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"Mark, you got three minutes or dispatch puts you on suspension."
I jerked the phone away from my ear. "I'm already rolling, Jen. Two blocks out."
"Two blocks means you're sitting at a red light texting someone."
"I don't text and drive."
"You don't drive, period. You drift through traffic like you're playing a video game."
She hung up before I could tell her the light just turned green. I dropped the phone into the cup holder and hit the gas. The delivery van rattled like it had three loose bolts and a death wish, but it moved. That was all dispatch cared about. Move the package, clock the delivery, start the next run.
East district at 11 PM meant empty streets and nobody checking speeds. I took the corner onto Marsh without braking. The van tilted. Something slid across the back and hit the partition behind my head.
"Careful with the cargo, Mark," I muttered. "Wouldn't want to bruise someone's overpriced coffee maker."
My phone buzzed. I glanced down. Vera's name sat at the top of the screen.
I didn't touch it. Hadn't touched it in three weeks. She stopped calling after the first five days, stopped texting after ten. This was the first time her name showed up since I told her we were done.
The phone buzzed again. I looked at the screen.
Not a text. A call.
My hand moved toward the phone. That's when the semi came through the intersection.
I saw the grille first. Chrome and rust and something that looked like it had already hit a wall. No headlights. No brake lights. Just a forty-ton shadow cutting across four lanes like the driver was asleep or dead or didn't care which.
I yanked the wheel left. The van lurched. Tires screamed. The semi kept coming.
"No no no—"
The impact folded the passenger side inward. Metal shrieked. Glass exploded. My seatbelt locked and something in my ribs cracked. The van spun. I lost the wheel. Lost the pedals. Lost any sense of which way was up.
When the spin stopped I was upside down. Blood ran into my left eye. The phone was somewhere on the ceiling. Vera's name still glowing on the screen.
I tried to reach for it. My arm wouldn't move. I looked down. The arm was pinned under a piece of the door that used to be outside the van.
"Okay," I said. "Okay. You're fine. You're fine."
I wasn't fine.
Smoke curled in through the broken windshield. Not normal smoke. Too white. Too fast. It moved like it had a direction.
I pulled at the seatbelt. The buckle was jammed. I pulled harder. The smoke reached my face and I stopped breathing. It didn't smell like burning plastic or gasoline. It smelled like nothing. Like the air had been scrubbed clean.
"Subject 447 selected."
The voice came from everywhere. Flat. Mechanical. No accent. No emotion.
"What—"
"Protocol live."
The smoke turned blue. Then red. Then something that didn't have a name. The van's interior lit up like I was inside a flare. I shut my eyes but the light came through anyway.
"Scanning biomass. Compatibility confirmed. Initiating baseline lock."
"Who the hell—"
"Integration will proceed upon first termination event. Subject 447, your loop begins now."
The light became heat. The heat became fire. I opened my mouth to scream and the fire poured in.
I felt my skin blister. Felt my lungs cook. Felt the seatbelt melt into my chest.
Vera's name stayed on the screen until the phone melted too.
Then everything stopped.
Not gradually. Not fading to black. Just—
Stopped.
I opened my eyes.
Fluorescent lights. Grey tile. The smell of burnt coffee and diesel fumes.
I was sitting in a plastic chair. My hand was on a clipboard. My ribs didn't hurt. My arm wasn't pinned. There was no blood in my eye.
I looked down. The clipboard had my route sheet clipped to it. Sixteen deliveries. All checked off except the last two.
I knew this route. I ran it yesterday.
"Mark, you got three minutes or dispatch puts you on suspension."
I turned. Jen stood at the dispatch counter, phone pressed to her ear, looking at me like I'd just said something stupid.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
She frowned. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."
"What time is it?"
"10:47. Same as it was thirty seconds ago when you asked me if the Marsh Street drop was still active."
I stood up. The chair scraped. My legs worked. My ribs didn't scream. I patted my chest. No burns. No melted seatbelt fused to my skin.
"Mark, seriously, are you high?"
"What's the date?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"What. Is. The date."
Jen's frown deepened. "October eighteenth. Same as it was when you clocked in two hours ago. Same as it'll be when you finish this route and go home. You need me to call someone?"
October eighteenth.
I ran that route on October eighteenth.
I died on October nineteenth.
I pulled my phone out. The screen lit up. No cracks. No scratches. No melted glass.
10:47 PM. October 18th.
I scrolled to my call log. Vera's name wasn't there. Not yet. That call came at 11:03. Sixteen minutes from now. Right before the semi hit me.
"Mark, if you're having some kind of episode—"
"I'm fine." My voice sounded flat. Mechanical. Like the voice in the van. "I'm fine."
Jen didn't look convinced. "Your route's waiting. You sure you can drive?"
I looked at the route sheet. Sixteen stops. The last one was on Marsh Street.
The intersection where the semi came through.
"Yeah," I said. "I can drive."
I walked out to the lot. My van sat in the third row. Same dented side panel. Same cracked mirror. Same rust spot on the back door.
I opened the driver's side door and stopped.
There was a smell. Faint. Wrong.
That same nothing-smell from the smoke.
I climbed in. The seat was cold. The ignition was right where I left it. I turned the key.
The van started.
My phone buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
I answered. "Yeah?"
Silence. Then—
"You felt it, didn't you?"
A woman's voice. Low. Careful. Like she was standing in a room where someone might be listening.
"Felt what?"
"The reset."
My hand tightened on the phone. "Who is this?"
"Someone who's been stuck in this longer than you. Don't go to Marsh Street."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll die again. And every time you die, you bring something back. You don't want to see what happens after the third loop."
