“Shit,” I scream.
“Now what? It’ll take us hours to reach the main center of the Outer Limits.”
“If you tell your arrow to hit my wristband, it would, wouldn’t it?”
“It should, yes. Wait, you want me to shoot an arrow through your arm? No, Max, that’s crazy.”
“Well, what do you suggest? Lok is dead and the equipment to get into the wristband is back at Pentras Tower.”
“But, how do you even know you can resume looping if the wristband is destroyed? Isn’t that what gives you the ability?”
“Remember what you told me right before our first time in The Litarian Battles? You said that maybe it wasn’t just my hands that were damaged. I think you’re right. If the Patrician were desperate enough and knew I was going to be placed into the Looper unit already, why not give me that enhancement without the wristband?”
“Ok, well, I’m not shooting an arrow into you. There may be another way.”
He waves for me to follow. A mile away from the dome is an empty carriage. Two Aedox lie dead on the ground, their weapons gone. Garrett climbs into the driver’s seat while I get in next to him. He turns on the engine and we race down the line, as fast as the motor will allow. When we reach the outskirts of the Outer Limits, smoke and flame fill much of the sky. People run about, fighting Aedox as they gun other people down.
Garrett switches the lines when we get to a junction and moves us off towards the second-level housing. We have to climb a couple of steep hills to get to the ridge the complex sits on. The buildings line up perfectly in several rows. They all look to be in the same condition the orphanage was in before it was destroyed. We change lines again, going down between the third and fourth sets of structures. Garrett stops the carriage and tells me to get out. We run to the last section of the fourth row, climb a few flights of stairs, and enter an apartment. The interior is covered in gray paint, has black tiled floors, and only consists of one room. The kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and common room are in the same confined space.
“I think the bedrooms at the orphanage are bigger than this whole place,” I comment as I walk the perimeter.
Garrett goes over to his bed and slides out a box full of tools and other random items from underneath. “Yeah, but it still beats the shanties.”
By the lone window is a cinderblock shelving unit holding a small display, a few photos, and a dead plant. One of the pictures catches my attention. I pick up the flimsy wood frame, and have to look at the face carefully to make sure I’m seeing it correctly.
“Is this my mother?” I ask.
Garrett looks up from his task, but only briefly. “Yes. The Patrician gave that to me in case I saw her and was able to see if she knew where you were.”
I remove the picture from the frame, and that’s when I see it. A black dragon, just like Frey’s, on the top of her left chest, just like mine. I tuck the photo into a pocket in the suit.
That’s why when I saw Frey’s tattoo I thought it felt comforting. He got the same one my mother had. But why?
“Here,” Garrett says, pulling me over towards the bed and having me sit down.
He takes a thin set of pliers and tries to force it between the display screen on the top of the wristband, and the rubber backing imbedded in my skin. I wince at the pain. He apologizes, but I tell him it’s fine. It takes almost ten minutes before the two pieces separate.
“I can’t simply just cut the connection between the device and you, because that’ll kill you instantly. What I need to do is disable that portion of the wristband’s programming,” Garrett says as he reaches for his box of tools again.
He pulls out a small screwdriver, but it’s not like one I’ve ever seen before. He touches the tip of the tool onto one of the circuits and along the side of the screwdriver a display describes that circuit’s function. There are so many circuits in that tight space, that it’ll take him a while to locate the right one. Yelling pulls my attention away from what Garrett is doing. It sounds close. The building shakes as a bomb goes off.
“Do you think they’re nuclear?” I ask as Garrett continues to work.
“I don’t think so. They would’ve used them by now if they had them. I think they may be afraid of killing someone useful, like you.” He looks up and smiles at me.
“Where’d you get that tool?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the mayhem outside.
“I used it in the smelting plant. I was relegated to maintenance, so I needed this type of screwdriver to make repairs on the machines, or to stop a specific action. Ah, there it is,” he says.
Along the other side of the screwdriver are small buttons. He pushes a few, and the wristband’s looping ability is temporarily deactivated.
“I can’t permanently disable it,” he says, replacing the casing over the wristband. “Hopefully the Patrician don’t look too closely. I also disabled your locator, so they can’t track you.”
I kiss him deeply just as the building shakes again. This time, cracks appear in the walls and ceiling. I take Garrett’s hand before he has time to put away the tool, and try to loop, hoping my theory about my being modified is right. It works. Within seconds, we’re in front of the orphanage, or at least what’s left of it. I walk up the steps to the front door and head inside. Only a few pieces of the exterior walls remain. The top floors have collapsed onto the main level.
“Why’d you bring us here?” Garrett asks from the entryway, dropping the screwdriver
