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Arthur leaned against his desk. There was already a well-worn impression in the cheap painted metal from his hip. Höllvania Mall's reception area gave him an excellent vantage of either the garage or the whole sweep of the mall. Food court, stage, kiosks, arcade, and department stores. All abandoned, then reclaimed by him and the rest of the Hex. Headquarters and home.
He set his sword tip on the tile floor, then spun it. The skana whirled like a top; the red bandana tied around the hilt flared like a spray of blood.
The tip skated cleanly over the tile flooring, dancing away from him.
Arthur snatched his skana back. He thought, The hell?
He spun it again. This time, it stayed in place, and he caught it just like he should.
Good. His reflexes hadn't dulled. Next, he scraped his boot over the ceramic tile. Ah, there was the problem: he also hadn't drilled a hole in the tile from repeated sessions of blade spinning because there wasn't extra gas for both a frivolous atomicycle ride and to keep the gennies running.
He'd drill that hole by springtime when the window boxes sprouted with tulip bulbs and the narrow cobbled streets turned slick with mud. By summer, they'd capture enough spare gas from a Scaldra convoy for a few precious rides to clear his mind. It wouldn't last. By autumn, they'd be penned in like exotic zoo animals, and by winter next year…
He checked the clock over the food court again.
Just past midnight, on January 1st, 1999.
The fireworks visible through the mall skylight had stopped. Balloons and confetti - the last remnants of a party shop - still littered the floor. Champagne bottles sat unpopped under the clock because when the Hex came back to their senses at midnight, he, Aoi, Amir, Lettie, Quincy, and Eleanor all looked at each other and slunk off to their separate lairs instead of celebrating like the civilians outside.
Celebrate while you can, he thought at those civvies. We’ve all got exactly one year to live.
One year, give or take the few seconds that slipped away while he thought about it. Ugh.
Maybe tea would settle him. He set the kettle on and groused to himself. “Why’d I let Aoi talk me into staying up late for the New Year anyway? I could’ve come back to a good night’s sleep instead of a long third watch.”
While the water heated up, he spun his sword.
They've got almost exactly a year to stop Dr. Entrati from blowing up Höllvania’s nuclear reactor. A year's worth of memories might make a difference, if he boots up the Pom-2 and types out everything. Every convoy, every attack, that big campaign Scaldra waged in the Historic quarter…and then he’ll hope it's enough. That nothing else goes catastrophically wrong.
He could get killed by Scaldra, after all. Precognition never stopped his sister Eleanor from getting shot, so why should foreknowledge be any different?
He spun his sword.
Whirling blade and flaring red hypnotized him until, at the right moment, he caught it.
He admitted to himself, I'm tired.
Not the wide-awake tired of staying up too late for New Years Eve. Not even the ever-present fatigue due to his body reshaping itself into a warframe (into a meatsuit for someone like Marty - the Drifter from the far future - to play head games with.)
Dead tired.
I'm allowed to be dead tired, he negotiated with himself. A few minutes before midnight, I was dead, and so was everyone else.
Amir. Aoi. Quincy, presumably. Eleanor and Lettie, assuredly. Not Marty, though.
He spun his sword.
It skittered on the tile.
He grabbed. He missed.
It clattered to the tile floor.
Sheepish, he retrieved the fallen blade.
Quincy's steady rhythm at the firing range never faltered. His focus was 100% on drilling bullets into Dr. Entrati's head and heart. Since it wasn't his shit that fell over, he wasn't going to make it his problem.
But Aoi…she would've heard, even with her music cranked high. She'd worry about Arthur, even more than usual.
Oh, Aoi…you deserved better.
He'd commanded her to hold the reactor together. She'd screamed that she couldn't do it, screamed his name - and while she died trying, he ran into the reactor chamber…
(Ran away from her.)
…where a techrot beast added fuel to the nuclear nightmare brewing. It wasn't like he had a choice!
No excuses, Arthur.
He trudged to the old records store. Aoi filled the barren shelves with her own collection. Oldies, goldies, and plenty that was neither, like the boy band On-lyne.
Arthur announced his presence. “Only nine more months before every TV starts advertising for that Party of Your Lifetime concert.”
“I know, right?” She perched on her table. Drawing out metal sheets from a ferrofluid ball, she folded the sheets into origami cranes with her magnetic powers. “I can’t wait.”
Was it just him, or was she practicing her party tricks with new fervor? Her face was clear and her eyes their normal brilliant blue, without a hint of fatigue or strain. He said, “I can’t believe they only sing the one song.”
She corrected him, “Hey, they led off the concert with “The Great Despair.””
He couldn't look her in the eyes. Her smile became fixed and false.
She slapped her hands on her thighs. Silver veins traced down the back of every finger. The cranes dissolved into ferrofluid. She cracked a better, realer smile. “I gotta get stronger.”
He confessed, “I got you killed for nothing. A techrot babau chowed down on the reactor. You would’ve bought us a few seconds.”
She patted the table next to her.
He leaned his hip on the table. Shoulder to shoulder, they sat together.
She said, “We've got a year. We'll get stronger.”
He thought to himself, It won’t help. His fate was sealed the instant he ran into the reactor room. Even Lettie’s healing powers couldn’t fix a massive dose of radiation. A year to practice wouldn’t hurt Aoi’s chances. But if practice made perfect, then Amir would’ve hacked fast enough. Quincy would’ve escaped, unscathed.
But Arthur felt he'd crushed Aoi's hopes two times too many, so he kept his mouth shut.
She said, apropos of nothing, “Pity that Marty's not here.”
Arthur said, “If 1999 is a time loop, then I bet Marty McFlea comes back from the future on Dec 31st to warn us about the nuke.”
She fidgeted with the ferrofluid, calling up a deck of metal “cards” that she arranged into a tower. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about Marty.”
She shuffled the cards. “He really was something, wasn't he?”
Arthur spun his sword and caught it. The whirling red bandana marked the sword as his. Marty brought an otherwise identical skana from the far future. Space travel, the man claimed, was as easy as hopping on an atomicycle. Space ninjas called Tenno puppeteered warframes like Arthur and the rest of the Hex. Marty's proof? He'd successfully puppeteered Arthur for a few seconds before Arthur threw him out and stabbed his gun hand for good measure.
