—July 9, 2145, 01:00:00— (99 Streams Ago)

  The door to the Silver Skillet flew open, the small bells tied to the handle jangling not with their usual cheerful greeting, but with a thin, agonized cry. Adam stalked in, the smell of stale grease and burnt coffee doing nothing to soothe the fury coiled in his gut. He zeroed in on the back corner booth and slammed himself into the cracked vinyl seat, the frame groaning in protest.

  Leo looked up from his datapad, a half-eaten plate of food and a steaming mug of coffee in front of him. He took one look at Adam and raised an eyebrow. "Holy hell, kid. You look like shit."

  Adam felt like he looked. “Yeah.” He acknowledged, looking away from the detective toward the window.

  “How long was it this time?”

  Adam brought his gaze toward the Formica tabletop, a dull thrumming starting behind his eyes. "Three years," he said, his voice a dry rasp. "I spent three years in that loop."

  "Three years?" Leo set his datapad down, his expression hardening slightly. “And how many jumps?”

  “Twenty one.” Adam admitted.

  “Christ!” Leo exclaimed. “You know you’ll need to be more efficient than that. We have no idea how many more times this is gonna take."

  "I know," Adam sighed, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a bone-deep weariness. He felt a hundred years old. "I thought I had it this time, Leo. I’m getting closer. I know it."

  Leo grabbed his last strip of bacon, gnawing off a bite with a deliberate crunch. He washed it down with a gulp of coffee, his eyes never leaving Adam. Footsteps connected to a beehive of silver hair ambled over. "Alright, you two," Doris said, her voice as warm and worn as the diner itself. "Same thing as last week, sugar cakes?" she asked, nudging her head toward Adam.

  Last week? The words hit Adam with unexpected weight. A week. It had only been a week for them. He felt like he was drowning. He couldn't even remember what he'd ordered.

  "Sure," he mumbled.

  Doris winked. "You're lookin' more and more handsome every time you come in, sweetheart. Pretty soon, I'm gonna have to make a pass at you myself."

  Leo let out a bark of laughter. Doris chuckled and shuffled back toward the kitchen.

  Leo’s laughter faded as he stared at Adam, his gaze sharp, trying to read the story etched onto his face. "Well," he said, his tone softening slightly. "At least you didn't die this time. That's worth something."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Adam peeled back his shirt sleeve, revealing a mess of twisted, shiny scar tissue that crawled up his forearm. "Came close a couple times," he said, his voice flat.

  Leo leaned forward, taking Adam's arm with a theatrical air of mock politeness. He inspected the damage with the detached curiosity of a man looking at a strange insect. "Oh, my," he said, feigning a wince. "Yeah, those Copil flares can be a real bitch."

  Adam snatched his arm back.

  "You'll live," Leo said with a shrug. He shoved the last piece of bacon into his mouth, grabbed a clean napkin from the dispenser, and meticulously wiped his hands and face. He took another hot sip of coffee, the steam fogging his glasses for a moment. "Alright. Enlighten me. What the hell have you been up to for three fucking years?"

  Adam leaned forward, lowering his voice. "First off, my handler at the Citadel. Gustav. He's been compromised. We'll need to find someone else to start out with this time."

  Leo waved a dismissive hand. "Not a problem. I have a few others we can use up there. What else?"

  "Marla," Adam continued. "I got close with her this time. I was right. She has access to the cabinet.”

  Leo held up a hand, his fork freezing halfway to his mouth. "Wait a minute. Isn't she the one that had you shot last time around?"

  Adam nodded, brushing it off like a piece of lint. "Yeah, that was a misunderstanding. We're good now."

  "Right," Leo said, clearly unconvinced but letting it go.

  Adam ignored his cynical tone. “This time... I got through to her. She helped me get to the bottom of what they're working on."

  "The secret project?"

  "Right," Adam said, getting back on track. "They know we've developed the Loom. Not everything about it, but they've figured out enough to know they need one too. And they have reason to believe the other cities are working on something similar."

  Leo snorted. "Yeah, we’re aware of a few of ‘em. The Euro-Polis Complex has been close to a teleportation system for a few years now." he scoffed, taking a sip of coffee. "Apparently, they figured out how to do it with dogs, but the first few humans got transposed into low orbit. Total mess."

  Adam leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I know what the Citadel's building now, Leo. And they're getting close."

  Leo's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of genuine interest cutting through his cynical armor. "The thing that causes the incident?"

  Adam shook his head slowly. "No. Something different."

  He paused, letting the weight of the statement settle in the greasy air of the diner.

  Leo tilted his head. "Different how?"

  "It's not like the Loom," Adam explained, struggling to put the sheer scale of it into words. "I think it leads to what they will try to build next, the thing that causes the incident. But this thing..." He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, the memory of the things he saw, the sheer audacity of the idea of it, making him dizzy.

  "What?" Leo prodded, leaning forward.

  Adam opened his eyes and stared through Leo, through the greasy spoon, into a future he couldn't fathom.

  "Leo," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "If they finish this, they’ll have access to more power than the world has ever seen.”