Ren shook his head slowly, shoulders sagging like the weight of lifetimes pressing down. “Alright… let me make sure I got this.” His voice was low, rough, a voice that barked orders in firefights and still carried the weight of seeing too many people die. “You stop the cube, that… Angel and its god, Illvyr—they kill you. Or worse. You avoid it, the Leviathan takes everyone else… and you. So… somebody dies no matter what. Every time.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes narrowing with the kind of focus born from decades of impossible choices. “Tell me… have you tried using the cube against the Angel? Against Illvyr? Or taking the Leviathan on yourself?”

  High above, the observation windows had long been closed. Shut with metal panels designed to block all manner of signals, they were truly and utterly unobserved.

  Kelly leaned back into the criminally comfortable bench, like they were talking retirement plans instead of the end of the world. “After I figured out the angel and its backup god could just… scribble over my brain and erase me for good, I spent the loops doing one thing. Getting stronger. Trying to build some kind of protection. You know, find a mental helmet. A brain castle. Something.” Something that wouldn’t fold the second it looked at her.

  She gestured vaguely with one hand. “I could always go full chrome. Augment everything. Strip out the organic parts and throw them in a recycler. But that's a one-way ticket to crazyville, with a layover in AI overlord puppetry. Which, last I checked, is basically the same service plan Illvyr was offering, just with worse customer loyalty points. So, no."

  “Instead, it’s been trial and error,” she said, tapping the table once. “Mostly trial. Building tools. Upgrading weapons. Improving augments.” She leaned back, the bench’s plush embrace at odds with the topic. “I tried improving everything. Anything I could think of,” she huffed quietly, mildly amused.

  “I’ve been trying to learn how to use my… mutations,” She didn’t say magic. Her finger twitched, suggesting air-quotes that never fully manifested. They were definitely not mutations. But Ren thought it was temporal mutant nonsense, and if that got her access to training and resources no civilian intern and no client was ever supposed to touch, she was happy to run with it. She was going to wear that label until it fell apart. But the word ‘Mutation’ still felt like a cheap costume she did not enjoy wearing.

  “… in ways that make me better at combat. Like making my weapons and ammunition hit like falling freight elevators, making me hit stronger, my vision sharper, my defense more… defensible, and my speed more difficult to keep up with.” Her knee bounced, a quick, restless rhythm against the table leg. “Anything to take me closer to facing him again without having to trigger a reset. Anything that’ll let me kick him in his holy nose.”

  A lot of people argued that speed was the strongest specialization. High speed needed cognition and strength to even work. Kelly wanted to make her speed a public safety issue.

  She shrugged, easy, but calm. “It’s all just me looking for a way to hit him where it counts. To punch something that doesn’t have a face without dying… again, that is.” A pause.

  "I haven't really bothered going back to use the cube," Kelly said, the words tossed off like an afterthought. "Don’t get me wrong, I could. The place is practically drowning in mana—like, a gargantuan, impossibly massive reserve of the stuff just sitting there. I could use it to build something.”

  The real move would be to drain it, loop after loop, massive gulps to massively juice herself up. Maybe even collect the real prize. The mana-generating crystal right at its heart. Pop that out, and suddenly she’d have… options. Fun, world-bending, probably-stupid options.

  “But that’s a whole schedule. Too tight. You’ve got to juggle the mundane threats you can actually handle while sticking to it.” Kelly crossed one leg over the other, boot rocking once before going still. She had to admit, it felt useful to talk it out with someone—airing out her thoughts. Even if that someone was operating under a spectacularly wrong set of assumptions. Even if the whole thing was built on a lie. A nice, functional, mutually beneficial lie. It was almost like having a coworker, if your coworker was a weaponized relic and your shared project was deicide. Plus, the fake context just made it easier. Nobody asked inconvenient questions like “why” or “should we” or “is that ethical.” It was refreshing.

  “Of course, that also comes with the very real and permanent risk of ending up as a mind-puppet for all eternity. So there’s that.”

  Ren gave a slow, considering nod. "Hm... not the worst idea," the old veteran said. "Preparation has always mattered. Your file shows a medical staff seven suite—steady limbs, sharp mind, some cosmetic adjustments—and custom work on life support, bone density, muscle tissue, and neural pathways to automate combat movement.”

  “Not bad. I’m guessing that’s based on the military programs."

  His eyes, sharp and assessing, dropped to study her hands for a moment. "The heat shunts in your fists… clever for emergency close quarters. But I can’t see them doing much against someone carrying a burner, or even a basic hand cannon."

  Kelly begged to differ. Maybe if someone else had them. He hadn’t seen her use them.

  He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Have you considered weapon augments? More standard military-grade upgrades… a GMU weight shifter, shoulder cannons, maybe even an exoskin suit?”

