“I’ve never seen such a buckle before,” Dr. Ervine said. “Though I wish I had. I’d have bought it on the spot.”

Lee put her phone away. Though the picture of the eagle-engraved belt buckle had drawn an impressed whistle from their western-obsessed professor, it had not drawn any recognition. Lee bowed apologetically.

“Sorry for taking up your time, professor,” Lee said.

“No trouble at all, ma’am,” Dr. Ervine said. “If that were my belt buckle, I’d be desperate to see it returned. Keep at it, Lee, I’m sure that masterpiece’s owner will be glad to see it safely returned.”

Dr. Ervine tipped his cowboy hat, which he was wearing while sitting at his desk for some reason, in Lee’s direction and then returned to his work. Lee exited the office, carefully, so as not to rattle the horseshoe hanging on the door on her way out.

“No luck,” Lee said to Daveed, who’d been waiting on the other side of the door.

“Are you sure? Apparently these ‘belt’ things hold up pants, did you check if his pants were falling down?”

“I would’ve noticed if they were,” Lee said. “I am aware of how belts work, Daveed. I’m wearing one.”

Daveed glanced downwards. Lee was, in fact, wearing a stylish pair of slacks held aloft with a black belt, securely fastened by a silver belt buckle.

“Oh. I see,” Daveed said. He resolved to move on from that gaffe as quickly as possible. “What now?”

“We could join the others in scouring the campus,” Lee suggested. “Unless you have other ideas, Daveed. You are just as ‘in charge’ as I am, after all. I don’t want to speak over you.”

“No, no, you’re technically the senior agent, you go ahead and take charge,” Daveed said. “You’re at the start of your third year, after all, I’m only in my second.”

“And if we’re talking seniority, I probably have a few decades on you, at least,” Lee joked. Daveed didn’t laugh, which made her feel doubly self-conscious.

“Oh, and also, you actually know the places and the people here,” Daveed said. “So, yes, you are all around the best candidate. Please feel free to give all the orders, don’t mind me.”

Perceiving the problems of others was difficult for Lee, blinded by her own problems as she often was, but even she could see that Daveed was eager to defer responsibility. Perhaps not consciously, but some core part of Daveed was desperate to pass the buck. Lee took the lead when it came to walking, at least, and in starting a new conversation.

“So, you said you’d only been the senior looper for a few weeks, yes?”

“A bit more than a month, at this point, yes.”

“What was your leader last year like?”

“They were a bit of a clacked driver.”

“Um...a what, dear?”

“Is that not a phrase yet?”

“No.”

“Ah, right. They were very difficult to deal with,” Daveed elaborated. “They had to be in charge of everything, always had to be in control, had to be the dominant voice in every conversation. A ‘pain in the ass’, if that makes sense?”

“No, that one’s actually a saying now,” Lee said. “And I agree, he does sound like a pain.”

“Indeed. I’m trying very hard not to follow his example.”

“Then whose example are you following?”

A brief interruption in Daveed’s stride told Lee her words had struck true -perhaps a little truer than she had intended.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re doing,” Lee said. “That’s what Harley says, at least.”

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Daveed said.

“You haven’t seen me trip over my own feet yet. Keep watching, it’ll happen.”

Exactly ten minutes and thirty seven seconds later, Lee got an unexpected text from Adele and accidentally walked into a bench, pivoting over the arm rail and slamming head first into the seat. As she scraped her bruised face off the planks, she gestured to Daveed as if to say “I told you so”. Then the headache hit her.

“Ow. Are there less benches on campus in the future, by any chance?”

“There’s more, actually.”

“Why?”

People didn’t even sit on most of the benches they already had. Daveed shrugged.

----------------------------------------

Having found the room number of Ryder Storm through the student database, Vell and Ateela headed to his dorm, belt buckle in hand. As they sought out Vell’s one-time ‘rival’ in paintball gunslinging, Ateela took the time to ask a few important questions -important to her, at least.

