He gave me time, I'm not going to waste it. He vaporized himself to give me this chance. I just need to figure out what he did before letting him know again, when he isn't unwell. It all leads back to the anomaly. Nova stomped off the central transit station while time ticked in her ears. Researchers bustled between the labs, with some entering the observatory to the heart. With Neo's infodrive in hand, she headed to the heavily guarded Class Z lab.

"Miss Zynaia!" she called before the older woman could disappear behind the doors.

"Miss Spacyn?" Miss Zynaia frowned. "You're not Teimea."

"I'm sorry." Nova held herself straight and put her hands behind her back. "He wasn't feeling well at the start of the shift. I have come on his behalf." Nova showed her the infodrive. "He would've come otherwise."

"Oh?" Miss Zynaia studied the infodrive. "Is something wrong?"

Nova hesitated. "He, uh, threw up," she explained and kept herself concise and to the point. "I'm going to urge him to go to the medical tower for a check up once I'm done here."

"Very well." Miss Zynaia waved her hands at the guards, and they withdrew out of their way. "Come in and take care. I'm doing a check on the arrays before heading to communications." Her gaze fell to the infodrive. "It's good Teimea can stay on top of things he puts his mind to. He's young, but has a brilliance to him that could rival Mx. Orili. He has a bright future ahead of him."

I'll make sure he can have that. Nova shuffled over to the array under the observatory gaze of the senior scientist. "Yeah, Neo always struggled with things that didn't catch his interest, but when it did, nothing could break him out of it. It's almost terrifying how he can zone in on something, to the point he'd forget to eat, even," she trailed off. "Miss Zynaia, he appreciates the chance the research team gave him." Even if the truth of it is... awful. "He has loved studying anomalies for as long as I've known him, and even before I knew him. He's told me about it. This is all he's ever wanted to do with his life."

And for that, it's killing him over and over.

Miss Zynaia smiled. "As I said, he is brilliant. With enough time and experience, he could be one of the greatest anomalous scientists in this galaxy. It is a breath of fresh air to see someone new bring their knowledge and view to the table." She released a heavy sigh. "Stars know we're lacking it with the disappearance of the D.S Butterfly."

Nova waited for the older scientist to leave behind the arrays before turning her attention to the anomaly. It boiled with the pure energy of a supernova, but chilled to the vacuum. Nothing on the arrays changed, and she kept an eye on the other scientists in the observatory. Into the field, she studied the array when it registered her as a new life form. Her. Her heartbeat. It pounded in her ears as it counteracted the heartbeat on the screen.

Neo's heartbeat.

It bounced off the peaks, fractured against hers.

Is this really his heartbeat?

Nova escaped the radiating field of hot and cold, and her heartbeat disappeared. You realised you needed to change the frequency of the fracture. You compared yourself to the anomaly and you saw your heartbeat mirror it. Nova slipped the infodrive into the array as it fed information in return. Blood slipped down her spine from the memory, taunting her to finish it. I'm not done. Neo started a chain reaction. As per Neo's instruction, she left it for the next scientist. I should head back to him. I have to make sure he's well enough for the briefing... we're still in the loop. We have to start over again.

Information committed to memory, she escaped the labs. Music rang, but she ignored it to focus on her goal. Someone had to as she waged war on the universe for one life. I have to watch what happens here, the time before the briefing, what I cannot remember. Back in the relative safety of the eastern branch, she passed the mess hall.

"Spacyn," a deep voice said. Energy flashed when their hands raised, frozen in place and strangled in time. She held her breath when Thuni hesitated, then folded his arms. "What's up?"

Nova broke the shield of ice. "Oh. Nothing. You just startled me," she said and got out of his way, but he never continued on. "Are you going to go get breakfast?"

"I wanted to grab something before the briefing. Ulin should be catching up soon. They were doing some last minute checks from the emergency landing," Thuni replied. "I haven't seen you wander around this early though. It's usually Teimea I see heading straight to the labs."

There remained no hint of the monster within her fellow engineer. Awkwardness strangled her lungs and made it difficult to breathe. "He wasn't feeling well. I had to run an errand for him."

"Oh." He frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that he's not feeling well."

Nova shoved the image of the pool of blood staining her boots when Neo fell at her feet, and of Thuni's corpse twice over. Oxygen failed to pass through her lungs, and then Neo took the shot she couldn't make. Smile on her face, she forced out, "I'm sure you'll find being sick won't stop him from chatting up a storm in the briefing."

"At this point, I'd be very surprised if it did," he said with a scoff. "In that case, I'll see you at the briefing." Nova stiffened and waited for him to move past her, but he asked, "Should I refrain from bombarding him with questions if he's not feeling well?"

Nova waved her arms. "No! Ask away. If anything, it'll make him feel better that someone is curious about what he has to say."

Thuni nodded and disappeared into the mess hall. Tension squeezed out of her shoulders and hands as she raced back to her living quarters. Keypass shoved into the slot, she entered to move into their bedroom.

No Neo.

"Neo?" she asked.

"In here," he said from the wash station. Nova peeked inside, where he hovered over the sink with sweat gluing his hair to his brow. "Hello, I know I look awful, but hey." He smiled at her, soft. "It could be worse?"

Nova looked at the sink, then back before poking his cheek. "You're burning up," she whispered. "Did you throw up again while I was gone?"

He wiped his brow with a cloth. "It felt like I was about to, so I came in here preemptively." He washed his hands. "You ready for the briefing?"

