Christopher was just waking up, sitting up from the sofa he’d had in the basement for well over a decade. For years before this, he had always been up at the crack of dawn. He had gotten into a routine… he had had a mission. He was supposed to protect the world, and for years, he liked to think he had mostly succeeded.

  For ten years, he had lived a dream he had never thought possible.

  Even now, as he looked nothing like the muscled version that he had turned into, in no small part because of the muscle matching setting he had added into the system just because he liked the idea of a “muscle form.” Sure he had gotten the idea from his favorite anime, but would anyone have really been surprised to learn the guy who designed a superhero game was a nerd in general? Could anyone blame him for wanting to go 'Plus Ultra!'?

  “Oh thank god you’re awake,” Calypso’s voice interrupted his stretching and he looked over at her curiously. Back when he had still had his powers, they had rarely gotten the chance to see each other, especially as his powers and responsibilities continued to grow, so he was still getting used to the sudden pop ins that she had started doing near daily. Even then, this was still earlier than he was used to seeing her and when he saw the look on her face, the hopeful feeling he had awoken with evaporated.

  “What happened,” he asked, jumping to his feet like he could still rush into action… Some habits were hard to break. He was hit in the chest by a bundle of clothes that Calypso gestured for him to put on.

  “There’s something you need to see and we need the TVs upstairs to see it,” she said. Christopher’s head dropped to the side until she started waving her hand urgently. “New York is literally on fire right now! We don't have time for this.”

  Christopher didn’t hesitate any longer, pulling the large hoodie over his head as he quickly walked toward her. She was singing before they even exited onto the floor and no one looked their way. Though, even without her singing to obfuscate their presence, the few people in the building were almost all entirely focused on the TVs all showing video pouring in from random phones and cameras all over the city.

  Axio had explained it once, something about how he was able to access most media files as they were being recorded across the planet and how he used that ability to pull these videos into the system for leaderboards and displays and if Christopher was being honest, even as cool as it was to be able to compile it all like this, it was still disturbing. Even then… the Common Ground had always shown older videos and by the way Calypso had rushed to get him, he knew this must have been happening either recently… or it was live.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered, looking at the video of the explosion going off at the very moment Loophole caught another man who had leapt into the air. The damage was immediate as the concussive blast from the explosion rippled outward and sent debris careening into both of them.

  The shot changed to another camera, this one appearing to be one from a window lower to the ground that caught as the unmasked man’s legs were smashed into by a massive chunk of the destroyed building. Loophole was clearly trying to put his body in the way of the destruction, but there was simply too much.

  They hit the ground and slowly… ever so slowly… the dust cleared. Loophole was arched defensively over the form and in that moment, Christopher knew; that broken form under him was Codex. He wasn’t sure how he knew with such certainty… but he did… and he also knew exactly where Loophole’s mind was going to go…

  The distance was massive, it had to be to make sure that it caught every one of Hydramental’s forms in the field. But I also knew that that meant I wasn’t going to have that much time. I did have a plan… it just required everything to go right. The device was shaking roughly in my hand in a way it never had before though and I swallowed hard.

  Thanks to the field expanding outward instead of appearing everywhere all at once, the Hydramental closest to me was the first to lose his powers, and as the others were swept up, they each dissolved into energy, immediately reforming with the main one. The bands on his jacket added one by one until, finally just five seconds after I activated the device, seven distinctly colored bands were wrapped around his arm.

  Hydramental was moving toward me, rushing to try and grab the vibrating device away. BrainCraft had said the device was variable and when we were discussing our options for the day, the “nuclear” option as we had called it was throwing the device on as full power as possible. BrainCraft hadn’t liked the idea by any means, citing the unstable power source inside of it, but he did say it could work… he just wasn’t sure how long it would last.

  Luckily for me, once I knew I had all seven of his forms together, I didn’t need the device to be at maximum strength any longer.

  He was clearly thrown off by both the sudden lack of his powers and the punch I had initially delivered and it took next to nothing for me to slide to the side. I threw a 5% Gravity Punch, refusing to activate the knockback effect because I needed him to be close. I deactivated the field, the device still shaking as my thumb spun the dial all the way down, reactivating it before Hydramental could ever even realize his powers had come back to him.

