vell.

“Hey Vell, how’s it hanging?” She asked. “Hey Vell’s new friend, how’s it hanging?”

“Hi Harley,” Vell coughed. Joan and Harley made their own introductions.

“So, uh, Joan, I was about to say,” Vell said, trying to get his conversation back on track. “Are you-”

Vell interrupted himself this time. The lights flickered on and off for a few seconds, bathing the room in intermittent darkness. That alone was not much of an interruption, but shortly afterwards, a french fry floated in front of Vell’s face. Harley snatched it out of the air and popped it into her mouth. Shortly after she finished chewing, most of the room started to float as well. The dining hall tables, and all their occupants, began to slowly drift towards the ceiling. Vell watched his lunch slowly drift away from him and sighed.

“Huh. I guess this is it for the day,” Harley sighed. If she’d known she’d be floating upside down in front of the whole dining hall today, she would’ve worn a skirt.  She floated upside down anyway.

“Should be an interesting fix,” Vell said with a sigh. He took hold of the table he’d been seated at and clung to it, hoping for at least some sense of stability. Joan grabbed on to the same table, though she clung to it for dear life. Since Vell and Harley gave the impression they somehow knew what was going on, Joan plied them for answers.

“What’s happening?”

They were all a good forty or fifty feet off the ground now. Vell cursed the architects of this place and their love of vaulted ceilings. The further they drifted up, the further they would fall down.

“Oh, if I had to guess, I’d say some kind of anti-grav device accident,” Harley said. She stuck a straw into a blob of soda floating by her head and drank it out of the air.

“Maybe some...particle accelerator accidentally destroyed gravity itself?” Vell posited. He made an effort to match Harley’s cavalier attitude, hoping that he could make good on the old saying “fake it until you make it”. He tried to shuffle along the table’s edge and get closer to his floating lunch, but couldn’t quite reach it. He watched his pizza drift into the cloud of panicked dining hall denizens and sighed.

“Ooh, good one,” Harley said. “Let me hit you with this; somebody accidentally pulled Earth into Jupiter’s orbit and we’re caught between the two gravitational pulls.”

“I can’t tell if that’s more or less outlandish than my theory,” Vell said. Harley shrugged. Joan looked between the two of them with equal disbelief.

“What do we do?”

“Try to land on your head,” Harley said. Vell nodded and began to shift himself upside-down as he floated. “Less painful that way.”

Joan let out a shriek of terror and confusion while Vell addressed more pragmatic concerns.

“You’ve done this before?” Vell asked.

“Yeah, weightlessness spell mishap last year, it didn’t go-”

Whatever was happening to gravity stopped happening, and everything that had gone up started to come down. While Vell had nothing to compare it to, he felt like Harley was right. Hitting head first didn’t hurt much at all.

◆◆◆

Vell hopped out of bed first thing in the morning, waking far earlier in the morning than he had the previous loop. He was surprised to find he didn’t even have a headache from his head-first brush with death. Intent on getting a head-start to the day to better avoid the aforementioned head-first end, Vell powered through a shower and breakfast, then pulled out his phone. Harley had apparently beaten him to the group chat.

HARL33:
me n vell were in the lunchroom when the gravity turned off
no sign of gravity turner-offer
u guys see anything

Lee:
I was in class. Nothing there.
Please search fast, our deadline is 1:28 PM. Fairly early, all things considered.

vharlan03:
are there any antigrav dev on campus? ill check them

Galgamesh:
There’s only one on campus.
Under the Ballball field.
We should check there first.

vharlan03:
i assume thats leanne?

HARL33:
ya shes way more talkative over text lol

Galgamesh:
Just come to the field ASAP.

The field wasn’t far from Vell’s dorm, so he left his books behind, intending to swing back before he had to be in class. Since he now knew how to get to all his classes, Vell had plenty of spare time to deal with the daily apocalypse. Vell gave himself a pat on the back for his preparedness and headed for the scene of the disaster.

The athletic facilities at the Einstein-Odinson college were underfunded, as one might expect in a college full of tech nerds and mages, so the stadium had very little seating. The field itself was the usual regulation size: one levitating sphere with a one-hundred yard diameter. The astroturfed orb hovered in the air, rotating slightly in the breeze as Vell approached. A sign on the outside of the stadium proudly proclaimed: “This stadium is the home, and birthplace, of the most exciting sport of the twenty-first century: Ballball, the only sport played with a ball, and on a ball!”

Vell wasn’t sure how Ballball had ever caught on, but it had. He shook his head and walked to the stadium’s sub-level, where the anti-gravity generator would be found.

Leanne was already there waiting for him. This time she looked like her usual self -dressed in tight athletic garb, with her hair neatly groomed and tied into an orderly ponytail. The donuts were also noticeably absent. On the second loop, she acted the part of the ideal athlete that her physique showed her to be. Leanne gave Vell a nod in greeting and nothing else. He kicked his heels and checked his phone a few times before trying to spark a conversation.

“So, uh, you play Ballball, I’m guessing?”

Leanne nodded, and said nothing. Vell took the hint, and waited silently for the arrival of Harley and Lee. Soon enough, the door slammed open as Harley made her usual exuberant entrance, followed shortly, and quietly, thereafter by Lee.

“Alright ladies plus Vell, let’s cancel today’s apocalypse,” Harley said. She strapped on a pair of goggles, and Vell looked between her and the gravity device worriedly.

“Is this thing dangerous? Should we be wearing goggles?”

“Oh, no, it’s perfectly safe,” Harley said. “I just like wearing goggles.  Feels sciencey. Anyway! Let me look at the thingy.”

Leanne took a few steps to the left and pointed to the anti-grav device. It was a massive construct, easily twice as tall as Leanne, with two dozen towering metal pillars surrounding the central cylinder mechanism. As far as she knew, this was the only anti-grav device on campus. Harley scanned the machine from top to bottom.

“This one ain’t it,” Harley said. “These Tyngdekraften models are rock solid, except for the occasional shoddy central rotor, and this one got a replacement recently. Our culprit is somewhere else.”

“Where should we start?”

“Fuck if I know,” Harley said. “I’ll hook up some scanners on Botley and have him do laps around campus. The rest of you walk around and use your human eyeballs or something.”

Harley walked off, muttering about optic scanners. Leanne followed two steps behind, eager to be on her way.

“So, where would I start if I was looking for an anti-gravity device?” Vell asked. Lee shrugged her shoulders.

“I’ll ask some of my contacts in the faculty if any experiments are planned,” Lee said. “But it could just as easily be a student’s independent project. We’ll have to put in some legwork, dear.”

With that, Lee spun on her heel, tripped and fell flat on her face as she spun.  Vell watched her as she laid on the ground for a second.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lee mumbled.  She started to pick herself up off the ground.  “Please don’t tell Harley about that.”

Vell and Lee shared a conspiratorial nod before Lee walked off.  She managed to stay on her feet this time.  Vell, in the absence of any actual directions, decided to get ready for class, keeping an eye out for faulty anti-gravity devices as he went.

◆◆◆

The walk from the Ballball field to his dorm failed to produce any shoddy anti-grav mechanisms, so Vell focused on his classes, and on solving one problem he knew he could solve. Vell grabbed his bookbag and headed out the door. He stopped to tap Renard on the shoulder while he was talking to Joan, who Vell technically hadn’t met yet.

“Hey Renard, there was someone’s bag still on the counter in there,” he said. “Did you forget your bag?”

“I’ve got it right here, dude,” Renard said, patting the bag that was quite clearly hanging at his side.  The short exchange prompted Joan to pat her won side and realize the absence of her bag.

“Oh shit, but I think I forgot mine,” Joan said. She turned to run. “Thanks for the reminder! I owe you one!”

Vell waved goodbye as Joan ran off. Now she’d be able to buy herself lunch, since Vell wouldn’t be around to buy it for her. He’d probably still be spending his lunch break looking for the source of the gravity mishap. With that good deed done, Vell headed to his first class of the day. Leanne was sitting exactly where she’d been on the first loop. She gave him another nod as he approached and sat down.

“Any luck finding our culprit?”

Leanne shook her head and waited for class to start. Right about now Vell wished he’d spent more time on alert on the first day instead of going to classes. There were some advantages to having attended class on the first loop, though. Vell and Leanne waited patiently for the professor to arrive and, after sharing a look, they covered their ears just in time for Professor Montgomery to sound the air horn.

With the morning oddity out of the way, Vell’s classroom routine settled into normalcy -with occasional breaks to scan for a malfunctioning anti-gravity generator. Since he already knew how to get around campus and he’d reviewed all the lesson plans and syllabi already, he had plenty of time between classes to scout for any sign of a technological breakdown. Time, however, did not equate to success, and Vell was getting decidedly more worried the closer he got to lunchtime.

With only about half an hour left to go, Vell passed by the dining hall, just in time to see Joan headed the other way. She perked up at the sight of him, locking on to him with her red eyes.

“Hey there,” she said. “Thanks again for the reminder this morning. You really saved my bacon.”

“No problem,” Vell said. “Just a lucky break for you, I guess.”

“Well, I still owe you one,” Joan said. “My name’s Joan Marsh. I live three rooms down from you and Renard, so we’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other.”

“I’m Vell.  Nice to meet you,” Vell said, mentally adding “again”. He wanted to rush through re-introducing himself.  He’d already had a perfectly pleasant conversation with Joan, all about rune tech and disappearing stairs.

And a neighbor who apparently had a workaround for disappearing stairs.

“Oh hey, just as a heads up, I also heard they just remove the stairs around here from time to time,” Vell said. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew the solution to his anti-gravity dilemma, but it seemed almost too good to be true.

“Oh yeah, I heard the same thing,” Joan said.

“Oh really, who’d you hear it from?”

“Yeah, it was my neighbor actually, on the far side from you and Renard’s room,” Joan said. “Fred, I think his name was.”

“Huh, super interesting,” Vell said. “Why’d that get brought up? Did he have some kind of solution for disappearing stairs?”

“Uh...yeah, I guess,” Joan said. “I think he had some kind of levitation doohicky he was working on.”

“Oh wow that sounds super cool, think I’m going to go check it out,” Vell said. “Thanks Joan! See you around!”

Vell dashed off, waving goodbye to Joan over his shoulder. She gave him an odd look as he ran away.

“See...you?” Joan said. Vell’s sudden and awkward energy was strange, yet somehow endearing.

Vell raced back to his dorm, stopping long enough to send a message to the group chat explaining what he had found out. If his suspicions were correct, then Joan’s neighbor might be responsible for the anti-gravity malfunction that was going to kill them all in about twenty minutes. Lacking any better leads, the group decided to follow up on Vell’s hypothesis.

After making a mad dash for the dorm rooms, Vell stopped to compose himself before he knocked on the door. His improv skills weren’t stellar to begin with, and showing up out of breath wouldn’t help. Vell leaned on the door frame and tried very hard to act casual as he raised his hand and knocked on the dorm’s door.

The room’s sole resident sheepishly opened the door moments later. He was short and scrawny, and about ten percent of his overall mass consisted of a tuft of frizzy red hair. He adjusted a pair of thick round glasses and looked up at Vell.

“Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Vell Harlan,” Vell said. “And you are?”

“Frederick Froilan Frizzle,” the fuzzy fellow said.

“Nice to meet you, Fred, so, uh, I was wondering, I was talking to Joan, you met her, nice girl, red eyes, and she mentioned that you were working on a levitation doohicky, and I was wondering if I could check it out.”

“Uh, wow, well, now’s really not a good time for that,” Fred said.

“Got some slight technical difficulties?” Vell said.

“You could say that.”

“Well I just so happen to have some friends who can help with that,” Vell said. He pulled his phone out and pretended to text for a second. “My buddy Harley knows all about anti-gravity devices.”

“Does she know anything about central rotor issues on Tyngdekraften models?”

“As a matter of fact, she does,” Vell said.

At Freddy’s invitation, Vell stepped inside and took a look at Fred’s project. It resembled the anti-grav generator he’d seen earlier, though built out of spare parts and kitbashed components. Also unlike the earlier, professionally made anti-grav device, the central spinning mechanism was lopsided. Vell only had a few seconds to consider its damaged appearance before Harley busted through the door.  She paused for a second to gawk at Fred’s mass of fuzzy hair, and then turned her attention to the faulty anti-grav device.

“Hoo boy, your rotor’s fucked, fuzzball,” Harley said. “Do you mind if I call you that? It’s just I cannot get over how fluffy you are.”

“It’s fine,” Fred said. His face was about as red as his hair, and Vell got the feeling Freddy would let Harley call him whatever she wanted.

“Okay, let’s see what we got,” Harley said. She put her goggles on and poked through Fred’s kitbashed anti-grav device. “Hmm, yep, you’ve got some stress warping on the interior rotor. Looks like you based this off a Tyngdekraften Model F, am I right?”

“Absolutely right, yes,” Fred said.

“Well then it’s going to take some serious pressure to get this thing back in alignment. Usually it would require some heavy machinery, but I know a good replacement. She should be getting here shortly.”

Harley paused for a moment and looked at the door. Leanne failed to appear.

“Okay, might be a second,” Harley said. “Meanwhile, how about I get your name, fuzzball?”

“Frederick Froilan Frizzle,” he stammered.

“Nice to meet you, Frizz,”  Harley said.  “So were you working on this thing before you got here or did you throw this together in two days?”

“It’s a long-term project, but I did assemble it here,” Freddy said.  Vell didn’t know how difficult it was to put together an anti-gravity generator, but judging from how impressed Harley looked, he’d guess it wasn’t easy.

Leanne chose that moment to appear, with Lee in tow. Harley gestured triumphantly to their new arrival. Vell and Harley got the other two members of the team up to speed while Freddy occupied himself straightening up his room. He did not seem accustomed to having guests, especially not female guests. Harley wrapped up her explanation of the malfunction and moved on to the solution.

“So I’m thinking Leanne just needs to juice up and push the rotor back into alignment before this thing fires up,” Harley said. Leanne sighed.

“Couldn’t we just...not fire it up?” Lee suggested. “Frederick seems reasonable enough.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m thinking he probably didn’t flip the switch yesterday,” Harley said. “Anybody smart enough to build an anti-gravity generator out of spare parts wouldn’t turn it on with a shoddy rotor.”

She’d had plenty of time to think about it while waiting for Leanne to show up, and Freddy just didn’t strike her as the reckless type.  Considering the way he stammered while talking to her, he lacked the confidence to even talk to girls, much less activate an untested and clearly flawed anti-gravity generator.  A small detail from the first loop’s events created a possible explanation, however.  Harley expounded on her theory.

“I’m guessing the lights flickering just before things started floating was a power surge that accidentally sparked up Fuzzball’s generator.”

“A reasonable assessment on all counts,” Lee said. “Leanne, would you mind?”

With a sigh, Leanne started digging through her purse. Lee patted her on the shoulder.

“Thank you, dear,” Lee said. “I’ll go fetch a bucket.”

“What’s the bucket do?” Vell asked.

“It’s a bucket, Vell, it holds liquids,” Lee said, just before leaving. Vell turned to Harley instead.

“I mean like, specifically in this case,” he continued. Harley held up a finger to shush him.

“Shh. Yo Freddy Fuzzball, what angle did you solder this at? I need to know where my friend should be pushing.”

Freddy explained his methods to Harley. Vell, still absent an explanation on the bucket, turned to Leanne. She raised an eyebrow in his direction, and Vell decided to not even bother asking.

Leanne withdrew a small vial from her bag and followed Harley’s lead as she instructed where to push and how hard. After popping the lid off the vial and downing the contents in a single gulp, Leanne braced her shoulder against the makeshift machine and pushed. Her sizable muscles bulged, and then turned black.

Threads of metallic ebony spread through Leanne’s exposed arms, webbing along her veins and slowly diffusing across her muscles. With a grunt of exertion, Leanne pushed against the broken machine, and slowly bent it back into place. The creak of metal against metal grated the air, and Vell and Fred covered their ears. Harley, meanwhile, examined the scene -specifically Leanne’s bulging muscles- with a broad smile.

“Nanomachines,” Harley said. “I told you Leanne was the team muscle, those muscles are just augmented.”

With a final herculean push, the rotor creaked into place. Fred and Harley looked it over, and determined that Leanne had straightened out everything that needed straightening out. The two techies did some final touches to make sure everything would stay where Leanne had pushed it. While they soldered and straightened, Lee returned with the bucket. Leanne grabbed it before Lee even had time to announce her return.

Finally answering all of Vell’s bucket-related questions, Leanne leaned over the bucket and vomited. The black rapidly faded out of her veins and muscles as it poured out of her mouth and into the bucket. Vell recoiled in disgust, bumping into Harley, who bumped him right back.

“Haha, yeah, this happens every time,” Harley said. “Got to get the nanomachines out somehow, and every other alternative is even worse. I think this is part of why she doesn’t like our group much.”

Leanne stopped vomiting long enough to glare at Harley, and then leaned over the bucket once again.

◆◆◆

With all bucket-related activities wrapped up, Lee checked her phone’s clock. The time was currently 1:27 PM and counting. In less than a minute, they’d have caught up to the previous loop’s apocalypse. It was time to see if they’d solved the problem. The clock hit 1:28.

The lights above flickered, and then an electric crackle sounded from the walls. With a small spray of sparks, Freddy’s anti-gravity device sputtered to life. The rotors started to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster as the machine picked up speed.  Freddy, who was keeping a close eye on his machine, pounded away at a few buttons. Vell got an unpleasant sense of deja vu as his feet drifted off the ground. Thankfully, Freddy Frizzle slammed his fist down on a big red button and the drifting stopped, leaving them all hovering in place.

“Oh geez, good thing you guys came,” Fred said. “If this thing had kicked on with the rotors still out of alignment, I’d never be able to control it. Geez, I don’t even know what would have happened.”

“Probably would’ve killed the entire campus,” Harley said. Now that the threat of death was no longer involved, she rather enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness. She spun in mid-air and kicked off one of the dorm room walls, launching across the room towards Vell.

“Why don’t you leave this thing on for a bit, fuzzball? This is cool.”

“I concur,” Lee said. She had kicked her feet up and was lounging weightlessly in the air. “This is rather relaxing.”

Vell put a hand to his chin as he watched some of Fred’s tools drift past his face. As fun as it was, this device was making everything in the room float, not just the people.

“Did anybody put a lid on that bucket?” Vell asked.

In answer, Leanne screamed.

◆◆◆

About twenty minutes later, a very upset and very thoroughly scrubbed Leanne stepped out of the bathroom in Vell’s dorm. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and Vell handed her a hairdryer he’d borrowed from Joan’s dorm. She had kindly let him borrow it with no explanations needed, which was great, because Vell didn’t know how to explain that his friend was washing nanomachine vomit out of her hair.  Leanne nodded, returned to the bathroom, and Vell went back to sitting in his dorm in silence.

Silently emerging once again several minutes later, Leanne left the dorm without a word, handing the hairdryer off to Vell before she left.  After a few minutes of awkward silence, his phone buzzed. He opened up the chat client and saw a private message from Leanne.

Galgamesh:
Alright I figure I should tell you.
The silent treatment isn’t personal.
I just try not to engage with this whole time loop thing too much.
It kind of drives you a little crazy.

Vell looked away from his phone for a moment, and thought of Harley.

vharlan03:
i guess i see what you mean
but you and lee seem pretty normal

Galgamesh:
LOL
Get to know us better.
Lee might be crazier than Harley.
Just try and stay grounded.

vharlan03:
ill try
can i ask you a question?

Galgamesh:
Depends on the question.

vharlan03:
just wanted to know about ur username actually
galgamesh???

Galgamesh:
LOL long story.
Short version:
Nickname from some old members of the crew.
I fought Gilgamesh

vharlan03:
did you win

Galgamesh:
Yeah but I cheated.
Nanomachines.
See you tomorrow V.

vharlan03:
ill bring earplugs for prof montys class

Galgamesh:
Good thinking.
I’ll save you a donut.

Vell put his phone away, and looked out the open doorway. His lunch break was almost over, and he had to get to class. He grabbed the hairdryer on the way out and headed for Joan’s room. She was talking to Freddy in the hallway, and they both perked up at the sight of him.

“Hey, Vell,” Joan said. “Freddy was just telling me about what happened. You got a real knack for being in the right place at the right time, you know that?”

“Just, uh, lucky, I guess,” Vell said. He handed over the hairdryer and tried to change the subject. “Thanks for the hairdryer, but I have to head to class.  Adios.”

“I should head out too,” Joan said. “See you around, Freddy. Goodbye, Vell.”

“Yep, see you soon,” Vell said. He and Joan then set off walking in exactly the same direction. They exchanged an awkward smile and nod and kept heading along their own paths -side by side. They made it around three corners before realizing they weren’t going to be parting ways any time soon, and that they’d said goodbye for nothing.

“Are you headed to Runes and Biology 101?” Joan asked.

“With Professor Parson? Yeah,” Vell said.

“Huh. Guess we’re classmates,” Joan said. “Always nice to know someone in your classes. You can just sleep through the lecture and then borrow their notes.”

“Oh, yeah, that sounds cool,” Vell said.  “You plan on napping today?”

Vell was being entirely serious, but Joan laughed anyway.  She stayed right by Vell’s side as they walked to class together.

Chapter 3: Kick Some Ars Goetia

In the darkened halls of the library, a dusty tome shifted, coming loose from the shelves that held it.  With a dull thud, it fell to the floor and cracked open, falling with its pages upturned.  The aged brown paper turned as if blown in an unseen breeze.  Faded ink, exposed to light for the first time in centuries, began to take on an unusual crimson glow.

“At last,” a voice spoke from nowhere.  The light in the ink began to flare, as thin smoke rose from between the pages of the book.  “After ten thousand years, I am free…”

A grasping hand, with thick grey skin and clawed fingertips, rose from the pages of the book and was immediately stomped on by a bright red sneaker.

“Shut it, Rita Repulsa!”

Harley stomped on the hand again, pounding the demonic appendage back into the pages of the book it had emerged from.  Confused, pained grunting emanated from the yellowed pages as Harley stomped the demon down.

“Get! Back! In! The! Book!”

Every word of Harley’s command was punctuated with another stomp.  When the last finger of the abyssal grasp had been successfully kicked back into the craven tome from whence it crawled, Harley reached down and slammed the book shut. 

“Hah!  Eat it, Gamigin,” Harley said, declaring her triumph over the demon.  She looked to Lee, who’d been watching her demon-stomping in silence thus far, and gave a thumbs up.  Lee returned the gesture.

“Excellent work as usual, Harley,” Lee said.  Harley beamed at the compliment while Lee examined the book Harley still held.  “I believe we should put more effort into securing the book, however.”

“Oh yeah, I got this,” Harley said.

She pulled an elastic hair-tie off of her ponytail and stretched it around the book, clasping it shut.  Harley shook her newly-loosened hair behind her ears and then examined her work, holding it up for Lee’s approval.

“Yes, I believe that ought to keep it secure,” she said.  She knew from a firsthand experience involving a ten-story tall Jenga game that Harley’s hair-ties were nigh invulnerable.

Harley put the book under her arm again and walked out between the rows of shelves.  She grabbed Lee and left the library, regrouping with Vell and Leanne.

“Found it,” she boasted.  She held the demonic tome aloft triumphantly before tossing it to Leanne.  “Get rid of this.”

Without turning her head, Leanne tossed the book over her shoulder, in the direction of the ocean.  Vell watched it sail through the air, as did several dozen students whose heads it passed over.  Harley checked her phone and answered a text as Vell watched the book sail in a straight line through the air, spinning like a frisbee as it hurtled over the ocean waves.  The book was barely visible as a speck on the horizon by the time it made impact, the ancient pages and the demons contained within vanishing into the ocean with a soft “plip”.

“Nice throw,” Vell said.  Leanne nodded.

“And that, I believe, will prevent Gamigin from being summoned once again,” Lee said. 

“Fuck him,” Harley said.  “At least Gremory has the decency to have an orgy before he rips everyone’s souls out.”

Vell cringed at the mention of getting his soul ripped out.  Harley had given him an extensive description of how it would feel, but the advance warning had done nothing to dull the pain.  Lee took notice of his discomfort and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“I know that was all highly unpleasant, dear, but soul-related incidents are thankfully rare,” Lee assured him.  “By the time the next one comes around, you’ll be more used to death.”

“Well, uh, I’m not really sure I’ll ever get used to it,” Vell said. 

“Oh you will,” Harley told him -again.  Vell shrugged.

“Yeah?  How long’s that going to take?”  Vell asked.  “How many times do you have to die before you get used to it?”

“Five,” Harley said.

“Yes, five times,” Lee said. 

Leanne held up five fingers and nodded.  Vell stared at the three of them for a while.

“Five times?”

“Yep, that’s what all three of us just said.  Or gestured, in Leanne’s case,” Harley said, pointing at Leanne.

“That seems, um, low,” Vell said.

“Well, most people only die the one time, so I see it as rather high,” Lee said.

Vell didn’t want to admit how much sense that made.

“Only a couple more times and you’ll be able to laugh about it just like the rest of us,” Harley assured him.  “I’ve got some real funny stories to tell you about all the ways I’ve been horribly dismembered.  Like the time my entire left half got disintegrated.”

Vell stared directly into Harley’s soul.

“If you make an ‘all right’ pun, I’m leaving.”

Thirteen seconds later, Vell left.

Chapter 4: The Ballad of Glocktopus

The sound of pen scratching against paper filled the classroom.  Professor Nguyen had written out an elaborate diagram of advanced rune structures, and the students in class were trying to copy the contents of the whiteboard before the lecture moved on.  Joan was halfway through scrawling the most complex rune of them all when she looked left to check on Vell, who was currently on his phone.

“Vell, dude,” Joan whispered.  “I know I said you could borrow my notes sometimes, but this is a bit much.”

“Huh?  Oh, yeah,” Vell said.  He looked up from his phone.  “Yeah, don’t worry about it.  It’ll be fine.”

Vell waved her concerns away and went back to his phone.  He wasn’t copying the board for two very good reasons.  Firstly, he already knew everything this lecture was trying to teach him.  Secondly, this was the first loop and any notes he took would be eradicated, along with Joan, himself, and most other people on campus, when time looped in upon itself.  Vell was taking a little time before the inevitable apocalypse to squeeze in some independent research.

Runes could be used to replicate magical effects without actually having to study and learn the spells involved -though that was not to say it was easy to learn.  Every rune was made up of a series of straight lines, that had to each be carved to very specific lengths, in a very specific order. The simplest magical forces, like “move” contained only two lines, while the most complex functions like “compress” could have up to six.  The professor had just informed them all that a Kraid Tech lab had recently discovered a seven-line rune.

The rune on Vell’s back had ten lines.  Whatever it represented was either incredibly complex or incredibly powerful.  Vell was prying his way through Kraid Tech’s press releases and scientific journals, trying to find more information on this seven-lined rune they had supposedly discovered.  His efforts hit a speed bump when he got a message from Harley.

HARL33:
hey vell
what do u call an octopus with a gun?

vharlan03:
a glocktopus

HARL33:
lmao nice
but no!
you call it today’s apocalypse
and he’s headed ur way

Vell looked up from his phone just in time to watch the door slam open.  The last thing Vell saw was a bright-red cephalopod brandishing a gun in his direction, and then it all went dark. 

◆◆◆

“So,” Vell began.  “An octopus a with a gun.”

Leanne sipped at her morning coffee and let out a deep sigh.  Lee and Harley, who were usually surprisingly chipper the morning after they’d been viciously murdered, shared her lack of enthusiasm.

“Fucking marine biologists,” Harley grumbled.

“Marine biologists?” Vell questioned.

“Yes, dear, you should get used to hearing about them,” Lee said, her usual polite tone edged with bitterness.

“You’d think in a school like this it’d be the particle physics guys, or the pyromancers, or something,” Harley said.  “But half the time it’s the fucking marine biology lab that causes the apocalypse.”

“It’s more like twenty-seven percent, to be fair,” Lee said.  Leanne rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, fifty percent, twenty-seven percent, they’re too many of the percents!”

“What, do they like, summon Cthulhu or something?” 

Vell had to wonder how many different apocalypses a bunch of fish research could cause.

“No dear, Eldritch Ichthyology is a separate department,” Lee said.  “Quite safe, actually.  I don’t think they’ve ever caused an apocalypse.”

“Which is a shame, because I’d like to see Leanne fight Cthulhu,” Harley said.  Leanne pondered the potential showdown silently, and, oddly, didn’t seem opposed to the idea.  “But no, it’s always dumb shit like octopi-”

“Octopuses,” Lee corrected.

“Octopuses with guns, or making everyone’s eardrums explode trying to make a whalesong translator, or causing a plague that makes everybody grow gills and stop being able to breath air.”

Harley ripped one of her heart-shaped pancakes in half and shoved it in her mouth.  She was only halfway done chewing when she felt the need to vent her frustrations once again.

“Fucking fishy bastards,” she grumbled.

Vell nodded along.  He could tell the loopers had a grudge, and it sounded like a justified one.

“You want me to handle it solo?” Vell said.  “Doesn’t sound like any of you guys want to put up with it.”

Harley chowed down on pancakes and chewed thoughtfully. 

“Nah, I’ll handle it,” Harley said.  “I can shut down their experiments pretty easily.”

“One of the lead researchers is quite infatuated with Harley,” Lee said, with a coy note of teasing to her voice.  Harley stuffed her face with pancakes and did not dignify Lee with a response.  Disappointed but not surprised, Lee shifted focus to Vell.

“Thank you for offering, but Harley should be able to handle it,” Lee said.  “She’s well versed in exploiting her feminine wiles.”

“I got wiles for miles, baby,” Harley boasted.  She wolfed down another pancake with surprising speed and threw her plate away.  “I’ll get on it.  Y’all can chill.”

Harley headed off to save the day, though she did not look happy about it.  With the meeting apparently adjourned, Leanne soon left as well.  Vell still had to work his way through his waffles, so he lingered for a while.  Lee stayed behind too, burying her nose in a book as the conversation ended.

“So Harley’s got this?”

“Without a doubt,” Lee responded.

“Huh.  Now I kind of don’t know what to do with most of the day.”

“It’s always beneficial to keep up with schoolwork,” Lee suggested.  “You never know when a particularly troublesome apocalypse will eat up valuable time.  Best to stay on top of your academics.”

Vell nodded in agreement.  It was still only the second week, so his studies weren’t too strenuous, but he knew that would change soon enough.  The Einstein-Odinson college curriculum intentionally pushed students to their limits.  About thirty percent of freshmen didn’t make it to their second year, as the workload overwhelmed them one way or another.  Vell didn’t intend to be part of this years statistic, at least not yet.  He might get sick of dying every other day eventually.  He wasn’t sure if his curiosity about the ten-line rune would outlast his patience for daily death.

Vell’s curiosity caught on to something new as he glanced at Lee.  While he’d found out about Harley and even Leanne’s studies by now, he still knew nothing about Lee.

“So, speaking of schoolwork, what are you studying?”

Lee looked up from her book as if she was confused by something, and looked around.  She saw no one else Vell could be talking to, though.

“Oh, sorry, me?”

“Uh, yeah,” Vell said.  “Sorry if I’m interrupting.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, this is -it’s nothing,” Lee said.  She slammed the book shut without marking her place and set it aside.  “What were you saying?”

“I just sort of wanted to know what you’re, uh, studying here,” Vell said.  “I know Harley’s into robotics and Leanne does sports, but I kind of don’t know what you do.  Harley mentioned magic?”

“Oh, yes, well, my family has a bit of a history in magikinesis, so officially I’m studying that,” Lee said.  “My real passion is hydrokinesis, though.”

“You’re learning two kinds of magic?”

Magikinesis was what most people thought of when they thought “magic”, as it involved manipulating mana directly to cast spells.  Hydrokinesis, the control of water, was more specialized, but no less difficult.  Each involved a specific set of disciplines and internal rules that were not only vastly different but often contradictory.  Learning two different kinds of magic was akin to a right-handed Russian learning to write Japanese exclusively with his left hand.

“Well, I happen to have more time on my hands than most people,” Lee said.  The apocalypse loop, in spite of all its difficulties, usually gave them a few extra hours to work with every day.  “I intend to make the most of it.”

“Well, if you can manage it, more power to you,” Vell said.  “I couldn’t even manage one.”

Vell had tried his hand at pyrokinesis once, in his teenage years, but after setting himself on fire eight times, he had given up -for about seven months, and then set himself on fire five more times, at which point he gave up for good.  Thankfully he’d been smart enough to keep a fire extinguisher handy all thirteen times.  Even as a teenager, Vell’s persistence was equaled only by his intelligence.  Also his flammability.

“It’s a challenge, I’ll admit, but I have been acquitting myself well so far,” Lee said.  She brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.  With one line of curious questioning ended, Vell picked up on another.

“So how’d your family get started in magikinesis, then?”

As quickly as the loose strand had been put into place, it slipped out again.  Lee’s hand twitched despite her attempts to control it.

“That is, well, it’s a very long story, darling,” Lee said.  “I’ll tell you some other time.  Wouldn’t want you to be late to class.”

“Alright,” Vell said.  It was about twenty minutes before classes started, but Vell took the hint.  Lee didn’t feel like talking about her family.  Vell couldn’t help but be curious about why, but he restrained himself.  That was Lee’s business.  She stood and slung her purse over her shoulder as she prepared to leave.  Vell got in one more, far less prying question.

“Got any plans tonight, Lee?  My roommates and I were gonna watch some movies,” Vell said.  “We can invite Harley too, if she’s done by then.”

Lee bit her lip for a moment.

“Tempting,” she said stiffly.  “I’ll see if I have anything planned tonight.”

Lee bent at the waist, almost bowing, before realizing that was an odd way to say goodbye and waving instead.  Vell shrugged and decided to finish his waffles before they got cold.  He’d somehow ended up with even more questions about Lee than when he’d started. 

Between her refined looks, genteel mannerisms, and her ostentatiously British accent, Lee always seemed out of place to Vell.  She was like a living anachronism.  It was equal parts concerning and intriguing.  Vell wanted to know more.  The first theory he’d been able to formulate involved Lee being displaced from the 18th century as part of a failed time travel experiment, but she had mentioned owning a cellphone growing up the other day and dashed that theory against the rocks.

Vell made the decision not to worry about it.  Thanks to the time loops, they would be spending a lot of time together.  Anything worth knowing would come up eventually.

◆◆◆

After getting her face and hair dolled up for the days events, Harley focused on her wardrobe.  A variety of options, all in shades of red, had been plucked from the laundry basket where Harley kept all her clothes.  She had a very spacious closet, but it was reserved for things far more important than her outfits.  Harley narrowed her choices down to two, and held them up to display to Botley.  Harley’s robotic familiar, currently plugged into an ankle-high humanoid body, turned between the two curiously.

“What do you think, Botley?  The v-neck says ‘hey, look at my cleavage’, but the tight sweater says ‘hey, imagine my cleavage’.”

Botley’s round head rotated thoughtfully before pointing to the sweater.  Harley nodded in agreement.

“Good instinct, Bottles, always better to leave it up to the imagination,” Harley said.  She dressed herself and snatched Botley out of the chair he was sitting in to walk him over to the closet.  While most of her clothing was settled, the most important part of any outfit were the accessories.  Harley threw open her closet doors to peruse her options.

Several dozen mechanical bodies, and a few dozen more loose limbs, lined the shelves, each with a unique configuration of mechanical appendages and integrated tools.  Harley placed Botley on her shoulder and tapped her finger against each of the robotic bodies in turn.

“Let’s see, we’re going to want something waterproof, something that can handle chemicals, going to need to borrow the scanner off of this one...You feeling bipedal or quadrupedal today, Botley?”

Botley pointed a tiny hand towards the shelf with several quadrupedal bodies.  Harley nodded.

“Right, right, better for swimming,” she said.  Botley had roughly the intelligence of a dog, but Harley still liked to let him make his own decisions when he could.  He was a surprisingly effective decision maker, even.  Botley’s adorable little robot head could only hold so many thoughts, so he never fell victim to overthinking. 

With the final decisions made, Harley grabbed her tools and got to work.  The chosen body required a little customization, but Harley had disassembled and reassembled these bodies a dozen times over.  She could build a Botley body with her eyes closed at this point.  Swiftly finishing her work, Harley plucked Botley’s head from its current doll-sized body and plugged it into the new frame.  It had a long, thick body with four short, flipper-like limbs.

“You look like an otter,” Harley noted.  “Heh.  Ottley.”

Botley had no voice to laugh with, but he did give a small hop of pleasure at the joke.  Harley pointed to the shelf.

“Stay,” she said.  There was no need to give Botley any vocal commands, as they shared a psychic link, but Harley liked to do it anyway.  Botley dutifully plopped his robotic butt onto the shelf.  “I’ll summon you if I need you.  Be good, no parties while I’m out.  You remember what happened last time.”

Botley remained motionless.  Harley patted him on the head and headed (reluctantly) to the marine biology department.  She knew she was going the right way when she started to smell fish and desperation.  The characteristic perfume of Michaela.

With one final deep breath, Harley pushed open the door to the marine biology department.  Inside the room were some of the most slimy, disgusting, simple minded, and useless creatures Harley had ever seen.  There were also a lot of fish.

Barely containing her disdain, Harley wormed her way through the marine biologists.  She deliberately avoided touching them out of fear that whatever made them so insufferable was contagious.  Her efforts at avoidance were made all the more complex by the fact that most of the researchers and students were excited to say hello for the first time this school year.  Her frequent visits to this department to prevent numerous fish-based apocalypses had made her an unfortunately familiar face to this loathsome band of misfits.  Harley politely made her way through the crowd and found her way to the most disgusting of all.

“Hey Michaela,” Harley hissed.

“Harley!”

Michaela turned Harley’s way, and Harley resisted the urge to let the disgust show on her face.  Harley respected people who were passionate about their craft, but Michaela had taken her love of fish a bit far by magically grafting very large, very visible gills into her neck.  The flaps in her neck opened slightly, exposing the inside of her trachea.  Harley bit her tongue as Michaela walked over.

“I was wondering how long it’d take you to come looking for me,” Michaela said.  She grabbed Harley in a tight hug, with her hands wrapped low around Harley’s waist.  Too low.

“Hey Michaela,” Harley said.  “Just a heads up, your hands go any further south and I’m feeding them to the sharks.”

To her credit, Michaela actually pulled her hands away before she started laughing off Harley’s discomfort. The very handsy hands of Michaela settled in an uncomfortably tight grip on Harley’s shoulder instead.  Harley took what she could get.  It was an improvement, albeit a minor one.  On several occasions last year Harley had needed to physically remove Michaela’s hand from something it wasn’t supposed to be touching. 

“Oh Harley, you know you want me,” Michaela said.

“You could say that,” Harley said.  It was wrong, but she could say it.  Harley glanced to the side and found a potential exit strategy from the conversation.

“Hey, are these new fish?” Harley asked.  She tried to pull herself out of Michaela’s grip, failed, and pulled a little harder.  Michaela reluctantly released Harley from her grasp and Harley made for the nearest fishtank.

A small colony of clownfish were bustling around a small cluster of anemones.  Harley noted that the fish tank was far too small to comfortably accommodate its occupants.  For Michaela and her crew, fish were objects of research, not living things that needed to be cared for.  One of many reasons Harley disliked Michaela, but moreso, why Harley disliked the man in charge of the whole department.

“Michaela!  Stop fooling around with her!”

Harley bit her tongue so hard she nearly drew blood.  She knew, and despised, that voice.  Now she had to deal with the only thing worse than Michaela: Michaela’s dad.

Growing up, Harley’s father had had a saying about certain arrogant people: “You’d kill yourself jumping from their ego to their IQ.”  With Michael Watkins, you couldn’t kill yourself that way.  If one jumped from his ego aiming for his IQ, they’d starve to death during the fall.  It was a shame, because he actually was one of the most brilliant ichthyologists of the modern age -the problem being he thought he was the greatest ichthyologist who had ever, or would ever, live.  He expected everyone to take part in his delusion, as well.  Anybody who didn’t bow down to the self-proclaimed king of fish research immediately went on his shit list.

“Hello Doctor Professor Watkins,” Harley said.  While it made Harley throw up in her mouth a little to say, Watkins insisted on being addressed as both Doctor and Professor.  Harley wasn’t in the mood for the twenty-minute angry monologue that would ensue if he was not appropriately addressed.  She’d been through it more than once. 

“If you’re here anticipating to steal more research material, you will leave disappointed,” Dr. Professor Watkins said. 

“For the last time, I didn’t steal anything, you don’t have a patent on the concept of tuna!”

During the last school year, Harley had developed a synthetic muscle fiber based on the muscles of a tuna after seeing one in the fish tanks in Michaela’s lab.  While there was certainly an element of inspiration to it, Watkins had made it into a full plagiarism case.  Any official proceedings had been swiftly dismissed as the banal idiocy they were, but Dr. Professor Watkins never let anything like overwhelming evidence that he was wrong get in the way of him thinking he was right. 

“Dad, don’t scare her off again,” Michaela said.  She grabbed Harley by the shoulders and pulled her close.  Michaela stood significantly taller than Harley, and she made a point to put Harley’s head as close to her chest as possible.  Harley reminded herself not to bite and looked for an escape route.

“While I’m here, actually,” Harley said.  Her quick scan of the room had borne fruit in the best way.  Harley wormed her way out of Michaela’s booby trap and walked over to one of the largest tanks in the room.  “Who’s this big guy?”

Harley pointed into the tank, at a familiar face.  As much as an octopus had a face.  Two very judgmental yellow eyes stared right back at Harley.

“That would be Octavius,” Dr. Professor Watkins said.  Harley turned to look at the octopus to cover the fact that she was rolling her eyes.  An octopus named Octavius.

“And what’s he here for?”  Harley said.  “Got him scheduled for any experiments?”

“No, actually, he’s set to be put down,” Michaela said.  “We attempted to introduce new neural growth pathways and increase his intelligence a few days ago, but it seems to have failed.”

Harley looked back at the octopus, then back at Michaela.

“So...put him back in the ocean?”

“Albeit unsuccessfully, he’s been genetically modified,” Dr. Professor Watkins said.  “Reintroducing him to the ecosystem could be disastrous for the local populations.”

“You could anesthetize and sterilize him,” Harley suggested.  She knew for a fact that they had octopus anesthesia on hand.  It wasn’t exactly an ideal option, but it was leagues better than outright execution.

“An overwhelming waste of time,” Watkins said.  “On top of a complicated procedure, we’d have to return him to the ocean.  Who has time for that?”

“We live on an island,” Harley said.  “The beach is right outside your building!”

She gestured to the western wall.  When the room was quiet, one could hear the waves lapping against the short.  The room was never quiet when Dr. Professor Watkins was around, though.  He opened his mouth the moment Harley closed hers.

“Don’t presume to lecture us about what we do with our test subjects, plagiarist,” Watkins sneered.  Harley turned around and mumbled under her breath.

“Living things aren’t test subjects,” Harley said. 

Harley made eye contact with the octopus.  Octavius stared right back with a keen glimmer in his eyes.  After a moment of thought, Harley held up her hand, out of sight of the Dr. Professor, and mimicked the motion of a gun.  Despite his best efforts, Octavius flinched in surprise.  Harley smiled to herself.

“You clever son of a fish,” she whispered.  Octavius’ eyes narrowed in a fishy glare.  He was faking.  Just waiting for his opportunity to get out of the tank and get revenge.  Harley turned back to the two Watkins.

“What a shame,” Harley said.  “Make sure you’re careful when you get him out of the tank, or he might try and get you!”

Michaela laughed at the idea.  Dr. Professor Watkins scoffed at it.

“You see, this is why I don’t like you associating with this plagiarist,” he said.  “What utter imbecile would think an octopus capable of revenge?”

Harley shot a knowing glance to Octavius.  The octopus crossed two of his tentacles and tapped a third against the sandy floor of his tank.

“It’s a fish, Harley, it doesn’t understand ‘revenge’,” Michaela said with a laugh.  Harley frowned.

“He’s a cephalopod, actually,” Harley said.  She crinkled her nose and called out to Botley with her thoughts.  At her command, the otterlike robot appeared, though not at Harley’s side.  There were a few empty fishtanks across the room, and Harley poofed him into one of the empty tanks.  Botley swam around happily in the water for a moment before Harley gave him a single mental command: break out.

Botley saluted in Harley’s direction, braced his flippers against the back wall of the tank, and launched himself into the nearest pane of glass.  The fishtank shattered as Botley propelled himself violently into the wall of the tank.  Harley poofed him out of danger before he hit the ground and then pretended to be shocked as saltwater and broken glass spilled across the floor.  Dr. Professor Watkins appraised the disastrous situation and immediately sprang into action to assign blame.

“Michaela!  I told you to verify the integrity of the tanks!”

“I did!” Michaela lied.  The two Watkins scrambled into action to undo Botley’s damage. While they were distracted, Harley turned to Octavius’ fish tank and pressed her face against the glass.

“Listen, buddy, I get it,” Harley said.  “If I had to spend all day with these guys, I’d be planning to wipe out the human race too.”

Octavius looked away, trying to act innocent.  Harley tapped on the glass.

“Octavius, work with me here,” Harley said.  “Give me a few hours.  I’ll get you out of here and show you humans aren’t all bad.  If you still think we deserve to be eradicated at the end of the day, fine.  Honestly, humanity has probably had a better run than we deserve.”

Octavius put a pondering tentacle to his mantle. After some time to consider the offer, Octavius curled one of his tentacles into a crude approximation of a thumbs-up.  Harley returned the gesture and fished a water bottle out of her purse, holding it up to the edge of the tank.  Octavius stared at her.

“What?  You’re an octopus, you can squeeze in here,” Harley said.  “I promise I’ll get you something more comfortable later.  Right now we need stealth.”

After a hesitant pause, Octavius jiggled his head in a rough approximation of a nod.  He swam to the back of his tank, into a small shelter area, and pulled out a disturbingly well-crafted duplicate of himself.  Harley made the executive decision to not ask any questions about that.  She had to focus.  With the decoy in place, Octavius undid the latches on top of his tank from within and slithered over the edge, squeezing into the water bottle effortlessly.  Harley placed it gently in her purse and headed towards the door.

“Okay, this was fun, good seeing you again Michaela, you too Dr. Professor Watkins, and remember, you can’t copyright a tuna!”

Harley skedaddled before either of the Watkins could get a word in edgewise.  She’d managed to avoid flirting with Michaela, so the worst of the day was behind her.  All she had to do now was convince a hyper-intelligent octopus with genocidal intent not to wipe out the human race.  Compared to dealing with the Dr. Professor and his handsy daughter, that would be a piece of cake.

◆◆◆

Vell headed to his dorm during his lunch break.  Having some time off from saving the world this loop afforded him a rare opportunity to genuinely relax on his own terms.  Vell opened the door to his dorm and stepped inside.

“Hey Vell,” Harley said.

“Hey Harley,” Vell said.

Vell made it two steps into the kitchen before stepping back out.  Harley being here wasn’t that surprising.  She seemed like the type who could, and would, break in to his dorm pretty easily.  The surprise was sitting next to her.

“Harley.”

“Yeah?”

“Why’s the glocktopus here?” Vell said.

The octopus that had shot Vell, and presumably many others, on the first loop was sitting next to Harley in a large glass bowl.  It turned to Vell for a second and flopped a tentacle at him in an idle greeting.  Vell took a cautious step back.

“Trying to convince him not to shoot us tonight,” Harley said.  Now that the shock of the octopus had worn off, Vell also noticed Botley perched over a large bowl of raw shrimp.  The tiny robot was glaring at the octopus to the best of its ability.  Botley did not appreciate being reduced to a shrimp delivery bot. 

“Trying?” Vell asked.

“I’m pretty sure he’s chill, he’s just saying he hasn’t made up his mind so I’ll keep bribing him with food,” Harley said, shooting an accusing glare at Octavius.  Octavius responded with an outstretched tentacle.  Harley grumbled under her breath and commanded Botley to hand him another raw shrimp.  After wolfing it down, the octopus indicated to Vell and mimicked firing a gun with his tentacles.

“Oh, what?”

The octopus repeated the gunfire gesture and pointed at Vell again.

“What, you want to kill him specifically?”

Vell took cover behind the kitchen door.  The octopus shook its mantle and mimicked the motion of human lips with his tentacles.

“Oh, what he said,” Harley said.  “Glocktopus?  You like being called Glocktopus?”

The octopus nodded.  Harley leaned back on the couch.

“Well shit, better than Octavius,” Harley said.  She had Botley hand him another shrimp.  “Works for me.  Glocktopus it is.”

“Okay, Glocktopus, nice to meet you,” Vell said.  “Why is he in my dorm?”

“Well you’re doing that movie thing tonight and I figured, what better way to teach Octa- Sorry, Glocktopus, that humanity shouldn’t be wiped out than to put him around the coolest humans I know.”

“Oh.  That...sort of makes sense, but also, that’s like seven hours from now.”

“Well Glocktopus kind of smells funny, no offense, just by human standards.  I’m sure all the lady octopuses love it,” Harley said.  This seemed to placate Glocktopus’s ego, and Harley turned back to Vell.  “Do you know how hard it is to keep my bedroom smelling like cherries with the amount of machinery I have in there?  Your dorm’s full of Cane’s dude-funk anyway.”

Vell couldn’t defend his dorm from accusations of dude-funk, so he focused in on another topic.

“Your room doesn’t smell like cherries,” Vell said.  Harley wagged her finger.

“It didn’t when you were there, because I was still unpacking,”  Harley said.  “Feel free to come around some time and I’ll show you.  Show you a lot more, too.”

Harley winked in Vell’s direction.  Her efforts at seduction were slightly stymied by the presence of Glocktopus.  Unlike a lot of people on the internet, Vell was not at all aroused by tentacles.

“Okay, well, uh, why not Lee’s room?  She knows hydrokinesis, she could probably set him up in something more comfortable than a bowl.”

“Wait, hold up,” Harley said.  “Lee told you about the hydrokinesis?”

Harley looked surprised.  So did Glocktopus, but only because he wanted to feel like part of the conversation.  Vell shrugged.

“Yeah?  Was she not supposed to?”

“I don’t know, she kept it all secret last year,” Harley said.  “Only told me about it a few weeks before the summer break.  Seems kind of out of character.”

Vell thought about it for a moment.  He didn’t know Lee well enough to judge.  Which was a telling sign on its own, he supposed.

“Well, maybe her character’s changing,” Vell suggested.  Harley stared forward and nodded.

“Maybe.  Maybe she just likes you.  You are a lot easier to get along with than I am,” Harley said.  Vell looked at the uninvited octopus.  Neither of them were sure that was true.  Harley sat cross-legged on the couch and looked out the only window in Vell’s dorm.

“She tell you about her parents?”

“She avoided the subject, actually,” Vell said.  Harley nodded.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Harley said.  “I only ever found out because they came to visit.”

“What’re they like?”

“I don’t gossip, Vell, either Lee can tell you or you’ll find out the hard way, like I did,” Harley said.  ‘The best thing you can do is-”

Harley cut herself off, as Glocktopus was poking her in the elbow and demanding attention.  Botley offered him another shrimp.  Glocktopus took it, but then shook his head and instead curled one tentacle into the shape of a question mark.

“Oh you’ll meet Lee soon enough, she’ll be at the movie night,” Harley said.

“She hasn’t let me know if she’ll be there, actually,” Lee corrected.  Harley scoffed at him and pulled out her phone.  After a quick scroll through her one-hundred and eight simultaneous chats, Harley found her chat with Lee and held it up to display to Vell.  It was filled with mostly unanswered messages regarding what she should wear, if she should bring food, speculation on what kind of movies they should watch, and other tedious concerns.

“Okay, I guess she’s coming,” Vell said.

“Of course she is,” Harley said.  “She was just trying to play it cool, I bet.  It takes Lee a little bit to come out of her shell.”

Glocktopus tapped Harley on the elbow and formed a question mark with one tentacle and a curled shape with the other.

“No, Lee is not a snail,” Harley said.  “Why would I be hanging out with a snail?”

Glocktopus pointed to himself with all eight tentacles.

“Okay, fair point,” Harley admitted.  “But you’re an exception, not the rule.  Most of my friends are human.”

It took a while for Vell to realize that Harley had said “most”.

◆◆◆

“I appreciate the invite to movie night, Vell, but you’re being a bit weird about it,” Joan said.

“It’ll be a lot easier if I just show you,” Vell insisted.

After he’d spent an entire class period spent checking the door for an incoming Glocktopus, Joan had become mildly concerned for Vell’s well being.  Lacking any possible explanation for his current situation, Vell had elected to invite Joan to movie night.  Harley and Glocktopus could explain themselves.

Vell opened the door to his room and gestured to the octopus sitting on his couch.  Joan stood in place and stared.

“Vell?”

“There is an octopus in my dorm, yes,” Vell said.  “Ask Harley.”

“Harley?”

“Hey Joan,” Harley said.  “This is Glocktopus.  Glocktopus, this is Joan.  She’s Vell’s friend.”

Glocktopus waved a tentacle in her direction and returned to eating shrimp out of a bowl next to his bowl.  Botley didn’t like hand-feeding him, and Harley didn’t want to be touching raw shrimp all night, so they had just given him the bowl.  Seeing as they’d passed the time Glocktopus had gone on his rampage on the first loop, Harley figured he was cool.

“Why is the octopus here?”

“Well I was going to let him go a couple hours ago but apparently he won’t leave until he gets to watch The Royal Tenenbaums.”

Glocktopus gesticulated with his tentacles for a moment, in a gesture Harley apparently understood.

“Look, man, if you’re going to hold out for a specific Wes Anderson flick, at least pick one with Bill Murray in it!”

Glocktopus flailed again.

“I was not being offensive when I suggested The Life Aquatic.  It’s a good movie whether you’re from the ocean or not!”

Joan considered interjecting with her personal recommendation before remembering she was about to talk to an octopus.  She looked to Vell for any sort of clarity.  He shrugged, so she looked to his roommates.

“You guys are cool with this?”

“Admittedly when Vell said he wanted to invite some other people, I assumed he meant the literal definition of people,” Luke said, with a glance at Glocktopus.  “But the octopus is surprisingly chill.”

“Assuming Harley is translating his jokes right,” Cane said.

“Look, I have to take some creative license sometimes, octopus puns are hard,” Harley said.  Glocktopus waved a tentacle, and Harley shook her head.  Vell wondered what that was about, then decided he was better off not knowing.  He turned back to Joan.

“If you’re still willing to stick around, Renard’s almost done making dinner.”

“No calamari, I presume,” Joan said.

“That’s squid,” Renard shouted from the kitchen.  “Glocktopus, would you be offended if I served you squid?”

Glocktopus gesticulated at Harley, and then Harley passed on the message to Renard.

“He says no,” Harley shouted.

“Okay cool,” Renard said.  “I’m not making squid, but I was curious.”

“Well now he’s disappointed,” Harley said.

Joan nodded.  She wasn’t sure if an octopus eating a squid counted as cannibalism or not, but it was just close enough to make her uncomfortable.  While Joan seriously considered whether a Wes Anderson marathon was worth putting up with an intelligent octopus, Lee arrived.  She grabbed the sides of her skirt as if she were about to curtsy before apparently thinking better of it and waving like a normal person.

“Hello everyone,” she said.  “Hello, Mr. Octopus.”

“He prefers to be called Glocktopus,” Harley said.

“Right.  Hello Joan, pleasure to see you join us this evening,” Lee said.

“Likewise,” Joan said.  “Is this normal for you?”

“Relatively speaking, yes,” Lee said.  “And you’d be surprised what I can put up with to watch an Anderson film.  I am quite enchanted by his cinematography.”

“Fair point,” Joan admitted.  She’d put up with some strange stuff to watch Bill Murray get up to shenanigans.  She took a seat on the far side of the couch from the octopus and settled in for an interesting evening.

◆◆◆

In spite of the fact that they had an octopus for company, the most shocking part of the evening had ended up being Renard’s ability to make a flawless coq au vin in a dorm room kitchen.  Vell wasn’t entirely sure what coq au vin was, but Renard had managed to make it, and make it in large amounts.  In spite of having three more guests than anticipated (technically four, but Glocktopus had been content with his shrimp), there had been enough for everyone to eat themselves into a coma.  Joan was currently leaning on Vell’s right shoulder as she slept -an arrangement Vell would’ve liked a lot more if Cane weren’t snoring on his left shoulder.

With Vell trapped and Harley likewise sound asleep, Lee took it upon herself to complete today’s “mission”.  Glocktopus, who had gorged himself on shrimp, was napping in his bowl until Lee grabbed it and picked him up, holding the large bowl at eye level.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Glocktopus, but I do believe we owe you a return to the ocean,” Lee said.  The groggy octopus waved a tentacle dismissively.  Lee stepped away from the sleeping crowd to continue their conversation.

“I don’t mean to seem inhospitable.  You’re welcome to visit whenever you like, of course,” Lee said.  “We’re on an island, after all.  You needn’t go far.”

Glocktopus swished back and forth in his bowl indecisively.

“My concern for the moment is that you’re going to de-oxygenate the water in your bowl,” Lee said.  “I’ll take you to the beach for a refresher and you can think it over.”

Glocktopus nodded.  Lee bid a good night to the trapped Vell and carried Glocktopus out of the dorms, to the shore.  A sandy beach encircled the entire island, and while it was a popular destination for the young students on a Friday night, Lee managed to find an isolated stretch of sand.  She sat Glocktopus’s bowl down on the beach, near the water, and sat in the sand next to him.  As an afterthought, she removed her shoes to feel the waves lap against her toes.  Glocktopus crawled out of his bowl and let the fresh saltwater wash over his rubbery skin. 

“It’s been an interesting day for you, hasn’t it?”

A cheer rose up from some late-night beachgoers further along the shore.  Glocktopus turned to stare at them while Lee kept her eyes on the waves.  This morning, the octopus had considered humans worthy of wholesale extermination.  Now he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the humans he’d met.  In spite of his newfound fondness for at least a few humans, Glocktopus felt the endless expanse of the ocean beckoning him.  A life in a bowl surrounded by friends was still a life in a bowl.

“I can’t blame you for being mad at humans, I suppose,” Lee said.  “If I’d lived my whole life in the marine biology department, I’d think the human race needed to be wiped out too.”

A large wave rose up, and Lee drew back a little.  She loved the ocean, but she didn’t love a damp skirt.   The octopus stayed in place in spite of the wave.  The wave crashed against his watery hide, and as he felt it recede, the ocean pulled at him both literally and figuratively.

“Your whole life lived in a cage, with only two terrible people to look out on,” Lee sighed.  “I know how you feel.”

Glocktopus turned back to look at Lee.  He had not mastered the intricacies of human expression, but his time with Harley, and his exposure to the extensive filmography of Wes Anderson, had taught him enough to know sadness when he saw it.  Lee noticed his scrutinizing glare and offered a smile.

“It’s a good thing we met Harley, isn’t it?”

A large waved surged towards the beach.  Lee backed up further, while Glocktopus stood his ground.  He watched the wave come, and just before it crashed against the shore, Glocktopus turned to Lee and curled one of his tentacles into the shape of a thumbs-up.

Then the wave crashed against the shore, and when it receded, Glocktopus was gone.

◆◆◆

“All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes,” Lee said.  The tale of Glocktopus had reached its end, and now the loopers sat around a breakfast table once again, preparing for a new apocalypse.

“You know, I know he murdered most of us in an alternate timeline, but I kind of liked Glocktopus,” Harley said.

“That makes one of us,” Vell said.  In spite of the many times he’d died, getting shot was still a bit of a hangup.  It would take more than a single Wes Anderson marathon to make Vell forgive someone who’d murdered him.  It would take at least a few classic Disney movies for that.  Maybe Dreamworks if he was in a forgiving mood.  Right now he was just in a curious mood.

“You know what I really wonder, though?”

“What’s that?”

“Where did Glocktopus get that gun, anyway?”

Harley froze mid-pancake and stared forward for a second.

“Shit!”

She slammed her fork down on the table.

“We have to find Glocktopus, I need to know!”

Harley stood and walked away, heading for the nearest beach.  Vell watched her storm off and turned to Lee.

“What’s she going to do, wade into the ocean and hope for the best?”

“For starters, probably,” Lee said with a smile.  “I’ll help her out, don’t worry.”

“You really want to help her find out how an octopus got a gun?”

“Harley’s been a good friend,” Lee said with a smile.  “The least I can do is help her reverse engineer an octopus’s weapon now and then.”

With a brief curtsy to Vell, Lee sped off, chasing after Harley.

Chapter 5: The Eyes of Marsh

“So, we’re almost a month in now,” Joan said.  “How do you feel about school so far?”

Vell considered the question.  Over the past few weeks he’d been stung to death by killer wasps, had his soul ripped out, been poisoned by a genetically modified pineapple, and had his bones turned to jelly by an overcharged acoustic amplifier.  He had also watched Joan die exactly eleven times, but for both their sakes he tried not to think about that.

“It was pretty interesting,” he understated.  “I’m looking forward to a day off, though.”

According to Lee, the apocalypse only ever happened when classes were in session, and the Einstein-Odinson College had no classes on the last weekend of every month.  It was Friday of the last week of the month, so starting tomorrow Vell would have two days off.  He didn’t know if he’d be able to relax more, or less. Since he wouldn’t get a redo of those two days, he would have to take it more seriously than he did the first loop of every other day.  But he also wouldn’t have to deal with preventing an apocalypse.  Vell liked the sound of that.

The Friday apocalypse was still in the making, and the sun was going down, so it had to be any minute now.  Vell hoped it would wait an hour.  His roommates were taking part in a ‘Shakespeare in the Quad’ production and Vell at least wanted to watch the whole play.  He’d had to turn down an offer to join in the fun, since stopping the apocalypse took up so much of his time already.  He wasn’t an actor either, but then, neither were any of his roommates.  They were, however, drunk, and that was the real entertainment.

The concept had excited Joan enough that she’d actually gotten involved in the production and planning.  Vell had come back to his dorm the past two nights to find Joan already there, talking over their plans with Renard, Luke, and Cane.  Apparently she liked theater.  Now she was all set up to enjoy the fruits of her labors -also, actual fruits.  She had brought snacks.

“You have any plans tomorrow?” Joan asked.

“A few,” Vell said.  “I’ve got some schoolwork to catch up on.”

“Let me know if you need a hand,” Joan said.  Their schedules had a surprising amount of overlap.  Vell’s curiosity about the mysterious rune that had brought him back to life had a lot in common with Joan’s interest in medicinal rune tech.

“How about you?” Vell asked.

“Oh nothing serious, so let me know if you want to get a late-night study session in,” Joan said.  She grabbed a handful of grapes she’d brought along and popped one into her mouth.  “Show starts soon, right?”

“Assuming the actors remember how to get here,” Vell said.  The drunkenness was a source of comedy, but also a lot of production errors.  Vell thought he saw the actors approaching, when he saw someone stumble and fall, but it was just Lee, tripping over someone’s feet as she walked up to Vell and Joan.

“Vell, Joan, good to see you,” Lee said, as she stepped up to Vell’s side.  She gestured to the blanket.  “May I?”

Vell scooted over, closer to Joan, and gestured towards the empty space on the blanket.  Joan’s red eyes narrowed at Lee.

“Hi Lee,” Joan said.  “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I do enjoy both Shakespeare and drunken antics, so it seemed like an enjoyable experience,” Lee said.  “Good to see you again, Ms. Marsh.”

“Please, Lee, it’s Joan,” she said.  “And good to see you too.”

In spite of the interruption to her intended plans for the night, Joan did like Lee.  She didn’t want any more company, though.

“Is Harley going to be coming too?”

“Oh goodness no, she’s incorrigible as an audience member,” Lee said.  “Doesn’t pay attention, shouts at the actors, utterly intolerable.”

“Yeah, nobody likes an interruption,” Joan grumbled.  While she grumbled, Vell leaned over to Lee and whispered in her ear.

“We could’ve brought her to the first one at least, right?  Not like anyone’s going to remember her bad behavior.”

“It’s for my sake, dear,” Lee said.  “I’m probably going to be too busy stopping next loop’s doomsday to watch the show, so I’d at least like to see it once.”

“Makes sense,” Vell said.  He could only imagine what Lee had done to make sure Harley stayed away.  His mind briefly flitted to Harley tied up in her room, but that couldn’t be the case.  Harley would enjoy that too much.  He’d ask her on the second loop.  For now, Joan was giving Vell and Lee an odd look, and he didn’t want her to get suspicious of anything.  Joan crossed her arms and looked at the empty stage.  The actors were still absent.  Joan decided to fill the silence, and get Vell’s attention in the process.  She knew Vell was interested in rune-tech, so she knew one surefire way to get his eyes on her.

“Hey, Vell, have I told you about my eyes yet?”

“Uh, no.  They look good, though,” Vell said.  “What spell do you use to get them that color?”

“None,” Joan said.  “They’re actually red.  Though not technically naturally.”

“Huh.  Got some magic in your blood?”

“Nope.”  Joan said.  She reached a hand to her eye.  This little display occasionally chased off new friends, so she liked to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.  Vell seemed like the kind of guy who’d find it interesting rather than disgusting, but Joan wanted to be sure.  With a quick twist of her fingers, and a slight squishing noise, she removed her right eye from its socket and held it aloft in her hand.

“Oh,” Vell said.  The removable eye did interest him, once he’d gotten over the unpleasant squishing noise that came with removing it.

“Magitech prosthetic,” Joan said. 

“Neat,” Vell said.  “I assume the other eye is also, uh-”

“Yep, both,” Joan said, gesturing to the eye that was still in her head.  She turned her loose eye around and displayed the rune in the back.  The symbol for “sight” was carved into a small, inset stone at the rear of the prosthetic.

“Wow.  Can you see through it when it’s out of your head?”

“Yes, but it is a major headache, so if you don’t mind,” Joan said.  She popped the eyeball back into her socket, much to the relief of literally every other spectator on the quad that night.

“I’ve read about that stuff, but never really seen it in action,” Vell said. 

“I know all about it,” Joan said.  “I was born without eyes, so those prosthetics are the only way I’ve ever seen the world.  They’re part of what inspired me to pursue medical rune tech as a career.”

“That’s awesome,” Vell said.  “I got into rune tech in kind of-”

Vell stopped himself.  He’d nearly jumped into an explanation of his apparent resurrection.  He had dropped that info on Harley fairly early, but that was due in part to a perceived camaraderie from them being caught in time loops together, and also due to Harley’s demeanor being so disarming he’d dropped his guard.  He hadn’t told anyone else about his bisection and resurrection just yet, not even Lee and Leanne.  From time to time he considered using a first loop as a test run to see how people would react to it, but he always chickened out at the last second, just like he did now.

“Well, uh, actually, I’ll tell you later.”

“How about we get lunch tomorrow and talk it over?” Joan suggested.

“Sounds good.”

“Great!  It’s a-”

Lee pointed to the side, interrupting Joan mid-sentence.

“Ah, there they are!  The show’s about to start.”

The drunken actors stumbled onto stage to a mild smattering of applause from the small audience.  Joan let out a deep sigh, and a half-hearted clap.  This night was not off to a great start.  Hopefully the show would improve things.

◆◆◆

Luke held his hands aloft in an exaggerated gesture of contempt.

“Are we all ready? What’s going on that Caeser and the senate must address?”

He slurred his way through a botched line, but managed to keep the spirit intact.  The drunken company had stumbled through about half of Julius Caeser impressively well, considering they’d done more drinking than rehearsing.

“Oh, this is the part where they stab Caesar,” Joan whispered.

“Hey, spoilers,” Vell said.  “I was hoping this Caesar guy would get a happy ending.”

Joan gave Vell a scrutinizing look.  Vell managed to keep a straight face for a few seconds before he chuckled to himself, and Joan giggled in turn.  Lee shushed them both.  Joan rolled her red eyes and whispered to Vell slightly quieter this time.

“Fun fact, one of those daggers they’re about to whip out is an authentic roman relic,” Joan whispered.

“Who gave a bunch of drunk college students an ancient roman dagger?”

“I don’t know, ask Renard, he’s the one who brought it,” Joan whispered.  “Oh, here comes the stabbing bit.”

She held up a finger for silence as Luke stumbled into the hands of his ‘assassins’.

“Et tu, Brute? Then fall- ah fuck.”

Luke reeled back, but not in a stage fall.  He held his hand to his bare chest and it came away red.

“One of you fuckers actually stabbed me,” Luke protested.

A peal of thunder in the distance interrupted any further protests from Luke.  It was a cloudless evening, so thunder meant something was amiss.  The amiss-ness only increased as the blood on Luke’s  hand stopped dripping downwards and started dripping up, the droplets floating into the air and hovering around eye level.

“Hmm.  That can’t be good,” Vell said. 

The droplets of blood burst outwards, taking the shape of a towering man with a stern face, draped in a bloody toga.  His crimson visage scanned the crowd, and then the actors.  The sanguine form then appraised itself, and its brow furrowed in frustration as it began to speak in a language Vell didn’t understand.

“Oh, Latin,” Lee said.  All the classes her father had forced her to take were finally going to come in handy.  “Let’s see..by the blood upon the dagger that tasted my blood, by the mockery of my ignoble death...Caesar now crosses the Styx as once he crossed the Rubicon, to stand in judgment of those who make jest of his death...”

“Great, Caesar’s ghost,” Vell sighed.  Lee rubbed her chin and continued translating as the rest of the audience started to panic and run.  Joan clung to Vell’s arm, seeking shelter in his relative calm as chaos started to spread around them.

“Your idle mockery I must condemn, and thus I call to my most loyal legions to follow me in life as they did in death, and pass judgment upon...”

Lee’s translation faded out as dawning realization crossed her face.  She could hear the phantom march of an entire legion approaching.

“Uh oh.”

Soon the bloody ghost of Caesar was joined by a spectral legion of Roman soldiers, formed into a phalanx behind him.  Caesar raised his hand and gave the order to march.  Joan tried to scoot backwards and pull Vell along, but Vell didn’t budge.

“Vell, we should run, like, now,” Joan said.

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Vell said.  Given Caesar’s reputation, they’d probably be killed pretty quick and clean.  Better to get it over with now than die exhausted.  Lee had similarly resigned herself to her fate and was picking through Joan’s snacks before the legion reached their position.

“What is wrong with you?”  Joan demanded.  Vell leaned back, relaxed on the blanket, and closed his eyes.

“A few things, probably,” Vell said.  Joan stared at him dumbfounded for a second before turning to look at the rapidly approaching legion.

“God, why can I never just have a normal date?”

As one of the legionnaire's spears sailed towards his chest, Vell’s eyes snapped open.

“This was a date?”

◆◆◆

Vell woke up in his bed, notably absent a spear through his chest, and snapped up.  As had become a habit, he checked the group chat first.

HARL33:
yoooooo anybody else get stabbed by a ghost in a toga last night

Lee:
Decapitated in my case, but dead is dead.
Thankfully this will be a rather easy fix.
Vell and I saw everything.
Last night’s Shakespeare in the Quad took a rather lethal turn.

vharlan03:
i think one of my roommates has a dagger that was used to kill caesar
they used it as a prop in the play and i guess it brought caesars ghost back???

HARL33:
sweet
lets fuck up some theatre
im great at that

Lee:
While you are a disruptive audience member, this will require a slightly different approach.
Vell’s roommates were key to the play, after all.
He is uniquely positioned to work from within.
Do you mind taking point, Vell?
You can work with Joan!

vharlan03:
i can solo it just fine thanks
leave it to me

Vell put his phone aside and got ready to take on the day.  Lee was right, and he could probably find out how to prevent last night’s apocalypse easily.  What he did not agree on was her assertion that he work with Joan.  She had surely overheard Joan saying that last night had been an awful date and was trying to play around that fact.  He got out of the shower, rubbed away some shampoo that had stung his eyes, and got on his phone again, idly tabbing into his most recent chats while rubbing his eyes clear.

vharlan03:
hey lee
can you do me a favor
just like be cool about joan
especially around harley
she would roast me so hard about the date thing

Lee:
Vell.
Dear.

vharlan03:
yeah what

Lee:
This is the group chat.

HARL33:
>:3

Vell slammed his phone down and fell forward into bed.  He could hear his phone vibrating nonstop as new notifications poured in, and he buried his face in the pillow.  After about a minute of sustained buzzing, Vell let out a deep sigh and dared to look at his phone.

HARL33:
first of all
super cool that u got a date
do not let the fact I am about to put you on blast make you think i am not happy 4 u
BUT
u bag a girl as hot as joan
and u took her to see ur roommates do shakespeare
are u the least romantic person ALIVE vell
did u at least bring a flower
chocolate
tell me u didnt wear the hoody
that one blue hoody u like
it is not good date wear
vell???
u wore the hoody didnt u
vell!!!!

vharlan03:
i didnt know it was a date harley

HARL33:
oh nm all that lol
i should be putting you on blast for totally different things

vharlan03:
can you do it in person
renard has my phone charger

HARL33:
ok
wanna get lunch?
or would joan be jealous <3

vharlan03:
lunch is good
gotta sabotage my roommates play first though

HARL33:
oh sick lmk if you need anything
like botley
or a bomb

vharlan03:
will do

Vell put his phone away and started poking around the dorm.  Best case scenario, he could find the stash of prop daggers and “misplace” the ancient roman one without drawing any attention to himself.  He poked around the dorm, looking for everywhere one might put a set of knives.  They had a fairly small dorm, so it was a short, and unsuccessful, search.  He’d have to pursue a different route.

All his roommates were already heading towards their classes, but he knew they would come back to the dorm for a meeting with Joan some time after lunch.  They’d be discussing last minute plans for the play, making it easy for Vell to find info on the knives.  It would also, however, involve talking to Joan.

One apocalyptic time loop ago, that wouldn’t have been a problem.  In fact, it would’ve been a highlight.  Joan was probably his best friend on campus, with some possible competition from Harley.  He still wasn’t sure whether Harley actually liked him or if she acted like that around everyone.  She was a confusing individual.  Joan on the other hand was very straightforward; intelligent, funny, and very, very good looking.  But while she was simple, life was not.

Vell had to deal with the time loops, and the various apocalypses that were a part of that.  Joan did not and could not know about that.  His double life alone made a relationship difficult, and the nature of looped time made it potentially unethical as well.  Joan would forget a good portion of their interactions.  Vell would have chances to undo mistakes and learn in ways that Joan never would.  It felt unfair at best, and manipulative at worst. 

Vell scratched the scar around his waist.  That was a whole different set of problems.  It had certainly mucked up some of his past relationships.

After appraising the facts, Vell had determined that his situation fucking sucked.  Joan was really hot and Vell really liked her and all of this time travel and resurrection nonsense was making it very complicated in a way it didn’t have to be.  Now instead of going on a date, he had to sabotage his roommates drunken theater production to stop everyone from getting killed by the ghost of a Roman dictator.

Vell sighed and started getting ready for class.  It was going to be a long day.

◆◆◆

The lunch crowd had the dining hall packed to the brim, but finding Harley never took too long.  Somehow, even in a crowded room, Harley managed to be sitting alone.  She was practically vibrating with anticipation by the time Vell sat down.

“Hey, Harley, we’re going to have to make this kind of quick, I have to interrupt a lunch meeting about the play tonight,” Vell said.  Harley nodded.

“I’ll save my choicest banter for later,” Harley said.  “Let’s start with the obvious, though.”

Harley bopped Vell on the head with her knuckles.

“How dense are you that you didn’t realize it was a date?”

“I’ve known Joan for a month,” Vell said.  “It seems weird she’d want to move that fast.”

“I asked you to bang after I’d known you for like six hours,” Harley said.  “But a date after a month is too fast?”

“That’s different, you’re, uh, you,” Vell said.  Harley nodded in agreement.  “Joan seemed, more, well, normal.”

“Oh, the lady with prosthetic eyes is normal, yeah,” Harley scoffed.

“How do you know about that?”

“Please, Vell, she’s wearing Tiresias Series Eight’s,” Harley said.  “I could spot the corneal refraction from a mile off.”

The unearthly aptitude for technology Harley demonstrated on a regular basis unsettled Vell, but that was a matter for another time.  Vell shrugged, still failing to understand Joan’s very quick interest in him.

“I just don’t get why she’s into me, I guess,” Vell said.

“Listen, bud, I didn’t offer to jump your bones on a whim,” Harley said.  “I have actual standards, you know.  You’re tall, relatively handsome, and you’ve got a sort of awkward charm.  You’re attractive, yet approachable.  Chicks dig that.  Especially chicks who are in a new environment and don’t have a lot of friends.”

“Okay, now how do you know that?” Vell said accusingly.  Joan was from a small town in Germany, and felt out of her depth at the College.  Something Vell was pretty sure she’d only told him. 

“I talk to Joan too,” Harley said.  “People like to tell me things.  I think I have a trustworthy face.”

Vell couldn’t argue with that.

“Right,” Vell said.  He checked his phone for the time, and found he was cutting it close.  “I better get going if I’m going to stop Caesar.  Got to go meet my roommates.”

“I’m headed the same way for my next class, we can walk and talk,” Harley suggested.  Vell nodded.  He’d be glad of the company, at least.  Like Joan, he was still self-conscious about being in a new environment, and having a friend at your side always made it easier.  Harley followed behind him with a spring in her step as they headed towards the freshman dorms.

“Speaking of your roommates, is Luke single?”

“Yes, but he’s also gay,” Vell said.  “Cane’s asked about you, though.”

“Hmm.  I can work with that.  Thanks for the heads up.”

Vell sighed.  He didn’t know why he was playing along with this.

“How do you do it?  Get, uh, intimate with people who aren’t in on the time loops?”

“I make no promises and manage expectations,” Harley said.  “And I do all my seducing day-of.  When people get in bed with me they know they’re getting something short-lived but fun.”

“Right.  So you lean into it being something temporary.”

“Won’t really work for you and Joan, huh?  Well, there’s workarounds,” Harley said.  “If you’re really bothered by it, you can just ignore Joan the whole first loop.  Not like she’ll remember you giving her the cold shoulder, and then you can just let everything be normal on the second day.”

“I guess, but even that feels kind of manipulative,” Vell said.

“Well it’s one of the best options you’ve got,” Harley said.  “If you’re that worried about it, just reject her flat out.  Can’t have a toxic relationship if you’ve got no relationship at all.”

Vell sighed again.  He’d been doing a lot of that during this whole conversation.  Harley gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, you’re still getting used to all this,” she said.  “You’ll figure out how you cope with the time loops, and with other people, in enough time.  Everybody’s got their own way of handling it.  Maybe Joan will be a part of yours.”

Vell sighed again, and Harley restrained the urge to roll her eyes.  He hoped he could get some more advice.  He trusted Harley with a lot of things, but relationship advice was not one of them.  They had very different perspectives on intimacy.

“Has anyone in the group ever dated someone outside it?  Has Lee got anything about that in her big old binders?”

“Well, not that I know of, but this shit’s been going on since the school started way back in the 40’s, so just by law of large numbers somebody must have been getting it on with someone,” Harley said.  “I think Leanne might actually be dating somebody now, but obviously she doesn’t talk about that, least of all with me.”

“So you think there’d be something in the binders?”

“Fuck if I know, you think I read that shit?” Harley said, offended at the very implication that she would be up to speed on Lee’s meticulous record-keeping.

“Fair enough.”

“Ask Lee at showtime tonight,” Harley said.  “Assuming we don’t have to blow up the play to stop Caesar’s ghost.”

“I won’t assume that,” Vell said.  He recalled all too well that Harley had offered him a bomb, and he was at least eighty percent sure she hadn’t been joking.  “Assuming everything goes well, are you coming tonight?”

“Assuming everything goes well I’ll be coming on Monday, and so will Cane.”

Harley paused to snort with laughter at her own joke.  Vell waited patiently for the giggle to subside.

“No but seriously, probably not,” Harley said.  “Lee wants to go and she doesn’t like watching stuff with me.”

“How’d she convince you to stay away night one, anyway?”

“She fucking asked nicely, Vell, I got manners,” Harley said.  She looked up at the freshman dorms they were fast approaching.  “This is your stop, Vell.  Tell Cane I said hey.  With a wink.”

Harley winked at Vell for emphasis.

“I’m not going to wink at him,” Vell said.

“What kind of messenger boy are you?” Harley shouted, with genuine offense.  She turned her back on him and walked away, leaving Vell to face his roommates and his would-be girlfriend alone.

◆◆◆

Vell walked into his own dorm and slammed his bookbag down on the counter.  He stretched out a sore shoulder and walked into the common area.  His roommates were scattered around the room in various dramatic poses, following Joan’s directions.  Luke paused mid-death to wave at Vell.

“Hey Vell,” he said, before continuing his death spiral.  He collapsed onto a couch with dramatic aplomb.

“Hey guys,” Vell said.  He turned to Cane specifically.  “Harley says hey.”

Cane raised an eyebrow and looked up from his script.  Joan set hers on the table and sprang out of her seat, striding up to Vell.

“What’s up, Vell?” She asked.  There was a coy smile on her face that Vell had seen a lot, but now understood much better.  Between that smile and the glimmer in her red eyes, Vell felt really stupid for not realizing how she felt earlier.

“Well, I, uh, had a bit of free time today, and thought I’d offer a little help with the play,” Vell said.  “I know it’s a bit late for me to play in the, well, play, but I figure I could help with, you know, props or something.  Maybe the knives.”

“Well, we’ve got a handle on that, actually,” Joan said.

“I should hope so, it’d be hard to use a knife without a handle,” Renard said.  Luke and Cane shot him dirty looks.  Joan’s smile dropped off her face for a moment and then returned just as quickly.

“I’m sure we can find something for you to do,” Joan said.  “If you want to handle some props, I’ve got them in my room.”

Joan tilted her head down the hallway, towards her dorm.  Vell bit his tongue.

“Why don’t I stay here and, uh, run a rehearsal while you run and grab the props?”  Vell suggested.  “Got to make sure these guys know what they’re doing.”

Joan’s red eyes darted around the room as her face shifted between disappointment, confusion, and acceptance.

“Sure,” she said.  “Be right back.”

Joan gave Vell an odd look as she walked out of the room.  Vell watched her go, and then turned to see Luke and Cane giving him the same look.

“What?”

“Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Luke asked.  “That was hypothetical, I am going to spell it for you:  Joan wants you something fierce.”

“Vell, are you stupid, or just gay?” Cane asked.  “Because you know thanks to these two that I ain’t going to judge you for being either.”

Renard laughed at the joke for two seconds before realizing that Luke was the gay one, and that made him the stupid one.

“Hey!”

“You laughed, which means I’m right,” Cane said.  Renard struggled to think of a rebuttal.

“Look, I get it, Joan’s kind of in to me, I figured that out,” Vell said, conveniently failing to mention he hadn’t figured it out on his own.  “There’s just a lot going on right now, you know?”

“Yeah, I think we’re all in the same boat,” Renard said.  “Still struggling to find your way around, right?  Can’t get to class on time because you keep getting lost?”

“That’s just you, Renard,” Cane said.

“Wait, seriously?”

“One problem at a time, guys,” Luke said.  “The man is clearly struggling.  Answer me this, Vell: If things were simpler, would you date Joan?”

A million different factors flushed through Vell’s head at once.  He ignored them all and went with his kneejerk reaction.

“Yeah...I guess.”

“Well then, how can we make things simpler?”

Another million ideas rushed through Vell’s head.  He was starting to get a headache.  Vell shook his head clear and got back to reality.

“That is a very complicated question,” Vell said.

“Well, you come up with anything you let us know,” Cane said.  Vell started to think of a way they might be able to help, but his train of thought derailed when Joan returned.

“Okay, I got the knives,” she said.  “Careful, at least one of these is sharp!”

She lowered a box onto the common room table.  Vell focused on the knife problem, for the moment.  One of the knives in that box had killed Caesar, and Vell had to get it out of the way.  At least it couldn’t be too hard to identify a two-thousand year old dagger.  Vell took a look in the box.

“Guys?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do all of these knives look exactly the same?”

Joan’s box contained half a dozen completely identical knives.  Renard beamed proudly.

“Oh yeah!  I bought one dagger that was like this genuine roman thing and then I used one of those fancy matter printers in the lab to make exact duplicates.  Smart, right?”

“Smart how?” Luke said.

“Well it saved money,” Renard said.  “Do you have any idea how expensive five authentic roman daggers would be?”

“Renard, it costs like three hundred bucks to 3D print with metal filament,” Luke said.  “A prop knife is maybe ten bucks.”

“Huh,” Renard said.  “Well, this looks more authentic.”

Vell reached into his pocket and pulled out his scanning glasses.  A quick analysis of the various daggers showed that they were made of almost identical materials.  His glasses couldn’t analyze objects thoroughly enough to pick out the real dagger among the fakes.  Vell sighed and resisted the urge to glare at Renard.  He’d either have to guess or get rid of all of the daggers.  Both seemed like terrible ideas.

“Is everything alright, Vell?” Joan asked.

“It’s been a long day,” he sighed.  A long day twice-over, to be precise.

“Sounds rough,” Joan said.  “I appreciate you wanting to help, but why don’t you just relax?  We’ve got this handled, and you look like you could use a break.”

“If only,” Vell said.  He kept his focus on solving the ghost of Caesar, for now, and set his relationship issues aside.  His roommates had promised to help with that later.

Two of Vell’s brain cells rubbed together and provided a serendipitous spark of inspiration.

“You know, you’re right, Joan, I do need a break,” Vell said.  He pushed the box of knives away.  “Sorry I bothered you about the knives.”

“Alright, well, it’s no trouble, I’m glad you wanted to help,” Joan said.  “I’ll just leave these here for now, I guess.  You guys got all the booze you need, right?”

“All we need and more,” Cane said.  “I came prepared, thanks.”

Cane had been stocked up on alcohol before he’d even known about the drunken theater.  So had Renard, but he was a lightweight, so that didn’t take much.

“Then I guess I’ll see you at the show,” Joan said.

“You want to watch it with me?”  Vell asked.  She had been just about to ask him.  Vell figured he’d take the initiative this time around.

“Sure,” Joan said with a smile.  She made her plans, exactly the same as she’d made them on the first loop, and bid goodbye to Vell and his roommates as she headed back to class.  As the meeting adjourned, Vell called for attention.

“So, you guys are willing to help me out with her, right?”

“You look like a man with an idea,” Luke said.  Cane and Renard nodded.  “What do you need, Vell?”

“Firstly, I need you to not ask questions,” Vell said.  “And secondly, I need you to fuck up this play.”

Cane, Renard, and Luke nodded in perfect synchronicity.

“You have come to the right people,” Renard said.

◆◆◆

The second friday night went much the same as the first -with the slight difference that Lee was sitting at the back of the crowd this time.  Vell could tell Lee was watching him and Joan more than she was watching the play.  He figured he couldn’t blame her for being curious.  Other than her relocation, the conversation flowed about as it had the first time.

“Hey, Vell, have I told you about my eyes yet?”

“The prosthetics, right?”

Vell bit his tongue a second too late.

“Oh, yeah,” Joan said.  “I didn’t think I had...”

“Yeah, that was, uh, Harley, she told me,” Vell said, trying to take control of his nosedive.  “She’s got an eye for tech.  And uh, you’ve got tech for eyes.”

Joan giggled, and Vell felt he’d recovered nicely.

“You know some strange people, Vell,” Joan said.  “And yes, that includes me.”

“Birds of a feather, I guess,” Vell said.  He was technically a corpse, so he had no right to call anyone else strange.  “Oh look, here’s some strange people now.”

Right on queue, the actors were stumbling their way to the stage.  Luke caught Vell’s eye and gave him a knowing nod.  Apparently they all remembered the plan.  Vell nodded back and enjoyed the show.

It proceeded just as it had before, surprisingly coherently in spite of the actors obvious drunkenness.  They shambled and slurred their way through a half-decent rendition of Shakespeare while Vell waited for the other shoe to drop.  As the moment of truth approached, Vell could see Lee looking at him with increasing concern.  He wasn’t too sure what Luke and the others were going to do, but he had a feeling it would work out.

“Are we all ready? What’s going on that Caesar and the senate must address?”

Luke raised his hands, and the actors approached, slowly encircling him with their knives clutched behind their backs.

“Actually, there is something Caesar must address,” Luke shouted.  He lowered his hands before sweeping one across his forehead dramatically.  “I’ve decided to give up on ruling Rome, so that I can pursue my true passion!”

Luke reached into his robe and pulled out a small tray with several pastries on it. 

“Baking!”

The knife wielding actors paused, just as confused as the audience.  Vell was confused as well, but only because he had no idea how Luke had hidden a tray of pastries inside a toga for the entire play.  Cane, as Brutus, stepped up and put an arm around Luke’s shoulder.

“Boy am I glad you said that,” Cane said.  “Me and the lads were all set to stab you for all that tyranny you were doing.”

To demonstrate his point, Cane raised one of the mock Roman knives.  Luke looked at it with shock for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, I can’t blame you,” he said.  “I’ve really been putting the ‘dick’ in ‘dictator’ lately.”

“It’s all in the past now, buddy,” Cane said.  Luke nodded and held aloft his tray of mystery pastries.

“Eclair, Brute?”

As the show went further and further off the rails, Vell turned to Joan.  She looked equal parts confused and amused by the pastry-themed turn of events.  While the actors that weren’t Vell’s roommates stuck out the change in script admirably, they eventually walked away in confusion in the middle of Renard monologuing a donut recipe (in perfect iambic pentameter, somehow).  Seeing some of the actors give up soured Joan’s mood.

“Well, this is kinda funny,” Joan admitted.  “But it’s also kind of a week of hard work down the toilet.”

“I think the dining hall’s still open, if you want to get a nightcap,” Vell suggested.

“I think I’d rather go back to your room and see if there’s any vodka left,” Joan said.

“Okay.”

Vell’s acceptance actually caught her off guard.  He’d been turning down or ignoring obvious hints all week.  Vell stood up, extended a hand to Joan, and helped her to her feet.  They packed up their blanket and snacks and headed back to Vell’s room, with Joan looking mildly surprised the whole way.  Vell watched a purple butterfly drift past in the evening air, and let the beautiful sight clear his head as he prepared to talk.

“So, I know I have not exactly been great at this whole flirting thing,” Vell said.  Joan went a bit red in the face, in spite of her attempts to play it cool. “And frankly, my life is kind of weird in general, and I doubt it’s going to get any less weird any time soon.”

Joan put a hand to her chin thoughtfully.

“How weird?”

“Remember a while back when we had a movie marathon with an octopus?”

“Distinctly.”

“I feel like that’s going to be about the baseline.  Might get weirder.  Too early to tell,” Vell said.  “If you’re cool with that, I’d love to spend some time with you in between the random bullshit.”

“I feel like I can live with that,” Joan said.

Joan grabbed on to his arm and clung to it tightly as they headed back to the dorms.  Vell let out a deep sigh, just to clear his head.  Tomorrow would be a day off, at least.  He had a long school year ahead of him, and Caesar’s ghost was probably not going to be the strangest thing he saw all year.

He stopped thinking about that, for fear of jinxing himself, but it was far too late.  He was well and thoroughly jinxed.

Chapter 6: Sun of a Beach

Lee woke up at six-thirty AM on the dot, as always, prepared her breakfast, and sat back to enjoy the silence of the early morning.  A silence that would, hopefully, endure throughout the day.

With classes out of session for today and tomorrow, Lee could enjoy a brief reprieve from the apocalyptic cycle that defined her academic career.  She didn’t know why the daily doomsday skipped days when class was out of session, but she chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  She thought about studying for her classes, or perhaps doing some clerical work and organization for the loopers.  Vell could probably use a few more explanations of the time loop's mechanics as well, while she was at it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing notifications of her phone.  Lee grabbed it to find that the group chat had sprung to life.

vharlan03:
so
day off
i kinda don’t know what to do with myself

HARL33:
i know what i wanna do

Lee:
Oh dear.

HARL33:
BEACH PARTY!!!!

vharlan03:
idk if I want to hit the beach it seems like it’s gonna be really crowded

HARL33:
BEACH PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!

Lee:
Don’t mind her Vell
She’s just going to keep repeating Beach Party with more and more exclamation points until she gets what she wants.

HARL33:
BEACH PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vharlan03:
I see
I guess I could do the beach

HARL33:
BEACH PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lee:
You can stop that now dear, I believe we’re all on board.

HARL33:
BEACH PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sry it takes a long time to hold down the ! button
hell yeah
ill go clear us a spot
see u on the sand u sexy bitches

Lee set her phone aside and focused on preparing for her day in the sun.

◆◆◆

True to her word, Harley had cleared the group a sizable space on the beach, directly in front of the water.  Considering the crowd that occupied the rest of the shoreline, it seemed to be a miracle that Harley had claimed so much space.  Nobody bothered questioning how she’d managed to pull it off, as every square inch of sand turned out to be very much needed.  While Lee had come alone, bearing nothing but a chair and a towel, Vell had dragged along an entire gaggle. 

“Hey guys,” Vell said.  “I hope its okay that I brought, uh, everyone.”

He had been obligated to mention the day’s plans to Joan, who was now apparently his girlfriend, something Vell was still wrapping his head around.  That info had somehow spread outwards to his roommates, as well as Freddy Frizzle.

“Did I ever say this was a private beach party?” Harley asked, leaning heavily into the sarcasm.  “The more the merrier.”

The extra people were no problem for Harley, but the crowded beach did present at least one logistical problem.

“Where’s everybody sitting?” he asked.  He then gestured over to his shoulder to a cooler and a large metal contraption he was dragging behind him.  “I need a lot of room to set up this grill.”

“Where did you get a grill?” Luke asked.

“I packed it,” Renard said.

“Didn’t you say last week you only remembered to pack one pair of underwear?”

“Yeah.”

“But you packed an entire grill?”

“Yeah.”

Renard stared forward with the same contented smile as always.  Luke sighed.

“Alright man, just cook something delicious.”

“Always do,” Renard said.  “I hope everybody’s feeling Mediterranean, because I’ve got a recipe for Greek grilled chicken kebabs I’ve been dying to try.”

Vell and Harley exchanged a knowing look.  Renard had died for stranger things than a kebab recipe.  While he set up the grill, and managed to stay alive doing it, Vell took a moment to sit in the sand next to Harley.

“So, what are your big plans for the beach party?”

“Sit around and generally be the sexiest woman on the beach,” Harley said.  She would’ve said sexiest person, but Luke was here and even Harley knew she couldn’t compete with his level of handsome.  “Other than that, just relax.”

“Is that all?  I mean, uh, you seemed pretty excited about it on the phone.”

“I’m still excited,” Harley said.  “I look great in this one-piece, I might play some volleyball, I’m gonna eat some kickass kebabs provided Renard doesn’t blow up the grill-”

A very bright flash of red light boomed from somewhere behind Harley.  She took a moment to sigh.

“Did he-?”

“No, actually,” Vell said.  ‘There was a big fireball, but I think it was on purpose.  Like a hibachi grill sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Harley said.  “Cool.  Anyway, I like the beach, and most importantly…”

Harley pointed towards the far side of the group.  Lee was sitting in a lounge chair, with her feet up and her eyes locked on the waves, looking more relaxed than Vell had ever seen her.  With the sun shining down from above, the waves lapping at the shore in front of her, and surrounded on all sides by friends, Lee looked utterly content.

“That dumb bitch doesn’t know when to relax,” Harley said lovingly.  “So every now and then I make her.”

“I see.”

“Lee likes the ocean and I like wearing swimsuits,” Harley said.  “It works for both of us.  How’s it working for you?”

“Oh, I’m having fun.”

“Cool.  You want to go swimming?”

“Sure,” Vell said.  He looked up towards the rest of the group.  “Joan, Freddy!  Want to take a swim?”

“Uh, yes, okay, give me a minute,” Freddy stammered, as Joan nodded.  “I always have to psych myself up a bit.  The ocean freaks me out.  It’s so full of life and darkness and-”

Harley nodded understandingly at Freddy’s mild fear, then turned to Joan.

“Joan, help me throw Freddy in the ocean.”

“Okay.”

“Hold on, what-”

Lee’s relaxation was only briefly interrupted by the arcing sound of Freddy’s shout, followed by a small splash.

Chapter 7: The Floor is Lava

“Good morning, students of the Einstein-Odinson College of Paracausal Forces!”

Vell woke with a start, and nearly jumped out of bed.  The booming voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.  Vell had been trying to sleep in after spending a late night dealing with yesterday’s apocalypse (a powerful electromagnet had stopped the earth’s rotation), and this interruption was unwelcome.

“This is your principal speaking! I would say ‘be not afraid’, but that's an angelic phrase, and I am legally obligated to clarify that I am not an angel,” the principal's voice thundered. “Also, you should be afraid! Because today is our first campus-wide preparedness test!”

Vell’s equally startled roommates started to stumble out of their bedrooms.  They were all looking around as if they expected to find some speaker playing the audio.

“I’m sure a lot of you have heard stories about our faculty removing the stairs from time to time,” the principal’s voice boomed.  “Well, you’ll be happy to know that all the preparations you’ve made for such a situation are completely useless!”

Vell rolled his eyes.  The one time he might have had a little advance warning on some weird bullshit.

“In keeping with our policy that all students should be prepared for the chaotic and uncontrollable variables of paracausal sciences, we’ve instituted a new challenge this year!  As soon as you exit your dorm rooms, you’ll be participating in a campus-wide game of ‘The Floor is Lava’. Those of you who succeed in attending an entire day of class without touching the ground will earn a gold star!”

While Vell appreciated a challenge, a gold star didn’t seem like much of a reward.

“Those of you who fail will, well, nothing is going to happen, really, we can’t exactly punish you for not being prepared for this stuff, but those gold stars look real good on your college transcripts,” the principal boomed.  “We know for a fact that Roentgen offers jobs to anyone who ends their studies with ten or more gold stars!  So, there’s your motivation!  Have fun, kids!”

After waiting a while to make sure the booming voice wasn’t going to talk again, Vell crossed the dorm room towards the door.  He pried it open and took a look.  Sure enough, the floor in the hallway was covered by a layer of buzzing bright-red light.  Vell could easily guess that the glowing layer was what he had to avoid touching all day.  It even made the floor look like lava.  Vell resisted the urge to poke it.

“This seems like some real bullshit,” Cane said.

“Also, that layer is weirdly low,” Renard said.  “There’s some chick out there with platform shoes just walking to class like normal right now, I bet.”

“Who the hell owns platform shoes?”

“Who the hell makes college students play ‘The Floor is Lava’?” Renard protested.  “We’re in a weird place.”

“Good point,” Cane admitted.  Vell leaned out over the “lava” and peered down the hallway.  He could see doors opened up and down the hallway, as other students in the dorms appraised their situation.  Since the booming omniscient voice of the principle had woken everybody up already, Vell figured he didn’t have to avoid shouting.

“Hey Freddy!  Fred!”

A familiar fluff of red hair peeked out into the hallway -along with a completely unrelated blonde head.

“What do you want?” The blonde stranger, apparently a second Fred, demanded.

“Not you,” Vell said.  “Freddy Frizzle.”

The blonde stranger vanished from view again, giving Vell an unobstructed view of Freddy.

“Hi Vell!”

“Hey Freddy,” Vell said.  “Did you finish that, you know, gravity thingy we helped you fix?”

“Oh yeah, it’s great actually,” Freddy shouted back.  “I localized the anomaly into some anti-gravity packs, if you need them.  They should work great for this!”

“Sweet.  How many you got?”

“How many do you need?”

Vell paused a moment to text his fellow time-loopers to see if they needed an assist.  They all had their bases covered, meaning Vell only had to fend for himself and his roommates.  He informed Freddy, and the fluffy scientist soon floated into the hallway, drifting effortlessly through the air over the lava-coated floor thanks to a cumbersome-looking metal backpack.  He hauled four matching backpacks to Vell and his roommates and instructed them in their use.

“There’s a little knob on the right strap that’ll control your altitude,” Freddy said.  “And don’t worry, there’s an internal altitude regulator, so you don’t have to worry about drifting off into space.”

“I wasn’t worried before, but now I am,” Luke said.  “Didn’t Vell have to fix your anti-gravity device in the first place?  How do we know these things will work?”

“Oh, that was a one time thing,” Vell insisted.  “These’ll work fine.  Freddy’s a smart guy.”

Vell could say that confidently, because this was the first loop and no one would remember if he was wrong.  He started experimenting with the altitude controls, bobbing up and down in midair as he turned a knob back and forth.

“Now, I know it’s a lot of fun, but don’t mess with it too much,” Freddy warned.  “These things only have enough charge for an hour or two, give or take a few minutes depending on your body weight.  Should be enough to get you to all your classes, but I’d still go in a straight line whenever possible.”

Next came the bouncing lessons.  The anti-gravity packs had lift, but no propulsion, so to get anywhere they had to bounce off the walls and drift towards their destination.  Freddy nodded approvingly at their quick understanding of the controls.

“Vell, you seem to have a good handle on this,” Freddy said.  “You mind taking one to Joan and telling her how it works?”

“Oh, uh, sure, I guess,” Vell said.  “You sure you don’t want to deliver it yourself?  You can probably explain how it works better than I can.”

“Well, I would, but, I, uh, the thing is-”

“Are you scared of Joan?” Cane said.

“A little bit,” Freddy squeaked.  “No offense to Joan.  She is slightly more intimidating than most women, and I am….already scared of most women.”

“We got to get you a date, man,” Cane said.  Freddy seemed unnerved by the very concept.  For the time being, Vell took the anti-gravity backpack and headed for Joan’s dorm.  She was pleasantly surprised to see Vell at her door -and sincerely surprised to see him floating in midair.

“Hey Joan,” Vell said.  “Freddy made some floating backpacks and was wondering if you needed one.”

“It’d be a big help, yeah,” Joan said.  She invited Vell into her dorm, which, much like her wardrobe, was colored mostly in shades of red, black, and white.  Vell questioned how she had customized the whole room to her liking without any conflict with her roommates.  He was more preoccupied giving Joan her lessons in using the backpack -and eventually, wondering why her dorm was so empty.

“Did your roommates already plan something for the lava and leave you here?”

“Haven’t got any roommates,” Joan said as she bobbed around the room.  Vell took a curious look around.  All incoming freshmen were assigned with roommates.  Only students in their later years got dorm rooms to themselves.

“This is a four person room, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah,” Joan said.  “I used to have some roomies, but they all transferred out to be with friends or be closer to the ground floor or stuff like that.”

“Lucky you,” Vell said.  Joan drifted back towards him, coming to a halt just inches away from his face.  She had a coy glimmer in her red eyes.

“It’ll be great for when we want some...privacy,” she whispered.  She took hold of Vell’s shoulder, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then pushed him hard to the right to force Vell to turn around.  “But right now I need to get to my butt to class, so get your butt out of my room.”

Vell moved his butt, and the rest of his body, towards the door.  He flipped his backpack on just before stepping out and drifted into the hallway.  Joan drifted out right after him and waved goodbye before bounding down the hall.  Vell’s roommates, and Freddy, were waiting for him, and as soon as they regrouped the bounced themselves down the halls and towards the door together.  Students who weren’t prepared to defy gravity watched from their open dorm doors with envy as Vell and company drifted past.  Cane led the way out of the dorms and they all stopped just outside the door, anchoring themselves to several picnic tables on the lawn.

“Alright, we got to make a plan,” Cane said.  He examined their surroundings, scoping out every tree and flat surface that could be used as a springboard to launch them on their way.  Cane closed one eye and held out his fingers to try and frame a course.  Luke, meanwhile, pulled out his phone and pulled up a satellite map of the campus.  With an aerial view he could accurately plan a long term journey for everyone.

“I think this should be pretty easy,” Luke said.  “I can make a plan to get around.  Let me just make some notes for you guys...”

Luke pulled out a piece of paper and started scrawling some notes, occasionally consulting Freddy for some technical specifications on the anti-grav backpacks.  While Luke put his physics experience to work, a wave of water crashed around a nearby corner, bearing Lee along with it.  Directing the wave with hydrokinetic magic, Lee surfed right up to the table and froze her wave in place to stand next to them.

“Good morning Vell.  Everyone,” Lee said with a nod.  Vell nodded, and then everyone nodded.  Luke looked up and stuck the end of his pencil in his mouth.

“Ooh, hydrokinesis,” he said.  “Handy.  What’s your schedule?  Cane could use a spare platform or two when crossing the quad, and an ice wall would be perfect for that.”

“I’ll do just fine, thanks,” Cane said defensively.

“Sadly I won’t be much help,” Lee said.  “My schedule is rather full, after all.  I have to keep an eye out for something.”

Lee liked to keep an eye out for potential disasters on the first loop, when possible, and today the likely culprit was very easy to identify.  With a grid of laser sensors crisscrossing the entire campus, it was easy to guess what would go wrong today.  The only question was where and when.

While Luke plotted a course, his phone slowly slid out of place and then dropped to the floor.  Luke tried to catch it and failed, and the phone slipped through the laser grid, bounced twice, and landed in the grass near Renard.

“I got you, bud,” Renard said.  He reached down to grab the phone.  Luke grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Renard, don’t, you’ll lose the gold-”

Heedless to Luke’s words, Renard continued reaching out.  The second his fingers crossed the red grid, he vanished, leaving behind a cloud of ash and empty clothing.

“-star.”

While the gathered group looked on in horror, Vell and Lee looked to each other with a sigh.  The floor really was lava.

◆◆◆

Vell and Lee sat together on the picnic table’s bench while their friends huddled atop the table, trying to get as far from the “lava” on the floor as possible.  As they panicked about what to do next, Lee plucked a strand of long black hair from her head and dropped it downwards.  As she expected, it vanished the second the end of the strand hit the grid.

“Hmm.  Apparently the grid that was meant to detect organic matter has now switched to destroying organic matter,” Lee observed. 

“So Renard got disintegrated, then,” Vell said.  It was unfortunately unsurprising.  Renard had gotten himself killed in a similar ignominious fashion during several apocalypses.

“Okay, this is fucked, but we’re okay, right?” Cane pleaded.  “We can just stay right here until somebody fixes this, we’ll be fine.  We’ve got Freddy’s backpacks and everything, we’ll be okay?”

“We can’t just stand around here,” Luke protested.  “How many other people are going to try and touch the field just like Renard?  There could be dozens of people dead already, and who knows how many more on the way.”

“And what the fuck are we going to do about it, Luke?” Cane protested.  “I don’t see an off switch.”

“Principal’s office,” Lee said.  The group turned to look at her, and she pointed over her shoulder, towards the faculty building all the way across campus.  “These school challenge events are usually connected to a master control in the principal’s office.  We can likely disable the ‘lava’ there.”

“We have a principal?” Vell asked.  “Don’t colleges usually have like, a dean or something?”

“Colleges usually also don’t have laser grids that disintegrate their students,” Luke said.  He pointed towards the faculty building.  “Eyes on the prize, Vell.”

All heads turned away from Lee and towards the faculty building.  It was, predictably, a significant distance away.  Nothing was ever that easy.  Lee appraised the distance herself.

“I seem to have the most convenient method of conveyance, so I’ll head that way,” Lee said.

“Whoa, hold on, alone?”  Luke asked.  “What if something happens?”

“I was planning to bring Vell,” Lee said.  “I can drag him behind me like a child with a balloon.”

Lee seemed amused by the idea, while everyone other than Vell seemed horrified by her levity.  They unfortunately could not understand that Renard’s death was temporary.

“I’m going too,” Luke said.  “This could be dangerous.  You’ll need all the bodies you can get.”

“Please don’t say ‘bodies’ in this context,” Freddy whimpered.  “But I’m going as well.  The gravity packs are my work, and I need to be there in the event of any malfunctions or damage.  Nobody’s going to get hurt because of a glitch while I can help it.”

“Man you said these were safe,” Cane snapped.

“They are safe under normal circumstances,” Freddy shrieked back.  “In the event that something goes wrong the failsafes will lower slowly you to the ground, which is perfectly safe when the ground won’t disintegrate you!”

Freddy waved in the direction of Renard’s ashen clothes for emphasis.  Cane held up his hands.

“Alright, makes sense, my bad,” Cane said.  Luke grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him slightly.

“We just need to keep calm and make sure at least one of us gets to the principal’s office,” Luke said.  He held up the sheet of paper he’d been drawing on earlier.  “I’ve still got all the calculations I did earlier, so I can hopefully get us to the faculty building as fast as possible.”

Cane looked around at the group and shrugged.

“Well I ain’t going to sit around with just Renard’s dust for company,” Cane said.  “I’m coming too.”

“Dude.  Respect for the dead,” Luke said.

“Yeah, respect, Renard, thanks for all the food, but right now my priority is making sure my ass ain’t getting dusted next,” Cane said. 

“We’d better hurry,” Lee suggested.  She unfroze the pillar of ice and stepped atop her magic wave.  “Things will start to get...interesting, soon.”

“I don’t like that dramatic pause,” Freddy said.

“Yeah, and how the hell are you talking like you know so much about this?” Cane demanded.

“That is a very good question, Cane, very good,” Vell said.  He wanted to move the conversation away from their time loop awareness.  “But, uh, you know what else is a good question?  How many people got disintegrated while we stood around asking good questions?”

Cane ran the numbers in his head for a second.  The answer was at least “one”, which by Cane’s calculus was too many

“The man has a point,” Cane said.  “We’d best get moving.  Luke, where are we bouncing first?”

“We should hop between trees until we get to the Senior dorm building, after that it’s mostly a straight shot across the technical labs until you get to the lecture halls,” Luke said.  “Lee, you lead the way.”

With a flick of her wrist, the water beneath Lee swept away from the table and carried her away on the rolling wave.  She stopped by the nearest tree to beckon to the group.  As was to be expected, most were hesitant to follow her.  Vell decided to break the ice.  He braced his feet against the edge of the picnic table and kicked off, launching himself through the air.

Compared to the idle drifting around the dorms earlier, the weightlessness had lost a lot of charm.  Vell couldn’t help but look at the “lava” beneath him.  The expanse of red light painted everything above it in subtle crimson hues.  At least disintegration was a fairly painless way to die, Vell reminded himself.  For somebody who had died as many times and as many different ways as Vell, it was all about looking on the bright side.

Having successfully drifted to the tree, Vell looked back at his friends and beckoned them over.

“This is rather more company than I was expecting to have,” Lee said.  “But your roommates seem nice.”

“Speaking of company, where’s Harley?”

“I tried messaging her, but I’ve had no response,” Lee said.  “She may have stumbled and been disintegrated already.  It’s rare for an apocalypse to occur so early.”

There had been only about twenty minutes or so between Lee waking up and the “lava” grid getting activated.  That gave them a very narrow margin to prevent the apocalypse on the second loop.  Lee wanted all the help she could get on this one.

“I hope not,” Vell said.  “She’s kind of the tech expert.”

“We’ve got Freddy in the meantime,” Lee said.  “He’s as smart as he is fluffy.”

Freddy was currently drifting through the air between them and the tree, his mane of curled red hair billowing in the breeze.  Vell nodded.  They seemed to have a very good chance of getting to the principals office and finding out what had gone wrong.  It seemed that way, at least.  With the right combination of magic and science, you could get around most of the laws of physics, but there was no getting around Murphy’s Law.

“Besides, all we need to do is find out what went wrong,” Lee said.  “We can tell Harley how to fix it tomorrow.”

After finishing that sentence, Lee held a finger to her mouth in the universal gesture for “shush”.  Freddy was getting closer now, and even on a day he’d forget, Lee didn’t want to spread the secret of the time loops.  Awareness of the time loops could make Butterfly Effect Psychosis set in fast, and she wanted their makeshift team focused on the matter at hand.  There would be enough distractions very soon.  By her estimations, they had about an hour before things got...interesting.

Lee didn’t know why she was doing the dramatic pause in her own thoughts.  She didn’t dwell on it for long.

◆◆◆

Luke grabbed the corner of the dorm building and found a comfortable ledge to sit on.  He hadn’t expected weightlessness to be so tiring.

“You know, this campus seems a lot smaller when I’m walking between classes,” Luke said.  They’d been bouncing from tree to tree and wall to wall for more than an hour, but it felt like even longer.

“The threat of impending death really makes the time crawl,” Vell noted as he drifted by.  They still had a long way to go.  He wasn’t sure how long, exactly.  It seemed like the campus rearranged itself when he wasn’t looking sometimes.  Nothing was ever in exactly the same place twice.

“Luke, darling, I wouldn’t sit near the windows if I were you,” Lee advised.

“Why’s that?” Luke asked.

The window behind Luke snapped open.  He barely had time to look behind him and let out a surprised gasp before two sets of hand grabbed him and pulled him into the building, out of sight. 

“Luke?” Cane asked.

The only response they got was a makeshift spear embedding itself into the tree they were clinging to.  Vell pried it loose from the tree and took a look at it.  The spearhead was made from a broken fragment of metal and held in place by shredded wires.

“That’s why,” Lee said.

Cane jumped away from the dorm as the window’s began to open.  Dozens of students wielding makeshift weapons began to descend the walls, kept above the lava by means of cables and ropes.  While there were remnants of their old clothing visible, the students were mostly garbed in piecemeal armor made from broken fragments of technology.  Vell had very little time to contemplate their fashion choices before another spear got flung their way -and then another.  Lee grabbed Cane by the shoulder and moved him out of the way of three spears and a throwing knife, which all embedded themselves in the tree with a loud “thunk”.

“They’ve gone cultist,” Lee shouted.  “Move!”

Vell grabbed Freddy and launched off the nearest wall.  He had no real destination in mind, but ‘further away from the stabbing’ was good enough.  As they bounced away, more and more of the students appeared from the windows, clambering on the walls or swinging on ropes.  Far above, on the roof, an ornately garbed student held aloft a staff topped with the severed head of a robot.

“Kill them, my children!” the Senior demanded.  “Their technology is what turned our lands to fire!  Take them and crush their craven backpacks to appease the Old Ones!”

“I think I have Chem 102 with that guy,” Cane noted.

Vell landed on a way and hurled Cane to the next stop, before tossing Freddy and then launching himself.  Lee was bringing up the rear, occasionally diverting some of the water she rode to block a spear or arrow that got too close.  She did not seem bothered by the former classmates trying to impale her.

“It’s been like two hours,” Vell snapped.  “How are they already full Mad Max?”

“People at this school like to form doomsday cults, for some reason,” Lee said. 

Lee flicked her wrist, and a wall of ice prevented a spear from piercing her heart.  She thawed the ice and returned it to her wave before surfing to Vell’s side.

“Grab on, we need to make some distance,” Lee said.  Vell latched on to Lee’s shoulders and allowed himself to be pulled through the air as they caught up with the rest of the group.  He looked back to see that the tech-rejecting cult had strapped on stilts and were stumbling after them.

“This seems insane even by the usual standard,” Vell said.  Lee nodded.

“The cultists are admittedly a bit of an outlier,” Lee said.

“The outliers are catching up with us.”

Hydrokinetic surfing, while an incredibly stylish way to get around, was only slightly faster than drifting from place to place with the anti-grav packs.  Vell watched nervously as one of the stilt-walking cultists got closer and closer to them.

“What is wrong with you?” Vell shouted.  He still found it hard to believe that someone had gone this crazy in only two hours. 

“Death to heathens,” the collegiate cultist screamed back.  Vell rolled his eyes in spite of his fear.  The lead cultist was getting too close for comfort, and there was a teeming horde of lunatics behind him.

“Lee, if you’ve got anything to make this wave of yours go faster,” Vell said.  Lee kept her focus on the road ahead, and did not answer Vell’s fearful query.  The cultist took a few more stilted strides towards Vell and raised their makeshift weapon.  As the bladed weapon raced downwards towards Vell’s heart, time seemed to stand still.

After seeming to freeze in place for a moment, the spear started to move -backwards.  The spear and the cultist carrying it both started to drag backwards and then fly through the air, along with every other cultist giving chase.  All but one.  As their fellow cultists flew backwards and somehow adhered themselves to the nearest wall, the masked cultist stepped up, nodded approvingly at the cultists stuck to the wall, and removed their mask.

“Hey guys,” Harley said. 

“Hello dear,” Lee said.

“Harley!”

“The one and only,” Harley said. 

“Why are you in the crazy cult?” Vell demanded.

“Well it really only went full Mad Max in the last fifteen minutes or so,” Harley said.  She looked over her shoulder at the dorm building and shook her head.  “Up until the murder starts doomsday cults are actually pretty fun.  Nihilism makes everybody either really boring or really horny.  I’ve gotten laid three times this morning.”

Harley held up three fingers before realizing nobody shared her enthusiasm about her sexual triumphs.  She scoffed at them and continued boasting anyway.

“Probably could have gotten to five if I hadn’t been busy putting electromagnets into everybody’s armor.”

She gestured to the cultists struggling to remove themselves from the wall, beaming proudly at her work.  Vell and Lee nodded understandingly while the rest of the group looked on with horror at the frozen cultists.  Harley noted their reactions -and their presence.

“So, running with a pretty heavy crew today, I see?”

“Used to be heavier,” Freddy said, looking towards the dorms where Luke had presumably met his end.

“We could always use one more,” Lee said.  Harley looked over the group, looked back at the dorm full of cultists, and then shrugged.

“Sure, why not,” Harley said.  Her lack of enthusiasm caught Vell off guard.  He leaned over to whisper in Lee’s ear.

“Should I be worried that she almost chose a cult over us?”

“Oh not at all, being in a doomsday cult is surprisingly fun,” Lee said.  The smile on her face unnerved Vell.  “You should try it sometime.  It’s quite liberating.”

Harley ditched the remnants of her cult gear, but kept the stilts, striding dramatically over the lava.  The group set out once more, eyes open for any further attacks, with Harley placing herself right in the middle of the crowd.

“Hey again Freddy,” Harley said.  She poked one of the anti-gravity backpacks curiously, making Cane bob in mid-air slightly.  “You work fast.  What are these, localized gravitational anomalies contained in a Kraid Tech projection field?”

“That is...exactly it,” Freddy said.  “How did you know?”

“Harley’s good with tech,” Lee said.  “It’s half the reason I keep her around.”

“And the other half is my great butt,” Harley said.  She leaned forward, somehow maintaining her balance on makeshift stilts all the while, into a pose that emphasized her rear.  Freddy deliberately looked away, red in the face, while Cane deliberately looked closer, and raised an eyebrow.

“I was going to say because I find you charming, but I do suppose a good butt is its own sort of charm,” Lee said.  After giggling at her own joke, Lee waved towards the principal’s office.  “Come along, everyone.  We still have a ways to go.”

◆◆◆

“Now, I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” Freddy said. 

“But you’re about to say some real alarming shit, aren’t you?” Cane snapped back.

“That is-, I, uh, when you, well, that is,” Freddy stammered.  He then deflated, defeated.  “Yes.”

“Get it over with man, not like this day can get any worse,” Cane said.

“Well, at our current rate of travel, and based on our present distance from the faculty building,” Freddy said.  “The batteries in these packs are not going to last long enough to make it.”

The group turned to look at Cane.  He shrugged.

“Yeah, no, I was expecting something like that,” Cane said.  “Like I said.  Can’t get any worse.”

“You’re very good at being pessimistic,” Harley noted.

“I’ve had a lifetime of practice,” Cane said.  “So us guys find some place to camp out while the ladies head forward.  Works for me.”

“I would prefer that Vell could accompany us the rest of the way,” Lee said.  She wanted all hands on deck when they reached the principal’s office.  Any number of things could’ve gone wrong, and they had a very narrow small amount of time in which to fix it.  Vell’s presence could mean the difference between success or failure.

“Why?”

“Well, he’s rather useful,” Lee said. 

“Hey Fuzzie, do these backpacks have replaceable batteries?”  Harley demanded.  He grabbed Vell by the backpack and dangled him in the air.

“Well, yes, but the variety of battery is, well, you can only power a backpack-”

“With a battery from another backpack, yeah, that sounds right,” Harley said.  “Alright, Freddy, Cane, hand them over.”

Vell was a little offended that both of them jealously grabbed on to their backpacks.  Harley chose to vocalize that offense on his behalf.

“What?  Vell’s good at fixing things.  Whole reason you have these backpacks in the first place is because Vell showed up and got your antigrav generator fixed, Freddy.”

“I mean, yeah, but also, I don’t want to die,” Freddy said.

“Camp out in a tree or something, you’ll be fine,” Harley said.

“I don’t mind camping in a tree, but if some more of your cultist buddies come running I want a way out, you know?”  Cane said.  “Why don’t all three of us just chill somewhere and let the ladies handle this, Vell?”

“Well, we could do that, I guess, but, uh-”

“Let me save you about fifteen ‘uh’s’, Vell,” Harley said.  She walked up to Freddy and Cane, dragged them both to the nearest tree branch, and whispered something in both their ears.  Vell watched from a distance as Freddy’s pale face shifted through every existent shade of red.

Harley finished talking, and in a second, Freddy and Cane removed the batteries from their packs and handed them over to Harley.  She thanked them, waved goodbye, and strode back over to Vell, handing him the two spare batteries before the trio continued on their way.

“Oh my, I wonder what on earth you promised them,” Lee said.  Her thick accent made it slightly harder to parse sarcasm, but Vell managed.

“Honestly I think I kind of overdid it,” Harley said.  “Freddy’s an easy sell, but Cane seems like he’s been around the block a few times, you know?  I think it’s just an act, because he started sweating about halfway through.”

“Luckily they will not remember any of the surely outlandish sexual promises you made,” Lee said.

“Eh, I’ve been hoping to try some of that stuff out,” Harley said.  “Maybe some other time.  Slightly related question, Vell, how do you feel about cherries?”

“I’m not answering that,” Vell said.

“I said it was only slightly related,” Harley said.  “I got thinking about cherries and now I really want some cherries, but the commissary only sells those half-pound containers, and I don’t want that many cherries.  Do you want to split a box with me?”

“Sure, I guess,” Vell said.  He did like cherries.  He, did, however, have the sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t be able to eat them without thinking of Harley and a few tactically placed cherries.

“Sweet,” Harley said.  Vell tried to banish any impure cherry-related thoughts from his head, for monogamy’s sake, and focus on getting to the principal’s office. 

◆◆◆

In spite of the fact that he was moving nearly effortlessly, Vell still felt exhausted by the time they reached the faculty building steps.  The marble steps leading up to the broad doors were removed from the “lava”, so Vell lowered himself to the ground and shut off his backpack for the first time all day.  It felt good to finally have solid ground beneath his feet again.  Vell sat down and rested on the sturdy stones, looking at the lake of laser lava spread out in front of him.  Lee and Harley found their way to the steps and sat down beside him.

“That was a mess,” Harley said.

“We should all take a moment to relax,” Lee suggested.  “We’ll have to hurry to prevent this on the next loop.  We should catch our breaths while we can.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Vell said.

He looked up at the sky.  Overhead, a bright white sea bird, mostly undisturbed by today’s catastrophe, soared past.  He wondered how many people in the college had found a way to stay alive (and sane) during the day’s events.  He rarely had any time to consider the long term, since the daily apocalypses were usually sudden, violent affairs.  A slow burn like this was new to Vell.

“So this Mad Max stuff happens often, huh?”

“Oh yes, survivors always band together, and dire circumstances create instabilities, so on and so forth, and then we get the doomsday cults,” Lee said.  “It’s understandable, given the circumstances we often find ourselves in.”

“Lee was a god-queen once,” Harley said. 

“And Harley my loyal high priestess,” Lee said with a wistful smile.

“Fuck that was a fun day,” Harley said.  “I hope those agricultural guys try to invent bigger corn again.”

“How did you get cults out of big corn?”

“Competition over who has the biggest corn, naturally,” Lee said.  “My rival city-state eventually created an ear of corn so large the sheer mass cracked the Earth’s crust and broke the planet.  A regrettable end to an otherwise lovely afternoon.”

“We got to get Vell into the next cult,” Harley said.  “I think you’d dig it.  We could probably swing you a pretty high rank.  You’re pretty tall, and tall people usually end up the authority in cults.”

“You will make a lovely cultist one day, Vell, I’m sure of it,” Lee said.  “For now, I think it’s about time we put a stop to this.”

“Yeah, I’d like to be able to walk places again,” Vell said.  He stood, stretched his legs, and hopped up a few steps towards the door.  Behind him, Harley stood and helped Lee to her feet.  Feet she had a tendency to trip over.

Choosing the most unfortunate possible time to fall victim to her own clumsiness, Lee’s foot slipped over the edge of the stairs.  She plummeted backwards, dragging Harley, still holding tight to her wrist, with her.  The two women had time to let out one short “whoops” before they hit the lava.  Vell was halfway to catching them when they made impact.

He froze in place, staring at the ash, and stayed there for a minute.  Then he let out a sigh.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Vell said.  “Yeah.  See you next loop, guys.”

He threw a half-hearted salute in the direction of the two ash piles and headed into the building.

The faculty building was, predictably, empty.  All of the usual staff had either been disintegrated or fled by this time.  That did not paint a flattering picture of Einstein-Odinson faculty, to Vell.  Then again, the students were forming murder cults and Vell had just shrugged at the deaths of his two best friends, so nobody really came out clean in this situation.

Vell hopped behind the reception desk, finding, to his great disappointment, that somebody had already completely emptied the bowl of hard candy that was ubiquitous to every reception area.  Dissatisfied, Vell focused on his mission and scanned the directory.  The principal’s office was on the very top of the building, overlooking the entire campus.  Vell headed up the stairs and hoped the door wasn’t locked.  He hadn’t come this far to be thwarted by a simple door.

To Vell’s great surprise, not only was the door open, there was music playing.  Vell cautiously approached the door and peered in through the cracks.

An elderly black man with a thick grey beard had his feet propped up on the desk, nodding his head in time to the music.  He was currently digging through a stack of hard candy he had raided from the reception desk.  Vell felt slightly bitter about that.  He had a job to do and nothing to lose, though, so Vell stepped up and pushed the door open.

“Excuse me,” he said.

The old man looked up.  In spite of the gray in his beard, his dark skin didn’t have many wrinkles, or any other signs of age, making him look a bit like he was wearing a false beard.  The beard curled in on itself as the stranger smiled at Vell.  He turned off the blasting music and sat up straight.

“My man,” he said.  Vell recognized the same booming voice he’d heard this morning -the principal.  “What brings you here?”

Vell paused for a moment.  The principal was in a disturbingly good mood.

“I’m here about the lava, that’s uh, killing everybody,” Vell said.

“Sounds good,” the principal said.  He grabbed another hard candy and started unwrapping it.  After popping the candy into his mouth, he pointed to a tablet lying on a table in the corner of the room.  “Controls are all right there.  I left it unlocked.”

Vell looked at the tablet, back at the principal, and then back and forth again.

“You could’ve turned it off this whole time?”

“Yeah.”

Vell gestured to the tablet.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well, this is the first loop, isn’t it?”

Vell froze again.  It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with the words his ears were hearing.

“Uh, what?”

“Allow me to make a proper introduction,” the principal said.  He sat upright in his seat and straightened his tie.  “Isaac Goodwell, Einstein-Odinson College class of ‘73.  Astrophysics major, Chess Club member, and a looper.  Like yourself.”

“Vell Harlan,” Vell said, not knowing what else to say.

“I’m aware,” Isaac said.  “I was notified about you and your...special circumstances, upon your enrollment.”

Isaac’s eyes briefly flitted to Vell’s waist, at the circular scar hidden beneath his shirt, and the rune that was responsible for it all.

“I wonder if the rune has anything to do with you being a looper,” Isaac wondered aloud.

“That is...a good question,” Vell said.  “For later.  Right now, how do you know what’s going on?  They told me you aren’t supposed to remember the loops after you graduate.”

“Oh they’re right, I’m not going to remember any of this,” Isaac said.  “Just saw the bodies start dropping and I could figure it out.  I assume I’ve done something similar on all the previous loops.”

“Wait, wha- No!  What if you’d been wrong?”

“Well then a dozen disintegrated students isn’t going to get me any less fired than a hundred are,” Isaac said with a laugh.  “Might as well cut loose and enjoy myself either way.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yeah, probably a good thing I’m not going to remember doing this stuff,” Isaac said.  He smiled, then frowned.  “On the other hand, I’m not going to remember eating any of this candy, either.”

He put another piece into his mouth regardless.  Isaac seemed to forget about Vell for a few seconds as he focused on eating candy.  He was three pieces in when he remembered Vell was watching.

“Right, anyway, about the whole ‘stopping this’ thing,” Isaac said, regaining an air of professionalism.  “You’ll have to act quickly, but thankfully, we have technology.”

Isaac swallowed the last piece of candy and cleared his throat.

“You have the school chat app?”

Vell nodded.  All of his chats with Lee and Harley had been on the school’s app.  It was surprisingly well made, considering it was maintained by students.  At a gesture from Isaac, Vell took out his phone and opened the app.

“Good, there should be a little question mark icon, then there’s a list of helpful contacts, and my name should be somewhere in there,” Isaac said.  “There we go.  Now, first thing in the morning on the next loop, I need you to send me a message.”

◆◆◆

“Lijia Mian says: shut down today’s game.”

Vell didn’t even get out of bed before he sent the message.  The thunderous voice of Principal Goodwell carried on with his morning message.

“In keeping with our policy that all students should be prepared for the chaotic and uncontrollable variables of paracausal sciences, we’ve instituted a new challenge this year!  As soon as you exit your dorm rooms, you’ll- Hmm.  Hold on.”

The thunderous voice paused.  Vell held his breath.

“You’ll have to excuse me for the interruption, students, it seems we have a technical error with today’s intended game.  Rest assured there will be another readiness exercise at a later date.  For today, you may relax!”

Vell let out a deep sigh of relief.  In spite of Isaac’s assurances, he couldn’t believe it would be as easy as sending a message.  In a way, it wasn’t.  Vell had only just relaxed when he felt his phone buzz.  There was a message from Principal Goodwell.

“Come to my office.  Now.  Bring any other loopers.”

◆◆◆

Harley kicked up her heels.  It had been a long, awkward wait so far.

“Anybody ever get sent to the principal’s office as a kid?  I know this ain’t it, but it feels like it.”

“Never,” Lee said.  Harley rolled her eyes.

“You had a private tutor, Lee.”

“Yes, but I never misbehaved during lecture,” Lee said.  “It still counts.”

“I suppose so,” Harley said.  She’d been sent the office more than a few times herself.

The office was empty for the time being, as Principal Goodwell tended to other administrative duties.  That left Vell and the other loopers to wait in silence for his arrival, giving them plenty of time to dread the coming meeting.  Harley was right, the whole situation was very reminiscent of getting called to the principal’s office as a kid.  A situation Vell had been more than once.  His apparent death and resurrection during his childhood had made Vell a rambunctious kid, to say the least.  It had been a very confusing few years.

