Day 1

‘Wait. What?’

The early morning sun filtered through the dusty window panes of Sham’s apartment, scattering across the filthy table top on which he had fallen asleep. A pipe sat, dirty, at Sham’s right hand, tobacco leaves spilling out onto the surface below. Under his left, sweat stuck a piece of glossed paper to his skin—the daguerrotype with a fresh cigarette hole in it. An empty bottle of whisky wobbled slightly at the corner of the table as its drinker pushed himself upright.

This wasn’t heaven. Nor, Sham thought, was this hell, judging by the existence of both tobacco and whisky. What this was, he realised, was familiar.

Sham staggered to his feet, feeling the full brunt of last night’s hangover, feeling the sweat drenched down his—

No. Wait.

That wasn’t right. He wasn’t drinking last night, was he? Not to excess, at least.

He’d been…

He’d finally bitten the bullet, signed up to the Citizen’s Police. They had… they’d sent him on some chase, to patrol for some would-be criminal. They’d been so stretched, they'd sent him out without any training, and—

He remembered the explosion. The Tower ripped apart at a miniscule level. He remembered Mona dying. Remembered his final thoughts.

There was no way that he could have escaped the blast, was there? No way that someone could have saved him. The warmth had encompassed him. He’d felt his light go out. And yet…

And yet he was here, back in his home, his throat dry from last night’s pipe. The two scenarios—the two realities—they couldn’t possibly exist simultaneously. So which to trust? His memory, or the world as he saw it now, in front of him? If his past experience was anything to go by, the only sensible answer was the latter.

But Sham couldn’t shake the memories quite that easily. Though there was a haziness to them, they remained, paradoxically, vivid. They remained—for lack of a better word—real. He would need proof to the contrary, beyond his own continued existence, if he was to put these plaguing memories to rest.

The heavy morning-after of too much alcohol consumed made his body stiff, his mind ache. Sham staggered towards his apartment door, blinking back into focus everything that was more than three feet away. He stumbled as he thrust his left foot, then his right, into his sturdy workman’s shoes, and then, finally, burst out the front door.

Pain.

A blinding light, far too powerful for his fragile, dehydrated mind. But not one to be confused with the explosion of the night before or the night that never was. This pain was his own doing, was the result of little more than the midday sun, hanging high in the sky, sending daggers of light piercing into Sham’s swollen eyeballs.

He slammed his eyes shut, opening them only very gradually until he adjusted to the brightness of the sun. The headache it caused never faded, but he was, eventually, able to see.

Ahead of Sham, just the other side of the stairwell that divided the two halves of the apartment complex, a door had been bashed in. This definitely hadn’t been there last night—in neither version of yesterday’s events. Surely he would have heard if this had happened over—

MEMORY UNLOCKED (RECOLLECTION)

Your head lays heavy on the cold wooden tabletop, the first of the thundering hangover already beginning to kick in. Your stir from your deep stupor to the thudding of feet against door. If it’s you that they’ve come for, so be it.

‘...Recollection?’

No. That couldn’t be. Sham didn’t have that skill. Not unless these memories that were plaguing him were, indeed, real.

But the city would be on lockdown, after an incident like that. The Tower destroyed? People wouldn’t be…

He glanced to the road at his right. Merchants manned their market stalls. The middle class travellers honked the horns of their metallic automobiles. Boys and girls played on the street, kicking a ball made of scarred leather.

Life was normal.

So the government building couldn’t have been destroyed.

So these memories had to be the result of a breaking psyche. They couldn’t be real.

But then Sham couldn’t have acquired this skill. He couldn’t have. It was impossible. And there was only one way to be sure...

SKILL LIST

Hardened Liver (Common)

Years of capitulating to the worst of your vices has warped your body. You can stomach more illicit substances than most, but be warned: if you continue on this path, there will be a price to pay.

Seasoned (Uncommon)

You’ve spent the best part of your life eking out an existence among the very dregs of society. You know how the worst of your kind can act. You know how to handle them. You know how to survive them.

Heart of Janus (Rare)

At best, they think you cunning. At worst, they think you duplicitous. In reality, your ability to deceive is rooted in neither good nor evil; it is only something you do to survive.

All as they were. All as—

Recollection (Legendary)

The dreams of the past grow less hazy. Memories, once so fickle, stick to your mind as a fly to to a trap, no detail spared—whether you like it or not.

No.

No, this couldn’t be.

How could these two scenarios both be true? How could he have lived those past few days but the events of them not have unfolded?

It was impossible.

The House of Government had to be gone. It had to be. It was the only remaining possibility.

But it begged further questions, not least of which: just how the hell had Sham survived?

There was only one thing Sham could do next.

