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“Welcome back!” O.B. helped Mobius out of the radiation suit. “You did it! And you didn’t lose any of your skin!”
“Can we please stop talking about my skin falling off?” Mobius sighed, taking a moment to stretch his back. He wasn’t sure which had been more painful: carrying the weight of the radiation suit or being tackled across the gangway by a 500-pound Norse god. “Well, did it work?”
“Loki, how are you feeling?” asked O.B
“Fine,” said Loki. “Present.”
“That’s great!” O.B. gave Loki a thumbs-up then rushed up the stairs to check on the loom.
The thing is, he didn’t look alright. Mobius could tell something had happened to Loki since he last timeslipped. He seemed even more worn out than before and he had a worried look in his eyes.
“Yeah, you don’t look too present,” said Mobius. “What happened? Where did you go this time?”
“I saw her,” said Loki, “Sylvie was here – or she will be – we were in the future. It was happening, Mobius. The temporal meltdown was happening and she was there and we need to find her–”
A loud bang echoed through the room as a blast of radiation crashed against the doors behind them. The two of them ran up the stairs to find O.B. typing something on one of the computers.
“What was that?” asked Mobius.
“The radiation levels are increasing significantly with every new branch,” said O.B. “We need to work fast if we want to prevent a temporal meltdown.”
“It’s already starting,” Loki said under his breath. “We need to go now!”
“Hey, wait up.” Mobius raised a hand to halt Loki. “O.B., how much time exactly do we have before any meltdown happens?”
“Well,” said O.B., “with the blast doors closed, we might be safe for a few days, at least until I can find a way to fix the loom to fit all those branches.”
“That’s great,” said Mobius, turning back to Loki, “because we need to slow down for a bit before we can move on.”
“What? We can’t slow down right now!” said Loki.
“Yes, we can! We’ve got time! Look, it’s been a pretty hectic day, I think maybe we should just take a moment to sit down and clear our minds.”
“Mobius,” Loki insisted, “if Dox gets to Sylvie before we do, if we don’t fix the loom in time, the TVA and all of time itself will be in danger.”
Loki was determined to not get a single moment of rest until he was sure everyone was safe. It was an argument Mobius knew he would never win, even if it pained him to see Loki in such a state.
“Alright,” Mobius sighed, “I’ll help you find Sylvie.”
But if Mobius had learned anything from Loki, it was that sometimes you could still win a battle with the help of a few tricks.
So, when they took the elevator to leave Repairs & Advancement, Mobius may have intentionally pressed the wrong button on the panel so that the elevator would drop them off just a few levels below the Chrono Bay area.
Moments later, the elevator opened to reveal a long, narrow hallway with a row of wooden doors on either side. It was painfully quiet. Not a single soul was nearby except for a young woman standing behind a desk.
“What is this place?” asked Loki.
“Just need to drop something off.” Mobius walked up the woman at the desk. “Hi, is there anything available?”
The woman nodded and handed Mobius a set of keys. “Room 353.”
“What’s in there?” asked Loki.
“Thanks.” Mobius turned to Loki and gestured towards the hall. “Come on, it’s this way.”
The walk down the hall was longer than it should have been, or maybe it just felt that way for Loki because of how tired he was. Each door they passed had a gold plaque with numbers engraved on it, and every now and then they would spot posters on the walls. They read:
Keep your room tidy & clean!
Don’t forget to bring your own toothbrush!
You snooze, you lose! Limit your break to 20 minutes.
“You said we were going to find Sylvie,” said Loki.
“No, I said I’ll find Sylvie,” said Mobius, “you need to get some rest.”
“Mobius, I’m fine!”
“Yeah, you keep saying that but look at yourself! You look like you’ve been to hell and back–”
“I’m alright.”
“–you’ve been jumpy all day and you keep timeslipping every five minutes–”
“It stopped now.”
“–and is that blood on your sleeve? How long have you had that wound on your arm?”
“It’s really nothing.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you’ve taken some time off.”
