Day 1

‘So,’ Sham asked, ‘What did I miss?’

‘Tripe can juggle,’ Mona replied. ‘Did you know that?’

It had been six days since Vince Perch for everyone else in the resistance, if only a blink of an eye for Sham. And in that time, it seemed, things had changed. The atmosphere in the church of the Loopkeepers was warmer than it had been on previous Loops. Never before had Sham heard a laugh take place in the resistance’s headquarters, yet here Mona was, laughing as Tripe juggled two stone idols.

‘I did,’ Sham said, ‘Was always trying to impress the girls with it. But back when I last saw him do it, he could do it with three.’

‘If you can find another tiny statue in here, you let me know, yeah?’ Tripe said, not taking his eyes off the statuettes as they soared through the air.

Even Ariel was amused by it, a small smile on her typically serious face as she went about her routine of dusting down the disused pews and getting the abandoned church in shape—a routine that Tripe, Mona and Asa had apparently got distracted from.

Only Riot was missing; this being a noteworthy absence only because she had established herself as being the first to arrive over the past few Loops.

‘Anything I miss besides from party tricks?’ Sham asked.

‘I wanted to go after Warren,’ came Ariel’s voice from the rear of the church.

Tripe stopped juggling at these words, and the joy in the eyes of the resistance members faded instantly.

Sham nodded. ‘Warren. OK. We can—’

‘Riot overruled me,’ Ariel added.

The church interior went near-deathly quiet. ‘I’m… sure she had good reason,’ Sham said.

[REASONING] THE INNER WORKINGS OF RIOT RESNUC: SUCCESS

Of course she would; it’s Riot.

He suspected it was very much related to the fact that Warren had been the one to torture Ariel for all those loops, back before the church’s creation. They would need to deal with him at some point, but perhaps it was best to do so when Ariel wasn’t raring for revenge; after all, there was no room for error in their grand plan, and nothing caused mistakes like wrath did.

‘It’s gonna be Lew,’ Asa said from his dark corner of the church.

Sham nodded; to his eyes, this was gonna be an easier one. Lew was the weediest of the Legion, timid in his approach, and fool enough that Sham had been able to disarm him in their confrontation at the top of the Tower. It had been his weapon that had put a round through Julya’s head, very nearly ending the Loop once and for all. If not for…

‘Lew,’ Sham pondered aloud. ‘Did you have a chance to survey him last Loop? He doesn’t really have Magnetism, does he?’ He couldn’t quite believe this weaselly fellow could charm people.

Mona shrugged. ‘Early days yet, but… Yes. We think he does.’

Sham raised his eyebrows.

‘I know,’ Tripe said. ‘Fucking weird world.’

‘You got an address for him?’ Sham asked. ‘Got his routine?’

Mona shook her head. ‘Not yet. That’s the priority tomorrow; follow him from his morning briefing.’

‘Good. And in the meantime? You’ll make sure—’

‘Make sure our encounter with Vince didn’t raise any red flags,’ Mona finished.

‘We got it, Tilner,’ Tripe said. ‘It’s under control. This fucking revolution business is easy; you just sit back and relax, yeah?’

‘Yeah, maybe I’ll go do some juggling.’

Mona laughed, Asa smirked, and Tripe looked completely unimpressed.

As the room descended into casual comradery once more, Asa approached. ‘Need you a minute,’ he said, his eyes turned serious.

Sham lead the man in silence outside of the church and around the back. The two men scoured their surroundings, making sure that nobody—not even a Loopkeeper—could overhear them. ‘Is this about…’ he asked.

Asa nodded. ‘He’s going to be a problem.’

‘I’ll deal with him.’

‘You sure?’ Asa asked. ‘Cos he knows something’s up. He gets that you might’ve given up, but Riot? Her going quiet has raised some flags. Man’s getting suspicious.’

‘I’ll deal with him,’ Sham said again.

Asa raised his palms in defeat and headed back towards the church. As Sham watched him walk away, he called after him. ‘And remember—not a word to Ariel!’

The criminal waved a hand to confirm he’d heard Sham’s warning, and left Sham staring at the ruined lands of Crater.

Sham felt a strange and profound loneliness wash over him.

‘Riot!’ Sham cried out, pounding on her front door. ‘Are you in there?’

He paused for a moment, pressing his ear to the gloss-painted wood, listening for signs of life. He heard only the roaring engine of a passing automobile, the gentle nattering of the Sunrise’s busy streets, and the echoing metallic thud of a dripping pipe.

‘Riot?’ he said again. ‘Ariel said she hadn’t seen you. Just wanted to check in, is all.’

Sham pressed his ear to the door again, to much the same result.

‘I don’t have to come in!’ he said. ‘Just let me know you’re all good in there.’

‘Suppose you don’t need the memory of finding out she’d stepped in front of a tram, huh?’ Recollection said.

Sham sighed, letting his shoulders fall. ‘No. I remember. Thank you.’

‘Cos if she was struggling back then…’

‘I said I remembered.’

Recollection replied with a mental image of Asa raising his palms in defeat, as he had an hour or so earlier.

Sham ignored the living skill, and he rested his hands on his knees. The walk across town—on top of the alcohol-heavy action of this timeline’s last few days—had his illness flaring up again. He swallowed back a wave of nausea, closing his eyes to deny the fact that the room was spinning some around him. He stayed like that for some time, allowing the flare-up to pass, until he heard footsteps climb the stairs behind him.

‘Riot?’ he asked.

The footsteps stopped.

‘Sham,’ Riot eventually said.