However, in the few short hours before Marty got blown into the Void by Dr. Entrati, he brought them more than a meatsuit copy of Arthur he called Excalibur. He revealed Entrati’s plan: power the rogue scientist's time loop with a nuclear explosion. He'd promised the Hex they could change their dire future–
–and for a glorious, shining moment, Arthur actually believed him.
Arthur sighed. “Yeah, Aoi. I know what you mean.”
Arthur tracked Marty's progress through the Mall at a discreet distance.
Marty was a right nosy parker. Always asking insensitive questions and poking around where he wasn't wanted. The man exhausted Lettie's short supply of patience in two sentences, then moseyed along the mezzanine to the empty backroom offices. Arthur followed because Marty was also preternaturally talented at finding Scaldra caches - like he saw them on radar.
However, Arthur was unprepared for the entire brick wall to light up with holographic graffiti. Or for Marty to uncover a secret passageway into a backroom office that wasn't on the official floorplans. Like any sensible man would, Arthur rallied the rest of the Hex to deal with Marty's void-nonsense-bullshit.
Marty stood at a rank of TVs, all droning as Dr. Entrati said: “For the sake of everything before and to come... at midnight tonight... the 'bomb' must go off.”
Marty hit the shutdown button pretty damned quick. “Entrati's monologuing about blowing up the reactor for the Greater Good. Didn't say anything actionable, unfortunately.”
Arthur looked for a proper interrogation chair.
Quincy poked a gilded, red velvet upholstered chaise lounge. “You're telling me the future is posh and bling-bling?”
Eleanor headed upstairs to a techrot cave. “Oh, so this is a Helminth!”
Amir cooed over the tech, especially a foundry replicating an Excalibur helmet.
And Marty smirked at Arthur, because the Hex captain had as much control over his comrades as a parent with a passel of children at a carnival. Then Marty saw a golden plinth. His face lit up like a kid on his birthday who’d spotted a pile of presents.
“Oh. Thank. Sol.” Marty proclaimed loudly. “He left me an Arsenal.”
Marty shucked off Excalibur like a set of dirty clothes. He dumped the spare rifle he borrowed from Arthur like it was so much trash.
Arthur took a deep breath to chew him out for wasting their resources.
Eleanor dropped into his mind like a cold, fat raindrop. She warned, “Don’t make a fool of yourself, brother.”
He blew it out, long and slow.
In a flash of void light, Marty wore a new meatsuit. A woman whose curves would make Scaldra Major Neci Rusalka swallow her tongue out of jealousy.
Quincy stared, shook his head, and stared some more. “Are you for real?”
Arthur didn’t blame him.
Her swordsteel body was a short, short party dress in white and purple, with high heels to match. A “feather” boa covered her shoulders. Her faceless helmet was crowned with gold.
And she was loaded for bear.
Dual nikanas floated on her hips; belts must be optional in the future. Her pistol was barely recognizable as such due to outgrowths of silvery Void. Her rifle, however, was identical to Amir's battery powered Amprex rifle.
Amir squealed. “OhmySolcanItouchit?!”
Marty handed it over.
Amir launched into a spiel that Arthur mentally slowed down to: “My precious baby is junk compared to this.”
Arthur sent a mental “Thank you” to Eleanor.
She replied, “What else are sisters for?”
Amir's fanboying showed no signs of stopping. Nor did the clock counting down to nuclear doomsday. Arthur asked Marty, “What is this?”
Marty's very male, very amused tenor came from the faceless woman's helmet. “Define “this.””
“This. The new meatsuit. We've all got strange powers. What does she do?”
“Ah.” Marty raised a finger, elegantly clad in a black glove. “Allow me to introduce Weapons Platform Saryn.”
Lettie, their medic, stared him down. “Sarin is against the Geneva Convention.”
Marty made a strangled sort of noise. He coughed the fakest sort of coughing fit to never fool the Hex who knew exactly what coughing oneself to death on techrot sounded like. “Ah. Well. Saryn. With a Y.
“And why, you might ask? Saryn, you see, is the warframe for when you get tired of being chemical warcrimed by Scaldra and decide to give them a dose of their own venom.
“Stick close to me, and I can poison your bullets or roar to make them hit harder.” He paused and raised a second finger. “Also, stick close to me because once I get my spores going, I can cough once, and the Scaldra two rooms away are gonna catch their death of a cold.”
Arthur chewed on his cheek. Give Marty his own gear, and somehow the man got even cockier. “Let's quit wasting time while Entrati's waiting. Marty, we'll see how you stack up to the rest of us.”
Behind his back, Marty all but cackled.
For a glorious, shining moment, Marty marched into Höllvania and laid waste to a small army of Scaldra.
Arthur said to Aoi, “I hate to say it, but Marty was legit.”
Aoi said, “They dropped like flies.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I asked him to clear hostiles, and - not even kidding you - no more than ten seconds later they were all on their knees vomiting up their guts.”
“Yeah. I saw it too.”
Marty had snarled on the comms: “I'll show you war crimes!” and his Saryn snarled like a giant cat, and every Scaldra in the two-block radius of Arthur's HUD vanished. Dead or dying.
Aoi said, “Too bad Lettie didn't. Bet she'd know what virus does that. Ebola, you think?”
Arthur mused, “Or some space plague from the future. Not that he needed it.” Elite Scaldra Stormfall jaegers airdropped on their position. Marty's Saryn roared like a dragon, and Arthur swelled with superhuman strength like some primal beast came to life. Suddenly he mowed down Scaldra just as fast as Marty.
Arthur flexed his wrist. The power was gone, and so was the adrenaline rush of feeling on top of Scaldra for once. “Together, we could've taken armies.”
Together…
A hungry worm called “Guilt” started gnawing on Arthur's guts.
Together…but thanks to one genius Arthur James Nightingale, they'll never fight together again.
He said, “I shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up for December 31st.”
“Why not?”
“Marty Mc Flea went back to the future.”
“Really? When he vanished?”
“At the end.”
She tilted her head.
Of course she didn’t know. She was already dead, staring at him with glassy, blood-red eyes. He answered, “He was there. WIth Entrati. Bastard wanted Marty to leave with him.”
“And he left?” She asked, shaken.
