24 hours earlier

"So, did it work?" Isadora asked.

DID it work? It certainly didn't seem like it had worked. I threw that letter off because I was pissed, but I still remember it. That letter—I threw the letter off, right? It wasn't something else?

"Did what work?"

Yeah, I don't have the letter here. I must have thrown it off. Myrabelle was standing next to Isadora's chemical carrier. Two bottles, which previously had contained what remained of her samples, were now empty. The letter was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you forget about the letter?"

Was it only 3 paragraphs? All I remember is 3 paragraphs. Surely papa wouldn't write such a short letter, would he? Maybe I forgot most of it?

"What letter?" What was in it? It couldn't have just been that. Myra was certain it was just that, though. The rage she had felt moments ago was still fresh. Is that a fake memory? It all felt so continuous.

No, it's not just that I'm certain, she reasoned.

Rather, it's that I FEEL certain.

Obviously, I just forgot about everything else in the letter. And my memory was rewritten to feel continuous. That's how it worked with everyone else, right? That's why I feel so certain. What else was in that letter? It wasn't hard to imagine the possibilities.

Shera gasped lightly, her hands going to her mouth. "It-it worked so quickly."

Of course, it worked.

His apology, that had been in there somewhere. She'd forgotten about it. What a relief.

But why didn't it work completely?

I want to forget the rest of it.

I just have to give it time.

I just have to play along. I can't forget it while I'm focusing on it, can I? I just have to let it slip away…

I should be able to forget it. Forget the whole thing. Forget we even did the experiment.

What should I say, then?

"… Did we finally do an experiment?" Myra asked.

◆

In the present

"I mean—I remember it exists," Myra said. Iz didn't react; Shera flinched.

"I remember doing the experiment. I don't remember much in the letter."

"How much do you remember?"

"Just the three paragraphs about how proud he was of his ethical business practices."

"Um…" Iz and the other girl shifted uncomfortably. "That's all that was in the letter, Myra."

"That's it? He didn't—he didn't write anything more?"

That, that couldn't be.

"… I'm sorry, Myra."

"Y-you said you forgot," Shera said. "You said y-you f-forgot the wh-whole experiment."

"I was… I was trying to forget those things," Myra said. "I thought maybe I needed to act like it worked for it to work."

She wanted someone to tell her that it had been understandable-but-misguided. Or maybe, she wanted someone to tell her that it had been outright stupid. She wanted someone to tell her something.

They just didn't say anything for a while.

"Sooo…" Myra said. "Where does this leave us?"

Another moment.

"Were the murk bogs just… d-doing this Unkmirean tradition?" Shera volunteered. "Without wiping their memories?"

"Well, Geel's clearly up to something," Myra said quickly. "The memory-wiping must be his invention—No, look, I've been so obsessed with the idea that it was something natural, something to do with the nationwide abyss. Nobody we talked to said anything about smoking being part of the tradition. Geel was going to try to make us forget about Benkoten, but he knows we don't know anything about this tradition—he wouldn't just be expecting us to play along."

"You don't know what he was trying to do," Iz said.

"Okay, fine. But what about Roc? Tormented by this unfinished investigation?"

"What? Did you forget about the file we found? Roc and Lukai are the culprits. They're probably using the tradition as an excuse to avoid speaking plainly."

"That doesn't make any sense to me. If that were the case, they'd just avoid talking about it entirely. Really easy excuse to do that. They wouldn't give this story like their brain's been turned to swiss cheese."

Iz closed her eyes and scrunched up her forehead so severely it looked like she was having a migraine. Shera teetered back and forth.

"Welll… we've got some other stuff we can do this loop, right?" She was still talking quickly, hoping she'd drive the conversation somewhere good. "We should take advantage of Benkoten being dead. Investigate around town."

"Like where?"

"Well, the obvious one would be Mirkas-Ballam. Ben outright threatened us against investigating there. So it's the perfect time."

Iz nodded. "Good…" She seemed relieved. "It'll be nice to get our minds off all… this."

"Right," Myra said. "Let's get our minds off of things—Oh, did I tell you my theory about the drugs?"

◆

Myra's working drug theory remained that the drugs, if injected near the end of the loop, would prevent her from looping. She started looping right after Ben had failed to inject the drug into her, which had only happened because of freak circumstances. Furthermore, she was thinking now, the drug probably worked by wiping her memories. She had, in fact, explained as much to Iz already, but it seemed worth considering the whole idea in relation to Unkmire.

