Sunday, April 16th, Late Morning

Rigel was the first one to arrive.

When he did, Sirius was at the coffee table, combing the internet for anything more about Velora Navis. As for myself, I was combing the cabinets for something to eat.

I was starved. I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten for breakfast in the previous loops. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure I’d eaten anything at all, nor did I eat anything for dinner before looping back.

So, when Rigel arrived, my head was still stuck in a cupboard, and Sirius was in his direct line of sight.

“Ain’t this nostalgic,” Rigel said. “Sirius, you better have a good reason for calling me six times at eight in the morning. It’s too early for this.”

“You don’t even know what ‘this’ is,” Sirius pointed out.

“Unless a mass murderer’s on the loose or some shit,” he said, “it’s too early for this.”

Sirius was quiet. I ducked out of cupboard and exchanged a glance with him. He looked like he was going to say something, but Rigel kept talking.

“Sheesh, I was gonna spend the morning gaming, or something.”

“You’re into games?” Sirius leaned in.

“Mostly retro stuff.”

A slow nod from Sirius. “Like what?”

“Nothing you’ll have heard of,” Rigel said. I poked around and found an old bag of chips, a month expired. Well, worse things have tried to kill me. Do your worst, Julius Pringles.

“Oh, come on. At least let me guess.” Sirius balled his fists and put them up in a boxer stance.

I recognized that pose, and evidently, so did Rigel. Sirius struck that pose whenever it was clear he wouldn’t back down. Rigel sighed. “Whatever. It’s a vector shooter. A ship shooting at a core. Sound familiar?”

Sirius kept staring at Rigel with all the intensity of a small child determined to do well on college entrance exams. “Keep going.”

“You’re not going to get it.”

“I’ll do my best!”

Rigel looked like he was about to speak. I didn’t notice until I interrupted him. “Just how much do you know about arcade games, Sirius?”

Both of them turned. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I looked like a mess.

“Heya, Rigel. Morning.”

He turned back to Sirius. “How long has she been here?”

“She got here before I did.”

Rigel shrugged, and looked away. His ears were a little red, like the edges of his dyed hair fringe. “Okay, another hint, then.” He thought for a moment. “It shares its name with a famous…” I thought I saw his head turn, just a bit. “A famous love story.”

I was struck with an intense feeling of guilt. That’s right. During the first loop… It may not have happened from his perspective, but it was real to me.

“Rigel,” I said. “Come with me.”

I found an unused classroom on the other side of the Physics building and slipped inside, beckoning Rigel to follow.

The lights in the room were off. The rising sun was facing the building’s other side. Rigel regarded me curiously, but didn’t say much. Though he was one to talk back constantly to Sirius and the others, he usually just went with what I said.

There was a lump in my throat. I suddenly remembered how Rigel had grabbed me, in the other loop. I’d been scared. And I was scared now. But if Rigel has been able to work up the courage to ask me out, then the least I can do is work up the courage to answer.

“Rigel,” I said, “that play you were talking about. Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest.”

“I guess you’re a real English major after all.”

I just frowned. Rigel smiled wryly. 

“You didn’t drag me all this way just to tell me that, did you?”

“No. Of course not.” I swallowed, and took a breath. “Just listen to me. After the show today, you’re going to see me around the performance area, and you’re going to invite me to come see the Arcade Club with you.” Not to say that this had necessarily happened in each loop, but if it had occurred at least once. Therefore, if I were to behave in the same way, Rigel should respond in turn.

He didn’t say anything, but one of his eyebrows was slowly creeping up.

“Now, if I were to ask you: ‘how long have you been into arcade games?’ How would you respond? Think about it, but don’t say anything.”

“Go on.”

“Call it a recent obsession.’ Is that the response you’re thinking of?”

A bead of sweat rolled down his neck. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been living this past day on a loop. You’ve given me that response before.”

A beat. His expression didn’t change.

“I’ll talk in detail in a moment. The reason I dragged you away from Sirius is because of something you did in a previous loop.”

Rigel swallowed and narrowed his eyes. He took a few steps away from me, and fiddled with the classroom doorknob. “What happened?”

I wondered if he already knew what I was going to say. Perhaps he’d always planned to say it.

Take a deep breath, Lyra.

You can do it.

“Rigel, you asked me out. And I never gave you a straight answer. So I’m here to tell you that I don’t want to date you.”

I studied my feet. He said nothing.

