Chapter 32: If You're Telling The Truth

This wasn't going to work.

Likely, I could get myself out of this situation with a combination of brute force, strategic illusions, and multiple attempts. With luck, I wouldn't waste too many loops trying to escape. However, if the illusions attracted the Wisps, I could quickly lose track of time again.

Maybe I could join up instead. Alice was right; this was more than one person could handle. The deputies were a bit trigger-happy, but they were at least organized, and they'd begun learning the rules of this place. Both things were still pretty rare out there, even if people seemed to be figuring things out in fits and starts.

Besides, assuming this guy was actually the Sheriff, he had real authority—even if that authority wasn't designed for a situation like this. Still, if I could get him on my side, I had no doubt he'd be a huge asset. I imagined he had to have some kind of procedure for evacuating Forest Lake, even if it couldn't have been meant for these purposes. If nothing else, there were certainly plenty of people who would be looking to—and for—familiar authority figures for guidance.

And, if I were honest with myself, it would put Jon and me back on the same team. That alone was nearly reason enough to ignore the rest.

It would all depend on how much I could get the Sheriff to listen to me. Unlike with Alice and Luke, I doubted I'd have the same issues getting him to see the bigger picture or play the long game.

"Look," I said, still not uncovering the endoscope, "Last time we spoke, you asked me if I was willing to switch sides—well, that is—until you thought you'd get more out of me dead. I guess you can tell that's not an option."

"Not at all. I've always been a proponent of 'try try again,'" the Sheriff replied confidently, as though he had not a care in the world. "But, please, go on. What do you have to offer? Why don't you start with who you are and what you want from us."

I really didn't want him to blame me for the apocalypse, partly because it would make him expect more answers than I had—or could easily invent—and partly because I had suspicions that Jon's memories were limited to conditioned emotions. If I let the Sheriff paint me with that brush, Jon might end up carrying context-free hatred for me.

"I didn't cause any of this to happen; I just—" Just what? 'Found it this way?' I asked myself, having no real idea how to finish the sentence.

The Sheriff clearly wasn't willing to believe I was a person before all this; I doubted he'd be any more willing to believe I just stumbled across the apocalypse.

I was tempted to pull a Sori and claim I was just a secretary who scheduled the apocalypse. Then again, a secretary would know more than I'd be able to BS.

In the end, I didn't want to carry even that much blame. That line of thinking did give me an idea, however.

"I'm just a janitor, a glorified trash collector. I didn't have a say in what happened here. But I think I can help. More importantly, I think you can help. You can save everyone in town if you work with me."

"Well, I suppose that depends on what exactly you count as trash," the Sheriff answered drolly. "I can't imagine you out there picking up scraps of paper or loading trash bags into a truck."

"Sheriff, my gut tells me it's lying," Jon said, reinforcing my belief that he was an EC rememberer.

It was possible he was an episodic rememberer, but I felt like he'd have a better grasp on the events since the vortex touched down if so. I was still trying to understand Alice's categories, but either way, I was determined to get Jon on my side. We could deal with my real identity later on.

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"I can prove some of it. I can open a portal in the air. Do you remember that Sheriff?"

"Let's say that I do and that I'm confident you can't use it to escape."

"Right. Because it's not an escape. It's a combination garbage truck and incinerator. Or at least it does the job of each."

"And what exactly is the trash you collect."

Obviously, I wasn't walking around picking up litter. What had Sori said the garbage collector was for? It was something to do with the time loops. Maybe that was enough. "It's my job to clear away the parts of this town that prevent the day from looping cleanly. You aren't supposed to remember anything. I go around getting rid of the parts that are causing the loops."

"That's not a great reason for me to trust you. It seems to me that the safest bet would be to keep you locked away as long and as securely as possible. The time loops give the advantage to the humans; they must, or your kind wouldn't employ people like you." The Sheriff said without a hint of uncertainty.

