“Okay, you got the bomb, Samson?”

“Right here,” Samson said, as he dropped the explosive on the table.

“Please be a little more gentle with that,” Hawke said.

“What? It’s a bomb, it doesn’t go off when it gets dropped, it goes off when that little goldfish eats the last food pellet.”

Nobody was sure why the bomb was connected to a goldfish’s appetite, but they were beyond the point of questioning such things by now. Alex had the goldfish frozen in magical stasis for the time being, but that was a tenuous solution. The spell would wear off soon, and once it did, they would need a more permanent solution to the goldfish bomb problem.

“Let’s just focus on ways to disarm it,” Vell said.

“Yeah, sure,” Samson said. “You got any ideas, Helena?”

“I used one bomb, six months ago,” Helena protested. “I am not the bomb expert.”

“That’s one more bomb than most of us have used,” Samson said.

“Enough,” Kim said. “God, I cannot wait for you two to get a break from each other. Let’s just defuse the bomb so we can get this over with.”

The goldfish bomb was their last apocalypse before the start of the New Year’s Break, and a full two weeks with no apocalypses of any kind. It would be a much needed break, considering everything—and everyone—the loopers had had to deal with this year. Kim tried not to glance at their two biggest problems, Alex and Helena, standing side by side at the edge of the table.

“Let’s get it done,” Vell said. “Alex, you keep the spell steady. Everyone else, I am open to suggestions on how to stop this.”

The goldfish was frozen in time mere seconds away from eating the last food pellet and triggering the bomb. That gave the loopers a very narrow window of opportunity to unfreeze it and disarm the bomb before it went off, and any attempt to move the goldfish now risked breaking the spell prematurely. The loopers began a spirited debate on goldfish removal methods. Samson suggested turning the bowl upside down so everything just fell out of it, and Helena loudly cleared her throat.

“I know it’s not the best idea, but it could work,” Samson snapped. “You got anything better?”

“No, actually,” Helena said. She coughed loudly. “That wasn’t me being a bitch, I just actually need to clear my throat.”

“Oh.”

“You alright?” Vell asked. “Need anything?”

“I should be fine,” Helena said, though she was audibly gasping for breath as she did so. “Just the perils of having deformed lungs. It’ll pass.”

“If you say so. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Of course.”

Alex maintained the spell, and resisted the urge to comment on any of their inane ideas. Worst come to worst, she could just modify her spell slightly to vaporize the fish, and the entire bowl. Most of the other loopers were throwing out ideas that involved saving the fish, as if its life mattered in the slightest.

Her thoughts, condescending as they were, were partially disrupted when something tugged at her sleeve. Alex glanced right and saw Helena clutching at her throat with one hand, and tugging on Alex’s arm with the other. As soon as she had Alex’s attention, Helena pointed at Vell, and then grasped at her throat once more. She moved her mouth as if to talk, but no words came out.

Alex ignored her and went back to focusing on the spell. A few seconds later, Helena hit the ground.

“What’s- Helena!”

Vell ditched the fishbowl and picked Helena up from where she’d collapsed. She was still grasping at her throat and visibly struggling to breathe.

“Alex, what the hell is happening?”

“She’s faking,” Alex said. “If she were actually not breathing, her face would be changing colors.”

“Have you met Helena?” Samson said. “She could be out of blood too, or something.”

“Kim, get the door, contact the medical team,” Vell ordered. “Samson, help me get her off the ground, let’s go.”

The two of them picked Helena up and hauled her out the door, with Kim and Hawke going on ahead to make sure the path was clear. Alex rolled her eyes, snapped her fingers, and vaporized the bomb, fish and all. At least she could solve that problem.

***

“Whatever kind of attack she was having, seems like the worst of it passed by the time you got her to us. We administered some anti-inflammatory meds to make sure there’s no further swelling, but she should be fine.”

“Thanks.”

The professor that doubled as their chief medical officer nodded, and walked away. Helena was already strapping on her crutches and getting ready to leave.

“Thank you for not panicking and trying to perform an emergency tracheotomy,” Helena said. She raised a hand and pointed one pale finger at a scar on her neck. “Choking is bad enough without some dipshit trying to carve a hole in your neck with a pen.”

“You’re welcome,” Vell said. “For, uh, helping. And sorry about everything else.”

