The Loop

They 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?” Adam asked. Of course he already knew the answer; he could see it in the way Tomas’s mind, which had been subdued for days, lit up with sparks and currents of excited energy. He 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. He had almost forgotten over the past week or so that he was even telepathic.

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

As they passed into the outskirts of the town, he sensed people moving along side streets parallel to the main road they were on, passing through abandoned buildings and alleyways to encircle them. There was movement on the upper floors of buildings, curious and wary people peeking through windows to keep an eye on them, a few rifles pointed their way. The watchers were cautious and careful, and if not for the sixth sense afforded him by his powers, they might have gone unnoticed. He slipped into Tomas’s mind for a moment and sent a single thought with some urgency: we’re not alone. Tomas seemed thoroughly unsurprised.

They made their way to what seemed like a natural square where the road they were on and two other major highways met near the center of the town. Here there was a small park, a large fountain, and maybe a hundred and fifty resistance fighters gathered and pointing guns and sticks their way. Adam did a quick mental scan of the crowd. Less than twenty-five of them were Hypes, and of those few enough posed a threat to him. Except …

“Stand down, men!” shouted a commanding voice with the slightest trace of an Indian accent under what was otherwise perfect London English. “We have in our company a couple of esteemed guests.”

Kali, real name Lakshmi Khan. With her in the ranks, bolstering the powers of the other Hypes under her command, they became a much more formidable force than they otherwise would be. Arrogant as it had been for her to name herself after the goddess of destruction, Adam had to admit it was apt.

Adam remembered the last time they had met. It hadn’t been his finest moment, and it was one of a few things he had done under the guise of a hero that he regretted—not the outcome, but what they’d had to do to get there.

“Poltergeist,” said Kali warmly, walking up to him and holding out her hand as if to an old and dear friend.

He was perplexed and on the verge of thinking she was ready to let bygones be bygones when the look on her face turned and the hand extended in mock friendship became a fist that struck him hard in the jaw. He staggered backward and would have fallen over if his telekinesis hadn’t taken over and held his body up. Kali was one of the few people in the world capable of blocking her thoughts from him completely, so he hadn’t seen her about-face coming. But given their history, he should have.

“Tomas,” she said, with genuine warmth in her voice now, “I hear you’ve seen my sister.”

“Indeed I have. She lives, although I can’t say for how long if you don’t act soon.”

“My contacts have given me her location, but not one of them was willing to get as close to the facility as you did. What was it like?”

“Terrible, and stranger than I expected, but, except for the prisoners themselves, completely empty. Perhaps the Abominations have done all the testing on them that they plan to? Perhaps they didn’t have the resources to maintain a garrison there while administering to other facilities? I can’t say. In any case, she’s there with two dozen others, all powerless now, like she is.”

Kali looked over their shoulders into the distance and her eyes shimmered. She sighed.

“I am sorry, Lakshmi. But we don’t have time to discuss your sister at length.”

“Of course not. So why have you come?”

Tomas told her as bluntly as possible. She laughed in their faces.

“Come now, Tomas! I like you, But this one,” she gestured to Adam, “I can’t tolerate. I would no sooner help him than kill my own sister.”

“Listen, Kali—Lakshmi—this isn’t just about helping us. This is about helping everyone, including you. Including your sister.”

“By erasing us from existence? By resetting us all to the start? It’s as good as death for everyone except the one sent back, and I’m sure you’ll insist on that being you.”

“Frankly, I don’t care who it is,” replied Adam, and his earnest expression made Lakshmi look briefly taken aback. “Someone has to do it, though. Continuing to fight is fruitless, and I’m sure you’ve realized that by now.”

“It has to be Adam,” said Tomas with finality, and it was Adam’s turn to be taken aback.

“And why is that, pray tell?” asked Lakshmi.

“Well first of all, it can’t be you, since you’ll be the one enhancing my power enough to do this in the first place, and it can’t be me for obvious reasons,” Tomas pointed out. “And second, you know as well as I do that no one else present has a mind that could withstand it. There have been a few others over the years who might’ve. Hell, Prisha was probably one of them. Christine definitely was. A man I knew briefly in New York ... But the changes Adam’s powers have made to his brain have made his mind almost uniquely resilient to what we’re talking about here.”

The implication of this statement took a minute to sink in, but once it did, Adam felt the start of a powerful fury rising up in him.

“So you’ve been using me. You would have used Christine, but your fucking plan got her killed, so you’re left with me. Is that about it? And let me guess, when you went searching for Prisha, you were hoping you’d find her with her powers still intact so that you could use her instead. God, I must have been last on your list. It must kill you that I’m the only one left. I bet you’d send anyone else first if you thought it had a hope in Hell of working. God damnit, you don’t change, do you?”

Almost but not quite unconsciously, Adam allowed his sword to slide out of its sheath and caused several sharp rocks that were buried in the sand around them to rise in the air and move menacingly toward Tomas.

“Adam, listen, we don’t have time for this debate. It’s you now. Does it matter why?”

Kali stood back and laughed. Adam could tell she was enjoying this and he couldn’t blame her. Who didn’t enjoy a good bit of bloodsport? But, before he could actually do anything that couldn’t be undone, and much to Adam’s surprise, she intervened.

“I’ll help you.”

“Of course you’ll help us,” Tomas snapped.“You’d be a fool not to.”

Adam allowed the actual and improvised weapons he had been collecting in the air around Tomas to fall gently to the ground.

“Adam …” Tomas began, “it was never about using you. It was always going to be you or no one. It’s not just about whose brain can handle it. It’s also about who might actually have a chance of changing things. That was never going to be someone like me. It pains me to admit this, but you are, and have been, a better man.”

If Tomas had told Adam that the whole apocalypse had been some elaborate practical joke and there was a hidden camera filming his reaction, he wouldn’t have been more shocked than he was to hear that admission.

“Awwww, how very sweet,” interjected Lakshmi, “but you didn’t let me finish. I’ll help you after you help me.”

“What do you want, Kali?” asked Tomas, visibly close to the limit of his patience.

“She wants us to help find and free her sister,” Adam said, unsurprised by her using her ability to help them save the world as a bargaining chip.

Tomas seemed to consider the proposal before answering: “Fine, we’ll help you. What choice do we have?” Then, seeing Adam’s sword and many sharp stones rise into the air once more, he added cautiously, “Adam, my friend. What are you doing?”

Several of Lakshmi’s Hype followers who had sat around in doorways looking bored for most of this meeting, seemingly sensing a threat to their leader, rose to their feet and were at her side in moments, but Kali understood that Adam’s sudden aggressive action wasn’t directed at her or anyone else present.

“Everyone, get to the perimeters. I want eyes on everything around us. Something is coming,” she said.

She pulled a beat up mask depicting the blue face of the Goddess Kali and a golden crown out of a bag at her feet and donned them. Following suit without a word passed between them, Adam and Tomas both brought their old masks out of their pockets and put them on. Adam’s was a black full head covering with a white skull face on the front. Tomas’s was a white plastic mask depicting the face of a clock, with black numbers painted around the outside and black hands extending from his nose and pointing at twenty-five past seven, giving from a distance the impression of a black mustache.

“Poltergeist,” said Tomas, his mask hiding a wry smile that Adam was nevertheless aware of.

“Hourglass,” he returned, and didn’t bother trying to hide his laughter.

“My deal still stands,” said Kali. “We make it out of this thing alive, we save my sister, then I help you.” And then she started laughing, “We’ve always looked like such dorks in these things. Do you know that?”

“Dork or not, I’m not fully myself without it,” Adam said.

“No,” she agreed. “Nor am I.”