#wftwioo

"Ugh," they groaned, letting their eyes fall shut again. "Maybe it would have been better if I let Entrati kill me. At least then I'd be dead and numb. Probably wouldn't have this migraine from hell either."

The Drifter lay there for a moment, taking inventory. Arms? Still attached. Legs? Present. That gnawing sensation in their gut that told them they'd just ripped a hole in causality and stitched it back together with their bare hands? Oh yeah, that was there too. Fantastic.

They were just starting to contemplate whether they could get away with staying horizontal for the next few hours when a sudden, sharp gasp to their left made them startle so hard they nearly transferred on instinct. 

"Shit—" The Drifter turned slowly, carefully, as to not make their head throb any harder than it already was. "Easy, easy..."

"Holy shit," Amir had sat bolt—heh, bolt, good one—upright, his eyes wide as dinner plates. His chest was heaving like he'd just run a marathon. "Holy shit. I was dead. I was—I felt it, I felt my heart stop, I felt the electricity—"

"Then you weren't," the Drifter said, their voice rough and dry. They needed water. Or maybe something stronger. "Welcome to my life. Population: me and whoever I drag along for the ride."

Amir's hand was gripping over his chest, fingers splayed wide, likely due to the aching echoes that were bound to linger. The phantom pain of death didn't just disappear because you'd been yanked back from the edge. The Drifter knew that better than anyone.

"This is—this is nuts!" Amir's voice pitched higher, that familiar excitement creeping in even through the trauma. "We were dead with a capital D! We were weren't we or was that the craziest nightmare I've had since that one where I showed up to geometry naked and—"

"Amir," Arthur's voice groaned from somewhere to the Drifter's right. The sound was pained, exhausted, and thoroughly done with everything. "Glad you're alive, truly, but can we pump the brakes for a moment? I still feel like my skin is being burned off. Slowly."

"Oh! Right, sorry," a flush crept up the protoframe's cheeks. Amir had the decency to look embarrassed, at least. "Are you okay? Well, obviously not okay, but are you—"

"I'm alive," Arthur cut him off, though his tone was marginally softer. "That's more than I can say for a few minutes ago. I think."

"Thank you," Arthur said with the air of someone trying very hard to maintain military discipline while every nerve ending screamed. "Now can I get a sound off? Need to know everyone's status."

There was a beat of silence. Then:

"Fuck off."

"Thank you, Quincy," Arthur said dryly, holding up four fingers in some kind of count. "Appreciate the confirmation that you're alive and as charming as ever."

"¿No podría simplemente quedarme muerto?," Lettie muttered, and the Drifter could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. "Así tendría menos trabajo."

A soft groan came from nearby, followed by an echo inside their heads, 'My mouth hurts.'

Arthur held up two more fingers, his count continuing.

"Ow," Aoi groaned, the sound muffled like she were talking through a split lip. Which, knowing what they'd just been through, was probably accurate.

"Close," the Drifter chuckled, then immediately regretted it when their head throbbed in protest. "But you're missing the 'E' sound. It's 'ow-E.' You know, like 'owie. You should know this.'"

"Not the time, Drifter," Aoi shot back, but there was no real heat in it.

"Fair point," the Drifter conceded, pressing the heel of their palm against their forehead. "My bad. Humor's a coping mechanism. Sue me."

"Now that we're all accounted for," Arthur said, and the Drifter could hear the rustle of fabric as he gingerly sat up. When they cracked one eye open, they could see him looking at the group with that particular expression he got when he was trying to be the responsible one. The leader. "Marty, explain. Now."

The Drifter sighed. They'd known this was coming. Hell, they'd have been more surprised if Arthur hadn't demanded an explanation. But that didn't make it any easier.

"Did I not mention my ability to reset and create time loops?" they asked, aiming for casual and probably landing somewhere around 'exhausted and evasive.'

Arthur stared at them. Just... stared. The silence stretched out for a long, uncomfortable moment.

"No," Arthur said finally, his voice very, very controlled. "You did not."

"Oh," the Drifter said, examining their bruised knuckles with sudden interest. "Well. I can reset and create time loops."

"Smartass," Arthur squinted at them, and the Drifter caught Quincy chuckling and trying to disguise it as a cough. "We're going to need a better explanation than that. A significantly better explanation. Starting with how, why, and what the hell just happened."

The Drifter sat up slowly, wincing as their body protested the movement. Everything hurt. Everything always hurt after a reset, like their atoms had been scattered across the Void and hastily reassembled in approximately the right order.

"Right," they said, running a hand through their hair. "Well, that's a long story. But it seems we've got some time on our hands."

'Too soon. But funny,' Eleanor's voice drifted over, and despite everything, the Drifter felt a small surge of satisfaction. At least someone appreciated their sense of humor.

"Right," the Drifter repeated, looking around at the group. At these people they'd just dragged back from death itself. "Would you like me to start with the Void or the Man in the Wall? Because both are relevant, and both are going to sound absolutely insane, but I promise you it's all true."

Amir's eyes lit up like someone had just offered him access to an Orokin archive. "The Man in the Wall? Is that a person or a metaphor or—"

"Amir," Arthur said, holding up a hand. "Let them talk. Please."