As the wait for Isaac continued, Vell pulled out his phone.  It felt odd to message a person who was sitting right next to him, but Leanne was more likely to respond to a chat message.

vharlan03:
so how did you handle yesterday
I never saw you

Galgamesh:
Oh I don’t really do that ‘challenge day’ BS
I just stepped outside and got disintegrated

vharlan03:
oh

Galgamesh:
You guys do anything fun?

Vell looked up from his phone, looked over at Lee and Harley, and then looked to Leanne and shrugged.

“Harley joined a cult,” Vell said.  “Seems like she was having fun.”

He deliberately omitted the fact that Lee had gotten herself and Harley killed with clumsiness.  Harley would no doubt tell the story someday, but Vell wasn’t going to be the one to spill those beans.  Lee seemed self-conscious about her clumsiness.  Leanne nodded at the mention of Harley joining a cult.  Leanne herself had been in more than one cult the past few years.  Her impressive physique made her an easy candidate for a warrior-queen.  It was a pretty cushy gig, all things considered.  There were worse places to be than at the top when doomsday cults were involved.

Interrupting Leanne’s introspective of her illustrious cult career, the office door slammed open.  Isaac Goodwell strolled in, hands folded behind his back, and shot all the loopers an appraising glare as he circled the room and eventually settled behind his desk.

“So, you’re the loopers this year,” he said.  “Interesting bunch.”

His pale brown eyes scanned the whole group, starting with Leanne and ending with Lee.  He lifted a handful of manilla envelopes -four, to be exact, one for each of them.  He opened the first one.

“Vell Harlan, based on your message, I assume we’ve already met,” Isaac said.

“Technically, yes,” Vell said.  Isaac nodded and opened the next folder.

“Leanne Mikkola, the school’s top athlete,” Isaac said.  “As the senior member, I assume you’re in charge?”

Leanne shook her head and pointed to Lee, who gave a small, polite wave.  Isaac moved on to her folder.

“Right, Miss-  Miss...How do I pronounce this?”

“I go by ‘Lee’,” she said nervously.

“Lee, right.”

“And I’m Harley,” said Harley.  “Now that we’re done saying everybody’s names, why are we here?”

“Well, just to sate my curiosity, at the very least,” Goodwell said.  “I didn’t want much else out of this meeting than a glimpse at the new generation, personally.  But maybe this old-timer can answer a few questions for you.  Give some guidance.”

The four current loopers exchanged glances.

“Well, I do believe we’re doing a pretty good job, all things considered,” Lee said.  “I don’t suppose you have any particular insight on the nature of the time loops?”

“Oh no, that’s a mystery,” Goodwell said.  “Why when I was in the loops we didn’t even bother looking.  Upperclassmen said there was no point.  They were probably right.  I wouldn’t waste time searching for answers if I were you.”

The room fell silent once again.  This time it fell to Vell to speak up.

“Um, I have a question, actually,” Vell said.  “Who, or, uh, what, is Lijia Mian?  Am I pronouncing that right?”

The casual smile on Goodwell’s face dropped off.

“Right.  That.  I didn’t tell you anything about that on the first loop, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Good to know I can still trust myself,” Isaac said.  He tried to recover the smile he’d worn before, but it felt even more forced now.  “It’s just the name of an old friend.  Don’t worry about it.”

Isaac tapped his fingers against the desk.  The repetitive thumping felt all too much like a heartbeat pounding through the room.  Goodwell endured a solid two minutes of silence before realizing he was wasting his time.

“Well, you all feel free to ask your Principal for help on a case if you ever need it,” he said.  “Been a while since I’ve been in the thick of all the chaos.  And let me know if it’s a first loop, now and then.  I’ll buy myself a pizza.”

“Of course,” Lee said.  She stood up all too quickly, and nodded to the principal.  “Thank you sir.  We’ll be on our way.”

The loopers made their way out of the office, and out of the faculty building, with unusual haste.  Harley waited until the building was far behind them to say what they were all thinking.

“Anyone else getting a really weird vibe from that guy?” Harley asked.  “Like vaguely ‘obsessive’ with a hint of ‘up to something’?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Vell said.  “He was sitting around eating candy and listening to ZZ Top while everybody got disintegrated.”

“Eh, I try not to judge,” Harley said.  “I got laid while people were getting disintegrated.  And most of our friends joined cults.”

“That’s, uh, true, I guess,” Vell said.  He could hardly judge Goodwell for acting strange during an apocalypse.  “Still.  Weird vibes.”

“Weird vibes indeed,” Lee said with a nod.

Chapter 8: Trickster Gods Make Terrible Meatloaf

“So what do you want to do for dinner?” Joan asked.

“I don’t know.  Renard’s not going to cook,” Vell began.  “Harley said the dining hall food isn’t so bad, though.”

“You think Renard’ll care if we use any of the ingredients he’s got lying around?  I could cook something,” Joan suggested.

“Oh he won’t mind, we pay for most of that anyway,” Vell said.  Renard did most of the cooking, so Vell, Cane, and Luke pulled their weight by keeping him stocked with ingredients.  “I bought some ground beef the other day.  We could make some hamburgers.”

“How violently American of you,” Joan said, stressing her German accent. 

“Hey, they’re literally called Hamburg-ers,” Vell said.  “If anything, they’re more German than American.”

Vell took Joan by the hand and they walked back to his dorm together.  He unlocked the door and headed for the kitchen, and Vell froze in his tracks when he saw a tall, dark-haired figure stooped in front of his stove.  He held Joan back, though she peered over his shoulder at the stranger regardless.  The ominous figure stood and turned, revealing a smug grin, an apron that said “Kiss the Cook”, and a cooking tray in his hands.

“Oh hello,” said Loki, god of treachery and deception, and cofounder of the school they now attended.  “I heard you were looking for some dinner.”

With a sinister flourish, Loki put the tray down, revealing a pan of the shittiest meatloaf either of them had ever seen.  The grey, slimy meat emitted a miasma of steam and blandness.

“Loki,” Joan whined.  “I wanted hamburgers.”

“Too bad!” Loki said.  He held up his hands and flicked his wrist, sending a scattering of glitter and confetti showering down on Vell and Joan.  “Trickster god!”

As the glitter settled, Loki made a “peace out” gesture and vanished.  Joan stepped forward and shook her fist at the empty space he had once occupied.

“You’re not even Odin’s son!” she cried.  “You just copied that from a movie!”

Vell grabbed her by the shoulders to calm her down.  Yelling wouldn’t change anything now.  Loki had sustained himself with idle pranks and tricks like this for centuries.  Almost all other gods had had their powers fade over the years, but Loki still retained a respectable portion of his past power -not enough to command legions of followers, but enough to ruin someone’s dinner plans now and then.  As a trickster god, he was obligated to use that power to deceive or vex others in order to perpetuate his own power.

“Fucking Loki,” Joan grumbled.  “I was actually looking forward to those burgers.”

Joan sat at the table and sulked while she stared at the meatloaf.  She idly poked at the pan while Vell stared down the slimy-looking gray meat.

“So, should we like, eat this, or not?”

“I don’t know, it could be cursed,” Joan asked.  “That’d be just like him.”

“Well, I’ll take a quick look,” Vell said.  He grabbed the runic glasses out of his pocket and put them on  before turning his eyes to the meatloaf.

“So what’s the verdict, Harlan?  Is it cursed?”

“No, it’s just incredibly shitty meatloaf,” Vell sighed.  “There’s not even any onions.  Just meat, stale breadcrumbs, and some egg.”

“And he wonders why nobody worships him anymore,” Joan grumbled. 

“At least he left the bread alone,” Vell said.  “I’ll make us some sandwiches.  Is turkey okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Joan grunted.  The disappointment and frustration still dripped from her voice.  Vell gathered up the bread and ingredients to make sandwiches,  Just as he was finishing up, Luke barged into the dorm, looking excited.

“Hey guys,” he said.  “Vell.  I heard you were making some hamburgers.”

“Nope,” Vell said.  He pointed to the unimaginably shitty meatloaf.  “We got Loki’d.”

“Ah, fucking Loki,” Luke said.  “I was really looking forward to hamburgers.”

Luke was not alone in his burger cravings, either.  One by one, Cane, Renard, Lee, and Harley came knocking, having been told to expect hamburgers, and one by one they were disappointed.

“Oh come on,” Renard said.  “I was excited somebody else cooked for once.”

“Motherfucker,” Harley said, being the last to receive the news.  “Why’d he have to get all of us?”

“Good question,” Loki said.  He appeared from nowhere at the back of the room, lounging on the dorm room couch.

“You!” Joan said.  “You ruined my dinner!”

“Incorrect,” Loki said.  “I acquired mine.”

Loki snapped his fingers and a tray of raw hamburger meat appeared in front of Vell.  He gestured to it.

“All your friends are here, and they want hamburgers,” Loki said.  “Since you’re making so many anyway, might as well make one for your old pal Loki, right?”

Vell sighed.

“Fine,” he said.  This seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a hamburger, but Vell knew better than to question a trickster god.  “How do you take yours?”

“Medium rare, please and thank you,” Loki said.  At Joan’s suggestion, Vell cooked it well-done anyway, out of spite.

Chapter 9: Undedison

“Does anyone else hear buzzing?”

Vell instinctively ducked.  The last round of buzzing had resulted in murder wasps, and he had no desire for a repeat.  Joan, who had no recollection of murder wasps, looked around.  Cane joined her in her search for the source of the noise.

“I don’t hear anything, guys,” Renard said.  “You sure you don’t just have tinnitus?”

“A shared case of tinnitus?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know how tinnitus works, do people get it at the same time?”

“No.”  Luke said.  “I know that because I have tinnitus, and I hear the buzzing, and that’s not what my tinnitus sounds like.”

Joan stood up and looked out the window.  Vell bit his tongue.  They were still on the first loop, and looking out the window couldn’t mean anything good.  Joan’s red eyes narrowed.

“Edison?”

Everyone in the dorm immediately crowded around the window.  Standing just outside the dorms, trying to wrangle a swarm of remote controlled drones, was Thomas Alva Edison -or the corpse of Edison, at any rate.  His skin was grayed and slimy, his eyes were sunken, and the suit he wore appeared ancient, dusty, and frayed.  The half-decayed scientist was swearing under his breath as he struggled with the controls of the drone swarm.  Joan opened the window and leaned out, shaking her fist in Edison’s direction.

“Hey, Edison, you undead asshole, what the hell are you doing?”

“Unveiling my latest and greatest invention, of course,” Edison stammered.

The semi-successful resurrection of Thomas Edison had caused quite a stir several years back, and the undead genius had become an overnight celebrity.  Unfortunately, his rise to fame had been followed shortly thereafter by an equally meteoric fall.  The famed genius had been unable to catch up to modern technology and science, and any hope for a new renaissance at the hands of the inventor of the lightbulb had died as swiftly as the elephant Edison had electrocuted that one time.  Also, people remembered how fucked up it was that Edison had electrocuted an elephant that one time, and began to wonder why they’d bothered resurrecting such an asshole in the first place.  Zombie Edison, for his part, had sworn to recapture his past glory and invent something new and exciting to wow the world.

After years of effort and expeditious exploitation of academia, Edison had succeeded in failing spectacularly.  Today would be no different, if the pint-sized blur of red clothing and rage barreling towards him was any indication.

“Undedison you zombie fuck!  Give me back my remote!”

Harley sprinted across the quad towards Edison, who saw her coming and flailed at the controls even harder.

“Pay no attention to the furious dwarf, she has no idea what she’s talking about!  She is quite hysterical!”

“You shut your maggot-filled mouth!” Harley shouted.  She was rapidly closing the distance, and Undedison was getting more and more worried the closer she got.

“Worry not!  Prepare to be shocked and amazed at the grand innovations of the one and only Thomas Alva Edison!”

Harley got within striking distance, and pounced.  Undedison slammed his fist down on the first button he found as she tackled him.  Overhead, the swarm of drones started to surge faster and faster, beginning to slam into each other and explode in midair, scattering flaming wreckage around the quad.  Vell covered his eyes.  He knew how this was going to end.

◆◆◆

“Fucking Undedison, son of a bitch,” Harley said.  She huffed and puffed as she laid on her couch.  The morning meeting had been called in Harley’s dorm this time.  She had made sure Vell noticed that it did, in fact, smell like cherries before returning to her fuming about Undedison.

“It’s a shame he hasn’t learned his lesson,” Lee said with a sigh.

“If he could learn shit he wouldn’t be here trying to steal my ideas,” Harley grumbled.  “Somebody needs to put that asshole back in the ground where he belongs.”

“So, uh, does Zombie Edison or the Marine Biology department rank higher on your shit list?”  Vell asked.

“Undedison,” Harley spat.  “At least those fishfuckers have the decency to come up with their own terrible ideas.”

“Mr. Edison has come to believe that robotics will be his return to greatness,” Lee said.  “Unfortunately, he lacks any particular understanding of the field, and so in desperation he has turned to-”

“Stealing my shit!” Harley shouted, slamming her fist against the back of the couch.

“-Plagiarizing the works of others,” Lee concluded.  “Harley, being preeminent in her field of study, is an unfortunately frequent target of his misguided efforts.”

“You sound a little more sympathetic,” Vell noted.

“Oh that’s just how I talk, dear,” Lee said.  “Undedison can kiss my ass.”

Hearing Lee swear brought a sly smile to Harley’s face, but it soon faded into a scowl again.  She turned away from Lee to look at Leanne.

“Leanne, would you kill Undedison if I asked you to?”

Leanne stopped petting Botley’s head for a moment, much to the tiny robot’s chagrin, and considered Harley’s proposal.  After a concerning amount of thought, Leanne shook her head. 

“Ugh, fine,” Harley said.  “I’ll have to do it myself.”

“Now hold on just a moment, Harley,” Lee said.  She grabbed Harley’s shoulders and held tight.  ‘Take a deep breath and think of a solution that’s not murder.”

Harley let out a deep sigh, thought for a moment, and relaxed.

“Assassination.”

“No, dear.”

“But then I pay somebody else to do it!”

“Harley.”

“Fine,” Harley said.  She crossed her arms and sulked.  Lee moved on.

“Vell, you have a fresh perspective and a new set of skills, do you have any ideas on how to prevent Undedison’s chicanery?”

“I could kill him.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Harley sprang up, and Lee just as quickly pushed her back down.  Vell chuckled to himself and then crossed his arms.

“But, seriously, if we know what he’s after, I could probably put a security rune on it,” Vell said.  “Key it to Harley’s DNA or something, so nobody else can use it.”

“Could you key it to explode if someone else uses it?” Harley asked.

“Yes, but I’m not going to.”

“I’ll have -ah, darn it,” Harley grunted.

“What?” Vell asked.

“I was going to offer to sleep with you if you blew up Zombie Thomas Edison but I remembered you’re dating Joan now,” Harley said.  “You’re all monogamous and shit.”

“And shit,” Lee said, nodding thoughtfully.  “Your offer would also fall flat, dear, based on the simple fact that Vell knows you’d sleep with him for free.”

“Dang it, you’re right,” Harley said.  “Okay, no explosions, but how about we zap him.  Like, not hard enough to stop his heart, but enough to make his arm numb.”

Vell looked to Lee.  She considered it, and pointed in Harley’s direction.

“Fine, but Vell is in charge of setting the voltage,” Lee said.  Harley gave a triumphant pump of her fist and jumped out of her seat. 

“I’ll get the stuff, you get the runes ready,” Harley demanded.  Vell nodded and started searching up the runes he would need.  He was looking at three at least, possibly a fourth to trigger the electric shock.  He had plenty of runecrafting materials already on hand, thanks to his studies, and hopefully a quick way to charge them.  Vell looked up at Lee.

“Hey, you’re magikinetic, right?  Do you know how to charge runes?”

“I’ve actually been poking away at it since we met,” Lee said.  “I figured it would come in handy sooner or later.”

“Good instinct,” Vell said.  “That’ll save us some money in the long run.”

“Money is not too much of a worry, dear, if you need some,” Lee said.

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Vell said.  “I could afford it if I needed to, but I’d rather not give that money to some shitty company like Roentgen, right?”

“Right,” Lee said, averting her eyes as she spoke.  Vell was too preoccupied in planning to notice.

“I’ll get carving.  Message you when I’m ready for them to be charged,” Vell said.  “See you around.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Lee said.  She lingered in Harley’s room while Vell headed for his own dorm.

◆◆◆

Vell brushed a few of the basalt shavings off of his table before continuing his carving.  He was three runes in, and his wastebin was coated in a layer of grey dust.

Carving runes wasn’t the most exciting task, but Vell found a pleasure in it all the same.  To get a rune right, every line had to be carved in the right order, to exactly the right proportions.  A rune with even millimeters of imperfection would never function.  It required a methodical, disciplined approach.  Or a robot, but Vell didn’t have one of those.  In retrospect he should’ve asked Harley if she had one, or knew anyone who did.  The pleasure of a job well done was starting to seem small in comparison to the ache in his wrist.

Vell was glad for a distraction from carving when someone knocked at his dorm room door.  He set the pieces of igneous rock aside and shouted in the direction of the door.

“It’s open,” Vell said.

He heard the door open and slam shut, and in a second, Joan was standing in the doorway of his room.  She leaned on the doorframe and put one hand on her hips.

“Shouldn’t you be in class, Mr. Harlan?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Vell snapped back.  Joan smirked.  The Einstein-Odinson College had a very loose attendance policy.  As long as your test scores stayed high, most professors didn’t care if you showed up to lectures or not.  Vell and Joan had particularly high tests scores, so they could skip classes at their leisure.  A privilege Vell abused quite frequently to deal with the daily apocalypses, and Joan abused for the sake of abusing it.

“What’re you carving there?” Joan asked.  She walked up to Vell and leaned over him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and very insistently pressing her chest to his back.

“Oh, Harley’s worried about someone stealing her stuff, so I’m helping her build a rune booby trap,” Vell explained.  Joan’s grip on him loosened.

“You know, it seems like you skip class to help Harley a lot,” Joan said.  The displeasure in her voice was obvious even to Vell.

“She’s, uh, got a lot going on,” Vell said.  He hesitated for a moment.  “That didn’t sound convincing.”

“It wouldn’t convince most people, but I know ‘uh’ is your catchphrase,” Joan said.  “Sorry if I sound jealous.  It’s just that I am.  A little.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Harley and I are just friends,” Vell said.  He hesitated for a second before elaborating. “Admittedly Harley did almost try to bribe me with sex earlier, but she remembered we were dating like three words in.”

“Thank you for being honest about that,” Joan said.  She patted him on the head.  “I know Harley’s just...like that, but I can’t help worrying.  I’ve-”

Joan caught herself about to say ‘uh’ and stopped in her tracks.

“Look, I’ve just been cheated on before, so I’m kind of touchy about it,” Joan said.  “I know I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, but I’ve had a lot of shitty relationships and it’s made me kind of paranoid.”

“Sounds like you have every right to be,” Vell said.  “I’m, uh, sorry about that.  Let me know what I can do to make things easier.”

“I don’t want to nag,” Joan said.  She leaned forward and kissed Vell on the temple.  “Just hearing you say that does a lot.”

“Okay,” Vell said.  “Though frankly it’s hard to believe anyone would be dumb enough to cheat on you.  Have you looked at yourself? Who’d cheat on this?”

Vell gestured to her entire body.  Joan smirked, but sighed shortly afterwards.

“You’d be surprised,” Joan said.  “I think I chase a lot of guys off with my smarts.  And the eyeball thing.”

She removed one of her prosthetic eyes and examined it for a second.  Vell bit his tongue.

“You know, uh, just a suggestion, but it’d help if you didn’t pop an eye out every time you mentioned it,” Vell said.  Joan looked at the eyeball, and the eyeball looked back.  She sighed again.

“You’re probably right.”

Joan replaced her red eye and leaned on Vell again, pressing her cheek against his.

“See, this is why I need a guy like you,” Joan said.  “You’re weird enough to make rune booby traps for your nymphomaniac friend and normal enough to remind me I should keep my eyeballs in my head.  Which, admittedly, I probably should have figured out sooner.”

“Thanks?”

“It’s a compliment, Harlan,” Joan said.  “A weird one, but still sincere.”

“I knew that,” Vell said.  He grabbed the basalt token and his carving tool again.  Joan ran a hand along his shoulder and arm, down to his wrist, and held his hand in place before he could start carving again.

“If you’re not in a hurry, how about we go to my dorm for a while?  We can skip Professor Nguyen’s class too.”

After the misunderstandings about her flirtatious behavior earlier on, Joan had adopted a very direct approach with Vell.  She made it very clear that she had a lot more on her mind than skipping class.  Vell bit his tongue.  He glanced towards Joan’s hand wrapped around his, then at the clock, and then down to his waist, towards his hidden scar.

“Some, uh, other time, maybe, sorry,” Vell said.  “I actually, you know, learn things, in Nguyen’s class, and I should probably finish this, and, well, I’m not really ready for, uh, certain things, yet.”

“Okay, I get you,” Joan said, disappointed but accepting.  “I’ll see you in class.”

Vell turned and got out of his seat long enough to kiss her goodbye before she left his dorm.  Vell got back to work, or tried to.  It took a while for his palms to stop sweating.

◆◆◆

“Okay, here’s your rune trap thingy,” Vell said.  He slammed the carved basalt onto Harley’s work desk.  Her excitement at the prospect of the booby trap was muted by Vell’s odd behavior.

“You’re doing your ‘nervous Vell’ routine, Vell,” Harley noted.  Vell slumped down into a nearby chair and sighed.  He had gone through an entire class sitting next to Joan, with awkward tension buzzing between them.

“I’m pretty sure Joan wants to sleep with me.”

Harley set her tools aside and rolled her eyes.

“Vell, I love you, and I am always here to listen to your problems, but it gets kind of hard when half your  ‘problems’ are about how badly a hot chick wants to bang you.”

Vell stared at her for a second before lifting his shirt just enough to expose the scar around his waist.  Harley raised her eyebrows and nodded.

“Oh yeah, that does complicate things, doesn’t it,” Harley said.  “I guess that having to explain how you were cut in half would kill the sexy-times mood.”

“I’ve tried, and I know for sure that it does,” Vell said.  He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.  Harley, noticing his sour mood, turned her chair around and leaned towards Vell.

“That sounds like a story,” Harley said quietly.

“Several stories,” Vell said.  “Feels like every time I start a relationship, I just- I end up worrying too much about explaining it, and the one time I actually did explain it...I don’t want to talk about it.”

Harley put her head in her hands.  She’d been turned into a kangaroo more than once, so her weirdness radar was entirely off-kilter, but Vell’s resurrection still struck her as strange.  Harley couldn’t imagine how weird it would seem to the average person.

“Whoof,” Harley said.  “I got to admit, Vell, this is a bit above my paygrade.  Usually the only thing I got to talk about before I bang is favorite positions.  On that note, maybe just pick a position where she’s going to be facing away from you the whole time?”

“That seems less than ideal,” Vell said.

“Just spitballing,” Harley said.  “On a serious note, this is the kind of thing you’re going to have to talk about eventually.  Might as well get it done as soon as possible.  Either she’s cool with it, in which case it’s cool, or she’s not cool, and you find out fast before anything gets too serious.”

Vell crossed his arms and slumped into his seat.  Harley leaned on the desk and eyed the booby trap Vell had built for her.

“You know, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Vell, but Joan is a little bit crazy.  Probably has a decently high weirdness threshold,” Harley said.  “I think you’re going to be okay, Vell.”

“I don’t feel okay,” Vell said.

“You’re overthinking it,” Harley said.  “Give yourself some time to chill and stop stressing about it.  Luckily, you can distract yourself by helping me electrocute Zombie Edison.  Now get over here and tell me how this shit works.”

Harley reached over and tugged Vell by the shirt towards her desk.  He didn’t know if it would fix anything in the long term, but the distraction at least took his mind off things for now.

“First hook up that one and that one,” Vell said.

“Sounds good, I’m great at hooking up,” Harley said.

“Are you good at soldering, because this kind of hooking up involves wires,” Vell said.  “Once everything’s connected we can take it to Lee to charge.”

“I’m good at soldering too,” Harley said.  “Let me hop my brain into Botley so I can use him instead of unpacking my gloves and goggles and everything.”

Harley walked to her closet and started assembling a soldering-capable body for Botley.  As a robot, he didn’t have to worry about burned fingertips or flying sparks.

“I’m not holding you while you jump into Botley this time,” Vell said.

“That’s cool, I got my bed made,” Harley said.  “Keep an eye on me though, right?”

“Of course.”

Harley emerged from the closet, tossed Botley to Vell, and then leaped into her bed.  Her body flopped limp on the mattress and bounced once before falling motionless.  Vell sat Botley’s body on the desk and let Harley get to work, then took a seat and tried to relax.  He had a long day of electrocuting undead plagiarists ahead of him.

◆◆◆

Lee reviewed her notes on rune-charging while she sat on the Quad.  She had only charged a rune successfully about four times, and those were the simplest possible runes.   Vell’s trap for Zombie Edison would be orders of magnitude more complex.  She buried her nose in her notes, so intently focused on reviewing her technique that she didn’t even notice approaching footsteps.

“Hey Lee,” Joan said.  Lee, suddenly pulled back to reality, turned sharply in her seat, not realizing there wasn’t much seat to turn in.  She slid off the side of the bench and took a tumble to the ground, landing hard on her rear.  Joan did the little jump of shock everyone did when someone fell, and then reached down to help Lee up.

“You okay?”

“My pride might be a little bruised.”  Also her butt, but Lee wasn’t going to mention that to Joan.  “Thank you.”

“Any time,” Joan said.  “Sorry I surprised you.”

“Oh, no trouble at all, dear, I was just a little caught up in my studies,” Lee said.  She gestured to her notes, and Joan took a quick glance at them.

“I know those runes,” Joan said.  “You helping Vell with that booby trap he’s making?”

“To an extent,” Lee said.  “Vell and Harley are doing the hard work, I’m just charging the runes.”

“You don’t really strike me as the booby-trapping type,” Joan said.  She crossed her arms.  “Who pissed you three off so bad you’re going to zap them?”

Lee considered her options.  The simplest solution seemed like the best one, in this case.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was Thomas Edison?”

Joan’s curious expression immediately shifted to anger.

“That motherfucker?”

“If by ‘that motherfucker’ you mean the man oft credited for inviting the light bulb, yes,” Lee said.  “I don’t know if you’re aware, but-”

“Oh, I’m aware of everything about that jackass,” Joan said.  She rolled up her sleeves dramatically for no particular reason.  “When I was a kid, I wanted to meet Edison more than anything!  I wrote him letters, I recreated his experiments-”

“Not the elephant one though, right?”

“No, not the elephant one.  Just the cool ones.  But for years, I was crazy about the guy, and after years and years of trying, I finally got to meet the guy, I showed him all my work, and the son of a bitch tried to steal it!”

“Oh dear,” Lee said.  Joan’s face had turned red just from ranting about it.  Joan shook a fist at nothing in particular and then grabbed Lee’s note’s off the desk.

“If you’re electrocuting him, I want in,” Joan said.

“Most of the work is done, I believe, but you’re more than welcome to watch him get zapped,” Lee said.

“Works for me.”

Joan’s unsettling enthusiasm for electrocution was interrupted by the only person even more excited to see Thomas Edison get fried.  Harley bolted around a corner, drifting slightly as she took a turn too sharply, and dashed in Lee’s direction.  Vell was only a few steps behind, and he fell even further behind as he saw Joan standing there.

“Hi Joan,” Harley said, because she was polite.  Then she turned to the matter at hand.  “Lee!  Charge us up, we’re going to fry this bitch!”

“We’re going to mildly shock this bitch,” Lee corrected.  Harley rolled her eyes.

“We’re going to mildly shock this bitch,” Harley groaned.  She held out the remote, which now had several runes fused to it. “Just charge it.”

Lee stood in place and stared at the remote.  She tapped her foot a few times.  Harley groaned again.

“Just charge it, please,” Harley said, emphasizing the “please” far too much.  Lee nodded approvingly and took the remote from Harley’s hand.  She also took her notes from Joan’s hand and double-checked them before she did anything.  While she reviewed, Vell walked up to Joan.

“Hey Joan.”

“Hey Harlan,” Joan said.  “You should’ve told me you were going to electrocute Zombie Edison.”

“You’re on board with this?”

“I am not only on board, I want you to up the voltage,” Joan said.  “Right now you’re basically just going to tickle him.  You can pump it up about ten volts before you even get close to a damaging range.”

Harley, Vell, and Lee all looked in her direction at the same time.  She stared blankly back.

“What?”

“Why do you know that off hand?” Harley asked.

“Why did you know the make and model of my eyeballs just from looking at them?  We’re at a school for supergeniuses, people know weird stuff.”

“That’s valid,” Harley said. “Up the voltage, Lee!”

Lee froze in place for a moment and turned to Vell.

“We did agree you’d set the voltage,” Lee said, expertly passing the buck.  Vell, in turn, looked to Joan.

“What?  His arm might be tingly for a day or whatever,” Joan said.  “It’ll be fine.  Up the voltage, Vell!”

Joan nodded at Vell, who nodded at Lee, who nodded at Harley, who wondered what everybody was nodding for.  With the everyone’s approval, Lee got ready to charge the rune.  She took a deep breath, held the rune at arm’s length, and barely brushed her fingertips against the carved basalt surface.  Lee pulled her hand back slowly, as if drawing a bowstring, and as it pulled away, the bright light of mana coalesced around her fingertips.  Magical energy coalesced in different colors depending on the user, and for Lee, the mana became a deep ocean blue, that flared with sparks of octarine, the true color of magic, around the edges.  She held the flare of light in place for a moment, and then, with a twist of her glowing fingertips, the oddly colored flare focused into a single bolt of energy that shot into the rune like a dart.  The energy splashed across the surface of the rune and then drew back in on itself as the runestone drank the mana and coalesced it inside itself.

Lee held the rune in place silently for a moment until the carved symbol on the stone started to glow.  The dull light emanating from the symbol stayed steady, a sure sign that the charging was successful.  Lee breathed a sigh of relief.  She had not been expecting to get it right the first time.

“That was sick,” Harley said.  “Now you only got to do that like three more times!”

“Wonderful,” Lee said.  Three more chances to mess something up, as far as Lee was concerned.

◆◆◆

Three chances to mess something up had come and gone, much to Lee’s surprise, nothing had been messed up.  The booby trap was complete and ready to be deployed.  Harley had returned the remote to the robotics workshop and then made her way back to the dorm, chuckling maniacally all the while, or so Vell and Lee assumed.  She’d been chuckling maniacally when she left, when she got back, and while on the camera they’d be using the monitor the robotics lab.  She only stopped chuckling when she finally took her seat in front of the laptop.  Immediately afterwards, she summoned Botley to her lap and began stroking him like a Bond villain’s cat, which wasn’t a huge improvement over the chuckling.

“You know, I want to see Edison get zapped too, but Harley’s still kind of weirding me out,” Joan whispered.  Vell nodded.

“She’s, uh, passionate,” Vell whispered back.  “Edison’s tried to steal her stuff more than once.”

“That tracks,” Joan said.  “Motherfucker was a plagiarist in his first life, can’t expect him to improve in the second one.”

“Why’d you ever look up to the guy in the first place?”  Vell asked.  Joan had explained her own vendetta against Undedison while they’d waited for Harley.  Vell found it unfortunate but not surprising that they were both victims of Undedison’s attempts at intellectual theft.

“Oh, you know, I was twelve and just getting into science, and my parents, not knowing any better, bought me some Edison related stuff,” Joan said.  “They meant well, at least, and I did learn some important stuff from the ‘My First Chemistry Set’.”

“You actually learned something from one of those?”

“Yes, I learned that if you use the beakers to combine some of the colorful bottles under the sink, your whole family has to go to the hospital,” Joan said.  “My dad put the bleach on the top shelf after that.”

“Well, at least you learned your lesson,” Vell said. 

“I learned ‘a’ lesson.” Joan corrected.  “That was not the last time I fucked up.”

“Should I renew my health insurance?” Lee asked.  Joan chuckled, but shook her head.

“I like to think I’m smarter than that now,” Joan said.  “I burned off my dad’s eyebrows enough times to learn my lesson.”

Vell nearly asked for the story behind the eyebrow-burning misadventure, but a cherry bounced off of Joan’s nose and interrupted both their trains of thought.  Shortly thereafter, a second cherry bounced off of Vell’s forehead, followed by Harley shushing them both.

“It’s almost time, everybody shut up!”

Harley focused intently on the laptop screen.  Joan took a look as well, and saw no sign of movement.

“Wait, how do you know when he’s going to show up?”

“I’m very smart,” Harley said.  She’d jumped the gun a bit using her knowledge of time loops, but never missed a beat in shaking off Joan’s suspicions. “Don’t even worry about it.  Just watch Edison get zapped.”

Harley scooted back to give everyone else a good view of the show.  After a few seconds of silence, the  door to the robotics lab started to shift.  Undedison crept through, checking that the room was empty, and tip-toed into the room.  Harley started rubbing her hands together in anticipation as Undedison poked through the machines in the room, slowly getting closer to the drone remote Harley had left on the workbench.  Joan’s grin got wider and wider until Undedison finally saw the booby-trapped remote.

“Oh, this looks important,” Edison said.  He grabbed it in his clammy hands and pressed one button.

The lightning burst that followed made the screen go white, as a loud shriek of pain echoed out across the room.  Lee, Harley, and Vell jumped back from the sudden burst of light and noise, while Joan just kept smiling, unfazed by the explosive electrical burst.  As they recovered from the unexpected flash-bang, Joan appraised the camera feed.  Undedison was no longer visible, but there were thin streams of smoke rising from the floor where he’d once stood.  Vell regained his senses and watched the smoke rise.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled.

“I think we might’ve overdone it,” Harley said.

“Eh, he’s fine,” Joan insisted.

“We should go check on him,” Lee insisted.  Vell and Harley nodded in agreement and followed Lee as she sprinted off.  Joan followed behind as well, at a much more relaxed pace.

“I’m telling you, he’s fine, no need to rush,” Joan said.  As they scuttled frantically towards the robotics lab, Joan got sick of being left behind and hurried after them.  She managed to catch up to Lee, though Vell and Harley were still speeding on ahead.

“How are they so fast?” Joan wondered aloud.

“I believe we’re just slow, Joan darling,” Lee said.  Joan managed a single chuckle as she struggled to catch her breath.

◆◆◆

By the time Lee and Joan caught up to Harley and Vell, Harley was surprisingly still struggling with a keypad on the door to the robotics lab.  Frantic beeping filled the air as Harley punched in a very elaborate keycode.

“How did Einstein get into your lab easier than you can?” Joan demanded.

“That’s a very good question and one you’re not going to get a satisfying answer to,” Harley said.  She held up a finger to put a pause on further comments and then punched in the final few numbers.  A final confirmatory beep rang out and the keypad flashed green.  Harley slammed the door open and headed inside.

The interior of the robots lab carried a heavy scent of metal in the background, with a far more prominent smell of smoke currently dominating the air.  Harley pushed aside a cart covered in various soldering irons and found the workbench where she had left her remote.  There, on the floor, slightly singed, slightly smoking, and slightly weeping, was the prone form of Thomas Undedison, with the remote lying at his side.

Harley froze in place for a second, watched Edison sobbing quietly on the ground, and sighed.

“Get off the floor, Edison,” she spat.

“I don’t want to,” Edison whimpered.  Joan crossed her arms and shook her head.

“I told you he was fine,” she said, gesturing to his pathetic display.

“Well, physically fine, in any event,” Lee said.  She took a step back as Edison continued to sob while sprawled on the floor.  “Though his mental problems are his own fault.”

“Oh, he’s just being a little bitch, get up, you zombie fucker,” Joan said.  Vell put a hand on her shoulder and stepped between the three women and Edison.

“Okay, uh, hold on,” Vell said.  “I know you all have a lot of, like, problems with this guy, but I think it needs to go maybe like one or two steps back.”

The three women shared a look for exactly one second.

“Nah.”

“Nope.”

“He deserves it.”

“Seriously?”  Vell said.  “Look, just, well, let me handle this, alright?”

The trinity of skepticism that stared back at Vell nearly made him reconsider.  He managed to disregard their cutting stares and turn to Edison.  Vell crouched down to get closer to the sobbing Undedison.

“Hey, uh, Mr. Edison, I know this was a bit much, but, if you want to be successful, I think you need to focus more on, well, first focus less on stealing things and then maybe focus more on learning and making your own stuff.”

Edison let out a mewling whimper and rolled to turn away from Vell.  Without even turning around, he could feel the eyes of the women behind him rolling in unison.  Vell looked around the room for a moment, seeking inspiration for a new avenue of persuasion.  He caught sight of a row of inert drones above Harley’s workbench and seized the change of topic.

“Uh, you know, you really need to be informed about the things you’re getting your hands on,” Vell explained.  “Like, that remote, if you used it wrong, it could make all of those drones explode.”

Undedison rolled onto his back and looked up at Vell with red, puffy eyes.

“Explode?  Really?”

“Yeah, and that’d obviously be-”

Vell never got to finish his sentence.  Undedison made a surprisingly sprightly roll to the side, snatching up the remote as he did so.  Any remnant of misery dropped off his face in an instant as he held the remote aloft, holding a finger above the buttons menacingly.

“Then none of you will live to tell the tale of what you’ve seen,” he declared, his voice dripping with what he thought was malice.

“Seriously?”

“Told you so,” Joan said.

Ignoring the fact that absolutely no one was intimidated by his current act, Undedison held the remote high and backed towards the door.  Vell shrugged as he made his retreat.  As he reached the door, Edison let out one last maniacal chuckle as he looked at his hostages, and then pressed the button.  The four witnesses shielded their eyes.

Once the flares of electricity, and the screaming, had stopped, Harley lowered her hand and crossed her arms.  It would take days to get the smell of smoke out of the workshop now.

“What, you thought that remote got less booby-trapped in the past five minutes?”

“I know I said that voltage would be fine but I meant like, once,” Joan said, her voice edged with concern (albeit very little).  “We should probably get that away from him.”

“Yeah yeah, I got it,” Harley said.  She stepped up and pried the booby-trapped remote from Undedison’s twitching fingers.  As an undeserved courtesy, she also snuffed a small fire that was burning on his tweed sleeve.  “Lee, you want to grab security and get this guy dragged out of here?”

“I’ll grab a doctor while I’m at it,” Lee said.  Joan shook her head.

“He’ll be fine,” Joan insisted.  She gave the twitching form of Undedison a glance.  “Well, fine in the long-term, anyway.  The undead can take a lot of punishment.”

At the mention of the undead, Harley looked to Vell.  Sure enough, he had the look of trying—and failing—to hide his discomfort at the topic.  Harley sprang into action.

“We should probably get him looked at just so we can’t get sued for anything later,” Harley said.  “You want to get a nurse, Joan?  Me and Vell can take cleanup duty.”

“Oh, uh, maybe I should go, actually,” Vell stammered.  “I could, uh-”

“It’s fine, Vell,” Joan said.  She gave him a reassuring nod.  “I don’t want to clean up after this guy anyway.”

She gave Undedison a light kick in the elbow.  He let out a soft groan of pain, and Joan stuck out her tongue.

“You sure?”

“I trust you, Vell,” Joan said.  “Come on, Lee.  Let’s get moving.”

Harley waved goodbye and shuffled her way past Undedison to reach a cleaning cabinet.  The robotics lab was an unfortunately flammable location, so there were plenty of ways to get the smell of smoke out of the air.  Harley beckoned Vell to the cabinet and handed him a bottle of air freshener.

“So, uh, it didn’t occur to me to talk about this earlier, sorry,” Harley said.  “I hope you know none of our issues with Edison are because he’s undead.”

“No, I get that, he’s just a tremendous asshole,” Vell said.  Harley nodded in agreement.  “It just kind of has me thinking.”

“Does this circle back to Joan wanting to bang you?” Harley asked.

“In a roundabout way, I guess,” Vell said.

“I know it’s roundabout, Vell, that’s why I said ‘circle back’.”

“Right, that’s, uh- Whatever, anyway, let me explain,” Vell said.  “Edison’s whole problem is that he won’t just admit he’s struggling with something and get the support he needs, right?”

Harley did not think that was right, not even slightly.  Edison’s main problem was that he was a huge asshole. However, Vell seemed like he was having a breakthrough and she wanted to be supportive.

“That sounds right,” Harley lied.

“So, I need to communicate,” Vell said.  “I need to talk to people about my problems or I’ll end up like him.”

“Yep.”  Harley said with a stiff nod.  This still had nothing to do with Edison, but Vell was making progress and that was what mattered.

“I think I know what to do,” Vell said.  He put the can of air freshener down and wandered across the room towards the door. 

Harley looked at the air freshener he’d left behind and then watched him as he opened the door to the robotics lab and started to step out.

“Vell!”

“I know, I know, you told me to just talk to her hours ago,” Vell said.  He waved a hand in her direction dismissively. “You can say ‘I told you so’ later.”

Vell stepped out, leaving Harley alone with the cleaning supplies, and with the zombie of Thomas Edison.  She stepped closer to the door and shouted as Vell retreated.

“Vell!  I didn’t just call you here for a powwow about your girl problems, you actually need to help me clean!”

Harley received no answer.

“Vell!”

◆◆◆

Lee stepped out of the security office and held the door open for the security robots who filed out.  The operator had thanked her, profusely, for the information and made sure to mention their own name far too many times, clearly hoping that Lee would mention them to her father.  Lee promptly forgot their name and stepped back into the lounge of the faculty building.  Joan had, apparently, been waiting for her, and hopped out of her seat.

“So, are they going to arrest him or what?”

“They are going to escort him off of campus, as usual,” Lee said.  “Unfortunately there’s not much to be done.  It’s very hard to make any legal punishments stick against a person who’s technically dead.”

Joan nodded in understanding.

“Well, if he ever comes back again, you give me a call,” Joan said.  “Actually, do I have your number yet?”

“I don’t believe you do,” Lee said.  She pulled out her phone and exchanged numbers with Joan.  Lee held her phone at an angle to hide her very small contacts list, until she saw that Joan’s contact list was even shorter.  With numbers exchanged, the two left the faculty building side by side.

“So, Joan, if you don’t mind my asking, and do please let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds, I was wondering,” Lee began.  “When we left earlier, you told Vell, ‘I trust you’?”

“What about it?”  Joan said.  If she had any strong feelings about the question, she was hiding them very well.

“Well, it seemed like Vell thought there might be an issue with him being alone with Harley, and I was just wondering if you and Vell had been having, any, well, conflicts, specifically to do with Harley,” Lee said.  “I just don’t want you to think that she is-”

“Hey, uh, thanks, I appreciate the sentiment,” Joan said, cutting her off.  “We talked about it.  It’s fine, I get what Harley’s deal is.  It’s not a problem.  I was just being a little oversensitive.”

“Oh.  Okay, well, excellent, all well and good, then,” Lee stammered.  “I hope I’m alright asking, it’s just that I like Harley, and I like you, and I don’t want any unnecessary problems.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

Lee and Joan continued walking back towards the dorms, side by side.  It took Joan a second to muster up the courage to talk again.  It helped that the atmosphere was awkward enough already, and she couldn’t possibly make it worse.

“Though, uh, while we’re on the subject,” Joan began.  “How do you feel about Vell?”

“I think he’s a very fine young man,” Lee said.  “Surprisingly cool under pressure, if terrible at improvising.”

Joan sighed.

“I mean romantically, Lee.”

Much to Joan’s surprise, and slight chagrin, Lee answered her question by snorting with laughter.  She stopped in her tracks and bent at the waist to try and stifle the sudden onset of laughter.  Joan stopped and watched her giggle for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Lee said, struggling to choke down her chuckling.  “I’m sorry! Hah, this must seem rather rude.”

“Little bit.”

Lee took a deep breath, clapped her hands together, and straightened her back.  Once she was sure to giggle-fit had stopped, Lee turned to Joan.

“Joan Marsh, if anything, Vell should be concerned about me being alone with you,” Lee said. She found her own phrasing clever for exactly two seconds before the anxiety kicked in.  “Not that I would, I mean I would, you’re very- but I’m not- because of- um…”

After a few seconds of frantic gesturing for the right words, Lee decided to give up and go for the direct approach.

“I’m very much a lesbian,” she said.

“Oh.  Ooooh,” Joan said.  She put her hands on her hips.  “Oh yeah, that’ll do it.”

She gave a small chuckle, and that alone was enough to get Lee laughing again.  The two shared a short burst of laughter before starting to walk again.

“Sorry, that was a bit of a dumb joke,” Lee said.  “As if ‘Vell should be concerned about me being alone with you’, I don’t know why I said it like that.”

“Well, it’s not entirely wrong,” Joan said.  “You wouldn’t be my first girlfriend, you know.”

Joan cleared her throat, and the two very deliberately avoided making eye contact.

“Anyway, well, now I feel dumb for bringing it up,” Joan said.  “Sorry.  I must look like a real idiot right now.”

“You look like someone who’s concerned about their relationship,” Lee said.  “Which you have every right to be.”

“I guess,” Joan said.  “Sometimes it feels like I’m not Vell’s number one priority.  Which, I don’t have to be, I’m not jealous or anything, but sometimes I feel left out when you guys whisk him away for whatever shenanigans you do.  I want to get whisked away for shenanigans too, you know?”

“Joan, Lee, glad I caught you,” Vell said, as he swung around a corner.  He seemed exhausted as he snatched Joan by the wrist and pulled her in the direction of the dorms.  “Mostly Joan.  Can we talk?”

Joan nodded and allowed herself to be whisked.  Lee gave a polite wave goodbye as the two lovebirds scuttled off.  Joan was pleasantly surprised as their scuttling came to a halt in front of her dorm.  Vell finally let go of her hand and took a moment to catch his breath as he leaned on the door.

“Wow, in retrospect, I uh, really could’ve walked slower,” Vell said.  “Personal epiphanies are very energizing, but the crash afterwards is crazy.”

“Take your time,” Joan said.  Vell put his back to the door and took a deep breath.  Once his heart rate had lowered, he raised a wrist.  He was wearing a simple bracelet with a glowing rune latched on to it.

“So I made this,” Vell said.

“You made a whole rune in twelve minutes?”

“Yeah, like I said, epiphany energy,” Vell explained.  “And I had most of the stuff lying around anyway, because of the trap thingy.”

While Vell had most of the necessary supplies on hand, he’d had to make a quick detour to the school store for a battery.  He didn’t particularly feel like borrowing Lee to charge this rune -not considering what he intended to use it for.

“Anyway, the thing is, it’s an illusion rune,” he said.  He pointed to the rune, and then to himself.  “And it’s an illusion on me.”

Joan raised an eyebrow while Vell put a hand on his stomach.

“So, I have, uh, some scarring, and marks, down here in this area, that I’m pretty sensitive about,” Vell admitted.  “I’m not really ready to have a conversation about that yet, but if you’re okay with it, I am ready for, well, other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”  Joan said.  Her eyebrow remained in its raised position.  Vell started to wonder how long she could hold that expression.

“Yeah, um, you know, what you sort of, uh, earlier today we were-”

Joan interrupted Vell by leaning forward and opening the door he was leaning on.  He tilted backwards for a moment before Joan caught him by the collar and pulled him inside her dorm room.

“Oh, right now, uh, okay, yeah, let’s, uh- okay, wow.” 

Chapter 10: Competitively Crappy Camerawork

Vell scratched away at a rune in silence.  The daily apocalypse had been dealt with in swift order, giving Vell plenty of time to work on some personal projects.  He put his carving tool down just long enough to check his notes, then took it in hand again to continue carving the rune.  Each line had to be carved delicately, and in a very specific order.  Even small flaws could completely ruin the rune.

“Vell!”

Harley slammed the door open with her usual gusto.  To Vell’s eternal credit, he kept his hands steady and didn’t scratch his rune.  He didn’t know if it was cute or sad that he’d already accustomed himself to Harley exploding into his life unannounced.  He put his half-carved rune down and turned to her.

“Yes, Harley?”

“Come take a walk around the dorms with me,” Harley said.  “It’s picture day!”

“Picture day?”

“Vell, you really got to get involved in school culture.  Come with me!”

When Harley said “come with me”, it was a statement, not a request.  She latched on to Vell’s arm and forcibly dragged him out into the hallway, to the door of the neighboring dorm.  For some reason, it had a blurry photo of planet earth attached to it.

“Oh, real fucking original, a satellite photo,” Harley said.

“I’d complain with you, but, uh, I have no idea what I’m complaining about,” Vell said.

“Oh right,” Harley said.  She’d skipped the exposition.  “Picture day is an Einstein-Odinson tradition where everyone competes to take the worst possible pictures of themselves and their roommates.”

Vell looked up and down the hall.  Every door was similarly decorated with an incredibly bad photograph, with humans only even vaguely recognizable in about a third of them.  Vell looked back at the blurry satellite photo.

“I take it this is a bit low-brow, as far as intentionally bad pictures go?”

“I guess it must’ve been clever the first time, but now it’s just overdone,” Harley said.  “Come on, I want to see what Joan and Freddy did!”

Harley led the way a few doors down, to their friends neighboring dorms.  Joan, being the only occupant of her dorm, had taken a selfie -using an image capture with one of her own prosthetic eyeballs, if the empty socket on her face was anything to go by.

“Well, that’s definitely a bad picture, though maybe not for the right reasons,” Harley said.

“We just talked about the eyeballs thing,” Vell sighed.

“Guess you better talk again,” Harley said.  “Let’s go see what Freddy did.”

The duo stepped one door to the left and took a look at the picture on Freddy’s door.  It depicted Freddy and his three roommates.  Or at least they were pretty sure it did.

“It looks Freddy...adjacent,” Vell said.  All the parts were there, but everything seemed slightly off.  The eyes were almost but not quite the right shade of green, the freckles were all slightly out of place, and the hair had an oddly synthetic texture.  A thousand minor errors worked together to creating something  unsettlingly almost-Freddy.

“This vexes and confuses me,” Harley said.  She immediately slammed a fist against the dorm room door.  “Frizzle!  Explain your witchcraft!”

Since it was Harley doing the knocking, Freddy appeared all but instantly.  Harley grabbed him by the shoulders and set him facing his disconcerting photo, demanding an explanation.

“Oh, yeah, that’s just an ordinary photo of us, but we fed it through a slightly flawed machine-learning algorithm to disassemble and reassemble our faces eight-thousand times,” Freddy explained.  “This is actually one of the better iterations.  You...you really don’t want to see iteration five-thousand and twenty-eight.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Harley said.  Her morbid curiosity had limits.  “Come on Vell, let’s take a quick look around and see what ideas are already taken.”

Vell followed along as Harley led him up and down the halls, voicing her opinion on every photo they saw.  When they had finished their tour, Harley dismissed him with orders to win the competition, or else.  Or else what, Harley did not specify.  Vell felt threatened regardless.

◆◆◆

This time, Vell burst into his own dorm.  His roommates had returned during his guided tour, and were gathered in the living room.

“Guys!  We need a plan for the bad picture contest.”

“We already have one,” Luke said.  He gestured to a tiny glass case containing an insect and some wiring.

“Yeah, I got this computer hooked up to a cockroach’s brain,” Cane explained.  “I’m going to capture a mental image of how the cockroach sees us.”

“Oh,” Vell said.  “That’s, uh, a pretty good plan.”

“Surprisingly, people can accomplish things without you and Harley around,” Cane said.  “Now get over here and say ‘Periplaneta americana’!”

Vell didn’t say that, though he did smile for the camera-roach.  Cane checked the output to make sure it was shitty enough while his roommates waited around.

“What’s the prize for this contest anyway?” Luke asked.

“Bragging rights, apparently,” Vell said.

“I’m down with that.”

Chapter 11: Unfortunate Sun

The sun loomed large (very, very large) on the horizon as Harley analyzed her data.

“I think that should do it,” she said.  She gave the malfunctioning transporter a kick.  “Now we know how to stop this on the next go around.”

“Excellent work, as always, dear,” Lee said.  She had brought along a parasol today, to block out the sunlight, even if only slightly.

In a misguided attempt to teleport a drone to the surface of Mercury, the Space Exploration department had inadvertently swapped the places of Earth and Mercury.  Vell wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he was well beyond the point of questioning it.  Right now he just wanted it to be over with.  Being only thirty-million miles from the sun sucked, even with a helpful slathering of SPF 10,000 sunscreen that Harley kept on hand for just such an occasion.  Vell looked in the general direction of the massive ball of fire, as close as he could look without immediately blinding himself.

“So, um, what now?”

“What do you mean, Vell?” Lee asked.

“I mean, well, we solved the thingy, but we’re still alive,” Vell said.  “This kind of stuff usually kills us.”

“Oh it’s going to,” Harley said.  Earth’s atmosphere was slowly being stripped away by the intense solar radiation, and not even the best sunscreen would save them once they were no longer shielded from the full wrath of the sun.  “Speaking of inevitable death, I’m going to go try and get laid before we all get fried.  You mind explaining things, Lee?”

“Of course.  Have fun, Harley.”

“That’s the plan,” Harley said with a smile.  “See you guys next loop!”

Vell and Lee waved goodbye while Harley went off on her own.  The duo found their way towards some shade and Lee put her parasol away before launching into an explanation.

“Well, the typical protocol is to look for a relatively quick and painless way to...well, you know,” Lee said.  She looked uncomfortable for a moment.  “Which I would recommend in this case, because overexposure to solar radiation is a very unpleasant way to go.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Secondhand, but yes,” Lee said.  “One of the upperclassmen got ejected into the void of space last year.  She described it as very unpleasant, but I digress.  While it is inadvisable in this situation, if you are ever in a scenario where your life is not immediately and painfully threatened, you are welcome to wait it out.”

“Wait?”

“Yes dear,” Lee said.  “Typically if you manage to fall asleep, you’ll wake the next loop in your own bed, as usual.  If one manages to stay awake until about midnight of the first loop, you’ll be...well, it’s odd, but it’s almost as if your consciousness gets booted back to the morning.  You’ll have a terrible headache though, this method does not come recommended.”

“Huh.  Well, I don’t think I’ve been doing this long enough for some casual suicide,” Vell said.  “I’m going to try and wait it out.”

“I’d advise against it, but you’re free to do as you will,” Lee said. “Care to join me for some tea?”

“Sure, I could-” Vell stopped for a moment and had second thoughts.  “Is the tea going to be poisoned?”

“Well mine is, but yours doesn’t have to be,” Lee said.  “A little cream and a dash of sugar and you can barely taste the cyanide.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Vell said.

“As you will,” Lee said.  She stood and unfolded her parasol once again.  “See you next loop, Vell.”

She stepped out of the shame and walked in the direction of the dorms.  Even with the scant shade provided by her parasol, Vell could see Lee’s skin getting burned red as she walked through the sun-baked regions of the campus.  By the time he started having second thoughts, Lee was already out of sight.  Vell took a deep breath, wiped some sweat off his forehead, and waited.

◆◆◆

“You really should’ve tried harder to talk me out of that,” Vell said.  He took a few sips from an icy water bottle he was clinging to for dear life.

“I told you, the headache is awful,” Lee chided.

“I didn’t even make the headache,” Vell whined.  “I got fried by a solar flare.”

Vell took another swig of ice-water and let it sit in his mouth for a moment, trying to wash out the aftertaste of yesterday’s apocalypse.

“I think my teeth melted,” he whined.  “It was horrible.”

“Well, you’ve learned an important lesson,” Harley said.  “Should’ve had some of Lee’s cyanide tea.  The bitter almond taste gives it a surprisingly complex flavor profile, actually.  If it didn’t kill me I’d have it more often.”

“Sadly my attempts to recreate the recipe with almond extract have always failed,” Lee sighed.

“I’m sure someone on this campus could invent cooking cyanide,” Vell suggested.  “I’ll ask Renard later.”

“Oh would you?  I’d appreciate it,” Lee said.

Vell took another sip of ice water and contemplated how to ask for edible poison.

Chapter 12: Karens are a Universal Constant

Vell rested his head in his hands and idly scribbled on his notebook.  He knew that most people were focused on the lecture, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that people were looking at him.

As it was the first loop, Vell had decided to indulge himself in an impulsive decision and magically dye his hair.  He had a broad streak of vibrant red running back from his forehead, which seemed all the more colorful for the fact that the rest of his wardrobe was the usual monotone.  It felt out of place, and Vell didn’t know if he’d be able to get used to it.

Glad for the chance to think about something else, Vell snatched his phone as it began to buzz.

Lee:
Vell, dear.
In all of our talks about past incidents, have we by any chance mentioned that aliens are real?

vharlan03:
no
wheres the alien

Lee:
On the quad.

vharlan03:
be right there

Vell shouldered his bag and headed for the quad.  A large crowd had gathered on the lawn, obstructing his immediate view, but Vell could see a large, domed metal structure towering above the crowd.  The UFO, presumably.  Or rather FO, since Vell knew exactly what it was.

Elbowing his way to the front of the crowd, apologizing all the while, Vell finally found a better view of the alien in question.  It had an egg-shaped body with six tentacles descending from the bottom that held it up, and four more tentacles that seemed to act as arms.  It also had one very large, disturbingly human eye right in the middle of the egg-shaped body.

“Vell!”

Looking away from the alien, Vell spotted Harley, who pushed her way through the crowd and grabbed him by the elbow.

“Sorry for not telling you about aliens earlier.”

“Well I kind of figured, with everything else I’ve seen.”

“Yeah, it tracks, doesn’t-”

She paused mid-sentence and looked up at Vell’s hair.  The streak of red had caught her eye.

“You changed your hair.”

“Yeah, figured I’d, uh, try something out on the first loop, you know, give it a test run.”

Harley’s eyes narrowed as she tracked the exact shade of red, and where she’d seen it before.

“Did you dye your hair to match Joan’s eyes?”

Vell looked down at the ground.

“Yeah.”

“You fucking nerd.  That’s adorable,” Harley said.  She tightened her grip on Vell’s elbow and started to tug.  “Come on, we got to deal with this alien.”

Harley blustered her way through the crowd, never stopping to apologize to the people she pushed aside, until they had regrouped with Lee and Leanne. 

“You’ve changed your hair,” Lee noted.

“Yeah.”

“It looks good on you.”

Leanne gestured towards the alien with an expectant look on her face.

“We’re getting to it,” Lee said.  “Just being polite.  Now, it’s been a while since the last alien.  If I remember right, we have to…”

Lee trailed off and tried to remember the protocol.  As she pondered how to make her third or fourth “first” contact, another figure broke through the crowd nearby.  The humans had formed a distant ring around the alien and its ship, not daring to step too close, until someone in a full-body environmental suit broke the line and began to step forward.  The thick material obscured nearly all of their body, but nothing could hide the curled mop of red hair that was practically overflowing from the helmets visor.

“Hey, Freddy Frizz!”  Harley cried.  “What’re you doing?”

Freddy Frizzle nearly jumped out of his hermetically sealed boots at the sound of her voice.  He turned away from the opportunity to make first contact with an alien race to chat up Harley.

“Oh, hello, Harley,” he said.  He tried his best to look impressive while wearing a full-body suit that had a built-in toilet.  It didn’t work.  “Well, I was just, you know, going to go over there and talk to the alien, I happened to have this hermetically sealed suit to prevent any transmission of alien microbes, you know, safety first, and I, uh-”

While Freddy Frizzle struggled to find a flirtatious segue from “transmission of alien microbes”, the egg-shaped alien turned towards the sound of his voice.

“Oh, can y’all talk?”

The crowd gasped and took a step back, except for the four loopers and Freddy Frizzle.  The fact that it communicated at all shocked them, and the fact that it communicated with a thick Dixie accent was even more surprising.

“Yeah, we can talk,” Harley shouted.  “Welcome to Earth, by the way!”

“Oh thanks,” the alien said.  It waved two tentacles in Harley’s direction.  “I’m just pleased as punch to be here, but I think I took a wrong turn at one of those big blue pools of liquid y’all have lying around.  If one of you funny-looking monkeys could give me direction to where them big feathery things and the giant lizards live, I’ll just be on my way happy as an amoeboid on a protein solution.”

Harley didn’t know how she felt about being called a funny-looking monkey, but she let it slide.

“Giant lizards?” She asked.

“Yeah, the really tall ones, some of them have long necks, some of have two legs, some of them got four, there was this one that had a real big forehead with a bunch of spikes on it.”

After a brief moment of thought, Harley pulled out her phone, made a quick search, and held it out the alien.  She pointed to the image she’d found: a triceratops.

“One of these?”

“Yeah, that’s one of them, right there,” the alien said, clearly overjoyed.  “If y’all could tell me where those have gone to, my kids and I came all this way just to see them.”

Harley shared a concerned glance with her friends.  Lee took the initiative of stepping up.

“Uh, I’m sorry, but that is a dinosaur,” Lee explained.  “And they have been gone for quite some time.”

“Well bring them back,” the egg-shaped alien requested.  “Or tell me where to find them.  I came thirteen point three billion light years already, I can go a few hundred miles out of my way.”

“I’m sorry, I think I was unclear,” Lee said.  “They’ve gone extinct.  They don’t exist anymore.”

“Well I saw them last time I was here,” the alien protested.

“Was that by any chance sixty-five million years ago?”

“Yes.  What, is that supposed to be a long time?”

Putting aside that very concerning mental image of lifetimes on a cosmic scale, Lee chose to focus on the matter at hand.

“Well, I’m afraid that the dinosaurs you’re looking for don’t exist anymore,” Lee said.  “There was an asteroid impact, you see.”

“Well why didn’t you stop it?”

Lee had no idea how to respond to that.  Harley did.

“Because we were not an extant species at the time, lady,” Harley shouted.  Lee bent over.

“Harley, don’t be rude, you don’t know if its a lady,” Lee said.

“It’s a lady,” Harley insisted.  “Karen’s are a universal constant.”

A sudden look of panic struck Lee’s face, and she turned to examine the alien and its ship.  Three smaller aliens of various sizes were staring out of the domed glass, and there were strange markings on the rear of the ship that Lee now recognized as a set of alien bumper stickers.

“Oh goodness you’re right,” Lee said, with dawning horror.  “It’s an extraterrestrial soccer mom.”

“I’m right here, you know,” the Karen Alien said.  “Who’s in charge of this hivemind cluster?  Y’all are being incredibly unhelpful and I want to file a complaint.”

“Nobody’s in charge!”  Harley protested.  “We don’t even have a hivemind cluster!”

“What kind of backwards planet are y’all running here?”

“Hey, our planet is very nice.  Mostly,” Vell said.  The alien waved all four of its tentacles at him.

“I’m not taking sass from someone with a diseased florgon crest,” the Karen Alien said, pointing a tentacle at Vell’s red streak of hair.  Vell put a hand on his head and stepped back.

“Don’t insult my friend’s florgon crest!”  Harley shouted.  “Look, there’s no dinosaurs, so there’s no reason for you to be here.  Why don’t you just take your kids and get off our planet?”

“Fine, I will,” the Karen Alien said.  “And I’ll be lodging a complaint with the Galactic Commerce Council for this terrible service!”

“We’re not a business, woman, you’re at a school! Now get out of here!”

With a huff of protest, the egg-shaped alien began to ascend the side of its vessel, clinging to the metal exterior with its adhesive tentacles.  Freddy watched it climb away and return to the cockpit with a look of dismay on his face.

“Harley!  You just chased off a form of advanced intelligent life!”

“Oh bullshit, there’s nothing advanced about it,” Harley said.  “I’ve met hundreds of people like her whining about expired coupons, or asking for free avocado in their salad.  Besides, its the first loop, so she’s probably going to-”

A tremor ran through the earth as the engine of the alien vessel activated.  Harley nodded as the ground beneath the ship started to curl in on itself, as if reality itself was being scrunched up like a sock about to get thrown in the hamper.  She took a close look at the ship and the reality-warping field it was generating.

“Oh, a Holtzman fold-space drive,” Harley said.  She looked at her friends.  “This is going to be very unpleasant.”

With that warning delivered, Harley cupped her hands over her ears.

“You’re going to want to cover your ears real good,” Harley shouted as the engine of the alien ship started to roar louder and louder.  “It’ll keep any sudden pressure differentials from popping all the blood vessels in your brain.  Won’t save your life, but it will make dying hurt a lot less.”

Lee, Leanne, and Vell dutifully cupped their hands over their ears.  Vell closed his eyes and tried to think about something pleasant before the alien ship activated, folding all of reality, Vell and company included, into an elaborate celestial origami.

◆◆◆

“Well that was unpleasant,” Vell noted.  He settled into a chair in his dorm and tried to shake off the phantom pain of being put through a cosmic taffy-pull.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Harley said.  “For like three seconds before the spacial distortion tore us all apart, I was taller than you guys.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, dear,” Lee began.  “Now, shall we discuss resolving this issue?  Anyone have any ideas?”

“Well, uh, easiest solution, why don’t we just show the alien a dinosaur?  Somebody on this campus has to have a way to bring a dinosaur back, right?”

“Oh no, not an option,” Lee said.  “The Einstein-Odinson college has a very strict anti-Jurassic Park policy.”

“No bringing dinosaurs back.  No cloning, no necromancy, no time travel, and absolutely no instigating retrograde evolution in chickens to try and give them dinosaur-like traits,” Harley said.  “All banned, never ends well.”

“Yeah, that makes sense, actually,” Vell said. 

“It’s all in the student handbook, Vell, you really should have read yours,” Lee said.

“I’ll try to find one after we solve our alien problem,” Vell said.  He was still wrapping his head around the fact that he’d met an alien lifeform and it had insulted his hair.  He’d decided not to dye his hair red again on the grounds that he’d never be able to forget the “diseased florgon crest” remark.  He didn’t even know what a florgon crest was.

“We can’t do a genuine dinosaur, but you might be on to something,” Harley said.  “There’s rules about real dinosaurs, but no rules about fake ones.”

“A workable idea, Harley,” Lee said.  “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I figure me and the bitches can probably build an animatronic dinosaur or two before this afternoon, and then Vell can just slap an illusion rune on them to make them look like the real deal.  Then the alien bitch and her brats get to see a dinosaur and leave happily instead of spaghettifying us with her foldspace engine.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Lee said.  She clapped her hands together and stood up.  “I’ll get everything ready to put on a show for our alien visitor while you handle the construction.  Do tell the bitches I said hello.”

“Will do,” Harley said.  “Come with me, Vell.  You should have an idea what you’re working with, and we can introduce you to the bitches.”

“Sounds like a good time, I guess.”

◆◆◆

Harley kicked open the door of the robotics lab.  Unlike the last time Vell had seen it, where its only resident had been the twitching body of Thomas Edison, today it was crawling with activity.  All of that activity came to a halt as the rooms dozens of occupants simultaneously stopped what they were doing to say hello to Harley.

“Hi everyone,” Harley responded.  She then stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly before giving a rallying cry.  “Assemble the bitches!”

At her call, three women dropped what they were doing and rushed to Harley with cartoonish speed.  They formed ranks shoulder to shoulder and saluted Harley in unison.

“First of all, Lee says hello,” Harley said.  The bitches nodded.  Harley then stepped back to Vell and pushed him forward, displaying him to her friends.

“Vell, these are the bitches,” Harley said, gesturing to the trio.  “The bitches, this is Vell.”

“Hi Vell,” the one on the left said.  She was the only person in the room, and possibly on campus, shorter than Harley, though her diminutive size was offset by a massive cybernetic arm strapped to her shoulder.  Vell extended his hand, and the cyborg took it in her titanic metal grip and shook it gently.

“That’s Himiko, she used to be my rival in the actual hatred sense but now our rivalry is the sexy kind,” Harley said.  Himiko gave a thumbs up and a wink in Harley’s direction.  Harley then pointed to the next woman in the lineup, a tall, dark skinned woman with an intense stare.  “That’s Kanya, she was one of my roommates last year.”

Vell shook her hand as well and then looked to the last of the women in the lineup.  She was wearing sunglasses indoors, and her clothes, hair, and makeup were all exactly the same shade of black.

“And that’s Sarah, I have no idea what her deal is but she’s cool and she’s good at making robots,” Harley said.  Sarah nodded in Vell’s direction, imparting the small gesture with significant mystique.  Vell tried to nod back with equal mystique, and immediately knew he had failed.

“Anyway, ladies, the order of the day is animatronic dinosaurs,” Harley said.  “Hopefully several.  What’ve you got?”

“I could upscale some of my animatronic tendrils for a brachiosaurus or other sauropod,” Kanya said.

“I have several bird-like models that could be adapted to pterosaurs,” Himiko said.

“Sarah, tell me about any dinosaur robots you’ve got,” Harley said, phrasing it as a command rather than a question for some reason.

“I have two full-sized tyrannosaur models in my workshop,” Sarah said.  Harley nodded as Vell’s eyes narrowed.

“Why do you have those?”

Sarah did not react in any way to the question.

“Oh, she never answers questions,” Harley said.  “Watch.  Hey Sarah, what color is your hair?”

Sarah said nothing, though she did brush a strand of black hair behind her ear.  Harley waited a second to let her silence sink in, and then got back to business.

“We have until exactly 3:32 PM, and, as usual, you cannot ask any questions,” Harley said.  “Any questions?”

The bitches remained silent.

“Perfect!” Harley said.  “Vell’s gonna be coating these things with an illusion, so don’t worry about the aesthetics, just make it functional.  Get us measurements ASAP so Vell can charge up the illusion runes right.  If you need anything, I’ll be in my usual spot, building a Utahraptor.  Dismissed!”

At Harley’s cry, the bitches disassembled and began to assemble, gathering scattered mechanical components and piecing them together.  Harley made a beeline for an empty workbench and assembled her tools, before summoning Botley and instructing him to gather components.  Vell had seen the workbench in her dorm room several times, and while it had an impressive array of tools, the industrial grade tools outshined them all -and took up much more space.

“Mind if I borrow a corner of your workbench?”

“Make yourself at home,” Harley said. She pushed aside a partially-assembled Botley body to make room for him.  Vell sat down and unpacked a few of his rune-carving tools.  He had figured he’d need them soon, and he planned to stick around so he could make adjustments to his carving depending on the projects Harley and her friends managed to complete.

“Hope you don’t mind if I talk your ear off.  I like to talk while I work and the bitches are not great conversationalists.”

“You talk too much, we run out of things to say,” Himiko snapped, without looking up from her work.

“Yet another way you can’t keep up with me,” Harley said.  Himiko did not offer a retort, and Harley returned her attention to Vell.  “So what’s on your mind, Harlan?  Got any girl problems this time?”

“Oh, no, things are fine, actually.  Great, even,” Vell said.  “Good.”

“Good to hear, but that gives me nothing conversation wise.  How you handling the revelation that we’re not alone in the galaxy?”

“Honestly I always kind of figured aliens were out there somewhere,” Vell said.  “The real surprise is that they speak English.”

“Oh, they don’t,” Harley said.  Vell looked up from his carving.

“What?  You heard it talking,” Vell said.  Harley shook her head.

“You really got to read that student handbook, Vell,” Harley said.  She leaned away from her work to shout at her bitches.  “Hey Himiko!  You speak any English?”

“Not a word,” Himiko said, in English.  “Only Japanese.”

“How about you, Kanya?”

“I speak Thai and a little bit of Lao,” Kanya said.

“What about you, Sarah, what languages you speaking?”

Sarah, as was her wont, did not answer the question.  Harley let the silence of her non-answer linger for a bit before turning back to Vell.

“This is an international college, Vell, they have a translation spell over the whole campus,” Harley said.  “Translates everything.  Except Latin, since all the scientific names for shit are in Latin.  Even works on alien languages, though fuck if I know how.”

“Huh.  Wait, uh, hold on, are you speaking English?”

“I’m from California, Vell, yes I am speaking English,” Harley said.  “The way up north part, though, not the sexy LA part.”

“Oh, well, I’m from Texas, so I definitely speak English,” Vell said.  “And some Punjabi, but not as much as my mom would like.”

“I never did take you for a momma’s boy,” Harley said. 

“He looks like momma’s boy to me,” Sarah said.

“Don’t be rude, Sarah,” Harley said.  “I know I call you guys the bitches but that’s no excuse to be an actual bitch.”

◆◆◆

While Harley and Vell had the hands-on work of assembling and disguising dinosaur sized machines, Lee had taken on the far more difficult task of assembling a cover story.  Not only would Lee have to come up with a rational explanation for filling the quad with dinosaurs, she also had to cover up the existence of extraterrestrial life.  Even on a campus as strange as the Einstein-Odinson college, there were limits to what people would believe.  Thankfully, she had a direct line to a figure of some authority on the campus.  With only slight hesitation, Lee knocked on the door of Principal Isaac Goodwell’s office. 

It took a moment for the door to be opened, but when Principal Goodwell saw it was Lee at his door, he  quickly ushered her in.  Goodwell pushed aside a sizable stack of paperwork and sat down at his desk, barely bothering to disguise his eagerness.

“Ms. Burrows, good to see you,” he began.

“Oh please, call me Lee,” she replied.  She didn’t like the idea of getting friendly with the strange principal, but she also didn’t like the sound of her last name.

“Lee, then.  What brings you here today?”

“Well, uh, before we begin, during your tenure here, did you by any chance ever deal with any incidents from, well, other planets?”

“Oh yeah, all the time,” Goodwell said.  He kicked his feet up on his desk.  “We had an alien came by all the time, we called him Ros, which he apparently found offensive, but he was an asshole anyway.  Oh, why?  You just have your first close encounter of the third kind?  Looking for some advice on how to handle extraterrestrials?”

“Oh, no, actually, we’ve handled it before, just wondering if we were on the same page, in regards to the existence of alien life,” Lee said.  “I just wanted to make you aware we’re going to be causing quite a spectacle this afternoon.  You see, an alien is going to be landing on the quad, and we need to show it a dinosaur-”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Goodwell interrupted.  “No dinosaurs.  This school has a very strict anti-Jurassic Park policy.  Didn’t you read the handbook?”

“I did, actually,” Lee said.  “We’re making animatronic dinosaurs, not real ones.”

“Oh, well, that should be fine.  I’ll make sure the faculty knows there’s going to be some fake dinosaurs on the quad today,” Goodwell said.  “And some fake aliens while I’m at it.  So, when are we getting started?”

“Oh, the aliens are landing at about three-thirty, so at least a few minutes before then,” Lee began.

“Perfect.  I’ll see you on the quad at three-twenty.  Look forward to working with you.”

Lee pursed her lips.  She didn’t remember inviting Goodwell to participate -because she definitely hadn’t.

“I wouldn’t want to pull you away from your duties, sir,” Lee said, side-eyeing the massive stack of paperwork the Principal was ignoring.  In response, he shoved it even further aside.

“Nonsense.  Saving the world from...whatever this alien is going to do to it takes precedence over some silly paperwork.”

“Well, we can certainly handle it, but I suppose you can’t hurt,” Lee said, incorrectly.  “If you insist-”

“I just think I could be a great help, is all,  I don’t want to impose,” Goodwell said, imposingly.  Lee gave a forced smile and excused herself.  She doubted anything she could say would truly change his mind.  Better to spend her time preparing her teammates for Goodwell’s unwelcome appearance.

◆◆◆

“Aww, fuck that guy,” Harley said.  “Why’s he got to muscle in on the action?”

“It won’t be so bad,” Vell said.  “Maybe now none of us will have to deal with the Karen Alien.”

Harley put down a wrench and stopped adjusting the hip of her robotic Utahraptor long enough to glare at Vell.

“Oh no, I’m handling it,” Harley said.  “I don’t trust that guy as far as I can throw him.”

“Fair enough, but, you know, we’ve got to try and keep him happy, at least.  Having a principal who actually knows about the loops and can help us is a big deal,” Vell said.  “Not to mention he could expel us or something if we make him mad, I think.”

“Hah, as if!” Harley scoffed, though she did not elaborate on her reasons for thinking that.  “We need to keep this guy at arm’s length.  You were right when you said Goodwell’s skeevy, Vell.  I’ve been googling.”

Harley dismounted a bench and pulled up a webpage on her phone before holding it out to Harley and Vell.  It was dated six years ago, the headline being “College Dean ousted in the middle of messy divorce”.  Beneath the headline was a picture of Principal Goodwell, though his hair and beard was deep black instead of gray.  The past few years had not been kind to him, for obvious reasons.

“Dude slaps his wife in the middle of an argument, loses her, loses his job, loses his kids, even lost the house and the minivan,” Harley said.  “And then immediately starts his bid to be the principal of the Einstein-Odinson college.  Where he used to be caught in a time loop.  What kind of lunatic would try to go back to the time he got killed on a daily basis?”

“Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing,” Lee said.  “Rose-colored glasses make it difficult to see all the blood.”

“Damn that was deep,” Harley said.  “Somebody write that down.”

“Oh don’t, somebody said it on TV the other day,” Lee said with a dismissive wave.  “On a related note, I did end up tracking down that Lijia Mian figure Goodwell mentioned on our first meeting.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not much,” Lee said.  “Just a few old academic records, grades, that sort of thing.  Curiously, no record of her graduating.  Aside from that, nothing.”

“The plot thickens,” Harley said.  “But not by much.  We’ll deal with that later.”

Harley got back to work on her Utahraptor, splitting her focus between the mechanisms and her conversation.

“Whatever’s going on with this dude, we can’t trust him,” Harley said.  “Dude hitting his wife is more than enough to make me never want to talk to him again, much less whatever he’s up to here.  And he is definitely up to something.”

“I concur.  But, as the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Lee said.  “There may be some merit in maintaining a close relationship with our principal, if only to keep an eye on him.”

“And exploit him to make our job easier!”

“Yes, that too,” Lee said.  “Speaking of our job, dear, how is your dinosaur coming along?”

“Oh I’ve been done for a while now, I’ve just been fucking around to make Himiko think she has a chance of beating me,” Harley said.  She stood, grabbed a remote off of her workbench, and activated the mechanical Utahraptor.  It stood up immediately and took a few stiff steps forward.  Across the workshop, Himiko let out a groan of frustration and used her mechanical arm to throw a wrench across the room so hard it embedded itself in the wall. 

“Better luck next time, Himiko,” Harley said.  “I’ll help the rest of the bitches get their dino’s done.  Vell, you get this guy dressed up.”

Vell nodded, glanced at the wrench embedded in the wall, and then shook his head clear.  He needed to focus on the matter at hand.

◆◆◆

At three-twenty in the afternoon, with a just a few minutes to spare, the dinosaurs made their way into the Quad.  While this garnered some initial concern from those who were out of the loop, Principal Goodwell had spread the word well enough that all concerned parties were quickly corrected.  While a few curious onlookers gathered to gawk at the dinosaurs, for most students of the Einstein-Odinson college, animatronic dinosaurs weren’t all that special.  Lee watched students come and go while Harley discussed the plan with the bitches.

“Alright, so you just need to make the dinosaurs mill about a bit, act natural, try to stay away from our little alien friend so they don’t accidentally touch,” Harley said.  Harley’s friends, as well as the general public, were under the impression that the alien would also be a hologram.  “Other than that, just act dinosaurish.”

The bitches declared their understanding of the plan, and Harley left them to their own devices, both literally and figuratively.  Himiko, Kanya, and Sarah picked up remotes and practiced making the animatronics move realistically while Harley conferred with the other loopers -both past and present.  Isaac Goodwell stood awkwardly outside the circle while Lee explained the plan to Vell, Leanne, and Harley.

“Alright, to make sure this goes according to plan, we need to curate the experience for the alien.  Get her under control, keep her along a predictable path, just make sure she takes a look at the dinosaur and then leaves.”

“Without activating the foldspace engine in the atmosphere again,” Vell said.  Everyone nodded. 

“To this point, Harley has decided on a way to manage the alien’s behavior.”

Lee gestured to Harley, who proudly displayed a tacky t-shirt with a picture of a dinosaur on it.  There was also a matching hat.

“Retail!  We’re going to make the alien think she’s at a dinosaur-themed tourist trap!”

Vell examined the tacky uniform with a skeptical glare.  Harley noticed his expression and expounded on her reasoning.

“Listen, entitled bitches feel most comfortable when they think other people are contractually obligated to act inferior to them,” Harley explained.  “As long as she thinks she’s actually bossing us around, our point man can get them to do whatever we want.”

At this point, Goodwell elbowed his way into the conversation.  He grabbed the hat out of Harley’s hand and took a close look at it.

“I think I can handle corralling one alien,” he boasted.  “Had quite a few of them back in the day, I was a fair hand at negotiating with extraterrestrials.”

“Sorry sir, but I think I should handle this one,” Harley said, feigning respect. “This alien’s one of those bitchy mom types, and I’m an expert at handling them.”

“Hah, please,” Goodwell scoffed.  “I work in education.  I’ve handled it all, helicopter moms, tiger moms, stage moms, you name it.  What makes you think you’re better equipped to handle a bitching parent?”

“I was a waitress.”

Goodwell gave the hat back.

“Right then, do your best,” Goodwell said.  “I’ll be nearby if you need anything.”

“Okay cool, because I also didn’t make a t-shirt in your size,” Harley said.  She reached into her bag and pulled out two more t-shirt and hat combos. “Lee, Vell, I want you on backup.  Just grab a broom or a bucket and act like you’re doing something.”

With only a few minutes to spare, Vell and Lee ran off to get changed.  By the time they’d returned, they could already see the alien ship descending.  Vell grabbed a broom and arbitrarily swept a patch of ground while Lee grabbed the nearest container she could find, a bag full of what looked like fertilizer for grass, and started spreading it on the ground in front of the animatronic pteranodons.

“I don’t feel like this is very convincing,” Lee said under her breath.

“It’s fine, you’re doing great.  Karen’s don’t see you as living things, just mindless automatons that only exist to ensure the retail machine operates smoothly enough to serve their every petulant whim,” Harley said.  “Just keep your head down, act natural. and don’t make eye contact.  Like that time we had to get past that gorilla.”

“A gorilla? What kind of doomsday was that?” Vell asked.

“Oh that wasn’t actually the apocalypse that day, there was just an unrelated gorilla loose on campus,” Harley said.  “I’ll explain some other time, the Karen Alien’s landing.”

The disc-shaped vessel descended as Vell went back to idly sweeping a patch of grass.  He moved closer to the nearby Apatosaurus to hopefully stay out of sight.  The alien landed on the quad and descended to the surface of the grass, beckoning the smaller aliens to follow her as she descended.

“Oh see there they are, just like I told you kids,” the alien said.  The egg-shaped alien coiled its tentacles together as it appraised the collection of dinosaurs.  “Though they were different last time I was here.”

Harley stepped up, took a deep breath, and all but instantly became a different person.

“Sorry, but we like to cycle our exhibits every forty million years or so, keeps things fresh,” Harley said, in a voice as synthetic and sterile as a styrofoam cup.  “If there’s any specific dinosaurs you’d like to see, I can call up my manager and he can get here in ten million years, give or take a few millenia.”

Vell tried his best to continue sweeping.  The new persona Harley had adapted unsettled him, to say the least.  Harley’s usual infectious energy and happiness had been usurped by the most lifeless and hollow faux-enthusiasm he’d ever heard.

“Oh that’s alright, these are fine,” the alien said.  “Y’all little monkey looking folks weren’t around last time I was here, though.  What’re you supposed to be?”

“We’re the new staff, we just got hired on the last time the dinosaurs cycled through,” Harley explained.  “I’m guessing your last visit was before that, I’d be happy to explain all the new changes to you.”

Harley delivered a long, entirely off-the-cuff monologue about the entirely made up rules of her entirely made up dinosaur display.  The alien raised some protest when told about the new admission price, but Harley quickly appeased her by acquiescing to her demands and offering the alien and her children free admission “just this once”.  Placated by Harley’s charade, the alien raised very few protests during the rest of the “tour”.  Harley stayed by the aliens side most of them, only briefly diverting to Vell, who was still sweeping the same patch of grass.

“Hey Vell, run to my workshop and grab one of those blocks of gray rubbery stuff off the middle shelf,” Harley said, returning her voice to its normal pitch and tone briefly.  “These aliens apparently eat silicone and I’m about to overcharge the hell out of some concessions.”

“Okay, uh, yeah, sure,” Vell said, dropping his broom where he stood.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, your voice is, uh…”

Harley barely restrained a snort of laughter.

“You’ve never worked in retail, have you?” Vell shook his head.  “Right, well, this is Customer Service Harley, she’s a facade designed to appease the soulless consumerist class.  Now go get the silicone, I want to make some alien money.”

◆◆◆

“Thank you for joining us today, please feel free to come again any time,” said Customer Service Harley.  “It’s been a pleasure having you.”

“Oh the pleasure’s all mine, thank you so much for everything,” the alien said.

Customer Service Harley carried on a few more fond farewells with their alien guest before asking her to refrain from using any form of faster-than-light travel within the atmosphere, to avoid upsetting the dinosaurs.  Having been appeased by Customer Service Harley for the past hour, the alien complied with that one request and took off, her ship vanishing from view shortly after exiting the atmosphere.  With a deep sigh, the true Harley reasserted herself, and her posture slouched.  After a brief moment of exhaustion, Harley reached into her pocket and began counting out alien money, which took the form of semi-translucent cubes about the size of a grape.

“I hope this is a lot,” Harley said.

“What are you even going to do with it?” Vell asked.

“Buy some alien weed,” Harley said.

“You know where to get alien weed?”

“No, but considering what our lives are like, it has a pretty good chance of coming up,” Harley said.  She tucked the alien money back into her pocket and shot a thumbs up in the direction of Lee and the bitches.

“Good work, everyone,” she said.

“Yes, really well done everyone, truly,” Goodwell said.  He stepped off the sidelines, applauding slowly all the while.  “What a wonderful performance, glad I could be a part of it.”

“You were not a part of it,” Sarah noted.

“Who asked you?”

Sarah said nothing.  Goodwell stared at her for a while, expecting an answer.

“Did you hear me, young lady?”

Sarah continued to say nothing.  The principal finally got the picture and turned to Harley instead.

“Is she alright?”

“I have no way of knowing,” Harley admitted.  Goodwell gave a single firm nod and turned fully away from Sarah.

“Right.  Well.  Call me any time, I suppose.  It was good to be back in the action, if only for a while.”

“We’ll call you when we need you, sir,” Lee assured him.  Goodwell gave a sharp salute and trotted back to his office to take care of the paperwork he’d been neglecting.  As he dashed off, Sarah slid in between Harley and Vell.

“This man has many qualities of suspicion,” Sarah noted.

“Yep,” Harley said.  “We’re aware.”

“He’s odd, yes, but he did stay out of our way,” Lee said.  “Maybe he’s not all bad.”

◆◆◆

“Nope, he’s all bad,” Harley said.

“Because he made us do the paperwork?”

Principal Goodwell had continued his “partnership” with the loopers by foisting all of the paperwork related to approving their dinosaur display off onto the loopers.  They had spent most of the evening and on into the next day working on filing all the forms and approval requests Goodwell had forced upon them.

“Well, more so that he made us do the paperwork specifically so he could lurk around campus doing random weird things,” Harley said.  Since passing off the paperwork to the loopers, Goodwell had been spotted lurking around the neurology department by Cane, the rune tech lab by Joan, and the biology labs, by some of Harley’s friends.  Apparently he believed he was distracting the loopers, but failing to consider that they had friends.

“It is suspicious.  I’d be worried if he weren’t conducting himself so incompetently.”

“Never underestimate what incompetent people can do with enough determination,” Harley said.  “If idiots were doomed to fail, we’d all be dead.”

“Hey.”

“What?  I included myself in that.  We’re all dumb sometimes.”

Vell sighed and returned his focus to the paperwork.  The trio had agreed to split it up in shifts, and Vell took his turn while Harley focused on a robotics project.

“What’s your full name, Lee?”

“I’ll fill out those parts myself, if you don’t mind,” Lee said stiffly.  Vell nodded and moved on.

“What about you, Harley?”

“I’m going to save us a whole Abbot and Costello routine and tell you that my full, legal name, as it appears on my birth certificate, is Harley B Harley.”

Vell put his pen down for a second to stare at Harley.  She looked away from her robotics project long enough to stare right back.

“What?” Vell asked.

“My first name is Harley, and my last name is also Harley,” she said.  “Yes, I know it’s odd, yes, my parents had strange taste in names.”

“Okay, I guess,” Vell said.  He’d seen more questionable things in the past few months.  “What’s the ‘B’ stand for?”

“Nothing, it’s just the letter ‘B’,” Harley said.

Vell didn’t know why he’d even bothered asking.  He rounded out his share of the paper work and handed the paperwork over to Lee, who got started filling out her own name.  While she scrawled away at her apparently-secret name (another thing Vell didn’t bother to question), Vell decided to satiate a lingering curiosity.

“So, I actually had a question, uh, about some stuff that happened yesterday,” Vell said.

“I still don’t know where to find alien weed, no,” Harley said.

“Not what I had in mind, but good to know,” Vell said.  “I was actually kind of curious about why we had to keep the alien hidden from everybody.  I mean, they apparently come here all the time.  Why do we have to keep it secret?”

“Very good question,” Lee said.  She took the excuse to set the paperwork aside for a moment and reached into her purse to pull out a very large binder.  She tried to open the massive sheaf of documents and ended up dropping it on her foot.  She cringed with pain for a moment and then picked up the binder, biting her lip as she scanned it.

“Yes, I saw something about that here earlier,” she said.  “Something about an incident back in the sixties…”

Lee’s sizable binder created a catalog of notable apocalypses of the past, passed down between generations of Loopers since the school’s founding in the mid-forties.  Vell considered asking to look at it later.  Harley, who was entirely uninterested in a bunch of super old stories about random deadly bullshit, occupied herself with snacking. 

“Ah yes, here we are,” Lee said.  “While aliens can visit Earth freely, the citizens of Earth are expressly prohibited from contacting other civilizations due to…”

Lee paused in her narration and ran a finger along the page for a moment, absorbing the contents.

“An incident in which visitors from the galactic council visited Earth and were bitten by a particularly ornery stag beetle,” Lee said.  “Hmm.”

“We got banned from galactic society because of a beetle?”

“Yes, well, apparently the galactic council was under the impression that beetles were the dominant species on planet earth,” Lee elaborated.

“How?”

“Just by sheer numbers, I’d say,” Harley said.  “Ain’t most things on the planet beetles?”

“Yes, actually.  Accounting for sheer numbers, one in every four living things is a beetle.”

“Huh.  Well, I’m not a beetle,” Harley joked.

“Nor am I,” Lee said.

“Me neither,” Vell said.

After their trinity of denials, the room fell silent. The moment passed, and in unison. all three turned their heads to look across the workshop, towards Sarah.  She looked up from her work and stared right back at them.

“Why am I being looked at it in funny manner?”

“No reason,” Harley said, as her eyes narrowed.

Chapter 13: A Hello to Arms

Harley pushed a tool shelf against the door the minute Vell slammed it shut.  Not a moment too soon, if the rhythmic thumping of the horde against the door was an indication.

“Fucking zombies,” Harley said.

“You seem really unbothered about the horde of undead,” Vell said.  He was by far the most shaken of the current trio.  Lee and Harley seemed more annoyed than anything by the rising tide of the living dead.

“Fuck it, man, there’s like a billion seasons of The Walking Dead, everyone’s sick of zombies,” Harley said.

“It’s still the apocalypse, Harley,” Vell said.  “They got Renard!”

“Everything gets Renard!”

Vell considered a rebuttal, but could only shrug.  Renard was remarkably death-prone.  While Vell and Harley argued, Lee put a key into the lock of a nearby storage locker and opened it up.

“Ah, here we are,” Lee said.  She reached into the locker and pulled out a large container which was haphazardly filled with weapons of every shape and size.  Lee shook it slightly and removed a very large spear from the container and set it against the nearest wall.

“Well, dear, while zombies are a relatively minor nuisance, they are one that requires combat, and you should be armed accordingly,” Lee said.  She looked at the door and listened the zombies pound against it.  “Admittedly I believe we ought to have done this several days ago, but better late than never, as the saying goes.”

“Time to pick your weapon, Vell!” Harley said.  She slapped Vell on the back and pushed him closer to the bucket of weaponry.  The loopers had accumulated a veritable arsenal of legendary weapons, cursed relics, and magical artifacts over the years, most of which were unceremoniously put into storage until they were needed.

“It seems like we have a lot,” Vell noted.  “Couldn’t I just, you know, pick whatever would work best?”

“Nah, it really works better if you have a signature weapon,” Harley said.

“Fate seems to like when things are thematically concise,” Lee noted in turn.

“Right.  Okay, then, uh, what are your guys’ weapons?  Fate probably doesn’t like us doubling up.”

Lee nodded and reached into her purse.  Vell was starting to wonder about the holding capacity of that purse, and he only questioned it more as Lee withdrew a twenty-foot whip.  She flicked her wrist and let the whip uncoil.  It was crafted from several strands of rich red leather, each engraved with a series of symbols Vell didn’t recognize, but looked Asiatic.

“This is the Whip of the Red River, one of the only weapons used to drive intruders from the legendary city of Kunlun,” Lee said.  She allowed the whip to fully unravel and gave it a gentle wave.  The whip moved with unnatural fluidity, and a shimmer of energy flowed along the length of it. “Each of the four leather strands was torn from the hide of a demon and blessed by one of the four disciples of Tang Sanzang.”

“Neat,” Vell said.  “Harley?”

“I strapped a laser beam to Botley!”

Harley snapped her fingers and Botley appeared in a flash.  His round head had been attached to a floating drone which, as Harley had said, had a sizable laser array attached to it.  Harley pointed her fingers like guns and made a few “pew pew pew” noises.  Botley tracked where she was pointing and fired laser beams at the indicated targets, which left scorch marks throughout the storage room.

“Fascinating.  What’s Leanne got?”

“Oh, she just punches stuff,” Harley said.  Vell nodded.  That sounded right.

“Okay, I guess let’s see those weapons then.”

Lee helped him peruse the contents of the weapon-bucket, introducing some of the mythical artifacts contained within.  Vell briefly considered Naegling, and then Labrys, before discovering they were a bit too heavy for him.  Kaumodaki was light enough to be used, but Vell felt a blunt weapon like a mace wouldn’t be much good against zombies.  Vell pushed aside spears, hammers, maces, and an inordinate amount of swords before his eyes caught a finely-engraved wooden box sitting at the very bottom of the pile.

“What’s in that?”

Lee reached in and removed the oaken box from beneath a stack of swords.  She had to look at it for a second before she remembered the contents, and unlatched it to display to Vell.  Three well-worn revolvers laid inside the box, cushioned in place by red velvet.   A coarse leather belt with a single holster also sat folded in the box, below the revolvers.

“These are the 666-Shooters,” Lee said.  “Three legendary weapons of the west, imbued with the power of endless destruction by their violent history.  While two are drawn, the third will magically reload itself in the holster.”

“Huh.”

Lee lifted the first of the six-shooters, holding it carefully out to Vell.

“This is the gun that killed Jesse James,” she said, before replacing it and pulling out another.  “This is the gun used by Billy the Kid during his longest killing spree.  And this-”

Lee reached into the box and drew the final of the three guns, holding it aloft with an almost reverent care.

“-is one of the weapons used as a prop by Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

“Oh, sick.  Is it autographed?”

“No,” Lee said.  Vell sighed.

“Alright, well, I’ll take those,” Vell said.  He unpacked the belt and buckled it around his waist, tucking the Clint Eastwood gun into the holster while he checked the cylinders of the other revolvers.  They would need a lot of cleaning later, but they’d work for now, so he gave both the revolvers a quick spin and looked to the door.

“Alright, I’m good to go.  Let’s kill some zombies.”

“You know how to use those things, Vell?”

“I, uh, know what I’m doing, yeah,” Vell said. 

“Alright, but I’m standing behind you,” Harley said, as she eyed the guns cautiously.  She was wary of firearm safety, even around someone she trusted as much as Vell.

“I’ll get the door,” Lee said, readying her whip.  When Harley and Vell were ready, she sent the whip sailing towards the door’s barricade, coiling around the shelf, and then pulled it loose with a mighty tug.  The door caved open almost immediately, and a dozen zombies shambled into the room.

Harley had barely taken a breath before all twelve of the zombies fell to the ground, with a smoking hole dead center in each of their foreheads.  The gunshots hadn’t even stopped echoing by the time Vell reloaded and drew his guns again, hammering down on each revolver’s trigger so fast his fingers turned to a blur.  A dozen more zombies fell, all from dead-center headshots, and hadn’t even hit the ground before Vell opened fire once more.

It took a few dozen more bullets, and roughly seven seconds, before there were no more zombies to shoot.  Vell holstered his guns and kicked a stack of zombie corpses out of the way of the door.  Harley stayed put, as she had to pick up her jaw off the ground first.

“Yeah, yeah ‘I, uh, know what I’m doing’,” Harley mumbled under breath, in mockery of Vell.  “You ever see anybody shoot like that?”

Lee shook her head.  The barrels of Vell’s guns had actually been starting to turn red hot.

“Are you two coming?” Vell asked.

“Yeah yeah,” Harley said.  She waded through the pile of zombie bodies and followed Vell out the door.  A sly smile crossed her face as soon as she exited the room.  “So, Vell-”

Vell knew the look on her face, and he didn’t like it.  He gave a preemptive sigh.

“-I never took you for a quickshot.”

“Great.  You done?”

“For now,” Harley said.  It was almost a threat.

Chapter 14: Secrets, Lies, and Adelie Penguins

Vell stood ankle-deep in the cold water as Harley did some calibrations on her machine.  He checked his phone again and saw no updates from Lee.  He grumbled about the circumstances under his breath.  The one time they had an ocean-themed catastrophe, and their resident hydromancer was indisposed.

The marine biology lab had pulled off another idiotic apocalypse.  While they had flawlessly executed their plan to open a portal to the south pole, their aim had been slightly off.  Their portal was located roughly thirty feet below sea level, and frigid water was now pouring into the lab.  A pool of water had accumulated in the experiment room and was now flowing out the door.  A janitor bot had helpfully placed a “Wet Floor” sign nearby ten minutes ago, but it had since floated away.  Vell watched a small chunk of ice and some small fish drift past his ankles as the water continued to flow.

“Fucking marine biologists,” he muttered under his breath.  Harley nodded in agreement.

While many among the staff and students were trying to find a solution to the portal problem, only Vell and Harley were on site.  Since the Einstein-Odinson College was situated in a tropical climate, only the Loopers had any cold-weather gear on hand, in anticipation of such frigid calamities.  The heavy boots and parkas did keep the worst of the arctic chill at bay, but Vell was still shivering in his boots.

The portal lurched, and grew slightly larger.  The flow of water grew stronger, and a few large fish slipped through the gap, flopping helplessly in the shallow water.  As they thrashed, Lee surfed forward on a wave of icy water.  She attempted to dismount the wave, slipped, and splashed into the icy water below, floating on her back in the frigid pool.

“You good?” Harley asked.

“Physically, yes,” Lee sighed.  She stood and used her hydromancy to remove the freezing water from her clothes.

“Sorry I’m late,” she huffed.  “I had a bu- a meeting, and it dragged on forever thanks to-”

“Could you apologize on dry land, please?” Vell begged.  “I know I’m going to die sometime today but I’d like to die with my toes warm, at least.”

“Oh, yes, my apologies,” Lee said.  She waved her hands and pushed the icy water away, surrounding the trio with a short fence of ice that would keep the cold water at bay.  Vell gratefully shook the last bits of water off his boots and shivered slightly.

“Thank you,” he stammered.

“Unsurprisingly, our Texas boy can’t stand the cold,” Harley scoffed.

“No, I can’t, and I don’t care who knows,” Vell pouted.  “Cold is the fucking worst and anyone who lives north of Missouri is fucking insane.”

“Does that include Missouri itself or does it start at the top?” Harley asked.

“It starts at the top,” Vell said.  “People who live in Missouri are also crazy but for different reasons.”

Harley laughed and went back to measuring the portals frequencies and whatnot.  Vell tucked his hands under his arms and walked up to Lee.

“Sorry for being snippy,” he said.  “I’m just really fucking cold.”

“Apology accepted,” Lee said.  She shivered a bit and mimicked Vell’s attempts to huddle close to himself for warmth.  “I have to say I’m right there with you.  I never had to deal with the cold much growing up either.”

“Yeah?  I thought it got cold pretty often in England?”

“I’m not from England, Vell, I’m from Egypt,” Lee corrected.  She’d been raised there, at least.  She didn’t consider it home by any stretch of the word.

For a second the cold was the last thing on Vell’s mind.  The frigid air quickly reasserted itself, but Vell’s curiosity managed to hold its space in Vell’s head.

“Uh, what?”

“The accent, I know,” Lee huffed, self-consciously trying to stifle her overwhelming British accent and failing quite spectacularly.  “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” Vell suggested.

“If it’s all the same to you I would rather go back to complaining about the cold, darling,” Lee said.  Harley looked up from her calibration and gave Lee a dirty look.  She was being pointlessly secretive again.

“Yeah, there’s more than enough to complain about,” Vell said with a shrug.  “Just standing around puts a chill down your spine.”

A shiver ran through Vell’s body.  It tingled all the way through -especially around the rune at the base of Vell’s spine.  He pursed his lips.  Every time he caught himself resenting Lee for keeping secrets, he got a reminder that he was keeping secrets of his own.  So far, only Harley knew about the scar, the rune, and Vell’s resurrection.  Harley was just about to speak up about their mutual secret keeping when she got a blip on her tablet that pulled her attention away.

“Oh my god,” Harley said, any frustration about her friends secrecy blasted out of her brain.  The portal quivered for a moment and grew wider.  Lee and Vell stepped forward, trying to match Harley’s vantage on the portal.

“What do you see?”

Harley dropped the tablet she was taking measurements on and threw her hands up in the air.

“Penguins!”

At Harley’s exuberant cry, the flow of water intensified, and carried with it several Adelie penguins.  The misplaced waterfowl fell to the ground, bounced once, and then stood, looking around the laboratory with confusion.  Their brief moment of distress ended when the penguins saw a nearby fish, and took advantage of the easy meal.  They started snacking, and were entirely unperturbed as Harley stood over them, staring down at them all with a sparkle in her eyes.

“Oh my god!”

Harley stood frozen in place, staring down at the penguins, until they finished their fishy feast and started waddling off.  Harley followed them every step, squealing with delight as they made their various penguin noises.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” she chanted.  “Vell, Lee, you do the measurement taking thingy, I’m the penguins mom now.”

“Harley!”

“Don’t talk me out of it Lee, they’re my children now and I love them,” Harley said.  She picked up another displaced fish and tossed it to the penguins, who devoured it with gusto.

“Harley!” Lee shouted again.  Her voice shifted from scolding to whining in an instant.  “I want to play with the penguins too.”

“Okay we’ll take turns, ten minutes,” Harley said.  She giggled as a penguin waddled in a circle around her legs.

“Five minutes,” Lee insisted.  “And I’m setting a timer!”

Lee picked up the discarded timers and set aside the complex records of spacial distortions for a moment to set a five minute timer.  As soon as she was done, she turned to Vell, a bit red in the face.

“Sorry, I suppose that was a bit childish,” Lee said.

“Do I get a turn with the penguins too?” Vell asked.

Harley walked in a circle around the icy fence, leading a penguin parade behind her.  Lee and Vell watched jealously as she paraded around them, flanked by her waddling horde.

“I’ll make sure you do, Vell,” Lee said.  “Barring the end of the world, of course.”

The ever-present risk of the daily doomsday thankfully did not prevent Vell from getting his turn to play penguin baby-sitter.  After taking several turns each varying between portal-monitoring duty and penguin babysitting, the trio had collected all the data they could possibly collect and abandoned responsibility all together in favor of playing with the Adelie. 

The portal widened significantly as the penguin playtime continued.  Vell took a moment to be slightly concerned about that before shifting his focus to picking up a penguin and pushing it down an icy slide that Lee had made.  The penguin, which Harley had named Bonkers, squawked with delight and returned to Vell to go for another round.

“So, uh, do we have a plan for the portal on round two?”

“I know enough to close it down if we gotta,” Harley said.  “Or I can just seduce Michaela into never opening it in the first place.”

Harley watched one of her adopted penguin children hop across a series of icy platforms.

“Can we leave it open long enough to let the penguins through again?” She pleaded, looking in Lee’s direction.  “Please?”

“I’m afraid not, dear,” Lee said.  She was lying on a bed of ice, with a sleeping penguin cuddled up close to her belly.  “These penguins need to be in their natural habitat.  We shouldn’t even be playing with them, really, but this’ll all be erased anyway.”

Harley let out a low moan and patted the nearest penguin on the head.

“I’m going to miss you most of all, Wiggles.”

Wiggles lived up to his name and wiggled, an act so adorable it nearly brought a tear to Harley’s eyes.  She sighed and looked up at the portal.

“Shit’s getting pretty big, now that you mention it,” Harley said.  “You think a polar bear could fit through yet?”

“Polar bears live on the north pole, dear, this portal is connected to the south pole,” Lee explained.

“Oh.  Huh.  I sort of figured a bunch of polar bears were going to come through and maul everybody.  Seemed like the most likely way for this to end.”

“Unfortunately the natural habitat restrictions of Ursus Maritimus renders that impossible,” Lee said.  “The way I see it we’re all going to drown when the water flow gets strong enough to flood the island.”

“This is an artificial island, right?”  Vell said.  “It’s got to have some way to prevent flooding or sinking.  I figured an iceberg was going to come through, break the island in half.”

“Ah, a reversal of the Titanic scenario,” Lee said.  “Given the universe’s tendency towards irony, I believe you might be on to something, Vell.”

“Thanks.”

“You know, it’s real fucked up you two can have easier conversations about how we’re going to die than about your issues,” Harley said.  Vell and Lee looked up from their penguin playground to stare at Harley.  She shrugged at both of them.

“I’m just saying,” Harley said.  “You guys act all friendly but you keep playing chicken with your secrets.  Could you just talk to each other so you can actually be friends?”

“Harley,” Lee said, her voice laced with shock.

“Sorry, my penguin babies got me feeling all maternal,” Harley said, as she cuddled a squawking penguin close to her chest.  “But seriously.  Vell, I know you have genuine concerns about your whole deal, and Lee, I know you’d rather no one knew about your family stuff.  Neither of you are wrong to be hesitant, but I know both your secrets and I know both of you.  You can trust each other.”

Harley held Wiggles aloft triumphantly.  The penguin gave a soft squawk.

“Rip the bandaid off!  Honesty is the best policy!  Wiggles and I command it!”

Wiggles squawked in accord.  Or possibly displeasure.  Either way, Harley set him down and stared intensely at Vell and Lee as Wiggles waddled away.

“Well, I was not expecting to be put on blast like this today,” Vell noted.

“Certainly not in front of the penguins,” Lee said.  “You’ve upset Gregory.”

Gregory gave a squeaking huff and hopped off Lee’s chest as Harley put her hands on her hips.

“Don’t bring the penguins into this,” Harley said.  “You-”

She was interrupted by a surge of energy as the portal hanging over their heads widened.  Moral lectures were put on hold as a shadow approached the portal.

A deep, resounding bellow hung in the air as the shadow emerged. Also hanging in the air was a fully grown killer whale.

“Oh, that’ll do-”

The whale came down.

◆◆◆

Vell woke up safe and warm in his bed.  The warmth was welcome, though he did sort of miss the penguins.  He stretched out weary limbs and checked his phone.

HARL33:
crushed to death by a whale is a new one lol

Lee:
Indeed.  We’re accumulating quite a list of odd deaths.

HARL33:
ya!
speaking of odd deaths
i meant what i said
im gonna go slut it up with michaela and get her to fuck up making that portal
i expect u 2 to have a talk!
be friends! >:(

Vell looked away from his phone, towards his stomach.  The thick red line of scarring still sat around his waist like a macabre belt, and he knew that if he checked the mirror that strange ten-lined rune would still be etched into his flesh.  Neither of those marks were going to go away.  Vell stared at his phone for a moment.  Lee had yet to respond.  Vell decided to take the initiative.

vharlan03:
shes right
about me, at least
you can be as private as you want, that’s your business and I respect it
but I figure you should know whats going on with me
do you want to meet up after class?

Lee:
I have the meeting we discussed on the first loop.

vharlan03:
right

Lee:
But after that is good.

vharlan03:
okay!
see you then
bye

Vell put his phone down and stared directly at the ceiling for ten straight minutes.  He then checked his phone, saw he had no messages, and set it aside to stare at the ceiling once more, this time for only four minutes.  A cumulative fourteen minutes of ceiling-staring proved to be enough, and Vell got up to go about his day.

Logically, it should have been an easy explanation.  Considering what Lee and Vell had been through together so far, a single resurrection would probably barely raise an eyebrow.  He’d told Harley about it after just a few hours, and he’d known Lee for weeks now.

But Harley had seemed carefree.  Disconnected.  Willing to simply shrug and accept the fact that Vell had been cut in half and resurrected through mysterious means.  Lee took life seriously.  She would want to understand, and she would ask questions.  Questions Vell didn’t have answers to.

Vell was, of course, completely wrong on most counts, and he should have known that, but he’d never let logic get in the way of a good anxiety trip and he wasn’t about to start now.  He went through an entire day of classes riddled with anxiety, imagining every possible doomsday scenario for his coming conversation.  Vell’s definition of a doomsday scenario had expanded a lot in the past few weeks, so he ended up in some weird places.  The distraction of his phone buzzing was a welcome respite.

HARL33:
hey vell do u and joan wanna go on a double date w me and michaela
she wants a date and if i have to spend a whole date alone with her im gonna strangle her
no wait strangling is relatively painless
something worse
i think i still have a gun that turns people inside out in a closet somewhere

vharlan03:
please keep that in the closet

HARL33:
fiiiiiiiiiine
but only if we do the double date

vharlan03:
idk if Joan’s going to be available
she said she’d be super busy with something important all day

Vell took a quick glance at the empty seat next to him.  During the first loop, Joan had texted him that she was “almost done” shortly before he’d been crushed to death by a whale.  Hopefully he could find out what she’d been up to later today.  For now, Harley demanded his attention.

HARL33:
okay well u gotta get me out of this date somehow
or im getting the inside-out gun

vharlan03:
no!
ill come up with something
give me a bit

Harley responded with a thumbs up emoji and that was that.  Vell added “sabotaging a date” to his list of things to worry about.  At least he had some experience in ruining dates, though so far only his own, and only on accident.  Ruining someone else’s date on purpose would be a bold new frontier  Vell contemplated a few dozen avenues of sabotage as a way to distract himself as the day stretched on.  It worked -for a time.  Eventually the hour of reckoning drew near, and Vell’s mind turned once again to the impending secret swap.

◆◆◆

Vell sat on the bench and waited.  He and Lee had agreed on a place to meet, and Vell had gotten there early.  Lee, on the other hand, was running late.  Vell had been waiting for about twenty minutes by the time she showed up.

“Sorry I’m late, Vell,” Lee stammered.  “I remembered how the meeting went the first time, so I tried to streamline it, and that backfired.”

Lee sighed as she sat down on the far side of the picnic table. 

“I get it,” Vell said.  “I wonder if, you know, anyone here is studying that?  How meetings can never get shorter, only longer.”

Lee gave a polite chuckle.

“Right.  I’ve certainly been in enough to know that’s an absolute truth.”

Lee rested her elbows on the tabled and leaned forward as Vell leaned slightly back.  A bird flew overhead and chirped once.

“So.”

“Yeah, we should, uh,” Vell began.  He looked around at the surroundings, and the bird overhead.  “Is this a bit open?  Do you want to, I don’t know, go to a dorm, or something?”

Lee shook her head.  While they were outdoors, nobody was around, so there was little risk of their conversation being overheard.

“In my experience it is better to have these sorts of discussions outdoors,” Lee said.  “We retain our privacy, but the open air keeps us from feeling like we’re hiding things.  It strikes a good balance.”

Try as he might, Vell could not contain a slight frown of concern.  He didn’t like that Lee was so experienced with secrets.

“So, uh, how about I go first?  My story is...a bit weird.”

“If you want to.  I’m more than prepared to share my own if you would rather wait,” Lee assured him.

“No, I think it’s only fair,” Vell said.  “I told Harley like, the day we met, so it’s just kind of stupid I haven’t told you at this point, right?”

“Well, Harley’s also known my story for a while, so, well, all even in that respect.”

“Yeah, but you’ve known Harley for like a year and I, uh…” Vell started hesitating, for different reasons than usual.  He pursed his lips and looked up at Lee.  “Are we stalling?”

“I do believe we are, dear,” Lee agreed.

“Right.  Well, I guess I better just get to it then,” Vell said.  “Did you hear the news about that big maglev train crash that happened in America about a decade ago?”

“I don’t know the specifics, but I think I’m familiar, yes,” Lee said.  “Something like a hundred people perished, is that right?”

“One-hundred and seventeen, to be exact.  I know because, uh, I was one of them,” Vell said.  “And then I...wasn’t.”

Lee stared forward for a moment, dumbstruck, and then shook her head clear.

“I’m sorry, you mean to say you died and came back to life,” Lee said.  She pointed around at the campus.  “Before this?  Before any of the time loop business?”

“Yeah.  And there wasn’t any time travel stuff either.  Like, when we die in the time loop stuff, it happens, but then it gets undone, right?  So technically we never died in the first place.  But I, uh, I like ‘died’ died.  I got cut in half..”

“Oh dear,” Lee said.

“Luckily, well, as luckily as anything like that can be, it happened so fast I didn’t even feel it,” Vell said.  “All I remember is a really loud bang and getting flung forward, and then I woke up inside a body bag twelve hours later.”

Lee put a thoughtful hand to her chin, and Vell could almost hear her head buzzing with thoughts.  This was what he’d been afraid of.  Lee had questions, and he had very few answers.

“So you were somehow resurrected, yes?  But not by lichdom, or the revivification methods that create zombies like Undedison.”

“Yeah, it’s nothing like that,” Vell said.  “Those guys, they go through, well, basic stuff changes, like their hair and fingernails stop growing.  I’m still fully alive.  I think.  Legally speaking I’m in a bit of a grey area, but just physically?  I’m alive as you are.  Uh, I assume.”

“I have every reason to believe I’m alive,” Lee said.  The moment of levity passed, and her concern returned.  “Do you have any idea how your resurrection occurred?”

“Almost none,” Vell said.  “The only clue I have is a rune on my back, but I’ve got no idea what it means.  It’s more complex than any rune anyone’s ever seen.”

Lee crossed her arms and bit her lip.  Vell had seen that expression before.

“Do you want to see it?”

“If it’s alright with you,” Lee said.  “Though, wait, where is it?  It’s not, well, below the belt, is it?”

“It’s sort of belt-adjacent,” Vell assured her, as he gestured to his waist.  Lee was conflicted for a moment, but her curiosity overcame her discomfort.  A mysterious rune with the power to resurrect the dead could not be ignored, no matter how close it was to Vell’s butt.  At a nod from Lee, Vell rounded the table and sat at the end of the bench Lee was sitting on, with his back to her.  After double-checking that nobody was nearby, Vell hesitantly lifted his shirt.

Lee had been planning on maintaining a polite distance, for several reasons, but the sight of the faintly-glowing rune made her lean forward.  Just as Vell had said, the ten-lined structure was more intricate than anything Lee had ever seen.  She didn’t understand anything about the rune itself, but she did understand that she now felt a very strong, almost single-minded urge to do one thing.

“Vell?”

“Yeah?”

“May I...touch it?”

“What?”

Vell let his shirt fall back into place and turned around.  Lee tried to lean back suddenly, to not look she’d been staring so closely at his back, and ended up falling backwards, banging her head on the bench seat.  Vell gave her a moment to recover herself and rub her bruised head.

“Ow.  I just meant, well, it’s purely practical, you know, simple academic curiosity.  I happen to know a lot about magic and mana and charging runes and, well, things related to that, so I was thinking I might be able to do...something?”

“Oh.  Uh, well, if you think so, I guess,” Vell said.  He had resisted a lot of attempts to have the rune poked and prodded over the years, but he trusted Lee enough to play along.  “What are you going to do?  I don’t know much about this thing, but I know there’s a lot of magic in it.  It’s dangerous to mess with.”

“It should be fine,” Lee said.  “I’m going to sort of ‘echo’ the magic, not really interfere with it directly.”

That explanation satisfied Vell, and he once again turned his back to Lee and lifted his shirt.  She eyed the scar on his back for a moment, out of curiosity and as an excuse to hesitate in touching the rune.  Eventually, Lee mustered the courage to tap the glowing rune with her fingertip.  Vell felt a tingle run up his spine, and then Lee pulled her fingertip away.

“Ouch!”

“Lee!  Are you alright?”

Vell spun around as fast as possible, to see Lee holding a small globule of magical light on her fingertips. 

“Oh, I’m fine,” Lee assured him.  “Bit more power in there than I expected.  Burned my fingertips a bit, nothing serious.”

Vell breathed a sigh of deep relief as Lee returned her attention to the magic orb.  She stared at it in awe, watching the sphere of light vibrate in her grip.  Her magic usually manifested as a deep purple color, but by mimicking the energy of Vell’s rune, she had conjured a spark of pure octarine light.

“Fascinating,” she whispered.  “It’s completely pure.  Raw, unfiltered mana.”

“Is that, uh, good?”  Vell asked.  He knew that it was good when drugs were completely pure, he wasn’t sure if the same principle applied to magic.  Mana usually had very little in common with cocaine.

“It’s...notable.  Not particularly good or bad,” Lee said.  “Mana usually loses energy and color-shifts depending on the processes used to extract and channel it.  Even a machine couldn’t concentrate mana this efficiently.”

“Oh boy, more questions,” Vell sighed.

“I’m not done yet, dear,” Lee said.  She pinched the globule of octarine light between her fingers.  “Are you well-versed in the details of magikinetic sampling?”

“Not really.”

“Well, alright then,” Lee said.  “Since mana is a form of living energy, it is quite impossible for a machine to analyze anything about it, so I just want to assure you what I’m about to do is completely normal procedure.”

Lee did not give Vell any time to ask questions.  Without a word, she took a firm hold of the octarine sphere and placed it in her mouth.  Vell stared silently as she chewed the magic like a gumball. 

“Hmm.  Very complex flavor profile,” Lee said.  “Usually with runes you get something a little stony, very solid, but this is...hmm...I don’t know how to describe it.  It tastes...unknown?”

“I can imagine,” Vell said.

“No, not like that, Vell, dear, I mean it tastes like the concept of unknown,” Lee said.  “Or maybe curious is the better word.  Interesting?”

The more Lee talked, the less Vell understood.

“So...the mystery rune is actually a literal mystery rune?”

“Not necessarily?”  Lee stammered.  She swallowed before continuing.  Talking about a complex topic was hard enough without a gumball of pure magic in your mouth.  “The profile of magic is heavily affected by what the person using it intends.  Magic used for violence will taste harsh and bitter, magic used for healing will taste pleasant, and so on and so forth.  What I tasted just then was very complex.  Curiosity dominated the others, but there were a lot of flavors at play.”

Vell put his elbows on the picnic table and rested his face in his hands.  That just raised further questions.  The rune on his back seemed to be tingling, which Vell forced himself to believe was just a side-effect of Lee’s magical examination.

“So.  Whoever resurrected me did it for a lot of reasons, but mostly because they thought it would be interesting.”

“Possibly.  As you might imagine, chewing on a magic gumball is not an exact science.”

“Right or not, there’s probably a lot more to it than we’re seeing,” Vell sighed.  “You know, this is one of the reasons I hate talking about this resurrection shit.  It gets more and more complex every time.”

“Well, you can always count on my help if you want to understand it more,” Lee said.  She put a hand on Vell’s shoulder.  “I’ll do everything in my power to help.”

“Thanks.  And thanks for not being weird about all this.”

“It is a curious situation you find yourself in, but I’ve seen you die several dozen times now, Vell, what’s one more?”

Vell nodded, and Lee pulled her hand off his shoulder.  The moment of camaraderie faded, and Lee drew in on herself.  The air of awkward silence returned.

“Well.  Unless you have anything else to say in regards to your rune?”

“Not really,” Vell said.

Lee sucked air through her teeth and braced herself for the literal moment of the truth. 

“Then I suppose it’s my turn, isn’t it?”

The vibration of a phone gave Lee a very welcome reason to hesitate.  Vell held up a finger, telling her to pause, and then answered his phone.  It was uncommon for Joan to call instead of texting, so whatever she was calling about had to be important.

“Hey Joan,” Vell said.  Lee waved slightly.  “Lee says hi too.”

“Yeah, hi to both of you too,” Joan said.  She sounded out of breath.  “It’s good she’s there.  Am I on speaker?”

“You are now,” Vell said as he pushed a button and laid the phone on the picnic table.

“Good.  Vell, Lee, do either of you want to be part of a lawsuit?”

Vell and Lee looked at one another, then back down at the phone.

“A what?”

“A lawsuit, Harlan, a formal proceeding in which I file a legal complaint and a giant asshole gives me money,” Joan said.  “It’s part of this big class-action thingy that’s being filed against Roentgen.  I got to prove that I’ve been caused ‘significant emotional or physical distress’ by Roentgen and I need somebody to back up my testimony.”

Vell racked his brain for a minute.  Lee pulled away from the table, similarly deep in thought, but for very different reasons.

“Uh, forgive me if I’m forgetting something, but, why have you been distressed by Roentgen?”

The silence that followed was long enough that Vell double-checked his phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

“Joan?”

“Sorry.  Just realized I never told you, is all.  Look, short version is: Roentgen is the reason I don’t have eyes.  So, yeah, I’m pretty fucking emotionally and physically distressed.  Come help me testify so we can make them pay, alright?”

Vell looked up at Lee, who refused to meet his gaze.  She stared down at the table’s surface, as cold and quiet as the grave.

“Uh, does it have to be soon, I’m a little bit in the middle of-”

“I’m fine, Vell, go help her,” Lee mumbled.

“Soon is better, please and thank you,” Joan said.  “I don’t want to interrupt, but this is kind of a big thing, so please come to my dorm and help me out?”

“Right, okay, I’ll be right there,” Vell said.  He hung up and tucked the phone back into his pocket.  He stepped away from the table, but turned to check on Lee before he left.  She was still staring straight down for some reason.

“Uh, I’ll text you later, we can pick this up, uh, soon, I guess?”

“Just go, Vell,” Lee whispered.  Vell hesitated in place, considering his words, before realizing Lee didn’t seem to want to talk.  He chalked it up as yet another problem that would have to be resolved later, and continued on his way.  Lee stayed behind, feeling a colder chill than the arctic waters of the previous loop, and without even any penguins to accompany it.

◆◆◆

The keypad by the door beeped out a familiar tune as Vell punched in the code to Joan’s door.  She always kept her door locked, unlike most of the people on the floor.  As far as he knew, Vell was the only person who had the code.  It was either a sign of trust or a way to make booty calls more convenient.  Vell chose to believe it was more so the first one, though he didn’t have any objections to the second.

Joan beckoned him in as soon as the door opened.  She was slumped over on the couch, looking as exhausted as Vell had ever seen her. 

“Geez.  You look wiped out,” Vell noted.

“Yeah, turns out having to talk about every shitty thing that’s ever happened to you kind of sucks,” Joan said.  She rubbed her red eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“Can I help?”

“I could use a hug,” Joan admitted.  Vell obliged.  Joan buried her face in his shoulder and remained there for a solid minute in absolute silence.

“I also need you to do my hair,” Joan said, her voice muffled by Vell’s shoulder.  She pulled her head away from him and pointed at her tangled mess of hair.  “This undercut is ugly as hell when I have my hair down.”

“I don’t know, I kind of like it,” Vell said.  “The mess has its own style.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.  But right now I need to get it tied up,” Joan said.  “If only as a symbolic gesture of me getting my shit together again.”

Vell nodded and retrieved a hair tie.  As he got to work fixing her ponytail, Joan got to work explaining the situation.

“So there’s a lawyer guy set up in the faculty building, came here to ask me and a bunch of other people about Roentgen’s mana-harvesting incidents and how it’s affected us.  I already told him everything, obviously, but the case gets stronger with corroborating testimony, so you basically just need to go to him and tell him you agree with everything I said and that Roentgen totally sucks.”

“Well, I will do that, but first I’d kind of like to know what I’m agreeing with,” Vell said.

“Why?  We’ve talked about Roentgen, you know they’re a bunch of shitheads.”

Like every good member of his generation, Vell maintained a healthy distaste for large corporations.  He made a point of avoiding products from Roentgen, Kraid Tech, and many other unethical companies when he could, an ideology Joan shared in.  Most major companies had a long checklist of scientific and magical abuses stretching back to before Vell had even been born, but Roentgen’s list was particularly long.

“This is a legal case, Joan,” Vell said.  “I can’t just go in there and say ‘Roentgen sucks, give my girlfriend money’.”

“But I want money.”

“Joan.”

“I’m kidding, Harlan, I’ll tell you,” Joan scoffed.  “Finish up with the ponytail so I can look you in the eyes.  Talking to someone with your back turned feels weird.”

“It really does,” Vell said, speaking from experience.  He put the finishing touches on Joan’s ponytail and waited for her to turn around and explain herself.  She started by gesturing towards her eyes again.

“So, I mentioned on the phone about my eyes,” she started.  Vell nodded, and Joan carried.  “My dad worked in one of the old ley-line mines for years, during that time Roentgen was skimming off the top of their workers.”

Vell bit his tongue.  Roentgen had achieved corporate dominance thanks to incredibly efficient mana-harvesting, with their machinery leaving competition in the dust at every turn.  After several years of almost monopolistic control of the mana market, a leak had revealed that their efficiency was due to Roentgen machinery also absorbing small amounts of mana from the souls of their workers.  The fury (and the lawsuits) had been swift, but Roentgen had amassed enough money to fight off every legal battle, claiming that the soul-harvesting had been an unintentional incident, a clinical error based on how recent and unrefined mana gathering technology was.  New regulations were put in place, and any mana-harvesting from humans had stopped long ago, but the damage had been done.

“Messing with the soul messes with the body, you know.  My dad got lucky, and avoided the worst of the effects, but that kind of damage can get passed down to the kids too.  I just got the eyes, but my- my family has some other problems because of it.”

“So, at the risk of bringing up some bad memories...Did something happen to your sibling?”

Joan’s sorrowful demeanor shifted instantly into something close to outright hostility, as she grabbed on to Vell’s shirt and pulled him close.

“How do you know about her?  Have you been going through my stuff?”

“No!  I just, you know, kind of figured it out,” Vell said.  “You get a little cagey when you talk about your family sometimes, but you talk about your mom and dad just fine, so there has to be something else.”

After a moment of intense appraisal, Joan’s sudden shift to anger came to a just as sudden end.  She all but deflated, and her grip loosened, as she sank back into her previous exhausted self.

“Yeah.  Okay.  I guess you would figure it out,” Joan said.  “And...yeah.  I have a sister.  No, shit, forget I said that.  Like, really, go to Cane and his department of, of brain-learning or whatever and get it erased from your head.”

“Neurology,” Vell corrected, as he removed Joan’s hand from his mouth. “And I’m, uh, not.  I’m not going to do that.  I promise I won’t tell anyone, though.  Is that good?”

“It’ll have to do,” Joan said.  “We’re going to talk about the brain-erasing thing, though.  Like, she really fucking hates being talked about.”

“Why?”

“Look, she’s, uh...how do I put this…”

Joan looked away from Vell and wracked her brain for a minute.

“Look, she just doesn’t like it, okay?  And seriously, don’t tell anyone about her.  You just have to trust me.”

Vell was more than a little concerned about Joan’s secret sibling, but he figured that was their family business.  He added it to the ever-growing list of secrets and mysteries in his life and moved on.

“Alright, no talking about secret sister, I can do that,” Vell said.  “Let’s get back on track.  What’ve you been talking about with this lawyer guy, and how do I back you up on it?”

“Well for starters, these eyeballs are expensive,” Joan said, pointing to her face again.

“Good job mentioning your eyes twice and not taking them out, by the way,” Vell said.

“Ugh, don’t compliment me on that, I catch myself about to pull them out and just point instead,” Joan said.  “Anyway, like I was saying, the prosthetics are expensive, so that’s a source of stress right there.  And then there’s how it affects my self-esteem with my appearance, and my relationships with my peers, and then there’s…”

Vell sat by patiently as Joan gave an extensive list of everything wrong with her.  It turned out far longer than he had expected.

◆◆◆

Harley mashed the code for Lee’s room into the keypad and let herself in.  She could hack her way through if she wanted, and had done so several times, but the beeping gave Lee a heads up that Harley was inbound.

“Lee!  Vell isn’t answering my texts and I need somebody to sabotage a date.  What’re you doing tonight?”

A muffled groan rang out from the kitchen area of the dorm.  Harley sighed and rounded the corner.  Lee was sitting down, arms crossed on the table, and her face pressed flat against it as well.  Harley had come to know this as the “Lee’s got a problem” pose.  Harley took her usual spot at the far end of the table and clapped her hands together.

“Secret swap not go so well?”

“All was going quite well, actually, at least the first half,” Lee mumbled.  “Yes, Vell got cut in half once upon a time, that’s all rather odd, I was all set to tell my story, and then Joan called.”

“Is Joan calling bad?  I thought you liked Joan?”

“I like Joan very much,” Lee said.  “Which is why it concerned me greatly that her current eyeless state is a result of the Roentgen corporation, and she is currently participating in a massive lawsuit against them.”

“Oh-ho, wow, yeah that’s shitty timing,” Harley said.  “Wow.  Y’all are just a monumentally complicated group of people, you know that?  It is fucked up what kind of layers of secrets and bullshit you all have going on.”

“I know.  It’s why I’m truly blessed to know someone as simple as you.  Uh, rather, whose life is as uncomplicated.”

“That’s me, the mentally stable one, much to everyone’s surprise,” Harley said, with zero hesitation.  “You want some of the patented Harley straight-talk?”

“I would appreciate it.”

At that prompt, Harley jumped out of her seat, dove across the table, and grabbed a startled Lee’s face with both hands.

“Go. Talk. About. It.” Harley demanded, punctuating each word with a light shake of Lee’s head.  The shaking ended, but the tight grip on Lee’s cheeks did not, as Harley continued.  “The longer you sit around and worry about things like this, the more complicated they get.  You have to move, you have to take action, and you have to resolve things on your own!”

