Chương 32: Chapter 22.2: Pure E-Vell

After an evil monologue from a former friend, even the overly-cheery Lee had been convinced that the world needed saving. Leanne had chosen to keep Joan and Cane around to help babysit their brain-swapped friends. Joan was equally scrambled, but she'd at least been scrambled into someone level-headed. Which reflected poorly on her default mental state, but Leanne couldn't worry about that right now.

The three loopers had briefly branched off from their non-looper friends to discuss matters of chronological repetition.

"It's not even that big of a deal," Lee said.

"As soon as the loops takes over he's going to be nice again, and then he'll tell us how to stop him himself."

"Yeah, but he knows all about the time loops," Harley said.

"And unlike you morons, he might be smart enough to do some magic bullshit or something." The brain reversal had clearly cost Harley some of her usual wit as well. She'd never described apocalypses as "some magic bullshit or something" before.

"We'll be fine," Lee insisted once again.

"What we really need to do is stop him right now so I can enjoy the first loop. I was planning on transporting in some wine." Lee glared up at the red barrier. The forcefield that now surrounded the island also prevented teleportation, which interfered with Lee's ability to order sweets for herself and have her father pay to instantly transport them. Leanne grabbed Lee by the shoulder and turned her forcibly towards the faculty building.

To activate the field and use the PA, Vell would've had to be in the principal's office. If he wasn't still there, they could at least pick up his trail.

"Hey, guys," Cane shouted.

"Look who we found." He appeared round a corner, dragging Principal Isaac Goodwell behind him. Joan followed a few steps behind, with a big smile on her face.

"We found the principal!" she cheered.

"Isn't that great? He does such a good job running the place."

"Oh, well, thank you," Goodwell said.

"Don't take it as a compliment, her brain's been reversed," Cane said.

"That means she normally hates you."

"Aw," Goodwell whined. Cane planted him in place and then grabbed him by the collar.

"Now why did you let Vell take over the school?" He demanded.

"Well it's the damnedest thing," Goodwell said.

"I was all set to fight to protect my school, and then the guy suckerpunched me. That made me realize what a stupid idea fighting was, and I sort of just handed everything over and figured you guys would sort it out later." Goodwell looked over Harley, who was laughing at the idea of Goodwell getting punched in the face, and Lee, who was bobbing side to side humming Disney songs to herself.

"Clearly I was optimistic," Goodwell said. Leanne put a hand on her chin. Running away from problems definitely sounded like the default Goodwell -and standing up to Vell seemed like the reversed version. So something had happened to swap him back to normal. Leanne's eyes snapped up as her mind snapped back to Ballball practice, and the ball that had bumped her in the head. With two mighty steps and a swing of her arm, Leanne stepped up to Harley and smacked her in the face.

The blow nearly took Harley off her feet, and she yelped in pain as she grabbed a reddened cheek.

"Ow! That was -ooh, do that again!" Harley let out a shocked gasp and bounced up.

"Wait! I'm horny again!" With a broad smile, Harley dashed over to the humming Lee and smacked her in the face too. Blunt force trauma to the head appeared to cure the brain-scrambling, and perhaps more importantly, Harley had a good reason to slap people. Lee gave a grunt of indignation and then smacked Harley right back.

"Ow," Harley said for the second time in ten seconds.

"What was that for? I already got slapped!"

"I'm sorry, dear," Lee said. The sing-song notes of false cheer had left her voice.

"It was just jarring. Couldn't you at least have given me some warning before you slapped me out of happiness?" Lee's artificial joy had vanished, replaced with a very real sadness. Harley stepped up and stood close as Lee rubbed a sore cheek.

"I wanted the real Lee back," Harley said.

"The real Lee is unfortunately a bit miserable," Lee complained.

"There's plenty of geniuses on campus. You could've just let me enjoy myself, however briefly." Harley grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a hug.

"I know there's a lot of geniuses on campus, but I didn't want just any genius," Harley assured her.

"I wanted the genius who's the most level-headed, and the best leader, and has the roundest most squishable cheeks." Harley reached up to grab Lee by the cheek, careful not to pinch the one she'd just slapped. Lee scrunched up her face in mock indignation, but sighed happily as she pulled away.

"You vile flatterer," Lee said, trying not to blush. Harley folded her hands behind her back and tilted forward slightly.

