Day 3

‘This,’ Asa said, holding the Fleet of Foot vial up to the light, illuminating the gentle yellow liquid inside, ‘is what you’ll be taking.’

Three members of the resistance were sat at the front of the makeshift church—Sham, Asa, and Mona—and all of them were staring into the owl-marked wooden crate that Asa had hauled in. Or, rather, they were looking at the many colourful vials held within it.

‘Fleet of Foot?’ Mona asked. ‘For…’

‘For Vince,’ Sham said. ‘To get the jump on him sooner. Save me and Tripe from having to tumble out of the window.’

‘I see, I see.’ Mona reached out as if to take the vial from Asa’s hand.

‘No,’ Sham cut in, meeting Asa’s knowing glance. ‘Not yet.’

The young woman furrowed her brow. ‘Why not? Cos of the explosion? I don’t think two vials is going to blow me up, do you?’ She glanced down at the crate at their feet. ‘In fact, why aren’t I taking more? Three? Four? Five? Surely we should be loading ourselves with skills if we’re gonna, you know, do this thing.’

Again Asa stayed quiet, looking to Sham. He knew the truth, of course, that these vials came with a steep price—a price that Mona and Tripe hadn’t, yet, realised they’d paid.

‘There’s time enough yet,’ Sham said.

‘But—’

‘Trust him,’ Asa said, offering up a rare comment. ‘He’s right.’

Mona narrowed her eyes at Sham, seeing that he was keeping something from her, but apparently not yet determined to ask him just what it was.

‘You seen Riot?’ Asa asked, perhaps choosing this moment to ask the question in an effort to divert the conversation away from that inevitable conversation about having put a voice in Mona’s head. ‘I got something to ask her. About that matter we discussed.’ If he was trying to move the conversation away from the topic of “things Mona doesn’t yet know” then he wasn’t doing a great job of it.

Sham shook his head. ‘Not since yesterday morning. She’s… She might have some insight.’

Asa nodded, then returned his attention to the vial in his hand, placed it—ever so delicately—back in the crate.

‘What about Marksmanship?’ Mona asked. ‘Could I have that one too?’

‘Aren’t you already, like, rare grade in that anyway?’

The young woman shrugged. ‘It’s not legendary grade, though, is it?’

‘We’ll discuss it,’ Sham replied.

‘In time?’

‘In time, yes.’

Mona shook her head, but said nothing else of it. She watched Asa pack up the crate with sad eyes. ‘Why are you—’

Their heads swivelled to the door as it opened, each of them perhaps expecting another intrusion from a member of the church. All of them, having remembered so many Loops by this point, had grown used to using this building as their place of worship; a few of them were still in such habits. Or perhaps it was an act of rebellion about this temple being snatched away from them. Or maybe simply curiosity—Ariel hadn’t exactly told them what Sham and co were using this building for, after all. Whatever the reason, it had resulted in two such intrusions in the four Loops since the resistance was formed.

This, however, was no such thing.

Tripe returned with a heavy, slouched posture and dark rings around his eyes. He glared at Sham and Mona. ‘Just where the fuck did you two get to, then?’

Sham raised his eyebrows in response. ‘You been out all this time?’ he asked.

‘Have I been doing my job, you mean?’ Tripe retorted. ‘Yeah, I been doing my job. No thanks to you two, disappearing off like that. I could’ve—’

‘He hurt someone,’ Mona said, apparently as keen as Sham to nip this protest in the bud. ‘Lew did. We had to help her.’

Tripe narrowed his eyes. ‘The woman? From the cafe?’

Mona nodded.

Tripe opened his mouth to say something, then had some kind of thought occur to him, and then… shrugged. ‘Well, sorry but… so what? It ain’t like she’s gonna remember it this time next week, is it? And if she don’t remember it, then it ain’t like it actually happened.’

‘Oh,’ Mona said. ‘She remembers.’

‘A new Looper,’ Sham added.