The Drifter took a breath. Here went nothing.

Amir looked like he was physically restraining himself from vibrating out of his chair, his hands gripping the armrests so hard the frame was starting to bend. The protoframe's entire body language screamed that he had about seventeen follow-up questions queued and ready to fire.

The Drifter met Arthur's gaze steadily. No point in dancing around it anymore.

"Yes."

Arthur stared a moment longer, his jaw working like he was chewing on the word, testing its weight and validity. Then he exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled. "Right."

The single word carried the weight of a man who'd just had his understanding of reality fundamentally restructured and was choosing to deal with it through sheer force of will.

Quincy gave a low chuckle from where he'd slouched against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "Honestly? After the Dok? Not that shocking. Bruv was unhinged, his tech..." He shrugged, the gesture loose and casual despite the tension crackling through the room. "Years ahead of anything we've got. Time travel? Sure. Why not. Add it to the list of impossible shit that's apparently just Tuesday now."

His eyes sharpened as they returned to the Drifter, the humor draining from his expression like water through a sieve.

"Still doesn't tell us why you're here. Or why you look like you've watched the same disaster twice."

The Drifter took a slow breath, feeling the weight of what they were about to say settle in their chest like a stone.

"Because I have."

That broke it.

Amir lurched forward, his chair legs scraping loudly against the floor with a screech that made everyone wince. "Okay, no. No, you don't get to say that and stop. When? How? And—important question—are we talking future-future or horrible sideways loop nonsense? Because the temporal mechanics are completely different depending on whether we're dealing with a closed timelike curve or a branching timeline scenario, and if you're suggesting that you've actually witnessed multiple iterations of the same events then we need to establish whether you're experiencing linear progression through recursive temporal loops or if you're somehow maintaining consciousness across parallel quantum states. This is just like that one episode of Sun Trek—"

"Amir," Arthur said, pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough that the skin went white. "Please."

"What? This is huge. This is literal paradox-on-legs standing in our break room talking about watching us die multiple times like it's a weather report!"

The corner of the Drifter's mouth twitched despite themself. Even facing down existential temporal horror, Amir couldn't help but be Amir.

"Future," they said, holding up a finger. "Past," another finger. "And..." they tilted their hand back and forth, "sideways isn't wrong. It's more like... imagine time as a river that keeps trying to flow the same way, and I'm the idiot standing in it trying to redirect the current with my bare hands."

Silence settled over the room, thick and heavy.

"Well," Quincy muttered, pushing off from the wall, "thought today couldn't get stranger. Clearly, I lack imagination."

Arthur studied the Drifter carefully now, his tactical mind visibly working through the implications. The Drifter could practically see him weighing every word, every gesture, cataloging and analyzing.

"You came back because something goes wrong," Arthur said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes." The Drifter paused, then added, softer, "And because you're involved. All of you."

That landed harder than the rest.

Lettie straightened from where she'd been leaning against the wall, her posture shifting from casual observer to active participant. Eleanor's hands stilled over the device she'd been absently manipulating, her attention suddenly laser-focused. Even Amir finally stopped moving, his rapid-fire energy freezing mid-thought.

Quincy broke the quiet first, because of course he did. "Guess that means we listen."

"If you want to avoid repeating it," the Drifter said, and hated how their voice came out rough, worn. "If you want a chance at not—" They stopped, swallowed. "Yeah. You should listen."

Arthur's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. "Repeating what."

The Drifter looked around at them. At these people who were already dead in another timeline. At Amir's wide, anxious eyes. At Quincy's forced casualness. At Lettie's composed attention. At Eleanor's unnaturally still focus.

"There's a signal," the Drifter said, and the words felt like pulling shrapnel from a wound. "Old. Ancient. Buried deep enough in the facility's infrastructure that it looks dead. You stumble across it while trying to shut down the reactor."

Aoi crossed her arms, her usual playful demeanor dimming. "And if someone pokes it?"

"It wakes something," the Drifter said. "Something that Entrati was trying to contain. Something that was contained, broken apart, half-erased from existence but not quite destroyed because you can't really destroy something that exists partially outside of linear time."

The temperature in the room seemed to dip, or maybe that was just the Drifter's imagination. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, a sound they hadn't noticed before but now couldn't unhear.

"Gone how?" Lettie asked, her voice even and controlled. Always the medic, always assessing the threat.

"Contained. Broken apart. Half erased." The Drifter met Arthur's eyes directly. "You don't beat it. None of you do. You fight, you're smart about it, you do everything right, and it doesn't matter."

Eleanor's voice brushed against their minds, quieter than usual, carrying an edge of something that might have been fear.

'So, we're meant to die.'

"In every outcome I was shown," the Drifter replied, and they weren't sure if they were speaking aloud or thinking it back at her, "yes. Every single iteration. Every possible approach. I watched you all—" They stopped, throat tight. "Yeah."

Aoi huffed, the sound sharp and bitter. "Love that. Really love that. 'Hey team, you're all cosmically doomed, thought you should know.' Great pep talk."

