Learning to Love Time Loops Without Going Insane

Andy checked Cal in as a guest for the day. In theory this just meant Cal was free to tour some of the building. It did not mean he was allowed in the lab they were currently eating lunch in. Cal figured it was easier to do this somewhat by the books, the loop was ending today anyway so there couldn’t be many ramifications from the lack of stealth. This was the first time he’d been able to just sit and relax in the lab during any of the loops, especially with someone who knew what everything in the room did.

“Hey Cal, what do you think is going to happen to me when we put Barron back together?” Andy asked his friend. Cal noticed the concern in his voice.

“Worried about permanently becoming the jackass version of you?” Cal tried to calm Andy down with some humor.

“Yes.” It hadn’t worked.

“Well look at it this way, he was always you, just you without all of us. I’m betting even if you two integrate back into one person it will be more of just extra memories. You will still be you.” Cal had no idea if this was true, but he thought it was best to try and comfort Andy. Death was scary, it still scared him. Despite the possibilities of his immortality he was extremely uncomfortable every time he faced it. For Andy who didn’t have reassurance of looping memories it had to be much worse to do this every time.

“I hope I’m still around. I really want to help everyone and make sure we win this.” Andy now had a half hearted smile. Cal wished there was more he could do, but they were nearing go time.

“Time to start piling stuff in front of the door. Let’s make it as hard as possible for this to fail.” Cal stood up and started moving chairs and tables in front of the door. Andy joined him.

“Do you think the others are doing okay?” Andy broke the silence.

“I hope so, we should find out soon.”

Cal’s words were met with the first crack opening in the room and a large generator, identical to another one already in the room crashing to the ground.

“Well that’s one down. In hindsight we should have added some way to identify the sender in case anything does go wrong. Too late to worry about that this loop though.” Cal pushed the generator to the side of the room.

“How do you manage to keep all the loops straight?”

“I don’t, it’s a giant mess up here in my brain, I’m running on the benefit that none of you know how wrong I am all the time, well except Bug and she’s far too nice to say anything.” Andy laughed.

Another crack opened in the air and a second generator dropped down.

“Two down!” Andy shouted, sounding genuinely excited now.

Two hours passed and they still didn’t have the third. Cal was concerned. Future Andy was about to show up, they didn’t have much time left before everything went white. He really wished he knew who was missing now. Next time they would label these.

“Ugh, not feeling great, it’s time.” Andy threw up as he alerted Cal to his incoming personality shift.

“So we are still missing the last one then?” The tone had changed, future Andy was now running the body.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it.” future Andy sighed loudly as he made his displeasure apparent.

“Same, but there’s not much we can do right now.” Andy was about to add more when a third crack opened and the final generator dropped into place. “Never mind, we have all three. Now we wait for the flash.”

Banging started on the door a few minutes later. The aliens had arrived.

“Hey Cal, I just want you to know if I don’t make it through this. Thank you, and sorry for being so difficult. I’m a bit crazy these days.” Future Andy gave what Cal thought was an attempt at a friendly smile. He managed to make it look creepy though.

“I get it, shit’s hard. But we are going to get through this. Probably. We have your favorite thing on our side after all. Magic.” Cal gave Andy a real smile in return.

“Bah, magic.”

They both burst into laughter as they waited out the white flash. It came, and it changed this time, for the first time. The generators melded into each other and lines of what looked to Cal like black lightning shot through the cracks and flooded the room. He had no idea what those were and no time to think about it as everything once again ended.