“It’s happened before, it’ll happen again,” Helena said. She finished strapping on her crutches and stood up. “I’ll be on my way back to Germany soon, have to head back to the hospital and get my ribcage popped open for the eighth time. Maybe this time they’ll find out what’s wrong with me and fix it.”

“Eighth?”

“Yeah, with all the surgeries I need, I keep telling them to put some hinges in there,” Helena said. She tapped her knuckles against her ribs for emphasis. “Save us all a lot of time.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t waste my time being sorry,” Helena said. “I don’t need pity. I need a miracle, and the only one of those we’ve got is on your lower back.”

“Yeah. I…”

Vell paused thoughtfully. Helena tried not to stare at him too hard.

“Look, I really don’t know a lot about this rune, or anything going on with it,” Vell said. “But I do know a little. If you think it’ll help…”

“Not much,” Helena said. “As is, it’s just a bunch of rune trivia. Wouldn’t make sense to me even if it was helpful. But...Joan is coming to pick me up. Maybe she can get something useful out of it.”

“It’s worth a try,” Vell said. “When’s she getting here? I can probably have a flash drive ready by then.”

“Should be around three,” Helena said.

“Couple hours,” Vell said. “I’ll just get started, then.”

He waved goodbye and headed off to work. As the two parted, they were both smiling, for entirely different reasons.

***

“That should be it,” Kim said. “Everything you need, all wrapped up in one little thumb drive.”

She handed the drive over to Vell, who took it and admired the tiny plastic drive. It was an unassuming little thing, but it was still the culmination of a lot of work. Joan should be arriving any minute, so it had been completed just in time for the handoff, too.

“Thanks, Kim,” Vell said. “Let’s just get this-”

The door to the way slammed open, and Alex walked in. She didn’t have any particular reason to be slamming doors, she was just like that.

“About time you showed up,” Samson said. “Did you vaporize that goldfish?”

“Of course I did,” Alex said. “The rest of you ran off to deal with complete nonsense, someone had to do something useful.”

“Fuck you,” Samson said. “I wanted to keep that little guy.”

“It’s a goldfish, you can get a thousand like it at any given pet store,” Alex snapped. “Was that all? Or are you all gathered here for a reason?”

“We are, but it has nothing to do with you,” Hawke said.

“We’re putting together some info on our runes that should help Helena,” Vell said, pointing to himself and Kim. “If you have any ideas, you’re welcome to chip in.”

“My only idea is that this is a stupid idea,” Alex said. “I told you she was faking. She feigned a medical emergency, probably for this exact reason.”

“Come on, Alex, don’t be so fucking cynical,” Hawke said.

“It’s not cynicism, it’s sanity, you’re all just hopelessly naive,” Alex said. “She’s a self-professed expert at manipulation, and she’s manipulating all of you.”

“Manipulating me into what?” Vell said. “Helping her? I want to do that anyway.”

“Yeah, even if she’s not telling the full truth, helping Helena is still the right thing to do,” Kim said.

“Even if that information finds its way into the hands of the numerous bad actors you know are after information on Vell’s rune?”

“Someone’s life is on the line,” Vell said. “It’s a risk we have to take.”

“No,” Alex said. “We don’t.”

She snapped her fingers, and the plastic flash drive flew out of Vell’s hands and into hers. Multiple voices cried out in protest, but Alex didn’t listen to any of them. She snapped her fingers again, and a quick surge of gray magic washed over her, rendering her entirely invisible. She walked out of the lair and into the hall, flash drive in tow, wondering how best to dispose of it. A few footsteps scattered in different directions behind her as the loopers spread out to search.

Alex wondered if fire or acid might be the most thorough method of destruction, or if she should simply smash it. Someone else was also thinking about smashing, but in a very different context. A cold metal hand grabbed Alex by the back of the neck.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Hi Alex,” Kim said, as she held the younger looper off the ground. “Have I ever mentioned I have infrared vision?”

Kim threw Alex across the hall, and she bounced off the wall before sliding to the ground.

“You might remember that if you ever fucking paid attention to anyone except yourself,” Kim said. “Now give me the flash drive!”

“No!”

Since it was pointless anyway, Alex broke the invisibility spell, and redirected the magical energy into a blast of magic at Kim. She barely flinched as the beam bounced off her metal hide.

“Okay, great,” Kim said, sounding genuinely enthusiastic. She grabbed Alex by the ankle and swung her across the floor, sending her flying into the opposite wall. “Every time you say no, I get another excuse to hit you.”