"If it always ends that way..." Arthur's voice was carefully controlled, the kind of control that came from years of military discipline and making impossible decisions. "Why warn us at all? Why come back if the outcome is predetermined?"

The Drifter's lips quirked into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Because the entity that showed me all those timelines? The one that exists in the space between moments and feeds on paradox?" They leaned forward. "It made a mistake. It allowed the person with time loop abilities to mess around with stuff. Turns out, spite and stubbornness are powerful motivators."

That stopped him.

Quincy barked a humorless laugh. "Figures. Some cosmic horror shows you the future where we all die horribly and you go 'nah, I'm gonna fuck with that.' Respecto, honestly."

"Doesn't matter what it expects," Lettie said, pushing off the wall with decisive movement. "If it thinks we'll act the same way, follow the same patterns, make the same mistakes—that's its problem, not ours."

'We adapt,' Eleanor's voice echoed through their minds, and the Drifter felt the resolve firming in that telepathic link like steel being forged. 'That's what we do. That's what we've always done.'

"And we don't die quietly," Aoi added, and despite the joke in her tone, there was something fierce underneath it. "If we're going down, we're taking that signal and whatever it wakes up with us. Spite and stubbornness, right?"

Arthur looked around at them, at his team already rallying despite being told they were facing certain death. Something shifted in his expression—not quite pride, but close. He turned back to the Drifter.

"Fine. We prep. Quietly. No panic. No heroics until we know what we're dealing with," he sighed, and for a moment he looked every year of his age and then some. "Meeting over before my brain melts trying to process temporal mechanics and cosmic entities."

"That's it?" Amir said, his voice pitching higher with disbelief. "We just... go back to work? Pretend we didn't just learn we're all supposed to die?"

"We prepare," Arthur corrected, his tone brooking no argument. "We gather intel. We find this signal before it finds us. And we figure out how to kill something that apparently can't be killed." He stood, joints popping. "Standard Tuesday."

Quincy was already grabbing his jacket from where he'd draped it over a chair, moving with the kind of purpose that came from having a concrete task to focus on. "I'll start reaching out to my contacts. If there's something someone knows, I want eyes on it before it knows we're looking. Might be able to trace it, see where it's buried."

"I'll check med inventories," Lettie said, already mentally cataloging supplies. "Quietly. If this thing wakes up, we'll need trauma supplies, stims, probably some of the experimental stuff we've been holding back. Better to have it and not need it."

'I'll get in touch with the local rot,' Eleanor's voice touched each of their minds simultaneously, a neat trick that still made the Drifter's skin prickle. 'If something's buried in the facility's infrastructure, there will be scars in the system architecture. Anomalies. Places where the code doesn't quite match the physical layout. I'll find them.'

"I'll watch power draw," Amir said, cracking his knuckles. "Spikes don't lie. If this thing is waking up, it'll need energy. Everything does. I'll set up monitoring on the main grid and the backup systems. Anything unusual, we'll know."

They filtered out one by one, purpose snapping into place like pieces of a well-oiled machine. The Drifter watched them go, feeling something tight in their chest loosen just slightly. This was different. This was already different from the timelines they'd seen.

Arthur lingered.

The break room felt larger with just the two of them, the hum of aging machinery more pronounced. Somewhere in the walls, pipes clanked and settled. The fluorescent lights continued their endless buzzing, casting everything in that particular shade of institutional white that made everyone look slightly ill.

"You didn't say what happened to you," Arthur said quietly. "In those other timelines you were shown. The ones where we died."

The Drifter hesitated, their hand unconsciously moving to their chest where they could still feel the phantom echo of—something. Death. Almost-death. The space between.

"I died," they said finally. "Well, almost. Close enough that the distinction doesn't really matter. Turns out, when you're connected to the Void the way I am, death is more of a suggestion than a hard rule. But it's not—" They stopped, searching for words. "It's not pleasant. And it's not something I want to repeat."

Arthur nodded slowly, accepting it without pressing for details. "Try not to disappear on us. Makes planning difficult when your temporal consultant vanishes into the Void."

There was something almost warm underneath the pragmatism, buried deep but present. The Drifter recognized it for what it was—Arthur's version of concern, of care, wrapped in tactical necessity because that was safer than admitting he might actually give a damn.

"I'll try," the Drifter said.

Arthur studied them for a moment longer, then nodded once and left, his footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded into the general ambient noise of the facility.

The room settled into the low hum of aging machinery.

The Drifter sat there, alone, feeling the weight of the conversation settle over them like a blanket. Early, they thought. Still early. They'd changed things already, just by warning the team. The question was whether it would be enough.

The break room was a study in institutional decay—metal chairs that had seen better decades, a table scarred with coffee rings and the occasional burn mark from someone's careless cigarette or soldering iron. The walls were that particular shade of beige that seemed designed to depress, marked with the occasional poster about safety protocols that no one read. 

The Drifter stood, stretching muscles that still ached from the reset. Their body felt wrong, like wearing clothes that didn't quite fit. It would pass. It always did.

They were halfway to the door when they felt it.

A thrum.