"Do you think there could be a connection?"

"What, like, Mirkas-Ballam is using the same source for their drug?"

"Yeah!" She tried to remember what Vikram and his colleague had said about the thing.

"You said the red isn't done. Does that mean the others are?"

Kiera winced. "Well—yes, the others are much simpler molecules. The red is the one that needs the—uh—"

"Kiera," Vikram warned.

"—That is the, uh, complicated one."

What had that woman been about to say? What did the red drug need?

"I think maybe they must have one unusual ingredient. Maybe it's something from Unkmire."

"Like the fog we've now definitively determined isn't erasing your memories?"

"No, I mean, the—the whatever it is that is erasing people's memories. Whatever Geel is using. Hey!" Myra snapped her fingers. "Maybe Geel is Mirkas-Ballam's supplier!"

"Did the murk bogs ever give any indication of working for a pharmaceutical company?"

"… No. But Geel used to work in the empire. He probably has a ton of connections of his own. And I mean, we found those payments that weren't accounted for, right?"

"Well, I think your theory of the drugs' effect is spot on," Iz said, agreeing at least with that much. "The mechanism, though… it doesn't seem quite the same, does it?"

Iz had a point. Wiping a period of time was a bit different than wiping concepts that your brain had to rewrite all its memories around. That said, Mirkas-Ballam was a world-class facility that specialized in taking substances that did one magical thing and then making them do a slightly different magical thing.

Yes. This was a connection that was worth investigating.

◆

Plan A.

Meet Vikram or a different employee, get another tour, drop lots of hints about Unkmire, and try to get a reaction.

For the sake of diversity, she picked a different employee this time, an older alchemist named Dr. Rachno who was close to retirement. Guy was old as dirt, and he had seemingly been involved in just about every product Mirkas-Ballam Pharmaceutical was ever famous for, like their miracle cure for brain cancer from six years ago, or the humble but effective cure for tinnitus that had put them on the map decades ago.

He was nice enough, but if Myra had hoped he'd be a rambling old man, she was far mistaken. The guy took confidentiality seriously, and he barely had a reaction to Unkmire, other than noting he'd gone there for a vacation with his husband.

Myra started to wish she'd gone with Vikram after all. Maybe she could track him down after all, or maybe Kiera, the other woman who had been a little more loose-lipped…

◆

Plan B.

The book search spell!

Duh. Nothing in the barrier or building security prevented her from casting that spell.

A simple test was all that she needed to confirm it. From outside the building, she searched for the word 'the.' Yep, sure enough, somewhere in the Mirkas-Ballam building was a piece of paper with the word 'the.'

She tried other words. Unkmire got some hits, but it was also a big building, obviously the word would be there somewhere, even if they only sourced minor ingredients. She tried a bunch of other countries and got similar results. Damn.

Myra had at least learned in her tours where the important words were. She restricted her search to the main room that was now dedicated to the important project. There was virtually nothing on Unkmire. Almost nothing on any country, in fact.

Memory at least got a lot of hits, as did a lot of brain-related words. Neuron, synapse, hippocampus, neurotransmitter.

But anything specific to Unkmire… Fog got nothing. Voluntary collective feigned misrecollection didn't get anything. Lluruma got nothing.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Geel Hattuck got a bunch of hits, which was exciting before she remembered he was a published scientist and appeared in lots of textbooks.

Murk bogs…

Murk bogs got zilch.

What a load of bullshit.

◆

Plan C.

Myra had been sure that her new worldly experiences would help her break into the Mirkas-Ballam laboratory. Myra was wrong. She really didn't know much more about breaking barriers than she did before, and the disruption field inside the laboratory was stronger than anything she'd ever faced—stronger even than the vault.

The other option was to mess with the signatures on the guest list. Actually—Myra had pretty much completely dismissed that option when she had talked about it with Aurora Ferara ages ago. In fact, there was an easy and useful way to exploit it. First, she walked into the lobby—the receptionist recognized her since she had been in earlier. She signed the list, which did nothing on its own, of course. Then, while the receptionist was distracted, she signed someone else's name.

Again, this shouldn't have mattered much. It wasn't like the receptionist would let her in without a chaperone. It did, however, change the barrier to allow her in. Aurora was right. That really was the weakest link.

That still left the disruption field, but that was significantly less problematic than the barrier.

