Five.

Awake.

Again.

He lay in bed for a few extra minutes this time. How could he do it? He followed the motions again. Every time it seemed to get more ingrained into his head. He could remember even more of Crash’s name now. It seemed that every time he remembered just a little bit more. He’d wanted to ask Mr. Setsuna about Myon Sayuri, but felt that it may change the timeline too much. This time he would be sticking to the plan, and simply staying with Lexa on the hill longer. He could see the mining car, and as it went by a large weight was lifted from his chest. That wasn’t so bad, now if he just got her back home everything would be ok.

It seemed to work like that in his head.

If she was able to avoid death and make it back to the apartment she would be saved. It seemed like some sort of game, but it was all that he had to work with at the moment. He was almost back when the mining car made it’s return run. He wanted to scream for having been so ignorant.

The bracelets lifted him up again.

Seven.

Awake.

Again.

He’d tried and failed the same method twice in a row now, but this time it would work. Instead of going out on a date, he would just stay at Z-mo’s! That would be the date! Thus after his job acceptance he convinced the old bot and Lexa to have a nice quaint little party right there in the shop. A few beers and a few cans of oil for Z-mo and it was nice. A couple of the miners from outside even came in and talked.

Of course, that was when it happened. For god’s sake, how can you foresee something like Lexa choking to death? On noodles! You can’t avoid that!

Again, as he fell to the floor on his knees he was lifted up by the stupid bracelets.

Thirteen.

Awake.

Again.

Nothing was changing… why couldn’t he avoid her death?! It was stupid! How! He followed the motions again, but this time decided to avoid the shop in the deep markets. This way, she would never find Crash’s missing part, and they could just have a nice date.

She looked at things for a nice long while and he began to relax. It seems like he avoided the death in this one.

But something had to happen.

He didn’t even know what had caused it this time, but there she was. Dead on the concrete.

Twenty-Two.

Awake.

Again.

It was as if he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t succeed. No matter what he did, no matter how drastic of a change, that week dragged itself along like a dead deer on your windshield. It was never ending.

Cause of death? Getting pushed in front of a train.

Thirty-Nine.

Awake.

Again.

The days were running ragged. He had begun to try different things simply for results, calculating exactly what would change, down to the second. Responses, times, different physical reactions as well. He tried to learn as much as he could.

Cause of death? Gun to the head.

Sixty-One.

Awake.

Again.

Lexa died from a fucking terrible decapitation last time, he wasn’t going to try that again. But at least from number fifty-nine he had gotten a pretty good death time. He wrote down a few extra details before going out to jump off the overlook once again.

Cause of death? Run over by the mining car. Again.

Ninety-four.

Awake.

Again.

He yawned. He had exactly twelve minutes and thirty three seconds before he was supposed to jump off the overlook, and if he got ready in a couple minutes he would still be there with one minute twenty seconds to spare, roughly. He decided to keep in bed for a few extra minutes.

Cause of death? Multiple stabbings.

One Hundred Seventy-Six.

Awake.

Again.

Why the fuck wasn’t anything working!!! Everything calculated… He had everything down to a fucking T. Why! Why the fuck wasn’t it working!

Cause. Stray bullet.

Three Hundred Twenty-One.

Awake.

Again.

He looked down at his hands.

“And again… and awake… and again… and awake…”

He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“T-twelve m-minutes.”

Cause. Metro twelve minutes late, shot in back. Ironic.

Five Hundred Forty-Four.

Awake.

Again.

Why was she always interrupting him? On the very first fucking day when he got the bracelets, he realized something that he’d overlooked for a long time. Lexa was always fucking interrupting him!

“It’s Luke Thomas. My name, is Luke Thomas!”

“Oh. Nice to meet you...”

He smiled, that would at least get to to call him by the right name. She wouldn’t interrupt him when he was trying to save her, that was just stupid!

Cause. Sudden cardiac arrest.

Seven Hundred… Something.

Awake.

Again.

His bone was going to creak right… there. Right when he turned thirty two degrees to the right. Oh, but Lexa would be waiting.

“After I got her measurements, I wonder if some new clothes could help save her? Hahaha!!!! Clothes?!”

Cause. Stabbed.

???

Awake.

Again.

Luke sat up in bed and ran his fingers along the intricate lines of his face. He felt unwell. Last time, number… he couldn’t even remember at this point, but Lexa had been crushed. He had seen some pretty terrible things. He lay back down, taking a moment, and stared up at the ceiling once again.

“How many times…”

He’d lost count around seven hundred, but it was probably at least a hundred and thirty more than that. So eight hundred ish? Maybe. Luke swung his legs off the side of the bed and found a notepad and pencil, writing down the different times things would happen. It was at least important for that to be remembered. He still had a little more than ten minutes left to get to the overlook when he put on his coat and ventured outside. It was fifty-five degrees outside, or thereabouts. Not all that cold. As he turned the corner he took a slightly different path, and tripped on the cobblestone.

“You alright?”

When he turned around to look at the familiar voice he saw none other than Z-mo, and the large bot extended a claw towards him. Luke took it and stood up. This had never happened before.

“Oh! You’re Luke Thomas, aren’t you?”

“I-I am.”

“Come with me then, I have something to give you!”

