Lee used one hand to evaporate the skull of a few glowing zombies with one hand, and helped Vell to his feet with other.

“What about the company that manufactures that phone case of yours?” Lee asked. ‘They seem alright.”

“I actually called and asked, they don’t have the manufacturing power for that kind of thing.”

Zombies were always a fairly low-stakes apocalypse, and though these zombies were glowing with internal radiation, a few simple protective spells made them enough of a non-threat that the loopers could discuss personal business as they fought. Very literal business, in this case, as they were discussing how to get their mana harvesting device into production. Lee’s father would never be getting his hands on it now, but it was still an incredible source of clean energy, so they wanted some way to get it mass produced.

“Surely they could expand to meet the need,” Lee said.

“They didn’t really sound interested,” Vell said. “They’re a pretty small outfit, and that’s like, a global scale endeavor.”

All three of them had been fielding calls about the technology since Lee had shown it off to her father. Unfortunately, almost all of those calls had come from corporations with a long record of incredibly unethical behavior. While the oceanic mana harvester could do great things for humanity, none of the three wanted to hand that power over to someone who would abuse it.

“They recommended a small company based in Japan, though, pretty similar to them from what they said,” Vell explained. “I was going to vet them today, but, well-”

Vell paused and shot the heads off three zombies, sending splatters of radioactive blood across the quad.

“-you get it,” he concluded.

“Understandable. Step left for a bit, if you would.”

Vell would, and Lee sent a magic fireball through the space he’d just been standing, incinerating a few dozen more zombies.

“Harley, dear, you’ve been remarkably quiet on the matter, any opinions?”

“Well for starters, I’m doing actual hard work,” Harley said. She was jury-rigging an energy collection device not to different from their oceanic mana harvester to fulfill a very different purpose. Once complete, it would hopefully drain all the radiation right out of the nuclear zombies. “And secondly, I already figured this shit out three days ago, I’m just waiting for you two to get over yourselves and figure it out.”

“What? Are we missing something?”

“Yeah, a dozen zombies, west flank,” Harley said. Vell shot down the encroaching undead in seconds. “Thank you. Now, as for the real question, give me one sec.”

Harley connected a wire, soldered it in place, and then flipped a switch on her completed device. It hummed to life, and didn’t explode, two things she always looked for in an invention.

“Alrighty, duck,” Harley said. Lee and Vell hit the ground while Harley aimed her energy collector at the encroaching zombies. In a slightly underwhelming display, the device hummed a little bit, and a large group of zombies stopped glowing and fell over, dead once again.

“Hmm. I was kinda hoping there’d be some big glowing beam, like a Ghostbusters thing.”

“I didn’t have time to add the lights,” Harley said. “It works, and that’s the important part.”

She drained another horde of zombies and checked the readouts to make sure nothing was getting overloaded. As expected, her energy drainer worked perfectly, and she started walking along, casually draining the radiation out of entire hordes of zombies as she did so.

“Now can you tell us what you supposedly figured out?”

Harley considered it for a moment, evaporated another group of zombies, and then gave her answer.

“Actually, nah, I think it’s funnier this way,” Harley said. “Also, I’d rather have this conversation while I’m not holding something wildly radioactive.”

“Oh, yeah, how’s your shielding on that thing?”

“Good, but not that good,” Harley said. She patted the weapon held at her side and then poked herself in the stomach. “I think I’m growing a third kidney.”

“Hmm. Perhaps Vell and I should go do something further away from you. No offense.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll get the hordes, you go investigate the source,” Harley said. “We’ll talk next loop, after everything’s dealt with.”

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

“You again,” Lee said, as she held up the Necronomicon. The vile tome let out a low groan of maddening hymns in protest of her handling it. “Rubbish.”

Lee tossed the corrupt grimoire into a fire while Harley safely stored away the radioactive materials it had been stored by. The book always reappeared eventually, but hopefully Lee would be graduated the next time it popped up.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“All done?”

“All done,” Harley said. “No radioactive zombies today.”

“Excellent. Now will you tell us what you supposedly figured out?”

“Did you guys not get it already?”

Lee and Harley exchanged glances and mutually rolled their eyes.

“No, we didn’t,” Vell said.

“Are you going to keep teasing us about this, or can we get it over with, dear?”

“I intend to bask in my smug sense of superiority for at least as long as it takes us to walk back to Vell’s dorm.”

And so she did. Thankfully his dorm was not very far away. Harley stopped to say hello to Prickly the Cactus and then sat down at Vell’s table, looking pleased with herself.

“Are we good to go or do we need to debase ourselves some more?”

“Oh, no,” Harley said. “I could go for some lunch, but we can do that afterwards if you want.”

“I’m not getting you anything until you tell us what your idea is,” Vell said. As Lee’s emancipation had turned him into the richest member of their trio, he was now in charge of lunch orders.

“Fine.”

Harley laid her hands flat on the table and leaned forward.