Not for the first time, he hated Marty for giving them all hope, and then yanking it away. Arthur was no hypocrite; he hated himself for spitting on that hope in his final moments. “I told him, “Just go.””
“Hmmm.” After a moment of silence, she hummed the refrain to On-lyne's break-up song “The Great Despair.”
Guilt gnawed a little harder. He’d despaired, and it’d cost them Marty’s help in this new year.
He rallied. “Well. I don’t know what he did after that.”
Aoi shook off her gloom with a shrug and a cheerful smile. “Before he left, he showed me what a real warframe can do. I've got a goal to aim for, you know? By this time next year, I'll be strong enough to lift that truck off me by myself!”
She wasn't talking about the truck and they both knew it, but her irrepressible optimism was a balm to his spirit anyway. He said, “You'll be strong enough to toss that whole tank topsy-turvy.”
“Exactly!” She thumped him on the shoulder. “And when Marty shows up for the New Years reunion party, you'll give him a run for his money.”
“Damned straight.” He stretched after so much sitting. “I want a rematch; no head games.”
She'd lifted his spirits. He didn't rush straight back to his reception desk. Instead, he gathered his wits and checked on Eleanor.
Lettie was nowhere near Eleanor's couch in the remains of the furniture depot, lit by soft reading lamps for good light and tired eyes prone to headaches and migraines. So at least she wasn't actively dying…
She lay on the couch, resting her head on a cushion. Her long hair brushed the floor. Her purple eyes shone reflective green in the right light, like a cat's. Or, like something else. Something less wholesome.
He shoved that thought to the back of his mind and covered for his shame with some well-earned humble pie. “I'm sorry for all the times I discounted your visions.”
The voice in his head was still his sister's voice. Cold and misty like a Höllvania rain, no matter the season. If she were a mood crystal, then she was the deep black of true calm. She said, “Oh. Good. I was seriously considering changing my callsign to Cassandra for this time loop.”
“You remember?”
“Sol. Yes.”
He considered whether or not he wanted to ask her *what* she remembered.
He pulled an armchair over. Still cushy, except for the slightly torn cushion where Lettie's rats got into it. He checked for stray rats. He sat, and oofed as the cushion gave way under swordsteel-armored weight and the chair swallowed him whole.
Eleanor laughed darkly. Sullen red pulsed into her endless black.
He extricated himself. “What do you remember?”
“I'm ”friends–”” she made the air quotes and everything, “–with the techrot now. Sort of. Not really. It knows me. I know it. I'm me, again, and I'm still a part of its legacy.”
“It's talking to you?”
“I'm talking back.”
He rubbed his forehead.
She massaged her temples.
For the first time, he worried that this gift of a year might not be a blessing for all of them. Eleanor got another year of migraines and emotional static and strange visions. Worse, had she started anew, farther down the road to going feral?
He castigated himself. Foolish, Arthur! Murphy's law warned they'd only discovered a few of the myriad ways that everything that can go wrong, will.
She said, “You’re brooding, brother.”
“I’m not brooding.”
"Fretting.”
“Hey.”
“Worrying.”
“Hey, now.”
“Hay is for horses. Don't furrow your fevered brow at me.”
“As long as you sound like you ate a thesaurus, I know you’re still you.”
She sniffed. “Wordsmithing is an art.”
If he didn't say it now, he wouldn't gather up the courage later. “This time,” he promised, “We don't send you to control the techrot.”
Her answer came from a deep black well of serenity. “I killed Lettie.”
His stomach dropped like a rock. Weakly, he said, “It was the techrot.”
She looked at him with those big purple eyes and said nothing at all.
He thought: Foolish, Arthur.
Of course there's a not-so-innocent reason why Lettie wasn't checking on Eleanor.
He thought, wildly, It's a real pity Marty isn't here. Because Arthur was a hypocrite, just a bit of one, and right now he would dearly love to throw Marty under the bus and say, There's the man who should've taken on Scaldra's army in your stead, who should've spared you the need to sacrifice yourself, mind, body, and soul, for the cause…
“I made the call,” he said, harsh to his own ears. “I sent you both to die.”
She said nothing, but she looked away.
He stood. He gripped her shoulder. “We have a year. We'll find another way.”
She patted his hand. “This time, King Arthur, try not to drive away your Galahad.”
Just like that, he was back on familiar ground with his sister. “How do you know about that?”
She smiled her best mysterious sister smile. “Oh, you're as easy to read as a newspaper. That's why I prefer Lettie. She's a nut to crack.”
“Ouch. Maybe I liked it better when you were mindreading my secrets.” On second thought, if she was, she'd know that Sir Galahad grabbed his grail with both hands and ascended to heaven (or, considering he was holding Entrati's coattails, Arthur rather thought they were both damned to hellfire.)
“Actually,” Eleanor said, a bright pink and blue swirl of happiness suffusing her mental tone, “I know because I'm mind reading his.”
“Huh?”
“Don't sweat it.”
He didn't understand; how could Eleanor read Marty's last thoughts after everything that made her *her* dissolved into a new techrot hivemind? But if she did, then she also watched Arthur's final moments. He, at least, was spared first-hand knowledge of hers. “I'm not going to ask.”
“Alright. They say that ignorance is bliss.”
He squeezed her shoulder once more and left. If only she could have just a taste of that bliss.
Quincy glanced over, just long enough to mark that it was Arthur. The sniper turned back to his targets. Ranks on ranks of posters of Doctor Entrati’s slogan “Believe!” hung from coat hangers at varying distances and angles. All of them punched through the heart and the head so many times that papers didn’t even flutter as large caliber rounds slammed into the brick wall behind the firing range.
By September, Arthur remembered, Quincy would drill through the brick wall. They'd argue about the holes. Quincy would snap (correctly) that any Techrot dumb enough to get into the mall that way deserved what it got.
Arthur thought, Murphy's law says there's another way this new year goes to shit. We break up the band.
The worm called Guilt was back, gnawing at his gut. A captain couldn’t promise that all his men and women would come home…
…his duty was to make their deaths mean something. Quincy grumbled (correctly) that one heroboy Arthur James Nightingale was throwing himself and his team away for nothing. That Quincy came back for one last stand was to Quincy's credit, not Arthur's.
“Quincy.”