Alex bounced off the wall, and right back into Kim’s elbow coming the other way, knocking the wind out of her.

“Which I’ve been waiting to do since we met, by the way,” Kim said. “You make a terrible first impression.”

“I don’t care.”

Alex was far from the brightest person, but she was still smart enough to know brute force would not beat Kim. Luckily, she had magic. Alex clenched her fist tight around the flash drive and focused on the cold. Immediately, ice crystals started to form on Kim’s body, and within seconds, a solid layer of ice had fused around her metal shell. Alex took off running, and managed to make it all the way through the door before she got tackled by all two-hundred and fifty pounds of Hawke.

“Give us the flash drive!”

“Are you all insane?”

Samson grabbed Alex’s wrist and tried to wrestle the flash drive out of her clenched fist while Hawke kept her pinned.

“Let go of me,” Alex screamed at Samson. “Why are you even doing this? You hate Helena more than anyone!”

“Well I trust Vell more,” Samson said.

“You have no idea what’s going on here,” Hawke said. “Just stop being an asshole for once in your life and give us the drive!”

“No!”

With her spare hand, Alex punched Samson in the shoulder to shake him off, and then slammed her two hands together. In a dull explosion of gray magic, she vanished from Hawke’s grasp, and reappeared twenty feet to the left.

“To giving you the drive, I mean,” Alex said. “I am not an asshole!”

“Yeah you are,” Helena said. Alex glanced to her right and sighed. Vell, Helena, and Joan were already waiting, glaring at Alex from a distance. Behind her, Hawke, Samson, and a dripping wet Kim regrouped.

“I could just destroy this, you know,” Alex said. She held up the drive, and bathed her hand in gray magic.

“Yeah, but that’d just be a dick move,” Hawke said.

“Alex, could you just listen to me?” Vell pleaded. “I know you have reasons to disagree with me, I know you have reasons to think this is a bad idea, but I promise you, I know what I am doing. Just trust me. Just trust somebody other than yourself, for once in-”

“No.”

Vell stared at Alex with his eyes half-closed.

“Well okay then.”

Vell held up a rune, and Alex saw a few new colors join the grey lights in her palm. The flash drive yanked itself out of her hands, Alex got slammed to the ground, and a cage of light appeared around her on all sides. The flash drive flew back into Vell’s hands, and he put away his runes.

“Could’ve done that at any time, by the way,” Vell said.

“Also, it’s a fucking flash drive, we have seven of the damn things,” Samson said. He pulled two more out of his pockets to show them off. “And all the info is still in Kim’s brain. Even if you’d blown up the damn thing, would’ve cost us about two seconds.”

Alex said nothing. She glared at everyone around her like they were complete, contemptible idiots.

“Hey, it wasn’t a complete waste,” Kim said. “I got to punch her a few times.”

“You get recordings?”

“Obviously.”

“Nice,” Samson said. “Can we watch it on replay?”

“Later,” Vell said. He dusted off the flash drive and turned to Helena and Joan. “I think you two have been waiting for this.”

“Only if you’re sure, Vell,” Joan said.

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Don’t,” Alex shouted. She was ignored, and Vell held out the flash drive to Helena. She leaned on one of her crutches and took the drive.

“That’s everything I know about Quenay’s rune,” Vell said. “Hope it helps.”

“Wow. You know, Vell, I never thought I’d say this-”

Helena leaned forward on her crutches and smiled.

“But you really should’ve listened to Alex.”

Two dozen tendrils of inky blankness snapped out of the shadows, and latched around Vell, Joan, and all of their friends. They were briefly lifted into the air before being forcibly dragged back and slammed into the nearest. The sound of phantom clapping rang out above their struggles and shouts of surprise.

“That was a wonderful show,” said a disembodied yet malevolent voice. “But I think it’s time for the real main character to join the fun. Ladies and gentlemen-”

A shimmer mass of green-black fire appeared in the air before coalescing into a humanoid form. Unlike Alex, their new guest was smart enough to hide himself from infrared, thermal, and every other kind of scan. That kind of knowledge came with the territory of being the self-professed smartest man alive -and the most evil.

“-it’s Alistair Kraid.”

With a smile on his face as narrow and sharp as a dagger, Kraid appeared from the ether and took a moment to bask in the suffering of his victims. Alex slammed a fist into the walls of her magical cage and turned to shout at Vell.