  I could hear it hum back to life, still vibrating unstably and I was immediately uncertain just how much longer it would last and with Jon’s breathing weakening, I didn’t have time to wait. I lurched forward, grabbing him by his collar and heaving him toward me. He moved and threw a punch at my head that landed… and in that moment I knew I had him cornered. Whether his stats were still active or not, he simply didn’t have the strength to hurt me with a physical attack, and I could see it in his eyes– normally wild with anger yet now as calm as an undisturbed pool– that he knew it too.

  “Kill me asshole! I won! Even you can’t save hi-” I slammed a fist into his gut, cutting him off mid sentence as I worked to drag him just the little bit closer to Jon that I needed. Christopher had said it required physical touch.

  “You don’t get to fucking talk,” I hissed through my teeth. Not wanting to let Hydramental squirm free, I activated Center of the Universe, adding a weak gravitational pull to my control over him as I turned and reached over for my… my jaw clenched tighter as I saw just how mangled Jon’s legs were below the knees and I furrowed my brow in concentration.

  I pushed past my discomfort, dropping the device off to the side, leaving it to rattle across small bits of debris, and reached out to grab hold of his twitching leg. Then, I began slowing down time.

  I needed to think.

  Maybe I was in shock. Thinking clearly was something that happened when that happened right? Oh god, why were Jon’s leg like that… It had taken me so many tries to make sure he did get to the ground, but even now… This would work right? No… I couldn’t think like that.. It had brought me back from being practically crushed by a dumpster.

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  It had to work.

  I released the slowdown, feeling another bit of queasiness enter my stomach as my Temporal Sickness ticked up even higher. I hadn’t been sure if using the slow down version would count toward it and now I had my confirmation.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” Hydramental demanded, struggling ineffectively. “BE A FUCKING MAN AND KILL ME ALREADY! SHOW THE WORLD WHO YOU-”

  I slowed time down again and his tirade began dragging as I searched my interface. Jon had said it was in the tutorial folder… how did I…

  Simply thinking of folders opened up a new window in my vision, only slightly slower than the usual speed they’d open. It was separated into three lines in a descending order: Phase Two, Phase One, and Tutorial. With a click of the mental finger, I selected the Tutorial option. There were plenty of files inside of the folder, most with what looked like date and location stamps. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for as I scrolled through the list, but there, at the very bottom, was a line that read “Administration_Key.”

  While part of me legitimately couldn’t believe Christopher had named it something so simple, it was plain as day in front of my eyes. When I tried to click it, nothing seemed to happen. When it did open, time went from creeping forward to a complete standstill and a large window opened, a single message sitting at the center.

  [Welcome to your Universal Matrix Access Code Registry, would you like to make a modification?]

  “Yes!” I yelled internally, assuming that’s how it wanted me to answer given the lack of a text field.

  [Would you like to make a modification to the: Universal Matrix Access, Global Matrix, or a Personal Matrix? Warning: Access to the Universal Matrix and the Global Matrix is currently limited.]

  “Personal!” I shouted, ignoring the warning. I was simply relieved that the code was responding, even while still in my slowed reality. I felt my nausea pick up again as another stack of Temporal Sickness was added, even when I hadn’t deactivated the slowed time just yet. From the look of it, every second of actual time counted as a separate instance of using the Slow Down variant.

  [You currently are connected to [3] Personal Matrixes: Jonathan Myers, Nathanial Mercer, and Marco Travisi. Please list your desired changes. Warning: Access to the Universal Matrix and the Global Matrix is currently limited.]

  “Remove Marco from the system and transfer his status and entry into Jonathan!”

  [Please confirm. You would like to remove: Marco Travisi, Augment #919 from the Tenth Wave and add in: Jonathan Myers, as Augment #1002 of the Tenth Wave? Warning: Access to the Universal Matrix and the Global Matrix is currently limited.]

  “YES!”

  [Processing Changes, please close this window to finalize.]

