Haven’s government chamber.

An audience hall at the top of the city’s tallest building, two sides filled with benches, each row at a height staggered from the next, and then an aisle in the centre lined with a vibrant purple rug. At its end, a raised box containing only one seat—the Prime Minister’s seat—standing in front of the Tower’s last stairwell, that which led up to the residence of Enoch Chambers.

And standing at its entrance, in front of an open elevator door and the penultimate staircase, three would-be Loopbreakers, all six members of Legion, and the genesis of the Loop herself, Julya Emerson. Between them, six revolvers were raised, all of them gripped by men and women in pressed black uniform.

‘Ah,’ Kryl gasped as he staggered to a stop at the top of the stairwell, recognising the threat before them and raising his hands in surrender. He looked at Julya, at the jacket full of vials in her grasp, and then to the Legion, and their lack of fuss over this calamitous weapon being in Julya’s hands. ‘Ah,’ he said again, and Sham was sure that he could see the pieces sliding into place.

‘Upstairs,’ Josiah, the leader of the six-officer team, ordered them again. ‘Boss wants to speak with you.’ He gestured to the exit at the far side of the government chamber with the barrel of his revolver.

But nobody moved. Not Sham, not Riot, not Kryl and definitely not Julya. All stood perfectly still, processing the current situation and—if their avenue of thinking was anything like Sham’s—desperately searching for the best next move.

It was Julya, her eyes fixed on the jacket in her hands, who spoke first. ‘You’d let me have them?’ she asked. ‘You’d let me have them, even though you know what they can do?’

‘Perhaps we want this to be a fair fight,’ Josiah replied.

‘They’re using you, Julya, don’t you see?’ Riot cried out.

The short, gaunt member of Legion flared her nostrils, stepping forward so that her weapon was right in Riot’s face.

But Riot called the woman’s bluff, pressing on regardless. ‘This is what they want. You’re giving them what they want. Take those vials and—’

The female officer didn’t shoot, apparently unwilling to get in the way of her boss and his wanting to speak with them, but instead settled for a revolver butt to the face. A great crack echoed around the chamber as Riot’s nose broke, droplets of blood spilling down her blouse but also onto the woman who’d attacked her. Both Sham and Kryl moved to assist Riot, but their paths were blocked by the wavings of revolvers.

‘Ros…’ Josiah said, ‘no more of that. Gotta make sure she can still, you know, talk when she sees Enoch.’

The gaunt woman—Ros, apparently—shrugged her shoulders. ‘You can talk alright, can’t you, darling?’

As if in response, Riot spat more blood onto the female officer’s shirt. Ros did not seem to be so particular about the cleanliness of her clothes as Riot, and so the retort did not seem to land quite like Riot had maybe intended.

‘Upstairs!’ Josiah reiterated. ‘Now!’

Kryl moved to step forward, but Sham cut him off.

‘And what if we refuse?’ Sham asked. He caught sight of Julya’s eyes; they were not quite so manic, not quite so incensed. Something of what Riot had said had got under her skin.

‘Then I bloody you up some more and then we drag you up there,’ Ros snapped at him. ‘That sound good to you? Cos it sounds fucking good to me.’

‘What on the gods’ green earth could he want with us?’ Kryl asked, ignoring the threat to his well-groomed face.

‘Stop causing trouble, Kryl…’ Perspicacity murmured. ‘Look at Riot again, will you, Sham?’

Without verbally questioning it, Sham shot a brief glance at his friend. She stood, frozen, her back firmly to the wall, her posture rigid.

‘Guess you’ll have to ask him, won’t you?’ Josiah answered Kryl. ‘Now, upsta—’

But it was Julya, next, who interrupted him. She held the jacket up in front of her. ‘Why have you given me this?’ she asked again, and then when Josiah opened his mouth to speak, she added, ‘No. Really, why?’ The woman twitched, her brow furrowing with what Sham knew to be pain; he was well-versed in that particular area. Though where his headaches were a result of his body combatting… illicit substances, for Julya it was something much, much worse.