"You know you're my best friend, right?"

"I know," Lee said, sighing yet again.

"Fine then. But don't slap me again, seriously."

"Fair deal," Harley said.

"But you can slap me any time you want. Open offer." Cane took that into consideration, and then pointed at Joan.

"Should we slap her too?"

"Sure, why not," Harley said. Cane took the initiative and slapped Joan across the face. She reeled back and rubbed her cheek.

"Ow. What was that supposed to do?"

"Fix you," Cane said.

"Follow the action, Joan, slapping people in the face fixes them."

"I didn't think I needed fixing," Joan protested.

"Maybe you didn't slap her hard enough," Harley suggested.

"Well I don't want to slap her again if I don't have to," Cane said.

"And I don't want to get slapped again."

"Let's check," Harley said.

"Hey Joan, how do you feel about Roentgen?'

"Oh, they've made some mistakes, but I think with the right-""She's still broken, slap her again," Harley ordered.

"Hey wait-" Cane complied, in spite of Joan's attempts to back away.

"Ow!"

"Quick, tell us how you feel about Vell!"

"What do I have to say for you to stop slapping me?" Joan asked.

"Slap her again," Harley demanded.

"I don't know, that sounded like normal Joan," Cane said.

"I said slap her again, Cane!" Cane obeyed. Shortly after his hand made impact with her cheek, Joan grabbed Cane by the arm and held it firmly in place.

"If you slap me again, I will pry your eyes out," she hissed.

"That's definitely normal Joan," Harley said.

"Good work, Cane."

"I'm not happy about this," he said. Joan let his arm go.

"Fucking hell," Joan said.

"Come on, let's go slap my evil boyfriend." The group turned toward the faculty office as one and set out. They made it exactly two steps before Lee turned to look at Goodwell, who had stepped along with them.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I assumed I was coming with," Goodwell said, his voice dripping with desperation to adventure. Considering he had already failed to stand up to Evil Vell once today, nobody saw any reason to give him a second chance.

"No," Lee said flatly. Harley pointed in his direction.

"Cane, slap that guy too," she demanded.

"I thought he was already fixed?"

"He is, I just want you to slap him," Harley said. Cane nodded and walked towards Goodwell, who started walking backwards.

"I get the picture, I am not invited," Goodwell said, rapidly retreating from Cane and his outstretched slapping hand. The principal ran off and left the young loopers and friends to their own devices.

"Okay, no more creepy old dude," Harley said.

"Let's go unfuck Vell's head."

"Not looking forward to that," Joan said.

"Dude's as nice as they come normally. He's got to be as evil as it gets now."

"I wouldn't be too worried," Lee said.

"In spite of his condition, Vell still has limited resources. He can't field too much resistance."

"I blame you for this," Harley shouted at Lee. Lee nodded as a bullet whizzed overhead.

"In my defense, It's been two hours," Lee said.

"Who builds this many killbots in two hours?" A legion of weaponized robots bore down on them, raining a hail of gunfire down on Lee and company. The suppressing fire hadn't killed anyone yet, though Cane had gotten shot in the ass, which Harley was trying very hard not to laugh at. Being underprepared for a weaponized robot army, the group's progress had stalled for now.

"Evil Vell is turning out to be a much larger problem than anticipated," Lee said.

"Perhaps we should approach this from the angle of prevention, rather than curing." A legion of killbots was a lot to deal with on an already hectic day. Lee considered the merits of starting over and working to prevent Evil Vell in the first place, rather than trying to thwart him now.

"Nah, we got to stop Vell before he does something super evil," Harley said.

"You know how he is. Soon as he's a good guy again he's going to feel all guilty and emotional about it."

"Oh, I suppose," Lee said. Whatever scheme Evil Vell was planning would likely weigh on regular Vell's conscience later. They might as well spare him the emotional turmoil.

"Leanne, how're you feeling?" Leanne slammed a fist into her open palm. Harley nodded approvingly.

"Felling punchy, good," Harley said.

"How do you feel about punching killbots?" This time, Leanne shook her head. Her strength, while borderline superhuman, did not render her immune to bullets. She'd be torn to shreds without appropriate protection. But she did have an idea of who could solve that problem for her. Leanne crawled across the low brick wall they were taking cover behind and made it to Joan's side. She mimicked the act of carving something into her palm and then pointed to the other side of the wall, at the robots.

