Loop Three: The Best Offense is a Good Defense

"Well, that didn't work."

I'm trapped in a nightmare and I have to escape. My mind is reeling, but I try my best to focus. I've spent most of my life dedicated to solving some of the most complex problems humanity has ever faced. I can figure this out, right?

My brain goes into overdrive as I start to process everything. An attack is coming, that's certain. We're all going to die if I don't do something and do it fast, but what could I possibly do? Judging by what happened the first two times, we only have about 25 minutes or so before things start kicking off. It's not enough time to do much, but maybe, if nothing else, I can alert the guards and they can at least try and get the situation under control before things get out of hand.

"You okay, Geoff?" I hear through the headset. There's no time to waste.

I rush back into the control room and go right past Sarah without saying a word. I slam my hand into the scanner for the first and second security doors, and wait the infinitely-long five seconds for each of them to clear.

As soon as I'm through, I sprint straight to the security room and start furiously banging on the glass window. They all look at me like I'm crazy. Maybe I am, the situation that I now find myself in is more than enough to drive most people to madness. It doesn't matter. Crazy or not, the situation is about to get a lot worse, and I only have a few minutes to try and stop it.

"What do you need?" The guard calls through the intercom hole in the glass.

"Listen," I start, frantically, "there's going to be an attack on the building in around 20 minutes. You need to call all the other security departments in the facility and put them on high alert. I don't know how many of them there are, or where they're coming from, but they're coming."

The guard just stares at me.

I start again.

"Look, I know how this sounds, but if you don't do something about this right now, a lot of people are going to die."

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

"Listen, fuck-face!" I yell at the glass between us. "I know you have no idea what goes on behind these doors, but I need you to trust me. I've seen the future, lived the fucking future, twice, and I'm telling you that there is an immediate threat to everyone in this building coming right now, and if you don't do anything to stop it then we're all in danger. Call whoever you have to call and get this shit sorted now before it's too late!"

He still isn't having any of it. He just keeps staring me down.

I don't have time for this.

"I'll tell you what," I start. "I've got about six hundred dollars in cash in my room. I'll give it all to you if you just call up to the head of security or whoever takes care of this shit and at least tell them to be on high alert."

The thought of getting some extra cash clearly piques his interest.

"Show it to me first," he says after what feels like an eternity.

"What difference does it make?" I ask, my patience now completely gone.

"Because if there isn't a problem, I could lose my job."

"For fucks sake…"

I start my sprint towards the dorms. I bust into the room like a tornado, almost smashing the sliding glass door from trying not to break my stride. I quickly start tearing my drawers apart, leaving everything where it falls as I frantically search for the money. As soon as I have my prize, I shoot back out into the hallway toward the security room. I only have a few minutes to stop what's going to happen, and, based on the way things are going so far, my odds aren't looking too great.

I get up to the glass and quickly fan out the bills to show the guard.

"Here's what you wanted, dick, now get on your radio and call whoever you need to before it's too late."

He gives me a look and I have a dreadful feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that tells me I'll be seeing it again, plenty of times. To his credit, though, he actually does make the call.

He goes away from the microphone, so I don't hear what he says, but I probably could have guessed. He starts off speaking normally, but after a second, I see his face go ghost-white. I was too late to stop it. Because of this greedy moron, the madness was starting again.

He and the other two guards in the room jump up and rush out, leaving the door open. On the way out, I see one of them hit a button on the console, and a large red light starts flashing with a siren going off in every room on the floor that we were on.

"Where are you going?" I try to ask as they run past.

"No time," the guard who I paid off shouts back. "We're under attack, and they need backup."

Now he's in a rush, fucking idiot.

"I told you that five goddamned minutes ago!" I scream.

I doubt they hear me as they jump into the elevator. Somewhere in a deep, dark, part of my mind I'm happy to know that the elevator will be coming right back down through here on an express journey to the pit below. I just hope that they're in it when it happens.

My mind starts to race. If whatever was happening makes to where we are, there's no way to survive, Unless they had more guns in the security room. I realize that they left without closing the door, so I shoot in and start searching. The best thing that I can come up with is a small pistol. I haven't used a gun since the shooting range back in college, and I was pretty bad even then, but I don't have any other option.

That's when I notice Sarah, standing behind me and giving me the same look that I had just got from that idiot guard.

"What the fuck is happening?" She asks as she steps into the room.

"Shut the door behind you and lock it!" I yell much louder than I was intending to. There isn't any more time for calm and collected thinking.

As she locks the door, I sit on the floor under the desk, trying my best not to get spotted. She comes and sits down on the floor next to me, looking scared and confused. I don't blame her. I know what's going on and I'm scared and confused too. I can only imagine what she must be feeling.

"The mirror worked, or at least I think it did," I say with a sigh. "I'm not really sure what's going on, actually."

"What?" She says, her eyes lighting up, just like before. "How do you know? What happened?"

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly before starting. I tell her everything, including both of us dying twice and the fact that we were most likely well on our way to it happening a third time. By the time I'm finished, she has tears in her eyes.

"It worked," she says through the sniffles. "It really worked. My life's work, our life's work. I can't believe it."

"I'm not sure that's the most important takeaway right now," I reply as I poke my head up to look around. Just then, I see that the elevator coming down.

I tell Sarah to stay down and hope that it's just the guards coming back, but I have a feeling that luck isn't going to be on my side. And, of course, it isn't. A dozen or so of the attackers storm out of the elevator and start spreading across the floor with their rifles raised.

"It should be here somewhere," I hear one of them say. Then it dawns on me, I know what they're looking for.

I look up at the monitors and see them getting ready to blast through the security doors to the mirror. It doesn't take long for them to get through both doors, and within minutes they're in the control room, standing around the mirror.

"Get ready to activate it," I hear one of them say.

"It hasn't been long enough," Sarah says, with fear in her eyes. "If they try and start it up there's going to be a meltdown. The blast could destroy the entire building."

I stand up and reach for the microphone and connect to the lab room.

"Don't do it!" I yell. "If you try and activate the mirror now, it's going to kill us all!"

That may have been a mistake. All the attackers stop and turn towards the security room. Four of them come down the hall towards us and motion for us to come out. I share a look with Sarah and know that this is probably going to be the end.

"Never mind them," I hear one of the guys by the mirror say."Let's just get this thing working and get out of here.

One of them throws the switch to start the countdown. Sarah and I look on helplessly and hit the deck.

"Warning: Core Meltdown Imminent"

The alarm goes off, just like we knew it would. The armed men start scrambling to turn the mirror off, but it's too late. There's no stopping it now. For a second, I notice that one of the attackers isn't panicking at all. He has a huge, terrible smile plastered on his face. A bright light fills the room. All sound stops around us. I look up to the clock. It's been one hour and thirty-one minutes since I woke up on the floor. That was all the time I would have if I get stuck in this again. It's not enough time do anything, really, but it'll have to work.

I share one last look with Sarah as I feel heat pressing in from the control room. Then, just as my skin sets ablaze, the world goes white and I fade away again into the darkness.