“Are you dating anyone right now?”

“No.”

“What’s the worst apocalypse you’ve ever been through?”

“Swarm of living sandpaper.”

“Ouch. What about the best?”

“Crushed to death by a whale. I got to play with penguins before that, though.”

“Ooh, penguins. What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Cookie dough. Not that I mind, but, uh, what’s with all the questions?”

“I’m just curious about the past,” Ateela said. “I’ve always studied the big trends from history, but I’ve never been able to get inside the head of a genuine twenty-first century human.”

Ateela was also very curious about Vell specifically, but she couldn’t tell him that. Not openly, at least. Vell had picked up on a trend, however.

“Right. So why are all your questions about me, specifically? That doesn’t tell you anything.”

“Uh...I didn’t think of that,” Ateela said. “I’m not very smart.”

“Oh, you’re plenty smart, don’t say that,” Vell said. His desire to be kind won out over his ability to be suspicious yet again. Ateela didn’t like distracting him like that, but she had to take the sanctity of the timeline at least a little seriously.

“Oh look, I think that’s the dorm we’re looking for,” Ateela said, pointing very far down the hall. She had to give herself some kind of excuse to stop talking, lest her curiosity get the better of her again. She walked along in stiffly enforced silence as Vell stepped up and knocked on the door. They were soon met with a round-faced young man in loose fitting khaki shorts and a t-shirt with the Mountain Dew logo on it.

“Vell? What’re you doing here?”

“Uh, yeah, I was looking for Ryder, is he there?”

Vell glanced over the schlubby stranger’s shoulder, hoping to find the gunslinger inside. Until that schlubby man pointed to himself. Vell blinked twice and refocused on the facial features, no longer framed by the collar of a massive duster and shaded by a wide-brimmed hat.

“Ryder?”

Mr. Storm nodded sheepishly, although Vell noted that the nameplate by the dorm said “Eric”.

“You look, uh- what happened to the accent?”

“Not important,” the apparent Eric “Ryder” Storm said. He looked a little embarrassed to be seen off his game. “Can I help you?”

“Right. I was, um, looking for somebody who might own something like this,” Vell said. He held out the eagle-engraved belt buckle. “It seemed sort of like your thing. I thought.”

“Yeah, that’s not mine. It’s a bit much, even for me,” Eric said.

“Okay. Cool. Uh, sorry to bug you, then. See you at the paintball game, I guess?”

“Yeah. See you then.”

The two exchanged stiff nods and then Eric slammed the door shut, eager to be out of that awkward chat. Vell took a few steps away from the door and shook his head.

“That was weird,” Ateela said. “Did you know that guy?”

“I thought I did,” Vell said. The macho gunslinger routine had apparently all been an act. Vell didn’t know what to make of that, and chose to focus on the matter at hand instead.

“So that’s our lead on the belt buckle blown,” Vell said. “Let me text Lee and see where she’s at.”

“Oh oh, no, let me get in touch with Daveed. It’ll be way faster than you texting.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“How so?”

“I’m from the future! We have complex neurally-linked communication systems, lightyears more advanced than anything your modern minds could conceive of.”

Ateela put a hand on her temples, and stared forward for a second.

“What’s the wi-fi password?”

“pffletcher07.”

“Thanks.”

With intense mental focus (and a microchip in her skull), Ateela let Daveed know everything they’ve discovered so far -and was told, in turn, that he and Lee had also turned up nothing. All of their leads had come up as dead ends.

“If it’s not Ryder or Professor Ervine, I don’t know who it could be,” Vell said. Frustration slipped into his voice as he spoke.

“Maybe we could search for anyone who’s had cowboy-related thoughts with the school neuronet?”

“I don’t think we have one of those,” Vell said. He also thought it was a bit messed up that they had some kind of easily-scanned hivemind in the future, but he kept that to himself. Though they did have something only one step removed from an invasive hivemind that recorded and cataloged all human thought: social media.