A muffled mumble of a response let Harley know she was gripping Lee’s face too tightly.  She relaxed her grip on Lee’s cheeks enough for Lee to move her lips normally again, and Lee cleared her throat.

“I’m worried that if they find out-”

“Mom and dad are going to come to visit eventually, they’ll find out one way or another,” Harley said.  “The best way for everyone to find out is you telling them. Right. Now.”

Harley once again punctuated words with a head shake.  She loosed her grip once again afterwards, giving Lee enough space to nod.

“You’re right,” Lee said.  “You’re absolutely right.”

“I usually am,” Harley said.  She rolled over and laid on her back on the table, staring up at Lee’s dorm room ceiling.  “Honestly this is probably your best bet.  Go spill some beans to whoever is in charge of that lawsuit.  Do some damage, prove you’re on the good guy’s team.”

“Huh.  I suppose that’s true,” Lee said.  “You should have led with that, dear, I feel remarkably more confident now.”

“I give good advice, I don’t necessarily give it in the optimal order,” Harley said.  “You want streamlined service you go to a therapist.”

“If only my parents would allow such a thing,” Lee sighed.  She stood and retrieved her purse.  Harley stayed on the table.  “Would you like to come, or do you intend on staying on my dining table all evening?”

“Honestly?  I’m considering it.  Got to skip on my Michaela date somehow.  Is it cool if I hide in your dorm?”

“You are welcome to, of course, but I will try and wrap this up quickly so I can help ruin your date this evening,” Lee said.  “Unfortunately, things may become...complicated.”

“Don’t pause dramatically like that, you know I hate it.”

“Sorry.”

◆◆◆

Vell sat across the table from a man whose face seemed to be composed mostly of mustache, with a smattering of eyebrow to remind you that there should, presumably, be a face somewhere under the fluff.  Vell tried to keep his eyes focused on where the lawyer’s eyes should have been were they not hidden by the bountiful brows.

“You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Harlan,” The lawyer said, in a droll monotone.  “Your confirmation of Ms. Marsh’s testimony should be very useful.”

“I’m just glad I could help,” Vell said.  “Hopefully it helps everyone get what they’re owed.”

The lawyer had helpfully explained the exact details of the case.  He was representing over twenty-thousand individuals across the world who had been negatively affected by the lingering effects of Roentgen’s soul-harvesting operations.  They were hoping for a settlement of two-hundred million dollars, to be spread evenly across each of the victims, but with Roentgen’s army of lawyers on hand, they were prepared for that to be negotiated down to a few dozen.

“Now, I believe I have reached everyone on this campus,” the lawyer said.  “But if you are aware of any others who have been affected by Roentgen, or by other corporations, please direct them to me.  My firm specializes in such settlements.”

“Uh, right, we’ll keep you in mind,” Vell said.  The lawyer had insisted on giving them his business card, which Vell had politely tucked into his pocket without reading it.  “But I don’t think there’s anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” Joan said.

The door slammed open, and Vell nearly jumped out of his seat as it pounded loudly against the wall.  The mustachioed lawyer did not flinch, though his mustache hairs did twitch slightly with the rush of air from the door. 

“I’m sorry, that was a bit much,” Lee said.  She grabbed the door and closed it politely.  “I was in a hurry.”

“Hey, Lee,” Joan said.  “What brings you here?”

“I was looking to testify in this case,” Lee said.  She walked over, flexed her fingers oddly as she struggled for a gesture, and then settled for putting an awkward hand on Joan’s shoulder.  “Because I want to help you, Joan.  I’m on your side, and I want you to know that.”

“That’s cool,” Joan said, not knowing how else to process Lee’s strange behavior.  “But, Vell’s already sort of got it covered, I don’t think this guy really needs anymore support?”

“It’s not necessary, no,” the lawyer said.  Lee shook her head furiously and removed her shaking hand from Joan’s shoulder.

“No, I mean, yes, I know, but I’m not here to corroborate anything,” Lee said.  “I have my own testimony I’d like to provide.”

The lawyer tilted his head forward in a stiff nod and opened a new document on his laptop.  He then gestured to Vell, who stood up and let Lee slide into the seat across the table from the lawyer.  Lee took a deep breath and wrung her hands together.

“May I ask that everything I’m about to say be kept anonymous?”

“I’ll have to take your name for legal reasons, but yes, we can use anonymous testimony -to a limited extent.”

Lee gave a stuff nod, and the lawyer gave an equally stiff nod in return.

“Would you like to give your testimony privately?”

“No, they should stay, actually,” Lee said.  “I believe they are long overdue to hear this.  Might as well let them know now.”

“Very well then.”

Vell had an odd feeling that that wasn’t how legal testimony was supposed to work.  He felt like none of what was happening was normal procedure for a lawsuit, but then, he was a scientist, not a lawyer.  He accepted the weirdness and kept his focus on Lee.

“Now, your friend said your name was Lee?  Is that short for anything?”

“No, actually,” Lee said.  “It’s a pseudonym.”

Joan and Vell looked at each other, then at Lee, then back at each other.  Thinking back on it, Vell had noticed a few clues that Lee was just a nickname, but he’d always assumed it was short for Lenore or something in that vein.  “Lee” tapped her fingers on the table nervously and worked up the nerve to continue.

“My legal name is XL-X8 C/P,” Lee said, her voice shaking as she said it.  The bushy eyebrows of the mustachioed lawyer raised in shock.  Joan looked like she’d been stabbed in the gut.  Vell, for his part, had no idea what was going on.  It was a really weird name, but that didn’t explain Joan’s look of utter shock -and anger.

“I don’t mean to assume,” the lawyer began.  “Are you-”

“How many people do you think are named XL-X8 C/P?”  Lee asked, her voice edged with disdain.  “Of course.  I am the daughter of Roentgen’s CEO, Noel Burrows.”

Vell nodded.  That explained the looks.  It did not explain any of the other questions now raised, but Vell was starting to get used to the questions piling on.

“Well then,” the lawyer said.  “This should be interesting.  What do you have to say in regards to your fathers actions?”

“I have to say that he knows exactly what he has done,” Lee said.  “And he knows he has weaseled out of underpaying lawsuits before.  I was in the room when he congratulated his lawyers for ‘making sure those people got a quarter of what they could’ve’.  Exact quote.”

The lawyer began typing with a furious energy Vell hadn’t seen during his own testimony.  He understood that perfectly.  Even buried as it was behind the mustache, Vell could see excitement on the lawyer’s face.

“Now, can you name the lawyers he spoke to?”

“I can and will,” Lee said.  “And a whole lot more.”

Lee began a tirade, naming every name and quoting everything and everyone she could remember off the top of her head.  Joan’s expression of shock softened, but did not fade.

◆◆◆

As soon as Lee provided the last of her testimony, the lawyer practically ran out of the room.  He assured them all that Lee’s testimony could very well ensure the most successful lawsuit ever filed against Roentgen.  Lee had reiterated once more that she wanted her testimony to be anonymous, and politely bid the lawyer goodbye.  As soon as he and his mustache had left, Lee turned to face Vell and Joan.  She did not speak.  Neither did Joan.

“So,” Vell began.  “I take it you’d prefer we still call you ‘Lee’.”

“If you ever call me that other name, or any variation thereof, I will slap you,” Lee said, without an ounce of humor.  The silence returned again.  This time Joan deigned to break it.

“I don’t buy into that ‘sins of the father’ bullshit, if you’re worried about it,” Joan said.  “I don’t blame you for what your dad or your grandpa did.”

Lee nodded.  That was a relief to hear.  Joan wasn’t done yet, though.

“But I do blame you for what you haven’t done,” Joan said.  “And you haven’t done a hell of a lot.”

“Joan-”

“No, hold on, what are you thinking, only getting involved now, because you’ve finally seen firsthand how miserable your dad made someone?  We hang out a few times and now you grow a conscience?  People have been out there suffering for years, Lee, and you knew!”

Lee held her hands out in a placating gesture, though it did her no good.  Joan had once again switched into a sudden and unexpected burst of anger.  Vell was starting to get concerned.

“Joan, I know you’re upset, and you have reason to be,” Lee said.  “But-”

“No, Lee, you listen to me, because all those ‘reasons’ I have to be mad, I’ve got a lot less of them than some people,” Joan said.  “I was born blind, and I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“Hey, maybe we should give her a chance to talk,” Vell suggested.  Joan shook her head.

“You could have done so much more, so much sooner,” Joan said accusingly.  Vell physically grabbed Joan by the shoulder and pushed her a step further from Lee.

“Hey!  Whatever you think, she helped you and a lot of other people just now.  You need to at least give her a chance to explain herself.”

In all the time both Lee and Joan had spent with Vell, they had never heard him raise his voice in anger.  The sudden and unfamiliar tones of frustration in his voice shocked Joan into compliance.  She withdrew another step back and nodded.  Vell gestured towards Lee, giving her the go-ahead to speak.

“Thank you,” she began.  “And, Joan is right.  I’ve had ample opportunities to make change.  I have chosen not to make use of them, because I have a plan.”

“What plan?” Joan asked, the venom in her voice making clear her anger had not been entirely muted.

“So far as my father is concerned I am still his perfect little girl, and his heir apparent,” Lee said.  “If I continue to play the role he has imagined for me, I’ll be in charge of Roentgen one day.”

“And how many years is that going to take?”  Joan said.  “Your dad’s company hurt people and is still hurting people, Lee.  There’s going to be a lot of suffering while you wait to take the throne, princess.”

“I know that,” Lee spat.  “But what am I supposed to do?  Help more lawsuits?  I understand that the money will help you, Joan, but what is it going to change in the long run?  My father and his cronies don’t even blink at losing two hundred million.  They just cut the wages and benefits of their employees to recoup the losses.  You can’t beat them with legislation and lawsuits.”

Joan had no rebuttal for that.  Lee took the silence as an invitation to continue.

“I will continue to play my part,” Lee said.  “For the long term benefit of everyone.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re happy about it,” Vell noted.

“It’s not a perfect plan, I will admit,” Lee said.  The melancholy in her voice could not be ignored, even by Joan.  She shrugged her shoulders and stepped back.

“I guess this must be tough for you,” Joan said.  “Sorry I freaked out on you.  I can’t possibly understand having to choose between doing whats right and my family.”

“Oh that’s not the hard part of it at all,” Lee said.  Her quiet, mournful tone was suddenly cut with a bladed edge of anger.  “The hard part is putting up with my family long enough for the plan to work.”

The rage seeping into Lee’s voice put a chill down Joan’s spine.  The unexpected anger in Vell’s voice had been righteous frustration, a more muted, understandable kind of anger.  The sudden fury that crept into Lee’s voice now was vindictive, unrestrained, and intense. 

“So.  You don’t like your dad, I take it?”

“Don’t like him?  No.  I despise him,” Lee hissed.  “You think you hate him?  You think you loathe my father?  You have suffered the consequences of one decision.  I lived with him.  Every day, for twenty years of my life, I was beholden to him, on the front lines of every childish whim, every malevolent, thoughtless impulse.”

As she spoke, Lee gestured more and more frantically with her hands, her hands tensing as if throttling an invisible neck.  Whenever Lee got too stressed, she liked to imagine strangling her father.  It was calming, like a stress ball but with patricide.

“My ‘real name’ is a series of gibberish bullshit my mother dreamed up on a drug trip.  Vell got confused earlier when I told him I was from Egypt, you know why?  Because I have a British accent, and I have a British accent because my parents though it would be charming, so they hired British tutors and caretakers, and banned anyone without a British accent from speaking to me for the first eight years of my life!”

Joan inched closer to Vell and stayed silent as Lee continued, and it seemed more and more likely that she was going to start foaming at the mouth with every word.

“Do you want to know why I’m always tripping over myself?  Because I had a posture coach who would hit me with a ruler if I didn’t sit and walk and do everything with the inhuman poise of my parents ideal little princess, and now when I try to walk like a normal fucking person I barely know what to do!”

Lee grasped at her temples in a fury for a moment.  Joan stepped up, but Vell put a hand on her shoulder and kept her back.  He could tell Lee wasn’t done yet.  Tears of rage were welling up in her eyes now.

“I hate my parents!  I hate them so much it makes me want to puke,” Lee said.  “But I put up with their deluded whims, and their childish idiocy, and my father’s cartoonish villainy, because I want to inherit his company and burn it to the ground.”

Lee pulled her hands away from her head and clenched them into tight fists.

“I am going to be the CEO of Roentgen some day.  And the minute I am in charge, I will end it all.  I will reveal every evil thing my family has ever done, I will spend every cent of his fortune on reparations and charity, and I will laugh while I drag his name through the mud.  The last time my father ever sees his ‘precious, perfect daughter’ will be when I come to spit in his face as I tear apart his life’s work brick by brick and dollar by dollar.”

Her clenched fists tensed so tight Lee’s knuckles turned white and her veins bulged.

“Choosing between doing what’s right and my family is easy, Joan,” Lee spat.  “The only hard part is resisting the urge to push my parents off a cliff, or put them on one of my father’s stupid spaceships and blasting them into the sun, or reprogramming all their self-driving cars to run them over on sight, or-”

Lee then proceeded to list off seven other possible means of parricide, and showed no signs of stopping.  Vell kind of felt like she needed to be stopped, though, so he let go of Joan.  The continued ranting was starting to get uncomfortable, and he hoped Joan had an idea on how to calm Lee down.  Joan stepped up and put her hands on Lee’s shoulders.

“I knew I liked you,” Joan said, with a sly smile on her face.  “You want to burn the motherfucker down?”

Lee looked up with red eyes and a hungry grin.

“More than anything,” she hissed.

“Count me in.”

Joan extended her hand, and Lee clasped it firmly in a conspiratorial stranglehold.  Vell stared on in confusion.  That certainly hadn’t turned out the way he planned.  He still felt like Lee needed to take her rage down a notch or two, but he had no ideas.  He could possibly ask Harley-

“Oh shit, Harley,” Vell said.

◆◆◆

Harley eyed the knife on the table.  It was dull, but with the right force behind it, it’d do.

Michaela had set up a beachfront table for their date, and all but dragged Harley to it in spite of her attempts to cancel or change their plans.  Michaela started to hit the tenth minute of her monologue about her vacation to the Galapagos over the summer, and despite her attempts to not listen, Harley was starting to piece together the details of Michaela nearly extincting a species of finch without realizing it. 

Around a nearby building corner, Joan, Vell, and Lee leaned around the corner.  The reminder of Harley’s plight had spurred them to change the subject from corporate sabotage to romantic sabotage.  The trio observed Harley’s precarious situation and then darted back around the corner.  Lee nearly fell into the nearby bushes as she darted, but Joan caught her and set her upright.

“Alright, ideas?” Vell asked, as Lee regained her balance.

“I could use hydromancy to create a wave and wash the date away,” Lee suggested.

“Good start, but I think Harley’s already mad at us for being late and we don’t want her to be mad at us for getting her wet,” Vell said.

“I actually think she’d be rather keen on walking across campus in a wet t-shirt,” Lee said.  Vell had to admit she was right.  “However, I now recall Michaela is a marine biologist and will likely not be bothered by a little saltwater.”

“Can’t we just walk in and say Harley’s mom is sick and she needs to take a phone call or something?” Joan asked.

“Oh nothing that simple ever works, darling,” Lee said.  “You’ll need to get at least twice as contrived for the plan to function properly.”

“I wish I’d remembered sooner, I could’ve carved a rune that would help,” Vell said.  Joan’s eyebrows jumped up and she reached into her pocket.

“I’ve got this,” she said, holding up an uncharged “sight” rune.  “I was carving it to have something to do with my hands while I talked to the lawyer.”

“Alright, so we can make someone see something,” Lee said.  She took the rune and charged it, just in case.  “What can we do with that?”

Vell poked his head around the corner again.  Michaela was still ranting away, talking about her Galapagos expedition, to a supremely disinterested Harley.  It took a solid minute of staring, but Vell finally put together a plan.

“Give me the rune,” Vell said.  “I need to make some minor changes.”

◆◆◆

“And then I had to go all the way up this hill to find another nest, but it was so worth it, those little eggs just made the most divine eggs benedict you’ve ever had,” Michaela said.  She continued the story about the breakfast on her fifth day of vacation was cut short by Vell and Joan arriving.

“Hey there, Michaela,” Vell said as he clapped her on the shoulder.  After the greeting, Joan took over, since she was the better liar.

“Did Harley mention maybe doing a double date?  We thought we had something else going on, but our schedule cleared.”

Vell and Joan took a seat without waiting for an answer.  Harley was struggling to find a facial expression that balanced her gratitude that they’d shown up with her anger that they’d shown up so late.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Michaela said.  Joan suddenly switched to a pitiful expression.

“I’m sorry.  It’s just, Vell really needs to learn his way around a date.  I love him but he’s just no good at conversation,” Joan said.  She then gestured to Michaela.  “I just really thought I should bring Vell to a date like this, to see how someone should really handle romance.”

The ego-stroking was as obvious as it was effective.  Michaela preened, brushed back her hair.

“Well, if he needs to learn by example that badly,” Michaela said.  “As I was saying…”

As she resumed her tirade about nearly eating a species of finch onto the endangered list, Vell leaned over and whispered to Harley.

“Let’s go, I slapped a rune on her shoulder to make her see an illusion of us all,” Vell said.  Harley didn’t need to be told twice.  She bolted before Vell had even finished the last word of his sentence.  He and Joan shared a quick glance at Michaela and then made a mad dash in turn.

“You guys are so late,” Harley hissed, as soon as they were all around the corner.  “I’ve been listening to her rant for thirty minutes!”

“Why’d you even go along with it, I thought you were just going to hide?”

“Michaela can be surprisingly persistent and surprisingly okay with breaking and entering,” Harley said.  “You might need to have someone fix your door, Lee.”

“Wonderful,” Lee said.

“Well, at least we know she can afford it,” Joan snapped.

“Ooooh, so I take it the conversation went well,” Harley said, her harsh expression suddenly brightening.  “Are we all good?  All secrets laid bare?  Everybody friends?”

“Everything is just fine,” Joan said.  “In fact, I think we could do a bit more talking.  I got some ideas for how you can drain daddy’s coffers without risking your inheritance.”

“I am all ears,” Lee said with a predatory smile.  The two of them walked off side by side, chatting about some ways to stab Lee’s dad in the back.  Metaphorically, for now, but Vell didn’t like their tone.  He and Harley were left behind for the moment.

“So, she gets a little intense,” Vell said.

“Gee, you think?”  Harley said.  “Did she mentioning pissing on her dad’s grave?  She always liked saying that.”

“She did not,” Vell said.  “She did mention spitting in his face as she burned his company to the ground, though.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s a favorite too.”

“Any ideas on how to make her chill out a little?”

“Oh I was actually hoping you’d have some,” Harley said.  “I got nothing.”

Vell shook his head.

“Well fuck,” Harley said.

Chapter 15: Dollars and Signs

Vell’s trio of roommates sat arrayed before Lee in a tight triangle.  After getting the biggest of the confessions out of the way, Lee had figured it was only fair that everyone in their group of friends knew the truth. 

“So you’re super rich,” Cane said.

“In simple terms, yes,” Lee said.

“Wait, was this supposed to be a secret?” Renard said.

“Was it...not?”  Lee asked.

“You and your parents used to come to my parent’s restaurant all the time,” Renard said.  “I saw you at least once a year.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall,” Lee said.  Her parents had visited Parisian restaurants quite frequently, so there were many possible places she and Renard may have crossed paths.

“Oh yeah I was in the kitchen, you probably didn’t see me ever,” Renard said. 

“Well, thank you for not saying anything, then,” Lee said.

“I figured if it was important somebody would’ve mentioned it.”

All present nodded in unison.  That sounded like Renard.  Luke crossed his legs and got to the real matter at hand.

“So, Lee, I don’t ever want to give you the impression that we are only interested in you for your money,” Luke said.  “We love and appreciate you as a person.”

Lee nodded gratefully, and Luke continued.

“You are, however, buying drinks from now on.”

“Understandable,” Lee said.  “Would you like a drink tonight?”

“No, that’s fine,” Luke said.  Cane nearly said something to the contrary, but Luke elbowed him in the ribs.

“Are you sure?  I was contemplating asking for some money from my parents anyway.  I usually donate it to a charity I feel my father would disapprove of, but if there’s anything you want or need I’d happily help.”

Luke bit his tongue.

“I really don’t want to take advantage of you,” he insisted.

“Oh it’s not taking advantage of me, it’s taking advantage of my father, which everyone can and should do,” Lee said.  “I appreciate you trying to be conscientious, but- you know what, just a moment.”

Lee stood up and pulled her phone out of her purse.  Cane tried to act casual.  Vell put his hand on his chin and waited.

Lee pressed the phone against her ear, and her demeanor changed in an instant.  She stood upright, her posture stiff as a board, and held her arms close by her sides with equally wooden rigidity.  She balanced on her toes and strode lightly across the room as she spoke.

“Hello Father,” she said, in a voice even more British and more artificially cheery than Vell had ever heard.  “My friends and I were thinking of taking a ski trip to Colorado on the next monthly break, and I was wondering-”

Lee was cut off as her father started speaking words none of them could hear.  Cane leaned a little closer, trying to eavesdrop, but his attempt failed.

“Yes, some of them are working on potentially profitable- Well, yes, I know Switzerland has better ski resorts, Father, but-  Yes of course I remember, networking is important,” Lee said.  “Yes of course.  No, that’s fine.  That’ll be fine.  Thank you so much.  I love you, Father.”

Lee pulled the phone away from her ear and made a violent retching noise, to the point Vell was genuinely concerned she was about to vomit all over their dorm.  Her mock disgust eventually got reined in, and she pulled up her phone and started scrolling through apps.

“So.  My father just sent me forty thousand dollars.”

Cane bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

“Joan, name a charity,” Lee said.

“Aktion Mensch.”

Lee pressed two buttons.

“Beep boop,” she narrated.  “Thirty thousand dollars to them.  Now, who has ideas on how to spend the remaining ten?”

A profound silence fell upon the room.  Everyone knew how they secretly wanted to spend ten-thousand dollars, but fewer people were certain how they wanted to publicly spend ten-thousand dollars.

“Well shit man, now I feel weird about not giving the rest of it to charity too,” Cane said.  At times like this he really hated having a conscience.

“Come on guys, there’s a lot of way to spend money and get something out of it that’s still productive for everyone,” Renard said.  “We can patronize online startups and other small businesses.”

“Yeah, but mom and pop don’t make Playstations,” Cane said.  Lee tapped her phone several times.

“Playstation for Cane, anyone else?”

Cane held up his hands as if to signal that he had not, technically, asked for it, and was therefore guiltless.  He had, however, broken the ice, and everyone present started making suggestions on how best to abuse the newfound wealth.

◆◆◆

After a minor spending spree by his roommates, Vell had joined Harley to make what he considered to be the more significant revelation.  He was keeping his undead nature from his roommates for now, but he could no longer keep it from Leanne.  If they were going to be working together, Leanne needed to know the whole truth.

“And that’s about all I know,” Vell said, concluding his explanation.  “The only clue I have is that rune on my back, but I’ve got no idea what it means.”

Leanne stared blankly at Vell, blinked twice, and then gave a thumbs up.

“Okay.  Uh.  Do you, like, have questions?”

Leanne shook her head.

“You’re taking this very well.”

“She’s been in the loops for four years, man, she’s probably seen weirder shit than this,” Harley said.  Leanne nodded in agreement.  Then she stood up, gave Vell a pat on the shoulder, and walked away.  About two steps around the corner, Leanne quietly mouthed the words “what the fuck” and then started walking away faster.

Chapter 16: Cutthroat Kitchen

Lee settled into the couch and kept a firm grip on her empty—for now—plate.  It was time for another get-together with Vell and his room-mates, and while the camaraderie of these social hangouts had their appeal, the real attraction was Renard’s cooking.  Every time he cooked he brought a new, unique recipe, and every time his friends got a new candidate for the best food they’d ever had.  Some time ago, Vell had claimed any kind of seafood made him want to vomit, but at a poker game last week Lee had caught him practically shoveling Shrimp Pad Thai into his mouth.  Even the strongest aversions were no match for Renard’s raw talent.  The man himself walked into the room, leaving his gathered friends breathless with anticipation.

“Hey, so is it cool if we just order a pizza or something today?”

The reaction he got was roughly akin to him announcing he had just strangled a child to death in the kitchen.

“What,” Joan said flatly.

“I’m just not really feeling it tonight,” Renard said.  Luke stood, stepped up to Renard, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Renard, you’re a true friend,” he said.  “And I’m never going to pressure you to do something you don’t want to do.”

After saying this, Luke dropped to his knees and threw his hands to the heavens.

“But why!”

“You having trouble with your homework?” Cane asked.  “I’ll do your homework.  I’ll do all your classes!” 

“This school has homework?” Renard said.

The agitated crowd of friends paused briefly to give a simultaneous sigh.

“Let’s focus on the cooking related problem,” Lee suggested.

“Oh, yeah, it’s not a problem or anything,” Renard said.  “I’m just a little burned out, you know?  All I’ve done lately is cook, or read about cooking, or read more about cooking, or read some more about cooking, or read-”

“We get it, Renard,” Cane said.

“Yeah, it’s totally cool, Ren,” Harley said.  “Lee can buy us a pizza or twenty and you can just chill with the rest of us tonight.”

Lee started making an order while Renard found a spot on the couch and relaxed.  Luke settled in next to him.

“So is this just something that finally got you down, or have you been doing a lot more cooking stuff lately?”

“Oh I’ve been doing like way more,” Renard said.  “There’s this big competition coming up this weekend and I’ve had to cram for it these past two days.”

Luke briefly considered expressing sympathy about Renard having such short notice to work with, but then remembered he was talking to Renard.

“So did people only tell you about it two days ago or did you only remember it two days ago?” He asked.

“The second one,” Renard said.

“Right, well, good luck, we’ll all be cheering for you,” Luke said.  “But for now, take a load off.”

Renard nodded and settled in for a long, quiet night.

◆◆◆

The quartet of loopers sat in Principal Goodwell’s office silently as they waited for Goodwell himself to arrive.  It took him some time, but the principal finally appeared, settling into his seat with a deep sigh.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve called you here today,” he began.

“Does it have something to do with a cooking competition?” Harley asked.

“Well it -Yes, actually,” Goodwell said.  “How did you know?”

“We were just talking about it last night, so it seemed thematically appropriate,” Harley said with a shrug.

“Ah, right, Vell is Renard’s roommate after all.  Yes, I need you to help with the cooking competition,” Principal Goodwell said.  “Tomorrow, Renard will be competing against our rivals from the Patschke-Puck University of Magic and Science and-”

The principal stopped himself as Lee failed to restrain a snort of laughter.

“Is something funny?”

“Well, yes, I mean, our ‘rivals’?  That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?’

“Yeah, ain’t Patsche-Puck those guys we beat 486-0 in every single Ballball game we played last season?”

Leanne flexed proudly.  The lead would have been larger, but the laws of physics had gotten in the way.  The aerodynamics of the ball made it physically impossible to move it fast enough to score more than 486 times in a single Ballball game.

“Yes, Patsche-Puck have never beaten the Einstein-Odinson college at anything in the entire eighty-year existence of our schools,” Lee said.  “They once lost a thumb wrestling contest against a man born without arms!”

Goodwell shrugged.  Nobody really knew how that one had happened, even to this day.

“Look, you’re right, Patsche-Puck is a school of failures and losers who’ve never won anything a day in their lives,” Goodwell said.  “But I want to be extra sure we don’t break that streak...and, also, their principal is one of my old classmates and he sucked and I like, really, really want him to get embarrassed.”

“Petty, which I’m usually down for, but I don’t know,” Harley said.  “You’re going to have to do more than that to get me on board.”

“Well, for starters, whenever big events like this happen it’s usually what causes the apocalypse, so you guys might as well be on the front lines,” Goodwell said.  Lee agreed on that count.  Large gatherings of people and special events were usually a reliable indicator of where the daily apocalypse would happen.  While Lee nodded in agreement, Vell’s head snapped up like a that of a meerkat about to scan the horizon.

“We’ll do it,” he said hastily.  “Come on, we can team up with Renard, it’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know, I’d rather work independently-”

“Nope we’re doing it,” Vell said.  He stood and moved for the door.  “We better start getting ready, come on, let’s get moving.  Thanks Goodwell, we’ll take it from here!”

A curious Harley followed behind as Vell tried to corral them out of the office.  Lee and Leanne were equally intrigued by his sudden change in demeanor and followed suit shortly.  As soon as they were out of earshot of Goodwell’s office, Lee paused to sate that curiosity.

“What on earth was that about, Vell?”

“I, uh, had a thought,” Vell said.  The manic energy of his idea had left him, and now he was back to his more hesitant self.  “Goodwell said that the principal of that school that sucks was an old classmate, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what if we ask him about Lijia Mian?”

Lee put a hand to her chin.  The mysterious figure brought up by Goodwell long ago had been a mystery for some time now.  Lee’s access to school records only went so far, and all they’d been able to confirm was that Lijia Mian had been a female student from China, who had attended the school at the same time as Isaac Goodwell.  Other than that, Lijia Mian seemed to be nonexistent -which only deepened their curiosity about her.

“Hey, good idea, Vell,” Harley said.  “Just one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Goodwell never specified it was a college classmate,” Harley pointed out.  “We could be dealing with a dude he went to high school with.”

“Oh.” Vell said.  “Ah, it’ll be fine.  Like you guys keep saying, the universe tends towards drama.”

“True,” Harley admitted.  “Either way I don’t mind being signed up. I think it’s going to be pretty fun.  We’re going to be teamed up with Renard, after all.  It should be pretty chill.”

◆◆◆

Renard marched in front of his line of troops, back straight, with a pounding force behind every step.

“You are in my kitchen now,” Renard said, with every ounce of authority his voice could muster.  “Do you know what that means?”

“That we...follow your every order?” Vell guessed.

“Oh.  Really?”  Renard said.  He stopped marching and slouched once again.  “I was asking you guys, I don’t know why you’re here.”

“We are your assistants for the cook-off,” Vell said.  He gestured to the chef’s uniform he was wearing, and the matching uniforms worn by his three associates.  Partly matching, at any rate.  Harley had somehow gotten hers in red.

“Oh, I didn’t know I get assistants, sweet,” Renard said.  “What do you guys do?”

“Whatever you tell us to, I guess,” Vell said.  He knew the basics of cooking, but wouldn’t dare to think himself on Renard’s level.  He’d follow the master chef’s lead.  Assuming the master chef didn’t lead them in a flammable direction.  Anything could happen with Renard at the helm.

“What’s step numero uno, oh commander chef sir?” Harley said with a mock salute.

“Hmm.  I don’t know.  I’m feeling kind of cheesy tonight, somebody get me all the cheese we have,” Renard said, pointing at various shelves and refrigerators around the room.  “And to clarify: I don’t mean a sample of all the different varieties.  I mean all the cheese we have.  I want one-hundred percent of the cheese in this room.”

“Right away, chef,” Lee said.  She nodded and trotted across the room, imparting every step with a professionalism the situation absolutely did not warrant.  Lee checked everywhere and carefully perused the contents of the kitchen while Vell and Harley grabbed armfuls of cheese and cheese-adjacent substances and hauled them over to the counter.

The two of them dropped off their latest bounties, turned around to grab more cheese, but froze in their tracks when they heard a loud slam behind them.  They cautiously turned, wondering if the apocalypse had caught up to them already, and were only a little relieved to see Leanne dropping off the largest cheese wheel they’d ever seen.  The countertop bent visibly under the density of the titanic wheel of manchego cheese.

“Where the fuck did you find that?”

Leanne pointed to a cabinet across the room.  Harley shook her head.

“Not you,” Harley said.  “Renard, why do you have a cheese wheel this big?”

“Oh, apparently somebody on campus made a matter converter raygun, but it only turns things into cheese,” Renard said.  He slapped the side of the massive manchego.  “I think this used to be a minivan.”

“Huh.  Can I have some?”

“Sure!”  Renard said.  He grabbed some fine crackers from a nearby shelf and cut a small sliver of cheese off with a knife, handing both to Harley.

“Mm.  Really can’t taste the minivan,” Harley said.  “But this might be my only chance to eat a car.”

She heavily emphasized “might”.  Renard offered some of the minivan manchego to the rest of his assistants, and they took a brief cheese and crackers break.  When the snacking was done and the crumbs had been swept up, Renard got them all back to business.

“Alright, I think I know what we’re going to do,” Renard said.  “Four cheese spinach pasta.  Lee, get me everything we need to make noodles.  Harley, you’re on spinach duty.  Vell, get me every vaguely Italian-sounding herb.  Leanne, you get all the utensils and cutting boards and stuff we need.”

With Renard giving the orders, the kitchen functioned like a partially well-oiled machine.  There were some hiccups, as Renard’s workspace was as disorganized and haphazard as one might expect from someone with his “unconventional” intellect.  Vell’s confusion as to why Renard kept his mixing spoons and his sauces in the same drawer gave way to an understanding that the kitchen was alphabetized -although the “F” section and “G” section were swapped.  Vell decided not to bring that up, if only to avoid Harley making a G-spot joke.

While Renard cooperated with his newly-assigned team on all of the prep work and early steps of cooking, when it came time to put the dish together, he fell silent.  Vell couldn’t be sure if Renard just wanted to handle the important parts personally, or if he’d forgotten they were there.  The intensity with which Renard focused on his work made Vell believe it was the former.  He was single-minded, entirely focused on the food in front of him, his green eyes sparkling with an unusual focus as he stared down at his work.  Though they maintained a respectful distance from the master at work, all of his assistants kept a close eye on his technique, hoping to glean some of the secrets behind Renard’s delicious cooking.

A light sprinkle of additional seasonings and cheese topped off the dish, and with several flourishes of a serving spoon, Renard put together five plates.  He gestured to them with a beaming smile on his face.

“Bon appetit, itadakimasu, etcetera, let’s eat,” he said.  The four did not waste any time taking him up on that offer.  Lee took a first bite and fought hard to not fall to her knees with joy.  After the initial waves of edible euphoria had washed over them, the ability to speak returned.

“You know, I don’t even like spinach,” Harley said.  “If it were anyone else cooking, I wouldn’t eat this.”

“Oh, thanks,” Renard said.  “I don’t eat spinach I didn’t cook either.  Lot of people don’t know how to handle spinach, it ends up real rubbery most of the time.”

“You know, Renard, how did you get started in cooking, anyway?” Vell asked.  “I know you mentioned your parents own some restaurant in Paris.  Did you grow up with it?”

“Other way around, actually,” Renard said.  “I used to cook with my grandma a lot when I was a kid, and when my parents saw me getting so good at it, they got the idea to open a restaurant.”

Lee thought back to her childhood visits to France.  She had been young, maybe ten or eleven during her first visit, and Renard was only a year younger.

“You must have gotten started quite early,” Lee said.

“Yeah, I think I’ve been cooking since I was like, five,” Renard said.  “I started with simple stuff like pancakes, but it escalated pretty quickly.”

“It must be nice to have found your passion so early in life,” Lee said.  She was twenty-one and still trying to figure it out.  She was relatively sure hydromancy was the path for her, but doubt still lingered in her mind.

“It’s been chill, yeah, but I also probably should’ve paid more attention in school when I was little, instead of thinking about pasta so much.”

“You’ve turned out alright,” Harley said.  “Brains ain’t everything.”

“If you say so,” Renard said.  “I wish I could do the cool science stuff you guys do, though.”

“Buddy, I would trade brains with you if it meant I got to eat this pasta every day for the rest of my life,” Harley said, as she forked more of the pasta into her mouth.

“Oh cool, can we do that?”

Harley stopped eating for a second.

“Maybe?  I’m sure somebody around here could build a brainswapper,” Harley said.  “But I wasn’t being totally serious.  I like building robots.”

Harley finished her plate of pasta and started doing the dishes.  Everyone else finished their food in turn and started cleaning up.

“So is that pasta what you’re going to be cooking at the competition?”

“I don’t know.  Sometimes these cook offs have all sorts of different weird rules.”

“Do you have any sort of plan at all?”

Renard shrugged and made an “I don’t know” noise. 

“The event’s tomorrow, Renard.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Lee considered speaking up again, but decided against it.  If Renard had earned her confidence in anything, it was his cooking skill. 

◆◆◆

“This is a bit more Iron Chef than I was expecting,” Vell said.

He hadn’t even known the school had an auditorium, much less the capacity to convert it into a fully-stocked kitchen arena on short notice.  The sizable stands were already packed with spectators, and more were crowding in the closer it got to showtime.  Renard was double-checking his workplace before the contest, giving the loopers some time to conspire.

“Alright, so we have to ask about Lijia Mian on the first loop, that way no one else will remember telling us anything,” Vell said.  “Is there anything else we should ask about while we’re at it?”

“I don’t know,” Harley said.  “Goodwell might be a little crazy, but he’s not very interesting.  Not a lot to him.”

“I imagine having one question answered will simply raise another,” Lee said.  “We should focus on extracting as much information about Ms. Mian as we can.”

“Good point,” Vell said.  “And Lee, I think you should ask the guy.  You’re good at dealing with authority.  And at bribing people.”

Lee nodded in agreement.  There weren’t many secrets that a million dollars couldn’t reveal.  Since it was the first loop, she could make whatever outlandish promises and bribes she wanted, and none would be the wiser.

The loopers finished their scheming, and as if on queue, Principal Goodwell appeared, with his arm wrapped tight around the shoulder of a stranger.

“Ah, there’s my competitors,” Goodwell said cheerily.  “This is my counterpart and former partner-in-crime, Isaiah Malbasin.  Izzy, these are some of my brightest students.  The tall one is Leanne, you should know her.”

“Yes, I believe I do,” Isaiah said.  “My Ballball team speaks of you in tones normally reserved for atomic bombs or the devil himself.”

Leanne nodded.

“The refined looking woman over there is Lee, the shorter one in red is Harley, the redheaded man there is my team lead, Renard, and that tall gangly looking fellow is Vell.”

As they were introduced, each member of the team waved politely.  Isaiah looked them all over in turn and seemed deeply impressed.  Once the entire gang had been introduced, Isaiah waved to the far side of the stage.

“Well, you all look impressive,” Isaiah said.  “Let me introduce you to my team.”

A squad of four stepped into view, mirroring their counterparts on the looper’s team -in more ways than one.

“The tall one is Leanna, the refined looking woman over there is Leigh, the shorter one in pink is Harmony, and the redheaded man there is my team lead, Ronald.”

The two mismatched teams stared one another down -except for Vell who, lacking a counterpart, looked around at their four opponents awkwardly.

“It’s like looking at an off-brand version of us,” Harley said.  Leanna was tall and muscular, though not so tall and muscular as Leanne, Leigh was slightly less poised and refined than Lee, and so on down the line, with each of the Patschke-Puck competitors looking like a flimsier version of the Einstein-Odinson originals.

“Hey, rude,” Harmony said sassily, though not as sassily as Harley would have said it.  “Maybe you’re the offbrand version of us.”

“Oh that’s not possible,” Harley said.  “I mean, you guys don’t even have a Vell.”

Harley pointed over at Vell, who lifted his hand in a stiff wave.

“Maybe we don’t need a Vell,” Leigh protested.

“What are you talking about, everybody needs a Vell,” Harley said.  “Look at this guy.  He’s great.”

“I don’t know, he does look pretty cool,” Leanna whispered to Harmony.  Vell stood up a little straighter. 

“Hah, see, your Leanne isn’t as cool as ours either,” Harley said.  “Ours is all stoic and silent.”

Leanne crossed her arms and stared silently down at her counterpart.  The lesser Leanna withered under the mighty glare of her superior.

“There’s no need to get caught up in competition, sweetheart,” Leigh said, in a British accent slightly less posh than Lee’s.  “They’ve got one more member and a goliath of a woman, but we have resources.”

“Right, and what resources would those be?” Lee said.

“My father is the manager of Innovation Electronics.”

“Hmm.  Right,” Lee said with a surprisingly sadistic smile.  “My father is the CEO of Roentgen.  The parent company of Innovation Electronics.”

Leigh leaned back on her heels, suddenly red in the face.  She looked to her left, at where Ronald had been standing.  Their redhead was gone -as was his counterpart on the Einstein-Odinson side of the aisle.  Both teams looked to the nearest kitchen and saw Renard and Ronald stooped over the burner.

“So the real trick to caramelizing onions is to slightly undercook them,” Renard explained.  “Most of the time you’re going to be putting them into a hot dish, so you gotta let that heat be what finishes cooking them.”

Ronald nodded and jotted down some notes.

“Well at least those two get along,” Isaiah noted.  “The rest of you, get ready.”

“Oh, yes, one thing, real quick,” Lee said.  She turned to her teammates and nodded.  Harley distracted Principal Goodwell by informing him that it was the first loop and they’d bought him a bag of candy to eat guilt-free, and led him backstage, away from Isaiah.  Vell and Leanne helped Renard prep while Lee latched on to Isaiah and pulled him away from helping his team prep.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malbasin, I was hoping to pick your brain for a moment, about our principal’s past,” Lee said.  “You went to college with him, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Isaiah said.  “What did you want to ask about?”

“Well, there’s an old classmate he mentions now and then,” Lee said.  She took a deep breath.  “Did you happen to know anyone by the name of Lijia Mian?”

Isaiah rubbed his chin.  He seemed to disapprove.

“Isaac’s still hung up on her, huh?” Isaiah said with a sigh.  “Figures.”

“He does still seem to place great importance on her,” Lee said.

“Well, I don’t know what’s been thinking or doing since we left school,” Isaiah said.  “But back in the day, Isaac was head over heels for her.  Lijia never seemed to like him very much, though, but they spent nearly every day together, getting up to some kind of strange shenanigans.”

Lee nodded to herself.  That sounded familiar, but she could analyze it later.

“What was she like?”

“One of the brightest women you could ever meet,” Isaiah said.  “She was a genius.  Knew more about the flow of mana than anyone I’ve ever met, even all these years later.  She’d probably be the biggest name in science, if she hadn’t disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yep.  Up and vanished one day, about halfway through our last school year,” Isaiah said.  “I don’t know too many of the details, but I know they looked for her with every kind of scanning and scrying known to man, but never found her.”

“Oh dear.  That’s unfortunate.”

“It’s a real shame, yeah,” Isaiah said.  “It’s a surprise Isaac still talks about her, though.  Last I heard he got married and had kids.  It’s just sad that he’s still talking about the one that got away.”

“Some people get so caught up in the past they fail to appreciate what they have,” Lee said.  “Regardless, thank you for answering my questions.  I understand Principal Goodwell much better now.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I won’t ask for any more of your time,” Lee said with a curtsy.

“Yeah, you should be getting back to your team anyway,” Isaiah said.  “It’s almost time for you to get absolutely annihilated by my team!”

Isaiah pumped his fist and posed emphatically towards his team of knockoffs, who responded with a weak cheer.  Lee squinted at Isaiah’s sudden odd behavior.

“Don’t ask for mercy because you’re not getting any,” Isaiah taunted.  “Try not to cry too much, little girl.”

Lee nodded and started to back away from Isaiah slowly.  She began to see why Goodwell hated him so much.  Leaving Isaiah and his childish taunts behind, Lee returned to her team and repeated the information about Lijia Mian.

“So, she hung out with Goodwell and got up to a lot of shenanigans too, huh?” Harley said.  “Sounds like Mian was a looper too.”

“I’d sort of assumed, but it’s nice to have confirmation,” Vell said.  “The disappearance is new, though.  And, uh, worrying.”

“I know,” Lee said.  “Even back then, scrying magic made it difficult for a person to go missing.  There must be exceptional circumstances at work.”

“Spooky,” Harley said.

“Very much so,” Vell said.  He didn’t like spooky.  Spooky didn’t end well.

“I think we’ll have to look into it more later,” Lee said.  “Perhaps I can ask Isaiah more questions about it-”

Leanne interrupted Lee by tapping her on the shoulder, and then pointing to the kitchen area.  The loopers looked up to see that the kitchen Renard and Ronald had been working in was now burning with purple fire.

“Oh that’s probably not good,” Lee said.  They four scuttled over to Renard, matched by their off-brand counterparts scuttling over to Ronald.

“What happened?” Both groups asked.

“Oh, Ronald was just showing me some cool trick he knew,” Renard said.  All heads turned to Ronald, who shrugged.

“Well he knew so much cool stuff, I felt ridiculous, so I tried to light a magical fire to cook something with and it, well, it did that!”

Ronald pointed at the purple flames, which were now spreading past the stove top.  Leanne did the most pragmatic thing available and blasted the flames with a fire extinguisher, which had no effect.  Lee’s hydromancy also failed to douse the flames.  Panicked spectators started to flee the stands as the flames continued to spread.

“You guys got any ideas?” Harley asked, turning to the group of Patschke-Puck students.  Leigh made it halfway through mustering up the courage to say something when the purple flames erupted in a bright, and distressingly humanoid, pillar.  Leigh’s courage flew out the window and she let out a loud scream as the magical flames coalesced into the jagged figure of a four-armed man.

“Run!” Leigh screamed.  She pushed Harmony towards the flaming figure before turning to flee.  Leanna and the others followed -except for Harmony, who was reduced to cinders as the fire elemental swiped at her with one infernal limb.

“Ouch,” Harley said.  She could not help but feel a touch of sympathy watching her doppelganger get reduced to ash.  “You’d never do me like that, right Lee?”

“Of course not,” Lee said.  She demonstrated her point by grabbing Harley and pulling her away from one of the fire elemental’s flaming strikes.  “Like you said, they’re off brand.  Our friendship is name brand.”

“Aww, that’d be really sweet if it made more sense,” Harley said.  “Anyway, this thing’s going to incinerate us friendship or not, so I’ll catch you guys on the flip side.”

Leanne grabbed the nearest piece of food and chowed down before the fire elemental’s fury started to spread and consume them all.

◆◆◆

“Hey Renard, stop fooling around with the competition, we need you over here,” Harley shouted.  Renard popped his head up and looked at Harley, who waved him over.

“Okay,” he called back.  “Sorry Ron, you’ll have to show me that magic fire trick later.”

“Sure, I guess,” said a disappointed Ron.  Renard walked away and Ronald, having no one to show off to, left the magical fire unlit.  Lee had brought a magical fire-extinguisher along, just in case, but the solution had ended up being remarkably simple.

The second loop proceeded without incident, and with only a few minor changes on their part -mostly that Lee did not ask any questions about Lijia Mian.  With those questions, and preventing the daily apocalypse, out of the way, the loopers focused on the next most important task: the cooking competition.

As competitors on both sides of the stage took their places, the stage lights came on, and a catchy pre-show jingle started playing.

“Vell was right, this really is knockoff Iron Chef,” Harley noted.  There were even smoke machines.  The odd level of hype only amplified as the MC of the event stepped up to the mic.

“Hello and welcome, the third annual Einstein-Odinson versus Patschke Puck cook-off, where the name isn’t the only mouthful involved,” the host said.  No one laughed at his joke.  “I’m your host, Mark Damascus.”

He received a smattering of polite applause, which he absorbed with suitable aplomb.

“And allow me to introduce our guest hosts; Mr. Gordon Sheepsey!  Mr. Bobby Clay!  And last but not least, Mr. Emeril LaOille!”

Harley’s eyes narrowed as the trio walked on stage.  They all looked familiar -but not too familiar.

“Wait a minute,” she whispered.  “Sheepsey? Clay?  LaOille?  These are all cheap imitations of more famous and successful chefs!”

Harley leaned over the counter top to glare at their off-brand counterparts from the other school.  All four of the poor imitations had smug smiles on their faces.

“Those bastards stacked the deck,” Harley muttered under her breath.  “They’re cheating!”

“Well that’s a bold accusation to make,” Lee said.  Before she could continue, the announcer continued.

“And in keeping with the traditions of our challenge, each team will be provided a special ingredient in addition to their basic kitchen supplies.  For the Patschke-Puck students-”

Mark Damascus posed dramatically as a tray of ingredients was teleported onto the kitchen counter top.  The silver lid lifted to reveal a tray of raw meat that looked deliciously tender and glistened with perfectly marbled fat.

“Kobe beef!  And for the students of Einstein-Odinson-”

Damascus posed once again, and a matching tray appeared in front of Renard.  The lid on this one lifted to reveal a plain white bag.

“Flour!”

“Okay, they might be cheating a little bit,” Lee said quietly.  Vell grabbed at the bag of flour and peered inside.

“This bag is half-empty,” he noted.  “And there’s a note inside that says ‘suck it, Einstein’s’.”

Vell noticed an arrow pointing to the opposite side of the note.  He flipped it over. 

“With a crude drawing of a penis on the other side.”

“Those bastards,” Harley noted.  “Didn’t even have the decency to draw a good penis!”

“Begin!” The announcer shouted.  The Patschke-Puck team sprang into action with choreographed grace, while Renard appraised his bag of flour.  It seemed to be the variety one might buy at a dollar store.

“Oh well, I was feeling like baking anyway,” Renard said.  He grabbed a bread tray, along with some salt, water, and yeast.  As an afterthought, he also took out a pinch of sugar.

“This is bullshit,” Harley said.  “Lee, what kinda magical stuff you got to get back at them?”

“I suppose I could enchant the water for a bit of extra flavor,” Lee said.  “I’m not sure how I’d-”

“Not like that,” Harley protested.  “We have to kneecap them as hard as they kneecapped us.  Possibly literally.  Leanne, do you think you could throw something hard enough to break a knee?”

Leanne grabbed a nearby mixing spoon, tested the heft, and nodded affirmatively.

“Hey, no kneecapping,” Vell protested.

“Why would we need to?” Renard asked.

“You really need to listen, Renard,” Lee said.  “The other team is cheating.”

“Yeah, I know,” Renard said.  “But why does that mean we have to cheat?”

Harley kept her mouth shut, knowing she had no good response to that.  Cheating back would make her feel good, at least.

“There’s always going to be people doing bad stuff, and if you respond to it with more bad stuff, nothing ever gets better,” Renard said.  “The only thing on the line is a cheap trophy.  That’s not worth dragging ourselves down to their level.”

“Actually, Renard, the prize is a several thousand dollar scholarship grant for the respective school’s culinary program.”

“Oh,” Renard said.  “Well still.  We’re the good guys.  We need to win the good guy way.”

“Ugh, fine, since you made a whole speech about it,” Harley said.  “Let’s get this bread.”

Renard laughed at Harley’s joke and started giving orders.  With the limited resources available to them, each member of the team had very little to do, but Renard found a role for everyone regardless.  With their assorted tasks quickly wrapped up, all they could do was sit and watch as Renard put together the finishing touches and put their loaf in the oven.  Then it became a matter of waiting -and staring angrily at their competition as they seasoned and cooked their expensive beef.

“That smells delicious,” Harley said.  “I’m starting to regret taking the high road.”

“Well the fun part about the high road is that it’s pretty easy to jump down,” Renard said.  “But it’s a lot harder to climb up from the low road.”

“You’re right, I- Are you talking about the moral high road or literal climbing?”

“It works for both,” Renard said.  Harley shrugged.  “Now hold on, I have to watch the bread.”

Renard stooped low in front of the oven and stared through the glass screen.  Lee examined their workspace to see if they were almost out of time, and saw no countdown of any sort.

“Renard, did you not set a timer?”

“Of course not,” Renard said, without taking his eyes off the bread.  “Baking isn’t about timing, it’s about color.”

Then, without a word, and without any perceptible change in the color of the bread, Renard decided it was done and snatched the loaf out of the oven to let it start cooling.  To everyone else it looked exactly as it had a minute or so ago, but Renard had a trained baker’s eye for very small differences in color.

“Time’s up!” Mark Damascus shouted.  A loud siren blared to signal the end of their cooking time.  The Patschke-Puck teams continued to season and prepare their food in spite of the time being called.  Harley didn’t bother raising a complaint.  Mark took the prepared food to the judges table, who deliberated on it in silence.

“I know we had that talk about morality, but I’m still going to be quite cross if we lose this to a bunch of cheaters,” Lee grumbled.  In response, Leanne pounded a clenched fist against her open palm.

“Leanne’s right,” Harley said.  “We can always jump them in an alley after the show’s over.”

“That’s not what you meant, right?” Vell asked, looking up at Leanne.  She didn’t blink.

“It’ll all be fine,” Renard assured them.  “Whatever happens, we did our best, and we did it the right way.”

The judges finished their deliberating.  Each team’s food was ranked on a scale from one to ten, with the rating displayed on an electronic screen above the judges head.  Each judge rated Patschke-Puck’s kobe beef steaks a solid ten -and Renard’s loaf of bread a solid eighty.

“Also, I’m like, really good at baking,” Renard said, as confetti started to rain down on him.  Across the stage, Leigh screamed.

“What!  What’d I even bribe you idiots for?”

“It’s good bread!” Gordon Sheepsey shouted back, before shifting his focus to fighting the other judges for more of the bread.  As the knockoff celebrities sank into a full-on fistfight over a loaf of bread, Damascus awkwardly presented Renard with a trophy.

“Good job, you’ve earned this, I think,” Mark said.  In the background, Bobby Clay screamed as Sheepsey bit his hand.  “There’s supposed to be more to this but I think we need to do something about that.  You should go.”

“Okay, but I want to know who wins,” Harley said.

“I’d put money on Sheepsey,” Lee said.  “He looks feisty.”

“You really need to go now!”

And go they did.  Event proctors shuffled competitors and spectators alike out of the arena as the trio of judges started to fight over breadcrumbs like a gaggle of angry ducks.  Once they were outside the auditorium again, Isaiah Malbasin gathered together his off-brand students and retreated, shaking a fist at Renard’s team as they went.

“You may have narrowly won a victory today, but we’ll get you next time, Einsteins!” he cried, as his team rounded a corner.

“You probably won’t,” Vell cried back.

The Patschke-Puck students vanished, leaving behind the triumphant Einstein-Odinson students.  Renard appraised his trophy and offered it to his teammates.

“Anybody want this thing?  I don’t have any room for more cooking trophies.”

“I like shiny things,” Harley said, and Renard handed it over.  Harley admired her reflection in the faux-gold as Principal Goodwell approached his team, applauding all the while.

“Good show, good show, I knew I could count on you guys,” Goodwell said.  “Feels good to keep that win-streak going.”

“Somehow I feel we were never really at risk of losing,” Lee said.  “Is Patschke-Puck cursed?  I feel as though they might be cursed.”

“Nope, we’ve checked,” Goodwell said.  “Not cursed, hexed, bewitched, or stricken.  They just suck real bad.”

“How unfortunate.”

“For them,” Goodwell said.  “Anyway, good work all, I’ll let you know if I ever need your help again.”

“If you do, please hesitate to ask,” Lee said with a curtsy.

“Wait, did you mean ‘please don’t-”

“Maybe.”

Chapter 17: Born and Bread

“You know, for being such a skinny guy, you got a surprisingly comfortable chest,” Joan said.  She scooted over on the couch a little and adjusted her position as she continued to use Vell’s chest as a pillow.

“Comfortable for you, maybe,” Vell grumbled.  He could feel all of Joan’s weight pressing firmly on his sternum.  In spite of his protests, Vell did nothing to shake her off and continued to let Joan lie on him until the universe conspired to interrupt her rest.

“Vell!”

Harley’s thunderous entrance not only cause Joan to slide off Vell’s chest but off the couch entirely, and she hit the ground with a loud thump.  Harley tried not to giggle as Joan pulled herself off the floor.

“Hi, Harley,” Joan grunted. 

“Hey Harls.  Is it disaster time already?”

“Not yet, bud,” Harley said.  It was still the first loop, but today’s apocalypse had yet to strike.  “I’m just bored.  What are you guys doing?”

“We were relaxing,” Joan said.  “Not sure what we’re doing now.”

“Lunch would be good,” Vell said.  “I’m really craving a sandwich for some reason.”

“That’s a very generic thing to be craving, Vell,” Harley said.  “Peanut butter and jelly?  Ham and cheese?  Roast beef and swiss on rye?  What kind of sandwich we talking here?”

Vell narrowed his eyes and briefly contemplated the infinite potential of the humble sandwich.

“Chicken bacon ranch,” Vell said.

Harley noted his craving and headed into the kitchen.  She had come here specifically to bother him and interrupted an apparently very nice cuddle session, the least she could do was make Vell a sandwich in exchange.  Her good intentions hit a quick roadblock.

“You’re out of bread,” Harley said.  “How do you have chicken, bacon, and ranch, but no bread?”

“Shit, I forgot,” Vell said.  “Renard used it all the other day to make fr- toast.”

In spite of multiple arguments to the contrary, Renard had insisted his french toast was just toast, on the basis that he was french and therefore any kind of toast he made would technically be french toast.  Vell and his roommates had eventually given up arguing, on the basis that Renard’s cooking was worth a few bits of linguistic stupidity.

“Well, luckily for all of us, bread is not difficult to acquire,” Joan said.  “Why don’t you go get some, Harley?”

Harley had lost interest in listening to Joan talk mid-sentence and had started poking around on her phone to show Vell something.

“Speaking of bread, did you take that quiz I sent you?” Harley said, shoving her phone in Vell’s face.  “Because now I want you to take this one.”

“What kind of bread are you,” Vell read aloud.  “Harley, where are you getting these quizzes?”

“I slept with this chick who’s crazy into them and she keeps sending them to me,” Harley said.  “I’m also easily bored and need the ten to fifteen minutes of distraction these quizzes provide.”

“Well I’m not that easily bored,” Vell said.  The quiz Harley had sent him earlier (“How would you die in a victorian novel”) had been summarily ignored, and Vell intended to do the same with this one.  Harley being right next to him made it slightly harder.

“Alright, then I’ll do it and you can just watch.”

Harley sat down on the floor next to the couch and started quizzing away.  Joan rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen to get herself lunch, making sure to tear the sticker that said “CANE” of the container before she started eating his leftovers.  She sat and glared daggers into the living room while Harley did her quiz.

“What is your favorite animal?  My dog, obviously,” Harley said, ticking away the final box.  “And the result is...White Bread? I’m not even white!  How the fuck am I the most boring kind of bread?”

Vell shrugged as something hit the floor, which he assumed to be Harley punching the ground in frustration.

“Maybe it’s because you appeal to everyone,” Vell said.

“Uh, Vell,” Joan said.

“Okay, to most people, at least, be nice,” Vell said.  “And hey, white bread is fine.”

“Vell!”

Joan pointed at the floor next to Vell.  Harley’s phone had fallen to the ground next to a crumpled pile of red clothing with a conspicuous lump in the middle.  Vell sighed.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got.”

He stuck his hand into the pile of discarded clothing, fully expecting something to bite him as he did so.  He did not get bitten, and instead pulled out a conspicuously unsliced loaf of white bread.

“Alright then.  Quiz gives you the result, actually makes you the result,” Vell said.  He contemplated whether or not to tease Harley about this on the second loop.

“That is fucked up,” Joan said.  “Are you going to...you know…”

“Fix her?  Obviously,” Vell said.  “Or at least try to.”

“Oh, no.  I meant, you know,” Joan mumbled, before making a quick slicing motion with her hands.  “You did want a sandwich.”

Vell did a quick double-take between Joan and the loaf of bread that had once been Harley.

“I am not going to eat Harley!”

“It’s not her, it’s just a loaf of bread,” Joan snapped back.  “You might as well.”

“Maybe if I was starving to death,” Vell said.  He’d been through too much lately to completely rule out eating a bread-friend.  “Come on.  We need to go check on the rest of campus.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Joan said.  “Just saying, that’s a good looking loaf of bread.”

“I’ll manage,” Vell insisted.  “Besides.  Chicken bacon ranch works better on a ciabatta bun anyway.”

◆◆◆

“Ciabatta?  I’m sorry, is my white-bread ass not good enough for you?”

Vell had not exactly expected praise for not eating his friends, but he hadn't expected to get scolded for it either.  Harley almost sounded offended that no one had tried to take a bite out of her on the previous loop.

“I’m sure you were delicious, dear,” Lee said.  “But I imagine Vell was concerned that he’d take a slice or two off the end, and then if we found a cure for you, you’d end up coming back with no feet.”

“Uh, something like that, yeah.”

“Okay, okay, sure,” Harley said.  “But next time I get turned into food, I want someone to take at least a little bite out of me, consequences be damned.  I want to know what I taste like.”

Shockingly, no one jumped to volunteer to that task.

Chapter 18: The Cowboy Calamity

With his block of rune-related courses done for the day, Vell parted ways with Joan and headed for his next class alone.  He made his way across the quad, and stopped in his tracks when he heard the distant, yet distinct, sound of mooing.  Vell sighed as his phone began to ring.  He answered Harley’s call, already knowing he probably wouldn’t like what she had to say.

“Hello?”

“Hey Vell,” Harley said breathlessly.  A heavy rumbling in the background nearly drowned out her voice. “Just giving you a heads up, there’s a stampede of crazy mutant cows on the loose.  I’m about to get Mufasa’d so good luck and see you on the next-”

A quiet yelp and a burst of static marked the end of the phone call.  Vell put his phone away and looked around campus.  Far to the western shore, he saw a cloud of dust rising -and could see the trees and buildings trembling.  He’d barely put that picture together before the first of the stampeding beasts rounded the corner of a building.  The cow was unnaturally massive, with bulging muscles that would put a Belgian Blue to shame.  Vell stopped looking and started running.

Sprinting was not Vell’s strong suit, nor the strong suit of the various other nerds caught in the path of the stampede.  Most dove into nearby buildings, although some of the raging cows broke through doors and rampaged through buildings interiors as well.  Vell was going for the more sensible approach of heading for the coast.  Swimming a few yards off-shore would be enough to keep him safe for the time being.  While Vell was sure of his plan, he was not sure of his ability to outrun the mutant death cows.  Every time he glanced over his shoulder, they were getting closer.

Vell took one more look over his shoulder and saw that the stampede was only a few yards behind him, with the coast significantly further away.  Vell didn’t stop running, but he did grit his teeth and prepare for the inevitable.

The first impact came not from behind, as Vell expected, but from the side -and it wasn’t followed by a second one.  Instead of being trampled, Vell found himself being lifted on the ground and tucked securely under someone’s arm.  It took Vell a second to regain his bearings, but once he finally reoriented himself, Vell looked up and saw the exact person he’d expected: Leanne.

“Thanks Leanne,” Vell shouted over the noisy hoofbeats of the herd.  Leanne did not acknowledge him, as she had other priorities.  While she focused on hauling the two of them away from the danger, Vell glanced around at their surroundings.  Leanne was doing a better job keeping ahead of the stampede, but they were still losing ground.  Even she wouldn’t make it to the ocean in time.  Vell did see a small laboratory building ahead of them.

“How good are you at jumping?” Vell shouted.  “We should be safe on a rooftop.”

Leanne pumped her head once in a harsh nod, and used the hand she wasn’t holding Vell with to point at a tree near the short building.  She took a deep breath to gain a second wind and, with one mighty leap, she launched herself and Vell to a sturdy looking-branch of the tree.  It held under the weight, and Leanne shifted her grip on Vell and then threw him to the rooftop.  He landed hard and rolled his way to the rooftop edge to check on her. 

Leanne braced herself and leaped from the tree just as the first of the cows rammed into it.  The impact made the tree shake under her feet and set her jump awry.  Vell watched her launch through the air at an awkward angle.  He wasn’t sure how much good it would do, but he held out his hand regardless.  Leanne managed to grab onto his wrist, and though her weight nearly dragged Vell off the rooftop, he managed to hold on.

“Okay, I got you,” Vell said.  He grit his teeth against the pain of his nearly-dislocated shoulder and pulled as hard as he could to help Leanne onto the roof.  She climbed up and then fell into a sitting position straightaway, taking a deep breath.

“Thanks.”

Vell rolled over and looked around.  He didn’t see anyone but himself and Leanne on the rooftop.

“Who said that?”

Leanne stared at him blankly for a moment before pointing to herself.

“Oh, right,” Vell said.  “Sorry.  I, uh, I forget you can talk sometimes.”

Leanne shrugged.  She had only herself to blame for that.  With the awkward exchange out of the way, Leanne stood up and leaned over the edge of the building, and Vell soon joined her.  The cows were still stampeding, in a seemingly endless horde.  Every now and then one rammed into the building, causing it to tremble.  The bovine swarm continued charging, with no apparent goal in mind, nor any end in sight.  Vell rubbed his chin and put his glasses on to scan the various cows.

“Well, that’s not unexpected,” Vell said.  “All these cows are genetically identical.  They’re cloned.”

Vell continued scanning while Leanne waited in silence.  The glasses struggled to parse data from the confusing jumble of cow meat, but they eventually managed to collect some worthwhile information.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Vell said.  “They’re, uh, food.”

Leanne looked down at the stamped, watched them trample an innocent student, and then stared at Vell again.

“I mean, obviously not now,” Vell said.  “But they’re cloned from the same template as food.  You know, the lab grown meat and, uh, that kind of stuff.”

The technology to grow meat in a lab had been perfected a few years back, and now most of the meat people ate was artificial.  Some purists held out for “real” meat, but most accepted that there was no functional difference.  Leanne nodded while Vell looked up a school directory on his phone.

“Looks like there’s a department dealing with food production,” Vell said.  “I guess they, well, overdid it a little.”

Leanne looked down at the endless cows and nodded.  “A little” indeed.

“I was wondering why they didn’t look like any breed I’d ever heard of,” Vell said.  “Got the muscles of a Belgian Blue, but those heads are definitely Herefords.”

Vell caught himself over-analyzing the cows and looked up to see Leanne giving him an odd look.  Vell bit his tongue and looked down at the cows.

“I, um, I, uh, I dated a girl who, uh, owned a ranch, once,” Vell stammered.  “She...told me lots of things.  Things about cows.”

The look on Leanne’s face said she wasn’t buying it for a minute.  Vell started to sweat.

“We should, uh...focus on the stampede,” Vell insisted.

What should have been a few steaks had instead become a stampeding horde.  From the fact that the cows just kept coming and coming, Vell would guess that the cloning process was still ongoing.  Vell considered searching the source for more information, but he doubted the surging river of cows would allow him to get anywhere near their origin point.

“So.  We know mostly what’s going on and where to look,” Vell said.  He looked to Leanne. “You got anything else to do this loop?”

Leanne took a quick glance at the dining hall and saw that it had mostly been ransacked by the stampede.  She sighed, but focused on Vell, and pointed to him expectantly.

“I, what, I don’t have anything left to do,” Vell said.  His face shifted to an even deeper shade of red.  “What are you pointing at me for?”

Leanne pointed to the cows, then back at Vell.  Vell shook his head so hard his glasses flew off his face.

“I’ve already said everything I know about cows I don’t know anything else and there’s nothing left to do!”  After Vell spat out that stream of words at a breakneck pace, he sat down on the edge of the roof.  “See you next loop!”

Falling backwards like a scuba diver rolling off the boat, Vell plummeted down into the stampede.

◆◆◆

The breakfast sausage served in the dining hall was pork, not beef, but Vell steered clear of it regardless.  It just felt wrong.  He ate his morning pancakes and explained the situation, deliberately ignoring the occasional glances from Leanne.  After recapping what his glasses had learned, Lee added her knowledge to Vell’s limited appraisal.

“Yes, we do have a laboratory that handles food development,” Lee said.  “I’m not entirely sure about the inner workings, though.  Surprisingly, this is the first time something has gone wrong there.  At least during my tenure at this school.”

Leanne had a look on her face that said the food cloning labs might have caused more than one apocalypse in the past but she, unsurprisingly, did not elaborate.  The discussion carried on in spite of her lack of contribution.

“The head of the department is the same man who revolutionized the lab-grown meat technology, one Doctor Ervine Ernest,” Lee said.  “A strangely small figure in the Einstein-Odinson College academic community.  You’d think the man who keeps us all fed would be more well-connected.”

“Maybe he just likes to keep to himself,” Vell said.

“Perhaps.  We’ll find out for ourselves soon enough,” Lee said.  “I’ll head that way and talk my way into his good graces.”

“Nobody plays teacher’s pet like you, Lee,” Harley said.

“Don’t say it like that,” Lee complained.  Harley cleared her throat and tried again, this time speaking in a poor imitation of Lee’s accent.

“You are most skilled at ingratiating yourself with the faculty, Lee,” Harley said.  She even mimicked Lee’s stiff posture as she spoke.

“It got worse,” Lee sighed.  “I’m leaving before she does anything else.”

“No, I’m done,” Harley said.  She liked making fun of her friends, but she also liked knowing where to draw the line.

“Well I’m leaving regardless,” Lee said. “I’ll report back in once I’ve gotten some information, so expect to hear from me soon.”

◆◆◆

Lee stepped up to the office of Dr. Ervine Ernest.  A handmade sign on the door said “always open!” in a cheery font, so Lee let herself in. 

“Just a moment,” Dr. Ernest huffed.  He was hunched over his desk, examining some paperwork, and didn’t even look up as Lee entered.  She looked around his office for a moment as she waited.  A single photo of the doctor himself on horseback hung on the wall, alongside an ornamental bull’s skull and a horseshoe hanging on a nail.  The western aesthetic certainly spoke to an affinity for cows.

“Alright, that should do it,” Dr. Ernest said.  He breathed a sigh of relief and shifted his bulky frame, slowly turning his wizened face towards Lee.  “Now what can I-”

The friendly smile on Dr. Ernest’s face vanished in an instant as he laid eyes on Lee, and he stood from his chair with a speed uncharacteristic to someone his age and build.

“Out!”

The rules of the Einstein-Odinson college prevented Dr. Ernest from physically pushing Lee out of his office, but he took every other possible step to ensure she knew she was not welcome.  He stormed over to Lee, placing his body to bar any further passage into his office, and then continued walking, forcing the more demure Lee to step back.  She continued walking backwards as the solidly built doctor maintained a slow but forceful pace in her direction.

“I’m sorry, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Lee said.

“Nope, you be quiet, and you get out of my laboratory,” Dr. Ernest commanded.  “I know all about you, ‘Lee’ Burrows, and your squadron of cronies.  I’ll not be having you interfere.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand,” Lee said.  She looked over her shoulder to ensure she wasn’t about to trip over anything as she walked backwards.

“Well I understand perfectly,” Dr. Ernest said.  “You show up talking about your father or your curiosity about a topic and suddenly a perfectly promising experiment goes awry.  Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to!”

“An...odd, yet entirely explicable series of coincidences?” Lee said hesitantly.  Dr. Ernest laughed callously.

“The usual Burrows lies,” Ernest spat.  “What your family can’t buy or steal, it destroys.  You can let your pa know my experiment will be proceeding as planned, now matter how much he wants you to stop it.”

“With respect, you are deeply incorrect about my relationship with my father,” Lee said.  She struggled not to grit her teeth with indignation at the very idea she was engaging in sabotage at her father’s behest.

“I’ll take my chances,” Dr. Ernest insisted.  His forceful advance finally pushed Lee across the threshold of the lab, and he grabbed the door as she passed through it.  “I don’t want to see you or any of your friends anywhere near this afternoon’s experiment!”

With that, Dr. Ernest slammed the door in Lee’s face.  Once the shock of his violent rejection sank in, the primary problem of the day presented itself.

“Oh dear,” Lee mumbled to herself.

◆◆◆

Freddy returned to the dorm with his curly red hair still standing on end.  He looked almost shell-shocked.

“I have never been yelled at like that before,” he mumbled.

“Sorry about that,” Lee said.  “Thank you for trying.”

The group thanked Freddy for his efforts and sent him on his way, so they could discuss their dilemma in private.  Since Lee had been shouted out of Dr. Ernest’s office, the loopers had gone to some of their friends for assistance.  Ernest, however, was surprisingly informed about their circle of friends, and shouted away Joan, Kanya and Himiko, and now Freddy, dismissing them all as patsies of Roentgen out to sabotage his latest experiment.  Joan, at least, had learned that the experiment was scheduled to start at three o’clock in the afternoon, giving them a very specific time frame for how screwed they were.

“This is concerning,” Lee said.  “We can’t rely on any of our usual standby’s.”

They had discovered that Dr. Ernest, unlike most of the college’s faculty, held a deep distaste for Roentgen and other massive corporations.  Roentgen had once bought out the lab Dr. Ernest worked for and then refused to credit Ernest or any of his associates for their previous research, effectively stealing their work out from underneath them.  Lee took advantage of the assumption that she worked for her father to prevent many apocalypses, but it had backfired spectacularly on this occasion.  Dr. Ernest wouldn’t even hear them out long enough for Lee to explain her rebellious relationship with her parents.

“All of our usual standby’s for preventative measures,” Harley said.  “Prevention beats a cure, but a cure still works.”

“How do you suggest we stop a horde of infinitely cloned cows, darling?”

In response, Leanne pointed to Vell.  He started shaking his head preemptively.

“Do you have any ideas, Vell?” Lee asked.

“Nope, none, I uh, I don’t,” Vell said.  He started backing towards the door slowly.  “I don’t know anything about cows, and uh, I never have.  In fact, I don’t think cows exist, I think they’re just very fat horses, so obviously, uh, I am unqualified to deal with this and I will see you later.”

Vell backed into the door, opened it, and stepped out, leaving his dumbstruck friends behind.

“I know Vell’s bad at improvising, but that was like, especially bad,” Harley said.

“Indeed,” Lee said.  “I wonder what’s causing him to act so strangely.”

Rather than musing on the causes of Vell’s strange behavior, Leanne rolled her eyes and wandered off, leaving Lee and Harley behind with no clue how to proceed.

◆◆◆

Vell had no idea how long he’d spent staring at a wall before the knock on his door came.  The sound rattled his senses enough to get his brain unstuck and he stepped up to answer the door.  The minute the door cracked open, Leanne pushed her way through.

“Leanne!  I, uh, I don’t know why-”

Vell shut up as Leanne clamped a hand down on his mouth and forced it shut.  She made a shush gesture with her other hand and then released her vice-like grip on Vell’s jaws.  He stayed quiet.  Satisfied by his cooperation, Leanne reached into her bookbag and pulled out an old school yearbook.  She flipped to a page she had marked and pointed down at a picture.  A much younger version of Leanne smiled up at Vell from the aged pages.  The younger Leanne looked to be about twelve or thirteen, and was clutching a worn-out teddy bear.

“Okay.  That’s a younger version of you.  Why are you showing me this?”

Leanne answered by flipping to the rear of the book.  She showed off another picture of her younger self, this time in class, reading from a book, and still clinging to that same teddy bear.  Then she flipped to another page, showing off a picture of a young Leanne playing soccer -with the same teddy bear cheering from the sidelines.

“So, you had a teddy bear you liked,” Vell said.  “Even though you were a bit old for that kind of stuff.  What does that have to do with anything?”

Vell looked up from the book to see Leanne holding a very worn-out teddy bear.  Vell looked at it for a moment.

“Yeah, I still don’t get it.”

Leanne sighed, tucked the teddy bear under her arm, and grabbed Vell by the collar.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Vell,” Leanne said, enunciating every word very clearly.  She released her grip on Vell’s collar and crossed her arms as soon as she was done speaking.  Vell looked at the worn-out teddy bear that was still tucked in the crook of Leanne’s arm.

“I guess you’re right,” Vell said.  “And, uh, sorry I made you talk.”

Leanne shrugged.  Vell looked back into his dorm and sighed.

“I got some things to do,” Vell said.  “Thanks for the pep-talk...uh, pep-sentence”

With a quick pat to Vell’s shoulder, Leanne excused herself.  Vell pulled out his phone and pulled up a groupchat.

vharlan03:
hey lee
can you pay to get something transported from texas

Lee:
Easily.
Can I ask what?

vharlan03:
it’ll be easier to show you
harley, how fast can you build a robot horse

HARL33:
pretty fast
why
are u planning something

vharlan03:
yes
don’t worry about it
have the horse ready by three

Harley responded with a thumbs up followed by several emojis Vell had never seen before and didn’t care to parse.  With a deep sigh, Vell tabbed out of the group chat and made a call.

“Hey dad,” he began.  “You remember that stuff I told you to throw away but we both know you didn’t?  I need you to transport it to me.”

Vell listened to his father respond and nodded, even though he was on the phone.

“Yeah, I know it’s expensive, I have a friend who’ll cover it- Yes, they can afford that.  I know you’re joking but yes, I actually will ask about the truck.  What?  No, the house is pushing it.”

Vell rubbed his forehead and checked the time.

“Thanks, just try and get it transported by like two-thirty,” he said.  “It’s important.  Love you, bye.”

Vell hung up the phone and sat down on his bed.  He’d done all he could to prepare.  Now he could only wait, and get ready to ride.

◆◆◆

Lee appraised the mechanical horse.  It was surprisingly well-made, considering the short time frame of its construction.  Leanne had carried it into place and prepared the heavy-metal mustang for its rider to the best of her ability.

“You’ve outdone yourself again, Harley,” Lee said.

“Oh I didn’t actually build this,” Harley said, gesturing to the horse.  “Turns out Sarah had like six of them lying around.”

“Hm.  Should we be concerned about that?”

“I’m concerned about Sarah in general,” Harley said.  Lee could only nod in agreement. 

The door to the lab slammed open, kicking up a cloud of dust big enough to make Lee concerned whether the janitorial robots were functioning.  The man who walked through the door afterwards blasted any thoughts of school cleanliness out of Lee’s head in an instant.

Vell—if it was indeed Vell, nearly unrecognizable as he was—marched through the open doorway with a confident strut.  Lee also considered the possibility that the chaps and spurs he wore affected his stride.  The massive leather boots alone would’ve made anyone walk funny, but Vell managed them with a confident grace.  The tasseled vest and wide-brimmed white hat he wore completed the likeness of the modern cowboy, befitting the saddle held under his arm.

Leanne nodded with silent approval, and Vell gave a knowing nod back.  Harley pulled out her phone and snapped a quick picture. 

“Nice outfit, Vell,” she noted dryly.  “You planning on wrangling the torrent of infinite cows?”

“Yes, actually,” Vell said.

Harley had been prepared for a joke at Vell’s expense, but shifted gears as Vell gave a straight-faced answer.

“Wait, really?  Can you do that?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo,” Vell said.  He walked over and started strapping the saddle to the robot horse.  “Literally.  I have been in several rodeos.”

Vell looked to Harley and tipped his hat.

“I was the Pecos County Junior Rodeo champ eight years running.”

“Sexy,” Harley noted, her voice only slightly tinted with sarcasm.  “I’m not entirely sure how your cowboy routine is going to work, though.  Like, okay, you and your ridiculous chaps can somehow wrangle the cows, but where are they going to go?”

“To the coastline, probably,” Vell said.  He mounted the robotic horse and took hold of the reins.  “Most of them will probably end up in the water.  Figuring out how to get several thousand cloned cows out of the ocean will be a problem, but not the kind of problem that tramples people to death.”

“We’ll think of a solution,” Lee said.  “And work on getting the cloning process shut down while you redirect the cows.”

“Sounds good,” Vell said.  He checked the time.  They had about two minutes until the cows started coming.  He looked at the door to the workshop and then at his friends. 

“So, uh...Harley, I can tell you’re trying not to laugh.”

“It’s the spurs, man,” Harley said with a giggle.  “The horse is a robot, what the fuck are the spurs for?”

Vell looked down at his boots, and at the metallic hide of the horse.

“I admittedly did not think about that,” Vell said.  “But, you know, I figured if I’m doing this, I’m doing it all the way.  Spurs and everything.”

“An admirable approach,” Lee said.  She also struggled to contain her amusement at Vell’s odd attire.  “Have fun cowboying, or whatever it’s called.”

Vell chose not to correct her, partially because he wasn’t sure he knew the proper term, and checked the clock.  The seconds ticked away, and Vell’s hands tightened around the reins. 

The first moo rang out, and Vell pulled the reins taut and kicked his heels against the side of the metallic steed.  Responding like an organic horse would have, the machine sprang to life, tearing out of the workshop at top speed.  Vell galloped across campus, secretly hoping he was moving too fast for most people to recognize him.  Within seconds the heavy metal mustang had made it to the cloning lab, where the first of the cows were starting to pour into the open.

With a sharp whistle, Vell commanded the attention of the herd.  Cows were simple creatures under the best circumstances, and these cloned cows were simpler still, having been alive for only slightly longer than a minute.  Their attention was drawn to loud noises, and every head of the herd turned to Vell.  As he closed in, he gave another whistle and a sharp shout, spurring the herd to move away from Vell as he approached.  The first cow in the herd started to turn and trot away from Vell, and the rest followed suit. Careful to control their pace and prevent them from stampeding, Vell rode alongside the herd of cows, corralling them with expert precision in a long march to the coastline.

The other loopers watched from a distance, both impressed and confused that Vell’s yeehaw bullshit was actually working.  Thanks to his guiding hand and riding horse, the cows were proceeding in an orderly flow, with each new cow pouring out of the lab following the cow ahead of it.  As the torrent of cloned cows continued and the herd grew larger, however, Vell had to cover more ground to keep them corralled, and more and more cows started to drift off course, leading other cows with them.  Lee bit her lip.

“We’d better hurry and get that device shut down,” Lee said.  Leanne nodded and led the way to the cloning lab.  Thanks to Vell’s cattle drive, it was possible for them to squeeze their way into the laboratory.  They had made it a few steps into the building before the saw Dr. Ernest overseeing the situation with a look of awe on his face.  He averted his gaze from Vell’s display of cowboy acumen to look down at Lee.

“Dr. Ernest, I know what you’re thinking-”

“Do you?” Ernest said.  “Because right now what I’m thinking is-”

Ernest looked up at Vell, and watched another cow nearly slip away before Vell managed to herd them back in.

“That’s not a one-cowboy job.”

◆◆◆

Vell gave a shout to warn a rogue heifer they were getting out of line, and rode alongside them to push them back into place.  No sooner had he done so than another cow further up in the herd began to wander off.  They were still only halfway to the coastline and the herd showed no signs of getting smaller.  He had to keep them in line just a little bit longer.  Even as he had that thought, another group at the back of the herd began to break loose, and Vell wasn’t sure his robotic horse was fast enough to corral them in time.

A sharp yet familiar whistle rang out from the rear of the heard.  Vell stared on as a portly man on another robotic horse galloped into view and got the rogue cows in line.  As soon as the herd was moving as an orderly unit once more, Dr. Ernest rode up alongside Vell and shouted above the din of the herd.

“You take the lead, young man, I’ll bring up the rear and bring these heifers in line,” Ernest said.  His voice had taken on an edge of faux-southern drawl.

“Okay, sounds good,” Vell said.  He wasn’t sure what to make of Dr. Ernest or his fake accent.  “I’m trying to lead them to the coast.  It’s the only place with enough room for all of them.”

“I can set with that,” Dr. Ernest said.  Vell had no idea what it meant, but Ernest rode off and started herding, so Vell assumed it meant he agreed.

With the combined power of two cowboys, the herd became a manageable affair.  The mostly-mindless cloned cows fell into line and made the long march to the coast.  Some ended up wandering into the water of their own accord, while Vell and Dr. Ernest had to guide others into it as time went on, just to make room for the cows that were still flowing from the lab.  As the seemingly endless flow began to slow and finally, the last of the cows came into view, Vell circled back with Dr. Ernest.

“I don’t know how I feel about them being in the ocean,” Vell said.  “I feel like some of them might drown.”

“Oh, not to worry, my dear boy,” Ernest said.  He had thankfully dropped the fake cowboy accent.  “These poor things were meant to be steaks, not fully functioning organisms.  They’re all probably going to go through acute organ failure within an hour or so.”

“I suppose that’s sort of better,” Vell said.  They were all still going to die, but it wouldn’t be Vell’s fault, at least.  While Vell contemplated his role in bovine mortality, school security finally figured out how to handle a sudden surplus of cows.  Autonomous drones began constructing an electric fence around the herd to keep it safely contained.  Dr. Ernest nodded approvingly as the robots worked.

“Come on, looks like your friends got the situation under control,” Dr. Ernest said.  “We should check in.”

With a quick tug to the reins of his mechanical horse, Dr. Ernest turned and headed back for the cloning lab.  Vell followed close behind.  He gladly dismounted as soon as they reached the lab.  It had been a while since he’d ridden, and his thighs were on fire from gripping the saddle.  He and Dr. Ernest made a bow-legged walk back into the central lab, which was in disarray and still smelled of cows.  Lee triumphantly held up a handful of frayed wires.

“Your custom power core was faulty,” she said.  “Overcharged your machine and sent everything running at two-hundred percent capacity.  Leanne ripped the battery out and got everything powered down.”

From across the room, Leanne gave a thumbs up and spat out a bit of nanomachine solution.  Dr. Ernest stared at Lee for a moment.  Her confident posture withered under his glare.

“I’m sorry, but you should know-”

“Wait,” Dr, Ernest said, holding up a hand to stop her.  He then turned to Vell and tucked his hands into his belt.  “Any man who can ride like you rides with the true spirit of the west.”

“Uh...Okay?”

“Do you trust her?” Dr. Ernest asked, pointing at Lee.

“With my life,” Vell said.  On a daily basis, Vell thought to himself, whether he liked it or not.  It helped that he liked it.

“Then I owe you an apology, Ms. Burrows,” Dr. Ernest said.  Lee shared a quick, awkward glance with Vell.  This was a very strange turn of opinion, to say the least, but Lee would not take it for granted.

“It’s quite alright, Doctor,” Lee said.  “I know I like to throw my father’s name around for my own benefit, but I assure you, I have never worked on his behalf and never will.”

The hateful edge in Lee’s voice made that clear straight away.  Dr. Ernest rubbed his gray beard and adjusted the straps of his riding chaps.

“I suppose I ought to believe you, but you do still have an odd habit of being nearby whenever something goes wrong.”

Leanne ducked behind the nearest desk and out of sight.  The remaining loopers were left to hem and haw as they sought a suitable explanation for their actions.

“Uh...Lee can see the future!” Vell spat.  It took him a second to realize he’d said the words out loud instead of just thinking them.  He clapped a hand over his own mouth too late to silence his own stupidity.

“What?”

“Right, yeah,” Harley said, seizing the moronic momentum.  “It’s a...a side effect of all the magic exposure in her family!”

“Yes it’s well, it’s a gift and a curse, you know,” Lee said, glaring at Vell.  “And it only works when disaster is about to strike!  It’s not on demand, you know, much as I might like.”

“I suppose that explains it, then,” Dr. Ernest said, awestruck.  Oracles were not unheard of, but they were rare, being even less common than dragons, and those few that did exist often met unfortunate ends as a result of their own “gifts”.  Fully aware of these facts but fully unaware Vell had been talking out of his ass, Dr. Ernest advised caution.  “Do be careful, then.”

“Of course.  And, naturally, I hope we can keep this between us.”

“You can count on me,” Dr. Ernest said.  He turned to Vell again and tipped his hat. “We’ve ridden together.  I would not defile that sacred trust.”

Vell bid a fond goodbye to his riding partner and stepped out of the lab.  He removed his hat the minute Ernest was out the door.

“You know, I was already embarrassed about this before, but that guy found a way to make it worse,” Vell sighed.

“What, you don’t believe in the sacred bond that exists between boys of the cow?” Harley mocked.  Vell whacked her on the head with his hat.

◆◆◆

The dorm room door hadn’t even shut behind Vell when he started unbuckling his chaps.  Having to walk around campus in his gear had made him remember why he’d taken a break from riding in the first place.  Everything he had to wear was heavy and uncomfortable.  The spurs also jingled and jangled, drawing attention to him when he didn’t necessarily want it. Vell dragged the chaps behind him as he headed back to his bedroom.  The door was already open when he got to it.  Vell sighed and stepped inside.

“Hey Joan,” he said.

“Hey cowboy,” Joan said.  “Anyone ever tell you you look ridiculous in that getup?”

“Several times, just on my way back to the dorm, actually,” Vell said.  He sat down on the bed next to her.

“Well it’s true,” Joan said.  She took the cowboy hat off his head and put it on her own. She faked a texan accent—badly.  “I suppose it’s kind of cute, though.”

“Glad you think so,” Vell said.  All the mockery made it hard for Vell to continue being as proud as Leanne had convinced him to be.

“So,” Joan began.  “You going to take me for a ride tonight?”

“I guess I could.  I left the saddle with the robo-horses, though it’s not really meant for two-”

Joan elbowed him the ribs, and the impact knocked Vell’s brain back onto the right track.

“Oh, uh, right, other kind of ride,” Vell said.  “I would, but, uh, horseback riding is killer on the hips even when the horse isn’t made of titanium.”

“Fair enough,” Joan said.  “Though since you mentioned it, I suppose an actual horseback ride wouldn’t be so bad sometime.”

“Maybe you can come visit my dad’s ranch one day,” Vell said.  “Nothing compares to the real thing.”

“It’s a date,” Joan said.

Chapter 19: Butterfly Affection

“Sorry I’m late,” Vell said.  “Had to deal with a dolphin.”

“Is that what you call it?” Adele signed.  She then made a quick, suggestive jerking motion with her right hand, causing the translation spell that turned her sign language into words to spit out “error”.  The spell already had enough trouble keeping up with all the body language and pacing that went into sign language, and throwing visual innuendo in the mix only made it worse.

“You know, I heard that some joke just earlier today,” Vell said.  Harley had been unable to resist the innuendo, as usual.  “Anyway.  I hope you two didn’t get too far in without me.”

“It’s fine,” Ngose said.  “We’re currently occupied solving the unsolvable.”

Adele and Ngose cracked open their books and showed Vell where they had left off.  Vell had a lot of experience trying to solve the unsolvable, so he offered his expertise on their shared classwork for “Aesthetics and Magic”.  Regarded as little more than a filler class by most, the course did have a few practical applications for someone who was trying to uncover the mysteries of a rune on his back.  Understanding how magic and art overlapped might help Vell understand the construction of his strange resurrection rune.

It might have, at least, except Vell had already studied everything this course had to teach him.  It worked out in Ngose and Adele’s favor, though, since they could pick his brain for their own benefit.  They had noticed his sky-high grades in the class and shanghaied him into a study group.  They always paid for the snacks, of course, so it was an equitable arrangement.

“So what’s the unsolvable problem today, then?”

“The Butterfly of Fate,” Ngose said.  He turned his textbook around and displayed the relevant page.  Several portraits and carvings of historical figures gazed back at Vell.  Adele pointed to each one in turn, pointing out a recurring motif.  Each of the pieces of art featured a bright purple butterfly.

“All of these pieces of art depict an incredibly important figure, or moment, in history, and each of them also features this mysterious butterfly,” Ngose explained.  “It’s rare, but it occurs across history, and in cultures that had no recorded contact, like the Pueblo and the Han Dynasty Chinese.”

“And the biggest mystery is, the butterfly doesn’t exist,” Adele signed.  “There’s no record of a butterfly with those specific markings ever existing.”

She emphasized a close up of the butterfly, which featured a consistent fractal pattern and hourglass-shaped wings.

“The leading theory is it’s some sort of subconscious magical iconography,” Ngose explained.  “But nobody really understands what it’s supposed to represent.  People have been trying to figure it out for decades.”

Vell took a second glance at the art spread out before him.

“Well, I don’t want to rain on the parade of ‘decades’ of research, but that butterfly does exist.”

Ngose stared at Vell for a few seconds.  Adele adjusted the settings on the speech-to-text device that fed into her glasses.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” She signed.

“This butterfly is all over the place.  I’ve seen it a lot,” Vell said.

“When?” Ngose demanded.

“I don’t know, a lot,” Vell said.  “Like, back home in Texas, a couple times on vacation, hell, I’ve seen it on this island more than once.”

Ngose looked down at the various depictions of the butterfly, then back up at Vell.

“Vell, I mean, are you sure?  People have been looking for this butterfly for-”

Adele tapped him on the shoulder and then pointed in Vell’s direction.  They both froze while Vell stared at them expectantly.

“Vell.  Don’t move,” Ngose said.

“Okay,” Vell said.  The last time he’d disobeyed a request to stay still, he’d lost an arm.  “Just, uh, tell me if it’s a dolphin, alright?  I know it sounds weird, but it’s really important that I know if there’s a dolphin sneaking up on me right now.”

Ngose and Adele remained silent.  Luckily for them all, the creature drifting up behind Vell was not a dolphin.  A single purple butterfly fluttered to Vell’s shoulder and briefly alighted on the shoulder strap of his book bag.  It waved iridescent wings in the sunlight, displaying its trademark fractal-pattern for all to see -all but Vell, who had his eyes locked on his study buddies.

“Seriously guys, what’s up?”

Adele and Ngose shushed him and then pulled out their phones.  They made slow, deliberate motions so as not to scare off the mystery butterfly.  A single photograph could help solve a mystery decades in the making.

“Vell, are you here?” Lee said.  The sound of her voice as she rounded the corner made the butterfly take flight.  Adele grabbed her phone, stood up, and made a mad dash to capture a single snapshot of the butterfly -and ran into Lee coming the other way.  The two tumbled to the ground while the butterfly flew out of sight, and Ngose sighed heavily.

Adele tried to reclaim some of her dignity by standing up and straightening out her hair.  She waved tangled red curls away from her face, anger rising in her freckled face.

“What are you even do-”

The last of the curls moved away from Adele’s eyes, giving her a clear view of Lee.  Her cheeks started to turn red for a very different reason.

“Sorry,” Adele signed repeatedly.  She stopped signing, and her hands started to twitch, as Lee stood and brushed a loose strand of jet black hair behind her ear.  Adele tried not to stare too hard at the pretty girl, and failed.  Luckily for her, Lee was too clueless to notice.

“Oh no, that’s quite alright, dear,” Lee said, with a smile that made Adele’s knees shake.  “I am no stranger to taking a tumble, and frankly, it’s nice that it was someone else’s fault for once.”

Vell stepped up and brushed a bit of dirt off both their shoulders.

“Hey Lee.  Uh, right, Lee, this is Adele, that’s Ngose, you two have probably heard me mention Lee more than once.”

“Only good things, I hope,” Lee said.

“Only very good things,” Adele signed.  “Nice to finally meet you, Lee.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Lee said.  “Now, it’s too late to hope I’m not interrupting something, but I do need to borrow Vell for a moment.”

“Is it dolphin-related?” Vell asked.

“Not quite, Michaela got her hands on Harley and now we need to liberate her,” Lee said.  “Would your friends like to come?”

Vell gestured to them, extending the invitation.  Ngose shook his head.

“We better finish up,” he said.  “The unsolved mystery remains unsolved, I guess.”

His sullen sigh reminded Adele of the opportunity they had missed, and her enthusiasm to get to know Lee dulled as well.  She bid farewell to Lee and Vell as they ventured forth to save Harley from her erstwhile suitor, and Adele returned to sitting by Ngose’s side, examining the drawings of the butterfly that had so narrowly eluded their grasp.

Ngose in particular focused on the depiction of the butterfly at historic moments.  Fateful choices, battles, and figures that had changed the course of history seemed to be the object of the butterfly’s attention.  By all appearances, that impossible butterfly was now following Vell.

“So...we need to either hang out with Vell a lot more, or a lot less,” Ngose said.  Adele turned her head and watched Vell walk away with Lee.

“I’m going to say a lot more,” she signed.

Chapter 20: In Case the Flaming Skeletal Arm Is Too Subtle: This Guy’s The Big Bad

“Why am I getting dragged into this?” Harley asked.

“Freddy said he was stuck talking to someone scary and wanted some company,” Vell said.  “I figure he got assigned to work with a girl on an assignment or something.”

“So again, why am I getting dragged into this?”

“Because I don’t want to third wheel Freddy and some random chick,” Vell said.  “It’d be awkward.”

Harley sighed and accepted her lot in life.  She could hardly object, as she felt she owed Vell a favor.  Today’s apocalypse had been especially early in the morning, and Vell had volunteered to be cut in half by an out of control plasma projector to give the other loopers a better chance to solve it.  He tended to sacrifice himself for the good of the group on a frequent basis, actually, so Harley really felt like she owed him several favors.

“I’m agreeing, Vell, but I will say, maybe we should just let the guy have his talk with a girl,” Harley said.  “Freddy needs to build up his confidence.”

“And we’re going to go help him,” Vell assured her.  He double checked his phone to make sure they were in the right place and then pointed out a nearby laboratory.  “That’s his lab.  Let’s go see what kind of lady he’s having problems with.”

Vell opened the door and saw Freddy and his trademark fireball of red hair stopped over a workbench, though he stood eerily still, and his usually blue eyes were glowing bright green.  Standing beside him at the table was someone who was decidedly not the female student Vell had been expecting.  The adult man stood with one hand behind his back and the other held behind Freddy’s head.  As the door opened, his piercing gaze turned away from the blueprints, to look up at Vell and Harley with a predatory smile.  A smile Vell unfortunately recognized.

“Ah, Mr. Frizzle, your friends are here,” he said.  He had a voice with all the sophistication and menace of poisoned wine.  The stranger’s unseen hand twitched, and Freddy’s stiff posture twitched and collapsed, like a puppet who’s strings had been cut. 

“What am...Where am I,” Freddy wondered aloud.  He turned sharply and saw the stranger in the room, then yelped loudly.

“No worries, Freddy Frizzle, I’m done hurting you.  For today,” the sinister stranger said.  “Now why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”

“I know who you are,” Vell said bitterly.

“Regardless, making introductions is the polite thing to do,” the sinister figure said.  He stood up straight and took the hand out from behind his back.  The motion revealed not an arm of flesh and blood, but of blackened bone, the cracked and blistered skeletal frame magically animated by a cold-burning green fire.  He stepped up to Vell and extended the skeletal hand in his direction.

“Alistair Kraid,” he said.  “But you can just call me Kraid.”

The CEO of the world’s largest magitech company, and the world’s richest man, was everything one might expect; handsome, charismatic, intelligent, and absolutely, unforgivably, irredeemably evil.  Unlike his fellow rich bastards such as Noel Burrows or Jeff Bezos, Kraid made no illusions about who he was or what he did.  He experimented with blood magic, demonic pacts, experimentation on live human subjects -every form of magic and science that was too cruel and inhumane for others to even consider.  And the world let him get away with it all, because the people in power benefited from his inhuman willingness to do what they wouldn’t.

“Vell Harlan,” Vell spat back.  He deliberately ignored the bony hand offered to him.  “But you already knew that.”

“Of course I did, but we have manners, Mr. Harlan,” Kraid said.  He took the hint and tucked his skeletal hand into the pocket of his coat before turning his attention elsewhere.  “And, you, miss?”

“Nice to meet you, Kraid, I’m leaving,” Harley said.  She grabbed Freddy, who was still disoriented from the recently-ended mind control, and headed for the door.  It slammed in her face, and the door’s handle became locked in place with green fire.

“Manners, Ms. Harley,” Kraid scolded.  “I just wanted-”

“I don’t really give a shit what you and your spooky scary skeleton arm want, man!” Harley snapped, as she turned back to Kraid.  “You’re a terrible person, I don’t like you, I’m never going to like you, and you can do this smugly sinister supervillain routine until the cows come home, the only thing you’re going to get out of this interaction is a good view of my ass when I walk out the door.”

Kraid took his hands out of his pockets and folded them in front of him.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Kraid said.  The green flame on the door vanished.  “You can go.  Frizzle, you too.  Harlan.  You and I need to talk.”

The door opened, but Harley looked to Vell before she left.  Vell gave her a nod towards the door, and she nodded back before leaving.  Now alone with the worst person who had ever lived, Vell kept his focus squarely on the supervillain in front of him.

“What do you want, Kraid?”

“Well for starters, I wanted to play catch up,” Kraid said.  “How’ve you been, Harlan?  How’s the scar treating you?’

Vell stayed dead silent.  After Vell’s resurrection, his family had turned down a lucrative offer from Kraid tech to research his rune and his injuries.  They had instead opted to work with a local medical clinic, to which Kraid responded by committing a secret hostile takeover of the clinic, and then carrying out his own experiments on a clueless young Vell anyway.  His family had caught on and gotten Vell out of the clinic eventually, and nothing meaningful had been discovered (as far as Vell knew), but a grudge still lingered on both sides.

“Going to give me the silent treatment, huh?  Mature.”

“Trust me, Kraid, when I make a breakthrough, you’ll be the last to know,” Vell said.

“Did that sound cool in your head?”  Kraid asked.  “You should’ve stayed quiet.”

Kraid walked back to the table, and pressed one bony fingertip on the metal surface.  He started walking around, creating a dull, chalky scrape as his skeletal finger dragged against the metal.

“I could make you richer than God and even more beloved, Harlan,” Kraid said.  “Alistair Kraid and Vell Harlan, the men who beat death.  Isn’t that worth a few pokes and prods?”

“Not from you,” Vell said. 

“If you’re worried about me price-gouging eternal life, believe me, that’s not an issue,” Kraid said.  He was as selfish as they came, but he was also a savvy businessman. “I’d give it away for free.  And invest heavily in the entertainment sector, of course.  People living endless lives are going to need a lot of ways to pass the time.  I’d make up my losses, naturally, but rich and poor alike would benefit.”

“I- I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth,” Vell said.  He tried his hardest not to do his usual hesitant routine, interspersed with ‘uh’s’, but Vell still managed to trip up.  Kraid caught on to every verbal tic like a killer looking for a vulnerable place to put a knife.

“Probably a sensible policy, Harlan, but as much as I love lying, I love money more,” Kraid said.  “And you’re a payday waiting to happen.”

“Yeah, well, keep waiting,” Vell said. 

“Better, but your one-liners still need work,” Kraid said.  “I could help you with that.  I’ve been told I can be quite pithy.”

Vell waited for a moment.  Kraid showed no signs that he was joking.

“No,” Vell said.  “The only thing I want you to do is leave.”

“Alright.  I’ll leave you alone, for now.  But I’m not leaving yet.  I have business here,” Kraid said.  “it may surprise you, but I actually didn’t come all this way just to harass you and your friends.”

“That actually does surprise me,” Vell said.

“Even better!  We’ll get some banter out of you yet, Harlan,” Kraid taunted.  “See you around.”

Kraid moved to give Vell a pat on the shoulder, and Vell stepped back and away from him.  He took the hint and walked out of the room.  Harley was waiting just outside the door, and glared at him as he passed by.  His piercing black eyes searched her, looking for something he knew to be there, but couldn’t see.

“I’ll give you three billion dollars for it,” Kraid said to Harley.

“Keep the three billion and start working on the crowbar you’ll need to pry him from my cold, dead hands,” Harley spat back.  With a roll of his eyes, Kraid kept walking.  He’d not expected any less.  As soon as the predatory uber-capitalist strolled out of sight, Harley ducked back into the room.  Vell was sitting at the table, his fists tightly clenched, sweating profusely.

“You look like you need a drink,” Harley said.  Vell wordlessly gave a thumps up and walked out of the lab with Harley.

◆◆◆

“Oh that is not a good burn,” Harley mumbled under her breath.  She had dared to try a sip of Vell’s scotch instead of the beer provided by Lee, and she was paying the price.  “Is it like that every time?”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Vell insisted.  “It’s better when you’re like ten drinks in and so drunk the burning is the only thing you can feel.”

“Well, I will try again in seven drinks, then,” Harley said.  She extended her empty bottle towards Lee.  “Please top me off, my good bitch.”

Lee obliged, and fetched herself a fresh bottle as well.  They tapped their bottles together ceremoniously before taking the first sip.

“Fucking Kraid,” Vell stammered.  “I wish he’d showed up before the loop.  Could’ve used it to outsmart him.”

“Vell, I respect you a great deal,” Lee said.  Inebriation was already slipping into her voice after just a few beers.  “You’re maybe like one of the five smartest people I know.  You can’t outsmart Kraid.  He plays dirtier than the dirtiest.”

Lee gave a grunt of disgust as she finished her sentence.  While she had a personal vendetta against her father, even Lee acknowledged that he didn’t match Kraid’s evil, or his intelligence.  Noel Burrows had inherited his success, while Kraid had clawed his way to riches through his own vile cunning.  The two could not be compared by any metric other than the harm they’d done to innocent people, and even in that, Kraid was the leader by far.

“We could pull something off,” Vell insisted.  “I managed to take the design for the glasses from him.”

Vell held up his rune-engraved glasses, which he had copied from Kraid Tech designs.  Very few people could successfully pirate Kraid tech intellectual property, but Vell had gotten away with it.  He wouldn’t normally be eager to cross Kraid again, as he knew how dangerous the man could be, but he had the advantage of the time loops on his side.

“With the loops, I stand an even better chance of outsmarting him again.”

“Hate to rain on your parade, Vell, but that’s not really outsmarting him,” Harley said.  “He doesn’t really have any way to check on that kind of stuff.”

“Well, I still know something he doesn’t know,” Vell insisted.

“I know what color underwear I’m wearing and you don’t,” Harley said.  “I know something you don’t know, that doesn’t make me smarter than you.”

“You’re wearing red underwear,” Vell said flatly.  Harley looked up at him and pointed a bottle his way in an accusatory fashion.

“You been perving on me, Harlan?”

“Everything you wear is red,” Vell said.  Harley put her bottle back down and chuckled.

“Hah, yeah, I forgot about that,” Harley said.  She took another sip of her beer.  “But seriously, don’t fuck with Kraid -more than you already are, with the glasses, at least.  He’s bad news.

“What else are we going to do, avoid him?”

“I vote avoid,” Harley said.

“Avoid,” Lee said.  Leanne wasn’t present, so Vell found himself outvoted.

“Sounds like we have a plan, I guess,” Vell said.  He hadn’t been that motivated in the first place, so he was easy to talk down.  Even the time loops were only a very small advantage, when it came to challenging Kraid.

“It’s a good plan,” Harley said.  “We don’t even need to exploit mystery time loops to do it.  We just use our eyeballs.”

To demonstrate she poked her fingers into her temples, near her eyes.

“When we see Kraid, we leave,” Harley said.  “Easy-peasy.”

“I have an even easier idea in mind,” Lee said.  She pushed her emptied beer bottle forward.  “We stay here and get drunk all day.”

“I like your style, Lee,” Harley said.  She grabbed another pair of bottles for herself and Lee while Vell put a cap on his own.

“I’d join in, but I had plans with Joan later,” he said.

“Cancel them!  You can both get drunk with us,” Lee suggested.

“No, no, Vell should stick to his date,” Harley said.

“It couldn’t hurt to ask if she’s interested,” Vell said.  He texted Joan to ask about a change of plans while Harley and Lee began to discuss drinking games.  A lot of their potential games involved references to past apocalypses, which they had to rule out if Joan was to join them -an ‘if’ that became more uncertain as time went on.

“Joan’s usually better about answering her texts,” Vell said aloud.  He’d been sitting around waiting for fifteen minutes now.  “The last time she went radio silent like this was during that whole lawsuit thing.”

“You better race into action, then,” Lee suggested.  “Be her knight in shining armor, Vell”

“I should probably go check it out,” Vell said.  “God knows it’s never something simple around here.”

Vell got up and tucked the bottle of scotch into his bookbag.

“Try not to get too drunk without us,” Vell said.

“I make no promises,” Harley replied, as she grabbed another bottle of beer.  Vell left them to their alcohol and headed back for the freshman dorms.

◆◆◆

Vell still had not received an answer to his text as he made the trek across campus.  He made a call and also received no answer, which began to worry him.  Vell let himself into Joan’s dorm and found it silent and empty at first glance.

“Joan?”

“Shit!”

The shouted curse was followed by the sound of something slamming shut and someone scrambling to move things around in a hurry.

“Fuck, sorry!” Joan cried out from another room.  “Sorry, sorry, I totally spaced out, sorry Vell.”

The door to one of the empty side rooms slammed open and shut in an instant as Joan rushed through it.  She was red in the face from embarrassment.

“Hi, Vell, sorry, tonight is date night but something came up and I totally spaced out and forgot, that’s my bad,” Joan stammered.  She made sure to keep herself firmly between Vell and the door behind her.  Anyone else might have thought her behavior suspicious but Vell, being Vell, only cared about getting their date back on track -or further off track, depending on Joan’s preference.

“Hey it’s fine, it’s still pretty early,” Vell said.  “We’ve got plenty of time.  I know we talked about just watching movies and-”

“And then calling it a night, yeah, don’t need to say it,” Joan said.  She turned a little redder and tried her hardest not to glance at the door behind her.

“Uh, sure,” Vell said.  He’d never known Joan to be bashful about sex, but there was a first time for everything.  “Anyway, Harley and Lee were going to get super drunk and they wanted to know if we want to join in.  I’m good with either, so it’s up to you.”

“Hm.  Uh, you know, Vell, I don’t really want to skip out on either, but that thing that came up, I’m kind of still in the middle of it,” Joan said.  “Can I get a rain check?  I hate having to cancel but this is super important and the opportunity doesn’t come up often.”

“Okay, sure, I guess,” Vell said.  “What’s going on?  Anything I can help with?”

“Uh…”

“I think he could be quite helpful,” a voice from behind the door said.  Vell’s heart sank out of his chest.  He’d heard that voice all too recently.

In spite of Joan’s attempts to keep it closed, Alistair Kraid pried open the door and stepped through.  He greeted Vell—again—with a toothy smile.  Joan cringed and tried not to look at either of them.

“Is this that boyfriend you’ve been talking about, Ms. Marsh?”

“Yeah, this is him,” Joan said weakly.  Kraid turned to Vell with a smile and an extended hand.

“Nice to finally meet you.  I’m Alistair Kraid,” He said.  His tone did not betray the layers of deception currently at work.  It shocked Vell that Kraid could resist the urge to let his sadistic enjoyment of this moment seep into his voice.

“Vell Harlan,” he responded in kind.  He had to call Kraid’s bluff, at least for now.

“Sorry if I got in the way of your date night,” Kraid said, sounding almost genuinely apologetic.  “Joan and I have been working on a personal project, and time got away from us.”

“You’ve been working with Kraid?” Vell asked.  Joan withered under his glare.  She was one of the most militantly anti-corporate people Vell had ever met -he’d sat through half a dozen lectures about how horrible Roentgen was.  It took a lot to make Vell genuinely mad, but this -the secrecy, the hypocrisy, and especially the involvement of Kraid specifically, managed to make it happen.

“Do you mind if we talk about this privately?” Joan asked.

“Oh, and I was about to start making popcorn,” Kraid said.  “Fine then.  Have your little lover’s quarrel in private.  I’ll be around if you need me, Joan.  Harlan.”

He nodded to the duo once before excusing himself.  Before starting the conversation in earnest, Vell poked his head out the door to make sure Kraid wasn’t just outside, eavesdropping.  The coast was clear, so Vell slammed the door and turned back to Joan.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” he demanded.

“This is uncharacteristically angry for you,” Joan noted.

“This is uncharacteristically goddamn stupid of you,” Vell fired right back.  “The man has a portrait of Mengele on his desk.”

“Yeah, I know, he showed it to me once,” Joan said.  Her stomach turned at the memory, and then turned again when she realized what she’d just admitted to Vell.

“You’ve been in his office?”

“Once,” Joan said defensively.

“What the fuck are you doing, Joan?”

“Something important, okay?  My whole life I’ve been working on something really, really huge, and Kraid is a useful resource!”

“Useful?  Useful?  You think you’re using him?” Vell said, stunned.  “He’s using you, Joan!  Whatever you think you’re getting out of this exchange, he’s getting more.”

“That’s what you think, and what he thinks, because you’re both underestimating how smart I am,” Joan said.  “I can handle him, Vell.”

“No you can’t, and it’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how human you are,” Vell said.  “You have a sense of right and wrong, Joan, you’re a good person.  Kraid isn’t.  The only safe way to deal with people like him is to not deal with them.”

Joan crossed her arms and squinted at Vell.  Only Vell could find a way to compliment someone while yelling at them.

“I’ll just say again, you’re underestimating me and overestimating him,” Joan said.  Her posture exuded a misplaced confidence that Vell could only sigh at. “He’s an evil bastard, but I can work around him.”

“You can’t,” Vell said, rubbing his forehead.  He had only even contemplated messing with Kraid thanks to the advantage the time loop provided.  Without such a secret weapon, he knew it would be all but impossible.  “You really can’t.”

“Agree to disagree,” Joan said.  Vell shook his head.  Clearly Joan didn’t plan on budging.

“What are you even working on with this guy?” Vell asked.  He couldn’t imagine any project so important Joan would undermine her own ideals by working with Kraid.  Joan bit her lip and starting swaying from side to side indecisively.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Joan said.  “And, well, a lot of people would think it’s a little crazy.”

“Joan, what was I doing yesterday?”

“You were helping Harley kill a chocolate golem, what does that have to- Oh, I see your point,” Joan said.  Obviously Vell could handle crazy.  Joan stuck a finger in her mouth and bit down on her knuckle.  She didn’t like to tell people about her personal project.  It usually scared people off.

“Okay I’ll show you,” Joan spat, forcing herself to say it before she could talk herself out of it.  “But you need to promise me you’re not going to tell anyone.  And that you’re not going to think I’m crazy.”

“Sure, uh, I can promise that,” Vell said.  Neither of them were convinced, but Joan opened the door anyway, hesitantly beckoning Vell inside.  Since Joan had the dorm to herself, Vell had assumed the spare bedrooms were left empty, but Joan had apparently converted this one into a personal office.  A very cluttered, insane-looking office.

A large corkboard had been coated in photographs, printed out articles, and newspaper clippings.  The characteristic red string connecting the dots was not present, making it fall only slightly short of the most cartoonish conspiracy theory jokes Vell had ever seen.  Joan once again put herself between Vell and the board, subconsciously trying to hide it even as she consciously forced herself to show it off.

“So there’s this thing I’ve been researching for a while now,” Joan said.  “You’re American, you’ve probably heard of the TrakWell Maglev crash, right?”

Vell took a deep breath.

“Yes,” he said.  His voice was as hollow and monotone as he could force it to be.  He hadn’t just heard of that train crash, he’d been in it.  He’d died in it, to be exact.

“Right, okay, so this is where it gets kind of conspiracy theory-ish, but I promise I’m acting on evidence and the scientific method, right?” Joan said.  She stepped aside and gestured to the corkboard behind her.  “Someone died in that accident.  And then, they came back to life.”

Vell bit his tongue so hard he nearly took a chunk out of it.  He couldn’t hide the look of utter shock and horror on his face, but thankfully Joan misinterpreted it due to the circumstances.

“No no no, I’m serious, look,” Joan said.  “Look, like three days after the accident there’s this complete media blackout in researching fatalities and missing persons.  Now obviously big corporate cover-ups are nothing new, but in cases like this it’d always be the technical error or driver fault getting covered up, to prevent lawsuits, but instead they’re focusing on preventing investigation of civilian casualties.”

Joan gestured to a portion of her conspiracy theory with several articles about the shutdown of investigations into the fatalities.  Vell knew she was telling the truth, because his family was the reason for that shutdown.  They’d wanted to prevent his identity from getting leaked and making Vell a target for obsessive media and scientific scrutiny.

“That’s just the ordinary kind of suspicious, but there were some rumors coming out from first responders about a corpse that went missing from the final tally,” Joan continued.  “And a morgue technician who insisted that a body went missing from storage under mysterious circumstances.  Everyone thought he was some crazy conspiracy theorist but I’ve been connecting dots, and things don’t add up.”

Joan briefly got caught up in her own theorizing and turned her back on Vell, to examine her conspiracy board.  After a second lost in her own head, Joan remembered she had company and turned back to Vell, who still looked like he’d been stabbed in the gut.

“I hope I don’t sound too crazy,” Joan said, with a weak smile.  “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?’

“No,” Vell said.  “I just- uh, it’s interesting.  Odd.  Kind of a wild theory, you know?”

“I have a bit more evidence, but it’s a train accident, so you know, some of it is kind of grizzly,” Joan said.  “I’m not crazy enough to keep a picture of a kid cut in half out in the open.”

Vell’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds when she said that.  He didn’t want to think it was possible that Joan had a picture of him post-accident.

“Right, god, I don’t know why I even said that,” Joan said.  “Totally sane thing to say you have, Joan Marsh, great start.”

Vell put a hand on his chest in a futile attempt at stopping his heart from beating so hard it punched a hole through his sternum.  He’d already used up his one death for the day, and dying from an overdose of relationship drama was not the way he wanted to go.  Somewhere below his horror at the sharp turns his life had taken in the past five minutes, Vell’s curiosity remained.

“So what does Kraid have to do with any of this?” Vell demanded.  This nightmare scenario already horrified Vell enough without the addition of a man who proudly displayed a Time Magazine cover naming him the most evil human being of the modern era.

“Obviously the dude just wants to steal my research and make a quick buck off of it,” Joan said.  “But we swap information occasionally.  I tell him something I’ve learned, he tells me something he’s learned, we both move a little further forward.  But at the end of the day he’s getting pulled twenty different ways running that company of his, and I’m totally focused on this.  I’ll beat him, Vell, don’t worry.”

Vell couldn’t find the words.  Joan was convinced she was winning a race she’d lost before it even started.  Kraid already knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it, and he’d manipulated Joan into giving him a roundabout access to information on it.  The problem was explaining that to her -without revealing that Vell was the person she’d been looking for all this time.

Had he been asked just a few minutes ago, Vell would’ve said he was close to telling Joan the truth about his resurrection.  Now he’d done a complete one-eighty.  Not only had his trust in Joan taken a substantial blow, the risk now existed that anything he told Joan might find its way to Kraid.  Joan would never tell Kraid anything willingly, that much Vell believed, but Kraid didn’t let a little thing like “free will” get in the way of his goals.  He would take what he wanted one way or another.

“You’re being quiet, Vell,” Joan noted.  “Please say something.”

“This is, uh, a lot to take in,” Vell said.

“I know, I know,” Joan said.  Her intense energy had given way to something resembling fear.  “And I know explaining it all at once makes me seem a little crazy, I know, but I promise I can make it make sense if you can just be patient with me.”

The fearful warble to Joan’s voice was out of character for her.  She’d spoken in the past about having very few friends or successful relationships in the past.  Vell had to wonder if this was why.  That her strange obsession drove people away -and that she now feared Vell would be driven off in turn.

“Joan, I get it, and I definitely don’t think you’re crazy or anything, but I- I kind of need some time to process this,” Vell said, pressing a hand to his temples.  “I need to go clear my head.  We’ll talk about this later.”

“Don’t go,” Joan pleaded.  “I told you, I can explain.”

“If you can explain now, you can explain even better later,”  Vell said.  “And I’ll have some time to think about it, and we can have a nice, rational talk about this like adults.”

“Okay, so we don’t have to talk about it, but why don’t you just stay here, and relax,” Joan suggested.

“This is the kind of thing that works better with a little space involved,” Vell said.  He had a lot to process right now and not a lot of brain to process it with.  To emphasize his point, he took a step backwards towards the door.  Joan matched him step for step, and even went further by grabbing on to his arm.

“I’m scared if you leave you’re not going to come back,” Joan admitted.  Vell considered making a quip about how he lived down the hall and therefore could not walk out on her if he tried, but Joan’s voice cracked halfway through. 

“I promise I’ll come back,” Vell insisted.  “You just have to trust me.”

Joan stared down at the ground.  Her grip on his arm didn’t loosen.  Vell eventually pulled away, and Joan very reluctantly released her hold on Vell.  He decided not to say anything else and left the dorm room.  He didn’t know where he was going yet, but he knew he needed some space to breath and process the situation.  Vell started walking in the direction of Lee’s dorm, for starters.  She and Harley were likely drunk off their asses by now, but they were some of the few people who’d understand his situation.

On his path to their dorm, Vell had to walk around a sharp turn.  He slowed his pace and paused briefly before rounding the corner.  He gave a deep sigh and took a few steps forward to see Kraid leaning against the wall just around the corner, wearing a smug smile so wide it almost split his face in two.

“I take it from your look of abject misery that she told you all about her little project,” Kraid said.  “Gods above, I would pay anything to have seen your face in that moment.”

“Fuck off, Kraid,” Vell grunted.  Kraid did the opposite of fuck off, and walked alongside Vell as he trudged towards Lee and Harley.

“Listen, I know what you’re thinking, and honestly, I had nothing to do with this.  I’d been grooming Joan for a while as another way to get info on you, but I never actually expected her to meet you, much less fall in love with you,” Kraid said.  “But still, when I found out you’d shacked up with a girl who’d spent half her life psychotically obsessed with chasing you down, god, I laughed for like three hours straight.  Didn’t get a thing done that day.  Had to cancel a major press conference, cost myself thirty million dollars in stock value because I was laughing so hard.”

Kraid tucked his arms behind his back and leaned in close to Vell’s ear.

“And it was fucking worth it,” he hissed.

“Yeah, great, fun,” Vell said.  “There’s plenty more human suffering in the world for you to jerk off to, can you get off my case for the day?”

“Probably not,” Kraid admitted.  “There are some delicious morsels of misery to laugh at on campus, but you’re hanging out with like five of the top ten.  You and Lee alone could keep me entertained for a solid week.”

“I’m sure,” Vell said.  “Why don’t you go find the other five of those top ten and mix it up for a while, at least.”

“Oh, of course,” Kraid said.  “But only so I can drop in on you later by surprise.”

Kraid slithered away to find some other target for his misanthropy, giving Vell some much-needed room to breath.  He continued on his path towards Lee’s dorm.  He needed some time to think about this situation calmly and rationally.

Or he could drink scotch and swear a lot.  Vell considered both courses of action, and weighed the pros and cons.

◆◆◆

“Fuck!  Fuck,” Vell said, before taking another swig of scotch.  “God damn it.  Fucking shit!”

Vell kicked his foot at nothing in particular.  Harley drunkenly noted that even at his angriest, he still took care not to break anything. 

“What a nerd,” Harley said.

“What?”

“Sorry, thinking out loud,” Harley mumbled.  Lee, lightweight that she was, napped on the couch.  She had only briefly woken up upon Vell’s arrival and then passed out again.  Only Harley had stayed awake through the entire rant about Joan and Kraid, showing a surprising level of focus for someone so inebriated she couldn’t stand up straight.  Vell paced back and forth across the room to burn off more of his manic energy while Harley stayed seated and tried to stop the world from spinning.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do,” Vell said.

“Well that makes two of us,” Harley mumbled.

“I know, I’m just ranting so I’ll feel better,” Vell said.  “Sorry I always dump this kind of stuff on you.”

“It’s cool man, I’m good at this sort of stuff,” Harley said.  She gave two weak thumps-up, and then dropped her arms limp at her sides.  “When my brain ain’t mush.  You keep going, butt- buddy, I’ll try to stay conscious.”

While Vell continued to rant, Harley wobbled from side to side.  Just as Vell finished explaining how he could possibly convince Joan to stop working with Kraid by explaining their mutual history, Harley finally wobbled too far to one side and toppled over.  The sudden fall jolted her system and sent a shock through her brain.

“You should probably dump her,” Harley said.

“What?”

“Oh did I say that out loud,” Harley said.  She bonked herself on the head with an empty bottle.  “That was meant to be a stay-in-my-brain thought.”

“Well it’s out of your brain now,” Vell said.

“I think you need to get drunk, Vell, Kraid’s got you all edgy.”

Vell responded to that by opening his book bag, extracting the bottle of scotch, and draining it in one mighty swig.  Harley was stunned, impressed, and concerned in equal measure.

“What the fuck, Harlan?”

“Answer me,” Vell said, pointing an empty scotch bottle at Harley emphatically.  He did not seem fazed in the slightest by the obscene amount of scotch he had just chugged.  “Why should I break up with Joan?”

“I did say ‘probably’,” Harley said.  “Look, butt- buddy, you’re caught in a Spider-Man dilemma right now.”

“What the fuck is a Spider-Man dilemma?”

“Jesus, man, do I have to explain everything to you?” Harley sighed.  “Peter Parker loves Mary Jane, but he’s got that whole big, potentially dong- dangerous secret where he’s Spider-Man.  So he has to choose between being in a relationship with her and potentially putting her in danger, or being apart from her and keeping her safe.  Except in this version, Mary Jane is also the Green Goblin.”

“What?”

“Yeah, like seemingly kinda chill and maybe friendly on the outside but also secretly evil and crazy,” Harley said.

“Where is this coming from?  You like Joan!”

“Yeah, Joan’s fun to hang out with sometimes, Vell, but I was never expecting an invite to your wet- wedding,” Harley said.  She slouched even deeper into her chair, trying to stabilize her wobbly brain.  “She’s a little crazy, man.  That’s cool, but it ain’t wife material.  Sometimes you just date a person for a while and then break up.  You don’t have to take it so seriously.”

“But- I don’t know- Maybe, I, uh-”

While Vell stumbled over his own words, Harley contemplated whether it was worth standing up.  She liked to grab people by the face sometimes, to emphasize her point.  Vell’s cheek weren’t quite as delightfully squishable as Lee’s though.  Harley watched the ceiling spin and decided to stay sitting.

“Vell, listen,” Harley said.  “I said pop- probably for a reason.  You don’t have to dump Joan if you don’t want to.  But if you ain’t dumping her, you got to tell her the truth.”

Vell’s anger and scotch-fueled energy went out like a match dropped into the ocean.  Harley let him wallow in that dampened spirit for a bit before continuing.

“For butt- better or worse you’re the thing she’s been super-crazily searching for her whole life,” Harley said.  “You either got to dump her and keep your distance or tell her the truth.  You keep dating Joan while also keeping the truth from her, you’re kind of a piece of shit.  And the Vell Harlan I know is definitely not a piece of shit.”

After delivering this reassurance, Harley tried to sink even deeper into her chair.  All of this excitement was making it hard to enjoy being drunk.  Vell was starting to get wobbly himself.  He began to regret his bombastic scotch-chugging stunt as the alcohol finally reached his brain.

“I guess you’re right,” Vell mumbled.  “I can’t have it both ways.”

Harley nodded sagely -and wobbly.  Vell was starting to sway from side to side too.

“You look like you need to lay down,” Harley said.

“Do you think Lee will mind if I pass out on her floor?” Vell mumbled. 

“Yeah, but only because she’d feel bed -bad about you not being comfy,” Harley said.  “Help me drag Lee to her bed and then you can take the couch.”

While Harley ended up doing most of the heavy lifting, due to Vell’s understandable caution about manhandling a drunk woman, the duo did manage to get Lee into her own bed.  Harley tucked her in and left the room to go back to napping on the chair.  As soon as the door shut behind Harley, Lee’s eyes opened.

While Lee’s parents had many flaws, they at least left her alone while she was sleeping.  Lee had spent years refining the ability to feign sleep, in order to avoid her parents as much as possible.  Pretending to oversleep in the morning or doze off on a long plane ride had let Lee avoid many uncomfortable conversations -or spy on conversations her parents might have otherwise not wanted Lee to be a part of.  While she was loathe to use that skill to deceive her friends, she could not help her curiosity about Vell’s situation.  Now she knew everything -except what to do next.

Lee laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, wringing her hands together nervously.  In spite of her abilities to feign sleep, true rest eluded her.

◆◆◆

A dreadfully drunken evening passed, and the next morning followed -and then followed again.  An easily-prevented apocalypse involving a turbocharged paintball gun gave the loopers plenty of time to consider their various dilemmas over the course of two mornings.

After two restless mornings in a row, Lee had formed a very loose idea of what to do.  Unfortunately, Lee also had to nurse a severe headache from the previous night’s drinking twice. Lee managed to dial up Joan and invite her over in spite of her pounding headache.  Vell and Harley had already retreated to their own dorms after sleeping off their inebriation, so they had the benefit of privacy.  Joan stumbled into the room, clearly just as exhausted as Lee, though for different reasons.  Recent events had sapped some of her usual confidence from her posture.

“Hey, Lee,” Joan said.

“Joan, dear, I thought you should know- well, I assume you know, at least,” Lee began.  “Vell came to speak with Harley and I last night.”

“I kind of figured,” Joan sighed.  “This is bad news, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” Lee assured.  “I will say it’s not necessarily good news, either, merely, well, news.”

With tensions slightly relaxed, Joan allowed herself to sit down.  Lee offered her some tea, which she politely declined.  Lee made a pot for herself anyway, to stave off her headache.  She made sure to keep a careful grip on the cup this time.  On the previous loop, Lee had dropped the cup on her foot, which had severely derailed the already uncomfortable conversation she was about to have.

“So.  How about that...news,” Joan said.

“Right.  I believed it was worth telling you that Vell is, quite understandably, upset.  I can’t say I’m a fan of your collaboration with Kraid either, but I trust you have your reasons.”

Joan crossed her arms and drew in on herself.

“Did he tell you about the project we were working on?”

Lee sipped at her tea to give herself an excuse to not talk for a moment.  It was far too hot, and it burned her tongue.  The pain never found its way to her face.  Lee had years of practice keeping pain in the back of her mind.

“He said it was a private matter,” Lee lied.  Vell had explained all the details of Joan’s morbid obsession with his past, in spite of a promise not to.  Lee didn’t enjoy being caught up in that breach of trust, but she hoped that her current deceitful course would work out in the long term.  Joan calmed slightly, under the impression that Vell had at least kept her secret.

“I just wanted you to know that he is indecisive,” Lee continued. 

“Sounds like Vell,” Joan said.  She tried to laugh and failed.  Lee ignored the awkwardness and pressed on.

“He’s caught up between how much he likes you and how much he dislikes your recent actions,” Lee said.  “Whatever he ultimately decides is up to him, but I believe you could tip the scales one way or another with your own actions.”

Joan leaned on the table and put her head in her hands.

“Like what?” she mumbled.  “I like Vell too, but I also like, you know, the whole mission I’ve spent the past thirteen years of my life working towards.”

“Then choose the mission,” Lee said.  “But be aware of what that choice means.”

Joan put her head in her hands.  She’d gotten dumped over her obsessions before—several times, in fact—but she’d always been able to blame it on those people being too stupid to understand what she was working towards.  In many ways, Joan knew that Vell was just as smart as she was, if not smarter -though her ego usually pushed that fact to the back of her mind.  The two were constantly trading places as the highest-grading students in every class they shared.  Joan simply couldn’t write off Vell’s discomfort as a knee-jerk reaction to something he couldn’t understand.

If Vell wasn’t wrong, then that meant Joan was in the wrong.  And Joan, naturally, didn’t like that very much.

“Well.  Thanks for not telling me to sell out my life’s work for a guy, at least,” Joan sighed.

“I want you to do what makes you happy, Joan,” Lee said.  “If pursuing whatever goal you have in mind makes you happier than being with Vell, or vice versa, that is up to you.  But I should caution you that trying to pursue the best of both worlds rarely works.”

Lee sipped at her tea.  It had cooled slightly now.

“I will however say with some certainty that you should stop working with Kraid,” Lee added.  “The man kicks puppies, Joan.  You can’t reason with people like that.”

