Loki was sitting on the couch outside of the doors of the office. Mobius whistled at him as he exited.
"You're probably wondering what happened out on the mission." Loki jumped up, then tried desperately to catch up with Mobius as he strolled the hallway. "That was your first lesson in catching a Loki. Expect the expected. You see half the fun of beng a trickster is knowing everyone knows your a trickster, and then many of your tricks come from exploiting the fact that you know that they know-"
"Okay, okay, just shut up." Mobius interrupted in frustration. "Please. I mean, what happened to the guy I met in the elevator? Who didn't like to talk? Remember him? Now I'm stuck with this guy who won't stop yacking away about what makes a Loki tick."
"What?" Loki questioned. "Well isn't that precisely why I'm here?"
"No. I don't care what makes you tick." Mobius said. "You're here to help me catch the superior version of yourself. That's it."
"Hang on." Loki cut in. "I'm not sure superior is quite the right word."
"See? There is is. Right there." Mobius stopped right in front of the elevator. "I believed, stupidly, that insecure need for validation would motivate you to find the killer. Not because you care about the TVA mission or being a hero, but because you know that this Variant is better than you and you. Can't. Take it."
Loki's face twisted with amusement as he approached Mobius to adjust his collar. "Very nice. I mean, it is adorable that you think that you could possibly manipulate me. I'm ten steps ahead of you. I've been playing a game of my own all along."
"What?" Mobius questioned. "Charm your way in front of the Time Keepers, hustle them, and seize control of the TVA? Am I getting warm?"
Loki's expression blanked.
"A double cross by history's most reliable liar." Mobius continued as the elevator doors opened.
"Okay, why are you in there sticking your neck out for me then?"
"I'll give you two options and you can believe whichever one you want." Mobius said. "A, because I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold. And you kinda feel bad for that ice runt. Or B, I just wanna catch this guy and I'll tell you whatever I need to tell you."
"I don't need your sympathy." Loki said as they entered the elevator.
"Good, cause I'm running out of it." Mobius finished.
The elevator let them out on the higher floor.
"What's this?" Loki asked. "Next step of your manipulation-"
"No, this is the final step." Mobius answered. "Your last chance."
"Oh, and what does my desperate last chance require?"
"Work." Mobius stated.
"Work?" Loki questioned.
Mobius and Loki took another elevator down to a floor of archives filled with shelves of stored files.
"I need you to go over each and every one of the Variant's case files and then give me your...how do I put it..." Mobius began. "...unique Loki perspective. And who knows maybe there's something that we missed."
"Well, you're idiots. I suspect you probably missed a lot." Loki answered.
"That's why I'm lucky I've got you for a little bit longer." Mobius said. "Let me park you at this desk and don't be afraid to really lean into this work. Here's a good trick for you. Pretend your life depends on it. I'm going to get a snack."
Mobius departed, Loki produced an impatient sigh then sat at the desk and began sifting through the case files.
"Oh my goodness." Loki read the file aloud. "Don't tell me the Variant ambushed and killed ANOTHER team of minutmen...and stole their reset charge as well?"
"Shh!"
The noise came from behind him. Loki arched an eyebrow, before turning his chair around to see a bespectacled woman at a desk behind him.
"Shh." Loki shushed back at her.
***
`
Loki left the table shortly after and approached what looked like a help desk with a receptionist typing away on her computer, not glancing away from the screen for a second.
"Hi." Loki greeted.
The receptionist continued to stare at the screen.
"Hello?" Loki greeted again, inquisitively.
He spotted an old, dusted, and worn out bell on the desk. Loki prodded the bell with a single finger. It produced a measly sound.
The receptionist turned to Loki at the beckon of the bell. "Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm on some important TVA business." Loki begun. "Follow up to a field mission, you know how it goes. We red-lined near the apex, and..."
Loki looked to the stoic eyes of the receptionist.
"Well it's never good." He finished. "Uh, I'd like all files pertaining to the creation of the TVA, please."
"Those are classified." The receptionist said.
"Okay..." Loki lingered. "I'd like all files pertaining to the beginning of time."
