Outer space was cold.

James hadn’t fully realised he was in outer space. He hadn’t realised much of anything. From the Loop ending, to burning, to Fig’s betrayal, then those visions and hunting Fig down, James hadn’t had much time to process anything.

Now his heart lay quiet and still like the world around him. The cold of outer space wasn’t like any the looper knew. It didn’t coat him like snow or crash against him like water. Outer space’s frigid claws seeped in between his cracked charcoal skin and tried to pull the heat out of him, devouring it like a great predator.

The looper found it weirdly relaxing.

His granite eyes started clouding with frost as they drifted to his blood-soaked charcoal hands.

I think I ate Fig.

The looper wasn’t completely sure. He hadn’t been in his right mind. The power of the giant ball of white flame behind him flooded his body with adrenaline and power, clouding his logic. The emotions he’d felt had been so visceral, so real, that James still found it hard to question his choice of actions.

Most of them.

Killing Fig was par for the course. Melting him into char and devouring him alive? James had done worse, but not by much. Then again, Fig had wronged him worse than anyone ever had, so maybe that was also par for the course.

His mind sorted through the events so much clearer when it wasn’t clouded by emotion. The feeling was almost like tranquillity. All the power and rage now cooled and calmed like the surface of water.

What happened?

James thought on that for a moment, then realised that perhaps it was too big of a question to answer on its own. The context was necessary. The context he sorely lacked. So his curiosity shifted to something easier to answer.

Where am I?

The looper scanned his environment and found himself almost astounded by the sheer magnitude that preceded him. The metal beneath him had warped under the heat that had previously possessed his body, but it hadn’t completely crumbled. He’d been fueled with the fire of a sun and the structure beneath him held strong.

James ran his hand over the warped metal beneath him, finding it almost impossibly smooth. Had he not been burying his feet into it like snow, he almost certainly would’ve slipped as if it was made of ice.

Is it a ship? Or closer to a space station?

The gigantic ringed structure he sat on the rim of hadn’t moved, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t. From the fact it housed his Spark, the looper made the informed guess that it was likely meant to be a cage of some kind.

Or a containment unit.

On closer inspection, the giant metal swords he’d felt stabbing into him inside the Spark weren’t swords at all. They were giant pillars of the same smooth metal that stretched into the middle of the ring and created a cradle around the Spark at its centre. Whatever memory of James will that was left in the Spark had vanished, letting the film of buzzing energy cover over it again.

Is that a forcefield?

That felt… neat. James was in a limbo of emotions he wasn’t quite sure how to process. Then he noticed his father, Hugh, standing off to the side and observing him with an unknowable presence.

“You appear lost?” The version of Hugh who was absolutely not Hugh stated in a mechanical voice.

How he spoke in a place without an atmosphere would’ve been strange if James hadn’t done the same himself.

“I suppose I am,” James responded wistfully, his voice croaking like burnt coals. His eyes moved from examining the structure to the void that it inhabited. He looked in every direction for stars, or planets, or lights of any kind and came up short. The space around them for what must’ve been light years of space was a complete abyss.

A true void of nothing besides themselves.

“Where are we?” The looper asked, almost mystified by the void.

“The First never assigned a name to it, but we Directives call it the Shallows. I believe among mortals, it’s more commonly referred to as limbo or purgatory. A space between spaces.” The fake Hugh stated matter-factly. “Do not worry, it is natural to feel uneasy in this place. We are not meant to be here.”

I don’t think he understands how ominous and worrying that sounds.

“If we’re not meant to be here, then why are we?” James pointed out.

The fake Hugh’s face was rather inexpressive, keeping to a similar level of apathy as himself. Yet at that question, he sensed its mood sour just a tad. Like the looper had just pointed out how bad its idea was.

“My purpose is an exchange of information. If I answer your question, will you answer one of my own?” Fake Hugh asked, almost tiptoeing around the subject.

“Why would you think I wouldn’t?” James questioned.

“You seem like an…” Fake Hugh paused, eyeing the spot where Fig's mangled body had once been before James devoured it. “...abrasive person.”

“I’ve had a really bad day.” James put it bluntly, scrapping the blood of his hands. It was freezing into red paste in the cracks between his scaled skin.

How am I not dead?

Questions for later.