“I know, I know,” Joan said.  She’d been there for more than one kick.  “Thanks for the advice, Lee.”

“Any time,” Lee assured her.  “What are friends for?”

◆◆◆

Vell clutched his book bag close to his side as he left class and headed back to his dorm.  Kraid was lurking somewhere around here.  On the first loop of the day, the semi-skeletal supervillain had caught Vell off guard.  He wasn’t going to let it happen again.  Vell kept his ears perked and his eyes up.  Kraid, on the other hand, was walking casually behind Vell every step of the way, using a stealth spell he’d spent several million dollars researching to torment a young man.  Eventually, he got tired of following along and broke his invisibility spell.

“Boo.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Vell said instinctively.  Kraid stayed behind him, though he did follow along as Vell started walking again.  Vell stuck a hand in his pocket and checked the time on his phone.  He’d made some plans, but he had to get the timing right.

“How’s it hanging, Harlan?” Kraid asked.  “Have a chat with Joan lately?”

“Actually no, I’m deliberately avoiding her so that we both have time to process our emotions with a healthy distance between us, and to deny you the satisfaction of watching whatever happens.”

“Intense,” Kraid said.  “I’ll admit I’m slightly disappointed, but you do know I’ll find out sooner or later, right?”

“Yeah, but it’ll be less satisfying for you, and also you won’t be around to act smug where I can see you,” Vell said.  He’d had plenty of time to think over this plan during the past loop, among all his other confused thoughts.

“And what if I just don’t leave?” Kraid said.

“You’ve got a business to run,” Vell said.  “You’ve got a meeting in just a couple hours right?  Can’t miss your flight.”

Kraid laughed at the idea.

“Oh, Harlan, what’s a million dollars or so of profit compared to watching you suffer?”

“Yeah, but it’s not about profit, isn’t it?  It’s about that seven-lined rune you discovered.  Somebody else is closer to deciphering it than you are.”

The look of idle amusement on Kraid’s face dropped in an instant.  His jovial, if caustic, attitude vanished, revealing a glimpse of the genuine malice that existed just under the surface.  He followed a little closer in Vell’s footsteps as they walked through the halls.

“How do you know about that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Vell said.  It was a little something that he’d picked up from Kraid’s taunts on the first loop.

“I don’t know what kind of trick you’re trying to pull, Harlan, but it won’t work.”

Vell restrained a smile.  He had exactly two advantages when it came to dealing with Kraid.  First, he had a few loopholes in Kraid’s security thanks to being technically undead.  Secondly, he had the time loops.  Thanks to those loops, he knew exactly where and when a massive paintball gun would be exploding in approximately thirteen seconds.  Vell took seven steps forward and stopped in his tracks. 

“I’ve got plenty of time, Harlan, that meeting isn’t for hours,” Kraid said.

“I know,” Vell said.  “I can stall for that-”

The wall behind them exploded right on queue.  The dust and rubble alone was explosive enough, but the massive burst of yellow paint that followed afterwards was the main event.  Vell was safely out of the blast zone, but Kraid was covered head to toe; his blackened skeletal arm, and his entire body, painted sunshine gold.  The world’s worst villain froze in place as he reeled from the explosion, and the dawning comprehension of his new paint job.

“Oh geez,” Vell said, feigning concern in the least authentic way possible.  “Are you okay?”

Kraid wiped the wet paint away from his eyes with a bony finger and glared daggers at Vell.  Kraid actually was capable of killing people with a glare, but he chose not to do so in this case, if only barely.

“What did you do?”  Kraid demanded.  Vell responded with an exaggerated shrug.

“Nothing.  Stuff like this happens all the time,” Vell said.  “The school’s a bit of a mess.”

With that, the students from the lab that had caused the paint explosion rushed out, and then immediately rushed back in when they saw it was Kraid that they had coated.  If he got a good look at their guilty faces they would be either killed or sued, or possibly both.  Only Vell kept Kraid company as the paint started to drip.

“You might want to get moving,” Vell suggested.  “Unless you want to go to your big important meeting looking like a mustard bottle.”

The silent glare from Kraid continued.  Vell could almost feel his skin starting to burn as Kraid’s anger grew more and more intense.  After a long and deadly stare down, Kraid finally relented.  He turned sharply, splattering yellow paint all around him as he made a quick turn.

“Enjoy your little victory, Harlan,” Kraid said.  “I’ll find out how you pulled this off.”

“You won’t, because I didn’t do anything,” Vell said.  It was technically the truth.  There was absolutely nothing connecting him to the paint explosion.  “But I’m enjoying it anyway.”

Kraid wandered off, dripping a trail of wet paint behind him, grumbling under his breath,  Vell got back on course and headed back to his dorm with a smile on his face.  After everything that had happened the past few days, it was nice to have a win under his belt.

Vell’s victory high faded away about halfway back to his dorm. He hadn’t seen Joan all day.  The seat next to him had been empty in every class they shared.  He had thought about texting her, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. He made the final approach to his dorm room door and tried as hard as he could not to look down the hall at Joan’s dorm.

“Vell.”

The sound of Joan’s voice nearly made Vell bite his tongue off.  He did his best to pretend he hadn’t just had a minor heart attack and turned to face Joan.  She, in turn, pretended like she hadn’t been lurking near the door waiting for Vell to show up.  With that mutual charade underway, Vell started to stumble over his words.

“Hello, uh, hi, Joan,” he began.  “I was, uh, just about to-”

“Can I interrupt?”

“Please do,” Vell said.  Even he was getting sick of saying “uh” so much.

“I just wanted to ask for your help,” Joan said.  She made a show of reaching into her dorm and pulling out a waste bin.  “Throwing some stuff away.”

Even from down the hall, Vell could recognize the scraps of Joan’s conspiracy board.  The scattered collection of articles and photographs, mostly torn to shreds, peeked out over the edge of the wastebin.   Vell stepped up to examine the scraps more closely.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting my priorities in order,” Joan said.  She shrank slightly, clutching the scraps close to her chest for a moment.  “I want to help people.  But there are ways to do that that don’t involve working with supervillains.”

Joan took a deep breath and squared her shoulders again.

“Or scaring off people I care about,” she continued.  “So.  You want to help me get rid of this?  And then maybe we can talk about picking up date night again?”

“I’d love to,” Vell said.  He made a daring decision (by Vell standards) and kissed Joan on the cheek.  The fact that there was a small garbage bin between them slightly diminished the romanticism of the gesture.  Vell took a step back and grabbed the rim of the waste bin.

“Let me get that,” he insisted.  Joan handed it over without protest, and Vell took it and headed outside the dorm.  He’d never been so happy to be headed towards a dumpster.  He’d give the entire situation a little time to cool down, then tell Joan about his rune once some of then tensions had worn off, and they could have the conversation rationally.  A few days, at the most.

Vell tightened his grip on the wastebins edge, and saw a scrap of a photograph.  A ruined train, and dead bodies -including, possibly, his own- could be seen in the photo.  His relaxed smile dropped off his face.  Maybe he’d give it a few weeks.  But it’d happen eventually.  He could trust Joan.

Joan watched Vell go with a smile on her face.  A smile that dropped in an instant as soon as he was around the corner.  She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“You were right,” Joan said.

“Told you so,” Kraid said.  “He struck me as the naive type.”

“Shut the fuck up and send me the backups,” Joan said.  Kraid acquiesced, and Joan hung up the moment her collected research had been returned to her.  Newspaper clippings and corkboards were inefficient anyway -and harder to hide from prying boyfriends.

Kraid put his phone away and smiled to himself as he stepped onboard his private jet.  A few drops of wet paint splattered onto the floor.  That was fine by Kraid.  He’d been looking for an excuse to buy a new jet anyway.

With a snap of his fingers, every drop of paint flew off Kraid’s body and coalesced into a single orb of yellow.  He held the shining sphere of paint on a bony fingertip and appraised it.  He could’ve cleaned himself off at any time, but had chosen not to.  Feigning weakness often led to his enemies revealing their own.  And Vell had revealed oh so many of his weaknesses.

There were some people in the world who said it was impossible to have the best of both worlds.  Kraid had found it was actually quite easy.  He just had to make sure some other poor sap was getting the worst of both.

Chapter 21: Applied Dracology 101

Vell put his pencil down as he saw a shadow pass by the window.  The shadow of something large.  Class carried on in spite of the unknown entity passing overhead, as only Vell had any reason to be suspicious of such things.  Vell kept his eye on the window, but the only thing he saw was a faint orange glow.  He also felt the room start to get warmer.

“Everybody should probably duck,” Vell shouted.  He punctuated his sentence by grabbing Joan out of the seat next to him and diving to the floor.  The classroom reacted to his announcement by pausing briefly and looking around the room.  One random student across the room actually took the advice and ducked.  The rest of the class got their heads incinerated as a wall of fire crashed through the window and surged overhead.  Vell and Joan crawled out of the burning room, as did the mystery student who’d been smart enough to duck.  They dashed away, leaving Vell to send Joan on her way in turn and head towards the source of the fire. 

He made it around the corner of the building and stopped in his tracks.  The sight in front of him briefly overwhelmed Vell’s brain, and he only managed to spit out a single word.

“Dragon.”

The serpentine horror turned towards the sound of its name.  Scales like tarnished copper glinted in the sunlight as two gemstone eyes of deep-set crimson stared Vell down.  A wingspan as wide as a passenger jet shifted as the beast turned to focus on him alone.  Finally, a low rumble and a surge of heat formed the prelude to another burst of all-consuming fire. 

Vell considered his odds, and decided to embrace death.  Leanne had other plans.  She snatched Vell out of the path of fire and jumped to the next building.  Vell watched the rolling surge of dragonfire pass under his feet, and then regained his bearing and his will to live.  Apparently he was going to be a dragon slayer today.

Leanne’s veins already surged black with the strength-enhancing nanomachines as she jumped down from the roof top, landing behind the dragon.  She put Vell back on solid ground before smacking him on the back and pointing toward one of the nearby buildings.  Vell took the hint and headed that way while Leanne ripped a large tree out of the ground and smacked the dragon in the head with it.  The sounds of dragon-on-tree violence continued in the background as Vell headed towards the building.  Harley and Lee welcomed him inside.

“Hi, Vell,” Harley said.  “Having a little dragon-shock, I see.”

“It’s- that’s a- a fucking dragon, Harley!”

“Yeah yeah, everybody gets a little freaked out the first time, it’s fine,” Harley said.  “You’ve lost your dragon virginity, Vell, congratulations.”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Lee pleaded.

“Why is a dragon here?” Vell demanded.

“Well, dear, they are irrevocably drawn to wealth, and tragically also irrevocably incapable of understanding that anywhere between ninety-two to ninety-five percent of global wealth exists digitally.”

The resurgence of magic had drawn a lot of creatures into a world they weren’t well suited for.  No less than ninety-two trolls had to work together to patrol the Golden Gate bridge, and dragons were consistently stymied in their attempts to hoard Bitcoins.  This particular dragon seemed especially frustrated -even more so now that Leanne was repeatedly whacking it in the head with a tree.

“If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it is after me,” Lee admitted.  “I am the heir to a large fortune, and I am relatively undefended, after all.”

“The dragon could also be after a wealth of knowledge,” Harley said.  “Some of these scaly fuckers are getting desperate to be hoarding something.”

“How sad,” Vell said calmly.  After that, he started shouting.  “Now what do we do to stop it from killing people?”

“Easy, Vell, dealing with dragons is a simple two-step process,” Harley said.  “Step one, don’t get incinerated.”

The dragon bellowed a wave of white-hot flames.  Lee used her water magic to burst open a nearby pipe and cover their team with a thick shield of water.  The aquatic dome boiled around them, but the humans inside were unharmed.

“Step one successful,” Harley noted.  “Step two: identify a weakness.”

Lee reached into her purse and drew her whip, just to have it on hand.  Vell matched her gesture by grabbing a summoning rune from his pocket and using it to call his cursed six-shooters to his hand.  He fastened the gun belt around his waist and kept his fingers on the triggers as Harley appraised the dragon.

“Magical creatures all tap into the collective subconscious that exists within mana, so they’re partially influenced by public perception,” Harley explained.  “So thanks to notable author JRR Tolkien, and more recently notable transphobe JK Rowling, everybody thinks dragons have easily exploitable weaknesses.”

“Thanks, but, uh, I knew literally all of that,” Vell said. 

“Explaining things often helps the ideas start flowing, dear, don’t mind her,” Lee said.  She paused briefly as the loud “bonk” of a tree hitting a dragon drowned out other sounds.  “We need to find out what this dragon’s specific weakness is.  Judging from Leanne’s current lack of success, we can rule out ‘being hit with a tree’.”

“Well she’s only tried the Aleppo Pine,” Harley said.  A loud tearing sound was soon followed by another loud bonk.  “Oh, nope, she just tried the Coulter Pine too, we can rule that one out.  And the Gray Pine.  Why do we have so many pine trees on a tropical island?”

“The botany department likes diversity,” Lee said.  “Vell, perhaps you could give the dragon a once-over with your glasses while Leanne continues to weaponize the local flora?”

“Might as well,” Vell agreed.  He wasn’t optimistic about his glasses’ odds of scanning a live dragon, and for once he was right.  After a long scan of the dragon, the glasses runic software helpfully pinged his phone with the Wikipedia page for “Dragon”.

“Well that was useless,” Vell said.  “Maybe we can do a blood test.”

“Ah yes, in case the legendary dragon’s weakness is hypoglycemia,” Harley said.

“Dragons can get diabetes too,” Vell said.  He leaned out from cover and tried to raise his voice over the roar of the dragon.  “Hey Leanne!  Can you bring the dragon over here, we want to get some blood.”

The dragon got smacked in their direction, so Vell assumed he had been heard.  He drew his guns and braced his shoulder against the wall.

“Alright, I’m going to go make the dragon bleed and, well, probably die in the process,” Vell said.  “Lee, I assume you can handle collecting the blood and getting it tested?”

“I will do my best,” Lee said.  “Do try not to get incinerated.”

“Of course.  I’ll probably fail, but I’ll try.”

Vell gave his revolvers a quick spin before stepping out and firing.  Leanne bashed the dragon in his direction, giving Vell a good angle on the dragon’s face.  He fired a quick salvo of shots at the eyes, nose, mouth, and anywhere else that wasn’t coated in thick copper scales.  The bullets didn’t do much damage, but they did prompt small spurts of blood.  Lee ducked out of cover and used hydrokinesis to manipulate the blood into a single orb of crimson.

The dragon roared again, and the furnace in its chest started to light again.  Vell took the hint and started running for cover while Leanne went in for another blow.  The uber athlete got below the dragons head and threw a fist upwards, slamming her knuckles into the dragon’s spiny chin.  Vell, still too far to take cover in a building, hit the deck and hoped for the best.  As it belched out the fireball, Leanne’s punch sent the dragon’s head flying upwards, and the fire flew into the sky.  Ash rained down on a surprisingly still-alive Vell.

With a sigh of relief, Vell lifted his head and enjoyed the moment of being pleasantly surprised.  It lasted for all of two seconds before the shadow of the tail swung down towards him.

◆◆◆

“Technically, you didn’t get incinerated,” Harley told him.  “Mission accomplished.”

“I’ll take it,” Vell said.  “Getting smushed is less painful than getting burnt to death.  You guys figure out anything useful after I died?”

“Yes, actually,” Lee said.  “Our solution should be arriving shortly.”

As if on queue, a man appeared, dragging an obscenely large pallet behind him -followed by another man with another pallet, and then a third man and a third pallet.  The first man in the trinity lifted a tablet and looked up at Lee.

“You the gal who ordered nine-hundred pounds of peanuts?”

“Yes.” Lee said.  To her credit, she kept a straight face.

“Lee really loves nuts,” Harley said, also with a straight face.  Lee gave her a gentle slap on the back of the head.  The lead deliveryman stared at them silently for a moment and then pushed the tablet towards Lee.  She signed off on the order and the deliverymen began to unload the hundreds of bags of peanuts.  The entire dining hall was staring in their direction now.  Harley popped open one of the nearest bags and helped herself to some peanuts.

“So,” Vell said.  “The dragon has a peanut allergy?”

“Very much so,” Lee said.  “The poor thing practically exploded when we launched peanuts at it.”

“We don’t kill anything sapient if we can avoid it, so we’re sort of hoping having this many peanuts around will scare the dragon off.  Prevention beats a cure and all that.”

The smell of peanuts already hung thick in the air.  Vell would wager any dragon with a peanut allergy flying towards the island would catch a whiff of the peanut hoard and turn the other way.

“Vell, would you be a dear and ask Renard if he knows several hundred recipes for peanuts?” Lee asked.  “I’d hate for these to go to waste.”

“I’ll see what he can do,” Vell said.  He took one more look at the pile of peanuts and already began to dread the dozens of peanut butter sandwiches in his future.

◆◆◆

“Yeah I can do stuff with peanuts,” Renard said.  “There’s a whole bunch of chili sauces, and salads, and some stir fries.  How many peanuts you got?”

“Nine hundred pounds,” Vell said.  He paused briefly and tilted his head to the side.  “Minus however many Harley has eaten by now.”

“I’m no mathemagician, but I don’t think Harley can eat too many,” Renard said.  “I better get cooking.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Vell said.  He stopped to check the time on his phone.  “Later.  There’s something I need to check up on first.”

The dragon was going to be making its approach any minute now.  Vell hurried outside to keep an eye on the sky.  He could see Leanne across the quad, also staring up at the sky, and hurried to her side.  In case the peanut-based dragon repellent didn’t work, he wanted to be standing near their best fighter.  She acknowledged him with a nod and offered him a small bag of peanuts.

“Thanks,” he said.  “So how’d the dragon fight go after I died?”

Leanne held up five fingers, made a chomping motion with her hands, then sighed.

“Hey, five minutes solo against a dragon is pretty good,” Vell said.  He took a small handful of peanuts and popped them into his mouth, figuring he might as well get a few more out of the way.  Leanne gave him a befuddled look.

“What?”

She grabbed a peanut and mimed the action of throwing it, then pointed at the sky.

“Oh, shit, right,” Vell said.  “These are for dragon fighting.  Sorry.”

Leanne shrugged.

“It’s just, you know, when I see a peanut my first instinct is not to kill something with it.”

He had a point, but Leanne had neither the desire nor the time to address it.  She tapped Vell on the shoulder and pointed at the sky.  This time she pointed out a small figure on the horizon that was rapidly growing larger.  Vell readied his peanuts.

The dragon raced towards the island, wings pounding in the breeze, bearing down at some unknown prey.  The shape -and sheer size- of the beast became more clear as it approached.  Some students started to run for cover as it became clear a dragon was headed for their island, while other stood to gawk at the impressive beast, proving in the process that you could still find morons on an island of geniuses.  Vell and Leanne kept close to the wall and kept an eye on the dragon.

The dragon landed in the middle of the quad and sniffed the air to get its bearings.  It took two massive breaths and froze in place.  Then it began to squirm.  Its legs flailed and its tail swung from side to side as the scaled chest of the dragon heaved.  The mighty jaws of the massive dragon parted, and the guttural rumble of incoming fiery breath emanated forth. 

But no fire spewed forth from the jaws of the dragon.  Instead, the immediate area was bathed in a thick spray of dragon vomit.  The dragon immediately turned and began to flee from the sickening miasma of peanuts that hung about the island, leaving behind an island—and two loopers—covered in vomit that smelled of fish oil and napalm.

Leanne looked down at her hands, and the mess that covered them.  She made no sound, but Vell could tell she was screaming on the inside.  He knew because he was screaming too.

“You want to use my shower again?” Vell asked, barely opening his mouth as he spoke.  Leanne nodded.

“Great.  You go first, and I’ll get something prepped to burn our clothes.”

Leanne nodded again, and the two vomit-bathed loopers waddled off towards the nearby shower, silently vowing to never speak of this again.

Chapter 22: Pure E-Vell

Leanne and Vell cringed in unison as Doctor Montgomery turned and bent at the waist.  Ill-fitting pants displayed an amount of plumber’s crack that probably constituted sexual harassment, and the tight fabric displayed bulges in places both were pretty sure humans weren’t supposed to have bulges.  Doc Montgomery didn’t let anything like resounding and immediate cries of disgust get in the way of him continuing his lecture.

“A balanced body is the key to a balanced mind, and a balanced mind is the key to complete understanding of your chi,” Montgomery droned.  He stood and faced his class again, much to their relief.  “While the pursuit of physical perfection, as I embody, is one avenue to this balance, there are others.  Observe!”

With a grand and sweeping gesture, Montgomery pointed directly at Leanne.  She was halfway through shoving a massive cinnamon roll into her mouth, and froze mid-bite as all eyes turned to her.  A little bit of frosting dripped off her lips and down her chin.

“This young woman clearly has an understanding of both ends of the physical spectrum.  Her muscles tremble with barely restrained strength and power, yet she also knows how and when to indulge her body’s basest desires with simple indulgence,” Montgomery said.  “This is a path to perfection: understanding both the positive and negative aspects of your body and mind, and knowing when to feed one or the other, as she now feeds herself.”

Leanne remembered that this was the first loop and nobody would remember what she did now, so she finished eating her cinnamon roll.  She had four more to go.  Three, if she offered one to Vell, which could go either way.  Leanne liked Vell, but she also liked cinnamon rolls, and Vell had plenty of opportunities to get his own damn cinnamon rolls.

Doctor Montgomery continued to rant, and Leanne continued to chow down, until the lecture reached its conclusion.  The gathered students all too gladly packed up their things and left Montgomery’s class.  Vell tucked the last of his books back into his bookbag and waved to Leanne.

“See you later, Leanne,” Vell said.  Leanne gave him a polite wave and tossed aside her empty box of cinnamon rolls.  The man sitting on the opposite side of her looked at Vell go, and at Leanne’s trash.

“Why don’t you ever talk when that guy’s around?” he asked.  “You seem to like him well enough.”

“Oh, he’s alright,” Leanne said, as soon as she was sure Vell was out of earshot.  “He’s just part of that club Naomi roped me into, so I don’t like to bother with him too much.”

“That explains it,” he said.  “I don’t mind.  You usually never shut up.”

Leanne punched her neighbor in the shoulder.  Elijah liked to poke fun at her no matter what she did.  He was lucky she found it so charming.  Leanne gave him a kiss on the cheek to make up for the punch and they headed for their next class.

“You have got to just quit that club one day,” Elijah said.  “Seems like every other day they make you do some crazy bullshit.  You guys almost ruined Banana Day.”

“In our defense, those were radioactive bananas,” Leanne said.  “More radioactive than usual, at least.”

As Leanne had recently learned, all bananas contained a harmless amount of radiation.  Unless, of course, they were cultivated near an improperly shielded particle accelerator, in which case they contained enough radiation to be fissile material.  The casualties of the radioactive banana incident had been massively inflated by the fact that it coincided with International Banana Day, a holiday which the Einstein-Odinson academic body took very seriously for some reason.  The loopers had been forced to dispose of and then replace a large supply of bananas on short notice.

“We would have died doing what we loved,” Elijah said.  “Eating bananas.”

“You would have died pooping your own guts out,” Leanne corrected.  Radiation poisoning was a nasty way to go, and she’d seen more than one person fall prey to it in three and a half years of looping.

“Hmm, suddenly I don’t want to be having this conversation anymore,” Elijah said.  “Subject change.  Are you going to be ready for practice today?  You’re a bit of a mess.”

Elijah thought about tussling Leanne’s hair, and then recoiled upon seeing how greasy it was.  Leanne didn’t waste a lot of time on grooming for the first loop.

“I’ll be ready to go,” Leanne said.  She skipped out on a lot of things every loop, but she always took practice seriously.  Some would even say too seriously.

◆◆◆

“Alright, Leanne’s going to do her usual routine, the rest of you, line up and focus on defense,” Coach Ewing shouted.  Leanne’s skill had already rocketed well past the point where Coach Ewing needed to, or was even capable of, coaching her.  All he could do was let her do her thing and focus on the rest of the team.  “The Curie Academy team scored sixteen points on us last game.”

“And we scored three hundred and thirty on them,” another teammate, a woman named Miranda, called back.

“Leanne scored three-hundred and fifteen,” Coach Ewing snapped back.  “The rest of you scored fifteen points after she got benched in the first quarter.”

For some reason, Ernest J. Ball, the inventor of Ballball, had included a specific rule forbidding mercy rules into the bylaws of his game.  In spite of recent and numerous teams attempts to amend that ruling in light of Leanne’s career one-hundred percent win rating, the best they could do was make sure Leanne stayed on the bench for most of the game.  While the Einstein-Odinson team hadn’t lost a game since Leanne had joined, some of the other schools were starting to count outscoring them post-Leanne as a “win”.  Coach Ewing didn’t even want to give them that satisfaction.  He told everyone except Leanne to line up and start doing exercises.  Leanne herself wandered over to a spare ball and decided to work on her spiking.

Scoring in Ballball was a simple matter of getting a ball to impact a certain portion of a goal post at either “pole” of the spherical, levitating field.  While seemingly simple at first glance, the complex gravitational field of the spherical court made every throw follow an oddly curved trajectory.  Leanne had long since mastered the art of curving the ball (and rebounding it off the skulls of her opponents when necessary) but she liked to keep the skills fresh.  Leanne never slacked off when it came to her Ballball skills.

While her team occupied the northern hemisphere of the field, Leanne kept to herself on the bottom half, spiking the ball back and forth between herself and the goalpost.  She practiced hitting wide, curved shots as well as simpler more straightforward spikes, staying on the move to emulate the fast pace of an actual game.  This kind of practice was much closer to the real deal for her than most people -she’d never faced an opponent fast enough to stand between her and a goal.  Not yet at least.

Leanne’s parents had told her that there was always a bigger fish.  Someone smarter, faster, and stronger than Leanne was waiting in the wings, somewhere in the world.  Leanne never let her dominant performance be an excuse to slow down.  If she wanted to stay on top of the world, she would have to earn it.

Leanne spiked the ball once more.  As it flew, her eyes went cross, and a mild headache came and went.

It suddenly struck Leanne that putting all this effort in was a major waste of time.  She had never lost a game in her life, why worry about losing one tomorrow?  She had earned the right to take a day off and relax.

As those sudden urges to relax distracted Leanne, the ball she’d spiked flew straight back and hit her in the face.  With a comical “bonk”, the ball narrowly avoided breaking her nose and ricocheted off her face before bouncing down to the surface of the spherical field.  Leanne rubbed an aching nose and retrieved the ball.  She considered this a reminder from the universe not to slack off.  It was odd she’d even been having those thoughts.  She regained her laser-focus and started practicing once again.

Between the rapid impacts of the ball, it was hard to hear the other members of the team practicing, but Leanne took a break to check in eventually.  She found a chaotic scene as some members had given up on practice entirely and were packing up to leave, while others were practicing with renewed fervor.  Coach Ewing seemed content to watch them do whatever they wanted, instead of imposing any semblance of order.

“What’s going on, coach?” Leanne demanded.

“Oh, well, I figure since we’ve been on such a long winning streak, I figured we could go with a bit of a free-play period, let people do whatever they feel like,” Coach Ewing said.  “We’ve got some room to grow, let’s let people explore their potential a bit, you know?”

Some of the most dedicated teammates Leanne had began to walk off the field, and some of the laziest good for nothings were going at their practice with fervent energy.  Leanne’s eyes narrowed.  This was fucked up in a way that made her suspect the world was ending, but she couldn’t be sure how.  Leanne decided to follow in her lazier teammate’s footsteps and head off the field.  She decided to check on one thing first.

“Elijah?”

“Yes babe?”

“Nothing, never mind,” Leanne said.  She turned away to hide a look of disgust.  Elijah never called her “babe”.  However his brain had been scrambled, she wanted no part of it.  Leanne skedaddled off the field and back onto the campus proper.  Everywhere she looked things were in disarray, as some students -and some professors- walked out of classes, others began to shout obscenities and go on angry rants, while others still were openly weeping or laughing uproariously, both at nothing in particular.  The world had, in short, gone mad.

Leanne wondered if any cults would form this time.  She liked being in a cult, as she tended to end up god-queen or whatever title that particular cult used for their leader.  Solving the day’s problem came first, though.  Becoming queen for a day was a secondary priority.  A very close second.

The dining hall, one of the looper’s usual rallying points, was suspiciously empty.  Leanne had suspected this place would be overrun with newly-crazy students looking to gorge themselves.  A few isolated gluttons occupied scattered tables, but the usual lunch rush was nonexistent.  Leanne noted that as another suspicious factor.  Food was usually the first thing crazy people went after.

“Hey, you, there you are,” someone shouted.  Leanne only vaguely recognized the voice.  She turned to see one of Vell’s roommates running at her, dragging a very reluctant-looking Harley behind him.

“You, yeah, you’re one of those chicks who hang out with Vell a lot, right?” Cane asked.  “The one who doesn’t talk much, yeah?  Leanne?”

Leanne gave a thumbs up.  Cane breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay, great, second question, do you feel alright in the head?  Like, on a scale of boring to totally crazy, how is your brain right now?”

Leanne shrugged.  She was unsure how to respond.  Cane took that as her being relatively sane.

“Okay, great, great,” he said breathlessly.  He’d been sprinting across campus trying to track down help for a while now, and he’d been dragging Harley most of the way.  “Because you guys are like weirdly good at solving problems and I kind of need some of that right now, and this chick is useless.”

Cane pulled on Harley’s wrist and she slumped into the nearest seat.  The usually bright-eyed and annoyingly energetic girl could barely muster the energy to look up at Leanne, and the minute she did so, Harley rolled her eyes and let out a disgruntled huff.

“This bitch doesn’t even like us,” Harley grumbled.  “And I don’t like her.  So what good is she going to be?”

“You see?” Cane said, gesturing angrily to Harley.  “She’s all rude all of a sudden, and she hates everybody!  That’s not Harley!”

“Bite me, asshole,” Harley spat.

Leanne pursed her lips.  She’d seen Harley get killed, or watch her friends get killed, dozens of times over, but she had never once been anything but an absolute barrel of optimistic, friendly enthusiasm.  Something had turned her usually unflappably outgoing attitude inside out.  She began to get the impression Cane knew what that “something” was.  She pointed at him accusingly, a gesture he immediately understood.

“Oh, hey, I know what’s going on, but it’s not my fault, okay?” Cane said, immediately jumping to his own defense.  “I was helping one of my classmates test something out, and it kind of went sideways.”

As Cane said “it went sideways”, his voice noticeably wavered.  Leanne continued pointing, and Cane continued buckling under the bare-minimum pressure.

“He was testing this psychometric analyzer thing he’d been working on, and I was the control group, so I had this helmet on that was supposed to keep me from getting affected.  He turned it on and then everybody else’s heads blew up and I’m still a little fucked up about that to be honest, but when I tried to get help everybody had been all flipped and screwed.”

The story tracked with the average daily apocalypse, so Leanne didn’t question it much further.  Having someone else with their sanity intact would be a boon, at least, especially since Harley was out of commission for the near future.  The next question to deal with: why Harley had lost her mind but not Leanne.  Cane had the excuse of the helmet, but Leanne hadn’t been wearing anything on her head when this had all started.

“What do we do now?”

The only answer to Cane’s question was silence, followed by a heavy shrug of Leanne’s broad shoulders.  Leanne played the role of the team muscle, not the team brains.  The other three handed the heavy intellectual lifting.   Somebody ran past the two of them, screaming at the top of their lungs, and Cane sighed.

“I guess we should find Lee and Vell?  Get the whole squad back together, and hope at least one more of them isn’t crazy?”

This time the answer to Cane’s question came in the form of Leanne picking up Harley and throwing the tiny girl over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  With the grumbling Harley secured, Leanne set out towards Lee’s dorm room.  Cane, assuming that meant yes, and lacking anything better to do in a world gone mad, followed.

◆◆◆

“Are you sure you don’t want to put her down?”

Leanne shook her head.  They were nearly to Lee’s dorm now, and she still had Harley slung over her shoulder.  The weight hardly bothered Leanne.  Harley wasn’t very big.

“Seems like she’d get kind of heavy after a while,” Cane mused.

“You calling me fat, asshole?” Harley snapped.  Leanne shook her slightly in an attempt to stop Harley from spouting further venom.  It didn’t work.  Cane walked a few steps further away from Leanne.

“Sorry,” he said, half-heartedly.

The trio arrived at the door to Lee’s dorm.  Leanne tested the knob and found it was locked.  She briefly considered kicking the door down, but decided to turn around and bend at the waist slightly to let Harley punch in the code to the door.  It took some coaching from Cane for her to stop insulting him and put in the code, but she managed.  Her brain-scrambled attitude hadn’t made Harley completely useless.  Though it was buried beneath a mountain of abrasive self-centeredness and hostility, Harley still remembered that they had to save the day.  With a loud beep, the door opened.

The scene inside stood remarkably intact, given the general chaos that had consumed everyone on campus.  For a moment Leanne wondered if Lee was even here, but soon enough she heard humming resonating from the direction of the kitchen.  Leanne dumped Harley into a nearby chair and headed for the sound of the musical hum.

Lee stood in front of her small over, shoveling dollops of cookie dough onto a large baking sheet.  Joan sat at the kitchen table, helping herself to another tray of cookies, already baked.  Leanne nabbed one of the cookies before tapping Lee on the shoulder.  The humming stopped and Lee looked up at Leanne with a broad smile.

“Leanne!  How wonderful.  I’d offer you a cookie but I see you’ve already helped yourself,” Lee said.  The cheer in her voice was infectious, in the same sense that a weeping sore was infectious: unpleasantly oozing and probably dangerous.  “No worries at all, darling, have as many as you like.”

“These are like, crazy good cookies,” Joan said.  “You should eat as many as you can, or else I’ll get them first.”

Joan giggled.  Leanne had met Joan maybe twice before today, but she hadn’t struck Leanne as the giggling type.  She’d likely been scrambled too, and Lee obviously had been.  Leanne had never seen Lee this happy.  Leanne grabbed Lee’s shoulder once again and pointed towards the door.  Catching on to her intent, Lee shook her head at the notion that they needed to spring into action to prevent the apocalypse.

“Oh, why bother,” Lee said.  “Today’s a wonderful day!  Let’s just enjoy it -and improve it with more cookies!”

Lee stopped dolloping cookie dough onto the sheet and put it into the oven.  As she finished the next step in her baking, Leanne picked her up and deposited Lee into the living room, to face off with Harley.  The pint-sized roboticist was trying her best to sulk a hole in the chair.

“What’re you looking at, princess?”

“Oh, I suppose that attitude change is unfortunate,” Lee said, which only made Harley grumble more.  “But she’s happy all the time, she can be grumpy for a day.  I’m feeling great, and I deserve to!”

Leanne rolled her eyes.  The brain-scrambling had clearly cost Lee her empathy as well.  Cane stepped up to offer a slightly more verbose explanation of the events.

“Lee, I get that you’re happy, which is probably concerning given the circumstances,” Cane said.  If everyone’s brains had been reversed, and Lee was happy, that meant Lee’s default state was unhappy.  “But everybody’s all backwards.  A lot of people are suffering right now.  You and your friends need to help.”

“Oh, let somebody else fix the problems for once,” Lee said.  She wandered back to the kitchen and grabbed herself a plate of cookies.  “I think I’m going to take the day off.  I deserve a break, you know, we all do!  Relax, have some cookies, and let somebody else handle the problems.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure Vell will take care of it,” Joan said.  “You can trust Vell with anything.”

Cane and Leanne shared a concerned glance.  If Joan was reversed, then what she said now was the opposite of what she really thought.  Both of them decided to compartmentalize that for later, as Lee carried on along the same thread.

“Oh, yes, Vell will handle it,” Lee said.  “Vell’s the nicest person I know.”

At this, Harley let out a bellowing, caustic laugh.  It took Cane a moment to get over his surprise.  Harley was usually more of a giggler.

“What’re you laughing at?”

“Oh, it’s great,” Harley said.  “You guys are fucked.”

“Why?”

“Because Vell Harlan is the nicest fucking person you know,” Harley said.  “And now he’s the opposite.”

There was about two seconds of delay before the realization struck Leanne like a ton of bricks.

“Oh no,” she mumbled under her breath.

Outside, a blue sky turned red.  The laser grid, repurposed from the school’s “the floor is lava” game, activated again, this time enclosing the island in a bubble of impassable energy.  The already chaotic scene outside only became more panicked as the force-field imprisoned the entire school.

“Good afternoon students of the Einstein-Odinson academy,” Vell’s voice said.  Even over the intercom system, Leanne noticed a new, harsh edge to his voice.  “You might be wondering what happened to the spineless coward who usually makes these announcements, and the answer is simple!  He’s not in charge anymore.”

Leanne put her head in her hands.

“I am,” Vell’s voice continued.  “As for what that means, well, still figuring it out, honestly.  But if you want to start by throwing some tribute my way, maybe declaring your undying fealty to me, can’t hurt.  For now, nobody leaves -and I get to do whatever I want.”

The intercom fell silent.  Leanne looked outside at the red sky, crackling with destructive power.  Kind had become cruel, sad had become happy, and now good had become evil.

◆◆◆

After an evil monologue from a former friend, even the overly-cheery Lee had been convinced that the world needed saving.  Leanne had chosen to keep Joan and Cane around to help babysit their brain-swapped friends.  Joan was equally scrambled, but she’d at least been scrambled into someone level-headed.  Which reflected poorly on her default mental state, but Leanne couldn’t worry about that right now.  The three loopers had briefly branched off from their non-looper friends to discuss matters of chronological repetition.

“It’s not even that big of a deal,” Lee said.  “As soon as the loops takes over he’s going to be nice again, and then he’ll tell us how to stop him himself.”

“Yeah, but he knows all about the time loops,” Harley said.  “And unlike you morons, he might be smart enough to do some magic bullshit or something.”

The brain reversal had clearly cost Harley some of her usual wit as well.  She’d never described apocalypses as “some magic bullshit or something” before.

“We’ll be fine,” Lee insisted once again.  “What we really need to do is stop him right now so I can enjoy the first loop.  I was planning on transporting in some wine.”

Lee glared up at the red barrier.  The forcefield that now surrounded the island also prevented teleportation, which interfered with Lee’s ability to order sweets for herself and have her father pay to instantly transport them.  Leanne grabbed Lee by the shoulder and turned her forcibly towards the faculty building.  To activate the field and use the PA, Vell would’ve had to be in the principal’s office.  If he wasn’t still there, they could at least pick up his trail.

“Hey, guys,” Cane shouted.  “Look who we found.”

He appeared round a corner, dragging Principal Isaac Goodwell behind him.  Joan followed a few steps behind, with a big smile on her face.

“We found the principal!” she cheered.  “Isn’t that great?  He does such a good job running the place.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” Goodwell said.

“Don’t take it as a compliment, her brain’s been reversed,” Cane said.  “That means she normally hates you.”

“Aw,” Goodwell whined.  Cane planted him in place and then grabbed him by the collar.

“Now why did you let Vell take over the school?” He demanded.

“Well it’s the damnedest thing,” Goodwell said.  “I was all set to fight to protect my school, and then the guy suckerpunched me.  That made me realize what a stupid idea fighting was, and I sort of just handed everything over and figured you guys would sort it out later.”

Goodwell looked over Harley, who was laughing at the idea of Goodwell getting punched in the face, and Lee, who was bobbing side to side humming Disney songs to herself.

“Clearly I was optimistic,” Goodwell said.

Leanne put a hand on her chin.  Running away from problems definitely sounded like the default Goodwell, and standing up to Vell seemed like the reversed version.  So something had happened to swap him back to normal.  Leanne’s eyes snapped up as her mind snapped back to Ballball practice, and the ball that had bumped her in the head.

With two mighty steps and a swing of her arm, Leanne stepped up to Harley and smacked her in the face.  The blow nearly took Harley off her feet, and she yelped in pain as she grabbed a reddened cheek.

“Ow!  That was -ooh, do that again!”

Harley let out a shocked gasp and bounced up.

“Wait!  I’m horny again!”

With a broad smile, Harley dashed over to the humming Lee and smacked her in the face too.  Blunt force trauma to the head appeared to cure the brain-scrambling, and perhaps more importantly, Harley had a good reason to slap people.  Lee gave a grunt of indignation and then smacked Harley right back.

“Ow,” Harley said for the second time in ten seconds.  “What was that for?  I already got slapped!”

“I’m sorry, dear,” Lee said.  The sing-song notes of false cheer had left her voice.  “It was just jarring.  Couldn’t you at least have given me some warning before you slapped me out of happiness?”

Lee’s artificial joy had vanished, replaced with a very real sadness.  Harley stepped up and stood close as Lee rubbed a sore cheek.

“I wanted the real Lee back,” Harley said.

“The real Lee is unfortunately a bit miserable,” Lee complained.  “There’s plenty of geniuses on campus.  You could’ve just let me enjoy myself, however briefly.”

Harley grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a hug.

“I know there’s a lot of geniuses on campus, but I didn’t want just any genius,” Harley assured her.  “I wanted the genius who’s the most level-headed, and the best leader, and has the roundest most squishable cheeks.”

Harley reached up to grab Lee by the cheek, careful not to pinch the one she’d just slapped.  Lee scrunched up her face in mock indignation, but sighed happily as she pulled away.

“You vile flatterer,” Lee said, trying not to blush.  Harley folded her hands behind her back and tilted forward slightly.

“You know you’re my best friend, right?”

“I know,” Lee said, sighing once more.  “Fine then.  But don’t slap me again, seriously.”

“Fair deal,” Harley said.  “But you can slap me any time you want.  Open offer.”

Cane took that into consideration, and then pointed at Joan.

“Should we slap her too?”

“Sure, why not,” Harley said.  Cane took the initiative and slapped Joan across the face.  She reeled back and rubbed her cheek.

“Ow.  What was that supposed to do?”

“Fix you,” Cane said.  “Follow the action, Joan, slapping people in the face fixes them.”

“I didn’t think I needed fixing,” Joan protested. 

“Maybe you didn’t slap her hard enough,” Harley suggested.

“Well I don’t want to slap her again if I don’t have to,” Cane said.

“And I don’t want to get slapped again.”

“Let’s check,” Harley said.  “Hey Joan, how do you feel about Roentgen?’

“Oh, they’ve made some mistakes, but I think with the right-”

“She’s still broken, slap her again,” Harley ordered. 

“Hey wait-”

Cane complied, in spite of Joan’s attempts to back away. 

“Ow!”

“Quick, tell us how you feel about Vell!”

“What do I have to say for you to stop slapping me?” Joan asked.

“Slap her again,” Harley demanded.

“I don’t know, that sounded like normal Joan,” Cane said.

“I said slap her again, Cane!”

Cane obeyed.  Shortly after his hand made impact with her cheek, Joan grabbed Cane by the arm and held it firmly in place.

“Lay a hand on me again and you’re losing it,” she hissed.

“That’s definitely normal Joan,” Harley said.  “Good work, Cane.”

“I’m not happy about this,” he said.  Joan let his arm go.

“Fucking hell,” Joan said.  “Come on, let’s go slap my evil boyfriend.”

The group turned toward the faculty office as one and set out.  They made it exactly two steps before Lee turned to look at Goodwell, who had stepped along with them.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I assumed I was coming with,” Goodwell said, his voice dripping with desperation to adventure.  Considering he had already failed to stand up to Evil Vell once today, nobody saw any reason to give him a second chance.

“No,” Lee said flatly.  Harley pointed in his direction.

“Cane, slap that guy too,” she demanded.

“I thought he was already fixed?”

“He is, I just want you to slap him,” Harley said.  Cane nodded and walked towards Goodwell, who started walking backwards.

“I get the picture, I am not invited,” Goodwell said, rapidly retreating from Cane and his outstretched slapping hand.  The principal ran off and left the young loopers and friends to their own devices.

“Okay, no more creepy old dude,” Harley said.  “Let’s go unfuck Vell’s head.”

“Not looking forward to that,” Joan said.  “Dude’s as nice as they come normally.  He’s got to be as evil as it gets now.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried,” Lee said.  “In spite of his condition, Vell still has limited resources.  He can’t field too much resistance.”

◆◆◆

“I blame you for this,” Harley shouted at Lee.  Lee nodded as a bullet whizzed overhead.

“In my defense, it’s been two hours,” Lee said.  “Who builds this many killbots in two hours?”

A legion of weaponized robots bore down on them, raining a hail of gunfire down on Lee and company.  The suppressing fire hadn’t killed anyone yet, though Cane had gotten shot in the ass, which Harley was trying very hard not to laugh at.  Being underprepared for a weaponized robot army, the group’s progress had stalled for now.

“Evil Vell is turning out to be a much larger problem than anticipated,” Lee said.  “Perhaps we should approach this from the angle of prevention, rather than curing.”

A legion of killbots was a lot to deal with on an already hectic day.  Lee considered the merits of starting over and working to prevent Evil Vell in the first place, rather than trying to thwart him now.

“Nah, we got to stop Vell before he does something super evil,” Harley said.  “You know how he is.  Soon as he’s a good guy again he’s going to feel all guilty and emotional about it.”

“Oh, I suppose,” Lee said.  Whatever scheme Evil Vell was planning would likely weigh on regular Vell’s conscience later.  They might as well spare him the emotional turmoil.

“Leanne, how’re you feeling?”

Leanne slammed a fist into her open palm.  Harley nodded approvingly.

“Feeling punchy, good,” Harley said.  “How do you feel about punching killbots?”

This time, Leanne shook her head.  Her strength, while borderline superhuman, did not render her immune to bullets.  She’d be torn to shreds without appropriate protection.  But she did have an idea of who could solve that problem for her.  Leanne crawled across the low brick wall they were taking cover behind and made it to Joan’s side.  She mimicked the act of carving something into her palm and then pointed to the other side of the wall, at the robots.

“Are you playing fucking charades?” Joan asked.

Leanne repeated the motions, more insistently this time.

“Seriously, I have no idea what the fuck you’re doing,” Joan shouted.

“She’s asking if you can carve a rune that will make her bulletproof,” Lee shouted.  They were more accustomed to Leanne’s nonverbal communication skills.  Joan shook her head.

“No!” Joan said.  “We’re being shot at, now is not the time to carve shit!”

“Excuses excuses,” Harley said.  “Cane got shot in the ass, you don’t hear him whining.”

“It’s oddly less painful than I was expecting,” Cane said.  “I might just be in shock, though.”

“You’re definitely in shock, dude, just keep riding it,” Harley said.  “It is going to be a very literal pain in the ass when you come down from that adrenaline high.”

Cane bit his lip and tried to think about anything except the bullet hole in his buttocks.  Harley made it easier by continuing to yell.

“Anyway since Joan can’t really contribute, I can do something useful,” Harley said.  “Going to need you to make sure nothing bad happens to me for at least like two minutes, though.”

Before offering any further explanation, Harley went limp and slipped to the ground.

“Did she just die?”

“No, Cane, she’s just occupying her familiar’s body,” Lee explained.  “I imagine she’s using Botley to concoct some elaborate solution to our current dilemma.”

Lee watched bullets whiz overhead.  Her knowledge of Botley’s capabilities was limited, but the tiny robot didn’t seem much of a match for the legion of humanoid death-machines guarding Vell’s newly-claimed office.  Harley was usually full of surprises, however. 

Several minutes passed, and Harley snapped back to consciousness.  She then snapped her fingers and summoned Botley to her side.  The diminutive robot had an unusually large frame today, made all the larger by the massive, complicated looking apparatus strapped to his body.

“Is that the bomb from last week?” Lee demanded.

“There was a bomb last week?”  Joan and Cane said at once.  Harley and Lee ignored them.

“Yeah,” Harley said.

“You said you were getting rid of it!”

“It’s a bomb!  What did you think I was going to do, throw it in the trash?” Harley said.  “I was keeping it somewhere safe.”

“There’s no such thing as a safe bomb!”

“We’ll have this conversation later,” Harley said.  She grabbed the spherical bomb and detached it from Botley.   “Leanne, you’re good with balls, toss this thing.”

Were everybody not already hiding behind cover, they would’ve run for cover the second Harley tossed the bomb.  Leanne deftly caught it, set the timer, shot a glare at Harley to let her know the innuendo was not appreciated, and then hurled it over the wall they hid behind.

“Leanne, I will never underestimate your skills, but please do at least look before you throw a bomb anywhere,” Lee pleaded.  The explosion went off in the background just as Leanne shrugged.  Lee did have a point.  Debates on the correct usage of explosives would be saved until after they’d stopped Evil Vell.  The gunfire had stopped, so Leanne peeked her head over the wall.  Where there had once been a legion of killbots, there was now only a crater.  Leanne stood up and stretched her legs.  Taking cover was surprisingly hard on the joints.

“Looks as though the coast is clear,” Leanne said.  “Let’s proceed.”

“Yeah, let’s go smack Evil Vell in the face,” Harley said.  “Or as I think we should call him from now, on, E-Vell.  Get it?”

Harley mustered a giggle at her own pun.  No one else gave her so much as a polite chuckle.

“If you’re done making puns, I still have a bullet in my butt,” Cane said.  The explosion had bumped his heart rate enough to keep an adrenaline high going, but Cane was smart enough to know that wouldn’t last forever.

“I can staunch the bleeding, but that’s about it,” Joan said.  “We need a real doctor.”

“Anybody who wants to go into medicine probably also turned evil when the brain thingy went kaboom,” Harley said.

“Joan, I believe you should stay with Cane and keep him alive while the rest of us press on,” Lee suggested.  Joan considered a rebuttal before answering with a heavy sigh and a shrug.

“Yeah, sure, you and your posse go handle everything, as usual,” Joan grunted.  “Tell my evil boyfriend I said hi.”

The sarcastic grumbling stopped when Joan ordered Cane to take his pants off.  The trio of loopers seized on the opportunity to leave before that situation progressed any further.  Harley liked Cane’s butt just fine in its default state and had no desire to see what it looked like with an extra hole in it.  Now that the peanut gallery had been ditched, the loopers could talk (or in Leanne’s case, make various hand gestures) more openly.

“I wonder what E-Vell’s even up to,” Harley said.  “It’s the first loop, he can’t really do anything.”

“Likely he’s just using it as a test run for the second,” Lee said.  “Assuming he ever gets there.”

Leanne added to the discussion by pressing a finger to her temple, and then putting a hand on her lower back, approximating the location of Vell’s rune.

“You think he’d be experimenting with himself?”

Leanne made an odd gesture with her right arm, and then rubbed her fingertips together in the gesture that everyone somehow understood to mean “money”.

“Oh yeah, Kraid did say shit like that could make him rich,” Harley said.

“I imagine both versions of Vell would enjoy being rich,” Lee said.  “E-Vell may be willing to take some more extreme measures to get there, however.”

“God, there’s enough skeevy rich dudes in our life already,” Harley said.  “Let’s go slap him in the head.”

Harley took two confident steps forward, stepping past the wreckage of the killbots, and then bounced off of thin-air.  After she regained her footing, Harley took a curious look around and then tried stepping forward once more.  She was pushed back once again, more violently this time.  While the scientific method probably called for more repetition, she felt she had bounced off thin air enough to know that something was fuckardly.  Harley rapped her knuckles against thin air.  Lee followed it up with a more carefully probing brush of her finger.

“A kinetic barrier,” Lee said.  “How on earth did he get one of these set up so quickly?”

Harley kicked the magic barrier and let out a grunt of frustration.  E-Vell had somehow thought of everything.  Harley would bet her bottom dollar that there were even more obnoxious obstacles between them and E-Vell’s evil lair, assuming they got past this barrier.

“Shouldn’t he have gotten stupider when his brain got swapped?  I felt a little stupider.”

Lee rubbed her chin thoughtfully.  The level of intelligence of their brain-swapped friends had seemed to vary.

“You know how we just ditched our friends?” Lee said.  “I believe we may need to go fetch another.”

◆◆◆

“I apologize again for the loss of your killbots,” E-Vell said.  “But I must say they weren’t very good at the killing part.”

“I was not exactly having many opportunities for testing of them,” Sarah said.

“Fair enough,” E-Vell said.  “The kinetic barrier seems to be holding well, however.”

“The quantum labyrinth should be stalling them to a very good amount as well,” Sarah said. 

E-Vell nodded in approval.  He had figured Sarah would have the most resources on hand, and she had not disappointed.  He didn’t bother questioning why she had killbots and quantum labyrinths lying around.  The plan was what mattered.

“But why do we do all of this?  You were saying nothing matters at the earlier time.”

“This will all be erased, Sarah, but my memories will not,” E-Vell elaborated.  He double-checked the monitors through which he was observing the school and saw that his former friends were retreating.  He then tabbed the display over to the other projects he had in the works.  He made sure to unmute the audio briefly.  The captured students and teachers were still complaining about their imprisonment, and their pleas for mercy were music to E-Vell’s ears.

E-Vell sipped at a glass of wine in the strangely sadistic way that only the truly evil can manage.  He was mid-maniacal sip when the door slammed open, and he narrowly avoided doing a spit-take.

“E-Vell!” Harley shouted.  The other loopers stepped through the door, just on her heels.  “Why’re you being such a jackass?”

“What the- how did you get here so fast?” E-Vell said.  He turned to Sarah.  “You said the quantum labyrinth was explicitly deus ex machina proofed!”

“Never underestimate our ability to drop a deus,” Harley said.  Leanne sighed heavily.

“Everyone has been reversed, and that means everyone,” Lee said proudly.  “We called in a friend.”

A shadow loomed in the open doorway briefly.  E-Vell went through half a dozen nightmares scenarios in the second it took Renard to step through the door.

“It was a good effort, Vell, but Asterius-class quantum labyrinths are just a simple matter of thread inversion,” Renard said haughtily.  Thanks to the great brain inversion, the dumbest man on campus was now the smartest.  “And don’t even get me started on how easy it was to disentangle that spacial entangler.  Easy as untying my shoelaces.”

“Thank you kindly, Renard,” Lee said with a curtsy.

“Oh no, thank you,” Renard said.  “Vell has quite a nice setup for me to take over.”

At that moment, everyone remembered that Renard was usually about as nice as Vell.  The evil glimmer in his eyes quickly faded as Leanne bonked him on the head.

“Ow.” Renard said, rubbing a sore spot on his head.  “What am I doing?  And why do I have a sudden urge to tie my shoes?”

“It’s alright, dear, we’ll explain later, you just go sleep off that headache,” Lee said, patting Renard on the shoulder.  “We’ll take it from here.”

Renard accepted this and toddled off to go rest his aching head.  While he wandered off, E-Vell pressed a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him and started digging through the drawers of the principal’s desk. 

“Sarah, you’ve failed me, delay them a bit,” E-Vell commanded.  Sarah stepped up and immediately got slapped in the face by Harley.

“Ow.” Sarah said.  “I do know that the slapping is arousing for you, Harley, but not for me.  Please do not.”

“Sorry.  Had to do it to-” Harley caught herself about to explain and stopped.  “Were you not brain-swapped?”

Sarah said nothing.  Harley realized she had phrased it as a question and rolled her eyes.

“I thought your brain was all reversed, like everyone elses.”

“It was not,” Sarah said.  “Should my brain have been backwards?”

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” Harley said.  “Get on out of here, we’re going to beat up Vell.”

Sarah threw up a quick peace sign and promptly peaced out.  The loopers turned their attention to Vell.  With a triumphant flourish, E-Vell presented his final barrier of defense, his masterstroke to prevent his mind from being reverted.

“Is that a hockey helmet?” Harley asked.

“Yes.”

“Where did you even get that?  This school doesn’t have a hockey team.”

“That’s not relevant right now,” E-Vell said.  “What is relevant is-”

“Leanne, please rip his helmet off,” Lee asked. 

“Wait, you need to listen to me,” E-Vell demanded.

“I’ve had quite enough evil monologuing for one lifetime, thank you,” Lee said.  Leanne stepped towards E-Vell, ready to tear his helmet off.  E-Vell put one hand up to stop her in her tracks.

“I’m trying to help you,” he insisted.  “I’m evil, not stupid.  Nothing I do today matters.”

Leanne paused in her tracks.  E-Vell took that as a sign he was being allowed to continue.  He tapped his helmet thoughtfully.

“I took control of the school and its resources to help me solve that little mystery on my lower back,” E-Vell explained.  “And, admittedly, to watch some people suffer.  But it’s for a good cause.  Observe.”

E-Vell flipped the monitor on the computer in the principal’s office.  Numerous video feeds showed students sealed in laboratories, nervously carrying out research while being watched over by killbots.

“Okay, not a fan of that and we’re only three seconds in,” Harley said.

“Yeah yeah, nobody likes slavery, get over it,” E-Vell said.  “Nobody’s even going to remember all the suffering.  But I’ll remember the results of it.  The secrets of immortality, ours to own, and ours to share.  Or sell, rather.”

“All I’m hearing is off-brand Kraid,” Harley said.  “Leanne, punch him.”

“Can I actually finish explaining before you get right to the punching?” E-Vell asked.  “There is potential in what I am doing that goes far beyond simple profit.”

“If you start talking about establishing some new world order or any of that shit I’m going to punch you myself,” Harley said.

“Not if I slap him first,” Lee said.

“I’m not talking about any new order, obviously, starting tomorrow I’m going to be the same gutless coward as always,” E-Vell said.  “Hardly Fuhrer material.  I’m not doing what I’m doing because this incident made me evil-”

“You attacked us with an army of killbots!”

“You have literally enslaved half the campus,” Lee said, gesturing to the monitors that still displayed the enslaved students.  Vell shrugged.

“Okay, yes, that stuff specifically I did because I’m evil,” Vell said.  “But the rest of it!  My ultimate goal isn’t do what I can’t do because I’m good.  It’s to do what I can’t do because I’m afraid.  This whole thing didn’t just turn good to evil, it turned my cowardice to courage.”

For the first time in his entire evil monologue, E-Vell said something that didn’t make Leanne want to punch him. 

“Then what are you after?” Lee asked.  Her voice was quiet, almost like she was afraid to hear the answer.

“This rune on my back...You all know about it by now, and you’ve asked me what, when, how, why, but you know what basic question we’ve never lingered on?  The one question we’ve all been quietly avoiding?”

Leanne bit her tongue.  She had a lot of unspoken questions, but she could see where Vell was leading.

“Who?”

E-Vell put one hand on his back, on the rune that had brought him back to life long ago, and felt his fingertips tremble at the barely-contained power within it.

“Things this complex don’t just happen,” E-Vell spat.  “Someone did this to me. And I want -I need to find out who.  Because whoever the fuck did this is probably the most powerful person on the planet.”

Even Kraid and all his wealth, all his immoral methods, could barely scratch the surface of a seven-lined rune, much less create and charge a ten-lined one.  But someone out there had done just that -and done it quickly and easily, by all available evidence.

“Working backwards from this rune is the easy way, but it’s the cowards way,” E-Vell spat.  “I want answers, and I want them straight from the source.”

“Do you think that’s smart?” Harley said.  “What if they like...re-dead you?”

“That’s why I’m doing it today,” E-Vell said.  “Because I’m brave enough to actually do it.  Come tomorrow I’m going to be the same meek little whiner that’s always ‘uh’-ing his way through every challenge life throws at him.”

E-Vell’s face took on a surprising look of introspection, though it was slightly undercut by the fact that he was still wearing a hockey helmet.  It was hard for anyone but a hockey player to look serious while wearing such a helmet, and Vell looked more like a hockey stick than a player.  The moment of self-reflection passed, and Vell snapped to attention yet again.

“And besides, there’ll be plenty of other benefits,” Vell said.  “If I figure this shit out I’ll be richer than god.  I could go to the moon, buy my own island, remake Game of Thrones Season 8!”

“You don’t even like that show!”

“I do now,” E-Vell said.  He tapped his helmet lightly.  “Brain swap.”

“Right.  Speaking of, Leanne, I think it’s slapping time.”

Leanne agreed.  While E-Vell had made a compelling point about his research and potential discoveries, he was still keeping people captive and forcing them to work against their will.  Leanne wouldn’t stand for that.

“Hey, hold on, there are benefits for you guys too,” E-Vell said.  He took a few steps backwards to try and delay Leanne’s approach.  “I could help Lee with her parents.”

“I already have a plan that doesn’t involve slavery, thank you,” Lee said.

“Come on!  It’d be faster this way,” E-Vell protested.  “Harley, you have to...fuck, you’re generally content with life, aren’t you?”

Harley nodded.  She didn’t have any major complaints, certainly nothing warranting E-Vell being allowed to keep up the slavery.

“God damn you’re chipper,” Vell said.  “Okay, hold on, cut it out Leanne.  You know, if I was rich, we’d have enough resources we could bother you less.”

Leanne did not stop marching towards Vell, and eventually he ran out of room to back away.

“Come on, Leanne, you could spend more time practicing, you’d never have to put up with our shenanigans again-”

Leanne took one final step and cocked her fist back.  E-Vell cracked one last smile and lowered his voice, speaking just quietly enough that only Leanne could hear.

“-You could spend more time with Elijah.”

The fist hung in mid-air.  Vell smiled to himself.

“Come on, Leanne.  My usual self is a lot of things, but I’ve never been an idiot.  I figured things out.”

Leanne let her fist drop.  For now.  E-Vell found the confidence to step forward.

“Work with me, and you can spend a lot less time with us, and a lot more time with him.”

To E-Vell’s credit, Leanne spent a whole five seconds considering that offer, and then a whole zero-point-five seconds punching him in the head.

◆◆◆

“Ugh, my head,” Vell moaned, as he sat down at the usual breakfast table.  He’d woken up on a new loop, no longer evil, but with no idea how he’d gotten to that point.  “What happened after Leanne punched me?”

“Well for you, not much,” Harley said.  “Leanne sort of punched you into a coma.”

Leanne waved apologetically, then tapped her head, feigned the motion of punching, and then shrugged.

“Yeah, I get it, hard to estimate how hard to punch a guy wearing a helmet,” Vell said.  “And, uh, I sort of deserved it.”

“Well, that evil version of you did, anyway,” Harley said.  “If anything, all that nonsense makes me like the default you more.”

“Yes, if your reversed self is that evil, it reflects well on your usual state,” Lee said.

“Thanks, I guess,” Vell said.  “Still.  Sorry about the mess.  I don’t know if you guys found it, but I was definitely also building a nuke.”

“Oh yeah, we cleaned that up,” Harley said.  “Where’d you even get the fissile material for it, anyway?”

“Used the radioactive bananas left over from banana day,” Vell said.

“I see.  Speaking of what you were up to, Vell…”

Vell sighed.  He had been hoping they could all just forget about his evil self’s larger objective.  Like E-Vell had said, he was scared of what he might find, possibly for good reason.

“Nothing useful,” Vell said.  “The only data anyone even produced was a bunch of different colored pairs of dots.”

Vell had gone to the trouble of recreating the images his enslaved researchers had created.  Paired dots of various colors, with one dot always only a slightly different shade than the other, stared out from a blank page like mismatched eyes.  Nobody knew what the odd pairs were supposed to mean, but Vell had recreated them and held on to them regardless, in case they turned out to be a clue.  He considered that to be a very slim chance, however.

“I sort of think the kidnapped guys just wanted to show me something so I’d let them out.  Should I, like, apologize to people for that, somehow?  Even if they don’t remember?”

“I think it would just cause everyone involved more problems, dear,” Lee said.  “Besides, around half those people you had enslaved tried to sacrifice me to a volcano goddess last week.  If we start holding people accountable for what they do during the daily apocalypses, it’ll never end.”

“Sometimes you turn evil and enslave your friends, sometimes you form volcano cults, sometimes you accidentally punch a guy into a coma.  Shit happens, we roll with it.”

Harley finished her breakfast and then looked at Vell.

“Speaking of shit happening, Sarah just had all those killbots lying around, yeah?”

This time Vell nodded.

“Right.  I’m going to have to have a talk with her about that.”

Harley stood up and headed for Sarah’s laboratory to have a very long talk about the ethics of killbot storage.  Lee excused herself for similar reasons, as she had to see about properly storing some radioactive bananas.  As soon as those two were out of earshot, Leanne and Vell exchanged an awkward look.

“So,” Vell began.

Leanne answered with silence.

“About Elijah,” Vell continued.  Leanne shook her head and nodded in Elijah’s direction.  He was sitting nearby, as usual, waiting for Leanne to join him.  She usually hopped right over to his table as soon as the other loopers had left.  Leanne pressed a finger to her lips, shushing Vell.

“Okay, I won’t tell anyone,” Vell said.  Leanne patted him on the shoulder.  “Harley already has her suspicions, though.  She mentioned it once.”

Leanne thanked him for the info with a thumbs up.  It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Harley and Lee found out, but Leanne preferred to keep her life as a looper and her life as a normal human being separate.  She didn’t dislike any of her partners in looping, but they were all complicated individuals in complicated circumstances.  Leanne preferred to keep her life simple.  She stood, waved goodbye to Vell, and headed back to her normal life.  Elijah smiled warmly as she sat down.

“Finally done with your club meeting, huh?” he asked.  “The whole squad hasn’t left yet, though.”

“That’s Vell,” Leanne said.  “He’s cool.”

Elijah nodded to Vell, who was packing up to leave.  He gave an awkward wave and excused himself.

“He’s dating that red-eyed chick, right?  You said you want to go on a double-date sometime-”

Leanne’s mortified expression stopped Elijah mid-sentence.

“What?  You said he’s cool, right?”

“Oh he’s fine, yeah,” Leanne said.  “His girlfriends a fucking psychopath, though, you stay away from her.”

“So...He’s cool, but he’s dating a lunatic?”

“Yep.”

“That seems odd.”

“Just got to know how to balance the good with the bad,” Leanne said.  She tapped her head.  Knowing how to keep things separate was a virtue in which Leanne specialized.

While Vell walked away, oblivious to their criticism of his girlfriend, he pulled out his phone.  Having been responsible for most of the mess on the first loop, he had volunteered to be in charge of preventing that mess on the second loop.  He had worked with both Cane and Principal Goodwell to make sure the neurology department never repeated the disastrous experiment.  Things should have been well underway to stop the experiment by now, but Vell wanted to be doubly sure they’d never end up with swapped brains again.

vharlan03:
hey cane
hows your department handling the change of plans
you said it might be hard to convince them right?
nobodys mad at you are they

CaneBrain2:
not at me
i didn’t have to do much
goodwell came in
confiscated most of the shit
then left

vharlan03:
confiscated??

CaneBrain2:
yeah
just said some stuff about credible risk
and walked away with like
three months of work
dudes in my department are pissed
but hey, they’re not pissed at me
none of them liked goodwell anyway

vharlan03:
why?

CaneBrain2:
this isn’t the first time
he messes with the neuro department like
A LOT
he’s always lingering around
“checking in on” experiments
shit like that
nobody knows why
my theory:
he’s just a fucking weirdo
with nothing better to do

vharlan03:
you’re probably right about that

CaneBrain2:
i am right about a lot of things
see you around harlan

Vell put his phone away.  This was the first time they’d ever asked Goodwell to meddle with the neurology department.  He couldn’t imagine why the principal would take such a peculiar interest in a field so far removed from his own history in astrophysics.  Unless, of course, Goodwell was up to something.

Vell decided it had to be that.  Someone was always up to something around here. 

Chapter 23: Gorillas in the Midst

Harley finished the last of her cookies and licked some melted chocolate off her fingertips.  While they had prevented the brain-swapping circumstances that had led to Lee’s initial cookie craving, the lingering memories, and therefore the cookie craving, remained.  She and her friends now indulged in that craving with gusto.  The trays barely had time to cool before they were picked clean, but the cookie dough was running out.

“I think I’ve got one more tray in me and then we’re done,” Lee said.

“That’s cool,” Harley said, slapping a hand against her bulging stomach.  “I think I’ve already had too many.”

“Well, I don’t know, maybe we can just box them up and give them to our friends,” Vell suggested.  He’d nearly hit his upper limit on cookies already.

“Haha, no, I’m eating all those sons of bitches,” Harley said.  “And Lee’s barely had any, so she needs to get some too.”

Lee waved off Harley’s concerns, assuring them all she’d had enough cookies, but convincing no one.  The next tray came out of the oven, was given just enough time to cool so that no one would burn their tongues, and then picked clean.  Lee did end up taking the lion’s share, at her friends insistence.

“Ugh.  I shouldn’t pig out like this unless it’s the first loop,” Harley said.  “I got to go help Himiko with a project and then probably do two-thousand pushups to burn all these calories.”

“And here I thought you burned calories through vigorous sex,” Lee said.

“God, I wish,” Harley said.  “But I only ever do that on the first loop.  Anyway, see you guys.”

Harley stood, grabbed her things, and headed for the door.  She opened it, took one look outside, and then slammed the door shut, whipped around, and pressed her back to it.

“The gorilla’s back,” she said breathlessly.

“What?”

“The gorilla,” Harley said, emphasizing every syllable.  “Is. Back.”

Harley stopped bracing her back against the door and walked around the room looking for something that could barricade the door.  While she did so, Vell walked up to Lee’s front door, and opened it a crack.  He peeked through, and the gorilla leaned forward to peek right back.  Vell shut it instantly and put his own back to the door, mimicking Harley’s previous posture.

“Oh shit that’s a big gorilla.”

“Why did you open the door?” Lee demanded.

“I don’t know,” Vell said.  “I wasn’t expecting an actual gorilla!”

“Everything you’ve seen this semester and a gorilla is where you draw the line?”

“It’s after the apocalypse,” Vell said defensively.  “Things are supposed to be, like, normal now!”

“When are things ever normal?”

After snapping at Vell, Harley asked for helping pushing the table and some chairs against the door.  Lee and Vell aided her in barricading the door and then they all fled to the opposite side of the room.

“What do we do now?”

“I’m good to cower for a bit,” Harley said.  They went with her idea.  The trio clung together and waited in breathless silence for any sign of motion or hostility on the part of the gorilla.  None came.

“Maybe it left,” Vell suggested.

“I’m not checking,” Harley said.

“Oh, wait, I got this,” Vell said.  He pulled his glasses out of his pocket.

“Ooh, do those things have x-ray settings?  Have you been looking at people naked all the time?” Harley asked.

“No and no,” Vell said.  “They can thermal scan, though.”

“Nerd,” Harley said.  Vell sighed and put his glasses on.  He just as quickly took them off.

“Nope, definitely still a gorilla out there,” he said.  Lee sighed and stood up from her cowering position.

“Well we can’t sit in the corner all night,” Lee said.

“Can’t we?” Vell asked.  Lee shrugged.  They could, but she didn’t want to.  It would be bad for their knees.

“We should call someone, at the very least,” Lee said.

“Oh, I’ll text Leanne!  She can probably take a gorilla in a fistfight.”

Harley pulled out her phone and pulled Leanne’s contact info.  It had been a while since the two had texted, so she was at the bottom of Harley’s list.

HARL33:
hey leanne
hey!
gorillas back
trapped us in lees dorm
come fight it plz

Galgamesh:
Are you crazy?
I’m not fighting a gorilla.

HARL33:
why not!!!!!!! >:C

Galgamesh:
Animal cruelty.
Also, gorillas fight dirty.
Just stay inside and don’t provoke it.

Harley tossed her phone aside and crossed her arms in a huff.

“Well, Leanne’s useless,” she said.  “Who else do we know that can fight a gorilla?”

“That is a very rare skill set, darling,” Lee said.  “Perhaps we should simply stay inside and avoid the gorilla.  It went away eventually the first time.”

“Went away?” Vell asked.  “Where did it go?”

“I don’t know, Vell, it never occurred to me to ask,” Lee said.  As intriguing as the mystery of a fully grown gorilla appearing and then disappearing on an artificial island was, Lee had higher priorities than solving the mystery of the gorilla, namely not getting mauled to death by the gorilla.

“Well, I guess, we, uh, wait, then,” Vell said.

He crossed his arms and sat down in a chair, occasionally glancing at the door to see if the gorilla was still present.  It was.  Harley and Lee joined him in trying to relax.  Several minutes passed in silence.

“If I’d known we’d be camping out here, I would’ve saved more cookies for later,” Harley said.  Lee hummed in agreement.  Vell did a gorilla check.  It was still waiting just outside the door.  Occasionally it scratched itself.

“So,” Vell said.  “Other than the apocalypse, anyone do anything interesting today?”

“I did actually learn something new in Hydrokinesis class,” Lee said.  “There’s an interesting trick you can do to conserve energy when making waves.”

◆◆◆

“And after my dad lassoed the cow, apparently I was supposed to tackle it?  Like, uh, physically?”

“You’re saying that like you didn’t,” Harley said.

“I was fourteen,” Vell said.  “And I was even scrawnier back then.  Of course I didn’t tackle a full grown bull.”

“So you just let it get away?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Vell said.  “My dad was pissed, but he got over it.  It was just one cow.”

“Fascinating,” Lee said.  It narrowly avoided sounding sarcastic, though Lee was entirely sincere.  She appreciated every glimpse into Vell’s relatively normal childhood.  It helped her adjust the benchmarks of her own insane upbringing.

“So no chance of you doing a gorilla tackle, then,” Harley said.

“Definitely not,” Vell insisted.

“At this rate we’re going to be stuck here all night,” Harley whined.  “I had stuff to do today.”

She put her head in her hands and moped.  Lee rolled over in her seat and faced towards the door.

“How is it we’ve thwarted alien invasions but can’t handle a single gorilla at our doorstep?”

“We usually get an, uh, advance warning about the invasions,” Vell said.  “The gorilla is a surprise.”

The next surprise came in the form of a knock at the door.  All three froze in place, horrified at the possibility that the gorilla might have finally started to break down the door.  The knocking was polite and ordered, however.

“Hey, I heard you guys were stuck in the dorm,” Renard said.  “What’s going on?”

“There’s an adult male gorilla outside the door,” Lee shouted.

“No there isn’t,” Renard said.  The three loopers shared a look and pushed the barricade away from the door slightly so that they could peek out.  Renard waved hello, and the gorilla stared at them from over his shoulder.  All three screamed at once.  Vell grabbed Renard by the arm and pulled him inside as Lee and Harley slammed the door shut.

“You said there was no gorilla!”

“No, you said there was an adult male gorilla,” Renard said.  “And there wasn’t.  That’s a female gorilla.  I assume.  I don’t want to misgender anyone, least of all a gorilla.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t know that the gorilla cares about such things,” Lee said.  “You should stay here with the rest of us until it’s gone.  Even overnight, if necessary.”

“I didn’t bring any PJ’s, though,” Renard said. 

◆◆◆

Vell woke up pretty early.  Lee’s couch was comfortable, but not that comfortable.  Renard was still sleeping peacefully on a loveseat across the room.  Vell groggily adjusted his slept-in clothes and grabbed his glasses off the side table.  He turned on the heat scan and stared at the door for a moment.  The heat signature of the gorilla was gone.  Cautiously, Vell pried the door open and poked his head through.  The earthy smell of gorilla musk still hung in the air, but there was no ape to be seen.

Vell took a step away from the gorilla stink and then breathed a deep sigh of relief.  Nobody knew where it had come from, and nobody knew where it went, but the gorilla was gone.

For now.

Chapter 24: Moneybreakers

Another set of calculations failed to produce the intended result, so Lee threw away the whole sheet of paper.  Mathematics had never been her strong suit, so she didn’t have much to gain by working backwards.  She’d had to bother Harley for help with the equations in the first place, and she didn’t want to bug her friend twice in the same day.  It was only her mana-manipulation course work, and Lee didn’t particularly care for it in the first place.  She set the papers aside to work on her preferred field of study, Hydrokinesis.

Lee turned on the sink just long enough to gather some water to work with, saving it from flowing down the drain with a wave of her fingers.  The magically-shaped bubble of water flowed along with the motions of Lee’s right hand, dancing at her beck and call to form a perfect, glassy sphere.  She moved the orb through the air back to her worktable and set it down, letting the orb sit for a moment, retaining its perfection, before flicking her wrist to shift it into a new shape.

It started as a snowflake, idly spinning in the air like a dangling christmas ornament, before shifting into a model of the campus clocktower.  After that, Lee escalated her efforts, changing the water into a sculpt of Harley’s face, then Vell’s, then her own, then Harley again.  She let the watery sculpture of Harley linger for a bit as she contemplated what to do next.

While she waited, the universe conspired to distract Lee.  Her phone buzzed, and Lee froze the Harley water sculpture in place for a moment while she checked it.  She was surprised to find a private chat message from Joan.

redeyes02:
Lee!
Do u wana spend some of ur dad’s money on a good cause?

Lee:
Always.

redeyes02:
Great!
The cause is ‘Joan wants pizza’ and u can contribute by buying Joan (me) a pizza
Additional benefit: Joan (me) will even share the pizza with you

Lee:
How generous of Joan (You).

redeyes02:
I know rite.
Anyway no pressur or anything
just thought it would b fun
Pizza is fun
You is fun
Pizza+You=More Fun
Does my math check out?

Lee:
The theory is sound
I’ll meet you in the lunchroom

redeyes02:
how bout my dorm instead?
That way if we wanna talk trash about yr dad no one will overhear us

Lee:
A good plan.
Why not my room, though?  It’s slightly closer to the lunchroom.
You won’t have to walk so far.

redeyes02:
fine by me
I’ll go grab the pizza and be there soon!

Lee breathed a sigh of relief.  The only two things she knew about Joan’s dorm room was that she’d previously stored a borderline psychopathic conspiracy board there, and also that she and Vell had sex there on a frequent basis.  Neither thought made her very comfortable spending time in Joan’s room.

To kill time while waiting for Joan to show up, Lee straightened up her dorm.  This killed barely any time at all, since her dorm was always clean.  Lee kicked her feet for a moment before jumping to the sound of a knock on the door.  She opened the way for Joan and a pizza box which barely fit through the door.

“That is quite sizable,” Lee noted.

“Yeah, I was going to get something more reasonable, but then I remembered it’s your dad’s money we’re spending, so I asked for the biggest pizza they had,” Joan said.  She looked down at the box, which was nearly half the size of her own body.  “I admittedly was not expecting it to be this big.”

“This is a college after all, students love pizza,” Lee said.  “The table’s right over there.”

Joan craned her neck to look across the dorm and then stared at Lee.

“You want to move the melting ice head first?”

Without even turning to look, Lee waved her arm and the half-melted Harley sculpture sailed through the air and slammed right back into the sink.

“Taken care of,” Lee said with a forced smile.  Joan decided not to question that and instead focused on the matter at hand: pizza.  She put the massive box down on the table and eagerly cracked it open to grab a slice nearly the size of her head.  Lee managed a single slice before she had to break and let her appetite recharge, but Joan wolfed down two before she even stopped to talk.

“So, Lee, what was up with the weird ice head?”

“Just practicing my hydrokinesis,” Lee said.  “It started as a sculpture of Harley, but it sort of, well, melted.”

“Ice tends to do that,” Joan noted.  “Why Harley, though?”

“Oh, I just, well, you know, I see her so often, if I want to make a detailed sculpture, it’s easy to make her from memory.”

“Right.”

Joan lifted the lid of the pizza box, but then thought better of it.  She examined Lee’s dorm to take her mind off of more pizza.  Despite only being a second year student, Lee occupied one of the Senior dorms, the most spacious and private dorms on campus.  Her parents had insisted that their darling daughter be given such a dorm right off the bat, rather than having to spend her first year with roommates, as every other student did.  In spite of the massive dorm available to her, Lee had barely decorated, and most of the space sat empty.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lee?”

While Lee would usually deny such a request, she had already ranted about most of her deep-seated psychological issues several days ago.  She saw no harm in a little more soul-baring.

“Go ahead.”

“What’s your dating life like?”

In answer, Lee snapped open the pizza box, grabbed a slice, and shoved half of it into her mouth in a single massive bite.  She then turned to Joan and gestured to the chipmunk like bulge of her cheeks.

“Can’t talk with your mouth full,” Joan said flatly.  “Right.  I can take a hint.  Sorry I asked.”

After Lee overcame her initial moment of panic -and then spent a solid minute chewing her reactionary mouthful of pizza- she folded her hands on her lap apologetically.

“Sorry, dear.  Force of habit,” Lee admitted. “Just another way I dodge uncomfortable questions from my parents.”

“You just shove shit in your mouth?”

“They were very insistent that I never talk with my mouth full, and that is apparently one thing they don’t want to look like hypocrites on,” Lee explained.  They were just fine being hypocrites about other things, which made them hypocrites about their desire to be hypocrites, which created a very circular spiral of hypocrisy that Lee didn’t like to think about.

“Well, back on topic, you still don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Joan said.  “If it makes you uncomfortable-”

“No, I should,” Lee said.  “I should be able to talk about things with you that I can’t with them.  My parents are soulless monsters.  You’re not.”

“Aww, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me,” Joan said.  This earned a coy smile from Lee, though it faded as she drifted back to the topic at hand.

“It all comes back to my parents once again, you know,” Lee said.  “I wasn’t really allowed to socialize much on my own until they sent me here.  Before that, the only people I ever spoke to were people who they paid to be around me.”

“All of whom were British,” Joan said.  Lee gave a stiff nod.  Her parents efforts to cultivate a “charming” accent in their daughter had left her with a very limited social circle.

“Exactly.  As a result of that treatment, I find it very difficult to socialize normally, much less with, ah,” Lee paused to go red in the face for a moment.  “Romantic intent.”

“Ah, das ist unsinn,” Joan said.  “You socialize just fine.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“You socialize just fine?” Joan repeated. 

“No, before that,” Lee said.  “Were you speaking German for a moment?”

“I’m usually speaking German,” Joan said.  She knew English, but preferred her moth tongue.  “Didn’t the campus do that auto-translation thingy?”

“It did not,” Lee said.  She checked the clock and memorized the time.  “Such disruptions to the school’s enchantments are not uncommon, when there is a large burst of magical energy.”

Lee grabbed her purse from a nearby counter top and shouldered it.  She paused for a moment, turning a cautious ear to the world around her.  Such a magical hiccup often marked the daily apocalypse.

“Why so intense all of a sudden, Lee?” Joan asked.  “Is this another avoidance mechanism?”

“No,” Lee said.  “Just keep an ear out, dear, I think we might be due for trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

A sudden scratching at the door of Lee’s bedroom provided an answer that Lee could not.  She tried to pause and analyze the sound -it was something dull, metallic, and it acted without rhythm.  That meant it probably wasn’t another utahraptor in Lee’s bedroom, but she had no idea what else it could be. 

“Joan, darling, would you mind turning on the sink?”

Without a word, Joan backed out of her seat and towards the sink, never taking her eyes off the noisy bedroom door.  She reached out to turn the handle, pausing as a loud pinging noise echoed across the dorm.  Joan drew her hand back as something swatted it, leaving a large bruise.

“Ow!  What the fuck was-”

Another loud pinging sound accompanied something else hitting Joan in the head.  She ducked down and covered her head as the loud noises, and the impacts, continued.  A glint of silver bounced through the air, ricocheting off surfaces and striking Joan every time it bounced.

“Ow ow ow!  Lee, help!”

“Sorry, just a moment,” Lee said.  Her bedroom door was now rattling nearly off its hinges, before finally the handle turned and the door cracked open.  Another surge of silver, this time joined by flecks of gold and brighter colors, surged through the air towards Lee.  She reached into her purse and, in one fluid motion, drew her whip, swinging it at the oncoming tide of glittering pain.  She managed to disrupt most of the metallic surge, though some of the sparkling assailants still struck true.  One of them impacted her wrist, and Lee felt something cold and metallic wrap around her arm.

A necklace, a gift from her parents deliberately left unworn, coiled itself around Lee’s wrist and pulled downwards.  The metallic links exerted unnatural strength as they dragged Lee’s arm down, towards the leg of the table she stood near.  As the hand holding her whip drew nearer and nearer to the table, the necklace extended its chain links and wrapped around the table leg, binding Lee in place with a golden chain.

With practiced deftness (and a bit of help from the magical nature of the whip), Lee tossed her whip from her bound hand to the other and flicked it in the direction of the sink.  The end of the whip coiled around a handle and Lee pulled, letting the water flow.  What started as a small burst became a torrent at Lee’s call, and a wave of water swept across the entire apartment, freezing around anything Lee deemed a threat.

When the wave passed, a slightly bruised and slightly damp Joan stood to appraise the situation.  Lee was gathering her icy prisoners on the table, next to the now-soggy pizza box, to examine them.  The necklace that had sought to bind her wrist was now joined by several other necklaces, a few bracelets, a handful of rings, and some loose change.  Their icy prisons wiggled slightly as the malevolent metal within struggled to free itself.  Joan stared down at the assortment of items and then looked up to Lee for an explanation.

“Why is your jewelry trying to kill us?”

“Not just jewelry,” she said, pointing out the quarters and nickels that had been bouncing off Joan just a few moments ago.  “Money too.”

“So metals, then,” Joan said.

“Not metals,” Lee corrected.  “Otherwise the components in our smartphones would be trying to kill us.  It’s valuables.”

“Still leaning towards metals,” Joan said, but she had better things to do right now than defend her own theories.  “Why is random metal stuff trying to kill us?”

“I have no idea, but I believe we shall find out, dear,” Lee said.  She coiled her whip and waved it towards the door.  Sounds of panic and violence were already ringing in from the halls outside, as well as through the windows, reflecting the chaos that was quickly spreading across campus.  “Let’s go find Harley and Vell, shall we?”

Joan had a few other ideas, but she kept them to herself, mostly because Lee was the one with the magic.  And the whip.

◆◆◆

The halls were a sorry sight, but Lee took the carnage in stride, as usual.  Seeing a man who’d been shredded to death by killer dollar bills was new, admittedly, but she’d seen her share of blood and gore across a few hundred apocalypses.  Lee shredded the murderous money with blades of ice, and Joan examined the scraps.

“Paper money too, eh,” she said.  “I guess you were right.  It is valuables.”

“Put that down, dear, there’s blood on it,” Lee cautioned. 

“I’ve handled blood before, it’s fine,” Joan said.  That earned a concerned stare from Lee.  “I’m going for a medical degree, I’ve done dissections.  Even took out a human heart once.”

The concerned stare intensified.

“I put it back!”

After noticing no changes in the intensity or level of concern in Lee’s eyes, Joan decided to change the subject.

“Did you text Harley yet?”

“Yes, she’s set up something of a safe zone in the robotics lab,” Lee said.  “And has Vell gotten back to you?”

“Yeah, he’s apparently trying the same routine in his dorm room,” Joan said.  “We should probably head there first.  Harley’s robot army can probably hold out longer than Vell swatting quarters with a heavy book, or whatever he’s doing.”

“Don’t underestimate Vell, dear,” Lee said.

“Only when it comes to violence,” Joan shrugged.  “That guy not only wouldn’t hurt a fly, I don’t think he could.”

◆◆◆

Lee stepped casually over the piles of broken jewelry and shattered coins.  Joan stopped to examine the carnage for a moment.  Dead center in the piles of glittering gore, guns drawn, was Vell, standing guard in front of his dorm room door.

“Hey Lee,” he said.

“Morning Vell.  I see you’ve been putting your guns to good use.”

Joan picked up one of the quarters that had been shot down.  She looked through the bullet-hole dead-center in George Washington’s face and examined every other coin, each of which had a matching hole clean through them.

“Having you just been shooting coins out of the air?”

“Yeah,” Vell said.

“Those things move at like a hundred miles an hour!”

“Yeah,” Vell said.

“How are you doing that?” Joan demanded.

“I, uh, aim at them, and then I shoot them,” Vell said.  He gestured with one of his pistols to demonstrate.

“Like it’s easy?”

“Is it supposed to be hard?”

Joan opened her mouth for another protest, and decided to stop herself before she spoke.  The silence let Vell hear another rattle of incoming jewelry, and he turned his gun to the right and fired a shot without actually looking that direction.  An explosion of silver and jewel shards scattered at the end of the hall, confirming the hit. 

“Good...shot,” Joan said.  Vell turned to examine what he had shot.  Most people did that before they fired, but that was apparently not necessary for Vell.

“Eh, I pulled a bit to the left,” he said.  Joan bit her tongue and moved on.

“Anyway, who all you got stashed in that dorm?”

“Oh, you know, my roommates, Freddy, that other blonde guy named Freddy, uh...several other people on the floor.  Huh.  I should really get to know more people.”

“Let’s save socializing for later,” Lee suggested. 

“Yeah, we’ll have to, I’m pretty sure they barricaded the door behind me,” Vell said.  He knocked on the door of the dorm with the butt of his pistol.  “Hey guys, I’m still alive!”

“Good for you,” Luke’s voice shouted back.  “Do you want to come in?  Because that’ll take a while.”

“We got a lot of shit piled up in front of this door,” Cane said.

“Nah, I should be good, thanks though,” Vell said.  “We’re probably going to go pick up Harley and figure things out from there.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Freddy shouted.

“Will do,” Vell said.  He holstered his guns and headed for the exit, along with Lee and Joan.

“What a guy,” Joan said.  “People are dropping like flies and all he can think to tell his crush is ‘hi’.”

“The awkwardness is part of his charm,” Lee said.

“I guess if you find that sort of stuff charming,” Joan said.  She then pointed to the door of her own dorm.  “I want to stop in and grab something.  Mind guarding the door while Vell helps me out, Lee?”

“I suppose,” Lee said.  Joan gave a thumbs up, then dragged Vell into their dorm by the wrist.  He double-checked the windows while she started digging around in her work desk.

“So what’re you looking for?” Vell asked.

“Just something that could be useful,” Joan replied.  “Though I also wanted to ask you something.  Freddy’s crush on Harley got me thinking about romance…”

“Wait, seriously?  Now?”

“Well, I mean-” Joan stopped and her eyes went wide.  “Oh no, not that.  I don’t want to bang- unless you want to?”

“Not right now, thanks.”

“Okay, fine. Fine, right,” Joan said, looking a little disappointed.  “That wasn’t what I had in mind.  At first.  I was thinking about Lee.  Has she ever mentioned like, having a crush on someone?  Or even just that she thinks someone’s hot?”

“Uh, no?  Not that I know of.”

“Damn.”

“I’m, uh, glad you’re looking out for her, but I think we have bigger problems than getting Lee a date.”

“For sure,” Joan said.  She continued rummaging through her desk.  She opened one that contained the research notes she’d supposedly thrown out and slammed it shut just as fast.  Luckily Vell hadn’t been looking.  “I’m just thinking, like, traumatic situations make people want companionship, right?”

“I think so?  I’m no psychologist but that sounds right.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m right,” Joan insisted.  “Anyway, I’m just thinking like, long term, after the murder money is dealt with, we got to get Lee a girlfriend.  Speaking of dealing with it-”

Joan grabbed a small chunk of black stone and clenched it tightly in her fist, trying to obscure most of it from view.  She pulled the rock out of her drawer and then shoved it into her pocket as fast as she could.

“Okay, I’m good, let’s go,” she said.

“Okay.  What’d you grab, though?”

“Just a little something something for an emergency,” Joan said.  “Like Harley’s always saying, ‘don’t even worry about it’.”

Vell shrugged.  He asked for a lot of trust from other people, the least he could do was occasionally trust in return.  The two stepped back into the hall, rejoining Lee.

“Are we all ready to go?”

“Should be good,” Joan said.  “Can’t imagine it’ll be too much trouble.  Lee’s the richest person on campus and we already dealt with all her shit.”

◆◆◆

Vell dove behind one of the benches in the quad and shoved one of his 666-shooters into the holster to let the magic reload it.

“So, not really going well,” Vell shouted.  He peeked over the bench at the swarm of dollar bills chasing down Lee.  The swarm had been chasing people across the quad, and was now hunting down Lee.  Since it was ignoring Vell, he had plenty of time to shoot the bills out of the air, to surprising little effect so far.

“Paper money is valid legal tender that can be exchanged at a bank unless fifty percent or more of it is destroyed,” Lee shouted.  “It’s going to require a bit more than a bullet hole, dear!”

“We need to do something or Lee’s going to get herself killed,” Joan said.  Lee had no water to freeze them with, and her other forms of magic were proving ineffective against the horde.  “Come on, Vell, can’t you do some pyromancy or something?”

“All I really know how to do is set myself on fire, and that wouldn’t help,” Vell said.  He drew his guns and fired another volley at the cloud of dollars chasing Lee.  “Don’t worry, I got this.  Lee’s a surprisingly good sprinter.”

Approximately seven seconds after Vell said this, Lee demonstrated another thing she was surprisingly good at -falling on her ass.  She tripped over the protruding roots of a tree and hit the dirt, hard.  Vell panicked and drew his guns again, diving out of cover to try and distract the swarm of murderous money from Lee.  The effort was valiant but ultimately pointless.

A wave of green-black fire shot forward, washing over Vell harmlessly, but burning the paper money into cinders in mid-air.  The magic that animated the money made slight shrieking noises, almost like dying screams, as the dark fire burned it away.

As the ashes rained down on Lee, Vell turned around to see Joan clutching a black stone, the small rock and her palm both burning with embers of black fire.  He stared blankly at her for a second.

“So...before you say anything, I was really hoping to not use this,” Joan said.

“That’s dark magic, Joan, why do you even know how to use it in the first place?”

As the name might imply, dark magic was dark.  Both in literal color and that it was bad and evil.  Most magic, like the hydrokinesis or magikinesis usually used by Lee, was done by harnessing ambient mana filtered through the user’s own soul.  It was a difficult process, and one that required significant personal discipline.  For those who preferred their magic quick and easy, there was dark magic: filtering the mana through the entrapped but still living soul of another being.

“It’s academic,” Joan said.  “Doctors know what causes cancer as part of treating it, same thing here.”

“Doctors don’t keep magic cancer in rocks in their desk drawers,” Vell said.  He pointed at the deep black stone in Joan’s hand.  “What’s in that, anyway?  Please tell me it’s not a person.”

“It’s a cow, Vell,” Joan snapped.  “Your dad owns a ranch, you can’t tell me you never killed a cow so you could make use of it.”

“Yeah, I ‘made use of’ the meat, not the immortal soul,” Vell said.

“Could this discussion wait, please?” Lee pleaded.  “Vell, I understand your concerns, but it’s not as if Joan went out of her way to use dark magic.  She saved me in an emergency.  I believe that warrants some leniency as far as ethics are concerned.”

Joan quickly tucked the soulstone into her pocket, to remove the visual reminder of what she’d done.  While Joan worked to erase her mistakes, Lee worked to minimize them.

“Besides, Vell, today isn’t really the day to be having this conversation,” Lee said.  Vell couldn’t argue with that.  He didn’t like to have important conversations on first loop days anyway.  It felt unfair to Joan, since he’d remember it and she wouldn’t.  That in mind, Vell holstered his guns and relented.

“Alright, we’ll save this for later,” he said.

“Yeah.  We got better things to do anyway, Vell, people are dying.”

Joan gestured ahead, beckoning Vell to lead the way to the robotics lab.  He took charge to the best of his ability, which wasn’t very good.  He could never be entirely sure where they were, as Vell still suspected the island rearranged itself when no one was looking, but he felt they were in the right place.  Vell poked his head around the corner and then jumped back with a yelp.

“What is it?” Joan asked, gauntlet at the ready.  “Some kind of golden golem?”

“No, it’s fine, actually,” Vell said.  “Just some bad memories.  Come on.  We’re at the lab.”

Vell took a deep breath and strolled around the corner.  The robotics lab waited from the just on the other side, surrounded by a legion of killbots -the very same model Vell had used as his evil minions during his brief stint as a brain-swapped supervillain.  Lee also felt a bit shocked upon seeing them, but the moment passed.  The killbots seemed to be on their side this time.  Vell walked up to the platoon of armed robots and tried to find a way past their ironclad barrier to get to the door.

“Excuse me,” Vell said, looking up at the killbots faces.  “Hello?  Could I get in there, please?”

The killbots did not budge, but the door behind them did open.  Kanya stepped through and waved to Vell.

“Hi guys!  Glad to see you’re alive,” Kanya said.  “Did you bring any snacks?”

“Uh, no,” Vell said.

“Damn, we already raided all the vending machines around here and I really want some chips,” Kanya said.  “Anyway, Chillbots, let them through.”

The nearby robots immediately complied, giving Vell and company a brief gap in the robot wall to move through.  The group stepped through and followed Kanya back into the safety of the robotics lab.  A large portion of the students and faculty had taken shelter here, behind the impenetrable wall of killbots.  Most of them had been pressed to work building more bots for the defense, and were working with an almost fanatical devotion.  A manifestation of the student body’s odd tendency to form cults under pressure, Lee noted.  Lee, Vell, and Joan found their way to Harley’s usual workbench, to find it empty.

“If Harley is who you are looking for, she is busy,” Sarah said.

“Busy getting busy, I imagine,” Lee said.  Joan sighed at the pun.  “I’ll let her know we’re here and she can get to us when she’s done with...whoever.”

“Whoevers,” Sarah corrected.  “There are many.”

“Of course,” Lee said.  She took a seat, texted Harley, and then waited.  While the others sat silently, Vell caught up with Sarah.

“So, uh, weren’t you and Harley supposed to have a talk about those killbots?”

Sarah said nothing.  Vell rolled his eyes and rephrased the question to not be a question.

“So, I noticed that your killbots didn’t, well, kill me.”

“Myself and Harley had conversations regarding the killbots,” Sarah said.  “The capacity has been removed for targeting human beings and domestic animals from all robots I build.  Killbots now are ‘chillbots’, as Harley named them.”

“That does sound like Harley,” Vell said.  Owing to the difficulties of having a conversation with someone who would never answer questions, Vell decided to take a seat and wait for Harley with the rest of his friends.  It wasn’t exactly easy to make conversation, since everybody was terrified of dying, but they managed to kill time until Harley showed up.

“What up?” She said.  “Sorry I’m late, I was en flagrante.”

“For forty-five minutes?” Joan asked.

“Yeah.  Why, how long does it take when you bang?” Harley asked, with a coy glance at Vell.  Joan went red in the face.  Harley couldn’t stifle the laugh that followed.

“Hah, I’m fucking with you,” she said.  “I took a shower afterwards, obviously.  I’m not gross.”

“Thank you for your strict adherence to personal hygiene, you slut,” Lee said, with nothing but love in her voice.

“Love you too, bitch,” Harley said.  “Let me just grab one more thing before we go.  Yo, Chillbot!”

Across the room, a seemingly inert killbot sprang to life and made its way to Harley.   Rather than moving with the stiff, mechanical perfection of the other killbots, this one had a smooth, almost casual gait.  This singular killbot was also different in that it had been painted a sunshiney shade of yellow instead of the standard intimidating black, and it was wearing a puka shell necklace and a denim bucket hat.  It also “wore” a pair of aviator sunglasses, if one counted having them taped to its head as “wearing”.  The oddly surfer-esque killbot stepped up to the group and lazily gave them a shaka sign.

“Greetings, organic dudes,” the killbot said in a tinny voice.

“Everyone, say hello to Chillbot 69,” Harley said.  Lee sighed.  “You may know him as the killbot that shot Cane in the ass that one time.”

“Wait, what?” Joan said.  “Cane got-  When did that happen?”

Harley grabbed Joan by the shoulder and pulled her in close.

“Joan, listen,” she said.  “Don’t even worry about it.”

Harley then pushed Joan away and clapped her hands together.

“Come on Chillbot, you’re my firepower for the day,” Harley said.  Chillbot reached to his back and took hold of a large automatic rifle (with a smiley face painted on the side). “Let’s go chase some paper, people”

The robot followed in lockstep as Harley waved the rest of the group forward.  As the motley crew made their way past the barricade of factory-default killbots, Chillbot lifted one of his inert brethren’s arms and high-fived it.  The metallic clank was still echoing in the air as Joan made her way up to Harley’s side and tried to act casual.

“From how casual you aren’t acting, I’d say you have a question,” Harley said,

“Sort of,” Joan said, continuing to fail to be casual.  She lowered her voice.  “Just sort of kind of wondering what you thought of Lee.”

“She’s my best friend,” Harley said.  “Why you asking?”

“Oh, you know, we were just talking about relationships earlier, and-”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Marsh,” Harley said.  “Just trust me when I tell you a relationship is the last thing Lee needs right now.”

“And why not?”

“Listen, if I had all day I couldn’t explain, so I’m not going to.  Chillbot, beer me.”

“Initiating ‘Cold One’ protocol.”

Harley walked away from Joan and held up a hand in Chillbot’s direction.  He opened his chest plates, revealing what had once been a rocket launcher, and fired a beer directly into her hand.  While Harley cracked it open to take a sip, Joan stayed on her heels.

“I’m not taking no for an answer on this one, Harley,” Joan said.

“Well you should,” Harley said.  “I’m not gossiping about Lee’s private business.  You want to know about her mental state, you talk to her.”

With that ultimatum delivered, Harley turned her attention to other matters.

“Chill out and save the problems for later,” Harley said.  “Chillbot, give her a beer.”

“I don’t want a beer, I want to-”

Whether she wanted a beer or not, Chillbot delivered one -at ballistic speeds.  The dull thwack of aluminum against skin echoed across the empty quad.

◆◆◆

After profuse robotic apologies, Joan had agreed to press forward with a slightly bruised face.  Any resentment she had towards Chillbot vanished when they were attacked by a swarm of bracelets that Chillbot down in a hail of gunfire.  While Vell still had the edge on accuracy, there was something to be said for the sheer quantity of bullets Chillbot’s rifle could provide.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that, anyway?” Joan asked, as the swarm subsided, and Vell holstered his revolvers.

“I don’t know, uh, my dad just sort of took me to a shooting range one day and told me to try and hit the bullseye, and then I did,” Vell said.

“Vell has an innate yeehaw energy,” Harley said.  “Scientists are still trying to figure it out.  Check this out.  Chillbot, give Vell your gun.”

Chillbot obliged, and Vell awkwardly handled the much larger weapon.  Harley instructed him to try and hit the trunk of a nearby tree.  Not only did Vell not hit the target, the recoil of the large rifle knocked him off his feet.  Chillbot retrieved his rifle from the ground, and then helped Vell to his feet.  Harley gestured to the sorry display with a shrug.

“See?  Completely useless if you take away the cowboy guns.”

“Interesting.”

“We have yet to test if he becomes more powerful when wearing a cowboy hat,” Harley said.  “He’s still embarrassed from the last time he wore his giddy-up getup.”

“Oh, he’s worn that a couple times,” Joan said.  “Privately.”

“Interesting,” Harley noted.

“If I may steer this conversation in a very different direction,” Lee interrupted.  She paused to stifle a quick giggle.  “Hah.  Steer.  I’ve made a cowboy pun.  Ahem, as I was saying, while in conversation with Joan this afternoon, I noticed what may have been a brief disruption of the school’s usual magical fields.  I have been tracking any signs of a magical burst that may have caused this disruption, and I believe I may have located one.”

“You’re saying that ominously,” Harley noted.  “I don’t like that.”

“Unfortunately the disturbance is located in the…”

“Lee!” Harley shouted.  “How many times do I have to tell you!  None of this dramatic pause shit!”

“Sorry dear.  As I was saying, the disturbance is located in the senior labs.”

The grim expressions of his comrades said that was a problem, but Vell didn’t understand why.

“What’s up with the senior labs?” He asked.

“We really got to get you a student handbook one of these days,” Harley said.  “And maybe an exorcism.”

“The senior labs are an underwater complex beneath the school,” Lee explained.  “They contain private laboratories for promising senior students to develop projects in private, with access to all the schools resources.”

“You have yet to describe the problem,” Vell said.  “That worries me.”

“It should!” Harley said. 

“The primary problem is that many of the senior lab projects are unstable under the best of circumstances,” Lee said.  “A legion of lethal valuables obviously not being the best of circumstances.  There will be…”

“Lee!” Harley snapped.

“Sorry!  There will be complications.”

Vell didn’t bother asking about the nature of the so-called ‘complications’.  He decided to do what he did best and compartmentalize.

“Okay, one problem at a time,” Vell said.  “We focus on getting into the senior labs first.  Where’s Leanne?”

“Probably off punching quarters somewhere,” Harley said.  “But we don’t need her.  I had some seniors in my lab and they say the door got blown off its hinges by some evil money.  We can waltz right in.”

“Okay, great,” Joan said.  “So waltz in and then what?”

“Probably get picked off one by one until the last desperate survivor finds his or her way to the heart of the evil and stops it once and for all,” Harley said.

“Or we all survive and then stop by the pizzeria after a successful mission,” Lee countered.

“Only one way to find out,” Joan said with a shrug.

◆◆◆

The door had, in fact, been blown off its hinges.  Vell could only wonder how a swarm of coins had managed to tear a five-inch thick slab of metal off its hinges.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Joan said.  “Chillbot, after you.”

“Don’t mind if I do, pretty lady,” Chillbot said.

“Don’t use Chillbot as a guinea pig,” Harley said.

“He’s a robot, you can rebuild him,” Joan said.

“I mean, yeah, but at least ask permission first,” Harley said.  “I’ve programmed him to know when things are not chill, and dying is definitely not chill.”

“Things remain chill,” Chillbot said.  He was already a few steps into the lab.  “I am alive!  The coast is clear.”

With Chillbot’s reassurance, the group proceeded downwards into the twisting halls of the seniors labs.  A long, dark stairwell spiraled down, surrounding the pylon that anchored the artificial island to the ocean floor.  Most of the heavy lab doors were sealed tight, with glowing red lights on the door indicating that something was sealed within.  More fearsome by far were the doors left open, exposing yawning gateways into darkened labs that echoed with the legacy of past experiments.

“This is most decidedly not chill,” Chillbot noted.

“Chillbot, deactivate appraisal mode,” Harley commanded.  Chillbot deactivated his running commentary.  While his comical appearance helped defuse some of the terror of the situation, Harley didn’t want any unexpected noises.

As they proceeded in silence, Lee continued using the divination spell that would allow her to locate the source of magic.  She held her hand to every sealed door to get a sense for what was inside.  Eventually, she paused, holding her hand in front of single door slightly longer than the others.

“It’s in here,” she whispered.  “Harley.  The door, if you would.”

Harley went to work cracking open the door mechanism while Lee whispered a breathless warning to the rest of the group.

“Be prepared for anything,” Lee cautioned.  “Over the past few years, the senior labs have been host to some of the most vile horrors ever spawned on this campus.  I cannot overstate the dangers that may lurk within.”

“Whatever caused today’s craziness is on the other side of this door,” Harley said.  “Get your shit ready.  Three...two...one…”

Harley flipped a switch and the door slammed open.

“Oh hey Vell,” Ngose said.

In a panicked reaction to the unexpected noise, Joan grabbed at the soulstone in her pocket and drew it.  She stopped shorting of blasting Ngose with soulfire, but only barely.  Vell grabbed her wrist and gently guided the black crystal back into her pocket.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Vell said.  “Ngose, what are you doing here?”

“Cowering for my life,” Ngose admitted.  “Prior to that, working on an art project.”

Ngose gestured to a very sheepish looking Senior, who waved awkwardly in Vell’s direction.

“I was trying to make a commentary on how money destroys,” he said.  “And I sort of maybe accidentally made money literally destroy.”

“Great.  The world ends thanks to a wannabe Banksy,” Harley sighed.  “Explain what you did.”

While Harley listened to an elaborate explanation of the senior’s failed experiment, Vell was approached by another familiar face.  Adele paced up to Vell and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey Adele,” Vell said.

In response, she pointed down to her glasses.  The frames had been cracked by some of the chaos that ensued from the failed experiment, and the runic software that translated spoken word into text on her lenses had broken.  Vell picked up on her meaning pretty quickly.

“Oh, your glasses are broken?”

Adele pointed to her non-functional ears and shrugged.

“Oh, right, your glasses are broken,” Vell said.  The enchanted lenses usually translated spoken word into text Adele could read.  “You can’t hear a word I’m saying.  Lee, do you have a notebook or something in your purse?”

She handed over a notebook and paper.  Vell wrote “I can fix those” on the paper and then took the broken glasses to piece the shattered runes back together.  He was something of an expert when it came to runic glasses.  Lee took the notebook and wrote “Do you need to borrow this?” on the next sheet of paper, holding it out to Adele.

“I can still talk,” Adele signed.  “The translation spell isn’t part of the glasses.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry, I forgot it was the spell, and not the- and I also forgot you can’t understand me right now,” Lee said, sighing heavily as she realized her words were wasted.  Adele giggled at her mild distress.

“It’s fine, I just had my hands full earlier,” Adele signed.  “It’s good to see you again, Lee.”

Lee wrote “Good to see you too” in her notebook, and Adele happily picked up a lopsided conversation with her.  While they signed and exchanged notes back and forth like two schoolgirls, Joan leaned on Vell’s shoulder and watched the two from a distance. 

“Do you think Lee’s into Adele?”

“I think Adele is into Lee,” Vell said.  “Don’t think it goes the other way around, unfortunately.”

“So what are we going to do about that?’

“Not much,” Vell said.  “Meddling isn’t nice.  However...”

“However what?” Joan asked.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Vell said.

◆◆◆

The second loop sort of counted as tomorrow, or so Vell liked to tell himself.  He put a plan into action behind the scenes while Joan went about her business a usual.  Soon enough she was back in Lee’s dorm, eating an extra-large pizza purchased with Lee’s money.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lee?”

While Lee would usually deny such a request, she already knew exactly what Joan was going to ask, thanks to the prior loop.

“Go ahead.”

“What’s your dating life like?”

“Nonexistent,” Lee said.  “And I’m quite alright with that.”

“Really?  Not to, like, second guess you or anything,” Joan said. 

“It’s alright,” Lee insisted.  “I’m just...taking my time.  My upbringing didn’t exactly leave me socially well-adjusted.”

“Well, I think the best way to adjust to something is by doing it,” Joan said.  “No time like the present.”

Vell agreed.  Which was why he chose that moment to knock on the door.  Lee stood up and let him in, and let Adele in while she was at it.

“Hello Vell,” Lee said.  “Adele.  What brings you here?”

“Well, I was going to help some senior with an art project, but some little robot tore through and the wrecked the whole thing before we could start,” Adele signed.  “It was really weird.”

“Since her plans for the afternoon got wrecked, I figured I’d see what everyone was up to,” Vell said.  “Maybe hang out a bit.”

“Well, we already have more pizza than we can possibly eat,” Joan said.  “Might as well.”

Lee agreed, and Adele and Vell helped themselves to the titanic pizza Joan had ordered.  Adele powered her way through a single slice with impressive speed and then started to chat with Lee.

“Been a while since we’ve bumped into each other, Lee,” Adele signed.  “What’ve you been up to?”

“Bumping into other people, mostly,” Lee said.  “The usual.  Hydromancy, RA meetings, that sort of thing.  Yourself?”

“Art, more art, chasing the occasional butterfly,” Adele said.  “Helping some guy with his project.”

“Right.  Was he a friend of yours, or something to that effect?” Lee asked.  They had not seemed very well-acquainted on the previous loop.  Lee was curious how Adele and the destructive artist came to be involved with each other.

“Oh, our art teacher just thinks he needs someone to rein him in,” Adele said.  “He’s got more ambition than common sense.  Makes dangerous stuff sometimes.”

“So they assign the guy babysitters?” Joan scoffed.  “If he makes dangerous stuff, just kick him out.”

“I mean, he’s not evil, he’s just stupid,” Adele said.  “It’s not like he’s out here doing dark magic or something.”

Vell and Lee very deliberately said nothing, and waited for Joan to react.  They’d both been hoping for a chance to bring up this topic, now that Joan could actually have a meaningful discussion on it.

“Yeah, that’d be dumb,” Joan said, all too nonchalantly.  Then she carried on eating pizza, and acting like nothing had happened -and that she didn’t have a soulstone tucked into her desk drawer.  Vell and Lee didn’t know what to say to that, so they said nothing.

Chapter 25: Calling Cards

“So, as one can see in diagram A, replicating a simple computational task requires as many as one-hundred and seventy eight runes working in tandem,” Professor Nguyen said.  “While runic systems allow a small bridge in the gap between magic and machinery, they cannot replace the more complex processes of advanced computers, for the time being.  Starting tomorrow we will be researching the works of Dr. Grigorakis and his research on runic computers.”

Vell actually paid attention to the lecture for once, since he actually had something worth listening to.  His curiosity about the rune on his back had already driven him to research a great deal of information on runes, so most lectures were just reruns of things he already knew.  Professor Nguyen was one of the few teachers who actually brought him new info on a regular basis.  The overlap of magic and machines made possible by runes was not usually in his wheelhouse, since he was focused on one very complex rune rather than a bunch of runes working together.

“I’ll expect a two-page essay on this week’s material by next Wednesday, however, it will not be on the test.  Dismissed,” Nguyen said.  They had a few minutes left before the official end of class, but Professor Nguyen had nothing left to say.  To most of the class, at least.  “Mr. Harlan, if I could have a word with you before you go.”

Vell shouldered his bag and lingered behind as the rest of the class left the room.  Joan lingered by the door, ostensibly to wait for her boyfriend, but actually just to eavesdrop.  Vell wandered up to the desk as Nguyen set herself on some paperwork, never looking up from the documents as she spoke to Vell.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Harlan,” Professor Nguyen said.  Then, without stopping her paperwork, Nguyen lifted up a diagram from her desk with her spare hand and displayed it to Vell.  A sequence of five runes, with empty spaces for more, were laid out on the paper.  “Could you identify the next runes necessary for this sequence, with the goal of inducing stable cellular division in living tissue.”

“Well, let’s see...split, duplicate, heal,” Vell said, listing off a few of the run effects already laid out. He paused to put a hand on his chin for a moment and think.  “Ah.  I think you need something to induce stable variance.  An “alter” rune followed up by a template-parameter sequence, to ensure the cell mutates enough for necessary genetic diversity, but not enough to cause, uh, cancer.  Which I assume you don’t want to do.”

“You assume correctly,” Nguyen said.  She put the paper down and briefly stopped her own paperwork long enough to make a few notes on it, in accordance with Vell’s suggestions.  “Thank you for your input, Mr. Harlan, I will include your contributions in the citations of the resulting paper, or we will discuss partial co-authorship if your sequence proves successful.”

“Uh, what?”

“Myself and several of my fellow researchers have been attempting to complete this sequence for some time,” Nguyen explained.  “I thought to get your input, given your grades in my class.”

“You know,” Joan said, from across the room.  “I have an idea too.”

“That will not be necessary, Ms. Marsh,” Nguyen said.  She made a few more notes on her paperwork as Joan marched up to her desk.

“My grades are just as good as Vell’s,” Joan protested.

“Not consistently.”.

“Well that’s just how it goes,” Joan said.  “We have that kind of friendly rivalry, where he beats me, and then I try a little harder, then I beat him, and he tries a little harder, and so on and so forth.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Vell asked.

“Yes,” Joan said.

“Huh.  I’ve just been trying, uh, the normal amount.”

“Why?”

“Because why would I be competing with my girlfriend?  Who does that?”

“Please continue this particular discussion elsewhere.  You are distracting me,” Nguyen droned.  She still hadn’t looked up from her paperwork.  The reminder of her presence served to get Joan back on the right outrage track.

“No, I can contribute to this project, and I should have the chance to,” Joan said.  “Why would you want Vell but not me?”

Joan bent at the waist and leaned forward, looming over Nguyen’s desk.  In response, Professor Nguyen put her pen down and looked up from her paperwork, glaring right at Joan.  Vell could feel the edge of her cutting glare, even standing at the sidelines of the stare-down.

“For starters, Ms. Marsh, your partner has a healthier respect for personal space,” Nguyen began. Joan drew back a few inches, earning a grateful nod from the professor.

“Secondly, Mr. Harlan has demonstrated a much greater aptitude for problem-solving and extrapolating from incomplete information, on the rare occasions when he can get his head out of the clouds,” Professor Nguyen said.  Vell couldn’t argue with that.  His responsibilities with the daily apocalypses, and his own fixation with researching the rune on his back, often made him seem a bit scatterbrained to the casual observer.

“You, on the other hand, exclusively possess an aptitude for rote memorization and fact repetition,” Professor Nguyen said.  “An admirable skill in some situations, but useless in this one.  I trust this is a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances.  Good day.”

With her rebuke delivered, Nguyen picked up her pen and got back to her paperwork.  Meanwhile, Joan’s face jumped through seven different varieties of indignation.

“Is this how you talk to all your students?’

With the swift, fluid motions of a routine played out a hundred times, Nguyen snatched a business card from a drawer of her desk.  Printed below the numbers for the student complaint hotline and the school’s therapist was the word “YES”, written in bold print.  Joan stared at the card for a moment and then tossed it right back at Nguyen.  The professor effortlessly caught the thin scrap of paper between her fingers and tucked it back into the drawer before going right back to her paperwork.  She hadn’t looked up even once.  Joan made a show of grabbing Vell by the wrist and dragging him out of the room.

“I was not expecting Nguyen to be that much of a hard-ass,” Vell said.  She’d always been stern, but outright calling a student ‘useless’ to their face was a bit much.

“God, I know, right?” Joan said.  “And that stupid trick with the card.  Show off.”

“I don’t know, I thought it was cool.”

Joan mumbled “I guess” under her breath and then crossed her arms in a huff, a position she stayed in for most of their walk back to the dorms.

“Joan.”

“Okay, I admit it, the card thing was super cool and I want to learn how to do it,” Joan said.

“I figured,” Vell said.  “Luke has a deck we can borrow.”

Several hours and some hurt wrists later, neither of the two were even halfway decent at catching cards.  Both agreed never to speak of the matter again.

Chapter 26: And Then There Were Dumb

The clock ticked down to ten PM.  Vell eyed it nervously from time to time, ever vigilant.  It was Friday night, and the apocalypse hadn’t happened yet.  While it gave the loopers plenty of time to enjoy themselves on the first loop, the waiting was starting to become nerve-wracking.

The long-delayed apocalypse was made all the stranger by the fact that there was a hurricane roaring around them.  The campus buildings were relatively hurricane-proofed, so while there was no immediate danger from a conventional hurricane, the winds and rain had confined all students to their dorms for the night.  The group had made the decision to take shelter in Vell’s dorm, and make a game night out of it.  They had even managed to talk Leanne into joining them -though she did so mostly in anticipation of the daily apocalypse, and also because she wanted to have some more of Renard’s cooking.  Leanne had, at this point, had a lot more than “some”.  Renard handed her a fourth bowl of pho, and her appetite still showed no sign of slowing.  Luckily he had made a large pot.

“What kind of hand even is that,” Luke said, as Leanne laid down her cards.  “Does that beat mine?  I can never fucking remember whether straights or flushes are better.”

Leanne looked up from her pho long enough to shake her head.  She didn’t know shit about poker either.

“Cane, you know poker things, stop ogling Harley long enough to explain it to us.”

Cane tried and failed to act innocent.  Harley had taken advantage of the long loop to sleep around (even more so than usual) and Cane’s eagerness made him a go-to target for her advances.  The only reason they weren’t off somewhere canoodling right now is because Lee had insisted on vigilance, and Harley was willing to restrain her libido for her friends sake.  Mostly.  Harley scooted slightly further away from Cane while he tried to act naive.

“Uh, hold on, now I’m confused too.”

The group went in circles, debating the hierarchy of poker hands.  Several names were put back and forth, none of them right.  Freddy naively suggested googling it, but the rest of the group dismissed that as the cowards way out.

“Leanne, help us out here, you seem sane,” Luke demanded.  Leanne continued eating her pho in silence.

“Oh, wait, I think I remember,” Harley said.  “It was-”

She got cut off by the sparking burst of an electrical surge, and the room immediately falling into darkness.  Lee let out a quick yelp of surprise in the dark -a yelp matched by a much quieter grunt of surprise from Vell.  A second after her shout, the emergency power kicked on and the lights returned.  Vell scooted away from Joan a bit and took a quick stock of the room.  Freddy had jumped out of his chair and was cowering against the nearby wall, Lee had sunk deeper into her seat to cower, Leanne was still sitting on the couch eating pho like nothing had happened, and Harley was lying dead on the floor with a knife protruding from her back.

“Well, shit,” Vell said.

Lee sighed, Leanne continued eating pho, and the rest of the room sprang into a blind panic.  It took about five minutes for the screaming to stop, then five more minutes for Freddy to stop hyperventilating.

“Okay, we need to call campus security, now,” Luke said.  He pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen, growing more frustrated with every tap.  “Come on, come on.”

“Let me guess, connection’s dead?” Vell asked.

“Somehow,” Luke said.  As he spoke, Lee stood and tested the door.  The handle didn’t budge as she tried to turn it.

“Ah, and it appears the lockdown protocols have also failed.  We seem to be trapped.”

Freddy started hyperventilating again.

“We’re locked in a room with a murderer!”

Freddy backed himself into a corner and cowered, his panicked eyes scanning the room from behind glass lenses.  Joan joined him in scanning the room, though at a much less frantic pace.  Her crimson gaze narrowed into a suspicious glare that passed over everyone in the room one by one.

“He’s right,” Joan said.  “Someone in this room killed Harley.”

“Not really,” Vell said. 

“It could’ve been a ghost,” Lee suggested.  “The freshman dorms are quite haunted.”

“Wait, what?” Cane said.  Lee did not address his concerns.

“Or simply someone with access to short range teleportation,” Lee continued.

“Or a demon,” Vell added.  “Harley’s pissed off a lot of demons.”

“And an angel or two,” Lee said.  “Speaking of people Harley’s annoyed, Leanne, you didn’t kill Harley, did you?”

Leanne shrugged and gestured to her head, spinning her finger in a circular motion, then continued eating her pho.

“Right, I suppose we hadn’t properly considered someone being possessed or mind-controlled either,” Lee said.

“But it couldn’t have been Leanne anyway,” Joan insisted.  She walked to Lee’s position on the couch and then gestured to Harley’s corpse at the center of the room.  “She couldn’t have put her bowl down, made it across the room, stabbed Harley at that angle, and made it back to her seat in so little time.”

A well-crafted theory, but not without its gaping holes.

“Uh, this is Leanne we’re talking about.  Not only is she crazy fast, she, you know, could’ve just ricocheted the knife off a wall from across the room, or something,” Vell said.  Leanne nodded.  She’d done stranger things with a knife.

“Oh.  Okay, I guess,” Joan said.  Her posture shrank for a moment.  “But I think we can still consider Leanne pretty low on the suspect list.”

“Since when is there a suspect list?” Luke asked.  “And why are you making it?  Aren’t you a suspect too?”

“Easy,” Joan boasted.  “I have an alibi.  I was grabbing Vell’s butt.”

“She was,” Vell admitted.  She’d taken advantage of the dark to catch him off guard.  He had mixed feelings about that.

“And since I had my hand on his butt, and he had his butt on my hand, we can vouch for each other,” Joan said.  “So we’ll be in charge of interrogating suspects.”

Vell didn’t really consider anyone in the room a suspect, so he had to question that approach.  His friends had other concerns, and unlike Vell, they were not too sheepish to voice them.

“You seem remarkably nonchalant about Harley being dead,” Luke said.  “How do we know you didn’t arrange this?”

“If it was one of us dead on the ground, Harley would be nonchalant about it,” Joan sniped back.  “Hell, do they seem bothered?”

Joan pointed in the direction of the loopers.  Lee and Vell tried to look a little more upset, but it was difficult to fake.  Leanne didn’t even bother.  Her bowl was beginning to run low, and she silently considered how impolite it would be to go get more food while Harley was still lying dead on the floor.

“Well, yeah, but they’re always suspiciously relaxed about weird shit,” Cane said.  “When you do it it seems crazy.”

“Well, I- You aren’t- You just got bumped higher up the suspect list, Cane,” Joan said.  She turned away from his criticism and looked elsewhere.  “Lee, you know the most about magic, and you’re probably the least likely to have killed Harley, why don’t you handle the supernatural investigation while me and Vell take care of ruling out suspects?”

Much to Vell’s surprise, Lee answered with a stiff thumbs-up. 

“Aren’t there, uh, other ways to go about this?” Vell asked.  “Maybe?”

“No no, this is fine,” Lee said, unconvincingly.  “We’ve got our bases covered.”

“Come on, Vell, it’ll be-” Joan caught herself about to say “fun”, remembered the corpse on the floor, and changed course.  “-Efficient!  We’ll find out who or what killed Harley as soon as possible.”

While Joan continued espousing the virtues of the couple playing Holmes and Watson, Vell looked to Lee for backup.  Spending time on interrogations seemed like a waste.  More than likely, Harley’s murder was the symptom of a larger apocalyptic scenario, not one person in the group suddenly developing an inexplicable bloodlust.  In spite of Vell’s hopes that she would act as a voice of reason, Lee seemed eager to play along -though that eagerness was stiff and superficial. 

“I think you’re right,” Lee said.  “Why don’t you two use Vell’s dorm as an interrogation room while I investigate everything in the living area?”

“Sounds good,” Joan said.

“Would you mind if I talked to Lee privately for a second?” Vell asked.

“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t rush off for an inexplicable secret chat with her,” Joan said.  “Thank you for at least asking permission this time.”

“Right.  Excuse us,” Vell said.  He scooted past Harley’s corpse, leading Lee into his dorm.

“Does this seem, you know, weird to you?” he asked.

“It is odd for the daily apocalypse to be so singular in its victims, but I believe-”

“Not Harley being dead,” Vell said.  “I mean Joan’s idea of an investigation.  Doesn’t this seem like, you know, a waste of time?”

“Oh, nonsense, it’ll be fine,” Lee insisted.  “You’d mostly be standing around while I did magical stuff anyway.  You might as well work with Joan and try to gather what details you can.  Somebody might have seen something important.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Vell said. 

“Of course it does,” Lee said with a fake smile.  “You’re probably just a bit put off by Joan’s, well, eagerness.  It’s not that she’s not upset by Harley dying, I think, but rather that Joan has quite the passion for investigation.”

“Apparently,” Vell said.  Joan had put quite a lot of energy into investigating Vell’s resurrection, though not quite enough to realize she’d been sleeping with the object of her obsession for months.  Hopefully another morose investigation would give her an outlet for that obsessive energy, even if only temporarily.  Vell had been trying to put that whole ordeal in the past, but Joan was making it difficult to forget.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.  Good luck with your magic stuff.  Uh, let me know if you want to borrow my glasses.”

“Not right now, but I will keep the offer in mind, thank you,” Lee said with a curtsy.  “Now, I should go get to work finding out how Harley was murdered.”

“Have fun,” Vell said.

“You as well,” Lee said, before the two parted ways to begin their investigation.

◆◆◆

“I, uh, I think you could’ve picked a better start,” Vell said.  Leanne nodded in agreement.  Joan had converted Vell’s dorm into a makeshift interrogation room, complete with a spotlight aimed at the “perp”.  It was an impressive setup, but Joan had brought in the one person who wouldn’t talk even in the most impressive interrogation room.

“I’m sure Leanne understands what’s at stake here,” Joan said.  She had an unusually harsh edge to her voice.  Since Joan knew that Vell would default to the role of good cop, she had taken it on herself to be the bad cop.  “You need to talk to me, Leanne.”

She didn’t.  Leanne stared blankly at Joan and waited for the red-eyed woman to blink first.  She did.

“You realize you’re incriminating yourself with your silence here, right?” Joan protested.

Leanne looked at Vell and spun a finger near her ears.  Vell took offense on Joan’s behalf.

“Hey.  She’s just, uh...passionate.”

“Don’t bother, I’ve been called crazy before,” Joan said.  “Not exclusively through hand gestures, admittedly, that part is new.  But still.  I’m used to it.”

In spite of her brave face, Vell could see that Joan was upset.  He kept their “interrogation” moving in an attempt to shift her focus.

“Alright, Leanne, before you go, can you just tell us if you saw anything weird?”

Leanne shook her head.  She then mimicked the motion of putting a spoon in her mouth, then placed both hands in front of her chest and pointed to the empty space next to her, before finally making a stabbing motion.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Joan demanded.

“She didn’t see anything because she was too focused on eating, all she knows is that Harley hadn’t moved for a while before she got stabbed,” Vell explained.  He’d learned his way around Leanne’s gesture-based communication by now.

“What part of that means ‘Harley’?”

Leanne held her hands in front of her chest again.  Vell turned red in the face.

“Well- It’s, uh, there’s- She has, or uh, had, you know-”

“Right,” Joan said.  Vell had explained nothing, but his awkward stammering said everything.  “We’re referring to the dead girl by her boobs.  Classy.”

Leanne put a hand near her heart and nodded solemnly.  She was trying very hard not to giggle.

“It’s what she’d want,” Vell agreed. 

“Right, well, it’s not what I want,” Joan said.  “Leanne, unless you feel like saying something useful, just get out of here.”

“And please gesture for Renard to come in next,” Vell asked.  Leanne nodded and vacated the room.

“Why Renard?” Joan asked.  “Dude wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Yeah, but that was his kitchen knife sticking out of Harley’s back,” Vell said.  “Renard keeps his stuff organized.  If anybody snatched his knife, he’d notice.”

Joan went oddly quiet as Renard entered the room.  She hadn’t noticed that Renard’s knife was the murder weapon -nor had she even thought to investigate the weapon at all.  She quickly overcame the moment of inadequacy via the excuse that Vell spent more time around Renard and was more familiar with his knives.  She regained her confidence the moment Renard walked in the door.

“Renard.  Take a seat.”

“Okay,” Renard said.  He walked behind the chair and grabbed it.  “Where do you want me to put it?”

“Not take, you-” Joan put a hand over her mouth to shut herself up.  “I mean sit down, Renard.”

Renard sat down.  Once he seemed comfortable, Joan leaned over and got in his face to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

“So.  Seems like one of your knives was the murder weapon, Renard,” Joan hissed.

“Yep,” Renard said, completely unfazed by Joan’s attempts at intimidation.  “That’s really unfortunate, because I really liked that knife.  I guess I could clean it off and still use it, but it’d feel really weird, you know?”

“No doubt,” Joan said, her eyes narrowing.  “You want to explain how your knife ended up in Harley’s back?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Renard said with a shrug.  “Last time I saw it, Harley asked to borrow it, and then she scuttled off.  Then I dropped off a bowl of pho with Leanne, the lights flickered, and then she was dead.”

“Harley asked to borrow the knife?”  Joan mused aloud.  “Why would she do that?”

“Wait, hold on,” Vell said.  “Didn’t Leanne say, er, gesture that Harley was in her seat the whole time?”

“Oh, right,” Joan said.  She pondered this for a moment and then shook her head.  “Eh, Leanne was focused on her food and Renard is...Renard.”

The redheaded chef perked up at the sound of his name, oblivious to Joan’s less-than-complementary tone.  Joan shook her head.

“Somebody’s probably just confused.”

