Chapter 42: Chapter 29.2: May Contain Quantum

“Uh-”

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Lijia said. She flicked the sword in her hand, ending with the tip pointed at Vell’s heart.

“I just feel like you escalated very drastically,” Vell said. “And not necessarily in a direction that makes sense. You know we’re loopers too, right?”

“Oh I’m not just talking about today, ‘Billy’,” Lijia said, turning Vell’s pseudonym into an insult. “Though, on the topic of today: Do you know how much blood a body can lose before you die?”

“Yes.”

Vell had been exsanguinated more than once at this point. Lijia took his casual response in stride and continued with her threat.

“So do I. And my time in the loops has taught me quite a few very painful ways to not die,” Lijia said. “And I’ll demonstrate every single one of them on you, until you tell me everything I want to hear about yourselves, you future, and more importantly, my future.”

Lijia flicked her blade playfully, ending her flourish by once again pointing the tip in the direction of Vell’s heart.

“My offer’s on the table, Bill,” Lijia said. “And I won’t be negotiating.”

“Right. I think I’m all set, however, Jane might have something to say.”

Vell then finally turned all the way around and gestured to Leanne. Leanne looked over her own shoulder and then looked back at Vell, confused.

“You’re Jane,” Vell reminded her. Leanne finally picked up on her cue and punched Lijia in the face. The unexpected impact knocked Lijia off her feet and sent her flying about ten feet back, further than even Vell had been expecting. Wheile Lijia rolled in the dirt, Leanne grabbed Vell by the wrist and started running in a random direction.

In the ground where they’d left her, Lijia stood up and grabbed at her broken nose. A crowd had gathered around her fallen form, questioning what, if anything, they should do, and they backed away as Lijia stood and roared with bloody anger at the fact that someone had dared to lay a hand on her.

“Are you okay?” Someone asked. “Why’d that cat punch you?”

“She was-”

A sly smile parted Lijia’s bloody lips. “Bill” and “Jane” had made an enemy of her -and now they were going to make an enemy of the entire campus.

“Well, that Russian lady and her partner were just trying to recruit me to their feminist movement,” Lijia said. “I just casually mentioned I hope the Vietnam War ends soon and she starts talking about how the ‘Cong deserve it’ and then punched me right in the face.”

She got no reaction. Lijia wracked her brain for another way to make the people of the early 70’s hate someone on principle.

“Did I mention they’re also in the IRA?”

“They’re Russian and in the IRA?”

“They’re very well traveled,” Lijia insisted.

Someone at the edge of the crowd coughed. Lijia put a hand to her bloody chin.

“What really surprised me, though, was that they think David Bowie is overrated.”

Lijia had barely finished her sentence before the angry mob went on the hunt.

----------------------------------------

Leanne slammed the door of the empty classroom and pushed a heavy looking desk in front of it. Vell took a seat and caught his breath. Trying to keep up with Leanne was arduous even at her slowest pace.

“Okay, this is bad,” Vell said. “We need to get back to our time.”

Vell rested his head in his hands and took a deep breath.

“I really wish I knew how time travel worked.”

“We have to close the loop.”

Vell looked up. Leanne pointed to herself.

“Yeah, I figured that was you, it’s just-”

“Now’s really not the time for my usual silent treatment,” Leanne said. They had no back-up and a psychopath with a sword chasing them. Leanne wasn’t stubborn enough to make Vell play charades with her at a time like this.

“I appreciate that, but I hope this isn’t too out of line with our usual-”

Leanne averted her gaze in a way that made the hair on the back of Vell’s neck stand up.

“Leanne, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I- Well, that’s the problem, I don’t know,” Leanne said. “Time travel’s happened before, but nobody’s ever died. Usually when we die on the first loop, we wake up the morning of the same day, but if when we die isn’t technically the same day…”

The sudden return of silence from Leanne sent a chill through the air. Vell didn’t like to assume the worst, but he also didn’t feel like risking his life to test that assumption.

“Okay, I, uh, I think we just have to stay focused,” Vell said. “Staying alive isn’t so hard. Most people do it every day.”

Leanne nodded along. They had become accustomed to dying on schedule, it would be a refreshing change of pace to actually fight for their lives for once.

