Buttopia
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Loop 257 - Part 19
🕑 Added 2024-11-28 22:29:24 +0000 UTC“Hi Clark, I know you don’t remember the last loop, but I really dislike what you tried to pull there, and I’m not very big on what you’ve done in this one either,” Harold said to the man bound to a chair in front of him.
Cal was watching from a monitor in the next room. Harold hadn’t wanted anyone in the room with them as he had a feeling Clark’s capture was part of the trap, but he hadn’t been sure of just what part yet.
“Nice to see you too, Harold. How are things going for you?” Clark asked surprisingly calmly. It was almost certainly for the best Cal was not in the room with them, as he wasn’t sure he could resist the urge to hit the man in the face after that response.
“Depends on what you mean, I suppose. I’ve got a lot of information I want to collect from that head of yours, and one way or another, I’m going to succeed, no matter how long it takes,” Harold answered threateningly.
“You say that, but if I understand things correctly, once this loop ends, you’re out of time,” Clark answered.
“True, but you won’t have any idea just what I got out of you for the next loop now will you?” Harold smiled back at the man. Cal appreciated just how scary Harold could be at times, especially here when needed.
“Interesting point, I don’t think I’ll talk though,” Clark replied.
“How about you think about that for a bit, and I’ll get back to you,” Harold said as he left the room. He soon appeared in the room Cal was watching from.
“What’s the plan here?” Cal asked.
“We’re keeping him indefinitely; we can never trust that he’s told us everything, but once the new loop starts, they will always assume he’s free,” Harold explained.
“Wait, how are you planning to do that? If we make him loop-aware, he’s just going start back wherever he starts, with knowledge of the void house,” Cal asked.
“So this has been brought up before, well, kind of at least. Things do not sync correctly between us and the Under Library, and I ran this by Excalibur to get his opinion and he agrees with my assessment. If we leave Clark in the hub over there when the loop restarts here, it will break him off from his original person. So the one that starts the loop over will be like Andy was originally, and no, before you ask, we can’t clone ourselves. Once I make you loop-aware, this won’t work anymore. Not to mention the second any of the duplicates tied to return to Earth, they’d be destroyed anyway,” Andrew explained.
“Maybe,” Cal said. This was something he needed to explore more. He had a couple of ideas half-formed on some uses.
“Maybe what? They can’t, I’m sure of that. What are you thinking exactly?” Andrew looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.
“We need experienced people here to help with things. We don’t even really need them to return to Earth, but they’d need to be okay with that. Which I know is an incredibly hard sell. I’m not entirely sure how to put this all together just yet, but it’s all part of a giant plan that’s slowly coming together, and I promise I will explain it to everyone one day,” Cal said.
“While I have nothing against planning ahead, for now, we need to get back to the matter at hand. Clark won’t talk today, or likely anytime soon. I’ll move him to the hub later, but I don’t want him aware of anyone surviving the trap besides myself and Andrew,” Harold said.
“No, we shouldn’t use Andrew. If we hold him long enough we can convince him Andrew is an adult Andy and we are changing the game on Earth. Just use your new senator buddy. He already met him, right?” Cal asked. He could not remember the man’s name, and the more he thought about it wasn’t even sure he knew it.
“That’s actually not a bad idea, I need to go have a long discussion with Glenn anyway. You two should tag along. I’m sure there will be a ton of questions, and this should make it easier,” Harold said.
Cal shrugged and followed Harold toward the cafeteria. One of the best parts about the capybaras being back, even if not up to full manpower yet, was that the food had drastically improved. Somehow, despite all the loops, none of them were any good at cooking. Cal realized it probably had helped that they had no real reason to learn anymore. There was always an expert chef around.
“Daddy, why didn’t you tell us you were friends with all these animals before?” a younger girl asked, sitting next to Glenn.
“I had to keep it a secret, Erin,” Glenn answered.
“Glenn, it’s time for an overdue talk. I don’t care if your family sticks around, that’s up to you, but you, me, Cal and Andrew here are going to have a long talk on everything,” Harold said.
“Wes, why do you take your sister and go play with some of your new friends for a bit? Your mom and I have to have an important meeting,” Glenn said.
“You heard your dad, come on kids, have you met Captain Lightspeed yet? I’ll introduce you,” Lou said as he sat down a tray of food on the table and ushered the kids to follow him. The girl followed him with a look of pure joy on her face. The boy, not so much. He did follow, though.
“Alright Glenn, so you were one of the people there when the Agency gained some loop-awareness then? How many other people can you identify who are also aware?” Harold asked.
“I don’t know, maybe six. I didn’t know most of who was in that room when the old lady, her dog, and the centipede came rampaging through,” Glenn said.
“You should understand this ahead of time, especially in regards to how you talk about our friends. Two of those people you mentioned are currently captured by your agency, and while willing to believe you didn’t mean any ill will in your phrasing, the dog you mentioned, her name is Bug. She’s here, and she is extremely angry about the loss of her friends, so grow some respect quickly,” Cal said as he glared at the man.