“S-Sorry…”

When I looked up, Rigel seemed more relaxed. He sat back on a nearby chair and sighed. “Well, you’ve fully convinced me that you’re John Connor.” He smirked. “You like Sirius, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“You’ll really be John Connor if you end up banging him.”

“Please tell me you’re not this vulgar around all girls.” Wait. Something about what he just said didn’t sit right with me.

“Nah, I’m just in a bad mood now.” He looked away from me. “I’m guessing there’s more to this story, isn’t there? For starters, why you’re traveling back in time?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Buckle up.”

So I told him everything. Sirius and Anna’s murders, the three loops, Velora Navis, etc. Though, I left out the part where I’d been stabbed.

At the end of it, Rigel was resting his head against the wall, eyes up at the ceiling.

“So, what do you want me to do?”

“For starters… I want you to believe me.”

He clicked his tongue twice. “That goes without saying.”

“But do you?”

“That goes without saying.” A grin. “I’m guessing you’ll ask me next if I’m going to help you.”

“Maybe I’m not the only time traveler.”

“Maybe. So, count me in.”

Rigel didn’t do a good job hiding his dejection, but then again he never does. 

Sunday, April 16th, Late Morning

Everyone was gathered in the clubroom. Rigel and Sirius were seated at opposite ends of the couch, on folding chairs. Antares, Mint, and Anna were huddled onto it.

Convincing Mintaka and Antares was significantly easier than the last time. It helped that Sirius and Rigel were both already on board, and I had a plan for the two of them.

So when Anna showed up, I realized that I didn’t have one for her. But it was easier than I expected. After explaining the situation, Anna texted me that she believed me, without hesitation.

I didn’t get an explanation when I asked why. But Anna didn’t look like she was lying, either. I decided not to press the issue.

“Let’s begin,” I said. “I’ll fill you all in on the timeline of events, first.” Nods all around.

8:00 AM. I wake up. This is where the loop begins. Sirius arrives at the clubroom in a few minutes.

10:00 AM. Practice begins. This is where all the other members of the band show up. We’ll rehearse until about… 11:30, then we’ll head over to the performance area. Though I hadn’t paid much attention to this time, in the previous loops, this is what we would be doing, had this meeting not taken place.

12:00 PM. The performances begin. Rigel performs directly before us. We’re fourth on the lineup.

12:30 PM. Our scheduled performance. Velora Navis is almost certainly in the crowd at the time.

Shortly after 1:00 PM. After the performances end, the Ireilas members split up and go their separate ways. Sirius will ask Anna to go around the festival with him.

“E-Eh?” Anna’s eyes were wide.

The clubroom erupted into chatter. Mintaka and Antares exchanged quick words about how they’d expected Sirius to ask me, Sirius tried to stop them from talking, Anna was panicking, and Rigel, having been recently rejected, sat in the corner silently.

“Focus, guys.” After a few minutes, they quieted down. “This is presumably when Velora Navis starts stalking Sirius and Anna."

I kept going.

6:30: Sirius and Anna will go eat dinner.

8:00: Zero hour. In minutes, the murder will happen.

It's ten right now. We have about ten hours to figure out a plan. And if I failed… I’d have to reset to the start, and convince everyone, again.

Suddenly, I felt very, very tired.

“So… where is it going to happen? Where Anna and I are…” Sirius looked down. “This just… Sorry, I believe you, but it still doesn’t feel real.”

I couldn’t blame him. But also, that didn’t make it any less real to me. “The first time, it was on top of the Astronomy Building. The second time, it was in front of the Art Building’s fountain.”

“Isn’t this the fourth loop?” Antares said. “What happened last time?”

It was a little weird to hear it from him, given that he and Mint had talked me out of seeing the third loop to its conclusion. “I cut the third loop short… it’s a long story. But yeah, that’s where the murder has taken place.”

“Objection!” Mintaka stood, pointing. “If the timeline remains the same across different loops… why did Sirius and Anna’s murder change locations? If none of us except you retain our memories across loops, shouldn’t we always make the same moves each time?”

I nodded. “You’re right. It’s because I told them not to go to the Astronomy Building the second time,” I said. “I figured if I moved them, then Velora wouldn’t be able to kill them.”

“But you were wrong… What else do we know?” Mintaka asked.

“We know who she is,” Antares said. “We can look into her online.”

“Google knows everything, huh?” Rigel smirked. “Someone got a laptop?”

“Right here.” Sirius was already keying in his password. “I’ll start combing through her social media.”

