Angela was dreaming of the Commander again when the Metispitched, flinging her from her bunk. Seconds later the klaxon barked and pulses of blue siren-light flooded the cabin. Dazed, she scrambled to her porthole to peer into the alien midnight, whose soft glow revealed the fizzing crests of a lethal current. They were accelerating, shuddering, out of control.
She braced with one hand and slapped at the intercom with the other. “Bridge, what’s going on?” There was no reply and no orders had been issued on the monitor, but Angela still hesitated before trying Rocha’s direct line. “Commander, are you there?” Had the woman really been in her dreams again? “Commander, this is Ashton, please respond.”
As if in answer, the hatch to her cabin shot open to reveal Rocha herself, shifting in and out of clarity with the sweep of the hazard lights, tall and poised despite the ship’s volatile motion. Angela experienced a bizarre urge to conceal the mess in her cabin even as the woman strode in and seized her by the shoulders.
“Listen carefully. I need your help.” Rocha paused for no more than a breath. “You got drunk and hooked up with the lead singer of Sola Nova when you were nineteen, and to this day you can’t listen to Fly To You without getting turned on.”
Angela’s cheeks burned and her hand went up in an ingrained response that had never once succeeded in disguising her shame. Rocha redoubled her grip, giving Angela a shake. “How do I know that?” The skin on the woman’s neck was taut and she didn’t blink. They were close enough to kiss.
“Commander, I don’t know. I never—”
“You told me to allow me to convince you that we’re in a fifty-four minute time loop that will keep going on and on forever unless you help me.”
Angela’s mouth fell open. The klaxon barked again, deafening her.
“Pay attention, Angela. You and I have been here before. I’ve convinced you before and you’ve helped me before. Fly To you is our ‘stitch in the loop’.”
“Commander, I—”
“Focus. I know you know what that means. You’ve read about it. Tell me what happened on board the Callista.”
“They… they got caught in a time loop in the Bayou Nebula. Marta Kullova was the only one aware of it. She… she—”
“Come on, Angela. She what?”
“She had Dr. Singh tell her a secret that nobody else knew so she could convince him about what was happening each time they reset. She called it their… oh my god.”
“She called it their stitch in the loop. Good. You’re with me.”
Angela shrugged out of the Commander’s grip, but the Metis rocked constantly in the current—without the support she stumbled and slumped onto her bunk. When the klaxon sounded again Rocha turned to tap a command into the monitor. The computer chimed and the pulsating blue light settled into a menacing glow. The roar of the waves pressed against Angela’s eardrums.
“I need your help,” said Rocha, kneeling in front of Angela, her voice raised above the din of ocean and stressed metal, but still clear and calm.
“We’ve really done this before?”
“A number of times. But we can escape this time, on this loop, if we work together. And no, it isn’t a drill or a prank. I promise.”
Angela gaped, the questions to those answers only just forming in her mind.
“And now you’ll say, ‘Why me? I’m just an engineer.’”
“Oh my god.“
Rocha put her hands on Angela’s knees. A shiver rippled up through her thighs and she stiffened involuntarily. Rocha either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Listen, there’s a lot to explain. You may have noticed we’re caught in a whirlpool.”
Some uncontrolled exclamation rose towards Angela’s throat, but Rocha silenced her with a raised hand. “We can’t escape because the engines aren’t firing. I need you to fix them because that’s the only way we’re getting out of this loop.”
Through the porthole Angela saw darkness in motion, punctuated by frequent lashes of sea spray. The constant noise of it hammered her chest and made it difficult to think. “I don’t understand.” She found she had to raise her voice further to be heard. “We’re just doing surveys. How the hell did we get stuck in a whirlpool?“
“Because I ignored the warnings from Navigation and relieved the pilot for the night shift. The vortex came out of nowhere. As soon as the current grabbed us the time loop started and now we can’t break free.” Rocha nodded, as if to herself. “It’s my fault.”
“But why?”
“Look. You know we paid a hell of a fee for first access rights on this damn planet. I’m still not sure half the crew understand how much this could be worth.”
Angela had no idea how much it was worth. “But why the rush? We still have a month of early access.”