Using everything she'd ever learned, she vanished and tried to reappear by the locked door in Vikram's laboratory.

If you've ever run into a glass door you didn't realize was there, you don't understand what Myra felt because the teleport-equivalent feeling was an order of magnitude more shocking. Myra had the presence of mind to eject herself several blocks away before she got ensnared in something (a skill she had only from the training from Nesr Wald). She vomited twice and nearly fainted while an alarm blared in the distance.

◆

What could have happened, before she lost her memory?

How long had she really looped?

How many mysteries had she solved in that time?

She must have gotten too close to the truth. That was the obvious explanation… She had gotten too close to the truth, and so Ben had had to take her out of the equation. There was no doubt she would have found the truth eventually, especially with Iz on her side. How long had it taken to get through to her about the loop? Myra wondered. But no matter. It would have happened eventually. Working together, they probably tore apart the whole plot in a couple dozen loops. Based on their pace of accomplishment recently, that was a reasonable estimate.

It was fun to imagine. The culprit running scared like a mouse while Myrabelle and Isadora slowly and methodically surrounded them, picking through every atom in that damn event hall, digging up every history.

Well, if they had done it once, they could do it again.

How did we get caught? It was more important than ever to be on the guard. To have her exit plans ready. To have her lava marbles in reach at all times. She was so used to managing them now, it was almost unconscious, pulling them with her through the city, without being noticed. It was so unconscious, now, that every so often she would have a fright and have to check that they were still there, but they always were.

As long as she had her marbles, she could make her bold moves consequence-free.

◆

Plan D.

Ambush.

She needed to pick the right person. Someone who was enough of a late-nighter that they'd leave the building when the streets were deserted, but still someone not so much of a late-nighter that they wouldn't leave the building at all.

The right person was Kiera. Kiera was perfect—she was in-the-know and she apparently liked to leave at 11 P.M. Wearing a ridiculous hood-and-mask disguise, Myra materialized in front of the woman. Dozens of marbles floated around, boxing them both in.

"What's the secret ingredient?" Myra demanded.

"You're… the one who tried to break in the other day, aren't you?"

"Just answer the question," Myra said. "I don't want to hurt you." She hoped the lava marbles would imply otherwise.

Kiera was breathing heavily but steadily. "There are a lot of ingredients."

"You know which one I'm talking about," Myra said. "The basis for the red drug. What is it, and where does it come from?"

"I don't know where it comes from," she said carefully. "The client delivered it."

"Surely you can make some educated guesses?"

"Well…"

"What is it?"

"Indeed, we can make some guesses…" She seemed to be answering the previous question. "We've analyzed the aura composition, and from that…" She vanished. Fuck!

Myra had barely noticed, and she hadn't noticed in time. Kiera had been manipulating something in her robe, probably a teleport stick.

Whatever it was, it had been more than a basic stick you'd buy from a store. There was a loud bang and a very, very blinding bright light, probably to summon all manner of security. She exited fast before she was swarmed by police officers.

◆◆◆◆◆

Day 27

, Evening

Geel Hattuck picked up the phone. "Geel Hattuck speaking."

"I'd like to hire you for something." The voice was annoying—Geel's first thought was try-hard. They were making an effort for their voice to sound deep and gravelly. It wasn't certainly anyone he knew, not unless they had decided to play a strange and tedious prank. In the background was the roaring applause of a rainstorm.

"How'd you get this number?"

"Maximillian Grot gave it to me. Said to call if I ever needed a hired gun. Never thought I'd need it, but here I am."

"Maximillian Grot has been dead for years. Convenient I can't check your story up."

"I have a job for you." The voice seemed incredibly unconcerned with debating the finer points of Maximillian Grot. "The pay will speak for itself."

"Fair enough," Geel said, internally thinking it had better speak pretty damn loud. "Now what do you want?"

"Really, when you see the assets lined up, you're going to wonder how I'm going to clean it all for you."

"I'll hear you out, but get to your point."

"Very well. I understand that you have been assigned half of the guard duty for the summit in Ralkenon tomorrow evening. I would like to hire you for two things. First, I need you to shirk your responsibilities in their entirety. The moment the event hall shuts, your job is to not care about any event that may fall."

"What you're asking for is mad," Geel Hattuck said. "We have a contract—"

"Come now, I know you don't see your contracts as so sacrosanct."

"I don't like your tone," Geel said.