Not a sound, exactly. More like a vibration that existed just below the threshold of hearing, felt in the bones rather than heard with the ears. It echoed through the facility's structure, traveling through metal and concrete and whatever Entrati-era materials made up the deeper levels.

The Drifter froze.

Too distant to trigger automated alarms. Too faint for anyone else to notice over the general background noise of a facility this old, this complex. But too deliberate to be machinery. Too rhythmic to be random settling or thermal expansion.

The lights flickered.

Just once. Just for a fraction of a second. But in that moment of darkness, the Drifter felt something vast and patient turn its attention toward them.

Their hand went instinctively to their side, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. No Sirocco. No Arsenal. No way to summon the tools they'd relied on for—how long had it been? Time got weird when you lived in loops.

"Shit," they muttered. "Loid, you'd better have sent my gear."

The hum faded, sinking back into the subliminal background noise of the mall. But it didn't disappear. The Drifter could still feel it, a presence lurking in the deep places, in the spaces between the walls where old code slept and older things dreamed.

They moved to the wall, pressing their palm against the cool metal. Through the contact, they could feel it more clearly—a pulse, slow and steady. Like a heartbeat. Like something breathing. Like someone laughing.

It was already awake.

The realization hit them like a physical blow. All those timelines, all those iterations where the team discovered the signal and triggered it—they'd been wrong. The Indifference wasn't waiting to be found. It was waiting for the right moment. And the Drifter's arrival, their use of Void energy to reset time, had been like ringing a dinner bell.

"No, no, no," they whispered, pulling their hand back from the wall. "Too soon. It's too soon, we're not ready—"

The lights flickered again, longer this time. In the darkness, the Drifter thought they saw something move in the corner of their vision. But when the lights came back, there was nothing there.

Just the empty break room.

Just the hum of aging machinery.

Just the Drifter, alone and unarmed, feeling the weight of history shifting around them like tectonic plates grinding against each other.

The Drifter stood in the flickering light of the break room and realized with cold certainty that they were running out of time.

History had shifted, just enough to matter.

The Drifter was already at the central table when the first rays of actual sunlight hit the edge of the food court.

They stood with both hands braced on its edge, weight forward, mis-matched eyes distant and unfocused. To anyone watching, they looked like someone staring at a map. But there was no map. Just an empty table. The Drifter was listening to something no one else could hear—that low, persistent thrum that had kept them awake most of the night. It was still there. Still patient. Still waiting.

Their fingers drummed once against the table, then stilled.

A distant door opened in the direction of the Arcade.

"Okay!" Amir announced, too loud for the hour, his voice carrying that manic edge that came from running on pure caffeine and anxiety instead of actual sleep. "Nothing exploded overnight, which is either great news or deeply suspicious news, I haven't decided which yet. Also, I did not sleep. Like, at all. I tried! I laid down, I closed my eyes, I did the whole thing, but my brain was just—" He made a gesture like his head was exploding. "—going full throttle—"

"Amir," Arthur's voice cut through the rambling like a knife through butter. His voice carried from the opposite direction, coffee mug in hand, his expression carved from stone and exhaustion in equal measure. " You never sleep, so maybe you don't realize it, but it's six in the morning."

"Yeah, but this was thematic insomnia," Amir protested, gesturing wildly. "Like, existentially significant sleeplessness. I was awake because the universe is broken and we're trying to fix it with duct tape and spite."

Arthur took a long, deliberate sip of his coffee. The mug said "World's Okayest Commander" in faded letters. An eyebrow raised above his good eye.

"…but usually it's because I'm gaming or hacking or doing something fun. This was lying in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about how we're all supposed to die and whether free will is real or if we're just acting out a script written by some cosmic horror that feeds on—"

"Amir."

"Right. Shutting up now." Amir dropped into a chair with enough force that it scraped loudly across the floor. He immediately started fidgeting with a stylus, spinning it between his fingers with the kind of nervous energy that suggested he'd had approximately four energy drinks for breakfast.

Quincy slipped in next, moving with the careful deliberation of someone who'd learned to read rooms before entering them. His jacket was half-on, one arm through the sleeve, the other draped over his shoulder. His eyes scanned corners, exits, the Drifter's posture, Arthur's expression—cataloging everything in the space of a heartbeat.

"Wah gwaan?" he said, his voice carrying that particular blend of casual and cautious that meant he was assessing the situation. "Place still standing? Nobody bleeding? That's new. Usually when I wake up, something's on fire or Arthur's yelling or Amir's accidentally hacked something he shouldn't have."

"It's early yet," Arthur said dryly. "Give it time."

"Optimistic. I like it." Quincy claimed a spot leaning against the wall near the door—close enough to participate, far enough to bolt if necessary. His braids clicked softly as he settled, the beads catching the morning light.

Lettie came in quietly, already pulling on her medical gloves with practiced efficiency. She moved like someone who'd learned to be present without announcing herself, observing before engaging. Her dark eyes swept the room, taking inventory: Amir's manic energy, Arthur's controlled exhaustion, Quincy's watchful positioning, the Drifter's distant focus.

"Morning," she said simply, her voice warm but measured. She headed straight for the ancient coffee maker in the corner—a machine that had probably been old when the mall was new and had achieved a kind of immortality through sheer spite. It gurgled and hissed like it was personally offended by the concept of coffee.