Loki sighed reluctantly. He wanted nothing more than to run back to the elevator and continue his mission. But as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he was exhausted. He had not stopped to rest since everything that happened at the Citadel. In the stillness of the hallway, he could hear his own breath shaking. His body still ached from the timeslipping and re-syncing like he had been torn apart and reassembled atom by atom.
“She could be anywhere.”
“I’ll set up a team to track down Dox’s crew,” said Mobius. “If we can find them, maybe they’ll lead us to Sylvie.”
Mobius unlocked the door labeled 353. The room was rather spacious. To the left, there was a bed and an open wardrobe containing a pile of neatly-folded blankets, a bathrobe and towel, a set of pajamas, and slippers. Beside the bed was an armchair and a nightstand with a clock resting on the top. The opposite side of the room had a kitchenette and a door leading to a bathroom.
“Alright, this is you,” said Mobius, “make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you a new uniform from the tailor’s later.”
After Mobius left, the first thing Loki did was take the bathrobe and towel and head straight to the shower. A sigh of relief escaped his lungs as he felt his muscles relax under the warmth of the water. He took his time to wash all the sweat and dirt off his body with a bar of soap that left him with a soft scent of oatmeal. When he finally stepped out of the shower, the bathroom walls were all steamed up.
He discarded his ragged clothes and changed into the pajamas from the wardrobe. They were even uglier than the TVA jumpsuit he was forced to wear when he first arrived. The top was short-sleeved, which Loki hated, and it was a dark shade of beige which did not match at all with the brown plaid pants it came with. Nevertheless, they were far more comfortable than he imagined.
It was only when he stood in front of the bathroom mirror to dry off his hair that he took notice of his wounds. Though they did not pain him anymore and they were already starting to heal, he still took a moment to tend to them by applying some cream he found in the medical cabinet.
Loki then headed to the mini-fridge in the kitchenette. It was stocked with bottles of water, soda and juice, and there was a compartment at the bottom filled with all sorts of candy bars. He gulped down an entire bottle of water before eyeing a sign on the side of the fridge. “One beverage per break!” it read. Loki rolled his eyes. He grabbed a second bottle and drank it just as fast.
He checked the clock on the nightstand. What was taking Mobius so long to return? Did he manage to track down Dox and her crew? What if he had decided to go face them on his own? And what about Sylvie? Was she okay? He couldn’t stop thinking about what he had seen in the future. “There you are!” her voice echoed in the back of his mind. There she was indeed, speaking so calmly, looking so glad to see him, as if she had just found him after parting their ways, and now he’s the one trying to find her.
He probably could’ve just walked out the door. He probably could’ve gone to find Sylvie himself. He would’ve searched every apocalypse, in every corner of the universe, in every moment in time, if that’s what it took to find her.
But he made the mistake of sitting on the edge of the bed and feeling like he was floating on a cloud. An overwhelming fatigue fogged his mind and made it impossible for him to stand up again. Every inch of his body demanded rest.
Maybe Mobius was right. Maybe… it wouldn’t hurt if he just… lay down for a minute or two…
When the crew finally tracked some activity from a TemPad belonging to X-5, Mobius made his way back to the dormitories to tell Loki the news.
He only hoped that Loki hadn’t escaped to go find Sylvie himself while he was gone.
“I’m back!” Mobius said as he opened the door to room 353. “Sorry I took so long. You won’t believe what B-15… just found.”
Mobius paused and lowered his voice when he saw Loki curled up in bed sleeping peacefully.
He set down a package of new clothing on the nightstand for Loki to see when he woke up. Then, he quietly reached for an extra blanket from the wardrobe to cover Loki. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight before him. At long last, Loki had allowed himself a much-needed break.
Mobius tiptoed his way out of the room to not stir Loki from his sleep. He didn’t mind it at all when the woman at the desk warned him that he’d lose a week’s worth of dessert privileges at the cafeteria as punishment for renting out a dormitory beyond the 20-minute time limit. He let Loki take all the time he needed to feel better, because sometimes even gods need to rest.