"Those are classified."
"Okay, the end of time."
"Those are classified."
"Okay, what files can I have?" Loki said impatiently.
The receptionist produced a disgruntled sigh and then stood up from her desk.
Loki followed her to a section in the archives.
The receptionist handed him a stack of files. "Happy reading."
Loki returned to his desk and began sifting through the files.
"Destruction of Asgard." One of them read. Loki analyzed the text. Class Seven Apocalypse. Entire Civilization Annihilated Zero Variance Energy Detected. Casualties: 9,719.
Loki looked up from the files with an inquisitive look on his face, then promptly leapt from his seat.
Mobius was sitting in the cafeteria eating a salad.
"I found something." Loki approached from behind.
"No, I said don't bother me until you've read all the files." Mobius said.
"I have." Loki answered.
"Every file?"
"Yes."
"Pertaining to the Variant."
"The answer isn't in the files, it's on the timeline." Loki said taking a seat in front of him.
"He's hiding in apocalypses." Loki said.
"Which apocalypse?" Mobius said impatiently. "Any time in history? There's like a million of them."
Loki pointed to the case files. "Ragnarok. Are you familiar?"
"Yes, the destruction of Asgard and most of its people." Mobius said, then added. "I'm sorry."
"Yes, very sad." Loki said, producing a look of introspection before shaking it off. "Anyway, it got me thinking..."
"Go ahead." Mobius permitted.
Loki proceeded. "Nexus events happen when someone does something they're not supposed to do, right?"
Mobius rocked his head, "Well, it's a little more complicated, but yeah."
"Great." Loki concurred. "And then that thing they're not supposed to do, cascades into a whole range of other things that aren't supposed to happen. And so on and so forth until eventually, a new timeline branches, yes?"
"Chaotic alterations of a predetermined outcome." Mobius summarized.
"Exactly. So, let's just say..." Loki began, grabbing the bowl of salad in front of Mobius.
"What are you doing..." Mobius reacted.
"...your salad is Asgard." Loki finished placing the bowl in front of him.
"No. That's not Asgard, that's my lunch." Mobius said.
"It's a metaphor." Loki explained. "Just hang in there."
"I want that salad." Mobius said.
"I could go down to Asgard before Ragnarok causes its complete destruction and I could do whatever I wanted. I could let's say..." Loki mused while grabbing the salt shaker. "...push the Hulk off the rainbow bridge."
Loki began adding salt to the salad.
"The salt's Hulk?" Mobius asked, producing a disgruntled look.
"And I could also..." Loki continued, picking up the pepper shaker. "Set fire to the palace."
"No, just stop." Mobius said with exassperation as Loki began adding pepper to the salad. "Don't set fire to the palace."
"I could do whatever I wanted to do and it would never matter," Loki explained. "It wouldn't go against the dictates of the timeline because..."
Loki reached for the can of soda next to Mobius and frowned upon realizing it was empty. He gestured for Mobius to wait before standing up and walking over to another analyst sitting at the table adjacent to them.
"Oh god." Mobius cried.
Loki tapped the other analyst, he turned to reveal the same analyst that Loki had encountered earlier at the Infinity Stones drawer.
"You!" The analyst pointed.
"Nice to see you." Loki said, grabbing his juice box. "I just need this for a second. Thanks."
Loki returned to Mobius's table. "...because the apocalypse is coming. Ragnarok. Surtur will destroy Asgard, no matter what I do."
"No, don't do-" Mobius protested before Loki suspended the juice box upside down over the salad causing the transparent liquid to come pouring out of it. Mobius sighed.
"There's the apocalypse." Loki said as the liquid continued to pour.
"That's the apocalypse?"
"Ragnarok obliterates the salt." Loki smiled and gestured with the juicebox. "Ragnarok. There it is!"
"What am I looking at?" Mobius said in impatient confusion.