“Boy Scout.”
It's a dumb joke. Cheesy as all get. And Quincy thought he didn't have a sense of humor. He said, “Here's your merit badge for covering my ass.”
Quincy squeezed off another round of shots. “Ain’t wearing no badge if it clashes with my outfit.”
“How about this other merit badge for telling me when I'm full of shit?”
Quincy smiled a cold, razor thin smile. “I could do that.”
“Good talk?”
“Good talk.”
That was about all that needed to be said, Arthur supposed. All that really mattered was that Quincy decided that one Quincy Isaacs was the man for the job. The job would get done.
However, while Arthur was making the rounds, he ought to debrief Amir and Lettie too.
Amir zipped around the Arcade, greeting his favorite games that died over the course of 1999 with new high scores. In the corner, Ollie's Crash Course saluted Arthur, “You can't handle the heat!” In the summer heat wave, he'd order Amir to turn it off or have it punched out.
By November, Ollie would be one of the few games still working. Getting Amir to look up from his Gameboy long enough for briefing became a minor miracle. In hindsight, maybe Marty was a miracle worker.
Amir said, “Watch this!”
He spent a few seconds on Caliber Chicks 2, then he dashed for the pinball machine, pulled the plunger, and ran back to the Caliber Chicks. He was back to pinball by the time the ball fell, firing it up into the machine.
Arthur said, “You make me tired just looking at you.”
Amir caught the pinball machine to stop himself. He stopped moving - completely - and then slowly turned his head to look at Arthur, making rare eye contact through his golden safety glasses.
Amir said, sharply, “Tired enough to just lay down and die, eh?” He went back to playing, but his hands were a blur. The slap of the plunger rang harder than ever.
Arthur guessed, “You saw?”
“Saw you go toe to toe with the techrot babau in the reactor room. Saw the weird crawling hand-things. Saw you go down in there, too.”
Arthur's mouth went dry. Better dry than the wet, bright, copper taste of his own blood and sloshing around sheets of skin sloughing off the inside of his mouth.
Amir said, “I know. I was too slow.”
Arthur didn't know how high the radiation dose in the reactor room had been. High enough that his skin prickled like a bad sunburn, but that was the easy bit.
“Too damned slow!” Amir pounded his fist on the pinball machine. The shake warning went off. “Me, too slow, when I'm supposed to be the fast one!”
The nausea, now, that was the hard bit. As soon as the beast was dead, his world spun on its axis.
“But you–” Amir dashed right up to him, nose to nose, and jabbed him in the chest. Then he darted away before he lost his run on Caliber Chicks. Over his shoulder, he tossed out, “– you tripped and fell and gave up. You know what it took to stop me?”
Arthur raised a feeble hand in his own defense. What Amir didn't know - what Amir couldn’t see - was that when Arthur fell, he felt himself liquefy. All the parts of himself that were still human sloughed free of the parts of him that were Helminth like chunky milk in a swordsteel carton.
He didn't give up. His body gave out on him. just like Aoi's. What he wouldn't have given to have waited before rushing into the reactor, just a few seconds longer, so that the last thing she saw when she looked to him for comfort in her final moments wasn't his back…
Amir poked him in the chest, just below his heart. “Entrati shot me.”
Poke, poke. “Right here.”
Poke. “Mind you, I’m pretty sure I was heading for a heart attack if he hadn’t. But still. That's what it took to stop me.”
Amir's swordsteel chest was intact, unblemished. Arthur focused on that. “We have a year.”
Rapidfire, Amir said, “A year until I'm too slow–”
“–until Entrati shoots me–”
“–until the last thing I see is you–”
“–dying–”
“–and Marty standing there–”
“ –with Entrati’s gun pointed at his heart too.”
Arthur said, numbly, “I didn't see the gun.”
Amir adjusted his glasses, the better to peer at him skeptically. “Marty's legit. I told you so.”
“You did.”
“I don’t think that this–” Amir’s hands made looping motions that encompassed everything from the last 24 hours to the year stretching out before them, “–is what Marty meant when he said we could change our fate.”
A loop. “But.”
Another loop. “Eh.”
“What do I know?” Amir shrugged. “Marty and me, we both just got shot by Entrati. Doubt he expected that either.”
Arthur racked his hazy, dying memory for some detail beyond the pain of every breath tearing him up inside. Was there a gunshot? Or was that just his heartbeat as loud in his ears as the crashing machinery?
Then, as Amir was struck by a sudden thought, he grinned. “It's not all bad–”
“–when Marty shows up for Y2K next year–”
“–you can repay me. Get him to lend me his Amprex–””
“–I gotta try that shit out!”
All of Arthur's guilty thoughts of Marty standing there at gunpoint, having come back to help at the eleventh hour and finding himself unable to do jack, flew out of his mind. He couldn't string Amir along. “Marty might not be back.”
“What.”
“Runthatbymeagain.”
Arthur explained, “I didn't see the gun. I heard Entrati. The doctor wanted Marty to go back to the future with him.” He sucked in a deep breath and said it straight: “I told him to go.”
“Oh.” Amir said. The gears spun in Amir's lightning fast brain, slipping over each other without a grip, until they caught on a new train of thought. “Oh. Okay. That makes sense.”
Arthur said, “Whatever genius move you just credited to my tab, I don't deserve it. Run that by me again?”
Amir turned back to his games, working off the excess energy to keep his mind focused. “It makes sense–”
“–No sense in Marty getting shot–”
“–No sense in him dying in a nuclear explosion like the rest of us–”
“–He goes back to the future–”
“–and he has another chance to come back, you see?”
“I see,” Arthur said. The fast-talking, irrepressible technician's golden safety glasses might as well be rose-colored. “You're giving me far too much credit, but thank you.”
“Oh, I’m not giving you much credit, Arthur–”
“–Marty, now…he still has a pretty good tab with me.”
Arthur winced. Ouch. He said, “Fair enough.”
Rapidfire, Amir went on: “Marty did more than he had to for us–”
“–This whole year loop thing–”
“–Instead of just a day.”
Arthur interrupted, “Pretty sure the loops are Entrati's fault.”
Amir snorted. “Since when has Entrati ever done something for us without strings attached?”
“Never.” If this was Entrati's fault… “That's a scary thought, Amir.”