“The vultures are circling.” Rocha waggled a finger skywards. “All of our competitors have ships waiting in orbit. It’ll be a free for all the second the restrictions end. Our rigs have to be down here to claim the most valuable sites on day one, or it will all have been for nothing. That’s my responsibility.”
“And what? You thought by sailing us into a whirlpool you’d discover some magic mineral reserve or something?”
“It wasn’t intentional. I accept I should’ve been more careful, but I can’t un-do it. So let’s move on, okay?”
Angela stood, shoving the Commander away. “Move on? You’ve likely killed us all and you’re asking me to move on?”
The Commander’s chest rose and sank in a controlled exhale. Angela’s ex had breathed like that to calm herself down in the middle of a row.
“Something to say, Commander?”
Rocha seemed suddenly to diminish. The blue light limned deep tracks around her mouth and eyes that must have been there all along but now betrayed an intense sorrow. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
Angela became conscious that she was leaning over Rocha, breathing fast with balled fists, and felt ashamed.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this to you,” the Commander continued, “but you’re an incredible engineer. One of the best I’ve worked with. I need you.” It was the first time the woman had acknowledged Angela beyond a nod in the hallway. “And you’re right,” said Rocha. She took Angela’s hands. “I deserve the abuse, but we can fix it if you trust me. We’ve been working together, over and over, getting closer. This time we can fix it.” Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard.
Angela felt trapped between a mistrust that she knew was logical and a nagging desire to surrender to Rocha’s lead. Some version of her had shared a secret that she had never shared with anyone. Her only choice was to to trust that other self, even if it felt like putting faith in a stranger.
“You say ’this time’, but I’m not looping. This is the only time for me.”
“I know it’s difficult in your position.”
“Don’t patronize me. How many times have you done this?”
“One fewer than we need to escape, I reckon. But there’s a lot to do and we’ve only got forty-six minutes left.”
Rocha had not needed to look at her watch. She must have played out this entire conversation before in exactly the same way. Angela had a sense of being maneuvered like a marionette, walking and talking but only according to her master’s will. Even as she attempted to recalibrate her thoughts, preparing herself to select her words and actions more carefully, the Commander grabbed her by the hand and strode from the cabin. “Come on, let’s get to the engine room.”
The passageway stretched endlessly, wreathed in blue shadows. Pipework and conduits and stowed ladders leaned out from the bulkheads as if to attack her. Had they always been there? She had to keep one hand out to prop herself up as the Metis pitched and rolled in the current. At a junction Rocha turned to point at a panel on the floor and said, “Don’t step here.” Angela obeyed without thinking, then was left wondering what injury another version of her had sustained. The roar of the whirlpool faded as they progressed towards the centre of the ship. At one point Rocha paused to punch some numbers into a control panel beside a hatch.
“What was that?”
“I’m keeping people out of our way. Every interaction slows us down. Speaking of which…”
Rocha steered Angela into a maintenance alcove and placed a finger over her lips. The whole movement was smooth and ended with Rocha holding Angela in place with an arm around her neck. Sweat prickled on her face, threatening to drip onto the Commander’s uniform. She smelled something thin and delicate that cut through the ship’s ever-present stink of grease and brine. It took Angela a moment to identify it as bergamot. Then she could only stare at the face inches from her own and wonder if any possible version of her would have brought perfume into outer space.
Footsteps clattered past, accompanied by ragged breathing.
“That was Nishanth. If he sees us we lose three minutes. He’s hysterical.”
Angela smoothed her top when Rocha released her. “And you disapprove? Even though you’ve stuck us in a whirlpool on an alien planet?”
“Both pilots are on the bridge and the rest of the crew are in the briefing room failing to come up with a plan. Nobody is seriously injured.”
Angela stopped short at the apparent non-sequitur. “This is infuriating. You answer before I can ask.”
“Sorry, but it’s faster if I pre-empt you. Further into the loop things gets less certain.”
And with that Rocha set off again, mumbling to herself as she went. Was she counting? Or rehearsing? “Don’t touch that panel,” she said without turning around.
Angela redirected her hand just before it made contact. “How many times have you been through the loop?”
“Enough. Here’s the engine room.”