“Understood. You are here because you were within a disastrously large and uncontained Spark that appeared simultaneously with your entire local timeline being warped back roughly sixteen hours.” Fake Hugh raised a finger and pointed towards the raging white sun. “That appeared within earth’s atmosphere on the southeast side of the continent Australia. Had my sibling not been mid-integration with your planet, it almost certainly would’ve consumed your planet in seconds. The Spark was moved here for containment purposes, and you being at its core and unknown to my sibling at the time, went along with it.”

So the Spark had just appeared above the earth. James found that particularly horrifying, in its own right. He didn’t struggle to imagine the things eating his planet whole in moments. It was a vat of pure power and potential constantly compressing in an endless cycle of heat and growth. The looper wouldn’t be surprised if his Spark could eat the sun.

James felt a wave of relief and shame run through him. He’d almost accidentally eviscerated his planet from existence. Even if it was Fig’s foul plan, he’d gone along with it. The consequences were dire, and they were only averted thanks to the help of another.

“Thank your sibling for me I guess,” James mumbled, happy to have not burned his world to the ground by accident.

“Your thanks is unwarranted. Directives are sympathetic by nature, we would not have let you cause such harm even if you wished to.” Fake Hugh assured him.

Great.

“Now, for the sake of confirmation, you are James Matthew Groves. Correct?”

“The one and the only,” James confirmed, his burnt mouth curling into a smile.

Fake Hugh paused and squinted at him, as if the looper had something on his charcoal face. His eyes focused on James with an otherworldly intensity, trying to peer deeper into the looper's soul. After a moment he pulled back and muttered to himself. “This will be difficult.”

Then he waved his hand and the world went dark.

**************

Cold, but not the space kind, collapsed around his face.

It was wet and soft whiteness that drowned out the world around him. James righted himself and found he was lying in the snow. The looper, who had been on a spaceship just moments ago, found himself lying in the snow. Something about that chain of events sounded ever so off to James.

The world of white surrounded him, winter forests in every direction. Ahead stood a lone chalet, with the only sign of heat in the winter wonderscape he found himself transported to. It emanated a type of warmth that radiated relaxation. Something that sorely tempted James.

The looper felt himself light too. As if he’d been lifted of some burden he was unaware of. Breathing felt easier, moving not a crackling mess. But he also felt remarkably… empty in a way James couldn’t put into words. He touched his chest, feeling for something he knew had been buried deep inside him.

But it was gone.

And that made him feel uneasy.

Even as the world around him tried to trick him into thinking everything was alright.

The mask of a placid smile fell over James' face as he grabbed at the snow. It collapsed in his hands, completely soft to the touch. Not a hint of icy hardness he’d expect. Even the snow was kind.

“This is all a bit much, don’t you think.”

“You are owed a measure of comfort corresponding to the amount of system-induced trauma you’ve experienced.” Fake Hugh’s robotic voice disagreed.

A measure of comfort worth the Loop?

James struggled to imagine there was anything in the wide universe that could equate to the horrors he’d been through. When framed from that angle, the snow that collapsed in his hands like didn’t seem too far. It was the opposite.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

James raised his hands from the snow and realised they were gloved. He was wearing his favourite gloves. Along with his favourite, jeans, polo and jacket with some crocs that he’d had since he was a kid. Crocs definitely shouldn’t have kept his feet warm deep in the snow like they did.

In fact, now he thought about it, the snow itself wasn’t as cold as it should be. It was a comfortable amount of cold that he’d grown to like.

The temperature was the exact right amount of cold. Not too a degree too cold or hot.

James enjoyed the cold for a moment, sorting through exactly what he felt he was owed for surviving the Loop.

“This isn’t enough,” James said almost immediately, rising to his feet. He turned to see the fake version of Hugh watching him closely, dressed in his work clothes. “This doesn’t even make up for mimicking my mother.”

“In my defence, my form is a reflection of your state of mind. I don’t normally choose the way you view me.” Fake Hugh said with a smile that unnerved James. His demeanour had gone from robotic to life-like. “But you’re right. When I met the one you interpret as Fig, I had already prepared the resources for his reparations.”

“So you weren’t ready for me?” James pointed out.

Don’t see how that’s my problem. If you can’t tell the difference between me and a fake you’re about as competent as I assumed.

The Fake Hugh was a part of the system. He had to be. That whole thing was responsible for the giant mess that was his life, so he found it hard to believe anyone else would put effort into cleaning it up. The thing that was offering to help him was the same thing that had burned the earth's skies in azure and sent upon them a giant light-eating eye.