“Maybe we can scan the school’s website or social media about anyone missing a belt buckle,” Vell said. “For now, let’s head back to my dorm.”

“Oh, okay! That sounds fun!”

Ateela followed in Vell’s footsteps as they headed back to his dorm, and he texted the other loopers to let them know to rally there. Ateela threw out a few more questions along the way, careful to vary her topics this time. She didn’t want to clue Vell into her real curiosity about him specifically. She also didn’t want to clue in any random bystanders about her origins, so she clammed up when Freddy walked by.

“Hi Vell,” Freddy said. “Who’s your friend?”

“I am Ateela!”

Her attempts to stay quiet never lasted very long. Ateela liked people.

“Hi Ateela. What are you up to?”

“We are going to have sex,” Ateela said, gesturing to a suddenly wide-eyed Vell.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Ateela said, confused. “Is ‘let’s go back to my place’ not a form of propositioning in this t- place?”

“I mean, yes, but, uh, not always,” Vell said. “I meant, uh, we’re just going to my dorm to look at something.”

Ateela accepted that explanation with no signs of disappointment. Freddy, on the other hand, looked seven different kinds of confused.

“Sorry, Fred. She’s, uh, from out of town,” Vell began. “Old friend of my mom’s. Uh, I mean, a kid of an old friend. From back home in Pakistan. She’s visiting. Long story.

“Things usually are, with you,” Freddy said. He rarely questioned even Vell’s worst-formulated cover stories, as when it came to Vell, the truth was usually stranger than the fiction.

The other group of looper’s rounded the corner, answering Vell’s call, and Ateela skipped over to reunite with Daveed and explain some of the slang terms she’d used today. She didn’t want him to repeat her mistake of thinking he’d been propositioned. It turned out to be a moot point, as he had been propositioned rather more directly by Harley. Vell lingered behind for a moment to shrug at Freddy, trying to shake off the last bits of that awkward experience.

“What’s your secret, Vell?”

“What do you mean?” Vell, unfortunately, had several secrets, and he would need Freddy to be more specific.

“With women. Why are they all over you?”

“They’re not all over me,” Vell scoffed. Freddy started counting on his fingers.

“Joan, Harley, Leanne, Kim, Ateela-”

“Okay, yes, I get it,” Vell said. “That’s not that many.”

“It’s above the statistical average for a man of our age,” Freddy noted. And well above his batting average of zero, though he didn’t say that out loud. “How do you do it?”

“I, uh, honestly don’t know. It just happens,” Vell said. “I’ve never really made the first move with anyone. I’m tall, I guess? Some women like that. Maybe?”

For Freddy Frizzle, who stood about eight inches shorter than Vell, this was not a helpful piece of advice. He sighed and shrugged his short shoulders.

“I guess I’ll just try to take a few pages out of your book,” Freddy said. “You’re clearly doing something right.”

“I guess. Uh, chin up, Freddy. I don’t know much, but I know nobody finds moping sexy. Unless it’s in an edgy, brooding way, like Batman.”

“I’m no Batman,” Freddy sighed. “But you’re right. Thanks, Vell.”

“Any time. I gotta get back to it, though.”

“Alright. I’ll see you around, Vell.”

Waving a quick goodbye, Vell ducked into his dorm for a meeting. Kim tried too hard to pretend it wasn’t weird she was back in Vell’s dorm for the first time since the end of their addled relationship, but everyone else made themselves comfortable. Ateela even made herself a little too comfortable, poking around in one of Vell’s drawers to see what she could find. Harley slammed the door shut before she got too far into her search.

“Listen, I don’t know what privacy is like in the future-”

“It’s the same, she’s just nosy,” Daveed said.

“Right, okay. Personal space, Ateela.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Vell insisted. “Just focus. We need to find a way to get that belt buckle back to it’s owner.”

“How many students are there on campus right now?”

