“So Freddy actually built a universe melter?”

“Well, in theory,” Kim said. “In practice it was more of a Harley melter. He’s only gotten smarter since then, though.”

Alex upped her skeddadle to a sprint. She didn’t want the universe to get melted. She lived in it.

“So what’d you do to stop him last time?”

“Well, I distracted him for a while, and then, uh, we improvised.”

“Improvised how?”

“Alright, have you heard about Derek?”

“The looper from Vell’s second year that got expelled, right?” Alex said. Back in her first semester, Samson had occasionally brought him up to remind Alex that they could find a way to get her expelled if they wanted.

“Right, well, that guy kind of accidentally murdered Freddy.”

“He what?”

Sparks of green fire swirled around Alex’s fingertips in an unintentional burst of raging magic. She reined in her magic and her fury momentarily.

“Getting expelled wasn’t enough,” Alex said.

“Hawke also punched him in the face real hard,” Kim said. That seemed to satisfy Alex a little. “We also exposed him for cheating, which kind of ruined his career. Last anyone checked he was working in a Burger King in Manitoba.”

“Hmph. It’ll have to do,” Alex said. She could think of no punishment harsh enough for daring to hurt Freddy, but a Manitoban Burger King came pretty close.

“Just turn that energy towards dealing with Freddy now,” Kim said. She had tracked his phone to his usual lab, and, curiously, he was not alone. “Goldie and Cane are there too. Be ready for anything.”

“People keep saying that, but we’re never actually ready for what happens,” Alex said.

“It’s more about being vigilant than literally being prepared for anything,” Kim said. “Just get a defensive spell ready and let’s go.”

Alex prepped her magic, and they went. Kim slammed through the door of the lab, fists raised, and then lowered them right away. Freddy was looking at her with absolute terror as he stood over a catatonic Cane.

“Freddy, did you lobotomize Cane?”

“No, he did this to himself! I think,” Freddy said. “And, uh, same for her.”

He pointed across the room at Goldie, who was currently lying on the floor in the fetal position, sucking her thumb. Alex and Kim had seen a few people doing that on the way over, but Goldie seemed to be napping more peacefully than the others.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Freddy said. “Last thing I remember I was in class, and then all of a sudden I had this weird helmet on and these two were, well, like this.”

“Let me see that,” Kim said. She walked over and snatched the helmet to do a quick comparison. “Looks kind of like Yuna’s memory helmet.”

“Oh, I get it,” Alex said. “These three must have decided to deal with you-know-what by erasing their memories!”

“I think they might’ve overshot it a bit,” Kim said, as she looked down at a rapidly-expanding puddle of drool near Cane’s face. Goldie appeared to have overshot by slightly less, and regressed to an infantile state.

“If that’s the case, I guess I went last,” Freddy said. “Third time’s the charm, I suppose.”

“Hey, hold on,” Kim said. She held the helmet towards Freddy. “Could you hook this up to something and blast the whole campus to wipe out their memories of the past few hours?”

“That would profoundly unethical, but yes, in theory,” Freddy said.

“Ethics be damned, I think we’re doing it,” Kim said.

“Whoa, hold on, that is a flagrant violation of ethical and personal boundaries,” Freddy said. “I won’t do that, not even for you, Harley.”

Kim turned so hard the servos in her neck made a grinding noise.

“Harley?”

“Yes? Or are you Kanya? You’re talking too normally to be Sarah,” Freddy said. “Who’s piloting the drone?”

“Freddy, it’s not a drone,” Kim said. “It’s me, Kim.”

“Kim? You’re a robot?” Freddy said, awestruck. “Oh, wow, that explains a lot.”

“Oh, brother,” Kim said. “I think you might’ve overshot it too. Freddy, what year do you think it is?”

“It’s 2022. Why?”

“Okay, well, long story short, it is 2024 and we’re in the middle of a bit of a crisis here,” Kim said. “We’re going to need your help in a big way.”

“Oh geez,” Freddy said. He clutched two handfuls of frizzy red hair. “Oh god. I deleted two years of memories. I’m going to have to repeat two years of school. I’m going to have to pay two more years of tuition!”

“Hey, but on the bright side, you get to meet some nice people all over again,” Kim said. “Alex, why don’t you reintroduce yourself?”

Kim grabbed Alex by the shoulders and forced her in front of Freddy. There was absolutely no recognition in his eyes, which made her heart sting.

“Hi. I’m Alex,” she said, stiff as a board.

“Alex, hi,” Freddy said. “So, uh, are we friends, classmates, study group partners, what’s up?”

“I’m actually, your, uh,” Alex said, her voice progressively shrinking to a tiny squeak. “Girlfriend.”