Eleanor trailed in, her movements precise and economical. Her eyes were sharp despite the hour. She didn't greet anyone verbally, but the Drifter felt the lightest brush of her presence against their mind—a telepathic equivalent of a nod.

The Drifter returned the mental acknowledgment. 'Still here.'

'Good,' Eleanor's thought carried the weight of relief. 'We'll need you.'

Aoi brought up the rear, her hair still damp from a shower, stifling a yawn behind one hand. She looked like she'd actually slept, which made her the only functional human in the room.

"Everyone here?" Arthur asked, doing a quick headcount with the efficiency of someone who'd commanded too many missions where headcounts mattered.

"Regrettably," Aoi muttered, but there was warmth underneath the complaint. She grabbed a chair and spun it backward, straddling it with her arms folded over the backrest. "So what's the crisis du jour? Temporal anomalies? Cosmic entities? Existential dread?"

"Yes," the Drifter said without looking up.

"Love that. Super love that. Very reassuring."

Arthur moved to stand across from the Drifter, setting his coffee down with deliberate care. "Any new readings since last night?"

The Drifter finally looked up, meeting his gaze. "Nothing concrete. Just the usual hum. The system's baseline." They paused, jaw working like they were chewing on words they didn't want to say. "It's... steady. Too steady. Like it's waiting for something."

"Waiting for what?" Lettie asked, pouring herself something that was technically coffee.

"For us to make a move," the Drifter said. "Or for the right moment. Hard to tell the difference."

Arthur's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture—a subtle straightening, a sharpening of focus. "Show us what you've got."

The Drifter pulled their gear wheel, pulling a tablet from seemingly nowhere. A few eyebrows raised around the table, Amir simply looked fascinated. The surface flickered to life, holographic displays rising like ghosts from the surface. Maps layered over maps.

'Aren't you full of surprises,' her voice touched each of them simultaneously, that neat trick that still made Quincy's eye twitch.

"Entrati," the Drifter said. "I can't quite figure out his end goal, or even if his goal was the end. Everything looks dormant. For now at least."

"For now," Arthur echoed, his tone making it clear he'd caught the implication. "Meaning they could activate."

"Meaning they will activate," the Drifter corrected. "It's not a question of if. It's when."

Amir leaned closer to the display, his earlier manic energy focusing into something sharper, more analytical. "Okay, so if someone poked one of those pathways—hypothetically speaking—what would happen? Would it trigger a cascade? Localized activation? System-wide response? Because the network topology suggests that any single node activation could propagate through the entire infrastructure depending on the—"

"You're not poking anything," Arthur cut in, his voice carrying the weight of command that meant the discussion was over.

"I was asking academically," Amir protested.

"Academically sit on your hands," Arthur's expression didn't change, but there was something almost fond underneath the sternness.

Amir folded his hands on the table with exaggerated care, but his leg was already bouncing under the table, that nervous energy needing an outlet.

A moment of silence settled over the group, broken only by the hum of the display and the gurgling of the coffee maker achieving new heights of mechanical suffering.

"So," Amir said, glancing at the Drifter with the kind of careful casualness that meant he was about to ask something important. "Morning."

The Drifter blinked, pulled from whatever distant thought they'd been chasing. "Morning."

Aoi smirked. Lettie cleared her throat, a sound that somehow conveyed both amusement and exasperation.

"If the system activates unexpectedly," Lettie said, her voice cutting through the moment with medical precision, "we'll lose people. Not might. Will. These pathways run through occupied sections. Residential areas. Safe houses. If they go active without warning—" She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.

"Yes," the Drifter said quietly. "Unless we plan differently this time."

Arthur folded his arms, his tactical mind already working through scenarios. "Meaning?"

The Drifter took a slow breath, choosing their words carefully. "In the last 1999 you responded exactly as you were trained to. You tried to contain it. Stabilize it. Hold the line." Their voice went distant, remembering. "You made it to December."

Lettie frowned, her dark eyes sharp. "So we did everything right?"

"You did," the Drifter said, and there was something heavy in those two words. "You were smart, coordinated, brave. You adapted to every curveball thrown at you. You did everything a good team is supposed to do." They paused. "But you failed anyway. Because he wanted you to. The whole thing was designed for you to fail. Every response you made, every tactical decision, every moment of heroism—it was all accounted for. Planned around. You were playing a game where the rules were rigged from the start."

The silence that followed was thick enough to cut.

They all remembered it, in that strange way you remember dreams—distant, fragmented, but viscerally real. The way 1999 ended. The reactor. The collapse. The pain. The certainty that this was it, this was the end, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

And now they were here again. Alive. Aware. With time reset and a year stretching ahead of them like a minefield they'd already walked through once.

Quincy exhaled slowly, the sound carrying the weight of someone who'd seen too much and survived anyway. "So we need to stop it this time. Zeen, let's hope this goes better than the last attempt, because I really don't want to die twice in the same year. Once was bad enough."

"Yes," the Drifter said. "But stopping it isn't about brute force. You all learned that the hard way. We just need to figure out what will be enough."