  He let the words settle, and sighed. “It’s unfortunate that, until yesterday, your role left you so unsuited for combat. But… I suppose that’s the nature of crisis upgrades.”

  Kelly found herself a little annoyed. She stared at him, her expression flattening. "Yeah. I've definitely considered all those. The GMU weight-shifter, the shoulder cannons, the exoskinsuit. Let me just check my budget." She tapped a finger against her temple. "Oh, wait. Every single one of those is locked behind a military-grade procurement firewall, costs more than I'll make in three lifetimes on my assistant's salary," she said, loading the word with enough sarcasm to puncture hull plating, “and is about as easy for a civilian to get as a personal audience with the corporate board. But sure. Other than that, stellar suggestions. Real shame I didn't think of 'em."

  "Truly? Then how do you upgrade across loops? Your file says you're an intern with high project clearance, surely that should give you access to advanced weaponry."

  Kelly let out a short, dry sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "I work on an R&D initiative. Sort of. Hadn't gotten around to transferring to the weapons division yet. But the real issue is, upgrades don't stick across a reset. Not the physical ones. So my morning routine involves a lot of illegal fabrication. Off the books printing.”

  She waved dismissively. “I used to just steal the shiny hardware itself, but that was a waste. Now I steal the schematics and rebuild the gear fresh each day. It's like a fun, mandatory, deeply illegal craft project to start every morning." It was a useful half-truth. She used to just grab schematics. The part she left out was that she'd already reverse-engineered the persistence problem months ago. Let him think she was reassembling a shoulder cannon from scratch every single day. It made her seem dedicated in a slightly unhinged way, not suspiciously proficient.

  The real reason her skeleton wasn't a curated gallery of corporate weaponry was, frankly, a list of annoyances. First, Vaughn HQ’s security protocols. The moment the merc siege started, every sensitive data server locked down tighter than a boardmember’s vault. Her work was off-grid, performed on custom-printed machines she’d overridden—the machines would obey, but the schematics for the really fun stuff were behind a data wall she couldn’t crack mid-chaos.

  Second, if she stopped the raid early by tipping off security, the lab would be swarming with actual staff. Colleagues. People with ethics and oversight who’d definitely ask why the intern was trying to graft a plasma artillery array to her spinal column.

  Third, the private upgrade clinics scattered across the city were glorified vending machines—they’d install pre-approved, overpriced modules, not custom inventions. For that, you needed a specialist lab. Places that only existed in corporate HQs, the big four’s off-site compounds, or places outside of the city, not currently on fire.

  And fourth, and this was the biggest one;

  Kelly needed more runes. A lot more.

  Everything else was just decoration without the proper magical infrastructure, and those weren’t exactly stocked in the employee break room.

  "I had only skimmed your file as a favor to Joe," Ren Sato said, drawing a pattern on his palm before pausing to read information projected on a screen only he could see. "Dr. Kelly Voss, presumed missing or dead after your adopted parents were killed by Caliph the spike.”

  His features briefly showed concern for a second, before returning to assessment, with a trace of empathy. “It seems that like many during that period, while his cartel razed the country, you spent some years missing, presumably in the outskirts accompanying Caliph’s gang in numerous crimes—that must have been rough. The child he ‘adopted’ before you hardly survived as long as you did.”

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  He gestured, as if swiping. “Upon his death, and your resurgence into society, you were best in class—in every class—until receiving a doctorate in quantum entanglement and dark matter theory at twenty. Your thesis on Macroscopic Entanglement in High-volatility Systems led to drastic improvements in the design of the city-class stellar launch engines, for which you received no merit or royalties.”

  “But it did manage to land you in the leading military power, Vaughn industries', top research project."

  He exhaled, assessing her.

  "So, you were far from a fighter. A criminal child who clawed their way through the unimaginable into an education, and wrote a thesis good enough to get you an internship. A surprising mix of hard work, grit, and perseverance in the face of the impossible for someone so young and unfortunate.”

  “Some would argue that luck was… overdue."

  At this the old vet, who had been looking at Kelly like one might look at an interesting child of his superiors, finally showed some change. His eyes softened a bit, and Kelly would daresay she saw an inkling of respect in his gaze.

  "A respectable trajectory," the old veteran quietly replied. "I would agree with them. I have no idea whether your time loop is among the more powerful mutations we have seen, or simply an act of magic similar to the things that currently wreak havoc on the world outside as we speak, or simply some third reason yet to be discovered.”

  “But… it suits you.”

  A pause. “Others with an Enhancement Quotient so low would have been driven mad, or given up entirely, unable to be torn apart, flayed, burned alive, and killed so many times.”