“You’re going to have to start explaining—”
“I will, but you have to focus, and you have to trust.” Rocha ushered Angela inside and guided her to rest her weight between a bulkhead and a tall console. “Here’s how it went. I was at the helm so I entered the vortex first. Only by a matter of meters, but that must have been the difference. As far as I can tell, the whirlpool and the time loop are one and the same. I’m the only one who’s aware of what’s happening.”
“Are—”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve checked everyone else. The loop is fifty-four minutes long, starting from just after the current grabs us. We’re trapped in the loop as long as we’re trapped in the whirlpool.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? It triggered when I entered, so it should un-trigger when I move out.”
“So it’s a guess.”
“Listen Angela, I’m no scientist—”
“You don’t say?”
Rocha put up a hand. “We’re wired different, it’s true. Your instincts are telling you to observe, to test, to double-check, but that’s not what we need right now.” She sighed. “You probably don’t know that I originally signed up to study engineering and flunked it. I could never do what you do.”
“Don’t try to flatter me.”
“However,” Rocha hands came up, palms out. “What I can do is manage a crisis. I’ve built a career on good instincts. I will get us out of this.”
It was something unknowable in the way Rocha spoke. With the ship groaning and the ocean rushing around them, she stood tall and offered certainty where you thought there could be none. Despite everything, she found herself trusting the Commander. Out loud she forced herself to say, “Did good instincts tell you to pilot the Metis alone at night?”
“Nobody gets it right every time. Risk and reward go hand in hand.”
“I don’t care about the reward. We’re stuck in time!”
Rocha looked into Angela’s eyes. “I know, but you have to trust me.”
That voice inside Angela said, ’Follow her. She’ll save you.’
“Please, let’s skip five minutes of debate and get on with it.”
Angela moaned. “What choice do I have?”
“Good. Now, listen. Comms aren’t functional. They don’t make it out of the loop, so calling for help is a no.”
“Okay. What else?”
”The rudder is mobile, but messing with it only takes us further into the whirlpool. I tried every which way. The ship gets torn apart and us along with it. It isn’t pleasant.”
“Escape pods?”
Rocha grimaced. “You don’t want to know how that ends.”
“Are you telling me we’ve all drowned, or been torn apart, or crushed, over and over again?”
“Technically those loops haven’t happened.”
“But some version of me, no, multiple versions of me, died in agony?”
“You don’t remember, right? It’s not real.”
“The pain was real at the time, even if I can’t remember it now.”
“We don’t have time for this. Best we can do is focus on getting out. We’ve got another few minutes while I still know what you’re going to say, so let’s go quickly while we still can.”
Angela bit off the word, “Fine.”
“Our thrusters have more than enough power to break us out of the current, but they aren’t working. That’s where you come in.”
“I see. So if we fix the thrusters, we can get out? I assume you’ve got something for me to go on?”
“Notes don’t survive between loops, even written on my skin, but I can show you where to start.” Rocha leaned across Angela to flip open a panel. There was the bergamot again, an alien luxury invading the chaos. “Here,” she said, pointing to a circuit board.
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” Angela said, but Rocha had moved away to rummage in a storage cabinet and she could already see several damaged relays that needed to be fixed. “Okay. I’ll need—”
“Here.” Rocha returned with a toolbox in one hand and a spare parts crate wedged against her side with the other. “Get to work. When you’re done here we move on to the main engine.”
Angela braced her back against the opposite bulkhead to compensate for the ship’s pitch. Her fingers slipped and she fumbled the wires, as if she were operating a poorly configured VR simulation of her own hands. She was aware of the Commander muttering behind her and stole a glance. Rocha stood with her back half turned, lips in constant motion. She looked at her watch, then up at Angela.
“Don’t panic, it’s just one of the sensor arms breaking off. No major damage.”
“What?”
There was a shriek of tearing metal. By instinct Angela threw her hands up to cover her head, but Rocha was already there, pulling them back down. “We’re safe. Get back to work.”
Eyes straining and face slick with sweat, Angela turned back to finish repairing the circuit board. “There. Done.“
Rocha was already picking up the toolbox, then striding across the room to heave at the locking wheel on on of the main engine’s access hatches. When it opened she stood aside and pointed. “There. You see?”
