Chapter 15

It’s with a monumental effort that I shut out all the other avenues my brain wants to pursue and focus on Zagreus Hart. I’m infinitely intrigued about whatever time loop-esque situation I’m finding myself in. However, that’s nothing but a distraction. I could waste unlimited time trying to find out what’s happening, without getting anywhere. Ultimately, if there is a time loop, I’m going to use it to my advantage.

In the regular world, I’m on a time crunch. Zagreus Hart is doing something bad enough to the environment that he’s willing to blow up a building to cover his tracks. With linear time, he could likewise blow up my investigation in any number of ways. This investigation needs to be my focus. If I’m given the gift of extra time to investigate, time that resets and hides what I’m doing, then I’ll fully embrace that. Why would I want out of something that gives me exactly what I need?

Still, I’m practically dying to uproot my queries and find out what’s going on with this loop. Is it man-made? Is it fate-made? Is it some sort of cosmic anomaly? The origins of time loops are nearly as varied as those of superheroes.

There’s really no shortage of phenomena for me to investigate. God, what a time to be alive!

The thread that I choose to follow, that I need to follow, leads me to the DFO agent’s house a couple hours’ drive from Vancouver. I’m showing up unannounced while she’s on a leave from work, which is a huge faux pas. Is it weird that I’m actively hoping I’m in a time loop? I am, though. Secretly, every lawyer out there wants to be untethered from their scruples. Getting to investigate without following codes of conduct, blatantly lying without recourse, committing crimes in the pursuit of truth, it’s a dream come true.

I pull into a long driveway that splinters off into several forks, one leading to a cozy farmhouse and the other to some sort of shop or barn thing. At first, I try to be polite as possible, I go to the house and knock, looking all sorts of important in my power suit. When no one answers, I follow the sound of power tools to the shop.

“Hello?” I call, knocking at the huge barn door as I peer into its refurbished, converted interior. Not that I’ve ever seen a woodworking shop, but I imagine this is one of the more sophisticated ones.

In front of me, a pretty woman operates the biggest, sharpest looking saw I’ve ever seen. She’s wearing protective headphones, so she doesn’t hear me.

Most of what I know about social interaction comes from Dr. Debbie’s Guide to Understanding Relationships. I found myself re-reading it in my adult years as a result of some client comments. One particular client called the experience of interacting with me the social equivalent of shaking an overly tight, clammy hand.

However, nothing in the book covered how to approach someone operating dangerous machinery. What if I were to call for her attention and she cuts off her arm? Should I just wait patiently while she works on a project for hours? I make a mental note to write to the publishers to include a section on how to approach people wielding sharp objects.

I settle for waving my arms in the air like a maniac until I overlap with her peripheral vision.

She looks up at me, startled, as I try to stop my frantic arms. Odd, but I’m really banking on this whole time loop thing, or I’m going to have another ‘clammy personality’ fiasco on my hands.

When the whirring of the saw dies down, she lowers her headphones.

“Can I help you?”

“Hi, yes. I hope so. Are you Lauren Musgrave?”

She nods, stepping out from behind the saw and extending her hand to me. I see then that she’s pregnant, like ready to pop pregnant. At least that probably means she’s on a maternity leave of sorts and not a Hart-forced leave for her report.

“You’re with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?”

She eyes me over. “Are you with Hart Link?”

I shake my head. “The opposite. I’m Hailey Cox, the lawyer who ended up with your report.”

She exhales and rests a hand on her belly. “Oh good. Ever since I filed that, I’ve been waiting for some John Grisham-y lawyers to show up and lobotomize me or something.”

I smile, like a new fear hasn’t just been unlocked in me. I guess something shows on my face because she laughs and waves me off.

“Don’t worry about it. If anyone tried anything, my sister-in-law would kick their ass.”

My smile tightens. I decide not to inform her that, as a lawyer, I was mostly just thinking about myself.

“Would you like to see some credentials?” Dr. Debbie says that when someone takes the conversation in an awkward place, you can redirect it by asking questions. I would say lobotomies count as awkward conversations. Then again, I’m no expert.

She laughs. “No, no. I don’t see any ice picks, so I believe you’re not with Hart.”

I clear my throat. “What is it you’re building?” I ask, hoping another question will steer the conversation in a better, less ice pick-y direction.

“An ice rink for the hockey team-sized family my husband is trying to convince me to birth,” she answers, smiling.

Since I have no idea what she’s talking about, I decide to move on.

“Can you tell me a bit about what it was you discovered?”

Instantly, Lauren’s demeanour changes. She goes from relaxed, woodworking pregnant lady to stone-cold professional. I swear, my very soul relaxes. This I know how to deal with.

She relays the facts to me, most of which are clearly laid out in her report. She starts by explaining that Hart Link Incorporated was initially put onto her caseload because, after their latest expansion, they exceeded manufacturing capacities of their previously established parameters and so they needed another impact assessment of how their production affected the ocean life.

