The Small Loop

With resolve set, Yumi marched through the facility into the command room where Karen sat. She stood next to her terminal not waiting for her to notice her presence. “Do you have a terminal I can use with educational tools?”

Being barraged suddenly, Karen looked up at her with some bewilderment. “Huh?”

“Educational tools.”

“Umm, yes?” She looked around at her terminal, still not properly functioning.

“A terminal. I need one.”

“Y-yes, you can use this one.”

“Somewhere a little more private?”

Karen sat quiet for a moment thinking about an answer for Yumi. Everything took her off guard that she hadn’t fully processed everything. The demanding presence of Yumi did little to improve her slowness, but she was able to get to it eventually. “I can set you up with a guest account in your room.”

“That’ll work. I’m staying on deck 23 room 212.”

“I’ll have it finished before you arrive.”

“Thank you.” Yumi turned around and started walking out of the command room.

She made it to the entrance before it suddenly dawned on Karen. “But shouldn’t you already know that? And have an account?” Unfortunately for her, Yumi continued ignoring the realization that Karen made. None of that mattered to her.

‘Sumiko will handle anything…’ Yumi marched to her room, which she had been given on previous times. Determination filled her eyes as she only saw the goal in front of her. Back in her room, she accessed the terminal doing a search on the materials that it had available. Anything that she could use. “I don’t care how long it takes! I will solve this and get out of this hell!”

Chapter 485 – The Small Loop

“We’re in space!” shouted Yuki with all of the energy and enthusiasm of a child on Christmas opening their present and finding that it was the one thing that they wished for the whole inside the box. And indeed was Yuki ever correct about the statement. They were in space, though not the vacuum of space. Their surroundings were a station, a space station giving their situation, which came as a shocking departure from their last world that was in Japan with demons.

But Yuki's enthusiasm quickly changed as he made another declaration. “And there’s aliens attacking us! Crap!” A large energy from whatever he saw filled all of their vision.

Acting promptly, Yumi grabbed Yuki by the collar and shouted to everyone. “Run to the hall now or die!” She kept it direct and short with serious intent that gave no concern for questions. Everyone sensed the urgency in her voice and ran with her as the explosion ripped up through the floor. They all made it through the door in time before it sealed behind them. She braced her hand against the wall as the facility shook a little from the explosion.

Yumi looked around at her friends. “My time’s repeating, you don’t remember any of it. But you’ll have to trust me. We’ve got somewhere to be.” She then promptly walked off into the hall as the silence of order of follow came from her back. They all looked more than a little confused.

“We’re in space!” shouted Yuki with all of the energy and enthusiasm of a child on Christmas opening their present and finding that it was the one thing that they wished for the whole inside the box. And indeed was Yuki ever correct about the statement. They were in space, though not the vacuum of space. Their surroundings were a station, a space station giving their situation, which came as a shocking departure from their last world that was in Japan with demons.

But Yuki's enthusiasm quickly changed as he made another declaration. “And there’s aliens attacking us! Crap!” A large energy from whatever he saw filled all of their vision.

“Run or die!” Yumi shouted, grabbing Yuki and making her way to the exit. It was too brief of an order that no one understood what was happening. Yumi made it through with Yuki, but that was it. “Tch…that was too short this time.” Yumi started to walk off, but Yuki grabbed her.

“Yumi, our friends are behind that door!”

“And they will be again in a week. I don’t have time for this.”

“Yumi?” He held tighter on her wrist to keep her from leaving. “You can’t abandon them.”

“Fine, I’m losing time.” Her fingers quickly played over the panel having clearly known where every point on the menu was. The door opened letting them through as Yuki helped them out. “Explain to them what’s going on Yuki, you’ve got it all figured out. I’m going on.”

“…Yumi…”

“We’re in space! And there’s aliens attacking us! Crap!”

“Follow me or die!” Yumi grabbed Yuki and pulled him along through the door as she rode out the explosion with the door closing behind them. It was just Yuki this time. “That’s enough. They’re just too slow.”

“Yumi?”

“Follow me if you want to live. There’s nothing that can be done about them now.”

The hardened resolve of Yumi’s face before she turned away to walk down the hall left a cold shiver down Yuki’s spine. It wasn’t something that he was used to seeing from Yumi. There was some darkness that had taken hold of her. She needed him. He hurried along with her to find out what was happening.

“We’re in space! And there’s aliens attacking us! Crap!”

Yumi walked out of the hall leaving them all behind as the explosion went off. She steadily marched forward down the long hallway unbroken in her determination. ‘I will get it right…’ Soft muttering of plans and formulas rattled out of her lips with the intense focus completely unbroken and unfazed. It was hard to tell if she even noticed the difference between the start or end anymore.

Existence, continued progressing existence was all that appeared to be recognized, barely.

Standing before Sumiko just as the attack ended, Yumi confronted the problem head on. “Project Leader, I arrived on the last transport, so I haven’t been given an assignment, but given the situation I’d like to help out anyway I can.”

“More fresh faces, so many of you…” Sumiko flipped through her projected holo display at her wrist searching the records on Yumi. “Afraid I haven’t been able to give the personal touch to all of you. No disrespect for your talents.”

“None taken, I understand the pressing demands on you.”

“Dropped out?”

“Finances.”

“Still the fact that you were able to get into SEU is damn impressive. I definitely welcome another computer engineer. Head over and talk to Douglas, he’s organizing the network repairs. We need to get them back and fully operational if the project is to continue.”

“Understood!”

Douglas was someone that she had met a few times during her countless cycles, though not for a while recently. Her previous attempts failed with him, which led her to the current situation she had now. The first hurdles had already been cleared thanks to Sumiko, meaning the results should be different.