Not a good start as far as first impressions go.

And James had lived hundreds if not thousands of years with that poor first impression as his only impression of the system.

Suffice to say, he was not a fan.

At least the Fake Hugh had changed from mocking his dead mother and then let him kill that traitor without any interference.

Is it wrong to be disturbed by the fact that he just stood there and watched me do it?

“No, I wasn’t ready for you.” Fake Hugh agreed. “And can you stop referring to me as fake Hugh? I have a name.”

“I don’t care,” James said.

“Yes, I’ve noticed. But it’d rather you just call me Archive if we’re not so past resolutions that you won’t even respect my choice of title.” Archive said, and he sounded a little fed up. Had he gone through this whole spiel with Fig.

Come to think of it, How had Fig even fooled him?

“You brought Fig to where my spark was. Were you comforting him too?”

“I was,” Archive admitted readily. “It is not often that a Source is capable of separating their host, trapping them in a Spark the size of a sun, and then assuming a form physically identical to their own.” He then added. “I had assumed we had made a small error that had simply cost a young mortal a year. A travesty for them, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a little headstart after integration.”

James felt taken aback, although he kept it hidden behind a perfect facade. Archive, and by extension, the system had assumed he was gone for a year. One, singular year. A measly three hundred and sixty-five days. That was laughable and deeply infuriating. Luckily, the looper was under the impression that Archive no longer assumed he was just gone for a year. There was a heavy weight on his smile as he said those words, like just looking at James made Archive dearly wish it was just a year.

Not… however long the Loop had been.

Also, the mention of his Source and Fig together stirred darker emotions inside James. He hated when his mind shifted to what exactly had happened to the Source that had caused him so much. Almost as much as he hated remembering that Fig had been his Source.

That little tidbit still threw the looper for a loop.

“Am I giving you guys a headache?” James asked, sarcasm dripping off his words.

The looper subconsciously acknowledged that being hostile towards Archive wouldn’t get him much. Violence would have no effect on the being and he couldn’t exactly hurt its feelings. The looper wasn’t even sure it had feelings.

So his best course of action for respite was to inconvenience the creature as much as possible. With that in mind, James fell face-first into the snow and tried to suffocate himself in relaxing white doom.

It didn’t work. Much to the looper's bemusement.

“Let’s just say there’s a stark difference between you and the imposter as you have dubbed him,” Archive commented. “For one, he didn’t try to kill himself just to make my job harder.”

“And how did that work out for him?”

James shifted from trying to suffocate himself to trying to craft the most masterful snow angle he could. It turned out to be a lot harder in snow that wasn’t really snow, but imaginary relaxation dust.

“I put the snow here to give you peace of mind James, not to distract you.” Archive huffed as James threw a perfectly aimed snowball at him. The projectile crumbled into nothingness inches away from his face.

“If this conversation is that important then we should take it inside,” James pointed out, tossing another snowball at him.

“Done.” And with a snap of his fingers, the world around them snapped into something different.

Suddenly James was sitting instead of crouching, a soft cushion perched under his wet jeans. That wasn’t wet.

Did he dry clean my pants between instants or just replace them with identical ones?

As always, James asked the real hard-hitting questions.

The chalet Archive transported them to was built from a grain that did not match the trees that surrounded it. It held a rustic, hunting lodge type of design. Simple and classy. The type of place you could imagine housed many flannel checkered shirts and a wine fridge that only ever had beer in it. In short, his father’s personal heaven.

There was a fireplace at its centre, surrounded by a cosy-looking lounge that James and Archive looked down on from their loft balcony. Brillant intricate rugs warmed the cold wooden floors and James swore there was a perpetual smell of… cinnamon in the air. Small sounds of a blizzard racked against the wood and widows but failed to penetrate past the heat or be anything more than a whisper under the crackle of the fireplace.

The whole thing was very much tailored towards James.

Which him incredibly uneasy and guarded.

His eyes subconsciously lingered on the heart of the place, crackling away slowly. The deep crimson flickers reflected in his pale granite eyes.

“What do you think?” Archive asked, taking a sip of the whisky he’d magic’d up for himself. “Good for such short notice.”

“You’d have tricked a lesser me.” James readily admitted. Had this been his introduction to the system and Archive, how would the looper have received them? He let his mind chew on that thought as he watched the flames.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t one.”