"They do, and they don't," I said, thinking about the multiple painful deaths I'd personally experienced and knowing I was hardly the only one. "But even if I agreed completely, it doesn't matter. The loops will only last another forty-some weeks. After that, everything will be destroyed down to bedrock. You saw it before on the west coast."

"And what exactly is it you're offering?"

"A way out."

"Sheriff," Jon started, but the Sheriff interrupted.

"I know Jon. You don't trust it, and that's smart. You know what I wonder? I wonder why you collapsed on that road. Do you have a name?"

I'd told the Sheriff my name was 'Oberon' before, and I'd told Jon I was Sam. Jon hadn't believed that, and I didn't think he remembered it anyway, so my best bet was to stick with Oberon. "Call me Oberon."

"King of the fairies? That's a lofty name for garbage collector." the Sheriff noted. "But it's at least consistent with what you told me before." Which told me he'd taken care to retain our previous conversation when he'd failed to steal the Shadow from me.

"A child I rescued gave it to me. I couldn't speak at the time, and by the time I could, it was easier to keep using it."

"And where's this child now?"

"I left her in the care of another. I was on my way to check on her when I blacked out. I'm told I should sleep more." The Sheriff knew too much about me as it was. Besides, it wasn't like I really knew what that vision had been about. For all I knew, I really did black out from lack of sleep, and that vision had just been a weird dream. To know for sure, I'd have to keep an eye out for that school and those teachers as I worked to evacuate people, but in the meantime, I just hoped I wouldn't black out again at an unlucky moment.

"Mmmhmm," The Sheriff said, unwilling to reveal how he weighed my words. "So, you think you have an evacuation route out of town. Tell me where to go, and I'll send some men to check it out. If you're telling the truth, I think we could swing offering you Asylum."

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that."

"Oh, believe me, that's being generous. You're a prisoner of war, and as an alien, you don't qualify for humane treatment. There's no international law on how we treat extraterrestrial invaders."

Yikes, I thought before clarifying. "No, I mean, the evacuation route is a one-time-use escape hatch. It's also the only way out that I know of."

"So, it's your way or the highway?"

"No. It's not my way," I corrected him, feeling like I was talking to Alice all over again. "It's the way I have to offer. Do you know of another way out?"

"I'm not an invader. But if I were, I would certainly have more than one escape plan."

"Well, I guess I didn't need to know more than one. You said my portal couldn't let me escape. You're wrong. There is an exit to that portal, but if I use it, everyone in town will either be destroyed or stuck living the same day without memory, your city playing out its last day on repeat forever, part snow-globe, part cage, for beings so beyond either of us that we've not even seen them."

"Even you don't know who you work for?"

"I work to live, but I didn't sign up for destroying people."

"What did you sign up for?"

"Seeing tomorrow."

"Well. Just following orders, then?"

"Clearly not. Not anymore."

"And how many have suffered because of you?"

"What about you? You're an officer of law; you've never arrested or harassed an innocent? Never fined or imprisoned someone for the crime of having nowhere safe to sleep, scattering their few meager possessions to the wind as you do? You've never pulled someone over for looking different than your parents? You killed me, and I am earnestly just trying to help. You can honestly say you haven't made mistakes?"

"My mistakes haven't ended a world."

"Neither have mine. I'm just here. I'm just trying my best. Let me help you."

"Pretty words, sheriff," Jon said, cautioning him again not to trust me.

"What about you other two. Do you think the alien is just saying what I want to hear?"

I didn't hear what the others said, but I didn't think it really mattered. The Sheriff struck me as someone who made up their own mind. After a minute, he said. "Fine. But there are conditions.

"To begin with, you'll stay by my side. Under no circumstances will you approach a crystal or any dead alien with an unharvested crystal, and every one of my men will have orders to kill you if you leave my side. If we have to kill you, you'll find yourself right back here. You leave my side or make any effort to change your starting position, and we'll end you. Secondly, I want to see this emergency exit."