There really was a lot of work to be done. That much was completely true. The early days of the project were always hectic, especially once the main body arrived. 

She had the benefit of getting the jump on most of them by a little over a decade. Her personal timeline started in 1974, which meant she hit her 16-18 year age window in 1990, though she preferred to come a little later than that. 

As a result, she’d been nearly 100 when the climate collapsed for the first time, though she hadn’t looked a day over 25. The original timeline had figured out how to halt biological aging early, which had only contributed to the climate crisis. 

Loretta was among the vanguard for the Project, one of the key personnel who got things set up in the very early days. Her home life had been a comfortable one, so she enjoyed a few years with her parents before setting out for New York in 1994. The time spent with her father, especially, had done a lot to soothe her shattered ego, after the shame of failure from the fusion catastrophe in the second timeline, and the century of frustration in the third. He was a kind, gentle man, who always seemed to know how best to help his struggling daughter, even if she was several centuries older, by now. 

It wasn’t until she got to New York that she learned that she’d been murdered in her fourth timeline, or that she had fallen in love. The woman in the video message left behind might as well have been a stranger. Or maybe, a relic of the ancient past might have been a better way of putting it. That Loretta had been optimistic, full of hope and love in a way that she scarcely recognized. 

That Loretta had made an impassioned plea for any future versions not to discount the tall, lanky redneck from the Smoky Mountains. He was, she said, The One, and he’d saved her in more ways than she could count. She signed off by saying that she’d told him to come find her in his next life and that if he did, she should give him a chance.

Had she known what was about to happen? There was certainly more to the video than met the eye, Loretta was certain. 

On the one hand, Loretta trusted herself more than anyone else on the planet. That had always been true, and it wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. She knew that might be considered arrogance, and she didn’t care. Her reputation as one of the most formidable minds of her generation had been earned the hard way. Anyone who wanted to question her genius, and there were plenty who had, was welcome to try all they wanted. She’d crush them, just like she had all the others. 

That said, there was something about this video that didn’t sit right. Since when had she ever been so enamored with anyone, much less an uneducated hick? What had he done to bewitch her so thoroughly? There had to be more at play here, some clue that she hadn’t recognized yet. 

If there was, she’d done a remarkably good job of hiding it, even from herself. 

But what if the cipher she was missing, the thing that would unlock the hidden meaning, was never hers to begin with? What if the real key was with him?

Now that was an interesting possibility. It went against every instinct she had to trust someone else so completely. Hell, she spent a lifetime with Harriet, and she hadn’t breathed a word about her suspicions to her. 

“Okay,” she said aloud. “Let’s see what we actually know.”

Fact: someone had murdered her in her past life, and they’d done a thorough job of it. Her brain had been completely destroyed, so the Project hadn’t been able to pull a backup copy from her corpse. That pattern had been repeated thirteen times over the span of a dozen years before the killer stopped. 

Speculation: the killer was someone who was both aware of the Project, and knew some of their members. Exactly how much they knew, she could only guess. The US Government was aware of Project Legacy’s existence, and knew that they had some inside knowledge of the future. It stood to reason that other groups could find out as well. But, as far as she knew, the secret of their foreknowledge was just that. Either someone had leaked, or the killer had worked it out themselves. 

Fact: Loretta’s lost timeline had left a video for her, explaining the circumstances around her falling in love, and imploring her to find Greg, and to trust him. The video message was wholly and completely innocuous, unless you knew Loretta as well as she knew herself. Not even Harriet had seen anything out of the ordinary. 

Speculation: the message wasn’t just a gushing vlog left for her future self. Loretta-4, as she’d started thinking of the version of herself who was murdered, knew something was up. There was a message hidden within the video, something that she didn’t have the means to decode. It stood to reason that the key, for whatever reason, was Greg. 

Fact: Loretta-4 trusted Greg. That much was undeniable. Whatever else might have been going on in her video message, Loretta-4 was insistent that the version of herself who carried forward was to meet him, and if at all possible, continue where she left off. The way she spoke of him made him sound like a saint, which was both factually untrue and set an impossible standard. 

Speculation: Loretta-4 knew that Greg would never live up to the hype. She also must have known that Loretta-3 (or was it 5?) would find that level of hyperbolic praise to be ridiculous. Unbelievable, even. That had to be the clue. Or at least, a clue. If Loretta-4 really trusted Greg, and Loretta-3 had no reason to doubt that she did, then the last thing she’d want to do was set him up for failure with her future self. So, she must have had an ulterior motive. And, as near as Loretta-3 could figure, that motive was to get her to find out for herself. 

So that was it, then. She had to meet him, face to face. 

Why the hell did that idea scare her so much?

“You’re a grown-ass woman,” she muttered. “Just rip the bandage off and be done with it.”

Loretta gathered her things and made for the elevator. There was still more work to be done.