In Joan’s world, that might have made sense, but Vell couldn’t let minor discrepancies like that pass him by.  For all he knew, they were dealing with some kind of doppelganger situation.  Possibly a shapeshifter, or maybe an evil Harley from an alternate dimension.  He made a mental note of Harley being in two places at once and let Joan continue her interrogation.

“What were you doing right before Harley was murdered?”

“Giving Leanne some pho.”

“And why were you doing that?”

“Because she asked for some.”

“And how can we be sure you didn’t grab your knife on one of those trips back and forth to the kitchen?”

“Because I carry my bowls with two hands,” Renard said.  “The broth is really hot, Joan, you don’t want to spill that stuff on someone.”

Joan stared Renard down, trying to get him to crack.  She looked so deeply into Renard’s eyes she could practically hear the echoes in his empty head.

“Alright, you can go,” Joan said.  Even in the unlikely scenario that Renard had actually been involved in Harley’s death, he wasn’t smart enough to avoid slipping up for this long.  Joan wanted to get some time in with her actual suspects.

“Bring me Freddy Frizzle,” she demanded.

◆◆◆

Freddy Frizzle trembled so hard that Vell could feel the floor shaking from across the room.

“I think you maybe need to go a little less hard on Freddy,” Vell suggested.

“Ridiculous,” Joan scoffed.  She slammed a fist into her open palm.  “Freddy will crack with just a little pressure.”

“Yeah, he will, which is why there should be, maybe like, no pressure,” Vell said.  “You’re just going to make him have a panic attack, or something.”

Considering Freddy had already started hyperventilating, Vell had some very real concerns about Freddy’s health if the stress continued.  It would all be erased by the time loop, but he wanted to avoid giving Freddy a heart attack if at all possible.  He kept their conversation to a whisper to avoid Freddy overhearing.

“Look, just ease off like, a little bit?  Please?”

“Alright,” Joan sighed.  “But between you and me, this guy is suspect number one.”

“Freddy?” Vell said.  Putting aside the issue of threadbare motive, Freddy started to sweat if he even looked at Harley, much less contemplated murdering her.  It would have been hard to miss any murderous intent.

“Think about it, Harlan,” Joan said.  “He’s been obsessed with Harley since the day they met, and today she jumps into bed with Cane.  A lifetime of sexual repression, a semester of obsession, a spark of jealousy, and then-”

Joan jerked her wrist in a stabbing motion.  The sadistic grin on her face unnerved Vell.  She enjoyed this theory a little too much.

“Very dramatic, but, uh, Freddy’s not that kind of guy,” Vell said. 

“Oh, sure,” Joan said, rolling her eyes.  “After every murderer gets caught, there’s a guy like you saying ‘but they seemed so nice’.”

Joan broke off from Vell and sauntered over to Freddy.  The vibration in the floor stopped as Freddy ceased trembling and froze in place under Joan’s icy stare.

“So, Frizzle,” Joan said.  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I- I- I- I-” Freddy stuttered the same syllable about seventeen times before Joan snapped her fingers to snap him out of it.  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“Well you better say something,” Joan insisted.  She leaned in even closer to Freddy’s face.  “You’re looking more suspicious every second, you know.”

Freddy tried and failed to squirm in a way that didn’t look suspicious.  Joan grabbed on to the arms of his chair and pressed closer to his face to press the advantage.

“Did it upset you, seeing Harley shack up with Cane?  You’d had your eyes on her for a while, after all?”

“I, uh, I didn’t- She can, or, could, do whatever, I don’t-”

“You don’t what?” Joan demanded forcefully.

“Hey, lay off a bit,” Vell said.  He tried to defuse her intensity with a bit of humor.  “You’re going to make him piss himself or something.”

The joke failed to land as it became increasingly clear Freddy might actually piss himself.  He was visibly sweating now, and trembling in his seat.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see anything, I-I-I-I just panicked when the lights went out and, and-”

“And took your chance?” Joan snapped.

“No, I just- I bumped into somebody and th- then, then the lights came on,” Freddy stammered.  “And then everybody started screaming.”

“That was mostly you, as I remember it,” Joan said.  A lie, since she’d been screaming too.  “So, were you screaming out of fear?  Or maybe out of regret?  You made a snap choice in the heat of the moment?”

“I- No, I didn’t I-”

“Hey, maybe ease up,” Vell suggested.  Joan ignored him.

“Now’s the time to come clean, Fred,” Joan said.  “It only gets worse for you from now on.”

“Hey-”

“I didn’t do anything,” Freddy whimpered.  Joan slammed her hands down on the arms of the chair.

“And why should I believe that?”

Freddy never got to give an answer.  Joan got grabbed by the arm and forcibly pulled away from the “interrogation” chair.  Vell pulled her back towards the wall and stared her dead in the eyes.

“Stop,” he commanded.  Joan bit her lip.

“Okay,” she said. Vell let her go, and nodded to Freddy that he should leave.  The unfortunate nerd didn’t hesitate to spring out of the chair and out of the room.  Joan took a deep breath and tried to reset.

“Anyone ever told you you’re kind of sexy when you’re angry, Harlan?”

“This isn’t funny, Joan.”

“I was being serious, the confidence does wonders,” Joan said.  The look on Vell’s face told her he wasn’t amused.  “Sorry.”

“That was way out of line,” Vell said.  “This night is bad enough already without you screaming at people.”

“Yeah, I know, the night is pretty shitty, I’m trying to find a murderer here, Vell,” Joan said. 

“You don’t know that anyone here actually killed Harley, and even if someone did, do you think they’d tell you?”

“They might, if you let me apply some pressure,” Joan said.  “I know you like to play the nice guy, Vell, but this isn’t really the time for kid gloves.”

“Yeah, of course.  Can we just go back to the living room and, like, keep an eye on everyone instead of this?  I feel like it’s, uh, probably not all that productive, when it comes to keeping people safe.  We just need to make sure nobody else dies before campus security shows up.”

“I don’t believe in sitting around doing nothing when I could be solving a problem,” Joan said.  She straightened out the interrogation chair and crossed her arms.  “I liked Harley.  Maybe you can be weirdly apathetic about this, but I can’t.”

Vell planted his forehead firmly against the wall and let out one of the deepest sighs of his life.  Of course Joan was taking this seriously.  Unlike him, she though Harley’s death was permanent.  A full semester of loops had made himself a bit numb to normal feelings on death.  He reminded himself to forgive Joan for being a little intense, and felt glad she’d soon be forgetting all of this.  He checked his phone, and saw they were running low on time.  It was just after eleven, and the daily loop would reset at midnight.

“Let’s keep going,” Vell said, reluctantly.  “But two things.”

“Hit me,” Joan said.

“Firstly, I get to start the questions this time,” Vell said.  “And secondly-”

◆◆◆

Luke sat in the interrogation chair, while Cane sat on the bed.

“This really defeats the point of an interrogation,” Joan said.

“It’s more like an interview,” Vell said.  With the midnight deadline drawing close, they had to be a little more efficient with their time.  He stood in front of his roommates and put his hands on his hips.  “So.  What do you guys remember?”

“A lot of screaming and a dead Harley mostly,” Luke said.  He leaned back in the chair and glanced between the couple in front of him.  “Are you seriously playing detective with Joan?”

“Hey,” Joan protested.

“We’re just trying to piece together what we can,” Vell assured them.  “So, let me ask you this.  Did either of you see Harley go to the kitchen just before the power went out?”

Luke shook his head and looked at Cane, who shook his head in turn.

“She was sitting right next to me the whole time,” Cane said.  “She didn’t have her hand on my butt, though, since that’s apparently what it takes to have an alibi around here.”

The jab didn’t make Joan flinch.

“Right, and nothing weird happened beforehand?”

“I mean, Harley had been kind of off her rocker all day,” Cane said.  “She was talking a lot about impermanence, being reckless, enjoying ourselves while we can.  It was really, weird, and kind of-”

“No that’s just normal Harley stuff,” Vell said.  “Sort of.”

Harley liked to sleep around, but she didn’t like to do so under false pretenses.  She tried to give prospective paramours some hints that their sex would end up dust in the temporal winds without actually revealing the nature of the time loops.  Cane had been concerned about the odd behavior, though not concerned enough to say no to sex.  Vell dismissed his concerns even further and paused just long enough for Joan to seize the initiative.

“So what did you see before the lights went out?” Joan demanded.

Nothing useful, it turned out.  Joan continued pressing on minor details while Vell took a moment to think.  His brain did manage to snag a minor detail out of the information chaff Joan was creating.

“Did either of you two bump into someone when the lights went out?” Vell asked.

Cane and Luke shook their heads.  Vell thanked them for their cooperation and then excused herself to go find Lee.  She was mid-spell in the living room, holding a glowing orb in her hand that was making a small patch of the floor glow in turn.

“Hey Lee,” Vell began.  “Did you bump into anybody when the lights were out?”

Lee shook her head, though she did not take her eyes off the glowing portion of the floor.

“I didn’t so much as elbow anyone,” Lee said, before moving on to her real concern.  “How are things going with Joan?”

“She’s being a bit intense but it’s, uh, fine,” Vell said.  He cast a guilty glance at Freddy, who was still trembling visibly in his seat.  “Uh, Leanne, Renard, either of you two bump into anyone in the dark?”

Renard said no, and Leanne shook her head. 

“Then I think there must have been someone else in the room,” Vell said. 

“That seems consistent with this,” Lee said, indicating to the glowing patch of the floor.  “This appears to be the aftermath of someone using a phasing device to pass through the floor of our dorm.  Rather crudely, I might add.”

“How so?”

“Well, simply put, the device or spell they used to do so was...shitty.  Poorly made and poorly used,” Lee said.  “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Huh.  Well, at the very least, we can rule out anyone in this room as a suspect,” Vell said.  He turned back to his dorm.  “Joan, stop interrogating, nobody we know is guilty.”

Luke and Cane practically kicked the door down on their way out.  Cane was starting to sweat.

“Thank god,” Luke said, as he crossed the room. “I swear your girlfriend was like two seconds away from waterboarding us.”

“I was gone for fifteen seconds,” Vell said.  Joan shrugged.

“I wanted answers,” she said.

“There are no answers, you crazy bitch,” Luke said.

“She’s not crazy,” Vell and Lee said in unison.

As Joan prepared to say something in her own defense, Leanne slammed a fist into the arm of her chair and then pointed down at Harley’s corpse.

“Right, murder,” Luke said.  “The murder none of us had anything to do with.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Joan said.  “We didn’t get any useful info out of any of you.”

“Actually, I think I know what happened,” Vell said.  “Renard says he saw Harley in the kitchen while Harley was on the couch, and Freddy says he bumped into someone, but nobody else got bumped into.  Combined with what Lee found out, I think somebody else infiltrated the room and killed Harley.”

While the group at large nodded in agreement, Joan stayed stiff and silent.  Vell got too caught up in his summation to notice.

“We know it’s someone with access to mediocre magitech, someone who can change to look like Harley…”

Vell rubbed his chin for a moment as he pondered their options, until inspiration struck.

“Or someone who already looks like her!”

Just after inspiration struck, the clock struck midnight.

◆◆◆

Vell woke up with a headache.  As Lee had promised, being snapped back to the start of a loop while still conscious was not a good time.  Vell got a drink of water and some aspirin and then checked his phone.

HARL33:
hey party ppl
anybody get eyes on what murdered us last night

Lee:
Well.
About that.

Galgamesh:
It was just you lmao.

HARL33:
xcuse me
what!?!?!?!?!!!!?
RUDE!!!!!

Lee:
If it’s any consolation, everyone was quite upset about your murder

Galgamesh:
I wasn’t.

HARL33:
obviously
I bet you killed me >:(

Galgamesh:
Not today.
Next time maybe.

HARL33:
its a date <3
who did kill me then!?!
you bitches BETTER have caught em

vharlan03:
i'm pretty sure i know who did it
but we’re gonna have to catch them in the act

HARL33:
yeah that sounds fine
ill just
put on my anti-knife bra
that i have

vharlan03:
you’ll be fine just sit next to leanne

Galgamesh:
I promise not to let you get murdered.
Again.

HARL33:
okay cool i am mostly okay with this plan
except for the part where vell wont just say who he thinks it is

vharlan03:
its more dramatic this way

HARL33:
oh lmao right

◆◆◆

“What kind of hand even is that,” Luke said, as Leanne laid down her cards.  “Does that beat mine?  I can never fucking remember whether straights or flushes are better.”

“Flushes,” Vell said.  He’d made sure to google it beforehand, to avoid repeating the same circular discussion.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Luke said.  “Alright, Leanne wins.  Deal us up again, I guess.”

“Actually, uh, one second,” Vell said.  “I think the storm’s picking up.”

“And what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Wait for it,” Vell said.  The group waited.

Their waiting paid off with the sparking burst of an electrical surge, and the room immediately falling into darkness.  Lee did not yelp in surprise at the dark this time, nor was Vell caught off guard by Joan grabbing his butt.  He sighed before his train of thought got put back on track by a grunt of exertion and the sound of a short struggle.

The emergency light’s flickered back on.  Harley had jumped out of her seat, and in the empty space left behind, Leanne had snatched the wrist of a hand holding a knife.  Vell crossed his arms in satisfaction as he identified the culprit.  Others in the room struggled to make sense of what they saw.

“Harley, do you have an evil twin?”

A nearly-identical duplicate of Harley struggled to free themselves from Leanne’s ironclad grip, to no avail.  She reached for the phasing tech she’d strapped to her belt, but Leanne swatted her hands away. Harley cracked a grin.

“Oh, no,” she said.  “That’s just Harmony, my weird off-brand doppelganger from that cooking contest a while back.”

“I am not the off-brand version of you!” Harmony shrieked.  The almost-but-not-quite perfect duplicate of Harley struggled to free herself, but didn’t lose her grip on the knife.  “I’ll prove it!  I’ll get rid of you, and I’ll be the only one!  The only one, I tell you!”

“Hah, that’s stupid,” Harley said.  “If I were going to kill my doppelganger I’d definitely get away with it.”

The taunt only enraged Harmony further.  Leanne stood up and dragged Harley’s murderous counterpart to the door.  She patted Renard on the shoulder once, to thank him for the pho, and then used Harmony’s phasing tech to move them both through the sealed doors, to escort Harmony to the nearest security bot.

“What the shit,” Cane said.  “Did Harley just almost get murdered?”

“’Almost’ being the key word, bud,” Harley said.  She sat back down in her seat and relaxed.  “So.  We still doing poker, or what?”

As Harley settled down, so did the nerves of the odd situation.  The tense roommates relaxed, to an extent.

“Just so you know,” Joan began.  “If you did get murdered, I’d definitely catch the killer.  I’m great at investigating.”

“Sure you would,” Harley said, sarcasm dripping from her voice like honey.  Vell and Lee simultaneously shove a spoonful of pho into their mouths, just to have an excuse not to say anything.

“I would!  I’m great at finding things out, right?” Joan protested, looking to the group for confirmation.  Luke and Cane very deliberately ignored her gaze.  “Vell, tell her.”

“I mean, you are.”

“You’re talking like there’s a but coming,” Joan said.

“I guess.  ‘But’ sometimes things are hard,” Vell said.  “Nobody’s smart enough to solve every problem.  Maybe you would solve a murder, maybe you wouldn’t.  I don’t really want to find out.”

Joan scowled for a moment, but eventually relented and leaned over to give Vell a kiss on the check.

“Alright, you got a point,” Joan said.  “Thanks for keeping my ego in check.”

With the tension defused, every returned to their pho.  Joan raised an empty bowl to her lips to drain the last of the broth -and hide the scowl that quickly returned to her face.

Chapter 27: It’s Not Me, It’s You

Harley woke up in bed, after a long night’s sleep.  She checked her phone.  Against all odds, it was December 20th again.  But as far as she could tell, there hadn’t been an apocalypse yesterday.  Harley got out of bed and looked at Botley.

“World blow up while I was sleeping, bud?”

Botley shook his tiny head from side to side.  He knew even less than she did.

After a long day waiting for an apocalypse that never came, Harley had finally gone to bed, leaving Lee awake to watch for a midnight apocalypse -and deal with the headache that resulted from the clock ticking over while still conscious.  Harley set out for the breakfast meeting.  Leanne was already sitting at their usual table, looking confused.

“Hey, giant lady,” Harley said.  Leanne didn’t acknowledge that.  “You notice any doomsday?”

Leanne shook her head.  Harley fetched her breakfast and stewed in silence until Lee arrived.

“Heyo,” Harley said.  “How’s the headache?”

“Manageable, thank you,” Lee said.  She sat down and rubbed her temples for a second before continuing.  “The real problem is our missing apocalypse.”

“You didn’t see anything?”

Now it was Lee’s turn to shake her head.  She had spent the previous night watching the campus, waiting for an explosion, a giant monster, an inter-dimensional rift, or anything else that might pass as an apocalyptic event.  There hadn’t been so much as a spark.

“Huh.  Maybe there just...wasn’t one?”  Harley said, hazarding a guess.

“Unlikely.  There were classes yesterday,” Lee said.  “There’s always an apocalypse when class is in session.  Perhaps it was something small and easy to miss.”

“Like a couple days ago when it was just me that died,” Harley said.

After a short delay, Leanne punched the table so hard Harley’s pancakes bounced off her plate.

“What the fuck,” Harley demanded, narrowly dodging splashing droplets of syrup.  “What are you-”

Leanne pointed emphatically towards one of the empty seats at their table.  It took another second for her meaning to sink in.

“Oh, what, Vell?” Harley said.  “What about him?”

Leanne continued gesturing to the empty seat.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about, Leanne,” Harley said.  “You know how it goes.  Vell shows up last, then we all recap stuff for him, and then we start doing stuff.”

In spite of Harley’s assurances, Leanne still felt like something had gone wrong.  She clenched her fists for a second trying to figure out how to express her point in hand gestures.  Leanne settled for pointing to her wrist, and then pointing at Vell’s empty seat again.

“What, did you give Vell a bracelet or something?”

“I believe she’s referring to a watch, Harley,” Lee said.

“Who the fuck wears watches anymore?”

“Not the point,” Lee said.  “I believe the implication is that Vell is late.”

While many elements of the looper’s lives were chaotic, some things followed a steady routine.  Just as Harley had pointed out, Vell generally showed up to breakfast meetings last, but he also showed up to breakfast meetings at a consistent time.  Leanne had been the first to notice that he was about ten minutes late.

“Maybe we should go knock on his door,” Harley said.

Leanne nodded in agreement.  She stood up, turned on her heel, and took one step before stopping in her tracks.  She sat right back down as Vell shambled his way towards their table.  He gracelessly dropped his bookbag to the floor, slumped into his usual spot, and put his head in his hands.  His hair was a tangled mess, his clothes were wrinkled, and his eyes were cobwebbed with red veins.  Harley also got the sense that he’d been crying recently.

“You okay, Vell?”

He shook his head.

“So, uh...yesterday’s apocalypse was just you, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Vell sighed.  His voice came out ragged, like he’d been screaming.

“So,” Harley began.  “You look pretty messed up.  What got you?  Demon?  Angry ghosts?  Zlydzen?”

Vell looked up with red eyes and spat out a single word, his voice a cocktail of bitterness and disappointment in equal measure.

“Joan.”

◆◆◆

After a long day of waiting for an apocalypse that had never come, Vell allowed himself to relax and spend some time with Joan.  He always felt slightly uncomfortable doing dates on the first loop, since Joan would always forget, but he had his ways.  He’d talked Joan into taking an “early night” in her dorm.  She’d thought he was being flirty, but Vell just planned on actually falling asleep.  Much to Joan’s disappointment.  She’d had big plans for the night.  Vell’s sleepiness didn’t entirely ruin her plans, but it did alter them.

While emotional analysis was far from Joan’s strong suit, even she could tell that things between her and Vell had been strained since the Kraid incident.  She knew she had to bridge that gap, and prove to Vell that he could trust her.  Luckily for Joan, she knew a perfect was to prove she could be trusted -by doing something untrustworthy and not getting caught.

Joan rolled over in bed, pressing herself against Vell’s back.  She took a minute just to appreciate the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing.  She envied his ability to sleep so peacefully, just like she envied so many things about him.  His vast array of seemingly effortless academic triumphs, the ease with which he made friends, his ability to somehow be ready for any situation -all things that had made Joan attracted to Vell, but also jealous of him.

The jealousy gave her the spark of motivation to cautiously stretch out her hand, reaching for the wrist he wore the illusion rune bracelet on.  The bracelet that hid the supposed scars around Vell’s waist, scars that Joan could make a show of accepting and easily earn her way back into Vell’s confidence.  Carefully, quietly, holding her breath all the while, Joan tugged at the strands that tied it tight around Vell’s wrist, confident that she could explain it away as the bracelet slipping while he slept.

Vell was woken sharply, not by a tug at his wrist, but by a sudden spasm of motion at his back.  Joan practically kicked him out of bed as she pushed him away.

“What the fuck,” Joan screamed.  Vell bolted awake, scrambling to get his limbs in order and then managing to stand and look around the room in a panic.

“What?  What is it?”

Vell’s first assumption was that the apocalypse had caught up to him in his sleep.  He was right, but it would take him a moment to realize how.  He scanned the room looking for danger in the form of a ghost, demon, or zlydzen, but all he saw was Joan, staring at him aghast -and clutching his illusion bracelet in a clenched fist.

For a few tense seconds, both were dead silent, and completely motionless.  Vell looked down at his waist, and lifted his shirt slightly, revealing a fragment of the circular scar around his midsection.

“Oh.”

To his surprise, Joan simply sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I’m an idiot.  I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot…”

Joan repeated herself a few more times and then got out of bed, clutching her temples all the while.

“Right age, right location, right body type,” Joan mumbled to herself.  “Mysterious scars around the waist, how did I not see this?”

“Well, the odds are kind of astronomically low that this would happen,” Vell said.  He took a few steps away from Joan as she paced.

“Fucking right,” Joan said.  “So.”

Joan released her ironclad grip on her head and looked at Vell.  There was an energy—and a hunger—in her crimson gaze that Vell didn’t like.

“This explains a lot.”

“Hopefully, because I kind of don’t want to recap it all,” Vell said.  He’d been killed and resurrected as a child, and Joan had been obsessively researching him ever since, and unintentionally becoming a supervillain’s patsy in the process.  Recapping all that would be a long conversation, and not one he particularly wanted to have with Joan right now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Joan demanded.  “You looked me in the eyes when I told you how hard I’d worked to find you, how much of my life I’d poured into this research.”

“Well, I was, uh, kind of worried that anything I told you, you’d tell to Kraid-”

“Why?  Why would I do that?  I wouldn’t need to tell him anything, I’ve been using him-”

“No, Joan, you haven’t,” Vell snapped, taking his turn to interrupt her.  “He’s been using you, do you get that?  He knows who I am, what this is.”

Vell gestured to his lower back, at the mysterious rune that Joan had been hunting half her life.

“He ran his experiments on me years ago, and he got nothing.  He’s just been using you to try and get a second chance.  And this whole time, that, you know, you think you’ve been one step ahead of him, he’s been ten steps ahead of you, okay?” Vell continued.  “Do you see how hard it is to actually, like, trust you, when you’re getting manipulated that easily by someone that evil?”

With every word, Joan’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed tighter.  By the time Vell had finished she had a deep scowl on her face.

“I am not being ‘manipulated’ by anyone,” Joan hissed through gritted teeth.

“Look, Joan, it happens, he’s tricked me plenty of times too,” Vell said.  “Probably more often than even I know, honestly.  I’m, uh, starting to be more and more certain he’s the reason I can never find an instruction manual or a handbook anywhere around here…”

“Okay, you know what, no, no more talking about Kraid,” Joan said.  “He has nothing to do with this.”

“He has a lot to do with this, actually,” Vell said.  “There’s, well, there’s a lot going on, and we can’t really ignore any part of it-”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Joan snapped.  “I want to talk about you, and why you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie about anything.  I told you I didn’t want to talk about this-” Vell said, gesturing to his waist.  “-but that we could talk about it later, when I was more comfortable.  Later just turned out to be, well, a lot later, since you regularly hang out with the worst human alive.”

“That’s-” Joan started and then stopped.  She couldn’t even claim it was a lie of omission, since Vell had made it very clear he was omitting something, and she’d accepted that.  Joan bit her lip and wracked her brain for another point of protest.  Vell took the initiative when it came to complaining.

“Look, I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t fuck up a few things here,” Vell said. “But what did you do to my bracelet?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Joan said.  “It just...came untied.”

The silence that followed made it incredibly clear to Joan that she had fucked up.  Vell had a habit of assuming the best in his friends, but in this situation there was only one assumption to make.

“Just came untied,” Vell said.  “The knot I specifically chose because it wouldn’t come untied easily, just came untied, near your hand, while you were awake, and staring at my lower back.”

Joan looked at the small strip of cord in her hand, and the now useless rune engraved on it.  She contemplated two very different courses of action, and settled on one quickly.

“Weird things happen around you, Vell,” Joan said.  Neither Vell nor even Joan believed it for a second.  Having been caught lying before, Joan expected the usual shouting.  Instead, Vell, simply turned and grabbed his phone and other belongings off the bedside table.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” he muttered under his breath.

“Why is that your go-to, why is it always waiting?”

“Because I like to think about things, instead of making impulsive decisions, Joan,” Vell said.  “I am sorry if my attempts to be rational, considerate, and patient are upsetting you.  They usually have the opposite effect!”

“I’m not just talking about this,” Joan said, gesturing between the two of them.  She then pointed down at Vell’s waist.  “I’m talking about that.  How much work do you think I could’ve done if I’d known about that all this time?  How much closer could I be to saving lives with the miracle you’re trying to hide?”

“None at all, and not at all,” Vell said.  “You wouldn’t have accomplished anything, Joan.  Your buddy Kraid already tried it.  It so far, uh, beyond you, beyond anybody, it’s pointless to experiment on.  Okay?  I’ve been spending years researching it just to try and find a starting point-”

“Stop assuming I’m stupid,” Joan said.  The venom in her voice sailed over Vell’s head as he shoved the last of his belongings into his pocket and turned towards the door.

“I didn’t say you were,” Vell said.  “But there are some things even you aren’t smart enough-”

The first brush of icy cold against his face cut Vell off mid-sentence.  The second silenced him more literally as the frigid band sealed tight around his mouth, then coiled around his limbs.  An all-too familiar green fire flared in the dark room, sparking from Joan’s fingertips.  Her fiery fingers twitched, and Vell spun in place.  Another tendril of cold flame lifted the back of his shirt, giving Joan a much clearer view of the rune she’d been hunting her whole life.  It struck her as odd, how it seemed so bright without actually giving off any light.

Decades of simmering rage reached a boiling point.  Joan’s fist tightened around the soulstone in her hands, and the black fire entangling Vell burned a little brighter as she stared at the mystifying rune.  So many people had called her crazy for seeking it out.  Then Vell and Kraid had made the mistake of thinking she wasn’t smart enough to accomplish her goals, but now the object of her obsession was within reach.  Now she had the chance to prove them all wrong.

She had the chance, but she certainly wasn’t going to.

◆◆◆

“So,” Vell said.  “How long have you been practicing dark magic?”

They’d never gotten a chance to discuss Joan’s practice, since without an emergency to force her hand into revealing it, Joan adamantly denied the fact she was a dark magic user.  Vell figured he might as well ask now, since he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Not long,” Joan muttered.  “As evidenced by the fact that you can talk.”

Joan flicked her wrist and refreshed the flow of magic around his bindings.  She didn’t bother redoing the one around his mouth.  What little dark magic she’d picked up from Kraid apparently wasn’t enough to keep Vell contained.  Vell sighed as he felt the bindings of green fire refresh.  In retrospect, he should’ve kept his mouth shut.  With any luck, the magic might’ve faded entirely and given him a chance to escape.  Vell continued to hover in midair, with not much else to do but stare at the room.

“And I notice you kept all that research you said you threw away,” Vell said.  Some of the notes and resources Joan had gathered to help her apparent experiment were all too familiar.

“You don’t need to talk,” Joan snipped.

“Well I don’t really have a lot else to do, except, you know, float and make noise,” Vell said.  “I could, uh, whistle, if that’d be better.”

“It’d be worse, actually.”

“Okay,” Vell said.  “Guess I’ll just keep talking.  Nothing else to do.”

“You could at least say something helpful, and tell me more about the rune,” Joan said.  “I have months of possible research time to catch up on.”

“Hold on, do you actually still think this ends in you making some kind of scientific breakthrough?” Vell asked.  “Somebody’s going to notice I’m missing in like eight hours or so.”

Halfway through preparing a scientific instrument to scan Vell with, Joan froze in place.  She tried to play it off as a moment of confusion about where to find her next tool, but Vell had learned her quirks.  Most of them, at least.  That momentary freeze was a clear sign she’d been caught off guard.

“Okay,” Vell said.  “I understand that you got put in a pretty high-pressure situation, and you made a snap decision.  It’s not too late for us to talk this over.  You can let me go-”

“I knew what I was doing,” Joan snapped.  “And I know what I’m doing now!  I don’t need eight hours to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong.”

“What about this is proving anyone wrong?  All you’re proving is that you’re willing to do horrible things to get what you want.”

“You think I want this?  You think I want to hurt-” Joan started and stopped herself from going too far down that road.  Her grip tightened on the table and the tool she held.  “I’ve never gotten anything I wanted from this fucking project.  I’m doing this because people need it.  Because there are millions of people who deserve the second chance you got.”

Joan took a deep breath and relaxed her vice-like grip on her tools.  One of the handles appeared to be bent from the strain. 

“This is personal for you, isn’t it?” Vell asked.  He could see it written on her face -not just the determination, but the exhaustion, and above all else, the fear.  Joan had the look of a woman fighting a lifelong battle she was no longer certain she could win.  She froze again as Vell spoke the words, once again confirming she’d been caught off guard.  Then her brow furrowed and her grip tightened, the renewed focus in her red eyes confirming she intended to press on despite Vell’s insight.

“Just shut up and let me work if you’re not going to say anything helpful,” Joan said.  She returned to her tools, this time with a feigned calm that kept her from bending anymore handles.  The continued, if unintentional, challenges to her ego coming from Vell only strengthened Joan’s ill-placed resolve. 

“Look, Joan, I genuinely have nothing useful to say to you,” Vell said.  “I’ve been studying this since I was twelve and I still don’t even know where to begin.”

“Okay, and what exactly have you done, so I can rule it out?’

“You know, the normal stuff, comparative analysis-”

“Comparative analysis?  You have a rune that can undo death on your back and you’ve been searching for look-alikes?”

Vell tried to shrug, but couldn’t, due to the dark magic holding him in place.  He settled for shaking his head disdainfully.

“You have to work with the fundamentals,” he said.

“Oh, that is so like you, Vell,” Joan said with a roll of her eyes.  “Slow to start absolutely everything.  What are you so afraid of?”

After a few moments of silence, Vell looked at Joan, then down at the black fire which restrained him, and then back at Joan.

“Well, this, for starters,” Vell said.  Joan didn’t have a rebuttal for that one.  “Also, you know, dying again, unleashing overwhelming magical energy, cursing myself, angering whatever mysterious entity put this rune on me in the first place, all the usual risks of tampering with unknowable cosmic forces.”

Joan, who had been halfway through scratching down some preliminary notes, paused for a second.  She had failed to consider most of those aspects -though upon considering them now, they were quickly dismissed.  In Joan’s mind, even the greatest cosmic unknowns could not compare with her intellect.

“Then why not ask for help?  You’re at school with the greatest minds on the planet,” Joan said, referring mostly to herself.

“Well, again, this,” Vell said, nodding his head, as much as he could, towards his restraints.  “Also, general terror and fear.  This might surprise you, but people don’t always react positively to finding out I’m technically a corpse.”

His words fell on deaf ears.  Joan was past the point of no return already, so she focused on her work, preparing herself as much as she could for the experiments to come.  Vell continued without regard for her apparent apathy.

“It’s pretty common, actually,” Vell continued.  “My grandparents won’t talk to my family any more, half the friends I tell cut me off, my first girlfriend called me a monster, and, oh yeah, my most recent girlfriend tied me up with dark magic and is going to kill me with an experiment.”

“You get sarcastic when you’re angry, you know that?”

“No, I don’t,” Vell said, sarcastically.

“Hah, very funny,” Joan grumbled.  The brief stories of Vell’s past had almost shaken her resolve, but she was not ready to back down just yet.  She made a few more hasty scratches on her notes and grabbed what appeared to be a metal rod.  Joan twisted one end of it, causing a spike to emerge from the other. 

“Uh, Joan,” Vell said.  “What is that?”

“Just an arcanometric analyzer,” she said, all too casually.  She did track Vell’s eyes eventually, which were staring with great concern at the metal spike.  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.  You’ve had a shot before, haven’t you?”

“Well, no, actually.”

“Exactly!  And it’ll be just like -wait, you haven’t?”

“I don’t really get sick,” Vell said.  Joan was dumbstruck by that for a moment.

“All the more reason I need to do this, then,” Joan said.  If Vell’s rune acted as a universal vaccine on top of a way to resurrect the dead, all the better.

“I mean, the needle is not the problem,” Vell said.  “That thing’s supposed to take a sample of magic from my body, right?”

“Yes.  It’ll be almost completely painless, don’t worry.”

“That is not the issue, Joan,” Vell said.  He tried to gesture with his hands and found himself stymied by the magical restraints.  “You have no idea what kind of magic you’re dealing with, or in what amount.”

“So tell me,” Joan said.

“Are you not listening to me?  I couldn’t if I wanted to, I don’t know either!”

“Then this is what we have to do to find out together,” Joan said.  She turned the metal rod to the side, to expose a Kraid tech logo carved into the shell.  “Say what you will about Kraid, he buys me nice things.”

Joan strolled around Vell, towards his back, and lifted the hem of his shirt to expose the rune again.  She stopped to stare at it, and contemplate how the rune seemed to be staring back at her.  The paradoxical lightless glow of it baffled her.  But not for long, she thought.  Soon all of those secrets it held were going to be hers.  She held out the spiked rod to display it again, then pulled it back and reversed her grip on it, holding it like a dagger.  The irony was not lost on Vell that she was about to literally stab him in the back.

“This thing is designed for analyzing the unknown, so its rated for ten peta-Pratchetts, across all magical spectrums,” Joan said.  “That’s as much magical energy as the entire planet generates in five years.  It’ll be fine.”

Rather than fill Vell with dread by warning him the prick was coming, Joan merely jabbed the needle into his back.  He twitched slightly at the jab -and Joan jumped backwards as the readout on the scanner jumped immediately from “0” to “WARNING”.  That bright red notice of her failure lasted about half a second before the screen fizzled out completely, and a shimmering spark of octarine lightning shot out of the malfunctioning scanner.

“Oh shit,” she mumbled.  “Vell, I’m-”

She never got the chance to finish her sentence.

◆◆◆

Silence hit the table like a lead brick as Vell finished recounting the previous loop’s events.  Harley had been expecting some act of recklessness or stupidity from Joan, not an intentional act of malice.  Even if the apocalyptic failure was unintentional, she’d made the choice to essentially kidnap Vell -her own boyfriend- and experiment on him against his will.  Harley had very low expectations for Joan and she’d still disappointed to a heartbreaking extent.  The low expectations at least dampened the blow for Harley, and apparently Leanne as well, who looked disappointed but not surprised.  Lee, and especially Vell, were taking the betrayal much harder.

“Well,” Harley began, after the silence became too much to bear.  “This is fucked.”

“Yeah, a little,” Vell said hoarsely.  “You know what the worst part is?”

Nobody dared to try and answer that question.  In the end, the question got answered for them.

“There you are!”

The deathly silence deepened as Joan sat down in the seat next to Vell, leaned on his shoulder, and then kissed him on the cheek.  As far as Joan knew, she and Vell were still a (relatively) happy couple, with nary a murder or kidnapping between them, much less both.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Vell wondered if he was the first person to ever have to dump their own murderer. 

Any happiness to see her boyfriend slowly faded as the silence around Joan continued.  She had no memory of the first loop, and no memory of the way she’d betrayed Vell and gotten him killed.  Nobody wanted to explain it to her either.  Harley had a lot of choice words for Joan right now, many of them illegal to say out loud in a few countries, but she couldn’t say any without risking the secrets of the time loops.  Unable to say anything they wanted to, the loopers stayed silent, and deliberately avoided eye contact with Joan.

“What’s up, guys?  Did something happen?”

“Leanne’s uncle died,” Harley said.  Leanne, surprisingly, played the part, and shifted her anger into an expression of sadness.  Harley continued on.  “Sorry, we’re just a bit broken up about it, you know, this is a bad time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Joan said.  She scooted a bit further from Vell, much to his relief, and stiffened her posture in an attempt to be more formal.  “Let me know if you need anything, or if you want to talk-”

The stare she got from Leanne in that moment reminded Joan who she was talking to -or talking at, rather.  Leanne had never so much as sneezed around Joan, and after the story Vell had told, that wasn’t going to change.  Joan, recognizing that she’d put her foot in her mouth, stood up.

“Well, again, let me know if you need anything,” Joan said.  “Vell, I’ll see you later.”

Harley restrained herself from mumbling “maybe” under her breath.  She waited until Joan was safely out of earshot to say anything.

“Alright, so your psychopath girlfriend doesn’t remember murdering you, but you remember getting murdered,” Harley said.  “Time to make like a truck and dump, Vell.”

“I can’t just break up with her,” Vell said.  Harley held up a hand to emphasize what she was about to say.

“Vell Harlan, you are an adult and you are allowed to end a relationship for any reason if you no longer feel comfortable in it,” Harley scolded.  “Whether it’s them being rude to the waitress or you know, abducting you with black magic and killing you.  The latter being a pretty good fucking reason!”

Leanne nodded in agreement while Lee shifted uncomfortably in her seat.  Vell shook his head.

“That’s not what I meant,” Vell said.  Lee looked up with a brief glimmer of relief that quickly faded as Vell continued.  “Breaking up could, I don’t know, make things worse.  What if she-”

“Vell!  She. Murdered. You,” Harley said, enunciating every point very clearly.  “We don’t need to think about hypotheticals when there is a very immediate danger right in front of you.  Dump her!”

Harley had already thought very little of Joan, and this murder zeroed out that already low opinion.  Vell was more forgiving, but was still forced to nod in agreement.  He was lucky this incident had occurred on the first loop and given him a second chance.  He might not be so lucky if Joan got provoked again.

“Okay...but I still need, uh, a reason,” Vell said.  “If I just dump her out of the blue, all our friends will think I’m the asshole.”

“Vell I hate to be the one to tell you this,” Harley began.  She then put a finger to her lips, thought for a moment, and spoke again.  “Actually I don’t hate it at all, I should’ve told you this a while ago: Nobody actually likes Joan that much.”

“What?”

“Yeah, nobody said anything because like, it’s your life to live and we don’t want to interfere in your relationships, but have you not noticed that pretty much no one ever hangs out with Joan unless you’re around?”

Lee considered protesting this, but said nothing.

“She was already kind of iffy before everyone found out she hangs out with Kraid, and that just made everything way worse,” Harley continued.  “Even Renard figured out she’s bad news, and like, he’s Renard.”

Vell stared at his own clenched fists and sat silently.  Harley looked at Leanne, who silently nodded in her direction, then at Vell.  Harley took the hint.

“Hey, Vell, I know I’m seeming kind of flippant about this but, I get it,” she said.  “This sucks.  I understand the good stuff you saw in Joan, I do.  But, ultimately, you saw her as better than she really was.  I’m sorry she let you down you like that.”

The expression of sympathy didn’t do much for Vell’s mood.  He rubbed his temples and then stood from the table.

“I need to, uh, do something,” Vell said. 

“Might get some sleep,” Harley suggested.  “Maybe take a shower, try to relax.  You know where to find us if you need us.”

Vell nodded and stumbled off.  Harley watched him go with pity in her eyes.

“Poor guy,” she mumbled.  She had genuinely hoped that Vell might be a good influence on Joan, but ultimately Vell had been too willing to overlook her flaws and forgive her mistakes.  She just wished he’d been able to catch on sooner.  Everyone else had realized Joan was bad news a long time ago.  Harley turned to discuss the situation with Lee, but she had snuck away while Harley wasn’t looking.

◆◆◆

Vell spent most of the morning face-down in his pillow, moping and cursing his own foolishness.  Motivation to stop the downward spiral came in the form an irresistible aroma from the kitchen.  Even at his most depressed, Vell would never be able to say no to Renard’s cooking.  He wandered his way into the kitchen and found a plate being shoved into his hands before he even had time to ask what was cooking.

“Here you go,” Renard said.  “Lamb kebabs.  Probably won’t compare to how your family makes them, but I hope it’s close enough.”

The hearty pile of meat and veggies atop the flatbread didn’t look exactly the way Vell’s mother made it, but it looked delicious regardless. 

“I’m sure it’ll be great, thanks,” Vell said.  He took the plate and headed for the living room as Renard hastily plated up three more portions for himself, Luke, and Cane.  The four roommates sat scattered around the living room and ate in silence, waiting until Vell had finished to address the elephant in the room.

“So,” Luke said.  “You seem like you’re having a rough day.”

“The worst,” Vell said.  He took a deep breath and let it out as a long, rumbling sigh.  “I think I have to dump Joan.  I just, uh, learned some...things, and I don’t think I’m comfortable dating her anymore.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cane said, trying his best to sound surprised.  “She tell you about the roommate stuff?”

“What ‘roommate stuff’?”

“Ah fuck,” Cane said.  “Seriously?”

“Cane, what ‘roommate stuff’?” Vell repeated.  Cane sighed.  Apparently he had to be the bearer of bad news now.

“Look, that stuff she was saying at the start of the year about why she doesn’t have any roommates?  About how they all transferred out to be with their friends or something?”  Cane began.  “Yeah, I was talking to my brother and he said the school doesn’t do that kind of stuff.  Did some digging, turns out the roommates didn’t transfer to be with friends, they transferred to get away from Joan.  I don’t know the full story, but apparently they were making introductions, talking about their research projects, the other chicks said Joan’s was a little crazy, and Joan got a little more crazy.”

“What did she do?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know.  Like I said, I couldn’t get all the details,” Cane said.  “I confronted her about it and she said she was going to tell you ‘soon’.  That was weeks ago, though. Guess that’s just another thing she lied about.”

“Christ,” Vell said, putting his head in his hands.  “Fucking christ.  What’ve I gotten myself into?”

“Credit where credit is due, we helped you get into this mess,” Luke said.  Their theatrical self-sabotage had helped set the stage for Vell and Joan’s first date, after all.  “And we can help you get out of it.”

“Yeah,” Renard said.  “We can do that thing they do on TV where you just become such a terrible boyfriend that she breaks up with you.”

“I love those plots,” Luke said.  “But also, we’re like, adults.  We pay taxes.”

“We do?”

“Yes, Renard, we do.  Or we should, anyway,” Luke said.  “Do you pay taxes, Renard?”

“Maybe.”

“We’ll talk about your possible tax evasion later,” Luke said.  “Back to Vell.  We have to take things at least a little seriously sometimes, and this is one of those times.”

“Oh yeah,” Renard said.  Vell nodded along with Luke’s logic.

“Yeah.  I don’t want this to be some gimmick.  I just need to communicate.  Openly and honestly.”

With the woman who killed me last night, Vell added to himself.

“Would you guys mind sticking around tonight?  Just like, chill in your dorms.”

“That bad, huh?” Luke asked.  The fact that Vell no longer felt comfortable being alone with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend said a lot about how badly their relationship had broken down.  “Yeah, we got you.  Just give a shout if you need anything.”

“Hopefully not a literal shout,” Cane said.  “But it could happen.”

“Not helping, Cane,” Luke snapped.

“What?  The way those girls talked, screaming seems likely,” Cane said.  “Just giving our boy fair warning.  He’s had enough people being dishonest with him lately.”

“I appreciate it,” Vell said.  “I think.”

“And when all this is over, I’m going to make the hell out of some comfort food,” Renard offered.  “So, look forward to that, and, good luck I guess.”

“I’m going to need it.”

◆◆◆

Alone in her dorm room, Lee stared at her phone.  Her contacts list was open, displaying all the people she talked to the most.  Harley, Vell, and then Joan.  All the people she would usually turn to in a situation like this, and now she felt she couldn’t speak to any of them.

She wasn’t stupid enough to try and defend Joan, not now of all times.  What Joan had done was vile and reckless, but there was so much more to Joan than her impulsive mistakes.  Lee couldn’t help but recall the good times, the time spent laughing, working together to solve apocalyptic problems, the many, many, many hours spent plotting the downfall of Lee’s father.  Mostly the hours spent planning downfalls, in fact.  They had done a lot of fantasizing about that.

While elaborate plots of patricide might be considered “unhealthy” by some, Lee considered them a sign of a healthy friendship.  Even after everything, Lee couldn’t help but consider Joan a friend -one of the few true friends she had.  She didn’t want to lose Joan, but neither did she want to alienate Vell and Harley by defending her.

Lee grew tired of staring at her phone and put it away.  After a moment of thought, Lee decided on her course of action. 

To do nothing.  Because she was afraid to do anything else.

◆◆◆

Vell held his breath as the door to his dorm opened and shut.  Other than the click of the closing door, the room was dead silent until Joan sat down on the couch next to Vell.

“Hey Vell,” she said, the cheer in her voice making it clear she was blissfully oblivious as to what was about to happen.  “How’s Leanne holding up?”

“Oh.  Right.”

Just another uncomfortable conversation Vell got to have.

“That was, uh, well, Leanne’s uncle isn’t dead,” Vell said.  “Harley sort of came up with that on the spot to cover for...me.”

A cold shiver ran down Joan’s spine, and Vell could not help but notice.  He took a deep breath through his nose and held it for a moment.  A thousand variations of this sentence had run through his head, and none of them were good.  Vell went with the least-worst option.

“I’m sorry, Joan, I just, uh...I don’t think this is working.  We shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

The words hit Joan like a knife in the gut.  She recoiled from Vell, just as Vell recoiled from her in turn.  He could see her fists clench and her muscles tense as her face briefly flared with that familiar anger and frustration, the same deep-seated rage that had pushed her forward to her fatal mistakes on the first loop.  Vell drew back further, ready for whatever came next.

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“It’s fine,” Joan spat.  “Fine.  I get it.”

Joan seethed with anger in an all-too familiar way.  She had seen this coming since the incident with Kraid.  After all her hopes that Vell would finally be the guy smart enough to understand why she had to do what she was doing, she’d just been disappointed again.  Vell was just another idiot who didn’t understand anything.

“And you-”

Joan turned around to point an accusing finger at Vell.  He flinched.

Over the past few months, Joan had watched Vell run headlong into situations most people would never even dream of.  He had never blinked facing down trickster gods, endless stampedes, and murderous doppelgangers.  Vell wasn’t scared of any of those things.  But Vell was scared of her.  Joan froze, and looked down at the hand that had made Vell briefly recoil in terror.

“Joan…”

She kept staring at her own hand for a second.  She didn’t even know it, but she was looking at the same hand she’d stabbed Vell with on the previous loop.  All of the worryingly familiar anger Vell had seen on her face slowly melted away.

“I...I’m going to go,” Joan said.  “I’ll...see you around, I guess.”

Joan left, and shut the door behind her.  Three dorm room doors opened the minute she was gone.

“You good?” Cane whispered, not yet loosening a tight grip on a baseball bat.

Vell didn’t know how to answer that.

◆◆◆

After indulging in Renard’s promised comfort food, Vell had been feeling a bit aimless.  He ended up, as he often did, bending Harley’s ear to his problems.  She was more than happy to listen.

“I just really don’t understand it all,” Vell said, after recapping the events of the breakup.  “All that frustration and anger was there, and then it was just...gone.  I don’t get it.”

Vell looked at the clock.  This time on the first loop, he’d been getting restrained by black magic and then killed.  He’d been expecting to see that same side of Joan -the rage, the pride, the selfishness, when confronted about the end of their relationship, and for a moment, it had been there.  Then, just as fast, it had been gone.  He didn’t know what had caused such a sudden change in Joan, and it made him wonder if things could’ve gone differently, in more ways than one.

“People are complex, Vell,” Harley said.  “Joan’s bad, but nobody’s all bad.”

“Except Kraid,” Vell said.

“Except Kraid,” Harley agreed.  “But the rest of us...We’re a lot harder to figure out.  You, and me, and Joan, we all got flaws we need to work on.  Sometimes we do that by ourselves.  Sometimes we need help.  Sometimes people think they’re improving on their flaws, but they’re just building new ones.  We’re all lost, trying to find our way, and Joan’s just...more lost than most of us.”

Vell shifted uncomfortably on Harley’s shoulder.  She was a lot shorter than him, so leaning over was uncomfortable, but it just felt nice to have some human contact.  Harley noticed his discomfort and shifted to better accommodate him.

“I know what you’re thinking, Vell,” Harley said.  “You don’t owe her any help.  Not if it means putting yourself in danger.”

“I guess you’re right,” Vell said.  Harley patted him on the head and then changed the subject, for his sake.

“So.  New Year’s break in just a few days,” Harley said.  “You ready for two whole weeks with no apocalypses?”

Soon, classes would be put on hold for two weeks, until the new year, giving the loopers a brief reprieve.  Vell had initially planned on spending the break on-campus due to travel expenses, but Lee had offered to spend her parents money on the travel costs, so he was going home.

“Honestly?  I could use, you know, the distraction,” Vell said.  Being back with his parents would be nice, but the ranch lacked much-needed diversions.

“Ha, fair,” Harley said.  “You want to get Lee’s parents to buy me a ticket to go home with you?  I wouldn’t mind finding out the origins of your yeehaw bullshit.”

“Thanks, but, uh, no thanks,” Vell said.  “I’m still trying to figure out how this part of my life and that part of my life are going to interact, you know?  How to balance the normal life stuff and being caught in this crazy loop stuff.”

“I get you,” Harley said.  “It is pretty wild.”

“Yeah.”

The conversation lulled while Harley called out to Botley.  The diminutive robot curled up in her lap like a cat, and she rubbed his round head.

“Hey Vell?”

“Yeah?”

“I know it can kind of suck being stuck in this ‘crazy loop stuff’, but I’m really glad you’re stuck in it with us.  You’re pretty cool.”

“Thanks.  You’re pretty cool too.”

“You’re damn right.”

Chapter 28: Varying Degrees of Familial Embarassment

“Vell!”

Vell’s mother rushed across the docks just as Vell stepped off the ferry.  He set his bag aside for a moment to give her the hug she was so clearly desperate for.  After lingering in his arms for a while, Vell’s mother stepped back and started doing the mandatory mom fussing, straightening his hair and wiping wayward spots on his face.  She gave him a thorough examination, and stared fiercely into his eyes.  Vell’s mother was one of the few people he knew tall enough to look him eye to eye.  His father, on the other hand, was lucky to look him eye to elbow.  Vell’s father was what some might refer to as a “short king”.  The cowboy hat made him look a little taller, at least.

“Welcome back, kiddo,” Vell’s father drawled.  If he hadn’t grown up with it, Vell would have sworn he was faking the accent.  Vell’s dad gave him a paternal pat on the shoulder and then gestured back to the truck they’d rented.  “Let’s get on home.  From what you told us, sounds like you could use some time on the ranch.”

“Oh dear, I’m sure he wants to take his mind off all that,” Vell’s mom said.  She tugged at her hijab to straighten it out and then reached down -far down- to grab her husband by the hand as they walked back to the truck.  Vell had told them all about his breakup on a phone call during the boat ride back to the mainland.  He had hoped it would mean no discussing it while face to face.

“It’s fine, bebe,” Vell said.  “I don’t really want to talk about it, but, uh, some time on the ranch sounds good.”

“It’ll be grand, y’all, I’ve always said there’s no better fix for a case of the blues than the back of a horse,” Vell’s dad said.  “Unless that case of the blues is also a case of clinical depression, in which case there’s no better fix than therapy, proper medication, and also the back of a horse.  You ain’t clinical depressed, right son?”

“Not the last time I checked, no.”

“Perfect!  Back of a horse it is then.  We got a new palomino on the ranch you’ll love, rides like a dream.”

“Sounds great, pa,” Vell said.  The conversation paused while Vell’s mother gave his dad a hand up into the truck, and then took the driver’s seat for herself.  Vell’s dad liked big trucks, but his legs were usually too short to work the pedals right.  Thankfully his towering wife was on hand to drive in his stead.

“We got plenty of other things to talk about, after all.  This fancy witchcraft you’ve been learning, and them new friends of yours.”

“Oh yes, you’ll have to tell us all about this generous friend of yours. ‘Lee’, yes?  It is so nice of her to pay for all of this,” Vell’s mother said.  The ferry ride, rental car, and train ride necessary to get home were all coming out of Lee’s pocket -technically.  Her parents were doing the real paying, by wont of giving Lee money without actually questioning what she needed it for.

“You know what we should do for Lee?  We should send you back with some of those sew-han hallway things your mom makes, with the little almonds slices in them?  As a way of saying thank you.”

“Sohan halwa,” Vell’s mother corrected.  “You know that.”

“I do, I just love the way you say it,” Vell’s dad said.  Vell’s mother blushed, and Vell looked out the window.  He’d been looking for a distraction, but if he had to watch his parents flirt, he’d almost rather think about the breakup.

◆◆◆

Lee waited silently at the airport terminal while the staff cleared away the rest of the traffic.  Lee had no interest in grinding the movement of other travelers to a halt, but her parents insisted.  They called it a security measure.  It also conveniently made enough room for their extra-long limo to dominate the curb.  The double length limousine required a specially engineered bending section in the middle, and was commonly described as “compensating for something.”  The door of the freudian abomination opened automatically when it sensed Lee.  She stooped her head and slipped inside while hired hands who had been instructed not to look her in the eye took care of her bags.

The interior of the limousine was as posh-looking as it was empty.  Lee found herself alone in the expansive vehicle, unless one counted the bubbles in the included hot tub as company.  Lee somehow resisted the urge to go for a dip and sat at the far end of the vehicle’s interior, near the window that connected her to the driver.

“Will we be picking up my parents at another location?” Lee asked.

“No ma’am,” the driver said slowly.  “They are occupied elsewhere.”

The driver spoke with the slow, measured cadence typical of a man literally making every word count.  Lee’s parents were well aware that in their frequent absences, they risked alienating their daughter.  Ever the genius, Noel Burrows had figured out a way to make sure he was always his daughters favorite: by making sure no one else could speak to her.  Every employee of the Burrows household was instructed to never speak more than fifty words an hour to Lee.  Anyone who did so would be fired on the spot.  In spite of those harsh restrictions, Lee occasionally built some familiarity with the staff.

“Jacobo?  Is that you?”

“Yes,” the driver said, before adding “ma’am”.  Their fifty word restriction was often complicated by the fact that they were also contractually obligated to address Lee as “ma’am”.

“Hmm.  It’s good to see you again, I suppose.”

It was rare for an employee to stay in the Burrows employ for more than a year, due to their restrictive rules, but Jacobo had somehow managed.  Either that or he’d been fired, his parents had forgotten they’d fired him, and then rehired him.  They didn’t have a good memory when it came to the “little people”.

“You as well,” Jacobo said.  “Ma’am.”

Lee stayed silent for the rest of the ride home, eventually retreating into her dusty room in an empty mansion, where the silence continued.

◆◆◆

“What’s up Harley fam!”

Harley thundered into the house, and the house thundered right back.

“Harley!”

A wall of bodies consisting of Harley’s parents along with her three sisters and four brothers surged into the entry way.  Harley dropped her bags immediately to make room in her arms for all the hugs she was about to get.  She still didn’t have quite enough room, as she was tiny and her family was huge (in the numbers sense -all nine of them were just as short as she was, if not shorter).  The family dog also tried to join the hug but, being a corgi, it mostly just jumped around people’s knees.

“Oh welcome home, baby,” Harley’s mother said.  She had yet to adapt to her oldest child being out of the house for so long.

“Good to be back, mom,” Harley said.  She leaned into the overwhelming hug for a second, and then managed to worm her way out.  “But I know what you’re all really excited about.”

Harley grabbed one piece of her luggage and undid the latches.  The mechanical body of Botley rolled out and unfolded itself from its travel-sized compression.  Once all his limbs were in the right place, Botley looked up and waved hello to the family.  Some of the young members of the family ooh’d and aah’d at the humanoid machine.  The novelty of Harley’s robots had yet to wear off for most of them.  Especially considering what she used it for.

“Botley, chores,” Harley commanded.  The robot saluted and sped off into the house, cleaning messes wherever he found them.  Some of Harley’s young siblings broke off to watch Botley work, leaving the others to help Harley with her bags and get situated in the living room.  Harley kicked her feet up on the coffee table as soon as Botley was done dusting and polishing it.

“Still working on getting you guys a permanent robo-maid,” Harley said.  All of Botley’s parts, sans the head, were technically on loan from the Einstein-Odinson College, under the auspices of Harley doing ‘independent research’.  It was technically true, but she was only researching new ways to make her mom’s life easier.

“It’s alright, Harley,” her mother said.  “We need chores around here, otherwise these kids would never get out of their beds.”

“That’s the plan,” Harley said.  “They don’t want to get out of bed.  I sure didn’t.”

“But I made you,” Harley’s mother said.  “And that work ethic got you into that fancy college.”

“Yeah, inventing new and exciting ways to not have to get out of bed,” Harley said.  “I work hard half my life so I can not work at all the other half.”

“Oh, you say that all you want,” said her mother.  “I know you, Harley B Harley.  You’ve got big plans.”

Harley kept her mouth shut.  Of course she did, but part of having big plans was keeping them secret.  It was more fun that way.

Chapter 29: May Contain Quantum

Vell went looking for Harley as soon as he was off the boat.  Harley, predictably, found him first. She announced her presence by grabbing him around the waist and trying -and failing- to lift him off the ground in a bear hug.  She grunted with exertion for about fifteen seconds while Vell waited patiently for her to give up.

“Does that rune make you super heavy or am I just crazy weak?” Harley asked, as she finally relented.

“I’m actually underweight for my height,” Vell said.  He turned around to face Harley.  Her massive smile was a comforting sight, even after just two weeks apart.

“Oh shit.  Let’s get you some exercise then.  Here, catch me.”

Harley jumped up, and Vell caught her, if only barely.  She squeezed him tight enough that his back popped and then let him go.

“How you been, Harlan?”

“Pretty good.  Rode a lot of horses, got fussed over by my mom a lot, didn’t get disemboweled by a humanoid crab at all,” Vell said.  Harley shook her head.  Fucking marine biology department.  “How about you?”

“About the same, but with no horses,” Harley said. 

“Cool.  So where’s Lee?”

“She does a bunch of administrative bullshit at the start of every semester, she’ll be at it most of the day,” Harley said.

“Oh.  What about Leanne?”

“Fuck if I know.  Probably doing sports things.  You know how she is.”

“Well, I thought I might say hi anyway,” Vell said.

“Do your thing my dude,” Harley said.  She took a step away.  “I gotta do school stuff now.  Tell your roomies I said hey, and we should totally plan a welcome-back get together.”

“Will do,” Vell said.  “See you when the world ends.”

A random passer-by stopped to stare at Vell when he said that.  Vell stared right back for a second and then walked away.  He made it halfway across the quad before something else demanded his attention.

“Mr. Harlan.”

Professor Nguyen had never actually said the word “stop”, but her tone communicated it clearly.  Vell paused mid-stride and rotated on his heels to turn and face the professor.  She nodded in approval of his obedience and then gestured towards a short black woman in a labcoat at her left, who was staring at Vell with an eerie smile.

“Mr. Harlan, this is Doctor Akua, an old schoolmate of mine,” Nguyen said.  Dr. Akua stepped forward and extended her hand in Vell’s direction with surprising speed.

“Lovely to meet you,” Akua said, with a too-broad smile on her face.  “Carmella speaks very harshly of you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Vell said.  “Uh, did you mean ‘highly’?”

“No,” Akua said.  “But the fact that she talks about you at all is a compliment, technically.”

“I will also add that it is not, in fact, ‘nice to meet’ Dr. Akua, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said.  “This is not an introduction, it is a warning.  You would do well to avoid her.”

“Oh, Carmella, you old coot,” Dr. Akua said.  “You and your dry humor.”

Vell looked Professor Nguyen in the eyes.  She stared right back.  If there was any humor at all in Nguyen, it was about as dry as the Sahara. 

“Please address me as Professor Nguyen in front of my students, Dr. Akua,” Nguyen said.  “If you must address me at all.”

“Oh of course, ‘Professor’,” Dr. Akua said.  She gave Vell a quick once-over and then bowed towards Professor Nguyen.  “I should be off.  Have a lovely day, you two.”

Vell waved goodbye.  Dr. Nguyen kept her hands firmly in her pockets, and her expression never changed.  She didn’t move either.  Vell waited for Dr. Akua to be out of earshot.

“So, uh, Professor-”

“The warning was sincere, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said.  “Dr. Akua is tolerable in small doses, but there are enough toxic influences in your life already.  I assure you the world has no shortage of wasted potential, there is no reason to add yours to the pile.”

“Thanks?” Vell said.

“Don’t bother thanking me,” Nguyen said.  “Somehow, Vell Harlan, you attract the attention of individuals such as Isaac Goodwell and Joan Marsh.  It is my obligation, not my pleasure, to counteract their negative influence where I can.”

Vell raised a hand and parted his lips to speak, then thought twice about what he was about to say and said something else.

“Uh, Professor Nguyen, can I ask, are you complimenting me or insulting me here?”

“I will see you in class, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said, before marching off in the direction of her office.

“Bye,” Vell shouted at her back.  “Nice to see you again.  Hope you had a good break.”

He never got a response.  Still baffled for several reasons, Vell moved on and headed towards the Ballball field.  He still wanted to say hello to Leanne, and she tended to make slightly more sense than Nguyen.

The spherical Ballball field bobbed in the breeze as Vell approached.  It looked like the team was holding a meeting that just started to break up as Vell got close to the field.  He took a stroll to the back side of the field, towards the player’s exit, and caught Leanne going the other way.

“Hey Leanne.”

Leanne nodded at him, then checked the time on her phone and mimicked an explosion with her hands, looking at him questioningly.

“Oh no, nothing apocalyptic yet,” he said.  “Just wanted to say hi.  Haven’t seen you in a bit, didn’t want to be rude.”

Leanne rolled her eyes with a smile and gave Vell a thumbs up.  Her smile seemed to glimmer in the mid-day sun.  Seemed to, at least.  Vell instinctively ducked when he realized what was doing the actual glimmering. 

A small metal object sailed past Leanne’s head and embedded itself in the dirt in front of Vell.  After a short period of cowering, Vell assumed it wasn’t going to explode (yet, at least), and decided to examine the metal object more closely.  Leanne watched from her own cowering place as Vell reached out and touched the glittering object.

“Huh.”

He lifted the object from the dirt it had become embedded in and shook off some grass and topsoil.

“It looks like a pen.”

Leanne stopped hiding and stepped forward to examine the supposed strange object.  Upon closer inspection, it turned out to look like a pen by virtue of actually being a pen.  A very nice one, at that.  After brushing the dirt away, the metal shell started to glitter more brightly in the sunlight.  Leanne took a look around.  The team had all left, and nobody else was around to have dropped or thrown a pen.

“Weird,” Vell noted.  “Looks pretty old school, right?”

Leanne nodded at the vintage design and then held out her hand, gesturing for Vell to hand over the pen.  He held it out to her by one end and she took hold of the other.  The moment both of them gripped it, what felt like a lightning bolt traveled up each of their arms, the electric sensation briefly blinding them as it overwhelmed their senses.

As the blinding lightning left their systems, Vell dropped the pen and rubbed his eyes to clear his blurred vision.  When he looked up again, he saw an empty, cloudy sky.  Doubly suspicious, since the sky had been sunny a moment ago, and also obscured by a giant levitating novelty sports field.  Vell looked down at the ground, and saw that the modern stadium and facilities of the Ballball field had been replaced by a rickety wooden fence and some collapsing wooden bleachers, all of which were overgrown by weeds.  Weeds that someone was hiding in as they stared right back at him.

“Uh.  Hi,” Vell said.

A young Chinese woman in a light woolen sweater and a long khaki skirt emerged from the weeds and stepped up between Vell and Leanne.  She gave them a long, analytical glare from behind the thick glasses she wore.

“And what are you doing here?”

“We’re a bit lost,” Vell said.  He looked to Leanne for support, and she predictably stayed silent, but at least nodded.  Vell turned back to the woman who’d been lurking in the weeds. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing.  You don’t get to ask questions here, sir, you and your half-naked friend are the odd ones out.”

Leanne looked down at her exposed midriff.  Her exercise outfit was pretty modest, by most standards.

“We’re just out of place, we should probably go-” Vell looked over his shoulder to point towards the freshmen dorms.  They weren’t there.  Most of the campus wasn’t there, to be exact, or at least wasn’t in the place it should be. “Hmm.”

The stranger gave them another once over with her piercing glare.  She put a hand to her chin.

“Are you two time travelers?”

Vell followed Leanne’s example and stayed silent.  The stranger continued staring at them.

“Does the word ‘loop’ mean anything to you?” she asked.

“Oh thank god,” Vell said with a sigh of relief.  “This is going to be so much easier if we’re on the same level of crazy.”

The stranger laughed.  She shook a little dirt from her hands and then extended one in Vell’s direction.

“Always nice to meet someone who understands,” she said.  “Who are you and when are you from?”

“Uh, why don’t you tell us when right now is first?” Vell asked as he shook her hand.  “In the interest of, uh, dodging time paradoxes and whatnot.  For now, why don’t you call us...uh...Jane and Bill.”

“Sounds good to me.  Nice to meet you, ‘Jane’ and ‘Bill’.  Welcome to 1973.”

Vell froze in place.  He knew a few things about the loopers of the early 70’s.

“My name is Lijia Mian.”

◆◆◆

Vell and Leanne stayed in Lijia’s dorm room while she fetched some period-appropriate clothing for them.  They had to stop sticking out like sore thumbs before they could try and get everything and everyone back to their proper timeline.  Vell used the brief privacy to rant at Leanne.

“What are we supposed to do?” Vell said.  Leanne shrugged.  “That’s Lijia Mian!  The person Goodwell is obsessed with for whatever reason!  And this is like a few weeks before she disappeared.  Maybe days!”

Leanne clapped a hand over Vell’s mouth and made a shushing gesture.  She drew one hand across her mouth in a zipping motion, spun her hands one over the other for a bit, mimicked the motion of a clock ticking, then mimed opening and shutting a door and made a shushing motion again.

“Yeah, I get it, we could just go through the motions, get back to our time period, and then pretend nothing ever happened, but-”

Leanne clapped her hand over his mouth again.  She shook her head “no” again, then pointed to her own rear.

“Very clever way to say ‘no buts’,” Vell said, as soon as Leanne took her hand off his mouth.  She nodded in appreciation of the compliment.  “But-”

Leanne raised her hand again, and Vell raised his own hands to cut her off.

“But don’t you think it’s, you know, weird that we were sent here, specifically, to her?” He said, speaking through his own hands.  “I mean, this has got to be connected to something, right?”

Leanne emphatically shook her head no.  She struggled for a gesture to illustrate her point, but came up empty-handed.  She continued to shake her head and turned away from Vell.  He took a seat and examined some of the scenery of the vintage dorms.

“Okay, I’ll be cool,” Vell relented.  “But there is one thing we have to figure out.  This should be when Principal Goodwell was a looper, right?”

Leanne nodded.

“But he didn’t recognize us when we went to his office,” Vell said.  “So he can’t see us today.”

Leanne continued nodding.  Vell’s theory was sound.  She didn’t believe Goodwell had the acting chops to feign ignorance of their identities.  That meant they somehow had to avoid him today.  Vell put a hand to his chin.

“I don’t know if those disguises Lijia’s getting us are going to be good enough for him to not recognize us...”

Whether they were effective or not, Leanne was eager to give them a try.  She gestured broadly to the various 70’s magazines scattered on Lijia’s desk (though there were more scientific periodicals than fashion articles) and then clutched at her heart.

“I never figured you to be into retro stuff,” Vell said.  Leanne responded by pointing to him, then pointing to her head and shaking it “no”.  There was a lot Vell didn’t know about Leanne, and that was an intentional choice on her part.

Before Leanne could move forward on her makeover plan, Lijia returned, with armfuls of clothing for the both of them.

“Sorry it took so long,” she said.  “You’re both pretty tall.”

Following in Lijia’s footsteps, a diminutive young African woman tottered in with a pile of clothing towering high enough to block her view.  She dropped the clothing on Lijia’s bed, exposing her face, and nearly caused Vell to bite a chunk out of his tongue as she did so.  Though it was more youthful now, Vell could still recognize the face of Dr. Akua.

“What’s with that look?” Lijia asked.  Vell had hidden his panic poorly.  Lijia made the quick realization and gasped.  “You know her!”

“I, uh, no, well, not exactly, that is,” Vell said.  “I saw her, uh, earlier today -my today, not this today- it was a pretty quick face to face thing, I don’t really know anything about her, uh, you.”

“Oh my god,” the eventual Dr. Akua said.  “Was I a lecturer?  Ooh, am I the principal of the Einstein-Odinson?”

“I am not going to answer that,” Vell said.  “For several reasons.”

“Yeah, yeah, time paradoxes,” Lijia said mockingly.  “As if time hasn’t been shattered enough already just by you being here.”

Lijia tossed them some clothes and directed them to her dorm’s bathroom.  Leanne took the first opportunity to change, mostly to avoid the awkward conversations that would ensue.

“Well, this does simplify one thing, at least,” “Lijia said.  “Mavis might be an element of the time distortion that caused you to be catapulted into our timeline, since she’s physically present in both your time and ours.”

“Right.  Um, just in the interest of avoiding any future surprises, are there any other loopers you can tell me about?”

“Well, there’s Isaac and Jason.  Any of those names ring a bell?”

“Possibly,” Vell said.  “Would it be too much to ask that we not get them involved?”

“Sure, why not,” Lijia said. 

“I’ll take any excuse to not be near Isaac,” Akua said.  Lijia laughed.

“Yeah, sometimes we come up with completely fake apocalypses just to keep him out of our way,” Lijia said.  “The other day we had him repaint the entire storage room because of ‘demons in the concrete’.”

Vell frowned.  He didn’t like Principal Goodwell, or at least the version from his time period, but that sounded cruel.

“Oh, oh, tell him about Roswell,” Akua said.  Lijia laughed again, even harder this time.

“Oh, yeah, our favorite way to distract him is to have him babysit this ‘alien’ named Ros, but it’s just Jason in a rubber suit!” Lijia said, struggling to talk in between giggle fits.  Vell gave a few stiff chuckles just to fit in.  Lijia got over her giggling and wiped a few tears of joy from her eyes.

“Fucking pervert,” Lijia said under her breath.  “I guess you don’t get it, but he’s a creep.  I catch him staring at me too many times to count.  If he were here he’d probably be trying to peep on your friend right now.”

Lijia gestured to the bathroom where Leanne was changing just in time for her to step out of it.  The bright red t-shirt and pastel bell-bottoms fit her surprisingly well, and she actually seemed happy to be wearing them.  Vell wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about changing into his button-up shirt and high waisted khaki’s.  With their two time-traveling guests disguised, Lijia got down to business.

“Mavis, go tell Isaac to, I don’t know, dump a bunch of beer into the ocean to appease an angry water demon,” Lijia said.  “Have Jason babysit.”

Mavis Akua saluted and trotted off to carry out her leader’s orders.  Lijia clapped her hands together and turned back to her two time-traveling acquaintances.

“Now we can focus on the real problems!”

“Aren’t we the real problems of the day?” Vell asked.  “I thought possible irreparable damage to the timeline was the apocalypse.”

“You’re definitely part of the problem,” Lijia said.  “But you’re not the whole picture.  I was already on to something before you all showed up.  Follow me.”

Lijia ordered, and they obeyed.  She led them through the unfamiliar halls of the retro dorms out into the more familiar spaces of the quad.  The trees were much smaller, but they were all in the same place, which gave Vell some anchor points in the College of the past.  The faculty building and the clocktower that decorated it were also identical, being one of the few buildings on the campus that was not regularly renovated.

“If I’m correct, she should be here...there she is,” Lijia said.  She gestured to a young woman crossing the quad to sit on a park bench.  The mystery student unpacked several binders and began perusing notes she had taken.  She then double-checked her bags, searched it more thoroughly, and started to look frustrated as she returned to her notes empty-handed.

“She has been involved in some seriously nasty experiments lately,” Lijia explained.  “One of the reasons I was hiding in the bushes earlier was to try and see what she was up to.  I think I caught her lurking around the isotope containment labs, but then you showed up, so…”

Lijia waved her hand towards their unsuspecting target.  Leanne narrowed her eyes suspiciously -at Lijia, not the girl they were spying on.

“I suppose it can’t hurt to stake her out,” Vell said.  Lijia raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“How much time do you feel like wasting, Bill?” Lijia asked.  “Just grab her notes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Walk up to her and grab the notes,” Lijia said.  “We give them a quick once over and see what she’s up to, stop her, and then move on.”

“That seems, uh, bold.”

“It’s the first loop, no one will remember what you do,” Lijia said.  “Come on!  We do this all the time.”

“Then you do it,” Vell said.

“I’m kind of a big deal around here, if I just snatch and grab people know my face and know where to find me,” Lijia said.  “It’ll be a lot easier on everyone if you grab them.”

Vell’s head bobbed back and forth between Lijia, the unsuspecting student, and Leanne.  He knew he definitely didn’t want to steal anyone’s notes, but he also wasn’t ready to actively oppose Lijia.  He’d told Leanne he wasn’t going to go digging into explanations for Lijia’s disappearance, but he was also hoping to passively find some information by working with her.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Vell said.  He stood and left their hiding place, trying to act casual as he walked up the woman they were spying on.

“Hi there,” Vell said.  The young woman looked up at him with a severe glare that seemed to cut right through him.

“I don’t recognize you as a student here,” she said.  “You have three minutes to justify your presence before I call campus security.”

“I’m a, uh,” Vell stammered.  The fact she’d called him out so quickly had blindsided him, and now he knew he had to come up with a halfway convincing lie or she’d see right through that too.  “Well, you got me.  I’m a recruiter for Burrows Industries.”

“Ah yes,” the woman said.  “In that case you may take your leave immediately.  Your employers are unethical and dangerous, and it is my obligation to counteract their negative influence where I can.”

The phrasing set off a light bulb in Vell’s head.  He confirmed his theory by glancing down at the woman’s papers and seeing a sheet of familiar handwriting, marked with the initials “C.N.”.  Carmella Nguyen.  Vell was looking at his future professor.  Who Lijia claimed was up to something. 

Vell took quick stock of everything he knew about Professor Nguyen, and matched it against everything he knew about Lijia Mian.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Vell said.  He turned on his heel and left, not wanting to interact with his future teacher any further.  She would not remember this meeting, at least, so it didn’t risk changing the timeline.  Everything else Vell was about to do might, though.

“You’re lying to me,” Vell said, as soon as he was face to face with Lijia again.

Lijia appraised the look on Vell’s face, and the tone of his voice.  She didn’t bother denying his accusations, choosing to focus on facts that were of more interest to her.

“You know her too,” she said under her breath.  “And you know me…”

“Not the point,” Vell said.

“Maybe not, but it is informative,” Lijia said.  Her casually caustic tone reminded Vell a little too much of Kraid.  “What happens in the future that makes you trust her more than me?”

“What’s happening right now is the real problem,” Vell said, trying to keep her on track.  “Why do you want to steal her notes?”

“Borrow, not steal,” Lijia said, more for Vell’s benefit than her own.  “Her research and my research have some overlap.  I want to reference her theories to advance my own.”

“So, just some mild plagiarism, then,” Vell said.  Leanne stood behind Lijia and crossed her arms as Lijia shrugged.

“I won’t take credit for any of her work, just build up my own,” Lijia said.  “Call it what you will.”

“I’ll keep calling it, you know, plagiarism, which it is,” Vell said.

“Okay, you’ve called it that,” Lijia said with a shrug.  “Now what?  I’ll take what I want anyway as soon as you’re gone.”

Since Vell was only here for the first loop, nothing he did today could be permanent.  He could not warn Nguyen or tell the principle about Lijia’s academic fraud.  He looked to Leanne for support.  She slapped her knuckles into an open palm repeatedly.

“That’s true, I guess, you could kick their asses,” Vell said.  “Wouldn’t, uh, solve anything long term, though.”

Leanne pointed to her heart.

“It’d make me feel better too, yeah, but still,” Vell said.  He wanted a more permanent solution to this problem.  He gazed at the only icon of familiarity -the clock tower on the faculty building.

“Long term, huh,” Vell mumbled to himself.  He then sighed and shrugged dramatically, turning to face Lijia again.  “You’re right.  Can’t do anything about it today.  Guess I’ll just have to do something about it tomorrow.  Or, you know, the day after, or exactly however many days in the future I’m from.”

“What’s your angle, ‘Bill’?” Lijia said, as her eyes narrowed.  She could tell Vell was doing a bit.  His improv skills hadn’t improved in the slightest since the day he’d started looping.

“Well, you’re in the past, but I’m in the future,” Vell continued.  “You can build your career up on lies all you want, but one day I’ll show up and bring it all crashing down.”

Lijia didn’t know that she was going to disappear soon -as far as she knew, she had a long, successful future ahead of her.  A future Vell could very easily sabotage.  Lijia paused and contemplated the future she thought she had, and the ways in which Vell might threaten it.

“You have a point there,” Lijia admitted.  “So what’s your proposal?  I stop borrowing notes and you don’t sabotage me in some hypothetical future?”

“The, uh, that’s the idea,” Vell said.  Lijia did not let his slip of the tongue go unnoticed.  She seized on his lack of confidence like a lioness spotting a wounded zebra.

“Allow me to make a counter proposal, then,” Lijia said.  “You let me do whatever I want, today and in the future, and I’ll leave you alone in both time periods.  A sort of cease-fire, and believe me, you’re getting the better end of it.”

“I don’t know, uh, seems like we kind of have the advantage,” Vell said.  “We know more about you than you know about us.”

“True, however, your greatest weapon is that you’re going to tattle on me,” Lijia said with a smug certainty in her voice Vell didn’t like.  “My greatest weapon, on the other hand-.”

Lijia then extended her hand, quickly flicking her fingers through the gestures of a summoning spell.  A magical glyph glowed in her hands for a second, and a sword appeared in a flash of light.

“-is an actual weapon,” Lijia said as she brandished the blade.  “I will fucking kill you.”

“Uh-”

“Do I need to repeat myself?”  Lijia said.  She flicked the sword in her hand, ending with the tip pointed at Vell’s heart.

“I just feel like you escalated very drastically,” Vell said.  “And not necessarily in a direction that makes sense.  You know we’re loopers too, right?”

“Oh I’m not just talking about today, ‘Billy’,” Lijia said, turning Vell’s pseudonym into an insult.  “Though, on the topic of today:  Do you know how much blood a body can lose before you die?”

“Yes.”

Vell had been exsanguinated more than once at this point.  Lijia took his casual response in stride and continued with her threat.

“So do I.  And my time in the loops has taught me quite a few very painful ways to not die,” Lijia said.  “And I’ll demonstrate every single one of them on you, until you tell me everything I want to hear about yourselves, your future, and more importantly, my future.”

Lijia flicked her blade playfully, ending her flourish by once again pointing the tip in the direction of Vell’s heart.

“My offer’s on the table, Bill,” Lijia said.  “And I won’t be negotiating.”

“Right.  I think I’m all set, however, Jane might have something to say.”

Vell then finally turned all the way around and gestured to Leanne.  Leanne looked over her own shoulder and then looked back at Vell, confused.

“You’re Jane,” Vell reminded her.  Leanne finally picked up on her cue and punched Lijia in the face.  The unexpected impact knocked Lijia off her feet and sent her flying about ten feet back, further than even Vell had been expecting.  While Lijia rolled in the dirt, Leanne grabbed Vell by the wrist and started running in a random direction. 

In the ground where they’d left her, Lijia stood up and grabbed at her broken nose.  A crowd had gathered around her fallen form, questioning what, if anything, they should do, and they backed away as Lijia stood and roared with bloody anger at the fact that someone had dared to lay a hand on her.  

“Are you okay?” Someone asked.  “Why’d that cat punch you?”

“She was-”

A sly smile parted Lijia’s bloody lips.  “Bill” and “Jane” had made an enemy of her -and now they were going to make an enemy of the entire campus.

“Well, that Russian lady and her partner were just trying to recruit me to their feminist movement,” Lijia said.  “I just casually mentioned I hope the Vietnam War ends soon and she starts talking about how the ‘Cong deserve it’ and then punched me right in the face.”

She got no reaction.  Lijia wracked her brain for another way to make the people of the early 70’s hate someone on principle.

“Did I mention they’re also in the IRA?”

“They’re Russian and in the IRA?”

“They’re very well traveled,” Lijia insisted.

Someone at the edge of the crowd coughed.  Lijia put a hand to her bloody chin.

“What really surprised me, though, was that they think David Bowie is overrated.”

Lijia had barely finished her sentence before the angry mob went on the hunt.

◆◆◆

Leanne slammed the door of the empty classroom and pushed a heavy looking desk in front of it.  Vell took a seat and caught his breath.  Trying to keep up with Leanne was arduous even at her slowest pace.

“Okay, this is bad,” Vell said.  “We need to get back to our time.”

Vell rested his head in his hands and took a deep breath.

“I really wish I knew how time travel worked.”

“We have to close the loop.”

Vell looked up.  Leanne pointed to herself.

“Yeah, I figured that was you, it’s just-”

“Now’s really not the time for my usual silent treatment,” Leanne said.  They had no back-up and a psychopath with a sword chasing them.  Leanne wasn’t stubborn enough to make Vell play charades with her at a time like this.

“I appreciate that, but I hope this isn’t too out of line with our usual-”

Leanne averted her gaze in a way that made the hair on the back of Vell’s neck stand up.

“Leanne, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I- Well, that’s the problem, I don’t know,” Leanne said.  “Time travel’s happened before, but nobody’s ever died.  Usually when we die on the first loop, we wake up the morning of the same day, but if when we die isn’t technically the same day…”

The sudden return of silence from Leanne sent a chill through the air.  Vell didn’t like to assume the worst, but he also didn’t feel like risking his life to test that assumption.

“Okay, I, uh, I think we just have to stay focused,” Vell said.  “Staying alive isn’t so hard.  Most people do it every day.”

Leanne nodded along.  They had become accustomed to dying on schedule, it would be a refreshing change of pace to actually fight for their lives for once.

“What were you saying about closing the loop?”

“Oh right, talking,” Leanne said.  Like dying, silence had become her usual routine.  “Well, it’s like...Hmm…”

Not only did Leanne struggle with talking to a fellow looper, she also struggled with complex temporal science.  She grabbed a piece of chalk and tried to draw visual aids to streamline the process.

“When two ends of time get connected by whatever, a sort of tunnel-thingy happens and an object can get lost through the time tunnel, and as long as the object isn’t when -Or is it where?  I forget, whatever.  Until the object that got lost gets where it belongs, the tunnel stays open until time collapses around the void,” Leanne explained.  “But if you put the object back, everything sort of disentangles itself and is fine.  I think quantum is involved.”

Leanne put the chalk down, and looked at her diagram, which she now realized consisted of two wobbly lines, a circle, and a question mark, with a few arrows connecting them in ways even Leanne didn’t understand.

“Does that make sense?”

“Yes, but mostly on accident,” Vell said.  She’d repeated the word “object” enough to jog Vell’s memory, at least.  He checked all the pockets of his borrowed khaki’s and came up empty-handed.  “Damn it.  You didn’t, uh, grab that pen by any chance, did you?”

Leanne shook her head.  She shared Vell’s suspicion that the pen was what had formed the temporal anomaly in the first place.

“It’s probably with our clothes,” Leanne said. 

“Back in Lijia’s dorm,” Vell sighed.

The barricaded door rattled on its hinges.  The two time-travelers waited silently, and then backed away as someone tried to open the door again, more forcefully this time.

“We really should’ve picked a room with two exits,” Vell said.

“I did,” Leanne said.  She grabbed a desk and flicked her wrist, sending it sailing through the nearest window.  After clearing away a few of the larger broken shards, Leanne stepped through and helped Vell get through safely as well, putting them back on the quad.  Vell looked over his shoulder at the broken window.

“You know, I think that opened, actually,” he noted.

“I felt like breaking something,” Leanne admitted.

“Understandable.  Let’s get going.”

“There’s the heretics!”

Leanne didn’t even bother turning towards the source of the voice.  She grabbed Vell and ran in the opposite direction, ducking and weaving to try and break their line of sight and avoid attention.

“Are we heretics now?  Did you do something heretical?”

Before answering the question, Leanne ran into a dorm building and broke off the door handle behind them.  The building seemed quiet, so she slowed the pace.

“People in this school get culty real easily,” Leanne said.  “Lijia might be riling them up.”

“Jesus, manipulating people into her own personal army?  Who does that?”

“Lijia Mian, apparently,” Leanne said.  “You wanted to know more about her, now you know she’s violently psychotic.  Congratulations.”

“Right.  Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Leanne said.  “Not like you chose to send us here.  Universe just wants to make our lives as complicated as possible.”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Vell agreed.  “Though uh, speaking of complicated, do you have any future knowledge or stuff that could be useful right now?”

“Got my phone.  You?”

“Same,” Vell said.  He took out his smartphone and examined the few apps and systems that still functioned in the past. “No service, obviously.  Maybe I can blow their mind with some future music from this playlist I haven’t updated in two years.”

“You into rap?  Maybe you can blow some old school prude minds with some mumbling guy talking about cocaine.”

Lacking anything better to do, Vell gave his playlist a quick scroll as they walked up the stairs towards Lijia’s dorm.

“I don’t think so?  I’ve got that Roxy and the Booster’s song about ‘taking a ride on his rocket’, but I, uh, don’t think that’d do it.”

“You listen to Roxy?”

“Uh, yeah?  I’ve got working ears and taste, of course I listen to Roxy.”

“Right?” Leanne said.  “You’d be surprised.  Lee and Harley aren’t into her.”

“Huh.  We’ll have to indoctrinate them later,” Vell said.  “This is our stop.”

The hallway to Lijia’s dorm room beckoned.  Leanne poked her head out of the stairwell and glanced down the hall.

“I think Lijia’s on to us,” she said.  “That Akua chick is guarding the dorm.”

The young version of Dr. Akua stood vigilant guard in front of Lijia’s dorm room door.  Leanne and Vell waited, on the off chance that she was simply waiting for something, but she showed no signs of moving.

“Do you think she got a good look at that pen?  She might’ve moved it,” Vell suggested.  “Maybe even broken it.”

Leanne shrugged, and gestured towards Akua.  Their only path forward was through her.  Leanne watched Akua for a moment longer, looking for any info on her soon-to-be opponent.  She had to assume that, just like all future loopers, Akua had some kind of signature weapon.  Lijia’s sword was relatively easy to deal with, but Akua having something like Vell’s guns could be problematic.

Akua turned to look down the hall, revealing something very much like Vell’s guns: Vell’s guns.  He gasped with indignation as he saw the 666-shooters strapped to Akua’s hips.

“My guns!” he said, with far greater offense than Leanne thought possible -or reasonable, for that matter.

“I’m sorry your guns cheated on you thirty years before your birth, Vell,” Leanne said.  “You think they were just sitting in a box the whole time?”

“It’s not that, it’s- Oh god, look how she has them holstered.  This is a mess,” Vell sighed.  He then turned back to Leanne and pointed down the hall.  “You stay here.  I’m going to do something about this.”

Without another word, Vell stepped out from around the corner and started walking towards Akua.

“Vell, what the fuck-” Leanne shouted.  She nearly stepped out as well, but her progress, like her sentence, ended at the first gunshot.  Leanne ducked back into cover and cowered as Akua opened fire on Vell. 

The first bullet sailed wide over his shoulder.  Vell didn’t blink, or even start walking faster, as Akua adjusted her grip and shot again.  The second time, he stepped to the side slightly just as she fired, and the bullet sailed past his head again.  Baffled, Akua took aim for a third shot, this time focusing on the center of Vell’s torso rather than his head.  While she had a larger target, Akua was still a terrible shot, and all it took was Vell stopping in his tracks unexpectedly to make her flinch and completely miss her target.  Vell never let her take a fourth shot.  He smacked the first gun out of her hand and kicked her in the shin, grounding her before she could draw one of the other two.

After peeking out of cover and seeing Vell had disarmed Akua, Leanne ran out of cover and caught up to him.

“Vell, what the fuck was that?” She snapped.  “You could have died!”

“I’m fine,” Vell snorted.  He took the guns and belt away from Akua and examined the revolvers closely.  “Look at this, she clearly has no idea how to handle a gun.  I mean, when was the last time you oiled the barrels?”

Akua stared up at him, confused, and gave no answer.  Vell shook his head and adjusted the revolvers again.

“No wonder I had to spend so much time cleaning these after I got them,” Vell said.  “You should be ashamed of yourself, I mean, this is a genuine Clint Eastwood piece.”

“He didn’t even autograph it,” Akua protested.

“It’s still important!”

“What is wrong with you?”

Leanne’s shout rang out almost as loud as the gunshots had.  Vell turned around to watch her continue shouting, red in the face.

“You just walked at a gun and then started arguing about Clint Eastwood with the person who tried to kill you,” Leanne said, as confused as she was upset.  “Are you fucking insane, Vell?”

“I, uh, she’s clearly a terrible shot,” Vell said.  “I knew I could handle it.”

“I don’t- She had a gun, and you- That could’ve-” Leanne stopped and started several sentences out of frustration before getting to the core of her objections.  “This is why I don’t fucking talk to you people!”

She gestured to both Vell and Akua as she spoke.

“You’re all fucking insane!” Leanne snapped.

The shouting was done, but the frustration remained, so Leanne turned to Lijia’s dorm.  With one swift swing of her leg, Leanne kicked the door so hard it exploded into shrapnel on impact.  Dr. Akua ducked down as a few shards of door flew past her head.

“It wasn’t even locked!” Akua shouted.  “Are you crazy?”

Leanne shot Akua a glare that sent her back to the floor out of fear.  Vell was almost a little offended that Akua looked more hurt by the intense stare than his kick to the shins.  He reconsidered this offense after realizing he’d lightly bruised Akua’s shin at best, whereas Leanne had just turned a solid oak door into kindling.  Vell kept an eye on Akua in spite of her justified terror, as he stepped through the shattered door.

“Alright, I’ll check the living room and the kitchen, you take the bedroom,” Vell suggested.  He received no response.  “Leanne?”

He heard a knocking sound and turned to see Leanne give a nod in his direction, then towards the bedroom.  He shrugged.

“Alright, uh, I guess we’re back to no talking,” Vell said.  “Shame.  That was, uh, fun.”

Leanne responded by saying nothing.  Vell scanned the countertops for their time-traveling pen before stopping to sigh.

“I’m sorry that I worried you, I just thought, you know, we had to get past Akua somehow, and I was pretty sure I could dodge a few bullets,” Vell said.  “I guess I should’ve explained what I was doing first.  Sorry.”

Bits and baubles belonging to Lijia flew about the room as Leanne forced herself to focus on the search for the pen.  Vell’s perpetual sincerity annoyed her.  It made him harder to dislike.  Not that she did dislike him, or even wanted to, really.  But to Leanne, the repeated deaths and impossible occurrences faced by loopers had a way of driving even decent people crazy.  Meeting (and almost getting killed by) Lijia Mian and Dr. Akua had only reinforced her theory.  The best way for Leanne to stay sane was to stay as far away from the loop, and everyone in it, as possible.  She remained silent.

“Okay, fine,” Vell said, taking the hint.  “Just, uh, knock twice if you find the pen, I guess.”

The search continued, unsuccessfully.  All Vell found were their old clothes, which weren’t much good.  Vell did consider putting his jeans on, if only to get out of these damned khaki’s, but decided he had higher priorities.  Much higher priorities.

“Pen pen pen pen,” Vell mumbled to himself.  “Hey Akua, do you know where the pen is?”

Akua did not answer.  Vell wondered why he was getting the silent treatment from her too before his brain caught up to him.  He and Leanne stepped into the hallway at the same time, to stare at the complete absence of Akua.

“One of us really should’ve been keeping an eye on her,” Vell said.  Leanne nodded.  “This is a lot easier with more people.”

The extra manpower, and the absence of Lee’s leadership, had led to them both overlooking the problem until it was too late.  Vell scanned the hall in an attempt to make up for his oversight.  Lijia’s dorm was located close to the middle of the hall, an equal distance from the stairwells on either side of the hallway. 

There was no cover and only two possible entrances.  Defensible, as far as dorm rooms went.

“Alright, if I stand guard I can probably buy you enough time to scour the dorm, and then we, uh, jump out the window again, or something,” Vell said.  “If that’s alright with you.”

Leanne made finger guns and then mimed someone walking towards them, all with a skeptical look on her face.

“I appreciate your ability to be sarcastic via charades, but no, I don’t think anybody will just walk up to me the way I did to Akua,” Vell said.  “Like you said, normal people don’t do that.  Once they figure out I’m only firing warning shots, though…”

After some hesitation, Leanne made finger guns again, this time followed by a very tense dragging of a finger across her throat.  Vell shook his head.

“I’m not killing anyone if I can avoid it,” Vell said.  “Not even on the first loop.”

Leanne gave Vell an approving pat on the shoulder and then returned to the dorm to continue the search.  The sounds of rummaging behind him actually helped Vell stay calm while he waited.  Standing around silently while waiting for a shootout made things more tense, and humming Roxy and the Boosters songs to himself only did so much.

The comforting background noise of Leanne’s search gave way to the alarming foreground noise of a door opening.  Vell turned one of his pistols towards the sound and saw Akua stumbling out the door.  She glanced towards Vell, saw his drawn guns, and tried to go back through the door, only to be pushed back out into the hall by some unseen hand.

“You get ne- any closer and I’ll shot,” Vell stammered.  He kept his fingers away from the trigger, for now.

“That won’t be necessary,” shouted the figure in the hallway.  Her voice was shockingly monotone considering how loud she was forced to speak.  Leanne stopped searching and stepped into the hall just in time for another figure to step through the door and push Akua a few steps forward.

“She’ll behave,” Carmella Nguyen said.

“Pro- You?  What are you doing here?”

The younger Professor Nguyen pushed Akua forward.  Despite the fact that Nguyen held no weapon, and didn’t even have Akua’s hands bound, the diminutive looper moved forward as compliantly as a captive with a gun to her head.  Nguyen maintained a stiff, professional stride just behind her “prisoner”.

“I cannot claim to know where the two of you are from, but I can assume you both have some familiarity with the phrase ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

Vell nodded.

“Very good then.  Whatever you are doing, you have made an enemy of Lijia Mian,” Nguyen said.  “Vis a vis the previous aphorism, I am now your friend.”

Carmella Nguyen prodded the captive Akua in the back, pushing her towards Vell and Leanne.  This time, Leanne took a firm hold of the dangerous looper.  Nguyen’s timely appearance had probably used up all their luck for the day. 

“Your stunned silence implies you have difficulty trusting me.  An understandable reaction based on the behavior of the student body as a whole,” Nguyen said.  “If I may elaborate upon my reasons for-”

“No, actually, we, uh, I trust you,” Vell said.  “I’m just a little surprised.  By your timing, mostly.”

“Convenient, yes, I agree, but I believe the universe must throw at least a few coincidences in my favor,” Nguyen said.  “Lijia certainly benefits from a great deal of good fortune.”

Vell and Leanne exchanged a quick glance, and then shushed Akua.  Nguyen noticed their odd behavior, but did not bother asking for an explanation.

“The very pliable Akua tells me you are looking for something,” Nguyen said.  She gave a cold glare to Akua, who withered beneath the chilling gaze.  Akua didn’t seem to have much of a backbone when separated from both her guns and her evil overlord.  “She has also told me that what you are looking for is currently in Lijia’s possession.”

“Okay, I guess we’re going after the crazy bitch with the sword,” Vell said.

“A concerning statement under ordinary circumstances, but your armaments seem to be slightly less outdated,” Nguyen said, with a critical glare at Vell’s cowboy-era firearms.

“I know my way around these things,” Vell said.

“Your skill, or lack thereof, is not my area of concern,” Nguyen said.  “Do you not have superior armaments in the future?’

The sentence hit Vell like a brick in the head.  He chose to direct his sudden confusion at Akua in the form of outrage.

“You were gone for like three minutes,” Vell snapped.  “How did she get literally everything out of you?”

“That one was an estimation, actually,” Nguyen said.  “Akua was surprisingly recalcitrant to explain your origins, given how easily she gave up every other relevant factoid.  Thank you for confirming my theory.”

Leanne gave Vell a gentle slap on the head.  He rubbed the sore spot on his scalp and tried to cover his own mistakes as best he could.

“Right, well, we can’t like, answer any questions or anything,” Vell said.

“I assumed.  Time paradoxes are not to be trifled with,” Nguyen said.  “I am willing to let the matter lie while we focus our joint efforts on Lijia Mian.”

“Cool.  So, uh, do you have a plan?  Because I’m going to be honest, we don’t,” Vell said.  The stare Nguyen gave him contained an entire novel’s worth of scolding.  Not just some light airport reading, either, but an old school Russian novel’s worth.  A veritable War and Peace of Vell’s own stupidity.

“Lock the minion in a bathroom and follow me,” Nguyen ordered.  Leanne threw Akua into the bathroom and barred the door with a chair, then followed Nguyen and Vell back out of the dorms.

“The plan is as follows: we will appeal to Lijia’s ego, taking advantage of her desire to prove herself superior, and bait her into a confrontation without the massive mob which she has at her back,” Nguyen said.  “At this point- My apologies, we did not properly introduce ourselves, my name is Carmella Nguyen.  And yourselves?”

“You can call me Bill, and that’s Jane,” Vell said, sticking to their initial, panic-inspired aliases.

“Ah, after Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane,” Nguyen noted.  “Fitting, given your armaments.  As I was saying, after Lijia has been drawn into a solo confrontation, Bill will shoot her.”

“Uh, what?”

“You have a gun.  When she renders herself vulnerable, you will use it.”

“I mean, I don’t want to kill anyone,” Vell said.

“An admirable, if not pragmatic stance.  I am not asking you to kill, however, merely incapacitate her long enough for us to retrieve the item you seek.”

“I guess I can do that,” Vell said.

“And you will,” Nguyen said.  “I appreciate the faith you have placed in my plan.  I assure you it will not fail.”

◆◆◆

It failed.

Nguyen’s proposed duel of wits was cut short by Lijia snapping her fingers and demanding the crazed mob of students to surround them.  Lijia herself cut through the swarm of bodies and strutted in front of the trio of would-be assassins with cocksure pride.

“You really should communicate better,” Lijia taunted.  “What good is appealing to my ego if no one here is going to remember me backing down?”

Nguyen turned to Vell and Leanne for clarification.  They shrugged.

“If you really need a decades-old freshman to come up with your plans for you, I shudder to think of what stupidity your time holds,” Lijia said.  “I think I’m going to do the future a favor by getting rid of you.”

“You don’t even know you’re getting rid of us,” Vell said.  “We’re going to be waiting for you in the future, you know.”

“If your performance today is anything to go by, I’m not worried about what you can do,” Lijia snapped back.  “And from the way you recognized me, I’d wager I’m someone important in the future you come from.  Someone with resources.”

Vell tried his best not to make a face.  He didn’t want to give Lijia any hint that she’d be disappearing mysteriously sometime in the next few days.

“I think I’ll do fine,” Lijia said.  She turned her back on the trio and faced the mob.  “Tear them apart!  But do it slowly.  It’s what Bowie would want.”

The mob brandished a surprising amount of torches and pitchforks for a college campus and began to close in.  While Nguyen and Leanne backed away and prepared to fight for their lives, Vell started to grab his phone.

“Wait a minute, this is all about Bowie?”

“You have insulted one of our generations greatest rock artists,” the lead of the mob shouted.  “Ziggy Stardust demands blood!”

“Alright, hold up with the cries for my blood for a second,” Vell said.  He held up his phone close to his face to eliminate background noise.  “Play Heroes by David Bowie!”

Vell cranked the volume as high as it would go, held up the phone, and hoped for the best.  The dulcet tones of legendary rock musician David Bowie had a way of cutting through even the violent rage of a bloodthirsty mob.  The roiling mass of bodies halted in their tracks as the song continued to play.

“This is a trick, I’ve never heard this song before,” someone said.

“Silence!  The silky smooth baritone and rhythmic bass backings are beyond question!  It must be the work of Bowie!”

“That’s right,” Vell said.  “I am a, uh, Prophet of Bowie, sent from the future, I guess, to deliver the truth of David Bowie’s iconic musical career.”

The violence of the mob turned to reverence.  Some of the people at the front even started bowing to Vell, which he did not like at all.

“Uh, no bowing, please, that’s weird,” he said.  “I am, you know, just the messenger here, guys, Bowie did all the hard work.”

“But what of this one,” the mob’s now de-facto leader (by virtue of being the first one to talk) demanded.  He pointed at Lijia.  “She claimed you were a liar, a heretic to the universal truth of Bowie!”

“Wow, you guys really get into this cult stuff, huh?” Vell said.  He was far from comfortable with this situation.  “She was just, uh, trying to silence the voice.  Of Bowie.  I guess.”

“Heretic!”

In an instant, all the mobs wrath became focused entirely on Lijia.

“Oh shit,” Vell said.  “Phone, play everything by David Bowie!”

He then held up his phone, which had started broadcasting a new song, and waved it tantalizingly towards the crowd, the way one waved a treat at a hungry dog.

“You guys want more Bowie?” He asked.  The mob cried out “yes” in unison.  Vell tossed the phone to Leanne and mimed a throwing motion.  “Go get it!”

Taking the hint, Leanne cocked her arm back and then chucked the phone across the quad.  The music faded into the distance, as did the stampeding footsteps of the mob that chased it, as the phone flew through the air.  In an instant, Lijia, Leanne, Vell, and Nguyen were alone.  Lijia was starting to sweat.

“So...” Lijia said.  “When can I expect Bowie’s next album?”

“As if,” Vell said.  “Leanne?”

It took two steps for Leanne to close the distance, grab Lijia by the wrist, and start shaking her down for the pen.  While she did so, Nguyen turned to Vell.

“That was unorthodox,” she said blankly.  Vell really couldn’t tell if it was praise or an insult.

“Yeah, probably,” Vell said.  “I’m just glad I checked my playlist earlier.  I forgot I even had that much Bowie on my phone.”

“You have a portable phone that stores music?”

“Boy am I glad you aren’t going to remember I said any of that,” Vell said.  He avoided further time-paradox-causing interactions with Nguyen by walking in Leanne’s direction  “Leanne, you find it yet?”

Leanne nodded and dropped Lijia to the ground.  As Vell stepped up, she handed over the pen.  He examined the generic object and sighed.

“Now we still have to figure out where this belongs,” Vell said.  “How do you figure out where a single pen belongs on a huge college campus...”

“Where did you find that?” Nguyen asked.  She snatched the pen from Vell’s hands.  “I’ve been looking for my pen all-”

Vell and Leanne felt a brief electric tingle, then looked.  Cane waved to them from across the quad -the modern quad.

“Well all righty then,” Vell said.  “I guess that works.”

◆◆◆

Vell checked the time on his phone.  Leanne would be leaving practice -and the time-traveling pen would be dropping from the sky- any second now.  He kept a watchful eye towards the skies and towards the surroundings.  Leanne stepped off the field and looked up as well.  She caught the glint of light as the pen started to fall.  She then looked to Vell and gave a conspiratorial nod.

With a dull thud, the pen hit the ground.  Vell stepped up to examine it.

“So...do you want to touch it?”

Leanne shook her head.

“Well I’m not going to touch it,” Vell said.  “Last time we touched it we both time-traveled.  Let’s go get some, uh, pliers or something.  Maybe that’ll do it.”

Leanne nodded, and they both put on a dramatic show of turning their backs on the pen and walking away.  Vell had had a few hours to rehearse his lines, so his acting was slightly better than usual.  He just hoped he had an audience.  This whole routine fell apart if Dr. Akua wasn’t watching.  Thankfully, they had correctly estimated her level of inept evil.

With a triumphant cry, Dr. Akua emerged from the bushes and nabbed the pen from the dirt.  Vell and Leanne looked on in mock confusion as Dr. Akua cackled.

“It’s been a long time, ‘Bill and Jane’,” Dr. Akua said.

“Been about, uh, thirteen hours for us, actually,” Vell said.  “I see old age has done nothing to mellow you out.”

“Oh no, ‘Bill’, I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Akua said.  “I never forgot you.”

“Right.  Exactly what are you holding a grudge for, anyway?  Lijia’s gone.  Has been for a while.”

“I know,” Akua said, venom dripping from every frantic word.  “And it’s your fault.  It’s all your fault!  You beat her! She lost, for the first time in her life, to you, and because of you, she pushed herself harder, she went further, and then one day she was gone!”

“Look, I’m sorry about your friend, but-”

“I don’t want your apologies,” Akua said.  She reached into her purse and grabbed on to something.

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to grab on to this pen,” Akua said.  It took two or more loopers grabbing a time-displaced object to create the necessary quantum bullshit to cause time travel.  “So we can fix what you broke, and I can have Lijia back.

“Well that’s obviously not going to work,” Vell said.  “If it did, you’d already remember us going back to the past, and Lijia never would’ve vanished in the first place.”

“I’m not here to discuss temporal mechanics,” Akua said.  “Grab the pen.”

“Why would I do that?”

To answer Vell’s question, Akua removed a gun from her purse.

“Ah,” Vell said.

Leanne’s eyes went wide at both the gun, and the fact that Vell jumped between it and her.  The gun had barely left Akua’s purse before Vell placed himself directly in front of it, shielding Leanne to the best of his ability.  Leanne didn’t know whether to consider it stupidity or courage.

“Twitching around won’t save you this time,” Akua said, in spite of the fact that Vell had stopped moving.  “I’ve been practicing.”

Akua, who had been obsessively practicing her revenge for more than forty years, easily tracked Vell’s every move.  Before she could pull the trigger, however, her blood ran cold.  Not because of any psychological reasons, as Akua was absolutely down to commit a double homicide and had in fact been looking forward to it for several decades, but because everything about her hand went cold.  Mavis Akua looked down to see that her hand had been completely encased in a block of ice.

“Bitch!” Harley shouted.  She had been planning to shout something more clever, but seeing the gun pointed at her friends had blasted all the comedy right out of her mind.  Harley hurled the “weapon” she’d brought (a bag of expired flour borrowed from Renard) in Akua’s direction, and it exploded across the would-be murderer’s head.  She had initially just thought it would be funny to see the bag pop on Akua’s head, but the fact that the powder blinded her added another layer of security, in case Akua broke the ice Lee had formed around her gun-wielding hand.

“What the-”

“Surprise, asshole, there’s four of us,” Harley said, stepping fully out of her hiding place.  “Congratulations on having fifty years to not fuck this up and fucking it up anyway.”

Lee stepped into view as well, as their trap had already been fully sprung.  Despite having decades to prepare for this reunion, versus Vell and Leanne’s thirteen hours, Dr. Akua had been wholly caught off guard thanks to the reinforcement of the two other loopers.  Lee concentrated intensely on keeping Akua’s hand frozen, focusing especially on the gun.

“We might’ve been content to leave you with a warning-”

“And a head covered in flour.”

“Yes, and a head covered in flour, but you have taken it much too far, Dr. Akua,” Lee said.  “Harley, please contact campus security, inform them we have a lunatic wielding a gun on campus.”

“You got it boss,” Harley said.  She made a call and then wandered off to help nab the nearest security bot.  Akua stared at the frozen gun in one hand, and the pen she held in the other.  A smarter person might have tried to use the pen to break the ice, but Akua was the opposite of a smarter person.  With her safely disarmed, Vell stepped away from his place between Leanne and the gun.  Leanne stayed right where she was.

“So,” Vell said.  “Fifty years of grudge-holding, huh?”

“Shut up,” Akua snapped.  Vell shrugged and stuck a hand in his pocket.

“I’m just saying, was it really worth trying to steal a handful of Professor Nguyen’s notes?”

“What do you mean, trying?  We stole them anyway,” Akua said.  “Dozens of them.  More than we planned on, even.  I took credit for hundreds of hours of Nguyen’s work.”

“Okay, cool, thanks for enunciating that very clearly,” Vell said.  He took his phone out of his pocket and hit the button to stop recording.  “Have fun with that confession playing in court.”

Akua stared impotently at the phone.  She hadn’t even mentioned the loops, something that might’ve rendered the “confession” unusable.

“Again, you had like, decades to prepare for this,” Vell said.  “I understand the phone throwing you off back in the 70’s, but smartphones have been a thing for a while now.  What have you been doing?”

“Scheming, mostly.”

“Was it worth it?”

Akua looked down at her frozen hand, and the thick covering of flour over her upper body.  She chose to say nothing, if only to deny Vell the satisfaction of hearing her admit defeat.

◆◆◆

A day later, after Professor Nguyen’s class wrapped up, Vell lingered for a moment.  Once again, the ironclad professor didn’t look up from her desk as she spoke to him.  Vell found that significantly less off-putting now.  He had assumed, once, that there was some deeper meaning behind her stern demeanor, some emotional wound she still bore, but his travel to the past had proven that wrong.  Carmella Nguyen was just a natural hardass.  It was comforting, in a way.

“Mr. Harlan, what can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering how that thing with Dr. Akua turned out?”

“She was summarily stripped of her credentials.  The school, and several academic institutions, have granted me retroactive honors for the discoveries she stole credit for,” Nguyen said flatly.  While no institution had been able to explain exactly how Akua had plagiarized Nguyen’s work, the recorded confession, and Akua’s own bumbling nature, had allowed them to establish a solid case.

“That’s good to hear,” Vell said.  “I’m glad you’re finally getting the credit you deserve.”

“The plaques I received went directly into the trash, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said.  “I have never pursued knowledge out of a desire for fame and acknowledgment.  Ambitions of that nature are what led to Lijia Mian’s inevitable downfall -as well as the unfortunate fates of her cohorts.”

Over the past few days, Vell had spent more time looking into the fates of the loopers from the early 70’s.  Lijia had disappeared mysteriously, Isaac’s life had fallen apart, Akua was now disgraced and headed to prison, and the as-yet unseen Jason had apparently died in an easily preventable accident shortly after leaving college -an act of carelessness Lee theorized might have been born from his repeated deaths and resurrections affecting his self-preservation instincts.  Over all, the loopers of the past seemed to have met grim fates.  A pattern which starkly worried the loopers of the modern day.

“Well, uh...I guess it’s nice that Akua got what she deserved, then?”

“Without access to my notes to steal, Akua’s scientific career floundered, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen continued.  She still had not looked up from her paperwork.  “She was stuck in a dead end laboratory position, doing tedious work in service roles.  She had suffered plenty of indignity already, by my estimation.”

“I guess that’s one way to see it,” Vell said.

“Fishing for praise is not becoming of you, Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said.  “You jumped in front of a gun for the sake of plagiarism done half a century ago.  Courage and virtue are admirable qualities, Mr. Harlan, but not when separated from wisdom.  Your life is worth more than doing the ‘right’ thing once.”

With a stiff motion so momentous Vell’s heart skipped a beat, Dr. Nguyen looked up from her paperwork and glared at Vell.

“I firmly believe you have the capacity to make the world a better place, Vell Harlan,” Dr. Nguyen said.  “Do not disappoint me.”

Vell stood in place for about ten seconds and contemplated what to say.  Nguyen didn’t wait for him to get a word in edgewise before returning to her paperwork.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.  “Not to.  Not to disappoint you, that is.”

“I understood your meaning,” she said.  “You are dismissed, Mr. Harlan, you’ve put me behind on my paperwork.”

Vell took the excuse to leave.  As he’d left later than every other student, the hallways were empty, other than one lone figure leaning against a wall on the opposite end of the hallway.  Vell waved at Leanne as he passed by.

“Hi Leanne.”

“Hey.”

Vell stopped in his tracks and turned around.  Leanne pointed at herself with a smile on her face.

“Yeah, I figured, it’s just, uh,” Vell said.  “I thought you were kind of…”

“I figured if I never talked to you again I couldn’t say thanks,” Leanne said.  “You sort of jumped in front of a gun for me, Vell.  That warrants at least one more conversation.”

“Oh, I guess, yeah,” Vell said.

“And I guess I owe you an apology for flipping out on you in that hallway,” Leanne said.  “I get it.”

While Vell, in his own way, acted just as insane as every other looper Leanne had ever met, she was starting to understand that he did so for very different reasons.  She’d known a lot of people who would do crazy, reckless things, but only because constant death had made them forget their fear.  When Vell did something crazy and reckless, he did it so someone else wouldn’t have to.

“Alright.  Well, I’m still sorry for scaring you,” Vell said.  Another point in his favor.  Vell actually apologized.  Unlike some people Leanne knew.

“Cool.  Talk to you later, Vell.”

“Really?”

Leanne shrugged.

“Well, maybe.  I’m still kind of the quiet type.”

“Understandable.”

“I have at least one more conversation loaded up, though,” Leanne said.  She followed along at Vell’s side as he continued walking to his next class.  A question had come to mind.  “In all of this, did you find anything out about what happened to Lijia?”

“Oh, now you’re curious,” Vell said.  Leanne had tried to gesture him out of investigating Lijia when all this had started, and now she was the one asking questions.

“The bitch tried to stab me, I want to know if she’s in some kind of pocket dimension waiting to jump out and ambush me,” Leanne said.

“Great, now I’m afraid of that too,” Vell said.  “But I don’t know.  I tried to ask Akua before she got arrested, but all she knew was that Lijia went ‘looking for someone’.”

“Hmm.  That’s ominous.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, Vell, it’s always been weird here, but it’s gotten a lot more ominous since you showed up.”

“I’m sorry.”

Chapter 30: Postmodern Warfare

“Good morning students of the Einstein-Odinson College of Paracausal Forces!”

The stuttering voice of Principal Isaac Goodwell boomed out across the entire campus.  Vell jumped out of bed and tried to hurry through getting prepared for the day.  The last time Goodwell had made such an announcement, the floor had turned to lava.  Vell had very low expectations for whatever Goodwell was introducing today.  Before he’d even finished getting dressed, Vell grabbed a satchel of runestones and shoved it into his back pocket.  Always paid to be prepared.

“It’s time for one of the College’s most treasured and time-honored traditions, going all the way back to 2010.”

Vell froze halfway through brushing his teeth, then resumed.  That didn’t sound right, but nothing here ever sounded entirely right.  While the Principal took a dramatic pause -which surely had Harley screaming, wherever she was- Vell stepped out of his bedroom to find his roommates already assembled.  Cane, for some reason, was wearing tactical gear including goggles, thick gloves, and a padded vest.  A bad omen if Vell had ever seen one.

The door to their dorm room opened, and an automated delivery robot walked in, holding a small box in its hands.  The bot lifted the lid with one hand and displayed the contents: four handheld paintball guns, in the style of pistols, each one of them labeled as belonging to Vell and each of his roommates.

“The rules are simple,” the principal boomed.  “Tag your enemies, don’t get tagged yourself.  Last one standing wins a gold star.”

Vell took the paintball pistol in hand and gave it a quick spin.  It was no revolver, but it’d do -for now.  Luke took hold of his own pistol and gave it a leery eye.

“They stole this from a TV show,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cane agreed.  “But it’s fun.”

“I still think you’re overdressed for the occasion,” Luke said, eyeing Cane’s body armor. 

“Nah, this shit gets intense,” Cane said.  “My brother tells stories about this, and man, you’d think he was talking about Vietnam.”

Cane locked and loaded his gun, then braced his shoulder against the door.

“Vell, you’re going to go team up with the ladies, I assume?”

“I was thinking about it, yeah,” Vell said.  If this was a yearly tradition, he was sure Harley had some sort of automated paintball death machine set up and running for just such an occasion, and Vell wanted it on his side.

“Alright, you want to head out now,” Cane said, pointing to the door with a tactical gesture.  “In about ten minutes everyone’s going to be done battle planning and shit is really going to pop off.”

“I’m going to go meet up with my boyfriend too,” Luke said.  “Might bring him around here if shit hasn’t ‘popped off’ too badly.”

Luke saluted once to mock Cane’s military gear and then headed out the door.  Cane listened for the sound of paintball gunfire, but heard only silence.  He nodded Vell towards the door.

“Alright, get out there, stick to cover, and watch your back,” Cane instructed.  “I’m going to stay here and hold down the fort solo.”

“Cane, I’m right here,” Renard said.  He gestured to his own chest.  “I can help-”

As Renard pointed at himself with his paintball gun, his finger slipped on the trigger and he painted his own chest a bright shade of purple.  After staring down at the stain for a second, Renard sighed.

“I’ll go make some snacks,” he said.  Vell shook his head.  Even when it was non-lethally, Renard was always the first to go.

“Alright, sounds like a plan,” Vell said to Cane.  “Do you want to like, uh, turn this place into a fort, or are you just going to try and ride out the first wave of craziness?  Should I bother coming back here?”

“I don’t know, like I said, this shit pops off,” Cane said.  “I’m going to do whatever it takes to survive.  You do the same.  And get moving, man, you’ve already killed like two minutes.”

“Right, I’m going, I’m going,” Vell said.  He sprinted out the door and headed for Harley’s dorm.  Just for the sake of expediency, Vell pulled out his phone to call Harley on the way.

“Hey Vell,” she answered.  “You want to team up for the paintball thing, right?”

“No actually, I was calling just to try and sell you some multivitamins,” Vell said.  “That chick from the other day was right, this company really isn’t a pyramid scheme!”

“You fucking nerd,” Harley chuckled.  “We’re teaming up.  Get to my dorm, and fast.  You only got a few minutes now.”

“A few minutes until what?”

“Until shit gets weird, Harlan,” Harley said.  “You know how it is around here.  Harley out.”

After Harley hung up, Vell put the phone away and looked around the quad.  There were a few people like him sprinting from building to building, cautiously clutching a paintball gun in their hands, but Vell saw no signs of any incoming insanity.  The campus was quiet.

Vell started sprinting towards Harley’s dorm.  On the campus grounds, there was nothing more frightening than silence.  Vell had made it halfway across the quad when his ten-minute timer hit nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.  One second passed in complete silence, save for the echo of a single one of Vell’s footsteps across the quad.  Then the ten minute mark came.

The doors of a nearby lab thundered open so hard they nearly came free of their hinges.  A legion of students wielding heavily-modified paint ball guns and clad in strange reflective armor plates marched forward in unison, following in formation behind a single professor.

“Form up,” the professor shouted.  “Present arms!”

The paintball legion changed formation, taking the shape of a perfect phalanx.  Vell kept running and tried not to look over his shoulder at the students too much.  Up ahead of him, he could see the windows of a nearby dorm building open in unison like the cannon ports of a pirate ship.

“Activate shields, now!”

Every member of the paintball legion slammed a fist against their reflective armor.  Vell saw a shimmering barrier engulf them just before the sound of paintball fire rang out from above.  Vell ducked for cover behind a nearby bush as the world exploded into ten thousand colors.  The paintball legion never moved, as every droplet of paint vanished the moment it touched their energy barrier.

“Shields at maximum capacity,” one of the shielded students said.  “No repeats of last year’s power fluctuations.”

“Excellent,” the professor said.  “Maintain power at safe levels.”

The volley from the dorms faded as students realized their attacks were futile.  No sooner had the last paintball been fired than the dorms of a second lab slammed open.  A second group of battle-ready students emerged, wearing no armor, but bearing a large, heavily-modified paintball cannon on a cart in the midst of their group.

“Fire the barrier-piercing kinetic accelerator!” The lead professor cried.  “You’re not running us over with your shields this year, Paul!”

“Eat it, Jessica!” The other professor cried.  In response, Professor Paul fired their paintball cannon.  The rubbery bubble of paint sailed through the air, spinning wildly and sparking with energy, until it collided with the energy barrier.  The paintball did indeed pierce the energy barrier, showering the shielded students in paint, but the aftereffects of it’s impact didn’t stop there.  The barrier shimmered and crackled with energy, and the circuitry wired into the shield-projecting armor the students wore began to spark.  Eventually the shield began to waver and give off huge bolts of electricity.

“Oh, the interaction of an energy-charged projectile and the shield generators has created a negative reaction,” Professor Jessica said.

“Like in Dune?” Paul replied.

“Exactly like in Dune!”

Then the shield exploded, and everyone died.

◆◆◆

“Alright, get out there, stick to cover, and watch your back,” Cane instructed.  “I’m going to stay here and hold down the fort solo.”

“Cane, I’m right-”

“Don’t point that at yourself,” Vell said.  He grabbed Renard’s gun and pointed it away from his chest.  Hopefully Renard would last at least a little longer this loop.  “I’m going to meet up with Harley, see you guys later.”

Vell practically leaped out the door and sprinted to the quad.  He pulled out his phone and called Harley again, for different reasons this time.

“Hey Harley,” he said.

“What’s up, Vell.  You got any idea what blew us up yesterday?”

“I was right on top of it, actually,” Vell said.  “Two competing groups of tech bros basically had a crazy powerful gun and an energy shield and they exploded when they shot at each other.”

“Oh.  Like in Dune?”

“Exactly like in Dune,” Vell said.  He ducked behind the bench that had covered him on the first loop and waited.  “Anyway, I’m right here and I’m pretty sure I can stop it.  If you wanna come out to that wonky looking bench on the quad, though, more help couldn’t hurt.”

“Which wonky-looking bench?  The one that looks like an elephant sat in it or the one that has a weird stain in the wood?”

Vell looked over his shoulder for a second.

“Weird stain.”

“Oh no, I can’t make it there in time.  Good luck, Vell!”

“Thanks.  It’s almost time.  If I live through this, I’ll be at your dorm soon.”

“If we don’t live through this, meet me in the afterlife, we can ghost-bang until Rapture or Ragnarok or whatever,” Harley said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Vell hung up and put the phone back in his pocket before the word’s he had just heard fully hit him.  It had been a while since Harley had propositioned him so brazenly.  Apparently he was fair game now that he’d been single for a while.

Vell shook his head to shake loose any untoward thoughts.  He had an apocalypse to prevent.  The timer ticked over once again, and the legion of shielded students marched forward.  Professor Paul didn’t have time to say “Shields up” before Vell pegged him square in the chest with a paintball.  Across the quad, his would-be rival also emerged.

“Fire the barrier-piercing kinetic accelerator!” The lead professor cried.  “You’re not-”

The soft splat of a paintball against Professor Jessica’s armor cut her off mid-sentence.  Vell followed it up with a few shots at her students, just to be safe.

“Dude,” one of the splattered students said.  “We’re kind of trying to have a rivalry here!”

Armed students on either side of the quad glared angrily at Vell.  He shrugged.

“Sorry,” Vell said.  “But since you’re out of the game, maybe you should double check that their weird cannon doesn’t cause a nuclear explosion when it interacts with your weird shield?”

“Oh.  Like in Dune?”

“Exactly like in Dune,” Vell said.  “Uh, hypothetically.  I wouldn’t know.  Good luck with that.”

Vell turned and ran away before any of the students he hadn’t shot yet remembered to be mad at him.  He ducked into the sophomore dorms, where Harley’s dorm room waited, and nearly stepped into a puddle of paint.

The dorm halls were coated wall to wall in splatters of every possible color.  Firstly, Vell was glad that the school janitors were robots instead of overworked humans, and secondly, he wondered what the hell had happened.  He saw a chance to get that question answered when one of the paint splatters started to move.  Someone had been leaning against the wall, their outline blurred by the sprays of color coating every inch of their skin.  The paint-battered student breathed heavily as Vell approached.

“What the hell happened here, man?”

“Witches,” the student gasped.  “On the second floor.  They’re using...some kind of spell...dozens of guns at once...we never stood a chance.”

“Okay, thanks for the heads up,” Vell said.  He looked with some concern at the painted student, who looked to be in severe distress.  “Are you hurt?  Aren’t these guns supposed to be safe?”

“Yeah...they are...but one of them got me right in the nads, you know?”

“Oof.  You, uh, you alright, man?”

“I’m good, yeah...Just got to take some deep breaths...I’ll be fine.”

“Cool.  See you around, I guess.”

Vell turned away from the painted student and his injured nads, to head up the stairs.  His footsteps trailed the colors splattered on the floor, creating mismatched rainbow footprints up the stairs.  He stayed close to the wall and peeked around the corner, gun in hand.

At the far end of the rainbow colored halls, a trio of black-clad students, their midnight black garb unstained by even a droplet of paint, hovered two inches off the ground.  The same magic that suspended the women in midair also suspended a cloud of dozens of guns that idly orbited their heads.  Until Vell leaned over a bit too far, and every single one of the guns trained on him instantly.  Vell ducked behind the corner again just in time for two dozen paintballs to sail through the air where his head had just been.

“Come out to play, little man,” the first witch said, her voice a droning monotone that trembled with resonant magical energy.

“He was quite tall, actually,” the second witch corrected, in an equally resonant monotone.

“Come out to play, tall man,” the first witch said.

“I don’t want to,” Vell said.  “Listen, I get that you’re like, the bossfight for this building or whatever, but I just kind of want to grab my friend and leave.”

“A friend?”

“Yeah, she’s like one floor up, always wears red.” Vell said.

The witches shared a glance.  Vell continued describing.

“Brown hair, really short?”

Still nothing.

“Really big boobs?”

“Harley?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Vell said.  “So can I just sneak by and grab her?”

The three witches floated closer together and shared their thoughts in secret ways, communicating via the psychosexual mental bond formed through intricate coven rituals.  They also texted a few times.

“This is acceptable,” the first witch said.  “We swear by the maiden, mother, and crone that you may pass to the upper floor unharmed.”

“And unpainted?”

“And unpainted,” the third witch confirmed.  Vell kept his hand on his gun, but stepped out into the hall.  While the floating guns of the witches three remained trained on him, they did not fire as he moved his way around the corner, into the next stairwell.  He hurried up the stairs onto the next floor.  He’d made it two steps into the hallway when he found himself staring down another set of paintball guns.  Two mechanical turrets turned towards him and marked his chest with targeting lasers.

“Subject Vell Harlan identified,” the turret declared.  “Protocol: Ballistic Annihilation disengaged.  Welcome to the crib, homie.”

The two turrets disengaged their targeting lasers and returned to scanning the hallway for targets.  Vell breathed a sigh of relief and walked between the two turrets that were flanking Harley’s doors.

“Hey Harley, it’s me,” Vell said, knocking on the door.

“You know the door code,” Harley said.

“Okay, just making sure you didn’t have another turret or something on the other side there,” Vell said.  He punched in the code and let himself in.  The usual cherry scent of Harley’s dorm was undercut by the smoky aroma of an active soldering iron.  Harley was assembling the final pieces of a new paintball-focused combat body for Botley.

“What up, Harlan?” Harley said, without looking up from her soldering.

“Just negotiated my way past a coven of witches, so, you know, the usual,” Vell said.  “You almost done with that?”

“Close to it, yeah,” Harley said.  She took one hand off her work and gestured to her desk drawer, across the room.  “Bottles, get him the thingy.”

Harley’s robotic familiar saluted and shuffled his tiny robot body across the room to the drawer, prying it open with his little hands.  He fell into the drawer and rummaged around a bit before triumphantly leaping out with a plastic revolver in his hands.  Vell took the offered gun, while Botley dove back into the drawer to retrieve a second identical firearm.

“A paintball revolver?”

“Yeah!  I knew this paintball war thingy was happening eventually, and you’re crazy good with revolvers,” Harley said.  “So I made them for you!”

“Thanks,” Vell said.  He gave the pair of revolvers a quick spin and found them to be perfectly balanced.  “These are really good.”

“Test them out before you compliment me,” Harley said.  “I couldn’t hit for shit when I tried to test-fire them.  Don’t know if it’s because I made them bad or because I suck at shooting, though.”

“I’ll wait a bit, don’t want to get paint all over your dorm,” Vell said.  “And uh, hey, thanks again, I’m sincerely grateful, but if you spent all the time preparing these guns for the paintball war, couldn’t you have, you know, told me about the paintball war?”

“Honestly, Vell, at this point I’ve just started to like explaining things to you,” Harley said.  “I’m also kind of scared of whatever demon or angry ghost or whatever has cursed you to never be able to read an instruction manual.”

“Well, at least you’re getting some enjoyment out of it,” Vell said. 

“You’re almost done with all the school’s weird surprises anyway, you don’t have much more to worry about,” Harley said.  She set her solder aside and took off the goggles she wore.  “I’m all done.  Come on, we’re going to meet up with Lee near the senior dorms, then get to the Ballball field.”

Harley plugged Botley’s head into the new body and fired up the drone’s system.  The weaponized aerial platform hovered over her shoulder and aimed its paintball cannons in every direction.

“Good to go?”

“Good to go,” Harley said with a thumbs up.  Vell took the lead as they headed back into the hallway.  The auto-turrets briefly clicked back to life and pointed in their direction before identifying them as friends and going back to scanning the hallway.

“You going to shut those down?”

“Nah, might as well leave them to blast a few people,” Harley said.  “Everybody’s competition, in the end.”

“Right.  Uh, speaking of competition, those witchy chicks I mentioned are right downstairs,” Vell said.  “They let me walk right past to get to you, but I don’t know if they’re going to be chill going the other way.”

“Oh that was definitely a trap,” Harley said.  “My turrets blew away a few of their coven earlier, they probably wanted to lure me out.”

“I see.  Sorry.”

“Nah, I’d have to come out eventually,” Harley said.  “This way I’ve got you and your weirdly superhuman yeehaw bullshit on my side.”

“I am very good at what I do,” Vell said, keeping a hand near his holstered paintball pistols.  “I’ll take the lead.”

“Have I mentioned how hot it is when you’re doing the gunslinger thing?”  Harley said.  “That little bit of extra confidence just does wonders for your sex appeal.”

Harley bit her lip while Vell went red in the face.

“Uh...thanks, I guess, it’s uh-”

“And it’s gone,” Harley said.  “Come on, it’s time for shooty things.”

The brief moment of flirtation had distracted Vell enough he’d almost walked right out of the stairwell, into full view of the floating witch trio.  Vell assumed that the witches had sensed his approach and didn’t bother trying for an ambush.

“So, witches,” Vell said.  “I don’t suppose it’ll be as easy going down as it was going up?’

