It takes a few minutes, a quiet dodge around four panicked crew, and a lucky escape from a burst of plasma in Stairwell A, but we make our way up to the hab level above. The station continues to quake around us as Fin and I creep along, hand in hand. We step into Pinkerton’s office/antiques collection, and I can see the worry in Zila’s eyes, note the thick black curl of hair she’s chewing on. Maybe for the first time ever, she actually looks genuinely frazzled as she glowers at me. Our good Lieutenant Nari “Hawk” Kim is standing beside Zila, staring at the glowing screens. She looks like somebody shot her dog.
“Where have you two been?” Zila demands.
“Zil, you okay?” Fin asks.
“I asked where you’ve been,” she demands, looking me over. “But given the fact that Scarlett’s shirt is untucked and you have bite marks on your neck, I need not have bothered.”
“We took care of the security patrol, Z,” I say. “Just like we were supposed to. Hence you not getting shot. If we took a little detour afterward—”
“That was foolish and selfish,” she snaps. “There are things I would rather be doing too, Scarlett.”
I admit, my hackles rise a little at that. I glance pointedly at Lieutenant Nari Kim hovering over our Brain’s shoulder, and folding my arms, I shoot Zila a meaningful stare. “Yeah, I bet there are, Z. And nobody’s going to judge if you two—”
“That is not what I meant,” Zila says, flushing as she glances at Nari. “Some of us have more important things on our minds than trivial flirtations. Some of us are trying to figure a way out of this mess!”
Fin looks taken aback as Zila’s tone almost rises to a shout. I make a note to put in a call to the Galactic Book of Records.
First time she’s ever done that.
“Zil, what’s the big deal?” he asks.
“How can you possibly ask that, Finian?” Zila demands. “You know as well as I do the level of complexity I am dealing with here!”
“Look, yeah, okay.” He scratches his mussed hair, shooting me an embarrassed look. “Maybe me and Scar took some time for ourselves. I’m sorry, I should be helping you more. I’ll do it next time—it’s no big deal, right? We’ve got literally infinity to solve this. If we mess things up, we just try again until we work it out and break free of the loop, yeah?”
Zila shakes her head, and returns to her readouts.
“When our next loop commences, I require you to devote your efforts to Magellan.”
Fin blinks, and I almost laugh as I glance at Finian’s backpack, the fried remains of Aurora’s uniglass inside it.
“You actually want me to repair that piece of chakk?” He gestures to the glass cases around us. “Z, you’d get more use out of one of these antiques!”
“I will also require your uniglass. Yours too, Scarlett.”
“What for?” I ask. “It’s not like there’s a network for them to—”
“We can network them with each other.” Zila almost scowls at the screens in front of her. “This system is simply too primitive, and I need all the computing power I can get to perform this math.” She rubs her eyes, her face underscored by the glow of her screens. “Something is wrong.”
Fin shuffles closer to the console, taking this more seriously now. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
The loudspeaker cuts Zila’s reply off.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT CASCADE IN EFFECT. CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT, T MINUS THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING. ALL HANDS PROCEED TO EVACUATION PODS IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CORE IMPLOSION IN THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING.”
And there it is.
The end of the loop.
Dying time again.
The station starts to shake around us, and I take Finian’s hand. Comforted by the strength in his grip, the warmth of his body as I lean against him. But Fin pays no attention, instead staring at the time readout on Zila’s wrist. The digital numbers flash on the timer she sets at the start of every loop.
“That can’t be right … ,” Fin says.
Zila meets his stare, lips pursed. “I was wondering when you would notice.”
“Have you checked this?” he demands. “It’s not a glitch?”
“We noticed it a few loops ago,” Nari says quietly. “Well, Zila did. But she wanted to make sure before telling you.”
Zila holds Finian’s eyes a moment longer, then turns her little death glare on me. “Perhaps if you two were not so distracted …”