“What were you saying about closing the loop?”

“Oh right, talking,” Leanne said. Like dying, silence had become her usual routine. “Well, it’s like...Hmm…”

Not only did Leanne struggle with talking to a fellow looper, she also struggled with complex temporal science. She grabbed a piece of chalk and tried to draw visual aids to streamline the process.

“When two ends of time get connected by whatever, a sort of tunnel-thingy happens and an object can get lost through the time tunnel, and as long as the object isn’t when -Or is it where? I forget, whatever. Until the object that got lost gets where it belongs, the tunnel stays open until time collapses around the void,” Leanne explained. “But if you put the object back, everything sort of disentangles itself and is fine. I think quantum is involved.”

Leanne put the chalk down, and looked at her diagram, which she now realized consisted of two wobbly lines, a circle, and a question mark, with a few arrows connecting them in ways even Leanne didn’t understand.

“Does that make sense?”

“Yes, but mostly on accident,” Vell said. She’d repeated the word “object” enough to jog Vell’s memory, at least. He checked all the pockets of his borrowed khaki’s and came up empty-handed. “Damn it. You didn’t, uh, grab that pen by any chance, did you?”

Leanne shook her head. She shared Vell’s suspicion that the pen was what had formed the temporal anomaly in the first place.

“It’s probably with our clothes,” Leanne said.

“Back in Lijia’s dorm,” Vell sighed.

The barricaded door rattled on its hinges. The two time-travelers waited silently, and then backed away as someone tried to open the door again, more forcefully this time.

“We really should’ve picked a room with two exits,” Vell said.

“I did,” Leanne said. She grabbed a desk and flicked her wrist, sending it sailing through the nearest window. After clearing away a few of the larger broken shards, Leanne stepped through and helped Vell get through safely as well, putting them back on the quad. Vell looked over his shoulder at the broken window.

“You know, I think that opened, actually,” he noted.

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“I felt like breaking something,” Leanne admitted.

“Understandable. Let’s get going.”

“There’s the heretics!”

Leanne didn’t even bother turning towards the source of the voice. She grabbed Vell and ran in the opposite direction, ducking and weaving to try and break their line of sight and avoid attention.

“Are we heretics now? Did you do something heretical?”

Before answering the question, Leanne ran into a dorm building and broke off the door handle behind them. The building seemed quiet, so she slowed the pace.

“People in this school get culty real easily,” Leanne said. “Lijia might be riling them up.”

“Jesus, manipulating people into her own personal army? Who does that?”

“Lijia Mian, apparently,” Leanne said. “You wanted to know more about her, now you know she’s violently psychotic. Congratulations.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Leanne said. “Not like you chose to send us here. Universe just wants to make our lives as complicated as possible.”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Vell agreed. “Though uh, speaking of complicated, do you have any future knowledge or stuff that could be useful right now?”

“Got my phone. You?”

“Same,” Vell said. He took out his smartphone and examined the few apps and systems that still functioned in the past. “No service, obviously. Maybe I can blow their mind with some future music from this playlist I haven’t updated in two years.”

“You into rap? Maybe you can blow some old school prude minds with some mumbling guy talking about cocaine.”

Lacking anything better to do, Vell gave his playlist a quick scroll as they walked up the stairs towards Lijia’s dorm.

“I don’t think so? I’ve got that Roxy and the Booster’s song about ‘taking a ride on his rocket’, but I, uh, don’t think that’d do it.”

“You listen to Roxy?”

“Uh, yeah? I’ve got working ears and taste, of course I listen to Roxy.”

“Right?” Leanne said. “You’d be surprised. Lee and Harley aren’t into her.”

“Huh. We’ll have to indoctrinate them later,” Vell said. “This is our stop.”

The hallway to Lijia’s dorm room beckoned. Leanne poked her head out of the stairwell and glanced down the hall.

“I think Lijia’s on to us,” she said. “That Akua chick is guarding the dorm.”

The young version of Dr. Akua stood vigilant guard in front of Lijia’s dorm room door. Leanne and Vell waited, on the off chance that she was simply waiting for something, but she showed no signs of moving.

“Do you think she got a good look at that pen? She might’ve moved it,” Vell suggested. “Maybe even broken it.”