“I usually find going down pretty easy,” Harley added.  Vell glared at her.  “Sorry.  Couldn’t resist.”

“Unfortunately no, tall man,” the first witch said.

“Your innuendo-loving friend shot our sisters,” the third witch said.

“Paint must be repaid in paint,” the second witch concluded.  Vell nodded and drew his guns, and tried to ignore Harley making eyes at him as he started doing his “gunslinger thing.”

“I’m going to give you one chance, ladies,” Vell said.  “Let me pass.”

“We shall not,” the three witches said in unison.

“Well, I warned you,” Vell said.  He cocked the hammers of both his paintball revolvers.

With an entirely unnecessary dramatic flourish, Vell spun out of cover, swinging low to the ground as he did so.  The floating witches had to readjust their guns to aim at his lower center of mass, and those few milliseconds of readjustment were all Vell needed.  The usual thunder of gunfire was replaced by the soft “piff” of paintball fire, but the shots rang out in the halls all the same.  Three witches, three pulls of the trigger, and three paint-stained black dresses, all in less than a second.  The witches hadn’t even finished aiming by the time the paintballs struck them out.

Vell stood, spun his two revolvers, and shoved them into the holsters.

“I did warn you,” he said.  The disappointed witches sank to the floor and discarded their guns.  The third witch turned to the second and put her hands on her hips.

“I said he seemed nice, we could just let him go, but no, ‘mortal men must know to respect the coven’,” she said.  “Does that sound familiar, Linda?”

“This is embarrassing enough without you breaking the mystique, sister,” the apparent Linda said.

“Cry me a river.  You’re paying to get this dress dry-cleaned.”

“What?”

“You insisted we wear the expensive matching dresses to the paintball war, you deal with the consequences!”

The three defeated witches sulked back to their respective dorms, bickering all the while. Vell reloaded the three spent chambers of his revolver while Harley finally came out of cover.

“Hey, remember how I was talking about your sex appeal?”

“Distinctly.”

“Well I just thought of a pretty good line but I want to know if I’m making you uncomfortable first,” Harley said.  “I don’t want to make it weird.”

“I know what to expect from you,” Vell said.  “Go ahead.”

“I’m serious about this gunslinger thing, Vell, like, when you cock those guns I just want you to cock me, right?”

Harley’s face split into a wide grin that faded as Vell stared blankly at her.

“Not that good, huh?”

“Eh, six out of ten,” Vell said.  “It has potential, but the execution needs work.”

“I’ll workshop it,” Harley sighed.  “Come on, let’s go find Lee.”

◆◆◆

Finding Lee was easier than expected.  She’d built herself a fortress.

As the paintball war raged on, Lee had secured her position with walls of ice, placing frozen barricades between herself and any possible opponents.  This was not to say she was simply hiding and waiting, though.  Watery tendrils wielded multiple guns, taking potshots at any opponents who came too close to her icy fortress.  The tendrils entirely ignored Vell and Harley as they approached the frosty barriers.

“Hey bitch!” Harley shouted.  “Do you want to build a snowman?”

Several of the icy walls melted instantly, revealing Lee sitting on a bench in the center of the fortress.

“Generally speaking, yes, but not right now,” Lee said.  The rest of the fortress melted as Lee disassembled her fortified position.  “We should be getting to the Ballball field.  The first phase should be ending soon.”

“First phase?” Vell asked.

“Ah yes, you’ve never read any student handbooks,” Lee said.  “I’ll explain on the way.”

The hovering Ballball stadium wasn’t far off, but they wanted to be among the first to arrive.  Lee led the way while Vell and Harley picked off would-be attackers.

“You see, dear, every game of paintball war follows very distinct phases.  The first phase, the one we’re in currently, is usually referred to as the ‘chaos’ phase, or the ‘free-for-all’ phase.  This is when panicking Freshmen—no offense—cause havoc, and more experienced players reveal the weapons and technology they’ve spent the past year preparing.  You’ve seen some of this chaos firsthand by now.”

“I shot several witches and prevented an off-brand Dune sequel, yes,” Vell said.

“Good work on that, by the way,” Lee said.  She tried to turn and pat Vell on the shoulder while walking, and ended up tripping over her own feet.  As she fell, a paintball sailed through the empty space where her head had been and splattered onto the ground.

“Sniper,” Vell cried.  “Get down!”

Lee, who was already down, stayed there.  Harley and Vell joined her on the ground and the trio crawled to the nearest source of cover.  The unseen marksman took a few potshots at them as they crawled, but their tactical drop made them difficult targets. 

“Man it’s a good thing we have so many benches on campus,” Harley said.

“Scientists do love to sit,” Lee said.  She brushed some dirt off her blouse and took hold of her pistol.  “But it looks like we’re going to have to make a stand.”

“Good line.”

“Thanks.”

Vell pulled out his phone and tried to use the camera to get an angle on their sniper without exposing himself.  He didn’t catch sight of anything clear, but the trajectory of the shots made it clear that their sniper had to be in the clocktower.  Vell relayed this information to his friends.

“Oh that’s way out of reach,” Harley said.  “That dude must have a crazily modded gun.  Anybody got any tricks up their sleeve?”

“I really should’ve brought more water with me,” Lee huffed.  She had enough stored on her to make small shields, but it would be difficult to protect all three of them from sustained sniper fire in the open.  While she lamented her lack of preparation, Vell reviewed his own.  He grabbed the bag of runes out of his pocket and started digging through them.

“Let’s see, I got, uhh...Fireball, flash freeze, move, summon...I forget what this summons,” Vell said, as he scoured through his bag of runestones.  He’d carved dozens of them over time, in case a random rune would ever come in handy.  “Oh, this could be useful!  Invisibility.”

Vell held up a single small rune, inscribed with the mark that could bend light and disguise his presence.

“Well that sounds perfect,” Harley said.  “And now, in accordance with the pattern of our lives, you’re going to tell me why it’s not perfect.”

“You are eerily accurate,” Vell said.  “It’ll cover one person for about five minutes.”

“Okay, so how does that work?  If it’s just a person, do they have to be naked, because if so, I volunteer.”

“You could be naked if you want, but you don’t have to be,” Vell said.  “It works on anything you’re wearing or carrying.”

“Anything you’re carrying?” Harley said with a grin.

“Anything,” Vell said.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

◆◆◆

“Lee, you got to wrap your arms around his chest, then I’ll grab his shoulders,” Harley said.  In an attempt to loophole the “carrying” clause of the invisibility rune, Lee had climbed on to Vell’s back, and now Harley was climbing on to hers.  The attempted dogpile was not without incident.

“I have little enough leverage already,” Lee complained.  Vell had many positive qualities, but ‘broad-shouldered’ was not one of them.

“You got to cling to him with your legs, then, just wrap them around him and hold on tight.  Like that time we rode the giant snake,” Harley said.  “And no, Vell, that’s not a euphemism.”

“I figured,” Vell grunted.  He was still kneeling on the ground while Harley and Lee tried to arrange themselves, and he already regretted this plan.  His politeness and lack of any better options kept him from voicing those complaints, however.  He bore the back pain stoically as the two women finally found a position that worked for them.

“Okay, I think we’re good to go,” Harley said.  She wanted to give a thumbs up, but dared not risk removing her hand from the pretzel-like twist of limbs that was making their double piggy-back ride work.  “Pop the rune and let’s see if it works!”

Vell held up the rune, and Lee provided the last bit of magical spark it needed to do its thing.  Much to their relief, they hadn’t wasted the past seven minutes, and all three of them quickly vanished as the invisibility rune took effect.

“Sick!  Go, Vell, go!”

The transparency worked in Vell’s favor, as no one saw how red Vell’s face turned as he struggled to rise to his feet with two fully grown women on his back.  The grunting ended up giving him away.

“Easy Vell,” Lee cautioned.  “One step at a time, all you have to do is get us to that lab building over there.”

“Yeah, sure, great,” Vell grunted through gritted teeth.  “Just try not to move.”

Harley and Lee dutifully stayed still.  Vell managed to plod along the campus grounds, unseen by their sniper, as he slowly made his way to the building that would give them more cover.  As Vell stomped his way across the open quad, they could see another student attempt to make the sprint, and get shot down by the sniper in the clocktower.  While the paint-splattered student stormed off in a huff, Harley gave Vell’s shoulder a light squeeze.

“You know, Vell, I do want to say how fucking rad you are,” Harley said.  “You’re like, the most reliable guy I know on the average day, but today you’re pulling double duty.  You stopped the apocalypse all on your own, you shot all those witch chicks, and now you are literally carrying our team.”

“Yes, dear, this is above and beyond your already high standards of excellence,” Lee agreed.

“It’s fine,” Vell huffed.  “You’d do the same for me.  If either of you were physically able.”

“One of the many failures of being tiny,” Harley sighed.  “Though it’s working in your favor right now,  huh Vell?”

“Please don’t make me think about how heavy you are,” Vell said.

“Oh shit, right,” Harley said.  “Uh, shit...Lee, we should do something nice for Vell, you know?  Show how much we appreciate him.”

“That sounds like a good idea, yes.”

“What’re you into, Vell?  We could get you like some new runecrafting stuff, or a video game, or like, oh, do you have a record player?  We could get you that new vinyl from that rocker chick you and Leanne like.”

“Roxy,” Vell grunted.  “Already own it, too.”

“Yes, Harley, I buy him nice things all the time, same as you,” Lee said.  “Which makes it hard to express actual sincerity through a gift, now that I think about it.”

“That’s the bitch when it comes to materialism, isn’t it,” Harley said.  “Well, damn, I’m kinda stumped.  I don’t really know how to make things other than robots.”

“I could make him a lovely ice sculpture, but I doubt that is something Vell would appreciate.”

“Maybe not,” Vell said.  “Uh, listen, I appreciate the distracting conversation, but we’re only a few steps away from the building now, and I’m going to collapse as soon as we get there, so hold on.”

“Understood, captain,” Harley said.  She loosened her grip on Vell’s shoulder slightly as he made the last few plodding steps to safety.  The minute his foot crossed into the shadow of the building, Vell kept his word and plummeted face first down into the ground.  Harley and Lee tumbled off his back, becoming visible again the instant they did so.  Vell tossed the rune aside with a limp flick of his arm, rendering himself visible as well.  He groaned loudly as Lee picked him up and flipped him over so as not to be face down in the dirt.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“It’s the least I can do,” Lee said.

“We still owe you big time, buddy,” Harley said.

“Cool.  Can we just chill here for maybe ten minutes or until I can feel my legs again?”

“That’s cool,” Harley said.  “You take a nap, big guy.  We’ll cover you.”

Harley and Lee prepared their guns while Vell prepared a soft patch of dirt to lie down on.

◆◆◆

By the time they started walking again, Vell’s legs still felt a bit like jelly.  The girls had shot down three would-be attackers, though, so all agreed it was time to get a move on and make it to a more defensible position.  They had to duck and dive between spots for cover for the first stretch to evade the sniper, but eventually they managed to break his line of sight and get themselves to relative safety.

“Well, the good news is that whole ordeal probably kept us occupied through the transition,” Lee said.  “The in-between phases often becomes quite messy.”

“Right.  Phases,” Vell said.  “What’s that about, again?”

“Ah yes, I was rudely interrupted in the midst of my explanation, wasn’t I?  The next phase is the so-called ‘warlord’ phase, in which- actually, we’re near the stadium, it’d be best to show you.”

Lee led the way around a corner and gestured to the Ballball stadium.  Large banners had been draped over the side, crudely splattered with paint in the image of what Vell guessed was either a bear or a very fat wolf.  Atop the stadium walls, armed guards patrolled with paintball guns raised.  Lee put her hands up, a gesture Vell and Harley mimicked, and the trio were allowed to approach the fortified stadium in relative peace.  The guards had paintball guns trained on them at all times, even as they approached the entrance.

“State your business or be fired upon,” a gate guard said.  He stood in the booth that controlled the stadium gates and pointed his gun at them from the little hole in the glass usually used to pass tickets through.

“We’re friends of Leanne,” Lee said calmly.

“Heh, you’re not the first people today to say that.  Most who do walk away dripping paint,” the guard said.  He passed a word on to his subordinate who dashed inside the stadium for a moment and then returned, giving a nod in Lee’s direction.

“Lucky you, looks like you were telling the truth,” the gate guard said.  “Welcome to the fold.”

With the press of a button, the gate opened, and the looper trio was beckoned inside.  The stadium interior had been converted from a sporting arena to a war camp.  Camps of soldiers carried out armed drills, high-tech forges built new and more powerful paintball weaponry, and in the far corner, a small handful of students tried desperately to get their classwork done in peace.  Not everyone on campus was equally invested in paintball war.

At the center of the paintball war camp, just below the levitating sphere of the field, sat Leanne, lounging on a makeshift throne.  Several advisors and confidants waited near her towering throne.  Vell waved politely at her boyfriend Elijah, who now had large red markings on his face that Vell sincerely hoped were just red paint.  Leanne herself was dressed normally, except for the pelt of a wolf slung over her shoulders like some kind of ceremonial robe.  At the side of her throne sat a large, multi-barreled paintball gatling gun, of such size and weight that only someone as strong as Leanne could hope to use it effectively.

“Leanne, thank you for having us,” Lee said with a curtsy.  “I was just explaining the warlord phase to Vell, and this makes a lovely demonstration.”

Leanne nodded at the trio and then gestured to her impressive fortress as Lee’s explanation resumed.

“After the initial chaos fades, students begin to recall the old adage of ‘safety in numbers’ and start to band together in defensible locations.  Naturally, these makeshift alliances are led by ‘Warlords’ such as Leanne, who prove themselves powerful paintballers.”

Leanne put a hand on her massive paintball chain gun and smiled proudly.

“You know Vell, you could be a warlord next year!” Harley said.  She then gasped as a sudden realization came to her.  “Or this year!  Do you want to do a coup?”

“What?  No, Harley, I mean- Among other things, Leanne is right there!”

Vell pointed at Leanne, who gave a broad shrug.

“Oh, coup’s are a natural part of the process,” Lee said.  “Eventually people remember that there can only be one victor, and they covet the Warlord position, or they’re just naturally treacherous, and somebody tries to overthrow the Warlord and the whole thing falls apart.”

“It’s a pretty sweet gig until the inevitable betrayal, though,” Harley said.  Leanne gave two thumbs up and relaxed on her throne.  “Don’t relax too much, bitch, I’m coming for you.”

Leanne pointed to her eyes then pointed at Harley, with a sly smile on her face all the while.  Vell still couldn’t tell if their animosity was sincere or a bit.  The looper trio then walked away from Leanne and found a comfortable place to sit.  Leanne’s forces had, apparently, conquered the dining hall, so they also grabbed some lunch from the plundered bounty.

“So you really intend to undertake a coup this year?” Lee asked.

“I mean, if I can get enough support,” Harley said.  “If you take a swing at someone as huge as Leanne you better not fucking miss, right?  I’m going to see who I can get on my side and then shoot my shot in about an hour or so.”

“Good luck,” Vell grunted between mouthfuls.  He was eating with an unusual fervor, due to his earlier exertion building up an appetite.

“You’re not in?”

“Nah, my friendship with Leanne is in a weird enough place without me staging an insurrection against her,” Vell said.

“I must decline as well,” Lee said.  “Treachery isn’t in my nature.”

“Aww.  Fine.  I got to go build a whole army by myself, apparently.  You guys try to stay out of the crossfire, okay?”

“Will do,” Lee said.  “Have fun, dear.”

Harley waved goodbye and sprinted off to find some easily-manipulated paintballers to join her insurrection, leaving Vell and Lee to enjoy the rest of their lunch.  Vell in particular enjoyed the opportunity to wolf down some food without being interrupted by conversation.  Lee gave him time to finish his meal before sparking up a new topic.

“Are you feeling better, Vell?”

“After a meal and a lot of sitting, yes,” Vell said.  “My knees are probably going to be aching all day, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“Good.  I’m glad we weren’t too much of a burden, in the literal sense.”

“You guys actually are pretty light, all things considered,” Vell said.

“Yes, well, Harley’s naturally small, and my parents deliberately underfed me as a child, so I’m a bit delicately built,” Lee grumbled.

“Jesus.”

“Sorry.  Today’s supposed to be fun.”

“It’s fine.  If venting makes you feel better, go for it,” Vell said.

“It makes me feel only slightly better and make me very much less fun at parties,” Lee said.  “I do not consider it a fair trade.”

“Well, don’t vent at parties, then,” Vell said.  “Which is fine, since I don’t think we’ve been invited to any.”

“True, though that is it’s own problem,” Lee said.  She traced a fingertip in a circle across the table and tried to not to frown.  Vell took the pause in conversation to look around the war camp and see if he recognized anyone.  He could see Harley conspiring with Freddy in a corner and decided he wanted nothing to do with that.  He didn’t see many other familiar faces, though, which left him at a loss.  For all the crowd and all the noise, Vell saw very little opportunity to socialize.

The shuffling crowd and the rumbling noise came to a dead standstill as the gate opened once more.  Vell and Lee’s heads turned towards the gate and the source of the disturbance.  The crowd parted to make way for a man in a dusty brown coat and equally ragged black hat, dragging a paint-coated young woman behind him.  Vell took note of the paintball gun strapped to the stranger’s back -it was a custom job, much like Vell’s paintball revolvers, but built in the image of a lever-action rifle rather than a handgun.  He was even wearing cowboy boots much like the pair Vell had gathering dust in his closet.

“Heard you had a bounty out on a sniper,” the stranger drawled, his southern accent thick as molasses.  He shoved the paint-covered student forward, and then tossed a disassembled paintball sniper rifle on to the ground near her.  Leanne reviewed the scene and then nodded to one of her advisors, who began to hand over payment.

“They have bounties?” Vell asked.

“Yes, an entire paintball-based economy is established rather quickly,” Lee said.  “You’ve seen how quickly people form cults around here.  An economic system is much the same.”

Vell didn’t like considering the practical overlap between an economy and a cult, but he had little time to consider the implications.  As soon as the cowboy-esque stranger finished receiving his payment, he began walking in Vell’s direction.  After everything Vell had been through in the past few months, he knew better than to think that was a coincidence.  The stranger cut through the crowd until he was standing just a few feet away from Vell and Lee.  He paused to appraise them and then lit a cigarette and raised it to his lips.

“This is a non-smoking campus,” Vell said.  The cowboy paused for a second to stare in Vell’s direction before putting the cigarette in his mouth anyway.

“It’s paintball day,” he said.  “Rules are a bit looser.”

He took one slow drag of his cigarette in spite of Vell’s disapproving stare.

“Vell Harlan, right?  Heard tell you’re a bit of a gunslinger yourself.”

“I guess,” Vell said.

“Hmm.  Humble,” the stranger said.  “So you and I don’t have that much in common.”

The stranger removed the cigarette from his mouth with one hand and put the other on his hip, subtly moving the shoulder of his coat to reveal a gold star pinned to his chest in a mockery of a sheriff’s badge.

“Name’s Ryder Storm,” he said.  “Winner of last year’s paintball war.”

Whatever reaction Ryder had been expecting, he did not get.  Ryder and Vell stared blankly at one another for a second before Ryder replaced his cigarette and stopped flaunting his gold star.

“I look forward to crossing guns with you, Harlan,” Ryder said.  “If you last that long.”

“Okay.  Good luck to you too, I guess.”

Ryder, clearly dissatisfied with Vell’s refusal to engage in any dramatic repartee, turned and walked away.  Lee let him get some distance before turning back to Vell.

“I believe he was trying to start a rivalry with you, dear,” Lee said.

“Oh, really?  Well, uh, that’s cool, but I don’t really want to have a rival,” Vell said.  “I’m not really looking for a committed relationship right now, after, you know, uh, last semester...”

“How is a rivalry a committed relationship?”

“How is it not?”

Lee took a moment to think about it.

“Huh.”

◆◆◆

Vell poked at his cellphone briefly to check the time.  They were running close to Harley’s scheduled coup, but still had some time to spare. Vell looked back up at Lee.

“You talked to Adele lately?”

“We’ve chatted occasionally, why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Vell said.  “Just, uh, curious.  She mentioned you the other day and I thought maybe you’d bumped into each other.”

“In the literal or figurative sense?”

“Either or,” Vell said.  “You seem to bump into her more than most people.”

Lee couldn’t tell why, but Vell’s tone made her feel as if he knew something she didn’t.

“I’m going to go check on Harley,” she said.  Lee grabbed her purse, stood, and then immediately tripped.  She gave a resigned sigh, followed by a second, even deeper sigh, as she saw a paintball splat on the ground in front of her, having just sailed through the air where she had once stood.

“Really?  Twice in one day?”  Lee groaned.  She’d almost rather have taken the hit than by saved by her clumsiness again.  She rolled over on her back, gun drawn, to find Vell had already dispatched the would be shooter -and six others besides.  He kicked over the table they’d been sitting at and ducked behind it for cover as he reloaded his paintball revolver.  Lee joined him in cover and shouted across the war camp as it quickly erupted into violence.

“Harley!  Please tell your men not to shoot at us!”

After using an unsuspecting student as a human shield and then returning fire, Harley started running their way, dodging and weaving as she ran.

“Not my dudes,” she shouted.  “Not mine!”

“I thought you were running the coup!”

“So did I,” Harley said.  She directed Botley to fire a volley in the direction of some charging troops and continued running.  “Apparently several other people had the same idea!”

As Lee took a moment to peruse the battlefield, she saw that Harley was correct -the once united band of paintballers had divided into several distinct factions, each vying for control of the central podium and the throne on top of it.  Leanne held her ground bravely, cutting down entire hordes with her paintball minigun, but as the center of attention, she was inevitably struck in the chest by a single devastating paintball.  With a mighty shrug, Leanne tossed her minigun aside and pushed her way through the crowd, a warlord no more.

“Leanne’s down, that should focus the fighting,” Lee said.

“Do we want to like, pick a team and hope for the best, I guess?” Vell suggested.

“Nah, fuck that, let’s bail,” Harley said.  There were too many new factors at play for a coup to be any fun. “Going to need a way out that’s not the door, though.”

Aside from the throne, the stadium entrances were the most hotly contested areas of combat.  Harley sincerely doubted that proclaiming their neutrality would get them through the doors unpainted.  The trio tried to balanced defending themselves with seeking an exit strategy.  Vell spotted the coolers where some of the warband’s stolen dining hall spoils had been kept cold.

“Lee, you think there’s enough ice and water in those things for you to make some kind of ice ramp for us?”

“I believe so,” Lee said.  “Good eye, Vell.”

“My man,” Harley said, beaming with pride.  “We need to get you in shootouts more often.”

“Please don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Harley said.  Lee broke off the conversation by throwing her hands in the direction of the coolers and then pulling them back, sweeping a wave of icy water along with them.  The icy torrent carried a few cans of soda along with it, and Harley snatched one out of the water as Lee formed it into a shell around them. 

“Ech, root beer,” she said.  “Either of you want this?”

“Not thirsty, thanks,” Vell said.  Lee likewise rejected the offer.  Harley tossed the can back into the magically manipulated torrent and refocused.  Lee shaped the water and ice into a dome, surrounding the three of them in a thick shield.  The bubble-like barrier began to shift up the stands as the group made their way to the edge of the stadium.  The thick wall of water made all paintball attacks ineffective, and the bulk of the warring students ignored the trio in favor of easier targets.  That was a temporary arrangement at best, however.

“When I begin to make our exit ramp, our shield will be lost,” Lee warned them.  “I’ll work as quickly as I can, but we’ll still be exposed.  I’ll have to trust you two to provide cover fire.”

“I can probably do that,” Vell said.

“Come on, Vell, let’s see some of that confidence,” Harley said.  “You’re on a hot streak today!”

“Uh, hot streak or not, I still only have twelve bullets per reload,” Vell said.  “And there’s like, way more than twelve people out there.”

Harley glanced out past the glassy walls of the water barrier.  There were, in fact, way more than twelve people out there.

“Oh, yeah.  Well, I’m sure you’ll do a really good job shooting twelve of them.”

“Of that there is no doubt,” Lee said.  “On that note, you two, it’s time for the wall to come down.  Are you prepared?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Harley said.  “Let’s move, bitch!”

Lee stood motionless.

“Let’s move, bitch, ‘please’,” Harley said.

“Much better.  Ready your weapons!”

With a sweep of Lee’s arm, the water wall spiraled around them one last time and then flowed downwards.  It briefly formed a waterfall over the edge of the stadium before freezing into a slick, curved ramp.  Vell had little time to appreciate the artistry of Lee’s hydromancy in action, as others were starting to take notice of their newfound vulnerability.

The first person to turn a gun towards Vell got a paintball in the chest, as did the second, and third.  Vell never missed a shot, but the looming specter of those shots running out haunted him.  He tried to let Harley and her weaponized Botley do most of the shooting, but she couldn’t possibly cover every angle.  Vell fired off his revolvers for the ninth, tenth, and eleventh times, and then contemplated what his next move would be.  A second, maybe two, had passed, and yet Vell was still surrounded on all sides and nearly out of ammo.

“Time to go!”

Acting on impulse, Vell fired off his last shot at the nearest target and then made a dive for the ice ramp. 

He barely found his footing on the slippery surface and was very nearly pushed off the edge as Harley slammed right into him, having jumped towards the ramp with unusual carelessness.  A few paintball shots sailed over their head as all three began to slide towards the ground.

“Careful, Harley, you nearly shoved me off the edge there,” Vell cautioned.  The three of them dismounted the icy ramp and then allowed Lee to reshape it into a new ice wall, giving them cover from the paintball fire that was still raining down from the stadium’s edge.  Harley looked down at her shirt and sighed.

“Well, sorry Vell, but I kinda had to act fast,” she said.  She moved her hand off her chest to reveal a large blue paint stain on her red shirt.

“Harley!”

“Yeah, I’m out,” Harley said.  “Sucks, but what’re you going to do?”

Vell stared at the paint stain and then stopped staring at it when he realized exactly where it was located.  He focused on something else instead.

“Did you...take a bullet for me?”

“A paintball bullet, Harlan, don’t be dramatic,” Harley said.  “But yeah.  You’ve been putting in the work all day.  Figured I owed you one.”

She tugged at the collar of her shirt for a second and then grabbed her chest again.

“Got me right in the boob, though, god damn that stung.”

“I, uh, well, thank you, Harley.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Harley said.  “Like I said, I owed you one.”

The paintball fire from above had abated, so the trio took the opportunity to escape cover and flee in the direction of Harley’s dorm.  Once they had rounded the corner, Harley stepped away from the group and waved goodbye.

“Well, I’m out, so I’m going to go chill in my dorm,” Harley said.  “Vell, I took a bullet for you, so you better make top ten at least, you hear me?”

“I can probably do that,” Vell said, earning a disapproving shake of the head from Harley.

“No ‘probably’s’!” She demanded.  “I want confidence, Vell!  Confidence!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll definitely do top ten,” Vell said.

“There we go.  Good luck you two.  Harley out!”

She turned her back and threw up two peace signs as she walked away, leaving Vell and Lee to face the rest of the paintball war on their own.

◆◆◆

“So, Lee, I assume we’re in a different ‘phase’ now, right?”

Vell took a quick peek around the corner and saw that the coast was clear.  He gestured for Lee to move forward and they cautiously made their way to the next piece of cover while Lee explained their situation.

“Well, yes, but after the warlords, things get a touch more unclear,” Lee said.  “Lone wolves might try to build themselves fortified positions, or else roving groups may join together into nomadic gangs to prowl the campus looking for stragglers to pick off.”

“Man, people on this campus just go full lunatic under the slightest bit of pressure, don’t they?”

“College is stressful,” Lee said.  “When there’s a lot of straws, any one of them might be the straw that breaks the camels back.”

“I hear that,” Vell said.  “Do you want to fortify, or try and join a roving gang?”

“I fear we may be the stragglers in this scenario, dear.  We don’t have many options as far as joining a gang,” Lee said.  “Most of our social circle went down with Leanne’s warband.”

“True,” Vell said.  Vell’s social circle began and ended within a few doors of his dorm, on top of the other loopers.  “Man, we, uh, really don’t know a lot of people between us, do we?”

“I am rather more guilty of that than you, I think,” Lee said.  She then paused, as if out of regret.  “Sorry.  I’m being a bit of a downer here, aren’t I?”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Vell said.  “We all got problems.  If anything, it’s nice that you talk about yours so openly.”

Vell took out one of his revolvers and began checking the mechanisms, giving the barrel a quick once over as well before he put it back in the holster and repeated the process with other one.  Lee knew better than to think he had gun maintenance on his mind.  She’d used “pretending to be too occupied to talk” as an excuse to avoid her parents more than once.

“Do you have something you’d like to get off your chest, Vell?”

“Uhm.  One thing, I guess,” Vell said.  “I know you and Harley mean well when you talk me up, but I just, you know, never really take a compliment well.  I don’t really like the, uh, spotlight.”

“I see.  It’s well deserved, in any case.”

“Maybe.  Attention just makes me nervous, though,” Vell said.  “Mostly thanks to this thing.”

Vell pointed at his lower back, and the mystery rune inscribed upon it.  That was all it took for Lee to understand perfectly.  For someone who actually had something to hide, any attention came with the risk of getting “caught”.

“Well, if attention makes you uncomfortable, I shall endeavor to ignore you.”

Vell sighed heavily, though the smile on his face made it clear he understood Lee’s joke.

“Not what I meant,” Vell said.  Lee looked away from him and offered no response.  It was meant to be part of the gag, but the attempted silence ended up alerting them to a potential danger.  The murmuring motion of a nearby crowd, coming around the far side of the building.  Lee abandoned the gag and scooted closer to Vell to whisper.

“One of the gangs,” she said.  “We should move.”

Vell nodded in silent agreement and gestured towards the other end of the dorm building, away from the noise.  The two of them crept carefully along the building’s edge, trying to strike the perfect balance between speed and stealth, and failing on both counts.

“I hear something,” someone shouted.  “This way!”

With their cover blown, Vell and Lee abandoned their failed stealth to lean on speed, which hadn’t failed them yet.  Vell made it round the corner and readied his weapons, with Lee close behind.  She reached the edge of the building and nearly tripped as she made her way around, but managed to catch herself before she fell.  She felt a very brief moment of triumph at finally overcoming her clumsiness, which was instantly muted by the feeling of a paintball striking her in the back.

“Of course,” she sighed.  The one time she didn’t fall. “Good luck, Vell!”

“Right, okay, sorry, I’ll, uh-”

Vell cut himself off when he realized he actually had nothing to say.  He kept running while Lee resigned herself to her defeat, and did one more thing to help out Vell.

“I count fourteen of them, Vell!  Be careful!”

Once again, the twelve-bullet dilemma of Vell’s revolvers reared its ugly head.  Fourteen was a slightly more manageable number then horde back at the stadium, at least.  Vell spun the chambers of his revolvers once and calculated his odds.  The worst case scenario was he lost a chance at a gold star, and since Vell had never and would never care about gold stars, that suited him just fine.

Vell stopped spinning the chambers and cocked the hammers on both revolvers.  A gunslinger, alone, with nothing to lose.  It felt right.

The first would-be hunter caught up to Vell, and took a paintball in the chest for his trouble.  With two quick flicks of his wrist and two equally quick pulls of the trigger, the next two around the corner met a similar fate.  Vell backed up, giving himself more breathing room for the next wave.  Those that came after learned from the fate of their brothers, and came around the corner low to the ground, forcing Vell to adjust his aim and costing him precious seconds.  One even did a combat roll, and while Vell caught him just as he finished his rolling dive, it still took his eye and his guns away from the main group of hunters.

Their tactics were clever, but Vell was quicker.  His guns never missed the mark in spite of their evasive motions.  He only really started to sweat as he began to empty the chamber in his second gun.  He had three hunters left, and only one bullet.  Vell fired off his last bullet, striking a hunter in the thigh, and then retreated.  He ran and dove for cover, quickly shoving a single paintball into the chamber before turning and firing it at the hunter that pursued him.  He grabbed another paintball and loaded it just as the last of the hunters rounded the corner.

The soft “puff” of paintball fire echoed between the two.  Vell watched a quick burst of purple explode on the hunter’s chest.  He was still halfway through chambering his next round.  The hunter looked over Vell’s shoulder.

“Come on, man,” he whined.

“Hunting a man who’s reloading ain’t sporting,” Ryder said.  He shouldered his lever-action paintball gun and took another drag of his cigarette as he stepped closer to the fray.

“This is still a non-smoking campus,” Vell reminded him.

“I still don’t care,” Ryder said.  He nodded at the paint-stained hunter.  “You get out of here.  I want to have a talk with Mr. Harlan.”

The hunter obliged, trudging off to help the remnants of his gang clean up.  Ryder stepped up to Vell and gave him a nod in greeting.

“Thanks for the assist,” Vell said.

“My pleasure.  Like I said, just giving you the courtesy of some time to reload.”

“Right.  So.  Now what?”

“Now, I believe-”

A siren went off on campus.  Overhead, a swarm of drones took flight, arranging themselves into the shape of the number ten as they floated high above campus.

“Well look at that,” Ryder said.  “Looks like I just won you a spot in the top ten.”

As they watched the skies, a paintball shot rang out across campus, and the drone swarm rearranged itself into a nine.

“Make that top nine,” Ryder corrected.  “This is where it gets real interesting.  Lone gunslingers like ourselves face off man to man.”

“Okay,” Vell said.  “Is that what’s going to happen?  You want to have some high noon duel?”

“It’s three forty-five, son, we’re a bit late,” Ryder said.  “A duel don’t sound so bad, though.  But you’re going to earn it.”

Ryder put his gun on his back, and Vell holstered the revolver he held, in a sign of peace -for now.

“We’ll call it a gentleman’s agreement,” Ryder said.  “I’m going to be the last man standing, of that there is no doubt.  If you manage to be the second to last man standing, meet me in front of the clocktower.  We’ll settle this the old fashioned way.”

“Okay.  Cool, I guess,” Vell said.  “See you then!”

Vell waved before turning around to walk away.  Ryder bit down his cigarette.  Vell had absolutely no ability to banter.  He was starting to reconsider this “rivalry”, but there were only so many inhumanly talented cowboy-themed paintball gunslingers with which to compete.  Ryder could not be picky.

◆◆◆

“Come out and play, little gunslinger,” the ironclad student shouted.  His voice rang off the heavy metal helmet he wore.  “See how your little peashooters handle Frank the Tank.”

Frank (Vell refused to refer to him as “the Tank”) scanned the area, searching for where Vell had run off to.  The thick metal suit he wore acted as a mobile platform for a dozen automated turrets, each one scanning a different direction.  It made him theoretically impossible to approach, but it also made him very slow.  Vell walked with a brisk pace and managed to keep abreast of the Frank who would decidedly not be referred to as “the Tank”.  He even had enough distance to make a phone call.

“Hey Luke,” Vell said.

“Hey Vell.  Heard you were still at it.”

“Yeah I’m up to-” Vell looked at the floating drone swarm in the sky.  “Top five now.”

“Hey, lucky you,” Luke said.  “I pretty much got shot like five minutes after I left the dorm.  I’m not cut out for this stuff.”

“Oh yeah?  How are Cane and Renard doing?”

“Oh some guy in Cane’s neurology class double crossed them when Cane let him into the dorm,” Luke said.  “Cane’s still mad.”

“He should be, dick move,” Vell said.  “Anyway, you got some time to help me out with a physics problem?”

“Weird timing, but I’ll assume you know what you’re doing.  What do you need to know?”

“Let’s start with the terminal velocity of a paintball,” Vell said.

Calculations were made, mostly based on rough estimations, since Vell didn’t know jack and/or shit about physics.  Luke’s coaching, and the fact that Vell had plenty bullets, meant he could fire as many times as he wanted and hope for the best.  He emptied a revolver upwards and waited for a splat.

Splat.

The drone swarm shifted into the shape of the number four.

“What the fuck?” The non-Tank Frank shouted.  “Hey!  What’d you do?”

“I shot a bullet up and it fell on you.  Still counts,” Vell said.

Frank mumbled something to himself and then stormed off, dragging his heavy metal armor along with him.

“Hmmph, I’m out here in armor covered in auto-turrets and he’s doing physics homework,” Frank grumbled.  “This is supposed to be hectic and fun.”

“Uh, sorry,” Vell called out.  “I’m just going with what works here.”

Frank flipped Vell off before vanishing around a corner.

“Jeez, okay, fine,” Vell said.  He looked up at the sky and saw that the counter had ticked down to three.  He bit his tongue.  That still gave him a little wiggle room to maneuver around Ryder and his strange vendetta.

No sooner had Vell finished thinking that than a puff of paintball fire rang out, and the counter ticked down to two.  He sighed and started heading for the clock tower.

Overhead, a swarm of drones started to follow Vell’s every move.  To ensure that paintball duels never dragged on too long, the last competitors always had their motions tagged and tracked.  Vell could see a second drone swarm, presumably following Ryder, also heading to the clocktower.  The next thing Vell noticed was that the quad was once again flooding with students, all of them tracking one drone swarm or another.  Spectators, all of them, coming to view the final duel between two paintball titans.

Vell started to sweat as soon as the first hanger-on started following him.  He did not like attention, and now he had half the campus tailing his every move.  Vell picked up the pace a little, hoping to get to the clock tower, and get this over with, as soon as possible.

Predictably, Ryder Storm had beat him there, dragging his own posse of spectators along with him.  As Vell stepped up to his opponent, the gathered students naturally formed a large ring around them.  Paint-stained and battered former combatants surrounded them on all sides, and Vell spotted familiar faces like Harley, Lee, Luke, and Freddy all watching him from the sidelines.  He nodded in recognition before focusing his attention solely on Ryder.

“So you made it,” Ryder said with a smile.  “Good on you.”

Ryder stopped leaning against the wall and put his cigarette firmly between his lips.  Vell offered no commentary this time.

“But there can only be one, as the saying goes.”

“That is the Highlander reference, yeah,” Vell said.  Ryder nodded.

“So how about we do this completely square.  Let me borrow one of those pistols of yours and we’ll do it old school.  Back to back, walk ten paces, then fire.”

“Sounds good,” Vell said.  He held out both of his revolvers, handle first, towards Ryder.  “Take your pick.”

Ryder grabbed the gun on the left, double-checked it for any signs of sabotage or malfunction, and nodded to Vell once it passed muster.  The two of them proceeded to the center of the student circle, and stood back to back.  Ryder got himself psyched up by humming the bars of The Ecstasy of Gold to himself.  Vell, meanwhile, was trying not to think of anything at all.  All this attention was getting to his head.

They took the first step away from one another, then the second, in perfect synchronicity.  Revolvers clenched tight in sweaty hands, the two proceeded to their places, as the clock above ticked down to a dramatically inappropriate four-seventeen in the afternoon.  Vell counted his eighth step, then his ninth, then his tenth.

He turned.  Shots of paintball fire rang out so fast they were nearly simultaneous. 

Ryder and Vell both stared down at paint stains on their shirt, then back up at one another.

“So-”

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Vell said.

“I brought a quantum camera!” Freddy shouted.  The circle of students rearranged itself to be surrounding Freddy as he held up his camera and started flickering through the images he’d taken.  With slow, careful button presses, he narrowed it down to the second the paintballs had made impact, then the half-seconds, then quarter-seconds, until he was analyzing the footage from picosecond to picosecond.

“I may have changed the outcome by observing it, but it looks like the winner is…”

“Fuck off with the dramatic pause, Frizzle, spit it out!” Harley demanded.

“It’s Ryder!” Freddy snapped.

The circling crowd circled anew, this time around Ryder Storm.  He basked in the cheering and the adulation of the crowd.  For a moment, every student on campus was cheering him on -except for Vell and his friends, naturally.  Freddy went over his footage once more while the others gathered around Vell.

“Sorry, dear,” Lee said.  “It was an incredible showing, though.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Vell said.  “Like I said, I’m not much for attention.”

Looking at the crowd that had swarmed over Ryder, Vell didn’t feel any regret about not winning.  That was far more attention than he wanted to deal with right now, or ever.  Freddy’s attention focused solely on the footage he was reviewing, and behind the thick glasses he wore, his eyes narrowed.

“Hold on…Did you-?”

“Hey, Freddo, they already gave him the gold star, don’t worry about the footage,” Vell said.  At Vell’s continued insistence, Freddy put the camera away.  Vell turned to face the crowd, and Ryder, and decided to put in one more word.

“Hey Ryder,” he called out.  “Just a reminder for next year.”

“What’s that, Harlan?” Ryder said, with a cocksure smile on his face.  Vell stared right back with a confident grin of his own.

“This is a non-smoking campus,” Vell said.  He saluted once and turned to walk away.  Ryder took a drag of his cigarette -and found he was inhaling nothing but ash.  For a moment, he pulled the cigarette away from his lips.  The lit end of the cigarette had been sheared off, leaving behind nothing but a cold ashen stump, and a few flecks of paint on the very end.  Ryder stared at it, dumbstruck, before realizing what must have happened.  It hit him harder than a paintball in the chest.

“Vell Harlan,” he said, watching the gunslinger’s back as he left.  “You son of a bitch.”

Chapter 31: Apoc Blocked

Vell stepped up to the breakfast table, let his bookbag drop on the floor, and all but collapsed into his seat.

“Having a rough day, are we, dear?” Lee said.

“Midterms,” Vell said.  Everyone at the table nodded in agreement.  They were an above average group of students, even by the lofty standards of the Einstein-Odinson College, but they all struggled with the burdens of the mid-semester exams. 

“It gets a little better from here,” Harley assured him.  “They go real hard on the first year students, y’know, separating the wheat from the chaff and all that.”

“If you’re struggling with the workload, I’d be happy to organize a study group,” Lee suggested.

“Thanks, but I’m fine on that front.”

The work itself was not what really bothered Vell, as he soon explained to them.  He consistently ranked at the top of his classes, and even the heightened intellectual requirements of the upcoming midterm assignments didn’t trouble him too much.  What really bothered him were the expectations.  All of his Professors, especially Nguyen, had made it clear they expected great things from Vell, and he was terrified to let them down.

“I keep double or triple-checking my work, and it doesn’t change much,” Vell explained.  “I’m just stressing too much.”

“I see,” Lee said.  “Well, try some tea and maybe have a sit down on a bench in the quad, away from all your books.  Perhaps this loop will see us attacked by a horde of zombies, or some such, and you can vent your stress by exploding some undead heads.”

“That’d be nice,” Vell said.

Lee shouldered her purse and stood, giving Vell a gentle pat on the shoulder as she walked by.

“I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully, Vell,” Lee said.  “Do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, though.”

Leanne pointed to Lee, and then to herself, indicating she could also be counted on for help, and then excused herself in turn.  Vell let out a deep sigh and leaned forward on the table.  The sound of a chair being scooted closer and closer to Vell’s didn’t even make him blink, until Harley was sitting right next to him, staring right up at his face with a sparkle in her eyes.

“So you got stress problems?”

“Yep.”

“I happen to know an excellent form of stress relief,” Harley said, her voice double-dosed with its usual playful suggestiveness.

“Really,” Vell said, with feigned, and exhausted, shock.  “I can’t imagine what you might suggest.”

“Well it’s an ancient technique, developed long ago,” Harley said.  “It involves a man, like, say, hypothetically, you, and a woman, like, say, hypothetically me, and what we do is…”

Harley leaned in even closer to whisper dramatically in Vell’s ear.

“We go to the common area and see if the ping-pong table is free so we can play a few rounds.”

“The ping pong table is never free,” Vell said.

“Oh yeah, you’re right.  In that case how about we go to my dorm and fuck like rabbits?”

Vell took a deep breath and prepared to refute the offer for the fourth time this year.  And then, mid-breath, he thought to himself: Why?

“Okay, sure,” Vell said.

“Alright, but the offer’s-” Harley’s brain caught up to her words a few seconds on and she practically lunged onto Vell mid-sentence.  “Wait, you said yes?”

“Yeah, uh, sure, why not?  Let’s do it.”

Vell had acclimated himself to the weirdness of daily life, he was no longer in a relationship, and he had nothing better to do with his time.  He’d run out of reasons to not take up Harley on her offer, and he had plenty of reasons to agree to it -two of which were pressing very firmly against him as Harley grabbed Vell and squeezed him in a tight hug.

“Oh my god this is going to be so great,” she said, almost breathless with excitement.  She released Vell and stood from her seat.  “Listen, I got to clean my dorm and do a thing and then I’ll be ready to go at like, eleven, is that good?”

Vell nodded.

“Great!  We should be able to fit it in—pun absolutely intended—before anything blows up today.  See you soon!”

Harley sped off with unusual energy, even by her standards.  Vell started to wonder what he was getting himself into.

◆◆◆

Vell had very few second thoughts about his plans to horizontal tango with Harley, by Vell standards, and easily found himself at the door to Harley’s dorm right on schedule.  He knocked on the door politely.

“You’ve got the code, dude,” Harley shouted.  Vell let himself in.  Harley put Botley on a shelf and closed the cabinet.  The smell of cherries in her dorm was unusually strong.

“I wanted to be sure you weren’t like, already naked, or something,” Vell admitted.  Harley shook her head.

“I strongly considered it, but I don’t want to throw everything at you all at once,” she said.  “I want to make this comfortable for you, Vell.”

Vell nodded.  Harley took him by the wrist and pulled him across her dorm to the bed, sitting him right down next to her on the very edge of her mattress.

“So.”

Harley rested her head on Vell’s shoulder, staring up at him with a sparkle in her brown eyes.  Vell was too red in the face to make eye contact.

“Anything to say before we get started?  Active communication is the bedrock of making the bed rock.”

“No, I’m, uh, good, I don’t-”

Harley cut off Vell’s stammering tirade by grabbing him in a bear hug and rolling further onto the bed, dragging Vell along with her.  She demonstrated surprising strength for having such a tiny body, and ended the roll with Vell pinned underneath her, pressed chest to chest.

“Good,” Harley said.  She pulled away for a moment, straddling his waist, and tapped him on the nose.  “Then I’ll say a few things while we get started.  But first-”

With a grand flourish that she knew her figure deserved, Harley removed her shirt, and then made an equally grand showing of unclasping her bra and tossing it to the side.  Vell went as wide-eyed as Harley had expected.  He stammered a few times before settling on a coherent sentence.

“I, uh, wow,” he mumbled.  “Do you ever have back problems?”

It took Harley a second to catch up with Vell’s thought process.  When she did, she gave a single bouncing snort of laughter.  Vell would’ve been mildly confused by the laughter if he hadn’t been so focused on the bouncing.

“Vell Harlan, you are the only guy I know who sees giant tits and immediately thinks about back pain,” Harley said.  It was amusingly dumb, but in a good way.  “To alleviate your concerns, Mr. Harlan, I wear magic bras.  Now, does that address your concerns well enough that you can enjoy my great boobs guilt-free?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Vell said.

“Great!  Now, as to what I was saying.  I’ve got two big rules in bed,” Harley said.  “One, no kissing.  Second, you ask, and get permission, before any part of you goes inside any part of me.  Naturally I’ll extend the same courtesy to you.”

Vell nodded silently.  Even as his head bobbed, his eyes remained gyroscopically locked on Harley’s chest.  She cocked her head at him.

“Are you listening, or just staring?”

“I can do both.”

“Okay, repeat what I just said back to me.”

“Two rules, first rule no kissing, second rule I have to ask permission before any part of me goes inside any part of you, and you’ll do vice versa.”

With an approving nod, Harley leaned forward and grabbed Vell by the shoulders.

“Look at you multitasking,” she said.  She started tugging at his shirt.  “Your turn.  Show me what you got, Harlan.”

With some assistance from Harley, Vell pulled his shirt off.  Harley shifted a little with the intent of grabbing the waistband of his pants next, but paused a moment.  The circular scar just below Vell’s bellybutton caught her eye.  It was only the slightest moment of hesitation, but Vell noticed.

“Yeah.  Uh, I still have some of those old illusion bracelets, if you’d rather-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Harley said.  “I just kind of forgot about it for a bit, you know?”

“I don’t know, not really,” Vell said.  “It’s kind of hard for me to forget.”

“You worry too much,” Harley assured him.  She stopped a moment to tussle his hair.  “It doesn’t mean shit.  Whatever weird scars you got, you’re still just my goofy yet very fuckable buddy.”

“Thanks,” Vell said.  “And, I, uh, it’s nice to be...with...somebody I don’t have to hide that, uh, stuff from.”

“You never have to hide anything from me, Vell,” Harley said.  “And speaking of not hiding things, we’re here to fuck, not feel.  Let’s see that dick!”

With only minor assistance from Vell, the rest of the clothes came off.  Judging from the eager smile on Harley’s face, Vell assumed she approved of what she saw -and she saw everything.  She relaxed a bit, falling into a straddling position just above his waist.

“Ready for-”

She paused mid-sentence after experiencing a momentary jiggle.  Harley didn’t mind jiggling on principle, and in fact planned on doing a lot of it, but this was involuntary jiggling.

“Hold on, the earth’s not supposed to be moving yet,” she said.

But move it did.  Move right out from underneath them, specifically.  As the nude duo experienced the pre-freefall moment of weightlessness, Harley had time to a mutter a brief curse.

“Are you fucking kidding m-”

Then there was falling.

◆◆◆

One black hole preventing daily escapade later, Vell and Harley were back in Harley’s bedroom.

“You still remember the rules?” Harley asked.

“One: no kissing, two: no penetration without communication,” Vell recited.

“Ooh, very snappy, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first,” Harley said.  “Anyway, yes, all clear, so unless you have anything to say-”

“Nope,” Vell said.  This time he took the initiative on disrobing.  Harley thought he was being a little too enthusiastic, but enjoyed the show all the same.  She overlooked the rune on Vell’s lower back and turned her eyes just a little further down.

“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a surprisingly nice butt?”

“Surprisingly?” Vell said asked, his offense obvious.

“I mean, a guy with your body type, I’d expected something like, proportional?  You’re tall and skinny, I expected a tall and skinny ass, but no, you’re out here with cheeks like-”

She was cut off when the door slammed open.  A gurgling cry followed, as did some kind of fishlike humanoid wielding the leg of a chair as a club.

“Motherfucking marine biologists,” Harley said.  “Of all the ways-”

More fishmen followed the first, and Harley had very little time to waste complaining while fighting for her life versus the fishman horde.  Vell had it even worse, as he found it very difficult to fight anything with his pants off. 

◆◆◆

“Okay, fuck, once more into my breeches,” Harley said.  She all but dragged Vell by the wrist towards her dorm room.  “And no banter this time!  We’re wasting time.”

“I like the banter,” Vell said.

“Yeah, me too, but we can make quips at each other any time,” Harley said.  “We can only bang with impunity before the apocalypse.  So we prioritize, and my priority is getting laid.”

“Okay, alright.  But we’re bantering right now.”

“We’re in the hallway, it’s fine,” Harley said.  “I’m not going to fuck you in the hallway.  I’m not that much of an exhibitionist.”

“Not ‘that’ much?” Vell questioned.

“I’d be down for a broom closet or an empty classroom,” Harley said.  “‘Maybe’ getting seen is sexy.  ‘Definitely’ getting seen is just rude to the people watching.”

With rare exceptions for the first day of the year, but she’d been on edge after a long dry spell.  She sort of regretted her first day stunt now, and would not be flashing entire lunchrooms again any time soon.

“Makes sense.”

Harley rounded the corner.

“Oh god damn it!”

Vell never actually got to see what she was screaming at, but he assumed it had something to do with the wall of fire that incinerated them both shortly afterwards.

◆◆◆

Harley practically threw Vell into the bed from across the room.  She was already half undressed by the time she made it to the bed as well.

“Come on Harlan, hustle, I am not getting cockblocked by the universe again,” she commanded.  Vell complied, but not without some hesitation.

“Are you sure we aren’t rushing this a bit?”

“What, do you want a candlelight dinner first?” Harley asked.

“No, but just, you know, for practical reasons, there’s a few, uh-”

“Vell, I am begging you to stop talking and fuck me.”

“Okay,” Vell said.  While there were certainly some steps that could be taken to improve the overall level of comfort for everyone involved, even Vell wasn’t conscientious enough to talk himself out of a bed he was already in.  Harley jumped on top of Vell, made her move, and quickly realized he might have had a point about making sure things went smoothly.

“Ow,” she mumbled.  “Ow, okay, ow, fuck, you were right.”

She rolled off the top of him and laid on the bed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Harley sighed.  “I have no one but myself to blame.  I’m a machinist, I of all people should know the importance of lubrication.”

“Yeah, that should-”

Outside Harley’s window, someone started screaming in fear.  A second later, Harley was screaming in rage right along with them.

◆◆◆

As the sun started to set, Harley hurled a folding chair in the direction of the Unobtainium Wave generator that had ruined her plans on the first loop.  With the machine thoroughly destroyed, moreso by Leanne than Harley’s folding chair, Harley turned her back on it and grabbed Vell by the shirt.

“Come with me,” she demanded, before dragging him away.  Leanne watched them go, then turned to Lee with a befuddled look.

“Oh, they’ve been trying to make love all week, but the apocalypse keeps getting in the way.”

Leanne stuck her tongue out in disgust and then pointed to Lee.

“No, they didn’t tell me as much, but I know how Harley gets when she hasn’t had her fun in a while,” Lee said.  “And she’s not exactly being subtle about dragging Vell off, as you can see.”

Leanne nodded.  She could still see Vell struggling to keep up with Harley’s frantic pace -though she did have to question where she was going.  Leanne pointed at Harley and then held up one finger.

“Who knows, maybe she’s frustrated enough that she’s going to sleep with him even though it isn’t the first loop,” Lee said.  “It is Vell, after all.  If you can’t trust him, who can you trust?”

If Leanne ever spoke, Lee might have noticed that she became unusually quiet after that.

Across campus, Harley successfully dragged Vell into her dorm room and slammed the door behind them.

“Uh, Harley, I know you’re frustrated, and if you’d rather do something tonight, I get that, but, uh-”

“Relax, Vell, I’m not jumping your bones tonight,” Harley said.  “I like you, but there is no way I’m having your babies.  Not even going to risk it.”

“Okay, cool, don’t really want to impregnate you either, glad we’re on the same page,” Vell said.  “But then why am I here?”

Harley grabbed Vell’s chin and pointed his face downwards, to about ankle height.  Botley’s diminutive body stood with hands outstretched, holding a change of clothes and Vell’s toothbrush.  Vell got no time to process that odd sight before Harley snapped his face up back to hers.  She grabbed him by both cheeks and held him so close they were practically nose to nose.

“I had Botley grab some of your stuff.  You’re going to spend the night,” Harley said.  “And then, first thing tomorrow morning, we get up, maybe do some coffee and a bowl of cereal if we need a wake-up, and then we’re going to fuck until one of us can’t feel our fun bits anymore.”

Vell waited for a second.  Harley showed no signs of releasing her death grip on his face.

“Sounds cool,” he said.  With that affirmation, Harley let him go.  She stepped back and looked at Botley for a second.

“Do you need some pajamas, or like, your laptop, or something?” Harley asked.  “I sort of rushed through this ‘plan’.  And I now acknowledge it seems a little bit insane.”

“The execution is wobbly, but the foundation’s good,” Vell said.  “I think if we talked about a plan this is probably close to what we would’ve come up with.  We got to break this unlucky streak somehow.”

“You’re damn right we do,” Harley said.  “But seriously, you need PJ’s or anything?”

“I usually just sleep in my boxers, but if that’d be weird-”

“I’ve seen your dick three times now, Vell, boxers aren’t weird.”

“Fair point.”

The two got undressed, though not quite as undressed as before, and hopped into Harley’s bed.  Harley had a large mattress, for obvious reasons, so there was plenty of room for both of them, but never quite enough.  As Vell laid in bed, he was very keenly aware of the entire left side of his body -the side Harley was on.  He had shared a much smaller bed before, with Joan, but his physical relationship with her had been much clearer.  Harley wanted to sleep with him, that much he knew, but he wasn’t sure where she stood on cuddling.

On the other side of the bed, Harley was very aware of Vell being very aware.

“Is this weird, Vell?  You can go back to your dorm if it’s weird.”

“It’s, uh, a little weird,” Vell said.  “But like, not by our standards, I guess?”

“It’s a different kind of weird, though,” Harley said.  She scooted slightly closer to Vell.  “If it helps, it’s weird for me too.  I know I sleep with a lot of people, but I don’t actually like, ‘sleep’ with people, you know?”

The large bed the two were currently lying in had its uses, but it spend most of its time empty, but for Harley’s very tiny body, and occasionally Botley curled up by her feet.  Harley was quite enthusiastic about both physical and emotional intimacy, but rarely both at once.  She enjoyed making connections, not attachments -which made Vell’s continued presence here quite the anomaly.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, you know, no pressure, why are you so interested in sleeping with me anyway?  It’s not like you’ve got any shortage of men, women, and assorted otherwise after you.”

“Well, a few big reasons.  First and foremost:  I like you, I trust you, and you’re pretty cute.”

Harley reached over and poked him on each shoulder and then booped him on the nose as she listed each quality.  Then she rolled over onto her back and went back to staring up at the ceiling.

“Those are pretty important for me.  And secondly, being honest, it’s convenient.”

“Convenient?”

“Yeah.  I mean, I’m all about the ‘thrill of the hunt’ and all that bullshit, but sometimes I just want somebody I can hop into bed with without any of the games, you know?  Having to re-seduce everybody every time just gets exhausting.”

Harley crossed her arms across her chest and let out a huff of frustration over past conquests made unnecessarily difficult.

“And nobody ever learns, either!  I got to explain what I like all over again every time,” Harley said.  “But you’re actually going to remember stuff, and get better at sex, and it’s going to be great.”

“Yeah, great, I’ve always wanted to be good at sex,” Vell said. 

“Okay that phrasing alone is making it weird.”

“Sorry.”

Vell tapped his fingertips against his stomach for a second.  He could tell Harley was feeling just as restless.

“So, um, again, if you don’t mind me asking, if all you want is a looper partner, why not Leanne, or Lee?”

“Well I’m pretty sure if I asked Leanne she would punch my tits right off,” Harley said.  Vell nodded.  “And Lee is...let’s say ‘off limits’.  For several reasons.”

“Why?”

“Vell, take five seconds to think about it.”

Vell took five seconds to think about it.

“Okay yeah, I get it.”

“Good.  Now come on, we have to at least try to go to sleep.”

“Yeah.  Good night, Harley.”

“Good night, Vell.”

Across the room, a diode clicked on and a few gears whirred.

“Good night, Botley,” Harley sighed.  The satisfied robot deactivated itself once again, and the room was dark.

◆◆◆

Vell awoke with a strange weight on his chest.  He felt a brief moment of panic, wondering if the apocalypse had come exceptionally early, and woke with a start.  In so doing, he bounced Harley’s head right off his chest.  She too, woke with a start, and nearly slapped Vell as she oriented herself.

“Watch it,” Vell said.

“Shit, sorry,” Harley said.  “Why’d you push me around?”

“You had your head on my chest, and I thought you might be, I don’t know, a parasite about to suck out my heart or something.”

“Yeah that sounds reasonable,” Harley said.  “Sorry.  Guess I cuddle in my sleep.”

“Understood.”

Vell nodded, and Harley nodded right back.  A short staring contest followed.

“So.”

“So.”

“You need some coffee or anything, Vell?  Breakfast?”

“I’ll eat after,” Vell said.

“Great.”

Harley was on top of him in the blink of an eye.

◆◆◆

Harley made it to the breakfast table first, with an energetic bounce to her step all the while.  Vell arrived shortly after, moving at a slightly more winded pace.  Lee barely glanced up from the book she was reading.

“So I assume your bedroom mishaps have reached a happy ending, then?”  Lee observed.  “Pun intended, of course.”

“You know it, bitch,” Harley said.  “Harley always gets her man, or woman, or person, or whatever else she decides to sleep with.”

“Your charms have proven irresistible,” Lee said.  “You whore.”

“Don’t you try and flatter me.”

Vell took a seat and watched the two women trade a little more banter back and forth, and learned a few new words for “prostitute” in the meantime.  Their dialogue was shockingly friendly considering the volume of never-before-heard insults.  Lee did run out of synonyms for slut eventually, however.

“So, were you simply getting something out of your system or is this to be a recurring coupling?”  Lee asked.

“I’m up for more if Vell is.”

“I, uh, I’m not so much interested in talking about my, or our, sex life, if you don’t mind.”

“Understandable.  For what it’s worth, I think you two make a lovely couple.”

Harley’s sudden, loud laughter seemed rude to Lee, but Vell wasn’t bothered.  His last attempt at a committed relationship had gotten him stabbed, after all.  Vell Harlan would take “friends with benefits” over “lovers with consequences” any day.

Chapter 32: Daddy Issues

“Honestly, the fact that it came in handy once was kind of a surprise,” Vell said.  “Horseback riding is a pretty anachronistic skill.”

“You’re going to get at least one more use out of it this year,” Leanne said.  “I’d put money on it.”

“Maybe.  I hope Dr. Ernest isn’t around next time, at least.”

Leanne might have had a response to that, but she never got to say it.  She noticed Harley approaching and quickly clammed up.  While she had gotten more comfortable conversing with Vell, she still kept her distance from Lee and Harley.  Emotional distance, at least.  Harley was closing the physical distance with surprising speed.

“What’s the rush, Harley?” Vell asked.  “You already find out what’s going to blow up today?”

“Sort of,” Harley said.  “No sign of the apocalypse, but I do know about a disaster headed our way.”

Harley took a moment to catch her breath and then put her hands flat on the breakfast table.

“Lee’s parents are coming to visit.”

“Is that a-”

Vell’s question was cut off by the sound of a chair squeaking across the floor.  He glanced over at Leanne’s seat and found it empty. 

“Jesus,” Vell said.  “Is it that bad?”

“Oh it’s worse,” Harley said.  “It’s so much worse.  If you want to duck out, now is the time.  I won’t hold it against you.”

“I’d hold it against me,” Vell said.  “What’s going to happen, and what do we need to do?”

“Well I wish I could tell you, but it’s about as unpredictable as our usual routine,” Harley said.  “Lee’s got a lifetime of bottled-up resentment and it can blow up in a lot of different ways.”

Lee’s feelings towards her parents could best be described as “borderline homicidally psychotic”, but Vell had only ever seen one side of that that horrific family dynamic.  He didn’t want to know what the full family unit looked like -and what Lee might look like with a chance to lash out at her parents without consequence.

“So the usual routine, then,” Vell said.  “Plan for the worst, find out it’s even worse than you planned for, start improvising.”

“You are really catching on,” Harley said.  “Anyway, just keep an eye on your phone and stay close to places Lee knows you hang out.  She might come running around the corner any sec-”

Lee came running around the corner.

“Okay shit,” Harley said.  “Just be cool, be supportive, and try not to let her get too crazy.”

Vell gave a quiet thumbs up and tried to act casual.  He kept his cool right up until Lee made it to the table and grabbed his shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

“Vell, I need you,” Lee spat.  “Come with me.”

“Sure, what’s-”

Lee did not wait for him to finish agreeing before dragging him aware forcefully.  Harley watched helplessly as Lee hauled Vell away to some unknown horror.

“My parents want to meet you,” Lee said.  Vell could practically hear her teeth grinding as she spoke.  “They were quite insistent on it, actually.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea and I don’t care to learn,” Lee spat.  “Just come with me and play along.”

“Play along with what?”

“I haven’t really decided yet,” Lee said.  “But I trust you to improvise.”

“You shouldn’t,” Vell said.  He was historically bad at acting under pressure.

“You’ll do fine,” Lee assured him, quite incorrectly.  “Oh, and one more thing, my parents still think I go by my birth name, so don’t call me ‘Lee’.”

“Right, so if I have to, do you have like a nickname, or do I call you X-L-”

“Shut up,” Lee said. 

“Shutting up.”

“I don’t ever want you to call me that name,” Lee continued.  Vell nodded in agreement as they stepped up to her door.  “Give me a moment.”

Lee took a deep breath and held it as she opened the door to her dorm.  A wave of cold air swept out of her dorm the minute it cracked open.  Vell never thought to ask if Lee had lowered the temperature in her room out of petty spite, or if her parents somehow chilled the air with their very presence.  The introductions distracted him.

Vell had seen Noel Burrows before on trade magazine covers and news broadcasts, but being face to face really put the details of his absurd appearance into perspective.  His face was too small for his oddly rectangular head, a disproportion made all the more noticeable by his barrel-shaped torso.  His thinning hair had been very obviously supplemented with hair transplants, and he wore an equally obvious layer of makeup designed to hide his aging complexion.  The leather jacket that was designed to look cheap (but had almost surely cost hundreds of dollars) rounded out the appearance of a man who was much too concerned with looking younger than he really was.

To his left, Lee’s much less familiar mother waved eagerly to Vell.  Granger Burrows had been a famous pop musician once upon a time, but had mostly retired after becoming Noel’s third wife.  She still had the overly manicured appearance of someone who would be headed to the stage at any moment, despite not having gone on tour in a decade.  Her dark brown eyes were wide but unfocused, as if she was seeing everything at once, but not truly comprehending any of it.

“Vell Harlan, nice to meet you,” Noel said. 

“Mr. Burrows.”  Vell began.  He had to bite his tongue to actually force the next few words out of his mouth.  “Nice to meet you too.”

“So, my sources in the faculty say you’re the man of the hour when it comes to rune tech,” Noel said.  “Knocking it out of the park in every class.”

“I, uh, have some competition, but I do my best,” Vell said.

“Of course, of course,” Noel said.  “I also hear you’ve been spotted around campus with Kraid a few times.”

“Unfortunately,” Vell grumbled.

“Hah, believe me, I get it,” Noel said, trying too hard to sound chummy.  “That guy is no fun at parties.  Or anywhere, for that matter, am I right?”

Noel laughed, Granger laughed, and Lee forced herself into a polite chuckle.

“So tell me, I assume he had something to say about that little tattoo of yours?”

“My what?” Vell said blankly.

“Oh, don’t be coy.  That rune on your back.  Kraid’s interested in it, right?”

“How do you know about that?” Vell demanded.  He looked to Lee, who gave a slight but emphatic shake of her head.  Noel just gave a mild chuckle.

“Oh come on, Vell, buddy, you’re too smart to think anything is really a secret when the price is right,” Noel said.  “I knew Kraid was interested in you, so I got interested in you too.”

“It’s so cool that you’ve been so blessed,” Granger said, in her nasally voice.  “Your aura is just absolutely bursting with life energy, you know?”

She giggled at nothing in particular, and Noel continued on his own.

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” he said.  “And it could be profitable with me, too, unless you’ve already signed on with Kraid?”

“Absolutely not,” Vell said.

“Oh good.  I was worried Kraid had found himself a new protege.  He’d already got his claws on Joan Marsh, you know, and when you started dating her I was worried he was going to snatch up a two-for-one special of the school’s most promising students.”

Lee’s already strained expression became even more tortured at the mention of Joan, and it didn’t get any better as her father continued.

“Luckily you saw through that act,” Noel said with an inappropriate chuckle.  “Whatever got between you two, anyway?”

The uncomfortable expression on Lee’s face snapped into one of mild delight as she found the opportunity she had been looking for.

“I did, actually,” Lee said.  She took one step closer to Vell and latched on to his arm like a leech biting into a vein.  “Quite literally, on more than occasion.  We had a few menage a trois before Vell left her for me.”

Granger gave a shocked gasp, and Noel seemed dumbstruck by Lee’s sudden ‘revelation’, which delighted Lee to no end.  She gave Vell’s arm a sharp squeeze, prompting him to add something to her deception. 

“Yeah, it was, uh, a lot of threesomes, that we had,” Vell said.  Lee violently squeezed his arm to prompt him to continue.  “I liked them, but I had to dump Joan eventually, because...uh…”

Vell started to flounder, and Lee picked up the slack.  Her mind raced for a second to devise a follow-up.  Lee’s face split into a devious grin as she realized her next step.  She loosed one hand from its tight squeeze on Vell’s arm and put it on her own stomach.

“Because of the baby,” Lee said, her voice positively bursting with sadistic delight.  “I wanted to make a special announcement out of it, but since you’re here, I suppose you should know.  I’m pregnant!”

While her parents gawked in horror, Lee restrained herself from looking too delighted with their shock and confusion.

“We’re pretty sure Vell’s the father, at least,” Lee said, doubling-down on her already intense escalation.  “I slept with a few people around the same time but Vell’s the only one who wasn’t using protection.  Isn’t that right, dear?’

“Uh, right, yeah, that’s right,” Vell stammered.  “We definitely had sex, and I, uh, eja-”

Vell cringed mid-sentence and stopped himself.  Couldn’t actually bring himself to complete that thought.

“-and things happened.  More than once.  And a baby happened, from the things.”

With a strained smile, Lee pulled Vell slightly closer and bent in to whisper harshly in his ear.

“You’re not selling this, Vell.”

“This is fucking weird,” Vell hissed back.  “Why are we even doing this?  Don’t your parents know you’re a lesbian?”

“Why on earth would I come out to them, of all people?  Idiot,” Lee snapped back.  She released her death grip on Vell and returned her attention to her parents.  “Sorry, just a quick aside.  Isn’t it wonderful, though?  You’re going to be grandparents!”

Granger Burrows began to cry, though Lee’s initial sadistic glee upon seeing her tears turned sour when she realized they were tears of happiness.

“Oh baby, I’m so happy for you,” Granger said.  Noel took a step back, looking like he’d been punched in the gut, while Granger stepped up.  “You’re going to be such a good mom.  I’m so proud.”

“Wh- What?”  Lee snapped.  Her charade gave way to genuine emotion for a moment.  Unfortunately for Granger, that emotion was anger.  “You’re proud of me?  For what?  For lying on my back and getting fucked enough times a baby happened?”

“Oh, Excy, baby-”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Lee snapped.  “You know how hard I’ve worked.  You know everything I’ve done.  But it takes getting pregnant to make you say you’re proud of me?”

As opposed to the theatrical outrage generated from their earlier pregnancy routine, Vell could see that some very real anger and resentment was now bubbling to the surface.  Having already reached his limit on Harley’s requests to “be cool” and “be supportive”, Vell chose to act on her third request: “try not to let her get too crazy.”

“Speaking of pregnancy and all that, Lee, we have that, uh, baby...doctor...appointment,” Vell said.  “The very important one.  That we need to go to.  Now.”

He grabbed Lee’s shoulder and gave a light tug towards the door.  She resisted his attempts to deescalate, and Noel proved just as much of an obstacle to their escape.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Noel snapped.  The deep red shade of his face and the sweat forming on his brow made him look like a tomato straight off the supermarket shelves.  He clearly wasn’t enamored by the idea of being a grandparent the way Granger was.  “Fuck me, okay…”

Noel leaned over and put his hands flat on the table, then took a deep breath.

“You haven’t completely ruined my life with this,” Noel said.  “The kid doesn’t have any connections, but he’s got brains, he’ll be useful...”

“Your life?”  Lee said.  “Your life is what might be ruined here?”

“Also I do want to take a quick aside to ask what you mean by ‘useful’?” Vell asked.

“I mean, as long as we get you two married before the baby pops out, the publicity won’t be too bad,” Noel said.  “You’re smart enough to make a half decent member of the Burrows dynasty, Harlan.”

“Uh…”

Vell stalled, which was a big mistake.  Lee took any chance to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m not going to marry him for any reason, much less your publicity,” Lee snapped.  “I never said I loved him, just that I fucked him.  On that table you’re leaning on, specifically.”

Noel let out a quick shout of disgust and drew his hands back.  Lee managed to tear her eyes away from her father’s disgust long enough to check where her mother was.  Granger Burrows had taken a seat on the couch to process her shock.

“And the couch, too!” Lee shouted.  Granger jumped up with a shout.  While they both went to wash their hands, having a brief marital spat as they did so, Vell tried to grab Lee by the shoulder once again.

“Lee I get what you’re going for but I feel like this is unhealthy behavior,” Vell whispered.

“What, like they don’t deserve every minute of suffering?” Lee hissed back.  She then raised her voice loud enough for her parents to hear.  “No, Vell, dear, I don’t want to make them watch.  We can do it after they leave, though.”

“Wha- Why would you say that?”  Vell demanded.

“Oh relax, Vell, they won’t even remember it.  Just make them suffer while you can and enjoy it.”

Vell bit his tongue and contemplated his next move.  He had gone well past the point of letting her get too crazy.  Now he needed to improvise his next steps, for better or worse.  Likely worse.  He tightened his grip on Lee’s shoulder.

“Lee, I’m going to ask you one more time, as your friend, to cut it out.”

“You’re welcome to leave any time, Vell, but I only get a few chances to repay a lifetime of suffering and I mean to take them.”

“Okay, I, uh, hmm.”

After wracking his brain for a few seconds, Vell managed to come up with exactly zero good ideas.  He went with one of the bad ideas at random.  Owing to Vell’s luck, he happened to choose the worst possible option.

With a quick grunt of exertion, Vell swept Lee off her feet and picked her up off the ground.

“Vell, what-”

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Vell said, as he continued doing it.  With Lee in his arms bridal-style, Vell hustled towards the door and kicked it open before dashing down the hall and away from Lee’s parents.

A few minutes later, the door to Harley’s dorm slammed open in an awkward fashion.  She looked up from her project as Vell stumbled in, still holding Lee in his arms.  Harley blinked twice.

“What the fuck happened?”

“It was getting really weird and uncomfortable,” Vell said.  “I panicked.”

“And this?” Harley asked, gesturing to Lee, still cradled in his arms.

“I panicked?”

“Right,” Harley said.  “It’s a good thing you went with the bridal carry.  Lee turns to jelly at the slightest hint of physical intimacy.”

Vell stared down at Lee, who stared right up at him, both of them bright red in the face.

“You can put me down now,” Lee said.  Vell bent at the waist to let her safely dismount rather than simply dropping her.  She stepped away from him, straightened the wrinkles in her blouse, and remembered that she was supposed to be angry at him.  Lee made a show of crossing her arms with a huff.

“What was it this time, Lee?”

“I- I improvised,” Lee said.

“She told them she was pregnant,” Vell said.  “With my baby.”

“Aww Jesus, Lee, you dragged him into it?” Harley groaned.  “The leukemia thing you did last year was at least a solo routine.”

“You pretended to have leukemia?”  Vell said, his voice making his offense very clear.

“I improvised,” Lee said defensively.  “I just all of a sudden realized I could say whatever I wanted, and I, well, I said whatever came to mind.”

“So tell them to fuck off, don’t tell them you have a terminal disease!”

“And what would that accomplish?  If I simply told them off or insisted they leave me alone, they’d either ignore what I want, as usual, or they’d write me off and cut me out of their lives like the loveless sociopaths they are.  At least with this I get the satisfaction of watching them squirm.”

“I’m down for schadenfreude, Lee, you know that,” Harley said.  “Sometimes enjoying people’s pain when it’s accidental, or their own fault, is kind of fun.  But when you’re causing the pain you’re enjoying, that sort of makes you a dick.”

“They won’t even remember it, it’s completely harmless,” Lee said.  “Why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun with it?”

Harley contained a grunt of frustration.  This is where she had stalled out last year.  She hadn’t been able to refute Lee’s points last year, and she hadn’t come up with any new arguments in the meantime.

“You’ll remember it,” Vell said, picking up Harley’s slack in much the same way he’d picked up Lee herself.

“Yes, that’s the point,” Lee said.  “For a few brief moments of my life I get to give them what they deserve.”

“Maybe your parents getting their feelings hurt is good, I don’t know, but hurting anyone’s feelings, even theirs, isn’t good for you,” Vell continued.  “No matter how much a person ‘deserves’ it, hurting someone just because you can is a cruel, pointless thing to do.  The fact that they aren’t going to remember it makes it worse, not better.  You’re just being cruel for your own sick pleasure.”

“I- Do I not deserve some kind of satisfaction?”

“You do, but there are better ways to get it than just lashing out,” Vell said.  “It’s not healthy behavior.  Just short-term sadism that never really makes anything better.”

After a moment of consideration, Harley decided to take a step back and let Vell do his thing.  She’d been caught off guard by his surprising therapy skills, and it seemed Lee had as well.  The flame of her anger had been doused.  Perhaps the reprieve was brief, but Harley decided to trust Vell.

“I understand that your parents hurt you, Lee, and in a lot of ways they’re still hurting you,” Vell said.  “But doing all this won’t really change anything, and it won’t make you happier in the long run.  It’s just...not good for you.  Maybe they don’t deserve kindness, but you deserve to be kind.”

Vell found himself tripping over his words, as he often did, and decided to pause, to give both himself and Lee some time to think.  She stood, fists clenched at her side, with her entire body trembling.  Vell assumed it was out of anger.  He was very wrong.

After a tense moment of silence, all the nager on Lee’s face melted into a sudden shower of tears.  She took one step forward and then all but collapsed forward onto Vell’s chest.  He caught her and kept her on her feet as Lee pressed her face against him and started to cry harder than he had ever seen anyone cry.  He could already feel his shirt getting damp from the sheer volume of tears.  Vell gave her an awkward pat on the back, which changed nothing.  After Lee started to tug on Vell’s shirt, he looked to Harley for an assist.

“Don’t look at me buddy, you did this,” Harley said with a playful smile.  “You fucked up, you made Lee feel genuinely loved and appreciated, now you got to deal with the waterworks.”

Harley looked down at Lee, sighed, and put one arm around her.  He then held the other out towards Harley.

“Alright, but we’re at least making this a group hug,” he said.

“Can do, boss,” Harley said.  She went in for the hug, grabbing Vell with one arm and Lee with the other, and squeezing them both as tight as she could.  She enjoyed the moment of peace and friendship as best she could, knowing that just by the nature of their lives, it was going to be temporary.  She was, of course, proven correct sooner rather than later.

“Does anybody hear buzzing?” Vell asked.

“Yeah,” Lee said.  She didn’t break away from the hug.

“What do you think, more killer bugs or some spinning blade of death?”  Harley said.  She didn’t break away either.

“Probably the spinning blade thing, it sounds more like a fan,” Vell said.

“We should deal with that.”

“In a moment,” Lee said, giving them both a quick squeeze before the doomsday dragged them out of her arms.

◆◆◆

“So the short version is some dude’s super-fast propeller got out of hand and started flying around the campus as a sort of whirligig death machine.”

“Hmm, that explains why I couldn’t catch it,” Leanne said.  She had spotted the flying death propeller on the first loop and tried to snatch it out of the air.  It had been moving so fast she’d taken it for a solid object, not a propeller with multiple blades -and gaps between them.  Her fingers slipped right through one such gap, and then the propeller had slipped through her.

“I mean, uh, you probably wouldn’t have caught it anyway,” Vell said.  “It was moving pretty fast.”

“Try me.”

“Well, no, I won’t,” Vell said.  She’d gotten cut in half the last time she’d tried.  “But I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

That seemed to satisfy Leanne’s pride, which was surprisingly reliant on her ability to catch things, and she fell silent.  It was about time for history to repeat itself.  Harley showed up once again, this time walking at a slow pace, and with Lee at her side.  Leanne resisted the temptation to bolt a second time.

“Good morning,” Lee said, with a stiff curtsy.

“Hey Lee.  You doing alright?”

“I am doing better, thank you for asking,” Lee said.  Her faux British accent was unusually thick today, and every movement she made had all the stiffness of a mannequin.  “My parents would still like to see you, Vell, and I requested that I be able to fetch you personally.  It gives me a little extra time away from them.”

The small act of requesting some breathing room from her parents would be insignificant to most, but for Lee, it represented a step forward in managing her relationship with her parents in a healthier way.  Vell stood and took Harley’s place at Lee’s side as they walked back in the direction of her dorm.

“Thank you for not dragging me this time,” Vell said.

“Of course not,” Lee said.  “Would you mind walking slower?  The later we get back the better.”

Vell slowed his pace as much as he could while still technically moving forward, and Lee matched him step for step.

“I am truly doing much better, if you’re concerned,” Lee said.

“I trusted you the first time, but good to know,” Vell said.

“In my regards to my previous behavior, though, I did have a thought.”

“Go on.”

“None of this terminal disease or pregnancy business, I promise, but maybe-”

“Lee.”

“Let me finish,” Lee said.  “I just tell them I’m failing a few classes, or perhaps that I’ve been taking calls from rival companies.  Nothing serious, but maybe I make them sweat a little.”

“Well...be careful.  That’s still a fine line you’re walking,” Vell said.

“Yes, I’m only considering it, not planning on it.  Thank you for your concern, however.  I will keep your words in mind.”

In spite of their glacial pace, the campus was only so large.  Vell and Lee began ascending the stairs to her dorm, one slow step up at a time.

“Vell, I am keenly aware that you might want to leave as soon as possible, given my parents...well, everything about them makes you want to run, so,” Lee began.  “I won’t ask you to stay forever, but as long as you feel comfortable.  It would be greatly appreciated.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

“And I yours,” Lee said.  “But seriously, leave if you can’t handle it.  God knows I’d run if I could.”

The moment of levity broke the stiffness that Lee had forced on herself.  Her parents always expected proper poise and etiquette from her, and she had to cage her entire personality when they were visiting.  For a moment, though, she let the tethers on her heart loosen and relaxed, with a deep breath.

“If you need a little longer, we can always say you had a little trouble finding me,” Vell offered.

“No, I’m alright,” Lee insisted.  “Best to get this over with as soon as possible.”

The moment of relaxation ended, and Lee resumed her stiff, overly-formal posture.  She opened the door and led Vell inside, far more calmly than she had on the first loop.

“Mother, Father, Vell Harlan is here.”

Vell paused to stare at Lee for a second before he stepped inside.  Her voice and posture had already been inhuman, but now that she was standing in the same room as her parents, every change was multiplied tenfold.  Lee moved like a puppet on strings, and she had an uncomfortably broad Stepford smile pinned to her face.  The inhuman facade Lee wore now almost disturbed more Vell than her outbursts during the first loop.

This time Lee started no shouting matches and told no lies, instead acting the part of an inhumanly perfect host as she introduced Vell and her parents in turn.  She prepared and served tea while Noel Burrows once again described how he had intruded on Vell’s personal life, her forced smile never fading even as she listened to her father describe how he’d bribed laboratory techs for information.  Vell had a much harder time keeping a straight face.

“Oh, don’t worry about any of those nurses sharing your secret,” Noel assured him.  “Everyone has a price, and not many people could afford theirs.”

“The kind of people who can afford it are the people I’m most worried about,” Vell said. 

“Ha!  You might have a point there,” Noel said.  “Luckily I got to them first, right?”

The complete lack of self awareness didn’t surprise Vell.  He decided to gloss over the subject.

“So, I, uh, appreciate the interest, but I’m doing a lot of independent research with that rune right now,” Vell said.  “I’ll keep you posted if that changes.”

“Of course you will,” Noel said.  “I’ll find out one way or another, after all.”

Noel and Granger laughed after he said that.  Vell couldn’t be sure if Noel was threatening him, or if he thought that actually counted as a joke.  Vell smiled nervously while Lee dodged the issue by sipping her tea.  It wasn’t a deliberate move on her part, just convenient timing.  Around her parents, Lee took a sip of tea every three minutes, exactly.  One could set their watch by how regularly she raised the cup to her lips.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Noel said.  “Your grades are excellent, even in that one hardass professor’s class, what’s her name, Newguyan?”

“Nguyen,” Vell corrected.  “And my grades are fine, yeah.”

Vell took a sip of tea to give himself an excuse to pause, and looked at Lee.  Like clockwork, she raised her own cup to her lips, still staring blankly forward at her parents with a strained smile.

“You know, uh-” Vell caught himself about to say ‘Lee’ and settled for nodding in her direction instead.  “Her grades are actually just as good as mine, in a lot of classes.”

“Oh, of course,” Granger said.  “That’s our Excy.”

Lee did not wince at the sound of her disgusting nickname, though it took a great deal of self control.  Noel clapped his wife on the shoulder and gestured to his own chest.

“XL-X8’s got Burrows blood in her veins.  Success comes naturally to her.”

As narcissistic as it was dismissive, Vell thought to himself.  Vell put his teacup down, and Lee broke her own monotonous tea-sipping routine to offer to refill his cup: the closest thing to “thanks for trying” she could say under the circumstances..

“Oh, I’d love more tea, thank you Excy,” Granger said, in spite of the fact that Lee had not offered her any.  She served her mother regardless, and Granger smiled happily as she sipped at a fresh cup.

“Oh, Excy, aren’t you so glad I got you this tea set?  It really makes all the difference.”

“It is a splendid gift, mother,” Lee droned.  “I cherish it every day.”

Vell had never seen this tea set before in his entire time knowing Lee -and he’d actually had tea with her more than once.

After Granger finished patting herself on the back for picking out such a lovely gift, Noel asked Lee what she’d been doing with her time.  It was almost an expression of sincere interest in his daughter’s life, but he immediately followed up by saying “Made any useful connections?” reminding everyone in the room that he viewed his daughter purely as a resource to be exploited for social capital.  Having expected such an attempt at exploiting her life for his own ends, Lee launched into a long, droning monologue about people she had met and experiments she had seen -mostly lies, of course, since Lee didn’t want to risk giving her father anything useful even on accident. 

The added lies also acted as useful filler.  The longer Lee spent talking, the less time her parents had to say horrible things.  She bought herself even more time by sticking to her routine of taking a sip of her tea every three minutes, making the monologue last even longer.  Eventually, though, her droning babble of lies ran out of steam, and she had to stop.  She’d barely been silent for a second before her father took over the conversation again.

“Well, you’ve been busy,” he said.  “Good girl.”

“Thank you, father.”

Once again, Vell had to take a sip of tea to stop himself from cringing.  The way Lee said “Father” came straight out of a horror movie.  The inhuman intonations of Lee’s voice only pleased the father in question, though.

“Keep up the good work.  And try to keep an eye on that oceanic ley harvesting project.  Burrows needs to be the first to get their hands on that tech if it works.”

“Of course, father.”

“Oh, and if you help your daddy get that, maybe you can finally come home,” Granger said.

“There’ll still be networking to do, dear.  XL-X8 has to complete her four years and then she can come back quick as a whip.”

“I don’t know how I’ll manage two more years away, but I shall persevere,” Lee said.  Vell was impressed she could say that with a straight face.  She maintained the robotic facade, sipping tea like clockwork all the while, until her parent’s stiff attempts at small talk faded away and they started to get ready to leave.  Granger fussed over her daughter for a while, correcting her posture and pointing out messes in the dorm, while Noel seemed to be in a hurry to leave.

“Sorry to cut out, but there’s some promising senior prospects to be recruited,” Noel said.  He waved goodbye to Lee quickly and then focused his attention on Vell, giving him an uncomfortably firm handshake.  “Seriously, Vell, working with me on that rune is your best option.  I can make you a very rich man.”

“I’m not really interested in the money,” Vell said.

“Then you’re an idiot,” Noel said, completely humorlessly.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card with his own face embossed on it.  “If I don't get my hands on that rune, Kraid will.  Call me when you're done being an idiot, Harlan.”

Vell took the business card and, not knowing what to say to that, awkwardly waved goodbye as Lee’s parents finally left.  He looked to see if she would drop the stiff posture she had adopted during their visit.  She still stood upright, taking her mothers overbearing posture corrections into account as well.

“Uh, Lee-”

“Not yet,” she snapped.  She held up one finger, gesturing for him to wait.  “Not yet.”

While she stood still and waited, Vell got the intense feeling that there was some clock counting down in Lee’s head.  He could practically hear the ticking.  The unseen timer eventually ran out, and Lee relaxed, walked back to the tea table, and grabbed the first piece of the tea set, the cup her mother had been using.

If the porcelain weren’t so fragile, the force with which Lee chucked it might’ve made a hole in the wall.  Instead, the tiny teacup shattered into so much dust, crumbling with a satisfying crunch.  The dust hadn’t even fallen to the floor when Lee grabbed the serving dish that came with the teacup and chucked it into the wall as well.

“I take it you don’t actually like the gift that much,” Vell said.

“It’s not even the same tea set,” Lee grunted.  “I do this every time!”

She tossed the entire teapot into the wall, disintegrating it on impact.

“And I buy a replacement every time.  She never notices!”

Lee grabbed the teacup her father had been using and cocked her arm back.  As she did so, she caught a glimpse of Vell out of the corner of her eye and stopped mid-throw.

“I’m sorry,” Lee said.  “This is more unhealthy behavior, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m pretty sure this is fine, uh, I think,” Vell said.  “I’m no psychologist, but this feels healthier.”

Seizing the excuse, Lee chucked the next teacup and the tray into the wall.  She then grabbed an empty saucer and hurled it as well, enjoying the hollow crack as it hit the wall, and only a little bit pretending it was her father’s head breaking on the wall.  As she caught herself giving into sadism, Lee stepped away from her destructive outlet and took a breather.

“Would you like to toss something, dear?”

“I’m good,” Vell said.  “I just sort of need a nap.  And a beer.”

“Tragically I had to purge all the beer from my dorm for their visit, or I would offer you one.  Or several.  However many it takes to put someone into a coma,” Lee said.  “If you need a moment, Vell, it’s alright if you leave.”

“I don’t just want to ditch you,” Vell said.  Lee stepped up and hugged him tightly for a moment.

“I know you don’t,” Lee said.  “And that’s why it’s okay if you do.  I’ll be alright, Vell.  Throwing teacups around is shockingly cathartic.”

“If you’re sure-”

“I’m sure,” Lee said.  “It will be much easier for me to throw things if I don’t have to worry about hitting you, after all.”

That was a very valid point, and Vell decided it was time to leave.  He closed the door behind him and immediately heard the impact of a tea tray slamming into it, which made him feel more certain Lee would be alright.

Behind him, in a dorm that was rapidly filling with porcelain shards, Lee grabbed her own teacup and chucked it at the ceiling, letting the broken pieces rain down around her.  She then grabbed another tiny plate and the sugar tray and shattered them on the nearest wall, before grabbing even more pieces of the tea set and spiking them straight down into the floor.

Finally, Lee grabbed the last unbroken piece of the tea set -the cup that Vell had used.  She clutched the tiny cup tight in her hands and contemplated where best to hurl the final piece of the dainty porcelain bullshit her mother thought a “proper lady needed”.  Granger hadn’t even been there to see Lee off the day she’d left for college, she’d just had a butler hand off a heavy box and a hastily-scrawled note.  She hated the stupidity, the pointlessness of it, the idea that some useless material good could somehow compensate for an absence of love.

Lee stared down at the teacup, expecting the sight of it to reignite her hatred and spark her to throw it somewhere.  It didn’t.

She loosened her grip on the teacup and sat down in the nearest chair.  This wasn’t even the same teacup her mother had bought for her.  That one was dust in the bottom of a pile of garbage somewhere.  All this particular teacup had ever done was hold some tea for Vell.

With a sigh, Lee walked over to the cabinet, put the teacup on a shelf, and closed the cabinet behind her, leaving it safely in the dark.

Chapter 33: The New Adventures of Vell Harlan

“Hand me a towel.”

Vell obliged, trying not to stare as he did so.  Harley noticed his wandering eye anyway.

“Well I’m glad you’re getting a good view out of it, at least,” Harley huffed.  “Shower sex is not half as fun as I thought it would be.”

“I think it’s the height difference,” Vell said, as he ran a towel through his hair again.  “All the weird arranging we have to do combined with the slipperiness makes it real awkward.  You could probably try again with someone closer to your own height.”

“Good point.  I’ll give it a shot some other time.”

With that, silence returned to the bathroom, and Vell and Harley continued toweling themselves off to face the rest of the first loop.  Vell got himself as dry as he was going to get and hung up the towel.  The ends of the towel started to drift upwards as it sat on the rack.

“Uh, Harley,” Vell said.  “Your towel’s floating a bit.”

“What do you mean ‘a bit’,” Harley said, without looking his way.  “Like an anti-gravity bit?”

“You know in a Studio Ghibli movie when the protagonist is doing something and their hair does that floaty thing?  It’s like that.”

“Oh, huh,” Harley said.  She turned around to examine the towel and immediately sighed loudly.  “Vell, plug your nose and hold your breath.”

Vell obeyed.  A few seconds later, the air started to get warmer, and then there was a brilliant flash of light.  Once he could see again, Vell checked up on Harley.  She was fine, and had stopped holding her breath, so Vell followed her lead.

“What was that about?”

“Oh, the Theta Beam doesn’t bring ambient oxygen with when it teleports you, so if you don’t hold your breath it’ll suck all the air right out of your lungs.”

“Theta Beam?”

“Yeah,” Harley said.  “Every now and then some aliens snatch me to be their hero.”

“What aliens?”

“Those aliens,” Harley said, pointing behind Vell.  He turned around to see that the two of them were standing on something that resembled a stage, and the “audience” was a crowd of diminutive, ankle-high purple aliens.  They numbered in the thousands, and they were all staring up at him with glowing green eyes.  Vell became very conscious of the fact that he was naked, and tried to cover himself with his hands.  Harley scoffed.

“They’re aliens, Vell, they don’t know what a penis is,” Harley said.  “Just tell them it’s a sensory organ.”

Harley walked forward without shame, much to the excitement of the crowd.  Or at least Vell assumed it was excitement.  The little aliens were wiggling and blinking a lot, which seemed good.  Vell managed to follow her lead and feign confidence as he walked forward in his birthday suit.  As he made his own approach, the presumed jubilation of the crowd reached a fever pitch.  A single purple alien, whose skin was a much deeper purple and whose eyes glowed much brighter, made his way to the stage  and settled the crowd with a few gestures of one clawlike appendage.

“It is a most blessed day, my fellow Rogorians!  Our great hero Hara-Lee has once again returned to us in our hour of need, and brought with her a much larger Hayoo-Man warrior!”

“Yes, hello, my lovely Rogorian friends,” Harley said, with a wave.  “As always, I am overjoyed to answer your summons.  This is my trusted companion, Vell.”

“All hail the great hero Vah-Ell!” The crowd cried.  Having a crowd cheer something that was close enough to his name was a decent ego boost.  Almost enough to make Vell forgot that he was hanging in brain in front of a crowd of dozens.

“Harley, can we get dressed now?” he said quietly.

“Yeah sure,” she said.  She turned back to the crowd to address them.  “My warrior consort Vah-Ell wishes to throw himself into battle for your cause!”

“Yes!  I do!  Battle is that for which I, uh, hunger!”

“Don’t oversell it, big guy,” Harley whispered.  “Bring us the Armor of Bah-Uck!”

The crowd gave another squeaking cheer and began to surge off in all directions.  Harley took a seat on the edge of the stage and waited.  Vell joined her, trying his best to ignore the cold stone beneath his butt.

“So, uh,” Vell began.  “What’s going on?” 

“Oh, every now and then somebody gets zapped to this planet to deal with their issues,” Harley said.  “I’ll explain a little more later, the Rogorians are back.”

The Rogorians were in fact scuttling back in their direction, with a few hundred working together to shift a massive pallet.  The “Armor” of Bah-Uck turned out to be two skintight suits made of a bright-red spandex like material.  It was an improvement over being fully naked, but, as several conspicuous bulges on each of their suits proved, not by much.  Vell pulled on his suit a bit to avoid a wedgie and tried to get comfortable.

“The Dark Emperor GorDoom once again threatens the prosperity of all Raymondia!” The lead Rogorian cried.  “From his dark fortress Mingceless, he prepares an army with which to conquer us all.”

“Fret not, peaceful citizens,” Harley said.  “The mighty heroes of the Hayoo-Man will soon return to you victorious!”

After wrapping up her overly dramatic proclamation, Harley got a running start and leaped out over the audience, soaring overhead and traversing the entire length of the Rogorian settlement in a single bound.  She landed on the other side of the settlement walls, which came up to about her waist, and beckoned for Vell to follow.

“Come, Warrior Vah-Ell,” she said, hands placed dramatically on her hips.  “The gravity of this planet is but a fraction of our native Oo-Arth’s, enhancing our already prodigious strength and speed!”

Vell shrugged and followed Harley’s lead.  He leaped across the settlement, sailing even further than Harley did, coming to an awkward landing a few feet away.  Harley covered for his clumsy landing and bid a final farewell to the Rogorians before dashing off with Vell.  As soon as they were out of sight, she started bouncing off of every bit of the landscape within reach, bidding Vell to join her.

“Kickass, right?” She asked, as she did a backflip off a mountain.

“This is actually pretty nice,” Vell said.  He grabbed a boulder and, thanks to the low gravity, hefted it over his head with ease.  “Is this what Leanne feels like all the time?”

“I dunno, probably,” Harley said.  “It’s a good thing she never got teleported here, she’d break the planet in half with a kick.”

“Oh yeah, what’s the deal with that, anyway?”  Vell said.  He hopped thirty feet in Harley’s direction and settled down next to her.  He stared up at a bright red sun which dominated the sky above them.  “Aren’t there rules about humans going to alien planets or something?”

“Oh, nah, that’s just our galaxy, we’re somewhere else.  I think the far side of the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster.”

“Jesus.”

“Haha, yeah, try not to think about it too much,” Harley said.  “Anyway, this whole planet is like, smaller than Pluto, and it’s made out of cosmic dust.  Check this out.”

Harley spun on her heel and kicked at the nearest rock.  The titanic boulder cracked like an egg, sending a massive fracture through the stone.

“There’s no heavy elements and the gravity’s super low, so the whole planet is like, made of chalk,” she said.  “We’re basically Godzilla here, we can just fuck up everything.”

“Cool.”

“I know, right?  I’m not even that strong and I suplexed a whole fucking building last time I was here,” Harley said.  “Come on, let’s go trash Emperor GorDoom’s place.”

◆◆◆

The mighty fortress of Mingceless might have been more imposing had it not been only slightly taller than Vell.  It looked like a toy replica of an actual fortress of doom.  The imposing “emperor” GorDoom who taunted them from the ramparts was equally diminutive, standing at the same ankle-high height as every other Rogorian.  The tiny purple alien wore some kind of flowy fabric sheet which Vell assumed passed as a cape.  Even in this distant galaxy, evil overlords were obligated to wear capes.

“Foolish Hayoo-Man warriors,” GorDoom squeaked.  “I knew those cowards would call upon you to fight their battles again.”

“Give it up, GorDoom,” Harley shouted.  “Your wicked inventions and wicked heart can never conquer me!”

Vell didn’t really understand why Harley was talking like that, but she seemed to be enjoying herself, so he played along.

“Surrender now or suffer the full strength of our Hayoo-Man, uh, strength!”

While Harley chuckled at his slightly awkward attempts to join the banter, Emperor GorDoom had lost his patience.

“Fools!” GorDoom shouted.  “Evil minions!  Deploy the Lion-Tank!”

The gates of the fortress opened wide, and an RC-car sized tank wheeled out.  A single cannon aimed at Vell’s chest and fired off a gumball sized projectile which bounced off of Vell’s chest with a soft thud.

“Deploy the larger Lion-Tank!”

The gates opened wider, and a second tank rolled forward, squishing the first one as it did so.  Vell felt like he didn’t need to worry too much about it, but decided to sidestep the cannon fire anyway.  He grabbed the tank and tilted it sideways, making sure to point the cannon away from Harley.  An attempt to pry open the hatch resulted in him tearing the entire top half of the tank off, exposing the crew within.

“Hey, uh, if you guys want to get out of here, I’m gonna throw this tank at the mountain over there,” Vell said, pointing to the mountain in question.  “Now’s the time to bail.”

The squeaking Rogorian crew fled for their lives, scattering in every direction.  Emperor GorDoom shook a claw in their direction.

“Cowards!  Your treachery shall be long remember by Emperor Gor- ack.”

His evil proclamation was cut short by Harley punching a hole through his fortress wall and grabbing him.  She pulled him out of his hiding place and stared him down as Vell tossed his tank into a mountain.

“Thwarted again, vile Emperor,” Harley said.  “Have you finally learned that your wicked ways shall never triumph over the good people of this universe?”

“Not yet, Hayoo-Man filth!”

“Right, okay then.  Back to space prison you go.”

Harley kept a firm grip on GorDoom as they walked back to the Rogorian settlement.

“What’s space prison, by the way?”

“Oh, some other looper who got teleported here back in the eighties left a metal bowl behind.  I just put him under it and that keeps him down for a while.”

“Cool, I guess.  Do we, uh, want a slightly better solution?  I mean like, long term?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Harley said.  “Frankly, GorDoom not only never hurts anybody, he’s also the only guy who ever invents anything.  The Rogorian’s didn’t even have electricity until this dude came along.”

“And blast damn them for using my Electro-Blaster Death Ray to power their petty ‘lightbulbs’ and ‘microwave ovens’!” GorDoom shouted.

“So you just keep coming back every time this dude gets out from his bowl and slapping him back down?”

“Yeah, happens once, maybe twice a year from what I understand,” Harley said.  “It’s pretty chill, as far as daily apocalypses go.”

“Yeah, it was actually pretty fun,” Vell said.  “Will I come along every time now that I’ve been teleported, or-?”

“Not sure.  Could’ve been you just got caught up with me, or maybe you got ‘chosen’ too.  We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.”

The pint-sized planetoid meant it was a short walk back to the Rogorian settlement.  Harley tossed GorDoom under a tiny metal bowl and listened to him clink futilely against the stainless steel walls.

“If you want to make sure you come along next time, guess you just have to keep sleeping with me,” Harley said with a wink.  Somehow, Vell could live with that arrangement.

Chapter 34: Old School

ONE DAY:

Leanne leaped in front of the ball and grabbed it right out of the air.  She took one second to get her bearings, appraise her opponents, and set her feet, and then hurled the ball right back in the direction it had come from.  The arcing shot sailed right over the heads of her scrimmage opponents before bouncing off their goal. 

Nobody at practice even bothered calling the point.  She’d only been here a few weeks, but the other players had resigned themselves to one simple truth: If Leanne got her hands on the ball, she was going to score. 

Except that one time.

“You need to put more spin on it if you want to stop me,” Leanne said confidently.  Though her intro was boisterous and loud, the word that came afterwards was barely a whisper, spoken under her breath.  “Again.”

“Sorry, what was that?”  Naomi said.  She held a hand to her ear in an exaggerated gesture.  “Could you repeat that?  Louder?”

Leanne rolled her eyes with a smile on her face.

“Again,” she said, louder this time.

“That’s more like it,” Naomi said.  “Lest our audience forget, that I, Naomi Merezkho, am the only human being to successfully block a shot from the mighty Leanne Mikkola!”

“You know they’re going to forget this anyway, right?” Leanne said.

“Wait, what?” Elijah asked.

“Don’t worry about it, handsome,” Naomi said.

“Don’t flirt with my boyfriend,” Leanne said.  “You’ve got your own.”

“That I do,” Naomi said.  “And he’s prettier than yours.”

“Hey.”

Any potential offense on Elijah’s part was cut short by a violent wave shooting across the campus’ shoreline.  The wave became a tsunami, and a massive fin pushed through the water, belying the presence of some massive creature lurking beneath the water, and the organized practice became a chaotic mob as all but two students started to panic.

“Hmm.  Looks like our cue,” Naomi said.

“Nah, that looks normal, I’m sure it’s fine,” Leanne said.  Naomi slapped her on the shoulder.  “Kidding.  Fucking marine biologists.  You go grab Dom, I’ll scope it out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Naomi said.  “See you soon, partner!”

“Not if I fix it without your help,” Leanne said.  She started sprinting in the direction of today’s apocalypse.  “Try to keep up, ‘partner’!”

“You’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me!”

◆◆◆

THIS DAY:

Leanne ate her breakfast in silence while Lee, Harley and Vell chatted around her.  Lee was filling them all in on some schedule changes that would be happening as they got closer and closer to the end of the school year.  They still had a few months, but thanks to being an RA, Lee could give them an advance warning about anything weird.  But not quite enough of a warning, it turned out.

“What’s up, you gaggle of fucking weirdos!  Is that a new kid I see?”

“Oh dear,” Lee said under her breath.

Lee looked up from her binder to see Naomi cutting a path through the dining hall, with Dominic quick on her heels, both of them wearing matching Burrows Tech jackets.  Everyone at the table froze in their seats, except for Vell, who had no idea who these people were.  Undeterred by their shock and/or ignorance, Naomi walked right up to the table and put one hand on Lee’s shoulder.

“So I take it from the fact you didn’t save us a seat this is the first loop, right?  Am I right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well then I won’t bother asking who this kid is,” Naomi said, pointing at Vell.  “Since I’m not going to fucking remember.  Let me grab as much food as I can carry and then-”

The subtle creak of bending metal cut her off mid-sentence.  Vell turned to the source of the noise and saw the Leanne had clenched her fist so tight she had crushed her fork in her bare hands.  Vell had (quite often) seen Leanne look annoyed, aggravated, and even angry, but Vell had never seen her look as absolutely fucking furious as she did in this moment, and all of that barely-restrained primal fury was focused directly at Naomi.

“Hey Leanne,” Naomi said flatly.  She sighed and put her hands on her hips, treating Leanne’s rage like it was a mild annoyance.  “You have something to say?”

Leanne continued staring.  Vell could feel a palpable heat rising from her now.  He tried to scoot slightly further away without making it obvious.

“If that stare is your mime bullshit way of asking if I have something to say, the answer is no, I don’t,” Naomi said.

Leanne stood, and Vell nearly ducked for cover, but Leanne simply turned and stomped away in a huff, taking her aura of rage with her.  Naomi watched her go.  Leanne was barely around the corner when Dominic took her seat and scooted it closer to Harley.  Harley scooted slightly closer to Lee in response.

“What was that about?” Vell asked.

“Leanne’s still got sand in her pussy about something that happened years ago,” Naomi said.  “I was sort of hoping she’d gotten over it.  We used to be best friends, you know.”

“Oh.  So you’re why she doesn’t talk,” Vell said.

“Is she still fucking doing that?”  Naomi said.  “Seriously?”

“She talks to Vell sometimes,” Harley noted.

“Hah, probably just because you’re the only person here who never met me,” Naomi said.  She grabbed a chair of her own and pulled it up to the table next to her boyfriend, who paid her absolutely no attention in favor of keeping an eye on Harley.  “Leanne’s that kind of bitch.”

Naomi clapped her hands together and then appraised the table before gesturing in the direction of the food.

“Anyway, like I said, I’m not going to remember shit today so I’m not going to waste time talking to you guys.  I’m going to go stuff my face,” she said.  “Dom, I assume you’re going to stay here and try to nail Harley?”

“Oh I’m not going to try,” Dominic said.  Harley tried not to let disgust show on her face.

“Cool, let me know if you talk her into a threesome.”

Naomi walked away.  As soon as she was gone, Harley scooted even further away from Dominic.

“So,” he said, ignoring her clear signs of disdain.  “You said we couldn’t sleep together while we were teammates, but now…”

“Hold that thought,” Harley said.  “Vell, bud, do you happen to have those summoning runes on you?”

“Yeah, uh, I do, why?”

“Can I have one of them?”

Vell obliged, and handed over the runestone that was linked to one of his three revolvers.  Harley gave it the final touch that activated the summoning spell and grabbed the gun as it appeared in midair.  With the pistol held loosely in her grip, she pointed it directly down between Dominic’s legs.

“Leave me alone right now or I shoot your dick off,” Harley said.  Dominic stared at the pistol, then glanced down at his “pistol”.

“You’re bluffing.”

“I am absolutely not,” Harley said.

Dominic decided that he had no reason to risk it and quickly sprinted off in Naomi’s direction.  Vell took his gun back and tucked it away out of sight.

“For the record, I was totally bluffing,” Harley said.

“I figured,” Lee said.  Not only was Harley not the type for ballistic castration, they both knew that Vell didn’t keep the revolvers loaded.  He had an ammo pouch linked to a different rune for when he needed to shoot something.

“What was up with those two?”  Vell asked.  “Were they those loopers who graduated last year?”

“Quite so,” Lee said.  “As you can see, there’s a reason we don’t talk about them much.”

“Makes sense.”

“They must be here for recruitment,” Lee said.  “Companies often send any alumni in their employ to recruit old classmates as they graduate.”

“Wait, so the jackets-”

“Yes.”  Lee said.  “They work for my father.”

“Okay, he visited last year too, right?  They met him?” Vell asked.

“They did.”

“And they work for him?  Like, willingly?”

“The money’s good and they came with Lee’s ‘recommendation’,” Harley said, throwing up very heavy air quotes.  “It’s a pretty sweet gig for them.  Lot’s of other sociopaths to play with.  It’s like a doggy day care for horrible people!”

“And more importantly, it keeps them out of Leanne’s hair,” Lee said.  “Naomi and Leanne are from the same town in Finland.  My father offered them a job in Sweden.  They’ve relocated, and now when Leanne goes home, she can do so in peace.”

“I’m sure she appreciates that,” Vell said.  Lee nodded.  Leanne had actually said “thank you” out loud when Lee had proposed the plan.  One of a handful of times Leanne had said anything at all to her.  Vell looked across the dining hall at Naomi and Dominic, who were currently stacking serving trays high with all the food they could carry.

“What happened, anyway?  It sounds like Naomi and Leanne got along, once.”

“They were practically sisters at one point, apparently,” Lee said sadly.  “I’ve only heard Naomi’s version of events, obviously, but she claims Leanne is upset with her because, and I quote, ‘she got herself into a mess and then got mad at me for not getting her out of it’.”

“And do you believe that?”

“I don’t believe Naomi is ‘lying’, per say, but only because she has a very distorted perception of the events as they truly happened.”

“And Leanne sure as shit isn’t going to tell us,” Harley said.  “I don’t think she’d even tell you, Vell.”

“Sure is a shame we can’t look back in perfect detail and find out exactly what happened,” Vell said.

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it,” Lee said.  “Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened that day.”

THAT DAY:

“If you two are done making googley eyes, the world is still ending,” Leanne scolded.  She pushed Dominic away from Naomi, in hopes that it would make them focus.  It didn’t.

“The world’ll be fine,” Naomi insisted.  Leanne grabbed her by the back of the head and directed her gaze beyond the island’s shore, towards the massive supervolcano that was now tearing the planet apart with sheer seismic force.

“Oh that’s happened before,” Naomi said.

“And to make sure it happens again, we need to stop it from happening now,” Leanne insisted.  They were still on the tail of the misguided student whose experiment had started all this, but Naomi barely seemed to care.  She and her boyfriend had gotten incredibly casual about the end of the world over the past year.  “I can mostly promise that Dominic will still be around to do...stuff with, after we save the world.”

“Maybe.  Or I could bang him now,” Naomi said with a chuckle.  “We really got to get you laid, Leanne.  You’d get it.”

Naomi said that a lot.  Leanne had blushed at the line a few times, and even giggled once or twice.  It had stopped being funny around the time Leanne had realized it wasn’t a joke.  She gave Naomi a shove in the direction of the disaster.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Leanne said.  “Right now, world saving time.”

At Leanne’s continued insistence, the trio set out, heading in the direction of the rapidly widening chasm.  The earth trembled underfoot even as they sought out the source of the disturbance.  The rumbling did, at the very least, compel Naomi and Dominic to move a little faster, though not as fast as they should’ve been.  The two had lost all sense of urgency when it came to the daily apocalypses.

Their sluggishness bit them in the ass, as it often did, when the earth-splitting chasm started to widen.  The single crack in the surface started to branch off in every direction, including the direction of the loopers.

“Fuck,” Leanne said, as the crack in the earth passed right between her feet.  The world quite literally started to fall apart beneath their feet.  On the bright side, Dominic and Naomi started to run faster.  Not fast enough, but still.  Naomi and Leanne managed to make it to the other side of the rapidly widening chasm, while Dominic lagged behind on the far side.  Those two steps made all the difference.

Leanne felt the skin on her back flash-fry as a massive surge of geothermal heat swept up from the fissure in the earth.  She heard the hiss of water flash-boiling and took an instinctive step away from the chasm, dragging Naomi with her.  Ocean water from the sides of the shattered coast around them surged in from either side of the fissure, crashing across the exposed molten rock and creating a surge of volcanic steam.  While intense, the violent reaction was brief, as shifting magma and stone created a new barrier against the oceanic flow.  Leanne gave the steam some time to settle and then peered over the edge of the newly formed cliff.

Between the two broken shards of the coastline, a massive chasm of obsidian was still cooling.  The sudden and violent transition had caused it to form as a valley of jagged knives, with sharp blades of volcanic stone jutting from every surface.  And on the other side of the all-consuming chasm of blades was another completely normal chunk of coastline.  Dominic waved at them from the other side.

“Little help?” He shouted.

“We really shouldn’t-” Naomi started.  She didn’t get to finish her sentence before Leanne made a running jump to the other side.  While the chasm between them was deep, it was fairly narrow, and Leanne could cross with ease.  Dominic was going to be the real trouble.  She grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and the waistband of his pants and gave a tug.

“You need to have a running start if I’m going to toss you ever there,” she commanded.  “And I mean running.  As fast as you can.  Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dominic said.  Now that his life was more directly on the line, Dominic was far more compliant.  He started sprinting as soon as Leanne prodded him forward.  Their brief moment of seismic stability was running out, and the earth was already trembling again as Leanne hefted Dominic into the air and hurled him across the chasm.  In spite of Leanne’s warning, he hadn’t really been pulling his weight.  Leanne had to put a little extra oomph into getting him across, and she did so by taking a few steps closer to the edge than she would’ve liked.  A few pebbles came out from under her feet as she teetered precariously close to the edge.

Precarious became fully carious as another tremor rocked the island.  Leanne felt herself losing balance and decided to make a leap of faith.  She made a wobbly, uneven jump, and it was a testament to her sheer athleticism that she would’ve landed safely, had the thing she was trying to land on not moved.  The tremor split the chasm wider, and the safety of the other side slipped away.

Leanne did catch herself on something solid, at least.  The solid black wall of obsidian, only recently cooled.  The heat of the stone very slightly dulled the pain as one of the jagged blades of obsidian went right through the palm of her hand.  She said every curse word possible and tried to be glad that the pain in her palm was at least distracting her from the equally sharp stones stabbing into her feet.

“Fuck,” Leanne shouted.  “Dom!  Naomi!  A little help?”

The two of them peered over the edge.  Leanne was within arms reach of the ledge -assuming one wasn’t impaled on an obsidian spike.  Leanne couldn’t reach them, but they could easily reach her.

“I don’t know what we can do,” Naomi said.

“Just need a hand,” Leanne said through gritted teeth.  “Literally, could use a spare hand.”

She nodded towards the hand that still had a rock jutting through it.  She tried to make it a joke.  Nobody was laughing.

“Just fall and try to land on your head,” Dom said.

“Hey, Dom, great advice, thanks for contributing.  I’ve never really tried falling headfirst into a canyon made entirely of volcanic knives, but I feel like it would suck.”

“Yeah, I feel like you’re right,” Naomi said.  “But let us know next loop!”

Naomi and Dom’s head disappeared from view.  Leanne forced a nervous chuckle from her lips.

“Okay, uh, really, can I get some help here?”

One of the obsidian blades Leanne had precariously rested her foot on snapped.  Leanne let out a new yelp of pain as the sudden motion caused a new round of stabbing pain to shoot through her hand and arm.

“Okay, okay,” she said, taking deep breaths.  “This isn’t funny anymore.  Naomi, Dom, I really need your help here.”

Another tremor shook the earth, and Leanne had to dig her fingertips deep into a crack in the stone to keep from loosing her tenuous grip on life.

“Guys I understand if you’re getting a fucking rope or something but please just talk to me, or shout, or something,” Leanne said.

As the rumbling continued, the blade stuck through Leanne’s hand started to become the only thing holding her in place -and it started to fragment.  Leanne watched a crack spread through it.

“Nao-”

She didn’t get to finish her shout, but Naomi wasn’t around to hear it anyway.

THAT DAY (AGAIN):

“Naomi!”

The slumbering looper was awoken by the sound of Leanne’s shout, and reluctantly crawled out of bed.  She stumbled to the door of her dorm and leaned on it sleepily.

“What do you want?”

“Are you right in front of the door?”

“Yeah, why-”

The door rocketed off its hinges and shot across the room, with Naomi in tow, slamming both into the opposite wall of her dorm hard enough to leave a Naomi-shaped dent.  As the shattered door fell forward, Leanne lowered her kicking foot and stepped through the empty doorframe.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Oh hey Leanne,” Naomi said.  “How’d the whole canyon of knives thing go for you?”

“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, thanks for asking,” Leanne said.  She had died in four-hundred twenty three and a half different ways, and yesterday’s death ranked as the most unpleasant by far.  “Why the fuck didn’t you help me?”

“You were going to die eventually anyway,” Naomi said.

“So was your greaseball boyfriend, and I jumped over a fucking pit to save him,” Leanne said.  “You can’t even reach down and pick me up?”

“You had a big hole in your hand, you would’ve slowed us down.”

“A ho- What the fuck are you talking about?  I’d be more useful than you two with both my arms cut off!  You and Dominic have done nothing but slack off and fuck each other all year!”

“Why are you such a prude about that?” Naomi said with a shrug.  “I’m serious, you and Elijah need to-”

“Shut up!” Leanne demanded.  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Leanne loosed her grip on Naomi’s shoulders and stepped away, shaking her fists as she repeated that one demand.  She could still feel the phantom pain of a knife through her hand as she ranted.

“It’s like you don’t care about anything but that stupid guy anymore!  You don’t study, you barely practice, you drag your feet when it comes to saving the world, for fuck’s sake!  You’re supposed to care about that stuff!  You’re supposed to care about school, and sports, and- and…”

Leanne let the tension fall out of her body.  She could forgive Naomi slacking off when it came to sports and school.  But there was one thing she could not forgive.

“You’re supposed to care about me.”

“Leanne…”

Naomi stepped forward and put a hand on Leanne’s shoulder, finally thinking she understood what really troubled Leanne.

“Are you a lesbian?”

“What.”

“It’s fine, you can tell me.  You know I’m okay with that sort of stuff.”

“What?”

“Look, I get it,” Naomi said.  “That’s why you won’t sleep with Elijah, and why you’re so upset I’m spending time with Dominic.”

“What!”

“I’m not that into girls, Leanne, but if you really want you can have a threesome with me and Dom.”

Leanne raised her hand, ready to slap Naomi in the face.  She had barely lifted it when a single pang of phantom pain from the previous loop shot up through her fingertips.  Leanne stopped, and her arm went limp.  The brief moment of pain had made her realize what she really felt.  It could barely even be called anger anymore.  The anger absolutely still existed, boiling deep down in her heart, but it was buried.

More than anything, Leanne was exhausted.  She stopped, sighed heavily, and stepped away from Naomi.

“Leanne?”

She let her aching fists clench and then relax.  A part of her still wanted to feed that impulse to slap Naomi right in her big, dumb immensely slappable face, but Leanne knew deep down that wouldn’t change anything.  It wouldn’t make her any less angry, and it certainly wouldn’t knock Naomi’s brain back into place and get her to stop acting so damn stupid.  She didn’t know that anything could undo the ways Naomi had changed.  Nothing she could do, at least, and certainly nothing she could say.

“Leanne, seriously, it’s cool,” Naomi said, still stuck on her incorrect theory of lesbianism.  “You can tell me.”

Leanne took a step back, away from Naomi.  She almost said something.  Almost.

“Seriously, nothing?  Is it the silent treatment now?”

It was.  Leanne walked out of the room without another word.  Naomi didn’t know it yet, but she had heard her one-time best friend’s voice for the last time.

“So are you a lesbian or what?” Naomi shouted at nothing.

THIS DAY (AGAIN)

“What’s up, you gaggle of fucking weirdos!  Is that a new kid I see?”

Harley took a deep breath and waited for Dominic and Naomi to take their seats.  She had carefully arranged the chairs at the table to put as much space between her and Dominic as possible, but they didn’t take the hint.  Both scooted their chairs around the table and sidled up uncomfortably close.  Luckily Harley had adopted Vell as a buffer.

“Look at you guys,” Naomi said.  “You saved us some seats, so I take it this is the second go around?”

“Spot on,” Lee said.

“Great, so we’ll actually remember the new guy,” Dominic said.  “But first, I got to ask:  On the first loop, did we finally get -”

“No!  Actually, we didn’t, that didn’t happen,” Harley said.  She wanted her excuse to not sleep with Dominic to be slightly less ballistic this time.  “And this is actually a good time to make introductions because Vell here is the reason we couldn’t.”

“We’re dating,” Vell said.  Harley had, of course, gotten his permission for this con.  Both as a courtesy and as a preparation.  Vell was barely selling the act now, with hours to prepare, and would’ve floundered instantly if surprised.

“Really?  You’re dating him?” Dominic said, giving Vell a critical eye.  “No offense.  Just the idea of Harley seriously dating anyone, much less, well...you…”

Dominic then gestured to Vell in a way that didn’t really mean anything, but still came across as offensive.

“I was surprised too, you know, but sometimes love really sneaks up on you,” Harley said.  She grabbed Vell by the arm and clung to it tightly.  “He’s a real sweetheart, you’d understand if you got to know him.”

“Which you may not,” Lee said.  “I should warn you, on the first loop your superiors were quite upset about your recruitment numbers.”

As the second part of their elaborate lie, Lee had gotten in touch with her company connections and found out about the quotas for this recruitment event.  Naomi and Dominic were not hard working people by nature, not anymore at least, but they always made sure to meet the exact bare minimum expectations, for the sake of their paychecks.  Lee expounded on the details of the quota’s and pointed out several imagined failings the duo had made on the first loop.  The two of them had several very real failings, but Lee did not bother telling them about how they’d eaten five pizzas each and then gotten arrested by security bots for trying to have sex on the beach.  They would’ve found that funny, if anything.

“Shit.  That seems like a lot of work,” Naomi said.  “Are you guys going to be able to stop the apocalypse without us?”

“We should be fine,” Lee said.  “The marine biology department-”

“Those fuckers.” Dominic interjected.

“Those fuckers indeed,” Lee said with a nod.  “They summoned Bahamut, the world eating fish-”

“Wild.  What’d it do?”

Lee stared at Dominic for a second.

“It ate the world,” Lee said.  “And was a fish.”

“Neat,” Domini said, pointlessly.  “How are you going to stop it without us, though?”

“Lee bought a very big net,” Harley said.  “We got this.”

“We could probably scrape together our quota and still have some time to help out.  Or at least get to know the noodley-looking guy,” Naomi said. 

“That’s what you said last time,” Lee corrected.

“Shit.  Really?”

“Yes.  Also: ‘Noodley-looking’?” Harley said.  “That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”

The dating was fake, but the offense was real.  Nobody called Vell “noodley-looking” around Harley, no matter how noodley-looking he actually was.

“Right, slender, whatever,” Naomi said.  “Dominic, go get started.”

Naomi shoved Dominic out of his seat, much to Harley’s relief, and then stood as well.

“And what’re you going to be doing?” Dominic demanded.

“Looking for Leanne,” Naomi said.  She glared at the empty space around the table where Leanne might have sat.  She also stared at the very sudden, very panicked reactions of the other loopers.

“That...may not be a good idea,” Lee said.

“Why?” Leanne said.  “Is she still doing that dumbass silent treatment thing?”

“Yeah, she’s still pretty quiet,” Harley said. 

“I can’t believe that bitch,” Naomi said.  “Is she still not over it?”

“No, she isn’t,” Vell said.  “Whatever ‘it’ is.”

“Well she better get over it in the next ten minutes, because I’m going to find her,” Naomi said.  She stormed off before anyone could raise any protest.

“Should we follow her?” Vell said.  “And like, stop her?”

“I don’t think Leanne would like us getting involved,” Lee said.  “If she wanted our support in dealing with this, she would’ve let us know.”

Vell’s desire to help Leanne and his desire to mind his own business started to butt heads, and Vell, being Vell, decided to reach a compromise.

“I think maybe I should keep an eye on Naomi, either way,” Vell said.  “From a distance.  She seems like she causes problems.”

“Spot on analysis, captain,” Harley said.  “Get to it.”

Vell saluted and then trotted off in the same direction as Naomi, hoping to catch up to her before he completely lost her trail.

◆◆◆

Elijah scraped some of the turf off his cleats.  One would think that after putting all the effort into building a giant, levitating spherical field, the school would invest in some quality astroturf, but apparently not.  He picked a last bit of fake grass out of his shoe and started to put it back on.

“Elijah!”

The shoe fell out of Elijah’s hands as he recoiled.  That voice never ended well.  He grabbed the shoe back off the ground and tried to play it cool as Naomi approached.

“How you been, bud?”

“Decent,” Elijah said.  “Things have been a little quieter since you left.”

“Figures, always knew this place would get boring without me,” Naomi said.  She took a seat next to Elijah, sitting practically shoulder to shoulder with him.  “So, how are you and Leanne doing?”

“Decent.  Good.  Figuring out what happens after we graduate.”

“It’s coming up quick,” Naomi said.  “You two going to get a place together?”

“That’s...not the plan, no.”

Not Leanne’s plan at least.  Elijah had been trying to persuade her otherwise for a while.

“Oh, so I take it you haven’t-” Naomi paused mid-sentence to make a suggestive gesture “-yet either?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“You know what Leanne’s like,” Elijah said.

“Yeah, but come on, you’re a young stud in his prime,” Naomi said, pressing herself a little closer to Elijah.  “You should be getting some action.  You just have to ask her the right way.”

Naomi leaned even closer and whispered in his ear.

“Or ask someone else.”

Further attempts at seduction were interrupted by the decidedly un-seductive sound of a rubber ball bouncing off of a skull.  Naomi narrowly avoided being knocked off the bench by the impact of the ball  and made a quick recovery.  Only one person she knew could throw that hard.

“Hey Leanne.”

The rubber ball bounced past Leanne’s feet after rebounding back towards her.  She resisted the urge to pick it up and lob it at Naomi again.  Instead, she jabbed a finger in a random direction away from Elijah.

“Still doing the silent treatment, I see.  Are you ever going to get over that?”

Leanne stopped pointing and swapped fingers briefly to flip the bird to Naomi, then went right back to pointing away.

“Oh, mind your own business,” Naomi said.  She put an arm around Elijah’s shoulder.  “I can catch up with an old friend if I want to.”

The expression of intimacy only angered Leanne, and she walked up to physically remove the arm from her boyfriends shoulder.  Naomi allowed her arm to be dragged away, but only so she could stand to face Leanne.  She kept an ironclad grip on her former friend and the two stared daggers at one another.

“You know, if you would actually fucking talk, I might listen.”

Leanne refused to even change the expression on her face.  She pointed, once again, to the side, away from herself and Elijah.

“I don’t speak your bullshit mime language, you’re going to have to talk to me,” Naomi mocked.

“Come on, Leanne,” Elijah said.  He didn’t get near the two, partially out of fear, but he did try to interject himself into their debate.  “It’s been years.  Can’t you two talk this out?”

“Talking it out would require talking, so apparently not,” Naomi said.  Leanne squeezed her arm a bit tighter and shoved her away.

“What is this even about, Leanne?” Elijah asked.  “You still haven’t even told me why you’re so mad at her.”

Still unwilling to even speak around Naomi, Leanne gestured to her offending former friend, then pointed to herself, and made a stabbing motion towards her own heart.  Elijah stared at her blankly for a second.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I don’t speak mime!”

Leanne scratched her head.  She had forgotten she wasn’t actually all that good at gesturing, she just hung out with a lot of people who were coincidentally very good at charades.  Seeking a way to speak without being heard by Naomi, Leanne moved closer and tried to whisper the answer in Elijah’s ear, but he stepped away from her when she tried.

“What is wrong with you?  You’re constantly talking about how weird and insane everyone in that ‘club’ of yours acts, but what is this?  You won’t even talk normally with her around?”

Elijah pointed to Naomi, who gave a little wave.  Leanne glared at her for a moment, and the moment she looked away, Naomi locked eyes with Elijah and continued the game of charades.  She made the same suggestive gesture and then pointed at herself with a wink.  Unlike Leanne’s charades, Elijah understood the meaning very clearly.  Elijah tried to avoid going too red in the face and glanced back at Leanne, then back at Naomi, then back at Leanne.  He saw two paths ahead of him, and he made a choice.

◆◆◆

Vell was bad at acting casual under the best circumstances, and these were not the best circumstances.  Even while deliberately keeping his distance from Leanne’s personal business, he could hear shouts and arguing from around the corner.  He couldn’t hear any details from a distance, but the anger in the various voices could not be missed.  He started to get especially concerned after Leanne’s voice joined the fray, and shortly thereafter he became outright terrified when everything went silent.

After waiting a minute to check it out, Vell walked stood up and immediately sat down to wait another minute.  He counted to sixty, then got up and walked towards the scene of the argument, making it halfway there before he turned around and sat back down.  The third time proved to be the charm, as Vell made it all the way to the corner and poked his head around.

Knowing Leanne and what she was capable of, Vell expected a crater or two.  Maybe a broken wall, or a broken bone.  Naomi certainly seemed like she deserved a good sock in the jaw.  Vell braced himself for the worst and rounded the corner.

Instead of some scene of angered carnage, Vell just saw Leanne, slumped against a wall, curled into a ball with her head resting on her knees.  For all her usual imposing strength and stature, Leanne suddenly looked very small.

With none of his earlier hesitance, Vell walked right over to Leanne and sat down a short distance away.

“Are you alright, Leanne?”

“Go away.”

“Alright,” Vell said, as he immediately stood to leave. “You know where to find me if you need anything.  I, uh, hope you feel better.”

“Vell.”

In spite of what she’d said, Leanne had sort of been expecting Vell to insist on sticking around, giving her time to yell at him.  She had some things she needed to get out of her system.

“Just stay away,” Leanne said.  “You, and Harley, and Lee, just...stay away.  I’m done.”

“Uh...What?”

“Just leave me alone,” Leanne said.  She clutched at her head, and Vell could see for the first time how red in the face she was.  She’d been crying recently.  “All you people and this stupid time bullshit has ever done is ruin my life.”

Vell looked down at the despondent Leanne, then looked around awkwardly.

“I, uh, I’m sorry,” Vell said.  He could tell now was not the time to try and debate this point.  “Goodbye, I guess, and again, you know where to find me-”

“Leave, Vell.”

“Leaving.”

Beneath Leanne’s sadness, there was still a very tangible current of anger, and Vell had no desire to press his luck.  He promptly skedaddled, leaving Leanne to her own devices.  He would’ve liked to know exactly what had happened, but he had no way of knowing for now.  If he was lucky, he might find out later.

Exactly five seconds later, to be exact.  Vell’s path back to the dining hall took him past the Senior dorms, allowing him to catch Elijah in the act of walking Naomi back to his dorm, with her arm wrapped all too tight around his waist.