"Okay, it's a bit of a clumsy metaphor but you see what I mean. It doesn't matter. It could be any apocalypse. It could be a tidal wave. It could be a meteor. It could be a volcano, a supernova." Loki went on before lifting the ruined salad bowl. "If everything and everyone around you is destined for imminent destruction..." He said, before setting the bowl down and reaching for the salt and pepper shakers again. "...then nothing I say or do will matter. Because the timeline's not going to branch, cause it gets destroyed. Hence the Variant could be hiding in the apocalypse and do whatever he wants and we wouldn't know."
Mobius's look went from annoyed to slightly amused. "Not bad."
"Take me to a real apocalypse." Loki said with excitement. "Take me to Ragnarok! I'll show you!"
Mobius chuckled. "Oh yeah, so you can run away back to your homeland? No."
"No, I'm not going home. We can go anywhere!" Loki said.
"I'm not taking you for a stroll along the promenade, much less an apocalypse." Mobius answered.
"Oh, Mobius, come on!" Loki protested. "What could possibly go wrong? We've got to properly test this theory."
"Well, here's a fun theory." Mobius said. "You lure me out into the field and then you stab me in the back. And that's a theory I don't want to test."
"I'd NEVER stab anyone in the back." Loki gasped, taking clear insult. "That's such a boring form of betrayal."
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Loki I've studied almost every moment of your entire life." Mobius stated. "You've literally stabbed people in the back, like 50 times."
Loki paused in admission. "...well I'd never do it again?" He suggested, prompting a laugh from Mobius. "Because it got old."
"Okay look," Loki said. "If you don't trust me, you can trust one thing."
Mobius arched an eyebrow.
"I love to be right." Loki answered with a big grin on his face.
***
Pompeii, Italy
79 AD
A big rumbling emerged in the distance of the village of Pompeii. Mobius and Loki stood in the shadows of a cooridoor, far removed and out of sight from the peaceful atmosphere of the village.
Loki watched the rumbling volcano in the distance, fidgeting around next to Mobius, barely able to contain his excitement. "Here we go."
"Shh, any minute now." Mobius answered, fidgeting in his own way, but likely for different reasons.
"Until this entire town is wiped off the face of this planet." Loki continued. Mobius imitated an exploding sound with unease.
"Imagine." Loki went on with delight. "All that volcanic ash..."
"I know." Mobius said. "We don't want to get too giddy."
"Oh come on!" Loki said. "It's cool."
"No it is cool, but it's just not in good taste because..."
"Well they're all going to die anyway?" Loki said.
"I know." Mobius said pulling out his Tempad. "Now listen, I'm going to watch the Tempad for any variance energy."
"Okay." Loki agreed.
"Okay, because we gotta be careful." Mobius continued. "If you're wrong and there's a good chance you are, anything we do can create a huge branch."
"Oh, Mobius!" Loki said. "You make even the end of the world sound boring!
"Listen!" Mobius urged with more sincerity. "We're not meant to be here! Okay?"
"Okay." Loki calmed himself in agreement.
"Anything we do can impact the course of history. Do you get that?"
"Yes."
"So we're going to start with very small disturbances." Mobius said. "Can you make bird noises?"
Loki looked at Mobius in utter confusion. "Bird noises?"
"Yeah, like little whooshing noises." Mobius said. "Like woot-woot-"
"Oh, come on." Loki said, immediately running out into the open.
"Loki!" Mobius cried. "Loki!"
Too late, Loki had already ran up to the cage containing several goats.
"GOOOO!" Loki exclaimed, releasing the door to the cage to free the animals."Be free, my horned friends, be free!" Then turned to the Romans around him and switched over to Latin. "My name is Loki. We are agents of the Time Variance Authority. I bring you all dark tidings. ALL of you! You are all about to die."
Loki pointed to the volcano in the distance. "That volcano is about to erupt! I would know, because I'm from the future." then turned to Mobius switching back to Englsh. "We are from the future right? What is the TVA? I mean, it's from the future. It sounds from the future. Pretty future-y right?"
In the distance the volcano completely erupted. Everyone in the village screamed and scattered like flies.