"Are you playing fucking charades?" Joan asked. Leanne repeated the motions, more insistently this time.

"Seriously, I have no idea what the fuck you're doing," Joan shouted.

"She's asking if you can carve a rune that will make her bulletproof," Lee shouted. They were more accustomed to Leanne's nonverbal communication skills. Joan shook her head.

"No!" Joan said.

"We're being shot at, now is not the time to carve shit!"

"Excuses excuses," Harley said.

"Cane got shot in the ass, you don't hear him whining."

"It's oddly less painful than I was expecting," Cane said.

"I might just be in shock, though."

"You're definitely in shock, dude, just keep riding it," Harley said.

"It is going to be a very literal pain in the ass when you come down from that adrenaline high." Cane bit his lip and tried to think about anything except the bullet hole in his buttocks. Harley made it easier by continuing to yell.

"Anyway since Joan can't really contribute, I can do something useful," Harley said.

"Going to need you to make sure nothing bad happens to me for at least like two minutes, though." Before offering any further explanation, Harley went limp and slipped to the ground.

"Did she just die?"

"No, Cane, she's just occupying her familiar's body," Lee explained.

"I imagine she's using Botley to concoct some elaborate solution to our current dilemma." Lee watched bullets whiz overhead. Her knowledge of Botley's capabilities was limited, but the tiny robot didn't seem much of a match for the legion of humanoid death-machines guarding Vell's newly-claimed office. Harley was usually full of surprises, however. Several minutes passed, and Harley snapped back to consciousness. She then snapped her fingers and summoned Botley to her side.

The diminutive robot had an unusually large frame today, made all the larger by the massive, complicated looking apparatus strapped to his body.

"Is that the bomb from last week?" Lee demanded.

"There was a bomb last week?" Joan and Cane said at once. Harley and Lee ignored them.

"Yeah," Harley said.

"You said you were getting rid of it!"

"It's a bomb! What did you think I was going to do, throw it in the trash?" Harley said.

"I was keeping it somewhere safe."

"There's no such thing as a safe bomb!"

"We'll have this conversation later," Harley said. She grabbed the large bomb and detached it from Botley. She appraised it's basketball-like size and shape.

"Leanne, you're good with balls, toss this thing." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Were everybody not already hiding behind cover, they would've run for cover the second Harley tossed the bomb. Leanne deftly caught it, set the timer, shot a glare at Harley to let her know the innuendo was not appreciated, and then hurled it over the wall they hid behind.

"Leanne, I will never underestimate your skills, but please do at least look before you throw a bomb anywhere," Lee pleaded. The explosion went off in the background just as Leanne shrugged. Lee did have a point. Debates on the correct usage of explosives would be saved until after they'd stopped Evil Vell. The gunfire had stopped, so Leanne peeked her head over the wall. Where there had once been a legion of killbots, there was now only a crater. Leanne stood up and stretched her legs.

Taking cover was surprisingly hard on the joints.

"Looks as though the coast is clear," Leanne said.

"Let's proceed."

"Yeah, let's go smack Evil Vell in the face," Harley said.

"Or as I think we should call him from now, on, E-Vell. Get it?" Harley mustered a giggle at her own pun. No one else gave her so much as a polite chuckle.

"If you're done making puns, I still have a bullet in my butt," Cane said. The explosion had bumped his heart rate enough to keep an adrenaline high going, but Cane was smart enough to know that wouldn't last forever.

"I can staunch the bleeding, but that's about it," Joan said.

"We need a real doctor."

"Anybody who wants to go into medicine probably also turned evil when the brain thingy went kaboom," Harley said.

"Joan, I believe you should stay with Cane and keep him alive while the rest of us press on," Lee suggested. Joan considered a rebuttal before answering with a heavy sigh and a shrug.

"Yeah, sure, you and your posse go handle everything, as usual," Joan grunted.

"Tell my evil boyfriend I said hi." The sarcastic grumbling stopped when Joan ordered Cane to take his pants off. The trio of loopers seized on the opportunity to leave before that situation progressed any further. Harley liked Cane's butt just fine in it's default state and had no desire to see what it looked like with an extra hole in it. Now that the peanut gallery had been ditched, the loopers could talk -or in Leanne's case, make various hand gestures- more openly.

