I watched as the cup detonated on the office floor, unleashing its infinite potential out onto the world. The interiors of Cube 15 groaned attempting to contain an infinite flood of coffee and as it failed to do so its safety systems began to fail with a cascade of errors. There was only one hope for Cube 15 and that was to invoke my vast future reflection, my patron. It did so, and the interior of the Cube stretched as the coffee outpour continued. Charles stood in the middle of the flood with his eyes closed, inner turmoil playing on his face.

“UNLICENSED TEMPORAL DISRUPTION DETECTED!” A hunter drone screeched at Charles.

“How?! This can’t be…” Charles opened his eyes, observing the flood of coffee. No doubt he thought this insane, impossible even, but alas our world is made of horrible, impossible things. Things that I must kill if humanity has any chance of winning in this war.

“MINUS INFINITY CREDITS!” The drone hammered a charge onto Charles, relayed by the damage being produced all over Cube 15 by the flood. Everything in Cube 15 was suing Charles and he had no lawyer to defend himself. It was lawsuits that he could not escape, and the ever escalating charges looped themselves into a pattern, invoking her name once again.

The connectables yelled in their m-speak, the dust in the air around me whispering, resonating their words of panic and terror into my ears. They were clueless about the war, about the system which entrapped them with every passing day. Ignorant fools, they were.

:I suggest we flee by using his body as a raft!: One of them declared, pointing at Charles, obviously driven insane by the fact that Charles was the cause of this unnatural disaster that befell their workplace.

“What?” Charles yelped.

“Technically impossible...” I waded my way over to Charles. I had to see him again. Even if for a brief instance, even if we were doomed to be drawn apart, even if he could not remember who I was, even as the system sought to erase me out of his life. My little move using the vending machine as Admin had increased the value of my Admin-ness and thus did my doomfield increase as well, as things all around sought to destroy me for my actions, finding that I was as much to blame for this disaster as Charles, if not more.

A temporal ripple shimmered over Charles, his future patron seeking to connect with him. I helped them just a little. After all, just a few words said at the right time can change everything. There is great power in words, for those that know how to use them and I had built my engine for a reason to utilise this power.

“There is a hole in his Chest!” I declared and there was indeed a hole in Charles as his future bled into the present.

“A hole?! When did this happen? It hurts something awful!” Charles whined, unable to understand what had just transpired.

“Okay.” I grabbed Charles by the shoulders. The world groaned. All of this damage was definitely attracting the wrong sort of attention. A corrector was coming. There was only one chance now. If I could only awaken, connect Charles to his patron, maybe this time things would end up differently. I had to try.

“But there is something more important!” I shook Charles as he stared into my eyes with wild confusion.

“I’ve tried to warn you! Beware the…”

Another temporal ripple slashed through the world as an ion ray struck through the Cube, the torrent of floodwater dragging me away from Charles, drawing me ever closer into the abyss, into the hands of the steel angel that awaited me there.

“MUuuuuuuuuug!” I yelled as the coffee ocean engulfed me and as I felt a cold hand made of steel grab at my back. Everything except for me and her stopped. She was here. I had failed.

“DO NOT SCREW WITH TIME.” The steel angel spoke, raising her nullifier.