RESETS: 4

  "I don't think you have would have given out that info so easily," Iker said. "Why are you helping me now?"

  Pager pushed his chair back with his feet, taking a glance out of the window of his office then back at Iker. "I don't want to die... for eternity. I don't want to exist in these bizarre loops for eternity. I don't even get to live a linear one... just a mix of a life with two conflicting births and several deaths. And the worst part... I only get to watch my own mind doing the same thing again and again."

  Iker wanted to take a sip of water but he had no mug, cup, or bottle with him. Was it a latent memory from when time was more functional? And if so, was it from having been an angel in the Memoryfeed office or just as a regular employee? When Iker sat with the body within this particular memory, he had no thirst to quench.

  "Say something."

  "Put yourself in my shoes. You're not one of the good nazis with empathy but try it," Iker replied with a sly smile. "Would I help you break the loops created by... whatever is doing all this?"

  "It's malware," Pager replied. "Ameen reincarnated as a hacker named Muhammad and got to the prime reality."

  "I like that you are giving so many answers. But I still have no way to know if you're lying," Iker said, crossing his legs. "I am still not changing my mind on you. You continue doing so at your own risk."

  "I already told you the real reason I am helping you," Pager said. "I am not pretending to have a change of heart."

  "Have you had one?" Iker asked. I gotta be smart about this... maybe I should bait him into thinking I might save him. I can make sure he stops existing after he gives me everything he knows.

  "Sort of," Pager replied. "But you would know that would not have been my number one reason for you to save me. To save myself. Leading with my change of heart would have been dishonest."

  "Then what caused it?" Iker asked. Hopefully that's enough to make him think I am considering saving him.

  "Is this how you want to spend your memories with me?" Pager asked. "There's a reason why I am rushing to tell you what I know. Neither you or I are choosing what memories are loading. You realize that right?"

  Pueblo's sky smog engulfed the moon. Aside from the burning home becoming the sole torch in the pitch black suburb, there was only darkness beyond all directions.

  MODULE COMPLETED BY PAGER.

  Iker selected Seraphim's Sense.

  The interface must have sensed Iker's own adrenaline, because it stopped appearing altogether within his blinks unlike the time he had woken from his coma in the Hospital of Usher. With the help of firelight he was able to observe Camilo shrinking into sentient flesh and sparks with no ghosts of interfaces in the way. To his horror Iker understood that the two boys were fusing together. Camilo shapeshifted from muscle strings into white feathers.

  NEW NAME: METATRON.

  Iker... the personality of Iker began feeling more of a past life a fortune teller would make up rather than a real identity. Distracted by these developments, he noticed that only Liesar remained in the fire. Prophet Ameen had vanished.

  RESETS: 4

  "You're... you're Metatron?" Pager asked.

  What else made up a human mind other than the sum of linear memories? Now that Iker's mind changed to even have memories that did not belong to him, he no longer was Iker. Whoever was sitting across from Pager was no longer human.

  Is this what happened to Iggy?

  Twenty-four-year-old Iker's body in office attire, now belonging to Metatron and with his new sentience coming online, made their eyes effulge with divine light. Now coming out of shock, Pager revealed his true intentions. Only due to having Iker's collective memories of his past, present, and future did Metatron recognize that the adult appearance of Pager was a mere hologram, breaking apart its structure of light with a thought. Once hiding within the fading hologram of a fictional employee appearance was Pager as the esper from one platoon. Like most one platoon members, fourteen-year-old Pager took uniform requirements as a suggestion, opting for wearing a greasy white shirt and sweatpants.

  "Ah interesting," Metatron said with a robotic, yet supernal and androgynous voice. "So you are trying to eliminate me at my spawning. I guess I will have to take a piece of Iker's worldline too. You do know this is futile right?"

  Pager went fully quiet, raising both of his arms towards the roof to make the desk in front of him flip towards Metatron with considerable force. Upon the flying furniture reaching them Metatron simply kicked it to stop its momentum, and got up from their chair as if to just do a standing ovation rather than enter a battle-appropriate stance. The walls tore inwards after Pager curled his fingers into his palm, revealing a dreamscape rather than a cityscape when the four telepathically thrown objects were dodged by Metatron sprouting his wings perfunctorily.

  "Ah, so your side broke this flashback in the novel," Metatron said with an angelic smile. "I will fix it."

  RESETS: 42

  Unbeknownst to Iker, he woke up from a coma in the Hospital of Usher.