"I wonder what E-Vell's even up to," Harley said.

"It's the first loop, he can't really do anything."

"Likely he's just using it as a test run for the second," Lee said.

"Assuming he ever gets there." Leanne added to the discussion by pressing a finger to her temple, and then putting a hand on her lower back, approximating the location of Vell's rune.

"You think he'd be experimenting with himself?" Leanne made an odd gesture with her right arm, and then rubbed her fingertips together in the gesture that everyone somehow understood to mean "money".

"Oh yeah, Kraid did say shit like that could make him rich," Harley said.

"I imagine both versions of Vell would enjoy being rich," Lee said.

"E-Vell may be willing to take some more extreme measures to get there, however."

"God, there's enough skeevy rich dudes in our life already," Harley said.

"Let's go slap him in the head." Harley took two confident steps forward, stepping past the wreckage of the killbots, and then bounced off of thin-air. After she regained her footing, Harley took a curious look around and then tried stepping forward once more. She was pushed back once again, more violently this time. While the scientific method probably called for more repetition, she felt she had bounced off thin air enough to know that something was fuckardly. Harley rapped her knuckles against thin air.

Lee followed it up with a more carefully probing brush of her finger.

"A kinetic barrier," Lee said.

"How on earth did he get one of these set up so quickly?" Harley kicked the magic barrier and let out a grunt of frustration. E-Vell had somehow thought of everything. Harley would bet her bottom dollar that there were even more obnoxious obstacles between them and E-Vell's evil lair, assuming they got past this barrier.

"Shouldn't he have gotten stupider when his brain got swapped? I felt a little stupider." Lee rubbed her chin thoughtfully. The level of intelligence of their brain-swapped friends had seemed to vary.

"You know how we just ditched our friends?" Lee said.

"I believe we may need to go fetch another."

"I apologize again for the loss of your killbots," E-Vell said.

"But I must say they weren't very good at the killing part."

"I was not exactly having many opportunities to test them," Sarah said.

"Fair enough," E-Vell said.

"The kinetic barrier seems to be holding well, however."

"The quantum labyrinth and temporal disentanglement field should be stalling them to a very good amount as well," Sarah said. E-Vell nodded in approval. He had figured Sarah would have the most resources on hand, and she had not disappointed. He didn't bother questioning why she had killbots and quantum labyrinths lying around. The plan was what mattered.

"But why do we do all of this? You were saying nothing matters at the earlier time."

"This will all be erased, Sarah, but my memories will not," E-Vell elaborated. He double-checked the monitors through which he was observing the school and saw that his former friends were retreating. He then tabbed the display over to the other projects he had in the works. He made sure to unmute the audio briefly. The captured students and teachers were still complaining about their imprisonment, and their pleas for mercy were music to E-Vell's ears.

E-Vell sipped at a glass of wine in the strangely sadistic way that only the truly evil can manage. He was mid-maniacal sip when the door slammed open, and he narrowly avoided doing a spit-take.

"E-Vell!" Harley shouted. The other loopers stepped through the door, just on her heels.

"Why're you being such a jackass?"

"What the- how did you get here so fast?" E-Vell said. He turned to Sarah.

"You said the quantum labyrinth was explicitly deus ex machina proofed!"

"Never underestimate our ability to drop a deus," Harley said. Leanne sighed heavily.

"Everyone has been reversed, and that means everyone," Lee said proudly.

"We called in a friend." A shadow loomed in the open doorway briefly. E-Vell went through half a dozen nightmares scenarios in the second it took Renard to step through the door.

"It was a good effort, Vell, but Asterius-class quantum labyrinths are just a simple matter of thread inversion," Renard said haughtily. Thanks to the great brain inversion, the dumbest man on campus was now the smartest.

"And don't even get me started on how easy it was to disentangle that temporal entangler. Easy as untying my shoelaces."

"Thank you kindly, Renard," Lee said with a cursty.

"Oh no, thank you," Renard said.

"Vell has quite a nice setup for me to take over." At that moment, everyone remembered that Renard was usually about as nice as Vell. The evil glimmer in his eyes quickly faded as Leanne bonked him on the head.

"Ow." Renard said, rubbing a sore spot on his head.