“Seriously?” Vell mumbled under his breath.  “He couldn’t even wait ten minutes?”

Vell ducked back around the corner and sighed.  He had a sinking feeling this was going to become a whole thing he had to deal with.

Chapter 35: Vex the Ex

In spite of her misgivings, Lee chose to charge the rune.  She knew if she didn’t Vell would just buy a battery and go through with his plan anyway.

“For the record, Vell, meddling does not suit you,” Lee chided.

“I’m not meddling,” Vell insisted.  “I’m just...helping.”

“By meddling,” Harley said.

“I’m not meddling,” Vell repeated.

“Look, Vell, you know I’m down to get involved in other people’s business, but this one seems kind of pointless,” Harley said.  “Even if Leanne’s boyfriend did lie about why he dumped her, it’s still kind of sort of the loop’s fault.  Or at least Naomi’s, and she was in the loop.”

“How do you even know Elijah lied?”

“I questioned some friends of friends,” Vell said.

“You snooped.”

“It was not snooping.”

“Okay, setting aside the snooping and meddling, this probably won’t even make Leanne any less mad at us.”

“Maybe not,” Vell admitted.  “But she’ll be mad for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.”

“Or she gets even more mad at us because we meddled,” Harley said.

“I’m not meddling!” Vell insisted once again.

“Vell, I do respect your commitment to the truth, but I also share Harley’s concerns that we may simply make things worse,” Lee said.  “Leanne has made it clear she wants us to leave her alone.  Perhaps we should simply respect that?”

“Yes, well, that is an excellent point,” Vell said.  “One which I’ve, uh, considered.  However, consider this:  I don’t want Elijah to get away with lying.”

“Valid point,” Harley said.  She hadn’t really been factoring Elijah’s presumed guilt into anything.  Mostly because she was barely aware he existed.

“I did not see you as being particularly concerned with punishment, Vell Harlan,” Lee said.

“Punishing the bad guys is part of protecting the good guys,” Vell said.  “Every time a guy like Elijah gets away with hurting someone, he becomes more comfortable hurting other people.  Consequences are how we prevent people from turning into Kraid.”

“Righteous, I like it,” Harley said.  “I’ve changed my mind, I’m in.  Let’s punish the naughty, daddy.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Lee pleaded.

“Only if you’re joining in too,” Harley said.  Lee sighed and relented.

“Very well.  Let us meddle.”

“I’m not -oh fuck it, are you done charging the rune yet?”

“Have been for about a minute, dear, I just didn’t want to interrupt,” Lee said as she handed over the rune.  Vell took the stone token and stuck it to his shirt.

“So what’s this rune going to do anyway?  Turn you invisible so you can spy on Elijah?  Brainwash him so he confesses?  Or maybe it turns him inside out if he doesn’t confess?”

“What?  No.  Everything you just said is horrible,” Vell said.  He put on his glasses and pointed to them.  “The rune is going to put a script on my glasses.  I just didn’t want to be stuttering and going ‘uh’ while I convince Elijah to tell Leanne the truth.”

“That’s your plan?” Lee asked.

“Like, all of it?” Harley said.  “Do you have some recording device to record him when he brags about how much lying he did?”

“No.  I’m just going to get Elijah to tell the truth.”

“You’re going to convince the guy who lied in the first place to stop lying,” Harley said.  “Just by talking to him.”

“Yes.”

Vell paused and endured the skeptical stares of his two friends for a solid ten seconds.

“What?  Leanne dated him for like four years, he can’t be a complete piece of shit.”

“He also dumped her, lied about why, and then fucked her former best friend five minutes later,” Harley said.  She felt Vell was making some very generous assumptions about Elijah’s character.  Leanne had trusted him enough to date him for years, yes, but she’d also trusted Naomi for a long time.

“Yeah, so since he did all that shitty stuff all at once he probably feels extra guilty about it,” Vell said.  “It should be easy.”

“Good luck with that,” Harley scoffed.  He of all people should’ve known that dating someone for a while didn’t make them a good person.  He’d dated Joan, after all.

“It’ll work,” Vell insisted.  “Eventually.  It’s going to take some convincing, but it’ll work.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lee said.  After her half-hearted approval of his plan, Vell set out.  Lee and Harley waited until he was out of earshot.

“This isn’t going to work,” Lee whispered.

“You got that right, bitch,” Harley said.  “Come on.  We need a backup plan for when Vell fails.”

Lee didn’t want to increase their amount of meddling, but she began to feel it was unavoidable.  Vell’s current course of action was ultimately unsustainable.  A fact Vell would soon be proving, no doubt.

◆◆◆

“And that’s why you really just need to tell her the truth,” Vell summarized, wrapping up his presentation.  “It’s going to be a bit harsh, yeah, but everyone will be better off after you do the right thing.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Elijah said.  He walked away without another word.  Vell sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing a spot of dirt off the lenses.  At least the script rune had worked without a hitch.

“We’ll go in for some rewrites and try again tomorrow,” Vell said.  He’d even have two tries a day, thanks to the loops.

◆◆◆

Tomorrow, Elijah put a book in front of his face and studiously ignored Vell throughout the entire length of the speech.  Vell did not let the fact that he wasn’t being heard stop him from talking.  Lee and Harley watched from a distance and shook their heads in disapproval.

“So how many tries does he get before we go with Plan B?”

“At least once more,” Lee said.

“Is that once as in one day, or once as in one loop?” Harley asked.

“Let’s go with one loop,” Lee said.  Vell could only improve, after all.

◆◆◆

Elijah’s door narrowly missed breaking Vell’s nose as it slammed shut on him for the second time this loop.  He shrugged and resolved to try again the next day.  Lee watched him walk away and sighed once again.

“Three strikes, he’s out.  Technically six strikes, but semantics,” Harley said.  “So, hmm, you got any ideas?”

Lee shook her head.

“Damn.  Usually I’d go with an invisibility rune, but Vell’s kind of our rune guy, and he’d definitely know we were up to something.”

“I may have an alternative,” Lee said.  “Let’s give Vell another shot while I work on that.”

◆◆◆

This time, Harley did not simply watch Vell fail from a distance.  She had to get up close and personal to help him out of the dumpster Elijah had tossed him into.  While she dug Vell out of the trash, Lee moved on to the first phase of Plan B: making her own rune.  There was a runecarving workshop on campus, though Vell often eschewed it in favor of his own tools and workbench.  Lee stepped into the room and found her target.

An empty work bench.

She had seen Vell carve runes a few dozen times by now, and it didn’t seem too hard.  She grabbed a stone tablet and a carving tool and got to work. 

One mountain of broken obsidian shards later, Lee recalled the ‘three strikes’ joke Harley had made earlier.  She’d passed “three strikes” about fourteen broken runestones ago, and was starting to regret ignoring the rule at the time.

“Lee?”

Lee’s heart skipped a beat.  She didn’t know if she’d been hoping for this or trying to avoid it.

“Hello Joan,” Lee said.  The red-eyed rune expert stood with a bag slung over her shoulder.  It had been several months since Lee had taken more than a passing glance at Joan, and she had changed a great deal.  Her undercut had grown out into a tangle of black curls she wasn’t putting much effort into maintaining, and her crimson eyes seemed much more weary. 

“Yeah, hi,” Joan said.  “I, uh, I was just on my way out, so-”

“Oh, no, actually, I-” Lee stopped and snatched Joan by the wrist.  “Since you’re here...I would like to catch up.  It’s been a while.”

Joan looked down at the hand latched on to her wrist and decided to take a seat at the bench. 

“What’re you doing in the rune lab anyway?” 

Her voice lacked some of its former fire, a fact that upset Lee for reasons she didn’t fully understand.  She had liked Joan’s passionate nature, even if those passions could be unfortunately misguided.

“Trying to carve an invisibility rune, as it were,” Lee said.  “I was under the impression it would be, ah, much easier than it actually is.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Joan said.  “Vell does make it look easy.”

“You made it look plenty easy too,” Lee said.  “It definitely affected my perceptions of the skill involved, having two of my best friends being so talented.”

The attempted affirmation of their friendship caused a long pause in the already stilted conversation.  Joan leaned forward on the table and looked at the cracked runes of Lee’s previous attempts.

“I’m sorry we haven’t talked in a while,” Lee said.  “I was...hesitant.  I have very few friends, Joan, and I’m afraid I alienated you in an attempt to keep others.”

“No, I get it,” Joan said.  “I’m the scary one, after all.  You picked the same side as everyone else.”

Joan leaned back and looked away from the runes.

“I mean shit, even Freddy doesn’t talk to me anymore, and I met him first.  Technically.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing personal, Joan-”

“No it’s pretty fucking personal,” Joan snapped.  “Cane told me outright he never wants to talk to me again.”

Lee fell silent.  Joan realized she had come across a bit harsh.

“Sorry.  Don’t mean to bite,” Joan said.  “I just...I’m facing the facts, alright?  I fucked up.  I scared everyone off.  I have to own this.”

Lee did not break her silent streak.  The whole situation tore at her from the inside.  Sure, in another timeline, Joan had—unintentionally—caused Vell’s death, but that was another timeline, another world that did not technically exist.  This version of Joan, while not completely innocent, was at least not guilty of the harshest sin she was being judged for.

“I’m dealing with it,” Joan said.  “Fuck.  Enough about me.  Why are you trying to carve a rune?  Isn’t Vell your go-to guy for runes?”

Glad to have a chance to change the subject, Lee launched into an explanation of Leanne’s circumstances, trying to soften the edges of the break-up for Joan’s sake.  She seemed unfazed by the lengthy explanation.

“That does sound like Vell,” Joan sighed.  “Always taking the high road.”

“For better or worse.”

“Yeah.  But you got a point about needing to get your hands dirty sometime,” Joan said.  She swept aside the broke runes of Lee’s failed attempts and put a hand on the table.  “I’ll make an invisibility rune for you.  But I need two things.”

“Materials?”

“No.  One promise, and one question,” Joan said.  She held up two fingers.  “First, it’s going to take two days for me to carve the rune.  While I do that, you have to promise to let Vell keep trying to change this Elijah guy’s mind.”

Lee nodded.  That was not an unreasonable request, and she likely would have done so anyway if she was already waiting.  Joan dropped one finger and pointed at Lee.

“And second,” Joan said.  “I want to know how you guys always know so much about what’s going on.”

“Pardon?”

“About the play, and that octopus with guns, and Undedison, and that chick that tried to kill Harley, and everything else,” Joan said.  “Every time something weird happens on campus you and Vell and Harley knew about it, and I want to-”

“I can see the future,” Lee blurted.  With Joan coming so close to uncovering the time loop, Lee panicked and blurted the first lie that came to mind.  Professor Ernest already believed the same falsehood, and when it came to telling blatant lies, consistency was key.

“What?”

“To a limited extent,” Lee said, continuing to weave her web of necessary lies.  She hated having to lie, but people outside of the loops that discovered their existence suffered mental breakdowns, so it was a necessary evil.  “Sometimes when bad things happen I receive an omen.  A premonition, if you will.  Just a vague indicator of some future misfortune that helps us be in the right place at the right time.”

“Huh.”

Joan looked dumbfounded for a moment, and carefully scrutinized Lee with two bright crimson eyes.

“Well.  I guess that does explain a lot,” Joan admitted.  Lee breathed a sigh of relief.  “Sorry for putting you on the spot like that.”

“No, I’m sorry for not being more forthcoming,” Lee said.  “You were entangled in our escapades as well, you had a right to know.”

“I guess,” Joan said.  She looked far more at ease with the prophetic revelation than Lee was comfortable with.  “I sort of figured...well, whatever.  I’ll get that rune made for you.”

Joan stood up and stepped away from Lee.

“I’ll see you around, Lee.”

“Yes.  Uh, rather, I’ll try to stay in touch.”

Joan gave a single stiff nod and walked away, leaving Lee to stew in her own anxiety.  She would have been doing that anyway, but the conversation had added a few new and exciting flavors to the anxiety stew.

◆◆◆

“I’ve got a good feeling about today,” Vell said.  “I think I’m starting to get through to him.”

“Yeah, you know the old saying, tenth time’s the charm,” Harley said.  “I’m sure you’ll get him.”

After being thrown into a dumpster on attempt five and six, Vell had not been dissuaded.  On attempts seven and eight, Elijah had simply walked away, but on attempt nine, he had stopped long enough to yell.  That gave Vell some hope that on attempt ten, he might stop long enough to really listen.  Harley did not share his optimism, but she also didn’t have any better ideas.  Vell stepped out from around the corner and came face to face with Elijah headed the other way.  Which was odd, because on the previous loop, he had been all the way in the dining hall.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Believe it or not, this time is actually an accident,” Vell said.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Elijah scoffed.  “Listen, you little shit, if you keep this up I’m calling security, I’m not fucking kidding.”

“Then do the right thing, and I’m out of your hair,” Vell insisted.  “This is on you, not me.”

“Just leave it fucking alone, man,” Elijah said.  “Leanne’s not going to hang out with your stupid club again, or whatever it is you’re trying to get out of this.”

“I don’t care,” Vell said.

“Then why are you even doing this?”

“Because Leanne was part of our ‘stupid club’, and when you tried to put the blame on us, you put the blame on her too,” Vell said.  “Maybe some of this is our fault.  If she blames us for that, I don’t care.  But she shouldn’t blame herself.”

Elijah just stared at Vell.  He might have offered a rebuttal, if not for the sound of heavy footsteps behind him.  Elijah was in a different place than he’d been on the first loop because he was avoiding another looper.

Leanne’s presence was felt without her saying a word as she stormed around the corner.  Elijah practically jumped out of his shoes.  He spun around to face her and backed up, bumping into Vell as he tried to retreat.  While he was afraid in his own way, Vell was not going to retreat.

“Oh hey Leanne,” Elijah said, trying to act casual.  Leanne grabbed him by the shirt, lifted him off the ground, and set him aside.  With Elijah out of the way, Leanne stepped up to Vell and jabbed him accusingly in the chest.

“Yes, okay, I know, I’ve been meddling,” Vell said.  Leanne threw out a wild series of hand gestures that Elijah could not comprehend in the slightest.  “I remember, and believe me, if things were normal I would’ve-”

Leanne went through another string of incomprehensible charades, occasionally pointing at Elijah and then back at Vell for emphasis.

“I admit it, I messed things up a bit too, the situation is weird,” Vell said.  “But he lied to you, and you deserve to know the truth.”

Leanne glared in Elijah’s direction, then gestured to his mouth, to Vell, and rolled her hand expectantly.

“I, uh, I- I didn’t- Wait, where in the conversation are we?”  He looked at Vell.  “Can you translate, or something?”

“I think she was being pretty clear,” Vell said.  “She’s asking what you have to say.”

“Well shit, I obviously, uh, I didn’t lie.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Vell said.  Leanne jabbed him in the chest again.  “He’s still lying!  He ran off with Naomi like five minutes later!”

Leanne turned to Elijah with a glare, but she kept her body—and her finger—pointed squarely at Vell.  She still placed the blame squarely on him and everything else to do with the loop.  After a few seconds of silence and a shrug from Elijah, Leanne turned all of her focus back to Vell and carried out another frenzied burst of gestures.  Elijah couldn’t understand any of it, but Vell tracked the wild motions of her hands with ease.  In spite of him being a massive annoyance, Elijah had to admit that Vell seemed to understand Leanne pretty well.

That thought, out of everything, made Elijah feel a pang of guilt.

The accusatory gesturing ended, and Leanne pointed to the nearest exit.

“Okay.  Okay.  I’ll go,” Vell said.  “Sorry I got involved.  I just wanted to do-”

Leanne interrupted Vell by shoving him away -and then Elijah interrupted in turn.

“Leanne, stop,” he sighed.  “He’s telling the truth.”

Leanne froze mid shove and snapped her head in Elijah’s direction.  Even Vell was surprised, and he’d been planning for this exact thing to happen.  Elijah took a step back, for his own safety, and continued.

“The weirdness contributed a little, I guess, but mostly,” Elijah said.  “I wanted a more physical relationship, and you made it clear that wasn’t on the table, and...I realized it wasn’t going to work out between us.  So I broke up with you, and I blamed it on Vell and the rest of that club because I thought you already didn’t like them, and it would just be easier on both of us to have that scapegoat.”

Leanne looked at Vell, then back at Elijah.  Her previous anger, now pulled in two entirely different directions, dulled slightly.

“I was trying to make it easier on both of us...but I was wrong.  If Vell’s made anything clear in these past few days...it’s that he actually really cares about you,” Elijah said.  “Can’t imagine somebody being that annoying for the sake of someone they don’t like.”

Vell shrugged.  People had been more annoying for worse reasons.  Leanne clenched her fists and looked at the ground.

“Is what he said about Naomi true?” Leanne whispered, finally breaking her silence.  Elijah took a deep breath, knowing fully it might be his last, as Leanne turned to focus on him.

“Yeah.  It was a shitty, impulsive decision, and I realize now, no matter how our relationship was going, I shouldn’t have done that,” Elijah said.  “But I guess saying that doesn’t make it any better.”

“It doesn’t,” Leanne sighed.  “But thank you for admitting it anyway.  I...appreciate the honesty.”

“You still look mad,” Elijah noted.

“I am.”

“And you kind of look like you’re going to punch me,” Elijah whimpered.

“I am,” Leanne said.  She pointed at Vell.  “But I still need to talk to him, so if you start running now I probably won’t catch up to you before I calm down.”

Elijah didn’t waste any time.  Leanne smiled slightly as he turned and fled.  It wasn’t quite as satisfying as a punch, but it would tide her over.  The smile dropped off her face as she turned back to Vell.

“So.  What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I am still very sorry for meddling,” Vell said.  “Even though I had good reasons, and it all worked out, that’s still no excuse to violate your privacy.”

“Right answer,” Leanne said.  “Thank you for getting involved, but don’t do it again.  Now.  Is there anything else you need to get off your chest, any other secrets you need to reveal?”

“No, that was the one, as far as I know,” Vell said.

“Good.  Then...leave me alone,” Leanne said.  “For real this time.  I know it’s not your fault, but this loop, and everything in it...It’s toxic.  I’ve had enough of it.  And I need a break.  Just let me have my space, Vell.  Please.”

“Okay.  Yeah, no problem, I’ll uh, keep my distance,” Vell said.  “Like I said before, you know where to find me, and uh, in case you decide you don’t want to talk to me again before you graduate, thanks for everything.  It was...fun, in a weird way.”

Vell gave an awkward wave goodbye and turned to leave.  Leanne stood alone in the hall for a while.  She hadn’t even thought about graduation.  She only had a few weeks left at the Einstein-Odinson college.  Just a few weeks left in the loop that had defined the past few years of her life.

Leanne didn’t know how to feel about that.

◆◆◆

“So in the end it was unnecessary,” Lee explained, as she handed the invisibility rune back to Joan.  “I appreciate the effort, though I’m glad it was wasted.  I’d rather not have to resort to such subterfuge.”

“Yeah.  That’s why I told you to wait, after all,” Joan said.  “I figured he’d have a way to get through to that Elijah guy.  Even if just through dumb luck.”

She placed the invisibility rune in her pocket and pulled out a small flash drive, which she handed to Lee.

“What’s this?”

“Some text logs I pulled from Elijah’s phone, talking with a friend about how he lied to Leanne,” Joan said.  “I grabbed them yesterday.  You can delete them, use them for blackmail, whatever.  I don’t think it matters much anymore.”

“But- Why?”

“Like I said, sometimes somebody has to get their hands dirty,” Joan said.  “But it didn’t have to be you.  My hands are already pretty damn filthy, so I figured a bit more wouldn’t hurt.”

Joan looked down at the flash drive.  She could only imagine the means by which Joan had acquired this information.  Hopefully it had been nothing too unscrupulous, considering it was now effort wasted.

“I suppose I understand,” Lee said.  “But you didn’t need to do this.”

“I didn’t,” Joan said.  “But don’t worry about it too much.  Like everything else I do, I had some ulterior motives.”

“Joan-”

“I want to ask you one more question,” Joan interrupted.  “And I want you to promise me, if we were ever really friends, that you’re going to tell me the truth.”

Joan stared at Lee, her crimson gaze piercing straight through Lee’s soul.

“You see the future.  So tell me.  On the day me and Vell broke up, when everyone was acting weird around me,” Joan said.  “That bad future you saw...it was me, wasn’t it?”

As much as she tried to bite them back, there were tears welling up in Joan’s eyes.

“I did something to hurt Vell.” 

Lee never bothered even thinking about lying.  She could tell from the look in Joan’s crimson eyes she already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Lee admitted.  “Something like that.”

Joan gave a slight hum of acknowledgment and looked away.  She turned her back to Lee and kept it there, in a transparent effort to hide her face.

“Yeah.  I thought so.  Thanks, Lee.  I need to think about some stuff.  A lot of stuff.”

Without turning, Joan lifted a hand and flicked her wrist in a lazy goodbye.

“See you around.”

“Call me if you need anything,” Lee said meekly.  Joan gave another hum of acknowledgment and walked off.

Lee didn’t know how to feel about that.

Chapter 36: Cult Following

“Hey buddy,” Vell said.  Freddy let him in, as Vell had once again found himself knocking on Freddy’s door to check on a possible apocalypse.

“Hey Vell” Freddy said.  He checked behind Vell to see if Harley had come along.  She hadn’t.  “What’s up?”

“Well I heard you were having some serious problems with one of your roommate’s projects, and I came to check it out,” Vell said.  “Avoid, you know, another round of problems.”

Freddy, as one of the school’s more advanced students, ended up getting involved in a lot of complicated and potentially apocalyptic projects.  The loopers liked to keep an eye on him and his roommates, just in case.

“Yeah, one of my roommates actually was having a bit of trouble,” Freddy admitted.  “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you checking it out.”

Freddy welcomed Vell inside, scooting aside a bit of furniture to give Vell easy access to what appeared to be some kind of massive lasergun.

“So what’s that?” Vell asked.

“A dehydration ray,” Freddy said.  “It destroys water.”

Vell put his hand on his chin and considered the logistics of destroying water, and all the many, many ways that could go wrong.

“Two questions,” Vell began.

“Okay,” Freddy said.

“Why do you have a lasergun that destroys water?”

“My roommate thought it would be cool.”

“Okay.  Second question: Why is it pointed out the window?”

“Well it’s malfunctioning, so I don’t want it accidentally pointed at any people.”

“Freddy.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re, uh, on an island,” Vell said.  “Out the window is where the ocean is.”

“Oh.”

The malfunctioning machine blinked on, and the ocean blinked away.  The machine had done its job -it had removed water.  Vell grabbed onto the nearest doorframe with one hand, and grabbed on to Freddy with the other, and held on for not-so-dear life.

The entire artificial island experienced a brief moment of weightlessness before it started to plummet.  The metal column that anchored the island to the ocean’s floor could not support the entire campus’s weight, and it cracked all but instantly, filling the empty space where an ocean had been with the echoes of splintering steel as the artificial island plummeted through the open air.

To the eternal credit of the campus architects, most of the buildings barely rattled upon impact -except, of course, for the hazardous materials lab, which had exploded for far more trifling reasons than a plummet to the ocean floor.  A series of unstable chain reactions set off seventeen consecutive fireballs, three chemical eruptions, and a single small black hole, which consumed fifteen of the seventeen fireballs before snuffing itself out.  Thankfully, even a campus planner insane enough to build their entire school on a false island miles out to sea had been sane enough to put a lab labeled “hazardous materials” far from every other building.  The explosive lab burned itself to ash while the rest of the campus dealt with the ongoing seabed collision.

The initial impact shattered every window and knocked loose anything that wasn’t nailed down, but the chaos didn’t stop there.  The sea floor the school landed on was just slightly uneven, leading the entire island to lean slightly to one side at a fifteen degree angle.  A relatively shallow tilt, but still more than enough to wreak absolute hell on what was left of any and all interior decoration, covering the dorms in debris until everything finally settled.

Vell released his death grip on the doorway, pleasantly surprised at his ability to hold on for dear life.  He’d had a lot of practice the past few months.

“You good, Freddy?”

Freddy’s only answer was some incoherent mumbling, followed by falling on the floor and rolling down towards the wall.  As someone who got vertigo on a stepladder, Freddy had been all but incapacitated by the massive drop.  Vell made sure that Freddy wasn’t in danger of being crushed by any loose rubble and went on his way, leaving the frazzled Frizzle to regain his bearings on his own.

Vell took two steps and then slid the rest of the way down to the dorm’s front door.  At the slightest touch, the door fell off its hinges, landing flat in the hallway beyond.  Vell shrugged.  At least it opened.  In the far corner of the hallway, a janitor bot swept up a few scraps of rubble, which then rolled down the angled floor back to their original resting place, where they were swept up again by the janitor bot.  Vell tried not to think about Sisyphus and went on his way.

Outside, Vell found the usual scene of people scrambling about to understand the chaos.  Some tried to stay inside buildings, while others fled the leaning campus to seek safety on the relatively level ground of the dry seabed.  Those who fled to the seabed had to contend with the inevitable aftermath of the ocean evaporating, though: an ankle-high carpet of fish, with the occasional lump in the form of a shark or dolphin.

The lightly angled nature of the quad presented challenges to most of the students that dared to try and cross it -and opportunities for some of those more experienced in this brand of chaos.  Harley sat on the grass and allowed gravity to slide her across the quad, jamming a heel into the dirt when she wanted to stop next to Vell.

“What’s up?”

“Not us,” Vell said.

“Hah, nice.  But seriously, you got any clue where the ocean went?”

“One of Freddy’s roommates built a dehydration ray and accidentally left it pointed at the window.”

“Ah, that’ll do it,” Harley said.  “Seems like an easy fix, though.”

“Moderately.”

“Do you think the architects who built this place planned for a drop like that, or is it just a coincidence the island is sturdy enough to survive that fall?”

“Could go either way,” Vell said with a shrug.  The campus island had a lot of odd design choices.

“Sounds about right.  Want to climb up to the top of campus and see if we can slide all the way to the bottom?”

“Sure, why not.”

◆◆◆

After a few races, Vell had claimed a decisive lead.  The two hiked back to the top of the campus and prepared for another go of it.

“There you are,” Lee said.  She stumbled up to them slowly, looking bruised.  For someone who was clumsy on level ground, the slanted surface posed a severe challenge.  She persevered regardless.  “I’ve been looking all over for you, Vell.”

“Yeah, sorry, I think I bumped my phone while everything was tumbling,” Vell said.

“Quite alright,” Lee said.  “The thing is, there’s a bit of a cult forming.”

“Oh no,” Vell sighed. 

“Nothing to be concerned about yet, Vell,” Lee said.  “Sort of.  The thing is, with the fall, the students have sort of fixated on elevation, and, you know, height.”

Lee and Harley both looked up at Vell’s comparatively towering height.  At six foot three, Vell was one of the taller individuals on campus.

“What, as like a sacrifice?”

“I’m not sure,” Lee said.

“Either way, that Bolu dude is taller than you, right?”

“Well he unfortunately didn’t survive the fall, dear,” Lee added.  “I believe Vell is now the tallest person on campus.”

“No, that doesn’t sound right,” Harley said.  “Leanne’s taller than you, isn’t she?”

“She’s like an inch shorter,” Vell corrected.

“Huh.  Guess she just has taller energy.  No offense.”

“None taken,” Vell said. Leanne projected confidence and strength that Vell did not, and he was well aware of that. “So should I like, hide, or something?”

“Bit late,” Harley said.  She pointed to a mob approaching them from the nearest building.  They wore makeshift robes and wielded measuring sticks like ceremonial staffs.

“Boy do they work fast,” Vell noted.

“I keep telling you man, cults are crazy around here,” Harley said.  She shut her mouth and stepped back as the cult members approached Vell.

“Vell Harlan!” The lead cultist shouted.  “You are one of the few worthy to be measured of the Divine Elevation.  Hold still please, this will just take a moment.”

A few of the robed “priests” held their ceremonial measuring sticks to Vell’s side.  He stood up straight and still, nervously waiting for them to finish their work.  The three measuring priests reviewed their findings and conferred with the high priest.  After a short conference, the high priest turned to the cultist crowd and threw his arms wide.

“My people!  A new Almighty Tallest as been identified!”

A ceremonial profession marched forth from the heart of the crowd, bearing a makeshift crown and scepter that was swiftly presented to Vell.

“Oh cool,” Harley said.  “Looks like you’re in charge.”

Vell allowed the crown to be placed on his head, if only because he was too nervous to protest.  He didn’t know how he felt about being a cult figurehead, but it was certainly better than being sacrificed.

“And summarily, the previous claimant to title of Almighty Tallest must be sacrificed,” the high priest said.  The same ceremonial procession dragged forward a bound and gagged student who was only slightly shorter than Vell, pulling him towards the edge of the fallen island to be thrown over.

“Wait wait wait wait,” Vell said.  “The Almighty Tallest says no sacrificing previous Almighty Tallest’s!”

The high priest snapped his fingers, and the sacrificial march stopped.  The robed cultists immediately untied their previous leader and set him loose.

“No sacrifices period,” Lee whispered to Vell.

“Right, yes!  There shall be no sacrifices.  Ever!  Your Tallest is a just and merciful ruler!”

“All hail the Almighty Tallest!” The cult shouted.  It made Vell incredibly uncomfortable, but Harley was more encouraging.

“Dude, lean into it,” Harley said.

“I don’t know, this is weird,” Vell said.

“Yeah, but it’s going to get weirder if you’re not in charge,” Harley said.  “You already stopped one sacrifice.  You can keep these guys sane for the rest of the day.”

Vell tilted his head, causing the crown to slide a bit, and examined the crowd.  They waited patiently for his next divine proclamation.  He supposed it couldn’t hurt to have a leash on the more extreme cultist behaviors.

“Also it’ll be super fun and you’re putting me in charge of your harem,” Harley insisted.

“Will I have a harem?”

“If you want a harem,” Harley said.  “You’re the ‘Almighty Tallest’.  It’s up to you, baby.”

Vell stood up straight and cleared his throat to address the crowd.

“My, uh, subjects!” Vell said.  “I look forward to ruling you with justice and wisdom.  For my first order of business:  We feast!”

A jubilant crowd raised Vell on their shoulders and carried him off to their base.  Being carried by a crowd was a lot more uncomfortable than Vell had expected, but he definitely started to feel like Harley had a point.  This might actually be fun.

◆◆◆

Vell’s throne was far more comfortable than the shoulders of the crowd, and he lounged in it comfortably as he overlooked his dominion.  With his Divine Consort Harley at his left hand, and the new High Priestess Lee at his right, Vell surveyed the kingdom of the dining hall, and saw that it was good.

“How are the negotiations with the isolationist faction faring?” Lee asked an advisor.  She was far more suited to the (very limited) bureaucracy involved with running a cult, and had taken over the minute-to-minute operations. 

“Their leader is amenable to your offer of truce, though she has refused a meeting,” Ngose said.   He wasn’t all that good of a lead diplomat, but he was one of the few people in the cult Vell recognized and so he had assigned him a role arbitrarily.

“That’s fine,” Lee said.  “And what of the former Marine Biology department?”

“The Fishwalkers have been informed they are never to return to school grounds,” Ngose said.  “Though they do not seem unduly upset with their punishment, ma’am, content to stride among the dying fish as they are.”

The loopers had been unable to resist a slight jab at the longtime annoyance of the Marine Biology department, but they didn’t want to actively hurt them.  They’d do just fine out on the ocean floor, with plenty of fish carcasses to examine.

“Fine by me,” Vell said.  “The Almighty Tallest doesn’t want to hurt anyone, just make sure they don’t bother him.”

“My apologies, I did not mean to question your wisdom,” Ngose said with a bow.

“It’s cool,” Vell said.  “Anything else, Ngose?”

“Yes.  I have gathered some of the scattered, including these two.”

Some guards pushed Cane and Luke forward at the point of measuring sticks that had been converted to spears.  Vell waved them off.

“They claim to know you, and call you friend.”

“Yeah, those are my roommates, they’re cool,” Vell said.  At the word of their Almighty Tallest, the guards retreated and returned to their posts.

“Hey Vell,” Cane said.  “Nice crown.”

“So apparently you’re in charge of this place, eh?”  Luke noted.  “Not too shabby.”

The kingdom of Vell was pretty organized, as far as post apocalyptic cultist societies went.  There wasn’t any misogyny, and only a few people were wearing leather harnesses.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Vell said.  “You two want a gig?  Lee, what kind of positions do we have open?”

“There’s a clerical—as in the religious kind of cleric—role that I think Luke would do well in,” Lee said.  Vell nodded.  He wasn’t one for religion, but authority was nice.

“The harem is always hiring, if Cane needs a gig,” Harley said with a wink. 

“I don’t have a harem,” Vell said. 

“Yet.”

“I think I’m good,” Cane said, casting a skeptical and entirely heterosexual glance at Vell.  “Any commander of the guard stuff?  I liked those spears.”

“Yeah sure, how’s captain sound?  Not too much responsibility, but you’re still in charge of people,” Vell suggested.  Cane agreed that it was a sweet gig.  “Oh yeah, by the way, did Renard make it?  I was hoping to make him my royal chef.”

“He’s alive, but he somehow slept through the whole thing and it seemed rude to wake him up.”

Vell shrugged.  He could do with some nice food, but honestly, he was just glad Renard had survived for once.  Better to leave him to his own devices.  He had plenty of other creature comforts to enjoy in the meantime.  Some of his emissaries were even bringing him a few more.  Cane and Luke wandered off to take up their new roles and made way for the newly arrived procession of soldiers.

“Hail, Almighty Tallest,” the lead soldier said.  “The sophomore clan has seen the light and pledged themselves to your cause.  As a gift to appease your eminence, they offer this.”

Th guard swept his hand to displayed the offered bounty -about fourteen young men and women, bound in chains and wearing barely any clothing.

“Fine concubines for your-”

“Whoa, hey, hold on,” Vell said.  “Get the chains off of them.  We don’t do slavery or anything like that around here.”

“Oh no it’s cool,” one of the male “concubines” said.  “We volunteered for this.”

Another of the chained “concubines” leaned forward with a broad smile on her face.

“We’re into bondage!”

“The safe word of the day is ‘tallest’,” another concubine added.  Vell stared at them for a moment and then relaxed into his throne again.

“Well alright then,” Vell said.  “That’s fine.  I guess.  Harley, uh, do your thing.”

Harley, who had been waiting several hours for this, hopped out of her seat and took the lead of the consensually chained procession.  She clapped her hands together and led them to a back room she had prepared for just such an occasion.

“Alright alright, everybody follow me and on the way you can tell me all about your preferences and favorite positions,” Harley said.  “I’ll start.  I’m Harley and I’m all about cowgirl, but I also like-”

Her voice faded away as she led them off and away from Vell’s throne.  Lee watched her go for a moment, then turned back to Vell, who was slightly preoccupied addressing the soldiers.

“But seriously, no chains and no slavery,” Vell said.  “Unless there’s informed consent involved.  Then it’s cool, I guess.  But rule of thumb, no chains.”

The soldiers dispersed to carry out his orders, leaving Vell to relax once again.  This time there were no interruptions, and Lee could get a word in.

“You’re doing very well, you know,” Lee said.  “This is by far one of the kindest cults I’ve ever been a part of.”

“Thanks.  I’m trying my best,” Vell said.  “Though, weren’t you in charge of a cult once?  How’d that go?”

“A bit more chaotic than this, I’m afraid,” Lee said.  “I was not ‘divinely appointed’, as you are, so I had to strong-arm a bit to maintain order.”

“I’m sure if you were the Almighty Tallest you’d be doing a pretty good job of it,” Vell said.  “You’re doing half the work already.”

“I live to serve, oh Almighty Tallest,” Lee said.  Vell bumped her on the shoulder to knock the sarcasm out of her.

“Seriously, Lee.  I’m kind of lost on my next move here.  We’ve got a few hours left and I don’t know what to do.”

“I know you’re trying to rule with humility and grace, dear, but I absolutely must recommend lying on a chaise lounge while someone feeds you grapes,” Lee said.  “Hedonistic, yes, but it’s every bit as delightfully decadent as it looks.”

“Hmm.  Alright, but we’re going to need to find volunteers to feed us grapes,” Vell insisted. 

“We’ll also need to find some chaise lounges,” Lee said.  “Shockingly, there are very few to be found on college campuses.”

◆◆◆

And yet the loyal servants of the Almighty Tallest managed.  They located a matching set, even, allowing Vell and Lee to lie head to head as they relaxed.

“You were right,” Vell said between grapes.  “It feels so indulgent, and yet-”

“The indulgence is what makes it feel so good,” Lee said.  “Like having that extra cookie you know you really shouldn’t.”

“Good point,” Vell said.  He looked towards one of his volunteer attendants.  “How many grapes have we got?”

“More than enough, Almighty Tallest, I assure you,” the freshman said.

“Cool.  After we’re done you guys should try this, it’s great,” Vell said.

“Vell, darling, I truly admire your charitable spirit, but please just relax and enjoy yourself,” Lee said.  “This is supposed to be ‘you’ time.  You don’t need to think about other people.”

“I mean, once I’m done, they might as well enjoy themselves too,” Vell said.  “I’m still taking my time, I’m enjoying this.”

“Whatever you guys’re talking about, I’m sure Lee’s right,” Harley said, making her presence known.  She strutted across the room and elbowed her way onto Vell’s lounge, cuddling up underneath his arm.  “Scooch.  What’s going on?”

“Good timing, Harley, we were just discussing self-indulgence, and you are the master of it,” Lee said.

“Well don’t say that like I’m some kind of hedonist.  I just like to bang,” Harley said.  “Speaking of, I hope your relaxation plans didn’t involve the harem.  They’re a bit exhausted.  I’m up for another go around, though.”

“I’ll be fine,” Vell said.  “Maybe later.”

“Suit yourself,” Harley said.  She helped herself to a few grapes and then kicked her feet up.  “Anyway, other than the usual eating, boning, and relaxing, I don’t have too many ideas.”

Vell thought about it for a moment.  He also dismissed the volunteers feeding them grapes, so that they could talk more openly.

“Is it weird that I just sort of want to play video games?” Vell said.  Between studying and apocalypse-preventing, Vell didn’t get much time to sit around and enjoy mindless entertainment.

“It’s a little weird,” Harley said.  “Come on, you’re basically a demigod!  Make people dance and sing for your amusement, or something.”

“I’ve just never really found that kind of stuff amusing,” Vell said.  “I don’t really like telling other people what to do.”

“I can tell them to do it and you can just watch,” Harley suggested.  Vell did not take the bait.  “Ah, you’re right, the novelty would probably wear off pretty fast.”

“I don’t know about ordering them to dance, but you should try to keep your ‘subjects’ in line, Vell,” Lee suggested.  “You have done a good job keeping everyone on their best behavior.  There hasn’t been a single human sacrifice all day.”

“Is that usually a problem?”

“Oh yes, quite,” Lee said.  “It’s usually one of the first things they do.  As soon as the robes get put on, somebody gets put on the fire.”

Vell checked the time.  They’d been eating grapes in private for about twenty minutes. 

“On that note, I think we better go check on the cult,” Vell said.  Lee checked the time and hopped out of her chaise lounge.

“Oh dear, yes, we’re pushing it a bit,” she said.  “Better get a move on before one of your subjects calls a crusade.”

Vell put his crown back on and headed back to the dining hall.  He found a suspiciously high number of people sharpening their makeshift spears.

“Excuse me, Cane, what are people doing?”

“People took you disappearing with your closest advisor to mean you were planning a declaration of war,” Cane said.  “I tried telling them you weren’t that kind of dude, but they said ‘desperate times’ and all that other crazy junk.”

“People do get horny for murder around here,” Harley said, sounding far too unconcerned with that very concerning thought.

“Alright, well, none of that, no thank you,” Vell said.  He grabbed the spear out of the hands of the nearest soldier and put it on the ground.  “We will not be doing any war, here, no.”

The disappointed militia began to discard their weaponry.  While Vell oversaw the disarmament, Luke called for his attention from across the room.  Vell turned to see his roommate standing in front of a large, makeshift catapult that Luke and the other physics students had built.

“Should we disassemble this, too?”

“No, no, that can stay,” Vell said.  “I want to see some stuff get launched out of that.  But not like, at anyone, okay?”

“Oh yeah for sure,” Luke said.  He’d only gone along with building it in the hopes of seeing some watermelons get chucked across the quad. 

“Vell, dear, I do believe the people need some form of, well, outlet,” Lee said.  “They’re all rather manic.”

“Eh, maybe we should just let them be manic,” Harley said. 

Vell put a hand to his chin.  He did want to relax and enjoy himself for a while, but he also didn’t want to leave his “followers” to devolve into some sort of obscene murder cult.  He stood on the slightly angled floor of the dining hall and tried to come up with a solution.

“Vell’s got his thinking face on, this ought to be good,” Harley said.  His ‘thinking face’ had produced no results so far, until Harley’s voice reminded him of a workable idea.

◆◆◆

The chaise lounges upon which Vell had all too recently relaxed had been repurposed into a new pastime.  A very different one from their original, sedentary purpose. 

“Go go go!  They’re catching up!”

“What do you want me to do, man?” Cane shouted.  “Hit the gas?  It’s a sled!”

Kanya and Himiko thumbed their noses at Cane and his partner as the robotics department team shot past the neurology department team.  The lounge chairs had become very comfortable sleds for two teams competing to race down the sloped school grounds the fastest, just as Vell and Harley had done before the cult had formed.  The crowds of cultists, placated by the spectacle and the cutthroat competition, packed the sides of the makeshift racetrack and cheered on their chosen teams.  After seizing the advantage, Kanya and Himiko maintained it, making it to the bottom a few seconds ahead.  Cane berated his partner and then began the long slog back up to the top side of the fallen school.

“My sincere congratulations to the victors,” Vell said.  He presided over the racetrack like a roman emperor watching over the Circus Maximus.  The presence of the Almighty Tallest helped keep the cultists placated and kept them focused on the games rather than any potential murder.  Vell would wager that the races (with the occasional catapult interlude) could keep everyone calm and non-murderous for the rest of the day.

“Should there be prizes?” Vell whispered to Lee.  “I feel like there should be prizes.  Pride is only going to keep people invested so long.”

“Just tell them the prizes will be delivered tomorrow, dear,” Lee suggested.  Vell nodded in approval.  There wouldn’t be a tomorrow for this timeline, so that would work out just fine.  Vell watched the next race play out between the robotics department and the arts department, as Kanya and Himiko claimed another victory over Adele and her partner.  While the racetrack reset, a tangle of frizzled red hair worked its way to Vell’s side.

“Vell,” Freddy said.  “Hey, Vell!  Apparently you’re in charge now.”

“Oh hey Freddy, nice to see you’re, uh, not concussed,” Vell said.  “Yeah, it’s a long story.  What’s up?”

“If you want to borrow a concubine, they’re sitting two rows down,” Harley said.

Freddy did look, but only for a second.  He snapped his attention back to Vell.

“No, well, the thing is, my roommate tried to get the dehydration gun fixed, and, uh…”

“It’s even more broken, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well the good news is it’s not like there can be any less ocean,” Harley said, waving at the dry seabed around them.

“He actually kind of broke it badly enough that it works in reverse now.”

“Ah.”

Across the quad, the malfunctioning machine blinked on, and the water blinked back in.  Thankfully the abyssal pressure of the ocean depths crushed everyone before they had time to drown.

◆◆◆

HARL33:
good job being a god king vell

Lee:
Indeed!
We must make a cult leader out of you more often.

vharlan03:
not today though
im gonna get a head start on stopping that dehydration gun

Lee:
Please do.
I rather like the ocean, I would hate to see it gone for good.

Vell promised to do his best, and his two partners in crime were satisfied with that.  Vell rarely failed to follow through on a promise.  Unless, of course, he died in some gruesome fashion before being able to fulfill it, as the two started to fear might be the case the longer he went without updating them.  Lee and Harley met up at lunchtime and decided the best course of action would be to check in on Freddy’s dorm and ensure that Vell had not somehow dehydrated himself while fixing the malfunctioning ray gun.

“Heyo Freddo, you home?” Harley shouted.  The door, as always, opened quickly at Harley’s call.

“Yes, hello, hi, I am here,” Freddy said.

“Cool, nice to see you,” Harley said.  “Is Vell here?”

“What’s up,” Vell shouted.  Harley pushed her way past Freddy to see Vell relaxing on the couch, engrossed in a video game.

“Just making sure you didn’t turn yourself into a raisin,” Harley said.  “Did you fix the shit?”

“No, but it shouldn’t be a problem,” Vell said.  He pointed over his shoulder at the dorm room kitchen.  The dehydration machine stood, fully assembled and fully malfunctioning, in front of a row of dangling raw meat.

“I couldn’t actually figure out how to fix it so I just borrowed some raw meat from Renard,” Vell said.  “Now every time the dehydration thingy misfires we just get a piece of beef jerky.”

The machine emphasized his point by choosing that time to misfire, reducing one of the strips of raw meat to a dehydrated and lightly spiced husk of it’s former self.  Lee pointed to the machine.

“May I?”

“Please do,” Freddy said.  He and Vell had both gotten a bit sick of the jerky over the past few hours.  It made for a good stalling technique, though, until Freddy’s roommate returned and could fix it properly.  Lee helped herself to the makeshift jerky and found a seat.

“Either of you two want to play?” Freddy offered.  “We’ve got more controllers.”

“Thank you but no, I feel as though I’d just drag you two down,” Lee said.

“I just don’t like video games,” Harley said.

“Really?” Freddy said, trying and failing to hide his disappointment.

“Can’t fucking stand them,” Harley said.  “I’m social, I do social things, I got to be talking to people, engaging with them.  You do your thing, though.”

Harley found herself a seat and relaxed, chatting with Lee as the boys played their game.  The moment of relaxation wasn’t quite as good as being fanned by servants, but it was still pretty good.

Chapter 37: Alive and In Concert

“Morning guys,” Vell said.  He sat his book bag down and relaxed.  “Ready to get back to it tomorrow?”

The two-day break in classes that happened once a month was now on its second day -and as the next month of classes was their last, the loopers wouldn’t get another break until the end of the schoolyear.  It was an interesting, and conflicting, thought.

“I’m good to go, but I think Lee’s getting overwhelmed,” Harley said.  Lee still had her nose buried in a notebook, and she only looked up at the sound of her name.

“Yes?  What?”

“You’re getting overwhelmed,” Harley said.  “Case in point.”

“Ah, yes, well, Principal Goodwell is offloading a surprising amount of paperwork on the RA’s and other support staff.  He claims he’s planning something big.”

“That sounds like foreshadowing,” Harley said.

“I don’t know, it’s his first year here, maybe he’s just trying to impress people,” Lee said.

“Attention students!”

“Speak of the devil,” Lee said, as the PA system started to boom.

“I’m pleased to announce the headliner of the Year-End Concert,” Isaac Goodwell’s echoing voice declared.  Vell shot a questioning look at his partners in crime.  Well used to explaining things to him at this point, Lee got right to it.

“Just a free event they throw at the end of every year,” Lee said.

“They usually get some student band from the music department to do it,” Harley said.  “It’s a decent excuse to get drunk and hang out, at least.”

“Start lining up for tickets now, because this year’s headliner is none other than an Einstein-Odinson alumni: Roxy Roiland of Roxy and the Boosters!”

“Oh, Vell dear, isn’t she that musician you-”

Lee turned to face Vell.  He wasn’t there.

“Good lord.”

Harley got out of her seat and double-checked Vell’s chair for any sign he’d been suddenly disintegrated.  After confirming he hadn’t been turned to dust, she looked around to see if Vell was still in the dining hall.

“I didn’t know he could move that fast,” Harley said.

“Where was this energy when we were outrunning that jaguar?” Lee said, slightly offended.

“Man has his priorities, I guess.”

◆◆◆

Vell only stopped moving when he found the lineup for tickets outside the faculty office.  His legs burned and his lungs felt shredded, but he ignored the pain for the promise of free Roxy tickets.  He bent at the waist and caught his breath as he took his place in line -second place, to be exact.  Right behind the only person with equal enthusiasm for Roxy and the Boosters, and a significantly higher top speed.

“Hey Leanne,” he gasped.  “Glad you’re here, I was just about to call.”

“Thanks, but I heard,” Leanne said.  “Only time that obnoxious PA system has ever been useful.”

Any animosity or confusion that existed between them for now was entirely buried in enthusiasm for their favorite musician.

“So he said Roxy Roiland of Roxy and the Boosters, do you think they’re bringing the whole band or is it just a solo set from her?” Vell asked.

“God, I don’t know which I want more,” Leanne said.  “If she’s solo she could be doing songs from Overseas but the bass tracks on her full band stuff is too good and, and-”

Leanne clutched at her head.

“And god I can’t believe she’s actually coming to school?  How can they even afford her?”

“She graduated from here apparently, maybe it’s just her being nice.”  Vell stopped to think about the dilemma and then his heart jumped.  “Do you think some of her old professors still work here and they-”

“Nah, I asked around the first week I got here,” Leanne huffed.  “All her teachers retired a couple years ago.”

“Damn it, I was hoping they had stories,” Vell grumbled.

At that point, the ticket queue finally opened up, and all conversations came to a halt as Vell and Leanne all too eagerly snatched their tickets from the RA’s desk.  They walked out of the faculty office clutching their prizes in trembling hands, to find Lee holding tickets of her own.

“My parents are rich, if you recall,” Lee said.  “You don’t need to hurry to get things.”

Lee took one of her tickets and handed it to Harley, who tucked it indifferently into her pocket.

“Leanne, good to see you again,” Lee said, a bit stiffly.  “I understand if you didn’t want to ask-”

Leanne shrugged and tapped her head.  She had simply forgotten in all of the excitement.

“Right.  Well, no matter how you acquired them, it’s good that you have tickets.  We’ll need all hands on deck.”

“Why?”

“Because classes are still in session on the day of the concert, Vell,” Lee said.  “Apocalypses tend to occur at the scene of large events, and this concert will be a very large event.”

Vell looked down at his ticket and then back up at Lee.

“Oh no.”

Vell thought that, but he hadn’t said it.  Leanne had.

“Hey, you talked,” Harley said.  Leanne had indeed talked, though after grabbing the three other loopers to pull them into a huddle, she reverted to communicating through gestures.  She pointed to the banner advertising the concert, then to all four loopers in turn, then to her own eyes, making the universal gesture for “keep an eye on it”.

“Right, got it,” Harley said.  Leanne then followed up by holding up four fingers, then pointing to Lee, making a chopping motion, and pointing to herself again.

“Finally pulling rank, are you?  Very well, you are the senior member.  We’ll defer to your experience.”

“Can we defer to you via text?  I feel like this is going to get very elaborate.”

Leanne nodded.  Frankly, she wasn’t sure how to explain a few of her ideas through hands gestures either.  Her last gesture of the day was a sign to break apart their huddle and go about their day -for now.

◆◆◆

Galgamesh:
Alright, role call
I got something for each of you
But even if I don’t specifically order you to do something
If you think you have a way to keep this apocalypse in line
You do it
Got it?

HARL33:
yes maam

Galgamesh:
Good.
Now Harley, you’re on security
I want drones and cameras and scanners and whatever else you got
Make sure we have an eye on everything

HARL33:
i will do as much as i can that is not illegal
and maybe a little of the illegal stuff too
no snitching though

Galgamesh:
Of course not.
Lee, you’re on review and prepare duty.
I want you going over that binder full of past apocalypses you keep
Get an eye on anything that might go wrong the day of the concert and make sure we’re informed and prepared

Lee:
I shall do my best.

Galgamesh:
Vell, we need an arsenal.
As many runes as you can make
In as many different kinds as you can think of
We need a rune for any situation

vharlan03:
way ahead of you
got twelve done already

Galgamesh:
Good hustle.
Now
I’m sure you can tell
But this is important to me

vharlan03:
and me

Galgamesh:
Yeah
We don’t let anything happen to Roxy
I want you to protect her like she was your own mother
Are we clear?

HARL33:
clear as crystal maam
roxy = mama
and thats serious cuz like
i love you guys for real
but i would throw all three of you in front of a bus to save my mama
i swear i will do the same for roxy

Galgamesh:
Good
Keep up that energy

HARL33:
Kinda joking but okay

Galgamesh:
I’m not.
If you have to choose between me and Roxy, save Roxy
I’d do the same for you

HARL33:
okay??????????

Leanne made sure to put her phone away before she said anything else weird.  Weirder.  She had crossed the threshold of weird long, long ago.

The poster of Roxy and the Boosters (from their 2008 tour of Europe, the limited edition version based off their album cover for 2006’s platinum-selling Forget About It specifically) stared down at Leanne from its enshrined place on her wall.  She took a long look at the poster and regained her conviction.  Weird or not, Roxy deserved the effort.

◆◆◆

The concert stage towered over them the night of the event.  The crowd was only just starting to gather, and at Leanne’s insistence, the looper’s joined them to do a quick security sweep.  Leanne pointed at Lee first.

“I’ve warded the quad against zombification, set sensors along the beaches so we’ll know of any aquatic threats, and arranged with Principal Goodwell to shut down any extraneous school systems so as to avoid malfunctions.”

Leanne nodded and pointed to Harley next.

“I’ve got drones patrolling the perimeter and I got all the essential functions of the concert hooked up to this here monitor,” Harley said, showing off a handheld tablet.  “We’ll know if anything goes out of line.”

Finally, Leanne pointed to Vell.

“I got like, five hundred runes,” Vell said.  He had sore wrists from doing so much time carving, but he also had one of almost every known variety of rune.  He opened up his sizable bookbag to display that it was entirely empty of books and entirely full of tiny stone tablets.

“You probably should organize those better,” Harley suggested.  “What if you need a rune that’s at the bottom of the bag?”

Vell pulled out his phone.  He had assembled some sort of kitbashed assembly around it that was part circuitry, part summoning rune, and had it plugged into the charging port.

“I can summon whatever rune I need with voice commands,” Vell said.  He pressed a button on the screen and a complex network of software and summoning runes sprang to life.  He demonstrated the devices functionality by saying “fireball” and summoning the rune in question to a slot on the back of the phone.

“What the fuck?” Harley said.  She’d never even heard of such a device. “How long have we had that?”

“Since about two days ago,” Vell said.  “I made it.”

“No, I mean, how long has that sort of tech been around?”

“Since about two days ago,” Vell said.  “I made it.”

Harley blinked twice and held up her own phone.

“Yeah hold that still for a second,” Harley said as she snapped a picture of Vell’s invention.  “Maybe send this to a patent office later today...”

Deciding to gloss past the fact that Vell had invented entirely new technology on a whim, Leanne pointed at the stage and clapped her hands together.

“I did as much of a security check on the stage as I could,” Lee said.  “But it’s only been up for a few hours, and access to the stage is rather restrictive.  Trying to give the star of the show some privacy.”

“Is she even here yet?”

“Yeah, she got here a few hours ago,” Vell said.

“Did you see her?”

“God, I wish,” Vell said.  “I could just sort of feel it.”

Leanne clapped her hands together, pointed at her heart, and then at her head, while she stared at Vell.

“No, no, you’re not crazy, I felt it too,” Vell said.  “Like the air got a little bit more electric.”

The two begun to gush about the perceived changes in the atmosphere while the other half of the quartet took a small step further away.

“Should we be worried about them?” Harley whispered.

“Probably,” Lee said.  She decided to wait to intervene until after the concert, to see if they went back to normal.  Lee knew better than most how strange a person could act under the right circumstances. 

Harley’s tablet beeped, and she took a quick look at the screen.  Vell and Leanne immediately halted their conversation to look over her shoulder.  Harley shrugged enough to bump them each in the chin and took a step away.

“It’s fine, you guys,” Harley said.  She gestured to the stage.  “Some tech guy just plugged in a new amp.”

On stage, a man in a black shirt had just plugged in a large cable while two more wheeled in a large, archaic looking amplifier.  Harley looked down at her readouts.  That wasn’t part of the concert setup.  She decided to keep that info to herself lest it make Leanne’s head explode.  She and Vell already had weird looks on their faces.  Especially weird ones, in fact.

“What’s up with you two?  Somebody fart?”

“No,” Vell said.  “I can feel something.  It’s…”

His sentence and his thoughts came to an end when a sturdy black boot stomped on to the stage.

“What’s up E-O-C?”

A boisterous cheer rang out as Roxy Roiland stepped on stage.  While Vell and Leanne lost their minds, Harley took note of Roxy’s red jacket, plentiful ear piercings, and undercut hairstyle.  It had a lot in common with Joan’s style, which almost concerned Harley before she came to the realization that Vell just had a thing for punk chicks.  She could hardly fault him.  Harley didn’t usually go for older women, but Roxy was good looking by anyone’s standards.

Roxy enjoyed the adulation of the crowd for a second before waving them down.  Once they were settled, she raised the mic to her lips.

“Don’t get too hyped, the real show doesn’t start for an hour or so,” Roxy said.  “But I got a hell of a soundcheck for you.”

Roxy walked across stage and slapped the side of the massive, out-of-place amp.

“Picked up this bad boy at a crazy spooky place back in London,” Roxy said.  “It’s probably wicked cursed, but I’ve been dying to try it out.”

The excitement running through Leanne and Vell began to turn to fear.  They started to try and push their way through the crowd, to get as close as possible to the stage, but they were slowed by the simple fact of everyone else trying to do the exact same thing.  Even Leanne’s prodigious strength could only do so much to cut through the makeshift mosh pit.

Roxy turned up the dials which, naturally, went all the way up to eleven, and had a roadie hand her a guitar.  She leaned on the amp and gave it another smack for good measure.

“Let’s give this baby a -oh.”

A single metal band around the middle of the amp came loose.  A small flare of electricity jumped from the amp to Roxy’s fingertip, and her hair stood on end instantly.  Leanne clenched her jaw so hard she nearly cracked a tooth.

The amp began to fall apart entirely, revealing the elaborate cage of rune-carved metal below it, which fell apart in turn.  As both outer layers of the prison fell to pieces, the prisoner was revealed:  A skeleton of charred, blackened bone, mostly human in appearance but for the long, segmented tail extending from the hips, and the curved horns jutting from the forehead.  The demonic skeleton began to crackle with blue lightning, reanimating it with a semblance of cursed life.

“Oop, look at that,” Roxy said.  “Wasn’t haunted, but it was possessed!  You should all probably-”

Roxy never got to finish her sentence.  The electric demon unfurled massive wings of lightning, sending out a shockwave that engulfed her, the first few rows of the audience, and eventually the entire island.  The last thing anyone heard was Leanne screaming at the top of her lungs.

◆◆◆

Vell and Leanne dove for cover behind the event fencing.  Lee and Harley walked casually behind and stood in place.  They weren’t trespassing (yet) and the obsessive duo’s attempts at stealth were only making them more conspicuous.

“Alright, we have to break in, disassemble that amp, exorcise the demon inside, then get out, all without anybody noticing,” Vell said.  “Easy.  Lee, Harley, you two create a distraction-”

“Shouldn’t you guys be the distraction?  I’m the tech expert and Lee’s the magic expert,” Harley said. She and Lee knelt down to the level of the two skulkers for easier conversation. “If we’re disassembling and then exorcising, we should take point.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But you and Leanne are hoping you’ll run into Roxy backstage,” Harley said.  Vell looked at Leanne, and then both nodded in unison.  At least they were honest about it, Harley mumbled to herself.

“You two are getting a little weirdly involved in this,” Harley said.  “Maybe you really should sit it out.”

“They’ll be alright,” Lee said.  “Let’s just go in, and if anyone asks we can, I don’t know, say my father is willing to pay for a private meeting with Ms. Roiland, or something.”

“Wait, could we just actually do that?”

“No, actually, Ms. Roiland has something of a blood feud with my parents,” Lee said.  “My mother used to be a pop singer, you see, and during some awards show she apparently annoyed Ms. Roiland so much she threatened to, quote, ‘cave her tits in with a guitar if she does that nasally fucking laugh at me again’.”

“Hey, I’m starting to see why you guys like this chick so much,” Harley said.

“The excuse won’t last long, but it will at least stop us from getting arrested for the trespassing we’re about to do,” Lee said.  She stood up and found herself face to face with the word “security” printed on somebody’s vest.

“About that trespassing,” the security guard said.

“Right.  Well then,” Lee said.  “We’ll be leaving, I suppose.”

The guard nodded, but Vell had other ideas.

“No, we’re not going anywhere, it’s really important that we get in there,” Vell said.  “It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Then die,” the security guard said.  Harley tried to stifle a chuckle.

“Not my death,” Vell said.  He scrambled to come up with a workable story and settled for reaching into his pocket.  He held up the rune-finding gimmick he’d attached to his phone.

“This is my, uh, demon detector, that we invented, uh, recently, in the demon-detecting department,” Vell said.  “And it says with one-hundred percent certainty that there is a demon somewhere in the vicinity of this concert venue!”

“Man that’s some shit you glued to a phone,” the security guard said.

“Hey, I put a lot of work into this, actually,” Vell said, his offense very genuine now.  His new invention looked rough, but it worked just fine.  “All new tech looks a bit rough at first.”

“Yeah, well go look rough somewhere else.”

The door to a trailer just beyond the fencing slammed open.

“You better listen to Huel, I saw that dude wrestle a manticore once,” Roxy shouted.  She stepped out of her trailer, gestured to herself, and then waved the four of them away.  “There you go.  You have seen me, I have spoken to you, now please get out of here before my man here has to throw you around.  You seem nice, Huel would hate to bruise you.”

“I would enjoy it, actually,” Huel said.

Lee waited to give Leanne and Vell the chance to speak first.  They did not seize it.  She checked up on them and saw that they were both entirely frozen in awe.

“What’s with you guys anyway?” Roxy asked.

“They say they’ve got to save you from a demon,” Huel scoffed.

“Hey, it’s more likely than you think,” Roxy said.  “Weird shit just sort of happens here.  Back in my day-”

Roxy froze mid-sentence.  A look of dawning comprehension washed over her face, and she turned, wide-eyed, to Vell.  Their eyes met, and the electric revelation Roxy had experienced transferred over to Vell.

“You!”

Roxy pointed at Vell, and Vell pointed right back at Roxy.

“You?”

“Oh my god,” Roxy said.  She clapped her hands together excitedly.  “Huel, these kids are with me, we’ll be in my trailer!”

Roxy pranced up to the security fencing, moved it aside, and shepherded the dumbfounded loopers into her trailer.  She slammed the door, behind them, closed the blinds, and then turned with giddy excitement towards the students.

“I can’t believe it!” She squealed.  “I thought for sure somebody would’ve figured this shit out by now!”

“I can’t- I mean, we try sometimes but- It’s been really-” Vell started and stopped.  The part of his brain that was overwhelmed by being in Roxy’s presence had finally been overtaken by the part of his brain that knew the reason he was in Roxy’s presence.  “You’re a looper!”

“Yeah!  I thought we made that obvious with the whole unspoken moment of mutual realization thing we just did,” Roxy said.  She then clapped her hands together again, and extended one of them towards Vell.  “Sorry, getting ahead of myself here.  I’m Roxy, I’m guessing you knew that, and you are?”

“Vell.  Vell Harlan.”

Roxy shook his hand, leaving Vell a bit dumbstruck.

“I’m Harley, and this is Lee.”

“Harley, nice to meet you, Lee, have we met before?  You look familiar.”

“When I was thirteen you threatened to shove a guitar so far up my mother’s behind she’d be able to tune it with her tongue,” Lee said.  Roxy gave a stiff, awkward nod.

“Right, Granger’s kid,” she said.  “Uh...sorry.”

“Oh, no apologies necessary, I also have an unhealthy urge to physically harm my mother,” Lee said with a cheery smile.

“Oh, great, we’ll be thick as thieves,” Roxy said.  “What about this one, then?  She a bit starstruck?”

“Well, sort of,” Harley said.  “Leanne doesn’t talk much to begin with.”

Leanne suddenly snapped to attention, nodded rapidly, gave a thumbs up, and then held one finger to her mouth in the “shush” gesture.

“Fair play, kid, I’ll do enough bantering for the both of us,” Roxy said.  She gave Leanne a friendly pat on the shoulder.  Luckily for both of them, Roxy turned away before Leanne started shivering with excitement.    “Okay, I have a crazy amount of questions I want to ask, and a lot of shenanigans I want to tell you guys about, but first things first, if my highly-developed veteran looper intuition is correct, this is the second loop.”

“Good guess!”

“Nobody likes a kiss-ass, Vell,” Roxy said.  Vell looked briefly wounded before Roxy cracked a smile in his direction.  “Kidding.  You can kiss my ass as much as you want, it’s an open invitation.”

“Will do,” Vell said.  Roxy took a second to consider whether that was a joke or not.

“Okay, let’s go, looper business,” Roxy said.  She clapped her hands together softly as she spoke, adding an almost musical rhythm to the simple sentence.  “Huel mentioned a demon?  You guys know what you’re doing when it comes to demons, right?”

“We’ve been to hell, lady, we know what we’re doing,” Harley said.

“Okay sweet, because explaining shit to the newbies was always my least favorite part of the gig.”

“Really?  I love it,” Harley said.  She grabbed Vell by the arm and clung to him.  “Half of me and this guy’s relationship is me explaining shit to him.”

“We think I’m cursed to never be able to read an instruction manual,” Vell said.

“Neat!  I don’t have time to unpack that so let’s just focus on the demon,” Roxy said.  “Where, when, how, and How Two: The Sequel, how do we kill it?”

“Where: It’s in that spooky amp you picked up, When: during the sound check, and How: you slap the thingy and the demon cage inside it falls apart,” Harley explained.  “As for How Two: Electric Boogaloo, presumably the same way you kill anything else.”

“Sweet.  You guys still have that locker full of weapons?”

“Very much so,” Lee said.  “Would you like to retrieve your old weapon?”

“But you’ll need a disguise,” Vell said.  “Can’t have a celebrity running around campus, obviously.”

Vell drew his phone with a flourish, said the word “disguise”, and a rune appeared in the slot on the back of the phone.  He handed it over to Roxy.

“Just pin this to your jacket and activate it.  It’ll disguise you as someone else.”

“Ooh, neato,” Roxy said.  “Who am I going to look like?  An old flame, maybe?  Or a new flame?”

“Uh...You’ll, uh, you’ll look like, my, uh, my mom, actually,” Vell said.

“Oh,” Roxy said.

“You used your mom as the template for your disguise rune?” Harley chuckled.

“Well who else was I going to ask?” Vell said.  “’Oh hey, Professor Nguyen, can I borrow your full-body likeness?’  It’s weird.”

“Is that old hardass still here?” Roxy said.  She flipped on Vell’s rune and turned into an exact replica of his mother, hijab and all.  She poked her fingers through the illusionary shell, marveling at the runic technology in action.  “Another looper studied this stuff, talked about how hard Nguyen was on him.  I’ll have to let him know the old bat’s still kicking.”

Roxy resisted the temptation to probe into her illusionary disguise too much, seeing as she looked like Vell’s mom now and that could get weird fast, and got back to business.  Lee took the lead as they headed back to the other side of the security fence.

“Weren’t there three of you before?”  Huel said, as they passed by.

“I’m going incognito, Huey, don’t wait up on me,” Roxy said.

“Just don’t start any more fires.”

“I promise nothing.”

Roxy waved her hand playfully and then did her best to adopt a maternal persona.  She tried as hard as she could to look slightly fussy and overly concerned with Vell’s well-being.  Nobody suspected a thing, which Roxy credited to her acting skills and which everyone else credited to the fact that no one was really paying attention to them.  Until they bumped into Cane.

“Hey guys.  Who’s the lady?”

“Hey, uh, Cane, this is- my mom!” Vell said.  He nearly said Roxy before remembering how she looked right now.

“Oh.  Hey, Mrs. Harlan, nice to meet you.  What brings you here?”

“I just came in to check on my dear widdle Velly,” Roxy said.  She tried as best she could to suppress her British accent in favor of Vell’s bland American one, and only did a half-decent job of it.  She made up the difference by grabbing Vell and holding him tight.  “I get so worried about my baby.”

The bright side of Roxy’s poor acting was that Vell didn’t have to pretend to feel uncomfortable.  Cane returned his nervous smile.  He finished up a polite introduction and quickly made his exit.

“Widdle Velly?” Harley questioned.

“I’m not good at improvising,” Roxy said.

“Well you and Widdle Velly have that in common,” Harley said.

“Please don’t make that a thing,” Vell pleaded.

“Too late.”

◆◆◆

“Here we are,” Lee said.  She unlocked the storage room door and opened it up.  Roxy dashed in, still disguised as Vell’s mother, and giggled with anticipation.  “Is there something in particular you’re looking for, Ms. Roiland?”

“Call me Roxy,” she insisted.  “And yes, but I think I got it…”

She scanned the room, perusing the arsenal of exotic and mythological weaponry.  She tossed aside an entire rack of legendary swords and then jumped for joy as she reached for what had been hidden beneath.  With a hearty grunt of exertion, Roxy hefted an ancient greek battle-axe and cradled it in her arms.

“Oh Labrys baby, I missed you,” Roxy said, speaking to the ancient axe the way one might speak to a beloved pet.  She pressed her face against the flat of the blade and held it close for a moment.  “What do you say to one more ride?”

Roxy hefted Labrys over her shoulder and turned back to her new comrades-in arms.

“Okay, I’ve had my moment with the old girl,” Roxy said.  “Now to put her to use.  Let’s go grab that amp and take it somewhere private.”

“I agree,” Lee said.  “There should be some empty classrooms, or perhaps we can utilize one of the senior labs…”

While Lee mulled over potential battlegrounds, Roxy stared at her blankly.

“Why not use the lair?”

“What lair?”

Roxy stuck the head of Labrys in the ground and leaned on it like a cane.

“Have they already lost track of the lair?  Man, it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“Twenty years or so,” Harley said.  Roxy cringed.

“Don’t make me think about how old I am,” she said.  “Let me show you something cool.”

Roxy shouldered her axe again and took the lead, heading out of the storage building and across the quad again, towards the island’s edge.  She found a large tree, put her back to it, and then took ten steps towards the center of the island.  Then she stomped her foot once.

“Is there a secret door somewhere?”

“No, it’s an ordinary door, I’m just fucking lost,” Roxy said.  She pointed a finger and waved it at three nearby buildings.  “Which of these has the seismology lab in it?”

“That one,” Lee said.  Roxy headed into the building and descended into the basement.  She counted out the third door on the left and stepped up to test that it was locked.  Making sure that nobody was watching, she disabled the illusion rune that kept her disguised, and then punched in the key code.

“Hey, still works,” she said.  “I was worried I’d have to axe the door down.”

She swung the door open and led the loopers inside.  Though the air was stale and the room was covered in a thin lair of dust, the expansive underground chamber still impressed.  Harley gawked at a massive computer and several sets of tools that occupied the far wall.

“We had a Batcave the whole time and nobody told me?” Harley screamed, her offense obvious.

“Somebody must’ve lost track of it at some point,” Roxy said.  “Doesn’t look like it’s been out of use too long, though.”

She dragged a finger along the surface of a large table in the center of the room, disturbing the thin layer of dust.  She stared at the now empty table and fondly recalled hundreds of early morning meetings spent with good friends talking about strange things.

“Oh jesus,” Harley said, interrupting the fond reverie.  “Everybody stop touching things!”

“Why?”

“Do you guys remember how Naomi and Dominic used to disappear together?”

Lee looked around at the numerous flat surfaces in the lair and then rolled her eyes.

“Oh good lord.”

“Yeah, we need to assume that everything in this room has been fucked on,” Harley said.  Roxy wiped her dusty finger off on her jacket.  Lee looked around at the various tools, computers, and storage lockers, and wondered how useful all of them might have been in past apocalypses.  So many resources lost to Naomi and Dominic’s apathy and selfishness -and horniness.

While the loopers tried not to touch anything, Vell made use of his new gizmo once again and summoned an arsenal of disinfectants.

“In case today’s apocalypse was a plague,” Vell said to Harley, preempting her question of why he had sanitary wipes ready to go. 

“The man came prepared, I like it,” Roxy said.  “Speaking of preparing, we should probably get this place set up for a demon fight.  Vell, you keep cleaning, and you two ladies can go grab the amp while me and Ms. Mute Muscles over here rearrange all this old furniture.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harley said.  “Have fun you three.  Try not to swamp the rock star with questions.”

The two left the room and, despite Harley’s expectations, it stayed quiet in the dusty lair.  Vell preoccupied himself cleaning every surface he could find and Leanne stayed tucked away in a corner, staring at everything except Roxy.  The rockstar fiddled with Labrys for a second before the silence started to get on her nerves.

“You know, I actually was expecting you two to geek out once the gals were gone,” Roxy said.  “Questions are allowed.  Shockingly, I actually enjoy being lavished with praise and affection by my audience.”

“I mean, yeah, uh, there’s just, not, you know, too much to say,” Vell said.  “I don’t want to be a bother, and, uh, I like your music a lot.  You’re a great musician, probably one of the best.”

“Eh, I’d be lucky to scrape the top one-hundred, being honest,” Roxy said.  “Come on though.  You’re too nervous to just be a casual fan.”

“Well, I mean, I’ve had some good times listening to your music,” Vell said.  “Fond memories.”

Roxy leaned on Labrys and gave Vell a coy smile.  For some reason, the look on her face reminded him of Harley, and that made him sweat.

“You popped your cherry to one of my songs, didn’t you?”

Vell stopped mid-scrub and sighed so deeply some of the nearby dust blew away.

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” Roxy said.  “Was it with that Harley chick?  You two are banging, right?”

“No!  I mean, yes, uh, well, no to the first question, yes to the second, but how did you know that?”

Roxy sat cross-legged on the table and held her hands in a meditative position.

“I am a master of psychosexual analysis,” Roxy said.  “I took a minor in psychology as it relates to human sexuality when I was still doing my time here at the EOC.  I’m pretty good at this stuff.  Stand still, palms up, and watch this.”

Vell did as he was told as Roxy walked over to him.  She appraised him far too critically, carefully eyeballing every bit of his posture and poise.

“So, not Harley...it was a couple years back, though...high school, maybe?  That relationship didn’t end clean, but it’s in the past.”

“All right so far,” Vell said, both impressed and distressed.

“You have a casual thing with Harley now,” Roxy said.  She put her hand on her hips and started swaying side to side.  Vell wore his heart on his sleeve, and was an unusually easy read, but there was still something knotted up in him that took her a while to untangle.

“But there’s another girl,” Roxy concluded.  “Or was.  It’s over now, and it ended badly, but you’re still confused...conflicted.

“I would appreciate it if you stopped now,” Vell said.

“Fair play,” Roxy said.  “What about you, Muscles, you want your sexual palm read?”

Leanne shook her head so fast her ponytail almost came loose.  Roxy shrugged and returned to her seat.    Leanne was an even easier read than Vell anyway -and a much shorter one.  “Fear of physical intimacy” was a pretty short phrase.

“So that’s my gimmick,” Roxy said.  “Aside from the musical magic, obviously.  Vell’s pretty clearly a rune whiz, so what’s your superpower, Leanne?”

After a second of quiet contemplation, Leanne flexed and pointed to her bulging bicep.

“Ah.  So you’re just the strong, silent type all the way down, then.  I can dig it,” Roxy said.  “Would you rather I quit bugging you?  You seem to be intent on staying quiet.”

Leanne shook her head fervently again and then flew through a series of hand gestures too fast for even Vell to possibly track.  She took a deep breath and then repeated every movement of her hands at a slightly more human pace.

“She says it’s nothing personal, and she’s a huge fan, she just tries to keep herself distanced from all this loop stuff,” Vell translated.

“Why?  It’s fun.”

Vell and Leanne shared a quick glance.

“Do you mind if I…?”  Vell asked.  Leanne gave a hesitant nod.  She didn’t know how to express herself in simple gestures, and had to hope Vell might be better at it.  “Leanne’s had...a slightly more complex history in the loop.  She’s got some good reasons to not be so enthusiastic about it.”

“Huh.  Well, everything goes a bit differently, but-”

Roxy was cut off mid-sentence by a loud pounding at the door.  Harley’s muffled voice roared from the far side.

“Yo Roxy!  You never told us the code for this door!”

“My bad,” Roxy shouted back.  “It’s 287359!”

Harley slammed in the code and the slammed through the door, wheeling the amplifier/demon prison along with her.  Lee followed a few steps behind, perusing a book on demonology as she walked.  She narrowly avoided tripping over a chair as she made her way to the center of the room and set the book aside.

“I believe I’m prepared as I’m going to get,” Lee said.  “Managing electricity isn’t my strong suit, but I think I can prevent anyone from getting electrocuted with some simple warding spells.”

“Nice.  I got an axe and a strong desire to kick ass, so I’m good to go,” Roxy said.  She turned to Vell.  “You good?”

Vell summoned his cursed pistols and nodded.  Roxy nodded approvingly at the guns and turned to Leanne with a questioning look.  She held up two fists in response.

“Well, your knuckles are going to get a bit scorched, but you look like you can handle it,” Roxy said.  “If everyone’s ready, mind if I crack open this can of whoop ass?”

No one objected, and Lee gestured to the cursed amp, inviting Roxy to take the first blow.  She hefted the ancient weapon that had once split the skull of Zeus and brought it down hard on the metal amplifier.  A few sparks of fire kicked up as metal scraped against metal, followed by a few sparks of electricity as the cage hidden within shattered.  What was left of the electrical prison was torn to shreds as the lightning demon clawed it apart from within.  The blackened skeleton of the beast slowly took form and sparked with lightning as it emerged.

It then stopped emerging as the skull appeared and Leanne immediately punched a hole in it.  She shook the crackling skull off her forearm and stepped back. 

“Ow!  What is wrong with you?” the demon cried out in a shrill, wavering voice.  The hole in his upper skull didn’t seem to stop the demon from talking.  “A guy spends half a century in a piece of stage gear and you just punch a hole in his head first thing as he wakes up?  Can’t even let me get in a good stretch first?”

“Oh we’re sorry, were you not going to kill us all with lightning?”  Roxy said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I mean yeah, but you could at least be sporting about it,” the demon complained.

“Muscles, punch another hole in him,” Roxy ordered.  Leanne obliged.

The next punch cracked a rib, while Roxy swung Labrys and nearly severed a wing.  The demon tried to crack down with an electrically charged punch, but Vell interrupted the blow with a well-aimed shot to the wrist.  Frustrated by the interruption, the demon tried to let loose a pulse of electricity, and was shut down by Lee’s protective wards.  All the while, his broad, horned skull was being peppered with tiny laser blasts from Botley’s drone body.

With a roar of frustration, the demon brought down two fists in a heavy slam, putting too much inertia behind the blow for a simple shot to the wrist to stop.  Roxy held Labrys flat and used it as a shield, blocking the strike while Leanne went low.

“Left leg, Muscles,” Roxy ordered.  Leanne went left and Roxy went right, spinning out of the path of the blow, and spinning Labrys into the demon’s right knee.  Leanne struck the left knee with a heavy kick and sent the skeletal frame of the demon plummeting forward into the ground.  The two then made themselves scarce as Harley and Vell rained down bullet hell on the beast from hell.  Cracks and splinters of bone started to show, but the demon wasn’t down yet.  Roxy aimed to make that a very short ‘yet’.

“Take him by the horns and give me a layup, Leanne,” Roxy ordered. 

Leanne once again obeyed, taking the demon by the horns.  With a mighty pull, Leanne tore the skull free from the spine and hurled it at Roxy.  Although astonished by the speed and force of Leanne’s throw, Roxy still managed to bring Labrys down hard on the skull.  The inertia of Leanne’s toss and Roxy’s axe blow met in the middle, turning the electrified skull into splinters.  Roxy coughed and waved away the cloud of bone dust.  What was left of the skeletal demon did not move.

“Think that did it?”  Harley asked.

“No, I’m alive, I’m just reassessing my options here,” the demon said.  The skeleton, apparent unfazed by its lack of skull, sat up and continued talking.  “You mind if we call a truce?  I promise you that having my skull reduced to a fine powder has made me reconsider my life choices.”

“Yeah, skeletal vaporization will do that,” Roxy said, speaking from experience.  She put Labrys in the ground in front of the skeletal demon.  “So.  You going to play nice?”

“Well, not exactly, I’m a demon,” the demon said.  He scratched the empty space where a head should’ve been.  “I kind of have to do evil stuff.”

“Why?”

The demon shrugged.

“I didn’t write the rules of being a demon, I just have to follow them,” it said.

Lee reached into her purse and pulled out a business card, handing it to the demon, who held it up to to the empty space where his head used to be.

“Sorry, can’t read a damn thing without my glasses,” the demon said.  “What’s this?”

“The address to one of my parent’s businesses.  They would be quite happy to have an electrical demon like yourself keeping the place powered.”

“I don’t know, that sounds almost helpful,” the demon said.

“Yes, but you’d be ‘helping’ the Burrows family, so-”

“Oh shit, those guys?  Say no more, working with those guys is a dream gig.  Top tier employment for a demon, I tell you, can’t find anything more evil than them.”

“What about Kraid?’

“Oh we don’t fuck with that guy, he’s too evil even for us,” the demon said.  Vell nodded.  That sounded right.  The demon stood, waved in Lee’s direction, and then headed for the door.  Harley was the only one who waved goodbye back.  Roxy was more preoccupied giving Leanne a hearty slap on the back.

“Nice work, kid,” she said.  “Wish I’d had someone as ripped as you on the squad back in the day.  Would’ve saved us a lot of trouble in some of the big fights.”

Leanne blushed and gave two thumbs up.  She then retreated sheepishly, still red in the face.  On instinct, Vell grabbed Harley and Lee by the shoulder.

“We should probably, uh, go check and make sure that demon doesn’t do anything evil on the way out,” Vell said.  “We’ll see you later, super cool fighting a demon with you, bye!”

Vell dragged the two women out of the room and slammed the door behind him.  Roxy watched them go and then turned back to Leanne.

“Well, that was a highly transparent attempt to get the two of us alone together,” Roxy said.  “You going to take advantage of it?”

Leanne held up one finger, asking for a moment, and took one long, deep breath.  She had a hell of a lot to say.  One very deep breath later, Leanne was ready to speak.  And so she did.

“I’ve been a fan of your music since I was six years old, I’ve bought every album you’ve ever made on release day even the rereleases, I forced my mom to drive to ten different stores to find your limited edition makeup palette ten years ago, I dressed as you for my elementary school’s ‘Role Model Day’, I had an entire wall covered in your posters in high school, I named my first cat after your first album, I ran your fan website for three years, and the day I turned eighteen I snuck out of my mom’s house to get your song lyrics tattooed on my ribs.”

Leanne punctuated the breathless sentence by lifting her shirt a bit and revealing the three lines of song lyrics written on the lower half of her ribs.  Roxy examined them and nodded approvingly.  Leanne caught her breath, froze, and then shoved her shirt back down to its proper place.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, that was weird.”

“Honestly, that’s not even in the top fifty percent of the craziest things I’ve ever heard,” Roxy said.  “I had a dude who said he crocheted a life sized doll of me.  And, you know, lived through four years of looping.  Saw a guy get turned into a giant talking pancake once. You got to try a lot harder to weird me out.”

“Sorry.  I’m- I just, your music is really important to me, you know?  And it’s just, really super weird that you’re here, and you’re a looper, and everything is just so insane.”

“It is pretty insane,” Roxy said.  She set Labrys aside and took a seat, gesturing to Leanne to the next chair over.  “Sounds like you got a few stories to tell.”

“I don’t want to take up your time,” Leanne said.

“I’m asking here, muscles,” Roxy said.  “Pop a squat and tell me your life story.  Let’s start with my favorite topic: me, and why I’m so important.”

The egocentric humor worked, and Leanne cracked a faint smile.  In spite of her sheepishness, Leanne very much wanted to have a long chat with her role model, and she wasn’t humble enough to say no twice.  Leanne took a seat, took a deep breath, and got started.

“Well, it’s just, my parents met at the Olympics, and they, well, uh, made me there, and then they had to go their separate ways,” Leanne began.  Looking at Leanne’s muscular figure, Roxy wasn’t surprised to learn she was the child of two super-athletes.  “My mom raised me in Finland, and my dad was in Australia, so I never really saw him.  He tried to call whenever he could, and travel for the important birthdays and stuff, but he was never super involved.”

Leanne started to look at the ground.

“Growing up, I always kind of resented the fact that my family wasn’t ‘complete’.  I took turns being angry at my mom, or my dad, or both of them at once, and I just...resented everything,” Leanne said.  “And then one birthday, my dad came by for the celebration, and we went out to eat, and one of your songs started playing on the radio…”

“Ah, I was wondering when this story would start to be about me,” Roxy said.  Her faux ego helped defuse a lot of the tension Leanne felt.

“I started humming along, and my mom noticed, and started singing along, and my dad started drumming on the table,” Leanne said with a smile.  “And I got so embarrassed I ducked under the table, but my mom kept singing and my dad kept drumming and…”

Leanne took a deep breath and the wistful smile spread further across her face.

“And I felt like my family was complete,” Leanne said.  “Even if it was different, it was mine, and it was all okay.  And every time I hear your songs I still remember what that felt like.”

Roxy gave a stiff nod and leaned back in her seat.  She raised her hands above her head and tried to keep herself from getting all teary-eyed.  She didn’t like to look soft in front of the fans.  Messed with her punk aesthetic.

“So.  Heck of a story.  Most of my fans just say they really like my voice,” Roxy said.  “But it’s only half what I’m wondering about.  What’s this silent treatment thing about?’

“Well.  I...You should know, you’ve been through this,” Leanne said.  “The loop drives people crazy.  Like, dying over and over, having days where you can do whatever you want?  That fucks with people’s heads, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but in a cool way,” Roxy said.  “In my experience, at least.  Sounds like you’ve got some baggage.”

Starting off with a heavy sigh, Leanne explained the sordid history between herself, Naomi, and Dominic, punctuating it all with the recent story of how Naomi had gotten Leanne dumped.  Roxy restrained the urge to cringe throughout.

“Christ fuck.  You want to borrow Labrys and kill her?”

“If I wanted to kill her, I wouldn’t need a weapon to do it,” Leanne said.  Roxy chuckled.  Leanne didn’t. 

“Well shit, that’s true enough,” Roxy said.  “Sorry you got such a raw deal.  And sorry the loop fucked with your friend so much.  But you know, it doesn’t end up like that every time.  I mean shit, me and half the loopers I worked with still share christmas cards every year.  One of them even works for me, runs the marketing department.  Kickass guy, you’d like him.”

“How?” Leanne pleaded.  “How did you stay normal?  How are you not insane, after four years of doing this, after coming back to do it again?”

In Leanne’s experience, every Looper came with their own baggage.  Lijia Mian and Isaac Goodwell and Naomi and Dominic were all completely insane and untrustworthy, and even Lee, Harley, and Vell had their own unique neuroses.  Roxy simply shrugged off the issue.

“Well, not to say what happens here isn’t weird as hell, but hey, weird, unexpected shit happens everywhere, to everyone,” Roxy said.  “Right now, somewhere out there in the world, people are getting injured or finding out they’re pregnant or have a disease or falling in love or something like that, and by their standards all of that is just as weird and unexpected as the shit you deal with here.  Death comes at you fast right here, but life comes at you fast out there.”

Roxy gestured to the wide world and scooted a little closer to Leanne.

“Life is chaos, Leanne.  It’s laid on a bit thick at this school, yeah, but when you break it down it’s just more of the same shit,” Roxy said.  “Friendships have ended over arguments about sports teams, that don’t mean sports are evil.  I’m sorry you got a raw deal with your friend and your boyfriend there, Leanne, but that’s life.  You’re only making it worse for yourself by blaming things and people that had nothing to do with it.”

Silence lurked in the dust lair as Leanne stared forward.

“So it just never stops, then?  Life is just always like this?”

“Slows down sometimes, but no,” Roxy said.  “Never stops.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“Nobody in this world gets to choose what they go through, Leanne,” she said.  “You want to know the trick?  You do get to choose how you react while you go through it, and more importantly, you choose the people you go through it with.”

Roxy nodded towards the door and clapped Leanne on the shoulder.

“You’ve got a good crew here, Leanne,” she said.  “If you’ve got their back, they’ll have yours, and you’ll all make it through this alright.  I guarantee it.”

The reassurances of her idol helped push Leanne in the right direction, but not all the way.  She bit her lip.

“I -I’ve got like three weeks left,” Leanne said.  “After all this time, I don’t know if I can-”

Leanne stopped when Roxy slapped her in the back of the head.

“First of all, you’re a looper, so that’s more like six weeks,” she scolded.  “Maybe like four and a half if the apocalypses happen early in the day.”

Roxy stood and hefted Labrys in her hands once again, this time holding it in a reverse grip, the way one would hold a guitar.

“And secondly…”

Roxy leaned on the chair she had once been sitting on, Labrys resting gently on her thigh, and pretended to strum the axe/guitar.

“Don’t tell me what to do with my time,” she sang.  Leanne turned red in the face.  Roxy leaned in even closer and repeated herself.  “Don’t tell me what to do with my time…”

“Because I do what I want, when I want,” Leanne sang back, relenting to Roxy’s pressure.  With an emphatic step back and a pump of her imaginary guitar, Roxy finished out the lyric.

“As hard as I want it,” Roxy finished off.  She then pointed firmly at Leanne. “Get that tattooed under your other boob so you don’t forget it.”

“Sure, I will.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Roxy said.  “You show up with that tatted on your chest, you got a backstage pass to my next concert.  Trust.”

The two shook on it, with Leanne shaking a bit too eagerly.  Roxy would have to keep a seat backstage prepped.

“But seriously, Muscles,” Roxy said.  “Do the best you can with the time you got.  That’s all any of us can do.”

“I will,” Leanne said.  “I promise.”

“Good!” Roxy said.  She held Labrys in her hands fondly one last time and then thrust the axe towards Leanne.  “Do me a favor and take the old battleaxe back to the locker, would you?  All this jawing made me miss my sound check.”

Leanne took the axe and nodded.  Roxy winked and headed for the door.

“Come back to my trailer after the show’s done,” Roxy said.  “Bring the squad.  Got a bit more to say to all you looper’s.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Leanne said.

◆◆◆

After a concert that was entirely heartstopping in quality and entirely impossible to describe via text, Roxy wrapped up her third encore and took a moment to breath.

“Listen kids, I love every single one of you bastards but if I do any more of this my fingers are going to start bleeding,” Roxy shouted into the mic.  “And I need those to pick my nose with.  Thank you, good night!”

Roxy gave a peace sign and peaced out, walking off stage and leaving the cheering crowd behind.  She took a moment to wipe the sweat off her face and get a drink of water before returning to her trailer.  In spite of the exhaustion that came with a long night performing, she put on a brave face for the four loopers.

“So.  Best show you’ve ever seen, or best show you’ve ever seen?”

Lee gave a polite round of applause while Vell and Leanne cheered more boisterously.  Harley waited until they quieted down to offer her opinion.

“Eh, my parents took me to see The Wiggles when I was a kid, so...”

“Well that’s not fair, I can’t compete with the fucking Wiggles,” Roxy moaned.  She acted pitiable for a moment before busting out into a laugh, and Harley joined her.

“You know, I really get why these two like you so much,” Harley said.  Roxy took her by the shoulder and shook her lightly.

“And I definitely see why they like you,” Roxy said.  “Keep an eye on them for me.  Lee, good seeing you again, I promise to threaten your mom with continued guitar-based violence next time I see her.”

“Please do,” Lee said.  “And record it if possible.”

“Natch,” Roxy said.  At last, she turned to her final two targets, and her two biggest fans.  “Thanks for letting an old lady get back in the game for a bit.  Haven’t had that much fun in years.”

Roxy grabbed Vell and Leanne both by the shoulder and spun them around to face the wall of guitars she carted with her everywhere.  Each one had a unique design, hand-painted by Roxy herself.

“Take your pick.  Want you to have something to remember me by,” Roxy said.  She paused and reconsidered her own words.  “I mean, not that you’d forget.  This one’s got my song written on her ribs, so...still you know what I’m going for, right?  Take a guitar.”

It took a bit more cajoling to get Vell to accept the gift, but eventually he reached forward and removed a cherry red electric guitar from the wall. 

“Excellent taste,” Roxy said.  She picked up the guitar and signed her name on it before handing it over to Vell.  “There you go, for authenticity.  And also my phone number’s on there, if you ever need some advice with a loop.  Or want to get laid by telling a chick you know me.”

Vell nodded and examined his newly claimed prize. Leanne, in contrast to Vell’s indecisiveness, knew exactly what she was looking for, it just took a while for her to find it.  Towards the back of the rack, towards the oldest, most beaten down guitars (and a few that had been completely shattered during particularly exuberant performances), Leanne found a single deep brown acoustic, with a few splinters knocked out of the side from being dropped more than once.

“Old school, huh?”  She examined the old, splintered guitar

Leanne nodded.  Roxy had played this guitar in some of her earliest shows, played to small audiences in half-empty bars.  Leanne hadn’t even been old enough to be allowed in the venues, but she’d tracked down videos on the internet and played them all a thousand times over.  She’d emailed her dad every time, for him to watch along.  Though as an adult Leanne realized that he had probably not watched the videos despite saying he had.  That didn’t bother her too much, though.

Satisfied that they were satisfied, Roxy finished putting her signature and number on Leanne’s guitar, then clapped them both on the shoulders and then gave them a light shove towards the door.

“Alright, love you guys, had a great time, but it is time to get this show on the road,” Roxy said.  “Or on the immaterial aetherial transport, as it were.  Seriously, this trailer’s getting teleported in like two minutes, you guys got to go.”

Roxy shepherded the younger loopers towards the door.  She genuinely liked them all, but she didn’t want to be responsible for anyone getting accidentally teleported off the island. 

“Wait, the school’s paying to teleport you?  On top of your performance fee?” Lee questioned aloud.  “Where did Goodwell get the budget for that?”

“Hell if I know, but text me when you figure that out,” Roxy said.  Then she pushed her fellow loopers out the door, inviting Huel inside in their place.

“Say goodbye, Huel,” Roxy requested.  Huel gave her a blank look and then stepped inside.  “He’s cool, he just takes his job too seriously.  Adios, muchachos!  Catch you on the flip side!”

Roxy gave a sharp salute, and with perfect timing, the trailer and all its contents vanished, whisked away by magical forces to some unknown next stop on Roxy’s musical journey.  The four remaining loopers stared at an empty space where the trailer had once been.

“Well that was pretty cool,” Harley said.

“Yeah, it was,” Leanne replied.  Harley practically jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Hey, three whole words,” Harley said.  “That’s a new record.”

“How about four, then?”

Harley considered her response to that a bit more carefully.

“Are you, like, talking normally now?” She asked.  “Is that a thing?  It’s okay if it’s not a thing, I’m just asking-”

“It’s a thing,” Leanne said.  “As long as you don’t annoy me too much.”

“Sweet!  On the note of not annoying you too much, I should probably leave,” Harley said.  “Night guys!”

Harley sped off into the night to mingle with the aftermath of the concert crowd.  Lee gave a brief curtsy and announced her own departure, to go investigate some of Goodwell’s very generous uses of the school budget.  Alone near the stage, Leanne and Vell took a moment to examine the gifted guitars they held.

“Do you know how to play guitar?” Vell asked.

“Not at all,” Leanne said.

“Oh.  Me neither.”

“Hmm.”

Chapter 38: Having a Ballball

“Why are we here again?”

“Because it’s Leanne’s last game,” Vell said.  “Like, ever.  And I haven’t watched any of them.”

In spite of their long friendship, Vell had never attended one of Leanne’s Ballball games.  They usually fell on nights when he was otherwise occupied with academic activities, social events, or late-night apocalypse prevention.  As the empty stands in the stadium proved, Leanne’s matches weren’t exactly highly attended.  Or attended at all.

“Vell, you do realize Leanne has literally never lost a game?”  Harley asked.  “Of anything?  Ever?”

“I beat her in tic tac toe once,” Vell said.

“Not that kind of game, dingus,” Harley said.  She leaned back and stretched her legs across the stands.  There was no one else sitting nearby -or anywhere at all in the stands, for that matter.  Every student had long since caught on that when Leanne was on the field, there could be only one outcome.  Watching one woman completely embarrass an entire team of trained athletes stopped being fun after a few minutes.  Vell, Lee, and Harley were the only people in the stands.

“Vell, I’m sure Leanne appreciates your support, at least in theory,” Lee said.  “But in actuality, this game isn’t all that special.”

“Yeah, even if it weren’t Leanne playing, this would still be a free win,” Harley said.  “They’re playing Patschke-Puck.”

“Oh jesus,” Vell said.

The perennial fuckups of Patschke-Puck took the field.  Some of them tripped over themselves as they stepped onto the spherical Ballball field, and others were wearing their jersey’s backwards.  Vell could only sigh.  Harley at least extracted some enjoyment out of watching them make fools of themselves, so the night wasn’t a complete wash.

After the visiting team took the field, the home team also stepped up to play -slowly, and stumbling all the while.  Every player on the Einstein-Odinson teamed moved with a stunted, awkward gait, most of them doubled over or clutching at their stomachs.

“Uh, guys,” Vell said. 

“Oh dear.”

From the back of the crowd, Leanne walked forward, apparently unaffected by whatever was crippling her teammates.  She tried to ask someone what was wrong, and was answered by them rushing off the field to go vomit.  One player’s moment of nausea caused a chain reaction, and soon every player but Leanne had abandoned the field.

“What’s going on?”

“Well,” the Patschke-Puck coach said.  “It appears as though every member of your team has received a completely coincidental case of food poisoning that has nothing at all to do with me poisoning all your food twenty-three minutes ago.”

A flabbergasted Leanne looked to the ref, and gestured to the coach who had all but confessed his crime.  The referee shrugged.

“I also definitely didn’t bribe your referee by paying him exactly two-hundred dollars to look the other way.”

“Two-hundred dollars?” Leanne said.  “That’s not even a good bribe!”

“It’s two hundred more dollars than I had before,” the ref said.  Leanne tried to protest, but couldn’t.

“Well, whatever,” she said.  “I was going to beat you single-handedly anyway.  Now I’ll just do it more literally.”

Leanne punched the open palm of her hand, and a few of the Patschke-Puck players recoiled in fear.  The bribed ref, however, had other ideas.

“Sorry, kid, but you need more than one player on the field,” he said.  “If you can’t meet a minimum team size, you forfeit.”

Leanne clenched her fists.

“What’s the team size?”

“The suspiciously specific rule says you need exactly four players,” the ref said.

With a glimmer in her eye, Leanne’s head snapped towards the stand.  She pointed at the three spectators with such force that Vell could feel a shockwave.  Harley rolled her eyes and let out a loud sigh.

“Fuck.”

◆◆◆

“I’ve fast-tracked all the paperwork,” Principal Goodwell said.  “You’re all fully registered team members now.”

The Principal handed out spare athletic equipment to Harley, Vell, and Lee.  Goodwell had been fully onboard for their hasty recruitment into the Ballball team.

“I lost to Isaiah too many times back in school, I’m not losing to him now,” Goodwell grunted.  Their principal was still hyperfixated on his perceived rivalry with Patschke-Puck’s principal -among other things.  He pointed at Leanne.  “You’ve never let me down before.  Don’t do it now.”

Leanne said nothing.  She’d broken her silence around all of the current generation loopers, but something about Goodwell still unnerved her. 

“Yeah yeah, you got a second chance to kick his ass, we get it,” Harley said.

“Good.  Right.  Second chances are meant to be seized,” Goodwell said.  He nodded in the new team’s direction once before walking out of the locker rooms and back to business.

“Well, that guy continues to be unsettling on several levels,” Harley said.  “At least him being a corrupt nutjob got us these cool jerseys!”

“Yeah, real piece of work, but hopefully the quick recruitment’ll win us the game.  Like I said before, I’ll beat these losers singlehandedly,” Leanne grunted.  “All you guys have to do is stay on the field and not get injured.  Got it?”

They had managed to exploit a loophole on short notice once, but the same trick would not work again.  If Leanne’s team had less than four players at any point, it’d be an immediate forfeit.

“Understood, captain,” Harley said with a mock salute.  “Also, why didn’t you tell me these outfits were so light and breezy?  I love it.”

Harley bounced up and down to emphasize the utility of the light, sporty jersey.

“Harley, I know you’re...you, but please take this a little bit seriously,” Leanne pleaded.  “I’m not going to lose my last match ever, especially not by forfeit, and especially not to Patschke-Puck.”

Lee stepped out of a side room, having finally finished changing and getting her long hair tied up for the game.  She was far more uncomfortable in the jersey and track shorts than Harley, if only due to unfamiliarity.

“I do believe my father would have a heart attack if he saw me right now,” she noted.

“Then we should send him a pic,” Harley said.  “Speaking of!  Team selfie!”

Harley corralled the three of them behind her and then snapped a quick picture of them all in their matching uniforms.  After that, she put her phone in a locker and put her game face on.

“Alright, let’s go, game time, hoo-rah,” she grunted.  “Are we going to do that thing where we put our hands together?”

“No.”

“What about a pregame speech?”

“The pregame speech is don’t fucking get hurt,” Leanne scolded.  “So try not to trip over your own feet like you did in that mutant apocalypse.”

“In my defense, I did have more feet than usual,” Harley said.  “Man, you’re a lot more fun to banter with now that you talk.”

In response, Leanne made a shushing noise and then pointed back towards the field.  She led the way as the newly minted team stepped out of the locker room and made the short hop to the levitating Ballball field.

“Alright, we’ve got all our players now,” Leanne said.  She gestured to the other three loopers.  “Can we play?”

“Looks like you’re all set up,” the ref said.  “Very well!  The game can begin after the required several-minute-long pregame staredown between the opposing teams!”

“Pre-game staredown?” Vell said.

“Ballball has a lot of weird rules, just go with it,” Leanne said.  She lined up along the meridian of the field, mirroring the other team -in more ways than one.

“Oh, come on, fucking you guys again?”  Harley said.  She panned over their off-brand doppelgangers Leanna, Leigh, and Harmony.    “Do you not have any other students at your school?”

She pointed out Harmony in particular. 

“Didn’t you literally go to jail for attempted murder?  Of me?”

“I got therapy,” Harmony said.

“I sure hope you had a good doctor,” Harley said.  “We’re probably about to undo a lot of mental health gains with how badly Leanne is about to crush you.”

Leanne flexed.  Her doppelganger Leanna tried to flex in response, but had far less muscle to work with.  She stepped back instead.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“Be brave, Leanna,” Leigh said.  “We came prepared this time.  To prove that they, indeed, are the off-brand imitations, we found the original from which this so-called ‘Vell’ is a cheap copy!  Behold!”

Leigh gestured dramatically down the line, towards one of the teammates the loopers didn’t recognize.  A short, skinny young man with curly brown hair waved up at Vell, his matched counterpart.

“Phil!”

Vell looked down at Phil, and waved hello back.

“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Lee said.  “Phil, Vell, I mean, really, the names don’t even sound that much alike.”

They didn’t have much else in common either.  Phil was a hefty, squat fellow, as opposed to Vell’s towering, rail thin physique.

“Well I guess I don’t measure up to this big fella, but I’m just happy to be here representing my school,” Phil said.  He extended a hand in Vell’s direction.  “Let’s both do our best, pal.”

“Oh yeah, let’s,” Vell said, shaking the offered hand.  Harley raised an eyebrow.

“Well, he seems nice,” Harley admitted.  “Guess he’s got that in common with Vell.”

“Stare down over!  Play ball!”

At the referee’s shout, Leanne took off so fast Harley’s ears popped.  Neither team had even gotten their bearings by the time the first “ding” of a scored goal rang out.  The scoreboard started to climb up and up again as Leanne scored another goal.

“Should we stop her?” Leanna said.

“You’re welcome to try,” Leigh said.  “Focus on hurting these imbeciles!”

Leigh made a dive for Lee, hoping that one dirty tackle could injure her badly enough to get her off the field and make their team forfeit.  The doppelganger was still mid-air when Leanne shoulder-checked Leigh hard enough to send her rolling halfway across the spherical field.

“Reflexes, Lee,” Leanne said.  She tossed the ball over her shoulder, towards one of the goalposts, and scored another point.

“I was reacting,” Lee protested.  “Just not at your frankly superhuman speeds.”

“Fair enough,” Lee said.  The ball she had thrown a second ago rebounded directly back into her hands, and she held it for a moment rather than throw it again.  “Any of you want to try scoring?”

“Thank you, but no,” Lee said.  Leanne tossed it at the goal and let it bounce back again.  One of the Patschke-Puck players went for a diving tackle on Harley, and Leanne caught them by the ankle and tossed them across the field.  She then offered the ball to Harley.

“Harley?  Goal?”

“No thanks,” Harley said.  “One of the chicks on this field tried to kill me a few months ago and I kind of want to stay focused on her.”

“Good thinking.”

Harley and Leanne side-eyed Harmony together.  She seemed stable for now, but they were suspicious of even the slightest eye twitch.  Leanne chucked the ball at the goal a few more times to secure a large lead.  Meanwhile, Vell dealt with his own “doppelganger”.

“So the ol’ PP may seem like a school of rejects and losers to most people, but I’ve always seen it as a place for the underdog to feel at home,” Phil said.  “A place for us to come together and realize that the things some people call ‘flaws’ are really what makes us unique.”

“Yeah, that’s very nice, but, uh- duck,” Vell said.  He grabbed Phil by the shoulders and pushed him down as he ducked to avoid a thrown knife.  “But I think your school mates are a bit aggressive.”

“Oh, they’re just spirited,” Phil said.

“They poisoned like twenty people,” Vell noted.

“I admit they can be a bit overly ambitious sometimes, but that’s just Leigh being Leigh,” Phil said.  “You’ve got to respect her can-do attitude.  Never let’s something like the odds—or the law—being against her slow her down.”

While odds and morality never slowed Ligh down, getting tackled by Leanne (again) did.  Leigh rolled around the spherical field, tumbling right past their feet as Vell and Phil walked.  The disgruntled doppelganger stood, brushed the turf off her backwards jersey, and went looking for Leanna.  She was easy to find: all one had to do was find Leanne, and then look as far away as possible.  Leanna cowered on the other side of the field, far away from her sportier duplicate.

“Leanna!  Is this really how you want to spend your last game?  Running and hiding like a coward?”

“Better than spending it getting my bones broken,” Leanna mumbled. 

“Oh that viking bitch won’t hurt you too badly,” Leigh said.  As soon as she was finished talking, the ball rebounded off her skull and back into Leanne’s hands.  Leigh fell face first in the grass at Leanna’s feet.

“Not a word,” Leigh demanded.

“Do you get it?” Leanna said.  “I’ve never even scored a goal against regular players, much less against a giant, superpowered, amazonian one.”

“You are absolutely useless,” Leigh said.  She stood and brushed turf off her jersey again.  “Wouldn’t even help with the poisoning, and now this.”

“I’m not sneaky,” Leanna said.  “And why didn’t you poison the big one, anyway?”

“I, uh, well, I did,” Leigh admitted.  “Double dosed, actually.”

The two doppelgangers turned and watched Leanne scored twenty-five goals in the span of eighteen seconds. 

“She appears to be slightly immune to poison,” Leigh said.  “Perhaps her raw physical power also extends to her gut microbes.”

Leanne and her invincible gut microbes scored another ten goals, and then took a break to rebound the ball off of Harmony’s head.  She was starting to stare at Harley, and that wasn’t good for anyone.  While the ball bounced back, Lee sidestepped an attempt to kneecap her and left the offending Patschke-Puck member to trip over his own feet.

“How much longer do you imagine this will take, dear?  I think our would-be saboteurs are already starting to lose steam,” Lee noted.  One of the PP team members took a swipe at Harley.  She had dodged the cutlasses of undead pirates (briefly) so the inept attacks of a few z-list sports players were no issue.  Vell had already dodged the last of the throwing knives, as well.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Leanne advised.  She made a few more quick goals while they chatted.  “They won’t give up.  If I can say one good thing about these guys, it’s that they’re persistent.”

Leigh proved Leanne’s point by trying another tackle.  This time Leanne didn’t even have to intervene, Lee simply stepped aside and let Leigh faceplant into the dirt all on her own.

“You really need to stop going for dives, dear, you’re going to break something,” Lee cautioned.

“Bite me.”

“Well, don’t say no one warned you,” Lee said.  She strolled away to check on Harley.

Leigh got herself out of the turf for the hundredth time, and scanned her opponents.  She latched on to what she believed was a vulnerability.

“Stop going after the women,” she demanded, as she pointed at Vell.  “Get the tall, twig-like one!  He’ll break easily!”

Vell looked up from his conversation with Phil as players all over the field started to converge on him.

“That means you too, Phil!”

The diminutive “duplicate” of Vell shrugged and looked up at his taller counterpart.

“Sorry pal, nothing personal,” Phil said.  “Got to have my friend’s back, you know?”

“I think you could pick better friends, but I understand,” Vell said.  He placed his palm on Phil’s forehead and extended his arm, pushing Phil aside and keeping him at bay while he appraised his odds against the approaching Patschke-Puck players.  Vell started to react to their attempted dogpile, but never got a chance.

With fifteen consecutive rubbery bonks, the game ball bounced off fifteen different heads.  Leanne’s expertly-aimed shot ricocheted off more than a dozen skulls, rattling each of them enough that they stopped in their tracks and gave Vell time to get clear of the rapidly-gathering horde.

“This is ridiculous,” Lee said.

“At least they don’t have any more knives,” Harley said.  A tomahawk came spinning through the air and embedded itself next to her feet.  Harley looked at it and shook her head.  “Technically not a knife.”

“All of this for two-hundred dollars, I can’t believe-” Lee stopped mid-sentence and blinked twice.  “What on earth am I doing?”

Lee dodged another axe and walked around the spherical field to the referee’s position.

“Sir, I will pay you three hundred dollars to ignore their previous bribe,” she said.  The ref considered the offer and looked to Leigh for a counter-offer. 

“Going once,” he said.

“I- I can do two-fifty and-”

The referee could certainly be bribed, but he would not be lowballed.  He started blowing his whistle and didn’t stop until all the knives, axes, zweihanders, and claymore mines were off the field.  It took several minutes to relieve Harmony of her various stored weapons (as well as several pictures of Harley with cartoonish red x’s over the eyes), during which Leigh called a time out.

“Now what do we do?” Leanna said.  “Our whole plan was to cheat.”

“You could try actually playing,” Vell suggested.

“No one asked you, twig-boy!” Leanna shouted back.  The unexpected vitriol from the usually soft spoken doppelganger caught Vell off guard.  After he was done reeling, he stopped and looked down at his bare arms.

“Am I really that skinny?”

“It’s just that you’re so tall, dear,” Lee said.  “It makes you look, well, narrow.”

Vell looked at Leanne.  She was only an inch shorter, but no one would ever call her “narrow”.

“I need to start working out with you,” he noted.

“Vell, buddy, I’d be happy to go for a jog with you or something,” Leanne said.  “But if you did my exercise routine, you would die.”

“Play ball,” the referee shouted.  The moment the call came out, Leanne vanished in a blur of speed, retrieving the ball and hurtling towards the goal once again.  The Patschke-Puck students surprised everyone with their next move: absolutely nothing.

“You guys okay?” Vell asked.

“Oh yes, we’re alright,” Phil said, as his teammates began to sit or lie in the grass.  “Leigh just thinks we should ‘embrace the inevitability of death’, as she put it.”

Phil joined his teammates in laying on the turf and allowing malaise to consume them as Leanne continued to rack up the points.

“I almost feel bad,” Lee said.

“I don’t,” Harley said.  “Harmony definitely still wants to murder me.  They can suck it.”

◆◆◆

After three quarters and several hundred points scored by Leanne, the game was finally called in favor of Einstein-Odinson.  Leigh shuffled her teammates together and glared daggers (the metaphorical kind this time) at their opponents.

“We’ll get you next time, Einstein’s!” She shouted, shaking her fist.

“You probably won’t,” Vell said.  He diverted his attention for a moment to look at Phil.  “Bye.  Nice meeting you.”

“Same to you, big guy,” Phil said.

“Maybe we’ll meet again next year,” Vell suggested.  It would be nice to have a bright spot in these chaotic clashes with their “rival” school.

“Oh no, buddy, I’m a senior,” Phil said, with a broad smile.  “As much as I’d love to stick around and help out my pals here, I got to move on to bigger and better things.  I got a job lined up at Kraid Tech.”

Vell’s hand dropped.

“Kraid...Tech?”

“Oh yeah,” Phil said.  “That fella’s merciless, no hold barred attitude is going to be what takes us into the future.  Hey, maybe I’ll see you working for him too some day, right?”

“You definitely won’t,” Vell said.  He turned his back on Phil and stumbled back to friendlier face.  Harley made sure to keep an eye on all the Patschke-Puck players until they were out of murdering range.

“Hmm.  I suppose that fellow really wasn’t your doppelganger after all,” Lee said.

“Because he was short, a senior, or because he was totally chill with Kraid?” Harley said.

“All three, I suppose,” Lee said.  “One wonders how they couldn’t find someone who even vaguely resembled Vell.”

“Maybe he’s just unique,” Leanne said, as she ruffled Vell’s hair.  “If so, I’m glad we got the only one.”

As the cold night settled in, a purple butterfly flitted past one of the floodlights that illuminated the field.  The “team” made their way off the floating field and headed back to the locker room.

“Sorry your last game was a bit of an anticlimax,” Vell said.  Leanne shrugged.

“Eh, honestly, they’re all like that,” Leanne said.  “If anything, that was the closest I’ve ever come to losing.  Thanks for having my back, guys.”

“Save your thanks for Vell, I was whining about having to be here the whole time,” Harley said.  “But it all ended well.  You kept your winning streak, and I found out I look great in jerseys.  I’m going to have to rock this look more often.”

“You do have to give that one back, though,” Leanne said.  “That goes for all of you.”

“I know, I know,” Harley said.  “Lee should totally order us matching jersey’s though.”

“Oh, that sounds adorable,” Lee said.  “I’ll get right to it.  What color, do you think?”

“We can talk about it later,” Leanne said.  She tugged at the collar of her own jersey, which was drenched in sweat.  “Right now, showers.”

Seeing as Leanne was the only one who had actually exerted herself during the game, she was the only one who needed to shower.  That suited her just fine.  She needed the moment of privacy anyway, and not just for modesty’s sake.

Leanne rested her head on the shower stall’s wall and let out a deep sigh.  She had played the last game of her school years.  Just one more milestone behind her. 

One step closer to leaving.

Chapter 39: The Mian Mystery Box

“So how was practice?”  Harley asked. 

“Still kind of awkward,” Leanne admitted.  “Elijah and his buds are just trying to stick it out until the end of the year, but everyone is still side-eyeing them constantly.”

Even though they’d played their last game, the Ballball team still had a few more practice sessions -very awkward ones, at that.  In the aftermath of the power couple’s breakup, most of the team had quite predictably sided with the one who hadn’t done the lying, and who had carried them through a four-year undefeated streak.  Leanne, for her part, endured her ex-boyfriends presence with begrudging silence.  It made for a very interesting reversal of circumstance, considering she now spoke to the loopers openly.

“You ever throw a ball at him just because you can?”

“I’ve been tempted, but no,” Leanne said. 

“Good on you,” Vell said.

“Year’s not over yet, Harlan, I still have a few chances to give into temptation.”

The pleasant breakfast chatter came to an end as Lee whipped around the corner, holding her purse tight to her chest.  She sat down, brushed her long hair behind her ears, and folded her hands on the table.

“Good morning everyone.  You all do recall our old friend Lijia Mian, yes?”

“She threatened to stab us with a sword, so yes, I remember,” Leanne said.

“Quite.  Well, as she and I studied in roughly the same field of magic, I have been asking around with old professors and searching old academic records,” Lee said.  “And it seems as though Lijia Mian may have left something behind when she vanished without a trace.”

“Well then it’s not very ‘without a trace’, is it?” Harley scoffed.  “Elaborate.”

“Lijia was brilliant for her time, and also had a lasting suspicion that her research would be stolen,” Lee said.

“Probably because she was, you know, stealing other people’s research all the time, apparently,” Vell said.  Lee nodded.  Many horrible peoples worst fear was that someone would do to them what they were doing to others.

“But apparently she took the time to hide her notes and research in a secure location,” Lee said.  “A sort of hidden repository of her knowledge.  Since a vast majority of her research material was never recovered, it is believed that she had her notes in hiding at the time of her disappearance.”

“Which means that, theoretically, they’re somewhere on this campus waiting to be found, right?” Harley concluded.

“Indeed.  A great deal of effort was put into finding those notes, but as far as I can tell they were never located,” Lee said.  “In spite of several clues and a handful of discoveries, the ‘hidden treasure’ was left mostly forgotten over time.  But I have retrieved several of the early records of the searches.”

“Well damn, I’m down for a scavenger hunt if you guys are,” Harley said.  She looked to Leanne specifically.  Vell was usually down for anything that was asked of him, so Harley didn’t really bother to check with him.  Unfortunate, in this instance, because Vell’s mind was currently going on a tangent.

“It sounds interesting,” Leanne said.  “Though I don’t know how much luck we’ll have finding a fifty-year-old buried treasure.”

“Time will surely stymie us, but it may also provide advantages,” Lee said.  “We have new magic and new technology-”

“Hold on,” Vell said.  He held up a hand to halt the conversation and then pointed at Leanne.  “Can you come with me for a bit?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Leanne said.  Vell stood up, and she followed.  “What’s up?”

“He’s got his thinking face on, just let him do his thing,” Harley advised.  Lee and Harley, despite not being specifically requested, followed along with Vell in turn, mostly because they lacked anything better to do.  He led them all to the outskirts of the Ballball field, and then grabbed Leanne by the arm.

“Sorry, uh, can you stand...right here,” he instructed.  He did some mental calculus and guided her to the right spot, or so he thought.  After taking a look at his surroundings he realized they were in the wrong place, and he danced back and forth with Leanne to find the exact spot he was looking for.

“Alright, I was there, and you were there, and then the pen fell over here, and then we went like this,” Vell said.  He moved back and forth, plodding across the area near the field.  “Time thingy happened, and then, she was, uh, right...about…”

As his voice trailed off, Vell knelt down, took a look at the grass, and then jammed his hand into the soil, scooping out handfuls of dirt.  Everyone stared at him for a moment as he continued digging with his bare hands.

“Vell, darling, what are you doing?” Lee asked.

In answer, Vell shoved his hands into the dirt one last time and pulled out a time-worn metal container about the size of a shoebox.  Harley squinted at it.

“What the fuck?”

“When we traveled back in time and met Lijia, she had dirt on her hands,” Vell said.  “Once Lee started talking about hidden stuff, I figured, you know, what if she was burying this?”

“Very impressive deductions, Vell,” Lee said, trying to hide her disappointment.  She had been hoping for a treasure hunt. 

Vell handed his easily-won trove over to Leanne, who pried open the locked box with her bare hands and removed the contents.  Several notebooks, their pages slightly yellowed by time but otherwise in perfect condition, were carefully handed to Lee for examination.  She flipped through the pages and scanned their contents.

“What do they say?”

“I have no idea, they’re written in Cantonese,” Lee said.  The language translation spell that surrounded the school only applied to spoken word, not to text.  “But, I believe I know where to go to get a translation.  It will be a while, however.”

“That works,” Vell said.  “I’m going to ask Professor Nguyen what she was working on that Lijia was trying to steal.  Maybe it’ll give us some clues, to, well, what Lijia was thinking.”

“Good idea,” Lee said.  The two shared a nod and walked off in separate directions.  Harley looked up at Leanne.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to class,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Leanne shrugged.  “I was kind of hoping for that scavenger hunt, actually.”

“Ugh, same,” Harley said.  “Stupid Vell and his stupid...smartness.”

Harley walked off in a huff.

◆◆◆

The school’s faculty ostensibly had an open-door policy, but Professor Nguyen projected a very closed-door energy.  Closed, locked, welded shut, and guarded by several rabid dogs, more specifically.  It took Vell the entire walk to the faculty building to psych himself up for a single knock on the door.

“You may enter,” Nguyen said flatly.  Vell opened the door and stepped inside.  His expectations for Professor Nguyen’s office and the reality were effectively identical: her office was almost purely utilitarian, filled with stacked bookshelves and filing cabinets and little else.  The one touch of humanity in the entire space was a tiny elephant, crudely formed out of clay and painted in haphazard splashes of color by the carefree, chaotic hand of a child.  Vell tried not to stare at the elephant in the room.

“Mr. Harlan,” Nguyen said.  She made eye contact as she spoke this time, Vell having caught her on one of the few occasions where she didn’t have her nose buried in paperwork.  The eye contact unnerved Vell.

“Professor Nguyen.  I, uh, had a question.”

Nguyen gestured to one of the seats opposite her desk.  Vell took a seat, and guessed from the very thin layer of dust on the seat that Nguyen didn’t get a lot of guests in her office.

“I, uh, well, I was just personally curious, about something,” Vell said.  “Do you remember that plagiarism thing, with Dr. Akua-”

“Former Doctor,” Nguyen corrected.  “She has been stripped of the honorific, if you recall.  And yes.  I remember.”

“Right, well, I just, happened to have the thought the other day, that your specialty is runes now, but we didn’t figure runes out until the Eighties, and you went to school in the Seventies, so,” Vell stumbled.  “What were you studying that they were trying to steal?”

“At the time, I was studying a field that eventually led to runes,” Nguyen said.  “The movement of ley energy through stone.  If my memory serves me correctly, Lijia Mian’s interest lied in a study I had done on how to trace historical movements of mana through stone with geological surveys.”

Vell folded his hands together and thought about it for a moment.

“So, putting together that area of expertise, and yours, she might have been looking for where a large concentration of mana might have been gathered in the past,” Vell said.

“A reasonable assumption, though still just an assumption,” Nguyen said.  She leaned back in her chair, sparing Vell from the full intensity of her gaze.  “This renewed interest is not without a spark, isn’t it?”

“Uh, well, yes, I mean, no, I mean- there is a spark, yes,” Vell said.  “Did you ever hear about Lijia Mian’s missing notes?”

“Several of my classmates spent years searching for them, yes,” Nguyen said.  “I take it from the fact your question involves the subject matter of Lijia’s research rather than her physical whereabouts or habits means that you have already located these lost notes.”

“Yes, actually, that’s, uh, exactly right,” Vell said.  Thinking about it, he was not the least bit surprised Nguyen had figured that out.  “Do you...want to see them?”

“No.  I imagine they will be quite useless,” Professor Nguyen said flatly.  “Lijia Mian was a brilliant woman, but she was a brilliant woman in 1973.  If our technological advancements have not outstripped her research in the intervening decades, I will be quite surprised.”

“Good point.  I’ll keep looking into them, and I’ll just, uh, let you know if there’s anything interesting,” Vell said.  He stood up and moved to leave.

“Mr. Harlan.”

Vell froze in place.

“As you insistently entangle yourself in yet another inexplicable non-sequitur, I would remind you,” Nguyen said.  “Your final exam makes up fifteen percent of your final grade.  Don’t forget to study.”

“Oh.  Will do,” Vell said.  He popped out of the office for a second, then stuck his head back in.  “Is Dr. Bauman’s hypothetical treatise on medical treatments via micro-scale runes going to be on the test?”

“No.”

“Dang, I already memorized it,” Vell said.  “Okay thanks, bye!”

Vell shut the door behind him.  Nguyen glanced to one of her bookshelves.  Dr. Bauman’s collected research filled a fairly sizable medical journal.  Professor Nguyen recalled Vell’s claim to have memorized it and raised a single eyebrow.

◆◆◆

Vell punched in the code to Lee’s dorm and let himself in.  Everyone else had already gathered by the time he arrived.  He explained Professor Nguyen’s info, and his own theory about the location of a large mana deposit, to the gathered looper’s.

“That would make sense,” Lee said.  “People are constantly looking for new sources of mana to harvest.”

“What about you, did you get the notes translated?”

“I did indeed,” Lee said.  She held up a sheaf of paper covered in transcribed notes.  “Though it seems your professor’s intuition was correct.  Most of these theories, while innovative for the time, have long since been rendered obsolete.  However…”

As she spoke, Lee pushed aside the bulk of the papers to reveal a much smaller section of notes she had set aside.

“This is a segment of her research I haven’t quite been able to figure out,” Lee said.  “It has to do with a phenomenon called ‘mana flaring’.  Essentially, every time a new mana-detecting implement is turned on, it experiences a brief surge of activity that causes it to react as if it’s detecting a massive concentration of mana.  Then, the flare ceases, and the readings normalize.”

“Sounds like an acclimation problem,” Harley said.  “Just takes a second for the machine to filter out ambient ‘noise’ and level out its baseline.  Was she working on a way to prevent it, or what?”

“No, rather, she seemed to be investigating if there were some external factor causing it,” Lee said.  “She took readings in different locations, at different times of day, et cetera, and recorded minute variations in mana flaring.  I’m not sure what her conclusions were, however, from that point on she’s using some kind of notation that I can’t quite figure out.”

Lee flipped through the pages to find the equations that had stymied her.  Harley and Leanne were equally befuddled, but Vell had some familiarity with the symbols.

“Aren’t those art school stuff?”

“What?”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen those before,” Vell said.  His investigations into magical art had only run the course of a single semester, and not led him any closer to solving the mystery of his rune, but he still remembered the symbology. “It’s an art thingy.  It means, I don’t know, something like a different kind of mana.”

“Do you know anything more specific?”

“Nah, I didn’t pay much attention to that historical stuff,” Vell said.  Art history was perhaps a worthwhile field of study for someone else, but his chief concern was the ten-lined rune on his back.  He did have some vague memory of those symbols, but he couldn’t quite place them.  Lee had already started looking through her phone.

“Your friend Adele, she’s an art major, yes?”  Lee asked.  Vell nodded.  “Do you think she’d mind if I called her?  She did give me her number the other day, for some reason.”

Leanne looked up at Vell, who looked at Harley in turn.  The three shared a conspiratorial nod and decided not to say anything.  Harley got them back on track.

“You know, I don’t think she’d mind at all,” Harley said.  “Oh, but, be sure to mention that we’re here too.”

“Of course,” Lee said.  She pressed a button and held the phone to her ear.  It rang once while Vell stared at her.

“Uh, Lee?”

Lee pulled the phone away from her ear and looked in Vell’s direction.  The phone rang one more time.

“Adele is deaf.”

Lee slammed her finger down on the “hang up” button so hard the screen nearly cracked.  After burying her nose in her phone to avoid Harley’s bemused stare, Lee started to message Adele.

Lee:
sorrrry
Sorr.*
Sorry.*
I tried to call you by mistake.

adelentruly:
LOL I saw.
It’s cool.
What’s up, Lee?

Lee:
I was just wondering if you’d like to help me with some research.
I am in need of someone with a more artistic skill set.

adelentruly:
I’d love to!
Do you want to meet in the dining hall?

Lee:
Oh you can just come to my dorm.

adelentruly:
!!!
Are you sure?

Lee:
Of course.
Vell and the others are already here.

adelentruly:
oh okay
cool
yeah
I’ll be right there.

Lee:
See you soon!

Lee put her phone down and continued to ignore Harley’s stares.  She stalwartly dodged Harley’s gaze until Adele knocked on her door.  Their newest research partner signed a polite hello to everyone and then took a seat at the table.  Lee got her up to speed on their magical mystery.

“We’re hoping you can tell us what a few of these symbols mean,” Lee said.  “Any chance you’re familiar?”

“Yep,” Adele signed.  “It’s some old school notation.  Nowadays we know that all mana is effectively identical, but back in the day people thought there was a full ‘spectrum’ of mana made up of a bunch of different types, that all had different uses and their own unique identifying symbols.  Nowadays those symbols mostly just get used in art, to represent specific concepts.”

Adele stopped signing briefly to point out a few of the symbols on Lijia’s notes.

“That one refers to ‘aetherial’ mana, like you’d get from sunlight or the wind.  The second one means dynamic or ‘earthly’ mana, like you get from seismic or tidal movement.  This third one is primal mana that comes from simple living things like plants and animals.”

Finally, Adele pointed to the most intricate symbol, tapping it twice for emphasis.

“And this is ‘higher’ mana.  It refers exclusively to the mana generated by humans.”

“What about this one?” Leanne said, pointing to a symbol further down the page.  It looked like the higher mana symbol, with the notable addition of two matched dots hovering above the symbol.

“Oh, didn’t notice that one,” Adele signed.  “Looks like just a modified version of the human symbol, though.  Maybe the person who wrote this down made it up to refer to something else.”

Leanne nodded, and Adele looked to Lee with a sparkle in her eyes, seeking approval.

“Does that help?”

“It was informative, at the very least,” Lee said.  “It’s up to me to make something useful out of it.”

While Adele sighed, Lee grabbed the notes she had made earlier and carried on with her earlier work.  Vell gave Adele a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as Lee ignored her in favor of complex calculus.

“Oh dear,” Lee said.  Everyone at the table jumped to attention, but Lee immediately returned to her paperwork.  Lee continued to mumble to herself.  “If that’s what she meant...then…”

With an emphatic jab of her pen, Lee finished up her calculation and set the paper aside.

“I think this may have been a waste of time,” Lee said.

“What makes you say that?”

“This scenario Lijia is describing is frankly impossible,” Lee said.  “Her explanation for mana flaring is that it isn’t some acclimation error, it’s that there’s a massive source of mana in the world that’s being actively hidden from us.”

“Why’s that so impossible?” Vell asked.

“Because her conclusion is that the source of mana is hiding itself,” Lee said.  “Lijia ruled out any natural gathering point of mana and reasoned that the source of the mana flaring had to be a conscious entity, capable of disguising itself in reaction to any new instrument capable of detecting it.”

“And, uh, again, why’s that so impossible?” Vell repeated.

“Because mana flaring has overloaded every human instrument ever made,” Lee said.  She seemed almost aggravated by the information she was processing.  “Even the Solar Astrolabe, and that was built to measure the amount of mana produced by the sun.”

Lee held up her hands in an expression of frustration and contempt.

“For something to produce that much magical energy, it would have to be- It would be like-”

“It’d be a God,” Adele signed.  “A real, capital-‘G’ God.”

In spite of her deafness, Adele could still tell when the table fell deathly silent.  But only for a moment.

“That...that can’t possibly be the case,” Lee said, with a dismissive shake of her head.