Arthur leaned forward, both hands flat on the table, his expression carved from granite and determination.

"Whose plan are we up against? You keep saying 'he.' Entrati built the reactor, but you're talking about someone else. Someone watching."

The Drifter met his gaze steadily. "Entrati built the reactor. But others are watching, waiting for it to reach critical. The timing matters more than the mechanics. It's not about the explosion—it's about what the explosion does. What it opens. What it allows."

Eleanor's gaze hardened, her mental presence sharpening like a blade being drawn. 'The Man in the Wall. That's what you called him before, right? When you were explaining the Void.'

The Drifter nodded once, sharp and certain.

"So what do we do now?" Arthur asked, his voice steady despite the cosmic horror they were discussing over morning coffee.

"We observe. Analyze. Adapt," the Drifter said, ticking off points on their fingers. "We plan the year, step by step, so we're ready when it reaches the critical point. We identify every trigger, every pathway, every moment where things could go wrong. And we make sure that when December comes, we're not playing his game anymore."

Amir raised his hand halfway, like a student in class. "I can try programming something? Set up monitoring systems to detect early triggers. Make sure we're not caught off guard. Maybe—" His voice picked up speed, excitement overriding anxiety. "Maybe we can stop the reactor before they can even start it. Cut the power to those dormant systems, physically sever the connections, make it impossible for—"

"You sure?" Arthur interrupted, his voice gentle but firm. "This isn't a game, Amir. You remember last time."

Amir's enthusiasm dimmed, but his jaw set with determination.

"I remember. I remember dying. I remember the pain and the fear and the certainty that I'd failed everyone," he looked around at the team. "I don't want to repeat it. None of us do. So yeah, I'm sure."

The Drifter met his eyes, and something passed between them—recognition, maybe. Respect.

"He will probably try to kill you again," the Drifter said quietly. "Specifically you. You're the one who can see the patterns in the code, trace the connections. You're dangerous to his plan."

"I still want to help," Amir said, and his voice didn't waver.

The Drifter nodded once.

"Alright."

Plans began to form, concrete and actionable. Quincy would reach out to any of his contacts and try and get intel. Lettie would inventory medical supplies and set up triage protocols for worst-case scenarios. Eleanor would map every relay, every junction, every place where Entrati's architecture touched with help of the rot. Amir would monitor power distribution, watching for the telltale spikes that would signal activation.

As the meeting began to break up, people moving toward their assigned tasks with the coordinated efficiency of a team that had worked together through hell, Arthur caught the Drifter's shoulder.

"One more thing."

The Drifter turned, eyebrow raised.

Arthur studied them for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "You mentioned yesterday that you accessed your arsenal. That you'd prefer not to rely on that Excalibur."

The Drifter's expression went carefully neutral. "Yeah."

"I was meaning to ask about... that," Arthur said, his tone making it clear he'd noticed the evasion. "But we really did not have the time until now. So I'm asking. What exactly is that thing?"

The Drifter opened their mouth. Closed it. Looked around at the team, who had all stopped moving, attention suddenly laser-focused on this conversation.

"A borrowed Warframe," the Drifter said carefully. 

"A borrowed what?" Lettie asked, one eyebrow raised in that particular way that meant she knew she was being deflected and wasn't having it.

"Oh, we're doing this now," the Drifter said, blinking in surprise. Their expression became unreadable, that careful mask they wore when discussing things they'd rather not explain.

They took a moment to look at each of them, skirting just shy of direct eye contact—a tell that Arthur filed away for later analysis.

"Did Entrati ever use the word Protoframe?" the Drifter asked, their words drawn out, careful.

"I think he said it," Quincy said, his voice dry. "But I was a bit busy writhing in agony at the time, so I might've missed the technical details."

"Well, that's the term for..." The Drifter gestured vaguely at all of them. "You."

The silence that followed was heavy, but not shocked. They were past shock. Shock required the capacity for surprise, and they'd burned through that particular emotion somewhere around "time travel is real" and "cosmic entities want you dead."

"Explain," Arthur said, his voice flat and commanding.

The Drifter sighed, running a hand through their hair. "Warframes aren't suits. They're not armor you put on and take off. They're people. Were people. Rewritten into weapons. Infested. Conditioned. Stabilized into something that can channel Void energy without burning out or going insane." They paused. "Usually."

Eleanor stiffened, her mental presence pulling back sharply like she'd been struck.

"And us?" Aoi asked, her voice tinged with the kind of dread that came from suspecting the answer but needing to hear it anyway.

"Earlier," the Drifter said. "Prototypes. Entrati was testing whether autonomy could survive contact with Void-inflected systems. Whether you could retain your sense of self, your ability to choose, your humanity, while still being able to interface with Void technology." They looked around at the team. "Whether consciousness could coexist with weaponization."

'And did it?' Eleanor asked, her voice tight and controlled but her tension leaking out. 

"You're still arguing with me," the Drifter said with a ghost of a smile. "Still making your own choices. Still being stubborn, sarcastic, brilliant disasters. So yes. The experiment worked."

Quincy snorted, but there was no humor in it.