‘Look, do you want ‘em or not?’ another member of the Legion asked. This was a taller, broader, muscular man—one that Sham recognised from outside his neighbour’s apartment. But Sham recognised him from more than his own memory, at second glance. This was the brute that Ariel had mentioned; the one who had taken such delight in her torture.

‘Warren,’ Recollection said.

‘Answer her,’ Kryl said. ‘Tell her. Tell her that she’s a pawn in Enoch’s plans. Tell her what Enoch is really afraid of.’

Ros pulled her revolver away from Riot and trained it instead on Kryl. There were three weapons, now, upon him, leaving only one on Riot. Was this intentional? Sham didn’t like the man, but he wasn’t stupid enough himself to think Kryl wasn’t intelligent.

[REASONING] KRYL’S PLAN: FAIL

Nope. Nothing. Perhaps there even isn’t one; maybe it’s just that Kryl has given up on this Loop, now.

Kryl might have given up, but Sham hadn’t. ‘Kryl…’ he said, shooting him daggers with his eyes.

‘Upstairs!’ Josiah shouted, his patient wearing thin. And fast.

Riot edged along the wall, growing towards Sham, seemingly torn between cradling her injured arm and her broken nose.

‘Tell her!’ Kryl shouted back, advancing on Josiah.

Another member of Legion, one near Sham, pivoted to point his weapon at Kryl, recognising him as the larger threat.

‘I’m not going to say this another fucking time,’ Josiah roared at him.

The smaller member of Legion at Sham’s side—the last of the trio from his neighbour’s apartment—paced past Sham towards Kryl. He kept his teeth clenched tight, his shoulders stiff.

‘He’s a nervous one, remember?’ Recollection prodded him.

‘Upstairs, now, or we shoot out your fucking kneecaps out.’ As if to punctuate the point, Josiah loosed a round into the floor at Kryl’s feet, causing the monarchist to take a step backwards, towards the open elevator.

‘You mean to say you think you haven’t done far worse to me already?’ Kryl shouted back. ‘You think you haven’t—’

Another round from Josiah’s revolver hit the floor between Kryl’s feet, and the illusion that he couldn’t be intimidated broke some. He took another step backwards, this time into the elevator.

‘Don’t you think you’re going anywhere,’ the timid Legion officer at Sham’s side said. ‘You go for that lever, and I… I…’

‘Sham… I think I’ve spotted something, but we’re going to need you to give up control to Vigour,’ Perspicacity said.

‘Oh, please. Do it. Send us back to the start. I dare you.’ Kryl raised his hands at his sides, palms facing his aggressors.

We’re saving Kryl, aren’t we? Sham thought. Gods, has this what it’s come to?

‘Ready?’ Perspicacity asked, but the question wasn’t for Sham, it was for Vigour.

Sham felt his right arm thrust forward, and the butt of his palm slammed into the timid officer’s wrist. With a help, the man loosened his grip on his revolver, sending it flying into the air… and into Sham’s reaching left hand.

Oh, gods… he thought to himself, expecting Vigour to fire on the officers, expecting his body to be peppered with bullets in response. But Vigour now knew better, it seemed, than to expect fine marksmanship from Sham. Instead of firing, he launched the weapon, hard, towards the elevator’s lever.

The clang echoed around the chamber as brass met brass, and the lever was set. The elevator’s grill slid closed just as Kryl and Ros rushed to it, and neither made it in time to enter or exit.

Kryl hopped next for the lever, yanking on it hard, but finding it set into its position, just as the floorplan had indicated. There was no returning for Kryl until he reached the ground floor. Sham—or rather his four living skills—had saved him, at least for the next few minutes.

A round whizzed past Sham’s head, though he didn’t know in that moment who had fired it.

‘Stop!’ Josiah roared; this was a man who wished to follow his boss’s orders to the letter, and none of the trio would speak to Enoch Chambers if they were dead.