Ready to face the loop? I know where Thuni and Ulin are beforehand. Nova placed a hand on his shaking back. "Maybe you shouldn't? Are you up for it?"

"Mmhm." He wiped his face. "If I throw up in the middle of my presentation... it happens." He shrugged.

Nova winced. "I think I'd die of embarrassment."

"I try to view it as livening up what must be a dull experience." Neo clapped her shoulder. "I'm good, Nova, thank you."

Nova moved for the door, but stopped when Neo searched through his desk once more. After a few minutes of shuffling in the cupboards, he stopped with a confused frown. "I swear I had something else..." He swayed on his feet, then sighed. "Sorry, let's go before I'm late to my own presentation. I consider that more embarrassing, and on brand for me."

Nova wanted to smile at his jape, but it fell flat at his shaky frame and sickly pallor. He must've been looking for the sample... and it didn't reset.

"Neo, after the briefing," she said when he shuffled past her. "I need to tell you something."

He nodded, and led the way to the briefing dome. Some people sat at their desks, readying their datascrolls for copious notes. Ulin and Thuni had yet to arrive, though Izerva took their usual, consistent post by the door. Neo shambled to his seat, and Nova stopped beside them when their gaze focused on Neo. A question danced in their face, but Nova held it down to move for her desk, keeping her own attention on Neo when he slumped in his chair.

Thuni and Ulin arrived a few minutes later. Both of them whispered to each other. On the clock. On the track of the loop, with her added memories.

Let's see where this goes first. I'll tell Neo afterwards about the changes. Nova rested her chin on her palm and studied Neo as he rested his head in his arms. It deepened at the fluttering crimson in the butterfly wings of his necklace. It disappeared in a blink when Admiral Mythrai started the briefing — and the rest of the loop.

Her attention drifted to take in every person in the room. Most of them she didn't recognize; and all of them were doomed to die if she couldn't find a way to break the loop.

Every single one.

Until the moment of truth.

"Researcher Teimea, you have the stage to explain the current situation."

The same situation unfolding over and over.

Neo lifted himself on trembling legs and leaned his entire weight on his desk without a second glance at her. Concern choked her when he dragged himself to the podium, where exhaustion tugged down his brow. Admiral Mythrai's scales shuddered when he examined Neo from the sidelines, but Neo ignored him.

"I'll try and explain everything, but we need to acknowledge the situation on our hands." He pointed at the holoboard with one stiff movement. As before, the containment for the heart flickered onto the screen. "Here is what the droids picked up during the collection sweep."

Thuni leaned forward, but unlike the pointedness of his questions in previous loops, they came out with caution, almost gentle, "Any idea what it is?"

Neo's chest heaved, but he continued on, "We're—" He hesitated, a flickering star overwhelming the greys. He tipped his head forward with a wince, but he said, "I'm not sure. There is a strange scripture on the containment that the senior researchers believe to be ancient Xelnod hieroglyphics." He rested his attention on Izerva, whose nose twitched. "I'll work on getting you clearance for it if you'll..." He swayed on his feet and never looked anyone, even her, in the eye. His technique for presentations in front of people. Always confident and sure. "If you give me a few minutes to do so?" he mumbled, and Nova strained to hear him.

Neo?

Izerva crept from their post to kneel at her side with a distressed, wide-eyed expression. "Engineer Nova," they signed. "I think something is wrong. His energy—"

The holoboard glitched with a shimmering field behind him, but another blink made it flee.

"We're not certain what caused the failure of your droid," Neo finished with a heavy breath and weary smile.

"You don't have any inkling to what might've caused it?"

Neo shuffled with his uniform pockets, but froze in dawning terror. He patted them with quicker taps and faster breaths. "We—I did have something but I seem to have misplaced it." His pupils constricted, and his every motion sent a shockwave through her heart — on an unfathomable level.

A intense, migraine inducing pressure.

Izerva's fur stood on end.

No one else gave notice to the shift in the atmosphere.

Neo, the sample didn't reset. Nova fought the urge to lunge out of her desk. Fuck, is he remembering now of all times? It's going to overwhelm him if it happens all at once!

"I'd like to know, anything would help," Thuni said carefully as Neo continued to pat himself down and shrank into his shoulders. "Did the researchers forget to grab samples? That would be unlike them," he teased with a certain good-natured lightness.

It rumbled deep within her mind when he twitched into an eerie stillness akin to death. Izerva poised themselves for a spring, and sent a quick signal to Admiral Mythrai, but the alert was too late.

Neo straightened himself out, on unfathomable strings. "If you'll give me a few minutes, Horizol, I'll have an answer for you! If you'll stop asking the same question and give me a few minutes!" he snapped, causing people to flinch from the hostility.

Thuni raised his hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push it."

Nova frowned at the fluttering air around Neo, as if he himself radiated the heat of a supernova.

But... Thuni only asked once.

The heatwaves disappeared and cut the strings, and Neo stumbled into the podium with a quiet shudder. Admiral Mythrai glanced at Izerva, then came closer to Neo, who he towered over. "Researcher Teimea," he said, calm. "Are you well? Do you need a moment to breathe?"

Neo dug his fingers into his temples and trembled. "No, I'm sorry for losing my temper," he whispered, contrasting his aggression in one quick moment. He lifted his head to them. Tears dripped down his face and he made himself small. "I didn't mean to yell. If you want to take a look for yourself, the droid will be open."

Thuni narrowed his eyes.

Nova shivered at the last swan song the original breach had, the last scream of death to rock the universe to its core.

No, tell me it isn't so...