So, they sent an anomalous researcher.

Neo stepped through the holographic fields full of curious butterflies. He took a seat in the corner chair. No words left his lips as he shuffled around his inner pockets, then slipped out his datascroll with a click of his I-Pen. He gave a gentle, attentive smile.

"Neo," she whispered. "Why are you here?"

"I want my question answered," he replied and the smile never broke. "You know how I get when I don't get an answer to my questions. It's a bad habit of mine."

Among other things. Nova folded her arms. "They let you see me before anyone else?"

"I am convincing."

Nova narrowed her eyes when he shuffled with his datascroll, and he dropped his gaze to his feet, which told her more than his convincing set of words. "You didn't come here just to tell me they don't believe me."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Neo whispered. "But, ignore that. I didn't come here for them. I came here to talk to you." He hauled himself out of his seat and came closer to her, but she kept a distance from a dead man walking. He hesitated, then respected the boundary she put forth. "You said we had this conversation before. I want to know what you mean by that."

"I meant exactly what I said, it just didn't go like this." Nova gestured around the soothing room, among the fluttering butterflies. Life. Trees. Grass. Nothing more than a lie. "We're in a time loop, Neo. I know what is about to happen before anyone else does."

Neo flipped his datascroll open and shut, fidgeting while studying her. "Are you certain? I do have a bad memory."

"No, you would've remembered this." Nova tried not to choke on early grief when he tipped his head with his customary curious smile at something he failed to understand, but never gave up on. "I asked you, hypothetically, about temporal anomalies. I asked you what you would do if... if no matter what the end result was the same." It caught in her lungs, but she maintained the distance from the past loops. "I also asked you how you would break them." His gaze drifted to the left, but Nova tried to snap him back into reality, "You told me it wasn't impossible. Hard, but not impossible."

He remained quiet.

Nothing at all? Not a flicker of recognition?

"That does sound like something I'd say," he muttered and left his datascroll open in his palm. "You believe the anomaly the droids brought in folded the continuum within the nebula, right?"

Nova opened her mouth to confirm, but hesitated at his wording. "I don't believe, Neo." Metal shuddered with her frustration and fury. "I know it for a fact." Rage born in the field of reactive flames boiled her stomach. "I know it by how many times I've watched people die. How many times I've seen the devastation the creature left behind." Nova took a small step from him. "Why would anyone believe me or take my word for it? Time looping. Really?" A laugh crawled through her throat and flayed her voice, unable to prevent its escape from the cage in her chest as she ran her fingers down her cheeks to tear it out. "I think even for someone like you it'd take too many leaps in logic."

"Nova." He reached his hand out, only to always fall limp in hers.

Nova kept him at arm's length. "I know what's happening," she rasped. "That anomaly is alive somehow, and when you touched it, something happened." Arms crossed to protect herself from the tick of time, she cried into the field of blooming lies. "You always, always let your curiosity get the best of you. I would've never imagined it would lead to this, though." Agitation and fear ripped her laughter apart to add to the blood staining her hands. His blood, fallen silent. "Say you don't believe me, Neo. Say this is insane, that I've lost my mind and it's just the shock of Space Sickness. Say it."

"I'm-I'm not going to say those things, and I'm not going to say anything until I understand what's going on," Neo insisted. "Talk to me, Nova. What is going on?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does. Everything matters."

Every little action. Every little consequence. Consequences. Every one.

"It doesn't matter because you're not going to remember!" Nova snapped, causing him to slide to the side, and her previous laughter threatened to break into sobs. "I knew people wouldn't believe me, but I thought I could take the chance." Nova stared into the grey eyes of her failure. "We're looping, and nothing I do changes it. Nothing I have done stopped it." Hugging herself for warmth, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I can't see a way out of this."

Neo loomed closer. "Tell me anyway."

"What's the point?"

"Because it does matter, even if you think it doesn't," he insisted, firmer, full of breathless passion. "You need to start from the beginning. You can't leave anything out."

Nova dug her fingers into her elbows. "We start at the briefing. You go down, do your spiel about the anomaly. After, Thuni and Ulin go to the hangar and die without outside intervention — my intervention." Hesitation grappled her throat when Neo went wide-eyed.

"You say that, but you couldn't intervene this time around. You had me take you to our room, leaving Thuni and Ulin to go to the hangar. And Thuni and Ulin looked okay earlier, don't you think? Alive."

Nova relaxed the grip on her shoulders. "Maybe... Look, I don't quite know how this loop works yet. Neo, the droids brought something in. It's probably waiting in the hangar to continue it anyway. Either way, it follows the track." She waited for his interjection, but when none came, she continued, "Afterwards, they'll call a lockdown. A or Z. It depends on the status of Thuni or Ulin."

Neo tapped his datascroll, then fumbled with his compearl to expand the menu. "Both of them are still giving off a signal," he reported and wrote on his datascroll, as if he faced another anomaly he needed to understand. He lifted his head to her, full of observational, cold thought.

Nova shrank into her shoulders, but pushed on. "During the lockdown, the creature tends to head to the north sector... usually."

"Usually?"

