‘What’s going on up there?’ Mona said, craning her neck to look over the heads of the other passengers.

Sham and Mona had collected Ariel from her rounds at the church, considering her a vital influence on Verd. Even if Ariel hadn’t managed to make Verd a full time member of her flock, it did seem that she’d at least convinced the new Looper to stay out of trouble. Though perhaps it was the beating from Lew Sawyer that had convinced her.

The trio had headed south, walking into the centre of town and then alighted a tram that sent them hurtling towards the border between Heron Piers and the Harbour District, where Mona lived. After being given refuge by Mona in the previous Loop, Verd had returned to this place of safety again, and though she hadn’t explained herself, Mona could tell that she’d done so out of fear.

And that’s where they were, now: on a tram that should have been hurtling towards their destination at this very moment. In reality, however, they were stuck. In traffic.

A half dozen trams filled the line ahead of them, none of them moving or even giving any indication that they would be moving any time soon. Mood on the trio’s tram was growing sour, and not just from Sham, who was pushing the toxins of his infinite hangover from his system.

‘I’m going to go take a look,’ Mona said, who up until this point had been tapping her foot impatiently. ‘See what the issue is.’

She left Sham and Ariel alone in the crowded vehicle, squeezing off through the other passengers and inevitably treading on some toes in the process.

‘I don’t remember this happening before,’ Ariel said. ‘Dozens of Loops, and never anything like this.’

‘Makes you wonder what we could have done in one day to cause it, doesn’t it?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ Ariel said, and the pair fell back into silence once more.

It was a valid question; yes, the members of the resistance inevitably caused minor changes in the timeline of the Loop. It was unavoidable. Maybe they’d eat breakfast at a later hour, or they’d fancy a cup of tea, or they’d look a passer-by in the eye. These seemingly innocuous actions, it seemed, could snowball. They’d have many minor impacts that would be unnoticeable unless someone had logged the actions of every single person in this huge city. And those impacts would have impacts of their own. And so on. So things changed. Subtly. But it never seemed to be as dramatic a change as this—at least not so early in the Loop.

A good few minutes passed with no sign of change, and Sham was just about to suggest that they walk the rest of the way—even in his current state—when he heard a familiar voice.

‘Sham, Ariel!’ Mona called out from the street. ‘We’re going to need to walk.’

They did as suggested, pushing through a crowd of passengers who were starting to come to the same conclusion, and Sham didn’t bother to apologise to them—inevitably any harm would be undone with the end of the Loop.

‘It’s no good,’ Mona said as the pair reached street level once more. ‘We ain’t moving anywhere any time soon. And… it might be worth a look, I reckon.’

‘What?’ Sham asked. ‘What is?’

Mona gestured toward the front of the queue. ‘Just… just take a look.’

The woman of the Harbour District led the way southeast, down the tram-filled street, Ariel and Sham doing their best to keep up with her—and one managing it better than the other.

When they finally reached the tram at the front of the queue—the one that had caused all these issues—there was a crowd gathered around the front of the vehicle, all wrestling one another for a view of… something. It took Ariel’s raising her voice to part the crowd, her Legendary grade Magnetism coming in handy yet again.

‘Maybe we could use something like that.’

I thought you didn’t like having friends in there, Sham thought in response.

‘Well, we know this brain can handle two or three of us, now, don’t we?’

It was four last time.

‘And I think we both know that was pushing it.’

The last of the crowd parted at Ariel’s suggestion, and the group stumbled in front of the tram, their eyes fixed on the sight before them.

The tram had dismounted the tracks. That, in and of itself, wasn’t so unusual. It didn’t happen often, by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been known to happen here and there every few months. The aspect of this derailing that stuck out to Sham—and, of course, everyone else staring with wide eyes—was that half of the front wheel was… missing.

The metal had been sheered clean through, leaving a perfectly smooth surface behind. The rest of the wheel was untouched by anything but the usual dirt of the city, unscarred and unbroken. So then where…

‘An explosion?’ Mona suggested.

[REASONING] THE HALF-WHEEL: SUCCESS

You’re no strangers to explosions, these days. You’ve seen the sort of power that Julya can unleashed. It’s relentless, destroying or scarring anything in its path. What you see now? That doesn’t fit the bill.

‘No,’ Sham said, dwelling for a moment on how grateful he was that he’d chosen Reasoning as his reward for the Investigate The Bodies quest.

‘Hester’s bodies,’ Recollection reminded him, as though he wasn’t already hyper-aware.

Mona and Ariel looked to him. ‘No,’ Sham continued, ‘this isn’t that. Look at the cut. It’s clean. Explosions are messy—they’d leave a mark. And they’d leave… Where’s the rest of the wheel?’

Sham and Mona looked down to the vehicle once more, the latter crouched for a glance underneath the tram. Mona looked back up at the resistance leader, and shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Ladies, gentlemen,’ Ariel called out, her voice smooth. ‘We’re looking for the rest of the wheel. Has anyone seen it?’

There came no response except for the gentle murmur of confused onlookers. “No” seemed to be the consensus; nobody had seen it. It was simply… gone.