Angela peered in. “What a mess,” she said. “How am I supposed to fix this in forty minutes?”
“Thirty-two, actually, but I believe in you. You were so close on the last attempt.”
“I was?”
“Ditch the self-doubt. You can do it.” Rocha put a hand on Angela’s shoulder and squeezed. “Now get to work. I’m going to leave the room for a few minutes.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to seal a couple more hatches to stop people from disturbing us.”
Angela got to work. The task was enormous. The rush of the current outside and the silent countdown clouded her focus. She wasn’t sure how long the Commander was gone, but eventually footsteps sounded in the passageway.
“How long do we have?” she asked as soon as Rocha entered the room.
“Eighteen minutes.”
“Eighteen?” Angela let her hands drop.
“What are you doing? Keep going.”
Something thudded into the Metis and it rolled with another metallic scream, forcing Angela to brace. This time Rocha didn’t offer an explanation, only spread her feet, standing tall and calm.
“Eighteen minutes? It can’t be done.”
“You were so close last time. Trust me, you’re about to make a breakthrough. You said you were minutes away.”
Angela looked at the engine. None of the issues was catastrophic, but there were too many separate fixes required. How had she ever thought this could be possible in the time? In the gleam of the panel above she saw Rocha’s reflected face, distorted once by the warp of the metal and again by the woman’s own desperate scowl.
“You’re lying…”
“Angela, keep going.”
“I didn’t get close last time. There’s no way to get close. You must be lying.”
“We don’t have time for this. You can do it if you keep working.”
“Why should I believe you? You could tell me anything.”
“Angela, please—”
“Stop it. Did you think if you told me I was about to have a breakthrough then I would just magically have one?”
Rocha covered her face with her hands, sucked in a breath, then let it out in an extended moan before mumbling something to herself.
“What was that?”
The Commander dropped her hands and stared up at the ceiling. “I said, ’how am I going to get past this?’”
With those words Angela knew that she had been betrayed. Still, she couldn’t yet admit that revelation into her already frantic mind. Softly she said, “All of this has happened before, too?”
Rocha inclined her head.
“You said things got more uncertain further into the loop.”
“Eventually, sure. But I learn more every time. And I’ve done this a lot of times.”
“And I always figure out you’re lying?”
“Pretty much. We’re past the point where I know exactly what will happen, but it’s always something like this.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? The engines can’t be fixed in time.”
“Normal rules don’t apply, Angela. You’d be amazed what you can achieve with unlimited practice and enough perseverance. You wouldn’t help me at all to begin with.”
“I’m telling you it’s hopeless!”
Rocha said nothing.
“This doesn’t make sense. There has to be something else we can do.” Angela crossed the room and loaded a monitor on the wall. She opened the Metis’s diagnostics and began scanning the reports.
“That won’t help,” said Rocha.
Angela ignored her. She flicked through screen after screen of status reports, searching for anything that might help them escape.
“Ashton, I said that won’t help.”
Angela screamed and thumped the monitor. When she looked down it had reset to a home screen that displayed the statuses of all systems. There were reds and ambers, but plenty of greens, too. One caught her eye, and then she was gripping the edges of the monitor and bringing her face in close to check she wasn’t seeing things.
“Rocha, comms are working.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, that was the first thing I tried.” Rocha tried to shoulder in front of the monitor, but Angela pushed her away.
“No, no. They’re working. It says right there. We can call for help. We can go to Comms and do it now. How long do we have?“
The Commander looked at her watch, but instead of answering she folded her arms and fell silent.
“What are you doing? Let’s go! We can send a signal and someone can come to pull us out.”
The ship gave a metal wail and the vortex’s roar seemed to intensify.
“Rocha, call for help!”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
Rocha leaned back against a bulkhead, measured and calm. “We have something special here. Do you know how often an unexplored planet opens up for mining? And the amount we paid for early access? It’s eye-watering. I can’t give that up.”
“What are you talking about? We’ll still have all the data we’ve gathered.”