Leanne shrugged, and gestured towards Akua. Their only path forward was through her. Leanne watched Akua for a moment longer, looking for any info on her soon-to-be opponent. She had to assume that, just like all future loopers, Akua had some kind of signature weapon. Lijia’s sword was relatively easy to deal with, but Akua having something like Vell’s guns could be problematic.

Akua turned to look down the hall, revealing something very much like Vell’s guns: Vell’s guns. He gasped with indignation as he saw the 666-shooters strapped to Akua’s hips.

“My guns!” he said, with far greater offense than Leanne thought possible -or reasonable, for that matter.

“I’m sorry your guns cheated on you thirty years before your birth, Vell,” Leanne said. “You think they were just sitting in a box the whole time?”

“It’s not that, it’s- Oh god, look how she has them holstered. This is a mess,” Vell sighed. He then turned back to Leanne and pointed down the hall. “You stay here. I’m going to do something about this.”

Without another word, Vell stepped out from around the corner and started walking towards Akua.

“Vell, what the fuck-” Leanne shouted. She nearly stepped out as well, but her progress, like her sentence, ended at the first gunshot. Leanne ducked back into cover and cowered as Akua opened fire on Vell. The first bullet sailed wide over his shoulder. Vell didn’t blink, or even start walking faster, as Akua adjusted her grip and shot again. The second time, he stepped to the side slightly just as she fired, and the bullet sailed past his head again. Baffled, Akua took aim for a third shot, this time focusing on the center of Vell’s torso rather than his head. While she had a larger target, Akua was still a terrible shot, and all it took was Vell stopping in his tracks unexpectedly to make her flinch and completely miss her target. Vell never let her take a fourth shot. He smacked the first gun out of her hand and kicked her in the shin, grounding her before she could draw one of the other two.

After peeking out of cover and seeing Vell had disarmed Akua, Leanne ran out of cover and caught up to him.

“Vell, what the fuck was that?” She snapped. “You could have died!”

“I’m fine,” Vell snorted. He took the guns and belt away from Akua and examined the revolvers closely. “Look at this, she clearly has no idea how to handle a gun. I mean, when was the last time you oiled the barrels?”

Akua stared up at him, confused, and gave no answer. Vell shook his head and adjusted the revolvers again.

“No wonder I had to spend so much time cleaning these after I got them,” Vell said. “You should be ashamed of yourself, I mean, this is a genuine Clint Eastwood piece.”

“He didn’t even autograph it,” Akua protested.

“It’s still important!”

“What is wrong with you?”

Leanne’s shout rang out almost as loud as the gunshots had. Vell turned around to watch her continue shouting, red in the face.

“You just walked at a gun and then started arguing about Clint Eastwood with the person who tried to kill you,” Leanne said, as confused as she was upset. “Are you fucking insane, Vell?”

“I, uh, she’s clearly a terrible shot,” Vell said. “I knew I could handle it.”

“I don’t- She had a gun, and you- That could’ve-” Leanne stopped and started several sentences out of frustration before getting to the core of her objections. “This is why I don’t fucking talk to you people!”

She gestured to both Vell and Akua as she spoke.

“You’re all fucking insane!” Leanne snapped.

The shouting was done, but the frustration remained, so Leanne turned to Lijia’s dorm. With one swift swing of her leg, Leanne kicked the door so hard it exploded into shrapnel on impact. Dr. Akua ducked down as a few shards of door flew past her head.

“It wasn’t even locked!” Akua shouted. “Are you crazy?”

Leanne shot Akua a glare that sent her back to the floor out of fear. Vell was almost a little offended that Akua looked more hurt by the intense stare than his kick to the shins. He reconsidered this offense after realizing he’d lightly bruised Akua’s shin at best, whereas Leanne had just turned a solid oak door into kindling. Vell kept an eye on Akua in spite of her justified terror, as he stepped through the shattered door.

“Alright, I’ll check the living room and the kitchen, you take the bedroom,” Vell suggested. He received no response. “Leanne?”

He heard a knocking sound and turned to see Leanne give a nod in his direction, then towards the bedroom. He shrugged.

“Alright, uh, I guess we’re back to no talking,” Vell said. “Shame. That was, uh, fun.”