  He traced at an old scar, a soft smirk as if recalling a fond battle, before he stopped and met her gaze. “I know what it is like to have your body destroyed. Even with pain receptors dulled to almost nothing, even with the filthy memory suppressors weaker soldiers use, the experience still haunts. Your psyche eval was concerning, a vast deviation from standard.”

  He paused again. “But it showed none of the staples of post-mutilation trauma. It showed… an eagerness. I now understand why you so freely disclose your greatest secrets."

  Ren, the ancient veteran, leaned back in his chair. He placed his hands flat on the table. His eyes, clouded by centuries of dust and gunfire, held hers.

  “But,” he said, his voice low. “You are more than an idiot. You are also mad. Joe was right to recommend you to me before it got worse.” His expression did not change.

  “Yeah, of course I’m great, I told you—…wait, what?” Kelly protested.

  He raised his hand, a simple, quieting gesture. “I would have turned you away. I planned to.” He let the statement sit. “But you are also a true fighter. More than the soldiers who need drugs and memory therapy to return to the field. You did it hundreds of times with will and stubbornness alone. No machine to dye the memory.”

  He leaned forward slightly, the chair groaning. “I know what it is to see your organs in the wrong place. Even I would hesitate before such deaths, hundreds of times, thousands. And few survived Caliph the Butcher’s gang. Even the Echelon struggled to stop him.” He gave a single, slow nod.

  “Your idiocy and madness may be a benefit.”

  Kelly stared. She blinked once. Then she shrugged. "First of all, I’m smart as hell. They gave me a paper that proves it.” She paused, ready to go on a tirade, then exhaled, shifting gears. She was here for a reason, and delay would not help her get there. “But…fine. Are we done with the personality audit? I'd like to move on to controlled detonations."

  She really, really wanted to move on to the fighting and powering up her augments. She could feel them now, through her mana attunement. Kelly couldn’t wait to see how much ‘stronger’ boosting them beyond whatever they were made to handle could take her.

  “You’re still green,” Ren said, his voice flat. “A rookie. You’ve been through countless engagements—more than most—, but you don’t use close-quarters combat forms. You have no recognizable techniques. You just brawl.”

  “Haven’t had any complaints,” Kelly said. She’d always planned to steal CQC data-chips whenever she found the location of some. Sure, it was on her list of things to do. Pretty low on the list, under ‘reverse-engineer undead resurrection’ and ‘acquire industrial fabricator,’ but it was there. She had an apocalypse to dissect. Who had the time to learn combat techniques manually?

  “What do you know about mutants?” he suddenly asked.

  Kelly shrugged, the motion loose and casual. “I know the same as everyone else in my field. The war with the Tüin made the atmosphere deadly with their advanced radioactive-chemical quantum warfare stew. In the years we spent clearing it, the AI coups released chemical agents and mutagens to reduce the population and regress humanity into something they could control. Trying to take over Earth, or whatever.”

  She continued, her tone factual. “The pathogens act as an evolutionary accelerant, mutating life forms. The contaminated cocktail in the atmosphere leads to unpredictable results and a decimal survival rate. Standard stuff.”

  Ren shook his head once. “That’s not the full story. That’s just the PR story fed to the general public to stop the panic. To explain the bodies in the streets. What do you know about the portal invasion? The status panel that’s appeared over every world it’s touched?”

  Kelly’s mind scrambled. How could atmospheric pollution and extradimensional rifts be connected? What did he mean? A suspicion began to solidify in her gut.

  “The Tüin are experts in quantum tech,” Ren stated. “They use it for everything. As energy. Even their chemical warfare is quantum-tuned. The AI realized this, too.”

  “Sure,” Kelly said casually, immediately understanding—it was her original area of expertise, after all. Even before the loops. “Quantum is primarily concerned with space. Dimensions. So they filled the earth with deadly space gas and screwed up breathing for everyone. Where are you going with this?” She could see the shape of his point now, a dark, logical conclusion, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “That’s not why we have mutants,” Ren said. “We, as a species, are greedy. We don’t care about the consequences. Nor the lives or planets we destroy—even our own—our true ‘God’ is profit. Humanity has been experimenting with the gases ever since they realized what they were. The AI used it to try and turn us into lesser beings, and humans tried to do the opposite. And in the process, they accessed something.”

  He leaned forward, conspiratorially, his voice low. “They connected to something. They peered into a place they shouldn’t have, and whatever was there looked back. Mutants were an accident. The atmosphere pollution—the gas—is still uncontrollable.”

  He huffed a sad laugh. “They make it seem like it’s humanity’s enemies trying to kill them, but really it’s human greed not caring about consequences. Naturally, they blame it on the terrorists, or the nasty alien war-race on the other side of the galaxy that hardly anyone ever sees. An enemy without a face—a race we stopped fighting years ago.”