Amir argued, “Not if it's a parting gift from Marty.”
Arthur remembered interrogating Marty, and the bone-deep sarcasm with which the man said, “Happy New Year.”
Yeah, no, he's not one for holiday gifts.
He said to Amir, “Next time you bring hope to school like it's bubblegum, bring enough for the rest of the class.”
“Sure thing!” Amir flashed him a thumbs up. “I will, just as soon as I figure out how to bottle my extra energy for Lettie–”
“–Hey, Arthur, actually–”
“–do you think that would give me the speed boost I needed?”
No. Arthur dug deeper for some hope to offer. “You've got a whole year to practice. After all, you keep telling me that hacking isn't just about speed. Knowledge of the code and familiarity with the system also matters, right?”
“Right. I can do this. We can do this!”
Arthur left Amir to his games. Lettie was upstairs. He ought to check in, especially after what Eleanor said. However, the late hour must be catching up with him because the last thing he wanted to do was take the stairs.
He tilted his head back and eyed the upper mezzanine floor.
There'd been plenty of reminders that Marty was fundamentally not like the Hex. When he wore a warframe like a meatsuit, he operated it on a whole different level.
The most unsubtle example happened when Marty's Excalibur got lost on the way to Lettie. Instead of checking the mall's map kiosk, though, he'd simply waved up to her, then crouched and sprang upwards, vaulting the balcony railing in a single vertical leap.
She'd stared him down, unimpressed.
Arthur took the stairs instead.
Lettie busily sorted through her medical supplies. A pile of bandages, rolled up next to stretchers and splints. Precious syringes and needle packs. One of her rats perched on a tower of boxes of surgical gloves. She patted a stray hair back into her updo. “This time, boss, I decide how to ration my supplies. No more freebies.”
He said, grimly, “I don't know that we can keep the peace if we hoard it all to ourselves.”
“Gotta triage.”
“Lettie, you're the one nagging me about preventative care and regular check-ups.”
She shooed her rat off the box of gloves, then held up the box and shook it. “Primero: for my birthday, February 14th, Scaldra breaks out the effervon chem sprayers and I turn the food court into an operating theater for all of us before the acid burns turn septic.”
He remembered that - the agonizing scrape of the scapel peeling dead skin from living tissue underneath before it turned gangrenous. Biting on his arm because it was the only thing strong enough to resist his new strength. “Okay–”
“Último: by December 30th, I am down to my last few pairs of gloves. The next morning, I use one of them to bandage the Drifter's hand with a scrap of cloth. I say “I'm sorry” because I have no sterilized bandages.”
“Okay, Lettie, I get it.”
“And for New Years Eve, boss…” She made direct eye contact, ice water in her veins, and said, “Boss, I killed your sister.”
He winced. “A mutual kill, then, I take it?”
“She wasn't your sister when I shot her.” She tossed her head. “I waited until I was sure. and that cost me.”
Arthur raised one hand. “I got that impression from her.”
“Of course, she–!” As quickly as Lettie's temper flared high, she subsided into smoldering coals. “Of course. If I remember, so does she.” She leaned on the railing, gazing bitterly at the furniture depot.
Arthur braced his elbows on the rail, the same as her.
She sighed. “I'm not doing it again, boss.”
“We'll find a better way.”
She snorted, an inelegant sound from an elegant woman.
“We will,” he insisted.
Fondly, she replied, “Brave king.”
“I try.”
“The Round Table broke apart. A traitor in their midst. The king's own blood turned against their own.”
“I told her to do it.”
“To kill me?”
“If you blame anyone, blame me.”
She patted his cheek like he was a little boy in her clinic, given a lolly for sitting nicely for his shots. “You put enough blame on your shoulders for anyone, pobrecito.”
He laughed it off, “Who else am I supposed to blame? Drifter?” His chuckle sounded false. Hollow, even to his own ears.
Sure, blame Marty, who’s not here to defend himself. The man would make a fantastic scapegoat for everything that went wrong, if not for the distinct possibility that he'll show up 364 days from now to lend a helping hand.
Lettie shrugged. “Drifter's not here. You wanna curse him a little in front of me, I’m not gonna squeal. Maybe the nosy Lady Eleanor finds out anyway. Won't be because I wanted her to.”
Arthur tried to hold back the rising tide of bitter envy, he really did. Being given permission to vent unlocked the floodgates. “Did you see him during that Hell Scrub? He wasn't just wearing “me,” he's better at being me than me.”
“Sure needed less patching up,” she said with a straight face. “Maybe he's my type of guy.”
“Scaldra shot him - once. He popped out and healed his warframe with void magic.”
“Now you say he won't waste my time when he can do it himself? ¡Que chido! Sounds better with every word.”
Arthur chuckled. “What would I do without you, Lettie?”
“Suffer in stubborn silence. I saw he's even a sword guy.”
“And a rocket launcher guy.”
“Hmm. Explosives are more Amir's thing.” She paused. “Was Drifter joking about the war crime thing?”
“...no. Sol, no, he was not.”
She side-eyed him. “So…he’s more of Major Neci Rusalka’s type of guy?”
“Er…” Rusalka was the sort of woman who wore both a regulation gas mask and an army uniform unbuttoned to her waist. Leather boots big enough to walk all over any man or woman too busy ogling her cleavage to get out of her way.
Was she the type that Drifter went for? The man certainly hadn't shot her when he had the chance, even though he claimed a more esoteric reason for mercy… “Lettie, you owe me a gallon of brain bleach for putting that image in my head.”
She barked a laugh. “You can have what's left after I'm done chugging it, boss.”
When the levity drained away, their smiles faded with it.
She said, “Boss, turns out I need you to stick around so you can tell your sister where to shove her plan to become the new hive queen. Deal?”
He said, “Turns out I need a listening ear when I'm whining because Drifter promised me the moon and then ditched us when the going got tough. Deal.”
“We've got a year,” she said. “And then mama's little girl is going home.”
He didn't have the heart to say there was no home left for him. Not since he saw Excalibur, the pallid beast with the faceless helmet he would inevitably become. He just nodded along.
“Have a little hope, our brave king.”
“I give hope. I keep none for myself.”