In his late twenties, Douglas was an overly serious man that cared possibly too much about the project, but not in the same way that Sumiko did. It was like he was a fifty year old dad beyond his ability to have patience anymore with the younger generation being completely out of touch. Everyone listened to him and respected him, but in the same sort of way that one smiles and nods and lets the delusion continue because it’s both not worth it and not hurting anyone.

For Yumi, it was the most progress that she had made since her new hell started in this world. The opportunity to make changes to the timeline was very real this time. All her eyes could see was the chance before her.

Attentive and detailed focused, he immediately noticed Yumi before she even got in range of him. He extended a warm hand to shake when she made it over. “The new recruit, Sumiko says you’ve got promise, Yumi.”

“I hope I can live up to the expectations, sir!”

“You’ve got drive. You’re going to need it. The Ark is a wreck right now and we have systems down through most of the Alpha Spire.” He turned back to the whole team pointing out a place for her to stand. “I’m splitting you up into teams. We’re going to be tackling the major systems immediately so that we can work out what sub-systems are actually damaged or destroyed.” Explanation of everyone’s work effortlessly rolled out of his mouth.

Yumi kept up with most of what he said, though some of the extremely technical words flew over her head. ‘Looks like the self taught lessons are working. I’ll be able to do this.’ Which proved to not actually be as accurate of a statement as she hoped. She ended up failing the first time nearly causing a dangerous feedback loop that would have destroyed half of the spire had the computer not caught it. By the fourth time, she cleared with no mistakes and finally earned the acknowledgement from the team. Though things were still too early for her to tell if any changes occurred.

“You really know your stuff,” her partner Alexi said with a reassuring pat on the back. “I wasn’t sure what you’d be like when the boss said we were getting someone new with very little experience.”

“I’ve still got a long way to go,” she answered with a distant stare.

“Nah, you’ll be fine the way you handled that was like a pro!”

The remainder of the work that her team was assigned ended up being far more basic repairs. She had less dangers of destructive feedback, which she was happy about having now. Every situation didn’t need to be life or death. Even if things were lucky enough that she hadn’t died, despite how close she had come. The lingering unknown about if she died remained. She didn’t know if she might be special since this was her mind and they were testing her. They might treat her failure completely differently. She might lose to them and cease to be herself, what they all seemed to want.

Yumi’s moment of truth finally came. She stood back in the command room with everyone gathered together. Reports of the progress on work were delivered by the leads giving Sumiko a clear picture of the situation. “And with the primary reactor repair, we can return from emergency status. However, these repairs have highlighted something that we’ve been missing. Sub-Reactor Gamma is in a slow feedback loop that is building to a critical state. If we don’t deal with it, it’ll take the whole Ark when it goes.”

‘She never told me that. It’s a sub-reactor, this facility is massive, just how powerful is this reactor?’ The one thing that she never had been able to find out through her searching and hunting was anything about the project. Security on it was beyond anything that she could break with her book knowledge. Sumiko illustrated how still so unaware she was about everything on the facility. She still only knew that this would save the human race and precious little more. No one slipped out more details for her. She remained an outsider.

Sumiko already started to break out the team. They did not need everyone for the sub-reactor repairs as Yumi already knew. It appeared most would return to their regular duties. ‘I must get put on the team with the sub-reactor!’ However, that clearly didn’t seem to be happening. Not that she was surprised by this. Getting put on that team wouldn’t be so simple for her. “Excuse me.”

“Ah, Yumi, I hear good things about you. Douglas was already singing your praise.”

“Thank you, ma’am. There’s—“

She held up a hand to stop Yumi before she even finished. “I already know what you’re going to say. I can see it in your eyes. But you can’t come. Yes, you’ve proven yourself, but this isn’t something with your skill set. It’s an engineering problem. We’ll take it from here, you get your next job from Douglas.”

“I did take a couple of classes.”

“That’s not going to be enough. Listen, I understand your desire, but you need to know when something is beyond your limits.”

‘It’s not beyond me! I need to see it…I will get you to say yes to me!’ With Sumiko’s back to Yumi, she didn’t see the fierce determination in her eyes. There was no indication that she was going to give up on it. No matter what it took, she would reach the point that she needed.

Standing in front of Yumi, the affirming hand rested on her shoulder. “And you, you’re showing a lot of promise for a newbie engineer. We need all the hands we can to get the sub-reactor under control.”

“Yes, ma’am…” Yumi replied with a smile that read a different intent than the one that Sumiko could see.

Halfway to the sub-reactor main room, Sumiko looked back at Yumi, keeping up close. “How’s your knowledge on theoretical spatial constructs?”

Yumi broke her pace for a split second and tried to keep it hidden as best as she could. “I haven’t really studied them since lectures.”

“Then you’ll get to have some on the job training then!” she said with a bit of a sadistic grin that seemed to be enjoying the moment while also carrying some child-like excitement. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. It’s theory, so I don’t expect you to be an expert.”

As the door slid open, Yumi finally was greeted with the control room that was adjacent to the reactor room. She let her mouth drop open, not expecting any of what she saw. It was unclear if what she saw was caused by the attack or something else. But this didn’t look like a feedback loop as Sumiko explained. She was covering up the truth.

Half of the reactor room was exposed to something that looked like space, but less like normal space, but something of a distortion. If it had been a rip through the Ark, it would have made sense what she was seeing, but things weren’t torn apart like she figured it would be with such a sight. It almost seemed to be a thing that was inside. The sub-reactor sat at the center of all of it, almost completely submerged in whatever anomaly had taken hold of it. ‘What the hell is going on here?! This isn’t even anything that I studied! I’m screwed!’