Möbius Ascendant
Voluptuous Trinity Trapped in a Temporal Time Loop
by
Donald Mallord
Copyright, April 2025
ℓ∆⚘ T⊗⚯ ʃ∇⚙
____________________
My thanks to Kenjisato for his keen editing skills.
An 'Alien' Encounter -- 11,400 Words
"Tick-tock, Mr. Kindle," Trinity chuckled, breaking classroom decorum. That cheeky, playful teen with dimples always had a way of raising his hackles. The top student in his senior science class was on the verge of graduating from Pointes End High School.
"It's almost three o'clock, and you know what that means!" she grinned, her voice shattering the silence of the exam.
Her truculence nearly sent him into a frenzy as graduation drew near. He sighed in annoyance, realizing she could turn his classroom into chaos in an instant, if she felt the desire to make mischief at his expense. Too late, despite the shushing finger to his lips, she had shattered her classmates' concentration. Trinity resembled a wild, unmanageable kitten, entirely beyond the control of ordinary adult supervision. He was glad that kind of unmanageability would soon be coming to an end.
Pointes End had been a starting point for adventurers heading west during the gold rush. Located at the intersection of the desert and the remnants of civilization, it was the least likely place to become a pivotal site for significant advances in science that would change the course of humanity. The few remaining inhabitants were either descendants of the original settlers, or a small number of newcomers, like Mr. Cory Kindle, who were exhausted and seeking solace away from society.
Mr. Kindle, the silver-haired fellow with an air of aloofness, had arrived in the remote town on foot, having wandered out of the desert some thirty-five years ago, and decided to stay. He blended in rather well, and took on the job of high school science teacher. Time, back then, seemed to have abandoned the small and isolated town on the edge of the desert. Pointes End hadn't altered since--except for the birth of new children, such as the three arguing in front of the sheriff's office as he approached them the month after graduation. Most sensible kids moved away as soon as possible, yet some chose to remain. A few stayed behind to take on vital roles in town: grocery clerk, gas station attendant, and café waitress.
Kindle watched that trio as he sauntered across the square, where they squabbled over something in front of the local police station.
"It was, too, Xynelix," Jared blurted, as Cory Kindle drew closer. Jared's hyper-anxiety was at a tipping point as he argued with Dillon in front of the sheriff's office. It was a twisted tale about a conversation with a stranger in the desert. Kindle heard a bit of it as he approached.
"Hell, no! It wasn't... whatever the hell you said," Dillon shouted back. His arms shot skyward in exasperation, like one of those wacky air dancers at a car lot. "He was saying, Moedix, asshole!"
Cory focused on Trinity's quiet demeanor among the triumvirate; she was the third wheel in the group. He couldn't understand why she spent time with these two dimwits. Yet, that brighter bulb in his former science class always seemed to be with them, as the glue that held the less-than-bright trio together. She could have been a scholar, a great cheerleader, or a fine wife, but she chose to embed herself in obscurity with these two misfits. Rumor had it that they were involved in one of those modern throuple relationships. In the back of his mind, Kindle suspected as much, from the way the two boys clung to Trinity as if she were flypaper. If he were younger, he might have thought about having her himself.
She shook her head as they argued. "Stop it!" she huffed. "He called it Möbius, not some new neologism. No fuckin' wonder the sheriff didn't believe a goddamn word about what we found!"
"And just what did the three of you discover?" Drawing near, he asked, finding amusement in the trio's bickering. It halted the conversation, and a sense of unease settled in. Cory wasn't genuinely interested in the bickering, but thought it might fill a small amount of white space in the Gazette. As the new editor, he needed some filler since not much was happening in town. The news items were stale, always about the same repeating events, but then life in a small isolated town was like that. Wasn't it?
They glanced at each other, almost daring anyone to admit what had led to their ejection from the sheriff's office. Trinity broke the silence.
"Mr. Kindle," the mop-top began, "we found a man..."
"Weren't a man..." Jared hissed, under his breath. It was clear that the scrawny kid in tattered jeans and cowboy boots was rattled.
It was impossible not to grin, even though the former teacher tried his best to suppress it.
'This is going to be a good one,'
he mused.
'It must have been well received by the sheriff, much like reporting another alien encounter in the desert.'
"Shut the hell up, Jared," Dillon growled, trying to suppress something that was about to escalate. Dillon's size, a man-child of wrestler proportions and temperament, typically granted him the last word in any discussion--unless Trinity intervened. This trio was known for spotting strange phenomena in the night sky and the desert, where they spent considerable time. Kindle suspected that a marijuana high fueled their claims. Everyone in town had dismissed them as oddballs even before graduation.
"Trinity, why don't you tell me what happened?" he asked, wagging his forefinger at the other two. It felt as though he was back in a classroom, instead of speaking to underemployed high school graduates. The loner didn't miss teaching and was glad to have retired to take on a part-time job at the local newspaper. It was easier and nothing like dealing with rambunctious kids in school, especially these three. Retired alongside a dozen graduates; it seemed a fitting time to exit, as some of them had worn his patience thin. These three were like saddle burrs in his last year of teaching. He reflected on one such incident as he meandered up and down the rows of desks during their final exam.
The reserved science teacher, pausing mid-stride, was absorbed in the quiet concentration of the enigma presented by a recalcitrant, strikingly attractive student. However, her beauty seemed lost on her. She could have been her class's bright, shining star, but Trinity had no interest in academics or popularity; instead, she clung to the shadows as if hiding something. Trinity sat alone near the window, her head bowed low over a page, not of the exam but of a sketch--detailed, intricate, and oddly
mechanical.
A chair, or something resembling one, bloomed across the page. Its curved supports arched like helices. Circles and glyphs surrounded the base like anchor points. Beneath it, three-letter clusters--
no, symbols
--lined the lower edge in neat rows.
"Interesting drawing," he remarked, with a teacherly scowl that was meant to convey, "Get back to work on the exam, Miss Trinity."
"It's three o'clock, tick-tock, Miss Trinity," he urged, stressing the time.
Trinity startled, then composed herself with a practiced, clipped teenage smirk. "Sci-fi. Story I'm writing for English," she said, sliding her arm slightly over the page.
The mind of a scientist caught a glimpse before she concealed it. A series of trigraphs inscribed below in bold hues of blue ink, yet she held one graphite pencil:
Ϟ⊕⚛ ℓ∆⚘ ש∴☌ T⊗⚯ ∑≡⚡
It looked strangely familiar, like he had seen this before, a déjà vu recollection that raised an eyebrow.
