this has already happened
"it's okay," the combat doll tells you as she heaves the slab of concrete across the room, freeing you from the rubble. "this has already happened."
you scream, but you can still stand. your leg is scraped but not broken. and you'll take any out you can get.
"this too," the doll adds later, adjusting a knob under one of her chest panels to match the firing rate of an enemy autocannon. "there's a way through. Miss sees the path. she sends a cylinder back in time. i play it back," she thumps her chest. "we tie the knot."
she cartwheels down the trench, and every bullet misses. there's a scream, and chunks of smoking metal pepper the wall across from where you wait down a side trench. then the doll calls: "clear! come on!"
the combat doll blocks an attack you don't even see, sparks sputtering off her thermal blade, setting fire to the dry grass. "not a chance," she shouts to her opponent. "i know what you're going to do!"
attack, riposte, parry, counter, crunch, and it's over.
"it's okay," the combat doll tells you. you can see through a rent into her main compartment, where the grooved cylinder from the future is still spinning, even as her hydraulic fluids leak into the dirt. "this has already happenedโฆ"
when she stops moving, you don't know what to do. you can barely lift her thermal blade, which is already cooling anyway, and when a figure steps up behind you, you figure this is really it, this time.
only when it asks your name do you recognize the colors of your own side, pinned to the brim of a pointed broad-brimmed hat.
you croak a reply, dumbfounded.
"good. i was told you'd be here. i sent one of mine in after you. i hope she was of some use."
"oh? she made it this far, only to fall at the finish. a pity."
"she saidโฆ she said you'd seen this. from the future. sent a cylinder back. what happened? did we change the timeline?"
"oh, no. that's quite impossible," the figure says. "time travel, that is. as far as i know. but artificial deja vu is easy enough. they're so much braver and more confident when they think they know they're going to make it, aren't they?"
"then what's on the cylinder? what was she listening to when she rescued me?"
the figure kneels, opens the battered doll's chest, extracts the cylinder with long, deft fingers. it slots it into a device at its belt.
a chorus of voices issues forth.
"all this has already happened."
"do what Miss would want you to do."
"all this has already happened."