Leanne responded by saying nothing. Vell scanned the countertops for their time-traveling pen before stopping to sigh.

“I’m sorry that I worried you, I just thought, you know, we had to get past Akua somehow, and I was pretty sure I could dodge a few bullets,” Vell said. “I guess I should’ve explained what I was doing first. Sorry.”

Bits and baubles belonging to Lijia flew about the room as Leanne forced herself to focus on the search for the pen. Vell’s perpetual sincerity annoyed her. It made him harder to dislike. Not that she did dislike him, or even wanted to, really. But to Leanne, the repeated deaths and impossible occurrences faced by loopers had a way of driving even decent people crazy. Meeting (and almost getting killed by) Lijia Mian and Dr. Akua had only reinforced her theory. The best way for Leanne to stay sane was to stay as far away from the loop, and everyone in it, as possible. She remained silent.

“Okay, fine,” Vell said, taking the hint. “Just, uh, knock twice if you find the pen, I guess.”

The search continued, unsuccessfully. All Vell found were their old clothes, which weren’t much good. Vell did consider putting his jeans on, if only to get out of these damned khaki’s, but decided he had higher priorities. Much higher priorities.

“Pen pen pen pen,” Vell mumbled to himself. “Hey Akua, do you know where the pen is?”

Akua did not answer. Vell wondered why he was getting the silent treatment from her too before his brain caught up to him. He and Leanne stepped into the hallway at the same time, to stare at the complete absence of Akua.

“One of us really should’ve been keeping an eye on her,” Vell said. Leanne nodded. “This is a lot easier with more people.”

The extra manpower, and the absence of Lee’s leadership, had led to them both overlooking the problem until it was too late. Vell scanned the hall in an attempt to make up for his oversight. Lijia’s dorm was located close to the middle of the hall, an equal distance from the stairwells on either side of the hallway.

There was no cover and only two possible entrances. Defensible, as far as dorm rooms went.

“Alright, if I stand guard I can probably buy you enough time to scour the dorm, and then we, uh, jump out the window again, or something,” Vell said. “If that’s alright with you.”

Leanne made finger guns and then mimed someone walking towards them, all with a skeptical look on her face.

“I appreciate your ability to be sarcastic via charades, but no, I don’t think anybody will just walk up to me the way I did to Akua,” Vell said. “Like you said, normal people don’t do that. Once they figure out I’m only firing warning shots, though…”

After some hesitation, Leanne made finger guns again, this time followed by a very tense dragging of a finger across her throat. Vell shook his head.

“I’m not killing anyone if I can avoid it,” Vell said. “Not even on the first loop.”

Leanne gave Vell an approving pat on the shoulder and then returned to the dorm to continue the search. The sounds of rummaging behind him actually helped Vell stay calm while he waited. Standing around silently while waiting for a shootout made things more tense, and humming Roxy and the Boosters songs to himself only did so much.

The comforting background noise of Leanne’s search gave way to the alarming foreground noise of a door opening. Vell turned one of his pistols towards the sound and saw Akua stumbling out the door. She glanced towards Vell, saw his drawn guns, and tried to go back through the door, only to be pushed back out into the hall by some unseen hand.

“You get ne- any closer and I’ll shot,” Vell stammered. He kept his fingers away from the trigger, for now.

“That won’t be necessary,” shouted the figure in the hallway. Her voice was shockingly monotone considering how loud she was forced to speak. Leanne stopped searching and stepped into the hall just in time for another figure to step through the door and push Akua a few steps forward.

“She’ll behave,” Carmella Nguyen said.

“Pro- You? What are you doing here?”

The younger Professor Nguyen pushed Akua forward. Despite the fact that Nguyen held no weapon, and didn’t even have Akua’s hands bound, the diminutive looper moved forward as compliantly as a captive with a gun to her head. Nguyen maintained a stiff, professional stride just behind her “prisoner”.

“I cannot claim to know where the two of you are from, but I can assume you both have some familiarity with the phrase ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

Vell nodded.

“Very good then. Whatever you are doing, you have made an enemy of Lijia Mian,” Nguyen said. “Vis a vis the previous aphorism, I am now your friend.”