"Bare minimum for success. 'Congratulations, you're still people. Also, you're weapons. Enjoy your existential crisis.'"

"If we were such successful experiments," Arthur said, leaning forward with the intensity of someone who'd just had a fundamental assumption about reality shattered and was trying to reassemble the pieces, "then why does Entrati want the reactor to go off? If we're proof that his theory works, why destroy us?"

The Drifter paused. Not long, but deliberately. The kind of pause that meant they were choosing whether to lie, deflect, or tell a truth that would hurt.

"That," they said quietly, "is still not something I'm telling you."

Arthur's eyes narrowed.

"Why."

"Because once you know," the Drifter said, their voice barely above a whisper, "you might start wondering if stopping it is the right thing to do. And I need you focused on survival, not philosophy."

No one liked that answer.

Lettie looked like she wanted to argue. Eleanor's mental presence radiated frustration. Amir opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again like a fish gasping for air. Quincy's expression went dark and closed-off. Aoi just stared, her usual humor completely absent.

Arthur held the Drifter's gaze for a long, tense moment. Then he nodded once, sharp and final. "Fine. We table that discussion. For now." The unspoken threat hung in the air: but we will have it eventually.

The Drifter nodded back, accepting the terms.

The meeting dissolved after that, people scattering to their tasks with the kind of focused energy that came from needing something concrete to do with existential dread. The Drifter remained at the table, staring at the maps, listening to that persistent thrum that no one else could hear.

Hours passed.

The sun climbed higher, harsh light replacing the gentle morning glow. The mall settled into its daily rhythm—people moving, systems humming, the background noise of a place that was alive and functional despite being in the center of a plague.

The Drifter was reviewing the information they had been sent with.

A vibration.

It ran through the facility's structure like a tuning fork being struck, resonating through metal and concrete. The Drifter's hands stilled on the table.

"That wasn't a malfunction," they said immediately, their voice cutting through the ambient noise.

Arthur, who'd been reviewing supply manifests with Lettie across the room, froze. "I don't like how confident you are about that."

A hum began emanating from somewhere above them—second floor. Almost mechanical, but with an organic quality underneath it, like breathing. The Drifter felt the air in the room suddenly shift, flowing upward as if being pulled by invisible currents.

"Please tell me that's not the Man in the Wall," Lettie said, her hand already moving toward the medical kit she kept within arm's reach at all times.

The Drifter didn't answer. They were already moving toward the central staircase, their footsteps quick and purposeful.

The others followed without needing to be told—old instincts, old training, the kind of coordination that came from surviving together.

They reached the base of the central staircase. A faint glow was emanating from the left, from the direction of the old clothing store that had been converted into storage. Then a shadow cast along the ceiling—humanoid, but wrong. Too angular. Vaguely predatory.

"That has legs," Quincy muttered, his hand moving to his sidearm with practiced ease.

"That's not Excalibur," the Drifter said, their voice tight with something that might have been recognition or might have been dread. "Different signature. Different energy pattern."

Aoi glanced at them, her usual humor replaced by sharp focus. "Can you control it?"

The Drifter hesitated, and that hesitation said more than words could.

"Maybe," they said finally. "Depends on how cranky it is."

The lights cut out.

Complete darkness, sudden and absolute. The group tensed, weapons drawn, eyes straining against the black. The clicking sound of metal on tile echoed from the old clothing store, rhythmic and deliberate. Arthur tightened his grip on his weapon, his voice low and controlled.

"Tell me that was you."

The Drifter grimaced in the darkness.

"Nope," they paused. "But I respect the confidence."

A sudden rush of air, powerful enough to make loose papers swirl and dance. Then the lights strobed back on, flickering and uncertain, and they could see it clearly now.

Tall. Avian lines unmistakable—sleek plating that curved and flowed like it had been designed by someone who understood both aerodynamics and aesthetics. Fins along the arms and calves, sharp and precise. A helm shaped like a predatory bird's skull, elegant and terrifying in equal measure.

Pink.

Aggressively, unapologetically pink. Cut through with matte black accents like someone had decided that stealth and flamboyance didn't actually have to argue, they could just coexist in glorious, ridiculous harmony.

There was a pause as everyone processed what they were seeing.

"Huh," Aoi said, her voice carefully neutral. "I was expecting more murder, less fashion statement."

The Drifter stared, jaw slack, their expression cycling through shock, recognition, disbelief, and something that might have been embarrassment. "You've gotta be kidding me. Zephyr?!"

The Warframe—Zephyr—rolled one shoulder, joints whirring softly with mechanical precision. What looked like feathers but were actually plating shaped like feathers shifted along its silhouette as unseen air currents curled around it.

Aoi tilted her head, studying the floating figure. "Is it... floating?"

As if offended by the question, Zephyr lifted a good half meter off the ground, pink armor catching the dim sunlight streaming through the windows like it wanted to be seen. Like it was proud of its color scheme and dared anyone to comment.

Arthur blinked, his tactical mind clearly struggling to process what he was seeing.

"Why is it pink."

The Drifter dragged a hand down their face, the gesture conveying profound exhaustion with the universe and its sense of humor.