“I told you,” Alex screamed. “I told you!”

“Congratulations, kid,” Kraid said. “You were right about something for the first time in your life. I wouldn’t get used to it.”

Kraid flashed an especially sadistic smile at Alex and then turned away from his captive audience.

“Now, Ms. Marsh,” Kraid said. He paused thoughtfully for a second and then spun around again. “Oh, uh, not you, Joan, you’re fired. But hey, no worries about your sister’s healthcare, I mean, she’s been working for me for a while now.”

Joan had already looked utterly confused, and now she looked heartbroken too. She stared blankly at nothing in particular before managing to focus on her sister.

“Helena?”

“We do what we have to do,” Helena said, looking utterly impassive in this moment of utter betrayal. “You used to know what.”

She held the flash drive out to Kraid, who grabbed it with his skeletal hand and held it tight in burnt-black fingers. He took a moment to savor the feeling of victory. Vell Harlan was far from a worthy rival, but he had at least been a rival. Kraid didn’t have many of those left nowadays. For a man who liked a challenge, there was some satisfaction in even the smallest speedbump. But that speedbump was about to get smoothed over.

“Now,” Kraid said. “Let’s see what you know.”

A laptop appeared in a flash of magic, and Kraid popped it open, letting the black screen reflect his smile for a moment. Then the laptop booted on, and Kraid shoved the flash drive into a waiting port. Alex slammed her fists into the walls once again, and let out one final scream of frustration.

And then the drumline started.

“We’re no strangers to love…”

Kraid stared at the dancing figure of Rick Astley in dead silence.

“You know the rules, and so do I,” Vell said, singing along with the music.

“A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of,” Kim said, adding her voice to the chorus. “You wouldn’t get this from any other guy!”

Samson and Hawke joined the chorus as the music played on. It got slightly muffled when Kraid dropped the laptop, spun towards the captive students, and screamed so loud the island shook.

“WHAT!?”

“Newsflash, assholes,” Vell said, breaking the sing-along streak. “We knew the whole god damn time!”

“Yeah. Come on, Helena, we figured you out day fucking one,” Samson boasted.

“I’ve been ‘betrayed’ like five times,” Vell said. “And two of those times were by your sister. No offense, Joan.”

“None taken,” Joan squeaked. She was currently overwhelmed by about sixteen different emotions, sheer bewilderment chief among them.

“A guy learns the red flags eventually,” Vell said. “Like Samson said, we saw this coming since you got here. Everything since then has been the setup.”

“Alex made pretty good bait,” Kim said. “So loud and obnoxious you never really noticed all the stuff going on behind the scenes. We got you two annoyed at each other, tricked her into getting Kraid Tech security on her phone, then you hacked her phone just to mess with her, and handed me a copy of the very same code you used to backdoor through Kraid’s systems.”

Helena’s face dropped into a look of horror. She’d personally handed Vell his coup de grace just a few days ago, never suspecting someone as forthright as Vell of such scheming duplicity. As both Alex and Helena started to visibly replay every moment of the past six months in their heads, Kraid stared at the laptop, which was still displaying Rick Astley dancing. His initial outrage faded, and he let out an amused chuckle.

“And this was your masterstroke?” Kraid scoffed. “Six months of deception and manipulation to rickroll me once?”

“Oh, not once, actually,” Vell said. In the background, the laptop started to vibrate slightly.

“Never gonna give- never gon- neve- neneneNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-”

The music melted into an earsplitting drone, then a shriek of hardware, and the laptop died with an audible fizzle.

“Little copy and paste action courtesy of the supercomputer brain,” Kim said. With a quick tug, she shattered the bonds of black magic Kraid was using to hold her in place. Kraid was barely focusing on the spell now, and her escape set off a chain reaction that freed the entire gang. “I don’t know where exactly your little laptop ran out of processing power, but it was set to run that song about...eighty-seven septillion times.”

“More than enough to crash any computer in existence,” Samson said. “Oh, and speaking of crashing computers, thanks to a little expertise in communications tech and computer engineering-”

Samson held his hand out for a fistbump from Hawke, who took over.

“And thanks to the fact you plugged us into a laptop with admin access,” Hawke said. “I’d wager every piece of Kraid tech hardware that isn’t keeping someone alive just hard crashed.”