"What am I doing? And why do I have a sudden urge to tie my shoes?"

"It's alright, dear, we'll explain later, you just go sleep off that headache," Lee said, patting Renard on the shoulder.

"We'll take it from here." Renard accepted this and toddled off to go rest his aching head. While he wandered off, E-Vell pressed a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him and started digging through the drawers of the principal's desk.

"Sarah, you've failed me, delay them a bit," E-Vell commanded. Sarah stepped up and immediately got slapped in the face by Harley.

"Ow." Sarah said.

"I do know that the slapping is arousing for you, Harley, but not for me. Please do not."

"Sorry. Had to do it to-" Harley caught herself about to explain and stopped.

"Were you not brain-swapped?" Sarah said nothing. Harley realized she had phrased it as a question and rolled her eyes.

"I thought your brain was all reversed, like everyone else's."

"It was not," Sarah said.

"Should my brain have been backwards?"

"Let's not worry about that right now," Harley said.

"Get on out of here, we're going to beat up Vell." Sarah threw up a quick peace sign and promptly peaced out. The loopers turned their attention to Vell. With a triumphant flourish, E-Vell presented his final barrier of defense, his masterstroke to prevent his mind from being reverted.

"Is that a hockey helmet?" Harley asked.

"Yes."

"Where did you even get that? This school doesn't have a hockey team."

"That's not relevant right now," E-Vell said.

"What is relevant is-""Leanne, please rip his helmet off," Lee asked.

"Wait, you need to listen to me," E-Vell demanded.

"I've had quite enough evil monologuing for one lifetime, thank you," Lee said. Leanne stepped towards E-Vell, ready to tear his helmet off. E-Vell put one hand up to stop her in her tracks.

"I'm trying to help you," he insisted.

"I'm evil, not stupid. Nothing I do today matters." Leanne paused in her tracks. E-Vell took that as a sign he was being allowed to continue. He tapped his helmet thoughtfully.

"I took control of the school and its resources to help me solve that little mystery on my lower back," E-Vell explained.

"And, admittedly, to watch some people suffer. But it's for a good cause. Observe." E-Vell flipped the monitor on the computer in the principal's office. Numerous video feeds showed students sealed in laboratories, nervously carrying out research while being watched over by killbots.

"Okay, not a fan of that and we're only three seconds in," Harley said.

"Yeah yeah, nobody likes slavery, get over it," E-Vell said.

"Nobody's even going to remember all the suffering. But I'll remember the results of it. The secrets of immortality, ours to own, and ours to share. Or sell, rather."

"All I'm hearing is off-brand Kraid," Harley said.

"Leanne, punch him."

"Can I actually finish explaining before you get right to the punching?" E-Vell asked.

"There is potential in what I am doing that goes far beyond simple profit."

"If you start talking about establishing some new world order or any of that shit I'm going to punch you myself," Harley said.

"Not if I slap him first," Lee said.

"I'm not talking about any new order, obviously, starting tomorrow I'm going to be the same gutless coward as always," E-Vell said.

"Hardly Fuhrer material. I'm not doing what I'm doing because this incident made me evil-""You attacked us with an army of killbots!"

"You have literally enslaved half the campus," Lee said, gesturing to the monitors that still displayed the enslaved students. Vell shrugged.

"Okay, yes, that stuff specifically I did because I'm evil," Vell said.

"But the rest of it! My ultimate goal isn't do what I can't do because I'm good. It's to do what I can't do because I'm afraid. This whole thing didn't just turn good to evil, it turned my cowardice to courage." For the first time in his entire evil monologue, E-Vell said something that didn't make Leanne want to punch him.

"Then what are you after?" Lee asked. Her voice was quiet, almost like she was afraid to hear the answer.

"This rune on my back... You all know about it by now, and you've asked me what, when, how, why, but you know what basic question we've never lingered on? The one question we've all been quietly avoiding?" Leanne bit her tongue. She had a lot of unspoken questions, but she could see where Vell was leading.

"Who?" E-Vell put one hand on his back, on the rune that had brought him back to life long ago, and felt his fingertips tremble at the barely-contained power within it.

"Things this complex don't just happen," E-Vell spat.