  I released the slowed time before another second could tick off, letting out a gasp of air as time quickly picked back up. I mentally closed the window and shot a glare over at Hydramental while he was still struggling against my grasp. I stopped using Center of the Universe and released my grip on his jacket.

  “It’s… It’s… It’s over Marco,” I gasped out, quite literally out of breath.

  He stumbled, forward, reaching to grab the Dead Zone device.

  “What did you- ARRRRRGH!” he cried out, his hands reaching up to his head as he collapsed down to his knees.

  “I don’t have to kill you to-” I started to say before a sudden twinkling light drew my attention up towards the sky. The array began to twinkle, and while I wished I could say it looked just like it did the night I had been forced into this, but while it did shine, instead of being a steady blue, it was blazing red.

  I looked back to find Hydramental tearing at his hair with one hand, the other desperately reaching for the device that was literally clattering across the ground as it began to shake even more violently. His hand was nearly on it when he collapsed to his side, his eyes rolling back into his head.

  Was… was it supposed to be this violent to disconnect him? Christopher had looked just fine so why was– Jon’s body was shaking, foam starting to form at the corners of his lips before blood started to leak out of his ears.

  “How…” I muttered, my eyes going wide as I tried to figure out what was happening. I looked back to the shaking device and swallowed hard… I didn’t want to believe it was because we were under the Dead Zone… after all, they had adjusted my system while I had been under one… why would this be any different?

  Jon convulsed one more time, and then a hack of a cough led to a gurgle before his body lay still. At the same time, a similar thing happened as Hydramental grasped for the device one last time, his hand reaching until it suddenly collapsed down to the debris covered ground.

  My eyes were wide as I looked down at them.

  “No…” I pleaded, feeling my face flush. “No… Please…”

  The Dead Zone device shook so hard it bounced into the air before a smalled, contained POOF echoed out from it and then fell to the ground. I followed suit, falling to my knees as I stared at my best friend’s lifeless body.

  “Loophole!” a voice tried to break through. It sounded like Swansong’s, but I wasn’t sure how she could know that I’d be able to hear her now.

  “Why…” I pleaded, my hands flexing involuntarily as several notifications flashed across my vision. I pushed away the various achievements and mission successes before I slammed a fist down onto the ground. “I did it right… I used the code… why didn’t he get Augmented…”

  “Oh… I can tell you,” a deep, familiar voice said, feeling like a whisper in my ear while still only existing inside my head. Axio started to laugh… a slow… methodical laugh. “I can tell you exactly where you went wrong, Loophole. I can tell you the right way to use that little key The First entrusted to you. And all you have to do… is tell me where he hid it.”

  I felt frozen with fear, my chill shivering down my spine. There was the sound of song that hit my ear as Swansong landed a few feet away, rushing forward before a hand reached up to cover her mouth, her song cutting off as she let out a gasp of shock.

  “Oh no…”

  “You… You don’t know where it is?” I asked, looking up towards the sky, feeling slightly confused that he somehow didn't know. Swansong looked over at me, but didn’t seem to hear my internal chat. There were tears clearly rolling down the side of her face.

  “How are… did Hydramental-” she started to ask before time slowed all the way to a stop.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t have you distracted now Loophole. It’s just you and me… Right where I’ve been leading you and the fools dancing around you all this time… and you’re going to tell me where the Key is,” Axio snarled.

  “And why… why would I do that,” I asked, a prisoner trapped in my own body as only my mind stayed active in this halted time.

  “Because unless you want your friend to die, unless you want that pangolin sitting in the harbor to detonate with that core I had sabotaged, you’re going to tell me where he hid it,” Axio’s tone set a chill down my spine and his words did as well. I… I could just rewind myself… right? “Do it if you wish,” Axio continued, reading my thoughts. “I’ll be right here waiting each time that little device dies. You can’t stop this Loophole. I've had a hunch for some time now, and I moved all of the pieces into place to force your hand. I thought this was going to take all of Phase Two, I even gave you guys twice as much time as I had expected it to take for these fools to dance into place... I'm happy it didn't though because this is so much better. I know you have the key and it’s time it’s returned to its rightful owner. It's time you let me break the code.”

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