Day 9

‘Do you feel ready?’ Riot asked.

The rain splattered the hard slab tiles that made the floor of Government Plaza. The noise—like a distant drumming—drowned out the noise of the officers of the Citizen’s Police, who shouted at one another across the square to report in with their de facto leader, Mona.

Sham and Riot had paid her a few hours earlier, explaining the situation, as much as they could. That there would be an attack on the Prime Minister at Government Plaza in a few hours. That the woman responsible is the one who killed her father. A Heart of Janus skill check was behind that one.

Mona hadn’t seemed sure at first—who were these two strangers visiting her in her first hour of the job?—but that last lie seemed to have brought her around to the cause.

She had no seniority over the other officers on the Plaza, not really. There were few ranks in the Citizen’s Police, so early in their formation. But her commanding voice and a tone that suggested she knew what she was doing had her colleagues checking in with her before every move.

Sham heard her voice, in the distance, bellowing orders at one of the men under her pseudo-command, though he couldn’t quite make out the words under the din of the rain. He allowed himself to enjoy it, nonetheless. Maybe Mona would make a good police officer, once this was all over. Maybe it would go some way to making her father’s death… worth it.

‘You don’t really think that.’

Joy was correct. He didn’t. But he was doing what had to be done.

‘I said… do you feel ready?’ Riot repeated.

‘No. Not as much as I’d like.’

They stood at the closed doors at the bottom of the tower, the recess of the door against its oversized doorframe shielding them from the worst of the rain. Sham looked down at his boots, shiny from splatter.

‘She’s late,’ Riot noted.

‘She comes when she comes.’

‘And what if that’s tomorrow?’

Sham shook his head. ‘It won’t be. It’ll be tonight. The Fringe makes it that way.’

Riot raised an eyebrow, but said nothing; if she had any further question about the nature of the Fringe, she knew that now was not the time.

The rain grew harder, its heavy patter against the tiles acting like a dramatic, foreboding soundtrack for the fight to come. Or maybe it just seemed that way; the mood was, after all, tense.

A woman approached from under the thick blanket of rain. Sham’s heart skipped a beat, for a moment thinking that the time was upon them. But the figure was too tall, not graceful enough to be Julya.

Mona’s face came into focus as she drew closer.

‘How we looking?’ Sham cried out to her—near-shouting so that he could be heard over the rain.

‘Nothing yet!’ Mona shouted back. ‘Thought you said she’d be here by now!’

‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ Riot said. ‘She’ll be here. Could be any moment now. You have everyone in position?’

Mona nodded. ‘Enough to give her a fight. You sure we shouldn’t go for the kill?’

Sham shook his head. ‘That’s right. No kill. Just give her a run for her money, make her use her luck, and then…’

‘Retreat when you give the signal,’ Mona finished for him. ‘I know.’

‘Good.’

Mona studied the strange pair a moment longer, then raised her eyebrows and moved back to the men and women under her de facto command.

Sham glanced over at Riot. Down at her hand. ‘What I said before,’ he started, ‘I—’

‘Shh,’ Riot snapped.

‘What?’

‘She’s here.’

Sham whipped his face in the direction that Riot was staring—directly across the Plaza.

‘You ready?’ she asked.

Sham furrowed his brow. ‘What sort of question is that?’

As Riot shrugged, she pounded on the heavy door behind her. Once. Twice. Three times.

The pair stared down the woman as she approached. Copying Riot, Sham put his hand to his revolver. It felt unnatural in his grasp. But that didn’t matter; it was a prop only—it was best for everyone involved that he didn’t actually use it.

‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘I guess it’s time.’ With that, he stepped forward across the Plaza.

‘Sham!’ Riot called out behind him. ‘Where are you going?’

He stopped mid-step, turned back to her. ‘I’m not doing this without giving her one last chance. I can’t.’ With that, he continued onwards, coming to a stop a good thirty yards from Julya—just close enough, he reckoned, that she would hear him if he shouted.

Sham mustered as commanding a tone as he could manage. ‘This is it, Julya. Last chance. Last chance to ignore that voice in your head, and turn away. Last chance to end this Loop on your own terms.’ It didn’t hurt to try, right?