"Someone did this to me. And I want -I need to find out who. Because whoever the fuck did this is probably the most powerful person on the planet." Even Kraid and all his wealth, all his immoral methods, could barely scratch the surface of a seven-lined rune, much less create and charge a ten-lined one. But someone out there had done just that -and did it quickly and easily, by all available evidence.

"Working backwards from this rune is the easy way, but it's the cowards way," E-Vell spat.

"I want answers, and I want them straight from the source."

"Do you think that's smart?" Harley said.

"What if they like... re-dead you?"

'That's why I'm doing it today," E-Vell said.

"Because I'm brave enough to actually do it. Come tomorrow I'm going to be the same meek little whiner that's always 'uh'-ing his way through every challenge life throws at him." E-Vell's face took on a surprising look of introspection -though it was slightly undercut by the fact that he was still wearing a hockey helmet. It was hard for anyone but a hockey player to look serious while wearing such a helmet, and Vell looked more like a hockey stick than a player.

The moment of self-reflection passed, and Vell snapped to attention yet again.

"And besides, there'll be plenty of other benefits," Vell said.

"If I figure this shit out I'll be richer than god. I could go to the moon, buy my own island, remake Game of Thrones Season 8!"

"You don't even like that show!"

"I do now," E-Vell said. He tapped his helmet lightly.

"Brain swap."

"Right. Speaking of, Leanne, I think it's slapping time." Leanne agreed. While E-Vell had made a compelling point about his research and potential discoveries, he was still keeping people captive and forcing them to work against their will. Leanne wouldn't stand for that.

"Hey, hold on, there are benefits for you guys too," E-Vell said. He took a few steps backwards to try and delay Leanne's approach.

"I could help Lee with her parents."

"I already have a plan that doesn't involve slavery, thank you," Lee said.

"Come on! It'd be faster this way," E-Vell protested.

"Harley, you have to... fuck, you're generally content with life, aren't you?" Harley nodded. She didn't have any major complaints, certainly nothing warranting E-Vell being allowed to keep up the slavery.

"God damn you're chipper," Vell said.

"Okay, hold on, cut it out Leanne. You know, if I was rich, we'd have enough resources we could bother you less." Leanne did not stop marching towards Vell, and eventually he ran out of room to back away.

"Come on, Leanne, you could spend more time practicing, you'd never have to put up with our shenanigans again-" Leanne took one final step and cocked her fist back. E-Vell cracked one last smile and lowered his voice, speaking just quietly enough that only Leanne could hear.

"-You could spend more time with Elijah." The fist hung in mid-air. Vell smiled to himself.

"Come on, Leanne. My usual self is a lot of things, but I've never been an idiot. I figured things out." Leanne let her fist drop. For now. E-Vell found the confidence to step forward.

"Work with me, and you can spend a lot less time with us, and a lot more time with him." To E-Vell's credit, Leanne spent a whole five seconds considering that offer -and then a whole zero-point-five seconds punching him in the head.

"Ugh, my head," Vell moaned, as he sat down at the usual breakfast table. He'd woken up on a new loop, no longer evil, but with no idea how he'd gotten to that point.

'What happened after Leanne punched me?"

"Well for you, not much," Harley said.

"Leanne sort of punched you into a coma." Leanne waved apologetically, then tapped her head, feigned the motion of punching, and then shrugged.

"Yeah, I get it, hard to estimate how hard to punch a guy wearing a helmet," Vell said.

"And, uh, I sort of deserved it."

"Well, that evil version of you did, anyway," Harley said.

"If anything, all that nonsense makes me like the default you more."

"Yes, if your reversed self is that evil, it reflects well on your usual state," Lee said.

"Thanks, I guess," Vell said.

"Still. Sorry about the mess. I don't know if you guys found it, but I was definitely also building a nuke."

"Oh yeah, we cleaned that up," Harley said.

"Where'd you even get the fissile material for it, anyway?"

"Used the radioactive bananas left over from banana day," Vell said.

"I see. Speaking of what you were up to, Vell…" Vell sighed. He had been hoping they could all just forget about his evil self's larger objective. Like E-Vell had said, he was scared of what he might find, possibly for good reason.

"Nothing useful," Vell said.