Mona looked to Sham, eyes wide. ‘What do we do?’

‘Honestly? I dunno if we need to do anything.’

‘But it’s—’

‘Weird, sure. But we got a job to do. I say we just ride it out, let the Loop undo it, and see if it happens again.’ Mona didn’t seem sure about this answer, so Sham turned to the church leader. ‘Ariel?’

She nodded, and with that, it seemed, Mona was content.

* * *

Mona’s apartment was surprisingly high in an apartment tower that looked out over the rooftops of the Harbour District, and Heron Piers in the near distance. Sham’s initial instinct had been to ask how she could afford a place like this, but the urgency of the question was dulled by comparison to Riot’s apartment, which still looked like a palace in comparison.

Besides, Sham’s question was quickly answered when he saw a small handwritten note on the countertop. DOWN AT THE HARBOUR, it read. BACK IN A BIT. DAD.

If Mona’s father lived here then it meant, surely, that it was his place rather than hers. And a generation ago, even the working classes could afford good housing. That was back before Enoch Chambers had got his teeth into Haven, of course.

‘Her father…’ Recollection repeated.

Sham’s stomach dropped. Of course—this was a man he’d met before. One that he’d watched die a good few times down on Plenty Harbour. This death he’d been so willing to lock in, if it had meant breaking the Loop. Would he do the same thing now? Now that he knew Mona so well? Now that they were friends. Sham wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.

‘Yeah,’ Mona said, spotting Sham looking at the note. ‘My dad lives here too. But he works late. Won’t get in the way.’

Verd wasn’t home, of course. That would have been far too handy. At least Sham and the rest of the resistance had nothing if not time, that being the fundamental truth of this eternal nightmare they were trapped inside.

Mona was a gracious host, clearing up her father’s mess hurriedly and putting a full kettle on the stove to make a round of tea. None of them had known, at that point, that it would be not one but three rounds of tea before the new Looper finally returned. Sham was pleased to see that Mona made tea strong—he didn’t just like it that way, but with his waning energy levels needed it that way.

As the sky turned red, and the shadow of Mona’s apartment building began crawling over the rooftops outside her kitchen window, the trio finally heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door.

‘Oh,’ Verd said, stopping in her tracks as she saw that her and Mona were hosting guests. Her eyes fixed themselves on Ariel. ‘You’re here.’

Sham noticed something of himself in the stranger, then. Verd had dark rings around his eyes, a slouch in her posture. Her feet moved heavily across the floor. This was a woman exhausted; though with no illness to cause them, it meant that she had had… quite the day. ‘Been keeping busy?’ Sham asked.

Verd glanced to him, her eyes ever so slightly gazed over.

Before she could reply, Mona put forward the reason they were there. ‘Verd, we’ve come to ask you a favour.’

‘Yes?’

‘We need you to draw the Tower’s eye.’

Verd’s own eyes narrowed. ‘Why? What is this for?’

‘Well,’ Mona continued, ‘we—’

‘You remember Lew?’ Ariel cut in.

Verd visibly tensed at the man’s name. And who could blame her? Sham would jump at his name too, if he’d done the same to him. ‘Yes. Of course. I remember.’

‘There’s another one. Another officer of Legion,’ Ariel continued. ‘His name is Warren. Anything that Lew did to you’ — again, the woman winced — ‘Warren does to others much, much worse.’

Verd threw her jacket over a chair, then took a seat, her side resting against its back. ‘Why you tell me this? I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Because we’re trying to work out a way to stop him,’ Sham said. He could see where Ariel was going with this—a matter confirmed by the leader of the Loopkeepers flashing him a knowing nod.

‘We are in a time loop,’ Verd said. ‘You know this. I know this. So what good can we do here?’

‘We won’t be in the Loop forever,’ Ariel said.

‘But—’

Mona opened her mouth to regain control of the conversation. ‘All we need you to do is draw their attention. The Tower’s attention. Enoch Chambers’s attention, really. And then he’ll send Warren after you.’

Verd raised her eyebrows. ‘What happens then? He beats me? I don’t see how this could help you.’

Mona approached the young woman, crouching down and taking her hands. ‘Do you trust me?’ she asked. ‘Because I—’

Sham could see where this was heading. Trust. The truth. They couldn’t risk divulging the full truth to anyone; if it made its way to Enoch Chambers, this would all be for nothing. ‘If we work out a way to take him out early in the Loop, he won’t have time to hurt anyone,’ he interrupted. It was a lie; one that Verd would soon discover, but he would deal with that later. Perhaps he’d say they failed.

Verd’s eyes opened wide. ‘You would do this? You would kill a man?’

‘We—’

‘We have a vested interest,’ Ariel said, her face hard. ‘Believe me.’

Verd considered the matter carefully, her eyes holding Ariel’s gaze for a moment before returning to Mona. She squeezed Mona’s hands. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘If you ask me to do this, then I do it. I trust you. When, though?’

‘The ninth day,’ Sham said. ‘Before the explosion.’

‘And you will deal with him, yes?’ Verd asked. ‘Before he can hurt me? On the first day?’

‘Of course,’ Sham replied. ‘That’s when he’ll come for you.’