Chapter 24: What Now?

  The Morning Assembly had just finished – I missed it by an inch.

  I made my way toward Trent, my eyes darting between the three marked people, heart racing.

  What...the fuck?

  “Dude, you’re here!” Trent called out, looking relieved. “I thought you said we’d meet here at eight. What gives?”

  “Long story.” I muttered, brushing off his concerns, my focus locked on the marked trio.

  Two were inventors. The third one? A staff member.

  I tried to make sense of it.

  I thought Erebus marked time loopers when they cause major shifts. So unless Dolos actually had multiple Champions running around – which made no sense based on what I knew – why would three additional people be marked?

  Then it hit me. I facepalmed, hard.

  Of course.

  Dolos only had one Champion. That was part of the rules as far as I understood them. One Champion per god. Unless Chronos was lying – and honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him considering he only now told me about Dolos – that rule still stood.

  Which meant this had to be something else.

  The only explanation I could think of was this: Dolos’ Champion – whoever they were – had shared knowledge of the loop, directly or indirectly. Enough to let these three cause serious enough deviations from the original timeline.

  That didn’t rule out the Champion being one of them – or being Anastasia, of course. In fact, it would be the perfect plan to stay hidden. Make as many people as possible marked, and suddenly the mark itself stops meaning anything.

  But surely Erebus would catch on, right? I mean, at some point, he’d realize the one thing connecting all these falsely marked people was a single common thread – the actual Champion of Dolos.

  Then…what if the marks weren’t meant to fool Erebus?

  What if they were meant for…me?

  That made a lot more sense.

  Dolos’ Champion probably suspected I’d be looking for the marked Anastasia Wright this loop. So now he’s playing chess with me, capitalizing on my memory loss. He made sure to have three others marked, scattering my attention.

  Motherfucker…

  I wasn’t just up against someone who retained all their memories between loops. I was up against someone smart. Someone truly smart.

  I needed to check each and every one of the three – learn everything I could. If none of them turned out to be Dolos’ Champion, then at least I’d narrow my suddenly growing suspect list. Then I could leave myself a clue with Temporal Trace – something to make me ignore the irrelevant ones.

  “Viktor, you there?” Trent waved a hand in front of my face, snapping me out of it. “The organizers told us to start setting up the inventions. We’re on the third floor. Come on.”

  I glanced at him. If one of the marked was Dolos’ Champion, I couldn’t risk Trent being dragged into this. The true second looper might try to use him against me if he’d notice we were close. Better to make our relationship look purely professional. Distant.

  “Go on ahead. Start setting the Chrono Quill on your own.” I said coolly. “There’s something I need to check out first.”

  Then, without another word, I stepped away – heading straight for the first suspect.

  ***

  The investigation felt like a total waste of time.

  The first marked person was an inventor from the first floor – Colton Banks. His father was someone important, though not an oligarch, but it was enough to land him a spot on the first floor of the Expo.

  The problem was his invention: a pair of self-adjusting spectacles.

  The moment I saw them, my suspicion plummeted. I gave him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he was trying to throw me off, pretending to be a simple rich idiot. But after watching him speak from afar for a couple of minutes, it was obvious: there wasn’t a single sharp thought inside that guy’s skull. Unless, of course, he was the greatest actor alive and I was just completely fooled.

  The second marked inventor was a young woman from the first floor as well – Dinah White. Her invention was a dragonfly automaton prototype. Now this one…she was sharp. Sharp enough to keep her on my radar. But she also seemed deeply uninterested in anything beside her invention. I even exchanged a few words with her, hoping to catch a flicker of recognition, a hint of awareness – anything. But she looked at me with utter neutrality and spoke with zero emotional range – I swear I saw automatons show more emotions than her.

  Maybe she was the greatest actress alive.

  Maybe all Skyhaveners were just actors trained from birth to mess with my head.

  The third marked person was a male staff member. He looked young, short dark hair, clean-shaven. He wore a formal suit and the standard staff armband. I followed him now as he walked – seemingly aimlessly – around the first floor, occasionally redirecting inventors who approached him for help toward someone else nearby. Dismissive. Detached. Bored.

  That was the only suspicious thing he did. But even that could be chalked up to laziness.

  It wasn’t easy keeping eyes on him, either – not with the floor practically buzzing with inventors setting up their exhibits. I had no real reason to be on the first floor, and it showed. More than a few glances were already lingering on me longer than I liked.

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  Still, I kept following. I figured I didn’t care what any of them thought. We’d all be dead by the end of this day – loop – anyway. And if the staff member noticed me and reacted? Great – I’d have something to analyze.

  It was a no-lose scenario, really.

  After about fifteen minutes of silently tailing the guy around the floor, I was just about ready to call it quits and head up to the third floor to set up the Chrono Quill with Trent.

  But then, it happened.

  Mr. Lazy Staff Member finally did something odd.

  He approached the staircase like he was about to go up – then stopped.

  He turned his head and looked from side to side, clearly checking if anyone was watching. I angled myself toward an unmanned WIP exhibit to my right, pretending to study it like my life depended on it.

  Meanwhile, he shifted course and moved to the descending set of stairs instead and began heading down.

  I waited for a few seconds, then stepped toward the staircase too, casually scanning the area to make sure no one was watching me.

  I peered down, trying to catch anything, but it was too dark.

  It was already weird to me that the Divine even had an underground level at all. Skyhaven was built on top of a floating platform, which meant any minus one floor would be embedded inside the platform’s plate itself – right where the magitek-steam engines were located. It made no sense.