The line went dead.
I sat there. Engine running. Phone in my hand.
Jen knocked on the window. I rolled it down.
"Mark, I'm serious. If you're not out of this lot in sixty seconds I'm calling your supervisor."
"Jen, did anyone else call me tonight?"
"How would I know who calls you?"
"Did anyone come in here asking for me?"
Her frown came back. "No. Why?"
I looked at the phone. The call log showed the unknown number. Duration: forty-two seconds.
"Mark, go. Now."
I put the van in gear.
My route took me through the east district. Sixteen stops. The last one was Marsh Street.
I could skip it. Call in sick. Turn around and go home.
But if this was real—if I really died and woke up twenty-four hours earlier—then skipping the route wouldn't change anything. The semi would still be out there. The smoke would still come. The voice would still say Subject 447 selected.
And if I didn't go, I'd never know why.
I pulled out of the lot.
My phone buzzed again at 11:03.
Vera's name lit up the screen.
I stared at it.
In the first loop—if that's what it was—I didn't answer. I reached for the phone and the semi hit me.
This time I answered.
"Vera?"
Her voice cracked. "Mark, where are you?"
"Working. What's wrong?"
"Don't go to Marsh Street."
My blood went cold. "What did you just say?"
"I don't know how I know, I just—Mark, I had this dream. You were burning. There was this voice. It said something about a subject number. It said—" She stopped. Her breath hitched. "It said protocol live."
I pulled over. The van jerked to a stop.
"Vera, where are you right now?"
"I'm at the store. Mark, what's happening?"
"Stay there. Don't leave. I'm coming to you."
"Mark—"
The call dropped.
I looked at the screen. No signal.
I checked the bars. Full signal thirty seconds ago. Now nothing.
I tried calling her back. The call wouldn't connect.
I put the van in gear and turned toward the convenience store where Vera worked night shift.
That's when I saw the hooded figure standing in the middle of the road.
I slammed the brakes. The van skidded. Stopped three feet from the figure.
The figure didn't move.
I leaned on the horn. Nothing. I rolled down the window.
"Move!"
The figure raised one hand. Pointed at me.
"Subject 447," it said. Same flat mechanical voice. "You cannot avoid the protocol."
I threw the van into reverse. The engine revved. The van didn't move.
I looked down. My foot was on the gas. The speedometer read zero.
The figure walked toward the van.
I reached for the door handle. My hand stopped halfway. Not because I wanted it to. Because something else did.
The figure stopped at my window.
Up close I could see the face under the hood. A woman. Pale skin. Dark eyes. No expression.
"The loop is calibrated," she said. "You will return to Marsh Street. You will die. You will reset. Each death will modify your biomass until you are ready for harvest."
"I don't—"
"Or," she said, "you can find the core and shut it down."
Her hand reached through the open window. She dropped something into my lap.
A small metal card. No markings. Just a string of numbers etched into the surface.
"Seventy-two hours," she said. "If you don't find the core by then, this district and everyone in it gets archived."
She stepped back.
My hand moved again. The van started rolling.
I looked in the mirror. The figure was gone.
I looked at the card in my lap.
The numbers were glowing.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it.
Unknown number.
I answered.
"Mark Chen," a man's voice said. "You just got handed a ticket out. Don't waste it. The observer shouldn't have done that."
"Who are you?"
"Someone who used to be in your seat. I didn't make it to the core. You've got seventy-two hours and two more deaths before you stop being human. First one's coming in about forty seconds."
"What are you—"
"Semi. No headlights. Intersection of Marsh and Fourth. It's already rolling."
The call dropped.
I looked up.
I was on Marsh Street.
The intersection was two blocks ahead.
I could see the traffic light. It was green.
I hit the brakes.
The van didn't slow.
I pumped the pedal. Nothing. I yanked the wheel. The wheel locked.
The intersection came up fast.
I saw the semi. No headlights. Just chrome and rust and a driver's seat with nobody in it.
I grabbed the door handle. It wouldn't open.
"No," I said. "No no no—"
The semi hit me from the side.
This time I stayed conscious long enough to see the white smoke pour in. Long enough to hear the voice say, "First termination event logged. Modification sequence initiated."
Long enough to feel something crack open inside my skull and start rewriting my bones.
Then I was back in the dispatch station.
Plastic chair. Clipboard. Jen staring at me.
"Mark, you got three minutes or—"
I stood up.
My hand moved to my face. I touched my eyes.
They felt wrong.
I walked to the bathroom. Locked the door. Turned on the light.
Looked in the mirror.
My eyes were still brown.
But in the dark corner behind the sink, where no light reached, I could see everything.
Every crack in the tile. Every thread of mold. Every insect leg.
I blinked.
The night vision didn't go away.
"Modification one integrated," the voice said inside my head. "Subject 447, your second loop begins now."
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
"Mark, dispatch needs you out front."
I looked at my hands. They looked normal.
I opened the door.
Jen stood there. Behind her, a woman in a black coat leaned against the dispatch counter.
She turned.
It was the hooded figure. No hood this time. Just dark eyes and pale skin and an expression that wasn't quite human.
"Subject 447," she said. "You have seventy-one hours and fourteen minutes remaining."
Jen looked at her. "Do you two know each other?"
The woman smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.
"Not yet," she said. "But he's going to help me destroy the protocol."
She pulled something from her coat.
A gun.
Jen screamed.
The woman aimed it at my chest.
"Or I'll put him back in the loop until there's nothing human left to save," she said.
Her finger moved to the