“So what’s the story on Butterfly Effect Psychosis? Has anyone ever dealt with it before?”

“Dominic and Naomi -some loopers from a few years back- dealt with it once, before our time,” Lee began, remembering that half their present company had never met those two. “Much like Derek, Dominic let the secret of the time loops slip because he thought it might be convenient.”

“And how did that go?”

“Decently. The fellow he told only managed to kill thirteen people before they put a stop to him,” Lee said.

“He probably didn’t have a universe melter, though,” Harley said.

“Presumably not.”

“Followup, does Freddy have a universe melter? Because that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a dude could build in two hours.”

No one here was certain how the electroweak interaction worked, but they were relatively certain one could not destroy the universe with two hour’s warning. But this was a school where the world could easily end on accident, much less on purpose. They headed for the theoretical science lab, though they did not proceed through the door just yet. According to Luke, distracting Freddy hadn’t gone well, and he had made significant process on his new, potentially universe-ending invention.

“Alright Derek, you’re up,” Harley said.

“Why am I up?”

“Because you made this mess, and if anyone is getting disintegrated as a result of said mess, it’s you,” Harley said.

“Harley, be reasonable.”

“I am. It’s ‘reasonable’ to assume Crazy Freddy set up some kind of defenses to hold us back. Just like Vell did that one time he turned evil.”

“Sorry about that, again, my bad,” Vell said.

“It’s fine, Vell, people get brainwashed and turn evil, it happens,” Harley said. “Now come on, Derek, open the door.”

“Ugh, fine, if you’re going to be such a bitch about it,” Derek said. With cautious movements, he walked up to the door of the lab, grabbed it’s handle, and slowly pulled back. He flinched in the face of explosive nothingness and booming silence. As he froze out of fear of the overwhelming amount of nothing, Harley walked through the door he held open. The rest of the loopers followed suit.

The cavernous laboratory was mostly empty, but for the various racks of equipment and discarded scientific experiments. Rows of chemicals sat inert between strange prototype machines, their alien frames barely illuminated by dim light. But there was no sign of Freddy just yet.

“Freddy, dear,” Lee called. “Are you there?”

“As much as anyone can be anywhere in this meaningless mass of particles,” Freddy’s voice moaned. It echoed around the empty halls of the lab, bouncing off the strange equipment, making Freddy’s location impossible to pinpoint.

“Hey, you good buddy?” Vell added. “You sound a little, uh, nihilistic.”

“Well, I was just told that literally nothing matters,” Freddy mumbled. “So yeah, I guess I am pretty fucking nihilistic!”

The sound of breaking glass preceded a few shards of broken bottle scattering across the floor. Vell followed the glass to it’s source and saw Freddy stooped over a workbench, staring down at a messy sheet of blueprints, with a calculator in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Considering the shattered glass and empty bottles around him, it was not his first bottle. Freddy was usually a light drinker, so this was a stark change. He rolled one of the bottles in his hands and tried to glare at the loopers from behind the lenses of his thick glasses.

“Oh look, the only beings in the universe with a semblance of free will,” Freddy said.

“Freddy, dear, I understand that this situation is stressful,” Lee began. Freddy never let her finish. He hurled a bottle at her feet with surprising strength, considering his small frame, and she jumped back from the shards of glass.

“Stressful! No, I’m not stressed at all,” Freddy said. “I’m the opposite of stressed! I’ve just found out there’s only one choice in the universe that matters, and I’m going to make it.”

“Right, and, are you committed to the whole ‘melt the universe’ plan?” Hawke asked. “Can you not just like, eat a whole bunch of cake until your memory resets?”

“Yeah there’s a bunch of ways to kill time,” Derek said. He pointed at Harley to demonstrate one such point. “You can sleep with her!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall volunteering my vagina,” Harley growled.

“You sleep with everyone, who cares?”

“I get to decide who I sleep with, not you.”

“Oh so you can volunteer me to maybe walk to my death but I can’t volunteer you to do something you already do?”

“Somebody has to take risks,” Harley shot back. “Nobody has to suck this guy’s dick.”

“Would you shut up,” Freddy shouted, loud enough to shock them both into silence. Freddy released his grip on another bottle and stumbled out of his seat. “You’re trapped in an apocalyptic loop, one of the only human beings aware that they’re trapped in an endlessly repetitive cycle which renders free will meaningless, and you use it to make jokes and fuck random people?”

“Well what else are we going to do?”

“End it!” Freddy snapped. “Put a stop to the meaningless charade of human existence!”

“Life still has meaning, Freddy, it’s-”

“Shut up! You’re either lying to me or to yourselves! If we’re doomed to repeat ourselves without external factors like you guys messing things up, it means free will does not exist! Human independence does not exist! We’re just automatons mindlessly playing out a pre-determined pattern for the universe!”