"You said you'd hear me out. I haven't finished. The second thing you need to do is to take out the other half of the security—the agents from the empire. All with the exception of one—we can cover these details later. I can provide you with detailed information on their whereabouts, so you shouldn't have any trouble with it."

"I respect your job offer," Geel Hattuck said. "But I cannot back out of our contract at this stage."

"Can you not? You all are mercenaries. You'll do anything for money, and believe me, I have a lot of money."

"You must understand the practical circumstances, if not moral ones, prevent us from taking you up on it."

"Yes, yes, I know. All about your 'trial period.' I have another piece of information that might interest you," the voice on the other end said. "The volcano is going to blow, at 1:01 A.M. to be exact. Ralkenon will be destroyed, in its entirety. Kyeren and Jenola won't be a factor in your future."

"I think they have safeguards against that kind of thing."

"Let me just say that the safeguards will fail."

"You sabotaged them."

"Let me just say they will fail."

"This doesn't resolve my practical matters. I don't want the volcano to blow and destroy our future prospects. If you don't give me a reason, right now, I'm going to call General Kyeren immediately."

"Let me propose an alternative," the voice said, eerily confident. "Don't call them immediately. Wait a few hours. Maybe until morning and think it over. Really think it over. Actually, you don't even have to make up your mind until tomorrow evening. I'll show up at 9:30 P.M. with the money. You don't have to commit to anything until then."

"And why do you think that would change my mind?"

"Because, while you think it over, Dr. Geel Hattuck, I want you to look into your heart. What are you, really? Are you a mercenary? Or…"

"What else would I be?"

"That's for you to figure out."

"…"

"I'll see you tomorrow."

◆◆◆◆◆

In the back half of the loop, Iz had gone to class. In class, she had befriended Aurora Ferara, and from Aurora Ferara, she had learned how to tap a phone.

Myra had been the one to sneak back to the murk bogs' compound and install the equipment on the murk bogs' phone line. The rest of it they could do from the empire. Basically: the device Myra had inserted would intercept the call, and then they could call the device. Since the device didn't have a phone number, they had to use a special control channel that the empire had added for, well, for phone tapping. Well, it had a bunch of other maintenance uses, which was why the standard had been adopted internationally, but it could definitely be used for phone tapping.

Anyway, to access the channel, they needed a special dial that could dial surreal numbers, or they needed to phreak the phones by whistling in counterpoint for a minute.

Sadly, their girls' band was not destined for success. After an embarrassing hour, Iz went and bought the special dial.

Anyway—

"What the hell did they mean, 'are you a mercenary'?"

"Who the hell knows," Iz said. "They were probably just being dramatic. Assuming the caller is the time looper culprit, they probably iterated to find a way to convince Geel Hattuck not to dismiss the whole thing out of hand. Make Geel think on it for a few hours, let him come to the conclusion that he prefers infinite money for himself over the long-term success of his organization." She scoffed. "Obviously, that's what he found in his heart."

Shera frowned but didn't say anything.

"Well, at least we learned a lot," Myra said. "If I understood it right… this job is some kind of trial run for the murk bogs."

"Probably to see if th-they want to hire the for m-more things."

"Yeah, exactly. That tracks with the way they treated the job in the previous loops. Really seemed to think it was a big deal for them."

They turned in for the night and got up early for the final day of the loop. There were preparations to make. Iz had been really upset after hearing about the duel from the last loop, and she thus decided to turn it up a notch. They scouted out some of the buildings near the event hall, preparing to eavesdrop on the summit attendees. And of course, they made their plans for the stars at the very end.

She was just disappointed the loop was ending. Without Ben, and excepting the snafu in the middle, it truly had been a consequence-free loop.

◆

Only one disappointing thing—it was unlikely that they would be able to spy on the murk bogs. Their security was too strong. If they wanted to learn anything about the murk bogs, they would need to rejoin, but then, who knew what Geel would try to do to them.

It was actually deeply frustrating. Even dead, Ben had screwed them over.

"Maybe we should go anyway," Myra suggested idly. They were in her dorm room, Iz seated at her desk, and Myra lying on her bed, head near Shera's lap. "If it gets bad, I can kill myself."

She didn't really think they'd go for the suggestion. They had too much to do later. They wouldn't want to risk it.

"Why shouldn't we?" Iz asked. "We've spent a lot of time investigating. We're all invested in this."

Shera nodded her head vigorously.