“A few thousand. I can’t recall the exact number, but it’s far too many to deal with using conventional means,” Lee said. “We can’t simply hang up ‘missing’ signs in the common rooms.”

Kim leaned over to Hawke and whispered in his ear.

“Told you that was a bad idea.”

“I was doing my best,” Hawke hissed back. Oblivious to their brief aside, the conversation carried on.

“How do we narrow it down, then?”

“Maybe there’s some kind of cowboy-adjacent field of studies? Or perhaps Professor Ernest’s mannerisms have rubbed off on some of his students.”

“Maybe. It’s probably not any of Ryder’s, er, Eric’s friends,” Vell said. “The cowboy things a bit of a put-on.”

“Maybe it’s one of the people who admire you, Vell,” Ateela suggested. Daveed swiftly elbowed her in the ribs.

“Oh. What was that for?”

“You stepped on my foot,” Daveed said, even though Ateela had her feet up on a coffee table. He realized the threadbare nature of his excuse a second too late. “Uh...We need to go through a futuristic apology ritual.”

Daveed stood, grabbed Ateela, and dragged her to privacy through the nearest door. Vell was just about to tell him it was the bathroom when Daveed grabbed the door and slammed it behind him. While the shampoo bottles in Vell’s shower rattled from the force of the slam, Kim turned to Vell.

“He’s even worse at improvising than you,” she noted. Vell just shrugged.

Inside the not-so-spacious bathroom, Ateela briefly admired the 21st century water-based accouterments and then remembered the reason they were here.

“Is there an apology ritual? Should I have been ritually apologizing the whole time? Oh no, that explains why people are always so annoyed with me.”

“No, that’s- We’ll talk about that later, the apology ritual is made up. I needed a ruse so we could talk privately.”

“We could’ve done a neural-chat.”

Daveed bit his tongue.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Daveed said. Ateela was drawn in by his usage of a vintage saying and paid more attention to what he said next. “What did we talk about when we got here? You can’t give Vell any clues about what’s going to happen to him.”

“But I didn’t! I just said maybe someone likes his cowboy style,” Ateela said. “I know I do!”

“That’s the thing, you’re speaking from your perspective,” Daveed scolded. “You know all these things about Vell and all the disasters that happen and that’s influencing your judgment. If you give even the slightest hint-”

“Yeah, irrevocably alter the flow of time, I get it,” Ateela sighed. “Alright, I was wrong.”

Daveed nodded in understanding and they exited the bathroom, to find Vell sitting in a chair silently, staring at the ground with a wrinkled forehead. Harley looked over her shoulder as soon as they exited.

“Hey, so, girly was probably right.”

Daveed cringed in anticipation of Aleeta saying “I told you so”, but it never happened.

“What do you mean?”

“Vell said ‘hold on a minute’ and then his forehead got all wrinkly,” Harley said. “He does that when he’s thinking real hard about something.”

“It’s pretty intense,” Kim noted. “He’s up to three wrinkles.”

She pointed to Vell’s forehead, and the three prominent creases on his furrowed brow.

“It goes on a scale of one to four,” Harley explained. “Four being the most intense thinking.”

“Fascinating,” Ateela said. The history books had completely failed to mention Vell’s wrinkly forehead.

His wrinkly forehead immediately ceased to exist as Vell stood up and started walking out of his dorm. He absentmindedly failed to mention what his goals were, but Lee and Harley knew his patterns by now. He walked down the hall, retracing the steps he’d taken on the way in, and came to a sharp halt in front of one all too familiar door.

“Hey Freddy,” he said giving it a knock. Freddy Frizzle, who’d barely had time to sit down, came to the door almost instantly. Vell gave him a quick look over and then asked the question on his mind. “You lose a belt buckle lately?”

This question was followed by a staredown that lasted for approximately three-quarters of a second. Freddy didn’t handle pressure well.

“Yes.”

Freddy bowed his head low and went red in the face.