He staggered over to the stairwell to see Riot standing still on the steps below, thrusting her hands into her cropped jacket’s pockets. Sham eyeballed her right hand; it was gripping something tight, and he’d be a fool not to think it was anything but her revolver. ‘Where’ve you been? Was looking for you at church.’

Riot shrugged, saying nothing, then continued her journey up the last flight of stairs and to her interior front door.

‘Didn’t fancy the elevator?’ Sham asked.

Still Riot said nothing, unlocking the door and leaving it wide open behind her. This seemed, to Sham, to be an invite inside.

As Sham closed the front door behind him, Riot dropped to the settee, jacket still on, and stared at the wall in front of her. It was the wall that she had, in multiple previous Loops, used to map out the timeline. On day 1 of this Loop, however, it still boasted the framed paintings and old map that Sham had seen before. It wasn’t clear which of these Riot was staring at with those glazed eyes, if any of them.

‘Are you… are you OK?’ Sham asked.

‘I’m fine, Sham.’ She didn’t tear her glazed gaze away from the wall.

‘Your mum used to make you—’

Yes, I know, Sham replied, resisting the urge to voice the reply aloud. ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked. ‘Cup of tea always makes me feel better.’

When Riot voiced no opposition to the idea, Sham crossed the obscenely large open plan apartment to the kitchen, where he filled a kettle and set it on a lit stove. ‘Mona and Tripe seem to be doing a bit better. Their Recollections don’t seem to be affecting them much.’

‘It hasn’t kicked in yet.’

Sham raised an eyebrow. ‘With me it only took a few days.’

‘They have stronger minds than we do,’ Riot said.

‘They—’ Sham started. ‘We?’

‘Earl grey. Dash of lemon.’

‘I remember,’ he said, then found himself caught guard once more. ‘You have lemons? How’d you get your hand on lemons?’ Such exotic fruit was usually reserved for the rich and famous, and—

‘And she’s rich, idiot. You forget that bit just cos you like her?’

‘I paid for them,’ Riot clarified, in perhaps her least helpful answer ever. ‘They’re in the bowl.’

Sham set to work slicing open a lemon, just like he’d seen his mum slice that orange he’d had as a kid. The fruits were similar enough, he reckoned, that they’d be prepared in the same way. He held a segment over the brewed tea, and paused to consider just how much lemon was correct for a tea. With a shrug, he squeezed the full quarter of the lemon into the tea, watching as the yellow liquid dissipated into Riot’s tea. He kept his own black.

Sham passed the fresh brew over to Riot, who took it silently, sipped from the top, and then pursed her lips. ‘That help?’ he asked.

When no answer came, Sham took a seat next to Riot on the sofa and blew on the surface of his own tea to cool it. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Sham was certain that his friend would not be drinking any more of her tea.

‘It’s the Loop, isn’t it?’ he said. Even he wasn’t so out of touch with his emotions that he didn’t understand what was plaguing Riot. ‘It’s being trapped in it. Over and over, for the same—’

‘No.’

‘No?’ he prompted her.

‘No, Sham, it’s not that. Or, rather, it’s not just that. It’s being trapped in the Loop because a man I thought was my… It’s being trapped in the Loop because you couldn’t bear to let that fucking woman go.’

Sham couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard Riot swear before. Recollection didn’t seem to want to help him out on that one, either.

‘And you know what?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to live with that hanging over my head. That I’m stuck in this because of you. And because of her.’

‘It’s not just my…’ Sham started.

[MAGNETISM] SHIFTING BLAME: SUCCESS

Nope. Stop that—you can do better. Own up to what you’ve done. Don’t treat her like an idiot.

‘Huh. Almost forgot you had that skill,’ Recollection said.

Sham resisted the urge to remind the living skill just what it was supposed to be, and focused on the woman at his side instead. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault.’

Riot turned to him; this owning blame thing seemed to be a surprised to her too.

‘It is. It’s my fault. It’s other peoples’ too, but it’s mine as well. I’m sorry for that. But can we… can we try and make the best of it? We’re going to take down Enoch Chambers, aren’t we? Is that not worth it?’

Riot licked her lips. When she spoke, her words came out soft. ‘I don’t know if I will be there to find out.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘How long, Sham?’ she asked. ‘How many more Loops are we going to be trapped in?’

‘I… I don’t know. I can’t answer that. But we’re on to our second—’

Riot stood from the sofa and strode off to the bathroom, hands stuffed back in her jacket pockets, her shoulders clenched.

‘Riot…’ Sham said, only to be cut off by the bathroom door slamming shut.

‘What, you’d rather she kept it open?’

Sham shook his head, both to himself and in answer to Recollection’s question, and waited. He finished the last of his tea, leaving only the ground leaves in the bottom of his cup, and he stared at them, as if for a sign.

The door swung open once more, and Riot stood on the threshold of the room, her eyes fixed on his. Sham spotted her jacket dumped to the floor behind her, glancing away in response to the shock of Riot keeping such firm eye contact—something she wasn’t exactly… known for.

His friend strolled purposefully across the room and came to a stop at Sham’s feet. ‘Up,’ she said, her voice soft, but lacking the croak that had been there a few minutes earlier.

With a raised eyebrow, Sham did as suggested, and in standing, his face came close to Riot’s. Still she held his eyes.

Sham felt the woman grab firmly at his hand, and with a gentle pull she directed him towards the bedroom.

‘Riot…’ Sham said, finding his words come out as a whisper.

‘Don’t,’ she replied. ‘Just come.’