Chapter 68: The First Truth

  With Freeze on, everything – dust, stones, and metal beams – came to a stop.

  Careful not to twitch, I tried to scan my frozen surroundings and assess the dire situation.

  It didn’t take a genius to understand I was completely, utterly screwed.

  Well, at least Checkpoint was still on.

  No! I need to stop thinking like that.

  If I died here, what would I even redo in the Checkpoint run?

  KNOWING was a dead end. Riven – Wesley, whatever – would still fight Vorrick. Still get mauled by Vorrick. And I’d be left with nothing new.

  And that’s even without mentioning how quickly my brain began to cheapen my life into an “oh well, but I still have one more go.”

  Ugh. Get your shit together, Vik.

  I forced myself to look around. To think about how I could still salvage this situation.

  Riven was the closest to me, sprawled on the ground with the detonator in his hand. Alice was just behind me – even closer.

  Vorrick was the furthest away because of the push Riven gave him – and frankly, after what he’d done to Thea, I didn’t care if the ceiling crushed him. Fuck, I even hoped it did.

  An odd Déjà vu tingled in my mind at the thought of a falling ceiling but not understanding what it meant, I brushed it off.

  I continued thinking about other ways to save this.

  Timeline? No. Even if I could rewind the ceiling’s state – which was a huge if – it would hand Vorrick the win and also draw his and Alice’s attention. Vorrick – despite being with Dolos – didn’t seem to to know who I was. Better keep it that way.

  Then what else?

  The best I could think of was creating cover with a Cryora. My COG’s Quality function was high – high enough to survive a collapsing roof? No clue. Was I even quick enough to pull this off? Hope so. Did I have a better idea? None.

  Damn. I wish I still had Slow.

  Taking a deep breath, I moved, and time resumed.

  I summoned a Cryora and immediately slammed it into the Channel Core, already turning toward Alice.

  [Burn Rate lvl. 5: Cryora is burning. Time left – 00:04:59]

  I grabbed her by the waist and lunged for Riven. Crashing on top of him, I turned with my hands up and threw an ice dome over us as the first slabs of stone began to fall.

  The ceiling hit like a tram. My barrier splintered, the frost cracked. I couldn’t hold it under the weight.

  Everything went black.

  ***

  When I woke up, I realized someone was dragging me across the jagged floor by the back of my jacket.

  Panicking, my arms shot out. The pulling stopped and I was released.

  I rolled onto my side and blinked at the familiar figure: a dog-shaped automaton.

  Déjà vu kicked in together with the memories of the Obsidian Crow.

  “Zee!” I called out.

  He sat down a few paces away, watching me in silence. Dust was covering his frame, and several of his back panels were dented.

  Did he shield me from the falling debris?

  Wait a minute…

  “How did you even get out of the Inventory again?” I muttered, knowing fully well he couldn’t answer. “That’s the second time already…”

  I crawled closer and used Timeline on him. Nothing changed – the damage stayed. Meaning, I was out for quite some time – longer than the couple of minutes Timeline allowed me to rewind. Which also meant I’d have to repair him the old-fashioned way as his damage would carry over to future runs.

  Only now, fully realizing I was still alive, did I look for Alice and Riven.

  “Did you grab them too?” I asked Zee, then shook my head.

  Stop talking to the machine, Viktor.

  My eyes followed the scuffed trail my boots left as he dragged me. I retraced it, heart hammering, until I found them.

  Despite my body and the Cryora’s ice dome shielding them, both Alice and Riven lay unconscious under scattered rocks, beams, and dust.

  I sprinted toward them.

  Clearing the rubble off, I called out to them.

  “Hey! Wake up!”

  I shook Riven.

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  No response.

  I turned to Alice, brushing stone chips off her face, then pressed my fingers to her neck.

  No pulse.

  “Fuck…” I pressed my ear to her chest. Nothing.

  My arms went limp. I slumped back onto my rear and stared at her still and peaceful form.

  Damn. Despite everything I’d tried, I couldn’t save her.

  The only comfort was knowing this loop wouldn’t be the last. She will still live.

  A ragged cough snapped me out of it.

  Riven’s chest heaved as his head rolled weakly from side to side.

  “Relax, you’re alive,” I said, turning toward him.

  His eyes found me, and he froze. Then, he smiled slowly.

  The dust and blood covering his grin made him look unsettling.

  “Please tell me he’s dead,” he rasped, coughing again.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “He could’ve saved himself – might just be buried somewhere under here.”

  His gaze flicked to Alice. He sighed slowly as if mourning, though it didn’t look genuine. “She dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a shame…”

  I motioned for Zee to come closer.

  Riven noticed the automaton and his smile returned. “If it isn’t Zee.”

  I blinked. “You know him?”

  “Who do you think wrapped Thea’s COG around him and set him circling himself in her room in the asylum?”

  That didn’t ring a bell. Just faint Déjà vus.

  He tried to rise and instantly groaned. “Fuck. Think I broke something. Many somethings.”

  His casual dismissal of Alice’s death flipped a switch in me.

  I leaned over him, voice hard. “Then stay down. You don’t have to move to tell me what I want to know.”

  He blinked at me. “Excuse me, what?”

  “You heard me.” My hands curled into fists. “You’re going to tell me everything you know – or I’ll find Casten Vorrick’s body and nurse him back to life so he can finish the job.”

  ***

  We made our way through the rubble, Zee dragging the bleeding Riven before me, stopping at the black, Aetheris-glowing boxes section of the tunnel.