“I feel like that’s a pretty big logical leap,” Hawke said.

“You can say that because you can still exert some measure of active influence in the world,” Freddy snapped. “You can assert a semblance of control over the repetitive loops. The rest of us? We don’t got to make those choices. We don’t get to make any choices. Not real ones, anyway. Even suicide would be meaningless, today.”

“Okay, Freddy, you’re getting real dark,” Harley said.

“Cheer him up,” Derek said. “Sle-”

“If you say ‘sleep with him’, I’m having him test the universe-melter on you.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, actually,” Freddy said. Harley nearly jumped out of her shoes as the diminutive ginger reached to grab something on his workshop table.

“Wait, Freddy, that was a joke,” Harley said. She stepped in front of Derek, putting herself between him and Freddy. “A very bad joke, but still a joke, you really should not- Eep!”

Harley let out a loud squeak of distress as Freddy pointed a complex conical device in her direction and activated it. It initially seemed like nothing had happened -and they all noticed that there was no more Harley. There wasn’t a flash of light, a burst of noise, or even a pile of ash where she’d once been standing. Harley was simply gone.

Hawke was gone not long after, though in a more metaphorical sense. He fainted on the spot.

“Okay, Freddy, please put that down,” Lee said. “As you know, what you did is not permanent, so please give us a chance to talk this through.”

“No, no, I think there’s been enough talk,” Freddy said. “Talk doesn’t matter. Choice doesn’t matter. The only real decision is the decision to end it all-”

“Nihilism: extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence,” Kim said flatly. Though she stared forward at nothing as she spoke the definition, her eyes then snapped to attention on Freddy. “Why do you believe this to be the case, Freddy Frizzle?”

“It’s self-evident!”

“I don’t believe so,” Kim said. “The actions of people tend to veer towards certain decisions and actions in spite of our interference. We must cause significant disruption to truly alter the course of events. A person who wants to sing will sing regardless of our attempts to interfere, unless we physically restrain them or provide incentive to change their desires. Doesn’t this imply that humans have an ability to choose their own course in spite of differing or obstructive circumstances?”

Freddy’s dull eyes focused for a moment, and his hand slipped away from the strange device he’d built. The change only lasted a moment, and his eyes narrowed again as he put a hand back on his electroweak interaction device.

“It’s an interpretation,” Freddy admitted. “Not necessarily a factually correct one.”

“Even if so, is nihilism the appropriate response? Acting in reaction to the inevitability of the chains that bind you is just another form of accepting those chains,” Kim said. She took a hesitant step forward. “Is that device you’re holding not proof enough that you’re capable of moving beyond whatever restrictions you believe bind you? If you can use technology to make a single, destructive choice that you believe defies the universe’s control, is it not possible to create a second, more constructive choice that also defies the restraints you chafe against?”

Freddy’s hand slipped away from his doomsday device, and he looked at the ground. His manic eyes briefly narrowed in confusion -and consideration. The moment of clarity didn’t distract him for very long, but it distracted him long enough for Derek to spring into action.

A very stupid action, but still action.

Another glassy crack rang out through the workshop as Derek brought a bottle down hard on Freddy’s head. The tiny scientist crumpled instantly, a small streak of blood red mixing in with his tangled mess of red hair. Hawke, who had just regained consciousness, fainted again.

“What the fuck, Derek?”

“I thought you were distracting him!” Derek said defensively.

“I was distracting him,” Kim said. “But not so you could do that!”

Lee knelt down to check on Freddy while Derek dropped his broken bottle and shrugged.

“What else did you want me to do?”

“It’s Freddy, just grab his arm or something,” Vell snapped. “Have you looked at the guy? You could immobilize him with ten inches of dental floss.”

Lee gently turned Freddy’s very small, easily restrained body over to examine his face. It was difficult to tell the severity of his condition at a glance, since he was naturally very pale. Lee put a hand on his neck just to be sure.

“I had to act fast,” Derek said. “Besides, he’ll be fine!”

“He’s dead.”

Lee gently put Freddy down, closed his eyes, and stood to glare at Derek along side Kim and Vell.

“Well. Uh. He’s still going to be fine, right?”

The glaring did not cease.

“First loop, right? Everything’s fine?”

As the glaring continued, Hawke regained consciousness. Again.

“Oof,” he said, rubbing an aching head. “What’d I miss? Why’s everyone glaring?”

“Nothing, dear, go drink some water and lie down,” Lee said. “Fainting that much isn’t healthy.”

“Okay,” Hawke said. He wandered off, blissfully unaware of the situation unfolding before him. Lee waited until he was gone to start the lecture.

“Oh, gee, what’s all this for?” Freddy asked. He looked at a spread of crepes, waffles, pancakes, and other assorted delicious breakfast foods that had been laid out for the morning meal to which he had been unexpectedly invited.