"Right on cue!" Loki exclaimed, grabbing several fallen vegetables and throwing them into the air. "Enjoy your last meal while you can! Nothing matters! Nothing has ANY consequence! Dance while you still can!"
Mobius pulled out his Tempad.
Loki turned to him. "How'd we do?"
Mobius checked the Tempad in astonishment. "I don't believe it. Zero variance energy. No branching in the timeline."
"The TVA would never even know we were here." Loki concluded. "If it were me, this is where I would hide."
***
Mobius and Loki returned to the halls of the TVA.
"Doomsdays." Mobius inferred. "The Variant's been ambushing our soldiers and hiding out in doomsdays to cover his tracks."
"You're welcome." Loki smiled.
"Yeah. But in order for this theory to hold, the disasters have to be naturally-occuring, sudden, no warning, no survivors." Mobius elaborated.
"How many of those could there be?" Loki said.
"I don't know." Mobius said, grabbing a stack of papers from his desk. "We're going to find out."
Hours passed. Loki sat passed out on the desk in the archives beneath a field of case files.
On the other side of it, Mobius yawned, then gently patted Loki awake. "Hey, come on. Let's take a walk."
Mobius and Loki returned to the cafeteria, taking their seats at one of the tables.
"By the way, at your desk, that magazine?" Loki began.
"Yeah. The one on jet skis?" Mobius replied.
"Yes." Loki said. "Why do you have that?"
"Because they're awesome?" Mobius answered.
Loki chuckled. "I suppose they are."
"Yeah." Mobius said. "You know, some things...actually most things, in history are kinda dumb and everything gets ruined eventually, but in the early 1990's for a brief, shining moment, there was a beautiful union of form and function, which we call the jet ski, and a reasonable man cannot differ."
Loki smirked. "Ever been on one?"
"No." Mobius answered. "No, I think a TVA agent showing up on a jet ski on the Sacred Timeline, that would create a branch for sure."
"It'd be fun though." Loki said.
"Yeah, it'd be really fun." Mobius said, an undertone of melancholy in his voice.
"So why read about them?" Loki asked.
Mobius shrugged. "Just helps remind me of what we're fighting for."
Loki sighed and looked around him as if to pass judgement on is environment. "I mean, you really believe in all this stuff, don't you?"
"I don't get hung up on, believe, not believe." Mobius said. "I just accept what is."
"Three magic lizards..." Loki began.
"Timekeepers." Mobius corrected.
"...created the TVA and everyone in it..." He continued.
"Right." Mobius confirmed.
"...including you." Loki finished.
"Including me." Mobius repeated.
Loki rubbed his face in frustration. "See everytime I start to admire your intellegence, you say something like that."
Mobius smiled in amusement. "Okay, who created you, Loki?"
Loki shrugged. "A frost giant from Jotunheim."
"And who raised you?"
"Odin of Asgard." Loki answered again.
"Odin, god of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm beyond the stars." Mobius emphasized skeptically. "Frost giants...listen to yourself-"
"It's not the same." Loki protested. "It's completely different-"
"Oh, no, no, actually it's exactly the same." Mobius cut in. "Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos that I emerged in gave me all this. My own glorious purpose."
Loki scoffed.
"Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real, because I believe it's real." Mobius said.
"Fair enough." Loki compromised. "You believe it's real."
"Yeah."
"So everything is written." Loki said. "Past. Present. Future. There's no such thing as free will."
"Well, I mean, you know, it's an oversimplification-" Mobius began.
"So in fact, in a way," Loki began. "You and I here at the TVA, we're the only ones who are actually free."
Mobius looked skeptically at Loki. "Where you going with this, Loki..."
"How does it all end?" Loki asked.
"That's a work in progress." Mobius said.
"Oh, those lazy Timekeepers." Loki regarded. "What are they waiting for?"
"Au contraire." Mobius said. "No, because while we protect what came before, they're toiling away in their chamber, untangling the epilogue from its infinite branches."
"Ah, I see. So, when they're finished, what happens then?" Loki inquired.
"So are we." Mobius said simply. "No more nexus events. Just order and we meet in peace at the end of time. Nice, right?"
