Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 6.65 - Loop Break / McGuire

Emmett stepped into the final hallway and sighed—

Again.

And again.

Over the past year, Emmett and TINA had done a great many things to prepare for the coming war. One of which was infiltrating and scraping digital archives—anything with even an intermittent connection to the internet and even some encrypted databases.

Time loops were exceptionally rare and powerful techniques, so there was little information on how to make them and even less on how to escape them. Most loop breaking techniques needed someone on the outside of the loop and needed powerful magic or an equally powerful reality-warper.

Emmett had neither of those, though he had two people on the outside—McGuire, who was probably pleased and laughing, and Athena, who probably didn't know about Emmett's predicament. Even if she did, there was no guarantee that her powers could break the time loop.

Emmett's options were limited, but that didn't stop him from trying to escape.

There wasn't much that Emmett could do inside the hallway. The walls were barren, and ripping off the panelling revealed nothing but black demiplane behind it. Emmett tried a few, just to be sure he wasn't missing anything, but the wiring and structure was clearly hidden outside in physical space. Three seconds later, all the panelling reset.

So Emmett focused on his nanite web and the world outside. He poured nanites outward, forcing them through the walls and the thinly stretched barrier of the demiplane. More and more nanites bled through, coating the wires and nearby junctions, and even the central block of metal that housed McGuire's inner sanctum.

RUNNING SIMULATIONS

Emmett's body might've been trapped in a time loop, but his mind was free. He could still remember things after each reset. His simulations stuttered but continued with minimal data loss and interruption. Because of his mind and his senses, Emmett had realized his predicament quicker than most other supers would've, but that was only part of good fortune. He also had nanites linking him to the outside and, therefore, to TINA, so it was even harder to trick him with a loop.

Nanites continued to flow into the real world, building up thick coatings around wires and jumbled electronics. The swarm concentrated on the area around the time loop, but spread out to neighboring wires.

Then testing began.

Carefully, Emmett prodded and plucked at the wires that held him captive. The power fluctuations between wires were subtle, and Emmett started with even smaller amounts of power. Despite his machine-like control, he felt like an amateur musician trying out the world's most complicated instrument—

In many ways, the metaphor didn't go far enough, and he was even deeper in uncharted territory. He was a complete cyborg—bordering on a proto-AI. Artificers and cyborgs shouldn't be able to interact with gadgeteer powers at all. Then again... Emmett was planning on eventually tapping into magic too, so gadgeteer powers were a good start.

Slowly, Emmett increased the power until—finally—the wires trembled.

That tiny movement in physical space was amplified hundreds of times in the demiplane. The hallway shook like an airplane going through turbulence. Without his enhanced body, Emmett would've been thrown off his feet.

By the time the movement stopped, it was time for Emmett to loop again.

He stepped into the final hallway and sighed.

~

Emmett focused on the nanite net and simulations so hard and so long that eventually he lost track of how many times he'd looped. His brain's own time dilation didn't help—subjectively, each loop felt much longer.