‘Ah.’ Tripe’s glare softened; he knew what this meant. This had been a woman who’d needed comfort. Who’d needed support. Who’d needed… Ariel. ‘I see.’

‘Still, sorry,’ Sham said. ‘I didn’t mean for you to be out all night, following him.’ He saw Tripe’s right eyelid twitch. ‘You find anything? A weakness?’

Tripe paused, then took a step inside the church and pushed the double wooden doors closed behind him. A nearby remnant of stained glass cast a rippling pattern of yellow and red over his face. ‘Yeah, I…’ He paused again, this time shaking his head. ‘Last night. Nothing until then, all the usual shit, but last night, he visited a dealer.’

‘What sort?’

‘Boono.’

Sham raised an eyebrow; this wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. From the moment he’d heard the word “dealer” he’d imagined all the usual stuff; substances that might raise a man’s mood, that might keep his mind off all the terrible things he did for his boss. But boono? That didn’t make sense.

‘What could Lew Sawyer need boono for?’ Mona asked. ‘He’s got legendary Magnetism, hasn’t he? And Seasoned and Vigour to a lesser extent, as far as I could tell. So…’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Sham said. ‘Any thoughts?’

Tripe stared into the middle-distance.

‘Tripe?’ Sham said again. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘Sorry, I… Yeah. No. I ain’t got shit. Couldn’t even hear what type he was buying. But he bought a lot of it, I’ll tell you that much.’ If he had any more information, he wasn’t forthcoming with it, and Sham saw the man’s eyes glaze over once more.

‘And then what?’ Mona asked. ‘What happened the rest of the night?’

Tripe’s eyes drifted over to her. He took in a deep breath, then sat down on one of the hard wooden pews. ‘Look, Sham, Mona… I ain’t know that I’m gonna be any good to you. I’m… I’m losing it, I reckon.’

Mona took a seat next to him, while Sham remained standing; he didn’t quite like where this conversation was headed.

‘Losing it?’ Mona asked. ‘Just what do you mean, losing it?’

‘I’m… I…’ Tripe gulped again, then cast his gaze up at Sham. To Sham’s surprise, he could see that his old friend’s eyes were wet; something he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

‘Yep, checked the records. You haven’t.’

Tripe kept his eyes fixed on the resistance’s de facto leader. ‘Do you remember, Sham? The old days? What we used to get up to for a chance at some coin?’

Sham’s eyes drifted to Mona, who was staring up at him with curious, wide eyes, and then to a departing Asa who flashed him only a knowing smirk. ‘The burglary,’ he said.

‘The burglary, yes,’ Tripe continued, ‘but also… Some of us—me and Fog, really—we did more. We did… worse.’

It was Sham’s turn to narrow his eyes. ‘What do you mean, worse?’

‘I mean… Worse. Far worse. Things that I’d cast out of my mind just so I could live with myself, like. But these last couple of weeks, more and more…’

Sham’s old friend lent forward and wiped his face with the palms of his clammy hands.

‘I can’t stop thinking about them. Those memories. Try as I like, they keep coming back to me. And vivid, too, like.’

‘It’s the Loop,’ Mona said. ‘I’ve been thinking about my past a lot too. It’s— I think it’s something to do with the Loop. With time being messed up.’

Sham turned his back on the pair, staring up at the crumbling statue of Zeus that sat at the church’s rear. As he looked upon the bespectacled face, he cursed. How had Riot managed to miss this? He’d really been counting on her to handle this… tricky conversation. Maybe he’d been wrong to keep it from them this long. Maybe he should have told them from the start.

‘Maybe,’ Sham heard Tripe say. ‘Maybe. I just don’t know how to live with… I ain’t know how to make up for some of the shit I’ve done.’

‘Fight,’ Sham said, still staring at the statue.

‘What?’