Loki cocked, then shook his head. "Only order?"
"Mhm."
"No chaos?" Loki asked. "It sounds boring."
"I'm sure it does to you." Mobius said.
"You know you called me a scared little boy." Loki said.
"I called you alot of things." Mobius replied.
"You did." Loki said. "You're wrong though. See I know something children don't."
"What's that?"
"That no one who is bad, is ever truly bad. And no one good is ever truly good."
Mobius paused, gazing beyond Loki after he said the words, as if stopped by them.
"Scared little boy." He uttered.
"Yes, it was quite patronizing. I thought it was a bit too far, actually." Loki ranted.
Mobius stared pensively for several more seconds before looking back at Loki and standing up from his chair. "You're very clever."
"I know?" Loki stated as if it were obvious, then stood up and followed Mobius back to the archives.
"The Variant left something behind at an old crime scene." Mobius explained along the way there. "A cathedral. A candybox. An obvious anachronism. I gave it to Analysis, but they couldn't find anything real."
"Why does that matter?" Loki said, as Mobius shuffled through an evidence box.
"Because now we have two variables. Apocalyptic natural disasters and..."
Mobius pulled out the pack of gum. "...Kablooie."
"What's that?" Loki asked.
"Candy?" Mobius said. "Do you have candy on Asgard?"
Loki shrugged. "Grapes, nuts."
"No wonder you're so bitter."
Mobius set down a new stack of paper work onto the desk. "Okay. Kablooie was only sold regionally on Earth from 2047 to 2051. All you have to do is cross-reference that with every apocalyptic event. I'm gonna give you half. And let's make it a competition. See who finds it."
"Sure."
"You wanna bet something?" Mobius offered.
"Yeah."
"Gentleman's bet?" Mobius suggested. "Yeah, let's play for pride. May the best man win. Go."
The two got to work immediately.
"Anything?" Mobius inquired.
"Uh, it's not the climate disaster of 2048." Loki began. "Or the tsunami of 2051."
"Okay, let's go, let's go, let's go. Come on." Mobius urged, as he rifled through the files.
"2050..."Loki read aloud. "The extinction of the swallow. Is that a thing?"
"Completely screwed up the ecosystem." Mobius answered.
"Krakatoa erupted in 2049 as well, no Kablooie."
"God, it's just one damn thing after another, isn't it?" Mobius swore. "Cyclone, famine, volcanoes, floods-"
"Got him." Loki declared, showing the file to Mobius. "That's where he is."
"Alabama, 2050." Mobius read then smiled at Loki. "You're going to take my job if I'm not careful."
***
"You want me to approve of a fully-armed task force to the Variant's potential hiding place?" Renslayer asked.
"Yeah." Mobius confirmed. "Haven Hills, Alabama. Corporate town owned by Roxxcart until it's wiped out by a hurricane. All the food and supplies you need. If he likes it there, there's no reason he can't just keep going back and camping out, over and over."
Renslayer produced skeptical expression. "And this is all based on a theory from the Variant that just blew your previous mission?"
"Yeah." Mobius said enthusiastically. "He's doing great."
Ravonna leaned forward. "Mobius. As your friend, I have to tell you that trusting this man is not a good idea."
"No, no. I know, but maybe he's worth the trouble." Mobius argued. "I mean he just uncovered a massive hole in our security, right?"
"That's what concerns me!" Renslayer answered.
"I can handle him, trust me. This is where we get out guy." Mobius assured.
"You, I trust. But him..." Ravonna said shaking her head disapprovingly.
"Listen, Ravonna. Every instinct is telling me this is where we nail the Variant." Mobius said. "Come on. You don't usually see me this worked up, right? Come on, I'm excited. I'm chomping at the bit."
Ravonna couldn't help but break into a slight grin of disbelief. "Okay." She finally permitted.
"Yes." Mobius cheered. "Okay."
"But Mobius." Ravonna called.
"Yeah?"
"There's not much I can do if this is doesn't work out." Ravonna said with sincerity.
"For all time." Mobius began.
"Always." She finished.