“Why not?” Adele asked.  “There were Gods once.  Still are, sort of.  Zeus, Loki, Tlaloc…”

“That’s exactly my point, Adele, they’re all faded,” Lee said.  “Deific power is unsustainable.  To be a god, you have to perform a divine role, to perform a divine role, you have to be known, and to be known is to be worshiped.  And being worshiped drains power.”

As opposed to an oft-used fictional model of divinity, worship actually drained gods of their power, rather than increasing it.  Hopeful worshipers prayed to the gods for everything they might need, subtly draining them of mana with every request.  The only Gods that existed nowadays were ones that had never been well-worshiped in the first place, or those that had found a way to balance their divine roles with mundane continuity.  All the others had been prayed into nonexistence long ago.

“I guess,” Adele signed.  “But there’s always something we don’t know.”

“Quite so,” Lee said.  “Which is why this anomaly could be any number of things.  It could just as easily be some new energy source, or a simple technical error, as we originally suspected.  Lijia was not exactly the most rational individual.  She may have jumped to conclusions.”

“I guess,” Adele said.  “Who’s Lijia?”

“Oh.  Uh, dear, that’s a very long story,” Lee said. 

“I’d still love to hear it sometime,” Adele signed, looking at Lee with a smitten gaze that very much implied she’d listen intently to Lee reading a phone book.  Lee glanced at her friends, who silently but very insistently shook their heads no.  The story of Lijia Mian involved several instances of timeline manipulation, death threats, academic fraud, and a cult to David Bowie.  Nobody knew how to condense it in a way that would make sense to someone out of the loop.

“Maybe some other time,” Lee said.  “For now, I think it’s better that we discuss some of these details privately.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

Adele let out a defeated sigh and shouldered her purse, preparing to leave.  Vell gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder before she headed out.  She’d find a way to get her feelings through to Lee some time.  Probably not this year, given how little time they had left and how dense Lee was being about romance, but eventually.  Oblivious as always, Lee got right back to business after Adele left.

“Then I suppose there is the matter of what to do with Lijia’s notes,” Lee said.

“I think we got everything we’re going to get out of them,” Harley said.  “I say burn them.”

“You just want to burn things,” Leanne sniped.

“I mean, yes, but this is a rare instance where it’s actually helpful,” Harley said.

“Maybe we should give them to Goodwell,” Vell suggested.  “Having something to remember Lijia by might make him chill out.”

“Or make him even crazier,” Leanne said.

“Yeah...probably that,” Vell sighed.

“On that note, I think burning them may be a good idea,” Lee said.  “Goodwell, Kraid, my father...there are many people who might do harm by possessing these notes, and none who’d do good.”

“True that.  Harley, light them up,” Leanne commanded.

With a vaguely menacing, low volume chuckle (which always enhances the experience of setting things on fire), Harley used a laser attached to Botley’s frame to ignite the notes.  Vell watched the dried yellow paper spark and burn, and found himself feeling a sting of regret for not taking a second look.  In spite of Lee’s insistence that most of the data was long obsolete, Vell couldn’t shake the feeling he’d missed something.

He was correct, of course.  The symbol Lijia had used as a stand-in for her mysterious entity had a small detail none of them had noticed.  The two dots she used to mark it as a higher entity were ever so slightly different colors, like a pair of subtly heterochromic eyes.  Those mismatched eyes stared out from the paper with a blank gaze before the consuming fire blinked them shut -for now.

Chapter 40: Whacky Races

“Why do I have to do this again?” Vell asked.  “We already stopped the explosion.”

“Because we had to enroll you in the race to get you close enough to rewire that nuclear engine,” Lee said.

“And because I’ve been looking for another excuse to get you in those chaps,” Harley said, as she strapped Vell’s saddle to the robot horse.

The day of the annual Campus Race had come, and the school had divided into various factions, all represented by a single vehicle.  After disarming the nuclear science division's highly radioactive “car”, Vell was still obligated to compete as the robotics department representative.  Harley had prepped the robotic horse and all his riding gear for the occasion.  Lee was busier explaining than preparing.

“We tried- Well, I tried, Harley was very enthusiastic about the chaps- to explain the situation to Principal Goodwell, but he claimed that registration is final.”

“Which is a lie, by the way,” Harley said.

“Oh great, so now we have to worry what that’s about,” Vell sighed.

“Oh, well, no actually, we’re pretty sure we know why you couldn’t withdraw,” Lee said with a stiff smile.

“Hold on to your seats, students and spectators all, the racers are about to take their mark for the annual Campus Race,” an all-too familiar voice said.  Vell’s heart dropped out of his chest.  “Sponsored this year by me, Alistair Kraid.”

Vell let out a long, loud groan, so deep and rumbling it drowned out the engines roaring around him.  Of course it would be Kraid.

“You could just start the race and then default,” Harley suggested.  “I could fake a malfunction in the robo-horse.”

“No, I won’t give Kraid the satisfaction,” Vell said.  “We’re doing this.”

“I respect your ability to commit to the bit, Vell,” Harley said.  She gave his robot horse a pat on the butt to get it moving out of the prep room and onto the race track.  The massive course constructed for the occasion encircled the island, going through elaborate curves and a single loop de loop that Vell wasn’t entirely sure his mechanical steed could handle.

The equine automaton trotted into place amid a sea of rocket-propelled racecars and high speed hovercraft -and a single woman in running shoes.

“Leanne?”

“Hey Vell,” Leanne said.  She stretched out a bit, prepping for the run ahead.

“Why are you here?”

“Going to run, obviously,” Leanne said.  “And for your follow-up question, ‘If you’re here, why did I have to sign up for this?’, well...it was kind of a last minute decision.  Sorry.”

Vell nodded.  He was already committed at this point anyway.  No point complaining or questioning it now.  He had other questions anyway.

“So, uh, don’t you need a vehicle to compete in this?”

Leanne flexed her legs, and her veins blazed black with a strength-enhancing nanomachine formula.

“I’m moving faster with mechanical assistance,” Leanne said.  “Technically a vehicle.”

“That seems like a weird loophole,” Vell said.

“It wouldn’t work for most people, but I actually do run fast enough to legally qualify as a car.”

“Ah.  Well alright then,” Vell said.  “So, why did you decide to sign up last minute anyway?”

“Well you got pressured into it, and I didn’t really want you to compete alone,” Leanne began.

“Oh I’m not alone, Freddy’s right over there.  Hi Freddy!”

“Hey Vell!  Hello Leanne!”  Freddy waved at them from the back of his experimental go-kart.  It had some form of glowing engine that Vell was still mildly concerned about.

“Okay, still,” Leanne said.  “I also...well, I’m not going to get many other chances to do something this weird.  I mean, look, that guy’s got a whole rocket strapped to his ass.”

The rocket-strapped rollerskater to their left gave them two thumbs up.

“Rock Rolland the Rocket Roller is unfazed by your casual criticism,” Rock said.

“It’s not criticism, man, you do you,” Leanne said, returning his thumbs up.  She turned back to Vell.  “I’m just trying to take these last few opportunities for shenanigans as they come, you know?  Seize the moment, try something new?”

“I get it,” Vell said.  “Good for you.”

“And as an added benefit, I get to beat you and Harley’s dumb robot horse while I’m at it,” Leanne taunted.

“Oh, is this what we’re doing now?  A little friendly competition?”

“Who said it was friendly?”

Leanne glared right at Vell with a playful smile, and Vell glared right back.  He tightened his grip on the reins of his robot horse and then turned his gaze to the racetrack ahead.

“Racers, to your stations,” Kraid shouted over the PA system.  “To those of you just tuning in or too stupid to remember, I’m Alistair Kraid, your future overlord, and joining me today for color commentary is my partner and lobotomized personal assistant, Yes Man!  Isn’t that right, Yes Man?”

“Yes sir,” Yes Man said, because agreeing with Kraid was all he could do.

“Before we get started I’d like to take some time to introduce today’s racers.  Starting with Rock Rolland the Roll- Actually no, I’m not reading all this shit.  You want an R word?  Here’s one: ridiculous.  Because you are.”

“I remain unfazed!” Rock Rolland shouted defiantly.

“Up next we have the Mute Musclehead, Leanne Mikkola!”

Leanne pointed a middle finger in the direction of the announcer’s booth.

“The High-Velocity Virgin, Frederick Frizzle.”

“Hey!”

“The Runestone Cowboy, Vell Harlan!”

“Huh.  That’s not so bad, actually,” Vell said, too soon.

“Don’t let his height fool you, ladies, he has a disproportionately small penis.”

“Untrue,” Harley shouted from the stands, as Vell sighed.

“And the rest of you guys I frankly don’t care about, actually,” Kraid said.  The sound of him tossing aside a sheet of paper boomed over the PA.  “I’m just here to watch the race.  Three two one go!”

The abrupt countdown led to an explosive start as every race had to go from zero to one-hundred in a second.  Rock Rolland activated his butt-rocket and rolled to a commanding lead as other racers took off with a start behind him.  Thanks to the very low start up time of legs, Leanne and Vell also took an early lead over most of the pack.  Vell slightly more so than Leanne.

“Not too late for this competition to become ‘friendly’, Leanne,” Vell shouted over his shoulder.

“Just pacing myself, Harlan, we’ve got three laps to go,” Leanne said.  “Also, watch your left.”

Vell veered his mount to the left just in time to avoid a large stone slamming into the track just ahead of him.  Vell looked over his shoulder again and saw a large wooden cart mounted with a trebuchet.  How he had missed that earlier, Vell didn’t know.

“I wasn’t aware we were going full Wacky Races,” Vell said.  “I would’ve brought a lasso.”

Vell dodged another incoming boulder and tried to plan his next move.

“They seem to be aiming at you,” Leanne said.

“Neat!  Any idea how to have them, uh, not do that?”

“Steer towards me,” Leanne said.  Vell complied, and Leanne hustled a bit to catch up with his slight lead.  The next time the trebuchet team launched a boulder, Leanne launched herself, jumping skyward to intercept. With a swing of her arms, Leanne spiked the boulder like a volleyball and sent it hurtling right back towards the source, turning the trebuchet team into the toothpick team.  Leanne landed and got back into her stride, catching up to Vell in short order.

“Thanks.”

“Any time.”

“So, uh, are we working together or not?”

“I’m still going to beat you, Vell, but I’m not going to let you get hit by a fucking boulder,” Leanne said.

“Makes sense.  Also, swap places with me, dude on your right has a sword.”

Leanne ducked and rolled under the robot horse as Vell weaved to the right.  The armored kart racer on the right swung a long sword, and Vell caught it with the head of the robot horse.  Harley’s sturdy construction held, and the blade shattered on the horse’s forehead.  The equally sturdy robotic hooves then kicked the kart’s wheels, sending it skidding off the race track and into the ocean that bordered it.

“Did I miss a memo about a medieval theme this year?” Vell asked.  “That’s two in a row.”

“That guy’s definitely not,” Leanne said, pointing just ahead of them.  They were rapidly catching up to a goggles-wearing lunatic in a leather vest, sitting astride a mechanical spider that was spewing a cloud of steam into the air.

“Looks like the dynamic duo is catching up to...to…” Kraid paused briefly and retrieved the notes he had tossed aside.  “Venrich Gearworthy and his Amazing Auto-Gyro Spider?  Where the fuck do they find these people?”

The Amazing Auto-Gyro Spider proved to be slightly less amazing than the name would suggest.  Vell and Leanne waited for it to do anything of interest.  The pilot apparently noticed their anticipation and took a quick break from shoveling coal to shout in their direction.

“Just building up steam pressure,” he said.  “Once this beauty hit’s four-hundred PSI, you’re going to be doomed!”

In response, Vell reached up and turned a valve on the Spider’s back, releasing a massive burst of steam.  The Auto-Gyro Spider slowed to a crawl, as Vell and Leanne continued racing ahead.

“Come on, guys,” Gearworthy whined.  “Do you have any idea how expensive all this brass is?”

They didn’t.  They also didn’t hear much of Gearworthy’s whining as they once again focused on outpacing one another, and on the obstacles ahead.  The track’s single loop de loop loomed large overhead, taunting them to challenge conventional physics to overcome it on foot.

“Any chance our uneasy truce extends to helping each other with the loop?” Vell asked.

“Well, we are loopers, so...no!”

Leanne broke into a full sprint, pulling ahead of Vell as they closed in on the loop.  Vell whipped the reins and picked up the pace as well.

“For the record,” Vell shouted at her.  “I was asking for your sake.”

He reached down to the side of the robot horse’s neck, pressing down on a small panel.  Vell had been slightly smug up to this point, but then he remembered exactly how Harley had chosen to install this particular feature.  He sighed deeply as the horses tail lifted slightly.

“This was Harley’s idea!” Vell shouted, just before the rocket in the robot horse’s butt fired.

The rocket powered fart did its job, at least.  The short burst of inertia kept the mechanical hooves of the horse firmly planted on the ground as Vell went through the loop.  Vell staying on the back of said horse, on the other hand, came down to his surprisingly strong thighs.  Saddles didn’t come with seatbelts, after all.

“Nice grip,” Leanne said.

“What-  How did you get through the loop?”

“Ran fast,” Leanne said.  “Just like this.”

Kicking up a cartoonish cloud of dust as she suddenly burst forward, Leanne shot down the racetrack like a cannonball, waving goodbye to Vell as she did so.

◆◆◆

“So how’s the lead working out for you?” Vell asked.

“Cocky isn’t a good look on you, Vell Harlan,” Leanne shouted.  “Now help me with this fucking octopus.”

Having taken the lead over Vell, Leanne had eventually found herself face to face with one of the other racers.  Specifically the marine biology department, which was piloting a gigantic mechanical octopus on wheels down the racetrack.  In her attempt to pass it, Leanne had been caught up in one of the tentacles, alongside several other racers.  Michaela and Michael Watkins kept as many racers entangled as possible, to eliminate the competition wherever they could.  While Leanne would normally have just kicked their stupid robot octopus apart, one of the tendrils had snatched her by the arm, and she couldn’t get proper leverage to destroy it while dangling.

“I’ll do what I can,” Vell shouted.  He kept his distance from the roboctopus and tried to look for an angle of approach.  Unfortunately, the circular nature of octopus anatomy meant there was a tentacle everywhere.  Vell pulled back and, in a decidedly, uncowboyish move, pulled out his cell phone.

“Hey Harley.”

“Shouldn’t you be racing right now, Mr. Harlan?”

“Yeah, I’ll get right back to it,” Vell said.  “Just, uh, tell me how to deal with an octopus.”

“Have you tried inviting it to movie night?”

“Very funny, Harley,” Vell said.  “Seriously, I know you can see this thing.  It’s like thirty feet wide.”

“Hold on a bit, I’ll have a better view of it when you come around the corner,” Harley said.  From her seat in the stands, she craned her neck to look at one of the viewing screens for the further portions of the racetrack.  As the mechanical octopus came into view, she nodded thoughtfully and stroked her chin a few times.

“Uh huh, uh huh, just what I thought,” she mumbled to herself.  Then she returned her focus to the call with Vell.  “Go between the second and third tentacle on the left and have the horse kick that big metal panel.”

“Will do,” Vell said.  He was beyond the point of questioning Harley’s proficiency with machines now.  “Thanks Harls.”

“Anything to help a friend and mess with the marine biologists,” Harley said.  “Good luck, Vell!  Hope you beat Leanne!”

Vell hung up the phone and tucked it back into his pocket as he swerved the robot horse into position.  He ducked under one swinging tendril and leaped over another as he got into position.  With a quick pull of the reins, the horse reared up and kicked with its hind legs, leaving two hoofprints in the metal panel.

The single impact set off a chain reaction within the machine.  Interior components started to snap and ping like metallic popcorn, and the entire robo-octopus rattled as its insides collapsed.  The bulbous metal head shook once, and a single screw popped loose from within.

In one mighty puff of metal dust, every individual component of the octopus separated, turning the once mighty machine into a cloud of scrap metal.  Michaela and Michael Watkins were left sitting on a threadbare frame and four bare wheels as their engine fell out from below them.

“This is your fault,” Michael grumbled.

While they argued, Leanne fell.  Without the octopus tendril holding her aloft, she, and all the other racers, plummeted downwards.  While the vehicles crashed into the ground, cracking their metal frames, Leanne landed on her side and rolled into a handspring.  Within seconds, she was on her feet, and sprinting alongside Vell once again.

“Nice landing.”

“Thanks,” Leanne said.  “I used to do cheerleading.”

Vell tightened his grip on the reins and tried to keep his face forward.  Despite his best efforts, Leanne noticed his reaction.

“You’re imagining me in a cheerleader uniform right now, huh?”

“I’m trying very hard not to and it’s, uh, only mostly working,” Vell said.  For both their sakes, he changed the subject.  “So are we like, officially a team now, or what?”

“I’m still going to beat you,” Leanne repeated.  “But I’m willing to team up for a while.  Just until we get rid of all these weirdos who keep trying to mess with us.”

“Sure,” Vell said.  “On the note of weirdos, do you hear music?”

Leanne nodded.  The booming music, which seemed to be coming from behind them, was getting louder, and closer.  The two looked over their shoulders and saw a large, mobile rack of massive speakers surging forward down the racetrack.  The duo veered to the side of the track to put some room between themselves and the rock truck. 

The massive vehicle closed the gap, and the booming music reached a climax just as it rolled up alongside them.  A guitarist standing astride the truck’s roof, sandwiched between the massive speakers, stepped forward and waved in their direction during the brief musical interlude.

“Hey dudes,” he said.  “Dig the horse!”

“Oh, thanks,” Vell said.  “Nice guitar.”

“Just to be clear, you’re not going to try and kill us with some kind of sonic weapon, are you?”

“Nah, I’m not down for that Mad Max shit everyone in this race seems to want to do,” the guitarist said.  “Though I guess I am kind of dressed like a Mad Max character.”

“Yeah, sort of why I asked,” Leanne said.

“My guitar doesn’t shoot fire, though,” the guitarist assured them.  “I’m just here to rock and roll, you know?”

“Cool.”

“Any requests, you two?”

“You know anything by Roxy and the Boosters?” Leanne asked.

“Nah, man, that chick’s wicked overrated,” the guitarist said.  He’d barely finished the sentence before Leanne ran over to the side of his truck and kicked it so hard all the wheels flew off.  As his truck skidded to a halt on the racetrack, Leanne and Vell shared a knowing nod.  He’d deserved that.

“And it seems that our foot racers have just cruelly attacked the fan favorite...music guy, I forget his name,” Kraid announced.  “Somebody should probably eliminate them for that, right Yes Man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See, the lobotomite has my back,” Kraid said.  “Seriously, somebody kick those two off the track or something.”

Vell and Leanne looked to their left, at a single racer in a souped-up go kart.  He shrugged at them.

“Anyone who eliminates them gets twenty thousand dollars,” Kraid added.

The go karter turned sharply in Leanne’s direction.  She sighed.

◆◆◆

“Give me that guy’s sword,” Leanne shouted.  Vell obliged, disarming one of the pirate-themed racers and tossing his sword in Leanne’s direction.  She grabbed it, cut the ropes of the pirate ship/race car’s sails, and then tossed the blade directly into the engine of a muscle car that was pursuing them.  The engine bellowed smoke and then burst, leaving the driver to dive into the adjacent sea to escape the flames.  Another death machine swerved past the flaming husk and took its turn pursuing them.

While the various racers had shifted focus from winning the race to making sure Vell and Leanne lost, their dozens of attempts had all been thwarted.  The death racers were rank amateurs at best, whereas Leanne had been fighting off various apocalypses for a solid four years.  Vell, who’d only been fighting them off for close to one, was a bit more bruised, but still holding his own.  He had dodged the spears of rampaging fish-men, he could handle a few pirate cosplayers with prop swords. 

However, since the pirate band had, for some reason, decided to include actual sails as part of their propulsion system, they were no longer a threat.  Vell jumped over the railing of their replica pirate ship and landed on his horse, which had been running alongside the vessel the whole time.  The pirate ship faded into the background as they continued down the racetrack.

“You know, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see a full-scale pirate ship at the starting line,” Vell said.

“Weirdos come out of the woodwork around here, you should know that,” Leanne said.  Vell could only nod in agreement.

“I’m just saying, I thought we’d have to fight like, twenty people, tops, and we’re on something like forty-five.”

“Forty six,” Leanne said.  “Incoming.”

A lone rider on a motorcycle raced forward, closing the gap.  In a refreshing change of pace, they didn’t seem to have any particular themed gimmick, though they did have a large club they swung at Leanne.  She caught it in her bare hands.  The motorcycle rider’s face was hidden by a helmet, but she could still sense the fear on their face.

The fear became outright panic as Vell grabbed them by the back of their leather jacket and hoisted them aboard the horse.  He swerved left and kept a firm hold on the motorcycle rider as they approached the ocean.

“You’re going to want to tuck your legs in close,” Vell advised.  “And take the helmet off as soon as you can.”

“Wha-”

Vell didn’t bother letting them finish before he pushed them off the horse’s back, into the ocean.  They failed to follow Vell’s advice and ended up tumbling and thrashing as they hit the water’s surface and then sank below it.  Vell left their fate in the capable hands of the island’s robot lifeguards, and they were swiftly rescued.  Leanne scoffed at him as Vell returned to her side.

“You usually give instructions to the bad guys?”

“Oh they’re not a bad guy, they’re just a guy who wants twenty-thousand dollars,” Vell said.  “Kraid’s the bad guy.”

“Would you club someone for twenty-thousand bucks?”

“Well, no,” Vell said.  “But maybe they need the money more than I do.”

“Right,” Leanne said, with a heavy roll of her eyes. She took a look over her shoulder to see if any new racers were catching up with them.  A few distant threats presented themselves on the horizon, but nothing immediate.

“We just started the second lap, right?  It’s kinda hard to tell with all these guys fighting us all the time.”

“Yeah, just a bit ago,” Vell said.  “Are you getting tired?  You can ride my horse for a bit.”

“I’m good,” Leanne said.  “And I’m not letting you do me any favors.  When I win this thing, I don’t want you to say you helped me.”

“Help you?  I stopped you from getting hit with a freeze ray,” Vell protested.

“Yeah, and I punched the cyber-cheetah that nearly tackled you,” Leanne said.  “It’s reciprocal.  I can’t reciprocate a ride on your weird robo-horse.  Unless you expect me to carry the thing, which isn’t happening.”

“Have it your way, I guess,” Vell said.  “Hoverboards at five o’clock.”

The pack of eight hoverboard-mounted students closed in on Vell and Leanne from above.  They attacked like a swarm of insects, swooping down on either of the two with quick dives, then veering out of reach before any retaliation could be made.  Leanne made a valiant effort, and even knocked one of the hoverboarders off his board, but his comrades caught him and had him mounted again in a second.  The duo simply wasn’t equipped to deal with their aerial agility.

“Ow, stop it,” Vell pleaded in vain.  “You know even if this works, Kraid’s just going to make you split the prize eight ways, right?”

“That’s still two point five grand each,” one of the hoverboarders said, before swooping at Vell again.  “Pretty solid.”

The hoverboarder struck Vell on the shoulder, rattling him in his saddle, but not quite shaking him.

“Okay, whatever, jesus,” Vell sputtered.  “Could you at least just shove me or something instead of this death by a thousand slaps bullshit?”

“If you insist,” the hoverboarder said.  Since they (correctly) perceived Vell to be the easier target of the two, the hoverboarder’s had no objection to ganging up on him.  The eight boarders gathered in a single cluster and prepared to make a final dive at Vell.  Their engines roared in unison as they reached the apex of their ascent and prepared to dive -a dramatic swelling of noise that was slightly undercut by the rhythmic blaring of a “La Cucaracha” horn.

The thunderous notes of Latin American folk music preceded a swift, lime-green bolt of lightning from the vehicle of Freddy Frizzle.  The directed bolt of electromagnetic energy fried the circuits of one of the hoverboarders and sent him tumbling to the ground.  Freddy swerved to avoid the fallen boarder and then fired his disruptive weapon again, screaming at the top of his lungs all the while.  He did not stop shouting, or firing, until the last of the hoverboarders decided they no longer wished to risk the wrath of the manic ginger and beat a hasty retreat. 

“What the fuck is this?” Kraid said over the intercom.  “How is that living feather duster still in the race?”

“Hey, don’t listen to him, Freddy, I appreciate the assist,” Vell said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Leanne added.

“Don’t mention it,” Freddy said.  He took a minute to catch his breath after having done a full minute of sustained screaming.  “Whoof.  I don’t think I needed the battle cry.”

“Was that a battle cry?” Leanne said.  “It read more like...I don’t know, normal screaming.”

“I tried,” Freddy said.

“He can work on it, it was a good start,” Vell said.  “I get the feeling this won’t be the last fight of this race.”

“Well, it could be,” Freddy shouted.  He consulted a small screen in his makeshift racecar.  “According to this, the three of us are ahead of most of the pack right now.  That’s the good news.”

“You say that like there’s bad news.”

“There’s always bad news,” Leanne sighed.

“Well the good news of the bad news is that it’s mostly bad news for me,” Freddy said.  “I don’t think this cart’s got enough juice left in it for the rest of the race.  Experimental tech, right?”

“At least it, uh, didn’t explode,” Vell said.

“That’s right!  Progress,” Freddy said.  “I have a plan, though. I’m going to pump my brakes at the start of the loop de loop and save the rest of my battery power for the EMP gun.  Since people will be barreling for maximum speed headed into the loop, I should be able to eliminate racers, or at least slow them down, enough for you two to have a clear shot.”

“Are you sure?  We could try to give you a jump, or something, give you a fair shot at finishing,” Vell suggested.

“I appreciate the offer but you can’t really ‘jump’ an ion engine,” Freddy said.  “I know what I’m doing, guys.”

“Alright, but we’re at least buying you a pizza later or something,” Leanne insisted.  Freddy did not object to that.  As they approached the loop, Freddy slammed on the brakes and veered in a circle, aiming his cart’s weapon at the racers who were rapidly closing the gap behind them.  Still going at top speed, Vell and Leanne never got to see how his last stand played out.  From the fact that they were no longer being harassed by racers every second, Vell assumed it was going well.

“I guess we’re in the clear,” Leanne said.

“Yep.”

Vell glanced sideways at Leanne, and tightened his grip on the reins.  Leanne looked sideways at Vell, and the muscles in her shoulders tensed.

“We could still-”

Leanne cut Vell off by hurtling forward in a mad dash for the finish line.  Vell muttered a curse around his breath and whipped the reins, firing up his steed.  If Leanne wanted a race, he would give her a race.

With the loop de loop behind them and the final lap stretching out ahead, Vell burned through the last of his horses jet fuel.  Harley giggled to herself as the robo-horse’s jet fart took Vell into the lead.  After hitting the gas that looked a bit too much like gas, Vell found himself a fair distance ahead of Leanne -but he was losing that lead with every step.  Leanne’s superhuman strength could match, and exceed, even Harley’s robotics.

Vell glanced warily at Leanne’s terminator-esque sprint bearing down on him, and decided to call Harley.

“Harley!  Does the horse have any other secret weapons?”

“It has a gyroscopically stable cupholder,” Harley said.  “But that probably doesn’t help much.  You asked for a horse, Harlan, it does horse things.  If you wanted bells and whistles you should’ve asked.”

“How is a rocket powered ass a ‘horse thing’?”

“Do they not all do that?” Harley said.  “But seriously, I added that just for the race.  And because it’d be funny.  I didn’t have the time or resources to do anything fancy.”

“Alright, I guess.”

“Why do you even care?  I’ve never known you to be competitive.  Just let Leanne beat you.”

“I don’t really mind, but I feel like she’ll be mad if I just let her win.”

“Well, on the topic of winning, actually-”

“Hold on, she’s catching up,” Vell said.  “I need to focus.  Talk to you later.”

Vell hung up his phone and took the reins in both hands.  With no combat to slow down and drag out the race, the end of the last lap was rapidly approaching from the front, and Leanne was rapidly approaching from behind.  Vell kept his eyes ahead and whipped the reins.  It didn’t actually help, but it made him feel better.

The pounding of metallic hooves beneath Vell drowned out the sound of Leanne’s footsteps at first, but as she got closer, they got louder.  Within seconds Vell could tell Leanne was nearly neck and neck with him.

“Hey Vell,” she said, further confirming her proximity.  “How’s the lead working out for you?”

“Cocky isn’t a good look for you either,” Vell shot back.  Leanne didn’t waste any breath on a comeback.  Just the one taunt had already slowed her down a bit.  She didn’t let it show on her face, but  the race was starting to exhaust her.  She poured the last of her energy into a mad sprint towards the finish line, eventually taking the lead over Vell and his robotic mount.

As she pulled ahead, Vell scoured his mount for any secret, any way to give himself a final boost of speed.  He accidentally deployed the cupholder five times, but he didn’t even have a cup to hold.  All he had was a ridiculous cowboy outfit, a saddle, and four robotic legs.

Vell took a look at the finish line, and had another one of his trademark bad ideas.

With the finish line only second away, it took a lot to distract Leanne from the finish line.  The sound of a robotic whinny managed to do it.  Leanne dared to look over her shoulder just in time to see Vell standing on the back of the horse as it ran backwards, jet-powered ass facing the finish line.  He had unstrapped the saddle and attached it to his arm like a shield.

“What the fuck are you-”

Vell jumped, and as he hovered in the air, clutching his saddle for dear life, the horse kicked him.

The sudden impact sent him hurtling towards the finish line, soaring through the air faster than the horse had been able to carry him.  Leanne watched him arc towards her and had an equally terrible idea.  She braced, leaped up, and grabbed on to Vell as he flew.

Firmly trapped in Leanne’s ironclad arms, Vell’s inertia became her inertia, and the two sailed across the finish line entangled with one another.  They bounced once, then rolled across the paved racetrack.  Lee and Harley, who had started to descend from their seats as Vell and Leanne executed their increasingly stupid gambits, reached the bottom of the stairs just as the two racers rolled to a halt.  Leanne, naturally, ended up atop Vell, pinning him to the ground as she looked up at the two.

“Alright, who won?” She demanded, oblivious to the fact that she’d scuffed her arms and legs to the point of bleeding in several places.  Unlike Vell’s protective riding gear, she’d rolled down the street in her very light running gear.

“Well, about that, dear,” Lee mumbled.  Vell looked up at her, as best he was able to with Leanne holding him to the ground.

“What?”

“I tried to tell you on the phone, man,” Harley said.  She pointed further down the racetrack.  “That roller skates guy won like a minute ago.”

“Vindication!”

Rock Rolland the Rocket Rollerskater rolled past, shouting triumphantly while he held his trophy aloft.  Vell and Leanne watched as he slowly wheeled past.

“I guess we never did catch up with that guy,” Vell noted.

“Well fuck!” Leanne cried. 

“Wait, though, who won second place?”

“No one gives a fuck about second place, Vell,” Leanne said.  She was used to being absolutely dominant in every physical activity, so coming in second place was tantamount to losing in Leanne’s eyes.

“Okay.  Okay.  Then, uh…”

“What?”

“What I think Vell’s trying to say is: ‘Could you please stop straddling me, Leanne?’”

It took Harley’s mild teasing for Leanne to realize her awkward position, and Leanne finally unpinned Vell and let him stand.  Leanne got her complaints back on track in a second, as much to genuinely complain as to change the subject.

“All that effort to lose to the roller skates guy.  Man, what’d I do all- Urp.  Excuse me.”

Leanne then retreated to the sidelines to spend a solid two minutes vomiting spent nanobots into the ocean.

“An undignified end to an undignified effort for our two least favorite racers,” Kraid shouted from the announcer’s booth.  “And by the way, nobody’s getting that twenty k.  You’re all tremendous disappointments and this was a complete waste of my time.  Come on, Yes Man, I need to lift my spirits.  Let’s go commit some felonies.”

“Yes sir!”

The PA clicked into silence as Kraid presumably abandoned the booth.  Vell was just glad to be rid of him.  Hopefully.  There was no guarantee he wouldn’t turn up to harangue Vell later on.  As Kraid left, a few disheartened racers wheeled their way across the finish line, glaring at Vell and Leanne as the two regrouped.  Harley handed Leanne a water bottle, which she used to wash the last of the nanobot-infused bile out of her mouth.

“Rock’s throwing a victory party, if you two guys want to do something,” Harley said.  “You should probably shower first, though.  You guys smell like a combo of sweat, leather, and asphalt.”

“Probably all the sweat, leather, and asphalt,” Leanne said. 

“You’re a real scientist after all,” Harley said.  “I’m out.  See you guys at the party!”

Harley and Lee excused themselves to go socialize while Leanne led the way back towards the dorms.  Vell followed a few steps behind, slightly bowlegged due to saddle-soreness.

“You actually going to go to that party?” Vell asked, hoping conversation would distract him from the numbness below the waist.

“Probably,” Leanne said.  “I didn’t party enough the past four years.  I should probably swing one more while I still can.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said.  “If I can still walk after I get out of the shower, I’ll be right there with you.”

“Don’t push yourself.  You already went way overboard during the race,” Leanne scolded.  Only a lunatic would get himself kicked by a robo-horse to try and win a race.  Leanne appreciated the boldness, though.  “Thanks for not going easy on me, though.  Felt good to have a real competition for once.  Even if I did lose to a guy with a rocket on his ass.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vell said.

“No, I appreciate it,” Leanne said.  “Honestly, I was kind of expecting you to try and give it to me at the last minute.”

“Well.  I wouldn’t do something like that,” Vell said. 

“You sure?  You’re usually a bit of a people pleaser,” Leanne said.  “You’re too nice for your own good sometimes.”

“Maybe,” Vell admitted.  “But you wanted a real challenge.  Sometimes the nicest thing you can do for someone is be a little mean.”

“Don’t go throwing any more paradoxes into our life, Harlan,” Leanne chided.

“Sorry.”

◆◆◆

“So,” Kraid began.  “How’d the distraction work for you?”

“Everything’s in place now,” Principal Goodwell said.  “I should be ready within a matter of days.”

While Kraid would never pass up an opportunity to torment Vell Harlan, he was especially interested in grander schemes -schemes like the one Principal Goodwell had been concocting all year.  The race, and Kraid’s presence, had kept the loopers attention focused elsewhere while Kraid’s people made a few deliveries to Goodwell.

“Good.  Because between that concert and this race, you’re spending a pretty penny just to distract a few kids,” Kraid said.  He tapped his skeletal fingertip against one of the machines Goodwell had prepared.  “Seems like a lot of wasted effort.”

“It’s all necessary,” Goodwell assured him.  “Don’t underestimate what those ‘kids’ are capable of.”

“I’m not underestimating them, Principal,” Kraid said.  “I’m correctly estimating you.  You’re an inept lunatic on a path to your own inevitable failure.”

Kraid smiled in Goodwell’s direction, baring all of his fangs in the principal’s direction.  Goodwell shook his head.

“It will work,” Goodwell insisted.  Then, more quietly: “It has to work.”

“Sure, buddy, sure,” Kraid said.  “You keep telling yourself that.  And hey, don’t let me get you all the way down.  You’re going to generate some real good data for me before it all comes crashing down around you.”

Kraid walked over to Goodwell and rested a skeletal hand on his shoulder.  The green flames that suspended his blackened arm burned a little brighter as he latched on to Goodwell.

“I’ll even give you a little help,” Kraid said.  “There’s an old friend of mine on campus.  And she happens to know quite a bit about Vell Harlan.”

Chapter 41: One Last Hangout

“Alright, tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” Luke said.  “That’s the night that works for the most people with the fewest conflicts of interest.”

He pinned his finger down on the schedule, pointing out their chosen date.  The group had gathered one last time, to try and squeeze in one more group hangout before the end of the year.  As study sessions and finals crammed their schedules, it had proven an arduous task, but they had eventually rearranged their days well enough to suit as many people as possible. 

“I’m going to have to sprint from my last final, but yeah, I can make it,” Cane said. 

“You could just miss the start of the movie,” Harley suggested. 

“I’m not missing a minute, baby,” Cane said.  She rolled her eyes at him, in spite of her smile.

“We’ll pull out all the stops,” Luke assured them all.  “Though, on the note of timing, I got to go.”

“Me too,” Freddy said.

The loopers watched them go.  It was still the first loop, so they felt no urgency to run off to their finals.  They were avoiding them, in fact, as getting a preview of the test questions was all but cheating.  None of them particularly wanted (or needed, for that matter) the unfair advantage.  It also gave them a little more time to relax among the hectic schedules of the year’s end.

“So,” Lee began, glancing in Vell and Harley’s direction.  “Can we trust you two to keep to the schedule, or will you be off sneaking in one last bit of fraternization?”

“What?” Vell asked.

“’Fraternization’ is how Lee says ‘fucking’,” Harley explained.

“Oh.  Nah, we sort of don’t do that anymore,” Vell said.

“What?” Lee asked, all too shocked by Vell’s casual attitude.  “When did this happen?  Why didn’t you tell me you two broke up?”

“Because we were never together,” Harley scoffed.  “It was a casual thing, Lee.  We did it when we had the time.  Now we don’t have as much time, so we don’t do it anymore.  Easy.”

“I’m too busy cramming books to be cramming her,” Vell said.

“Ha, nice,” Harley said, before high-fiving Vell.  “But seriously.  It was never that serious.  I mean come on, I can’t marry this guy, then my name would be Harley Harlan and that’d be ridiculous.”

“Isn’t your name already Harley Harley?” Vell asked.

“Yeah, but that’s at least repeating,” Harley said.  “Harley Harlan is just different enough to be ridiculous.”

As the two debated the merits of Harley versus Harlan, Lee stared down at the table in silence.  Leanne watched her, silent for her own reasons.

◆◆◆

Luke cracked the bottle of champagne and made sure everyone got a glass, before lifting his own.

“A toast,” he said.  “To whatever the fuck was going on this year.  Never again shall there be a group of geniuses as stupid as us.”

The gathered crowd of Vell’s roommates, the loopers, and Freddy Frizzle raised their glasses in agreement.  As the toast concluded, Renard made for the kitchen and then came back bearing armloads of dishes and scraps of paper, carrying them all at once with very tenuous balance.  Lee and Luke helped him unload the various dishes safely.

“Alright, I tried to make a little bit of everyone’s favorites, and I wrote down the recipes while I was at it,” Renard said.  “But if you ever have any questions, feel free to call, I wrote the number for my restaurant on the lists too.”

“It’s never going to be the same, man,” Cane pouted, between mouthfuls of duck confit.  “Why do you have to leave us?’

“Well, I did fail all my non-cooking classes,” Renard said.  He had only ever attended the Einstein-Odinson college for a handful of culinary courses, and while his grades in those classes were exceptional, they were not enough to make up for his lackluster performance in literally every other area of human knowledge.

“We could’ve helped you, you know,” Luke said.  “I would absolutely commit academic fraud for one more year of your cooking.”

“Oh trust me, there’s no salvaging this,” Renard said with a shrug.  A bowl of tomato bisque nearly fell off his shoulders before Lee caught it and passed it along to Freddy.

“Some of the smartest people on campus are in this room,” Luke said, notably skipping Cane as he gestured to himself, Harley, and Freddy.  Cane didn’t notice.  “We could help with anything.”

In response, Renard produced his report card.  Luke took one look at it and dropped his fork.

“I- what?  Who could- What- Renard, how did you get a negative grade?” Luke demanded.

“Apparently I invented a whole new way to be wrong,” Renard said.  “I don’t know the details.  Scientists are still trying to figure it out.”

It took Luke a few seconds of heavy breathing to regain his composure, but once he had done so, he walked back to the gathering and put a hand on Renard’s soup-free shoulder.

“Well, genius or no, I’m going to miss you, man,” Luke said.

“Yeah. And not just the cooking either,” Cane said.  “You’re a good guy, Renard.  It’s going to be weird not having you around.”

The sentiment was echoed from all sides.  Renard’s warm meals and warm smiles had been a boon in many tough situations.

“You’ll get used to it,” Renard said.  “I mean, next year you guys are all going to have your own rooms, right?  No more roommates.”

Vell, Cane, and Luke shared a look.  There had been surprisingly little friction among them, considering they had started the year as four strangers.  Even considering the strangeness Vell brought to their doorstep on a regular basis, they had managed to become fast friends.

“Well, not sharing a room doesn’t have to change everything,” Vell insisted.  “We’ll just, uh, have to take turns hosting these get-togethers.”

“Right,” Luke said.  “Maybe it won’t be exactly the same, but it’ll be just as good, in it’s own way.”

Luke lifted his glass one more time, though it was empty now.

“Fill us up and let’s do one more,” Luke said.  “Lee spent a lot of her parent’s money on this champagne, after all, we’re getting their money’s worth.”

After a round of refills, Luke led another toast, this time to Leanne and Renard, who would be “irreplaceable”.  Leanne kept her eyes on Lee as they drank another toast.  She continued staring down.  Lee managed to sip at her champagne and give a halfhearted cheer at the end of the toast.

◆◆◆

Though everyone involved didn’t want it to be so, the night had to end eventually.  Between early starts next morning or a need to do last-minute cramming tonight, the group of friends had to disperse to address their busy schedules.

“Want to walk back to the dorms?” Leanne asked Lee.  As Lee’s parents had insisted on her having only the best, they’d bribed her way into the senior dorms from the first year, making sure she had the most spacious one available.  It had only further isolated her from potential friends her own age, but the Burrows never actually considered the ramifications of their actions and they weren’t about to start for their daughters sake.

Lee nodded along with Leanne’s request and trudged her way out of Vell’s dorm.  She took one last mournful look at the dorm room, and waved goodbye to Renard, but said nothing.  Leanne tucked her hands in her pockets and stayed silent until they were out of the dorms.  Once they were a good distance away, she pulled one hand free and pointed to a bench that faced the ocean.

“Hey, I’m not in a hurry or anything, so if you want to, well, sit and talk for a while, maybe look at the ocean,” Leanne said.  “I’ve got time.”

Leanne nodded and sluggishly stumbled towards the bench, all but falling into it.  She did manage to look up, if only to stare at the crashing waves some distance away.  Leanne sat down next to her and also took in the dark horizon, as pitch black waves lapped against sand that looked grey-blue in the darkness.

“I could talk to my parents,” Lee spat suddenly.  “You could be a coach.  Athletic director.  Something.  You don’t have to leave.”

“Lee…”

Any pretense of dignity left the equation, and Lee leaned forward, clutching her knees hard to try and stop herself from crying.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said.  “I don’t want Renard to leave.  I don’t want- I don’t want everything to change.”

Leanne waited for a moment.  She told herself it was to let Lee collect herself, but really it was because she didn’t know what to say yet.  With all the torment Lee had been through in her life, she didn’t know what to say.  Lee was scared of losing a few of the only people she’d ever called true friends.

“I can’t- I’m afraid of what happens next,” Lee admitted.  “Even back when you were still silent, Leanne, I still saw you, your strength, as something I could rely on.  A rock.  When everything else was confusing, I knew exactly who to turn to.  And now that we’re- now that I hope we’re friends…”

“We are,” Leanne assured her.  She could say that much, at least.  “Friends, I mean.  Even back when I was giving you the silent treatment, I always liked you.  I was just being my own brand of weird.”

The reassurance of their friendship did draw a small smile to Leanne’s face, though tears were still welling up in her eyes.  Leanne dared to put a hand on her shoulder, in hopes of comforting her.

“I’m happy, Leanne,” Lee said.  “Even with all the chaos and everything we’ve been through...I’m happier than I think I’ve ever been.  And I’m terrified that these changes...losing you, might end that happiness.”

“You’re going to be fine, Lee.  You’ll have Vell and Harley, and whatever loopers join up next year, and odds are you’re going to make new friends on top of that.  Things will get better.”

Taking a single deep, shuddering breath, Lee managed to bite back most of the tears that threatened to burst forth.  She took a few more seconds to look at the ocean, and that, as always, calmed her down.

“It will never be the same without you,” Lee said.  “Thank you, Leanne.  For this, and for everything you’ve done the past two years.”

“Same to you,” Leanne said.  She leaned forward, bending a bit closer to the waves.  “And don’t act like this is some dramatic ending.  You’ve still got my number.”

“Right.  Of course,” Lee said.  In the digital age, no one was every truly out of reach.  “Leanne?  Can I ask you to promise me one thing?”

“Depends on the promise,” Leanne said.

“Will you come to my graduation?” Lee asked.  “You’ve been such a big part of my life here at school these past two years.  I can’t imagine you not being there when it all ends.”

“Of course,” Leanne promised.  Then she leaned back.  “You might need to help me pay for the ticket, though.  I don’t know how expensive it is to get from Finland to this island.  Lot of ground to cover.”

“Naturally,” Lee said.  “Though, if I may digress, Leanne, what is it exactly you’re going to do for a living after you graduate?  Ballball isn’t a very competitive field, salary-wise.”

“Oh, yeah,” Leanne said.  “Pretty much every athletic commission in the world got together and agreed to pay me a yearly fee to not compete in any sports.”

“Pardon? To not compete?” Lee asked, emphasizing “not”.

“Yeah apparently I’d ‘completely shatter all known world records and standards of play, making any team I joined into an unstoppable juggernaut that would shatter the league for years to come’,” Leanne said, quoting the exact words of the contract she’d received.

“Hmm.  What are you going to do with yourself if not playing sports?”

“Training,” Leanne said.  “Got to keep them scared of me if they’re going to keep paying.”

“The coaching offer stands,” Lee said.  “If you ever need something more fulfilling.”

“Maybe.  But for now,” Leanne said.  “I’m a bit homesick.”

The ocean of this tropical island was nice, but it was a far cry from the chilling wind of Finland, from the cold crashing waves of coast just down the road.  She needed home -a taste of it at least.  Maybe in a year or so she’d realize she’d been driven too mad to appreciate the mundanity of normal life, but she wanted to at least try.  She wanted to see her mom again, to sleep in her old bed, to feel the comforting familiarity of her own home.

Leanne’s heart dropped out of her chest as she dared to glance at Lee, who was staring pensively at the waves.  She didn’t have a home to go back to.  She’d never known a place of comfort that wasn’t this island, never known a family other than Harley, and Vell, and Leanne.

“Let’s get to bed,” Leanne insisted.  Lee obliged, though Leanne didn’t know how much sleep she would be getting.  The thought of Lee’s future nagged at her.

At least it did, until she remembered that Harley and Vell would be with her.  Harley would graduate alongside Lee, and Vell -Vell just had a way of making things seem like they’d be all right.  Somehow.

Leanne still struggled to sleep, as her thoughts drifted between the underclassmen she would be leaving behind.  To Lee, to Harley, and to Vell.

Chapter 42: The Graduate

The graduation banners overhead were a mark of celebration, and also a stark reminder: today, the seniors would be receiving their diplomas and leaving the island.  It marked the end of their tenure as students, and for Leanne, the end of her time as a looper.  While Vell and the other underclassmen loopers still had a few days to go, this was Leanne’s final loop.  They had gathered in their recently-acquired lair to mark the occasion -though Leanne had priorities other than sentimental conversation.  She was seizing what little time she had left in the consequence-free day by shoving her face full of a cinnamon roll.  And then a blueberry scone.  And then a chocolate chip pancake.

“So, I had a thought,” Leanne said.  Lee wanted to chide her for talking with her mouth full, but as Leanne was operating on very limited time, she let it slide.  “I’ve been trying to make the most of my last few hours in all this insanity, and I’ve realized something.  In all these years there’s something I should’ve done.  A risk I should’ve taken.”

She paused dramatically, which her friends took as her seeking their input.

“Uh...dying your hair?” Vell posited.

“No,” Leanne said.

“Getting laid?” Harley guessed.  Lee slapped her gently.

“No,” Leanne said, with a slightly longer delay.

“Getting a tattoo?”

“Again, no,” Leanne said.  “Getting revenge!”

“Oh,” Harley said.  “On Elijah?”

“No!”  Leanne protested.  “Well, maybe, if I have time.  After we deal with them!”

Leanne put her fork down and pointed emphatically towards the far wall, where Harley had hung a dart board and attached a picture of the Marine Biology department building.  With her other hand, Leanne made a fist and pounded it down on the table, nearly splintering the cheap wooden surface.

“Over the past four years I have been eaten by giant fish, killed by anthropomorphic sea creatures, or devolved into some kind of primordial amphibious human ancestor more times than I can count,” Leanne rumbled.  “I want revenge.”

“Cool,” Harley said.  “I’ve still got that gun that turns people inside out if you want to-”

“No,” Leanne interjected.  “No.  Just- just stop trying to guess what I want to do.  I just want it to be a prank, you know, shock them a bit.  No turning anyone inside out.”

“Okay, that’s cool too.  We got plenty of spooky stuff in reserves,” Harley said.  “Vell, you go through your rune horde, Lee, peruse your spells, I’m going to consult with Freddy and the bitches to see what kind of tech we’ve got lying around.  Leanne, you just keep chilling and doing whatever.”

Leanne gave a thumbs up and continued eating her smorgasbord of last-minute carbs.  Harley sprinted off, eager to exact revenge on her longtime adversaries, while Lee and Vell trundled off to their own tasks.

◆◆◆

“Alright Frederick Froiland Frizzle, what’ve you got for us?”

Harley put her hands on her hips and examined Freddy’s strange device -and several dozen empty cans of shaving cream.  He had promised them one of the best prank opportunities they’d ever seen, and Harley had assembled the looper crew to seize that opportunity.

“I call this the cream bomb,” Freddy said.

“Nope,” Lee insisted.  She put a hand over Harley’s mouth to silence the innuendo she could already see forming.

“Yeah, not going with that,” Leanne said.  “New name.”

“The, uh, shaving foam...bomb, then,” Freddy said.  Lee nodded in approval of the new name, and Freddy moved forward with his explanation.  “Basically, I’ve just used a matter supercondenser to put a whole bunch of shaving cream into this tiny sphere.”

He gestured to a small white orb suspended on a metal rack.  He invited Leanne to lift it, so long as she was careful, and did so.  While the weight was nothing she couldn’t handle, she was surprised that such a small object could weigh so much.  She had to hold the small orb in both hands to avoid dropping it.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff packed into the tiny sphere,” Freddy boasted.  “Enough to flood the average mid-sized building.”

“It’s perfect,” Leanne said.  “But how do we un-condense it?”

“It’s packed around a nanobot that disrupts the compression field,” Freddy explained.  He handed Vell a remote.  “Activating this will cause it to burst.  Or, in an emergency, you can just throw it really hard.”

“Radical,” Harley said.  “Do you just have the one, or…?”

“Just one,” Freddy said.  “But trust me.  It’ll be more than you need.”

“Secondary question,” Vell said.  “Is it safe?  People aren’t going to like, drown in foam, are they?”

“It’s non-toxic and water-soluble,” Freddy assured him.  “They’ll be fine.”

“Well, I’m on board, then,” Vell said.  “Everybody else good to go?”

“I’m good,” Harley said, as everyone else agreed.  Resolving to repay Freddy for his services on a day he would actually remember, the loopers headed for their next target.

“Do we want to swing by the lair and plan our next move?” Lee said.  “Or shall we simply improvise?”

“I kind of want to use the lair as much as possible,” Leanne said.  “I’m still mad we had that thing the whole time and Naomi kept it hidden.”

“As tempting as the idea of a private bone zone is, that was a dick move,” Harley said.  “But also, we should just get this prank done as fast as possible.  If we delay too long we run the risk of-”

The island lurched under their feet as the ocean roiled.

“-that,” Harley concluded.

Leanne sighed and headed for the beach.  The sea was beginning to churn with dozens of large, serpentine forms.  Lee shook her head at the sight.

“The Bakunawa again?” she sighed.  This was not the first time the Marine Biologists had accidentally drawn the ire of the moon-eating serpents. “Good lord.  At least it’s something we know how to handle.”

“Fine, let me find some place to put this down and-”

“Oh no, you’re delivering that fucking cream bomb,” Harley said to Leanne.  “Vell, you got the remote?  Good.  Go with her and blow up the Marine Biology department’s whole shit.”

“Indeed,” Lee said, drawing her whip from her purse.  “We handled these the last time they were summoned, we’ll handle them again.”

“I was punching them last time,” Leanne protested.

“Yes, but, we’ll have to get used to doing things without you and your muscles regardless,” Lee said.  “Might as well start now.”

“Yeah, we can kick decent amounts of ass on our own,” Harley said.  With that, she gave a rousing battle cry and charged straight for the ocean.  Lee, caught off guard by the sudden charge, sprinted after her as fast as her skirt would allow.  Harley hopped on the back of the Bakunawa nearest the shore and started kicking it in the spine, as Lee tried to use hydromancy to keep the beasts away from the island.

“They should be fine,” Vell said, as much to convince himself as Leanne.

“And those fishfuckers deserve this bomb that much more now,” Leanne said.  She continued on her path to the lab.  “Can’t believe they caused the same apocalypse twice in two years, who even does that?”

With the aquatic battle behind them, Leanne and Vell headed for the lab and forced their way in.  The Marine Biologists did not seem to be aware of the battle going on outside, despite the fact that bestial screaming and the sounds of combat could be heard from the lab.

“Hey, guys,” Vell said.  “Anything interesting going on?”

The researchers, who were all crowded around a machine that seemed to be agitating the fish in the tanks, and the Bakunawa outside, and were taking notes.  They briefly looked up from their research to glare coldly at Vell before returning to their work.  Outside, Harley screamed, and a Bakunawa roared loudly in pain.

“Do you think your machine has maybe possibly suffered a slight error?” Leanne asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael Watkins said.

One of the nearby windows shattered as a Bakunawa’s head crashed through, and was just as quickly lassoed back outside by Lee’s whip.

“I’m sure that’s entirely unrelated,” Michael huffed.

“Right.” Leanne said.  Their obstinate refusal to believe that their experiment was failing had one upside, at least.  Nobody paid any attention to Leanne as she carefully lowered the compressed shaving cream bomb towards the floor.  As soon as it was in place, she grabbed Vell by the arm and backed out of the room slowly.  Once they were out the door, she broke into a full sprint, as did Vell.

“Should I hit it now?”

“Not yet,” Leanne said.  She waited until they were outside, then turned to face the lab.  “Okay, now do it.”

“Should we step back a bit?”

“Nah, I want to be close enough to see it,” Leanne said.  “And, of course, to hear them scream.”

“If you say so,” Vell said.  He took the remote in hand and hit the button.

Thirty seconds later, he peeled himself off the wall of a nearby building and brushed the shaving cream away from his eyes.  It took him a few more seconds of flailing to brush aside enough of the foam for him to see anything.

“Leanne?”

A muffled “yeah?” came from the foam somewhere to the left of him, so Vell started trudging in that direction.  Cutting his way through shoulder-high foam that packed around him like snow in a blizzard, Vell eventually found his way to Leanne’s perch in a tree branch.  She was coated in foam from head to toe, but had a smile on her face as she observed the snow-white carnage.  She helped Vell to her tree branch and let him enjoy the view as well.

Ivory torrents of shaving cream had burst forth from every crack and seam in the Marine Biology building, and were still pouring out from every available opening.  The torrent of shaving cream had even extended outwards towards the coast, chasing off the attacking Bakunawa.  Ripples in the center of the ocean of foam proved that the unfortunate marine biologists caught up in their prank were still struggling to free themselves from the inescapable flood.  Leanne and Vell had a good laugh about that until the first foam-covered arm poked its way out of the snowy mass.

“Oh we should run,” Leanne said.  “I’m not spending my last day getting yelled at by these fishy losers.”

Vell hopped down from the tree and helped Leanne dismount in turn.  Unable to actually see the terrain, they had to use the rooftops of nearby buildings to navigate.  They could tell they were closer to senior dorms, so they headed for Leanne’s room to get cleaned up.

“I can just hose myself off with the shower real quick,” Vell suggested.  “Rather walk back to my dorm dripping wet than covered in this stuff, at least.”

“Come on, Vell, you can borrow some of my workout gear, at least,” Leanne suggested.  “Sweatpants are pretty unisex.”

“I guess.”

Leanne kicked open the room of her dorm, showering little puffs of shaving cream into the doorway.  She beckoned Vell further in and offered him a chair in the kitchen area.

“I’m hopping in first, since, you know, it’s my shower,” Leanne said.  “Stay here.  Feel free to help yourself to whatever.”

Leanne vanished into the bathroom and left Vell to sit awkwardly in the kitchen for a few minutes.  He washed the foam off his hands in case he wanted to touch anything, and then decided he was too nervous to touch anything.  He kept his hands on his foam-covered lap and looked around the room.

Everything was half-packed, with most of Leanne’s belongings packed into cardboard boxes.  Only the essentials, and Roxy’s guitar, were still sitting out in the open.  He wondered what this room might’ve looked like a few weeks, or even days ago, when Leanne’s belongings were out and on display.  He’d never gotten the chance to see Leanne’s dorm in its prime.  And he never would.

It was hard to feel somber when covered head to toe in shaving cream, but Vell managed.  At least until Leanne stepped out of the bathroom.

“Hey, sorry for the wait,” she said.  “I got foam in my ear and it was this whole- nevermind.  Let me grab you some clothes.”

She dug around in her various boxes for some relatively masculine clothes (not difficult, considering she was pretty square-shouldered herself) and handed them off the Vell for him to clean up.  As he bashfully retreated to her shower, Leanne took a look at her kitchen.  She brushed a few traces of foam off the seat and noticed there was no shaving cream anywhere else in her kitchen.  Vell had been too scared to touch anything.

In some ways, she knew that was just Vell’s nature, but in other ways, she knew it was down to her.  When they hung out, Lee and Harley practically treated Vell’s dorm like a second home.  They knew where everything was, and felt comfortable going wherever they wanted.  They felt welcome in his room.  Leanne had never let anyone else feel welcome.  Not until it was too late.

She dug around in her fridge and took out a bottle of ale she had left over.  She had tried ale for the first time the other day, as an experiment.  It turned out she didn’t like ale, and now she had useless bottles sitting in her fridge.  She glanced away from the frosty bottle, at the clock.  Assuming Lee and Harley (and the tidal wave of shaving cream) had driven off today’s apocalypse, she had until midnight to experiment.  Seven hours.

Leanne looked back at the bottle of ale.  Bitter and tasteless, like most of the other kinds of alcohol she tried.  It occurred to her that she’d been experimenting in the wrong ways.  Trying new things for the sake of trying them was interesting, at least, but it wasn’t enriching.  She’d never break barriers just trying new things -she had to try something she’d always been too scared to try.  Including, maybe, something she’d been so afraid of it had hurt her relationships.

“Thanks for that,” Vell said, as he emerged from the bathroom.  He seemed uncomfortable in Leanne’s clothes, but mostly for psychological reasons.  They actually fit him very well.

“Any time,” Leanne said.  “Technically I still owe you a shower.  Between that nanobot vomit from your second day and the dragon-vomit-”

“Don’t make me think about that,” Vell pleaded.  “Please.”

“Understandable, moving on,” Leanne said.  “You want an ale?  I bought a bunch thinking I’d like it, but I don’t, but I also don’t really want to throw it away.”

“I’m not much for ale either, no,” Vell said.  He took a look at Leanne clinging to the closed bottle.  Something about her posture seemed off.  He sat down in the same seat as before, mercifully free of shaving cream this time.

“Is everything alright, Leanne?”

“Sort of yes, sort of no,” Leanne admitted.  “I’ll be fine, I’m just thinking...about how much more I could’ve done.”

After a quick glance at the clock, Vell nodded.  The ever-encroaching end of the year was making him think about what he had and hadn’t accomplished this year.  He could only imagine it was worse for Leanne, who was nearing the definitive end of her tenure, having spent nearly three years of it stubbornly refusing to seize the opportunities available.

“Well, it’s not like you’re out of time,” Vell said, gesturing at the clock.  “Let’s do something else.”

Leanne looked up from her bottle-based reverie, and stared at Vell for a few seconds.  Then, for reasons incomprehensible to Vell, she started to go red in the face.

“There is one thing I kind of feel like I should try,” Leanne mumbled. 

“Alright then.  You name it, let’s do it.”

“Right.  Yeah.  Do you remember earlier, when you guys were guessing what I wanted to do?”

It took Vell a second, but he did recall.

“Oh, yeah.  Sure,” Vell started.  “I still have the spell to change hair color lying around somewhere, I think.  I can probably grab it real quick.”

Leanne leaned forward and put her face in her hands, sighing heavily.

“Not your suggestion,” she said.  “Harley’s.”

While Leanne hid her own red face behind her palms, Vell started to shift redder as well.

“Oh.  Uh.  I assume you mean, uh, now, and, uh, with…me?”

“It doesn’t have to be now,” Leanne mumbled.  “But...yes.  You.”

Vell scratched a nonexistent itch on the back of his neck, just for an excuse to do something with his hands.

“I’m, uh, not- I’m on board, I guess,” Vell stammered.  “If you’re sure.”

“I’m not sure,” Leanne said, removing her face from behind her hands.  After a deep breath, the bashful blush faded from her cheeks.  “But I think that’s all the more reason I should do it.”

The mental math didn’t exactly add up to Vell.  Luckily, Leanne explained herself further.

“I’m not going to get another chance to try...this completely safely,” Leanne said.  “And...I’m probably not going to meet many other guys I trust as much as you.  I’m nervous, but I don’t think I’m ever going to be less nervous than I am right now.”

“This, uh, isn’t really something you should do if you’re in a grey area, Leanne,” Vell said.  “You want to be sure, and I want you to be completely certain-”

“I am.  I’m...certain I’m uncertain, I don’t know,” Leanne said.  “Maybe it’s the right decision, and everything will be fun and great, and I’ll overcome everything I’ve been afraid of all this time, or maybe it’s a mistake, and I’ll live and learn.  I don’t want to miss my chance with you -with this.”

The self-correction came a second too late.  Vell tilted his head and looked at Leanne.  She nodded back at him.  Neither of them moved.  It took a few seconds before Leanne spoke up.

“So...how do we start?”

“You know, I’m not sure,” Vell said.  “For me it’s usually the chick that takes the lead.”

“You got a thing for dominant women, huh?’

“It certainly seems that way,” Vell said.  He glanced sideways at Leanne’s smug smile.  “Don’t look at me like that.  I like what I like.”

“I’m not judging,” Leanne said.  “I just had an idea.”

“And what’s that-”

Vell never got to finish that sentence as Leanne stood up, grabbed him around the waist, and started carrying him under her arm, towards the bedroom.  Vell did not complain.

◆◆◆

Leanne laid on her back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment, breathing deeply.

“So…” Vell began.  “How-”

“Interesting,” Leanne spat.  “It was very...interesting.  Good interesting! You are...good at that.  I presume.  Don’t really have a point of comparison.”

“I like to think I know what I’m doing,” Vell said.  “Admittedly, Harley did a lot of coaching.”

“Hmm.  Well.  She would know,” Leanne said.  “Maybe I should’ve listened to her sooner.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking things at your own pace,” Vell insisted.  “You decided when you were ready.  That’s alright.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Leanne sighed.  She tapped her fingertips on her bare abdomen.  Vell tried not to stare.  She didn’t elaborate any further, instead choosing to change the subject.  She shifted and rested on one elbow, facing Vell.  “Now what?”

“In general, or with sex specifically?”  Vell asked.  “Because for the second, we’re pretty much done.  Now comes the part where I clean up...again, and then make the ‘walk of shame’ back to my dorm.”

“What’s so shameful about it?” Leanne asked.  “You had sex.  It should be the walk of pride.”

“I agree, but the term is what it is,” Vell said.  He stood up and grabbed his borrowed clothes.  “The fact I’ll be wearing your clothes back to my dorm will make it slightly worse, though.”

“Makes sense.”

“And hey, we’ll be even on showers now,” Vell said.

“Then my evil plan worked,” Leanne said.  She leaned back to relax in her bed.  “That’s right, Vell Harlan, I only slept with you to repay my shower debt.”

“You are truly an evil mastermind,” Vell said.  Then he hopped in the shower for a quick rinse of both his body and his brain.

He didn’t quite know how to parse what he’d just done with Leanne.  It felt wrong to call it casual, but neither was it necessarily intimate -at least not ‘intimate’ in the way sex usually was.  He’d acted out of lust with Harley, and out of love (at least at the time) with Joan, but his relationship with Leanne felt lost somewhere in the middle.  Because it wasn’t really a relationship at all, Vell concluded.  Just a desperate grasp at something that could’ve been a relationship, in some other world.

He dried off and dressed himself and stepped out.  Leanne, who was now dressed as well, had a look on her face that told Vell she shared in his relative uncertainty.  They made an unspoken agreement not to address it as they walked towards the door together.  She stopped in the doorway and leaned on the frame.

“Bit weird, huh?”

“A little bit,” Vell admitted.

“It’s confusing...but, I’ve sort of been confused by things since I started at this school,” Leanne said.  “Might as well be confused about something I like.”

“Yeah.  Good way to look at it.”

“Thanks for everything, Vell,” Leanne said.  She stepped forward and gave him a kiss on the forehead.  She pulled away, paused thoughtfully -and then turned left, to the sound of something hitting the floor.

Elijah Delaney stood frozen in the hall, gawking at Vell, wearing Leanne’s clothes, and at Leanne herself, half-dressed and disheveled.  The look of shock on his face said he had drawn the obvious, and correct, conclusion.  Leanne’s ex picked his jaw off the floor and struggled to avoid eye contact as he picked up his book and quickly ducked into his dorm.  Leanne gave him a wicked smile as he ran away.

“Did you plan that?” Vell asked.

“No, but I’m very glad it happened.”

◆◆◆

The last loop had come (in more ways than one) and gone.  Leanne woke up on her second last day of school and finished packing all her half-packed boxes.  She took a long look at the scuffed-up guitar she’d been gifted by Roxy before packing it away with as much bubble wrap and packing peanuts as she could find, to ensure its safety.

When the packing was done, Leanne stepped outside, facing the day again.  She weaved her way among the halls and the busy students, going through the motions of a day she’d lived before -and would never live again.

The only unpredictable elements proved to be the most predictable, and she found the other loopers right where she’d found them last time, at their usual breakfast table.  She gave a slight nod to Vell and tried to act casual.

“Hello dear,” Lee began.  “How are you feeling?”

“Just fine, thanks,” Leanne said.  “How’d you guys handle the Bakunawa?”

“I got eaten,” Harley said.  “And not the good kind of eaten.”

She looked to Vell, expecting a slight sign of amusement, and found only stiff silence.  Harley’s eyes narrowed.  Something was amiss.

“The massive amount of shaving foam chased most of them off, and I did the rest.  Though by the time I got back your handiwork had been mostly hosed away,” Lee said.  “I trust the prank went well?”

“Yes, very good,” Vell said.  He had noticed Harley staring at him, and he wasn’t handling the pressure well.  “Very exciting.  You really should’ve been there.”

“I wish I could have,” Lee said.  “I’m sure it was a fitting climax to Leanne’s tenure here.”

Leanne’s eye twitched at the word “climax”, and Harley’s eyes darted to her.  As Lee continued talking about the end of the year, and other myriad topics, Harley’s eyes darted back and forth, her piercing gaze burrowing deeper and deeper into the very souls of her targets.  The two targets of her scrutiny tried their best to act casual.  It did not work.  Realization struck, and Harley slammed her palms down flat on the table.

“Oh my god you two fucked,” she said.  She managed to restrain herself to a hoarse whisper, to avoid any other breakfast-goers overhearing.

In response to her accusation, Leanne stood up and immediately left the room, jogging away at a brisk pace.  Harley took that as confirmation of her theory and put her hands over her mouth to muffle her shriek of delight, as Vell tried his hardest to turn invisible.  He actually pulled out his phone and prepared to summon a rune that could do just that, but Harley got to him first.

“Oh my god!  How was- Wait, no, no, stop,” Harley said, more to herself than Vell.  She purposefully drew herself back.  “I am respecting your privacy, I am being chill about this, I am- I’m going to take a cold shower and get this out of my system, is what I’m doing.”

Harley stood up and waved goodbye to her friends before giving Vell two-thumbs up.  He sighed and put his head in his hands.  As such, it took him a few seconds to see Lee glaring at him.

“What?”

“Harley and Leanne?” Lee said, stressing the ‘and’ to an absurd degree.  “Really?”

“What?  They asked me,” Vell protested.  “I didn’t start any of this.”

“Leanne?  Asked you?”

“Why are you acting surprised?  Am I not attractive?”

“I’m a lesbian, I’d have no way of knowing,” Lee said.  “It’s more about Leanne asking anyone than Leanne asking you.”

“Well, I was surprised too, but she asked, and I answered,” Vell said.  “What are friends for?”

Lee looked around curiously.

“Not to have casual sex with, usually?”

“Why don’t you tell Harley that?” Vell said.

“Touche.”

◆◆◆

Leanne looked at the diploma in her hands.  It felt like a scrap of paper.

She had been expecting something, anything, to happen when they handed it to her.  When they brought an end to her time as a student, and her time in the loops.  There should have been a thunderclap, a cosmic surge of energy through her body, some sort of shift in the universe to signify the end of her career as a looper.  There should’ve been something, anything.  Instead they just handed Leanne a scrap of paper and sent her on her way.  So many years of so much chaos, anger, confusion, and noise, and the ending was as quiet as a whisper. 

The sense of cosmic finality Leanne had been expecting came eventually, when she stepped onto the docks, with her bags over her shoulders, facing the ferry.  She stood facing her final exit for what felt like hours.  But then, she’d had a very strange relationship with time these past four years.

“You alright, Leanne?”

Harley’s voice finally shook her out of her stupor.  The three other loopers—the only loopers, now—had come to see her off.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she lied.  “Just feeling a bit weird.”

“I know you’ve probably heard this a dozen times now, but it really isn’t going to be the same without you,” Harley said.  “I know we, and I especially, weren’t always easy to put up with, but thanks for putting in the effort.”

The unusual display of sincerity between Harley and Leanne gave Vell some hope he could finally get clarity on what their relationship really was.  Their adversarial banter always tread a thin line between friendly and hostile, and Vell had never been bold enough to ask for clarification.

“Well thanks, Harley,” Leanne said.  “That’s almost sweet enough to make me actually miss you.”

“Ah, we both know you won’t,” Harley said.

While that almost settled Vell’s question, Harley suddenly jumped up and grabbed Leanne in a tight hug, which Leanne enthusiastically returned -until suddenly releasing her grip on Harley and letting her fall to the ground.  Vell sighed and resolved himself to never understand their friendship as Leanne moved on to Lee.

“Lee.  Keep these two in line, you hear me?”

“You know that is quite impossible,” Lee said.  “But I will try to ensure they keep all their limbs, at least.”

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for,” Leanne said.  She shrugged and put a hand on Lee’s head to tussle her hair.  “Don’t worry about a thing, Lee.  With you in charge, everything’s going to turn out all right.”

Lee accepted the compliment with a blush, and curtsied awkwardly as Leanne stepped aside.

“Vell.”

“Leanne.”

“I really...really, wish you’d been around a few years ago,” Leanne said.  “We could’ve-”

She paused, hesitating as she carefully chose her next words.  Harley looked on expectantly from the sidelines, until Lee elbowed her.

“We could’ve used someone like you back then,” Leanne said.  “But we had the time we had, and I can’t say I made the most of it, but...we did pretty good.”

She extended a hand, palm up, in Vell’s direction.  He took it and gave it one quick shake.

“We did,” he agreed.  Vell and Leanne could’ve been a lot of different things, in different circumstances, but they had no control over their circumstances.  They were friends, and that was enough for both of them.  Leanne ended the stiff handshake and gave Vell a light punch in the shoulder.

“See you around, kids,” she said.  “Behave yourselves.”

Leanne shouldered her bag again and walked down the dock, boarding the ferry just in time for it to take off.  The loopers stood for a while to watch it fade across the horizon.

“Well,” Vell said.  “Guess that’s it for the Lee trinity.”

“The what?”

“Lee trinity.  Because you all, uh, have a -lee sound in your name,” Vell said.  He held up three fingers.  “Lee, Leanne, Harley.  Three -lee’s.”

“Huh,” Harley said.  She put a hand on her chin and repeated herself.  “Huh!”

“Were you just now noticing that?” Lee questioned.

“I’m allowed to be stupid sometimes,” Harley snapped.

Chapter 43: No Second Chances

After getting his things packed and ready to move, Vell had done a mental checklist of everything he might possibly need to do before he left.  He had all his books, all his notes, had stashed his guns in the looper lair for next year -he had finished just about every task he could think.  To the best of his ability, at least.  He’d sent a message to wrap up one more loose end about an hour ago, and was still waiting on an answer.

His phone buzzed, and Vell snatched it out of his pocket to read Joan’s response.

redeyes02:
Yeah
I’d like to talk

vharlan03:
okay great!
okay
do you want to like
swing by the dining hall
or something

redeyes02:
im going to be packing kind of until the last minute
cant really leave my room
if you want to come by thats okay
but I get it if you don’t

Even though Vell had been the one to propose one last chat between him and Joan, he wasn’t entirely confident about going through with it.  He felt he had to, though. Unresolved conflicts tended to linger in the minds of even the most stable people, and Joan was far from stable on a good day.  Hopefully a polite goodbye and a sense of closure could prevent any further conflicts between the two of them -and lay the groundwork for a few other things Vell had in mind.

Vell put his phone aside for a moment.  The last time he’d been in Joan’s room, he had died.  Violently.  At Joan’s hands.  That was enough to make even Vell hesitate.  But most of her unnatural scientific implements were probably boxed up by now.  He’d stay by the door just in case.

After a few deep breaths, Vell had psyched himself up to talk to his ex.  Who had killed him.  Probably accidentally, but still.  The circumstances of her abducting and experimenting on him definitely weren’t accidental.  Vell realized thinking about these things had unpsyched himself and he had to start all over.

After repeating the cycle of psych and unpsych a few times, Vell forced himself to at least step out of his dorm.  The halls were packed with students carting belongings out of their dorms, and he had to sidestep several boxes and pieces of furniture on his short journey down the hall.  In spite of the hustle and bustle, Joan’s dorm still felt isolated and quiet.  Out of curiosity, Vell tried putting in the door code, and found it still worked.  Joan hadn’t changed it, after all these months.  He opened the door a crack, just enough to let his voice carry through.

“Joan?”

“Oop!”

The short, surprised cry followed the sound of something hitting the floor.  Vell opened the door the rest of the way just to make sure Joan hadn’t hurt herself.  She was scrambling to pick up a few pieces of equipment she’d dropped.

“Sorry,” Vell said.

“It’s fine, nothing fragile,” Joan said, as she picked up a carving tool.  “You just, well, surprised me a bit.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.  You just never responded,” Joan said.  She packed a few of her things into a box.  “I figured you got cold feet.”

“Nah.  I just got in my own head a bit.”

“That does sound like you,” Joan said.  She reached to the side and grabbed one more thing to put away.  Vell’s heart began to pound in his chest as he saw Joan lift the arcanometric analyzer, the tool that had caused Vell’s explosive death so many months ago, and hold it in her hands for a second.  This time, though, Joan just put in a box and sealed it away, oblivious to the damage the tool had done in another timeline.

“So,” Joan began again.  “Did you just want to say goodbye, or…?”

“Sort of, yeah,” Vell said.  “After everything that happened this year, uh, it feels weird to not at least say goodbye.”

“I guess,” Joan said.  She folded the lid of a box closed and stood up, devoting her full attention to Vell.  “If you’re not in a hurry, I wouldn’t mind saying a little more than goodbye.”

Vell tried to restrain himself from moving his hand closer to the doorknob.  He had to remind himself that this version of Joan had no idea what she had done, or why she had done it.  When she approached, she was doing so without any malice -at least that Vell knew of.  She stopped when she was face to face with Vell, pretending not to notice the nervousness creeping into his eyes.

“I wanted to thank you, Vell,” she said quietly.  “For being a good example.  I think...I’m a better person for having known you.”

Her quiet words softened the edge of Vell’s anxiety, and he relaxed.

“And I wanted to apologize,” Joan continued.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything that happened,” Vell said.

“I’m not apologizing for that,” Joan said.  Her red eyes focused on him again.  “I’m apologizing for this.”

Vell sighed.

“Are you fucking kidding m-”

Then everything went black.  But not thanks to Joan.  Vell had been so fixated on the potential threat in front of him, he had failed to notice the very real threat appearing behind him.  Principal Goodwell brushed the last few smoldering embers of the knockout spell off his fingertips and looked down at Vell.

“He really did come to you,” he said.  Goodwell couldn’t quite believe it.  He thought they’d need a much more elaborate bait to get Vell alone.

“I couldn’t believe it either,” Joan said.  “Come on.  Get him through the portal and let’s get this over with.”

◆◆◆

The underground laboratory was full to bursting with esoteric scientific equipment.  Joan had been helping Goodwell for a few days now, and still didn’t understand what half these machines did.  The specific details of Goodwell’s plans didn’t interest her anyway.  She had her own goals in mind.

“I’m glad we’re ahead of schedule, at least,” Joan said.

“Ahead of schedule isn’t always good,” Principal Goodwell said.  He stepped away from his own console and looked at Vell.  “That sleep spell will only last so long.  He could wake up any minute.”

Joan glanced over her shoulder at Vell.

“He’s already awake,” she noted.  She’d slept with him enough times to know what real sleep looked like.  “He’s just pretending.”

With a heavy sigh, Vell opened his eyes.  Goodwell pretended to be calm about this development.  He’d put too much effort into this plan to see it undone by little flaws like Vell waking up too early.  He distracted the loopers with concerts and races, waited for Leanne to graduate so she couldn’t punch her way through his defenses, and finally waited until a day without classes, without a loop, to spring his trap.

“So,” Vell said.  He tensed his arms and tried to pull against the metal latches holding him to the lab table.  “Any chance this is a surprise graduation party?”

Goodwell and Joan returned to their consoles.

“What, no banter?  I need something to do here, you know,” Vell said.

“Is he always this sarcastic?”  Goodwell asked.

“Sometimes,” Joan said.

“I get sarcastic when I’m upset,” Vell said.  “And you can imagine why I might be upset right now.”

The two continued to ignore him.  Vell tested his bonds again and grunted in frustration.  They were solid steel, and locked tight.

“So I can assume what’s going on, I suppose, but it’d be nice if one of you could at least confirm my theory,” Vell said.  “Aren’t you bad guys supposed to monologue their plans?”

“I’m not the villain here, Vell,” Joan said.

“Right, no, you’ve just got an innocent person strapped to a table to experiment on him against his will, that’s perfectly rational, normal, good guy behavior.”

“And what about you, huh?” Joan protested.  “Hiding that mark on your back, never letting anyone else have a chance to solve the problems you can’t?  How many people could that magic have helped by now, Vell?”

“Oh, yeah, there we go,” Vell said.  He’d done this song and dance with Joan before, and had no desire to repeat it.  “All comes down to the rune.  As usual.”

“Of course it does,” Joan huffed.  “That rune could save thousands of lives.”

Vell stared up at the blank ceiling above him and furrowed his brow.  It took him some time to choose his next words, but he spat them out eventually.

“Is it about ‘thousands of lives’, Joan?” He asked.  “Or is this about your sister’s life?”

Joan knocked her chair to the ground as she all but jumped out of it.  By the time she had stormed over to Vell’s side and grabbed him by the shoulders, there was already sweat on her brow.

“How do you know about that?”

“I figured it out,” Vell said.  “I’m good at that, remember?  Between the way you act and what you’ve said…”

Vell allowed his voice to trail off.  The reaction he’d expected and the reaction he was getting were too very different things.  He’d expected agitation, sadness, maybe.  But Joan looked afraid.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Joan grunted.

“Joan, I’m trying to understand this thing, I’m just -I’m trying not to be reckless,” Vell said.  “I can help.  We can figure this out.  And we can do it the right way-”

“Just stop, Vell,” Joan said.  “There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

“Well I’m going to try anyway,” Vell shouted.  “Because it has to stop, Joan!  I know you’re scared, I know you’re hurt-”

“Look, Vell, you really don’t have to try and convince me.”

“I’m trying to convince you because I really want to help, Joan,” Vell said.  “Why do you think I wanted to talk to you?  I was trying to help!”

Joan just stared at him for a second.  Vell let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know.  You have a point.  Sort of a point,” Vell said.  He looked at the restraints latching him to the table.  “I don’t want to do anything that involves me being strapped to a table, but...I do want to try and help your sister.  I wanted to ask you about that.”

Joan remained frozen in place.  Even strapped to a table, Vell was still thinking about other people.  Typical.  She liked that he had that quality -and hated herself for lacking it.

“Would you shut him up back there?” Goodwell shouted.  He hadn’t bothered to look up from his console at any of the commotion.  The reminder of his presence worked to cut the tension that Joan felt in the moment.

“It’s all a waste of breath anyway,” Joan said.  She stared straight back at Vell, locking her red eyes with his.  “Like I said.  There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

Joan turned her back on Vell and headed for the door.

“I had to fake packing up my arcanometric analyzer when he showed up early,” Joan said.  “I need to go get it.”

“Now?” Goodwell said.  “We agreed we wouldn’t leave until the job was done.”

“The job won’t get done unless I leave,” Joan said.  “I’ve been working on this longer than you have, Goodwell.  I’m going to see it through.”

Without giving him any more time for a counterargument, Joan grabbed the door.  As she turned the handle, she locked eyes with Vell one more time.

Then Joan winked.  And then she was gone.

In spite of the fact that Vell was strapped to a table and should probably be planning his escape, all he could think about was the wink.  Why wink?  Joan couldn’t possibly be flirting with him.  Not under the circumstances.  But if it was a conspiratorial wink, why was he still strapped to a table?  Goodwell’s back was turned, Joan had the door open, she could’ve unlatched him and been out the door in seconds.  Neither option made any sense to Vell.

He failed to consider an important third angle: that Joan was trying to help him, and doing a very, very bad job of it.

“So, Joan I get, she’s just sort of messed up,” Vell said.  His confusion persisted, but on the off chance Joan actually was trying to help him, he wanted to reinforce Goodwell’s perception that she was evil.  And if she actually was evil, well, Vell had nothing to lose by repeating the fact.  “But what’s your angle here?”

“Oh right,” Goodwell said.  “I imagine this betrayal comes as surprise.”

“Not really,” Vell said.  “We sort of had you pegged as creepy from the first meeting.”

“What?” Goodwell said.  For the first time, he turned to face Vell on the table, looking away from his screen.”

“Yeah, you got, uh, let’s call it ‘really weird vibes’,” Vell said.  “Also it only takes like, one google search to find out you beat your wife.”

“I slapped her once,” Goodwell said, emphasizing ‘once’, as if he got some kind of mulligan on spouse abuse.  The angry reaction caused him to lean back a little from the screen his work was displayed on.  Vell’s eyes narrowed.

“Okay, sure,” Vell said.  “Back to my question.  What’s your real plan?”

“Do you think I’m stupid enough to explain my master plan?”

“Uh...yes, actually,” Vell said.  Goodwell snorted at him.

“Well I’m not,” he said, before leaning back to look at his monitor.  Vell rolled his eyes.  He wanted to get a look at Goodwell’s monitor, but the principal’s conspicuously wide body kept Vell from getting a good angle.  He needed a distraction, something guaranteed to get the principal out of his seat.

“So, do you, uh...really think you can trust Joan?” Vell asked.  “I mean, I couldn’t trust her, and she actually liked me.  What makes you, you know, any better off?”

“The fact that I’m actually giving her what she wants,” Goodwell said.  “You seem to understand her obsession, Harlan.  You know how badly she wants this.  If she thinks it’ll get her closer to her goal, she’ll never betray me.”

◆◆◆

Meanwhile, Joan was betraying him.

“So, long story.  Short version: Principal Goodwell kidnapped Vell,” Joan said. 

Luke crossed his arms and stared Joan down.  Mostly thanks to Lee, and the message that Vell was in trouble, Joan had managed to gather all of his closest friends -or at least those who hadn’t already packed up and gone home.  That amounted to Harley, Lee, Vell’s roommates, and Freddy Frizzle.  They had listened to her explanation of the situation with rapt attention, except for Renard, who was at the back of the room, occasionally glancing out the window.

“What?  Why?”

“I don’t know what the real plan is, but he wants to do something with Vell,” Joan said.

“Does this have something to do with that rune on his back?”

“Yeah, it- He told you?” Joan said.  In spite of the urgency, some offense crept into her voice.  “He told you and not me?”

“He told us because of you,” Cane said accusingly.  “To help explain why he didn’t feel safe around you.”

“On that note, Joan,” Harley said.  “How exactly did you find out about Goodwell’s plan to kidnap Vell?”

Joan shrank back towards the door.

“He ask me to help him, and I agreed so-”

“Right, I’ve heard enough,” Harley said.

“I was always planning to do this,” Joan said.  “I only ever went along with his plan so I could be here, warning you guys!”

“It seems like warning us before the kidnapping would be the better idea,” Renard said.  The fact that he could figure it out meant it should’ve been obvious even to Joan.

“I- I needed to-”

“Get in a little research time with that stupid rune you’ve been chasing?”  Harley asked. 

“No!  I didn’t even do any tests or anything, I swear.”

“So then this is just image rehab, then,” Cane said.  “Because if you had just said ‘Oh hey, watch out for Goodwell’, then you wouldn’t get to pull off this dramatic rescue and be a big hero for everybody, would you?”

“I...No.  I just didn’t think-”

“Yeah, you usually don’t think,” Harley said.  “Thanks for the warning, Joan.  If you want to help, tell us everything you know and then get out of our way.”

“I can help, I know what he’s doing, I know where he is,” Joan said. 

“Yeah, that’s the ‘tell us everything you know’ part of what I said,” Harley said.  Lee kept to the back of the crowd, and averted her gaze as Joan looked her way.

“I know I’ve made a few bad choices-” Joan admitted.

“Mostly bad choices,” Cane shrugged.

“Almost exclusively bad,” Luke said.

“Thanks, guys,” Joan said.  “This is really helping.”

“It’s almost like all the people you’ve manipulated and lied to might have a grudge!  Wow!”  Harley said.  “Now tell me where my friend is.”

“I’ll take you to him,” Joan said.  “I’m trying to help, just trust me-”

“No!”

Harley stepped forward and jabbed a finger into Joan’s chest.

“I don’t trust you, Joan, and as long as you keep acting like this no one is ever going to!  This is all you ever do!  You expect people to give everything to you while you give nothing to them,” Harley snapped.  “We can help Vell, but we don’t want or need your help to do it!  If you really want to do the right thing here, just let go of your fucking ego for once and let us do it right!”

Renard stepped between the two women and gently pushed them apart.

“I think we need to calm down a little and prioritize saving Vell,” Renard said.

“Yeah.  But also, Harley’s right and Joan is a bad person,” Cane said.  “Quick poll, we all agreed?”

Everyone but Lee and Freddy raised their hands.

“Freddy,” Cane said.  Reluctantly, Freddy raised his hand.  Joan looked at him like she’d been stabbed in the back.

“You’re not a very good neighbor,” Freddy said bashfully.  “The loud music alone…”

“Hey, Vell’s the one who got me hooked on that Roxy chick, it’s not all my fault!”

“The volume is your fault,” Harley said.  “See this is what I’m talking about, Joan, you just keep projecting and projecting, acting like nothing is ever really your fault!  Just accept, for once, that you fucked up!”

The outrage in Joan’s body turned to exhaustion.  She slumped backwards and leaned on the wall.

“Fine.  Okay.  Vell’s in the basement of the faculty building,” she mumbled.  “Big metal door at the end of the right hallway.  It’s sealed, and only Goodwell can let anyone in or out.”

“Thank you,” Harley said.  “Anything else?”

“I don’t know.  Goodwell’s lying to me about what he really intends to do, but I know he has a lot of neurology equipment.”

“Cane, that’s your specialty,” Luke said.  “You and Freddy should probably be on point.  He knows the most about random tech, he can fill in whatever you don’t know.”

Freddy nodded and took a step closer to Cane.

“Me and Renard can work on creating some kind of commotion that’ll get faculty involved and get Goodwell caught in the act,” Luke said.  “The security bots are all under the principal’s control, but if we can get the human faculty suspicious of him, maybe they can get something done.”

“Hey, speaking of security bots, quick question,” Renard said.  “Does the school have any drones disguised as birds, or something?”

“Not that I know of,” Harley said.  “Why?”

“Because this bird has been staring at us since Joan showed up.  You think Goodwell might be on to us?”

Renard looked out the window at the suspicious bird.  It was a tropical parrot, unremarkable in the islands menagerie of colorful birds, but Renard couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about it.  It had bright yellow eyes that seemed to be observing the world with uncanny clarity.

“I’ve never heard of any bird-drones,” Joan said.

“It’s just an ordinary bird, Renard, stay focused,” Luke said, trying to be patient in a situation where there was very little patience to go around.  To get back on track, he looked at Harley and Lee.  “And, of course, I assume you two are going to work on some weird angle that’s completely incomprehensible to us.”

“We’re actually at a bit of a loss,” Harley admitted.  Goodwell had scheduled his master stroke for the day classes had ended, meaning there would be no daily apocalypse, and therefore no loop.  They had no redo to work with, no way to do a “trial run” of their rescue.  “If you’ve got any ideas…”

At that cue, Lee finally mustered the courage to step away from the wall and speak up.

“I’m going with Joan,” Lee said.

“Lee, we just talked-”

“You talked,” Lee insisted.  “Maybe you don’t trust her, but I do.  And I want her help.”

Lee crossed the crowd and took a stand next to Joan, crossing her arms defiantly even as they trembled slightly.

“We still don’t know if this isn’t some kind of distraction,” Cane said.  “Or a trap.  She did say she was working with Goodwell.”

“Then it’s a good thing we have different teams on it, isn’t it?” Lee said.  “You all follow through on your plan, and I’ll work with Joan.”

“We’ll work with Joan,” Harley sighed.  “I ain’t leaving you alone with her.”

Joan looked at Lee, and noticed that her hands still shook with uncertainty. 

“I can get you two into the lab, but I don’t know what happens next,” Joan said.  “I think backup is a good idea.”

Cane gave a stiff nod.  He had a few ideas, but he didn’t want to discuss them around Joan.  He pulled Freddy to a side room as Renard and Luke likewise broke off to make their own plans.  Harley stayed, but still kept her distance from Joan.

“Boy, today is just not my day,” Joan said.

“You made your bed,” Harley snorted.  Lee put a reassuring hand on Joan’s shoulder.

“But it’s not too late to...unmake it,” Lee assured her.  “The metaphor doesn’t play out well, but you know what I mean.”

“Thanks for trying,” Joan sighed.  “Let’s go save Vell.”

“From you,” Harley said.  “Fun times.  Saving my friend with the girl who got him kidnapped in the first place.”

Outside the window, a colorful bird ruffled its feathers.  The mismatched eyes had taken in all of the argument within the dorm, and while an entertaining prologue, it was time to move on to the next act.  The bird took flight, to see more of the spectacle, and when the time was right, to play her part.

◆◆◆

After a few minutes of ruminating on the possibilities, Vell had realized he had one fact that was very likely to distract Isaac Goodwell.

“So did I tell you I met Lijia Mian?”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was some time travel stuff, you know,” Vell said.  “I went back, she tried to convince me to plagiarize something for her, I refused, she threatened to kill me with a sword, there was a cult to David Bowie involved.  The usual stuff.”

“That...you’re lying to me,” Goodwell said.  He turned away from his monitor to look at Vell.  He did remember a day where everyone had been screaming about David Bowie, but that had to have been a coincidence. 

“Nope, completely true,” Vell said. 

“She would’ve told me,” Goodwell insisted.  “Lijia trusted me.”

“Uh...not really?  She didn’t like you, man,” Vell said.  “Like, at all.  She sent you on fake tasks just to get away from you.  Even had some other looper dress up in a rubber alien costume to keep you distracted.”

Goodwell’s eyes narrowed.  “Roswell” the alien had always looked a little rubbery.  His fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second.

“So maybe you really did go to the past,” Goodwell said.  “But you’re wrong about Lijia.”

“Hey, don’t worry, I’ve, uh, been there, you know?” Vell said.  “You think you have something with a girl, then they turn out to be willing to kill you.  I know how that feels.”

As he spoke, Vell angled his head towards the monitor.  Goodwell was still keeping his distance, letting Vell get a peek at his work.  He could only see the edges of a few words and phrases, but he could see that “rune” and “change” were repeated more than once.

“You...you’re not planning on trying to bring her back, are you?”

“I would if I could.  Maybe I will, someday,” Goodwell said.  In the end, Vell got what he wanted, though not on purpose.  Goodwell leaned entirely away from his monitor and spun in his chair, giving Vell a clear look at the monitor as he gloated.  “Thanks to you, I’m going to have all the time in the world.”

He looked at Vell, to find that Vell was not looking at him.  Goodwell did a double-take and realized Vell was scanning the monitor, looking more and more concerned with every word.  The rogue principal scooted back in front of the screen a second too late.

“You want to swap brains with me?”

Vell didn’t know whether to be horrified, confused, or amused.  Goodwell wanted, by some means or another, to exchange his consciousness into Vell’s body.

“Not brains, necessarily.  Personality, soul, whatever you want to call it,” Goodwell said.

“I call it a bad idea!  That’s saturday morning cartoon bullshit, Goodwell, not science!”

Vell had seen more than his fair share of saturday morning cartoon bullshit brought to life lately, but he was fairly certain that one was still off-limits.  The human brain was too complex to map, copy, and rearrange like that.

“I know what I’m doing,” Goodwell said, echoing Joan in a very unfortunate way.  “Your body’s more acclimated to surges of magic, it’ll endure the transfer.”

Vell gave the deepest, longest sigh of his life.  Everywhere he turned there was some other lunatic trying to do the impossible, and expecting him to pay the price.

“Why do you even want to do this, Goodwell?  What do you possibly have to gain?”

“I want my life back,” Goodwell grumbled.

“No, it sort of seems like you want my life,” Vell snapped.

“Your life should be my life,” Goodwell said.  “In the loop, getting a second chance at everything, having the chance to do things right!”

Isaac Goodwell had been out of the loop for nearly half a century, but he still missed it every day.  After experiencing a life free of consequence, the real world seemed intolerable by comparison.  All his cuts and scrapes were permanent, every mistake he made could never be undone -it was exhausting.  Goodwell wanted to recapture his past, the idyllic chaos of his college years, those perfect, perfect days of the past. 

Vell, on the other hand, saw a very clear problem with his plan.

“You realize your whole plan hinges on me not getting a second chance at today, right?”

Goodwell paused for a moment.

“It’ll be enough second chances to manage,” Goodwell grumbled.  “To avoid the worst of what happens to me.”

“I hate to break it to you Goodwell, but it won’t change anything,” Vell snapped.  “You think if you had do-overs you could’ve avoided hitting your wife, or losing your old job, or whatever, but it won’t work.”

“It will work,” Goodwell snapped back.

“It won’t!  Because those things didn’t ‘happen to you’, you did them!” Vell said.  “You can get all the second chances or steal all the lives you want, you’ll never stop making mistakes!   No one ever does!  The only thing you can do is learn from them.”

“Are you sure you’re studying runes, because you seem to want to play therapist today,” Goodwell noted.  He stood up and started digging through his gathered supplies.

“I’d be more than happy to sit down on a couch and talk about your issu- mmph.”

Vell managed one last grunt of displeasure as Goodwell slapped a piece of industrial duct tape over his mouth.  Goodwell made sure it was stuck and breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Don’t know why I didn’t do that at the start,” he mumbled.  Vell grunted in agreement.

◆◆◆

“It’s just down this way,” Joan said.  Since she’d been appointed as an “assistant” to Principal Goodwell several days ago, and Lee was an RA, the faculty building staff didn’t question their passage into the basement of the building. 

“Great, underground,” Harley said.

“Do you have to comment on everything?” Joan said.

“Just need to get it out of my system,” Harley said.  “I got a lot of very negative opinions.”

“I get that you’re angry, and I understand why,” Joan sighed.  “Lee told me what I did to Vell.”

“Hold on, what?”

“I told her about how I can see the future,” Lee said, giving Harley a stiff elbow to the shoulder.  Luckily Joan was too busy being despondent to notice the exchange.  Harley rubbed her sore shoulder and tried to play it cool.

“Okay, fine, you know about the future,” Harley said.  “So you know exactly how bad you fucked up.”

“Yes, I know I hurt Vell-”

“Oh, ‘hurt’, is that what Lee told you?” Harley snapped.  “‘Hurt’?”

“Yeah, why, what did-”

Joan stopped.  Harley kept staring at her, and for the first time, Joan understood the hatred behind her eyes, and understood why she deserved it.

“God.  Of course” Joan said.  She was actively choking back tears already.  “Of course I was that fucking stupid.”

Joan stopped and caught her breath by leaning on a wall.  Harley nodded in approval of her misery and stepped back, grabbing Lee by the arm and pulling her along with for a scolding.

“You told her about that?”

“She asked,” Lee said.  “And it...it felt wrong, Harley.  As far as she knows, we were all friends one day and then everyone hated her the next.  She deserved to know.”

“Does she?”

“Harley, stop it, she feels bad enough already.”

“Does she?  Because she should feel pretty bad,” Harley said.  “I know you like her because she hates your dad almost as much as you do, but come on.  She killed Vell.”

“It was an accident,” Lee protested.

“Oh, and was the kidnapping and experimenting an accident?  Do you not see the irony in Joan trying to save Vell from the literal exact thing she did to him in the first place?”

“I don’t see it as ironic,” Lee said.  “I see it as a second chance.”

“Some things you don’t get second chances on.”

“Harley.”

Joan stopped leaning on the wall and took her hands away from her face.  There were tears in her eyes, welling up amid the anger.

“Just let me try.  Please,” Joan demanded.  “I fucked up.  I get it.  I’m not asking for a second chance on that.  I’m asking for a first chance on this.  I know I’ve fucked up everything else, and you hate me, and you should hate me, but please, give me a chance.”

Harley crossed her arms defiantly and looked at Lee, who nodded firmly.

“Alright.  I can’t promise I’ll shut up, but I’m not going to stop you,” Harley said.  “I’m a little antsy since one of my friends is about to get murdered.  Again.”

They weren’t far from the lab that Vell was held in.  Rather than arguing the point with Harley any further, Joan chose to focus on the mission.

“We’re here,” Joan said.  She gestured to the massive metal door in front of them.  “Once we’re in, only Goodwell can let us out.  He should still trust me, so I’ll try to distract him long enough for you guys to sneak in and get Vell out, okay?  You guys ready?”

Harley took a deep breath.  She looked at Joan, the person on Earth she trusted the least, and at Lee, the person on Earth she trusted the most.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

Harley took a deep breath, and both of them followed Joan past the point of no return.

◆◆◆

“I think we should bring the helmets,” Cane said.  “They can shield you from most neurological magic.”

“I’m aware of that, but they are very heavy and obvious,” Freddy said.  The two helmets contained a thick layer of shielding, as well as a personal generator that created a minor distortion field, shielding the mind from any unwelcome attacks.  “I kind of feel like this is a stealth mission?”

“I’m going to be real with you, Frizzle: I am not sneaky,” Cane said.  “And you stick out like a bright red, very fuzzy thumb too.”

“Good point.  Bring the helmets.”

“I’ve only got three.  One for you, one for me, and this one for Vell, since he’s the one most likely to get his head messed with.  Everyone else is just going to have to deal with it, I guess.”

Freddy and Cane strapped their helmets on, looked at one another, and nodded.  Their bulbous helmets bumped and made a sound like two coconuts hitting each other.

“You two look ridiculous,” Harley noted.

“Bah!”

Cane and Freddy both struggled to take off the ludicrous helmets and play it cool.  The helmet hair they both suffered from didn’t make them look any less silly, though.

“Harley?  Aren’t you supposed to be with Joan?”

“I mean, yeah, but I was looking for an excuse to ditch her,” Harley said.  “Also, I needed to tell you something.  Goodwell’s just using tech, not magic, so you can ditch those helmets.”

Cane shrugged and tossed aside the bulbous helmets.

“You are going to need a way through the door, though,” Harley said.  “There’s an ‘open’ rune in the second drawer on the left of Vell’s desk.  You’re going to need it to dispel the magical barrier around the room.”

“How do you know what’s in Vell’s drawers?” Cane asked.

“He tells me stuff, obviously,” Harley said.  “I got to go.  See you at the rescue!”

Harley sped off back into the halls, leaving the two behind.  They headed for Vell’s dorm to pick up the promised rune and found it exactly where Harley had said it would be.

“This must be pretty serious,” Freddy noted.  “You said ‘what’s in Vell’s drawers’ and Harley didn’t even make a dick joke.”

“She’s just worried,” Cane said.  “Even she can’t giggle at innuendo at a time like this.”

Freddy agreed, and the two moved on.

◆◆◆

“And that doesn’t strike you as odd in the least bit?” Luke asked.

“The principal is just doing research,” the receptionist said.  “That’s sort of something that happens here.”

“In secret underground basements with no witnesses?”

“Yes.”

“Right,” Luke said.  He actually wasn’t surprised by that.  Just another way his plan had hit a speed bump.  Goodwell had, unsurprisingly, gotten to the faculty first, and prepared them for this exact situation.  He’d made all the necessary excuses and preparations, gotten a handful of permits and permissions, all to divert suspicion from himself.

“We could try my cooking professor,” Renard said.  “He likes me.”

“No offense, but I don’t think your culinary teacher has much clout.”

“But I know who does,” Lee said.  She rounded the corner and pulled the duo away from the faculty building receptionist to conspire in secret.

“Aren’t you with Joan?” Renard said.

“I just thought of something important to tell you,” Lee said.  Renard watched her carefully as she spoke.  “Vell mentioned that one of his professors, Nguyen, didn’t trust Goodwell very much.  If she’s already suspicious, you’ll have a much easier time convincing her.”

“Makes sense to me,” Luke said.  “Come on, Ren.  I think I remember where those offices are.”

“You go ahead.  I’m going to talk to my culinary professor,” Renard said.  “The more the merrier, right?”

“I guess.  Do your thing,” Luke said, before heading off towards Nguyen’s office. 

“I’d better be off as well,” Lee said.  As she likewise turned away, Renard stuck his foot out in her path.  She deftly sidestepped his attempt to trip her -a suspiciously nimble bit of footwork for someone who often tripped over her own feet, much less someone else’s.

“What was that for?”

Renard stared back at Lee with an unusually insightful glare, and said nothing.

“If you’re done messing around, I need to get back to helping Vell,” Lee said.

“Do you?”

Lee paused and crossed her arms, taking a moment to stare right back at Renard.  Their eyes met, and Renard stared intensely at the slightly mismatched shades of green in Lee’s eyes.

“Yes, I do,” Lee said.  “It’s why I’m here, after all.”

“Okay,” Renard said.  Lee turned and took a few steps away.  “But ask permission next time you borrow my friend’s face.”

“Lee” stopped in her tracks, taking just enough time to look over her shoulder and smirk at Renard before she stepped around a corner and vanished.

◆◆◆

“Welcome back, Joan,” Goodwell said.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Joan said.  “You know how this school is.”

Goodwell hadn’t looked up from his monitor at her return, which was good.  Joan signaled for Harley and Lee to sneak in, and they took cover behind one of the many workbenches in the underground lab.

“I do know,” Goodwell said.  “Do you have everything you need now?”

“I do,” Joan agreed.  She tried to resist the temptation to glance over her shoulder and check on Lee as she approached Goodwell’s workstation.  “Are you ready to go?”

“Of course.  Put your data into the computer and we’ll be ready to begin,” Goodwell said.  Joan knew that this was more than just an “aggressive examination” of Vell’s rune, but she complied without question to avoid suspicion.  Vell tried to mumble a warning, but the duct tape over his mouth impeded any protests from him.  His muffled warnings came to a sharp halt as Harley crept to his side and tapped him on the shoulder.

While Vell gave a light squeak of surprise, Harley made a “shush” gesture and then started examining the table he was strapped to.  The initial prognosis was “not good”.  The complicated mechanisms all bore the same K-shaped logo of Kraid Tech: borderline impossible to hack even under the best circumstances, and right now circumstances were pretty fucking bad.

With her technical prowess a no-go, Harley turned back to Lee and silently gestured for her to try her magic.  Lee immediately shook her head.  She had tried her magic as an experiment and found the sparks of mana would not respond to her.  Goodwell had likely enchanted the space to be protected from magic he didn’t personally cast.  While Lee’s simple gesture could not explain the nature of the enchantment preventing her from casting spells, the message was clear: no magic.  Harley bit her lip.  Their rescue was off to a shit start.

And it was about to get worse.

“That should be it,” Joan said.  All of her hypothetical research, and the cursory examinations of Vell she’d done earlier, were plugged in and ready to be processed.

“All done?”

“I might do a review if we’ve got the time,” Joan said.  Vell was still strapped to the table, which means her distraction wasn’t going well.  She’d tried to draw it out, but she could only type so slow without looking suspicious.

“We don’t have much time, actually,” Goodwell said.

“What’s the rush?”

In response, Goodwell reached into a drawer and withdrew a single handgun, which he immediately pointed in Joan’s direction.

“Oh.”

“Harley, Lee, you can come out now,” Goodwell said.  He’d made sure the barrier around his lab warned him about every possible uninvited guest -especially Vell Harlan’s meddlesome friends. 

“I’d rather not, actually,” Harley shouted from her hiding place.  Lee was halfway through standing up and became paralyzed with indecision momentarily before ducking back down.  Joan reluctantly stared down the barrel of a loaded gun all by herself.

“Unfortunately for you, Goodwell, you really can’t finish this project without me,” Joan said.

“Please.  I have everything I need from you right there on that computer,” Goodwell said.

“Come on, Isaac, do you really think I’d betray you and still be be dumb enough to type down everything I know?” Joan said, while staring at the computer where she had definitely typed down everything she knew.  She hadn’t exactly thought that part through.

Back on the table, Vell started making insistent humming noises and nodding down towards his own chin.  Harley eventually got the hint and pried the duct tape off his mouth.

“Joan, get away from him,” Vell snapped.  “His plan isn’t what you think it is.  He wants my body!”

Harley giggled at the innuendo, even at a time like this, and Vell rolled his eyes.

“I mean he wants to take his mind and put it in my body,” Vell clarified.  “He doesn’t need you to do that.”

Lee’s mind was racing for several reasons, but the stupidity of that idea was another one entirely.  It was ludicrous, and would almost certainly get Vell killed.  They couldn’t let Goodwell proceed, but any attempt to stop him right now would get Joan shot.  Lee could not fathom trading one friend for another, so she stood paralyzed by indecision.

While Lee’s brain raced with panic, Harley’s raced with possibility.  After looking around the room for a few seconds, she had spotted Vell’s glasses and phone stored on a nearby table, then looked back at the Kraid Tech logo on the experimentation table.  Kraid Tech was hard to hack because of its soul-based security measures, but Vell’s soul was in a bit of grey area.  If Harley routed her hack through Vell’s phone, she might be able to break the security measure and get Vell free.  After that-

She had no idea what happened after that, actually.  But Vell would be free, and maybe his cowboy bullshit would let him dodge bullets again.  Harley got her phone out and got to work.  She just needed everything to stay calm for a minute or so.  Hopefully Joan wouldn’t do something stupid.

That proved to be too much to hope for.

“So that’s the plan,” Joan said.  “I figured you were hiding something from me, Goodwell.  Now that all the cards are on the table, how about you and me make a real deal?”

Goodwell said nothing, and kept the pistol trained intently on Joan.  She tried to ignore the gun pointed at her, failed, and then proceeded anyway.

“I want the rune,” Joan said.  “Everything and everyone else is expendable.  So long as I get to study the rune afterwards, I’ll help you do whatever.”

“And why should I trust you again?”

“Because I’ll kill those two for you,” Joan said.  Harley shot an angry glare at Lee, who shushed her.  Harley got back to work, pounding away at her phone with renewed vigor.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Alright, not Lee, I like her too much,” Joan admitted.  “But I’ll kill Harley, and you can do Lee.”

Harley shot another angry glare at Lee, and got no response this time.

“You first,” Goodwell said.  Joan looked over her shoulder at Harley, shrugged, and gestured toward her pocket.  Goodwell allowed her to reach down and grab the soulstone she had hidden away.  Joan pulled the crackling black stone out into the light, clenched it in her fist, and focused all of the malignant energy within on one target: Isaac Goodwell.

To no effect.

Joan squeezed her fist one more time.  Still nothing.

“Oh.  You shut off the magic, huh?”

“Yes.”

Isaac Goodwell lifted his pistol again.  Harley kept pounding away at her phone.  She just needed a few more seconds...

“Well-”

In the background, Joan was vaguely aware that people were screaming or asking for Isaac to stop, but staring down the barrel of a gun had a way of numbing a person to everything else.  All Joan could do was look up and shrug.

“-I tried.”

She wasn’t sure who she was talking to, but it felt good to say.  At least she’d been trying to do a genuinely good deed, in the end.  From all the inexplicable luck Vell, Lee, and Harley seemed to have, Joan had sort of assumed there was some divine force looking out for the good guys.  But apparently that wasn’t the case.

◆◆◆

“Okay, we’re here, are we late?”

Luke and Renard hurried into place, with the stoic Professor Nguyen in tow.  Freddy and Cane were already waiting.

“Well, uh, about being late,” Freddy said.

“We might’ve busted our only way in,” Cane admitted.  He gestured to the door.  In their hurry to rescue Vell, they had already used the rune that “Harley” had guided them towards.  It was currently attached to the door, lightless and inert.

“We tried to use that ‘open’ rune to open the door and, well, it didn’t open,” Freddy said.  “I don’t know what we did wrong.”

“Well, there’s got to be another way in, right?”

“I don’t know!  Magic’s not my specialty, but this barrier is pretty airtight,” Freddy said.  “I don’t think anything could get through it without making a lot of noise.”

“A door’s a door,” Cane said.  “Maybe we could take it apart.”

“You got tools, Cane?”

“We’re at a school for super-scientists, someone around here has to have a fucking screwdriver we can borrow!”

While the young men fell into a tense argument about the availability of power tools, Professor Nguyen stared intently forward and stared at the rune Freddy had used.  After a momentary examination, she held up her hand for silence, and the argument immediately ended.  Nguyen’s frigid attitude overpowered even the most hotheaded arguments, and all fell silent.

“This is not an ‘open’ rune,” Nguyen corrected.  “This is a rune for ‘entry’.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Subtle, yet meaningful, Mr. Fennel,” Nguyen said to Luke.  “And judging by the dispersal of energy patterns, this rune has fulfilled its purpose, and allowed entry.”

“Well we’re all still out here,” Renard said.

“Precisely.  But the rune has done its work.”

“Okay, so if not us, who got ‘entry’ into the room?”

Nobody, not even Professor Nguyen, had an answer to that question -until Renard remembered his encounter with Lee’s doppelganger.

“Uh oh.”

◆◆◆

Inside the lab, Goodwell’s finger brushed the trigger of his gun, and everything went silent.  Even hearts stopped beating to let a moment of absolute quiet slip in.  Then the silence ended, not with a bang, but with a quiet, gentle whisper.

“Isaac.”

Goodwell froze in his tracks.  Vell froze too, though he hadn’t been moving much in the first place.  The rogue principal’s gun hand started to tremble, and turned away from Joan as he turned to face the mystery voice on the other end of the room.  While he turned away, Joan all but collapsed backwards, managing to stumble far enough to be caught by Lee and held upright.

“Lijia?”

The silence in the room redoubled as the shadows parted, and a lone figure stepped into the light.  Lijia Mian, dressed in a dark grown, stepped forward from the shadows on the other side of the lab.  She looked just as Goodwell, and Vell, had last seen her, seemingly untouched by time.  Vell blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating and double-checked that Lijia was still there.  She was.  Or it seemed she was, at least.

“Is it really you?”

“Of course it is, Isaac,” Lijia said.  There was a gentle, welcoming lilt to her voice -entirely at odds with how she had spoken to Vell on their one meeting.  Oblivious to this difference, Goodwell stumbled in her direction.

“Where- What happened to you?”

“I was lost,” Lijia said, in that unnatural sing-song voice.  “Finding my way back.  Finding my way home.  To you.”

Goodwell dropped his gun and took a few steps towards her, hands reaching out to touch her and confirm she was real.

“It’s been so long,” he mumbled.

“I know,” Lijia said.  She stepped forward, and let his hands rest on her shoulders.  “But we can finally be together again, my love.”

Vell’s eyes snapped open wide.

“Goodwell, get away from her!” He shouted.  The principal was entirely deaf to his pleas.  “Goodwell, she’s not real!”

There was something ever so slightly off about this “Lijia”, but saying she loved Goodwell confirmed that something was very, very wrong.  Vell didn’t know much, but he knew for sure that the real Lijia Mian hated Isaac Goodwell’s guts.  But not only did Goodwell refuse to believe it, he was blinded by nostalgia, overlooking all the small flaws that differentiated this Lijia from the real one.

“Don’t listen to him, Isaac,” “Lijia” said.  She lifted her own pale arms and cupped his face gently in her hands.  “You know it’s me.  Just look into my eyes.”

“Goodwell, don’t!”

Too starstruck and blinded by misguided infatuation to care about Vell’s warnings, Isaac Goodwell bowed his head and looked, longingly, deeply, into the eyes of his long-lost “love”.  A faint smile grew on his face, growing wider every second -until he finally looked close enough to see that one of Lijia’s eyes was slightly the wrong color. 

Isaac Goodwell started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.  His body shook and trembled, and tears welled up in his eyes.  With a smirk, Lijia Mian released her grip on his face, and Principal Goodwell collapsed to the ground, still laughing, convulsions rocking his body as he boomed with tortured laughter.

“Good to be done with that,” “Lijia” said.  She stepped away from Goodwell’s prone, trembling body and brushed his filth off her hands.  “Think I’ve shapeshifted more today than I have in eight thousand years.”

She turned, and the visage of Lijia Mian shifted out of existence.  It was less that her appearance changed and more that everyone looking at her suddenly realized what she had looked like all along, as if her appearance was some optical illusion that had suddenly clicked into place.

The illusory woman stood tall, with skin as black as midnight and clothing as white as starlight.  The clothes she wore were lopsided and strange, and her hair was undercut on one side and stretched into a long, black ponytail on the other.  The odd asymmetry of her appearance made her appear to be two entirely different people depending on what angle you looked at her from.  Confused and afraid, everyone who could step back took a step back.  Vell, still strapped to a table, had to stand—or rather, lie—his ground as their mysterious savior sauntered his way.

“What are you?”

The asymmetrical stranger stepped up to the side of Vell’s table and looked down at him.

“Why don’t you look into my eyes and find out?”

Vell put a lot of effort into looking everywhere but her eyes.  The stranger chuckled at him.

“Clever kid,” she said.  She put an elbow on the table and leaned down closer to Vell.  “You can call me Quenay.  Like Q-N-A.  Question-”

Quenay tapped herself on the chest, and then pointed to Vell.

“And answer.”

With a smile, Quenay reached into the table Vell was strapped to, her hand passing through the metal surface like a ghost.  A second later, every single restraint holding Vell snapped open at once, tearing themselves to pieces as if ripped apart with great force.  Lee, Joan, and Harley ducked for cover as the metal shards burst outwards and embedded themselves in nearby walls.  One of the flying shards struck Quenay in the face and bounced right off.  She didn’t even blink.

“How’s that for a deus ex machina, huh?  I’m a God, and I was literally in the machine!” Quenay chuckled. 

Vell had been halfway through sitting up and getting off the table, but Quenay’s words froze him in place.

“What?”

“Come on, Vell, aren’t you supposed to be the problem solver?” Quenay said.  “Put the pieces together.”

Vell rolled off the table and backed away from Quenay slowly.  He eventually stumbled into Lee and Harley, who clung to him, partly out of relief to have him back, and partly out of fear of Quenay.  Joan huddled in as well, clinging to Lee and Vell’s wrists.

“You -you’re what Lijia found,” Vell said.  “You’re the reason she disappeared.”

“Well, when you get down to it, I think she’s the reason she disappeared.  She’s the one who got the bright idea to try and take my power for herself,” Quenay said with a shrug.  “She wanted to turn me into a battery, so I gave her a taste of her own medicine.  Condensed her soul down into its component mana and shoved her in a few double-A’s.  Left her in a basement somewhere around here, some guy found her and used her to power his Gameboy a few decades back.”

Quenay chuckled to herself and leaned on the experimentation table.

“And hey, letting some guy play Pokemon isn’t a half bad way to go,” Quenay said.  “She was a bitch anyway.”

Vell managed to tear his eyes away from Quenay long enough to check on Goodwell.  He was still on the floor, convulsing with some strange mix of laughter and sobs.

“What about him?”

“Oh, yeah, that one,” Quenay said.  “Well, continuing my trend of divine irony, he wanted to relive the past, so I let him relive the past.  Except he gets to live it from a different point of view.  Lijia Mian’s.  Specifically all Lijia’s thoughts and memories about how disgusting he is.”

Quenay looked down at Goodwell’s tormented form and nodded approvingly.  Then she glanced back at Vell and the three women cowering behind him.  She bared her teeth in their direction.

“I know meting out all this divine punishment probably makes me look harsh, but hey, I’m an old god.  The oldest god, actually.  Kind of comes with the territory.  But you kids, you’ve got nothing to fear from me,” Quenay assured them.  “You should know that, Vell.”

“Why-”

Somehow, the tilted smile on Quenay’s face answered that question without her saying a word.  In spite of his terror, Vell’s jaw dropped, and a shiver went down his spine, ending just above his tailbone -right on top of the ten-lined rune on his back.

“You?”

Quenay’s broad smile got a little wider.  In the blink of an eye, Quenay moved from one place to another, appearing in front of Vell.  She poked one finger into his chest, just above his heart.  The slight touch sent a familiar jolt of power through Vell’s body as the rune on his back resonated with its creator.

“Nice to see you again, Vell,” Quenay said. “Glad you’ve been doing well.”

“You?  You brought him back?” Joan gasped.  “Can you do it again?  Heal someone else?”

Having apparently not learned her lesson yet, Joan stepped away from the pack, to stand alone in front of the unknown god.  Quenay didn’t even glance in her direction, keeping her mismatched eyes locked on Vell.

“I’m not done with you yet, Vell Harlan,” she said.  “But I am for today.  We’ll talk more next time.”

“Wait, next time?  When?  What are-”

Ignoring all of his questions, Quenay flashed one last smile at Vell, and then vanished.  Without an “entry” rune to assist her silent passage through the barrier, the movement of a divine entity shattered the magic force field violently, filling the room with sparks and sound as the renegade Goddess made her exit. 

Aside from putting on a divine light show, the collapse of the barrier also dispelled Goodwell’s remaining protections on the underground chamber.  The metal door to the laboratory slammed open, and four young men pushed their way through at once.  Freddy fell to the floor under the tidal wave of Vell’s roommates, but got himself to his feet in a flash.

“Don’t worry, we’re here to-”

Freddy took a quick look around the room, to see the walls filled with metal shrapnel, Goodwell convulsing on the floor, and his friends standing packed in a corner, looking like they’d seen a ghost.

“I think we’re late,” Freddy noted.

Professor Nguyen stepped through the open doorway as well. While the sudden entrance had caused all of Vell’s roommates to trip over their own feet, the professor remained steadily aloft as she took in the scene.

“Is this some manner of prank?” Nguyen asked.

Harley and Lee turned to Vell.  They were starting to hope it was.

“No,” Vell said.  “This is all...very real.”

Nguyen stepped further into the room and observed Goodwell twitching on the ground like a rabid dog.

“Is he alright?”

“No,” Vell said.  “And on that note: neither am I!”

Harley and Lee clinging to Vell’s shoulders were the only thing that kept him from falling forward as he blacked out.

◆◆◆

Vell woke up in a bed -a soft one, this time, and he wasn’t tied to it, which was a marked improvement from the last bed he’d woken up in.  He breathed a deep sigh of relief and dared to open his eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t find a malevolent Goddess staring down at him.  There wasn’t, which he marked as another win.

“Morning,” Luke said.  Vell turned his head to see all three of his roommates sitting by the side of his bed.

“Hey guys,” Vell said.  “Ugh.  How long have I been out?”

“Ten years,” Cane said dramatically.  Luke slapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t fuck with him, man, it’s been a rough day,” Luke chided.

“It’s been like thirty minutes,” Renard said.  Vell nodded.  He’d never really been worried by Cane’s “ten years” joke, seeing as everyone was still wearing the same outfits.  If anything, the joke was reassuring.  It meant that things had turned out alright.

“What’d I miss?”

“Well, Freddy’s trying to help the staff make sense of Goodwell’s weird machinery, Harley’s making sure the authorities get all the info on Goodwell’s evil plan, Nguyen’s the acting principal, Joan’s getting expelled-”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I mean, even though she helped in the end, she still sort of helped Goodwell do something super illegal,” Luke said.  “Not to mention she’s the one who sabotaged Goodwell’s stuff and made him have that weird brain meltdown whatever.”

“No, that’s not- Hold on.  Where is she?  I need to find Joan,” Vell said.  He hopped out of bed, wobbled for a second, and then turned to find the door.  Renard pointed him in the right direction.

“You sure you want to be on your feet?” Cane said.  “The doc said you were fine, but after what you’ve been through-”

“I’m fine,” Vell said.  “I just need to, uh, find Joan.”

“Last I heard the security bots were helping her pack up and get out,” Renard said.

Vell stumbled out of the medical building and wobbled his way back to the dorm room.  It was late in the day now, and they were almost entirely empty.  The halls were completely barren except for two security robots standing guard at the door of Joan’s dorm.  They didn’t bother Vell as he moved inside, to find Lee somberly helping Joan finish packing the last of her boxes.

“Joan, what’s going on?”

“Hey, Vell,” she said hoarsely.  “You want to help me get moved out?  For real this time?”

“No.  I mean, yes, maybe later,” Vell said.  Joan smiled at him.  He’d never turn down a chance to be helpful, even now.  “But what’s going on?  Why are you getting expelled?”

As Joan and Vell held their brief staredown, Lee stepped outside, to give them a moment.

“Because I helped Goodwell, obviously,” Joan said.  “I can’t really hide it.”

“But you helped us,” Vell said.  “And you didn’t do anything to Goodwell.”

“Yeah, but what was I going to tell them?” Joan said.  “A god dressed up as a Chinese lady from the seventies showed up, saved my dumb ass from getting shot, and fucked off after admitting she’d brought you back from the dead?”

“Well, not in so many words, but-”

For now, no one outside the three loopers and Joan had any idea what had really happened -and who had really appeared in the lab.  Renard had suspicions, but he trusted the loopers to know that if they weren’t telling people the truth, it was probably for a good reason, so he kept those suspicions to himself.  For now, the story the world knew was that Joan had sabotaged Goodwell’s project, causing a dangerous backlash to Goodwell himself.

“Lee didn’t like it either,” Joan said.  “That’s why I didn’t tell her.  Just, uh, sneaking in one more lie before I go away for good.”

“Joan…”

“They would’ve asked too many questions, Vell.  Questions you guys didn’t have answers to,” Joan said.  “But everybody already knew I was the bad guy.  Nobody questioned that.”

Vell stepped up to Joan and put a hand on her shoulder.  Joan reached up and put her hand on top of his.

“You’re...not a bad person,” Vell said.  “People should know that.”

“You know, Vell, I’ve realized something.  Even if I’m not a bad person, which I might, possibly, be...I sure am bad at being a person,” Joan said, forcing herself to laugh.  “Even when I was doing everything I could think of to help you guys, I still nearly got us all killed.  I just...I’ve…”

Joan paused for a moment and shrank from Vell’s touch.

“You’re right about my sister.  She’s…dying.  With me it was just the eyes that went wrong, but for her, it’s...it’s bad,” Joan said, not willing to linger on the details.  Vell stayed deathly silent. “Everyone says there’s no way to help her.  But they’re not even trying.”

In spite of the day’s event, bitterness and anger welled up in Joan’s voice, and she clenched her fist tight.

“So I’ve been trying.  Trying everything.  I told myself I had to do it all...and I guess I did,” Joan said.  “Including some things I probably shouldn’t have done.”

The sidelong glance at Vell could not be ignored.

“I know what I did to you,” Joan said.  “And I’m sorry.  I was trying to save my sister, but that doesn’t excuse hurting you.  Or anyone else.  I was just too obsessed with what I thought I needed.”

Joan bit her tongue and hesitated.  She really didn’t want to say the next thing she had to say.

“And now, what I need is in your hands.  Or, on your back, I guess.  And I have to be okay with that, because- even though you’re a little slow on the uptake sometime, and you lack confidence, and you’re a little too cautious- you are...you’re- you-”

Joan bit down hard and forced herself to say it.

“You’re smarter than me.”

Vell had an entirely underwhelming reaction to Joan’s herculean effort of overcoming her own ego. 

“I’ll...try my best,” Vell mumbled.  Joan nodded in agreement.  They had very different definitions of what the word ‘best’ meant, but they both wanted to do their own version of their best.  In that brief moment of solidarity, Joan pushed her head forward for a second, as if to kiss him.  Against his better judgment, Vell flinched.  Joan paused, only momentarily, and then drew back, recognizing that she’d earned that fearful reaction.

“I’ll be fine,” Joan insisted.  “Most people don’t make it past their first year here anyway.  Getting expelled from the Einstein-Odinson is more prestigious than having a degree from some places.”

“Right.  You’ll, uh, you’re going to do great.  I’m just, you know...uh...”

“I’ll miss you too,” Joan said, finishing Vell’s thought for him.  She left it at that, in spite of all the other things she wanted to say.  She forced herself to step away from Vell.  She left the room and sought out Lee, who had been awkwardly standing outside the dorm the whole time.  Lee stepped up to ask how Joan was feeling, but was instead ambushed by a firm hug from Joan.

“Thanks for trusting me, Lee,” she said.

“Always.  You’re my friend, after all,” Lee said. 

“Of course.”

“And, Harley has asked me to pass along that she’s sorry for most of the things she said.”

“Did she really, or are you just saying that?”

“She did!  In those exact words.  So, you know…‘most’ of what she said.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

Joan looked at the closed door to her dorm, and at the empty halls of the dorm building at large.  She’d expected to do so much more here at the Einstein-Odinson college, but in retrospect, she had done enough.  She could leave with a clear conscience, at least.  Or a mostly clear conscience, as Harley might put it.  That was better than Joan had expected, and probably better than she deserved.

“We’ll see each other again,” Joan said.  She could hardly believe the next words that were about to come out of her mouth.  “Let me know if you ever need help with...the God.”

“Oh right, we’re probably going to have to deal with that eventually,” Lee said.

◆◆◆

Thanks to the day’s events (and the criminal investigation that followed) Vell and company had ended up needing a ferry to themselves to get back to the mainland.  They had taken full advantage to sprawl out, relax, and enjoy each others company on the long boat ride back to the California coast.  But now the ride was over, and everyone was being pulled in a different direction.

“Thanks for everything, you guys,” Vell said.  “For the rescue, and everything before that too.”

“Sorry we weren’t there a bit earlier,” Freddy said.

“You were very brave, bad timing or no,” Harley said.  She gave Freddy a swift kiss on the cheek, which nearly caused him to black out, but he managed to stay on his feet.  Freddy said goodbye and found his way to a cab to head home.

“Renard, we’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again,” Luke said.  “Won’t be the same without you around.”

“You guys will do great,” Renard said.  “And if you’re ever in Paris, come around to my parents restaurant, I’ll cook for you guys again any day.”

“Traveling all the way to Paris for a free meal seems...completely worth it, if it’s your cooking,” Cane said.  “You’ll see me again.”

“For sure,” Renard said.  “Good luck with...all that weird stuff.”

Renard walked off, sad to leave his friends behind, but also sort of glad to be free of the island and all its strangeness.  He still didn’t know what to make of that shapeshifter who’d gotten involved out of nowhere, but luckily, Renard found it very easy to not think too hard about such things.  Cane and Luke said their final goodbyes and wandered off in turn, leaving the looper’s alone.

“So.  Lot to say here,” Vell said.

“We know, we know,” Harley said.  “Love you, miss you, world won’t be the same without you in it, please just skip the sappy stuff.  It’s a two month break, guys, I’ll be back to annoying you in no time.”

“Vell?”

“Yeah, Lee?”

“You are coming back, right?”

In spite of Harley’s joking, Lee looked worried -terrified, even.  She wrung her hands together nervously, and looked at Vell like she was about to cry.

“Why would I not?”

“After everything you’ve been through, Vell, I mean, you’ve died hundreds of times, been torn through time and space, and been kidnapped -twice!” Lee said.  “How can you want to come back to us- to the school?”

“Well, admittedly, sometimes it’s difficult to put up with,” Vell said.  “But I just found out I’m a God’s...toy?  Chosen one? Experiment?  The point is, I don’t think my life is going to get any meaningfully less weird any time soon, time loops or no.”

Vell shrugged, and in a fluid motion, turned the shrug into a hug, grabbing Lee around the shoulders.

“Might as well face all that weirdness with my best friends.”

Lee bit back tears and returned the embrace, as Harley tried to force her way into it.

“Hey, make room you two,” she said.  “Vell said ‘friends’, plural, this is clearly a group hug scenario.”

Vell and Lee relented, giving Harley room to squeeze them both far too tightly.

Overhead, a clock tower ticked away, counting down the time at the ferry station.  Atop the tower, an asymmetrically dressed woman lounged, watching the hug from a distance with a warm smile on her face.  Quenay stayed silent, watching the loving trio eventually drift apart and go their separate ways.  She nearly went on her own way, until she saw a purple butterfly drifting on the wind around the clock tower.  The butterfly settled down on an extended fingertip, and Quenay examined it carefully as its impossibly patterned iridescent wings shimmered in the waning sunlight.

“You too, huh?” She said as she examined the butterfly.  “You get interested before or after I showed up?”

The butterfly twitched its wings, and offered no response.

“It was rhetorical anyway,” Quenay said, before turning her attention back to Vell.  “Well well, mister Vell, you are quite the person of interest.  You got two forces of the universe on your case.”

The butterfly took off, leaving Quenay behind.  She carefully watched Vell Harlan as the enigmatic purple butterfly drifted towards him.

“Well, there’s an idea,” Quenay whispered to herself.

The mismatched eyes of the hidden Goddess slowly drifted to the rune she’d inscribed on Vell’s back, and a sly smile parted her face.

“Two is better than one.”

With thanks to my readers on Royal Road and on Reddit Serials, whose comments and support helped this story grow, and to my fellow writers of the Writing Cartel, who helped me turn this tale from a literal dream into reality.

Cover art by DaToonie, whose exceptional work can be found on Twitter and Deviantart