Kraid looked at his fried laptop. As his personal computer, it was more powerful than most commercially available products. If their hack had fried his computer, then every phone, every computer, every smart fridge he’d ever sold…

“Oh, yeah, hmm,” Vell said. He had pulled out his phone and appeared to be examining the screen with great interest. “On the topic of crashing, might want to check your stock prices, Kraid. Twenty-seven percent, forty-eight percent, fifty-three percent, seems like it’s slowing down, oh wait no, eighty-eight percent. You want to watch?”

Vell turned his phone around so Kraid could watch the numbers go down in real time.

“I’d tell you to look for yourself,” Vell taunted. “But I figure your phone probably doesn’t work right now.”

Kraid suddenly became keenly aware of the heat from his pocket as his overloaded phone crashed and died. His stunned expression broke into a deep scowl, and he stepped forward, crushing his now-useless laptop underfoot with a heavy stomp. Vell put his back to the wall and braced himself. Even broke, Kraid was still dangerous. The mad villain stepped up to Vell, planted his feet, and looked Vell dead in the eye.

Vell blinked. Kraid smiled.

“Well played.”

That was all Kraid said before he turned around and walked away. He brushed past Helena as he left, and she glanced over her shoulder and a still-stunned Joan before turning to follow Kraid. She waited until they had paced out of earshot of the others to say anything.

“I know that wasn’t-”

“Did I ever tell you about how I lost my arm, Helena?”

“No…”

“It’s a long story, but I’ll give you the cliff notes. When I was a young man, just starting out, I had the bright idea to jumpstart my fortune by stealing from a dragon’s horde. I underplanned, and I paid the price. Dragon bit my arm right off. But I lived.”

Kraid raised his blackened arm and turned it, displaying every side of the scorched bones.

“And later, I came back,” Kraid continued. “And I pried my burned bones right out of its stomach. Can you see the applicable comparisons?”

“Vell Harlan wounded you,” Helena said hesitantly. “But you’ll come back.”

“Precisely,” Kraid said. In contrast to the grievous defeat he’d just suffered, Kraid looked satisfied -happy, even. “Vell Harlan struck a blow. All due credit to him. But he didn’t go for the kill.”

Every bit of joy dropped off Kraid’s face as it bent into a scowl of unrestrained wrath.

“He’ll live to regret it.”

***

Vell Harlan was already regretting a few things. Chief among them being the involvement of Joan. While the rest of his friends celebrated a long overdue win in their feud with Kraid, Joan just looked shellshocked and lost. He walked over to put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about this,” Vell said. “It was a lot of planning, and anything that went wrong-”

“Do you know how long?”

Joan didn’t care about Vell keeping secrets, especially in the face of such a successful plan. She cared about an entirely different betrayal.

“How long has Helena been...She told me about you,” Joan whimpered. “She’s the reason I did what I did. I’ve done so many things to make sure she was taken care of and- How long was she lying to me?”

“I don’t know,” Vell said. “At least for this semester. Maybe longer. I’ll explain everything, but I think you need a breather right now.”

“Yeah. I should- I should call Lee.”

Joan grabbed her phone in shaking hands, and Vell took a step back. There was still a bit more cleanup to do, of people slightly lower on his list of priorities.

“Are you going to let me out, or keep standing around?” Alex said, as she leaned on the magical walls of a still-intact cage.

“I say we leave her,” Kim said. “Cage wears off in an hour or so.”

“It depends,” Vell said. “So, Alex, you learn anything today?”

“What am I supposed to learn?” She snapped. “You want me to say I should’ve trusted you when you just admitted you’ve been lying to me for months?”

“Well, if you’d started to play nice at literally any point, we could’ve brought you in on the plan,” Kim said. “But we didn’t, because...actually, Vell, you take this one, it’ll be more effective coming from you.”

“Hmm, let’s see, how to put this…”

Vell put a hand on his chin and thoughtfully considered his next words. The very same man who had nothing but kind words for undead conmen and murderous ex-girlfriends was obviously taking his time to tell her off in the nicest way possible.

“Oh, right,” Vell said. “We didn’t let you in on the plan because you’re a fucking idiot and you ruin everything.”

Alex was so caught off guard she went cross-eyed for a second. By the time she came back to her senses, Vell, and everyone else, were walking away, leaving Alex alone and caged. It took her about ten minutes to remember that she knew magic, and that she could dispel the cage whenever she wanted. She walked off, no longer caged, but still very much alone.