  Kelly stared at him, the pieces clicking together with a final, terrible clarity. “So let me get this straight,” she said, her voice losing its playful edge. “You’re saying humans are the reason Earth is being invaded? And the reason we have actual ‘gods’ knocking on our door? Like that Eldritch temporal-fairy-god hanging over Times Square… wait, is that guy even a god? Or just a being possessed by one? Like the Verrisimir?”

  The aged veteran, Ren, gave a faint, grim motion with his shoulders. “Who knows? Maybe it’s a god. Maybe it’s a being from a dimension we can’t comprehend wearing a dead god’s skin. Maybe it’s something else. The rumors at my level are varied. Classified. Contradictory.” He fixed her with a piercing look. “If you are really in a time loop, then it’s likely a mutation. A high-order one, connected to the upper echelon of such phenomena. It makes me doubt whoever you think are your parents ever were your real parents.”

  Oh, god. Not this again.

  Kelly already knew the exact cause of the time loop. If anyone else in her lab had been standing in her position, they’d be the one stuck in the never-ending day instead. The primary catalyst was that… thing floating above Times Square. The orbital cannons must have actually hurt it. Forced it to rewind time somehow, and the proof was in the changed timeline. That would also explain the few times it had specifically, personally targeted her.

  But a lot of things about it suggested it wasn’t omnipotent. Whatever time powers the conductor had, they couldn’t be that impressive if it couldn’t block a mere orbital strike. It couldn’t even see through her loops. The scrub.

  Kelly’s working theory was that it had erased the miniature Higgs cannon attack from the timeline, and in doing so, caused a feedback explosion that triggered with the Project Portal and the cube. She’d been standing closest to mankind’s first attempt at a stupid, glorious idea. The blast didn’t kill her. It just… shunted her. Either she’d stolen a fragment of its power, or she’d tapped into a dimension no being was ever meant to touch, one where time was a personal playground, and it had altered her and her soul forever.

  Tuesday. It was always Tuesday.

  “So you actually believe me then?” Kelly asked, the disbelief clear in her tone. “Usually people call for a psych-ward. The only people who ever noticed something different about me were Venus Vaughn—but she’s the daughter of the most powerful man in the corporate sphere—and Verrisimir, who was being babysat by an asshole order god. Dr. Haider believed me, but he’s basically a genius who does mad, illegal insanity for a living, so he doesn’t count.”

  Ren tapped his palm. “Without the right detection tech, they’re probably the only people who could,” he said. “Aside from maybe a Tüin war priest, and they almost never leave their homeworld. There may be more among the echelon, but there most certainly will be more creatures like that angel you referred to. Verrisimir. Like the humanoid above Times Square, or that thing in China. If you don’t want your mind wiped, you should avoid them, kill them on sight, or find a way to protect your mind.”

  Kelly nodded slowly, the memory of the order god’s corrosive power a sharp, cold spike in her memory. “Yeah. I got that memo.”

  “You’re awfully open-minded,” she continued, studying him. “And free with global secrets for someone connected to the echelon. These are the type of secrets that get people disappeared and never heard from again. Why are you telling me this? My NDA covered proprietary research, not the origin of the invasion. Why take me seriously without proof?”

  “Because I was there,” Ren said, his voice dropping into a gravelly register. “I was there when they brought the first confirmed mutant in. I was in the room when something calling itself a god peered through the first stabilized portal. Months ago. And twenty-one years ago, I was there when the first temporal mutant was captured and shipped. I saw the scans. Parts of its mind existed in more than one place at once. I was in the room when its death was reported.”

  His eyes locked onto hers. “The timing matches your age. Twenty-one years. Even if you are not related. Even if you have different origins. Even if you’re unrelated to the Echelon. Even if that person was an ant when compared to what you can do. Your paths intersect. Trust me. In my line of work, you see a lot. People tend to treat operatives like wallpaper.”

  Kelly found herself sitting completely still, her jaw slightly slack. Was he an assassin? A spook? Just a bodyguard who’d been in the wrong room for thirty years?

  “If that’s all true,” she said, her voice quiet, “why aren’t you trying to capture me?”

  Ren’s expression didn’t change. “Because your existence would upset people I enjoy seeing upset.” He stood up, the question dismissed. “Let’s begin, then. It’s time for the final stage of your combat assessment.”

  The floor shifted. The table sank. Ren unbuttoned his shirt, revealing combat gear.

  It was time for Kelly to fight Ren Sato, the ancient war veteran and Elite, with a level that outstripped hers by far. This time, there would be no distractions. No dome. No cube. No explosion. Not even the threat of a city-leveling blast to use as a backdrop or to impair her enemy.

  All there would be was Kelly, her magic, and her weapons.

  And Kelly couldn’t wait.