He rushed down the stairs and out onto the street, coming to a stop for a moment as he searched his drink-addled find for the best route to the Tower—or, potentially, to where the Tower had been.

Sham’s legs trembled beneath him as he ran, and that same familiar pain erupted in his chest. But still he ran, ignoring all this discomfort, ignoring the urge to gag and to vomit, until he approached government plaza. Even here there was no sign that any disaster had occurred, no difference in the behaviour of his fellow citizens of Haven.

He tumbled around the corner, onto the plaza, and then he saw it: the towering seat of government stood tall and proud in the sky above him. As it ever was. As though last night’s horrors hadn’t unfolded.

...Which, if true, meant that Sham couldn’t possibly have consumed that skill vial. Yet he had Recollection, and to a legendary grade, too.

The paradox confounded him. With his current level of knowledge, it didn’t seem possible that the pieces fit together. He needed to learn more.

QUEST UNLOCKED: THE PARADOX

Investigate those involved with the Night That Never Was.

Sham breathed deeply, steadying himself, conscious of the rising tide of a panic attack ready to ensnare him. Easy now, he told himself. Just take this one step at a time. Surely the answers would reveal themselves before long. Surely.

There were a few people, in Sham’s eyes, who he could seek answers from. There was the young, bold Mona, assuming that she, too, had survived—though maybe those she left behind would have answers if not. There were the Citizen’s Police, and the so-called “Captain Dickhead” who had sent Sham and partner to the scene of the crime. And there was the target—the small, bald woman with the intense mania behind her eyes. These were—

‘No. There is another.’

Yes. The target had given Sham a name. Someone who she’d expected to see in his place. What… what had it been?

‘You’re not him.’

‘What?’

‘Kryl. Said he was coming. Said that this time he’d stop me.’

If Sham had felt confused then, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. At least back then—if “then” had happened at all—he’d felt like he had a solid grasp on the rest of his reality. Now… not so much.

The Citizen’s Police. That’s where he’d start—they were the only ones who Sham knew how to find, their new recruitment office being located on the central strip. And if they couldn’t fill Sham in, they might be able to point him to Mona’s address. It was as good a place to start as any.

Sham took the journey to the strip slower than he had his trip to the Tower earlier in the morning. He couldn’t face the pain in his side flaring up once more, the sweat pooling and trickling down the creases of his back. He was too old for that kind of thing. No, these answers would have to wait for an unfit middle aged man to amble across town.

As he travelled, Sham noticed a significant lack of the burgundy uniforms of the newly-formed Citizen’s Police. There were plenty of core police, sure, even a fairly typical presence, in fact. But no Citizen’s Police. None at all. It was certainly telling that something so major had happened that all the new recruits had been summoned to tend to it. But if not on Government Plaza, then where? Those at the recruitment office might be able to provide some answers on that front, too.

The questions plagued at Sham’s mind as he made for the final corner between him and the particular block of the Strip on which the Citizen’s Police headquarters were located.

And then… more questions.

In the place of the police HQ was a shop not unfamiliar to Sham. An old antique pocketwatch store, grand in size and scale but with its paintwork peeling and fading, its windows dusty. One that Sham had passed many a time on his journeys down the Strip, one whose demise had been on the cards for a long, long time.

A store that the Citizen’s Police had replaced just under a week earlier.

In that moment, Sham began to suspect the truth.

But he couldn’t put it into words. Couldn’t admit it to himself. It was surely the only thing less likely than Sham surviving an explosion of that kind. The only thing that might explain how he could have the Recollection skill.

The only issue? It was, surely, impossible.

Sham rushed to the store’s window panes, gazing up at where the burgundy banner should have hung from a brass arch, pressing his face against the glass. The interior was… fully stocked. Covered in dust. The old, aged owner stared back at Sham, waving him in. They couldn’t have put this all back. Not this quickly.

He turned to the street, rushing to jump in front of a passer-by. The woman jumped, took a few places back as Sham rushed up to her.

[MAGNETISM] A CRAZED STRANGER: FAIL

Look at yourself. Look how you seem. How you act. Of course this woman fears you; she would even without the stench of whisky upon your breath.

‘I need to…’ Sham started, finding the question lost in his throat, so fearful was he of the answer. ‘I need to know: what day is it?’

But the woman only retreated further.

‘What day is it?’ Sham repeated.

He felt a hand grab him heavy by the shoulder, wrench him around away from the woman he was interrogating. A tall man, broad in both shoulders and waistline, stared back at him.

‘Now, you leave her alone, you hear me?’ the man barked, as though Sham was some kind of troublemaker. He wasn’t a troublemaker, of course. He was just a desperate man looking for some answers. All they needed to do was give them to him. That was all. That was all he needed. “Leave her alone?”