"The only data anyone even produced was a bunch of different colored pairs of dots." Vell had gone to the trouble of recreating the images his enslaved researchers had created. Paired dots of various colors, with one dot always only a slightly different shade than the other, stared out from a blank page like mismatched eyes. Nobody knew what the odd pairs were supposed to mean, but Vell had recreated them and held on to them regardless, in case they turned out to be a clue.

He considered that to be a very slim chance, however.

"I sort of think the kidnapped guys just wanted to show me something so I'd let them out. Should I, like, apologize to people for that, somehow? Even if they don't remember?"

"I think it would just cause everyone involved more problems, dear," Lee said.

"Besides, like half those people you had enslaved tried to sacrifice me to a volcano goddess last week. If we start holding people accountable for what they do during the daily apocalypses, it'll never end."

"Sometimes you turn evil and enslave your friends, sometimes you form volcano cults, sometimes you accidentally punch a guy into a coma. Shit happens, we roll with it." Harley finished her breakfast and then looked at Vell.

"Speaking of shit happening, Sarah just had all those killbots lying around, yeah?" This time Vell nodded.

"Right. I'm going to have to have a talk with her about that." Harley stood up and headed for Sarah's laboratory to have a very long talk about the ethics of killbot storage. Lee excused herself for similar reasons, as she had to see about properly storing some radioactive bananas. As soon as those two were out of earshot, Leanne and Vell exchanged an awkward look.

"So," Vell began. Leanne answered with silence.

"About Elijah," Vell continued. Leanne shook her head and nodded in Elijah's direction. He was sitting nearby, as usual, waiting for Leanne to join him. She usually hopped right over to his table as soon as the other loopers had left. Leanne pressed a finger to her lips, shushing Vell.

"Okay, I won't tell anyone," Vell said. Leanne patted him on the shoulder.

"Harley already has her suspicions, though. She mentioned it once." Leanne thanked him for the info with a thumbs up. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Harley and Lee found out, but Leanne preferred to keep her life as a looper and her life as a normal human being separate. She didn't dislike any of her partners in looping, but they were all complicated individuals in complicated circumstances. Leanne preferred to keep her life simple. She stood, waved goodbye to Vell, and headed back to her normal life.

Elijah smiled warmly as she sat down.

"Finally done with your club meeting, huh?" he asked.

"The whole squad hasn't left yet, though."

"That's Vell," Leanne said.

"He's cool." Elijah nodded to Vell, who was packing up to leave. He gave an awkward wave and excused himself.

"He's dating that red-eyed chick, right? You said you want to go on a double-date sometime-" Leanne's mortified expression stopped Elijah mid-sentence.

"What? You said he's cool, right?"

"Oh he's fine, yeah," Leanne said.

"His girlfriends a fucking psychopath, though, you stay away from her."

"So... He's cool, but he's dating a lunatic?"

"Yep."

"That seems odd."

"Just got to know how to balance the good with the bad," Leanne said. She tapped her head. Knowing how to keep things separate was a virtue in which Leanne specialized. While Vell walked away, oblivious to their criticism of his girlfriend, he pulled out his phone. Having been responsible for most of the mess on the first loop, he had volunteered to be in charge of preventing that mess on the second loop.

He had worked with both Cane and Principal Goodwell to make sure the neurology department never repeated the disastrous experiment. Things should have been well underway to stop the experiment by now, but Vell wanted to be doubly sure they'd never end up with swapped brains again. vharlan03: hey cane hows your department handling the change of plans you said it might be hard to convince them right?

nobodys mad at you are they CaneBrain2: not at me i didn't have to do much goodwell came in confiscated most of the shit then left vharlan03: confiscated?? CaneBrain2: yeah just said some stuff about credible risk and walked away with like three months of work dudes in my department are pissed but hey, they're not pissed at me none of them liked goodwell anyway vharlan03: why?

CaneBrain2: this isn't the first time he messes with the neuro department like A LOT he's always lingering around"checking in on" experiments shit like that nobody knows why my theory: he's just a fucking weirdo with nothing better to do vharlan03: you're probably right about that CaneBrain2: i am right about a lot of things see you around harlan Vell put his phone away. This was the first time they'd ever asked Goodwell to meddle with the neurology department.

He couldn't imagine why the principal would take such a peculiar interest in a field so far removed from his own history in astrophysics. Unless, of course, Goodwell was up to something. Vell decided it had to be that. Someone was always up to something around here.