If this was a normal day a bot telling him to follow would have been a telltale sign of robbery, but this was not the case. He didn’t care what happened at this point, as long as it was different. As long as he had a chance.

After a few minutes of walking the bot dragged him into the soup shop he’d seen hundreds of times and down into the lab.

“You seem a lot worse than usual Mr. Thomas, something wrong?”

“Can’t seem to save someone.”

“Ahh, Lexa giving you trouble?”

Luke’s head shot up and he looked at the bot with wide eyes.

“Y-you know?!”

“Hm? Shit! I was… I was supposed to let you do it on your own!”

“You better fucking tell me you bag of bolts!”

Z-mo calmed him down and sat back down at the counter.

“I am quite an idiot… well let me say first off, I do not know the extent of what you have seen, but I do know what is happening. Lexa is dying.”

“How do you know that? Do you have these bracelets inside of you too?”

“Ah, the bracelets were actually created by Lexa’s father, shortly before his death. He was the main researcher in this laboratory, yep. Right here he worked day in and day out. One day, a colleague of his saw something that they could not explain, it was a time loop in the near future!”

“A time loop?”

The bot nodded.

“And it was connected to Dr. Thickton’s daughter. Her death is a time loop for us all. The only reason you’re different is because you retain your memories after she dies!”

“How? The bracelets?”

“You’ve got it! The brain sends electrical signals, which are stored in these bracelets. Every time she dies they take in a lot of outside energy and prepare to send themselves back in time. Honestly it isn’t you the things are sending back, it’s your memories. Otherwise she would die and we would all be sent back in the loop without knowing.”

“Why didn’t you use the bracelets?!”

“I’m not the same as a brain!”

“So?!”

“It’s different Luke. Anyways, what we need to focus on is keeping Lexa alive, now that I’ve accidentally outed myself.”

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been fucked by this time loop?”

“Emotions are one of the weaker sides of my wiring.”

“You little… fine, do you know what to do?”

“Well… kind of.”

“Kind of. How so.”

“Lexa actually isn’t the only one tied to these happenings. There’s a few of them. You’ll need to fix these things before you even get a chance to save Lexa!”

“What?! What are these other things?”

“The first is a woman named Pat Tano. She’s a-”

“I know who that is, she’s my landlord.”

“Oh really? Then you’ll have no problem solving her problem.”

“Problem?”

“Each of the folks tied to the disturbance in time has a major problem that acts as a barrier to time. If not all of their problems are remedied, it will simply keep happening, and Lexa will keep dying, sending us all back once again.”

“No joke…”

“Thus, you need to solve the problems of these entities. Pat Tano. Myon Sayuri. [email protected] Z-mo. Luke Thomas. Lexa Thickton.”

All people and bots who’d become mixed up with him, some just in the past week this loop was stuck in. Fate had strange ways of working…

“So I have to solve each person and bot’s problem. You’re on there, can we just fix yours right now?”

“Whoah there youngun I think you’ll want to wait for mine. It’s wise to do them in that order, though perhaps you can switch up the first three as you like.”

“So it really doesn’t matter what order they’re in.”

The bot shrugged, placing the bracelets on him once again. He at least needed that failsafe.

“How do I know what each one’s problem is then? Ask them?”

“I have no idea, this is really all I know.”

“Great. Well this makes the last eight hundred weeks basically worthless.”

“Eight hundred?! Are you alright?!”

“I am absolutely not alright. But now that I have an idea of what to do, that doesn’t matter. I want to scream, I want to hit something, I want to shoot some tires out, and I want to throw some things. But this is not the time for that. Now… where is Lexa?”

“She went out just a bit ago, she should be back soo-”

“Z-mo?”

They heard a voice from above and the old bot started back up the stairs, signalling for him to follow. They soon learned that it was Lexa herself, coming back from her morning stalk. She’d been told by Z-mo that he would exit out of his apartment later but when she got there he was gone. Since he’d broken the cycle that time it was easy to see how if he’d gone to the overlook even a minute earlier he’d have died a long time ago… That was about when she noticed him.

“Hold on, isn’t that him?”

“Oh, yeah it is. So he’s fine and all, I just need you to go out and get some things.”

“You don’t need my help with this guy?”

“Not at all! He’s a lot better off than I’d thought… err… go to the market and see if you can find me some ginger! None of that off brand stuff either! Thanks Lexa!”

After she’d left Luke looked at the old bot with a smirk.

“Are you trying to keep her away from me now?”

“She’s already spent years with you. Besides, you need to get to work.”

That was something that he couldn’t really say a word against.

“If I may give a word of advice, I know a bit about Myon Sayuri. He was a chemicals expert that worked for the government. I think he’d even had a few dealings with Lexa’s father, but the government ordered him to make something. A dark project. He did so, but only to see it used on his own neighborhood. Thus, he went into hiding…”

“Wow… so that’s who Myon Sayuri is… Thanks Z-mo, this definitely helped me out. I’ll start with him.”

“Try to hurry… you kind of need to get this done before the week is up.”

“Oh I know exactly how much time I have left. In seconds.”

With that he walked out of the small restaurant, Z-mo speechless, and began the trek to Mr. Setsuna’s shop. The man that he’d thought was his friend might be a villain or he might be an innocent. It was time to find out, and he was damned interested if not to just break this terrible cycle of deaths.