This was the nightmare. This was what would crush him, he realized.

That it was a cycle.

That he could wake up, find everything back at square one, and be trapped in the loop. Shock, struggling to find his footing, angry, bargaining, despairing, compromising, and finally finding fleeting peace.

Or that he wouldn’t wake up. That he would be left to make his peace with the decisions he’d made. So many good, well-intentioned, or simply necessary in the moment. None what he now realized he needed.

No. There had been no response, right?

He’d touched so very close to their central processing, the core of them, their experiences. He’d reached out there, spoken in their language.

And there had been no response.

Because Fortuna was gone. Defeated.

⊙

“He’s awake.”

“Good.”

He eased his eyes open, then winced. He had a headache.

He sat up, grunting as he felt the injuries from recent battle.

“Everything okay?” one of the women by the bedside asked.

“It depends on so much,” he said. He motioned for the tablet.

They handed it over.

The entries were coordinates. A long, long list of names in rectangular bubbles with red backgrounds. Twelve names with beige backgrounds and green checkmarks.

“Who have you woken up?”

“We don’t know. When they gave us the data, they didn’t attach names to it. We can infer, from costumes, some of the people are in jail cells, but…”

He looked around.

He looked down at Hannah, who slept beside him, her expression troubled. This was her room. Her request, that he join her. Unlike him, she had no armor stand, no weapons, no resources. Neither he nor she had posters or memorabilia across their rooms. He moved hair from her forehead before resting his hand there. Feeling the temperature, watching her breathe.

Beside the bed, he could see phantom images. A trace of Hannah as a child, in school, a gun in her lap, covered with her hand.

She twitched.

He stroked her head.

The image dropped away. Another replaced it. She was shooting a gun, and he was beside her.

That would have to do.

The relationship had never worked out, for dating, for holidays, for living together. Their lives each had a trajectory that carried them in different directions. But they would always be close.

Close but so far apart, always.

He also remembered that this tender moment was being watched, and straightened, sitting up. He wore no shirt, but he did have pajama bottoms on. His scars were on display, and the two women seemed intimidated.

He stroked his beard, which had grown quite long over multiple deployments to warzones, other worlds. “Can you wake her up?”

“Not yet. We don’t have the right data, and it has to be done in a specific way.”

“Of course,” he said. He held up the tablet. “Can I keep this?”

One of the women nodded. “We have another.”