Freddy’s already fluffy hair stood on end, and he nearly jumped out of his shoes.

“I have a girlfriend?”

“Is that more surprising to you than me being a robot?”

“You’ve met me, right?” Freddy said. He spun right back to Alex. “Have we been dating long? Am I a good boyfriend? Have we kissed yet?”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Couple weeks, yes, and no?”

“Ugh, oh man,” Freddy groaned. “I finally have a girlfriend and I obliterated her from my memory.”

“You had a pretty good reason,” Alex assured him. “And we have a pretty good reason to need that memory wipe to go large-scale.”

“Okay, yeah, let’s do it,” Freddy said.

“Now you’re on board?”

“Yeah I am,” Freddy said. He pointed enthusiastically at Alex. “I have a girlfriend! And she’s really cute! I am not blowing this.”

“That’s sweet, but I do think you should hold to your ethics a little more firmly,” Alex said.

“I mean I’m not going to feel great about it,” Freddy said.

“Good compromise, let’s go.”

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

Though they were trying not to make too many unnecessary detours, Vell still felt compelled to divert course when he heard muffled sobbing. He stepped down a side hallway and found Dean Lichman face down on the floor, crying into the carpet.

“Oh. Hello, Dean.”

“Ah, Vell Harlan, excellent,” Dean Lichman said, without pulling his face out of the carpet. “Would you do me a favor and bury me? I belong in the ground with the rest of the useless corpses.”

“That seems a little extreme,” Vell said.

“How many times have I failed to protect my students, Vell? How many times have I let down those I was supposed to safeguard?”

“Hey, don’t talk like that, you’ve been very helpful in preventing a lot of disasters.”

“A lot,” Dean Lichman said. “Not all. So I am a failure.”

Vell cringed. It was hard to give a pep talk to someone lying on the floor. A few steps behind him, Harley gestured towards the Marine Biology lab.

“Hey, so, uh, Dean, if I don’t bury you, are you just going to keep lying on the floor here?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, have fun,” Vell said, as he left. As bad as he felt about leaving Lichman in the lurch, he had bigger problems. Potentially an entire laboratory full of them. Vell held his breath as he walked through the door of the Marine Biology lab alongside Lee and Harley. They had been in this laboratory a thousand times, but now it somehow felt unfamiliar.

“This is worse than I was expecting.”

After hundreds of inexplicable and destructive escapades across several years, the Marine Biologists were responding to the most chaotic circumstances yet by doing absolutely nothing. The Marine Biologists sat in circles, legs crossed and hands folded as if in prayer.

“They seem...calm,” Vell noted. Thirteen different people had tried to kill them on the way to the lab, but the Marine Biologists themselves were perfectly still and peaceful.

“Don’t get complacent,” Harley cautioned. “This could be some kind of summoning ritual.”

Harley knew from experience that namaste could turn nasty in a flash. She stepped through the lab and found the largest prayer circle, where Dr. Professor Michael Watkins sat alone.

“Hey, Doctor Professor! What’re you guys up to?”

The head of the Marine Biologists popped his eyes open and uncrossed his legs, ending his meditation.

“Ah, Harley, good to see you,” Michael Watkins said. “And please, call me Michael.”

Now something was definitely wrong. Harley took a step back as the prayer circle broke up, and the Marine Biologists stood up.

“After hearing about this time loop business, we realized what had been happening all along,” Michael Watkins said. “All those attempts to interfere with or sabotage our works were actually you seeking to prevent disasters, correct?”

“That is...entirely correct, actually,” Lee said. “Excellent deduction.”

“We thought as much,” Michael said. “Please, allow me to apologize with this gift basket.”

Some of the Marine Biologists handed a large basket loaded with snacks and candy to Harley.

“We only had the one basket, but I’m sure you can divide it fairly among yourselves,” Michael said.

“Of course this is the one time you guys are sane,” Harley sighed. “Even if you are being a little weird about it.”

“I’ll take whatever stability I can get, at the moment.”

“Actually, hold on real quick,” Vell said. “Where’s Michael Junior?”

“Unfortunately my son was more violent about the revelation of our guilt than was acceptable,” Michael Senior said. “Don’t worry, though, he’s doing good now.”

“Doing good how?”

“Well, the sharks were very hungry, so it was good they got fed.”

“I see. Michael, could you do us a favor and not feed anyone else to sharks?”

“Even if they’re troublesome?”

“Even if they’re troublesome,” Lee said. “Though, speaking of troublesome, if you and your associates really want to make up for your past conduct, would you mind helping us keep order on campus?”

“Non-lethally,” Vell clarified.

“Yes, non-lethally,” Lee said. “No feeding anyone to sharks.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure we have any right to try and control anyone, given our history,” Michael said.