"It would just be really bad if Geel makes me forget about Benkoten or something."

"Right…" Iz seemed to zone out, muttering something. Something about money.

"What was that?"

Iz stood up. "No. You know what? I've made up my mind." The fire was in her eyes. There was no stopping her now. "We're going to settle this mystery, and we're going to do it before the end of this fucking loop. Tell me, are the murk bogs in town yet?"

"… They should be setting up camp right now."

◆

"They'll do anything for money," Iz said. She was walking fast, and the other two were struggling to keep up. "It's what the caller said to Geel."

"Yeah, I remember. I mean, they're mercenaries."

"I'm thinking about that paper we found. Remember? The one with the extra payments."

"What about it?"

"I've been thinking about it all day." It didn't answer Myra's question. "Since the phone call."

"And?"

"We're going to hear it from them."

"Hear what?"

"I've got this figured out," she said. Her hands were shaking. "It's just—we just need to see—"

Getting a straight answer out of her seemed impossible. Iz seemed confident—Myra less so. She kept her lava marbles close.

The girls marched into the murk bogs' camp. Nobody stopped them. Nobody even seemed that surprised to see them.

They walked into the commander's tent.

It was a somewhat random collection of people, all gathered around some maps on a desk. Geel in the center, with Chrysji and Nesr Wald around him, plus a few more core members. Obyl was there, and one of the guys from the crypto-cracking team.

"Myrabelle! I was wondering when you'd come back for this." He held out Myra's passport.

"We're not here for Myra's passport," Iz said. "We're here to talk about the memory magic."

"Memory magic?" His lips twitched, speaking mercifully in imperial. "Is that something here at the university?"

"The things these people develop," Nesr Wald growled.

"No, we're here about the memory magic you employ."

"We? Well, I'm afraid I've forgotten all about that." There were awkward chuckles all around the room.

"No," Iz said. "You couldn't forget it, not given how much you use it. I think you used it to forget about Lukai."

He shrugged. "Lukai? I don't know who that is."

"Not just Lukai, but some others. Frosses Durka, for example." She was referring to the person whose paper they'd found on the ground. "He used to work for your organization."

"I still don't know who that is," he said flippantly.

"There are many others, I'm sure. We found six beds thrown off the edge."

"I think I've thrown zero beds over the edge. Unless you count a moldy old sleeping bag that wasn't really salvageable."

"Let's not forget all the villagers who have been forgotten. Nobody even remembers the name of the village."

"People forget things."

"Then there are all the details Roc forgot about," Iz said. "About the village fire."

"It was traumatic. I could give you some reading on PTSD." He rubbed his goatee.

"He forgot all about the extra key he had."

"What extra key? I'm pretty sure there was only one key." He held up a finger. One.

"And you forgot all about Eggo Porpepecue."

His face changed. The smirk melted off, and he scrunched his eyebrow slightly. "Who?" he asked.

… And it wasn't just him. Almost everyone in the room had a similar kind of reaction. The slightest twinge of confusion on their face.

"I KNEW IT." Iz's arm was like a whip, jamming an accusatory finger into Geel's face. "I FUCKING KNEW IT. YOU ALL ARE FULL OF SHIT."

Geel flinched, then scowled, realizing exactly what he'd done.

"You all can't keep a straight face. There's no fucking memory magic. All this, the pretend ignorance, your weird fucking ritual, it's all some fucking stage play. It's all a fucking lie."

He growled some nonsense noise through gritted teeth.

"Everything," she said. "The weird ritual you do when someone dies. It's a variant on the old Unkmirean tradition, but it's made to look like you're really forgetting. When it's over, you pretend you never heard of whoever it was that died. Roc lies about the village fire, Lukai pretends he can't remember anything about his life in the village."

Geel blinked. A bit of his confidence returned.

"So tell me, Isadora, why? Why would we do this?"

"Money. You all are mercenaries. You're being paid to do this."

Geel seemed to grow more confident. Grinning wide as ever, he leaned forward. Iz backed up an inch. "And why," he asked, "would someone pay us to do such a ridiculous thing? Who is this mysterious client?"

She just looked Geel dead in the eyes, making a few false starts to say something. Her hand started to shake, her face increasingly strained. Her momentum was dead in the water. The wind was out of her sails.

Sounding as defeated as Myra had ever heard her, she said quietly, "I don't know."

Shera spoke up. "I-I do."

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