The Loop

We spotted the outskirts of Shale, Utah an hour and a half after a thin and flimsy dawn light achieved an uncertain victory over the inky blackness of the night it banished. The town was quite a bit smaller than Page, and remarkably less destroyed given its proximity to one of the Abominations’ landing sites.

“Is that where we’re headed?” I asked. Of course I already knew the answer; I could see it in the way Tomas’s mind, which had been subdued for days, lit up with sparks and currents of excited energy. I wasn’t making a conscious effort to look into Tomas’s mind, but such was the strength of the man’s sudden excitement that it was impossible to ignore. I had almost forgotten over the past week or so that I was even telepathic.

It occurred to me just how little I’d used my powers over the past few days. I had made a point of asking Tomas why he hadn’t used his power to save the two of us some time and energy the previous day, but it had scarcely occurred to me that if the use of powers was on the table, I could have probably just flown us the distance from Phoenix to the Utah border in less than half the time it had taken us to walk. But using my powers seemed dangerous. It was superstition, I knew, but some part of me believed that it was a bad omen; that it would draw them like flies to the rot. And Tomas was right; the time for the trivial use of powers had passed. Now I didn’t feel like using mine unless it was for something important—something good.

As we passed into the outskirts of the town, I sensed people moving along side streets parallel to the main road we were on, passing through abandoned buildings and alleyways to encircle us. But almost as soon as I noticed them, they stopped being cautious and came out into the open. Among them was Lakshmi, and even though she was the one we had come to see, I couldn’t help putting my guard up. But I needn’t have bothered. She approached me and wrapped me in an unexpected embrace.

“Gods, it’s good to see you alive,” she said.

“Is it?” I asked, bewildered.

I felt something on the surface of Tomas’s mind. It was a sort of recognition, but of course I couldn’t see what it was about, as any deeper probing yielded only images of butterflies.

“How far?” he asked her.

“Just over four hours,” she replied. I was beginning to understand.

“Then you already know why we’re here,” he said.

“Yes, and there’s no time to waste. I wish I could have seen Prisha again.”

“You will,” I said.

“How bad was it?” Tomas asked.

Her stare said enough.

“Did I die?” I asked, understanding that if it had been an option, Tomas would have sent my mind back instead of hers.

“You saved us,” she said.

“How heroic,” I said without inflection.

“It’s more than I would ever have done,” she said.

“Or me, my friend,” added Tomas.

“So they’re on their way?” I asked.

“Yes. And not just them. But never mind that. We don’t have enough time to discuss it. You already made all your arguments once. It has to happen. You need my help, or rather you need my power. It has to be Adam, et cetera. I took some convincing the first time around, but I won’t waste your time again, and I certainly won’t waste my own.”

She led us to a large square in the middle of town, and she sat Tomas and me side by side on a ruined fountain while she stood before us and started concentrating her power. Immediately I felt it humming inside me. My skin prickled and my hair felt like it was standing on end. The range of my awareness started expanding. Everything became clearer, sharper, more colorful and more vivid. Next to me, I could sense Tomas experiencing something very similar. It was a little different for him, because his powers were different, but the effect was the same: he was high.

“I could get used to this feeling, my friends,” he said. “But I fear we don’t have time.”

“How far back do you need to send him?” Lakshmi asked Tomas.

“As far back as I possibly can. As close to the start as I can get him.”

“I’ll give you as much of a boost as I can,” she replied.

Her eyes began to glow. She was pushing her power harder than I’d ever known her to. Ordinarily such an overextension would cost her dearly later on, probably leaving her nearly comatose for a few days. Of course she didn’t need to worry about that now. She started floating.

“That’s as far as I can go. If you’re going to do something, you’d better do it.”

“Wait,” I said, “I’m not sure if I can do this. I don’t … I don’t know if I’m the right man for the job. Even if it works—even if I wake up six or seven years ago and remember all this—it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to prevent anything. How will I know what to do?”

“A couple things, my friend,” said Tomas, already reaching his hands out to either side of my head. “For starters, you won’t remember everything, at least not right away. With how far back I’m sending you, your memories will come back over time—maybe a long time—and you might have trouble accepting that they’re real. And secondly, if this works, you will save us all. You will find a way. I know you will.”

He reached his hands out toward me and I flinched back, with the question that was nagging me in the back of my mind demanding to be asked before it was too late.

“How do we know we haven't done this all before?” I asked.

This gave Tomas pause, and even Lakshmi looked down upon us with a questioning gaze, despite how much concentration this extension of her power must have been taking to maintain.

“Well … do you remember doing all of this once before?” asked Tomas.

“No,” I admitted. “But that doesn't mean someone else didn't.”

“I suppose it's a possibility, my friend. But if someone else already did what you’re about to do—came back to try to prevent the apocalypse—and we still reached this point, then all that shows is that they failed. That doesn't mean you will. In fact, I'm certain you'll succeed.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because, my friend, you always do. And because you have to.”

He placed his palms on my temples, and for a few moments, I felt the flow of time as he felt it, not as something to catch us and carry us along, but as something to be caught. Time was malleable, I understood. Time was an illusion. I had just enough time to pity him for the tragedy that he could never really experience the fullness of his own power first hand—to see the truth of time and its intricate beauty laid out plainly—and then time stopped existing, and so did everything else, including me.