Chapter 34 · Break the Deadlock

Cole stared at his own face.

The man in the recovery pod was him. Thirty years older, maybe more. Same scar through the left eyebrow. Same way of holding his jaw when things went to hell. The old man's hand trembled around the red-blinking module, and his eyes locked onto Cole with something that looked like relief mixed with horror.

"Don't let her keep it," the older Cole rasped. "You think saving her is the answer. It's not."

Ivy stepped forward, her own module pulsing in sync with the old man's. The light painted her face in shifting red shadows. "Who are you?"

"Loop eighty-three thousand and sixteen." Old Cole's voice cracked. "Give or take a few hundred. Stopped counting after the first thousand years."

Cole felt his stomach drop. Eighty-three thousand. He was on eighty-five.

"That's not possible," Ivy said, but her voice shook.

"The modules don't just reset time." Old Cole pushed himself up, and Cole saw the way his hands shook, the way his entire body looked like it was barely holding together. "They record it. Every loop. Every death. Every choice. The Watcher isn't testing limits. He's harvesting us.