[COMMAND] ONE LAST CHANCE: FAIL

You must have known that wasn’t going to work.

Julya smiled a sad smile. ‘I’d hoped I wouldn’t see you again, Sham. You’re a good man, but that won’t stop me from… Well, you know.’

Sham eyed the members of the Citizen’s Police moving into position. ‘It won’t stop you from killing me.’

The Target nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

Sham replied first with a small smile of his own. ‘Don’t be,’ he said, and then the Government Plaza lit up with gunfire, great booms echoing around the near-empty square as Mona and her team began emptying their chambers.

Julya dropped to a crouch, hurried for the cover of the fountain in the centre of the square, and raised her own revolver. She fired blind on the coming members of the Citizen’s Police.

Sham hurried back to Riot’s side, crouching behind the cover of a low wall, not so far away from where he’d been, and not so far from the steps leading up to the Tower, either.

‘They’re getting too close,’ Riot said.

‘Who are?’

‘The CP. If they get too close, Julya will hit them.’

Sham cast his head back out from behind the cover. Riot was right, of course. The men and women in burgundy pushed closer, and Sham watched as one of Julya’s blind shots caught one of them in the shoulder. The man cried out as he was hit, dropping hard to the floor. Sham thought for a moment that he was gone—that continuing the plan, now, would lock in his death. But the man picked himself up from the ground, clutching his injured shoulder, and ran for cover.

‘Mona!’ Sham shouted. ‘Get them back!’

But she couldn’t hear him over the torrential downpour.

‘Gods damn it,’ he muttered to himself, then charged out into the open, praying that Julya would not turn her weapon on him. Surely those firing upon her were more of a threat. He waved his arms in the air frantically, finally grabbing Mona’s attention, and then motioned for them to get back.

It took Mona a moment, but she seemed to grasp what he was telling her, and barked orders drowned out by the rain had those in burgundy retreating.

Julya rose slowly from behind the fountain as the shots grew less accurate, only catching the top of her cover every now and then. She kept low, but continued shooting. ‘What’s up, Sham?’ she cried out. ‘Are you worried about them dying? Are you worried the Loop won’t undo it? Do you think you might actually stop me?’

Sham responded by running back for cover, his weapon remaining firmly in its holster to stop Julya from prioritising his death over the others.

‘Do I need to remind you what I have up my sleeve?’ Julya shouted. With that, she opened her jacket, pulling from it a vial. She pulled the stopper from its top, and downed it in one.

‘How do we know it’s the one we want it to be?’ Joy asked.

As if in answer, Julya stood up from her cover, stared down the Citizen’s Police, and… no rounds hit her.

In the distance, members of the Citizen’s Police found their guns jam, found them misfire, found their sights to be suddenly askew.

‘There,’ Sham said to the living skill. ‘That looks lucky to me.’

He and Riot were, next, to draw Julya’s fire. To keep the members of the Citizen’s Police safe. There was no sense them dying when the Loop would not be un-done, after all. But it seemed like this was unnecessary; Julya’s attention had shifted away from her attackers and towards the great doors of the Tower. The very doors that Sham and Riot’s cover was in front of.

The pair stared Julya down as she strode across the plaza, eyes fixed on them. She ignored the bullets raging around her; she had luck enough that it would take more than that to fell her.

At Sham’s side, Riot gulped. Audibly. ‘Sham… I don’t think it’s working…’

‘Give it a minute,’ he replied.

The distance between them and Julya grew smaller with every passing second. They could hear, now, Julya’s footsteps on the wet ground, it no longer drowned out by the rain around them.

‘Sham…’ Riot said again, her voice strained.

Julya grew closer still, not twenty feet away now, and she raised her weapon. Not at Sham, but at Riot.

‘Sham!’ Riot cried out.

As the woman at his side ducked, Julya pulled the trigger.

Her weapon worked fine—it didn’t misfire, its sights held true, it didn’t jam—but its owner didn’t. Julya slipped on the puddles formed by the heavy rain, falling to the ground, hard, her revolver arm swinging into the air.

‘Oh, bad luck,’ Sham said.