  Could the Divine’s underground level lead to the platform’s engine maintenance tunnels? If so, surely it would’ve been guarded, right?

  I better see what he’s doing.

  I looked around once more – no eyes on me.

  Just slightly aware that this could be an ambush, I activated Checkpoint, setting up an anchor.

  [Checkpoint Set: Your progress has been saved at this point in time]

  [Current anchor will be lost upon death, or after thirty minutes. The earliest of the two.]

  [Checkpoint lvl. 1: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:29:59]

  Then I took the stairs down.

  ***

  The deeper I went, the thinner the lighting became. The gas lamps mounted along the walls flickered weakly, barely pushing back the darkness.

  After three flights of stairs, I reached a broad landing – a medium-sized room stretching outward. The air down here was warm and stale.

  The walls were heavy brass, covered in soot, dust, and four phonotubes. A few dying wall sconces flickered light across the room, revealing, at the far end, a large double golden door with a small keyhole.

  The staff member was nowhere to be seen. Must’ve already passed through.

  I approached the doors. No handles. I pressed my palms against the surface and pushed. But the doors were unyielding.

  Then my gaze landed on the keyhole again – and an idea sparked.

  The Bronze Key.

  I summoned it from the Inventory, and it appeared in my left hand.

  Visually it looked like it might fit. My hopes rose for a second…then sunk just as quickly when the key refused to enter.

  Didn’t fit.

  Damn it.

  Where did I even get this shitty key?!

  Disappointed that I lost the staff member, I turned to leave.

  But then my COG suddenly beeped.

  A message.

  [12:33]

  [You Received a Private Message]

  A private message? Nobody I knew would bother wasting money to send me a private message.

  Was it Dad? Could be...I never came home tonight thanks to Devin...

  Curious, I opened it.

  The sender was labeled as 'Unknown'.

  [“You’re close.”]

  A chill ran down my spine. I whipped around, feeling like someone was watching me.

  Then another beep.

  [“Don't worry. That key will fit in somewhere, somewhen.”]

  Wait, what?

  BEEP.

  [“Did you like my trick?”]

  If I had any doubts before, they were gone. That wasn’t just some cryptic weirdo. That was the other looper. Dolos’ Champion.

  While I was looking for them, they were already watching me.

  But I couldn’t even type anything back. As always, COG conversations were one-sided unless both parties were exchanging messages through a COMM-ANNEX in live time.

  Wait a minute…

  This building had to have a COMM-ANNEX somewhere! It was the Divine, for fuck’s sake. No way it didn’t have one. Dolos’ Champion was probably there right now. I just needed to find the room to catch them red-handed.

  I turned sharply toward the staircase, ready to head back up and start searching floor by floor.

  But my COG beeped again.

  [“Don’t waste your time looking for me at the COMM-ANNEX. I’m not there.”]

  I slowed down.

  What the fuck?

  Were they…reading my thoughts?

  There’s no way.

  Either way, like heck I’d believe this bullshit. That was manipulation 101. Of course they’d say they weren’t there. It only meant they probably were.

  Another beep came through.

  [“You don’t believe me?”]

  Now, I stood still. Breath caught. Stomach twisting.

  Was my mind actually being read right now? Or was the other looper just a genius psychologist?

  BEEP.

  [“Did you watch the memory?”]

  My heart slammed in my chest.

  Who was this person?! How did they know about the memory fragment?!

  No – no. Relax, Viktor. Think. Surely they’re bluffing. This Dolos god probably informed them about what Chronos and the Deja Vu System can do, and so they’re using that knowledge to get under my skin.

  BEEP.

  BEEP.

  [“I wanted you to see it.”]

  [“Cecilia Baines was a wonderful woman. I appreciated her a lot.”]

  Goosebumps crawled down my arms at the mention of my mother.

  I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

  “Who are you, bastard?!” I shouted.

  No answer. Just more damn messages.

  BEEP.

  [“Dolos didn’t want me to contact you. Said it might improve your chances. But I’m the master of my fate.”]

  My heart was beating so fast, it was the only thing I could hear.

  BEEP.

  [“He’s blind too, you know. Just like your Chronos.”]

  “What…?” I muttered. Dolos couldn’t see Solvane either? Could I trust this information? Did it even change anything as far as I’m concerned?

  BEEP.

  [“So let’s continue just like this, okay? I want to keep messing with your mind for as long as I possibly can. Solvane doesn’t deserve to keep existing. I don’t want you saving it.”]

  My jaw clenched. Rage replacing logic.

  “You think this is a game?!” I snapped, knowing fully well that the other person can’t hear me. “Don’t you understand our entire world will be devoured from existence?! You will be gone too, stupid idiot!”

  BEEP.

  [“And if you have anything to say on the matter, you should find me and stop me.”]

  “I will.” I muttered through gritted teeth, every part of me burning now.

  BEEP.

  [“Say, how long will it take you to find me, you reckon?”]

  BEEP.

  [“Let’s catch up again soon. But meanwhile, remember: I see you.”]

  That was it. I’d had enough.

  They think they’re smart? Wrong.

  Finding the COMM-ANNEX would take too long. They’d be gone before I even got near it.

  There was only one other option.

  He was underestimating my resolve.

  Good luck stopping this.

  I summoned the Foldable Sword from the Inventory and pressed its edge to my chest.

  The anchor point was already set – back before I took the stairs down.

  Now I just needed the will to go through with it.

  And I had plenty.