"The—It's behaviour and appearance haven't been consistent," she muttered, small underneath the trained gaze of a scientist. "It either focuses on the north, or central where the anomaly is. I used to think its entire goal was the anomaly, but... it's so confusing."

A void descended to spare her from the crushing death. In the event horizon, grey nebulae whispered into little butterflies, and disappeared into stars. "Before, the monster ravaged anything in its path, but then..."

But then...

It stared back at her, curious about her.

"There's two," she rasped. "It's the second monster that I can't predict. Its goal is entirely separate from the original creature. I just—I don't know where it came from."

"Okay. First creature has a firm track it follows so far. Second creature does not follow this track — random, and from your description, there's a level of intelligence and purpose at play for the latter. It might be a matter of figuring out what that it seeks." He scribbled notes with feverish quickness. "Anything else of note?"

How many times have I watched you die? Have I let myself become numb to the fact the universe is killing you over and over? Yet, here you are, looking at me like... Nova clenched her fists. "Something goes wrong in the reactor, and when we try to do a backwards warp it fails."

And you die.

"Another constant... is that it?"

You die, over and over... and there's nothing I can do or change to prevent that.

Neo leaned forward with fatal curiosity.

A heartbeat joined with hers in the music of the black hole. "Neo, why are we having this conversation?"

"I just want to understand what's happening."

To me? Around me?

Me?

Nova shook. "You're joking."

"What, no I'm not," Neo said and kept his hands low. "Why would I joke about this? Why would you joke about this? Neither of us are joking."

"Neo Teimea," she hissed at the source. "You say you want to understand. You ask so many questions. I get it. But for fuck's sake, you want to know what your problem is? You ask too many and then proceed to ignore the consequences of them. It's like you don't have the nagging voice in your consciousness that tells you to not do something — you lack what reminds you of them. You have no impulse control to tell you these things might have severe consequences!" Nova tore herself through the hissing hatred of the black hole when it went for Neo, to chew him. "Don't look at me like I'm an anomaly to figure out. Don't look at me like to believe me, you need to see something in front of you. Stop looking at me like you're about to poke me to see how I work!" Nova slammed into his space, and it was his turn to shrink away. "You should know better. You should remind yourself of the consequences of your actions! Because you're the one who thought touching the anomaly was the only way to discover an answer. 'What is the worst that could happen?' I bet you asked yourself." Nova drove her hands into her stomach to tear out her innards, and waved her hands at him. "But maybe it's me. I'm the idiot. I'm an idiot for not stopping you sooner. Hindsight is a bitch."

"I..." Neo held his datascroll against his chest. Her rage melted into sudden guilt at her uncontrolled outburst, and found herself no better than the engineer who attacked them and killed him. "I...I'm sorry," he said in a careful, nervous whisper. "I know you didn't... think it was a good idea... I know I... struggle to measure my own... impulsivity. I shouldn't..." He took a step back and his back pressed against the wall. "I shouldn't expect people to replace an impulse control I should just have normally."

It went quiet between them, and she tasted her own impulsive words. "Neo, just tell me a single touch couldn't have folded space and time," she begged, and acid danced with tears of her future and past. "Say that what I'm experiencing is... just me. That no one else is experiencing it and it's just me. That whatever is happening, I'm the only one living it over—" she choked out one last sob. "And over."

Am I stuck, watching you die over and over?

Neo shook his head. "I'm not going to say that, Nova."

"You weren't going to say it, but everyone was thinking it. Up until the reset and I have to do this all over again. I thought about it when it first started. One person's touch can bend time? Time loops? It can't be possible."

"I don't believe that."

Nova fought with her pain. "We didn't know anything about this nebula. You know what? I think we were both wrong, but what is certain is that there is something wrong here." Her tears fell down her cheeks at Neo's uncomfortable shift. "It won't matter."

"Nova." Neo tried to bridge the gap to life and death.

"You can go tell them that, Neo," she said. "Tell them there is something wrong in the Ushavex nebula. That what we brought in was just a taste test." Blood poured over her hands, and her heart screeched and tore. "You were right. You will always be right about the same bullshit you repeat at the start. I can recite it, word for word now. I'm not you, though. I can't make people take me seriously."

Frustration flowed the longer she stared at him.

"How can I help you?" he whispered.

"Turn back time."

He said nothing, but it echoed a thousand lifetimes of loops ahead of her. Who am I kidding? No one can do that. Here I am, stuck in a repeating cycle.

"Do you... want me to leave you alone?" he asked with the calm mask he used with Jin.

Nova found no strength to give him a straight answer. Her silence, damning.

Her failure, assured.

Neo's lips parted in painful despair. "Okay," he said, calmer than before. He turned to the door to leave her among the field of butterflies. He stopped at the entrance. "Nova?"

Against the pressure, she lifted her head.

He smiled. "For what it's worth, I do believe you. I hope that helps. And... I'm sorry for making things worse, for making you feel like an anomaly. I just want you to know that you aren't one — and I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

Nova jolted at his words and lunged to right her mistake, but he was out the door and it closed behind him. "Neo! Wait!"

Out of earshot, and the door blocked her voice from the outside.

Out of any sort of safety and comfort she could give him.

He rushed into the black hole and left her with the holographic messengers of fluttering death.