“Don’t be naive, Angela. Sure, there are at least ten ships close enough to help, but they all want what we’ve got. The second I transmit a distress call our so-called saviours would start hacking every megabyte of our survey data.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You wouldn’t believe the creep tech nowadays. It’d be a free for all. All our data would be processed and sold before we could even get out of the atmosphere. The entire investment would be wasted. I’d be finished.”
“No. I mean, I don’t get it. You’ve died over and over and you’re really telling me this is all about money?”
“There’s money and there’s money. Do you have any idea how much a three month head start is worth in this scenario? No, I suppose you don’t. Suffice it to say, I’m not giving it up. I won’t get another opportunity like this.”
“You’ve got to be joking. How many times have we been through the loop? How many times have we faced our deaths?”
The Commander said nothing.
“This is torture! We’re sending for help.” Angela barged Rocha out of the way and sped out into the passageway. Then she stopped dead, remembering the door that the Commander had locked earlier.
Rocha’s voice floated out from the engine room, cutting through the rush of the current and the now-constant groan of stressed metal. “We’ll keep trying, Angela. We’ll just keep trying. You and me.”
Angela went back to the hatchway. The floor was slick with seawater that had penetrated the ship’s skin in preparation for the drowning that was sure to follow. Rocha hadn’t moved. “The door you locked was Comms. That’s where Nishanth was going. He was going to send for help.”
Rocha’s brow tightened. “He nearly managed it once or twice.”
“Oh my god. When you left the room… did you…did you—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Angela, I’m not a killer. I just seal him in a cabin. Otherwise he comes looking for me when he figures out it was me that locked the comms room.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Forget it. Nishanth’s fine. But this is too big. I’m not giving up. In a few minutes we’ll just try again.”
“I won’t help you.”
Rocha shrugged. “Yes, you will.”
From nowhere, a sob exploded from Angela’s mouth. “How many times have you made me do this?”
Rocha looked up, apparently irritated. “Why do you care? I’m carrying the burden here. I’m the one who has to live this over and over until we get it right.”
“You don’t have to do anything. We can escape!”
“Eventually I’ll give you the right prompts and you’ll figure out how to get the Metis working again. Even if we have to do it by inches.”
“So you’ll just keep spending my life, again and again? The lives of the whole crew?”
“Angela, you’re thinking small. You’re not grasping the value of what we’ve got here.”
Tears spilled down Angela’s cheeks. “Is it worth more than my life?”
“You’re not going to die. You’ll come out alive, eventually.”
“No I won’t.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“We’ve got, what, ten minutes? Maybe you keep going, but I’ll die.”
“You’ll be back there in your cabin, telling me how much of a shit I am.”
“Not this version of me. For me, this me, this is the end. Every time we do this you make me aware, only to have us fail. Have you thought about how that must feel?”
For an instant Rocha’s eyes glazed over. Then she shook her head. “How do you think this feels for me? I’ve done this so many times. It’s hell, but I’m doing it for all of our benefit.”
”Not everyone cares about money as much as you,” said Angela. “Some of us don’t care at all! And look at you. You’re fraying. How much time has passed for you? How many 54-minute loops? It must be days. Is it even weeks? All for money?”
“If money is so meaningless then why are you here?”
“Don’t make this about me.”
“Of course it’s about you. Why are you on this ship, Angela?” Rocha was shouting now, competing with the clangs of the Metis falling apart around them. Water flowed freely under their feet.
“This is a good job. It’s good for my career.”
“Working maintenance on a corporate survey ship? Hardly. Why aren’t you supporting some research expedition if your motivations are so noble?
Heat swelled in Angela’s cheeks. “I apply for lots of jobs. We can’t all pick and choose like you.”
“Drop it Angela. We both know why you’re here. You’ve been obsessed with me ever since we met on that training course.”
Angela fell silent. So Rocha did remember. She forced herself to stammer, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Oh, please. You stared at me across that classroom for a week solid. I always knew you wanted to fuck me, but then you started applying for anything and everything with my name on it, even shitty cargo runs, and I knew the truth. All those cloying cover letters? It’s pathetic. You want to be me, Angela. You wish you could do what I do.”
Angela’s face burned with mingled fury and shame.