Julya stared at him with crazed eyes. ‘But… but I have fluke! What did you do?’

Day 2

‘I… I know how we do it,’ Sham said. ‘I know how we break the Loop.’

Three faces stared back at him, none of them speaking, each of them waiting for him to continue. But Sham didn’t. Not immediately. He had to gather his thoughts, first. Process them.

‘Well?’ Kryl asked, tapping his fingers on his elbow.

Sham turned to Asa. ‘You say you’re giving Julya the vials, right? No matter what?’

The criminal nodded. ‘Ain’t gonna cross Gres on that one.’

‘And there’s no wiggle room? You wouldn’t, for example, give her all but one?’

Asa narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you thinking?’

Instead of replying, Sham turned to face an increasingly impatient Kryl. ‘Did you go to your apartment this Loop? Did you pick up that stuff from your underwear drawer?’

‘I do not appreciate you looking through my—’

‘Did you pick the boono up, or not?’ Sham asked.

In answer, Kryl reached into his coat pocket, and pulled from it two vials. One charm, one luck. He placed them delicately on the table, on top of the sketches of the Tower’s floorplans.

Sham picked up the latter. The luck vial. ‘You know I took this, once? On the Loop that you died.’

‘That Mr Cuttle here killed me, you mean?’ Kryl said with a nod of his head towards the criminal.

Asa smiled back at him petulantly.

‘It was a game changer for me. It got me access to places I wouldn’t have got otherwise. I got me out of trouble when I needed it to. But then…’

‘But then there becomes a price to pay,’ Kryl finished. ‘Such is the nature of boono, after all. In this case, once the luck is used up, it must be balanced out. By unluck.’

Sham nodded. He passed the vial to Asa. ‘You think you’d be fine replacing the contents of her Fluke vial with this?’

Asa took the boono in his hand, considered his options. ‘Don’t see there’d be any problem with that. Yeah. Yeah, alright.’

‘Good,’ Sham said with a nod.

‘And that’s it?’ Riot asked. ‘You think that’s enough?’

‘No,’ Sham replied. ‘That’s just step one.’

Day 9

‘You’ve been rather lucky these past couple of minutes,’ Sham replied. ‘Probably used up that whole boono vial, if you ask me.’

‘What boono vial?’ Julya spat.

‘Look, I didn’t want to do this, but—’

‘What boono vial?’ the woman scrambling up from the floor asked again. She raised her revolver, pointed it squarely at Sham’s face.

He tried to suppress a gulp; just how much could he count on the boono’s bad luck? ‘Luck,’ he replied. ‘The poor Fluke substitute. You know.’

‘I…’ Julya started, then with flaring nostrils, pulled the trigger of her weapon. Nothing happened.

‘Think you got that in the puddle there,’ Sham said, nodding to the pool on which Julya had just slid. ‘Bad… well, bad luck.’

Julya opened her mouth to reply, but a fresh burst of bullets spraying overhead cut her off. She shoved past Sham and Riot, pushing them aside with ease—

‘Got my cousin in her already, I reckon,’ Vigour said.

—and launched herself up the stairs for the Tower proper.

Sham raised his hand in the air to give Mona and her team the signal. It was time for them to withdraw. Their job was done. The second stage of the plan was about to begin.

‘And you’re going to keep your word on this, are you?’ Recollection asked.

Riot flashed Sham a nod, which he returned in kind, and then together they raced up the steps to the Tower’s entrance to hunt down their weakened prey.

As they charged through the door, they heard a loud grunt from inside. Julya was moving quickly—more quickly than anticipated—and already Kryl had ambushed her from behind the pillars.

Sham slipped into the atrium of the Tower just as Kryl made contact with Julya, using the element of surprise to knock her to the floor even with a Vigour already in her system, and sending her revolver sliding across the tiled floor. He scrambled for her jacket, trying to pull it from her, and separate the woman from her vials—just as they’d planned.

But he was losing. And losing fast.

Sham and Riot charged to their side just as Julya pushed herself on top of Kryl, her right sleeve torn from her jacket.

It was time for step two of the plan. It was time for Sham to finish this, using the only advantage he truly had.

It was time to embrace the living skills.