‘I just—’

‘It’s a yes or no question,’ the man interrupted, tightening his grip on Sham’s shoulder just enough to elicit a little pain.

‘Yes!’ Sham cried, pulling away. ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ the man said, nodded, and released Sham. ‘Fucking Loopkeepers…’ he mumbled.

‘I’m not a…’ Sham began to protest, but the broad man was already walking away, and the woman long since fled. Those around him on the Strip had watched the situation unfold, and now did their best to avoid him. They looked at him like he was mad.

And if there was one thing he wasn’t, it was mad. Some part of Sham considered shouting this to those around him, but he knew, really, that this would only be playing into their hand.

With a sigh, Sham turned back to the pocketwatch store and its dusty windows, and found, against all odds, the owner still beckoning him inside.

Sham narrowed his eyes and approached the door, hearing a bell above him chime as he pushed it open.

‘You’re looking for a watch?’ the old storekeep called across the store, his voice croaky.

Sham pointed to the street. ‘You didn’t see…’

But the old man waved him down. ‘Oh… I don’t see much at that distance nowadays.’ He pointed to the spectacles upon his nose—the glass in those rims almost as filthy as the window at his store’s exterior. ‘When you get to my age, you’ll see—or rather... you won’t.’

‘Kind of you to think me young,’ Sham murmured, then fixed himself once more on the task at hand. ‘I wanted to… I wanted to ask a strange question.’

The old man smiled. ‘I’m told I’m good at those.’

‘What… what day is it?’

If the storekeeper thought this a strange question—and surely he must’ve done—then he did well to disguise it, only looking at Sham over the tops of his dusty lenses. ‘It’s harvest month, son.’

‘Yes, but what day?’

‘The fifth.’

Sham heart dropped.

OK.

OK, OK, OK.

‘Don’t know I really have that much to live for, anyway.’

OK.

The fifth.

OK.

But he’s sure he remembers, what, another eight days?

So that’s… That couldn’t be.

‘You’re sure?’ Sham asked.

‘I’m blind, son, not senile.’

It was impossible. It simply couldn’t be. But it… explained some things. It explained why there was an old pocketwatch store where the Citizen’s Police should’ve been. It explained why the Citizen’s Police weren’t flooding the streets—they hadn’t been created yet, after all. And, above all, it explained why the Tower was still intact.

It just hadn’t happened yet.

As Sham considered all this, it started to become real to him. It became the only possible answer. It became true.

It meant that somewhere, out there, there was a bald woman plotting to commit an act of domestic terrorism. And it meant that only Sham knew enough to put a stop to it. But it wasn’t his responsibility, right? The government had never done anything for him. Never done anything for anyone like him, either. So maybe it wasn’t up to him. Even if young Mona would get caught in the blast…

Damn it.

QUEST UNLOCKED: SAVE THE TOWER

Prevent the Target from unleashing devastation.

The quest came in before Sham had a chance to rationalise a reason to rid himself of this task. As much as he would try to avoid such levels of responsibility, he couldn’t. Not when there were other lives at stake.

And maybe he could even get something out of it...

‘You look troubled,’ the storekeeper offered. ‘What is it?’

Sham waved him down. ‘It’s… it’s time travel,’ he murmured, finding himself already ambling away in a daze, towards the exit.

‘Funny,’ the old man muttered.

Something about the way the storekeeper spoke gave Sham pause. Made him stop in his tracks. ‘Funny?’ he asked. ‘What is?’

‘Well, only that… the concept of time travel doesn’t come up so much. Not even in a place so entwined with it.’ The man gazed over the pocketwatches in front of him, a shaking hand reaching out to touch one. ‘And yet here I am having spoke about it twice in one day.’

Sham’s heart dropped. He turned about on his feet to face the old man. ‘Who?’

‘A strange man,’ the storekeeper murmured. ‘Had fresh tattoos all down his arm. Didn’t seem to be caring for them properly, but, then… I have none, so what do I know?’

Sham’s mind glossed over the old man’s ramblings, focusing only on the one piece of information that might give him the answers to all his questions. He strode forward, grasping the old man by the shoulders and making him shy away in the process. ‘This man,’ Sham bellowed, ‘Who is he?’

‘I… I…’

‘Did you get a name?’ Sham insisted.

The storekeeper licked his lips, stared with wide eyes at the strange man who’d entered his premises. Sham knew he seemed mad. Often had done, over the years. The only difference was that this time he didn’t care.

‘Did you get a name?’ he repeated.

‘Y-yes,’ the old man mumbled. ‘I think he said it was… Kryl.’