You wake up to your ringtone blaring.

Between the vibrations and chimes, you can make out the sound of a bustling city outside. Cars passing by a hundred meters down, crowds chattering; you've grown accustomed to it. The wrinkles on the bedsheets cling to your back and arms uncomfortably, but you're still too tired to bother shuffling around.

Your phone stops ringing. You waited too long. Not that you really mind. You shift slightly to pat down the sheets, only for a tiny ray of sunshine to shine straight into your eye through a crack in the blinds.

“Argh, god damnit!” You exclaim.

Your phone starts ringing again. You let out an exasperated sigh before leaning over to answer. You already know who it is. You swipe the green icon on the screen and hit speaker as you drag yourself off the mattress.

“Yeah, I fucking know. I already said you don't need to fucking call me, dude.”

[“And I already said I was going to do it anyway. As you should know, the 31s are in charge of PR. You need to be debriefed on how to handle that shit.”] A substantially older rendition of your own voice answers from the other side of the line.

“Are you old fucks gonna run me through a different version of this gauntlet every goddamn two weeks?”

[“Until you hit 99, yeah. Tough shit, ‘young-un’. Now get up. You remember where we're meeting, right?”]

“Yeah. That café downtown.”

[“Good. Be there by 10:00am. We both know there's not much time to spare.”]

They hang up on you. The whole point of this was to survive, but instead you somehow managed to lock yourself into an inescapable fate probably far worse than the previously fated death. Now, causality has you completely bound. You couldn't even kill yourself if you tried to.

The worst part is feeling that if you ever had the gall to end it– if at any point in your entire life, you managed to summon the willpower to jump off a fucking bridge somewhere, or even just not press the goddamn button– you wouldn't have to put up with this for the next 80 years.

You should get going. Not like you have much of a choice anyway. Complacency makes the world go 'round.

You're standing outside the café. It was a harrowing trip. You called a taxi and had to put up with an endless barrage of questions you're not allowed to answer, beating around the bush hard enough to dig a canyon surrounding the damn thing. The bush, you mean. God, that metaphor was stupid. You feel like you'll never get used to this shit, but in the end, that's probably why you have to do all this damn training.

The streets are certainly pretty lively, but you can feel the unease of the passersby like it's a sixth sense at this point. You spent a great deal of time during the first several weeks idly reading impressions of your own existence on the internet, but you're still struggling to get used to the feeling of everyone staring at you no matter where you go. You certainly never wanted to be a celebrity in general, but being one who has to keep a secret from an entire world population who is nothing but curious about you is the probably the worst option, you figure.

You ignore the stares and step into the café, pushing open the door casually. The bell connected to the door rings to announce a new customer. The barista turns to get a look and her eyes widen.

“O-Oh! You're here! The older one told me you would be a bit late, so I–”

You resist the urge to curse the old shithead.

“Yeah, yeah. Just tell me what booth, and make me something like an iced caramel macchiato but with 3 shots of espresso and 6 pumps of vanilla syrup. Adjust the proportions of everything else to match”

You can see a slight twitch in her facial muscles that she tries to hide with a classic retail smile. She's probably scoffing in her head. Whatever.

“Uh, it's #11, but the others are all empty either way... I think they bought all of them out.”

You chuckle softly. Of course they fucking did.

“Cool. Thanks. I'm assuming they already payed for that exact drink ahead of time?”

She sighs. “Yes, they did.”

You groan and mumble under your breath. “What an ostentatious asshole.”

Up the stairs and around the corner you go. You stand in the entrance of a brightly lit room full of little meeting booths. There's a large window spanning the entire wall to the left. Through it, you can see a pretty impressive view of the capitol street. The booths are arranged in a circle along the wall, with one more in the middle of the room. Obviously, the douchebag you're here to meet picked the booth in the far left corner instead of the center one, because that would be too fucking obvious, you guess.

“Welcome, young one.” They exclaim in a sarcastic tone from the other side of the room. “Come, take a seat.”

“I know it's like, our brand or whatever, but do you have to be such an annoying cunt all the time?” You inquire as you make your way to the bench opposite of your conversation partner in booth #11.

“Yup. Sorry, but I don't make the rules.”

“Yes you fucking do, dickface, you would've been making them like a couple months ago by your time!”

They let out a hearty chuckle as you scoot onto the bench.

“We've really got to work on your language before you work PR. At the very least, It's nice to know you were paying attention to the assignment schedule.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut the fuck up, you already knew I was listening. Get on with it.”

They smile mockingly. You study their face a little more carefully. You're mostly numb to it by the thirtieth iteration, but there's still a pretty weird feeling in your gut every time you stare at a living, breathing adult version of yourself. Seeing wrinkles that haven't formed yet is pretty good for your present self-image, though.

“So, let's get started.” They call your attention from their face to their words.

“The number one thing is that we can’t tell anyone in the general public why we’re here, but you already know that. Do you know which organizations we tell?”

You lean back a bit, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, not specifically, but I’m sure its just any major governments that might fuck with us, right?”

They raise their brows. “Almost. There’s a few non-governmental groups, but you’ve gotta’ know the specifics. We need you to know when somebody passes you a card whether they’re permitted to ask questions or not. Either way, just remember that they aren’t allowed to know the date. They’re supposed to think its some far-future shit.”

They pull several stapled sheets of paper from a folder and slide the stack across the table to you. It’s a list of governmental and other powerful organizations, alongside example identification for each. They point to the first on the list.

“Obviously, the–”

They’re interrupted by the footsteps of a barista entering the room. She bows her head slightly, placing your order on the table and promptly leaving. This is going to be a long conversation.

“–Basically, they’re funded by like, four different major world governments, so those governments wanted us to give them some info and research. Unfortunately for us, it turns out they actually have the resources and smarts to predict the flare before it happens, so we had to–” Their phone rings.

“Ahh, shit.” They mumble, pulling the smartphone out of their bag and swiping to pick up the incoming call. You check the time while they answer. Yup. It’s 2:37pm, November 27th. Only an hour and a half left. The older iteration snaps to grab your attention.

“Alright, we’re out of time. I’m moving on to 1569. Good luck on your first PR loop. Remember to get a new SIM card at the start of the loop or you’ll get calls for the last one.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” You sigh. At least you wont have to deal with that shitty hotel anymore.

You stand up from the bench and follow your adult self downstairs, passive aggressively waving to the barista before stepping outside.

There it is again. That look, everyone in the crowd is giving it to the both of you. At least its totally warranted. Of course the general public wants to know what you’re doing here. It’s a shame you cant tell them they’re all about to die.

“So, 1568, do you have somewhere specific to be when you press it, or do you wanna just wait somewhere with me?”

They quietly laugh. “Unfortunately, I actually do have somewhere to be. Need to get to another town for my next go-around. Mentoring is tough business, you know, but the 500s are stuck doing it.

“God, I’m not excited to do that shit down the line.”

They smile at you. “Good luck, 30. I still remember pretty vividly how the depression felt back then… You’ll find your groove eventually.”

“Find my ‘groove’? Dude, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you never lived in a time where that was something cool to say.”

They burst out laughing and turn to walk off, waving goodbye rather than saying it. You look down at the ground and heave a low sigh, probably your last one for this loop. You walk down the sidewalk, ignoring the glares from strangers and find a metal bench to sit on while you wait. No point in making yourself uncomfortable.

You wait for a while, browsing the internet on your phone, gripping the remote in your pocket. Soon, the sky will be raining fire and this city will crumble to dust. But you won’t be around to see that. You’ve got sixty-something years of this bullshit ahead of you instead. God, you wish you could die faster.