Usually, companies fail not just to think about pollutants and their effect on aquatic life, but also sound and light output.

“And Hart Link Incorporated?” I ask.

Lauren shakes her head. “Passed everything with flying colours. In fact, on my initial assessment, I detected an over-abundance of a variety of species. They were actually helping the local ecosystem.”

“And then?”

“The issue arose when I went back. Hart Link had done so well with their addition and increased capacity, I returned hoping to forge some sort of partnership with them. Since my role sends me out to work with different companies to try to improve their practices, I thought I should learn from the best. After all, they exceeded in every single way. It was somewhat on a whim that I decided to re-test the vitality of the local ecosystem.”

“Why’s that?”

Lauren places her hand on her belly. “I hate to say it, but when you’ve been doing a job like mine for as long as I have, when you smell roses, you start to wonder what kind of stink it’s covering up.”

If I could tattoo that over my heart, I would. Suspicious is practically my middle name. Sometimes it pans out and sometimes it doesn’t. But I’ve never regretted nosing into something.

If I were in Lauren’s shoes, I absolutely would have performed the tests again.

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing,” she says simply. I arc an eyebrow. “Literally nothing. It was a complete dead zone. For exactly half a kilometer around the island, there wasn’t a single sign of animal life.”

She says this with an elegiac gravity that sends a shiver up my back. As someone who has chosen a less lucrative career path because of how strongly I believe in my work, this hits me hard. Our oceans are the blood that run through our earth’s veins. I can’t even imagine what sort of devastation would ensue if life were to die off from inside them.

Half a kilometer of a dead zone might not sound like much. It is. Except that’s not the worry. In the past ten years, Zagreus Hart’s businesses have increased exponentially without showing any signs of stopping.

If anything, his economic growth in an ever-increasing number of domains seems like a juggernaut of inevitability. If it’s half a kilometer of death right now, what will it be in another ten years?

“Is that when you filed your report?”

“No. I didn’t let on. I sat through the whole meeting and smiled while some guy named Vaughn sipped green tea and bragged about how all his office furniture could be fast-composted in under a week, even though I knew his company had accidentally or purposely exterminated a staggering amount of ocean life.”

This woman is either my secret twin or soul mate.

“Never reveal your strategy to opposing counsel,” I mutter.

She nods. “Exactly. They let me come back a week later, where I surveyed the ocean again.”

“They allowed that?”

“They didn’t expressly forbid it.”

Maybe she’s my clone.

“And?”

“I got the original results back. Booming life, everywhere. Exceeded our ten-year targets for re-establishing marine ecosystems.”

“Did you consider that your second test was faulty?”

“I did. I went back and went over every point of data and verified every piece machinery I used. It all came back in order.”

I add some notes to my pages, mostly just repeating what she’s said to help me organize my own thoughts.

“You know Hart Link Incorporated could poke a million holes in your story,” I say finally. I hate it to say it since I believe her, but it’s true. The second test looks like an anomaly, a ridiculous one at that. Decreased life could be believed. Going from absolutely nothing to thriving? No. Not a chance.

“Yeah. I know.”

“And yet you still filed the report?”

“Clearly.”

I can see how it’ll all play out now: she’s going to get deposed and will get torn to shreds. Her credibility will be questioned, publicly and thoroughly. She’s going to have this loom over her head for the rest of her career.

But she did it anyways.

Forget soul mate, she’s my hero. Change is slow to happen, but it does: one brave, reckless woman at a time.

Putting my pen down, I consider my next question carefully.

“This isn’t an official question,” I start. Then, I throw caution to the wind since this is most likely a time loop and she won’t remember any of my professional oversteps. “But do you think Hart Link Incorporated is polluting? Should I risk building a case over this? Is Zagreus Hart really that bad?”

A smile quirks at the sides of her mouth. “No. Yes. Yes.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“No, I don’t think it’s pollution. There’s no way that all that life was just gone and then back. There’s…” She pauses and considers her words. “There’s more to the world than most people think. I mean, you’ve seen it in the news, I’m sure. There are aliens and ghosts and… more. This, Hart Link Incorporated, is something more. I would bet my children’s future Stanley Cup on it.

“Yes, I think it’s worth building a case on this. I think we’re about to have the environmental event of our lifetime and it’s culminating, unseen.

“And yes, I think Zagreus Hart is that bad. He built his empire into a skull-shaped cliff. The history books, if there are any, are going to marvel that we didn’t lift a finger to stop him before it was too late. I really don’t think people get any more extreme than Zagreus Hart.”

I get a flash of the picture of Grant getting off the ferry, his windswept hair mopping at his face, his chocolate brown eyes offering each and every last one of his feelings on a platter to the world.

Nobody knows what Zagreus Hart looks like.

“He does seem to care about the environment, though. You said it yourself, his building exceeds all minimum standards.”

Lauren’s hand flits to her stomach. I guess the baby kicked. She smiles down at her belly and then up at me.

“Lesson one: open your eyes and see what’s in front of you.”