She patted him on the back one last time and then busied herself with her supplies. “Vigila tu espalda ahí fuera. Eyes open, boss.”
He pushed off the railing. Debriefings done. An errant thought chased through his mind: What would Marty do?
He reconsidered flinging himself over the railing directly to the food court floor. It *was* what Marty would do…but Amir might see and the technician did not need more ideas about “shortcuts.” After all, they still had to live with each other for a whole, long year.
Instead, he trudged down the stairs and back to reception. The kettle had gone cold. He brewed up a new cup.
The steaming mug just didn't warm his hands the way it used to. Another lasting legacy of Doctor Entrati's “cure.”
He's got a year. A whole, long year to contemplate losing his humanity at the same time he's trying to save what's left of it in Höllvania.
He drank his bitter black tea. At least it drowned the gnawing worm called Guilt for the night. He stretched out on his cot.
Tomorrow was another story. He had work to do, and lots of it. Come the dawn, there was no more time to linger on the aches and pains of a phantom wound that felt a little like he got shot in the heart too.
Pity he couldn't get comfortable.
Foolish, Arthur. Assuming the Drifter didn't follow Entrati into the hellfire that awaited men whose ends justified their means, “Marty McFlea” wouldn't be back for a whole, long year.
There's no point in hoping.
Marty jumped into his head, talked a big game about changing their future, and then didn't do jack-shit…
I'm not being very fair.
If Amir was right, and January 1st 1999 really was a parting gift from Marty…
Arthur muttered, ”Happy New Year, Marty. whenever you are.”
Fifteen minutes of tossing and turning later, he glared at the ceiling. “There's something I’m forgetting.”
Instead of counting sheep, he cataloged his teammates.
Quincy: still rattling off his shots at the firing range
Note to self: talk to him about Quiet Hours. Aoi would never say something, but she’d appreciate it.
Bargaining chip: tacit approval of his gray market dealings with the local civvies?
Amir: still rattling around the Arcade like he was the ball in the pinball machine.
Idea: spy mission into the reactor to refamiliarize Amir with the programming?
Eleanor…
He thought very loudly in her direction. Eleanor?
“I'm still up, Arthur.”
You doing okay?
“I'm about to be even better, once you figure out what you've got to go do.”
He hauled himself out of bed. “Alright. Fine. No rest for the weary.”
Aoi: bobbing her head to the song in her headphones
Note to self: Arthur, you done fucked up. Don't drop the ball again.
Idea: Capture a truck. Weightlifting practice to build her confidence.
Lettie: couldn't see her at her station, so she's taking care of her rats
Note to self: check in with Eleanor more often to take the edge off
Bargaining chip: coffee?
Who's he missing?
Marty.
Marty didn't count.
Then the answer hit him like a brick wall. The Backroom! He never checked Entrati's lair.
Arthur wasn't sure that the doors would open for him, seeing as he didn't have Void powers like Marty did. “Guess we can break down a wall. Hope that won't screw Marty out of his beloved Arsenal.”
He jogged up the broken escalators. In a promising sign, the symbols on the wall flared with Void un-light. It was like the door knew it was opened only mere hours before midnight, and not a whole year in the future. Entrati might even still be back there, recording cryptic messages or running strange experiments right under their noses.
Arthur turned the handle. The hallway beyond led to the other door - the secret passageway straight into a brick wall - and that door was open and glowing too.
A voice drifted through it. Male. Indistinct. Might've said, “Kalymos.”
Entrati.
Arthur drew his pistol.
Who else could it be?
Only Entrati, (mis)calculating how to play the Hex for fools for a whole, long year. Right under their nose the whole damned time.
He crept on silent feet toward the door.
Void un-light flared, and the man stepped through the doorway.
Not Entrati, after all.
Marty, sans meatsuit.
Marty looked from the barrel of Arthur's pistol to the green dot of laser sights wavering over his heart and said, “Please, can we not? I already got shot like three times “today.””
Arthur's pulse thundered in his ears. He absolutely could not take the hope bursting in his chest like a champagne cork flying out of the bottle, joy bubbling up behind it. Nor could he bear the crushing disappointment sure to follow. If it was this bad for him, how much worse would it be for Amir when he saw Marty, or for Aoi?
He raced through the ramifications. Eleanor already knew that the Drifter was back here for the whole time that Arthur made his rounds. Suspicious. A long time for Drifter to cook up a whole new plan with Entrati…more head games… He demanded, “What were you doing back there?”
Drifter put his hand up between them, the bandaged hand, then squinted at it. He peeled off the bloody scrap and held up his hand, now completely healed. “You really want to know?”
“It sure doesn't take you hours to heal up.”
“Nope. But it does take me that long to diplomatically answer an email from Albrecht Entrati's lover.”
Echoing through both their minds, Eleanor's mental voice went high and shrill, “Entrati's had SEX?!”
Drifter confirmed, “With at least two people. He's got a family, too.”
“Drifter! It would have cost you nothing not to say that. Where's Lettie? I need to wash my brain out with soap.”
Arthur snapped, “Then quit eavesdropping!”
But Drifter said, “She's not. She helped me write the email.”
“Really.”
“Look, the first draft was “Loid, I finally met your Albrecht. He shot me, three times, pointblank. I'm on Team Tagfer now.”” Drifter paused. “Which I realize means nothing to you. Tagfer lost his mate in one of Entrati's experiments. If Tagfer gets his hooves on him, his head is going in a fishtank.”
“Sounds like my sort of guy.”
“Goat, actually. Deer. Cervulite. But yeah, he'd fit in with your crew.” Despite his easy explanations, Drifter's eyes still tracked from Arthur's face to the gun barrel.
Arthur holstered the pistol.
Drifter relaxed. “But Loid is doing a splendid job holding down the fort back in the future in hopes of getting his Albrecht back safe, sound, and mostly sane. So I couldn't exactly spit on his devotion like that. Finding the right words…it took us a while. Did I miss the New Years party?”
“So this was you?”
Drifter said, “Define “this.””
“This!” His waving hand encompassed it all. The mall. The Hex. Höllvania, un-nuked and oblivious to the fallout to come. “All this Marty McFlea/back to 1999 shit that's spread to the rest of us.”
“Ah. Yes?” Drifter wiped his hands on his black jumpsuit pants.