Archive snorted. His whiskey tied with high vis made him the perfect example of a model tradesman. The fake of his father looked between him and the fire with unmasked curiosity. It was at that moment James understood that Archive was inquisitive by nature, as he asked a question that certainly wasn’t comfortable.

“Has your recent experience caused a fear of fire?” He asked, unabashed by just how too soon it was.

Not that James cared.

“Fear of fire isn’t a recent development for me,” James answered, gaze unwavering on the smouldering sparks. “My mother was a Christian. The kind that can make the most resolute atheists believe that there must be something to the bible just because of how pure she was. I like to think I’m a naturally suspicious person, but she made me believe.”

“I see.” Archive nodded, and for a moment James almost believed that his words weighed on the being across from him. “Does the fire remind you of her?”

He watched the shine of the flames flicker forward, almost trying to crawl out of their brick and iron cage. Hungry, demanding flames. The looper imagined them crawling over his skin, consuming him.

“No, I was scared of it. After she died, my father rejected any sort of item that could remind him of her, so I wasn’t allowed to keep any mementos. Hugh didn’t get over that hangup for years, so the only thing I had to remember her by was belief.” James chuckled, remembering his cross-carrying days. “I’d argue with Hugh about it for hours, and constantly try to convert anyone I could find. I remember going to Father Louis after school and demanding he show me her favourite verses.”

Archive magic’d a glass of gin in front of James, sensing his distress, but the looper's eyes stayed locked on the fire. Locked in memories he’d never shared with another soul.

“Father Louis used to call me an odd boy because I rejected penance. Every time he asked, I’d change the subject. He must’ve thought I was so strange.” The joy in James' voice vanished, replaced by something colder. “The truth was, I didn’t need penance. I knew where I was going. I think that was the real reason I held onto my mother’s belief. Because it punished bad people and I was the worst of them all. I deserved to be punished.”

“Because you believe you let her die?” Archive asked, his voice far softer than I’d been previously.

“I did let her die.” James corrected. “When I was eight I used to sneak into the kitchen and turn the stove on the highest setting I could. The pilot light always seemed so big to me, I used to be so enraptured by it.”

The looper grabbed at his Gin and downed the whole thing in one gulp, never taking his eyes off the fire.

“I wanted to know what it felt like to burn. On my braver nights, I’d dip my finger in and get a taste of my future. What it would feel like to burn in hell forever. That’s what scared me about fire, the thought of burning in it forever. But that only made me more sure, that it was what I deserved for letting her die.”

His gaze sunk deeper into the flames and James realised why he’d felt so light in this place. Because he wasn’t burning, charred to a monstrous beast. Every second of the burning had felt so glorious but now the looper could recall only the terrible, unending suffering it had inflicted upon him.

In a sense, his younger self had predicated his fate. He’d just missed the part where James escaped.

“I’m sorry James,” Archive said in earnest. The being reached out a hand to console him but James pushed it off and readorned his mask of a placid smile, tearing his eyes away from the flame.

“It’s in the past,” James said with a shrug, banishing the nostalgia coursing through him. “What matters now is whatever shitty reason is keeping you from plopping me back on earth. Out with it so you can piss off.”

“Before we begin, you’ll need to agree to something. It’ll make this whole thing much smoother” Archive prefaced.

“Will I like the thing I’m agreeing to?” The looper queried.

“No,” Archive admitted. “But you will agree to it.”

“Lay it on me,” James said, eager to get this show over with. Now that he’d escaped, there was a desperate scratching at the walls in his mind to get home.

Then a string of golden words burned into existence for him to view. James did not like what they said.

[System Contract: Early Integration]

[Early Integration: Due to conflicting circumstances and extreme disturbance of typical Intergration protocol, you have been offered early Intergration ahead of your race’s collective Intergration. This privilege is offered to any governing body of recognised authority to hand out to candidate Sparks. Once accepted, It grants a significant advantage by allowing the formation of Users Source without the completion of an Invitation, departure to Zenith or consumption of a Source-Cyst]

[Terms of agreement:

Terms have been waived by the Third Directive]

[Do you, James Matthew Groves, agree]

[Yes/No]

James laughed. Just a little. Then a little bit more- then quite a lot more than needed. He grasped out a hand to the table to keep himself upright as he filled the chalet with jubilant, mocking laughter.

“It’s not a joke,” Archive said, trying to keep some air of bravado.

That just made James laugh harder.