But it was too late.

Another round was fired, this time by Ros, and Kryl was saved by the brass grill of the elevator. The round ricocheted, catching the timid officer in the foot, and he fell to the floor.

In the meantime, Kryl, too, had dropped to the floor, realising that his last remaining opportunity to attack was to grab at the weapon that Sham had thrown into the elevator. He picked it from the floor and began firing—largely blindly—at the officers of the Legion. Only one bullet hit before Kryl disappeared into the level below, but he made it count: it lodged itself into Warren’s throat.

The brutish officer grabbed at his neck, and the torrents of blood spilling forth from it, firing his weapon blindly but hitting only wall.

‘What are you doing, Sham? Move!’

Sham hopped into action, grabbing Riot—by the injured arm…—and yanking her towards the only nearby cover: Julya.

The ever-exploding woman, throughout all the action of the past few seconds, had been standing still. She stared at the jacket in her grasp, at the vials therein, and she blinked. Though to almost all observers she might have looked like she’d entered some kind of fugue state, Sham could see it for what it was: a desperate mental battle against the parasite within her.

Sham held Riot tight, in front of him and behind Julya, and with his other arm grabbed Julya by the nape of her collar.

‘Oh for fuck…’ Ros started, stamping her foot.

‘Warren’s dead,’ an officer of the Legion noted, his tone neutral, his eyes fixed on the pool of blood making its way to the purple runner.

‘Yes, thank you, Alf,’ Ros muttered. ‘Managed to see that for myself, didn’t I?’ She turned her attention to Josiah, began hurrying for the stairwell. ‘I’ll go after the fancy idiot.’

‘Don’t bother,’ the man in charge replied, his eyes fixed squarely on Sham, peeking out from over Julya’s shoulder. ‘We both know there’s only one of them he’s really interested in.’

‘But you said—’

‘Two will have to do, alright?’ Josiah spat. ‘Anyone asks, it was Warren’s fault the third got away.’

Ros shrugged. ‘You’re the boss.’

Josiah continued to stare, unblinking, at Sham. ‘Now, are you two going to come out of there or are we going to have to make you?’

‘You won’t hurt her,’ Sham said. ‘You won’t hurt Julya. “Boss’s orders”, right?’

Though the man in charge kept a poker face, Ros grimaced.

‘Yeah, see, look at her!’

‘Sham…’ Riot said. ‘You’re hurting my back.’

To this, Josiah smiled. ‘You’re hurting your new girlfriend, see. Not sustainable, this, is it? Come out, now, and we can make sure you still have four kneecaps between the two of you.’

‘Sham!’ Riot hissed again. ‘My back!’

‘Wait… “back”?’ Recollection repeated. ‘We didn’t shoot her—’

Sham glanced down at Riot’s back, and spotted what she had been hinting him towards.

A revolver.

Her revolver.

There, all this time. Tucked under her waistband in the small of her back. And the reason she’d been keeping her back planted firmly to the wall all this time.

In one swift movement, he pulled the weapon free, and pointed it at Julya’s head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Josiah’s eyes widened with more emotion than Sham had ever before seen in them. ‘Stop!’ he roared.

This was it. Sham’s chance to stop Julya once and for all. His chance to stop the Loop and lock in her death. But as he fired, the Legion would too. It wouldn’t just be Julya’s death he’d be locking in; he’d also be locking in his own.

Could he live with that?

MEMORY UNLOCKED (RECOLLECTION)

You feel your stomach twist as you learn of Riot’s fate. As you learn what the Loop is driving her to. While you stare into the church’s roaring fire, you realise: this Loop isn’t just hurting you, but the ones you care about. It’s time to break it.

Yes, Sham decided. He could.

He squeezed the trigger, and not one of the four skills living in his head tried to stop him.

QUEST COMPLETE: SAVE THE TOWER

Prevent the Target from unleashing devastation.