THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: HE DIES, AGAIN

The three-hundredth something time through, he dies, again. 

To avoid the accident on 12th street, I always end up on Telegraph heading towards Demont. Sometimes it's 2:46 AM. Sometimes it's 2:44 AM. Once in an amazing confluence of events, it was 2:22 AM—I still don't know how that happened—but I've never got it to happen again. Still, it gives me hope. I'm in a loop, yes, but there are shortcuts. I'm trying to brute-force collapse the wave-form to its most efficient structure. 

I read the report on the machine.  

Maybe there's even a way out. If I can make the machine before we turn it on, I can close it down. So far, the closest I've come is to stand two-hundred yards from the facility when the power suddenly blooms, and then, a moment later, I'm at the start.  

The start is always the same. Everyone who was in the room near the machine in a field of junked cars and waist-high reeds in winter 21.3 miles from the lab. Agent Darrow is obviously dead; Agent Denton is breathing her last—burned across most of her body. And there I am, untouched, legs tingly and buried a quarter of an inch into the mud.  

Usually, I pull out of the mud and start to run immediately. At first, I went towards the lights. Now I know that's the wrong way. The white car is double-parked idling on Thomas Street, while the guy from it tries to lock a gate across a fifty-yard dirt covered field. And I'm always gone before I even hear what he has to say to me. Though I always see his shadow in the rearview as I drive off. 

I've tried other things, of course. 

I've tried to ditch and go on foot (the two hundred and twenty-fifth time through), that didn't work. I never make it to the device in time. I've stolen cars. I've crossed rooftops. Once, I ran barefoot holding a pistol and screaming until I collapsed before the loop closed again.   

But here I am.

The traffic stop. Jesus. I don't even count anymore. I can't count.

He comes to the car and taps on the glass, and I roll down the window. His name is Edgar Lustayre Jr., and the twentieth time I shot him, I stumbled across to the print shop, shot the plexiglass door out and looked him up with his ID folded open on the desk. That was, I don't know, a month ago. A year? 

There was a lot of blood. It's OK. It goes away with the reset. That reset happened about five minutes after they shot the tear gas in. My eyes were still watering on the next time through. But enough about me. Lustayre. 

He grew up in Grant Park, Idaho. He was on the football team in high school. He went to Northwestern. He dropped out and became a cop. 

Another time through, I called in a favor. 

"Hey, Mark, can you get me a file on a...officer Edgar Lustayre Jr., Greenville Police, SSN 079-71-5382."

If he could see me now. Cut up. Messed up. A murderer. 

A murderer a hundred times over. At least. I once killed ten people in one go. Just shot everyone I saw. Until the world restored itself. It's ok. It's not real.  

"Jesus Bobby, what time is it?"

"Come on Mark. It's important."

"Fine."

Lustaryre Jr. is clean. No record. Not a blemish. A clean cop. He has a kid. A wife. What was I looking for? An excuse? Something to make me feel better. 

Anyway, I kill him, again. 

Each time it's a little different. 

"Sir, do you..."

This time, I roll down the window, and I shoot him immediately from the hip. Right in the face. A flat pop and a pencil-eraser sized hole in his upper lip. The wet sound of something on the ground, and he drops like someone clipped his strings. I'm sorry Mr...officer Lustayre. I'm sorry, dude. 

I peel out.  

There's more, of course. The dog I almost always hit (hell, I TRIED to hit him this time). The train. The weird lights on Macgrath street. 

This time, something feels right.

I run down the fence—straight through it. I can see or sense the security guards from the booth running towards me. I know their names. Where they live. I know the fat one went to a wedding last weekend from his Facebook page. I know too much. So much, it feels like it's spilling out of my eyes and into the world.  

The sign on the building swings into view through a spidered windshield: MARCH TECHNOLOGIES, and I hear shouting.

I hop from the vehicle at speed and stumble into a dead run. Someone is shooting at me, I think. I don't look at the time. Time is on my side. I don't look. 

I have my keycard, and I open the doors. One. Two. Three. What time is it? What's the time?

And I throw the door open to lab 2a, and I see...me. Denton is messing with the machine. Darrow turns to see me see myself. I begin walking towards me. I pull my gun and draw a bead on Denton.

"What the fuck?" I say to myself. 

I raise the gun at Denton, but I am in the way. I have to shoot Denton.

I stop me. I run and tackle me, and we land in the doorway. 

"No. No. No," I think I'm saying. 

In the shielded door, sprawled, our view of the machine and Denton is obscured, when the loop resets.

Mud. A darkened field. Denton breathing her last. But there's something new. I'm holding someone. I look into my face and see my expression go from fear to confusion. I smile. It's different. It's changed. It's different.

There are two of me here. 

"LISTEN. It's already too late for us on this run. But we can change this, we can..."