“You guys have got your heads up your asses wondering who we need to turn to for help to get our invention out there,” Harley said. “But we don’t need anybody’s help.”

She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms confidently.

“Let’s start our own company.”

The other two members of their little trinity stayed silent for a moment.

“The amount of resources required-”

“Are nothing, Lee,” Harley said. “The mana harvester is a guaranteed money maker, guys, people will be tripping over themselves to invest in us, and we can name our own terms.”

“We can’t make enough of these things to meet demand with just the three of us,” Vell said. “We’d have to get facilities, hire a lot of people, run marketing and sales divisions, all kinds of really complicated business bullshit.”

“Oh man, you’re right,” Harley said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If only we had someone who’d been groomed her entire life to run a massive technology company!”

Lee tried to shrink into her seat, and said nothing. Her father had forced her to take a lifetime of business classes, and despite her reluctance, she had actually paid attention and learned the logistics of business management, to avoid upsetting him. She’d never planned on actually using any of that information, though.

“Meanwhile, we have a direct line to dozens of the world’s biggest geniuses, all of whom are going to be entering the job market soon,” Harley said. “There’s plenty of people out there who want to develop new tech without selling it to scumbags like Kraid or Burrows. We use the profits from the harvester to fund research and help make some new stuff, with the promise that it’ll be in good hands.”

The proposal was met with icy silence at first. Harley had figured it would be. Lee and Vell had many positive qualities, but they shared a strong sense of self-doubt. They were already mulling over reasons to second guess themselves or explain why such a bold move would not work. Harley disrupted the self-sabotage with more talking.

“Lee can run the show, as the resident extrovert I’ll handle hiring and investor stuff, and Vell, next year by the time you graduate, we’ll have production all set up and move on to making an R&D department that you’ll be in charge of.”

As the silence continued, Harley reached across the table and grabbed both of them by the hands.

“Honestly? I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, guys,” Harley said. The thought of the three of them striking out together had been occupying the back of her mind all year, but up until Lee’s rebellion against her parents, mostly as a fantasy. Now it was much more real, and much more viable. “I know it’s a huge undertaking, but we can do this.”

Lee shifted her hand until she could firmly grab Harley’s in turn, and gave it a tight squeeze.

“I believe you, dear,” Lee said softly. “But in all of this talk, you’ve failed to mention something very important.”

Harley experienced a moment of doubt that ended when Lee’s face shifted into a sly smile.

“What are we going to name this company of ours?”

“Well I can’t do all the work,” Harley said. “That we got to decide by committee.”

“What about like, Loop Tech, or something,” Vell suggested. “We all met because of the time loop. Makes sense, right?”

“I worry about tying ourselves to a time loop, especially after we’re no longer in it,” Lee said.

“Lee’s going to be running the show,” Harley said. “I say we name it after her. It’ll be a real big ‘fuck you’ to your parents too, you’ve got your own company with your own name on it now.”

“Tempting as that sounds, I feel as though that puts our identity off the wrong start,” Lee said. “Why not name it after you? It is your brainchild.”

“My brainchild that you’re going to be doing all the real work on,” Harley said. “You’re going to be in charge, I’m basically just a hype man with a job title.”

“And yet I never would’ve come up with this idea on my own,” Lee said. “Whoever’s in charge, this is your company, Harley.”

Of all the naming arguments in history, Vell wondered if this was the first in which each side was fighting to not have a thing named after themselves. Though it was a one of a kind argument, it was still an argument, and Vell sought to interrupt it.

“What about Three Suns Technology,” Vell said, as he rolled up his sleeve and pointed to the tattoo they all had on their shoulders. “Something like that works, right?”

Lee and Harley looked at Vell, looked back at each other, and then back at Vell again. For some reason, he felt like an entire debate had just taken place during that quick double take. He felt like that because it was exactly what had happened.

“Vell,” Lee said. “We’re naming the company after you.”

“What?”

“Yep. Harlan Research and Technologies. Or Harlan Industries. Maybe just ‘Harlan’,” Harley said. “Rolls off the tongue a little better than just ‘Lee’ or ‘Harley’ anyway.”

“Harlan and Harley are practically the same word!”

“The phonetic difference is slight but meaningful,” Harley said. “Anyway, Lee and I already agree on it so you’re outvoted anyway.”

“Okay, fine,” Vell said. He knew better than to argue. “But I get final approval on the logo. I don’t want my name up there in any weird fonts.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

Harley laid her hands flat on the table, as did Lee. Vell was still a bit bewildered by the entire affair. He had zero doubts, but there were a lot of other things to be confused about right now.

“Well then,” Lee said. “I think that concludes the first official meeting of Harlan Industries.”

“Excellent,” Harley said. She was almost always smiling, but now she smiled even wider than usual. “I’ll accept my first paycheck in the form of a sandwich. Mr. Harlan?”

“Yeah yeah, what do you want on yours?” Vell said, as he pulled out his phone.