“I know it’s odd,” he mumbled. “But, I, um…”

After failing to think of a good excuse, Freddy sighed and let the door to his dorm slip open a crack. Amid all the miscellaneous science junk and nerd stuff, there was an island of yeehaw bullshit -two large cowboy boots and a matching stetson hat that would not possibly fit on Freddy’s fuzzy head.

“What’s all this for, Fred?”

“For...I don’t know, I wanted to…”

His stammering was cut short as Harley walked up to Freddy and grabbed him by the cheeks, squishing his face between her hands.

“Freddo, deep breath,” Harley instructed. “Then be honest.”

Freddy followed her advice and relaxed -though the fact Harley was grabbing him by the face meant his cheeks stayed very red.

“I was trying to be more like Vell,” he admitted. Vell nodded in understanding. His earlier conversation with Freddy, combined with Ateela’s comment of someone trying to be like him, had made him suspect as much. Harley released her grip on Freddy’s face and put her hands on her hips.

“And why are you doing that?”

“Because...because you’re always doing cool things, and meeting new people, and getting girls, and I just…I thought if I were more like you...”

“Freddy, of all the things to latch on to, why would the cowboy thing be it?” Harley asked. “Vell doesn’t even do that stuff very often.”

“It’s a piece of the larger whole,” Freddy objected. “You know, scientifically, you have to look at everything to, uh, understand it.”

“Well, you’re copying his ‘uh’-ing pretty well now,” Kim said.

“Hey.”

Vell was torn between feeling flattered and insulted by this entire ordeal. He settled closer to insulted.

“You know, Freddo, self-confidence never comes from imitation,” Harley chided. “You got to be you, not Vell.”

“I...I know. I just thought it could help.”

For someone at Freddy’s level of awkwardness, any boost of confidence might help -even a cowboy themed one. Unfortunately for Freddy, the small but concentrated amount of Western spirit flowing through Vell’s veins was not the secret to his success, and even if it had been, Freddy would never quite be able to match his levels of yeehaw.

“I’m sorry if we’ve ever done anything to make you feel less worthy of our attention, Freddy,” Lee said. They would have to take more lasting steps to reinforce his self-worth on a second loop. In the moment, they had to ensure that there would be a second loop. “For now, though, I believe the least we can do is return your belt buckle. Ateela?”

“Oh, right, belt buckle,” Ateela said. “I, uh, I don’t have it.”

“You were carrying it around,” Harley said. “Weren’t you?”

“I put it down back in Vell’s dorm room,” Ateela explained. “I left it there.”

“Why would you leave it lying around?” Daveed demanded.

“Vell did not explain where we were going, I wanted to leave it somewhere safe,” Ateela said. Daveed sighed deeply.

“Well, it won’t be too much of a bother to go and get it,” Lee said. “Ateela, would you mind?”

Ateela gave a salute from the future -which looked like an offensive gesture to the people of this era- and then ran off. Her usual frantic pace faded into a slow shuffle once she was around the corner and out of sight. As she approached Vell’s dorm, she reached into her jumpsuit pocket and withdrew the belt buckle. She rubbed her hand across the cold steel of the engraved buckle, and then looked up at the dorms around her. The past she’d always looked back on spread out before her, at her fingertips, beckoning her with promises of pop music, Hollywood movies, and relatively intact ice caps.

The fantasies of the past that was now her present faded away, and Ateela looked back at the belt buckle in her hands. The belt buckle that would return her to her far-flung, lonely future once it was returned to Freddy.

“A little while longer couldn’t hurt,” Ateela mumbled to herself, as she pocketed the buckle once more. She walked back to the other loopers, her head already formulating the story she’d tell. It would be a quick search, just long enough to give Ateela more time to look around, and then she’d “find” the belt buckle when she was ready to go home. It would be easy, and harmless.

Behind Ateela, a clock ticked forward. Then backward, then forwards again, and then it started to tick sideways -a phenomenon the Chronology department usually referred to as “not good”.