His smirk remained. “Never thought I’d see you stoop to facebook stalking, Sirius.”

“Hey,” Mintaka glared. “His life is at stake. Lay off.”

“Calm down, Peppermint. It’s just a joke,” Rigel said.

“Not a funny one.”

“Don’t be so uptight about everything.” Rigel leaned back in his chair. It was only then I noticed that Mintaka was seated on the other side of the couch— as far as she could be from him. “Besides. Lyra could just reset time if anything happens.”

“Only six more times.” I pulled out my phone and opened up the Redshift to confirm that that was, in fact, the case, “I need to make each of them count.”

“Six times is plenty,” Rigel said. “Chill.”

“You chill!”

“Calm down,” Antares separated them. “That Velora girl. You find anything, Sirius?”

Sirius nodded. “I’m on her facebook page right now.”

“Her cover is a stock photo of rain with quotes overlaid,” I said. “The current one is “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.”

“That’s from Hamlet, right?” Sirius said.

I was a little surprised that he could pinpoint where it was from. But then again, we had first met in a Shakespeare class. I still remember the sullen looking boy sitting in the desk in front of me, grumbling about how, even though he’d tested out of entry level English, a paperwork mishap had forced him to take it anyways.

And, because all the classes were filled at that point, he’d had to take English 42C: Life and Lies of Shakespeare, of all classes.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“There’s a few Bob Marley quotes in there. At least one by Maya Angelou, too,” I said. Sirius nodded.

Rigel leaned back in his folding chair. “You’ve done your homework.”

“You could say that,” I said. “I’ve already looked her up in a past loop. You can keep looking, but I doubt you’ll find anything substantive.”

“But…” Mintaka turned to me. “We don’t have enough information to combat her. We need to know what her movements will be.

Her movements...

“Reverse that line of thinking. She isn’t lying in wait at the location,” I said. “We know that because she was there both times, in different places. So she’ll definitely be following Sirius and Anna after the concert.”

Mintaka put her fist in her palm. “Which means Sirius and Anna control where she’ll be.”

Anna visibly shuddered. “T-This is scary…” 

“In other words, we’ll have total control over her general movements,” Mintaka continued. “Then, we can trap her.”

“Exactly.” I glanced at Anna. I could tell she was very not okay with the prospect of having a murderer follow her around all day. Sorry. Anna… but it’s for your own good. “Also, Sirius.”

“Yes?”

“You two need to go to Cafe Tristan at 6:30.”

“Okay… why?”

“It’s easy to confirm her location when you’re there,” I said. “That’s how it happened last time. Okay, the exact time isn’t important, but we need to make sure that she’s following when we head up to… our trap location. After you leave the restaurant, it’ll be easier to tail her.”

His head bobbed up and down. “Got it.”

It was almost as though electric currents were running through the clubroom.

Antares cracked his knuckles. “So. We’re gonna trap her. How?”

“Any location ideas?” Rigel asked. “It should probably be somewhere out of the way.”

“Somewhere secluded… but also, it should be hard for her to escape,” I said.

“And, somewhere where she can’t stab us,” Mintaka said. “She’s got a knife, you know…”

The room was quiet.

“W-what about…” All eyes were on Anna. She squeezed hers shut, and put her head down. Her fingers were flying at her phone.

[Anna] What about the Astronomy Building?

I read it aloud.

“Huh?” Sirius asked. “But-”

My phone’s ‘text received’ jingle would not stop going off. I read them as they arrived.

[Anna] The rooftop

It only has one entrance

Isn’t that a good cjokepoint?

Also

The door opens ot thr stairs

Well have the high ground

Mintaka extended a finger. “It’s important that Sirius and Anna not deviate too much from the previous loops, or Lyra won’t be able to predict what Velora can do. If she followed them up to the Astronomy Building once, then she’s likely to do it again.” 

“Okay, then it’s decided. We’ll talk more about this after our performance later today.” A nervous grin spread across my face. We could do it…

Mint and Antares were giving me the best smiles they could muster in this situation. Rigel leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. He wasn’t making any biting comments. That’s a good sign. As I locked eyes with Anna, she gave me the tiniest nod.

We could do it!

Sirius stood, and pumped a fist. “Okay, Ireilas.” He took a few steps and strapped on his guitar. “Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s play.”

“Huh?”

“If every psycho fan stopped us from playing, we wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we are.” He clapped his hands. “Battle stations, everyone! We’ve still got a gig today!”