  The explosives Libra set had not only dropped the ceiling in the chamber outside of KNOWING, but in this area as well.

  Still, the Building itself stood strong. I could still see the upper floors above – intact.

  Riven refused to say a word earlier, fearful that Casten Vorrick might suddenly claw his way out and finish him off, so this was the safest spot I could think of. Additionally, he ensured me Libra did launch an attack on the Archives' Blood Storage, so Ironwatch would focus on that area first.

  His coughs sounded wetter now, followed by trails of blood from his mouth.

  He was dying.

  My gaze flicked to the buried black boxes and the same chill from before crawled up my spine.

  “Are you the second looper?” I asked flatly. “Are you Dolos’ Champion?”

  If the Obsidian Crows were minutes away, I wanted to get answers before he died.

  “I have no idea who that is,” Riven said with a crooked, pained smile.

  I didn’t buy it. “Then how did you know I couldn’t store written objects? Why did you say that?”

  “How do you think?” He gave a dry chuckle.

  I approached and stood over him.

  “Listen,” I said quietly. “It’s not too late for me to drag you back to Vorrick.”

  No headaches again. Good. It meant he wasn’t “innocent” – I could push even harder if I wanted.

  “Fine.” Riven sighed – a painful sound. “I can’t say I fully understand it, but V told me about it – the time loop. It was enough for me to get the gist of it. He ordered me to meet you here today – this loop. Told me what I need to say to trigger you. To pass you the note. Like I said before – he is never wrong. Everything he says will happen - happens.”

  Unless Valdemar had some other way to sense the time loop – the one Chronos briefly mentioned before – it was safe to assume he was the second looper.

  But how do I pass this certainty to my next self? Starting each loop with a list of suspects was just hurting my decision making.

  Then, my eyes narrowed, my mind only now comprehending what Riven just said.

  “Wait…but telling you should get him marked…” I muttered under my nose.

  Riven released a half-chuckle. “He told me about that too. There’s a trick he uses.”

  “What trick?”

  “He calls it the ‘Long Chain’,” Riven replied. “He passes the order to one operative, who then passes it to another, who then passes it to another, and so on until it reaches the target ten operatives later. Like I said, I don’t fully get it, but he said that the longer the chain, the less likely he is to get marked.”

  I stood frozen.

  That wasn’t even smart. Just resourceful.

  He uses the fact he has plenty of people under his command. That’s not something I’d ever be able to pull off.

  If that’s the genius trick Dolos was bragging about, I wasn’t impressed.

  Still clueless about how to make myself remember Valdemar was the second looper, I pressed on with my investigation.

  "You know Vorrick personally. What happened between you two?"

  Riven smiled weakly. "That's a tale for a healthier me."

  “Fine," I said. "Then what you said about Alice’s parents – truth or bait? Did Vorrick actually kill them?”

  “The truth,” Riven said without hesitation, then coughed blood again. He wiped his mouth before continuing. “V told me himself.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You sound like a fanatic. Valdemar could be lying to you. Are you really that gullible?”

  Riven’s smile widened. “He had no reason to kill them, if that’s what you’re implying. In fact, the Verldsons were just about to help Libra.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They’d grown a…late guilty conscience.”

  “What does that mean?”

  His voice became weaker now. “It means they knew Solvane’s darkest secret all along, lived with it for years, and then decided they couldn’t anymore. They tried to clean their moral compass. Vorrick found out and had to off them.”

  Fearing he might internally bleed out before I could ask what mattered most, I crouched beside him, shaking him, forcing his eyes to stay open.

  “Hey. Don’t die yet. What about the secret? What is it?”

  He smiled, repeating the same maddening line I heard so many times already.

  “Have you ever wondered what would happen if you fed your COG an Aetheris?”

  I blinked. “For fuck’s sake, can’t you just tell me?!”

  He shook his head slowly, whispering now. “Reach into my jacket. Pocket. There’s something for you.”

  My fingers found a silver necklace – a dented bullet dangling from it, as if it had struck something hard.

  The bullet glowed faintly purple.

  [Temporal Trace: Vestige of Time #2 - Available]

  Another Vestige memory…

  Before I could press him further, Riven exhaled one last time. “Next time I fight Vorrick…throw me…a good…hint.”

  He stopped responding.

  I stared at the bullet in my palm, considering whether to see the memory first.

  But my curiosity decided against it.

  Instead, I summoned the Dematerializer and slotted the extension into the COG’s Integration Port.

  [Dematerializer is Active]

  [Déjà vu System: Level 21]

  [Progress until next Level: 0%]

  [Metals needed for Level 22: Tungsten – 57g, Nickel – 60, Tantalum – 52g]

  [You may proceed with the upgrade phase]

  Then, I summoned one of the Aetherises from the Inventory as well. The white-glowing crystal materialized in my left hand.

  Heart pounding, I slowly brought it toward the Dematerializer’s open maw.

  Fear wrapped around me – fear that this was Valdemar’s trap, fear of being led on. But bigger than the rest was the fear of what I might learn.

  Hand trembling, I took a breath and dropped the Aetheris into my COG.

  A second later, my COG was humming – then basically screaming.

  I thought it was going to explode and had my fingers on the buckles to rip it off when, just as suddenly, it spat the crystal back out and a message appeared.

  A message that shattered my understanding of everything.

  [ERROR]

  [The Dematerializer cannot process organic matter of human origin]