‘Fight,’ he said again, this time turning to face his old friend. ‘Whatever crimes you committed in the past, make up for them now. Do it by fighting. Do it by ridding Haven of this corrupt government. Do it by turning this city into a place that works for all its citizens, not just the rich ones. That’s how you do it; that’s how you atone.’

Tripe gulped, then nodded again. His gaze fell to his feet.

There, Sham thought. He’d managed it. He’d postponed the difficult conversation again, and next time it came up, he’d make damn sure that Riot was at his side to help.

[FLUKE] A DIFFICULT CONVERSATION: FAIL

You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?

‘Just would be good if I could get rid of that voice in my head,’ Tripe finished.

Mona’s eyes widened. ‘What did you just say?’

Shit.

‘Yeah, shit.’

The older man shook his head. ‘Nothing. Ignore me.’

‘No, go on,’ Mona prompted him. ‘You said you had…’

Tripe sighed. ‘I got a voice in my head, alright? Been going on a while. Getting louder. I ain’t know what the fuck to do about it, and it don’t seem to be going anywhere. Keeps telling me…’

‘Keeps telling you things you don’t want to think about?’ Mona asked.

‘I…’ Sham started.

But Tripe’s attention was on their colleague now. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘How did you know that? You’ve not—’

‘Got it too? Yeah. Been happening since I joined the resistance, I think.’

‘Yeah, since that first night,’ Tripe said.

‘Say hello to my cousins for me,’ Recollection crooned.

‘Since the…’ Mona started, and her eyes widened further. Her head snapped to Sham. ‘Since the vial.’

Tripe looked at Mona, then followed her gaze. It took him a few moments longer, but he got there. He got to the part where he realised just who was to blame. ‘What was in that vial, Sham?’ The question was delivered in an oddly cool tone; one that didn’t seem to fit the Tripe that Sham knew.

The resistance leader gulped.

‘You’ve… you’ve got one too, haven’t you?’ Mona asked. ‘A voice? You’ve got…’ Her nostrils began to flare. ‘Were you just not gonna fucking tell us?’

‘You were…’ Sham started, unconsciously stepped backwards toward the status of Zeus. ‘Riot should really be here for this conversation.’

‘Riot?’ Mona repeated. ‘Fuck Riot!’

‘Hey,’ Tripe said, placing a hand in front of Mona as she started to rise from the pew. ‘Let’s keep our heads on about this.’

But Mona pushed through Tripe’s outstretched hand, then spun to face him. ‘Don’t you see? She knew too! All of them did! All of them who remember the Loop! They all knew what the price of Recollection was, and none of them saw fit to tell us.’

Tripe lowered his hand; Sham was no longer worth protecting.

‘You were holding up fine!’ Sham said.

‘So… so what?’ Mona asked. ‘So just cos we were fine at first, you thought you didn’t need to tell us? That retrospectively got you off the hook for… for…’

‘Poisoning us,’ Tripe suggested. His voice, still, remained oddly calm.

‘Yeah, fucking poisoning us.’

‘Rather a nice change for Mona to be the one with the filthy mouth, don’t you think?’

‘We needed to…’ Sham started. ‘We needed to know if stronger minds than ours could withstand it. We thought maybe with you two—with you especially, Mona—you might be able to handle the skills better. We thought we might be able to give you more vials, in time. But telling you, that would…’

‘Ruin the experiment,’ Tripe finished. He tilted his head down to the floor.

Mona opened her mouth to snap back a retort at Sham, but she only snarled instead. She turned on the spot before marching towards the doors.

‘Does this mean you’re out?’ Sham called after her.

‘No,’ the woman shouted back without slowing. ‘It means I’m pissed.’

The doors slammed shut behind her, and a wave of silence washed over her.

Sham swallowed, forcing to his lips the question that needed to be asked. ‘And… you? Are you out? Are you pissed?’

Tripe took a moment before responding, as if this answer was worth well considering. ‘I’m not out. And I am pissed. But I see… I see why you needed to do it.’

Somehow, that answer was worse.