“No particular reason,” Lee said, lying. “We just happened to be having a special breakfast and we thought, why not invite Freddy?”

“Oh. Well, thanks for thinking of me,” Freddy said. “I guess, ‘Bon Appetit’?”

Harley had already dug in, and Kim and Vell were taking turns feeding each other in a display more sickeningly saccharine than even the thickest syrup. Freddy Frizzle had many things to be anxious about on the average day, but free breakfast from good friends was not one of them. He ate his fill -and unknowingly assuaged the guilt of those who’d watched him have a psychotic break, then die- and went on his way with a smile on his face.

“Lee, you believe in karma, right?” Vell asked. “Do you think that balances us out?”

“We should be fine,” Lee said. “Derek, on the other hand...”

Obstinately insisting that he had done nothing wrong, Derek had refused to be involved in the pseudo-apology for Freddy’s untimely execution. It was all the more inconsiderate for the fact that he’d been the executioner. Killing someone, even accidentally, at least warranted some help preparing the apology waffles.

“We got to have a talk with Derek,” Harley said, as they cleaned up after their breakfast buffet. “He’s turning out to be a real fuckboy.”

“I agree,” Lee said. “Though he seems recalcitrant when it comes to criticism.”

“Recalcitrant: having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority or discipline,” Kim said. “Is this synonymous with Harley’s earlier descriptor of ‘fuckboy’?”

“Sort of, but not really,” Harley said. “You know a fuckboy when you see one, though.”

“I’ll have to learn the characteristics of a fuckboy,” Kim said.

“You’ll have plenty of practice when we get around to going to the beach,” Harley said. “I’m sure the sight of us in bikini’s will bring them out in droves.”

“Hmm. I’d like the beach. I would not like to be flocked to by any and all fuckboys.”

“We still have to teach you to swim, though,” Vell said. Kim nodded along as she helped clean some dishes. “You know, I think it’s really interesting how you’ve never gone swimming, or had ice cream, but you can still talk about all that crazy philosophical stuff off the top of your head, like you did with Freddy.”

While Kim bit her lip, Harley and Lee exchanged a look. They also thought it was interesting, though perhaps not in the same way Vell did.

“It’s...interesting?” Kim said.

“Yeah.”

“Then I should certainly learn to swim,” Kim said, as she stared downwards. “I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be normal.”

“Interesting is normal,” Vell said. “At least to me. Everyone’s got their own little differences.”

“I’d like it if my differences were ‘little’.”

It took Kim ten seconds to realize that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were just staring at her silently. She avoided their gazes and stared blankly at her plate of breakfast.

“Are you alright, dear?”

“I’m fine,” Kim insisted. “Perfectly fine. Just feel a bit of anxiety. Feelings of fear, dread, or unease. Perfectly normal things to feel.”

After that, Lee and Harley were almost getting tired of sharing looks. Kim’s presence in their lives had always been slightly odd, but it was getting stranger rapidly.

“Yeah, it’s totally normal, don’t worry about it,” Vell said. As usual, he had no concerns about Kim’s occasional odd behavior. He found it charming, if anything. “And, don’t worry about feeling different. I guarantee I’m a hell of a lot weirder than you are.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Kim said, with a faint smile. She appreciated that Vell was trying, at least, even if he didn’t know what he was talking about. Vell looked at her for a long time, and managed to look away long enough to take a quick glance at Hawke.

“I’ll tell you later,” Vell said. “In private.”

“Oh, like you need any more excuses to get me in private,” Kim said, switching from unsettlingly odd to unsettlingly flirty in the blink of an eye. “Meet me after class and we can talk about it?”

“Of course. See you then, beautiful.”

With a quick kiss goodbye, Kim made her exit. Harley watched her go, then turned her attention to Vell.

“You sure about this, Harlan?”

“Sure about what?” Hawke asked.

“You’ll get the lore later, buddy, we’re talking in obtuse hints for now,” Harley said.

“I would advise getting used to it, intentional vagueness to build mystery is quite commonplace around here,” Lee said, before taking a sip of tea.

“Back on track. Vell. You sure about this?”

“Yeah, not talking about this kind of stuff has only ever caused problems. I think we need to work on that intentional vagueness thing Lee just mentioned,” Vell said. He pointed to Hawke. “I’ll tell you later, but I should tell Kim first.”

“Okay, I guess,” Hawke said. He had next to no idea what was going on, and all this ominous talk was starting to weird him out.

“As long as you know what you’re doing,” Harley said. She could hardly fault him for wanting to be honest with his girlfriend.

“It’ll be fine,” Vell assured them. “She’ll take it well.”

Severeal hours later, Harley had retired to her dorm, and gone to all the trouble of putting on her fuzzy slippers to relax and study when a very expected guest knocked on her door.

“So,” Vell said. “She did not take it well.”