"Because that one is mine."

Quincy choked down a laugh, his shoulders shaking.

"I'm sorry, yours? Can't imagine you riding something so girly. Or maybe I can—"

Eleanor and Lettie both smacked him on opposite arms simultaneously, then Lettie huffed and turned her eyes away from the silent telepath.

"Yes," the Drifter snapped, their voice carrying more emotion than they'd shown so far. "And before you say anything else, it was a limited palette, and black goes with everything. Pink and black is a classic combination. It's bold. It's memorable. It makes a statement."

"It certainly does," Arthur said dryly.

The Zephyr's head cocked sharply toward the Drifter, the movement bird-like and unsettling. Then it waved. Slowly. Deliberately. With two fingers, the gesture somehow conveying both greeting and smugness.

Lettie stared, her training clearly not having prepared her for friendly murder-birds. "It looks like it remembers you. And it's... friendly?"

"Oh, that's worse," Aoi said flatly. "Friendly murder-bird is somehow more terrifying than regular murder-bird."

The air pressure in the room shifted dramatically. Loose papers lifted from nearby surfaces, then slammed against the walls with enough force to stick. Aoi staggered as a sudden gust shoved past her, the pillar for stability.

The Drifter held up a hand, their voice firm but not unkind.

"Easy, Birdbrain. Inside voices. We've talked about this."

The Zephyr hummed, the sound pitched higher now, almost petulant. Like a child being told to calm down when they were clearly very excited. It drifted closer, feet never touching the floor, head tilting as if inspecting them all. Cataloging. Remembering.

Quincy leaned toward Arthur, his voice low. "Can we shoot it?"

The Drifter said "No" at the exact same moment the Zephyr chirped in a way that almost said I'd like to see you try.

Amir's eyes shifted between the two of them, his mind clearly working overtime. "I hate that I can't tell which one of you scares me more. The time-traveling Void entity or the pink murder-bird that controls weather."

The Warframe landed at last, claws scraping against concrete with a sound like knives on glass, and struck a pose that was, unfortunately, very confident. Pink armor gleamed in the morning light. Black accents drank in the shadows. It looked like a nightclub bouncer designed by someone with impeccable taste and zero shame.

Arthur sighed, the sound carrying the weight of a man who'd given up on the universe making sense.

"So let me get this straight. That thing is a living weapon, powered by pain, wind, and unresolved trauma."

"Correct," the Drifter said.

"And you colored it like a nightclub flyer."

The Drifter shrugged, unapologetic.

"Morale is important. Also, it was this or neon green, and I have some standards."

The Zephyr leaned in close to the Drifter, its helm nearly touching their forehead. The wind died down to a whisper, gentle and almost intimate, like it was listening. Waiting.

"You followed me," the Drifter murmured, their voice soft enough that the others had to strain to hear. "Didn't you? I don't imagine Loid would have picked you to send. Too flashy. Too memorable. This was your choice."

The Zephyr made a sound suspiciously like a smug chirp, and the Drifter couldn't help but smile—tired, genuine, warm.

Amir pointed, his voice pitching higher with disbelief. "It's smug. The murder bird is smug. How is it smug? It doesn't even have a face!"

The Drifter straightened, exhaling slowly. "Okay. Good news: it's stable. Very stable. One of the most reliable frames I've ever worked with."

Arthur crossed his arms, his expression making it clear he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "And the bad news?"

The Drifter glanced at the Zephyr, which was now hovering upside down, inspecting the ceiling tiles with what could only be described as intense curiosity.

"She hasn't been deployed in a long time," they said carefully. "So she's probably bored. And when Zephyr gets bored, she gets... creative."

The wind picked up again, playful this time, making the beads in Quincy's braids click and jingle like wind chimes. Papers swirled in lazy spirals. The temperature dropped a few degrees as air currents shifted and danced.

"I really don't like where this is going," Quincy said, eyeing the bird-frame with justified caution. "This thing is going to redecorate the entire facility, isn't it?"

The Drifter smiled, tired but genuine, and looked up at their Warframe—their partner, their weapon, their friend who'd followed them across time and space because apparently loyalty was a thing that transcended temporal mechanics.

"Welcome to the team," they said to the pink-and-black Zephyr, their voice carrying warmth and resignation in equal measure. "Try not to redecorate. We're borrowing the place."

The Zephyr chirped, landed with surprising grace, and folded its arms in a gesture that clearly communicated no promises.

Arthur looked at the Drifter. At the smug murder-bird. At his team, who were all staring with varying expressions of disbelief, amusement, and concern.

"I need more coffee," he said finally. "So much more coffee."

"Same," Lettie agreed.

"I need something stronger than coffee," Quincy muttered.

Aoi just laughed, the sound bright and genuine despite everything.

"Well, at least things won't be boring."

The Zephyr's head swiveled toward her, tilted in what might have been agreement, and the wind picked up just enough to ruffle everyone's hair.

History had shifted.

The question was whether it would be enough.

But for now, in this moment, with morning sunlight streaming through the windows and a smug Warframe doing loop-de-loops near the ceiling, it almost felt like they had a chance.