Good. Let him sweat it.
Drifter explained himself in a rush, “You probably got the gist earlier: it's not my first time trapped in a time loop. A day didn't give us much time to work with. I would know. So I extended it. We've got a year now.” He considered whether he'd left out anything important. Then, he asked, eyes shining, “Is everyone okay?”
Arthur said, “Loaded question, that.”
“I'm asking anyway.”
“We remember.”
Drifter winced. “Shit. Sorry.”
To think Drifter had the nerve to pretend he hadn't yucked it up with his pal Entrati while Amir and Aoi and Arthur died. Arthur's voice came out harsh even to his own ears. “What do you know about it?”
“All of it,” Drifter said, and he hunched, sounding sick at heart. “The Indifference made sure I saw.”
More harsh words stuck in Arthur's throat. When the Drifter vanished into the Void after refusing to shoot Rusalka, Arthur thought the worst of him. But the truth was that Marty wasn't just swept away from them in a riptide. They'd been swept away from him too. Bobbing on the waves as best he could, he'd watched them drown.
Arthur swallowed down the choking horror of it. “Are you okay?”
Marty's shining eyes flashed with void fire. “I didn't leave, if that's what you're implying.”
“I see that. You could've.”
“Not on Entrati's terms. Not if I wanted to live with myself.” Marty pulled himself together with a deep breath that settled his shoulders back down from around his ears. “And I do like being able to look myself in the eye in the mirror.”
Just like that, Marty's bravado was back in evidence. Jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, he continued, “Speaking of, there is a very fancy mirror along with that very fancy Arsenal, Foundry, and Modification station next to Entrati's personal computer with all his notes on your case of the Helminth Infestation.”
That? That was big. “Entrati didn't tell us what to expect. We've been flying blind.”
“I see no reason why I shouldn't take over. Properly. Share the data with Lettie. Get you all some proper mods.”
“Mods?”
“Mods. Yeah. Health, armor, ability strength, efficiency, augments, stuff like that–”
Too late, Arthur realized they'd sidetracked on tech when the rest of the team didn't even know that Marty was back to lend a helping hand.
“–by the time I'm done with Aoi, she'll be able to lift that truck by herself.” Marty said, and he wasn't talking about the truck.
Arthur absolutely could not take the giddy burn of hope, followed by bubbles of promised happiness. “You’re promising me the moon, man.”
Marty’s stream of words died.
Arthur said, “If you leave again, or get taken, just when you’ve dangled this carrot in front of us…” He trailed off. To himself, he admitted the truth. If Marty gets taken and Arthur has to listen to Aoi scream his name as she dies again, it’ll crush what’s left of his scant reserves of hope.
Eleanor won’t come back from another baptism in techrot.
Lettie will put his sister down like a rabid beast and shake the Höllvania dust off the soles of her tennis shoes.
If Quincy’s smart, and he is, he’ll hightail it for the mountains and hope they mitigate the fallout.
Amir might stick by Arthur, but if he's smart, he'll speed Quincy on their way out.
Arthur will die and Höllvania with him.
Marty closed his eyes. The un-light cast strange shadows on him, until he looked worlds older. “I suppose that’s exactly what I did to you, didn’t I?”
Then he opened his eyes, flashing void fire and shining with determination. “The good news is that I made this time loop. I'm stuck in it just like you are. Either we stop that reactor together or we all die, and we all begin again. Together.”
Arthur realized, Even if we do our very best, there may be more 1999s.
Strangely, he found no fear in the knowledge anymore. Just hope that they would all try, together. “It's worth it. No matter how many times it takes. It’s worth it to do what’s right.”
Marty smiled, broad and genuine, no sarcasm. “Oh, good. I would’ve understood if you hated me for it. You could’ve.”
“No more head games, though.”
“No more head games without permission,” Marty promised.
“And do try not to get kidnapped again.”
“I will do my best to not get voidnapped for the world's worst show-n-tell.”
“Then its a deal.” Arthur waved him onward to the mall proper. “You didn't miss the party. We didn't even pop the champagne.”
“You have champagne in the middle of all this mess?”
“Big tourist industry in Höllvania before the plague.”
They walked down the escalators toward the food court. Eleanor sat at the party table already.
Quincy did a double take. He called, “Yo, Amir!”
Amir skidded through the Arcade doors. His face lit up with an incredulous smile. “Marty?”
Marty waved.
Amir hit the speed and braked just short of bowling Marty over. “Marty!” He punched Arthur in the shoulder, not hard, but enough to deliver a solid static jolt. “Told you Marty was legit.”
Then he took off, speeding to Aoi's station and sprinting up the stairs and around the mezzanine to Lettie's station, caroling, “Marty's baaaaack!”
Aoi leaped off her table. “Yoo-hoo, Marty! What's your favorite song? I'll put it on the speakers!”
He muttered, “Anything but On-lyne.”
Arthur immediately liked him more. He advised, “Aoi likes them.”
“Oh. Okay.” Marty said, then called back, “Uh, opera?”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. Aoi shot Marty a bemused look. She said, “I’ll see what I can find.”
She got Auld Lang Syne playing. Everyone congregated at the food court around the party table. Their small group - Arthur couldn't rightfully call them a team anymore, not after the way they'd fallen apart - were all briefly reunited by the same anticipation as the crowds that watched the fireworks.
Arthur waved Marty forward, “You want to tell them, or shall I?”
Amir jumped in. “Are you staying?”
“I plan to.”
Quincy asked, “Can your future stuff help me shoot a tank?”
Arthur looked at him sharply. Quincy ignored him, eyes fixed on Marty like a target.
Marty said, like it was no big deal, “Yeah. Punchthrough.” He squinted at Quincy. “According to Entrati's documentation, you've got punchthrough in your kit.”
“I do?” Quincy hefted his rifle. “What I've got is a lux set of skills. Doctor E didn't give me a kit.”
Marty's mouth fell open.
Lettie butted in. “I want that documentation. I've been stitching you all up blindly.”
Marty shut his mouth with a click. “Sure thing. Just let me–”
Arthur caught him by the arm and reeled him back in. “Not until after champagne. And the rest of the explanation. Hex, we're in Marty's time loop.”