“There you go, getting embarrassed again. Why don’t you grow up?”
Suddenly angry, Angela yelled back. “If you hold me in such contempt, why hire me?”
“Because you’re a good engineer, despite your many other flaws. I wanted the best for this mission. But god am I regretting it now. It took me four damn loops to get that stupid story out of you. Imagine having to go back that many years to find anything from your life worth sharing.”
It was as if Rocha’s words shunted Angela from her own body. Suddenly she stood several paces away, peering at the pitiful expression on her own face, wondering how that crushed individual could ever recover. Then the ship lurched again and she snapped back to reality. This time both women staggered, grasping at whatever handholds they could reach. When they settled the Commander checked her watch. “Three minutes.”
“Three?” Angela’s whisper was lost in the din. She took a breath and forced words out between her tears. “Rocha, please. I promise you the engines can’t be fixed. There isn’t enough time.”
“It’ll work.”
“I’m telling you it won’t. Why don’t you trust me for once.”
“Then I’ll try something else. I can try as many times as I need.”
“You’ll lose your mind. You’re already talking to yourself. Look, your hands are shaking.”
Rocha looked at the floor and clasped her hands. They went bright white where they touched.
“Please, send the signal. Please. There’ll be other opportunities.”
“Not like this.”
With a surge of desperation, Angela grasped the Commander’s shoulders and shook her hard. “Please, Rocha. Don’t let me die again!”
The woman looked up. To Angela’s surprise her eyes were wet. “I can’t let go. I’ve put everything into this mission. I’d be ruined.”
Angela had no time to process this sudden spill of emotion, she only recognized it as a surrender and knew she had to bear down. She took Rocha’s hands and held them firm. “Yes you can. You can do the right thing.” She dragged at the woman’s arm. “Come on, we’ll send the signal.”
“Angela… there isn’t time.”
“Let’s go, we can do it!”
“We only have a minute left. We can’t even get to comms in that time.”
Angela turned. “One minute?” The water flowing underfoot pooled where bulkheads and floor met.
“Less than that. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes, I…” Rocha seemed to search for something else to say. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh my god. I’m going to die.”
To Angela’s surprise Rocha folded her into a hug and whispered into her ear. “I’m so sorry. You’re right.” Something clanged in another part of the ship, followed by the distant sound of fast-rushing water. “I’ll call for help on the next loop.”
Angela pushed the woman away so she could see her face. In one moment it seemed that something had changed in Rocha’s eyes—all certainty gone, replaced by fear and shame. Then she blinked and saw the other Rocha, the one who held her like a puppet by the strings, who had sacrificed her entire crew countless times in the pursuit of profit.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it,” said Rocha, “but this isn’t the end. You’ll reset in your cabin. You may not remember any of this, but I will, and next time I’ll do something about it.”
Angela sobbed.
“You can trust me,” said Rocha.
Could she? There was no way to know. “You’ll send the distress signal?”
“I’ll do the right thing, like you said.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Angela stared into eyes that controlled her future, searching frantically for something that looked like truth, but Rocha broke their gaze to check her watch. Then she took a breath.
Angela was dreaming of the Commander again when the Metis pitched, flinging her from her bunk. Seconds later the klaxon barked and pulses of blue siren-light flooded the cabin. Dazed, she scrambled to her porthole to peer into the alien midnight, whose soft glow revealed the fizzing crests of a lethal current. They were accelerating, shuddering, out of control.
She braced with one hand and slapped at the intercom with the other. “Bridge, what’s going on?” There was no reply and no orders had been issued on the monitor, but before Angela could do anything else her hatch shot open to reveal Rocha herself, leaning against the wall and breathing fast. The woman opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.
“Commander, what’s wrong?”
For a moment Rocha just stood there looking small and vulnerable. Angela had a bizarre urge to hug her, but then the Commander’s demeanor changed. She straightened up, nodded as if convincing herself of something, then strode into the cabin and seized Angela by the shoulders.
“Listen carefully. I need your help.”
Adam Mitchell is based in London, where he shares a house with a greyhound and a wife. You can find other examples of his work in stacks of heavily annotated paper underneath his sofa.