Somewhere else on campus, an airhorn blared, followed by a loud, girlish shriek.

“I think at the moment we just need as many bodies on the ground as possible,” Lee said. “Bodies being entirely figurative, I should stress, I am referring to having many people attending to the task, not to corpses lying on the ground.”

One of the Marine Biologists put down an anchor.

“I suppose we owe it to the world, and to you, to make an effort,” Michael said. “Marine Biologists, with me! We’re going to prevent a disaster for once!”

The Marine Biologists cheered and marched out as an army. Harley snatched a harpoon gun out of one’s hands as they moved.

“Non-lethally,” Vell stressed again. “Non-lethally!”

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

“Hey Cyrus, what you got there?”

“A rocket,” Cyrus said, as he pointed at the rocket.

“Cool,” Vell said. “The traveling kind or the exploding kind?”

“Traveling.”

“Great,” Vell said. “Where you headed?”

“Oh, since this planet’s caught in a time loop, me and the guys were just going to go to a different one.”

“Which one?”

Cyrus shrugged.

“We were going to figure it out on the way,” he said.

“Not exactly how interstellar travel works, but seems harmless enough, so good luck,” Vell said. They’d probably be fine long enough for time to reboot, at least. He headed away from the launchpad to regroup with Lee and Harley, who had taken a brief detour towards the entomology lab.

“Hey, how’s Dr. Bon handling the news?’

“Could be worse,” Lee said.

“Be quiet,” Dr. Bon snapped. “I need to finish engineering a race of cockroach-men to usurp the failed human species.”

“Could be better,” Harley said.

“Oh, hey, you know, my girlfriend is super good at genetic mutation,” Vell said. “She’s in horny jail right now but I could still maybe give you some advice.”

Lee and Harley raised an eyebrow, but let Vell do his thing. Dr. Boniventure accepted the offer of help and pointed out some mutagens stored nearby. Vell nodded and scanned the shelves.

“I see, I see,” Vell said. He stepped up to the rack of beakers. “I could scan the rack for an ideal candidate, or-”

Vell grabbed the shelf and tore it down, making sure every bottle shattered as they fell. He spun around and sprinted past Lee and Harley.

“Book it!”

They booked it. As they ran, Lee noted that the freshman dorms were on fire, the geology lab was flinging rocks out of a makeshift trebuchet, and a chunk of the island was missing. She noted those as problems for later as they continued to flee until they reached an intact stretch of beach, away from the chaos.

“You think we lost them?”

“Oh, we lost them a while ago,” Vell said. “There’s just a lot of other shit we needed to get away from too.”

He plopped down in the sand to catch his breath.

“You remember back on day one, we had to do a whole stealth mission to knock over one bottle in that lab?”

Harley summoned Botley to her side and gave him a quick pat on the head. He’d done a great job infiltrating back then -though they never had found out what became of that sentient scorpion.

“We certainly did have to be more subtle back then,” Lee said. “It all went out the window after you got kidnapped, I think.”

A major criminal case had certainly affected Vell’s ability to go anywhere unnoticed -and altered the trajectory of his life in numerous other ways. He thought back to his first meeting with Quenay and sighed heavily.

“I miss when things were that simple,” Vell said.

“Simple?” Harley scoffed. “Vell, you got stabbed by a ghost in a toga.”

“I meant in comparison to now,” Vell said. He gestured towards campus, where a giant sea snake was still chasing cultists and several students on jetpacks sailed through the air before nosediving directly into the ocean. “Like, what am I supposed to do about this?”

“The same thing we always do, bud,” Harley said. “Get through it.”

“I’ve been ‘getting through it’ nonstop for twenty-five fucking years,” Vell said. “I don’t want to be ‘getting through’, I want to be through.”

“At the risk of sounding pessimistic, dear, I don’t think there is a ‘through’,” Lee said. She laid back in the sand and let her hair sprawl out around her head. “It just keeps going.”

“Yeah,” Harley said. “I’ve got to be honest, even having our company isn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. Though maybe that’s just because we’re missing you.”

She gave Vell a friendly punch in the shoulder to punctuate her sentence.

“Almost certainly,” Lee agreed. “At the very least you’ll give Harley a new outlet for her crass jokes.”

“I’m sorry you don’t appreciate comedy, nerd,” Harley said.

“I appreciate it in small doses,” Lee said.

“Speaking of small-”

“Stow whatever penis joke you’re planning, dear,” Lee said.

“Actually, I was trying to tell you that the bug people are catching up,” Harley said. She sprang to her feet and brushed sand off her skirt. “Time to write a sequel to that book it.”

The sequel went in a different direction than the first, but it was still pretty good.