Marty nodded even as he wiped his hands on his jumpsuit. “This all started as Entrati's time loop. One day to complete his work, and then the nuke to seal the loop and restart. But I'm here, and it's my loop now, and I've given us a year to work with.”
He stepped free of Arthur, standing alone before them. “If you're angry with me, I understand. Time loops can go bad, real bad. I would know. The best hope I can give us is that I'm with you until it ends, and if you want out…I can leave you out at the reset to live or die wherever you are when the nuke goes off.”
They all exchanged glances. Lettie, wary. Eleanor, serene. Amir's eyes darted between everyone's face; he shifted from foot to foot. Aoi looked to Arthur for guidance, and just as quickly looked away.
The Hex might not be much of a team after the nuke, but Arthur knew his people. Despite Marty's nerves, his early arrival - his easy assurance of “us” - was a lightning rod for hope.
Quincy flopped into a chair. “I say we pour the champagne for Marty. It's a better deal than Doctor E was offering, and we all know it.”
Lettie said, “Don't we know it.” She warned Marty, “Watch it on the war crimes though, babas. If I see it, I am obligated to report you to the ICR.”
His mouth twisted; he managed not to laugh.
Aoi reached for the bottles. She peeled the wires back with her powers. “Happy New Year, everyone!”
“¡Feliz año nuevo!” Lettie concurred, setting out red cups.
Corks popped and bubbly poured. Eleanor passed around the cups.
Arthur held up his solo cup and thought of a toast. To the Hex. He'd said, last time.
Amir butted in. “To Marty!”
Marty shook his head, modestly. “To whatever you remember. Let's make better memories.”
The man might not quite have the hang of making toasts yet, but that sentiment was worth repeating. Arthur said, “Cheers.”
They all drank to that.
Lettie was the first to leave, claiming she'd better get sleep before digging into their medical records.
Aoi offered to hook Drifter up with the Kinematic Instant Messaging chats she'd set up for the team. She said, with a moue, “Not that you *have* to use them. No one else does.”
Marty said, “Then I'll be the first. I suppose it can't be harder to learn than the Tenno region chat.”
Amir would happily quiz Marty until the man snapped. However, Amir followed the byplay and said, “Yeah, I can KIM you some questions I've got about games in the future!”
“Sure.” Marty said, amused.
Quincy said, “Laugh now, mate. You've opened up a can of worms.”
“I'm sure.” Marty said. “Though now that I think about adding punchthrough to your rifle, maybe we should upgrade your firing range. Or else the walls are gonna be–”
Amir supplied, “Swiss cheese?”
“If that has holes in it, then, yeah. Might be inconvenient if the techrot gets inside.”
Quincy squared his shoulders belligerently, glaring at nothing and no-one in particular. “Any techrot gets in that way, it deserves what it gets.”
Arthur said, “Quincy's right.”
Quincy blinked at him in surprise.
Was it that easy to learn from the past? Maybe it was. He nodded to Quincy.
Marty said, lightly. “Ah. I suppose any tech rot behind the wall will also become “Swiss cheese.””
Quincy’s grin was a broad flash of bright teeth. “Knew you’d catch on quick.”
“I do try,” Marty said.
Arthur thought to himself that it would be very easy to grow envious of Marty: of his justified cockiness, or the easy way he took insults and turned them aside with a determined look or a friendly word. Not to mention his power to rewind time when his mistakes got bad enough.
Without him, they'd all be ash. Arthur ought to be grateful for that instead of tasting the bitter ash of his relationships. Give Marty a month or three, the Hex would follow his lead instead. Amir already pressed Marty on how he’d take the fight to Scaldra with his many warframes…
But Marty looked to Arthur and smiled just as warmly as for everyone else, and said, “I'm used to mercenary work, so I’ll check in with the captain in the morning. He’ll have assignments for me, I'm sure.”
Speak of the morning; Aoi yawned.
Something tense in Arthur unwound. Give Marty a few months and he might be their new captain after all, but at least he wasn’t into humiliation. “Yeah, we'll talk–” the yawns were contagious.
“In the morning,” Marty agreed, and then, even the future caught the yawning bug. He protested, “I’m not even that tired!”
Eleanor laughed at him, a soothing sprinkle of rain on their tired minds. “All that email writing taxed your brain.”
He snorted. “That must be it.”
Amir bragged, “I'm never tired–”
Then he yawned too.
“–Nooooo!” He sprinted back to the Arcade.
That started the leave train. Quincy went back to his firing range. Aoi put in a new CD - some crooning beat of On-lyne that stuck in Arthur's teeth.
Arthur said, “By December, every TV in Höllvania will be stuck blasting Party of Your Lifetime.”
“Oh.” Marty said. “Joy.”
They walked to the Backroom together because Arthur told himself he didn’t want Marty to get lost. The truth was he didn’t want Eleanor to overhear… Foolish, Arthur.
So he just said it straight. “What occurred in that reactor - or what's going to occur - is beyond me. But it looks like we have another chance, and with you steering the ship, we might even make it.”
Marty ducked his head. “I'll do my best. I’ll also keep in mind what you said about promising the moon. Wise words, that.”
Arthur replied, “And if there's anything I can do, you know where I am.”
Then, Arthur heard the edge of Eleanor’s goodnight: “Drifter.” She said, “You’re going to make such a difference this time.”
Marty replied, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Arthur clapped him on the shoulder, even as he reminded himself ruthlessly , I give hope to others. I keep none for myself. “See you around–”
It occurred to him that he hadn't exactly asked Marty which name he preferred. The man from the future probably didn't even understand the Marty McFlea reference that earned him the moniker during his interrogation. Arthur course corrected smoothly enough, he hoped, “–Drifter.”
Drifter's smile had real warmth, despite the darkness under his tired eyes. “Might as well call me Marty.”
“Marty, then. See you in the morning.”
“Will do. Bring your skana; I've got a spare Incarnon.”
Marty ducked into the Void curtain between the mall and the Backroom before Arthur could ask what he was talking about. He suspected there would be a lot of that in the near future - on both sides.
For now, he patted his skana. “Don't worry,” he assured his faithful sword, even if it felt a little silly. “I won't let him do anything ridiculous to you.”
For now, thanks to Marty, they had a near future. A whole new 1999, in fact.
May it be a brighter one than the last.